A Famine Not of Bread

 Click here to listen to this sermon. 27 And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn’”(Matthew 13:27-30). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! One of my favorite sports movies is Hoosiers . Gene Hackman plays a veteran basketball coach who takes over a small-town Indiana high school team in the 1950s. Right from the beginning, everyone thinks he’s doing everything wrong. During the first practices, he won’t even let the boys touch a basketball. In early-seaso...

Many people will use conflict or the sinful actions of some in the Church for a reason to distance themselves from the Church.  They conclude: "With all the bad things that seem to happen when people get involved in a congregation, perhaps it is better just to stay home and read my Bible rather than risk such conflict and turmoil."   Some will even go so far to cite examples of negative behavior as evidence of the ineffectiveness of the Gospel: "If what they were teaching were really true, they would certainly behave better." In a sermon on "The Seizure of Christ in the Garden," Martin Luther uses the example of Judas to counter such claims.   Would anyone dare say that Judas betrayed Jesus because Jesus is to blame?   Could anyone honestly say that if  our Lord would have taught him better things, Judas would not have committed so grievous a sin?   No!   The Lord is holy and righteous, and the enemy of every vice.  ...