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The Clarity of Death
“It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart” (Ecclesiastes 7:2). My father died recently. He was always sharp, quick with a pun or a play on words, an accountant by trade who worked until he was seventy-seven years old. He was a student of the Bible for almost sixty years. He did a lot of reading, writing, and “sparring” (personal debating) over the years, quoting folks like Barnhouse and Spurgeon in the process. But dementia overtook him these last few years. He could no longer…
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Adjustments for Life
I recently purchased some new eye glasses. Within the first hour of wearing the glasses, I knew the hinge on one side was loose. Because of traveling, it took about 2 weeks before I could go back to my optometrist to get the glasses adjusted. When I walked in, the associate asked what he could do for me. I replied, “I can see great and I love these new glasses, but they need to be adjusted.” He quickly said, “I can see how they are slipping on your nose.” I was surprised he said that because I had gotten so used to dealing with glasses over the years that slipped…
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Advent: Hope in the Darkness
“Advent” means arrival. This season looks ahead to Christmas, the miracle of God’s entrance into our world. We anticipate the baby born to die to redeem us from our sin. Although Jesus arrived in a broken world marked by rebellion, division, and sorrow, the Jews found hope in a wealth of prophecies that the promised Messiah was indeed coming to deliver them from the darkness. The gloom will be dispelled for those who were anxious. In earlier times he humiliated the land of Zebulun, and the land of Naphtali; but now he brings honor to the way of the sea, the region beyond the Jordan, and Galilee of the nations.…
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Ezekiel, a visionary prophet
Title:Ezekiel, a visionary prophet Aim:To comprehend that God’s holy presence and infinite power encourage us to heed His Word. Scripture:Ezekiel 1:1–28 Ezekiel, the prophet, Ezekiel 1:1–3 Ezekiel name means “God strengthens.” He was the son of Buzi, a priest of the family of Zadok (Ezek 1:3). What is known about Ezekiel’s life comes from the information he gives in his book. Also, his prophecies contain dates more specific than almost any others in the Old Testament. This makes it possible to correlate Ezekiel’s declarations with Babylonian records and date many of the prophet’s oracles (e.g. 1:1–3; 8:1; 20:1; 24:1; 26:1; 29:1, 17; 30:20; 31:1; 32:1, 17; 33:21;…
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Isaiah, a willing prophet
Title:Isaiah, a willing prophet Aim:To answer God’s call to serve. Scripture:Isaiah 6:1–12 Isaiah’s vision of God’s throne room, Isaiah 6:1–4 Isaiah 6 is the prophet’s record of how he heard and responded to God’s call to serve. At first, it may seem odd that Isaiah’s commission to prophesy does not come until after five chapters of oracles. These chapters deal with such themes as judgment, discipline, exile, restoration, and blessing. Yet, Isaiah placed his commissioning account here to prove he had the credentials to deliver the opening series of oracles against Judah. God dramatically called Isaiah to his prophetic ministry “in the year that King Uzziah died”…
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Christian Cliques – A Problem to Overcome
What we want and what we get are often two very different things! You would think that inthe church of all places we would easily find community. However, our churches often consist of a large group ofpeople coming together for worship but leaving in cliques. New comers may be welcomed in word while excluded from our conversations and activities. Even Jesus had close friends with whom He spent more time than He did with the large crowds that came to Him for healing or to hear Him preach. Was that a clique? By definition a clique is “a narrow exclusive circle or group of persons; especially:one held together…
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Jeffrey Dahmer–Our Brother in Christ?
Jeffrey Dahmer was arguably one of the most heinous serial killers of our time; he mercilessly drugged, strangled and raped, dismembered and cannibalized at least 17 men. When convicted in 1991, no punishment seemed befitting regarding the magnitude of his deplorable crimes. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to 16 terms of life imprisonment. However, yesterday, I found out that this vile creature was dipped in the cleansing water of God's Grace as he was believed to have put his faith in Jesus Christ. He was baptized by Roy Ratcliff in 1994 and upon hearing this news, my knee-jerk reaction was stomach turning. A beast of a man, such as Jeffrey Dahmer,…
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Teaching Children to Live Love
Obedience is one of the universal things that both parents and teachers seek to produce in children. As Christians obedience done with a wrong motive may look like obedience to us but it falls short. When it comes to obeying God, the heart attitude is as important as the action. A simple observation of their actions will not be enough to prove Biblical obedience. Sometimes a child gets it right by accident. They didn’t intentionally decide to obey but circumstances were such that without thinking about it they chose the right action. There are children who obey for fear of the punishment and with resentment in their heart. Other children…
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God’s Big Story
I cannot start watching a movie, reading a book, or hearing a news story from the middle or end. I’m confused about who the people are and what’s going on. It’s impossible to grasp the meaning of the climax with zero information about the beginning and middle. The Bible is the same way. Knowing the story of Jesus doesn’t make nearly as much sense without understanding the bigger story. I have been taught to begin sharing the gospel with the fact that all are sinners—but how did that happen? And how does Jesus’s life and death help us understand the horrendous evil and darkness in the world? In Joshua Chatraw's article…
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A Deeper Look at Suffering
No one escapes suffering. NO ONE! Suffering entered our world with the first sin. Choosing a sinful desire over God’s will resulted in suffering. With sin came death. Death, by definition, is separation, ultimately the separation of God and man. We often focus on the separation of soul and body. Because of sin we suffer all kinds of separation. Daily we face the ugliness of disease, divorce, dysfunctional families, and of course the possibilities of tragic accidents. There is just no way to truly prepare our hearts for the depth of suffering we may encounter. The journey from birth to death can be a long suffering. There are countless ways…
