Beyond a doubt, fall has arrived!  The cool nights, the falling of colorful leaves, and the end of the baseball season all confirm such.  As further proof, this weekend we will move our clocks back an hour and start our evening worship services at 5:00. Which of the four seasons do you like the best?  Each one of them has something beautiful to offer.  Spring offers a period of rebirth, as green leaves and grass replace the dead brown of winter.  Summer is a season of gardens, flowers, patios, and vacations.  Fall brings colorful trees and football homecomings.  Even winter offers snow days from school and some of our favorite holidays. I would remind all of us that life is the same way.  Every “season” of our lives offers some unique blessing.  The early years [...]

As you look around Sunday, you will notice that we have some of the most precious children in all the world.  Their smiles are contagious and their hugs will melt your heart.  Jesus must have had a similar thought when he told his competitive disciples, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 18:3-4). Jesus was highlighting childlike humility as essential to our obedience and our willingness to accept divine grace.  Children also forgive the hurts of others more easily than their parents. Paul highlights the innocence of children writing in I Cor. 14:20, “Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil [...]

As John introduces the message of his first epistle (I John 1:5), he writes, “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.”  In a moral context, the Scriptures present light to be good and darkness to be evil.  This contrast is true at all times and in all circumstances. However, our society wants to live in the “gray areas.”  We often hear of choosing “the lesser of two evils” or living in “changing times.”  Right and wrong are interpreted situationally and individually. We may be limited in our own insight and judgment.  We may even be blinded by our own desires.  Yet, these personal deficiencies never alter right and wrong.  Profanity is always wrong, as is sexual immorality.  [...]

  Those of us who preach typically look forward to having a large audience present to hear us.  We would relish an opportunity to join Paul in preaching to the Stoics and Epicureans at the Areopagus in Athens.  We would love to have a television ministry where hundreds of thousands of people heard our well planned and powerfully delivered lessons. However, Romans 2:21-22 raises a different issue.  There Paul warns the Jews about an ever present danger with these words: “You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one should not steal, do you steal?  You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?” Before the Sunday morning sermon is delivered, it needs to have already been [...]

The first half of the book of Daniel is a powerful narrative about a young man who managed to stay faithful to God in a hard set of circumstances. But the second half of Daniel–his visions–is a lot weirder, and harder to comprehend. God reveals to Daniel much of what would be occurring on a grand scale; more than 1,000 years of human history, with one empire turning over another, and all of this leading to a “son of man” who was given dominion over the entire world (Daniel 7:13-14). After numerous visions, Daniel finally spoke up and asked a heavenly messenger, “What shall be the outcome of these things?” (Daniel 12:8) Instead of receiving an explanation, Daniel was told twice, “Go your way, Daniel.” (Daniel 12:9,13) As much as we might ponder the future [...]