An old man and an old woman, childless for decades, are promised by God that someday they would have a baby. Abraham responds with total honesty. He laughs out loud at the Almighty. When Sarah hears the news, she laughs, too. How could such a thing happen? Twenty-five long years pass while they wait for God to keep his prom…
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2001Several weeks ago I flew to New York to teach the book of Galatians to 500 students at Word of Life Bible Institute. The young man who picked me up at the Albany airport asked a question I’ve heard more than once lately: “How do you get everything done that you have to do?” The question seems to assume that I am busier than…
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2001A few days ago, Bruce Thorn called to see how thing were going. Bruce and I go back about 35 years or so to the days when we grew up together in a small town in northwest Alabama. Among other things, Bruce seems to have an uncanny ability (almost like a prophet) to call me up about once a year and say something that I find …
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2001Once again Oak Park is in the news, and this time the news isn’t good. A front page story in the Chicago Sun-Times informs us that the various Boy Scout troops in Oak Park have decided to sever their ties with the national organization because here in Oak Park we don’t like to discriminate against gays and lesbians and we d…
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2001Monday: The God of My Future Problems It happened not long after I returned from a trip to Belize. While […]
Text: VariousWhat will 2001 bring? No one knows but God. Eight years ago I wrote the following column and called it “My Most Important
Spiritual Discovery of 1992.” It seems worth repeating as we stand on the brink of a new year. It happened not long after I returned
from Belize in October. While rummaging through an accumulated mountai…
Someone recently asked me why we are traveling to the Holy Land in November. The answer is two-fold. First, the weather in Israel can be unbearably hot during the summer months. During November the days will be warm and the nights cool, thus making for an excellent traveling environment. Second, tour prices are lower in Nov…
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2000Today is December 24. This is Christmas Eve, the day before Christmas. But is this really the day before Jesus was born in Bethlehem? Each year the question comes up and each year the answer is the same: We can’t be sure. The Bible does not clearly answer this question. Evidently the first Christians didn’t make a point of …
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2000I’ve known Steve and Liz Massey for almost 17 years. Steve was an elder of the church I pastored in Texas and Liz often sang solos during our worship services. Their children attended Awana with our children. We lost touch when we moved to Oak Park in 1989. About eight years ago Steve came through Chicago on business a…
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2000A blurb in USA Today reports that children laugh an average of 400 times a day while adults laugh 15 times a day. If anything, that latter number seems high to me. I know a few folks who apparently haven’t laughed since the Truman administration. But then again life is hard and no one gets a free ride and perhaps some …
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2000