Coming to the Still Waters

This is the tomb of the unknown soldier.  I have been so thankful to witness a couple of times the changing of the guard.  This tomb stands as a monument for all those who served our country but came back unknown or never came back.  This tomb is very different than the tomb we will read about today in our Scripture passage. We will finish out John chapter 19 with a tomb that had many witnesses of who was laid there.  Jesus was placed there on purpose and according to prophecy given hundreds of years before.  Every detail has been orchestrated by God.  The tomb of the unknown is guarded to this day but the tomb of Jesus was only guarded for a short amount of time.  Praise the Lord! Today's Wednesday in the Word covers John chapter 19 and verses 38 through 42 which read, v.38 - After these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; an...

A little more normal this Sunday.  I fear the fear will take awhile to dissipate like the virus itself.  A great team here last night assembled talked through the safety procedures for gathering and it was a pleasure to be in the room with them. I have moved back up to my office and it's piles!  It is a great office and I'm thankful for the space to study God's word and plan for the ministries of the week.  I pray for the next man who will occupy this space. This brings back a lot of memories.  Wood feels so good in my hands.  I was back to the days when I watched my dad use the chainsaw and I hauled the cut wood to the trailer.  My saw is in Florida so I gladly let these men whittle away at this pile that will go to families in need this winter. I can't seem to stop taking pictures of the Machias Falls (that's my name for them).  It is great to walk uptown during my morning hours and hear the roar of the water.  If you ever...

I never really thought about it before but what about those prophesies about the coming Messiah that had to deal with Him after He was dead.  Jesus manipulating the scene after He was physically gone and still hanging on a cross would be quite the feat.  The Apostle John seems to highlight these in our verses today.  May the skeptic see these prophecies after death with the weight of all the others to be one who believes. Today's Wednesday in the Word will cover John chapter 19 and verses 28 through 37 which read, v.28, 29 - After this, Jesus knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, said, "I am thirsty."  A jar full of sour wine was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to His mouth. Jesus is first offered a wine mixed with myrrh when He arrived on the scene of Golgotha.  This was a drink to lessen the pain.  He refused that drink to experience the full w...

It was July 2nd of 2017 when I started this book of the Bible, teaching and preaching it chapter by chapter and verse by verse.  Today marked sermon #98 and #100 is in my sights.  It looks like that one will finish out chapter 22 with a final chapter of 23 left.  I have preached on chapter 24 a couple of times already but I probably will one more time to finish out the book.  I can say it has been a joy to look this deeply at the life of Jesus through the eyes of Doctor Luke.  I will probably hit the #106 mark with this Gospel. I don't have the recordings of my study through the Gospel of Matthew but I do believe it was in the #90 range.  Mark, a shorter book, yielded 61 sermons.  I have been going through the Gospel of John with my weekly Wednesdays in the Word devotionals and I'm up to approximately 132 and in chapter 19 at the moment with two more chapters to go.  I started on October 31, 2018.  This is a precursor to preaching this b...

I am amazed that it has worked out that I am handling some of the same material on Sunday morning going through the Gospel of Luke as I am on Wednesdays going through the Gospel of John.  I am getting a double dose of walking with Jesus through this final week before the cross.  Today the focus is not just on Jesus but all the people that were around Him:  criminals, convicters, crucifiers, and company.  The prophecy details continue to pile up as the mathematical probability gets smaller and smaller for one to hit everyone of them.  The number is now higher than all the people who have ever lived.  I wonder when we can stop counting and calculating?  Today's Wednesday in the Word is John chapter 19 and verses 17 through 27, which read, v.17 - They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha. We come out of the trials, Jesus is sentenced, and He is carrying...

The sermon title this morning is a combination of four persons or groups.  The betrayer is Judas Iscariot; the Benefactors are the lording Gentiles; the boaster is Simon Peter; and the believers are the "sent" ones.   The things that will happen to Jesus as we focus on path to the cross have been determined.  The unfolding of God's plan involves these men as a part of the plan but the Scriptures have been written on how this would go down.  The disciples have come back with reports at times after being sent out on assignment by Jesus that it was "just as He had said."   The disciples are starting to grasp this when Jesus says one of them will betray Him and though they question and argue about it they don't deny that it is going to happen.   Jesus will address the disciples ambition by redirecting it to be something worthy of holy ambition.  He wants them to be great but it won't be great in His kingdom until they start living like He was liv...

So this picture of a statue of Jesus is pretty typical but put it against what you are going to read today and the historical evidence of what people went through before being crucified by the Romans.  It seems we have desensitized our minds with images made for us to be more appropriate but it hinders our ability to understand the scope of God's love for us.  Sometimes we also give Pilate a "pass" because he is trying to get Jesus off the hook but in the end Jesus takes a place in his life that is less than Lord.  If Jesus is less than Lord in someone's life, no matter how much "they tried" to make it work, the outcome is same.  A sinner without a Savior is a sinner without a Savior. Today's Wednesday in the Word is covering John chapter 19 and verses 1 through 16 which reads, v.1-3 - Pilate then took Jesus and scourged Him.  And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and put a purple robe on Him; and they began to com...

A little grainy but this is life for the next two weeks.  Stephanie is back in Maine from an unintended extended stay in Florida of 6 weeks and because of a mandatory 14 day quarantine by the state of Maine of those traveling into the state, she is upstairs and I am downstairs.  She sends down food and dirty laundry and I send up dirty dishes and clean laundry.  A crazy time we live in but it will probably be a couple more very productive weeks while we wait to hug each other again.  2 months is a long time..... Another online masters class completed and this week I start the class on the historical books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther.  A lot of reading ahead of me and a couple of papers. Each class has been challenging but also rewarding.  If anything, I can not slack on keeping ahead so everything gets done on time.  I hope to preach a sermon on my final paper of my la...