It was wonderful to hear all the musical talents of our youth from our church.  They did a great job offering their gifts to the Lord for his praise and glory.  What is your gift for Christmas?

The flu is going around our house.  I pray that you will be healthy and be able to enjoy this season in it’s entirety.

Christmas time is here.  And it is wonderful to see all the light go up around the area.  Do you have any outdoor Christmas decorations?

Christmas time is here and I hope as we start this season of hope that we will see Christ anew.  He has given us so much to celebrate.  And he has given in a way that we need to respond with gifts back to him.  So come and receive, but also be prepared to give.

Yadah!  What a wonderful word.  And a wonderful concept.  Giving to the Lord what he rightly deserves.  Whether that is thanks or praise or confession.  It is just one word used in the OT to praise the Lord.  The more familiar one is Hallelu as in the combined Hallelujah!  So now you know two ways to praise the Lord in Hebrew!  For those of you who are NT scholars, you probably all know the Greek word for praise which is of course doxa as is doxology.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

“Heaven is more than a destination; it is a motivation.  Knowing that we shall dwell in the heavenly city ought to make a difference in our lives here and now” (Warren Wiersbe)  What are you living for?

One of the questions I did not answer fully on Sunday is why will God allow to reenter the world after being locked up for 1000 years.  Warren Wiersbe believes it is “the final proof that the heart of man is desperately wicked and can be changed only by God’s grace”  As I said, it is hard to believe that people who have been living in a perfect environment, under the perfect government of God’s son, will rebel in the end and choose to follow the lies of Satan.  But that is what the Bible says will happen.  And with the fire that destroys them, it will also destroy the old heaven and the old earth.  I cannot wait to see the new heaven and the new earth next week!

There was a lot that I cut out from my sermon Sunday because I ran out of time.  But in this post you get to read them.  The two I want to point out are two quotes that I was going to close with.  The first from Warren Wiersbe says, “Each generation of believers must keep itself pure from the pollution of both the ‘harlot’ and ‘Babylon'”.  Applying the message of Revelation is not just for end time believers but for us today.  And finally from Craig Keener, “All Rome’s successors, all the evil empires of history who repress God’s people, will be dust and ashes, but God’s kingdom will no fail!  Empires rise and fall, and our own early lives persih with the passing of generations. We must rest our confidence not in the short-term troubles that we read in the news headlines, but in God’s long-range purposes in history.”  Both are good reminders as we enter into this election season.

A thought from my desk calendar this morning.  “Jesus Christ did not die for you because you were actually worth dying for.  He died for you because he considered you worth dying for.  He put your best interests above his own — and he willingly marched to Calvary.” (Charles Stanley A Touch of His Freedom)  None of of us are worth dying for.  We are all sinners, but in God’s eyes, he sees us as sinners worthy of his grace.

The sermon on Revelation 16 this week touched on the word Armageddon.  I did not have time to go into detail this week about that (it might be in the next sermon).  But the word Armageddon comes from two Hebrew words Har and Megiddo, which means the hill of Megiddo or place of slaughter.  In the Bible it is also called the Plain of Esdraelon and the Valley of Jezreel.  It is a 14 miles wide and 20 miles long plain in northern Israel that has been the sight of numerous battles both in Biblical and modern times.  In fact, Napoleon called it “the most natural battlefield of the whole earth”.  And it appears this might be the place where the final battle in human history will take place (unless it is symbolic which I do not think it is).  Jesus has gathered the armies of heaven (the saints and his angels) in chapter 15 and now in 16 the earthly kingdoms (led by these demonic “frogs”) are gathering.  The showdown will take place in chapter 19 where we will see Jesus defeat the beast with the sword from his mouth.  As Martin Luther says in one of his famous hymns, “One little word shall fell him”.  Praise the Lord!