*** Alternate title, inspired by Bubba’s comment: “Chestnuts roasting on an open lake of fire.” ***
I mean, what else would you preach on? I know most churches don’t preach on the book of Revelation on the Sunday before Christmas, but a few years ago that is just what we heard.
We were visiting my oldest daughter to watch her perform in the Nutcracker for the Louisville Ballet, where she lived at the time. We loved going to Sojourn Community Church with her. They are part of the Acts 29 Network, just as our current church is (and our youngest daughter attends one where she lives).
The church had been going through the entire Bible over the course of two years, so of course at the end of the second year they were in Revelation. And they didn’t pull any punches, literally preaching on the lake of fire. These churches have a great balance of grace and truth, and they don’t gloss over what many churches do. The sermons are a good 40 minutes or so of verse-by-verse preaching. Yeah!
We had two people visiting with us. One was a Bible-believing Christian, who really enjoyed the service and talking about the sermon. The other is very active in a false denomination and goes to church every week. This usually chatty, upbeat person had nothing to say. Nothing. The word of God has that effect on both types of people.
Where else would you roast chestnuts?
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And there is your comment of the week, folks!
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I like that they are going through the entire Bible, but how do you do it justice in two years? 🙂
It took me three years to preach through Luke.
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Wow now I don’t feel so bad with my preaching through Luke (we just finished our first year)
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Sometimes the whoop must be laid down. Everyone today wants to talk about Buddy Jesus, and yes we need to hear about love and redemption and grace, but we also need to be reminded that Hell is real and the devil is real, and there are eternal consequences for submitting to or defying God on the extremely generous terms He’s given us. The neverending, exhausting obsession everyone has today with The Gay Issue just re-re-re-remphasizes the verses in the Bible telling us how people without the Holy Spirit will react to being told they’re doing wrong. How hard we humans will fight to hold onto our pet sins. But there’s a price for that kind of willful rebellion, and it ain’t pretty.
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Beautifully said!
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