“Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine and valiant men in mixing strong drink.” (Isaiah 5:22)
In Isaiah 5, the prophet details many of the sins of God’s people for which He is calling a foreign nation to punish them. Among the transgressions we find in :22 “those who are heroes in drinking wine.” One application probably springs to mind — but this verse may actually condemn more of us than one might initially think: Continue reading
In February 2012, I stood to lead prayer meeting at the church I had been pastoring for 12 years in Louisiana, and the longer I stood the more nauseated I became. I had to leave during prayer and have my associate pastor take over. That was the first evidence that something was wrong with me physically, and it would just get worse from there. We cut back on my preaching to Sunday morning only, and I went to the doctor to try to find out what the problem was. But soon I could no longer preach on Sunday mornings, and the church put me on medical leave until the doctors could come up with a diagnosis and hopefully treatment. After some months of testing, they discovered that I had a little-known illness called dysautonomia or POTS: “Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome.” With POTS, one’s heart rate rises whenever they stand, as if they were running in place. It causes severe fatigue, sleeplessness, nausea, migraine headaches, and more. There is no known “cure” for it; they just try to treat symptoms with whatever medication works best on the individual. But after months of trying different medications, it became increasingly evident that I was not going to get well soon. With several vacant staff positions at our church, I felt like they needed a healthy pastor, and that I should resign. I was losing my job, my career, and my ministry. As a result we had to sell our home, my wife’s dream house, along with about 2/3 of our possessions. I was so sick I couldn’t even stand to pack our belongings, and after I had pastored for 27 years I would be out of the ministry. We moved to Norman, OK, where we had a small apartment, to convalesce without any human hope for a healthy future. As many of you know, after two years in Norman, God did raise me up, and called me last March here to serve as pastor at Pleasant Ridge. We are grateful to God for His blessing in restoring my health, and placing me back in ministry.
But God’s goodness is not merely in that He brought me back. At my lowest moments during my illness God was always good. I have heard it said that there is a Psalm in the Bible for every conceivable human emotion; one which will speak to you in whatever it is you are going through. I have always believed that, and I can certainly say that is true for what our family went through over the past couple of years.
I shared once before how Psalm 3:3 was an anchor for my soul during that time. Another set of verses that ministered to me was from Psalm 119:65-72. The lessons we learned we from these verses, and what God did in our lives in and through this time, are invaluable to us. And I pray that God will use them to minister to some of you who have been, or are now, in a time of difficulty. Let’s look at what these verses teach us about “The Goodness of God in the Midst of Affliction” … Continue reading
“He will also lift up a standard to the distant nation, and will whistle for it from the ends of the earth; and behold, it will come with speed swiftly.” (Isaiah 5:26)
This verse give us one of the most vivid examples in all of the scriptures of the sovereignty and power of God. Speaking of the kingdom of Babylon, the “superpower” nation of their day, it says that God will “whistle for it” and it will come! Continue reading
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21)
Coming on the heels of the admonition not to take your own revenge, but to leave room for God’s wrath, this verse reminds us that there is more than one way of being “overcome with evil.” We might think of evil triumphing in the sense that the forces of evil might win some battle over those more righteous through military action, political victory, or social acceptance. But there are other ways that evil can “overcome.” Continue reading
Isaiah 3:6 must be one of the most pathetic verses in scripture. It describes the desperation of a people seeking for anyone to lead them: “You have a cloak, you shall be our ruler.” It is surely a sign of God’s judgment on a people whenever they invite someone with the most meager qualifications into a leadership postion: “You have a cloak, you shall be our ruler”!
Unfortunately that is exactly what many churches do when they recruit people to serve: Continue reading
One of the stock verses that Christian financial gurus often quote is the first part of Romans 13:8, “Owe nothing to anyone …”. But it is always best to take a verse in context. When you do that with this particular passage, you might discover that the verse is not the admonition many people believe it to be: Continue reading
Handel’s “Messiah” is one of the great “musicals” if you will of all time, but most people know it for ONE song: the “Hallelujah” chorus. But there is other great music in it, notably the song “Worthy Is The Lamb”, which is a great worship song, and others.
In the same way, Romans 12 is one of the most famous chapters in scripture, but it is probably best known for its first two verses — and those are GREAT verses! But there is more to the chapter than those two. In fact, some of the most practical insights on how we are to live out the Christian life are found in the second part of Romans 12. So tonight I want to do just a brief overview of the chapter, and then look at some of those specific admonitions God gives us in the second part of the chapter, and then close by spending some time praying through these scriptures, that God would build these things into our lives.
We will read the whole chapter through in just a moment, so let me give you a brief OVERVIEW/OUTLINE of the chapter now: Continue reading
Mark 4:14 contains simply 5 words: “The sower sows the word.” But it is a clear reminder of our most important task as Christian ministers: we are to be sowing the word of God into the hearts and minds of our congregations and individuals in our society.
This verse reminds us not only that we are to be “sowing” but also WHAT we are to be sowing: Continue reading
“Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” (Romans 12:15)
This verse reminds us that God intends for us to share the joys and pains of the members of our church family. This is no “formal”, casual relationship we are to have there. We are to truly be family for each other — and that takes more than an hour or two a week to build. The bottom line is, we are to DO LIFE TOGETHER with those in our church fellowship, feeling their pains, and celebrating their victories together with them. Continue reading
The cross of Jesus is the center of Christianity. The basic message of Christianity is that “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures” — and He died for our sins on the cross. Paul called the gospel “the message of the cross” because the cross is so central to Christianity.
But the cross symbolizes something else as well: it also pictures the two very important kinds of relationships that Christianity impacts in the life of its followers: the vertical bar of the cross points us towards heaven, indicating that it makes us right with God, and the horizontal arm of the cross reminds us that it also impacts our relationships with other people as well.
Last week, we looked at how the word of the cross saves us and makes us right with God. This morning, we are going to follow that up by looking at how the gospel should affect our horizontal relationships with others as well. We find a great scripture that addresses this at the very end of the fourth chapter of Ephesians, verse 32. This verse is pure gold for Christians of every level; it is one of the first verses we teach our smallest children in Sunday School, and yet it challenges the maturity of the most experienced saint:
“Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” Continue reading
I'm a retired Southern Baptist pastor of almost 40 years. My wife Cheryl & I moved to Norman, OK in March of 2025. I share a weekly overview for Sunday School teachers of the weekly Lifeway "Explore the Bible" lesson, as well as texts of my sermons and other articles.
shawnethomas 