Merry Christmas! And don't let anyone tell you that it is inappropriate for us to still greet each other this way! Today is but the 4th day and tomorrow (Sunday) is the 5th day of Christmas...it is still Christmas! Let us rejoice and celebrate!

There is no doubt that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a powerful, universal truth: Jesus was born, lived, died, and rose for ALL. That is, God's saving work for us in Christ is universal; for ALL people!

Still the evil one works against us and tempts us to call into question that universal application to ourselves! What if we are not included? What if I am one of those vessels of wrath mentioned in Romans 9? What if the universality of the Gospel in Christ Jesus just doesn't apply to the likes of me? There is you see reason to doubt...and we do even if we don't tell anyone about it (it's what sinners do).

This is why our epistle in tomorrow's service is so incredibly important. Galatians 4:4-7 is -- among other things -- Scripture that is intended to instill our confidence that the Gospel of Jesus is for us personally. There are ways for us to have full assurance and confidence that we are truly the recipients of the Christmas gift of salvation (the most important Christmas gift) and it boils down to the two special clauses in the original language in this short section: 1) because of the blood of Christ...we were redeemed; and 2) because we have received adoption as sons. My task tomorrow is to elaborate on this powerful and comforting Word of Truth!

God's Christmas gifts to you will continue! This Word will be given to you and so will the precious body and blood of our Savior...through these you will be assured that you are loved, forgiven, and rescued from all that would otherwise threaten your safe standing in the Lord!

I hope to see you tomorrow in God's house. Invite a friend!

Here is a short excerpt from the sermon:

Why did Jesus join us poor sinners under the law? Two reasons:

 

1)      Verse 5: “to redeem those who were under the law (that’s you).”

2)      Verse 5 again: “so that [you] might receive adoption as sons.”

 

And get a load of this: the Scriptures say that when this happened, you went from a non-speaking, having-no-rights napios (mere child) to a “son,” an adopted heir of God with full rights that are seen and heard through the invitation, ability and frequent practice to speak up…to pray to God in the Name of Jesus and to be heard! How did this change in status occur?

 

Again, the first reason given is “to redeem those who were under the law.” And again, this is about you! These words actually bolster the universal Gospel as they clarify its power. When Christ did what He did for you: entering your life, joining you under the law, becoming your brother and sacrificial representative as well as your Lord and Savior, He “redeemed” you. This is an exciting concept. It is a warfare word. Victors took defeated prisoners of war while the prisoners’ people back home would raise funds for the required amount to forward to the land of the victors in order to buy back their captured brothers. This is the process that the ancients called “redemption”. They used the verb “redeem” for it and anyone who carried it out was a “redeemer”. The sum of money was called the “ransom” (Morris, The Atonement: It’s Meaning and Significance, p 108).

 

How does this contribute to your confidence? This saving work of Jesus is not to be treated in a general way, but in a very precise way: what saved you specifically was the ransom of the blood of Christ given to the Heavenly Father for you dear Christian. Jesus shed His blood for you. He was the Redeemer who gave His blood ransom in order to redeem you/to buy you from destruction and to the glory of the Kingdom of God. What is the basis for your confidence? It is not your morality. It is not your behavior. It is not your effort. It is the glorious, royal, powerful, life-giving, ransom blood of the Lord Jesus Christ! So our catechism says clearly, “[Jesus] has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and form the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood….”. (Luther, The Small Catechism, “The Creed,” from the explanation to The Second Article)

 

Let me put this simply: your confidence is found in the blood of Christ. This He shed for sinners. You must be a sinner to qualify. If you are, then there is NO doubt that this saving blood is for you. No doubt whatsoever because Jesus came for sinners…so here’s your checklist for your confidence: 1) Do you qualify as a sinner? If yes, then go to box #2: 2) Jesus paid His blood as a ransom to redeem such people. Thanks be to God that this Gospel is about you!

 

Still, we demolish the devil’s attack against the wonderful universal Gospel in an even more effective way and this is the second reason given in Galatians 4:5: “so that we might receive adoption as sons.”

 

This is where the universal Gospel gets personal and individual, where it is about you. Technically speaking this is the transition from objective to subjective justification. This Gospel turns you into a son. Again, the non-speaking child status is replaced with the full-rights heir status. Thus when you were baptized into the body of Christ, it was YOUR baptism and when you receive the body and blood of Jesus, the Sacrament is put into YOUR mouth and then your confidence is manifest in your new status as a heir with full-rights who is no longer a slave, but as one who speaks up and speaks out and prays and prays and prays…this is what we do. We have access, we have rights, we have the way to God’s ear and the path to God’s heart and God is no longer simply “God,” but now that we are heirs of Christ, God is our Heavenly and Loving Father who hears and listens to His heirs.

 

In this new status, Saint Paul writes, “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ ⁷So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”

In Jesus' Love,

Pastor Espinosa

Blessed Christmas dear Christian! The Holy Eve is soon upon us and the Holy Day is almost here.

This evening we worship at 7:00 pm at Crean Lutheran High School, 12500 Sand Canyon Avenue, Irvine. This is a candlelight service with a lot of Christmas music, Christmas readings, and a sermon that presents Isaiah's prophecy of Christ in Isaiah 9:1-7.

Tomorrow morning is a service with Holy Communion at 9:30 am. The sermon is based on Isaiah 52:7-10 and our organist/choir director Karissa Lystrup has once again planned some wonderful special music. This morning service is also at Crean.

Finally we have arrived to Christmas after a blessed Advent season of preparation. Starting tomorrow, the 12 days of Christmas begin.

Just a few reminders:

Tomorrow is the last Sunday in Advent and the last Sunday before Christmas. We will focus on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, the first chapter, verses 18-25. The coming of Jesus is most certainly marked by a great miracle: the Virgin conceived and gave birth to a son! At the same time, there is so much surrounding this Christmas gift that is remarkably ordinary, so much so in fact that it is easy to take the whole gift for granted and rush to inject the season with other forms of stimulation as if to say that the original gift; the only lasting gift is mundane.

But God's gift to us is intentionally miraculous while wrapped in the ordinary. To stress this point the God-man when He is born is given a name...something all people have. To be human is to have a name; a name is indicator that one is merely human. The name places us in history; and in the long line of those who are born and those who die. Ordinariness marks those with names.

But this name -- while like ours -- is also different.

Tomorrow we will focus on this magnificent balance and see the key to overcoming our sinful tendency to treat the holy as nothing but ordinary. Thanks be to God that by His grace He will have nothing of it in the lives of those whose sins are covered by His blood and in those who have received the gift of faith through Jesus reconciling them to God! Let us gather to have our faith once again fed and nourished through Word and Sacrament. There is no better way to prepare for Christmas!

Many people are on vacation right now; but God is not on vacation. He will be there tomorrow morning to serve YOU!

In Jesus' Love,

Pastor Espinosa

You are lovingly invited to attend our last Wednesday night Advent service of 2013. We are meeting tonight at 7:00 pm on the beautiful campus of Concordia University Irvine (1530 Concordia, Irvine). Just tell the guards at the entry station that you're coming for the 7:00 pm service in the Good Shepherd Chapel which serves as our inspirational setting for these special services of the Word of Christ.

Tonight we continue our series on Isaiah's Christmas Prophecies and you'll receive God's Word based on the amazing prophecy of the virgin conception and birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, the sign that Immanuel comes! In Jesus God comes in the only way in which we could be saved. He does not call us to attain to some ethereal height or work through some mystical maze to reach Him, but rather He comes to us in our flesh to be "God with us." In knowing this great prophecy, you will be better equipped and prepared to celebrate Christmas next week.

Let's gather to receive this precious Word of Christ to have our saving faith fed and nourished. The setting is gorgeous, the music inspirational, the sermon is equipping, and the prayers will be received by our Gracious God. Let us rejoice for this holy opportunity to worship. I hope to see you tonight.

In Jesus' Love,

Pastor

May the Lord bless you in your Advent preparations for Christmas. May this time of preparation lead us to confess our sins and confess our great need for the Coming Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Tonight is the great text of Isaiah 35. Our sinful weakness is compared to a wilderness and a desert. We can learn from this important illustration that is not at all a random comparison. Sin brings dryness and it brings weakness. The Gospel, however, brings what the arrival of the Savior brings: namely rejoicing and blossom[ing] like the crocus and "the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water." This is God's miraculous supply when the Savior is given.

All of this cannot be relegated to an intellectual acknowledgement, it must be lived in: we need the Savior who brings the crocus, the desert bloom to bring water and to bring new life. The Holy Spring brings God's spring of life-renewing water, when the Holy Spirit works through the Word that enters our ears, our hearts, our minds, and then is put upon our lips...this is what happens in worship.

This evening is a simple and yet beautiful service of the Word. We meet at 7:00 pm at the Good Shepherd Chapel at Concordia University Irvine. It is our 2nd Wednesday night service in preparation for Christmas. Come worship our Advent King, bring a friend, and let us receive God's living water for our parched souls.

Here is the sermon:

“From Desert to Crocus”

(Isaiah 35:1-7)

2^nd Wednesday of Advent, December 11^th, 2013

Pastor Espinosa

            Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Coming King, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Isaiah 35 is a special kind of Word of the Lord that is called “eschatological”. That is it’s about the last or end-time things, but we have to remember that we are also living in the end-times (1^st Peter 4:7 says that the end of all things is at hand), so it is also about our time too. Thus to summarize: Isaiah 35 is talking about what is now and what is yet to come both at the same time.

 

In both of these views of what is now and what is yet to come, these words are absolutely and positively true: as Jesus comes to you right now through His Word and as Jesus will come again in glory it will be like the wilderness and the dry land becoming glad and the desert rejoicing as it blossoms like the crocus. The crocus is a desert flower which grows almost instantaneously after any substantial rainfall in the desert. So that in the final analysis we can see with our own eyes a stunning contrast that I tried to find in a picture. Take a look:

 

[insert picture of a crocus coming out of dry rocks in the desert]

 

In this picture, you see a desolate background. It almost causes us to think, “what could possibly grow out of that?!” It practically looks like the flower is growing out of the rocks. You might just as well expect water to come out of the rocks. Exactly! And yet this is not a theoretical idea. It is an actual state of affairs. It really happens.

 

But picture this: if you were to remove the flower from the picture, what you would see is a desolate scene of dry rocks. You would think to yourself, “there is nothing there,” unless you’re really into rocks, but even if you were, you would have to admit that we are not looking at the most fertile ground on the planet. Prospects for growth and renewal would appear rather dismal. But this is a fact Christian: it really happens! The crocus is a symbol of God’s miraculous work! This sort of thing by the way happens on much grander scales. When Mt. Saint Helens erupted in Washington in 1980 scientists predicted that the land surrounding the mountain would remain desolate for many, many years. The life that sprang from the volcanic destruction, however, was both very fast and amazingly stunning. The analogy is important to us.

 

Getting back to the Isaiah 35 “now and not yet” double context, God assures us that on the last day, the earth itself will be renewed. Romans 8:21 says, “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” Revelation 21:1 simply refers to this as “the new heaven and the new earth.” The day is coming when our bodies which atrophy through entropy will be renewed and we shall experience the exciting fruition of what John wrote, “….it does not appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him (1^st John 3:2).” Kiss all your disease away. You will be raised in glory and power dear Christian (1^st Cor. 15:43) just like your Savior-King rose leaving behind the desolate desert of death and covered it through His victory with the most lush and beautiful garden of life imaginable (Revelation is rich in describing this new garden…we should all like gardens…they are reminders of heaven; they are reminders of what God causes to sprout even from rocks).

 

But what about the “now” part? This is the hard part, but through faith in Christ the crocus sprouts in the desert even now. We just need to understand what to expect along the way: God is real with us. His Word describes what we can and do experience. For example, consider the words of the psalmist: “For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up…(Psalm 32:4).” To feel dry is to feel hopeless and to feel hopeless in the face of so many hardships is to feel fear and fear is antithetical to faith. This is what Christians can feel. This seems wrong. By definition Christians are people of faith. That’s true, but it is also true that we are sinners and sinners feel the other side, the dry side; the desert within our souls.

 

I heard from a baptized believer overcome with frustration about the desert in their life, words of unbelief spewing from lips that once confessed Jesus. It was predictable what would come next: God was to blame. It was all God’s fault including their horrendous decisions in rebellion against God. This is the insanity of sin, but that’s what happens in the desert sometimes: we start seeing things that aren’t really there.

 

Every moment of our lives is the experience of the undulation between faith and fear; hope and dryness; the crocus and the desert with its dry rocks. No, you’re not going crazy, but you are living the normal Christian life. That’s important to know lest the evil one tempt you to think that you’re going mad. No, you’re a true Christian. You feel the battle, but when we do feel the battle, you must know something about that battle so that you can take it to the Lord. That same psalmist who confessed the dryness of his soul went on to write by God’s inspiration, “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin (Psalm 32:5).”

 

And when you come confessing in God’s house, you find that you’ve been led to the fresh, cool pool known as the church of Christ even in the midst of the burning sand which is the world, and the Lord gives to you His living water and absolves you of all your sins.

 

But don’t forget that during the “now” the battle rages and without this wisdom you cannot properly prepare for Christmas nor wait in patience for the “not yet” renewal of all things. Luther saw in Isaiah 35 God’s provision for the believer with the “weak hands and feeble knees (v 3)”. In the next verse God sends forth His powerful word through Isaiah who commanded: “Be strong; fear not!” It is God who sustains us through the desert – and through all our battles -- even now the crocus of faith grows once again within you. Luther wrote,

 

“Therefore the inward joy of the spirit fights with the grief of the body exposed to the cross (LW 16:300).”

 

And the inward joy is protected when we become wise to the ways of the enemy. Luther wrote again:

 

“For Satan has two ways of fighting. He would gladly cast the faithful down suddenly from their joy and faith and into fear and despair. Secondly, he cunningly strives by long lasting torments and by the unremitting pressure of the torments to tire them out.” (LW 16: 301)

 

But God’s counter is the long-lasting gift of His water in the desert; His Word in your life. God’s counter to the evil one’s attacks upon you is to cause perpetually the growth of the crocus in the desert of this life. God’s counter is to keep His Word raining upon you; keeping you in your baptismal pool of grace and life, feeding you with Christ’s body and blood, and replacing hopelessness with the sure and certain hope that is yours in Christ.

 

It would be difficult to find a better example of the power of this crocus faith than the time when our Savior referred to these words from Isaiah as being fulfilled in His “now” ministry. John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another (Matthew 11:3)?” Jesus answered, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them (Matthew 11:4-5).”

 

            It must have been an amazing sight when John the Baptist received this message (and I’m not exaggerating, because I’ve witnessed a Christian die while expressing joy in the Lord while they died). There he was in prison, about to be beheaded, experiencing his cross, knowing his battle in the desert – but in receiving the Word of Christ – John must have been joyful with the crocus in full bloom in his heart. No desert, no prison robbed John of his joy.

 

And this is your joy dear Christian! Your coming King comes once again -- now  -- and through His Word He opens your eyes once blind, your ears once deaf; He restores your legs once lame and your tongue once dumb. A saving crocus grows in you that is Christ in the desert, the rock from which the water comes, the source of faith and now you see that He is here even in the desert (no you are not abandoned); you hear His Word and it causes you to rejoice (yes, you are truly forgiven); you leap with legs of faith (for nothing can contain the joy of a sinner who is no longer condemned); and your mouth is opened: you once silenced and parched by the desert, confess that Jesus has covered your sin with His blood and has conquered your death with His victorious life! May you continue to blossom in Him as He comes now and as He is coming again!

In Your Service and To Christ's Glory,

Pastor

We need a leader we can count on and His Name is Jesus. In this world desperate for good leaders, it is ironic that during the very season in which we anticipate His coming that the world would be preoccupied in honoring other leaders who are in themselves only sinners who need The Leader just as much as the rest of us. The world is desperate for a great leader, but spends much time overlooking The Leader who is our only salvation. To know The Leader, however, is to know the peace of God which surpasses all understanding.

The text in Isaiah 11:2 elaborates on our Leader's gifts from the Spirit: wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, and knowledge and the fear of the Lord. These are not random gifts, but describe Christ's ability to save; to save you.

Come and receive our Leader's ministry once again tomorrow morning. It is a leadership which renders the forgiveness of sins.

Come and receive our Leader Himself. He gives you Himself in, with, and under the bread and the wine in the Holy Sacrament.

It's late and the weekend has been full of special gatherings, but who knows, this invitation to worship might make a difference for even one.

Here's an excerpt from Sunday's sermon:

“Your Leader Who Takes Care of You”

(Isaiah 11:2)

Second Sunday in Advent, December 8^th, 2013

Pastor Espinosa

 

The text: “And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.”

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. We go the way of our leaders. That’s why they are so important. Many want to be leaders, but they oftentimes don’t know what they are getting themselves into. To be a leader is to have a big bulls-eye on your chest, a big “X” on your back. Leaders are criticized and sometimes condemned. They are in the public eye. If you want to live a quiet life, being a leader will make that goal much more difficult. But if one is a leader they ought to be scrutinized and evaluated, because there is simply too much at stake not to care about how their leadership is going. Everyone associated with that leadership is -- after all -- affected and impacted by it.

 

This is readily apparent in the realm of sports. Several weeks ago the star quarterback of the Green Bay Packers – Aaron Rogers – was injured and has been forced to sit out. The team has been drastically affected by the loss of their leader. With Rogers the Packers had won four out of their first six games, without Rogers the Packers are 0-4-1, no wins, four losses and one tie.

 

But this is a simple example of the importance of leaders, the more complicated ones are represented in those who have served as presidents of the United States of America. I am personally in awe of Lincoln’s legacy. I can’t imagine what it was like to be president at a time when our nation was at civil war, brother fighting against brother. Furthermore, Lincoln stood for what was tremendously unpopular while facing resistance from every angle, but this did not hinder him from his executive order, the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1^st, 1863. I basically feel sorry for every president that has followed Lincoln. How does one possibly begin to compare? And again it is easy to criticize even when we Christians are commanded by the Lord to pray for our leaders (1^st Timothy 2:1-2). But the point is that people are directly impacted by their leaders.

 

The people of our nation had reason to question the integrity of the office after Nixon; U.S. citizens had reason to feel discouraged during the 1973 oil crisis as Carter seemed paralyzed, even Reagan seemed like he was in a no-win situation in the Iran-Contra affair, George Bush 41 probably wishes he could take back his “read my lips” on taxes, Bill Clinton was recently asked in an interview how important moral fortitude is for a president, if he could do it again, George Bush 43 would probably reconsider his timing for declaring “mission accomplished,” and Barack Obama had to recently apologize to the nation for some Americans who are losing their current health insurance plans in light of the Affordable Health Care Act (this after he had promised that no one would have to give up their plans). Don’t get me wrong, I can’t begin to imagine the weight of bearing the presidency. It is one of the easiest things in the world to criticize the leader of a country, esp. the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet. Be that as it may, it doesn’t change this axiomatic principle: people are directly impacted by their leaders.

 

Proverbs 11:14 says, “Where there is no guidance, a people falls…” We need our leaders to provide proper guidance. Proverbs 14:34 states, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” A leader’s righteousness is only a boon for the people, but his sin is their shame. Proverbs 29:4 says, “By justice a king builds up the land, but he who exacts gifts tears it down.” And thus we ask about the integrity of leaders: do they lead to build up those they serve or do they lead in order to profit themselves?

 

But there is an inverse dynamic to what I’ve been describing: while it is true that leaders directly impact the people they lead, it is also true that leaders often simply reflect the state of the people themselves. From a Christian worldview, our current president has one of the most liberal platforms in the history of our nation, but we would be remiss to ignore that he is in fact a reflection of our country and our current moral compass. In other words, before we condemn our leaders, we might want to take some time to look in the mirror. Do we really want righteous leaders? Do we really want good leaders? Or do we want leaders who will serve our sinful ambitions and our rebellion towards God? What kinds of leaders do we really desire? That question is answered by answering first what we just really desire to begin with.

 

This was the case with the people of Israel. One of the most shameful and stunning scenes in the entire Old Testament was the day that the people of Israel decided that God’s leadership wasn’t good enough for them and said that they wanted another leader instead!

 

1^st Samuel 8:1 & 4-7: “When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel….⁴Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah ⁵and said to him, ‘Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations. ⁶But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, ‘Give us a king to judge us.’ And Samuel prayed to the Lord. ⁷And the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.”

Yes, it is so easy to criticize a leader and in our sinful nature, we are the ones who are always criticizing God. Last Wednesday night we focused on Isaiah 11:1 and we learned that it is in righteous judgment that the Lord cuts down the proud and rebellious trees. Stumps and stump-language in the Bible symbolizes the desolation and humiliation that comes from forsaking the Lord. This is what we do in our sin: we forsake His Word, and part and parcel of this rebellion against God is that we are God’s supreme criticizers. Over the years, these are the top complaints I’ve heard from those who confess the Lord Jesus Christ. My friends, these ought not to be, but they are:

 

1. Why does God command me to forgive that person when they have so openly sinned and done such evil to me?
2. Why does God command me to honor a marriage that has lost its love?
3. Why does God command me to trust in Him when all my life I have and yet He has allowed me to suffer?

 

And this of course is but a very short list, but inherent in

these questions are bold criticisms against the Lord. We complain against our leaders -- this is true -- but we really complain against our most important Leader. We are like the Israelites who asked Samuel to give them another king. There is a reminiscent scene in the New Testament. Jesus had just finished teaching His bread of life discourse and in response to the words of the Lord, the Word records:

 

John 6:60 & 66: “When many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’….⁶⁶After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.”

 

And in our sin, we are like those disciples who forsook Christ and it is in relationship to many of the teachings in God’s Word. But to the modern church today it is as nothing to pick and choose which teachings we’ll go with and which ones just seem too hard…too unreasonable. Perhaps the most important example of this is in respect to The Lord’s Supper. You must choose Christian: is it or isn’t it the very body and very blood of Christ. If it is, then we should be knocking the doors down every Sunday to receive it; if it isn’t, then hey it doesn’t matter, take it or leave it. Like the rest of the world, it is easy to say, “This is hard saying; who can listen to it?” In this, we criticize our Leader Christ: “Come on! Is it really your body and blood?” And we wonder why we lack spiritual strength!

 

It was like this in the time of Isaiah. Isaiah 1:1 says, “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.” Let’s take inventory of these leaders which the people chose over and above God: 2^nd Chronicles 26:16 says, “But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the Lord his God….”; 2^nd Chronicles 27 records that Jotham was a good king (v 2a), but then there is this commentary of the people themselves: “The people, however, continued their corrupt practices (v 2b).” So in response to the hearts of the people the Lord permitted Ahaz to be king and the word says at 2^nd Chronicles 28:2: “He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and also made cast idols for worshiping the Baals.” And finally, Isaiah also served during the reign of Hezekiah. Now Hezekiah led a great renewal in the land, but with the exception of Josiah after him, the other kings who followed him were evil. Eventually Jerusalem was destroyed. They became a hopeless stump. It would be easy to end the story with, “they got what they deserved,” but this is not how God ends the story.

The Lord bless you on this Advent night.

In Jesus' Love,

Pastor