The Red Sea Crisis
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Important messages
From the series: “The Gospel in Exodus”
By Mike
Brueckner, our youngest son and
pastor of the Church of Hope in Elk River,
Minnesota
Exodus 14
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| Mike with his guitar |
Here is some background to our
study today: The people of Israel are finally free. Egypt is behind them, the
future looks bright and they are headed in the direction of the Promised Land,
where God would have them go. There is no more bondage, no more slavery, and
what excitement must have filled their hearts.
Right here, God does
something. It says in Exodus 14:4 that He would harden Pharaoh’s heart, so that
he would pursue the Israelites once again. So Pharaoh gathers his men around
him and they say to one another, “Why did we let the Israelites go? Let’s go get
them back.” This is a military operation; Pharaoh is gathering the army and
this is going to be war. Six hundred of their finest chariots are called and
captains are driving them. He means business here; they are serious.
Handling Life's Minuses
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Important messages
Just a little over a week ago, on May 10, we published a
great message given by Dan Brueckner, pastor of Swanton Christian Church in
Swanton, Vermont. In the next town to the south lives his twin brother Dave
Brueckner, who gave this message several years ago in the Swanton Church. When
I first published it in our quarterly "Call to Commitment" in the
Summer of 2008, people wrote us about the help they received from it. Then
I published it on this blogspot in March of 2015, but I am offering it again,
because I think it will be a great encouragement for many of you. Dave is not
presenting a theoretical message, but something from the pains of real life. We
dare not be idealists; life does deal us minuses and we have to live with them.
It will really be helpful to us, if we can see God behind it all with His
wisdom and love, intimately involved, moving everything for our good. This will
be a blessing for everyone...
How Do You Handle Life's Minuses
by Dave Brueckner
We enter this planet with
nothing in our hands. As time goes on, we accumulate possessions, relationships
and knowledge. We are not to hold these with a tight grip, but loosely, as a
loan from God, because when we exit this earth, our hands will be empty again.
The death shroud has no pockets.
Sometimes we are separated
from earthly possessions before death. If we hold on unrelentingly, we will
grumble and complain, because we feel we were cheated from what was rightly
ours. After Job lost everything, he blessed God and said, “The Lord gives and
the Lord takes away.” How do I handle life’s minuses?
Jeremiah, the weeping prophet,
lived in a critical time in Israel’s history. There was not “one person who
deals honestly and seeks the truth” (Jer. 5:1). Israel had become worse than
the nations who had lived before in the land of Canaan. They had false hopes,
because they worshipped in God’s temple (Jer. 7:10), but judgment and
discipline were lying at the door.
The Healing of a Sinner
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Important messages
Mark 2:1-12
Message by Dan Brueckner, our oldest son and pastor of Swanton
Christian Church
(another of Dan's messages can be seen on this Blog, September 21, 2019)
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| Dan preaching in Swanton |
The key part of this passage is that Jesus preached the
Word to them. It would be easy to go over that part and enter the story of the
healing of this man, but the key throughout the Gospels is that Jesus preached
the word. In one place, they looked for Jesus to stay with them, but he said, “I
must preach the Good News of the Kingdom of God in other towns.
Capernaum was a dark place and everywhere that Jesus
went, He fulfilled Scripture. The Scripture said that He would be born in
Bethlehem and He fulfilled that Scripture. Then He fled to Egypt and that
fulfilled Scripture. The Scripture said that He would be called a Nazarene, so
he was raised in Nazareth and now He goes to Capernaum, lived there and that became
His home. This also fulfilled Scripture.
1 Corinthians 16
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Important messages
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| A fragment of papyrus of 1 Corinthians, dating from about 200 AD |
Chapter 16
Collection for
the saints in Jerusalem
1.
Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have
given orders to the churches of Galatia, so you must do also:
2.
On the first day of the week let each one of you lay
something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections
when I come.
3.
And when I come, whomever you approve by your letters I
will send to bear your gift to Jerusalem.
4.
But if it is fitting that I go also, they will go with
me.
Paul has given the doctrinal
part of this letter and his instructions to the Corinthian church, answering
the questions that they had previously asked, and now he draws the letter to a
close. He mentions a collection for the saints in Jerusalem and it might be
good for us to look at the situation there. The epistle was written in 59 A.D.
and there had been a famine in Jerusalem in 41 A.D., and in 44 A.D., Herod
Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great, killed James the brother of John. This Herod was the nephew of Herod Antipas, who had John the Baptist beheaded. James was a leading apostle in Jerusalem.
The disciples of Christ
remained in Jerusalem after Jesus ascended into heaven and the Holy Spirit fell
upon them on the Day of Pentecost. The first eight chapters of the book of Acts
tell about the powerful formation of the church there. It was a totally Jewish
church and the last part of Acts 2 gives us an idea of the lifestyle of the
apostles and believers. The disciples were largely Galileans and so, they would
not have had much personal property in Jerusalem. Acts 2:46 tells us that they
broke bread from house to house, so the living was not purely communal, as some
had homes in Jerusalem, although verse 44 tells us they had all things common.
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