Calvary Bible Church

The Sample family has a lot of traditions around Christmas. Most fall under the heading of waiting. We would wake up Christmas morning and we couldn’t open our stockings until all the kids were awake. Which required some waiting. Because some of the us kids liked to sleep in. Then, once the parents woke…

How many of you, in order to truly enjoy a book or a movie, you need to know the end of it? I will try not to hold a grudge against ya’ll. Some people try to tell me what is going to happen, and I don’t want to know. I take that back. There are somethings that I do want to know before hand. Like, the…

There’s an Andy Griffith episode. Barney once to invest and so he tries to jump into the record making company. An agent for a record company comes into town to make a record of North Carolina blue grass music. Barney keeps floating the term diversify, so that he wants to put his money in many different…

Technically, I should probably have preached this sermon last week, but I had to finish up the previous passage. It’s now a week and a half since the election. Half of the nation is happy. The other half is not. When I was preparing this sermon, I had no idea what the result would be. I just knew that…

Solomon is discussing wisdom and folly in this passage. We gave the first part of this sermon two weeks ago, and basically covered the main point of the whole thing. We find our joy not in our circumstances and how we can manipulate them, but in the God who loves us. Solomon continues discussing wisdom…

Tuesday is election day. I’m not going to stand up here and tell you who to vote for. But, if you want my opinion, I’ve got strong opinions that I’ll tell you about if you ask. Especially for the election for school board in the Neligh-Oakdale district. But, I’m not going there right now. Election day…

Solomon was a prolific author. If he lived today, he would be on the New York Times best seller list, multiple times. People would be lining up to read his next book. His songs would be on the top of the charts, just because of the amount of things he wrote. He spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs…

The first funeral I remember was for my mother’s mom. I was five years old. My grandfather chartered a bus so that we that the family could ride together from Illinois to the funeral and burial in Minnesota. I knew that she had died, but I didn’t fully know what it meant until a few years later, when…

Have you ever read quotes of people’s last words? It’s fascinating. Some are funny. Actress Joan Crawford yelled at her housekeeper who was praying as Crawford died. She said: Don’t you dare ask God to help me!” When Wilson Mizner was on his deathbed, a priest said, “I’m sure you want to talk to me.”…

The biggest problem that people bring up about the existence of God is what is called the problem of evil. Why do bad happen to good people? If God were truly good, he wouldn’t allow bad things to happen to good people. Well, we could take that apart in so many ways. In chapter 4, Solomon pointed to…

Solomon has been discussing all the things in life which are meaningless. Which is pretty much everything. Through the discussion, he begs his readers to turn to God to find satisfaction, peace, joy. But, to turn to God, we need to know him. Jesus himself said, while praying to the Father: Now this is…

It is said that good news doesn’t sell. Only bad news does. Which is why if you turn on the tv or pick up a newspaper, most of the news you will see, a great majority is bad news, about injustice, oppression, turmoil. It’s amazing what happens when you follow the money. But, that’s not the whole story.…

Have you ever met someone famous? I remember the first time that I got to meet a president. Well, technically, I didn’t meet him, but I got really close to him! George W. Bush came to a rally about 45 miles from where we lived. So, we pack up our lunches and got to the rally location several hours before…

Can you imagine having everything that you could ever want at your fingertips? Growing up, I distinctly remember wishing that I could have things, and then my older siblings would remind me that I was not supposed to be jealous. One Christmas, I was probably around 7 or 8 years old. My oldest sister,…

Have you ever been depressed? Like don’t want to get up out of bed depressed? I have. I remember laying in bed wondering why I should get up. What use are my tasks for the day. What use is what I have been dedicating myself to for the past several years. Those situations are not easy. And there are many…

Congratulations! You have almost survived this series on Song of Solomon. Maggie can tell you that I really enjoyed studying this book. My faith has grown through it and my understanding of God’s love for me. I can totally agree with Jonathan Edwards: “The whole book of Canticles [i.e., Song of Solomon]…

Well, next week is our last week in Song of Solomon! I have really enjoyed studying this book and pray that it has come alive for you. But, we have two chapters left and two more chances to make Brook squirm and blush. We have seen the whole relationship of the beloved and King Solomon. We first saw…

When I sit down with a couple for premarital counseling, I cover a lot of topics, coming back to the concepts of oneness, communication, and expectations a lot. Through the conversations, invariably, we circle around to their family of origin. Probably because I ask them about it. I can be evil like…

50% of all first marriages end in divorce. That’s a sobering statistic. 60% of second marriages, and 73% of third marriages. For those of you who like statistics. The years with the highest risk of divorce is the first two years. You’ve been madly in love. You marry your soul-mate, and then you realize…

Ah, Father’s Day! The day of the year that Fathers are celebrated. Right smack between planting and haying. In fact, some might still be planting and some might have started haying, depending on where one lives and what the rains have been doing. Father’s day is hard because in today’s culture few people…

Congratulations! After this week, we are halfway done with our study of Song of Solomon. It’s amazing how fast this book goes! Though Brook Curtiss wishes that it would go faster. We have seen the beloved deeply in love with King Solomon, because of his character, yearning to consummate her love with…