Pillar Fellowship

PRIDE ILLUSTRATION Last week we started walk though this personal testimony of King Nebuchadnezzar. He told the story and he started out with his conclusion. It is God who reigns, it is the most high that has an everlasting dominion, his kingdom is from generation to generation. We saw the grace of God…

Pride goeth before the fall. This was a favorite verse of mine as a child, because I loved to quote it against my siblings if I thought they were acting arrogantly about anything. It was one of my favorite weapon verses, that was handy to whip out to guilt someone into a change of behavior. Imagine my…

Open your bibles to Daniel chapter 2. In the mid 350s AD Christian-hating roman emperor Julian was carrying out a campaign heavily persecuting believers. There is a story told of a roman soldier mockingly asking a Christian of where the carpenter’s son was now. His reply was “The maker of the universe,…

Put yourself, it you can, in a scenario where the nation that you love so much has fallen. Your city was destroyed. And you have been taken captive. Everything you own has been destroyed or looted. Everyone you know if either dead or also taken captive to be a slave as you are. Are you carried off to…

I used to love watching the TV show Mythbusters. Anyone ever watch that show? There are myths about how various things work, and they set out to prove or disprove the myth. For example. Why do most people run in the rain? They want to minimize the amount of time they are exposed to water pouring from…

From the very beginning, the Word of God has been under attack. It is literally the oldest trick in the book! “Did God really say??” The devil deceived the woman by questioning the word of God and twisting the truth. And it has been the most common tactic of the enemy against God’s image bearers ever…

It is my habit when preaching through books of the Bible to begin with the background and overview of a book at the beginning, highlighting key themes, verse, and the overall flow of the book, and then circle back around to that at the end of the study to review what we’ve seen. Usually I’m able to do…

Have you ever watched a movie that had a really confusing ending? You get to the end and you are left wondering....wait....is that it? That’s the end? Surely that cannot be the end. One of my favorite movies is Inception. The basic plot of the movie is that a group of men set out to plant an idea in…

There is a religious ritual practice that has been observed in history in different forms by different cultures over the centuries performed by someone called a sin-eater. A sin-eater is someone who consumes a ritual meal with the intent to take on the sins of another person who has died so the soul…

And as soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate. And Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And he answered him, “You have said so.” And the chief…

What is hatred? Hatred is a word that is being throw around often these days. Any words spoken against an idea is branded as hatred. We have Hate crimes and hate speech. But our definitions seem to have expanced. Websters dictionary defines hatred as “extreme dislike or disgust” or “ill will or resentment;…

I’ve only ever been pulled over a handful of times in my driving career. And immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, “The…

And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” And going a little…

Intro Mark 14:1–2 “It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him, for they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.”” Our passage opens with Mark resuming…

I want to begin our time in the Scriptures this morning with a consideration of something that you probably would not have expected this resurrection Sunday morning. I want us to consider the concept of lament. Laments are interesting things. They can express raw emotion, opening our hearts to the Lord…

“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands…