You know it’s going to be a bad day when the enemy camps in your back yard! That’s what happened in Judges 6:33. “All the Midianites, Amalekites, and people of the east gathered together, crossed over the Jordan, and camped in the Jezreel Valley” the beautiful, rich land southwest of Galilee. God had called Gideon a “valiant warrior” (Judges 6:12) and commissioned him, saying,“Go in the strength you have and deliver Israel from the grasp of Midian. I am sending you!” (Judges

Three thousand years ago, when wheat was harvested, it was taken to the threshing floor. The threshing floor was a smooth, circular area, often thirty or forty feet in diameter, and often on a hillside. There, the harvest was heaped up. To separate the grain from the stalks and chaff, it was trampled by oxen, donkeys or sometimes by the farmer and his family. After being threshed, it had to be winnowed. Using a pitchfork, the threshed wheat was winnowed, tossed into the air,

In the 1950’s, school teachers faced plenty of disciplinary problems. They disciplined kids for chewing gum, for cutting in line, for throwing spit-wads, and for talking in class. Today, a generation later, the challenges are far different. Today’s teachers are concerned about drug and alcohol abuse, gangs, gun violence, and sex-crimes. Life in America has changed. When Joshua, Moses’s successor, led God’s people in the conquest of Canaan, the people faithfully submitted to D

Matthew, Mark and Luke tell the story of blind Bartimaeus who was healed at Jericho. Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem where He would accomplish His eternal mission. In a few days, in Jerusalem, up the hill from Jericho, Jesus would willingly give Himself as a sinless sacrifice, He would be buried in a borrowed tomb where He would remain for three days, and then He would emerge victoriously from the grave, alive! On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus encountered Zacchaeus at Jericho

Jesus took Peter, James and John to the top of a “high mountain” (Mark 9:2), possibly the nine-thousand-foot Mount Hermon, the highest peak in Palestine, where Jesus was transfigured. “His clothes became dazzling—extremely white as no launderer on earth could whiten them. Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus” (Mark 9:3–4). “They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31). The

God created the universe in six days. (Call me a conservative whacko fundamentalist, but I believe that He did it in six twenty-four-hour days. The Bible says it, so I believe it. I don’t have any problem believing that God could create everything out of nothing. I wonder why it took Him so long...) “On the seventh day God had completed his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. God blessed the seventh day and declared it h

At Zarephath, when Elijah prayed, God miraculously revived the widow’s dead son (1 Kings 17:17-24). A few years later, when Elisha prayed, God raised the Shunammite’s dead son (2 Kings 4:18-27). In the Book of Acts, Peter prayed for Tabitha and life returned to her dead body (Acts 9:36-43) and God used Paul’s embrace to raise Eutychus after he fell to his death (Acts 20:7-12). The Gospels record the stories of three who had died yet were given life again. The most famous is t

There are ten miracles that are recorded by Matthew, Mark and Luke but not recorded by John. Last week we reviewed the first five of these remarkable events. The sixth is recorded in Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:25-34 and Luke 8:42-48. Matthew’s record is most succinct. “A woman who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years approached from behind and touched the end of his robe, for she said to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I’ll be made well.” Jesus turned and saw her.

Think about the miracles that Moses witnessed as God was leading His chosen people out of captivity. He saw the Red Sea become a super-expressway, water turned to blood, and a walking stick became a living snake. Water gushed out of a broken boulder, manna rained from heaven, and after forty years of walking through the dessert, his shoes never wore out. God also did many miracles during the ministries of Elijah and Elisha. These miracles occurred while God’s chosen people we

The “Three Billy Goats Gruff” had to cross the bridge to get to higher pasture, but under that bridge lived the ugliest, meanest, nastiest troll. I remember the troll when I read the account of the Gadarene Demoniac. After a stormy trip across the Sea of Galilee, Jesus and His disciples arrived on the eastern shores near Gadara. “As soon as he got out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came out of the tombs and met him. He lived in the tombs, and no one was able to res