November 25^th 2018

9:30 am ---------------------------------Fulness, Blessing & Refreshing From the Gospel – Romans 15:17-33

10:00 am --------------------------The Young King Sent to His Brethren; David – Part 2 – 1 Samuel 17:1-29

Wednesday: 7:00 pm ------------------------------The Conquering King David – Part 3 – 1 Samuel 17:30-58

Spiritual Famine

Behold, the days come, saith the LORD God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD. – Amos 8:11

Sometimes God is pleased to send a famine to a nation, to a country or to a particular region. A famine occurs when God withholds rain from heaven. Naturally speaking without rain (water) no life can be sustained for long. Water is imperative and necessary for the sustaining of life.

Sometimes God is pleased to send a spiritual famine, not a famine of bread or water, “but of hearing the words of the Lord.” No doubt we live in such a day of such spiritual famine.

Sometimes God is pleased to send spiritual famine individually to one of His elect people. I have experienced such a spiritual famine. Have you? Are you now? When you pray, do the heavens seem to be as iron? When you hear the Word of God preached, does your heart feel indifferent and cold to Christ, your only Mediator between God and man? Has your heart on earth become as brass? If it has, then you may be experiencing a “spiritual famine.”

Jesus Christ, the Well of Living Water, the Fountain of Life, that River that flows from God above, is absolutely crucial and necessary for the sustaining of spiritual life. Child of God, it NEVER RUNS DRY. O thirsty one, if you find yourself in “spiritual famine” may God enable you to come to this water and continue to drink from the Fountain and Well of Living Water. The true believer always will. Our Lord told the woman at the well that whosoever drank of the water she dipped from Jacob’s well would certainly thirst again. “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:14) – David Eddmenson

Letter from an Older Preacher to a Younger

“I trust that the Lord will be pleased to bless and strengthen you spiritually and in your ministry. I honestly feel that the ministry is one of the most difficult and discouraging occupations. We war against spiritual opponents and sometimes they get the better of us. We all go through such times and it is good for us for it helps us to apply to ourselves the message we preach to others. God is still in control, even when we feel depressed.

I often think that our discouragements come from the fact that we either expect too much from ourselves or others instead of being content with what the Lord gives. Noah preached 120 years and only 7 people went with him into the ark . . . and they were all members of his own family!

God has promised to be with the faithful preachers of the gospel, “to the end of the world”, and we have not got there yet! Keep preaching, and keep trusting. We look for results; God looks for faithfulness. The results are His prerogative.”

– From Bill Clark, missionary, written to me when a young pastor

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Humbled or Angered