Today we celebrate the completion of preaching our way through the New Testament. As you may recall, we began our Walk Through the Bible Series on September 14th, 2014. Wow, that is 84 weeks ago. We have had special Sundays interrupt the schedule due to holidays, vacations and special events, but today we celebrate getting to the book of Revelation. With today’s sermon, we have completed preaching all the way through the New Testament consistently covering one sermon per book.
We now have 12 sermons to go before we complete the Old Testament. I want to stay in the book of Revelation for a while in order to preach through the 7 Beatitudes of Revelation. We are living in the days of growing doubt and fear about the future. It is becoming harder to see where our world is headed except to recognize that unless God intervenes things are going get progressively worse. These 7 Beatitudes provide assurance and hope for hard times. Nothing we encounter today comes anywhere near the persecution and pressure God’s people endured when John wrote Revelation. You will see today when I preach about the word “BLESSED” and the number “SEVEN” that God has a powerful word for all of us during difficult times like these. So, in between the weeks that I preach from the Old Testament, I will preach sermons based on the 7 BEATITUDES of Revelation. You will not want to miss a single one.
Here are the top ten reasons why you think you may not be reading your Bible enough:
10) The preacher announces that the sermon is from Galatians…and you have to check the Table of Contents to discover if it is in the Old or New Testament.
9) You think Abraham, Isaac and Jacob played in a rock band in the 60’s.
8) You open your Bible to Luke and a WWII savings bond drops out.
7) Your favorite Old Testament patriarch is Hercules.
6) A small band of woodchucks has made a nest in Psalms.
5) You become frustrated because you cannot find Charlton Heston in either the Concordance or Index of your Bible.
4) You discover that the Song of Solomon is not a hit tune.
3) You think the Minor Prophets worked underground.
2) You thought the pastor said, “Turn to first condominiums.”
And the number 1 reason you know that you have not been reading your Bible enough is:
1) Your kids get tired of you telling your favorite bedtime story from the Bible: “Jonah the Shepherd Boy and his Ark of Many Colors.”