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“‘Follow Me’: The Call to Discipleship” (Mark 1:14-20) Today we begin a series of four messages based on the four “Follow me” sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. “Follow me”: In saying those words, Jesus was calling people back then to be his disciples. “Follow me”: Jesus is still saying those words to us today. He is calling us to be his disciples. So hear him now, as Jesus says to each one of us: “Follow Me.” Our first entry in this midweek series has to do precisely with “The Call to Discipleship.” We hear it in our...

“In the Wilderness” (Mark 1:9-15)Today is the First Sunday in Lent, and every year on this Sunday the Holy Gospel is an account of Christ’s temptation in the wilderness. This year the reading comes from Mark’s gospel. It’s the shortest, and the most compact and condensed, of the three accounts, but still it has much to speak to us today. So now let’s join our Lord “In the Wilderness.” As I say, this account is very brief, just two verses, as follows: “The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being...

“Repent and Believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:1-20) Today is Ash Wednesday, the first of the forty days of Lent. And while we’re not able to meet in person today, due to adverse travel conditions, we still are able to meet here, online, to meditate on God’s Word. And we’re thankful for that. One thing we’re encouraging our people to do this year for our Lenten devotion is to “Read Mark.” That is, we have recommended a schedule for reading through the Gospel of Mark over the forty days of Lent. The readings average only about seventeen verses a day,...

“Christ’s Transfiguration and Our Hope of Glory” (Mark 9:2-9) O wondrous type! O vision fair Of glory that the Church may share, Which Christ upon the mountain shows, Where brighter than the sun He glows! So we just sang, and so we will now hear, under the theme, “Christ’s Transfiguration and Our Hope of Glory.” Our text is the reading from Mark chapter 9. It begins: “And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely...

“The Jesus Vaccine” (Mark 1:29-39) Have you gotten the vaccine yet? That’s a question that’s been going “viral” lately (yes, pun intended). Have you gotten the vaccine? Everybody’s talking about that, because the vaccine is supposed to protect you from the virus--the Coronavirus, Covid-19. And so, people are lining up at the various vaccination sites in order to get the shot--or two shots, as the case may be. There are a couple of different vaccines available. The two I’ve heard about are the Moderna vaccine and the Pfizer. And so far, the results sound encouraging. The numbers I heard Friday...

“Exclamation Mark: Immediately! Authority! Astonished!” (Mark 1:21-28) The featured gospel in our lectionary this year is the Gospel according to St. Mark. While all four gospels are telling the same story, the story of Jesus, and all four are inspired by the Holy Spirit, each gospel writer tells the Jesus story in his own individual style. And what all readers notice about the way Mark tells the story is the sense of urgency and action he conveys and how the story moves along. Jesus is thrown into conflict right away. We move from one event to another in rapid fashion....

“When Jesus Calls, We Follow” (Mark 1:14-20) “Hark, the voice of Jesus calling, ‘Who will go and work today?’” Yes, true, Jesus calls us “to work for God’s kingdom and answer his call.” But first things first. Before our Lord calls us to go and work, he first calls us to come and receive. Jesus calls us to repent and believe. He calls us to come and follow him. Then we take up the tasks he gives us. And so our theme this morning: “When Jesus Calls, We Follow.” Our text today is the Holy Gospel from Mark 1. Jesus...

“The Baptism with Our Lord” (Mark 1:4-11; Romans 6:1-11) Today we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord. On Wednesday we celebrated the Epiphany of Our Lord. That makes today the First Sunday after the Epiphany. And that means that today, as we do every year on this Sunday, we hear an account of Jesus being baptized, whether from Matthew, Mark, or Luke. This year it’s the account from Mark. And Mark says, “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.” And you say, “OK, so Jesus got baptized. Why is that...

Wearing masks can create a sense of anonymity for an aggressor, while also dehumanizing the victim. This prevents empathy, empowering violence, and murder... Masks are like a handful of sand in an automobile engine, increasing the “friction” at . . . Every. Single. One. Of these billions of daily contact points. We understand that people will say things online that they would never say face-to-face. Masks create a similar sense of anonymity for the aggressor, empowering interpersonal violence, and hostility across our nation... The face is the window to the soul and covering the face with a mask erodes empathy...

“Messengers Marking Out the Messiah” (Mark 1:1-8) In centuries past, in lands where there were kings, when the king was about to go visit various parts of his realm, messengers would be sent out, heralds, to go ahead to each town and announce the soon arrival of that mighty monarch. “The king is coming! Everybody get ready! The king is on his way!” And the people would know what to do. They would clean up any trash littering their town. If there were potholes in the roads, those would get filled in. Got to have everything in order for the...

“Reserved for a King” (Mark 11:1-10) Happy New Year! No, I’m not time-traveling ahead to January 1. But it is a new year today. A new church year, that is. Because today is the First Sunday in Advent, and thus the start of a new church year. And every year on the First Sunday in Advent, we have as the Gospel reading an account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Which seems a little odd, doesn’t it? Here we are in Advent, the season leading up to Christmas, and we get a reading for the start of Holy...

Romero said people who have been vaccinated will be tracked. “Every person that gets immunized will get a card, and they will be entered into our vaccine registry database. We will be able to follow them and know who has been vaccinated and what vaccine they need to receive in the second dose,” Romero said. https://twitter.com/i/status/1330163081624817664

For what it's worth, Rush's fill in today said Sidney Powell will be on the show today. He didn't mention exactly when except "today".

Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who garnered national media attention when they aimed guns at Black Lives Matters protesters in June outside their home, warned during their Monday night speech at the first night of the Republican National Convention that Americans would not be safe in a nation run by the "radical Democrats." "The radicals are not content just marching in the streets," Mark McCloskey said. "They want to walk the halls of Congress. They want power. This is Joe Biden’s party. These are the people who will be in charge." The McCloskeys, both personal injury attorneys,...

Scientists have discovered a ground-breaking bio-synthetic material that they claim can be used to merge artificial intelligence with the human brain. The breakthrough, presented today at the American Chemical Society Fall 2020 virtual expo, is a major step towards integrating electronics with the body to create part human, part robotic "cyborg" beings. Connecting electronics to human tissue has been a major challenge due to traditional materials like gold, silicon and steel causing scarring when implanted. Scars not only cause damage but also interrupt electrical signals flowing between computers and muscle or brain tissue. The researchers from the University of Delaware...

BILL Gates has warned that multiple doses of any coronavirus vaccine could be necessary as he slammed Donald Trump's handling of the pandemic. Microsoft billionaire Gates said "serious mistakes" have been made by the White House as he predicted schools could be closed until fall 2021. Speaking during an interview with Norah O'Donnell on CBS News, Gates said he had faith in the development of a coronavirus vaccine. However, he warned it could take an "unbelievably big number" of doses to beat the virus. He said: "None of the vaccines at this point appear like they'll work with a single...

Today we bring you the future, not from a conspiracy theory site, but from the highest echelons of world government and financial power, the World Economic Forum. Their About Us page says “The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.” Truer words have never been spoken, and today the fine folks at the WEF are doing us a huge favor. They reveal their plan, called the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or 4IR, for world dominance and control. One of the most revealing and disturbing things about the Fourth Industrial...

To mask or not to mask? That’s the question many of us are constantly asking ourselves as we go about our days in various public and non-public spaces, right? Does this store require masks? What about this restaurant or salon? Sure there’s a sign (there’s usually a sign), but will they really enforce it? What about a trip to the park or the local biking trail? Will you be accosted by some mask-shaming Karen if you go for a walk outside? Even for those of us who know it’s mostly nonsense, the sense of others’ negative perception can be real,...

As strange as this may seem, King Solomon is perhaps the greatest prefigure to the final Antichrist in the Bible. You may be thinking, blasphemy! How could God's chosen King of Israel (and wisest man who ever lived) be a prefigure to the Antichrist to come? The answer is that Solomon did not stay faithful to God his entire life. There was a period where he walked away from God and began to worship other gods. As every Christian knows, behind every false god is a demonic entity (1 Corinthians 10:20). Thankfully Solomon seems to have come back to his...

1 Corinthians 1:7 "So that you come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" God's word commands us to pray, seek (Luke 21:36), and wait assiduously and patiently for the soon coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He has given us His word to understand the coming "Beast" system and it's "Antichrist" leader. We are also given prefigures to the coming Antichrist system throughout the Bible. The next Biblical prefigure to the coming Antichrist is Nimrod. Nimrod was the great grandson of Noah, and son of Cush. After the Biblical flood, which is believed...