Instant Out of Season

“Open your Bibles with me to 2nd Peter, Chapter 4….” These were the opening words of the sermon tonight at our Saturday evening meeting. There are 2 problems with that. The first problem is that 2nd Peter only has three chapters! In my Bible, there is a blank page after chapter 3. The second problem is that I was the preacher!

God was good, though, (He always is) and the sermon went well after I got over my nerves. The text I was searching for was in Chapter 2 of 2nd Peter in verse 8 “(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds.)” I won’t go into the whole sermon right now, but if you want to, you can follow Lot’s attitude about those unlawful deeds from anger (Genesis 13:12-12) to apathy (Gen 14:12) to acceptance (Gen 19:8).

God had given me a good sermon as I studied earlier in the week. I had no idea it was for tonight, however. You see, our country church has a tradition of calling on preachers to preach without advanced notice. They take “Be instant in season and out of season…” to heart. I am one of three preachers in our small church and we often have visiting preachers as well. Tonight was definitely one of those “out of season” times for me. We had worked outside all day, which was so enjoyable on this beautiful day, but we did not quit in time for everyone to get cleaned up to go to church. My wife ended up not having time to shower so did not get to go, and the rest of us were a full 15 minutes late. I must admit that preaching was not on my mind at all. As a matter of fact, I had not even read my Bible that day. I just got right up, thanked God for the day, and went to work.

After church, I stopped and filled up the van even though we were still three-fourths full. I decided that the price was so low I should go ahead and fill up just in case we have another 20 cent jump in one day which has been so common around here. It was only $2.43 a gallon, which is the lowest I’ve seen in a long time. I was thankful that I had the $26 needed to fill up.

Tomorrow is Homecoming at our church. That means dinner on the grounds! My wife, Lisa, has been preparing food to take. She has also been doing the wash and a bunch of other things. Maybe sometime she will post something here? She does not really like to type and says she will probably leave the blogging to me.
God is good! May He bless each of you reading this.