The Joshua Victor Theory

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Our Old Testament reading from 1 Kings is a couple of verses short, because someone took out the repetition of a question and answer between God and Elijah. The prophet Elijah meets God on Mount Horeb, another name for Mount Sinai. So what is the repeated question and answer? God asks: “ What are you doing here Elijah?” The first time God asks this, Elijah has arrived on the mountain and is staying in a cave. The second time is after God has beckoned him outside of the cave, to witness the tearing wind, the earthquake, the fire, and the gentle whisper. Then God repeats the question, in the gentle whisper: “ What are you doing here Elijah?” Both times Elijah answers exactly the same: “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to...

The final sermon in the Lenten series adapted from Dr. Reed Lessing's series on Jonah the prophet. Dr. Lessing is professor of Old Testament at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO.  Once Robert Ingersoll, a famous atheist, delivered a dramatic challenge in a speech attacking the belief in God. He took out his watch and challenged God to prove that He exists and is almighty by striking Ingersoll dead within five minutes! First there was silence, then people became uneasy. Some left the hall, unable to take the nervous strain of the occasion, and one woman fainted. At the end of the allotted time, the atheist sneered, “See! There is no God. I am still very much alive!” After the lecture a young fellow said to a Christian lady, “Well, Ingersoll certainly proved something tonight!” Her reply was memorable. “Yes he did,” she said. “He proved God isn’t taking orders from atheists tonight.” How true! God doesn’t take orders from anyone, even Jonah. God’s mercy, shown to the Assyrian...