2011 Sermons

by Pastor Mark Downey

Most of my messages are preaching to the choir, but today I’d like to address the friends and relatives of the choir, the outsiders to the Christian Israel truth; and I’m sure you’ll find some food for thought as well. Sometimes I write for the purpose of helping Christians find the purpose of their lives in Christ. Jesus said, “I have come that you may have life, and that you may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). This has profound implications. Bread… something used to hold the main part of a sandwich together; a side item to go along with the main meal; something children tear the crust from before eating. Bread in our modern culture is really not a necessity. One could function quite easily without bread. Well, not so in biblical days.

At the very center of life during the times of Jesus and earlier, stood the stalks of grain that carried man from day to day. Without bread, there was no life. It is no accident that the most famous prayer in the Western world begins with, “Our Father, Who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Give us this day our daily bread.”  Daily bread – life - one day at a time. The simplest things in the Bible often offer the deepest truths. It is those very things which man often quickly writes off as insignificant or secondary that can open the door to the great spiritual truths of which Jesus spoke of.

Pastor Don Elmore

June 5. 2011

by Pastor Mark Downey

Continued from Hosea Chapter 1 by Pastor Don Elmore

Several months ago Pastor Elmore asked me if I’d like to do tag team sermons on the first and second chapters of Hosea for a visit we were making to Pastor Harness’  church in Indiana and a second time for a Bible study farm family and I thought it was a great idea.  This is our third presentation and Don said we could probably expand our talks because we don’t have the time constraints we had before.  So, I have added some new material to elaborate on what Hosea was and is telling us. 

Don and I learned something about each other’s approach to sermons over lunch one Sunday after church, because breaking bread with fellow believers is a great way to fellowship.  Well, Don usually doesn’t come up with a title until he’s finished with the text.  On the other hand, I just can’t get started until I come up with a title.  I was guessing that Don was going to title his sermon ‘Hosea 1’.  I thought long and hard about what I what title my sermon and after much contemplation and deliberation, I finally decided upon ‘Hosea 2’. 

Neither of us had foreknowledge of what the other’s sermon was going to say, and in that manner of presentation, I think it may be more of what the Holy Spirit has to say than us.  I’ve been to many Identity conferences over the years and the good ones are when the speaker’s messages (and I’ll use a biblical phrase) are “fitly framed together”, they’re touching the same theme and convey the influence and beauty of the mind of Christ in His servants.  So let’s now look at how Hosea 1 and 2 match up. 

Pastor Don Elmore

May 22, 2011

Sermon Notes:

Contemporaries: Joel, Amos (Israel) , Micah (Judah), Jonah, Obadiah and Isaiah (Judah)

Hosea prophesied during the reign of all these kings (59-70 years):

Kings of Judah:

by Pastor Mark Downey

Today’s Scripture reading was Proverbs 4:14-23 and apparently Esau-Edom partakes of a communion of sorts, “Eating the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence” (v.17).  I’m reminded of John’s vision in Rev. 17:6, “And I saw the woman [Mystery Babylon] drunken with the blood of the saints and… the martyrs of Jesus.”  What they commune with is the Babylonian Talmud and hang on every word that proceeds from the mouth of their vile rabbis.  A rabbi is a jew who is proficient in twisting and convoluting the intent of God’s Word.  Evidently, those who enter the path of Talmudic wickedness can’t sleep until they’ve done some mischief and cause people to fall and stumble (v.16). 

The current events of this past week are more confirmation of the dialectics of a created solution to satisfy a created problem, which produces the desired result.  What is that result?  A stumblingblock to perceive reality. 

Pastor Don Elmore

May 1, 2011

Biblical history surrounding king Nebuchadnezzar.  Audio only. 

by Pastor Mark Downey

Today’s Scripture reading is Ezekiel 13:16-23.  Ezekiel is talking about the smoke and mirrors of false prophets and their lying prophecies.  God puts these liars to shame through His divine judgment and making them the object of ridicule.  Shame on the political soothsayers and pundits who have been telling tall tales in recent weeks to the American people and the world.

I don’t know about you, but with each passing week I get the impression that there is an escalation in totalitarianism and a loss of control over our personal freedoms.  It’s just a continuous social erosion of one thing after another.  It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion.  I’m just glad I’m not on that train.  I was going to title this message ‘Better Living Under Babylonian Bondage Through the Christian Faith’, but that was a bit wordy.  So I chose the often quipped cliché ‘Your papers please,’

by Pastor Mark Downey

Isaiah 25 continues the thinking of the prophet from the previous reading in chapter 24, from Part 1 of this message, and that is: the foundations of the earth do shake (both physical and spiritual), and there shall be destruction and tribulation and if at first God does not get your attention, there’s more where that came from, and will come, until He is exalted gloriously, when God’s sovereignty confounds all religions and puts to shame the imperfect governments of man.  God can make a city a heap of rubble.  So too, when man desires to be like the Most High and flaunts his science to wipe a city off the face of the earth, we witness the mystery of iniquity i.e. man making himself God.

by Pastor Mark Downey

The recent developments in Japan give us a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘movers and shakers of the world’.  It used to mean people who initiate actions and get things done, but with one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded, spawning a ferocious tsunami, killing thousands of people, my first thought was to put on my tin foil hat and consider whether or not this catastrophe was initiated by an act of God or the jewish conspiracy.  Either way, God is in control.  If God knows the beginning from the end, then everything that’s unfolding is predestined and that’s something comforting to know if you’re a Christian.  I have never had a gut feeling about an event having such prophetic overtones than what has happened in the last week. 

Most people would ask, “What jewish conspiracy?”  And I’d say, “The one they talk about all the time on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.”  Of course I’m being facetious, just the opposite is true, because the media is owned by the jews and they’re not going to be talking about how they conspire and lie (or should I say the Big Lie?).  I happened to be up March 11th at 2am when the events in Japan became ‘breaking news’ and it was as compelling as 9/11 was. 

by Pastor Mark Downey

I read recently that scientists had discovered that goldfish had a memory retention of two seconds.  So you could imagine two goldfish in a bowl complete with castle and plants talking to each other.  First goldfish, “Look at that castle.”  Second goldfish, “What is a castle?”  First goldfish, “Why do you ask?”  Second goldfish, “Ask what?”  There are an increasing number of people like that in our society.  But, goldfish swim all their lives in that bowl and are unaware of the water they swim in.  Some people are completely oblivious to the intellectual and spiritual sea we swim in with all of the philosophical undercurrents and riptides.  That ocean of information has been spawned by mass media and various mediums of persuasion.  When Daniel (12:4) spoke of “an increase in knowledge”, he may have been alluding to an information overload.  Because of this saturation bombing of the mind, the world is in a state of confusion and chaos.  And this is by design to mold public opinion like putty.