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Ramblings from Retirement – Freedom! By Pastor Lee Hemen (Retired) March 22, 2021 Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. (Romans 6:16-18 NIV) At what point do believers “submit themselves to the governing authorities”? Paul would write the Roman Christians, who were under severe persecution, that they were to honor God and that those “who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves” (Romans 13:2 NIV). However there does come a time when the Christian must follow the Lord and not man because man can do evil and ...

Ramblings for Retirement – Do Not Allow Evil to Prosper By Lee Hemen (retired pastor) January 11,2021 When Jesus told the crowd that the “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5 NIV)” He never meant for the believer to roll over and allow evil to prosper. He was speaking to a crowd of people who understood what it meant to live under the hardship of Roman rule. The meekness He was referring to here was neither weakness nor spiritual blindness. There are those in the Christian community who are ready and willing to try to fool you into thinking that as a believer you should just roll over and pray and everything will be okay. This is simply not true and is frightening in its ignorance. Jesus went on to develop what He meant when He continued by telling the crowd that day: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And...

Ramblings from Retirement: Give Thanks! By Lee Hemen (Retired Pastor) November 21, 2020 Thanksgiving is coming and it is one of my favorite holidays. The reasons for me are many because I not only love the food and family time but I enjoy what Thanksgiving represents. It is truly an American holiday where we are encouraged to pause and give thanks to God for the blessings He has given us. We discover that the early Pilgrims encouraged this with not just a one day celebration but with their entire lives as well. And far from being the black and white dressed grim faced people many think they were the Pilgrims were actually very joyous and colorful people. They came to these shores not to inflict slavery, as some would erroneously have you swallow, but they came here for religious and personal freedom. We discover that within a very short period of time that their communal form of governance caused huge problems with their colony and they decided to give each person the freedom to produc...

What’s so great about America? - Psalm 33 By Pastor Lee Hemen July 4, 2010 AM There are cynics today who demand that we, as Americans, ask ourselves, “What’s so great about America?” They think that because we live in a country of plenty where over half the world goes to bed hungry, cold, and without proper shelter, that we should not enjoy the freedoms we do in this nation. Homemakers in much of the world will never see in their entire lifetime the abundance and quality of food which the American housewife can choose from in one trip to the grocery store. To be able to step into a Safeway for them would be a dream come true! Is this land of plenty, this freedom of ours merely by chance? Should we ask ourselves, “What’s so great about America?” Benjamin Franklin was leaving the Constitutional Convention and a lady stopped him and asked, “Well, Dr. Franklin, what have you given us?” He replied, “You have a republic, Madame, if you can keep it.” America was formed as a const...