Hello friends, I'm Wayne Shepherd, inviting you to listen to the following Bible teaching message by Paul Scharf. Paul is a Church Ministries representative for the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, serving in the Midwest. You'll find all of his ministry resources at sermonaudio.com slash pscharf, where he provides new content on a regular basis, including a weekly column that he writes, along with news and updates. Right now, we encourage you to follow along as we open God's Word for today's presentation. It's our prayer that the Lord God will use this teaching to bring glory to Himself and to work faith in each of our hearts. Here now with the sermon is Paul Scharf. Well, good morning and Merry Christmas. It is a wonderful joy to be with you this morning. I am Paul Scharf. I'm privileged to be a church ministries representative with the honor of representing the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, which turns 84 years old this month. And that is a very rare thing in the Christian world, to have a ministry that continues according to its founding purpose and to really be stronger than ever after 84 years. also marks 80 years of our flagship resource, the Israel My Glory magazine, our award-winning global outreach magazine that's been to all seven continents. and we have some copies on the back table for you. I apologize that my wife is not with me this morning. She sends her greeting, but I am so glad to be here. What a wonderful joy and opportunity to be with you. Thank you for coming out on this cold Christmas morning. The Lord prepared all of this for us. I had the opportunity to speak in Adele last night at Grace Bible Church and then to be here today. We were planning on not quite this cold of a trip and little different circumstances, but it's still so wonderful to be with you and thank you for coming today. giving yourself to worshiping the Lord on this Christmas morning, and it's just a privilege to be with you. I'll just share a quick introduction and update about our ministry, and then we'll get right into our subject this morning, because I know everyone here came to church today to learn about Hanukkah, is that right, on Christmas morning? Well, I think you'll see why it's appropriate, I trust, Lord willing, before we're done. And it's been, by the way, a real joy to get to know Pastor Kurt over these years, eight years already. Wow. I think I was just kind of getting involved with IFCA regionals right after you came here. Where did Pastor Kurt go? There he is, okay. And thank you for your work also with the Slavic Gospel Association and for your ministry here. And yes, I was here a number of times in the past. Some of you might remember me in particular for being here with Dr. Whitcomb in past years a few times. But it's wonderful to be here now on behalf of the Friends of Israel. Here is my webpage within the Friends of Israel for our ministry, where I post content on a regular basis on sermonaudio.com, which is, I know, a wonderful tool that you're also familiar with. And you can always find my personal material there at sermonaudio.com slash P-S-C-H-A-R-F. If you forget who that guy was who spoke on Christmas about Hanukkah and you want to contact me, you can always find me and connect with me there as well. I show this slide to first of all say one of the wonderful blessings of the past year is that Dr. Jimmy DeYoung, Jr. has added me as a broadcast partner on prophecytoday.com, and he's interviewed me a few times on his radio program. I want to give praise to the Lord for that, but also to say that if you go to my sermon audio page, you can find the interviews that he's done with me where we give just a nutshell version of the Feast of Tabernacles and the Feast of Dedication Hanukkah, which are very important for our subject today. If you want to dig deeper, beyond what we'll have time to go into this morning. And there's a more extensive teaching about Hanukkah in general also on my sermon audio page. So if today whets your appetite for more, you can go there and find some more information. I write a weekly column that runs in a couple of places in addition to my sermon audio page, including on sharperiron.org. And I just finished a series for Advent on some little-known prophecies of Christmas, and I invite you to read that as you have some time here maybe this week ahead. Also, we have a weekly email that we would love to add you if you're interested to stay in contact with our ministry So that leads me to say I have a display table in the back with those magazines on and other free literature Some other things that I'll talk about in just a moment and a contact form and if you'll sign the form you'll get a free subscription to our magazine Israel my glory and You'll also be in contact with the Friends of Israel, but the most direct blessing for us is if you'll sign your email and give your consent by checking the box, you'll be part of our newsletter, which just turned over a year old, and we send out to more than 800 people, but we're just beginning, and we'd love to add you, and that's really the best way long-term to stay in touch with our ministry, and we would be glad to have you sign up there on the table before you go.