It is not God's plan to take us by surprise. Throughout scripture there is the rolling thunder of the Deity's voice resounds: "I'm going to do it! Get ready! Pay close attention! Here comes what I promised!" We call such predictions "prophecy," history written before it happens. And about nothing is God more prophetic, more predictive, than Jesus Christ. (from the Foreword) In Long Time Coming! Stephen Crotts proclaims the richness of Jesus' birth. Noting that the Lord always tells us ahead of time what he is about to do, his fourteen sermons based on Old Testament lectionary texts examine how God foretold in Isaiah's prophetic ministry that he would save and redeem humankind. Sermon titles include:

• Still Small Voice -- Isaiah 11:1-10
• When A Halo Slips -- Jeremiah 31:7-14
• What Does Your God Say About People Like Me? -- Isaiah 42:1-9
• Let Sleeping Dogmas Awake! -- Isaiah 58:1-9a (9b-12) Stephen M. Crotts, a North Carolina native, was educated at Furman University (B.A.) and Emory University (M.Div.). He recently left the senior pastorate of the 1,500-member Myrtle Grove Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, North Carolina, to become the director of the Carolina Study Center, a campus ministry in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. A member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Crotts is a popular speaker and a frequent contributor to Christian magazines. This is his seventeenth book.