God’s good and acceptable and perfect will, believe it or not, awaits your willingness (Rom 12:1-2). After all the work done since Zerubbabel and his company arrived, through Ezra and Nehemiah’s influence, and the people’s hard work and sacrifice, it would have been a fiasco if only a few people lived in the city. We […]
CHRIST the ULTIMATE REALITY: “If anyone…does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing…” (1 Tim 6:3-4). When men reject Christ, they know nothing. Our universities are filled with professors that the world considers wise. But what […]
“Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ…” (Rom 16:25). Paul took the gospel personally, didn’t he! And yet he understood its power was in the presentation of the Word, and of the Lord Jesus in particular. John Duncan began his theological study while […]
Andrew Stenhouse tells of a furlough trip from Chile on the Sydney Star, a frozen-meat ship. It had only a few passengers, one an Englishman named Smith. After a botched surgery, he was returning home in a sick-berth cabin. “I asked if he had any hope for eternity. He answered, ‘None whatever.’ I explained God’s […]
How good to know that God promises to keep His people, and then promises to keep His promises! There were 84 men who ratified this covenant with the Lord when they “placed their seal on the document” (Neh 10:1). The Lord had made and reaffirmed many covenants with His people: with Abraham (Gen 12:1-3; 15:1-21), reiterated to […]
JESUS NEVER FAILS: ““Behold! My Servant whom I uphold…He will not fail nor be discouraged” (Isa 42:1, 4). Charles Spurgeon tells the following story: I shook hands after the sermon this morning with a good missionary of Christ from West Africa. He has been there 16 years. I believe they reckon four years to be […]
“Remember me, O my God, for good!” (Neh 13:31). Three times in this prayer, Nehemiah asks the Lord to remember him. Did he think God would forget him? No. This idea that God remembers His own is common in Scripture. “God remembered Noah” (Gen 8:1) after the flood; He “remembered Abraham” (Gen 19:29) after the […]
“For the Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb 4:12). The paradox of the Bible is this: At the same time it […]
The willingness to be, and to have, just what God wants for us would set our hearts at rest. Following the Feast of Tabernacles, there was still more to learn from the Law. So “on the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, in sackcloth, and with dust on their […]