“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Mt 23:37). Six hundred years before, Jeremiah asked, “Who will have pity on you, O […]
Strange how the people must be taken far away to discover what He had given them back at home. “Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king” (2 Ki 23:36), and was dead by age 36. During that time, he was enthroned and renamed by Pharaoh Necho of Egypt, becoming his chief fund-raiser in […]
J. Budziszewski, a “repentant atheist,” writes: “How then did I become undeceived? Not because anyone called my bluff. When I told the faculty of the University of Texas that there is no rationally knowable difference between good and evil and that we aren’t responsible for our deeds anyway, they gave me a job teaching the […]
“Let my heart be blameless regarding Your statutes, that I may not be ashamed” (Ps 119:80). What does it mean to have a blameless heart? The Hebrew word here translated “blameless” is often rendered “perfect.” But the word does not mean sinlessly perfect; that will have to await the moment of our final glorification. It […]
God-hungry men find God. “As the hart pants after the water brooks” (Ps 42:1), so the souls of the Upper-Room crowd panted for the living God. Spiritually naked, they fled to Him to be clothed upon with the blessed Spirit. Empty, they craved to be filled. Powerless, they tarried until they were endued. Bankrupt, they […]
“Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them” (Mk 11:24). Is this really true? It is helpful to note that the word given here as “ask” is better translated “desire,” and strong desire at that. The same word is also rendered […]
“Is not My word like…a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” (Jer 23:29). A couple of undergraduates were standing in one of the quads in Oxford. One was a Christian. In his hand he held a Bible, having come from a church service. The other man looked at him and said, “What have you […]
The world wants you to be sophisticated; God wants you to keep it simple. This story explains what He means. […]
We’re now beginning to see the dominos fall in Judah. But this isn’t random. It’s God’s hand of judgment. With Josiah “buried…in his own tomb…the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, anointed him, and made him king” (2 Ki 23:30). At age 23, Jehoahaz should have known better, but “he did […]