“‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts” (Zech 4:6). Do you pray, asking for the Spirit? The Lord Jesus instructs us to do this, in Luke 11:13. Not for His presence (guaranteed to God’s people, 2 Cor 5:5), but for His fullness; not for the baptism (an […]
“The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus” (Jn 12:21). Sometimes the enemy tries to convince us that no one is interested in the gospel. Not true. Millions today will receive earth-shattering news—inoperable cancer, a spouse is leaving them, job loss, or […]
“You have wearied the Lord with your words; yet you say, ‘In what way have we wearied Him?’ In that you say, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them,’ Or, ‘Where is the God of justice?’” (Mal 2:17). Isaiah 40:28 states that “the Creator of […]
Beware the mid-life crisis, thinking you can handle yourself by now. That’s when the devil gets you! Young Josiah was relentless in seeking to obey the Book found in the house of the Lord. Thankfully, it wasn’t all negative, dealing with past sins. The nation celebrated with him in keeping the Passover. But following that, […]
Sam Hadley, a drunkard transformed by Christ, was used by God to see thousands reached in New York. On the way to California to preach, he stopped in Detroit, where an old couple asked him to pray for their drunkard son, whom they had discovered was living in San Francisco. One evening the Christians of […]
“With what shall I come before the Lord?…Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil?…He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:6-8). It isn’t […]
Josiah’s purging went all the way back to Solomon; his Passover the best since before the judges! There was nothing superficial about Josiah’s work. He had destroyed Solomon’s shrines to his wives’ pagan gods. Now he turned his attention to the counterfeit worship set up by Jeroboam at Bethel (ironically meaning “the house of God”). […]
How easy it is to become preoccupied with earthly things. This was the story of Demas. Paul says of his former co-worker, “For Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica” (2 Tim 4:10). It was not the present evil world, as we sometimes misquote it. In fact, he […]
Ruskin said that God graciously bears with many things in our hearts, but not second place. Hearing the two-pronged news, Josiah was not the least dissuaded from clearing the land of idolatry. Judgment may come, but he would do his part in driving back the spiritual darkness across the land. So first, “The king went […]