CHRIST the SPOILER of principalities and powers (Col. 2:15). To the eye of reason, the cross is the center of sorrow and the lowest depth of shame. In the midst of mockery, jest, scorn, and blasphemy, He dies. Earth rejects Him, and heaven affords Him no light, but darkens the midday sun in the hour […]
“And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’” (Lk 18:13). What a prayer to offer! It opens Heaven to every undeserving sinner. It could be rightly translated, “God, be to me, the sinner, as […]
“The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into a furnace of fire; there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Mt 13:41-42). Count the frail and fragrant blossoms spring has scattered through […]
CHRIST our HELPER: “So we may boldly say: ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?’” (Heb 13:6). Robert Lee was the Superintendent of the Manchester (England) City Mission from 1924 to 1947. It was a united ministry linking practical good works with the power of the Good […]
“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Ps 90:12, KJV). Our days on this planet are so short that the psalmist described them this way: “You have made my days as handbreadths, and my age is as nothing before You; certainly every man at his best state […]
“Jesus on the judgment throne will be consternation for His enemies and consolation for His people.” —J. Murray Psalm 9 will be a shocker on several counts. First, its subject is judgment. Not a-slap-on-the-wrist judgment, but the kind where David says to the Lord, “You have destroyed the wicked; You have blotted out their name forever […]
CHRIST our HIGH PRIEST: “We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses” (Heb 4:15). The Lord Jesus is “a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man” (8:2). “He always lives to make intercession” for His own people and so is “able […]
“Hear in heaven Your dwelling place, and forgive, and act, and give to everyone according to all his ways, whose heart You know” (1 Ki 8:39). Eight times in his prayer, Solomon uses the phrase “hear in heaven.” Why? Because he had earlier asked and answered the question: “Will God indeed dwell on the earth? […]
Anthony Cetola, a young shepherd living south of Rome, jumped at the chance to emigrate to the United States. He found a night-shift job in East Orange, New Jersey and a bed at the YMCA. He had heard the Protestants might try to brainwash him, so was reluctant to accept the tract offered him on […]