Character and Life
A Message for the Earnest Seeker
In much the same way as the Shekinah glory lights the holiest place of all, so also are we ‘lighted’ to the degree that first the natural (open daylight at the brazen altar), and later the ‘religious’ (the seven-branched oil-fed priestly serviced Menorah) gives way finally to the unaided Presence of God alone. T. Austin-Sparks […]
A Priesthood Made Ready for the Future
The Melchizedek Priesthood An edited transcript of message # S04-29. We have previously looked at one or two aspects of the Levitical function of the Aaronic priesthood, but I want to begin to look at the expression of the priesthood in the future. There is clearly an Ezekiel temple. In Ezekiel 40 and from there […]
At the Age of Twelve
At the age of twelve, Jesus is giving us a lesson in the making of a son, and the episode reveals an insight into the definitive principles of sonship that are applicable for sons (and daughters) of God in every generation.
Beyond Categories
The Lord is looking for a virginal first-fruits company that will follow the Lamb withersoever He goes, and in these last days, this ‘withersoever’ is going to bring us to places we never could have imagined and where we ourselves would balk, like Peter when he said, “Let this be far from You, Lord.”
Born from Above
He (Jesus) was born in a stable, and it is a debatable question to ask if He will come and have an advent in any person, except in that same way. He will not enter through any other door but the lowliest door, coming in as the Highest. So if we try to open a door to Him from the level of our own superiority or self-esteem, as if we deserve a visitation, He simply will not come. He will only come into a stable, the lowliest place. His advent is a paradigm and a pattern. It is a statement, not just once but always.
Contemporary Worship: The Malady of the Church
Whatever is self-initiated, however well-meaning the motive, is not of God. He alone is the Creator-King who disposes from the Throne what He wills when He wills.
David’s Cry for Mercy
The Lord wants to pull out all the stops and touch a subject that has suffered chronic and historic neglect: the Cross, which is central to all that I will be sharing about the crucifixion of Jesus, His death and atonement, and sin and righteousness.
Eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
Few of us, even as Christians, realize the continual danger that this ultimate temptation constitutes. It is the delicious area of being ‘as God’ – judging and deciding, usually about others, those delicate and intangible things that can only be known by Him who alone is Judge.
FREN-10 Le Royaume de Dieu
English Title: The Kingdom of God
Godly Critiquing of our Church Life
The scriptures encourage us to “examine ourselves.” Critiquing would be a synonym for examining. We need to examine our lives, and events in our lives, in order to get their fullest meaning. If our lives were examined in the biblical sense, we would end up with fewer divorces, more sustained marriages, a richer quality of fellowship, and more […]
Holiness – The High Calling of God in Christ Jesus
I have never heard anyone else equate perfect holiness as being the mark of the high calling of God. Usually ‘high calling’ would be some final and ultimate expression of ministry in the bringing of the Word, but in Spurgeon’s view, which we need to soberly consider, the issue of high calling is the issue of holiness.
Lying Signs and Wonders: Deceptions of the Last Days
I would appreciate your sympathy as I try to address a subject that is already dividing many of God’s people into defensive and opposing camps. One is put into the uncomfortable, if not dangerous, even in raising elementary cautions, of seeming to oppose to what in the eyes of many is holy and of the Spirit of God.
Moses at the Burning Bush
This is more than just an episode out of the life of Moses. There is something here for our deepest consideration, and I hope it will be for some as much a confrontation as it was for Moses. We have as much a requirement to be met by the God of the burning bush and be sent by Him to deliver a people out of bondage.
On Adolescence
At what stage is the church-at-large presently? Infancy is the discovery of itself in thumb-sucking egocentricity and fascination over its own body and that which supplies it. Adolescence is the awareness of “deeper [biologically] currents” from within and the excitement of things without that gratify new longings.
One Thing You Lack
“A certain ruler” (Luke 18:18), rich, accomplished, noble, Torah observant, full of “great possessions” asked Him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” That question is undeniably great—not only as the question of what lies beyond death, but for our purposes, the critical enablement for a sustaining, overcoming, last days’ life of discipleship, service […]
Psalm 24: Seeking the Lord
In other words, the earth and all that dwell on it belong to the Lord because He is the Creator of both. God owns what He originates; it belongs to Him for His own purposes. Imagine announcing to mankind that their little pieces of territory to which they have given their national name are really the Lord’s, and that the nations were established for His own purposes rather than their own. Those that dwell in the nations are dwelling there for God’s sake. This foundational truth will take a profound boldness to proclaim.
Psalm 43: A Cry of Distress
Though short, this psalm contains many of the classic elements that are to be found in the whole psalmist hymnody. It is a psalm of lament issuing out of distress, but a kind of psalm that invariably ends with a note of acclamation of God in praise, in recognition, and in celebration.
Psalm 74: Crucified Faith
Often God is appealed to remember past events. The faith of the psalmist is that the God who was faithful then, even though things look despairing now, will yet come through. True faith is a crucified faith. The line of attack of the enemy of our souls is to devastate the faith by making it a non Cross-centered faith.
Righteousness in the Old Testament
Righteousness as understood in the OT (Old Testament) is a thoroughly Hebraic concept, foreign to the western mind and at variance with the common understanding of the term. The failure to comprehend its meaning is perhaps most responsible for the view of OT religion as “legalistic”…but thanks largely to recent German scholarship, this important motif of biblical faith has been clarified.
Some Thoughts on Romans 10
“Calling on the name of the Lord” is no glib incantation, some vocalization to which someone may be coaxed or some mindless ‘decision’ made. It is the taking for one’s self the absoluteness of the Lordship of Christ in the forfeiting henceforth of all personal autonomy over one’s own life. Is it any wonder then that we see so little evidence of this transaction in the multitudes professing to be ‘saved’?