Title: Sermon in our hearts
The diverse spiritual joy that rises above all labors, earthly suffering, death, in an external sense, and is applied to inner values like piety, virtue, wisdom, is the blessedness which is the result of a proper response to God and to one another, and is always in alignment with the kingdom, rather than to earthly goods and secular values.
Title: After he drove the man out
The one real pleasure in the garden of delight is the presence of the Lord God.
If anything else, the world has lost its expectation of the wonder of the sound of the footsteps of God, and yet man’s every endeavor, learning, physical prowess, is geared toward achieving the bliss of Paradise exclusive of the Creator in its reality.
Let us be reminded that there can be no lasting joy outside the economy of God. The best the world system can offer are the fleeting enjoyments afforded by the cursed environment out of the Garden God had planted in the east, in Eden.
Title: Love your neighbor
Love for God is not so personal so as not to include the people around us, people we relate to in everyday life.
Christianity is a faith of commitment and responsibility. We cannot fully relate with God if we are not of the mind to be responsible for the welfare of others.
A felt affection for God must overflow to our neighbor – with whom we often have friction and clash of character and interests – or it will have no meaning or reason because love had been purposed to be completed in someone else, other than ourselves; and love that returns to God must pass through the test of a sacrificial life lived for others, a love that is ready to give and to forgive, just as the Lord Jesus did not live for himself but for mankind, his neighbor during his tenure on earth.
Title: Tomorrow
No matter how many tomorrows with their assurance of good things and promise and success could be had for the easing of the anxious mind, nothing could give complete hope than the surety of eternal life with God.
The past, the future, time itself and the events that mark the way of life, no matter how fulfilling, sink into insignificance when the hope of the spirit, which we are, fall short of eternity for which we have been conceived by the wisdom and the Word of God.
Title: Go with him two miles
Roman law required one.
The Lord Jesus encouraged an additional mile.
The Jews had to walk a total of four miles coming back to the place of origin.
This is when the Jew refused to take even one step in the service of the oppressor.
Christianity requires sacrifice of the noblest nature. As an act of obedience in the Spirit, we divest ourselves of all self-interest in order to witness to the love of God which surpasses all understanding.
Title: He had compassion on them
The mark of a genuine leader is compassion, when compassion is defined as “to suffer with”.
The Lord Jesus didn’t estrange himself from the darkness and the ignorance and the hopelessness that had oppressed the people and the land.
He had nothing to gain, but all to give.
He was drawn to the people because of their illnesses, their spiritual blindness, their callous rebellion, their superficial worship, their helplessness against attacks by evil spirits, their heavy burdens, their transgressions; and he was more than willing to suffer with them and for them, in order to make them partakers of life and the resurrection they never deserved.
Title: Neither this man nor his parents sinned
Knowing who sinned is the prerogative of God.
Since God is eternally holy, he can identify sin in the temporal realm, in the deepest recesses of our being, even in our intentions and in our thoughts.
The Lord Jesus cannot be the Savior unless he knows who have sinned and the consequences of transgression, as he came as the only solution to lawlessness that salvation might be manifested as the work of God throughout all the generations from Adam until sin and death be swallowed up in victory and time fades into eternity.
Title: You are the Son of God
Who would be able to recognize the Deity and the Kingship of the Lord Jesus but the one in whom there is nothing false; and this would not escape God’s notice and testimony, while a lesser character would have failed to see the Son of God in a carpenter’s son.
Title: Give us this bread
Anyone who desires the bread that gives eternal life must also be aware of the need for others to come and believe in the Lord Jesus.
Salvation is a personal experience, but it is also a universal cause, so the Christian has to reach out to the world with the gospel, and plan his life to include God and the people whom his life might touch.
This is truly the good news, in the sense that it includes the whole world and not the self alone.
Title: To those who sold doves
Even in his righteous indignation the Lord Jesus didn’t want anyone to suffer loss. Had he released the doves, it would have been difficult to recover the birds.
The Lord is exceedingly gracious, but worship must never be a venue to advance any business interest or serve as a platform to market merchandise or a social cause.
Worship is a stage, and the whole congregation performs for the pleasure of God.
We don’t worship Sunday after Sunday to be blessed.
We worship because we have already been blessed.
Scripture explains Scripture.
This article, as part of a series, will try to shed light on the relationship between the two Thessalonian letters, which is the key to understanding (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), although other verses outside these two missives can prove helpful as well.
Let us first put on record the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Theory:
That the Lord Jesus would come in the clouds to fetch the Church in time for the beginning of the 7-year Tribulation Period, take all believers to heaven, where a Marriage Supper will take place, then return to earth with the saints seven years later; and while all this is happening, halfway into the Tribulation Period, the Anti-Christ would be revealed, to be destroyed at the 2nd phase of the Lord’s return.
Simply said, the Rapture Theory teaches two separate and distinct phases of the Lord’s return.
The problem in this interpretation is the failure of Rapture adherents to place 2nd Thessalonians in its proper perspective.
WHY THE SECOND LETTER TO THE THESSALONIANS?
One of the purposes of Paul in writing a second missive to the church in Thessalonica was to correct a misunderstanding concerning the Lord’s return (1 Thess. 4:13-18). It seems that a letter, supposed to have emanated from the Apostles, had been circulating among the believers claiming that the Lord had already returned, causing alarm in the church.
So it is clear that 2nd Thessalonians (2 Thess. 2:1-4) is an amplified explanation of (1 Thess. 4:13-18). The Apostle Paul is not providing a new set of signs for another event, but is merely giving a detailed clarification of the circumstances surrounding (1 Thess. 4:13-18), and the following facts could be gleaned from (2 Thess. 2:1-4):
1) That the coming (1 Thess. 4:13-18) would be a time of being gathered to the Lord
2) That the day would not come until the Apostasy occurs
3) That the Anti-Christ would be revealed first before that day (1 Thess. 4:13-18) comes
The Apostle Paul even puts himself as part of the event (2 Thess. 2:1) “that our being gathered to Him”, which unmistakably points back to (1 Thess. 4:13-18).
So (1 Thess. 4:13-18) will not happen until the Apostasy occurs and the Anti-Christ is revealed, and since the coming of the Lord Jesus as described in (1 Thess. 4:13-18) will result in the destruction of all who reject God (2 Thess. 1:5-10), and the day also when the Lord will be glorified in His holy people (2 Thess. 1:10), then it must necessarily occur at the end of the Tribulation Period.
Will the church go through the Tribulation Period?
Although this will be the subject of another article, let me give you a couple of verses to this effect.
(John 17:15,20)
15 I do not pray for You to take them out of the world, but for You to keep them from the evil.
20 And I do not pray for these alone, but for those also who shall believe on Me through their word,
(Isa 26:19-21)
19 But your dead will live;
their bodies will rise.
You who dwell in the dust,
wake up and shout for joy.
Your dew is like the dew of the morning;
the earth will give birth to her dead.
20 Go, my people, enter your rooms
and shut the doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
until his wrath has passed by.
21 See, the LORD is coming out of his dwelling
to punish the people of the earth for their sins.
The earth will disclose the blood shed upon her;
she will conceal her slain no longer.
Title: The tree of the knowledge of good and evil
There was no bad tree or fruit in the garden eastward in
The problem was that man couldn’t handle the knowledge of good and evil by approaching it in rebellion by way of instant gratification of the senses.
Perception of what is good, and the fulfillment that comes along with it, can be rightly interpreted only as a reality that doesn’t stop at the senses, but is carried along by obedience to the proper resolution of objective, and in this case the possession of knowledge untainted by sin.
Title: In six days do your work
Only those who do their share of six days of honorable work have the right to enjoy rest for body and soul.
The lazy have no entitlement to worship God because while their hands have not reverenced him by an upright occupation, neither will their spirits exalt in the glory of the Lord.
Title: This is how you should pray
Prayer takes us up a mountainside.
Prayer takes us back to the garden where the footsteps of the Lord God could be heard in the cool of the day.
That is what prayer is.
Prayer is a refreshing daily encounter with God in sweet fellowship amidst the newness of physical and spiritual creation.
Title: All these things will be given to you as well
The primary results of righteousness are an appreciation of, and delight in life with the barest of necessities.
Title: Isn’t this the carpenter?
The Creator who can work with his hands like the rest of us commoners is truly overflowing with love for his people, even to those who degrade his claim to Lordship.
God is conveniently near. He speaks our language. He has immersed himself in the issues of our daily lives. He understands our sufferings. He is aware of our needs.
He has clothed himself with humility for our salvation, and power for our resurrection.
Title: Now the Lord God had planted a Garden
God wanted man to continue what he had initiated, and to work in proximity to a place of worship and communion, very near the presence of the Lord.
Even today, we are to submit ourselves to God’s sovereignty by laboring in an atmosphere of fellowship with the Creator, in the direction of the garden of His pleasure, where His presence is a daily expectation, and not away from it.
Title: He walked right through the crowd
Man is helpless before or against God but for what the Lord would allow.
When dealing with the Son of God, we have to bear in mind that we are entering the sphere of eternity past and eternity future in his person. That means we are confronting all the power, wisdom, and energy that could be harnessed in heaven and on earth.
We cannot take him to the brow of the hill, and attempt to push him out of our lives, and not be haunted by the memory that there was no real power in our rejection of his authority.
To our shame, we have only flaunted our weakness and ignorance instead.
Title: It was completely calm
The Lord Jesus had the power to control nature to the very core of the building blocks of matter, so the effect was not superficial or transitory, and could be identified by the spirit of man as an act of eternal wisdom and authority; there was a permanence that was both sublime and relevant.
Title: No one can serve two masters
The heart of service is love.
We do not serve God for the advantage we could gain from the Lord. We serve God because no one else is worthy of love and devotion.
Not ourselves.
Not other men.
Not the whole of creation.
Title: From the sixth hour
Darkness engulfed not only the entire land, but also the hearts of men. The silence was shattered only by groans of lingering death. Gloom descended upon the Light which refused to be smothered.
But victory burst forth from the newly-hewn cavern, even before the stone was rolled away, not to let the Redeemer out, but to allow his followers in.
Title: He saved others
The Lord Jesus went to the cross, not to save but to glorify himself. His running order was not to escape but to conquer death and to sit at the right hand of the Father.
The offense of sin and the sting of death made