Loading...
10,045 illustrations — Lessons from history, biography, and world events
Yahweh emphasizes through repetition what He intends His people to grasp firmly: the inheritance of the righteous is certain and eternal.
SermonWise.ai generates complete sermon outlines for any passage across 17 theological traditions.
Maclaren observes that the Hebrew *choli* (sicknesses) and *makob* (sorrows) resist our modern distinction between bodily and spiritual disease.
Her crosses and losses in Moab became God's instrument of instruction, turning her soul from a cursed country toward the blessed land of promise.
Punishment Threatened To masters who wrong their servants: (1) By defrauding them of clothing, food, or wages; (2) By imposing labours beyond their strength; (3) By afflicting them with reproaches and unjust stripes.
The dominant image throughout this passage is courtroom litigation—the great controversy of God *versus* Idols, where God Himself appears at the bar of men to plead His cause and call witnesses.
The psalmist approaches Scripture not as mere literature but as the utterance of Elohim *Theos*—God Himself.
Judah had forsaken their Rock, their *Elohim* of salvation, and in that abandonment rushed to cultivate 'gardens of pleasures' and 'vine slips of a stranger.' They nursed these alliances with Damascus with frantic care, as Maclaren observes: 'In a day...
Exell observed in *The Biblical Illustrator* (1887) that we might divide any land into three parts: open enemies, false professors, and genuine Christians.
This geographical exactitude, Maclaren observes, marks the account as history rather than legend.
Mercy (*eleos*) differs fundamentally from goodness—it presupposes guilt.
When the prophet confronted Israel's transgressions, they protested their innocence, citing their diligent worship attendance.
The first, *El* (אל), designates Elohim as the Mighty One—the Supreme Power who sustains all creation.
The Hebrew verb denotes not merely glancing but *epistrophē*—a complete turning around, reorienting one's entire direction toward God.
Rather than dismiss these prayers as expressions of unholy personal malice, Exell proposes a principle: examine what Yahweh Himself declares about such utterances.
Isaiah 58:16 declares: "Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles." This remarkable promise describes the Church's sustenance through the wealth, power, and resources that nations and kings willingly contribute to her growth. The imagery is maternal, not predatory....
This promise speaks of revival with four unmistakable marks.
When the prophet of Elohim commanded him to dismiss his Israelite mercenaries, the king's immediate protest was not 'Is this right?' but 'What about the hundred talents of silver I have already paid?' He made consequences his first question when...
Though his wars were justifiable, even righteous in their cause, the blood upon his hands disqualified him from constructing the sanctuary of Elohim.
After Christianity's establishment, no further dispensation of Divine will shall follow.
why tarry the wheels of his chariots?" This cry of Sisera's mother—hoping yet half-despairing—echoes through the hearts of multitudes in the stern fight of existence and the moral campaign of consecrated life.
He declares, 'These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended'—preparing them not merely for persecution from the pagan world, but for something far more insidious: the organised Church itself becoming their most rampant enemy.
Exell identifies how the term "conversion" suffers constant misapplication—a Chinaman becoming American, a philosopher abandoning materialism, or someone transferring denominational membership.
Ancient Canaan typified heaven in four essential respects: it was a promised land whose possession rested upon Adonai's covenant word; it was territory where Elohim dwelt peculiarly present; it offered fruition and abundance; and it came as a free gift,...
the Lord said to thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel.' Yet Maclaren cuts through their rhetoric with surgical precision: 'it had taken the elders seven and a half years to feel the force of these reasons, and probably their...