Loading...
Loading...
203 illustrations
All judgments which come upon men in the present are indicative of the final judgment which is to come, and are warnings of that awful event, so that we may not be unprepared to meet it.
The Palestinian Jewish believers, though honest in their conviction, proposed what seemed a reasonable requirement: Gentiles must enter through the *thura* (door) of circumcision, the ancient ordinance prescribed by Elohim through Moses.
This promise speaks of revival with four unmistakable marks.
yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth" (Psalm 119:103).
"We may believe," Maclaren writes, "more than anything He said, riveted these men to Him." Here lies the scandal of mere textual analysis—we read the confession "Thou art the Son of God; Thou art the King of Israel" and wonder...
Consider the heathen world's condition: first, the grossness of its darkness—millions dwelling in spiritual night without the gospel's lamp.
In one sense, they have already been there and returned.
This wise determination encompasses five essential dimensions of Christian commitment.
When Yahweh commanded Moses to smite the rock at Horeb, He demonstrated a principle woven throughout human history: His greatest mercies flow from the most unlikely sources. Consider the secular realm. Demosthenes, a stammerer, became Athens' greatest orator. Homer and...
The psalmist cries, "Take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth" (Psalm 119:43), and herein lies a pastor's deepest dread.
First comes the duty—"I have declared my ways"—the believer's solemn responsibility to make known his experience of God's Word to others.
First, he prays as a learner, confessing his need: "Make me to understand the way of thy precepts." He does not presume knowledge but applies to the Fountain of all wisdom—Elohim himself—requesting understanding of God's statutes.
In antiquity, no emblem better captured Christ's all-pervading presence than the sun—stationed in heaven yet communicating life ceaselessly to earth below.
A superficial glance at our Lord's mission suffices to show that His work was for the sinful.
The gospel of Jesus Christ inaugurates what all Scripture converges toward and radiates from.
Capernaum, meaning "field of repentance" or "city of comfort," sat on the western shore of the Galilean Lake, a prosperous junction where the Damascus-to-Accho highway brought commerce and wealth.
According to Josephus, nine temple gates were overlaid with silver and gold, but one gate of Corinthian brass "far excelled those of gold or silver." This magnificent entrance, also known as Nicanor's Gate or the Shushan Gate, featured bas-relief lily...
First, God secures it for the accomplishment of His elect—those predestined to receive His truth.
Their prejudice—the conviction that miracles *must* conform to established precedent—nearly blinded them to Elohim's work.
This transformation reveals three profound truths about conversion's power.
Yet Christ's call came sovereignly, without miracle or earthly inducement—only the attraction of personal authority and divine grace.
Five fortresses stand against Him: indifference ("What shall we eat?" matters more than salvation), false doctrine inherited from childhood, self-sufficiency ("I can find Him without His help"), spiritual pride ("the gospel is outworn"), and despair ("I can never know Him").
The kingdom lay low, fractured by foreign invasions and internal division, yet the surrounding nations—particularly the Philistines—watched with both enmity and fear.
First, Christ came on pre-incarnate mission through Old Testament theophanies—manifesting Elohim before the Incarnation.