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268 illustrations
Israel had witnessed Yahweh's deliverance from Egypt—the plagues, the parted sea, manna from heaven—yet within weeks of Moses ascending to receive the Torah, the people demanded Aaron fashion a golden calf for worship.
Consider a man charged with trespass on his neighbor's property.
Exell applied to Victorian London with urgent clarity.
Sin, defined in 1 John 3:4 as *paranomia* (transgression of law), springs from contempt of God's authority and forfeiture of His favour.
The angel rebuked him: "See thou do it not" (Revelation 22:8-9).
Isaiah 9:10 records a defiant boast spoken in Ephraim and Samaria: "The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones; the sycamores are cut down, but we will put cedars in their place." Scholars suggest these words...
Early opportunity marked his life: Christ called him to apostleship, included him in prayer (Luke 6:12-13), and recognized gifts suited for kingdom work.
Yet Yahweh has opened a way of reconciliation for sinners who have grossly offended Him.
We must never wrench Bible passages from their context and treat them as infallible Scripture when they are merely the words of men.
The psalmist presents a full-length portrait of the unawakened sinner, drawn by the unerring pencil of truth.
Christians remain exposed to divine curse if guilty of the sins to which it appertains—not the curse of condemnation for believers, but the curse retained on record for those who practice wickedness.
First, when God's threatenings produce no alarm in us—when warnings of wrath fail to compel flight—we prove ourselves mockers.
What does it mean to make light of Christ's gospel?
This divine knowledge produces fourfold effects: it stimulates spiritual activity, restrains from transgression, excites desire for pardon, and braces the soul in duty.
Yet Elohim had a deeper purpose: Peter must become an eyewitness to all of Christ's sufferings, that the Church might know the cost of discipleship.
Strangers with thee *in life*: Those united in Christ alone are united in truth; all other bonds fracture under ultimate scrutiny.
In these proverbs of purity, the wise man personifies wisdom's rival standing in earth's great thoroughfares, bidding simple youth to shameful pleasures along the broad and crowded way.
The book of nature and providence lies open to all humanity, yet the heathen philosophers shamefully wandered from it, erring grossly in their pursuit of vile affections.
The first is the "great red dragon" of Revelation 12—Satan himself, bearing seven heads and ten horns, the ancient serpent who wars against heaven and hungers for the saints' blood.
In the first, one offense brought condemnation upon all mankind by a just and inevitable law.
Yet when a boulder interrupts this relentless current, something miraculous occurs: within seasons, a garden flourishes on its leeward side.
All men walk in paths as different as the characters they sustain—saints or sinners—yet sinners remain insensible to the objects leading them toward ruin.
We recoil from the depths of human depravity described here, yet the lesson cuts deeper than scandal.
Sin operates as a *phoros* (burden)—an insupportable load that detains sinners from Elohim, the only source of relief.