SCRIPTURE – 1 Peter 1:18-19 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. INTRODUCTION What was the purpose of Jesus shedding His blood […]
Public Prayers
Prayer is frequently referred to as ‘talking to God.’ The very nature of the act makes it a very personal thing. It is something that every Christian should engage in several times throughout each day. But there is also such a thing as ‘public prayer.’ We have reference to prayers that are made when we […]
It Takes Courage . . .
*To refrain from gossip when others about you delight in it. *To stand up for an absent person who is being abused. *To live honestly within your means and not dishonestly on the means of others. *To be a real man, a true woman, by holding fast to your Christian ideals when it causes you […]
Teaching the Old Lessons
Every once in a while, some well-meaning but misguided brother will chide us for teaching the old lessons. He will say, “You are answering questions which no one is asking any longer.” By this, he means to squelch our teaching on the first principles of Gospel obedience and salvation by grace through faith; the nature, […]
Blessed Be the God Who Hears! Psalms 28
How do you react to a faithful God who responds to your prayers? Let’s study and learn from David. Read Psalms 28. Before moving directly into this Psalm, be reminded not to read a psalm like you would a narrative. Doing so makes David seem to have a very fickle faith and may just cause […]
Unapproachable Light
In his book, Disappointment with God, Philip Yancey relayed that once, as an experiment, the great scientist Isaac Newton stared at the image of the sun reflected in a mirror. The brightness burned into his retina, and he suffered temporary blindness. Even after he hid for three days behind closed shutters, still the bright spot […]
Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid (revisited)
Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime killed an estimated 6,000,000 Jews. Dozens of other stories recount how individuals will commit horrifying crimes (like going into an elementary school and killing dozens of innocent children or walking into your own high school and killing your classmates and teachers). I have often wondered how things would have […]
Change
We hear a lot about ‘change’. Politicians frequently talk about changing things in government. Educators discuss changing our schools. Societal trends and technological advances have powerfully changed things in our daily lives. We now hear of ‘personal trainers’ who try to help people modify their living habits and routines. So, with all this talk about […]
What Men Have Done to Hell
· Atheists, skeptics and modernists have eradicated it by their “wonderful” powers of “reason”. · “Christian Scientists” have attributed it to improper thinking, the figment of bad imagination, or “malicious animal magnetism”. · Universalists have removed the need of fearing it since they teach that all will be saved anyway. · Unitarians and others have decided that the only […]
Who Cares?
Did you ever think about who turns out the lights and locks the doors at the church building? It may seem a small thing, but it could create some problems if no one did it. The point is, someone accepts the responsibility that most members give very little thought to. The same could be said […]