This word which is translated “Praise ye the Lord,” occurs, as I have counted, twenty-four times in the Book of Psalms, and four times in the nineteenth chapter of Revelation making twenty-eight times altogether in the Bible. In the Psalms it is the Hallelujah of earth and in Revelation it is the Hallelujah of heaven. It is a word which cannot be translated by one word in any other language, and is, therefore, transferred. It is the same in Greek, Latin, German, French, Italian, Dutch and English. It looks as if all nations were practicing for the Hallelujah chorus of …
God is purposeful. He has reasons for allowing this recession to come to America. No doubt He has many purposes, but surely one of His primary goals is the spiritual growth of His people. If we miss what He wants to teach us, we will only become cynical and begin to doubt His love and care.
The first lesson is the most obvious: He wants us to learn that He is with us not just during prosperity but also in times of adversity. When there was famine in the land and Isaac …
The subject of trust, or rather lack of trust, is in the headlines these days. I’m writing at a time when new allegations of sexual abuse by priests are being reported every day. Hundreds of people are coming forward to say that someone they trusted — indeed, someone who supposedly represented the highest degree of integrity — deceived them.
We’ve all heard of the Enron debacle. We are told that when the wealthy knew the ship was sinking, they bailed out on well-endowed life rafts and left the common investor to float on the open sea. One retiree said that …
The Great White Throne Judgment When Terrified Multitudes Stand Before God Unprepared
There is no topic as terrifying as the Great White Throne Judgment…but what do we really know about it? Let’s look at Revelation 20:11-15 together.
Who is on this majestic throne?
We can be sure that Jesus is sitting on this throne, for God has “committed all judgment unto the Son” (John 5:22). Jesus is now the Judge of all the unredeemed. His throne is great, majestic, and being white, signifies His holy justice and impartiality.
If you can’t say yes to that simple question, you can’t affirm you are “walking with God,” which happens to be the greatest honor imaginable. Jesus, who had all power, would rise up before daybreak to commune with His Heavenly Father. Can we do any less?
D.L. Moody, who founded The Moody Church and Moody Bible Institute, was a great evangelist, but also a humble man who sought God with all of his heart. Read his words on daily time with God carefully: “A man can no more take in a supply of …
“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23, ESV).
What Entertains Us?
A recent article in the Chicago Tribune uncovered what I believe to be the most serious threat to the Christian Home. The headline read, “Media Options Swamp Nation.” The bottom line is that the average American spends 9.6 hours a day inhaling media: watching television, going to the movies and surfing the Internet. Two months of every year are spent just watching TV; we have 392 cable channels to choose from and 40,000 DVD titles.
About 70% of the time, pornography falls into the hands of children, so when a friend of mine was a teenager and found a stash of his father’s magazines, he began to browse at the pictures. Though he became a Christian in college, the images stayed with him, and so did his habit. He kept his fantasy world intact, making sure that no one found out about his secret pleasure. He both loved pornography and hated it.
One man with a similar story said, “I lived like …
Just as a small spark can light a whole forest, so “The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body” (James 3:6). With so much potential for good or ill, we should not be surprised that there is a great battle for the control of our tongues.
When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, He took control of the tongues of those waiting for Him. Today some people insist that this experience is for every believer; others are equally convinced that it is only one …
Most of us wish that God would work on us while we are asleep so that we could wake to face the day with unwavering confidence and faith! We’d like to be renewed by osmosis, hoping that just being in the vicinity of Christians would make us more Christ-like and that opening a Bible would make us biblical in our thinking. If only such good intentions could make us godly! But although salvation is a free gift, the Christian walk is one that takes some basic disciplines.
As we stood on the Mount of Olives, the words of the prophet Zechariah kept coming to mind, “On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east.” (Zechariah 14:4, ESV).
This wasn’t my first visit to the Mount of Olives. But on this particular trip I co-led to Israel just weeks ago, I was especially awed to think that the most spectacular event of all history will take place on this spot… affecting every person who has ever lived on planet Earth. …
