(Read Part 1) When we think about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in the world, we are instantly forced to travel the road north from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. There, we can stand and gaze through tears of both sorrow and joy at a lonely hill called Calvary. There, with the eyes of faith, we see Jesus not as the eternal child in the arms of His mother, but as the Christ of Calvary. A moment’s thought about what happened there [...]
There was a night nearly 2,000 years ago in which a little city south of Jerusalem became the scene of the greatest miracle in the history of the universe. Whatever unusual things have ever transpired, none of them can compare to the intersection of humanity and divinity which took place in that little town. What was that miracle? The answer is found in the statement of Matthew, “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His [...]
(Read Part 1) This was the miracle about which the angel spoke when he said concerning Mary, And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. (Matt. 1:21) In the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, deity touched humanity and, from that moment on, no person can doubt the love of God. The love of God was forever presented to man in the coming, the life, the death, the [...]
There are three main holidays which we will be celebrating in these coming days. Each one of them bears a particular message that we will find to be important to us and to the world in our time. The first of these is Thanksgiving. In a world of indignation, resentment, hatred, ungratefulness, the word thanksgiving seems like an anomaly. Nevertheless, the attitude of mind which is best described by the word thanksgiving is advocated for us many times in the Word of God. [...]
(Read Part 1) The New Plan What then was instituted was DIVISION. God, Himself, divided the world into a whole set of new political entities which He called nations. Speaking of one segment of the family of Noah, the Bible says, From these the coastland peoples of the Gentiles were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations. (Gen. 10:5) These were the sons of Ham, according to their families, according to their languages, [...]
Our little systems have their day They have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of thee And thou, oh Lord, art more than they. (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “In Memorium”)[1] In our generation, we have said goodbye to dozens of nations. They have dropped into the dust bin of history. This now common expression is more and more often used to refer to well-known nations of the past and present. They were once prosperous, influential, happy and apparently [...]
(Read Part 1) Foreshadowing Christ "The blood of bulls and goats" (Heb. 9:13; 10:4) was shed on a million occasions in the Old Testament for man the sinner. Now, what we must remember is, that the blood shed by the innocent animals in the Old Testament not only became a covering for sin before the days of the earthly ministry of Christ, but also, it became a foreshadowing of what God would do as we move through history. It foresaw what would take [...]
The Prophesied Blood Sacrifice It seems to me that one of the most dramatic events in the history of the world took place in the life of Jesus Christ. In Matthew 21, we have the story of how Christ instructed His disciples as to how they should find a donkey and bring that animal to Him. If the keeper of the donkey objected, they were to simply say that the king needs him. They brought the donkey; Christ climbed astride that donkey, [...]
(Read Part 2) The Change When the Lord Jesus comes for His church at the time of the rapture, the bodies of believers will “put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:54). This body of humiliation and limitation wastes away. It dies and goes into the grave. But 1 Corinthians 15 has the body in view, not the soul. When the believer is resurrected at the coming of Christ, he will be given an immortal body. What a tremendous expectation! We are hampered by [...]
(Read Part 1) Resurrection No Mystery The Old Testament saints believed in a resurrection. Therefore, when Paul wrote about it to New Testament believers, he was not revealing a mystery. Hebrews 11:17-19 tells us that Abraham was directed to offer his son as a sacrifice. He obeyed, . . . concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead. And Joseph believed in the resurrection of the body. Just before his death, he said to his brethren, God [...]
