Habakkuk 2:2-20: Living by Faith
Habakkuk has been struggling with certain questions. Why doesn’t God do anything about the sin in Judah; if God is both good and powerful, how can a holy God order sin without being the author of sin; how can God use a sinful instrument to accomplish His will; how can God use such a strong punishment like Babylon invading and carrying people away in exile without breaking those promises of land, people and blessing spoken to Abraham? Shall we add some of our own questions to these: Why is God allowing Islam; political liberalism; New Age spirituality, and various...
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Luke 2:8-21: The Good News of Christ’s Birth
One of the great public events, at least for those who still have a monarchy, is the first appearance of the crown prince, or royal baby. The picture of the couple and the baby makes the front cover of every news outlet, social commentators wax lyrical about whether the duchess wore a dress in the same style as Diana, and on and on it goes. The arrival of a new royal is a big deal and the world sits up and pays attention. Some even have a little shrine to the royal family in their homes, a central place...
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Luke 2:1-7: The Birth of Christ
When I say ‘Christmas’ what comes to mind? Santa Claus, stockings, reindeer, Christmas trees, gifts, food…. Most of our associations have to do with lights, and music and festivities, and large family gatherings with lots of gifts and food and a large expenditure of money, but not so at the first Christmas. Luke 2:1-7 gives us the humble and simple account of one of the greatest miracles of all time, God becoming man. How did we get to the modern practices of celebrating Christmas the way we do? In the earliest times of the time, the birth of Christ...
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Luke 1:57-80: The Benedictus
There are two ways in which God faithfully parents us with suffering. Think of these as two different types of parental discipline. There is the use of suffering in our lives in general which acts to refine our faith, we can think of 1 Pet. 1:6-7: ‘In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus...
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1 Kings 8:22-30: Approaching God in prayer
Introduction: The prayer of Solomon is one of the longest prayers in the Bible, being 30 verses long. Nehemiah 9 is the longest with 33 verses, and the longest prayer of Christ is 26 in John 17. The Puritans were known to pray for 45 minutes in their pulpit prayers. Most long prayers are burdensome for very few are able to sustain the necessary focus and spirituality to keep the congregation interested for so long. But in this long prayer there is nothing wasted. Solomon’s prayer like many others in the bible is a model prayer. We will break it up...
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1 Kings 6:1-13: ‘Unless the Lord builds the house…’
Introduction: As we look at the start of the building process, in among all the building details the text points us to the most important part of this building venture, the blessing of God. The portion we are looking at begins with the details of the exterior of the temple, but God interrupts the building process with a very important message in v11-13, ‘Now the word of the LORD came to Solomon,12 “Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them,...
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1 Kings 1:11-53: The Crowning of Solomon
Introduction: Resistance to the true king, this is the tale of human history and the central struggle in the text before us. As usual we see sinful men used of the devil to promote themselves like the antichrist into the place of the true king. We see resistance and subterfuge attempting to gather strength to overthrow God’s will to have His ruler in place. The ruler of the people of Israel is not merely a political position, it has been identified in promise and prophecy as the seat from which the nations will be ruled and satan overcome. It...
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