The Pharisees were a religious group with a very noble beginning. They began sometime during or shortly after the exile of the people of God in Babylon. The Pharisees understood that it was Israel’s disregard for God’s law that led them into the peril they had faced. They understood that the nation’s cavalier approach to covenant life as God’s people was disastrous. So, with great zeal for both Go...  Read More

The field cost him everything, yet his joy did overflow.The field cost him everything, yet greater riches he came to know.The field cost him everything, yet he would have paid still more.The field did cost him all he had, but the seller lost much more....  Read More

As I was reading the Bible the other morning, I came across a passage in Jeremiah 7 where God is confronting his people for their sins. Among the many ways that they had turned their hearts away from God was this:“And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come ...  Read More

[14] But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. [15] For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, [16] to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? [17] For w...  Read More

30 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. 31 Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come, (Ma...  Read More

Last week we saw the reality that God has revealed the truth of mankind’s need for him with abundant and inexcusable clarity. But we also saw that despite the overwhelming clarity of the truth, sinful men will not repent and believe. In the face of every opportunity, sinners will spurn the gospel of grace to their own everlasting peril. Why is this so? Why will men stare the offer of God’s mercifu...  Read More

7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits ...  Read More

On Sunday mornings we have been exploring the precious ministry of God's Law throughout Jesus' preaching in Matthew 5:17-48, (click here to access sermons). I hope that you have been enabled to see God's good and blessed purpose for you through his Law. The Law is not bad, nor flawed in any way. It is good, holy, right and true. But the Law was never meant to be our Savior, only to show a lost and...  Read More

Why does the God who has all power, all authority, all wisdom, and all grace, sometimes allow the children he loves to suffer?This is an important question, and one which both believers and unbelievers have raised throughout the ages. Last Sunday in a sermon, I addressed a false expectation which is common to our sinful hearts. That false expectation is this: If I am faithful to God, I will be spa...  Read More

When a child looks up at the night sky and sees the stars, they often think to themselves, "Look at all those tiny little lights!" With their unaided eyes, they cannot recognize the overwhelming magnitude of the celestial luminaries they are actually seeing. They can hardly imagine that things which appear so minuscule to their eyes, could, in reality, be so colossal. In the same way, when a man l...  Read More

Brothers & Sisters in Christ,A couple of weeks ago in a sermon, I mentioned the classic story called, "Pilgrim's Progress". I have been greatly blessed by this story and the vivid ways that it captures precious spiritual truths. I commend it to you heartily.A Fire That Won't Go OutWithin the story, one of the pictures which the main character "Christian" is shown during his visit with the "Interpr...  Read More

The Christian mission is unavoidably costly. No one who has actually read and understood the words of Jesus of Nazareth could tell you otherwise. Yet it is the most important mission that could ever be undertaken. It is impossible to live for something greater, and it is foolish to live for anything less. Those who refuse to acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ before men, will be denied by Jesus Chr...  Read More