When You Are Entrusted with an Unpopular Message

In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.  Isaiah 40:3 Take away Jesus Christ and you have no payment.  Take away the payment and you have no pardon.  Take away the pardon and you have no peace!  All this good, all this comfort hangs...Read…

“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God.  “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 40:1-2) Notice God is speaking.  He is speaking through the prophet Isaiah.  And he is calling on someone else to speak to the people of God. God had revealed (through Isaiah) that at some point in the future, God’s people would go through...Read…

Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard).  2 Peter 2:7-8 NIV Here is one “hidden” mark of a genuine believer. It cannot be known...Read…

Prophecy [of Scripture] never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21 NIV). The best way to grasp what Peter is saying is through a story. Paul is under arrest and he is being taken to Rome....Read…

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith, goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control (2 Peter 1:5-6 NIV).  Peter’s emphasis is on our effort to actively pursue these in the power of the Holy Spirit: Make every effort to add these things to your faith. Go after them....Read…

Those…who have received a faith as precious as ours (2 Peter 1:1 NIV). Faith is a gift to receive and a command to obey. “Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22). That’s a command! God calls us to do it. Isn’t it strange that we say to an unbeliever, “Put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ”?...Read…

Then Saul said to David, “Blessed be you, my son David! You will do many things and will succeed in them” (1 Samuel 26:25). The blessing of God on David could hardly be clearer in this story. Three times we are told that the Lord was with David: Saul was afraid of David because the Lord...Read…

David came to Saul and entered his service (1 Samuel 16:2). It was a not long before Saul rejected David, and in this way, David points forward to Jesus Christ. He too served sinners who hated and despised him in return. Jesus was the Lord’s anointed, bringing good to everyone, yet he is rejected. He came...Read…

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34) Christ gives his people a new heart and a new Spirit, but then he also gives us a new struggle. Don’t expect the road ahead to be easy. That’s what we learn from both the...Read…

“You will…bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus… the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David… and of his kingdom there will be no end.”  (Luke 1:31-33) God sent another king into this world of self-appointed kings. This is what we celebrate at Christmas: “Where is he who...Read…