The Lord Jesus Christ is our master, and He has gone before us and we must enter by the same path that He has walked. That is the path of the cross. What exactly does that mean? For it certainly does not mean that we’re to die on the cross for either our own sins or for the sins of someone else.
And so we come here to Revelation 21and see the presence of God again with His people. It's a glorious scene. We then see something else. We see described the bride of the Lamb, that is, the bride of Christ. This bride is a holy bride, a bride without blemish, without stain, a bride who has been
Martin Luther said at one point that when God created the man, He created him perfect and therefore stronger than the lion and faster than the lynx; and with eyesight that was sharper than the eagle’s. That would presumably have been true of the woman as well. But in addition to those qualities, s
Moreover, not only did God create this perfect environment and the perfect man to live in this environment, but also He gave this man in this perfect environment perfect work to do. We sometimes think in our fallen state that bliss should involve no work. In the earlier part of this century, there
The idea for this particular evening Easter sermon came from this year’s PCRT conferences, the first of which was held just a number of weeks ago. This year’s conference theme dealt in part with the subject of an earthly Utopia, which concerns mankind’s quest to attempt to bring about a perfectly f
Because Jesus has removed death’s sting by His death in our place, although physical death comes, for believers what follows is the receiving of our resurrection bodies. This is necessary because, as Paul himself says, flesh and blood can’t inherit the kingdom of God. You have to have a resurrection
Yesterday, we concluded by making the point that Jesus’ resurrection is proof that God the Father accepted Christ’s sacrifice for our sins on the cross.And not only that, the resurrection is also a victory because it shows that the ravages of sin will be reversed—those ravages of sin which affect us
Jesus is the One who described Himself in John 14:6 as the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus said, "No one takes my life from me. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again." But when Jesus stood alone before this formidable foe, it seemed by any reasonable analysis,
However, it wasn't only the enemies of Christ that seemed to have won on that Good Friday. It was also a victory for the devil, or so it seemed. The devil had begun his onslaught against Jesus even before the religious leaders. Even before the leaders knew He was around to cause them trouble, the de
We want to talk about the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a victory, which is a good theme just now in this moment of American history because most Americans are tuned in to the idea of victory because of the victory of our military forces in the Persian Gulf. People who think about that victory, ho
Up to this point, we have dealt largely with sin and judgment. Judgment is a grim note. It is not something that we want when we see it unfolding, especially unfolding on a member of the people of God. We are drawn up short because we recognize that we, too, sin. And judgment is something that must
Once the lot fell on Achan, Joshua pursued the matter: "My son, give glory to the Lord. Tell me what you have done. Do not hide it from me." Achan, exposed now before Joshua and the people as well as before God, did confess his sin.Once the lot fell on Achan, Joshua pursued the matter: “My son, give
Yesterday we looked at the first step in Achan’s sin, which was dissatisfaction with God. Today we look at the second and third steps. The second is that sin progressed to the point of covetousness; that is, Achan began to desire that which was not his. Now according to the laws of war, the possess
Not only do we learn that sin cannot be tolerated, but I think we learn something else, too. We learn something about the birth and progress of sin. It’s very seldom when we study the Bible and come across a chapter like this that talks about some great spiritual failure, or some sin on the part of
Have you ever noticed in your life what a short step there often is between a great victory and a great defeat? One moment you’re riding high on the cloud of some great spiritual success, and the next moment you’re plunged into the valley of some grim spiritual failure. One moment you’re like Elija
Yesterday we introduced the relevance of the genealogy in Genesis 5. Now with that in mind, let me show you how the genealogy teaches us about God’s character. Adam, the first of the patriarchs, born we would have to say in the year one, was created by God at the beginning. He lived 930 years. When
Well it’s true, of course that the final judgment has not yet come; God has delayed his final reckoning. But if you look to past history, if you look to these great marks of judgments, these things stand there in history and in the pages of the Word of God as warnings. Certainly, this is true of the
All of the wicked practices that Israel was warned against were present in a most perverted and dangerous way in the Canaanite culture. It is, incidentally, something similar to what existed in the time of Noah, and in my view, is one of the reasons for God’s judgment upon that culture as well as up
Yesterday we concluded our study by mentioning some practices Israel was commanded to avoid. It’s worth commenting on a few of these practices. The first one given was that of sacrificing children to the fire. The Canaanites had a god whose name was Moloch. He was a particularly cruel god. There wer
I suppose it's not really possible to preach through the book of Joshua without dealing at some point with what some people have felt to be a great moral problem. The moral problem lies in the fact that at the direction of God, the Jewish people were commanded by Joshua to exterminate large blocks o
Now I want to apply what I said in this way, first of all to Christians. First, while this was a literal, historical battle, now I’m going to talk about spiritual battles. But don’t think that our spiritual battles are any less literal or historical. We face spiritual challenges that are just as rea
There’s a third step in the preparation of the people for their victory, though it overlaps the one I’ve just given. First of all, be silent. Second of all, obey. But thirdly, obey in all things to the very end. I call this “total obedience to the very end.” This third point is important because obe
There are several things the Lord told them. The first is that they were commanded to be silent. This is what Joshua told them in verse 10: “Do not give a war cry. Do not raise your voices. Do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout.” Now, I don’t know how they did that. Can you imagine the
That’s a most unusual set of instructions for taking a city. One might even say that it was utterly unreasonable to think that the walls of Jericho would fall in such a manner. But Joshua obeyed the Lord, and the people obeyed Joshua. The city was encircled according to God’s precise instructions. A
