Genesis 4 – 6, Matthew 2 • Key Verses: Genesis 6:6-8 After the first sin, more sins followed. That’s the way it is with sin, a pattern seen right from the beginning. God told Cain that sin was like a beast ready to destroy him (4:7). Cain, however, ignored this...
Genesis 1- 3, Matthew 1 • Key Verse: Genesis 3:15 At God’s initiative the world came into existence. Things got off to a great start! Moses records throughout chapter 1 that God’s assessment of creation was that “it was good.” That phrase is repeatedly used to describe His work. It...
Faith looks to the future, for that is where the greatest rewards are found. The people listed in Hebrews 11 had God’s witness to their faith that one day they would be rewarded. One day all of us who know Christ will share that heavenly city which true saints look...
Not all suffering is a “fiery trial” from the Lord. If a professed Christian breaks the law and gets into trouble or becomes a meddler in other people’s lives, then he ought to suffer! The fact that we are Christians is not a guarantee that we escape the normal consequences...
The Holy Spirit is called “the Spirit of adoption.” The word adoption in the New Testament means “being placed as an adult son.” We come into God’s family by birth. But the instant we are born into the family, God adopts us and gives us the position of an adult...
Has God abandoned His kingdom program for Israel? Of course not! Israel is merely set aside until the time comes for God’s plans for Israel to be fulfilled. Today the saved Gentiles provoke Israel “to jealousy” because of the spiritual riches they have in Christ. Israel today is spiritually bankrupt,...
Our Lord’s experience of temptation prepared Him to be our sympathetic High Priest. It is important to note that Jesus faced the enemy as man, not as the Son of God. He said, “Man shall not live by bread alone” (Matthew 4:4). We must not think that Jesus used His...
Many believers have such a comfortable situation here on earth that they rarely think about going to heaven and meeting the Lord. They forget that they must one day stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ. It helps to hold us up and builds us up when we recall that...
If you were God, how would you go about revealing yourself to earth’s people? How could you tell them about and give them the kind of life you wanted them to enjoy? God has revealed Himself in creation, but creation alone could never tell us the story of God’s love....
When Verdi produced his first opera in Florence, the composer stood by himself in the shadows and kept his eye on the face of one man in the audience—the great Rossini. It mattered not to Verdi whether the people in the hall were cheering him or jeering him; all he...
