Posts from August 2022

Posts from August 2022

“ A Strange Lesson”

  DISCUSSION                                                                          To be a prophet of God in the Old Testament meant that there were many sacrifices that you were expected to endure.  No sacrifice was as great as the one that Ezekiel had to make.  For God to illustrate His point, Ezekiel had to watch as his wife suddenly died.  If it wasn’t enough to have her die, Ezekiel was not allowed to show any grief.  When the Jews…

“ Looking In All the Wrong Places”

  DISCUSSION                                      Ezekiel 16 and 22 are very similar chapters in that they both depict the apostasy of the nation.  They both compare Israel to a prostitute who had broken her marriage vows to God.  The difference in the two chapters is that in chapter 16 the adultery has been committed with idolatry, and in chapter 18 the idolatry has been committed in their trust of other nations.  Instead of trusting…

“Will You Repent?”

  DISCUSSION                                                                           In John 9, Jesus and His disciples come upon a man that had been born blind.  Intrigued by his blindness, the Disciples ask a very poignant question; “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2).  Jesus responded “It was not that this man…

Did God create evil?

  At first it might seem that if God created all things, then evil must have been created by God. However, evil is not a “thing” like a rock or electricity. You cannot have a jar of evil. Evil has no existence of its own; it is really the absence of good. For example, holes are real but they only exist in something else. We call the absence of dirt a hole, but it cannot be separated from the dirt.…

Be Weird

  DISCUSSION                                                                                 Nobody wakes up in the morning and says “I really want to be weird today”. Certainly, nobody wants to be considered at school or work as the weird one. Did you know the bible tells us we should, in fact, strive to be weird. The passage for today says just that. Most translations people read that we should be “special”…

Why study Lamentations?

  The realities of sin, suffering, and evil persist in our world prompting many (especially young millennials) to question their faith. These same realities exist still today—post resurrection of Jesus. As Paul laments in Rom 7-8, the sinfulness of man and the suffering of all creation leave him and it groaning for a time of redemption.    Richard Oster calls Lamentations, “the best commentary on Romans 8.” Lamentations confronts these questions and God’s role in them while providing a voice…

“Enduring Forever”

  DISCUSSION                                                                               I received a call that a major part of my life was now gone.  The Larimore home at Mars Hill Bible School has been an icon of love and sacrifice as far back as I can remember, and now was destroyed by fire.  The house was home to TB Larimore, the founder of Mars Hill Bible School.  He was also a huge factor as to why the church…

“God’s Plan”

  DISCUSSION                                                                                As strange as it might have seemed, the LORD has used a pagan nation to teach the children of Israel what happened when they turn aside to idols.  However, don’t think that God is going to allow Babylon off the hook for their own sins.  In Jeremiah 50, God begins the pronouncement of…

“We Must All Face The Judgment”

  DISCUSSION                                         As Jeremiah begins to close out his book, God is using him to pronounce judgment upon all the nations that have practiced wickedness.  The words of Jeremiah that were specifically assigned for the Egyptians were “the swift cannot flee away, nor the warrior escape” (Jeremiah 46.6). As I read these, I can’t help but be reminded of the judgment that this world will have when Christ returns.   In the New Testament…

“Hate is a Strong Word”

  DISCUSSION                                                         As a child I can remember being scolded by my parents and grandparents that I should not say the word “hate”.  “You should not “hate” anyone or anything because that is just not nice to say”, they would tell me.  Well I’m not one to rebuke my parents, but even God is said to “hate” some things (Proverbs 6.16-23).  Now I completely understand where my parents and grandparents…

Habakkuk

  DISCUSSION                                                                                   The short book of Habakkuk is a recording of Habakkuk’s complaints to God and God’s response. Habakkuk is looking around at the evil people of the world (specifically Assyria and Babylon) and seeing them rise to power. He notes that the law has become paralyzed and the wicked outweigh the righteous (1.4). God’s response reminds us “his ways are not our ways” when he says, “I…

“Too Late For HIM…Not Us”

  DISCUSSION                                                  Warning after warning, after warning; and he still did not listen!  As I continue to read through the book of Jeremiah, I keep asking myself “Why…why did Zedekiah not listen to the words of God through the mouth of Jeremiah?”  God gave him ample time to humble himself with the assurance that if he did, he and his family would survive, yet because of arrogance and unbelief he did not listen. …
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