This warning from the Lord establishes the terrifying possibility that one can acknowledge Jesus verbally and intellectually yet be rejected at the judgment for a lack of obedient action.
What looks like defeat is often the path to victory in God’s kingdom: we lose life to save it, find it by losing it, gain by spending, live by dying, and conquer through the cross — for the way of the cross leads to life, and…
The Old Testament is the inspired Word of God — a claim made by the writers themselves, confirmed by Jesus Christ in person, and endorsed by the apostles throughout the New Testament. The church has at various times been tempted to treat the Old Testament as…
Psalm 8 is a psalm of wonder: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him?” (Ps….
The call to repent is not a single appeal at the beginning of the Christian life — it is the fundamental note of the entire gospel, sounded by every prophet, by John, by Christ, by the apostles, and by the Risen Lord writing to seven churches….
Sin did not originate with God. God created beings with the power to choose; some chose to disobey. The origin of sin is the misuse of freedom, not a failure in the design that produced the freedom. The first sins were angelic; the first human sin…
Sin did not begin in the field—it began at the altar. Cain’s fall was a progression: unbelief in worship, pride under correction, and hatred of righteousness. God warned him that sin was crouching at the door, ready to rule him, but Cain refused to master it. The result was not just a broken relationship with his brother, but bloodshed and separation from the presence of the Lord. This sermon exposes the “way of Cain” and calls every listener to examine worship, respond rightly to Scripture’s correction, and submit to God before sin grows into death.
The marriage of one man to one woman is not incidental imagery — it is the relationship God uses to describe the bond between Christ and his church. One Christ; one church. Any affection given to a substitute institution is spiritual adultery. Paul’s instruction in Ephesians…
The Bible that records the history of human sin also reveals the remedy for it. The remedy is not spontaneous or accidental — it is a plan, conceived before the creation of the world, assigned to the Redeemer in a covenant between Father and Son, and…
The Greek word ekklesia means “called out,” and a survey of its New Testament uses shows it applied to the local congregation (in several senses), to the one universal church, and to the household assembly — but never to a denomination. Doctrine often turns on a…