“The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
This is the real key of this chapter and, really, one of the main themes of the entire record. There appear to be two goals of the various acts of cataclysmic judgments described in Revelation. One goal is the punishment of sin. God has been patient long enough and now it is time for judgment. It is time to let people see and experience the full weight of their sin. Just like with the nation of Israel in the days leading up to and during the conquest of Jerusalem and the exile, the time for the whole world has come up and sin is finally being judged on a large scale. Read the rest…
“Then the high officials and the satraps sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom, but they could find no ground for complaint or any fault, because he was faithful, and no error or fault was found in him.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Daniel was now in the service of the third king and of two different nations, all in the same place. You don’t achieve such a thing unless you have a reputation that precedes you by a long, long way. Indeed, Daniel had a reputation for wisdom, character, and integrity that was far above anyone else in the whole of the kingdom. In fact, when his enemies determined to take him down because of their jealousy of his power and position, the only possible basis they could find for accusing and condemning him was his faithfulness to God. Read the rest…
In this final part of our series, Reasons to Believe, we take a turn. We are still talking about reasons to believe, but this one is different from all the rest. At the end of the day, a person can listen to solid answers to all of their objections to the life of Christ and still not be willing to make Him their Lord. The reason for this is that their primary objection is not logical, but relational. This is last and most important hurdle to overcome. When someone becomes a follower of Jesus, the most powerful reason they do so is a relationship. Keep reading for more.
Yielding to Relationship
There was once a man who hated Christians. He hated them. He hated everything they stood for. He hated the things they believed. He hated the impact they were having on his culture. There was nothing about them he liked. It was so bad that he dreamed about hurting them. He thought up ways he could harass them and interrupt their activities and keep them from accomplishing their goals…all within the means of the law of course. Now, you might be thinking, “Well that guy was dumb. It doesn’t really do any good to focus that much effort on hating a group of people. What was his deal with religion anyway?” But, religion wasn’t his problem. Christians were. He had no problems with religion. In fact, he was a very religious guy. He just didn’t like Christians. Furthermore, he was no dummy. Actually, he was brilliant. He had gone to the best schools and studied under the best teachers. He was routinely at the top of his class. The level of success he had attained for his age was simply astounding. When peers looked at him they routinely saw big things in his future. This guy was leadership material. There were few positions which were going to be off-limits to him. He merely had to apply himself in the relevant directions. With his big brain, then, and as committed as he was to the way he saw the world working, he knew all the reasons Christians and their Christianity could and should be rejected. He could have given you a list with sources. He had a reason for every argument. But then, something unexpected happened. And that something was this: he actually met Jesus. Not literally met, of course, but he encountered Jesus in a personal, powerful way. And all his reasons went out the window. Instead of reasons, he now had a relationship. Read the rest…
“And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Just a little note here on the defense of the Bible. Some critics have argued that the writings of the New Testament “became” Scripture gradually. It was the result of a power play by men seeking power for themselves and these writings were a convenient way to get it through the levers of religion. But, when they were written no one considered them Scripture. Except for this… Read the rest…
“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.'” (ESV – Read the chapter)
“But if not.” These are three of the most powerful words in all of the Old Testament. They carry the power of unshakeable faithfulness. They herald the potency of eternal life. These three men had perfect confidence in their Lord to save them from the destruction that sat before them in some kind of miraculous way. But if not; but if He didn’t; but if He decided that their deaths in this moment would ring a louder note for the kingdom than their lives, they were still going to stick with Him. Read the rest…
The Nexus 