As Jesus hung on the cross, the people passed by him and hurled insults at him. They were saying things like: Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God! Matthew 27:40 What the people failed to understand was that Jesus came for this very moment. Jesus specifically put himself in that […]
In Matthew 20, we see Jesus walking from Galilee to Judea, eventually on his way to Jerusalem. At one point, Jesus stops and pulls his disciples aside, yet again, and tells them that he will be condemned to death, mocked, flogged, and crucified, only to be resurrected and raised to life three days later. And […]
This morning, we were reading Matthew 10 as part of our team’s regular Bible study. Jesus sends out his disciples to the Israelite towns, but spends most of his time giving them a warning that persecution, beatings, and even death await them because they are his disciples and because of what he is sending them […]
In our daily reading plan, we’ve now switched into the book of Daniel. There is so much to say, but today, as we’ve read Daniel 3 and 4, we can see a process that has been underway as God has revealed himself to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. Here are some things that I see: […]
God tells Ezekiel to “take up a lament” for Tyre, the city that rejoiced at Jerusalem’s downfall because it would benefit from an economic perspective as a result of the destruction of Jerusalem. But Tyre would also fall and now Ezekiel is writing out and listing what was once considered beautiful about this city, because […]
In Ezekiel 26, he says: For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: From the north I am going to bring against Tyre Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, with horsemen and a great army. Ezekiel 26:7 Tyre was a city in modern-day Lebanon that, in times past, had been […]
There are probably as many different ideas about God and his relationship with his people as there are people on the earth. However, there is really only one who can tell us the truth about God and that is God himself. In Ezekiel 24, God paints a terrible picture of his judgment and punishment for […]
God speaks to Ezekiel again and compares the two kingdoms of Israel (Samaria in the story, the capital of the kingdom of Israel) and Judah (Jerusalem in the story, the capital of the kingdom of Judah) to two sisters. However, these sisters are described as young virgins who wish to have their breasts fondled and […]
Through Ezekiel, God gives us some hints on how he sees his relationship with his people. He recounts and explains what he has done for his people and also discusses why. For example, in Ezekiel 20, he recounts the Exodus, the time that God moved to bring the Israelites out of the land of Egypt. […]
Ezekiel goes into a long explanation of how someone who commits sin will die for what they have done. In short, he is saying that the penalty of sin is death. In fact, he goes further to say that a righteous person who turns to sin will, themselves, die. So if you think that you […]