COMMITTED to train men and women
to have minds for the Lord Jesus,
hearts for the truth, and
hands that are skilled to the task.

"Judah" Tagged Sermons

GOD SEEKS OUR WORSHIP

Worship has its focus on what we do with our lives.
John R.W. Stott
“Christians believe that true worship is the highest and noblest activity of which man, by the grace of God, is capable.”
Chuck Swindoll in his study Bible writes:
“It is attributing supreme worth to God, who alone is worthy of it. When we worship, that’s what we’re doing.
The purpose of the church is to cultivate worshipers. It isn’t a place to make business contacts or to go to check something off the weekly list or to bring your kids so they get something out of it. No, it’s a place to learn about our God so that our worship and understanding of Him become increasingly deeper and more meaningful. It’s a place where we give Him our praise and our gratitude.
Why is worship so important? Because it turns our full attention to the only One worthy of it.”
Jesus was using the element of water as a metaphor to describe a spiritual reality, something that would meet not just a need of the moment but a need for all eternity.
Chuck Swindoll has a wonderful commentary on verses 19-20
“Oh, you’ve been to seminary. You must be extremely smart. Let me ask you something I’ve always wondered about. How do you reconcile the great existential problem of God’s sovereignty and the free will of man?”
Only in her culture, the great debate revolved around the most appropriate place to worship an omnipresent God.
John 4:23-24
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth,
for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

God’s Glory – Part 2

No one will be able to enter the temple of God UNTIL THE 7 PLAGUES of the seven angels are completed. That is, at the end of the 7 year tribulation period.
We traced the appearance of God’s glory from the Garden of Eden, through Moses’ life and eventually ended up in the wilderness Tabernacle where God’s glory was manifested among the Hebrews.
Now, we pick up from there and jump to the Joshua and Judges period in the Old Testament.
After Joshua’s time came the period of Judges of which Samuel was the last ruling judge of Israel. It was Samuel that was chosen by God to eventually anoint the first King of Israel. And it was Samuel that anointed King David, the man after God’s own heart.
Just as the first King of Israel was chosen by the people, and eventually rejected by God, so will be the first world ruler, the antichrist, chosen by the people, but rejected by God. It will be the second world ruler, the man after God’s own heart, that will be God’s chosen one.
However, just as Moses prayed earlier that the visible manifestation of God’s glory would dwell in the tabernacle forever, so did Solomon here pray to God that the visible manifestation of His Shechinah Glory would dwell in the temple forever.
But God would not answer the prayer of Moses and Solomon at their time.
What happened to the glory of God? Today, people get all excited about the arch of the covenant, asking the question: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ARK OF THE COVENANT? Well, that piece of furniture is just that. The real question should be. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SHECHINAH GLORY?

A Feast of Grace

Instead of presenting Benjamin to the Egyptian ruler and with that releasing Simeon from Prison and the charges of being spies being dropped, THEY RECEIVED AN INVITATION TO A BANQUET.
William Shakespeare, in King Henry VI, WROTE: “Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.” Listen, guilt will always do that to all of us. Guilt has the power to cause us to say strange things at strange times. An Egyptian explaining to God’s chosen people what their God is doing. They could not see it, because they feared the worst.