Robert J. Morgan's Blog

Daily Light

Little Book That Shines Through the Dark

Hello everyone. Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”

From time to time on this podcast, I take a break from methodical Bible teaching to shed light upon an aspect of church history or from the background of our hymnody or from some other item that may be helpful to us Christians. So let’s do that today. I want to tell you the story of a little volume that took four generations to develop and publish. Some of you may be familiar with this book, but many of you will not be. It’s a year-long daily devotional book for morning and evening, a series of remarkable Scripture medleys that have their roots in a man named Samuel Bagster. 

Its story begins in 1772 with Samuel Bagster the Elder, who was born in England the very same year the American colonies rebelled. Samuel was a bright and devout, and he studied under Baptist minister Dr. John Ryland, one of the mentors of missionary pioneer William Carey. Samuel was apprenticed to a bookseller, and he went on to open his own shop in London in 1794. He determined to sell only books that would strengthen people’s minds and souls. As his business grew, he established a publishing house.

His enterprise, which came to be known as Samuel Bagster & Sons, became famous for high-quality Bibles, Bible study aids, and devotional works—all produced with scholarly accuracy and exquisite craftsmanship.

Samuel married Eunice Birch, and together they raised twelve children in a home steeped in Scripture. 

Their tenth child, Jonathan Bagster, inherited his father’s love for the Bible. As a husband and father himself, Jonathan began preparing Scripture readings for his family’s morning and evening devotions. He would select a key verse, then prayerfully search the Bible for passages that echoed or expanded on its theme. Over months of study, he created hundreds of “Scripture chains,” woven together like miniature bracelets of God’s Word.

Jonathan’s son Robert remembered watching his father labor over these selections. He wrote, “Few are able to appreciate the heart-searching care with which every text was selected—the days, nay the weeks, of changes, alterations, and improvements.” Jonathan would keep revising a single day’s reading until it seemed perfectly balanced and complete. He read these Scripture compositions to his family for morning and evening devotions.

After Jonathan’s death, Robert gathered his father’s handwritten collections and, in the mid-1870s, published them under the title Daily Light on the Daily Path. His own daughter, Anne Bagster, assisted with editing and proofreading—making the final product a four-generation collaboration: Samuel the founder, Jonathan the compiler, Robert the publisher, and Anne the editor. Four generations to produce one book.

Why It Endures

The genius of Daily Light lies in its simplicity. It contains no commentary, no devotional essays, no author’s reflections—only Scripture. Each day offers two readings, morning and evening, grouped around a single theme such as faith, courage, comfort, or obedience. The result is a symphony of biblical voices—Moses, David, Isaiah, Paul, and John—harmonizing to proclaim a single truth.

Because it speaks entirely in the language of the Bible, Daily Light feels at once ancient and fresh. A verse read in childhood may strike with new power in adulthood. Many readers testify that its daily arrangement seems almost prophetic—offering exactly the words needed for the moment, as though God Himself arranged the readings for that very day.

Since its publication in the mineteenth century, Daily Light has never gone out of print. It has been translated into many languages and issued in dozens of editions—from the original King James Version to modern translations. 

Years ago our friend, Jonathan Merkh, published a new edition of Daily Light in the New King James Version for a project associated with Anne Graham Lotz. He gave a copy to my wife Katrina. Apart from her Bible, this became Katrina’s favorite book. I watched her read from it night after night as long as she lived, and I’m sure she read from it every morning too.

It did not replace her own study of Scripture, but it was a supplement. She and I both preferred it in the New King James Version rather than in a modern-sounding Bible because some of the scripture medleys are based around certain words or phrases that link together. I once had a copy of Daily Light in the New International Version, but I felt it lost some of its effectiveness. 

A Continuing Legacy

Generations of believers—missionaries in foreign lands, soldiers at war, widows in grief, students in new beginnings—have turned to this little book to steady their hearts. Its endurance rests on one simple fact: it lets the Word of God do the talking.

When Anne Graham Lotz faced a sudden crisis—her son’s unexpected cancer surgery—she reached for a small, time-worn devotional that had steadied her through many of life’s storms: Daily Light on the Daily Path. As she opened its pages, her eyes fell on verses that seemed arranged by divine appointment:
“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all… We know that all things work together for good… With us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles. The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save.”

Anne later reflected, “God has spoken to me more often through the verses in Daily Light than through any other book, except my Bible.” The little book had been a lifelong companion, first placed in her hands when she was ten years old—a gift from her mother, Ruth Bell Graham, who had cultivated her own love of Scripture and devotion in the quiet mountains of North Carolina.

A Light in Dark Places

The book’s influence extends far beyond cozy devotional corners. It has traveled into prisons, concentration camps, and mission fields—carried in pockets and knapsacks, its words bringing hope where few other comforts could reach.

In the early 1950s, Arthur Matthews, a missionary with the China Inland Mission, found himself trapped under Communist rule. Hostility toward Christians was rising, and foreign missionaries were being expelled or imprisoned. One day, Matthews was summoned by the authorities and told he could earn his freedom if he agreed to spy for the Communist Party, something he would not do. That morning, before leaving for what could have been his final interrogation, he kissed his wife and little daughter goodbye, slipped a small copy of Daily Light into his pocket, and walked out the door not knowing whether he would return. Inside that slender volume were the same words that had strengthened generations before him—Scriptures about courage, endurance, and the sovereign presence of God. They became his hidden companions in the days that followed.

Evangelist Vance Havner, whose homespun sermons blessed thousands across America, also found in Daily Light an anchor during his deepest sorrow. When his beloved wife Sara fell terminally ill, Havner turned to the day’s reading and found, astonishingly, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.” When she died, he remembered that Lazarus had also died, though Christ’s words about glory still held true. Havner later wrote, “I felt that God would be glorified in her passing—and He was.” Through his grief, the book helped him translate pain into praise.

During World War II, Russell and Darlene Deibler (later Darlene Deibler Rose) were missionaries in the South Pacific when Japanese troops invaded. The couple was captured and separated—Russell sent to a concentration camp where he would die, and Darlene confined in harsh conditions, often near starvation. On the night of his arrest, she turned to her Daily Light and read the evening portion for March 13:
“O my God, my soul is cast down within me… Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee… Cast thy burden upon the Lord.”
She later wrote, “For me in my need, the Lord had directed in the arrangement of the verses.” Those pre-chosen Scriptures became, for her, a daily lifeline.

Even in peaceful homes, the book has quietly shaped faith. Missionary and author Elisabeth Elliot grew up in a household where her father read the evening portion aloud after dinner. She would later say that those rhythmic gatherings—Scripture read without comment, letting the Word speak for itself—formed the foundation of her own devotion and trust in God’s sovereignty.

Amy Carmichael, missionary to India, wrote, “Have you ever noticed this? Whatever need or trouble you are in, there is always something to help you in your Bible, if only you go on reading till you come to the word God specially has for you. I have noticed this often. Sometimes the special word is in the portion you would naturally read, or in the Psalms for the day, or in Daily Light, or maybe it is somewhere else; but you must go on till you find it, for it is always somewhere. You will know it the moment you come to it, and it will rest your heart.”

Let me tell you of two times Daily Light has factored into my life. Recently I took my grandson, Owen, to the San Diego Zoo. When we returned to our car, it was dented. Another guest had bumped it and left a note on the windshield. I went back to the hotel discouraged, and I had to preach that evening. No one wants to return a rental car that has been damaged, and I tried to shake off my frustration so I could preach at Shadow Mountain.

Lying on the bed, I closed my eyes. Suddenly I heard Owen reading aloud. He was reading the scripture for the day from his Daily Light, and the last verse said, “In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.” 

I can’t tell you how my heart leapt at hearing a then-nine-year-old voice reading 2,000-year-old words telling me to be of good cheer.

But here is my other story. I hope you know how much I loved Katrina, but she wasn’t a perfect woman, and sometimes she could have a very sharp and unfiltered tongue. That problem worsened somewhat as she continued to battle Multiple Sclerosis. 

One evening she was lying in her bed in the Intensive Care Unit at Vanderbilt Medical Center. I was sitting there with her when the nursing shift occurred. A new nurse—a young man named Stephen—came in and introduced himself. 

Katrina, who was weary with tubes and needles and exams, lit into him like a blowtorch. “Now I want you to know,” she said, “that I’m tired of having blood drawn. There’s no need for it. And I’ve got a cold and I need you to go down to the pharmacy and get me some of the cold medicine they keep behind the counter.” Then she chastened him for not readily giving her a sleeping pill, for taking her blood pressure too often, and for about a dozen other infractions. She was angry and adamant, and at some point it turned a bit ridiculous. Sitting in my chair in the corner, I was stifling the giggles, and I could tell Stephen was trying not to laugh too. 

After he left, I said to Katrina, “You were kind of fired up, weren’t you?” Katrina said something about being sick and tired of life in the ICU. “Well,” I said, “I’m tired. Let me read your Daily Light for you, and I’m turning in.” I turned to the bedtime reading for October 30, and it said: 

The tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

The look on Katrina’s face was priceless, and she said something about “That Daily Light….” By that point, I just burst into uncontrollable laughter, but the reading continued:

No human being can tame the tongue; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. 

And then the kicker:

Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt.

I read that last line with tears running down my cheeks, doubled over with laughter; and when I looked at Katrina – tubes in her nose and all – she was laughing despite herself, the first time she had laughed since her surgery.

We had a prayer together, with a few involuntary giggles, and I wrapped up in my blanket and was almost asleep when Stephen came back into the room. I overheard Katrina say to him, “Stephen, I’m glad you’re back. I need to apologize to you for the way I spoke….” 

“Oh,” he said, “you don’t need to apologize. You should hear some of the other patients in ICU! I get a lot worse than that.”

He was charitable! 

By the way, I often recommend Daily Light to newly married couples as a way to begin shared devotions. It takes only a few minutes either in the morning or evening—or both. And it’s an easy way to begin sharing the Scripture together.

As countless believers have found before us, Daily Light will indeed shed light on your daily path. Just today I ordered another batch of them from Anne Graham Lotz’s website. For other resources for your daily Bible study, visit my website, Robertjmorgan.com. However you do it, remember to read the Bible every single day, for His Word is a lamp for our feet and a light on our pathway.

The post Daily Light appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

Grace Unleashed

The Whole World On Trial

A Study of Romans 2:1-16

Opening: Hello everyone. The best way I know to summarize Romans 2:1-16, is to say, “The whole world is on trial.” 

Introduction: Not long ago, my grandson, Elijah, and I boarded a plane for Boston. There was a man sitting in our row and talking on the telephone, and I overheard his conversation. He was talking about composing and publishing hymns. He was talking about the distribution of resources related to the singing of hymns. So when he finished his call I introduced myself and asked what he did for a living. 

He said he publishes various musical resources within the Catholic tradition of faith. As we talked I mentioned that my friend, Keith Getty, has just published a hymnbook. The man expressed admiration for Keith Getty, but he said, “We wanted to use his hymn ‘In Christ Alone’ in our hymn book, but we had a problem with one of the verses. The hymn says, ‘till on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.’” 

The man said, “We didn’t want to use the phrase ‘the wrath of God.’ and we asked Keith if we could change it to the love of God—‘till on that cross as Jesus died, the love of God was satisfied.’ And Mr. Getty said no.”

I happened to be familiar with this story. I said to the man, “I’m glad Keith would not change his lyrics. The wrath of God is a very important biblical and theological truth.”

The man looked over at me and said, “That’s the Old Testament God; that’s all in the Old Testament.”

“No,” I said, “it’s in the New Testament too. Romans 1:18 says, ‘The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.’ The wrath of God is an important New Testament doctrine.” 

“Well, yes,” he said, “but the people who sing our songs don’t understand all of that.”

“But they should understand it,” I said. “The wrath of God is His judicial response to evil and to the evil that is in this world. Let me ask you a question. If you are translating the book of Romans from the Greek into the English for a standard version of the Bible, would you use the word ‘wrath’ in verse 18 or would you replace it with ‘love?’” 

He said that in a Bible translation he would use the word wrath. “But,” he said, “the people who sing our hymns won’t understand all that.” That was the end of our conversation, but it was so informative to me. We’re living in a time when even Christians or Christian faith traditions want to avoid the concept of the wrath of God. But if you delete the truth about the holiness of God, about the sheer evil of sin and the damage it does, and about God’s opposition to evil, then you have no basis upon which to explain the gospel or to appreciate the love of God which spares us and saves us and pardons us and delivers us.

The apostle Paul begins his explanation of the gospel at exactly this point. He puts the whole world on trial. God is the judge and the entire world—every human being who has ever lived—is in the courtroom facing condemnation.

Romans 1:18, he begins a systematic explanation of the nature and the contents of the message of the gospel and he begins by saying, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppressed the truth by their wickedness.”

In the remainder of chapter 1, Paul gives a remarkably accurate and candid description of the downward spiral of a culture or of a society that rejects God as Creator, that creates its own gods, that indulges in immorality, that endorses immoral sexual pursuits and perversions, and that descends into utter chaos and corruption.

Having exposed the pagan world’s downward spiral in chapter 1, Paul now turns to the religious moralist—especially the Jew—who assumes they are different and better. Chapter 2 is going to remind us that God’s standards do not shift according to pedigree or privilege.

Paul’s indictments in chapter 1 seem aimed at any culture or society, but in chapter 2 he is addressing his Jewish audience in particular.  This is the view of most commentators. Paul first addressed the wickedness of the Gentile world in Romans 1:18-32. But now he is going to tackle the issue of the ingrained, inherent wickedness of the Jewish people. He devoted fifteen verses to the former, but he is going to spend 37 verses on the latter. 

The reason is because many of the Jews believed they had a special connection with God through the covenant He made with Abraham, and they were depending on that history to save them.

When John the Baptist showed up on the east bank of the Jordan River to call the Israelites back to repentance, some of them objected, saying, “We have Abraham as our father” (see Matthew 3:9). Later, the Jewish scribes resisted Jesus, saying they were children of Abraham (John 8:33).

So the apostle Paul is about to address his Jewish readers. Nevertheless, the application is universal. Look at verse 1: You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. 

In other words, some people will see the description of the corruption in chapter 1 and say, “Yes, what is happening in our nation is terrible. People have rejected God and the reality of Him as creator. They have made false gods for themselves and become immoral in despicable ways, and the whole society is corrupt before God. Yes, that explains the days in which we are living.” 

But now in chapter 2, the apostle Paul is going to say, “Yes, but the same evil exists in your heart too. You are guilty of the same things.”

It reminds me of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s quote, “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”

Again he said, “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, or between political parts either—but right through every human heart.” 

We may condemn the way the world behaves, but apart from the forgiveness of Jesus Christ we have the same lines of evil cutting through our own hearts. 

Verse 2 says: Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. God’s reaction to evil isn’t based on an emotional response. It is based on a true analysis of right and wrong. Some people think they can get to Heaven because they have lived a relatively good life. Some think they will go to Heaven because of their race or religion. But we all have the sins of Romans 1 circulating in our own bloodstreams.  

Verses 3 and 4 say: So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? 4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

Paul is referring to some Jewish writings here—including some references in the Old Testament—that speak of the riches of God’s kindness, forbearance, and patience. God is good. He is kind. He is forbearing. He is patient. He displays these qualities to us richly. But that doesn’t mean He will bend the rules of His justice for you or for me or for the Jews or anyone. A man or woman cloaked in black and sitting as a judge in a court of law may be a kind and patient individual, but they cannot set the guilty free. 

The fact that God is rich in kindness, forbearance, and patience means we are more liable for judgment, for we have disregarded those things. God displays those qualities to draw us to repent of our sins. But if we neglect His goodness, we seal our own fate.

Verse 5 returns to the subject of God’s wrath: But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 

How often the Bible warns of this coming day! Verses 6 and 7 says: God “will repay each person according to what they have done.” 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 

Here the Bible tells us we will face one of two results at the end of life:

Eternal lifeOr wrath and anger

What kind of person will face the anger and wrath of God? Those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and who follow evil.

But who will arrive at eternal life. Here Paul says the person who persists in doing good will inherit eternal life. At first, that sounds like Paul is preaching salvation by works. But I think the apostle is simply setting forth the requirement for going to Heaven and having a relationship with God.

We have to persist in doing good. In other words, we must live a perfect and sinless life. If we never sin, if we never make a mistake, if we never harbor an evil thought, if we perfectly fulfill the law both in our behavior and in our attitudes—if we are as righteous as the sinless and stainless Jesus Christ—then and only then will we get to Heaven on the basis of our own worthiness. But Paul’s overall theme in Romans 1:18 – 3:20 is that while this is hypothetically true, it is utterly impossible.

Dr. Douglas Moo wrote, “The promise of eternal life for those who do good is fully valid, but the power of sin prevents anyone from doing that good to the degree necessary to merit salvation.” 

Paul now restates his argument in verses 9 and 10: There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism.

Eugene Peterson renders this verse: “Being a Jew won’t give you an automatic stamp of approval. God pays no attention to what others say (or what you think) about you. He makes up his own mind.”

Now, verse 12: All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 

Those who have the Mosaic Law, the Torah, will perish. Those who do not have the Torah will also perish because they, too, are guilty. There is a translation called the Voice, which puts this verse very well: “If one lives life without knowledge of the law—the teachings of the Torah—he will sin and die apart from the law. If someone else lives life under the law, his sin will be judged by what the law teaches.”

13  For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.

In other words, what is required for Heaven is absolute righteousness. Absolute righteousness. Total obedience to the Torah, to the Law. Total conformity to the character of God. 

  14  (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law.  15  They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) 

Even Gentiles and pagans and people who do not have the Torah and have never read the requirements of God in pen and ink know that some things are right and some things are wrong. We instinctively know it is wrong to kill, wrong to take delight in hurting others, wrong to steal. God gave us a conscience. Yet none of us live in total obedience, total righteousness, or total holiness. And so, none of us are qualified on our own to experience Heaven.

Evangelical apologists frequently argue that humanity’s universal moral awareness—our shared sense of right and wrong—points to the existence of a moral Lawgiver. This is sometimes called the argument from moral law.

C. S. Lewis wrote, “Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it.”

Francis Schaeffer wrote, “Man is moral. He knows what is right and what is wrong. This is not just sociological conditioning; it is rooted in the very structure of man as created in the image of God.”

William Lane Craig agreed, saying, “If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. But objective moral values and duties do exist. Therefore, God exists.”

So Paul is telling us that everyone is guilty before God—those who have the Torah will be judged by the written Law and those who don’t have the Torah will be judged by the moral law God put into the universe and wrote upon their conscience. A day of judgment is coming for the entire world, and no one can withstand it by hoping they are good enough.

Verse 16 says, This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

Romans 2 closes the courtroom door on self-righteousness. God’s judgment is impartial, His standard perfect, and His patience purposeful—to lead us to repentance. Only Christ, who perfectly fulfilled the Law and bore its penalty, can open that door again from the inside. This is the message of the Gospel. 

Conclusion

This is the message everyone needs to hear. Recently I came across a remarkable story that appears in the archives and oral history of Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ).

During the brutal reign of Josef Stalin, officials in the Soviet Union confiscated thousands of Bibles and stored them in warehouses. In the southern Russian city of Stavropol, a large shipment of confiscated Scriptures was locked away and forgotten for decades.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, a team of Cru missionaries—part of the CoMission project to distribute Christian literature and teach Bible classes in Russian schools—was granted permission to retrieve and share those long-hidden Bibles. When word spread that they could finally distribute the Scriptures, a group of local students volunteered to help unload the truck and stack the boxes.

One of the students was not a believer. In fact, he was skeptical about Christianity and joined the crew mainly for the day’s wages. As he worked, curiosity got the better of him. He quietly slipped one of the old Bibles into his coat pocket, planning to keep it as a souvenir.

Later that day, he opened it—and what he saw stopped him cold. Inside the front cover was a handwritten name, one he recognized instantly. It was his grandmother’s signature.

The Bible he had chosen at random was the very copy the authorities had seized from his own grandmother decades earlier. Tears filled his eyes. The book that his grandmother had once read and prayed over had somehow found its way back to her grandson across the gulf of history. That moment changed his life. The faith that had been driven underground in one generation was reborn in the next through the living Word of God.

The whole world is on trial before Almighty God, and everyone is guilty. But we have a Book that tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

Well, that’s our study of Romans 2:1-16. Next week we’ll begin with verse 17 and press onward into this incredible New Testament document—the letter to the Romans.

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Grace Unleashed

The Downward Spiral

A Study of Romans 1:18-32

Our world is in a downward spiral, and can anything reverse the trends?

Last month, António Guterres, the General Secretary of the United Nations, gave an address at the UN General Assembly. He said: “We have entered an age of reckless disruption and relentless human suffering. The pillars of peace and progress are buckling under the weight of impunity, inequality and indifference. The choice before us is stark….”

The most encouraging signs I see right now are pockets of revival among young people, but the overall trends of morality in America and the world are not encouraging. We are in a seemingly irreversible downward spiral.

The Bible anticipated these times. In speaking about His Second Coming, the Lord Jesus said, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matthew 24:36-37). 

But what were the days of Noah really like? Genesis 6:6 says, “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.”

Second Timothy 3:1-5 says: “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying its power.”

Well, the assumption behind this series is that we cannot understand our world today apart from a grasp of the New Testament letter of Romans.

Romans is the theological epicenter of Scripture. When you begin reading the New Testament from the first page, you begin with the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—which tell us the simple facts of the story of the Lord Jesus Christ, including His death and resurrection. The book of Acts continues the story through the history of the apostles. 

But then we come to the book of Romans. In this book, the foundational book of the epistles, God interprets for us the meaning of the cross. He explains the significance of the Gospel events. He gives us the story theologically.

As we’ve seen in previous episodes, the first seventeen verses of chapter one are prologue, and this is one of the most powerful prologues to any book ever written in human literature. We don’t have time to review the prologue today, but notice that at the end of the prologue, in Romans 1:16-17, the theme and the thesis of the book is stated. 

For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes—to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in the Gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed….

When this verse says, “For in the Gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed,” Luther helped us understand that Paul was saying, “For in the Gospel, a new way of being declared righteous in God’s sight has been revealed.”

In other words, we can never deal with our shame and sin and failure on our own. We can never become righteous in God’s sight by keeping the law. We can never live a good enough life to redeem ourselves. We can never get to heaven on our own merits. But there is another way for us to become righteous in God’s eyes. It isn’t in keeping the law, but by faith, by trusting what Jesus Christ did for us when He died and rose again. We are not made righteous by our deeds, but by our faith in Him who gave Himself for us. Look at it again:

That’s the theme and thesis of the book of Romans, and that verse concludes the prologue of the book. 

The actual body of this book begins in the next verse, with Romans 1:18; and for three chapters the Lord points out the utter hopelessness of our condition before God. He wants us to understand that none of us can be declared righteous in any other way. This section of Romans extends from Romans 1:18 to Romans 3:20, and I call it “No One.” The apostle Paul isolates four different groups of people and He tells us that no one can deal with their own guilt apart from the sacrifice of Christ. Everyone in all four groups is full of sin and shame. No one can get to heaven on his own.

This passage presents the clearest domino theory in the Bible—except it’s no theory. It’s an infallible analysis of how a society spirals into the sewers like bathwater draining from the tub. Paul’s explanation in Romans sets the stage for his classic presentation of the doctrine of justification by grace through faith, which is the theme of the book of Romans and which represents the only hope for the human heart.

From chapter 1, verse 18 to chapter 3, verse 20, Paul presents the case for the universality of evil. No one—not one single person who is alive now, or who ever lived or who will ever live—no one, Jew or Gentile, man or woman, young or old, wise or foolish—no one is sinless, perfect, or pure. No one has the ability to get to Heaven based on the purity of their life or the goodness of their works. We cannot have eternal life on the basis of our own merits.

He gives us nothing but bad news from Romans 1:18 to Romans 3:20, and he does so because we cannot adequately understand what Christ has done for us until we understand how badly we need His grace.

Dr. Douglas Moo said, We must consider 1:18 through 3:20 as a preparation for, rather than as part of, Paul’s exposition of the gospel of God’s righteousness. But it is a necessary preparation if what Paul wants to emphasize about this righteousness is to be accepted by the Romans. For only if sin is seen to be the dominating, ruling force that Paul presents it to be in this section will it become clear why God’s righteousness can be experienced only by humbly receiving it as a gift… by faith.”

Paul presents a downward spiral that happens to every culture, every civilization. And it’s happening to us now in the. Western world. It begins with the rejection of the concept that there is a Creator, a God who made everything that exists, a God who made everything outside of Himself.

Romans 1:18 says, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

Paul begins with the concept of the wrath of God. He wrote, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men….”

This doesn’t mean that God has lost His temper. It means that He is resolved to bring evil and sin and suffering to account. Let me again quote Dr. Moo: “In the Bible, wrath is an aspect of God’s person, as is clear from the many Old Testament texts that make the kindling of God’s wrath the basis for His judgment. God’s wrath is necessary to the biblical conception of God: as long as God is God He cannot behold with indifference that His creation is destroyed and His holy will trodden under foot. Therefore He meets sin with His mighty and annihilating reaction. The Old Testament regularly pictures God is responding to sin with wrath; but particularly in the prophets, the wrath of God is associated with the day of the Lord as a cosmic, climactic outbreak of judgment…. Paul speaks of wrath as a present reality under which people outside Christ stand.”

This is what we mean when we use the term saved. Have you ever heard someone say, “I got saved at the revival meeting”? Or “I was saved when I was seven years old”? 

Saved from what?

Save from the wrath of God!

Romans 5:9 says, “Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more will we be saved from God’s wrath through Him!”

The world is facing something far worse than atomic missiles, global pandemics, and weapons of mass destruction. The whole world is facing the wrath of God. But Paul says here that the wrath of God isn’t simply a future event. It is now being revealed. Romans 1:18 says, “The wrath of God is being revealed….” One more quote from Douglas Moo: “Although God will inflict His wrath on sin finally and irrevocably at the end of time, there is an anticipatory working of God’s wrath in the events of history. Particularly, as verses 24 through 27 suggest, the wrath of God is now visible in His handing over of human beings to their chosen way of sin and all its consequences.”

The Rejection of God as Creator (Romans 1:18-21)

The first turn in the downward spiral happens when a culture rejects the reality of creationism and of a Creator. It all begins with the rejection of God as Creator.

It seems to me that the reality of a Creator is obvious when we study the creation itself—its very existence and its intricate design. John Lennox, the celebrated mathematician, wrote, “The more we get to know about our universe, the more the hypothesis that there is a Creator God, who designed the universe for a purpose, gains in credibility as the best explanation of why we are here.”

John C. Polkinghorne, a theoretical physicist, wrote, “I am convinced that our universe not only contains, but also creates evidence of the presence of God’s mind and purpose in it. … The rational beauty of the universe — the fact that mathematics is such an effective instrument for describing the world — points to more than just blind physical processes. Theism is concerned with making total sense of the world. The force of its claims depends upon the degree to which belief in God affords the best explanation of the varieties, not just of religious experience, but all human experience.”

The astrophysicist Bernard Michael Haisch wrote, “Discoveries in quantum physics point to an underlying intelligence in the universe.”

And yet by law, teachers and professors in the government schools in America cannot present this view. They can only present the atheistic view that the universe came from an exploding speck of unknown origin and all forms of life came from mysterious puddles of primordial sludge, all of it random, accidental, meaningless, unintentional, and haphazard. This comes from the Kitzmiller U. S. District Court decision in 2005, which ruled that Intelligent Design is not science and that requiring it in public-school biology curriculum violated the Establishment Cause of the First Amendment.

Idolatry (Romans 1:22-23)

That leads to the next step. Human beings must construct its own gods. Verses 22-23 go on to say, “21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.”

In the absence of the true God, we must come up with our own gods. That may involve demonized idolatry or it might be our pleasures, goals, ambitions, or possession.

John Stott said, “  “If we fashion a god to suit ourselves, we are not worshiping the God who has revealed Himself but a false god of our own invention.”

Lust (Romans 1:24-25)

The not-so-funny thing is that when we create our own gods, somehow they give us permission to live life whoever we want to.

Paul continues in verses 24 and 25 to say, “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.”

When God created human beings, Adam and Eve, man and woman, he gave them a tremendous gift. He created them as sexual creatures who could enjoy the pleasure of sex as a part of the process of extending the human race. That no single force in history and so likely to become corrupt as human sexuality. When we reject the creator and somehow come up with our own gods, it results in a flood of sexual immorality. And that leads to the next turn in the downward spiral.

A Sexually-Distorted Society (Romans 1:26-27)

When a culture denies its Creator, erects its own gods, and succumbs to a lust-driven existence, it inevitably becomes sexually distorted. Society becomes sexualized and homosexualized. 

Romans 1:26-27 say plainly: “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

Total Moral Chaos (Romans 1:28-32)

This downward spiral leads to the depths of debauchery—to total moral collapse. Notice all the terms Paul uses in verses 28 through 32: “Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”

The history of the world is littered with the chronicles of cultures who spiraled down this encircling staircase never to return. Go back to the days of Noah. Go back to Sodom and Gomorrah. Go back to Assyria, Babylon, Greece, and Rome. Go back to ancient Israel and Judah.

The Bible says, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:2-4).

Conclusion

If all of this is depressing to you, remember that Paul is simply giving us the bad news before he gives us the good news. We have to understand the state of the world and the condition of our own heart before we can fully appreciate the grace of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus came into the world to save us from all of this, and he does save us from all of this. That’s what the book of Romans is all about. But we have to be realistic about the society and the culture that we are in and we have to determine that in this world however bad it may seem we will be soldiers and servants of him who loved us and came into this world to save us from the descending approaching cataclysmic wrath of God.

Let me jump ahead and give you a few verses from Romans 3: “But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
We cannot give in to the pressures of our culture. As my pastor Allen Jackson says our job is not to conform to the culture but to change it. It is the power of the cross of Jesus Christ that lifts us up through the middle of that downward spiral and seats us with Jesus Christ in the heavenly places. That’s why we say we’re not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.

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Grace Unleashed

Unashamed!

A Study of Romans 1:8-17

I am not ashamed of the gospel! That phrase has been echoing through history and around the world since today the apostle Paul wrote it in Romans chapter one verse 16. 

I’ll give you an example. John Rough was a pastor in England during the reign of Queen Mary in the 1500s. He was arrested and locked away at Newgate prison, where he was condemned to be burned at the stake. From prison, he wrote a letter to his congregation shortly before his death, saying: 

What shall I write of this corporal death, seeing it is decreed of God, that all men shall once die? Happy are they that die in the Lord, which is to die in the faith of Christ, professing and confessing the same before many witnesses…. My course, brethren, have I run; I have fought a good fight; the crown of righteousness is laid up for me; my day to receive it is [near at hand]. Pray, brethren, for the enemy doth yet assault. Stand constant unto the end; then shall you possess your souls. Walk worthily in that vocation wherein you are called. Comfort the brethren. Salute one another in my name. Be not ashamed of the gospel of the cross, by me preached, nor yet of my suffering; for with my blood I affirm the same.

Don’t be ashamed of the Gospel of the cross! Well, today I want to resume our study of the book of Romans. This is one of the easiest books of the Bible to analyze and divide into its logical sections. This book is analytical. It is Paul’s reasonable explanation of the Gospel, and the first seventeen verses are his prologue. And even the prologue easily divides into sections.

You may think I’m too concerned about paragraphs and divisions and sections to a book, but let me tell you why it’s important. The book of Romans, like every other book in the Bible, reflects the thinking of Almighty God on a subject that is vitally important to us. His thoughts unfold in a logical way, with one idea leading to the next. As we go through Romans, I’ll show you all this, but we need to understand the lines of logic that flow from the mind of God on the subject of the Good News He has given us.

So the first seventeen verses of Romans is the prologue of the book. And this prologue has four sections—the salutation in which Paul introduces himself; the state of thanksgiving he makes; the occasion or the reason he is writing this letter; and the theme that he is about to expound.

1. Salutation (Romans 1:1-7)

Last week, we looked at the salutation in verses 1 – 7. It says:

1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— 2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3 regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, 4 and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 5 Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake. 6 And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. 7 To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

With these words, the writer introduced himself, introduced the Gospel, introduced the Lord Jesus, and greeted his readers in Jesus’ name. As we read these words, we need to put our own names in the passage. We need to say, grace and peace to me from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. As I prepared this message, I was tired and overwhelmed with work. So I just said those words aloud and it was an encouragement—grace and peace to me from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Try saying that with me right now. Let’s say it a couple of times: Grace and peace to me from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace to me from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That is Paul’s salutation.

2. Thanksgiving (Romans 1:8-10)

Now he goes on with a word of thanksgiving. Look at verses 8 through ten:

8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. 9 God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you 10 in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you.

What excites Paul is the spread of the Gospel, and he boasted about the fact that the faith of the church in Rome was being reported all over the world. When I was a student in Bible college this bothered me, because I took the Bible literally and I knew this was not literally true. In the very next paragraph, Paul expresses his desire to take the Gospel to Spain, which had not yet been evangelized. So how could it be true that their faith was known all over the world? Well, since then I’ve learned the Bible writers sometimes used hyperbole in making a point. They overemphasized something in an obvious manner so as to make the point. Paul’s point was excitement and thanksgiving that the testimony of the Christians in Rome was known far and wide. 

He found something about the church in Rome for which to thank God. We don’t know a great deal about the church in Rome in the mid-first century except what we learn here in this letter and in the final chapter of the book of Acts. But I’m sure it was far from perfect. In this letter, Paul addressed some of the issues that divided the early church. Some of the biggest differences involved disagreements between Christians from a Jewish background and those who had no exposure to a Jewish background.

Dr. John Harvey, in his commentary on Romans, suggests that there was not necessarily one large gathering of Christians, but a network of house churches. The city of Rome was huge, and the ruling emperor at that moment was Claudius. In chapter 16, when Paul says, “Greet Priscilla and Aquila…. Greet also the church that meets in their house” (verses 3-5). The churches met in homes across the city. These churches had many of the same problems we do in our churches. But yet Paul found reasons to be thankful for the believers in Rome.

I know what it’s like to be bruised by a church and by church leaders. I’ve had some bruising episodes.  As I process the episode I have to work hard to find things for which I can be thankful. But those things are always there. And I am not going to let the imperfections of human beings drive me away from the church that was established by my blameless and undefiled Savior through His shed blood. As you can imagine, I’ve met people through the years who stopped going to church because they were hurt or offended by a congregation or by someone in a congregation. I simply will not let the failure of fallible people keep me from the family of an infallible God. Jesus died to bring us together. So look at your church today and find something for which to be thankful.

Paul had trained himself in the spiritual psychology of gratitude. He had grown in his inner maturity so that he instinctively looked for something to be thankful about in any and every situation. Perhaps during this series I’ll carve out time to study the thanksgiving patterns of Paul throughout the book of Acts and his epistles. I need to learn from him.

3. The Occasion or Reason for the Letter (Romans 1:11-15)

That brings us to verses 11 through 15, the occasion or the reason for the letter. Why did Paul write this letter? Let me give you a little background from the book of Acts. The apostle Paul went out on three organized church missionary trips. At the end of his third trip, he stopped in the city of Corinth and stayed three months in the spacious home of a Christian named Gaius, and here he formulated the plans for his fourth tour. We learn all of this by reading Acts 20 and Romans 15. He wanted to go next to Rome, and he wanted the Christians in Rome to help support an ambitious plan to take the Gospel to Western Europe. He would say more about this in Romans 15, but he alludes to it here.

It’s important to remember that Paul did not start the church in Rome. We don’t know how the Roman church developed in this city. Our biggest clue is this—in Acts, chapter 2, when the Day of Pentecost came and the Holy Spirit filled the believers and they proclaimed the Gospel, we’re told visitors from Rome were there. They were in the crowd.  They were evidently among those who were saved. They returned to Rome in the power of the Holy Spirit and the Gospel spread there. Rome was the capital of the Roman empire and a city of about a million people—the largest city in the world. There is no indication the church in Rome was started by Simon Peter, and certainly no evidence it was started by Paul. This passage says as much. But Paul wanted to visit. Why?

In these verses, Paul listed three reasons he wants to come to Rome.

1. To impart some spiritual gift and be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. Look at verse 11: I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— 12 that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. 

What did Paul mean by spiritual gift? This is left vague, but the idea seems to be that he wants to come and minister to them with whatever spiritual gifts he has. He wants to come and preach to them and teach them and encourage them. And he also wants to receive encouragement from them, to be mutually encouraged with them.

Paul returns to this theme at the very end of the book. The last paragraph of Romans says, “I urge you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me… so that I may come to you with joy, by God’s will, and in your company be refreshed.” (Romans 15:30-32).

Guideposts Magazine told the story of a woman named Mary-Ann Kordoski who was at the Myrtle Beach airport waiting to fly to Michigan and then on to New York, where two days earlier her 44-year-old daughter had died from a heroin overdose. She had already lost her 45-year-old son to the same drug. She learned that all her flights had been delayed, and the ticket agent rebooked her on a direct flight to LaGuardia. But she only had five minutes to race through security, and in her haste and grief she forgot her gate number. She burst into tears.

Suddenly a young man approached her and gave her a hug. “Hi Mary-Ann,” he said. “It’s me, Eric, from the prayer group.” She vaguely remembered him, but she said, “I can’t talk now. I have to catch my flight to LaGuardia.” He said, “That’s my flight too. Come with me.” He helped her board, and when they got to LaGuardia they had a cup of coffee together. Mary-Ann told Eric about her troubles, and his listened intently. 

“I knew your son,” he told her. “We were in a recovery group together.” He gave enormous comfort to Mary-Ann, and then he prayed with her. As Mary-Ann got up to go, she said, “I’m so glad you were here.” 

He said, “Funny you should say that. When I booked this flight, I was so irritated that I had to go through New York just to get to Texas from South Carolina…. But obviously there was a reason.”

Wherever we are, we should look around for someone to whom we can impart a spiritual gift and be mutually encouraged by one another’s faith. God often arranges rendezvous for us just like that so we can fulfill that important purpose of giving comfort and encouragement to someone else.

2. To Have a Harvest Among the Romans

Second, Paul wanted to go to Rome to have a harvest among the Romans. That’s a rather strange phrase, but here’s the way he put it in verse 13: “I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.” It was the Lord Jesus who began this harvest language. He said things like, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” (Matthew 9:37). He said, “I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest” (John 4:35). Paul picked up this “harvest” language. He said in Galatians 6:9, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

The “harvest” represents men and women who are ready to receive the Gospel. I’ve come to realize that for most people, it takes repeated exposure to the Gospel before they are ready to accept it, at least among those who are adults. During the twentieth century, some evangelism trainers talked about the “rule of seven,” saying that it often took about seven encounters with the Gospel before someone was willing to submit their lives to Christ. Nowadays we simply believe that the process of bringing someone to faith is shaped by childhood exposures, godly grandparents or parents, conversations with Christian friends, exposures to church, and so forth. 

But Paul had the gift of evangelism, and he was very effective in bringing in a harvest of souls. The most encouraging verse about this for me is 1 Corinthians 3:6 (NKJV), in which Paul said, “I planted, Apollos watered it, but God gave the increase.” Anytime we do anything personally, verbally, financially, in conjunction with our work at church, in missions, in giving literature, in sending New Testaments, or whatever—we are planting, we are watering, and God will give the increase.

3. To Preach the Gospel (verses 14-15). 

Third, Paul wanted to go to Rome to preach the Gospel. He said in verses 14 and 15: “I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.” And that leads us onward to the theme of the book of Romans in verses 16 and 17. The whole of the letter to the Romans—its divisions, its chapters, its verses, its materials, its subject matter—is summed up here.

4. The Theme of Romans (Romans 1:16-17)

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” 

Let’s take the first phrase and reverse it from a negative to a positive: I am proud of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I boast in it. I glory in it. I celebrate it. I have great confidence in it. I’ll shout it from the rooftops and mountainsides. I’ll share it with complete strangers. It may be one of the seven or so exposure points that will lead them to Christ. 

Why are we so unashamed of the Gospel? Because it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. It has the power to change a person’s life. “The vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.” One of the most remarkable chain reactions in Christian history happened in this way. About 350 years after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, a pagan, immoral, philosopher and professor came to faith in Christ while reading the book of Romans. We call him today St. Augustine. We also call him the “Father of the Western Church.”

Over a thousand years later, Martin Luther became an Augustinian monk in Germany and he studied Augustine’s theology of grace. As Luther studied the book of Romans, he too came to realize that salvation was by grace through faith, and it led to his conversion and to the entire Reformation.

More than 200 years later, John Wesley was listening to someone reading the preface of Luther’s commentary on Romans, and he too was converted. He became the greatest evangelist of his day and started the entire Methodist denomination. John Wesley was converted 1,352 years after Augustine was converted, but the one factor running through the chain was the book of Romans.

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Grace Unleashed

We Need Some Good News!

A Study of Romans 1:1-7

What a great day, everyone, to begin a new series of studies in the Bible. Let’s study Romans! It stands at the forefront of all of the other epistles and letters of the New Testament, not because it was written first but because it is foundational to everything else. The theme of Romans is the Gospel, the Good News shared by the God of Heaven to the people on earth. We need some good news. We’re afraid to turn on our televisions or log onto the news because of the next wave of bad news. We need Good News that will never stop being Good News—and that’s the Gospel. 

Introduction

Here is our starting point: I believe Romans is the amplification of John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” In John 3, remember, Jesus had been talking about the concept of being born again.

One of the greatest insights I’ve ever received about the makeup of the New Testament came from T. D. Bernard’s book, The Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament. Bernard writes in a way that’s somewhat difficult to follow, but in essence he said that Jesus, during his earthly ministry, primarily taught in proverbs and parables. He gave us truth in embryonic form. He did not present a lot of systematic teachings. What He said was very simple and elementary.

Then on the last night of His natural life, He said this to the disciples in the Upper Room: “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come” (John 16:12-13).

In other words, Jesus had much more He wanted to say to His disciples and to us. The words He spoke in the Gospels were germinal, introductory, and, in a sense, miniature nuggets that He wanted to expound upon later. So He said, “I have a lot more to say. I want to expand on what I’ve already told you. So I’m going to give the Holy Spirit the fuller version of My teaching, and He will pass it on to you through the inspired authors of the epistles.”

For example, Jesus gave us a one-chapter summary of the Last Days in Matthew 24. We call it the Olivet Discourse, because He preached it on the Mount of Olives, overlooking Jerusalem. Later He expanded it in the form of the book of Revelation. In the Gospels, He said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” but He expanded on that in the book of Galatians. In the Gospels, He said, “I will build my church,” and in the epistles He expanded on that in the book of Ephesians. So there is a sense in which the book of Romans is simply the full expansion and explanation of John 3:16.

Well, in the book of Romans, all the great truths and implications of those words are expanded and explained to us. Romans explains what it means to be born again. Jesus Himself gave this information to the Holy Spirit, who prompted the apostle Paul to write it as the Spirit inspired the writing. 

The book of Romans is Jesus explaining to us the implications of what He did for us. He is giving us theology to go with the history. He is explaining the significance of His own death and resurrection through the Spirit-inspired pen of the apostle Paul.

The theologian and pastor, John Piper, wrote that he has never been able to remember the exact time of his conversion to Christ. His dad told him he was six years old, and he prayed to receive Christ at his mother’s knees in a hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1952. But here’s what he wrote about it: “A lot of you in this room are in that position, and you sort of regret it because you don’t have any stunning testimonies to tell about how you were saved. However, I learned what happened to me from Romans. I’m going to tell you what happened to me. I don’t need to remember; I know from the Bible what happened to me…. even though I don’t remember what happened to me, I know what happened to me from the book of Romans.”

For this series of podcasts I’m not going to formulate sermons as much as teach through each passage, making comments along the way. I want to also tell you that my main commentary source is Douglas J. Moo’s The New Testament International Commentary: The Letter to the Romans-Second Edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2018). I highly recommend it, but I should let you know it is over a thousand pages long and costs more than the average book.

Let’s start with the prologue of Romans. The first seventeen verses of Romans comprise the prologue of the book, and the prologue divides into four parts—the salutation or introduction;  the thanksgiving; the occasion or reason for the letter; and the glorious theme. 

Scripture

Let’s read his salutation or introduction, which is the first part of the prologue—Romans 1:1-7: Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God—the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake. And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

1. We Need Authentic Good News

These seven verses constitute a remarkable introduction, first of all for its length. Romans is the longest of all Paul’s letters, and it has the longest salutation. In fact, the epistle of Romans has the longest opening salutation of any Greek letter we have from antiquity. Most Greek letters opened like this: Aralias to Apollos, Greetings. Paul’s salutation goes on for 92 words in the Greek. Again, it is the longest salutation of any extant letter we have from the ancient Greco-Roman world.

Let’s go through it phrase by phrase: Paul begins by describing himself in three ways, as a servant of Christ Jesus, an apostle, and someone who had been set apart for the Gospel.

The letter begins: Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God. Paul was claiming to be an apostle who was of equal rank and authority with the twelve disciples of Jesus. The Lord is full of surprises. When Jesus ascended to Heaven, He left behind eleven disciples, and one of their first actions was to appoint another of the close followers of Jesus to be the twelfth disciple, replacing Judas Iscariot. The twelve disciples in the New Testament harmonized with the twelve tribes of Israel.

Then unexpectedly, as the church began to grow, God reached down and converted its greatest opponent and made this man a special apostle of equal rank with the others and the chief writer of the New Testament epistles. We never know what God is going to do. Like C. S. Lewis said, the Lord is not a tame lion. 

Notice the last word of the verse: Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God. 

Douglas Moo believes, and I concur, that this is the theme of Romans. We sometimes hear that the theme of Romans is justification, and that topic does occupy an important place in the book. But all sixteen chapters of Romans lay out the theology and practicality of this message that Gabriel first introduced in Luke 1:19 as the “Good News.”

My professor at Columbia International University, James Hatch, explained that the essential part of God’s operation on this earth is what He did—His actions in history, especially as it involved the actual physical death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Those who lived in the Roman world saw crucifixions by the hundreds. After the rebellion of Spartacus, for example, about 6,000 captured slaves were crucified along the Appian way.

So in one sense, the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth was a horrific and grisly event, but in some ways an ordinary occurrence. It was an act in history, an event that happened on a particular day in the first century. The four Gospels are primarily the records of the historical happenings of one Jesus Christ.

But in the epistles, and especially in the book of Romans, God explains the significance, the implications, the logic, the theology, and the intellectual reasoning of that one particular crucifixion, as well as the subsequent resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

When you take the historical facts in the Gospels and combine them with the rational explanation in the epistles, you have the Gospel—the Good News, the Best News, the single most important information the world will ever hear with our ears, understand with our minds, believe in our hearts, and share with our tongues. 

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tell us what happened; the book of Romans tells us why it happened and why it matters. There is rationale here. The Gospel is God’s logic about the state of our souls. It is logical, sensible, and accurate. It is the theological explanation of historical realities.

That’s why Martin Luther said, “This epistle is really the chief part of the New Testament and the very purist gospel…. It can never be read or pondered too much, and the more it is dealt with the more precious it becomes….”

John Calvin said, “When anyone understands this epistle, he has a [channel] opened to him to the understanding of the whole Scripture.”

William Tyndale said, and I’m paraphrasing his archaic English just a bit, “Since this epistle is the principle and most excellent part of the New Testament, and the most pure Evangelion… I think it is necessary that every Christian not only know it, but know it by rote and be able to quote it from memory, and to do so frequently, for this is daily bread for the soul.”

I have not memorized the whole book of Romans, but perhaps the Lord will lay it on your heart to do so. At the very least, we must become so familiar with these sixteen chapters that we can work our way mentally through the entire book. We should read it over and over until we have a terrific grasp on its structure and contents. It’s impossible to study this book too much. We need the Gospel as it’s presented in Romans—authentic, accurate, giving us the divine analysis of events He brought about on this earth in time and location.

2. We Need Anticipated Good News – Verse 2

The apostle Paul is also keen to remind us that the Gospel is not just the theme of Romans. It’s the theme of the entire Bible, including the Old Testament. Look at verses 1-2 again: Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God—the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures….

The “Holy Scriptures” referred to here are the pages of the Old Testament, beginning with Genesis and ending with Malachi. John Harvey, who taught Romans at my alma mater, Columbia International University, pointed out that in the sixteen chapters of Romans there are sixty-four—sixty-four!—direct quotations in Romans from the Old Testament. Harvey said, “Paul was intent on demonstrating that the entire Old Testament supported the Gospel he preached.”

It’s remarkable how Jesus fulfilled the entire Old Testament. 

I recently read a testimony by Kim Erickson, who is now an effective Christian writer and speaker. Kim didn’t grow up in a Christian home, and the idea of God coming to earth as a baby seemed ridiculous to her. She rejected Christianity on the basis of her own logic. She clung to that belief until her three-year-old son developed strep throat and died. Kim didn’t have a church, so she knocked on the door of a community church and asked if they would hold a memorial service for her little boy.

They reached out and embraced her and loved her. That’s when she began to rethink Christianity. But she still had a lot of uncertainty and doubts. Then she began to read the prophet Isaiah and she saw how frequently and fully Isaiah spoke of the future Messiah in terms that fit Jesus Christ to a “T.” 

She wrote, “Fulfilled prophecy, however, did more than convince me about the existence of God. It revealed the character of God. His nature, His love, His justice, His mercy, and His compassion….”

When Kim saw how God had fulfilled His predictions in Isaiah about Christ, she became convinced of something more. She wrote, “The absolute certainty that God keeps His promises lifted me out of the deep pit of grieving a child. I’ve learned to trust God, even during darkest hours. The promise of heaven helps me choose joy each day.”

This former skeptic has now written a book entitled Predicting Jesus: A 6-Week Study of the Messianic Prophecies of Isaiah, along with several other books. 

I can’t tell you how important the subject of fulfilled Messianic prophecy is to our apologetics and to our presentation of evidence involving the accuracy of the Gospel. It’s so important that Paul brings it up in the second verse of his book. He says, in essence, “There is good news, and the entire Old Testament anticipated it.” Now, Paul is going to give us the great subject of the Gospel, the one man around whom it all rotates.

3. We Need the Jesus-Centered Good News – Verses 3-4

Verses 3 and 4 continue:… regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 

The Gospel is about Jesus Christ, and Paul explains we have a Savior with two natures. He is a human being—just as human and you and me—but He is also God. As to His earthly life, He descended from the line or lineage of David. He had a family tree, and He could trace His descendance back to David. He died, just as humans die. But He rose again and His resurrection demonstrated that He was also the Son of God, meaning that He was and is Almighty God Himself. 

Let’s zero in on that word appointed. Paul says that Jesus was “appointed the Son of God in power by His resurrection from the dead.” 

Other translations use words like declared and designated. Let me quote Douglas Moo: “What Paul is claiming…is that the preexistent Son, who entered into human experience as the promised Messiah, was appointed on the basis of (or, perhaps, at the time of) the resurrection to a new and more powerful position in relation to the world.”

This is the same truth we have in Philippians 2: “…being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name” (Philippians 2:8-9).

Paul is giving us a chronology of the story of Jesus. This is so good. There are three stages in the story of Jesus Christ.

First, He was and is and always will be the Son of God, that is, God Himself. Verse 3 says, “Regarding His Son….” This enters into the mystery of our deepest doctrine—the Doctrine of the Trinity: There is one God who eternally exists in three Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.Second, this always-existing God the Son entered into the human family as a descendant of David, and He humbled Himself and offered Himself as a sacrifice for sin.Third, He rose from the dead and God the Father designated this God-Man to be Lord of all, over every name that can be named in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth. Jesus ascended to Heaven and now rules from His throne as our prophet, priest, and king.

And all this was to provide us with Good News! Verses 5-7 say: Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

This is the only message and the only Person who can truly change your life from the inside out. One of the blessings of being the author of some books is it gives me an opportunity to share the message of the Lord on various radio and television shows. Sometimes I’m on a program that also features another guest.

I was on a television show recently and the other guest was a man named Jay Lowder, who shared how he came to faith in Christ. He said that as a young adult, his life was falling apart. He was addicted; he dropped out of college; he lost his job; he lost his car; he lost his girlfriend. And he said, “I isolated myself.” At age 21, he became so depressed he decided he was going to kill himself.

He said, “My roommate worked for his father and was never at home during the day, so I sat on the sofa and pulled out a .22-caliber pistol. I was just about to pull the trigger when I heard a vehicle pulling into our gravel driveway. It was my roommate, who walked in and said his father had given him the rest of the day off with pay, something that never happened.”

 Jay buried the gun in the sofa and decided to delay his suicide. A couple of days later he went to his parents’ house to wash his clothes. The television was on, and there was a commercial about suicide prevention. A man was coming to town to talk about it. Jay’s mother asked him if he wanted to go and he decided he would. 

It turned out that man was a Gospel evangelist. When he gave the invitation, Jay wanted to go forward but hesitated. He was in the balcony, and he saw one of his old basketball buddies get up and go forward. Jay realized he wasn’t the only one who felt they needed to make a change in life.  So he went forward and gave his life to the Lord Jesus. Today Jay is a respected evangelist who travels the world telling others about Jesus.

You may be in as bad a shape as Jay or, or you might think you’re doing pretty well in life. But the world around us offers nothing but bad news. You and I need Good News that will never stop being Good News. It is authentic, anticipated, and centered around Jesus. It is the Good News that never stops being Good News. The Gospel is the Good News we need in this weary and war-torn world.

Thanks for digging into the riches of the Bible with me. 

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Let Go and Let God

Jacob – “If I Am Bereaved, I am Bereaved”

Introduction

The Greatest Generation lied to me. It wasn’t intentional or malicious, but I believed what they told me. My parents. My teachers. My coaches. My church leaders. They had just won the most horrific war in the history of the world. They had rallied from the disaster at Pearl Harbor to beat the Nazis and Fascists in Europe, and to achieve victory in the Pacific. They had developed the atomic bomb. 

“You can do anything you put your mind to,” they told me.

“Where there’s a will there’s a way,” they said.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

“You can accomplish anything you want, given time and resources and determination.”

And I believed them. I believed all of it. In my mind, these manifestos gave me an idealistic sense of tenacity that served me well through my teens and twenties. 

But let me ask you: Is anyone really prepared to run into an immovable object? I was bewildered when I began encountering problems too large to solve; burdens too heavy to bear; goals too lofty to seize; injuries too deep to heal; puzzles too tangled to unravel; projects too daunting to finish; people too stubborn to change; habits too entrenched to break; and pain too great to endure.

What then? The awful perplexities of life drove me headlong into the Bible. There’s where I met a handful of people who ran smack into the same thing. In their own individual ways, they did the only thing one can do in impossible moments—they let go and let God. We have to release control over the circumstances that are beyond us and trust Him who is above us. That’s the splendor of surrender.

“Letting Go and Letting God” isn’t an invitation to Christian passivity. It doesn’t mean we stop striving for holiness, seeking to serve, or pressing toward the goal. It doesn’t mean we give up in defeat. Nor does it mean we don’t act when the Lord shows us what to do or gives us wisdom for the next step. 

It simply means there are certain times when we realize we cannot do the impossible, so we turn over the reins of those circumstances, cast our burdens on the Lord, and trust His mysterious sovereignty to work out things in conformity to His will with a strong tilt towards our good. Simon Peter wrote, “…casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, and all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares about you [with deepest affection, and watches over you very carefully]” (1 Peter 5:7 AMP).

Edward D. Andrews wrote that letting go and letting God is not a form of spiritual abandonment, where one does nothing and merely waits for divine intervention. He said, “Surrendering to God means entrusting our worries, plans, and desires to Him actively seeking His will through prayer and Bible study, and obediently acting according to His guidance.”

There may be times when we can do nothing but wait for God to work—and we may be waiting a very long time—but that’s all right. Letting go and letting God means that we’re trusting Him to envelop our problems in the mysterious clouds of His omnipotence. We can take Him at His word that, in the course of His surgical timing, He will turn curses into blessings. Whenever we transfer control of any situation [all our anxieties, all our worries, and all our concerns, once and for all] over to Him, He begins injecting the invisible influence of His grace into our circumstances, and we’re free to pray fervently and faithfully, but not frantically.

Our job is to exchange our hyperventilating hearts with God’s all surpassing hyper-grace. 

We aren’t the first people to learn about casting our cares on Him. When we run into intractable problems in life, we can trust the imperishable promises and unwavering providence of a God who has been a very present help for generations untold. 

In one Puritan-like sentence, the 17th-century English Presbyterian, John Flavel, practically summed up everything I want to say in this episode: “Providence is wiser than you, and you may be confident it has suited all things better to your eternal good than you could do had you been left to your own option.”

Jacob’s Problems and Yours

Dan Alexander wrote The Wounded Heart to help victims of childhood sexual abuse. As he rightly claims, many hurting people often ask, “Why am I still struggling with this? Why can’t I just give it to God and get on with life?” 

Those are questions I’ve often asked. Though I’ve never experienced sexual abuse, I have had harrowing seasons of stress and moments of deep fear, disappointment, and betrayal. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to “let go and let God.” I remember saying to my wife, Katrina, more than once, “Why am I still struggling with this? Why can’t I just give it to God and get on with life?”

Healing takes time, and so does spiritual maturity. In fact, it’s a lifelong project. One of the Bible’s best examples is the patriarch Jacob, who, at the lowest moment of life, sent his beloved son, Benjamin, on a dangerous mission, letting go of all control, and saying, “If I am bereaved, I am bereaved.” 

Jacob had family issues that tie up a huge block of the book of Genesis. He and his twin brother, Esau, were born when their father was a ripe sixty years old. From the first, Jacob was ambitious. He came out of the womb grasping the heel of his older brother, Esau. Thus his name, Jacob, had connotations of following, grasping at the heel of someone, pursuing (Genesis 27:36).

When Jacob was older, he conned Esau out of both his birthright and his blessing, causing such venom in the family that Jacob fled to his mother’s homeland, a town called Paddan Aram (in modern day southern Turkey). There he fell in love with a beautiful woman named Rachel and married her. But on his wedding night, in the pitch darkness of his tent and probably befuddled with wine, he slept with his bride’s sister (Genesis 29:14-30). The trickster had been tricked by his father-in-law, who wanted Jacob to marry Leah.

So Jacob had two wives, plus he slept with his wives’ servants. Children came, one after another. But his most loved wife, Rachel, was unable to bear children. Finally the day came when Jacob wanted to return home with his family, his servants, and his expansive herds of livestock. But he was petrified of facing Esau and Esau’s fighting men. 

Nearing home, Jacob divided his party into two groups and sent them across the ford of the Jabbok. He was alone with his regrets and his fears when a powerful man leaped out the darkness onto him and wrestled him to the ground.

Who was this stranger wrestler? I believe He was the pre-incarnate Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, the One later called the Lord Jesus Christ (see Hosea 12:3-5). Jacob was as tough as leather, and the two men struggled through the night. Near dawn, the strange combatant struck Isaac’s hip and wrenched it from its socket. The pain of Jacob’s dislocated hip defeated him. He had overcome everyone and everything in his life, but He could not overcome the Lord. Jacob surrendered, and God blessed Jacob then and there. He also gave Him a new name—Israel, which means, in its implications, “You have struggled with God, and God has won.”

Victor Hamilton wrote, “[Jacob] has a new name and a new limp. The new name will forever remind Jacob of his new destiny. The new limp will forever remind him that in Elohim Jacob met for the first time one who can overpower him.”

Jacob returned home, made peace with Esau, and fathered two more children. Dear Rachel gave birth to Joseph and then she died giving birth to Benjamin. Amid his grief, these two boys became Jacob’s greatest source of joy. His whole life was wrapped up in them. But Jacob’s family dysfunctions destroyed everything. The older brothers kidnapped Joseph out of jealousy, sold him into slavery, and told Jacob he had been slain by a wild animal.

While Joseph languished in slavery and prison in Egypt, Jacob grieved for him wretchedly and endlessly. His sons got into more and more trouble, and Jacob finally cried, “Everything is against me!” (Genesis 42:36).

Meanwhile God had blessed Joseph in Egypt, promoting him to Prime Minister of the greatest civilization on earth. During a famine, his brothers came to Egypt to purchase grain. They didn’t recognize Joseph, but he recognized them and created an ingenious scheme to reunite with his father and heal the rifts in his family. As part of the scheme, he imprisoned one of the brothers and demanded the others head home to fetch none other than Benjamin. 

When Jacob heard this, he was apoplectic, crying, “My son will not go down there with you; his brother is dead and he is the only one left. If harm comes to him on the journey you are taking, you will bring my gray head down to the grave in sorrow…. Why did you bring this trouble on me?” (Genesis 42:38; 43:6). But there was nothing to do. The family was starving, one brother was chained in prison, and the full weight of the Egyptian government was bearing down on them all. Jacob had to let go of Benjamin and let God do whatever God was going to do.

“If it must be,” he said, “then do this: Put some of the best products of the land in your bags and take them down to the man as a gift…. Take your brother [Benjamin] also and go back to the man at once. And may God Almighty grant you mercy before the man so that he will let your other brothers and Benjamin come back with you. As for me, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved” (Genesis 43:11-14).

That’s when Jacob simply accepted the facts he could not change. In a raw cry of painful acceptance, Jacob said, in effect: “I can do nothing now to change things or to protect my sons. I am at the end of my resources. I’m letting go of control. If the worst happens, it happens. It’s no longer in my hands, but in God’s hands.”

Sometimes we have to simply give up like that. We come to the moment of resignation. It’s not that we give up on God or His mysterious methods. We give up our own efforts, struggles, toils, schemes, and devices. We have to say, “Lord, You take over, and if I’m bereaved, then I’m bereaved. But I am going to trust You against all human hope. I give it all to You.”

Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916) worded his prayer like this: “Father, I abandon myself into Your hands; do with me what You will. Whatever You may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only Your will be done in me, and in all Your creatures. I wish no more than this, O Lord.”

It’s no accident that Jacob’s moment of resignation became God’s moment of intervention. When the brothers arrived with Benjamin in Egypt, Joseph revealed himself to them, forgave them, and promised to care for them. He told them, “And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you” (Genesis 45:5). That’s sound psychological advice. At some point, we have to stop beating ourselves up and recognize the freedom of being forgiven.

In the end, Jacob was reunited with Joseph and Benjamin, and all twelve brothers lived in love and harmony. They also produced families who became the twelve tribes of Israel. And—this boggles my mind—when we get to New Jerusalem, we’ll find the names of these twelve erstwhile worthless, ruthless sons inscribed on the gates as we enter the city (Revelation 21:12).

Oh, the endless mercy and grace of our King! When we’re apt to say like Jacob, “All these things are against me” (Genesis 42:36 NKJV), He teaches us to declare, “All things work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8:28 NKJV).

Jacob’s Helper and Yours

Notice these three elements in Jacob’s story, and apply it to yourself. 

First, you have a burden you cannot endure. There’s a painful zone in your life that casts a shadow over all your other attitudes and activities. How true that was for Jacob! Some of his problems were of his own making, others came from his family, and some of his troubles simply came because they came. Same for you, right? And for me!

Second, you have a God you cannot ignore. He may even tackle you and wrestle you to the ground, but only because He wants to overpower you to bless you. That blessing begins the moment you let Him take over and have His way. Giving your burden to the Lord means giving yourself to Him with all your heart.

That leads to a result you cannot imagine. I cannot explain how God can and will extend His mercy and grace into areas that seem lost to you. “There’s a wideness to God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea.” But it is impossible not to underestimate our God. He is so infinite, so unfathomable, that we can simply say, “There is no one like the God of [Israel], who rides across the heavens to help you and on the clouds in His majesty. The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:26-27).

The Bible says, “Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.” You have the God of Jacob, and He is there to help.

Captain Stanford E. Linzey was a member of the Greatest Generation who came to the end of his inner resources aboard the USS Yorktown at Midway. The approaching battle represented the greatest massing of sea power in the history of warfare. Linzey felt a spirit of fear gripping the sailors. “We had felt the heavy lurch of a bomb strike, buried our friends at sea, and seen the horror in the sinking of the Lexington. We knew what was ahead, and some of us would likely die. It was an eerie sensation…. There was a sense of foreboding throughout the ship. And I was afraid. A terrific paralyzing fear gripped me—animal fear, wide-eyed fear. It held me in a its grip like a vice.”

“In my desperation and mental anxiety, I cried aloud to God in my pillow. ‘Lord, I am saved and I know it. If I must die, then I must. It’s okay with me. I’m ready. Only one thing I ask of You, that you take this numbing fear out of my heart and mind so I can do my duty. Amen.’”

“At that moment,” he said, “lying face down on my bunk… something wonderful happened. I had an emotional experience I shall never forget. I sensed…the weight and pressure of the moment physically and literally life off my shoulders. At that instant, the burden and the fear were dispelled. I could feel it. I was free.”

During the battle, the USS Yorktown was sunk. Running to the slanting deck, Linzey saw nearly two thousand heads bobbing in the sea. Like the others, he stripped to his skivvies and leaped into black, oily waters of the South Pacific. The destroyer Balch let down its netting, and Linzey climbed to safety. With other survivors, Linzey said, “barefooted and clad only in our skivvies, we knelt on the steel deck and had an open-air praise meeting in full view of six or seven hundred sailors. With our oil-covered weary hands raised in praise, we worshipped God openly….”

Conclusion

In the face of terrific, paralyzing, animal-like fear, we have to throw ourselves on the mercy of God. We have to let go of all we are, of all we want, of all we need, and we have to trust God for His will to prevail on our behalf, whether we live or whether we die. When you have a burden you cannot endure, run to the God you cannot ignore and ask Him to give you a result you cannot imagine.

Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.

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Is Your Place a Small Place?

Today I want to deal with a wonderful passage in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 45. 

Introduction

Now I want to give you a word of testimony that comes from a half century of being a pastor. Katrina and I began our ministry in a small church—the building was made of river rock and is the most quaint and evocative church I’ve ever pastored. There were about sixty people there, and we built it up to perhaps seventy or seventy-five.

Then we moved to Nashville, and on our first Sunday at our new church, according to the memory of my friend, Dr. Vernon Whaley, who was there, we had seventy-eight people. It took nearly forty years, but we grew a church of about a thousand people.

Now I’m in a church many times that size, and on Easter Weekend we’ll have 35 to 40,000 people. Here’s what I realized—and it came to me as a surprise but also as a tremendous encouragement. I have been no more or less happy in one place as in another. I was just as happy in my church of sixty as I am in a church of ten thousand. By the mercy of God, somehow—and I didn’t realize this until recently—the size of the church had no bearing on my joy in serving. We find our joy in just serving the Lord wherever He puts us, whether it’s in a large place or a small one.

Even as I say this, I remember Ruth Bell Graham telling me that the global ministry she and Dr. Graham had was simply hard work. She said they would have been just as happy to have been missionaries in an obscure place even if no one knew their name.

John Oxenham published a little book of verses in 1913, entitled Bees in Amber. One of my favorites in this book is a little poem I memorized many years ago and often quote. The title is “Your Place,” and the poem says:

Is your place a small place?

Tend it with care!—

He set you there.

Is your place a large place?

Guard it with care!—

He set you there.

Whate’er your place, it is

Not your alone, but His

Who set you there.

The truth of this verse is that there are no small jobs in the Kingdom and no small places as far as the Lord is concerned. In our society we tend to measure people by the size of their work or the size of their house or the size of their bank account. We live by the rule that bigger is better, and we sometimes long for the limelight. But the smallest, most obscure task, seriously undertaken and faithfully performed for the Master, has a more lasting significance than the greatest headliner without the blessings of God.

When God Speaks To You…

I want to show you how that plays out in one particular man’s life, and our Scripture reading is from Jeremiah 45. Let’s begin with verse 1:

The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah, when he had written these words in a book at the instruction of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, the king of Judah.

Baruch is one of the most interesting characters in the Bible. His name comes from the Hebrew word for Blessed, and he was a devoted friend and amanuensis of the prophet Jeremiah. He pops up here and there in Jeremiah’s book and was a man of deep conviction and courage.

Verse 2 says: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to you, O Baruch:

That’s such a wonderful verse. How would you like to have your own verse in the Bible? How would you like it if there was just one particular promise or command that literally had your name attached to it? “This is the special word of the Lord for… you.” The truth is we can put our own name in any and every verse of the Bible. The whole Bible can be personalized for you and for me, and that’s what true spirituality is—when we take each verse of the Bible as being our very own. Verse 3: You say, “Woe is me now! For the Lord has added grief to my sorrow. I fainted in my sighing, and I find no rest.”

Here was a man who was overcome and overwhelmed with a series of blows in life. I don’t know why it is that problems often come in multiples. In Baruch’s case, everything was complicated by the aforementioned Babylonian invasion. A brutal enemy was invading the nation of Judah, and everywhere there was suffering and destruction and death and defeat. But read on with verse 4:

Thus you shall say to him, “Thus says the Lord: Behold, what I have built I will break down, and what I have planted I will pluck up, that is, the whole land. 

This was a message of judgment on the land of Judah for their sins. Things were bad, and they were going to get worse. 

“Seek Not Great Things For Yourself”

And then verse 5: And do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for behold, I will bring adversity on all flesh, says the Lord. But I will give your life to you as a prize in all the places, wherever you go.

In other words, this nation and all that is around you is collapsing. Don’t seek your own personal aggrandizement. Don’t seek worldly success or fleeting fame; for everything is very temporary and unstable. Just trust me, and I’ll keep you alive and use you, however large or small your place appears to be.

And every generation of believers since that time has found this verse 5 of invaluable help.

Once when Katrina and I were traveling, I read the biography of Oswald J. Smith, the longtime pastor of the People’s Church of Toronto. I remember hearing Dr. Smith speak on one occasion, and it was when I was a teenager or a very young man and had come here to Nashville for something or other; and he was speaking at the missions conference at what is now Welch College. I still remember how effectively he used an illustration about salt being poured out of the saltshaker. He was a great preacher and a great missionary advocate.

Interestingly, Dr. Smith had a hard time getting established as a pastor. He had some struggles early in his career; but finally it appeared that his big break had come. He attracted the attention of a great church in the state of New York, and it was the church where the famous Dr. A. B. Simpson had pastored. It was one of the great churches of the Northeast, and at the very hub of the Christian Missionary and Alliance movement. The church voted unanimously to call Dr. Smith, and he very practically decided to go. His mind was 99 percent made up. But one night after he had gone to bed, this verse came to his mind with sudden urgency: Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not.

He reversed his decision, declined the offer, and his life’s ministry went in a totally different way. Evidently, the prestige of the offer had almost convinced him to go; but that didn’t represent God’s will for him at all; and the Lord used this verse to change the direction of his life. His name was in this verse just as surely as Baruch’s.

He’s not the only person whose name is in this verse. The most powerful preacher I’ve ever read about is Charles Haddon Spurgeon; I wish all of us could have heard him preach a hundred years ago in London. He was known as the Prince of Preachers, and there is no one to equal him in Christian history. His sermons, delivered practically extemporaneously, are the most eloquent and powerful messages I’ve ever read; and the collected compilations of his sermons represents the single largest volume of books in the history of Christianity. 

But let me tell you what happened to him when he was a young man. He badly felt the need to attend Bible college, for he wanted to preach and to pastor, but he had never had any formal training. So he applied to a Bible training institution, and the director of the school agreed to meet with him. The meeting was to take place at the home of Mr. Macmillan, the publisher. Spurgeon rose early for prayer on the day of the meeting, then he proceeded to the publisher’s house. He rang the bell, and a servant led him into a private meeting room; and there he sat for two hours. Finally he went looking for someone and found out that the servant had completely forgotten about him and hadn’t announced his arrival.

Meanwhile, the director of the school, Dr. J Angus, was waiting elsewhere in the house, and he finally grew disgusted at having been apparently stood up; and he left and returned to London. When he left the house, he was confused and upset; but as he walked along this verse came to him with remarkable force: Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not. He took it as the word of God and faithfully went about pastoring a small church in the country; and the rest is history. This verse had his name on it, and God used it to establish the course of his life.

One more story illustrates the same thing. There was a New Zealand lawyer whose name was J. Oswald Sanders who entered the ministry and became one of the most powerful Christian leaders of his generation. I have tried to read everything that came from the pen of this great man. One of his final pieces of writing was an article he wrote based on a talk he gave late in life, entitled simply “Lessons I’ve Learned.” 

He said:

I don’t think I ever was very ambitious. But on one occasion there was a job in Christian work I would have liked—it just seemed to be up my street, something that would fit in with my gifts. I knew I had friends who had influence, and if I asked them I was sure they would pull a string and turn the job in my direction. I was only an immature Christian in those days, and I was toying with this idea of doing a little lobbying.

I was going down the main street in Auckland one day, turning this over in my mind as I was just outside His Majesty’s Theatre—I still know the spot, and every time I pass it my mind recalls what happened. As I was thinking, Will I or won’t I? these words of Scripture came with tremendous authority and conviction: “Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not!” The words came just as though it was God speaking. There were crowds all around me, and no one else heard the voice, but I heard it all right!

I believe that was a real turning point in my service to the Lord. He gave me the grace to accept the admonition, and I didn’t ask anybody to pull any strings. Actually the job came to me automatically later on without my doing anything. It wasn’t God’s time for it earlier. (J. Oswald Sanders, Lessons I’ve Learned in “Discipleship Journal,” Issue 15 1983, p. 16).

We know that if we’re faithful to Him, the Lord will use us in great ways—greater than we know. But our usefulness in the kingdom is disconnected from the fame and fortune of our work. Sometimes the greatest workers for the kingdom are those unknown by the world, who do their work faithfully in obscurity and humility. But God sees and knows and uses and blesses and rewards in His own time and way. As an old song says, “Little is much when God is in it.”

What About Your Place?

What about your place? I began this episode with a poem by John Oxenham; let me finish by another of my favorite poets, Annie Johnson Flint, who wrote:

Fret not because thy place is small,
Thy service need not be,
For thou canst make it all there is
Of joy and ministry.

The dewdrop, as the boundless sea,
In God’s great place has part;
And this is all He asks of thee;
Be faithful where thou art.

In thee His mighty hand can show
The wonders of His grace,
And He can make the humblest room
A high and holy place.

Thy life can know the blessedness
Of resting in His will;
His fullness flows unceasingly
Thy cup of need to fill.

His strength upon thy weakness waits,
His power for thy task.
What more, O child of all His care,
Could any great one ask?

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Some Golden Daybreak

It’s impossible to go to Jerusalem without contemplating the glorious life of our Lord Jesus Christ, both past and future. Someone asked me the other day where is my favorite place to preach. I don’t have a definitive answer to that, but certainly few things can compare to preaching about the second coming of Jesus while standing on the Mount of Olives.

In terms of biblical prophecy, the order of events as I understand them will unfold like this. We are now awaiting the rapture of the church, which could occur at any moment. I’m not dogmatic about the timing of the rapture, as I explain in my book, The 50 Final Events in World History; but my personal opinion is that it will precede the seven predicted years of Tribulation. The trumpet of the Lord will sound, the dead in Christ will be resurrected, and the church of our Lord Jesus Christ—the saints of all the ages—will be caught up to heaven. 

In the aftermath of that breathtaking event, the remaining citizens of earth will regroup into a one-world government led by a powerful and charismatic leader who is referred to in the Bible as “the man of sin” or the “antichrist.” 

There will follow those seven years of tribulation as described in the books of Daniel and Revelation. Near the end of that period the armies of the world will march against the nation of Israel and surround the city of Jerusalem, determined to annihilate the Jewish people at long last. At that very moment, at the outset of the battle of Armageddon, the Lord Jesus Christ will appear in the heavens, surrounded by His holy angels. He will descend to the Mount of Olives and enter Jerusalem in triumph to establish His millennial reign on the earth.

How wonderful will be the unfolding of these events! Have you thought about them recently? Are you anticipating those days? Are you watching for Christ to come like a thief in the night? Are you ready? 

According to John Wesley White, there are some 1,845 verses in the Bible that speak of the return of Jesus Christ to earth. Today I’d like to deal with a few of these verses as we find them in the book of 1 Thessalonians.

Background

The two letters written by the Apostle Paul to the Christians in the city of Thessalonica—1 and 2 Thessalonians—contain a lot of valuable material about the Lord’s coming. In addition, as some of you have noticed or heard, the book of 1 Thessalonians is the only book in the Bible in which every chapter ends with a reference to the Second Coming of Christ. I want to take you to those five chapter endings. First Thessalonians has five chapters and each one ends by saying something unique about the return of Christ. These five endings tell us something about the effect the return of Christ should have on our hearts and minds.

The End of Chapter One: A Sign of Salvation

At the end of chapter one, we see that the anticipation for the return of Christ is a sign of our salvation. Look at 1 Thessalonians 1:8ff: The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead—Jesus, who saves us from the coming wrath.

Here is a concise definition of a Christian. Paul was saying, “Everywhere we go people are talking about what happened when I was with you, how you became Christians.” And how does he define a Christian? A Christian is someone who has turned from idols to serve God and to await the return of Christ.

When we find ourselves awaiting, anticipating the return of Christ, it is a sign of salvation. That’s what people do who have truly been saved. They look at the sky blue-pink at sunrise and they think, “Maybe my Lord will come today.” They see the scarlet sunset in the west, and they say, “Maybe my Lord will come just now.” An old Gospel song says:

Some golden daybreak Jesus will come.

Some golden daybreak battles all done.

He’ll shout the victory; break through the blue

Some golden daybreak for me, for you.

Every generation of Christians has wanted the Lord to come back in their own days. A little parchment called the “Didache” is among the earliest documents in church history. There we read: Let not your lamps be quenched, nor your loins unloosed; but be ready, for you know not the hour in which our Lord will come. 

St. Cyril wrote in the fourth century: But let us wait and look for the Lord’s coming upon the clouds from heaven. Then shall angelic trumpets sound.

Augustine felt that the Lord would return somewhere, he thought, around the year A.D. 1000.

In the 1300s, John Wycliffe, the “Morning Star of the Reformation,” studied the “signs” of the times and concluded that the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ should be expected immediately.

In the 16th century, John Calvin preached: We must hunger after Christ until the dawning of that great day when our Lord will fully manifest the glory of His kingdom.

In the 18th century, John Wesley said: The Spirit in the heart of the true believer says with earnest desire, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

In the twentieth century, evangelist Billy Graham said: Many times when I go to bed at night I think to myself that before I awaken Christ may come.

Peter told us in 2 Peter 3 that we must be patient for the Lord’s coming. But to be a Christian is to be someone who has turned from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven—Jesus—who saves us from the coming wrath.

The End of Chapter Two: A Motive For Ministry

Second, a love for the Second Coming is a motivation for ministry. First Thessalonians chapter 2 ends with these words: But, brothers, when we were torn away from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you. For we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, did, again and again—but Satan stopped us. For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when He comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy.

In other words, Paul said, “I hated being torn away from you like I was. I didn’t want to leave. You are very valuable, very important to me, very loved by me. You are those I have won to Christ. You are those whom I’ll see at the throne of God as a result of my labors. You are my hope, my joy, my crown in which I will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when He comes.”

We need to ask ourselves—Will there be someone—anyone—at the Throne of God because of my witness? Will there be souls in heaven because of my earthly life?

One of the most neglected aspects of the Second Coming of Christ involves its potential for motivating us in evangelism and in Christian service. What will it be like to stand before the Throne of God on that day He returns and look earnestly through the encircling throngs trying to find someone, anyone, who is there because of our witness? What will it be like to stand before the Throne and be surrounded by a host of men and women and boys and girls whom we had the joy of leading to faith in Christ?

Not long after I’d yielded my heart to the Lord as a college sophomore I was on fire for the Lord. Along with some of my buddies, I went to a nearby shopping complex on a soul-winning venture. I sat down beside one boy—he was perhaps eleven or twelve. I shared the Gospel with him, and he wanted to be a Christian, and so I led him in praying a prayer in which he asked Jesus Christ to be His Lord and Savior. Afterward he gave me his address, and the next day I went to his home to give him a Bible and some literature. But his father, a crude and angry man, met me at the door. He was furious that I had shared Christ with his son. When I tried to leave the Bible, the man struck at me and knocked me off the porch. I’ve never seen that boy since, but I’ve often wondered if I will not meet him some day on the golden streets. He is the first person I ever remember leading to Christ, and if his conversion was sincere and genuine, he will be my hope and my joy and my crown when the Lord comes again.

Similarly, whenever we give of our money to the Lord’s work, whenever we send forth missionaries, whenever we prosecute our ministry here with the resulting conversions—those who come to the Lord through our ministry are going to be sources of great joy for us when our Lord comes again.

The End of Chapter Three: A Reason For Righteousness

But let’s move on to the ending of the next chapter. Look at the way 1 Thessalonians 3 ends: “Now may our God and Father Himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May He strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all His holy ones.”

The Second Coming of Christ gives us a reason for righteousness. It should motivate us to live a holy life, even as we read in 1 John 3:3 says, “Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.”

I know many of us have prayed for our children. Many have prayed for our friends. Many of you have prayed for your husband or wife. But have you ever prayed anything like this? “Lord, may you, our God and Father, and may Jesus Christ your Son, strengthen this person’s heart right now that he or she will be able to live a righteous life. Strengthen my child to withstand temptation. Strengthen my wife to be victorious over sin, so that when the Lord Jesus comes with all His holy angels we will have no cause to be ashamed.”

How would you feel if the trumpet suddenly sounded and the Lord came just as you were getting drunk, just as you were entering that pornographic web site, just as you were erupting in profanity?

2 Corinthians 7:1 says, “Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.”

The other day I read the testimony of a woman named Willie Struhar. She said when she was a child, her father was a roaring alcoholic and a gambler, and her mother was a nervous wreck. One day Willie read a Christian periodical that came to her house. She read about how Christ can change a person’s life. That evening she had a vivid dream. 

Willie saw the Lord in the middle of many people, a great sea of humanity. His face was sweet to those who could look upon Him, but some were hiding their faces because the brightness was too great. There was a huge crack in the earth, like a gulf. On one side was the devil who seemed to be waiting for those whom the Lord would reject. On the other side was a transparent stairway that led to heaven. As the people came up before the Lord, it seemed to be just a nod of the Lord’s head or a smile that told which way they would go. 

Willie said, “When my turn came, the Lord smiled and motioned for me to go with the angels, but I didn’t go. I hid by His side in the folds of His garment, and waited until my father came before the Lord. He was rejected! I begin to pull on the garments of the Lord and beg Him to please save my father. Up to that time, the Lord had not seemed to notice me, but He turned and smiled at me and said, ‘Tell your father to get ready.’ That was the end of my dream.”

The next day Willie’s father came home drunk after spending sixteen hours gambling. Willie’s face shone as she told her dad about the dream. Her father realized God was speaking through his little daughter and He fell on his knees and repentance. He was never again the same. God changed him and the family was different from that day onward.

Why should we live a righteous and holy life? So that when He comes again, we will be found blameless and holy. The reality of the Lord’s return should affect the way we live.

The End of Chapter Four: A Source Of Solace

Fourth, the Second Coming of Christ is a source of solace. The ending of 1 Thessalonians 4 is a classic treatment of the death of Christians vis-à-vis the return of Christ.

“Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore comfort one another with these words”

One of the most interesting sermons I’ve ever read was preached by the 4th century bishop of Antioch, John Chrysostom. He was the “golden-mouthed” preacher of Antioch whose eloquence is legendary. The sermon was on excessive grief at funerals. He said that Christians ought to grieve at funerals, but they should not grieve excessively, and he quotes this verse in 1 Thessalonians 4: “We should not be ignorant of God’s promises and we should not be excessive in our grief.” 

He put it like this. What if your friend lived in a tottering and dilapidated house? A dangerous, unhealthy house. Suppose someone offered to build them a new and beautiful home, but it required their moving out of the old one for a short time while it was torn down and the new one built. That should not occasion grief, but joy. In the same way, the human body becomes, sooner or later, tottery, sickly, and dilapidated. God moves us out for a short time while He prepares a place for us and thus we await our resurrection bodies.

The Bible says that the sufferings of this present world are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed.

The End of Chapter 5: A Cause For Confidence

The return of Christ is a sign of salvation, a motive for ministry, a reason for righteousness, a source of solace, and finally—at the end of chapter five—it is a cause of confidence: May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.

God is building us up. He is developing and maturing us. He is sanctifying us body, mind, and soul. He will present us blameless before the throne at His coming. The one who calls us is faithful, and He will do it. Now we see through a glass darkly, but then we shall see face to face. Now we are babes, but then we shall be complete. Our brightest days are ahead of us, and eye has not seen nor has ear heard neither has it entered into the heart of man the things the Lord has for us. The half has never been told. We can thus live with confidence, with hope, with joy, and with anticipation. Jesus said, “Lift up your heads, for your redemption drawth nigh.”

In the 1800s and 1900s in America, there were hundreds of traveling evangelists who led revival meetings in cities and towns and villages across America, often in big tents that were set up for that purpose with sawdust on the aisles. One of these evangelists was Fred Francis Bosworth. He was associated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination. F. F. Bosworth. He died at the age of 81 after a long and fulfilling ministry, and his son said the whole family was gathered around his bed for about three weeks, laughing and talking and singing. At the end, Bosworth looked up, they said, but he didn’t seem to see his family. Instead he seemed to be meeting and greeting people in an enraptured state. He did this for several hours, then with a smile on his face he law back and went to sleep.

Throughout my ministry, I’ve had people tell me of similar experiences around the deathbeds of dying saints. What a future we have ahead of us! What joyful reunions! The One who calls us is faithful and He will do it.

Should we not go to bed at night and wake up in the morning thinking about His impending return?

Are you ready for Him? If He were to come today, would you be caught up in the clouds or left behind? May we be so full of readiness and anticipation that the prayer on our lips is continually, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”

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Three Hymns For Every Day, Every Hour, Every Moment

Today I want to tell you about three hymns you’ll like. I’ve selected these three because they have a common theme, and because I lean on them so often. I wish I could sing them for you. The Lord didn’t give me a musical voice, at least not for performance purposes, but you can find each of these hymns and learn them yourself on any music streaming service or video platform. They will encourage you every day, every hour, and every moment.

Day by Day

 First, there’s the hymn “Day by Day”. Now, there are several songs by that title. The Broadway musical Godspell has a song which says, “Day by day, day by day, oh dear Lord, three things I pray: to see Thee more clearly, to love Thee more dearly, to follow Thee more nearly day by day.” That is not the song I’m talking about here, but it is a wonderful set of lyrics that are attributed to Richard of Chichester who lived in the 1200s. He was an English Bishop and he wrote a Latin prayer that someone translated into English with these words:

Thanks be to Thee, my Lord Jesus Christ,

For all the benefits Thou hast given me,

For all the pains and insults Thou hast borne for me.

O most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother,

May I know Thee more clearly,

Love Thee more dearly, 

Follow Thee more nearly,

Day by Day.

We’re told that Richard offered that prayer on his deathbed, and he probably did offer a prayer something like that. But as I said, the words were transcribed in Latin. Whoever translated them into English came up with the rhyming triplet: clearly, dearly, and nearly. As far as we know, the first time this prayer became a song was in the 1920s. 

The blind hymnist, Fanny Crosby, also wrote a hymn entitled “Day by Day,” although I’ve never heard it sung. Josiah Conder wrote a hymn with the same title that I sometimes quote. But the hymn I have in mind today is a Swedish hymn by Karolina Wilhelmina Sandell-Berg. Translated into English her hymn says:

Day by day, and with each passing moment,

Strength I find, to meet my trials here;

Trusting in the Father’s wise bestowment,

I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.

He whose heart is kind beyond all measure

Give unto each day what He deems best—

Lovingly, its part of pain and pleasure,

Mingling toil with peace and rest.

The second verse is the one I’ve copied into my Quiet Time notebook and I’m working on memorizing it, which one can do easily by singing it every day. Listen to these encouraging words:

Every day, the Lord Himself is near me

With a special mercy for each hour;

All my cares He fain would bear, and cheer me,

He whose name is Counselor and Power;

The protection of His child and treasure

Is a charge that on Himself He laid;

“As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure,”

This the pledge to me He made.

Karolina Wilhelmina Sandel-Berg, who went by the name Lina, was born in 1832 and into the family of a Lutheran minister and pastor in southern Sweden. She adored her father, Jonas, and as a child often played in his office while he studied and prepared his sermons. When she was twelve, Lina was stricken with a strange paralysis that kept her confined to bed much of the time and which puzzled the doctors. They didn’t expect her to recover. But one Sunday morning while her parents were at church, Lina began reading the Bible and praying. She read the story of Jesus raising to life the daughter of Jairus.  She had an experience with God, and when her parents returned home they were amazed to find her up and dressed and walking freely.

Lina began writing poems and hymns, and her first book of verses was published when she was sixteen. Ten years later, tragedy struck her life. She accompanied her father on a preaching trip, which involved crossing Lake Vattern. On the evening of July 27, 1858, Lina and her father boarded the ship, and before going to bed Lina read Psalm 77 for her devotions. The next moment she met her father on the deck and just as he reached out to take her hand, a large wave swept him into the lake. All she saw was his white hair bobbing in the water and then he was gone. She became “catatonic with horror” according to one biographer. But she found comfort in the Scripture she had read the night before—Psalm 77.

It was after this that she wrote her two best known hymns, “Children of the Heavenly Father” and “Day by Day.” Her hymns were sung in churches all across Scandinavia. In 1867 she married a businessman named Oscar Berg, and they settled down in Stockholm. In 1892, Lina contracted typhoid fever, and she passed away in 1903 at the age of seventy.

The last verse of Lina Sandell-Berg’s hymn, Day by Day, says:

Help me then, in every tribulation

So to trust Thy promises, O Lord,

That I lose not faith’s sweet consolation

Offered me within Thy holy Word.

Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting,

E’er to take, as from a father’s hand,

One by one, the days, the moments fleeting,

Till I reach the promised land.

I Need Thee Every Hour

Well, the days are divided into hours. And that brings me to the next classic hymn I’d like to share with you: “I Need Thee Every Hour.” This Gospel song was also written by a woman.

Her name was Annie Hawks, and she was a housewife and mother of three in Brooklyn, New York.

As a child, Annie Sherwood had dabbled in poetry, her first verse being published when she was fourteen. In 1857, she married a banker named Charles Hawks and they established their home in Brooklyn, where they joined Hanson Place Baptist Church. The pastor there was Dr. Robert Lowry, who was himself a hymnist. Dr. Lowry wrote: “Shall We Gather at the River?” And “Nothing But the Blood of Jesus.”

With Dr. Lowry’s encouragement, Annie began writing Sunday School songs for children, and he set many of them to music.  

“I Need Thee Every Hour” was written on a bright June morning in 1872.  Annie later wrote, “One day as a young wife and mother of 37 years of age, I was busy with my regular household tasks. Suddenly, I became so filled with the sense of nearness to the Master that, wondering how one could live without Him, either in joy or pain, these words, ‘I Need Thee Every Hour,’ were ushered into my mind, the thought at once taking full possession of me.”

The next Sunday, Annie handed these words to Dr. Lowry, who wrote the tune and chorus while seated at the little organ in the living room of his Brooklyn parsonage.  Later that year, it was sung for the first time at the National Baptist Sunday School Association meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio, and published in a hymnbook the following year.

It is said that “I Need Thee Every Hour” was translated into more languages than any other modern hymn of its time.

When Annie’s husband died sixteen years later, she found that her own hymn was among her greatest comforts. “I did not understand at first why this hymn had touched the great throbbing heart of humanity,” Annie wrote. “It was not until long after, when the shadow fell over my way, the shadow of a great loss, that I understood something of the comforting power in the words which I had been permitted to give out to others in my hour of sweet serenity and peace.”

Sometime after Charles’ death, Annie moved to Bennington, Vermont, to live with her daughter and son-in-law.  All in all, she wrote over four hundred hymns during her eighty-three years, though only this one is still widely sung. The simple words say: 

I need Thee ev’ry hour,
Most gracious Lord;
No tender voice like Thine
Can peace afford.

I need Thee ev’ry hour,
Stay Thou nearby;
Temptations lose their pow’r
When Thou art nigh.

I need Thee ev’ry hour,
In joy or pain;
Come quickly and abide,
Or life is vain.

I need Thee, oh, I need Thee;
Ev’ry hour I need Thee;
Oh, bless me now, my Savior,
I come to Thee.

Moment By Moment

Now, let me ask you. What could be better than having the Lord with you day by day and hour by hour? It’s knowing His presence moment by moment. And that’s the last of the three hymns I want to share with you. It’s called “Moment by Moment,” and ironically it was inspired by someone who didn’t like the hymn, “I Need Thee Every Hour.”

Daniel Whittle was born in New England in 1840, which meant he became a young adult just as the Civil War was breaking over America. At that time he was working in a bank in Chicago, and he gave his life to Christ in the bank vault while working as the night watchman. He said, “I went into the vault and in the dead silence of the quietest of places I gave my life to my Heavenly Father to use as He would.”

He enlisted in the 72rd Illinois Infantry and the night before he was deployed he married his girlfriend, Abbie Hanson. He would not see her for a full year. He was wounded in Vicksburg and promoted to the rank of Major. And from that point, he was also called Major Daniel Whittle. He was shot through the arm.

After the Civil War, Whittle and his wife settled in Chicago where he worked at the Elgin Watch Company until, under the influence of Dwight L. Moody, he gave himself to full time work as a traveling evangelist. But he is best known today as a hymnwriter. He once said, “I hope that I will never write a hymn that does not contain a message — there are too many hymns that are just a meaningless jingle of words; to do good a hymn must be founded on God’s word and carry the message of God’s love.”

In 1893, Major Whittle visited the Chicago World Fair with another. I wish I could go back in time and visit this World’s Fair. It’s where the Ferris Wheel was first introduced, and the zipper, and Cracker Jacks, and the first voice recording.

Major Whittle later wrote, “While I was attending the World’s Fair, in Chicago, Henry Varley, a lay preacher from London, said to Major Whittle:  ‘I do not like the hymn, “I Need Thee Every Hour,” very well, because I need Him every moment of the day.’  Soon after Major Whittle wrote this sweet hymn, having the chorus:

Moment by moment I’m kept in His love;

Moment by moment I’ve life from above;

Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine;

Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine.

Ira Sankey wrote, “Mr. Whittle brought the hymn to me in manuscript a little later, saying that he would give me the copyright of both the words and music if I would print for him five hundred copies on fine paper, for distribution among his friends.  His daughter, May Whittle, who later became the wife of Will R. Moody, composed the music. I did as Mr. Whittle wished; and I sent the hymn to England, where it was copyrighted on the same day as in Washington.”

This became the favorite hymn of the great devotional writer Andrew Murray, and it’s one of mine too. 

Dying with Jesus, by death reckoned mine;
Living with Jesus, a new life divine;
Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine,
Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine.

Refrain

Moment by moment I’m kept in His love;
Moment by moment I’ve life from above;
Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine;
Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine.

Never a trial that He is not there,
Never a burden that He doth not bear,
Never a sorrow that He doth not share,
Moment by moment, I’m under His care.

Never a heartache, and never a groan,
Never a teardrop and never a moan;
Never a danger but there on the throne,
Moment by moment He thinks of His own.

Moment by moment I’m kept in His love;
Moment by moment I’ve life from above;
Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine;
Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine.

So there are three great hymns to take you through the course of life, day by day, hour by hour, and moment by moment. You’ll find the stories of these hymns and many others and my three-volume set of books Then Sings My Soul, designed to help you know, treasure, and sing the classic hymns of our Christian heritage. 

The post Three Hymns For Every Day, Every Hour, Every Moment appeared first on RobertJMorgan.com.

Excursus on Messianic Prophecy:

What Jesus Might Have Told the Emmaus Travelers

Last week we looked at the home Jesus visited on His resurrection day—that amazing cottage in Emmaus where Jesus broke bread and suddenly vanished. The story is told in Luke 24. 

13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him. 17 He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”

They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 “What things?” he asked.

“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”

25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. 29 But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.

30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

Today let’s zero in on verse 27: And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures (the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament) concerning Himself.

This was one of our Lord’s favorite themes—how He fulfilled the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. He hit on it again and again. He told His critics in John 5 to diligently search the Old Testament, for it testified of Him. He told us that fulfilled Messianic prophecy was Exhibit A in terms of evidence for His claims.

I’ve often said that I could preach the rest of my life about Jesus Christ and cover every phase of His life and ministry and never open the New Testament. Every aspect of His background, birth, life, ministry, death, burial, and resurrection was pre-drawn by the Old Testament prophets, and the fit was so exact that the New Testament writers used it as a centerpiece of evidence proving his divine identity. 

Someone said about the Old and New Testaments: The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is in the New revealed. Or to put it even better: The New is in the Old contained; the Old is in the New explained.

I don’t know how much material Jesus covered during that walk, which probably took two or three hours. It was a seven mile trip. But here is some of the material He might well have touched upon.

Verbal Prophecy

First, the Old Testament predicted the Messiah’s family tree. The Jews, more than anyone else in antiquity, valued their ancestry and kept meticulous records of their genealogies. Well, here’s the remarkable thing about the Testament. It’s not primarily the record of the peoples of antiquity; it’s the record of the Jewish people starting with Abraham in Genesis 12. And it’s not primarily the record of the Jewish people; it’s primarily the record of one particular branch of the family tree of Israel—the one that resulted in the birth of Christ.

In Genesis, we’re told that of the three sons of Noah, the Messiah would come through Shem (Genesis 9:26-27, Luke 2:32). Of the descendants of Shem, we’re told the Messiah would come through Abraham (Genesis 12:2-3, 22:18). Of the two sons of Abraham, the Messiah would come through Isaac (21:12). Of the two sons of Isaac, he would come through Jacob (Genesis 34:10-12; Numbers 24:17). Of the twelve sons of Jacob, we’re told the Messiah would come, not from the noble Joseph, but from the scoundrel Judah (Genesis 49:10, Psalm 78:67-68). Of the descendants of Judah, all were rejected except the family of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1-2). Of the sons of Jesse, all were rejected but the youngest, David (Jeremiah 23:5).

The Lord narrowed down the Messiah’s family tree until it could only be a descendant of Abraham through Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Jesse, and David. The first words of the New Testament are: A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham (Matthew 1:1).

Consider these other prognostications:

We’re told that not only would Jesus be born from David’s family, but in David’s city — Bethlehem. Micah 5:2 says, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

We’re told that he would be born of a virgin and that he would be named Immanuel. Isaiah 1:12 predicts, “The Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call Him Immanuel.”

Malachi 3:1 and 4:5 say the Messiah would be preceded by an Elijah-like figure who would live in the wilderness and cry out a message warning people to prepare the way for the Lord.

We’re told that the coming Messiah will fill three different offices, namely: Prophet, Priest, and King (Deuteronomy 18:18, Psalm 110:4, Zechariah 9:9).

We’re told that the Messiah would exhibit superlative character traits, that he would be holy, righteous, good, faithful, innocent, zealous, meek, forgiving, patient, loving, and full of justice (Isaiah 9:6-7, 11:1-5; 52:13-53:12).

We’re told that his ministry would begin, not in Judah or Jerusalem as one might expect, but in a largely Gentile area in the northern reaches of Israel called Galilee (Isaiah 9:1).

We’re told that His ministry which began in Galilee would climax in Jerusalem which the Messiah would humbly enter, riding on a young donkey before suddenly appearing boldly in the temple (Zechariah 9:9, Haggai 2:7, Malachi 3:1). Daniel 9 every predicts the exact year when Jesus would enter Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

We’re also told the Messiah’s ministry would contain the element of the miraculous, that He would heal the blind and deaf and lame (Isaiah 35:5-6); and that He would teach the people, uttering parables (Psalm 78:2). We’re told that, as incredible as it seems, this long-awaited prophet, priest, and king would be publicly rejected by His own people, the Jews (Psalm 118:22). We’re told that He would be betrayed by a friend for thirty pieces of silver, and that the silver would be thrown on the temple floor and be used to buy a Potter’s field (Psalm 41:9, 55:12-14; Zechariah 11:12-13).

We’re told that He would be smitten and that His followers would disperse like sheep that have suddenly lost their shepherd (Zechariah 13:7). We’re told that the Messiah would be attacked and rejected, accused by false witnesses, and that He would remain silent, refusing to come to His own defense (Psalm 35:11, 38:13; Isaiah 53:7). We’re told that He would be scourged and slain for the transgressions of those He came to save, and that His death would be painful. Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22, as woven together below, present a powerful and remarkable portrait of the details of the execution of the Messiah, including these elements:

That He would be despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering and acquainted with grief.That He would be smitten by God and bear His wrath.That He would be disrobed, and his clothing was gambled away by his executioners.That He would be executed with criminalsThat His hands and feet would be pierced.That He would question why God had forsaken Him.That those witnessing His execution would mock Him and shake their heads in disgust.That nearby mockers would scornfully say, “He trusts in God; let the Lord deliver Him.”That He would suffer acute thirst after massive losses of bodily fluids. That His bones would be twisted from their joints, and His heart would melt and break from grief.That despite severe pain and sorrow, He would utter no complaints.That this rejection, humiliation, and excruciating death would be redemptive, comprising God’s plan for saving His people from sin, death, and hell.That His corpse would be laid to rest in the borrowed tomb of a rich man.That after His suffering and death, He would again see the light of life.That His death would justify many.That following His return to life, He would be considered great.

These are only some of the prophecies made about Christ hundreds of years before His birth. Overall, about 300 predictions stretch through all the books of the Old Testament. 

Visual Prophecy 

But there’s something else. We should not only consider the three hundred predictions scattered here and there through the Old Testament, but the whole tenor and tone of these 39 books. If all we see are the specific predictions, we haven’t grasped the whole picture. There are what we call the types of Christ peppering the pages of the Old Testament. A “type” is an Old Testament person, object, or event that in some striking way prefigures the person of Christ. Think of the word “prototype.” It is visual, rather than verbal, prophecy. The New Testament says that there were Old Testament personages, objects, and events that were patterns or shadows or copies of Him who was to come (Romans 5:14; Colossians 2:17; Hebrews 8:5). Jesus used the word “sign” to describe these types (Matthew 10:39). I’ll give you some examples:

The Passover Lamb was a foreshadowing of our Lord’s substitutionary atonement.The manna in the wilderness was a foreshadowing of our Lord’s role as the Bread of Life who came down from heaven.The rock in the wilderness that was smitten with the rod and out of which came a river of life-giving water for the Israelites was a type of Christ. The Bible says, “And that Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4).The Tabernacle in the wilderness was a type of Christ in many ways.Even the prophet Jonah was a type of Christ. Jesus said, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 10:20).

Visionary Prophecy

So we have the Old Testament prophecies and predictions; we also have the types and foreshadowings. But there’s something else. It is impossible to read the Old Testament without noticing that the entire warp and woof of its content is held together by the threads of redemptive anticipation. There is an atmosphere of anticipation that blows like a never-ending breeze through the pages of the Old Testament. The Old Testament creates a vision for something more.

A. T. Pierson observed, “No miracle which He wrought so unmistakably set on Him the seal of God as the convergence of the thousand lines of prophecy in Him, as in one burning focal point of dazzling glory. Every sacrifice lit, from Abel’s altar until the last Passover of the Passion Week, pointed as with flaming fingers to Calvary’s Cross.”

For example, in Genesis we read of Adam and Eve’s disobedience of the Lord, resulting in death and a curse falling over all the earth. While meeting the fallen couple immediately afterward, God promised to provide a way of escape, of salvation. He promised to send one who would crush the serpent’s head though being hurt himself in the process (Genesis 3:15). As a token, an innocent animal was slaughtered to provide covering for the two sinners.

In Exodus, we read of the Passover Lamb, the blood of which would atone for sin; yet it seemed to be pointing to something more. It appears that a scarlet cord was being stitched into the story. Moses promised the people that one day the Lord would raise up “a prophet like me” whose words would save the people (Deuteronomy 18:18, Acts 3:22), and even the heathen prophet Balaam, touched momentarily by the Holy Spirit, said, “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel” (Numbers 24:17). We want to ask, “Who were Moses and Balaam talking about?”

Job came along and cried, “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth” (Job 19:25). We want to ask, “Who is this redeemer? Who is Job talking about?” Then the prophets come, all of them talking about a future coming savior. Isaiah said, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). We’d like to ask Isaiah, “Who are you talking about? Who is this strange child?”

We continue reading, soon coming to the end of the Old Testament, to the final book of Malachi. In Malachi 3, God promised to send his messenger to pave the way for the coming king. But in the next chapter, Malachi finished his writing and the Old Testament abruptly ends with the cryptic words, “…or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

Is that any way to end a book? For a thousand years through thirty-nine installments stretching from Genesis to Malachi the story has been building, issues have been raised, promises have been made, the anticipation has grown. Everything has pointed to a savior who would be of the lineage of Abraham and David, and who would deliver humanity from sin and despair. But the story abruptly concludes with the depressing words “…or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

It seems like a bad ending, like an incomplete story. It seems like we’ve come to an intermission in which only the first half of the story is completed. Surely, we think, there must be more, another part, a completion.

Then we turn the page, passing over four hundred years of history, and we are greeted with the Gospel, with the words, “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” 

As we continue reading we meet someone who has descended from Shem, through Abraham, through Isaac, through Jacob, through Judah, through Jesse, and through David. We see one who was born of a virgin and named Immanuel. We see one who was born in the city of Bethlehem, though it was small among the clans of Judah. We see someone who was preceded by a forerunner after the tradition of Elijah. We see someone who was superlative in character traits, being holy, righteous, good, faithful, innocent, zealous, meek, forgiving, patient, loving, and full of justice; and who in the tradition of Melchizedek, was prophet, priest, and king. We see someone who began his ministry in Galilee and climaxed it in Jerusalem, and who healed the sick and taught the masses. We see one who was rejected by his own people, betrayed by a friend for thirty pieces of silver, deserted by his followers, accused by false witnesses, beaten and whipped and publicly stripped, his clothing being gambled away by soldiers. We see one who was executed between two criminals, whose hands and feet were pierced. We see one who suffered acute thirst, dying a death in which his bodily fluids were poured out, his bones were twisted out of their joints, and whose heart melted like wax within him. We see one who was buried in the borrowed grave of a rich man, and who, following his suffering, again saw the light of life. We see one who was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. We see the one all whom the world has awaited.

Conclusion

Now let me go back to a question I asked last week. Why did Jesus appear to the two disciples on the Emmaus Road incognito? Why was His true identity withheld? This is an oddity in Scripture. Nowhere else in the New Testament did Jesus disguise Himself, as it were. Nowhere else were His disciples prevented from identifying Him. Why didn’t Jesus want these two men to know who He was?

The answer is exceedingly simple. Jesus wanted His disciples – including us! –  to know beyond any shadow of doubt that he was Messiah, King of Kings and Prince of Peace, risen from the dead. He had two ways of proving this. The first was to appear physically before them and by His concrete, resurrected body to provide empirical proof of His resurrection. 

But the second way was more important, more convincing, and more durable. He could prove His resurrection by showing them how He alone fulfilled—and with utmost perfection—the predictions and prophecies about His life, death, and resurrection made hundreds of years before by Old Testament prophets. So the Stranger of Galilee led these two disciples on a tour of biblical prophecy, and by the time He had finished they were so convinced that Christ was the risen Messiah that their hearts burned like a fire within them. Only after they had been convinced through fulfilled prophecy did He allow them to be convinced by visual evidence.

By hiding His real identity and directing us into the Old Testament, Christ pointed us to the overwhelming body of evidence for the veracity of Christianity found in the fulfillment of Old Testament Messianic prophecy.

We are just like these two disciples on their way to Emmaus. He is with us truly and in reality, though we don’t always recognize Him as we should. We can be absolutely certain He rose from the dead because of the miracle of fulfilled Messianic prophecy. And one day soon we shall see Him as He is.

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