Psalms (Program #5) – David’s Concepts Concerning a Godly Life in Comparison a Godly Life in Comparison with His Inspired Praise of the Excellency of Christ (1)

In Psalms chapter 1, David, the beloved King of Israel, extols the value of God’s law and exults the law to the uttermost. This is wonderful. But, recall the story of 2 Samuel when the same King David so grossly abuses his kingly authority to have an innocent man, even one of his generals murdered, so that he could steal away his beautiful wife, Bathsheba. In the span of this one sin, David breaks two of the most serious commandments, those which he exulted – murder and fornication. How could this happen, we ask? Well the answer comes from the apostle Paul in the New Testament – where the Bible reveals that although the law is good and holy and righteous, it is also powerless to help us because though it may motivate us to keep it, it cannot supply us with the life supply to meet its demands. So its demands fall upon the flesh for their strength. Both David in the Old Testament and Paul in the New Testament discovered this harsh reality the hard way. The question is, have we?

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Psalms (Program #4) – Christ in God’s Economy versus the Law in Man’s Appreciation (3)

In our natural common mentality, the law of God easily assumes a preeminent position.  We can relate to the notion of keeping a high moral standard of conduct.  And surely this seems in line with what must be God’s plan and desire for mankind.  After all God Himself gave the commandments to Moses to pass on to His people, the children of Israel.  But there is a fundamental problem; when we afford the law the central position in our relationship to God and that is although it is good and righteous and holy, the law is powerless and must rely on man’s fallen flesh to carry it out.  Try as we may and regardless of how much desperate prayer expressing our earnest desire to carry it out we add to it,  the result is inevitable, an utter failure, leaving us defeated and condemned and spiritually dead.  Oh that our eyes would be open to see that this righteous law that so vividly portraits God’s holy nature has never occupied the central place in His plan.  For that place throughout eternity is reserved unchangingly for the Christ of God alone.

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Psalms (Program #3) – Christ in God’s Economy versus the Law in Man’s Appreciation (2)

The Bible is not an ordinary book.  Though it surely contains a lot of history, we should not read it as a history book. It also contains scores of moral and behavioral imperatives but we should not take it as a book of ethics.  Neither should we approach the Bible as a book of philosophy . Because beyond all of these things, history, ethics, philosophy, The Bible is in its’ essence, God’s own breath revealing the Christ of God enable to convey God Himself as life into those who come to seeking nothing else but His very person.

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Psalms (Program #2) – Christ in God’s Economy versus the Law in Man’s Appreciation (1)

Many of the 39 books of the Old Testament touched the matter of the law. The law generally refers to the commands that God delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai after the children of Israel had their exodus from Egypt. And the impact that these laws has had not just on God’s people but on all of western civilization is hard to overstate.

God’s people both in New and Old Testament heirs treasure the law of God.  But there is a key word in the New Testament that reveals something crucial concerning God’s entire economy and how the law relates to it.  In Rom 5:20 it says, “And the law entered in alongside that the offense might abound”  What does it mean that the law entered in alongside?  Well, we will discuss this in many more items relate to the law and the central focus of God’s economy on today’s program.

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Psalms (Program #1) – An Introductory Word

Most believers are seem to have a particular love for the book of the Psalms. The Psalms, far more than just a random collection of Bible stories and doctrines, actually flow out of the deep feelings, expressions and experiences of godly men. And what flows out of these ones?  Though at times reflecting their human thought and concept, at other times expresses the deep and profound thought of God directly. God’s speaking through this book is full of the divine revelation and if we possess the keys to enter into this divine revelation, the Psalms will become even more precious more enlightening and will usher us all into God’s presence, His heart and especially His heart’s desire.

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Job (Program #15) – Two Trees, Two Sources, Two Lines, Two Principles, and Two Ends in the Divine Revelation of the Holy Scriptures

The Bible opens with man placed in a garden before two trees. These two trees represent two lines that run through the entire Bible. And these two lines become two ways that man can take. At the end of the Bible, the two ways issue in two ends, two results. One line or way represented by the tree of life leads to life, the eternal life, the eternal city of life – the New Jerusalem. While the other way, typified by the tree of knowledge of good and evil, leads ultimately to death and destruction.

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Job (Program #14) – The Significance in the Sequence of Job and the Psalms

As Christians we all hold the Bible as the infallible and inspired word of God. But not only are the words themselves divinely inspired even the arrangement of the book also bears God’s direct involvement. Take for instance the sequence of the various books in the Bible. Many do not actually follow the historic timeline yet the sequence in the divine record is truly marvelous. Consider the book of Job and the book of Psalms. They are separated by nearly a thousand years historically but Psalms immediately followed by Job in the Bible. What the Bible sequence reveals is that the divine revelation is not static, but rather shows a progression.  A progression that should also be matched in our experience.

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Job (Program #13) – The Final Outcome, Under God’s Consummation

Job was a man fully absorbed in seeking to be upright, perfect and righteous before God. And without dispute, he had obtained much of what he sought after. Yet the book of Job reveals that God would never be satisfied by having His people obtain just a high and ethical condition such as Job’s. And so bit by bit Job was led progressively to lose all his natural attainments and with their loss also came the loss of his trust and reliance upon himself. Listen to Job 42:5-6, “I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye has seen You; Therefore I abhor myself, and I repent in dust and ashes.” Not until so much of his self has been stripped away did Job begin to gain something of God and to have God Himself added to his being. This is the ultimate revelation of the book of Job and the ultimate revelation of the entire Bible.

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Job (Program #12) – Man Moving in God’s Move and God Moving in Man’s Move

As the New Testament era opened, a dramatic change occurred in the way that God moves to accomplish His purpose on the earth. God’s move was then inextricably linked to man; that means that God ceased to move apart from and independent of man. Of course, the man that God used for His move was Jesus Christ, who we know was also God. That’s why the high priests, the elders and even the officials of the Roman government could not determine whether the activities of Jesus were the activities of a man or of God. Actually, His actions were the actions of the first God-man. Today God is still operating in this principle. The principle of His moving into man, in man and through man. This is the principle of incarnation. “In the beginning was the Word”, John says, “…and the Word was God and the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us”. (John 1:1, 14)

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Job (Program #11) – The Third of the Three Rounds (4) – Job’s Final Speaking (2)

Job chapter 29 brings us to a scene that most of us can relate very well to. At this point in the book, Job is once again pouring out to his friends concerning the terrible sufferings that God had visited upon him. And in this discourse, he was reliving many of the fond recollections of the glories of his past experience. How often do we dwell in the past when we are languishing in the depths of our present despair?  But Job was also drawing upon his past successes in order to build a defense so that he could plead his case before God. A case that was totally built upon his own righteousness.

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