Matthew (Program #47) – The Pathway to Glory (5)

There is a wonderful account in Matthew chapter 15 about a gentile woman who approaches Christ not as an upright and qualified person but as a dog, just willing to eat the crumbs that have fallen from the table.  This kind of heart touched the Lord very much and He used her coming as an opportunity to present one of the great truths of the Christian life.   We will get into this matter in some details today.

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Jeremiah (Program #9) – Israel’s Sin against Jehovah, Jehovah’s Punishment upon Israel (2)

During one of the dark hours in Israel’s history, Jehovah poured His heart out to Jeremiah, the prophet that He raised up to speak to Israel on His behalf. Listen to his word and see if you can sense in His speaking the anguish of a distraught husband over the unfaithfulness of a wife to whom He had been faithful to the uttermost. Jeremiah 3:6-9 “Then Jehovah said to me in the days of Josiah the king, Have you seen what Israel the apostate has done? She went up on every high mountain and under every flourishing tree and committed fornication there. And I said, After she has done all these things, she will return to Me; but she did not return…And I saw that because of all the adultery that Israel the apostate committed I divorced her and gave her a certificate of divorce, And because she treated her fornication lightly, she polluted the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.”

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Matthew (Program #46) – The Pathway to Glory (4)

Tradition.  Webster says “an inherited, established or customary pattern of thought, action or behavior handed down by word-of-mouth or by example from one generation to another without written instruction”.  Of course, traditions are an important part of our cultural heritage or even our religious heritage.  But what do we do when the traditions we cherished are found to be in direct conflict with God’s infallible word?  This dilemma has confronted believers and God-fearing people for centuries.  There are even numerous such accounts in Scriptures.  But it also confronts us, as God’s people today.   As we touch today some time-honored and beloved traditions of today’s religious culture.

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Jeremiah (Program #8) – Israel’s Sin against Jehovah, Jehovah’s Punishment upon Israel (1)

The Lord told the prophet Jeremiah that He held two things against Israel above all else. First, they had forsaken Him, the fountain of living waters. And second, they had hewn out for themselves broken cisterns incapable of holding water. The context of this passage is in chapter 2 of Jeremiah. And in a way can be considered the conversation between a distraught husband and an unfaithful wife. Listen to this sweet and intimate way that Jehovah began His word to Israel, “I remember concerning you the kindness of your youth, The love of your bridal days, When you followed after Me in the wilderness, In a land that was not sown. Israel was holiness to Jehovah, The firstfruit of His increase;” (Jeremiah 2:2b-3a) As we consider these two great sins before Jehovah, sins that did not only plague Israel but also that we ourselves have to be constantly aware of.

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Matthew (Program #45) – The Pathway to Glory (3)

Have you ever had the experience of giving yourself fully to the Lord or renewing your consecration to Him, only to have that active devotion followed by the most difficult outward experiences imaginable?   To our nature mind, this makes no sense; if we give ourselves so completely to follow Him, we would think that He would then take care of all our outward problems.  But in the spiritual realm, often the more genuinely we offer ourselves to Christ, the more difficult our outward situation becomes.  Why this apparently irony?   We will find out today.   Please don’t miss this life study program.  As we come once again to consider the pathway to glory from the gospel of Matthew.

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Jeremiah (Program #7) – Jeremiah’s Call and Commission

The Bible tells us that on earth there is always a battle raging between God and all those who oppose Him and fight against Him and His purpose. But God does not fight directly against such ones. His way of fighting is always in the principle of incarnation, involving His people, specifically those who are absolutely one with Him. Such was the case in the Old Testament with the prophet Jeremiah. In the degrading and shameful condition His people Israel were in, God called and sanctified the prophet while he was still in his mother’s womb. Listen to Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; And before you came forth from the womb, I sanctified you. I have appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

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Matthew (Program #44) – The Pathway to Glory (2)

After experiencing rejection on every front, the Lord Jesus withdrew into a desert and a large crowd was still willing to follow Him in this rejection and they gathered with Him in the desert.  This is the scene where a well-known miracle took place.   A miracle that exposes both man’s shortage and the Savior’s full supply.

We have the well-known story of the Lord Jesus feeding the assembled crowd of thousands with just a few loaves and fish…

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Jeremiah (Program #6) – God’s Faithfulness in Fulfilling His Economy

Though the Bible was written by many hundreds of years and written by scores of different authors, there are several consistent theme that run through from the beginning to the end. The most significant of which maybe seeing God as a flowing fountain or a river. This picture, the flowing fountain, the river of life, really reveals God in His divine economy in a marvelous way. And we see it quite profoundly in the book of Jeremiah.

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Matthew (Program #43) – The Pathway to Glory (1)

The gospel of Matthew presents the kingly Christ unveiling the mysteries of the kingdom in the way of parables.  But it also presents the rejection that this king suffered at the hands of religious and political establishments.  After revealing what the kingdom of the heaven is and is not, the Lord also shows us the way or path required if we are to fully participate in His kingdom.  And that path includes complete and utter rejection.

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Jeremiah (Program #5) – The Intrinsic Content of Jeremiah

In Hebrews, the New Testament book, the apostle Paul who is the likely writer of Hebrews quotes the prophet Jeremiah. Listen to Hebrews 8:10-11 “For this is the covenant which I will covenant with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will impart My laws into their mind, and on their hearts I will inscribe them; and I will be God to them, and they will be a people to Me.” This marvelous prophecy from the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah revealing the coming new covenant impressed the apostle enough to include it in the New Testament. But this is certainly not the pointer in this Old Testament book to what God in His divine economy has in store for His elect.

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