Numbers (Program #22) – Fighting (3)

In the Old Testament book of Numbers there is the story of a gentile prophet named Balaam.  The Moabite king Balak had hired him to curse and prophesy against God’s people Israel, who Balak the king greatly feared.  Yet at each instance, as much as Balaam desire to please the king, whatever he spoke concerning Israel turned out not to be a curse but a blessing.  These parables recorded in Numbers 22 through 24 had a greater impact than just the Lord’s frustration of a heathen king with an evil intention towards God’s people.  These parables actually revealed how God views His people, whether the nation of Israel in the Old Testament or the church in this age despite the failures and weaknesses.  God sees the church as glorious, victorious and beautiful.  How can this be?  it’s because He sees the church, the believers, in Christ.

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Luke (Program #40) – The Ministry of the Man-Savior in His Human Virtues with His Divine Attributes from Galilee to Jerusalem (20)

The Bible is so marvelous.  Not only do the teachings convey truths to us, the parables and the stories illustrate those truths and even more marvelous, eventually we discover that even the arrangement and sequence of the story and accounts in the Bible help to underscore those truths. One example is found in Luke 18, where the Lord Jesus for the third time tries to unveil His coming death and resurrection to His disciples, but they simply do not have eyes to see or ears to hear. Then the Lord Jesus in a wonderful display of His sovereign arrangement heals a blind man. Who, in reality were the blind ones in this passage?

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Luke (Program #38) – The Ministry of the Man-Savior in His Human Virtues with His Divine Attributes from Galilee to Jerusalem (18)

Have you ever noticed how often the Lord Jesus spoke in parables to illustrate various aspects and great truths that He was presenting during His earthly ministry?   Parables are in effect pictures in words, pictures that can convey deep and profound truth with a simple story.  Some of the parables especially in Luke have a mysterious quality about them. Such as in Luke 16 when a story about an unrighteous steward who is praised for his unrighteous action was presented. This steward it turns out typifies us, servants of God, serving with Him to bring in His kingdom.
Now we come to Chapter 18, and a parable that represents God as an unrighteous judge.  Is He really unrighteous? and should we really serve Him unrighteously? well, surely not.  But the discovery of what this parable do depict is the focus of our life study today.

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Luke (Program #34) – The Ministry of the Man-Savior in His Human Virtues with His Divine Attributes from Galilee to Jerusalem (14)

Luke 15 is a chapter with three tremendous parables including one of the best known in the whole Bible, the parable of the prodigal son. When you take these three parable together, they reveal to us the three persons of the Godhead. The Son is seen the first parable, the Spirit in the second, and the Father in the third, and all three bring us to salvation. Then, we come to another parable at the beginning of chapter 16. At first, it seems terribly out of place. The story of a steward, who threatened with the loss of His position, unrighteously deals with his master’s assets only to gain His praise. But as we will see today, these parables fit very well together.

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Luke (Program #17) – The Ministry of the Man-Savior in Galilee (8)

The progression in the gospel of Luke is truly marvelous. Chapter 7 concludes with several very touching stories of sinful people being forgiven and drawn to the Lord Jesus in love. Surely their cases match our own. Then after teaching His follower with parables we come to the most interesting passage in chapter 8, where the Man-Savior instead of acknowledging His flesh mother and brothers, identified His chosen ones, His believers as His real family members and relatives.

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