Colossians (Program #48) – Persevering in Prayer

After some of the highest speaking, the highest utterance on Christ in the entire divine revelation contained in the Bible, the apostle Paul in the final chapter of Colossians, comes to this verse (v. 2), “Persevere in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving.” Nothing high or lofty but a burden on his heart. It’s interesting it matches very closely his utterance in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 where he says simply, “Unceasingly pray”. We conclude this life-study of Colossians today in the matter of prayer.

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Psalms (Program #28) – The Desolation of God’s House and Christ as the Solution

The apostle Paul writing in his epistle to the Colossians is the very interesting phrase related to the Holy Word, the Bible.  He told them that God had imparted to him the task of completing the Word of God.  Actually we know from history that there were other books added to the canon of Scripture that were written after Paul’s fourteen epistles.  So we need to understand Paul’s word in the sense that his writings were a conclusion not to the written record but to God’s divine revelation.  The books that came later like Revelation and John’s epistles merely strengthened and confirmed that divine revelation.  All this is to day that the divine revelation has a progressive aspect to it.  more…

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Psalms (Program #26) –  Christ as the Center of God’s Move on the Earth

Did you know that the book of Psalms actually contains 150 different Psalms in all?  So many poetic and prophetic utterances.  Of course, as we have seen, some of these Psalms have a very high and profound content expressing the divine thought revealing Christ in brilliant detail.  Others are not so high.  In fact some are very low in the thought that they convey.  Bit by bit as we read and study this book, we can learn to cultivate a taste for the high peaks contain in the Psalms.  Perhaps the highest peak of all in the divine revelation of Christ in the book of Psalms is found in Psalms 68.  This oft quoted Psalm actually begins with a quotation of its own.  David the Psalmist quotes Moses from Numbers chapter 10 “as he sets out with the completed tabernacle to lead the children of Israel away from Sinai and ultimately into the good land of Canaan with the ultimate destination being Zion in the midst of Jerusalem and the cloud of Jehovah was over them by day when they set out from the camp”,  Moses writes in Numbers 10.  “And when the Ark set out, Moses said, Rise up, O Jehovah, and let Your enemies be scattered; And let those who hate You flee before You.”

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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 #10) – The All-Inclusive Spirit as the Consummation of the Processed and Consummated Triune God

The book of Philippians refers in chapter 1 to the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ in verse 19. By which we live Christ, magnify Christ, pursue Christ and gain Christ. By this bountiful supply of the Spirit we can count everything as loss and as refuse. Because Job did not have this Spirit, he was overly sensitive toward God and toward his friends. He had no joy and he never rejoiced. But the apostle Paul having this Spirit, rejoiced even in prison according to Acts 16:25.

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Ephesians (Program #59) – Conclusion

Many great apostles contributed to the New Testament: John, James, Peter and Matthew as well as others. But the bulk of the New testament came through the apostle Paul.

The epistles of Paul in many ways formed the kernel of the New Testament. And it was through Paul also that the Church was spread through out much of the civilized world during New Testament time.

Yet at the end of this book, perhaps his highest work, Ephesians, this great apostle commissioned with the divine revelation in a very touching and intimate conclusion to his letter to the Church in Ephesus shows how much he valued not his own strength or vision or gift but taking his place as a living member in full coordination with the Body. And he asked for their prayers and petitions concerning him.  A very touching fellowship.

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1 & 2 Samuel (Program #16) – God’s Sovereignty and David’s Taking the Lessons of the Cross

The New Testament is full of divine truth. By reading and studying these truths, we enter into the divine revelation: what God is occupied with, what His purpose is, and what He is desiring to accomplish. But what is lacking in the New Testament are illustrations or pictures. These are provided to us through the great stories of the Old Testament. For example, the New Testament teaches us that God is sovereign, that means He is over all, above all, and in all. Yet, it takes an Old Testament story such as the story of the young boy David, chosen and designated to be king over Israel, yet placed in the most difficult and trying situations for us to see and realize just how sovereign our wonderful God really is. more…

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1 & 2 Samuel (Program #1) – An Introductory Word

The Bible is the divine revelation, the word revelation according to the Greek means to uncovered or unveil something that had been hidden or concealed. Though the Bible contains teachings and truths on many levels, fundamentally this book conveys God’s eternal purpose that which God Himself desire in His heart in the eternity past above all else and planned even before He laid the foundations of the earth and the universe. Surely for us to see such a divine and eternal purpose we need more than our merely mental faculties. We need what the apostle Paul prayed for, so earnestly in his epistle to the Ephesians believers. He prayed that “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him.”  Welcome to our first life study from the book of 1 Samuel.

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