Marvel or Wisdom (Revelation 17:7-14)

Marvel or Wisdom (Revelation 17:7-14)

Without the word of God we will Marvel at the power and seduction of evil … even as Christians! – This is because the unusual way that God has ordained life to be lived this side of the resurrection. This middle paragraph in

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is giving us the wisdom needed to flip the picture right side up, and see that – as threatening and intimidating and overwhelming as the Woman and the Beast look, one little Word will fell them!

Exposing the Great Prostitute (Revelation 17:1-6)

Exposing the Great Prostitute (Revelation 17:1-6)

By God’s exposure of the Great City, the Mother prostitute of Babylon – he not only vindicates His judgment but anticipates the Chaste virgin Bride of Christ, the New Jerusalem – the city of our God – and exposes Her implicitly as a faithful and truly beautiful Bride. Not for what she is naturally, but for what Christ has made her – by being the Lamb slain for her… by drinking the cup of God’s fury for her. This act of self-sacrifice taking her from her own prostitution and establishing her in purity.

Asking for Wisdom (1 Kings 3:1-15)

Asking for Wisdom (1 Kings 3:1-15)

Solomon asking for wisdom is for us a call to be humbled to true wisdom and the joy of that condition. Paul was crushed under the HIGH GLORY of the ministry of gospel and called out “WHO is sufficient for these things?!” – only to be comforted by Christ that “God had made him sufficient, by hiding the treasure in Paul’s clay jar so that he could show the surpassing power belonged to God and NOT to man.” I fear that our current crisis has not yet had that effect on all Christians. But HAPPY is the saint bowed to petition God in humility.

Who’ On the Throne? (Revelation 16:1-11)

Who’ On the Throne? (Revelation 16:1-11)

What do you expect to happen in worship? As we look at the first 5 bowls of the wrath of God’s holiness being poured out, I wonder if you have ever expected GOD to dethrone YOU! But that is not something that I can produce by yelling louder or slapping the pulpit. As Thomas Watson rightly said, “Ministers can only speak to the ear, the Spirit speaks to the heart.” Only the Spirit of God can change our hearts to honor God as God!

Worship Is Warfare (Revelation 15:5-8)

Worship Is Warfare (Revelation 15:5-8)

Worship is Warfare! This is the Strangest type of warfare … as the songs go UP the canons are fired. As the delight in Grace is realized the infantry advances! It is an odd battle tactic, but not one we are totally unfamiliar with. God gave us plenty of examples in the Bible. John is teaching us in the introduction to the 7 bowls of God’s wrath, that we are most effective in defeating the devil when we are most transformed in worship!

Sitting Under the Rain (Isaiah 55:1-13)

Sitting Under the Rain (Isaiah 55:1-13)

The steadfast love of God is no good to us if we do not have access to it personally! … and so the second half of

The Compassion of the Lord

55:1 “Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
3 Incline your ear, and come to me;
hear, that your soul may live;
and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
4 Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.
5 Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know,
and a nation that did not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, and of the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you.

6 “Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
7 let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

12 “For you shall go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall make a name for the Lord,
an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” (ESV)

addresses this problem by describing how the Word of God Works, coming from Heaven to Earth with the Power to Germinate.

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Tender and Terrifying (Revelation 14:14-20)

Tender and Terrifying (Revelation 14:14-20)

we will reap what we have sewn unless and only if Christ Reaps it first and fully for us. He would do such a thing because of his obedience to His Father – which He never loses even after His exultation … and because of His Tender compassion for His own, which we likewise never loses – even remaining the incarnate God/man for all eternity so that We might be ONE with God. He will have nothing come between us and Him and so acts as Redeemer and as Judge – so great is His intimacy.