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A Godly Fear

 “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, That the mountains might quake at Your presence—As fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil—To make Your name known to Your adversaries, That the nations may tremble at Your presence!” (Isa 64:1-2).  What a prayer! What an image! I have always found this passage riveting. Actually, these final chapters of Isaiah are fascinating because they describe eschatological events. Eschatology is the study of the end times, and the Bible has lots and lots to say about the topic. It is in this setting that we find our verses. Isaiah longs for the day when God will reveal Himself to the nations. He will no longer be out of sight, hidden away by the heavens. Isaiah prays that God would rend the heavens much as we read of the curtain of the holy of holies being sundered in two at the Crucifixion (cf. Matt 27:51). In other words, Isaiah is praying, “rip open the heavens and reveal Yourself as at Sinai when the mountains quaked and
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Purify Yourself!

This sentence in 1 John stood out to me during my Scripture reading this morning: “Everyone who has this hope purifies himself, just as He is pure” (1 John 3:3). I have preached these verses a number of times and this always convicts me.     One of John’s constant emphases in his first epistle is righteousness. He begins with his authoritative eyewitness message in chapter 1 that brings us into fellowship with the Father and Son (1:1-4). Those who believe the gospel message and come to know the Father will from that moment on be marked by righteous living. He describes this with a metaphor: light. First, he sets forth this proposition: “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1:5). He immediately follows up by saying that all who claim to know God must walk in the light, and anyone who does not is demonstrably a liar. Since God is holy and righteous, so must we be. If anyone hears about God’s righteous character and concludes that they do not sin (or even worse, have neve
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Top Ten List of Recommended Christian Books

Below are ten of the books that have made an impact upon me. This might be a unique list. It is certainly not an exhaustive list. Each of these books is accessible and readible. They are not overly technical and specialized. Some of them are perennial favorites—books I keep coming back to year after year. Some are brand new and have recently been a help to me. I tried to give an assortment of genres and authors, so there is theology, history, and cultural commentary. These ten are not in any order except the order I pulled them off my shelf. 1. Ashamed of the Gospel - John MacArthur This is one of the first books that I ever read by Dr. MacArthur. It is in the vein in which he typically writes: out of love and concern for the purity of the gospel which he sees quickly diminishing. He examines the relevant gospel that so pervades our day. 2. The Mortification of Sin - John Owen John Owen has become very dear to me in recent years. He is an old English puritan whose mind was brillian
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Daily Scripture Reading - Romans 3

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Daily Scripture Reading - Romans 2

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Daily Scripture Reading - Romans 1

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How to Study the Bible

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As a pastor, I am frequently asked how to study the Bible. We have all been told that we must study the Bible, however, nobody really talks about how to study it (at least, not in my experience). When you do find someone who wants to help, they are bound to start talking about dictionaries and concordances and commentaries. These are all helpful tools, but they are just that: tools. We would never hand over tools to an aspiring scientist without teaching them a method by which they may use the tools to do their research. Similarly, we need a method for Bible study in which the tools will become useful. My father gave me a hammer and nails when I was a child, and I enjoyed pounding some nails into a piece of wood. But I didn’t have the instruction in using that hammer and nails to actually put something together. Likewise, we might enjoy looking up words in a concordance, but that is not in itself Bible study. So let me first give two general pieces of advice to get the Bible study
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