"Believe in God, that raised Christ up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God." 1Peter 1v21
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Watch the latest episode of Hope Sunday School. #14 – Hope … in Danger Paul’s missionary journeys continue. In Ephesus the Christians face opposition from the smiths. Danger abounds, but the Lord is able to bring peace in unexpected ways and they find there’s hope in danger. Click here to go to a full archive…
Unity & Prosperity in God’s Presence ‘I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD.’ (v1) Ascending to the third step we find the psalmist looking forward with hope (this will generally be characteristic of every third step through these Songs of Degrees). His hope is that…
The LORD – our Help and our Keeper Having described his distress on the first step (in 120), Hezekiah ascends to the second step, looking for help. Where will he find it? The advice of the world around him would be to ‘look to the hills’. In other words, to the high places and idols…
Truth and Peace – Rare Commodities As the psalmist stands on the bottom step he laments his position. As one who loves truth and seeks peace, he feels that he is alone, surrounded by those who have ‘lying lips’ (v2) and ‘are for war‘ (v7). This causes the psalmist much ‘distress’ and he says ‘woe…
Before we get into the psalms themselves, I want to examine these 15 psalms as a whole, for it is clear these psalms were compiled with thought and care. While there is linear progression from the ‘distress’ of Psalm 120 to the ultimate ‘blessing’ of the sanctuary in Psalm 134, there is also the repetition…
An Amazing Occurrence Part 3 – the promise of repentance Act 2:5-13 “And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.And they were all amazed and…
Following the Hallel psalms (113-118) and the great exposition on the practical blessings of the Word of God (119), we now come to a group of 15 psalms, all entitled ‘Song of Degrees’, or in some translations ‘Song of Ascents’. We have no clear understanding as to the specific historical context that gave rise to…
Live Life by Praising God I trust you’ve found our journey through this epic psalm to be profitable. It certainly is very practical, and there’s plenty for us to work on, whether in relation to personal character, social behaviour, or spiritual attitude and action. I think it will be helpful to look back and summarise…
We conclude this final group of seven today continuing our look at the response of the blessed man to God. Yesterday we considered how the godly man will seek to live a life of sacrificial worship: ‘for to me to live in Christ, and to die is gain’ (Phil 1:21). Today we are going to…
The Wondrous Word and Work of Christ Peh – The Wondering Man ‘Something unusual and extraordinary. A marvellous and wonderful thing!’ This is the definition for the first word of this section, and I find it instructive that this is the theme in the 17th out of 22 sections. Marvel and amazement at an object…
We now come to the final group of sections – the Godward aspect. We will notice that the central section of the seven from Samech to Shin deals with the righteous basis of our relationship with the Lord. Before this we have three sections about character, and after, in a chiasmic structure, are three sections…
From Darkness to Light As we come to the next section in our psalm – Caph – we come to the darkest of times for the psalmist. I find it encouraging that our gracious God does not bring the psalmist to this point until he has already passed through other experiences preparing him for the…
On the SEA of life! We turn now to the beginning of the second group of seven, the manward aspect, in which we will consider the way of the blessed man with respect to his physical life on earth, and his relations with others. Group 2 – The Manward Aspect – The Earthly Man Today…
