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God takes the persecution of His children personally. In Acts 9:4 when Jesus appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus and spoke to him about his persecution of the saints, Jesus said, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" Saul was not directly persecuting Jesus but he was persecuting His saints. Yet Jesus said, "Why are you persecuting me?" Judgment against those who persecute God's children will not always come in time to prevent their harm but as this warning makes very clear, God will avenge His own (Rom. 12:19).
Letting God be the one who defends us is a matter of faith. If there is no God who will bring men into account for their actions, then turning the other cheek would be the worst thing we could do. But if...
This story clearly teaches that there is life after death. It shows that there is no "soul sleep" where our souls are awaiting the resurrection of our bodies, but we go into a conscious eternity immediately. It also shows that there are only two destinations possible after death. We either go to a place of torment for the wicked or a place of blessing for the righteous. There is no "limbo" or "purgatory" and there is no second chance, illustrating the finality of our eternal destiny once we die.
Abraham's bosom is a symbolic term designating a place of comfort for the righteous dead. It was located in the heart of the earth, in the same region as hell, where the ungodly dead go. The rich man's body was in the grave and...
The jot was not only one of the smallest letters of the Hebrew alphabet, but also one of the most insignificant, being sometimes deleted at the writer's pleasure. The tittle was only a mark or a point on a line that helped distinguish one letter from another. The tittle corresponds to our period or apostrophe. The point that Jesus is making is that even the tiniest detail of the law would not pass away.
Christ fulfilled every jot and tittle of the law. The law was ordained to life, but no one could keep it. So, God Himself became flesh. He did what no sinful flesh had ever done. He kept the law thereby winning the life of God as the prize for keeping the law. This granted Him eternal life but before He could give it to us, we still had a debt that had to be paid. This is similar to someone receiving the death penalty...
The Bible teaches that there are different dispensations or divinely ordered ways of God dealing with mankind throughout the ages. A dispensation is simply a period of time in which God deals with mankind in a certain way.
The Old Testament law was only a temporary dispensation and ruled from the giving of the law (Ex. 20) until the ministry of John the Baptist. When Christ came, He put an end to the law for righteousness (Rom. 10:4). Anyone who advocates the keeping of the law for the purpose of right standing with God is going back to an Old Testament system of law that has been abolished and is making the work of Christ void in his life.
The New Testament believer is under the dispensation of God's grace. We are not under...
THE DICTIONARY DEFINES "JUSTIFIED" AS "To demonstrate or prove to be just, right, or valid...To declare free of blame; absolve...To free (a human) of the guilt and penalty attached to grievous sin." I GUESS YOU COULD BE JUSTIFIED IN MANY WAYS BUT HOW DOES THE BIBLE SAY YOU ARE JUSTIFIED?
Justification is not something to be earned, but a gift to be received. Seeking to earn salvation is the only sin that will prevent a person from being saved, because you cannot submit yourself to the righteousness of God which comes as a gift through faith as long as you are seeking to establish your own righteousness.
Most people are unaware that there are two kinds of righteousness. Only one type of righteousness is acceptable to God. There is our righteousness, which is our compliance with the requirements of the law. This is an imperfect righteousness because human nature is imperfect and incapable of fulfilling the law. And there is God's righteousness, which only...