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"KING OF THE JEWS" And they bound Him and led Him away and delivered Him over to Pilate the governor. ... The governor asked Him, "Are You the King of the Jews?" Jesus said, "You have said so." But when He was accused by the chief priests and elders, He gave no answer. Then Pilate said to Him, "Do You not hear how many things they testify against You?" But He gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed. (Matthew 27:2, 11b-14) There are times when talking will do no good. Pilate asks, "Are You the King of the Jews?" and gets less of an answer than he expected. For Jesus to answer that question fully, it would take hours ... maybe days. A king in what sense? By whose standards? Why do you want to know? It would take a theology lecture! Pilate isn't much interested, anyway. But we ought to be—because who Jesus is makes all the difference to us. Who is this King of the Jews? Isaia...

Job 38:16 Some things in nature must remain a mystery to the most intelligent and enterprising investigators. Human knowledge has bounds beyond which it cannot pass. Universal knowledge is for God alone. If this be so in the things which are seen and temporal, I may rest assured that it is even more so in matters spiritual and eternal. Why, then, have I been torturing my brain with speculations as to destiny and will, fixed fate, and human responsibility? These deep and dark truths I am no more able to comprehend than to find out the depth which coucheth beneath, from which old ocean draws her watery stores. Why am I so curious to know the reason of my Lord's providences, the motive of His actions, the design of His visitations? Shall I ever be able to clasp the sun in my fist, and hold the universe in my palm? yet these are as a drop of a bucket compared with the Lord my God. Let me not strive to understand the infinite, but spend my strength in love. What I cannot gain by intell...

EXODUS 25:6 My soul, how much thou needest this, for thy lamp will not long continue to burn without it. Thy snuff will smoke and become an offence if light be gone, and gone it will be if oil be absent. Thou hast no oil well springing up in thy human nature, and therefore thou must go to them that sell and buy for thyself, or like the foolish virgins, thou wilt have to cry, "My lamp is gone out." Even the consecrated lamps could not give light without oil; though they shone in the tabernacle they needed to be fed, though no rough winds blew upon them they required to be trimmed, and thy need is equally as great. Under the most happy circumstances thou canst not give light for another hour unless fresh oil of grace be given thee. It was not every oil that might be used in the Lord's service; neither the petroleum which exudes so plentifully from the earth, nor the produce of fishes, nor that extracted from nuts would be accepted; one oil only was selected, and that the ...

EPHESIANS 3:8 My Master has riches beyond the count of arithmetic, the measurement of reason, the dream of imagination, or the eloquence of words. They are unsearchable! You may look, and study, and weigh, but Jesus is a greater Saviour than you think Him to be when your thoughts are at the greatest. My Lord is more ready to pardon than you to sin, more able to forgive than you to transgress. My Master is more willing to supply your wants than you are to confess them. Never tolerate low thoughts of my Lord Jesus. When you put the crown on His head, you will only crown Him with silver when He deserves gold. My Master has riches of happiness to bestow upon you now. He can make you to lie down in green pastures, and lead you beside still waters. There is no music like the music of His pipe, when He is the Shepherd and you are the sheep, and you lie down at His feet. There is no love like His, neither earth nor heaven can match it. To know Christ and to be found in Him--oh! this is life, ...

JOHN 11:4 From our Lord's words we learn that there is a limit to sickness. Here is an "unto" within which its ultimate end is restrained, and beyond which it cannot go. Lazarus might pass through death, but death was not to be the ultimatum of his sickness. In all sickness, the Lord saith to the waves of pain, "Hitherto shall ye go, but no further." His fixed purpose is not the destruction, but the instruction of His people. Wisdom hangs up the thermometer at the furnace mouth, and regulates the heat. 1. The limit is encouragingly comprehensive. The God of providence has limited the time, manner, intensity, repetition, and effects of all our sicknesses; each throb is decreed, each sleepless hour predestinated, each relapse ordained, each depression of spirit foreknown, and each sanctifying result eternally purposed. Nothing great or small escapes the ordaining hand of Him who numbers the hairs of our head. 2. This limit is wisely adjusted to our strength, to ...

Exodus 3:7 The child is cheered as he sings, "This my father knows"; and shall not we be comforted as we discern that our dear Friend and tender soul-husband knows all about us? 1. He is the Physician, and if He knows all, there is no need that the patient should know. Hush, thou silly, fluttering heart, prying, peeping, and suspecting! What thou knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter, and meanwhile Jesus, the beloved Physician, knows thy soul in adversities. Why need the patient analyze all the medicine, or estimate all the symptoms? This is the Physician's work, not mine; it is my business to trust, and His to prescribe. If He shall write His prescription in uncouth characters which I cannot read, I will not be uneasy on that account, but rely upon His unfailing skill to make all plain in the result, however mysterious in the working. 2. He is the Master, and His knowledge is to serve us instead of our own; we are to obey, not to judge: "The servant knowet...

Psalm 117:1-2 All Nations Admonished to Praise God 1 O praise the LORD, all ye nations: praise him, all ye people 2 For his merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the LORD endureth for ever. Praise ye the LORD. There is a great deal of gospel in this psalm. The apostle has furnished us with a key to it (Romans 15:11), where he quotes it as a proof that the gospel was to be preached to, and would be entertained by, the Gentile nations, which yet was so great a stumbling-block to the Jews. Why should that offend them when it is said, and they themselves had often sung it, Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and laud him, all you people. Some of the Jewish writers confess that this psalm refers to the kingdom of the Messiah nay, one of them has a fancy that it consists of two verses to signify that in the days of the Messiah God should be glorified by two sorts of people, by the Jews, according to the law of Moses, and by the Gentiles, according to the seven precepts of the...

For thus says the LORD to the house of Israel: "Seek me and live;" (Amos 5:4)

The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. (Matthew 11:5)

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: 'Whoever believes will not be in haste.'" (Isaiah 28:16) http://bibl.co/23

"Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the LORD will do great things." Joel 2:21 (KJV) Every move of God is always accompanied by waves of recovery. I know that the previous year might not have ended on a bright note for you, but I come to encourage you that there is recovery for you. When the Lord said, this is your year of new things, it is because He is set to do great things in your life. It is not about what the World Economic Summit is saying, I am talking about what God is saying. There is a Goshen for you. Your case is different, this is your time and season of recovery. However, you will only experience it if you believe it. Remember what we leant a few days ago, about believing? Take God by His word. Be assured that it is totally impossible for the word of God to fall to the ground. Heaven and earth my pass away, but not the word of God. God's word is infallible and errorless. He says what He means and means what He says. Understand that your times are i...

''Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causeth to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple.'' Psalm 65:4 Yesterday we looked at how Esther deployed the spiritual weapon of prayers. The good news was that Esther was able to change the law that was against her people, the Jews, by tapping into the divine principle of prayers. She did a midnight connection, to rearrange things in the realm of the Spirit. By the time she stepped before the king, the power of God had gone before her to make the crooked places straight, to break the gates of brass and bars of iron. The King had no choice than to stretch forth the golden sceptre towards her even though she had never been invited. Beloved, that was not all. He also promised to do whatever she wanted, even giving her up to half of his kingdom. To crown it all, the 50 feet gallows, which Haman had prepared, for Mordecai, was the v...

Trials and tribulations are facts of life. There is no escaping the troubles of this life. Every man has his fair share of affliction, but the difference is now we grapple with it. Believers are charged to consider passing through trials, a joyful experience. It works to make a Christian complete, a finished product, matured and not lacking anything. No matter the area of challenge, be it financial, physical, spiritual or in our health. James 1:12 has a reassuring word for all. "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trials, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised.

For the prayer before meals, see Grace (prayer) . In Western Christian theology , grace has been defined, not as a created substance of any kind, but as "the love and mercy given to us by God because God desires us to have it, not because of anything we have done to earn it", [1] "the condescension or benevolence shown by God toward the human race". [2] It is understood by Christians to be a spontandoing an do useous gift from God to man – "generous, free and totally unexpected and undeserved" [3] – that takes the form of divine favor , love, clemency, and a share in the divine life of God. [4] It is an attribute of God that is most manifest in the salvation of sinners. Christian orthodoxy holds that the initiative in the relationship of grace between God and an individual is always on the side of God. In Eastern Christianity too, grace is the working of God himself, not a created substance of any kind that can be treated like a co...

God of Mercy – Understanding Mercy God is known to be a God of mercy and grace. Understanding mercy is often difficult for people as we tend to be a generation of “I’ll get him for that” and “I hope they get what they deserve.” Many have developed a nature of harsh criticism and want others to get what they have coming to them and then some. God, however, is merciful to even the worst offenders, sinners, and law- breakers. This means that even though He knows of our guilt, He doesn’t always issue the punishment deserved. To elaborate, the verse in Romans 3:23-24 says “...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Simply, we are all sinners and do not meet the standards of righteousness that God intends us to have. But, through His mercy and grace He provided a way for our sins to be forgiven through our acceptance of Christ Jesus—even though we don’t deserve it...

The Name Jesus Jesus is the English transliteration of the Greek name Iesus. Joshua is the English transliteration of the Hebrew name Yeshuah. Both Jesus and Joshua mean Yahweh saves or Jehovah is salvation. The name Jesus appears in the Bible more than 900 times. [Transliteration means that the word is not translated from one language to another, but tries to represent the same letters/ characters from one language to another. Pronunciation may or may not be preserved.] The Word Christ Christ is not actually a name, but a title. When the Bible talks about the Messiah in the Old Testament , it is referring to the same title as the New Testament calls Christ. Both Messiah and Christ mean anointed one. Jesus was anointed with the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:38) and was the promised redeemer. The first promise of a redeemer in the Bible was in Genesis 3:15. The word Christ appears in the Bible more than 500 times. Jesus’ Titles For Himself Jesus said He was th...

Who Is God - Who Does He Claim to Be? Who is God? He's been described as everything from an impersonal life- force to a benevolent, personal, almighty Creator. He has been called by many names, including: "Zeus," "Jupiter," "Brahma," "Allah," "Ra," "Odin," "Ashur," "Izanagi," "Viracocha," "Ahura Mazda," and "the Great Spirit" to name just a few. He's seen by some as "Mother Nature" and by others as "Father God." But who is He really? Who does He claim to be? Who Is God - Father God or Mother Nature? Who is God? What has He revealed about Himself? To begin with, whenever He refers to Himself in parental terms, He always addresses Himself as "Father," never "Mother." He calls Himself "a Father to Israel," 1 and in one instance, when His "children" were particularly disrespectful to Him, ...

Putting it all together – a short summary of the prophecies discussed in this book, and the story of Creation and history of the world This is a fast, birds eye view of the bible and the events foretold by God. This is the world we live in today. This page is a summary of this "Little Book of Prophecy and Truth" that will hopefully tie it all together and give readers a “big picture” look at what the Word of God tells us. All of the points made here are proven by scripture in detail within the book (and this web site) and should be studied out on your own. I encourage anyone reading this to take the time necessary to read and study every scripture I quote in this book and let the Lord lead you to His truth on your own. As I state in my introduction, this is just my notes that I have put together during my studies and organized in a fashion that I hope is understandable and helps others to learn and grow as I have in the knowledge of the Lord. Remember, ...

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Prophet Jeremiah was put in prison for the Lord's sake.  He spoke the word of God as he was given the revelation and utterances. Though the content of the message he received from the Lord was never pleasing nor palatable to the people, Prophet Jeremiah feared God rather than man. Hence, he did not compromise his ministry. He never sacrificed the sanctity and authority of God's words on the altar of vain praise from men nor transcient favour from a King.  When the prophet failed to be cowered by the imprisonment but still repeated the message, he was transferred into muddy cistern where he was to die. But God whose mouthpiece he was evoked concern in Ebed Melech who appealed to King Zedekiah and spoke in favour of the Prophet. That appeal led to the rescue of Prophet Jeremiah from death in muddy cistern (38:7, 17-19) of Jeremiah chapter 38. Now what you are facing today could have been because of the truth you had said or justice you had dispensed. God will certainly send he...