Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

‘May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.’ These words were written by Paul to the church in Thessalonica, a relatively new church that had recently undergone persecution for the faith, and which received two letters from the apostle as a consequence. Understandably, Paul initially was worried about how they were coping with their trials, but we know from 1 Thessalonians that Timothy had returned from Thessalonica with a good report about how they were progressing on in the Christian life. Since then it seems that Paul had received further information about two problems in the Thessalonian church and he wrote this short letter informing them how they should respond to those issues. One problem is mentioned in chapter 2 and it concerned wrong notions about the second coming of Jesus being spread within the congregation and the other problem is mentioned in chapter 3 and it concerned the notion that some people had that they should not ...

Verses 1-11 describe a man who is in great distress. He has been in this state for some time. He is overwhelmed by it all and is in isolation, with no one to speak to apart from himself and God. What is the problem? Divine providence personally and divine providence nationally as far as Israel is concerned (the people were probably in exile in the Babylonian Empire). Things are not in a good way from his perspective. Is God indifferent now about his cause? Is he no longer interested in answering prayer? Have we ever felt like that with regard to divine providence? Yet we should observe that he is thinking things through, speaking to himself about the matter and at the same time speaking to God. Have we ever done that, engaged in a mixture of self-assessment and prayer? It is as if he was saying to God, ‘Here I am, puzzled and battered spiritually, and there are you, the eternal God.’ And we must note that this psalm is included by the Holy Spirit in the Psalter as suitable as an item o...

‘To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory forever and ever. Amen’ (1 Tim. 1:17). Paul wrote these words as his response, as it were, to giving his own testimony about his conversion to Jesus Christ many years previously. He had been a bad man, but he had become a new man, and therefore he had a story to tell about divine grace, and how he loved to tell it, even to Timothy who had probably heard it many times before! Moreover, his words reveal his attitude towards the merciful God who had saved him despite his awful actions against the Saviour whom he had blasphemed (no doubt by denying his deity), whose people he had persecuted (almost to extinction), and whose purposes he had opposed (by attempting to crush the church in its infancy). Paul’s mind has been drawn to the ages, perhaps because he sensed his time on earth was running out, although he had a few years yet to live. In verse 16, he mentions that when sinners believe in Jesus they have the...

Jesus is given numerous names in the Bible and we are familiar with some of them because of their frequent use. We can narrow them down in this sermon by asking if different names are mentioned by John in his Gospel. They are, and in this Gospel, for example, he is called the Son of God, the Lamb of God and the Light of the World. In the prologue of the Gospel he is also called the Word, a name which we might not understand when first we read it, but which would have been important to John’s initial readers. Literally, the term is logos, which was commonly used at the time to describe reason or a rational statement. It was used to describe the governing principle behind the existence of the universe. Here John uses it as a name for the Son of God as the Creator, and there is an obvious connection between saying that he is the source of reason and the one who gives light to every person. Yet there is more to light than intellectual understanding. Perhaps, by light, John is referring to ...

This statement is the sixth of the seven ‘I am’ sayings of Jesus’. Warren Wiersbe in his book on the seven ‘I am sayings’ says of this one: Jesus ‘moved resurrection out of a statement of faith and into a person, and out of the future into the present.’ He continued: Jesus ‘did not nullify the doctrine of future resurrection, but He did tell [Martha] (and us) that His resurrection power is available to His people today.’ Those statements are a good summary of what Jesus said and did on this occasion. In the various points that we shall consider we will see the accuracy of the summary. No doubt many points could be thought about, and each thought about in detail, but we will focus on a few. But first we can link this saying to the other six ‘I am’ sayings. This statement, like the other six, is about Jesus’ self-understanding of his person and his mission. What I think of myself is of little relevance to most people, but who Jesus thinks of himself is relevant to every person. We can ru...

Jesus and the disciples had left the upper room where they had their Passover gathering and were making their way to the Garden of Gethsemane, the place where they usually spent the Passover evening in the city. It is possible that on their way there they passed a vine that Jesus used as an illustration of spiritual fruitbearing. Passover occurred during the spring, and springtime was when good branches were pruned and dead branches removed. The owner may have cut off unfruitful branches and they were lying on the ground. Either the owner or his servants would gather them for burning. The owner had also pruned fruitful branches, and passers-by would not see any unwelcome growths on them. Jesus, however, was not merely using an illustration from the natural world. When he called himself the true vine, he showed that there was a false one as well. The Old Testament calls Israel a vine several times, but as Isaiah 5 emphasises, it had failed to produce fruit for God and was not a true vin...

We live in changing times. There is a sense in which we always do so. Our circumstances change every day, and we change along with them. We can look back on our lives and see many changes have occurred throughout the years, some that we did not see coming, but which had their effects. Some changes are good. Children grow up, become adults, marry, and have their own families. People get jobs a nd form career paths which fit the gifts with which the Lord has endowed them as creatures made in his image. In contrast, some changes are bad, such as when a country may find itself at war because of an aggressive neighbour. Some changes are limited in their effects while others are far reaching. All institutions in a society experience change. Governments change and introduce new policies, and they bring further changes, which are changed again in the future. Churches change and do so in a variety of ways. Believers finish their course in this world and go to heaven and their absence from the c...