When your conscience rises up and condemns you, where will you turn?

John Piper on Hebrews 9: So here we are in the modern age, the age of science, space travel—E-mail, heart transplants, instant replays, beepers, 911—and our problem is fundamentally the same as always: our consciences condemn us and make us feel unacceptable to God. We are alienated from God. We don’t feel good enough to … More When your conscience rises up and condemns you, where will you turn?

Heaping Burning Coals

Proverbs 25:21-22 If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you. From the ESV Study Bible: Although interpreters differ about the meaning of the metaphor of heaping burning coals … More Heaping Burning Coals

How to deal with the old, strange and foreign when you read your Bible

John Piper, on coming to something in the Bible that is ” Old and Strange and Foreign to Me”(as in Hebrews 8 ) It’s almost inevitable that people who live in the modern world of computers and jets and television and antibiotics will read these verses with a sense of tremendous foreignness. That is not my world, … More How to deal with the old, strange and foreign when you read your Bible

Ryle: The most blameless character will not secure us against false tongues

 J.C. Ryle on Luke 23:1-12  Let us observe, for one thing, in this passage, what false accusations were laid to our Lord Jesus Christ’s charge. We are told that the Jews accused Him of “subverting the nation, forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, and stirring up the people.” In all this indictment, we know, there … More Ryle: The most blameless character will not secure us against false tongues

Isaiah 37: One stunning illustration of prayer and the victory of God.

John Piper, in a sermon, “Prayer and the Victory of God” Now to fix this truth vividly in your minds—that the victory of God is coming and that it is coming by means of our prayers—look with me at Isaiah 37 and one stunning illustration of prayer and the victory of God. Sennacherib was the … More Isaiah 37: One stunning illustration of prayer and the victory of God.