Isaiah 1:2-27

The second question is: How many are worthy to hear His voice" In Acts 13:46b Paul and Barnabas told the people, "Since you reject it . . . we now turn to the Gentiles." This is a terrible judgment. But here is the gist of what I want to say: A radical and sweeping reformation is imperative among the people called Christians—Protestants generally and evangelicals in particular. What is meant by reformation" Some may recoil from that word; I have...

THE CELEBRATED PRAYER of the great German astronomer, Kepler, has been a benediction to many: "O God, I thank Thee that Thou hast permitted me to think Thy thoughts after Thee."

This prayer is theologically sound because it acknowledges the priority of God in the universe. "In the beginning God" is undoubtedly the most important sentence in the Bible. It is in God that all things begin, and all thoughts as well. In the words of Augustine, "But Thou, O Lord, who ever livest, and...

To know God in the scriptural meaning of the term is to enter into experience of Him. It never means to know about. It is not a knowledge mediated by the intellect, but an unmediated awareness experienced by the soul on a plane too high for the mind to reach. Where then is the place of the intellect in Christian experience" And why waste time thinking when we know beforehand that thought cannot bring us to the knowledge that is most of all to be desired, the knowledge of God" The answer is...

THIS is a complaint preferred against us by our infinitely gracious God; let us attend to it a little this morning. What should we consider? Surely, how great things the Lord hath done for us, He hath delivered our souls from death, our eyes from tears, and our feet from falling, that we may walk before God in the land of the living. How God provides for all His creatures, even the meanest, and therefore will certainly provide for us; being engaged to do so as our Creator, Preserver,...

God is far more interested in how we treat other people than in how many religious ceremonies we go through. He prefers mercy to sacrifice. He places practical morality above ritual. It might seem strange to read that God doesn't desire sacrifice, because it was He who instituted the sacrificial system in the first place. But there is no contradiction. While it is true that He ordered the people to bring sacrifices and offerings, He never intended these to take the place of justice and...

" Let there be an understanding between us. Let us talk over the points of difference between us, and see if we cannot come to a settlement. If you have any fault to find with me, state it. If I am not what you would have me be, put your objection into words. Be explicit. You alienate yourself from me, shun my paths, avoid all approaches to communion with me, shut up my word, look coldly on my people, and if you can possibly get anything else to think of, no matter how contemptible it be,...

Help is needed to discharge duties that are too great for us, to encounter dangers that are too severe for us, to face enemies that are too powerful for us, to bear up under sore disappointments, under the loss of friends, of health, of fortune, to sustain the consciousness of our deep demerit, and in fact it is difficult to exhaust the catalog of the ends for which we need help. Yet there are very few who are visited with a sense of any such need as this. The reason is that men generally...

The Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. § He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness. § Each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is.I will turn My hand...

The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; they have not been closed or bound up, or soothed with ointment. § We are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags. § I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells.You were washed … you were sanctified … you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the...

Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. § I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins. Put Me in remembrance; let us contend together; state your case, that you may be acquitted. § I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, and like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.God so loved the world that He gave...