Isaiah 1:2-3

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...

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,...

Manasseh … did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out … He raised up altars for Baal … And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. Also he made his son pass through the fire, practiced soothsaying, used witchcraft, and consulted spiritists and mediums. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. § Now when he was in affliction, he implored the Lord his God,...