Matthew 24:1-51

For Reading and Meditation:     Philippians 1:12-30

We come now to Christ's eighth and final prescription for good spiritual and mental health: "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:10). The inevitable result of bringing our attitudes in line...

For Reading and Meditation:     Luke 24:13-35

The Bible is unique in its varied penmanship. The Scriptures were written over a period of some fifteen hundred years by about forty different penmen, and yet although of such composite character, the book displays an amazing and essential unity. The most wonderful thing about the written Word is that woven through it...

"For the elect's sake those days be shortened." Matthew 24:22

For the sake of His elect the LORD withholds many judgments and shortens others. In great tribulations the fire would devour all were it not that out of regard to His elect the LORD damps the flame. Thus, while He saves His elect for the sake of Jesus, He also preserves the race for the sake of His chosen.

What an honor is thus put upon saints! How diligently...

Universal was the doom, neither rich nor poor escaped: the learned and the illiterate, the admired and the abhorred, the religious and the profane, the old and the young, all sank in one common ruin. Some had doubtless ridiculed the patriarch-where now their merry jests? Others had threatened him for his zeal which they counted madness-where now their boastings and hard speeches? The critic who judged the old man's work is drowned in the same sea which covers his sneering companions. Those...

"…them also that love his appearing." For many years I thought that this expression referred to those believers who had kindly, sentimental feelings about the coming of the Lord. They would be rewarded with a crown of righteousness because their hearts glowed warm when they thought about the Rapture.

But surely it means more than this. To love His appearance means to live in the light of His coming, to behave as if He were coming today.

Thus, to love His appearing means to live...

These words were evidently intended to produce the impression (1) that there are difficulties in the way of salvation, be sides those at the entrance of that way; (2) that these difficulties may be overcome; but only (3) by him who contemplates them, appreciates them, prepares for them, and confronts them. The doctrine of " the perseverance of the saints" teaches that every one who is united to Christ by a living faith, will, by virtue of that faith, endure unto the end - will resist and...

On the day when these words were spoken, had it been announced in Rome that there was one then speaking whose words would never pass away, some would have said, " It must be the Emperor, his words will outlive all." Others would have fixed upon a certain historian; others upon an orator; others upon a poet. But no one would have conceived that a despised Galilean seated upon a hill opposite Jerusalem, and conversing with his disciples, was speaking 'words that would outlive all others. The...

Matthew 24:32-51

It was Tuesday evening. Jesus had left the temple, to return to it no more. His last words to the people had been spoken. On the way His disciples called His attention to the temple, perhaps suggesting its magnificence and its solidity. It was indeed a wonderful building. But Jesus said, "I tell you the truth - not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."

The little company moved out...

John 8:31-40

The title of this passage is suggestive. People who live in sin - do not think that they are slaves - they often think they are the only free men, and that Christians are the slaves. But in all this world, there is no bondage so terrible as the bondage of sin. The salvation of Christ is not merely the taking away of sin's penalty - if this were all, it would be very incomplete. This would leave...