Peter outlines the first step of his new training program: start by making sure you are on the right track yourself. For the second step in his training program, Peter gives Christians a simple, two-part way to test the truth. Peter tells his friends that they will often be out-numbered by false teachers and false […]
Soon after God led the nation of Israel out of Egypt, he brought them to a mountain in Arabia, where he married them: they became his people; he became their God. And as part of the marriage ceremony, God told his new bride that he would never cheat on them by falling in love with […]
In the beginning, God planted a garden in the east, in the land of Eden, the land of Delight. A river flowed down out of Eden, through the garden, and then split into four rivers which flowed down out of the mountains to water the plains below, where there was gold and precious stones and […]
So far in the story of Abram, Moses has kept us focused pretty tightly on the intimate family drama: the relationship between God and Abram, between Abram and Sarai, between Abram and Lot. Abram has been moving back and forth throughout Canaan, setting up altars, claiming the land for his God and for himself, and […]
Way back near the beginning of our bible, in the Book of Exodus, we find the story of a nation delivered from slavery, carried safely through the sea and the wilderness, and led to the foot of a mountain in Arabia where God himself met them in the form of thunder and lightning, a thick […]
Well, we come today to the tenth and final word — the tenth and final commandment — spoken by God from the mountain. Now, looking back, we remember that the first four commandments were all about how to love and imitate God. But then the fifth commandment marked a big change of direction, from how […]
In the beginning, Moses tells us, when God created Adam, he put him in a garden in the land of Eden. And Moses made it clear, from the special language he used, that the garden was actually a temple, a sacred place where God could live in peace with his people. And Adam was actually […]
We live in an amazing city, don’t we? Incredible architecture, incredible engineering, some really beautiful buildings! Kuala Lumpur really is a world-class city. I know that many of you who grew up here don’t think so, but I can tell you — as a boy who grew up in the kampungs of Indonesia, and has […]
When Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden, Moses was very careful to point out that they were driven out through the eastern gate of the garden, and that guardian angels were place there to keep mankind from re-entering and eating from the Tree of Life and living forever in misery. And by doing […]
A man with three sons crawls out of the wreckage of Babylon and heads southwest, into unknown lands — but only one of them actually arrives at their destination. The honeymoon in the new land is over. Abram loses his faith; Sarai keeps hers — but at what cost? God blesses Abram beyond his wildest […]
Today we are going to start with a couple of questions: what is John’s obsession with cities all about? And why, for John, does it seem like cities are mostly a bad thing? Sure, very early on in his book he introduced the city of God, the new Jerusalem, which is obviously a good city. […]
Okay. So for the last few weeks the Israelites have been in the wilderness of Rephidim. God has tested them with thirst and hunger, war and reconciliation. He has also blessed them with bread from heaven, a new calendar centered around rest every seven days, a new social structure centered around wisdom and teaching rather […]
Seven hundred years before Christ, the Prophet Isaiah said this: “In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.” And the other Jewish prophets all agreed that this would happen. So […]
After Moses led the people of Israel out of their slavery in Egypt, he brought them to Mount Sinai in Arabia, where they camped for a little over a year. During that first year of their Exodus, Moses built a tabernacle — a special tent, a mobile temple — according to very specific measurements, designed […]
