Answer to the Question of the Week

 

While listening to Paul preach in Troas, a man fell fast asleep and fell from a window. What was his name?

Eutychius. Acts 20:9.

 

An Invitation to Life

Text: Isaiah 55

The second half of Isaiah, chapters 40 - 66, is most effusive description of eternal life and the New Heavens and Earth in the entire Bible. It builds in crescendo until the prophecy of the New Creation in Isaiah 65. Isaiah 55 is an invitation to participate in the life promised by the Lord. It is also one of those chapters in Scripture that has a lot of familiar verses.

"Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near." verse 6

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, or My ways your ways," says the Lord. Verse 8

So shall My Word be that goes forth from My mouth. It shall not return to me void." verse 11

"For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace. The mountains and hills shall break forth with singing before you, and all the trees shall clap their hands." verse 12

As we read this chapter, right away we know that we are reading a prophecy of the future. "Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come, buy, and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." In this sin-stained fallen world, everything is reduced to a price. We have even invented the "dismal science," Economics that makes a special study of the relationship of money and the things that we desire.

The Lord knows that our souls are filled with cravings that we can never fill, but we chase the material desires of our hearts with our limited cash hoping for the merest taste of happiness and real joy. He also knows however difficult it is for us to believe it that he is the real answer. "Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear and your so shall live."

We must come to the Lord and live in communion with Him.

Question of the Week

September 9, 2012

While listening to Paul preach in Troas, a man fell fast asleep and fell from a window. What was his name?

Question of the Week

In the Christian's armor what is the breastplate?

Answer next week.

The Place of Creation

Text: Genesis 9:8 - 17 and Romans 8:18 - 26

If you are a Christian who loves your animals and pets, you have faced the question about their eternal state. Do they go to heaven? Many feel instinctively that they must have a place in eternity, while others proclaim them to be soulless. Today, I want to do a survey of Scripture with that question in mind.

We begin by looking at Genesis 9, especially verses 9 and 10. In these verses the Lord is establishing a covenant with Noah and his family, AND with every living creature that just got out of the Ark. We expect covenants with people, but with creation? That seems surprising, in some ways. The rainbow is given as a sign for us and the creation. The Lord has made promises to them.

Romans 8:18 - 26 lets us see what those promises were and the hope that the creation has. We wait for Christ's return while the creation waits " for the revealing of the sons of God" (verse 19). Paul continues by telling the Romans that the Lord subjected creation to futility so that they could be delivered from "their bondage to corruption into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

We read in Jonah 4:11 that the Lord remembered his creatures.

And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?"

In Isaiah 11:6 - 9, we have a vision of eternity that includes animals, man, and God at peace with each other. This prophecy can only be fulfilled when all things are made new in the New Creation.

Lastly, we know that the Lord breathed the breath of life into man; however, Genesis 1:30 shows how free the Lord is with the breath of life. ""And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so."

Answer to August 26 question

Last week we asked, to whom did Jesus say, "I am the way, the truth, and the life?"