The Gospel According to Yeeks

In Daniel 4:16, Nebuchadnezzar will be given the mind of a beast : "Let his mind be changed from a man's, and let a beast's mind be given to him; and let seven periods of time pass over him." Subsequently, in Dan 7, Daniel is given a vision of the change of Empires - all depicted as beasts ... except for the one like a son of man who receives it from the Ancient of Days. For the first time perhaps, in his reign, we are no longer under the reign of beasts.

Since I've moved to S's church, I've been reading D.James Kennedy's Evangelism Explosion for their evangelistic training class. In his book, he provided an explanation of the parable of the wheat and tares that is extremely epiphanic. He wrote: "The church in this world is always a mixed multitude of believers and unbelievers. In the parable of the wheat and tares, Jesus indicated that this condition would continue to the end of time. In the world to come, at the judgment, the distinction will be made. It is interesting that Jesus draws a contrast between wheat and darnel. The darnel looked exactly like a wheat through all stages of growth until the time of harvest. Then it had no "fruit". Perhaps there is the implication here that those who do not bear fruit are not true believers." I really am no agricultural expert and perhaps listening to this parable in a non-agrarian society means we are unable to appreciate the comparison. This has happ...

I was reminded just a week ago that Scripture contains "golden nuggets" if we would spend the time to look into the details. Here is one discovered just today - Jeremiah being thrown into the cistern. Background: Jerusalem on the verge of being invaded by Babylon. Jeremiah preaches to King Zedekiah to surrender to Babylon. The King did not take this message well and decides to throw Jeremiah into a waterless cistern filled only with mud. "So they took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king's son, which was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down by ropes. And there was no water in the cistern, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud ." (Jer. 38:6) Jeremiah is then saved by the unlikeliest of sources - Ebed-melech the Ethiopian. Scripture would go on to describe his faithfulness (Jer. 39:15-18) After Jeremiah is out of the cistern, the King meets with him secretly at the temple (Scripture is oddly specific that this was done...

I recently had the opportunity to preach at First Baptist Church Kuching on 10th February. I wrote all about it here at the GBC blog:  http://english.gracebaptistchurch.sg/blog/post/preaching-at-first-baptist-church-kuching-sarawak

7  Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.   8  Let us therefore celebrate the festival,  not with the old leaven,  the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Cor 5:7-8) ===  To really follow Paul's train of thought:  (1) Paul likens the Christian church to the Bread of the Jewish Passover (2) The Passover is celebrated with unleavened bread. The church is told to cleanse out the old leaven. This is a bizarre way of describing things. Once bread is leavened it cannot be unleavened. We cannot "un-yeast" the bread as the application of yeast has already caused the dough to rise (3) But still Paul calls attention to the fact that the church is "unleavened". That unlearning process began with the sacrifice of Christ the Passover lamb, i.e. you are unleavened for Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed....

In this short writing, an attempt is made to show how the accounts of Noah, Shem, Lot, as well as the events after the Fall serve to powerfully combine to reveal the character of God in those who obey Him and those that do not.  The stories of Noah and Lot seem disparate but the parallels are incredible. The first connection is the feature of “wine” in both of these accounts. The parallels follow the pattern of (A) God’s salvation act (B) The drinking of wine (C) Actions of the Children.  It is easier to see the parallels when they are juxtaposed side-by-side (see picture). The (C) parallel may be harder to observe. Lot’s daughters’ attempts to bear children by their father is in fact the “uncovering of nakedness” prohibited later in the Pentateuch in Leviticus 18:6 -20. The verse below suffices for us to develop our thoughts further: “None of you shall approach any one of his close relatives to uncover nakedness. I am the Lord.” (Lev. 18:6) This ties back to the F...