Monthly Archives: February 2017

The Gold Standard of Our Faith

Posted on February 26, 2017 by deweybertolini

They say that “For every sigh, there’s a psalm.” As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, they are 100% correct.

What an absolutely, beautifully inspired collection of very real, honest, soul-soaring, gut-wrenching human expressions is contained within its 150 chapters.

So many verses of its 150 songs are profoundly personal prayers that you and I can pray right back to God, giving us an immediate connection with the principle players in the biblical drama.

Psalms, the single most emotion-filled book in the Bible. Yes, indeed. For every sigh, there IS a psalm.

If variety is the spice of life, then the Book of Psalms

is a pretty spicy book. One that includes hymns of praise, thanksgiving, godly wisdom and sound theology, expressions of our doubts and fears balanced by an unshakable faith in God through good times and bad. Imprecatory psalms that are cries for God’s justice and vengeance in an unjust world. Songs of lament that give voice to the many challenges of our painful lives.

There are also historical psalms that remind the worshipper of God’s faithfulness in the past. And for our purposes in this podcast, prophetical psalms. Songs that flood our souls with the confident hope that God will keep His many precious promises in future, just as He has in the past.

Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.

God bless you richly as you listen.

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Dramatic Words of a Dying Man (Part 3)

Posted on February 19, 2017 by deweybertolini

Caiaphas, the high priest that year, must have been fit to be tied.

Well, somewhat so.

As you will hear in this PODCAST, it was Passover. The Holy City, Jerusalem, was teaming with pilgrims. The all-important 3 PM Passover sacrifice at the Temple was fast-approaching.

It was arguably single most financially-flourishing day of the year (second only, perhaps, to the Day of Atonement) as far as the corrupt Temple Industrial Complex over which Caiaphas presided was concerned. There was money to be made this day. Lots and lots of money.

But the heavens seemed to conspire against Caiaphas.

Of all the luck (bad luck indeed), a most-rare, hauntingly-eerie atmospheric anomaly threatened to diminish severely Caiaphas’ shady haul of ill-gotten shekels.

At 12 PM, high noon, a mere three hours before the afternoon sacrifice, the sky turned ominously dark. If it stayed that way, there would be no 3 PM Passover Lamb sacrificed that day.

Well, according to Matthew 27 — Read ’em and weep, Caiaphas. 

“At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until 3 o’clock.”

A darkness that drove everyone away from the cross as they scrambled for shelter from the encroaching gloom of that midday backness.

Coincidence? No way!

Now there would be no Passover Lamb sacrificed at 3 PM on this day.

Or would there?

Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.

God bless you richly as you listen.

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Dramatic Words of a Dying Man (Part 2)

Posted on February 12, 2017 by deweybertolini

Welcome back to the foot of the cross.

In this PODCAST, we are now in that six-hour window of time — between 9 AM and 3 PM.

9 AM when the Romans nailed Jesus to His cross; 3 PM, that moment when Jesus finally succumbed to His brutal beatings, His massive blood loss, and the tortures of crucifixion — finally and mercifully to die.

Within that six-hour window, Jesus spoke seven times. The final words of His earthly life pre-resurrection. As we noted last week, a complete, seven-sayings, last lingering look into Jesus’ beautiful, sizable, and irresistible soul.

The first two of these sayings we discussed last week.

We’ll consider the middle two now.

And the final three we’ll explain next week.

Let me give you a heads-up. Get yourself ready for a rollercoaster of a ride tonight. This because the first of the two that we consider now is without a doubt the most emotional of the seven. I dare say, this may well be the single most emotional scene in the entire Bible. I’ll leave that for you to decide.

The second of the two statements that we consider now is equally without a doubt the most dramatic of the seven. I dare say, this is the single most dramatic scene in the entire Bible. No question about that.

Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.

God bless you richly as you listen.

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Dramatic Words of a Dying Man

Posted on February 5, 2017 by deweybertolini

“Jesus said…”

As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, the fact of the matter is this: Jesus said seven statements, this as His life was literally dripping out of Him drop by precious drop. Each one of the seven — when considered separately — tells a most-dramatic tale. All of the seven — when considered collectively — give us an unparalleled insight into the heart of Jesus.

It was, after all, Jesus who much earlier in His ministry said this:

“For whatever is in your heart determines what you say” (Matthew 12).

On yet another occasion, Luke 6, Jesus said,

“What you say flows from what is in your heart.”

So if we want to know what is in Jesus’ heart, we need look no further than what Jesus said. His words.

And as we are about to learn, what Jesus said from the cross, in the closing moments of His storied life, reveals perhaps most clearly of all exactly what was in His sizable heart. What a beautiful heart His was and is.

So join me now at the foot of the cross as we hear for ourselves the final words of Jesus as His innocent and holy life comes to a violently calamitous close.

Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.

God bless you richly as you listen.

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