I needed encouragement this morning.
So I turned to the one verse of Scripture that through the years has sustained me as no other.
As you will hear in this PODCAST, perhaps it will be an enormous encouragement to you as well.
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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God bless you richly as you listen.
If you will permit me to quote myself, “It is today as it was then.”
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST: Boy, is it ever today as it was then. All courtesy of the Apostle Paul.
May God use the words of an ancient Prophet to elevate your soul, as they have my own.
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God bless you richly as you listen.
The picture that you are about to hear me paint in this PODCAST is my Single. Favorite. Scriptural. Snapshot of Jesus, second to none.
Courtesy of our old friend, Peter, who was onsite and who witnessed this up close and far too personal in real time as it happened.
I have a hunch that after hearing this, you will never think of Jesus in quite the same way again.
May my stuttering and stammering words be a blessing in your life.
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God bless you richly as you listen.
So why DID Peter have to write this?
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, why do we need to read and heed this?
We’ve hit a milestone in our 1 Peter in HD series. This marks the halfway point. 2 1/2 chapters down; 2 1/2 chapters to go!
Four times in 2 1/2 chapters, Peter makes this heartfelt plea. He does so for a very good reason.
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God bless you richly as you listen.
It is one of the most beautiful words to appear anywhere in the Bible.
So beautiful, as you will hear in this PODCAST, that the biblical writers invoke this word one hundred one times.
Peter will employ it in 1 Peter 1:18 when he writes these 3 amazing words:
“You were redeemed.”
That is a declarative sentence, causing us to ask, What’s the picture??? The biblical picture of redemption.
I’ll give you a hint: It all has to do with one of the so-called Minor Prophets. Minor in terms of his book’s length; MAJOR in terms of its message.
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.
Welcome to Peter’s first-ever sermon.
As you will hear in this PODCAST, this fisherman-turned-preacher’s initial foray into the world of sermonizing is memorable in extreme.
And whether you realize it or not, Peter’s first sermon out of the gate is all about… Grasshoppers. As in locusts. Lots and lots of locusts.
A plague of locusts. A past-plague of locusts. A coming plague of locusts. And a future (even future for us) plague of locusts. See it there in Acts 2:14-16?
Listen as I read it to you, and see if you can hear ominous chomps of locusts:
Then Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles and shouted to the crowd, “Listen carefully, all of you, fellow Jews and residents of Jerusalem! Make no mistake about this. These people are not drunk, as some of you are assuming. Nine o’clock in the morning is much too early for that. No, what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel.”
See any locusts in that? No? Well, then, keep listening. Because as you are about to hear, it is vital that we do.
His name is Joel. He is one of so-called 12 “Minor Prophets.” But make no mistake about this: Joel may have been a “Minor Prophet.” But there was absolutely nothing minor about his message.
Let me ever-so-briefly remind you of structure of the Old Testament…
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God bless you richly as you listen.
So many things are going to become So.Very.Clear in this week’s PODCAST.
You are about to hear something of…
Most importantly: You will hear in unmistakable terms about the care and compassion of the God of the Bible, as Jesus paints the most poignant picture of just how much our gentle Jesus loves and cares about you.
We truly are in for a treat this week, courtesy of Jesus.
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.
I was away this week, sharing a precious memorial service for my dearly beloved mom with my family. Consequently, I have selected one of the MOST IMPORTANT podcasts that we have recorded in our Jesus in HD series.
In this Encore PODCAST, as we continue in our chronological study of the life and ministry of Jesus, we come to Matthew 18:15-17 — one of the most seriously significant passages in all of the New Testament, the so-called “Church Discipline” passage.
Church Discipline, a teaching in many local churches that really rose into prominence in the late 1970’s and became quite the trend.
I can remember attending church leadership conferences back then and hearing pastors — I’ll use word “boast.” — of the fact that they recently removed individuals from their congregations, thereby “preserving the purity of their churches.” Others would then oooh and ahhh at the boldness of these pastors in confronting the sin in his church and taking decisive action in order to preserve the purity of his church by the process of Church Discipline as outline by Jesus here in Matthew 18.
Today, one of this nation’s leading Church Discipline proponents insists that church discipline, as outlined in Matthew 18, is one of the marks of a healthy church. He writes this on his website, clearly articulating the prevailing view of Church Discipline, and indeed includes this as one of his main talking points as he addresses pastors’ conferences throughout the country, encouraging them to do the same:
“Church discipline is the act of correcting sin in the life of the body, including the possible final step of excluding a professing Christian from membership in the church and participation in the Lord’s Supper because of serious unrepentant sin.”
Consequently, it has become standard practice to “exclude” or remove or excommunicate (you choose the term) unrepentant sinners from their local churches. This notion of Church Discipline is certainly included in many if not most of our evangelical churches’ bylaws.
Well, in light of the above definition — More importantly, in light of Jesus’ words in Matthew 18 — I must ask, Is that really what Jesus taught to His disciples and to us?
Let’s discover the answer together.
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God bless you as you listen.
It’s universally called “The Parable of the Good Samaritan.”
Universally, that is, except where Jesus is concerned.
As you will hear in this PODCAST, if Luke 10:33 in the NLT is any indication, Jesus would have most likely entitled this, “The Parable of the Despised Samaritan.”
A title which goes to the heart of this story, really. Something that I need for you to feel as you listen, and to feel it deeply. For if not, this parable completely loses its punch.
Forget about shifting a paradigm. With this one parable, Jesus completely obliterated the paradigm, and created a whole new paradigm on the spot.
You are in for both a treat and a challenge.
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.
Dewey Bertolini’s Podcast
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