As you listen to this PODCAST, keep the seemingly unrelated words—acquisition; submission—at the forefront of your mind.
Trust me. They are inextricably related.
You’re in for a treat!
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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God bless you richly as you listen.
Sing it with me: “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”
Just how amazing is God’s grace. As you will hear in this PODCAST, this amazing!!!
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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God bless you richly as you listen.
May I be so presumptuous as to suggest that we each have our own issues?
Well, as you will hear in this PODCAST, I certainly do have mine. And this is certainly one of them.
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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God bless you richly as you listen.
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, Jesus is in every book, 39 out of 39 books, in the OT.
Genesis: Jesus is the Seed of the woman (3).
Exodus: Jesus is the Passover Lamb (12).
Leviticus: Anointed High Priest (8).
Numbers: Brazen serpent (21).
Deuteronomy: The Promised Prophet (18).
Joshua: Captain of the Lord’s angelic army (5).
Judges: Angel of the Lord (2).
Ruth: Our Kinsman-Redeemer (2).
1 Samuel: The coming Messiah (2).
2 Samuel: Seed of David (7).
1 Kings: Thick cloud of God’s glory (8).
2 Kings: The Lord God of Israel (19).
1 Chronicles: The God of our salvation (16).
2 Chronicles: The God of our fathers (20).
Ezra: Lord of heaven and earth (1).
Nehemiah: God who keeps His Covenant (1).
Esther: The God of providence (Esther).
Job: Our Risen Redeemer (19).
Psalms: The King of glory (24).
Proverbs: Personification of wisdom (8).
Ecclesiastes: The God to be obeyed (12).
Song of Solomon: The one who loves selflessly (SoS).
Isaiah: The Suffering Servant (53).
Jeremiah: The Lord our righteousness (23).
Lamentations: The faithful / compassionate God (3).
Ezekiel: Lord who dwells with His people (48).
Daniel: The Son of Man (7).
Hosea: Picture of God’s redemptive love (3).
Joel: Giver of the Holy Spirit (Joel 2).
Amos: The plumb-line by which all is measured (7).
Obadiah: Destroyer of the wicked (1).
Jonah: The God of second chances (2).
Micah: Messiah to be born in Bethlehem (5).
Nahum: The Lord who is slow to anger (1).
Habakkuk: The Rock of our salvation (1).
Zephaniah: The King of Israel (3).
Haggai: The One who will bring peace (2).
Zechariah: King riding on a donkey (9).
Malachi: The sun of righteousness (4).
No wonder, then, that as Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2:2 (NASB),
“Like newborn babies, (we) long for the pure milk of the word (including the so-called OT!), so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.”
As you will hear in this PODCAST, I stand in awe of our ancestors in the faith, the very first community of Christ-followers ever to walk this planet.
By way of introduction, do you remember when, so very long ago, we studied the Sermon on the Mount?
Let me remind you that Jesus introduced His signature sermon with 8 pronouncements of God’s blessing—We call them the Beatitudes. The most enigmatic of the 8 being Beatitude #3 that goes like this:
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5).
You are about to see in full color, in High Definition, exactly what meek looks like, courtesy of our earliest brothers and sisters in the faith.
Before we get to that, there is one additional Beatitude to which I want to direct your attention. It happens to be Beatitude #8, the last of Jesus’ pronouncements of God’s blessing. It reads:
“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:10).
Did you know that the words persecute/persecution/persecuted occur in the Bible a combined 142 times? In the minds of the biblical writers, it was a foregone conclusion that they and all of God’s people would be persecuted for our faith.
Jesus certainly understood this, He being the ultimate example of someone who was continuously hounded, hunted, and finally executed—persecuted—for His faith.
Persecution, Jesus repeatedly reminded His disciples, was the price tag for becoming one of His followers.
Perscute—to pursue in a hostile manner, to harass, to trouble, to molest, to mistreat.
Well, Jesus’ many warnings were now coming true for these very first committed Christ-followers. Indeed, what we are about to learn here in Acts 4 was only the beginning.
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God bless you richly as you listen.
After a wonderful week ministering at Hume Lake, it’s so good to be home. And so glorious to be back in the amazing book of Acts.
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, the elegant simplicity of what God intended His local churches to look like, and how He intended for them to function, coupled with unencumbered sincerity of His biblical blueprint for every local church ministry, is breathtaking to behold.
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God bless you richly as you listen.
“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.
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God bless you richly as you listen.
Oh how I love a good irony. That being said, how ironic in terms of timing is it that in this PODCAST, on this our fourth anniversary together as a Safe Haven family, we come to Jesus’ statement here in John 15, in the Upper Room Discourse, when He said to His men (and to us!), “I am the vine, you are the branches”?
The irony to which I refer lies in fact that this statement completes John’s portrait of Jesus.
You talk about Jesus in High Definition. How about seven layers of definition, skillfully painted on the canvas of John’s Gospel, that leaves us with no doubt as to the true character of Jesus as the God-man.
Understand that from start to finish, John had but one goal in mind, one purpose to his writing, one theme, one image that he sought to paint in this his artful masterpiece of his master. One the he painted in such beautifully breathtaking detail.
A portrait of Jesus to which John alerted us in the very first verse of his glorious gospel. Right out of the gate, John stated his theme, clearly and unambiguously when he wrote,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
If Matthew wrote to establish Jesus as the King, Mark painted the portrait of Jesus as a servant. If Luke left us no doubt that Jesus was fully human, John balanced books by showing us Jesus is God.
That is how John began his gospel; listen now to how he concluded it:
“In his disciples’ presence Jesus performed many other miracles which are not written down in this book. But these have been written in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through your faith in him you may have life.”
John’s theme? Jesus is God.
Now, in order to demonstrate to his readers that Jesus is God, out of the abundance of miracles that Jesus performed, John handpicked the ones that he chose to record in his gospel. By doing so, he carefully crafted his narrative: Jesus is God.
Now here’s the thing: In the same way, and for same reason, that John handpicked several of Jesus’ miracles, he also purposely selected several of Jesus’ sayings.
Seven of Jesus’ many sayings, to be precise. A complete compliment of exactly seven. Each one of these seven prefaced with the two telling words,
“I Am.”
As you are about to hear, a singularly and startlingly specific phrase. “I Am.” The significance of which was not lost on John. Nor will it be lost upon you.
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.
Fear not, my friends. As you will hear in this PODCAST, Justice will be done!
Trust me. (Better yet, trust Jesus!) JUSTICE WILL BE DONE!
Welcome to Part Three in this 3-part mini-series within a series concerning the Mysterious Member of the Trinity, AKA The Holy Spirit.
Here in the Upper Room Discourse, Jesus presented to His disciples the first extended discussion of the Holy Spirit to be found anywhere in the Bible.
Yes, the Holy Spirit was very present and quite active in the Old Testament, making His first appearance in second verse of the Bible, Genesis 1:2. But not-so-strangely enough, there is within the pages of the Bible no extended discussion of the Holy Spirit until we break the seal on John 14-17, the Upper Room Discourse.
I say not-so-strangely because of a tantalizing little detail that Jesus shared with His men right in the middle of the Upper Room Discourse, in John 15:26 (CEV):
“I will send you the Spirit who comes from the Father and shows what is true. The Spirit will help you and will tell you about Me.”
The Holy Spirit, third person in the Triune Godhead, did not inspire the biblical writers in either the Old nor the New Testaments to write about Himself; He inspired them to write about Jesus. So it is not-so-strange, is not surprising, that it’s not until the 43rd book of the Bible (John), in the final Gospel of the four (John), and in the last of Jesus’ sermons (the Upper Room Discourse) before we are greeted with, and treated to, an exposition of the person and purpose of the Holy Spirit.
BTW, given that the Jesus-mandated-mission of the Holy Spirit is (Jesus’ words, not mine) “to tell you about Me,” I must briefly interject a most important word of caution concerning various ministries, certain denominations, and some peoples’ personal prophetic pronouncements.
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.
There is No.Clearer.Picture in all of the Bible of the heart of God towards sinners — I’m talking the hardest of hardhearted sinners — than this one right here in Luke 13.
A Scriptural snapshot that will go a long way to defining your biblical view of God and your biblical understanding of Jesus, both as a man and as God.
If you think of the Bible as a picture book, Luke paints for us a portrait of Jesus that is, quite frankly, irresistible, and most refreshing to my soul. It will be to yours as well. Guaranteed.
One that comes to us, ironically enough, thanks to a small cadre of good Pharisees. Yes! Heard me right. Good Pharisees.
The Pharisees as a group, as we have discussed in weeks gone by, and as you therefore understand, were historically among Jesus’ chief tormentors. That being said, there were in the minority some good Pharisees.
This, my dear friends, is quite a gripping story.
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
The Latest News from Jerusalem
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Dewey Bertolini 