The Sword of the LORD

“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:3,4).   It is necessary for every Christian to understand the part that the divine Law plays in God’s great plan for mankind.   There are things that the Law can and does do in the lives of the citizens of the world, and there are things that it cannot do.   Oddly enough, one of those things that the Law cannot do is to make men more righteous.   It isn’t because of any flaw in the Law itself for the Law is “holy, and just, and good” (Romans 7:12), but the problem lies with man because the human flesh has an inherent weakness that renders him incapable of keeping all of the Law no matter how willing he may be to do so.   “ Therefore by the deeds of the Law there shall no ...

In Jesus' day, there was a pool in Jerusalem which in Aramaic was called Bethesda, meaning "house of mercy."  Once in a while, an angel would enter the pool and stir the waters up so that they visibly moved.  It was discovered that anyone who first entered into the pool after the water was stirred would be healed of whatever was afflicting them.  For this reason there was always a large number of people who were blind, sick, crippled, etc. who would wait all around the pool for their chance to be healed.    A story like this may seem strange to us today.  Many modern Christians and theologians would rather dismiss what they don't understand than to believe the witness of God's Word.  Even several of the more popular modern Bible translations have entirely removed the text of John 5:4 from their editions, choosing to skip verse four altogether and go directly to verse five from verse three!  I say, let God be true and every man a liar.  Go...

If you drive around America’s New England states you’ll notice a great many old stone walls bordering different properties.   These walls were built mostly during the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries by farmers who were clearing stones from their fields.   The first year they would dig the stones out of the ground, and a year or two later would use them to build boundary walls around their fields.   Before the Industrial Age kicked into high gear and after the Civil War, these farmers had produced an astonishing 240,000 miles of stone walls!   That’s estimated to be enough to wrap around the earth at the equator 10 times, and all done using no modern equipment.   These early pioneers moved all that stone by hand using only shovels, pry bars, runner-less stone “sleds” pulled by oxen or horse, and sheer muscle and grit.   The reason for all of this labor on the part of the New England farmers was to improve the production of their farms.   Large...