The Sword of the LORD

"There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.  For he that is entered into His rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His ." (Hebrews 4:9, 10 NKJV).    It is very rewarding, after spending hours mowing and trimming the grass, edging around the walkways, and mulching the flower beds, to sit down with a cold drink in hand and rest from one's labors.  It is good also, after feeling the stress and activity of one's job all year long, to just get away on vacation and relax for a time.  Such times of rest are all the sweeter to us because we feel that we have earned them by our labors.  God’s view of rest is not the same as our view of rest, however.  He has a different rest that He has promised to His people.   In the Old Testament (under the old covenant), God commanded the Israelites to cease from all their work and rest every seventh day of the week.  "But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy G...

There are many promises in the Bible that are addressed specifically to "him that overcometh."  They include:   ·   To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.  (Revelation 2:7). ·   He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death [lake of fire and brimstone] .  (Revelation 2:11). ·   To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.  (Revelation 2:17). ·   And he that overcometh, and keepeth My works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations [to rule and reign with Christ in the Kingdom of God] .  (Revelation 2:26). ·   He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before My Father, and before His ang...

“In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying , If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.  He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water .  (But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)” (John 7:37-39).    The feast that John was referring to in this verse is the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot, as it is called in the Hebrew language.  It was a week-long celebration that occurred at the end of harvest to remind the Jews, among other things, of their sojourn in the wilderness when they dwelled in temporary structures before they entered their final resting place: the Promised Land.  God instituted the Feast of Tabernacles when He said to Moses, “Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be...

Recently, I have thought a lot about the account of Jesus walking on the water in John 6 and Matthew 14.   The story occurs right after Jesus fed more than 5,000 people with just a few loaves of bread and two small fish.   I would like to explore a different aspect to this story, however, that is very easy to look past.     Matthew 14:22 reads, “And straightway Jesus constrained His disciples to get into a ship , and to go before Him unto the other side, while He sent the multitudes away .”  We see here two groups of people: the multitude, and Jesus’ disciples.  We also see two very different ways in which the Lord is dealing with them.  He is sending His disciples across the sea ahead of Him, but He is sending the multitude away.  The Lord seems very deliberate in accomplishing these two tasks; and so He was, for He did nothing in His ministry that was not deliberate.  Everything that Jesus did had both plan and purpose.  We see in ...

“Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal: and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the LORD said unto Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in Kadeshbarnea…And Joshua blessed him, and gave unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh Hebron for an inheritance.  Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite unto this day, because that he wholly followed the LORD God of Israel .” (Joshua 14:6, 13, 14).   One of my favorite individuals in all of scripture is the Old Testament Bible character Caleb.  You may remember that he and Joshua were among the twelve men that Moses selected to send into Canaan to spy out the land before the armies of Israel went in to claim it.  Of the twelve spies, only Caleb and Joshua had a positive report about the Promised Land that God had said was theirs.  The other ten spies had many things to say about the land, but most of them were negati...