The Magestic Old Testament

Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day. Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and they lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old. Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O LORD.  Good and upright is the LORD: therefore will he teach sinners in the way. The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way. All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies. For thy name's sake, O LORD, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great.   Psalm 25:5-14 Matthew Henry: Once and again David prays to God to teach him. He was a knowing man himself, but the most intelligent, the most observant, both need and desire to be taught of God; from him we must be ever learning.  What he desired to learn: "Teach me, not fine words or fine notions, but th...

What does man gain by all the toil  at which he toils under the sun?   A generation goes, and a generation comes,  but the earth remains forever.  The sun rises, and the sun goes down,  and hastens to the place where it rises.  The wind blows to the south  and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind,  and on its circuits the wind returns.  All streams run to the sea,  but the sea is not full  to the place where the streams flow,  there they flow again.  All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing,  nor the ear filled with hearing.  What has been is what will be,  and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.  Is there a thing of which it is said, "See, this is new"?  It has been already  in the ages before us.  There is no remembrance of former things,  nor will there ...

I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. Psalm 37:25 When Christ taught His disciples what to pray, He did not say, "Give us enough so that we never want."  Our God always provides for His own. Why do we doubt? Do believers need His assurance that no matter what this world's dire circumstances are, He will not forsake His own? My parents lived through three wars, and the Great Depression.  There were long lines for food rations, one chicken per week per family.  She plucked that chicken naked, butchered wings, legs, thighs and breasts, baked it, made pies from leftovers, and soup from the bones.  Our neighbors ate their chickens in two days, while ours lasted the week! Our family never went hungry during these horrific times. Life was very difficult after the depression. It left our family almost penniless. We may have lived as beggars, but we never had to beg. The Lord held our family toget...

We should not let the genealogy be discouraging when reading the Old Testament, particularly Genesis ~ for it is here we learn of Adam's descendants, including Noah, and the generations leading to the great patriarchs like Abraham, all from the seed of Adam. We learn of judgment and redemption and how the first generations worshiped God. Let's continue with the story of Cain.  If you recall, Cain's punishment was to become a fugitive and vagabond.  (AL) Genesis 4:16   And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. A few comments from John Calvin on Genesis 5:1-4   And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth... "In the number of years here recorded we must especially consider the long period which the patriarchs lived together.  For through six successive ages, when the family of Seth had grown into a great people, the voice of Adam might daily resound, in order to renew the memory of the ...

Isaiah paints a very vivid picture. Here is a closed book and the person who is able to read can't be bothered; it's too much trouble to open it. And the person who can't read is content to leave it like that; it's of no importance to try to find out what the book is about.  But the book in question is God's book, His Word of truth: it brings the knowledge of God; without it, all is at best surmise, at worst idle fancy and error.  How swiftly Isaiah's picture leaps over the 2,700 years since he put it on paper! He might well be living today and describing how things are all round.   Here is a life-long churchgoer, a devout serious man (I could tell you his name), but he says, 'Never at any time in my life have I read the Bible for myself'. He can read, but can't be bothered, and tragedy of tragedies the church he attends encourages religion and ritual but not personal Bible reading.   And here is a man talking confidently of life after dea...

God makes a promise in Genesis 3:15. This promise involves the promised seed. He pronounces this promise in a curse against the serpent. The serpent believes exactly what God says which is why in Genesis 4 we have the first murder. What is the first murder? The seed of the serpent, Cain, kills the seed of the woman, Abel.  The seed that was promised still had not come to fruition.  Eventually you come to a man name Terah who has an offspring by the name of Abraham. God makes a promise to that man named Abraham and this promise involves, among other things, seed. But this promise is rather significant because he and his wife, particularly his wife, too old for seed.  So how do you get promised seed if the seed bearing woman is too old for seed? The answer is God must intervene. No?  The answer is we’ve got to find somebody else—Hagar. Wrong answer. God didn’t say “a seed,” He said, “the seed.” Ishmael was  a  seed but not  the  seed. ...

Life for many of us is incredibly challenging. As believers in Christ, we understand and accept the difficulties, losses, tragedies. Yes, we say, but aren't there times when we're sinking in quicksand? Who has the strength and power to pull us out? Who do we hold onto? We turn to our Lord, our God Almighty, our Savior.  He sustains us. He enables us to keep hold. "For I, YAHWEH, am your God, keeping hold of your right hand; the One who is saying to you: Do not fear; I have determined to help you."  Isaiah 41:13 Matthew Henry: It is against the mind of God that his people should be a timorous people. For the suppressing of fear he assures them that they may depend upon his presence with them as their God, and a God all-sufficient for them in the worst of times.  Observe with what tenderness God speaks, and how willing he is to let the heirs of promise know the immutability of his counsel, and how desirous to make them easy:  "Fear thou not, ...