“But they said, ‘Stand aside.’ Furthermore, they said, ‘This one came in as an alien, and already he is acting like a judge; now we will treat you worse than them.’ So they pressed hard against Lot and came near to break down the door.” (Genesis 19:9)
The response of the people of Sodom to Lot when he attempted to protect his guests from the immorality of the city is very revealing — and unfortunately very typical of our own age. Continue reading
“Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty, walk before Me, and be blameless.'” (Genesis 17:1)
Notice something important in God’s charge to Abram. Continue reading
“Now the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day.” (Genesis 18:1)
So Abraham literally lived in a “tent.” When angel asked him in :9, Where is Sarah your wife?” He responded: “There, in the tent.” Abraham did not have a permanent home all the years he lived in Canaan; instead he stayed in “a tent.” We find this re-emphasized in Hebrews 11:9, where it says: “By faith he (Abraham) lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise.” This is more than just a quaint historical fact; it points to a basic spiritual commitment which faithful Christians will imitate today. Continue reading
“Men go to gape at mountain peaks, at the boundless tides of the sea, the broad sweep of rivers, the encircling ocean and the motions of the stars: and yet they leave themselves unnoticed; they do not marvel at themselves.” (Augustine, Conf. X, viii, 15, quoted in Brown, p. 162)
And perhaps we should marvel more at ourselves. Mankind was the very last of God’s creation; the crowning peak of His creative activity. Psalm 8 poses one of most introspective questions in the Bible when it asks: “What is Man, that You take thought of Him, and the Son of Man, that You care for him?”
What IS man? We can guess some answers to that question. But in our Daily Bible Readings the past couple of weeks in Genesis and Job, we find out what GOD tells us about Mankind — and after all we are HIS creation. There is SO much misunderstanding about Mankind going around, which can corrected by our looking to the Scriptures, and finding out what GOD tells us about Mankind in His word. Last week we saw some basic truths about God from our readings in the early part of Genesis. This morning we turn our attention to what the Bible tells us about ourselves: “What Is Man?” Continue reading
“Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have become old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?'” (Genesis 18:12)
Now it was Sarah’s turn to laugh at the promise of God! Abraham had done the same thing in the last chapter (17:17 “Abraham fell on his face and laughed’) when God told him that he would have a son by Sarah. So BOTH of these chosen people laughed in disbelief at God’s promise! NO WONDER they called the child who was born, Isaac, which means “laughter”! Talk about an ironic name! Continue reading
A few years ago, I saw a picture in the newspaper of the home of a business owner, who was an immigrant from another country. It struck me because there was an idol beside him in the picture. It was the first time I had seen a literal, physical idol for use in worship here in the United States. Idolatry is not common here in America — or is it?
Ephesians 5:5 says: “For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”
This expression “covetous man, who is an idolater,” is a revealing one. When a person covets something, the Bible says they are in effect an idolater. They are making an idol of a thing. They are saying: if I only had that thing, THEN I would be happy and fulfilled — instead of looking to find that happiness and fulfillment in GOD. This looking to something/someone besides God is idolatry. It is the original sin from Genesis 3: putting your desire for something else, ahead of God.
This is especially true in the “consumer society” in which we live today. People get caught up in this as a lifestyle: they are always looking to the “next thing” they just must have, which will finally make them happy. But it never does. It is an unending cycle. After a very brief “high” gained from the acquiring, there will then be something else they covet, and when they get it, that satisfaction won’t last long either. It is never-ending.
The only way to break this cycle is to realize what you are caught up in, reject this vain search for satisfaction from possessions, and direct your search for fulfillment towards God Himself. Only HE will ultimately satisfy you: “In Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” (Psalm 16:11)
“in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him.” (Ephesians 3:12)
One Sunday a young boy in our church in Tulsa was talking our daughter Libby at church. He told her that he had wanted to tell me something, but he was afraid to. Libby promptly took him by the hand and brought him to where I was sitting at the front of the church, saying, “He’s just my dad!”
The confidence Libby had as she brought that young man to me has always reminded me of this verse. Continue reading
A few weeks ago they came out with an interesting list of the books that people lie about reading, in order appear well-read: among them are George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, (42%), Tolstoy’s War and Peace (31%), James Joyce’s Ulysses (25%) and, of all books — the Bible (24%). It’s more than a little bit ironic, of course, that one of the top books people LIE about having read all the way through, is the Bible, of all books, when one of its most prominent commandments says not to lie!
Well I don’t know how many of you here today have ever read all the way through the Bible, but I hope that by the end of 2018, you will be able to say that you did. It is a big deal – to have read THE single greatest book in all the world. I know one young man who claimed to be an atheist, who was asked by a friend if he had ever read the world’s #1 best-selling book of all time? When he found out it was the Bible, he decided to read it just so he could say that he had. And as he read God convicted him, and saved him. God has great things for us, if we will only turn to Him in His word.
So I hope that you will join us tomorrow as we start on a year-long journey of reading through the Bible in 2018. As we prepare to do that, I want us to look at the commitment that one of the great men of God in the Old Testament had to word of God, in Ezra 7:10:
“For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.” (Ezra 7:10) Continue reading
I'm a retired Southern Baptist pastor of almost 40 years. My wife Cheryl & I moved to Norman, OK in March of 2025. I share a weekly overview for Sunday School teachers of the weekly Lifeway "Explore the Bible" lesson, as well as texts of my sermons and other articles.
shawnethomas 