When historian David Benedict saw the church planter Abraham Marshall in the early 1800's, he was growing old in years. Marshall sent a message to his friends in New England. "Tell them that I am yet in the land of the dying, but...
In writing about the pressures of the coming Revolutionary War in America, Esther Forbes states, "Men struggled desperately to keep some middle ground--until that ground was...
"God is equally near to all parts of His universe. We think rightly about God and spiritual things only when we...
While doing a study on the life of the apostle Paul, I began to wonder if he was actually named Saul after the 1st king of Israel. I began to make comparisons between the two and found several things that they had in common. The name Saul means "desired" while the name Paul means "little". It's interesting to think that Paul started off as Saul, or the one to be desired, but when God got a hold of him, he became Paul the little one. Sounds like the words of John the Baptist when he said of Christ, "He must increase, but I must decrease." John 3:30
The Book of Isaiah has been called by many "the miniature Bible". It has 66 chapters just as our Bible has 66 books. An odd thing occurs starting at chapter 40 of Isaiah. The content of the book changes so much that some have claimed there were two different authors. Perhaps God was showing us something about this miniature Bible. The separation goes like this, the first 39 chapters go together and the last 27 chapters go together. Our Old testament has 39 books and the New Testament has of course 27 books. What a coincidence huh? That's not all. Isaiah chapter 40 (which would be the equivalent to the Book of Matthew- the 40th book) has a prophecy about John the Baptist. It occurs in verse number 3, here it is "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.". Wouldn't it be interesting if this prophecy from Isaiah 40:3 was associated with John the Baptist in the Book of Matthew (the 40th book being equivalent to the 40th chapter) and chapter number 3? Check out Matthew 3:3, "For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.". Only God could put together a book like that.
