Love Truth Blog

Here is something I read from What’s in the Bible: The Story of God through Time and Eternity by R.C. Sproul and Robert Wolgemuth, which I think has deep significance for January 18, 2016: But let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream (Amos 5:24)  During the years of the civil rights movement in America, this was one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s favorite biblical passages. He knew what Amos knew: A nation that disregards the cries of the poor and the respectful treatment of all her citizenry is a nation in peril—a nation out of plumb. As with Dr. King’s upbraiding of complacent Americans, Amos got in the faces of the Jews. He warned them that their offerings and sacrifices were a stench to God’s nostrils because while they were outwardly performing their religious duties, they were treating one another with disregard. The poor were “sold for a pair of shoes” whole the women had “become like the fatted cows of Bashan.” Justice did n...

Go into any Christian church building and while you might find an altar in the front of the sanctuary, it is relatively an unused piece of furniture. If one is in the place of worshipping believers, it is a reminder of a past age when God’s people worshiped with priests and sacrifices in a tabernacle, and subsequently a temple. Why the change? The Old Testament is very exacting in its prescriptions. Scan through the Book of Leviticus and you’ll find detailed instructions for five different kinds of sacrificial offerings (Lev. 1:1-7:38), codes for maintain a holy priesthood (Lev. 8:1-10:20), codes for ceremonial purification (Lev. 11:1-16:34), and codes for maintaining ceremonial purity (Lev. 17:1-25:55). Worshippers who kept their covenant with Yahweh were blessed whereas the unfaithful were cursed (Lev. 26:1-46); yet, there were ways sinners could be redeemed (Lev. 27:1-34). Similar ordinances can also be found in Exodus 20-40 and the Book of Deuteronomy. Yahweh eventually...

“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain” (Exod. 20:4-6). This passage is often cited as some sort of prohibition against speaking some explicative. I suppose that can be an application in a roundabout way from the point Moses thought to make, but that was never the heart of the issue. The third command had to do with verbal representations or better yet misrepresentations of God. In other words, “the people were to exercise the greatest caution when talking about him or invoking his name. They were to say nothing which might detract from a true appreciation of his nature and character” [1]. God revealed His name to the Hebrew people through the prophet Moses (Exod. 3:13-15). The name given was YHWH, which is translated “I AM.” Inasmuch as the giving of one’s name was something deep and personal, God gave the second commandment to warn against saying something that would drag the name of the ...

December 8 to December 16, according to Jewish reckoning, marks to eight day timeframe of Hanukkah for the year 2012, which is also called the Feast of Dedication. It is a festival of lights for each day a candle is lit upon a menorah the cleansing of the temple after it had been defiled by Antiochus IV “Epiphanes” in the second century BC. According to Jewish tradition, while the temple was being restored, only a single day’s worth of sacred oil was found to keep the menorah burning, and none would be available for another eight days, but miraculously the sacred oil kept the flames burning for eight days. Hanukkah is above all things a time of remembering Yahweh’s faithfulness to His people. How did all of this come about? Solomon built the first temple to the Lord (1 Kings 6:1-38; 7:13-9:9, the glory of the Lord filled the place (2 Chron. 7:1-3), but in time the people sinned, the glory of the Lord departed (Ezek. 10:1-22), and in 586 BC Solomon’s temple was des...

Joel’s statement “rend your heart not your garment” (Joel 2:13) is to be understood within the larger context of prophet’s call to repentance. It is an exhortation to turn from sin and recommit oneself to the worship of Yahweh. The tearing of one’s own garment served to be an outward sign of repentance; however, Joel conveys that Yahweh was looking to the heart. The external symbol meant nothing without a genuinely contrite heart. The urgency of the call to repentance could not be understated by the prophet, for all had been spoken in view of a coming terrible visitation of the Lord, which would bring about a divine judgment liken to the desolation of a swarm of locust. Joel says, “What the gnawing locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; And what the swarming locust has left, the creeping locust has eaten; And what the creeping locust has left, the stripping locust has eaten” (Joel 1:4). The prophet then warns: “Blow a trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm on My holy mount...