“Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.” (Philippians 4:5) Moderation seems to have been quite lost in our society today. We can see it as we drive down the road at the maximum legal speed of 55mph and watch cars fly past us and down the road. A little while ago, we were traveling on a fairly well-filled four-lane highway, when someone who was parked at the end of a driveway on the other side of the road apparently decided that he had to cross at any cost. He successfully crossed two lanes before colliding with the car directly ahead of us.

Genesis 1 tells the story of how God created the world. This, the first chapter in the Bible, lays a foundation for what will come after. If we take God’s creation out of our doctrine, we have opened ourselves to doubts about the authority of the Bible, because this truth is stated clearly in Scripture, and if it can’t be understood, it’s probably impossible to understand many other important truths which are not stated in clearer language. When we try to build a house without a foundation, we are making an awful mistake.

Matthew 4 records an interesting element of the devil’s assault on Christ. “Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” (Matthew 4:5-7) This temptation happened on an exalted part of the temple itself, the building that was supposed to be for the worship of God. In this case, however, the devil ended up trying to use it to further his cause.

When I first started this website, I wrote quite a bit specifically about revival, although I haven’t done it so much lately. In this article I would like to return our thoughts to this important topic.

The first thing that I want to point out, something that we often fail to recognize, is that revival is always focused on God. We can have miracles, tongues, excitement, study, a large show of hands, or any of a large number of other things, but if God is not being exalted, we don’t have revival, because our Christian faith centers around God, not man. The gospel of God brings Him glory. “Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.” (I Peter 2:12)

This article is part of a series.

In the previous articles in this series, I’ve covered how the New Testament cannot be taken at face value, and still justify the idea of a Christian nation; it does not conform to the idea of Christians improving politics. In this article I want to explore further along these same lines.

Let’s look first at Christ’s words in the Sermon on the Mount. “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matthew 5:38-45) These commands basically assume that Christians will not be involved in politics, because these commands can hardly produce an effective government, which is “a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” (Romans 13:4)

The author of Hebrews used the Old Testament story of Esau to provide a powerful warning for our day when he said, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.” (Hebrews 12:14-17) The story of Esau’s birthright gives us a dramatic word of caution, showing us the awful results of failure to esteem spiritual treasures at their true value.

When this passage describes Esau as profane, the word doesn’t necessarily have the connotation of cursing and swearing that it has today. But the passage seems to make it clear that the word refers to the lack of respect Esau gave to the value of his birthright.

This article is part of a series.

In the last article I briefly addressed the impossibility of a “Christian nation.” In this article I would like to do a more in-depth study on this possibility. As I mentioned in the last article, the most important problem with “Christian” nations is that Christianity has no commands for nations, no guidance for government. The Old Testament certainly has commands for the nation of Israel; however, these rules are specific to this nation and do not transfer to other nations. One example of this is found in the issue of divorce. We find another in the commands regarding the cities of refuge. Numbers 35:14 says, “Ye shall give three cities on this side Jordan, and three cities shall ye give in the land of Canaan, which shall be cities of refuge.” Certainly not every nation can have three cities on either side of the Jordan River, and it probably wouldn’t fulfill the purpose of the cities of refuge even for some of the nations that could—the cities would be too close together or too far apart.

This article is part of a series.

In the Old Testament, people were not expected to be completely focused on God to be a member of God’s Kingdom; after all, beyond a few issues, God’s Law did not actually cover much of a person’s life, unless he happened to be a priest, Levite, or prophet. Those who were not in these groups, yet wanted to live in a way that was more focused on God than the ordinary, could become a Nazarite, but this tended to be a temporary thing, performed only for a specified period. Evangelism outside the Israelite nation appears to have hardly even been considered. For most of those who wanted to live a life of service to God, there basically remained only one option—enter the national scene, in government or the army.

Job said, “Be ye afraid of the sword: for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, that ye may know there is a judgment.” (Job 19:29) It’s among the most simple truths of the Bible, yet it is probably ignored by more people than any other—there is a judgment. God will judge the earth!

When Moses was going to make the tabernacle, God warned him, “And look that thou make them after their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount.” (Exodus 25:40) He was telling Moses to be sure that he didn’t change things around, making them different than the pattern God gave him. This pattern was somewhat complicated, and God wanted Moses to make sure that no one changed it.