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Theology Lesson #21 - The Origin and Nature of Sin

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It is difficult to ignore the existence and presence of sin in the world. Sin is such a vital component of Christian theology that the apostle John stated, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Anyone who denies that they sin is pulling the wool over their own eyes. By their denial, they demonstrate that they are devoid of saving truth. And again John writes, “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:10). Denying the existence of sin is the same thing as calling God a liar (quite a heinous sin itself!). Anyone who refuses to acknowledge their sin does not have the Word dwelling in them. They aren’t saved, because they claim to not need to be saved!

Proverbs Melodies - Proverbs 22:1-5

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Here begins a long journey of writing and recording music to aid the memorization of the Proverbs. I am neither a great singer or piano player, but I hope this meager offering will glorify God and be of help to His church. Verse 2 is as follows: Verse 3: Verse 4: Verse 5:

Theology Lesson #20 - The Nature and Work of Satan and the Demons

In Genesis 3, a mysterious and menacing character suddenly appears on the scene. It is unclear at first glance exactly who this tempter is, because he doesn’t (visibly) appear in Genesis or the rest of the Torah. The only clear Old Testament references to him outside of Genesis 3 are in 1 Chronicles 21 (where he is shown to be a secondary cause of God), Job 1 and 2 (where he is clearly subject to God’s sovereignty), and Zechariah 3 (where he is an adversary to be rebuked). Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 should probably be added to the list, though they are disputed (see discussion below). There is another possibility if the King James translation is correct in Psalm 109:6 (Appoint a wicked man over him, And let an accuser (or Satan) stand at his right hand).

The Goal of Gospel Ministry (Romans 1:7-15)

Click here to listen People today have such a tendency to throw around words without defining them. That’s even true in the church, where everything should be based on the words of the Bible, the book to us from God. One of the words that gets quite abused by lack of definition is faith.  What is faith? Faith can be broken up into two parts. First, faith is intellectual assent to truth. It is an affirmation that something is real. Second, faith is trust in that object that we affirm is true. You are all sitting on pews or in chairs. Before you sat down, you consciously or unconsciously exercised faith by affirming in your mind that that object is a pew or a chair and that its purpose is for sitting. Then you exercised faith in the pew or chair by sitting down in it. You believed into the chair. Or the pew.  We exercise such faith all the time. And we place our faith in things we can’t always see. When we drive down a highway late at night, we can only see the part of the highw...

Pentecost (Acts 2)

Click Here for Audio When we left off in Acts 1, the apostles had a… Recognition of Mission Expectation of Christ Habit of Prayer Obedience of Scripture But they weren’t plugged in yet. It was as if they had all the electric wires ran through the house, but the power hadn’t been turned on yet. Jesus had commanded them to go and wait for the power to be turned on. He promised to send the Holy Spirit, who would clothe them with power from on high. Only then were they to go about the mission to take the good news to the whole world.

The Process of Becoming Like Christ (James 1:2-4)

  Click here for audio ILLUSTRATION : Pinning posters of people you admire and want to be like. Becoming like them is the goal. Ephesians 5:1 – We must imitate God and Christ.   The Bible likens growth in Christlikeness to growing up. When we are first saved, we are little spiritual babies who need to drink of the milk of the Word to grow and thrive. Spiritual babies have trusted in Christ, and they have had their sins forgiven. More than that, there is the beginning of a relationship there. They know the Father (1 John 2:13). They are only just at the beginning. They have a lot of growing up to do. They need to be taught and encouraged and disciplined and fed.

Systematic Theology: Lesson 19 - The Nature and Work of Angels

THE NATURE AND WORK OF ANGELS Angelology - Lesson 19 The subject of angels has fascinated people since the beginning of time. The subject is still widely discussed, even in our post-Enlightenment, post-modern, naturalistic, and anti-supernatural society. However, much ignorance abounds on the subject. People tend to rely on their own experiences or the experiences of others to shape their understanding of angels. [1] This only leads to confusion; and it all-too-often results in people—even Christians—chasing after angelic experiences. For this reason, we need to be grounded in the truth of God’s Word. We go to God’s Word to pull together (systematically) all of the information concerning angels, so that we can synthesize it into a theology of angels. This lesson will concentrate on the holy (elect) angels. Lesson 20 will focus on Satan and the demons.