Dr Paul Allen

“As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you” (Josh. 1:5b). The events recorded in the book of Joshua mark a new period in Israelite and redemptive history, and the book itself inaugurates a new section of Scripture. The transition is clearly set forth when God declares “ ‘Moses My servant is dead’ ” at the outset of the book.  The man who led the people of Israel out of bondage in Egypt, who mediated as God formed them as a nation and established His covenant with them, who guided them through 40 years of wanderings in the desert as a consequence of their sin, who wrote the first five books of the Bible—this man has passed from the scene and a new leader has been appointed by God.  Joshua will lead the Israelites as they enter and take the land promised to them by God. The book opens the section of Scripture known in the Hebrew canon as the “Former Prophets,” the historical books covering the period from the death of Moses to th...

Even if you could do far better than you are doing now, you still can't do well enough, because you don't please  God  by being good ( Gal. 2:21 ), but by accepting  Jesus  ( John 1:12 ) and trusting in what he did on the cross, not what you do by your own effort. Sincerity is not the way to heaven . What if you are sincerely wrong? (Remember  John 14:6  says  salvation  is through Jesus, not sincerity .) If you are relying on your sincerity, then you are saying because you are sincere, you are therefore good enough, on your own, to be with God. Don't you see that to appeal to your sincerity is to appeal to your own goodness which is ultimately an appeal to pride. This is because you are appealing to something that is in you and not God, for your reason to go to heaven? I am sorry, sincerity is not enough. You must have faith, in Jesus. How long have you been doing your best? Has it worked so far? Has it given you eternal life?

Young Isaac Watts found the music in his church sadly lacking, and his father challenged him to create something better. Isaac did. His hymn “ When I Survey the Wondrous Cross ” has been called the greatest in the English language and has been translated into many other languages. Watts’s worshipful third verse ushers us into the presence of Christ at the crucifixion . See from His head, His hands, His feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled down. Did e’er such love and sorrow meet Or thorns compose so rich a crown? The crucifixion Watts describes so elegantly stands as history’s most awful moment. We do well to pause and stand with those around the cross. The Son of God strains for breath, held by crude spikes driven through His flesh. After tortured hours, a supernatural darkness descends. Finally, mercifully, the Lord of the universe dismisses His anguished spirit. An earthquake rattles the landscape. Back in the city the thick temple curtain rips in half. Graves open, and dead bo...

“And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the LORD , that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” ( Job 28:28 ) This key phrase, “the fear of the LORD” ( Yahweh ), occurs in a distinctive pattern in the Old Testament . There are 14 occurrences in the book of Proverbs and seven in the other books, or a total of three times seven altogether, both of which are important Bible numbers. As we see from the verses in Job preceding our text, when God made man He told him that true wisdom is “the fear of the Lord” ( Adonai —the only use of Adonai with this phrase). Unfortunately, Adam and Eve sought wisdom in the tree of knowledge instead ( Genesis 3:6 ) and soon were hiding themselves in fear. The psalmist testifies: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” ( Psalm 111:10 ). The final occurrence of the phrase is also in a wisdom context. “And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the LORD is his treasure...

God never speaks to us in startling ways, but in ways that are easy to misunderstand, and we say, “I wonder if that is God’s voice?” Isaiah said that the Lord spake to him “with a strong hand,” that is, by the pressure of circumstances. Nothing touches our lives but it is God Himself speaking. Do we discern His hand or only mere occurrence? Get into the habit of saying, “Speak, Lord,” and life will become a romance. Every time circumstances press, say, “Speak, Lord”; make time to listen. Chastening is more than a means of discipline, it is meant to get me to the place of saying, “Speak, Lord.” Recall the time when God did speak to you. Have you forgotten what He said? Was it Luke 11:13, or was it 1 Thessalonians 5:23? As we listen, our ear gets acute, and, like Jesus , we shall hear God all the time. Shall I tell my “ Eli ” what God has shown to me? That is where the dilemma of obedience comes in. We disobey God by becoming amateur providences — I must shield “Eli,” the best peo...

I can still recall the conversation although it took place more than three decades ago. A shocked friend asked, "Have you heard that Sarah is no longer a Christian?" What was so alarming to my friend was that Sarah had been one of the most influential, and apparently fruitful, members of her church group.  What would those who had been influenced by her witness to Christ say, or do? Would they be shaken to the core and now doubt their own Christian faith ? After all, the person who had pointed them to Christ no longer trusted Him. On occasion, we wonder if an individual really has been converted. And sometimes we have an inexplicable, ill-defined sense that something is missing. But we cannot read the heart. Even so, we hear of friends—whose faith we never doubted—turning away from Christ. Apostasy is the old, vigorous word to describe this abandonment of Christ. The New Testament church was familiar with it. It was a major concern of the author of Hebrews . That i...

English: Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) In The Lord’s Prayer we ask, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Have you ever wondered what that means? Lead into temptation? James 3:13-14 ( ESV ) says, Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God ,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. We must know God’s intentions before we dive any further. God does not create temptation. He tempts no one. However, He does allow us to encounter it. Let’s look at why. First, without temptation we would never know our weaknesses. If you lived in utopia where you never experienced anything but ecstatic bliss, you would never be able to pinpoint the places in your life that required the hand of God. In Romans 3:23 we are...

The twentieth-century British pastor D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, “If we only spent more of our time in looking at Christ we should soon forget ourselves.” Fixing our eyes on Christ is the first step and the entire path of the Christian life. We don’t look to Christ in faith to be saved and then look to ourselves to persevere. We trust Christ alone as our Savior and look to Christ alone and follow Him as our Lord. In order to look to Christ as our Savior and Lord, we need new eyes and a new heart.  We are born spiritually dead and blind in sin, with our eyes fixed on ourselves and our own glory, but God the Holy Spirit strips the inherited blindfolds from our eyes and graciously rips out our hard hearts and gives us new hearts that love Him and new eyes that see Him. Yet even as Christians who have been declared righteous by God the Father through faith in the perfect life and sacrifice of God the Son, Jesus Christ, we remain sinful this side of heaven and daily struggle aga...

It is an extraordinary thing that to celebrate the birth of a God that most people don't believe in, we put ourselves through this ordeal, writes Michael Jensen. In contemporary Australia, Christmas has really become two festivals, not one. The celebration of our excessive consumption and of our yearning for connection with other people is a faint echo of the original meaning of Christmas - which was a declaration of deep peace, and the announcement of a divine gift. At least George Costanza's dad in Seinfeld was honest when he called for a festival to be named " Festivus – the festival for the rest of us ". This observation is, though, decades old. It appears in a short satirical piece by the great English apologist and author C.S. Lewis (d 1963) which was first published in 1970 but written years before. In it, he pretends to have found a lost chapter from the Greek historian Herodotus. He describes a visit to an island called Niatirb ("Britain...

What do you do if you get a sudden, unexpected opportunity to teach or preach God’s Word? I often turn to what is for me one of the most precious of Jesus’ parables, the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant—a passage one of my favorite writers on the parables (Klyne Snodgrass) groups with parables of “Grace and Responsibility.” The “grace” is truly an amazing one: the master in the parable forgives a massive, unpayable debt—ten-thousand talents. The “responsibility” is a serious one: Jesus ends the parable with the promise that the dire consequences visited on the unforgiving servant will be visited on us all by God “if you do not forgive your brother from your heart” ( Matt. 18:35 ). I think readers may not feel the weight of the grace (or the responsibility) because we subconsciously substitute “dollars” for “talents” while reading Matthew 18. Ten-thousand dollars is not really that big a debt for most of my readers. It’s certainly not an unpayable one for middle-class people in tod...

What was it that changed your heart from unbelief to faith in Jesus? It’s remarkable to ask Christians that question and see how eager they are to give God the glory, not self. Which is a very good instinct. As John Piper says, “There is something about true grace in the believer’s heart that makes us want to give all glory to God.” Many of us have discovered that sometimes our experience of the power of God’s grace far outpaces our theological explanation of it. John Newton, author of “Amazing Grace,” was an awful, evil man whose heart was captured by God. Reflecting on his lifestyle as an unbeliever, he wrote, “I not only sinned with a high hand myself, but made it my study to tempt and seduce others upon every occasion: nay I eagerly sought occasion sometimes to my own hazard and hurt” ( Memoirs , 13). Newton is one of many examples that God's strength is able to overcome all stubbornness and depravity. As I wrestled with Calvinism, I was confronted with this dilem...

Единородный сын. "The only begotten Son of God" (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God , who loved me, and gave himself for me.” ( Galatians 2:20 ) The second verse of “ When I Survey the Wondrous Cross ” continues by rightly identifying the focus of a believer’s affections. This song does not direct our affection to objects (like the cross or the blood ) and so imply improper worship, but it clearly specifies the deity and work of Christ as paramount to us. We worship Him for who He is and what He has done and is doing on our behalf. His death makes all the difference to us. Forbid it, Lord , that I should boast, Save in the death of Christ my God ! All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to His blood. We know that “being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death...

The Penance of David, Psalm 51 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.” ( Proverbs 30:5 ) When the inspired writer of Proverbs testified here that God’s Word was “pure,” he did not use the usual word for, say, moral purity or metallic purity. Instead, he asserted in effect that every word of God had been refined and purified, as it were in a spiritual furnace, so that any and all contaminants had been purged out, leaving only the pure element. The same truth is found in the great psalm of the Scriptures ( Psalm 119 ). “ Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it” ( Psalm 119:140 ). David used the same word in another psalm, where it is translated “tried” in the sense of “tested for purity.” “As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the LORD is tried. He is a buckler to all those that trust in him” ( Psalm 18:30 ). The word for “buckler” in this verse is the same as for “shield” in our text. T...

We Repeat to Remember I found this song in the hymnbook of God ’s people, the book of Psalms . What’s the  ad nauseum  line? “For his steadfast love endures forever.” Twenty-five times  we’re reminded of God’s unending love, each time seeing his love in light of his righteous character and mighty deeds. There’s no confusion about which God loves us fully and forever. Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his steadfast love endures forever. (Psalm 136:3) (Give thanks) to him who by understanding made the heavens, for his steadfast love endures forever. (Psalm 136:5) (Give thanks) to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt , for his steadfast love endures forever. (Psalm 136:10) (Give thanks) to him who led his people through the wilderness, for his steadfast love endures forever. (Psalm 136:16) (Give thanks) to him who struck down great kings, for his steadfast love endures forever. (Psalm 136:17) Apparently, the psalmist thinks it important...