Dr Paul Allen

Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: And they that love it shall eat its fruit.” I want to illustrate the story of King Ahab to show the importance of declaring victory over your life. This king of Israel had agreed to let the enemy come in and take some of his belongings.  But when the adversary demanded even more, King Ahab said, “Tell my lord the king, ‘Your servant will do all you demanded the first time, but this demand I cannot meet.’” Something snapped in Ahab, and he decided at that moment that he had given up all that he was going to give up. The enemy will never be satisfied.  There needs to come a time when you decide to stop letting negative thoughts and words control your life. Satan’s goal is to kill, steal, and destroy you and your family, but if you can change the narrative, you can change the outcome.  Victory has a voice. Don’t let the enemy, circumstances, the world, or other people’s opinions control the narrative of you...

Life will triumph over death. Goodwill overcomes evil. The defiled will be cleansed, the broken mended, the wicked judged, the faithful rewarded, and God’s creation purposes will be accomplished. All these realities play into biblical hope. From this perspective, the psalmists write. The psalmists have come to understand that Israel will be exiled from the land, but they also believe that Yahweh will keep His promises to show mercy in the form of a new exodus and return from exile (see Deut 4:25–31, and esp. the quotation of Deut 32:36 in Ps 135:14). They know that though the Davidic king may be dethroned (Ps 89), ultimately God will keep his 2 Sam 7 promises to David (Ps 110). Gary Millar concludes, “To pray in the psalter, then, is to call on the name of Yahweh, as the psalms fill out the conviction that has shaped the other material in the Old Testament.” The Fear of God The most important thing that can happen to anyone who studies the Psalms is precisely what their authors intende...

John’s description of the Beast depicts a figure inspired by Satan, the Dragon who also comes from the Abyss. The Beast mimics Jesus, the Lamb, whose death and resurrection signaled his defeat, seeking to maintain his influence over the earth dwellers.  The Beast demands worship and loyalty from the inhabitants of the earth, using the kingdoms and rulers of the earth to exercise control. The seven kings and the ten kings that John associates with the seven heads and ten horns of the Beast could have been understood in the first century as depicting specific Roman emperors and their allies, or as depicting the political system and cultural and religious practices of the Roman Empire more generally. John’s interpretive comments suggests that he understands the Beast as the political, cultural, religious, and economic systems that Satan uses in order to thwart God’s purposes—to no avail, as God will destroy the forces of evil when the end comes.  The connections that J...