In this message, we look at the first six of 12 characteristics of Ezra that show what kind of man he was.

We don't actually believe that we can present the gospel very well in four minutes. But our study in Acts a couple of weeks ago uncovered a number of main points that the apostles made in their preaching. This brief recording puts them all together.

After reading John 21, we examined a number of passages that addressed the future exaltation of Christ, some of which has already occurred, and much of which has not yet been fulfilled.

Pastor Postiff started out by encouraging the congregation about the finished work of Jesus and the forgiveness available in Him. We read John 20, and then continued the series of messages on the prophecies of Christ, focusing on the necessity of His resurrection based on explicit and implicit teaching in the Hebrew Bible, what we know as the Old Testament.

We continue our series of the weekend about the OT prophecies of the Christ, and how Jesus IS the Christ. After reading the resurrection accounts in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we shared some testimonies about the resurrection of Christ. We finished studying the section about the foretold death of Christ, and then examined Psalm 16 and some other passages.

In our opening message for this Resurrection weekend, we examined the prophetic references in the Old Testament to the suffering and death of Christ. We saw that the early church labored to share the prophetic references to Christ, and then to identify Jesus with the Christ. We read in Matthew's gospel.

We continued the study of Ezra by examining the letter from Artaxerxes to Ezra and noted a couple of interesting overarching concepts: tax exemption and a separation between the religious and secular law. Ezra was assigned the task of teaching the Law of God to those who did not know it in the region of Israel.

After reading of Judges 21, we read through and commented through Mark 8. We reminded ourselves of the importance of being obedient to the Lord to enjoy His provision. If you have ever wondered about the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod, tune in. We also studied the idea of discipleship and following Christ no matter what the cost.

Last week in our morning worship service, we studied the mission of the church that was given to us by our Lord, who possesses all heavenly and earthly authority. In this message, we surveyed the book of Acts to see how the apostles taught the gospel to their audiences. We did this in order to remind ourselves how we should proclaim the truth today, rather than using some of the common "Christian" parlance that is used today, but is void of true gospel content.

Our teacher helps us investigate the question about how we trust the Bible, and reminds us of the critical role of the Holy Spirit in opening our understanding to the Scriptures. Mere rationalism cannot provide certainty in our belief in the Bible.