What a lovely picture of God's kindness to us for Jesus' sake!

At the beginning of Mark 13, Jesus' disciples asked Him two questions. In this passage, Jesus answers their questions.

In this passage, Jacob bestows the birthright blessing of his house upon Joseph in his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.

In this study of the marks of a true church, we must know that there are no perfect churches on the earth, just as there are no perfect Christians. But that does not mean that we shouldn't strive in every way, with the Holy Scriptures and the Spirit of God to gather as a true church here on the earth. First, a true church is made up of a regenerate membership, meaning it is made of of saved persons or saints. The second mark is, love. (Ref. 1 Corinthians 13:1-7, 13). We should be a loving people and we should show the love of Christ to any who would visit our gathering. The third mark is faithfulness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

When we read of Isaac's faith, when he was dying, when he blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come, it's initially difficult to see Isaac's faith in how this whole situation unfolded. Because Isaac thought he was blessing Esau, when he was actually conferring the birthright blessing upon Jacob.

After Jesus departed the temple, the apostles spoke of the amazing stones of the temple. They were in awe of the temple and buildings. But Jesus told them, in the days to come, it would be leveled to the ground and destroyed.

Deborah exalts the LORD and His power in the victory of Barack over Sisera. But she also wrote about how this happened in Israel, their sin and idolatry caused all this oppression to come upon them, just like it will do in our lives when we sin.

In John 8:56, Jesus told the caviling Jews, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad." This, I believe teaches us that Abraham saw a lot more about Christ than we may think. It would be, in this the most difficult trial of Abraham's life, that God would show Abraham much more about that Man whom he rejoiced to see!

These all died in faith, not having received the promises. Who were these? Abraham, Sara, Isaac, Jacob, and all of the OT saints listed in Hebrews 11. In this text, we are able to see into Abraham's and these other OT saints faith, and we are able to see that they ultimately looked afar off to the promise of the Seed (or that Man) that God promised would come to save them from their sins, and from this present evil world.