Hold Up The Book

Sexual fidelity in marriage is a matter of crucial importance throughout the pages of the Bible, and so it's important that God's people in all of time learn to value the good of righteous marriage and see the dangers of giving in to the temptations of adultery.

Romans 6 describes how salvation releases us from the slavery to sin and our own destructive desires... and gives us the grace to volunteer as slaves of God. This is a challenging thought for modern, Western readers, but it is a wonderful promise when seen through a Biblical worldview.

While it might sound like another simple commandment that hardly deserves an exposition, "Do not steal" has powerful life implications and applications for those who would truly serve God.

The hymn, "On Zion's Glorious Summit," offers a paradigm shift for those who are willing to see it. Because that hymn doesn't just celebrate some of the elements of Heaven; it gets to the heart of the issue. It reminds us that Heaven is not just about what we will get and experience and receive — it's all about God himself.

The King James Version of the Bible translated Exodus 20:13 as "Thou shalt not kill." But that really doesn't capture the truest meaning of the commandment, which is more accurately rendered in virtually every modern translation: "You shall not murder." And while that might sound like a commandment that's so obvious as to be unnecessary, it teaches us SO MUCH about God and humanity when we look deeply into it.

Cultures throughout human history have gone up and down in their levels of appreciation for parents and the whole concept of parental authority. This lesson reminds us of the concept's importance among the people of God—whether they lived under the covenant of Moses or of Christ.

This message, based out of a single verse in the last chapter of Acts, helps us to have a powerful, realistic, and HOPEFUL perspective on evangelism and what it will be like when we share the gospel with the world around us.

A case could be made that the Sabbath commandment is the one that set the Israelites apart from their neighbors the most. It reminded them of the importance of rest, of trusting God, and of equality among all people, because all are made in the image of God.

All throughout the book of Acts, God's people spoke about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And far from being celebrated by the world around them, that message was what got them imprisoned, beaten, and persecuted over and over again. The question we all have to ask and answer for ourselves: Are we as convicted about the resurrection as they were? Will we stand for that truth while the world hates us and ridicules us for it? And will we believe the promise of our own resurrection so that we'll be able to hold fast to our faith thru to the end?

The command says "you shall not take the name of the Lord in vain." Surely, that means that we must not speak it in vain, and it means much more than that. This message explains and applies the command for all of time.

*One thing that you need to know for this this audio-only recording to fully make sense: toward the end of this message, Dan held up a cardboard cut-out of Jesus as an illustration.