I will make My firstborn, greatest of the Kings of earth!

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A Prayer of David and two Psalms of the sons of Korah.

David prays for and expects in the deliverance of God due to their relationship of faithfulness to each other and God’s great mercy.

The sons of Korah write a Psalm about the great value God places on every heart which is completely His and that He knows those who belong to Him from every nation, tribe and tongue.

Finally the sons of Korah approach God in prayer. They extol His love and His faithfulness to His covenants. But then present God with a conundrum which callenges their faith. God promised David to have one of his descendants on the throne but now, in Babylonian exile the one ruling over them is a foreigner. One from the lineage of David never again took the throne and this was a source of uncertainty for Korahites. In the end, though we know Jesus was, is and will be the final and eternal king of God’s Kingdom, Israel and the world they did not. But even in their uncertainty they took their stand, trusting in God’s unwavering charcter even when it seemed all evidence pointed to the contrary.

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Elect election predestination

Free-willed vessels of Honor Part 2

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This is part two in a three part mini-series regarding who the “elect” are and what is the “election” process. This includes other words in scripture such as foreknowledge, preordained, predestined, called and chosen as well as others I am sure.

The purpose of this mini-series is to clarify what the scriptures say about predestination and the free will of the individual regarding grace, salvation and eternal life.

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Pilgrim Korah Psalm 84

The Pilgrim’s Progress

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Psalm 83 is unique in that it is the last of the “Elohist” psalms -w chi are psalms which make predominate use of Elohim as God’s name. It is also the final known composition of Asaph in this books of Psalms and is almost certainly a prediction which is still yet to come since all of the conditions have never yet been met.

Psalm 84 is a beautiful and fantasticly written psalm from the sons of Korah. As imagry based examples it utilizes the 3 Jewish pilgrim feasts as a pattern for the life journey of all God’s committed covenant people. The analogies equally fit and are relevant to both those who were under old covenant in Judaism and those under the New in Christianity.

Finally chapter 85 is a 4 part psalm which begins with recalling God’s faithfulness to unfaithful Israel in past generations.

It then rhetorically asks if God will forget to be merciful to the unfaithful generation at hand.

It then moves into a declaration of faith and hope in God being true to His merciful nature and the writers commitment to surrender obedience in faith to Him.

It ends with a prediction of God’s amazing kindness which will be realized in the Millennial Kingdom.

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Vessels honor

Free-willed vessels of Honor

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Is the heavenly election rigged?

As we were going through 2 Timothy chapter 2 in our main series, we came upon the words of Paul in verses 8-10 which speak of “the elect” obtaining salvation.

As a pastor it is part of my job to teach sound doctrine and there are two diametrically opposed yet prominent views about election in Christian circles.

So I thought it prudent to stop and address this issue of the election of the elect before we moved on in our parent series.

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Message manger

The Message in the Manger

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The Father loves to reveal Jesus to us through feasts & festivals, stories, metaphor, names and plays on words.

God’s first lesson to Israel was of the manna. It was to teach than mankind needs more than natural bread to thrive. We need the bread of God’s words spoken to us.

Jesus was the final word God spoke over his creation and He was the only word we needed.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the house of bread. In a teaching that caused nearly all who followed Him to walk away, Jesus called Himself the true bread from heaven. That His body was bread and His blood drink in which was the eternal life God sent Jesus to bring and be.

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