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"And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God." (Ezekiel 11:19–20 / ESV) "Precisely because they have led my people astray, saying, 'Peace,' when there is no peace, and because, when the people build a wall, behold, they daub it with whitewash..." (E

Jeremiah 31:20, 33-34; 50:18-20 A parent gets a single text message from a child who has been silent for years. "Hope you're well." That's all it says. And that one short line breaks the parent's heart open — not from anger, but from longing. Ephraim had worshipped idols. He had turned his back and walked away. And yet God says, "Is Ephraim my dear son... For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him" (Jer 31:20). The Hebrew w

[2Sa 24:24, ESV] But the king said to Araunah, "No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing." So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. Set apart a specific time for God, make that commitment, and give that time to Him. That is your offering. Just as we do not come to Sunday worship only when we feel like it, but instead set apart Sunday as the Lord's Day and come befo

Jeremiah 2:23–37, 3, 4, 5:1–19 Friends, do you know what people are slowest to fix? It's not the wrong action itself. It's the sentence, "I haven't done anything wrong." Near the end of chapter 2, God says this to Judah: "Yet you say, 'I am innocent; surely his anger has turned from me'" (2:35). They had worshipped idols, abandoned God, and run about like a restless camel chasing after other gods — and yet the words that came out of their mouths were not repentance, but "I ha

[2 Kings 21:1, 6b; 2 Chronicles 33:12-13; 2 Kings 20:19] "Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign... And when he was in distress, he... humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty." Friends, Hezekiah wept and begged for fifteen more years of life as he lay dying. Manasseh was born within those fifteen years. But the son born from his father's tearful prayer for more life became the very man who rebuil

[Isa 66:2, ESV] All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. Introduction Let me start with a strange question. Have you ever ignored your sat-nav, even when it was showing you the safest and quickest route, and taken a different road anyway? Why do we do that? It is not because we do not know the way. It is because that road d

Hebrews 10:35–39 When we set out to do God's work — or when we are already in the middle of it — things sometimes arise that trouble our hearts or make no sense to us. This is because it is, in the end, a spiritual matter — Satan is trying to steal our hearts, and trying to steal the many fruits, the growth, and the maturity that come through our service. It might be that just as we are about to go and worship, something happens to wound our hearts. It might be that just as w

Psalm 100:2–5 Psalm 100:2 says, "Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!" Serving the Lord is a joyful thing. And at the same time, serving the Lord must be done with joy. If there is no joy in serving the Lord, then it is not true service, and it is not true faith either. Nor is it a sign of being in a good relationship with him. Whenever we serve the Lord, it must be done with joy. So when is it possible to serve someone with joy? It is possible w

2 Chronicles 22:3–4 "His mother was his counsellor to do wickedly. He did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, like the house of Ahab, for they were his counsellors after the death of his father, to his destruction." Friends, I want to ask you this question. Are the people around you drawing you closer to God — or pulling you further away? The people we look at in today's passage did not simply make bad choices. From the very beginning, they were connected to the wro

Title 2 Kings 2; 4 Everyone, picture this scene with me this morning. The master is leaving. A chariot of fire rises into the sky. The disciple is left alone. But he did not weep. He made a request. 2 Kings 2, verse 9. Elisha says to Elijah: "Please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me." The Hebrew word for "double" is פִּי־שְׁנַיִם (pi-shenayim) — literally, "two mouths' worth." This is not simply a request for more power. It is the exact phrase used in Deuteronomy

Key Text: 2 Chronicles 7:14; Matthew 25:4 Passage: 2 Chronicles 7:14; Matthew 25:1–13; 1 Corinthians 10:12; Hebrews 3:17–19 When Solomon had completed the construction of the temple and finished his prayer of dedication to God, fire came down from heaven. It consumed the burnt offerings and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. The priests could not even enter. All Israel bowed down on the pavement and worshipped (2 Chronicles 7:1–3). Seven years of con

1 Kings 6:12–13 Imagine you spent seven years pouring everything you had into something. Cedar from Lebanon. Gold from Ophir. Craftsmen from Tyre. A workforce of 183,000 men. The greatest building the world had ever seen rising before your eyes. And right in the middle of it all — whilst the hammers are still swinging — God stops and says this. "Concerning this house that you are building — if you will walk in my statutes, obey my rules, and keep all my commandments, then I w

1 Kings 3:9 — "So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?" What would you do if God appeared before you and said: "Ask for whatever you want me to give you"? This is not imagination. It actually happened. And the answer one young king gave to that question is the climax of every passage we have read today. Look at Psalm 83. Edom, Moab, Ammon, Philistia, Assyria

Psalm 16:8 I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Psalms 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21 When things begin to shake, what do you reach for? This question runs through all nine psalms we have read today. Psalm 12 describes a world drowning in lies. Psalm 13 cries out: "How long will you be silent, God?" Psalm 14 indicts those who have erased God from their thinking. Psalm 17 is David's prayer from the middle of a siege.

Key Verse: 1 Chronicles 29:14 "But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand." Text: 1 Chronicles 29:1–22 | 1 Kings 1 Introduction In today's passage, we witness one of the most dramatic moments of royal succession in the entire history of Israel. And yet 1 Kings 1 and 1 Chronicles 29, though they describe the same event at the same point in time, tell

1 Chronicles 28:19 "All this," David said, "I have in writing as a result of the Lord’s hand on me, and he enabled me to understand all the details of the plan." [A Life of Gracious Completion] Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, one of the most challenging tasks in life is handing over a work we have begun into the hands of another. It is our natural human inclination to desire to reap the harvest ourselves and to stand in the place of glory. The passage we are looking at

Psalm 51:10 "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." Matthew chapter 1 contains the genealogy of Jesus Christ. For a Jewish reader, a genealogy is a document of honour. Yet at verse 6, we stop. "David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife." Why did God place a story of sin — a name stained with shame — into the very bloodline of the Messiah? First Chronicles 20:1 opens with these words: "In the spring, at the time when

2 Samuel 3:1/ 23:15-17 2 Samuel 3:1 opens like this: "The war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time. David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker." "A long time." Seven and a half years in Hebron. Not strong overnight. Through a long and grinding war, day by day, little by little — growing stronger. The Kingdom of God is always built this way. Never completed in a single moment. In a long fight, gradually, incr

Psalm 142:5 | 1 Samuel 22:1-2 | 1 Chronicles 12:18 A cave is a place with walls on every side. Nowhere to go forward. A place of hiding. A place no one knows. In 1 Samuel 22, David is in exactly that place. Chased by Saul, having lost Jonathan, having lied to the priest at Nob, having drooled before the Philistine king and been driven away — he flees into the cave of Adullam. This was the lowest point of David's life. But it was precisely in that cave that God began to work.

Psalm 34:1, 4, 18 (Background: 1 Samuel 21:10-15) Right now, at the start of this morning, I want to ask you one thing. What is in your heart as you begin this day? Is there heaviness? Fear? A problem from yesterday that is still unresolved today? If so, this Word is especially for you. Look at the superscription of Psalm 34. "A psalm of David, when he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him away." This is not simply background information. It is this psalm's a