Category: Memory Verse

“His face blanched…” –Daniel 5:6 The fingers of human hands have written the words of God, that is, human authors wrote the books of the Bible. King Belshazzar trembled and was deeply shaken by watching the words of God being inexorably and relentlessly written upon the wall (Dn 5:6, 9). “There is no chaining the word of God!” (2 Tm 2:9) Perhaps the king ordered a servant to prevent that hand from writing. But such efforts, even if attempted, could not overcome the writing of the word God wanted to be communicated. The Word of God is living and effective...

“But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.” —Daniel 2:35 We get the false impression that our governments, dynasties, and human institutions are invincible. We are impressed by military might and nuclear power. We think something that has lasted a few hundred years is impregnable (Ps 90:4). The Lord has released a rolling stone down the lane of human history, already bowling over the governmental, financial, and institutional pins of planet earth. Jesus is that Stone rejected by the builders (Ps 118:22; cf Mk 12:10). “That is the meaning of the stone...

“But I now recall the evils I did in Jerusalem…these evils have overtaken me; and now I am dying, in bitter grief, in a foreign land.” —1 Maccabees 6:12, 13 Antiochus Epiphanes IV had savagely butchered the people of God. For example, he had killed babies and hung them from the necks of their mothers (1 Mc 1:61). He had militantly imposed the secular Greeks’ lifestyle upon the chosen people. He had literally gotten away with murder. God wanted him to repent, but Antiochus persisted in his sin. So, God let Antiochus have his way and reap the wages of...