Tag: restoration

Articles, Final PhaseLeave a comment

The day is coming, the day is here

J. Randal Matheny

The fortunes of men wax and wane. Religions expand and contract. God is over all, he is in control, he guides history toward the end that he determines. Christians rejoice in his sovereignty. The coming of Jesus is their hope. Their prayer seeks to bring him all the more quickly to usher them into eternal life.

There is only one God. There has ever been only one God. Man has exalted himself and created gods galore. But one day the Lord will be seen to be one and his deity singular in number. This is the messianic prophecy of Zechariah. Continue reading “The day is coming, the day is here”

Articles, Bible BytesLeave a comment

Restoring what was missing

Jon Galloway

When Hezekiah became king he reversed what his father Ahaz had been doing and started to lead the nation of Judah back to worshipping God. He was 25 when he became king and his first recorded act, in the first month of his reign, was to put God’s temple in order. This required quite a bit of work in several areas.

First there was the physical building of the temple. Through many years of neglect it was in need of repair. Following this it needed to be consecrated, cleansed of anything that would make it ceremonially unclean. Hezekiah’s father Ahaz had set up idols to be worshipped in the temple and had even moved God’s altar from its central position to be replaced with one to a pagan god. Anything that had been associated with idolatry needed to be removed. What they hadn’t been doing – offering incense and burnt offerings to God – needed to begin to happen again. Continue reading “Restoring what was missing”

Articles, Guest WritersLeave a comment

The noble goal requires removal of practices

Guest Writer

BY JERRY HILL — One thing was becoming clear:  the Lord’s church did not require a full-time preacher in each location in order to exist and thrive, as our custom seemed to demand.  By 1965, penitent, baptized believers were seen to be able to speak to others in a convincing way.  Churches began and grew, in which there were no full-time preachers

The last wishes expressed on earth by our Lord require his followers to “make disciples of all the nations” (Mathew 28:19), “preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15), “that repentance and forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:46), and “tend” and “shepherd” “my lambs” and “my sheep” (John 21:14-17).  This was to start with the apostles “in Jerusalem“, and would go to “all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Continue reading “The noble goal requires removal of practices”

Articles, EditorialLeave a comment

Our duty to get up and take action

J. Randal Matheny

The columnists of Forthright have been invited to devote themselves during the month of June to the topic of duty. They are free to write about any topic. But we’ll highlight on the front page articles tagged with the word “duty.” A few articles of the past tagged this way are already at the top of the front page. Check them out.

The Old Testament speaks frequently of duties of the priest, Levites, and the king. The NLT has Shecaniah saying to Ezra the scribe, who was laid low by the sins of the people: Continue reading “Our duty to get up and take action”