Who puts blood on their door at dusk, but then goes down to frolic in the Nile before midnight?

Who looks at the snake on the pole once, but then goes about tending to his wounds?  

The dead man does. - John P. Harrigan

“There is, in fact, no redemptive work done anywhere without suffering.” ~ Elisabeth Elliot 

"The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light." Romans 13:12  

Eschatology drives discipleship. - John P. Harrigan

My teaching on the Messianic delay from Psalm 110. Notes. Audio 1, Audio 2

"On other people's graves it is written, 'Here lies so-and-so,' but on Christ's tomb it is recorded, 'He is not here.'" — Charles Spurgeon  

The sweetest prayers God ever hears are the groans and sighs of those who have no hope in anything but his love. -Charles Spurgeon  

"When asked, 'What is more important: Prayer or Reading the Bible?'

I ask, 'What is more important: Breathing in or Breathing out?'" — Charles Spurgeon 

May we sit at the foot of the cross; and there learn what sin has done, what justice has done, what love has done. -John Newton

There is nothing the natural man hates more than to be told that he is a sinner, and that his nature is twisted and perverted. He believes in himself, and that he is a good fellow; all the teaching of psychology encourages him to believe in himself. – Martyn Lloyd-Jones

This eschatological hope (involving the Parousia, resurrection, judgment, and kingdom) set for Paul the parameters of his discipleship agenda. The Gentiles are being discipled into the Jewish apocalyptic hope. Paul’s Jewish eschatology also provided both the mechanism and the pattern for his ethics. Far from causing ethical disengagement (as commonly mischaracterized in modern studies), Paul’s apocalyptic hope inspired his ethical “fight” and “race.” -John P. Harrigan

Paul’s language of propitiation, justification, redemption, and reconciliation is consistently used in relation to the Messiah’s sacrificial death “for our sins.” Moreover, the need for divine forgiveness is generally predicated upon the expectations of divine judgment inherent to Jewish eschatology. Paul thus theologized about the death of the Messiah within his native Jewish apocalyptic worldview, rather than in contrast to it. - John P. Harrigan

The prize of Christianity is not the transformation of the world. It is Jesus himself. Our job on earth is to prove that he is our prize above everything and everybody in this world (1 Pet. 1:7). Then, at the right time, God will give us, along with him, all things (Rom. 8:32). -Roland Baker

Paul’s faith in Jesus of Nazareth as the Jewish Messiah (and those events associated with that messiahship) generated his emphasis on the Parousia of Christ. -John P. Harrigan

The universal proclamation of divine mercy in light of the Jewish apocalyptic hope of eternal life thus defines the trajectory of Paul’s mission and discipleship of the Gentiles. Without these realities held in tandem, Judaism and the hope of Israel simply become the background of Paul’s novel missiology instead of its fundamental framework.  -John P. Harrigan

Repelled by this reality, and entrenched in a Neoplatonic post-Enlightenment worldview, the church has historically theologized around and away from Israel’s election, relegating her to being God’s ex-wife, and installing the church as God’s new and everlasting beloved. The name for this alleged divine divorce and remarriage is supersessionism. - Stuart  Dauermann

The Parousia of Jesus, resurrection of the dead, and eternal life comprise Paul’s hope, which is attained by the propitiative, justificative, and redemptive death of Jesus for our sins—two heterogeneous sides of one gospel coin.   -John P. Harrigan

Paul and the apostles framed the death of Jesus as an objective sacrificial exchange concerning divine appeasement, acquittal, and payment. -John P. Harrigan

At its core, judgment is simply the establishment of a standard of righteousness. In this way the divine Judge establishes righteousness upon the earth: “When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness” (Isa. 26:9, niv). And God will ultimately be vindicated in his gubernatorial role, for “he has established his throne for judgment” (Ps. 9:7, csb). The Psalms are replete with similar declarations: “He will judge the world with righteousness” (Ps. 98:9); “He will judge the peoples with equity” (Ps. 96:10); “He will execute judgment among the nations” (Ps. 110:6), “for he comes to judge the earth” (Ps. 96:13)—leading to the cry, “Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the nations!” (Ps. 82:8). Thus, projecting eschatologically, Isaiah declares: “The Lord will execute judgment on all people with his fiery sword” (Isa. 66:16, csb). - John P. Harrigan

2022 Summer

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. - Psalm 96

Maranatha

Jesus is used to living in a place where there is incessant thunder and lightning (Rev 4:5). He relaxes in storms (Matt 8:24). - Bob Sorge

I want to die being really soft before the Lord, and having my wife and kids think I’m pretty great. Nothing else matters. -Joel Richardson

Righteousness is fulfilled only at Calvary and in Gehenna. Where humanity will be found on that day is the great choice facing each individual. - John P. Harrigan

Therefore be sober... 1 Peter 4:7

“And so all Israel will be saved.” The context indicates that Paul must be speaking of the Jewish people. He does not mean every Jew that ever lived, but the nation of Israel. Now why do I say that ‘Israel’ in this phrase refers to the Jews? All through his discussion Paul is talking about Israel in part: part of Israel has been blinded, part of Israel has been cut away, part of Israel has been stubborn, part of Israel has been excluded from the kingdom of God and its blessings. The Jews as a people are presently under judgment. But as there was a national judgment, so there will be a national restoration. Their rejection, even though it was a national rejection, did not include the rejection of every individual. So the restoration doesn’t necessarily mean that every individual Jew will be saved, but the nation as a nation will be restored to God. - RC Sproul

Exaltation does not come from the east or the west, for God is the Judge: He brings down one and exalts another. For there is a cup in the Lord’s hand, and he pours from it. All the wicked of the earth will drink, draining it to the dregs. - Psalm 75

Flee the coming wrath.

-Joshua Reese

On the holy mount stands the city he founded; the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Glorious things of you are spoken, O city of God. - Psalm 87

And glorious things will be spoken of her again. Maranatha!

-Joshua Reese

As a pledge of this, and of the truth of the whole Scripture, we have, what may be called a standing miracle continually before our eyes. I mean the state of the Jews, who, though dispersed far and wide among many nations, are everywhere preserved a distinct and separate people. The history of the world affords no other instance of the kind. The great monarchies, by which they were successively conquered and scattered, have successively perished. Only the names of them remain. But the people whom they despised, and endeavoured to exterminate, subsist to this day; and though sifted like corn over the earth, and apparently forsaken of God, are still preserved by this wonderful Providence, unaffected by the changes and customs around them; still tenacious of the law of Moses, though the observance of it is rendered impracticable. Many days, many ages they have lived, as the prophets foretold they should, without a temple, without sacrifice or priest (Hosea 3:4, 5) . As yet, many heathen nations are permitted to walk in their own ways. But at length the fulness of the Gentiles shall come in, and all Israel shall be saved (Romans 11:25, 26) . The revolutions and commotions in kingdoms and nations, which astonish and perplex politicians, are all bringing forward this great event. The plan of the human drama, to us, who only see a single scene, is dark and intricate but the catastrophe is approaching; and in the close of the whole, the manifold wisdom of God will be admired and adored, and all holy and happy intelligences will acknowledge with transport, He has done all things well. - John Newton

"Nothing is more certainly foretold than the national conversion of the Jews is in the eleventh chapter of Romans. And there are also many passages of the Old Testament that cannot be interpreted in any other sense." -Jonathan Edwards

“From first to last, and not merely in the epilogue, Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present. The eschatological is not one element of Christianity, but it is the medium of Christian faith as such, the key in which everything in it is set, the glow that suffuses everything here in the dawn of an expected new day. . . . A proper theology would therefore have to be constructed in the light of its future goal. Eschatology should not be its end, but its beginning” (Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 16).

In my judgment they are the happiest, who have the lowest thoughts of themselves, and in whose eyes Jesus is most glorious and precious. -John Newton