Galatians 1:6-9 As stated in last week’s discussion guide, turning aside from the true Gospel- the oneproclaimed by Jesus and the apostles- to a different gospel was a concern for the church from avery early time. Keeping the purity of the Gospel is a challenge to which every single generationof Christians has had to rise.Austin’s sermon challenge zeroed in on …
A Redeemer and a King
Today’s sermon and discussion guide will tie together to conclude all of the multiple layers of themes that we have seen in the short book of Ruth. Take time in your group to review some of the things that we have learned so far. Today we will focus on the many ways that God provides for his people. He has …
Preparing for Tribulation
One of the interesting phenomena in America is the industry that has built up around people who are preparing for a doomsday scenario which ordinary people with ordinary provisions could not survive. The people preparing for the end of the world are so interesting that they were the subject of a reality TV series a few years ago. When everything …
Two Different Kingdoms
The eleventh chapter of Daniel goes into some very specific and historically verifiable prophecies about the comings and goings of kingdoms of this world. Daniel 11 Scripture Link What should we conclude? Any reading of world history, even over a period of a few hundred years, will conclude that the political kingdoms of this world are under the reign of …
A Spiritual Battle
Daniel’s eyes are opened to a spiritual reality that most people in their day-to-day life are immune from seeing. He is visited by a supernatural being who talks about massive cosmic battle raging in the spiritual realm amongst the angels and demonic forces who influence the earthly human realm. Daniel 10 Scripture Link The story spoken by the supernatural man …
Covenant & Repentance
Daniel 9 Scripture Link Austin made the point in his sermon that parts of Daniel 9 are among the most difficult in the entire Old Testament to interpret for a specific prophetic meaning. For Daniel’s understanding, however, the prophecies regarded events that were to come in the life of his people, Israel. Our interpretation of the difficult verses should start …
Moving To Emotional Freedom
As we progress in the latter half of the book of Daniel we should remember that we are in a genre known as apocalyptic literature. One of the great characteristics of apocalyptic literature is its heavy use of symbolism in speaking about real-world events. Because of the heavy use of symbols, sometimes the reference of the symbols is a bit …
Apocalypse Now?
Daniel 7 begins a portion of the book that is exceedingly difficult for readers to interpret and understand. This is because Daniel 7-12 belong to a genre of biblical literature known as apocalyptic literature. Here is a short video explaining what apocalyptic literature is within the Bible. Daniel 7 Scripture Link This passage has many symbols that are unclear for …
A Public Faith
Scripture Link: Daniel 6 We live in a day in age where people go to great lengths to make distinctions between public expressions of faith and private expressions of faith. Almost all Americans, even Americans who are not particularly religious, are quite supportive of the idea of other people making private expressions of faith. The great controversies over religious faith …