1 John 5:7-8 (KJV) There Is Agreement

1 John 5:7-8 (KJV)
For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

Verse seven is so well known (though controversial in some circles) and so easily understood that I am afraid we give little attention to verse eight. I aim to remedy that today.

The Bible teaches that things are established at the mouth of two or three witnesses. This verse tells us that the witnesses of the truth of Scripture concerning the godhead are three. 

The Spirit
Who is unquestionably the Holy Spirit and bears witness to our spirit that these things are so. My real work, as a believer, is to help others get in touch with what they already know to be true. God has already witnessed to them. It’s just that the influences of this world have shoved that witness into the recesses of their soul. 

The water
Some people consider this to be Jesus’ baptism. There are few events in the Bible with more significance than His baptism. All three Persons of the Godhead are there. I think a case could be made that water speaks of His birth. The virgin birth, like His baptism, is key to doctrinal integrity. 

The blood
There should be little doubt but that this is His death, burial and resurrection. 

1 John 5:8 says these three agree in one. They bear the same testimony. They confirm the deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity. 

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4400 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:
My author spotlight at Lulu.com:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/marvinmckenzie

My author Page for Kindle/Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/author/marvinmckenzie

1 John 5:7-8 (KJV) There Is Agreement

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at http://www.dubli.com/M04VB. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.

Isaiah 36:1 (KJV) History Is…

Isaiah 36:1 (KJV)
Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the defenced cities of Judah, and took them.

The Assyrian threat had begun years before it became a reality. Isaiah had prophesied concerning it during the reign of Ahaz. It did not happen until Hezekiah was king. My thought today is simply how much worse things would have been had Ahaz still been king. 

Truly, history is the providence of God written in the notebook of man. Jerusalem would eventually be overtaken but it would not be now and it would not be by the Assyrians. God dictated these affairs to inform us of His rule, even in the most certain of matters. Sennacherib had no reason to believe he could be stopped. Hezekiah had no reason to believe he would be spared. But God spared him just the same. 

A believing soul has no reason to ever let the course of this world influence his faith. 

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4400 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:
My author spotlight at Lulu.com:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/marvinmckenzie

My author Page for Kindle/Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/author/marvinmckenzie

Isaiah 36:1 (KJV) History Is…

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at http://www.dubli.com/M04VB. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.

Isaiah 33:12 (KJV)The Shepherd and the Sheep

Isaiah 33:12 (KJV)
And the people shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire.

The circumstance of this passage is a prayer of dependence upon God in the face of Assyrian threats. I can’t imagine the terror Jerusalem must have been under as they watched Assyria defeat and dispatch northern Israel into oblivion. They would have been certain this would be their fate. 

Except for God. 

Was it arrogant of them to believe God would do for them what He did not do for their brethren? Of course Jerusalem disagreed with Israel. They had rebelled against the throne in Israel. They had set up their own systems of worship. Were they so wrong God would destroy them? More importantly was Jerusalem so right God would save them?

Into this environment the prophet offers the Word of God. He provides them with a direction for prayer. But in the middle of his sermon he switches from the first person to the third. “Be thou their arm every morning.” He switched from teaching them what to pray to praying himself. 

The preacher is in a unique situation. As the preacher he is to remain detached, he seeks to please God rather than men. He is God’s spokesman to the flock. But he is also one of the flock. Though he must maintain his priority of office, it is understandable when he steps back into the role of a sheep from time to time.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4400 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:
My author spotlight at Lulu.com:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/marvinmckenzie

My author Page for Kindle/Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/author/marvinmckenzie

Isaiah 33:12 (KJV)The Shepherd and the Sheep

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at http://www.dubli.com/M04VB. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.

Isaiah 32:1 (KJV) Just Who Is This King?

Isaiah 32:1 (KJV)
Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment.

Just who is this king? The most immediate answer would be Hezekiah, the righteous king who replaced Ahaz. I, however, agreed with John Gill. The result of his reign could not have fully produced the fruit given in the context.

A man shall be a hiding place
This must be a reference to our Saviour as He is our hiding place from the judgment against sin.

The eyes of them that see
Jesus gave sight to the blind. But more than that, He enabled that the seeing could see the truth and that the hearing would hear the Word.

The heart of the rash to understand
People who have little of this world’s refinements have come to Christ, been born again and received incredible understanding of the Word of God.

The tongue of the stammering speaking plainly
Too many preachers than I can count were introverts and incapable of leading before God saved and then called them

This is a prophecy concerning Christ. It may have an immediate application to Hezekiah but the message God preserved forever is the one concerning Jesus.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4400 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:
My author spotlight at Lulu.com:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/marvinmckenzie

My author Page for Kindle/Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/author/marvinmckenzie

Isaiah 32:1 (KJV) Just Who Is This King?

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at http://www.dubli.com/M04VB. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.

1 John 1:5-10 (KJV) The Condition of Fellowship With God

1 John 1:5-10 (KJV)
This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Verses 5-10 come together as a full thought. The message received and then declared is right here. We might think of the rest of the book as an application of this message. It is a message of fellowship with God and the condition of cleansing in Christ’s blood.

The situation with a man and sin is this:
We yet deal with sin
That which separates our fellowship with God is not that we still live in a sinful body but that we would try to deny it.

When we are honest about our sin Jesus cleanses and saved us from the sin
Our fellowship with God is free when we remain honest about our nature.

We will wrestle with a sin nature all the while we are in this world
By confessing it and being forthright with God concerning it we maintain a holy walk with the light.

To deny that we ever were sinners is a denial of the need of salvation
This one is destined for condemnation so long as he denies sin.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4400 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:
My author spotlight at Lulu.com:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/marvinmckenzie

My author Page for Kindle/Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/author/marvinmckenzie

1 John 1:5-10 (KJV) The Condition of Fellowship With God

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at http://www.dubli.com/M04VB. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.

2 Peter 3:5-6 (KJV) Ignorance

2 Peter 3:5-6 (KJV)
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

This sounds like it was hand written for our day. This world is not ignorant but willingly ignorant of those things that are key to life and godliness:

• Creation
• The Flood
• Judgment of God

These simple but foundational principles have been passed down almost inherently in our genes. We know them to be true because:

• We have the Word of God
• We have the witness of the Holy Spirit 
• We have placed within us the consciousness of this truth

Those who reject the Lord do so willingly, consciously. They design schemes to replace what they inherently know to be true. They build walls to remove themselves from those who speak the truth. They set up heroes to trust in rather than the truth. Our modern educational system leads the way in this willing ignorance. It is advanced through science. It is lauded in the arts.

Those who know the truth choose to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ instead.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4400 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:
My author spotlight at Lulu.com:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/marvinmckenzie

My author Page for Kindle/Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/author/marvinmckenzie

2 Peter 3:5-6 (KJV) Ignorance

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at http://www.dubli.com/M04VB. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.

2 Peter 2:1 (KJV) Yet Unsaved

2 Peter 2:1 (KJV)
But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

There is a piece of doctrinal truth buried in this verse that has to be understood in order to get the rest of the chapter; even those false teachers have been bought by the Lord. His blood was shed for them.

• His death
• His burial, yes even
• His resurrection 

was for them. When He was on the cross they were on His mind. He bore their sins in His own body when He suffered on the cross. The full price of all their sins has been paid.

Yet they will still see destruction. They are still condemned. All the torments of eternal hell await them. Why? Because even though they are religious and even though they know the message of Christ; even though every sin they have ever or will ever commit is covered by His blood, they are yet unsaved.

The Bible says they have denied the Lord that bought them. The context of the chapter tells us that their denial is not in word, probably not in works, but in faith. The conclusion of the chapter is that they are like a dog that returns to his vomit or a pig that returns to its wallow. They have never been born again. They have never become a new creature in Christ.

In things eternal, it matters little what we say or what we do. The whole issue is settled in faith.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4400 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:
My author spotlight at Lulu.com:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/marvinmckenzie

My author Page for Kindle/Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/author/marvinmckenzie

2 Peter 2:1 (KJV) Yet Unsaved

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at http://www.dubli.com/M04VB. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.

2 Peter 1:2-3 (KJV)
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

The concept of knowledge, in one form or the other, is a focal subject of this chapter.

Thayer says that the sort of knowledge addressed in these two verses is that of things ethical and divine.

John Gill writes of this knowledge, “…to be understood, not of a natural, but of a spiritual and evangelical knowledge; of a knowledge of God, not as the God of nature and providence, but as the God of all grace, as in Christ, and a covenant God in him, and of the person, offices, and grace of Christ; and which designs true faith in him.”

Robertson’s Word Pictures defines this as “full knowledge” and places it in contrast with the Gnostics of that day – heretics whose system of belief held that only those with a special knowledge could be saved. Rather than being a mystical knowledge released from within through meditation (think Eastern Mysticism) the knowledge that multiplies grace and peace; the knowledge that provides access to all things that pertain unto life and godliness is found in a relationship with God through Jesus.

We do not find grace and peace, life and godliness through unlocking some spiritual thing within us. We obtain them through a fuller and complete fellowship with God.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4400 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:
My author spotlight at Lulu.com:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/marvinmckenzie

My author Page for Kindle/Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/author/marvinmckenzie

2 Peter 1:2-3 (KJV) Fuller Knowledge

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at http://www.dubli.com/M04VB. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.

1 Peter 5:1-2 (KJV)
The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed:Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;

It has been a focus of mine, this time through my New Testament, to look for the local church in the epistles of the Bible not generally viewed that way:

• Hebrews
• James and now
• 1 Peter

all obviously have a local church element.

This, of course, does not mean they were intended to be used by just one local church. The Epistles to the Corinthians, Ephesians, and even to Titus, Philemon and Timothy were all written to a specific audience. But, under the supervision of God, they have purpose for a much broader audience.

“The elders among you” can easily refer to elders or pastors of various congregations. “Feed the flock of God” requires a local church interpretation. A flock would be specific, local and even limited. Individual flocks might be of various sizes but they would, no doubt, have a finite number.

Our presumptions about the Bible so often cloud our understanding of the Bible. Sometimes, once we have committed to a particular understanding of the Bible, we refuse to see any other interpretation for what that might do to our understanding of other spiritual disciplines.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4400 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:
My author spotlight at Lulu.com:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/marvinmckenzie

My author Page for Kindle/Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/author/marvinmckenzie

1 Peter 5:1-2 (KJV) Local Church Element

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at http://www.dubli.com/M04VB. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.

1 Peter 4:6 (KJV)
For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

I am intrigued by this list of interpretations Albert Barnes provides.

“Many, …understand this of those who are spiritually dead, that is, the Gentiles, …

• Others have supposed that it refers to those who had suffered martyrdom in the cause of Christianity; 
• Others, that it refers to the sinners of the old world … and 
• Others, that it means that the Saviour went down and preached to those who are dead, in accordance with one of the interpretations given of 1 Peter 3:19. 

It seems to me that the most natural and obvious interpretation is to refer it to those who were then dead, to whom the gospel had been preached when living, and who had become true Christians.”

It seems to me that the most obvious understanding is preaching to the lost in the prayer than many of them will, as we did, get saved.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4400 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:
My author spotlight at Lulu.com:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/marvinmckenzie

My author Page for Kindle/Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/author/marvinmckenzie

1 Peter 4:6 (KJV) Preaching To The Lost

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at http://www.dubli.com/M04VB. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.

1 Peter 3:8-10 (KJV)
Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous:Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:

I note once again the local church essence of this passage. It would never be possible for a universal invisible body to be of one mind.

Verse 9 says that God has called us to inherit a blessing. It is His choice, His election, His will that believers inherit this blessing.

But there is a prerequisite to receiving it, especially on this earthly plane.

• We are to render blessings instead of evil or railing
• We are to love
• We are to be compassionate and pitiful
• We are to be courteous 

It’s not that difficult to be a blessing.

We just need to be followers of that which is good.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4400 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:
My author spotlight at Lulu.com:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/marvinmckenzie

My author Page for Kindle/Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/author/marvinmckenzie

1 Peter 3:8-10 (KJV) Be A Blessing To Receive A Blessing

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at http://www.dubli.com/M04VB. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.

1 Peter 2:1-2 (KJV)
Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:

The definition of newborn babe is found in verse one. These believers, who were not newborn babes in Christ, were instructed to make themselves asnewborn babes so that they might desire the milk of the Word and so they might grow thereby.

In this case I question whether it is appropriate to contrast milk with meat. It does not seem to me that the Word of God is calling them carnal or unable to handle the meat of the Word. It seems to me that this passage has two concerns;

• The growth of the believer 
• The testimony he has in the world[1]

In either case, the way to accomplish the concern is with childlike sincerity and obedience. We choose to put away from us:

• Malice
• Guile
• Hypocrisy 
• Envy
• Evil speaking 

• We choose to become as newborn babes. 
• We choose to desire the milk of the Word and

We choose to do it so we may grow and so we may be a testimony to the ignorant and foolish of this world.

[1](Peter 2:15
For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4400 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

My books are available at:
My author spotlight at Lulu.com:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/marvinmckenzie

My author Page for Kindle/Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/author/marvinmckenzie

1 Peter 2:1-2 (KJV) Choosing Childlikeness

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at http://www.dubli.com/M04VB. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.