Life's Inanities and Ironies

 “And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour…” (Luke 1:46-47 KJV) When the angel Gabriel left, Mary didn’t post a pregnancy announcement on social media. She didn’t call a crisis hotline. She didn’t even wait until the danger of Herod, the Great was past. The moment the Holy Ghost made the promise real in her heart, she burst into one of the most explosive celebrations of God in all of Scripture—the Magnificat . If a teenage Jewish girl facing scandal, shame, and possible death could magnify the Lord like that, how much more ought blood-bought, born-again, Bible-believing Christians celebrate Him today? 1. Celebrate Him for Who He Is— Holy, Holy, Holy    Mary didn’t start with her feelings; she started with His character: “Holy is His name.” The same refrain thunders around the throne right now ( Rev. 4:8 ). God has not changed. Culture has. Politics have. Your circumstances have. But “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, an...

There’s just something about that name. In a little nowhere town called Nazareth , an angel walked into the life of a teenage girl and forever changed history with eight words:   “Thou shalt call his name JESUS .” That name was no afterthought. It was no suggestion. It was the eternal decree of God. Seven centuries earlier, Isaiah had already seen it coming: “His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace ” ( Isaiah 9:6 ). The angel simply delivered the invoice Heaven had signed before the foundation of the world. Jesus. Yeshua . Jehovah saves .   The only name under heaven whereby we must be saved ( Acts 4:12 ). The world this Christmas will shout a thousand other names: Santa , Rudolph , Amazon , Eggnog . But Bible believers know there is only one name that makes hell shudder, demons flee, and guilty sinners sing.   That name was promised in the prophets.   That name was pronounced b...

 Imagine the serene tropical dawn breaking over the azure waters of Pearl Harbor , Hawaii, on a quiet Sunday morning in 1941 . Palm trees sway gently in the breeze, sailors stir from their bunks aboard mighty battleships, and the scent of salt air mingles with the hum of routine naval life. Then, without warning, the sky darkens with the thunderous roar of 353 enemy aircraft—waves of Japanese Zeros and bombers unleashing hellfire. Explosions rip through the air like apocalyptic thunderclaps, black smoke billows like demonic clouds, and the once-proud USS Arizona erupts in a cataclysmic fireball, her hull groaning as she sinks into the oily depths. In mere moments, paradise turns to pandemonium: 2,403 American heroes perish in the flames and wreckage, over 1,000 more wounded, their cries echoing across the harbor. This wasn't just an attack; it was a seismic jolt that hurled the United States into the fiery crucible of World War II—a "date which will live in infamy," as ...

For decades Zacharias and Elisabeth prayed the same prayer: “Lord, give us a child.”   Year after year the altar of incense rose with their cry, yet the womb stayed shut. They watched younger couples dedicate babies in the temple while their own arms remained empty. They were righteous. They were blameless. They walked in all the commandments of the Lord. Yet heaven was silent. If you have ever prayed for revival and seen only apostasy,   if you have begged God to save your children and watched them walk away,   if you have pleaded for healing, for deliverance, for a move of God while the church grows colder,   then you know the ache of Zacharias and Elisabeth. We call it “the problem of unanswered prayer,” but the Bible never does. Scripture treats long silence not as a problem to explain away, but as a womb in which God is doing His deepest work. Look at Luke 1 again. 1. God’s delays are not denials      The angel said, “Fe...

 We remember Pearl Harbor . We remember 9/11 .   But there is one night in human history that deserves to be remembered with far greater sorrow and awe: the night Judas kissed the door of heaven shut, and armed men dragged the sinless Son of God into the darkness. This was not just an ordinary arrest.   This was the creature assaulting the Creator.   This was the blackest, most infamous act the world has ever seen. Four portraits of infamy stand out in Mark’s account : 1. The Kiss of the Ultimate Insider      Judas—one of the Twelve—leads the lynch mob. He had seen the dead raised, eaten the multiplied loaves, and called Jesus “Lord” to His face. Yet for thirty pieces of silver (the price of a crippled slave), he sells the Savior.      Church membership, baptism, preaching, miracles—none of it saves without a new heart. Religious privilege without regeneration = treachery. 2. The Violence of Religious Hypocri...