Imagine it. The first man and woman lived in a glorious Garden. They had lives of perfect rest and happiness. They never had to worry about having enough food, about bad weather or illness or growing old. It was a world of endless bliss.
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What would it have been like to grow up knowing that an archangel had announced your birth...knowing that you have the unique and perilous calling of a prophet? That's what John the Baptist knew his own destiny.
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The oracles of a prophet seem like such a mysterious and radical concept. It's the kind of wild, supernatural work of God that we usually try to leave behind in our modern world. It's just a little too "out there" and uncomfortable.
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When was the last time someone caught you doing something wrong? Did you get embarrassed? Angry? Did you start to argue? Make a joke? Hide? Or do you get sad and quiet? Did you repent?
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The crowds continued to flock to John, the wild preacher who gave his message in the open places, far from the Temple in Jerusalem. As he baptized the repentant in the waters of the Jordan River, the people could see that his bold declarations were full of the Spirit of God, and so they began to wonder who he was. Is he the prophet Elijah come back to life as foretold in Malachi 4:5?
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After his baptism, Christ was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to face the temptations of Satan. Meanwhile, the counsel of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, the most powerful religious leaders in the country, sent more priests to question John the Baptist.
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The time had come for the most important work in human history to begin...the ministry of Christ. But He didn't go it alone. During His final days at John the Baptist's encampment, John continually pointed out to his own followers that Jesus was the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. This lit a fire under some of the men and they went to Jesus, seeking Him as their rabbi.
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As Jesus made His way through Galilee to tell the people of the region the Good News of the Kingdom of God, He traveled to His home town of Nazareth. They had waited for so many years through history for the Kingdom of God to come.
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In the early days of Christ’s ministry, He spent His days preaching and teaching in the northern region of the nation of Israel around the Sea of Galilee. One day while Jesus was in Capernaum, He went for a walk along the edge of the water.
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One of the ways a writer expresses what is important is by using a lot of repetition. You can tell what is important to them by the subjects that they bring up the most often and by what themes get the most volume in their writings.
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When we read the Beatitudes, we see a picture of the qualities a disciple of Christ is meant to grow in. The descriptions are of a people so full of meekness and mercy that it is hard to imagine anyone would want to persecute them.
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Jesus declared that the Laws and prophecies of the Old Testament would remain unbreakable and true until the end of time. In His own life on earth, the Lord obeyed them with absolute perfection in response to His heavenly Father.
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The next thing Jesus preached about in His Sermon on the Mount is a hard one. It is an area where the brokenness of the human race has created a painful, destructive disaster in the hearts and lives of many precious souls.
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John the Baptist was in prison. You see, he had said some things that Herod, the pretender king, did not like. Herod had taken his own brother’s wife and married her. John the Baptist spoke out against it, so Herod threw John in prison and kept him there.
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Jesus had spent His days travelling around Galilee, teaching the deepest, richest truths that humanity had ever heard, and healing the broken. He started out teaching in the synagogues, giving the religious leaders a chance to recognize their Savior.
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Jesus and His disciples were in Capernaum, surrounded by the crowd. They were all packed into Peter’s house as Jesus preached. Religious leaders had come up from Jerusalem to challenge Jesus. The Lord had already cast out a demon and healed a man of blindness right in front of everyone.
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The multitudes of crowds came to follow Jesus and see His amazing miracles. These were the powerful signs God had given in the Old Testament about the coming of His Kingdom. But as Jesus travelled to the cities and villages of Galilee, many of the people did not repent of their sins.
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Jesus had begun to speak to His disciples in parables about the Kingdom of Heaven. The rest of the crowd was still there as Jesus preached from the boat, but for most of them, these stories would be a mystery.
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When Jesus started His preaching ministry, He warned the people about the Day of the Lord, the final stage of The Great Battle over human history. It is the time when Christ will return to complete His total and utter victory against the curse that Adam and Eve had brought into the world.
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Jesus continued to teach parables to help his disciples understand how the Kingdom of God would work in the world as true believers waited for Him to return.
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