Showing results by author "Lee James" in All Categories

In chapter five of this epistle, James had concluded his writing to his Jewish, Christian brethren by encouraging them to not be troubled by their poverty or by their mistreatment by others. In particular, they had been hurt and victimized by wealthy landowners who had cheated them out of their wages and who had also had many of them executed. So James had written that they should be patient and trust in the Lord. They should be joyful and full of songs of praise for the Lord. They should live according to biblical standards. They should be soul-winners. They should also encourage one ...

Many people may find this text offensive. But my desire for many years has been to understand why so many people who regularly attend church do not get more involved in the church's ministries. While not everyone will agree with my general conclusion, it is that most of those individuals are probably not really saved. I do not want to be a judge or sound judgmental. But the simple fact is that the Bible teaches throughout that the Christian is a life of ministry and service for the Lord by the true followers of Christ. So as will be discussed in the following pages, one of my conclusions is...

This book is my 50th anniversary gift to Linda. We could not renew our vows this year and have the celebration that we would have liked because of the pandemic that has swept the world. So this book is something that I hope will remind her of all the good years that we have had together. The years have flown by. But we have been abundantly blessed from the very beginning. I hope that the pages of this book will accurately describe the very full life that she and I have shared together. For sure, it is a testimony of what the Lord can do with lives that are surrendered to Him.

In the following pages of this text, many ideas will be presented that can help a person better know what the Lord wants him or her to do. Most of those ideas for effectively serving Him will be based upon verses like Jeremiah 29:12-13, John 3:16, II Peter 3:9, Luke 19:10, and Romans 5:6-8. So when a person can build his or her understanding around those kinds of teachings, then he or she will be well on the way to knowing what the Lord wants him or her to do. In chapter one of this text, it will be expressed that true biblical salvation should be better based on words like seek, commit, ...

People sometimes have difficulty understanding the Trinity. But if that is the case with someone reading this Introduction, then he or she should not feel too bad. It took the scholars and theologians of the early Church about five hundred years after the Incarnation of Jesus to even begin to figure it out. The whole idea of one God is not too difficult to understand. But when the same scholars and theologians start talking about one God in three persons, then the whole matter becomes much more complicated. Is it biblically correct to say or think of three different persons of deity, daily ...

This book has taken three fairly short books that are very similar to each other and combined them into one book. The three books are God Was in Control of Abraham's Circumstances, God Was in Control of Job's Circumstances, and God Was in Control of Joseph's Circumstances. One can learn different lessons from each saint. So it just makes sense to combine the three short books into one still fairly short book. There is one note, however, to be made with respect to the organization of this text before concluding this Introduction. Something that the reader might find useful is boxes ...

The Bible teaches that there are seven separate judgments. This book was written about the first one, which was the judgment of Satan and sin by the cross of Jesus. It starts with Satan sinning in heaven and being cast to the earth. It carefully analyzes the Garden of Eden environment and the whole theology around what happened when Adam ate fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It considers several logistical questions concerning his sin, the consequences of his sin, and the resulting physical and spiritual separations from God. Once those topics have been addressed, some ...

This book contains a series of short essays that discuss twenty-five of the important promises from the Lord that have been stated in the scriptures. Each of the essays is basically independent of the others. But at the same time, they have also been ordered somewhat loosely from most important to least important based upon logical order. The Lord promises to love every person. He promises to be found but not indefinitely. He promises grace for salvation and living. He promises goodness and mercy. He promises salvation that cannot be lost. He promises to not be bought. He promises to resist...

In my adult Sunday school class on December 12, 1982, I spoke to the class about the Theory of Evolution and expressed my beliefs about how that theory will lead to the Tribulation. Remarkable as such a statement may sound, I believe it to be the truth. So I have written this book to retrace the steps that led to that lecture. I hope to relate, in this summary, not just a review of that Sunday morning class, but also to provide a trail of my research. Perhaps, after reading these pages, my reader will be led to conclude, as I already have, that the end may be much nearer than we think. ...

In the first part of the third chapter of the epistle of James, the author warned spiritual leaders within the church about being God-called and about being God-prepared for their respective ministries. That warning applies to anyone who is in a position to lead others to Christ and to also show them how to live according to biblical principles and standards. So the clear teaching is that one does not actually choose his or her own ministry. Instead the Holy Spirit places saved men and women into those positions where He would have them work for Him. Once they are in those areas of ministry...

In this second part of this study of the Minor Prophets, the writings of Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, and Habakkuk are examined. With Obadiah, one can see the land of Edom and why the Edomites had thought that they were safe from outside attackers. Their land was very mountainous and easy to defend. Nevertheless, in about 583 BC, they did fall to the Babylonians. With Jonah, one can see the viciousness of the Assyrians in the Eighth Century BC. Everyone was afraid of them because of their brutality against their enemies. Nevertheless, at the preaching of Jonah, they had repented, and the ...

For anyone who is currently going through some kind of difficulty, the chances are very high that at least one of Solomon's principles in the book of Proverbs has been violated. Solomon was the wisest person of his times. As will be seen in the first chapter of this text, he had asked the Lord for wisdom right after having become the king of Israel. Also as will be seen, the Lord answered his prayer. James 1:5 says, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." The book of Proverbs is that answer. It is a ...

This book has been written to examine the seven statements that Jesus had made while He was on the cross. When someone is about to pass away, their final words are often worth remembering, and that is definitely true of the Lord. In the first five chapters of this text, many of the events that had led to His crucifixion will be discussed. The Old Testament prophecies about His coming, His mission while on earth, and His Incarnation will be considered. A conversation that He had had with Nicodemus will be examined to see why He had had to be crucified as opposed to experiencing some other ...

This text has been entitled "Nine Different Ways to Praise the Lord" because nine different Hebrew words in the Old Testament have been translated as "praise" in the scriptures. They are yadah, hilluwl, tehillah, barak, halal, zamar, towdah, shabach, and mahalal. Among those nine, five are verbs and four are nouns. Each of those words will be discussed in this text. In addition, though, because verbs in Hebrew can have different meanings based upon the use of stems, a separate chapter has been devoted to the discussion of Hebrew stem types. Single chapters have also been written to discuss ...

In the pages that follow, a high-level study of two general views for interpreting the scriptures will be conducted. Those two views are Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism. But the study of those views will only be done at an introductory level since the intent will be to see whether or not the Church will go through the Tribulation. Of the two, Dispensationalism seems to present the stronger case. That is because it uses a literal approach for understanding the end-time events while Covenant Theology uses a non-literal approach. Another view, called Replacement Theology, will also be ...

The idea with this text is that the Proverbs life is a much better life. The reason for saying that is because it leads to either no unpleasant consequences or to very few unpleasant consequences. So this text is about improving a person's decision-making skills, about reducing the unpleasant consequences that result from bad decisions, and about showing that the Proverbs life produces a much better life. There is one main theme that is presented throughout. If people want to live a good life and experience very few unpleasant consequences, then they need to study the scriptures, ...

The first part of this book talks about the very grim subject of what it will be like to die lost. Nothing in this existence is as bad as or any worse than leaving this existence and entering into eternal condemnation. Jesus talked about two places of punishment. The first, called hades, is condemnation of the soul. The souls of people who have already died and were lost are there right now. The souls of people who will die lost will soon go there. Hades is not a nice place. In fact, it is a horrible place to be at even for a little while. But as bad as hades may be, gehenna will be much ...

Many, but not all of the heroes of the Faith, are named in Hebrews chapter eleven. Sixteen saints were specifically named in the first thirty-two verses of that chapter. But many others were implied indirectly in the last eight verses of that chapter. Hebrews 11:32-40 says, "And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell…of the prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to ...

This book will present four different Bible ways that a person can deal with depression. In a world where there are so many ups and downs and so much uncertainty, it stands to reason that every person will at least sometime experience deep depression. So the purpose of this book is to describe how some of the saints of God had handled their times of depression. In the pages that follow, the depressing circumstances of twelve people will be discussed. Two men had had to wait for a long time for something that both had really wanted. One man had had to face a possibly very angry brother. One ...

To date, I have written four complete daily devotion books. The first one was a general topic devotion book that contains a single devotion for each class that I took at Liberty University when pursuing a Graduate degree in Bible and Pastoral Counseling. The second devotion book contains a daily devotion for many of the people who are talked about in the Bible. So it is a Bible character devotion book. The third devotion book is a daily devotion for every verse in the book of Proverbs. The fascinating thing about that book is that the numerical dates in the devotion book match up with the ...