Days of Praise

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September 19, 2026
Save Who?
“I will also save you from all your uncleannesses.” (Ezekiel 36:29)

Who is “you?” We know from verse 22 that the Lord is promising deliverance to the nation of Israel. But deliverance from what? What made Israel unclean? God promised to transform opinions of His “great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them” (v. 23). Apparently, Israel had dragged God’s name through moral mud, likely in both behavior and word, breaking the third commandment: “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain” (Exodus 20:7).

What’s the big deal about God’s “great name?” It represents who He is! Lips reveal the uncleanness of the heart when they misuse the Lord’s name and treat it and Him without reverence. “And though they say, The LORD liveth, surely they swear falsely” when they behave as though the Lord is dead (Jeremiah 5:2).

However, His great name “was profaned among the heathen” as well (Ezekiel 36:23). So, not just Israel disdained their Maker’s name. All nations needed and still need to be saved, or they will be judged. How will the Lord keep His promise of salvation given in today’s verse?

Jesus is “the way” (John 14:6). Only His blood can cover “all your uncleannesses.” “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). When will Israel be sanctified? Only the Lord knows. But we do know that “it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel . . . shall stay upon the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth” (Isaiah 10:20). What about the salvation of other nations? Whoever will “believe on him” (John 6:29) who “rose from the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:12) will be saved. BDT

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October 10, 2026
Seen from the Beginning
“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.” (Romans 1:20)

One reason we should trust what God says about our earliest beginnings is that the New Testament agrees with what Genesis records in the Old Testament. What did New Testament authors say happened in the very beginning?

Prophets began revealing God’s words to human hearers when the world began. Zacharias said after the Lord restored his voice, “As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began” (Luke 1:70). Genesis says Adam and Eve were created at the start of time, and Mark affirmed this: “But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female” (10:6).

Today’s New Testament verse teaches that creation has been revealing the Lord’s “invisible things,” meaning His supernatural essence, since “the creation of the world.” Similarly, Hebrews 1:10 aligns with Genesis 1 in that God laid the foundation of the earth “in the beginning” and not billions of years after time began. Clearly both Testaments agree on a recent creation. These records falsify ancient and modern pagan notions of eons before Adam.

Peter encouraged his readers to “be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets [in the Old Testament], and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour [in the New Testament]” (2 Peter 3:2).

Belief in both the Old and New Testaments elevates our opinion of God’s Word and thus His character. He spoke the truth in the beginning about our beginnings. We can trust this God who is Himself “the truth” (John 14:6). BDT

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October 11, 2026
Lord of Hosts
“If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel.” (Colossians 1:23)

In our text, “the faith” insists on a particular body of doctrine that defines the Christian life. For instance, as Paul and Barnabas were returning from their initial missionary effort, they went back to each area “confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith” (Acts 14:22).

There are nearly 50 occurrences in the New Testament where “the faith” is used in this way. These references always speak of obedience to specific teachings that embrace the core of the godly lifestyle that represents holiness and the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Thus, one who is “grounded and settled” in the faith will be both knowledgeable and stable in his Christian testimony and ministry.

It is necessary, of course, to build on the foundation of the Lord Jesus (1 Corinthians 3:11), but only the “gold, silver, precious stones” have any lasting value (1 Corinthians 3:12-15) —hence the requirement in Jude: “It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3).

Furthermore, those who continue in the faith will not be “moved away from the hope of the gospel.” That hope acts as “an anchor of the soul” (Hebrews 6:19) and is the drive that motivates us to maintain a pure lifestyle (1 John 3:3). “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58). HMM III

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October 19, 2026
The Fatherhood of God
“For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.” (Acts 17:28)

“The fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man” was a religious cliché promoted for many years, especially by religious liberals in the period between the two world wars. However, continuing hostilities between and inside most nations now make the idea of universal brotherhood in this present world almost farcical.

The fact is, however, that God truly is the Father of all men in the sense that He created them all. “Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?” (Malachi 2:10). That was the rhetorical question posed to Israel in the last book of the Old Testament. In the New Testament the apostle Paul confirmed the same great truth to the pagan Gentiles. “[God] hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth,” and “we are the offspring of God” (Acts 17:26, 29).

The sad fact is, however, that most men and women have actually become “children of the wicked one” because of sin (Matthew 13:38). We can only become spiritual children of the heavenly Father by being born again through faith in Christ. But we then truly “become the sons of God,” as assured to all those who “believe on his name” (John 1:12).

Now we believers can all rejoice in the wonderful truth that we have the same heavenly Father. We have been “renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: where there is neither Greek nor Jew . . . but Christ is all, and in all” (Colossians 3:10-11).

May God help those of us who are (or will someday become) fathers on Earth to truly be children of our Father in heaven and thereby be genuine models of the heavenly Father to our human children here on Earth. HMM

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October 26, 2026
Of the Lord by the Prophet
“And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.” (Matthew 2:15)

What can this gospel writer’s phrase “spoken of the Lord by the prophet” teach us about how to read the Bible? We discover a clear pointer to interpreting Scripture and thus can have confidence that we can correctly understand what God is saying.

The pointer comes from Matthew’s emphasis on the prophet’s words as expressing what the Lord spoke. In today’s text, Matthew did not say that the prophet (Hosea) invented the message or that it merely might have included some divine content. Who said those words—the Lord or Hosea? Apparently, both! Hosea and the rest of the prophets wrote down the exact words the Lord wanted to say.

Fallible humans got to participate in the process of recording infallible words through this miracle of divine inspiration. “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21). Matthew’s confidence that Hosea penned the speech of God Himself can give us the same assurance. Other Bible authors reinforce this.

The prophet Daniel wrote, “In the first year of [Darius’s] reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem” (9:2). Here again we see complete confidence that a prophet—in this case Jeremiah—wrote down “the word of the LORD,” not words that any mere man made up.

Rest assured that the prophets who penned their portions of Scripture wrote our Lord’s exact words. BDT