Bart Byl Sermons

Bart Byl on Nahum 1 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament Welcome to the least-preached book of the Bible. Nahum's message of God's wrath against Nineveh makes for uncomfortable reading. But for those suffering under oppression, God's destruction of evil is good news indeed. Make no mistake: Christ came to bind the strong man and plunder his house. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more i...

Bart Byl on Micah 4:1-8, 5:2-4 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament Micah is a prophecy, alternatively, of warning and promise. Stern judgment on the sin of Israel and Judah is suddenly following by the most stunning visions of future peace and glory. Because God is determined that his grace through the coming Messiah will get the last word. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informa...

Bart Byl on ⁠ Jonah 3-4 ⁠ . Series: Christ in the Old Testament The Assyrians were the cruel and bloodthirsty empire of the ancient world. Yet God sends the prophet Jonah on a mission to Nineveh, the capital of this terrorist state. Jonah is angry when God responds mercifully to their repentance. But there's a wideness in God's mercy, and he shows inexplicable compassion to his whole creation — ou...

Bart Byl on ⁠ Obadiah 1-21 ⁠ . Series: Christ in the Old Testament When Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, the Edomites had gloated over Israel's downfall. Now God warns their own judgement is coming—and reminds the exiled Jews he has seen and will respond to their affliction. "Vengeance is mine," God declares, and it's our trust in him as the only one who can bring justice that allows us to drop...

Bart Byl on Amos 5:4-24 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament Through Amos, God denounces the social injustice that supports the decadent lifestyles of the upper class in the the northern kingdom of Israel. God wants his people to hate evil and love good, because they're meant to be a scale model of what his reign looks like. It's the kingdom of righteousness and justice Christ came to inaugurate...

Bart Byl on Joel 2:1-2, 10-11, 18-19, 25-32 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament The 'day of the Lord' is the climax of wrath and judgment that will end history. And since judgement begins with the household of God, this day calls all of us to search our hearts and repent and return to God. For those who have pure hearts before God realize that God's judgement means salvation. Hosted on Acast. Se...

Bart Byl on Hosea 1 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament God tells the prophet Hosea to marry a promiscuous woman, as a visible enactment of God's tempestuous relationship with faithless Israel. And when Gomer runs off to live with another man, God sends Hosea to find her, pay off her debts, forgive her betrayal, and renew his vows to her. The prophet's marriage (and all of our own marriages) poi...

Bart Byl on Daniel 2 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament The seer Daniel pulls back the curtain on the cosmic battlefield to show us the supernatural forces of darkness and light battling over the fate of humanity. Empire succeeds empire, all different manifestations of the beast — but in the end every human kingdom will fall and Christ alone will reign in love and justice. Hosted on Acast....

Bart Byl on Ezekiel 47:1-12 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament No prophet acted more strangely or received more psychedelic visions of God than Ezekiel. In the aftermath of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, Ezekiel is shown the glorious future Israel's God has planned for her — a new temple, and from underneath the temple, a river that flows toward the dead places and turns everything...

Bart Byl on Lamentations 4:11-13, 5:1-22 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament Lamentations is a collection of five poems in which the poet (traditionally, Jeremiah) grieves over the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587 BC. Not all suffering is deserved, but this affliction is: God is punishing Judah for her wickedness. Will God relent and show mercy? Lamentations ends with uncertainty, but...

Bart Byl on Jeremiah 37-38:13a,28 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament More than any of the OT prophets, Jeremiah gives us a sense of the agony of the prophetic call. He was called to experience the suffering love of God for his sinful people—but also to fully share the suffering of Israel under judgement. Jeremiah is thus a powerful Old Testament witness to the Incarnation of Christ. Hosted on A...

Bart Byl on Isaiah 52:13-53:12 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament The prophet Isaiah penned a soaring vision of God's transcendent majesty and the restoration of Israel — and through her, the redemption of the nations and the renewal of all creation. But at the heart of his prophecy is the announcement of the Suffering Servant who will bear the sins of his people and open the floodgates of divi...

Bart Byl on Song of Songs 2:3-13, 8:6-7 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament At the most obvious level, this poem is a celebration of erotic love between a man and a woman. Their desire is physical and sensual; it is not merely sexual but involves the burning desire of one person for complete union with another. It's a celebration of God's gift of embodied, marital sexuality. And married love at...

Bart Byl on Ecclesiastes 1 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament Someone observed that if you’re depressed you should read Ecclesiastes. You’ll still be depressed, but now you’ll be depressed biblically . The author of Ecclesiastes tears away the pretensions and illusions that shield us from facing the absurdity of life. His one great certainty is that we’re all going to die — this little vap...

Bart Byl on Proverbs 8. Series: Christ in the Old Testament In the Book of Proverbs we hear the voice of a good father advising his son on how to live life well. All of us are invited to embrace wisdom and learn how to operate skilfully in God's reality. Christ, who is the wisdom of God and the living blueprint of the cosmic order, came into this world to be the listening son who heeded his father...

Bart Byl on John 14:15-27 . In the days before his arrest, Jesus takes his disciples aside to teach them and give them the encouragement they will soon sorely need. He emphasizes that when he returns to the Father, he will not leave them as orphans: he will send his promised Holy Spirit. For the church ever since then, the Holy Spirit's presence has infused us with new life and great confidence in...

Bart Byl on Psalm 40 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament For thousands of years, the Psalms have shaped the worship of the people of God. These ancient prayers give us the words to lament the brokenness of the world, to cry out to God from the terrible pit, and to praise him for his mighty acts of deliverance. But our reading of this book is transformed when we remember these 150 psalms are the...

Bart Byl on Job 19:1-27. Series: Christ in the Old Testament Job was a good man: the most righteous in the East. But God allows Satan to strip him of everything. Job cries out to God out of is pain and wonders how a good God could inflict such cruelty on his servant. Job’s friends argue that Job must have some secret sin, but Job knows his own integrity. In the end, there’s only one thing Job is a...

Bart Byl on Esther 3:1-6, 13-4:5, 12-16 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament A young Jewish woman, Esther, rises through the harem to become Queen of Persia. Five years later, her fellow Jews are in deadly peril of being wiped out by the vengeful Prime Minister. When Esther hesitates to risk her own position, her cousin Mordecai reminds her that God may well have raised her up for such a time as...

Bart Byl on Luke 24:1-12 . If Jesus really has been raised from the dead, that would change everything. It would mean victory over death and a future filled with hope. But why should we trust the witness of the women and the disciples? What if they’re liars, or deluded? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bart Byl on John 12:20-33 . Jesus has been welcomed to Jerusalem by the cheering crowds. But when a group of God-fearing Greeks ask to see Jesus, he announces his time has come: his time to fall into the ground like a seed and die for the world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bart Byl on Nehemiah 2 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament December, 446 BC, in the Persian capital city Susa. Nehemiah, King Artaxerxes’s cupbearer, is devastated to hear of the broken-down condition of his native Jerusalem. With the king’s blessing, he heads to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall: a project that is delayed by malevolent neighbours and community corruption. It’s a story in miniature...

Bart Byl on Ezra 7:1-16, 25-28 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament In 538 BC, the Persian King Cyrus the Great gave the exiled Jews permission to return to their homeland. Zerubbabel led a first wave of 42,360 returnees back to rebuild the temple. Then, sixty years later, sent Ezra the priest-scribe to Jerusalem to instruct the people in the law of God. But there’s only so much even a gifted and...

Bart Byl on 2 Chronicles 6:12-7:3 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament The highest point of King Solomon’s reign finds him in the centre of a great throng of worshippers, spreading out his hands in prayer to God. It’s as though the most kingly act is to be on your knees interceding for the people God has entrusted to you. Do we realise how much we owe to King Jesus who is continually interceding...

Bart Byl on 1 Chronicles 17 . Series: Christ in the Old Testament David is feeling guilty about living in a place of cedar while the ark of God lives in a tent. He wants to build a temple for God, but God turns him down. Instead, God says, “I am going to build you a house—a great dynasty, with a king who will sit on your throne forever.” God’s relationship with human beings will always be asymmetr...