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Scott LaPierre Ministries: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Scott LaPierre
Scott LaPierre is a pastor, author, and Christian speaker on marriage. This podcast includes his conference messages, guest preaching, and expository sermons at Woodland Christian Church. Each of Scott’s messages is the result of hours of studying the Bible. Scott and his wife, Katie, grew up together in northern California, and God has blessed them with nine children.
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- 1 weeks ago
Haggai 2:15–19 Explained: From This Day On I Will Bless You
In Haggai 2:15–19, God promises, “From this day on I will bless you,” while the temple is unfinished and the barn is empty. Pastor Scott LaPierre explains why we should remember the cost of neglecting God, begin obeying before we see results, and obey whether or not visible blessings follow. The message concludes with the hope of Galatians 3:13–14: Christ bore the curse so that we can receive blessing through faith in Him.
- 1 weeks ago29 min
Haggai 2:10–14 Explained: Why Religious Activity Cannot Make Us Holy
Haggai 2:10–14 explains why religious activity cannot make us holy, how uncleanness spreads, and how Jesus gives sinners the righteousness they cannot produce.
- 2 weeks ago29 min
Why Did God Destroy the Canaanites? 400 Years of Mercy
Why did God destroy the Canaanites? It is one of the most common objections raised against the God of the Bible. When people want to criticize Him, they point to the conquest of Canaan and ask how a good God could command the destruction of an entire people. The title of this study might sound like it does not make sense: God’s mercy to the Canaanites. When we think of the Canaanites, we think of judgment, not mercy. But even though the Canaanites are one of the clearest pictures of God’s judgment in Scripture, they are also one of the clearest pictures of His mercy—and my hope is that you will see that by the time you finish reading. Table of contentsGod Told Abraham the Canaanites Were Not Wicked Enough YetGod’s Mercy to the Canaanites: He Gave Them Centuries to RepentGod’s Mercy to the Canaanites: He Spared Rahab and Her FamilyGod’s Mercy to the Canaanites: He Spared the GibeonitesOnly One City in Canaan Wanted Peace with GodGod’s Mercy Can Be Shown to Us the Same WayThey Had Faith in GodThey Feared GodThey Repented of Their SinsGod’s Mercy Is Available to YouFrequently Asked QuestionsWhy did God destroy the Canaanites instead of forgiving them?How long did God give the Canaanites to repent?Were any Canaanites saved? God Told Abraham the Canaanites Were Not Wicked Enough Yet To answer the question, we have to go back long before Joshua ever set foot in the land. God made the Abrahamic Covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12, and one of the most important parts of that covenant was the land of Canaan that God promised to give Abraham’s descendants. God repeated the covenant in Genesis 15, and that is where He told Abraham how long the wait would be: Genesis 15:13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. This was not the best news for Abraham to receive. He learned that his descendants would not receive the land for four hundred years, and that while they waited they would suffer. This refers to their time in Egypt. If I were Abraham, I would be thinking, “I sure hope there is a good reason my descendants have to suffer for four hundred years. It had better be for some great, godly people!” The news gets a little better in the next verse: Genesis 15:14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Abraham learned that God would judge Egypt, and that Israel would leave with much of Egypt’s wealth—which is exactly what happened. Exodus 12:36 says they plundered the Egyptians when they left. Abraham even received some personal news: Genesis 15:15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. In other words, “All your descendants will suffer terribly—but do not worry, you will be fine!” Then God told Abraham the reason Israel could not enter the Promised Land for four centuries, and I suspect it would have been very disturbing for him to hear: Genesis 15:16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” Put simply: the Amorites had not been bad enough yet. In Abraham’s day the Canaanites were broadly defined as Amorites, because they were the most prominent group in Canaan. And that brings us to the first way God showed His mercy to them. God’s Mercy to the Canaanites: He Gave Them Centuries to Repent God told Abraham his descendants could not enter the Promised Land because He was waiting for the wickedness of the land’s inhabitants to reach the level that warranted the judgment He would pour out on them. Think about what that looked like year after year. Each year that passed, the Canaanites came closer to the point when God’s divine longsuffering could no longer put up with them. Each year they engaged in more wickedness, which meant more of God’s wrath was stored up against them. Finally, when they exhausted His patience, He would unleash His righteous fury: the suffering of the Israelites in Egypt would be over, and He would use Israel to remove the Canaanites from the land. But until that happened, what could the Canaanites still do? They could repent. Otherwise, why give them all that time? Here is the question I want you to consider. If God wanted to be merciful to the Canaanites, how long do you think He might give them? A few weeks? A few months? Maybe a few years if He wanted to be really merciful? He gave the Ninevites forty days. He gave the Canaanites more than four hundred years. 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. Notice that Peter had to say the Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise—referring to His promise of judgment—because that is the criticism against Him. He is
- 4 weeks ago48 min
Why the Second Temple’s Glory Was Greater Than Solomon’s (Haggai 2:6–9)
Years ago I told my mentor, Barry Branaman, that there were three temples. He disagreed with me, so I opened my study Bible and showed him the note: Solomon built the first, the returning exiles built the second, and Herod built the third. Barry shook his head and said Herod never built a third temple; he simply enlarged the one that was already standing. He was right, and that small correction opened up something I have never gotten over. It is the key to understanding why the second temple's glory was greater than the glory of Solomon's magnificent house, even though the men who built it wept when they saw what they had made. Count the temples for yourself and the confusion grows. Scripture points to a rebuilt temple during the tribulation, which would make four. Ezekiel gives the dimensions of a temple during the Millennium, which would make five. So how many temples are there? The answer, believe it or not, is one. Every one of them is the same house, on the same mountain, at the same address, and one Person keeps showing up there. https://youtu.be/0OB2hVKwUNQ Table of contentsThere Has Always Been Only One TempleJesus Appeared on Moriah to Abraham and IsaacThe Ram in Isaac's PlaceJesus Appeared on Moriah with DavidGod Will Shake Everything That Can Be Shaken"The Silver Is Mine, and the Gold Is Mine"The One Thing Missing When the Foundation Was LaidThe Desire of All Nations Would ComeWhy the Second Temple's Glory Was GreaterJesus Gives Peace on MoriahOne Mountain, One House, One Person There Has Always Been Only One Temple Let me give you the scriptural support before I explain the significance. Look back a few verses in the passage we have been walking through: Haggai 2:3 — "Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes?" How many houses are mentioned in that verse? One. God does not ask, "Who saw the former temple, and how does it compare to this new one?" He does not ask them to hold the first temple up against the second. He asks how this house looks now, because in His reckoning there is only one house to look at. The same thing happens at the end of the paragraph: Haggai 2:9 — "The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts." God does not say the latter temple will be greater than the former temple. He says the latter glory of this house will be greater than its former glory. One building, two seasons of glory. Why does God talk this way? Because it is one house on one mountain, and that mountain has a history. So when you think about the temple, do not think only about a building. Think about a location. God had that location in mind before Israel ever crossed the Jordan: Deuteronomy 12:5 — "You shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there." Six times in that chapter God says the place. Not a place. He had one address picked out, and this morning we are going to visit it three times, because Christ visited it three times. Jesus Appeared on Moriah to Abraham and Isaac Genesis 22:1-2 — "After these things God tested Abraham... 'Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.'" We know what the test was: whether Abraham would give up his son. But notice that Abraham could have passed that test in his own backyard, and God would not allow it. Abraham was in Beersheba, and Moriah was fifty miles away. Three days of walking, with a boy and a bundle of firewood and a knife. God did not only choose a son. He chose a place. If you write in your Bible, circle the word Moriah, draw a line, and write 2 Chronicles 3:1, which tells us Moriah is the mountain in Jerusalem where the temple was built. Then, with the knife in the air, a voice interrupts: Genesis 22:11-12 — "But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven... 'Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.'" Read that slowly, because the pronouns are doing something remarkable. We would expect the angel to say, "You fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son from Him," or "You fear Me, seeing you have not withheld your son from Me." Instead He speaks about God and then identifies Himself as the One the sacrifice was being offered to. He does that because He is God. The Angel of the Lord is the pre-incarnate Christ, the Son of God before Bethlehem. That is why He appears all through the Old Testament and seems to vanish in the New. He did not vanish. He came as a Man. The Ram in Isaac's Place Genesis 22:13 — "And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ra
- Aug 10, 202628 min
God’s Answer to Discouragement | Haggai 2:1–5
Last week we finished Haggai 1 with one of the great turnarounds in the Old Testament: sixteen years of neglect ended in twenty-three days. Haggai preached, the people repented, and they went back to work on the house of the Lord. Surely it was smooth sailing from there to the dedication. But when we open chapter 2, we find an enemy already standing on the job site — one that carried no sword, laid no siege, and wrote no letters to the king like the opponents in Ezra 4. This enemy showed up inside the people's hearts while they worked, and its name was discouragement. God's answer to discouragement in Haggai 2:1–5 is not what most of us would expect, and it is exactly what discouraged believers still need to hear. https://youtu.be/RgE6yiSYnxw Table of contentsWhy the Second Temple Looked Like NothingTwo Journeys: Exile and ReturnLesson One: Comparison Often Leads to Pride or DiscouragementWhen the Comparison Flatters UsWhen the Comparison Does Not Flatter UsWe Are Expert ComparersTwenty-Six Days Later, God Speaks AgainWhy the Twenty-First Day of the Seventh Month MatteredGod Said Out Loud What Everyone Was ThinkingLesson Two: Discouragement Is the Worst and Most Common Reason We Step BackLesson Three: God's Answer to Discouragement Is "Keep Working""My Spirit Remains in Your Midst"Why "Fear Not"?Solomon's Gold Was Never the SecretYour Labor Is Not in Vain Why the Second Temple Looked Like Nothing Before we read what God said to these discouraged people, we need the background that explains why they were discouraged in the first place. King David was a man of war who spent decades subduing Israel's enemies, so when he handed the kingdom to his son, the nation was completely at peace. First Kings 5:4 says Solomon had rest on every side. When David wanted to build the temple himself, God told him he could not, because he had shed so much blood; his son would build it instead. So David did everything a father could do to set his son up for success, stockpiling the materials and the wealth the project would require. Those are the two reasons Solomon's temple became a wonder of the ancient world. He built during a season of peace with no opposition, and he built with almost unlimited resources. When the Jews came home from exile to rebuild, they faced almost the exact opposite. They met constant opposition from the surrounding peoples, and their resources were painfully limited. Remember what God told them through Haggai: Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house. (Haggai 1:8) They had to climb into the surrounding hills and haul down the wood and stone themselves. So when the foundation of the new temple was finally laid, how do you think it looked next to Solomon's? Pretty bad. And here is where you might be thinking: who would even notice? Solomon's temple had been destroyed decades earlier. Nobody was left who remembered it. Not quite. Two Journeys: Exile and Return The Jews were not carried off to Babylon all at once. They went in three waves. The first deportation came in 605 BC, when Daniel and his friends were taken. The second came in 597 BC, when the prophet Ezekiel was taken. The third came in 586 BC, when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed. Now notice something. God told His people through Jeremiah that the exile would last seventy years, and that clock started in 605 BC with the first deportation. So the seventy years ran from 605 BC to 536 BC. But the Jews taken in that final wave in 586 BC were only in Babylon for forty-eight years, from 586 BC to 538 BC. Hold onto that, because the returns came in three waves as well. Zerubbabel led the first return in 538 BC, recorded in Ezra chapters 1–7. Ezra led the second eighty years later in 458 BC, recorded in Ezra chapters 8–10. Nehemiah led the third thirteen years after that in 445 BC, recorded in the book that bears his name. Put the two halves together and something important emerges. A man taken young in that last deportation of 586 BC would have seen Solomon's temple with his own eyes before it burned, lived out the remaining forty-eight years of exile, and come home with Zerubbabel in the first return. He was standing right there when the new foundation was laid. Here is what happened: And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord, according to the directions of David king of Israel. And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, "For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel." And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. (Ezra 3:10–11) At first glance this looks like an unqualified triumph: priests in their ceremonial vestments, trumpets, Levites with cymbals, two choirs answering one another a
- Aug 2, 202626 min
What God Says When We Repent | Haggai 1:9–15
Have you ever been through a season when nothing seemed to work? The car and the water heater die in the same month. You finally get a little ahead financially, and an unexpected bill shows up. You work harder than ever and somehow end up further behind. Most of the time we can't say for certain why hard seasons happen — but in Haggai 1:9–15, God tells His people exactly what He says when we repent, and what was really behind their hardship all along. https://youtu.be/96WuM0aS7Do Table of contentsThe Setup: Sixteen Years of NeglectWho Was Really Behind Their HardshipLesson One: We Should Ask Whether God Is Disciplining UsLesson Two: Obedience and Fear Are the Right Response to God's WordLesson Three: We Find God With Us the Moment We ObeyLesson Four: God Works in Us While We Are WorkingThe Restart Doesn't Take as Long as the DriftGod With Us, Fully The Setup: Sixteen Years of Neglect The Jews had returned from exile to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Then they stopped — for sixteen years — to focus on their own lives instead. Haggai 1:6–7 describes how that went for them: "You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes." "Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways." (Haggai 1:6–7) Nothing was working out for them. So God told them what to do about it in Haggai 1:8: "Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord." They needed to make God a priority again and finish the temple. Who Was Really Behind Their Hardship Now we come to the passage for this post — and it names exactly who was behind their suffering: "You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house." "Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors." (Haggai 1:9–11) All this time, bad things had been happening to them, and they probably didn't know why. Maybe they thought they were unlucky. Maybe they assumed this was simply what life was like back in the Promised Land, or that they'd had a run of bad harvests. Maybe they blamed each other, or their leaders. But in these verses they learned that God Himself was causing it. In verse 9 He says, "I blew it away." In verse 11 He says, "I have called for a drought." It's one thing when bad things happen. It's another thing entirely to find out God is the one behind them. There's even a wordplay in the original Hebrew that Haggai's hearers would have caught immediately: Verse 9 — "God's house lies in ruins" — the Hebrew word is hareb Verse 11 — "God called for a drought" — the Hebrew word is horeb Same root. The message was built into the very sound of the words: "You left My house desolate, so I left your land desolate." The condition of their fields matched the condition of the temple. Lesson One: We Should Ask Whether God Is Disciplining Us There are two causes of suffering — trials and discipline — and understanding the difference matters more than we usually realize. Trials. We suffer because of the trials we experience. We did nothing to cause this suffering; it's simply the suffering that comes with living in a fallen world. Discipline. We also suffer because of the sins we commit. In this case, we did everything to cause it. Along with Job, 1 Peter is the other main book in the Bible dealing with suffering, and it lays these two categories side by side: "For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly." (1 Peter 2:19) — suffering from a trial we did nothing to cause. "For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure?" (1 Peter 2:20a) — suffering because we sinned, and God disciplined us for it. "But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God." (1 Peter 2:20b) — suffering for doing good: a trial. 1 Peter 3:17 lays the two side by side almost word for word: "For it is better to suffer for doing good (trial), if that should be God's will, than for doing evil (discipline)." And 1 Peter 4:15–16 shows both again: suffering as an evildoer is discipline we bring on ourselves, while suffering as a Christian is a trial we did nothing to cause. Consider how badly Job's friends got this wrong. They looked at his suffering and reasoned backward: he is suffering, therefore he must have sinned; God must be disciplining him. They put Job in the wro
- Jul 27, 202624 min
Do Not Despise the Day of Small Things: God Takes Pleasure in Faithful Work
One of the most fitting verses for our homes is one you will almost never see on a plaque or wall hanging: Zechariah 4:10, which warns us not to despise the day of small things. Most of our days are filled with small, ordinary tasks, and we are tempted to look right past them. Yet this is exactly the trap the returning Jews fell into while rebuilding the temple—until God sent the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to tell them He took pleasure in the very work they thought was insignificant. We often think the verses worth framing are the familiar favorites—"Trust in the Lord with all your heart" (Proverbs 3:5–6), "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10), or "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15). But the verse that speaks most directly to the ordinary rhythm of our lives is the one that reminds us God rejoices over faithful work that looks small in our eyes. https://youtu.be/CvaztkjwCmg Table of contentsThe Context: A Small, Struggling CommunityLesson One: We Obey for God's Pleasure, Not Our BenefitZechariah's Vision of the LampstandLesson Two: God Supplies the Strength for the Work He CommandsThe Promises Attached to the WorkWhy the Temple Looked So SmallLesson Three: God Finds Pleasure in the Small, Ordinary Things We DoThe Significance of Our Ordinary WorkPointing to Christ The Context: A Small, Struggling Community We have been working verse by verse through the book of Haggai, so let me set the scene. The Jews had returned from exile and begun rebuilding the temple, but then stopped for sixteen years. God raised up Haggai and Zechariah to get them working again. In Haggai 1:6 (ESV), God describes just how poorly life was going for them: "You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes." Nothing was working out. They planted much and harvested little. They ate but stayed hungry. They drank but stayed thirsty. They dressed but stayed cold. They earned wages, but the money seemed to disappear into "a bag with holes." Into this discouragement, God gave a command in Haggai 1:8 (ESV): "Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD." When we looked at this verse last week, we focused on the command: start rebuilding the temple. But I deliberately saved the second half of the verse for this study, because it holds a surprise. Lesson One: We Obey for God's Pleasure, Not Our Benefit Here is a question worth pausing on. Because things were going so badly for the Jews, how would you expect the second half of Haggai 1:8 to read? Something like this, perhaps: "Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that…your lives will be better." You would expect God to promise full barns, satisfied stomachs, warm clothing, and a wallet that finally holds its money. But that is not what He says. God told them to build "that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified." And that brings us to our first lesson: we should primarily obey for God's pleasure rather than our own benefit. Let's be honest about why we sometimes obey. If you are anything like me, the inner logic often sounds like this: "If I have my devotions, my day will go better." "If I give, God will protect my finances." "If I serve, my family will be blessed." Now, God often does bless obedience. Later in this same book, He tells these very people, in Haggai 2:19 (ESV), "From this day on…I will bless you." But being blessed should not be the primary motive. Consider the problem with obeying merely to be blessed: what happens when we obey and the blessing does not come? We lose our motivation, and we may even feel shortchanged, as though God failed to hold up His end of the bargain. But when God's pleasure is our aim, we will always be motivated to obey. Paul lived this way. In 2 Corinthians 5:9 (ESV), he writes, "Whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him." An aim is a target you point at. Whatever Paul was doing—tentmaking, traveling, preaching, sitting in prison—the target never moved. Enoch's entire life is summarized in a single phrase in Hebrews 11:5 (ESV): he "was commended as having pleased God." Imagine your whole life summarized in five words. Could there be a better five? And here is what stands out to me most: the LORD of hosts, who commands the armies of heaven, said that the obedience of this small, struggling community would bring Him pleasure. That is deeply encouraging, because it means my little obedience can please God too. Zechariah's Vision of the Lampstand Haggai and Zechariah were contemporaries, prophesying at the same time, and Zechariah was making a strikingly similar point. God gave Zechariah eight visions, and we are looking at the fifth. It begins in Zechariah 4
- Jul 17, 202628 min
Put God First: Stop Delaying Obedience | Haggai 1:1–8
Last time, I gave you an overview of the Book of Ezra so we'd have a foundation for understanding Haggai. You might remember we read Ezra 4:24, which says the work on the house of God stopped for sixteen years — and then, in the very next verse, Ezra 5:1 says Haggai and Zechariah began prophesying, and the people got back to work. I told you then that you were probably wondering what Haggai actually said to get people working again after sixteen years. This is the morning we start finding out. For the next several weeks, we're going to walk verse by verse through the Book of Haggai, and this morning we begin with the sermon that restarted a stalled nation — a sermon that, at its core, is about learning to put God first instead of putting Him off. https://youtu.be/d3JfYBOv33Y Table of ContentsThese Were Mature, Godly PeopleHaggai 1:1 — Who Received the WordLesson One: God Graciously Speaks to Us Even After Years of NeglectLesson Two: Delayed Obedience Often Disguises Itself as "Not the Right Time"Haggai 1:3–4 — Paneled HousesConsider Your WaysLesson Three: When God Is Not First, Even Good Pursuits Become FrustratingHaggai 1:8 — Go Up and BuildLesson Four: God Is Glorified by the Priorities We Practice, Not Merely the Priorities We ProfessConclusion: Consider Your Ways These Were Mature, Godly People Before we read a single verse, you need to know something about the Jews this book is written to. They're going to look pretty bad for starting the temple and then stopping for sixteen years — but they were mature, godly people. Remember, last time we looked at Ezra 2:64, which said there were only 42,360 people in the first return — about 2% of the Jewish population. The other 98% wanted to stay in Persia, where they'd lived for decades and built lives, businesses, and families. The Persians were sufficiently favorable toward the Jews to allow this small remnant to return and rebuild. Consider what returning actually meant: A roughly 900-mile, four-month journey back to Jerusalem — long, unpleasant, and dangerous. Leaving behind most of their friends and family, since so few chose to go. Walking away from established businesses and lives after seventy years in Babylon. Returning to a monumental building project in a city with no homes, no walls, and no defenses. No material resources, many enemies, and land still in the possession of another empire. These Jews had a heart for God. And here's the application: if what we're about to read can happen to Jews who were serious about their faith, it can happen to even the most mature Christians too. Haggai 1:1 — Who Received the Word Haggai 1:1 — In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Notice who receives the word: the governor and the high priest — the civil leader and the spiritual leader. When God wants to move a people, He typically begins with their leaders. The date given — "the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month" — is August 29, 520 BC, exactly when we read last time that Haggai started preaching (Ezra 4:24). The first day of the month was the new moon, a feast day when the people gathered together (Numbers 10:10). God delivered this message on the day the maximum number of people would hear it. Lesson One: God Graciously Speaks to Us Even After Years of Neglect The Jews returned to Jerusalem for one purpose. Cyrus's decree wasn't "go re-occupy the land" — it was go rebuild the house of the Lord (Ezra 1:3). That was the mission. And for sixteen years, the mission sat abandoned while everyone got on with life. If God had stayed silent for another sixteen years, no one could have accused Him of injustice. If He'd sent another Nebuchadnezzar, they could hardly have been surprised — that's what happened the last time the people ignored Him for decades. But remember how last week's message ended: He didn't send an army or a new king. He sent preachers with His Word. God's gracious first move toward a people who had neglected Him for sixteen years was to speak to them. He clearly hadn't given up on them. There's a real application here. Maybe you stopped going to church for years. You always meant to go back, but the longer you stayed away, the more awkward walking through the doors felt. Maybe you haven't really prayed in longer than you can remember, or you can't recall the last time you opened your Bible on your own — and "someday" has slowly turned into "probably never." Maybe you haven't served in years, like you know you should. Or maybe the sixteen years is something you've been doing rather than neglecting: pornography that's had a grip on you so long you can't remember life without it; alcohol that started as a way to unwind an
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About Scott LaPierre Ministries
Scott LaPierre is a pastor, author, and Christian speaker on marriage. This podcast includes his conference messages, guest preaching, and expository sermons at Woodland Christian Church. Each of Scott’s messages is the result of hours of studying the Bible. Scott and his wife, Katie, grew up together in northern California, and God has blessed them with nine children.
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How often does Scott LaPierre Ministries release new episodes?
Scott LaPierre Ministries publishes weekly. Our AI generates a summary within hours of each new episode.
What topics does Scott LaPierre Ministries cover?
Scott LaPierre Ministries covers topics including Parenting, Religion & Spirituality, Spirituality, Christianity, Kids & Family, Family. Our AI identifies the specific themes in each episode and highlights what matters most to you.
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