Bøger af James Kifer

No one, and especially God has ever seriously contended that life is easy. Life's paths are strewn with obstacles, boulders, pitfalls and even mountains that challenge the ability to survive, much less overcome and prevail. No person has ever escaped walking through a dense, at times overwhelming landscape of obstacles. Fortunately, though, the truths of the Scriptures reflect that most of our obstacles may be overcome, or at least their effects moderated. Remaining, though, is the one true problem which makes all humanity kin, a problem which we have no ability to solve.

When the prophet Malachi finished his book circa 400 B.C. the Old Testament revelation of God was complete. He apparently spoke to mankind not at all for some four centuries thereafter. In these 400 years Western Civilization grew from infancy through the glory of Greece to the grandeur of Rome. Colossal figures such as Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar bestrode the world stage. Civilization had spread, but so had the darkness of evil until God's message delivered to a young girl in a small Jewish village heralded the dawning of Light and Life.

A fully united kingdom of ancient Israel was a short lived entity that had only three reigning monarchs. The lives and reigns of these three men, Saul, David and Solomon, provide a fascinating structure to a major portion of the Old Testament. Further, they are an ever relevant primer on how the misuse of power can devastate a nation and poison the soul of its wielder. Their lives are three millenia past, but they lessons they teach about power are as yet unlearned.

To many God is a fierce, wrathful, Divine monarch whose impatience with humanity has long been demon-strated,, nowhere more pointedly than in the Old Testament where He destroyed people and nations with an almost gleeful abandon. According to this version of the Almighty, His character was tempered somewhat by the coming of His Son, and He became the God of the New Testament. Such a view is a travesty, and this work shows the God of Creation, of Moses and of David to the present day to possess a patience beyond the reach of any man or woman.