Charlie Taylor Ministries Podcasts

Exodus 14:19-20, Envision God’s Presence This is Red Sea Rule #7 in Robert Morgan’s book THE RED SEA RULES. The angel of God reflecting God’s glory in the cloud went before the people of Israel leading them in the wilderness. Exodus 13:21-22 tells us that “the Lord went before them by day in a pillar […]

Red Sea Rules 5 and 6-Stay Calm and Live by Faith In Exodus 14:13-14, after the people panic at seeing Pharaoh’s army advancing, Moses told them, “Fear not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord…the Lord will fight for you, while you keep silent”. The people were ready to give up and surrender, […]

The Prayer of a Righteous Man Red Sea prayers are crisis prayers, emergency prayers, and tend to be very intense! In Exodus 14:10, The Egyptians were marching after them, and they became VERY frightened, so the sons of Israel cried out to the Lord”. During seaside prayers like this, fear has a good result because […]

Ephesians 6:10-18, Spiritual Warfare In the materialistic world we live in there has always been wars and aggressive ambitious conquerors. From 335-323 BC, Alexander the Great exerted his will upon the entire Mediterranean world. He invaded Asia and won a series of battles against the larger armies of the Persian Empire. The Persians had terrorized […]

                                       The Glory of God—the Meaning of Life In 1642, the English Parliament led by Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans in England started a civil war against the royalists and King Charles. The Parliament forces won and began putting a coalition of Protestant groups together to agree on Christian doctrine. King Charles claimed to be […]

               The Sovereignty of God as Portrayed in THE RED SEA RULES In his book, THE RED SEA RULES, Robert Morgan has taken the story of Exodus 14 and developed ten rules or principles to live by when you feel trapped by adverse circumstances such as Israel found itself at the Red Sea. God had […]

2 Peter 3—the Day of the Lord and the Coming of Christ The early church found great comfort in the promise of the second coming of Christ. In 2 Peter 3, we see that the false teachers of chapter 2 were trying to shoot holes in the church’s hope, and it was causing turmoil in […]

2 Peter 2, False Teachers Jesus sent His disciples into the world to preach the Gospel, and make disciples of all the nations; but at the same time they were going into the world, the world was also trying to move into the churches. Immediately after Paul’s first missionary journey in which he had planted […]

1 Peter 4:7-19, The Church in a Hostile World In 1 Peter 4:1-4, the Apostle wrote that Christ suffered when He was here in the flesh, but He overcame the suffering because He knew it would have a positive result. The suffering of Christ functions as an example or model for us to follow. We […]

                                               Suffering Innocently-1 Peter 3:13-4:6   In 1 Peter 2:19-20, Peter draws a distinction between suffering innocently and suffering deservedly because of sin. It finds favor with God if a man bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly, but there is no credit from God when it is from wrongdoing. Peter then went on to […]

                                 Good Witnesses, Good Citizens-1 Peter 2:11-25   Peter had affirmed that the church is the elect and holy household of God with all the benefits, privileges, and hope that go with it. The issue he addresses now in this section is how they should behave in the larger society, and in the world they […]

                                   Living Stones—1 Peter 2:4-8   In Peter’s first epistle, he was exhorting his audience to grow spiritually in chapter 2. He used several metaphors to accomplish this. First, he urged them to have a desire for God’s Word that could be likened to a baby’s desire for its mother’s milk. As a baby grows […]

1 Peter 1:13-25, Mission Impossible—Be Holy In 1 Peter 1:1-12, we are told of all the blessings that are ours in Christ. Of course no gift is greater than God’s grace. Just think of it—total forgiveness, peace with God, certain hope in the promise of the second coming of Christ and our resurrection, and eternal […]

The Hope That is in You—The Letters of Peter 1 Peter has two uniting themes of hope and holiness as hallmarks of the reborn children of God. These themes of 1 Peter exhort us to live holy lives now because of the hope that is in us. Our hope is the desired expectancy of the […]

James 2:14-26, Evaluate your Faith During the Reformation in the 16th century, Martin Luther was against including the Letter of James in the Protestant Bible. He believed there was a conflict between James and the letters of Paul pertaining to the means of salvation. Luther called James an “epistle of straw”. In 1543 he wrote […]

James 2:1-13  Partiality with Evil Motives The theme of the book of James is about living out our faith, and being a doer of the Word, not just a hearer. In chapter one, James taught on our faithful response to trials and tribulation, our correct response to temptations, and our correct response to the precepts […]

James 1:13-18, The devil made me do it, or did he? An interesting bit of biblical trivia is that when we see our English translation in the Bible of “testing” (James 1:3), or of “tempting” (James 1:13), the original Greek used the same Greek word for both testing and tempting—peirasmos. The context determines which sense […]

James 1—Consider It All Joy The Letter of James in the New Testament was written by the half brother of Jesus between 45 and 49 AD. James was the head elder in the predominately Jewish Church in Jerusalem (Acts 12:17,15:13). He was writing to Jewish believers who had fled persecution in Jerusalem, and were scattered […]

Mark 10:32-52   The Trek of the Befuddled Earlier in Mark 8:31 and 9:31, Jesus had taught the disciples about the necessity of the upcoming Passion Week when he would be arrested, crucified, and then resurrected. The first time, Peter argued with Him and Jesus sharply rebuked him. The second time we read that “they did […]

Mark 10:17-27  Tthe Rich Young Ruler In Mark 10:13-16, people were bringing their little children to Jesus so that He might touch them and bless them, but His disciples rebuked them and told them to go away. When Jesus saw this He admonished His disciples and ordered them to bring the little children to Him, […]

Mark 7:1-23, Religious Activity vs. Internal Righteousness In Mark 7:1-23, the “religious police” represented by the Pharisees and scribes, came from Jerusalem like private investigators trying to find fault with Jesus. Over and over in all these stories in which Jesus confronts the religious leaders, Jesus reveals their hypocrisy. Externally they were super over the […]

         Mark 6:30-52 In Mark 6:30, we read that the disciples were returning from a mission trip, and they were worn out, and didn’t even have time to eat. Therefore, Jesus told them to get in the boat to cross over to a “lonely place”, meaning a desolate place with no towns. Nevertheless, the multitudes of […]

Mark 5:21-43—The Miracle on the Way to do a Miracle In the church today, many use the name of Jesus and come to His house and think they know Him. In Mark 5:21-43 we see a contrast between a pressing crowd of people who have come to Jesus for their selfish reasons, and a poor […]

Mark 4:35—5:20, The Perfect Storm and the Demoniac By harmonizing the three Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark and Luke, we can see that Jesus and His disciples had been through a whirlwind of activity before the events of Mark 4:35. They were very tired, but the only way to get away from the crowds was […]

Mark 2:13-28:  Opposition and Sabbath Controversy In Mark 2:1-12, four men in Capernaum lowered a paralytic down to Jesus to be healed. To their amazement Jesus said, “Son your sins are forgiven”. It would be like you going to the doctor when you are sick and the doctor said your sins were forgiven. Of course […]

Mark: The Beginning of the Gospel The original title of the Gospel of Mark was based on the first phrase “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Mark used no commas so we don’t know if he was using Christ as a proper name or a description, but for our […]

Joshua 13-19:  Dividing Up the Land to Each Tribe After all the battles in the southern campaign in Joshua 9-10, and the northern campaign in Joshua 11-12, we find the conclusion, “So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses, and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to […]

Joshua 10—The Most Doubted Miracle in the Bible In Joshua 10:1-11, Israel soon learned about the trouble their treaty with Gibeon caused. In chapter 9, Gibeon had fooled Israel by pretending to be a foreign nation outside of Canaan that had come into the land to form an alliance and sign a peace treaty. Joshua […]

Joshua 8-9: The Fall of Ai and the Salvation of Gibeon After the great victory at Jericho Israel had great momentum in their quest to conquer Canaan, but gloom and despair replaced their confidence after the defeat at Ai. God had put a ban on looting, but Achan had stolen gold and silver and put […]

Joshua 6-7:  Shouting at Jericho and a Do-Over at Ai In his book on Joshua, James Boyce says that the most exciting lecture he ever heard was by a professor in military science. He held his students spellbound by describing a brilliant military campaign that employed a rapid strike into the heart of the enemy’s […]

                                 Joshua 3-5:  Israel’s Watershed Event In Joshua 3, the children of Israel were preparing for a watershed event, which was the crossing of the Jordan River into the “promised land”. A watershed is a piece of land that causes a river to change its course, and a watershed event is one that causes a […]

Joshua 2: Rahab The Harlot In Deuteronomy 7:2, Moses commanded Joshua and Israel to completely wipe out the Canaanites, “you shall utterly destroy them”. Before the army of Israel crossed the Jordan River, Joshua sent two spies to scout out the first fortified city in Canaan–Jericho. The walled city of Jericho was the key fortress […]

Joshua 1: Be Strong and Courageous After Moses led the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, he appointed Joshua as the military commander in Exodus 17:9 to fight the Amalekites. Joshua proved himself to be an able and faithful commander, and later in Ex.24:13 we read that Joshua is the trusted servant of […]

                  Boasting for Jesus 2 Corinthians 10-12 This section has quite a different tone to it than chapters 1-9. Paul was primarily interested in his relational issues to the church in Corinth in ch.1-9, but now Paul becomes very confrontational against the false teachers in Corinth and the fools that follow them. False teachers were on […]

                                                 The Grace of God “For you know the GRACE of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.” (2 Cor.8:9). This is one of those awesome passages that really causes you to think. Initially I was quite amazed […]

               The Greatest Deal Ever Made 2 Corinthians 5:14-21   God’s love compelled Him to make the greatest deal ever made to all the people who would believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. God’s offer to us is that God the Son would enter the world by taking on flesh and blood […]

                    Noble Ambition 2 Corinthians 5:9-13 Historically, ambition was usually characterized in a negative light. Julius Caesar had the great unbridled ambition to be the first Emperor of Rome, so his best friends murdered him. They feared his ambition would be the downfall of the Roman Empire. The Puritan Preacher of the House of Commons […]

Groaning with Anticipation  2 Cor. 5:1-8 The context of this forward look anticipating the resurrection is Paul’s situation discussed in the previous chapter. In chapter 4:8-9 he was afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down on a regular basis, but he persevered in spite of it. In 4:10-11, he was always “carrying about in the body […]

The Paradox of Christianity  2 Corinthians 4:7-18 I grew up being taught by parents and teachers that if I obeyed God’s commandments then God would bless me in life. I think this is ingrained in the moral compass of the entire “western world” that is influenced by the Judeo Christian ethic. Yet, our experience may […]

Treasure in Earthen Vessels—2 Corinthians The Apostle Paul had written a scathing letter to the church at Corinth admonishing them for immoral behavior (1 Corinthians). Now at the end of his third missionary journey, he had the difficult task of writing to them again regarding a different issue. Fortunately, the church had responded to his […]

                       2 Corinthians 3-Let’s Make a New Deal We are all familiar with the long running TV show “Let’s Make a Deal”. The host gives you a good deal that has good value, but later offers you a NEW DEAL. You can choose to make a new deal behind a curtain. Some people like the […]

2 Corinthians 1: The God of all Comfort Second Corinthians is a personal letter to an audience that the Apostle Paul knew very well. Paul had planted the first church in Corinth about five years earlier while he lived there for 18 months. Paul was originally Saul of Tarsus, a Jew who was so well […]

Corinth—Known for Immorality Corinth was a major city in Greece in the first century that was known for its moral corruption. There was actually a word coined in Greek which translated was “to behave like a Corinthian” which meant immorality and drunken debauchery. In 1 Cor. 6:9-10, Paul listed the typical lifestyle in Corinth—pornography, idolatry, […]

Jesus in Isaiah 53 Isaiah 52:13 through 53:12, is often called “The Servant’s Song”. This song or poem is unique because most of the verb tenses are in the future, but some of it lies in the present. Therefore it has a timeless quality of it as if this servant will affect everyone whether they […]

Isaiah 40: Comfort My People In Isaiah 39:6-7, the prophet Isaiah told King Hezekiah of Jerusalem that in the future, Babylon would attack Jerusalem, destroy the city, and carry the survivors off to Babylon as captives. All the nobles of Jerusalem would become servants to the king of Babylon. Isaiah predicted this about 700 BC, […]

Isaiah 36-37: The Prayer of Hezekiah The year was about 701 BC, and the dominant empire in the Middle East was Assyria. The King of Judah and Jerusalem was Hezekiah and God’s prophet in Jerusalem was Isaiah. 2 Kings 18 gives us the historical account from the Jewish perspective. Judah was a tiny nation caught […]

Isaiah 14: Shake Hands with the Devil About 730 BC the king of Judah and Jerusalem was Ahaz, and 2 Kings 16 tells us he was truly evil and was involved in leading the people into idolatry. He was so bad that he even sacrificed his first born son to the idols. The two kings […]

Isaiah 7—God’s Sign to Judah, the Virgin Birth In 730 BC, the nation of Assyria was the most powerful nation in the Near East. Operating from their capital of Nineveh in Mesopotamia they spread their domination in all directions. One of their ambitions was Egypt, but between them and Egypt lay smaller nations like Syria, […]

Isaiah 6: Anthropology Anthropology is a big word with a lot of definitions and very differing views. Is it important? Your anthropology determines your view of God, it determines your view of religion, sin, salvation, and many other things. Most picture it from a secular worldly view, so a Biblical view of anthropology is in […]

Isaiah the Prophet Prophecy begins in Genesis, but the section of the Bible called the Prophets begins with Isaiah. The prophets were men raised up by God in a decadent immoral time when neither priest nor king was a worthy channel for God to speak to His people. The uniqueness of the prophets was their […]

Samson’s Hair I have never heard a sermon from the pulpit about the virtues of Samson. They avoid him like the plague. The library is full of books about biblical characters, but few about Samson. If you are like me you grew up with an inaccurate view of Samson. We can find his story in […]