May 18
I had a long wait leaving Prescott, Arizona, but finally the right man came along. “I don’t know why I stopped,” he said. “You’re the first man I’ve ever picked up.” “Perhaps the Lord had something to do with it,” I replied. When I asked if he would like to be saved and know it, he exclaimed, “Just this week I went to see a preacher. I asked if he could tell me how to get right with God. He said, ‘Join my church and pay your tithes.’” I said, “It would have done you just as much good if you had joined the Elks and paid your dues. Salvation isn’t by joining or paying, but by believing and...
Read MoreMay 17
“In the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be self lovers, money lovers,…pleasure lovers and no God lovers; having a form of godliness, but denying its power” (2 Tim 3:1-5). Who are the people we meet every day? George Barna writes: “The most quoted ‘Bible verse’ in America is: ‘God helps those who help themselves’; 82 percent believe that is a direct quote from the Bible…Our research has discovered that fewer than 10 percent of American Christians actually possess a biblical worldview…In short, the spirituality of Americans is Christian in name only. We desire experience...
Read MoreMay 16
In his remarkable account, Incidents of Gospel Work, Charles Stanley of Rotherham, England writes: “On one occasion I felt a distinct call to preach at a place I had only seen once. I did not know the name of the town, but I described it to a person from Staffordshire, who told me it was Uttoxeter. I continued in prayer during that week. On Friday I received a letter from Tenby, South Wales, enclosing a letter from a believer from Uttoxeter, asking the lady in Tenby if she could forward the enclosed letter to me. It was a request for me to preach the gospel at Uttoxeter. I immediately went...
Read MoreMay 15
Do you take the Bible literally? The answer, of course, is “Yes and No.” A good answer this question: We take the Bible in its plain and obvious sense, unless otherwise indicated. It may be better to say we take a literary approach to the Word of God. Like any great literature, there are different ways of expressing ideas. Robert Little writes: “Parts of the Bible are obviously written in symbolic language, for example, Ezekiel’s vision of the cherubim. The book of Revelation is declared to be communicated in symbolic language (1:1), and it contains much that must be taken in this way. An...
Read MoreMay 14
It is feared that much Christian activity is attempted without the work resting on a solid foundation of prayer, holiness, Bible study and dependence on the Spirit of God. In his book “From Death to Life,” William Haslam tells how he was busy with the construction of the new church building were he served. But he wasn’t even saved! An elderly Cornish woman, deeply taught in the things of God, arrested him one day as he walked by her cottage: “Mr. Haslam, are ye goin’ to build your spire from the top?” The question was an arrow to his heart, and he couldn’t get the thought out of his mind....
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