April 8
George Whitfield, who preached more than 18,000 times, was one of the most widely recognized public figures in colonial America. During the Great Awakening of 1740, he was addressing a large open-air meeting from the words, “And the door was shut” (Mt 25:10). A young man in the audience, standing not far from the preacher, said to a companion in a voice loud enough for Whitfield to hear, “Well, what does it matter if the door is shut? When one door shuts, another door opens.” Whitfield immediately sprang into action: “Some may say,” he called out to the crowd, ‘What does it matter if the...
Read MoreApril 7
Your humanity is at stake; the souls of the unsaved are at stake. The sinner saved by grace is not only a person who is heartbroken over his own sins. But he is also heartbroken over the sins and present destiny of those around him: “Rivers of water run down from my eyes, because men do not keep Your law” (Ps 119:136). When you sit around your kitchen table with your children or your siblings or your parents, when you spend time with your friends, when you go into your office, when you walk the streets of your town, when you stand in a great concourse of men and women with the hordes...
Read MoreApril 6
I had been called at the last minute to speak at a conference. I spent the night preparing and was exhausted when the taxi arrived to take me to the airport. The cabbie, on discovering the purpose of my trip, asked my age; he thought I was too young for the task. I then asked him his age. “Fifty,” he replied. Flippantly I said, “So does life begin at 50?” “It hasn’t begun for me yet,” he responded. “Does your Bible have the answer?” My tiredness vanished as I shared with him the way of salvation. As I read scriptures to him, he suddenly pulled the car to the shoulder, put his head on the...
Read MoreApril 5
The Jehovah’s Witnesses (Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society) began at a study with Charles Taze Russell in 1879, and now boasts 7.5 million adherents. Their magazine, Awake, has a circulation of more than 20,000,000 in over 130 languages. Russell proved himself a false prophet by declaring that 1914 would be the end of the Times of the Gentiles (admitted on their official website). JWs reject the doctrine of the Trinity, with Christ as the first creation of God (not God the Son), and the Holy Spirit being a force. They also deny hell as a permanent place of punishment, and that the...
Read MoreApril 4
One evening, Abigail Luffe was accosted on her way home. “What’s in your bag, lady?” Abigail held up her Bible: “I will give you this, the most valuable thing I possess, for it says, ‘For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever…’” Paralyzed with fright, she lost the ability to finish, only repeating “whosoever.” The thief angrily pushed her into a snowbank. Abigail hurried home where prayer was asked for the assailant. Four years passed. Traveling on a streetcar, Abigail was jostled as she paid the fare—then discovered her purse missing. The next morning,...
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