September 28
“All things were created by Him, and for Him” (Col 1:16). Albert Einstein recognized the impossibility of a non-created universe: “I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts—the rest are details.” Robert Jastrow, founder of NASA’s Goddard Institute, expressed it this way: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself...
Read MoreSeptember 27
Lionel Fletcher tells of gospel work at 20 years old. One night a blacksmith came to cause trouble. Toward the end, he made his move, “strode to the front, threw himself on his knees, and for the first time in my life I saw a man in the grip of deep conviction of sin.” The man’s wailing drowned out the believers’ prayers but they began to sing, “O happy day when Jesus washed my sins away!” Suddenly the blacksmith rose to his feet, radiant, gloriously saved. After, an old man took the preacher by the arm, “That’s my son-in-law. Will you come home with us? My daughter will be waiting.” When...
Read MoreSeptember 26
“For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord” (2 Cor 4:5). Charles Spurgeon revealed the secret of his effectiveness: “I believe that those sermons which are fullest of Christ are the most likely to be blessed to the conversion of the hearers. Let your sermons be full of Christ, from beginning to end crammed full of the gospel. As for myself, brethren, I cannot preach anything else but Christ and His cross, for I know nothing else, and long ago, like the apostle Paul, I determined not to know anything else save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. People have often asked me, ‘What...
Read MoreSeptember 25
When Jim and Lil Dickson arrived in Taiwan (then Formosa) in 1927, .there was one unreached tribe of headhunters known as the Tyal (or Atayal) living in the mountains. Chi-oang, an elderly woman, was the first convert. Some objected to enrolling her in Bible school. What could this old woman do? But she persisted. The Japanese ruled the island from 1895 until 1945. But the elusive Tyal remained impervious to all attempts at Japanese control. Missionaries were forbidden to visit the Tyals and when Chi-oang began to travel with the gospel to her own people, they did everything they could to...
Read MoreSeptember 24
If Christianity is so great, why are there so few Christians? Don’t underestimate how many the Lord will save. When Jesus said, “narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Mt 7:13-14), He was speaking about that generation of Jews, most of whom would reject Him. But was He speaking about all humanity? Will only a few be saved? Abraham was told that his spiritual children would be as numerous as the stars (Gen 22:17), and he believed God. John, on his tour of heaven, saw “a great multitude, which no man could number” who are saved, and he...
Read MoreSeptember 23
As a boy, I loved good Christian biographies. One day I found my father’s copy of Archibald Glover’s massive “A 1000 Miles of Miracle in China,” It is a must-read for serious saints. It tells the harrowing, miraculous story of some CIM missionaries fleeing the Boxers who were intent on killing “the foreign devils.” One scene is with me still. After unspeakable horrors, Glover’s pregnant wife, and mother of two young children, who had been such an example of faith, collapsed: “Oh, God has forsaken us! It can only be that we are not in His will or He would surely never have allowed us to come...
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