September 4
Russian Jew Rabbi Joseph Rabbinowitsch fled from the pogrom there in 1881 to Palestine, intending to found a colony. One of his relatives had given him a New Testament because he recommended it as “one of the best guides to the Holy Land.” One day as he climbed Olivet and looked over the Kidron Valley at Jerusalem, questions flooded mind: “Why has the City of David been desolate all these centuries…? Why have my people lived so long in their dispersal? Why do we go through these persecutions again and again?” His gaze shifted north to Calvary and Isaiah’s words sprang to his mind: “Surely he...
Read MoreSeptember 3
Billy Sunday (1862-1935) became America’s the most renowned evangelist at the start of the 20th century. One night he preached on Isaiah 9:6, “His name shall be called Wonderful.” “Does the name fit Him?” he asked the crowd. “Jesus declared that He fulfilled the prophecies and the law of Moses, and the only effort He ever made to prove His claim was to point to the works that He did. The first thing an impostor always does is to overprove his case. Jesus never turned His hand over to try to convince His enemies that He was the Christ. You have to explain a coal-oil lamp, but you don’t need...
Read MoreSeptember 2
“God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath” (Heb 6:17). William P. White, one-time editor of Biola’s monthly magazine The King’s Business, tells this story about his early days in ministry. One morning he received a request to visit a dying 87-year-old saint by the name of Junkins. When he entered the room, the old believer, with distress in his voice, said, “For years I’ve been feasting on the promises of God, but this morning when I woke up, I couldn’t remember one of them. What shall I do?” White cried out to...
Read MoreSeptember 1
Handley Moule (1841-1920) gives this insight into the words, “Of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace” (Jn 1:16). “Quite literally, the words run: ‘Grace instead of grace.’ The image is one of perpetual supply; a displacement and replacement ever going on; ceaseless arrivals of all that is needed for the ceaseless changes of need…The picture is that of a river. Stand on its banks and contemplate its flow. A minute passes and another. Is it the same stream? Yes,…But not the same water! The liquid mass that flowed under the bridge a few seconds ago has been displaced and...
Read MoreAugust 31
Who has heard of “engineer missionary” to Uganda Alexander Mackay? Against tremendous obstacles, he built 230 miles of road to Uganda from the coast, built several boats to traverse Lake Victoria, and translated Matthew’s Gospel into Luganda. He lived constantly under the threat of violence from Arab slave traders whom he resisted at every turn. He died in 1890 at the age of 41, having spent fourteen years of unbroken efforts in Africa without returning to his native Scotland. A few months before Mackay’s death, he was visited by explorer Henry Stanley who called him “the best missionary...
Read MoreAugust 30
Can the remarkable fine tuning of the universe be scientifically explained by the concept of a “multiverse,” worlds upon unperceived worlds with an endless variety of conditions that leaves our world as simply “the right one” for life to exist? Not according to Cambridge physicist John Polkinghorne. In one lecture, he wryly quipped about the exacting standards of the world, “There is no free lunch. Somebody had to pay, and only God has the resources to put in what was needed to get what we’ve got.” In his book, One World (pp. 79-80), he writes: “Let us recognize these speculations for what...
Read MoreCalendar Archive
