This perpetual calendar includes:
- Remarkable testimonies of souls won to the Savior
- Explanations of gospel concepts
- Answers to frequently-asked questions
- Stories of real-life witnessing opportunities
- Encouragements and tips for sharing the glorious gospel
March 29
“Oh, how I love Your law!” (Ps 119:97). Leading Bible scholars, even those of a liberal bent, acknowledge that the Bible, as to its scholarship, is the most carefully examined book in all classical literature. Untold millions of hours have been invested in scrutinizing every detail: grammatical, historical, geographical, cultural, and theological. They also agree that it is the most numerically superior as to its manuscript base, with over 5,000 hand-written Greek manuscripts of the New Testament alone. Scholars also know that the Bible is also the most accurately copied as to its reproduction; the scribal experts were the epitome of fastidiousness in their workmanship. As well, history records the Word of God as the most amazingly preserved of all classical literature. Men have tried to burn it, ban it, distort it, and destroy it, but it is still the world’s all-time best seller. And any serious student will recognize it as the most internally consistent as to its message of any holy book. — J.B.N.
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 18-20 Memorize: Isaiah 53:6-7March 28
How serious are we in our praying for the lost in our city, in our workplace, in our family? John G. Paton, intrepid missionary to the New Hebrides (Vanautu) wrote in his autobiography about the strategic impact of his father’s prayer life: “I have heard that, in long after-years, the worst woman in the village of Torthorwald, then leading an immoral life, but since changed by the grace of God, was known to declare, that the only thing that kept her from despair and from the Hell of the suicide, was when in the dark winter nights she crept close up underneath my father’s window and heard him pleading in Family Worship that God would convert ‘the sinner from the error of wicked ways, and polish him as a jewel for the Redeemer’s crown.’ ‘I felt,’ said she, ‘that I was a burden on that good man’s heart, and I knew that God would not disappoint him. That thought kept me out of Hell, and at last led me to the only Savior.’” — John G. Paton: Missionary to the Hebrides
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 15-17 Memorize: Isaiah 53:4-5March 27
“Your own mouth condemns you, and not I” (Job 15:6). The concept of evil is nonsensical if there is no God. If everything just evolved from nothing, it’s as foolish to say a rotten man is evil as it is to say a rotten apple is evil. If I am only biology, then I am only a series of chemical reactions and nothing more. Only if there is a transcendent God who made us in His image with a conscience and an understanding that there is good and evil, can we say something is morally right or wrong. If there is no God, we are forced to say there is no moral difference between eating the steak prepared by the chef…or eating the chef. After all, we don’t think of a lion who kills a man as evil, any more than we consider an avalanche or a lightning bolt evil if they kill someone. The lion was doing what came naturally. But if a man murders a child, we know it’s wrong. And why? Because we say it against what we all know to be right. It is against the law which God has written on our hearts. — J.B.N.
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 12-14 Memorize: Isaiah 50:10March 26
J. Oswald Sanders recounts the story of a believer who had tried every way to share the gospel with an elderly lady. He had used all the well-known gospel verses—John 3:16, Romans 10:9 and the like—but all to no avail. She just couldn’t get it. As he was preparing to visit her again, the Christian poured out his heart to the Lord, confessing his inability to illuminate the old woman’s mind, and asking for some helpful portion of Scripture that would shed heaven’s light into her darkened heart. Immediately a verse came clearly to his mind. It was 2 Corinthians 6:18, “I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” Really? Was that the verse she needed? Determined to follow through, the believer visited the woman and shared the verse. “Does it say that in the Bible,” she asked. “All the other ones you read me were about men!” Like “He that believes…” Even the most unanticipated objections can be met by the Spirit and the Word.
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 9-11 Memorize: Isaiah 48:17March 25
We need to be up and doing: girding up the loins of our minds (1 Pet 1:13), stirring up our gifts (2 Tim 1:6), and offering up prayers and sacrifices (1 Pet 2:5). We should be stirring up one another (2 Pet 1:13), and building up one another (Jude 20), until we’re caught up to be with one another and with our beloved Lord forever (1 Thes 4:17). We need to be storing up for ourselves a good foundation (1 Tim 6:19), not laying up for ourselves treasures on earth (Mt 6:19) because we know that otherwise it will all be burned up (2 Pet 3:10). So if we lift up our eyes to see the whitened fields for harvest (Jn 4:35), if we lift up the hands of weary saints which hang down (Heb 12:12), and if we lift up our heads because our redemption is drawing near (Lk 21:28), we will be able to say with Paul, “There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing” (2 Tim 4:8).
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 6-8 Memorize: Isaiah 46:9-10March 24
People who habitually turn away the Savior’s invitation need to understand how precarious their situation is. John explains, “He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (1 Jn 5:10-11). Wherever such a person goes, whatever they accomplish, whatever they may think or believe, still, says the Lord Jesus, “the wrath of God abides on him” (Jn 3:36). One cannot “have…nothing to do” with Jesus, as Pilate’s wife advised him (Mt 27:19). No fence sitting allowed! The Lord Himself drew the line in the sand, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters” (Lk 11:23). What indictments! Making God a liar! Defying your Creator! Scattering what He is gathering! Fighting against your best Friend! “Repent and believe the gospel”!
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 3-5 Memorize: Isaiah 45:22March 23
Alexander Marshall, the great pioneer of the gospel in the northeastern U.S., told of an old man he knew from East Anglia, England who used to say: “It took me forty-two years to learn three things: 1) That I could do nothing to save myself; 2) that God did not ask me to do anything; 3) that Christ did it all.” Forty-two years is a long time to learn this, but definitely better late that never. And what verses of Scripture can we use to help people learn these three important facts now? 1) “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law” (Rom 3:28); “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law” (Gal 2:16; see also Titus 3:5; Eph 2:8). 2) When some asked Jesus, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent” (Jn 6:28-29). 3) It’s too late to do anything; it’s all done. The Lord cried, “It is finished,” and it was. Isaiah 53:5 describes it beautifully.
Today’s Reading: 1 Samuel 29-31; 2 Samuel 1-2 Memorize: Isaiah 45:5