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
January 23
“…Seed to the sower, and bread to the eater” (Isa 55:10-11). “Now he that ministers seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown” (2 Cor 9:10). Two passages—one from the gospel prophet, Isaiah, and one from the evangelist to the Gentiles, Paul—are linked by the common idea of combining bread for food and seed for sowing. The Isaiah passage is a promise; the Corinthian verse is a prayer. In Bible days, if a farmer didn’t sow seed, he had two problems: no seed for his fields and no bread for his table. Is there a lesson here for us? If we are not in the fields sowing seed, it is not just that our harvesting of souls diminishes. It may also be that our children are starving for the Word. Not that there is a shortage of preaching! But if I’m not sharing the gospel with the lost, my preaching is disconnected from reality. Only with this combination will we be “enriched in everything to all bountifulness” and will our lives ring with “thanksgiving to God.” —J.B.N.
Today’s Reading: Exodus 20-22 Memorize: Psalm 10:3-4January 22
On the last day of September 1816, Robert Moffat sailed from London for South Africa. Proceeding to Namaqualand on the west coast, he there acquired the Dutch language. While residing with a Boer farmer, he was asked to conduct a “service” in the house. Moffat requested that the master call his servants. “Do you mean the Hottentots?” replied the Boer with a sneer. “We may as well call in the dogs.” Moffat made no answer, but, after prayer, opened his Bible and read the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman, taking as his text her words to the Savior, “Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from the master’s table” (Mt 15:27). Before he had gone further, the farmer gave orders to bring in the servants, and admitted that the reproof had reached its mark. He would never again object to them hearing the gospel. How good to remember that all who were Gentiles were but dogs who have been welcomed to His Table. Let us learn to value everyone for Christ.
Today’s Reading: Exodus 17-19 Memorize: Psalm 9:9-10January 21
Whatever you know of God’s truth, do it. That is what the disciples were told in John 2:5, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” Above all, it is what the Lord says, “You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you” (Jn 15:14). We never read of purifying our souls in hearing the truth; we do read of those who purified their souls in obeying it (1 Pet 1:22). “He that has My commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves Me” (Jn 14:21). Obedience, you see, is the test of love. God has joined the two together. If we want to know the extent of our devotion to Christ, it can be exactly measured by our obedience to His Word. How is it going to be with us? Are we going to allow His Word to search us and try our ways? If so, in keeping His statutes you shall find great reward (see Ps 19:11). Then you will be able to say, “I rejoice at Thy Word, as one that finds great spoil” (Ps 119:162). “If you know these things, happy are you if you do them” (Jn 13:17).—A.E. Booth
Today’s Reading: Exodus 13-16 Memorize: Psalm 9:7January 20
Sir Moses Montefiore was the most famous Jew in the 19th Century. Linked by marriage and business to the Rothschilds, he was knighted by Queen Victoria and renowned for his philanthropy. He had an aunt Lydia in Marseille who was a determined Jewess. One day she received a visit from J.P. Cohen, a Jewish believer. Noticing her Bible, he took it up and read Isaiah 53, then asked what she thought of it. “I should like to hear your opinion,” replied Miss Montefiore. Cohen recounts, “I told her I could unhesitatingly say that it referred to the life and death of the Messiah, and that it had been literally accomplished in the person of Jesus.” Although shaken, she invited him back, and subsequently, seeing her Savior in the Scriptures, wrote to a niece who had long prayed for her, “I now believe that Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, was ordained to be crucified to take away all our sins; and that by believing in Him we shall be saved.” —A. Bernstein, Jewish Witnesses for Christ
Today’s Reading: Exodus 10-12 Memorize: Psalm 8:4January 19
Let others keep quiet about hell if they wish—I dare not. I see it plainly in Scripture, and I must speak about it. What would you say about the man who saw his neighbor’s house burning and never raised the cry of “Fire”? Call it bad taste, if you like, to speak about hell. Call it being charitable to make things pleasant and soothe people with a constant lullaby of “peace and safety.” From such notions of taste and charity may I ever be delivered! My notion of charity is to warn men plainly of their danger. My notion of taste is to declare all the counsel of God. If I never spoke of hell, I would look on myself as an accomplice of the devil. Beware of manufacturing a God of your own—a God who is all love, but not holy; a God who has a heaven for everyone and a hell for no one. Such a god is an idol. You must take the Bible as it is. And His holy Word still declares: “These shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal” (Mt 25:46).—J.C. Ryle
Today’s Reading: Exodus 7-9 Memorize: Psalm 5:6-7January 18
Didn’t Jesus receive a sinful nature through His mother Mary? Mary was not “immaculately conceived” in her mother’s womb. The Bible does not teach this; Mary knew she needed a Savior (Lk 1:47). Besides, this doesn’t solve the problem—it only moves it back one generation. Human reasoning will always leave us with Job’s question: “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” (14:4). He answered his own query with the brief “not one.” He could not anticipate “the mystery of godliness…God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim 3:16). We take the words of the angel at face value: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you: therefore also that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God” (Lk 1:35). Our Lord Jesus is “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” (Heb 7:26). God brought a woman out of a man without a mother in Eden, and this Man out of a woman without a father at the incarnation.
Today’s Reading: Exodus 4-6 Memorize: Psalm 3:8January 17
When I look over an audience and think of the misery that you and I do not see, that He does see, I think I understand what it means, “When He saw the multitude, He was moved with compassion” (Mt 9:36). We ought to have more compassion. How many times I have had to upbraid myself for this…One day my wife told me that one of the children in my Sunday school had been drowned. I took my little girl, four years old, and started for the home…the mother sat by the dead child, stroking her hair…The husband sat in the corner—drunk. I looked after the woman’s simple requests all very mechanically, then we started out for home. When we reached the street, my little girl said, “Papa, did you feel bad for that poor mother?” The child had been shocked at her own father. How that question cut me to the heart. I could not speak. I led the child home, then I went into my room, got on my knees and asked God to forgive me, and to give me a tender heart.—D.L. Moody
Today’s Reading: Exodus 1-3 Memorize: Psalm 3:4