When life goes on well, self-sufficient complacency toward the Lord is apt to creep in. There is failure to feel the need for consistency in prayer. But when a critical issue looms, impossible to solve humanly, it results in a hurry-up call to get serious in prayer. There must be a deeper understanding of what […]
Johnny was just one of those people in life that you never forget. He was getting up in years when I first met him. Well, my first encounter with this son of Italy wasn’t really an introduction. I heard him pray at the Lord’s Supper! When he finished his prayer, I confess I looked up […]
When we moved into a new house–new to us, at least–the place needed some fixing up. A friend offered to help. He was a retired businessman who found his joy in helping others. His name was James Pirrie, but his friends called him Jamer. The first project we had worked on together was a small […]
An amazing characteristic of the Book of Revelation is its combination of joys and terrors. The book is full of this. This combination is strange to our minds. Yet thus it is. Seals are broken and judgments take their course. Trumpets are blown, vials are emptied of their terrible contents, and horrors are only thereby […]
“Hast not Thou made an hedge about him . . . ? Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?” (Job 1:10; 3:23) Job asks how life can be considered worth living under such conditions. Here he sits on the refuse heap outside his door, somewhere […]
A booklet bearing the title Prayer Changes Things was written by Dr. S. D. Gordon. It has made a deep impression on multitudes of Christians. In many homes these words may be found as a motto. We are all aware that prayer, believing prayer, does change things. We know also that many times the enemy […]
The word “selah” is frequently found in the Psalms, and stands for a musical sign, meaning “rest” or “pause.” Now the life of the Church and the believer resembles a psalm composed and set to music by the One who was “anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows.” Such a view suggests some […]
The roots of Psalm 23 reach back deep into the rocky soil of Psalm 22. The sheep can only reach the green pastures of Psalm 23 because the Shepherd of Psalm 22 held on His way among the wasteland. The thorns are over there, and the green pastures are here, and “my” is the adoring […]
There is a prevalent idea today that though the righteous may be assured of reward in the coming world, they are generally speaking, unhappy here. The unrighteous, however, are largely free from trouble, it is suggested, whatever shadows may surround their future. If you want to lift this problem out of the mists of uncertainty […]