After the Civil War in the fall of 1865, John Broadus and the faculty of the fledgling Southern Baptist Seminary in Greenville, South Carolina, became burdened for more preachers of the gospel to help heal the nation's gaping wounds. To help remedy that...
John Chancellor, at the age of 67, was just easing his way into retirement after 43 years in the broadcasting business as a journalist. He was seen often on the NBC Nightly News. At this point in his life, there was not a cloud in the sky. All was well, and life was good....
John Wesley was a tireless servant of God, and a man who had little use for leisure time. Across his lifetime, this eighteenth-century English evangelist planted churches, established orphanages, opposed slavery, wrote books, trained and ordained...
The story is told of a time when a great Scottish preacher prayed in the morning service for rain. As he went to church in the afternoon his little daughter said, "Here is the umbrella, Papa." The seasoned church leader looked quizzically and asked, "What...
Abraham Lincoln was a man known for his wit and wisdom. On one occasion he asked a critic, "How many legs would a dog have if you counted its tail as a leg?" The man thought for a minute and then said, "Five." "No," retorted Lincoln! "The answer is four....
In the book Holy, Holy, Holy, R. C. Sproul tells the story of his second year in teaching. He had been assigned to teach a class on Old Testament Introduction to 250 college freshmen. As part of the coursework, Dr. Sproul required three small papers due on...
Traveling by train within the United States, Bishop William Quayle fell into conversation with some of his fellow passengers. The bishop was not wearing his religious garb at the time, and so one of the passengers was curious to know what he did for a living....
Robert Murray McCheyne was a gifted and grace-filled preacher of the gospel in Scotland. He entered Edinburgh University at the age of fourteen in 1827, after which he went on to lead a Presbyterian congregation to over a thousand by the age of twenty-three....
While I was ministering at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Toledo, Ohio, there was a man in our congregation who was a senior pilot with Northwest Airlines. He was among their top ten senior pilots and had some thirty years of flying the Boeing 747 around the...
When a young couple gets married, they immediately dream of getting their own house. They work hard and set about saving their money for a down payment on their dream house. Finally, the day arrives when they draw up the papers to buy the house. They meet with...
When a man was hanging on a cross, suspended on iron spikes, he wanted one thing and one thing only, death. He thought of one person and one person only, himself. Given that reality, that is what makes the seven cries of Jesus from...
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While the Bible sees no wrong in wealth righteously obtained and properly managed, it is nevertheless at pains to point out the relative value, and fleeting nature of all things material and monetary (Prov. 23:4-5). We must never trust money to yield what God alone can provide, for unlike our unfailing...
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The book of Revelation is a very noisy book. It resounds to the clatter of the thunderbolts of God's wrath poured out upon an unbelieving world. From start to finish it echoes to the sound of war, earthquakes, and demonic beasts. Yet for all its blood and thunder...
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As a man was leaving church, he stopped to talk to his pastor and told him, "Pastor, you are smarter than Albert Einstein." The pastor blushed and replied, "Smarter than Einstein? Einstein was one of the smartest men who ever lived. What makes you think that I am...
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A lady went to her local bank to withdraw some money from her account. Having received it from the teller she proceeded to count it and then recount it. Wondering if he had made a mistake the teller asked, "What is it lady, isn’t it all there?"...
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A PGA golfer will tell you that Thursday is a very important day in any professional golf tournament. It is the day the player needs to get off to a good start. While the tournament cannot be won on a Thursday, it can be lost. They can get so far behind that...
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Uncle Irv was not noted for his religious devotion but he needed one million dollars to clinch a real estate deal. So he went down to his local synagogue to pray for the money. By chance, he knelt down next to a man who was praying for one hundred dollars...
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The news of Japan's surprise and savage attack upon the American fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was a bittersweet affair to the British wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill. Bitter in the sense that he mourned the great loss of ships and sailors...
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The worship offered to God in most churches on Sunday needs updating. It needs to become more contemporary, but not in the way most people think. When I talk about the need for more contemporary worship in our churches, I am not thinking in terms of a band...
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What is stopping you from taking that next step? What is it that is making you hold back from boldly moving forward? Is it the size of the task? Is it the doubting of friends and family? Is it the fear of failure? There you stand on the doorstep of a great opportunity...
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