“It is an instructive and solemn fact, brought out in the history of more than one revival, that when a whole neighborhood had been well watered with the showers of grace, no drop of blessing has descended there where a spirit of controversy and strife had obtained a footing.  The Spirit of God hovered around but fled from the scene of

One of the books from my dad’s library which I received after his death in 2007 was this one:

He had his assistant use this book to keep a record of the various aspects of his pastoral ministry through the years, starting with his ordination in 1950.  There are 486 pages in the book, most of them filled out — pages and pages and

“In Kiev, where I found myself on a Sunday morning, on an impulse I turned into a church where a service was in progress.  It was packed tight, but I managed to squeeze myself against a pillar whence I could survey the congregation and look up at the altar.  Young and old, peasants and townsmen, parents and children, even a few in

“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison, and his successor will die a martyr in the public square.  His successor will then pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”

Cardinal George, 2010, context here.

“Let us then as Christians rejoice that we see around us on every hand the decay of the institutions and instruments of power, see intimations of empires falling to pieces, money in total disarray, dictators and parliamentarians alike nonplussed by the confusion and conflicts which encompass them.  For it is precisely when every earthly

This morning at Immanuel Nashville one of our fine members, Mr. David Tolbert, proposed three compelling questions for us all to consider, with further implications.  With David’s kind permission, I offer his thoughts here:

Brothers and sisters, we must come to grips with three hard questions. And because they are hard, we need help from

“I could tell you a case of a man back home, forty-five years old – a pagan, illiterate, who knew nothing about Christ.  Then he was brought by grace, through the preaching of the Christians, into the presence of Jesus and Him crucified; and that man was so changed that within a month, when impure thoughts came into his heart he

Three significant differences between the Qur’an and the Bible are considered here: TheQuran_and_TheBible_handout

“. . . that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”  Ephesians 3:19

“The definition of ‘fullness’ is neither superiority nor maturity but stretchability.  It means we have allowed the Holy Spirit to renew the wineskins of our souls, to expand the vision of our understanding, to enlarge our heart for

“The church’s ever-living Head knows how to usher in creative epochs, to rally his people to some converging point through the lapse of centuries, and to gather up under this powerful influence isolated opinions into one consistent whole.”

George Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Edinburgh, 1974), page 285.

“A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest,” and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.  Proverbs 24:33-34

“Your danger and mine is not that we become criminals, but rather that we become respectable, decent, commonplace, mediocre Christians.  The

“The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over

The risen Jesus appeared to a Christian named Ananias and commanded him to go find Saul, now blinded by the glory he had seen on the Damascus Road.  Ananias was to lay hands on Saul, so that he could regain his sight.  The story is recorded in Acts chapter 9.

Ananias’ immediate response to the Lord’s approach is simple:

“There are certain things which have to be said over and over again, of necessity, and yet this is the marvel and the wonder of the cross, that however many times a man may preach about it, he has never finished preaching about it.  There is always something fresh to say, always something new.  There is a great central message that

Congratulations to the entitled, for they grab what they want. Congratulations to the carefree, for they shall be comfortable. Congratulations to the pushy, for they shall win. Congratulations to the greedy, for they shall climb the food chain. Congratulations to the vengeful, for they shall be feared. Congratulations to those who don’t get

In the film “Lawrence of Arabia,” after Lawrence has been humbled by his discovery of his own weakness, he and his friend Ali have a conversation:

Lawrence: I’ve come to the end of myself. . . .

Ali: A man can be whatever he wants. You said it.

Lawrence: I’m sorry. I thought it was true.

Ali: You proved it.

Lawrence, opening his