While two visitors were visiting Annapolis, they noticed several students on their hands and knees assessing the courtyard with pencils and clipboards in hand. “What are they doing?” one of them asked their tour guide.

“Each year,” he replied with a grin, “The upperclassmen ask the freshmen how many bricks it took to finish paving this courtyard.”

“So what’s the answer?” one of the visitors asked the tour guide when they were out of earsh…

The evangelist, Luis Palau, met Maria Benitez-Perez. Maria had made an appointment under false pretenses. She claimed that she wanted to interview for a job. But as soon as she entered his office, Maria made her intent clear.

She was the secretary to the Communist Party in Ecuador. She denounced everything having to do with God or with Jesus Christ. Her bitterness overwhelmed Palau. But he listened respectfully and replied gently to everything Maria said.  Soon, Maria was telling him her life story. It was a ta…

Sacrifice is not a word we use much these days, is it? When was the last time you used it or thought about it in terms of your own life? When was the last time you sacrificed anything for anybody? Come to think about it, there's only one sport as far as I know where the term is actually used. Do you know which sport that is? You can almost hear Harry Cary announcing it over the radio, "And there it goes, a long fly ball to left; easy out, but the man on third tags up and trots home. Sacrifice fly."

What a great idea: you're out, but you helped someone else score a run. Baseball is one of the few sports where you …

People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply acknowledging a great debt we owe to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of…

There was a man in England who put his Rolls-Royce on a boat and went across to the continent to go on a holiday. While he was driving around Europe, something happened to the motor of his car. He cabled the Rolls-Royce people back in England and asked, "I'm having trouble with my car; what do you suggest I do?" Well, the Rolls-Royce people flew a mechanic over! The mechanic repaired the car and flew back to England and left the man to continue his holiday. As you can imagine, the fellow was wondering, "How…

What is justification? It is the declared purpose of God to regard and treat those sinners who believe in Jesus Christ as if they had not sinned, on the ground of the merits of the Savior. It is not mere pardon. Pardon is a free forgiveness of past offen…

The great renaissance artist Giotto captures the essence of this scene in his "Presentation at the Temple." Simeon holds the baby Jesus, his lips moving beneath his hoary beard, carefully reciting the lines of his nunc dimittis: "now may your servant depart in peace." Giotto knows his Simeon, and he knows hi…

A couple, visiting in Korea, saw a father and his son working in a rice paddy. The old man guided the heavy plow as the boy pulled it.

"I guess they must be very poor," the man said to the missionary who was the couple's guide…

In January 1926, six-year-old Richard Stanley showed symptoms of diphtheria, signaling the possibility of an outbreak in the small town of Nome. When the boy passed away a day later, Dr. Curtis Welch began immunizing children and adults with an experimental but effective anti-diphtheria serum. But it wasn't long before Dr. Welch's supply ran out, and the nearest serum was in Nenana, Alaska 1000 miles of frozen wilderness away. Amazingly, a group of trappers and prospectors volunteered to cover the distance with their dog teams! Operatin…

There is, I think it is true to say, something a little bit depressing about Labor Day weekend. For Labor day weekend signals the psychological end, at least, to summer with its periods of refreshment, and the start again, for many of us, of the more hectic rhythm of life and work at school, in college, at office or, in home. So let me ask you: How is your work? Are you giving of your self at work? Is work a place where you sacrifice for…

The process of our living involves a lot of trade-off and barter. We are forever giving up some things in order that we might have others; we are perpetually sacrificing this so we may have that. We do this in our marriages; we do this in our occupational choices; we do this in the matter of having children; we do it at almost every juncture of the journey we make. In most of our choices we are actually giving up certain freedoms that we may have for certain others.  Whatever scenic road we take, we tak…

C. T. Studd inherited a fortune from his father, one of the wealthiest Englishmen of the latter 19th century, but Studd gave it all up to become a missionary to China, India and Africa. Why? Here he is in his own words: "Christ's call is to feed the hungry, not the full; to save the lost, not the stiff-necked; not to call the scoffers, but sinners to repentance; not to build and furnish comfortable chape…

Jesus is the model of sacrifice. He was certainly no one’s doormat, but yet, he was hated, excluded and called evil. Through it all he was God—controlled and not self—controlled.

When I think of making sacrifices I also think of E. Stanley Jones, perhaps United Methodism’s most famous foreign missionary. He authored over a dozen books and converted hundreds of Hindus in India to Christianity. He is the only person of which I am aware who …

Millions of Christians have been inspired by the life and death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and theologian who was killed during World War II.

Bonhoeffer was as outspoken concerning the sins of Adolf Hitler as John the Baptist was about the sins of Herod. Friends in the United States and England, knowing the proba…

Boarding the SS Dorchester on a dreary winter day in 1943 were 903 troops and four chaplains, including Moody alumnus Lt. George Fox. World War II was in full swing, and the ship was headed across the icy North Atlantic where German U-boats lurked. At 12:00 on the m…

A little girl’s first-grade class held its “track and field” day. She won quite a few ribbons, among them one blue ribbon for a first place. Later that day, when she came home, the blue ribbon was missing, and her …

During his reign, King Frederick William III of Prussia found himself in trouble. Wars had been costly, and in trying to build the nation, he was seriously short of finances. He couldn't disappoint his people, and to capitulate to the enemy was unthinkable. After careful reflection, he decided to ask the women of Prussia to bring their jewelry of gold and silver to …

I do not come because my soul
is free from sin and pure and whole
and worthy of Thy grace;
I do not speak to Thee because
I've ever justly kept Thy laws
and dare to meet Thy face.

I know that sin and guilt combine
to reign o'er every thought of mine
and turn from good to ill;
I know that when I try to…

Jermaine Washington, 26, did something that amazes many people. He became a kidney donor, giving a vital organ to a woman he describes as "just a friend." Washington met Michelle Stevens, 23, when they began working together at the Washington, D.C., Department of Employment Services. They used to have lunch with one another and chitchat during breaks. "He was somebody I could talk to," says Stevens. "One day, I cried on his shoulder. I had been on the kidney donor waiting list for 11 months, and I had lost all hope."

She told Washington how depressing it was to spend three days a week, three hours a day, on a kidney dialysis machine. She suffered chronic fatigue and blackouts and was plagued by joint pain. He could already see that she had lost her smile. "I saw my friend dying before my …

A legend is told about the days of the Great Depression. A Missouri man named John Griffith was the controller of a great railroad drawbridge across the Mississippi River. One day in the summer of 1937 he decided to take his eight-year-old son, Greg, with him to work. At noon, John Griffith put the bridge up to allow ships to pass and sat on the observation deck with his son to eat lunch. Time passed quickly. Suddenly he was startled by the shrieking of a train whistle in the distance. He quickly looked at his watch and noticed it was 1:07—the Memphis Express, with four hundred passengers on board, was roaring toward the raised bridge! He leaped from the observation deck and ran back to the control tower. Just before throwing the master lever he glanced down for any ships below. There a si…

There is a beautiful story about the courtship of Moses Mendelssohn, the grandfather of the great German composer. Moses Mendelssohn was a small man with a misshapen, humped back. One day he visited a merchant in Hamburg who had a lovely daughter. Though Mendelssohn admired her greatly, she avoided him, seemingly afraid of his grotesque hump. 

On the last day of his visit he went to tell her goodbye. Her face seemed to beam with beauty but when he entered, she cast her eyes to the floor. Mendelssohn's heart ached for her.…

Fifty-six men signed the Declaration of Independence. Their conviction resulted in untold sufferings for themselves and their families. Of the 56 men, five were captured by the British and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the Revolutionary Army. Another had two sons captured. Nine of the fifty-six fought and died from wounds or hardships of the war. Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships sunk by the British navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts and died in poverty.

At the battle of Yorktown, the British General Cornwallis had taken over Thomas Nelson's home for his headquarters. Nelson quietly ordered General George Washington to open fire on the Nelson home. The home was destro…

It seems the scribes were always around. In our scripture we learn that Jesus was at his home in Capernaum. When word spread throughout the community, a great crowd gathered inside and out the house, prevailing upon Jesus to teach them. We are told that some of the scribes "were sitting there questioning in their hearts." Why were they there anyway? Out of curiosity? To heckle? To find fault? Were they acquaintances of Jesus that they could come into his home and find a place to sit while so many others were standing? I don’t know ... but it seems the Scriptures always bear the same foreboding comment, "the scribes were sitting there," or "nearby." At any rate, on this particular occasion, they got their eyes full.

First, there was a commotion. Four men were literally dismantling the roof…

Deuteronomy 26:4 - "Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand, and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God."

Among the nomadic tribes there was no developed priesthood. Religion partook of the general simplicity of desert life; apart from the private worship of household gods, the ritual observances were mainly visits to the tribal sanctuary to salute the god. with a gift of the first-fruits. These acts required no priestly aid; each man slew his own victim and divided the sacrifice in his own family circle; the share of the god was the blood which was smeared upon or poured out beside the stone set up as an altar. In the beginning, therefore, we find no trace of a sacrifical priesthood.

With the beginning of nationality, however, starting with the Exodus and develop…

In our Lord's Prayer we are often puzzled by the traditional words: "Lead us not into temptation." How can this be? The Letter of James says that "God tempts no one." (James 1:13) Many of us much prefer the more modern ecumenical version of the Lord's Prayer. I'd like to know what you think. Do you find it helpful to understand the words, or would you rather use the mo…

In her book, Discipline, the Glad Surrender, Elisabeth Elliot reveals four meaningful lessons to be learned from the discipline of our possessions:

"The first lesson is that all things are given by God...Because God gives us things indirectly by enabling us to make them with our own hands (out of things He has made, of course) or to earn the money to buy …

Finally, I would suggest to you that the cheering stopped because Jesus began to talk more and more about a cross. In the early part of his ministry Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God. That's what they wanted to hear about, especially since they misunderstood this kingdom to be a restoration of Israel to the days of King David’s glory. But increasingly Jesus began to talk about sacrifice—even giving up your life.

The story is …

I can't think of a greater condemnation to be levied against a people than this: They loved darkness instead of light. I would never want that to be said of me. But that is the way God sees the world. You and I see the world as it is right now. Most of the people around us try and do the right thing and when we are wrong hopefully we apologize. So we tend to think well of most people. But look out on the passage of time….

The Ancient World of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Hellenism, Rome, Persia, India, and East Asia was filled with the ignorance of hundreds of thousands of gods, magic, rituals, superstitions, human sacrifice, conquests, sewage(refuse was mostly thrown into the streets for the rats and dogs), disease (priests attempted to foretell the course of a disease by examining the livers of …

A few years ago someone came up with an ingenious acrostic for the bible. B.I.B.L.E. means Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. I really like that. The Bible is our basic instruction book for life and relationships. Oh, I know, you can't turn to an index and get direct advice about how to deal with your straight A stude…

E. Stanley Jones once told a story about a custom of the people on the Island of Formosa hundreds of years ago to offer human sacrifices. A kindly emperor, however, by the name of Goho, changed all that. According to his law, only animals, not humans, were to be sacrificed. But there was a terrible drought and the crops failed altogether. Once again the people clamored for a human sacrifice. “Very well,” said Goho, “tomorrow mo…

This past summer, there was a young mother mallard who had her brood. And it was interesting to watch how she took care of all seven of them. When anyone approached the lake, she became immediately aware and would gather her little brood together and hustle them along to hide in the reeds and brush that surrounded the edge of the lake. Once, someone went really close to get a better look, and she flew away. I was surprised by that at first – a mother abandoning her young. But then it became obvious what she was up to: She was offering herself as a decoy. She wanted the intruders to notice and follow her, away form her duckl…

It was interesting to watch a young mother mallard take care of all seven of her ducklings. When anyone approached the lake, she became immediately aware and would gather her little brood together and hustle them along to hide in the reeds and brush that surrounded the edge of the lake. Once, someone went really close to get a better look, and she flew away. It might surprise you at first that a mother was abandoning her young. But then it became obvious what she was up to: She was offering herself as a decoy. She wanted the intruders to notice and follow her, away form her ducklings. She was willing to sacrif…

The young man enters the traffic court. In minutes he takes his turn before the judge. "Says here you were doing forty-five-miles-an-hour in a twenty-five-mile-an-hour zone. Guilty or not guilty? How do you plead?"

"Guilty, your Honor," comes the reply.

"Not guilty," bellows the judge. "Next case."

Such an exchange seems highly unlikely in most courts of law. Most judges would simply slap a fine on you.

Yet there is a system of justice which delivers "Not guilty" verdicts on people who do wrong. This …

When we are young, our dreams are big and exciting, and we believe we will realize them all. We will have our own prestigious law firm, be a renowned surgeon, a media superstar, president of the corporation, Nobel Prize winning scientist, sing like (Pavarotti), dance like (Fred Astaire), write like Camus, paint like Wyeth, and play golf like Jack Nicklaus. Every young couple who gets married is…

The radical gospel of grace as it is found throughout Scripture, has always had its critics. Jimmy Swaggart once said that by trusting in God's justifying and preserving grace, we would end up living a life of sin before long and thus, lose our salvation and be consigned to hell. Paul anticipated that reaction from the religious community of his own day after he said, "Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more" (Romans 5:20, NKJV). So he asked the question he expected us to ask: "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" (6:1) Should we sin so that we can receive more grace? In other words, "If people believed what you just said in Romans 5, Paul, wouldn't they take …

The woman with the issue of blood had faith that by contact with Christ she could be cured. All around us in daily life are examples of people who, by faith, are overcoming life's difficulties.

A telephone linesman was up a pole when the pole, which was held in place only by cables, fell over him and he was dashed to the ground. His insides were badly crushed and as he was rushed to the hospital; there was little hope that he could survive. A pastor learned of the accident when the man's wife called from the hospital. She said that the very best surgeons in the community had operated but found that he was beyond repair and they had …

The famous psychiatrist Karl Menninger said that if he could convince the pa…

Contrary to what some of you may be thinking, this meditation, "Dips in Discipleship," is not a pejorative way of speaking about certain disciples of Christ. Had that been my intent, I would not have used an outdated term like "dip." We are not talking about dumb people who are out of touch with reality. Rather, I am referring to those times in our lives as Christian disciples when we enter into the valleys of depression. The times when nothing goes right, when thing get so bad that even God seems to have deserted us. We probably all have been through some of these times in our Christian lives. Perhaps some of us have dipped into the valley of depression recently and are still there. There are even times when it seems that the harder we try to do the will of the Lord, the more life gangs u…

G. K. Chesterton in his autobiography wrote about the effect of forgiveness, of the absolution. He was referring to the words of absolution spoken by the presiding minister after a confession of sin: "I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son …

Many years ago in St. Louis, a lawyer visited a Christian to transact some business. Before the two parted, his client said to him, "I've often wanted to ask you a question, but I've been afraid to do so." "What do you want to know?" asked the lawyer. The man replied, "I've wondered why you're not a Christian." The man hung his head, "I know enough about the Bible to realize that it says no drunkard can enter the kingdom of God; and you know my weakness!" "You're avoiding …

This statement (Matt 12:32, par Mk. 3:29, Luke 12:10) has been the subject of much questioning. Obviously the reference here is not to the naming of the Holy Spirit in a blasphemous utterance, for in Matt. 12:32 even blasphemy against the Son of man can be forgiven. Among the many attempts at exegesis, the most convincing is the suggestion that the man who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit is he who has recognized that God is working through the Holy Spirit in the actions of Jesus, and who quite consciously "misrepresent faith in God as faith in the devil.  This saying is an extremely serious warning against the demonic and scarcely conceivable potential in man: To declare war on God.  This is not done in weakness and doubt, but by one who has been overcome by the Holy Spirit and who know…

Welcome to this time and place of worship. God bless you in your coming, and as you go forth, may God bless you in your going.

A short while ago we heard the first notes of the organ prelude as this worship hour began. That was the signal for us to close the curtain upon the week that is past, upon all …

An elderly man said to H.A. Ironside, "I will not go on unless I know I'm saved, or else know it's hopeless to seek to be sure of it. I want a definite witness, something I can't be mistaken about!"

Ironside replied, "Suppose you had a vision of an angel who told you your sins were forgiven. Would that be enough to rest on?"

"Ye…

Corrie ten Boom, in her book Tramp for the Lord had these words to say regarding forgiveness:

"It was 1947 .... I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives. It …

Could that have been Judas' greatest downfall, the inability to see himself as a sinner and hence receive God's forgiveness? For without that sense of forgiveness, life holds little joy and the future is hopeless. Someone once said that the person who knows himself or herself to be a sinner and does not know God's forgiveness is like an overweight person who fears stepping on a scale.

There once was a very bitter man who was sick in soul, mind, and body. He was in the hospital in wretched condition, not because his body had been invaded by a virus or infected with some germ, but because his anger and contempt had poi…

The United States today is very similar to what 18th century England was like. Morals were all but gone on the part of the common man. The slave trade was at its height. A godless prison system entertained the people with public hangings. Gambling was a national obsession--one historian said that England was a vast casino. Drinking dominated the pastime of men and boys. False rumors were regularly used to manipulate the financial markets.

Also, the Anglican church was in decay. Zeal for Christ was considered professionally dangerous. 20% of the clergy had been r…

Imagine with me for a moment what it was like that first Christmas Eve, the night Jesus left heaven to go down to earth. Like any boy leaving home, Jesus left heaven. Perhaps the Father said something like this to him, "Now, Son, I’ve got to send you down to earth because my people have really messed things up. They are unhappy. Many are lonely and down on themselves. I want you to go down to give them new hope and to provide a way for their sins to be forgiven so that we can all get back together again."

So Jesus walked to the door of heaven, but before descending he turned and asked, "Father, what will I tell them?" And the good Heavenly Father put his arms around his Son and said, "When you …

Alila stood on the beach holding her tiny infant son close to her heart. Tears welled in her eyes as she began slowly walking toward the river's edge. She stepped into the water, silently making her way out until she was waist deep, the water gently lapping at the sleeping baby's feet. She stood there for a long time holding the child tightly as she stared out across the river. Then all of a sudden in one quick movement she threw the six month old baby to his watery death.

Native missionary M.V. Varghese often witnesses among the crow…

In Act 5 scene 5 of Shakespeare's Macbeth, the character Macbeth has heard that the queen is dead and he knows his own death is imminent. At this time he delivers his famous soliloquy:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow
creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, Out, brief candle
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
and then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing. 

Is Macbeth right? Is life nothing but a shadow having no substance, no meaning? Writers and philosophers since recorded time have tried to answer the question. I don't think any of them have been successful in answe…