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Admiral Horatio Nelson is one of England’s greatest heroes, yet his fame was gained not only due to his strengths, but arguably even more so from his weaknesses. Having lost his mother at the age of nine, he began his military career at the age of 13 as an ordinary seaman. From his first day at sea through the rest of his life, he would suffer from constant seasickness. His frailness also left him susceptible to other illnesses, contracting yellow fever, recurring bouts with malaria, and an unidentified debilitating sickness in the West I...
Elijah was a man strong and faithful in serving God, even standing up against 450 pagan priests at one point. After this, Queen Jezebel was so enraged that she sent her armies to find and slay him. Yet as strong as his faith was, even he knew fear upon hearing of this, falling into deep disconsolation and despair. It was at this point that he was told to, “Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the L...
Irrespective of personal beliefs, many people feel that Christmas has become too commercialized and too secularized. Today, many observe the holy day of the Christ Mass without any acknowledgment of Christ at all. More attention is focused on parties, presents and television specials without any reverence for the main focus of Christmas, namely, the incarnation of our Lord, and His taking on of our flesh to save us. Santa Claus gets more attention than Jesus. Perhaps, however, this problem can begin to be corrected by understanding where the...
The city was surrounded...besieged by an army in order of magnitudes bigger than its own paltry defense. Below the city walls, the top general of the Assyrian army taunted the king’s three emissaries above. This was the last city standing in all the country. Heretofore this king had been everything one would hope for. He was a humble yet strong man with an inveterate faith in God and His provision. While the people and kings before him had chosen a different path, upon his ascendance to the throne, he had immediately initiated reforms to return...
“Now ye are clean through the Word which I have spoken unto you.” John 15:3 In William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” Lady Macbeth, being accomplice to the murder of King Duncan, soon begins to feel the repercussions of her deeds. After washing the blood from her hands, she begins to imagine that it stains her hands still, crying not only her famous curse against its spot, but also, “... Here’s the smell of blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” An oft overlooked but very telling line by her physician arguably spe...
One of the most popular movies in the last several decades is “The Shawshank Redemption.” For those who have not seen it, the basic plot is about a man named Andy who has been wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. However, after a number of years, he is able to escape. The main focus is mostly between ostensible criminal Andy and the Warden, who presents himself as a godly man. The dichotomy here is that each man’s true actions are the opposite of what they are purported to be outwardly. The Warden, for example, is anyth...
“In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” John 1:4-5 There is an old analogy that goes as follows: Imagine a room with no windows or outside light coming in. In the middle of that room there is a thick curtain that, when drawn, allows no light through it. On one side, it is completely dark to the point where one cannot even see their own hand in front of their face. The other side is fully illuminated by the light of a bright candle. When the curtain is pul...
As we approach the Fourth of July, I cannot help but think of where we as a country have received the blessings that we have. Actually, not from where, but from Whom. The “whys and wherefores” are an ongoing debate for some but one thing that is irrefutable is the singular prominence of faith and dependence upon God and His Word with which the majority of the Founding Fathers based virtually everything they did, not only in their personal lives but also inveterately within their framing of this new nation. As but one quote of many, John Adams w...
Prompted by a friend to explain his beliefs, Thomas Jefferson cut out of his Bible, among many other things, all of Christ’s miracles, and in re-making his own version of the Scriptures, retained Jesus’ crucifixion while ending the text with His burial, yet not the resurrection. Christ does not ask us to believe only what is comfortable for us and to discard anything that isn’t. Were that an option, most all people would likely create an ever widening doorway of verses to be taken out. Our sinful flesh seeks its own comfort, and the light...
Throughout all human history, most all cultures have found themselves in times of turmoil, division and disarray. In some ways, we can arguably say that about our own society currently as we contend with a number of different issues. On the surface it can be, and is, overwhelming for many. So the overriding question is...what is to be done about it? It really all depends upon what...or in Whom...one places their trust. As of this reading, Christmas Eve/Day may have already passed. For many, it is but a day’s respite in a year fraught with a m...
“And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope.” Romans 5: 3-4 Pastor Richard Wurmbrand was a Lutheran pastor from Romania. Prior to that, however, he was raised as a staunch atheist, orphaned at an early age. As an adolescent, he was noticed early on for his academic prowess by the local Communist officials, and sent to study Marxism in Moscow, to eventually become a paid Comintern agent back in his home country of Romania. After his marriage in...
Imagine that you have never owned a home, but one day someone offers to sell you theirs (with ample property) for pennies on the dollar. There is only one catch...your country has just been invaded and that property lies within what is now enemy territory. To make matters worse, you are in the one city still left standing, with the enemy literally crashing the city walls, and you know for a fact that very soon everything will be destroyed, and the majority of your people will shortly either be executed or taken captive to a foreign land. Would...
Have you ever been lost in the woods? For those who have, the first thought is how to find your way to safety. The number one danger is usually not the elements, lack of water, etc. It is panic. For those who do not survive, in most cases it was overwhelming fear that led to a bad situation becoming worse. What is needed in such situations is a fixed, known and visible reference point...a focus. One of the most obvious of those is the night sky. Throughout the ages, people realized that focusing on the most prominent star they saw was not...
"But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or upon the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7 Today, the most sought-after (and most expensive) violins in the world are those crafted by Guaneri del Gesu and Antonio Stradivari, going for prices reaching millions of dollars. What is it that makes them so valuable? The short answer is that...
What is the difference between something being conditional versus unconditional? How much can such a difference actually affect our lives? One example from modern history is WWII Japan. While the ferocity of Japanese soldiers had been seen from the outset, this became markedly more so as American forces reached homeland soil; specifically Okinawa and Iwo Jima. The bloodiness of battles there were such that even today terms kamikaze, seppuku, and banzai are familiar. Yet it can be argued that it was this very same fantacism that, in part, shaped...
“Why do you call Me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.” Mark 10:18 We all want to think of ourselves as good and moral people. But are we? To answer that means we have to define what “good” really means, but more importantly, who defines it. It can be argued that last part breaks down into three main sources, myself, society and God, all of which are often intertwined to varying degrees. The first one is easy...no explanation needed, including the tacit dangers thereof. “Society” is far more complex and far too much to g...
"Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?" Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judaea, was faced with a dilemma. Finding Jesus not guilty of any crimes, he nonetheless faced a crowd agitating for that very thing. Due to an already extant state of potential rebellion, Caesar had already warned him that any further unrest in the area would have severe consequences for him personally. As the shouts for Jesus' death grow louder, he...
“We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.” As any good builder can tell you, when constructing a building of any size, one of the first and most crucial elements is to establish a solid foundation. Without this, any further construction, no matter how precise or well-built, will be compromised. This is even more tr...
From a commercial I saw once long ago...(from memory)... How long can a person live without food? 10-14 days How long can a person live without water? 3-5 days How long can a person live without air? 3-5 minutes How long can a person live without hope? ….. Circumstances in each of these can produce different results but the end-point is clear enough. In deference to that, it is no secret that this time of year is concomitantly both the most joyous and the most difficult for many of us. As of this reading, Christmas will have passed and New Y...
Like football itself, the Super Bowl halftime show has become an integral part of American culture. In some ways, the halftime show is even more widely anticipated and talked about. King Solomon once wrote in Ecclesiastes, “There is no new thing under the sun.” What is now, has been before. As far as popularity goes, the Roman stadiums are a good example, complete with a halftime show. Yet this was very different than ours today, as were the “games” played before and after. As the bloodiness and the brutality of the so-called bread and circus...
“And Moses said unto the Lord, “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant; but I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue.” When God called Moses to go to His people and lead them out of slavery in Egypt, Moses tried repeatedly to give reasons as to why he was not the one: “Who am I, that I should go forth...?”, “They shall say to me, What is His Name? What shall I say to them?”, “But behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say; the Lord hath not appeared un...
Having been convicted of 49 murders and confessing to 71, Gary Ridgway, also known as the Green River Killer, is considered to be the worst serial killer in U.S. History. In his 2003 court appearance, his consecutive confessions to each individual murder were completely devoid of any emotion whatsoever...“stonefaced and cold,” as one reporter described him. The judge subsequently allowed families of the victims to address him directly and most all were rightly heart-broken and enraged, up to wishing a “long, suffering, cruel death” upon hi...
“And (Jesus) went out from thence and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him....And He could there do no mighty work, save that He laid his hands upon a few sick folk and healed them.” The first question that usually gets asked when reading this verse is “why.” If Jesus is truly God, why would He not be able to perform miracles, “mighty works”, here? Part of the answer is that He was in fact more than able but there is more to be considered. There is a story of a young child who was once given a toy train. Immediately...
Amsterdam in 1697 was the richest of all European cities, with by far the biggest port, and famous for the finest built ships anywhere. It was all within one of the major powers of the world at that time, the Dutch Colonial Empire. If you would have been walking the docks at the building yards in the late summer that year, you might have seen a carpenter emerging from his housing unit after cooking himself and his fellow workmen a traditional breakfast to start their day or later having a simple lunch with them seated on a nearby log, talking a...
“Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” Ezekiel 33:11 When it pertains to God and His Word, there are two basic groups: those who do accept Him as their Creator, and those who don’t. No one forces this choice upon any of us but the consequences of either are real nonetheless. We live now in a society where the very word “sin” is seen, at best, as anachronistic. More...
