Category: HISTORY & BIOGRAPHY
By Faith Alone: The Conversion of Martin Luther
It was the moment he had been waiting for. His father was in the audience watching, as were his fellow monks. It was time for Martin to offer his first mass, and he was overwhelmed with the solemnity of the event. He led the congregation, saying,...
David and John Brainerd: Missionaries to Native Americans
David Brainerd died well. “Now that I am dying,” he said, “I declare that I would not for all the world have spent my life otherwise.”1 His brother John was convinced. He carried on David’s work until his own death 34 years later. David and John...
God who Reigns over Rain
They were locked in a tiny, bug-infested jail in inland China. The heat inside was suffocating, and the doors and windows were sealed tight by the guards. Outside their prison, crowds of people called for their death, rioting until late into night. At daybreak, it began again....
Mingling Groans of Pain and Songs of Hope – Charles Haddon Spurgeon on Depression
It’s a good thing he wasn’t born in the 20th century. Many believing brothers and sisters would label his tendency to melancholy sinful, or evidence of a lack of self-discipline, or even the result of shallow faith. A psychologist would probably send him away with a...
John Bunyan: Blessing God for Affliction
“Like the tearing of my flesh from my bones.” That’s how John Bunyan described parting with his family after their brief visits with him in prison. Each time they walked away, John was reminded of the great difficulty his incarceration imposed on them, especially on his...
Herbert Brown: The Anointed Stutterer
James Alexander Stewart was experiencing enormous success as an evangelist. By the age of 20, he was so sought after that he was preaching four or five times a day. He also filled his hours with evangelism in the streets and in homes. This was too...
I Never Made a Sacrifice : Hudson Taylor, Missionary to China
James and Amelia Taylor loved their children and, like all doting parents, they enjoyed giving them little treats on occasion. But once in a while, when Amelia brought a dessert to the table for her family, James would say, “Who will see if they can do...
When a Child Dies: Responses From Church History
What follows are the honest and courageous words of four well-known Christians from the past regarding the loss of a child—a much more common occurrence in previous centuries, but still a reality today. Ann Judson (missionary Adoniram Judson’s first wife), after the death of their second...
Real-life Child Converts
Even younger children may be converted. That may seem like a strange statement in our day when supposedly tens of thousands of children are coming to Christ at younger and younger ages. This seeming explosion in childhood conversions is evidenced in one denomination where, between 1977...
John G Paton’s Father: A Key to His Courage
John G. Paton was a missionary to the New Hebrides, today called Vanuatu, in the South Seas. He was born in Scotland in 1824. I gave my Pastors’ Conference message about him because of the courage he showed throughout his 82 years of life. When I...
