by Vance Havner
John Henry Newman wrote, “Those who make comfort the great subject of their preaching seem to mistake the end of their ministry. Holiness is the great end. Comfort is a cordial but no one drinks cordials from morning to night.” Happiness is not the chief end of our faith. God would make us holy and then we shall be happy with His joy. There is all the difference in the world between the happiness of this age (which ought to be spelled “happen-ness,” since it depends on what happens) and the joy of the Lord.
by Vance Havner
by A.B. Simpson
Cast down, but not destroyed—2 Corinthians 4:9
How did God bring about the miracle of the Red Sea? By shutting His people in on every side so that there was no way out but the divine way. The Egyptians were behind them, the sea was in front of them, the mountains were on both sides of them. There was no escape but from above.
Someone has said that the devil can wall us in, but he cannot roof us over. We can always get out at the top. Our difficulties are but God’s challenges, and many times He makes them so hard that we must get above them or go under.
In the Providence of God, such an hour furnishes us with the highest possibilities for faith. We are pushed by the very emergency into God’s best.
Beloved, this is God’s hour. If you will rise to meet it you will get such a hold upon Him that you will never be in extremities again; or if you are, you will learn to call them not extremities, but opportunities. Like Jacob, you will go forth from that night at Peniel, no longer Jacob, but victorious Israel. Let us bring to Him our need and prove Him true.
by A.B. Simpson
by J.C. Ryle
Live as if you thought that Christ might come at any time. Do everything, as if you did it for the last time. Say everything, as if you said it for the last time. Read every chapter in the Bible, as if you did not know whether you would be allowed to read it again. Pray every prayer, as if you felt it might be your last opportunity. Hear every sermon, as if you were hearing once and forever. This is the way to be found ready. This is the way to turn Christ’s second appearing to good account. This is the way to put on the armor of light.
by J.C. Ryle
by Oswald Chambers
And Samuel feared to shew Eli the vision. — 1 Samuel 3:15
God never speaks to us in startling ways, but in ways that are easy to misunderstand, and we say, "I wonder if that is God’s voice?" Isaiah said that the Lord spake to him "with a strong hand," that is, by the pressure of circumstances. Nothing touches our lives but it is God Himself speaking. Do we discern His hand or only mere occurrence?
Get into the habit of saying, "Speak, Lord," and life will become a romance. Every time circumstances press, say, "Speak, Lord"; make time to listen. Chastening is more than a means of discipline, it is meant to get me to the place of saying, "Speak, Lord." Recall the time when God did speak to you. Have you forgotten what He said? Was it Luke 11:13, or was it 1 Thess. 5:23? As we listen, our ear gets acute, and, like Jesus, we shall hear God all the time.
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by Terry James
A cursory glance would seem to indicate that the decision last week by Congress to flush the anti-piracy legislation into the sewer reserved for liberty-robbing legislation accomplished the preservation of Internet freedom. The following excerpt from one news story sets the seeming defeat of the threatening legislation.
Lawmakers stopped anti-piracy legislation in its tracks on Friday, delivering a stunning win for Internet companies that staged an unprecedented online protest this week to kill the previously fast-moving bills. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said he would postpone a critical vote that had been scheduled for January 24 "in light of recent events." Lamar Smith, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, followed suit, saying his panel would delay action on similar legislation until there is wider agreement on the issue. (Thomas Ferraro, Jasmin Melvin, "Congress Puts Brakes on Anti-Piracy Bills," Reuters, 1/21/12)
The Obama Administration displayed a moment of atypical behavior, quickly jumping on the bandwagon against the very legislation to govern Internet they had been championing.
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by Todd Strandberg
In the ongoing saga of the financial crisis, Greece has been grabbing the lion’s share of the headlines. If it doesn’t receive a bailout by mid March, it will be forced to default. Since Greece’s $400 billion debt is small potatoes compared to the total world GDP of $100 trillion, I’m not losing any sleep over a Greek default. I think Japan is a far greater risk to the global economy.
It is already well known that Japan has the highest national debt of any industrialized nation on earth. Its debt now stands at 220 percent of GDP. The U.S. has a GDP debt of 100 percent.
In the current fiscal year, Japan’s public debt will finance 50 percent of the federal budget. That means for every yen that the Japanese government takes in from taxes, it has to print another yen to cover its expenses.
Japan’s Finance Ministry said the nation’s public debt now stands at 985.4 trillion yen ($12.7 trillion) for the year ending March 2012. In about three months, the debt will reach the 1 quadrillion yen mark.
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by Bill Wilson
Bible translators Wycliffe, Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) and Frontiers reportedly have begun replacing the names of God to Islamic terms such as allah. On January 4th, Biblical Missiology, an organization dedicated to presenting the Bible truthfully in missions, weighed into the debate by issuing a petition asking the three translators to "commit in writing to preserve the terms "Father," "Son," and "Son of God" in the text of their Bible translations." Biblical Missiology said it is "particularly concerned about new initiatives called "Insider Movements" (IM) and "Muslim Idiom Translations" (MIT) that present a distorted and incomplete portrayal of the person and work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God."
The petition stated:
"Western missions agencies Wycliffe, Frontiers and SIL are producing Bibles that remove Father, Son and Son of God because these terms are offensive to Muslims."
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by Vance Havner
