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Background to the nativity story. A Christmas meditation.

Author: Dr. S.D. Gordon

Some preachers remind me of the emperor who had a wonderful skill in carving men’s heads upon cherry stones. What a multitude of preachers we have who can make wonderfully fine discourses out of a mere passing thought, of no consequence to anyone. But we want the gospel. We have to live and die, and…

There are certain things that if men want they will have. I have heard say that in the old Bread Riots, when men were actually starving for bread, no word had such a terribly threatening and alarming power about it as the word “Bread!” when shouted by a starving crowd. I have read a description by one…

In the night skies there had long been observed bright masses of light. The astronomers supposed them to be stores of unfashioned chaotic matter—until William Herschel’s telescope resolved them into distinct stars. What the telescope did for stars, the religion of Christ, when received into the heart,…

When Patrick Hamilton was burned in Scotland, there was such an impetus given to the gospel through his burning that the adversaries of the gospel said, “Let us burn no more martyrs in public, for the smoke of Hamilton’s burning has made many eyes to smart until they were opened.” So, no doubt, it always…

Shall we keep back the children’s bread lest the dogs should steal the crumbs? Shall we destroy health-restoring drugs because fools may poison themselves with them? Shall all the trees be cut down for fear the owls should build their nest in them? Shall the sea be dried up because sharks swim in it?…

There is a famous picture that represents our Lord before Pilate. It has deservedly won great attention. A certain excellent newspaper, which brings out for a very cheap price a large number of engravings, has given an engraving of this picture; but, inasmuch as the painting was too large for the paper…

I have heard of one who preached much against certain errors, but there was another servant of the Lord who never preached against those errors but who always proclaimed the gospel right out straight. When one asked him why he did not attack the errors, he said, “I do preach against them most effectually.…

Remember John Bunyan when he refused to give up preaching. They put him in prison and said to him, “Mr. Bunyan, you can come out of prison whenever you will promise to cease preaching the gospel.” He said, “If you let me out of prison today, I will preach again tomorrow, by the grace of God.” “Well,”…

A good many years ago, when I was about fifteen or sixteen years of age, I wanted a Savior, and I heard the gospel preached by a poor man who said in the name of Jesus, “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth” (Isa 45:22). It was very plain English, and I understood it and obeyed it and found…

The Moravian missionaries to Greenland thought they should first instruct the Greenlanders in the doctrine of the Trinity. So they preached away to them of the Godhead, but the Greenlanders did not care about it. One of them, while interpreting the third chapter of John, came across that blessed passage,…

I knew a man who had lived a life of carelessness and indifference, with occasional outbursts of drunkenness and other vices. This man happened one day to hear a preacher say that if any man would ask anything from God, he would give it to him. The assertion was much too broad and might have done harm.…

When the Moravian missionaries first went to Greenland, they were months and months teaching the poor Greenlander about the Godhead, the doctrine of the Trinity, and the doctrine of sin and the law, and no converts were forthcoming. But one day, by accident, one of the Greenlanders happened to read that…

John Bunyan speaks of the law as coming to sweep a chamber like a maid with a broom. When she began to sweep there was a great dust that almost choked people and got into their eyes. But then came the gospel with its drops of water and laid the dust, and then the broom might be used far better. Now it…

A score of 300 in bowling has always carried the idea of perfection. 12 strikes--perfect rolls in a row, where the bowler knocks down all ten pins on the first roll. A strike in every frame brings a perfect score of 300. Sara Lyons, after bowling for 69 years has finally scored the 300-point game many…

Branko Lustig was a 10-year-old prisoner at Auschwitz when Nazi guards ordered him to stand in the front row at a hanging. Seven inmates were brought to the gallows and, as Branko watched, just moments before the bench was kicked out from under them, the inmates shouted in Yiddish, “Remember how we died!…

A great many learned men are defending the gospel; no doubt it is a very proper and right thing to do. Yet I always notice that, when there are most books of that kind, it is because the gospel itself is not being preached. Suppose a number of persons were to take it into their heads that they had to…

Eight year old Steffan Williams was kayaking in the sea near a treacherous stretch of coastline when he spotted an elderly woman and two teens trapped on a rock. In a spot where the tide can trap unknowing tourists he took his rubber dinghy and towed them to shore. The next day he noticed two more teens…

For sixteen years Paul and Robin Pennington have been working to engage the local church to understand the need to care for orphans. They know from personal experience how important adoption is and how difficult it can be. “They have become convinced that when Christians love fatherless children, it’s…

In 1950, a B-36 bomber carrying a training nuclear weapon crashed in the ocean off the western coast of Canada. The crew jettisoned the bomb before bailing out themselves. For over 60 years the Mark 4 bomb lay undiscovered on the ocean floor. That all changed when Sean Smyrichinsky may have inadvertently…

A new social science study has found that the positive emotions associated with social media postings generally outweigh negative one. The study looked at the content and spread of 19 million English-language posts from September 2014. The results showed that while negative content tended to spread faster,…

Jesus told His disciples to take the Gospel to the entire world. Two thousand years later, the world is connected like never before, but hundreds of millions of people still do not have access to the Gospel in their heart language. Louann Hunt, who works with a ministry called Faith Comes By Hearing…