Occasionally someone tells me that he is an atheist (doesn’t believe in God) or an agnostic (not sure there is a God).
Such skepticism is rooted in one of three things:
1. Intellect. Some skepticism is intellectual. There are people who have delved so deeply into philosophy and science that they have more questions than answers. They demand more information tha...
A light is not to look at but to look by. It does not exist to draw attention to itself but to help us to see other things more clearly. It is this basic quality of light that led Jesus to say to his followers of all ages, “You are the light of the world.” What did he mean?
The world is groping in spiritual darkness and cannot find God. It is the purpose and mission of every Christian...
Convicted Soviet spy Stig Wennerström told his interrogators that his basic procedure during the five years he worked in the U.S. included the cultivation of “big shots” by first winning the friendship of their wives. “Women,” he said, “have a much greater influence over men than we realize.”
This is true. Women do have tremendous influence over men—not only for evil but also for good....
Juvenile delinquency is a problem in America. This problem may seem far away from us, but it is not. Some time ago a store manager told me about catching 17 shoplifters in his store in one week alone.
When you seek for a cause of this youthful lawlessness, you are driven ultimately to the home and to the parents. In fact two Harvard Law School criminologists pinpointed the problem as “i...
There is a lot of rubbish being peddled in the name of Christianity today. Radio and television preachers keep telling us if we just had enough faith, if we just believed God enough, we could be healed of all of our diseases. We would never have to be sick another day of our lives.
But don’t you believe it!
God never promises his people immunity from sickness, pain, and troubles...
Pascal said that it is the pathetic fate of God to be everlastingly misunderstood. There is no area where this is more apparent than disaster and disease. Oftentimes the most horrible disasters are called “acts of God” and the most dreaded diseases are referred to as “God’s will.” Such talk should be forever banished from our lips! Calamity is not his deliberate handiwork. Disease is not his ma...
Hurrah for Johnny Cash when he refused to perform a bedroom scene with a nude actress in his movie A Gunfight. The scene was fairly tame by film standards at that time, but this is what Cash said about it: “I couldn’t do that scene. How could I do that and then record an album of hymns? Or talk on my television show about what religion means to my life? I’d be a hypocrite.”
Tha...
A young man who recently became a Christian said to me, “I am going home to a non-Christian family—a family that is prepared to laugh me out of the house. How should I deal with that?”
Although he grew up next door to a parsonage and there were several different ministers who lived there over the years, no one ever spoke to him about being a Christian. He said, “My family was not just n...
I like funerals! I don’t mean I enjoy them. I mean that I approve of them. I came to that conclusion after burying a person without one yesterday. It was one of those cold, gloomy winter days where the clouds hung like a wet sponge over the earth. They seemed to be waiting for someone to reach up and squeeze the rain out of them. The wind cut to the bone as we stood on the hill of the cemetery....