Sovereignty

It had been a hot summer in the south, but the heat didn’t match that of my own heart. I felt like I was trying to walk through a desert with no water, or slug through mud without getting anywhere. Years of battling chronic pain had worn me down. A ministry plan that didn’t materialize the way I...

It was 8 a.m. on a Saturday in Southern California while I was settling to watch my four-and-a-half-year-old son play basketball when I received a call from a sister in the Lord, Anne, dying in Minnesota. [1] We never met, but similar difficult providences had connected us for counsel and we became...

2,000 Years of Christ’s Power: Volume 5 Our guest—pastor, professor, lecturer, and author Nick Needham—continues his highly collectible series, 2000 Years of Christ’s Power . In volume 5— The Enlightenment and Awakening —Needham explores the many significant 18th-century developments in Church...

If anything gives us the opportunity to be unfaithful to God it is trials. In the midst of suffering we are often tempted to doubt God’s faithfulness and friendship, goodness and grace, and power and promises. We sometimes wonder if we will make it, how we will make it, or why God is doing this to...

In the Fullness of Time Many Christians believe that eschatology is simply a matter of understanding a future event—what will happen when Christ returns. Over the years, students of today’s guest have observed that eschatology is defined by two points—past and future—Christ’s death, resurrection,...

I have sat before women with tears streaming down their face confessing the truth of God’s sovereignty, but questioning His love in the face of death, despair, disappointment and disillusionment. Whether it’s the loss of a baby, the end of a marriage, the loss of financial security, the end of a...

Recently, while picking up my daughter from school I asked my customary question: “So, how was your day?” Normally, the response is brief, but this day was one of those exceptions. “History class was interesting. We had a discussion on predestination.” As it turned out, since they were studying the...

For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together, (Col. 1:17-18). Reformed...

Today the Roman Catholic Church does not sound like the Roman Catholic Church of the Counter Reformation of the 16 th century. I am not talking about tone but rather content. For example, in the first canon of the twenty-second session of Trent the Mass is defined as a “true and proper sacrifice.”...

A favorite hymn we sing at church is Walter Smith’s “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise” where the congregation beautifully confesses that “We blossom and flourish as leaves on a tree, and wither and perish, but naught changeth Thee.” My heart soars in adoration as we sing that last clause, “but...