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Beyond the Reach of Darkness
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tower high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him…
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Why is All This Happening?
“Over half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: ‘Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.’ Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our…
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Dabbling with an Unsafe God
“…When the line pulls at your hand, when something breathes beside you in the darkness…it is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. ‘Look out!’ we cry, ‘it’s alive’. And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back—I would have done so myself if I could—and proceed…
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What Believers Do
“What is not believed in practice is not, in fact, believed at all…” —C.H. Spurgeon Whether they follow Jesus or not, people do what they believe. Those who profess Christ do what He says. That simple. Believers do because they believe. It appears there are many believers who don’t. King David said, “Search me, O God,…
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Why Wait?
Another of my favorite poems that speaks for itself. Oh, wait a minute… WAIT Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried Quietly, patiently, lovingly God replied. I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate, And the Master so gently said, “Child, you must wait”. “Wait? You say, wait!” my indignant reply. “Lord, I need…
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Miracle
July 4, 2017—Today I was in a miracle. Two years ago we were packing up our annual July 4th picnic/baptism at the American River (Coloma, CA) when were heard sirens converging at the river near our baptism site. I came to the picnic as a pastor and it appeared I was about to shift into…
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Eating Fireworks
“THERE EXIST BEINGS WHO…spend more money, waste more time, take more trouble, than would be required for ten good actions, and that gratuitously, for their own pleasure, without receiving any other payment for their curiosity than curiosity…Why? For no reason. A pure passion for seeing, knowing and penetrating into things. A pure itch for talking.…
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Forgiving the Unforgivable
“When God alone is with us in the strange, trackless forests of what we really are, there is potential for us to do or say all sorts of unpleasant things. Take heart. Whatever those things might be, he will forgive us, as long as we extend the same courtesy to others.” —Adrian Plass Forgiving others…
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Visiting Revelation’s Churches
Revelation’s Seven Churches—I’m leading a group to visit them next April. You’ve never seen the Book of Revelation until you’ve been there—or the Book of Acts, or Paul’s and John’s and Peter’s letters. Next April 9-20, 2018 we’ll visit all Seven Churches—Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea—and Colossae, Miletus, Hieropolis, Troas and Troy.…
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A World of Geldings
“You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more ‘drive,’ or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity.’ [But] In a sort of ghastly simplicity, we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at…
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Jay McCarl 