On 23 April 1954, a student at Moore College, Sydney, was listening to a history lecture by Marcus Loane, being part of a series on Paul and Acts. It was a day not to be forgotten by W. J. Lawton, who would later speak of the ‘breath-taking grandeur’ of the address and would add,…
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On Friday 22 November 1963, the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade in Dallas, Texas. Then Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson’s immediate succession and Kennedy’s sudden death spurred worldwide controversy and raised suspicions of conspiracy, that were increased by the nature of the…
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Evangelicals rightly celebrate William Wilberforce. His Christian beliefs motivated his historic effort to secure the abolition of the slave trade, in the British empire, in 1807 (see ET, December 2017). What we don’t talk about so much is how a number of godly Christian leaders, particularly in the Southern USA in the nineteenth century,…
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Last year — 500 years on since the Reformation — was one of joyful commemoration, focusing on the exhilarating truths of the gospel. Scottish Reformer and martyr Patrick Hamilton, explained in his little treatise, Patrick’s Places, why the gospel is such a glad herald: ‘The [moral] law saith: “Pay thy debt. Thou art a…
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In ET August 2016, ‘Teach us how not to pray’ looked at some bad ways people pray, putting their desires above their legitimate needs and not considering God’s will for their lives. But why do Bible-believing Christians behave this way? It comes down, I think, to at least two issues. One is fear, the…
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The failed attempts to murder Pierre Viret (ET, October 2017) backfired on the Catholics; they were regarded with suspicion and contempt. Geneva was won for the Reformation, yet Viret was not to remain there. He was now entreated to go to Lausanne. Geneva had preachers, but there were none in Lausanne. Viret could not…
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There was a time when the world was overwhelmed with wickedness and the evil of man spread across the face of the globe. The wickedness was so great that God determined to wipe out mankind, together with animals, birds and everything that moved on the ground. His chosen method of judgment then was a…
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