FAIR SUNSHINE

The faithfulness of God continually bears blessed fruit! To be so privileged as to serve our King and Lord by carefully teaching these young minds concerning the excellencies of Christ is an experience of profound and incredible humbling. In the month of May of the year two thousand and twenty-three, the Lord's work commenced with but eight students; today, we are blessed to number twenty-one. In the months that have passed, some few have departed or were drawn away by their parents to attend the conventional Roman Catholic mass, yet many more still came in their stead, proving that the work is of God and not man. When we first arrived upon this field, we prayed fervently that our Heavenly Father would open doors for us to share the Gospel with the families dwelling within this compound. And in His boundless wisdom, God sent us the children in direct answer to our humble petition. By this divine arrangement, we are reaching two generations rather than just one. These blessed childr...

As I journeyed toward my fishing hole, my soul was exercised with earnest supplication, repeatedly importuning the LORD to grant me a searching soul—a weary, sin-sick stranger—upon whom I might lavish the glorious tidings of the Gospel. And lo, a profound calm settled upon my spirit, a certain assurance of His favor! For assuredly, He never fails to bestow, in His tender grace, that which His humble servant asks of Him. This deep, abiding serenity, this grounded peace that often fills my breast, confirms the very path of my mortal pilgrimage: to spend the remainder of my fleeting days in this most blessed employ! To boast before a heedless world the immeasurable wonder of God’s unmerited gift—Christ crucified!  O, the mystery of this calling! It begets a wondrous gladness within the soul, mingled with a terrible terror in the flesh. To know that this sacred duty is laid upon me, yet to possess a natural detestation of all human attention—it is a spiritual paradox! Yet, how glorious...

And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent and carried off things from it and went and hid them. Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come; let us go and tell the king's household.” 2 Kings 7:8-9  "In the first instance, the sheer, self-centered disregard of those poor, afflicted souls was truly grievous to read. They crammed their own bellies with the sustenance presented, whilst selfishly hoarding every last spoil they could lay their hands on. Yet, it is a small mercy that, amidst such indulgence, the light of conscience pricked them, and they were brought to recognise their lapse. Even more dismaying is the pitiful truth that their unthinking actions serve as a drea...

I now write to commend the LORD on behalf of this young, new believer. A humble grade school teacher who stood on the edge of a decision that would permanently change her course in a life drawn out for her by familial expectations and ambition. For many aspiring teachers like her, the Licensure Exam for Professional Teachers was more than just a test—it was the bridge between her years of study and a future of security. Her parents had placed their hopes in her success, trusting that her career would help carry the weight of the family’s needs. However, something else had been subtly growing inside of her during the year that she had been a student of the Lord: a high regard for the LORD's glory and His commandments. She had repeatedly been reminded that God had made the seventh day specifically His own. The pressure increased steadily in the month before the test. The date of the exam was set. It fell on the Lord's Day. But the Lord has been steadily dealing with her thr...

"I fear that in some of our less enlightened country churches there are conservative individuals who almost believe that to preach anywhere except in the chapel would be a shocking innovation, a sure token of heretical tendencies, and a mark of zeal without knowledge. Any young brother who studies his comfort among them must not suggest anything so irregular as a sermon outside the walls of their Zion.  In the olden times we are told Wisdom crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets, she crieth in the chief places of concourse, in the openings of the gates'; but the wise men of orthodoxy would have wisdom gagged except beneath the roof of a licensed building. These people believe in a New Testament which says, Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, and yet they dislike a literal obedience to the command. Do they imagine that a special blessing results from sitting upon a particular deal board with a piece of straight-up panelling at their b...

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11 The Karen people inhabited northern Thailand and the highlands of Burma (Myanmar) for generations.  A prophecy that was part of their oral traditions stated that the Creator God, Y'wa, had once given them a book that contained His truth. They believed that their forefathers had lost this book long ago as a result of their disobedience to Him.  Tradition told that the missing book would eventually be returned to them by a white brother who would come across the ocean.  Despite not knowing the Bible, they sung old hymns about Y'wa being everlasting, holy, and the creator of everything. This prophecy kept alive a desire for the restoration of truth. Adoniram Judson comes to Burma in 1813, and opened his first public preaching place in 1819. For seven years he labored among the Burmese Buddhists, working on...

Again: we have not enough self-denial; and that is one reason why we do not prosper. Far be it from me to say aught against the self-denial of those worthy brethren who have left their country to cross the stormy deep to preach the Word. We hold them to be men who are to be had in honor; but still, I ask, Where is the self-denial of the apostles now-a-days?  I think one of the greatest disgraces that ever was cast upon the church in those days was that last mission to Ireland. Men went over to Ireland; but, like men who have valor's better part, brave, bold men,—they came back again, which is about all we can say of the matter. Why do they not go there again?  Why, they say the Irish "booed" them. Now, don't you think you see Paul taking a microscope out of his pocket, and looking at a little man who should say to him, "I shall not go there to preach, because the Irish booed me!"  "What!" he says, "is this a preacher? What a small edition of...

We have known men who believed Calvinistic doctrines, but who preached Calvinism in the morning and Arminianism in the evening, because they were afraid God's gospel would not convert sinners, so they would manufacture one of their own.  I hold that a man who does not believe his gospel to be able to save men's souls, does not believe it at all. If God's truth will not save men's souls, man's lies cannot. If God's truth will not turn men to repentance, I am sure there is nothing in this world that can.  When we believe the gospel to be powerful, then we shall see it is powerful.  If I walk into this pulpit, and say, "I know what I preach is true," the world says I am an egotist; "The young man is dogmatical." Aye, and the young man means to be; he glories in it; be keeps it to himself as one of his peculiar titles, for he does most firmly believe what he preaches.  God forbid that I should ever come tottering up the pulpit-stairs to teach a...

We have no eyes now like the eyes of the Saviour, which could weep over Jerusalem: we have few voices like that earnest, impassioned voice, which seemed perpetually to cry,  "Come unto me, and I will give you rest."   "O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How often would I have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not."   If ministers of the gospel were more hearty in their work of preaching; if, instead of giving lectures, and devoting a large part of their time to literary and political pursuits, they would preach the Word of God, and preach it as if they were pleading for their own lives, ah! Then, my brethren, we might expect great success; but we cannot expect it while we go about our work in a half-hearted way, and have not that zeal, that earnestness, that deep purpose, which characterized those men of old.  Then again, I take it, we have not men in our days who can preach like Paul—as to their faith, What did Paul do? He went to Phi...

In the first place, we have not men with Apostolic zeal.  Converted in a most singular way, by a direct interposition from heaven, Paul, from that time forward, became an earnest man. He had always been earnest, in his sin and in his persecutions; but after he heard that voice from heaven, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ?" and had received the mighty office of an apostle, and had been sent forth a chosen vessel to the Gentiles, you can scarcely conceive the deep, the awful earnestness which he manifested.  Whether he did eat, or drink, or whatsoever be did, he did all for the glory of his God; he never wasted an hour: he was employing his time either in ministering with his own hands unto his necessities, or else lifting up those hands in the synagogue, on Mars Hill, or anywhere where he could command the attention of the multitude.  His zeal was so earnest, and so burning, that he could not (as we unfortunately do) restrain himself within a little sphere; but he p...

My spirit was quite beaming with gladness, and my heart set ablaze once again, when the LORD did mercifully lead me to discover a dear brother who boldly proclaims the glorious Gospel in the public thoroughfares of the Andes, Peru, even accompanied by his own faithful son! Such a spectacle of conviction doth put our own languid spirits to shame, for the truth is delivered not with the rhetorical flourishes of man, but with the plain, unvarnished truth concerning the great spiritual need of our perilous times. My supplication ascends now for this valiant laborer! May the LORD mightily advance His Kingdom among the mountain populace in that far-off land, and through this dear brother's faithful exertions, may He call them home to the fold of Christ! Even at the very commencement of the LORD's work in our own humble sphere, our hearts have been lifted in constant prayer for those unnamed and unknown missionaries who have, with sacred resolve, forsaken the comforts of their mortal ...

To dedicate oneself to the simple acts of mercy ministry is undeniably a noble and commendable pursuit, bearing a righteous mark. Yet, to perform such deeds whilst neglecting the intentional and open proclamation of the Gospel—that sacred message of saving grace—is to tacitly affirm the wretched notion that the soul of man may, indeed, live upon bread alone. If one were to but dedicate the space of a single year to the rigorous perseverance of open-air preaching, you would quickly realize, with a striking clarity, precisely what solemn commandment you have been neglecting all along. Let us not find comfort in the physical relief of others, while their souls starve for the truth. The greatest act of mercy is to bring the unblemished Word to a soul in darkness. Good doxology must, by necessity, flow forth from sound theology. For it is a proper, heartfelt appreciation of the Almighty's glorious majesty that first inspires a genuine and humbling awe, which in turn, acts as the soverei...

King Solomon levied 150,000 workers (2 Chr 2:17) , enlisting 3,300 overseers (1 Kings 5:16)  and 300 commanders over all (2 Chr 2:18) for the building of the temple. Such a monumental undertaking that required careful preparation and careful attention to detail in order to mobilize a large number of men. The task of the ministers of God should be to prepare the people to partake in the advancement of the greater kingdom that is Christ's as He did bid His followers: "Engage in business till I come"   (Lk 19:13). The same business He mentioned when Joseph and Mary found Him amidst teachers in the temple (Lk 2:49) : "to do the will of Him who sent Me"   (Jn 4:34) . What will? "To give His life a ransom for many"   (Mat 20:28) . To what end? " That they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3) . Knowing God opens the gates to gospel action - to its proclamation, just as YHWH was the motivation beh...