FAIR SUNSHINE

By all accounts he was rarely gifted, and carried a brilliant intellect yielded to Christ. He had his own rustic school of theology, and his classes were attended by youths from miles around. Three of these class members sealed their testimonies with their blood, and their leader had oftentimes to flee. An impediment in his speech had made him give up the thought of being a Covenanting minister, but here was his own Bible School where he taught youth to resist unto blood, striving against sin.  In the summer time they held their classes in the sheepfold, and in the winter they sat around the peat fire in the kitchen. We rightly look upon John Brown of Priesthill as being one of our first founders of Bible Classes and Sunday Schools. Who would not like to see the Bible School at Priesthill with John Brown in his class of peasant students, candidates for martyrdom? The  year 1685 was a terrible year in a terrible era. The Killing Time reeked reddest then. The author of Robinson ...

My Declaration of Faithful Disobedience Pastor Wang Yi, Early Rain Covenant Church Chengdu, China, December 12, 2018 On the basis of the teachings of the Bible and the mission of the gospel, I respect the authorities God has established in China. For God deposes kings and raises up kings. This is why I submit to the historical and institutional arrangements of God in China. As a pastor of a Christian church, I have my own understanding and views, based on the Bible, about what righteous order and good government is. At the same time, I am filled with anger and disgust at the persecution of the church by this Communist regime, at the wickedness of their depriving people of the freedoms of religion and of conscience. But changing social and political institutions is not the mission I have been called to, and it is not the goal for which God has given his people the gospel. For all hideous realities, unrighteous politics, and arbitrary laws manifest the cross of Jesus...

How many of us bow at the slightest discomfort and trouble? How our faith is revealed in the smallest of all affliction? When in fact, if we take time to reflect on it, our lives are not enough to give back for what has been graciously given us. I am afraid that even in our so-called present zeal, we have yet hidden one of both hands from the Lord, though he gave us his all, and that it would take the blood of  present-days martyrs for revival to yet come to our land. May God have mercy on us.  ~D With hands tied together, James Guthrie walked slowly up the High Street to the city cross. Broad-shouldered William Govan kept pace beside him. The one was nearly fifty, the other not yet out of his thirties. Greatheart and Valiant for Truth were to be seen once again upon the human scene. Soon they were upon the scaffold above the serried rows of glittering steel, and Sickerfoot, who had been offered a bishopric and had refused it, stepped forward with loving zeal to give his...