Topic Archives: Encouragement

Are you blessed? Psalm 1 says that if you do not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers, but delight yourself instead in God’s law, you are! And here is part of the reason. Such a person ‘is like a tree […]

The allusion would be lost on most. ‘Here I raise my Ebenezer …’ Who or what is Ebenezer? Those of a more literary turn might remember the infamous Ebenezer Scrooge of Dickens’ Christmas Carol. But the action itself – raising my Ebenezer – would leave just about everyone these days scratching their head. The words […]

Some years ago I was sitting in a ministers’ conference enjoying very much hearing God’s Word preached with grace and power. The preacher, a dear friend, paused and said something that riveted me. He quoted some words of Geerhardus Vos, ‘The reason God will never stop loving you is that he never began.’ Vos was […]

The UK Banner South East Conference will be held on 30 Nov., 2013, at Grove Chapel, London. We sat down with Paul Levy to ask him some questions about his life, the upcoming conference, and what those who plan to attend should expect to hear from him. For more event details please view our UK […]

I wonder if it has ever struck you in reading the New Testament how often faith and love are mentioned in the same breath. Again and again you find that where the one is the other is as well. Let me give you some examples. In one place, Paul declares that ‘we ought always to […]

It is the easiest thing in the world to say, ‘The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord’, when all is well with you and yours. When life is sweet, when your children are trusting in Christ, when your church is united and loving, when your spouse loves […]

In recent weeks I have been reading Augustine’s Confessions. It is a great and compelling read, a 300-page prayer that illuminates Augustine’s search for God and for life. As I read the opening chapters I was struck by a word that Augustine regularly uses and that had not registered with me before. Again and again […]

Reading the Letters of Samuel Rutherford is to enter a world where love to the Lord Jesus Christ is the absorbing preoccupation. Writing to a lady parishioner in 1637, he said, ‘Christ is a well of life; but who knoweth how deep it is to the bottom? . . . And oh, what a fair one, what […]

. . . they will look on Me whom they have pierced (Zechariah 12:10). The return from exile, prophesied by Jeremiah (Jer. 25:11-12; 29:10) was a glorious and wonderful occasion for the Jews (Psa. 126:1-3), but it also vividly reminded God’s covenant people of their folly and its consequences. They had gone after false gods and Yahweh repeatedly […]

In August 1969 Dr. Lloyd-Jones was the principal preacher at the summer Institute of Theology in Pensacola. People today who were there still talk of the nine messages they heard him preach. They were the cream of his sermons, messages he had taken with him around the UK preaching to packed churches. They have now […]

It was deeply disturbing for the disciples to realise that their Master was about to leave them. Peter, ever ready to speak out when others might have kept their thoughts to themselves, asked, ‘Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards’ […]

Every believer who has ever lived has faced and experienced disappointment. There have been and will be no exceptions. Even the perfect Man of faith, our Lord Jesus Christ, experienced disappointments, difficulties, hardships. As he hung alone and abandoned on Calvary’s cross he cried out, ‘My God, My God, why . . .?’ Woven into […]

You are probably reading this as one year ends and another begins. A new year is a milestone in our lives. And we do well to remember that not everyone who passed the last such milestone has reached this one; similarly not everyone who passes this milestone will reach the next. We are on our […]

Many things combine to make the present inroad of false doctrine peculiarly dangerous. There is an undeniable zeal in some of the teachers of error: their ‘earnestness’ makes many think they must be right. There is a great appearance of learning and theological knowledge: many fancy that such clever and intellectual men must surely be […]

Mary Moffatt was a remarkable woman. Wife of Robert Moffatt, mother-in-law of David Livingstone, she and her husband served as missionaries in Bechuanaland for 45 years. The early years were hard, their labours resulting in not a single convert. Yet Mary was undaunted. When a friend wrote, asking what useful gift could be sent from […]