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Resources by Baker, Al

Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift comes from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. (James 1:17) Astronomers tell us that our galaxy, the Milky Way, has over three billion stars, that it is one thousand light years deep, that it is one […]

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Date September 17, 2010
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Renew our days as of old. (Lamentations 5:21) John Girardeau, the Old School Presbyterian1 minister from Charleston, SC, in 1851 turned down the opportunity to pastor a large Presbyterian church in order to begin a church with African slaves, out of Second Presbyterian Church, Charleston. Girardeau’s methodology was to hold a weekly prayer meeting, to […]

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Date August 31, 2010
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How lonely sits the city. (Lamentations 1:1) The Apostle John’s vision of the glorified Christ reveals the Son of Man’s zeal for his glory and the work of his church. He is clothed with a robe, reaching to his feet, girded across his breast with a golden girdle. His head and his hair are white, […]

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Date August 24, 2010
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Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. (James 1:16) Henry Ward Beecher, born in Litchfield, CT in 1813, was the most famous man of the nineteenth century. His father was the prominent, last of the Puritan preachers, Lyman Beecher1, and Henry’s siblings accomplished remarkable things. One brother was a prominent theologian. A sister began a […]

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Date August 20, 2010
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Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God.’ (James 1:13) Charles Templeton, a newspaper reporter from Toronto, after a night of carousing and drunkenness, says that he had a conversion experience. By 1945 he was preaching with Billy Graham at Youth for Christ rallies around the U.S. and Europe. […]

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Date August 13, 2010
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Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. (James 1:12) Aaron Burr, Jr. was reared in a godly home of prominence. His great grandfather was Solomon Stoddard, the powerful theologian and pastor […]

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Date July 30, 2010
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But the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position. (James 1:9) Are you poor? By this I do not necessarily mean financial poverty. Nor do I mean being poor in spirit (Matt. 5:3), a good thing. James is contrasting the brother of humble circumstances with the rich man (James 1:9-11). So […]

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Date July 2, 2010
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. . . but let him ask in faith without any doubting. (James 1:6) James, the brother of Jesus, the one who calls himself the slave of the Lord Jesus Christ, commands us to consider all things joy. You can never do this without perfect endurance, and without perfect endurance you will not make it […]

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Date June 29, 2010
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James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. (James 1:1) In Revelation 1 the Apostle John had a vision of the glorified and risen Christ, seeing him dressed in a robe reaching to his feet, girded across his chest with a golden sash. His head and his hair were white like wool, […]

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Date June 22, 2010
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I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you? (Acts 19:15) Paul’s ministry in Ephesus was truly remarkable. I love reading about it in Acts 19. It always inspires me with what God can do through men filled with the Spirit who consecrate themselves to Christ, willing to live for him and […]

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Date June 11, 2010
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. . . and let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:4) Jim Elliot was born into a godly family in 1927 in Portland, Oregon. While at Wheaton College in 1948 he wrote, God makes His ministers a flame of fire. Am I ignitable? God […]

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Date June 4, 2010
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. . . vessels of wrath prepared for destruction . . . vessels of mercy which he prepared beforehand for glory. (Romans 9:22-23) In the previous article1 I took up the question – does God foreordain evil and evil doers? I said, ‘Yes.’ I said there are two reasons for it. First, God on that […]

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Date May 25, 2010
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I am the Lord, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well being and creating calamity. I am the Lord who does all these. (Isaiah 45:7) The attacks of 9/11, killing nearly three thousand people, were acts of pure evil. The tsunami that washed over much of the Indian […]

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Date May 21, 2010
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‘Consider it all joy’ William Carey, the father of modern world missions, was born into a poor family in Northampton, England in 1761. He had no formal education but taught himself to read and write and mastered Latin by the age of twelve. He began his trade in his early teens as a shoemaker and […]

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Date May 18, 2010
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. . . we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1). Don and Carol Richardson had come, with their infant son, to the Sawi people of southwestern New Guinea for the purpose of bringing the good news of the gospel to them. After building a house Don set about the task […]

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Date April 23, 2010
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Oh that they had such a heart in them that would fear me (Deuteronomy 5:29). On October 23, 1740, after preaching the previous weekend in Northampton with Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, the great eighteenth century evangelist, made his way south along the Connecticut River to Hartford, then Wethersfield, and finally to Middletown. Nathan Cole, a […]

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Date April 13, 2010
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Do the work of an evangelist (2 Timothy 4:5) . . . speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) . . . through love serve one another (Galatians 5:13). The year 1735 was a remarkable one in the western world.1 In January, while her husband Jonathan was off preaching in other places, the Spirit of […]

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Date April 1, 2010
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Sin entered into the world through one man (Romans 5:12). I delight in the doctrine of justification by faith – the marvellous truth that God declares the unrighteous sinner (bound for hell due to his guilt) as righteous, putting him into the category of being righteous through the person and work of Christ. Even the […]

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Date March 26, 2010
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These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer (Acts 1:14). David Brainerd was born in April, 1718 in Haddam, Connecticut and was converted just prior to enrolling at Yale in September, 1739. He was deeply and profoundly affected by the preaching of George Whitefield at Yale in the fall of 1741 at […]

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Date February 23, 2010
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But I have this against you, that you have left your first love (Revelation 2:4). By 1630 Scotland was in need of another revival, a time of visitation by God when a whole community is soaked with his presence. Such had occurred five years earlier in the town of Stewarton under the ministry of David […]

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Date February 19, 2010
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Then Noah built an altar to the Lord (Genesis 8:20). The year 1995 was a difficult one for me. I was working far too many hours and the idolatry of my work and my children’s activities had caused me to drift in my devotion to my wife. We were not in danger of divorce (we […]

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Date February 16, 2010
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On my bed night after night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him but did not find him. (Song of Solomon 3:1) David Brainerd was born in Haddam, Connecticut in April, 1718 and attended church regularly in the local Congregational Church, as almost everyone did in eighteenth century New England. However when […]

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Date February 5, 2010
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An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels. (Proverbs 31:10) Richard Baxter, the tireless, heavenly minded Puritan minister of the seventeenth century, was a confirmed bachelor,1 devoting himself completely to the ministry of the gospel in Kidderminster, England. When going there in 1641 the parish was notorious for godlessness and […]

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Date January 25, 2010
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Thus Noah did, according to all that God had commanded him, so he did. (Genesis 6:22) God has surveyed the corruption of mankind at the time of Noah, saying that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Consequently he told Noah that he would destroy every living thing from the […]

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Date December 24, 2009
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Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God. (Genesis 6:9) John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress1, The Holy War, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, and many others books,2 was born into a poor family in England in 1628. He was a tinker, a blue collar worker in […]

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Date December 18, 2009
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