The Best Christian Teachings and Readings

Luke chapter 12, verses 49 and 50. I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! I’ve been going to meetings for over seventy years all over the world—Pentecostal conferences, Methodist conferences, all kinds of conferences. I heard the baptism of the Holy Spirit preached, I think, fifty different ways. In seventy years, I’ve never heard anybody preach on this text where Jesus, speaking of Himself says: "I have a baptism..." Charles Wesley gave us that lovely children’s hymn. “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild. Look upon the little child.” Some people never get past "gentle Jesus." But Jesus is associated with fire. The next time He comes, says 2 Thes. 1:7, He’s coming with flaming angels—thousands of them! Here He is saying to these disciples, "I am come to send fire on the earth..." Again, the symbol of the church is fire. I...

If you attend church at all, you will undoubtedly hear a thousand sermons on "Be filled with the Spirit" (Eph. 5:18) for every one sermon you hear preached on "Be ye angry, and sin not" (Eph. 4:26). This is a command! It is not a defense for a bad temper. It is not an excuse for an explosion of bitterness from your bruised ego for personal rejection. I am talking here of Holy Anger. God gets angry. "The anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses" (Exodus 4:14), "God is angry with the wicked every day" (Psalm 7:11). (If you must have a bumper sticker, try this last statement for a while - but be sure that you increase your insurance before you do so.) The blessed preacher St. Paul walked down Main Street Athens, the intellectual capital of the world of his day. Acts 17:16 says in the sleepy Elizabethan English of the King James version, "His spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry." The Amplified say...

In a certain sense, all men are strangers to one another. Even friends do not really know each other. To know a man, one must know all the influences of heredity and environment, as well as his countless moral choices that have fashioned him into what he is. Though we do not really know one another, tracing the course of a man’s life sometimes offers rich reward, particularly when we see the great driving forces which have motivated him. For instance, how greatly your life and mine would be benefited if we could experience the same surge of Christ-life that moved Saul of Tarsus (later called Paul) and plumb even a little the hidden depths of the meaning in his words, "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus" (Gal. 6:17). One thing is sure about these words: they were an acknowledgment of Christ’s ownership. Paul belonged to the Lord Jesus -- spirit, soul, and body. He was branded for Christ. When Paul claimed to bear in his body the wound...

Enoch had prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones." If Jesus had entered history like that, or had come on a dark night over Jerusalem in a blazing chariot of fire (like Elijah went up to heaven), then the clamoring crowds would have accepted and adored Him. But as the poet once said, "They were looking for a king, to bring salvation nigh, He came a little infant thing, that made a woman cry." Cleansing the Temple- The local folk knew Jesus well, He was the best carpenter in the nation. But now He had stepped out of bounds, He accepted the nomination of that wild preacher John the Baptist as the Lamb of God. He had agreed to let the people mount Him on an ass and enter the city amid cries of "Hosanna." Now He had stirred the city by routing the moneychangers and cattle dealers from the temple. For almost thirty years He had watched men desecrate the place. He was outraged at their insolence and greed. He wa...

In a very brief and very brilliant biography of a famous English preacher, one of the greatest preachers that ever preached in America or England, it says that he had some very strange habits. One of these habits was to carry in his pocket a handful of precious stones... a diamond, a sapphire, a ruby, an emerald, and so forth. He would walk into a park and take one of those precious stones and hold it up to the light of the sun, moving it around, seeking different shades or different illuminations from it as the sunlight hit it. And as the people would go past, particularly the children, they would all shake their heads indicating that they thought this fellow was just a little bit odd. The preacher that I am referring to is Jonathan Edwards, and back in the 1700s he preached one of the greatest sermons ever preached in America. It was called "Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God." The people fell off their seats and clung to the pillars that were holding the galler...

Phillipians 1:20, "According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body..." I used to think that in the second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 5, Paul gives a summary of his theology. He believes that " If we are absent from the body, we are present with the Lord. " Knowing the terror of the Lord we persuade men. " We must all appear at the judgment seat of Christ. Dear Keith Green said one day in my office, as we were talking about the roads, "All roads lead to the judgment seat." It's true. They do. Whether we are slaves or free men, intellectuals or ignoramuses, black or white, rich or poor: "All roads lead to the judgment seat." Without exception. Then verse 14 expresses what I always considered to be the thing that really motiva...