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10,045 illustrations — Lessons from history, biography, and world events
In the dim light of Charleston's African Church, Denmark Vesey opened his Bible to the Book of Exodus. It was the spring of 1822, and...
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When a warrior marches forth in his own strength, saying "My right arm and my mighty sword shall secure victory," defeat approaches.
This Hebrew rebuke strikes at a weakness of human nature: we minimize the commonplace and exalt the distant.
In the early months of 1822, Denmark Vesey gathered followers at the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, opened the Book of Exodus,...
Ministerial obstacles arise from three directions: prejudice against the messenger himself, skepticism toward the truth proclaimed, and spiritual lethargy regarding the divine mission.
She cannot afford the luxury of trust toward those beyond her ramparts.
The Prophet compares Israel's transgression to a high wall that begins with a small rent, or breach, in its lower section—a structural weakness that seems manageable at first.
He beheld in the firmament the glory of Elohim and heard around and beneath him a chorus of praise to the Most High.
In the higher regions dwell principles of innocence, hope, love, justice, trust, kindness, purity, and tenderness—the angels of the soul.
The wicked person is utterly corrupted: speech corrupt, habits corrupt, heart corrupt, influence corrupt.
The imagery is deliberate: "Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well." Every person possesses independent spiritual resources.
In 1811, twelve-year-old Mary Anning knelt along the Blue Lias cliffs of Lyme Regis, Dorset, carefully chiseling limestone away from an enormous skeleton. Her brother...
The prophet diagnoses a spiritual pathology rooted in poor leadership.
A Christian's duty, while dwelling as a citizen of this world, is to engage its concerns actively.
They reasoned: God built us up; therefore He cannot tear us down.
Yet Exell extends the image to Christianity itself as the *helios* (sun) of our moral age.
On the evening of October 28, 1787, William Wilberforce sat at his oak desk in his home at Old Palace Yard, Westminster, and scratched a...
In 1905, a twenty-six-year-old clerk at the Swiss Federal Patent Office in Bern submitted a paper to the journal *Annalen der Physik* that would reshape...
In 1863, Emperor Napoleon III asked Louis Pasteur to investigate why French wines were spoiling during transport — a crisis costing the nation millions of...
Shepherds move constantly in pursuit of fresh pasture for their flocks, making the shepherd's tent the perfect emblem of life's transience and uncertainty.
Exell (1887) offers this Victorian meditation: We are not to expect permanence in our acquisitions.
His visible success tempts observers: he accumulates wealth, rises to honor, and achieves power through cruelty.
First, the *object* of true worship: "Men shall worship Him"—that is, Jehovah.
When Joshua's leadership (30 years), Samuel's judgeship (30 years), and Saul's reign (40 years, Acts 13:21) are subtracted from the broader 240–260 year span between Israel's entrance into Canaan and David's coronation, this interval remains.