Prayers That Aren’t Answered

Homiletics

“Faith is not about everything turning out okay. Faith is about being okay no matter how things turn out.” ~Anonymous

There was a time when I desperately desired something specific to occur before a certain event, and I fasted and prayed to that end for months. It didn’t happen. The thing I wanted and requested did come after the event, not before.

What If

“Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” (Hebrews 1:14).

A fellow was talking the other night about the ministry of angels, because he’d been spared in a near-miss and credited it to the protection of angels. He even mentioned “guardian angels” and “my angel”;

Silver and Gold: Abraham*

A Great Deliverance*

Persecution*

Abraham’s Seed

Hermeneutics
Prophecy

“I will bless those who bless you” (Genesis 12:3).

Someone handed me a bookmark—a Bible marker. On the front was “I will bless those who bless you” (Genesis 12:3); on the back, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6, 7).

Why Are Satan and Sin Permitted?*

Bibliology
Guest Writer Thomas DeWitt Talmage

“Why do the wicked live?” (Job 31:7).

Poor Job! With tusks, horns, hoofs, and stings, it seems, all the misfortunes of life came on him at once. Bankruptcy, bereavement, scandal, and eruptive disease so irritating that he had to reinforce his ten fingernails with pieces of earthenware to be able to scratch himself. His wife took the diagnosis of his complaints and prescribed profanity. She thought he would feel better if between the paroxysms [fits] of grief and pain he would swear a little. For each boil a plaster of objurgation [rebuke].

Tobacco and Opium*

Bibliology
Guest Writer Thomas DeWitt Talmage

“Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed” (Genesis 1:11).

The two firstborn of our earth were the grass-blade and the herb. They preceded the brute creation and the human family—the grass for the animal creation, the herb for human service. The cattle came and took possession of their inheritance, the grass-blade; man came and took possession of his inheritance, the herb.

Despotism of the Needle*

Bibliology
Guest Writer Thomas DeWitt Talmage

“So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter” (Ecclesiastes 4:1).

Very long ago the needle was busy. In olden days it was considered honorable for women to toil. Alexander the Great stood in his palace showing garments made by his own mother. The finest tapestries at Bayeux were made by the queen of William the Conqueror. Augustus, the Emperor, would not wear any garments except those that were fashioned by a member of his royal family. So let the toiler everywhere be respected!

Capital and Labor*

Bibliology
Guest Writer Thomas DeWitt Talmage

“Whatever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them”
(Matthew 7:12).

The greatest war the world has ever seen is between Capital and Labor. The strife is not like that which in history is called the Thirty Years’ War, for it is a war of centuries, it is a war of the five continents, it is a war hemispheric. The middle classes in this country, on whom the nation has depended for holding the balance of power and for acting as mediators between the two extremes, are diminishing; and if things go on at the same ratio as they are now going, it will not be long before there will be no middle class in this country; but all will be very rich or very poor, princes or paupers, and the country will be given up to palaces and hovels.