Biographical Sketch

After a riveting sermon, the sheriff served an arrest warrant to John Bunyan and left. He had the choice to flee and avoid arrest, but he believed that he should demonstrate before his congregation that he was willing to suffer for the sake of Jesus, and that he was not afraid of imprisonment or death.

One of the enemy warriors hurled his spear at the boys. The deadly spear pierced through the baby brother, but 12-year-old Opukahaia survived. He was captured and forced into slavery, serving the murderer of his parents. Eventually Opukahaia fled and managed to catch a ride on a merchant ship. The ship’s captain brought him to New Haven, Connecticut, where he encountered Christian civilization for the first time.

On July 8, 1741, a visiting minister from Northampton, Massachusetts, was scheduled to preach in a Connecticut village church. While not particularly famous or popular, he was known to be an honest servant of the Lord who relied upon the power of the Holy Spirit.

In 1655, Stephen Charnock took a bold step into the public sphere. He went to Ireland with Henry Cromwell, son of Oliver Cromwell, who was recently appointed Governor of Ireland, and became the court chaplain.

It was thought by all who knew the Ryle family that young John would follow his father into banking, and maybe even serve in Parliament someday. But during a severe sickness, he thought much of God, eternity, sin, and salvation.

In his youth, George Whitefield developed a love for the theater and aspired to become an actor. He later mourned over this period of his life, confessing that he was “addicted to lying, filthy talking, and foolish jesting.”

In the summer of 1901, an American army officer was waging a most unusual war in the city of Havana. Some thought the colonel was crazy. Others believed him to be a genius.

God’s call to His people to be “set apart” from uncleanness was applied by Dr. Joseph Lister in many practical ways. The revolutionary surgical procedures of sterilization that he developed saved thousands of lives over the years.

King Edward VI reigned for only 6 short years, but his brief reign was a model of Godliness. Thomas Cranmer said of the young king that he had “more divinity in his little finger than we have in our whole bodies.”

A rescue ship drifted slowly toward the rocky coastline. This particular area was known to be at “the end of the earth.” Long feared by sailors for its violent storms, hidden rocks, and savage natives, this desolate region of rocky islands is known as Tierra de Fuego. It is located off the coast of Patagonia, the southernmost tip of the mainland of South America. The mission of the rescue ship was a desperate one: to locate and assist seven missionaries who had come to bring the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ to these desolate islands.

Colonel Jim Irwin became the eighth man to walk on the moon’s surface. The mission successfully explored the Hadley Rille area and collected valuable rock samples, including the famous “Genesis Rock.” The deployment of the Rover was a grand success, and famous video footage was taken of the wild ride Astronauts Irwin and Scott took in the vehicle as they bounded over rocks and craters. After one particularly harrowing bump when the Rover almost flipped over in the slight gravity of the moon, Commander Scott broke the tension by saying, “Somebody forgot to put up the ‘Dip’ sign back there.” Colonel Irwin responded by adding, “. . . we’d be sitting here a long time waiting for a wrecker.”

he eager crowd began to file into the music hall to take their seats. A new oratorio titled Messiah, composed by a German musician named George Frideric Handel, was to be performed publicly for the first time. The date was April 13, 1742, and the place was Dublin, Ireland. The proceeds from the ticket sales were to be donated by the composer to various charitable establishments in Ireland.

Soli Deo Gloria—“glory to God alone”—was the testimony of Johann Sebastian Bach. Three centuries have not diminished the influence or the legacy of Bach. As recently as 2019, a poll was taken among almost 200 living musical composers, asking who they considered to be the greatest composer of all time. The winner was Bach, setting him above all other greats, such as Handel, Mozart, Hayden, and Beethoven. Bach’s masterpieces have stood the test of time, and his concertos, fugues, counterpoints, and magnificent cantatas are still studied and performed the world over.

It was a risky, daring mission. B-25s had never taken off from an aircraft carrier before. But high command deemed it important to show the people of Japan and Emperor Hirohito that Japan was not too far away for the United States to give payback for attacking Pearl Harbor! Knowing that it would be impossible to return to their carrier and land, the one-way mission would bomb targets inside Japan, fly over Japan and beyond, in hope of having enough fuel to make it to friendly airfields in China.

It was a cold winter morning. Outside, the snow was falling steadily. A fifteen-year-old boy slowly made his way through the streets of Colchester in the southeastern part of England. Being Sunday, all the shops were closed. Here and there, the lad saw small groups of men and women struggling through the snowdrifts to attend the various church services in town. Such a blizzard had not been seen by the city in a long time!

John Williams would be the instrument of God to open the islands of the South Pacific to mission work. The first island upon which Williams and his wife labored was the beautiful island of Tahiti, in what is now French Polynesia. A small mission work had already been founded there, and the young couple learned how to operate a mission station among cannibals.

On October 6, 1918, World War I—the greatest and most devastating war that the world had as yet known—was only a month away from the cessation of hostilities. But on that day, a baby was born in Dallas, Texas. That baby, Henry Madison Morris, was destined to grow up and serve as a soldier in a much greater spiritual battle, a battle that spans every age and every generation and which later would be referred to as the “long war against God.”

The sheep grazed quietly as the sun slowly sank behind the Scottish hills. The sixteen-year old shepherd boy named John gazed at the sunset. His eyes brightened as he thought about the mission that lay before him that night. He would leave his flock in the care of a friend so he could embark on his mission. The lad slipped his hand into his homespun knapsack and felt his hard-earned money. With his funds that had been carefully saved up for a long time, soon he would set out on his long overnight hike.

Florence was a center of art and culture. Here lived Michelangelo and other famous artists of the Renaissance. The powerful Medici family ruled this opulent city, and their palace was stunningly adorned with all that money could buy. Silks, jewels, paintings, art, theater, and literature made this one of the preeminent cities in all of Europe. Into this city Savonarola had arrived in the plain black robe of a Dominican friar.

Have you ever felt that you were the only one standing for truth? Has it ever seemed that the pull of error was stronger than the pull of truth? There was a time in early Christian history when the doctrine of the eternal divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ was under tremendous attack throughout the world. In that day of error and compromise, one man, a faithful pastor from Alexandria, stood boldly against heresy to defend the cause of truth. His name was Athanasius.