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The famous mutineers who sank the British ship Bounty ended up settling with their native women on the lonely island of Pitcairn in the South Pacific. The group consisted of nine British sailors, six Tahitian men, ten Tahitian women, and a girl of fifteen. One of the sailors discovered how to distill alcohol, and soon drunkenness corrupted the island colony. […]

Some mornings, the world seems a paradise. You wake up, take a deep breath by the window, and look out on golden sunshine reflecting on the trees, leaf by leaf. Some moments make life seem so precious: the face of a beloved friend as you say good-bye, a sublime piece of music that perfectly matches your mood, the unexpected affection […]

After a minister had spoken on the subject, «Why I Believe in Jesus,» a well-dressed young man paid him a visit in his study and remarked, «Your talk tonight was interesting, but everything you said about Christ came out of your Bible. Tell me, if Jesus ever lived on this earth, why doesn’t history tell about Him?»   «That’s a […]

They found his skeleton beside a makeshift shelter on a desolate island in the mid-Atlantic. The anonymous seaman kept a journal which detailed his four-month ordeal. He’d been set ashore on Ascension Island by the Dutch fleet in 1725 for some unmentioned crime. Soon he was reduced to drinking the blood of turtles just to quench his raging thirst. The […]

After living most of his life as a Buddhist, an elderly man in Singapore who had become a Christian was asked, «Mr. Lim, what difference do you find between being a Buddhist and being a Christian?» «That’s easy,» he answered. «Since I’ve found Jesus as my Savior, I have such a peace in my heart.» That’s what happens when we […]

Doctors Patricia and David Mrazek saw a great deal of heartbreak in their work. As pediatric specialists they dealt with many suffering children. But they were struck by the fact that some kids bounced back from disaster while others were crushed by it. Why? Why, for example, does one child go to drugs, while another goes to college? Why do […]

After years of mistreatment, Armando Valladares was an emaciated, crippled shadow of his former self. He was serving a 30-year sentence in one of Castro’s prisons for praying in a church on Christmas Day. Prison officials starved, tortured, and humiliated the man, but he refused to give up his faith. Something kept him going: a promise he’d made to a […]

When Marco Polo returned to his hometown of Venice after many years in the Orient, his friends thought his long journeys had driven him mad. He had such incredible tales to tell. Marco had travelled to a city full of silver and gold. He’d seen black stones that burned, but no one had ever heard of coal. He’d seen a […]

Most of us have an almost instinctive urge to peek into the future. We want to know what lies beyond the horizon. But accurate predictions remain terribly elusive. We have a difficult enough time forecasting tomorrow’s weather! There is Someone, however, whose prophecies have proven remarkably accurate. Jesus Christ, through His Word, can take us into the future; He’s a […]

In 1929 Frank Morris boarded a ship bound for Switzerland. He’d looked forward to this voyage for some time. But it turned into a humiliating experience. A steward put in charge of his care locked Frank in his cabin each night. After a quick breakfast Frank could exercise a bit, but felt foolish being led around the deck, like an […]

When a Scottish lad named Peter got lost in a grassy wasteland on an inky black night, God called him by name: «Peter!» When the heavenly voice called out again, Peter stopped in his tracks, looked down, and discovered he was a step away from plunging into an abandoned limestone quarry. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could each hear […]

There were no fingerprints. No weapon was ever discovered. No one saw the murderer enter the office of the doctor. No one even heard the shots ring out. But the doctor was found sprawled behind his desk. Five bullets had pierced his shirt. It seemed the perfect crime. The police at first could find no clues. But then they noticed […]

Anatoli Levitin, a Russian writer and historian, spent years in the Siberian Gulag where petitions to God must have seemed frozen to the ground. But he came back quite spiritually fit. «The greatest miracle of all is prayer,» he wrote. «I have only to turn mentally to God and at once I feel a force that pours into me from […]

In 1943, Japanese occupation forces ordered hundreds of American and European «enemy nationals» to an internment camp in China’s Shantung Province. They had to endure months of boredom, frustration, overcrowding, and fear. Personalities clashed, tempers flared. Petty squabbles multiplied. But one man was described by an internee as «without a doubt the person most in demand and most respected and […]

Just a few years ago some were predicting we would soon have more leisure time than we’d know what to do with. There were good reasons for those confident predictions. In the cities of the world computers were crunching through month-long tasks in fractions of a second. And robots had begun to handle the grueling jobs of heavy industry. But […]

Larry was enjoying pleasant conversation, Japanese tea, and rice crackers at Mr. Komori’s house when the other guests began taking out their Bibles. They all looked at him expectantly. «Could you please give us our study now?» Mr. Komori asked. Larry almost choked on his tea. He’d thought this get-together was just to have fun. And now he couldn’t think […]

Contemporary researchers have taken pains to document a truth which the Bible first established: human beings are an integrated whole. What we often divide into the physical, mental, and spiritual parts of a person are really interrelated and inseparable. In other words, what affects the mind, affects the body. Our spiritual condition has an impact on our physical condition, and […]

Here is a thrilling letter from one of our Bible school representatives in Africa: «Five years ago I received a request from the Voice of Prophecy to visit a prisoner who was a Bible correspondence school student. I presented the request to the prison authorities, who graciously gave permission. Because the student had a deep desire to study the Bible, […]

In the early 1960s, Brother Andrew, a man from Holland, smuggled a load of Bibles in his VW across the Romanian border and past communist guards. He checked into a hotel and began praying that God would lead him to the right Christian groups-the ones who could best use his copies of the Scriptures. That weekend Andrew walked up to […]

In Guide 16 we discovered that experiencing Sabbath rest is an important antidote to today’s stressful living. Since God understands our every need, He established each seventh day for our physical rest and our spiritual refreshment. After creating our world in six days, He «rested» on the seventh day, «blessed» and «made it holy» (Genesis 2:1-3). When God gave the […]

A boy in the inner city is killed by stray gang bullets as he does his homework at the family table. A young mother in the suburbs finds that her child has contracted AIDS from a contaminated blood transfusion. The tragedies go on and on in our world. And we long so much for an answer to it all. Where […]

A senseless shooting occurred when a student marched into his school and killed several of his classmates. A disgruntled man who had been fired from his job, entered the place of his former employment and shot his superior. A mother pushed her car into a lake with her two children inside and drowned them. On at least two continents many […]

We cringe when a child first asks, «What does it mean to die?» We shrink from talking about or even thinking about someone we love dying. Death is the common enemy of people everywhere. What are the answers to the hard questions about death? Is there life after death? Will we see our dead loved ones again?     Death […]

God has frequently given special messages to meet the needs of different generations: a message to help Adam and Eve after sin ruined their world, a message to the world before the cataclysm of the Flood, messages for Israel when Assyria or Babylon threatened. Jesus came with a special message for His generation, and God has sounded a special message […]

Ramon Umashankar was born a Brahmin. His elders taught him at an early age that he was a god, and that to realize his divinity he must practice yoga and meditation. But as a teenager, Ramon began to wonder if He could really find God through the various idols worshipped in Hindu temples. Ramon began examining the Bible and the […]