Who among us has not used a daily devotional book at some time or other in our lives? And there is much to choose from.The Christian’s Daily Challenge published by Harvey Christian Publishers is an example of a daily devotional which has been blessed to many Christians throughout the world.
“Prayer is not our message; it is the method of God for the message.” This is the opening statement of the first reading in Kneeling We Triumph Vol. 1. in which many of God’s saints are quoted on the subject of prayer. Edwin and Lillian Harvey, who compiled this book and its companion Kneeling We Triumph Vol. 2, quote from a variety of sources which span centuries and denominations.
The above quotations are taken from Kneeling We Triumph Vol. 1. This book is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their online Christian Bookstore.
“Prayer is releasing the energies of God. For prayer is asking God to do what we cannot do,” says George Trumbull. This statement is quoted in Kneeling We Triumph Volume One, compiled by Edwin and Lillian Harvey. This book and its companion, Kneeling We Triumph Volume Two, contain many quotes from God’s saints who served Him in various denominations but who were all convinced “that prayer does “release the energies of God.” George Trumbull was a Congregational pastor who was also professor at various colleges such as Yale, Andover, and Harvard.
For most of us, Christmas will be a Season of joyful giving, receiving, and worshiping. However, there will be some who feel it practically impossible to participate in the Christmas spirit, perhaps on account of personal loss, or trial of various kinds. For such among us, Tribulation Worketh by George Watson may prove a blessing. In it, he talks about the work of suffering in our lives and the blessing it leaves in its wake. In the introduction to this little book, its author has this to say:
O break my heart; but break it as a field
Is by the plough up-broken for the corn;
O break it as the buds, by green leaf sealed,
Are, to unloose the golden blossom, torn;
Love would I offer unto Love’s great Master,
Set free the odor, break the alabaster.
O break my heart; break it victorious God,
That life’s eternal well may flash abroad;
O let it break as when the captive trees,
Breaking cold bonds, regain their liberties;
And as thought’s sacred grove to life is springing
Be joys, like birds, their hope, Thy victory singing.
Tribulation Worketh is published by Harvey Christian Publishers. Edwin and Lillian Harvey scoured the books of George Watson on the subject of suffering and compiled this little book, trusting it would prove a blessing to Christians undergoing trials of various kinds. The above quotations are taken from the introduction to this book
Harvey Christian Publishers have published the book Broken Bread by John Wright Follette. Mr. Follette was a unique thinker and writer and was willing for God to lead him out of “the box” and into a wide panorama of spiritual truth which he imparted to hungry souls in seminars and conferences while living, and he still speaks through his writing to those of us who long for more of Christ’s inexhaustible supplies of grace. Below are some choice quotes from this book:
“Paul could have felt sorry for himself and so confused over the unkind things the people were saying that he might have developed an ugly spirit toward them. I like these lines of Edwin Markham:
‘He drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win,
We drew a circle that took him in.’
“Can you be big enough to say, “I will love you in spite of it; I will make a circle that shuts you in with God and me”? That is being like the Lord. Don’t sit down in Troas and mourn, but sit through your hour of darkness and listen for the Voice, and as sure as you live, God will open the door which He wants you to enter, where you may serve Him far better than you could have done in Bithynia.” (pp. 51-52)
“I am a flame born of celestial fire,
I bear a name, Insatiable Desire.
I wear in heart an image all divine,
Past human art, not traced by mortal line.
I hear God call to taste His heavenly power:
I give my all to burn life’s single hour.
So let me burn through fetters that would bind;
Thus will I learn and freedom will I find.
I shall return to Love’s eternal fire,
There shall I burn—a satisfied desire.”
—John Wright Follette (p. 62)
Leonard Ravenhill wrote to Edwin & Lillian Harvey while they still resided in Britain back in the 1970′s asking if he could be a representative for the two volumes of “Kneeling We Triumph” here in the US. Most of the time from then on he kept a quantity of price lists on hand to give or send to people and would highlight the books he especially wanted to emphasize. “Kneeling We Triumph” would invariably be among the highlighted titles. It was interesting for me when receiving an order to be quite sure it was a price list that originated from Mr. Ravenhill because there would be ten or so highlighted but not all ordered.
God has from time to time moved some of His servants to tell others of our books. That kind of advertizing is a reinforcement to us of the calling He has placed upon us. May the Lord find us always available to give, “Meat in due season.”
It is amazing and at times, discouraging, depending on how you look at it, to realize how slowly true progress is achieved. It is equally true that degeneration in any form often occurs “little by little,” in fact so gradually, that we can be totally ignorant of what is happening to us until some failure or perhaps even catastrophe awakens us to our true state.
The alternative title of the book Eric written by Dean Farrar and published by Harvey Christian Publishers, is in fact, Little by Little. Eric was the son of missionaries who was sent to an English boarding school and slowly, very slowly, descended into sin and participated in vices that, a few years previously, would have evoked his most hearty disapproval and horror.
This book is not so much an indictment on English boarding schools, or indeed of any boarding school, as it is a heart-rending illustration of the fact that if evil is not resisted at its incipiency, it will slowly but surely takeover a life and attempt to hurtle it to ruin. It is true that Eric repents in the end but his life has been shortened and glorious possibilities seemingly thwarted as a result of his acquiescence to the evil around him.
It is said that the author received many letters from all over the globe telling him how reading Eric as a family had brought not only conviction but conversion. We therefore, of Harvey Christian Publishers, highly recommend this book. It is particularly suitable for boys of twelve and upwards although it may be enjoyed by the whole family if read together and discussed openly. The English would be considered pedantic by today’s readers. However, it is ranked as “English Literature” by many and once you can get past the “older style,” the story will grip and even transform you.
“Three months of schooling was all I ever had,” writes Amanda Smith. That was at a school for whites, though a few colored children were permitted to attend. To this school my brother and I walked five and a half miles each day, in going and returning, and the attention we received while there was only such as the teacher could give after the requirements of the more favored pupils had been met. In view of the deficiency in my early education, and other disadvantages in this respect, under which I have labored, I crave the indulgence of all who may read this simple and unvarnished story of my life.”
The above paragraph can be found in the introduction to the book Amanda Smith, an autobiography. The subtitle is “The story of the Lord’s dealings with Amanda Smith.” Harvey Christian Publishers reprinted an abridged version of this book some years ago but are now presenting the book in its entirety.
This autobiography is remarkable for its simplicity, truthfulness, and detailed description of life as it was then. “Unvarnished,” the author called it and so it is. Beginning with her birth into slavery, Amanda chronicles in detail her life—freedom from slavery, conversion, call to minister at home and abroad and, most of all, her inner struggles as a black lady evangelist in the latter half of nineteenth century America. Her story is moving and inspiring and also a revelation of the prejudice existing even in religious circles.
Although our struggles to fulfill God’s call in our individual lives may greatly differ in detail from Amanda Smith’s, in essence they are very little different. We, too, fight against bitterness, unforgiveness, prejudice, and doubt. Amanda’s victories through simple trust in her Heavenly Father, inspire us to have faith that we can fulfill God’s call for our lives in a way which honors and glorifies Him.
The book by Edwin and Lillian Harvey, entitled How They Prayed Volume 3, quotes from the diaries, letters, and sermons of pastors and missionaries who have come to acknowledge the part prayer must play in revivals, widespread and local. “To arouse one man or woman to the tremendous power of prayer for others,” says A. J. Gordon, “is worth more than the combined activity of a score of average Christians. What David Brainerd did, others may do. God is no respecter of persons.”
“How sweet is prayer to my soul at this time,” Henry Martyn notes in his diary. “I seem as if I could never be tired, not only of spiritual joys, but of spiritual employments, since these are now the same.
“I felt as if I could never be tired with prayer. . . At night read the third and fourth chapters of the Acts; and lost much time and spirituality by indulging ideas of schemes about the Gospel, which had more of romance and pride in them than of wisdom and humiliation.”
If prayer matters then it ought not to be counted continually second in our scene of life. . . . All the time the devil is fighting our half-hour’s prayer, he never tires of fighting it. Sometimes there is a dullness which is a cloud of hell, sometimes a fiery assault.
“We know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.” We pray from the ground of that certainty; not towards certainty, but from it. Is that why we have the words, ‘In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving’? We give thanks before we see. Then the thought came, “What is it that we have in this sense already received? Surely just this: that the glory of the Lord will be manifested (for is not this what we desired of Him?), and that the very best will be done from His eternal point of view, for the work committed to us.” Amy Carmichael
Not in the tumult of the rending storm,
Not in the earthquake or devouring flame,
But in the hush that could all fear transform,
The still, small whisper to the Prophet came.
O Soul, keep silence on the mount of God,
Though cares and needs throb round thee like a sea;
From supplications and desires unshod,
Be still, and hear what God shall say to thee.
O rest, in utter quietude of soul,
Abandon words, leave prayer and praise awhile,
Let thy whole being, hushed in His control,
Learn the full meaning of His voice and smile.
―Mary Rowles Jarvis.
These quotations have been taken from How They Prayed Volume Three which is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their Online Christian Bookstore.
Can God call children or rather does God call children? What he can do is infinite; what he does do brings the question down to practicalities. The book Father Calling presents stories of children who received intimations of God’s plan for their lives at a young age. Take Charles Spurgeon for example, or Lord Shaftsbury, or Hudson Taylor, to mention a few. Sometimes the call was direct but more often it came as a result of life experience as in the case of William Quarrier who founded the Quarrier Homes in Scotland. Growing up in the slums of Glasgow, William knew what it was to feel hungry and sometimes homeless. And so he determined to give his life to help other children like himself find a place of comfort and safety from the cruelty of a fallen world.
