And the temple of God which is in heaven was opened; and the ark of His covenant appeared in His temple, and there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder and an earthquake and a great hailstorm. (Revelation 11:19, NASB)

Take a moment and meditate on what that verse is describing. There is coming a day when heaven will be opened. To open something is to reveal what is inside. It is to make visible that which has been, at least in some part, hidden. This means the day is coming that God will reveal heaven. And…

This poem is a sequel to my poem, House of Cards. You may want to check it out first:

It was a privilege and an honor
When the king asked me to build his house
So I poured my blood and sweat in
And did the best that I know how

I came highly recommended
I’m the best builder in this town
No one could imagine
It would ever be knocked down

We were building a house of cards
And dreaming it would never fall apart
We were building on sandy beaches
And my, how the view was good

My…

When I was younger, if you had told me that I would love history one day, I would have laughed at you. In school, I thought history was boring and useless. My, how things change.

The change happened the first time I read a history book because I wanted to, not because I had to, for a class. After that, I was addicted.

Three main things cause me to love history. In no particular order, I would like to share them with you.

History is a theater

When you watch a play, you have the opportunity to watch characters and stories unfold right before…

Ignatius was the bishop of Antioch in Syria. He was arrested for his association with Christ and hauled off to Rome where he would die for his faith around A.D. 110.

On his way from Syria to Rome, knowing he was facing execution, he wrote letters to churches in various regions. In these letters, and much of the early church writing on persecution, there are some statements that are simply striking.

The way they viewed suffering for Christ presents a stark contrast from the way we often do. One of those letters was addressed to the Trallians. …

God is eternal. In fact, He is the only being or thing that is truly eternal. Even heaven, hell, angels, demons, and the human soul can only be considered eternal in a futuristic context. All of these things, though they have no end, did have a beginning. Only God is without beginning and without end.

Only God is wholly unrestricted by the reality of time. Since God is unrestricted by time, being the very force that restricts time itself, from His vantage point all things are present.

Though He chooses to reveal Himself to us within the framework of time…

In some of my recent reading on the Revolutionary War, I came across a statement that deeply affected me. It offered me a window into the lived experience of one man and his family in the tumult of those times. It was written by Lieutenant Samuel Cooper in a letter to his wife. Here is the statement.

The dangers we are to encounter I know not, but it shall never be said to my children: Your father was a coward. ( The British Are Coming by Rick Atkinson, page 213)

Lieutenant Cooper wrote these words shortly before beginning the long…