Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Audio, Inc." in Christianity

Anne Catherine Emmerich was born in Germany in 1774. As a child she believed that angels, saints, and the Holy Family visited and talked with her as she worked in the fields. At twenty-four, she had her first mystic vision of the sufferings of Christ, accompanied by stigmata and bleeding as if from the crown of thorns. At twenty-nine, she became an Augustinian nun and continued to have visions and stigmata. In her visions, she recounted scenes from the life of Christ, which she seemed to have witnessed.

One of the greatest challenges facing Christians today is the powerful influence of secular thinking. From all directions we're fed a constant barrage of persuasive - yet unbiblical - worldviews. This makes it difficult to know where to stand on today's most talked-about issues. The leadership team at Grace Community Church, along with their pastor, John MacArthur, provide much-needed discernment and clarity in the midst of rampant confusion. Using the Bible as the foundation, you'll learn how to develop a Christian perspective on key issues.

After many years of working to reform the Church of England, Richard Baxter faced an unexpected, serious illness, during which he carried out an intense theological exploration of the afterlife and heaven. The humble approach in his writings reflects his life as a Nonconformist leader in the church. His ponderings on heaven, our ability to understand it, and the nature of it will help you prepare for the unknown and encourage a deeper devotion to God.

We admire these men for their greatness, but the truth is Augustine grappled with sexual passions, Martin Luther struggled to control his tongue, and John Calvin fought the battle of faith with worldly weapons. Yet each of these men will always be remembered for the messages they declared - messages that still resound today. John Piper explores these men's lives, integrating Augustine's delight in God with Luther's emphasis on the Word and Calvin's exposition of scripture. Through their strengths and struggles, we can learn how to live better today.

Intolerance is a beautiful thing...when you understand it from God's point of view. There is a spiritual struggle for the hearts and minds of our young people. Cultural tolerance is pervasive in today's world. It seems to show up everywhere - in education, government, society...even within the church.

If you caught a glimpse of heaven, would you choose to comeback to life?

Investigative journalist Judy Bachrach has collected accounts of those who died and then returned to life with lucid, vivid memories of what occurred while they were dead, and the conclusions are astonishing. Clinical death - the moment when the heart stops beating and brain stem activity ceases - is not necessarily the end of consciousness, as a number of doctors are now beginning to concede.

Harry Blamires, a noted British Christian thinker who started writing through the encouragement of C. S. Lewis, his tutor at Oxford, makes a perceptive diagnosis of some of the weaknesses besetting the church today. He argues that the distinctively Christian intellect is being swept away by secular modes of thought and secular assumptions about reality. Blamires calls for the recovery of the Christian mind and challenges “not only secularism’s assault upon personal morality and the life of the soul, but also secularism’s truncated and perverted view of the meaning of life...."

The grand truth of election takes us back to the beginning of all things. It predated the entrance of sin into the world, the fall of man, the incarnation of Christ, and the proclamation of the gospel. A correct understanding of it, especially in its relation to the everlasting covenant, is absolutely essential if we are to be kept from fundamental error. If the foundation be faulty, then the building erected upon it cannot be sound; and if we err in our conceptions of this basic truth, then in just proportion, so will our grasp of all other truth be inaccurate.

The life of Elijah has gripped the thought and imagination of preachers and writers in all ages. His sudden appearance out of complete obscurity, his dramatic interventions in the national history of Israel, his miracles, his departure from the earth in a chariot of fire all serve to that end. He comes in like a tempest, who went out like a whirlwind. The first we hear from him is an oath and a threat. It is fitting that the lessons which may be drawn from Elijah's ministry should be presented afresh to our generation.

The compelling, beautiful narrative of Code Name God is one man's rags-to-riches story and, more profoundly, the vision of a world-class physicist seeking to integrate the findings of science, religion, and spiritual quest.

Candace Cameron Bure first became known to millions as a costar on the hit ABC television series Full House. Today, like her brother Kirk Cameron ( Growing Pains, Fireproof), she is the rare Hollywood actor who is outspoken about her Christian faith and how it helps overcome certain obstacles.

Each of us, even the most simple, is called to a journey. We may be asked to leave behind everything we have grown dependent on. And when this is the case, the tale of Frodo and his friends offers hope that we will be given the strength and the help we need to overcome every obstacle and defeat every foe. This book is meant to help you find the way.

Hannah Whitall Smith originally wrote The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life in 1875 as an article for her husband's inspirational magazine. The book subsequently became a worldwide best seller that has influenced generations.

Jesus' words in John 12 are sobering: unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it will bear little fruit. The history of Christianity's expansion proves that God's strategy for reaching unreached peoples with the gospel includes the sufferings of his frontline heralds - the missionaries who willingly die a thousand daily deaths to advance God's kingdom. For William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and John Paton, the price they paid to translate the Word of God, to pave the way for missionary mobilization around the world, and to lead the hostile to Christ was great.

Life hit Pat and Tammy McLeod hard when their son Zach collapsed on a high school football field; he had sustained a severe brain injury. Facing the devastating possibility that things would never be the same for their beloved son, they committed to staying strong as a family and finding a way to maintain their footing. But the journey would reshape their faith, their family, and their future in ways they never saw coming.

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.” So begins one of the most beloved hymns of all time. This is the autobiography of the man who penned those words. John Newton, the self-proclaimed “wretch”,was an active slave trader for several years until, on a homeward voyage through a violent storm, he experienced what he was later to refer to as his “great deliverance.” He tells of the dramatic, real-life events that led him from sin and bondage to a life transformed by God’s grace.

John Owen wrote this book, often given the subtitle The Nature and Power of It, the Danger of Entering into It, and the Means of Preventing That Danger, with a resolution to show how Christians can avoid temptation in living a more spiritual life. A prolific author, Owen was an English nonconformist Church leader who served as academic administrator at the University of Oxford.

Speaker and writer J. C. Ryle once said, "The man who hears the word of God and does it is the true Christian. He hears the call of God to repent and be converted, and he obeys it. He ceases to do evil and learns to do well. He puts off the old man and puts on the new. He hears the call of God to believe in Jesus Christ for justification, and he obeys it." In The True Christian, Ryle details many more ways in which Christians can be uncompromising in their biblical principles.

All Things for Good by Thomas Watson provides the biblical answer to the contemporary question: Why do bad things happen to good people? Thomas Watson, the 17th-century minister of St. Stephen's Walbrook, believed he faced two great difficulties in his pastoral ministry. The first was making the unbeliever sad in the recognition of his need of God's grace. The second was making the believer joyful in response to God's grace.

When Augustine handed over the leadership of his church in AD 426, his successor was so overwhelmed by a sense of inadequacy that he declared, “The swan is silent”, fearing the spiritual giant’s voice would be lost in time. But for 1,600 years Augustine has not been silent - and neither have the men who faithfully trumpeted the cause of Christ after him. Their lives have inspired every generation of believers and should compel us to a greater passion for God.