Author Archives: botukadmin

For the last four Septembers I have been scheduled to travel to a Reformed Conference in St Petersburg with a number of other men.  The initiative for this event came from Dewey Roberts, the long-standing pastor of the PCA congregation in Destin, Florida. The Russian people have been on his heart since 1999 and it […]

An account of John Swallow from Charlesworth written by his pastor, Mr E. Merrett. * * * John E. Swallow, for many years a deacon of the Particular Baptist cause at Charlesworth, Derbyshire, passed away on October 31st 1918, aged 56 years. In the following account we have a striking instance of the power of […]

There are not wanting here and there the signs that good Christians are suffering from a kind of spiritual metal-fatigue. In our fellowships iron rarely sharpens iron any longer. Much preaching that is orthodox lacks that ring of conviction which is needed to thrust it home into sinners’ consciences. A guilty tameness smothers our zeal. […]

John Walter Stevens, a member of the church at Bethel, Luton, and formerly deacon at Ebenezer, Clapham, and South Moreton, passed away on November 25th, 2016, aged 95 years. The following is taken from his own writings (written in 1993-94). * * * I was born in Clapham, London, in July 1921, of godly, praying […]

Malta is a Mediterranean island situated 60 miles south of Sicily. Its population is 420,000, almost half of whom live in the capital, Valletta, and the numbers have been swollen in recent years by a stream of refugees from North Africa. Its official language is Maltese but many of the people speak English. It became independent […]

A delightful man’s body was buried under a tree in a country cemetery in rural Kentucky sixteen months ago. Mike Morrow’s soul had taken its heavenly flight the previous Friday, and his earthly ‘tent’ was laid to rest in Union Cemetery, immediately beside the Union Baptist Church building where Mike had pastored for sixteen years. […]

There are many misconceptions about faith these days. Some think of it as a commodity, saying ‘I wish I had your faith.’ Others think of it simply as the means of salvation, to deliver us from hell. Much of the evangelistic preaching in recent years has been directed in that way. ‘Believe and on the […]

An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels. , Proverbs 31:10 I well remember the time I was allowed to take a series of eleventh grade American Literature class in a local high school and give the ‘other side’ of the story about the Puritans of the seventeenth century. They […]

PBS recently aired a documentary about Martin Luther which is available to view from on their website until September 27th (link at the bottom of the page). * * * The year 2017 marks the 500th anniversary of one on the most important events in Western civilization: the birth of an idea that continues to shape […]

Few biographies of Spurgeon mention Johann Gerhard Oncken. The most extensive mentions are those of G. Holden Pike (Life and Work of C. H. Spurgeon) and Spurgeon himself in his Personal Notes in The Sword and the Trowel. Writing an appreciation of ‘our friend, Mr J. G. Oncken’ soon after his death in 1884, Spurgeon […]

The longer one lives in this world as a Christian, the more he or she becomes aware of the significance of their words and thoughts. The mind of the the believer plays a far more central role than we often realise. ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he’, the scriptures say. We […]

This article is taken from a sermon preached by Christmas Evans in 1800, based on Romans 3:25 When our world fell from its first estate it became one vast prison. Its walls were adamant and unscaleable, its gates were brass and impregnable. Within, the people sat in darkness and shadow of death, without, inflexible Justice […]

‘Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.’  , Revelation 21:1 The ethnic cleansing and atrocities against the Christians in the Nuba mountains by Sudan, as well as that against the Christians in South Sudan, has been going on for years with no end in sight. Thousands of people have died, including children. […]

I haven’t been to a communion season in the Scottish Hebrides for three or four years and so when Hugh Ferrier invited me to come to their August Communion Season this year, I was delighted to accept. The High Free Church Stornoway The High Church in Stornoway was the largest Church of Scotland congregation in […]

‘And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.’ , Revelation 20:15 My dear friend, if you die without being a Christian, without being born again through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, if you never gain the life of God in […]

[A sermon preached at the morning service in St George’s-Tron Church, Glasgow, on 31 August 1997, following the announcement of the death in Paris, earlier that day, of Diana, Princess of Wales.] I urge, then, first of all, that requests, praers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone, for kings and all those in authority, […]

Peter Jeffery was raised in Neath, coming from a fine Welsh working-man’s terraced home. He never lost his roots in that grand culture and communicated the gospel to the people there in a way that they easily understood. Wherever in the world he traveled people grasped his message and loved his preaching. He came at […]

Richard Sibbes was born at Tostock, Suffolk, in 1577 and went to school in Bury St Edmunds. His father, ‘a good sound-hearted Christian’, at first intended that Richard should follow his own trade as a wheelwright, but the boy’s ‘strong inclination to his books, and well-profiting therein’ led to his going up to St John’s […]

An extract from Ned B. Stonehouse, J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1987) pp. 198-200. (The ordination of J. Gresham Machen took place on June 23, 1914, at Plainsboro, NJ, just outside Princeton. Although few details have been preserved of the occasion, as Stonehouse reveals, the re is a manuscript […]

In spring 1991, a gathering of pastors in Leicester were listening intently to a preacher expounding the doctrine of sanctification. Their hearts burned within them as in three sessions he gave a masterly overview of his subject and drove home his message with real conviction. What particularly riveted their attention was the way that all […]

A Trip to Prague I had never been to Prague and had the scantiest knowledge of the Czech Republic, but one day I was reading a newspaper and in the Travel section saw a cheap three day excursion offered to Prague. I thought about it and booked a flight and an hotel there. The Czech […]

John Hurrion was born in Suffolk, circa 1675, in a period when those who had stood apart from the Church of England after the Act of Uniformity of 1662 were undergoing persecution. Almost the only knowledge we have of his youth is this statement: ‘In his younger years, he was brought to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.’1 […]

I attended the funeral service of Erroll Hulse, which took place 18 days after his death, in Cuckfield on Monday 21 August. Cuckfield was the place that, for me, Erroll put on the map. The fulsome, written tributes to him from Tom Nettles (USA) and Conrad Mbewe (Zambia) that I enjoyed reading immensely, and the […]

William Tyndale is remembered as a Bible translator and martyr: a key player in a sequence that led to the King James Bible. In fact, as the compilers of this attractive little work show, there was far more to Tyndale than Bible translation- vital as that was. Indeed it is argued that William Tyndale’s work […]

Today (Monday 21st August), the remains of Erroll Hulse, a dear friend and elder statesman in the Reformed faith, will be interred in Cuckfield, England. My mind is, therefore, very much in that part of the world as the sun comes up here in the heart of Africa. I wish I could be there to […]