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(Click here to display the 50 quotes shown above.) In his book Eating The Elephant Thom Rainer tells of an interview Billy Graham had with an interviewer. He said that the interviewer seemed to be curious about the evangelist's opinion of his own ministry. The question was asked if he anticipated being given great rewards in heaven for the millions of lives he had impacted through his worldwide ministry. Billy Graham said that he was not sure of the extent of his own rewards, but he was certain that others would have greater rewards than he. He said that somewhere in America today, a faithful elderly woman is on her knees praying for her little country church, her family, and her nation. Billy Graham could imagine that, for nearly eighty years, the sweet lady has been faithful to her Lord. She has prayed, read the Bible daily, and taught children in Sabbath School. To the evangelist, that lady and scores like her will receive the greatest rewards in heaven. The closing words of the interview will forever be etched in my memory: "You see," said Billy Graham, "we are not called to be successful. We are called to be faithful." -- Thom S. Rainer, Eating The Elephant (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1994) 9-10
In his book Spiritual
Stamina, Stuart Briscoe tells the story of a man who bought a new computer. Bringing his new prize home, he carefully opened the box,
gingerly took the machine out, studied its manual, and connected the wires.
Eagerly he flipped on the power switch--but nothing happened.
Puzzled, the man switched the computer off and rechecked all the
connections. He rounded up a screwdriver and fastened the wires more securely.
He read again the relevant portion of the manual.
Satisfied that he'd followed directions, he flipped the computer on--and
again nothing happened. As his
anger rose the man's little girl walked into the room.
In his book When Iron Gates
Yield, a British missionary to Tibet, a captive of
the Chinese Communists for three years, tells of an experience one
December twenty-fourth. After a
long, tiring day crossing a famous mountain pass and stumbling down the other
side mid heavy wind, his captors brought him to a small group of houses about
4:30 that afternoon. A Tibetan
landlord had swept out an upstairs room for the missionary-prisoner, who had
rarely seen cleaner accommodations in a Central Asian country.
After a meal, when it was already dark, he was ordered to go downstairs
to give hay to the horses. He
clambered down the notched tree trunk to the lower floor which was given over in
the usual custom to stabling. It
was pitch-black. The missionary
described his feelings, "My boots squished in the manure and straw on the
floor and the fetid smell of the animals was nauseating.
I felt my way amongst the mules and horses, expecting to be kicked any
moment.
In his book, a minister carried a bookmark that was made of silk
threads woven into a motto. The
back of the bookmark was a tangled web of crossed threads that seemed to be
without reason or purpose. When the
minister visited a home or hospital room where there was great trouble, sorrow,
or death, he would frequently show the bookmark, first presenting the reverse
side with all its unintelligible tangle. When
the distressed one had examined it intently without finding any meaning to the
seeming disorder, the minister would ask him to turn the fabric over.
Immediately, against a white silk background, there appeared a phrase in
colored threads: "God is Love." That
side made sense, it had order and meaning.
In Palestine flocks of sheep and herds of goats are plentiful. They dot
the countryside, clutter up highways, crowd the streets of towns and villages.
Sheep have shepherds and goats have goat-herds.
The shepherd with his long staff walks in front of his flock and his
sheep follow him. In fact, they
crowd around so closely they hamper the shepherd's movement.
On the other hand, the goat-herd carries a short stick and walks behind
his herd to keep his goats together and moving in the right direction.
He has his hands full. Goats
are individualists, impulsive and self-willed.
They dart off in all directions on personal missions of their own. In Seminary preaching classes they tell us to remember the simple rule of K-I-S-S. Kiss. What is that? Each letter stands for a word in the rule. Keep It Simple Stupid. None of us are totally successful at that unfortunately. In St. Petersburg, I saw in the square in front of St. Isaac's Cathedral, the magnificent equestrian statue of Peter the Great with his hand lifted pointing his nation onward and eastward toward the sea. Peter was the maker of modern Russia. In many respects, he well deserved the name "great," but he was subject to maniacal outbursts of fury and anger. In one of such outbursts, he killed his own son. Toward the end of his reign, Peter the Great once remarked, "I have conquered an empire but I was not able to conquer myself."
In Tampa, Florida you can now
get a divorce without leaving your car: Drive-thru
Divorces. One of every two American
marriages ends up in divorce. Don't
you believe it. The Census Bureau
noted in one year 2.4 million marriages, 1.2 million divorces and media people
jumped to the conclusion that half of all marriages fail. That is not true.
But it's been repeated so often that we've started to believe it.
In the center of main street in Enterprise, Alabama, stands one of
the strangest monuments in the world. It's
a memorial to an insect! Handsomely carved in stone is the likeness of a boll
weevil. Many believe that divine
providence was involved in the circumstances that led to the erection of this
unusual statue. In early plantation days almost everyone in the community raised
cotton. But as the years rolled on,
a serious pestilence infested the area in the form of a small beetle that
punctured the boll of the plant. As
a result, it became almost impossible to bring a season's growth to maturity.
George Washington Carver, along with several other scientists, became deeply
concerned about the situation and began intensive studies to see if any
substitute crop could be grown in that part of the country. Raising peanuts was
the answer, for they could be planted and harvested with very little loss.
In time, cotton gins were forgotten in that region, and it became known
as an outstanding peanut center of the world.
Soon the farmers' profits far exceeded what they had earned from their
best cotton yield. In the end, they realized that the destructive insect they
had feared had actually triggered the research that brought them prosperity.
In the days of the American Revolutionary War there lived at
Ephrata, Pennsylvania, a Baptist pastor by the name of Peter Miller who enjoyed
the friendship of General Washington. There
also dwelt in that town one Michael Wittman, an evil-minded man who did all in
his power to abuse and oppose this pastor.
One day Michael Wittman was involved in treason and was arrested and
sentenced to death. The old
preacher started out on foot and walked the whole seventy miles to Philadelphia
to plead for this man's life. He
was admitted into Washington's presence and at once begged for the life of the
traitor. In the days of the Civil War, it was illegal to trade in cotton; but many unscrupulous speculators tried to buy cotton in the South, run it through the Union lines, and sell it at great profit in the North. One of these speculators approached a Mississippi steamboat captain and offered him $100 if he would run his cotton up the river for him. The captain declined, reminding him that it was illegal. "I will give you $500, said the man. "No," answered the captain. "I will give you $1000." "No," the captain said again. "I will give you $3000." At that, the captain drew his pistol, and pointing it at the man, he said, "Get off this boat! You are coming too near my price." --McCartney
In the early 1900's a great fad
was attempting to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Then from Europe came a
famous wire-walker named Bandini. His name was known for daring feats on the
high wire. "In the Greek, baptizo means "to be dipped," or "brought under," or "brought under the influence of," or "controlled by." The street usage occurred in describing the activity of taking cloth and dipping it into a dye to change the color of the cloth. The cloth was baptized with the dye. It was dipped, brought under the influence of, controlled by the dye ... the baptism with the Holy Spirit results in being filled with the Spirit (Acts 1:5 & Acts 2:4) and has the effect on the one baptized of being dipped in, brought under, influenced by, dominated and controlled by, colored by, the Holy Spirit." -- Hal Perkins
In the Highlands of Scotland, a
sheep would often wander off into the rocks and get into places that they
couldn't get out of. The grass on
these mountains is very sweet and the sheep like it, and they will jump down ten
or twelve feet, and then they can't jump back again and the shepherd hears them
bleating in distress. They may be
there for days, until they have eaten all the grass.
The shepherd will wait until they are so faint that they cannot stand,
and then they will put a rope around him, and he will go over and pull that
sheep up out of the jaws of death. In the late 1950s, 23-year-old Armando Valladares was thrown into a Cuban prison, where he remained for 22 years. Executions were staged each night during his first year in prison. Later, he endured some of the most vile and sadistic tortures imaginable. In his memoirs, Against All Hope, Valladares wrote, "I sought God.... I never asked Him to get me out of there. I didn't think that God should be used for that kind of request. I only asked that He allow me to resist, that He give me the faith and spiritual strength to bear up under those conditions.... I only prayed for Him to accompany me."
In the New Testament, the word translated "temptation" peiazo has two shades of meaning.
When used of God's tempting of man, it carries a positive intention.
However, when it refers to the temptation of man by Satan or another
person, the word implies a desire to bring out one's bad points.
In the pictures of the ancient Roman method of threshing grain,
one man is always seen stirring up the sheaves while another rides over them in
a crude cart equipped with rollers instead of wheels. Sharp stones and rough
bits of iron were attached to these cylinders to help separate the husks from
the grain. This simple cart was
called a tribulum -- from which we get our word "tribulation." In the village of Abashiri, Japan, lived an earnest Christian man. He had an orchard of one thousand trees, and upon these depended the livelihood of himself, and his family. One morning, great was his dismay to find that his apples, which were then half grown, were being destroyed by a peculiar worm. As he walked through the orchard he observed that every tree was affected. What was he to do? He called his family together there in the orchard and they called upon God. Works were added to faith, and all through the day and until late at night, they worked, picking off the worms and destroying them; but with the pests multiplying by the thousands, it became evident that all their efforts were in vain. In desperation they turned to God for help. Weary with the long strain they lay down on their straw mats for a little sleep. Returning the next morning to their orchards to begin another strenuous day, they were startled to see hundreds of strange birds alighting in the trees. All day long the birds stayed, eating up the worms, but never injuring the trees or the leaves. This kept up for three days in succession. In the evening of the third day, as the family walked through the orchard, they found that it was entirely free of the pest. God had vindicated the faith of his children. --The Revivalist
In the year 1403, one of the wealthiest men in Paris died, leaving
his entire estate to his teenage daughter Agnes.
She was a beautiful and virtuous young woman, and many men wanted to
marry her. But Agnes decided to
give up her fortune and become a recluse. To
isolate herself from society, she asked to be sealed into a cell within the wall
of a church. The entrance was
plastered shut except for one small hole through which food could be passed.
She was confined in that small area at 18 years of age and remained there
until she died at age 98.
In Touch
and Live, George Vandeman wrote: "A
young stranger to the Alps was making his first climb, accompanied by two
stalwart guides. It was a steep, hazardous ascent. but he felt secure with one
guide ahead and one following. For hours they climbed. And now, breathless, they
reached for those rocks protruding through the snow above them - the summit.
"The guide ahead wished to let the stranger have the first glorious view of
heaven and earth, and moved aside to let him go first. Forgetting the gales that
would blow across those summit rocks, the young man leaped to his feet. But the
chief guide dragged him down. "On your knees, sir!" he shouted.
"You are never safe here except on your knees." Infantile love follows the principle: It is said that about 200 years ago, the tomb of the great conqueror Charlemagne was opened. The sight the workmen saw was startling. There was his body in a sitting position, clothed in the most elaborate of kingly garments, with a scepter in his bony hand. On his knee lay the Holy Scriptures, with a cold, lifeless finger pointing to Mark 8:36: "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
It is said that Napoleon once
took a map and pointing to the British Isles remarked:
"If it were not for that red spot, I would have conquered the
world."
It is told of a famous iron smith of medieval times that was taken
prisoner and locked up in a dungeon, he began to examine the chain that bound
him with a view to discover some flaw that might make it easier to be broken.
His hope was vain, for he found, from marks upon it, that it was of his own
workmanship, and it had been his boast that none could break a chain that he had
forged.
It was not easy for the Romans
to hold their empire together because of the many different races, religions,
and cultures that it included. The
Roman emperors eventually developed a simple loyalty test for their subjects. "On certain feasts and holidays row upon row of subjects
lined up to walk past the area's Roman magistrate, toss a pinch of incense into
a fire in the golden bowl at his feet and mutter, 'Caesar is Lord.'"
It was turning out to be a bad
night at the Marin County shelter for the homeless in San Rafael, California.
With rain pouring down and a temperature in the 40s, our gym-sized armory was
nearing its capacity of 125. All the cots and sleeping mats had been assigned,
but people were still coming, and in no time there were complaints about the
shortage. Soon some of the blacks and Latinos started accusing my fellow workers
and me of racial favoritism. We were white. I was working at the shelter as a
full-time counselor. Actually my duties were more like those of a handyman, but
the money I earned was helping me pay my way through seminary. IXØYÈ is the Greek word for "fish." The fish was chosen as an early Christian symbol because each of the letters in the Greek word represented a belief of the church concerning Jesus. The "I" is the first letter in the Greek word for "Jesus." "X" is the first letter in the Greek word for "Christ," "Ø" is the first letter in the Greek word for "God," "Y" is the first letter in the Greek word for "son," "È " is the first letter in the Greek word for "Savior."
My father taught me to read the Bible in Hebrew when a young
child. We began at Genesis. When we came to Isaiah he skipped the fifty-third
chapter. I asked him why. He said it was not necessary for Jews to read that
chapter. I became more curious. I asked him who it was for, and he said
Christians. I asked him what the Christian Bible was doing in our Bible. He
became very angry and told me to keep quiet. He said again it was not necessary
to read it.
Joe Bayly in his book, View
From A Hearse says that one of the best contributions we can make to a
person going through intense suffering and loss is our presence without words,
not even verses of Scripture dumped into the ears of the grieving.
He said: Don't try to "prove" anything to a survivor.
An arm about the shoulder, a firm grip of the hand, a kiss:
these are the proofs grief needs, not logical reasoning. Joe the butcher was closing the store one Saturday night when his best customer Mrs. Brown came in and asked for a nice roasting chicken. Joe put the last one he had on the scales. "It's 2 pounds 4 ounces." "That's too small," she answered, "do you have a larger one?" He went to the cooler and then returned with the same chicken. Weighing it, he said, "Just 3 pounds." Still not satisfied, his customer said, "I think I'll take them both!" Joe was speechless. He had been caught, in a lie. -- "The Search Light"
Johann Gutenberg was not satisfied with the status Quo. What did he do? He
simply combined two previously unconnected ideas to create an innovation.
He refused to limit his thinking to the singular purpose of the wine
press or to the solitary use of the coin punch. One day he entertained an idea
no one else had ever thought of: "What if I took a bunch of coin punches
and put them under the force of the wine press so that they left their images on
paper instead of metal?" From that idea the printing press was born.
John and Dave were hiking when they spotted a mountain lion
staring at them. John froze in his
tracks, but Dave sat down on a log, tore off his hiking boots, pulled a pair of
running shoes from his backpack and hurriedly began to put them on. John Henry Fabre, the great French naturalist, conducted a most unusual experiment with some Processionary Caterpillars. These caterpillars blindly follow the one in front of them. Hence, the name. Fabre carefully arranged them in a circle around the rim of a flower pot, so that the lead caterpillar actually touched the last one, making a complete circle. In the center of the flower pot he put pine needles, which is food for the Processionary Caterpillar. The caterpillars started around this circular flower pot. Around and around they went, hour after hour, day after day, night after night. For seven full days and seven full nights they went around the flower pot. Finally, they dropped dead of starvation and exhaustion. With an abundance of food less than six inches away, they literally starved to death, because they confused activity with accomplishment. Many Christians make that same mistake.
John Paton was a missionary in the New Hebrides Islands.
One night hostile natives surrounded the mission station, intent on
burning out the Patons and killing them. Paton
and his wife prayed during that terror-filled night that God would deliver them.
When daylight came they were amazed to see their attackers leave.
A year later, the chief of the tribe was converted to Christ.
Remembering what had happened, Paton asked the chief what had kept him
from burning down the house and killing them.
The chief replied in surprise, "Who were all those men with you
there?" Paton knew no men were
present--but the chief said he was afraid to attack because he had seen hundreds
of big men in shining garments with drawn swords circling the mission station. Joseph Stalin once attended a seminary of the Greek Orthodox Church. His mother had dedicated him to God as a priest. Out of the righteous home of Noah came carnal Ham. Out of the home of a man after God's own heart came the traitor Absalom. God also said that because of the sins of Manasseh He would destroy Judah from the face of the earth. And Manasseh was the only son of the good king, Hezekiah. Many of you know of homes today where the parents are godly and righteous but the children reject Jesus Christ. It is hard to understand. -- W. A. Criswell A man was complaining of his neighbors. "I never saw such a wretched set of people," he said, "as are in this village. They are mean, greedy of gain, selfish, and careless of the needs of others. Worst of all, they are forever speaking evil of one another." "Is it really so?" asked an angel who happened to be walking with him. "It is indeed," said the man. "Why, only look at this fellow coming toward us! I know his face, though I cannot just remember his name. See his little shark-like, cruel eyes, darting here and there like a ferret's, and the lines of covetousness about his mouth! The very droop of his shoulders is mean and cringing, and he slinks along instead of walking." "It is very clever of you to see all this," said the angel, "but there is one thing which you did not perceive; that is a mirror we are approaching." --Gospel Herald |