Pastoral Resources

The principle cause of my leanness and unfruitfulness is owing to an unaccountable backwardness to pray. I can write or read or converse or hear with a ready heart; but prayer is more spiritual and inward than any of these, and the more spiritual any duty is the more my carnal heart is apt to start from it. Prayer and patience and faith are never disappointed. I have long since learned that if ever I was to be a minister, faith and prayer must make me one. When I can find my heart in frame and liberty for prayer, everything else is comparatively easy.

After five years of exhaustive laboratory study sponsored by the United States Public Health Service, Dr. Doran D. Zimmer of Daytona, Florida, concluded that kissing can cause tooth decay.

Despite the “Do Not Touch” signs, a museum was having no success in keeping patrons from touching—and soiling—priceless furniture and art. But the problem evaporated overnight when a clever museum employee replaced the signs with ones that read: “Caution: Wash Hands After Touching!”

Two women who were having lunch in an elegant hotel were approached by a mutual friend who asked the occasion for the meal.

One lady replied, “We are celebrating the birth of my baby boy.”

“But where is he?” inquired the friend.

“Oh,” said the mother, “you didn’t think I’d bring him, did you?”

What a picture of the way the world treats Jesus at Christmas.

Ten years ago, Richard Foster, in his book Celebration of Discipline, put together a brief comparison of the characteristics of service that is focused more upon ourselves and service that is focused more upon Christ. In paraphrased form, it becomes a self-help test worth taking. Why not measure your clarity of vision against his conclusions?

Self-focused service is concerned with impressive gains. It enjoys serving when the service is titanic or growing in that direction. Christ-focused service doesn’t distinguish between small and large. It indiscriminately welcomes all opportunities to serve.

Self-focused service requires external reward, appreciation, and applause. Christ-focused service rests content in hiddenness. The divine nod of approval is sufficient.

Self-focused service is highly concerned about results. It becomes disillusioned when results fall below expectations. Christ-focused service is free of the need to calculate results; it delights only in service.

Self-focused service is affected by feelings. Christ-focused service ministers simply and faithfully because there is a need. The service disciplines the feelings.

Self-focused service insists on meeting the need; it demands the opportunity to help. Christ-focused service listens with tenderness and patience. It can serve by waiting in silence.

This list offers a way to begin refocusing our blurred image of Christ in the midst of ministry.

In “A Portrait of America,” NEWSWEEK (l/17/83) poked some fun at the national census:

‘Give your name and age and business. Is your husband working?

Do you rent or own the building? Did you ever milk a cow?

This is strictly confidential—are you underweight or fat?

Does your husband have a bunion? Are his arches good or flat?

Did you vote for Herbert Hoover? Are you dry or are you wet?

Did you ever use tobacco? Did you ever place a bet?. . .

Are you saving any money? Do you ever pay your debt?

Are your husband’s old red flannels in the wash or on him yet?

In Discipleship Journal, Don McCullough wrote: “John Killinger tells about the manager of a minor league baseball team who was so disgusted with his center fielder’s performance that he ordered him to the dugout and assumed the position himself. The first ball that came into center field took a bad hop and hit the manager in the mouth. The next one was a high fly ball, which he lost in the glare of the sun—until it bounced off his forehead.

The third was a hard line drive that he charged with outstretched arms; unfortunately, it flew between his hands and smacked his eye. Furious, he ran back to the dugout, grabbed the center fielder by the uniform, and shouted. ‘You idiot! You’ve got center field so messed up that even I can’t do a thing with it!’

Maxwell Perkins, the famous book editor, once wrote, “One of my deepest convictions is that the terrible harms that are done in this world are not done by deliberately evil people, who are not numerous and are soon found out. They are done by the good—by those who are so sure that God is with them. Nothing can stop them, for they are certain that they are right.

A Lutheran newsletter has some tongue-in-cheek suggestions for church members unhappy with their pastor:

“Simply send a copy of this letter to six other churches who are tired of their ministers. Then bundle up your pastor and send him to the church at the top of the list. Add your name to the bottom of the list. In one week you will receive 16,436 ministers, and one of them should be a dandy. Have faith in this letter. One man broke the chain and got his old minister back.”

The story is told of the big lumberjack who bought a brand new chainsaw and was told it could cut down at least 100 trees a day.

But on the first day he only managed to cut down 25 trees. The next day he tried harder and finally cut down 33 trees. The third day he started early, worked late, and even cut his lunch break short, but he still managed to cut down only 48 trees.

He went back to the store and confronted the manager with his complaint. He told him of his efforts and of the results. The manager couldn’t quite understand what had gone wrong, so he asked to take a look. He grabbed the starter rope and pulled hard, and the motor started with a roar.

The lumberjack jumped back in alarm and yelled, “Hey, what’s dat big noise?”

A Lutheran newsletter has some tongue-in-cheek suggestions for church members unhappy with their pastor: “Simply send a copy of this letter to six other churches who are tired of their ministers. Then bundle up your pastor and send him to the church at the top of the list. Add your name to the bottom of the list. In one week you will receive 16,436 ministers, and one of them should be a dandy. Have faith in this letter. One man broke the chain and got his old minister back.”

It happens every time the prof calls a group of students to the board to solve a physics problem. Someone holds the chalk wrong and sends chills up and down the spines of everyone in the class with that familiar classroom torture technique: “squeaky chalk.”

Why does a piece of chalk produce that hideous squeal? According to the book, The Flying Circus of Physics (With Answers), squealing chalk results from the phenomenon of “stick and slip.” Incorrectly held chalk actually sticks to the blackboard. But when the writer bends the chalk enough, it suddenly slips and vibrates, sporadically striking the chalkboard and producing that squeal we hear. As the vibrations decrease, the friction between the chalk and the board increases until the chalk sticks again and the torture begins once more.

In the fateful winter morning of January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger stood poised for launch. Overnight, the temperature had plummeted into the twenties. At liftoff it was a crisp 36 degrees F. Four-foot icicles still clung ominously to the launch tower.

Allan McDonald, an engineer employed by the manufacturer of the solid rocket boosters that straddled the shuttle, shuddered, but not because of the cold. Research had shown that the O rings sealing the sections of each booster might be more likely to leak as the temperature dropped. In fact, the rings had never been tested during an actual launch below 51 degrees F.

McDonald stood virtually alone as he steadfastly opposed the launch that icy morning, but he was overruled. The launch went ahead as scheduled, and 73 seconds later six brave astronauts and one enthusiastic school teacher lost their lives when the O rings failed.

Was Allan McDonald arrogant when he challenged the decision to launch? Was he intolerant? Any thinking person would say no. He just was unwilling to see innocent people die because others had ignored or distorted the facts. We would say Allan McDonald knew the truth, and he stood up for it.

Chances that a first time cigarette smoker will become addicted: 9 in 10.

“Any change, at any time, for any reason, is to be deplored.” The Duke of Cambridge (late 1800s)

Billy Graham said, �The deepest problems of the human race are spiritual in nature. They are rooted in man's refusal to seek God's way for his life. The problem is the human heart, which God alone can change.�

Another technique to find more answers is to change the wording in your questions. Here’s an example of how such a strategy can work. Several centuries ago, a curious but deadly plague appeared in a small village in Lithuania. What was curious about this disease was its grip on its victim; as soon as a person contracted it, he would go into a very deep almost deathlike coma. Most individuals would die within twenty-four hours, but occasionally a hardy soul would make it back to the full bloom of health. The problem was that since early eighteenth century medical technology was not very advanced, the unafflicted had quite a difficult time telling whether a victim was dead or alive. This didn’t matter too much, though, because most of the people were, in fact, dead.

Then one day it was discovered that someone had been buried alive. This alarmed the townspeople, so they called a town meeting to decide what should be done to prevent such a situation from happening again. After much discussion, most people agreed on the following solution. They decided to put food and water in every casket next to the body. They would even put an air hole up from the casket to the earth’s surface. These procedures would be expensive, but they would be more than worthwhile if they would save some people’s lives.

Another group came up with a second, less expensive, right answer. They proposed implanting a twelve inch long stake in every coffin lid directly over where the victim’s heart would be. Then whatever doubts there were about whether the person was dead or alive would be eliminated as soon as the coffin lid was closed.

What differentiated the two solutions were the questions used to find them. Whereas the first group asked, “What should we do in the event we bury somebody alive?”, the second group wondered, “How can we make sure everyone we bury is dead?”

A man in the Army of Alexander the Great who was also named Alexander, was accused of cowardly actions. He was brought before Alexander, who asked what his name was.

He replied softly, “Alexander.”

“I can’t hear you,” the ruler stated.

The man again said, a little louder, “Alexander.”

The process was repeated one more time, after which Alexander the Great commented, “Either change your name or change your conduct.”

One day E. H. Harriman, the railroad magnate, was walking along the tracks with an assistant. Looking at a track bolt, he turned to the other man and asked, “Why does so much of the bolt protrude beyond the nut?” “I don’t really know,” said the assistant. “Except that it is the size we’ve always used.” “Why should we use a bolt of such length that a part of it is utterly useless?” asked Harriman. “Well, when you come right down to it, there is no reason.”

The two continued walking along the track for a moment, then Harriman asked how many track bolts there were in a mile of track. He was told. “Well,” said Harriman, “we have thousands of miles of track, and there must be some fifty million track bolts in our system. If you can cut an ounce from every bolt, you will have fifty million ounces of iron, and that is something worthwhile. Change your bolt standard!”

Gen. William Nelson, a Union general in the Civil War, was consumed with the battles in Kentucky when a brawl ended up in his being shot, mortally, in the chest. He had faced many battles, but the fatal blow came while he was relaxing with his men. As such, he was caught fully unprepared. As men ran up the stairs to help him, the general had just one phrase, “Send for a clergyman; I wish to be baptized.” He never had time as an adolescent or young man. He never had time as a private or after he became a general. And his wound did not stop or slow down the war. Everything around him was left virtually unchanged—except for the general’s priorities. With only minutes left before he entered eternity, the one thing he cared about was preparing for eternity. He wanted to be baptized. Thirty minutes later he was dead.

A young couple decided to start their own business. He was an engineer and she was an advertising copywriter. They wound up buying a small salmon cannery in Alaska. They soon discovered they had a problem. Customers opening a can of their salmon discovered that the fish was gray. Sales sagged. Investigation revealed that the problem was a result of the way they processed the fish. “This is a technical problem,” said the wife, “and you’re an engineer. You have to find a way to fix this.”

A month later, the husband announced that they would have to replace some machinery and make other changes. It was going to take at least 10 months to do the job and it was going to cost a lot of money. “We have to do something sooner than that,” said the wife, “or we’re going to go under.” For the next two days she pondered the problem and came up with this solution: There was nothing wrong with the salmon—it tasted fine. The problem lay in its looks. So she changed the label on the can. In bold letters, right under the brand name, the labels thereafter announced, “The only salmon guaranteed not to turn pink in the can.”

An alcoholic became a believer, was asked how he could possibly believe all the nonsense in the Bible about miracles. “You don’t believe that Jesus changed the water into wine do you?” “I sure do, because in our house Jesus changed the whiskey into furniture.”

Compromise is simply changing the question to fit the answer.

There it was in the society pages of none other than the venerable New York Times, arbiter of social propriety. On May 7, Michael Flaherty, a city planner, wed Valerie Silverman, a medical student, and husband and wife combined their names to produce “Flaherman.” Even the editor of the Times society page could not recall seeing such a postmodern hybrid before. (Hey, Arnold and Maria! Have you ever considered “Schwarzenshriver”?)

Why did they do it? “We wanted to share a name without being sexist or hyphenating two names,” says Michael. The couple, who just a few months ago rejected “Silverty,” say that their children will not be “Flaherbabies,” but Flahermans. And, they say, they never even considered going ultra-politically correct with “Flaherperson.”

Madame Chiang Kai-shek once told the story of a young Buddhist monk who sat outside his temple two thousand years ago, hands clasped in prayer. He looked very pious and he chanted ‘Amita Buddha’ all day. Day after day he intoned these words, believing that he was acquiring grace. One day the head priest of the temple sat next to him and began rubbing a piece of brick against a stone. Day after day he rubbed one against the other. This went on week after week until the young monk could no longer contain his curiosity, and he finally blurted out, “Father, what are you doing?” “I’m trying to make a mirror,” said the head priest. “But that’s impossible!” said the young monk. “You can’t make a mirror from brick.” “True,” replied the head priest. “And it is just as impossible for you to acquire grace by doing nothing except chant ‘Amita Buddha’ all day long.”

Boarding the SS Dorchester on a dreary winter day in 1943 were 903 troops and four chaplains, including Moody alumnus Lt. George Fox. World War II was in full swing, and the ship was headed across the icy North Atlantic where German U-boats lurked. At 12:00 on the morning of February 3, a German torpedo ripped into the ship. “She’s going down!” the men cried, scrambling for lifeboats. A young GI crept up to one of the chaplains. “I’ve lost my life jacket,” he said.

“Take this,” the chaplain said, handing the soldier his jacket. Before the ship sank, each chaplain gave his life jacket to another man. The heroic chaplains then linked arms and lifted their voices in prayer as the Dorchester went down. Lt. Fox and his fellow pastors were awarded posthumously the Distinguished Service Cross.

When the preacher’s car broke down on a country road, he walked to a nearby roadhouse to use the phone. After calling for a tow truck, he spotted his old friend, Frank, drunk and shabbily dressed at the bar.

“What happened to you, Frank?” asked the good reverend. “You used to be rich.”

Frank told a sad tale of bad investments that had led to his downfall.

“Go home,” the preacher said. “Open your Bible at random, stick your finger on the page and there will be God’s answer.”

Some time later, the preacher bumped into Frank, who was wearing a Gucci suit, sporting a Rolex watch and had just stepped our of a Mercedes.

“Frank.” said the preacher, “I am glad to see things really turned around for you.”

“Yes, preacher, and I owe it all to you,” said Frank. “I opened my Bible, put my finger down on the page and there was the answer—Chapter 11.”

One can acquire everything in solitude—except character.

1. Righteousness: doing what is consistent with God’s character.

2. Godliness: a life of respect and reverence for God.

3. Faith: trust in God.

4. Love: self-sacrifice for God and others.

5. Patience: love that endures.

6. Gentleness: a controlled spirit that can hate sin yet love the sinner.

Fame is a vapor,

Popularity an accident.

Riches take wings.

Only one thing endures,

Character.

- Horace Greely

Character is much better kept than recovered. - Thomas Paine

1. Self-centeredness.

2. Distorting the gospel to serve your agenda .

3. Using your verbal skills to control others.

4. Appetite for power and possessions.

5. Immorality.

God is more concerned about our character than our comfort. His goal is not to pamper us physically but to perfect us spiritually. - Paul W. Powell

Humble service (John 13:1-5)

Holiness (I Peter 1:15-16)

Righteousness (I John 3:7)

Purity (I John 3:3)

Love (Ephesians 5:1-2)

Forgiveness (Colossians 3:13)

Compassion (Ephesians 4:32)

Endurance (Hebrews 12:2-4)

Submission (I Peter 2:21-4)

Humility, obedience (Philippians 2:5-8)

Kindness (Luke 6:35)

Generous giving (II Corinthians 8:1-9)

A busybody is often interested in telling only half the truth. It's true that Christ kept company with publicans and sinners, not because He loved and practiced their sin but so that He could influence and win them. A defamatory article about a Christian appeared in a newspaper. It was really terrible. "You must sue him," a friend said. "No," was the answer. "I shall try to set him straight. I'm afraid if I sue him I shall do something that is improper. I learned early in life, and from long experience, that man's character can only be harmed by himself. The first step for me to win my detractor is to overcome my own passion for vengeance." Reputation is what other people think and say of you, but character is what you yourself decide it shall be. If you belong to Christ, then your decision is to be like Him-and by His grace you can be.

Character

Skills

Must be developed

Can be provided

Takes time

Take practice and time

Can disqualify you from leadership

Can delay you from leadership

Involves your relationship to God/others

Involve your relationship to a task

Is an inward measure

Are an outward measure

Is tested in adversity, but developed in the quiet

Are practiced in quiet times but tested in adversity

A zealous man in religion is pre-eminently a man of one thing. It is not enough to say that he is earnest, hearty, uncompromising, thorough-going, whole-hearted, fervent in spirit. He only sees one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed up in one thing; and that one thing is to please God. Whether he lives, or whether he dies—whether he has health, or whether he has sickness—whether he is rich, or whether he is poor—whether he pleases man, or whether he gives offence—whether he is thought wise, or whether he is thought foolish—whether he gets blame, or whether he gets praise—whether he get honor, or whether he gets shame—for all this the zealous man cares nothing at all.

He burns for one thing; and that one thing is to please God, and to advance God’s glory. If he is consumed in the very burning, he cares not for it-he is content. He feels that, like a lamp, he is made to burn; and if consumed in burning, he has but done the work for which God appointed him. Such a one will always find a sphere for his zeal. If he cannot preach, work, and give money, he will cry, and sigh, and pray...If he cannot fight in the valley with Joshua, he will do the work of Moses, Aaron, and Hur, on the hill (Exodus 17:9-13). If he is cut off from working himself, he will give the Lord no rest till help is raised up from another quarter, and the work is done. This is what I mean when I speak of ‘zeal’ in religion.

Ranked by Husbands and Wives

Question

Husbands Ranking

Wives Ranking

1. My spouse is my best friend.

1

1

2. I like my spouse as a person.

2

2

3. Marriage is a long-term commitment.

3

3

4. Marriage is sacred.

4

4

5. We agree on aims and goals.

5

5

6. My spouse has grown more interesting.

6

6

7. I want the relationship to succeed.

7

7

8. An endearing marriage is important to social stability.

8

10

9. We laugh together.

9

8

10. I am proud of my spouse’s achievements.

10

9

In a national study of Protestant churches done in 1990, Peter Benson and Carolyn Eklin surveyed hundreds of people and distilled seven characteristics of a mature faith. You may not agree with everything on their list, but it’s still instructive to look at their conclusions.

1. Trusts in God’s saving grace and believes firmly in the humanity and divinity of Jesus.

2. Experiences a sense of personal well-being, security, and peace.

3. Integrates faith and life, seeing work, family, social relationships, and political choices as part of one’s religious life.

4. Seeks spiritual growth through study, reflection, prayer, discussion with others

5. Seeks to be part of a community of believers who give witness to their faith and support and nourish one another.

6. Holds life-affirming values, including commitment to racial and gender equality, affirmation of cultural diversity, and a personal sense of responsibility for the welfare of others.

7. Serves humanity, consistently and passionately, through acts of love and justice.

Alan Lang, in his “Substance Abuse and Habitual Behavior” report to the National Academy of Science, identifies nine such characteristics: Impulsive behavior, Difficulty in delaying gratification, Sensation seeking, Antisocial personality, Nonconformist values, Sense of alienation, Deviant behavior, Heightened feelings of stress, Little regard for goals generally valued by society.

1. Adultery (Jer. 23:14)

2. Lying (Micah 2:11)

3. Treachery (Zeph. 3:4)

4. Opportunistic (Micah 3:11)

5. Drunkenness (Isa. 28:7)

In a national study of Protestant churches done in 1990, Peter Benson and Carolyn Eklin surveyed hundreds of people and distilled seven characteristics of a mature faith. You may not agree with everything on their list, but it’s still instructive to look at their conclusions.

1. Trusts in God’s saving grace and believes firmly in the humanity and divinity of Jesus.

2. Experiences a sense of personal well-being, security, and peace.

3. Integrates faith and life, seeing work, family, social relationships, and political choices as part of one’s religious life.

4. Seeks spiritual growth through study, reflection, prayer, discussion with others.

5. Seeks to be part of a community of believers who give witness to their faith and support and nourish one another.

6. Holds life-affirming values, including commitment to racial and gender equality, affirmation of cultural diversity, and a personal sense of responsibility for the welfare of others.

7. Serves humanity, consistently and passionately, through acts of love and justice.

Word of life, to be held forth Phil. 2:16

Word of reconciliation, proclaimed 2 Cor. 5:19

Word of salvation, to be heard Acts 28:26

Word of truth, to be received Eph. 1:13

Word of faith, to be believed Rom. 10:8

Word of wisdom, to be ministered 1 Cor. 12:8

Word of faithfulness, to be held fast Titus 1:9

A mother took her young son shopping. After a day in the stores, a clerk handed the little boy a lollipop. “What do you say?” the mother said to the boy, to which he replied, “Charge it!”

There is no universally agreed on definition for the word charisma. Of its seventeen New Testament occurrences, sixteen are found in Paul and one in Peter (1 Pet. 4:10). Paul’s usage is so diverse that no single simple definition will do. One of the best discussions of charisma is found in Max Turner, “Spiritual Gifts Then and Now,” Vox Evangelica 15 (1985): 7-64. Turner concludes that the various Pauline lists of gifts “are clearly ad hoc and incomplete and they suggest that for Paul virtually anything that can be viewed as God’s enabling of a man for the upbuilding of the church could and would be designated a charisma, if Paul’s purpose was to underline its nature as given by God” (p. 31). For similar conclusions see D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 19ff; and Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, to be published in 1994), chapter 52.

Grudem offers the following definition: “A spiritual gift is any ability that is empowered by the Holy Spirit and used in any ministry of the church” (ibid., chapter 52). He qualifies this definition by saying, “This is a broad definition and would include both gifts that are related to natural abilities (such as teaching, showing mercy, or administration) and gifts that seem to be more ‘miraculous’ and less related to natural abilities (such as prophecy, healing, or distinguishing between spirits). The reason for this is that when Paul lists spiritual gifts (in Rom. 12:6-8; 1 Cor. 7:7; 12:8-10, 28; and Eph. 4:11) he includes both kinds of gifts. Yet not every natural ability that people have is included here, because Paul is clear that all spiritual gifts must be empowered ‘by one and the same Spirit’ (1 Cor. 12:11), that they are given ‘for the common good’ (1 Cor. 12:7), and that they are all to be used for ‘edification’ (1 Cor. 14:26), or for building up the church” (ibid.).

1980: $214

1990: $490

U. S. charity that got the most private donations in 1990: The Salvation Army, $658 million.

Americans who never give to Salvation Army bell ringers at Christmas: 5%.

Those who always give: 23%.

Age group that gives the highest percent of income to charity:

Ages 65 to 74 is 4.4%.

The lowest: Ages 18 to 24 is 1.2%

Personal income Americans gave to charity last year:

Poorest households: 5.5%.

Wealthiest households: 2.9%

Estimated value of time volunteers gave in 1989: $170 billion.

In 11-11-86, on the radio program “The Art of Family Living “ Ron Blue, a financial counselor stated that the average person in the U.S. gives 1.7% of his/her income to charity annually. The average evangelical gives approximately 2.5%.

Finney wrote how God gave him mighty infillings of the Holy Spirit “that went through me, as it seemed, body and soul. I immediately found myself endued with such power from on high that a few words dropped here and there to individuals were the means of their immediate conversion. My words seemed to fasten like barbed arrows in the souls of men. They cut like a sword. They broke the heart like a hammer.

Multitudes can attest to this...Sometimes I would find myself in a great measure empty of this power. I would go and visit, and find that I made no saving impression. I would exhort and pray with the same results. I would then set apart a day for private fasting and prayer...after humbling myself and crying out for help, the power would return upon me with all its freshness. This has been the experience of my life.”

Some years ago, a young graduate reported to a law office for training or apprenticeship. The senior lawyer who hired him quickly indoctrinated him in the office routine. Then the young lawyer sat at his desk and carried on this conversation with himself.

"What are you going to do when you finish your apprenticeship?"

"Hang out my shingle and practice law, of course!"

"What then?"

"Why, make a lot of money!"

"What then?"

"When I get rich I shall retire."

"What then?"

"Well, I will die."

"What then?"

His whole body trembling, Charles G. Finney rushed out of the office and ran to a park some few hundred yards distant. He remained there in prayer, vowing that he would not return to his office or to his room until he had settled his life's work. He saw himself as he was-selfish, ambitious, sinful. And he gave himself to the Lord for Him to use. Leaving the park, Finney stepped forth, in faith in God, to a life of usefulness rarely paralleled in the last two centuries.

Some years ago, a young graduate reported to a law office for training or apprenticeship. The senior lawyer who hired him quickly indoctrinated him in the office routine. Then the young lawyer sat at his desk and carried on this conversation with himself.

"What are you going to do when you finish your apprenticeship?"

"Hang out my shingle and practice law, of course!"

"What then?"

"Why, make a lot of money!"

"What then?"

"When I get rich I shall retire."

"What then?"

"Well, I will die."

"What then?"

His whole body trembling, Charles G. Finney rushed out of the office and ran to a park some few hundred yards distant. He remained there in prayer, vowing that he would not return to his office or to his room until he had settled his life's work. He saw himself as he was-selfish, ambitious, sinful. And he gave himself to the Lord for Him to use. Leaving the park, Finney stepped forth, in faith in God, to a life of usefulness rarely paralleled in the last two centuries.

“I have often been surprised at the mercy of God to myself. Poor sermons of mine, that I could cry over when I get home, have led scores to the cross; and, more wonderful still, words that I have spoken in ordinary conversation, mere chance sentences, as men call them, have nevertheless been as winged arrows from God, and have pierced men’s hearts, and laid them wounded at Jesus’ feet. I have often lifted up my hands in astonishment, and said, ‘How can God bless such a feeble instrumentality?”

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, known as “the prince of preachers,” felt he delivered his sermon so poorly one Sunday that he was ashamed of himself. As he walked away from his church, the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, he wondered how any good could come from that message. When he arrived home, he dropped to his knees and prayed, “Lord God, You can do something with nothing. Bless that poor sermon.”

In the months that followed, 41 people said that they had decided to trust Christ as Saviour because of that “weak” message. The following Sunday, to make up for his previous “failure,” Spurgeon had prepared a “great” sermon—but no one responded.

Spurgeon’s experience underscores two important lessons for all who serve the Lord. First, we need the blessing of God on our efforts. Solomon said in Psalm 127:1, “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.” And second, our weakness is an occasion for the working of God’s power. The apostle Paul said, “I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10).

When Charles Spurgeon sent his ministerial students out to pastor churches, he gave this charge: “Cling tightly with both your hands: When they fail, catch hold with your teeth; and if they give way, hang on by your eyelashes!”

The well-known theologian Charles Hodge wrote about his early years at Princeton: “It was my privilege to be the pupil-assistant of Professor Joseph Henry, the illustrious scientist. When, for the first time, electric signals were sent from point to point, the earth itself being used for the return current, Professor Henry put me at one end of the circuit, while he stood directing the experiments at the other. I can well remember the wonderful care with which he arranged them. Very often, when the testing moment came, he would raise his hand in adoring reverence and call upon me to uncover my head and worship in silence. He would say, ‘Because God is here, I am about to ask Him a question.’”

When the company founded by Andrew Carnegie was taken over by the U.S. Steel Corporation in 1901 it acquired as one of its obligations a contract to pay the top Carnegie executive, Charles M. Schwab, the then unheard of minimum sum of $1,000,000. J. P. Morgan of U.S. Steel was in a quandary about it. The highest salary on record was then $100,000. He met with Schwab, showed him the contract and hesitatingly asked what could be done about it.

“This,” said Schwab, as he took the contract and tore it up. That contract had paid Schwab $1,300,000 the year before. “I didn’t care what salary they paid me,”

Schwab later told a Forbes magazine interviewer. “I was not animated by money motives. I believed in what I was trying to do and I wanted to see it brought about. I canceled that contract without a moment’s hesitation. Why do I work? I work for just the pleasure I find in work, the satisfaction there is in developing things, in creating. Also, the associations business begets. The person who does not work for the love of work, but only for money, is not likely to make money nor to find much fun in life.”

Charles Spurgeon was saved on January 6, 1850, and on February 1 he wrote the following prayer of consecration: O great and unsearchable God, who knowest my heart, and triest all my ways; with a humble dependence upon the support of Thy Holy Spirit, I yield up myself to Thee; as Thy own reasonable sacrifice, I return to Thee Thine own. I would be for ever, unreservedly, perpetually Thine; whilst I am on earth, I would serve Thee; and may I enjoy Thee and praise Thee for ever! Amen.

Charles the Simple, Son of Louis the Stammerer. So called for his policy of making concessions to the Norse invaders rather than fighting.

On one occasion, Peppermint Patty said to Marcie: “I’d like to read this book, Marcie, but I’m kind of afraid. I had a grandfather who didn’t think much of reading.” She continued by saying, “He always said that if you read too many books, your head would fall off.”

Marcie responds, “you start the first chapter, and I’ll hold onto your head!”

Friend, hold on to friends and let them hold on to you so that we will all save face by facing the future as people who will know and do God’s Word.

Play A Charlie Brown Christmas ( 19:28-20:34 ) to introduce a sermon on giving at Christmas.

To illustrate the fact that some people experience sadness and depression during the holiday season, play A Charlie Brown Christmas ( 1:07-1:46 ).

Charlie Chaplin once entered a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest in Monte Carlo—and came in third.

Academy Award-winning actor Charlton Heston has not always had rave reviews. He says he learned “The most valuable single truth about criticism” from Laurence Olivier: We’d done a blank-verse play on Broadway…and the blank verse was not Shakespeare. The critics slaughtered us—before the opening-night party we were doomed. Forty minutes later I found myself alone in a restaurant with Olivier and a bottle of brandy. I was young, green and striving for mature detachment. “Well,” I said philosophically, I suppose you learn how to forget the bad notices.”

Olivier gripped my elbow.. “Laddie!” he said. “What’s much harder, and far more important…you have to learn to forget the good ones.” He was right.

Clifton Fadiman, in The Little, Brown Book Of Anecdotes, tells a story about Vladimir Nabokov, the Russian-born novelist who achieved popular success with his novels Lolita (1955), Pale Fire (1962) and Ada (1969). One summer in the 1940s, Nabokov and his family stayed with James Laughlin at Alta, Utah, where Nabokov took the opportunity to enlarge his collection of butterflies and moths. Fadiman relates:

Nabokov’s fiction has never been praised for its compassion; he was single-minded if nothing else. One evening at dusk he returned from his day’s excursion saying that during hot pursuit near Bear Gulch he had heard someone groaning most piteously down by the stream. ‘Did you stop’ Laughlin asked him.

‘No, I had to get the butterfly.’ The next day the corpse of an aged prospector was discovered in what has been renamed, in Nabokov’s honor, Dead Man’s Gulch.”

While people around us are dying, how often we chase butterflies!

Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace...is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

An IRS funded survey showed: 1/5 of filers admit to understating income, 1/10 to overstating deductions, 1/6 claim dependents illegally, more than 50% said they thought everyone would cheat if they felt they could get away with it. The more tax evaders a person knows, the more likely he is to cheat.

What does the cheating scandal at the U.S. Naval Academy say about military honor?

Last week, Navy investigators reported that 81 midshipmen had obtained a copy of a 1992 engineering exam before exam day and that many of them then lied during an internal investigation, some to protect classmates. Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage, who chaired a review of the academy’s honor code, blames the widespread cheating on the Navy’s emphasis on skills like technical proficiency over character development.

A 1967 Annapolis graduate, Armitage notes that one point of honor is still pounded into all midshipmen from Day 1: “Never bilge (endanger) a shipmate.” That credo cuts two ways, says James Q. Wilson, author of The Moral Sense. It explains why some midshipmen betrayed their personal honor by lying to protect their classmates; but, says Wilson, those same people will never let their buddies down during times of war. He adds, “I wouldn’t worry that this indicates a decaying moral fabric of the next generation of military officers.”

As soon as I began unloading my groceries, the checkout clerk excused herself, saying she’d be right back. I continued emptying my shopping cart when I heard a woman’s voice behind me. “Pardon me,” she said. “Is this line open, or are you just an optimist?”

A mother wanted to teach her daughter a moral lesson. She gave the little girl a quarter and a dollar for church. “Put whichever one you want in the collection plate and keep the other for yourself,” she told the girl. When they were coming out of church, the mother asked her daughter which amount she had given. “Well,” said the little girl, “I was going to give the dollar, but just before the collection the man in the pulpit said that we should all be cheerful givers. I knew I’d be a lot more cheerful if I gave the quarter, so I did.”

The Winter 1991 issue of the University of Pacific Review offers a chilling description of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster:

There were two electrical engineers in the control room that night, and the best thing that could be said for what they were doing is they were ‘playing around’ with the machine. They were performing what the Soviets later described as an unauthorized experiment. They were trying to see how long a turbine would ‘free wheel’ when they took the power off it.

Now, taking the power off that kind of a nuclear reactor is a difficult, dangerous thing to do, because these reactors are very unstable in their lower ranges. In order to get the reactor down to that kind of power, where they could perform the test they were interested in performing, they had to override manually six separate computer-driven alarm systems. One by one the computers would come up and say, ‘Stop! Dangerous! Go no further!’ And one by one, rather than shutting off the experiment, they shut off the alarms and kept going. You know the results: nuclear fallout that was recorded all around the world, from the largest industrial accident ever to occur in the world.

The instructions and warnings in Scripture are just as clear. We ignore them at our own peril, and tragically, at the peril of innocent others.

Several years ago, in Long Beach, California, a fellow went into a fried chicken place and bought a couple of chicken dinners for himself and his date late one afternoon. The young woman at the counter inadvertently gave him the proceeds from the day—a whole bag of money (much of it cash) instead of fried chicken. After driving to their picnic site, the two of them sat down to open the meal and enjoy some chicken together. They discovered a whole lot more than chicken—over $800! But he was unusual. He quickly put the money back in the bag. They got back into the car and drove all the way back. Mr. Clean got out, walked in, and became an instant hero. By then the manager was frantic. The guy with the bag of money looked the manager in the eye and said, “I want you to know I came by to get a couple of chicken dinners and wound up with all this money. Here.” Well, the manager was thrilled to death. He said, “Oh, great, let me call the newspaper. I’m gonna have your picture put in the local newspaper. You’re the most honest man I’ve heard of.” To which they guy quickly responded, “Oh no, no, don’t do that!” Then he leaned closer and whispered, “You see, the woman I’m with is not my wife...she’s uh, somebody else’s wife.”

When Christian Herter was governor of Massachusetts, he was running hard for a second term in office. One day, after a busy morning chasing votes (and no lunch) he arrived at a church barbecue. It was late afternoon and Herter was famished.

As Herter moved down the serving line, he held out his plate to the woman serving chicken. She put a piece on his plate and turned to the next person in line.

“Excuse me,” Governor Herter said, “do you mind if I have another piece of chicken?”

“Sorry,” the woman told him. “I’m supposed to give one piece of chicken to each person.”

“But I’m starved,” the governor said.

“Sorry,” the woman said again. “Only one to a customer.”

Governor Herter was a modest and unassuming man, but he decided that this time he would throw a little weight around.

“Do you know who I am?” he said. “I am the governor of this state.”

“Do you know who I am?” the woman said. “I’m the lady in charge of the chicken. Move along, mister.”

In today’s text, the apostle Paul said that by helping our enemies we heap “coals of fire” on their heads. He certainly didn’t mean that this is a good way to hurt them—to get even. He meant that by using kindness we might secure their repentance, thus showing our sincere desire for their eternal good.

A Christian lady owned two prize chickens that got out of their run and busied themselves in the garden of an ill-tempered neighbor. The man caught the hens, wrung their necks, and threw them back over the fence. Naturally, the woman was upset, but she didn’t get angry and rush over and scream at him. Instead, she took the birds, dressed them out, and prepared two chicken pies. Then she delivered one of the freshly baked pies to the man who had killed her hens. She apologized for not being more careful about keeping her chickens in her own yard. Her children, expecting an angry scene, hid behind a bush to see the man’s face and hear what he’d say. But he was speechless! That chicken pie and apology filled him with a burning sense of shame. But she wasn’t trying to get even. Her motive in returning good for evil was to show her neighbor true Christian love, and maybe even bring about a change of heart. H.V.L., Our Daily Bread, April 15

A farmer sent his nephew a crate of chickens, but the box burst open just as the boy started to take them out. The next day he wrote his uncle: “I chased them through my neighbor’s yard but I only got back eleven.” Answered the uncle, “You did all right. I only sent six.”

In England in the 1830s, many poor children had no time for school or play. They worked in coal mines under inhuman conditions. But these children had a friend in high places: Anthony Ashley Cooper, seventh Earl of Shaftesbury and a member of parliament. He was also a devoted Christian who believed God had called him to help the downtrodden. Shaftesbury fought for years to end the abusive child labor practices, although at times he felt “every hand is against me.” But he stood firm, and Parliament abolished child slavery in the mines.