Pastoral Resources

Columnist Ellen Goodman wrote a powerful editorial on this topic, a portion of which follows:

Sooner or later; most Americans become card-carrying members of the counterculture. This is not an underground holdout of Hippies. No beads are required. All you need to join is a child.

At some point between Lamaze and PTA, it becomes clear that one of your main jobs as a parent is to counter the culture. What the media deliver to children by the masses, you are expected to rebut one at a time.

But it occurs to me now that the call for “parental responsibility” is increasing in direct proportion to the irresponsibility of the marketplace. Parents are expected to protect their children from an increasingly hostile environment.

Are the kids being sold junk food? Just say no. Is TV bad? Turn it off. Are there messages about sex, drugs, violence all around? Counter the culture.

Mothers and fathers are expected to screen virtually every aspect of their children’s lives. To check the ratings on the movies, to read the labels on the CDs, to find out if there’s MTV in the house next door. All the while keeping in touch with school and in their free time, earning a living.

Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, a research associate at the Institute for American Values, found this out in interviews with middle-class parents. “A common complaint I heard from parents was their sense of being overwhelmed by the culture. They felt relatively more helpless than their parents.”

“Parents,” she notes, “see themselves in a struggle for the hearts and minds of their own children.” It isn’t that they can’t say no. It’s that there’s so much more to say no to.

Without wallowing in false nostalgia, there has been a fundamental shift. Americans once expected parents to raise their children in accordance with the dominant cultural messages. Today they are expected to raise their children in opposition.

Once the chorus of cultural values was full of ministers, teachers, neighbors, leaders. They demanded more conformity, but offered more support. Now the messengers are Ninja Turtles, Madonna, rap groups, and celebrities pushing sneakers. Parents are considered “responsible” only if they are successful in their resistance.

It’s what makes child-raising harder. It’s why parents feel more isolated. It’s not just that American families have less time with their kids, it’s that we have to spend more of this time doing battle with our own culture.

It’s rather like trying to get your kids to eat their green beans after they’ve been told all day about the wonders of Milky Way. Come to think of it, it’s exactly like that.

My young son asked what was the highest number I had ever counted to. I didn’t know but asked about his highest number. It was “5,372.”

“Oh,” I said. “Why did you stop there?”

“Church was over.”

Let's ask ourselves this question: "Am I concerned about the sacrifices I may be called upon to make in serving Christ?" Two young men were talking about this very thing. One of them said, "I cannot tell you all that the Lord Jesus is to me, or what He has done for me. I do wish you would enlist in His army." "I'm thinking about it," answered the other young man, "but it means giving up several things-in fact, I am counting the cost." A Christian officer, just passing, heard the last remark, and laying his hand on the shoulder of the young soldier said, "Young man, you talk of counting the cost of following Christ, but have you ever counted the cost of not following Him?"

Who was United States Senator Edmund G. Ross of Kansas? I suppose you could call him a “Mr. Nobody.” No law bears his name. Not a single list of Senate “greats” mentions his service. Yet when Ross entered the Senate in 1866, he was considered the man to watch. He seemed destined to surpass his colleagues, but he tossed it all away by one courageous act of conscience. Let’s set the stage.

Conflict was dividing our government in the wake of the Civil War. President Andrew Johnson was determined to follow Lincoln’s policy of reconciliation toward the defeated South. Congress, however, wanted to rule the downtrodden Confederate states with an iron hand.

Congress decided to strike first. Shortly after Senator Ross was seated, the Senate introduced impeachment proceedings against the hated President. The radicals calculated that they needed thirty-six votes, and smiled as they concluded that the thirty-sixth was none other than Ross.’ The new senator listened to the vigilante talk. But to the surprise of many, he declared that the president “deserved as fair a trial as any accused man has ever had on earth.” The word immediately went out that his vote was “shaky.”

Ross received an avalanche of anti-Johnson telegrams from every section of the country. Radical senators badgered him to “come to his senses.”

The fateful day of the vote arrived. The courtroom galleries were packed. Tickets for admission were at an enormous premium.

As a deathlike stillness fell over the Senate chamber, the vote began. By the time they reached Ross, twenty-four “guilties” had been announced. Eleven more were certain. Only Ross’ vote was needed to impeach the President. Unable to conceal his emotion, the Chief Justice asked in a trembling voice, “Mr. Senator Ross, how vote you? Is the respondent Andrew Johnson guilty as charged?”

Ross later explained, at that moment, “I looked into my open grave. Friendships, position, fortune, and everything that makes life desirable to an ambitions man were about to be swept away by the breath of my mouth, perhaps forever.”

Then, the answer came -- unhesitating, unmistakable: “Not guilty!” With that, the trial was over. And the response was as predicted. A high public official from Kansas wired Ross to say: “Kansas repudiates you as she does all perjurers and skunks.”

The “open grave” vision had become a reality. Ross’ political career was in ruins. Extreme ostracism, and even physical attack awaited his family upon their return home.

One gloomy day Ross turned to his faithful wife and said, “Millions cursing me today will bless me tomorrow…though not but God can know the struggle it has cost me.” It was a prophetic declaration.

Twenty years later Congress and the Supreme Court verified the wisdom of his position, by changing the laws related to impeachment. Ross was appointed Territorial Governor of New Mexico. Then, just prior to his death, he was awarded a special pension by Congress. The press and country took this opportunity to honor his courage which, they finally concluded, had saved our country from crisis and division.

Several years ago, I read about James Lewis Pettigru. His life was so exemplary that after his death the community erected a tombstone inscribed with these words:

UNAWED BY OPINION, UNSEDUCED BY FLATTERY, UNDISMAYED BY DISASTER, HE CONFRONTED LIFE WITH COURAGE, AND DEATH WITH CHRISTIAN HOPE.

Courage is doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared.

I am tired of hearing about men with the “courage of their convictions.” Nero and Caligula and Attila and Hitler had the courage of their convictions—but not one had the courage to examine his convictions, or to change them, which is the true test of character.

Frederick Charrington was a member of the wealthy family in England which owned the Charrington Brewery. His personal fortune, derived solely from his brewing enterprise, exceeded $66 million.

One night, Charrington was walking along a London street with a few friends. Suddenly the door of a pub flew open just a few steps ahead of the group, and a man staggered out into the street with a woman clinging desperately to him. The man, obviously very drunk, was swearing at the woman and trying to push her away. The woman was gaunt and clad in rags. She sobbed and pleaded with the drunken man, who was her husband.

“Please, dear, please!” she cried as Charrington and his friends watched. “The children haven’t eaten in two days! And I’ve not eaten in a week! For the love of God, please come home! Or if you must stay, just give me a few coins so I can buy the children some…”

Her pleas were brutally cut off as her husband struck her a savage blow. She collapsed to the stone pavement like a rag doll. The man stood over her with his fists clenched, poised as if to strike her again. Charrington leaped forward and grasped him. The man struggled, swearing violently, but Charrington pinned the man’s arms securely behind his back. Charrington’s companions rushed to the woman’s side and began ministering to her wounds. A short time later a policeman led the drunken man away and the woman was taken to a nearby hospital.

As Charrington brushed himself off, he noticed a lighted sign in the window of the pub: “Drink Chrarrington Ale.” The multi-millionaire brewer was suddenly shaken to the core of his being. He realized that his confrontation with the violent husband would not have happened if the man’s brain had not been awash with the Charrington family’s product. “When I saw that sign,” he later wrote, “I was stricken just as surely as Paul on the Damascus Road. Here was the source of my family wealth, and it was producing untold human misery before my own eyes. Then and there I pledged to God that not another penny of that money should come to me.”

History records that Frederick Charrington became one of the most well-known temperance activists in England. He renounced his share of the family fortune and devoted the rest of his life to the ministry of freeing men and women from the curse of alcoholism.

February 15, 1921. New York City. The operating room of the Kane Summit Hospital. A doctor is performing an appendectomy.

In many ways the events leading to the surgery are uneventful. The patient has complained of severe abdominal pain. The diagnosis is clear: an inflamed appendix. Dr. Evan O’Neill Kane is performing the surgery. In his distinguished thirty-seven-year medical career, he has performed nearly four thousand appendectomies, so this surgery will be uneventful in all ways except two.

The first novelty of this operation? The use of local anesthesia in major surgery. Dr. Kane is a crusader against the hazards of general anesthesia. He contends that a local application is far safer. Many of his colleagues agree with him in principle, but in order for them to agree in practice, they will have to see the theory applied.

Dr. Kane searches for a volunteer, a patient who is willing to undergo surgery while under local anesthesia. A volunteer is not easily found. Many are squeamish at the thought of being awake during their own surgery. Others are fearful that the anesthesia might wear off too soon.

Eventually, however, Dr. Kane finds a candidate. On Tuesday morning, February 15, the historic operation occurs.

The patient is prepped and wheeled into the operating room. A local anesthetic is applied. As he has done thousands of times, Dr. Kane dissects the superficial tissues and locates the appendix. He skillfully excises it and concludes the surgery. During the procedure, the patient complains of only minor discomfort.

The volunteer is taken into post-op, then placed in a hospital ward. He recovers quickly and is dismissed two days later.

Dr. Kane had proven his theory. Thanks to the willingness of a brave volunteer, Kane demonstrated that local aneshesia was a viable, and even preferable, alternative.

But I said there were two facts that made the surgery unique. I’ve told you the first: the use of local anesthesia. The second is the patient. The courageous candidate for surgery by Dr. Kane was Dr. Kane.

To prove his point, Dr. Kane operated on himself!

A wise move. The doctor became a patient in order to convince the patients to trust the doctor.

Chrysostom, the ancient Church Father, was a beautiful example of true Christian courage. When he stood before the Roman Emperor, he was threatened with banishment if he still remained a Christian. Chrysostom replied, "You cannot, for the world is my Father's house; you cannot banish me."

"But I will slay you," said the Emperor.

"No, but you cannot," said the noble champion of the faith again, "for my life is hid with Christ in God."

"I will take away thy treasures." "No, but you cannot," was the retort; "in the first place, I have nothing you know anything about. My treasure is in heaven, and my heart is there."

"But I will drive you away from man, and you shall have no friend left." "No, and that you cannot," once more said the faithful witness, "for I have a Friend in heaven from whom you shall not separate me. I defy you; there is nothing you can do to hurt me."

The empire of Satan John 12:31; 16:11; 1 John 5:4

It has rejected Christ John 1:10; 7:7

Christ came to save John 3:16-17; 12:47; 1 Tim. 1:15

All guilty before God Romans 3:19

Its judgment John 12:31; Acts 17:31 Matt. 25:31-46

Its doom 1 John 1:17; 2 Peter 3:6-8; Mark 13:14-37

The word testament is a derivation of the Latin word testamentum, which was used in Jerome’s Vulgate to translate the Hebrew word b’rith, covenant. The Greek equivalent is diatheke, which also means covenant. The word has come to be used in describing the two main divisions of the Bible: The Old Testament and The New Testament. It should be understood then, that the Bible is generally to be looked at as a covenant between God and man.

In modern times we define a host of relations by contracts. These are usually for goods or services and for hard cash. The contract, formal or informal, helps to specify failure in these relationships.

The Lord did not establish a contract with Israel or with the church. He created a covenant. There is a difference. Contacts are broken when one of the parties fails to keep his promise. If, let us say, a patient fails to keep an appointment with a doctor, the doctor is not obligated to call the house and inquire, “Where were you? Why didn’t you show up for your appointment?” He simply goes on to his next patient and has his appointment secretary take note of the patient who failed to keep the appointment. The patient may find it harder the next time to see the doctor. He broke an informal contract.

According to the Bible, however, the Lord asks: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”

(Isa. 49:15) The Bible indicates the covenant is more like the ties of a parent to her child than it is a doctor’s appointment. If a child fails to show up for dinner, the parent’s obligation, unlike the doctor’s, isn’t canceled. The parent finds out where the child is and makes sure he’s cared for. One member’s failure does not destroy the relationship. A covenant puts no conditions on faithfulness. It is the unconditional commitment to love and serve. - Bruce Shelley

Have you ever heard of the “Dependent Order of Really Meek and Timid Souls”?

When you make an acrostic of its first letters, you have “Doormats.” The Doormats have an official insignia—a yellow caution light. Their official motto is: “The meek shall inherit the earth, if that’s okay with everybody!”

The society was founded by Upton Diskson who wrote a pamphlet called Cower Power.

The man went into the restaurant and said, “Do you serve crabs here?”

And the waiter said, “Why, yes sir, we serve anybody here.”

If anything looks like it could withstand time, it’s Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota. But up close, maintenance crews have found something disturbing—cracks running through the granite faces of Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Lincoln. The monument isn’t in immediate danger, but experts say that without a facelift the world’s largest sculpture could begin crumbling. Water runs into the cracks and freezes in winter, pushing on the rock with a force of 2,000 pounds per square inch.

In 1962, Victor and Mildred Goertzel published a revealing study of 413 “famous and exceptionally gifted people” called Cradles of Eminence. They spent years attempting to understand what produced such greatness, what common thread might run through all of these outstanding people’s lives. Surprisingly, the most outstanding fact was that virtually all of them, 392, had to overcome very difficult obstacles in order to become who they were.

A man on a flight across America in 1976 rose from his seat, drew a gun and took the stewardess hostage. “Take me to Detroit,” he said. “We’re already going to Detroit,” she replied.

“Oh...good,” he said and sat down again.

The young salesman was disappointed about losing a big sale, and as he talked with his sales manager he lamented, “I guess it just proves you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” The manager replied,

“Son, take my advice: your job is not to make him drink. Your job is to make him thirsty.”

So it is with evangelism. Our lives should be so filled with Christ that they create a thirst for the Gospel.

When St. Petersburg, one of the most splendid and harmonious cities in Europe, was being laid out early in the eighteenth century, many large boulders brought by a glacier from Finland had to be removed.

One particularly large rock was in the path of one of the principal avenues that had been planned, and bids were solicited for its removal. The bids submitted were very high. This was understandable, because at that time modern equipment did not exist and there were no high-powered explosives. As officials pondered what to do, a peasant presented himself and offered to get rid of the boulder for a much lower price than those submitted by other bidders. Since they had nothing to lose, officials gave the job to the peasant.

The next morning he showed up with a crowd of other peasants carrying shovels. They began digging a huge hole next to the rock. The rock was propped up with timbers to prevent it from rolling into the hole. When the hole was deep enough, the timber props were removed and the rock dropped into the hole below the street level. It was then covered with dirt, and the excess dirt was carted away.

It’s an early example of what creative thinking can do to solve a problem. The unsuccessful bidders only thought about moving the rock from one place to another on the city’s surface.

The peasant looked at the problem from another angle. He considered another dimension—up and down. He couldn’t lift it up, so he put it underground.

As a boy in the Middle West, I used to amuse myself by holding a stick across a gateway that the sheep had to pass through. After the first few sheep had jumped over the stick, I took it away; but all the other sheep leaped through the gateway over an imaginary barrier. The only reason for their jumping was that those in front had jumped. The sheep is not the only animal with that tendency. Almost all of us are prone to do what others are doing, to believe what others are believing, to follow, without question, the testimony of prominent men.

Credit is what keeps you from knowing how far past broke you are.

Personal debt in the U. S. increased at the rate of $1000 per second and consumer installment debt has mushroomed to a point where it takes approximately $1 out of every $4 that consumers earn after taxes to keep up the payments—not including the home mortgage.

For over 250,000 Americans, the burden of debt is so great that he/she declares bankruptcy. There are even more serious consequences of this financial tension created by debt: 56% of all divorces are a result of financial tension in the home.

Americans owe over $400 billion on their credit cards. Consumer debt is at a six year high. The average household gets about 25 credit card promotional offers a year. Experts worry that the “irresponsible and rabid marketing of credit cards” could result in a crisis for the economy.

Loan Officer: “Based on your credit history, it seems the only kind of loan you qualify for is an auto loan.”

Customer: “You mean money to buy a car?”

Loan Officer: “I mean money you lend yourself.”

Walking through a park, I passed a massive oak tree. A vine had grown up along its trunk. The vine started small—nothing to bother about. But over the years the vine had gotten taller and taller. By the time I passed, the entire lower half of the tree was covered by the vine’s creepers. The mass of tiny feelers was so thick that the tree looked as though it had innumerable birds’ nests in it.

Now the tree was in danger. This huge, solid oak was quite literally being taken over; the life was being squeezed from it.

But the gardeners in that park had seen the danger. They had taken a saw and severed the trunk of the vine—one neat cut across the middle. The tangled mass of the vine’s branches still clung to the oak, but the vine was now dead. That would gradually become plain as weeks passed and the creepers began to die and fall away from the tree.

How easy it is for sin, which begins so small and seemingly insignificant, to grow until it has a strangling grip on our lives.

And yet, Christ’s death has cut the power of sin. Yes, the “creepers” of sin still cling and have some effect. But sin’s power is severed by Christ, and gradually, sin’s grip dries up and falls away.

In the 1950s a psychologist, Stanton Samenow, and a psychiatrist, Samuel Yochelson, sharing the conventional wisdom that crime is caused by environment, set out to prove their point. They began a 17-year study involving thousands of hours of clinical testing of 250 inmates here in the District of Columbia. To their astonishment, they discovered that the cause of crime cannot be traced to environment, poverty, or oppression. Instead, crime is the result of individuals making, as they put it, wrong moral choices. In their 1977 work The Criminal Personality, they concluded that the answer to crime is a “conversion of the wrong-doer to a more responsible lifestyle.”

In 1987, Harvard professors James Q. Wilson and Richard J. Herrnstein came to similar conclusions in their book Crime and Human Nature. They determined that the cause of crime is a lack of proper moral training among young people during the morally formative years, particularly ages one to six.

In the 1950s a psychologist, Stanton Samenow, and a psychiatrist, Samuel Yochelson, sharing the conventional wisdom that crime is caused by environment, set out to prove their point. They began a 17-year study involving thousands of hours of clinical testing of 250 inmates here in the District of Columbia. To their astonishment, they discovered that the cause of crime cannot be traced to environment, poverty, or oppression. Instead, crime is the result of individuals making, as they put it, wrong moral choices. In their 1977 work The Criminal Personality, they concluded that the answer to crime is a “conversion of the wrong-doer to a more responsible lifestyle.” In 1987, Harvard professors James Q. Wilson and Richard J. Herrnstein came to similar conclusions in their book Crime and Human Nature. They determined that the cause of crime is a jack of proper moral training among young people during the morally formative years, particularly ages one to six.

A miserable looking woman recognized F. B. Meyer on the train and ventured to share her burden with him. For years she had cared for a crippled daughter who brought great joy to her life. She made tea for her each morning, then left for work, knowing that in the evening the daughter would be there when she arrived home. But the daughter had died, and the grieving mother was alone and miserable. Home was not “home” anymore.

Meyer gave her wise counsel. “When you get home and put the key in the door,” he said, “say aloud, ‘Jesus, I know You are here!’ and be ready to greet Him directly when you open the door. And as you light the fire tell Him what has happened during the day; if anybody has been kind, tell Him; if anybody has been unkind, tell Him, just as you would have told your daughter. At night stretch out your hand in the darkness and say, ‘Jesus, I know You are here!’”

Some months later, Meyer was back in that neighborhood and met the woman again, but he did not recognize her. Her face radiated joy instead of announcing misery. “I did as you told me,” she said, “and it has made all the difference in my life, and now I feel I know Him.”

Last resort. “All other means to the morally just solution of a conflict must be exhausted before resort to arms can be regarded as legitimate.”

Just cause. “War can be just only if employed to defend a stable order or morally preferable cause against threats of destruction or the use of injustice.” (Goals must be seen as just, the opponent must be clearly unjust, even though there is ambiguity in the self.)

Right attitudes. “War must be carried out with the right attitudes. (The intention must be the restoration of justice, not retaliation or revenge.)

Prior declaration of war. “War must be explicitly declared by a legitimate authority.” (A formal declaration must precede conflict.)

Reasonable hope of success. “War may be conducted only by military means that promise a reasonable attainment of the moral and political objectives being sought.” (If there is not a reasonable chance of success then it is wrong to fight no matter how just the cause.)

Noncombatant immunity. “Selective immunity must be honored for certain parts of the enemy’s population” (particularly noncombatants, women, aged and children).

Proportionality. “There must be reasonable expectation that the good results will exceed the evils involved.” (Thus any victory whose cost is greater than the eventual outcome expected is not right.)

In his men’s seminar, David Simmons, a former cornerback for the Dallas Cowboys, tells about his childhood home. His father, a military man, was extremely demanding, rarely saying a kind word, always pushing him with harsh criticism to do better. The father had decided that he would never permit his son to feel any satisfaction from his accomplishments, reminding him there were always new goals ahead. When Dave was a little boy, his dad gave him a bicycle, unassembled, with the command that he put it together. After Dave struggled to the point of tears with the difficult instructions and many parts, his father said, “I knew you couldn’t do it.” Then he assembled it for him. When Dave played football in high school, his father was unrelenting in his criticisms. In the backyard of his home, after every game, his dad would go over every play and point out Dave’s errors. “Most boys got butterflies in the stomach before the game; I got them afterwards. Facing my father was more stressful than facing any opposing team.”

By the time he entered college, Dave hated his father and his harsh discipline. He chose to play football at the University of Georgia because its campus was further from home than any school that offered him a scholarship. After college, he became the second round draft pick of the St. Louis Cardinal’s professional football club. Joe Namath (who later signed with the New York Jets), was the club’s first round pick that year. “Excited, “I telephoned my father to tell him the good news. He said, ‘How does it feel to be second?’”

Despite the hateful feelings he had for his father, Dave began to build a bridge to his dad. Christ had come into his life during college years, and it was God’s love that made him turn to his father. During visits home he stimulated conversation with him and listened with interest to what his father had to say. He learned for the first time what his grandfather had been like—a tough lumberjack known for his quick temper. Once he destroyed a pickup truck with a sledgehammer because it wouldn’t start, and he often beat his son. This new awareness affected Dave dramatically. “Knowing about my father’s upbringing not only made me more sympathetic for him, but it helped me see that, under the circumstances, he might have done much worse. By the time he died, I can honestly say we were friends.”

A student may turn his enlightened heart into darkness by starting to be critical, first with the things that may be criticized, and then proceeding to belittle those things that are beyond criticism. He is like a little boy with a new knife; he must cut something or other. He cuts up the Scriptures and decimates them; he has such a sharp knife that he must use it or otherwise he is not happy. From a critic, he advances to an irreverent faultfinder, and from that to an utter unbeliever. His light has blinded him.

One of the rarest management skills—and one of the most difficult to learn—is how to criticize constructively. Constructive criticism shows consideration for other people’s feelings and invites their suggestions and cooperation. When you can’t figure out how to criticize something constructively, the wisest course is to keep your mouth shut until you do. Criticism that starts out by attacking people and putting them in the position of having to defend themselves often turns small problems into big ones. Usually the best way to start is with simple, friendly questions, queries that will give people a chance to explain their position without being offended and without getting excited. Then, after you’ve listened carefully, suggest the changes you’d like them to make—whatever they are— and see what they think of them.

Don’t push for an immediate decision if it isn’t necessary, or if there is still substantial disagreement. Ask them to think it over. Tell them you will too.Later, if you still believe in the changes you want to make, get together with them again. Explain that you’ve thought it over carefully and still believe the idea is worth a try. Tell them you feel an obligation to give it a fair chance, and you’re counting on them to do the same.

One other important point; when you have to criticize or question someone’s actions or ideas, always to it to his or her face. Discuss it with the person involved. Don’t let him or her hear your criticism secondhand.

[God] is not the author of evil, but he is the author of creation and of the risk inherent in it.… The significance of the cross of Jesus is that the one who suffers most because of sin is not mankind but God himself and it is by his own action in the cross that the power of evil is actually overcome.

Christ crossed the river of death and the grave so that you and I as believers, whose sins have been forgiven, may not have to cross that river alone. The story is told of a shepherd who tried to induce his sheep to cross a swiftly flowing stream. Sheep are naturally afraid of rapidly running water, and he could not get them to cross. Then picking up a lamb and stepping with it into the river, he bore it carefully and tenderly to the opposite shore. When the mother saw her lamb had gone, she forgot her fear and stepped into the rushing current and was soon safely on the other side. All the rest of the flock followed her leadership. Thus we follow our leader, Christ, and those of our loved ones whom He has already carried safely over to the other shore.

Crowd control is the method of making sure that a large crowd does not get out of hand. But the term may also refer to the control a crowd can wield over an individual. I was reminded of this in a newspaper article about an old carnival headliner nicknamed “Cannonball.” In his younger days he was blasted out of a cannon 1200 times. When asked why he did this, he replied, “Do you know what it’s like to feel the applause of 60,000 people? That’s why I did it!”

The government of Polish Prime Minister Jaruzelski had ordered crucifixes removed from classroom walls, just as they had been banned in factories, hospitals, and other public institutions. Catholic bishops attacked the ban that had stirred waves of anger and resentment all across Poland. Ultimately the government relented, insisting that the law remain on the books, but agreeing not to press for removal of the crucifixes, particularly in the schoolrooms.

But one zealous Communist school administrator in Garwolin decided that the law was the law. So one evening he had seven large crucifixes removed from lecture halls where they had hung since the school’s founding in the twenties.

Days later, a group of parents entered the school and hung more crosses. The administrator promptly had these taken down as well.

The next day two-thirds of the school’s six hundred students staged a sit-in. When heavily armed riot police arrived, the students were forced into the streets. Then they marched, crucifixes held high, to a nearby church where they were joined by twenty-five hundred other students from nearby schools for a morning of prayer in support of the protest. Soldiers surrounded the church. But the pictures from inside of students holding crosses high above their heads flashed around the world. So did the words of the priest who delivered the message to the weeping congregation that morning. “There is no Poland without a cross.”

A medical doctor provides a physical description: The cross is placed on the ground and the exhausted man is quickly thrown backwards with his shoulders against the wood. The legionnaire feels for the depression at the front of the wrist. He drives a heavy, square wrought-iron nail through the wrist and deep into the wood. Quickly he moves to the other side and repeats the action, being careful not to pull the arms too tightly, but to allow some flex and movement. The cross is then lifted into place.

The left foot is pressed backward against the right foot, and with both feet extended, toes down, a nail is driven through the arch of each, leaving the knees flexed. The victim is now crucified. As he slowly sags down with more weight on the nails in the wrists, excruciating, fiery pain shoots along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain—the nails in the wrists are putting pressure on the median nerves. As he pushes himself upward to avoid this stretching torment, he places the full weight on the nail through his feet. Again he feels the searing agony of the nail tearing through the nerves between the bones of his feet.

As the arms fatigue, cramps sweep through the muscles, knotting them in deep, relentless, throbbing pain. With these cramps comes the inability to push himself upward to breathe. Air can be drawn into the lungs but not exhaled. He fights to raise himself in order to get even one small breath. Finally carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs and in the blood stream, and the cramps partially subside. Spasmodically he is able to push himself upward to exhale and bring in life-giving oxygen.

Hours of this limitless pain, cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, searing pain as tissue is torn from his lacerated back as he moves up and down against the rough timber. Then another agony begins: a deep, crushing pain deep in the chest as the pericardium slowly fills with serum and begins to compress the heart.

It is now almost over—the loss of tissue fluids has reached a critical level—the compressed heart is struggling to pump heavy, thick, sluggish blood into the tissues—the tortured lungs are making a frantic effort to gasp in small gulps of air.

He can feel the chill of death creeping through is tissues. . .Finally he can allow his body to die.

All this the Bible records with the simple words, “And they crucified Him.” (Mark 15:24).

What wondrous love is this?

The distinguished behaviorist B.F. Skinner was addressing the Nova University 1978 Conference on Aging. He was explaining how, at age 74, he made allowances for his impaired vision and hearing.

Skinner recalled a time when he was having a Chinese meal in a busy senior-center living room, and someone sitting near him pointed out the food in the middle of the table. Skinner decided he was expected to eat some. As he took a piece, he admired its thin, pale-brown crust. Eating the crunchy delicacy, he wondered how the Chinese were able to produce such a fragile, yet crispy, crust. Then he noticed that his neighbor was eating the same thing. She was peeling hers.

It was a hard-boiled egg.

When Rosina Hernandez was in college, she once attended a rock concert at which one young man was brutally beaten by another. No one made an attempt to stop the beating. The next day she was struck dumb to learn that the youth had died as a result of the pounding. Yet neither she nor anyone else had raised a hand to help him.

She could never forget the incident or her responsibility as an inactive bystander.

Some years later, Rosina saw another catastrophe. A car driving in the rain ahead of her suddenly skidded and plunged into Biscayne Bay. The car landed head down in the water with only the tail end showing. In a moment a woman appeared on the surface, shouting for help and saying her husband was stuck inside.

This time Rosina waited for no one. She plunged into the water, tried unsuccessfully to open the car door, then pounded on the back window as other bystanders stood on the causeway and watched. First she screamed at them, begging for help, then cursed them, telling them there was a man dying in the car.

First one man, then another, finally came to help. Together they broke the safety glass and dragged the man out. They were just in time—a few minutes later it would have been all over.

The woman thanked Rosina for saving her husband, and Rosina was elated, riding an emotional high that lasted for weeks. She had promised herself that she would never again fail to do anything she could to save a human live. She had made good on her promise.

Some years ago, a very good friend of mine, Dr. E. Myers Harrison, gave a missionary message that I cannot forget. It was to a small group of people, but I will never forget the sermon. Dr. Harrison is now at home with the Lord, but he was a great servant of God and a great missionary statesman. He said that each of us as Christians must hear what God has to say. There is he command from above: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). Have you heard that? I’ve heard people say, “But God wants our church to be different. We’re not supposed to have a missionary program.” I don’t believe that. I believe the command from above is given to every Christian and to every assembly that God has raised up.

Then there is the cry from beneath. Remember the rich man who died and woke up in hell and begged for someone to go and tell his brothers? (see Luke 16). “I pray thee, therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house (for I have five brethren), that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment” (vv. 27,28). There is the cry from beneath. If you and I could hear the cries of people in a lost eternity right now, we’d realize how important it is to get the Gospel out. There’s the command from above. Have you heard it? There’s the cry from beneath. Have you heard it?

Then, according to Dr. Harrison, there is the call from without. Acts 16:9 says, “Come over into Macedonia, and help us.” People around us are saying, “Please come to help us!” So much money, time and energy is being spent on routine church matters in America when there is a whole world to reach for Christ! We face so many open doors!

Crying is common in this world. It does little good to ask the reason for it. Muddyscuttle is what one might call a weeping planet. Laughter can be heard here and there, but by and large, weeping predominates. With maturity the sound and reason for crying changes, but never does it stop. All infants do it everywhere—even in public. By adulthood most crying is done alone and in the dark. Weeping, for babies, is a sign of health and evidence that they are alive. Isn’t this a chilling omen? Not laughter but tears is the life sign. It leaves weeping and being synonyms.

Nothing is ever done until everyone is convinced that it ought to be done, and has been convinced for so long that it is now time to do something else.

Nothing should ever be done for the first time.

When F. B. Meyer was pastoring Christ Church in London, Charles Spurgeon was preaching at Metropolitan Tabernacle, and G. Campbell Morgan was at Westminster Chapel. Meyer said, “I find in my own ministry that supposing I pray for my own little flock, ‘God bless me, God fill my pews, God send my a revival,” I miss the blessing; but as I pray for my big brother, Mr. Spurgeon, on the right-hand side of my church, ‘God bless him’; or my other big brother, Campbell Morgan, on the other side of my church, ‘God bless him’; I am sure to get a blessing without praying for it, for the overflow of their cups fills my little bucket.”

While pursuing a story about equivocation in high office, I was told, “He gave an if-by-whiskey speech.” My source, asked about his curious compound adjective, said he thought it was a Florida political expression possibly borrowed from a Minnesota Congressman. That triggered a call to Richard B. Stone, now a Washington banker, but a former U.S. Senator from Florida familiar with that state’s political patois. He immediately recognized the phrase, meaning “calculated ambivalence,” and provided the following anecdote: Fuller Warren, Florida’s governor in the ’50s, was running for office in a year that counties were voting their local option on permitting the sale of liquor.

Asked for his position on wet-versus-dry, he would say: “If by whiskey you mean the water of life that cheers men’s souls, that smoothes out the tensions of the day, that gives gentle perspective to one’s view of life, then put my name on the list of the fervent wets. But if by whiskey you mean the devil’s brew that rends families, destroys careers and ruins one’s ability to work, then count me in the ranks of the dries.

About six years ago, I was speaking at a luncheon held in the civic auditorium of a city in Oklahoma. I settled myself at my place at the head table. I picked up my fork and noticed that two rose-petaled radishes adorned my salad plate. Someone had take the time to pretty up two radishes, just for me. Then I noticed that each salad at the head table had two neatly curled radishes. I turned to the lady sitting to my right. “I’m impressed by the radishes, “ I said. “You’re impressed by what?” she asked. “The radishes,” I said. “Look, each salad plate at our table has curled radishes.” “Yes,” she said, exercising a questioning smile. “They’re pretty.” “They’re more than pretty,” I said. Someone took special care to do these.” “Don’t they all have them?” she asked, gazing out at the tables. I looked and was astonished. Each salad plate was adorned with two curled radishes! “They are curled! That took a lot of time!”

“I’m not on the planning committee, but Gertrude is,” my table mate responded. She turned to get the attention of Gertrude, three chairs down. “Mrs. George wants to ask you something about the radishes, “she whispered. “The what?” Gertrude mouthed “The RA-DI-SHES!” “Is there something wrong with your radishes?” she asked. “No. They are fine. I just thought it was nice to have them all curled.” “Oh, Marietta does those.” “All of them?” I knew the head count in the room and was astonished. “That’s almost eight hundred radishes!” “Yes, but Marietta wants to do it. Would you like to meet her? She’s in the kitchen.”

So Gertrude and I went into the kitchen, and there I met Marietta, the lady of the radishes. “Gertrude tells me you curled all those radishes. They’re lovely. Each salad looks so...festive.” “I don’t mind doing it. It just takes time,” Marietta replied. I didn’t know what more to say so I left.

Later, I spoke, and there was an encouraging response. Afterward, ladies scurried past me with murmured greetings, and a few lingered to speak of God in their lives. When we finished, it was raining heavily so we hurried across the parking lot to the car. Through the rain, I could see a lady, carrying a large polka-dot umbrella that had collapsed on one side waiting by our car. It was Marietta! She was smiling as though we had found her on a sunny day in an especially delightful garden. “I had to see you. I heard your speech. It was good!” she said. “I have to go home now.” I slipped inside the car. Marietta crouched down close to the window and called to me, “Just remember this. You keep telling people about Jesus, and I’ll keep curling the radishes.” The rain and my tears splattered the picture of her face as we started to back out of the driveway. Ah, dear Marietta, I haven’t forgotten. We are to do our jobs in the love of him who does all things well.

Years ago in Atlanta, Georgia, some workmen were laying a sidewalk of stones. One Monday morning a preacher passed by. He watched these busy men with interest for a long time. How impressed he was that a workman could take a tool, strike a stone, and cut it as if it were warm butter.

The man cutting stones kept moving along on his knees cutting more stones and putting them in place.

Shortly the preacher interrupted: "Say, I wish I could cut the hearts of men with my sermons the way you are cutting those stones with that instrument."

The man laying the sidewalk looked up and said, "Did you ever try it like I am doing it-on your knees?"