Pastoral Resources

These verses come from two passages which seek to lead us deeper into prayer than most of us have ever gone (John 16:23-27; 1 John 5:13-17).

Booker T. Washington said, "Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed."

By taking two steps forward and one step back, we still continually move closer to the goal. A man who makes no mistakes is one who does nothing. Failure, disappointments, and setbacks are a part of life. We must learn not to identify with our failures.

There are many, many examples of people who overcame backward steps. Abraham Lincoln ran for political office seven times and was defeated each time. Bobby Kennedy failed third grade and could not even take care of his own paper route. Babe Ruth struck out more times than any other baseball player. Ed Gibson, one of the astronauts on the Skylab III mission, failed first and fourth grades.

Learn from your mistakes, but identify with your success. Press on, confident in your own ability to succeed, backed by the power of God. Never forget that people who accomplish great things believe they can do it.

A friend and associate of boxers, American writer Wilson Mizner was himself a talented fighter. One night Mizner and boxer “Mysterious” Billy Smith visited a San Francisco bar, where Mizner started a fight with some longshoremen. At the end only one longshoreman was left standing. Although Mizner rained punches at him, he stayed obstinately upright. Suddenly, Smith noticed what was happening. “Leave him alone, Wilson!” he shouted. “I knocked him out five minutes ago.” On investigation it turned out that a punch from Smith had indeed knocked the longshoreman out cold, but had also wedged him vertically between two pieces of furniture.

Here’s an accurate picture of our already-defeated but still standing enemy Satan!

Theologians tell a story to illustrate how Christ’s triumph presently benefits our lives: Imagine a city under siege. The enemy that surrounds they city will not let anyone or anything leave. Supplies are running low, and the citizens are fearful.

But in the dark of the night, a spy sneaks through the enemy lines. He has rushed to the city to tell the people that in another place the main enemy force has been defeated; the leaders have already surrendered. The people do not need to be afraid. It is only a matter of time until the besieging troops receive the news and lay down their weapons. .

Similarly, we may seem now to be surrounded by the forces of evil—disease, injustice, oppression, death. But the enemy has actually been defeated at Calvary. Things are not the way they seem to be. It is only a matter of time until it becomes clear to all that the battle is really over.

In September of 1995, the world-famous Harlem Globetrotters suffered a rare defeat on the basketball court as they toured Europe with a team made up of several former professional basketball stars. The 91-85 defeat in Vienna, Austria, ended the team’s winning streak at twenty-four-years, that is, not games! The team had won an astounding total of 8,829 straight exhibition games since their last defeat before that in January, 1971.

Christian defeatism grieves God. We must refuse to stand as mere spectators while the godless dismantle our nation.

Believers through Christ are to be the overcomers, not the overcome. Have we forgotten how those first century believers, working against even greater odds, "turned the world upside down"? Have we become so mesmerized by the coming "tribulation" that we have forgotten Christ's order to "occupy until I return"?

Once again Christians must become the nation's salt, its preservative, and put the reins into the hands of righteous leaders. No longer can be we mere "hearers" but through God "doers," if the nation is to survive.

A visitor to a sculptor's studio commented, "I saw some blocks of marble lying off in a corner. Out of one a hand emerged, out of another was a head, with face unfinished. Others had unfinished work. Why the abandoned pieces?

The artist answered: "All those pieces showed great promise on the outside, on the surface. But as I chiseled deeper, flaws and defects in the marble that were not visible on the surface showed up. They had to be abandoned."

The difference between marble defects and human defects is that the marble cannot repent and be cleansed, but the human can. The defective heart becomes the perfect heart at the touch of the Master.

One winter when the Roman emperor Licinius was persecuting the Christians, his Thundering Legion was stationed at Sebaste. Because 40 men in that company had declared themselves believers, they were sentenced to spend the night naked on a frozen pool. A large fire was kindled in a house nearby, and food and a warm bath were prepared for any who would renounce their faith.

As daylight faded, 40 warriors continued to resist in spite of the bitter cold—some walking quickly to and fro, some already sleeping that sleep which ends in death, and some standing lost in prayer. These words arose to Heaven, “O Lord, 40 wrestlers have come forth to fight for Thee. Grant that 40 wrestlers may gain the victory!”

Finally, one of them could endure the suffering no longer. He left the others and went into the house where Sempronius and his men were on guard. But still the petition went up from those able to speak, “O Lord, 40 wrestlers have come forth to fight for Thee. Grant that 40 wrestlers may gain the victory!” Their prayer was answered. Sempronius the centurion was touched by his comrades’ bravery, and the Holy Spirit moved upon his heart. Declaring himself a Christian, he went to the frozen pond and took the place of the one defector. When the long night was over, 40 glorious spirits, Sempronius among them, had entered into the presence of Christ.

If severe testing or persecution arises, will you, will I, be faithful to Christ? By His grace may we be able to say, “Let God be glorified, ‘whether it be by life or by death’” (Phil. 1:20). - H.G.B.

One of the most famous trials in history was that of Benjamin Francois Courvoisier in London in 1840, who is now immortalized in Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. Courvoisier was a Swiss valet accused of slicing the throat of his elderly employer, Lord William Russell.

What made this trial notorious was the argument for the defense. The police had bungled the investigation. The evidence against Courvoisier was entirely circumstantial or had been planted. One of the officers had perjured himself, and the maid’s testimony brought suspicion on herself. The defense attorney, Charles Phillips, was convinced of the innocence of Courvoisier and cross-examined witnesses aggressively. At the beginning of the second day of the trial, however, Courvoisier confessed privately to his lawyer that he had committed the murder. When asked if he were going to plead guilty, he replied to Charles Phillips, “No, sir, I expect you to defend me to the utmost.”

Phillips was faced with a dilemma. Should he declare to the court that the man was guilty, or should he defend Courvoisier as best he could? Should he break the confidentiality of the client-lawyer relationship, or should he help a guilty man to possibly go free? Which is more important—truth or professional duty?

Phillips decided to defend the guilty man. But despite Phillips’s efforts, Courvoisier was convicted. When the dilemma was later made public, Phillips’s decision to defend a murderer horrified British society and brought him a great deal of criticism.

A mother made an appointment with her young child's pediatrician. She said she had noticed that he had eaten dirt on several occasions.

To the doctor, she said, "I've always heard that if a child eats dirt, there is some deficiency. Do you think his dirt-eating indicates a lack of something?"

The doctor replied, "Yes-very definitely. A lack of supervision!"

Max DePree gets to the heart of things with this succinct formulation: “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.” Leaders need to have a good picture of what is really going on around them. And they need to help others take an honest look at this reality.

U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan recently published a disturbing essay entitled “Defining Deviancy Down.” In the Nov 22 issue of The New Republic, Commentator Charles Krauthammer writes that “Moynihan’s powerful point is that with the moral deregulation of the 1960s, we have had an explosion of deviancy in family life, criminal behavior and public displays of psychosis. And we have dealt with it in the only way possible: by redefining deviancy down so as to explain away and make ‘normal’ what a more civilized, ordered and healthy society long ago would have labeled—and long ago did label—deviant.”

A deficit is what you have when you haven’t as much as when you had nothing.

Relying on what God has done rather than on one’s own efforts. In the Old Testament, faith is rarely mentioned. The word trust is used frequently, and verbs like believe and rely are used to express the right attitude to God. The classic example is Abraham, whose faith was reckoned as righteousness (Gen. 15:6). At the heart of the Christian message is the story of the cross: Christ’s dying to bring salvation. Faith is an attitude of trust in which a believer receives God’s good gift of salvation (Acts 16:30-31) and lives in that awareness thereafter (Gal. 2:20; cf. Heb. 11:1).

Definition of a local church:

(1) purpose is the public worship of God, edification of the saints, and spread of the gospel.

(2) organization: planned meetings (Acts 20:7), corporate discipline (I Cor. 5), money raising projects (II Cor. 8-9), recognized leaders such as pastor, elders, deacons (Heb. 13:7, 17).

(3) ordinances practiced.

1. 10% of the church’s members are regularly and systematically praying for missions.

2. 10% of the church’s members are regularly and systematically sharing their faith.

3. 10% of the church’s budget is spent on cross-cultural outreach.

4. 1% of the church’s members are entering cross-cultural service.

5. The church is working to involve one neighbor church in missions.

A witness is someone who by explanation and demonstration gives audible and visible evidence of what he has seen and heard without being deterred by the consequences of his action.

Social critic Russell Kirk has defined decadence as the loss of an aim or object in life. “Men and women become decadent when they forget or deny the objects of life, and so fritter away their years in trifles or debauchery.”

Grudem defines a miracle as follows:

“A miracle is a less common kind of God’s activity in which he arouses people’s awe and wonder and bears witness to himself.” He justifies this definition by awe, or amazement in such a way that God bears witness to himself (Systematic Theology, chapter 52).pointing out the deficiencies in other commonly proposed definitions:

“For example, one definition of miracles is ‘a direct intervention of God in the world.’ But this definition assumes a deistic view of God’s relationship to the world, in which the world continues on its own and God only intervenes in it occasionally. This is certainly not the biblical view, according to which God makes the rain to fall (Matt. 5:45), causes the grass to grow (Ps. 104:14), and continually carries along all things by his word and power (Heb. 1:3). Another definition of miracles is ‘a more direct activity of God in the world.’ But to talk about a ‘more direct’ working of God suggests that his ordinary providential activity is somehow not ‘direct,’ and again hints at a sort of deistic removal of God from the world.

Another definition is ‘God working in the world without using means to bring about the results he wishes.’ Yet to speak of God working ‘without means’ leaves us with very few if any miracles in the Bible, for it is hard to think of a miracle that came about with no means at all: in the healing of people, for example, some of the physical properties of the sick person’s body were doubtless involved as part of the healing. When Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes, he at least used the original five loaves and two fishes that were there. When he changed water to wine, he used water and made it become wine. This definition seems to be inadequate.

Yet another definition of miracle is ‘an exception to a natural law’ or ‘God acting contrary to the laws of nature.’ But the phrase ‘laws of nature’ in popular understanding implies that there are certain qualities inherent in the things that exist, ‘laws of nature’ which operate independently of God and that God must intervene or ‘break’ these laws in order for a miracle to occur. Once again this definition does not adequately account for the biblical teaching on providence.

Another definition of miracle is, ‘an event impossible to explain by natural causes.’ This definition is inadequate because

(1) it does not include God as the one who brings about the miracle;

(2) it assumes that God does not use some natural causes when he works in an unusual or amazing way, and thus it assumes again that God only occasionally intervenes in the world; and

(3) it will result in a significant minimizing of actual miracles, and an increase in skepticism, since many times when God works in answer to prayer the result is amazing to those who prayed but it is not absolutely impossible to explain by natural causes, especially for a skeptic who simply refuses to see God’s hand at work.

Therefore, the original definition given above, where a miracle is simply a less common way of God’s working in the world, seems to be preferable and more consistent with the biblical doctrine of God’s providence. This definition does not say that a miracle is a different kind of working by God, but only that it is a less common way of God’s working, and that it is done so as to arouse people’s surprise.

The Norwegian theologian Ole Hallesby gives one of the best definitions of prayer I have ever read. He says, “To pray is nothing more involved that to let Jesus into our needs. To pray is to give Jesus permission to employ His powers in the alleviation of our distress.”

1. What is salvation? Salvation is deliverance from the penalty, pollution, and power of sin. It is eternally more important than being saved from fire, social embarrassment, illness, poverty, or loneliness.

2. What is sin? Sin is any thought, word, or deed that either violates or falls short of complete conformity to God’s holy laws (Rom. 3:23).

3. What has God done about it? He became a member of the human race in the person of Jesus Christ, lived sinlessly to fulfill God’s righteous demands, died on the cross to bear the penalty for our sins, and rose from the grave to break the power of death and defeat Satan. The Bible states, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

4. For whom did Christ die? Christ died for people who have nothing to offer Him but brokenness and need. He died for people who have fallen far short of their original purpose to know Him, to glorify Him, and enjoy Him forever (Jn. 1:1-12; 3:16-19).

5. How do we receive salvation? Salvation is freely given to all who believe in Jesus. Neither zealous commitment to good works nor careful observance of religious ritual play a part in obtaining salvation. Salvation is not found in our efforts but in trusting what God has done for us. All He requires is that we personally place our trust in Christ. All who sincerely want to be saved and who accept the invitation to believe in Christ will never be turned away. Jesus said, “He who believes in Me has everlasting life” (Jn. 6:47).

Hebrews 11:1. “What is faith, unless it is to believe what you cannot see.” (Augustine)

Faith is derived from the Word of God: Romans 10:17

Faith’s demand: Hebrews 11:6

Faith’s design: 2 Corinthians 5:7

The dualism of faith: Hebrews 4:2

Faith’s duty: Romans 1:17—live by it.

Leadership is influence, the ability of one person to influence others. One man can lead others only to the extent that he can influence them. This fact is supported by definitions of leadership by men who have themselves wielded great influence.

Lord Montgomery defines it in these terms: “Leadership is the capacity and will to rally men and women to a common purpose, and the character which inspires confidence.”

Dr. John R. Mott, a world leader in student circles, gave as his definition: “A leader is a man who knows the road, who can keep ahead, and who can pull others after him.”

President Truman’s definition is: “A leader is a person who has the ability to get others to do what they don’t want to do, and like it.”...

Lord Montgomery enunciated seven ingredients necessary in a leader in war, each of which is appropriate to the spiritual warfare:

(1) He should be able to sit back and avoid getting immersed in detail.

(2) He must not be petty.

(3) He must not be pompous.

(4) He must be a good picker of men.

(5) He should trust those under him, and let them get on with their job without interference.

(6) He must have the power of clear decision.

(7) He should inspire confidence.

Dr. John R. Mott moved in student circles and his tests covered different territory:

(1) Does he do little things well?

(2) Has he learned the meaning of priorities?

(3) How does he use his leisure?

(4) Has he intensity?

(5) Has he learned to take advantage of momentum?

(6) Has he the power of growth?

(7) What is his attitude to discouragements?

(8) How does he face impossible situations?

(9) What are his weakest points?

Communism:

You have two cows.

The government takes both of them and gives you part of the milk.

Socialism:

You have two cows.

The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.

Fascism:

You have two cows.

The government takes both cows and sells you the milk.

Nazism:

You have two cows.

The government takes both cows, then shoots you.

Bureaucracy:

You have two cows.

The government takes both of them, shoots one, milks the other, then pours the milk down the drain.

Capitalism:

You have two cows.

You sell one of them and buy a bull.

Democracy

everyone has two cows

A vote is taken, and whatever the majority decides to do, you do, and that’s no bull!

1. Communism: You have two cows. The government takes both of them and gives you part of the milk.

2. Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.

3. Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both cows and sells you the milk.

4. Nazism: You have two cows. The government takes both cows, then shoots you.

5. Bureaucracy: You have two cows. The government takes both of them, shoots one, milks the other, then pours the milk down the drain.

6. Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one of them and buy a bull.

7. In a democracy, everyone has two cows, then a vote is taken, and whatever the majority decides to do, you do, and that’s no bull!

The study of the doctrine of salvation. It is derived from the Greek word soterious which means salvation. Some of the subjects of soteriology are the atonement, imputation, and regeneration.

Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe. - Augustine

Faith is a voluntary anticipation.—Clement of Alexandria

A man lives by believing something, not by debating and arguing about many things. - Thomas Carlyle

God our Father has made all things depend on faith so that whoever has faith will have everything, and whoever does not have faith will have nothing.—Martin Luther

Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand.—Thomas Aquinas

Faith is not merely your holding on to God—it is God holding on to you. He will not let you go! - E. Stanley Jones

Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that thou mayest believe, but believe that thou mayest understand. - Augustine

Deion “Prime Time” Sanders, outfielder for the Atlanta Braves and cornerback for the Atlanta Falcons, is the only athlete to have hit a Major League home run and scored an NFL touchdown in the same week.

Sanders grew up on the mean streets of Fort Myers, Fla., where exposure to some would-be athletes spurred him to make a success of himself. He explains: “I call them Idas. ‘If I’da done this, I’d be making three million today .If I’da practiced a little harder, I’d be a superstar.’ They were as fast as me when they were kids, but instead of working for their dreams they chose drugs and a life of street corners.

When I was young, I had practice; my friends who didn’t went straight to the streets and never left. That moment after school is the moment we need to grab. We don’t need any more Idas.

Deliberate waste and abuse of company time costs the U.S. economy over $120 billion a year. This loss is three times more than it is for recognized business crime. At some companies 20-40% of employee time is stolen. Office employees are 30% worse than blue-collar workers, perhaps because supervision isn’t as close. Workers under 30 are the biggest offenders. Watch out for executives who set bad examples. If the boss is a time thief, employees will be too.

Every conscientious parent recognizes how difficult it is to exercise his God-given authority over his children. The delicate balance of being tough yet tender is not easy to maintain. Many parents intensify a rebellious spirit by being dictatorial and harsh. Others yield when their authority is tested. When a strong-willed child resists, the pressure to give in for the sake of peace and harmony can become overpowering. I am reminded of the mother who wanted to have the last word but couldn’t handle the hassle that resulted whenever she said no to her young son. After an especially trying day, she finally flung up her hands and shouted, “All right, Billy, do whatever you want! Now let me see you disobey THAT!”

Today, the exalted status of economics in our public debate is being challenged in some rather intriguing places. For example, Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley recently observed, “If America is to decline, it will not be because of military overstretch. Nor the trade balance, Japanese management secrets or even the federal deficit. If a decline is underway, it’s a moral one.”

Former Education Secretary William Bennett sees evidence of such decline in research identifying the most serious problems in public school classrooms. In 1940, running in the halls, chewing gum, and talking in class headed the list of teacher’s disciplinary concerns; today, robbery, rape, alcohol, drugs, teen pregnancy, and suicide are most often mentioned. Bennett argues, “If we turn the economy around, have full employment, live in cities of alabaster and gold, and this is what our children are doing to each other, then we still will have failed them.”

Bennett believes one way to improve our national debate is to counterbalance, the Commerce Department’s index of leading economic indicators with a collection of some 19 “leading cultural indicators” including the divorce rate, the illegitimacy rate, the violent crime rate, the teen suicide rate, and even hours devoted to television viewing. While these cultural variables are only crude indicators of our nation’s social health, they do provide a more complete, and more accurate, empirical assessment of the condition of American society than is available from economic variables alone. Using economic variables—even under-utilized variables like business productivity and hourly compensation rates—it is difficult to explain public opinion polls showing that a majority of Americans believe the quality of life in America has declined over the last three decades. To understand such perceptions, one has to consider that since 1960, violent crime has risen 560 percent, illegitimate births have increased 400 percent, teen suicides have risen 200 percent, divorce rates have quadrupled, average SAT scores have dropped 80 points, and the proportion of children living in fatherless families has increased three-fold.

In essence, then, Bennett’s leading cultural indicators are to our national debate what statistics like saves, fielding percentage, and earned run average are to baseball: reminders that economic production (or run production) isn’t everything. Indeed, a society which manages to make great gains economically, but fails to progress in the cultural areas outlined by Bennett is likely to be no more successful in the long run than the 1931 New York Yankees. That ballclub, which featured sluggers like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, scored more runs (1,067) than any other team in major league history. But New York still finished 13 and one-half games behind the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1931 American League pennant race, in large part because the Yankees’ lousy pitching more than offset run-scoring prowess.

Every year in Alaska, a 1000-mile dogsled race, run for prize money and prestige, commemorates an original “race” run to save lives. Back in January of 1926, six-year-old Richard Stanley showed symptoms of diphtheria, signaling the possibility of an outbreak in the small town of Nome. When the boy passed away a day later, Dr. Curtis Welch began immunizing children and adults with an experimental but effective antidiphtheria serum. But it wasn’t long before Dr. Welch’s supply ran out, and the nearest serum was in Nenana, Alaska—1000 miles of frozen wilderness away. Amazingly, a group of trappers and prospectors volunteered to cover the distance with their dog teams! Operating in relays from trading post to trapping station and beyond, one sled started out from Nome while another, carrying the serum, started from Nenana. Oblivious to frostbite, fatigue, and exhaustion, the teamsters mushed relentlessly until, after 144 hours in minus 50-degree winds, the serum was delivered to Nome. As a result, only one other life was lost to the potential epidemic. Their sacrifice had given an entire town the gift of life.

Bishop Latimer once preached a sermon before King Henry VIII that greatly offended his royal auditor by its plainness. The King ordered him to preach again the next Sunday and to make public apology for his offense. The Bishop ascended the pulpit and read his text, and thus began his sermon: "Hugh Latimer, dost thou know before whom thou art this day to speak? To the high and mighty Monarch, the King's most excellent Majesty, who can take away thy life if thou offendest. Therefore take heed that thou speakest not a word that may displease. But then, consider well, Hugh! Dost thou not know from whom thou comest-upon whose message thou art sent? Even by the great and mighty God, who is all-present and beholdeth all thy ways, and who is able to cast thy soul into hell! Therefore take care that thou deliverest thy message faithfully." And so beginning, he preached over again, but with increased energy, the self-same sermon he had preached the week before. The fear of God delivered him from the fear of man.

Deliverance of various kinds, for example, deliverance from the enemy (Exod. 14:13). In the Bible it is God who brings salvation from temporal as well as spiritual ills. Thus in the Gospels, referring to his miraculous healings, Jesus sometimes says, “Your faith has saved you,” meaning “healed you” (Luke 18:42 KJV). Characteristically, the term refers to salvation from sin (Rom. 1:16; 1 Thess. 5:9). Salvation means the decisive defeat of sin on the cross, but also victory over evil in a believer’s daily life. Its full content will be realized only in the life to come (Heb. 9:28; 1 Pet. 1:5).

A good many years ago there was a convention held in France, and those who held it wanted to get the country to deny a God, to burn the Bible, wanted to say that men passed away like a dog and a dumb animal. What was the result! Not long since, that country was filled with blood. Did you ever think what would take place if we could vote the Bible and the ministers of the gospel and God out from among the people? My friends, the country would be deluged with blood. Your life and mine would not be safe in this City to-night. We could not walk through these streets with safety. We don't know how much we owe God and the influence of His gospel among even ungodly men.

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 Cardinals’ 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.”

Demographers predict that 10% of young men and women today will never marry, and that half of those who do will divorce. Some 37% of adults over 18 are single, and roughly one-fourth of all households consist of just one person. Moreover, one child in four is born out of wedlock, and one-fourth of all children now live with a single parent. Are these changes in American living patterns affecting the nation’s health? Health experts have long observed that married people are healthier than unmarried people, and that death rates (from all causes) are consistently higher among single and socially isolated people. More recent studies have suggested that mortality rates are about 100% to 300% higher for socially isolated men, and 50% to 150% higher for socially isolated women, than for their socially integrated counterparts.

Long ago Demosthenes had written: “We keep prostitutes for pleasure; we keep mistresses for the day to day needs of the body; we keep wives for the begetting of children and for the faithful guardianship of our homes. So long as a man supported his wife and family there was no shame whatsoever in extra-marital affairs.”

According to the Bureau of Standards in Washington, a dense fog covering seven city blocks to a depth of 100 feet is composed of less that one glass of water. That amount of water is divided into about 60 billion tiny droplets. Yet when those minute particles settle over a city or the countryside, they can almost blot out everything from your sight.

Many Christians today live their lives in a fog. They allow a cupful of troubles to cloud their vision and dampen their spirit. Anxiety, turmoil and defeat strangle their thoughts. Their lives are being “choked by the cares of this world” (Luke 8;14). But “God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline” (II Tim. 1:7).

Let’s not let the fog get us down! “Let’s live in the Sonshine!

Kierkagaard: “And I looked around and nobody was laughing” says this, “I went into church and sat on the velvet pew. I watched as the sun came shining through the stained glass windows. The minister dressed in a velvet robe opened the golden gilded Bible, marked it with a silk bookmark and said, “If any man will be my disciple, said Jesus, let him deny himself, take up his cross, sell what he has, give it to the poor, and follow me.”

Social critic Russell Kirk has defined decadence as the loss of an aim or object in life. “Men and women become decadent when they forget or deny the objects of life, and so fritter away their years in trifles or debauchery.”

U.S. Department of Commerce has recently released statistics on American churches, clergy and church schools. Church Law & Tax Report give some interesting figures:

Number of U.S. congregations: 294,271

Churches with fewer than 100 members: 60,300

Churches with fewer than 500 members: 205,556

Churches with 1,000-1,999 members: 21,691

Churches with 2,000 or more members: 13,958

Last year churches received $49 billion in revenues, of which $40 billion came from contributions, $1.4 billion from wills and estates, and $2.5 billion from fees or charges for services.

There are a total of 348,000 clergy employed in the United States, and they have served an average of 15.8 years in each position.

Of special interest are the statistics on who is supporting these churches.

Persons 65-74 years of age donated the largest percentage of their income (3.1 percent) and those 18-24 the least (0.6 percent). Increasingly, those with lower incomes gave a higher proportion of their income to charity than higher income individuals. Persons with household incomes of under $10,000 gave 2.8 percent of their total incomes, while those with incomes over $100,000 gave only 2.1 percent. The average annual contribution to the church was $715 per household.

A beautiful illustration of our dependence on a solidly established base while we are moving at a distance, is the journey of Apollo 11 to the moon. A space station in Houston, Texas, was the seat of command. The three spacemen dared not disregard it as they circled around the moon and as two of them landed on its surface. Thus Paul tells the Corinthians that any work they undertake must be based on the firmness, the absoluteness, the dependability of the Lord Jesus Christ. He arose. He did what He said He was going to do. He told us that we shall rise. That is our control center. We can depend on it. We dare not disregard it. It is a matter of life and death.

As I was viewing this feat of man at the time Neil Armstrong was landing on the moon, I was impressed by the remark made by one news commentator, "These men cannot remain on the moon. They must follow instructions. They do not have only themselves to think of but also the entire project." Think of that, Christian, when you are tempted to act independently of the control center, Christ the Lord. You have not only yourself to think of, but also Christ and His Kingdom.

To keep the lamp alive,

With oil we fill the bowl;

‘Tis water makes the willow thrive,

And grace that feeds the soul.

The Lord’s unsparing hand

Supplies the living stream;

It is not at our own command,

But still derived from Him.

Beware of Peter’s word,

Nor confidently say,

“I never will deny Thee, Lord,”—

But,—”Grant I never may.”

Man’s wisdom is to seek

His strength in God alone;

And e’en an angel would be weak,

Who trusted in his own.

Retreat beneath His wings,

And in His grace confide!

This more exalts the King of kings,

Than all your works beside.

In Jesus is our store,

Grace issues from His throne;

Whoever says, “I want no more,”

Confesses he has none.

One man said to his friend: “Say, you look depressed. What are you thinking about?”

“My future,” was the quick answer.

“What makes it look so hopeless?”

“My past.”

When the good Lord was creating Fathers he started with a tall frame. And a female angel nearby said, “What kind of Father is that? If you’re going to make children so close to the ground, why have you put Fathers up so high? He won’t be able to shoot marbles without kneeling, tuck a child in bed without bending, or even kiss a child without a lot of stooping.” And God smiled and said, “Yes, but if I make him child-size, who would children have to look up to?”

And when God made a Father’s hands, they were large and sinewy. And the angel shook her head sadly and said, “Do you know what you’re doing? Large hands are clumsy. They can’t manage diaper pins, small buttons, rubber bands on pony tails or even remove splinters caused by baseball bats.” And God smiled and said, “I know, but they’re large enough to hold everything a small boy empties from his pockets at the end of a day...yet small enough to cup a child’s face in his hands.”

And then God molded long, slim legs and broad shoulders. And the angel nearly had a heart attack. “Boy, this is the end of the week, all right,” she clucked. “Do you realize you just made a Father without a lap? How is he going to pull a child close to him without the kid falling between his legs?” And God smiled and said, “A mother needs a lap. A father needs strong shoulders to pull a sled, balance a boy on a bicycle, and hold a sleepy head on the way home from the circus.”

God was in the middle of creating two of the largest feet anyone had every seen when the angel could contain herself no longer. “That’s not fair. Do you honestly think those large boats are going to dig out of bed early in the morning when the baby cries? Or walk through a small birthday party without crushing at least three of the guests?” And God smiled and said, “They’ll work. You’ll see. They’ll support a small child who wants to ride a horse to Banbury Cross, or scare off mice at the summer cabin, or display shoes that will be a challenge to fill.”

God worked throughout the night, giving the Father few words, but a firm authoritative voice; eyes that saw everything, but remained calm and tolerant. Finally, almost as an afterthought, he added tears. Then he turned to the angel and said, “Now, are you satisfied that he can love as much as a Mother?”

The angel shuteth up.

- Erma Bombeck

The expressions used by St. Paul as descriptive of the Second Advent are worth collecting:

1. he hemera tou Kuriou at 1 Thess. 5:2; 1 Cor. 1:8, 5:5; cp. Phil. 1:10; 2 Tim. 1:12.

2. he apokalypsis tou kuriou at 2 Thess. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:7.

3. he parousia at 1 Thess. 2:19, 3:13, 4:15, 5:23; 2 Thess. 2:1, 9.

4. he epiphaneia tes parousias autou at 2 Thess. 2:8.

5. he epiphaneia autou at 1 Tim 6:14; 2 Tim 4:1, 8 (it is applied to the Lord’s First Coming in 2 Tim. 1:10).

6. he epiphaneia tes doxes tou megalou Theou kai soteros hemon Christou Iesou (Tit. 2:13).

The seal of the Designer is stamped upon all His created works, and it is a seal that cannot be obliterated. Design in creation is indelible like the watermark in paper. Scripture infers that the hand of the Designer is to be seen in all His works.

"He is the Rock, His work is perfect: for all His ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He" (Deu 32:4).

"Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance" (Isa 40:12)?

According to the latter verse, the waters, the heaven above, and the dust of the earth (matter, or the chemical elements) are measured. God has infinitely measured all the works of His hands. Number is the underlying principle of nature. There are no created works without the numbers inherent in them.

God has measured the waters. The Word of God was not given to teach science primarily, but some of its statements anticipate scientific discoveries, and wherever the Scripture statements touch upon science they are accurate. Every drop of water in the universe is a mathematical equation. Science tells us that water is the combination of two gases, hydrogen and oxygen. Two parts of hydrogen to one of oxygen meet to form water. It is measured. It is not an accident. It does not just happen so. Our universe is an orderly universe, and every drop of water reveals the hand of the Designer.

David Letterman says the single most powerful motivating force in his life is a desire to succeed and prevail. He explains how he feels about doing “Late Show With David Letterman”:

Every night you’re trying to prove your self-worth. It’s like meeting your girlfriend’s family for the first time. You want to be the absolute best, wittiest, smartest, most charming, best-smelling version of yourself. If I can make people enjoy the experience and have a higher regard for me when I’m finished, it makes me feel like an entire person. If I’ve come short of that, I’m not happy. How things go for me every night is how I feel about myself for the next 24 hours. Because I’m not playing a character—I’m trying to give you the best version of myself.

Meanwhile, decadence and despair haunt many of America’s youth. Perhaps fourteen-year-old Rod Matthews represents the most horrible extreme. Uninterested in baseball or books, Rod found one thing that did stimulate him: death. His curiosity was intensely aroused by a rental video, Faces of Death, a collage of film clips of people dying violently. He wanted to see death happen in real life.

So one winter day Rod lured a young friend into the woods and hammered him to death with a baseball bat. At Matthews’s trial a child psychiatrist testified that the boy was not conventionally insane. He just “doesn’t know right from wrong … He is morally handicapped.”

Driving up from Beersheba, a combined force of British, Australians and New Zealanders were pressing on the rear of the Turkish retreat over arid desert. The attack outdistanced its water carrying camel train. Water bottles were empty. The sun blazed pitilessly out of a sky where the vultures wheeled expectantly. “Our heads ached,” writes Gilbert, “and our eyes became bloodshot and dim in the blinding glare...Our tongues began to swell...Our lips turned a purplish black and burst.”

Those who dropped out of the column were never seen again, but the desperate force battled on to Sheria. There were wells at Sheria, and had they been unable to take the place by nightfall, thousands were doomed to die of thirst. “We fought that day,” writes Gilbert, “as men fight for their lives... We entered Sheria station on the heels of the retreating Turks. The first objects which met our view were the great stone cisterns full of cold, clear, drinking water. In the still night air the sound of water running into the tanks could be distinctly heard, maddening in its nearness; yet not a man murmured when orders were given for the battalions to fall in, two deep, facing the cisterns”

He then describes the stern priorities: the wounded, those on guard duty, then company by company. It took four hours before the last man had his drink of water, and in all that time they had been standing twenty feet from a low stone wall on the other side of which were thousands of gallons of water.

By comparing 2 Samuel 11:3 and 23:34, some believe that Ahithophel was the grandfather of Bathsheba, and that he was enraged because David had committed adultery with her. So Ahithophel may have wanted Absalom to destroy David and take the throne from his father. But when he saw Absalom following advice that would lead to defeat, he was so despondent that he gave in to despair and took his own life instead of committing the matter to God.

Despotism, and attempts at despotism, are a kind of disease of public spirit—they represent, as it were, the drunkenness of responsibility. It is when men begin to grow desperate in their love for the people, when they are overwhelmed with the difficulties and blunders of humanity, that they fall back upon the wild desire to manage everything themselves. This belief that all would go right if we could only get the strings into our own hands is a fallacy, almost without exception. But nobody can say it is not public-spirited. The sin and sorrow of despotism is not that it does not love men, but that it loves them too much, and trusts them too little.

Thomas Edison invented the microphone, the phonograph, the incandescent light, the storage battery, talking movies, and more than 1000 other things. December 1914 he had worked for 10 years on a storage battery. This had greatly strained his finances. This particular evening spontaneous combustion had broken out in the film room. Within minutes all the packing compounds, celluloid for records and film, and other flammable goods were in flames. Fire companies from eight surrounding towns arrived, but the heat was so intense and the water pressure so low that the attempt to douse the flames was futile. Everything was destroyed. Edison was 67. With all his assets going up in a whoosh (although the damage exceeded two million dollars, the buildings were only insured for $238,000 because they were made of concrete and thought to be fireproof), would his spirit be broken?

The inventor’s 24-year old son, Charles, searched frantically for his father. He finally found him, calmly watching the fire, his face glowing in the reflection, his white hair blowing in the wind. “My heart ached for him,” said Charles. “He was 67—no longer a young man—and everything was going up in flames. When he saw me, he shouted, ‘Charles, where’s your mother?’ When I told him I didn’t know, he said, ‘Find her. Bring her here. She will never see anything like this as long as she lives.’“ The next morning, Edison looked at the ruins and said, “There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew.”

Three weeks after the fire, Edison managed to deliver the first phonograph.

It is told Mahmoud, who conquered a great portion of India hundreds of years ago, that he destroyed all the idols in every town to which he came. He laid siege to the great city of Guzurat. Forcing for himself an entrance into the costliest shrine of the Brahmans, there rose before him the figure of a gigantic idol fifteen feet high. He instantly ordered it to be destroyed. The Brahmans of the temple prostrated themselves at his feet and said: “Great Mahmoud, spare our god, for the fortunes of this city depend on him.”

Ransom vast of gold they offer, pearls of price and jewels rare,

Purchase of their idol’s safety, this their dearest will he spare.

And there wanted not who counseled that he should his hand withhold,

Should that single image suffer, and accept the proffered gold.

But Mahmoud, after a moment’s pause, said he would rather be known as the breaker than the seller of idols, and struck the image with his battle-ax. His soldiers followed, and in an instant the idol was broken to pieces. It proved to be hollow and had been used as a receptacle for thousands of precious gems which, as the image was shattered, fell at the conqueror’s feet.

From its shattered side, revealing pearls and diamonds, showers of gold;

More than all that proffered ransom, more than all a hundredfold.

Such an idol is self, pleading eloquently to be spared and offering in return pleasures and treasures untold. But when Paul, ignoring self’s plea, learned the secret of losing his life for Christ’s sake, he found true wealth and pleasure. The Christ against whom he had directed his rage and venom now possessed and energized his whole personality in such a way that he could only describe it as Christ living in him. What is the talisman enfolded in these simple words: “To me to live is Christ”?

Edward deBono, the Oxford exponent of lateral thinking, suggests that when we can’t solve a problem using traditional methods, we should try “detours and reversals,” anything that will give us a different angle from which to ponder solutions. To illustrate, he tells this story about a problem faced by executives of a large company. The company had moved into a new skyscraper and that the builder apparently had not put in enough elevators. Employees were disgruntled because there were over long waits for the elevators, especially at both ends of the working day. The company got a wide cross-section of the staff together and asked them to sit down and solve the problem. The task force came up with four possible solutions:

1. Speed up the elevators, or arrange for them to stop at certain floors during rush periods.

2. Stagger working hours to reduce elevator demand at either end of the day.

3. Install mirrors around entrances to all elevators.

4. Drive a new elevator shaft through the building.

Which solution would you have chosen? According to Professor deBono, if you chose the first, second, or fourth solutions, then you are a “vertical” or traditional thinker. If you chose the third possibility, then you are a “lateral thinker.” The vertical thinker takes the narrow view; the lateral thinker has a broader view. After some consideration, the company chose the third solution.

It worked. “People became so preoccupied with looking at themselves (or surreptitiously at others),” said deBono, “that they no longer noticed the wait for the elevator. The problem was not so much the lack of elevators as the impatience of the employees.”

In Rebuilding Your Broken World, Gordon MacDonald suggests questions to help develop accountability and invite feedback. If we desire to grow, we should submit ourselves to a spiritual mentor and answer these questions honestly.

1. How is your relationship with God right now?

2. What have you read in the Bible in the past week?

3. What has God said to you in this reading?

4. Where do you find yourself resisting Him these days?

5. What specific things are you praying for in regard to yourself?

6. What are the specific tasks facing you right now that you consider incomplete?

7. What habits intimidate you?

8. What have you read in the secular press this week?

9. What general reading are you doing?

10. What have you done to play?

11. How are you doing with your spouse? Kids?

12. If I were to ask your spouse about your state of mind, state of spirit, state of energy level, what would the response be?

13. Are you sensing spiritual attacks from the enemy right now?

14. If Satan were to try to invalidate you as a person or as a servant of the Lord, how might he do it?

15. What is the state of your sexual perspective? Tempted? Dealing with fantasies? Entertainment?

16. Where are you financially right now? (things under control? under anxiety? in great debt?)

17. Are there any unresolved conflicts in your circle of relationships right now?

18. When was the last time you spent time with a good friend of your own gender?

19. What kind of time have you spent with anyone who is a non-Christian this month?

20. What challenges do you think you’re going to face in the coming week? Month?

21. What would you say are your fears at this present time?

22. Are you sleeping well?

23. What three things are you most thankful for?

24. Do you like yourself at this point in your pilgrimage?

25. What are your greatest confusions about your relationship with God?

The process of developing holiness. God said to Israel, “Be holy, because I am holy” (Lev. 11:44-45). Because God wants us to become like him, it is necessary that his people be a special kind of people, holy men and women. The basic idea in sanctification is “being set apart for God”; those thus set apart live in a way that is pleasing to God. They have no power of their own to do that, but God enables them (2 Cor. 3:17-18). Sanctification is not an option. God requires it of all his people (1 Thess. 4:3).

In his brilliant new book, Catching the Light, quantum physicist Arthur Zajoc writes of what he describes as the “entwined history of light and mind” (correctly described by one admirer as the “two ultimate metaphors of the human spirit”). For our purposes, his initial chapter is most helpful.

From both the animal and human studies, we know there are critical developmental “windows” in the first years of life. Sensory and motor skills are formed, and if this early opportunity is lost, trying to play catch up is hugely frustrating and mostly unsuccessful.

Prof. Zajoc writes of studies which investigated recovery from congenital blindness. Thanks to cornea transplants, people who had been blind from birth would suddenly have functional use of their eyes. Nevertheless, success was rare. Referring to one young boy, “the world does not appear to the patient as filled with the gifts of intelligible light, color, and shape upon awakening from surgery,” Zajoc observes. Light and eyes were not enough to grant the patient sight. “The light of day beckoned, but no light of mind replied within the boy’s anxious, open eyes.”

Zajoc quotes from a study by a Dr. Moreau who observed that while surgery gave the patient the “power to see,” “the employment of this power, which as a whole constitutes the act of seeing, still has to be acquired from the beginning.” Dr. Moreau concludes, “To give back sight to a congenitally blind person is more the work of an educator than of a surgeon.” To which Zajoc adds, “The sober truth remains that vision requires far more than a functioning physical organ. Without an inner light, without a formative visual imagination, we are blind,” he explains. That “inner light”—the light of the mind—”must flow into and marry with the light of nature to bring forth a world.”

The motto of every missionary, whether preacher, printer, or schoolmaster, ought to be “Devoted for life.”

It is said that Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, once had captured a prince and his family. When they came before him, the monarch asked the prisoner, “What will you give me if I release you?”

“The half of my wealth,” was his reply.

“And if I release your children?”

“Everything I possess.”

“And if I release your wife?”

“Your Majesty, I will give myself.”

Cyrus was so moved by his devotion that he freed them all. As they returned home, the prince said to his wife, “Wasn’t Cyrus a handsome man!” With a look of deep love for her husband, she said to him, “I didn’t notice. I could only keep my eyes on you—the one who was willing to give himself for me.”

A devout believer in astrology, French king Louis XI was deeply impressed when an astrologer correctly foretold that a lady of the court would die in eight days’ time. Deciding, however, that the too-accurate prophet should be disposed of, Louis summoned the man to his apartments, having first told his servants to throw the visitor out of the window when he gave the signal. “You claim to understand astrology and to know the fate of others,” the king said to the man, “so tell me at once what your fate will be and how long you have to live.”

“I shall die just three days before Your Majesty,” answered the astrologer. The shaken king canceled his plans!

Drop thy still dew of quietness

Till all our strivings cease;

Take from our souls the strain and stress,

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace.

-Whittier

Pastor Don Baker relates a story of Rev. Tom Erickson: The Public Library has a system called “Dial-A-Tale.” Anytime a young child wants to hear a fairy tale, he can call the number and a voice comes on reading a short fairy tale to the listening young ear. However, the number is only one digit different from Rev. Tom Erickson.

Because the small fingers often make a mistake, Tom gets frequent calls from a child listening for a fairy tale. After several unsuccessful attempts to explain a wrong number to the small child, Tom felt he had only one alternative. He obtained a copy of Three Little Pigs, and set it by the phone. Now, whenever a child calls, he simply reads them the tale. A beautiful illustration of yielding personal rights.

He didn’t, as you might have thought, change his telephone number to avoid the “invasion of his privacy.”

Pastor Don Baker relates a story of Rev. Tom Erickson: The public Library has a system called “Dial-A-Tale.” Anytime a young child wants to hear a fairy tale, he can call the number and a voice comes on reading a short fairy tale to the listening young ear. However, the number is only one digit different from Rev. Tom Erickson. Because the small fingers often make a mistake, Tom gets frequent calls from a child listening for a fairy tale. After several unsuccessful attempts to explain a wrong number to the small child, Tom felt he had only one alternative. He obtained a copy of Three Little Pigs, and set it by the phone. Now, whenever a child calls, he simply reads them the tale. A beautiful illustration of yielding personal rights. He didn’t, as you might have thought, change his telephone number to avoid the “invasion of his privacy.”

Ten-year-old Lawrence Shields was picking through a bucket of dirt at a commercial gem mine in North Carolina last week when he found an interesting rock. “I just like the shape of it,” he says. It turned out to be a 1061-carat sapphire. Lawrence and his parents say they’ve been told it could be worth more than $35,000.

Charles Francis Adams, 19th century political figure and diplomat, kept a diary. One day he entered: “Went fishing with my son today—a day wasted.” His son, Brook Adams, also kept a diary, which is still in existence. On that same day, Brook Adams made this entry: “Went fishing with my father—the most wonderful day of my life!” The father thought he was wasting his time while fishing with his son, but his son saw it as an investment of time. The only way to tell the difference between wasting and investing is to know one’s ultimate purpose in life and to judge accordingly.

A woman who went to hear a visiting preacher took along her Bible so that she might refer to any Scripture passages he happened to mention. On coming away from the service she said to a friend, "I should have left my Bible home today and brought my dictionary. The doctor does not deal in Scripture but in such learned words and phrases that you need the help of an interpreter to render them intelligible."

How dangerous it is to join anything of our own to the righteousness of Christ, in pursuit of justification before God! Jesus Christ will never endure this; it reflects upon His work dishonorably. He will be all, or none, in our justification. If He has finished the work, what need is there of our additions? And if not, to what purpose are they? Can we finish that which Christ Himself could not complete? Did He finish the work, and will He ever divide the glory and praise of it with us? No, no; Christ is no half-Savior.

It is a hard thing to bring proud hearts to rest upon Christ for righteousness. God humbles the proud by calling sinners wholly from their own righteousness to Christ for their justification.

- John Flavel

A Hyde Park orator was denouncing the feeble efforts of the Jews to resist the Roman oppression in the first century of the Christian era, and suggested that if they had appealed more to the sword and less to the sacred writings, they might have fared much better.

One in the crowd asked, "But where are the Romans today?"

"Nowhere," was the quick answer.

"And where are the Jews today?"

"Everywhere," was the sarcastic but true reply-to the evident appreciation of the hearers.

On September 21, 1938, a hurricane of monstrous proportions struck the East Coast of the United States. William Manchester, writing about it his book The Glory and the Dream, says that “the great wall of brine struck the beach between Babylon and Patchogue (Long Island, New York) at 2:30 p.m. So mighty was the power of that first storm wave that its impact registered on a seismograph in Sitka, Alaska, while the spray, carried northward at well over a hundred miles an hour, whitened windows in Montpelier, Vermont.

As the torrential 40-foot wave approached, some Long Islanders jumped into cars and raced inland. No one knows precisely how many lost that race for their lives, but the survivors later estimated that they had to keep the speedometer over 50 mph all the way.” For some reason the meteorologists—who should have known what was coming and should have warned the public—seemed strangely blind to the impending disaster. Either they ignored their instruments or simply couldn’t believe them. And, of course, if the forecasters were blind, the public was too.

“Among the striking stories which later came to light,” says Manchester, “was the experience of a Long Islander who had bought a barometer a few days earlier in a New York store. It arrived in the morning post September 21, and to his annoyance the needle pointed below 29, where the dial read, ‘Hurricanes and Tornadoes.’ He shook it and banged it against the wall; the needle wouldn’t budge. Indignant, he repacked it, drove to the post office, and mailed it back. While he was gone, his house blew away.” That’s the way we are. If we can’t cope with the forecast, we blame the barometer. Or ignore it. Or throw it away!

The story was told some years ago of a pastor who found the roads blocked one Sunday morning and was forced to skate on the river to get to church, which he did. When he arrived the elders of the church were horrified that their preacher had skated on the Lord’s day. After the service they held a meeting where the pastor explained that it was either skate to church or not go at all. Finally one elder asked, “Did you enjoy it?” When the preacher answered, “No,” the board decided it was all right!

Alfred the Great was the ninth-century king who saved England from conquest by the Danish. At one point during his wars with the Danes, Alfred was forced to seek refuge in the hut of a poor Saxon family. Not recognizing her visitor, the woman of the house said she had to leave and asked Alfred to watch some cakes she was baking. But the king had other things on his mind and did not notice that the cakes were burning. Upon her return, the lady unknowingly gave her sovereign a hearty scolding!

I was walking in San Francisco along the Golden Gate Bridge when I saw a man about to jump off. I tried to dissuade him from committing suicide and told him simply that God loved him. A tear came to his eye.

I then asked him, “Are you a Christian, a Jew, a Hindu, or what?”

He said, “I’m a Christian.”

I said, “Me, too, small world. . .Protestant or Catholic?”

He said, “Protestant.”

I said, “Me, too, what denomination?”

He said, “Baptist.”

I said, “Me, too, Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?”

He said, “Northern Baptist.”

I said, “Well, ME TOO, Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”

He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.”

I said, “Well, that’s amazing! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist or Northern Conservative Reformed Baptist?”

He said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist.”

I said, “Remarkable! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Eastern Region?”

He said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region.”

I said, “A miracle! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?”

He said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.”

I said, “DIE, HERETIC!’ and pushed him over the rail.