Pastoral Resources

In Elmer Bendiner’s book, The Fall of Fortresses, he describes one bombing run over the German city of Kassel:

Our B-17 (THE TONDELAYO) was barraged by flak from Nazi antiaircraft guns. That was not unusual, but on this particular occasion our gas tanks were hit. Later, as I reflected on the miracle of a twenty-millimeter shell piercing the fuel tank without touching off an explosion, our pilot, Bohn Fawkes, told me it was not quite that simple.

On the morning following the raid, Bohn had gone down to ask our crew chief for that shell as a souvenir of unbelievable luck. The crew chief told Bohn that not just one shell but eleven had been found in the gas tanks—eleven unexploded shells where only one was sufficient to blast us out of the sky. It was as if the sea had been parted for us. Even after thirty-five years, so awesome an event leaves me shaken, especially after I heard the rest of the story from Bohn.

He was told that the shells had been sent to the armorers to be defused. The armorers told him that Intelligence had picked them up. They could not say why at the time, but Bohn eventually sought out the answer.

Apparently when the armorers opened each of those shells, they found no explosive charge. They were clean as a whistle and just as harmless. Empty? Not all of them.

One contained a carefully rolled piece of paper. On it was a scrawl in Czech. The Intelligence people scoured our base for a man who could read Czech. Eventually, they found one to decipher the note. It set us marveling. Translated, the note read: “This is all we can do for you now.”

A minister visited a rural family for supper, and they ate just before church. The minister explained that he couldn't eat very much and preach a good message. After supper the wife asked the husband to go on to the service with the minister while she washed dishes.

When the husband returned, she asked him how the preaching was. "Oh, to tell the truth," was his reply, "he may as well et."

Steve DeVore has built a multi-million dollar company on the principle of role modeling. DeVore is president of Syber Vision, a company that markets instructional video and audio tapes on everything from golf to skiing to weight control. This is not some kind of mystical New Age approach to learning, but rather the master-apprentice relationship put to work in different settings.

When DeVore was in college, he happened to watch a bowling tournament on television. As he paid close attention to the movements of the bowlers, the thought struck him that if he could emulate their movements, he could probably achieve the same results.

After watching the bowlers closely for thirty minutes, he got in his car and drove to the local bowling alley. He got an alley, picked out a ball, and for the next thirty minutes he did just as the professional bowlers had done on TV. He threw nine straight strikes and recorded a score of 278. His highest score up to that point was 163. By emulating a proficient role model, he improved his performance by 115 pins. But the key was just as. He had to do it just as the pros.

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Peter F. Drucker: No organization can depend on genius; the supply is always scarce and unreliable. It is the test of an organization to make ordinary human beings perform better than they seem capable of, to bring out whatever strength there is in its members, and to use each man’s strength to help all the others perform. The purpose of an organization is to enable common men to do uncommon things.

Noel Coward once encountered Edna Ferber, who was wearing a tailored suit.

“You look almost like a man,” said Coward.

“So do you,” said Ferber.

While hunting deer in the Tehema Wildlife Area near Red Bluff in northern California, Jay Rathman climbed to a ledge on the slope of a rocky gorge. As he raised his head to look over the ledge above, he sensed movement to the right of his face. A coiled rattler struck with lightning speed, just missing Rathman’s right ear. The four-foot snake’s fangs got snagged in the neck of Rathman’s wool turtleneck sweater, and the force of the strike caused it to land on his left shoulder. It then coiled around his neck. He grabbed it behind the head with his left hand and could feel the warm venom running down the skin of his neck, the rattles making a furious racket. He fell backward and slid headfirst down the steep slope through brush and lava rocks, his rifle and binoculars bouncing beside him. “As luck would have it,” he said in describing the incident to a Department of Fish and Game official, “I ended up wedged between some rocks with my feet caught uphill from my head. I could barely move.” He got his right hand on his rifle and used it to disengage the fangs from his sweater, but the snake had enough leverage to strike again. “He made about eight attempts and managed to hit me with his nose just below my eye about four times. I kept my face turned so he couldn’t get a good angle with his fangs, but it was very close. This chap and I were eyeball to eyeball and I found out that snakes don’t blink. He had fangs like darning needles...I had to choke him to death. It was the only way out. I was afraid that with all the blood rushing to my head I might pass out.” When he tried to toss the dead snake aside, he couldn’t let go—”I had to pry my fingers from its neck.”

Rathman, 45, who works for the Defense Department in San Jose, estimates his encounter with the snake lasted 20 minutes. Warden Dave Smith says of meeting Rathman: “He walked toward me holding this string of rattles and said with a sort of grin on his face, Id like to register a complaint about your wildlife here.’”

One winter in Chicago, a young man of dissipated habits was happily converted to God. His life was so radically changed that not a soul who knew him doubted the depth and genuineness of God's work of grace in his heart. He lived like a Christian for many months. One stormy evening in November, after business hours, he was on his way home when he was delayed by an open drawbridge. A large, brilliantly lighted bar stood right at hand. He had often frequented such places before his conversion, but never since that time. This evening, however, as he waited for the bridge to turn and let him through, he stepped into the bar for no other reason than to get out of the pelting sleet. Suddenly, all the familiar temptations closed around him, and almost before he was aware of his danger, he had ordered a drink. One drink led to another, and before he left the place he was partially intoxicated. Before he reached home he despaired of his salvation. "My family, my friends, the church, will all know about it," he groaned within himself. "No one will have any confidence in me. I am disgraced, lost."

But two young men from his church who had seen him leave the bar came up to him and said, "Charlie, don't go home tonight. Come with us and we'll take care of you. We promise that no one in the world shall ever hear from us a word of what happened tonight." They encouraged him, saying that God would forgive and restore him. Next morning he was himself again. They knelt together in earnest prayer, and when he rose from his knees it was with the glad assurance of pardon and God's favor restored. This young man never again yielded to such a temptation and went on to become a successful minister of the gospel.

Light after darkness, gain after loss;

Strength after weakness, crown after cross;

Sweet after bitter, hope after fears;

Home after wandering, praise after tears;

Sheaves after sowing, sun after rain;

Sight after mystery, peace after pain;

Joy after sorrow, calm after blast;

Rest after weariness, sweet rest at last;

Near after distant, gleam after gloom;

Love after loneliness, life after tomb;

After long agony, rapture of bliss;

Right was the pathway, leading to this.

The rapture is an eschatological (end times) event where upon the return of Christ the true believers who are “alive and remain shall be caught up together with them [those who already died as Christians] in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air…” (1 Thess. 4:17). This is the time of the resurrection where the Christian receives his resurrected body. First to receive their new bodies are those who have died as Christians, and then “those who are alive and remain.”

There is much debate over the time of the rapture. Does it occur at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of the tribulation period? (See Tribulation.)

Rev 1:8 reads, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord."

Have you ever given thought to how many things about us are constantly ending and beginning? For example, today will end with the beginning of night and night will end with the beginning of tomorrow. Our Lord is both the beginning and ending of everything! 2Co 5:17 speaks to us about some endings and beginnings within our own lives: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passing away, and all things are becoming new."

For the believer, there is a constant change going on. Life is being re-shaped. It begins in a new-birth experience and as we grow in the Lord, this new life constantly changes, as we are reshaped into the image of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit dwelling within us.

Seneca, the Roman historian and philosopher, said, "No one is free who is a slave to the body." In 1Co 6:19 Paul specifically refers to the body of the believer as the temple of the Holy Spirit. "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" Yet in 1Co 3:16 he says, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" Is there a contradiction here between the body as the temple, and the whole person as the temple? No, both are correct. Our spirit pervades our body, and it is through the works of the body that the spirit, the real person, is shown. This is why the stress is on the body, because that is what people can readily discern, while the spirit is invisible. Paul knew that the body is the last area of man to be brought entirely under the Spirit's influence and power, just as the twigs and leaves are the last parts of a plant to be energized by the sap. Thus the bodily temple presents to us the complete picture of the fully consecrated man.

Mr. Sankey and myself--going about and preaching the gospel, is nothing new. You will find them away back eighteen hundred years ago, going off two by two, like Brothers Bliss and Whittle, and Brothers Needham and Stebbins, to different towns and villages. They had gone out, and there had been great revivals in all the cities, towns, and villages they had entered. Everywhere they had met with the greatest success. Even the very devils were subject to them. Disease had fled before them. When they met a lame man they said to him, "You don't want to be lame any longer," and he walked. When they met a blind man they but told him to open his eyes, and behold, he could see. And they came to Christ and rejoiced over their great success, and He just said to them, "I will give you something to rejoice over. Rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

Now there are a great many people who do not believe in such an assurance as this, "Rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." How are you going to rejoice if your names are not written there? While speaking about this some time ago, a man told me we were preaching a very ridiculous doctrine when we preached this doctrine of assurance. I ask you in all candor what are you going to do with this assurance if we don't preach it? It is stated that our names are written there; blotted out of the Book of Death and transferred to the Book of Life.

I remember while in Europe I was traveling with a friend--she is in this hall to-night. On one occasion we were journeying from London to Liverpool, and the question was put as to where we would stop. We said we would go to the "Northwestern," at Lime street, as that was the Hotel where Americans generally stopped at. When we got there the house was full and they could not let us in. Every room was engaged. But this friend said, "I am going to stay here. I engaged a room ahead. I sent a telegram on." My friends, that is just what the Christians are doing--sending their names in ahead. They are sending a message up saying: "Lord Jesus, I want one of those mansions You are preparing; I want to be there." That's what they are doing.

Every man and woman who wants one, if you have not already got one, had better make up your mind. Send your names up now. I would rather a thousand times have my name written in the Lamb's Book than have all the wealth of the world rolling at my feet.

The first separation of religious principles from public education. This is the case that removed school prayer. There were no precedents cited. The court did not quote previous legal cases or historical incidents. A new direction in the legal system—no longer constitutional.

“Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee

and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents,

our teachers, and our Country.”

The 22 word prayer that was declared to be unconstitutional and which led to the removal of all prayer from public schools in the case Engel v. Vitale. This little prayer acknowledges God only one time. The Declaration of Independence itself acknowledges God 4 times.

Within 12 months of Engel v. Vitale, in two more cases called Abington v. Schempp and Murray v. Curlett, the court had completely removed Bible reading, religious classes/instruction. This was a radical reversal of law—and all without precedental justification or Constitutional basis.

You need not tell me there is no hell, for I already feel my soul slipping into its fires! Wretches, cease your idle talk about there being hope for me! I know I am lost forever.”

Sir Francis Newport, head of an English infidel club, on his deathbed In the 18th century, Archibald Boyle was the leading member of an association of wild and wicked men known as “The Hell Club” in Glasgow, Scotland. After one night of carousing at the Club’s notorious annual meeting, Boyle dreamed he was riding home on his black horse. In the darkness, someone seized the reins, shouting, “You must go with me!” As Boyle desperately tried to force the reins from the hands of the unknown guide, the horse reared. Boyle fell down, down, down with increasing speed. “Where are you taking me?” The cold voice replied, “To hell!”

The echoes of the groans and yells of frantic revelry assaulted their ears. At the entrance to hell, Boyle saw the inmates chasing the same pleasures they had pursued in life. There was a lady he’d known playing her favorite vulgar game. Boyle relaxed, thinking hell must be a pleasurable place after all. When he asked her to rest a moment and show him through the pleasures of hell, she shrieked. “There is no rest in hell!” She unclasped the vest of her robe and displayed a coil of living snakes writhing about her midsection. Others revealed different forms of pain in their hearts.

“Take me from this place!” Boyle demanded. “By the living God whose name I have so often outraged, I beg you, let me go!” His guide replied, “Go then—but in a year and a day we meet to part no more.” At this, Boyle awoke, feeling that these last words were as letters of fire burned into his heart. Despite a resolution never to attend the Hell Club again, he soon was drawn back. He found no comfort there. He grew haggard and gray under the weight of his conscience and fear of the future. He dreaded attending the Club’s annual meeting, but his companions forced him to attend. Every nerve of his body writhed in agony at the first sentence of the president’s opening address: “Gentlemen, this is leap year; therefore it is a year and a day since our last annual meeting.”

After the meeting, he mounted his house to ride home. Next morning, his horse was found grazing quietly by the roadside. A few yards away lay the corpse of Archibald Boyle. The strange guide had claimed him at the appointed time.

The plural of most nouns are formed by adding s

The letter q is always followed by u.

Final e is dropped before a suffix beginning with a vowel,

but is kept before a suffix beginning with a consonant.

Final y, if preceded by a consonant, is changed to i.

When y is preceded by a vowel, the y is kept before any suffix.

The letter i comes before e except after c

or when sounded like a as in neighbor or weigh.

We’ll begin with a box and the plural is boxes.

But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.

Then one fowl is a goose but two are called geese.

Yet the plural of mouse should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a whole set of mice,

Yet the plural of house is houses not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,

Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?

If I speak of a foot and you show me your feet,

And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?

If one is a tooth and whole set are teeth,

Why should not the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,

Yet had in the plural wouldn’t be hose.

And the plural of cat is cats and not cose.

We speak of a brother and also of brethren.

But though we say Mother, we never say Methren.

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,

But imagine the feminine she, shis, and shim.

So English, I fancy you all will agree,

Is the funniest language you ever did see.

Sign in the window of an English company: We have been established for over one hundred years and have been pleasing our displeasing customers ever since. We have made money and lost money, suffered the effects of coal nationalization, coal rationing, government control, and bad payers. We have been cussed and discussed, messed about, lied to, held up, robbed, and swindled. The only reason we stay in business is to see what happens next.

A contented man is one who enjoys the scenery along the detours.

When the late Nadine Stair, of Louisville, Kentucky, was 85 years old, she was asked what she would do if she had her life to live over again.

“I’d make more mistakes next time,” she said. “I’d relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I’d have fewer imaginary ones.

“You see, I’m one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I’ve had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I’d have more of them. In fact, I’d try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I’ve been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, and a raincoat. If I had to do it over again, I would travel lighter than I have.

“If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies.”

Surely one of the most godly as well as interesting characters who ever lived was Enoch. He is one of the only two who lived before the flood (Noah also, Gen. 6:9) of whom it is said the he “walked with God.” He is also one of only two individuals who never died (Elijah - II Kings 2:ll). Little is known about him, but the Bible reveals him to be exemplary among men and special to God.

Notice that he was, first of all, a man of faith. “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death .he had this testimony that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is (i.e., that God exists), and the He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Heb. ll:5-6). Enoch had ample faith in the fact and work of God, which yielded a close walk with God. He also had faith in the caring character of God which rewards the diligent search for Him on His terms with sanctification, fellowship and eternal life. This faith, we are told, pleased God.

We find in the little book of Jude a description of Enoch’s ministry. Enoch’s faith impelled him to denounce strongly the false teaching and ungodly living of his day, prophesying the coming return of and judgment by the Lord (vs. 14-15).

Some have speculated that Enoch’s ministry is not yet over. All men die, for “it is appointed unto men once to die” (Heb. 98:27), and Enoch has not yet died. Perhaps he is one of the two tribulation “witnesses” (Rev. 11:3), whose messages are so much like those of Enoch and Elijah, who will be martyred and resurrected and taken up to heaven directly from earth (vs. 4-12).

At any rate, Enoch is certainly one of the great heroes of the faith whom we shall meet some day.

Over 2,000 years ago a young Greek artist named Timanthes studied under a respected tutor. After several years the teacher’s efforts seemed to have paid off when Timanthes painted an exquisite work of art. Unfortunately, he became so enraptured with the painting that he spent days gazing at it. One morning when he arrived to admire his work, he was shocked to find it blotted out with paint. Angry, Timanthes ran to his teacher, who admitted he had destroyed the painting. “I did it for your own good. That painting was retarding your progress. Start again and see if you can do better.”

Timanthes took his teacher’s advice and produced Sacrifice of Iphigenia, which is regarded as one of the finest paintings of antiquity.

After the ten-year-old’s first voice lesson, his teacher was adamant: “You can’t sing. You haven’t any voice at all. Your voice sounds like the wind in the shutters.”

Despite this discouragement, the boy’s mother heard greatness in his voice and believed in him. She told him, “My boy, I am going to make every sacrifice to pay for your voice lessons.” The hard work paid off: Enrico Caruso became one of the world’s greatest performers.

For the believer, death means entering into the glorious presence of Christ. The 18th-century Bible commentator Matthew Henry expressed this confidence in words he hoped would be read after his death by anyone who might unduly mourn his passing. He wrote:

“Would you like to know where I am? I am at home in my Father’s house, in the mansions prepared for me here. I am where I want to be—no longer on the stormy sea, but in God’s safe, quiet harbor. My sowing time is done and I am reaping; my joy is as the joy of harvest. Would you like to know what I am doing? I see God, not as through a glass darkly, but face to face. I am engaged in the sweet enjoyment of my precious Redeemer. I am singing hallelujahs to Him who sits upon the throne, and I am constantly praising Him. Would you know what blessed company I keep? It is better than the best on earth. Here are the holy angels and the spirits of just men made perfect. ... I am with many of my old acquaintances with whom I worked and prayed, and who have come here before me. Lastly, would you know how long this will continue? It is a dawn that never fades! After millions and millions of ages, it will be as fresh as it is now. Therefore, weep not for me!” - H.G.B.

John Henry Jowett has beautifully expressed what characterizes the life of power. "Another element in a forceful character is heat, the fire of an unquenchable enthusiasm.... The Acts of the Apostles is a burning book. There is no cold or lukewarm patch from end to end. The disciples had been baptized with fire, with the holy, glowing enthusiasm caught from the altar of God. They had this central fire from which every other purpose and faculty in the life gets its strength. This fire in the apostles' souls was like a furnace-fire in a great liner, which drives her through the tempests and through the envious and engulfing deep. Nothing could stop these men. Nothing could hinder their going. 'We cannot but speak the things that we have seen and heard. We must obey God rather than men.' This strong imperative rings throughout all their doings and all their speech. They have heat, and they have light, because they were baptized by the power of the Holy Ghost."

May not a single moment of my life be spent outside the light, love, and joy of God’s presence and not a moment without the entire surrender of my self as a vessel for Him to fill full of His Spirit and His love.” Andrew Murray

Famed educator Booker T. Washington recalled the “entrance exam” that earned him a place at the Hampton Institute in Virginia as a young man.

The head teacher ordered Washington to take a broom and sweep the classroom. Because he knew this was his chance, he swept the room three times and dusted the furniture four times. When the teacher returned, she inspected the floor closely and ran her handkerchief over the woodwork. Unable to find a speck of dust anywhere, she said, “I guess you will do to enter this institution.” Washington later said that this was the turning point of his life.

Back in 1820 the average person in England wrote only three letters a year. And with good reason. Letters in those days were mailed without a cover and could be read by anyone.

But William Mulready had an idea to ensure privacy—the envelope. On a visit to France Mulready noticed that messages from an important person often were completely enclosed in “a little paper case…impervious to the peering eyes of the curious.”

The idea of sending letters shielded from curious eyes was an instant success. The volume of letters handled by the British postal service soared beyond anyone’s expectations.

Today, there are billions of Mulready’s “little paper” envelopes safely traveling around the world.”

My God, till I receive Thy stroke,

How like a beast was I!

So unaccustom’d to the yoke,

So backward to comply.

With grief my just reproach I bear;

Shame fills me at the thought,

How frequent my rebellions were,

What wickedness I wrought.

Thy merciful restraint I scorn’d,

And left the pleasant road;

Yet turn me, and I shall be turn’d;

Thou are the Lord my God.

“Is Ephraim banish’d from my thoughts,

Or vile in my esteem?

No,” saith the Lord, “with all his faults,

I still remember him.

“Is he a dear and pleasant child?

Yes, dear and pleasant still;

Though sin his foolish heart beguiled,

And he withstood my will.

“My sharp rebuke has laid him low

He seeks my face again;

My pity kindles at his woe,

He shall not seek in vain.”

1. There aren’t any hard-and-fast rules for getting ahead in the world—just hard ones.

2. You don’t have to lie awake nights to succeed. Just stay awake days. - Healthways

3. There is no poverty that can overtake diligence. - Japanese proverb

4. By perseverance the snail reached the Ark. - Spurgeon

5. Triumph is just umph added to try.

C. H. Spurgeon poignantly stated it this way:

“A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you, and were helped by you, will remember you. So carve your name on hearts, and not on marble.”

Los Angeles Times (editorial by Margaret A. Hagen): If ever the road to hell is paved with good intentions, it will be paved diagnosis by diagnosis with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s new guidelines forbidding employment discrimination and mandating employer accommodation of mental disabilities.

The American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual lists 374 mental disorders that are potentially deserving of accommodation by employers under the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990.

The office worker who suffers from Tourette’s disorder, for example, must be allowed an adjustment in his or her working conditions that takes account of the uncontrollable urge to snarl and shout out obscenities.

The depressive who is groggy in the morning from medication is not asked to rise earlier in order to be fully awake for the job because the EEOC has specified that it is the employer who is required to accommodate the sleepiness.

Even where the disabled worker suffers from “intermittent explosive disorder”—repeated “episodes of failure to resist aggressive impulses that result in serious acts or destruction of property”—the workplace must accommodate him.

As a number of experts have noted, the new guidelines in many respects amount to a license to behave badly; Lateness, absenteeism, slovenliness, carelessness or rudeness must be accommodated if these behaviors are linked to a psychological condition.

But the category of disorder that most boggles the mind as necessitating employer accommodation rather than employee behavioral adjustment is that of the personality disorders, especially “antisocial personality disorder.” Persons with this affliction used to be known as sociopaths.

According to the psychiatric diagnostic manual, this distressing disorder is characterized by “repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest...repeated lying, use of aliases or conning others for personal profit or pleasure...irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults, reckless disregard for safety of self or others, consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations.”

It is impossible to imagine the range of accommodations necessary to turn such a person into a productive worker who will not be dangerous to the life or well-being of fellow employees, employers or the business itself.

Only people who work in the insulated world of civil service could possibly have perpetrated such a hideous suspension of common sense as employer accommodation to sociopathy.

Only psychological professionals whose bread and butter is provided by the proliferation of so-called mental disorders could possibly conceptualize such behavior as manifestation of illness, to be accommodated on a par with arthritis, say, or cancer.

Only a society that has completely and comprehensively medicalized the concept of bad behavior could possibly entertain the idea that it is the employer’s job to allow for the remorseless lying, stealing, aggressive sociopath.

Congress sensibly has exempted from the EEOC rules those persons diagnosed with the “disorders” of kleptomania, pyromania and compulsive gambling, as well as many of the sexual disorders such as pedophilia, and those of alcohol and drug abuse.

Congress should extend this rational approach to the rest of the mental diagnostic manual.

Let disorders be introduced one by one and defended by mental health professionals as genuinely biologically determined before requiring any employer to change the conditions of the job or the workplace to accommodate them.

Reasonable accommodation to and mindless discrimination has become mindless accommodation to irresponsible behavior.

The parable of the vineyard workers (Matt. 20) offends our sense of fairness. Why should everyone get equal pay for unequal work?

Back in Ontario when the apples ripened, Mom would sit all seven of us down, Dad included, with pans and paring knives until the mountain of fruit was reduced to neat rows of filled canning jars. She never bothered keeping track of how many we did, though the younger ones undoubtedly proved more of a nuisance than a help: cut fingers, squabbles over who got which pan, apple core fights. But when the job was done, the reward for everyone was the same: the largest chocolate-dipped cone money could buy. A stickler might argue it wasn't quite fair since the older ones actually peeled apples. But I can't remember anyone complaining about it. A family understands it operates under a different set of norms than a courtroom. In fact, when the store ran out of ice cream and my younger brother had to make do with a popsicle, we felt sorry for him despite his lack of productivity (he'd eaten all the apples he'd peeled that day—both of them).

God wants all his children to enjoy the complete fullness of eternal life. No true child of God wants it any other way.

- Robert De Moor

Well-known commentator and author Eric Sevarid said that the best lesson he ever learned was the principle of the “next mile.” He recalled how he learned the principle:

“During World War II, I and several others had to parachute from a crippled Army transport plane into the mountainous jungle on the Burma-India border. It was several weeks before an armed relief expedition could reach us, and then we began a painful, plodding march out to civilized India. We were faced by a 140-mile trek, over mountains in August heat and monsoon rains.

“In the first hour of the march I rammed a boot nail deep into one foot; by evening I had bleeding blisters the size of 50-cent pieces on both feet. Could I hobble 140 miles? Could the others, some in worse shape than I, complete such a distance?

“We were convinced we could not. But we could hobble to that ridge, we could make the next friendly village for the night. And that, of course, was all we had to do...”

Eric Sevarid used the “next mile” principle many other times during his career, whether the task was writing a book or writing scripts for radio and television.

Writer Ernest Hemingway, whose novels The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and A Farewell to Arms are an integral part of our American literature, was the son of devout Christian parents. His writing was forceful, action-packed, and often brutal but exhibited none of the belief his parents tried to instill in him. Hemingway professed a concern with “truth,” but his truth bore little resemblance to Christian principles modeled by his parents while he was growing up. Early in his life, he rejected these principles as irrelevant.

A letter from his mother written in 1920 illustrates how completely he had divorced himself from their beliefs: “Unless you, my son, Ernest, come to yourself, cease your lazy loafing and pleasure seeking...stop trading on your handsome face...and neglecting your duties to God and your Savior Jesus Christ...there is nothing for you but bankruptcy; you have overdrawn.”

Hemingway told a writer for Playboy magazine in 1956 that “What is immoral is what you feel bad after.” By his own standard, then, he was a man of unimpeachable morals—nothing made him feel bad. “People with different ideas about morality would call him a sinner,” the article continued, “and the wages of sin, they say, is death. Hemingway has cheated death time and time again to become a scarred and bearded American legend, a great white hunter, a husband of four wives, and a winner of Nobel and Pulitzer prizes...Sin has paid off for Hemingway.”

Ten years later, in a review of the book Papa Hemingway by A. E. Hotchner in the same magazine, the account of Hemingway’s life is a chronicle of repeated suicide attempts, paranoia, multiple affairs and marriages, and finally, on his return to his Ketchum, Idaho hideaway, his final—and successful—suicide attempt. How haunting and ironic the words written earlier about this man became. Ultimately sin did indeed pay off for Ernest Hemingway.

Ernest Hemingway, the literary genius, said of his life: “I live in a vacuum that is as lonely as a radio tube when the batteries are dead, and there is no current to plug into.”

This is a startling statement, given the fact that Hemingway’s life would be the envy of anyone who had bought the values of our modern society. Hemingway was known for his tough-guy image and globe-trotting pilgrimages to exotic places. He was a big-game hunter, a bullfighter, a man who could drink the best of them under the table. He was married four times and lives his life seemingly without moral restraint or conscience. But on a sunny Sunday morning in Idaho, he pulverized his head with a shotgun blast.

There was another side to Hemingway’s life, one that few people know about. He grew up in an evangelical Christian home. His grandparents were missionaries, and his father was a devoted churchman and friend of evangelist D. L. Moody. Hemingway’s family conformed to the strictest codes of Christianity, and as a boy and young man he was active in his church.

Then came Word War I. As a war correspondent, Hemingway saw death and despair firsthand. His youthful enthusiasm for Christianity soured, and Hemingway eventually rejected the faith he had once claimed.

While we don’t know all that transpired in Hemingway’s heart, it seems he never developed a truly personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Genuine Christianity means more than living in a Christian environment, going through catechism, conforming to the codes, and affirming the truths of Scripture. True Christians are non-negotiated followers of Christ, those who are progressively moving toward Him and who understand all of life in the context of His teaching.

The point is not Hemingway’s life. It’s my life and your life. If we aren’t cultivating a living, vital relationship with Jesus Christ, then we, too, may respond as Hemingway did when life’s questions are agonizingly unanswerable or when our inner impulses are too seductive for us to resist. An allegiance based on systems, rituals, and rules is never enough to keep us loyal.

In the Greek, the verb to "err" is planomai. This is the word from which we get the English word "planet." These heavenly bodies are called planets because they seem to wander ("err") in the sky. There are not only planets in the solar system, but also erring ones in the Christian church.

From an errata slip for a cookbook published by Alfred A. Knopt:

Page 95, line 14: “Exactly 12 minutes” should read exactly 12 seconds.”

Page 120, last line: “Spoon the floor” should read “spoon the flour.”

Page 145, line 16: “Skim off the meat” should read “skim off the fat.”

Following three years of hazardous duty as a member of the famed Lewis and Clark expedition along the western frontier, John Colter turned to trapping beaver in the Three Forks area of the Missouri River, deep in Blackfoot Indian territory. One day, while inspecting traps by canoe, Colter and a companion were suddenly flanked by Blackfoot warriors. Colter’s friend was killed as he tried to escape, but Colter was captured. Stripped of his clothing, including his shoes, the adventurer was led out onto the prairie and then released as several hundred Blackfoot set off in pursuit. What followed was a legendary 11-day overland trek. Traveling day and night, Colter climbed mountains, scurried across fields, and tramped through woods, covering an unbelievable 300 miles as he made his way to safety.

The most important thing in an argument, next to being right, is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent, so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without too much apparent loss of face.

In one of his sermons, A. C. Dixon told of an incident that took place in Brooklyn, N.Y. A detective who had been looking for a local citizen finally tracked him down in a drugstore. As the man began to make his purchase, the officer laid his hand on the citizen’s shoulder and said, “You’re under arrest; come with me!” Stunned, the man demanded, “What did I do?” The detective calmly replied, “You know what you did. You escaped from the Albany penitentiary several years ago. You went west, got married, and then came back here to live. We’ve been watching for you since you returned.”

Quietly the man admitted, “That’s true, but I was sure you’d never find me. Before you take me in, could we stop by my house so I can talk to my family?” The officer agreed. When they got to his home, the man looked at his wife and asked, “Haven’t I been a kind husband and a good father? Haven’t I worked hard to make a living?” His wife answered, “Of course you have, but why are you asking me these questions?” Her husband then proceeded to explain what had happened and that he was now under arrest.

He apparently had hoped that his record as an exemplary husband and father would impress the officer. Even so, he was still an escaped criminal. Though he was “right” with his family, he was all wrong with the state of New York.

To escape the distress caused by regret for the past or fear about the future, this is the rule to follow: leave the past to the infinite mercy of God, the future to his good providence; give the present wholly to his love by being faithful to his grace.

There is a fundamental sense in which evil is not something that can be made sense of. The essence of evil is that it is something which is absurd, bizarre and irrational. It is the nature of evil to be inexplicable, an enigma and a stupidity.

Charles H. Spurgeon once wisely observed, "If a man might have a cottage on a hundred years' lease, he would prize it much more than the possession of a palace for a day." Of course he would, and this is what adds so much preciousness to the joys of heaven, for they are eternal.

Ethelred the unready (968-1016) so called because of his inability to repel the Davish invasion of England. At first he paid tribute to the Danes, but their raids continued and he was forced to abandon England for Normandy in 1013. Those who are more generous call him Ethelred the ill-advised.

When believers present the message of Christ, we need to be like Paul, absolutely above board in our motives and manners (2 Corinthians 4:2). We need to respect our hearers and refuse to do anything that would violate their integrity. Otherwise we become like a cult, peddling spiritual goods (2:17).

Here are some suggestions (from material distributed by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship to guide Christians in their witness:

1. We are Christians, called by God to honor Jesus Christ with our lives, abiding by biblically defined ethical standards in every area of life, public and private. This includes our efforts to persuade coworkers and others to believe the good news about Jesus Christ.

2. Wherever we live and work, we seek to follow the mandate, motives, message, and model of Jesus, who still pursues and reclaims those lost in sin and rebelling against Him.

3. We believe all people are created in God’s image with the capacity to relate to their Creator and Redeemer. We disdain any effort to influence people which depersonalizes them or deprives them of their inherent value as persons.

4. Since we respect the value of persons, we believe all are worthy of hearing about Jesus Christ. We also affirm the right of every person to survey other religious options. People are free to choose a different belief system than Christianity.

5. We affirm the role and right of Christians to share the gospel of Christ in the marketplace of ideas. However, this does not justify any means to fulfill that end. We reject coercive techniques or manipulative appeals, especially those that play on emotions and discount or contradict reason or evidence We will not bypass a person’s critical faculties, prey upon psychological weaknesses, undermine a relationship with one’s family or religious institution, or mask the true nature of Christian conversion. We will not intentionally mislead.

6. We respect the individual integrity, intellectual honesty, and academic freedom of others, both believers and skeptics, and so we proclaim Christ without hidden agendas. We reveal our own identity, purpose, theological positions, and sources of information. We will use no false advertising and seek no material gain from presenting the gospel.

7. We invite people of other religious persuasions to join us in true dialogue. We acknowledge our humanness—that we Christians are just as sinful, needy, and dependent on the grace of God as anyone else. We seek to listen sensitively in order to understand, and thus rid our witness of any stereotypes or fixed formulae which block honest communication.

8. As our “brothers’ keepers,” we accept our responsibility to admonish any Christian brother or sister who presents the message of Christ in a way that violates these ethical guidelines.

A brief, simple, but expressive eulogy was pronounce by Martin Luther upon a pastor at Zwickau in 1522 named Nicholas Haussmann. “What we preach, he lived,” said the great reformer.

When the Emperor Valens threatened Eusebuis with confiscation of all his goods, torture, banishment, or even death, the courageous Christian replied, “He needs not fear confiscation, who has nothing to lose; nor banishment, to whom heaven is his country; nor torments, when his body can be destroyed at one blow; nor death, which is the only way to set him at liberty from sin and sorrow.”

It was in 1873, in Dublin that D. L. Moody heard British evangelist Henry Varley utter those life changing words: “The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in a man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.” It was after an all-night prayer meeting in Dublin, at the home of Henry Bewley. Varley did not even remember making the statement when Moody reminded him of it a year later. “As I crossed the wide Atlantic,” Moody said, “the boards of the deck ... were engraved with them, and when I reached Chicago, the very paving stones seemed marked with them.”

The result: Moody decided he was involved in too many ministries to be effective and therefore began to concentrate on evangelism.

The Living Bible translates 1 Corinthians 9:22, “… whatever a person is like, I try to find common ground with him so that he will let me tell him about Christ and let Christ save him.” Randy Raysbrook of the Navigators in the Jan/Feb, 1994 issue of Discipleship Journal gives some pointers in finding that “common ground.”

Be natural. Normal conversation is fluid and respectful, allows for humor and invites response.

Be open and willing to admit your struggles and failures.

Be respectful, look at people for what they are as well as what they can become.

Be simple. Communication increases as simplicity does. Don’t let Christian jargon get in the way.

Don’t forget what it was like to be a non-Christian.

Look forward to hindsight. Unbelievers will understand some things only after looking back on them.

How then should evangelism be defined? The N. T. answer is very simple. According to the N. T., evangelism is just preaching the gospel, the evangel. Evangelizing, therefore is not simply a matter of teaching, and instructing, and imparting information to the mind. There is more to it than that. Evangelism includes the endeavor to elicit a response to the truth taught. It is communication with a view to conversion. It is a matter, not merely of informing, but also of inviting.

Now it came to pass that a group existed who called themselves fishermen. And lo, there were many fish in the waters all around. In fact, the whole area was surrounded by streams and lakes filled with fish. And the fish were hungry.

Week after week, month after month, and year after year, these who called themselves fishermen met in meetings and talked about their call to fish, the abundance of fish, and how they might go about fishing. Year after year they carefully defined what fishing means, defended fishing as an occupation, and declared that fishing is always to be a primary task of fishermen.

Continually, they searched for new and better methods of fishing and for new and better definitions of fishing. Further they said, “The fishing industry exists by fishing as fire exists by burning.” They loved slogans such as “Fishing is the task of every fisherman.” They sponsored special meetings called “Fishermen’s Campaigns” and “The Month for Fishermen to Fish.” The sponsored costly nationwide and worldwide congresses to discuss fishing and to promote fishing and hear about all the ways of fishing such as the new fishing equipment, fish calls, and whether any new bait had been discovered.

These fishermen built large, beautiful buildings called “Fishing Headquarters.” The pleas was that everyone should be a fisherman and every fisherman should fish. One thing they didn’t do, however: They didn’t fish.

In addition to meeting regularly, they organized a board to send out fishermen to other places where there were many fish. The board hired staffs and appointed committees and held many meetings to define fishing, to defend fishing, and to decide what new streams should be thought about. But the staff and committee members did not fish.

Large, elaborate, and expensive training centers were built whose original and primary purpose was to teach fishermen how to fish, the nature of fish, where to find fish, the psychological reactions of fish, and how to approach and feed fish. Those who taught had doctorates in fishology, but the teachers did not fish. They only taught fishing. Year after year, after tedious training, many were graduated and were given fishing licenses. They were sent to do full-time fishing, some to distant waters which were filled with fish.

Many who felt the call to be fishermen responded. They were commissioned and sent to fish. but like the fishermen back home, they engaged in all kinds of other occupations. They built power plants to pump water for fish and tractors to plow new waterways. They made all kinds of equipment to travel here and there to look at fish hatcheries. Some also said that they wanted to be part of the fishing party, but they felt called to furnish fishing equipment. Others felt their job was to relate to the fish in a good way so the fish would know the difference between good and bad fishermen. Others felt that simply letting the fish know they were nice, land-loving neighbors and how loving and kind they were was enough.

After one stirring meeting on “The Necessity for Fishing,” one young fellow left the meeting and went fishing. The next day he reported that he had caught two outstanding fish. He was honored for his excellent catch and scheduled to visit all the big meetings possible to tell how he did it. So he quit his fishing in order to have time to tell about the experience to the other fishermen. He was also placed on the Fishermen’s General Board as a person having considerable experience.

Now it’s true that many of the fishermen sacrificed and put up with all kinds of difficulties. Some lived near the water and bore the smell of dead fish every day. They received the ridicule of some who made fun of their fishermen’s clubs and the fact that they claimed to be fishermen yet never fished. They wondered about those who felt is was of little use to attend the weekly meetings to talk about fishing. After all, were they not following the Master who said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men”?

Imagine how hurt some were when one day a person suggested that those who don’t catch fish were really not fishermen, no matter how much they claimed to be. Yet it did not sound correct. Is a person a fisherman if, year after year he never catches a fish? Is one following if he isn’t fishing?

Greek Term

Lexical Meaning

Scripture References

anaggello

report, announce

Acts 14:27; 15:4; 20:20, 27

anapeitho

persuade

18:13

anoigo

open

26:18

apaggello

proclaim, report

26:20

apodidomi

give out

4:33

apokrinomai

answer

3:12

apologeomai

defend oneself

25:8; 26:1

apologia

defense

22:1

apophtheggomai

declare boldly

2:14; 26:25

diakatelegchomai

defeat, refute

18:28

dialegomai

discuss

17:2, 17; 18:4, 19; 19:8, 9; 20:7; 24:25

diamarturomai

warn

2:40; 8:25; 10:42; 18:5; 20:21, 24; 23:11; 28:23

dianoigo

explain

17:3

diapher

spread a teaching

13:49

didasko

teach

11:26; 15:35; 18:11, 25; 20:20; 21:21, 28; 28:31

didacha

teaching

13:12

ekdiageomai

tell in detail

15:3

ektithami

explain, set forth

18:26; 28:23

exageomai

explain, interpret

15:12

epistarizo

strengthen

14:22; 15:32, 41; 18:23

euaggelizo

preach the gospel

5:42; 8:4, 12, 25, 35, 40; 11:20; 13:32; 14:7, 15, 21; 15:35; 16:10; 17:18

zatasis

debate

15:2

kataggeleus

proclaimer

17:18

kataggello

proclaim

4:2; 13:5; 15:36; 16:17; 17:3, 13

karusso

preach, announce

8:5; 9:20; 10:42; 19:13; 20:25; 28:31

laleo

speak

2:11; 4:1, 20, 29, 31; 5:20, 40; 8:25; 9:29; 11:19; 16:6, 13; 17:19; 18:9, 25; 26:26

leitourgeo

render service to God

13:2

martureo

bear witness, testify

23:11

marturomai

testify

20:26; 26:22

martus

witness

2:32, 3:15; 5:32; 10:39; 26:16

noutheteo

warn

20:31

hodageo

lead, guide, instruct

8:31

homileo

talk

24:26

parakaleo

appeal to

2:40; 11:23; 14:22;:32; 16:40; 20:1

paraklasis

exhortation

13:15

parrasiazomai

speak fearlessly

9:27, 28; 13:46; 14:3; 18:26; 19:8; 26:26

peitho

convince

13:43; 17:4; 18:4; 19:8, 16; 28:23

proskartereo

be busily engaged in

2:42; 6:4

proslaleo

speak to

13:43

stasis

dispute, argument

15:2

stereoo

make strong, make firm

16:5

sugcheo

confound

9:22

suzateo

dispute, debate, argue

6:9; 9:29

sumballo

converse

17:18; 18:27

sumbibazo

prove, offer proof

9:22

sunecho

absorbed in

18:5

huparetas

servant, helper

26:16

phtheggomai

call out loudly

4:18

Elton Trueblood, the Quaker scholar, once compared evangelism to fire. Evangelism occurs, he said, when Christians are so ignited by their contact with Christ that they in turn set other fires. It is easy to determine when something is aflame. It ignites other material. Any fire that does not spread will eventually go out. A church without evangelism is a contradiction in terms, just as a fire that does not burn is a contradiction.

v. 1

Listened

v. 3

was Lured

v. 3

Lied

v. 6

Looked

v. 6

Lusted

v. 8

Lost

For more than a year a little old charwoman who lived on the wrong side of the tracks had been trying to join a fashionable downtown church. The preacher was not eager to have a seedy looking person in faded, out-of-style clothes sitting in a pew next to his rich members. When she called for the fifth time to discuss membership, he put her off for the fifth time.

"I tell you what," said he unctuously, "you just go home tonight and have a talk with God about it. Later you can tell me what He said."

The poor woman went on her way. Weeks moved into months, and the preacher saw no more of her, and his conscience did hurt a little. Then one day he encountered her scrubbing floors in an office building, and felt impelled to inquire, "Did you have your little talk with God, Mrs. Washington?" he asked.

"Oh, my, yes," she said, "I talked with God, as you said."

"Ah, and what answer did He give you?

"Well, preacher," she said, pushing back a wisp of stringy hair with a sudsy hand, "God said for me not to get discouraged, but to keep trying. He said that He himself had been trying to get into your church for 20 years, with no more success than I have had."

Persons who have uneven temperaments appear to have a much greater chance of developing serious illness and of dying young than do those with other temperaments,

Drs. Barbara J. Betz and Caroline B. Thomas report in the Johns Hopkins Medical Journal. In 1948, Betz and Thomas classified 45 Johns Hopkins medical students in three personality groups on the basis of psychological tests and questionnaires. The students were listed either as “alphas,” described as cautious, reserved, quiet and undemanding; “betas,” spontaneous, active and outgoing; or “gammas,” moody, emotional and either over-or under-demanding.

Thirty years later, Betz and Thomas looked at the health records of the former students. They found that 77.3 percent of the gamma group suffered from major disorders, including cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease and emotional disturbances. The incidence of disorders was only 25 percent in the alpha group and 26.7 percent in the betas. The doctors repeated the study on another group of 127 male students from the classes of 1949 through 1964 with similar results. “Too often, gamma people get lost in their own emotions,” says Betz. “While a person’s temperament cannot be changed, more support from outside sources—such as more human contacts—might help lessen a gamma’s risk of disease.”

One day, Mr. Wilfred Grenfell, medical missionary to Labrador, was guest at a dinner in London together with a number of socially prominent British men and women.

During the course of the dinner, the lady seated next to him turned and said, "Is it true, Dr. Grenfell, that you are a missionary?"

Dr. Grenfell looked at her for a moment before replying, "Is it true, madam, that you are not?"

The eye is placed in the upper area of the head, so that by virtue of its position it's easy for it to entertain a high opinion of itself. The human hand drops down at the side of the body, so that it's natural for the eye to look down upon it in both a literal and figurative sense. But the hand knows how to speak up and defend its usefulness. Suddenly a fly alights on the eye. Instantly and instinctively the hand elevates itself and brushes the fly away, saying, "Who said, Eye, that you don't need me?" The hand goes on to plow the ground, sow the seed, and reap the harvest. It mills the wheat into flour and kneads the dough to make bread. Then it turns to the eye and says, "You, Eye, would have died long ago if it hadn't been for my labor for you. Without the food I've earned, you'd have become sightless and starved to death. You can't do without me any more than I can do without you." Paul rightly says, "The eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee" (1Co 12:21).

“We would be abler teachers of others, and less liable to be carried about by every wind of doctrine, if we sought to have a more intelligent understanding of the Word of God.

As the Holy Spirit, the Author of the Scriptures, alone can enlighten us rightly to understand them, we should constantly ask His teaching and His guidance unto all truth.

When the prophet Daniel sought to interpret Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, what did he do? He set himself to earnest prayer that God would open up the vision.

Therefore, if, for your own and others’ profiting, you desire to be ‘filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,’ remember that prayer is your best means of study. Like Daniel, you shall understand the dream, and its interpretation, when you have sought God.

You may force your way through many barriers to understanding with the leverage of prayer.

Thoughts and reasonings are like the steel wedges which give a hold on truth but prayer is the lever which open the treasure hidden within.”

- C. H. Spurgeon

One day Mark Twain took his little daughter on his knee and told her all about the rulers and other prominent men whom he had met in his travels. She listened attentively. When he had finished, she said, "Daddy, you know everybody but God, don't you?" Mark Twain was certainly an intelligent person. Yet he rejected God.

Everybody has the right to express what he thinks. That, of course, lets the crackpots in. But if you cannot tell a crackpot when you see one, then you ought to be taken in.

Neil Marten, a member of the British Parliament, was once giving a group of his constituents a guided tour of the Houses of Parliament. During the course of the visit, the group happened to meet Lord Hailsham, then lord chancellor, wearing all the regalia of his office. Hailsham recognized Marten among the group and cried, “Neil!” Not daring to question or disobey the “command,” the entire band of visitors promptly fell to their knees!

Once a spider built a beautiful web in an old house. He kept it clean and shiny so that flies would patronize it. The minute he got a “customer” he would clean up on him so the other flies would not get suspicious. Then one day this fairly intelligent fly came buzzing by the clean spiderweb. Old man spider called out, “Come in and sit.” But the fairly intelligent fly said, “No, sir. I don’t see other flies in your house, and I am not going in alone!” But presently he saw on the floor below a large crowd of flies dancing around on a piece of brown paper. He was delighted! He was not afraid if lots of flies were doing it. So he came in for a landing. Just before he landed, a bee zoomed by, saying, “Don’t land there, stupid! That’s flypaper!” But the fairly intelligent fly shouted back, “Don’t be silly. Those flies are dancing. There’s a big crowd there. Everybody’s doing it. That many flies can’t be wrong!”

Well, you know what happened. He died on the spot. Some of us want to be with the crowd so badly that we end up in a mess. What does it profit a fly (or a person) if he escapes the web only to end up in the glue?

To give yourself the best possible chance of playing to your potential, you must prepare for every eventuality. That means practice. Now I know that very often you “just don’t have the time.” In spite of that, if you really want to improve, you will have to make the decision, and then the commitment. There are no shortcuts. You must lay the proper foundation.

Marshall Duroc, an avowed atheist, was once telling Napoleon a very improbable story, at the same time giving his opinion that it was true. The Emperor remarked, "There are some men who are capable of believing everything but the Bible." There are some people who say they cannot believe the Bible, yet their capacities for believing anything that opposes the Bible are enormous.

D. L. Moody once wrote:

The church is full of people who want one eye for the world and the other for the kingdom of God. Therefore, everything is blurred; one eye is long and the other is short; all is confusion...When the Spirit of God is on us, the world looks very empty; the world has a very small hold on us, and we begin to let go our hold of it and lay hold of things eternal. This is the church’s need today.

Often, when a country’s government is overthrown, all the former paper currency is declared worthless, and a new currency issued. How tragic to have spent your life amassing the old, worthless currency! When we get to heaven, we may find the same tragedy—the things we worked so hard for on earth and valued so much are now worthless and useless.

Six ways to learn everything you ever need to know about a man before you decide to marry him:

1. Watch him drive in heavy traffic.

2. Play tennis with him.

3. Listen to him talk to his mother when he doesn’t know you’re listening.

4. See how he treats those who serve him (waiters, maids).

5. Notice what he’s willing to spend his money to buy.

6. Look at his friends. And if you still can’t make up your mind, then look at his shoes. A man who keeps his shoes in good repair generally tends to the rest of his life too.

The other day I came home from work to find a plate of peanut-butter snack bars on the kitchen counter. Accompanying the delectables was a note from my 12-year-old daughter Melissa to her grandparents. “Dear Grandma and Grandpa, I made these for you. Love, Melissa.” No one told her to do this. She didn’t have to. She just did it. But why? Was Melissa trying make sure that they loved her? Was she trying to win Brownie points (well, snack -bar points) with her grandparents? No she cooked up this little confectionery delight just to show her grandparents she loves them. It was evidence of their close relationship. She did it because she is their granddaughter, not to somehow earn the right to be their granddaughter.

That’s how it is with the good works we should do as followers of Jesus Christ. We don’t do good works so we can win a place in heaven. Rather, our good deeds show evidence of our salvation and faith in Christ. Jesus did all the work of providing salvation. But we still have to work. Why? Not to win His favor but to show our love. It’s an outpouring of a grateful heart. - JDB

The 19th-century pastor Henry Ward Beecher told of a mother in the wild frontier country who was washing clothes beside a stream. Her only child was playing nearby. Suddenly she realized he was no longer near her. She called his name, but there was no answer. Alarmed, the mother ran to the house, but her son was not there. In wild distress, the frightened woman dashed out to the forest. There she found the child, but it was too late. The youngster had been killed by a wolf. Heartbroken, she picked up the lifeless body, drew it close to her heart, and tenderly carried it home. Beecher concluded, “Oh, how that mother hated wolves!” Understandably, she detested them because of what they had done to her beloved child.

Every Christian parent should feel that way about evil. Like a wild wolf, it can destroy children. Many mothers and fathers who are so careful to guard their youngsters from physical harm don’t notice the sinful forces that threaten the spiritual welfare of their boys and girls. As a result, they leave them unprotected. They show little concern for the friends their children make, the magazines they read, or the TV programs they watch. But if any of these influences are evil, they should be viewed as a deadly threat. Like the psalmist, we must determine, “I will not know wickedness” (Psalm 101:4). And we should protect our children from it.

The mother in Beecher’s story had good reason to hate wolves. And, as parents, we should hate evil with that same passion. - R.W.D.

Evil is the product of the misuse of God-given freedom and that the possibility that free beings might choose evil rather than good is a necessary part of human freedom .As it is logically impossible for God to create a free being who automatically does what is right (in this case there would be no freedom) he has therefore introduced into the creation a freedom which is neither conditioned nor predetermined .he has chosen to create a world in which there are free creatures because it is the best possible way towards the kind of people God ultimately desires .God is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good but that it was not within God’s power to create a world containing moral good without creating one containing the possibility of moral evil. The risk of evil is therefore a necessary part of free existence and is incompatible with neither the power nor the love of God.

I shall never forget going on a picnic with my schoolmates and my uncle who was the teacher. We were playing with a little ball, and it got caught in the top of a tree. The teacher was angry about it and wanted to know who threw it there. Because my uncle was the teacher, they all ganged up on me as the culprit. The result was that my uncle broke quite a good-sized stick on my back punishing me. That was punishment unrighteously administered because of a lie. Thus, this expression, "a world of iniquity" in Jam 3:6, actually means that both a great amount and a great variety of unrighteousness is caused by the evil use of the tongue.

Julian Huxley was committed to an evolutionary humanism. He believed: “Man’s most sacred duty and at the same time his most glorious opportunity, is to promote the maximum fulfillment of the evolutionary process on this earth; and this includes the fullest realization of his own inherent possibilities.”

Royt Blount, quoted by Karin Winegar in Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune When Ralph Houk was manager of the New York Yankees, baseball schedules were even more exacting than they are now, with double-headers almost every week. Occasionally a player would get sick of the grind and approach Houk, asking for permission to sit out a game.

“I know how you feel,” the manager would say genially. “Sure, take the day off, But do me a favor. You’re in the starting lineup. Just play one inning. Then skip the rest of the game.”

The player would honor Houk’s request—and almost invariably get caught up in the spirit of the game and play it out to the end.

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.

A young man entered training as an art student in London. During those years he thought he would draw a portrait of Christ. He was disappointed. In trying to reveal tenderness and sympathy, he portrayed only weakness, and he tore up the portrait. He tried again later but failed to satisfy himself.

War broke out, and his work came to an end. He went to camp and was finally sent to France and to the front. He was billeted in a French chateau in a room with nine other men. When he went to bed the first night he was distressed to see over the beds of the other fellows horrible drawings from some of the vulgar papers that were circulated in France in those days. He was tempted impetuously to pull them down, but remembered that everyone had a perfect right to put on his wall space anything he liked, so instead he planned what he should do with his space.

The only spare time he had was in the night, and his drawing material was a plain postcard and a pencil. He determined to try again to draw a head of Christ. He worked upon his drawing for several nights with only a candle to give him light; and when it was finished, he nervously pinned it on his wall. He did not know what the men would say or do when they saw it in the morning. They simply looked at it, said nothing and went out.

In a few days all the other pictures were pulled down and only his drawing remained. He had exalted the risen Christ in testimony to those around him.