Pastoral Resources

Pray for:

1. Protection from Satan’s attacks on their faith and calling, tempting them to quit and go home.

2. God protect their marriages and families. Protect them from doing so much work that they neglect their families.

3. Protect them from getting so busy doing things for God that they forget to sit and listen to Him.

4. They could forget to find unhurried time for Bible meditation and prayer.

5. Protect them from losing their spirit of worship, love and devotion to you, Lord.

6. Protect them from divisiveness, criticism and crankiness with each other.

7. Protect their unity in Christ, their love for each other, their commitment to each other.

8. Protect their willingness to serve one another, and to esteem their sisters and brothers better than themselves.

9. Protect them from conflicts with local believers and national church leaders.

10. Protect them from squabbling over budgets and properties.

11. Protect them from misinterpreting each other’s motives.

12. Protection from even hinting that the way we do it in America is best.

13. Protection from using their control of money to get their own way.

14. Unity in Christ among missionaries and believers is so important because unbelievers watch them. So they can see and grasp the good news that God loves them so much that He sent Jesus to this world.

15. Protection from defection for their souls, not their bodies.

16. Our primary concern should be for our missionaries perseverance in faith.

Jesus did ask God to protect his disciples, but not the kind of protection we usually think of. He warned them of what might happen. He simply asked His Father to protect the disciples “so that they be one as we are one.”

1. They needed protection from fighting, jealousy and clamoring for position.

2. If the evil one cannot destroy their faith, he will disrupt their work by sowing dissension in their ranks.

3. If he can get our missionaries or us to believe gossip and suspect each other’s motives, Satan does not have to resort to terrorism.

4. If he can maneuver them into head-on collisions with the national believers, he doesn’t need car crashes to wipe them out.

Lord, teach us to pray for our missionaries more effectively, daily.

John Paton was a missionary in the New Hebrides Islands. One night hostile natives surrounded the mission station, intent on burning out the Patons and killing them. Paton and his wife prayed during that terror-filled night that God would deliver them. When daylight came they were amazed to see their attackers leave.

A year later, the chief of the tribe was converted to Christ. Remembering what had happened, Paton asked the chief what had kept him from burning down the house and killing them. The chief replied in surprise, “Who were all those men with you there?” Paton knew no men were present—but the chief said he was afraid to attack because he had seen hundreds of big men in shining garments with drawn swords circling the mission station.

In 1858 Scottish missionary John G. Paton and his wife sailed for the New Hebrides (now called Vanuatu) Three months after arriving on the island of Tanna, his wife died. One week later his infant son also died.

Paton was plunged into sorrow. Feeling terribly alone, and surrounded by savage people who showed him no sympathy, he wrote, “Let those who have ever passed through any similar darkness as of midnight feel for me. As for all other, it would be more than vain to try to paint my sorrows.…But for Jesus, and [His} fellowship, I [would] have gone mad and died.”

A number of years ago Norman Cousins wrote an editorial in Saturday Review in which he reported a conversation he had on a trip in India. He was talking with a Hindu priest named Satis Prasad. The man said he wanted to come to our country to work as a missionary among the Americans. Cousins assumed that he meant that he wanted to convert Americans to the Hindu religion, but when asked, Satis Prasad said, “Oh no, I would like to convert them to the Christian religion. Christianity cannot survive in the abstract. It needs not membership, but believers. The people of your country may claim they believe in Christianity, but from what I read at this distance, Christianity is more a custom than anything else. I would ask that either you accept the teachings of Jesus in your everyday life and in your affairs as a nation, or stop invoking His name as sanction for everything you do. I want to help save Christianity for the Christian.”

James Gilmour, a missionary to Mongolia, was once asked to treat some wounded soldiers. Although he was not a doctor, he did have some knowledge of first aid, so he felt he could not refuse the request. He dressed the wounds of two of the men, but a third had a badly broken thigh bone. The missionary had no idea what to do for such an injury. Kneeling beside the man, he asked the Lord for help. He didn’t know how God would answer his prayers, but he was confident that his need would be supplied. He couldn’t find any books on physiology in the primitive hospital, and no doctor arrived. To complicate matters, a crowd of beggars came to him asking for money. He was deeply concerned about his patient, yet his heart went out to those ragged paupers.

Hurriedly he gave them a small gift, plus a few kind words of spiritual admonition. A moment later he stared in amazement at one weary beggar who had remained behind. The half-starved fellow was little more than a living skeleton. The missionary suddenly realized that the Lord had brought him a walking lesson in anatomy! He asked the elderly man if he might examine him. After carefully tracing the femur bone with his fingers to learn how to treat the soldier’s broken leg, he returned to the patient and was able to set the fracture.

Years afterward, Gilmour often related how God had provided him with a strange yet sufficient response to his earnest prayer. When we raise our petitions, we too can be certain that the Lord will help us—even though the answer comes by way of those who “have no power.”

Dr. Helen Roseveare, missionary to Zaire, told the following story.

“A mother at our mission station died after giving birth to a premature baby. We tried to improvise an incubator to keep the infant alive, but the only hot water bottle we had was beyond repair. So we asked the children to pray for the baby and for her sister. One of the girls responded. ‘Dear God, please send a hot water bottle today. Tomorrow will be too late because by then the baby will be dead. And dear Lord, send a doll for the sister so she won’t feel so lonely.’ That afternoon a large package arrived from England. The children watched eagerly as we opened it. Much to their surprise, under some clothing was a hot water bottle! Immediately the girl who had prayed so earnestly started to dig deeper, exclaiming, ‘If God sent that, I’m sure He also sent a doll!’ And she was right!

The heavenly Father knew in advance of that child’s sincere requests, and 5 months earlier He had led a ladies’ group to include both of those specific articles.”

“We have now become the kind of society that in the 19th century almost every Christian denomination felt compelled to missionize.”

In 1722, Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf of Saxony founded a colony of pietist believers called “Herrnhut,” later known as Moravians.

He also traveled to America and set up communities that began to send out missionaries, first to Greenland, then to the West Indies, then beyond.

By the time Zinzendorf died in 1760 some 300 missionaries, all laypersons, had gone out from the various colonies.

In 1738 when some of the challenges of missionary life had become clear, Zinzendorf wrote his famous instructions, many of which sound strangely modern, despite their 18th-century language. Here is a selection, reprinted with permission from World Encounter, mission magazine of the Lutheran Church in America, copyright 1980.

It is better to send people into the wide world than to send no one. But you should be warned about the following temptations:

1. To have even the slightest dealings with clergymen.

2. To think about your purpose in the land only when you get there.

3. To test your vocation on the heathen once you are among them.

4. To give up because something doesn’t work immediately.

5. To begin to make your home too comfortable, forgetting that you are really a traveler, a pilgrim among the nations.

6. To be prejudiced against the heathen because they are neither efficient nor pious, and to be irritated by how badly they run things.

7. To seek even the slightest advantage at the expense of your brothers.

8. To fill up whole diaries with descriptions of difficulties but write little or nothing about the ways in which our Savior has helped you.

9. To forget that one can do far more with a believing heart than with many word.

10. To judge your colleagues and particularly your superiors according to their personalities and then allow your relationship to be influenced by whether or not you approve of them.

11. To make a general rule of the experience you and two or three others have had.

12. To make so many plans that in the end you can’t carry out any of them, but throw up the whole task.

13. Out of boredom to make up new articles of faith.

14. Vindictiveness.

15. To lose sight of the Savior.

16. Letting a quarrel last longer than a day.

17. To reflect and think that if you were somewhere else you would not have to die, or that things would be different for you; to think that the present lot which God has given to you can be avoided.

18. For any pretext or whatever reason to give the devil an opportunity to outwit us, to cast us down or to rob us of our peace.

19. It is not always a bad sign to be troubled by something.

20. To embellish the heathen with names of people, not even those of Luther, Herrnhut or Zinzendorf.

Perspectives on Evangelical Theology, K. Kantzer, S. Gundry, Baker, 1979.

The Future of Biblical Theology, G.F. Hasel, p. 179.

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Studies in Theology, James Denney, Hodder & Stoughton, 1895, p. 202, "Holy Scripture"

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J.B. Lightfoot, Philippians, Zondervan, p. 181ff

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A good bit of one-upmanship has transpired over the years between Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, the two Mississippians in this week’s showdown for Bob Dole’s job as Senate majority leader. But as Jackson columnist Bill Minor notes, their rivalry pales when compared with a feud waged six decades ago by two other Mississippi senators.

The nation knew the state’s junior senator, Theodore Bilbo, as a race-baiting demagogue, the author of a bill to ship blacks to Africa. But many Mississippians revered him as a champion of the poor and foe of the mighty. Others in the state despised him as a bribe-taking crook. One rival, preparing to discuss Bilbo in a stump speech, shed his coat and said, “Excuse me. I’m going to skin a skunk. Ladies had better leave.”

Mississippi’s senior senator, Pat Harrison, had helped engineer Franklin Roosevelt’s early New Deal. When the Senate majority leader’s job opened up in 1937, Harrison went after it. Nose counts put him in a tie with Kentucky’s Alben Barkley. Harrison’s campaign manager asked Bilbo to consider voting for his fellow Mississippian. Bilbo said he would if Harrison asked him to. That was a big if. Harrison loathed Bilbo and hadn’t spoken to him in years. The response was swift: “Tell the son of a bitch I wouldn’t speak to him even if it meant the presidency of the United States.”

When the ballots were in, Pat Harrison was a one-vote loser. But his reputation as the senator who wouldn’t speak to his home-state colleague remained intact. - by Lewis Lord

In the New York Times last year: “The ‘Candidates on Television’ listing yesterday misspelled the name of the Vice President in some editions. It is Quayle, not Quale. The Tmise regrets the error.”

Surprised while burglarizing a house in Antwerp, Belgium, the thief fled out the back door, clambered over a nine-foot wall, dropped down the other side, and found himself in the city prison. Oops!

When I was young I was sure of everything; in a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before; at present, I am hardly sure of anything but what God has revealed to me. - John Wesley

Are you strong enough to face how mistaken many of your most cherished beliefs are?

1. Marie Antionette did not say “Let them eat cake.” The phrase was attributed to her by those in opposition to Louis XVI, but had actually been used by other prominent figures long before.

2. Charles Lindbergh was not the first person to fly nonstop across the Atlantic. He was the 92nd, although he was the first to do it alone.

3. The centipede doesn’t have a hundred legs; it usually has 21 or 30, though some have more than 100. And the millipede certainly doesn’t have a thousand legs; very few have more than 200.

4. “A red flag to a bull” is meaningless—because bulls are colorblind.

5. The Emperor Nero did not fiddle while Rome burned. Fiddles had not been invented, and at the time of the fire he was 35 miles away.

6. An ostrich never buries its head in the sand. It only looks that way when it lowers its head in fear, to feed itself, or to cover its eggs for protection.

For many years, U.S. Vice Presidents made their home in the Willard Hotel. One night in 1922, a fire caused the evacuation of the hotel. Vice President Calvin Coolidge started to return to his room, but the fire marshal stopped him. The marshal let him proceed when the VP informed the man that he was the Vice President. Before Coolidge had gone more than a few steps, however, the fire marshal asked, “What are you Vice President of?”

“I’m Vice President of the United States!” Coolidge said.

The fireman ordered Coolidge to get back with the rest of the crowd, saying, “I thought you were vice president of the hotel.”

W. Michael Blumenthal, chairman of Unisys, talks about the mistakes he made in hiring: In choosing people for top positions, you have to try to make sure they have a clear sense of what is right and wrong, a willingness to be truthful, the courage to say what they think and to do what they think is right, even if the politics militate against that. This is the quality that should really be at the top. I was too often impressed by the intelligence and substantive knowledge of an individual and did not always pay enough attention to the question of how honest, courageous and good a person the individual really was.

The Karankawa Indians, who used to inhabit the lower Gulf plains of Texas and Mexico, met their demise in the middle of the Texas Revolution in 1836. It seems that Captain Philip Dimmit, who owned a ranch north of present-day Corpus Christi, used to give the Karankawas beef whenever they were in the area. At the outbreak of the Revolution, however, Dimmit left his ranch to serve with the Texans. In Dimmit’s absence, the Indians rounded up a few cattle. As they ate the beef, a party of Mexican soldiers rode up and demanded to know what they were doing. “We are Captain Dimmit’s friends,” the Karankawas replied. When the Mexicans heard this they attacked, killing many and causing the rest to flee. The remaining Karankawas later met a party of Texans. Fearing another assault, the Indians began shouting, “Viva Mexico!” Immediately the Texans attacked, and only a few of the hapless Karankawas escaped.

temptation itself is sin

We fall into temptation

God is disappointed and displeased when we are tempted

To be strongly tempted means we are as guilty as if we had actually committed sin.

We overcome all temptation by separation from it

When I am spiritually mature, I will no longer be harassed by temptation

When the preacher’s car broke down on a country road, he walked to a nearby roadhouse to use the phone. After calling for a tow truck, he spotted his old friend, Frank, drunk and shabbily dressed at the bar. “What happened to you, Frank?” asked the good reverend. “You used to be rich.”

Frank told a sad tale of bad investments that had led to his downfall. “Go home,” the preacher said. Open your Bible at random, stick your finger on the page and there will be God’s answer.”

Some time later, the preacher bumped into Frank, who was wearing a Gucci suit, sporting a Rolex watch and had just stepped our of a Mercedes. “Frank.” said the preacher, “I am glad to see things really turned around for you.”

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

For hardy whalers, no ocean was too wide to cross in pursuit of their mighty prizes. In 1819, more than a dozen ships where launched from Nantucket, all headed for distant Pacific hunting grounds. One, the three-masted Essex, was to suffer a calamity so dramatic that its fate inspired a classic American novel—Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

For months the ship survived the hazards of rounding Cape Horn and taking its prey. But one day a mammoth sperm whale rammed the Essex head-on. Then the leviathan passed under the vessel, turned, and attacked again. The whale hit, as first mate Owen Chase recalled, “with ten-fold fury and vengeance.” The crew abandoned ship, and from their whaleboats watched as the Essex slid into the sea.

If the Christian wants to receive any benefit as he looks in the mirror of the Word of God, he must approach it with humility. A man can counterfeit hope and all the other graces, but it is very difficult to counterfeit humility. One soon detects mock humility.

Another survey conducted by the Lutheran Brotherhood asked, “Are there absolute standards for morals and ethics or does everything depend on the situation?” Seventy-nine percent of the respondents in the 18-34 age group said that standards did not exist and that the situation should always dictate behavior. Three percent said they were not sure.

If this poll is correct, 82 percent of all students believe that right and wrong are relative terms and that morality is a ridiculous concept. This is the den of lions into which I walk every day. It is called the modern American classroom.

Think twice before buying another “convenience.” In an episode of Cathy Guisewite’s comic strip “Cathy,” the kitchen equipment of the ‘50s shows a pan, a spoon and a knife. Out of it came a typical Sunday dinner of roast chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, salad, two vegetables, homemade rolls and an apple pie. It then show the standard equipment of the ‘90s: food processor, bread maker, pasta maker, juicer, rice steamer, laser-cut European knife system, 20-piece cookware set. The typical Sunday dinner of the ‘90s? Microwave pizza.

If a person is a seeker after signs from heaven in order that he or others may believe, do you realize that he falls into the same category as those who tempted Jesus and is classified by the Lord Jesus as belonging to a wicked generation? The word of God should be the basis of our proclamation that Jesus Christ has done enough for Him to be declared the Son of God.

Modern thinkers have rejected the very idea of objective morality: Darwin, who reduced morals to an extension of animal instincts; Freud, who regarded repression of impulses as the source of neurosis; Marx, who disdained morality as an expression of self-interest.

The dilemma of an unclear sense of personal identity was illustrated by an incident in the life of the famous German philosopher Schleiermacher, who did much to shape the progress of modern thought. The story is told that one day as an old man he was sitting alone on a bench in a city park. A policeman thinking that he was a vagrant came over and shook him and asked, “Who are you?” Schleiermacher replied sadly, “I wish I knew.”

Though suffering from the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, Mohammed Ali still can joke about his illness. “It’s a blessing,” he says. “I always liked to chase the girls—Parkinson’s stops all that. Now I might have a chance to go to heaven.”

The former boxing champ sees his disease as creating another destiny for him as well. Ali’s travels now take him to charity benefits for organizations such as UNICEF, the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor, and Best Buddies, an organization for the mentally retarded. Wherever he is, he plunges in among the sick and the poor, offering himself up as vehicle for worldwide healing.

“With everything I do,” he says, “I ask myself, Will God accept this? One day you’ll wake up and it’ll be Judgment Day, so you need to do good deeds. I love going to hospitals. I love sick people. I don’t worry about disease.”

When I stand at the judgment seat of Christ

And He shows me His plan for me;

The plan of my life as it might have been

Had He had His way, and I see

How I blocked Him here and I checked Him there

And I would not yield my will,

Shall I see grief in my Savior’s eyes;

Grief though He loves me still?

Oh, He’d have me rich, and I stand there poor,

Stripped of all but His grace,

While my memory runs like a hunted thing

Down the paths I can’t retrace.

Then my desolate heart will well-nigh break

With tears that I cannot shed.

I’ll cover my face with my empty hands

And bow my uncrowned head.

No. Lord of the years that are left to me

I yield them to Thy hand.

Take me, make me, mold me

To the pattern Thou hast planned.

When God wants to drill a man,

And thrill a man, And skill a man,

When God wants to mold a man

To play the noblest part;

When He yearns with all His heart.

To create so great and bold a man

That all the world shall be amazed,

Watch His methods, watch His ways!

How He ruthlessly perfects

Whom He royally elects!

How He hammers him and hurts him,

And with mighty blows converts him

Into trial shapes of clay which

Only God understands;

While his tortured heart is crying

And he lifts beseeching hands!

How He bends but never breaks

When his good He undertakes;

How He uses whom He chooses,

And with every purpose fuses him;

By every act induces him

To try His splendor out—

God knows what He’s about!

To my kids who have left home and are on their own, I pass on a list of life lessons:

1. Don’t sweat your every mistake or faux pas. They make up for the things you got away with that nobody knows about.

2. Avoid marrying anyone who deliberately flushes the toilet when you’re taking a shower.

3. When someone tells you that what he’s about to say is “for your own good,” expect the worst.

4. The value of a dog is its constant reminder of how much fun it is to be idiotic.

5. If you are lavishly praised, enjoy the taste but don’t swallow it whole.

6. When a politician says, “Let me make something perfectly clear,” remember that he usually won’t.

7. Your children may leave home, but their stuff will be in your attic and basement forever.

8. If someone says, “I know what I mean, but I just can’t put it into words,” he doesn’t know what he means.

9. Two people cannot operate a TV remote control in the same room at the same time.

10. Don’t waste time trying to be your own best friend. You can’t pat yourself on the back, and it’s unsatisfying to cry on your own shoulder. Find a real friend instead.

From the rule of St. Benedict, Sixth Century A.D.

If any pilgrim monk come from distant parts, with wish as a guest to dwell in the monastery, and will be content with the customs which he finds in the place, and do not perchance by his lavishness disturb the monastery, but is simply content with what he finds, he shall be received, for as long a time as he desires. If, indeed, he find fault with anything, or expose it, reasonably, and with the humility of charity, the Abbot shall discuss it prudently, lest perchance God has sent him for this very thing. But if he have been found gossipy and contumacious in the time of his sojourn as guest, not only ought he not to be joined to the body of the monastery, but also it shall be said to him, honestly, that he must depart. If he does not go, let two stout monks, in the name of God, explain the matter to him.

All publishers receive strange letters from readers, but this one to the Christian Science Monitor is a classic:

Dear Sir: When I subscribed a year ago you stated that if I was not satisfied at the end of the year I could have my money back. Well, I would like to have it back. On second thought, to save you the trouble, you may apply it on my next year’s subscription.”

Money can be hazardous to your health. Two medical researchers at the University of Louisville have been looking into the question and have found that “13%” of the coins and 42% of the paper money carry disease-producing organisms.” Small denomination coins and bills are more dangerous because of their rapid turnover.

“Money often comes between men and God. Someone has said that you can take two small ten-cent pieces, just two dimes, and shut out the view of a panoramic landscape. Go to the mountains and just hold two coins closely in front of your eyes—the mountains are still there, but you cannot see them at all because there is a dime shutting off the vision in each eye.”

It doesn’t take large quantities of money to come between us and God; just a little, placed in the wrong position, will effectively obscure our view.

- Cedric Gowler

A London newspaper offered a prize for the best definition of money. It was awarded to a young man whose definition was, "Money is an article which may be used as a universal passport to everywhere except heaven and as a universal provider of everything except happiness."

A man gave several thousand dollars to help build a church. Then came the 1929 Stock Market crash. He lost everything. Someone said, "If you had that money you gave to start the church, you would have had enough to set yourself up in business again." He replied, "I would have lost that money, too, in the crash. As it is, it is the only money I saved. It is now in the bank of heaven, yielding interest which will accumulate until eternity." Hundreds have come to Christ through the church he helped build.

Oakland, Calif. (AP) - People jumped out of cars in rush hour traffic, grabbing bags of money that fell out of a Brink’s armored truck, and apparently got away with it.

“I saw one guy strike an old lady who was reaching for one bag,” said Willie Greenwood, who was behind the truck in his car when the Brink’s back door popped open and out plopped the bags.

“Another guy jumped onto my bumper and leaped into the crowd,” said Greenwood. “It went on for three or four minutes. I couldn’t move my car because there were so many people in the street.”

Brinks’ representatives wouldn’t say how much money was lost in the Wednesday morning rush hour scramble at the intersection of 14th and Harrison streets.

But bags of coins hit the pavement, scattering and rolling every which way and sacks of bills fell out too, according to Greenwood, 28, a stock clerk for American President Lines.

“It was crazy,” he said. “All the traffic stopped. People were coming from every direction. They were grabbing money and putting it in their pockets. Old people, young people and guys in business suits.”

Greenwood grabbed a plastic bag of coins wedged beneath the front tire of his car. Then he telephoned the police.

“I tried to tell them what had happened, but they kept me on hold for so long I finally hung up,” Greenwood said.

Godfrey Davis, who wrote a biography about the Duke of Willington, said, “I found an old account ledger that showed how the Duke spent his money. It was a far better clue to what he thought was really important than the reading of his letters or speeches.”

How we handle money reveals much about the depth of our commitment to Christ. That’s why Jesus often talked about money. One-sixth of the gospels, including one out of every three parables, touches on stewardship. Jesus wasn’t a fundraiser. He dealt with money matters because money matters. For some of us, though, it matters too much.

The percentage of adults who say they would spend money on this first if they suddenly became wealthy:

House

31

Education for kids/self

30

Vacation

10

Car

9

Help for kids/family

3

Charity

2

Household help

2

Pay off debt

2

Boat

2

Investments

1

Clothes/jewelry

1

Others

7

It was reported that eleven millionaires went down on the Titanic. Major A. H. Peuchen left $300,000 in money, jewelry, and securities in a box in his cabin. “The money seemed a mockery at that time,” he later said. “I picked up three oranges instead.”

a bed but not sleep;

books but not brains;

food but not appetite;

finery but not beauty;

a house but not a home;

medicine but not health;

luxuries but not culture;

amusements but not happiness;

religion but not salvation;

a passport to everywhere but heaven.

Some time ago, zoo officials in Kirby, Misperton, England, had to pay visitors for articles stolen by monkeys. But what puzzled them was the favorite item the animals snatched: Eyeglasses. An investigation revealed the reason. The monkeys grabbed the glasses when visitors leaned over to read a small sign on the wall of the cage. The sign said: “Beware! These monkeys steal spectacles.”

A new study from the University of Chicago lends credence to what the Bible has taught for two millennia: monogamous marriage yields the most satisfying romance to be had. Contrary to what network scriptwriters might have us believe, the survey found that married spouses have sex more often and enjoy it more than singles.

Other important findings:

88 percent of married couples report having emotionally satisfying sex lives

94 percent of married couples were faithful sexually in the past year

I am steadfastly for monogamy. Adultery is almost certainly going to make a dent in trust and intimacy, and in many cases I’ve known, it has destroyed them altogether. A woman who is conducting a secret affair has to become deliberately deceitful…like a CIA agent or spy. She can’t just come home and spill forth the events of her day. She’s got to think, What can I safely talk about, and what have I got to keep to myself?

So even when the infidelity isn’t discovered, it changes who you are. A person goes from being a candid, open human being to a secretive, hidden one.

Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness. - Margaret Millar

Monuments are often built with the stones thrown at people during their lifetimes. An example: Charles Spurgeon published several articles about heresy in the Baptist churches (the ‘Downgrade’ controversy). The Baptist Union had to deal with him, and did so. Yet upon his death an imposing statue of Spurgeon was placed at the entrance to the headquarters building of the Baptist Union.

Pornography consumption can be as “mood altering” and addictive as narcotics, reports a study by Richard Drake, assistant professor at Brigham Young University College of Nursing.

The average age of first time contact of pornography among sex addicts is 11.

I said to my little family, one morning, a few weeks before the Chicago fire, "I am coming home this afternoon to give you a ride." My little boy clapped his hands. "Oh, papa, will you take me to see the bears in Lincoln Park?" "Yes." You know boys are very fond of seeing bears. I had not been gone long when my little boy said, "Mamma, I wish you would get me ready." "Oh," she said, "it will be a long time before papa comes." "But I want to get ready, mamma." At last he was ready to have the ride, face washed, and clothes all nice and clean. "Now, you must take good care and not get yourself dirty again," said mamma. Oh, of course he was going to take care; he wasn't going to get dirty. So off he ran to watch for me. However, it was a long time yet until the afternoon, and after a little he began to play. When I got home, I found him outside, with his face all covered with dirt. "I can't take you to the Park that way, Willie." "Why, papa? you said you would take me." "Ah, but I can't; you're all over mud. I couldn't be seen with such a dirty little boy." "Why, I'se clean, papa; mamma washed me." "Well, you've got dirty since." But he began to cry, and I could not convince him that he was dirty. "I'se clean; mamma washed me!" he cried. Do you think I argued with him? No. I just took him up in my arms, and carried him into the house, and showed him his face in the looking-glass. He had not a word to say. He could not take my word for it; but one look at the glass was enough; he saw it for himself. He didn't say he wasn't dirty after that!

Now the looking-glass showed him that his face was dirty--but I did not take the looking-glass to wash it; of course not. Yet that is just what thousands of people do. The law is the looking-glass to see ourselves in, to show us how vile and worthless we are in the sight of God; but they take the law and try to wash themselves with it.

A number of years ago as I was coming out of a daily prayer meeting in one of our Western cities, a lady came up to me and said: "I want to have you see my husband and ask him to come to Christ." She says, "I want to have you go and see him." She told me his name, and it was a man I had heard of before. "Why," said I, "I can't go and see your husband.

He is a booked infidel. I can't argue with him. He is a good deal older than I am, and it would be out of place. Then I am not much for infidel argument." "Well, Mr. Moody," she says, "that ain't what he wants. He's got enough of that. Just ask him to come to the Saviour." She urged me so hard and so strong, that I consented to go. I went to the office where the judge was doing business, and told him what I had come for. He laughed at me. "You are very foolish," he said, and began to argue with me. I said, "I don't think it will be profitable for me to hold an argument with you. I have just one favor I want to ask of you, and that is, that when you are converted you will let me know." "Yes," said he, "I will do that. When I am converted I will let you know"--with a good deal of sarcasm.

I went off, and requests for prayer were sent here and to Fulton street, New York, and I thought the prayers there and of that wife would be answered if mine were not. A year and a half after, I was in that city, and a servant came to the door and said: "There is a man in the front parlor who wishes to see you." I found the Judge there; he said: "I promised I would let you know when I was converted." "Well," said I, "tell me all about it." I had heard it from other lips, but I wanted to hear it from his own. He said his wife had gone out to a meeting one night and he was home alone, and while he was sitting there by the fire he thought: "Supposing my wife is right, and my children are right; suppose there is a heaven and a hell, and I shall be separated from them." His first thought was, "I don't believe a word of it." The second thought came, "You believe in the God that created you, and that the God that created you is able to teach you. You believe that God can give you life." "Yes, the God that created me can give me life. I was too proud to get down on my knees by the fire, and said, 'O God, teach me.' And as I prayed, I don't understand it, but it began to get very dark, and my heart got very heavy. I was afraid to tell my wife, and I pretended to be asleep. She kneeled down beside that bed, and I knew she was praying for me. I kept crying, 'O God, teach me.' I had to change my prayer, 'O God save me; O God, take away this burden.' But it grew darker and darker, and the load grew heavier and heavier. All the way to my office I kept crying, 'O God, take away this load of guilt; I gave my clerks a holiday, and just closed my office and locked the door. I fell down on my face; I cried in agony to my Lord, 'O Lord, for Christ's sake take away this guilt.' I don't know how it was, but it began to grow very light. I said, I wonder if this isn't what they call conversion. I think I will go and ask the minister if I am not converted. I met my wife at the door and said, 'My dear, I've been converted.' She looked in amazement. 'Oh it's a fact; I've been converted! We went into that drawing-room and knelt down by the sofa and prayed to God to bless us." The old Judge said to me, the tears trickling down his cheeks, "Mr. Moody, I've enjoyed life more in the last three months than in all the years of my life put together." If there is an infidel here--if there is a skeptical one here, ask God to give you wisdom to come now. Let us reason together, and if you become acquainted with God the day will not go before you receive light from Him.

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.

I have good news to tell you--Christ is come after you. I was at the Fulton-street prayer-meeting, a good many years ago, one Saturday night, and when the meeting was over, a man came to me and said, "I would like to have you go down to the city prison to-morrow, and preach to the prisoners. I said I would be very glad to go. There was no chapel in connection with that prison, and I was to preach to them in their cells. I had to stand at a little iron railing and talk down a great, long narrow passageway, to some three or four hundred of them, I suppose, all out of sight. It was pretty difficult work; I never preached to the bare walls before. When it was over I thought I would like to see to whom I had been preaching, and how they had received the gospel. I went to the first door, where the inmates could have heard me best, and looked in at a little window, and there were some men playing cards. I suppose they had been playing all the while. "How is it with you here?" I said. "Well, stranger, we don't want you to get a bad idea of us. False witnesses swore a lie, and that is how we are here." "Oh," I said, "Christ cannot save anybody here; there is nobody lost." I went to the next cell. "Well, friend, how is it with you?" "Oh," said the prisoner, "the man that did the deed looked very much like me, so they caught me and I am here." He was innocent, too! I passed along to the next cell. "How is it with you?'" "Well, we got into bad company, and the man that did it got clear, and we got taken up, but we never did anything." I went along to the next cell "How is it with you?" "Our trial comes on next week, but they have nothing against us, and we'll get free." I went round to nearly every cell but the answer was always the same--they had never done anything. Why, I never saw so many innocent men together in my life. There was nobody to blame but the magistrates, according to their way of it. These men were wrapping their filthy rags of self-righteousness about them. And that has been the story for six thousand years. I got discouraged as I went through the prison, on, and on, and on, cell after cell, and every man had an excuse. If he hadn't one, the devil helped him to make one. I had got almost through the prison, when I came to a cell and found a man with his elbows on his knees, and his head in his hands. Two little streams of tears were running down his cheeks; they did not come by drops that time.

"What's the trouble?" I said. He looked up, the picture of remorse and despair. "Oh, my sins are more than I can bear." "Thank God for that," I replied. "What," said he, "you are the man that has been preaching to us, ain't you?" "Yes." "I think you said you were a friend?" "I am." "And yet you are glad that my sins are more than I can bear!" "I will explain," I said "If your sins are more than you can bear, won't you cast them on One who will bear them for you?" "Who's that?" "The Lord Jesus." "He won't bear my sins." "Why not?" "I have sinned against Him all my life." "I don't care if you have; the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses from all sin." Then I told him how Christ had come to seek and save that which was lost; to open the prison doors and set the captives free. It was like a cup of refreshment to find a man who believed he was lost, so I stood there, and held up a crucified Saviour to him. "Christ was delivered for our offenses, died for our sins, rose again for our justification." For a long time the man could not believe that such a miserable wretch could be saved. He went on to enumerate his sins, and I told him that the blood of Christ could cover them all. After I had talked with him I said, "Now let us pray." He got down on his knees inside the cell, and I got down outside, and I said, "You pray." "Why," he said, "it would be blasphemy for me to call on God." "You call on God," I said. He knelt down, and, like the poor publican, he lifted up his voice and said, "God be merciful to me, a vile wretch!" I put my hand through the window, and as I shook hands with him a tear fell on my hand that burned down into my soul. It was a tear of repentance. He believed he was lost. Then I tried to get him to believe that Christ had come to save him. I left him still in darkness. "I will be at the hotel," I said, "between nine and ten o'clock, and I will pray for you." Next morning, I felt so much interested, that I thought I must see him before I went back to Chicago. No sooner had my eye lighted on his face, than I saw that remorse and despair had fled away, and his countenance was beaming with celestial light; the tears of joy had come into his eyes, and the tears of despair were gone. The sun of Righteousness had broken out across his path; his soul was leaping within him for joy; he had received Christ as Zaccheus did--joyfully. "Tell me about it," I said. "Well, I do not know what time it was; I think it was about midnight. I had been in distress a long time, when all at once my great burden fell off, and now, I believe I am the happiest man in New York." I think he was the happiest man I saw from the time I left Chicago till I got back again. His face was lighted up with the light that comes from the celestial hills. I bade him good-by, and I expect to meet him in another world.

Can you tell me why the Son of God came down to that prison that night, and, passing cell after cell, went to that one, and set the captive free? It was because the man believed he was lost.

A few years ago as I stood at the door of a church giving out invitations to a meeting to take place that evening, a young man to whom I offered one said, "I want something more than that. I want something to do!" I urged him to come into the meeting, and after some remonstrance he consented. After the meeting I took him home, and after dinner I told him there was a room which I called the "Prophet's Room," and up stairs was another which I called the "Unbeliever's Room," and I would give him till night to decide which he would take. He was able by night to take the first, and the next day was at work urging young men to attend the noonday prayer-meeting. When I was burned out in the great fire and was left perfectly destitute, I received a letter with some money from this young man in Boston, who said:

When Dwight L. Moody was in London during one of his famous evangelistic tours, several British clergymen visited him. They wanted to know how and why this poorly educated American was so effective in winning throngs of people to Christ. Moody took the three men to the window of his hotel room and asked each in turn what he saw. One by one, the men described the people in the park below. Then Moody looked out the window with tears rolling down his cheeks. “What do you see, Mr. Moody?” asked one of the men.

“I see countless thousands of souls that will one day spend eternity in hell if they do not find the Savior.”

Obviously, D. L. Moody saw people differently than the average observer does. And because he saw eternal souls where others saw only people strolling in a park, Moody approached life with a different agenda.

“Someday,” D. L. Moody used to say, “you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody of East Northfield is dead. Don’t believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now!”

He preached his last sermon in Kansas City on Nov. 23, 1899, from the text Luke 14:18: “And they all with one consent began to make excuse.” When he gave the invitation, fifty stood to their feet and went across the street into the inquiry room. He was too ill to continue the Kansas City campaign, so he took the train back to Northfield. On Friday, Dec. 22, he went “home.”

Five years before his homegoing Moody had said, “If it can be said, faithfully said, over my grave, ‘Moody has done what he could,’ that will be the most glorious epitaph.” Instead, 1 John 2:17 was chosen: “He that doeth the will of God abideth forever.”

A great many people say, "Mr. Moody, I would like to know whether I am a Christian or not. I would like to know if I am saved." The longer I live the more I am convinced that it is one of the greatest privileges of a child of God to know--to be able to say, "I am saved." The idea of walking through life without knowing this until we get to the great white throne is exploded. If the Bible don't teach assurance it don't teach justification by faith; if it don't teach assurance it don't teach redemption. The doctrine of assurance is as clear as any doctrine in the Bible.

"I remember clearly lying in my berth early that Saturday morning (Nov:26th, 1892, on the steamer Spree when she was one thousand miles out from Southampton on her way to New York), congratulating myself that I had gotten passage in so swift a ship, when my thoughts were stopped by a great crash that shook the vessel from stem to stern.

"My son, William Revell Moody, jumped from his berth and rushed on deck. He was back again in an instant, crying that the shaft was broken and the ship sinking. Then ensued a scene the like of which I hope never to witness again. There was no panic, but the passengers, who had scrambled on deck at the first warning, looked at each other in an appealing way that was, if anything, more terrible than demonstrative fear. The captain told us there was no danger, and some of the second cabin passengers returned to their berths only to tumble back pellmell a moment later. The rising water had driven them out. Some of them lost all their clothes and valuables.

"At this point the officers buckled on their revolvers, but there was no need to use them. The people, though terribly frightened, did not seem to realize what had happened. The women didn't scream, but stood around trembling and with blanched faces. Nobody said a word, but each waited for his neighbor to speak. We felt that we might be looking on our graves.

"The captain told us at noon that he thought he had the water under control and was in hopes of drifting in the way of some passing vessel. The ship's bow was now high in the air, while the stern seemed to settle more and more. There was no storm, but the sea, was very rough, and the ship rolled from side to side with fearful lurches. I think that if she had pitched at all the overstrained, bulkheads would have burst and we should have gone to the bottom. The captain cheered us by telling us that he thought we should run in with a ship by 3 o'clock that Saturday afternoon, but the night drew on and no sail appeared to lighten our gloom.

"We knew the ship was sinking when we came on deck, but there was no panic. The big engines of the ship were all working at the pumps, but the water was steadily gaining in spite of them. With each roll of the ship it could be heard like the roar of the surf. All the day was passed in anxiously watching for a sail. We could not talk of religion, for the first word brought forth a hundred exclamations, 'Are we sinking?' Then in that first night one woman went insane. It seemed an age until the Sabbath morning came, When the vigil on the deck was resumed.

"I think that was the darkest night in all our lives. None of us thought to live to see the light of another day. Nobody slept. We were all huddled in the saloon of the first cabin--Americans and Germans, Jews, Protestants, Catholics and skeptics--although at that time I doubt if there were many skeptics among us. For forty-eight hours we were in this mortal fear.

"Sabbath morning dawned upon as wretched a ship's company as ever sailed the sea. There was at that time no talk of religious services. I think that if this had been suggested then there would have been a panic. To talk of religion to those poor people would have been to suggest the most terrible things to them. Everybody was waiting for his neighbor to say: 'Are we, then, doomed to die?'

"But as night approached I gathered those 700 quaking souls together and we held a prayer meeting. I think everybody prayed. There were no skeptics present. I have been under fire in the war, I have stood by deathbeds during the cholera epidemic in Chicago, but I never was so sorely tried. I could with difficulty command my voice as I read the ninety-first Psalm. I read without comment, and then I prayed that God would still the anger of the deep and bring us safely to our desired heaven. The people were weeping all around me. I also read from the 107th Psalm.

"We tried to sing. I gave out the first verse of 'Jesus, Lover of My Soul,' and General Howard started the tune. He sang the hymn through in a strong voice, but very few joined him. Instead, the melody was punctuated by broken sobs and exclamation of grief. That night I went to bed and slept, I felt that everything would be all right.

"Never was a more earnest meeting held than this. All prayed together, and I did not hear much talk of skepticism, I can tell you. At 2:30 o'clock in the morning a ship's light was sighted, and in a few hours we were comparatively safe, although our danger was not over. The strain on our minds was almost as great, and minds gave way under it. Two women became violently insane and it was necessary to confine them. A young man from Vienna threw himself overboard and was drowned.

"When we were finally safe in port we had a thanksgiving service, and then such singing as there was--such praises that went up.

The last time I preached upon this question was in old Farwell Hall. I had been for five nights preaching upon the life of Christ. I took him from the cradle and followed Him up to the judgment hall, and on that occasion I consider I made as great a blunder as ever I made in my life. If I could recall my act I would give this right hand. It was upon that memorable night in October, and the Court House bell was sounding an alarm of fire, but I paid no attention to it. You know we were accustomed to hear the fire bell often, and it didn't disturb us much when it sounded. I finished the sermon upon "What shall I do with Jesus?" And I said to the audience, "Now, I want you to take the question with you and think over it, and next Sunday I want you to come back and tell me what you are going to do with it." What a mistake! It seems now as if Satan was in my mind when I said this. Since then I never have dared give an audience a week to think of their salvation. If they were lost they might rise up in judgment against me. "Now is the accepted time." We went down stairs to the other meeting, and I remember when Mr. Sankey was singing, and how his voice rang when he came to that pleading verse:

After the meeting we went home. I remember going down La Salle street with a young man who is probably in the hall to-night, and saw the glare of flames. I said to the young man: "This means ruin to Chicago." About one o'clock, Farwell Hall went; soon the church in which I had preached went down, and everything was scattered. I never saw that audience again. My friends, we don't know what may happen to-morrow, but there is one thing I do know, and that is, if you take the gift you are saved. If you have eternal life you need not fear fire, death, or sickness. Let disease or death come, you can shout triumphantly over the grave if you have Christ. My friends, what are you going to do with Him to-night? Will you decide now?

A study conducted by The Roper Organization for High Adventure Ministries in 1990 found that the moral behavior of born again Christians actually worsened after their conversions. Examined were incidences of illegal drug use, driving while intoxicated and marital infidelity.

The problem can be solved, says one researcher, with a new commitment to accountability and discipleship.

Dr. Lawrence Kohlberg, a Harvard psychologist, has pinpointed six plateaus of moral development. Let’s venture a guess as to where we’re located.

Stage one: obedience and punishment. Right is what authorities command. The underlying motive is fear of punishment, not respect for authority or values.

Stage two: back-scratching. When people begin to seek a return for their favors. It’s the “I’ll-do-for-you-but-only-if-you-reciprocate” mentality. Kohlberg terms it “the morality of the marketplace.”

Stage three: conformity. Good behavior is that which pleases or helps others, and is approved by them. The evaluations and expectations of peers are particularly strong.

Stage four: law-and-order. What is right is doing one’s duty, showing respect for authority and maintaining the given social order. What the law commands transcends all other considerations.

Stage five: social contract. Right is defined in terms of the general rights of individuals, as agreed upon by the whole society (e.g., U.S. Constitution).

Stage six: universal principles. Morality is based on decisions of conscience made in accordance with self-chosen principles of “right”—principles which are universal and consistent.

Even when families remain intact, moral instruction is not automatic. A public school survey in Maryland showed that parents spent an average of 15 minutes a week in “meaningful dialogue” with their children—children who are left to glean whatever values they can from peers and TV.

In another resolution, verbal boundaries were immediately drawn. “Human beings are made in the image of God and are, therefore, of inestimable worth. God has given people the highest dignity of all creation. Such human dignity prohibits euthanasia; that is, actively causing a persons death.” Moral questions are then raised about medical technologies that result in prolonging the dying process beyond its normal course.” which often causes great suffering, not only for the patient, but also for the family and caregivers. NAE “believes that in cases where patients are terminally ill, death appears imminent and treatment offers no medical hope for a cure, it is morally appropriate to request the withdrawal of life-support systems allowing natural death to occur.”

More specifically, “where there is clear medical indication that the patient has suffered brain death [permanent unconscious state, not equivalent to a coma], removal of any extraordinary life-support system is morally appropriate and allows the dying process to proceed. Under such circumstances, action is best taken where there is guidance from a signed ‘living will’ or durable power of attorney for health care.” Where neither exists, “the decision to withdrawal life-support should be made by the family and/or closest friends in consultation with a member of the clergy, when available, and the medical staff.”

The haunting story of fourteen-year-old Rod Matthews serves as a warning to a culture gone adrift. Rod was not interested in the things that normally interest teenagers. Neither sports nor books were enough to quench his insatiable boredom. Only one thing excited him: death. He spent hours watching the video Faces of Death, a collection of film clips of people dying violently. Rod’s curiosity about death led him to want to see death personally, not just on the television or movie screen.

Eventually, he found a way to satisfy his curiosity. One winter afternoon he lured a friend out into the woods and proceeded to beat him to death with a baseball bat. During his trial for murder, the most telling remark was made by a child psychiatrist who was asked to give a clinical evaluation of Rod’s condition. The doctor’s assessment was that Rod was not insane in the conventional sense but that he simply didn’t “know right from wrong. … He [was] morally handicapped” (emphasis mine)”

A study conducted by The Roper Organization for High Adventure Ministries in 1990 found that the moral behavior of born again Christians actually worsened after their conversions. Examined were incidences of illegal drug use, driving while intoxicated and marital infidelity.

The problem can be solved, says one researcher, with a new commitment to accountability and discipleship.

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It got so cold it froze up and fell to the ground in a large field. While it was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some manure on it. As it lay there in the pile of manure, it began to realize how warm it was. The manure was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the little bird singing, and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of manure, and promptly dug him out—and then ate him.

The morals of the story are:

1. Not everyone who drops manure on you is your enemy.

2. Not everyone who digs you out of a pile of manure is your friend. S

3. When you’re in the manure, keep your mouth shut!

The Moravians were banished from their homeland, Bohemia, and exiled to various countries in 1620. Some came to Germany and found refuge on the estate of Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1756). It was here on his estate that they became known as the Moravian Brethren, the forerunners of the Protestant Missionary Movement.

In 1730, Count Zinzendorf told the Moravians about the urgent need for missionaries to evangelize the slaves on the Virgin Islands. Leonard Dober listened to Zinzendorf’s appeal. As he pondered God’s calling, Dober felt excited about this opportunity to serve, but he also envisioned the severe persecution he would endure by selling himself into slavery to evangelize these people. He anticipated the horrible working conditions, but above all the degradation of slavery. No price was too high, he thought, when Jesus Christ endured persecution and died for him. So, Leonard Dober, at the age of eighteen, became the first Moravian missionary to the Virgin Island sugar plantation slaves. However, the source of his persecution did not come from the slave master’s whip, but from fellow Christians.

Dober found himself ridiculed, mocked, and chastened for his decision to go to the Virgin Islands. The Christians asked him incredulous questions about how he planned to live in the Virgin Islands or how he intended to minister to the slaves. The persecution climaxed when the Christians discovered that Dober planned to sell himself into slavery. As Dober endured this opposition, he thought that if he had proposed to travel as an ambassador of state, he would have been treated differently; but since he was a servant of Jesus Christ commissioned to preach the gospel, he was looked upon as a fool. Dober arrived in the Virgin Islands in the late 1730s, but he did not have to become a plantation slave. Instead he became a servant in the governor’s house. Soon he resigned his position, as he was concerned that this position was so superior to that of the slaves that it was detrimental to reaching them for Christ. He chose instead to live in a small mud hut where he could work one-on-one with the slaves. In three years his ministry grew to include 13,000 new converts.

Even though Leonard Dober did not have to pay the supreme sacrifice of his life to evangelize the Virgin Island slaves, it is important to note that he was ready to accept persecution and even martyrdom for these people.

Through the pioneering efforts of the Moravians, millions have followed in their footsteps, reaching nations around the world with the message of the gospel!