Pastoral Resources

Toward the end of his life, British novelist H. G. Wells grew despairing about the fate of the human race. One evening at dinner, Wells laid out his picture of the future. Mankind had failed because evolution had failed to produce in us the right kind of brain. Therefore, Wells claimed, we will destroy ourselves, die out as a species, and revert to the mud and slime from which we arose. “And we shall deserve our fate,” he said, adding that the human race had only “one thousand years more” to survive.

During the Vietnam War the Texas Computer millionaire, H. Ross Perot decided he would give a Christmas present to every American prisoner of war in Vietnam. According to David Frost, who tells the story, Perot had thousands of packages wrapped and prepared for shipping. He chartered a fleet of Boeing 707s to deliver them to Hanoi, but the war was at its height, and the Hanoi government said it would refuse to cooperate. No charity was possible, officials explained, while American bombers were devastating Vietnamese villages. The wealthy Perot offered to hire an American construction firm to help rebuild what Americans had knocked down. The government still wouldn’t cooperate. Christmas drew near, and the packages were unsent.

Refusing to give up, Perot finally took off in his chartered fleet and flew to Moscow, where his aides mailed the packages, one at a time, at the Moscow central post office. They were delivered intact.

Had I been Joseph’s mother

I’d have prayed protection from his brothers

“God, keep him safe.

He is so young, so different from the others.”

Mercifully,

she never knew there would be slavery and prison, too.

Had I been Moses’ mother

I’d have wept to keep my little son:

praying she might forget

the babe drawn from the water of the Nile.

Had I not kept him for her nursing him the while,

was he not mine?

—and she but Pharaoh’s daughter?

Had I been Daniel’s mother

I should have pled “Give victory!

—this Babylonian horde godless and cruel—

Don’t let him be a captive—better dead,

Almighty Lord!”

Had I been Mary,

Oh, had I been she,

I would have cried as never mother cried,

“Anything, O God, Anything...

—but crucified.”

With such prayers importunate

my finite wisdom would assail

Infinite Wisdom.

God, how fortunate

Infinite Wisdom should prevail.

Not long after arriving in new Hebrides as a pioneer missionary, John G. Paton and his wife rejoiced in the coming of a baby son to gladden their home. But the joy was short-lived. Soon death took both his wife and child, and Dr. Paton had to dig their graves and bury his loved ones with his own hands. In writing of this experience, he testified, “If it had not been for Jesus and the fellowship and grace He afforded me, I am certain I would have gone mad or died of grief beside their lonely graves.” Marvelously strengthened from above, the bereaved servant of God found that the promises of the Word were able to sustain him through the heartache and sorrow of his tragic loss.

Every young student knows of Isaac Newton’s famed encounter with a falling apple. Newton discovered and introduced the laws of gravity in the 1600s, which revolutionized astronomical studies.

But few know that if it weren’t for Edmund Halley, the world might never have learned from Newton.

It was Halley who challenged Newton to think through his original notions. Halley corrected Newton’s mathematical errors and prepared geometrical figures to support his discoveries. Halley coaxed the hesitant Newton to write his great work, Mathematical Principles Of Natural Philosophy. Halley edited and supervised the publication, and actually financed its printing even though Newton was wealthier and easily could have afforded the printing costs.

Historians call it one of the most selfless examples in the annals of science. Newton began almost immediately to reap the rewards of prominence; Halley received little credit.

He did use the principles to predict the orbit and return of the comet that would later bear his name, but only AFTER his death did he receive any acclaim. And because the comet only returns every seventy-six years, the notice is rather infrequent. Halley remained a devoted scientist who didn’t care who received the credit as long as the cause was being advanced.

Others have played Halley’s role. John the Baptist said of Jesus, “He must become greater; I must become less.” Barnabus was content to introduce others to greatness. Many pray to uphold the work of one Christian leader. Such selflessness advances the kingdom.

A man working in the produce department was asked by a lady if she could buy half a head of lettuce. He replied, “Half a head? Are you serious? God grows these in whole heads and that’s how we sell them!”

“You mean,” she persisted, “that after all the years I’ve shopped here, you won’t sell me half-a-head of lettuce?”

“Look,” he said, “If you like I’ll ask the manager.” She indicated that would be appreciated, so the young man marched to the front of the store. “You won’t believe this, but there’s a lame-braided idiot of a lady back there who wants to know if she can buy half-a-head of lettuce.” He noticed the manager gesturing, and turned around to see the lady standing behind him, obviously having followed him to the front of the store. “And this nice lady was wondering if she could buy the other half,” he concluded.

Later in the day the manager cornered the young man and said, “That was the finest example of thinking on your feet I’ve ever seen! Where did you learn that?”

“I grew up in Grand Rapids, and if you know anything about Grand Rapids, you know that it’s known for its great hockey teams and its ugly women.”

The manager’s face flushed, and he interrupted, “My wife is from Grand Rapids!” “And which hockey team did she play for?”

A man working in the produce department was asked by a lady if she could buy half a head of lettuce. He replied, “Half a head? Are you serious? God grows these in whole heads and that’s how we sell them!”

“You mean,” she persisted, “that after all the years I’ve shopped here, you won’t sell me half-a-head of lettuce?”

“Look,” he said, “If you like I’ll ask the manager.” She indicated that would be appreciated, so the young man marched to the front of the store. “You won’t believe this, but there’s a lame-braided idiot of a lady back there who wants to know if she can buy half-a-head of lettuce.”

He noticed the manager gesturing, and turned around to see the lady standing behind him, obviously having followed him to the front of the store. “And this nice lady was wondering if she could buy the other half” he concluded. Later in the day the manager cornered the young man and said, “That was the finest example of thinking on your feet I’ve ever seen! Where did you learn that?”

“I grew up in Grand Rapids, and if you know anything about Grand Rapids, you know that it’s known for its great hockey teams and its ugly women.”

The manager’s face flushed, and he interrupted, “My wife is from Grand Rapids!” “And which hockey team did she play for?”

When you’re old as I am, there are all sorts of extremely pleasant things that happen to you...the pleasantest of all is that you wake up in the night and you find that you are half in and half out of your battered old carcass. It seems quite a toss up whether you go back and resume full occupancy of your mortal body, or make off toward the bright glow you see in the sky, the lights of the city of God.

C. S. Lewis gave us the following insight:

Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

When he entered baseball's Hall of Fame, ex-slugger Harmon Killebrew recalled, "My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, 'You're tearing up the grass.'

"'We're not raising grass,'Dad would reply, 'We're raising boys!'"

What we need are more Christians who quietly but effectively do their jobs like a hammer. A hammer keeps its head; it doesn't fly off the handle; it keeps pounding away; it finds the point quickly and drives it home; and perhaps more important, it is the only knocker in the world that accomplishes anything worthwhile!

Consider the hammer, and follow its example in your daily walk with Christ.

One day as I was picking the toys up off the floor,

I noticed a small hand print on the wall beside the door.

I knew that it was something that I’d seen most every day,

but this time when I saw it there, I wanted it to stay.

Then tears welled up inside my eyes, I knew it wouldn’t last,

for every mother knows her children grow up way too fast.

Just then I put my chores aside and held my children tight.

I sang to them sweet lullabies and rocked into the night.

Sometimes we take for granted, all those things that seem so small.

Like one of God’s great treasures.... A small hand print on the wall.

In 1818, Ignaz Phillip Semmelweis was born into a world of dying women. The finest hospitals lost one out of six young mothers to the scourge of “childbed fever.” A doctor’s daily routine began in the dissecting room where he performed autopsies. From there he made his way to the hospital to examine expectant mothers without ever pausing to was his hands.

Dr. Semmelweis was the first man in history to associate such examinations with the resultant infection and death. His own practice was to wash with a chlorine solution, and after eleven years and the delivery of 8,537 babies, he lost only 184 mothers—about one in fifty. He spent the vigor of his life lecturing and debating with his colleagues.

Once he argued, “Puerperal fever is caused by decomposed material, conveyed to a wound. I have shown how it can be prevented. I have proved all that I have said. But while we talk ,talk, talk, gentlemen, women are dying. I am not asking anything world shaking. I am asking you only to wash. For God’s sake, wash your hands.”

But virtually no one believed him. Doctors and midwives had been delivering babies for thousands of years without washing, and no outspoken Hungarian was going to change them now!

Semmelweis died insane at the age of 47, his wash basins discarded, his colleagues laughing in his face, and the death rattle of a thousand women ringing in his ears.

Sociology professor Anthony Campolo recalls a deeply moving incident that happened in a Christian junior high camp where he served. One of the campers, a boy with spastic paralysis, was the object of heartless ridicule. When he would ask a question, the boys would deliberately answer in a halting, mimicking way.

One night his cabin group chose him to lead the devotions before the entire camp. It was one more effort to have some “fun” at his expense. Unashamedly the spastic boy stood up, and in his strained, slurred manner—each word coming with enormous effort—he said simple, “Jesus loves me—and I love Jesus!” That was all.

Conviction fell upon those junior-highers. Many began to cry. Revival gripped the camp. Years afterward, Campolo still meets men in the ministry who came to Christ because of that testimony.

What really makes people satisfied with their lives? Amazingly, the secret may lie in a person’s ability to handle life’s blows without blame or bitterness. These are the conclusions of a study of 173 men who have been followed since they graduated from Harvard University in the early 1940s. The study, reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry, noted that one potent predictor of well-being was the ability to handle emotional crisis maturely.

There are two ways of handling pressure. One is illustrated by a bathysphere, the miniature submarine used to explore the ocean in places so deep that the water pressure would crush a conventional submarine like an aluminum can. Bathyspheres compensate with plate steel several inches thick, which keeps the water out but also makes them heavy and hard to maneuver. Inside they’re not alone. When their lights are turned on and you look through the tiny, thick plate-glass windows, what do you see? Fish! These fish cope with extreme pressure in an entirely different way. They don’t build thick skins; they remain supple and free. They compensate for the outside pressure through equal and opposite pressure inside themselves.

Christians, likewise, don’t have to be hard and thick-skinned—as long as they appropriate God’s power within to equal the pressure without.

After a distinguished performing career, virtuoso violinist Jascha Heifetz accepted an appointment as professor of music at UCLA. Asked what had prompted his change of career, Heifetz replied: “Violin playing is a perishable art. It must be passed on as a personal skill; otherwise it is lost.”

We need to listen to this great musician. Living the Christian life is a highly personal experience. We can’t pull it off merely by watching skilled veterans “perform.” We need hands-on instruction.

As with many innovations, the originator of 3M’s sticky yellow Post-its didn’t know what he had—at first. Researcher Spence Sliver saw curious about what would happen if he mixed an unusual amount of monomer into a polymer-based adhesive he was working on. The result was an adhesive that would “tack” one piece of paper to another and even restick, without leaving any residue on the second piece of paper. The company had no use for the new adhesive until 3M chemist Arthur Fry began having problems in the choir loft. The slips of paper he used to mark pages in his hymnal often fluttered to the floor, leaving him frantically searching for his place. Then he remembered Silver’s adhesive. Fry’s better bookmark soon metamorphosed into the handy Post-its that have become a fixture in offices throughout the country.

During his days as guest lecturer at Calvin Seminary, R. B. Kuiper once used the following illustration of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility.” I liken them to two ropes going through two holes in the ceiling and over a pulley above. If I wish to support myself by them, I must cling to them both. If I cling only to one and not the other, I go down.” I read the many teachings of the Bible regarding God’s election, predestination, his chosen, and so on. I read also the many teachings regarding ‘whosoever will may come’ and urging people to exercise their responsibility as human beings. These seeming contradictions cannot be reconciled by the puny human mind. With childlike faith, I cling to both ropes, fully confident that in eternity I will see that both strands of truth are, after all, of one piece.”

Perhaps you may remember Hank Luisetti, the great basketball player of a few decades back. When Hank came along, virtually every basketball coach in the country insisted that his players shoot with two hands. Instead of two hands, Hank used a jerky, funny-looking, one-handed jump shot. His coach, looking for results rather than method, was smart enough to let him use it. The rest is basketball history—today almost everybody uses Hank’s one-handed jump shot.

The fame and popularity of Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen rested largely on his children’s fairy tales, written over a period of some 37 years and translated into scores of languages. Andersen was well aware of this fact—so much so that late in life, he told the musician who was to compose a march for his funeral, “Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with little steps.”

A San Diego patrol officer was off-duty when she witnessed a drug deal. Wearing a dress and high heels, she figured she’d never be quick enough to catch the buyer. But as she watched, the buyer walked back to his car and threw up his hands in despair. His dilemma left the officer plenty of time to call in a patrol unit to arrest the fellow. The hapless druggie had locked his keys in his car.

The greatest happiness usually comes not in youth, but in old age. Men generally are happiest during their middle sixties, women during their seventies.

Unhappiest time: early fifties for men, late forties for women.

As I get older, I find that I appreciate God and people and good and lovely and noble things more and more intensely; so it is pure delight to think that this enjoyment will continue and increase in some form (what form, God knows, and I am content to wait and see), literally forever. In fact Christians inherit the destiny which fairy tales envisaged in fancy: we (yes, you and I, the silly saved sinners) live and live happily, and by God’s endless mercy will live happily ever after.

We cannot visualize heaven’s life and the wise man will not try to do so. Instead he will dwell on the doctrine of heaven, where the redeemed will find all their heart’s desire: joy with their Lord, joy with his people, and joy in the ending of all frustration and distress and in the supply of all wants. What was said to the child—”If you want sweets and hamsters in heaven, they’ll be there”—was not an evasion but a witness to the truth that in heaven no felt needs or longings go unsatisfied. What our wants will actually be, however, we hardly know, except the first and foremost: we shall want to be “always...with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17).

What shall we do in heaven? Not lounge around but worship, work, think, and communicate, enjoying activity, beauty, people, and God. First and foremost, however, we shall see and love Jesus, our Savior, Master, and Friend.

A woman I know climbed on the bathroom scale after two weeks of butterless toast and chilly jogs around the park. The needle was still stuck on the number where she’d started. This struck her as typical of how things had been going lately. She was destined never to be happy.

As she dressed, scowling at her tight jeans, she found $20 in her pocket. Then her sister called with a funny story. When she hurried out to the car—angry that she had to get gas—she discovered her roommate had already filled the tank for her. And this was a woman who thought she’d never be happy.

Every day, it seems, we’re flooded with pop-psych advice about happiness. The relentless message is that there’s something we’re supposed to do to be happy—make the right choices, or have the right set of beliefs about ourselves. Our Founding Fathers even wrote the pursuit of happiness into the Declaration of Independence.

Coupled with this is the notion that happiness is a permanent condition. If we’re not joyful all the time, we conclude there’s a problem.

Yet what most people experience is not a permanent state of happiness. It is something more ordinary, a mixture of what essayist Hugh Prather once called “unsolved problems, ambiguous victories and vague defeats—with few moments of clear peace.”

Maybe you wouldn’t say yesterday was a happy day, because you had a misunderstanding with your boss. But weren’t there moments of happiness, moments of clear peace? Now that you think about it, wasn’t there a letter from an old friend, or a stranger who asked where you got such a great haircut? You remember having a bad day, yet those good moments occurred.

Happiness is like a visitor, a genial, exotic Aunt Tilly who turns up when you least expect her, orders an extravagant round of drinks and then disappears, trailing a lingering scent of gardenias. You can’t command her appearance; you can only appreciate her when she does show up. And you can’t force happiness to happen—but you can make sure you are aware of it when it does.

While you’re walking home with a head full of problems, try to notice the sun set the windows of the city on fire. Listen to the shouts of kids playing basketball in the fading light, and feel your spirits rise, just from having paid attention.

Happiness is an attitude, not a condition. It’s cleaning the Venetian blinds while listening to an aria, or spending a pleasant hour organizing your closet. Happiness is your family assembled at dinner. It’s in the present, not in the distant promise of a “someday when...” How much luckier we are—and how much more happiness we experience—if we can fall in love with the life we’re living.

Happiness is a choice. Reach out for it at the moment it appears, like a balloon drifting seaward in a bright blue sky.

One New Year’s Eve at London’s Garrick Club, British dramatist Frederick Lonsdale was asked by Symour Hicks to reconcile with a fellow member. The two had quarreled in the past and never restored their friendship. “You must,” Hicks said to Lonsdale. “It is very unkind to be unfriendly at such a time. Go over now and wish him a happy New Year.”

So Lonsdale crossed the room and spoke to his enemy. “I wish you a happy New Year,” he said, “but only one.”

During the Welsh revival a minister was approached by a humble saint in his church and was asked this question. "Can you guess what is the happiest time I have in religion?" The minister thought he could easily answer and so he said, "Why, we are all as happy as we can be during these revival days, and at our prayer meetings night after night." The old man seemed somewhat surprised. "Well," he said, "That is true, but I was not thinking about that. Try again." "Then," said the minister, "it must be when you are at prayer." "You are getting near it now," said the old man, "but it is not exactly when I pray. It is when I am done praying, and God and I are just chatting." If we knew that a great dignitary would accept us if we went to him, would we not go? If he invited us to stay with him and be on intimate terms with him, would we not stay? How much more wonderful it is when we think that the dignitary is God Himself. He will be our eternal Companion, if we go to Him through Jesus Christ.

A man was having difficulty communicating with is wife and concluded that she was becoming hard of hearing. So he decided to conduct a test without her knowing about it.

One evening he sat in a chair on the far side of the room. Her back was to him and she could not see him. Very quietly he whispered, “Can you hear me?” There was no response.

Moving a little closer, he asked again, “Can you hear me now?” Still no reply.

Quietly he edged closer and whispered the same words, but still no answer.

Finally he moved right in behind her chair and said, “Can you hear me now?” To his surprise and chagrin she responded with irritation in her voice, “For the fourth time, yes!”

What a warning to us about judging!

Sometimes marriage to a great leader comes with a special price for his wife. Such was the case for Mary Moffatt Livingstone, wife of Dr. David Livingstone, perhaps the most celebrated missionary in the Western world.

Mary was born in Africa as the daughter of Robert Moffatt, the missionary who inspired Livingstone to go to Africa. The Livingstones were married in Africa in 1845, but the years that followed were difficult for Mary. Finally, she and their six children returned to England so she could recuperate as Livingstone plunged deeper into the African interior. Unfortunately, even in England Mary lived in near poverty. The hardships and long separations took their toll on Mrs. Livingstone, who died when she was just forty-two.

Many of us would agree with Peter when he says that parts of Paul’s letters are hard to understand! And there are difficulties and apparent discrepancies in other parts of the Bible too. On this matter of discrepancies, I remember reading something written by an old seventeenth-century Puritan named William Bridge. He said that harping on discrepancies shows a very bad heart, adding: “For a godly man, it should be as it was with Moses. When a godly man sees the Bible and secular data apparently at odds, well, he does as Moses did when he saw an Egyptian fighting an Israelite: he kills the Egyptian. He discounts the secular testimony, knowing God’s Word to be true. But when he sees an apparent inconsistency between two passages of Scripture, he does as Moses did when he found two Israelites quarreling: he tries to reconcile them. He says, ‘Aha, these are brethren, I must make peace between them.’ And that’s what the godly man does.”

In his book Be Free, Warren W. Wiersby mentioned the fact that young ministers often visited the great British preacher G. Campbell Morgan to ask him the secret of his success. When someone inquired of him what he told these aspiring pastors, Morgan replied, “I always say to them the same thing—work; hard work; and again, work!” And Morgan lived up to his own advice. He would be in his study every morning at 6 o’clock, finding rich treasures out of his Bible to pass on to God’s people.

A traveler had heard so much of the wonderful chimes of St. Nicholas in Amsterdam, that one day he went up into the tower of the church to hear them. There he found a man hard at work before an immense keyboard, thumping and pounding the keys.

The traveler was almost deafened by the harsh discordant clangor of the bells above his head, and hurried away wondering why people talked so much of the beautiful chimes of St. Nicholas.

The next day at the same hour he was in a distant part of the city sightseeing, when suddenly the air was filled with the mellow music of marvelously clear and full-toned bells.

"We hear the chimes of St. Nicholas," said the guide in answer to his question, and the man wondered no longer why travelers spoke enthusiastically of their melody. But he thought of the man in the tower, and wondered if he ever knew how beautiful his hard work became in the distance.

You Can Win!, Roger F. Campbell, 1985, SP Publications, pp. 35-36

Nothing worthwhile or long-lasting can be achieved without hard work. Former basketball great Sen. Bill Bradley once said that during his Princeton days, his father would tell him, “Son, when you’re not out practicing, someone else is. And when you meet that person, he’s going to beat you.”

Charles Wesley of England was without doubt one of the most productive hymn writers and preachers of all time. Yet, strangely enough, Wesley was able to get only one hymn poem into the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer, and that one by error!

An eighteenth century printer didn't know that the "established Church" of England frowned with disapproval upon Wesley's hymns. Since he needed material to fill an empty space in the new hymnal, he took it upon himself to insert a Christmas poem called, "Hark, How All the Welkins Rings!" by an Anglican clergyman named Charles Wesley. When the error was discovered attempts were made to have it removed, but it proved so popular that it was allowed to remain.

It was written in 1738, but is still very moving today.

"Hark the herald angels sing.

Glory to the new born King.

Peace on earth, and mercy mild:

God and sinners reconciled."

The following story appeared in the newsletter “Our America”:

“Dodie Gadient, a schoolteacher for thirteen years, decided to travel across America and see the sights she had taught about. Traveling alone in a truck with camper in tow, she launched out. One afternoon rounding a curve on I-5 near Sacramento in rush-hour traffic, a water pump blew on her truck. She was tired, exasperated, scared, and alone. In spite of the traffic jam she caused, no one seemed interested in helping.

“Leaning up against the trailer, she prayed, ‘Please God, send me an angel … preferably one with mechanical experience.’ Within four minutes, a huge Harley drove up, ridden by an enormous man sporting long, black hair, a beard and tattooed arms. With an incredible air of confidence, he jumped off and, without even glancing at Dodie, went to work on the truck. Within another few minutes, he flagged down a larger truck, attached a tow chain to the frame of the disabled Chevy, and whisked the whole 56-foot rig off the freeway onto a side street, where he calmly continued to work on the water pump.

“The intimidated schoolteacher was too dumbfounded to talk. Especially when she read the paralyzing words on the back of his leather jacket: ‘Hell’s Angels—California.’ As he finished the task, she finally got up the courage to say, ‘Thanks so much,’ and carry on a brief conversation. Noticing her surprise at the whole ordeal, he looked her straight in the eye and mumbled, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover. You may not know who you’re talking to.’ With that, he smiled, closed the hood of the truck, and straddled his Harley. With a wave, he was gone as fast as he had appeared.”

Given half a chance, people often crawl out of the boxes into which we’ve relegated them.

Charles Osgood told the story of two ladies who lived in a convalescent center. Each had suffered an incapaciting stroke. Margaret’s stroke left her left side restricted, while Ruth’s stroke damaged her right side. Both of these ladies were accomplished pianists but had given up hope of ever playing again.

The director of the center sat them down at a piano and encouraged them to play solo pieces together. They did, and a beautiful friendship developed.

What a picture of the church’s needing to work together! What one member cannot do alone, perhaps two or more could do together—in harmony.

As one member of the human body harmonizes its function with the other members, we must harmonize our individual functions in the Church with those of others. There is beauty in variety, even as there is a spiritual uplift from music that harmonizes a variety of instruments and voices. We must never get out of tune by harping on the one gift we consider ours. No one of us can act independently as a member of the body. We have to cooperate with other members if we are to be of any use to the body of Christ as a whole.

Let me take you back in time; the date is Wednesday, April 10, 1912, and the world watches in awe as the glamorous Titanic begins her maiden voyage. But, little did the world know that the greatest ship man ever made would be on the bottom of the Atlantic ocean only four days later.

And on that ship, in the second-class section, was a man named John Harper who was coming to America to preach here at Moody Church.

I first heard the phenomenal story of John Harper, many years ago while growing up in Canada. My brother showed me a one-page tract titled I was Harper’s Last Convert. It was the story, told by a man, who floated next to Harper briefly in the icy waters of the Atlantic.

If you had been with John Harper on the Titanic that fateful night you would have felt a tremendous jolt when the mighty ship collided with an iceberg on the starboard side of her bow. You would have heard the hull plates buckle as an iceberg tore a 300-foot long gash in the side of the ship.

And you may have even heard the panic in the Captain’s voice when he knew his ship was sinking, and he only had enough lifeboats for half of the passengers....

The Captain also knew he had to keep order among the 2,227 people on board. So he asked John Harper to remain on deck and keep peace among the passengers.

If you had been on deck you would have seen families torn apart. Husbands saying goodbye as they watched their wives and children leave on lifeboats. Wives deciding to stay on board to die with their husbands. Children waving goodbye to their parents—and praying that they would see each other again.

And you would have seen John Harper kiss his six-year-old daughter, Nana, goodbye and put her safely in a lifeboat.

As the minutes crept by, and all of the lifeboats were gone, 1,521 people were left on board the sinking ship—including Harper.

With every minute that passed the deck became steeper as the bow plunged under the water. Finally the ship broke in two, hurling the remaining passengers into the icy depths of the Atlantic.

It is said the ships lights blinked once, then went out, leaving people to freeze to death in the darkness of the Atlantic.

And the few hundred people that were safe in lifeboats could see their husbands, fathers, and many other families as they were shrieking in terror and thrashing in the water trying to gasp for breath.

But, during this horrific tragedy God was at work.

You see, Harper wasn’t afraid to die; he knew that he was going to come face to face with his Maker. And he wanted other people to know his Lord and Savior.

So with death lurking over him, Harper yelled to a man in the darkness, “Are you saved?”

“No,” replied the man.

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and ye shall be saved!” Harper screamed as he struggled in the dark, cold, Atlantic.

Then the men drifted apart into the darkness. But later the current brought them back together. Weak, exhausted, and frozen, a dying Harper yelled once more, “Are you saved?”

“No!”

Harper repeated once again, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and ye shall be saved.” And with that, Harper slipped down into his watery grave.

The man whom Harper sought to win to Christ was rescued by the S.S. Carpathia. Because of Harper, he dedicated his life to Jesus Christ right there, two miles above the floor of the ocean, and lived to tell people that he was Harper’s Last Convert.

It makes me wonder, how many other dying people did Harper convert before he drowned? Harper sacrificed his own life so he could share the plan of salvation with the dying. He was a man who lived and died by his immense faith in Jesus Christ.

There are so many things that come to mind when people speak about the great loss of human life on the Titanic. Some may even ask could it have been avoided?

What if the owner hadn’t determined to surprise America by arriving a night early? Or if the Captain hadn’t cut the corner on an area of ocean they knew had been dangerous before? Or simply, what if the lookout’s binoculars hadn’t been missing from the crow’s nest?

If only one of these things had not been the case, the Titanic might have been the very definition of luxury, romance, and fortitude.

But those things did happen. I like to ask, what if John Harper hadn’t been on board traveling to Moody Church? How many people would have died not knowing that they could be eternally saved?

Dr. Harry Ironside was once convicted about his lack of humility. A friend recommended as a remedy, that he march through the streets of Chicago wearing a sandwich board, shouting the scripture verses on the board for all to hear. Dr. Ironside agreed to this venture and when he returned to his study and removed the board, he said “I’ll bet there’s not another man in town who would do that.”

A few years ago, the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, MO, made public 1,300 recently-discovered letters that the late President wrote to his wife, Bess, over the course of a half-century. Mr. Truman had a lifelong rule of writing to his wife every day they were apart. He followed this rule whenever he was away on official business or whenever Bess left Washington to visit her beloved Independence.

Scholars are examining the letters for any new light they may throw on political and diplomatic history. For our part, we were most impressed by the simple fact that every day he was away, the President of the United States took time out from his dealing with the world’s most powerful leaders to sit down and write a letter to his wife.

A few years ago, the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, MO, made public 1,300 recently-discovered letters that the late President wrote to his wife, Bess, over the course of a half-century. Mr. Truman had a lifelong rule of writing to his wife every day they were apart. He followed this rule whenever he was away on official business or whenever Bess left Washington to visit her beloved Independence.

Scholars are examining the letters for any new light they may throw on political and diplomatic history. For our part, we were most impressed by the simple fact that every day he was away, the President of the United States took time out from his dealing with the world’s most powerful leaders to sit down and write a letter to his wife.

As a prospective Harvard student, I was taking a campus tour when the guide stopped before a statue in Harvard Yard. On the pedestal was this inscription: “John Harvard, Founder, 1638.” The guide informed us that this was known as the statue of the three lies.”

First of all, the artist commissioned to sculpture it could not find a clear picture of John Harvard after which to model his work, so he just chose a picture of a respectable-looking gentleman from the proper era.

Second, John Harvard was not the founder of Harvard University. He was simply a substantial contributor to the college in its early days.

Third, the date on the statue’s base represents not the date of John Harvard’s death, as might be supposed, but the year he donated his library and half his fortune to the college.

The irony lies in that on the side of the statue is the Harvard emblem emblazoned with the school’s motto: Veritas.

Armand Nicholi, of Harvard University, found that American parents spend less time with their children than parents in any other country except Great Britain. Even compared with their Russian counterparts, American fathers spend two fewer hours a day interacting with their children.

This is the bitterest of all—to know that suffering need not have been; that it has resulted from indiscretion and inconsistency; that it is the harvest of one’s own sowing; that the vulture which feeds on the vitals is a nestling of one’s own rearing. Ah me! This is pain! There is an inevitable Nemesis in life. The laws of the heart and home, of the soul and human life, cannot be violated with impunity. Sin may be forgiven; the fire of penalty may be changed into the fire of trial: the love of God may seem nearer and dearer than ever and yet there is the awful pressure of pain; the trembling heart; the failing of eyes and pining of soul; the harp on the willows; the refusal of the lip to sing the Lord’s song.

Thanksgiving is the harvest of the heart

After the fruit and grain are stored away.

The quiet season of remembering,

The moment when we pause to praise and pray.

The youth minister was passing through the prison garment factory. "Sewing?" he said to a prisoner who was at work. "No, preacher," replied the prisoner gloomily, "reaping!"

Two explorers were on a jungle safari when suddenly a ferocious lion jumped in front of them. “Keep calm” the first explorer whispered. “Remember what we read in that book on wild animals? If you stand perfectly still and look the lion in the eye, he will turn and run.”

“Sure,” replied and his companion. “You’ve read the book, and I’ve read the book. But has the lion read the book?”

A weakness of all human beings, “ Henry Ford said, “is trying to do too many things at once. That scatters effort and destroys direction. It makes for haste, and haste makes waste. So we do things all the wrong ways possible before we come to the right one. Then we think it is the best way because it works, and it was the only way left that we could see. Every now and then I wake up in the morning headed toward that finality, with a dozen things I want to do. I know I can’t do them all at once.” When asked what he did about that, Ford replied, “I go out and trot around the house. While I’m running off the excess energy that wants to do too much, my mind clears and I see what can be done and should be done first.”

“It is a popular conception that to make rapid fundamental progress it is only necessary to concentrate large quantities of men and money on a problem,” said Charles Kettering.

“Years ago when we were developing the first electrically operated cash register I ran into this type of thinking. My boss was going to Europe and wanted the job finished before he took off. ‘Give Kettering twice as many men so he can finish it up in half the time.’ When I objected to this idea, he asked, ‘Why can’t you? If 10 men can dig 10 rods of ditch in a day, then surely 20 men can dig 20 rods.’

“I replied, ‘Do you think if one hen can hatch a setting of eggs in three weeks, two hens can hatch a setting in a week and a half? This is more a job of hatching eggs than digging ditches.

Hate is like acid. It can damage the vessel in which it is stored as well as destroy the object on which it is poured.

For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life—namely myself. . . In fact, the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. . . But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is in anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere, he can be cured and made human again.

Hatred between Jews and Samaritans was fierce and long-standing. In some ways, it dated all the way back to the days of the patriarchs. Jacob (or Israel) had twelve sons, whose descendants became twelve tribes. Joseph, his favorite, was despised by the other brothers (Gen. 37:3-4), and they attempted to do away with him.

But God intervened and not only preserved Joseph’s life, but used him to preserve the lives of the entire clan. Before his death, Jacob gave Joseph a blessing in which he called him a “fruitful bough by a well” (Gen. 49:22). The blessing was fulfilled, as the territory allotted to the tribes of Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim (“doubly fruitful”) and Manasseh, was the fertile land that eventually became Samaria.

Later, Israel divided into two kingdoms. The northern kingdom, called Israel, established its capital first at Shechem, a revered site in Jewish history, and later at the hilltop city of Samaria.

In 722 B.C. Assyria conquered Israel and took most of its people into captivity. The invaders then brought in Gentile colonists “from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and from Sepharvaim” (2 Kin. 17:24) to resettle the land. The foreigners brought with them their pagan idols, which the remaining Jews began to worship alongside the God of Israel (2 Kin. 17:29-41). Intermarriages also took place (Ezra 9:1-10:44; Neh. 13:23-28).

Meanwhile, the southern kingdom of Judah fell to Babylon in 600 B.C. Its people, too, were carried off into captivity. But 70 years later, a remnant of 43,000 was permitted to return and rebuild Jerusalem. The people who now inhabited the former northern kingdom—the Samaritans—vigorously opposed the repatriation and tried to undermine the attempt to reestablish the nation. For their part, the full-blooded, monotheistic Jews detested the mixed marriages and worship of their northern cousins. So walls of bitterness were erected on both sides and did nothing but harden for the next 550 years.

There are countless modern parallels to the Jewish-Samaritan enmity—indeed, wherever peoples are divided by racial and ethnic barriers. Perhaps that’s why the Gospels and Acts provide so many instances of Samaritans coming into contact with the message of Jesus. It is not the person from the radically different culture on the other side of the world that is hardest to love, but the nearby neighbor whose skin color, language, rituals, values, ancestry, history, and customs are different from one’s own.

Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. With whom do you have no dealings?

Holy Lord God! I love Thy truth,

Nor dare Thy least commandment slight;

Yet pierced by sin, the serpent’s tooth,

I mourn the anguish of the bite.

But though the poison lurks within,

Hope bids me still with patience wait;

Till death shall set me free from sin,

Free from the only thing I hate.

Had I a throne above the rest,

Where angels and archangels dwell,

One sin, unslain, within my breast,

Would make that heaven as dark as hell.

The prisoner sent to breathe fresh air,

And blest with liberty again,

Would mourn were he condemn’d to wear

One link of all his former chain.

But, oh! no foe invades the bliss,

When glory crowns the Christian’s head;

One view of Jesus as He is

Will strike all sin for ever dead.

Shortly after the turn of the century, Japan invaded, conquered, and occupied Korea. Of all of their oppressors, Japan was the most ruthless. They overwhelmed the Koreans with a brutality that would sicken the strongest of stomachs. Their crimes against women and children were inhuman. Many Koreans live today with the physical and emotional scars from the Japanese occupation.

One group singled out for concentrated oppression was the Christians. When the Japanese army overpowered Korea one of the first things they did was board up the evangelical churches and eject most foreign missionaries. It has always fascinated me how people fail to learn from history. Conquering nations have consistently felt that shutting up churches would shut down Christianity. It didn’t work in Rome when the church was established, and it hasn’t worked since. Yet somehow the Japanese thought they would have a different success record.

The conquerors started by refusing to allow churches to meet and jailing many of the key Christian spokesmen. The oppression intensified as the Japanese military increased its profile in the South Pacific. The “Land of the Rising Sum” spread its influence through a reign of savage brutality. Anguish filled the hearts of the oppressed—and kindled hatred deep in their souls.

One pastor persistently entreated his local Japanese police chief for permission to meet for services. His nagging was finally accommodated, and the police chief offered to unlock his church … for one meeting. It didn’t take long for word to travel. Committed Christians starving for an opportunity for unhindered worship quickly made their plans. Long before dawn on that promised Sunday, Korean families throughout a wide area made their way to the church. They passed the staring eyes of their Japanese captors, but nothing was going to steal their joy. As they closed the doors behind them they shut out the cares of oppression and shut in a burning spirit anxious to glorify their Lord.

The Korean church has always had a reputation as a singing church. Their voices of praise could not be concealed inside the little wooden frame sanctuary. Song after song rang through the open windows into the bright Sunday morning. For a handful of peasants listening nearby, the last two songs this congregation sang seemed suspended in time. It was during a stanza of “Nearer My God to Thee” that the Japanese police chief waiting outside gave the orders. The people toward the back of the church could hear them when they barricaded the doors, but no one realized that they had doused the church with kerosene until they smelled the smoke. The dried wooden skin of the small church quickly ignited. Fumes filled the structure as tongues of flame began to lick the baseboard on the interior walls.

There was an immediate rush for the windows. But momentary hope recoiled in horror as the men climbing out the windows came crashing back in—their bodies ripped by a hail of bullets. The good pastor knew it was the end. With a calm that comes from confidence, he led his congregation in a hymn whose words served as a fitting farewell to earth and a loving salutation to heaven. The first few words were all the prompting the terrified worshipers needed. With smoke burning their eyes, they instantly joined as one to sing their hope and leave their legacy. Their song became a serenade to the horrified and helpless witnesses outside. Their words also tugged at the hearts of the cruel men who oversaw this flaming execution of the innocent.

Alas! and did my Savior bleed?

and did my Sovereign die?

Would he devote that sacred head

for such a worm as I?

Just before the roof collapsed they sang the last verse, their words an eternal testimony to their faith.

But drops of grief can ne’er repay

the debt of love I owe:

Here, Lord, I give myself away

‘Tis all that I can do!

At the cross, at the cross

Where I first saw the light,

And the burden of my heart rolled away —

It was there by faith I received my sight,

And now I am happy all the day.

The strains of music and wails of children were lost in a roar of flames. The elements that once formed bone and flesh mixed with the smoke and dissipated into the air. The bodies that once housed life fused with the charred rubble of a building that once housed a church. But the souls who left singing finished their chorus in the throne room of God.

Clearing the incinerated remains was the easy part. Erasing the hate would take decades. For some of the relatives of the victims, this carnage was too much. Evil had stooped to a new low, and there seemed to be no way to curb their bitter loathing of the Japanese.

In the decades that followed, that bitterness was passed on to a new generation. The Japanese, although conquered, remained a hated enemy. The monument the Koreans built at the location of the fire not only memorialized the people who died, but stood as a mute reminder of their pain.

Inner rest? How could rest coexist with a bitterness deep as marrow in the bones? Suffering, of course, is a part of life. People hurt people. Almost all of us have experienced it at some time. Maybe you felt it when you came home to find that your spouse had abandoned you, or when your integrity was destroyed by a series of well-timed lies, or when your company was bled dry by a partner. It kills you inside. Bitterness clamps down on your soul like iron shackles. The Korean people who found it too hard to forgive could not enjoy the “peace that passes all understanding.” Hatred choked their joy.

It wasn’t until 1972 that any hope came. A group of Japanese pastors traveling through Korea came upon the memorial. When they read the details of the tragedy and the names of the spiritual brothers and sisters who had perished, they were overcome with shame. Their country had sinned, and even though none of them were personally involved (some were not even born at the time of the tragedy), they still felt a national guilt that could not be excused.

They returned to Japan committed to right a wrong. There was an immediate outpouring of love from their fellow believers. They raised ten million yen ($25,000). The money was transferred through proper channels and a beautiful white church building was erected on the sight of the tragedy.

When the dedication service for the new building was held, a delegation from Japan joined the relatives and special guests. Although their generosity was acknowledged and their attempts at making peace appreciated, the memories were still there. Hatred preserves pain. It keeps the wounds open and the hurts fresh. The Koreans’ bitterness had festered for decades.

Christian brothers or not, these Japanese were descendants of a ruthless enemy. The speeches were made, the details of the tragedy recalled, and the names of the dead honored. It was time to bring the service to a close. Someone in charge of the agenda thought it would be appropriate to conclude with the same two songs that were sung the day the church was burned. The song leader began the words to “Nearer My God to Thee.”

But something remarkable happened as the voices mingled on the familiar melody. As the memories of the past mixed with the truth of the song, resistance started to melt. The inspiration that gave hope to a doomed collection of churchgoers in a past generation gave hope once more. The song leader closed the service with the hymn “At the Cross.”

The normally stoic Japanese could not contain themselves. The tears that began to fill their eyes during the song suddenly gushed from deep inside. They turned to their Korean spiritual relatives and begged them to forgive. The guarded, callused hearts of the Koreans were not quick to surrender. But the love of the Japanese believers—unintimidated by decades of hatred—tore at the Koreans’ emotions.

At the cross, at the cross

Where I first saw the light,

And the burden of my heart rolled away …

One Korean turned toward a Japanese brother. Then another. And then the floodgates holding back a wave of emotion let go. The Koreans met their new Japanese friends in the middle. They clung to each other and wept. Japanese tears of repentance and Korean tears of forgiveness intermingled to bathe the site of an old nightmare.

Heaven had sent the gift of reconciliation to a little white church in Korea.

It was 1916, and Hattie Green was dead. Hattie’s life is a sad demonstration of what it is like to be among the living dead. When Hattie died, her estate was valued at over $100 million; yet Hattie lived in poverty. She ate cold oatmeal because it cost money to heat it. When her son’s leg became infected, Hattie wouldn’t get it treated until she could find a clinic that wouldn’t charge her. By then, her son’s leg had to be amputated. Hattie died arguing over the value of drinking skim milk. She had money to meet her every need, but she chose to live as if it didn’t exist.

Vivian H., for 2 and a half years lived in a home without running water. She had to drive to a spring and load up five gallon jugs to haul back home. All the while there was a perfectly good well with a 600 gallon reservoir on her property. The water was there, she didn’t know it could be used.

Have you and I as Christians lost our nerve? Have we forgotten that the best way to transform society is God’s way?

How often must we be reminded that the cross of Christ alone can change the human heart and reconcile people to God?

God’s power is more clearly seen in the message of the cross than anywhere else.

Now, please don’t read this as my asking you to retreat from politics, community activism, and public forums. But you and I dare not think that we need only apply ourselves more vigorously to these methods in order to rescue mankind from the brink of disintegration. Only the cross, demonstrated in life and lip, can do what needs to be done.

Recently I preached a series, Taking the Cross Into the World, at the Moody Church. In these messages I share my heart, urging all of us to remember that we have in our possession “the power of God unto salvation.”

We both know that we have enough Christians in America who, if they took the cross seriously, could join with us in making a lasting impact in the lives of millions of people. If this is done with humility, I believe God would honor us.

Taking the Cross Into the World means more than just evangelizing; or I should say, it means evangelizing with integrity. I’m talking about you and me, living the gospel in all of our relationships!

It means modeling reconciliation between races; it involves helping the homeless, the widows, and single mothers. In short, it means being Christ to a cynical world that has written us off because of our hypocrisy and obvious self-interest.

If you and I were to live differently, along with our Christian brothers and sisters in this country, the world might take note. You know, we do, after all, have some historical examples of how nations have been transformed:

Britain in the 1700s

In the early 1700s Britain had sunk into gross cruelty and drunkenness. Since the treatment of children is always a rather accurate barometer of a nation’s morality, the story of Judith Dufour is an example of others that could be told. She took her child to a work house for clothing. She then strangled the child, threw the body in the ditch, sold the clothes for one shilling and four pence and immediately spent the money on gin, which she shared with a friend who helped in the murder.

Parliament, on numerous occasions, had to adjourn early because “the Honorable members were too drunk to continue the business of State.”

Children were routinely murdered and infants left to “perish in the streets.”

Then God raised up George Whitefield and John Wesley. God graciously sent a national revival that changed the entire climate of the country. Moral decency and kindness supplanted debauchery and cruelty. Britain, the historians tell us, was spared from what happened in France during its bloody “revolution.”

Now, please join me in thinking of our own country.

New England and the Great Awakening

New England was in a state of moral and spiritual decline. Church attendance had dropped off and the morals of the young had sunk to new lows. Worldly values infiltrated the church.

Under the preaching of Edwards and Whitefield, the Great Awakening came to America. An historian wrote that one could have left a bag of gold on the streets and it would not have been stolen! Sailors coming from Britain were known to have fallen on their knees in repentance before their ship docked; such was the power of God.

Now, I’m not saying to you that God will send a similar revival to America. He does not owe us such mercy … But maybe if we get our priorities straight, He might yet be gracious to this great nation. If we are desperate enough, and are willing to pay a great personal price, God might yet rescue many from the judgment to come.

You and I must be ready to make a radical commitment! It involves nothing less than living for the glory of God, even if our nest is disturbed! We must learn to distinguish between the American dream and the Christian mandate! Together, you and I must be fervently committed to sharing the gospel whenever God opens the door; on airplanes, with our neighbors, relatives, and anyone else God brings into our lives.

Our task is simple yet profound. It is to explain the cross to a generation steeped in designer religion; an age in which people have been duped to believe that they can “find their own way to God.”

You may have read what Bonhoefer said, “It is not before us, but before the cross that the world trembles.” I agree. Whether God sends a revival or not, we must be faithful in presenting “the old rugged cross.”

The world can out-spend us, out-entertain us, and out-politicize us, but let it never be said that they can out-love us!

The Second Book of Kings and the sixth chapter tells us of an interesting event. Elisha, the prophet of God, was given knowledge of the planned activities of the Syrian King to destroy Israel. Elisha warned Israel, which angered the Syrian King, who then sought to kill Elisha. The servant of Elisha awoke one morning, looked out and saw the Syrian army surrounding the city. He became very frightened. But Elisha was not afraid because he could see the Lord's protection.

Then, in verse 17, Elisha prayed that the Lord would open the eyes of the servant that he, too, would see what Elisha saw. In this prayer, Elisha was not referring to physical sight. The servant had that, for he could see the army, but he had no spiritual sight to see the Lord's protection.

Now there are many people who have perfect vision in the natural eyes, but they are blind spiritually, just as this young servant of Elisha.

Only the Lord can give men spiritual eyes to see their lost and ruined condition. Only the Lord can show men the holy wrath of God against their sin. Only the Lord can reveal the glory of a beaten, scourged, and crucified Christ. Only the Lord can give men a revelation of the exalted, risen, Christ, ruling the universe and providing for, protecting, and caring for His redeemed. Without this revelation, no man will come to Christ in saving faith.

Have your eyes been opened to see the glorious person and work of the blessed Son of God? The young servant of Elisha could not see the mountains full of horses and chariots of fire around Elisha until the Lord opened his eyes. Neither can the sinner see the glory of Christ until the Lord opens his blind eyes.

"Lord, I pray Thee, open their eyes, that they may see."

Patricia St. John, who has been described as an ordinary woman with an extraordinary faith, poured out her life ministering to people in the neediest places on our planet. She was in Sudan when war refugees flooded that country. They had suffered terribly and had lost everything, yet those among them who were Christians still gave thanks to God.

Patricia said that she stood one night in a crowded little Sudanese church listening to those uprooted believers singing joyfully. Suddenly a life-changing insight burned its way into her mind. “We would have changed their circumstances,” she said, “but we would not have changed them.” She realized that God “does not always lift people out of the situation. He Himself comes into the situation. . . He does not pluck them out of the darkness. He becomes the light in the darkness.”

David Hume, 18th century British philosopher who rejected historic Christianity, once met a friend hurrying along a London street and asked where he was going. The friend said he was off to hear George Whitfield preach. “But surely you don’t believe what Whitfield preaches do you?” “No, I don’t, but he does.”

First, He brought me here, it is by His will I am in this strait place: in that fact I will rest. Next, He will keep me here in His love, and give me grace to behave as His child. Then, He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends me to learn, and working in me the grace He means to bestow. Last, In His good time He can bring me out again—how and when He knows.

Let me say I am here, (1) By God’s appointment, (2) In His keeping, (3) Under His training, (4) For His time.

Eight-year-old Danny Dutton of Chula Vista, CA, was given a homework assignment. All he had to do was answer one question: Explain God. And this he did. I want to read one paragraph of his essay. “If you don't believe in God, besides being an atheist, you will be very lonely, because your parents can't go everywhere with you, like to camp, but God can. It is good to know He’s around you when you’re scared in the dark or when you can’t swim very good and you get thrown into real deep water by big kids. But you shouldn’t just always think of what God can do for you. I figure God put me here and He can take me back anytime He pleases.”

Joe Louis was the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 until he retired in 1949. In 1946 Louis prepared to defend his title against a skilled fighter named Billy Conn. Louis was warned to watch out for Conn’s great speed and his tactic of darting in to attack and then moving quickly out of his opponent’s range. In a famous display of confidence, Louis replied, “He can run, but he can’t hide.”

A construction crew was building a new road through a rural area, knocking down trees as it progressed. A superintendent noticed that one tree had a nest of birds who couldn’t yet fly and he marked the tree so that it would not be cut down. Several weeks later the superintendent came back to the tree. He got into a bucket truck and was lifted up so that he could peer into the nest. The fledglings were gone. They had obviously learned to fly. The superintendent ordered the tree cut down. As the tree crashed to the ground, the nest fell clear and some of the material that the birds had gathered to make the nest was scattered about. Part of it was a scrap torn from a Sunday school pamphlet. On the scrap of paper were these words: He careth for you.

Patrick Morley, in Man in the Mirror, tells about a group of fishermen who landed in a secluded bay in Alaska and had a great day fishing for salmon. But when they returned to their sea plane, it was aground because of the fluctuating tides. They had no option except to wait until the next morning till the tides came in. But when they took off, they only got a few feet off the ground and then crashed down into the sea. Being aground the day before had punctured one of the pontoons, and it had filled up with water.

The sea plane slowly began to sink. The three men and a 12-year-old son of one of them, Mark, prayed and then jumped into the icy waters to swim to shore. The water was cold, and the riptide was strong, and two of the men reached the shore exhausted. They looked back, and their companion, who was also a strong swimmer, did not swim to shore because his 12-year-old son wasn’t strong enough to make it. They saw that father with his arms around his son being swept out to sea. He chose to die with his son rather than to live without him.

There is a fact of life that most kids do not know. We love our children so much that we would die for them.

J. Arthur Rank, an English executive, decided to do all his worrying on one day each week. He chose Wednesdays. When anything happened that gave him anxiety and annoyed his ulcer, he would write it down and put it in his worry box and forget about it until next Wednesday.

The interesting thing was that on the following Wednesday when he opened his worry box, he found that most of the things that had disturbed him the past six days were already settled. It would have been useless to have worried about them.

One summer morning as Ray Blankenship was preparing his breakfast, he gazed out the window, and saw a small girl being swept along in the rain-flooded drainage ditch beside his Andover, Ohio, home. Blankenship knew that farther downstream, the ditch disappeared with a roar underneath a road and then emptied into the main culvert. Ray dashed out the door and raced along the ditch, trying to get ahead of the floundering child. Then he hurled himself into the deep, churning water. Blankenship surfaced and was able to grab the child’s arm. They tumbled end over end. Within about three feet of the yawning culvert, Ray’s free hand felt something—possibly a rock—protruding from one bank. He clung desperately, but the tremendous force of the water tried to tear him and the child away. “If I can just hang on until help comes,” he thought. He did better than that. By the time fire-department rescuers arrived, Blankenship had pulled the girl to safety. Both were treated for shock.

On April 12, 1989, Ray Blankenship was awarded the Coast Guard’s Silver Lifesaving Medal. The award is fitting, for this selfless person was at even greater risk to himself than most people knew. Ray Blankenship can’t swim.

The story is told of a man who lived for years in fear of strange, hideous animals who would hide under his bed and come out at night to prowl the room. One day the man told a friend, “My brother finally solve my problem.”

“Oh, is he a psychiatrist?” the friend asked.

“No, a carpenter. He cut the legs off my bed.”

United States Senator Jake Garn of Utah did something most of us admire-and perhaps should consider doing ourselves. He donated one of his organs to save a life.

A recent survey says 73 percent of Americans approve organ donation. But only about 20 percent actually sign donor cards and make arrangements for our corneas, kidneys, or other organs to be used when we die.

In Senator Garn's case, however, he did not wait until his death to donate his left kidney. His 27-year-old daughter, Susan Garn Horne, suffered from progressive kidney failure due to diabetes. Her condition deteriorated, and doctors determined that she needed a kidney transplant immediately.

Jake Garn and his two sons were all found to be compatible donors. The senator insisted that he should be the one to give the kidney. "Her mother carried her for nine months," he said, "and I am honored to give her part of me."

So, on September 10, 1986, in a Washington, D.C. hospital, a six-hour surgical procedure was performed to remove one of his kidneys and to implant it into his daughter.

The radio news broadcast a story on Garns, and in it was a comment from the doctor who put the donated kidney into Susan's body. At a press briefing at Georgetown University Hospital, the doctor said, "The senator is awake, has a bit of a grin on his face. He seems very self-satisfied, and happy and peaceful."

The senator had to be in pain at that moment. The incision through which his kidney was removed goes from his back to his front ribs. There were tubes in him, needles yet to come, and several weeks of recuperation lying ahead. But he was smiling!

That grin on Jake Garn's face could have meant only one thing: no regrets. Love makes it possible for a person to do the most difficult and dreaded of things without looking back.

Think for a moment about what Jesus did to save you. He left the worship of angels to be born in a stable. He accepted the limitations of human form, suffered indignities of the greatest magnitude, and shed His lifeblood to purchase your redemption.

The most astounding thing about all He did is that there is not a word in the Bible which indicates that the Son of God regretted doing it. On the day of His ascension back to the Father, there may have been a bit of a grin on His face.

His only regret would come if you refused His gift of life.

Last July the nation’s deadliest forest fire blazed up all at once, like the roar of a tornado. Unable to escape, 14 firefighters were killed.

But Brad Haugh managed to survive. At about 2 p.m., Haugh and his partner broke for lunch. As he opened a can of Beanie Weenies, the pull-off ring on the lid broke. Haugh pulled out his knife and cut the lid off, a procedure that delayed by about five minutes his return to work. Later, he would conclude that those five minutes might have saved his life by slowing his descent down a ridge.

At about 3:30 p.m. the out-of-control fire raced toward Haugh. Scrambling through the brush, he reached the ridge top. He started to turn around to look back at the fire, but remembered how Lot’s wife had turned to look at Sodom and Gomorrah. Twenty minutes later he reached safety.

"I will never forget my first experience in hospital work," said Chief Surgeon Millar of the Central Emergency Hospital in San Francisco. "There was an undergraduate nurse in the detention ward, and we had a very violent case-a man in the worst stage of delirium tremens. I was awakened in the middle of the night by the head nurse who requested me to come at once to the patient. When I got there I found him raving and very violent, with the new nurse scared out of her wits." Then the doctor said, "Why did you let him go so far? I left you some medicine to give him as soon as he got delirious." "Yes, doctor," the nurse replied, "but you told me to give that to him if he saw any more snakes, but this time he was seeing blue dogs with pink tails."

Christopher D. Green recalls this incident:

"It was my gut reaction to become tense as the dark figure approached. Walking down the street late in the evening, I assumed the worst. I figured it would be at any moment that I would have a knife or a gun plunged into my side. I had to keep walking because stopping would mean certain death!

"Walking toward each other, my heart raced as I took a deep breath. He had shoulder-length hair, a ruddy beard, and wore dark clothes. Within six feet of one another, I looked into his eyes. I had vowed not to speak. It was he who spoke first. 'Good evening, how are you?'he said. After a startled pause, I managed to squeak, 'Fine, and you?'We walked on without incident, my shame growing more intense with each passing step. One hundred yards later, I began to pray. I remembered that Christ died for that man!

"Anger swelled within me as I watched the newscast. Gay rights activists had marched into a city council meeting demanding to be heard. They demanded attention and charged the city with discrimination. Charges were made that physical abuse at a recent rally had gone unprosecuted. At this point, an individual stood and shouted, 'If they hurt us again, they will have to pay. We will fight back!'My gut reaction was to think, 'Go ahead, and see who gets the beating!'Moments later, I began to pray. I realized that Christ had died for that man, too.

"When I see individuals I am afraid of or individuals I disagree with so severely I feel like 'punching them out,'I have to realize that what they need is not a poke in the nose or judgment from me. They need Jesus. They need me to tell them about Jesus! Lord, help me remember that you died for them, too!"

When Lincoln’s body was brought from Washington to Illinois, it passed through Albany and it was carried through the street. They say a black woman stood upon the curb and lifted her little son as far as she could reach above the heads of the crowd and was heard to say to him, “Take a long look, honey. He died for you.”

So, if I could, I would lift up your spirit to see Calvary. Take a long look, He died for you.

Steve Lyons will be remembered as the player who dropped his pants.

He could be remembered as an outstanding infielder . as the player who played every position for the Chicago White Sox . as the guy who always dove into first base . as a favorite of the fans who high fived the guy who caught the foul ball in the bleachers. He could be remembered as an above-average player who made it with an average ability.

But he won’t. He’ll be remembered as the player who dropped his pants on July 16, 1990.

The White Sox were playing the Tigers in Detroit. Lyons bunted and raced down the first-base line. He knew it was going to be tight, so he dove at the bag. Safe! The Tiger’s pitcher disagreed. He and the umpire got into a shouting match, and Lyons stepped in to voice his opinion.

Absorbed in the game and the debate, Lyons felt dirt trickling down the inside of his pants. Without missing a beat he dropped his britches, wiped away the dirt, and . uh oh .twenty thousand jaws hit the bleachers’ floor.

And, as you can imagine, the jokes began. Women behind the White Sox dugout waved dollar bills when he came onto the field. “No one,” wrote one columnist, “had ever dropped his drawers on the field. Not Wally Moon. Not Blue Moon Odom. Not even Heinie Manush.” Within twenty-four hours of the “exposure,” he received more exposure than he’d gotten his entire career; seven live television and approximately twenty radio interviews.

“We’ve got this pitcher, Melido Perex, who earlier this month pitched a no-hitter,” Lyons stated, “and I’ll guarantee you he didn’t do two live television shots afterwards. I pull my pants down, and I do seven. Something’s pretty skewed toward the zany in this game.”

Fortunately, for Steve, he was wearing sliding pants under his baseball pants. Otherwise the game would be rated “R” instead of “PG-13.”

Now, I don’t know Steve Lyons. I’m not a White Sox fan. Nor am I normally appreciative of men who drop their pants in public. But I think Steve Lyons deserves a salute.

I think anybody who dives into first base deserves a salute. How many guys do you see roaring down the baseline of life more concerned about getting a job done than they are about saving their necks? How often do you see people diving headfirst into anything?

Too seldom, right? But when we do . when we see a gutsy human throwing caution to the wind and taking a few risks . ah, now that’s a person worthy of a pat on the . back.

So here’s to all the Steve Lyons in the world.