Pastoral Resources

Can a young Marine, body shattered by the weaponry of modern warfare, rebound and turn personal defeat into personal victory?

Lt. Clebe McClary recounts his courageous story of rebuilding his devastated life. During his tour of duty in Vietnam he suffered the loss of one eye, his left arm, and subsequently underwent 33 operations to retain usage of the remainder of his body.

Today Clebe McClary is in the service of the Lord's Army, traveling the world over, attesting to personal faith in Jesus Christ. His life shows that he genuinely embodies a personal vow which he took upon entering the Marines: "Any mission assigned will be accomplished in a superior manner, no matter what the obstacles."

Dr. Nancy Moore Clatworthy, sociologist, has been doing research on “living together” for 10 years. When she began her research, the idea of living together before committing yourself to marriage made good sense to her. Now, after scientifically analyzing the results of hundreds of surveys filled out by couples who had lived together, she opposes living together in any form.

Her answers make a powerfully Christian point: only a fully committed marriage relationship is really suited to working out the best possible relationship.

Living together does not constitute a marriage. The Lord met the woman of Samaria. She had lived with five husbands and the Lord called them husbands. But how about the man she was currently living with? The Lord refused to give him the status of a husband. He said, “And he whom thou now has is not thy husband.” (John 4:17,18)

The differentiation is very clearly given. Marriage is never a private affair. Two people are not married when in private they commit themselves to each other but when they do so in the presence of witnesses before God. Our Lord and His mother attended the marriage feast at Cana of Galilee. Obviously, there was an event which was given public and official recognition, and all acquaintances then knew that the two people were duly married.

It is reported that in the late 1860s, President Ulysses S. Grant gave a cigar to Horace Norton, philanthropist and founder of Norton College. Because of his respect for the President, Norton chose to keep the cigar rather than smoke it. Upon Norton’s death, the cigar passed to his son, and later it was bequeathed to his grandson. It was Norton’s grandson who in 1932 chose to light the cigar ceremoniously during an oration at Norton College’s 70th anniversary celebration. Waxing eloquent, Norton lit the famous cigar and proceeded to extol the many virtues of Grant until...Boom! The renowned cigar exploded! That’s right—over sixty years earlier Grant had passed a loaded cigar along to a good friend, and at long last it had made a fool of his friend’s grandson!

The little boy was sent by his mother to buy a 65 cent loaf of bread. While the baker was putting the bread into a bag, the boy noticed that the loaf looked rather small. “Isn’t that a small loaf of bread for 65 cents?” “You’ll have less to carry,” replied the baker. The boy put 50 cents on the counter. “You’re 15 cents short,” said the baker. “That’s right, “ replied the boy. “You’ll have less to count.”

February 15, 1921. New York City. The operating room of the Kane Summit Hospital. A doctor is performing an appendectomy. In many ways the events leading to the surgery are uneventful. The patient has complained of severe abdominal pain. The diagnosis is clear: an inflamed appendix. Dr. Evan O’Neill Kane is performing the surgery. In his distinguished thirty-seven-year medical career, he has performed nearly four thousand appendectomies, so this surgery will be uneventful in all ways except two.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One member of the bridge club was wearing a gold locket on a chain around her neck.

“That’s lovely” someone said.

Another player said. “Do you keep a memento in it?”

“A lock of my husband’s hair,” replied the first woman.

“Oh. But your husband is still alive.”

“Yes,” said the first, “but his hair is gone.”

In the 1960s a teacher was given a roster showing the actual I.Q. test scores of the students of one class, and for another class a roster in which the I.Q. column had been (mistakenly) filled in with the students’ locker numbers. The teacher assumed that the locker numbers were the actual I.Q.s of the students when the rosters were posted at the beginning of the semester.

After a year it was discovered that in the first class the students with high actual I.Q. scores had performed better than those with low ones. But in the second class the students with higher locker numbers scored significantly higher than those with lower locker numbers!

Greed is “the logical result of the belief that there is no life after death. We grab what we can while we can however we can and then hold on to it hard.”

In Greek the word for “word” is logos. It is used in many places, but of special interest is how it is used of Jesus. In John 1:1 it says, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” The Word is divine and the word “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). In other words, Jesus is the Word of God who represents God to us and us to God.

The term is also used to describe the Scriptures (Rom. 9:6; Heb. 4:12), Christ’s teaching (Luke 5:1), and the gospel message (Acts 4:31).

Loneliness is a growing problem in our society. A study by the American Council of Life Insurance reported that the most lonely group in America are college students. That’s surprising! Next on the list are divorced people, welfare recipients, single mothers, rural students, housewives, and the elderly.

To point out how lonely people can be, Charles Swindoll mentioned an ad in a Kansas newspaper. It read, “I will listen to you talk for 30 minutes without comment for $5.”

Swindoll said, “Sounds like a hoax, doesn’t it? But the person was serious. Did anybody call? You bet. It wasn’t long before this individual was receiving 10 to 20 calls a day. The pain of loneliness was so sharp that some were willing to try anything for a half hour of companionship”

About halfway through (a PBS program on the Library of Congress), Dr. Daniel Boorstin, the Librarian of Congress, brought out a little blue box from a small closet that once held the library’s rarities. The label on the box read: CONTENTS OF THE PRESIDENT’S POCKETS ON THE NIGHT OF APRIL 14, 1865. Since that was the fateful night Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, every viewer’s attention was seized. Boorstin then proceeded to remove the items in the small container and display them on camera. There were five things in the box:

A handkerchief, embroidered “A. Lincoln”

A country boy’s pen knife

A spectacles case repaired with string

A purse containing a $5 bill—Confederate money(!)

Some old and worn newspaper clippings

“The clippings,” said Boorstin, “were concerned with the great deeds of Abraham Lincoln. And one of them actually reports a speech by John Bright which says that Abraham Lincoln is “one of the greatest men of all times.”

Today that’s common knowledge. The world now knows that British statesman John Bright was right in his assessment of Lincoln, but in 1865 millions shared quite a contrary opinion. The President’s critics were fierce and many. His was a lonely agony that reflected the suffering and turmoil of his country ripped to shreds by hatred and a cruel, costly war. There is something touchingly pathetic in the mental picture of this great leader seeking solace and self-assurance from a few old newspaper clippings as he reads them under the flickering flame of a candle all alone in the Oval Office.

Remember this: Loneliness stalks where the buck stops.

It’s easy to live a long life, at least in America. Look at the statistics: Out of every 100,000 persons, 88,361 reach 50 years of age, more than 70,000 make it to 70, and almost 17,000 get to 85 or more. Staying around a long time, however, should not be our primary goal. Rather, we should be concerned with giving significance and value to all our years and not letting them end in shame and disgrace.

How we finish the race depends to a great extent on the pace we set along the way. Joseph Wittig remarked that when we write people’s biographies we should start with their death, not their birth. After all, we have nothing to do with the way our life began, but we have a lot to do with the way it ends.

Churchgoer to pastor, “Your sermon reminded me of the mercies of God. I thought it would endure forever.”

Original title of Noah Webster’s first spelling book was “A Grammatical Institute of the English Language, Comprising an Easy, Concise, and Systematic Method of Education, Designed for the Use of English Schools in America, Part I, Containing a New and Accurate Standard of Pronunciation.”

When Roy DeLamotte was chaplain at Paine College in Georgia, he preached the shortest sermon in the college’s history. However, he had a rather long topic—”What does Christ Answer When We Ask, “Lord, What’s in Religion for Me?” The complete content of his sermon was in one word: “Nothing.”

He later explained that the one-word sermon was meant for people brought up on the ‘gimme-gimme’ gospel. When asked how long it took him to prepare the message, he said, “Twenty years.”

After a long, dry sermon, the minister announced that he wished to meet with the church board following the close of the service. The first man to arrive was a stranger. “You misunderstood my announcement. This is a meeting of the board,” said the minister. “I know,” said the man, “but if there is anyone here more bored than I am, I’d like to meet him.”

Over the centuries Christians have debated what baptism accomplishes, to whom it should be administered, and how much water should be used.

Long-winded speakers exhaust their listeners long before the exhaust their subjects. Recognizing this danger, one speaker began his talk this way: “I understand that it’s my job to talk to you. Your job is to listen. If you quit before I do, I hope you’ll let me know.”

The longest sermon on record was preached by Clinton Lacy of West Richland, Washington in February of 1955. It took 48 hours and 18 minutes to deliver it.

Small wonder someone proposed the adoption of a new Beatitude: “Blessed is the preacher whose train of thought has a caboose.”

- E. Eugene Williams

The famous poet H. W. Longfellow was once asked how he managed a long and a happy life.

Pointing to an apple tree, the writer remarked: "The secret of the apple tree is that it grows a little new wood each year. That's what I try to do."

No matter what age you are, it is important to continue to grow spiritually each day, each month, each year. Such spiritual growth requires constant Bible study.

Why not start growing a little new wood now, by reading at least one chapter from the Bible each day? You will be blessed for it (Psa. 119).

Some pastors preach “longhorn sermons,” a point here, a point there, and a lot of bull in between.

At one time the recording engineer of the author's radio broadcasts, a very dear saint of God, was almost completely blind. Whenever I visited him and prayed with him, he always wanted to hold my hand as I prayed. He told me that did something to him. Physical contact meant special inspiration and comfort to him. I thought he would not hold my hand when I prayed with him after the restoration of his eyesight, but he still continued to do so. I think this is a perfect illustration of the earnest desire of Christians for the physical appearance of the Lord Jesus.

Suppose you were the president of a club. A rich man comes and applies to you for membership. However, for the most part your club is made up of poor people and those who belong to the laboring classes. What would you do? Would you be flattered that a rich man wanted to join and accept him without question? Of course, it would provide a marvelous opportunity to enrich your treasury. Unfortunately, some church leaders are also opportunists. Their bad example leads some men to conclude that Christianity is a religion of opportunism. But don't look at church leaders; in fact, don't look at any person-look at Christ.

A husband volunteered to accompany his wife on a shopping expedition to purchase dress goods for herself and the children. "This is pretty material," said the husband, indicating a colorful print. The wife fingered it briefly and said, "Too flimsy. It won't wear well." "Then how about this?" persisted the man, pointing to another bolt of cloth. "Strong enough," said the wife, "but will it wash?" The husband in his inexperience was allowing himself to be influenced by eye appeal. The wife was looking for more lasting qualities.

Two men were discussing worry; one was blaming God because He didn't let us know what was going to happen. As they walked along, they came to a pasture where a cow was gazing dreamily over a stone wall. "Do you know why this cow has her head stretched over the wall?" asked one man. "No," said his friend. "I'll tell you. It's because she's not able to see through the stone wall. Imitate her. Quit banging the wall with your head. You won't break the wall down, but you will break your head. Stand tall, look over, and you'll be able to see farther on." It's the same lesson the Lord taught when He told people to look at the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, and consider who cares for them (Mat 6:28). They have less cares than we who can think and reason, but God provides for them, and He will for us, too, if we trust Him.

A house painter was at work atop a tall ladder that leaned against the second-story gable of a house. A small boy playing about the yard discovered the ladder, and as is natural for small boys, he began to climb it. His mother, checking on her child, was shocked to find that he was more than half way to the top of the ladder.

As the woman stifled a scream of panic, the man at the top looked down, saw the child, and instantly perceived the danger. Signaling the mother to be silent, he calmly said to the child, "Look up, sonny, look up here to me, and keep climbing." Rung by rung, he coaxed the child ever higher: "Come on now, keep looking up, keep coming." At last, the child safe in his arms, the painter carried him safely to the ground.

Well, each of us is somewhere on a ladder. If we look down, we may be terrified. God is saying, "Look up to me; keep looking up, and you will never be dismayed or undone by whatever is down there." So let's look up, up to where our safety lies; let's look up, and take heart, and keep climbing.

The snow covered the ground, and three young boys were playing in it. A man said to them, "Would you like to try to race, with the promise of a prize for the winner?"

The boys agreed, and the man told them that his race was to be different. "I will go to the other side of the field," he said, "and when I give you the signal, you will start to run. The one whose footsteps are the straightest in the snow will be the winner."

As the race commenced, the first boy began looking at his feet to see if his steps were straight. The second lad kept looking at his companions to see what they were doing; but the third boy just ran on with his eyes fixed on the man on the other side of the field.

The third boy was the winner, for his footsteps were straight in the snow. He had kept his eyes on the goal ahead of him.

A long time ago, another man using similar words taught the same principle. It was Paul who said, "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Phi 3:13-14).

Looking back, [my wife] Jan and I have learned that the wilderness is part of the landscape of faith, and every bit as essential as the mountaintop. On the mountaintop we are overwhelmed by God’s presence. In the wilderness we are overwhelmed by his absence. Both places should bring us to our knees; the one, in utter awe; the other, in utter dependence.

A little girl had been listening while her mother's friends were speaking about the imminent return of the Lord. After some time she was missed, so her mother went in search of her. She found her looking out a window at the top of the house. Asked what she was doing she said, "Oh, Mother, I heard you say Jesus might come today, and I wanted to be the first to see Him. See, I washed myself and put on a clean dress."

Just before the death of actor W. C. Fields, a friend visited Fields' hospital room and was surprised to find him thumbing through a Bible. Asked what he was doing with a Bible, Fields replied, "I'm looking for loopholes."

One day a certain old, rich man of a miserable disposition visited a rabbi, who took the rich man by the hand and led him to a window. “Look out there,” he said. The rich man looked into the street. “What do you see?” asked the rabbi. “I see men, women, and children,” answered the rich man. Again the rabbi took him by the hand and this time led him to a mirror. “Now what do you see?” “Now I see myself,” the rich man replied. Then the rabbi said, “Behold, in the window there is glass, and in the mirror there is glass. But the glass of the mirror is covered with a little silver, and no sooner is the silver added than you cease to see others, but you see only yourself.”

Several years ago a book was published entitled “Looking Out for Number One.” On the dedication page the author wrote, “Dedicated to the hope that somewhere in our universe there exists a civilization where the inhabitants possess sole dominion over their own lives.” There is such a place. It’s called Hell.

God of my life, to Thee I call,

Afflicted at Thy feet I fall;

When the great water-floods prevail,

Leave not my trembling heart to fail!

Friend of the friendless and the faint,

Where should I lodge my deep complaint,

Where but with Thee, whose open door

Invites the helpless and the poor!

Did ever mourner plead with Thee,

And Thou refuse that mourner’s plea?

Does not the word still fix’d remain,

That none shall seek Thy face in vain?

That were a grief I could not bear,

Didst Thou not hear and answer prayer;

But a prayer-hearing, answering God

Supports me under every load.

Fair is the lot that’s cast for me;

I have an Advocate with Thee;

They whom the world caresses most

Have no such privilege to boast.

Poor though I am, despised, forgot,

Yet God, my God, forgets me not:

And he is safe, and must succeed,

For whom the Lord vouchsafes to plead.

Broken marriages begin to mend and communication is reestablished when one of the partners is willing to make a breakthrough and say, “Lord, begin with me. I am the one who needs to change, to love more deeply and more wisely.”

Even if you think your spouse is 100% wrong, when you stand in the presence of Christ you will begin to see that you, too, have shortcomings. You will discern where you have failed to accept responsibility for the marital relationship, and you will be able to say, “God, change me.”

The Christian is committed to follow Christ who went all the way in love, all the time. So, for a start, stop demanding that your partner change his ways. Let God start changing you.

Lord Halifax, a former foreign secretary of Great Britain, once shared a railway compartment with two prim-looking spinsters. A few moments before reaching his destination the train passed through a tunnel. In the utter darkness Halifax kissed the back of his hand noisily several times. When the train drew into the station, he rose, lifted his hat, and in a gentlemanly way said: “May I thank whichever one of you two ladies I am indebted to for the charming incident in the tunnel.” He then beat a hasty retreat, leaving the two ladies glaring at each other.

Two men were walking through a field one day when they spotted an enraged bull. Instantly they darted toward the nearest fence. The storming bull followed in hot pursuit, and it was soon apparent they wouldn’t make it. Terrified, the one shouted to the other, “Put up a prayer, John. We’re in for it!” John answered, “I can’t. I’ve never made a public prayer in my life.” “But you must!” implored his companion. “The bull is catching up to us.” “All right,” panted John, “I’ll say the only prayer I know, the one my father used to repeat at the table: ‘O Lord, for what we are about to receive, make us truly thankful.’“

If Jesus is Lord then he must also be Lord of our politics. That’s an unarguable Christian truth—that everybody argues about… Too many of us Christians confuse political convictions with spiritual convictions. Insecure with ambiguity, we assume people of one Lord, one faith and one baptism must also promote one political agenda. That assumption leads the church into trouble.

First, it prompts us to make judgments about people that ought to be left to God…

Second, when the church confuses spiritual and political convictions it is tempted to use political power to forward a “Spiritual” agenda.

Research into the migratory habits of quail in the Middle East makes the miracle of the Lord's provision all the more exciting. Each autumn, the birds fly from central Europe to Turkey. There they prepare for a crossing of the Mediterranean. The flight across the ocean is done in a single flight at a very high speed. Any bird that falters falls into the sea. When the birds approach the land, they drop down in altitude but maintain their high speed. As soon as they are over the coastland they land exhausted and completely drained. They lie motionless for hours while they regain their strength. For years Bedouins who lived near the coast harvested the easy prey. Recently a law was passed and enforced which prohibited quail trapping.

The amazing thing about the biblical account of the provision of the quail is that the birds must have kept flying until they reached the wilderness of Sinai. How did the quail know to fly on farther after their already exhausting flight? Only the Lord who created them could have pressed them on.

Lord, with glowing heart I’ll praise Thee

For the bliss Thy love bestows.

For the pardoning grace that saves me,

And the peace that from it flows.

Help, O God, my weak endeavors,

This dull soul to rapture raise;

Thou must light the flame, or never

Can my love be warmed to praise.

Praise, my soul, the God that sought thee,

Wretched wand’rer far astray;

Found thee lost, and kindly brought thee,

From the paths of death away.

Praise, with love’s devoutest feeling,

Him who saw thy guilt-born fear,

And, the light of hope revealing,

Bade the blood-stained Cross appear.

- Johnny D. Pyles

Suppose a wealthy merchant were to charter a ship to go to some distant country and bring back a valuable cargo. To encourage speed and faithfulness, the merchant offers a bonus to officers and crew if they bring the ship home by a certain date with the cargo intact. The ship arrives at the foreign port, and the cargo is placed on board. But unfortunately a quantity of whiskey is also taken on board, and on the way the back the officers and men indulge in it too freely. They drive the ship upon the rocks, with the result that the cargo is lost. They send out an SOS, and men with life-saving equipment put out from a nearby port and save them. They are thus saved from death, but they have lost the bonus they might have earned. Unrewarded, and with the loss of all their possessions, they return to their home port at the expense of others. Likewise, some souls escape hell by the skin of their teeth, but they have lost their reward.

I stood on a grassy sward, and at my feet a precipice broke sheer down into infinite space. I looked, but saw no bottom; only cloud shapes, black and furiously coiled, and great shadow-shrouded hollows, and unfathomable depths. Back I drew, dizzy at the depth.

Then I saw forms of people moving single file along the grass. They were making for the edge. There was a woman with a baby in her arms and another little child holding on to her dress. She was on the very verge. Then I say that she was blind. She lifted her foot for the next step and it trod air. She was over, and the children over with her. Oh, the cry that I heard. Then I saw more streams of people flowing from all quarters. All were blind, stone blind; all made straight for the precipice edge. There were shrieks as they suddenly knew themselves falling, and a tossing up of helpless arms, catching, clutching at empty air. But some went over quietly, and fell without a sound.

Then I wondered, with a wonder that was simple agony, why no one stopped them at the edge. I could not. I was glued to the ground, and I could not call; though I strained and tried, only a whisper would come.

Then I saw that along the edge there were sentries set at intervals. But the intervals were far too great; there were wide, unguarded gaps between. And over these gaps the people fell in their blindness, quite unwarned; and the green grass seemed blood-red to me, and the gulf yawned like the mouth of hell.

Then I saw, like a little picture of peace, a group of people under some trees, with their backs turned towards the gulf. They were making daisy chains. Sometimes when a piercing shriek cut the quiet air and reached them it disturbed them and they thought it a rather vulgar noise. And if one of their number started up and wanted to go and do something to help, then all the others would pull that one down. “Why should you get so excited about it? You must wait for a definite call to go! You haven’t finished your daisy chains yet. It would be really selfish,” they said, “to leave us to finish the work alone.”

There was another group. It was made up of people whose great desire was to get more sentries out; but they found that very few wanted to go and sometimes there were no sentries set for miles and miles of the edge.

Once a girl stood alone in her place, waving the people back; but her mother and other relations called, and reminded her that her furlough was due; she must not break the rules. And being tired and needing a change, she had to go and rest for awhile, but no one was sent to guard her gap and over and over the people fell, like a waterfall of souls.

Once a child caught at a tuft of grass that grew at the very brink of the gulf; it clung convulsively, and it called—but nobody seemed to hear. Then the roots of the grass gave way and with a cry, the child went over, its two little hands still holding tight to the torn-off bunch of grass. And the girl who longed to be back in her gap thought she heard the little one cry, and she sprang up and wanted to go; at which they reproved her, reminding her that no one is necessary anywhere; the gap would be well taken care of, they knew. And then they sang a hymn.

Then through the hymn came another sound like the pain of a million broken hearts wrung out in one full drop, one sob. And a horror of great darkness was upon me, for I knew what it was—the Cry of the Blood.

Then thundered a Voice, the Voice of the Lord. “And He said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brothers’ blood crieth unto Me from the ground.”

The tom-toms still beat heavily, the darkness still shuddered and shivered about me; I heard the yells of the devil-dancers and the weird wild shriek of the devil-possessed just outside the gate. What does it matter, after all? It has gone on for years; it will go on for years. Why make such a fuss about it?

God forgive us! God arouse us! Shame us out of our callousness! Shame us out of our sin!

A chaplain was speaking to a soldier on a cot in a hospital.

“You have lost an arm in the great cause,” he said.

“No,” said the soldier with a smile. “I didn’t lose it--I gave it.”

In that same way, Jesus did not lose His life. He gave it purposefully.

Sir Wilfred Grenfell, medical missionary in Labrador, found himself adrift on an ice flow, headed out to sea. He mercifully killed his dogs, made a coat out of their hides, put up a distress flag, and lay down and slept. Later he said, “There was nothing to fear. I had done all I could, the rest lay in God’s hands.”

American artist James Whistler, who was never known to be bashful about his talent, was once advised that a shipment of blank canvases he had ordered had been lost in the mail. When asked if the canvases were of any great value, Whistler remarked, “not yet, not yet.”

In 1984, 300 postal workers received their paychecks three days late—because their original checks were lost in the mail. - AP

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

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

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

1. Less supervision (moms at work, single parents)

2. Too many choices (ex., TV channels)

3. A rush to adulthood

4. Loss of innocence

5. More single parents

6. No more heroes (celebrities, but not heroes)

7. Blurring of roles and boundaries

8. The end of play

9. Critical decisions too early

10. Receiving parents’ money instead of time

In his sermon, “We All Need Roots,” William P. Tuck tells of a man who stepped onto the platform at an American Legion Convention. As he looked over the large crowd, he asked, “Can anybody tell me who I am?” He had lost his memory, with no record of his past or his identity. His desperate appeal was: “Does anybody know who I am?”

There was a man lost in the desert. He couldn’t find his tent. Finally he stumbled upon it, went inside and closed the flap. He shook out his clothes and lit a lamp. He looked for some food. The only thing that he could find was a box of dates. The first one was bad—full of worms. So he threw it in the corner. The second was the same. So he finally blew out the lamp and ate the dates!

Tennessee Williams tells a story of someone who forgot—the story of Jacob Brodzky, a shy Russian Jew whose father owned a bookstore. The older Brodzky wanted his son to go to college. The boy, on the other hand, desired nothing but to marry Lila, his childhood sweetheart—a French girl as effusive, vital, and ambitious as he was contemplative and retiring. A couple of months after young Brodzky went to college, his father fell ill and died. The son returned home, buried his father, and married his love. Then the couple moved into the apartment above the bookstore, and Brodzky took over its management.

The life of books fit him perfectly, but it cramped her. She wanted more adventure—and she found it, she thought, when she met an agent who praised her beautiful singing voice and enticed her to tour Europe with a vaudeville company.

Brodzky was devastated. At their parting, he reached into his pocket and handed her the key to the front door of the bookstore.

“You had better keep this,” he told her, “because you will want it some day. Your love is not so much less than mine that you can get away from it. You will come back sometime, and I will be waiting.”

She kissed him and left. To escape the pain he felt, Brodzky withdrew deep into his bookstore and took to reading as someone else might have taken to drink. He spoke little, did little, and could most times be found at the large desk near the rear of the shop, immersed in his books while he waited for his love to return.

Nearly 15 years after they parted, at Christmastime, she did return. But when Brodzky rose from the reading desk that had been his place of escape for all that time, he did not take the love of his life for more than an ordinary customer. “Do you want a book?” he asked.

That he didn’t recognize her startled her. But she gained possession of herself and replied, “I want a book, but I’ve forgotten the name of it.”

Then she told him a story of childhood sweethearts. A story of a newly married couple who lived in an apartment above a bookstore. A story of a young, ambitious wife who left to seek a career, who enjoyed great success but could never relinquish the key her husband gave her when they parted. She told him the story she thought would bring him to himself.

But his face showed no recognition. Gradually she realized that he had lost touch with his heart’s desire, that he no longer knew the purpose of his waiting and grieving, that now all he remembered was the waiting and grieving itself. "You remember it; you must remember it—the story of Lila and Jacob?”

After a long, bewildered pause, he said, “There is something familiar about the story, I think I have read it somewhere. It comes to me that it is something by Tolstoi.”

Dropping the key, she fled the shop. And Brodzky returned to his desk, to his reading, unaware that the love he waited for had come and gone.

Tennessee Williams’s 1931 story “Something by Tolstoi” reminds me how easy it is to miss love when it comes. Either something so distracts us or we have so completely lost who we are and what we care about that we cannot recognize our heart’s desire.

An aged man went to his physician for an examination. The physician expressed astonishment at his robust vigor in spite of his advanced years. The man explained that he had been compelled to live an out-of-doors life. He then went on to say that when he and his wife were married, they made a compact. When he lost his temper, she was to keep silent. When she lost her temper, he was to go out of doors! This is still better advice: "Enter your closet and seek the Lord in prayer."

Former Senator Dwight W. Morrow searched in vain to find his railroad ticket as he was on a train leaving New York City. “I must find that ticket,” he muttered. The conductor, who stood waiting beside him, said, “Don’t worry about it, Mr. Morrow. We know you had a ticket. Just mail it to the railroad when you find it.”

“That’s not what’s troubling me,” replied Morrow, “I need to find it to know where I’m going.”

During the war between Britain and France, men were conscripted into the French army by a kind of lottery system. When someone’s name was drawn, he had to go off to battle. There was one exception to this, however. A person could be exempt if another was willing to take his place.

On one occasion the authorities came to a certain man and told him he was among those who had been chosen. He refused to go, saying, “I was shot 2 years ago.” At first they questioned his sanity, but he insisted that this indeed was the case. He claimed that the military records would show that he had been conscripted 2 years previously and that he had been killed in action. “How can that be?” they questioned. “You are alive now!”

He explained that when his name came up, a close friend said to him, “You have a large family, but I am not married and nobody is dependent upon me. I’ll take your name and address and go in your place.” And that is indeed what the record showed.

This rather unusual case was referred to Napoleon Bonaparte, who decided that the country had no legal claim on that man. He was free. He had died in the person of another!

This principle of substitution is also at the heart of the gospel. The Savior willingly took our place, not because He had any less to lose than we, but because of His infinite love. He died in our stead and paid the penalty for our sin. The law, which demands the ultimate punishment, has no claim on us, for we died 1900 years ago in the person of Christ. His finished work is the basis of our salvation. We depend on Him—our Substitute!

Average number of dollars, per capita, spent on lottery tickets each year, in the top ten lottery states: $135.

Louis the Fat, like his father, was obese. At the age of 47 because of his extreme corpulence, he was unable to mount his horse.

Louis the Sluggard, noted for his self-indulgence, ruled from 986 to 987 over the Franks.

In our city a few years ago there was a little boy who went to one of the mission Sunday-schools. His father moved to another part of the city about five miles away, and every Sunday that boy came past thirty or forty Sunday-schools to the one he attended. And one Sunday a lady who was out collecting scholars for a Sunday-school met him and asked why he went so far, past so many schools. "There are plenty of others," said she, "just as good." He said, "They may be as good but they are not so good for me." "Why not?" she asked "Because they love a fellow over there," he answered. Ah! love won him. "Because they love a fellow over there!" How easy it is to reach people through love! Sunday-school teachers should win the affections of their scholars if they wish to lead them to Christ.

"I love Thee, I love Thee

and that Thou doest know;

But how much I love Thee,

my actions will show."

The love behind a gift is more important than the gift itself. The person who has learned this will not be frustrated because his gift is small, like the husband who wrote the following lament to his wife on Mother’s Day:

M is for the mink coat you want, dear,

O is for the opal ring you crave,

T is for the tiny car you’d love, sweet,

H is for the hat that makes you rave,

E is for the earrings you’d admire, love,

R is for the rug on which you’d tread;

Put them all together, they spell bankrupt,

So I’m giving you this handkerchief instead.

A Quaker had a bundle of hides stolen from his warehouse. He wondered what steps he should take to prevent a repetition of such an act. Instead of putting the machinery of the law in motion, he placed the following ad in the newspapers: "Whoever stole a quantity of hides on the 5th of this month is hereby informed that the owner has a sincere wish to be his friend. If poverty tempted him to take this step, the owner will keep the whole transaction secret and will gladly help him to obtain money by means more likely to bring him peace of mind."

A few nights later, when the family was about to retire to rest, a man knocked at the door of the Quaker's house, carrying with him a bundle of skins. "I have brought them back," he said. "It is the first time I ever stole anything, and I have felt very bad about it." "Let it be the last, friend." said the Quaker. "The secret still lies between ourselves." He spoke to the man faithfully and affectionately about the folly of dishonesty and of the claims of the gospel. He also took him into his employment, and the man became a changed character, living an exemplary life from then on.

No strength of nature can suffice

To serve the Lord aright:

And what she has she misapplies,

For want of clearer light.

How long beneath the law I lay

In bondage and distress;

I toil’d the precept to obey,

But toil’d without success.

Then, to abstain from outward sin

Was more than I could do;

Now, if I feel its power within,

I feel I hate it too.

Then all my servile works were done

A righteousness to raise;

Now, freely chosen in the Son,

I freely choose His ways.

“What shall I do,” was then the word,

“That I may worthier grow?”

“What shall I render to the Lord?”

Is my inquiry now.

To see the law by Christ fulfill’d

And hear His pardoning voice,

Changes a slave into a child,

And duty into choice.

A class of little girls was learning to spell. They spelled a number of small words, such as "pig," "cat," "dog," "cow," and amused themselves by imitating the sounds that these animals make. Then little Mary was asked to spell "love." She didn't stop to give the letters, but ran and threw her arms around the teacher's neck and kissed her on the cheek. "We spell 'love' that way at our house," she said. The girls laughed, but the teacher said, "That is a beautiful way; but do you know another way to spell 'love'?" "Oh, yes," cried Mary, "I spell love this way," and she began to put the books in order on her teacher's desk. "I spell love by helping everybody when they need me."

Then there's the man who said, "Lord, maybe Charlie Brown is right when he says he loves mankind, but it is people he cannot stand. You see, I love people in general more than I do individually.

"Lord, it is like the joke about the father who yelled at his kids when they walked in the wet cement of his sidewalk; he can love them in the abstract, but never in the concrete.

"Maybe I need to see a little more of You in them. And maybe I need to see a little more of You in me."

A young man spent an entire evening telling a girl how much he loved her. He said that he could not live without her; that he would go to the ends of the earth for her; yes, go through fire for her, or die for her. However, on leaving, he said, "I'll see you tomorrow night if it doesn't rain." How often we say we love God yet deny it by our actions. Christ will give His crown of life only to those who love Him in deed and in truth.

She was lying on the ground. In her arms she held a tiny baby girl. As I put a cooked sweet potato into her outstretched hand, I wondered if she would live until morning. Her strength was almost gone, but her tired eyes acknowledged my gift. The sweet potato could help so little—but it was all I had.

Taking a bite she chewed it carefully. Then, placing her mouth over her baby’s mouth, she forced the soft warm food into the tiny throat. Although the mother was starving, she used the entire potato to keep her baby alive.

Exhausted from her effort, she dropped her head on the ground and closed her eyes. In a few minutes the baby was asleep. I later learned that during the night the mother’s heart stopped, but her little girl lived.

Love is a costly thing.

God in His live for us (and for a lost world) “spared not His own Son” to tell the world of His love. Love is costly, but we must tell the world at any cost.

Such love is costly.

It costs parents and sons and daughters. It costs the missionary life itself. In his love for Christ the missionary must give up all to make the Savior known. If you will let your love for Christ, cost you something, the great advance will be made together.

Remember, love is a costly thing. Do you love enough?

Two weeks after the stolen steak deal, I took Helen (eight years old) and Brandon (five years old) to the Cloverleaf Mall in Hattiesburg to do a little shopping. As we drove up, we spotted a Peterbilt eighteen-wheeler parked with a big sign on it that said, “Petting Zoo.” The kids jumped up in a rush and asked, “Daddy, Daddy. Can we go? Please. Please. Can we go?”

“Sure,” I said, flipping them both a quarter before walking into Sears. They bolted away, and I felt free to take my time looking for a scroll saw. A petting zoo consists of a portable fence erected in the mall with about six inches of sawdust and a hundred little furry baby animals of all kinds. Kids pay their money and stay in the enclosure enraptured with the squirmy little critters while their moms and dads shop.

A few minutes later, I turned around and saw Helen walking along behind me. I was shocked to see she preferred the hardware department to the petting zoo. Recognizing my error, I bent down and asked her what was wrong.

She looked up at me with those giant limpid brown eyes and said sadly, “Well, Daddy, it cost fifty cents. So, I gave Brandon my quarter.” Then she said the most beautiful thing I ever heard. She repeated the family motto. The family motto is in “Love is Action!”

She had given Brandon her quarter, and no one loves cuddly furry creatures more than Helen. She had watched Sandy take my steak and say, “Love is Action!” She had watched both of us do and say “Love is Action!” for years around the house and Kings Arrow Ranch. She had heard and seen “Love is Action,” and now she had incorporated it into her little lifestyle. It had become part of her.

What do you think I did? Well, not what you might think. As soon as I finished my errands, I took Helen to the petting zoo. We stood by the fence and watched Brandon go crazy petting and feeding the animals. Helen stood with her hands and chin resting on the fence and just watched Brandon. I had fifty cents burning a hole in my pocket; I never offered it to Helen, and she never asked for it.

Because she knew the whole family motto. It’s not “Love is Action.” It’s “Love is SACRIFICIAL Action!” Love always pays a price. Love always costs something. Love is expensive. When you love, benefits accrue to another’s account. Love is for you, not for me. Love gives; it doesn’t grab. Helen gave her quarter to Brandon and wanted to follow through with her lesson. She knew she had to taste the sacrifice. She wanted to experience that total family motto. Love is sacrificial action.

Sacrificial love has transforming power. Genuine love is volitional rather than emotional. The person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love. This person has made a commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present. It is, so much the better; but if it isn’t, the commitment to love, the will to love, still stands and is still exercised.

Conversely, it is not only possible but necessary for a loving person to avoid acting on feelings of love. I may meet a woman who strongly attracts me, whom I feel like loving, but because it would be destructive to my marriage to have an affair, I will say vocally or in the silence of my heart, “I feel like loving you, but I am not going to.” My feelings of love may be unbounded, but my capacity to be loving is limited. I therefore must choose the person on whom to focus my capacity to love, toward whom to direct my will to love. True love is not a feeling by which we are overwhelmed. It is a committed, thoughtful decision.

Some years ago, Dr. Karl Menninger, noted doctor and psychologist, was seeking the cause of many of his patients' ills. One day he called in his clinical staff and proceeded to unfold a plan for developing, in his clinic, an atmosphere of creative love. All patients were to be given large quantities of love; no unloving attitudes were to be displayed in the presence of the patients, and all nurses and doctors were to go about their work in and out of the various rooms with a loving attitude.

At the end of six months, the time spent by patients in the institution was cut in half.

A father was in the basement of his daughter's house trying to fix something for her when the blow torch exploded and he was badly burned. As if that was not enough, the daughter is suing her father for damages to get all the money that she can out of him. This is a perfect illustration of what happens when you put money, material things, first in your life.

Joseph M. Stowell shares this memory:

"When my parents moved to southern Florida, they sorted through some of the family treasures and divided them among the children. My dad brought me a little box and said, 'Joe, I want you to have this.'When I opened the box and pulled back the cotton, there was an old pocket watch-one of those round ones that usually hangs from a fancy gold chain with a watch fob on it.

"I have a few antique clocks, so I was somewhat aware of the value of old timepieces. That watch did not have a famous maker's name on it, or a brass or gold or sterling case; it did not have a fancy gold chain or watch fob. In fact, it really was a common old watch with a leather thong tied to it. As a watch, it was not something of great worth.

"But my dad said, 'This was the first watch I ever owned. My dad gave me this watch.'I remembered that he and I used to fish the St. Joe River every summer, floating down the river and fly fishing in the evening. This was the watch he used to pull out every once in a while to see what time it was.

"You know, if my dad had taken that watch to an antique store, they would have told him it was worth little, if anything. But all the money in the world could not buy that watch from me. That watch is precious to my father, and since it is precious to him, it is precious to me.

"That is what people are like. That is why God in essence said, 'Love Me? Love people!'"

During World War II, an enemy submarine approached a fleet of ships in the North Atlantic. The captain of one vessel spotted the white mark of a torpedo coming directly at his ship. His transport was loaded with literally hundreds and hundreds of young soldiers on the way to the European front. He realized they would not have time to maneuver to avoid the torpedo. He grabbed the loudspeaker and cried out, "Boys, this is it!"

Nearby, though, a little escorting destroyer also observed the torpedo. The captain ordered, "Full speed ahead." His ship steamed into the path of the torpedo. The destroyer was blown up; it sank very quickly. Every man on it was lost. The captain of the troop transport ship sadly commented, "The skipper of that destroyer was my best friend." Now one verse in the Bible has an even deeper meaning for that captain: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend" (Joh_15:13).

A brilliant, liberal preacher pleasing his congregation with flowery phrases as he talked on the importance of breadth of view and the danger of bigoted opinions, was bidding farewell to them as he was about to leave for a new parish. A young man approached him and said, "Pastor, I am sorry we are losing you. Before you came, I did not care for God, man, or the devil, but through your delightful sermons I have learned to love them all!" Unfortunately, that is the kind of messengers many churches have.

It is said that Claude, a man of great piety, was unjustly imprisoned in the Bastille. At the same time a man was imprisoned who was so brutal and ferocious that no one dared approach him. The jailer, recognizing Claude's Christian character, begged him to undertake to humanize this monster. Accordingly, the humble Christian was shut up with this inhuman brute who subjected him to the most barbarous treatment. Through it all Claude's only reply was to exhibit silence, patience, and mildness under attack. His prayers achieved the rest. The monster at length looked into the face of his companion, suddenly threw himself at his feet, and burst into a flood of penitent tears. He became a new creature in Christ, and even when set at liberty he could scarcely be prevailed upon to leave his Christian friend.

Love reaches for the hurt and takes bold steps without self-interest. It can accomplish unbelievable things merely because it is so void of self-interest.

Some time ago, a teenager, Arthur Hinkley, lifted a 3,000-pound tractor with bare hands. He wasn’t a weight lifter, but his friend, Lloyd Bachelder, 18, was pinned under a tractor on a farm near Rome, Maine. Hearing Lloyd scream, Arthur somehow lifted the tractor enough for Lloyd to wriggle out.

Love was the real motivation.