the Fourth Week of Advent
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There is a tale told of that great English actor Macready. An eminent preacher once said to him: “I wish you would explain to me something.” “Well, what is it? I don’t know that I can explain anything to a preacher.” “What is the reason for the difference between you and me? You are appearing before crowds night after night with fiction, and the crowds come wherever you go. I am preaching the essential and unchangeable truth, and I am not getting any crowd at all.” Macready’s answer was this: “This is quite simple. I can tell you the difference between us. I present my fiction as though it were truth; you present your truth as though it were fiction.”
Two friends, one an army officer, met after an interval of ten years. They had been attached to each other and shook hands cordially. After a little chat, the civilian, looking at the other man with a curious air, said, "By the way, General, they tell me you have gone mad over religion." "Well," responded the general, "I'm not aware of being crazy; as far as I know I'm enjoying all my senses. But you know, if I am, there is one comfort; I've got Jesus Christ for my keeper and heaven for my lunatic asylum, so I think I shall not do badly after all." The world may consider the faithful, practicing Christian crazy, but what counts is that God declares him righteous over and over again.
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
There is one couple I shall always remember from my days as a hospital admitting clerk. The husband, a heart-attack victim, was immediately whisked away by the staff. Hours passed, though, before his wife was allowed to see him. She was dismayed to find him hooked up to elaborate machines that blipped, hissed and beeped.
She tiptoed toward his bed and, bending over him, whispered, “George, I’m here.” Then she kissed him. Suddenly there was a blippety-blip-blip from the equipment. “He was okay,” she later explained. “But after forty-seven years of marriage it’s nice to know that I can still make his heart skip when I kiss him.”
Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones. - Phillips Brooks
We drop a seed into the ground,
A tiny, shapeless thing, shriveled and dry,
And, in the fullness of its time, is seen
A form of peerless beauty, robed and crowned.
Beyond the pride of any earthly queen,
Instinct with loveliness, and sweet and rare,
The perfect emblem of its Maker’s care.
This from a shriveled seed?—
—Then may man hope indeed!
For man is but the seed of what he shall be,
When, in the fullness of his perfecting,
He drops the husk and cleaves his upward way,
Through earth’s retardings and clinging clay,
Into the sunshine of God’s perfect day.
No fetters then! No bonds of time or space!
But powers as ample as the boundless grace
That suffered man, and death, and yet in tenderness,
Set wide the door, and passed Himself before—
As He had promised—to prepare a place.
We know not what we shall be—only this—
That we shall be made like Him—as He is.
John Oxenham
Dr. Guthrie, attending a school gathering in a slum area, followed a speaker who had referred to poor neglected children as "the scum of society." This roused the indignation of Dr. Guthrie. Taking a clean sheet of paper and holding it up, he said, "Yes, this was the scum of society once, only filthy rags, but they can be cleansed and made into spotless white paper on which you may write the name of God." So it is with a believer in Christ.
Have you not heard of the madman who lit a lamp in the bright morning and went to the marketplace crying ceaselessly, “I seek God! I seek God!” There were many among those standing there who didn’t believe in God so he made them laugh.
“Is God lost?” one of them said.
“Has he gone astray like a child?” said another. “Or is he hiding? Has he gone on board ship and emigrated?” So they laughed and shouted to one another.
The man sprang into their midst and looked daggers at them. “Where is God?” he cried. “I will tell you. We have killed him--you and I We are all his killers! But how have we done this? How could we swallow up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the horizon? What will we do as the earth is set loose from its sun?” - Friedrich Nietzsche, 1889
Nietzsche’s point was not that God does not exist, but that God has become irrelevant. Men and women may assert that God exists or that He does not, but it makes little difference either way. God is dead not because He doesn’t exist, but because we live, play, procreate, govern, and die as though He doesn’t.
My drive in life is from this horrible fear of being mediocre. that’s always been pushing me, pushing me. Because even though I’ve become somebody, I still have to prove that I’m SOMEBODY. My struggle has never ended, and it probably never will.
Number of new magazines in the U.S. in 1992: 679
Number devoted to lifestyle: 60
Number devoted to sports: 40
Number devoted to crafts/games/hobbies: 35
Number devoted to celebrities: 33
Number devoted to sex: 97
The carnival director was interviewing a young man looking for his first job as a magician. “What’s your best trick?” the director asked. “Sawing a woman in half—that’s my best.”
“Isn’t that a difficult trick?” “Not really. I’ve been able to do that one since I was a child. I always used to practice on my sisters.”
“And do you come from a large family?”
“Well, I have eight half sisters.”
In his autobiography, Mahatma Gandhi wrote that during his student days he read the Gospels seriously and considered converting to Christianity. He believed that in the teachings of Jesus he could find the solution to the caste system that was dividing the people of India.
So one Sunday he decided to attend services at a nearby church and talk to the minister about becoming a Christian. When he entered the sanctuary, however, the usher refused to give him a seat and suggested that he go worship with his own people. Gandhi left the church and never returned. “If Christians have caste differences also,” he said, “I might as well remain a Hindu.” That usher’s prejudice not only betrayed Jesus but also turned a person away from trusting Him as Savior.
Early missionaries to the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific received their mail once a year when the sailing boat made its rounds of the South Pacific. On one occasion the boat was one day ahead of schedule, and the missionaries were off on a neighboring island. The captain left the mail with the Marshallese people while he attended to matters of getting stores of water and provisions. At last the Marshallese were in possession of what the missionaries spoke about so often and apparently cherished so much. The people examined the mail to find out what was so attractive about it. They concluded that it must be good to eat, and so they proceeded to tear all the letters into tiny bits and cook them. However, they didn’t taste very good, and the Marshallese were still puzzled about the missionaries’ strange interest in mail when they returned to find their year’s correspondence made into mush.
Let us be on our guard against this feeling. it is only too near the surface of all our hearts. Let us study to realize that liberal tolerant spirit which Jesus here recommends and be thankful for good works wheresoever and by whomsoever done. Let us beware of the slightest inclination to stop and check others merely because they do not choose to adopt our plans or work by our side. We may think our fellow-Christians mistaken in some points. We may fancy that more would be done for Christ if they would join us and if all worked in the same way. We may see many evils arising from religious dissension’s and divisions. But all this must not prevent us rejoicing if the works of the devil are destroyed and souls saved. Is our neighbor warring against Satan? Is he really trying to labor for Christ? This is the grand question. Better a thousand times that the work should be done by other hands than not done at all. Happy is he who knows something of the spirit of Moses, when he said, “Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets,” and of Paul, when he says, “If Christ is preached, I rejoice, yea, and will rejoice” (Num 11:29; Phil 1:18).
A canny Maine farmer was approached by a stranger one day and asked how much he thought his prize Jersey cow was worth. The farmer thought for a moment, looked the stranger over, then said: “Are you the tax assessor, or has she been killed by your car?”
Mr. Brown ran a sanatorium for rich women who had nothing much to do. They had been idle so long together that their nerves got the best of them. They fancied all sorts of things wrong with themselves as they grumbled about their aches and pains.
Brown and his wife were getting rich listening to them and babying them. Then one of the women made a few repairs on her old clothes which she gave to the needy. Another woman took notice then did the same. Soon most of them were repairing old clothes. Then one delivered her repaired clothes and came back excited about how the poor folk received them.
Then all the women repaired clothes and delivered them to the poor families. The result? Mr. Brown and his wife found their sanitorium empty. The women had found purpose in life. The sanatorium was no longer needed.
Major Needs of Women
1. Affection,
2. Conversation,
3. Honesty and openness,
4. support,
5. Family commitment.
Major Needs of Men
1. Sexual fulfillment,
2. Recreational companionship,
3. An attractive spouse,
4. Domestic support,
5. Admiration.
Five Major Needs of Women
1. Affection,
2. Conversation,
3. Honesty and openness,
4. Financial support,
5. Family commitment.
Five Major Needs of Men
1. Sexual fulfillment,
2. Recreational companionship,
3. An attractive spouse,
4. Domestic support,
5. Admiration.
His career as a private detective supplied novelist Dashiell Hammett with much of the material used in his books. On one occasion, the chief of police of a southern city sent Hammett a detailed description of a wanted man, even mentioning the mole on the man’s neck. The description omitted, however, the important fact that the culprit had only one arm!
A husband and wife, prior to marriage, decided that he’d make all the major decisions and she the minor ones. After 20 years of marriage, he was asked how this arrangement had worked. “Great! in all these years I’ve never had to make a major decision.”
In 1844 a medical doctor named Ignas Phillip Semmelweis, who was assistant director at the Vienna Maternity Hospital, suggested to the doctors that the high rate of death of patients and new babies was due to the fact that the doctors attending them were carrying infections from the diseased and dead people whom they had previously touched. Semmelweis ordered doctors to wash their hands with soap and water and rinse them in a strong chemical before examining their patients. He tried to get doctors to wear clean clothes and he battled for clean wards. However, the majority of doctors disagreed with Semmelweis and they deliberately disobeyed his orders. In the late nineteenth century, on the basis of the work by Semmelweis, Joseph Lister began soaking surgery instruments, the operating table, his hands, and the patients with carbolic acid. The results were astonishing. What was previously risky surgery now became routine. However, the majority of doctors criticized his work also. Today we know that Lister and Semmelweis were right; the majority of doctors in their day were wrong. Just because the majority believe one thing does not necessarily mean it is true.
A large majority of men—married and single—say they wouldn’t have an affair, even if they were certain their loved one would never find out, says a Gallup poll commissioned by Self magazine, in the June (1992) issue. Of 500 men surveyed, 67% of married men and 60% of unmarried men say an affair is absolutely out of the question. Only 5% of married men and 11% of unmarried men would do it (the rest said maybe). Also, 95% of married men say they wouldn’t drop their partner for a trophy wife if they became extremely successful or wealthy.
Little things make a better day:
Being grateful for another morning by being cheerful on the outside even though you might be in physical pain on the inside.
Writing a little note of encouragement, congratulations, appreciation, sympathy or condolence to someone needing a little uplift.
A visit to a sick friend-but don't stay too long.
A telephone call to a lonesome friend.
Give a gift to someone.
Have a kind and warm greeting for a little child or an elderly person.
Stop and enjoy the flowers.
Get some little thing done that you have been putting off.
Admit a mistake to yourself and resolve not to make it again.
Show kindness to animals.
Move close to your family.
Explore the satisfaction of courtesy.
Be able to go to sleep at the end of the day with the feeling that you have been a more considerate person today than you were yesterday.
All these add to the sweetness and smoothness of life. They bring us to pleasant communion with others, nurture friendships, and prevent the interference of those petty sophistications and elaborate etiquettes that keep us apart from others.
Though small, they create a beneficent radiation which enriches us and contributes to our own ennoblement. They enhance a tender inclination for the pleasantness that comes with the satisfaction of having done good. They strengthen the soul. They make a good day because they make us better persons.
A traveler stopped in a small town and asked of the people, "What is this place noted for?" The reply from the people was, "This is a very important place. It is the starting place for any place you want to go. You can start from here and go anywhere you wish."
What is so important about this church? Your home? Your class? You can start from there and go any place you wish to be. You can go to the town of forgiveness, the mountain of faith, the island of eternity, the community of friendliness. The church is important because you can start there and go anywhere you wish.
A lady in the north of England said that every time she got down before God to pray, five bottles of wine came up before her mind. She had taken them wrongfully one time when she was a housekeeper, and had not been able to pray since. She was advised to make restitution. “But the person is dead,” she said.
“Are not some of the heirs living?”
“Yes, a son.”
“Then go to that son and pay him back.”
“Well,” she said, “I want to see the face of God, but I could not think of doing a thing like that. My reputation is at stake.” She went away, and came back the next day to ask if it would not do just as well to put that money in the treasury of the Lord.”
“No,” she was told, “God doesn’t want any stolen money. The only thing is to make restitution.”
She carried that burden for several days, but finally went into the country, saw that son, made a full confession and offered him a five-pound note. He said he didn’t want the money, but she finally persuaded him to take it, and came back with a joy and peace that made her face radiant. She became a magnificent worker for souls, and led many into the light.
My dear friends, get these stumbling stones out of the way. God does not want a man to shout “Hallelujah” who doesn’t pay his debts. Many of our prayer meetings are killed by men trying to pray who cannot pray because their lives are not right. Sin builds up a great wall between us and God. A man may stand high in the community and may be a member of some church “in good standing,” but the question is, how does he stand in the sight of God? If there is anything wrong in your life, make it right.
O let me shed a little light
On someone's path I pray;
I'd like to be a messenger
Of happiness today!
It may be just a phone call,
A smile, or a prayer,
Or a long neglected letter
Would lift the edge of care.
I want to spread some happiness
In what I say or do,
Make life a little sweeter
For someone else! Don't you?
A teardrop crept into my eye as I knelt on bended knee;
Next to a gold haired tiny lad whose age was just past three.
He prayed with such simplicity “Please make me big and strong,
Just like Daddy, don’t you see? Watch o’er me all night long.”
“Jesus, make me tall and brave, like my Daddy next to me.”
This simple prayer he prayed tonight filled my heart with humility.
As I heard his voice so wee and small offer his prayer to God,
I thought these little footsteps someday my path may trod!
Oh, Lord, as I turn my eyes above and guidance ask from Thee;
Keep my walk ever so straight for the little feet that follow me.
Buoy me when I stumble, and lift me when I fail,
Guard this tiny bit of boy as he travels down life’s trail.
Make me what he thinks I am is my humble gracious plea
Help me ever be the man this small lad sees in me!
In his autobiography, Breaking Barriers, syndicated columnist Carl Rowan tells about a teacher who greatly influenced his life. Rowan relates: Miss Thompson reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a piece of paper containing a quote attributed to Chicago architect Daniel Burnham. I listened intently as she read: “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans, aim high in hope and work. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us.”
More than 30 years later, I gave a speech in which I said that Frances Thompson had given me a desperately needed belief in myself. A newspaper printed the story, and someone mailed the clipping to my beloved teacher. She wrote me: “You have no idea what that newspaper story meant to me. For years, I endured my brother’s arguments that I had wasted my life. That I should have married and had a family. When I read that you gave me credit for helping to launch a marvelous career, I put the clipping in front of my brother. After he’d read it, I said, ‘You see, I didn’t really waste my life, did I?’“
It was King James I, I believe, who became annoyed with the irrelevant ramblings of his court preacher and shouted up to the pulpit: “Either make sense or come down out of that pulpit!”
The preacher replied, “I will do neither.”
If you don’t make up your mind, your unmade mind will unmake you. - E. Stanley Jones
I recently read about an old man, walking the beach at dawn, who noticed a young man ahead of him picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Catching up with the youth, he asked what he was doing. The answer was that the stranded starfish would die if left in the morning sun. “But the beach goes on for miles and miles, and there are millions of starfish,” countered the man. “How can your effort make any difference?”
The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and then threw it to safety in the waves. “It makes a difference to this one,” he said.
Kristin Lewis, about 8 years old, mentioned that her mother’s birthday was soon approaching. I asked her if she was going to make a birthday card on her father’s computer. She said, “No. If you make one on the computer they don’t keep it on the refrigerator as long as when you make one yourself.”
Margaret Sangster, the social worker, told her colleagues about seeing a small boy in an urban ghetto sitting on the stairs of a tenement. He appeared little more than a bit of twisted human flesh. The youngster had been struck by an automobile several months before, but his parents, fresh from Appalachia, neglected to get him proper medical attention. Although not part of her case load, she took the boy to an orthopedist and learned that through an involved series of operations the child’s body could be made normal again. She cut through the bureaucratic red tape, raised the funds, and set the process of cure in motion.
Two years after the child entered the hospital he came to her office. To her astonishment, the lad walked in without crutches, and to demonstrate the completeness of his recovery, he turned a cartwheel for her. The two embraced and when the youngster left, Margaret Sangster reported that a warm glow mantled the entire office. She said to herself, “If I never accomplish anything else in my life, at least here is one young man to whom I can point where I have made a real difference!” At that point she paused in her presentation and asked, “This was all of several years ago now. Where do you think that boy is today?” Caught in the emotion of that moment, several made suggestions—a school teacher? a physician? perhaps a social worker?
There was a longer pause, and with even deeper emotion, Margaret Sangster said, “No, he is in the penitentiary for one of the foulest crimes a human being can commit.” Then she added, “I was instrumental in teaching him how to walk again, but there was no one to teach him where to walk.”
Making decisions in the dark can lead to some regrettable consequences. Back in the days before electricity, a tightfisted old farmer was taking his hired man to task for carrying a lighted lantern when he went to call on his best girl. “Why,” he exclaimed, “when I went a-courtin’ I never carried one of them things. I always went in the dark.” “Yes,” the hired man said wryly,” and look what you got!”
Forget about the concept of a town hall meeting to decide public policy. How about this instead? In Ancient Greece, to prevent idiotic statesmen from passing idiotic laws upon the people, lawmakers were asked to introduce all new laws while standing on a platform with a rope around their neck. If the law passed, the rope was removed. If it failed, the platform was removed.
I cannot make peace with the randomness doctrine; I cannot abide the notion of purposelessness and blind chance in nature. And yet I do not know what to put in its place for the quieting of my mind. It is absurd to say that a place like this is absurd, when it contains, in front of our eyes, so many billions of different forms of life, each one in its way absolutely perfect, all linked together to form what would surely seem to an outsider a huge, spherical organism.
We talk—some of us, anyway—-about the absurdity of the human situation, but we do this because we do not know how we fit in, or what we are for. The stories we used to make up to explain ourselves do not make sense anymore, and we have run out of new stories, for the moment.
When Pablo Casals reached 95, a young reported threw him a question: “Mr. Casals, you are 95 and the greatest cellist that ever lived. Why do you still practice six hours a day?” And Mr. Casals answered, “Because I think I’m making progress.”
Your goal is to make progress every day of your life.
If we want God to guide us, our attitude needs to be right. Here are some guidelines as to how we can play our part in arriving at right decisions.
First, we must be willing to think. It is false piety, super-supernaturalism of an unhealthy pernicious sort that demands inward impressions with no rational base, and declines to heed the constant biblical summons to consider. God made us thinking beings, and he guides our minds as we think things out in his presence.
Second, we must be willing to think ahead and weigh the long-term consequences of alternative courses of action. Often we can only see what is wise and right, and what is foolish and wrong, as we dwell on the long-term issues.
Third, we must be willing to take advice. It is a sign of conceit and immaturity to dispense with taking advice in major decisions. There are always people who know the Bible, human nature, and our own gifts and limitations better than we do, and even if we cannot finally accept their advice, nothing but good will come to us from carefully weighing what they say.
Fourth, we must be willing to be ruthlessly honest with ourselves. We must suspect ourselves: ask ourselves why we feel a particular course of action will be right and make ourselves give reasons.
Fifth, we must be willing to wait. “Wait on the Lord” is a constant refrain in the Psalms and it is a necessary word, for the Lord often keeps us waiting. When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God.
Any task we do as Christians should be done with wholehearted dedication, for God is never satisfied with a halfhearted effort. H. A. Ironside learned this early in life while working for a Christian shoemaker. Young Harry’s job was to prepare the leather for soles. He would cut a piece of cowhide to size, soak it in water, and then pound it with a flat-headed hammer until it was hard and dry. This was a wearisome process, and he wished it could be avoided. Harry would often go to another shoeshop nearby to watch his employer’s competitor. This man did not pound the leather after it came from the water. Instead, he immediately nailed it onto the shoe he was making. One day Harry approached the shoemaker and said, “I noticed you put the soles on while they are still wet. Are they just as good as if they were pounded?” With a wink and a cynical smile the man replied, “No, but they come back much quicker this way, my boy!”
Young Harry hurried back to his boss and suggested that perhaps they were wasting their time by drying out the leather so carefully. Upon hearing this, his employer took his Bible, read Colossians 3:23 to him, and said, “Harry, I do not make shoes just for the money. I’m doing it for the glory of God. If at the judgment seat of Christ I should have to view every shoe I’ve ever made, I don’t want to hear the Lord say, ‘Dan, that was a poor job. You didn’t do your best.’ I want to see His smile and hear, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant!’” It was a lesson in practical Christian ethics that Ironside never forgot! - H.G.B.
In all the daily tasks we do,
Bible helps us clearly see
That if the Work is good and true,
We’re living for eternity.
D.J.D.
In God’s eyes it is a great thing to do a little thing well.
We are great planners. We like to spend many hours drawing up complex organization charts, carefully constructed diagrams, and in-depth plans for building the church. Most of these never come to fruition. Many are just "pipe dreams."
Would you be interested in a simple, yet profound, plan that will help you build the church? Listen to the simple formula for a growing church set out by Mack R. Douglas in his book, How To Make A Habit of Succeeding:
1. Set a Goal. That's logical. You can never know if you've arrived at the place you wanted to go unless you first had your target pinpointed. Right?
2. Get a Plan. Planning is drawing a map as to how you are going to reach your goal. Ever have someone try to tell you how to get to someplace and have them say, "Get me a piece of paper." He draws you a map that tells you how to get from where you are to where you want to be. That's what we mean by planning.
3. Go to Work. Somebody always has to foul up a good idea. This is our biggest stumbling block. We've got lots of goal setters and planners, but are short on workers. But this is where the "rubber meets the road." No church is going to grow unless we've got people working! Jesus felt this pain during his ministry, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few" (Mat 9:37). Douglas then adds this fourth point: "Don't be discouraged by anything or anybody."
A fable tells of a little piece of wood that once complained bitterly because its owner kept whittling away at it, cutting it and filling it full of holes. But the one who was cutting it so remorselessly paid no attention to its complaining. He was making a flute out of that piece of ebony, and he was too wise to give up because the wood moaned so piteously. His actions seemed to say, "Little piece of wood, without these holes and all this cutting, you would be an ugly stick forever-just a useless piece of ebony. What I am doing now may make you think that I am destroying you when actually I am changing you into a flute whose sweet music will comfort sorrowing hearts. My cutting you is the making of you, for only thus can you be a blessing to the world."
Lady Nancy Astor, the first woman ever seated in the British House of Commons, encountered a lot of male antagonism – but proved herself capable of giving as well as receiving in that arena. Once, at a formal dinner, Lady Astor said to her neighbor that she considered men to be more conceited than women.
Noticing that she had been heard around the table, she continued loudly: “It’s a pity that the most intelligent and learned men attach the least importance to the way they dress. Why, right at this table the most cultivated man is wearing the most clumsily knotted tie!” The words were scarcely out of her mouth before every man in the room secretly reached up to adjust his tie.
In 1978, Thomas Hansen of Boulder Colorado, sued his parents for $350,000 on grounds of “malpractice of parenting.” Mom and Dad had botched his upbringing so badly, he charged in his suit, that he would need years of costly psychiatric treatment.
People refuse to believe that which they don’t want to believe, in spite of evidence. When explorers first went to Australia they found a mammal which laid eggs; spent some time in water, some on land; had a broad, flat tail, webbed feet, and a bill similar to a duck.
Upon their return to England, they told the populace of this, and all felt it was a hoax. They returned to Australia and found a pelt from this animal and took it back to England, but the people still felt it was a hoax. In spite of the evidence, they disbelieved because they didn’t want to believe.
A small boy filled with all kinds of playful ideas anxiously awaited his father's return from work. An extra-long day at the office, however, had taken its toll, and his father longed for a few minutes of relaxation. Over and over again the boy tugged at his dad's leg with yet another suggestion of something they might do together. Well, finally in total frustration the father ripped from a magazine a picture of the world and tore it into a hundred pieces. "Here," he said handing the child a roll of scotch tape, "go and put the world back together." Ah, peace at last, or so he thought. But, in just a few minutes, he was interrupted again, there before him stood his son-and in hands was a crudely fashioned picture of the world. "Son, that's incredible. How did you do it?" "It was easy," said the boy, "you see on the other side of the picture of the world was the picture of a man, and as soon as I got man straightened out the world came together."
What a profound answer from a child! How true! Get man fixed and the world will be okay.
It's fruit that you want when you present the gospel. Someone who had heard a moving sermon was asked by a friend what he remembered of it. "Truly," he said, "I remember nothing at all, but I am a different man as a result of it." Contrast that with what another man answered when he was asked what he thought of a sermon that had produced a great sensation among the congregation. His reply may hold an important lesson for some of us. "Very fine, sir; but a man cannot live upon flowers."
It's fruit that you want when you present the gospel. Someone who had heard a moving sermon was asked by a friend what he remembered of it. "Truly," he said, "I remember nothing at all, but I am a different man as a result of it." Contrast that with what another man answered when he was asked what he thought of a sermon that had produced a great sensation among the congregation. His reply may hold an important lesson for some of us. "Very fine, sir; but a man cannot live upon flowers."
A householder left a patch of land completely unattended. On returning from a journey he found it full of stones, old bottles, and other rubbish. Though he had never attempted to garden before, he took a spade and began to dig up the ground and clear away the debris. Then he sowed a few seeds. With tremendous excitement he watched his garden patch. When at last he saw little shoots pushing up through the ground he was almost in ecstasy. Gradually the plants grew and at last the flowers appeared. To him it looked beautiful. One day his pastor stopped by. He couldn't get the pastor excited about his garden. Finally the pastor said, "Yes, it is wonderful what Almighty God does with a patch of ground like that." "Oh, it is," said the man, "but I wish you had seen this place when the Almighty had it all to Himself!" Unfortunately, the man failed to acknowledge that it was man's fault the patch of ground was such an eyesore in the first place. But it's true that God does not choose to make a garden without a gardener.The beauties of nature may occasionally surpass man's best efforts. A field of wild flowers in bloom shows the quality God has put into nature. But in most instances God commits the raw elements to man and lets him bring beauty, order, and usefulness out of them.
Man is like an automobile. As it gets older, the differential starts slipping, and the u-joints get worn, causing the drive shaft to go bad. The transmission won’t go into high gear and sometimes has difficulty getting out of low. The cylinders get worn and lose compression, making it hard to climb the slightest incline. When it is climbing, the tappets clatter and ping to the point where one wonders if the old bus will make it to the top. The carburetor gets fouled with pollutants and other matter, making it hard to get started in the morning. It is hard to keep the radiator filled because of the leaking hose. The thermostat goes out, making it difficult to reach operating temperature. The headlights grow dim, and the horn gets weaker. The memory chip drops a few bytes, and the battery needs constant recharging. But if the body looks good with no bangs, dents or chipping paint, we can keep it washed and polished, giving the impression that it can compete with the newer models and make one more trip down the primrose lane before the head gasket blows. Gentlemen, start your engines.
here is a story of an Atlantic passenger laying in his bunk in a storm, deathly sick—seasick. A cry of “Man overboard” was heard. The passenger thought, “God help the poor fellow—there is nothing I can do.” Then he thought at least he could put his lantern in the port-hole, which he did. The man was rescued, and recounting the story next day he said, “I was going down in the darkness for the last time when someone put a light in a port-hole. It shone on my hand, and a sailor in a lifeboat grabbed it and pulled me in.” Weakness is no excuse for our not putting forth all the little strength we have, and who can tell how God will use it?
When J. Wilbur Chapman was in London, he had an opportunity to meet General Booth, who at that time was past 80 years of age. Dr. Chapman listened reverently as the old general spoke of the trials and the conflicts and the victories he had experienced.
The American evangelist then asked the general if he would disclose his secret for success. "He hesitated a second," Dr. Chapman said, "and I saw the tears come into his eyes and steal down his cheeks," and then he said, "I will tell you the secret. God has had all there was of me. There have been men with greater brains than I, men with greater opportunities; but from the day I got the poor of London on my heart, and a vision of what Jesus Christ could do with the poor of London, I made up my mind that He would have all of William Booth there was. And if there is anything of power in the Salvation Army today, it is because God has all the adoration of my heart, all the power of my will, and all the influence of my life."
Dr. Chapman said he went away from that meeting with General Booth knowing "that the greatness of a man's power is the measure of his surrender."
Man's greatest possession is an unhindered relationship with God. I think of two friends who were passing a large tract of land that belonged to one of them. "What do you think this land and the buildings cost me?" asked the landowner. "I don't know what they cost you in money," replied his friend, "but I think I know what they cost you otherwise." "What?" "They cost you your soul," was the sorrowful reply.
Billy Sunday told of a man who came to him and said, "I will cut out the booze and get on the water wagon," "Good; what else?" "Of course, I am a gambler; I will quit gambling and I will never touch a pack of cards." "All right; what else?" "I am a bad man, and I will live a clean life." "Good; what else?" He said, "If I quit these things, I think they cover about all. I will quit drinking, swearing, stop gambling, and I will quit being impure." Billy said, "Good. Give me your hand and say you will accept Jesus Christ as your Savior," He said, "No, I will not. If I stop those things, I won't need to do that."
Nothing in the world is friendlier than a wet dog.
Man, despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication and many accomplishments, owes the fact of his existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.
Man’s life means: tender teens, teachable twenties, tireless thirties, fiery forties, forceful fifties, serious sixties, sacred seventies, aching eighties, shortening breath, death, the sod, God!
Will is the whole man active. I cannot give up my will; I must exercise it. I must will to obey. When God gives a command or a vision of truth, it is never a question of what He will do, but what we will do. To be successful in God’s work is to fall in line with His will and to do it His way. All that is pleasing to Him is a success
That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; ...that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the aspirations, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system ... All these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.
As his UCLA football team suffered through a poor season in the early 1970s, head coach Pepper Rodgers came under intense criticism and pressure from alumni and fans. Things got so bad, he remembers with a smile, that friends became hard to find. “My dog was my only true friend,” Rodgers says of that year. “I told my wife that every man needs at least two good friends—and she bought me another dog.”
When J. Wilbur Chapman was in London, he had an opportunity to meet General Booth, who at that time was past 80 years of age. Dr. Chapman listened reverently as the old general spoke of the trials and the conflicts and the victories he had experienced.
The American evangelist then asked the general if he would disclose his secret for success. "He hesitated a second," Dr. Chapman said, "and I saw the tears come into his eyes and steal down his cheeks," and then he said, "I will tell you the secret. God has had all there was of me. There have been men with greater brains than I, men with greater opportunities; but from the day I got the poor of London on my heart, and a vision of what Jesus Christ could do with the poor of London, I made up my mind that He would have all of William Booth there was. And if there is anything of power in the Salvation Army today, it is because God has all the adoration of my heart, all the power of my will, and all the influence of my life."
Dr. Chapman said he went away from that meeting with General Booth knowing "that the greatness of a man's power is the measure of his surrender."
Man's greatest possession is an unhindered relationship with God. I think of two friends who were passing a large tract of land that belonged to one of them. "What do you think this land and the buildings cost me?" asked the landowner. "I don't know what they cost you in money," replied his friend, "but I think I know what they cost you otherwise." "What?" "They cost you your soul," was the sorrowful reply.
How important is it to read the Bible? Here is the answer of some of America's historically prominent men: Andrew Jackson said, "That book, sir, [the Bible] is the rock on which our republic rests." George Washington put it this way: "It is impossible to righteously govern the world without God and the Bible...." Charles Dickens stated, "The New Testament is the very best book that ever was or ever will be known in the world." Horace Greeley asserted, "It is impossible to mentally or socially enslave a Bible-reading people." Finally President Woodrow Wilson urged, "I ask every man and woman in this audience that from this day on we realize that part of the destiny of America lies in their daily perusal of this Book [the Bible]."
Reading the Bible and following its instructions will enable you to find Christ as your all-sufficient Savior. Further, regular reading will minimize your anxieties, decrease appetite for lying, cheating, stealing, immorality, and all manner of sin. You will realize real peace, joy, and love in your life.
Billy Sunday told of a man who came to him and said, "I will cut out the booze and get on the water wagon," "Good; what else?" "Of course, I am a gambler; I will quit gambling and I will never touch a pack of cards." "All right; what else?" "I am a bad man, and I will live a clean life." "Good; what else?" He said, "If I quit these things, I think they cover about all. I will quit drinking, swearing, stop gambling, and I will quit being impure." Billy said, "Good. Give me your hand and say you will accept Jesus Christ as your Savior," He said, "No, I will not. If I stop those things, I won't need to do that."
A student of ancient Greek in an English university surprised his teacher by his rapid grasp of the subject. When asked if someone were helping him, he mentioned his uncle. The professor said he'd like to meet him, and a date was set. The teacher was astounded with the uncle's knowledge of Greek. "What work do you do?" he asked. "I'm an itinerant preacher. I preach God's Word." Dismayed that such a gifted man should waste his time preaching, the professor blurted out, "Man, you're a fool!" The wise preacher retorted, "In which world, Professor?"
A student of ancient Greek in an English university surprised his teacher by his rapid grasp of the subject. When asked if someone were helping him, he mentioned his uncle. The professor said he'd like to meet him, and a date was set. The teacher was astounded with the uncle's knowledge of Greek. "What work do you do?" he asked. "I'm an itinerant preacher. I preach God's Word." Dismayed that such a gifted man should waste his time preaching, the professor blurted out, "Man, you're a fool!" The wise preacher retorted, "In which world, Professor?"
A minister was asked by a Quakeress, "Does not thee think that we can walk so carefully, live so correctly, and avoid every fanaticism so perfectly, that every sensible person will say, 'That is the kind of religion I believe in?'" He replied, "Sister, if thee had a coat of feathers as white as snow, and a pair of wings as shining as Gabriel's, somebody would be found somewhere on the footstool with so bad a case of color blindness as to shoot thee for a blackbird."
Connie Mack was one of the greatest managers in the history of baseball. One of the secrets of his success was that he knew how to lead and inspire men. He knew that people were individuals. Once, when his team had clinched the pennant well before the season ended, he gave his two best pitchers the last ten days off so that they could rest up for the World Series. One pitcher spent his ten days off at the ball park; the other went fishing. Both performed brilliantly in the World Series.
Mack never criticized a player in front of anyone else. He learned to wait 24 hours before discussing mistakes with players. Otherwise, he said, he dealt with goofs too emotionally. In the first three years as a major league baseball manager, Connie Mack’s teams finished sixth, seventh, and eighth. He took the blame and demoted himself to the minor leagues to give himself time to learn how to handle men. When he came back to the major leagues again, he handled his players so successfully that he developed the best teams the world had ever known up to that time.
Mack had another secret of good management: he didn’t worry. “I discovered,” he explained, “that worry was threatening to wreck my career as a baseball manager. I saw how foolish it was and I forced myself to get so busy preparing to win games that I had no time left to worry over the ones that were already lost. You can’t grind grain with water that has already gone down the creek.”
Few of our nations’ chief executives could match Herbert Hoover’s executive competence, intellect or energy. With a handful of assistants, he put together a series of relief operations that saved millions of lives during and after World War I. He was familiar with Latin and proficient in the principles of mining and metallurgy. Yet his Presidency was a failure. Poor judgment (high tariffs and taxes) did him in.
Franklin Roosevelt’s managerial style was the antithesis of Hoover’s. He often put off making decisions. He didn’t respect lines of authority. He would deliberately give different aides similar assignments. He incessantly played members of his official family against one another. Internal battles were constant and bitter. FDR was devious. He was never confrontational, using indirect methods to get this way. You rarely learned where you stood by having a face-to-face meeting; the President was usually congenial and unspecific.
Many thought FDR’s methods were inefficient and chaotic, but most political scientists have concluded there was method in his seeming madness. The chaos enable him to prevent anyone from accumulating too much power or blocking him from information. He was incontestably the master of his government and the dominant figure of 20th-century American politics.
As everybody knows, managers have practically nothing to do—that is, nothing except...Decide what is to be done; tell somebody to do it; listen to reasons why it should not be done; why it should be done by somebody else, or why it should be done in a different way, and prepare arguments in rebuttal that should be convincing and conclusive. Then they must follow up to see if the thing has been done, and if it hasn’t been done to inquire why not; then to listen to excuses from the person who should have done it. Another job is to follow up a second time to see if the thing has been done, discover that it wasn’t done right, and to conclude that it might as well be left as it is, reflecting that the person at fault has five children and that no other manager would put up with him for a second.
Leaders must also ponder how much simpler and better the thing could have been done if they had done it themselves; to reflect sadly that if they had done it themselves they would have finished the task in twenty minutes, but as it was they had to spend four days trying to find out why it had taken somebody else three weeks to do it wrong.
Men and boys:
THE WORLD NEEDS MEN
...who cannot be bought;
...whose word is their bond;
...who put character above wealth;
...who are larger than their vocations;
...who do not hesitate to take chances;
...who will not lose their identity in a crowd;
...who will be as honest in small things as in great things;
...who will make no compromise with wrong;
...whose ambitions are not confined to their own selfish desires;
...who will not say they do it "because everybody else does it;"
...who are true to their friends through good report and evil report, in adversity as well as in prosperity;
...who do not believe that shrewdness and cunning are the best qualities for winning success;
...who are not ashamed to stand for the truth when it is unpopular;
...who can say "no" with emphasis, although the rest of the world says "yes."
God, make me this kind of man.
"God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all" (1Jo 1:5). Light is a synonym of all that is beautiful and glorious in the universe of God, whether in the material or in the spiritual realm. Perhaps the most magnificent declaration ever uttered is that recorded in the book of Genesis by Moses: "God said, Let there be light: and there was light" (Gen 1:3). Light is the most perfect emblem of purity we can imagine. We cannot conceive of the possibility of its defilement. Light is the source of beauty; we could have no concept of beauty without it. The colors of the rainbow, the endlessly varied and pleasing pictures portrayed before us in the flowers, the ever-changing shades in sky or forest, the delicate tints in the plumage of the bird, the flush of health on the human cheek, the glory of the sunrise, the splendor of the sunset-all these and ten thousand other manifestations of beauty are creatures of the light.
A rich woman dreamed that she went to heaven and saw there a mansion being built. "Who is that for?" she asked of the guide. "For your gardener." "But he lives in the tiniest cottage on earth with barely room enough for his family. He might live better if he did not give so much to the miserable, poor folk." Farther on she saw a tiny cottage being built. "And who is that for?" she asked. "That is for you." "But I have lived in a mansion on earth. I would not know how to live in a cottage." The words she heard in reply were full of meaning: "The Master Builder is doing His best with the material that is being sent up."
The teaching that there are many gods. In the Ancient Near East the nation of Israel was faced with the problem of the gods of other nations creeping into the theology of Judaism and corrupting the true revelation of God. Baal was the god of rain and exercised a powerful influence over the religion of many pagan cultures and even into the Jewish community. This is so because rain was essential to survival. Rain meant the crops would grow, the animals would have water, and the people would be able to eat. If there was no rain, death prevailed. Such visible realities often carried the spiritual character of the nation of Israel into spiritual adultery, that is, worshipping other gods. The Bible does recognize the existence of other gods, but only as false gods (1 Cor. 8:5; Gal. 4:8) and clearly teaches that there is only one true God (Is. 43:10; 44:6, 8; 45:5, 18, 21, 22; 46:9). (See Monotheism.)
A bassoon player came up to his conductor, Arturo Toscanini, and nervously said that he could not reach the high E flat. Toscanini just smiled and replied, “Don’t worry. There is no E flat in your music tonight.” Many of our worries are like that—unfounded and unnecessary.
