Symbolic Preaching

   A good example of symbolic preaching is afforded in the following descriptions of a sermon by a Chinese evangelist named Li, of Changsha, China on the value of the soul:

Mr. Li began by describing a clock, without naming it, calling it dead and yet alive. He showed that it has all the parts of a living mechanism, but that this mechanism is dead; without two great essentials. The clock was then shown to the audience and they were led to see that a spring is the source of power, but that power must be applied to the spring before the mechanism does it work. The preacher skillfully illustrated by these facts the importance of the soul, and the relation which it bears on the one hand to man and on the other to God. About twenty minutes were devoted to this illustration, after which the preacher quoted a number of texts from the Scriptures bearing upon the teaching of the value of the soul. G. E. Dawson, Missionary Review of the World.

Vespers

I know the night is near at hand:

The mists lie low on hill and bay.

The Autumn sheaves are dewless, dry;

But I have had the day.

 *  *  *

Yes, I have had, dear Lord, the day;

When at Thy call I have the night,

Brief be the twilight as I pass

From light to dark, from dark to light.

by Silas Weir Mitchell.

Testimony To The Bible

In the district of Allahabad some conversions had taken place among the women and girls which had greatly stirred up the opposition of the men. The reading circles in the Zenanas had to be stopped and the missionaries were prohibited from visiting the women. One old woman, explaining the situation, said: “Our men say you come and take us away. It is not you who take our women away and make them Christians; it is your Book. There are such wonderful words in it; when they sink into the heart nothing can take them out again.”

More Links To Thoughts On The Bible:

• Wonderful Words of Life
• …A dialogue between Bible-lovers, Bible-haters, and everyone in-between…
• The Bible from CARM
• Why I love the Bible
• The Bible: Its Wonderful Unity
• The Wonderful Book – The Bible
• God’s Wonderful Book Divine!
• God’s Book, the Bible
• The Most Amazing Book!
• The Bible: Beyond Sunday School

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Effacement of Sins

   We are reminded of the promise that God will “blot out” our transgressions by the following incident:

  John Maynard was in an old-time country schoolhouse. Most of the year he had drifted carelessly along, but in midwinter some kind words from his teacher roused him to take a new start, and he became distinctly a different boy, and made up for the earlier faults. At the closing of  examination he passed well, to the great joy of his father and mother, who were present. But the copy-books used through the year were all laid on the table for the visitors to look at; and John remembered that his copy-book, fair enough in its latter pages, had been a dreary mass of blots and bad work before. He watched his mother looking over those books, and his heart was sick. But she seemed, to his surprise, quite pleased with what she saw, and called his father to look with her; and afterward John found that his kind teacher had thoughtfully torn out all those bad, blotted leaves, and made his copy-book begin where he started to do better. (Text)- Franklin Noble, “Sermons in Illustration.”

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Wait And Work

We shall not die until our work be done;


We shall not cease until our course be


 run;


We shall not fade or fail


While heart and faith prevail,


Or aught is to be won


Beneath the constant sun.



Author Unknown

Incredulity

Dr. W. H. Thomson, in his book on “What is Physical Life,” says that, “once, while talking to a roomful of the naturally bright people of a town in Mount Hermon about the achievements of Western civilization, I happened to tell a toothless old man present that in our country we had skilled persons who could make for him an entirely new set of teeth. Glancing round the room, I noticed some listeners stroking their beards in a fashion which I knew meant that I was telling a preposterous yarn. Fortunately I had with me an elderly Scotch friend who had a set of false teeth, and on explaining the situation to him, he forthwith opened his mouth and pulled the whole set out. The Arabs jumped to their feet in fright, not sure but he might start to unscrew his head next, for had any of their venerated ancestors ever seen such an uncanny performance with teeth? They afterward said that never would they have believed this if they had not seen it.”

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The Spirit-Land

Father! Thy wonders do not singly stand,

Nor far removed where feet have seldom

strayed;

Around us ever lies the enchanted land,

In marvels rich to Thine own sons displayed;

In finding Thee are all things round us found;

In losing Thee are all things lost beside;

Ears have we, but in vain strange voices

sound;

 * * *

And to our eyes the vision is denied;

We wander in the country far remote,

Mid tombs and ruined piles in death to dwell;

Or on the records of past greatness dote,

And for a buried soul the living sell;

While on our path bewildered falls the night

That ne’er returns us to the fields or light.

* * *

by Jones Very.

Olive Wood Nativity

This drawing of an olive wood nativity is by Kathy Grimm

Harmony Is God’s Work

In “Famous Stories by Sam P. Jones” may be found this bit of wisdom:

A well-trained musician sits down to a piano and sweeps his fingers over the keys. A cloud gathers on his face as he recognizes a discord in the instrument. What is the matter? Three of the keys are out of harmony. These three keys that are out of harmony with everything in the universe that is in harmony. I say to that musician, “Close up that piano and let it alone until it puts itself in harmony.” He replies, “It is impossible for the piano to put itself in harmony.” “Who can put it in harmony?” I ask. He replies, “The man who made the instrument.” The instrument is put into the hands of the man who made it, and in a few hours every key on the piano is in harmony, and the piano being in harmony with itself is in harmony with everything else in the universe.”

God alone can put discordant souls into harmony!

Help Unrecognized

A night of terror and danger, because of their ignorance, was spent by the crew of a vessel off the coast of New Jersey.

Just before dark a bark was discovered drifting helplessly, and soon struck her bows so that she was made fast on a bar, and in momentary danger of going down.

A line was shot over the rigging of the wreck by a life-saving crew, but the sailors did not understand that it was a line connecting them with the shore, that they might seize and escape. All signs failed to make them understand this. So all night the bark lay with the big waves dashing over it, while the crew, drenched and shivering and terrified, shouted for help.

In the morning they discovered how unnecessarily they had suffered, and how all night there was a line right within reach by which they might have been saved.–Evangelical Messenger.