Read. Seen. Heard. Bits of wisdom.

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Arja
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Re: Read. Seen. Heard. Bits of wisdom.

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“J. I. Packer, author of the classic Knowing God, once summarized the gospel in just three words: “adoption through propitiation.” Now, it strikes me as close to cheating when your simple summary uses two big Latinate words that beg for further explanation, but I have to hand it to Packer; his definition is elegantly profound. The short and sweet of the gospel is this: The wrath of God has been turned away from sinners because of the death of Christ so that we might be reconciled to God and brought into His family.”

Source: Kevin DeYoung, The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16th Century Catechism
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J.C. Philpot
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Re: Read. Seen. Heard. Bits of wisdom.

Bericht door J.C. Philpot »

40 Quotes from J. I. Packer (1926–2020)
JULY 17, 2020 | MATT SMETHURST
©
Courtesy of Regent College

J. I. Packer (1926–2020) has gone home to be with the Savior he loved. In addition to being an influential theologian, Dr. Packer was a prolific writer whose books sparked deeper love for God in generations of Christians.

Here are 40 of my favorite J. I. Packer quotes.

“Readiness to die is the first step in learning to live.”

“There is no peace like the peace of those whose minds are possessed with full assurance that they have known God, and God has known them, and that this relationship guarantees God’s favor to them in life, through death and on for ever.”

“Adoption is the highest privilege of the gospel. The traitor is forgiven, brought in for supper, and given the family name. To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is greater.”

“Were I asked to focus the New Testament message in three words, my proposal would be adoption through propitiation, and I do not expect ever to meet a richer or more pregnant summary of the gospel than that.”

“Knowing God is a relationship calculated to thrill a man’s heart.”

“To know that nothing happens in God’s world apart from God’s will may frighten the godless, but it stabilizes the saints.”

“Your faith will not fail while God sustains it; you are not strong enough to fall away while God is resolved to hold you.”

“I believe that prayer is the measure of the man, spiritually, in a way that nothing else is.”

“The Christian’s motto should not be ‘Let go and let God’ but ‘Trust God and get going.’”

“People treat God’s sovereignty as a matter of controversy, but in Scripture it is a matter of worship.”

“There is tremendous relief in knowing his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery can disillusion him about me.”

“We never move on from the gospel; we move on in the gospel.”

“If you ask, ‘Why is this happening?’ no light may come, but if you ask, ‘How am I to glorify God now?’ there will always be an answer.”

“For the Christian, the best is always yet to be. . . . Our Father’s wealth is immeasurable, and we will inherit the entire estate.”

Photo of Dr. J.I. Packer

“I need not torment myself with the fear that my faith may fail; as grace led me to faith in the first place, so grace will keep me believing to the end. Faith, both in its origin and continuance, is a gift of grace.”

“All Christians believe in divine sovereignty. On our feet we may have arguments about it, but on our knees we are all agreed.”

“Doctrinal preaching certainly bores the hypocrites; but it is only doctrinal preaching that will save Christ’s sheep.”

“In the New Testament, grace means God’s love in action toward people who merited the opposite of love. Grace means God moving heaven and earth to save sinners who could not lift a finger to save themselves. Grace means God sending his only Son to the cross to descend into hell so that we guilty ones might be reconciled to God and received into heaven.”

“Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul.”

“He that has learned to feel his sins, and to trust Christ as a Savior, has learned the two hardest and greatest lessons in Christianity.”

“Calvary’s saving power does not depend on faith being added to it; its saving power is such that faith flows from it.”

“The Puritan ethic of marriage was first to look not for a partner whom you do love passionately at this moment but rather for one whom you can love steadily as your best friend for life, then to proceed with God’s help to do just that.”

“‘Father’ is the Christian name for God. Our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption.”

“Every view of Scripture proves, on analysis, to be bound up with an overall view of God and man.”

“The healthy Christian is not necessarily the extrovert, ebullient Christian, but the Christian who has a sense of God’s presence stamped deep on his soul, who trembles at God’s word, who lets it dwell in him richly by constant meditation upon it, and who tests and reforms his life daily in response to it.”

“A half truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth.”

“The Scriptures are the lifeline God throws us in order to ensure he and we stay connected while the rescue is in process.”

“‘Wait on the Lord’ is a constant refrain in the Psalms, and it is a necessary word, for God often keeps us waiting. He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time. When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God. When action is needed, light will come.”

“The traveler through the Bible landscape misses his way as soon as he loses sight of the hill called Calvary.”

“Few of us live daily on the edge of eternity in the conscious way the Puritans did, and we lose out as a result.”

“I do not want to believe [in hell], but I dare not disbelieve it.”

“The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity—hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory—because at the Father’s will Jesus Christ became poor, and was born in a stable, so that 30 years later he might hang on a cross.”

“In Calvinism there is really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology: the point that God saves sinners.”

“God loves all in some ways, and God loves some in all ways.”

“God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other afflictions, as his chisel for sculpting our lives. Felt weakness deepens dependence on Christ for strength each day. The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow spiritually, even while our bodies waste away. To live with your ‘thorn’ uncomplainingly—that is, sweet, patient, and free in heart to love and help others, even though every day you feel weak—is true sanctification. It is true healing for the spirit. It is a supreme victory of grace.”

“The proper aim of preaching is to mediate meetings with God.”

“Application is the preacher’s highway from the head to the heart.”

“The church no more gave us the New Testament canon than Sir Isaac Newton gave us the force of gravity.”

“The life of true holiness is rooted in the soil of awed adoration.”

“Optimism hopes for the best without any guarantee of its arriving and is often no more than whistling in the dark. Christian hope, by contrast, is faith looking ahead to the fulfillment of the promises of God. . . . Optimism is a wish without warrant; Christian hope is a certainty, guaranteed by God himself. Optimism reflects ignorance as to whether good things will ever actually come. Christian hope expresses knowledge that every day of his life, and every moment beyond it, the believer can say with truth, on the basis of God’s own commitment, that the best is yet to come.”
Bron: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/arti ... -i-packer/
Man is nothing: he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God worketh in him to will and to do of His good pleasure.

George Whitefield
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Arja
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Re: Read. Seen. Heard. Bits of wisdom.

Bericht door Arja »

Spit out the sweet morsels of sin!

(Thomas Brooks, "The Crown and Glory of Christianity, or, HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness", 1662)
"When He comes, He will convict the world about sin." John 16:8

A man never comes . . .
to see his sins,
nor to be sick of his sins,
nor to loathe his sins,
nor to arraign his sins,
nor to condemn his sins,
nor to judge himself for his sins--
until he comes to be possessed by the Holy Spirit.
A man never comes . . .
to spit out the sweet morsels of sin,
to make a sacrifice of his only Isaac,
to hack his trembling Agag in pieces,
to strangle his Delilah,
and in good earnest to set upon an utter extirpation of his most cherished sins--until the Spirit of holiness comes upon him. Until the Holy Spirit falls upon the hearts of sinners, they will never be turned out of . . .
their pride,
their formality,
their carnality,
their sensuality,
their security.
To make a man holy--is greater than to create a world! It can be done by none but by the Holy Spirit. It is the great work of the Spirit to shape and form holiness in all the vessels of glory.
The Spirit sweetly and strongly moves His people . . .
to mind holiness,
to fall in love with holiness,
to press after holiness,
to leave off their sins,
to turn to God,
to embrace Christ,
to tremble at threatenings,
to embrace promises.
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Arja
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Re: Read. Seen. Heard. Bits of wisdom.

Bericht door Arja »

Example is the most powerful rhetoric.-Thomas Brooks

Well done is better than well said. - Benjamin Franklin

More depends on my walk than talk. - D. L. Moody

Our lives should be such as men may safely copy. - C. H. Spurgeon

Example is more forceful than precept. People look at me six days a week to see what I mean on the seventh day. - Richard Cecil
KDD
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Re: Read. Seen. Heard. Bits of wisdom.

Bericht door KDD »

Th. Boston

Let not the terror of hell-fire put you upon hardening your heart more, as it may do, if you entertain that wicked thought, 'There is no hope' (Jer. 2:25), which, perhaps, is more common among the hearers of the gospel than many are aware of. But there is hope for the worst of sinners, who will come to Jesus Christ!
If there are no good qualifications in you, as certainly there can be none in a sinful man, none in any man but what are received from Christ; know that He has not suspended your welcome on any good qualifications – take Him and His salvation freely offered to all to whom the Gospel comes. 'Whoever will, let him take the water of life freely' (Rev 22:17). 'Him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out' (John 6:37).
It is true, you are a sinful creature, and cannot repent; you are unholy, and cannot make yourself holy. No, you have attempted to repent, to forsake sin, and to be holy, but still failed of repentance, reformation, and holiness; and therefore, you said– 'There is no hope. No, for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.' Truly, no wonder that the success has not answered your expectation, since you have always begun your work amiss. But first of all honour God, by believing the testimony He has given of His Son, namely, that eternal life is in Him– and honour the Son of God, by believing in Him, that is– embracing and falling in with the free offer of Christ, and of His salvation from sin and from wrath, made to you in the Gospel; trusting in Him confidently for righteousness to your justification, and also for sanctification; seeing 'of God he is made unto us' both 'righteousness and sanctification' (1 Cor. 1:30). Then, if you have as much credit to give to the Word of God, as you would allow to the word of an honest man, offering you a gift, and saying, 'Take it, and it is yours'; you may believe that God is your God, Christ is yours, His salvation is yours, your sins are pardoned, you have strength in Him for repentance and for holiness; for all these are made over to you in the free offer of the gospel.
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John Galt
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Bericht door John Galt »

It seems to mc that we quite often run a particular risk: that of not wanring to see these things. We live with shades down over our windows, so to speak, because we are afraid that our faith could not stand the full, glaring light of the facts. So we shield ourselves against this and push these facts out of our consciousness, so as to avoid falling on our face. But a faith that will not account for half of the facts or even more is actually, in essence, a kind of refusal of faith, or, at least, a very profound form of scepticism that fears faith will not be big enough to cope with reality. It dares not accept the fact that faith is the power that overcomes the world. In contrast to that, true believing means looking the whole of reality in the face, unafraid and with an open heart, even if it goes against the picture of faith that, for whatever reason, we make for ourselves. That is why daring to talk to God out of the trial of our darkness, as Job did, is a part of Christian life. It is not part of that life for us to suppose we can present only half of our existence to God and have to spare him the rest because we might perhaps annoy him. No, it is precisely to him that we can and we must bring, in complete honesty, the whole burden of our life. We are rather too inclined to forget that in the Book of Job, handed down to us in Holy Scripture, at the end of the drama God declares Job to be righteous—Job, who has hurled the most outrageous accusations at God white he rejects Job's friends as speakers of falsehood, those friends who had defended God and had found some kind of good sense and answer for everything.
Observing Advent simply means taling with God the way Job did. It means just seeing the whole reality and burden of our Christian life without fear and bringing it before the face of God, as judge and savior, even if, like Job, we have no answer to give about it all, and the only thing left is to leave it to God himself to answer and to teil him how we are standing here in our darkness with no answers.

Pope Benedict XVI
Who is John Galt? :quoi
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helma
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Re: Read. Seen. Heard. Bits of wisdom.

Bericht door helma »

A Story of Eternal Perspective

BY AGGIE HURST  FEBRUARY 18, 1986

Back in 1921, a missionary couple named David and Svea Flood went with their two-year-old son from Sweden to the heart of Africa—to what was then called the Belgian Congo. They met up with another young Scandinavian couple, the Ericksons, and the four of them sought God for direction. In those days of much tenderness and devotion and sacrifice, they felt led of the Lord to go out from the main mission station and take the gospel to a remote area.
This was a huge step of faith. At the village of N’dolera they were rebuffed by the chief, who would not let them enter his town for fear of alienating the local gods. The two couples opted to go half a mile up the slope and build their own mud huts.
They prayed for a spiritual breakthrough, but there was none. The only contact with the villagers was a young boy, who was allowed to sell them chickens and eggs twice a week. Svea Flood—a tiny woman of only four feet, eight inches tall—decided that if this was the only African she could talk to, she would try to lead the boy to Jesus. And in fact, she succeeded.
But there were no other encouragements. Meanwhile, malaria continued to strike one member of the little band after another. In time the Ericksons decided they had had enough suffering and left to return to the central mission station. David and Svea Flood remained near N’dolera to go on alone.
Then, of all things, Svea found herself pregnant in the middle of the primitive wilderness. When the time came for her to give birth, the village chief softened enough to allow a midwife to help her. A little girl was born, whom they named Aina.
The delivery, however, was exhausting, and Svea Flood was already weak from bouts of malaria. The birth process was a heavy blow to her stamina. She lasted only another seventeen days.
Inside David Flood, something snapped in that moment. He dug a crude grave, buried his twenty-seven-year-old wife, and then took his children back down the mountain to the mission station. Giving his newborn daughter to the Ericksons, he snarled, “I’m going back to Sweden. I’ve lost my wife, and I obviously can’t take care of this baby. God has ruined my life.” With that, he headed for the port, rejecting not only his calling, but God himself.
Within eight months both the Ericksons were stricken with a mysterious malady and died within days of each other. The baby was then turned over to some American missionaries, who adjusted her Swedish name to “Aggie” and eventually brought her back to the United States at age three.
This family loved the little girl and was afraid that if they tried to return to Africa, some legal obstacle might separate her from them. So they decided to stay in their home country and switch from missionary work to pastoral ministry. And that is how Aggie grew up in South Dakota. As a young woman, she attended North Central Bible college in Minneapolis. There she met and married a young man named Dewey Hurst.
Years passed. The Hursts enjoyed a fruitful ministry. Aggie gave birth first to a daughter, then a son. In time her husband became president of a Christian college in the Seattle area, and Aggie was intrigued to find so much Scandinavian heritage there.
One day a Swedish religious magazine appeared in her mailbox. She had no idea who had sent it, and of course she couldn’t read the words. But as she turned the pages, all of a sudden a photo stopped her cold. There in a primitive setting was a grave with a white cross-and on the cross were the words SVEA FLOOD.
Aggie jumped in her car and went straight to a college faculty member who, she knew, could translate the article. “What does this say?” she demanded.
The instructor summarized the story: It was about missionaries who had come to N’dolera long ago...the birth of a white baby...the death of the young mother...the one little African boy who had been led to Christ...and how, after the whites had all left, the boy had grown up and finally persuaded the chief to let him build a school in the village. The article said that gradually he won all his students to Christ...the children led their parents to Christ...even the chief had become a Christian. Today there were six hundred Christian believers in that one village...
All because of the sacrifice of David and Svea Flood.
For the Hursts’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, the college presented them with the gift of a vacation to Sweden. There Aggie sought to find her real father. An old man now, David Flood had remarried, fathered four more children, and generally dissipated his life with alcohol. He had recently suffered a stroke. Still bitter, he had one rule in his family: “Never mention the name of God-because God took everything from me.”
After an emotional reunion with her half brothers and half sister, Aggie brought up the subject of seeing her father. The others hesitated. “You can talk to him,” they replied, “even though he’s very ill now. But you need to know that whenever he hears the name of God, he flies into a rage.”
Aggie was not to be deterred. She walked into the squalid apartment, with liquor bottles everywhere, and approached the seventy-three-year-old man lying in a rumpled bed.
“Papa?” she said tentatively.
He turned and began to cry. “Aina,” he said, “I never meant to give you away.”
“It’s all right Papa,” she replied, taking him gently in her arms. “God took care of me.”
The man instantly stiffened. The tears stopped.
“God forgot all of us. Our lives have been like this because of Him.” He turned his face back to the wall.
Aggie stroked his face and then continued, undaunted.
“Papa, I’ve got a little story to tell you, and it’s a true one. You didn’t go to Africa in vain. Mama didn’t die in vain. The little boy you won to the Lord grew up to win that whole village to Jesus Christ. The one seed you planted just kept growing and growing. Today there are six hundred African people serving the Lord because you were faithful to the call of God in your life...
“Papa, Jesus loves you. He has never hated you.”
The old man turned back to look into his daughter’s eyes. His body relaxed. He began to talk. And by the end of the afternoon, he had come back to the God he had resented for so many decades.
Over the next few days, father and daughter enjoyed warm moments together. Aggie and her husband soon had to return to America—and within a few weeks, David Flood had gone into eternity.
A few years later, the Hursts were attending a high-level evangelism conference in London, England, where a report was given from the nation of Zaire (the former Belgian Congo). The superintendent of the national church, representing some 110,000 baptized believers, spoke eloquently of the gospel’s spread in his nation. Aggie could not help going to ask him afterward if he had ever heard of David and Svea Flood.
“Yes, madam,” the man replied in French, his words then being translated into English. “It was Svea Flood who led me to Jesus Christ. I was the boy who brought food to your parents before you were born. In fact, to this day your mother’s grave and her memory are honored by all of us.”
He embraced her in a long, sobbing hug. Then he continued, “You must come to Africa to see, because your mother is the most famous person in our history.”
In time that is exactly what Aggie Hurst and her husband did. They were welcomed by cheering throngs of villagers. She even met the man who had been hired by her father many years before to carry her back down the mountain in a hammock-cradle.
The most dramatic moment, of course, was when the pastor escorted Aggie to see her mother’s white cross for herself. She knelt in the soil to pray and give thanks. Later that day, in the church, the pastor read from John 12:24: “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” He then followed with Psalm 126:5: “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.”
(An excerpt from Aggie Hurst, Aggie: The Inspiring Story of A Girl Without A Country [Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House,
gallio
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Re: Read. Seen. Heard. Bits of wisdom.

Bericht door gallio »

helma schreef:A Story of Eternal Perspective

BY AGGIE HURST  FEBRUARY 18, 1986

Back in 1921....
Amazing story, thank you so much for sharing this!!
Canada
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Bericht door Canada »

God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform!
Susanna
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Bericht door Susanna »

Oftentimes in reading (the holy scriptures), every word seemed to touch my heart. I felt a harmony between something in my heart, and those sweet and powerful words. I seemed often to see so much light exhibited in every sentence, and such refreshing food communicated, that I could not get along in reading; often dwelling long on one sentence, to see the wonders contained in it; yet almost every sentence seemed to be full of wonders.

The personal narrative of J.E.
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helma
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Re: Read. Seen. Heard. Bits of wisdom.

Bericht door helma »

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helma
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Re: Read. Seen. Heard. Bits of wisdom.

Bericht door helma »

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helma
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Re: Read. Seen. Heard. Bits of wisdom.

Bericht door helma »

The story is told of a little boy, who, many years ago, was diagnosed with a severe heart defect. This was before MRI’s or CT scans or other advanced technology. But his heartbeat was irregular, and he was not expected to live very long. His family happened to live in a small city that was the home of one of the nation’s most respected heart surgeons. This doctor was a crusty old character, near retirement, and usually refused to work with children. After hearing the pleas of the boy’s mother and father, he finally conceded to take the youngster as a patient.

After the examination, the old doctor knew that surgery was required and that it would be very risky. There was something badly wrong with the boy’s heart. The old man told the boy, “Son, I’m going to try to fix your heart. I will have to cut it open, and I’m not sure what I will find there.” The boy brightened when he said this, and said, “Don’t worry, when you cut open my heart, you’ll find Jesus, ‘cause he lives there!” The surgeon was silent. Dealing with life and death on a daily basis had embittered him horribly, and he had long ago abandoned any pretense of faith.

As they prepared for the surgery, the doctor was determined that the little boy understand what was happening, so he repeatedly warned him of the risks involved in this surgery. Each time the boy smiled and said, “Don’t worry. When you cut my heart open, you’ll find Jesus, ’cause he lives there.” In this process the bitter old doctor began to have his own heart touched by this little boy. He was so ill! But he was so happy! On the day of the operation, just before they wheeled the boy into the operating room, the doctor tried one last time, and said, “I want you to be brave, because when I cut your heart open, I’m not sure what I will find.” Again, the boy beamed at him and said, “Don’t worry. When you cut my heart open, you’ll find Jesus, ’cause he lives there.”


After the surgery, the doctor went to the waiting room to give some horrible news to the parents: the boy had died on the table and he had been unable to save him. They were people of great faith, but now they were extremely distraught. As the father grasped for something to explain what had happened, he asked the surgeon, “Doc, when you opened his heart, what did you find?” And the hardened, cynical old man gave the slightest of smiles and said, “I believe I found Jesus.” And for the first time in many years, his tears flowed, too.

Mark Krause
Nebraska Christian College
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Bourdon16
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Lid geworden op: 29 apr 2019, 21:21
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Re: Read. Seen. Heard. Bits of wisdom.

Bericht door Bourdon16 »

helma schreef:The story is told of a little boy, who, many years ago, was diagnosed with a severe heart defect. This was before MRI’s or CT scans or other advanced technology. But his heartbeat was irregular, and he was not expected to live very long. His family happened to live in a small city that was the home of one of the nation’s most respected heart surgeons. This doctor was a crusty old character, near retirement, and usually refused to work with children. After hearing the pleas of the boy’s mother and father, he finally conceded to take the youngster as a patient.

After the examination, the old doctor knew that surgery was required and that it would be very risky. There was something badly wrong with the boy’s heart. The old man told the boy, “Son, I’m going to try to fix your heart. I will have to cut it open, and I’m not sure what I will find there.” The boy brightened when he said this, and said, “Don’t worry, when you cut open my heart, you’ll find Jesus, ‘cause he lives there!” The surgeon was silent. Dealing with life and death on a daily basis had embittered him horribly, and he had long ago abandoned any pretense of faith.

As they prepared for the surgery, the doctor was determined that the little boy understand what was happening, so he repeatedly warned him of the risks involved in this surgery. Each time the boy smiled and said, “Don’t worry. When you cut my heart open, you’ll find Jesus, ’cause he lives there.” In this process the bitter old doctor began to have his own heart touched by this little boy. He was so ill! But he was so happy! On the day of the operation, just before they wheeled the boy into the operating room, the doctor tried one last time, and said, “I want you to be brave, because when I cut your heart open, I’m not sure what I will find.” Again, the boy beamed at him and said, “Don’t worry. When you cut my heart open, you’ll find Jesus, ’cause he lives there.”


After the surgery, the doctor went to the waiting room to give some horrible news to the parents: the boy had died on the table and he had been unable to save him. They were people of great faith, but now they were extremely distraught. As the father grasped for something to explain what had happened, he asked the surgeon, “Doc, when you opened his heart, what did you find?” And the hardened, cynical old man gave the slightest of smiles and said, “I believe I found Jesus.” And for the first time in many years, his tears flowed, too.

Mark Krause
Nebraska Christian College
Wat een indrukwekkend verhaal.
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helma
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Re: Read. Seen. Heard. Bits of wisdom.

Bericht door helma »

The devil once said to his demons below,

"Our work is progressing entirely too slow;

The true godly people stand in our way,

Since they don't believe in the show or the play.

They teach that the carnival, circus and dance,

The tavern and disco with games of chance,

Drinking and smoking, these things are all wrong,

That Christians don't mix with the ungodly throng.

They're quick to condemn everything that we do,

To cause unbelievers to be not a few.

They claim that these things are all of the devil,

That Christian folk live on a much higher level.

Now, demons, their theology, while perfectly true,

Is blocking the work we are trying to do.

We'll have to get busy and figure a plan

That will change their standards as fast as we can.

Now, I have a vision of what we can do:

Hearken. . . I'll tell this deception to you.

Then find me a wise but degenerate man

Whom I can use to work out this plan.

There's nothing so real as the thing you can see;

The eyes and the mind and the heart will agree.

So what can be better than an object to view?

I say it will work and convince not a few.

The home is the place for this sinful device;

The people deceived will think it quite nice.

The world will possess it; most Christians can't tell

That it's all of the devil and was plotted in hell.

We'll sell them with pictures of the latest of news,

And while they're still looking, we'll a drink advert choose.

At the licentious play also they'll look,

Until they forget what God says in His Book.

At first it will shock them, they'll seem in a haze;

But soon they'll be hardened, And continue to gaze.

We'll give them some gospel that isn't too strong,

And a few sacred songs to string them along.

They'll take in the "ads" with the latest of fashions,

And soon watch the shows that stir evil passions.

Murder and love-making scenes they'll behold,

Until in their souls they are bitterly cold.

The old family altar which once held such charm

Will soon lose its place without much alarm.

Praying in secret will also be lost,

As they look at the screen without counting the cost.

The compromise preachers who don't take their stand

Will embrace this new vision and think it is grand.

They'll help fool the people and cause them to sin,

By seeking this evil and taking it in.

Influence is great, and this you can see

Just look at my fall, and you'll have to agree.

It won 't take too long, my demons, to tell

 
That the vision of Satan will populate hell.

Divorce will increase, sex crimes will abound;

Much innocent blood will be spilled on the ground;

Home life will be doomed, in short order I say,

When this vision of mine comes in to stay.

Get busy, my cohorts, and put this thing out;

We'll see if the church can continue to shout.

The old-fashioned people who stand in our way.

Will soon hush their crying against show and play.

We'll cover the earth with this "devil-vision"

Though we'll camouflage it with the name "television".

The people will think they are getting a treat,

Till the antichrist comes and takes over his seat.

He'll then rule the world while the viewers behold

The face of the Beast to whom they were sold.

We'll win through deception; this cannot fail;

Though some godly old preachers against it will rail
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