SANCTIFICATION
In justification we are declared righteous, that in sanctification we may become righteous. Justification is what God does for us, while sanctification is what God does in us. Justification puts us into a right relationship to God, while sanctification exhibits the fruit of that relationship.
—William Evans
As soon as you do not desire to become better, then you have ceased to be good.
—Bernard of Clairvaux
SATAN
The Devil never kicks a dead horse.
—Charles H. Spurgeon
A missionary in Africa says there are three beasts that lie in wait for their prey: the lion, the leopard, and the hyena. The hyena does not devour, but attacks only the vital organs and quickly leaves after eating a few meager mouthfuls. The leopard too does not eat its prey, but desires only its blood. The lion, however, completely devours its helpless victim, leaving not a single portion. What a perfect picture of Satan, the destroyer of souls.
Two little six-year-olds struggled with the problem of demythologizing the demonic when they were heard arguing about the existence of the Devil. One little boy said, “Oh, there isn’t any Devil.” The other little boy who was very upset by this said, “What do you mean, there isn’t any Devil? It talks about him all the way through the Bible.” The first little boy said in a very knowing way, “Oh, that’s a lot of nonsense you know. Just like Santa Claus, the Devil turns out to be your daddy.”
—John Warwick Montgomery
On a marquee of a theater in Omaha, Nebraska, a man was dressed as a devil because a movie about Satan was showing. The man was dressed in red, had a long tail, pitchfork, and horns. A girl and her mother were walking along the street, and when the girl saw the man dressed that way, she said in a scared way to her mother, “What’s that?” Her mother said, “Oh, don’t be afraid. That’s only the Devil.”
Some years ago I was standing before the cage of a wildcat in the zoo of one of our large cities. As I stood there wondering just what good purpose a wildcat might serve, an attendant entered the cage through a door on the opposite side. He had nothing in his hands but a broom. Carefully closing the door, he proceeded to sweep the floor of the cage.
The shivers went down my spine as I saw him in there alone with that wildcat. So far as I could tell he had no weapon with which to protect himself in case of attack. But he seemed not to be afraid in the least and went about his work.
In spite of his composure, I supposed that when he got to where the cat lay he would treat him with the utmost respect, but nothing of the kind. When he got near the beast, he gave him a shove with the broom to make him get out of the way. The wildcat made no response except a disapproving hiss, after which he lay down in another corner of the cage.
“You certainly are a brave man,” I said to the attendant.
“No, I ain’t brave,” the man answered, continuing to sweep.
“Well then,” said I, “that cat must be tame.”
“No,” he answered again, “he ain’t tame.”
“Well,” I said again, “if you are not brave and that cat is not tame, then I cannot understand why he does not attack you.”
The man chuckled. “Mister,” he said, “he’s old—and he ain’t got no teeth.”
—Carl Armerding
SATISFACTION
I’ve never been satisfied with anything we’ve ever built. I’ve felt that dissatisfaction is the basis of progress. When we become satisfied in business, we become obsolete.
—J. Willard Marriott Sr.
No artist is totally satisfied with his work. The Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen was asked, “Which is your greatest statue?” “The next one,” he replied. Chopin, it is said, would walk the floor, chewing his quill pen to pieces and tearing up his half finished scores. Why? Not because he couldn’t compose music good enough for the people but because it wasn’t good enough for Chopin.
SCHOOL
College professor: “I will not begin today’s lecture until the room settles down.”
College freshman: “Why don’t you go home and sleep it off?”
A mother had a hard time getting her son to go to school. He responded, “Nobody likes me at school. The teachers don’t like me and the kids don’t either. The superintendent wants to transfer me, the bus driver hates me, the school board wants me to drop out, and the custodians have it in for me. I just don’t want to go to school.”
The mother insisted, “You’ve got to go. You’re healthy, you’ve got a lot to learn. You’re a leader. Besides you’re forty-nine years old, and you are the principal.”
I remember the story of the school boy who had done no work whatever and was trying to pass an examination from a junior school to a more senior school. He found himself faced with questions, no one of which reminded him of anything; so he wrote across his answer book, “God knows, I don’t,” and as the examination was in December, he finished off “Merry Christmas.” His answer book eventually returned from the examiners marked “God passed; you didn’t. Happy New Year.”
—C. Northcote Parkinson
While the late Dr. Charles W. Eliot was the active head of Harvard University, someone asked why that noble institution had acquired a reputation as the nation’s greatest storehouse of knowledge.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” responded the good doctor, his old eyes twinkling merrily, “unless it’s because the freshmen bring us so much of it, and the seniors take so little away.”
Little Herman went to his first day of school, and when he came home, his mother asked, “What did you learn today?” Herman said, “I learned to write.” “Oh,” she said, “to think my little Herman on his first day of school learned to write. What did you write?” “How should I know?” replied Herman. “I haven’t learned to read yet.”
—Charles A. McClain Jr.
At the University of Kentucky a student wrote a paper on Othello in literature. He got an A and the professor wrote on the paper, “Please see me.” The student thought he would get a scholarship from the professor or some ego-building praise.
The professor sat on his desk and lit his pipe. “That was an excellent paper.”
“Thank you.”
“That exceeded the normal work of an undergraduate.”
“You think so?”
“Tell me, do you belong to such and such a fraternity?”
“Yes.” (The student sensed that the professor was on to something).
“Do they still have that file in that fraternity with past exams and papers?”
“Yes,” the student had to admit.
“Did you copy that paper?”
“Yes.”
Then the student asked, “Tell me, why did you give me an A?”
The professor responded, “I wrote that paper, but I got a C on it, and I always felt it was worth an A.”
SCIENCE
Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.
—Albert Einstein
I cannot believe that God plays dice with the universe.
—Albert Einstein
In my front yard are six huge oak trees that must be over one hundred years old. As I look at them, I realize that the leaves must have barrels of fresh water each day to stay green. As a retired engineer, I know that no pump ever devised or designed by man could force that amount of water through the dense wooden trunk of these trees. Yet God causes their roots to gather all the water these trees need. To do this, these roots must exert a working pressure of more than three thousand pounds per square foot just to move the water up to the leaves—not considering the resistance of the wood in the tree trunk. That is just another of God’s miracles that occur every day unnoticed.
—T. C. Roddy Jr.