STEWARDSHIP
A beggar asked a gift from one who appeared to be a wealthy lady. She gave him a coin saying, “This is more than God has ever given me.” “Oh, lady,” said the beggar, “everything you have has been bestowed by the Lord.” “True,” said the lady, “but God has not given it to me, it remained His all the time; He only loaned it to me to distribute to others.”
STRIFE
Two ladies in a train coach were arguing about the window. One claimed she would die of heatstroke unless it was opened. The other insisted she would die of pneumonia if it wasn’t kept closed. The ladies called the conductor who was at a loss to solve the problem. It was then that the stranger sitting with them in the coach spoke up. “First, open the window. That will kill one. Then close it. That will kill the other. Then we’ll have peace.”
—Leslie B. Flynn
STUDYING
If I had only three remaining years of ministry, I would spend two of them studying.
—Donald Grey Barnhouse
The more we study,
the more we know.
The more we know,
the more we forget.
The more we forget,
the less we know.
The less we know,
the less we forget.
The less we forget,
the more we know.
So why study?
A Quaker said to a preacher who was a fox hunter, “If I were a fox and wanted to hide from thee, I’d hide where you’d not find me.”
“And where’s that?” asked the preacher.
“In your study.”
SUBMISSION
Horatio Nelson, the great British admiral, always treated his vanquished opponents with the greatest kindness and courtesy. After one of his naval victories, the defeated admiral was brought aboard Nelson’s flagship and onto Nelson’s quarterdeck. Knowing Nelson’s reputation for courtesy and thinking to trade on it, he advanced across the quarterdeck with arms outstretched as if he were advancing to shake hands with an equal. Nelson’s hand remained by his side. “Your sword first,” he said, “and then your hand.”
SUBSTITUTION
A judge was surprised to see his son brought into his court. His son was guilty of speeding. The judge pronounced him guilty and announced the fine. Then he dismissed the court, went down to his son, and paid the fine. “But no judge can do that.” Yes, but a father can.
Franciszek Gajowniczek was a Nazi prisoner in Auschwitz when a fellow inmate escaped. The standard discipline when anyone escaped was to select ten men at random and place them in a cell where they were left to starve to death. When Gajowniczek heard his name read, he sobbed, “My wife and my children.” At that moment a Franciscan priest and fellow inmate named Koble stepped forward and said, “I will die in his place. I have no wife or children.” The commandant granted his request.
Since that time Gajowniczek has gone back every year to Auschwitz on August 14 to remember the man who died for him that day in 1941. And in his yard he has placed a plaque to honor this priest and to remind others of his great sacrifice.
In the marketplace of Rotterdam, Holland, stood for many years an old corner house known as “The House of a Thousand Terrors.”
During the sixteenth century, the Dutch people rose in revolt against the cruel King Philip II of Spain. Philip sent a great army under the Duke of Alva to suppress the rebellion. Rotterdam held out for a long time but finally capitulated.
From house to house the victors went, searching out citizens and then killing them in their houses. A group of men, women, and children were hiding in a corner house when they heard soldiers approaching. A thousand terrors gripped their hearts. Then a young man had an idea. He took a goat in the house, killed it, and with a broom swept the blood under the doorway out into the street.
The soldiers reached the house and began to batter down the door. Noticing the blood coming out from under the door, one soldier said, “Come away, the work is already done. Look at the blood beneath the door.” And the people inside the house escaped.
—Paul Lee Tan
A tornado swept through western Pennsylvania and in a matter of seconds turned lovely rural towns into disaster areas. Homes, businesses, and lives were shattered.
One of the poignant scenes was that of a man on some steps sobbing softly. Behind him was a pile of rubble that once was his home. His tears, he explained, were not from loss of grief, but of gratitude. His young son had miraculously been spared.
A neighbor, driving the boy home, had seen the tornado coming, stopped the car, pushed the boy into a ditch, and covered him with his own body. The neighbor lost his life in the storm, but the boy survived.
—Edward H. Morgan
In Stroudburg, Pennsylvania, is the grave of a certain Civil War soldier. The stone bears the date of his birth and death, plus these words: “Abraham Lincoln’s Substitute.” In the woe and anguish of the war, realizing that thousands were falling on the field of battle, President Lincoln chose to honor one particular soldier as his substitute—making him a symbol, as it were, of the fact that those who perished in the battle were dying that others might live!
A mother was crossing a prairie with her baby in her arms. As she journeyed along, she saw in the distance a dark cloud of smoke, gradually increasing in size until it grew to immense proportions. She knew it was a prairie fire. She saw that she could not possibly escape the flames; the fire was traveling with lightning-like speed. So she prepared for the inevitable. As the fiery billows rolled like a seething mass across the prairie, she kneeled down, dug a hole, and laid her baby in the hole. As the roaring flames approached, she threw herself across the hole in the ground. In a moment it was all over. Later her charred body was found over the spot, but the baby was alive. She gave herself for the baby. Her sacrifice saved the baby from a fiery death.
Christ took our hell so that we might take His heaven.
—Donald Grey Barnhouse
SUBSTITUTING
“I’m substituting for the pastor today. It’s something like a pane in the window being out and a cardboard in its place.”
After the service, a lady said to the preacher, “You were no substitute; you were a real pain.”