5277 Retroactive To Eden
Statesman Bernard Baruch was appearing as a witness before the Senate Finance Committee. He was asked to suggest what Congress could do to prevent periodic ups and downs in the nation’s economy.
Said Baruch: “Yes, pass a law changing human nature, and make it retroactive to the Garden of Eden.”
—Christianity Today
5278 Cop’s Radical “Reversal”
Police Chief Donald Wolford of Spencer, Iowa, believes that “when anyone has a complete reversal of character from one week to the next there is something wrong with him.” The man he has in mind is Officer Kenneth Trevithick, 25, a formerly foul-mouthed boozer who got converted while vacationing in California.
Trevithick came back to work with a Bible and plenty of Jesus-talk for speechless fellow officers. No profanity. No booze.
Wolford suspended him for alleged “disobedience of orders” and “failure to properly perform duties.” But the Civil Service Commission reinstated him, scolding the city for improperly obtaining reports of his mental condition.
The commission then ordered a new brief suspension, saying the policeman should have obeyed an order not to read the Bible while on duty.
Trevithick concedes he may have been a little too zealous on the job.
5279 Whitefield’s Recommendation
In 1752 Whitefield wrote to Benjamin Franklin: “As I find you growing more and more famous in the world of letters I recommend to your unprejudiced study the mystery of the New Birth. It is a most important study and if mastered will abundantly repay you. I bid you, dear friend, remember that He before whose bar we must both soon appear has solemnly declared that without it we shall in no wise see His Kingdom.”
5280 MacArthur On Armageddon
Standing on the battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo harbor, September 2, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur uttered a profound warning. “We have had our last chance,” he said. “If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our … advance in science, … material and cultural developments. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.”
5281 “Even An Archdeacon”
Bishop John Taylor Smith, former Chaplain General of the British Army, was preaching in a large cathedral on this text: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” In order to drive it home, he said: “My dear people, do not substitute anything for the new birth. You may be a member of a church, but church membership is not new birth, and “except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.””
On the left sat the archdeacon in his stall. Pointing directly at him, he said, “You might even be an archdeacon like my friend in his stall and not be born again, and “except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” You might even be a bishop like myself, and not be born again, and “except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.””
A day or so later he received a letter from the archdeacon, in which he wrote: “My dear Bishop: You have found me out. I have found me out. I have been a clergyman for over thirty years, but I had never known anything of the joy that Christians speak of. I never could understand it. Mine has been hard, legal service. I did not know what was the matter with me, but when you pointed directly to me, and said, “You might even be an archdeacon and not be born again,” I realized in a moment what the trouble was. I had never known anything of the new birth.”
He went on to say that he was wretched and miserable, had been unable to sleep all night, and begged for a conference, if the bishop could spare the time to talk with him. “Of course, I could spare the time,” said Bishop Smith, “and the next day we went over the Word of God, and, after some hours, we were both on our knees, the archdeacon taking his place before God as a poor, lost sinner, and telling the Lord Jesus he would trust Him as his Saviour. From that time on everything has been different.”
—Harry A. Ironside
5282 Whitefield’s Conversion
George Whitefield at the age of 16 became deeply convicted of sin. He tried everything possible to erase his guilt through religious activity. He wrote, “I fasted for 36 hours twice a week. I prayed formal prayers several times a day and almost starved myself to death during Lent, but only felt more miserable. Then by God’s grace I met Charles Wesley who put a book in my hand which showed me from the Scriptures that I must be “born again” or be eternally lost.”
Finally, by the work of the Holy Spirit in his heart, Whitefield came to understand Jesus’ words in John 3. He believed and was gloriously saved. After he became a preacher, he spoke at least a thousand times on the subject, “Ye must be born again.” He fervently desired that all who heard him might experience the transforming power of God’s grace.
—Our Daily Bread
5283 Not Moody But God Said So
A woman who was a very busy church worker waited for D. L. Moody after he had told a group of church workers some very plain truths from God’s Word. “Mr. Moody,” said the angry woman, “do you mean to tell me that I, an educated woman, taught from childhood in good ways, and all my life interested in the church and doing good, must enter Heaven the same way as the worst criminals of our day?” “No, madam,” said Mr. Moody. “I don’t tell you at all: God does. He says everyone who would enter Heaven, no matter how good they think they are, or how well-educated, or zealous in good works, must be born again.”
—Sunday School Times
5284 Land Of Beginning
I wish there was some wonderful place
Called the Land of Beginning Again,
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches
And all of our poor, selfish grief
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat
At the door
And never put on again.
—Louisa Tarkington
5285 On Animal Renewals
Richard Spruce tells of a Malacca sailor who propounded an interesting question. He said, “How is it that almost every animal except man renews its beauty and youth at stated seasons? Birds molt their plumage, snakes slugh their skins, even the cockroach casts off its old covering, and all come forth bright and beautiful as in the days of their youth; but we (casting his eyes on his brown, wizened hand) grow uglier and more discolored every year, and the same skin must serve until our dying days.”
But the advantage of the brute creation is only apparent. If man must wear the same skin, he still must have a new heart, which is of much greater value. This new heart has different quality from the old one. And besides, it lays hold on eternal youth. The new heart is an immortal thing.
—Al Bryant
5286 Ex-Convicts Helped By Surgery
A pilot project in plastic surgery has shown that disfigured ex-convicts are less likely to lapse into crime again if their scars and deformities are removed.
The evidence so far shows that disfigured offenders who do not receive plastic surgery are returned to prison at a rate 10 percent greater than those who do.
Take the case of a facially-scarred 23-year-old inmate with a long history of arrests who was described as “particularly vicious, assaultive and one of the most venomous inmates Riker’s Island ever had.” His scar, inflicted by a razor in a fight, began on his right check, slashed across his nose and twisted down across his lips and chin.
A prison officer took an interest in him and at length persuaded him to agree to plastic surgery. The operation was performed. He immediately settled down, got a job, got married and has not been in any trouble since.
—Selected
5287 Wife Of Russian Czar
When Czar Peter wished to marry Catherine it was needful to make her of noble birth. So a private person was first converted into her brother, and then into a great lord by birth. Hence Catherine, being the sister of a “great lord,” was made fit to be the wife of the Czar.
—E. Cobham Brewer
5288 Thorwaldsen’s New Birth
Thorwaldsen, who is said to have been born in Copenhagen, when questioned as to his birthplace, replied, “I don’t know; but I arrived at Rome on the 8th March, 1797,” dating his birth, as it were, from the commencement of his career as an artist.
—Walter Baxendale
5289 New Lock, Stock and Barrel
Mr. Spurgeon tells of a simple countryman who took his gun to the gunsmith for repairs. After examining it, the latter said: “Your gun is in a very wornout, ruinous, good-for-nothing condition. What sort of repairing do you want for it?”
“Well,” said the countryman, “I don’t see as I can do with anything short of a new stock, lock, and barrel. That ought to set it up again.”
“Why,” said the smith, “you had better have a new gun altogether.”
“Ah,” was the reply, “I never thought of that. It strikes me that’s just what I do want, a new stock, lock, and barrel. Why, that’s about equal to a new gun altogether, and that’s what I’ll have.”
—Born Crucified
5290 Epigram On Salvation (Born Again)
• If you are born once, you are born in the devil’s family, if you are born twice, you are born in God’s family.
• “Oh that a man might arise in me, that the man I am might cease to be.”
—Tennyson
• You cannot cure a blind man by increasing the light.
• It is impossible to get regeneration from reformation.