December 2011 Signs of the Times Email Newsletter

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The Signs of the Times newsletter is a collection of stories and quotes from past issues of Signs and These Times.

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A noted infidel was once traveling in a car in which a minister was seated. The infidel commenced an argument with the minister in a loud tone so as to be heard by the other passengers. One of these was a blind man who was listening attentively. Turning suddenly to him the infidel said:

“Sir, do you believe in a God who has made this beautiful earth and the sun to shine upon it, and who has adorned the heavens with myriads of stars, and yet, without any offense on your part, has deprived you forever of the power of beholding them?”

“I am surprised you should ask me such a question,” replied the blind man. “I believe in the existence of a God as firmly as I do in my own, and I could doubt the one as easily as the other. There is one thing which strikes me as peculiar in what you have said. When you reason of God you don’t seem to be governed by the same principles as when reasoning about men and the common affairs of everyday life.”

“What do you mean, sir?” the infidel demanded.

“Suppose, sir, on reaching your home, and on entering your room, you find a lighted lamp upon the table. What would be your conclusion?”

“Why,” answered the infidel, with one of his stock-in-trade sneers, “I should conclude that someone placed it there.”

“Just so,” said the blind man, “And when you look into the heavens and see what I cannot—those innumerable lights of which you have spoken—why do you not come to the same conclusion? Why do you not conclude that some intelligent being placed them there?”

The discomfited skeptic declined to talk anymore on the subject, but it was evident to the passengers that he felt thoroughly humbled and uncomfortable.—Unknown, Signs of the Times, January 27, 1904.

Quote: “It will hurt you more to live a day without prayer than to live it without bread.”—Unknown, Signs of the Times, August 28, 1901.

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Don't miss the January 2012 issue of Signs of the Times: “Your Foot in His Hand,” “The Next Thousand Years,” “The Coming Food Crisis,” “Ready to Meet Jesus,” “Can Sincerity Guarantee Salvation?” “Getting Along as Christians,” “Life After Life After Life” and other important articles.

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In a faraway corner of a faraway country is a little town with a little church. Now every little town has a church, but this little church had something other churches in other towns do not have. It had a very fine organ.

One day a young man, who could play on the organ better than anyone in all that country, came to this little town. He wanted to play on the fine organ in the little church.

“Please, may I play on this organ?” he asked the old caretaker.

Now the caretaker had played on that organ for many, many years. He had played on it until he was so old he could not play anymore, but he did not want to let the young man have the keys to the organ so he could play. “No!” he said. “No one may play on this fine organ.”

“But I have come many miles just to play on it.”

“No, no!” insisted the old caretaker.

The young man walked about in the church. He came back to the organ. “Please, let me play just one hymn,” he pleaded.

The old caretaker was cross, but finally he gave the keys of the organ to the young man.

The young man unlocked the organ. Then he sat down to play. What beautiful music! It was more magnificent than any hymn ever played on that organ in that little church before.

The old caretaker listened. “Oh!” he said to himself. “It is Felix Mendelssohn, the master of music, who is playing. And I almost did not let him have the keys to unlock the organ. I almost did not let him play on it.”

Each one of us has an organ in his heart. Jesus wants to play on it. He says, “My son, give Me thine heart.” And when Jesus plays on the organ in each heart, there will be music more beautiful than was played on that old church organ. It will not be the kind you hear when someone plays an organ here on earth. Oh, no! But everyone will enjoy it, for this music will be kind words and thoughtful deeds and happy singing.—By Inez Brasier, Our Times, December 1950.

Quote: “It is better to let God hold us than to try to hold on to Him.”—Unknown, Signs of the Times, January 28, 1903.

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In the second century a Christian was brought before the king, who demanded that he recant and give up Christ and Christianity, but the man spurned the proposition. “If you don’t,” the king warned him, “I will banish you.”

The man smiled and answered, “You can’t banish me from Christ, for He says He will never leave me nor forsake me.”

The king became angry and said, “Well, I will confiscate your property and take it all from you.”

“My treasures are laid up on high,” the Christian replied calmly. “You cannot get them.”

The king grew still more angry. “I will have you killed!” he shouted.

“Why, I have been dead forty years,” the man answered. “That is how long I have been dead to the world. My life is hid with Christ in God, and you cannot touch it.”

“What can I do with such a man?” the king relented. “Release him and let him go.”—Selected, Signs of the Times, May 15, 1901.

Quote: “It is upon smooth ice we slip; the rough path is safest for our feet.”—Unknown, Signs of the Times, January 25, 1883.

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There is a story of a certain eminent painter who kept always in his studio a set of precious stones. They cost him much, but he said he needed them to refresh his jaded sense of color. He would often turn when he had lost the vivid sense of blue or crimson. Thus he never failed to find new tone and beauty.

In the same way we need someone to give us back the glory of lost ideals, someone who can renew our vision of the life we were meant to live, someone who can make us new creatures, with noble purposes and higher hopes.—By Ernest Lloyd, Present Truth, Vol. 26, No. 5.

Quote: “Never judge a man by his relations, but rather by his companions; his relations are forced upon him, while his companions are his own choosing.”—By Franklin, Signs of the Times, July 6, 1948.

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New from Signs of the Times: Spiritualism and the Occult is the latest special issue in the “Truth Matters” series. For a FREE sample copy of this important special issue, please send your name and mailing address to: dalgal@pacificpress.com before December 15, 2011. (Offer good in the US and Canada only.)

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The other day, as I was clinging to the strap of a Lexington Avenue car, says a writer in the Christian Advocate, two ladies sat near me, and as one opened her purse to pay her fare a scrap of paper pasted to the leather was disclosed.

“Is that your shopping list? Asked the other; “it doesn’t look like a long one.”

“No,” was the reply; “it is not the list, but it is what keeps the list from being a long one.” Then she read the words aloud: “He who buys what he does not need, will soon need what he cannot buy.”

“What a capital guardian of your capital! You must let me copy that for my leaky purse. Who wrote it?”

“I don’t know, but I wish I did, for he has saved many a dollar from lightly rolling from my hands since I put these words here.”

She referred to what Colton wrote:

“We are ruined, not by what we really want, but by what we think we do; therefore, never go abroad in search of your wants. If they be real wants, they will come home in search of you; for he who buys what he does not want, will soon want what he cannot buy.”—Unknown, Signs of the Times, October 8, 1896.

Quote: “Never bear more than one trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds—all they have ever had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.”—By Edward Everett Hale, Signs of the Times, September 10, 1896.

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“If I should die before I wake, , , ” said Donny, at grandmother’s knee. “If I should die before I wake. . .”

“I pray,” prompted the gentle voice. “Go on, Donny.”

“Wait a minute,” interposed the small boy, scrambling to his feet and hurrying downstairs. He was soon back and dropping down in his place, took up his petition where he had left it. But when the little white-gowned form was safely tucked in bed, the grandmother asked lovingly, “Where did you go, Donny, when you interrupted your prayer?”

“I thought of what I was saying, Grandmother,” the small lad replied. “That’s why I had to stop. You see, I’d upset Ted’s menagerie and stood all his wooden soldiers on their heads just to see how he’d tear around in the morning. But ‘if I should die before I wake,’ why—I didn’t want him to find them that way, so I had to go down and fix them right. There’s lots of things that seem funny if you’re going to keep on living, but you don’t want them that way if you should die before you wake.”

“That was right, dear, it was right,” commended his grandmother with a tender quiver in her voice. “A good many of our prayers wouldn’t be hurt by stopping in the middle of them to undo a wrong.”—Unknown, Signs of the Times, February 3, 1904.

Quote: “To doubt the reality of God hearing prayer is like the raw apprentice doubting the power of the chisel to evolve beauty out of the marble, or the young musician doubting the effectiveness of the harp because his unskilled fingers cannot woo sweet harmonies from its strings. The laws of prayer are as reliable as the multiplication table, or the principle of gravitation.”—By Spurgeon, Signs of the Times, October 15, 1896.

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Read articles from previous issues of Signs of the Times: www.SignsTimes.org

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An old blind man, who was very ill, was taken to a hospital in London to die. He had a little granddaughter, who used to go in every day to read the Bible to him. One day she was reading the first chapter of the first epistle of St. John. Presently she came to those beautiful words, and read them out: “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”

On hearing this verse read, the old man raised himself in his bed, and said to his little granddaughter with great earnestness, “Is that there, my dear?”

“Yes, grandpa.”

“Then read it again. I never heard such blessed words before.”

She read the verse again: “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”

“You are quite sure those words are there?”

“Yes, quite sure, grandpa.”

“Then take my hand and lay my finger on that wonderful verse. I cannot see it, but I want to feel it.”

So she took the old blind man’s hand, and placed his bony finger on the verse, when he said, “Now read it to me again.”

With a soft, sweet voice she read, “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”

“You are quite sure these words are there?”

“Yes, grandpa, quite sure.”

“Then if anyone should ask you how I died, say I died in the faith of these words: ‘The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.’ “

After this the old man withdrew his hand, his head fell softly back on his pillow, and he passed peacefully away.—Selected, Signs of the Times, July 20, 1888.

Quote: “What we are at home is a pretty sure test of what we really are.”—Unknown, Signs of the Times, May 31, 1883.

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Compiled by Dale Galusha. Please pass this newsletter on to others. If this FREE newsletter was forwarded to you by a friend, and you would like to receive it directly on a monthly basis, email: join-signsnews@lyra.pacificpress.com