January 2017 Signs of the Times Email Newsletter

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January 2017 Signs of the Times Email Newsletter The Signs of the Times newsletter is a collection of stories and quotes from past issues ofSigns and These Times. ***************************      One night while preaching in Chicago, a minister gave out an invitation for sinners to come to Christ. Among others a certain man arose and said: “Let me tell you how I came to accept Christ tonight. I have been a churchgoer all my life, but I went only to criticize. When men got up in meeting to speak, I noted carefully what they said, and then all the week I would watch them to see if their life came up to their profession. I came to where I said that all Christians were hypocrites. My heart became as hard as stone.      “Some time ago I was taken sick, and the doctors said that I might die. I was not afraid to die, for my heart had become so hardened by criticism that death had no terrors for me. But one day a retired minister came and asked if he might not pray with me. I told him he might; and as he knelt to pray, I watched him out of the corner of my eye. As he prayed, his voice trembled and I saw a tear roll down his cheek. Then I said to myself, ‘Here is a man who is real! He is a stranger to me, yet he is weeping over my sins and my lost condition.’ A sense of my own meanness came over me, and the love of a God I had so mistreated broke my heart. That is why I came to this meeting.” This man accepted Jesus as His Saviour, and took Christ, not man, as his example.—By Sherman A. Nagel, Signs of the Times, November 13, 1923. Quote: “Many suppose that sin is imponderable; but it is heavy enough to crush a world.”—Unknown, Signs of the Times, August 16, 1877. *************************** Don't miss the ­­­­­­­­February 2017 issue of Signs of the Times: To order Signs, call: 1-800-765-6955 or CLICK to order online. ***************************      Nero lived covetously. History relates that he wore a crown valued at $500,000; he had his mules shod with silver; he fished with golden fishhooks; he traveled with one thousand carriages, and he never wore the same garment twice. Ruling Rome, he was dissatisfied, and he is perhaps best known for his act of fiddling while the city burned. He died, and terminated an inglorious career.      Paul, beaten with many stripes, scarred by stones and rods, imprisoned and suffering loss of all earthly things, lived victoriously as Christ’s steward. He enjoyed God’s peace, was wondrously satisfied in Christ, and looked forward to eternal riches.      Many dogs are named Nero; millions of aspiring sons are named Paul.—Unknown,These Times, June 1966.   Quote: “The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.”—Selected, These Times, June 1966. *************************** NEW from Pacific Press—Getting to Know the Holy Spirit by Ron E. M. Clouzet. Do you long to understand and experience more of the Holy Spirit’s transformative work in your life? Are you afraid of hindering the Spirit, or do you have questions about what it means to pray in the Spirit? Find the answers in this book! The Holy Spirit provides profound theological, historical, linguistic, biblical insights that will deepen your understanding of the nature and work of the Holy Spirit. Written in a readable style, it will allow concepts and personal implications to sink deeper. A thoughtful reading will further your understanding of the Spirit and His work more than anything you may have read to date. Getting to Know the Holy Spirit is the companion book for the Adult Bible Study Guides for the first quarter of 2017.   CLICK to read the first chapter of this book online FREE! Order ONLINE or from your local Adventist Book Center--1-800-765-6955. ***************************      He was dirty and poorly dressed, and he smelled even worse than he looked as he slouched in the doorway of the little shop in a badly lit part of Sydney, Australia. I wondered briefly whether it was even safe to brush past him and enter, but I needed a train ticket, and the shop was the only place to get one.      I had landed at the Sydney airport an hour or two earlier with several hours to wait until my connecting flight, so I decided to take the train downtown and have dinner. I had plenty of time. The ticket downtown was only AU$6, and for some reason I bought a one-way ticket, thinking, I’ll just get another one when I come back. I hadn’t counted on the downtown station being renovated or that by the time I finished dinner and needed to return all the ticket booths would be closed for the night and inaccessible behind construction barricades. A sign said, “Tickets can be obtained at the 24-hour market across the street.”      Having no choice, I made my way past the man sitting in the doorway. He was clearly homeless with his several layers of ragged, tattered, dirty clothing; long, unwashed hair; and a duffle bag. Avoiding eye contact and holding my breath against the smell, I pushed past him and entered the shop. I asked the young man behind the counter for a one-way ticket back to the airport.      “That will be twenty dollars,” he replied,      “No,” I told him, “I just need a one-way back to the airport. It’s six dollars.”      “The only thing I can sell you is a twenty-dollar train pass,” he insisted, with a “take-it-or-leave-it” tone in his voice.      The homeless man in the doorway had been taking all this in. He walked over and began emptying the contents of his duffle bag on the counter. “I’ve got a pass in here somewhere,” he announced. “You can have it; I think it still has a few dollars left on it.”      The counter started filling up with the kind of stuff you might expect him to be carrying around—a pair of socks, a shirt or two, a comb, and a partially used bar of soap. (From the smell of things he hadn’t used the soap in a while!) Then he pulled out an overstuffed file folder—the expanding kind. As he pulled items from the file, I soon realized that here in that duffle bag were all his earthly belongings. The file disgorged his birth certificate, baby pictures, notes on scraps of paper, important-looking documents with seals and signatures on them.      “Here it is!” he said triumphantly at last, digging down into the file folder and holding up the train pass. He handed it to the young man behind the counter saying, “Check it out and see what’s left on it.” The shopkeeper did so and announced that the total was $7.40, which was enough to get me back to the airport. Then he gave it back to the owner.      “Here,” the homeless man said as he handed it to me. I pulled out my wallet to pay him for it.      “No, man! It’s a gift,” he insisted, “from me to you.”      Somehow he didn’t look the same as he had a few minutes earlier. Oh, he was still dirty and smelly and his clothes hadn’t improved. He hadn’t changed, but my perception of him had changed—dramatically.      On the train ride back to the airport, I kept hearing him say, “It’s a gift—from me to you.” And I kept hearing something else—a Bible text: “The Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7, NKJV).—By Dale Galusha and B. Russell Holt, Signs of the Times, December 2016. Quote: “John lost his head by a sword because Herod had lost his by a woman.”—Bible Reader, Signs of the Times, March 8, 1899. *************************** Please include in your church newsletter: A new year brings new opportunities to share your faith. Why not use Signs of the Times® to help your friends and neighbors find hope and meaning? Each monthly issue takes on a broken world and directs hearts to Jesus for relevant answers. The result is changed lives! Send a subscription today. Go to www.AdventistBookCenter.com or phone 1-800-545-2449 ***************************      On another occasion a little woman, whose scant raiment and pinched features showed that she was very poor and had to struggle for a living, got in to see the president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, after having waited for several days to see him. In his characteristic, friendly way President Lincoln greeted her, “Well, my good woman, what can I do for you?”      She answered, “My only boy is a soldier. His regiment was near enough to my house for him to take a day and run over and see me. He was arrested as a deserter when he reentered the lines, and condemned to be shot. He is to be executed tomorrow.”      Lincoln quickly arose from his chair. He left many senators, congressmen, and generals waiting to see him, and taking the little mother by the hand, hastened with her to the office of the Secretary of War. She did not know where the boy’s regiment was stationed, nor where the execution was to take place. Stanton, who had become disgusted with the president’s big-heartedness, begged Lincoln to forget the matter and let the rules of the army be enforced. But the president’s big heart wouldn’t allow him to do it. He couldn’t bear to see a boy shot just for running away for a day to see the best friend any boy ever has—his mother.      In very certain tones Lincoln replied, “I will not be balked in this. Send this message to every headquarters, every fort, and every camp in the United States, ‘Let no military execution take place until further orders from me. A. Lincoln.’”      Another mother’s heart was gladdened; another life was spared. And Lincoln went to bed that night happier for having been a blessing.—By Archa O. Dart, Our Times, March 1950. Quote: “Joys are our wings; sorrows are our spurs.”—By Jean Paul Richter, Signs of the Times, January 26, 1915. *************************** New Adventist eBooks being added frequently. CLICK to see the wide variety. ***************************        Dr. A. J. Gordon was asked to visit a young man who was dying. On seeing the young man, Dr. Gordon came right to the point and said:      “My dear friend, I see that you are very ill. Are you prepared for what may be before you?”      “Oh, if I only were!” he replied, with a look of blended despair and pleading. “If I could be spared two or three weeks I believe I might be prepared. But the doctor tells me I can live only a few hours.” He then caught hold of the minister’s hand and held it as a drowning man might cling to a life belt.      “Three weeks?” asked the minister. “Why do you want three weeks?” The young man said he needed time to review his life and become deeply convicted of sin.      “Three weeks in order to be saved!” exclaimed the minister. “Let me tell you how you may be saved in three minutes!” He then read from his Bible, “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” John 1:12.      “But how can I take Him?” exclaimed the young man. The Bible answer was then read: “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Romans 10:9.      “Now,” said the minister, “if you want to be saved, just accept Jesus as your Saviour and tell Him that you do so.”      Kneeling by the side of the dying man, he urged him to repeat the simple prayer of acceptance: “Lord Jesus, I come to Thee. I am a sinner, Thou art the Saviour. I take Thee now to be my Saviour. I trust Thee, I receive Thee. I put my soul in Thy hands.” That was all.      When the minister called later in the day, the lady of the house said, “Oh, if you could have heard him talk after you left! He called us all in and said, ‘Isn’t it wonderful? That minister showed me how I could be saved in three minutes!’ Such a triumphant death I never witnessed before.”—By John W. Halliday, Present Truth, 1952.   Quote: “You may juggle human laws, you may fool with human courts, but there is a judgment to come, and from it there is no appeal.”—By Orin Philip Gifford, Signs of the Times, July 1989. *************************** Today as I look through the Bible, I find there are many parts of our body which should be devoted to service for God. Here are some of the texts: Psalm 119:11—“my heart” Isaiah 51:11—“my head” Psalm 119:18—“my eyes” Psalm 78:1—“my ears” Malachi 2:6—“my mouth” Psalm 119:171, 172—“my lips” Ecclesiastes 9:10—“my hands” Proverbs 4:26—“my feet”—By Caris Lauda, Our Times, August 1950. *************************** Compiled by Dale Galusha. Please pass this newsletter on to others.