January 2018 Signs of the Times Email Newsletter

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Twenty years ago the first issue of the Signs Email Newsletter was sent out. This is issue number 240. Thank you to all of you who read this, and to so many who have emailed back over the years! May 2018 by a wonderful year for you.
 

January 2018 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.
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     Art Linkletter asked a schoolchild one day, “If you could be any age you want, what would it be?”
     The child replied, “Twenty-one. Then I could be boss.”
     When I was a boy, I looked forward to being twenty-one but I have discovered that being twenty-one isn’t worth being boss.
     A fellow asked his dad one day the meaning of the three R’s. The father replied out of the fullness of his years, “My boy, the three R’s are well known in life because everyone learns them from memory. At twenty-five it’s Romance; at forty-five it’s Rent; and at sixty-five it is Rheumatism.”—By J. O. Iversen, Signs of the Times, May 1962.

Quote: “All the world is my parish.”—By John Wesley, Signs of the Times, March 9, 1943.

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     As the missionary lady carefully made her way through the slums of the big city, searching out those whom she could help, she came to a pitiful sight. There by the gutter was what once had been a beautiful woman. Her face was worn and marred deeply by a life of sin and wickedness. Stooping low beside her, the missionary lady tried to tell the poor soul of Jesus. All she said seemed to make little impression, and the poor woman only stared blankly at her.
    Finally, a faint ray of interest seemed to spring forth as the poor woman said, “Give me a kiss!”
     The missionary lady rebelled at the thought of kissing this woman, but she bent and kissed her on the forehead. Oh, what a change! Light and interest were kindled in the eyes and heart of the woman of the streets, and in that kiss she began to understand God’s love for lost mankind.
     Love is revealed, not by words, but by deeds, and by service—by giving.
     Christ came to this world to reveal His Father’s love.—By B. W. Mattison, Present Truth, Vol. 26, No. 10.

Quote:  “I have never felt that the tithe belongs to me any more than the Sabbath. The tenth of my money and the seventh of my time is God’s property, and He bids me respect His holy money and His holy time. This I have tried to do faithfully for well over fifty years of ministry. And never once in all that time have I lacked the assurance of blessing. Begin to tithe, and see that God’s promise in Malachi is true: ‘I will. . . open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”—By W. A. Spicer, Present Truth, Vol. 27, No. 20.

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     Dwight L. Moody, the famous evangelist, left an interesting incident of his own experience:
     “I used at one time to read so many chapters a day, and if I did not I thought I was cold and backsliding; but mind you, if a man had asked me an hour afterward what I had read, I could not have told him—I had forgotten nearly all of it.
     “When I was a boy I used to hoe turnips on a farm, and to get over so much ground I used to hoe them so badly that at night I had to put a stick into the ground so as to know the next morning where I had left off. That is somewhat in the same fashion as much Bible reading.
     “A man will say, ‘Wife, did I read that chapter?’ ‘Well,’ she says, ‘I don’t remember;’ and neither of them can recollect.
     “Now, there is no sort of merit or profit in that sort of Bible reading, no blessing comes with it. It is of no more use than galloping through so many columns of advertisements or so many pages of the dictionary.
     “If the Scriptures are to profit us, we must ask, as we read, ‘What does this mean? What does it teach? What lesson may I learn from it? Does it suggest prayer? Does it prompt praise? Does it prescribe duty?’
     “It would be well if all of us might sometimes be pulled up in our reading by the question, ‘Understandest thou what thou readest?”—By Ernest Lloyd, Signs of the Times, August 25, 1942.

Quote: “Many people prefer to believe what men say about the Bible rather than what the Bible says about men.”—By M. A. Hollister, Signs of the Times, December 2, 1919.

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Please include in your church bulletin or 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 AdventistBookCenter.com or phone 1-800-545-2449
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     It was in the days of the first Russian revolution in 1905. The rebels swept through the country, burning homes and killing men wherever they came. Nothing was safe before them. At the time we lived in Southern Russia in a small colony of Mennonites.
     One day the neighbor came running to my father: “Tell me, friend, what will you do when they come? Are you sufficiently armed? My six sons and I have guns, so we will be able to defend ourselves. We’ll shoot them.”
     “We have no arms in the house,” replied my father calmly. “I do not believe in this kind of defense; there is no certainty in it.”
     The neighbor left the house, shaking his head over the foolishness of his friend. “Well, don’t blame me for what will happen to you when they come.”
     The next day news came that the neighbor and all his family were killed and that the band of rebels set fire to everything after sacking the house.
     Now my parents thought that our home would be the next on the program. We all were terribly afraid. Except my father. At noon he told mother to prepare a good rich supper because he was expecting guests. “What guests,” we asked ourselves. “And then,” said father, “prepare couches for about ten people.” After that he disappeared. . . .
     We children were running up and down the house, but in vain; we could not find father. At last I discovered him when I looked through a keyhole of a door; he was kneeling and praying.
     When the evening came, we all gathered around our mother in one room. We gazed through the window into the thickening twilight. There was a silence everywhere. Nobody said a single word.
     And then, at once, we heard it; steps, many heavy steps. And we saw them turning around the corner. They were awful-looking, about twelve men with mean faces, torn clothes, bloodstained sticks in their hands.
     “Hands up and surrender,” shouted a gross voice. Upon that we saw our father going out of the house and approaching the men. Fearlessly he came to the wildest-looking man—probably their leader—and taking his hand, invited him mildly, “Come in. Everything that is ours is yours, but first of all come and refresh yourselves. The supper is ready.”
     We saw them throwing threatening looks at our father and heard them murmur: “Let’s not be cheated by that chap! We came to kill him and not to eat.”
     “I know,” said my father. “Come and eat first, then you can do whatever you think is right to do.”
     Hesitatingly they followed my father. Again, being more curious than frightened, I silently came close to the door and watched them through the keyhole. They were already sitting, after looking cautiously and suspiciously around of course. My father sat with them. The nicely arranged food was seducing. They were evidently hungry and exhausted. They were starting to eat in a grand way. They sat there as immobile pieces of stone. They did not utter a single word. Now they looked so strange, almost funny. What will happen? Our father encouraged them kindly, “Eat, eat, everything is yours. Your beds are prepared in the next room. You certainly need rest.”
     They really did go to sleep after supper. Then father came to us. We were sleeping all together in one room. Fear had exhausted us and so we slept.
     At once we heard some noises. The door opened and the wild, hairy head of the leader appeared to us, smiling: “We have to go. We came to kill you, but you conquered us by your nonviolence.”—By Allen A. Hunter, Our Times, May 1950.
 
Quote: “Are you giving of your talents, time, and means for the advancement of God’s kingdom in this earth as you will wish you had when Jesus comes again?”—By Christian Kuhnle, Signs of the Times, July 18, 1922.

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Longing for God by Dr. Frank Hasel is a prayer journal, and Bible reading plan. Start this year with a plan to study God’s Word. CLICK here to view!
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     There is a striking story of a certain missionary who was sent for on one occasion to go to a little village in an out-of-the-way corner of India to baptize and receive into church fellowship sixty or seventy adult converts.
     At the commencement of the proceedings he had noticed a boy, about fifteen years of age, sitting in a back corner, looking very anxiously and listening very wistfully. He now came forward.
     “What, my boy, do you want to join the church?”
     “Yes, sir.”
     “But you are very young, and if I were to receive you into fellowship with this church today, and then you were to slip aside, it would bring discredit upon this church and do great injury to the cause of Christ. I shall be coming this way again in about six months. Now, you be very loyal to the Lord Jesus Christ during that time, and if when I come again at the end of the half year, I find you still steadfast and true, I will baptize and receive you gladly.
     No sooner was this said than all the people rose to their feet, and some, speaking for the rest, said, “Why, sir, it is he that has taught us all that we know about Jesus Christ.”
     And so it turned out to be. This was the little minister of the little church, the honored instrument in the hand of God of saving all the rest for Jesus Christ.—From Forward, Signs of the Times, September 2, 1903.

Quote: “But castigation is not a preacher’s occupation. He is an encourager. People need nothing so much as courage. A scolding pastor lessens the courage even of the brave.”—By Charles E. Jefferson, Signs of the Times, May 17, 1932.

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Are you interested in giving Bible studies? CLICK HERE to see a complete line-up of resources!
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     So, the time comes when we must respond actively to the call of Christ to come to Him in complete commitment. In this regard I think of Mahatma Gandhi of India—a man who was acclaimed a saint by half the world, a leader who demonstrated great force of character in his advocacy of brotherhood and nonviolence.
     Gandhi recognized Jesus as a great thinker and leader. He admired Jesus. But that wasn’t enough. He failed to accept Jesus Christ as his personal Savior and Lord.
     During the evening before he was assassinated, Gandhi’s servant girl sang softly to him Isaac Watt’s moving hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” One line of that hymn says, “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all.” It was if God was giving Gandhi one last chance to accept Christ as his Savior. But he didn’t respond. Instead, as he had done on other occasions, he turned away from the Master to other concerns. In doing so, he missed the greatest opportunity that can come to any human being. The next day he was dead.—By Ken Holland, Signs of the Times, January 2002.

Quote: “When Jesus Christ utters a word, He opens His mouth so wide that it embraces all heaven and earth, even though that word be but in a whisper.”—By Martin Luther,These Times, August 1971.

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Compiled by Dale Galusha. Please pass this newsletter on to others