February 2018 Signs of the Times Email Newsletter

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February 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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     It is said that when the famed Dr. Adolf Lorenz of Vienna was first called to America by a wealthy man whose little daughter had a bone disease, he was overwhelmed with letters from mothers whose little ones were afflicted the same way, begging for an interview. But there were so many thousands of requests that only a few could be helped by the great bloodless surgeon in the short time he was here.
     Among the letters was one from a wealthy lady in East Chicago. Money was no object with her, and she offered to pay any price asked if he would only come and heal her child. After sending the letter she told her pastor that she and her friends were holding daily prayer meetings asking God to send Dr. Lorenz to her, and she felt that her prayers would be answered.
     It was the doctor’s custom to take a walk after lunch every day, no matter how the weather looked—and to instruct his driver to come for him in case of a sudden storm. One afternoon it began to rain—gently at first, and then in torrents. The woman who was praying for Dr. Lorenz to come to her home went out on the porch to turn the chairs away from the rain, and saw an elderly man coming up the walk, his summer suit soaked by the storm. He took of his hat, and asked in a foreign accent, “Madam, may I sit on your porch until the rain stops?”
     She indifferently waved him to a chair, then went inside and shut the door and windows against the storm. She did not even ask him to come in.
     After a while she saw a carriage stop outside, and the driver rushed up the walk with an umbrella and an overcoat. He put the coat about the old man’s shoulders, hurried him into the vehicle, and they sped away. The woman thought little of it; but when the evening paper came it told of the famous surgeon’s visit to the city and of his being marooned on a porch during the storm, and that he had received two chills, one from the cold rain and one from the woman of the house.
     She threw down the paper and rushed to the hotel where the great man was staying, but found that he had left a few minutes before for New York, to return to his native country. It was more than she could bear, and they took her away crying over and over, “Oh, had I only known him. God sent him to me in answer to my prayer, and I did not receive him!”—By H. M. S. Richards, Signs of the Times, July 20, 1943.

Quote: “Each day is a new life and an abridgment of the whole. I will so live as if I accounted every day my first and my last; and as if I began to live but then and should live no more afterwards.”—By Joseph Hall, Signs of the Times, November 25, 1908.

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Don't miss the ­­­­­­­­March 2018 issue of Signs of the Times: To order Signs, call: 1-800-765-6955 or CLICK HERE to order online.
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     In the second century, they brought a martyr before a king. The king wanted him to give up Christ and Christianity, but the man spurned the proposition.
     The king said, “If you don’t do it, 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 got angry, and said, “Well, I will confiscate your property.”
     And the man replied, “My treasures are laid up on high; you cannot get them.”
     The king became still more angry, and said, “I will kill you.”
     “Why,” the man answered, “I have been dead forty years; I have been dead to the world, and my life is hid with Christ in God, and you cannot touch it.”
     And so, let persecution come, we can rejoice continually; for our inheritance is sure, reserved for us unto the day when He who is our life shall appear, and we shall appear with Him in glory.—By D. L. Moody, Signs of the Times, September 23, 1913.

Quote: “A man that criticizes more than he prays doesn’t know Jesus Christ as an abiding Saviour.”—Unknown, Signs of the Times, August 22, 1900.

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     During the hard days of the Civil War President Abraham Lincoln made frequent visits to the hospitals that are always overcrowded with the suffering. On one occasion he stopped to speak to one of the patients, a boy of 16 who had been mortally wounded and was nearing death.
     Lincoln, taking the thin, pale hand, said, “My poor boy, what can I do for you?”
     With a beseeching look the fellow turned his eyes to the homely, kindly face and asked, “Won’t you write to my mother for me?”
     “That I will,” answered the President, and, calling for a pen, ink, and paper, he wrote a long letter. When it was finished, the President rose, saying, “I will mail this as soon as I get back to my office. Now is there anything else I can do for you?”
     In some way the boy had come to know it was the President. And so, looking at him in the most appealing sort of way, he asked, “Won’t you stay with me until it is all over? It won’t be long, and I want to hold on to your hand.”
     That was too much for the greathearted President to resist. The tears came to his eyes, and he sat down by him and took hold of his hand. The fellow did not move or speak a word. This was some time before four o’clock, and it was long after six before the end came.—By Kenneth J. Holland, These Times, February 1984.

Quote: “90 per cent of all mental illness that comes before me could have been prevented or cured by ordinary kindness.”—By Psychiatrist Dr. William McGrath, These Times, July 1961.

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     Four clergymen were discussing the various translations of the Scriptures. One liked the King James Version, another’s preference was for the American Revised. The third man spoke of Moffatt’s translation. “It makes the Scriptures so much clearer,” he said. The fourth man hadn’t said anything, so one of his colleagues asked him to express his preference.
     “I like my mother’s translation best of all. She translated the Scriptures into everyday life, and that is a version anyone can understand. It makes an impression that people cannot get away from.” Most of us will agree with him.—By C. L. Paddock, Signs of the Times, January 1, 1952.

Quote: “The money of this world will not be the currency in Paradise.”—By Charles G. Bellah, Signs of the Times, October 6, 1929.

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     Two women dwelt beside a road. One lived within a home of wealth, the other dwelt beneath a smaller roof.
     A beggar clad in rags one day asked the smaller house to let him have a crust of bread. The woman made reply, “Go yonder to the wealthy house, for she can give you many crusts of bread. It is her task to give to such as you.”
     The beggar’s eyes grew sad. He faintly said, “I have just come from there, but she would give no crust of bread.”
     “What!” the woman cried, “she turned you from her door? The wretch! Here, man, I’ll share with you what she should give.”
     That night, while in a dream, an angel came to her who had given the crust of bread. He asked what she had done that day. She answered that she had given bread to those who asked; and then related how the woman of the wealthy house refused her bread and gold to those who needed it. And then she said, “I would feel condemned if I were such as she who never shares her wealth with poor humanity—“
     “Stop!” the angel spoke. “You say that you are not as she? Go view thyself and thou shalt find that she hoards only gold, while you have hoarded hate.”—By Madge H. Morrill,Signs of the Times, May 15, 1934.

Quote: “As flowers carry dewdrops, trembling on the edges of the petals, and ready to fall at the first waft of wind or brush of bird, so the heart should carry its beaded word of thanksgiving, and at the first breath of heavenly favor let down the shower, perfumed with the heart’s gratitude.”—By H. W. Beecher, Signs of the Times, December 1, 1942.

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     Once Lyndon Johnson was assured of his party’s nomination in 1964, he decided that he wanted Hubert Humphrey for his running mate. He invited the senator in and fixed him with a Texan’s piercing gaze: “Hubert, is there anything in your past that you’d be ashamed to read about in the papers? If there is, you’d better tell me right now, because I don’t want to be surprised.”
     Humphrey replied that there was nothing of which he was ashamed. The President was satisfied. Humphrey received the nomination.—By Sydney Allen, These Times, August 1968.

Quote: “Who stands his ground? Only the man whose ultimate criterion is not in his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all these things when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and exclusive allegiance to God. The responsible man seeks to make his whole life a response to the question and call of God.”—By Dietrich Bonhoeffer, These Times, February 1968.

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True Worth

True worth is in being, not seeming;
     In doing, each day that goes by,
Some little good thing—not in dreaming
     Of great things to do by and by.

For whatever men say in their blindness,
     And spite of the fancies of youth,
There’s nothing so kingly as kindness,
     And nothing so royal as truth.—By Alice Cary, Signs of the Times, September 26, 1911.

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