Barnabas Ministries UK

Rev. E. Anderson

HUMILITY

I READ ABOUT a Britisher named Thomas Hardy, who around the turn of the century became so famous that as a novelist and a poet he could have com­manded whatever figure any newspaper would have been willing to pay if he would just submit anything for them to print. But every time he submitted a poem or some literary piece he always included a self-addressed, stamped enve­lope for the return of his manuscript should it be rejected. He remained humble enough to think that his work could be turned down by an editor who would never be as famous as he.

William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke

THE HUMILITY OF Principal Cairns was phenomenal, so well-known in the educational world. He would never enter a room first. He would always step back and say, “No, here, you go and I’ll follow” though he was so well known and respected by the public.

On one occasion, as he stepped up to climb the steps to go to one of the seats on the platform, the public noticed who he was and immediately burst into applause. Shocked, he turned and looked and stepped back and had the man behind him go ahead. And he applauded the man who had walked up behind him, thinking the applause was for him. That isn’t phony humility; that’s true humility. It never dawned on him that the public would applaud for him.

William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke

I BELIEVE that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own power. But really great people have a curious feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them. And they see some­thing divine in others and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.

John Ruskin, quoted in Lloyd Cory, Quote Unquote

Rev. E. Anderson

BEHIND THE QUICK SKETCH

Joni Eareckson Tada

My art instructor, an excellent craftsman, told me a com­pelling story about the benefits of diligent work.

Many years ago there was a famous Japanese artist named Hokusai, whose paintings were coveted by royalty. One day a nobleman requested a special painting of his prized bird. He left the bird with Hokusai, and the artist told the nobleman to return in a week.

The master missed his beautiful bird, and was anxious to return at the end of the week, not only to secure his favorite pet, but his painting as well. When the nobleman arrived, however, the artist humbly requested a two-week postponement.

The two-week delay stretched into two months - and then six.

A year later, the nobleman stormed into Hokusai’s studio. He refused to wait any longer and demanded both his bird and his painting. Hokusai, in the Japanese way, bowed to the noble­man, turned to his workshop table, and picked up a brush and a large sheet of rice paper. Within moments he had effortlessly painted an exact likeness of the lovely bird.

The bird’s owner was stunned by the painting.

And then he was angry. “Why did you keep me waiting for a year if you could have done the painting in such a short time?”

“You don’t understand,” Hokusai replied. Then he escorted the nobleman into a room where the walls were covered with paintings of the same bird. None of them, however, matched the grace and beauty of the final rendering….

This must also be true of the canvas of our lives…. If we want to have something of real worth and lasting value in our character, it won’t come easy.

It never does.

Rev. E. Anderson

HOW MUCH ARE YOU WORTH?

On the one hand, “Man is nothing but fat for seven bars of soap, iron for one medium sized nail, sugar for seven cups of tea, lime enough to. wash one chicken coop, phosphorous to tip 2200 matches, magnesium enough to ex­plode one toy cannon and sulphur enough to rid one dog of fleas” Professor C E. M. Joad. That probably equates to about £3.60

But on the other hand

· The retina of your eye is less than I square inch yet contains over 137 million light sensitive cells.

· 50,000 cells will die and be replaced by new cells in the time it takes you to read this sentence.

· One human brain generates more electrical impulses every day than all the world’s tele­phones put together.

“You made all the delicate inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonder­fully complex! Your workmanship is marvellous - how well I know it” The Bible, Psalm 139:13

When you take a look at the average British wage you think that you are either getting ripped oft or you’re well oft. To our employers we are worth on average £18,000 per year. But if you lose your job does that mean you’re worthless.

“But the very hairs of your head are all num­bered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” Jesus Christ.

Have you ever considered what you are worth to yourself, for we can never truly put a value on others until we can rightly put a value on our­selves. There are those who would sell their bodies on the streets for fifty quid and on a black market our body parts could be worth thousands.

To God we are worth much! “For God so loved the world that he gave His only Son (Jesus)” We are designed for a relationship with God.  The trouble is many of us chose to live our lives without Him. That’s why Jesus died on a cross so that the relationship may be complete again, and the mistake of missing God out of our lives can be put right.

God thought you were worth giving up the most precious thing He had.  How much are you worth? YOU’RE PRICELESS

Rev. E. Anderson

EMERGENCY PRAYING

The following incident took place in 1968 on an airliner hound for New York. It was a routine flight, and normally a boring affair. The kind of flights I like - uneventful. But this one proved to be otherwise.

Descending to the destination, the pilot realized the landing gear re­fused to engage. He worked the controls hack and forth, trying again and again to make the gear lock down into place. No success. He then asked the control tower for instructions as he circled the landing field. Respond­ing to the crisis, airport personnel sprayed the runway with foam as fire trucks and other emergency vehicles moved into position. Disaster was only minutes away.

The passengers, meanwhile, were told of each maneuver in that calm, cheery voice pilots manage to use at times like this. Flight attendants glided about the cabin with an air of cool reserve. Passengers were told to place their heads between their knees and grab their ankles just before im­pact. It was one of those I can’t-believe-this-is-happening-to-me experi­ences. There were tears, no doubt, and a few screams of despair. The land­ing was now seconds away.

Suddenly the pilot announced over the intercom:

‘We are beginning our final descent. At this moment, in accord­ance with International Aviation Codes established at Geneva, it is my obligation to inform you that if you believe in God you should commence try prayer.

I’m happy to report that the belly landing occurred without a hitch. No one was injured and, aside from some rather extensive damage to the plane, the airline hardly remembered the incident. In fact, a relative of one of the passengers called the airline the very next day and asked about the prayer rule the pilot had quoted. No one volunteered any information on the subject. Back to that cool reserve, it was simply, “No comment.

Amazing: The only thing that brought out into the open a deep-down “secret rule” was crisis. Pushed to the brink, back to the wall, right up to the wire, all escape routes closed… only then does our society crack open a recognition that God just might be there and – ‘if you believe you should commence prayer’.

Rev. E. Anderson

UNUSUAL SIGHT

“BE ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”

DURING a recent holiday, two friends of mine visited Warwick Castle.

As they were led through lofty rooms and wide halls, they saw much to admire. At last they came to the castle chapel, and their guide paused. “Someone else will show you round here,” he said. As they stepped inside the chapel they found to their amazement that their new guide was blind.

His name is Edward Miller. During the war he suffered terrible injuries, and, worse still, lost his sight. He spent a long time in hospital, and when he left it seemed there was little he’d ever be able to do. Then he was given the chance of becoming a guide at Warwick Castle.

To learn all its history and tiny details that visitors were sure to want to know, would have been a challenge for any man. To George, who had never seen any of the loveliness around him, it must have seemed impossible.

Yet learn it he did, and if you follow him round the chapel today he will point out glimpses of beauty that might otherwise escape you-the wonderful light on the face of Jesus in an old painting; the magnificent colours that have stayed unfaded for 700 years; an intricate carving, half-hidden in the darkness; and much more.

So, blind as he is, George is opening the eyes of others to the secrets of the chapel-and in doing so he has turned his tragedy into a triumph.

Rev. E. Anderson

CHRISTIAN GROWTH

A YOUNG MAN who works in an aquariurn explained that the most popular fish is the shark. If you catch a small shark and confine it, it will stay a size pro­portionate to the aquarium. Sharks can be six inches long yet fully matured. But if you turn them loose in the ocean, they grow to their normal length of eight feet. That also happens to some Christians. I’ve seen some of the cutest little six-inch Christians who swim around in a little puddle. But if you put them into a larger arena - into the whole creation, only then can they become great.

Leadership magazine, Winter 1986

MAY NOT THE INADEQUACY of much of our spiritual experience be traced back to our habit of skipping through the corridors of the Kingdom like chil­dren through the market place, chattering about everything, but pausing to learn the true value of nothing?              -

A. W. Tozer - The Divine Conquest

WHENEVER YOU SEE Christians fussing, quarreling about their own rights, complaining because they are not properly recognized, because people do not greet them as they think they should, because they do not get enough applause for what they do, put it down as the “baby” spirit coming out… the mature man in Christ is indifferent to praise or to blame. May God deliver us from our baby­ishness? In some churches the minister spends half his time trying to keep weak Christians quiet over little slights. If you are living for God, people cannot slight you because you will not let them. It will not make any difference to you.

H. A. Ironside - Act like Men

TOO MANY CHRISTIANS live on the right side of Easter, but the wrong side of Pentecost; the right side of pardon, but the wrong side of power; the right side of forgiveness, but the wrong side of fellowship. They are out of Egypt, but have not reached the land of promise and blessing. They are still wandering about in the wilderness of frustration and dissatisfaction.

Graham Scroggie

Rev. E. Anderson

HEAVEN AND HOME

ALL of us know the name of Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts.

But I wonder how many know this story, new to me and to the Lady of the House. When Baden­-Powell died in Kenya in 1941, the Dean of West­minster wrote to Lady Baden-Powell, offering her a place of honour in Westminster Abbey for her husband. The grave, he said, would lie between that of David Livingstone and the tomb of the unknown Warrior.

The family was deeply touched. But they knew Baden-Powell’s wishes. He was a modest man. He would have wanted no pomp and ceremony at the end. So instead he was laid to rest in a little cemetery in Kenya, and was borne there by soldiers and scouts, both black and white. Above the grave is a simple stone which bears his name, when he was born, and when he died. But there is one other inscription. It is a sign carved in the stone - a circle with a spot in the centre.

To you and me, perhaps, it would mean little. Yet it is something every scout in the world under­stands, even the very youngest. For it is the Scout sign that means - ” I have gone home.”

I can think of no finer tribute to the faith of the founder, nor one which would have meant more to him.

GRACE

It was the eve of Waterloo, 18th June, 1815.  The rain was coMing down steadily and relentlessly, and round the farm-houses of Hougemont and La Haye Saint the sheaves of corn grouped in stooks looked soddened and spoilt.

Napoleon had ordered Marshall Ney to place picked sentries to patrol these strategic farms, and so prevent Marshal Blucher and the German army from joining their British allies.

Now in the large cornfield outside the wall of La Haye Saint, a tall Corporal of the Old Guard had been detailed for sentry duty. He did his heat, up and down, in the pitiless rain. On one side, in the far distance he could see the sullen glow of British camp fires. On the other, no sign of the Prussian. Up and down up and down! he was getting weary and he was feeling still’ and chilled. The corn stooks looked inviting; underneath them it was dry; one big sheaf turned over would make a good mattress. The foe would not be abroad on such a night as this; not a sound anywhere but the swish and splash of the rain. Oh for twenty minutes’ rest and warmth, no officers likely to be about – no one would know! He looked each way - nothing stirred but that monotonous swish of the steady rain. Bien! He

rolled up his greatcoat for a pillow, laid down the dry sheaf, and taking off his tall ’shako’, and placing his long musket with its fixed bayonet by his side, was soon comfortably ensconced and clear of the rain, and a few minutes more and he was fast asleep.

Now that night Napoleon was taking no chances in spite of his orders to Ney. So, telling his orderly to bring out his favourite horse, ‘Marengo’, and muffled up in his well-known long cloak, the two started to make a tour of the sentries round the farmhouses. All, alert, challenged these riders till the great cornfield was reached. The rain had at last ceased, the clouds were breaking and scurrying away. Napoleon strained his shaded eyes to find a sentry there and failed. So leaving Marengo with his orderly, he quietly went round the field. No sentry anywhere! A fitful ray of light from a still fitful moon, shines on something bright in the middle of the field. Stealthily he makes for it, to find a musket and bayonet on the damp ground, and a sentry asleep under a stook! Quietly the Emperor picks up the musket, stands like a statue, keeping guard, yet watching his man.  Presently the moon shines on the sleeping sentry who wakes, rubs his eyes, looks, misses his musket, rolls out on hands and knees and, looking up, meets the bent bead and the stern eyes of the Emperor.

‘Mon Dieu! c’est l’Empereur!’ Springing to attention, he stands shaking before Napoleon. Falling on his knees, he falters out, ‘Sire, take my bayonet and kill me yourself.

‘It is said that Napoleon replied, ‘Corporal! you know your fate tomorrow morning, but listen - I have kept your watch and guard - your life is spared. Resume guard!’ What would not that soldier do for his Emperor?

Rev. E. Anderson

GUIDANCE BY THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD.

In my district there was a boarding-house for travellers, which I visited. Among others I met there was a youth named Peter McGhee, to whom I often spoke about his soul, but who did not then decide for Christ. Many years after, when travelling with my husband, we had one occasion one day to wait at a little station near into conversation with a woman in the waiting-room. As he was speaking to her, I observed a man listening at the door, and asked him if he would come inside, which he was quite ready to do. Upon my husband asking him if he were a Christian, he said very decidedly that he was. My husband took a few little books out of his pocket to give to this man, and, in so doing, he was strangely led to slip a half-crown into one of them.

As the man looked through the books, the piece of money dropped on the floor. He I exclaimed, ‘Thank God! I never meant to tell I anyone but I must tell you. As I passed through this village just now, I went in to see a poor I widow, and found her in great distress. On asking the reason, she said that she had not the money to pay the rent, and she had never missed before. Asked as to how much it was, she replied ‘Half a crown!”

 I am but a labourer myself, and have nothing to spare, but I felt I must give the poor widow the money; at the same time I wrote on a slip of paper, The Lord will provide,” and here I have only walked up to the station, and He has given it hack to me.’

Going the same way, we travelled together. My husband asked our friend if he had ever been to Newburgh, my native village. He said, ‘No, but there is a young man works alongside of me, a very bright Christian, who was con­verted through one of Mr. Mitchell’s daughters named Jeannie; do you know her?’

Mr. Scroggie said, ‘I do, as she happens to be my wife, and sits by my side.’

You will guess I was eager to know the young man’s name, and was told it was Peter McGhee. We never had met before, never have seen him since; we never even knew his name, but in the pro­vidence of God we had to cross each other’s path in this remarkable way that I might enter into the joy of past sowing.

Mrs. James J. Scroggie

Rev. E. Anderson

A SILENT INFLUENCE

In my time I have come across many fine tributes.

One of the finest was written on a card beside three magnificent sprays of flowers that lay in Chanterland Crematorium, Hull. It read, “In memory of a gentleman who smiled when the need was most.

Who was he? His name was Leslie Wrightson, and his home was in Bainbridge Avenue, Bilton Grange, Hull. And what was the calling of the man whose smile meant so much? A minister, perhaps? A doctor? An ambulance man? No, he was none of these. He was a warder at Hull Prison.

His job, of course, brought him face to face with many a hardened criminal. But he also met others who had taken a wrong turning, and bitterly regretted it. Sometimes, when all seemed lost for them, Leslie would come along with his cheery smile and friendly word-and, before he left, things somehow didn’t seem so bad.

I don’t think it is too much to say he gave hope of new beginnings to more than he ever realised. That is why, when the prisoners heard of his tragic death in an accident at only 44, they raised £15 from their prison wages of 6s or 7S a week, bought three sprays of flowers, and wrote the tribute that stood out among all the others.

As I raise my hat to the memory of the smiling warder of Hull, I pray that memory may help to make finer men of those he worked among and tried to help.

A smile costs nothing but gives much. !t enriches those who receive it without impoverishing those who give it.

No one is so rich or powerful that he can get along without it, and no one is so poor that he cannot be enriched by it.

It brings rest to the weary and cheer to the dis­couraged. Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed or stolen, for it has no value till it is given away.

Remember that some people are too tired to give you a smile, so give them one of yours, for no one needs a smile so much as he who has no smile to give.

Rev. E. Anderson

PROVISION-DIVINE

One of the many interesting stories of the Bible is that of Elijah and the ravens. You remember that God sent ravens to bring His servant food, when be at the brook, hiding frorn Ahab. Sometimes we seem to think that such wonderful things happened long ago, but that they do not happen any more. But in this we are mistaken. God still cares for His people. He is always near, when they need Him.

David Brainerd was a famous missionary who went to the Indians to preach the Gospel. As a result of his labours, many of the Indians found their Saviour. Brainerd was a man of prayer. In his diary he tells of his experiences on his many travels. And he often mentions how the Lord heard and answered his prayers.

One day, on one of his many journeys to visit an Indian tribe, he was overtaken by a severe storm. He looked for a place of shelter and eventually found one in a hollow log of a very large tree. While there, he prayed for the Indians and also that the Lord would take care of him and his needs.

When meal time came, he was hungry, but there was nothing to eat.  He noticed a squirrel approaching the tree. The squirrel chattered a while. When the little animal disappeared, Brainerd noticed that he had left a few nuts behind. The missionary ate those nuts.

Three days the storm continued, and for three days Brainerd remained in the log. Each day the squirrel came to deposit some nuts at the entrance. David Brainerd knew that the Lord had sent the squirrel – Philippians 4: 19.