A Soft Pillow

Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden said, “There is no pillow as soft as a clear conscience.”

McHenry’s Quips, Quotes and Other Notes, HeavenWord Stories for Teachers and Preachers, CD-ROM, HeavenWord, Inc., Raleigh NC, 1999.

Forgiveness Not for Sale

One day a poor girl ventured into the garden of the Queen’s palace, and approached the gardener, telling him that her mother was lying very ill, and that she longed for a flower, such as she had seen in the Queen’s gardens. It was winter time, and the flowers were rare at that season. The child had saved a few pennies and wished to buy a rose for her sick mother. The gardener had no authority to give away the Queen’s flowers, and he said when she offered to pay, “The Queen’s has no flowers for sale,” and would have sent the poor child away. But the Queen herself just happened to be in the greenhouse, and unobserved either by the gardener or his little customer, had overheard the conversation. As the child was turning away sorrowful and disappointed, the Queen stepped from behind her flowery screen and addressed the child, saying: “The gardener was quite right, my child, he has no authority to give you the flowers you want, nor does the Queen cultivate flowers for sale; but the Queen has flowers to give away”; and, suiting the action to the word, she lifted from the basket into which she had been snipping the flowers a handful of rare roses and gave them to the child, saying: “Take these to your mother with my love, and tell her that the Queen sent them. I am the Queen.” So let me say to you, God has no forgiveness for sale; you cannot buy it with your poor penance of tears, prayers, or repentance; God has forgiveness to give, and you may take it by faith, but not barter for it with anything you can do.

From Book Four - Bible Illustrations, Heartwarming Bible Illustrations – Richard A. Steele, Jr. and Evelyn Stoner . AMG Publishers, Chattanooga, TN, 1998, Pages 148-149.

Pro-Life Plea

On February 3, 1994, Mother Teresa was the keynote speaker at a National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. President and Mrs. Clinton, Vice President and Mrs. Gore, and three thousand others were present to hear this eighty-three-year-old nun. She spoke forthrightly against abortion: “If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill each other? Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.” Although the current administration has advocated abortion, they can’t dismiss the logic they heard. Violence in America goes much deeper than drugs, gun control, and gangs. It is rooted in a philosophy that cheapens life from the moment of conception.

* Pastor’s Weekly Briefing, Feb. 11, 1994, p. 1

McHenry’s Quips, Quotes and Other Notes, HeavenWord Stories for Teachers and Preachers, CD-ROM, HeavenWord, Inc., Raleigh NC, 1999.

Scared Together

 During the Civil Rights era, a first-grade white girl met a black girl on the first day of school. Segregation had prevented the white girl from associating with black people. Integration changed all of that and made both of the girls scared. When the white girl returned home after that historic day, she told her mother that she sat next to a black girl in school. The mother tensed, anticipating the worst. She asked her little girl what happened. The child said, “We were both so scared that we held hands all day.” The problems of our day would move toward resolution if we could learn from these little girls and holds hands rather than making fists.

* “Yea God ... for Being an Equal Opportunity Employer,” John Ortberg, Seeds Tape Ministry, Feb. 5, 1995
McHenry’s Quips, Quotes and Other Notes, HeavenWord Stories for Teachers and Preachers, CD-ROM, HeavenWord, Inc., Raleigh NC, 1999.

The Accepted Time

There trudged along a Scottish highway years ago a little old-fashioned mother. By her side was her boy. The boy was going out into the world. At last the mother stopped. She could go no farther. “Robert,” she said, “promise me something?” “What?” asked the boy. “Promise me something?” said the mother again. The boy was as Scottish as his mother, and he said: “You will have to tell me before I will promise.” She said: “Robert it is someting that you can easily do. Promise your mother?” He looked onto her face and said: “Very well, mother, I will do anything you wish.” She clasped her hands behind his head and pulled his face down close to hers, and said: “Robert, you are going out into a wicked world. Begin every day with God. Close every day with God.” Then she kissed him, and Robert Moffat says that that kiss made him a missionary. And Joseph Parker says that when Robert Moffat was added to the Kingdom of God, a whole continent was added with him. There are critical times in the history of souls. “Now is the accepted time: now is the day of salvation.”
—J. Wilbur Chapman

From Book Four - Bible Illustrations, Heartwarming Bible Illustrations – Richard A. Steele, Jr. and Evelyn Stoner . AMG Publishers, Chattanooga, TN, 1998, Page 136.

The Lean Year

The story is told that the aged pastor of a little Scotch church was asked to resign because there had been no conversions in the church for an entire year.

“Aye,” said the old preacher, “its been a lean year, but their was one.”

“One conversion?” asked an elder. “Who was that?”

“Wee Bobby,” replied the pastor.

They had forgotten a laddie who had not only been saved but had given himself in full consecration to God. It was “wee Bobbie” who in a missionary meeting when the plate was passed for an offering asked the usher to put the plate on the floor, and stepped into it with his bare feet, saying, “I’ll give myself: I have nothing else to give.” This  “wee Bobbie,” we are told, became the world renowned Robert Moffat, who, with David Livingston, gave his life to the healing of the open sores of Africa—then known as the “Dark Continent”.

From Book Four - Bible Illustrations, Heartwarming Bible Illustrations – Richard A. Steele, Jr. and Evelyn Stoner . AMG Publishers, Chattanooga, TN, 1998, Page 136.

Lincoln’s Partner?

During Lincoln’s tenure as president, he was visited by a guest who sought to flatter him by saying, “Back in my home state people say the welfare of the nation depends on God and Abraham Lincoln.” Humbly, Lincoln responded, “You are half right.” He later said, “Without divine assistance I cannot succeed. With it I cannot fail.” The welfare of our country is in the hands of God; therefore, said Paul, “I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men.” (1 Tim. 2:1)

* Today in the Word, May 1991, p. 30; Executive Speechwriter Newsletter, Religion & Philosophy, Vol. 1

McHenry’s Quips, Quotes and Other Notes, HeavenWord Stories for Teachers and Preachers, CD-ROM, HeavenWord, Inc., Raleigh NC, 1999.