24. The Resurrection

He is not here, but is risen. Luke 24:6

Since that Sunday dawn when the tomb of Jesus was first discovered to be empty, much has been written about that day and Jesus’ resurrection. Some of those statements are worth pondering: The stone was rolled away from the door, not to permit Christ to come out, but to enable the disciples to go in. > Peter Marshall

The biggest fact about Joseph’s tomb was that it wasn’t a tomb at all – it was a room for a transient. Jesus stopped there a night or two on his way back to glory. > Herbert Booth Smith

The birth and the rapid rise of the Christian Church remain an unsolved enigma for any historian who refuses to take seriously the only explanation offered by the church itself. > C. E. D. Moule

I danced on a Friday

When the sky turned black;

It’s hard to dance

With the devil on your back.

Their buried my body

And they thought I’d gone; But I am the dance and I still go on;

Dance, then, wherever you may be;

I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.

And I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be,

And I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he. > Sydney Carter

The Gospels do not explain the resurrection; the resurrection explains the Gospels. Belief in the resurrection is not an appendage to the Christian faith; it is the Christian faith. > John S. Whale

The only shadow on the cloudless Easter day of God’s victory is the poverty of my own devotion, the memory of ineffective hours of unbelief, and my own stingy response to God’s generosity. > A. E. Whitman

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime. > Martin Luther

Jesus blew everything apart, and when I saw where the pieces landed I knew I was free. > George Foster

See also John 20-21; Acts 26:8; 1 Corinthians 15:14-32.

23. The Bible

God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? Romans 11:2

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand. > Mark Twain

The Bible was never intended to be a book for scholars and specialists only. From the very beginning it was intended to be everybody’s book, and that is what it continues to be. > F. F. Bruce

If you really want some mail, read a letter from Paul. > Author Unknown

Warning: This book is habit-forming. Regular use causes loss of anxiety, decreased appetite for lying, cheating, stealing, hating. Symptoms: increased sensations of love, peace, joy, compassion. >Author Unknown

God has given us in written from a volume which spans all the human emotions, the ups, the downs, the diversity of individuals, the good with the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the sinners, the righteous, the perverted, the saved, the lost, the poetry, the poets, the wisdom, the wise, the human stories, the reality of life, pregnant with meaning, a book in fact of truth, not pale, narrow, religious sayings. The Bible, the Word of God, is solid, human, verifiable, divine indeed. > Franky Schaeffer

The Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible. > Dwight L. Moody

The Christian feels that the tooth of time gnaws all books but the Bible. It is a pertinent relevance to every age. It has worked miracles by itself alone. It has made its way where no missionary had gone and has done the missionary’s work. Centuries of experience have tested the book. It has passed through critical fires no other volume has suffered, and its spiritual truth has endured the flames and come out without so much as the smell of burning. > W. E. Sangster

If God is a reality and the soul is a reality and you are an immortal being, what are you doing with your Bible shut? > Herrick Johnson

See also 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

22. Materialism and Money

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:24

I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest to make money that don’t want to buy things they don’t need to impress people they dislike. > Emile Henry Gauvreau

We can hardly expect the money enough for the blood and toil it represents. Money is frightening. It can serve or destroy man. > Michel Quoist

If a man runs after money, he’s money-mad; if he keeps it, he’s a capitalist; if he spends it, he’s a playboy; if he doesn’t get it, he’s a ne’er-do-well; if he doesn’t try to get it, he lacks ambition. If he gets it without working for it, he’s a parasite; and if he accumulates it after a lifetime of hardwork, people call him a foul who never got anything out of life. > Vic Oliver

That money talks

I’ll not deny,

I heard it once:

It said, “Good bye.” > Richard Armour

One of the dangers of having a lot of money is that you may be quite satisfied with the kinds of happiness money can give and so fail to realize your need for God. If everything seems to come simply by signing checks, you may forget that you are at every moment totally dependent on God. > C. S. Lewis

Tithing is a discipleship issue, not a fund-raising issue. > Richard Rusbuldt

The safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket. > Frank McKinney Hubbard

Our incomes are like our shoes; if too small, that gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and to trip. > Caleb C. Colton

Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can. > John Wesley

See also Ecclesiastes 5:8-20; Matthew 25:14-28.

21. Hell

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world… Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. Matthew 25:31-34, 41

Hell was not prepared for man. God never meant that man would ever go to hell. Hell was prepared for the devil and his angels, but man rebelled against God and followed the devil. Hell is essentially and basically banishment from the presence of God for deliberately rejecting Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. > Billy Graham

Abandon all hope, ye who enter. > Dante’s Inferno

The choices of time are binding in eternity. > Jack MacArthur

The mission of Jesus cannot be defined without speaking of man being lost. > Henri Blocher

The wicked work harder to reach hell than the righteous to reach heaven. > Josh Billings

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. > Old proverb

I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside. I do not mean that the ghosts may not wish to come out of hell, in the vague fashion wherein an envious man “wishes” to be happy: but… they enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free. > C. S. Lewis

Fear not that your life shall come to an end, but rather that it shall never have a beginning. > John Henry Newman

See also Isaiah 14:12-15; Luke 12:5.

20. Conscience

And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men. Acts 24:16

There is no witness to terrible – no accuser so powerful – as conscience which dwells within us. > Sophocles

There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience. > French proverb

Conscience is a sacred sanctuary where God alone may enter as judge. > Abbe Hugo Felicite de Lamennais

As long as your conscience is your friend, never mind about your enemies. > Author Unknown

Sometimes a man with a clear conscience only has a poor memory. > Neal O’Hara

There is a difference between him who does no misdeed because of his own conscience and him who is kept from wrongdoing because of the presence of others. > The Talmund

It’s what makes a boy tell his mother before his sister does. > Franklin P. Jones

For us, with the rule of right and wrong given us by Christ, there is nothing for which we have no standard. > Leo Tolstoy

We were talking about cats and dogs the other day and decided that both have consciences but the dog, being an honest, humble person, always has a bad one, but the cat is a Pharisee and always has a good one. When he sits and stares you out countenance he is thanking God that he is not as these dogs, or these humans, or even as these other cats! > C. S. Lewis

The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside. And only he who listens can speak. > Dag Hammarskjold

It is astonishing how soon the whole conscience begins to unravel if a single stitch drops. One single sin indulged in makes a hole you could put your head through. > C. Buxton

Conscience is merely your own judgement of the right and wrong of our actions, and so can never be a safe guide unless enlightened by the work of God. > Tryon Edwards

See also Acts 23:1; Romans 9:1; 1 Corinthians 4:4; Titus 1:15-16.

19. Clothes and Fashion

And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Matthew 6:28-30

Do not conceive that fine clothes make fine men, any more than fine feathers make fine birds. > George Washington

What is really beautiful needs no adorning. We do not grind down the pearl upon a polishing stone. > Sataka

A fashionable woman is always in love – with herself. > Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with desire to seem rather than to be. > E. H. Chapin

Every generation laughs at the old fashions but follows religiously the new. > Henry David Thoreau

Fashion is the great governor of the world. It presides not only in the matters of dress and amusement, but in the law, physics, politics, religion and all other things of the gravest kinds. Indeed, the wisest men would be puzzled to give any better reason why particular forms in all these have been at certain times received, and at other times universally rejected, than that they were in or out of fashion. > James Thomas Fielding

The vanity of living fine clothes and new fashions, and valuing ourselves by them, is one of the most childish pieces of folly. > Sir M. Hale

Fashion is a tyrant from which nothing frees us. We must suit ourselves to its fantastic tastes. But being compelled with foolish laws, the wise man is never the first to follow, not the last to keep them. > Blaise Pascal

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter to every six months. > Oscar Wilde

The perfection of dress is in the union of three requisites – in its being comfortable, cheap, and tasteful. > Christian Nestell Bovee

See also Isaiah 61:10; Colossians 3:12-14.

18. Church

Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. Acts 20:28

God never intended his church to be a refrigerator in which to preserve perishable piety. He intended it to be an incubator in which to hatch converts. > F. Lincicome

The holiest moment of the church service is the moment when God’s people – strengthened by preaching and sacrament – go out of the church door into the world to be the Church. We don’t go to church; we are the Church. > Ernest Southcott

When Christian worship is dull and joyless, Jesus Christ has been left outside – that is the only possible explanation. > James S. Stewart

Tell me what the young of England are doing on a Sunday, and I will tell you what the future of England will be. > William E. Gladstone

Jesus spoke about the ox in the ditch on the Sabbath. But if your ox gets in the ditch every Sabbath, you should either get rid of the ox or fill up the ditch. > Billy Graham

You see, God, it’s like this: We could attend church more faithfully if your day came at some other time. You have chosen a day that comes at the end of a hard week, and we’re all tired out. Not only that, but it’s the day following Saturday night, and Saturday night is the one time when we feel that we should go out and enjoy ourselves. Often it is after midnight when we reach home, and it is impossible to get up on a Sunday morning. We’d like to go to church, and know we should; but you’ve just chosen the wrong day. > Twentieth-Century Christian

Our great-grandfathers called it the holy Sabbath; our grandfathers, the Sabbath; our fathers, Sunday; but today we call it the weekend. > Wesleyan Methodist

The birth and rapid rise of the Christian Church remain an unsolved enigma for any historian who refuses to take seriously the only explanation offered by the Church itself. > C. F. D. Moule

See also Acts 2:42; 1 Corinthians 12:27; Hebrews 12:25.

17. Satan

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Revelation 12:7-9

The devil is no idle spirit, but a vagrant, runagate walker, that never rests in one place. The motive, cause, and main intention of his walking is to ruin man. > T. Adams

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. > C. S. Lewis

He who would fight the devil with his own weapons must not wonder if he finds him as overmatch. > Robert South

The devil still has at least one good quality. That he will flee if we resist him. Though cowardly in him, it is safety for us. > Tryon Edwards

The devil’s best ruse is to persuade us that he does not exist. > Charles Baudelaire

Temptation is a fearful word. It indicates the beginning of a possible series of infinite evils. It is the ringing of an alarm bell, who melancholy sounds may reverberate through eternity. Like the sudden, sharp cry of “Fire!” under out windows by night, it should rouse us to instantaneous action, and rouse every muscle to its highest tension. > Horace Mann

To admire Satan, then, is to give one’s vote not only for a world of misery, but also for a world of lies and propaganda, of wishful thinking, of incessant autobiography. Yet the choice is possible. > C. S. Lewis

Talk of devils being confined to hell, or hidden by invisibility! We have them by shoals in the crowded towns and cities of the world. Talk of raising the devil! What a need for that, when he is constantly walking to and fro in our streets, seeking whom he may devour. > Charles Baudelaire

See also Romans 16:20; 2 Corinthians 11:14-15; 1 Peter 5:8-9.

16. Prejudice

Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all. Colossians 3:11

He hears but half when he hears only one party. > Aeschylus

Prejudice is the child of ignorance. > William Hazlitt

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. > The Declaration of Independence

Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest violence. > Francis Jeffrey

If we were to wake up morning and find that everyone was the same race, creed and colour, we would find some other causes for prejudice by noon. > George Aiken

The people who are the most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all. > G. K. Chesterton

Prejudice is a mist, which, in our journey through the world, often dims the brightest, and obscures the best of all the good and glorious objects that meet us on our way. > Lord Shaftesbury

Prejudice squints when it looks, and lies when it talks. > Duchess de Abrantes

There are only two ways to be quite unprejudiced and impartial. One is to be completely ignorant. The other is to be completely indifferent. Bias and prejudice are attitudes to be kept in hand, not attitudes to be avoided. > Charles Curtis

Most men, when they think they are thinking, are merely rearranging their prejudices. > Knute Rockne

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices – just recognize them. > Edward R. Murrow

See also Matthew 22:39; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21.

15. Life and Death

He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. Matthew 10:39

It matters not how long you live, but how well. > Publilius Syrus

Not how did he die? But, how did he live?

Not, what did he gain? But, what did he give?

These are the merits to measure the worth of a man, regardless of birth.

Not, what was his station? But, what had he a heart?

And how did he play his God-given part?

Was he ever ready with the word or good cheer to bring a smile, to banish a tear?

Not, what was his church? Nor, what was his creed?

But, had he befriended those really in need?

Not, what did the sketch in the newspaper say?

But, how many were sorry when he passed away? > Author Unknown

We go to the grave of a friend, saying, “A man is dead.” But angels throng about him, saying, “A man is born.” > Gotthold

I believe in life after birth. > Mazie Dunham

Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life. > Bertolt Brecht

If you live to be one hundred, you’ve got it made. Very few people die past that age. > George Burns

Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring days. > Stephen Vincent Benet

Have you wept at anything during the past year? Has your heart beat faster at the sight of young beauty? Have you thought seriously about the fact that someday you are going to die? More often than not do you really listen when people are speaking to you instead of just waiting for your turn to speak? Is there anybody you know in whose place, if one of you had to suffer great pain, you would volunteer yourself? If your answer to all or most of these questions in No, the chances are that you’re dead. > Frederick Buechner

See also Job 1:21; Matthew 7:13-14; John 10:10.

14. Heaven

For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 3:20

Heaven will be the perfection we have always longed for. All the things that made earth unlovely and tragic will be absent in heaven. There will be no night, no death, no disease, no sorrow, no tears, no ignorance, no disappointments, no war. It will be filled with health, vigor, virility, knowledge, happiness, worship, love and perfection. > Billy Graham

A continual looking forward to the eternal world is not a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just whose thought most of the next. > C. S. Lewis

Religion can offer a person a burial service, but Christ offers every person new, abundant and everlasting life. > Wilma Reed

Faith is the Christian’s foundation, hope is his anchor, death is his harbor, Christ is his pilot and heaven is his country. > Jeremy Taylor

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. > C. S. Lewis

We are not citizens of this world trying to make our way to heaven; we are citizens of heaven trying to make our way through this world… We live as those who are on a journey home; a home we know will have the lights on and the door open and our Father waiting for us when we arrive. > The Anglican Digest

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did for the present world were those who thought most of the next. The apostles themselves, who set out on foot, to convert the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English evangelicals who abolished the slave trade, all left their mark on earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one. Aim at heaven and you will get earth “Thrown in”. Aim at earth and you will get neither. > C. S. Lewis

To believe in heaven is not to run away from life; it is to run toward it. > Joseph D. Bunco

See also Isaiah 65:17-25; John 14:1-6.

13. Faith

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining; I believe in love even when I feel it not; I believe in God, even when he is silent. > Inscription on a WWII hideaway

I prayed for faith and thought that some day faith would come down and strike me like lightning. But faith did not seem to come. One day I read in the 10^th chapter of Romans, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” I had up to this time closed my Bible and prayed for faith. I now opened my Bible and began to study, and faith has been growing ever since. > Dwight L. Moody

The life of faith is not a life of mounting up with wings, but a life of walking and not fainting. Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the one who is leading. > Oswald Chambers

Never put a question mark where God has put a period. > John R. Rice

Never, never pin your own faith on any human being: not if he is the best and wisest in the whole world. There are lots of nice things you can do with the sand; but do not try and build a house on it. > C. S. Lewis

Faith is not believing that God can, but that God will! > Abraham Lincoln

Sometimes you’ve got to jump off cliffs and grow wings on the way down. > Ray Bradbury

Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation. > Elton Trueblood

Faith is not sure where you’re going but going anyway. A journey without maps. > Frederick Buechner

Faith is not an effort, a striving, a ceaseless seeking, as so many earnest souls suppose, but rather a letting go, an abandonment, an abiding rest in God that nothing, not even the soul’s shortcomings, can disturb. > Author Unknown

See also Matthew 17:20; Romans 10:17; Ephesians 2:8.

12. Prayer

Pray without creasing. 1 Thessalonians 5:17

Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one’s heart to a dear friend. People who have no secrets from each other never want for subjects of conversation; they do not weigh their words, because there is nothing to be kept back. Neither do they seek for something to say; they talk out of the abundance of their hearts, just what they think. > Francois Fenelon

What men usually ask for when they pray to God is that two and two may not make four. > Russian Proverb

Pray is not an argument with God to persuade him to move things our way, but an exercise by which we are enabled by his Spirit to move ourselves his way. > Leonard Ravenhill

Most of us have much trouble praying when we are in little trouble, but we have little trouble praying when we are in much trouble. > Richard P. Cook

There is nothing that makes us a person so much as praying for him. > William Law

You need not cry very loud: he is nearer to us than we think. > Brother Lawrence

Unless in the first waking moment of the day you learn to fling the door wide back and let God in, you will work on a wrong level all day; but swing the door wide and pray to your Father, and every public thing will be stamped with the presence of God. > Oswald Chambers

The angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer that fetched the angel. > Thomas Watson

What a person is on his knees before God, that he is – and nothing more. > Robert Murray McCheyne

Much of our praying is just asking God to bless some folks that are ill, and to keep us plugging along. But prayer is not merely prattle; it is warfare. > Alan Redpath

Prayer is conversation with God. > Clement of Alexandria

Since the lines have been cleared between the Lord and me, the telephone has never stopped ringing. > Bernard L. Clark

See also Proverbs 15:8; Matthew 7:7-11; Mark 11:24