What Can We Learn from Corrie?

Corrie ten Boom was a woman of God.   The daughter of a watchmaker in Holland, she spent some awful times in the concentration camps during the terrible World War II era.   She knew what it was to exercise her faith.   She learned things in the fire of trials that many of us struggle our whole lifetime to learn.   Here are some quotes from her book, 'The Hiding Place':

Dear Jesus... how foolish of me to have called for human help when You are here.

My job was simply to follow His leading one step at a time, holding every decision up to Him in prayer.

In the Bible I learn that God values us not for our strength or our brains, but simply because He has made us.

If people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love.

Our Bible was the center of an ever-widening circle of help and hope.

In darkness, God's truth shines most clear.

I learned that love is larger than the walls which shut it in.

This was the great ploy of Satan in that kingdom of his: to display such blatant evil that one could almost believe one's own secret sins didn't matter.

There are no "ifs" in God's kingdom.  His timing is perfect. His will is our hiding place.

When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.

The Meaning of Heroism

"Today the word 'hero' has been diminished, confused with 'celebrity'. But in my father's generation the word meant something. Celebrities seek fame. They take no actions to get attention. Most often, the actions they take have no particular moral content. Heroes are heroes because they have risked something to help others. Their action involves courage."

- James Bradley, author of 'Flags of our Father" and son of John Bradley, one of the flag raisers on Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima

Cholera Outbreak

In the 1830’s a cholera epidemic was rampant in England. The church bells tolled almost non-stop for months as people held funerals for their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. One man was prepared for the disaster that descended on his country. That man was George Muller. He spent all his waking hours encouraging those who had contracted the disease or comforting their survivors. He read the Bible to them and spent time in prayer with them. Thousands of people died from the disease. Seeing children in the streets whose parents had fallen victim to the horrible outbreak of cholera led George into a ministry with eternal consequence. He and his wife Mary had started a ‘breakfast club’, inviting hungry children into their house each morning for a warm breakfast and a Bible lesson.

A long time ago in a distant land… it sounds nearly impossible for us to even imagine something like a widespread epidemic with such far-reaching consequences. But I think we can learn much from a man like Mr. Muller. Christians need to be prepared. We need to be ready to do what George Muller did. We may not face cholera, but it is not out of the realm of possibility that we’d face a different epidemic. It might be a health epidemic. It could very well be the results of the looming economic meltdown of our financial structure. When the dust has settled from all the bailouts, the move to spreading the wealth around, the Obama presidency, the corruption in Washington and New York, we could very well be looking at hungry children in our streets in massive numbers. Unemployment and crime could spike to all-time heights. Despair and hopelessness could be the predominant landscape of our near future.

Are we going to crumble like those who have no foundation? Or will be ready, like George Muller, with the message of hope from the Word of God? The time is now for us to gird our loins and arm ourselves with the scriptures. The time is now to be ready to give someone a cold drink of water, literally, in the name of Jesus. Get ready for the coming outbreak of cholera in your town.

Smarter than Plato

Just when you think you aren't quite getting a deep theological concept... just when you're discouraged about grasping a thick doctrine from God's Word... just when you get to a tough passage that doesn't quite make sense... a servant of God, Bishop J.C. Ryle comes along and gives us these words of encouragement from his booklet 'How Readest Thou?':

There is an extraordinary depth, fullness, and richness in the contents of the Bible. It throws more light on a vast number of most important subjects than all the other books in the world put together. It boldly handles matters which are utterly beyond the reach of man, when left to himself. It treats of things which are mysterious and invisible – the soul, the world to come, and eternity – depths which man has no line to fathom. All who have tried to write of these things, without Bible light, have done little but show their own ignorance. The grope like the blind; they speculate; they guess; they generally make the darkness more visible, and land us in a region of uncertainty and doubt. How little did the wisest of the heathen know! How dim were the views of Socrates, Plato, Cicero and Seneca! A well-taught Sunday-school child, in the present day, knows more spiritual truth than all these sages put together.

John Charles Ryle went to heaven in 1900, but not before writing much excellent material to exhort, teach and encourage the Christian church, like this quote above. He was greatly used of God. His successor described him as 'a man of granite with a heart of a child'. Spurgeon said he was an 'evanglical champion'. I look forward to getting to know J.C. Ryle more in the near future.

George Mueller, Devoted to Prayer - Part 3

So, what can we learn from this man of God, George Mueller?

He was a man who was fully devoted to prayer. After having been sickly as a young man, by 1839, George was physically and mentally healthy than he’d ever been. He attributed this to his habit of rising early to pray (and the eccentric habit of dunking his head in cold water).

George also realized that God's sovereignty was at the very root of his confidence. He said, "God is almighty, the hearts of all men are in his hands."

I will let Mueller speak for himself as I make several observations from his life. Quotes are taken from the biography, Delighed in God, by Roger Steer.

Mueller had proper FOCUS – "My eyes look not at the empty stores and the empty purse, but to the riches of the Lord only".

Mueller had NO WORRIES – "Our need is my comfort"

Mueller had JOY – "Inexpressible was the delight I had in God, who had thus given me the full answer to my thousands of prayers"

Mueller had PATIENCE – "See how precious it is to wait on God! See how those who do not do so our confounded! Is it not manifest that it is most precious, in every way to depend on God?"

Mueller had VISION – "My chief object was the glory of God, by giving a practical demonstration as to what could be accomplished simply through the instrumentality of prayer and faith". (reflecting on the days when he was seeking God for wisdom regarding starting the orphanage)

Mueller had unshakable FAITH– "My hope was in God alone. I knew him, and I knew He would do what was best for me. My heart was satisfied with Him. I delighted myself in Him." (when he thought his first wife was dying from a serious illness. She survived that particular illness.)

Mueller had PERSEVERANCE – "The great fault of the children of God is, they do not continue in prayer; they do not go on praying; they do not persevere. If they desire anything for God’s glory, they should pray until they get it. He has heard my prayers tens of thousands of times. Once I am persuaded that a thing is right and for the glory of God, I go on praying for it until the answer comes – George Mueller never gives up!"

Many people would ask George the secret to his spiritual success, to which he would reply,
"There was a day when I died, utterly died. Died to George Muller, his opinions, preferences, tastes and will – died to the world, its approval or censure – died to the approval or blame of even my brethren and friends – and since then I have studied to show myself approved only unto God".

George Mueller did die... physically. On March 10, 1898 at 6:00am, George peacefully went to his heavenly home... but not without making an eternal impact in this world.

What will you and I accomplish as a result of meeting with God in prayer???

George Mueller, Devoted to Prayer - Part 2

To get to the reason for George Muller’s spiritual success, we need to start early in his life: He lived a godless and reckless life when he was young. He was a liar and a thief.
When his mother was dying, he was spending time out on the street drunk. He spent four weeks in jail at age 16 for stealing. His father, who was an unbeliever bailed him out.
George’s father sent him to the University of Halle to study divinity and prepare for the ministry because "that would be a good living". Neither he nor George had any spiritual aspirations.

When Mueller was 20 years old, he was invited to a Bible Study. Of that invitation to Bible study he said, "It was to me as if I had found something after which I had been seeking all my life long. I immediately wished to go." As a side note, we can never over-estimate the power of God to change someone's life through a simple invitation to Bible study, church or Sunday School. At the close of the meeting, they sang a hymn and someone prayed. Mueller thought, "I could not pray as well, though I am a much more educated man." After that evening of Bible study, Mueller stated: "I have not the least doubt, that on that evening, God began a work of grace in me. . . . That evening was the turning point in my life."

Six or seven weeks later and after much prayer, Mueller returned to see his father to seek his permission to become a missionary. His father was furious, disowning him. In the hopes of becoming a missionary, Muller went to England to work with the London Missionary Society, but because of his theology and ministry convictions his association with them ended.

In the meantime, in the summer of 1829, George became sick and ended up staying with another man of God while he recovered in the town of Teignmouth.

Two crucial discoveries while he was sick:
1) . the preciousness of reading and meditating on the word of God, and
2). the truth of the doctrines of grace.

He said 40 years later that his preaching had been fruitless from 1825 to 1829 in Germany. But then he had been taught the doctrine of Grace in England. Nornally, we might look at 'sickness' as being a disturbance or interruption in our plans, but as God's sovereignty goes, Mueller was right on schedule... In learning these doctrines of grace and God's sovereignty, Mueller states,
"…when it pleased God to reveal these truths to me, and my heart was brought to such a state that I could say, "I am not only content simply to be a hammer, an axe, or a saw, in God's hands; but I shall count it an honor to be taken up and used by Him in any way; and if sinners are converted through my instrumentality, from my inmost soul I will give Him all the glory"

God's sovereignty = Mueller's confidence. It was at this time that George Mueller sought to glorify God through a children's ministry, and the idea of the orphanage was born. Mueller and his wife prayed incessantly for wisdom and guidance. It became clear that this is what the Lord would have him do in ministry. When he studied the passage in Psalm 81:10, where it says, 'open your mouth wide and I will fill it', George realized that they had prayed long and hard about whether or not to start this kind of ministry, but not how to fund it or staff it. So now he set out to pray diligently for God to provide everything necessary to make it happen.

Because of his confidence in God to provide, he didn't take a regular salary, he didn't go into debt or take out loans and he didn't ask anyone directly for money at any time. God answered these prayers for provision exceedingly and abundantly more than Mueller could have thought or asked. In his biography on George Mueller, Delighted in God, Roger Steer details many, many accounts of how Mueller and the orphanage was well provided for. Answered prayer, after answered prayer are recorded in this very encouraging book.

What can we learn from a guy like Mueller? Part 3 next time will let George Mueller speak for himself as I post quotes from the book then.

George Mueller, Devoted to Prayer - Part 1

Last summer I read a biography on George Mueller, one of my heroes of the faith. I recently reacquainted myself with this great man of God for a Sunday School lecture.

He was born in 1805, and lived a full life of 92 years, going to heaven in 1898. He was born in Germany, but spent most of his life in Bristol, England where he pastored the same church for over sixty-six years. Mueller married Mary Groves in 1830 (she died in 1870). They had one daughter that survived infancy (Lydia). He married Suzanna Sanger in 1871 (she died in 1894).

When George was 28, he founded The Scripture Knowledge Institute for Home and Abroad. There were five aggressive goals of the Institute: 1). establish schools for children and adults to teach Bible knowledge, 2). Bible distribution, 3). missionary support, 4). tract and book distribution, and 5). "to board, clothe and Scripturally educate destitute children who have lost both parents by death".

Mueller's vision for children grew into the orphan ministry that he is so well-known for.
He built five large orphan houses and cared for 10,024 orphans in his lifetime. He never took out a loan or incurred debt and he never asked anyone for money. He didn’t take a salary for 68 years and he rejected life insurance and retirement accounts. Mueller, his family and his orphans never went hungry.

George Mueller was quite the accomplished individual. He did all this while he was preaching three times a week from 1830 to 1898. If you do the math, that is at least 10,000 sermons.
At age 70 he fulfilled a life-long dream of missionary work for the next 17 years until he was 87.
He traveled to 42 different countries, preaching once a day, addressing some three million people. In 1878, Mueller and his wife Suzanna were invited to the White House to meet with President and Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes.

How does someone accomplish so much? To what do we attribute the many spiritual successes and victories of George Mueller? Find out next time!

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

When I get to heaven, one of the people I want to have conversations with would be Martyn Lloyd-Jones. He went to heaven on March 1, 1981. I was finishing up eleventh grade at that time and had no clue who this man was back then. In the last six or seven years though, I have grown to love this man who has written many books and commentaries that have impacted my life profoundly. He was a master using the right words to convey the message that was intended in the scriptures. In some cases, he'd spend hundreds of pages expositing just one verse, mining deep and pulling out those great spiritual nuggets of gold. I try to read at least two of his commentaries every year - there are many volumes to Romans, eight on Ephesians, two on Philippians, two on the Sermon on the Mount, several on Acts and others. There is no shortage of reading material from this great Bible teacher. Below are some of my favorite quotes out of one of my recent readings from Romans 1.

What a denial of Scripture it is to say it does not matter very much what you believe as long as you call yourself a Christian in general, or to say that you need not hold on to these doctrines as absolutes.

It ought to be impossible for us to use the word ‘gospel’ without bursting forth, as it were, into a hymn of praise and thanksgiving.


The Bible is authoritative. It is the only authority. It is our only rule and standard, and we must abide by its teaching in every respect. I must not believe anything unless it is plainly stated in the Scriptures or else can be ultimately deduced from the Scriptures.


[Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ] means a surrender of ourselves, a committal of ourselves, the involvement of our whole personality. No one can be regarded as having believed the gospel who has not repented and turned from a life of sin to a life of obedience to God in Christ Jesus.

Who are the unstable? The unstable are always the unlearned. The spiritual butterflies are the people who do not know doctrine. It is the unlearned who are always unstable, and every single New Testament epistle was written in order to stabilize people, to establish them, to ground them, to root them! And it is by the doctrines, the teaching, and the exposition that it is done. It is not entertainment we need. It is truth. It is knowledge. There are no shortcuts in the spiritual life. You cannot gallop through these epistles. You cannot rush through them a chapter at a time. It is only a deep and thorough knowledge of the Word that will give us true stability.

The Printing Press

Of all the inventions in history, I had never thought of the printing press as being one with the greatest magnitude. After studying about William Tyndale and his burning passion and desire to get the Bible translated into English and put into the hands of the common people - I'd say the invention of the printing press is unrivaled in its effect on humankind.

The printing press was invented in Europe and its use spread throughout the continent like a summer wildfire Southern California. Providentially, the spreading of the printing press was happening at roughly the same time that Tyndale was working on his translation of the Bible while he was in exile from England. The ability to mass-produce an English version of the Bible was going to amazingly allow Tyndale to accomplish his one desire: "that the boy that driveth the plow" would know the scriptures.

Tyndale paid the ultimate price. He was branded a heretic, strangled by an executioner, and burned at the stake because of his efforts in translating the Bible. He is truly a hero of the faith and we owe a great debt of thanks to this bold and singly-focused man of God. He looked down through the corridor of time and saw fifty, a hundred... five hundred years into the future and knew that he was going to make an impact for the kingdom of Christ.

I look around and see all of our technology that makes the printing press look rather simple and crude. But what an amazing thing that printing press was for those of us who speak and read English. And then I wonder, 'in fifty, a hundred... five hundred years from now, will there be someone studying about our computer-sophisicated culture and saying what an impact we had for Christ because we used all of our gadgets for the cause of the kingdom'.

I wonder...

Patriotic Quiz #2 - Answers

Two of the hands belong to Abraham Lincoln. The closed hand indicates his strength and determination. The open hand represents his compassion.

The hand clenching the weapon is from the three soldiers keeping watch over the Vietnam War Memorial Wall.

One hand in the relaxed position is at the right side of Thomas Jefferson - third President of the United States and the writer (and a signer) of the the Declaration of Independence.

The other two pictures of hands are from the Iwo Jima Monument located next to Arlington National Cemetery. The monument was erected in honor of the brave soldiers who conquered Mount Suribachi on the strategic island of Iwo Jima in the Pacific Ocean in WWII. The group of hands belong to Mike Strank, Rene Gagnon, John Bradley and/or Franklin Sousley. Harlon Block was the soldier with his hands at the base of the pole, so he is not in this picture.

The set of hands that can't quite reach the flag pole belong to Ira Hayes. In the book, Flags of our Fathers, the author James Bradley (son of one of the flag raisers) mentions that this was Ira, different, apart from the rest, unable to grasp the pole just as he was unable later to get his hands around his life. Ira died after the Iwo Jima Monument was erected and dedicated. He was found face down in a ditch where the cause of death was listed as hypothermia and too much alcohol. Ira Hayes is buried in Arlington. Ira Hayes is an American hero, regardless of the circumstances surrounding his death.

We should pause for a moment and thank God for all of these people for their valuable contributions to America.

Marcus Aurelius - Gospel Thoughts for the Week

Everybody has a friend or two that have a knack for making up nicknames; you know, special terms of affection. To a couple of my friends, my name went from Mark to Marcus, and then from Marcus to Marcus Aurelius. I thought it was kinda cool to be Marcus Aurelius… that is, until I learned who he was, and then I didn’t think it was so cool anymore.

Marcus Aurelius was the emperor in Rome from 161 A.D. until 180. He was not a friendly man toward Christians. In fact, he was hostile toward them, he hated them, he persecuted them – and he had them murdered.

Polycarp was a student of the Apostle John and was a devoted follower of Christ. He was martyred because of his strong stand on Biblical principles and his undying love for Jesus Christ, his Savior. Although the exact date of the death of Polycarp is disputed, the historian Jerome states that the killing of Polycarp took place under Marcus Aurelius.

After learning some interesting things about Polycarp, I became almost infuriated that a man like Marcus Aurelius would be so wicked as to preside over the torturous murder of such a great man of God. This was a crime to beat all crimes.

But then, as it happens every time I examine the wickedness of another, God blasts me with the thought of my own wickedness. The crime of all crimes is not that Marcus Aurelius killed one of my Christian brothers – no, the crime of all history is, that because of MY personal sin, the spotless and innocent Lamb of God was murdered on the hill at Calvary. And even worse than that? If you and I spurned the love of God and rejected the offer of forgiveness He offers from the bloody hill.

Marcus Aurelius