Illustrations

“It is one-nineteenth the size of California and roughly the size of our third smallest state, New Jersey. Israel is 260 miles at its longest, 60 miles at its widest, and between 3 and 9 miles at its narrowest. The nation of Israel is a democratic republic surrounded by 22 hostile Arab/Islamic dictatorships that are 640 times her size and 60 times her population.”

Source: What in the World is Going On, Dr. David Jeremiah

“More than a fourth of the Bible is predictive prophecy. Approximately one-third of it has yet to be fulfilled.

“Before refrigerators, people used icehouses to preserve their food. Icehouses had thick walls, no windows and a tightly fitted door. In winter, when streams and lakes were frozen, large blocks of ice were cut, hauled to the icehouses and covered with sawdust. Often the ice would last well into the summer.

I went to the UCLA Medical Center with my high school anatomy class and saw a cadaver on a cold, stainless steel counter. A dead person is totally powerless. It’s impossible to reach him. I could have handed that cadaver a Gospel tract or witnessed to him, but he couldn’t do anything to respond to an appeal or to change his condition in and of himself.

Submitted by Ray Cazis

A volunteer fire department in Arkansas drew criticism for letting a house burn down. It seems the owner hadn’t paid a twenty-dollar annual fee for fire fighting service. Because of the fire fighters’ inaction, two adjacent furniture shops also were destroyed. A resident behind the shops did pay the fee—while the fire was burning.  His house was spared.

Icelander, Eriker Olafsson accidentally collided with the yacht, Dragon Song, for the second time just one year and one day after his first collision with the same yacht. He was sailing down the Solent when he saw the Dragon Song and decided to pull alongside it so that he could apologize to its owner for his first collision. The problem was that he got too close to it.

Elizabeth Barrett’s father disapproved of her marriage to Robert browning so strongly that he never forgave her. She wrote letters to her father seeking reconciliation, but he returned them unopened. Had he opened them, and read the beautiful language she used, he may have forgiven her. The Bible is God’s letter to give us reconciliation, yet many people never read it.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica, Hugh Chisholm

From 1990 to 2008 the percentage of those who identified themselves as having “no religion” grew from 8.2% to 15%.

Source: 2008 American Religious Identification Survey

“If God's today be too soon for thy repentance, thy tomorrow may be too late for God's acceptance.”—D. L. Moody

“God will pardon a repentant sinner more quickly than a mother would snatch her child out of the fire.”—John Vianney

“The same tears that break our hearts may also nourish us in ways that matter most to God.”—Dr. Paul Chappell

“If we put off repentance another day, we have a day more to repent of, and a day less to repent in.”—William Mason

These were the rules that Sam Walton developed for Walmart.

1. Commit: Believe in it more than anybody else.

2. Share the blessings.

3. Motivate your partners. Constantly, day by day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners.

4. Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners.

5. Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.

6. Celebrate your success. Find some humor in your failures.