Son James, lends his dad a helping hand.
EDITORIAL
-- MOTIVES --
Why do we do what we do?
Some people in the church at Corinth misjudged the apostle Paul's motives. They believed that he had some other--ulterior--motive when he preached to them the gospel of Christ, especially when he asked nothing for himself in return for his services. They thought that somehow he had deceived and taken advantage of them.
Paul answers their mistrust thus: "Really it is before God in Christ that we speak. But, beloved, it is all with a view to your upbuilding"
Sometimes we have reason to wonder at people's motives, especially when we know there are salesmen about who wear fake hearing aids and other devices to play on the sympathy of their customers. And when We read an ad which in large black type promises something "absolutely free," we are prone to wonder: "What's the catch?"
I wouldn't be surprised if some misjudge our motives in sending out TRIUMPH free to all who write and ask for it. Maybe you think we are really after something other than what we claim.
May I say, in all sincerity, that our one and only motive is for your good. I know that others with ulterior motives say the same thing. But I say this realizing (with Paul) that "it is before God in Christ that I speak." We of TRIUMPH are answerable to Him. Our only desire is for your edification, your spiritual upbuilding.
We have your interest at heart in this paper. We want you to have in Christ our Lord what we have found in Him. May this issue help to that end.
Sincerely,
Arthur E. Gordon, Editor
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Dear Shut - In . . .
EXCERPTS from
LILLIAN'S LETTERS
There are several of you, my shut-in people, who are quite ill . . . some not strictly shut-in but have serious problems. You dear ones with great problems . . . those ill . . . we are praying for you. God will not fail. Occupy till He comes. It won't seem so long then.
How big is God? Very big! you say. How strong is God? Very strong, eh? How wise is God? all wise! How loving? God is love. Then why in the world do we insist God is not able for our situation, is ignorant of us, that He does not hear our weak, agonizing S.O.S.'s for help?
Mr. Old Devil spreads rumors and our subconscious absorbs them till the conscious oft times in the weariness of suffering can hardly hold on to reality--that God will not fail. "Be still, and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10 "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength." Isaiah 30:15
We should not insist upon carrying something not rightfully our load anyway. Let God carry His own. We fail at playing God. If we insist upon carrying, the devil sneaks up twice in a while and adds a little more. He tries to anyway, but like in volleyball we're just to raise our hands and deflect the problem over to our Lord.
The battle is the Lord's. We're just instruments. Praise His name!
Miss Lillian Butt suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. Before her illness she was a nurse.
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Deal gently and tenderly with your unconverted friends.
Remember you were once as blind as they.
-- Robert M. McCheyne
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From:
Aunt Milly
To:
Young Shut-Ins
THROUGHOUT THE world today a miracle, yes, a wonderful miracle is taking place, though unknown by the majority of people.
This miracle takes place among all kinds of people. It happens to the poor, the rich, the sick, the well, to boys and girls, to fathers and mothers.
What is this miracle? It has many names. But we shall call it the New Birth, because it is the beginning of a new life. One every year you celebrate the time you came into the world as a tiny baby. This was your first birthday or call it your natural birthday.
The new birth happens to the soul, that is, it does not happen to your physical (that part of your body that can be seen), but to the spirit and the soul, inside your body.
The New Birth is of the Lord. In the Bible we read: "Salvation is of the Lord" (Jonah 2:9). No one, not even your father or mother, nor even your minister can give you this New Birth, no matter how much they want you to have it. Only God can give you this. And He wants you to have it. He will give it to you as a gift the moment you look by faith to Jesus Christ and trust Him as your Lord and savior.
But why did God plan for the New Birth? The answer is a little three-letter work: S-I-N. If we were holy we would not need salvation. But the Bible says--"For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). We are helpless to help ourselves out of this sinfulness. But the Lord is a God of love. He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (II Peter 3:9)
Will you, dear young person, come just now as you read the words of this lovely hymn?
Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bid'st me come to Thee
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
Make these words yours from your heart. God will hear. He's waiting and longing for you.
-- by Mildred Gay (Aunt Milly)
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DANA
A MISSION nurse in the French Sudan tells of a boy who was brought to the dispensary for treatment. Dana was weak physically, thin and ill. When the nurse handed him some pills and a cup of water, he held them in his hand and amid the crowd of people there, he bowed his head, closed his eyes and silently gave thanks to God.
The missionary says: "Thousands of people I've treated at the dispensary, but never before had anyone ever given thanks before taking medicine. One day I talked to the native translator with whom Dana stayed, and told him how Dana prayed before taking his pills. 'Pray!' he responded, 'that boy really prays. Before I get up in the morning he is up praying. After I go to bed at night, he is still praying.' And Dana was sick and very weak."
Dana had tuberculosis and was at the mission compound for months. At first he made good progress and gained weight. Then he grew weaker. Later he asked his parents when they cane to visit him to please take him home.
"One day he called his mother and said, 'I'm tired. I want to go to my Lord.' She answered him, 'If you want to go, it's all right.' So during market day, while Dana was alone in the hut, his Saviour came for him. His desire was granted; he went to be with his Lord.
"For seven years he had lived in the presence of God. During that time he had witnessed faithfully to his family and was the means of bringing his mother, father, grandmother, uncle and sister to his Saviour.
"His life was a testimony to heathen, Christians and missionaries. Saved when he was five; died when he was twelve. Dana is with Jesus but his sweet Christian testimony and unusual prayer life live on."
From Young People Bible Teacher Quarterly, Missionary Application. Used by permission of Union Gospel Press, Cleveland, Ohio
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ABOUT THE EDITOR
I had an experience with the Lord in January, 1945, aboard a troop transport somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean, which gave me the assurance of salvation and changed my life. As a result, when I returned to the States, I commenced Bible study at the Bible Institute of Pennsylvania (now the Philadelphia College of Bible) and graduated in 1948. I met my wife-to-be in Bible school and we were married following graduation.
The following fall I entered Grace College and two years later Grace Theological Seminary of Winona Lake, Indiana. During my junior year in seminary I was ordained to the ministry and was called to pastor the Salem Community Church, not many miles from the school. We served there until a year after graduation.
In the spring of '55 my wife, three children, and I moved to Williamsburg, Ohio, where we helped start a Baptist church. In August of that year I contracted polio, along with my three children. The next 13 months were spent in the General Hospital of Cincinnati and the Respirator Center at the Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio.
In June of '57 we moved to my parent's home in Pennsylvania. In August we sent out our first mimeographed issue of TRIUMPH to the 800 on our mailing list. Very evidently of the Lord, this ministry has grown till now we send out nearly 4000 copies. The Lord knows and holds the future; we joyfully commit to Him our own future and that of our work.
"To God be the glory, great things He has done." "He hath done all things well." "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."
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COVERED WITH SNOW
by Evelyn Bauer
About the author:-- Mrs. Bauer was born near Johnstown, Pennsylvania. She was graduated from Hesston College, a junior college in Kansas, and Goshen College in Indiana. After marriage to Royal H. Bauer of Morton, Illinois, and three years of missionary work (Mennonite) in Madhya Pradesh, India, she was stricken with polio. Shortly after this she and her husband and their young son, Stephen, flew back to the United States.
Although Mrs. Bauer's recovery has been exceptional, she is still confined to a wheel chair. She reviews books, does art work and types (with the aid of a sling) on an electric typewriter. Currently she lives at Goshen, Indiana, where Mr. Bauer is an instructor and counselor at Bethany Christian High School.
The following article is reprinted by permission from the book, THROUGH SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW by Evelyn Bauer, copyright 1959, Herald Press, Scottdale, PA, and is a chapter from this book. It is a heartwarming account of the author's thoughts and aspirations upon returning with her family to her parents' home following several months of hospitalization.
IN SPITE OF the advantages in being at home and doing the exercises regularly, the muscles of my legs did not respond.. My arms with use continued to make small improvements gradually.
Each change of location brought with it new adjustments which had to be made. It was not easy to watch my mother lovingly working day after day preparing our meals, taking care of our son, and doing many other tasks of which I would have liked to relieve her. I had often been conscience-smitten that I didn't help her more in my earlier years, and now it was too late to help her with her physical work.
It was only natural for Mother to feel sorry for me because I could not do the many things she knew I had always loved to do. For her to see my difficulties in movement was harder on her than it was on me. She did well in not showing it, but, knowing her, I could not help but know her hurt too. In turn, it was harder for me to endure the thought of her sorrow that it was to bear my own handicaps.
It was too hard to talk about it openly, so I wrote her a note trying to differentiate between pity and love. I wrote that if pity and love could be separated, then "Do not pity me, please -- only love me." I tried to point out many of the blessings that God had granted to me in order to prove that I truly was not an object worthy of pity. I considered myself fortunate in many ways. My childhood had been a happy one. My parents had made my college education possible. Our experiences in India were precious, and we hoped had somehow furthered God's cause for man's salvation. Thus the first twenty-five years of my life had been filled so full of happiness and blessings that they would do for a lifetime. Perhaps I have had more happy experiences -- more meaningful joys and privileges -- than many have in a long lifetime. I wrote Mother that I didn't feel I was missing anything.
By that time I had formed the habit of reviewing my blessings before the windows of my mind, and it came quite easily. At the hospital when I began to get discouraged and was tempted to self-pity, I found a very effective cure: To make myself think of all the people in the world with whom I would not want to exchange places. It seemed selfish to glory in the fact that others in the world were having a harder time in life than I, but facing that fact did help me not to feel sorry for myself. It also gave a challenge to do whatever I could to help those less fortunate.
During our stay in Pennsylvania at my parents' home, there were times when I had difficulty in understanding my own feelings. It seemed that with the changes in my physical condition, such major adjustments in my life had to be made that I had a feeling of having lost even my personality -- of living in a different world from that of those about me. When I was with my own parents, relatives, or friends I grew up with, there was so much association and memory of how things used to be that it was hard to fit into the new situation and feel at home with myself.
When I was in an entirely unfamiliar setting, there seemed to be fewer frustrations, I could ignore the whole personal change in my physical abilities and keep my bearings better. It was then easier to forget self entirely. It was not that my relatives and close friends took wrong attitudes; they were tenderly considerate and understanding. When I was with people who I knew felt bad about what had happened to me, then it made me feel sorry for them, and sad because I was the object of their unhappiness.
It is strange how I wanted people to understand without having pity. Maybe I was asking too much. But I kept thinking that if I could show people that God had blessed through suffering and to the end that I really was not suffering, then I would no longer be a cause for pity, but a cause for understanding and praise to God who makes all things possible.
One afternoon as I sat out in the back yard, I looked across the field and saw a girl friend who was married and had two little girls. She walked toward their house with one girl on each side. Suddenly a cloud of jealousy began to fall over me as I realized that life could never be that way for me. My dreams of being a busy housewife and mother in the normal way were shattered.
But after thinking how big and broad life is, I knew there must still be enough of it available to me to make it happy and meaningful. Life is an elaborate smorgasbord. No one can partake of all of it. Yet each dish is so good that if one can have only a few, he is well rewarded. God has made life great enough, that even if one cannot have it all, he can make what he does have a priceless possession.
One day after being at home for some time, I allowed myself to become discouraged about the progress that did not come. Like Lot's wife, I "looked back." For just a little bit, I thought I would review before my mind the many dear but good things that would from now on be left behind. I will not even take the chance now to list the thoughts that came to me in frenzied and continuous succession. I learned another lesson. That one longing-look back caught me in a trap from which I could not shake myself for four or five days. I tried to pray, tried to trust, but for that length of time it was almost impossible. I was like a pillar of salt, and one that had lost its savor.
I knew how I had gotten myself into the trap and I vowed that if I ever got out of it and my spirits were raised, I would never allow myself to fall into it again. I believe God let me remain in the trap those days so that I would see clearly the result of rebelling, regretting, or pitying myself. When I learned what a hopeless, unhappy situation it was, He helped me out of it.
Some time later someone who was recovering from a serious illness asked me, "How do you manage to keep from discouragement?" I told him it was a learning process, not unlike an obstacle race. After passing one hurdle, I need not go back and do it over. Each success gave additional strength and courage for the new hurdles ahead. And this mental and emotional progress, however small, was encouraging.
It was a mental project with me to try to figure out all the things that were still possible for me to do. Never mind that a list of the things I could no longer do might be more lengthy. It would have been easier too, to grieve over the activities I always enjoyed doing so much but now could not. A certain peculiar kind of pleasure can be derived from that, but it is damaging--destroying. I found the mental activity of exploring new fields of possible usefulness was much more stimulating and creative.
I had always had an interest in art and liked to do things with my hands. Years before I often wondered how God wished me to use my interest in art. I had taught art and homemaking one year before we went to India.
The church high school where Royal was teaching while I was in the hospital was right beside our home and it needed an art teacher. I offered to teach a small art class that September. It met the last period of the day, two and three periods a week. Royal came home for me just before the hour, and I was teaching school once again. It was a class of twelve students. Although I stayed in the same spot during the hour, the students brought their work to me for individual help.
This was one time an art teacher did not yield to the temptation to give her students too much help. Some of the principles of teaching were of necessity put into practice. For example, student participation. Whenever I wanted to write something on the blackboard, one of the students did it for me. Some of the better students had to help the poorer ones. I had a little table on the wheel chair and although I couldn't lift my arms, I could slide them from side to side and use my right hand quite well.
It was good to know I could do a little something for others and not be entirely dependent and useless.
I also tried textile painting and found my hand steady enough to cut my own stencils. The first ten dollars I made by painting pillowcases for others was also a great joy to me. During my stay in the hospital it had been an unpleasant thought that I might be wholly dependent on others. I realized there are handicapped people who have to bear such a position and do it nobly. But I thanked God for the return of a useful right hand.
A friend, having seen some of my textile painting, exclaimed with tears how wonderful it was that God gave me talent to do things like that. She said, "I could never do anything like this. What would I do if I had to be in a wheel chair?" These thoughts came clearly to my mind: "If God ever allowed you to be limited to a wheel chair, He would have something for you to do. Or if there was absolutely nothing physical you could do, God's loving purposes could still be accomplished. Whatever position God permits us to fill is one in which it is possible to give glory to God. We need never feel useless."
I found a parallel truth in the Bible: "With the temptation is made a way of escape." With the tragedy, misfortune, grief, or sorrow, there is also a way of escape that we may be able to bear it. Not only bear it, but use it in some way for good.
While we were yet in South India, Royal bought me a little book by Amy Carmichael, "Figures of the True." It contains exquisite photographs of trees, skies, mountains, and seas. A few pages of helpful meditations illuminate each picture. The lessons of trust and hope were soothing to me as fresh cooling waters to hot, dry lips.
One of the first pictures showed a tree in winter, covered with snow and ice. It was likened to the winter seasons of our lives when we are forced to remain quiet and still. But after every winter comes spring. There were times when I felt it couldn't be true for me; my winter would go on to the end. But spring comes in one form or another. we can rest secure and know that all is well with God who made the natural seasons serve each its purpose, and who also allows changes to come in our lives for a good purpose.
What of the future? It could easily be a fearful thing for me, humanly speaking. Somehow He has put up a wall which prevents me from thinking much about it with anxiety. I find I can trust God. He has made and will make every season beautiful and enjoyable.
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SERMON SERIES
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PETER
No. 9
GROW UP
I Peter 2:1-5
THE BIBLE exhorts us: "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." In every realm of life growth is naturally expected. No less should it be expected in the spiritual realm. Our present study considers this aspect of truth. First, we have some
HINDRANCES TO GROWTH
As in other realms there are things which hinder growth, so in the spiritual. Some of these are listed in verse one. "Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings . . ." (1)
"Malice," i.e. wickedness may be expected of the wicked, but not of the followers of the holy Son of God. "Guile," i.e. deceit may be expected of the deceitful, but not of the followers of the One of whom Peter himself said: "(He) did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth."
"Hypocrisies," i.e. pretense may be expected of hypocrites, but not of the followers of Him who so stoutly declared: "Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." "Envies," i.e. jealousy may be expected of the envious, but never of the followers of Him who wanted nothing more for Himself than to do the will of His Father and to finish His work.
"Evil speakings" may be expected of evil-hearted people, "for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh," but not once should this be so of the followers of the One of whom it was said: "all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth."
Young Christians, a word to you. All these things are characteristic of the old life. They do not--do not--do not, I can't emphasize it enough, they do not belong to your new life in Christ. They can only deter your spiritual growth.
Lay them aside. Cast them from you. Be done with this manner of living. As you pull up the weeds from your garden and throw them away, root up and throw away these choking, hindering obstacles to your spiritual growth.
A word, too, to the older Christian: "Let us not sleep . . . but let us watch." It is so easy to rest on past victories and become drowsy to renewed attacks from the old enemies. Let's be watching for and guarding against these growth-stunting "weeds." When they raise their ugly heads, give them the sharp edge of the Sword.
Now for some
HELPS TO GROWTH
The first of these is found in the words: "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby." (2)
The unadulterated Word of God, the Bible, is one primary means of spiritual growth. It is as important to you as milk is to the newborn child.
The child, almost immediately, has a natural craving for nourishment which only pure milk will satisfy. Likewise, the spiritual infant has been given a desire for the pure "milk of the word." No mixture of the Word and something else, thus diluting it to worthlessness, will do. Growth comes by giving undivided attention, at regular intervals, to the unadulterated Word of God.
If you have been just recently saved, do not let this longing for spiritual nourishment go unsatisfied. As you have been given the desire for the Word, feed your soul upon it faithfully, regularly.
But, you who are more mature, think not that you have reached the pinnacle of perfection, as though there remained no more for you to attain. You too must have this craving for the Word of God which only a constant repairing to it will satisfy. If you have somewhere along the way lost your desire for spiritual food, I would say to you, echoing Paul's words to Timothy: "Neglect not the gift that is in thee . . . (but) stir up the gift of God, which is in thee."
Some of you who read this are shut-ins, confined possible to one small room, shut out from most (normal) forms of Christian activity and fellowship. But don't for a moment think because you cannot engage in these graces that you are destined to be dwarfed spiritually.
No doubt you have a Bible within easy reach. In it is contained all you need for proper, consistent growth. A steady diet of the Word assures steady growth. Learn to "eat" regularly; feed your soul faithfully "that ye may grow thereby."
This craving which can only be satisfied by going often to the Word of God is only natural when you consider that which follows in the text:
" . . . if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious." (3)
Give the little boy his first taste of sweet chocolate and you have whetted his appetite for more of the same. From then on whenever he passes the candy counter his salivary glands remind him that there under the glass is something very much to his liking. The one taste has given him a desire for chocolate that will last him a lifetime.
The comparison is weak, but let a person just once taste the graciousness--the goodness and kindness--of the Lord in salvation, and there is created within him a craving for the undiluted "milk of the Word."
The Psalmist invites: "O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is a man that trusteth in him." Many to whom I write these lines have thus tasted of the Lord's goodness and kindness.
But I want to remind you that if there is no desire for the Word of God in your heart and never has been, then you have never really tasted of the Lord's grace in salvation. You have yet to see Jesus as he portrays Himself in the words: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever." He meant, as He had already explained: "He that believeth on me hath everlasting life." Have you thus tasted of the Lord? When you do there will be born in your heart a desire for His Word.
This brings us to the second HELP, or should we say HELPER, to growth. The dear Lord Himself is that Helper --
" . . . to whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house . . . " (4,5a)
The analogy here is to the building of a house. A spiritual house is in view. It is built of stones--living stones. Christ Himself is compared to a living stone, Mankind has rejected Him in their building efforts. But God has chosen Him, as He is precious.
We who come to this "living stone," placing our trust and hope in Him, become ourselves "living stones." And with Him we are erected into a spiritual house for the glory of God.
A house is built to house someone. So with this spiritual house, "God . . . dwelleth not in temples made with hands;" but "he dwelleth with you and shall be in you." "For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."
Dear believer, don't be afraid to rest on this wonderful truth. God is in your small, frail (body--) house. He delights to dwell there. Treat Him as a royal guest. Let Him have access to every room. Come to Him like Mary of Bethany and sit at His feet and learn of Him. Pour out to Him the longings of your heart.
For proper physical growth one must eat and exercise regularly. For proper spiritual growth it is equally necessary for you to feast on the Word and to exercise yourself in prayer, and that regularly. May we learn to take advantage of these helps.
Now for the
RESULTS OF GROWTH
"Ye . . . are built up . . . an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." (5)
Before the giving of the law to Moses the head of the family was the family priest. After the law was given, an order of priests was established who alone could offer sacrifices. With the coming of Christ all that the former priesthood typified was fulfilled in Him, Himself becoming at the same time both Offerer and Offering. " . . . now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself . . . So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." Thus "there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins."
What then are these "spiritual sacrifices" which we as "an holy priesthood" are to offer up? We surely cannot do again what Christ has fulfilled forever. He took care of the sin question once and for all. Where then does our priesthood come in?
As believer-priests our "spiritual sacrifices" are twofold: God-ward and man-ward. "By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. But to do good and to communicate forget not; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." (Hebrews 13:15,16)
God-ward-- our sacrifice is to offer up praise and thanksgiving continually. Throughout eternity this will be our main occupation. John says of that coming day: "And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and . . . in the sea . . . heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever."
Man-ward-- our spiritual sacrifice is "to do good and to communicate." We communicate when we share our blessings with others. This of course involves our material and physical blessings, but even more our spiritual blessings. The crying need of the world is Christ; let us share Him with our fellow creatures.
HINDRANCES TO GROWTH: cast them from you.
HELPS TO GROWTH: desire and avail yourself of them.
RESULTS OF GROWTH: let them be manifest in you.
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