Eternity! Eternity!

Arthur Stace was a loser, a no-hoper, an alcoholic and completely illiterate. He lived in the streets of Sydney, regarded by many who saw him as a lost cause.

One Sunday night in 1932 he entered St Barnabas' Anglican Church on Broadway, Sydney, and heard the Reverend T. C. Hammond preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Banner of Truth has published a paperback biography of T. C. Hammond. Arthur was convicted by the Spirit of God. He left the church, crossed the road, and sat under a tree in Victoria Park where he committed his life to Jesus Christ. He had become a new creation.

Later that year he was at the Burton Street Baptist Tabernacle on the corner of Palmer Street, Darlinghurst when he heard the evangelist John G Ridley preaching.

In his urgent, commanding voice, John Ridley cried, "Eternity! Eternity! Oh, that this word could be emblazoned across the streets of Sydney." Arthur Stace the little man who still could not read or write left that church, took some yellow chalk, bent down and wrote one word on the footpath. And throughout the night for the next 40 years, while Sydney slept, Arthur would take his chalk and write in immaculate copperplate handwriting the word "eternity" on footpaths, entrances to the train station, and anywhere else he thought it would catch people's attention.

Sydneysiders would alight from their commuter trains of a morning and see this word as they walked to work.

Sydney today, you can still see the word in three places...

1) On his gravestone in Waverley Cemetery, commemorating the life of Arthur Stace who had become known as 'Mr Eternity'.

2) Inside the huge bell in the GPO clock tower which had been dismantled during the Second World War. When the clock tower was rebuilt in the 1960s, the bell was brought out of storage and as the workmen were installing the bell they noticed, inside, the word "eternity" in Arthur Stace's chalk. (No one ever found out how Stace had been able to get to the bell, which had been sealed up, to add this mysterious entry to Sydney's folklore.

3) In Town Hall Square, between St Andrew's Cathedral and the Sydney Town Hall. When the area was redeveloped in the 1970s, a solid brass replica of the word in Stace's original copperplate handwriting was embedded in the footpath near a fountain as an eternal memorial to Arthur Stace.

As the year 2000 was welcomed, the word "eternity" in Stace's handwriting, was emblazoned NOT across the streets of Sydney as John Ridley had wished, but across the face of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and, thanks to modern technology, was seen around the world.

Of all the words that have been spoken during the first two millennia, the one chosen by otherwise-godless people to be featured on the Harbour Bridge at the dawn of the year 2000, is the one that was used to remind so many busy Sydneysiders of their impending appointment with their Creator.

Because Sydney's fireworks display was the first of the international celebrations to be telecast around the globe, people in every continent witnessed the miracle that God performed when he touched the life of one little, 'insignificant' man - Arthur Stace - a man who heard the voice of God and responded by committing his life to 'preaching' his one-word sermon.

Heaven only knows how God will continue to speak to the hearts of so many people around the globe, using the work He started back in the 1930s through Arthur Stace and his piece of yellow chalk.

Ron Bevis
Maroubra Baptist Church

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Stace

dW 02.09.07

scripture

Philippians 4:12-13
I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.

1 Timothy 6:6-7
But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.


quote

Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and a happy purchase. - John Balguy

dW 02.08.07

scripture

 

Luke 23:39-43

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!" But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."

 

Revelation 1:18

“I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”

 

quote

 

Arthur Brisbane once pictured a crowd of grieving caterpillars carrying the corpse of a cocoon to its final resting place.  The poor, distressed caterpillars, clad in black raiment, were weeping, and all the while the beautiful butterfly fluttered happily above the muck and mire of earth, forever freed from its earthly shell.  Needless to say, Brisbane had the average orthodox funeral in mind and sought to convey the idea that when our loved ones pass it is foolish to remember only the cocoon and concentrate our attention on the remains, while forgetting the bright butterfly. - Edmund Goldsborouth

dW 02.07.07

scripture

1 Corinthians 3:19-20

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness"; and again, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.

Ref: Job 5:13; Psalm 94:11

quote

O how deceived we are, when we suppose we are advancing, because our vain curiosity is gratified by the enlightenment of our intellect! Be humble, and expect not the gifts of God from man! - Unknown

dW 02.06.07

scripture

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

NIV
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

AMPLIFIED
Therefore we do not become discouraged (utterly spiritless, exhausted, and wearied out through fear). Though our outer man is [progressively] decaying and wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day after day. For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!], Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting.

thoughts

I included the AMP version here because though it is exhaustive, it is precise. I love the extra insight given in the emphasis of each word. It is wordy so try breaking it up in small portions and allow each to nourish your spirit.

quote

"There's nothing you can do, to make God love you more...and there's nothing you can do, to make God love you less" - Rich Mullins

dW 02.05.07

scripture

Ephesians 2:16-19
And in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household


quote

We are pilgrims, not settlers; this earth is our inn, not our home.
J. H. Vincent

February prayer post

To submit a prayer request or update see the following instructions.

Immediately below this post there will be a link called "comment". Click it. Now, enter the prayer request and leave your name. Click "publish comment". The prayer request should now be added.

Please check this post periodically to find prayer points and to check the status on a previously submitted prayer request.

Prayers sent directly to me personally can be requested to NOT be posted online and only distributed to the dW listing.

Fellowship

We had 6 people at our first fellowship. We prayed over the food and then broke the pizza and poured the soda. I enjoyed seeing faces instead of the just email addresses.

We discussed some ideas during lunch:
-create a space on the website for people to post their testimony
-setting up a way for people to sign up to receive the emails thru the blog
-what will it take to make this site findable through regular search engines. IE MSN, Google, Yahoo.

This website has an open door policy. So if you are looking for a country club type group then you'll need to keep looking. There will be inward and outward growth. The daily Word does exists to edify us. However, it is intended also to spur us toward evangelism. Evangelism is simply a big church word for witnessing to others about Christ.

I am excited!

Drug Problem

The other day, someone at a store in our town read that a Methamphetamine lab had been found in an old farmhouse in the adjoining county and he asked me a rhetorical question, "Why didn't we have a drug problem when you and I were growing up?"

I replied, “I had a drug problem when I was young.

I was drug to church on Sunday morning. I was drug to church for weddings and funerals.

I was drug to family reunions and community socials no matter the weather.

I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults.

I was also drug to the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, did not speak with respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher, or if I didn't put forth my best effort in everything that was asked of me.

I was drug to the kitchen sink to have my mouth washed out with soap if I uttered a profane four-letter word.

I was drug out to pull weeds in mom's garden and flower beds and cockleburs out of dad's fields.

I was drug to the homes of family, friends, and neighbors to help out some poor soul who had no one to mow the yard, repair the clothesline, or chop some firewood; and, if my mother had ever known that I took a single dime as a tip for this kindness, she would have drug me back to
the woodshed.

Those drugs are still in my veins; and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say, and think. They are stronger than cocaine, crack, or heroin; and, if today's children had this kind of drug problem, America would be a better place.”

-author unknown

dW 02.02.07

scripture

James 2:15-17

Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

lyrics

Cold Cash And Colder Hearts, Thrice

They are sick, they are poor
And they die by the thousands and we look away…

'Cause we don't have the time
Here at the top of the world
Feeling alright
Here at the top of the world…

Different god, darker skin
They are just not a burden that we'd like to bear
They are living in "sin"
There are so many reasons for us not to care…

We've learned that money matters most
So we keep our cards held close
Here at the top of the world…

They are no one
They are nowhere
They are not our problem
Not worth saving
Nonexistent if we keep our hearts cold…

self check

ask yourself, “am I a well wisher or a giver?” do our actions classify us as priests and levites? or as good Samaritans? (Luke 10:25-37)