David Pawson - Gentiles: A Light to the Jews
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Thoughtful Thoughts 14.2.25 by John Dunning - God at work…
INTRODUCTION -
So many young people brought up in some kind of “Christian home” or church, leave home so spiritually unprepared for the world, that they go back on whatever faith not long after starting at college or work, as my late eldest brother did. They find themselves unable to justify their beliefs when asked, as the church failed to equip them in spite of having had many opportunities for the years when they had them under their tutelage, even though Peter said we should always be ready to answer for our faith; (1 Peter 3:15).
In spite of being in a minority, through history, disciples of Jesus have changed the world - and for good. For each country it is part of recorded history. TV doesn’t mention that reformers were Christians.
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HEROES OF THE FAITH…
–Dr Barnardo…
Dr Barnardo cared for over 8,500 children in 96 locations by the time of his death in 1905, now with institutions worldwide.
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– Florence Nightingale…
Florence Nightingale fought to have trained nurses and hospitals, at a time when life was not valued enough to spend money on. Her work became recognised by the monarch and then by the state. After her death, a Christian Labour Prime Minister introduced the state funded National Health Service.
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– Lord Shaftesbury
Lord Shaftesbury fought his peers in parliament for social law reform, which enabled Christians to act. “Our charity’s forefathers, John Grooms and Lord Shaftesbury, pioneered social change in their day.” (That included free school education and sheltered workshops, which were among the first of their kind in the 1800s. It supported children with disabilities in schools and colleges.)
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– William Wilberforce…
William Wilberforce used his influence to have slavery outlawed throughout the empire. He worked so hard to abolish slavery that he died shortly after Parliament voted to make it illegal… There were equivalent Christians in America who put themselves in the line of fire.
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– Eric Liddell
Eric Liddell gave his life helping the Chinese, who had a statue erected so that his sacrifice wasn’t forgotten.
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– William Carey…
William Carey put himself into the line of fire to stop “Sati” in India. “Sati” was where the Indian family of a dead man, could be burned on his funeral bonfire. Their religion was that the dead could take into the next life, their wives and servants.
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The list is endless for God’s change-makers like Lillian Trasher, Jackie Pullinger, Booth, Carey, Elizabeth Fry, John Cadbury, John Newton(after becoming a born again Christian), and hundreds like them, going against their culture, along with the army of Christians who helped their work. A library of books would be needed to tell the stories of God’s change-makers. (The Bible has a short list of those who put themselves in the line of fire, to pass the truth on down to us, in Hebrews 11.)
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THE TRICKLE DOWN EFFECT…
Example i). Social changes…
My former very elderly landlady in New Zealand grew up during the second world war. She told me that when she was growing up, people didn’t bother locking their houses or cars, and people were so neighbourly, that there were very few police, as people looked after each other, and who were in church on Sundays.
Fast forward to the late 1990s to the early 2000s, and all the houses I lived in or bought were burgled, (one of them twice), with a car stolen and crashed and another broken into. At that time, an insurance company ran TV adverts that said “The reason why you need insurance is because people keep on pinching your stuff!”
I point all this out because it takes about three generations to lose the trickle down effect of having had godly parents and grandparents, to become like the world… Hence my next example…
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Example ii). “To the third and fourth generation…”
– Gareth Morgan bought shares in a company his son founded in New Zealand called “Trade Me”. (Trade Me is an online trading platform, which is New Zealand’s version of e-bay.)
Years later, when a buyer made an offer they couldn’t refuse, Gareth’s shares were worth NZ$50 million. Then I heard a radio interview where Gareth was asked why he gave his money away to the church, when he wasn’t even a Christian. He replied that he didn’t. What he did was to give money to those who were caring for the sick and poor. He had travelled on his motorbike through Africa, and discovered that it was Christians who were the doctors and nurses inoculating children, and caring for the sick and poor, and so he supported the individuals doing the work, who were all Christians.
I researched Gareth’s upbringing and discovered that his parents had immigrated to NZ from Wales, and his mother taught in a Sunday School in Gore. It would be fair enough to believe that his mother would take him to her Sunday School class. (ie Gareth’s upbringing had rubbed off on him. (The trickle down effect…)
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Example iii). Recognising the problem…
John was a New Zealand Christian businessman who cared about what was happening to the youth in New Zealand, so he started a charity called “For the sake of the children Trust”, and paid for an academic research paper, called “Doing Better for Children”, which researched the impact on children of New Zealand’s social changes.
The research found that NZ had the highest youth suicide rate of western countries. He was so upset at the damage being done to children, that he called it “social terrorism” when being interviewed on breakfast TV about the findings.
Long story short, the research’s findings resulted in John paying for the hire of the biggest stadium in New Zealand for two days, to enable an outreach to take place, organised by a NZ Christian group that brought over an American evangelist, Greg Laurie, (who was seen in America as the replacement to Billy Graham.) The stadium was packed full on both nights, and Greg Laurie said afterwards that the response was the biggest he had ever had seen, at 15%. The point is, that the Christian business man saw what was happening and decided to be part of the solution.
A report commissioned by the NZ branch of the Wilberforce Foundation, said the “youth as a nation had a lack of religious tradition"; (NZ Herald.) They were saying that their families had no Christian roots. The evidence pointed to NZ’s culture moving further and further away from its Christian past. I had so much material, I have had to reduce this study by half, by leaving out academic research.
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EPILOGUE
The most important legacy is to influence those who can be influenced for Christ, usually, children. Your influence is short-lived, and so we finish where we started… Paul tells parents not to discourage their children; (Col. 3:21). They are more likely to be influenced for Christ, by who you turn out to be and the things you do.
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This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.
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