Rob Morgan - The Gun With 31,173 Bullets
The Gun With 31,173 Bullets
A Pocket Paper
from
The Donelson Fellowship
______________
Robert J. Morgan
July 26, 1998
The Bible is a gun with 31,173 bullets, for that’s how many verses it contains, and every one of them has your name on it, and mine. Today I’d like to take you on a short tour of the Bible, from Genesis to 2 Timothy, showing you a handful of these verses and promises God has used in the lives of his children, beginning with Genesis 28:15. In this passage, Jacob stopped for the night at Bethel, and there he dreamed of a stairway reaching to heaven with the angels of God ascending and descending on it. From the top of the staircase, the Lord Jehovah spoke these words to Jacob: I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.
My wife and I had the privilege, along with some of you, of knowing the remarkable woman who became the first missionary among modern Free Will Baptists and who launched our denominational missions program. Her name was Laura Belle Barnard of Glennville, Georgia. She was a deeply southern and very proper woman, who, as a young lady, shocked her family and friends by declaring she was going to India as a missionary.
She did go, and for several years she poured herself body-and-soul into her work. Her first furlough approached just as World War II erupted, and she was faced with a dilemma. If she stayed, she would miss her badly needed furlough, but if she left she might be unable to return to India because of the widening war.
The dilemma was solved, she later wrote, when God gave me a word and confirmed it twice. I had been reading from a certain devotional book, and that morning I was especially asking God to give me clear understanding as to whether or not I should leave India at that time. This was the verse for the day in that devotional book: "And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of" (Genesis 28:15, KJV).
Shortly after, a friend unexpectedly urged the same verse on her. Then another friend sent her an envelope marked, "To be opened as you leave the shores of India." Aboard ship, Laura Belle opened the letter and read these words: I asked the Lord to give me a word of encouragement for you as my farewell message. This passage, as I was reading my Bible this morning, seemed meant for you. I pass it on with the confidence that it is the Lord’s word to you now." It was Genesis 28:15. The war delayed Laura Bell Barnard’s return for five long years. But she never lost confidence that God would keep his thrice-given promise, to watch over her and bring her again into this land—which he did, allowing her to spend a lifetime there.
Bible verses are not magic wands that we can wave over certain situations, changing them as if by abracadabra, but the Word of God is a two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. The stories of how God uses his Word in the lives of his children is remarkable. 2 Peter 1 says that in the Bible God has given us very great and precious promises so that through them we may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
Psalm 145:13 says, "The Lord is faithful to his promises." We meet and master the crises of life only by sinking our fingernails deeply into God’s promises and hanging on for dear life. Hudson Taylor once quipped during a trying time, "We have twenty-five cents—and all the promises of God." Charles Spurgeon said that when troubled, he would find a promise of God, hammer it out into gold-leaf and plate his whole existence with joy from it.
The old Puritan Thomas Watson put it very quaintly in a sermon to his little congregation in England on Sunday, August 17, 1662:
Trade much in the promises. The promises are great supports to faith. Faith lives in a promise, as the fish lives in the water. The promises are both comforting and quickening, the very breast of the gospel; as the child by sucking the breasts gets strength, so faith by sucking the breast of a promises gets strength and revives. The promises of God are bladders (flotation devices) to keep us from sinking when we come to the waters of affliction. O! trade much in the promises, there is no condition that you can be in, but you have a promise.
J. I. Packer comes round to the same point in his book Knowing God:
In the days when the Bible was universally acknowledged in the churches as "God’s Word written," it was clearly understood that the promises recorded in Scripture were the proper, God-given basis for all our life of faith, and that the way to strengthen one’s faith was to focus it upon particular promises that spoke to one’s condition.
When Peter Marshall, the famous chaplain of the U. S. Senate, died suddenly of a heart attack, he left his young wife Catherine a widow with a small son. She almost lost her mind from grief and worry. But she remembered Peter’s habit of finding a specific promise in the Bible that applied to his need and then claiming it as a definite transaction between himself and his God. The Lord gave her Romans 8:28 for her verse, and she claimed it by faith. It not only sustained her, it proved true in every way.
I Kings 17:7
Sometimes the Lord speaks to us in unexpected passages. Look at this passage, 1 Kings 17:1ff: Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab: "As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word. Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: "Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there." So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of Jordan, and stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook."
But now something interesting happened. Verse 7 says, Some time later the brook dried up. God had provided a brook to give him water, but the brook dried up. Why? Well, the Lord had another place for Elijah to go, another miracle for him to do, and it took the drying up of the brook to move him out of one spot and into another.
Allan Emery was a business man who had inherited the family wool business from his father, carefully tended and passed down, father-to-son. But every year saw fewer customers, for wool was being replaced with synthetic fibers. Allen grew discouraged, and one evening he arrived at his hotel after midnight. It had been a long day, and he brooded over his meeting next morning with a customer. He expected to lose the account and be displaced as the firm’s supplier.
Allan laid his Bible on the nightstand, tempted to go to bed without reading it. But while saying his prayers, he pled, "Lord, if you have something to say to me, some encouragement, let me have it now." Opening the book, he read 1 Kings 17. Elijah had felt secure by the brook Kerith, but one day the little stream dried up. God had allowed it. The dried-up brook was a guidepost telling Elijah it was time to move on. Allan recognized that his brook, too, was drying up. As he thought and prayed about it, he decided at length to liquidate the wool business. He helped employees find other jobs, then wondered what he himself should do.
Some time later, Allan met Ken Hansen of ServiceMaster Industries (who was also a professor of mine in business management at Wheaton College). The two hit it off, and soon Emery was with the firm. In time, he became a director, and he was also able to devote himself to many evangelical causes, serving as president of the Billy Graham Association and a trustee of Wheaton College. For many years, he and his wife hosted a Bible study in their expansive home, attended by 100 young people.
"I thought back to my questioning God’s wisdom and faithfulness," he said. "I saw why it was necessary for my brook to dry up to make me leave its security to begin a new and wonderful ministry."
Job 5:19
Let me tell you how another businessman found strength in the Scriptures, this time from Job 5:19, the verse that says: From six calamities he will rescue you; in seven no harm will befall you.
Have you ever heard of Henry Crowell? When he was 9, his father died from tuberculosis, and when he was 17, Henry himself contracted the disease. He appeared to be dying as he attended D. L. Moody’s campaign in Cleveland, Ohio. He listened carefully as Moody thundered: "The world has yet to see what God can do through a man fully dedicated to him." Crowell determined to be God’s man. To be sure, I would never preach like Moody. But I could make money and support the labors of men like Moody. I resolved, "Oh God, if you preserve my life and allow me to make money to be used in your service, I will keep my name out of it so you will have the glory."
Shortly thereafter Henry found Job 5:19: "He shall deliver you in six troubles, Yes, in seven no evil shall touch you." The Lord seemed to assure him of healing through that verse. Henry grew stronger and began honing his business instincts, shrewdly investing his family’s wealth. He started companies, purchased properties, and introduced innovations to the marketplace. When a mill owned by nearby Quakers became available, Henry purchased it and began dreaming of modern cereal products for American homes. Thus Quaker Oats Company was born. The money rolled in—and it rolled out. Henry consistently gave 65 to 70 percent of his income to Christian causes, and he was especially instrumental in the survival and development of the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago.
Psalm 107:26-29
Now let's travel on to the Psalms, and let me share a story from Psalm 107:26-29: Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper, the waves of the sea were hushed. They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love, and his wonderful deeds to men.
Alexander Duff, first foreign missionary of the Church of Scotland, got off to a rough start. He was young, only 23, and bright and innovative. But on his way to India in 1829 with his new wife, he was shipwrecked—not once but twice! The most serious wreck occurred when his ship, the Lady Holland, was within a few miles of India.
At 10 o’clock at night Duff was half-undressed when a shock and shudder ran through the vessel. He rushed to the deck where the captain met him with terrifying words, "Oh, she’s gone! She’s gone!" The ship split apart, but a portion clung precariously to a reef. Through the night the passengers huddled in terror in the surviving portion, expecting every moment to be swept away. They were saved the next day, but their clothes and prized possessions were lost, including Duff’s entire library of eight hundred volumes.
Later, standing on the shore and looking sadly toward the reef, Duff saw a small package bobbing atop the water. He watched and waited as it floated close enough for him to wade out and retrieve.
It was his Bible. Of all his precious books, it alone survived. His heart soared, for he took it as a sign from the Lord that this one Book alone was worth more than all the others put together.
He assembled his fellow survivors and read Psalm 107, the Traveler’s Psalm. Soon, using the same Bible, he began his first class with a little group of five boys under a banyan tree. Within a week the class had grown to three hundred, and it soon became a school that evangelized and educated the higher classes in India, producing a qualified generation of leaders for the nation’s young church.
Jeremiah 31:16-17
Let’s move on to the prophet Jeremiah. In chapter 31, there’s a passage that proved absolutely remarkable in a true story that Sarah Fletcher shared with me recently. Verses 16-17 say this: This is what the Lord says: "Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded," declares the Lord... "There is hope for your future," declares the Lord. "Your children will return to their own land."
The Japanese occupation of China during World War II was brutal, not only for the Chinese but for missionaries like John and Edith Bell of Canada. They were serving the Lord in China’s western regions when their three children, far away in Chefoo, were suddenly seized and imprisoned at Weihsien Concentration Camp. You can imagine the parents’ anxiety, hundreds of miles from their imprisoned young children. They longed for any scrap of news about them. But the Lord gave Edith these verses, Jeremiah 31:16-17, and she claimed them for her children.
One day a man arrived on the Bell’s doorstep with news that the children were well cared for with food and clothing. Some time later, he came again. This time he said, "Mrs. Bell, I have some very sad news. All the students in the Weihsien Camp have been murdered."
Edith’s mind reeled, and she fought to stave off total panic. Suddenly she remembered Jeremiah 31:16-17: "Refrain your voice from weeping, And your eyes from tears... they shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope in your future, says the Lord, That your children shall come back to their own border."
She quickly found the verses in her Chinese Bible and said to the man, "Doctor, you read this." He read it, then angrily threw down the Bible and stomped from the house. As it turned out, he was a lying infiltrater, a spy, trying to destroy the Christians’ morale with lies.
Sometime later, John and Edith had to flee through India. They eventually booked passage to America without knowing the condition of their children. As they disembarked in New York, a Red Cross worker greeted them with news their children had been liberated and had arrived back in Canada ahead of them.
"I was completely overcome," Edith said. "My children not only came from the land of the enemy, they came to their own border as the verse in Jeremiah had promised." The Bells caught the next train to Ontario where "we stepped down and were almost knocked over by our three children. It was joy unspeakable and full of glory. God’s "I wills" had not failed, and we knew they never would."
Jeremiah 33:3
Two chapters over is another wonderful verse in Jeremiah: Call to Me, and I will answer you, and tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know—Jeremiah 33:3.
In 1932, Charles and Grace Fuller were overwhelmed with pressure. Their young son was near death, suffering pneumonia. The Great Depression had wiped out their financial support, and Charles desperately sought ways to remain solvent. He was forced to sell off his valuable orange groves and to exhaust his wife’s inheritance in order to meet his bills. Grace faced major surgery, and Charles was forced from his pastorate. A severe earthquake struck their home in Southern California, and their financial woes multiplied. Grace felt she could stand the strain no longer, and she cried out to God for help. Entering her husband’s study, she opened a book of Charles Spurgeon’s sermons, and found a message he had preached seventy years before from Jeremiah 33:3.
She later said that God lifted her burden so remarkably that when Charles returned from another hard day with the lawyers, trying to find a way to ward off bankruptcy, she was able to tell him, "Never mind how black things look now. God has assured me that He has great and mighty things in store for us in the future—things which we can’t even imagine now."
As time passed, Charles and Grace Fuller traced in that moment the faint beginnings of their work to come, an incredible ministry of radio, evangelism, and education. Ever after, Charles would pen this verse under his signature, and it became their life-verse.
Acts 13:10
Now let me take you to the New Testament, and show you how the Lord used a verse in the book of Acts. In chapter 13, the Apostle Paul is preaching on the island of Cyprus. During his ministry, he is hampered by a sorcerer named Elymas. Beginning in verse 6, we read: They traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos. There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer (for what is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, "You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord?"
A. J. Gordon, a 19th-century writer, related a incident observed by Rev. Isaac D. Colburn, missionary to Burma. A group of Burmese Christians had gathered along the banks of a pool to witness the baptism of several new believers. Watching from a distance were many locals, some of them perched on rocky crags overlooking the water. Among these observers were two men, father and son, who detested the Gospel and had done everything in their power to dissuade those about to be baptized.
As the Burmese pastor was opening the services by the pool, the father and son interrupted with blasphemous words, curses, and obscene gestures. The preacher rebuked them, but they continued all the more. Just as the pastor was about to plunge his first disciple into the water, the two antagonists stripped off their clothes and plunged naked into the water where they conducted their own malicious baptism, mocking the Christians by dipping each other in the water and uttering the name of the Trinity laced with profanities.
Standing on the bank was a native Karen evangelist named Sau Wah, who, before his conversion, had been a dreaded opponent of the Gospel. Now he rose and, his voice stern with authority, demanded silence. Turning to the old man in the water, he quoted Acts 13:10, "O full of all deceit and all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord?"
As he spoke, the Holy Spirit seemed to fall on the assembly. The two blasphemers, suddenly thunderstruck, raced from the pool and up the bank, but before going many yards, they fell to the earth. The Christians proceeded with their baptism. Afterward they found the father lying facedown on the ground, dead. The son recovered consciousness and was carried to the village, but within a few months he followed his father to the grave.
2 Timothy 1:7
One last verse I’d like to give you is 2 Timothy 1:7—For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Recently I spoke to an elderly lady over in Brentwood, Mary Darby, who gave me permission to share her remarkable story. On April 21, 1950, she and her husband, Rev. Wade Darby, returned from church visitation and retired for the evening. Near their bed, little Danny slept in his crib. At 2 am, Mary awoke to a nightmare. Someone was atop her, choking her. Her hand flew to her Wade’s pillow, but she felt a wet mass where his head should have been. As she struggled with her attacker, the bed heaved, slats falling out. Danny awakened and began crying.
Mary wrested free and flew into the closet, but the angry voice said, "If you don’t come out, I’ll kill you and this baby." As Mary prayed desperately, words sprang from her lips with no forethought: "Wade, get the gun from under the bed!" The couple had no gun, but the words did the trick, and the intruder fled.
Wade was rushed to the hospital with three skull fractures and a brain concussion, and both of them had knife wounds. But it soon became clear that physical healing would come easier than emotional healing. For weeks Mary lived with constant fear. Though the church relocated them in a new parsonage, the anxiety continued.
Such vicious, visceral fear yields to only one thing—the authoritative Word of God. The Lord gave Mary 2 Timothy 1:7: "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." She quoted those words in the darkness of the night. They came to mind when panic arose. They calmed her in moments of alarm. And they gradually dissolved the dread, allowing peace to return to her soul.
When Wade returned to the pulpit following his recovery, the church was packed. Hearts were touched, lives were changed; and the Lord used the adversity to enlarge their church numerically and to glorify himself.
Wade still carries the scars from that night, but those scars remind us of God’s power and love. We have now been married for half a century, and we don’t know to this day who the intruder was. But one thing I do know: God IS dependable.
You will never face a problem or difficulty in life for which there is not some promise in the Bible to meet that need. But finding the right verse at the right time requires a lifetime of Bible study. These verses don’t come to us out of thin air. But God gives them to us as we store up God’s word in our mind, as we read and study it daily, as we hide its words in our hearts, and as we rightly divide its teachings.
So let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God (Colossians 3:16).