A ROCKY FOUNDATION

  George Whitefield and John Wesley were giants of faith and great evangelists. Wesley began open-air preaching at the invitation of Whitefield. When Whitefield left for America after years of itinerant ministry throughout England, he had asked Wesley to travel his open-air preaching circuit to continue to spread the gospel to the lower classes in English society. But a dreadful disagreement led to many years of discord and lack of communication. Whitefield and Wesley allowed something to tear at the very fabric of their relationship in Christ. A difference regarding a point of theology drove a wedge between them and in the process diminished the ministries of both men. Their personal theological differences divided evangelicals in Great Britain. It was not until just before Whitefield’s death in 1770 that a rapprochement was accomplished. Numerous British Christians had attempted to aid in bringing the two together. Finally, after years of acrimony it was accomplished. Wesley pr

       Dr. Schofield was a brilliant young doctor at Oxford. He gave his life to Jesus and at the age of 29 he went to China as a missionary. He was the first Protestant missionary allowed to penetrate into the interior of China. There was nothing glamorous about missionary life there. Disease was common and he would later die from typhus contracted in his mission field. Dr. Schofield looked at the Shansi province in which he lived, with its nine million unsaved heathen Chinese and only six missionaries. He thought about the sleeping Church back in England. At the time, few in England were interested in the China mission. This should have made him pack up his bags and go home in utter defeat. However, Dr. Schofield was a man of prayer. Night after night, leaving behind food and leisure, he got on his knees and prayed. He prayed that God would raise up Bible teachers and shepherds, especially from the universities and send them to China as missionaries. When Dr. Schofield died,

                In the May 2, 1990 Ridder Newspapers Chicago , there was an article about a 46 years old man called Thomas Donaldson. He had a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Chicago and a senior mathematician for a software company in Belmont. He was a long time proponent of cryonics, the controversial practice of deep-freezing people after they have died in hopes that someday they can be thawed and revived. Donaldson was suffering from a brain tumor and had gone to court in search of permission to have himself frozen to death before he was legally dead. He wanted to have his head separated from his body after freezing in hopes that future scientists will discover a way to cure the tumor and attach his head to a healthy body. “I don`t want to die''   he said, “all the other choices I know lead to certain death, whereas this one leads to some uncertain end. It seems to me this one is clearly superior.” In Philippians 3:20-21 Paul says “but our citizenship