Devotions June 17Father’s Day Jokes from Boy’s Life

Joe: What does your father do for a living?
Jon: He’s a magician. He performs tricks, like sawing people in half.
Joe: Do you have any brothers or sisters?
Jon: Yep, four half-sisters and a half-brother.

Teacher (on phone): You say Michael has a cold and can’t come to school today? To whom am I speaking?
Voice: This is my father.

Jon: What’s the difference between a high-hit baseball and a maggot’s father?
Tom: What?
Jon: One’s a pop fly. The other’s a fly’s pop.

“Dad, are bugs good to eat?” asked the boy.
“Let’s not talk about such things at the dinner table, son,” his father replied.
After dinner the father inquired, “Now, son, what did you want to ask me?”
“Oh, nothing,” the boy said. “There was a bug in your soup, but now it’s gone.”

A small boy was at the zoo with his father. They were looking at the tigers, and his father was telling him how ferocious they were.
“Daddy, if the tigers got out and ate you up…”
“Yes, son?” the father asked, ready to console him.
“ …Which bus would I take home?”

Science teacher: When is the boiling point reached?
Science student: When my father sees my report card!
A book never written: “Fatherly Advice” by Buck L. Upson.

Son: For $20, I’ll be good.
Dad: Oh, yeah? When I was your age, I was good for nothing.

Pee Wee: What do you call your dad when he falls through the ice?
Westy: Beats me.
Pee Wee: A POPsicle!

Dad: Son, if you keep pulling my hair, you will have to get off my shoulders.
Tiger Cub: But, Dad, I’m just trying to get my gum back!

Letter to Home
Dear Dad,
$chool i$ great. I’m making lot$ of friend$ and $tudying hard. I $imply can’t think of anything I need, $o ju$t $end me a card, a$ I would love to hear from you.
Love, Your $on

Dear Son,
I kNOw astroNOmy, ecoNOmics and oceaNOgraphy are eNOugh to keep even an hoNOr student busy. Do NOt forget that the pursuit of kNOwledge is a NOble task, and you can never study eNOugh.
Love, Dad

Richard Weaver- The People’s Apostle by Edward Leach 1862

Where is Richard Waver is to preach ? It was a curious sight — that miscellaneous, heterogeneous multitude of bone-boilers, carriers, navvies, sweeps, coalheavers, market- gardeners, costermongers, and warehouse-porters, sprinkled here and there with happy-faced, cotton-dressed, and, in some cases, gaily-turbaned women. An occasional attendant on similar gatherings, our olfactory nerves have been somewhat indoctrinated into the nature of the odours arising from onions, tobacco, and soiled fustians, which it is to be feared even incense could not quench, but aggravate ; but on the present occasion, our good humour was severely tested. Some women brought their babies, who lustily continued the chorus long after the assembly had concluded their legitimate portion. The babies, however, intensely interested the preacher. “Bring ’em up here, mother,” said he ; “the more the merrier ; they’ll put me in mind of being at home ” — an invitation which naturally touched every mother’s heart. It is doubtful whether they ever listened more attentively to a preacher than they did that night. Many times has Weaver been the means of converting mothers and fathers by tender allusions to their children.

Such is the remarkable man whose usefulness has been thus eulogised by no mean judge ” I would not mind asking the whole world to find a Master of Arts now living who has brought more souls to Christ Jesus than Richard Wearer. If the whole bench of bishops have done a tenth as much in the way of soul-winning as that one man, it is more than most of us can give them credit for. Let us give to our God all the glory, but still let us not deny that this sinner saved with the brogue of the collier still about him, fresh from the coal-pit, tells the story of the cross, by God’s grace, in such a way that Sight Reverend Fathers in God might humbly sit at his feet to learn the way to reach the heart and melt the stubborn soul.” These are strong words, my masters; let us ascertain how far they can be justified by facts.

Richard Weaver was born at Asterby, in Shropshire, in 1827, and is consequently five and thirty years of age. His father was a drunken, stupid fellow, who never did a reasonable thing in his life, except marrying a good woman. His mother was a great sufferer from the brutality of her husband, and even of her children. Here were two contending forces striving to exercise a mastery over Richard’s heart — a godly example and a depraved influence. Cases are very rare where, in boys, a father’s bad instruction does not more than counter balance a mother’s fond endeavours. At home, he saw a drunken, blasphemous, murderous father, who threatened to cleave his mother’s head in twain for reading the Bible . Weaver seldom preaches without referring to his sainted mother.

Richard’s and His mother
” My poor old mother soon found a change in me,” he says, ” and when she knew her boy was beginning to lie and swear, I thought it would have broken her heart. At night, when I went to rest, she watched, and seeing I got into bed without praying she came and fell down on her knees by the bedside, and pleaded with God to have mercy on her boy. I remember that I used to leave my work and go into the fields, and she has followed me for hours in a day, en treating me, with tears, to be a good boy ; but all to no purpose, my heart was steeled against her counsel.”

When he reached manhood
Richard’s remembrance, causing him poignant remorse whenever it recurs to his mind. He had been spending the night in noisy revelry at one of the hell-houses (as he now calls the beer-shops and gin-palaces,) and there had had a quarrel with a companion, which ended as usual in a fight. With bruised and bleeding face he reached home as the day was breaking; and the first sound that fell upon his ears was the faithful mother praying God to save her son. This hurt him more, he says, than the blows he had received in the fight ; it came home to his heart. As soon as his knock was heard, the poor old woman ran to the door, and the eyes that had been weeping in prayer for him were greeted by his disfigured and drunken face. When she had given him a chair, and washed away the dirt and blood, and ministered to him as he needed, she knelt down and prayed again that God, for the sake of Christ, would save her boy ; and pleaded with the lad himself that ” God so loved the world, that he gave his only-be gotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” But while she prayed the lad cursed, she did not leave off praying and preaching to him. He went up to bed, but the mother’s love constrained her to follow him ; and kneeling down by his bedside, again she poured out the abundance of her complaint and grief before her heavenly Father. But no comforting human voice said to her, ” Go in peace ; and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him.” Far otherwise ; her reprobate son in a rage sprang out of bed, and grasping her gray hair, shook her while on her knees. She took hold of his arm with her trembling hands, and said, “This is hard work, Lord, to nurse and watch our children till they begin to be men, and then to hear them say that they will murder us for asking thee to save them. But though thou slay me, yet will I trust in thee.” And then turning to her son, she said, ” I will never give thee up.” ” Can a mother forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb ? Yea, she may forget, yet wilr I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.” Blessed be the loving Father, for a mother’s love to teach us the quality of his own. Blessed he his name that even that falls in finitely short of the eternal love which cannot fail while God endures, for ” God is love.” Soon after this he became discontented at home. Perhaps the tears and prayers of his mother made him uneasy; though, truth to say, he loved her so little, or his passion so got the better of his love, that on another occasion he smote her to the ground.

After Richards Conversion

While working in the coal-pit one day he heard the lad who was attending upon his wagon cry out, ” Richard, come here.” He went, and found that another collier was trying to take away his tub, (a small wagon which the colliers use in turns, and to have lost which would have been so much out of his day’s earnings.) So I told the man that God did not tell me to let him rob me. But he cursed, and swore that he would push the tub over me. ” Nay,” said Weaver, ” the Lord will not allow thee.” would have it, and Richard said he should not. So the man got hold of the tub, and said, “Now I will push it over thee, thou Methody devil.” Richard stood before it, and he began to push. Then said Weaver, “Now Lord, now devil, which is the strongest ? ” So both pushed, Weaver singing : ” Jesus, the name high over all, In hell, or earth or sky : Angels and men before it fall, And devils fear and fly.” ” And the Lord and I being stronger than he and the devil, he had to get out of the way and let me have my own,” says Weaver ; ” so I gave the tub to my boy.” Then the collier said, “I’ve a good mind to smack thee in the face.” “If that will do thee any good,” Weaver replied, ” thou canst do it.” And as he turned his cheek, the other struck him. Richard turned the other cheek, and he struck him again and again, five times. The sixth time the collier turned from him with a curse. But Weaver prayed, “Lord, forgive him, for thou knowest I do. Lord save him.” This happened on Saturday night ; and when he had done work and went home, his wife asked him what was the matter with his face. As he told her, he saw that she feared lest he had struck again. But the Lord had preserved him, for he was at this time seeking to bring others to Christ, and was keeping guard over his own heart. He had a good day on the Sunday ; some of the scholars in his class found peace in Jesus. When Monday came, the devil tempted him as he went to his work to regret not having thrashed the man who interfered with him on Saturday, and told him that the other men would laugh at him, and call him a fool. But he cried, ” Get thee behind me, Satan,” and went on his way, strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. When he arrived at the coal-pit, the first person he saw was the man about whom he had just been thinking. Richard bid him ” Good morning ! ” but got no reply. The man went down first, and Weaver followed ; but what was his surprise when he reached the bottom to find his antagonist sitting down and wait the poor fellow burst into weeping, saying, ” Richard, will you forgive me for striking you?” ” I have forgiven thee,” said Weaver ; ” ask God to forgive thee. The Lord bless thee.” Richard gave him his hand, and they each went to their work. But after a while our friend heard some one coming along the road toward him, and sobbing as he came. It was this poor man ; he could not rest till he felt he was forgiven. He said he had had no rest since Saturday. He had sent his wife to Richard’s house on the Sunday, intending to come and ask forgiveness, but he was out. ” O Richard, do you forgive me ? ” he said. ” Yes,” replied Weaver ; ” the Lord bless thee. Let us kneel down and ask God to forgive thee.” They got down on their knees, and the Lord was with them in the coal-pit ; he wounded and he healed, and the man who came weeping went back rejoicing, saying, ” I am happy now in Jesus. Glory to God and the Lamb for ever.” Weaver writes : ” How that poor man prayed ! and I had every reason to believe that he was saved.” May the Lord give grace to his servant always thus to heap coals of fire on an enemy’s head, like the almighty man Christ Jesus, who ” Trod all his foes beneath his feet, By being trodden down.”

 

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