Out Of A Suitcase And Into All The World 从一个手提箱到全世界 part 1

Dear Friends,
亲爱的朋友们,

OUT OF A SUITCASE AND INTO ALL THE WORLD
从一个手提箱到全世界

THE STORY OF REACH AND TEACH DEVOTIONS PART 1
“Reach and Teach”灵修的故事

ROMANS 10
罗马书10章

17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
17 所以信心是从听道来的，听道是从基督的话来的。

ROMANS 1
罗马书1章

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
16 我不以基督的福音为耻；这福音本是神的大能，要救一切相信的，先是犹太人，后是希腊人。

ZECHARIAH 4
撒迦利亚书4章

For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth.
谁藐视这小事的日子呢？他们见所罗巴伯手中拿着线锤，就必喜乐；这七眼乃是耶和华的眼睛，遍察全地。

Habakkuk 2:14
哈巴谷书2:14

For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
因为认识耶和华荣耀的知识要充满遍地，好像水充满洋海一样。

So, why do I share what I do?
那么，我为什么分享这些呢？

The Lord has brought me a long way and he has been with me over half a century, in 1975, when he saved and redeemed me, I had no idea, what he had in store for me.
主带领我走了很长的路，祂与我同在已经超过半个世纪。1975年，当祂拯救并赎回我时，我完全不知道祂为我预备了什么。

When God saved me, it was just before my 16th birthday, to be honest, I was a hopeless basket case, the laughing stock of my school, someone who stammered and stuttered their way through life.
神拯救我的时候，就在我16岁生日之前。老实说，我当时是一个毫无希望的废人，是学校里的笑柄，一个结结巴巴、口吃的人，艰难地度过每一天。

One who was bullied incessantly at school, did he deserve it?. He certainly asked for some of it, as he tried to impress everyone.
在学校里不断被欺负，他活该吗？当然，他自己也招惹了一些麻烦，因为他总想在众人面前表现自己。

So I was converted to Christ, but how could God use this poor stammering tongue twisted man.
于是我归信了基督，但神怎么能使用这个可怜的、口吃舌拙的人呢？

He always wanted to be up at the front, he saw people reading the bible in Church and worst of all…preaching.
他总是想站在前面，他看到人在教会里读圣经，最糟糕的是……讲道。

Several of his friends were preaching, why not ME.. shouted Keith. Now Keith has preached, but this is NOT HIS GIFT.
他的几个朋友都在讲道，为什么不是我呢……基思大声喊道。现在基思也讲过道了，但这并不是他的恩赐。

As he grew, he started to go to the Keswick Convention, which was about 60 miles from his home in Morecambe UK, up at that convention, he gained a real and deep love for preaching, he was impacted by a sermon given by Eric Alexander on 1 Peter 1 on Biblical holiness.
随着他成长，他开始参加凯西克大会，那大会距离他在英国莫克姆的家大约60英里。在那里，他对讲道产生了真正而深刻的热爱，他被埃里克·亚历山大在彼得前书1章关于圣经圣洁的讲道深深触动。

The meetings at Keswick were recorded on cassette tapes and were reasonably cheap, so he bought many of them and listened to them on his cassette player and on the way to work on his car stereo.
凯西克大会的聚会被录制在磁带上，价格合理，所以他买了很多，在随身听上听，上班路上也在车载音响上听。

A good friend suggested that he start a tape library for the local Christian young people’s group and then it became a tape library at church, I started out storing them in a small tartan suitcase, my mother didn’t want, this was replaced by a big brown box, which I could hardly fit in my little mini.
一位好朋友建议他为当地基督徒青年团契建立一个磁带图书馆，后来扩展到教会。我一开始把它们存放在一个妈妈不要的小格子呢手提箱里，后来换成一个大棕色箱子，几乎塞不进我的小迷你车。

People were blessed, I don’t know how many, but praise God they were, then came my wilderness years from 1986-2001, I still had a few tapes at home, but I gave up listening to sermons altogether.
许多人因此蒙福，我不知道有多少，但赞美神，他们确实蒙福了。然后从1986到2001年是我在旷野的岁月，我家里还剩一些磁带，但我完全放弃了听讲道。

So I had lost my faith, my ministry, everything had gone. But when I came back to the Lord in 2001, within a few months, the Lord helped me to start writing, now, remember this is someone who still pestered the Lord to preach.
于是我失去了信心、失去了事工，一切都失去了。但2001年我回到主面前后，短短几个月，主就帮助我开始写作。请记住，这是一个仍然不断恳求主让他讲道的人。

So after a rather dry house group meeting on Chapters 8-9 of Esther, I decided to write my first devotional, it was pretty awful, but people read it and some were blessed.
在一次关于以斯帖记8-9章的家庭团契聚会相当枯燥之后，我决定写我的第一篇灵修文章，它写得相当糟糕，但有人读了，有些人因此蒙福。

So I continued, but I was led away from the Lord again, as I wasted three years in USA, back in the UK. I started writing again and I always remember that as I was walking near my home, the Lord shared with me that I would have a world wide ministry.
于是我继续写，但又一次偏离了主，在美国浪费了三年时间。回到英国后，我又开始写作，我永远记得有一次在家附近散步时，主告诉我，我将有一个世界性的服事。

Go forward to 2011, I now had my own website, I had hits from all over the world, including some from Nanjing China (we all know, how this ended up).
快进到2011年，我有了自己的网站，访问者来自世界各地，包括中国南京（我们都知道，这最终如何发展）

By this time, I had found Sermon audio on the net and was beginning to listen to many sermons.
那时，我在网上发现了Sermon Audio，开始听许多讲道。

When I came to China, this platform became my lifeline, as I wasn’t able to listen to the weekly sermons at church, except my wife translated them.
来到中国后，这个平台成了我的生命线，因为我无法直接听教会每周的讲道，只能靠妻子翻译。

Now I have a small ministry, since 2023 I have been a writer for THE Bottom-line and have been encouraged and inspired by this wonderful ministry, I am able to place English/Chinese devotions on here.
现在我有一个小小的服事，从2023年开始，我成为THE Bottom-line的作者，这个奇妙的事工不断鼓励和激励我，我可以在上面发布英文/中文灵修文章。

Both Sermon audio and the Johnknoxinstitute.org, have become my absolute treasures, they have inspired me to dig deeper into holy scripture.
Sermon Audio和johnknoxinstitute.org都成了我绝对的宝藏，它们激励我更深入地挖掘圣经。

I am very thankful to some very kind Chinese believers who have translated for me completely free of charge, you know who you are!
我非常感谢一些非常善良的中国信徒，他们完全免费为我翻译，你们知道自己是谁！

Thanks to my dear friends Joel, Cora, Camille, John, Linda and Dale, my co writers on the bottom-line, you are all a constant inspiration to me.
感谢我亲爱的朋友们——Joel、Cora、Camille、John、Linda和Dale，我在Bottom-line的同工们，你们一直是我不断的激励。

Thanks for listening to my story
感谢你们听我的故事