G’day from Steve,

Honouring a Heritage Hero.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:16-17

Arthur Stace 1885 – 1967. He was a world war 1 veteran, a former alcoholic and thief who came to faith in Christ in the 1930′s. An eccentric man whose childhood had been one of poverty and abandonment. Yet he had a heart for evangelism and helping down and out people beaten up by life. Shortly after his conversion he had heard the evangelist John Ridley tell a congregation in Burton Street Baptist Tabernacle that he wished he could ‘shout eternity through the streets of Sydney’. Stace was inspired! ‘I felt a powerful call from the Lord to write “Eternity”. I had a piece of chalk in my pocket, and I bent down right there and wrote it’; ‘I’ve been writing it at least 50 times a day ever since.’

He married Ellen in 1942 and yet even then had a determined ambition to be a “missioner”. A man dedicated to preaching the Gospel with just one word. He spent his entire life challenging thousands of people every day with a word that we cannot ignore. “Eternity”. For many years it was an unknown mystery as to who was writing the word on walls and pavements of the city. A ‘birdlike little man with wispy white hair’, Stace became known as ‘the Eternity Man’, one of the characters of Sydney. After his death in July 1967 it soon became evident that countless lives had been impacted by this humble “one man – one word” crusade.

Arthur Stace is a true Heritage Hero. A man who didn’t quite fit the system and social expectations of the church or society… yet served Jesus with unstoppable passion.

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12

He may have been Australia’s first ever graffiti artist…. or one of our great evangelists. Like Arthur Stace… Let us be found living under God’s Grace over our lives and past failures and get on with the high calling of “Eternity”.

Godspeed,