Praise the Lord for this Saturday afternoon. Alice and I just got back from spending a few days in Washington, DC visiting Laureen, Sunita, Andy, Gabe, and their friends. It is always a big treat for us to be with Laureen, Sunita, Andy, Gabe and the rest. We drove home this today, arriving this afternoon. The Lord gave us a very safe travel. They are forecasting that we will have the warm weather in the North East in a very short week. Thank you, Jesus.
We are Getting ready for Sunday. We will meet for worship at Wesley at 9:00 AM. Sunday School will meet at Union Center at 9:00, and for worship at 10:15 AM. Wherever you might be, join the worship of our Lord tomorrow, rock the city and drive Satan away, proclaim the good news, and sing praises to Jesus. You will be blessed and Jesus will be praised and glorified.
I love to read the stories of pastors and servants of Jesus who have gone before us. In the 1920's a young man by the name of A. M. Overton became the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Baldwyn, Mississippi. Baldwyn is a small community in northern Mississippi on the road between Tupelo and Corinth. Back in the 1920's Baldwyn was just a tiny place. In 1932 Mrs. Overton was pregnant with their fourth child, but when it came time for delivery there were complications and both she and the baby died. During the funeral, the preacher officiating the service noticed Pastor Overton writing something on a piece of paper. After the service the minister asked him about it, and he handed him the paper with a poem he had just written. The poem was unknown for many years until someone set it to music. It eventually went around the world. The poem is called “He Maketh No Mistake.”
My Father’s way may twist and turn
My heart may throb and ache,
But in my soul I’m glad to know,
He maketh no mistake.
My cherished plans may go astray,
My hopes may fade away,
But still I’ll trust my Lord to lead,
For He doth know the way.
Tho’ night be dark and it may seem
That day will never break,
I’ll pin my faith, my all, in Him,
He maketh no mistake.
There’s so much now I cannot see,
My eyesight’s far too dim,
But come what may,
I’ll simply trust and leave it all to Him.
For by and by the mist will lift,
And plain it all He’ll make,
Through all the way, tho’ dark to me,
He made not one mistake.
That will be the testimony of every child of God. When we finally get to heaven, we’ll look back over the pathway of life and see that through all the twists and turns and seeming detours that He was with us all the way. Until that morning comes and the sunlight of God’s presence fills our faces, we move on through the twilight, still believing that though life is hard ,God is good. In the end we will say with all the children of God as we look back on our earthly pilgrimage, “He made not one mistake.”
Let us Fear Not. Our Lord is glorious. His love never ends. Let us plan to gather in His House with His people tomorrow. See you in church.
In Him,
Brown
http://youtu.be/6_KXsMCJgBQ
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Brown's Daily Word 2/18/15
Praise the Lord for this winter season... spring is not far away. The days are
getting longer. We have had some cloudless days. The fields and meadows and
the hills and the mountains are covered with white snow. When the sunlight
beams on snow it sparkles and it dazzles. . . "A thing of beauty is a joy for
ever". I saw a deer by the parsonage galloping on through the deep snow,
jubilant and carefree. That deer knows that the Lord is taking care of her
somehow. Alice and I drove a couple of days ago on an Interstate, from which we
could see snow covered hills and fields as afs far your eyes could reach. I
said "How great is our God". Yesterday morning we looked up and saw a "snowbow"
- very rare around here. The western USA is expericing summer like weather. I
am sure it is coming our way sooner or later.
We are stunned and saddened by the news of Christians killed all over the world. It seems that it has been open season on Christians. Coptic Christians from Egypt were killed by barbaric Moslem terrorists in Lybia. More are killed Nigeria. We grieve and ask, "how long Lord?". Richard Wurmbrandt was a pastor in the persecuted Romanian Underground Church in 1940's-60's. He tells the story of an occasion when armed police broke into a church service. “If you are not a true believer you may leave", the police said and pointed their guns. Some of the worshippers left, the majority remained, fearing for their lives. When the unbelievers had left, the police put down their guns. “We are Christians too,” they said, “But we only want to share fellowship with those who consider the truth worth dying for.”
What would I have done, I wonder? Would I have stayed or left? Are we “those who consider the truth worth dying for?”
Jesus said in Mark 8:35, “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” Through the ages many Christians have been courageous enough to sacrifice their lives for Jesus Christ and for the sake of the gospel. John the Baptist was the first – the very first Christian martyr. The life story of John the Baptist does not have a happy ending, but It has given Christians across the ages courage and hope as an example of faithfulness in the face of persecution, suffering, and even death. Early Church history gives similar examples from the lives of the apostles. Peter reputedly was crucified upside-down, and James was killed by the sword. We read about Paul’s sufferings in 2 Corinthians 11. Many Christians followed these first martyrs to death in the first three centuries of the church when they refused to bow down to the Roman Emperor.
My favorite writer of that period was called Tertullian, and around 200 AD he wrote, “If the Tiber rises too high or the Nile too low the cry is always the same: 'The Christians to the Lion!' What? All of them, to a single lion?” Countless thousands of Christians were martyred in those centuries, but still they stood firm for Christ, and this faithfulness in the face of persecution became one of the most powerful factors contributing to the growth of the early church. Their deaths were their witness – and in fact the word martyr actually means witness – those who witness for Christ even up to death. So Tertullian also wrote these memorable words, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”
The twentieth century saw its share of martyrs too, from Jim Elliott of Missionary Aviation Fellowship, working with the Auca Indians, to the sufferings of Christians in the Communist Bloc to the persecution of the church in China after the Cultural Revolution, to the murders of Christians in Orissa, India in 2008, and in African countries such as Nigeria even today. So many Christians are dying for Christ because they consider the truth to be worth dying for.
Psalm 116:15, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints."
Even today the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
Stuart Townend’s beautiful song, “With a prayer you fed the hungry” has an interesting last verse. It goes,
I will feed the poor and hungry, I will stand up for the truth;
I will take my cross and follow To the corners of the earth.
And I ask that You so fill me With Your peace, Your power, Your breath,
That I never love my life so much To shrink from facing death."
Philippians 1:21 "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." 2 Corinthians 5:9 "So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it."
The great cricketer who became a missionary to the Congo, C.T.Studd, wrote, “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.”
Spurgeon said that the gospel comes to comfort us in our afflictions but also to afflict us in our comforts. The death of John the Baptist is an inspiration and an encouragement to Christians suffering persecution, but to those of us who are not persecuted or imprisoned for our faith it still gives us an example to follow, as do the lives of our brothers and sisters who belong to the suffering church in so many places still today. The blood of the martyrs is still the seed of the church.
In Christ,
Brown
http://youtu.be/3qEjRLlL9iE
We are stunned and saddened by the news of Christians killed all over the world. It seems that it has been open season on Christians. Coptic Christians from Egypt were killed by barbaric Moslem terrorists in Lybia. More are killed Nigeria. We grieve and ask, "how long Lord?". Richard Wurmbrandt was a pastor in the persecuted Romanian Underground Church in 1940's-60's. He tells the story of an occasion when armed police broke into a church service. “If you are not a true believer you may leave", the police said and pointed their guns. Some of the worshippers left, the majority remained, fearing for their lives. When the unbelievers had left, the police put down their guns. “We are Christians too,” they said, “But we only want to share fellowship with those who consider the truth worth dying for.”
What would I have done, I wonder? Would I have stayed or left? Are we “those who consider the truth worth dying for?”
Jesus said in Mark 8:35, “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” Through the ages many Christians have been courageous enough to sacrifice their lives for Jesus Christ and for the sake of the gospel. John the Baptist was the first – the very first Christian martyr. The life story of John the Baptist does not have a happy ending, but It has given Christians across the ages courage and hope as an example of faithfulness in the face of persecution, suffering, and even death. Early Church history gives similar examples from the lives of the apostles. Peter reputedly was crucified upside-down, and James was killed by the sword. We read about Paul’s sufferings in 2 Corinthians 11. Many Christians followed these first martyrs to death in the first three centuries of the church when they refused to bow down to the Roman Emperor.
My favorite writer of that period was called Tertullian, and around 200 AD he wrote, “If the Tiber rises too high or the Nile too low the cry is always the same: 'The Christians to the Lion!' What? All of them, to a single lion?” Countless thousands of Christians were martyred in those centuries, but still they stood firm for Christ, and this faithfulness in the face of persecution became one of the most powerful factors contributing to the growth of the early church. Their deaths were their witness – and in fact the word martyr actually means witness – those who witness for Christ even up to death. So Tertullian also wrote these memorable words, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”
The twentieth century saw its share of martyrs too, from Jim Elliott of Missionary Aviation Fellowship, working with the Auca Indians, to the sufferings of Christians in the Communist Bloc to the persecution of the church in China after the Cultural Revolution, to the murders of Christians in Orissa, India in 2008, and in African countries such as Nigeria even today. So many Christians are dying for Christ because they consider the truth to be worth dying for.
Psalm 116:15, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints."
Even today the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
Stuart Townend’s beautiful song, “With a prayer you fed the hungry” has an interesting last verse. It goes,
I will feed the poor and hungry, I will stand up for the truth;
I will take my cross and follow To the corners of the earth.
And I ask that You so fill me With Your peace, Your power, Your breath,
That I never love my life so much To shrink from facing death."
Philippians 1:21 "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." 2 Corinthians 5:9 "So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it."
The great cricketer who became a missionary to the Congo, C.T.Studd, wrote, “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.”
Spurgeon said that the gospel comes to comfort us in our afflictions but also to afflict us in our comforts. The death of John the Baptist is an inspiration and an encouragement to Christians suffering persecution, but to those of us who are not persecuted or imprisoned for our faith it still gives us an example to follow, as do the lives of our brothers and sisters who belong to the suffering church in so many places still today. The blood of the martyrs is still the seed of the church.
In Christ,
Brown
http://youtu.be/3qEjRLlL9iE
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