Brown's Daily Word 11/20/15

Praise the Lord for this last Friday before Thanksgiving. The Lord blessed us with a very wonderful time and tender moments with our Release Time students yesterday afternoon.  Alice And I drove to the city of Cortland yesterday afternoon.  We used to live in Cortland in 1978.  We drove past the apartment complex where we lived and passed by the Ice cream stand that is still there.  Our oldest daughter Janice was only 16 months old.  Alice did work at the College.  The city has grown much since then and changed until it is almost unrecognizable. 

 

    We are getting to host our Endicott family for a Thanksgiving banquet tomorrow evening.  We will be traveling to Washington, DC for our annual Thanksgiving Celebration.  We are getting ready for worship this Sunday.  Plan to be in the house of the Lord where ever you might be.

 

    The  culture that has negated Christ, the world that has forgotten the Lord of Lords is suddenly on the verge of fear and frenzy as we face terror and danger on the every front, around the corner and around the globe.  The nations that have rejected Christ, now almost bankrupt spiritually and morally, are facing the dread of terrorism.  Suddenly many of the world leaders find them self caught in the midst of quandary. 

 

    We had a meeting yesterday with our Bishop, Bishop Webb, who loves Jesus and serves him and the Church with great fervor and zeal.  He shared with us that various commentators from all back grounds agree that Germany, France, and England faced the crisis in  the 18th century, we are facing today.  Germany and France went through a cataclysmic revolution whereas England was saved from the devastating and destructive revolution because of the two Wesley Brothers, John and Charles.   They proclaimed the Gospel  throughout the land.  The current times and the political and economic climate demand for us to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus, unafraid and without any apology or compromise.  What a wonderful time to be alive and to be part of the eternal Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

 

    One of the Psalms I love to read during the times of crisis and confusion is Psalm 121.  I love the words shade, help, and especially keep.  These are words that are used to describe what God is and does for His people.  He is our shade.  He is our help.  And especially, repeatedly in this psalm, He is our keeper.  That's a term of His providence and His protection.  He keeps His people.  This is repeated through the psalm.  We read about the hills or the mountains in the very first stanza of the song, although the hills do not constitute the source of the psalmist's security.  The hills are not his refuge; they are in fact a menace.  Travel in the mountains or the hills could be dangerous.  It's a place where your foot could easily slip and bring you harm.  (I grew up in the area in Orissa surrounded by mountains where tigers and wild animals roamed, where the venomous snakes crawled.)  Robbers can also hide in the mountains and present a danger to pilgrims.  As David lifted his eyes to the hills he did not see the source of his help, but a source of fear, so he asked, “What is the source of my help?”

 

    Some of us try to find security in ourselves and through what we do.  When we find ourselves in dangerous and challenging situations, we sometimes try to find an answer for our insecurities in an activity; we try to fix the situation.  At other times we look for a sense of security and help and stability in other things.  It may be in circumstances or it may be aid from some other location rather than God, but ultimately, whether we look inwardly or whether we look to our circumstances, neither of those things can be the source of our help and our security.  The only source, the psalmist tells us, is in God. 

 

    It is vital that we ask ourselves, "what is the source of our security?"  The monumental spiritual answer comes in verse 2, and that is that God Himself, the Lord, is the only reliable source of our security.  “My help comes from the LORD who made the heavens and the earth.”  We can see the same thought replicated in Psalm 124:8, “Our help is in the name of the LORD who made the heavens and the earth.”  John Calvin used this verse for the call to worship for every worship service.  “Our help is in the name of the LORD,”  “My help comes from the LORD.” The psalmist personally, individually, acknowledged that the Lord was his help.

 

    It is important that Our help is in the name of the Lord and my help is in the name of the Lord.  There is both a corporate and a personal and individual aspect to the Christian life. They are not competing; there is no contradiction here.  We need them both.  If all we have is the pronoun “my” in our spiritual vocabulary we're in trouble because we need one another.  God does not send us off into the world by ourselves.  He gave us family, a church family in the first place, to walk the walk of faith, to be pilgrims and sojourners in this world.  We need the “our” of the Christian life as well as the “my” of the Christian life. 

 

    The psalmist made a very emphatic personal statement, “My help comes from the LORD who made earth and heaven”.  He also emphasized that, “God is the only reliable source of our security.  Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”   He will guide our steps.  He will not let our feet be moved. In other words, He won't let us  fall.  “He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”  He's never asleep!  He's always watching!  

 

    I love Mendelssohn's Elijah.  “He watcheth over Israel, slumbers not nor sleeps.” It's one of the great contrasts between the God of Israel and the gods of Canaan, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, all of whom who are depicted in various artifacts of culture, as sleeping from time to time.  When gods in Mesopotamia didn't answer their people's prayers, their people said, “Well, our god was sleeping.” Elijah went out of his way to emphasize that in contrast to the false gods, the Baals, the God of Israel never slept.  He never took a nap.  He was always watching over His people.  The psalmist here just reminds himself of that.  “He who keeps Israel” is the language of protection.  It's the language of providence.  It begins here and it echoes throughout the psalm.  What we all need  is protection and so the language is repeated over and over.  He will keep you; He will protect you; He is your keeper; He is your protector.  He protects Israel; He will protect you.  He also preaches this to himself.  “He will guide me. He will always guide me because He's never sleeping.  He's watching over me and He will keep me.  He will protect me.”  There is a comprehensive providence over us by the Lord and the psalmist preaches this message to himself.  “He is concerned for my whole existence.  He will keep your life.”  Not only is He concerned for the whole of your existence, look at how the psalm ends.  He is concerned for the whole course of our life, from beginning to end.  “The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.”

 

  In Christ,

    Brown

https://youtu.be/LlY8WQ5vLeY

Brown's Daily Word 11/19/15

 It is Thursday.  We are just a week away from the celebration of Thanksgiving throughout the land.  The Lord blessed us with a wonderful Wednesday evening of fellowship and sharing.  The food was made of mostly natural ingredients.  There is always a plenty food when the saints gather around the table of the Lord.  The Lord is the invisible Host at at every table.  We can proclaim and declare with boldness and confidence, "My cup runneth over".  Last evening we took time to share some our family Thanksgiving memories, and traditions.  The group members inject so much laughter and humor into the moments of sharing.  

 

    We are getting ready celebrate the Thanksgiving Festival with all the bells and whistles.  We are also getting ready to welcome the St. Petersburg Men's  Ensemble on Friday December 4, 2015.  We will gather at 6:00 PM for dinner with some international flavor, including Japanese, Indian, and American.  The Concert will start at 7:00 PM.  We are also getting excited to attend the presentation of Handel's Messiah, presented by the Binghamton Downtown Singers, accompanied by the Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra.  This will be a huge presentation in honor of the Birth of our Great and Wonderful Savior.  This will presented at the Binghamton Forum.  All seats are by reservation only.  There will be only one presentation this  year, to be held on Saturday the December 19 at 7:00.  Please make a note in your calendars.  I have been attending this brilliant piece of music for the last 30 years, and I never get tired of it.  This is a cherished part my Christmas celebration.

 

    I remember as a young boy reading Psalm 136.  It was part of my evening devotion.  Life appears to demonstrate over and over again that  some of the things of the world that allure us come to an end but, the Bible tells us, God’s mercy endures forever, “his mercies never come to an end… they are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23).  The Bible describes all of these aspects of God’s mercy toward us.  The good news of the gospel is that although we are indeed in God’s power and although we have offended God through our sin, God is a gracious God, God is moved with compassion for us, and God is excessively kind to us.  God is a merciful God.  In fact the Hebrew word translated as “mercy”  which can also be translated as “love” or “grace.”  Hesed is a word which refers to God’s having a kind disposition toward us all the time, regardless of others’ disposition toward us, regardless of our disposition toward ourselves.  God’s hesed, his mercy, never comes to an end; it lasts forever and ever.  In Psalm 136 the refrain, “for his mercy endures forever” is used twenty-six times.  Psalm 136 begins, "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods, for his mercy endures forever.  Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his mercy endures forever." Twenty-six times in one psalm: “his mercy endures forever… his mercy endures forever… his mercy endures forever…” It such a repeated refrain because in our lives we need God’s mercy over and over again; because in our lives we often experience good things coming to an end; because we need to be reminded again and again that God’s mercy, God’s love, God’s grace toward us never ends, ever.   

 

    In his Letter to the Ephesians Paul put it this way, “God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4- 5).  God’s mercy endures forever.

 

    One classic description of mercy is from Shakespeare’s comedy The Merchant of Venice.  In it the wealthy heiress, Portia, says, "The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this scepterd sway; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice" (Act IV, scene 1).

 

    Every time when we receive Holy Communion with empty hands we are reminded that God’s mercy endures forever, especially as we pray the Prayer of Humble Access:  “We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies… thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy.”)  Where will we indeed find everlasting mercy, if not in our Fathers ’s arms?

 In His Love,

   Brown

https://youtu.be/X_2qG22SPwU

Brown's Daily Word 11/18/15

It is Wednesday.  We will meet for our Midweek gathering this evening with a special meal at 6:00 PM followed by Bible study at 6:30 PM.  The Lord blessed with a beautiful day yesterday.  I met some beautiful people on my wandering and walking.  I had a lunch with a dear friend the other day .  We shared some wild salmon prepared in an authentic curry.  He is  an avid hunter.  He had been to  Newfoundland on a Moose hunting expedition where he got a big bull.  He brought me some moose meat along withe pictures of the moose, the rack etc.  It was impressive.  I drove by the back hills and dales yesterday to see some people.  I saw flocks of wild turkeys and thousands of Canadian geese which had taken over the small lakes nearby, swimming unhurried and mirthful.  The entire surroundings were flooded with sweet songs, sounds, and sights.  Our hunting friends are gearing up for deer season with their heat seeking hunting machines.  We are just a week away from celebrating Thanksgiving.  Another season.  Another blessing.  Another reminder.  Another song of salvation.  Thanks be Jesus, who lavishes on us abundant blessings in season and out of season in Jesus.  What a wonderful Savior we serve.

 

    One of my  favorite preachers, Philip Ryken, says, “The history of salvation, is sometimes described as a drama - the drama of redemption.  However, this drama is actually a musical.  It is impossible,” . . .  “It is impossible even to conceive of Biblical Christianity without songs of praise.”  Christianity is a singing faith.  A Christian who doesn’t sing is a contradiction in terms.  If salvation were merely a reward for services rendered on our part to God, if He were simply giving us our due, quid pro quo - we’re earned it so salvation is ours by right; - if that were true, well then we might strut and preen in self-congratulatory pride but we would never sing praises.  Salvation would be ours by right; we’ve earned it.  We’ve no one to thank but ourselves for it.  God’s salvation demands our song. 

 

    “Be filled with the spirit,” Ephesians 5:18-20, “addressing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.”   We are  saved by grace through the Lord Jesus Christ; we  are  recipients of God’s great redemption.  We  Sing!  

 

    In Exodus 15 Moses praised God as a personal God.  Verse 2 - “The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.  He is my God and I will praise him; my father’s God, and I will exalt him.”  My God, my strength, my song, my salvation, my father’s God. . .  I am His, He is mine; I know Him and He knows me. There is intimacy and fellowship here.  Because of Christ we can can say in ways Moses could not, “You are my strength, my song, my salvation, my God, mine; I am yours.  You are mine.”  In verse verse 3, God is praised as a warrior God.  This is a difficult concept for us.  Verse 3, “The LORD is a man of war; the Lord is his name.”  Moses had told Israel in verses 13 and 14 of chapter 14, that God would fight for them, that they had only to be silent and see the salvation of the Lord.  In this passage, as they looked back over the surging waters of the sea beneath which the Egyptian army had been drowned and destroyed, they saw that God keeps His Word.  He fought for them and triumphed.  The Bible describes God as One Who fights for us.  He fights for us and He has done so supremely and climactically, Colossians 2:15 - at the cross of Jesus Christ.  There the greatest contest of all was entered into by the Lord our God and there He won the victory, having triumphed over the principalities and powers, having disarmed them, triumphing over them at the cross.  

 

    Our  whole salvation rests on the truth that  our God is a warrior God who fights for us, to make us His, and to deliver us from all His enemies and our enemies by the cross of Jesus Christ.  Praise God that He is a warrior God, and praise Him, verse 6, for His mighty power.  “Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy.” Down in verse 9 we  see the boats of Pharaoh, verse 9, “I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them. I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.”

 

    Pharaoh was confident, but for all his boastful confidence and self-reliance, we  see the sheer effortlessness of God’s response.  Verse 10, “You blew with your wind and the sea covered them; they sank like lead in the mighty waters.”  A puff of God’s breath and the enemy were overthrown.  He blew on them and the mighty power of Egypt was destroyed.  Praise God for His mighty power. The apostle Paul prayed that we would know what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His great might, which is most fully and clearly and climactically displayed “that we might know the greatness of His power toward us who believe according to the working of His great might that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in heavenly places.”  Immeasurably great power and great might, seen even more clearly than at the parting of the Red Sea, were seen when the stone was rolled away and the tomb found empty, and the crucified, dead, and buried Jesus Christ stood forth risen in glory forever.  Praise God for His power, never more clearly seen than at the empty tomb. 

 

     Moses also praised God for His uniqueness.  Verse 11, “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?  Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?”.  There is no one like Him.  We praise God because only He is God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  There is no other.

 

    God is also praised, verse 13, for His love.  “You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed.”  “It is the steadfast love of the Lord that never ceases; His mercies never come to an end.  They are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness!”  It is that same love, that love that redeems a people that reaches its zenith when the Son of God “loved me and gave Himself for m.,”when God demonstrated His love for us in this, “that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  Again and again we see Moses trace the attributes of God and the character of God behind the mighty works of God, the more he sees of God and the more he sings and praises.  Prose will not do when the beauty of our God is clearly seen.  Only poetry will work.  Only song can give voice to the heart responding to the glory and greatness and grace of a God who saves by Jesus Christ.  Now He reigns and ever lives.

  In Christ,

 Brown

https://youtu.be/_Z2_JLqOjNY  

Brown's Daily Word 11/16/15

Praise the Lord for this new day in His kingdom  and on His good earth.  He blessed with an abundant weekend.  We spent part of the weekend with some very good friends sharing sweet fellowship.  We laughed, prayed, and thanked the Lord.  Our daughter Sunita  took her two youngest children, Addie and Asha,  and along with her sister Laureen, flew to Boston to spend the weekend with Janice , Jeremy, Micah, Simeon, and Ada.  Gabe stayed back with his dad in Washington, DC.  The Lord blessed them with a wonderful time with the cousins and the " sister time".  The Lord blessed us with a joyful and celebrative moments in His House with His people yesterday.  Alice and I walked in the evening over two miles.  It was a cloudless evening . The silvery crescent moon was beaming gently on earth.  People have started to put out Christmas decorations and Nativity scenes.  Soon  and very soon it will "look a lot like Christmas everywhere you go".

 

    This morning I found a selection of Christmas music on YOUTUBE, "If Mozart wrote Christmas Carols".  My wife came downstairs and heard it, and is now enjoying it, too.  It includes beautiful orchestral renditions of familiar carols and well-known Christmas songs.  What a joy to listen to such heart-lifting melodies during this most festive of all seasons.

 

    The world woke up this weekend to the news of barbaric actions by some barbarians and savages, inflicting injury and death to innocent people.  We all get angry and become revengeful and hateful.  Here I am using the terminology of Donald Grey Barnhouse, Princeton Graduate, Theologian, Pastor, and a great commentator.  He said it something like this.  In the beginning there was only one will - God’s.  When there was only one will, the universe was filled with peace and harmony.  But now Satan (whose will is completely opposed to God’s will) has been set free to roam about the universe, working his diabolical deeds.  He roams the world today like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).  He stirs up trouble, makes false accusations, and incites us to commit every sort of evil deed.  He is a world-wrecker and a home-destroyer.  “The thief comes to steal our  integrity, our decency, our kindness, our compassion, our generosity, and every other godly impulse. He intends to destroy our friendships, our homes.  He does all that he does so that God’s work might come to an end and he might remain the “god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). 

 

    Is God sovereign over the devil?  Absolutely.  Why doesn’t he destroy him?  He will.  Until then we live on the battlefield of a vast spiritual conflict between God and Satan, between good and evil.  We happen to be on the winning side, but that does not mean we won’t suffer casualties as the battle ebbs and flows.  This may be the central message of the book of Job.  In the beginning Job faced unimaginable loss, a series of catastrophes that left him scratching his sores on the ash heap, with a wife urging him to curse God and die.  The largest part of the book is a dialogue with his friends over why these things have happened.  The most amazing fact is that Job never found out why God chose him for such suffering.  His central question still remains unanswered.  He apparently never found out about Satan’s part in the whole scheme.  So, in terms of specific answers, he was left in the dark, but by the end of the book there is a huge difference.  At the last he bowed before the Lord, acknowledging God’s sovereignty.  “I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you” (Job 42:2 NLT). 

 

    I suppose the question might be put this way: Am I willing to believe that God knows what he’s doing in my life when I don’t have a clue?  In his book “If God is in Charge,” Steve Brown tells the story of a class his associate pastor was teaching in which he said that God is sovereign, God is love, and no matter how bad things get, Christians should praise him.  He went on to say that the real test of praise is not when things are going good but when they are going bad.  During the question and answer period, a man raised his hand and said, “I just can’t buy what you say about praising God in the midst of evil and hurt.  I don’t believe that when you lose someone you love through death, or you have cancer, or you lose your job, that you ought to praise God.”  The associate pastor offered a simple yet profound answer.  “What other alternatives do you propose?” 

 

    The question begs for an answer.  If God is not sovereign, then who is?  If God is not in control, who’s running the show?  The good news is that our God is in control.  “The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.”  I admit that it doesn’t always appear to be so, but it is true.  There are two choices we can make.  We can reject God’s sovereignty, which ultimately leads to despair and frustration, or we can bow before him in humble submission, which leads to praise and freedom.  That’s God’s track record.  “What then shall we say to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)  So far from being a cold, hard doctrine, the sovereignty of God fills the believer’s heart with comfort.  In this world with so many questions, we know with certainty that his throne is in heaven, he rules over all, and he loves us so much that he gave his Son that we might have everlasting life.  He who upholds the universe holds me in the palm of his hand.  He who guides the stars guides my life too.  He who knows all things from beginning to end knows me and I entrust my life to Him.

    In Him,

   Brown

https://youtu.be/8dDjva1ecYo