Brown's Daily Word 12/9/17

Praise the Lord for this Advent season that ushers in the Christmas season. Both these seasons are pregnant with promises and messages which are poignant and powerful above and beyond.

My desktop met a premature death. This is the reason I have been irregular in posting my blogs. I am back in the saddle again. Thank you, Jesus. The Lord blessed us immensely this past weekend. We hosted the St. Petersburg Men's Ensemble this past Saturday. It is always a treat for us to have them come and minister to us in music. These four Russian men come to us every year. They have been coming to us for the last twelve years. They are gifted and gracious. Their music is anointed. Their ministry among us during Advent season gives an International dimension to the celebration of the Advent of Christmas. Our church hosted a banquet prior to the concert. Once again the menu reflected an international flavor.

The Lord blessed us in our Sunday morning worship as we celebrated the First Sunday in Advent. The worship and celebration continued into the evening as all the churches in our town, five of them altogether, went out caroling. Our town and churches are decked out and decorated for Christmas. The colors are brilliant, the lights are bright, and the people are merry. What a way to begin to celebrate the Advent season! We had a lovely snowfall last night, with beautiful big snowflakes drifting down. The hint of snow left on the ground only serves to enhance the decorations around town.

We have been in conversation with our daughters. Laureen was in Florida last week attending a conference. Janice and Micah attended a Performance of Handel’s Messiah in Boston at Symphony Hall. The Lord blessed us in our Release time yesterday. We are getting ready for worship Sunday morning and time with youth in the evening. We are also getting geared up for the Living Nativity. It will be held on the Village Green on Saturday, December 16, from 5-7 PM. The cast for the living Nativity is all, along with the animals. Nancy Barber, resident musician will be leading the singing of carols. We will be singing Handel's Halleluiah Chorus at the conclusion of the evening event. It will be like a Flash mob. Those of you who live in the surrounding area, please join us.

One of the foundational pillars of the Advent season is peace, which the world strives for and we all hunger for. God is a God of peace if His peace rules our hearts. If we are certain of our redemption and show confidence in Him through a life that knows His peace then we possess an attractive message of peace.

Jesus comes as the Prince of Peace. He is the harbinger of peace indeed. The Statue "Christ of the Andes" is an impressive symbol of peace. Once Chile and Argentina were enemies and fought constantly. At last they decided it was in their mutual interest to live in peace. Finally, high upon their natural boundaries, the Andes Mountains, they erected a great statue of Christ with outstretched arms. The inscription reads, “Sooner shall these mountains crumble into dust than the Argentines and Chileans break the peace sworn at the feet of Christ the Redeemer.” (Jones, G. C. (1986). 1000 illustrations for preaching and teaching (p. 60). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.)
Advent reminds us of the coming of peace to earth. Jesus was known as the Prince of peace. His motives, manner, and ministry all reflect peace. He said in Matthew 5:9, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (ESV)

In Isaiah 2:3-5 it is written, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD. (ESV)

In the Isaiah prophecy, a great multitude is depicted as encouraging one another to come to Zion. It is not political or economic motives that inspire their journey, but faithful devotion. Their destination is ‘the house of the God of Jacob’. The Biblical vision for the house of the LORD may not be fully realized yet, but the prophecy of peace confronts every nation in the world every day. At the entrance to the United Nations headquarters in New York City, there is a sculpture of an artisan beating a sword into a plowshare. It greets every world leader, diplomat, and visitor who enters the building. Under the statue is engraved the word of the LORD from Isaiah, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks” (v. 4). Though the United Nations takes this verse as its motto, its inability to produce world peace simply points to the need for a supernatural work that will result in war being forever abolished
The way God achieves peace, is through the Prince of Peace That is God’s promise. It is our only hope. Romans 5:1-10 “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
https://youtu.be/iO7ySn-Swwc

Brown

Brown's Daily Word 11/19/17

Dear friends and family.  Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. Praise the Lord for His constant care and tender mercies.  Praise the Lord for the way He surrounds us with His healing love and all the provisions of abundance and generosity.  Thank you all praying for me faithfully and fervently.  The Lord has kept me in the grip of His love and grace throughout this year.  He has sustained me and has restored me time after time.  I feel deeply loved and richly blessed.  I am finishing my chemo and radiation treatment.  I had my last chemo last week. Now I am getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas.  

As we all get to celebrate and feast on the Goodness and the abundance of the Lord, we think about others who need the blessings and the touch of the Lord.  I have the privilege of sharing about their need every year during this time of great love and abundance.  We would like to extend the Lord’s blessing to the following.

·        15 children, both boys and girls, need Christmas clothing and gifts. $25 per child will help with this need.

·        20 Pastors and evangelists. $100 will bless each pastor this season.

·        20 widows. $50 will bless each widow.

You can make your checks payable to "India Mission Project, Inc".  These gifts are tax deductable.  You can send your gifts to:  India Mission Project, Inc., P O BOX 423, Marathon, NY 13803

May Jesus continue to bless you abundantly during this season of receiving and giving.

    

Brown

Brown's Daily Word 10/13/17

"This good day, It is a gift from you.
The world is turning in its place
Because you made it to.
I lift my voice
To sing a song of praise
On this good day".    

    Praise the Lord for fabulous and fantastic Friday.  I woke up early this morning getting ready for the New Day, praising Jesus for He is Sun of sky through the  picture window.  The Eastern sky was colorful, displaying to the world the beauty and grandeur of the rising sun that dispels the darkness awaking the earth with new songs surrounded with the fresh grace of our Lord who is the Morning Sun.  I was looking at the Christmas cactus in full bloom as the harbingers of Christmas..   Alice harvested almost a bushel of yellow beans yesterday and spent some hours "snipping and snapping", and watched "White Christmas" for the first time this year.  It is magical and sort of miraculous that we are gifted with fresh beans from our own garden in mid-October.  We met a neighbor at Alice's homestead in Smyrna who shared with us some of his fresh turnips.  He planted 4 acres of turnips on August 1 for the deer.  The crop is prolific.  Praise the Lord the Lord of the harvest for the way He replenishes the earth for the good of His people.  We are the undeserving recipients of His good gifts from His generous heart and loving hands.

    We are getting ready for worship this coming Sunday.  We will meet for Sunday School at 9:30 AM and for worship at 10:30 AM, followed by a church-wide fellowship dinner at 12 noon.  There will be an assortment of signature dishes along with decadent desserts and, best of all, a great and sweet fellowship.  Jesus is the host at every meal and we are His honored guests.  We are planning for an evening Hymn sing next Sunday, October 22.  Praise the Lord fir the great hymns of the church that we get to sing.  The Hymn sing will start at 6:00 PM, followed by a reception.  We will be serving donuts and apple cider.  It will be a sweet gathering.

    The Lord Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life.  In Him we live and move and have our being.  He is the author of life.  He is the pioneer and the finisher of our faith.  He is the ground of our being.  He is the Light in the darkness.  He is the hope for the hopeless.  He is the eternal home for the pilgrims, vagabonds, and wanderers without goal and aim.  He is the way the way the truth and Life. Knowing Him we have everything.. serving Him we have the joy unspeakable.  In Him we have everything we need for life and beyond this life and for  godliness and righteousness. 

    Some famous secularists—like Nietzsche, Stalin, and others—thought it all the way through, and said that if there's no God and afterlife, and if this world is eventually all going to turn in on itself and disintegrate into a black hole of nothingness, then the only meaning is to try and acquire as much power and pleasure in this life as possible. As Jean-Paul Sartre put it, it would mean that "life is an empty bubble, floating on the sea of nothingness."  That is the logical conclusion according to atheism.

The hinge on which all this turns one way or the other is the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus wasn't raised, then we have no historical credible certainty in a bodily afterlife, future rewards, or hope beyond the grave, and so we might as well just live for ourselves here.  If he's not alive, not only is the purpose and meaning for life just limited to the here and now, but there's also no spiritual power that can come into our lives to help us to change.  Without Jesus' resurrection, there's no new life in Christ.  The only power available for us to change and improve would be in ourselves.  You think education is going to do the trick?  D. L. Moody once said that if you see a man stealing nuts and bolts from the railroad track, and you send him to college because you want to change him, the higher education is only going to give him the tools to steal the whole track. He needs something more than education; he needs transformation. He needs a power to come into his life from outside of him.

    This is what we have in Jesus.  If Jesus is raised from the dead, we have the certainty that this life is not all there is, and there's a purpose and meaning in life that transcends this life, and there's a new spiritual power that can break into our lives to transform us.  Paul the rebel was apprehended by the Risen Lord, the Hound of Heaven.  Paul  encountered the Risen and glorified Lord.  His life was transformed forever.  The Risen Lord transfused him with resurrection power and blood of the Lamb.  Paul become a new rebel with a cause. He became fearless and dauntless.  He could declare, "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".  The Risen Lord deployed Paul for the sake of the Eternal Kingdom.  In His mission  of proclamation and pepedagogic transmission Paul challenges us, "Don't be deceived.  It's not a sham.  I saw Jesus alive!"  The owner exists; he owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Ps. 50:10), and he's promised us that every sacrifice in his name will be rewarded 100-fold in the future.  For Paul, the reason to invest in the future is because there is a future.  His future bodily resurrection freed him from materialism and consumerism and only thinking of the here and now.  All the sacrifices were worth it because the Lord does care what we do, and the rewards in that day are going to be so amazing that it is going to be worth it all.  That's why  Paul admonishes and encourages us, "Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm.  Let nothing move you.  Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain" (v. 58).  What you do in this life really matters—it carries over into the next!

    In Disney's The Lion King, Simba had run away; he was trying to run away from his past, and he thought he'd just live it up, do his own thing, just enjoy life, "hakuna matata," until Rafiki, the baboon, showed Simba that his father Mufasa was alive.  Mufasa appeared to Simba in the sky and said, "Simba, you have forgotten me."  Simba said, "No, how could I?"  And Mufasa said, "You have forgotten who you are and thus have forgotten me.  You are my son.  Remember who you are."  He repeats it over and over: "Remember, Simba, remember."  It's  the turning point of the movie, in which Simba finally wakes up and remembers what his father had done for him, that his father had sacrificed his life for him, that his father was "alive," and that Simba was part of the royal family and had the responsibility to live out the family name.

    For Paul, the resurrection of Jesus was meant to be like a spiritual alarm clock: waking us up to the truth of the Gospel, of what Jesus has done for us and who we are in him.  It's like he's grabbing us by the collar and saying, "Look—wake up. Remember what Jesus has done.  He's paid for all your sins.  He gave his life to pay your debt, and he's alive."  When you see his love, you realize you don't have to run from your past.  You can run to him with your past, and when we trust in him, he'll not only pardon us, but he'll empower us.  A new power will come into our lives for change and transformation.

In Christ,

 Brown

Brown's Daily Word 10/12/17

   It is written, "Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies". (Psalm 103) This is my praise and prayer today. 

    I was in Binghamton at Lourdes Hospital yesterday for one of my treatments.  Alice and I met with the doctor, who was pleased with my blood tests.  He commented on how wonderfully I was responding to the treatments.  I replied that the Lord Jesus is blessing me and performing his miracles of grace and mercy.  My doctors in Boston are also very pleased.  One of the doctors shared with me during a recent visit that I have already "beaten all the odds".  I reported that I have been covered and engulfed with so much prayer and intercessions with so many around the corner and around the globe.  The Lord Jesus, the winsome physician and mighty healer, is at work.  I praise the Lord for each one every one who have been praying for me faithfully, fervently, and believing for me all these years.  I am ever so grateful and eternally indebted to you all.  I have been battling this health issue for over 10 years.  The Lord has sustained and renewed time after time. During these special years and days, through testing and trials at times, He has given me His favor and has rejuvenated to continue  in serving Him.  He paved the way for travel overseas, including Australia, preaching and teaching.  I am praying to travel to India Spring of 2018 with a very special short term mission.  Please continue to pray for me that the Lord whom nothing is impossible, grant  me the desire of my heart.

    Alice and I along with my visiting brothers from India have been enjoying visiting family and friends.  One again, praise the Lord for the beauty and splendor of this  magnificent season.  The hills are laughing and the mountains are dancing.  Once again, in the words of Albert Camus, "Every Autumn is a second spring when every leaf becomes a flower".  Praise the Lord for the abundance of this season.

    One of the neighbors who raises honey bees as a hobby brought us Five gallons of honey -  raw, wild, and natural unadulterated.  We have been giving it away to family friends.  One of my young friends, who is a youth pastor and an avid hunter, texted me yesterday and shared that he is busy with bow hunting.  He said he will bring me big deer whole and intact.  My hear did a happy dance.  My dad was a farmer and a very gifted and talented hunter.  He loved the wild and the wilderness.  We were raised with wild meats. The hills, mountains, and fields were our grocery stores. 

    Once again thank you all for praying, believing, and trusting.  I had a note from  Neha, a young collage student in India  and daughter of my relative.  She stated that she is praying for me.  I had a praying partner who entered church triumphant. He used to pray for me praying, "May the Lord of all good and perfect gifts grant you the faith of Abraham, Love of King of David , the strength of Samson, the tenacity and determination apostle Paul.". 

    Elie Wiesel, the great Jewish writer known best for his writing about the Holocaust, wrote many other things as well, including Messengers of God about Bible characters and stories.  In his chapter "The Sacrifice of Isaac: A Survivor's Story," he says:

As a child, I read and read this tale, my heart beating wildly; I felt dark apprehension come over me and carry me far away. There was no understanding the three characters. Why would God, the merciful Father, demand that Abraham become inhuman, and why would Abraham accept? And Isaac, why did he submit so meekly? Not having received a direct order to let himself be sacrificed, why did he consent? I could not understand.

    There is no other story like this in the Old Testament.  There is but one other in all of human history.  It is the great finale to Abraham's life although he lived on many more years, had other children, buried his wife, Sarah, and finally died at age 175.  His faith story started in Genesis 12:1-3  In Genesis 22, the words follow the same pattern: "Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you".

    Years before, God had asked Abram to "burn his bridges behind him",but in Genesis 22 "he asks him to burn the only bridge ahead of him," in the words of Sidney Greidanus.  We cannot help but ponder the impenetrable emotions of this story, but our text does not help us.  One cannot help but wonder what this felt like.  The three characters here—God, Abraham, and Isaac— invite our focus.  Each gives us something significant to consider.  If we focus on God, then we must weigh his goodness, his mysterious ways, and his promises.  If we focus on Abraham (as Hebrews 11 does), then we are called to meditate on faith in God. If we focus on Isaac, we get a glimpse of God's redemption up close and personal.

     I choose to focus more on the test of Abraham, which begins, "Some time later God tested Abraham.  He said to him, 'Abraham!' 'Here I am,' he replied" (Gen. 22:1).  In testing Abraham, God wasn't checking to find out whether or not Abraham's faith was genuine enough.  God himself had given and shaped Abraham's faith by promises, struggles, forgiveness, and wonders over many years.  In Genesis 15, God showed Abraham the stars and told him his descendants would be that innumerable.  The Bible says there, "Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness" (v. 6). Abraham had seen that promise come to pass when Isaac, the promised son, was born miraculously to a 90-year-old mother and 100-year-old dad—the great nativity story of the Old Testament.   The text emphasizes the love of a father for his son, which makes the enormity of this command obvious, "Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go …" (Gen. 22:2).  God's tests of faith often take us out beyond the place of clarity into frayed emotions and broken hearts to wonder, What if I have this wrong?  What if God is not like the Bible says?

    Sometimes we look into the suffering of other believers and say, "I don't know how she does it.  I don't think I could bear up under that."  God allows us to be given burdens and trials more than we can bear sometimes, and in those times we may lose touch with God.  We may not know what to believe.  We may not even be able to pray.  We may cry out with Psalm 88: "Darkness is my closest friend" (v. 18).   In writing to suffering Christians, Peter said in 1 Peter 1:6-7, "Now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."  God's tests of faith are not just trials by ordeal but in reality they are the refining of gold.

    When our faith is under fire, sometimes it seems that God is silent in our suffering, so we consider more seriously the things God has taught us.  Those three days journeying to Mount Moriah may have been like that for Abraham.  I think he reasoned and prayed out implications of his faith he hadn't grasped before.  We also may face life journeys fraught with some times of lonely turmoil  which take us through the far borders of our faith.  There we have no choice but to pray through the promises of God, to think through what we have in Christ, to decide to tighten our grip on God.  We feel ill-prepared for these times of trial, but God uses them as times of refining our faith, our lives, and our witness.

 The  son of Abraham was as good as dead. God would have seen nothing more if Isaac died. Isaac was consecrated to God as surely as if his body had been consumed by fire. That he still lived was a kind of resurrection story just the way his birth was the Old Testament's great nativity story. The Jews read this story   In one very important sense, Abraham was willing to offer his son as a sacrifice.  It was a momentous time in the lives of Abraham and Isaac, taking place in a remote and isolated place.  Abraham and Isaac prefigure God the father and God the Son.  The sacrifice God demanded of Abraham to give his son prefigured the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross. 

 In Christ,

Brown

https://youtu.be/yNZS5H9aNlY

Brown's Daily Word 10/11/17

     "From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD'S name is to be praised." Psalm 113:3.  Praise the Lord for each sunrise and each sunset.  The Lord, the Sun of Righteousness, makes all sunrises and all sunsets brilliant and beautiful.  Praise the Lord for the way He is the cosmic mover and shaker.

    It is written in Psalm 2, "He who sits in heavens laughs... the Lord has them in derision".  Our Lord,  Greater than great, stronger than strong, higher than high, wiser than wise.  Our Lord and Savior  is above and beyond.  We  praise the Lord for the mild and marvelous weather with which the Lord has showered us during these days of October.  We have been driving around various parts of the Southern Tier and Central New York, yet we cannot escape the indescribable beauty and splendor the Lord infuses through the earth during this season.  We are overwhelmed and so we are provoked to honor and  glorify the matchless painter, the unparalleled artist, and the magnanimous giver of all good and perfect gifts. 

     I am driven from time to time to gaze upon the life and witness of Daniel.  He was a man of valor.  He was a man of faith and faithfulness, of great devotion and fidelity.  From his youth to old age, in crises and out of crises, Daniel prayed.  In addition, the prayers of Daniel included thanksgiving.  So much did he trust his God that he gave thanks for the grace surrounding him, despite the crises that  enveloped  him.  He simply turned to God in trust as he always had.  He lived with integrity and applied his gifts of insight and management with excellence for the sake of the land his people inhabited.

    We live to reflect our God and to reclaim the world that he is redeeming for his own glory.  Daniel showed his dedication to his God by doing his very best to exemplify God's standards in his occupation, as well as in his religious duties.  He trusted God enough to serve him in secular endeavors, as well as religious ones. The sign of Daniel's trust was not merely a valiant stand in a crisis but a life of dedication exhibited across decades, before a succession of empires, and without the support of his own people.  His was the kind of life an author has described as "a long obedience in the same direction."  Bible teachers often refer to Daniel as one of the great "success" stories of the Scriptures.  Such a perspective results from a very selective gathering of facts from the prophet's life.  An honest weighing of all the facts will cause us to speak less of "Daniel the Great" and more of "Daniel the Tested."  No victory lasts.  No triumph makes more than the most fleeting of spiritual impressions on his history, culture, or circumstances.  As far as Daniel knew, his life had been spent in fruitlessness.

    Daniel ministered in a pagan land for most of a century, but what did he have to show for it?  The account as written in the book of Daniel says that "all" the officials of the king turned against Daniel, and King Darius himself was willing to endorse their idolatry of himself (6:7).  The people of this land were no more believing in Daniel's God than when the prophet entered the land as a young man. No spiritual awakening was recorded to have swept the land during his long life. Babylon remained unchanged.  Though some kings listened to him, their successors did not.  Kings and kingdoms had come and gone, but still the rulers were idolatrous, wicked, and cruel.

    Daniel's positions and influence seemed to come and go with purposeless frequency. Daniel's life seems to have had little effect on the spiritual progress of his own people. No revival was recorded among them. No repentance sweeps through them. The chosen nation remained in captivity despite Daniel's political power, and their hearts seem similarly bound despite his prophetic ministry. When these "chosen people" returned to Israel after Daniel's death, their spiritual understanding had so eroded they could not even remember the language in which God's law was written, much less the standards and traditions it described.

Daniel trusted the Lord and served long, hard, and faithfully, but the only fruit of his faith was jealousy, accusation, and advancing years that made him too old to ever go back to his homeland.  His circumstances could well have justified his asking the same question Leonardo de Vinci asked on his own death bed, "Did I do anything?"  Despite the intelligence and designs of da Vinci, the Renaissance man, very little actually resulted from his efforts within his lifetime.  William Carey, who was driven by zeal to proclaim the Gospel, sailed to India in 1793 with his family, where he labored for seven years under duress in a very demanding and oppressive milieu.  The Lord blessed him with a solitary convert after laboring for a full seven fruitless years.  The conversion of one man in 1800 brought about a great Renaissance  in India that is still flaming India today. 

    Through the faithfulness of his people, God determines to overcome the dark forces of this world.  Our trust does not eradicate all present trials, but when we believe tears of today will be dried by triumphs of tomorrow, we will find the strength to live for our God. Frustration and tragedy may still come, but they cannot overwhelm the purposes of our God or the usefulness of our lives when we continue in the duties he sets before us.  For these reasons, the account of Daniel in the den of lions not only encourages us to trust in God, but to live for him. Through Daniel's example, the Bible inspires us to live with courage when circumstances and threats tempt us to compromise.  Our trust in God should fill us with the courage to live for him.

    What would it mean for us to join the ranks of those 19th century missionaries who packed their belongings in coffins before sailing to Africa because they expected to give their lives for God?  What would it mean to live like Amy Carmichael, who fought for the lives of children forced into temple prostitution in India during the Victorian Era, when her mission was scandalous to mention in churches?  In an era where the sex trade and sexual slavery is at its apex in world history, the question is worth asking of today's Christian leaders.  Believing that the Lord can change everything through us, beyond us, or after us is what should keep us living courageously, because we are living in hope.  We live with the confidence that our God will fulfill purposes through us if we will stand for him.

    Following the final chapter of the prophet Daniel's life history are his amazing prophesies of future victories to come in Jerusalem.  He wrote that the captives from Israel would return to the holy city, Jerusalem would be restored, and from the former ruins would rise the Savior.  This Savior would defeat forever the enemy who prowls the earth "like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8).  As Daniel did his duty, his physical eyes could see only ruin, despair, and danger, but through the eyes of faith Daniel saw beyond these things.  By focusing on Jerusalem he saw sure victory, future triumph, and certain hope.  Through the eyes of hope, ruined Jerusalem shone yet as the great symbol of God's abiding faithfulness to those he would defend.  Daniel was faithful before the threat of raging lions, because he trusted in the One who shuts the mouth of the great lion called Satan.

    The sign of God's faithfulness that we all remember is Daniel's rescue from the lions, but the greater sign that proves the value of Daniel's hope for his nation and for us is almost hidden in the last words of this chapter, "So this Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and during the reign of Cyrus the Persian" (6:28).  The name of the final ruler is most important because under this ruler the people of Israel began to return to their homeland.  Because they returned to Israel, ultimately a child would be born in the city of David who would be Christ, our Lord. Daniel's influence and God's promise finally were fulfilled according to the hope Daniel maintained into his old age.

In Christ,

 Brown

https://youtu.be/qCZAynQU_-8

Brown's Daily Word 10/9/17

   Lord blessed us in His house yesterday.  We are still enjoying summer-like weather.   Praise the Lord for the way he makes the sweet summer linger.  We drove down to Abington, PA in the suburbs of Philadelphia this past Saturday to visit Jessica, Tom, Lindy, and Everett.  It was a gorgeous day to travel.  We went along highways surrounded by endless mountains and the matchless beauty of the autumn season.  Alice loves to take the most scenic routes because she finds them to be very refreshing.  As we drove along the banks of the Delaware River and the canal that runs parallel to it the autumn colors were bursting forth glorious and fantastic.  We had a very beautiful and blessed time visiting Lindy and Everett and their parents.  It was great to have our brothers from India visiting with us for the travel and the visit.  We have been harvesting from our garden.  The late bean crop is ready for picking.  Alice and I walked over one mile yesterday evening, and it was all pleasantly invigorating.

    Praise the Lord for this Monday when our nation observes Columbus Day.  Praise the Lord for Christopher Columbus, whose name means, "the bearer of Christ".  We praise the Lord for his faith and faithfulness.  Praise the Lord for His zeal for Christ and for His kingdom.  Praise the Lord for Christopher Columbus for his spirit of fearlessness and adventure.  After his third voyage Columbus wrote his Book of Prophecies to explain the biblical significance of what he had done.  It  remained lost until 1892 and just last year it was translated into English.  This book, as well as his journals, give us the true picture of the heart and passion that drove Christopher Columbus.  What these writings reveal is a man with the heart of a frontier missionary called by God and led forth by the power of the Holy Spirit.  In his own words Columbus wrote:

    "At this time I have seen and put in study to look into all the Scriptures which the Lord has opened to my understanding.

    "It was the Lord who put into my mind (I could feel His hand upon me) the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies. All who heard of my project rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me.  There is no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit, because He comforted me with rays of marvelous inspiration from the Holy Scriptures...

    "I am a most unworthy sinner, but I have cried out to the Lord for grace and mercy, and they have covered me completely. I have found the sweetest consolation since I made it my whole purpose to enjoy His marvelous presence. For the execution of the journey to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps.  It is simply the fulfillment of what Isaiah had prophesied...

    "The Lord made me a messenger of the new heavens and the new earth of which Isaiah speaks and St. John in the book of the Revelation.  And He showed me the place where to find it...

    "No one should fear to undertake any task in the name of our Saviour, if it is just and if the intention is purely for His holy service.  The working out of all things has been assigned to each person by our Lord, but it all happens according to His sovereign will, even though He gives advice.  He lacks nothing that is in the power of men to give Him.  Oh, what a gracious Lord, who desires that people should perform for Him those things for which He holds Himself responsible!  Day and night, moment by moment, everyone should express their most devoted gratitude to Him."

    Simply put, the primary thing that drove Columbus was the confident belief that God had called him and set him apart as a holy servant to bring the Gospel of Christ to the ends of the earth.

    Author Kay Brigham, who translated Columbus's Book of Prophecies into English, says, "He believed that He was fulfilling Psalm 19:4, that the words of the Lord would go out to the uttermost parts of the world.  He believed that he was the bearer of Christ to do this."  This was central to Columbus's view of himself.  In his journal he would quote passages from Isaiah that meant so much to him:

    "Listen to me O coastlands, and hearken, you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name...I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth" Isaiah 49:1, 6.

    Peter Marshall in his book, "The Light and the Glory" said, "On every island at which they stopped, Columbus had his men erect a large wooden cross, 'as a token of Jesus Christ our Lord and in honor of the Christian faith.'  Almost always, they found the inhabitants peaceful, innocent and trusting, and the Admiral gave strict orders that they were not to be molested or maltreated in any way.  He had determined that their own reputation, which was obviously preceding them through the islands, would be as favorable as possible."

    Columbus estimated the size of the Atlantic Ocean partially from reading his Bible.  He had read in the Second Book of Esdras (in the Apocrypha) that God created the world in seven parts, six of them dry land and the seventh water.  He thus calculated that the ocean separating Portugal from Cipangu (Japan) was one-seventh of the earth’s circumference, or about 2,400 miles. He figured that by sailing 100 miles per day, he could reach the Indies in 30 days.

    Unlike many sailors then and now, Christopher Columbus never used profanity.  During Columbus’s voyages, the ships’ crews observed religious rites.  Every time they turned the half-hour glass (their primary means of keeping time), they cried: “Blessed be the hour of our Savior’s birth / blessed be the Virgin Mary who bore him / and blessed be John who baptized him.”  They finished each day by singing vespers together (although reportedly they sang out of tune).

    Not until his third voyage did Columbus actually land on the American mainland. Seeing four rivers flowing from the landmass, he believed he had encountered the Garden of Eden.  He died in 1506 unaware he had landed thousands of miles short of the Orient.

    Irish and French Catholics have argued that Columbus, who “brought the Christian faith to half the world,” should be named a saint.  Between 1493 and 1820, Spain sent some 15,585 missionaries to the Americas.  Typically the government of Spain paid their full expenses.  In the first fifteen years after the Spanish conquest of Mexico, Franciscans baptized about 5,000,000 Indians; priests in Mexico sometimes baptized thousands in a day.

    Spanish missionaries attempted to establish colonies in present-day Georgia and South Carolina in 1526.  In 1542, Dominican Juan de Padilla planted a cross in present-day Kansas.  Reformer John Calvin sent two Protestant pastors to accompany a Protestant expedition to Brazil in 1556.  Upon arrival, however, the leader of the expedition betrayed the settlers, and the project was abandoned. Ref: Christian History> Thomas S. Giles.

In Christ,

 Brown

https://youtu.be/WDXNHPeRB0k

Brown's Daily Word 10/6/17

    Praise the Lord for this awesome Autumn season.   Autumn is one of my favorite times of the year to capture the beauty of the Lord in His creation.  Colorful leaves, bright blue skies, and the changing of the seasons create vivid, colorful scenes that beg to be photographed.  In the words of John Donne, “No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face."  Further, in the words of Albert Camus, “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”  The colors are unfolding fast and furiously.  The mountains and the hills are aglow and very alive.  Praise the Lord!  He is the Lord of History.  Indeed, history is His story.  Alice and I have been driving around by the farms, orchards, hills, and meadows.  Praise the Lord for the abundance of harvest.  Praise the Lord for season of abundance.  Our garden is still full of fresh vegetables.  Praise the Lord that He is the Jehovah Jireh.  He provides.  He replenishes us with His abundance and magnanimity.  He is is exalted and Lifted on high.

    We are getting ready for worship this coming Lord's day.  We will meet for Sunday school at 9:30 AM and for worship at 10:30.  Our church is hosting a church wide dinner on Sunday the 15th of October following the morning worship. We are also hosting an evening Hymn sing on Sunday the 22nd of October at 6:00 PM.  We are excited about this evening of great singing of the great hymns of the church.  Come and join us.  There will be a reception following the hymn sing.  We will be serving very seasonal refreshments including donuts and apple cider.

    Praise the Lord for the way he calls us to life in Him, through Him, and because of Him.  Often this life is paved with blessings  and battles.. triumphs and tragedies.. glorious moments and gloomy moments...  We all journey through joys and sorrows, joys of triumph and the anguish of defeat.  One of the great blessings of the life in Christ is that He walks and talks with us.  He is our constant and eternal companion and He is provides the finest bread and choicest wines for the journey.  Hebrews 4:14-16 reminds us that Jesus, our Great High Priest, can sympathize with our weaknesses as the man of sorrows.

    Andrew Peterson depicted this cry of lament well in his song, "The Silence of God."

"And if a man has got to listen to the voices of the mob
Who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they've got
When they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross
Then what about the times when even followers get lost?
'Cause we all get lost sometimes …

"There's a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll
In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold
And he's kneeling in the garden, as silent as a stone
All his friends are sleeping, and he's weeping all alone …

"And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God …"

    The beautiful thing is that even while we will feel this way there is rock solid truth to cling to, reminding us of the God who never leaves us or forsakes us.  Psalm 42:1 is the cry of any true believer.  This is an image of an animal in drought and, like such an animal, we have a desperate longing.  We love God, and his love has been poured into our hearts by the Spirit (Rom. 5:5).  There is a yearning for God deep in our souls that is being expressed (like in Psalm 84, where the psalmist yearns for God and says a day in his courts is better than a thousand elsewhere). The psalmist's soul—his inner being, the essence of who he is—deeply desires to meet with God in the sanctuary of the temple.  (Notice the psalmist refers to God 21 times in very personal ways, referring to him also as "my salvation [or Savior]," "my rock," and "Lord.")

    Two of the powerful Psalms that I love to read and reflect upon is Psalm  42 and   43, which speak of oppression and taunting from people around the psalmist David.  It would have been enough even if all he faced was the sense of God's absence, but his grief was heightened by the taunts of others (as Psalm 42:3 says, "People say to me all day long, 'Where is your God?'".  It is astounding that the psalmist prays this way and makes known his woes to the Lord, but this is instructive for our prayer lives.  It instructs that we can rightly bring our sorrows before the Lord.  He is there to hear our prayers, and he allows us to leave our anxieties and cares at his feet.  What we need when we are needy is God.  The psalmist, though in lament, is not in despair.  He deliberately turns his mind to God's grace and faithfulness and covenant.  It is here we come to remembrance.

     Let us make our requests known to God and cast our cares upon him.  As we do so, there are promises that he will care for us.  His peace will guard our hearts as we dwell on what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy (Phil. 4:6-8). We must consciously, forcefully remember God, his character, and his work on our behalf. In verse four, the psalmist remembers what it is like to worship the living God. He remembers the love of God that remains with him and directs him (v. 8) and God's truth that leads him home to worship God, the joy of all his joys (43:3-4). Amid pain and sorrow, we  remember : God is sovereign, loving, and in the midst of our sorrows. He has spoken to us definitively, decisively, and directly in his Word.  We are invited to Hope in God! Wait for God! Hope is confident expectation based on the truth that we have. This is no mindless meditation: a closing of the eyes or a passive twiddling of the thumbs. Rather, we are to engage in ongoing, expectant, straining anticipation for God's deliverance. This is a spiritually aggressive confidence that God will act and show himself faithful, based on past performance and future grace seen in his promises.

     We hope in God because of his character and attributes.  He is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, holy, just, exerting wrath toward sin.  He is for, not against, those who are in Christ.  Christ is infinite in power, worth, and perfection, all-knowing, everywhere-present, unchanging in character, our rock and salvation, sovereign over all things, Creator, sustainer, altogether great, and altogether good.  In the history of redemption, he has created all things and shown grace to humanity again and again.  In His grace He gave a child to Abraham and Sarah in their old age, brought 10 plagues upon the mighty Egyptians, parted the Red Sea for the Israelites to walk across, provided food and drink for Israel in the wilderness, defeated nations, made the sun stand still, disciplined his people for their sin, brought them back to the land in his mercy, and brought his Son Jesus Christ as the way and truth and life and the only means of salvation, propitiation, expiation, redemption, and reconciliation with God.

    Jesus has given his Spirit to His  church and promised a coming day when all will be made right, when he will dwell with his people forever, and there will be no more sorrow, sickness, tears, or death.

In Christ,

 Brown

https://youtu.be/e8HgAVenbUU

Brown's Daily Word 10/6/17

"Let there be glory and honor and praises, glory and honor to Jesus. Glory, honor, glory and honor to Him." "Keep your light shining brightly as the darkness covers the earth. For a people that walk in darkness They shall see, they shall see a great light" In a world of darkness Jesus shines brightly. In a world of chaos and confusion He is the Christ. In a world of sin and sadness He is the Savior. In a world filled with wars and rumors of wars He is the Captain who has never lost a battle. He is the Lord of the hosts. We live under His grace and serve Him under His authority.

The Lord blessed us with an awesome and stunning Autumn season thus far. My brother Patel and my first cousin Amos are visiting us from India. We are spending some beautiful times with them. We spent a few days in Washington, DC with Sunita, Andy, Gabe, Addie and Asha. We were blessed with some spectacular weather for sight seeing in our Nation's Capitol. We have had a brief interlude of cold nights. It is otherwise looking like a lingering summer. Our garden is still prolific with beans, peppers, Swiss chard, onions, beets, and potatoes. Alice has been busy canning. She made over 30 jars of peach jam/ peaches from our own tree. Praise the Lord for His abundance and prodigality. We are so blessed.

Our Nation has been struck by the barbaric massacre that shattered the lives of so many this week. In the midst of massive grief and loss the Lord brings out the best in so many who step out to serve with great self abandon and sacrifice. In the midst of the abyss of darkness the Lord of Light shines on His people and through them as His candles of hope and grace. In the face of great demonic acts the Lord raises His people to move out to serve. The churches in the area were filled with praying and worshipping people. Countless people gave with generosity to bless the families of the victims. America is a city built on a hill. America is filled with people of good will and generosity. America is the home of the brave and free. May Jesus continue to bless America and the world. We need to beware of the trials, tragedies, and tribulations that come to all of us. There is no way that a human being living in a troubled world, in troublesome times can avoid real trouble.

In poetic language, the psalmist in Psalm 46 described the way trouble can come. He spoke about the earth being removed, and the mountains being carried into the midst of the sea. . . “though the waters thereof roar and be troubled.” Here he spoke about the trouble which comes with the sheer fury of a storm. What do you do when trouble comes with a fury of a storm from every angle? In the end of Psalms 46:3, he says, “Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.” Here you have a picture of everything shaking, with the swelling of the flood and everything being absolutely overwhelmed. “God Is Our Refuge and Strength, a very present Help in trouble.”

There are things outlined for us in Psalms 46 that we should do when troubles come into our lives. We are called to realize when trouble comes that God is a Refuge for His people. This suggests to us the idea of something like the Cities of Refuge that they had in the Old Testament. We can read about them in the book of Numbers. God, who gave instructions for the building of His ideal nation in Israel, insisted that they should have certain cities dotted around that land that were “Cities of Refuge.” In the Cities of Refuge, there was a touch of mercy. This is the picture that we have of God being a Refuge who is continually available to His people. The Lord Jesus Himself said that all of us who are weary, and heavy laden must come to Him and He will give us rest. There is no way trouble can come into a person’s life — however overwhelming it might be —which can be greater than the strength of God to enable you to survive it. There is no way trouble can come your way outside the permissive will of God!

Satan can throw all the forces of Hell at you, but God is your strength. The Risen Lord is more than adequate to our deepest needs. Not only is God our refuge and our strength, but God is “a very present help” in trouble. We must realize that God is resident among His people. Verse 4: “There is a river, the streams whereof, make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved.” The term “The City of God,” as far as the psalmist was concerned, was a picture that he loved to use of Mount Zion — his favorite place. Mount Zion was the place where The Temple was going to be. Mount Zion was the place where the Tabernacle of the Most High was going to be.

I run to God as my Refuge and I come to Christ, who opens His arms, and who says, “Come unto Me all ye who are weary and heavy laden” and at the same time I relate to Christ who, by His Holy Spirit, is in me. I say, “What a joy the Lord is actually resident in me! This old body of mine, this old mind of mine, this old house of mine is cracking at the foundation. Under pressure the floods are coming, the earthquake is coming, the storm is coming, but the glorious thing about it is this: God is resident within me!”

Psalms 46:11 repeats the same verse. “The Lord of hosts is with us!” The most High is in the midst of us, and I remember that the Lord of Hosts is with us. That helps me to get the whole scene of my trouble into perspective. Not only do I see the God of purpose seated on the Throne above all thrones acting on “my behalf”, but I also see that God has unbelievable power “alive” in might within the very context of my life, and that’s where trouble gets into perspective.

Psalms 46:4, “There is a river, the streams thereof shall make glad the city of God.” It is a vast river with many, many tributaries. God’s a Refuge, God’s a Resident, God’s a River”. God is resident; the City of God is immovable. Psalm 46:5 says, “God is in the midst of her, or within her, she will not fall.” What a God we serve! 
In Him,
Brown
https://youtu.be/-8mZpGj29qw