Praise the Lord
indeed for this glorious day, one of the ten best days of July. I woke
up early this morning to gaze at the morning sun. The
Eastern sky was dazzling with the dawn of a new day. The Lord
of the beauty of all creation decorates the Earth in all seasons with much
grandeur and majesty and ethereal beauty. It is going to be very hot and
sizzling here in Central New York today. Thank you, each and
every one, for your kind and prayer-filled thoughts and greetings,
coated with fervent friendships and affections. My heart is warmed and
blessed to know that I am surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.
I am feeling better and strong and back "in the saddle
again". I will be preaching this coming Sunday on "We have
entertained Angels unaware", based on Genesis 18.
The
Lord blessed us with heartwarming and soul-filled moments with three of our
grandchildren in Washington, DC. They are blessed to be living in
Washington, DC our Nation's Capital. They live within walking
distance from the Washington Mall and Union Station, and are
very close to the National Arboretum. Gabe, who is three years
old, LOVES trains. He particularly loves Thomas. He
also LOVES books to be read to him, and he memorizes lines from
Children's books. Addie, who is 19 months old, loves the Hillsong
Children's songs (especially when Auntie Laureen is having dance parties with
the children. She is a graceful dancer and sweet in serenading sweet
songs. Asha, who is 10 months old, is all smiles and very
gregarious. She loves people and life so much that she refuses to go to
sleep. Perhaps she is afraid that she might miss out
something beautiful. The children loved to listen to
Bach's "Sheep May Safely Graze " before their bed time. While
we were In Washington our granddaughter Ada, who lives in Boston, called me and
talked. She wanted lots of mangoes and apples for her brother
Simeon. She wanted lots of blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries for
herself. She is 5 years old. She talked to me for 28 minutes.
She is an avid conversationalist. Micah, who is 10, said that she would
love to learn how to cook Indian Curry.
My
family in India had saved the choicest mangoes for my
visit to India. As I could not go there, the team from
the USA ate some of the mangoes. My family in India was thinking to
send some mangoes for me. My family from the States, refused
to bring mangoes back for me as it is against the Federal Law. In God's
providence, Alice and I were in one of the Wholesale Grocery Stores
in the Triple Cities yesterday. To my utter amazement I saw a bin
full of mangoes on sale. They were red delicious, colorful and
tantalizing. I purchased 18 of them. I am saving most of those
mangoes to share with our grandson Simeon.
While we were away in Washington, DC, we missed a very special
event in the Philadelphia area, as our dear Jessica made a very special
birthday party for one sweet little granddaughter, Lindy, who just
turned 1 on July 8. (She and Simeon share that birth date).
Lindy is very sweet and lovely, and very winsome, and we miss her dearly.
Although we wanted to drive up for the party, my wife and I were still
recovering from a particularly nasty stomach bug. Dear Lindy brings so
much joy to her mommy and daddy and to us.
Alice
I worked in our garden last evening. As we drove to the Garden the
evening skies were magnificent, ornate with unbelievable colors and
brilliance. We praise the Lord for the fields, gardens, and orchards.
The Lord has blessed us with a luxuriant garden. It is full of
tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, cucumbers onions, pumpkins, squash, beans, snap
peas, eggplant, and more. Praise the Lord for His abundance in every way
and in all seasons. He makes our cups to overflow. What a God we
serve!
One
of the Messages that I was to share during the Mission trip to Orissa, India
was based on Exodus 1 and 2. We discover in this Scripture the astounding
way the Lord uses ordinary people to accomplish His extraordinary purposes and
promises. In this instance, the Egyptian midwives were more anxious to
please God than to please Pharaoh, and God rewarded them. Because of
the faith of these women, chapter 2 of Exodus records the supernatural events
concerning the birth of Moses, his salvation from infanticide, his divine
protection, and his engrafting into the Egyptian household, while being reared
by his Hebrew mother and sister. All of this demonstrated the
providential power of God over the diabolical plans of a human king.
In
the passage, our wonderful Savior worked on our behalf to accomplish our
salvation through improbable ways. The Egyptian king really was a pawn
(as in a chess match), not a king. He was a pawn in the hands of the true
King, Almighty God, to bring about His grand design to save mankind.
Every evil move the pawn made against the true King was a move that was
countered and used to advance the true King’s noble and good
cause. The diabolical activity of the pharaoh was, in fact, moving
the Hebrew children closer to the birth of Moses, closer to the Exodus, closer
to the Promised Land, closer to theocracy, closer to the kingdom of David,
closer to the birth of Jesus, closer to the resurrection, closer to His
ascension, closer to Pentecost, closer to your birth and mine, and closer to
the second coming of Christ. God used the midwives to demonstrate His sovereign
power. They are the heroines of the story. They stood in the
gap as the Instrument of the Lord of History in bringing forth Moses, the
one who would save the Hebrew people and bring about the nation of Our
Lord God sovereign and mighty yet merciful specializes in bringing life
out of death, order out of chaos, and hope our of despair. He often uses
real life heroes and heroines to be His instruments.
Let
us pause and ponder about the "Midwives" who worked silently
behind the scene to birth hope in our life's journey - to deliver our dreams
and to bring forth faith. Maybe it is time today to thank God for
that person who has had that kind of impact upon our lives. Maybe it is
time to rededicate ourselves to the Lord and say, “Lord, I am ready to be
the midwife for another. I am ready to do Your will. I am ready to bring
life, faith, hope, healing to another. Use me, Lord.”
Our
God still performs miracles today. Moses was a miracle. He was born
by the intervention of a midwife, through the care of his sister, through the
unlikely compassion of the evil pharaoh’s loving daughter and the nursing love
of his birth mother. The miracle is that God intervened on Israel’s
behalf at just the right time with the birth of a savior. Jesus
Christ our Lord came this way: as a miracle to an obscure place in supernatural
arrangements and with threats all around. The answer to your own prayer
will come this way, as well. God most often comes to us not as a King on
a steed but as a baby in a reed basket, surrounded by crocs, unseen, unknown,
yet powerful to save.
In Christ,
Brown
