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

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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

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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
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