Good Morning,
Praise the Lord for this fabulous Friday. It is going to be a beautiful and brilliant day. Praise the Lord for the first day of spring. We have had a very hard and long winter. Praise the Lord for the way He brings the seasons and beautifies the earth, with so much love and grace. The crocus are in full bloom. We have a bee hive in one of the old trees by the parsonage, where the bees are out in full strength. The geese are back. You can hear the "Holy Honk"on the hour and off the hour. Indeed, weeping may tarry for the night but the joy comes in the morning. Praise the Lord for the beauty of the earth.
Last night the Binghamton University men's basketball team played against Duke University. Laureen came home and we all watched the game religiously. All four of our girls, starting with Janice, have been Duke basketball fans. They have converted their mom in to their camp. Alice is driving up to Boston today to spend the first weekend of Spring with Micah, Simeon, and their parents.
We continue to journey to Jerusalem with Jesus and focus on His Passion . Usually I read some of the powerful prophesies regarding Christ's vicarious suffering recorded in the Book of Isaiah. We can read even in the Book of Zechariah regarding the prophecy about our Lord's suffering.
The prophet Zechariah, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, was both a prophet and a priest. His work was to stir up the people in the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem but he too was given a wonderful insight in the coming of the Messiah when he predicted, ‘The desire of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory’ (2:7). Zechariah’s special emphasis was on the need of national and personal repentance and renewal and how it would be achieved in the coming of Jesus, still some 500 years in the future. Interspersed with stern words of denouncing sin, Zechariah’s prophecy contains brilliant shafts of light on the person and work of the Messiah. They are words which are quoted in the Gospels as a clear foretelling of what actually happened. There’s what we now recognize as the Palm Sunday event: ‘Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey’(9:9). Zechariah also foretold that the scene of superficial rejoicing would not last long. The prophet had to follow up with increasingly somber messages. The king’s shepherd is rejected: ‘Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is close to me! … Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered’ (13:7). But there’s worse to come: ‘They will look on me, the one they have pierced’ (12:10). The prophecies clearly point to the fulfillment of the earlier prophecy of Isaiah when he foretold to the letter that the Servant of the Lord would suffer for the sin of the world (Isaiah 53), and so vividly portrayed in the gospel stories of the Passion of the Lord Jesus Christ (Matt. 26 and 27) In recording what Zechariah saw in his prophetic eye, he repeated a phrase: ‘on that day’ (12:3,4,6,8,9; 13:1,2,4). Zechariah is referring to ‘the day of the Lord’, a phrase used by many of the prophets and also found in the New Testament. It’s a period of time or a special ‘day’ when God is working out His plan of salvation, looking forward to the time when Christ will be seen to reign over the universe in the new heaven and earth (Phil. 2:6-11). The final fulfillment of ‘the day of the Lord’ will come at the end of history when with wonderful power God will deal with evil and restore His rule. The problem of sin is the central problem in the Old Testament. Sin began in the Garden of Eden and will not be eradicated until the final ‘day of the Lord’. But how is it to happen? Zechariah supplies the key: ‘On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity’ (13:1).
Zechariah’s prophecy tells us of the climax of God’s revelation of His plan of salvation; it’s the crux of the gospel. But it was no afterthought to deal with sinful mankind. It had been conceived in the Eternal Council of Almighty God even before the foundation of the world to bring redemption to His lost creation. It’s what the writer to the Hebrews described as ‘so great salvation’ (2:1). Zechariah specifically states that there will be a special fountain that was ‘to cleanse … from sin and impurity.’ t. Right back at the Fall, God had promised a rescue mission to mankind: He told Satan, ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel’ (Gen. 3:15), a clear anticipation of One who would defeat the devil, albeit at great cost to Himself. Zechariah states that ‘a fountain will be opened’. The anticipations of the Messiah clearly show that the ‘fountain’ was already in existence but waiting to be unveiled. The apostle Peter tells his Christian readers that Jesus, ‘a lamb without blemish or defect … was chosen before the creation of the world’ and what’s more, their redemption was only made possible ‘with the precious blood of Christ’ (1 Peter 1:19,20). A fountain conveys the image of something which is always flowing, providing a constant, abundant supply of a life-giving stream. This thought is beautifully captured in the verse of a hymn: ‘There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains’ (William Cowper). The prophet tells us that ‘a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem’. It’s not just for the leaders of the people of God. It’s open for all the inhabitants of the city, however insignificant, recalling Isaiah’s words: "Come, all you who are thirsty, and you, who have no money, come buy and eat!" (55:1). It’s a universal invitation. Isaiah’s words are those which would have been used in the market place. You can imagine the street traders calling out to the passers-by to try their produce - "Come..." Zechariah is acting as the town crier at a carnival, ringing his bell and calling the crowds’ attention to this unrepeatable gift of God, ‘to cleanse them from sin and impurity.’ As the apostle John states, Jesus alone ‘is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world’ (2:2). Zechariah went on to speak of the consequences of cleansing. Changes have to be made when people are cleansed from their ‘sin and impurity’. God’s Word teaches that once you have been made righteous, you start the lifelong process of being made holy. God’s people are required to live holy lives in obedience to His commands. It’s a matter of turning our backs upon the old life and to start anew. God’s people in Zechariah’s day were told to ‘banish the names of the idols’ to be ‘remembered no more’ and to stop receiving guidance from the false ‘prophets and the spirit of impurity’ (13:2). With the eye of faith Zechariah looks forward to ‘the day of the Lord’ when the godly remnant will ‘call on the name of the Lord and I will answer them.’ God will say, ‘They are my people’ (13:9). I quoted a verse from the hymn, ‘There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins’. I read some time ago that It’s final two verses are inscribed on Spurgeon’s grave, as his testimony: ‘E’er since by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply, redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die. Then in a nobler, sweeter song I’ll sing Thy power to save, when this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.’ These are the authentic words of a true believer in Christ. May we be found among that number!
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiTIHdp5NVs
Friday, March 20, 2009
Brown's Daily Word 3-19-09
Good morning,
I studied history as part of my undergraduate studies. All of history is His story. I love to study the biographies of the servants of Jesus. I get inspired to follow Christ faithfully, and I get provoked to love Him and His people.
John Calvin (né Jean Cauvin; 10 July 1509 – 27 May 1564) was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he suddenly converted and broke from the Roman Catholic Church in the 1520s. After religious tensions provoked a violent uprising against Protestants in France, Calvin fled to Basel, Switzerland, where in 1536 he published the first edition of his seminal work Institutes of the Christian Religion.
Calvin's writing and preaching provided the seeds for the branch of theology that bears his name. The Presbyterian and other Reformed churches, which look to Calvin as a chief expositor of their beliefs, have spread throughout the world. Calvin's thought exerted considerable influence over major religious figures and entire religious movements, such as Puritanism, and his ideas have been cited as contributing to the rise of capitalism, individualism, and representative democracy in the West.
John Calvin was married to Idelette Calvin. Idelette was pregnant three times, but none of the children lived beyond infancy. Soon after coming to Geneva, Idelette gave birth to Jacques, but he lived only two weeks. John Calvin wrote to a friend, “The Lord has certainly inflicted a severe and bitter wound in the death of our infant son.” They were only married nine years when Idelette died. John described the deathbed: “She suddenly cried out in such a way that all could see that her spirit had risen far above this world. These were her words, ‘O glorious resurrection! O God of Abraham and of all our fathers, the believers of all the ages have trusted on you and none of them have hoped in vain. And now I fix my hope on you.’” After her death, he wrote: “I have been bereaved of the best companion of my life, who, if our lot had been harsher, would have been not only the willing sharer of exile and poverty, but even of death. While she lived she was the faithful helper of my ministry. From her I never experienced the slightest hindrance.” And when he sought to explain God’s will in suffering, John Calvin wrote: “Through trials and tribulations, God weans us of excessive love of this world.”
Leaning on Jesus,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VJoEe_zO_Q
I studied history as part of my undergraduate studies. All of history is His story. I love to study the biographies of the servants of Jesus. I get inspired to follow Christ faithfully, and I get provoked to love Him and His people.
John Calvin (né Jean Cauvin; 10 July 1509 – 27 May 1564) was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he suddenly converted and broke from the Roman Catholic Church in the 1520s. After religious tensions provoked a violent uprising against Protestants in France, Calvin fled to Basel, Switzerland, where in 1536 he published the first edition of his seminal work Institutes of the Christian Religion.
Calvin's writing and preaching provided the seeds for the branch of theology that bears his name. The Presbyterian and other Reformed churches, which look to Calvin as a chief expositor of their beliefs, have spread throughout the world. Calvin's thought exerted considerable influence over major religious figures and entire religious movements, such as Puritanism, and his ideas have been cited as contributing to the rise of capitalism, individualism, and representative democracy in the West.
John Calvin was married to Idelette Calvin. Idelette was pregnant three times, but none of the children lived beyond infancy. Soon after coming to Geneva, Idelette gave birth to Jacques, but he lived only two weeks. John Calvin wrote to a friend, “The Lord has certainly inflicted a severe and bitter wound in the death of our infant son.” They were only married nine years when Idelette died. John described the deathbed: “She suddenly cried out in such a way that all could see that her spirit had risen far above this world. These were her words, ‘O glorious resurrection! O God of Abraham and of all our fathers, the believers of all the ages have trusted on you and none of them have hoped in vain. And now I fix my hope on you.’” After her death, he wrote: “I have been bereaved of the best companion of my life, who, if our lot had been harsher, would have been not only the willing sharer of exile and poverty, but even of death. While she lived she was the faithful helper of my ministry. From her I never experienced the slightest hindrance.” And when he sought to explain God’s will in suffering, John Calvin wrote: “Through trials and tribulations, God weans us of excessive love of this world.”
Leaning on Jesus,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VJoEe_zO_Q
Brown's Daily Word 3-18-09
Good Morning,
The Lord gave us a brilliant day yesterday. It was one of the ten best days of March. I spent the day visiting several people, one of whom was a self employed business man. He was working in his driveway changing the brakes in his vehicle on his driveway. "I am trying to save some money working on my van." He was dirty; he cleaned his hands and gave me a hug. He shared with me that things in the world are in uproar. "They are killing Christians and Jews all over the world. I have erected a big Cross behind my house near the pond. Whenever I am distraught I look at the Cross, and the Lord gives me peace." He shared about how his stepdaughter had brain surgery few years ago, and how the Lord healed her fully. She went on to grad school and is now working for Duke University. She will be getting married in October at the Duke Chapel. He further said that when- ever friends come to visit them he tells about the victory and peace the Lord gives him, in and the through the sign of the cross.
There is a story about a little girl who proudly wore a shiny cross on a chain around her neck. One day she was approached by a man who said to her, “Little girl, don't you know that the cross Jesus died on wasn’t beautiful like the one you’re wearing? It was an ugly, wooden thing.” The girl replied, “Yes, I know. But they told me in Sunday School that whatever Jesus touches, He changes.” That is part of the message in 1 Corinthians 1:18-20, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate. Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” In verses 22-25 Paul continues, "Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength." Some time ago I read a story about a man by the name of Fred. Fred lives in Afghanistan, and he relates this story about a Muslim woman, a university professor, attending an English class taught by YWAM volunteers. The woman said, “I started to go to sleep & suddenly my bedroom filled with light. At the foot of my bed stood Jesus, & I knew He had come to kill me!” The previous day she had stormed out of the English class after the teacher had begun to answer questions and to speak about Jesus to his students. As she stormed out she cursed the teacher. “I cursed you all the way home,” she told him. “I went home and I lay in bed and I was praying, ‘Allah, I want you to kill those people because they are not English teachers – they are missionaries and I want them out of my country! Kill them!’”It was then that she saw the vision of Jesus standing at the foot of her bed. “I knew He had come to kill me because I was asking Allah to kill His workers. So I got out of bed on my hands and knees. I was trembling, and I crawled to the feet of Jesus, waiting for Him to slay me... As I was trembling at His feet, I started to feel warm all over. I started to feel love wash over my body – love and mercy. I looked up at Him,” she said. “Jesus was so beautiful, I had to give Him my heart.” (Pray Magazine, Sept-Oct, 2002, pg 17) Today, that woman, a university professor, is a Christian who earnestly tells her students that Jesus is real, and that He is her Savior and Lord. Amazingly, from all throughout the Muslim world there are similar accounts surfacing. Jesus is real. Jesus is alive. The one who was slain from the foundations of the world is at work throughout the world, capturing hearts and changing lives.
In Him,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZW44LCiXoA
The Lord gave us a brilliant day yesterday. It was one of the ten best days of March. I spent the day visiting several people, one of whom was a self employed business man. He was working in his driveway changing the brakes in his vehicle on his driveway. "I am trying to save some money working on my van." He was dirty; he cleaned his hands and gave me a hug. He shared with me that things in the world are in uproar. "They are killing Christians and Jews all over the world. I have erected a big Cross behind my house near the pond. Whenever I am distraught I look at the Cross, and the Lord gives me peace." He shared about how his stepdaughter had brain surgery few years ago, and how the Lord healed her fully. She went on to grad school and is now working for Duke University. She will be getting married in October at the Duke Chapel. He further said that when- ever friends come to visit them he tells about the victory and peace the Lord gives him, in and the through the sign of the cross.
There is a story about a little girl who proudly wore a shiny cross on a chain around her neck. One day she was approached by a man who said to her, “Little girl, don't you know that the cross Jesus died on wasn’t beautiful like the one you’re wearing? It was an ugly, wooden thing.” The girl replied, “Yes, I know. But they told me in Sunday School that whatever Jesus touches, He changes.” That is part of the message in 1 Corinthians 1:18-20, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate. Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” In verses 22-25 Paul continues, "Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength." Some time ago I read a story about a man by the name of Fred. Fred lives in Afghanistan, and he relates this story about a Muslim woman, a university professor, attending an English class taught by YWAM volunteers. The woman said, “I started to go to sleep & suddenly my bedroom filled with light. At the foot of my bed stood Jesus, & I knew He had come to kill me!” The previous day she had stormed out of the English class after the teacher had begun to answer questions and to speak about Jesus to his students. As she stormed out she cursed the teacher. “I cursed you all the way home,” she told him. “I went home and I lay in bed and I was praying, ‘Allah, I want you to kill those people because they are not English teachers – they are missionaries and I want them out of my country! Kill them!’”It was then that she saw the vision of Jesus standing at the foot of her bed. “I knew He had come to kill me because I was asking Allah to kill His workers. So I got out of bed on my hands and knees. I was trembling, and I crawled to the feet of Jesus, waiting for Him to slay me... As I was trembling at His feet, I started to feel warm all over. I started to feel love wash over my body – love and mercy. I looked up at Him,” she said. “Jesus was so beautiful, I had to give Him my heart.” (Pray Magazine, Sept-Oct, 2002, pg 17) Today, that woman, a university professor, is a Christian who earnestly tells her students that Jesus is real, and that He is her Savior and Lord. Amazingly, from all throughout the Muslim world there are similar accounts surfacing. Jesus is real. Jesus is alive. The one who was slain from the foundations of the world is at work throughout the world, capturing hearts and changing lives.
In Him,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZW44LCiXoA
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