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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