Theology on Thursday

“God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). This simple declaration from the Apostle Paul expresses the fundamental Christian conviction regarding the Incarnation which the Church has labored strenuously to understand, preserve and defend. One of the foremost defenders of orthodox Christology in the history of the Church is Athanasius.

Athanasius was a fourth century bishop-theologian from Egypt. Born around AD 298, he lived in Alexandria. At that time, Alexandria was the chief learning center in the Roman Empire. Around AD 320, Arius, a priest in Alexandria, began teaching that Christ Jesus was “a god,” but that he did not exist eternally as “the God.” At that point in history, Athanasius was a newly ordained deacon and served as an assistant to Bishop Alexander. The deacon responded to the Arian heresy by proclaiming that the Father’s begetting of the Son was to be understood in the context of an eternal relation, not as a temporal event. Arius was condemned by the bishops of Egypt (with the exception of Secundus of Ptolemais and Theonas of Marmorica).

Arius then traveled to Nicomedia, from where he wrote letters of defense and explanation to Church leaders throughout the world. His teachings were creating chaos within the life of the Church all over the empire. Constantine, desiring peace within his realm, called a council of bishops together at Nicea (near modern Instanbul) in AD 325. 317 bishops, from both the East and the West, were present (though most were from the East). Athanasius accompanied Bishop Alexander yet became recognized as the chief spokesman for orthodoxy. He articulated clearly that Jesus Christ is fully God, co-eternal and co-equal with God the Father. The Council of Nicea formulated a creedal statement to express the orthodox view of Christ’s divinity. The Greek term “homoousios,” meaning “of the same substance, essence, or nature,” was employed to prevent the heresy of Arianism from circumventing orthodoxy with clever semantics. Of the 317 bishops, only two did not affirm the creed – Secundus and Theonas.

Shortly following the Council of Nicea the Arians mounted a theological uprising, refusing to accept the decision of the Council. The orthodox bishops began to negotiate with the Arians and considered various creedal statements that would soften the Nicene formula. Athanasius, who succeeded Alexander as Bishop of Alexandria in A.D. 328, refused to negotiate. He declared that if the orthodox made peace with the Arians their ultimate priority, then they would eventually sacrifice the truth. He defended the full deity of Jesus Christ at all costs before bishops, theologians and politicians. His magnum opus in this regard is De Incarnatione Verbi Dei (On the Incarnation).  His defense of the faith led his adversaries to brand him as a troublemaker and led to his banishment from Alexandria on five different occasions.

Due to Athanasius’ persistence, Christians began to understand the implications of his arguments, realizing that the surrender of the original Nicene formulation would result in the abandonment of biblical Christianity. For this reason, the Council of Constantinople convened in A.D. 381 and reaffirmed the Nicene formula. Today, the most comprehensive confession regarding the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is the Athanasian Creed (also known as Quicunque Vult). It takes its name, obviously, from the bold bishop from Egypt. Though the bishop did not author this creed, it nonetheless affirms his convictions and those of orthodox Christians around the globe. It maintains:

Whoever desires to be saved should above all
hold to the catholic faith.
Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken
will doubtless perish eternally.

Now this is the catholic faith:

That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,
neither blending their Persons nor dividing their essence.
For the Person of the Father is a distinct person,
the Person of the Son is another,
and that of the Holy Spirit still another.
But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one,
Their glory equal, Their majesty co-eternal.

What quality the Father has,
the Son has,
and the Holy Spirit has.
The Father is uncreated,
the Son is uncreated,
the Holy Spirit is uncreated.

The Father is immeasurable,
the Son is immeasurable,
the Holy Spirit is immeasurable.
The Father is eternal,
the Son is eternal,
the Holy Spirit is eternal.

And yet there are not three eternal beings;
there is but one eternal Being.
So too there are not three uncreated
or immeasurable beings;
there is but one uncreated
and immeasurable Being.

Similarly, the Father is almighty,
the Son is almighty,
the Holy Spirit is almighty.
Yet there are not three almighty beings;
there is but one almighty Being.

Thus the Father is God,
the Son is God,
the Holy Spirit is God.
Yet there are not three gods;
there is but one God.

Thus the Father is Lord,
the Son is Lord,
the Holy Spirit is Lord.
Yet there are not three lords;
there is but one Lord.

Just as Christian truth compels us to confess
each Person individually
as both God and Lord,
so catholic religion forbids us
to say that there are three gods or lords.

The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten from anyone.
The Son was neither made nor created;
He was begotten from the Father alone.
The Holy Spirit was neither made nor created nor begotten;
He proceeds from the Father and the Son.

Accordingly there is one Father, not three fathers;
there is one Son, not three sons;
there is one Holy Spirit, not three holy spirits.

Nothing in this Trinity is before or after,
nothing is greater or smaller;
in Their entirety the Three Persons
are co-eternal and coequal with each other.

So in everything, as was said earlier,
we must worship Their trinity in their unity
and their unity in their trinity.

Anyone then who desires to be saved
should think thus about the Trinity.
But it is necessary for eternal salvation
that one also believe in the incarnation
of our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully.

Now this is the true faith:

That we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ,
God’s Son, is both God and human, equally.

He is God from the essence of the Father,
begotten before time;
and He is human from the essence of his mother,
born in time;
completely God, completely human,
with a rational soul and human flesh;
equal to the Father as regards divinity,
less than the Father as regards humanity.

Although He is God and human,
yet Christ is not two, but one.
He is one, however,
not by His divinity being turned into flesh,
but by God’s taking humanity to Himself.
He is one, certainly not by the blending of His essence,
but by the unity of His Person.
For just as one human is both rational soul and flesh,
so too the one Christ is both God and human.

He suffered for our salvation;
He descended to hell;
He arose from the dead;
He ascended to heaven;
He is seated at the Father’s right hand;
from there He will come to judge the living and the dead.
At His coming all people will arise bodily
and give an accounting of their own deeds.
Those who have done good will enter eternal life,
and those who have done evil will enter eternal fire.

This is the catholic faith:
one cannot be saved without believing it firmly and faithfully.

Theology on Thursday

Theodore Beza (June 24, 1519 – October 13, 1605), a French Evangelical theologian, played a vital role in the Reformation. A disciple of John Calvin in Geneva, Beza succeeded his mentor as the leading pastor-theologian in the Swiss city. He was famous in his own lifetime as a humanist, orator, biblical scholar, and leader in both religious and political issues. He used his influence to provide refugees a safe haven in Geneva following the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (1572). Today’s edition of Theology on Thursday contains an excerpt from Beza’s Confession of Faith, produced in 1558. It provides a clear summary of the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. During this Christmas Season we celebrate God becoming Man. Beza helps us comprehend this incredible mystery more plainly.

Why it was necessary that Jesus Christ be true man in nature, in His body and in His soul, but without any sin
It was necessary that the Mediator of this covenant and this reconciliation be true man, but without any stain of original sin or any other, for the following reasons:

Firstly, since God is very righteous and man is the object of His wrath, because of natural corruption (1 Tim 2:5; John 1:14; Rom 1:3; Gal 4:4; Rom 8:2-4; 1 Cor. 1:30), it was necessary in order to reconcile men with God, that there be a true man in whom the ruins caused by this corruption would be totally repaired.

Secondly, man is compelled to fulfil all the righteousness which God demands from him in order to be glorified (Matt 3:15; Rom 5:18; 2 Cor. 5:21). It was therefore necessary that there be a man who would perfectly fulfil all righteousness in order to please God.

Thirdly, all men are covered with an infinite number of sins, as much internal as external; that is why they are liable to the curse of God (Rom 3:23-26; Is 53: 11, etc). It was therefore necessary that there be a man who would fully satisfy the justice of God in order to pacify Him.

Finally, no corrupt man would have been able, in any way, to even begin to fulfil the least of these actions. He would first of all have had need of a Redeemer for himself (Rom 8:2; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb 4:15; 1 Pet 2:22; 3:18; 1 John 2:1-2). So much was necessary for himself before he could buy back the others, or could do anything pleasing or satisfying to God (Rom 14:23; Heb 11:6). It was therefore necessary that the Mediator and Redeemer of men be true man in his body and in his soul, and that he be, nevertheless, entirely pure and free from all sin.

Why it was necessary that Jesus Christ be true God
It was necessary that this same Mediator be true God and not only man (John 1:14, etc); at the very least for the following reasons:

Firstly, if He was not true God, He would not be Saviour at all, but would himself have need of a Saviour (Is 43:11; Hos. 13:4; Jer. 17:5-8).

Secondly, it is necessary, from the justice of God, that there be a relationship between the crime and its punishment. The crime is infinite, for it is committed against One whose majesty is infinite. Therefore there is here need of an infinite satisfaction; for the same reason, it was necessary that the One who would accomplish it as true man be also infinite, that is to say, true God.

Thirdly, the wrath of God being infinite, there was no human or angelic strength known which could bear such a weight without being crushed (John 14:10,12,31; 16:32; 2 Cor. 5:19). He who was to live again, after having conquered the devil, sin, the world and death united to the wrath of God, had to be therefore not only perfect man, but also true God.
Lastly, in order to better manifest this incomprehensible goodness, God did not wish that His grace should only equal our crime; He willed that where sin abounds, grace superabounds (Rom 5:15-21). For this reason, while he was created in the image of God, the first Adam, author of our sin, was earthly, as his ‘frailty showed well (1 Cor. 15:45-47). Jesus Christ, on the contrary, the second Adam, through whom we are saved, while being true and perfect man, is nevertheless the Lord come from Heaven, that is to say, the true God. For, in essence, all the fullness of divinity dwells in Him (Col. 2:9). If the disobedience of Adam made us fall, the righteousness of Jesus Christ gives us more security than we had previously. We hope for life procured by Jesus Christ, better than that which we lost in Adam; even more so as Jesus Christ surpasses Adam.

How the mystery of our salvation has been accomplished in Jesus Christ
Therefore we confess that, in order to fulfil the covenant promised to the ancient fathers and predicted by the mouth of the prophets (Is 7:14; Luke 1:31,35,55,70) the true, unique and eternal Son of God the Father (Rom 1:3; John 17:5; 16:28; Phil 2:6-7) took, at the time appointed by the Father, the form of a servant. Being conceived in the womb of the blessed virgin Mary, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and without any operation of man (Matt 1:20; Luke 1:28,35), He took human nature with all its infirmities, sin excepted (Heb. 4:15; 5:2).

The two natures, that of God and that of man, have been united in one Person since the moment of the conception of the flesh of Christ. We confess that, from the moment of this conception, the Person of the Son has been inseparably united to the human nature (Matt 1:20; Luke 1:31,32,35,42,43). There are not two Sons of God, or two Jesus Christs: but One alone is properly Son of God, Jesus Christ. At all times the properties of each of the two natures remain entire and distinct. For the divinity separated from the humanity, or the humanity disjoined from the divinity, or the one being confounded with the other, would profit us nothing.

Jesus Christ is therefore true God and true man (Matt 1:21-23, Luke 1:35). He has a true human soul, and a true human body formed from the substance of the virgin Mary, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. By this means, he was conceived and born of this virgin Mary, virgin, I say, before and after the birth. And all this was accomplished for our redemption.

Summary of the accomplishment of our salvation in Jesus Christ
He therefore descended to earth to draw us up to Heaven. (Eph. 2:6). From the moment of His conception until His resurrection, He bore the punishment of our sins in order to unburden us of them (Matt 11:28; 1 Pet 2:24; 3:18; Is 53:11). He perfectly fulfilled all righteousness so as to cover our unrighteousness (Rom 5:19; Matt 3:15). He has revealed to us the whole will of God His Father, by His words and by the example of His life, so as to show us the true way of salvation (John 15:15; Acts 1:1-2).

Finally, to crown the satisfaction for our sins which He took upon Himself (Is 53:4-5), He was captured in order to release us, condemned so that we might be acquitted. He suffered infinite reproach in order to place us beyond all shame. He was nailed to the cross for our sins to be nailed there (Col. 2:14). He died bearing the curse which we deserved, so as to appease for ever the wrath of God through the accomplishment of His unique sacrifice (Gal 3:13; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb 10:10,14). He was entombed to show the truth of His death, and to vanquish death even in its own house, that is to say even in the grave; He experienced no corruption there, to show that, even while dead, he had conquered death (Acts 2:31). He was raised again victorious so that, all our corruption being dead and buried, we might be renewed in new, spiritual and eternal life (Rom 6; and nearly everywhere in St. Paul). By this means, the first death is no longer to us a punishment for sin and an entrance into the second death, but, on the contrary, is the ending of our corruption and an entrance into life eternal. Lastly, being raised again and then having spoken throughout forty days here below to give evidence of His resurrection (Acts 1:3,9-11), He ascended visibly and really far above all heavens, where He sat down at the right hand of God His Father (John 14:2). Having taken possession for us of His eternal kingdom, He is, for us also, the sole Mediator and Advocate (1 Tim 2:5; Heb 1:3; 9:24), and governs His Church by His Holy Spirit, until the number of the elect of God, His Father, is completed (Matt 28:20, etc).

Never Forget

December 7, 1941, a day which will forever live in infamy.  May we never forget the sacrifices, particular the ultimate ones, made by our military members in defense of our nation.

At 7:58 AM, the alarm was heard: “Air raid, Pearl Harbor. This is not drill!”

The USS West Virginia and the USS Tennessee on fire after being hit by torpedoes.

At 7:56 A.M., the USS Arizona was rocked by two explosions. PFC James Cory recalls, “I think that at this moment I wanted to flee, but this was impossible. You’re on station, you’re in combat.”

The attack upon Pearl Harbor’s Naval Air Station resulted in the destruction and damage of 21 ships and 347 aircraft. 2,350 servicemen were killed while 1,178 were injured. 68 civilians were also killed. Of the military personnel who lost their lives in service to their nation, 1,177 were from the USS Arizona.

The US Navy rescues a sailor who jumped overboard after a torpedo hit the USS West Virginia, which sank beside the USS Tennessee.

The USS Oklahoma upside down in the harbor. Seaman Garlen W. Eslick remembers, “We could hear the boys, some of them, in this one compartment next to us, and they were hollering for help for a good long time. There wasn’t anything we could do about it, and then they became quiet. They evidently drowned.”

Another day will forever live in infamy – September 11, 2001.  May we never forget.

Muslim Mob Violence Erupts in Egypt

During the early morning hours on Saturday, November 21, the Upper Egyptian town of Farshoot and the neighboring villages of Abou Shousha, Kom Ahmar, Shakiki, and Ezbet Waziri were filled with Muslim mob violence against Coptic Christians.  The violence was prompted by allegations of the sexual abuse of a 12-year-old-girl by 21-year-old Copt Guirgis Baroumi on November 18.  Baroumi has been detained by the police pending evidence from investigation and forensic testing.  The mob congregated in front of police headquarters in Farshoot in order to abduct and murder the alleged perpetrator who was to be transferred.

The mob of 3000 vandalized, looted, and burned the property of Copts, effectively decimating the Christian economy in Farshoot.  Muslims made wooden crosses and burned them in the streets.  Coptic-owned businesses, pharmacies and automobiles in Farshoot and Ezbet Waziri were completely destroyed.  Seven Coptic women were abducted.  Many Christian families were evicted forcibly from their homes, which are now occupied by Muslims.  The Rev. Benjamin Noshi, a Coptic priest, was driving when the mob forced him to stop his vehicle.  They assaulted him, fracturing his skull.  He is currently in a local hospital receiving treatment.    Reuters Cairo reported the “chaos is overwhelming.”

Bishop Kirollos believed the attacks were preplanned, and students from the Islamic Al-Azhar Institute in Farshoot were used to spark the rioting.  The bishop pointed out that even if the allegations are true, such an indecent assault was an individual incident and does not call for the massive attack against peaceful Christians.  He also pointed out Christians have denounced such immoral acts which are contrary to Christian teaching.

Please pray for peace to be restored to this region; for the girl who was raped to experience physical and emotional healing; and for the truth to come to light in the case.  Pray for justice – for the actual attacker (whether Baroumi or another man) to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and for those involved with the mob violence to be prosecuted as well.  Pray for the Coptic Christians who have suffered material loss and the means of their livelihood.  Pray for the salvation of the rioters.

HT: Assyrian International News Agency / Assist News Service / Voice of the Martyrs

Crackdown in Kyrgyzstan

Unregistered religious activity is now outlawed in Kyrgyzstan under the Religion Law which was passed in January.  Muslims, which garner the ethnic majority in the nation, have registered their mosques with ease while Protestant congregations and other religious minorities, which have several hurdles to overcome in gaining legal status, have not registered.  Registration includes providing the names and personal data of members, something which Alexsandr Shumilin of the Baptist Union told Forum 18 News the congregations are unwilling to do.  Evangelical leaders do not believe registration is an option if they are to protect their people.  Authorities in Kyrgyzstan have stated they are willing to shut down Christian congregations in order to pacify the Islamic majority.  Christians in many villages now face the threat of physical violence and eviction from their homes.

Please pray for God to encourage Christians in Kyrgyzstan and to make them bold for Christ Jesus.  Ask God to use their witness to draw many to Himself.

HT: Voice of the Martyrs / Forum 18 News

Why Thanksgiving?

The Pilgrims, English Puritans who fled from the religious persecution they were experiencing in Britain, moved to Holland in 1609. Although they prospered in Holland they were concerned because their children were influenced by the Dutch culture. They determined to move to the New World. They received financial backing from merchants in England which covered travel and supplies, agreeing to labor for the merchants for seven years. 44 Pilgrims boarded the Mayflower with 66 other passengers, dubbed “the Strangers” by the Pilgrims, on September 6, 1620. They landed 65 days later.

The group attempted to settle in Plymouth but the bitter cold and heavy sleet and snow interfered with construction. Of the 110 who arrived in November 1620, less than 50 lived until spring. Samoset, an Abnaki who lived with the local Patuxet tribe, entered the settlement on March 16, 1621. The Pilgrims were amazed when he greeted them in their own language. They discovered that he learned English from fishing captains who sailed off the American coast. Samoset returned shortly with Squanto, who had an even better command of the English language. He told the new inhabitants of his voyages to Britain and Spain.

Squanto helped the Pilgrims immeasurably. They received a wealth of information from him. He taught them such things as how to distinguish between plants that were helpful and harmful, how to plant corn and other crops, and how to tap maples for their sap. The 1621 harvest in October was quite successful. There was much to celebrate: peace with their native neighbors, an abundance of food and stores, the completed construction of homes and village buildings, and life itself. Governor William Bradford proclaimed a day of thanksgiving for the settlers and invited their Native American neighbors to join the celebration. The chief of the Patuxets, Massasoit, led 90 of his braves to the three-day feast. In addition to the feast, the celebrants played various games, demonstrated their archery and musket marksmanship, and shared music together.

The following year, the Pilgrims did not experience a harvest as successful as the first. During the year they shared their stores with newcomers, resulting in a food shortage. The next year brought extreme heat and drought. Bradford called the Pilgrims to day of prayer and fasting. Rain soon fell. A day of thanksgiving was proclaimed on November 29. The annual custom of celebrating thanksgiving after the harvest continued after that year.

During the American War of Independence an official day of national thanksgiving was suggested by the Continental Congress. In 1817, the state of New York adopted Thanksgiving Day as an official annual custom. Other states followed suit, and in 1863 Abraham Lincoln appointed a national Day of Thanksgiving. Each U.S. President since has issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation, appointing the fourth Thursday of each November as a holiday for giving thanks to God for His blessings.

Christian Presence in Chechnya Eliminated

The North Caucasus region in Russia, located between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, are being affected greatly by a counterinsurgency forwarded by Islamic jihadists.  The Islamists, backed by the Saudi dominated Wahhabists, are fighting under the black flag of the “Caucasus Emirate” and have increased their terrorist attacks since this past summer.  Christian congregations in the region, primarily Russian Orthodox, Baptist, and Pentecostal, are being affected greatly by the struggle.  Due to its ethnic ties, the Orthodox Church has a close association with the nation’s capital, Moscow, and the Russian army.  The Christian presence in Chechnya has already been eliminated.  Due to a strength of force by Chechnya’s president, Ramzan Kadyrov, the Islamists are now focusing their attacks upon neighboring Ingushetia.  If current trends continue, some believe the Russian army will be dominated by a majority of Muslims in five years (2015).

Please pray for Christians in the Caucusus region to remain firm in the faith during a time of great uncertainty and oppression.

Theology on Thursday

With Thanksgiving just a week away, it seems only appropriate to consider the real meaning of the holiday.  Today’s edition of Theology on Thursday does so by publishing the introductory portion of Charles H. Spurgeon’s sermon, “Thanksgiving and Prayer,” which was preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on September 27, 1863.

“Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness.” — Psalm 65:11

POSSIBLY objections might have been raised to a day of thanksgiving for the abundant harvest if it had been ordered or suggested by Government. Certain brethren are so exceedingly tender in their consciences upon the point of connection between Church and State, that they would have thought it almost a reason for not being thankful at all if the Government had recommended them to celebrate a day of public thanksgiving.  Although I have no love to the unscriptural union of Church and State, I should on this occasion have hailed an official request for a national recognition of the special goodness of God. However, none of us can feel any objection arising in our minds if it be now agreed that to-day we will praise our ever-bounteous Lord, and as an assembly record our gratitude to the God of the harvest. We are probably the largest assembly of Christian people in the world, and it is well that we should set the example to the smaller Churches. Doubtless many other believers will follow in our track, and so a public thanksgiving will become general throughout the country. I hope to see every congregation in the land raising a special offering unto the Lord, to be devoted either to his Church, to the poor, to missions, or some other holy end. . . .

. . . . All the year round, every hour of every day, God is richly blessing us; both when we sleep and when we wake, his mercy waits upon us. The sun may leave off shining, but our God will never cease to cheer his children with his love. Like a river his lovingkindness is always flowing, with a fullness inexhaustible as his own nature, which is its source. Like the atmosphere which always surrounds the earth, and is always ready to support the life of man, the benevolence of God surrounds all his creatures; in it, as in their element they live, and move, and have their being. Yet as the sun on summer days appears to gladden us with beams more warm and bright than at other times, and as rivers are at certain seasons swollen with the rain, and as the atmosphere itself on occasions is fraught with more fresh, more bracing, or more balmy influences than heretofore, so is it with the mercy of God: it hath its golden hours, its days of overflow, when the Lord magnifieth his grace and lifteth high his love before the sons of men.

If we begin with the blessings of the nether springs, we must not forget that for the race of man the joyous days of harvest are a special season of excessive favor. It is the glory of autumn that the ripe gifts of providence are then abundantly bestowed; it is the mellow season of realization, whereas all before was but hope and expectation. Great is the joy of harvest. Happy are the reapers who fill their arms with the liberality of heaven. The Psalmist tells us that the harvest is the crowning of the year. What if I compare the opening spring to the proclamation of a new prince, the latest born of Father Time? With the musical voices of birds, and the joyfull lowing of herds, a new era of fertility is ushered in. Every verdant meadow and every leaping brook hears the joyful proclamation and feels a new life within. The little hills rejoice on every side; they shout for joy; they also sing. Throughout the warm months of summer the royal year is robing itself in beauty, and adorning itself in sumptuous array. What with the plates of ivory, yielded by the lilies, the rubies of the rose, the emeralds of the meads, and all manner of fair colors from the many flowers, we may well say, that “Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” No studs of silver or rows of jewels can vie with the ornaments of the year. No garments of needlework of divers colors can match the glorious vesture of Time’s reigning son. But the moment of the coronation, when earth feels most the sway of the year, is in the fullness of autumn. Then when the fields are covered with a cloth of gold, and fruits are glowing with the rich hues of ripeness, and the leaves are burnished with inimitable perfection of tint and shade, then with a coronal of divine goodness, amidst the glad shouts of toiling swains, and the songs of rejoicing maidens, the year is crowned. Upon a throne of golden corn, with the peaceful sickle for his scepter, sits the crowned year bearing the goodness of the Lord as a coronet upon his placid brow. Or, what if we compare the year to a conqueror, striving at first with stern winter, wrestling hard against all his boisterous attacks, at last joyfully conquering in the fair days of spring; riding in triumph throughout the summer along a pathway strewed with flowers, and at last mounting the throne, amidst the festivities of harvest, while the Lord in lovingkindness puts a diadem of beauty and goodness upon its head?

“Cheerfulness and holy pleasure
Well become our happy isle,
When our God in copious measure
Deigns to bless us with his smile;
Joyful, then, all people come,
Celebrate the harvest home.”

We may forget the harvest, living as we do, so far from rural labors, but those who have to watch the corn as it springs up, and track it through all its numberless dangers, until the blade becomes the full corn in the ear, cannot, surely, forget the wonderful goodness and mercy of God when they see the harvest safely stored. My brethren, if we require any considerations to excite us to gratitude, let us think for a moment of the effect upon our country of a total failure of the crops. Suppose to-day it were reported that as yet the corn was not carried, that the continued showers had made it sprout and grow till there was no hope of its being of any further use, and that it might as well be left in the fields. What dismay would that message carry into every cottage! Who among us could contemplate the future without dismay? All faces would gather blackness. All classes would sorrow, and even the throne itself might fitly be covered with sackcloth at the news.

Shall we not bless and praise our covenant God who permits not the appointed weeks of harvest to fail? Sing together all ye to whom bread is the staff of life, and rejoice before him who loadeth you with benefits. We have none of us any adequate idea of the amount of happiness conferred upon a nation by a luxuriant crop. Every man in the land is the richer for it. To the poor man the difference is of the utmost importance. His three shillings are now worth four; there is more bread for the children, or more money for clothes. Millions are benefitted by God’s once opening his liberal hand. When the Hebrews went through the desert, there were but some two or three millions of them, and yet they sang sweetly of him who fed his chosen people; in our own land alone we have ten times the number, have we no hallowed music for the God of the whole earth?  Let us not despise the bounty of God because this great boon comes in a natural way. If every morning when we awoke we saw fresh loaves of bread put into our cupboard, or the morning’s meal set out upon the table, we should think it a miracle; but if our God blesses our own exertions and prospers our own toil to the same end, is it not equally as much a ground for praising and blessing his name? I would I had this morning the tongue of the eloquent, or even my own usual strength, to excite you to gratitude, by the spectacle of the multitudes of beings whom God has made happy by the fruit of the field. My sickness to-day, makes my thoughts wander and unfits me for so noble a theme, yet my soul pants to set your hearts on a blaze. O for heaven’s own fire to kindle your hearts. O come, let us worship and bow down, let us exalt the Lord our God, and come into his presence with the voice of joy and thanksgiving.

Islamists Murder Pastor

Al-Shabab, an insurgent Islamist group in Somalia, murdered pastor Ali Hussein Weheliye on October 10th.  The pastor served an underground congregation in the capital city of Mogadishu.  He was ambushed and shot by two masked assailants while returning home from a worship service.  Left for dead, Pastor Weheliye was taken to a local hospital, but died from his wounds ten days later.  The pastor converted from Islam in 1999, while working as a linguist, and entered ministry in 2002.  He is survived by a wife and daughter who are now in hiding.

Pastor Weheliye is the thirteenth Christian leader murdered by Somali Islamists this year.  Al-Shabab dominates large regions of the nation and has declared it an Islamic state.  The group, which has ties to al-Qaeda, have vowed to eradicate the Christian population.  Christians comprise less than one percent of the 9.8 million residents of Somalia.  Despite the persecution, the Church is growing rapidly in Somalia.

HT: International Christian Concern

Islamists Murder Christian Woman

Three masked members of an Islamist group, Suna Waljameca, murdered Amina Muse Ali, a Somali Christian, for declining to wear a hijab (veil).  Ali, 45, was shot to death in her home in the Puntland region on October 19 at 9:30 p.m.  The murder of this Christian woman is one of many carried out by Somali Islamists over the last few months.  Please pray for the grieving families to receive comfort, and for God’s grace to reach the Islamists.

HT: Compass Direct News / Voice of the Martyrs