Tag Archives: C.H. Spurgeon

Thursday Thoughts

This is the view from our desk where I read, study and blog on most days. I really appreciate the view. One of the books I am reading right now in my morning devotions besides the ever constant Bible is One Foundation (Essays on the Sufficiency of Scripture) compiled by Grace to You. This post is for me so I don’t forget what I’ve read and want to remember.

This is a quote from Spurgeon that Steven J. Lawson shared in his essay on The Standard of Sound Words: A Mandate for the Pulpit:

Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. (2 Tim. 1:13)

Spurgeon maintained,

Theology hath nothing new in it except that which is false. The preaching of Paul must be the preaching of the minister today. There is no advancement here. We may advance in our knowledge of it; but it stands the same, for this good reason, that it is perfect, and perfection cannot be any better. The old truth that Calvin preached, that Chrysostom preached, that Paul preached, is the truth that I must preach to-day, or else be a liar to my conscience and my God. I can not shape the truth. I know of no such thing as paring off the rough edges of a doctrine. John Knox’s gospel is my gospel. That which thundered through Scotland must thunder through England again…For wherever there is not the old gospel we shall find “Ichabod” written upon the church walls ere long. The truth of the Covenanters, the old truth of the Puritans, the old truth of the Apostles, is the only truth that will stand the test of time, and never need to be altered to suit a wicked and ungodly generation. Christ Jesus preaches to-day the same as when he preached upon the mount; he hath not changed his doctrines; men may ridicule and laugh, but still they stand the same–semper idem* written upon every one of them. They shall not be removed or altered.

Spurgeon rightly understood the necessity of this theological continuity from one generation to the next. Cultures change. Seasons change. Fashions change. But the truth never changes.

From our house to yours, some views of our Country Bungalow yesterday when the sun was shining and the skies were blue.

And…

…so thankful for these boots that I bought at Goodwill before we moved to Colville. They were a bit pricey for Goodwill at $14.99 but I knew they were quality boots. Keen Dry boots which sell new at $100 or more. They are perfect for snow and temps below freezing. Great for snowshoeing, too.

We had a couple more inches of snow overnight.

Today is our son Dan’s birthday. We are happy and thankful to live in the same zipcode as him and his family. Happy Birthday to you dear son of ours!

We’ll be celebrating both Jamie and Dan’s birthdays tomorrow evening with a dinner here at our country bungalow.

Happy Thursday everyone!

*semper idem: always the same

Recap of 2019

This is a non-exhaustive recap of 2019 with photos, words, and many quotes that were important to me during the year.

January: 1st home purchase for Andrew and Katie, milestone birthday for Josh, Family trip to Arizona.

Journal entries to remember:

From sermons in Joshua: Wilkening

Bread of Life: The Bible has everything we need for daily nutrition of our souls.

February: Introduction to snowshoeing, Dinners, Testimonies to Deacons.

Journal Entries:

MacArthur: Christian love operates within the parameters of Biblical knowledge and spiritual discernment. 

No matter how loving an act or a word might seem, if it violates knowledge and discernment it is not Christian love.

Dorothy Sayers: It is not the business of the church to adapt Christ to men, but men to Christ.

March: Birthday on the Coast, Addy’s Bubble Birthday and another Milestone Birthday

Journal Entries:

Sermon from the book of Joshua: You can choose your sin, but not your consequences.

Keep growing, don’t stagnate.

Robert Bolton: He that endeavors not to be better, will by little and little grow worse.

A faith that is not changing you has not saved you. 

April: Jaymison Joshua’s birth, Andrew’s Throwing Axes party, NICU in Spokane, Vera’s first visit here.

Journal Entries:

Piper: Coasting is not discipleship. Drifting in self-contentment is not like basking in the pool of security, but like floating, fast asleep, toward the falls. “We must pay much attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” Hebrews 2:1

MacArthur (The Gospel According to Jesus): And any “salvation” that does not alter a lifestyle of sin and transform the heart of a sinner is not the salvation God’s Word speaks of.

May: Mother’s Day, Jaymison home again and thriving, photo shoots.

Journal Entries:

MacArthur: (TGATJ) Obedience is the inevitable manifestation of true faith.

The state of mind that refuses obedience is pure and simple unbelief.

Spurgeon: One man with God is a majority though there be a thousand on the other side.

June: Father’s Day, Anniversaries, Canada MGCC Lovella’s Birthday Brunch, Highlander.

Journal Entries:

Begg: The work of the evil one is to try to re-calibrate our thinking to the culture of the world.

From Pray Big: So Paul teaches you to ask God to open your heart-eyes to see much further and see much better, to the riches of your eternity. 

July: Family Visits, Swimming Lessons, Dan’s 30 day assignment, Summer Social.

Journal Entries:

Dwight L. Moody posed a question to a room full of children in Edinburgh, Scotland: What is prayer? He thought he would be answering that question himself but several hands went up all over the hall. He called on one young boy and this young lad with clear and confident tones said, “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to His will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgement of His mercies.” Moody’s amazed response was, “Thank God, my boy, that you were born in Scotland!”

In those days in Scotland’s parents still believed it was their solemn duty to teach their children Biblical truth in the form of catechism.

August x 2: Eye surgery, Laura here for a week, Steve and Lana’s Visit, MGCC camp Weekend, Dan home

Journal Entries:

Spurgeon (A Passion for Holiness in a Believer’s Life) This is the reality of holiness: “If we believe God’s Word, we are orthodox; if we practice, we are holy.”

The Bible is the great umpire as to conduct, and not the changing moral sentiment of passing generations.

Pray to God to order your life according to His Word. To this Word we must be conformed. This is our copy to write by; this is the image to which we must be modeled. 

September: Kids to the Coast, Junk Drunk, Auger.

Journal Entries:

Piper: (Life As A Vapor):

…Don’t be duped by the gurus of the age.

…One enslaving fad follows another.

…The wisdom of this age is folly in view of eternity.

…Don’t follow a defeated foe. Follow Christ. It is costly. You will be an exile in this age. But you will be free.

October: Cousin Jim’s visit, Marcus Apple Ciderfest, Annual Family Hunting Trip, Family Baking, Pumpkin Patch, Sufficiency of Scripture Conference

Journal Entries:

Psalm 19: 7-9:

The Law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;
the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever;
the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether:

November x 2: Vera’s 2nd Visit, Piroshky Baking day, Trip to the Coast, Sounders MLS Champions, Thanksgiving and Trusses! Hit a deer. Dan begins another 30 day assignment away from home.

Journal Entries:

An old Puritan said; “Prayer is a cannon set at the gate of heaven to burst open the gates.”

Spurgeon: You must take the city by storm if you would have it. You will not ride to heaven on a featherbed; You must go on a pilgrimage. There is no going to the land of glory while you are sound asleep; dreamy sluggards will have to wake up in hell. 

MacArthur: Fight the good fight-we are in war our whole Christian life to fight for the truth and to defend the truth. 

December x2:  Laura’s Birthday, Our Anniversary and Trip to the Coast, Canada for MGCC Christmas Party, Christmas, JJ’s First Christmas, Katie’s Birthday Party! Dan returns home.

Journal Entries:

Beware of bestsellers in the supposed “Christian” genre. Ask yourself why? Beware.

MacArthur: Mission of the Messiah (Luke 4:16-21)

Theme of the Bible is Salvation; The just payment of sin to satisfy God’s justice. God must have a substitute to die in the place of sinners. The Son of God is that substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament speaks about the one who is coming. Jesus is symbolized in all the sacrifices.

Voddie Baucham:

I choose to believe the Bible because it is a reliable collection of historical documents written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They report supernatural events that took place in the fulfillment of specific prophecies and claimed that their writings are divine, rather than human, in origin.

2 Peter 1:16-21

“For we do not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when we received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased, we ourselves heard the voice borne from heaven, for we were with Him on the holy mountain.”

And for my last quote of the year:

Justin Peters: “If you want to hear from God, read the Bible. If you want to hear God speak, read the Bible out loud!

Beware of people who say they have heard God tell them something apart from what is already written in the Word of God.

Again this recap is for the benefit of my brain to be able to remember what happened when and what I was reading and studying that was important enough for me to write down. 

And that in a nutshell was 2019. 

 

Ring in 2020!

Ring out wild bells to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,…
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

~Alfred, Lord Tennyson, ‘In Memoriam’ A.H.H..(1833)

Happy 2020 everyone!

Numbers 6: 24-26

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

From Spurgeon:

What heavens are laid up in Jesus! What rivers of infinite bliss have their source, aye, and every drop of their fullness in Him! Since, O sweet Lord Jesus, You are the present portion of Your people, favor us this year with such a sense of Your preciousness that from its first to its last day we may be glad and rejoice in you. Let January open with joy in the Lord, and December close with gladness in Jesus.

The Patch 2019

As we finished up at the Maze and Patch the rain started to gently fall. We patted ourselves on the back for coming early and leaving before the crowds arrived and the rain came down. We headed home for sandwiches and it didn’t take long for the guys to come home from hunting because of the rain. Naps were in order for the grands and some of the guys, too.

I’ll leave you a verse from God’s Word, The Bible, and a prayer from Spurgeon inspired from this verse:

Thou, O Lord God, hast spoken it and with thy blessing let the house of thy servant be blessed forever. (2 Samuel 7:29)

…Lord, we cannot doubt thee: we are persuaded that every word of thine is a sure foundation for the boldest expectation. We come to thee and say, ‘Do as thou has said,’ Bless thy servants’ house. Heal our sick; save our hesitating ones; restore those who wander; confirm those who live in thy fear. Lord, give us food and raiment according to thy word. Prosper our undertakings; especially succeed our endeavours to make known thy gospel in our neighborhood. Make our children thy children. Let thy blessing flow out to future generations, and as long as any of our race remains on earth may they remain true to thee. O Lord God ‘let the house of thy servant be blessed.’

Summer Finale

Another Sunday and after church another lunch in Chewelah and on the way home we diverted here and there to see some new roads. It was our goodbye to summer drive. I didn’t have my big camera with me so had to use my phone.

 

As you drive into Colville you’ll notice a mountain above Main street. Besides the cross there is a big C on this mountain.

Continuing on through town we turn onto our road which is sometimes called skunk alley.

Sorry for the visual of why it got that name. Hold your nose and turn off your air vents.

A favorite weeping willow we see close to home.

Into our drive and we notice one of the trees changing color.

The last day of summer afforded us a nice drive and a relaxing evening. It was the calm before the storm.

The footings for the shop are ready for the support posts to be set and the concrete to be ordered. We were so grateful for our son’s help. Dear continues working hard. I’ll need to take a photo of the holes.

Hope your week is going well.

Borrowing part of a prayer from Spurgeon…

Lord let your living water flow. Flow to my family and my friends, and let it not pass me by…

U-Pick Corn

On Tuesday afternoon we hopped in the car and drove a few miles north of us and stopped at this farm to pick corn. U-pick 4 for a $1. Part of the sign looks like it washed off but we got the gist of what they wanted us to know.

We found 4 ears we thought looked good and put our $1.00 in the metal box and headed back home.

There’s a story behind me having to take a photo of the photo of me at the corn field. Dear mistakenly took a video of me instead of a photo and my computer wouldn’t let me make it into a photo and I couldn’t upload the video, either. Hmmm.

We cooked 2 ears of corn as soon as we got home and boy was it good and sweet. I called it dessert, delicious. We’ll remember this farm next year and enjoy fresh corn again.

Quote of the day from Sprugeon:

“The way to do a great deal, is to keep on doing a little. The way to do nothing at all is to be continually resolving that you will do everything.”

Encouragement of the day:

If you are finding it hard to get started on a task, try setting a timer for 15 minutes and tell yourself to get after that task for at least 15 minutes. You’ll be surprised all you can get done in that short amount of time and maybe it will be enough motivation to continue.

Have a great 9-19-19!

Girls Day Out…

We had a girls outing to Junk Drunk at the Ag Center in Colville on Saturday morning and JJ was our bodyguard.

He was a little trooper in his daddy’s sweat suit from 1981!

Addy had her mommy, granny, granny great, auntie and baba to watch over her.

She was wondering where the animals were since she was at this location (the fair grounds) just a couple weeks ago to see all the fair animals.

We took the obligatory selfie to document everyone at our outing and then stopped to take a few more photos at the sunflower patch.

 

We ended our time together with lunch out. Addy was a great little conversationalist, asking each of us the question, “where is your mommy?” When we told her where our mommy was she asked, “what is she doing?” I told her my mommy was in heaven with Jesus and she was probably singing. Jaymison slept through lunch.

Our weather has been wet and promises to continue in a wet pattern. I won’t have to water this week and might not need to water again until next Spring.

Another quote from Spurgeon…

Changes

Time for the summer scenes to be replaced with autumn. I’ll be on the search through my plates to see if I have fall flavored plates for this section of our corner cabinet.

When we were in Spokane last week I picked up a couple new fall accents at Hobby Lobby for our bungalow and instead of packing them away until September 23rd I found good spots for them right now. This fox called to me and I thought the grands would enjoy him, too. He’s soft so when the door opens and shuts it’s not a problem.

This banner that says BLESSED was plain and I bought the package of leaves to add to it.

We bought some suspenders for Dear so he could do all his bending over and kneeling down work on his new shop in comfort instead of having to adjust his trousers constantly. He found the suspender fasteners that he could apply to his work trousers and add the suspenders when he wants. Some of the lumber deliveries have been made and our garage is full of the lumber so my car will be living outside until the building begins. Right now the corner posts marks are square and ready for the auger work to excavate and then set the posts in concrete. The type of building we are adding is called a Post Frame Building.

I’ll leave you with a Spurgeon quote. He is becoming one of my favorite preachers to quote. I’m always on the lookout for any Spurgeon books I can find in thrift stores. These next quotes are from Exploring the Mind & Heart of the Prince of Preachers Compiled by Kerry James Allen

“Every time the sheep bleats, it loses a mouthful, and every time we complain we lose a blessing.”

“We need not sow thistles and brambles; they come up naturally enough, because they are indigenous to earth: and so, we need not teach men to complain; they complain fast enough without any education.”

Doe, A Deer, A Black Tailed Deer…

We’ve seen lots of white tailed deer before but these are the first black tailed deer we’ve noticed.

They were quite comfortable in our back acreage even with my Dear close by. One was more skittish. They found some bushes in our brush that they enjoyed nibbling on. We are happy for them to enjoy the plants in the brush and not our flowers.

We had an amazing sound and light show from God last night. Thunder and lightning, oh my. I pulled up the shades in the livingroom and sat in the darkness watching the lightning light up the sky and light up our house and then listening to the sound of thunder. We had some good downpours, too, so I’m all caught up on watering for at least a day.

I couldn’t catch any of the lightning flashes. Thunderstorms are fun if they don’t spark any fires.

Update: I just read this report from Stevens County Management:

If you’re wondering about the lightening numbers- the maps show a total of 28,630 Cloud Flashes and 3,499 Cloud to Ground strikes for the 24 hour count ending 5 am this morning! Data source: ENTLN

Some good words for Wednesday…

“Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful!” Joshua 1:8

Spurgeon: To get the nourishment out of a text, turn it over and over in your mind, meditate upon it, pull it to pieces word by word! Scripture meditation is the strong meat on which holy men are nourished. Oh, to be bathed in a text of Scripture, and to let it be sucked up into your very soul, until it saturates your heart! The more you read the Bible, and the more you meditate on it–the more you will be astonished with it!

 

Can You Imagine?

Zephaniah 3:17 New King James Version (NKJV)

17 The Lord your God in your midst,
The Mighty One, will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness,
He will quiet you with His love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.”

Can you imagine God singing over you?

Are you a child of God? Have you responded to His call to repent and be born again? Jesus died for our sins and rose again so that our sins can be forgiven and we can be saved and be born again. Is Jesus your Lord and Savior? Are you following and growing in relationship with Him?

If you answer yes then you are His child. You are one of His lambs. Stop and consider the fact that the God of the universe sings over you…

My daily readings right now include the Bible, Daily Readings by C.H. Spurgeon, The Pleasures of God by John Piper and Pray Big by Alistair Begg. In Piper’s book I’m in the chapter called “The Pleasure of God in doing good to all who Hope in Him”. The beginning sentence reads; “Can you imagine what it would be like to hear God singing?”

This chapter brought my thoughts to who I have sung over in my life. There is a simple song I sang over each of our children when they were babies. I made up the simple words to a simple tune and sang it when I held them or rocked them.

There’s a little boy I love, his name is Joshua, Joshua.
There’s a little boy I love, his name is Joshua, Joshua.
He’s my little boy, I love him so.
He’s my little boy, I lo-ove him so.

I sang the same song over our second born son, Daniel.

There’s a little boy I love, his name is Daniel, Daniel.
There’s a little boy I love, his name is Daniel, Daniel.
He’s my little boy, I love him so.
He’s my little boy, I lo-ove him so.

Then we had our daughter, Katie.

There’s a little girl I love, her name is Katie, Katie.
There’s a little girl I love, her name is Katie, Katie.
She’s my little girl, I love her so.
She’s my little girl, I lo-ove her so.

Now 40 years later I’m singing this same simple song over our granddaughter and grandson.

There’s a little girl I love, her name is Addyson, Addyson.
There’s a little girl I love, her name is Addyson, Addyson.
She’s my little girl, I love her so.
She’s my little girl, I lo-ove her so.

and

There’s a little boy I love, his name is Jaymison, Jaymison.
There’s a little boy I love, his name is Jaymison, Jaymison.
He’s my little boy, I love him so.
He’s my little boy, I lo-ove him so.

Today I’m dumbfounded in thoughts about God singing over me. God singing over His lambs. I’m waiting on God for the day when He returns to gather his lambs. How about you? “Open our heart-eyes to see much further and see much better, to the riches of your eternity.” ~Begg

John 17:24-26 English Standard Version (ESV)

24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Ask God to make his name known to you…