I was reading Daniel this morning and was really struck by his concern for the "wisemen" Nebuchadnezzar wanted to put to death....You know the story - they couldn't tell the king what his dream was, then what it meant, so the king was extremely angry and wanted to kill them....In any case, these men, if in Israel, would have merited the death penalty. They were, at best, astrologers - trying to foretell the future from the stars - and some were probably occultists. Daniel, as a godly Jew, surely would have been in favor of capital punishment for their offences in his own country....But, in Babylon, there he was interceding with the king for their lives....

It reminds me of God's words to Jonah..."And should I not pity Ninevah, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left...." God's great mercy toward people in their ignorance...Of course, pagans will be punished for their sin in eternity - the destruction of their towns as Israel claimed their land is a picture of that - but, still, in this life there is mercy! And we have such a short time to extend it to them, in God's name...And they have such a short time to receive it...

I love quotes, so just a few I have read or been thinking about lately:

Harry Truman's oldest grandson had never been told his grandfather was once president of the US...When he found out at school, at age six, he ran home telling his mother....Her response?....Any little boy's grandfather can be president of the United States....

Matthew Henry: The stones of that spiritual building above are squared and fashioned here below.

It is possible for those who have made great professions of religion to be afterwards drawn into very great defections from the purity and simplicity of it.

A disobedient life is the confutation and shame of pretended religious knowledge.

The way to secure our inward peace is to abound in love and the works of love.

Ignorance is not the mother of devotion, but the murderer of it

debate between....Christ and contradicting sinners

The first contention in the Christian world was a money matter (Acts)

It was the greatest honor God did to man that He made him in the image of God, but it is the greatest dishonor man has done to God that he has made God in the image of man

Robert Murray McCheyne: It is not great talent that God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus

Calvin: The highest perfection of the godly in this life is an earnest desire to progress.

Unknown: The doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints has as it corollary that the saints are the people who persevere to the end.

Bavinck: In a certin sense, the fall, sin and eternal punishment are included in God's decree and are willed by Him. But this is true in a certain sense only and not in the same sense as grace and salvation. These are objects of His delight, but God does not delight in sin, neither does He take pleasure in punishment.

Talmud" To be against the workd of the Scribes is more punishable than to be against the words of the Bible

For Jen

Go away, little girl!
Noone wants you here!
You too, Mom.
Back yard, please.

We have important things to do...
Going to and fro on the earth
Walking up and down on it...

Did you hear me?
Out of my sight - now!
Mom, Dad, we don't care!...
Away!...Just...GO!

In the name of the god of the South...Amen!

We visited Ken and Jane Friday night - so nice seeing them. Ken is a very studious, focused and precise person, as most of you know. I t was interesting that he mentioned, during the course of our conversation, that he has found himself more nostalgic recently, that things take him into the past...I think I understand exactly why that is...Like us, they are in a precarious financial situation. They don't have good options for the future, as far as they can see....What you can hamdle as a young person, full of natural energy, is much more difficult as that fades...And you tend to want to retreat into a safer world - the world of the past where you felt secure, protected...Not that you want to be locked in nostalgia and waste the years that are left...What sincere Christian wants to do that?...It is just a tendency as you get older...He was interested in the biographical information I had read on Phil Johnson's website - thet the older Spurgeon had begun to write boyhood memoirs, and as a dying man, had revisited the scenes of childhood...Do the girls remember reading in "Christie" that Miss Alice's father had determined the greatest gift he could give his children was a joyful and secure childhood?... Those years really do provide a refuge and a picture to turn to in order to understand the security of our unchanging heavenly father...No big revelation there, but I am surprised how important that still is as you get older...

"Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, "I have no pleasure in them...."...Yet I do have pleasure...And almost all of it, on this earth, rests in you who are reading this, and the little children you have given us....

Onward to the end!

Dad and I went walking in the cemetery early today and saw such a sad thing....No, not humans mourning beside a grave....Rather, four geese attacking a fifth goose in such a vicious manner that the victim's neck feathers were soaked in blood. The poor creature kept trying to bury her neck underneath the back of our car. We spent several minutes trying to scare the others away - throwing sticks, chasing them, but to no avail...As soon as we turned our backs they renewed the attack...And the poor little creature kept close to us, "asking" our help...But we couldn't stay too long...So went on our way, knowing we were leaving the goose to torment and probably death. I am not, particularly, an animal lover, but "nature red in tooth and claw" disturbed me this morning...Fallen man and fallen nature!

Just a few quotes I have come upon in the last few days, that I have found interesting...The first two are from the History of Protestantism:

"It was ever the aim of Calvin to unite religion and science. He knew that when these are divided we have a race of fanatics on the one side and of sceptics on the other"

The second is about Francis I - soon after beginning to burn Protestants-as he then approached Protestant nations for military alliances!...
"But the king was ready with his excuse, and his excuse was that of almost all persecutors of every age. the king had not been burning Lutherans, but executing traitors. If those he had put to death had been imbibing Reformed sentiments, it was not for their religion, but for their sedition that they had been punished..."
(my little comment-...I have long felt one of the purposes of the h-m-s-x-a-l movement has been to form "civil rights" legislation that will, ultimately criminalize Christians - about the only ones who will ultimately not go along with the above....)

This next is from the latest "Voice of the Martyrs" magazine...from Richard Wurmbrand...
"Your not becoming a traitor and your resistance in times of intensive trial depends upon your earlier Christian life. When, after the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, the Lord appeared to Ananias, He told him how to teach a new convert: I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name's sake...
Every Christian church that does not teach its members the main religious science, sufferology,does not fulfill its duties. Impose upon yourself mortification. Learn to suffer and not to yield. The time may come when you need this knowledge."

Dad and I watched a biographical film of William Carey on Netflix last Sunday evening. It was really quite good, and made me think again about this incredible man, self-taught, who learned about forty languages over the course of his life, translating not only the Bible into many Indian laanguages, but Indian classics - including religious ones - into English, for his countrymen, and starting, I believe, an Indian Renaissance of learning...He advocated for a change in different laws, successfully, and did groundbreaking horticultural research...Wow!...And he said he succeeded becuase he was a plodder, would never give up...And he didn't...I was talking with young Stephen at work about Carey. He has been to India twice on mission trips, and visited Carey's grave. From the description he gave, it seems that it is very ordinary, and perhaps even run down...It reminded me of an incident I read about in Brother Yun's book (One of the five heads of the underground church in China)...After years of intense suffering and persecution in his country, he eventually escaped to the west - to Germany. He soon went to visit the grave of a woman who had spent years in his part of China - a faithful, (single, I believe) Christian who had laid the foundation for great harvest. She was remembered and revered by the whole church...He found her grave completely unkempt...He gave a Christian tonguelashing to the local body of believers and made sure this was changed. I found this very interesting...A man who knew what it was to be starved, beaten, penniless - and there were many others he knew still in that situation - who still wanted time and money spent on the dust and ashed of a woman who had served the church well...The body of the Christian is never considered inconsequential, is it, either in life or death...

Anyway, today is "1890's" day in Ringgold, so Andrew and I will go over, and meet Fryes and Helms, plus a lovely young Korean coupld attending our church, for the day. Weather should be hot and clear, so should be fun...Plucky iittle Ringgold is just going on with life! And so are we all, right?