Abigail Townsend

Abigail Townsend was the daughter of a man who was great friends with George Muller, the Christian preacher who started numerous orphanages in England in the 19th century. She knew Muller quite well, and there is a short biographical sketch about her titled The Adventures of Sister Abigail. One story from it is worth mentioning:

One morning she was playing in the garden at one of the orphanages, and Rev. Muller came, took her hand, and said, "Come and see what our Father will do." He led her into the dining room where all the children were standing in line waiting for breakfast. But there was nothing but empty dishes on the tables. Lifting his hand, Muller prayed, "Dear Father, we thank thee for what Thou are going to give us to eat." Immediately there was a knock on the door, and a baker was standing there. He said, "Mr. Muller, I couldn't sleep last night. Somehow I felt you didn't have bread for breakfast, and the Lord wanted me to send you some. So I got up at two o'clock and baked some fresh bread, and have brought it." Almost immediately they heard a second knock, and this time it was a milkman. "Mr. Muller, my milk cart has broken down outside the orphanage. I would like to give the children the cans of fresh milk so that I can empty the waggon and repair it."

I heard someone recently say that he was tired of hearing these stories about Muller because things don't happen that way. Really?

David Dickson

Rev. David Dickson was a Scottish Puritan of the 17th century, and he was one who participated in many of the great events of that century in the Church of Scotland. He was pastor of a congregation at Irvine for 22 years, then became Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow in 1641, and then held the same title at Edinburgh University. He was one of the drafters of the Directory of Public Worship of the acts of the Assembly in 1643. He was turned out of the church during the "Great Ejection" of 1662.

In 1662, David Dickson lay on his death-bed. He was visited by Rev. John Livingston, another great worthy of the Scottish Puritans. Livingston asked the professor how he was doing . . . he answered, "I have taken all my good deeds, and all my bad deeds, and cast them through each other in a heap before the Lord, and fled from both, and betaken myself to the Lord Jesus Christ, and in him I have sweet peace." At the end, he called his family together, and spoke to each one in turn, and then he pronounced upon them all the apostolic blessing of 2 Corinthians 13:14, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." He immediately raised his hand, closed his eyes, and died in the arms of his son.

Welsh

Rev. John Welsh was a Scottish Puritan who, in the seventeenth century, was for a time prisoner in Edinburgh Castle before he was sent into exile in France. One evening as he was sitting at supper with a number of the prisoners as he usually did . . . and he would preach to the prisoners and have godly and edifying conversations about the gospel. His teachings in prison were well received, except for one young Catholic prisoner. He would laugh at Welsh, make faces at him, and mock his teachings. At this dinner, Welsh told his men to be silent and watch what the Lord was about to do to this profane mocker. Almost immediately the young man sank down beneath the table and died, and he did not return to life "to the great astonishment of all the company."

Doctrine Preached

Charles Spurgeon comments on why ministers ought to preach doctrine from the pulpit:

"My experience goes to show that there have been persons converted to God by doctrines that some might have thought altogether unlikely to produce that result. I have known the doctrine of the resurrection to bring sinners to Christ; I have heard of scores brought to the Savior by a discourse upon election, -- the very sort of people who, as far as I can see, would never have been reached if that truth had not happened to be an angular doctrine that just struck their heart in the right place, and fitted into the crevices of their nature. I have often preached a terrible sermon upon the law, and afterwards found that sinners had been comforted by it. God frequently blesses the Word in the very opposite manner to that in which I thought it would be blessed, and He brings very, very many, to know their state by nature by doctrines which I should have thought would rather have comforted believers than awakened the unconverted"

John Welsh

I have recently been reading about Rev. John Welsh. He was one of John Knox's sons-in-law, and he was a stalwart for the reformed faith in Scotland. Because of his godly stand Welsh was driven from Britain for a time and pastored some churches in France for a number of years. There is an interesting story about Welsh when he was ministering in one of these French villages. One evening a Catholic friar was traveling through the country and he needed a place to stay the night. He knocked on Welsh's door, and he was kindly received . . . although supper was over, the family made some special for the friar and then they led him to his bed chamber. In the middle of the night the friar awoke because he heard this constant whispering noise . . . he was greatly troubled by it and didn't know what it was. Next day the friar was walking in the fields in the area, encountered a local man, and told him all about the previous night staying with a Huguenot minister. The friar told the man that he thought the minister and the devil were conversing all night long. The local man told him he was mistaken, but that Welsh prayed more than any man in France and that is what he had heard.

That night the friar imposed on the Welsh family again because he wanted to test the minister. Late in the night the friar heard the same whispering . . . so he crept to John Welsh's bedroom to listen. He heard the minister praying to God in such a way as he never heard before. Next morning the friar came to the minister and said that he had been born in ignorance and raised in darkness . . . but now he wished to venture his soul with Rev. Welsh, and at the very moment declared himself a Protestant. Rev. Welsh welcomed him, encouraged him, and the man remained a fervent, constant Protestant until the day he died.

The Relevancy of the Word

Writing earlier this century, Professor John Murray diagnosed a main issue facing the church: "There is no [denying] the fact that the situation in which we are placed today is one of peculiar gravity. There is ... the intense secularism of the man of today. It is the challenge of the secularized mind, and the supposed irrelevance [of the historical gospel], that have constrained the leading exponents of today's Protestantism to reconstruct the gospel so that it will be relevant. This is the capital sin of our generation."

Murray goes on, "But the question for us is: how are we, holding to the sufficiency of Scripture, going to meet the secularism, or whatever else the attitude may be, of this modern man?"

In other words, what is the church to do in the face of the increasing compromise of the word of God? The answer John Murray gives? Proclaim the word of God in all its majesty and fullness!

"If Scripture is the revelation of the gospel, then it is this revelation in all its fullness, richness, wisdom, and power, that must be applied to man in whatever situation he is to be found. We must bring forth from its inexhaustible treasures, in exposition, proclamation, and application, what is the wisdom and power of God for man. There will then be commanding relevance, for it will be the message from God in the unction and power of the Spirit."

"The word of God is living and active and sharper than a double-edged sword" (Hebrews 4:12).

submitted by RSA

Time Well Spent

The world in which we live offers us many things that can supposedly bring us peace and joy: material prosperity, positive self-esteem, and on and on. But the great 19th century Scot, Robert Murray McCheyne had a different view, "All my ideas of peace and joy are linked in with my Bible; and I would not give the hours of secret converse with it for all the other hours I spend in this world." For it is in the written word that we meet the living Word who is the bread of life and the living water, the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us never give up our time meeting with the Lord in the Scriptures.

"Do not love the world or the things in the world ... For all that is in the world - the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions - is not from the Father, but is from the world" (1 John 2:15-16).

"You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore" (Psalm 16:11).

Submitted by RSA