The Deep, Deep Love of Jesus

An unforgettable song, surreal in the minor key as it echoes in eternity, it is real, it has a story, a story that has been lived, as the songs of the Psalmist of Israel:

Michtam of David, when he fled from Saul in the cave.
Michtam of David, when the Philistines took him in Gath.
A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him.

As a young man in London, Samuel Trevor Francis struggled with all the usual things, as well as health, but most of all that restlessness that only finds its rest in God. One night on a bridge spanning the Thames, he was mesmerized by the "vast, unmeasured, boundless" ocean in its fullness "rolling over me!" Some suggest Francis was contemplating suicide before he saw in that same ocean "the deep, deep love of Jesus, "underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love!"

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free! Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me! Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love Leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, spread His praise from shore to shore! How He loveth, ever loveth, changeth never, nevermore! How He watches o’er His loved ones, died to call them all His own; How for them He intercedeth, watcheth o’er them from the throne!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, love of every love the best! ’Tis an ocean full of blessing, ’tis a haven giving rest! O the deep, deep love of Jesus, ’tis a heav’n of heav’ns to me; And it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to Thee!

It is a story, yet, it seems so much more, a "prayer" to "God the Father."

The Quickening

The Quickening¹

"There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down" Jesus "pronounced" as He departed "Herod’s" gleaming white marble temple gilded with gold, through white marble colonnades he would never walk again, amid its vaulted archways and grand stairways. And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, His disciples came saying, "Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?"

Adding "nothing" more regarding the "judgment" He had pronounced, the Lord continued "... many shall come in my name, saying, I am the Christ; and shall lead many astray. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled: for these things must needs come to pass; but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines and earthquakes in divers places. But all these things are the beginning of travail" (Matthew 24:5-8).

The Greek word rendered “travail” ὠδίν ōdin is used to describe a woman in the pangs of birth. We appear to be seeing subtle manifestations of that "beginning of travail." Unfortunately, Christendom is focused, if focused at all, on "Israel's" prophetic "flowchart," rather than its own, unaware that the "beginning of travail" follows that which "must" come before, i.e., "The Quickening."

As a mother senses that twinkling" sensation of life within, when the child latent in the darkness of her womb emanates that first discernible affirmation of life, so will the "Body of Christ" sense that "twinkling sensation of life within when "caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air" (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:17).

"Behold, I tell you a mystery: We all shall not sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).

"The Quickening" is the consummation of a seven faceted mystery "which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (cf. Colossians 1:26-27). 

A Mystery

Are you ready?

¹By H. Raab (User:Vesta) (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AHolePunchCloud.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/HolePunchCloud.jpg

©2017 Christian. Textual content may be copied and distributed, but it may not be sold.
https://a-hillside-church.blogspot.com/

Science Falsely So Called

The Java Man evidence¹

Today is "Darwin Day" when the world celebrates "science falsely so called."

 "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things" (Romans 1:22-23). 

 A skullcap and a femur uncovered a year and twelve meters apart, was the "quintessential evidence" for Java Man on the Indonesian island of that name. Eugène Dubois, the self-edifying paleontologist, immediately christened his find Pithecanthropus Erectus (erect ape man).

Java Man reconstruction

The credibility of the 1891 discovery was immediately challenged by scores of books or articles — the “brute” generally dismissed as a jumbled combination of human and ape remains. Although Dubois contested that the relics were from a single individual, decades later it was reported that his Pithecanthropus 
"collection" contained an additional left femur i.e., Java Man had “two left feet.”

However, despite the hominid’s dubious authenticity, the “evidence” came just in time to rescue Darwin’s waning "theory," a theory that had been increasingly discredited due to a lack of transitional fossil evidence.

Eugène Dubois ¹

The real intrigue of the Java narrative is not the revelation of some primeval “brute” but rather the "humanity" of his “evolved” counterpart, compelled by arrogance and ambition, coerced his family to leave the familial setting of his professorship in Amsterdam and live among the danger, pestilence, and stagnant malaria infested waters of the impenetrable jungles of Java. Dubois buried four children there (American Scientist, Vol: 87, Num: 6, p504). 




And as the desperate ship’s captain, on the itinerant paleontologist’s eventual return to Europe, readied the lifeboats during a violent storm, Dubois instructed his wife: “If the lifeboat is lowered, you see to the little ones, for I shall have to look after this [Pithecanthropus]."

"O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen" (1Ti 6:20-21).

¹By Peter Maas - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?
curid=5735274

 ²By Unknown - Java Man reconstruction - in the public domain due to copyright expiring.

³By The original uploader was Woudloper at Dutch Wikipedia. - Transferred from nl.wikipedia to Commons., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3004530

©2017 Christian. Textual content may be copied and distributed, but it may not be sold.

Popular Apostasy

Photo courtesy of the Franklin Collection.

I took my father for a drive one evening not so long ago. Over old country roads that were once so familiar. Latent memories brightened his face at every turn: “I used to plow that field for Jake, or plant that one for Dave, or combine that for Marlon.” Returning from the war, he and his often envied Oliver 70, purchased for two hundred dollars and two mules, not only tended his land but that of a multitude of others, land he knew as intimately as his own.

Suddenly, pointing toward the fading sun, he became disturbed: “There used to be a church there and a graveyard.” But I saw nothing but the silhouette of a fencerow entwined with reeds and vines. Yes, there had been a church, and perhaps as many as a dozen other one room sanctuaries scattered along that dusty meandering road, but like this one, little or nothing now remains. "The voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride" are forever silent.

These forgotten churches of fair meadows and vale are so unlike those of today: No satellite receiver affixed to a steeple. No sermons to “spiritually” download or hymns with copyright code. No worship bands to rival a night club or bar. No messages patterned after some Hollywood movie or star. No popular book studies other then the King James. No “Lights, Action, Camera” directing performers to take the stage. And sometimes not even a pastor. But "they continued steadfastly in the apostles teaching and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers" in a time when apostasy could travel little faster than an occasional circuit rider, in a time when Satan could deceive but one church at a time.

If Ever I Loved Thee

William Featherston was about twelve when the Civil War began. Little is known of him, except that sometime during those tumultuous years he wrote a poem. "My Jesus I Love Thee,” a poem that tells all we know about this young man, and all we need to know, except that in his twenty seventh year, the "death dew" lay cold on his brow, "and he was not, for Gd took him."

My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine;
For Thee all the follies of sin I resign.
My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art Thou;
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

I love Thee because Thou has first loved me,
And purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree.
I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow;
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

I’ll love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,
And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath;
And say when the death dew lies cold on my brow,
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

In mansions of glory and endless delight,
I’ll ever adore Thee in heaven so bright;
I’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow;
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.