EVENING THOUGHT

The light is fading, the sun is gone
and I pause for a rest, with a sigh,
now is the time to meditate
on the hours that have drifted by;
this may not have been the happiest day
but no sorrow did I have to bear,
so for that I want to thank You, Lord,
thank You, just for being there.

Virginia Luers

Father-Daughter Street Performers Bring Audience to Their Feet With a Duet

Father-Daughter Street Performers Bring Audience to Their Feet With a Duet.

31 – Jan. 31 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

[t]he Baptist doctrine of local church autonomy prevailed]
 On Jan. 31, 1938, in a specially-called meeting, the congregation voted 92-18 to concur with the pastor and deacons and withdraw from the Convention and its affiliated organizations. On May 16, 1926, Rev. Ford Porter had become pastor of the First Baptist Church of Princeton, IN. This church held membership in the Northern Baptist Convention, the Indiana Baptist Convention, and the Evansville Baptist Association. The battle between fundamentalism and modernism had recently begun. Pastor Porter had become aware of serious modernistic inroads into the Northern Baptist Convention. Believing in the verbal, plenary inspiration of the Bible, he determined that he would position the congregation solidly upon the inerrant, infallible Word of God. In 1932 during the depression, more than 200 professed conversion or united with the church. The church came to the conclusion that something must be done about their alignments so a special church meeting was called to discuss the matter, when the above vote was taken. However a minority refused to admit defeat and spurred on by denominational leaders they took the church to court asking to be declared the true First Baptist Church of Princeton. We should all rejoice that the Baptist doctrine of local church autonomy prevailed as the court ruled in favor of the majority. Dr. Robert T. Ketcham, one of the founders of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches testified on behalf of the church in this case. Rev. Porter’s son Robert was only 13 years old at this time. Rev. Porter wrote the famous tract, God’s Simple Plan of Salvation.
Dr. Greg J. Dixon from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. IIII: Cummins, pp. 62-64.

GOVERNMENT PROCESS

‘Tis far better to laugh than to cry, and this one serves us well. Part of rebuilding New Orleans caused residents often to be challenged with the task of tracing home titles back potentially hundreds of years. With a community rich with history stretching back over two centuries, houses have been passed along through generations of family, sometimes making it quite difficult to establish ownership.

Here’s a great letter an attorney wrote to the FHA on behalf of a client: You have to love this lawyer… A New Orleans lawyer sought an FHA loan for a client. He was told the loan would be granted if he could prove satisfactory title to a parcel of property being offered as collateral. The title to the property dated back to 1803, which took the lawyer three months to track down. After sending the information to the FHA, he received the following reply: (Actual reply from FHA): “Upon review of your letter adjoining your client’s loan application, we note the request is supported by an Abstract of Title. While we compliment the able manner in which you have prepared and presented the application, we must point out you have only cleared title to the proposed collateral property back to 1803. Before final approval can be accorded, it will be necessary to clear the title back to its origin.” Annoyed, the lawyer responded as follows: (Actual response):

Your letter regarding title in Case No.189156 has been received. I note you wish to have title extended further than the 206 years covered by the present application. I was unaware any educated person in this country, particularly those working in the property area, would not know Louisiana was purchased by the United States from France in 1803, the year of origin identified in our application. For the edification of uninformed FHA bureaucrats, the title to the land prior to U.S. ownership was obtained from France , which had acquired it by Right of Conquest from Spain .

The land came into the possession of Spain by Right of Discovery made in the year 1492 by a sea captain named Christopher Columbus, who had been granted the privilege of seeking a new route to India by the Spanish monarch, Queen Isabella. The good Queen Isabella, being a pious woman and almost as careful about titles as the FHA, took the precaution of securing the blessing of the Pope before she sold her jewels to finance Columbus ‘s expedition. Now the Pope, as I’m sure you may know, is the emissary of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and God, it is commonly accepted, created this world. Therefore, I believe it is safe to presume God also made the part of the world called Louisiana . God; therefore, would be the owner of origin and His origins date back to before the beginning of time, the world as we know it, and the FHA. I hope you find God’s original claim to be satisfactory. Now, may we have our loan?”

The loan was immediately approved. And you want Government running health care?
“The problems we face today exist because the people who work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a living.”

LITANY OF LOVELY THINGS

So runs my litany of lovely things,
That I recite when I have need of words
To cheer my heart and stir my memory,
A cherry orchard bright with humming birds,
The tinkle of a narrow woodland stream,
Over smooth white stones on yellow sand,
Lazy hours on a windy hill,
Where shady oaks and spreading chestnuts stand.

So runs my litany of lovely things,
The long low whistle of a midnight train,
The glow of fireflies through the purple dusk,
The fresh earth smell that follows summer rain.
The scent of jasmine on a restless breeze,
An orange moon about whose shoulders fall
Airy clouds of grey, swept gracefully
Into deep folds that form a star fringed shawl.

Quiet hours when the drowsy hum
Of crickets reach across the edge of sleep,
The soft swish of the waves against the shore,
The ever changing colors of the deep,
The beautiful awareness of a world
To which the Infinite so closely clings
The mystic vividly made manifest,
…So runs my litany of lovely things.

Grace E. Easley

30 – Jan. 30 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

He believed that this is foundational truth
 
Basil Manly, Jr. was ordained on Jan. 30, 1848, at Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and he undertook the pastoral care of three churches in Al and MS. Shortly his health failed, but after it was restored, he was called to the First Baptist Church of Richmond, VA, the most prestigious church in the Southern Baptist Convention at that time. He served there until Oct. 1, 1854 until he became president of the Richmond Female Institute, but he still ministered to a country church. In 1859 he was chosen to write the Articles of Faith when the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary was founded at Greenville, S.C.  He later became president of Georgetown College, at Georgetown, KY.  When the SBA Seminary was moved to Louisville he returned to the faculty. He devoted much of the remainder of his life to education and gospel music. However, the most important writing of Basil Manly, Jr. is The Bible Doctrine of Inspiration.  He believed that this is foundational truth, whether we are following God or men, and whether our religion is of divine or human origin. Manley argued that without an inspired Bible, we would have no infallible standard of truth, no authoritative rule for obedience, and no ground for confident and everlasting hope. At the opening of the twenty-first century, Baptists have come full circle for this battle for an infallible Bible. It will be the deciding factor as to where Baptists end as a people and their impact on this generation.
Dr. Greg J. Dixon from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. IIII: Cummins, pp. 60-62.

MY WORRY

A little bitty worry
Started early in the day;
By noon, it seemed my worry
Hovered, standing in my way;
The things and thoughts I should have had
Got buried in my mind,
Until my little worry turned
Into the horrid kind.
By bedtime, i was frantic –
What to do, oh, what to do!
And then I couldn’t go to sleep,
For worrying – fretting, too.
By morning I was almost sick,
When suddenly and soon,
My worry had been all worked out
Before the toll of noon;
Then I looked back and saw my worry
Just for what it was –
A thing that didn’t happen,
As a worry seldom does.

Bonnie Daisy Nelson

29 – Jan. 29 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

Evangelism was foremost on her mind.
 
Jan. 29, 1896 – A newly erected building was dedicated in Sendai, Japan through the efforts of a lady missionary by the name of Lavina Mead of New Lisbon, Wisconsin. Lavina had originally gone to Ingole, India but found the field to severe. At the outset, the school housed fifteen girls, a Bible woman, and two helpers. As time went on, the enrollment increased, and the impact of the gospel was felt throughout the area until four hundred children were enrolled in seven Sunday schools. These schools were conducted by personnel trained by Miss Mead at the school. Education was only a means to the end for Miss Mead, for evangelism was foremost on her mind. “Winning” of souls to her Lord Jesus Christ was ever her first aim in life,” as was reported in the Thirty-first Annual Report of the Women’s Missionary Society of 1902. For eleven years she directed the work in Sendai, and then before her furlough, she was assigned to Chofu-Shimonoseki, where her ministry resulted in house meetings, community Bible classes, women’s and children’s meetings, and the establishment of Sunday schools. A well deserved furlough ended that phase of her life. In 1908 she returned to Japan’s second largest city, Osaka, and founded the Women’s Bible Training School, where she served.  for the remaining eighteen years of her overseas ministry. With, unending energy she labored, and within five years, fourteen young women had graduated from the training school she had established, as teachers in women’s evangelism or as pastors’ wives. Other buildings were built and dedicated, and not wanting to be a burden she resigned.
[This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press. pp. 55-56. Tai Shigaki, American Baptist Quarterly (BarreVt.: Northlight Studio Pres, Inc., 1993), 12:261.] Prepared by Dr. Greg Dixon

28 – Jan. 28 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

“She became “more than a conqueror.”
The verdict against Valentina Saveleva, a Russian believer was handed down by a Russian judge on Jan. 28, 1983.  Her long trip began that would deliver her to a distant prison camp near Irkutsk in Siberia.  Valentina was a secret courier of Christian literature who was arrested in Jan. 1982.  As a 27 year old college graduate, her future looked bright, but from her detainment she knew that she would receive five years in the Russian penal system.  The brilliant defense that she presented meant nothing to the puppet judge.  The KGB had already determined the sentence and she made that clear to her court appointed atheistic attorney.  He interrogator became interested in her Bible and especially wanted to read the trial of Jesus.  After the sentencing the miserable journey took a month to reach Siberia with stops at several remote cities along the way like Pyatigorsk and Aktyubinsk.  Russia formed the art of “Diesel Therapy”, before it ever caught on here in the US.  She finally arrived at the prison camp at Bozoi on March 3, 1983 which is known as the “Valley of Death” where living conditions were desperate but Valentina lived victoriously.  Continual efforts by the KGB to break her spirit and will were in vain.  She had a resolute assurance that she was right were God wanted her, and though she suffered greatly, he provided grace for every trial.  Valentina persevered, and she became “more than a conqueror.”
Dr. Greg J. Dixon from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. IIII: Cummins, pp. 57-58.

27 – Jan. 27 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

“He said that people laughed at Noah too.” 
 Mr. and Mrs. John Winstead were married on Jan. 27, 1947 having been childhood sweethearts were reared in the same fundamental Methodist church.  They were baptized Biblically at the same time in an old pond by a Baptist preacher.  John had been converted as a 22-year-old man in the Bunn Methodist Church in the summer of 1949.  He was born near Bunn, N.C., in Franklin County on March 16, 1927.  On the very night he was saved he was called to preach.  John left the denomination after he learned the doctrine of the autonomy of the local church.  He started an independent church in a chicken coop called the Union Gospel Tabernacle.  People laughed, but he said that people laughed at Noah too.  A permanent building was erected in 1970 and they renamed it Calvary Baptist Tabernacle.  John began Bible training at Bob Jones University in 1954 and was elected Chaplain of the senior class in 1958.  His wife Lucille worked for Oliver B. Greene’s “Gospel Hour.”  During this time John pastored the El Bethel Baptist Church in Swainsboro, GA.  For 25 years they traveled in evangelism starting Baptist churches in Pennsylvania and two in Bunn, N.C. including many other areas.  He pastored Maranatha Baptist in Bunn until his death on Feb. 8, 1992.
Dr. Greg J. Dixon from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. IIII: Cummins