Speak Up

Posted: 02 Oct 2014 01:11 AM PDT

Psalm 107:2

“Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy,” Psalm 107:2.

In 2007, I was on a trip with a group of college students from my church. We were staying the night in a hotel in Jackson, Mississippi when we were awakened early in the morning to the sound of screams and chaos. When I made my way out the door of my room to see what was going on, I noticed two girls from our group dragging a child’s body out of a pool and another of our girls performing CPR on another child.

Once the rescue responders arrived and relieved our girls I learned exactly what had happened. Two young children had snuck out of their hotel room and decided to go for a swim. When one of the children got caught in a rope in the pool the other jumped in to help. Both kids were unable to swim and would have drowned if not for the actions of a few girls from our group. The kids’ lives were saved as a result of the quick actions of these outstanding ladies. The story made the news both in Mississippi and back in our hometown in Arkansas because stories of rescue are worth telling.

Redeemed: the Hebrew word for redeemed, padah, brings the idea of rescue or protection. In today’s verse we are commanded that the “redeemed” of the Lord should “say so.” We learn that those who have been rescued and protected by God should speak up and speak out! Has the Lord redeemed you?

If so, then say so! We have been redeemed not only from our enemies, but also from the enemy. We have been redeemed from sin! That is a story of redemption.

Redemption stories are worth telling.

 

JUST ASKING

Do you have a story worth telling?

Nathan Rogers

296 – Oct. 23 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

Oct. 23, 1808 – In their associational meeting at Waggoner’s Creek in New Providence, Mississippi, the messengers discussed the fact that the Salem Baptist Church building had been constructed on public land, and what steps needed to be taken to secure title. In  1811, the members of the church petitioned the U.S. Congress for special legislation to enable them to purchase the land where the building was erected. Congress passed the legislation and it went to President James Madison for his signature but he vetoed the bill with the following explanation. First he commended the Baptists in their desire to preserve the separation of religion and state with these words, “Among the various religious societies in our country, none has been more vigilant and consistent in maintaining that distinction…of which you make a part. He then vetoed the bill, making it clear that Salem Baptist was not seeking a gift from government but only a legal remedy for their situation. It must be remembered that it was James Madison who, at the insistence of John Leland and the Baptists in Virgina had composed the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was adopted in 1789. Madison considered selling public property to the church as violating the clause, “respecting the establishment of religion.”  The problem was solved when a member Salem Baptist purchased the land and then sold it to the membership of the church. [John T. Christian, A History of the Baptists (Nashville: Boardman Press, 1922), 2:338. This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. 579-81.]   Prepared by Dr. Greg J. Dixon

 

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149 — May 28 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

A Ferocious Don Manuel Gayoso de Lemos, a Fearless Woman, and a Fainting Wife

 

Baptists from the Pee Dee region of northeastern South Carolina arrived at Cole’s Creek near Natchez in the Mississippi territory beginning in 1780, almost forty years before Mississippi became the twentieth state in the United States of America on December 10, 1817.  These Baptists had served the American colonies in their opposition to the British in the Revolutionary War.  Simultaneous with the Baptists’ arrival to Mississippi in 1780, the English were losing their control of the area to the Spanish.

 

Among the Baptists who left South Carolina were Richard Curtis, Sr., his step-son John Jones and his wife Anna, his sons Benjamin Curtis and family, Richard Curtis, Jr. (born in Virginia on May 28, 1756), and family.

 

Enforcing Roman Catholicism on the newly acquired area, the Spanish did not recognize non-Catholic forms of religion.  Problems started for the Baptists when Richard Curtis, Jr., a licensed Baptist minister, began to attract attention with his preaching ability.  By 1790, various people in the area had asked Richard Curtis, Jr., to preach for them.  Later, Curtis officiated at the baptisms of a prominent man William Hamberlin and Stephen De Alvo, a Catholic-born Spaniard, who had married an American woman, and Curtis led worship in private homes.  In 1791, the Baptists established a small church at Cole’s Creek approximately eighteen miles north of Natchez near the corner of contemporary Stampley Road and 4 Forks Road.

 

The Spanish governor, Don Manuel Gayoso de Lemos, wrote a letter to Curtis in 1795 ordering him to stop preaching contrary to the laws of the Spanish province, and went so far as to have Curtis arrested April 6, 1795.  Gayoso threatened Curtis, Hamberlin, and De Alvo with the penalty of working the silver mines of Mexico, especially if Curtis failed to stop preaching contrary to the provincial law.

 

Richard Curtis Jr., Bill Hamberlin, and Steve De Alvo fled the Natchez Country. Cloe Holt, Volunteered to fearlessly take supplies to the men in concealment. When the territory passed under the control of Georgia and was recognized as United States property, Curtis and his companions returned with joyful hearts. Curtis’s wife, not knowing of his return, fainted when she saw him standing in the pulpit to Preach.

 

Dr. Dale R. Hart: Adapted from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. I. Thompson/Cummins pp. 218 -219