Sing And Make Melody - How Shall The Young Secure Their Hearts?

    The song I have selected this week asks a question: How Shall the  Young Secure Their Hearts? It is a teaching song (to us) as well as a declaration of the wondrous beauty of God's truth - the Bible!

How Shall The Young Secure Their Hearts?

(written by Isaac Watts in 1719)

How shall the young secure their hearts

And guard their lives from sin?

Thy word the choicest rules imparts

To keep the conscience clean,

To keep the conscience clean.

Tis, like the sun a heav'nly light

That guides us all the day,

And through the dangers of the night

A lamp to lead our way,

A lamp to lead our way.

The word is everlasting truth,

How pure is every page!

That holy book shall guide our youth

And well support our age,

And well support our age.

    This hymn is based on several passages found in Psalms 119. Look at these wonderful verses:

"How can a young man cleanse his way?

By taking heed according to Your word.

With my whole heart I have sought You;

Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!

For Your word I have hidden in my heart,

That I might not sin against You."

(Psalm 119:9-11 NKJV)

"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."

(Psalm 119:105 NKJV)

"You are near, O LORD, and all Your commandments are truth.

Concerning Your testimonies, I have known of old 

that You have founded them forever."

 (Psalm 119:151-152 NKJV)

    I encourage you today to make time to read the whole of Psalm 119. It is a wonderful psalm of joyful submission to God's word, and a song of depending on God and His faithfulness for help! Please read it!

    Consider the last verse of the hymn: 

God's word is everlasting truth, how pure is every page!
That holy book shall guide our youth and well support our age.

    1 Peter 1:25 states "the word of the Lord endures forever." In Psalm 119:89 the psalmist declares, "Forever, O LORD, Your word stands firm in heaven. Your faithfulness endures to all generations." All generations! We've already read verses that declare the benefits of seeking God in our youth and applying His instruction as we develop but we need to remember that we also have support in our older years; God does not forget us, His word does not fail us. His instruction grows in value and His teachings result in increasing wisdom, so we in turn can encourage a new generation to seek Him!

    Look at this picture of old age:

"The righteous flourish like the palm tree

and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

They are planted in the house of the Lord;

they flourish in the courts of our God.

They still bear fruit in old age;

they are ever full of sap and green,

to declare that the Lord is upright;

He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him."

(Psalm 92:12-15 NKJV)

    God is good and greatly to be praised!! Encourage the young to seek Him! Encourage the old to trust in Him! No matter your age, secure your heart to Him!! Only in Him do we have the Lamp and the Light that can guide our way! Please read Psalm 119 this week and sing this hymn with understanding!

You can do it! So can I!! 

Thankful for God's Unchanging Truth

    With it being a new month, I would like to begin a new series: Thankfulness. We have so much to be thankful for! Over the next few weeks, if the Lord wills, we will look at passages that express thankfulness and take a closer look at all the things we need to appreciate and give thanks for! 

    If you are reading this, God has already blessed you with a new day, sufficient health, eyesight, ability to use your hands, a mind able to function and understand!! God is SO good!! To Him be the glory forever and ever!!

"Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!

For God is the King of all the earth; Sing praises with understanding."

(Psalm 47:6-7 NKJV)

    Thinking about this new topic made me consider my family history - relatives who changed our family for the better because of their choice to seek God and follow His truth! Today I am thankful to God for the people in my family history who, when they found God’s truth, embraced it as truth, and chose to follow Him the rest of their days.

Let me begin at the beginning…

    Around the age of 17, my Grampa (Victor) Sullivan was desperate for shelter/work (it was the 1920’s) and he became a hired farm hand for his Aunt Lizzy (Elizabeth (Eller) Brown) and Uncle George Eller. He was given room and board and was firmly informed by Aunt Lizzy that “You’re going to church with me on Sunday.”

    So Victor went with Aunt Lizzy to church services each Sunday and heard God’s truth, straight from the Bible. Later, Victor obeyed the gospel by being baptized into Christ and began his walk as a Christian.

    Grampa married a beautiful Anglican girl, Mary McDonough. They eventually studied the Bible together with Art & Lillian Corbett (my husband’s grandparents!) and my Gramma discovered God’s truth in the Bible and was baptized into Christ. Together they worshipped with the church in Jordan (when they met in a building that stood where Snure Cemetery is now), and helped build the current meeting place on Hwy 8.

    The church grew to well over 150 members in Jordan and the elders at the time decided to see if other congregations could be started around Ontario. So they placed ads in newspapers offering free Bible Correspondence Courses (Bible studies via mail), to places like Haliburton, Bancroft, South River, and Wellandport.

    An ad was placed in a Dunnville newspaper (to find people near Wellandport), a paper which my Great Aunt Pearl Nicholls read. My Great Aunt answered the ad and shared the course with her husband Glenn and her sister-in-law (my grandmother) Marjorie (Nicholls) Gare.

    My grandmother was a Free Methodist and had been married to a well known Free Methodist preacher until his death. When she studied the Bible, she realized that it was God’s Word, and she desired to do what she read there, and she was baptized.

    My Grandmother Gare worshipped with the church in Wellandport (when they met in the rented Oddfellows Hall) until her passing a few years later.

    My mother and father met each other while worshipping with the church in Wellandport. And the rest, they say, is history! smile emoticon

    The same truth that convinced my Grampa’s Aunt Lizzy, was the same truth that convinced him and my Gramma Sullivan, it was the same truth that convinced my Grandmother Gare (and my Great Aunt Pearl & Great Uncle Glenn Nicholls AND my Great Aunt Sis & Great Uncle Allen Nicholls), it was the same truth that convinced my Dad and my Mom, it was the same truth that convinced me (and my siblings), and my husband (and his siblings), and it’s the same truth that convinced both our daughters that they needed to obey God’s Word by being baptized into Christ!

“...the word of the LORD endures forever.” 

(Isaiah 40:7-8, 1 Peter 1:24-25 NKJV)

    I am thankful for my Great Aunt Lizzy and my Great Aunt Pearl! I thank God for them, as well as the elders at Jordan who wanted to spread God’s word province-wide… I’m thankful for gospel preachers like John Whitfield, Norman Midgette, Hubert Showalter, and John Witt, who preached God’s truth and studied with many people, showing them God’s way, straight from the Bible!

    Thank you Heavenly Father for Your enduring Word!!

“I thought about my ways, and turned my feet to Your testimonies.

I made haste, and did not delay to keep Your commandments.”

(Psalm 119:59-60 NKJV)

    What is your family history? Are you from a long line, a short line, or are you the one who changed your family for the better by being the first to obey the gospel? No matter which it may be take time to appreciate those who helped you learn the Truth so you could obey the gospel; thank God for them and thank Him, also, for His unchanging, powerful Word!!

You can do it! So can I!!

Women Who Magnify God

    What better way to declare God's way as the best way than to know His will and joyfully fulfill it in our lives! When we find instruction, let's have a heart that is open to receiving it and applying it, so we, as women, can declare God's greatness to the world around us!

    As women, we have opportunity to use our talents to help others (Tabitha/Dorcas, Acts 9:36, 39). There is also more specific instruction given to older and young women in Titus 2:3-5:

"The older women likewise*, that they be reverent in behaviour, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things - that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed." (NKJV)

    Every single item in these verses applies to older women. How can you teach something that you, yourself, do not already know and do?

    And if you think you still have some years before these verses for "older women" apply to you, think again! If there is any woman younger than you, with whom you can influence by your example, you too are an 'older woman!' Begin now to understand the beauty and importance of fulfilling God's will in your role as a woman!

~ Note the asterisk (*) I added beside the word 'likewise' in the above passage. When we see the word 'likewise' we need to realize that a commonality is being expressed between two parties. In this case, there is an instruction given to the older men (in verse 2), that the
older women are also to adhere to.

"... the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; the older women likewise..." (Titus 2:2-3a NKJV)

    From this same passage we can understand the instruction to young women: love your husband's, love your children, be discreet, homemakers, good, obedient to your own husbands.

    So, older women are to be examples as well as teachers to the young women - likely one on one as a mother would be with a daughter, but I would love to see this stretch beyond the bonds of only teaching or feeling a realm of influence on our own daughters. Let each one of us embrace the women younger than us as daughters; women we can be examples to, whom we can influence toward godly goals.

    Older women, love and care for the hearts and souls of the young women. Look for opportunity to teach and influence them toward the things listed in Titus 2.

    Young women, look to the older women for guidance and encouragement. Respect them and their accumulated knowledge/experience/wisdom. Allow them to instruct you and teach you.

    The world around us wants us to see these verses in Titus as asphyxiating and constraining us from the 'freedom we deserve' as women. I want you to love God and understand His love for you, enough to see the absolute beauty He has given us to embody as women! We have a most wonderful role to fulfill - a role that takes us a lifetime to accomplish. Each day, let us grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and take the steps necessary to apply what we are instructed to do in Titus 2.

    Why are we to do this? Why are we, as older women, supposed to take care to obey these commands/instructions and be examples and teachers to the young women? Why should young women listen to the older women's teaching and advice - don't they understand that times are different now and their experience is antiquated? Why are we to fulfill these instructions? 

    Read the last part of Titus 2:5 to find the answer: "that the word of God may not be blasphemed." 

    We follow these instructions, we fulfill God's command to us as women, so that when others observe us they see that we're on to something that truly works! They see us loving our husbands - not abusing them to our friends. They see us loving our children - raising them in an environment of nurturing and in the admonition of the Lord. They will observe women who are happy! Happy to help, happy to take care of their homes, happy to work; "doing the will of God from the heart"(Ephesians 6:6)! No one can make fun of God's word when they see it beautifully personified in our actions and behaviours! When they see how well it works and benefits us and those with whom we can have an influence; they will want to know more about Him - another opportunity to shine God's light into the darkness!!

You can do it! So can I!!

    Next week, the Lord willing, we will continue our theme of 'Women Who Magnify God' by examining of the role of a wife.