December 2018

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Despite Your Weaknesses—Often Because of Your Weaknesses—God Can Use You.  

It has always been an issue with some of the covenant people of God that they often cannot relate a particular time when they came to a saving relationship with Christ.  Such was the case with a young man by the name of Eleazer Whittlesey, who moved from Bethlem, Connecticut, to Pennsylvania in the mid 1700’s.

We don’t know much about his background, either his parents or what spiritual influences he had from any church.  He showed up to meet Aaron Burr in Newark, New Jersey by a recommendation from a man named Ballamy.  The infant and later Princeton Seminary was located there, with Pastor Burr as its second president.  The latter clergyman noted that he was “not converted in the way” that many of the Presbyterian clergy of his day thought was necessary.  In fact, President Burr spoke of  having “some doubt” of  his spiritual experience.  He went on to state that “he has met with others of God’s dear people, who cannot tell of such a particular submission as we have insisted on, though the substance of the thing may be found in all.”  However, Rev. Burr placed Eleazar under his pastoral care and believed that he was making good progress in learning.  He ended his thoughts by stating that “I trust the Lord has work for him to do.”

Seven years later, Eleazer would graduate from Nassau Hall in Princeton, New Jersey, to which the new college has moved.  He was licensed by the New Castle Presbytery soon afterwards.  We could find no record of his ordination however.  In 1750, he began to supply vacancies, of which there were many at this time in American Presbytery history.  Yet while  doing that “with zeal and integrity,” Eleazer complained of “melancholy”  which kept  him from being able to study or make preparation for sermons in the pulpit.  His days, he acknowledged, were often spent in “painful idleness.”

In 1751, Whittlesey settled in what is now York County, Pennsylvania, where  he began to preach in a log church in Muddy Run.  Faithful in labor in all the neighboring settlements, it was said that he formed the Slate Ridge and Chanceford Presbyterian churches, composed of Scots-Irish  people.

In 1752, he left a pastor’s house one cold day to travel to the Muddy Run church.  On the way, he became ill with pleurisy, and died about a week later on December 21, 1752.  His last words were “O  Lord, leave me not.”

Words to Live By: We remember the apostle Paul who had “a thorn in the flesh,” and prayed earnestly that it might depart from him. ( 2 Corinthians 12:7, 8)  God answered his request with the word “My grace is sufficient for you, for power in perfected in weakness.” (2 Cor 12;9) God can use us for His kingdom despite our bodily and mental weaknesses.   Remember that, Christian.

The  Apostle of Kentucky —

There were several pseudonyms given David Rice. The apostle of Kentucky was one. Or the pioneer minister of the Presbyterian Church of Kentucky was another.  Perhaps the best title was that of “Father” Rice. The Rev. David Rice was all these titles to the state of Kentucky, and especially to the Scots-Irish saints of Kentucky.

Born December 20 in 1733 in Hanover County, Virginia, he was one of twelve children of a farmer in that county. Reared Episcopalian originally, he early associated with the Presbyterian cause.  Educated at the College of New Jersey at Princeton, New Jersey, he afterwards was trained in theology under one of the assistants of Samuel Davies, a man by the name of John Todd. Ordained by Hanover Presbytery in December of 1763, he became the pastor of Hanover Presbyterian Church. When the period of the Revolution came in the colonies, he took a decided stand in favor of the Revolution, serving as a chaplain to the Hanover militia. He was married by this time, having  married Mary Blair, the daughter of Samuel Blair, of Faggs Manor. Together, they would rear twelve children.

The Hanover Virginia congregation, where Samuel Davies had been the pastor before his move to the College of New Jersey, was weakened in number due to many of the Scot-Irish Presbyterians moving west for better opportunities. In fact, it was a number of those immigrants who invited David Rice to move to Kentucky in 1783. He was the first Presbyterian pastor to move into the state.

His ministry here included both church and state. As far as the church part, he would eventually pastor four Presbyterian congregations in the state. During this important pastoral work, he founded the first presbytery, the first synod, and the first seminary, called Transylvania Seminary, which is now a university. It was also here that he became convicted over the slavery issue, and sought to have it abolished by both the church and the state.  His organ for doing so was the Kentucky Abolition Society, for which David Rice was a life-time member.  He felt that Christians should lead the way for a gradual abolition of the slave trade as a result of their religion and conscience. Though he worked hard to this end, he was never able to accomplish it.

As far as the state was concerned, he was a member of the Constitutional convention of Kentucky to write the state constitution. He took up his call for abolition of slavery there as well, but was rebuffed again by the other citizens in the convention. Despite this failure, he stayed true to his convictions on the evils of slavery and was forever urging its demise.

They described him as tall and slender, quiet in his movements, with a remarkable degree of alertness even in his seventies. “Father Rice” is buried in the cemetery of the Presbyterian Church of Danville, Kentucky.

Words to live by:  David Rice was one of those Christian men who took his stand for righteousness even as he faithfully ministered the Word of God to the masses in Virginia and Kentucky.  He was used of the Lord in both church and state.  What a challenge to be at the starting points of so many works of the Lord.  God has especially called some of His church to engage in similar ministries.  In whatever Presbyterian denomination you are in, pray for the missions agencies, as well as individual church planters, who start with a few and then by God’s Spirit, build up a congregation for His glory.

Photos of the grave site of the Rev. David Rice can be viewed here.

Dr. R.C. Sproul died on December 14, 2017, and what follows was posted on this blog site a few days later (12/19). It seems quite appropriate to revisit what was posted then, as time and experience have only deepened our appreciation for how the Lord so powerfully used R.C. in the lives of so many. And as for the links at the end of this post, I’ve not checked, but hope that most, if not all, are still working.

“God buries His workers and carries on His work.”

As most know by now, Dr. R.C. Sproul passed away on December 14th. We have lost a great pastor and teacher. A memorial service will be held tomorrow, Wednesday Dec. 20th at 2:00 PM Eastern Time, at the Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Florida. The entire service will be live-streamed at RCSproul.com. There will also be a public visitation, at the Saint Andrew’s Chapel, today, Tuesday December 19th, from 9 AM to 3 PM.

As you might imagine, there have been many, many tributes published in memory of Dr. Sproul, acknowledging the inestimable ways in which he was used so mightily in the Lord’s kingdom. In particular, I was quite taken with what my friend Tom Martin, a retired judge who lives near Philadelphia, wrote upon hearing of Dr. Sproul’s passing.

R.C. Sproul, A Tribute
by Tom Martin

When James Montgomery Boice died of liver cancer in June of 2000, one of the men asked to speak at his memorial service at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia was his close friend R. C. Sproul. As Sproul rose to the pulpit he reminded the crowd gathered (as he often did) of an historic parallel. He told of the words of Philip Melanchthon at the funeral held for Martin Luther in 1546, when Melanchthon compared the death of Luther to the removal from this world of the Jewish prophet Elijah, whose very name meant “Yahweh is God!” in defiance of idol worshipping king Ahab. 

Melanchthon used the words of Scripture in II Kings 2, which were Elisha’s lament at the loss of his dear friend and mentor, the prophet Elijah:

“And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

“And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces.

“He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan;

“And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither: and Elisha went over.”

It has taken a few hours for the death of R.C.Sproul to sink in to my thinking, for Sproul was a giant I was honored to know. I remember the first time he spoke to me by my first name “Tom” and I thought how privileged I was to have been with him from time to time and to have gotten to know the man well. R.C. was a true Christian. Imperfect. At times more hesitant than he seemed in public. Yet, a man with a genuine heart and love for Jesus.

Now he is gone. Others must carry on his work, and shrink from the reality that we don’t have him any longer to rely upon in the work of the Kingdom of God. We want to cry out “My father! My father!” Yet we see him no more.

We must recall that even in the sorrows of the death of Elijah his follower Elisha “took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him,” smote the rivers of the Jordan River, and the waters parted. The power of God is not diminished by the loss of God’s saints. As John Wesley wrote: “God buries His workers and carries on His work.” May the God of Elijah, the God of James Montomery Boice, and the God of R.C. Sproul carry on His work until Jesus comes again.

Links to some of the other many tributes have been gathered here: 

Tributes to Dr. R.C. Sproul

Dr. Peter Lillback, president of Westminster Theological Seminary, has also shared two very memorable audio recordings of Dr. Sproul,
(1.) of his address at Westminster’s 83rd commencement ceremony, in 2012 and (2.) an interview with Dr. Sproul conducted earlier this year by Dr. Scott Oliphint.
Click here for the link to listen to either of these recordings.

Lastly, I would close with what Darrell B. Harrison and many others have pointed to as one of R.C.’s most important messages,
“The Curse Motif of the Atonement”

Pictured: Dr. R.C. Sproul speaking at a press briefing of the Congress on the Bible, March 1982.
Seated with him at the table are Dr. Bill Bright of Campus Crusade and Dr. Jim Boice, pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, PA.
This photo is from the Presbyterian Journal collection at the PCA Historical Center.

 

A Life, and Death, Surrendered to the Lord

This day, December 18th, in 1928, marks the birth of Cecil John Miller. Raised in California, he earned his BA at San Francisco State College in 1953 and a doctorate in English Literature at the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. He graduated from Westminster Seminary in 1966, but by an uncommon arrangement had previously been ordained by the OPC some seven years earlier, in October of 1959, whereupon he was then engaged in church planting work in Stockton, California from 1959 to 1963. He later began serving as pastor of the Mechanicsville Chapel in Pennsylvania a year before graduating from Westminster, serving that pulpit from 1965 to 1972.

Jack Miller was my pastor when I was a student at Westminster Seminary in the late 1970’s. The church at that time was still meeting in the rented gymnasium of a local YMCA. Every Sunday we’d get there early to set up folding chairs, and then prepared for a time of worship, typically up to two hours in length and including a sermon from Dr. Miller which might easily run up to 60 minutes long. But we never noticed the clock. We simply went home for lunch and spent the afternoon dwelling on all we had heard. Then we’d go back at the end of the day for more. Dr. Miller was the pastor of New Life Presbyterian Church from 1973 to 1990, and a number of other New Life churches sprang from the model he established. But his greatest legacy came from his heart for missions, which led him on frequent trips to several countries, most notably Uganda, and from this work, World Harvest Mission began, and Dr. Miller served as director of WHM from 1991 until his death, April 8, 1996. World Harvest is now known as Serge, a name change which was announced just this past summer.

Without recounting here his many books, which have been a great blessing to so many, I will simply note today that a new work has recently been issued under the titleSaving Grace. This new book consists of 366 excerpts drawn from Dr. Miller’s sermons, portioned out for daily devotional reading. 

As a sample of the entries in this book, the following is the entry for December 18:

Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.)–John 21:18-19.

How do we develop character in ourselves and others? We can’t teach character unless we have it, and that’s a problem because the church often lacks character. We can only get it as we learn about Jesus’s holy, powerful, transforming love. But we want so many other things besides the love of Christ : an easy life, popularity, acceptance, good principles, and even sound theology. But without love to Christ forming the character, all of it is only self-will. And without the love of Christ shaping our will and character, even good things become demonic, divisive, and cruel.

So Jesus ends his message to Peter by saying, “Follow me. Follow me to your death and you will glorify God. Follow me and I will make you great.” Peter desired to be great and God is going to do that through his death. The heart of love for God is surrendering our will to him. Peter surrendered to Christ and became great. As we surrender to God’s love, our character is formed like Christ, and we also become great in God’s kingdom.

To find out more about the book and how to order from the publisher, New Growth Press, click the title here: Saving Grace.

A Man Who Cared Greatly, Standing Faithfully in Christ.

Our post today comes from guest author, Rev. Dennis Bills, who since 2012 has served as pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA) in New Martinsville, West Virginia. Besides his recent publication, A Church You Can See: Building a Case for Church Membership, and in addition to his labors as shepherd of the Lord’s people there at Trinity, he is also a diligent student of history and for the last several years has been preparing a volume on the history of Presbyterianism in West Virginia. That work will likely see publication some time in the coming year.A Ma
Today’s post draws from this forthcoming book, and accordingly we have chosen to retain his footnotes, as they are a further help and interest:

The Rev. Henry Ruffner, D.D. (1790-1861)

Presbyterians should remember Henry Ruffner as the founder of Presbyterianism in the Kanawha Valley of West Virginia, including three prominent churches that still exist today; for his vocation as professor and president at Washington College (now Washington and Lee University); and for his influential anti-slavery efforts in the years leading up to the Civil War.

Dr. Ruffner was born in the Shenandoah Valley on January 16, 1790. In 1796, his grandfather Joseph Ruffner and father Colonel David Ruffner moved the family to the Kanawha Valley to build the area’s first salt works on a 502 acre tract by the Kanawha River.[1] Young Henry Ruffner preferred scholasticism to salt, so in 1809, at age nineteen, he moved to Lewisburg to study at Dr. John McElhenney’s classical school. He was so well prepared by McElhenney that he was able to move on to Washington College to finish the complete curriculum in only a year and a half. As was the way for ministers in the frontier regions, he was tutored in theology by the president of the college for an additional year before being licensed to preach by Lexington Presbytery in 1815.

For the next four years, the young licentiate preached up and down the Kanawha Valley. The Society of Christians Called Presbyterians gathered to hear him preach in two locations:  on his father’s property near the saltworks in Malden—a place known as Colonel Ruffner’s Meetinghouse—and at the courthouse in Charleston six miles downriver to the north.[2] At the same time, he also taught at and apparently paid for much of the construction of the new Mercer Academy near the courthouse. The wealthy Ruffner family’s influence was still on display, as young Henry’s work was subsidized by and the academy was built on land donated by his father.

In the fall of 1818, the Presbytery ordained Ruffner in Lexington, and he immediately returned to start one of the oldest churches in the Presbyterian Church in America.[3]Under his authority, the Society for Christians called Presbyterians organized in 1819 to become the united “Presbyterian Church on Kanawha and in Kanawha Salines.” At first, the church met in one place or the other under a single session but eventually divided in 1841 to become the Kanawha Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) and the Kanawha Salines Presbyterian Church (then PCUS, now PCA). Still a third church divided from the Kanawha Church in 1872—ironically named the First Presbyterian Church of Charleston (PCUS). To this day, all three churches claim to have been constituted in 1819 by the famed Henry Ruffner, and each claims the prestige of being the lineally original church.[4]

Ruffner did not stay to pastor the church he founded. Soon after, he embarked on a career in education at his alma mater Washington College, progressing from Latin and Greek professor in 1819 to president in 1838. In 1847, Ruffner wrote a widely-distributed anti-slavery pamphlet called “Address to the People of West Virginia.” [5] The controversy of the pamphlet occasioned his retirement from the presidency in 1848, whereupon he returned to the Kanawha Valley around 1850. With an eye toward finishing out his years in serenity, he bought property seven miles up Campbell’s Creek and tried his hand at sheep farming.[6] He was unsuccessful. Thankfully he was still a preacher, so he returned once again to the pulpit of the church he had started forty years before. He may have served as pulpit supply until they called their next pastor in 1853. When the pulpit became vacant once again in 1857, Ruffner appears in the records once again for one year as the moderator of the session and the church’s stated supply.[7] He died on December 17, 1861 and was buried in the small family plot a few hundred yards north of the church.[8] Toward the end of his life, he expressed regret that he had not stayed home all those years to minister in West Virginia. He wondered whether he could have perhaps done more for the Kanawha Valley if he had spent his life preaching in the hills and hollers.[9]

Henry Ruffner’s son, William Henry Ruffner, wrote the following about his father’s final years:

During the decade preceding the Civil War, Dr. Ruffner foresaw the approaching catastrophe, as is shown by his Union speech delivered during that period, and it depressed him grievously in both body and mind, and no doubt shortened his life. About the time that the Cotton States seceded his nervous system broke down utterly, and he was no longer able to preach. Gradually his strength failed without any attack of acute disease. His mind continued clear and that sweet peacefulness of spirit which had always characterized him never changed. His trust in God and his own hope in the future retained firm to the latest hour. He ceased to breathe December 17, 1861, aged 71 years and 11 months. 

[1] History of the Presbytery of Kanawha, p. 59-60.

[2] In the 1700s “Societies for Christians” were formed by pioneers in areas where ordained ministers of the Word and Sacrament were unavailable or where colonial prejudices and policies obstructed the organization of non-Anglican churches. By Ruffner’s time, the Commonwealth no longer enforced such rules on the frontier, so the Society was free to organize as a church.

[4] The first two churches have the most obvious claim to direct lineage. The Kanawha Salines Church may hold the original constitutional document signed by Henry Ruffner and still meets in an original Malden structure built in 1840 before the congregation divided. The Kanawha Presbyterian Church continues the name of the original congregation and holds certain key historical records, but the First Presbyterian Church (which is ironically the third chronologically), retains and has built upon the original property donated by the Ruffner family in Charleston.

[6] History of the Presbytery of Kanawha, p. 91

[7] History of the Presbytery of Kanawha, p. 5-6.

[8] The location of the plot is not easy to find, although many of the older locals no doubt know its location. I was able to locate it using descriptions, photos, and google maps on an out of the way spot on an industrial property nearby. The company maintains the cemetery, and the family tells me the company will open it up for inquirers who provide notice.

[9] Specifically, he regretted that he did not stay to foster a short-lived church he had started in Teays Valley at the same time as the Kanawha Church.  He also regretted that he was unauthorized to organize a church up the Pocatalico River when he was only licentiate. Instead, the folks he had been preaching to were turned over to another preacher who successfully started a Methodist church.  He did not begrudge this—he and the preacher were friends, and he felt that some religion was better than none at all. But he felt the loss for his denomination. He also regretted that, during his brief time preaching in the Kanawha Valley, he had focused too much on outreach to rural areas, and not enough on areas where churches were likely to be more viable in the long term. West Virginia Historical Magazine Quarterly, April 1902. The Ruffners No. IV. Henry. First Article. By Dr. W. H. Ruffner.
http://www.wvculture.org/history/antebellum/ruffnerhenry01.html

Shown here, a tentative cover for the new book by Rev. Dennis Bills:

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