March 2015

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March 5: A Letter from Francis Schaeffer

5 March, 2015 in March 2015 by archivist | No comments

True Empathy

Two close friends, both pastors, both facing the struggle against cancer. One, the president of a small theological seminary, the other a world renowned pastor and theologian. Here in this letter, preserved at the PCA Historical Center, Dr. Francis Schaeffer writes to comfort and counsel his friend, Dr. Robert G. Rayburn. The letter provides a wonderful insight into Schaeffer’s view of death and dying, and more than that, his view of the nature of the Christian life, as overseen by the providence of God. The letter also provides us a very characteristic example of Schaeffer’s pastoral concern for others. Dr. Schaeffer was called home to glory just three years later, in 1984, while Dr. Rayburn entered into his eternal reward in 1990.

 

Francis Schaeffer letter to Dr. Robert Rayburn, March 1981

Dear Bob:

Thank you for your letter of March 5. It was so good to have the news directly from you. Of course, both you and I know that unless the Lord heals us completely that once we have faced the question of cancer we always must also face the possibility of re-occurrence. With modern medicine, and I am sure prayer very much goes hand in hand with it, there is a possibility of the thing being controlled even if the Lord does not heal us completely… I hope for both of us that we will really “beat the whole thing” by meeting the Lord in the air. However, if that is not the case, maybe we will both die from 63 other things or an automobile accident. Living this way has one advantage and that is we have had brought into sharp focus the reality of what is true for everybody from con­ception onward and that is that we are all mortal in this abnor­mal world.

In my own case, of course, if I could wave a wand and be rid of the lymphoma I would do it. Yet in my own case, in looking back over the whole two-and-a-half years since I have known I have lymphoma, there has been more that has been positive than negative. That is true on many levels and I am not just thinking of some vague concept of understanding people better, though I guess that is true as well. Rather, in the total complex of everything that has happened, I am convinced that there is more positive than negative. I am so glad that though I increasingly am against any form of theological determinism which turns people into a zero and choices into delusions, yet I am also increasingly conscious of the fact that Edith and I have been, as it were, carried along on an escalator for the entirety of our lives. I am left in awe and wonder with all this, and I very much feel the escalator is still in operation, not just in this matter of health, but in the battles that beset us on every side.

I wonder if you have read my article “The Dust of Life” in the current (March) issue of Eternity. I think you would enjoy some of the ideas there. The article was not born out of abstract thinking but asking, as I saw the struggles of the younger Chris­tians, what the real balance of life was so as not to have a plastic smile on our face and yet have an affirmation of life rather than a negation of it….

Thank you for plunking out the letter on the electric portable when it was costly to you. Edith sends her love to LaVerne and to you along with my own,

In the Lamb,

/signed, Francis A. Schaeffer/

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March 4: Historic Hopewell Presbytery (1796-97)

4 March, 2015 in March 2015 by archivist | No comments

Our text for today is taken from The Souvenir Book of the General Assemblies, Atlanta, Georgia, May 14-25, 1913, pp. 11ff. This was a work compiled from the occasion when three Presbyterian denominations all met in their separate General Assemblies in Atlanta in May of 1913. The entire work can be found at http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/georgiabooks/pdfs/gb5189.pdf

At the close of the American Revolution, the entire area of the State of Georgia was embraced within the Presbytery of South Carolina. On November 3, 1796, the region west of the Savannah River was organized into a separatte jurisdiction known as the Presbytery of Hopewell. The first meeting of the new Presbytery was held at Liberty Church, in Wilkes County, Georgia, on March 4, 1797, and the opening sesrmon was preached by the Rev. John Springer, a noted pioneer evangelist.

Mr. Springer was the first Presbyterian minister to be ordained in Georgia. He opened a school at Walnut Hill, where he taught the great Jesse Mercer, who afterwards founded Mercer University; and he also numbered among his pupils the illustrious John Forsyth, who negotiated with Ferdinand VII of Spain for the purchase of Florida. Liberty Church no longer exists as an organization by this name, but it survives in the Church at Woodstock, an organization into which it was merged. It was located nine miles west of the town of Washington, in the neighborhood of War Hill, where the Tory power in Upper Georgie was overthrown by a Presbyterian elder, Colonel Andrew Pickens, in the famous Revolutionary battle of Kettle Creek.

One of the Presbyters at this first meeting of the Hopewell Presbytery was Dr. Moses Waddell. At Mount Carmel, near Appling, Georgia, this pioneer educator opened an academy which became historic. Here he taught John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, afterwards Vice-President of the United States; and William H. Crawford, a distinguished statesman, who, while a candidate for the highest office in the nations’s gift, was stricken with paralysis, a misfortune which alone prevented him from reaching the White House. Mr. Crawford was Secretary of the Treasury in the Monroe Cabinet and Minister to France during the First Empire; and the great Napoleon once said of him that he was the only man at the French Court to whom he ever felt constrained to bow. The Emperor’s reception of Mr. Crawford constitutes one of the most dramatic incidents in our diplomatic annals. Dr. Waddell also taught Hugh Swinton Legare, a Secretary of the Navy, in the Tyler Cabinet; George McDuffie, of South Carolina, an orator second only to the great Calhoun; and George R. Gilmer, afterwards Governor of this State. On account of Dr. Waddell’s prestige as an educator he was called to preside over the University of Georgia, the oldest State University in America, founded in 1785.

Rev. John Newton, another Presbyter whose name appears on the minutes of the first meeting of Hopewell, organized near Lexington what is probably the oldest Church in the Synod of Georgia—Beth-salem. Dr James Stacy, the accredited historian of the PCUS, inclines to this opinion. Beth-salem still survives in the Presbyterian Church at Lexington.

In the course of time the Presbytery of Hopewell was subdivided into smaller units as population became more dense; and finally, at Macon, in the fall of 1845, these various Presbyteries were organized into an ecclesiastical body known as the Synod of Georgia.

Words to Live By:
The Excellency of Brotherly Unity—Psalm 133

A Song of Ascents, of David.

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!

It is like the precious oil upon the head,
Coming down upon the beard,
Even Aaron’s beard,
Coming down upon the edge of his robes.

It is like the dew of Hermon
Coming down upon the mountains of Zion;
For there the Lord commanded the blessing— life forever.

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March 3: Rev. Robert Quarterman Mallard

3 March, 2015 in March 2015 by archivist | No comments

mallardRobert Quarterman Mallard, son of Thomas and Rebecca (Burnley) Mallard, was born at Waltourville, Liberty county, on September 7, 1830. He was received into the Midway Congregational church on May 15, 1852, and graduated from the University of Georgia in 1850, before entering on his preparation for the ministry at Columbia Theological Seminary.

Then graduating from Columbia in 1855, he was licensed by Georgia Presbytery on April 14, 1855 and ordained by this same Presbytery a year later, on April 13, 1856, being installed as pastor of the Walthourville church, where he served from 1856 to 1863. Rev. Mallard next answered a call to serve as pastor of the Central Presbyterian church in Atlanta, and labored there from 1863 to 1866. He then took up the pulpit of the Prytania Street Presbyterian church in New Orleans, where he labored from 1866 until ill health forced his resignation in 1877. It was not until 1879 that he was able to return to the pastorate, answering a call to serve the Napoleon Avenue Presbyterian church, also in New Orleans, from 1879 until 1903, no long before his death on March 3, 1904.

Honors accorded Rev. Mallard during his years of ministry included having served as the Moderator of the Thirty-sixth General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U.S., as it met in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1896. Rev. Mallard also served as editor of the Southwestern Presbyterian from 1892 until his death in 1904. His published works were few, notably Plantation Life before Emancipation (1892) and Montevideo-Maybank (1898)

During the Civil War, Dr. Mallard was taken prisoner at Walthourville on December 14, 1865, where he was temporarily stopping, and kept with other prisoners in pens on the Ogeechee. After the fall of Savannah, he was carried into the city, and for a while imprisoned in a cotton warehouse on Bay street; was entertained for about three months at the home of Dr. Axson, as a paroled prisoner, before being finally released.

Words to Live By:

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March 2: J. J. Janeway on Charity

2 March, 2015 in March 2015 by archivist | No comments

The Quality of Mercy, Unstrained

From the diary of the Rev. J. J. Janeway.

March 2, 1806.

J.J. Janeway“My mind has been teeming with charitable schemes. I have thought that, had I wealth, I should esteem it an honour to employ all, beside what my subsistence required, in relieving the poor and in aiding the promotion of the gospel. But I have suspected a mixture of corrupt passion and self-seeking in these imagined schemes; and on this account I have prayed God to purify my views and motives, and give me charity out of a pure heart, and faith unfeigned. How deceitful the heart! It becomes a Christian to see that, while he thinks he is doing God service, he do not seek himself. This day I preached on Christian zeal. Ah! how much I want of this virtue!    Would to God I had more!

But alas I am sluggish, and feel little of that holy fervour which warmed and animated the spirits of the apostles. With respect to the church to which I am connected, I desire to think and act with meekness and moderation. The will of God be done! If it is my duty to remain here and make unusual sacrifices, as I have since my marriage, I desire to know and do it. At present I have but few thoughts about it. God gave me what I have, and he has a right to take it when he will.”

The duty of pastoral visitation he recognized and practised. His systematic habits enabled him to accomplish much in this matter. Of it he made a conscience; though he often complains of want of disposition and talent to drop a word for God, and render his visits more practical. Of his own feelings he never was accustomed to speak much. He was silent as to what God had done for his soul. But to reprove vice and rebuke sin he never failed. A gentle savour of piety seasoned his conversation; and at the bedside of the sick and dying he was peculiarly happy. Others thought well of his services in such respects; but he judged himself severely by the word of God, and felt that he had fallen below the standard. But at home, and in the secresies of his closet, he wrestled for the fervour and earnestness which would qualify him for his work.

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March 1: Van Horn on WSC Q. 8

1 March, 2015 in March 2015 by archivist | No comments

STUDIES IN THE WESTMINSTER SHORTER CATECHISM
by Rev. Leonard T. Van Horn

Q. 8. — How doth God execute his decrees?

A. — God executeth his decrees in the works of creation and providence.

Scripture References: Rev. 4:11. Eph. 1:11. Isa. 46:10. Mark 13:31.

Questions:
1. To what can we compare the decrees of God to enable us to better understand them?

“We compare the decrees of God to the plans an architect draws for a great building. If most of us saw the blue-prints for this building we could not imagine what the building would look like . . . But when the building was all complete then we would see what was in the architect’s mind and what was the meaning of his blue-prints. So we cannot read God’s mind except by what He has said and done and by what He is doing.” (The Christian Faith According to the Shorter Catechism, by Dr. Wm. Childs Robinson, Pgs. 12-13).

2. What is the meaning of God executing His decrees?

The meaning is God bringing His will to pass, doing what He purposed from all eternity.

3. Is it possible for the decrees of God to fail?

It is not possible. No man can stay the hand of God or question what He is doing. (Dan. 4:35)

4. Where does redemption fit in the division of his decrees?

Redemption comes to pass in His providence as His majestic gift to some men through Jesus Christ.

5. What is the difference between His works of creation and providence?

Creation is His work of making all things out of nothing by the word of His power. Providence is His work of constant support and control of the universe and all that is in it.

6. What can be learned from the execution of God’s decrees?

Two verses are suggested to teach us great lessons: (1) Rev. 4:11 – the fact that He created all things for His own glory and therefore we should attribute to Him the glory, honor and power. (2) Heb. 1:3 – the fact that He is upholding all things by His power and therefore our complete sense of security is in Him.

SECURITY

According to some teachers of psychology, the child is not to be punished; the young person is to be allowed freedom; the older person must have everything going his way — all of this so that none will lose his sense of security.

The word “security” has rapidly become one of the most important words in our language. Adjustment, success, marriage and many other facets of life have all come to depend on security.

Is this matter of security so important for our lives? Does so much really depend on it? Is it possible to live without a sense of security? These questions, and others, are questions asked in our age.

Our Catechism Question gives the answer to many of these inquiries. Our Lord recognized that security is important — though it is not the security fashioned by the modern psychologist. The security that comes to the Christian is the recognition of Isaiah 46:10 – “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.” This is the basis of a security that is lasting, a security that places its confidence in the God of the Scriptures.

In Hebrews 13:5 the writer states: “ … be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Immediately following we find: “So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” Certainly it is important for us to understand that we have this security. We are taught that we are not alone in the providences of life but that we have, in God, the One who is upholding us by His power. We are taught that His power is executed in His decrees and He is doing what He purposed from all eternity.

This type of security is important. This security is not lost on the basis of whether or not we are punished, or allowed freedom, or have everything going our way. It is based first on our having a saving know¬ledge of Jesus Christ, by His grace. Second, it is based on our keeping the commandments of God. At that point we recognize that God can uphold us and keep us — and we are secure.

Published By:
THE SHIELD and SWORD, INC.
Vol. 1 No. 8 (August 1961)
Rev. Leonard T. Van Horn, Editor

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