Watson closes his book with three final warnings. Here is the second part of the second of these:
By living in an evil family, we are liable to incur their punishment: “pour out thy wrath upon the families that call not upon thy name. (Jer. 10. 25) For want of pouring out of prayer, the wrath of God was ready to be poured out. It is dangerous living in the tents of Kedar. When God sends his flying roll, written within and without with curses, it enters into the house of the thief and the perjurer, “and consumes the timber and the stones thereof.” (Ze. 5. 4) Is it not of sad consequence to live in a profane perjured family, when the sin of the governor pulls his house about his ears? If the stones and timber be destroyed, how shall the servant escape? And suppose God send not a temporal roll of curses in the family, there is a “spiritual roll, and that is worse.” (Pr. 3. 33) Be not content to live where religion dies. “Salute the brethren, and Nymphas, and the church which is in his house.” (Col. 4. 15) The house of the godly is a little church, the house of the wicked a little hell. (Pr.7. 27) Oh, incorporate yourselves into a religious family; the house of a good man is perfumed with a blessing. (Pr. 3. 33) When the holy oil of grace is poured on the head, the savour of this ointment sweetly diffuseth itself, and the virtue of it runs down upon the skirts of the family. Pious examples are very magnetical and forcible. Seneca said to his sister, though I leave you not wealth, yet I leave you a good example. Let us ingraft ourselves among the saints; by being often among the spices, we come to smell of them.
Thomas Watson lived from 1620-1686, in England. He wrote several books which survive. This blog, God willing, will post excerpts from his The Art of Divine Contentment: An Exposition of Philippians 4:11, over a number of weeks, on Sundays.
My source for the text is here, and I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this text (and many others) available. The previous excerpt is here.
Philippians
4:11 Not that I speak because of lack, for I have learned in whatever
state I am, to be content in it. (World English Bible, public domain.)
Musings on science, the Bible, and fantastic literature (and sometimes basketball and other stuff).
God speaks to us through the Bible and the findings of science, and we should listen to both types of revelation.
The title is from Psalm 84:11.
The Wikipedia is usually a pretty good reference. I mostly use the World English Bible (WEB), because is public domain. I am grateful.
License
I have written an e-book, Does the Bible Really Say That?, which is free to anyone. To download that book, in several formats, go here.
The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
4 comments:
Hello Bro. Martin LaBar. I am a Pastor from Mumbai, India. I am glad to stop by your profile on the blogger and the blog post. I am also blessed and feel privileged and honoured to get connected with you as well as know you and about your interest in the exposition of the Word of God. I will be so glad to follow your blog on the exposition of Philippians 4;11. I love getting connected with the people of God around the globe to be encouraged, strengthened and praying for one another. I have been in the Pastoral ministry for last 39 yrs in this great city of Mumbai a city of Mumbai a city with a great contrast where richest of rich and the poorest of poor with the love of Christ to bring healing to the brokenhearted. We also encourage young and the adults from the west to come to Mumbai to work with us during their vacation time. We would love to have young people from your contact to come to Mumbai to work with us during their vacation time. I am sure they will have a life changing experience. My email id is:dhwankhede(at)gmail(dot)com and my name is Diwakar Wankhede. God's richest blessings on you, your family and friends.
Thank you, sir.
May God bless your ministry.
Our young people often participate in ministries in other cultures through our denomination, or through Southern Wesleyan University, which is within 30 minutes by car.
Thank you Bro.Martin for your response to my comment. I normally do not visit blogger's post regularly but once in a while and that is the reason I do my email id so that it becomes easy to remain connected but I am thankful to the Lord for leading to browse blogger's post and it was so good to come across your response. It seems Southern Wesleyan University has emphasis on Wesleyan Holiness and our church (Nazarene)emphasises it. God willing if I happen to come to United States in the month of May 2019 I would love to visit you and the Southern Wesleyan University too. Pastor Diwakar
I have a brother who is a long-time Nazarene. He lives a long way from me. I probably don't have much to contribute, as far as a visit, but, no doubt, the Religion faculty, and the resident missionary, from Southern Wesleyan would be glad to learn from you.
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