Without A Doubt

The end of a dock serves up much food for thought!

Do you ever gaze at the clouds and wonder how it will be on That Great Day...?!

"Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory."

Mark 13:26

While we marveled at twilight's beauty a sudden rain came out of nowhere to further enhance the dusk...

...and as suddenly as it came, it passed; NOT so with eternity!!

We prepare for many uncertainties; 

pray we do not ignore the one Certainty and thus fail to prepare for it; Death and its Everafter

 

The above words are lines in a sermon from the book A Man Called Peter written by his wife Catherine Marshall

The American Dream...(a week before the election)

 the above is a sermon preached by Peter Marshall   
Click on the images to enlarge.
I realize this is a bit of a read but even a page or two leaves much for the reader to ponder.
 It seems this message is even more relevant now than then!
and not only for Americans.
This applies to all of us who enjoy freedom!
In a week is the American Election...
then a few days later Remembrance Day.

War,
like blood-stained thunder roared
and strew death in its hellish wake
where buttercups and daisies nod
in innocence on
unmarked graves
as generations foreign to
the horrors
forefathers endured
loaf on street-corners
mindless of
the freedom
sacrifice secured
while clink of coffee cups, laughter,
spills to the bustling boulevard
that once ran red
where lost life bled
to build a dream
and it was hard
We ought to hold its
banner high
Freedom,
bought not with hate,
but love
and with the cost
of much life lost
...we NEVER want
to lose sight of

...or have we?!

Janet Martin

O, Canada

“But Mom, if the foundation of anything gets removed, what is built on it will fall”, our teen-age son voiced his concerns as we discussed the moral decline of both Canada and the United States of America.

 

One of my most cherished books is Mr. Jones, Meet the Master.

Below is a sermon Keepers of the Springs, preached in the 1940's by Peter Marshall, and all the more relevant today! (click on images to enlarge for easier reading)

(though preached to Americans its message is equally applicable to Canadians, as is the prayer on the last page!)

Oh, Canada, lest you become

A nation to God’s Presence numb

A nation without thought or prayer

To He who holds us in His care…

O Canada, lest you forget

The Foundation forefathers set

O pray, the God that led them here

Is He whom we choose to revere

O, Canada, still strong and free

How certain your downfall will be

If we reject the Cornerstone

That this country was founded on

O Canada, of cities grand

Fresh-water lakes and rich farmland

Your freedom beckons throngs to come

So they may call Canada ‘Home’

O, Canada, your future waits

Then pray the keepers of its gates

Before we are a land bereft

Will salvage what footing is left

© Janet Martin

We, the people, not the politicians, are the keepers of its gates/springs. 

Pray we accept this charge with holy awe!

Of Swatch of Sod and Sweep of Sky

We splash across earth’s waking green

Past-present-future caught between

A swatch of sod and sweep of sky

Its palette pleasant to the eye

In constant marvel, life and death

Are juxtaposed in every breath

And soon where blooming bud was lent

The limb is gnarled and heavy-bent

Time’s draught of moments takes its toll

Where we are all piece of a whole

Greater than thought or touch and taste

Ere dust to dust retrieves its waste

Freedom; life’s greatest blessedness

Nor for greed’s wanton lawlessness

But as we grasp its worth we see

A sacred, elemental key

…Responsibility and Rule

Not for the faint of heart or fool

We yearn with clear and earnest eyes

To satisfy Time’s moment-prize

With more than dust of darling dreams

Or wanderlust-betaken schemes

For surely life is more than breath

To lead us to eternal death

We splash across earth’s waking green

Toward a Line, sure yet Unseen

Of tick-tock trampling underfoot

The miles transporting us to It

Time’s sweep of sky and swatch of sod

Life’s little highway back to God

© Janet Martin

I am reading through Peter Marshall’s sermons, dumbfounded by their simplicity and depth and timeless relevance…It is little wonder that the loss of his voice and verve were deeply mourned. Here, a small excerpt...

Sacred Awareness

If we, without Awareness of this Great and Awesome thing

Behold, and touch and taste the measure of daily living

And laugh the hollow laughter of the blind leading the blind

Seeking in desperation happiness and peace of mind

…if we shut out the Truth because the Truth is dark with fear

Still then, that Great and Awesome thing will never disappear

For Death, life’s single certainty is every man’s demise

That Great and Awesome Gateway to Hades or Paradise

And if we sadly stumble without Hope, our greatest boast

Then we are, above all men to be pitied the most

For life, this gasp of flesh and blood is not all there will be

Immutable the exchange; Time to Immortality

If we, without Awareness of the One who loves us so

He gave His only Son to die and save us from Hell’s woe

So that we may have Life and have it more abundantly

If we choose to reject The Gift of salvation full-free

…and if we choose to grovel in a most pathetic state

Quelling sacred Awareness of a Great and Awesome Gate

Then, though we gain the world and the cap-sheaf of human boast

We are above all humankind to be pitied the most

© Janet Martin

"You and I are souls", Peter reiterated frequently, "living in bodies".

For Promises of More

Wisdom crieth without the gates; Her voice a wailing wraith

How long will we refuse Her for a knowledge void of trust

Complacency of fools entices us from founded faith

As we exchange Her gifted gain to grovel in the dust

And want replaces wisdom; greed, a god of vanity

Cannot begin to fathom Her unsoiled intimacy

How easily faith falters craving fortune formed of sight

How rather we prefer the facts than waiting, wondering

Without the proof of answers that we understand as right

While ever yet we pray and plead, the silence thundering

With what ifs, why and wherefores that are not clearly revealed

As true love of obedience requires Self repealed

Old customs fall away beneath Time’s frantic, forward urge

The New boasts bigger, better than those ancient things we learned

Its music of progression as past-present-future merge

Accepting the Unthinkable which our forefathers spurned

But what God promised long ago He promises now, still

And Faith even as mustard seed can move a mighty hill

Wisdom cries in the streets; the noise of vain self-righteousness

Would drown Her, yet the Lord by wisdom founded all the earth

And He is ever greater than Time’s faint covetousness

Patient, He tends the cradle where knowledge waits to give birth

To Her which gives life not to flesh and blood, but to the soul

Immaculate perception where fear’s futile legions roll

© Janet Martin

Reading in the first few chapters of Proverbs this morning...and struggling with my mustard-seed faith.

In the book a Man called Peter, Catherine Marshall, the author writes after stunning proof of God's faithfulness when looking back over a trial in their life...

'One of the excuses we offer for our lack of faith is the old cliche ' God helps those who help themselves'. Rather, God helps those who trust Him to solve their problems.'