Chopping down the cherry tree is one of them....and then later admitting that he could not tell a lie....that he had chopped down the tree....sayings of George Washington....or things he may have done or had happened to him. One that is true happened on the very ground that my father....almost two hundred years later....was born on.....Braddock, Pennsylvania.....where bullets in the Battle of the Monongahela were so close to Washington that they went through his coat.
Charles Spurgeon....in a 1983 sermon.....that I listened to just this morning....mentioned something that Washington supposedly said and did. As Spurgeon told it....Washington passed some of his soldiers struggling with a task....with a corporal standing watch over them....Washington asked the corporal why he was not helping....upon which the man said something like...."Sir I am a corporal." Now the man did not know to whom he was talking. Washington got off his horse and helped the men....got back on his horse and told the corporal...."If you are even in need of help again call me. I am General Washington."I've done enough reading over the past fifty years on our first president to be thankful to God for giving us a George Washington....and the same for an Abraham Lincoln....and the same for a Ronald Reagan.....and there were many others. Spurgeon mentioned this also in that sermon....as only Charles Spurgeon could....he pondered how....at times.....he seemed more joyful that God had mercy upon his wife and children....than on the grace bestowed upon him. I know exactly what he means. My writing and efforts may be paltry....only God knows....but I have been doing it in one form or another for over thirty years....this latest effort which is more a bulletin board than a blog.....for over fourteen years. I am constantly writing in these posts....and often traveling to colleges just to entice a few students to question....to research on their own....what the world feeds them on a daily basis....and what the church feeds them on a weekly basis....to give them some directions where to go....Charles Spurgeon for instance....John Piper for instance....all in this dangerous age....and this corrupt and idolatrous age....and this age of extraordinarily weak preaching....and in this age in which Jesus is indeed at the very doorstep.....having given more warnings in His Word on His return in righteousness and power and judgment that we could ever find excuses for not seeing.
However ineffective these efforts on mine may turn out to be....I know this....the joy in seeing someone truly see Christ for the first time....and have saving faith in Christ....even the hope of that....at times is more rewarding....and more joyous....than how I feel about the mercy extended to myself....where I still cannot fathom why Jesus had mercy on me to begin with. All of this is glory to God....and to the Lord Jesus Christ! Our joy in Him....is glory to Him. Our joy in the salvation of others...is glory that is His.
