The Falling Leaves....

                It's 72 degrees....the perfect temperature according to many....as I sit here on my patio with six days left in October.....feet up and kicked back so that I can just watch the golden leaves start to fall from the maple tree. It's a bit different every year....for some years the leaves cling for weeks as there is little breeze....and then the winds come and half the leaves can fall in one day. 
                 There is only a slight breeze today as the blue sky can be full of the falling leaves but after a few hours the tree looks about the same. I would estimate the tree to be about eighty feet high....and I at times pick one leaf and watch it oh so slowly and gently sway this way and that way on its way to a soft landing.
                  It's really a beautiful sight as I sit here....with a blue sky in the background....and the tree a golden color that appears more red as one of the passing cirrus clouds blocks the color enhancing rays of the sun.
                   So what does one think about at a time like this.....apart from the colorful array....and the beauty of the creation of God....or maybe the days of raking that lies ahead? Well I don't remember anyone ever accusing me of being normal. The thought that came to my mind first as I sat down....and a hundred or so leaves were falling....almost as a company of paratroopers exiting a plane....their chutes opening as they enter their glide....was souls falling into the abyss upon death.
                   The thought was fleeting....I don't sit here and dwell on it....it only lasted a few seconds....but it was sad....for I know that that is the reality of this world. Less than an hour ago a friend told me of an uncle that had just died. I couple hours ago I was informed of a close elderly relative who is in the hospital with Covid.
                   It is rendered that God used....indeed the Holy Spirit empowered Jonathan Edwards in his famous sermon.....Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God....to spark the First Great Awakening....with words such as souls being.....held by a slender thread over the flames.
                   In a way it's like these leaves that are slowly dying.....(I have to digress here for one moment as a leaf...half golden and half red....landed on my keyboard)....these leaves are hanging on by a thread.
                    This is not a Christian culture....evangelicalism today....where the pastor might warn of death and falling into hell. That is no way to build a church or keep their job. We are not into warnings of any kind....other than warnings....about listening to warnings.
                    Before I end this I should add this...even as I sat to watch this spectacle....I had my headphones on....listening to a sermon by a great preacher of the past....or a man today who preaches like great preachers of the past....in this case Martyn Lloyd-Jones....and the sermon was.....(I have to digress one more time as just now our town's fire siren started blaring....a call to firemen to rush to the fire station....a little more in a moment on this).....the sermon was relevant to this post....titled....The Spirit And The Power-A lecture on Preaching in the Power of the Holy Spirit. This wonderful lecture can easily be Googled)
                    So I'll conclude with this....there is indeed a fire siren blaring to all of us from God's Word. May God open our ears to hear it....may He have mercy upon me for even trying to convey these warnings when I am in need of them as much as anyone else....and may He also give the balm....and the strongs winds of His Holy Spirit....to take our souls as these leaves....only lift them up into the glory of His heavens....all this for His glory.....and for His name alone!