N B Vandall – birth, Dec. 28, 1896

“My Home, Sweet Home”

Walking along life’s road one day,

I heard voice so sweetly say,

“A place up in heav’n I am building Thee,

A beautiful, beautiful home.”

 

Chorus

Home, sweet home, home, sweet home,

Where I’ll never roam;

I see the light of that city so bright,

My home, sweet home.

N B Vandall (N stood for Napoleon) was born this date 12/28/1896, in Creston, VW.  He was converted to Christ at a camp meeting in/near Sebring, Ohio in 1920.  He also wrote “After” (“After the toil and heat of the day.”  Vandall died 8/24/1970.

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Amy Carmichael – birth, Dec. 16, 1867

If my attitude be one of fear not faith about one who has disappointed me; if I say “Just what I expected,” if a fall occurs, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

                – Amy Carmichael, If (Ft. Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1966), 25.  

 

If I cast up a confessed, repented & forsaken sin against another and allow my remembrance of that sin to color my thinking and feed my suspicions, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

                – Amy Carmichael, If (Ft. Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1966), 27.

 

If I do not give a friend “the benefit of the doubt” but put the worst construction instead of the best on what is said or done, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

                – Amy Carmichael, If (Ft. Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1966), 43.

Amy Carmichael was born this day in Millisle, Ireland.  She spent many years of her life in another country beginning with an “I,” India.  Amy arrived in India in 1895 and never left there.  She died in 1951   

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A B (Albert Benjamin) Simpson – birth, Dec. 15, 1843

“The Mercy of God Is an Ocean Divine”   (stanza 1 and refrain)

The mercy of God is an ocean divine,
A boundless and fathomless flood.
Launch out in the deep, cut away the shore line,
And be lost in the fullness of God.

Launch out, into the deep.
Oh let the shore line go.
Launch out, launch out in the ocean divine,
Out where the full tides flow.

A B Simpson was born 12/15/1843 on Prince Edward Island in Canada.  It was my privilege to see the spot where his family home was.  His dad had a mill and would cut lumber, place it on a small boat and float it down the narrow creek that boarded their land to a ship building yard.  Simpson was a lad who grew up with the sea – this song reflects this boyhood scenes.  He died 10/29/1919 in Nyack, NY. 

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Christina Rosetti – birth, Dec 5, 1830

“In the Bleak Midwinter”     (stanza 2,3,5)

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

Christina Rosetti, sister to Dante Rosetti, was born this date in London.  She died 12/29/1894 also in London.   See “Love Came Down at Christmas” and “None Other Lamb”

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Thomas Carlyle – birth, Dec. 4, 1795

Through all of time…sin was, is, will be the parent of misery.  This land calls itself most Christian…

                – Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution, (NY: Random House, Inc., n.d.), 42.  

 

It is Spiritual Bankruptcy, long tolerated; verging now toward Economical Bankruptcy, and become intolerable.

                – Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution, (NY: Random House, Inc., n.d.), 65.  

 

On the whole, how unknown is a man to himself; or a public Body of men to itself! — Great Governors …are governed by their valets…or in Constitutional countries, by the paragraphs of their Able Editors.

                – Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution, (NY: Random House, Inc., n.d.), 390.  

 

“O Liberty, what things are done in Thy name!” – Jeanne-Marie Philipon

                – Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution, (NY: Random House, Inc., n.d.), 639.  

 

All Anarchy, by the nature of it, is not only destructive, but self-destructive.

                – Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution, (NY: Random House, Inc., n.d.), 673.  

 

If all wars, civil and other, are misunderstandings, what a thing must right-understanding be!

                – Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution, (NY: Random House, Inc., n.d.), 708. 

 

Thomas Carlyle was born 12/4/1795 in Dumfriesshire, Scotland [died 2/4/1881, London].

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William Cowper – birth, Nov. 26, 1731

“There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood”

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.
Washed all my sins away, washed all my sins away;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.
Be saved, to sin no more, be saved, to sin no more;
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy power to save,
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.
Lies silent in the grave, lies silent in the grave;
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.

Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared, unworthy though I be,
For me a blood bought free reward, a golden harp for me!
’Tis strung and tuned for endless years, and formed by power divine,
To sound in God the Father’s ears no other name but Thine.

Cowper is pronounced as if spelled “Cooper.”  He also wrote a long poem, “The Task.”

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John Yates – birth, Nov 21, 1837

“Faith Is the Victory”   (stanza 1) 

 

Encamped along the hills of light,
Ye Christian soldiers, rise.
And press the battle ere the night
Shall veil the glowing skies.
Against the foe in vales below
Let all our strength be hurled.
Faith is the victory, we know,
That overcomes the world.

 

John Henry Yates was born this date in Batavia, NY.  Yates was a shoe salesman and later a hardware store manager.  Eventually he became a Baptist minister who was influenced by Ira D. Sankey.  Yates also penned “The Harbor Bell” “The Model Church” and “The Old Book Stands.”

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Haldor Lillenas – birth, Nov. 19, 1885

“The Bible Stands”  (stanza 1 & refrain)

 

The Bible stands like a rock undaunted
’Mid the raging storms of time;
Its pages burn with the truth eternal,
And they glow with a light sublime.

Refrain

The Bible stands though the hills may tumble,
It will firmly stand when the earth shall crumble;
I will plant my feet on its firm foundation,
For the Bible stands.                            (see more at Cyberhymnal.org)

 

Written and composed by Haldor Lillenas, 1917.  Lillenas, born on Stord Island (near Bergen) Norway, emigrated to the US with his parents, living first in Colton, South Dakota and later in Oregon.  He was converted to Christ at 21in Portland and attended Deets Pacific Bible College (later renamed Pasadena College).  His pen left some 4000 hymns/poems.

 

Also read/hear “The Garden of My Heart” “Glorious Freedom” “Jesus Will Walk With Me” “Wonderful Grace of Jesus” 

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Lpost – John Darby (born Nov. 18, 1800)

John Nelson Darby was a British-Irish blooded, Dublin-trained, lawyer who turned Church of Ireland minister and then moved on (1828) to help establish the Plymouth Brethren.  He would perhaps be unknown today but for his meeting with eighteen-year-old Margaret MacDonald who is said to have had a vision regarding a “secret rapture” of the church.  Though this doctrine has other, older, questionable roots, Darby popularized it in the Isles and in America having a strong influence on C. I. Scofield.  Scofield in turn, placed the secret rapture idea in his Scofield Bible and today it has widely held acceptance among many evangelicals though the word rapture is non-biblical.  Many also have failed to atempt to reconcile their concept of “thief in the night” with the rest of Peter’s inspired words, “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” 2Pe 3.10.  Three items are here which surely seem to not be secret.

Jesus is going to come! That is in the Bible.  The return of Christ is not in question! 

Too many are accepting the doctrine of a “secret rapture” without examining it.  Look up it origins (the “s” is purposeful) – it will surprise you.  The secret rapture appears to have catholic roots. It has also this visionary root in MacDonald. 

Conversely does a “secret rapture” have any roots in the actual Bible?  Do your homework.  Be willing to re-examine this doctrine.  Or for many – be willing to examine it for the first time.  Can (will) this doctrine play into the hands of the antichrist?

One source to see is Grace, Faith, and Holiness, (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1988), 586.

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Helen Howarth Lemmel – birth, Nov 14, 1863

“Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus”  (stanza 1, chorus, stanza 2)

 

O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s a light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free!

Chorus

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

 

Through death into
He passed, and we follow Him there;
Over us sin no more hath dominion—
For more than conquerors we are!

 

Written by Helen Lemmel, born this date in England.  She came to American with her family when 12 years of age.  She lived (as a girl in Mississippi, Wisconsin and eventually called Seattle, Washington home.  Her musical talents were used as a music critic, at Moody Bible Institute, and with the work of Billy Sunday. The heartaches of her (including a husband who left her and blindness) make her admonition that much more real.

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