also Elsted sisterhood 23.3.60, Witley
14.7.63
Isaiah
40.18 and 25[2].
It was but a couple of hours or so after accepting the date for this meeting
that I sat listening to our brother emphasizing the fact of the one God, but my
thought was directed to these two verses in Isa Chap 40 and I said to myself
“Yes there is but one God, but what is that God to me, and I thought also of
another verse in Prov 23.7. As he (a man) thinketh in his heart so is he, and I
am sure you will agree with me that there is nothing that has makes and
moulds a mans like so much as his conception of God. When I was a boy,
and commenced work in a large nursery[3], we had
one master and he would stand at 6 o’clock in the morning watch in hand to see
that became in time. We were kept punctual by our conception of our master. We
knew we dare not be late, and sometimes I went off without my usual cup of tea
because of it, and had to wait till 8 o’clock breakfast time, before having a
drink. And one of the marks of this modern age is “there is no fear of God
before their eyes”[4].
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom[5], and I
have often wondered at the remark of the dying thief, to his fellow thief who
railed upon our Lord. Dost thou not fear God seeing thou art in the same
condemnation[6].
Here are two men, receiving the just reward of their deeds. Once conception of
God was that He was a God to be feared. The other was utterly indifferent. Now
here we see how greatly there were affected by their conception of God. One
thought he could afford to trifle with God, and paid the penalty by losing his
soul. The other feared God and prayed for mercy and obtained mercy and
salvation. We are now reading in our Scripture Union Readings[7] the
story of Pharaoh and his terrible mistake. His conception of God was summed up
in the words “Who is the Lord that I should obey him?”[8] I think
had we listened to this question we should have noticed the emphasis upon the
word I, I King of Egypt the greatest King of the then Known world. I Pharaoh
submit to another? It is unthinkable. Who is the Lord that I should obey Him? I
will not, neither will I let Israel go. This King asked a question. God
answered it fully. And he often answers our questions in strange ways. What was
God’s answer. I might take you to the Red Sea and call your attention to
Pharaoh’s multitude their floundering in its waters, conscious of their
hopeless estate[9],
but I think it would give you a false impression of God, Pharaoh said, I know
not the Lord. And so the first thing God does is to commence to reveal Himself
in chap 7.17 God says in this thou shalt know that I am the Lord – although
rivers shall be turned into blood etc. Is God’s answer I am a [10]God of
judgments? Yes partially but it is also true to say I am a long-suffering God,
full of mercy, and there is in each one of these plagues. No matter how you
look at them a glorious blending of mercy and judgment. And I want to emphasize
this especially. That in each of these plagues there is a reminder to Pharaoh of
His Almighty power and also His love and forbearance and in each of them we
heard the words “Turn ye, Turn ye, for why will you die[11]. God is
not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. And
with each plague we hear a pleading voice, and so one after another follows,
each with increasing severity, untill that last one of all, which removes the
firstborn of all Egypt fund Pharaoh to the captive in the dungeon and there was
not a house where there was not one dead[12]. Was
this God’s final answer to Pharaoh. It was not. Just one more remains and this
last one finds them floundering amidst the waves of the Red Sea, which came
back into their appointed place, by the word & will of the God whom Pharaoh
did not know. He knows Him now[13]. No
false conception of God. He knows that God is a long-suffering God, but he also
knows that God cannot be trifled with. Be not deceived God is not mocked.
Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap[14]. To
whom then will ye liken me or shall I be equal saith the Lord[15]. The
question may arise in the mind of some. We have no display of God’s forbearance
in power now, some say[16] and how
can we know Him? We have what Pharaoh had not. We have His Word, and, that word
conveying to us a trustworthy revelation of God in all His love and grace, and
also His judgments will be the basis of our judgment in that day. God’s Word
giving us the record of all His dealings with His creatures all down the ages
removed from us every excuse for our carelessness and indifference. And His
beloved Son who came to make Him known to us, accomplished His work in a most
wonderful way. And as we read the record of His life and aye of His death we
see what God is, and only a few of the recorded instances show us plainly the
whole character of God. See Him with the little children in His arms[17]. That’s
the God who loves the little children. I once saw a picture that melted my eyes
to tears. Three little children sitting on the ground. Two white and one little
black boy, in the centre with a scripture book of pictures open upon his knees,
and there displayed was our Blessed Lord with the lost sheep brought home upon
His shoulders and the small black face of the children lit up with a heavenly
joy as he said “That’s Jesus”. That’s God, we might say. Who gave His Son to
die for us. Longing to see us returning from our wanderings and laying
trustingly upon those strong shoulders of our beloved Good Shepherd. Yes Jesus
came to make Him known as a God of love.
Illustrate
“Young girl in a London attic testified to His saving grace”[18]
[1] Year is not in the text
[2] To whom then will ye liken God? Or what likeness will ye compare on to him?. To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be cool? Saith the Holy One.
[3] Lloyd was brought up in Hamsey brickyard near Lewes, Sussex. His father died young and he had to go out to work at a young age so this presumably would have been in the 1890s. The following is taken from a biography of Jesse Ashdown who became a Sussex photographer
Jesse ASHDOWN
( born 1876, Chailey,
Sussex ) - Active as a Photographer in Cooksbridge between 1907 and 1915
Jesse Ashdown
was born in 1876 in the Sussex village of Chailey, ten miles north of Lewes.
[The birth of Jesse Ashdown was registered in the district of Lewes during the
4th Quarter of 1876]. Jesse was the fourth child and eldest son of Ellen and
Albert Ashdown, a brick and tile maker from Keymer near Hassocks in Mid-Sussex.
Albert Ashdown was born in 1843 in the small village of Keymer, ten miles north
of Brighton, the son of John Ashdown, a shoemaker. During the 2nd Quarter of
1869, Albert Ashdown married Ellen Cornford (born 1848, Barcombe, Sussex), the
daughter of Hannah Walder and Samuel Cornford, an agricultural labourer. Later
that year in the parish of Hamsey, Ellen gave birth to a daughter named Kate
Ashdown, the first of ten children. Albert and Ellen Ashdown settled in
Chailey, where Jesse and two elder sisters were born. Frances Betsey Ashdown
was born in Chailey in 1872 and her younger sister Amelia Ashdown arrived two
years later, towards the end of 1874. At the time of Jesse Ashdown's birth, his
father Albert Ashdown was working as a tile-maker, probably at John &
Richard Norman's brick works at Chailey.
Not long after
the birth of Jesse Ashdown in 1876, his father Albert Ashdown had a change of
career, taking up the position of postman in Barcombe, a village to the north
of Lewes. Albert Ashdown and his growing family set up home in Barcombe Street,
Barcombe, where Albert, Ellen and their five children were recorded during the
census of 1881. During their stay in Barcombe, Mrs Ellen Ashdown gave birth to
four more children - Amos Robert Ashdown (born 1879), Minnie Ashdown (born
1881), Lloyd Ashdown (born 1884) and Owen Henry Ashdown (born 1886).
Around 1888, Jesse Ashdown and his family moved to Hamsey, where his father
Albert Ashdown found work as a brick and tile-maker, probably at James
Chandler's Brickworks at Hamsey. Albert and Ellen Ashdown's last two children
were born in Hamsey - Ellen Ashdown, who arrived during the 3rd Quarter of 1889
and Ethel Winifred Ashdown who was born in Hamsey during the 3rd Quarter of
1891. At the time of the 1891 census, Albert Ashdown and his family were living
in the appropriately named "Brickyard Cottage" in Hewen Street,
Hamsey. The enumerator described Albert Ashdown on the 1891 census return as a
"Brick & Tile Maker", aged 47. Fourteen year old Jesse Ashdown
was working as a "Cow Boy" and his younger brother Amos Ashdown was
employed as a "Garden Boy".
The fortunes of
the Ashdown Family changed dramatically when Albert Ashdown, the main
bread-winner died in 1895 at the age of 52. Jesse Ashdown, then aged18, had to
adopt on his father's role by taking up employment in the Hamsey brickworks.
His younger brother, Amos Ashdown later joined Jesse in the brickworks to help
support their mother and their younger siblings. When the 1901 census was
taken, three of the four Ashdown brothers, Jesse, Amos and sixteen year old
Lloyd, were working as brick-makers, the youngest brother, Owen Ashdown, aged
15, had found employment as a florist.
When the census
was taken on 2nd April 1911, Jesse Ashdown was the only one of Ellen Ashdown's
ten children still living at home. On the census return for Brickyard Cottage,
Cooksbridge, the "Head of Household" is given as Mrs Ellen Ashdown, a
sixty-three year old widow earning a living as a "Needlewoman". Jesse
Ashdown, an unmarried man of thirty-three is described as a
"Brickmaker", but there is evidence that by this date he was already
supplementing his income by making picture-frames and taking photographic
portraits in Cooksbridge and the Hamsey district. Soon after the census was
taken in April 1911, Jesse Ashdown set himself up as a "Picture Frame
Maker" at his house in Hewin Street, Cooksbridge.
This was found on the Internet but it no longer
seems to be available
[4] Romans 3:18
[5] This wording is used three times in the Authorized Version e.g. Psalm 111:10
[6] Luke 23:40
[7] In 1879 Annie Marston, a Sunday School teacher at Keswick, in the north of England, wanted to encourage the children in her Sunday School class to read the Bible each day. Every Sunday she wrote out lists of passages for them to read. The next Sunday she discussed the passages with them, and answered their questions. As time went by, more and more children asked for the list of passages, so she wrote to Scripture Union (still with the name CSSM = Children’s Special Service Mission) in London suggesting that they should print the list of Bible passages for children to read. The first reaction of the General secretary and the Committee was negative. But Annie kept on writing to London, and eventually they gave way. The first Scripture Union Bible reading card appeared on 1 April 1879 with 6,000 members, all children. It was an immediate success and within months there were members as far away as Belgium, Spain and Russia. By 1887 there were 328,000 members in the UK alone. Booklets of notes were even published for troops in the trenches during the Great War from 1914-18, and this led to the first issue of Daily Notes in 1923. http://suni.co.uk/about/story-of-su/
I also grew up with these notes
[8] Exodus 5:2 Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go?
[9] Exodus 14
[10] inserted at this point
with an asterisk see Exodus 34.6 & 7. Long-suffering first judgment ultimately.
Inserted with darker Biro presumably when he used to talk later at Elsted or
Witley
[11] Ezekiel 33:11
[12] Exodus 12:29
[13] inserted at this point with an asterisk And this the condemnation that light is come into the world but men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. Inserted with darker Biro presumably when he used to talk later at Elsted or Witley
[14] Galatians 6:7
[15] Isaiah 40:25, his text
[16] Inserted with pencil
[17] The reference is perhaps Luke 18:15-17
[18] Inserted at the end with same darker Biro