Hello everyone!
It’s winter – and I am feeling the cold today. Brrrrr!!! I checked my beehive today, and my bees are very lethargic, as they have been with this colder than usual autumn. As soon as there is the slightest bit of sunshine, they’re out of the hive and energetically foraging for whatever they can find – it’s slim pickings in the area at the moment and a long way to spring.
The average beehive full of bees will visit some 50 million flowers on a sunny day (when they’re available) with each bee flying an average of 17 kilometres radius away from the hive looking for nectar – and they make several of these trips when gardens are in full bloom. That’s pretty amazing for such a small creature. Anyway, enough about bees for now.
I was “chatting” with Deb Mitchell via email following yesterday’s worship service that live streamed out of Wallan. Deb subscribes to an online devotional called “Morning and Evening” using sermons and devotional pieces from Charles Spurgeon, that awesome British preacher of the 19th century. Here’s some basic information about him from Wikipedia.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (19 June 1834 – 31 January 1892) was an English Baptist preacher … who remains highly influential among Christians of various denominations today. He was known as the "Prince of Preachers". He was a strong figure in the Reformed Baptist tradition, defending the Church in agreement with the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith understanding, and opposing the liberal and pragmatic theological tendencies in the Church of his day. He was pastor of the congregation of the New Park Street Chapel (later the Metropolitan Tabernacle) in London for 38 years.
‘Spurgo’ was a fearless preacher and defender of the true Gospel and any one of his sermons is a wonderful read – just pick one, there are heaps of them. Anyway, as part of Deb’s evening devotional which she sent me yesterday this following excerpt caught my heart as I was still recovering from the rawness following my Sunday sermon. This is what it said …
“Christians can never sin cheaply; they pay a heavy price for iniquity. Transgression destroys peace of mind, obscures fellowship with Jesus, hinders prayer, brings darkness over the soul; therefore be not the serf and bondman of sin. There is yet a higher argument: each time you ‘serve sin’ you have ‘Crucified the Lord afresh, and put him to an open shame.’ Can you bear that thought?”
In my spent and raw state of soul after Sunday’s message, this statement by Spurgeon struck me very hard. “Christians can never sin cheaply; they pay a heavy price for iniquity.” Sin costs the believer so, so much. Most of all it costs us deep fellowship with Jesus, our Lord, our prayers are roadblocked and we become spiritually oppressed … as the writer of the letter to the Hebrews wrote …
Hebrews 6:4-6 “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6 and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.”
You have to ask yourself in all of this: “Is sin really worth it?” The answer for those who love the Lord is plainly obvious, I think. Spurgeon’s word is very sobering.
You are loved so very much!
Ps Milton