Gettysburg

Road Trip 2008

Our trip began in Pennsylvania. Here are Ben's parents and the infamous Previa at the PA Visitor's Center.








It was a long drive to York and I read three books on the way.

Summer Trip 2008

Hello everyone! Right now, we are in NYC. I would have liked to upload some photos, but the WiFi in these hotels is not very reliable. I am going to try again tomorrow to put the photos on the blog.
So far, we have visited Gettysburg, Valley Forge, Philadelphia, Lancaster County (Amish Country), and New York City. We will be in NY until Saturday when we will return to Louisville.
Today we visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We also walked around Manhattan and across the Brooklyn Bridge. Ben took some beautiful pictures as the sun was setting over the bridge. Hopefully, I will be able to post them soon.
My favorite parts of our trip so far have been Gettysburg and Valley Forge. There was so much historical information and impressive exhibits at these places. Tomorrow we are planning to take a slower pace (we might have overdone it today) and visit Trinity Church and the World Trade Center site.

There and Back Again

Today we made it back to Louisville after a long visit to Mississippi. It was hard to say goodbye to our friends, but it is good to be back with all of our own belongings. I am so glad to get to sleep in my own bed tonight!

Tomorrow, Ben's parents will leave Clinton and make the trip to Louisville. They will spend one night here, and then we will all leave for the Amish Country. From there, we will go to Philadelphia and New York. We will be traveling in the Previa. This van has a few miles on it, however it seems to be the best option. We have our fingers crossed and Ben's Mom has branded this vacation, "Death of a Previa." It should be an adventure and we are planning to post lots of pics.

Home is where the hot is...

This month, we are back in Mississippi and enjoying (enduring?) the 90+ degree weather. It has been great seeing family and being at New Home Baptist Church again. On Wednesday evening, we began a study of the abridged version of Calvin's Institutes. It went really well and we had several visitors. I think this will be a fruitful study.
This weekend, we are off to Monroe, LA to take part in a wedding celebration. Ben's cousin, Andrea, will be married Saturday evening and Ben is officiating. We are both looking forward to seeing the Monroe branch of the family and to eating some wedding cake!

Prayer Request

Please remember to pray for the family of Stephen Curtis Chapman as they prepare for the funeral of his young daughter tomorrow.

http://www.stevencurtischapman.com/

The Missing Links - R.C. Sproul

The last few weeks I have been busy and have not posted some of the notes from Together for the Gospel. Please do not think that this is because these messages were not as good as the others. In fact, the opposite is true. I enjoyed these so much that I wanted to take time in posting the notes and I just never got around to it. Anyway, some people may already have downloaded and listened to these, but the notes may serve as a reminder of the powerful messages from God's word.

Notes from the message by R.C. Sproul:

*There is no one image that can explain the cross. It is a multi-faceted event and a magnificent tapestry.

*There is an image that has receded almost into oblivion - the idea of a curse inflicted by God on His Son. Recall that when the New Testament speaks of atonement, it does so in terms of substitution, satisfaction of God's wrath, ransom, and victory over death. See also Isaiah 53 and ask yourself "how can the Father be pleased to bruise His Son?" It pleased Him because He accomplished His eternal purpose of restoring us.

*The idea of a curse today is associated with voodoo or superstition, but the biblical categories for curses are not superstitious. Remember the fall of man provoking a curse on the serpent, the earth, and women. The giving of the law attaches a curse to the covenant with its negative sanction in Deut. 28:15-19. Old Testament prophets pronounced curses in the name of the Lord. Isaiah calls a curse on himself in Isaiah 6 when he beholds the holiness of God. These statements are in the Bible, yet we often ignore them, preferring to the hear the blessings and not the curses in Scripture.

*So...what was it to Jesus to be cursed? Look to the benediction: "May the Lord bless you and keep you, etc. Consider that the antithesis of these elements were the curse for Christ. A vivid malediction emerges: "May the Lord curse you and abandon you. May the Lord keep you in darkness and give you only judgement. May the Lord turn His back on you and remove His peace from you forever."

*We cannot image the weight of this curse. Yet, Jesus redeemed us from this same curse by becoming the curse for us. He did not simple take the curse of our sins, he became it. God is too holy to have looked upon Jesus, who became the primitive, obscene curse of sin. Jesus endured the malediction, when even the sun did not shine of calvary. Christ cried out on the cross. Was He in a quoting mood? No, this is not just a Psalm quote, not the cry of a disillusioned prophet, but a cry from the depths as He bore the curse of being utterly forsaken by the Father.

*There is little of this curse found in the pseudo-gospel of today. The Gospel is more than unconditional love which requires no need for repentance. God does love us, even in corruption, but we are still under the curse. We will either bear the curse, or flee to the One who bore it for us.