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Christmas Day Baptism
I turned eight on November 3, 1966. For a few years before that I had a strong desire to obey the Lord in baptism. My first opportunity after my eighth birthday was when Dad was a guest preacher at Highway-Biway Baptist Church near Midland, Michigan. The church is pictured here and now goes by the name Carter Road Baptist Church. It was Christmas Day in 1966. It was in the evening service. In the morning service Dad discovered there were a significant number who needed to be baptized. They filled the baptistry that afternoon with ice-cold spring-water. That night the water was extremely cold.
As long as I can remember I have had a powerful inner desire to know and the follow God. I have often failed Him, but He has never failed me or disappointed me. By the grace of God I will follow him every day of my life until I die and then live with him forever in the New Heaven and the New Earth.
The Return of Civilization
Saturday morning I preached the funeral of a long-time member of our church. I usually ride to the cemetery in the coach so I can spend time talking to the funeral director. This time I drove because the cemetery was just south of the church and I would be returning there for the family dinner after the graveside service.
I’m always saddened when driving in a funeral procession in our area. The civil gesture of pulling over to the curb to allow the procession to pass is a thing of the past here and I miss it. It saddens my heart. Along with other civilities–it a part of an America that is no more. There may still be some rural places where it happens but not in our part of modern suburbia. We live in a hurry here.
We were in three lanes of traffic driving toward the cemetery with funeral flags up and lights on and cars in the opposing lane did not stop or slow. On both sides of our procession, cars shot around us and even sometimes cut in as if we were a nuisance and a bother.
The man who died was named Allen. Our nation for years has rested on the shoulders of men like Allen. He was a part of post-WWII America and worked and planned and built and payed taxes. He was faithful and loyal to his wife. He was kind and selfless with his children. But the people in the cars were on errands so important that they could not slow down long enough to show a simple gesture of courtesy to his family and friends.
A few years ago we were driving in a funeral procession and I was inwardly grieved by the rudeness of the drivers, sad that the era was of common civility was passing in my lifetime.
The woman we were burying was named Lisa. She was loved by many She was a generous, sincere, hard-working Christian lady who kept her family together with the glue of love. She had died suddenly and unexpectedly and she was only in her early fifties. It was a sad procession to the grave that day.
The procession was approaching a busy corner when I noticed something unusual. People were coming and going–many of them not looking up to see us pass. But standing in front of a walk-up ice cream store on the corner was an older man. He looked over and saw the hearse and the procession coming. He turned toward us, removed his hat and held it there over his heart until all of us had passed.
There on that busy corner in the city of Detroit, was one man who would not let civilization die. —And hope sprang up in my heart—hope that as long as I am determined to be civil and kind and thoughtful–civilization does not have to die. Not in my heart. Not in my family. Not in my church. Not in my town.
It’s Christian to take time to pause to acknowledge the humanity and dignity of the fellow occupants of our planet.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
June 11, 2014
A Real Christian; Story Podcast #5
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Taking A Walk
For a few years we lived in a wonderful old farmhouse on a dead-end road within walking distance of the Kokosing River. It was a beautiful place to live. This is a classic re-post of an incident that will always live in my heart.
When a Dad and a boy and a dog take a walk in the country, if the Dad walks a mile the boy walks two and the dog five. That was the way of things one autumn afternoon on the banks of the Kokosing. Kyle climbed on rocks. Ginger chased her fancy up the hills and ran ahead scouting for us. Then she would circle back and trot panting at our side for a while before shooting off again. I walked with a stick, ambling slowly along enjoying the sound of water over rocks and the scent of autumn that hung in the air. The leaves were falling steadily into the water and along the bank. A couple hard frosts had brought on the color and killed off the flies and mosquitoes.
A wall of rock ran up on our left. We walked northeast along the river on our right following a fisherman’s path. At one point Kyle left the dirt path and climbed up onto some rocks. They were covered with leaves and drying vegetation. I was a few paces ahead when I heard him cry out. It was not a little call for help but a terrified scream. He had fallen into the hole obscured by brush. I looked back and I could see him clinging to the rock and trying to keep from falling further into the hole. Later he told me that one of the reasons he was so frightened is that just before the ground gave way beneath his feet, he saw a snake slide into the hole.
When I looked back I could see that he had fallen down between two rocks into a hole about five feet deep. He had no way of knowing that his feet dangled only eight or ten inches from the ground. The frightened snake was no threat and he was in no real danger. All this was immediately evident to me, but his cry was so desperate, so pitiful. I ran to him, bounded up on the rock and pulled him from the hole. The fear on his face and the desperation in his voice stirred my soul even though I could see he was in no real danger. I was only rescuing him from his own panic. He clung to me for a moment with a hammering in his little chest.
We both enjoyed a good laugh when I showed him that he was never really in any danger. We walked home. He walked a little closer to me on the way back. The sun was well on it’s way down the sky, and we decided it would be a good time to see what Mom was planning for supper.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had the bottom fall out on me a couple of times. It throws a scare into you. But the Word promises that the Lord will spring to the aid of his children when they cry out to him in desperation. He knows exactly how much danger we are in. He knows the fear that torments our hearts, and He knows the end from the beginning. So when the bottom falls out and we are plunged into fear, the right thing to do is cry out to out father. Sometime He will deliver us from danger. Sometimes he will deliver us from our own panic, and then we walk a little closer to Him on the way home.
“I sought the Lord and He heard me and delivered me from all my fears.” (Psalm 34:4)
In A Dozen Weeks the Leaves Will Turn and Fall
This afternoon I was thinking about how delightful it is to feel the summer breeze blowing through the open windows and stirring the trees outside.
I don’t want to be an agent of doom and depression, but in just a dozen weeks the leaves now just darkening will turn and fall. The balmy air will cool and the days will shorten.
Robert Frost, the New England poet, observed this with sadness and captures the melancholy of it in this poem about taking an autumn walk…
When I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.
And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
Is sadder than any words
A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes softly rattling down.
I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.
-Robert Frost
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