God is in all, and in all wonderful. If God continues thus to work the pleasing changes of the year as he promised to do, why do you doubt him concerning other things, O ye of little faith? Will he not keep his word to his children if he keeps it to the earth? Will he not fulfill his every promise to his own elect if he is true to sun and stars? Seedtime and harvest, summer and winter, have come according to his word without our aid, and, wonderful as these changes are, they have never failed; and will the Lord forget in other things? Will he forswear his covenant and deny his promise to his Only Begotten? God forbid.
Brethren, we have come not only to believe this promise as to the seasons and to make quite sure about it, but we practically act upon our faith. The farmers have sown their autumn wheat, and many of them are longing for an opportunity to sow their spring wheat; but what is sowing but a burial of good store? Why do husbandmen hide their grain in the earth? Because they feel sure that seedtime will in due time be followed by harvest. They put their grain into the ground hoping to receive it again multiplied a hundredfold. Why do we not act in an equally practical style in reference to the rest of God’s promises? True faith makes the promises of God to be of full effect by viewing them as true and putting them to the test. When faith asks of God, it believes that it has the petition which it has asked of him. Many prepare their thinner garments in prospect of warm weather, or at the close of summer provide household flannels for the winter, because they reckon upon the season; why do we not also prepare ourselves to receive the Lord’s blessing in the time appointed? Why do we not reckon upon every word of Scripture being fulfilled? We ought to take the promises into our matter-of-fact estimate, and act accordingly.

C. H. Spurgeon

- C. H. Spurgeon

Missions Revival 2011

Consider the goodness of God in all the operations of nature and providence. Think of that goodness negatively. “Who can stand before his cold?” You cannot help thinking of the poor in a hard winter—only a hard heart can forget them when you see the snow lying deep. But suppose that snow continued to fall! What is there to hinder it? The same God who sends us snow for one day could do the like for fifty days if he pleased. Why not? And when the frost pinches us so severely, why should it not be continued month after month? We can only thank the goodness which does not send “His cold” to such an extent that our spirits expire. Travellers towards the North Pole tremble as they think of this question, “Who can stand before his cold?” For cold has a degree of omnipotence in it when God is pleased to let it loose. Let us thank God for the restraining mercy by which he holds the cold in check.

Not only negatively, but positively there is mercy in the snow. Is not that a suggestive metaphor? “He giveth snow like wool.” The snow is said to warm the earth; it protects those little plants which have just begun to peep above ground, and might otherwise be frost-bitten: as with a garment of down the snow protects them from the extreme severity of cold. Hence Watts sings, in his version of the hundred-and-forty-seventh Psalm,—

“His flakes of snow like wool he send,
And thus the springing corn defends.”

It was an idea of the ancients that snow warmed the heart of the soil, and gave it fertility, and therefore they praised God for it. Certainly there is much mercy in the frost, for pestilence might run a far longer race if it were not that the frost cries to it. “Hetherto shalt thou come, but no farther.” Noxious insects would multiply until they devoured the precious fruits of the earth, if sharp nights did not destroy millions of them, so that these pests are swept from off the earth. Though man may think himself a loser by the cold, he is a great ultimate gainer by the decree of Providence which ordains winter. The quaint saying of one of the old writers that “snow is wool, and frost is fire, and ice is bread, and rain is drink,” is true, though it sounds like a paradox. There is no doubt that frost in breaking up the soil promotes fruitfulness, and so the ice becomes bread. Thus those agencies, which for the moment deprive our workers of their means of sustenance, are the means by which God supplies every living thing. Mark, then, God’s goodness as clearly in the snow and frost as in the thaw which clears the winter’s work away.

C. H. Spurgeon

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Funeral services for Rev. Aubrey G. Brown, age 68 of Goodwater, will be Friday, November 12, 2010 at 1:00 P.M. at Victory Baptist Church in Goodwater with Bro. Gary Hall, Bro. Virgil Barnard and Bro. Tim Hughes officiating. Burial with graveside military honors will follow in the Evergreen Cemetery in Sylacauga.

Rev. Brown passed away on Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Birmingham. A Sylacauga native, he was an ordained minister for over 40 years. Rev. Brown served his Lord as the pastor of Brown’s Chapel Baptist Church in Sylacauga, Mt. Sharon Baptist Church in Kahatchee, Alabama, Welcome Baptist Church in Piedmont, Central Baptist Church in Harlingen, TX and was currently the pastor of Victory Baptist Church in Goodwater. Rev. Brown was also a veteran of the U.S. Army.

Rev. Brown is survived by his wife, Helen Brown of Goodwater; two sons: Tim Brown (Sharon) of Sylacauga and Rodney Brown (Michelle) of Goodwater; six brothers: Jerry Brown (Carol) of Sylacauga, Terry Brown (Nancy) of Valley, Ronny Brown (Betty) of Sylacauga, Bruce Brown (C. J.) of Sylacauga, David Brown of Charlotte, NC and Ricky Brown (Beckie) of Sylacauga and six grandchildren: Christopher Brown, Stephanie Brown, Brittany Watson (Anthony), Bryan Brown, Baxter Brown and Bradley Brown. He was preceded in death by his parents, Eugene Brown and Helen Morris Brown; one son, Bryan Brown and one sister, Diane Brown.

Pallbearers will be Frankie Bryant, Roger Butler, David Evans, Larry Evans, W.A. Jarrells, Dan Jarrett, Craig Ogle and Keith Thomas.

Honorary pallbearers will be Charles Baker, Donald Campbell, Richard Cole, Mark Little, Albert Pike, Mike Ramsey and Willie Walton.

The family will receive friends at Victory Baptist Church in Goodwater on Thursday, November 11, 2010 from 5:00 P.M. and until service time on Friday.

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