Dear Children and Grandchildren,

I have enjoyed the Word of God more than I ever have since I am no longer preaching 3 or 4 times a week and am not pressed for time. Some times I find things I'd like to share with all of you, or some of you individually. With your mother's encouragement I'd like to start a "Bible Blog" and share some of my thoughts with you. Last night I told Joanna that I opened a can of "Pork and Beans" for supper, (your mother is in Arizona helping Becky while Adam recuperates from a serious operation) but I found no pork so I renamed it "Beans and Beans". With a hearty laugh she wondered if I had "looked under every bean?' I trust what I send you will have some "pork" but if you find it to be only "beans" just push the delete button.

Ps.119:168 "I have kept Thy precepts and Thy testimonies: for all my ways are before Thee," As you were growing up one of the things I was careful to emphasize in our daily devotions was that the time would come when you would no longer be under the eye of Mom and Dad but you would never be out of sight of God's eye. What an encouragement we find here to keep God's Word. "all my ways are before Thee,"

"Experience makes many a paradox plain, and this is one. Before God we may be clear of open fault and yet at the same time mourn over a thousand heart-wanderings which need his restoring hand."--C.H. Spurgeon

"I may hide Thee from my eye, but not myself from Thine eye."--Wm. Gurnall

Thursday, October 27, 2011

".....if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away."

To My Dear Children,

This morning as I read in II Samuel, a character in chapter 19 named Barzillai piqued my interest. David had been betrayed by his son Absalom who was attempting to take the kingdom from his father. Ahihophel, David’s trusted counselor, had joined Absalom in the betrayal. (Incidentally, Ahithophel was the grandfather of Bathsheba). Spurgeon mentions in The Treasury of David that Ahithophel’s betrayal may have been the basis for Psalm 55. While David was in the wilderness fleeing from his son, he was met by Barzillai, a man of means, who brought ample supplies for David and those who fled with him. After Absalom was killed and the rebellion was over Barzillai meets David at the Jordan River and David invites him to go with him back to Jerusalem. Barzillai refuses and gives as his reason something every “aged person” should consider. He said, “I am this day fourscore years old…” He said that he could no longer discern between good and evil (your mother and I are having trouble keeping up with all the changes in the church today so we have accepted, as a badge of honor, being called “old fogies”), his taste buds had lost their flavor, and his hearing was such that he could no longer appreciate good music. He would only be a burden should he accompany David back to Jerusalem. He also said that he wanted to go back to his own city and be buried next to his parents. I read all of that with great interest. Often circumstances take us places in God’s Word where we haven’t been before.

I shared this with your mother at the breakfast table and decided to pass it on to you. Too often over my years as a pastor I have met with the “aged” who would not accept the fact that they could no longer do what they did in their younger years and were becoming a problem not only to themselves but to their loved ones. Advertising has them convinced that they can still “climb that mountain,” and so they spend their savings trying to re-capture their youth.

Thank the Lord this need not be a problem in the spiritual realm. We may “grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ” until He calls us home. As I write this I am experiencing all that Barzillai found in his old age. There are so many things I can no longer do, but I am not looking back, only forward to meeting the one I have served for 57 years. I have even bought a plot for your mother and me next to that of your grandparents in the “Blough Mennonite Church Cemetery” which is located about 500 feet from the home where I grew up. I confess however, that I pray every day that the Lord will spare me from Alzheimer’s disease, which my mother went through for several years. Poor Alois Alzheimer whose claim to fame is to have a disease like that named after him! I close with some of the words from Longfellow’s poem:

God’s-Acre
Into its furrow shall we all be cast,
In the sure faith that we shall rise again
At the great harvest,…

Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom,
In the fair gardens of the second birth;…

With Thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod,
And spread the furrow for the seed we sow;
This is the field and Acre of our God,
This is the place where human harvests grow!

Till Then,
Love, DAD

Monday, August 8, 2011

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL!

Dear Children,
Recently I posted this notice on bulletin boards around town. Today when Becky asked me for a copy, your mother suggested I send it to you. I've had a number of people ask me if I'd gotten the GPS back yet. I'm praying the Lord will use it as a witness. 

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

I AM WONDERING WHY YOU FELT FREE TO GO INTO MY BOAT AND UNHOOK MY FURANO GP-32 AND STEAL IT? THEY SELL FOR ABOUT $475. DO YOU HAVE A DRUG PROBLEM OR SOMETHING I CAN HELP YOU WITH? WE HAVE ENJOYED LEAVING OUR BOAT UNLOCKED FOR MANY YEARS HERE IN HOONAH. I HAVE OFTEN BRAGGED OF HOW HONEST THE HOONAH PEOPLE ARE AS FAR AS BREAKING AND ENTERING AND STEALING OTHER PEOPLE'S PROPERTY GOES.

FIFTY-SIX YEARS AGO AS A 21-YEAR OLD MARINE COMING BACK TO THE STATES ON A TROOP SHIP AFTER THE KOREAN WAR THE LORD FOUND ME AND SAVED ME! I HAVE SERVED HIM AS A MISSIONARY/PASTOR FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS. I RAISED A LARGE FAMILY WITH THE LORD SUPPLYING ALL MY NEEDS. MY WIFE AND I NEVER HAD MUCH LEFT OVER EACH MONTH BUT WE HAD ENOUGH. WE RELIED ON GOD'S PROMISE IN PHILIPPIANS "MY GOD SHALL SUPPLY ALL YOUR NEEDS ACCORDING TO HIS RICHES IN GLORY." IN OUR 17 YEARS IN JAPAN AND 25 YEARS IN ALASKA NOONE HAS EVER STOLEN FROM US. YOU ARE THE FIRST ONE! YOU SEE YOU DIDN'T STEAL FROM JUST ANYONE-YOU STOLE FROM A CHILD OF GOD WHO DEPENDS ON THE LORD TO SUPPLY HIS NEEDS. YOU WILL HAVE TO ANSWER TO THE LORD! IF I WERE YOU I WOULD RETURN THE GPS IMMEDIATELY! YOU SEE ACCORDING TO GOD'S WORD "THIEVES SHALL NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD." "IT IS APPOINTED UNTO MAN ONCE TO DIE, AND AFTER THIS THE JUDGEMENT." THE NAME OF MY BOAT IS THE "EBENEZER". IT IS TAKEN FROM THE BIBLE AND IT MEANS "HITHERTO HATH THE LORD HELPED US

PASTOR RON BLOUGH

P.S. YOU CAN DROP OFF THE GPS AT THE BOAT OR THE HARBOR MASTER'S OFFICE.

Monday, June 27, 2011

"Even So Come Quickly"

DEAR CHILDREN,

Yesterday the state of New York approved a same-sex marriage law, and when I turned on my computer news sources this morning there was an article listing the so-called famous movie stars, politicians, etc., who were joyfully chortling their words of satisfaction. New York had joined six other states to approve, by law, same sex marriage.

It was sad for me to see New Hampshire as one of those states. In 1977 when we returned to the USA after 17 years in Japan, one of the reasons we moved to New Hampshire was that it was at the time the “Live Free or Die” state. The governor, Meldren Thompson, was as conservative as any governor in our country. I soon became caught up in the conservative movement that swept the state. Some of you joined me in helping get a largely unknown conservative, Gordon Humphrey, elected to the U.S. Senate.

In New Hampshire I tangled with many of the presidential candidates when they came for the "first in the nation primary." I brought the homosexual issue up every chance I got. You will remember two that I talked with who later became president, Ronald Reagan and George Bush. I must have asked at least a dozen or more candidates about the homosexual and the abortion issues. Reagan gave me the clearest answers.

When I was elected to the “Whitehouse Conference on Families” during the Carter administration, a number of us walked out in protest of the redefinition of “family” when they wanted to include homosexuality. One of our non-elected delegates from New Hampshire was a lesbian appointed by Democrat Gov. Gallen! Since then I have fought the encroachment of the abomination of sodomy in our country.

I remember reading the "Uniform Code of Military Justice" (UCMJ) in Camp Pendleton, Calif. in 1952. I didn’t even know what the word “sodomy” meant until then. At that time sodomites were given immediate dishonorable discharges! Has that been changed in the UCMJ? I fought against it when it was partially approved by the silly “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” rule. Again last year I wrote letters to many newspapers when the Obama administration gave full approval to that abominable practice in the military.

I fought with Alaska Airlines when they gave a special discount to those who went through their special homosexual site. In answer to my first protest letter I was told that Alaska Airlines was “proud of their gay site.” When I googled the name of the representative who sent the letter, I came upon web sites with the filthiest homosexual perversions imaginable with the representative’s name accompanying “Alaska Airlines.” After I sent that to the president of Alaska Airlines thinking the person would be fired, one of his underlings, many months later, wrote me and said that they had put their lawyers on it and concluded someone else had inserted that into the web sites. One supposedly Christian Alaska Airlines’ board member sent me two ticket upgrades and said that we have to be “inclusive” in our dealings with the public. I tore up my Alaska Airline Credit Card that I had used for 20 years.

Who would have ever guessed a few years ago that we would have marriage redefined and sanctioned by law that a man could be married to another man, or a woman to a woman? I know this has been long, but I believe that even evangelical Christians have been softened and are more accepting of this wicked sin that is to God an “abomination” (Lev. 20:13) and “vile" (Rom. 1:26, 27).