Matt Olmstead

Here is an admonition to those who often listen to or read from other men.

Anyone who reads this blog (if anyone) knows that I do not write much. Indeed I use this blog rarely. I continue to tell myself that I am going to write more, but as time goes by it doesn’t happen. Well, once again I am going to commit to writing more.

For inspiration, encouragement, impetus (whatever), I am planning on entering an article in SharperIron’s writing contest. More than the money and the prestige, I’m hoping to begin writing regularly.I have been reading various blogs daily for a while and when I find something of note, I will post it here.

Also, I have been posting noteworthy music items at Religious Affections Ministries in the New and Reviews categories.While there are various arguments for and against blogging, I hope to use this as a tool to communicate and to develop my thought on issues.

I’ve just listened to a preview of the newest Soundforth CD that will be made available this Wednesday. According to Dan Forrest (see the link for the preview audio) this CD has been in the works longer than any other CD for Soundforth. I plan to get it on mp3 as soon as its available from Sacred Audio.

My congressman, Paul Ryan, along with my senator, Russ Feingold, and John McCain have reintroduced legislation that will allow for a line item veto. See the press release from Ryan’s office.

I found this reading J. I. Packer’s Knowing God. I commend it to your reading and application.

Morning Sermon, January 7, 1855:

It has been said by someone that ‘the proper study of mankind is man.’ I will not oppose the idea, but I believe it is equally true that the proper study of God’s elect is God; the proper study of a Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father.

There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects we can compass and grapple with; in them we eel a kind of self-content, and go our way with the thought, ‘Behold I am wise.’ But when we come to this master science, finding that our plumbline cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the though that vain man would be wise, but he is like a wild [donkey’s] colt; and with solemn exclamation, ‘I am but of yesterday, and know nothing.’ No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind, than thoughts of God. . . .

But while the subject humbles the mind, it also expands it. He who often things of God, will have a larger mind than the man who simply plods around this narrow globe. . . . The most excellent study for expanding the soul, is the science of Christ, and Him crucified, and the knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity. Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the Deity.

And, whilst humbling and expanding, this subject is eminently consolatory. Oh, there is, in contemplating Christ, a balm for every wound; in musing on the Father, there is a quietus for every grief; and in the influence of the Holy Ghost, there is a balsam for every sore. Would you lose your sorrow? Would you drown your cared? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead’s deepest sea; be lost in his immensity; and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated. I know nothing which can so comfort the soul; so calm the swelling billows of sorrow and grief; so speak peace to the winds of trial, as a devout musing upon the subject of the Godhead. . . .

- C. H. Spurgeon