For The Truth

Friday, February 17, 2012

An interesting new book


More than your typical post-apocalyptic fare, The Last Pilgrims could well be one of the most important and prescient novels of our time. Twenty years in the future is five-hundred years in the past. It is just two decades after the worldwide societal collapse and the Vallenses, an Amish-like “plain people” living and surviving in what was once Central Texas, are under attack by the King of Aztlan and his armies. The pacifistic Vallenses are defended by the shadowy Ghost Militia and their inspiring leader Phillip, a militant freeman who wages a guerilla war with Aztlan.

Jonathan Wall and the thriving agrarian community of Vallenses have prospered by living the simple and sustainable ways of the past. In a massively depopulated world, balkanization is a reality and monarchy is back. A corrupt kingdom arises, led by a king who cannot abide freemen on lands that he covets. Just as the Vallenses send off a plea to the benevolent King of the South States, a mysterious assassin misses his target: Jonathan Wall.

Phillip “the Ghost” is on a personal mission to save the Vallenses – even if it is against their will, while Jonathan’s own son David and his fearless teenage daughter Ruth are led to challenge their pacifistic upbringing and question whether or not the time has come for the Vallenses to fight for the land, the people, and the God they love.

The Last Pilgrims is a modern re-telling of the forgotten history of the Ancient Waldenses – simple farmers who lived in the valleys of the Alps for hundreds of years despite repeated attempts to annihilate them. Full of tragedy, adventure, humor, and love, The Last Pilgrims is a rare post-apocalyptic saga that takes history and casts it into the future, while examining that future in light of the errors of the present and the past.

(Write-up from The Last Pilgrims site.)


Check out the YouTube trailer for this book; it's pretty cool. I'm hoping to read it soon.




There is a giveaway for the book at Life in a Shoe.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Having a Heart for God

In "A Catechism on the Heart," Sinclair Ferguson offers four things that God counsels us to do so that our heart may be kept for Him:

First, I must guard my heart as if everything depended on it. This means that I should keep my heart like a sanctuary for the presence of the Lord Jesus and allow nothing and no one else to enter.

Second, I must keep my heart healthy by proper diet, growing strong on a regular diet of God’s Word — reading it for myself, meditating on its truth, but especially being fed on it in the preaching of the Word. I also will remember that my heart has eyes as well as ears. The Spirit shows me baptism as a sign that I bear God’s triune name, while the Lord’s Supper stimulates heart love for the Lord Jesus.

Third, I must take regular spiritual exercise, since my heart will be strengthened by worship when my whole being is given over to God in expressions of love for and trust in Him.

Fourth, I must give myself to prayer in which my heart holds on to the promises of God, rests in His will, and asks for His sustaining grace — and do this not only on my own but with others so that we may encourage one another to maintain a heart for God.

Dr. Ferguson sums up what is required to develop a heart for God in a single biblical sentence. "Listen to your Father’s appeal: 'My son, give Me your heart.'”

"A Catechism on the Heart" in its entirety may be found at http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/a-catechism-on-the-heart/ and this portion was taken from page 71 of the January 2012 Tabletalk.