Welcome to the Wingard Cemetery in Wingard, Alabama. If you’ve never been to Wingard, you’ll find it in western Pike County, just off the main highway between Troy and Luverne. Wingard, Alabama was settled in 1820 by William Wingard (1796-1872) and his wife Ellender Burgess Wingard (1797-1885). They moved from South Carolina, accompanied by his brother-in-law, William Burgess, who had married Mary Wingard. So, a brother and sister married a brother and sister. Here are a few photos of Wingard Cemetery, taken in 2007: Richard William Wingard was the father of my great-grandfather, George Franklin Wingard (1860-1949). He died on his son’s second birthday. My closest kin lived in northwest Pike County and southern Montgomery County at Elmdale, the Moore-Wingard plantation. For a number…
Read MoreElmdale was the Moore-Wingard plantation in northwest Pike County and southern Montgomery County. It was sold off to a paper company in the middle of the last century. The old plantation land can be seen along the southern end of Moore Road below highway 94 and all along Wingard Road. The Moore-Wingard Cemetery is a few hundred yards off the southern side of Wingard Road about 100 yards before you reach the point where Wingard Road takes a hard right to the washed out bridge that leads to Moore Road. The photographs below were taken during a visit in July 2007. Since then, work parties have cleaned the family cemetery. For the handful of folks who are interested in finding the…
Read MoreETERNAL GOD, who makest all things to turn for the best to them that love thee, and who preservest and keepest all those who commit themselves to thy protection, grant us of thy bountiful grace that we may continually call upon thee with our whole hearts, that, being delivered from all dangers, we may in the end enjoy that salvation which is acquired for us by Jesus Christ, thine only Son, our Savior. AMEN. – Prayers on the Psalms from the Scottish Psalter of 1595 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2010), 104-105.
Read More1843 was a momentous year in Presbyterian history. The founders of the Free Church of Scotland abandoned homes, incomes, and church buildings to uphold the spiritual independence of Christ’s church. Their courage captured the attention of the evangelical world, and bequeathed stirring testimonies of faith and fortitude to subsequent generations of Bible-believing Presbyterians. Author Sandy Finlayson skillfully sketches the lives of ten of these leaders in Unity & Diversity: The Founders of the Free Church of Scotland. Bound together by love of the gospel, a high view of the authority of God’s word, confessional fidelity, and missionary outreach, these men nevertheless held a variety of opinions on controversial issues of the day: church union with other Presbyterian denominations, Roman Catholic emancipation, the evangelistic campaigns of Dwight L.…
Read MoreA friend reminds me that homiletics is a physician-heal-thyself enterprise, so my critiques of student sermons are restrained. But not as restrained as those offered by “a sexton at whose church theological students frequently did the preaching. He always had three stock answers when they asked with anxious curiosity how they had done. If they had done well he would reply, ‘The Lord has been gracious’; if moderately well, ‘The text is difficult; and if badly, ‘The hymns were well chosen.’” [1] My criticisms are more direct, but not so much as those offered by Professor James Benjamin Green, who began teaching at Columbia Seminary in 1921. After one student’s sermon, he offered this analysis: “There were three problems with this sermon:…
Read MoreLynne and I enjoyed hosting our students and their families this afternoon.
Read MoreETERNAL GOD, the only refuge of the afflicted, seeing that the shortness of this present life admonishes us to turn ourselves away from earthly things and to have our meditation on heavenly matters, grant unto us that we may employ our whole life on the consideration of thy mercy and goodness; and that thine anger may be so turned from us that we may have continually wherewith to rejoice in thee, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. AMEN. – Prayers on the Psalms from the Scottish Psalter of 1595 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2010), 104.
Read More“Faith is at the root of all that is good; and unbelief, of all that is evil. According to our faith will every grace be found within us. Look at a person in a state of departure from his God: to what is his condition owing? There is ‘in him an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.’ Look at persons anxious to attain the highest grace, so as to be able to forgive their brother, not seven times, but seventy times seven: for what do they pray? an increase of love? no; but of faith: ‘Lord, increase our faith.’” – Charles Simeon, Horae Homileticae: Philippians to 1 Timothy (vol. 18; London: Holdsworth and Ball, 1833), 316.
Read More“Can we ever give too much honour to Christ? Can we ever think too highly of him? . . . Men may easily fall into error about the three persons in the holy Trinity, if they do not carefully adhere to the teaching of Scripture. But no man ever errs on the side of giving too much honour to God the Son. Christ is the meeting-point between the Trinity and the sinner’s soul. ‘He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him’ (John 5:23).” – J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on John, Vol 1. 1869. (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 27.
Read MoreO LORD GOD, the only founder of thy church, augment and increase daily the number of the faithful by the preaching of thy holy Evangel, that the darkness of ignorance may be chased out of the world, and that thy name may be known over all. May all men resort out of all parts to render themselves under the obedience of thy Word, and may they reverence thee with their whole hearts, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. AMEN. – Prayers on the Psalms from the Scottish Psalter of 1595 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2010), 101-102.
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