Dear friends:

I did not  know this about Robinson Crusoe.  Bet you didn't either.  It has been censored from us, like most of America's true history.  This is amazing.
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Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2007 05:26:04 -0400
From: "Bill Powell" <billpowell1@cox.net>
To: jbramlett@earthlink.net
Subject: Proverb of the Day for October 4


Proverbs 4:1, 3-4.  “Hear, children, the instruction of a father and attend to know understanding . . . .  For I was my father’s son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother.  He taught me also and said to me, `Let your heart retain my words: keep my commandments and live.’”

 Daniel Defoe (ca. 1661-1731) penned, The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe in 1719.  If you remember, it’s the story of a hard-headed son who rejects his parent’s repeated advice and then goes to sea.  Eventually, the rebellious Crusoe becomes the sole survivor of a shipwreck and lives for nearly 30 years on a deserted island.

What you may not remember is that on that island Crusoe comes to repentance and belief in Jesus.  Eventually he leads "Friday” (the native cannibal from the nearby coastland) to Christ as well.  Defoe wrote this adventure book as a sort of extended Christian tract and especially for youth!  (It’s ironic then that the abridged versions almost always edit out the rich Christian message.) 

In relating the moment of breaking and awakening, Crusoe is made to say: “I took up the Bible and began to read.  Only having opened the book casually, the first words that occurred to me were these, `Call on Me in the day of trouble and I will deliver, and you shall glorify Me.’  It was not long after I set seriously to this work [of reading Scripture] but I found my heart more deeply and sincerely affected with the wickedness of my past life.”

“I was earnestly begging of God to give me repentance when it happened providentially, the very day that reading the Scripture I came to these words, `He is exalted a Prince and a Savior to give repentance and to give remission.’  I threw down the book and with my heart as well as my hands lifted up to heaven in a kind of ecstasy of joy, I cried out aloud, `Jesus, You son of David!  Jesus, You exalted Prince and Savior, give me repentance!’ 

“This was the first time that I could say in the true sense of the words that I prayed in all my life; for now I prayed with a sense of my condition and with a true Scripture view of hope founded on the encouragement of the Word of God; and from this time, I may say, I began to have hope that God would hear me.  Now I looked back upon my past life with such horror and my sins appeared so dreadful that my soul sought nothing of God but deliverance from the load of guilt that bore down all my comfort. 

“As for my solitary life, it was nothing.  And I add this part here to hint to whoever shall read it, that whenever they come to a true sense of things, they will find deliverance from sin a much greater blessing than deliverance from affliction.”

Robinson Crusoe affirms at its core the instruction of wisdom in Proverbs, “Hear, children, the instruction of a father.”  And when that is ignored, the only remedy is reconciliation to the Heavenly Father through the death and resurrection of His obedient Son, Jesus.

 The Proverb of the Day is a brief devotional typically penned by our pastor and based on the Book of Proverbs.  It is distributed by Village Christian Fellowship.  Please let us know if you do not wish to continue to receive it.