Acts 20:24 But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus,.........NKJV
Words of a Different Kind & Work of a Different Kind
When Noah Webster went to Philadelphia for the first time, Dr. Benjamin Rush met him and said, “I congratulate you on your arrival at Philadelphia,” to which Webster replied, “Sir, you may congratulate Philadelphia on the occasion.” Yes, one of the many failings of Noah Webster was the fine clothing of arrogance! Indeed, arrogance is one of my own failings and yet I do not have 1000th of the intellectual abilities, annunciative prowess, determination and stick-ability that this great man had towards his known calling, vocation and destiny. Good grief, Noah Webster learned over twenty more languages JUST so he could better understand the root and real meanings of the words explained in his dictionary. This haughty arrogance began to be laid aside when Webster was 49 years of age, for it was then, that the writer of Webster’s Dictionary, the true founder (not Bill Gates) of American English, the prophet of real republican pronunciation, was swept into the kingdom of God on the wonderful wave of the second Great awakening, upon whose great wash of the Holy Spirit, also rode that great ship ‘revival and revivalism,’ with Charles Grandison Finney as its smiling figurehead.
It was Dr. K. Alan Snyder, in his book, ‘Defining Noah Webster’ who when writing about Webster’s conversion experience, says that his own so thorough and well written examination and explanation of his own conversion was so well received, that the fundamental Christian community encouraged him to enter the world of apologetics. This, Webster declined to do, knowing that God had called him to the world of ‘Words of a different kind, and works of a different kind’ and my goodness, now God had become the centre (sorry about the Queen's English spelling Noah) of his life, everything to do with his life was punctuated and permeated with the God of the Bible. Thus Webster became THE American Lexicographer, spelling reformer, even ‘Father of American Scholarship and Education!’ I tell you tonight, it has been on more than one occasion when I have counselled people not to enter the ministry, for God had far greater and more important things for them to do. Noah Webster is evidence to that great fact.
In this day in 1818 Webster published the first edition of his dictionary. Selling only 2,500 copies, he would later remortgage his home, spending the rest of his life in debt and years of dedicated work, revising his original work to produce a second and more substantial, even more Biblically rooted work in 1840, some 22 years later. Noah Webster died in 1843 just a few days after completing an appendix to his second edition.
If you are confident of your holy calling, whatever that may be, then do it with all your might with the aid and unction of the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God the Father, in the name of Jesus His Son. Noah Webster, assured of his calling, certain of his goal, dedicated to his task, leaves, along with many others, an example of that old adage which says, “If you keep heading in the direction you started out for, in the end, you might just get there!”
Listen: - Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going. Ecclesiastes 9:10 NKJV.
Pray:- Lord, I want to be confident in my holy calling, clear in my goal, dedicated to the task. So help me in these things, O Lord I dearly pray, amen and amen.
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