No guarantees. ( John 11 v25 )

 A lady who is tetraplegic who broke her neck in a riding accident in 2010, writes a column in a news paper every week gives an honest record how she copes,she's very brave, and one has to admire her,and of course I pray for her,she is not a Christian ,but who knows,yes who knows.Here is part of what she wrote in her column recently.'Like most people, when I was healthy,I  happily wrapped myself in expectations. You assume you will at least live as long as your parents, that you will remain happy and active until at some great age you will slip away in your sleep,brains and joints fully intact.But there are no guarantees. ' The heading on her column reads,' Just let me get to 70,please, and l'll be ever so grateful'. Yes there are no guarantees,that she will reach 70,there are no guarantees for anyone ,our days are numbered and it's God who is doing the numbering.Psalm 31 v 15,declares,'My times are in your  hands'. It is Spurgeon who says on this,''My times are in Thy hand ''- the hand of my Saviour' .These are wonderful words ,Herbert Lockyer wrote,'How slow we are to learn that His hand holds all our times!'I often take encouragement from the words of a hymn by John Ryland, 'Plagues and deaths around me fly; Till He bids,I cannot die; Not a single shaft can hit,Till the God of love sees fit'.It is wonderful to  know that when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death we need fear no evil,for Christ will be with us whenever that will be.

The word of God. ( 2 Peter 3 v 1 -14 )

 Have you ever wondered what it is like to be a fugitive?,well if one studies the life of David you will get the idea.It all took place during the reign of king Saul Israel's first king, His reign started well but he began to act in  ways that didn't please the prophet Samuel or God.In 1Samuel 13 v 14,we read that he was going to be replaced by someone else,he was not told who that would be.So you can imagine how he felt ,he must have always been looking over his shoulder,thinking is he the one .God's replacement was to be David ( 1 Samuel 16)When David came on the scene he became a super star,and it came to a head when his fan club started to sing,with words that pierced Saul's heart Cp  1Samuel 18 v7. Saul has slain his thousands,  and David his tens of thousands'.Immediately Saul became angry and suspicious that this young man David was going to replace him, and he was right,and so began the reason that David became a fugitive .Saul was not going to give up his throne,from that moment on he sought to kill him David.He never would succeed although he would try time and time again to do so ,God's word would be fulfilled,David would become king,Gods word will always be fulfilled,nothing can stop the purposes of God. Before our Saviour died and rose again,and ascended to heaven,He declared to His disciples,'I will come back and take you to be with me'.(John 14 v 3),we do not know when,but it will happen, let us live in light of that great and wonderful event.

                                               'He's coming soon,He's coming soon,

                                               With joy we welcome His returning,

                                               It may be be morn,it may be night or noon,

                                                We know He's coming soon.'

                                                     Words  Thoro Harris.

Don't run away. ( Psalm 50 v 15 )

 Scroggie calls, Psalm 55'An Ode of the Oppressed' it is a Psalm by David, who is in dire straits, so David did what he often did, turned to prayer. It was a desperate prayer for a desperate situation and it is in those situations the prayerless pray, there is some  truth in the saying,'There are no atheists in  foxholes'. But David wasn't an atheists he was a man of God and a man of prayer,well how does he feel in  this desperate situation?.After all he was a mighty warrior, a man after God's heart, we have a very honest record as to how he felt.Here are some of the words that describe how he felt, 'troubled ,distraught,anger,anguish ,horror,trembling'.In light of that, he says,'Oh ,that I  had wings of a dove, I would fly away and be at rest',and more words to that effect.Let us take our eyes of even godly people,and let us be honest  there are times that we are overwhelmed by the problems we face,and we just cry like David,I want to be out of this,I need a rest I can't bear it no more.But then David  changed his focus, and bringing  to his God all those who were causing him such pain. Yes it may seem easy to flee,but as Scroggie says,'it is rarely noble'.So he stands his ground,an example to all of us,to not give up the fight,and tells us to do this very important thing,'Cast our cares on the Lord,and He will sustain us; He will never let the the righteous be shaken'v 22. He ends the Psalm with these profound words,' But as for me,I trust in You'.

                                                       'What a friend we have in Jesus,

                                                       All our sins and griefs to bear;

                                                        What a privilege to carry .

                                                         Everything to God in prayer.'

                                                               Words Joseph Scriven.

Simple Faith. ( Galatians 2 v 11-21)

 I wish I could say that my blog is perfect,but I know its not,as much as I try it never will be,in my time I have played two instruments a trombone and a guitar,not at the same time of course ( I joke) I was far from perfect,in fact I was very imperfect.In football one could  say of a certain player,he is a perfect player, yet he won't always give a perfect pass,and make the perfect tackle. It must be very frustrating for a person who is obsessed with being a perfectionist , There are 10 commandments is it possible to perfectly keep those commandments?, the answer is no,it is impossible, because it is not just keeping the letter of law, we must keep the spirit  of the Law,and that is impossible.(Matthew 5 v 21 -22 / 27 - 28). The rule for being perfect is what God requires, it must be up to His standard,not ours,we call our moral imperfections just being human, God calls them sin.and sin has very serious consequences,in fact someone has said it has double consequences ,'Temporal and eternal punishment.  It is Beasley -Murray who writes the following,' It is quite clear from the Word of God that those who die in their sins do not pass into nothingness and forgetfulness. There is time beyond death,time for the dammed as well. And it is because there is such a thing as time beyond that hell is so terrible'. Let me just add, the law was not given to save us,for by no deeds of the can one be justified,No our failure to keep it should turn to the only way we can  be justified, by simple faith in Christ.( Galatians 2 v 16)

                                                   'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ

                                                    and you  shall be saved.'

                                                             Acts 16 v 31

The Cross (1 Corinthians 1 v 18)

 In Galatians 6 v14,the apostle Paul declares,'May I never boast except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ'.He did not always think like that, there was a time when he hated the cross and the Christ who died on it.He writes about it in Philippians 3 v 4-6,in his nations eyes and I suppose in his own eyes,he was a man of standing,he had it made.Keeping the law was everything,being a Israelite was everything,and he literally hated any other way, and he showed that hatred by persecuting Christians ,the followers  of the  crucified Messiah. Until one day as he was on the road to Damascus going  to persecute Christians, an amazing thing happened , suddenly a light from heaven flashed around Him, he fell to the ground,and he heard a voice say to him to Him ,'Saul,Saul, why do you persecute me? .He then asked a question ,'Who are you Lord?and he received this answer ,' I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting'.Now all things were changed,from Saul the persecutor,to Paul  the proclaimer of Jesus,from one who sought to save Himself,to the only one who could save Him,the Christ who died on the cross, that which he despised he now gloried in it, till his dying day.

                                                    Without the cross there is no hope,

                                                     Without the cross there can be no heaven,

                                                    Without the cross we are lost,

                                                     With the cross there is hope,

                                                     With the cross there can be a heaven,

                                                     With the cross we can be saved

                                                            ' 

Emotions ( John 15 v 12 )

The Pastor of our church in one of his messages spoke about the importance of being authentic, meaning not false or copied.It is hard to be authentic ,in other to be ones self,there was a famous preacher in Northern Ireland ,he had one of the largest Bible classes in the country,his name was Willie Mullen,there were many when preaching mainly young, tried to imitate him,so it was said there were a lot of Willie Mullens running about.When I am preaching I try just to be myself,recently while leading the church in prayer I was very emotional,for I prayed for a couple in the church whose son had died,but by God's grace I got through the prayer.We cannot always keep our emotions bottled up, nor should we,our Saviour wept outside the  tomb of a man called  Lazarus who had died.(John 11 v 35) The word of God says we are to weep with those who weep(Romans 12 v15),and even weep for those who weep, after all our fellow Christians are our family,the hymn writer puts it like this.

                                                      'We share our mutual woes;

                                                       Our mutual burdens bear; ( Words John Fawcett)

Sorrow is a heavy burden to bear,tears flow,words are so inadequate,so let us bear each others burdens even the burden of sorrow and in so doing we are fulfilling the law of Christ,showing love. (Galatians 6 v 2)

                                                      

                                                

No Exemption.( Romans 8 v 18 )

 Recently I received two leaflets through my letter box,one was a gospel tract,I was delighted with that,someone  was seeking to reach people for Christ,praise God.In my time I have given out gospel tracts,we don't appear to be doing that now,still there are many ways of witnessing.Then I read the other leaflet,it was a brief introduction to a church,times of services, address were the church building was.It was called ,'Winners Chapel International',very impressive,it spoke of coming to Christ and finding rest,but then it went on tell us something that really disturbed me, hear is what I read,'Christ desires for you to live a life exempted from sickness and lack and every form of hardship,he desires to take those burdens away'.My goodness I was really upset when I read that, because the word of God  does not promise that whiter it is in the OT or NT.When man sinned death entered in Genesis 2 v 17.and so we all die and let me tell you the process of dying can be pretty awful,whiter you are a Christian or a non-Christian ,none of us are exempt from that or from the sorrow of bereavement.As regards suffering Paul suffered 2 Cor 12,and no amount of prayer could change that,and at the very beginning of his Christian life he was told that he would suffer Acts 9 v 16, and he ended his days by having his head cut off. The greatest of the prophets John the Baptist suffered the same fate.In Philippians 1 v 29 ,the Christians are told, that is was given to then not only to believe on Christ,' but also to suffer for Him.'No exemption there,.Every day I pray for dear children of God  who  are being persecuted,facing hardships that are dreadful. It is said, it is the way of the cross that leads home.and rightly so.