Scary Blast from the Past

For my birthday this year I was sent this picture.  It was taken when a Christian for just a very short time (a couple of months maybe) when about 25.  The girls in the church decided to have a bit of fun with my hair!

My daughter scanned the picture for me and gave it the file-name ‘dad scary’.

The Love of God

In the ministry of our Pastor today (see previous post) he gives an account of some words found on the cell wall of an asylum.  The words found were these:

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

You say, well the person that wrote that wasn’t mad – and if he or she was, then we need that kind of madness don’t’ we, to explore the love of God.

A quick search via google came up with the following hymn found on Cyber Hymnal (link below).

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.

Refrain

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

Refrain

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

Words:  Fred­er­ick M. Leh­man; (1868-1953) he wrote this song in 1917 in Pas­a­de­na, Cal­i­fornia, and it was pub­lished in Songs That Are Dif­fer­ent, Vol­ume 2, 1919. The lyr­ics are based on the Jew­ish poem Had­da­mut, writ­ten in Ara­ma­ic in 1050 by Meir Ben Isaac Ne­hor­ai, a can­tor in Worms, Ger­ma­ny; they have been trans­lat­ed in­to at least 18 lang­uages.

One day, dur­ing short in­ter­vals of in­at­ten­tion to our work, we picked up a scrap of pa­per and, seat­ed up­on an emp­ty le­mon box pushed against the wall, with a stub pen­cil, add­ed the (first) two stan­zas and chor­us of the song…Since the lines (3rd stan­za from the Jew­ish po­em) had been found pencilled on the wall of a pa­tient’s room in an in­sane asy­lum af­ter he had been car­ried to his grave, the gen­er­al opin­ion was that this in­mate had writ­ten the epic in mo­ments of san­ity.

Frederick M. Lehman, “History of the Song, The Love of God,” 1948

Music: Fred­er­ick Leh­man; ar­ranged by his daugh­ter, Clau­dia L. Mays.

Source: Cyber Hymnal

Jesus’ Birth and Your New Birth

We are privileged to attend a church where the Word of God is faithfully preached each week.  The Lord Jesus Christ is lifted up in the ministry.  Sadly, for many churchgoers this is not always the case.  If you were wondering what Christmas is about then listen to the sermon from this morning.  Pastor Watts links Incarnation with Regeneration.  His text is from 1 John 3:1

‘Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: …. ‘

You can listen to it Here, or, click on play below.

[Audio http://www.lfsbc.org.uk/sotw/Content/2009-12-20_AM.mp3]

Who Made God? – A brief review

Who Made God? Searching for a Theory of Everything’ (EP Books, Darlington, 2009.) is a new book by Professor Edgar Andrews BSc. PhD, DSc, FInstP, FIMMM, CEng, CPhys, retired head (and founder) of the Department of Materials Science at the University of London.

As it says on the tin, the book seeks to answer the question: ‘If God made everything – Who made God?’ … the sceptics favourite question, asked repeatedly by such as Richard Dawkins and his fellow ‘new atheists’ (p.9).  The author describes this question as ‘the atheists ontological weapon of mass destruction’ (p.15).  However, it is a weapon Professor Andrews systematically dismantles showing it to be mere smoke and mirrors; capably demonstrating the Christian God of the Bible actually makes better sense and has more explanatory power.

He writes on page 118, ‘None of this ‘proves’ the existence of God.  What it does do however, is confirm that the biblical hypothesis of God makes correct predictions – predictions that are only now being confirmed by cosmological research, thousands of years after the hypothesis was first advanced.  We are beginning to see, therefore, that our hypothesis survives the acid test – it has predictive power’.  In the book we find an explanation, a ‘how to’ if you like, in constructing a robust hypothesis, while so doing points out the inadequacies of the ‘new atheism’.

In making his case the author seeks to explain extremely complex and weighty issues (e.g. String Theory, Quantum Mechanics, Time & DNA) in an understandable, (sometimes humorous) and very accessible way.

Who should read the book?  Anyone that will think seriously about these issues and not afraid to have their worldview exposed or challenged.  This book is written by a scientist with a long and distinguished research career and deserves to be read carefully and thoughtfully.