The Whole Armour of God

Not sure whether the title of this post would attract would be Jihadist ‘Warriors’ or Christians looking for encouragement in the Spiritual Warfare. If you are a Jihadist let me encourage you to lay down your arms at the feet of King Jesus and serve Him only and find refuge. Psalm 2:12  ‘Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him’.

I had in my loft very inconveniently stored a number of books, many given to me by a friend, with one especially that I had wanted to retrieve. We had a sort out and managed to lay my hands on it. The book is The Christian in Complete Armour by the Puritan William Gurnall. To give it its full title, The Christian in Complete Armour; A Treatise Of the Saints’ War against the Devil. Astonishingly the whole text of this massive tome is available on-line for free. The book is 600 pages of small text and to honest, though I would like to, it’s unlikely to be read from cover to cover any time soon! But for your joy here is the introduction which was so encouraging to read in itself that it seemed good to put it here. Read on…

A treatise of

The Whole Armour of God

“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.  Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.  For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

          “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

          “Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.  And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”

— Ephesians 6:10-20.

The Introduction

Paul was now in bonds, yet not so close kept as to be denied pen and paper; God, it seems, gave him some favour in the sight of his enemies: Paul was Nero’s prisoner, but Nero was much more God’s.  And while God had work for Paul, he found him friends both in court and prison.  Let persecutors send saints to prison, God can provide a keeper for their turn.

But how does this great apostle spend his time in prison?  Not in publishing invectives against those, though the worst of men, who had laid him in; a piece of zeal which the holy sufferers of those times were little acquainted with: nor in politic counsels, how he might wind himself out of his trouble, by sordid flattery of, or sinful compliance with, the great ones of the times.  Some would have used any picklock to have opened a passage to their liberty and not scrupled, so escape they might, whether they got out at the door or window.  But this holy man was not so fond of liberty or life, as to purchase them at the least hazard to the gospel.  He knew too much of another world, to bid so high for the enjoying of this; and therefore he is regardless what his enemies can do with him, well knowing he should go to heaven whether they would or no.  No, the great care which lay upon him, was for the churches of Christ; as a faithful steward he labors to set the house of God in order before his departure.  We read of no despatches sent to court to procure his liberty; but many to the churches, to help them to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free.  There is no such way to be even with the devil and his instruments, for all their spite against us, as by doing what good we can wherever we be come.

The devil had as good have let Paul alone, for he no sooner comes into prison but he falls a preaching, at which the gates of Satan’s prison fly open, and poor sinners come forth.  Happy for Onesimus that Paul was sent to jail; God had an errand for Paul to do to him and others, which the devil never dreamed of.  Nay he doth not only preach in prison, but that he may do the devil all the mischief he can, he sends his epistles to the churches, that tasting his spirit in his afflictions, and reading his faith, now ready to be offered up, they might much more be confirmed; amongst which Ephesus was not least in his thoughts, as you may perceive by his abode with them two years together, Acts 19:10; as also by his sending for the elders of this church as far as Miletus, in his last journey to Jerusalem, Acts 20:17, to take his farewell of them as never to see their faces in this world more.  And surely the sad impression which that heart-breaking departure left on the spirits of these elders, yea, the whole church, by them acquainted with this mournful news, might stir up Paul, now in prison, to write unto this church, that having so much of his spirit, yea, of the spirit of the gospel, left in their hands to converse with, they might more patiently take the news of his death.

In the former part of this epistle, he soars high in the mysteries of faith.  In the latter, according to his usual method, he descends to application; where we find him contracting all those truths, as beams together, in a powerful exhortation, the more to enkindle their hearts, and powerfully persuade them to ‘walk worthy of their vocation,’ Eph. 4:1, which then is done, when the Christian’s life is so transparent that the grace of the gospel shines forth in the power of holiness on every side, and from all his relations, as a candle in a crystal glass, not in a dark lantern, lightsome one way and dark another: and therefore he runs over the several relations of husband, wife, parents, children, masters, and servants, and presseth the same in all these.

Now having set every one in his proper place, about his particular duty; as a wise general after he has ranged his army, and drawn them forth into rank and file, he makes the following speech at the head of the Ephesian camp, all in martial phrase, as best suiting the Christian’s calling, which is a continued warfare with the world, and the prince of the world.  The speech itself contains two parts.

First, A short but sweet and powerful encouragement, Eph. 6:10.  Secondly, The other part is spent in several directions for their managing this war the more successfully, with some motives here and there sprinkled among them, Eph. 6:11-20.  We begin with the first.

Happy Thanksgiving

The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth" (1914) By Jennie A. Brownscombe

It’s a bit late in the day but I didn’t want to go to bed without wishing family and friends in the US (and American family here as well!) a Happy & Blessed Thanksgiving. There’s much to be thankful for. Amen.

End of a Cinematic Era

View across the road

I knew it was going to be demolished but driving past the old Granada (Plaza) Cinema today and seeing a massive hole in the side of the building made me realise it was the end of an era. Back in my childhood and through my late teens watching a film at the Granada was a weekly ritual. I went with my parents for years. This is back in the day when there was an intermission and ices and Kiora (remember those) drinks were sold at the front of the balcony. A lady would walk down to the front and people – including my Dad – would queue all the way back up the steps. Those were the days!  I watched many great films in that place. Not sure why but the BFI had a focus on cinema in Rugby. Here’s part of the Case Study:

View of the balcony

In January 1933, Rugby had its fourth cinema. The Plaza, built in the grounds of Northfields House (which at that time was part of Newbold Road) was a luxurious development.

All of these 4 cinemas continued showing films throughout the Second World War, and in 1946 the Plaza was once again taken over by the Granada Theatre Ltd, and became the Granada.

In March 1946 the Scala Cinema had a fire, which started in the winding room of the cinema, fortunately no one was injured, but the cinema was forced to close its doors.

In the late 40s and early 50s television became a popular form of entertainment and many people preferred to stay at home rather than visit the cinema. Audiences for cinema across the country and in the USA plummeted. Many cinemas had to close their doors and Rugby was no exception. The Regal was the first to close in 1953, followed by the Century in 1961 (the old) Picture House and later the Regent. The Granada continued until 1971, when it became a Bingo Hall.

Another view of the balcony

(Update: Although the above is from the BFI site, the 1971 date must be wrong. It must be later than this and may have been 1981. Maybe there will be something in the local paper.) Years ago according to a friend at the time the Granada had a superb sound system. Apparently the massive bass reflex speakers were constructed out of Concrete in order to achieve a better sound. I’ve no idea if that were true but it all added to the mystique. However, I have come across a DIY Granite Speaker Project so maybe it is true.

I parked the car and took a few pictures on my phone that you see here. They won’t mean much to most of you but seeing these things remind us that time is ever inching forward to that last day when Christ will return in Glory. It reminds us that we live in a fallen world where nothing is permanent and everything decays.

Back in the day

Here’s another picture I came across at another blog with a series of articles reminiscing about about the Granada Cinema. This blogger reckons it closed around 1975. This would be more accurate than 1971 because I’m sure I remember seeing The Exorcist (1973) there.

Blast from the Past

I suppose Blogging if we’re honest has some element of self-promotion to it. I try to keep it to a minimum but thought the following pictures may amuse or even surprise. The quality is not that brilliant, but anyway have look.

My daughter scanned the first one and called it scary dad. I’d been a Christian for a very short time and some of the girls had some fun with my hair.

The second is from a time (I must have been about 23) when The Lord Jesus was far from my thinking – except as an expletive. You can read a brief account of how Christ rescued me HERE. I actually have very few pictures from this period of my life. This is one of them.

It’s been a fairly circuitous route but my love of music has been revived a bit and I find myself revisiting Soft Machine, Weather Report, Magma & others. Not very keen on soppy Christian stuff I’m afraid. I absolutely love the good old hymns though! (Williams, Watts, Wesley, Gadsby etc)

Shopping for Religion

image

Took this picture in a well known supermarket. This is just one row of four. I noticed a magazine for just about anything. A bit like shopping for a religion. In fact there are probably more religions!

No Room for Truth

The other day I found myself in a girls Secondary School RE class. They were having a brief Q&A with the teacher and several of the girls asked if God was a She. There are references in the bible where God is referred to as a She they were told. The main answer as I observed it, was how society back in those days (and in previous generations to ours) was a Patriarchal Society. Several of the girls acknowledged this. But now society has changed it’s more acceptable to view God as a She. So if this view were to change back where does this leave Truth? It’s a commentary on how the Truth of anything is viewed. In fact there is to be no such thing as Truth at all and this view is accepted without criticism in the classroom. The argument would be – as I have heard previously – that it’s a concept above this particular year group (Year 7 or 8 I think it was) but we’ll discuss it at GCSE or A-Level. By then the idea that there is no such thing as Truth is so deeply ingrained that it would need a monumental shift in thinking. This does of course happen, but I would suggest rarely is it so.

The idea that Truth does exist in my opinion is fairly simple and straightforward to grasp. Unpacking it may be a little more complex but the idea of Truth existing is quite easy. There is such a thing as Truth – there I’ve said it. The sad fact is it is unlikely to be taught in schools because in the main teachers do not think it exists – except the illogical truth that truth does not exist. But it’s a good example of the law of non-contradiction being violated on a daily basis. But for many it’s a ‘truth’ that’s just too convenient – or a version of what’s true for me must be true.

This idea permeates everything, ideas of morality, of religion, of art, of music and especially of ultimate authority. These depend on Truth. It comes as no surprise then that the history of sinful humanity could perhaps be described as mankind’s struggle to escape the uncomfortable thought that Truth exists. But of course it does.

As Jesus said in His high priestly prayer “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (John 17:17 KJV). And as Jesus said of Himself in John 14:6 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. Truth in the end is found in a person – His name is Jesus.

‘JESUS, Jesus, all-sufficient,
Beyond telling is Thy worth’

William Williams, 1717-91;

Pray for Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani

There is an email going round urging Christians to pray for Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani. Much of the email follows. Please find a moment to pray for this man.

Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani never practiced the Muslim faith and converted to Christianity at age 19, becoming a pastor later. But the courts say that since his mother and father were practicing Muslims, he must recant his Christian faith or die. So far, in three court appearances, he has refused to do so – RISKING EXECUTION AT ANY MOMENT.   The Iranian Supreme Court often acts quickly in administering the death penalty.

According to a report, when asked by judges to “repent,” Yousef replied: “Repent,  What should I return to? To the blasphemy that I had before my faith in Christ?”

The judges replied: “To the religion of your ancestors – Islam.” To which Yousef replied: “I cannot.”

I was going to comment but instead I’ll simply let it speak for itself – Please Pray.

Dawkins is Disgusted

Richard Dawkins

Maybe a little late with this, but there’s a really excellent post ‘Dawkins is Disgusted‘ at Analogical Thoughts. Thanks for the Heads Up to Jim over at The Domain for Truth.

Here’s a taster:

in The God Delusion he rejected and ridiculed the notion that there are moral absolutes. But if there are no moral absolutes, then there are no moral principles that absolutely rule out genocide. According to Dawkins’ moral outlook, then, genocide could be morally justified in some circumstances —

Check it out for Dawkins incoherence.

Remember Remember the 5th of November…

The cellar underneath the House of Lords, as d...
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It’s day early but hey: Remember Remember the 5th of November Gunpowder Treason and Plot.

Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Guy Fawkes Day and Bonfire Night, is an annual commemoration observed on 5 November, primarily in Great Britain. Its history begins with the events of 5 November 1605, when Guy Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot, was arrested while guarding explosives the plotters had placed beneath the House of Lords. Celebrating the fact that King James I had survived the attempt on his life, people lit bonfires around London, and months later the introduction of the Observance of 5th November Act enforced an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot’s failure.Observance of 5th November Act 1605

Also from Wikipedia:

The Observance of 5th November Act 1605 (3 Ja. I, c. 1) also known as the “Thanksgiving Act” was an Act of the Parliament of England passed in 1606 in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot.

The Bill was drafted and introduced on 23 January 1605/06 by Edward Montagu. It called for a public, annual thanksgiving for the failure of the Plot.

A 1606 etching by Claes (Nicolaes) Jansz Vissc...
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Forasmuch as almighty God hath in all ages showed his power and mercy in the miraculous and gracious deliverance of his church, and in the protection of religious kings and states, and that no nation of the earth hath been blessed with greater benefit than this kingdom now enjoyeth, having the same true and free profession of the gospel under our most gracious sovereign lord King James, the most great learned and religious king that ever reigned therein, enriched with a most helpful and plentiful progeny proceeding out of his royal loins promising continuance of this happiness and profession to all posterity: the which many malignant and devilish papists, Jesuits, and seminary priests much envying and fearing, conspired most horribly, when the king’s most excellent majesty, the queen, the prince, and the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, should have been assembled in the upper house of Parliament upon the fifth day of November in the year of our lord 1605 suddenly to have blown up the said house with gunpowder, an invention so inhuman, barbarous and cruel, as the like was never before heard of.
There is another reason to celebrate and remember the 5th November. This is the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when with a large invasion fleet in November 1688, William of Orange landed at Torbay. This is hugely significant because William and his wife Mary were Protestant and saved England from reverting back to Catholicism and essentially being ruled by the Pope.
William of Orange (1650-1702)

From Wikipedia: ‘The Revolution permanently ended any chance of Catholicism becoming re-established in England. For British Catholics its effects were disastrous both socially and politically: Catholics were denied the right to vote and sit in the Westminster Parliament for over a century, were denied commissions in the army; the monarch was forbidden to be Catholic or to marry a Catholic, a prohibition that continues to 2011. The Revolution led to limited toleration for nonconformist Protestants, although it would be some time before they had full political rights. It has been argued that James’s overthrow began modern English parliamentary democracy: never since has the monarch held absolute power, and the Bill of Rights has become one of the most important documents in the political history of Britain.’

Funny how it’s all slowly changing back. I would see this essentially as summed up by the phrase ‘we will not have this man reign over us’. This man being The Lord Jesus Christ. By nature men and Nations would rather be ruled by anyone than the Lord of Glory. I see this as a further out working of the text found in Romans 1:18  ‘For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.’ It’s the nature of sinful man to suppress the truth, or Hold down the truth in unrighteousness. So forget any balderdash about neutrality: man is consciously anti God and deliberately suppresses the truth. That includes everybody.

Is St Paul’s Cathedral a Church?

The Millennium Bridge, looking north towards S...
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I’ve not been to London for a good while but as you walk across the Millennium Bridge (aka The Wobbly Bridge) there in front is St Paul’s Cathedral. It’s quite a sight. Architecturally it’s a magnificent structure designed by Sir Christopher Wren. I have never been inside and so have not experienced the whispering gallery nor the internal magnificence.

I guess like many I’ve sort of watched on the periphery the goings on outside the Cathedral and have no particular view on what they are doing. It’s been amazing how not one but two leaders of St Paul’s have resigned over the ‘Occupy London’ protest.

I say this with my tongue only slightly in cheek – but if they really had wanted to get rid of the protesters all they had to do was preach to them the message of the Church. They would have been gone in no time.

Ah, but what would the message be and what exactly is the missed opportunity that has been afforded to St Paul’s? I noticed one of the banners outside raised the question ‘What would Jesus do?’ Hmm, good question. As I read my Bible it’s possible to get a pretty good idea what Jesus would do. I suppose the incident most people think of is when Jesus turned out the money-changers. But there are were other occasions when Jesus spoke to the people. On the hillside he preached to the people the Sermon on the Mount. On another occasion He preached to a crowd on the shore from a boat. And again when people gathered as He healed the paralysed man.

His message was one of repentance and forgiveness. Of His person – ‘I am the light of the world’ He said. And what of St Paul himself. Well we know what he would have preached. He would have preached The Gospel. Or as Jesus said – the Good News of the Kingdom of God. Jesus said ‘repent and believe the Gospel.

We hear the word Gospel dropped into many a Christian / religious conversation as if just the word itself has some sort of magical power. What would The Apostle Paul preach on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral? He sums it up for us in the first few verses of 1 Corinthians ch 15:

1 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. 6 After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. 7 After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. 8 Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.
9 For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. 11 Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Here’s some more words from the Apostle Paul:

1Co 1:17  For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
1Co 1:18  For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
1Co 1:19  For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
1Co 1:20  Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
1Co 1:21  For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

I don’t recall hearing any of this from the Church or the press. Despite what people seem to think the message of the Church (The Gospel)  is not primarily look after the poor, nor is it to confront Capitalism. The message of the Church is one of Grace and forgiveness but also one of judgement and wrath for those that refuse to bow the knee to The risen Lord Jesus. I do not know all that has gone on over the last days, or what has been spoken. But I have to say the Gospel message has not been one of them. I suspect if the Gospel in all it’s fullness had been continuously preached on the steps of St Paul’s – that would have made news. And not only that we could have had the assurance that St Paul’s Cathedral is in fact a Church. Without the message of the Gospel, of a Crucified and Risen Saviour dying for rotten sinners just like those protesters there is no Church. My conclusion therefore is this: St Paul’s may well be wonderful architecture, but it’s not a Church.