Weather Report – A Remark You Made

Just beautiful. Enjoy. One of my favourite bands. Saw them in October 1977 at the Rainbow Theatre, London. And I still listen to them.

Support for the Iliff Family by Jenni Campbell – GoFundMe

The link at the bottom is to a Go Fund Me support page for our Grandson, Gethin, his parents – Chris & Kate and our other grandchildren Sarah & Bryn. Katy’s sister Jenni has set the page up.

For information follow the link. If you can help them financially – great. Either way, please offer a prayer to our Father in Heaven that Chris & Kate and their children (our grandchildren) Sarah & Bryn, might be sustained in every way – physically, mentally, financially and spiritually. ‘He knows the way that I take: when I am tried, I shall come forth as gold’ (Job 23:10). Not easy though! Their world has been turned upside down over the last year. This is, and will be an ongoing need. We pray God will sustain then as He has thus far. Praise God.

Source: Support for the Iliff Family by Jenni Campbell – GoFundMe

A Great Day in Aberystwyth

Pastor Geoff Thomas

In complete contrast to the ridiculous idea of having a donkey in a service of worship we were treated to the unadulterated Gospel at Alfred Place Baptist Church yesterday. Here Christ and His cross were at the centre, not donkeys, drums, entertainment and all manner of man-centred trivia. It was great to be in Aber and to hear Geoff Thomas again in his own inimitable way.

In the morning we were in Luke 19:45-48 ‘The Cleansing of the Temple’. In the evening it was Romans 8:11 ‘Christ Raised by the Spirit, and we are to be Raised Also’.

His sermons are available on Sermon Audio. Go here for MP3 Alfred Place for links.

I saw Geoff again this afternoon as he passed in his car. To my surprise he pulled over and we chatted for a while about apologetics and I asked about Greg Bahnsen. He did know him, and at one time Geoff had to stand in for him at an apologetics conference.

We continued to chat about apologetics, I thanked him for the Sunday ministry and in typical Geoff fashion he was back in his car and away.

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,800 times in 2010. That’s about 4 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 77 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 103 posts. There were 102 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 54mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was December 22nd with 38 views. The most popular post that day was The Defence of the Faith.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were churchaudio.org.uk, Google Reader, fivesidedchristian.blogspot.com, WordPress Dashboard, and en.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for aberystwyth conference 2010, puritans, abortions pictures, aber conference 2010, and english puritans.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

The Defence of the Faith December 2010
5 comments

2

Aberystwyth Conference Speaker 2010 August 2009
4 comments

3

About me May 2009

4

Meet The Puritans September 2009

5

More (over) protesting from Dawkins January 2010

Happy New Year

Having missed the opportunity to wish you all a very Happy Christmas it would be remiss of me to miss wishing you all a very Blessed New Year. So here it is:

Happy New Year.

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.

Welcome to the World – Sarah Elizabeth Iliff

SarahThis morning (1/11/2009) at 4:04 our daughter-in-law gave birth to our first grandchild – Sarah Elizabeth Iliff, daughter to Chris & Katy.

Mother and child are doing well – though Mum is very tired.  In fact they are both out of hospital and are at home.

We are absolutely delighted

Sarah weighed in at Seven pounds One ounce.  We were notified by Chris this morning at 5:05.

Sarah Elizabeth – beautiful!

Here she is – less than a day old.

We Praise God for His Goodness.