Tag: Christ

Diary of a grieving Christian – 1 Year Milestone

Copy of 2012-03-31 11.59.261 year ago today (1.30 PM) Sue passed into eternity to be with Christ which is far better. Frankly, I try to avoid the word died because if the Christian faith means anything at all, in a very real sense she hasn’t died. Yes, her body, her earthly remains are dead and in the ground. I know that only too well. I will be visiting the cemetery today. I still balk at the word loss or lost as she is neither. I do admit it is difficult to avoid using them. When I sing hymns that speak of heaven or being with The Lord Jesus I still well-up because in my minds’ eye I see her there in that happy and holy throng. It’s with a sense of great thankfulness to God mixed with the gut-wrenching desire for her to be here with me. I miss her so.

It’s a remarkable thing marriage. If we try to do it right and truly become ‘one flesh’ as Jesus tells us to, we invest everything into it. (That includes the Bank account. We only had one account and our salaries were paid into that one account.) It’s a physical thing. It was that. Of course it was, otherwise, we wouldn’t have our three wonderful children. But it’s so much more that as well. Our wife or husband sees us in our vulnerability, at our worst, sees our body get old and flabby, sees us in our sin, in our failures, in our weakness and yet learns to love and care all the same. And, what a blessing it is to enjoy one another’s company, to like being with each other. And so often, to say so much, without saying anything. She used to wear my sweatshirts especially when decorating.

Given the oneness of marriage, please don’t think I’m over it because a year has gone by. I was recently speaking with a widow. She still has those times when the grief is raw after many years. I have to tell myself and realise the sadness isn’t going to be over anytime soon. I am learning to have part of me missing.

A lot of our marriage investment is done unconsciously at a deep deep level. It has to be so if the marriage vows are taken seriously. When we enter into that covenant; I don’t think we fully realise quite what that means. I wonder that in some supernatural way God fuses us together even deeper than the atomic level. God does this at the spiritual level. Something unseen that cannot be probed. Something that can’t be touched. We mess with marriage as our society is doing, and we mess at a level where the consequences are huge. And we are seeing the consequences. Marriage is for one man and one woman – that’s it. ‘Gay’ marriage is deeply sinful and rebellious. (I’ll have to do a separate post on this)

More than one person has told me I was punching above my weight with Sue. She was stunningly beautiful to the end, she was wise, nearly always right, ok, always right and incredibly capable. She loved me and the kids more than life itself. Above all, she was a Godly woman of prayer. Yet so disparaging of herself. She wasn’t perfect. I hope where she lacked I took up the slack as it were and the other way round too. We often said to each that we were a team. So despite her being way above my pay-grade, God had other ideas. I have heard it said that as long as your betrothed ticks the relevant boxes the person you marry could be anyone. We didn’t believe that for one moment. We believed and I still believe God brought us together. (Though I guess the means could be different) She could have done a lot lot better than marrying me. And when I told her that she would tell me off. We used to say to each other, we would do it again. We wouldn’t swap each other. She was the best thing that ever happened to me. God kept us together too. And however long I have on this earth I will have to deal with the parting every day. I’m told over time you do learn to live with it. But it never goes away.

Today, Wednesday is when she left for heaven. Friday would have been her birthday, then it will be my birthday, then the first funeral anniversary (7th Dec), then Christmas. It’s been quite a year. I left work, moved to another part of the country, left several friends, left Church, sold the house, put most of our stuff in storage, started attending another Church, moved into rented accommodation, brought some stuff out of storage, searched for and looked at loads of houses and I’m now in the process of buying a house. So there will be the move, then getting all our stuff out of storage, sorting (again) through the things we shared together, settling into the new house, and breathe (that’s for you Jilly. Thank you).

I have a lot I would like to write about. Please pray I would get on and do it and that it would be helpful and profitable to others. I am reading a few books that I will comment on. Some very helpful stuff out there. But in the end, all praise is to God and our Lord Jesus for keeping us from falling. Where would we be if it were not for the Grace of God! We daily raise our Ebenezer and say Hitherto has the Lord helped us. I do anyway. And I know many of you do as well.

Speaking of investing all, isn’t this exactly what Jesus did for us! We don’t really invest everything do we, but Jesus did and does. His providential dealings are remarkable. There are many many references to marriage in the Bible. It’s no accident the Church is called the Bride of Christ. Jesus invested His blood into us poor faltering failing sinners. He doesn’t cast us off. No. He has vowed to keep us, to forgive us and cleanse us. Sue liked me holding her, she felt safe. O how much much more are we His people safe in His mighty arms. My dear non-Christian friend, how I long that you might be safe and know the love of Christ, that He is mighty to save and mighty to keep. O call upon Him for Salvation and safety, and love, and forgiveness, and then eternal joy with Christ which is far better.

Thank you for bearing with me.

A Grief Continued

I was told the Christian Bookshop (Michael Keen) had ordered several copies of a book on grieving by Al Martin, a well-known preacher in Reformed Baptist circles. Michael very kindly handed me a copy yesterday morning after the service. Opening the book on the way back to the car I began to read.

The very first paragraph is gripping and took me immediately to the bedside of Sue as she breathed her last. To say I began to hyperventilate is a slight exaggeration but it’s a moment I have relived over and over and over again. It’s not nice. After nearly 11 months the emotions still come back with great vividness and force. The agony and the grief that wells up in the depths of my being are there in that first paragraph of  the book. It’s very obvious to me that Pastor Martin is reliving that moment. I know he has experienced this and I’m gripped, wanting to read what this man has to say.

As I walked racing through my mind was the thought to ‘isolate, isolate, isolate’. I felt the need to get away from people. The reality is this is not a good thing. Isolation is different from solitude. I like the solitude of staring out to sea. We all need solitude from time to time. It’s when our emotions run away from us like a freight train that we are to ‘take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ’. It isn’t easy when our emotions are SCREAMING to us one thing, but then seek to do the very opposite. Staying away from Church and people is understandable and sometimes can be helpful, but long-term is destructive and unhelpful. The thought of isolation needs to be brought into obedience. I often fail miserably.

Back to the book. I dipped into future chapters so I ‘might’ Blog through the book. There is one particular chapter in which he will deal with some very heavy theology that I too have had to work through. Pastor Martin wrote it for his own understanding and to help others. I’ll be blogging (if I do), as before, for the same reasons. So I trust even this brief post will have been helpful.

Just one further note. His book is for Christians when their loved ones have died ‘in Christ’. Like me, the loved one for Al Martin was his dear wife. However, should any non-believers come across the book they will be pointed to the God of all comfort and to The Lord Jesus Christ ‘whom to know is life eternal’. The Gospel is here.

I have only just started to read this book, but already, I have read enough to highly recommend it.

 

The Heart of Christ by Thomas Goodwin – Foreword by Michael Reeves

IMG_0593The other day I was given a copy of Thomas Goodwin’s book The Heart of Christ, from the Puritan Paperback series from Banner of Truth.

The foreword by Michael Reeves was so moving I wanted to share it. The full title is: The Heart of Christ in Heaven Towards Sinners on Earth.

How can Thomas Goodwin be so forgotten? Once ranked as a theologian alongside Augustine and Athanasius, even hailed as ‘the greatest pulpit exegete of Paul that has ever lived’, he should be a household name. His writings, while not easy, always pay back the reader, for in Goodwin a simply awesome theological intellect was wielded by the tender heart of a pastor.

As it is, Goodwin needs a little re-introduction. He was born in 1600 in the small village of Rollesby in Norfolk. His parents were God-fearing, and at the time the Norfolk Broads were well-soaked in Puritanism, so unsurprisingly he grew up somewhat religious. That all wore off, though, when he went up to Cambridge as a student. There he divided his time between ‘making merry’ and setting out to become a celebrity preacher. He wanted, he later said, to be known as one of ‘the great wits’ of the pulpit, for his ‘master-lust’ was the love of applause.

Then in 1620 – having just been appointed a fellow of Katharine Hall – he heard a funeral sermon that actually moved him, making him deeply concerned for his spiritual state. It started seven grim years of moody introspection as he grubbed around inside himself for signs of grace. Only when he was told to look outwards – not to trust to anything in himself, but to rest on Christ alone – only then was he free. ‘I am come to this pass now,’ he said, ‘that signs will do me no good alone; I have trusted too much to habitual grace for assurance of justification; I tell you Christ is worth all.’

Soon afterwards he took over from Richard Sibbes’ preaching at Holy Trinity Church. It was an appropriate transition, for while in his navel-gazing days his preaching had been mostly about battering consciences, his appreciation of Christ’s free grace now made him a Christ-centred preacher like Sibbes. Sibbes once told him ‘Young man, if ever you would do good, you must preach the gospel and the free grace of God in Christ Jesus’ – and that is just what Goodwin now did. And, like Sibbes, he became an affable preacher. He wouldn’t use his intellectual abilities to patronise his listeners, but to help them. Still today, reading his sermons, it is as if he takes you by the shoulder and walks with you like a brother.

All the while, Archbishop Laud was pressing clergy towards his own ‘high church’ practices. By 1634, Goodwin had had enough: he resigned his post and left Cambridge to become a Separatist preacher. By the end of the decade he was with other nonconformist exiles in Holland. Then, in 1641, Parliament invited all such nonconformists to return, and soon Goodwin was leading the ‘dissenting brethren’ at the Westminster Assembly. ‘Dissenting’, ‘Separatist’: it would be easy to see Goodwin as prickly and quarrelsome. In actual fact, though, while he was definite in his views on the church, he was quite extraordinarily charitable to those he disagreed with, and managed to command widespread respect across the theological spectrum of the church. Almost uniquely, in an age of constant and often bitter debate, nobody seems to have spoken ill of Goodwin.

If there was a contemporary Goodwin overlapped with more than any other, it was John Owen. In the Puritan heyday of the 1650s, when Owen was Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, Goodwin was President of Magdalen College. For years they shared a Sunday afternoon pulpit, both were chaplains to Cromwell, together they would co-author the Savoy Declaration. And both had their own sartorial whimsies: Owen was known for his dandy day-wear, his snake-bands and fancy boots; Goodwin, it was giggled, had such a fondness for nightcaps that he is said to have worn whole collections on his head at once.

First and foremost, Goodwin was a pastor at heart. Students at Magdalen College soon found that, should they bump into Goodwin or his nightcaps, they could expect to be asked when they were converted or how they stood with the Lord. And when Charles II returned in 1660 and Goodwin was deprived of his post, it was to pastor a church in London that he went.

The last twenty years of his life he spent pastoring, writing treatises and studying in London (the study sadly interrupted in 1666 when the Great Fire burned more than half of his voluminous library). Then, at eighty years old, he was gripped by a fatal fever. With his dying words he captured what had always been his chief concerns: ‘I am going’, he said,

‘to the three Persons, with whom I have had communion… My bow abides in strength. Is Christ divided? No, I have the whole of his righteousness; I am found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Christ cannot love me better than he doth. I think I cannot love Christ better than I do; I am swallowed up in God… Now I shall be ever with the Lord’.

The Heart of Christ in Heaven Towards Sinners on Earth was, almost immediately, Goodwin’s most popular work. It is also exemplary of his overall Christ-centredness and his mix of theological rigour and pastoral concern. Published in 1651 alongside Christ Set Forth, the two were written for reasons dear to Goodwin: that is, he felt that many Christians (like himself once) ‘have been too much carried away with the rudiments of Christ in their own hearts, and not after Christ himself’. Indeed, he wrote, ‘the minds of many are so wholly taken up with their own hearts, that (as the Psalmist says of God) Christ “is scarce in all their thoughts.”’ Goodwin wanted us ‘first to look wholly out of our selves unto Christ’, and believed that the reason we don’t is, quite simply, because of the ‘barrenness’ of our knowledge of him. Thus Goodwin would set forth Christ to draw our gaze to him.

Of the two pieces, Christ Set Forth and The Heart of Christ in Heaven, the latter was the cream, he believed, for through it he would present to the church the heart of her great Husband, thus wooing her afresh. His specific aim in this essay is to show through Scripture that in all his heavenly majesty, Christ is not now aloof from believers and unconcerned, but has the strongest affections for them. And knowing this, he said, may

‘hearten and encourage believers to come more boldly unto the throne of grace, unto such a Saviour and High Priest, when they shall know how sweetly and tenderly his heart, though he is now in his glory, is inclined towards them’.

Goodwin starts with Christ on earth and the beautiful assurances he gave his disciples. In John 13, for example, knowing that he was shortly to return to his Father, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet as a token of how he would always be towards them; he told them of how he would go like a loving bridegroom to prepare a place for his bride; after the resurrection, the first thing he calls them is ‘my brothers’; and the last thing they see as he ascends to heaven is his hands raised in blessing.

It is as if he had said, The truth is, I cannot live without you, I shall never be quiet till I have you where I am, that so we may never part again; that is the reason of it. Heaven shall not hold me, nor my Father’s company, if I have not you with me, my heart is so set upon you; and if I have any glory, you shall have part of it… Poor sinners, who are full of the thoughts of their own sins, know not how they shall be able at the latter day to look Christ in the face when they shall first meet with him. But they may relieve their spirits against their care and fear, by Christ’s carriage now towards his disciples, who had so sinned against him. Be not afraid, ‘your sins will he remember no more.’ … And doth he talk thus lovingly of us? Whose heart would not this overcome?

It is moving stuff, and it is strong stuff. In fact, Goodwin presents the kindness and compassion of Christ so strikingly that, when reading him, I find myself continually asking ‘Is Goodwin serious? Can this really be true?’ He argues, for example, that in Christ’s resurrection appearances, because he had dealt with the sin of his disciples on the cross, ‘No sin of theirs troubled him but their unbelief.’ And yet Goodwin is so carefully scriptural that one is forced to conclude that Christ really is more tender and loving than we would otherwise dare to imagine.

Then Goodwin takes us to the heart of his argument: his exposition of Hebrews 4:15, which

‘doth, as it were, take our hands, and lay them upon Christ’s breast, and let us feel how his heart beats and his bowels yearn towards us, even now he is in glory – the very scope of these words being manifestly to encourage believers against all that may discourage them, from the consideration of Christ’s heart towards them now in heaven’.

Goodwin shows that in all his glorious holiness in heaven, Christ is not sour towards his people; if anything, his capacious heart beats more strongly than ever with tender love for them. And in particular, two things stir his compassion: our afflictions and – almost unbelievably – our sins.

Having experienced on earth the utmost load of pain, rejection and sorrow, ‘in all points tempted like as we are’ Christ in heaven empathises with our sufferings more fully than the most loving friend. And more: he has compassion on those who are ‘out of the way’ (that is, sinning; Hebrews 5:2). Indeed, says Goodwin,

‘your very sins move him to pity more than to anger… yea, his pity is increased the more towards you, even as the heart of a father is to a child that hath some loathsome disease… his hatred shall all fall, and that only upon the sin, to free you of it by its ruin and destruction, but his bowels shall be the more drawn out to you; and this as much when you lie under sin as under any other affliction. Therefore fear not, ‘What shall separate us from Christ’s love?’

The focus is upon Christ, but Goodwin was ardently Trinitarian and could not abide the thought of his readers imagining a compassionate Christ appeasing a heartless Father. No, he said, ‘Christ adds not one drop of love to God’s heart’.11 All Christ’s tenderness comes in fact from the Spirit, who stirs him with the very love of the Father. The heart of Christ in heaven is the express image of the heart of his Father.

How we need Goodwin and his message today! If we are to be drawn from jaded, anxious thoughts of God and a love of sin, we need such a knowledge of Christ. If preachers today could change like Goodwin to preach like Goodwin, who knows what might happen? Surely many more would then say as he said ‘Christ cannot love me better than he doth. I think I cannot love Christ better than I do’.

Michael Reeves
Oxford
August 2011

Source

The Belgic Confession – Article 23 Extract

The Belgic Confession – Article 23: About Our Justification, by Which We Stand Fast in God’s Presence.

“Certainly it is proper that if we were to stand in the presence of God, relying ever so little upon ourselves or any other creature, it is certain that we would be instantly engulfed in wrath. For this reason, it is preferable for each of us, in turn, to call out with David: “Lord, do not enter into judgment with your servant, because any living thing will not be justified in your gaze.” (Extract)

Where it says ‘ever so little’ is a quaint way – that I quite like – of saying we cannot trust in anything at all, nothing, no good works, no secret small island of our own righteousness, not our church (however good and faithful it is) or our attendance, even our praying or our Bible reading, but we stand solely on the righteousness of Christ Alone for our Justification. Trusting to any of these other things will engulf us in the Wrath of God.

I’m slowly reading through some of the historic confessions. Very profitable – I recommend it.

 

Psalm 2 – The Peoples Plot in Vain

The Reign of the Lord‘s Anointed

2 Why do the nations rage[a]
    and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves,
    and the rulers take counsel together,
    against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
3 “Let us burst their bonds apart
    and cast away their cords from us.”

4 He who sits in the heavens laughs;
    the Lord holds them in derision.
5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
    and terrify them in his fury, saying,
6 “As for me, I have set my King
    on Zion, my holy hill.”

7 I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
    today I have begotten you.
8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
    and the ends of the earth your possession.
9 You shall break[b] them with a rod of iron
    and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
    be warned, O rulers of the earth.
11 Serve the Lord with fear,
    and rejoice with trembling.
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.

Footnotes:

  1. Psalm 2:1 Or nations noisily assemble
  2. Psalm 2:9 Revocalization yields (compare Septuagint) You shall rule

Andrew Davies: Sermons on Job

Andrew Davies – Minister of the Gospel

A few years ago I managed to attend the Aberystwyth Conference – it could have been 3 years on the trot. Each one was a real blessing. But in 1982 Andrew Davies was preaching for the 4 morning sessions through the book of Job. It’s one of those seasons of refreshing that I look back on with great thankfulness to God. I can’t recall hearing preaching like this before or since.

As a point of contrast, I am working my through the recent ‘Strange Fire’ conference audio, and whether it’s my English sensibility or not, I find it hard to stomach the applause speakers get at Strange Fire – and often in the US full stop. It really really grates on me. Maybe it’s an American thing, but I wish they would stop doing it. How can you applaud the speaker when it’s supposed to be a conference on worshiping God – kind of undermines it doesn’t it?

But anyway here’s the thing, hoping memory serves well, Andrew preached for well over an hour and you could have heard a pin drop, with a hushed reverence through the whole sermon. No applause – but maybe the occasional Amen from our Welsh brethren. I have never been in a series of services like it – it was as if time stood still and were sitting in the vestibule of heaven itself. The series could be summed up as a ‘Theology of Suffering’. At the time I believe Andrew’s Church had been through and was still going through illness, death and a number of other issues as he preached through Job to his congregation. The conference addresses were born out of these trials. The whole series is about the Triumph of Grace!

Not sure how long they have been available, but the sermons have been converted to MP3 files and can be downloaded for free. Click on each link below to download. Unfortunately the audio is not the best quality (The people at Grace do this sort of thing excellently), it’s ok, but I think the timeless quality of the preaching will more than compensate! Left click on each link to download.

Job – Faith Facing Facts (1) Job 1:1 – 2:15

Job – Faith Facing Facts (2) Job 3:1 – 31:40

Job – Faith Facing Facts (3) Job 32:1 – 37:24

Job – Faith Facing Facts (4) Job 38:1 – 41:17

Andrew was the first real preacher I heard after becoming a Christian in 1979. He was preaching my first time in a Church where The Bible was preached and actually believed. He has been a blessing to me over the years and has been a keen supporter of the History Lectures I help organise.  All his lectures are well worth a listen (as well as lecturing for many years at London Theological Seminary). So granted, there is an element of nostalgia but not a little element of truth.

Andrew Davies brief bio.

Where will Nelson Mandela spend Eternity?

President Bill Clinton with Nelson Mandela, Ju...
President Bill Clinton with Nelson Mandela, July 4 1993. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There’s no getting away from the fact that a great man has just died. There’s no question that what he accomplished politically has been remarkable. In terms of world history Mandela will go down as one of the great Statesmen. Quite Gandhi like in his – latter – non-violent stance against apartheid. World leaders sought an audience with him as if something of his popularity would ‘rub-off’ on them. As if merely associating with Mandela would somehow make them popular as well. Such was the charisma of Nelson Mandela.

And yet, given his political achievements, in the final analysis it’s the only question worth asking – Where will Nelson Mandela spend Eternity? The short answer of course is that I do not know. But cutting to the chase; if Mandela had no faith in The Lord Jesus Christ then he will be lost and will spend all eternity in hell. It’s not going to play well in the Liberal heartlands but the frightening lesson – and the lesson of the Bible – is that no matter what we do it will not make us right with a Holy God. Even Archbishop Cranmer on his blog writes as if Mandela were a Christian without a shred of evidence. In the blog post by his grace Mandela talked about God being the Father of all – not true. Talked about worshiping as well, but politicians are skilled at using words that impress but (I’m talking Christianity here) actually means nothing. They are vacuous empty words. There is only ONE way to God. There is only ONE Saviour. You will never hear a politician say these things but they will use the language of religion. It’s all smoke and mirrors. I don’t want to take anything away from what Mandela achieved politically but it had nothing to do with the Christian faith or with Jesus.

I’ve done a quick scan of the online press and there’s not a lot of negative comment about him. There are a few pretty raw comments about him though. His approval of violence prior to his incarceration at Robben Island is mentioned but from then on it’s all positive. On Radio 4 this morning a Bishop (didn’t catch the name) said Nelson Mandela was the ’embodiment of love’. I understand hyperbole but that is just not true. Only one person could be described that way and it’s Jesus Christ not Mandala. A Churchman should have known better but given these degenerative days where ‘truth has fallen in the streets’ it’s common to hear such ridiculous statements. If it were possible Mandela would be deified and this tells us more about our current political leaders than Nelson Mandela!

Simply put, the Gospel isn’t about rewarding people for their accomplishments, whatever those accomplishments are, or for being nice! The Gospel is Good News for sinners. Nelson Mandela in the eyes of the world (by and large) is a Saint. The world does not have the foggiest idea of what a Saint is. The Bible use of the word is simply a believer in Jesus, a sinner that has placed their trust in what Jesus accomplished on the Cross not what they have accomplished.

The problem the political world has created as it drools over the Mandela legacy is the problem of how righteousness is defined. But it has ever been so. The world defines holiness, righteousness, goodness, forgiveness & love on its own terms, not at all by the law God and the person of Jesus Christ. Associating with Nelson Mandela will not make a person good. Talking warmly about Nelson Mandela will not make a person good. Only faith in Jesus will make a person right or acceptable in the sight of God. But it’s not what the world wants to hear – even at Christmas!

The really scary thing is how good a person can be – or seem to be – and yet not be a Christian. The Church ought to be saying this over & over again. The death of Nelson Mandela as sad as it is for his family and followers is a warning to those that seek a righteousness of their own and not the righteousness that God provides in Christ. It is futile to put any eternal hope in man, any man. Our hope must be in Christ alone.

And you, dear reader. Nelson Mandela will not rescue you from the wrath to come, he cannot save you, he cannot forgive your sins. Only Jesus Christ can rescue you from the wrath to come, only Jesus Christ can save you, only Jesus Christ can forgive your sins. Only Jesus paid the price on the Cross to rescue sinners. Call upon Jesus for Salvation.

Related articles

No offence here then!

Josh Williamson is arrested twice for upsetting someone by his preaching of the Gospel of Christ whilst the gentlemen in the picture are presumably allowed to carry on in front of the police without even a threat. No breach of the peace here then! Am I missing something – please tell.  Unless I’m living in an alternate universe, surely there must be something wrong – just a little bit.

Trevor Thomas – Water to a weary soul

My very good friend Trevor Thomas preached an excellent sermon the other week and I’ve meant to post it ever since. It was a really great sermon that deserves wider recognition. We have been friends since about 1980. Trevor is a gifted preacher and spent about 9 years as a missionary / Pastor of a church in Palma, Majorca. Sounds very exotic, but the apartment – over the church – was situated next to the main motorway ring road. You could just about see the sea if you stretched out to look over all the other flats. It also meant no escape from Pastoral duties. He has a Spanish wife and is fluent in Spanish as are the three boys. The Lord blessed his ministry there and several people were converted under it. Trevor is back in the UK and has been for a few years now. He is also a skilled carpenter and teaches at a local college. Thankfully he still preaches and preaches frequently in our church where we are both members.

Anyway, to the sermon. The reading was John 4: 1 – 26 and the text from Proverbs 25:25:

‘As cold water to a weary soul,
So is good news from a far country.’ (NKJV)

The sermon is a great example of Gospel preaching and how to preach from the Old Testament. I thank God for Trevor. The link is below, listen and be blessed through it.

Water to a weary soul

When Sinks Yon Radiant Sun

Took this picture on the way home after work last evening. The sinking sun made me think of the hymn below:

P1030858

 

When this passing world is done,
When has sunk yon glaring sun,
When we stand with Christ on high,
Looking o’er life’s history;
Then, Lord, shall I fully know,
Not till then, how much I owe.

Robert Murray McCheyne
1813-1843

Source: http://www.hymnal.net/hymn.php/h/545#ixzz2NQuCFW1y