Two certainties.

In  “The Cobbler of Preston” (Christopher Bullock; 1716) appears the line, “Tis impossible to be sure of any thing but Death and Taxes.”, and the sentiment has been echoed on a number of occasions, by a number of well-known people.

However, I would suggest that there are two other certainties, referred to by the prophet Hosea, in the book that bears his name. He writes, concerning YHWH "... He has torn, that He may heal us; He has stricken, and He will bind us up." (Hos 6:1).

I know that Almighty God punishes those who deliberately break His laws - those who are sinners in His sight. And that, as I stated on Wednesday, included my friend; it includes me; and it includes every person who has ever lived - with the solitary exception of the Lord Jesus. "... all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ..." (Rom 3:23) writes Paul - and that "all" includes you and me.

However, I also know that Almighty God forgives those who repent, and turn to Him, through the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus at Calvary. These are two certainties that I have sought to preach, clearly and distinctly, throughout my pastoral ministry.

On Wednesday of the past week, I conducted the funeral service for an English friend who, with his wife, had been living in France for some seven years. A brother in the Lord; John had been suffering from cancer for many months but, on the previous Thursday, his mortal body had succumbed. His widow asked that I would conduct the service because, to use her own words: "We sing from the same hymn-sheet"! She knew that I would bring the Gospel message into whatever I said at the funeral. And I did!

I commenced the message by possibly shocking some of those present with the announcement that John was not dead! What was in that coffin was the mortal body that he had been given and that he used for almost 80 years. The man that we knew – some of us better, and for longer, than others – was not there.  He was, and is, with Jesus! How could I be certain? Simply because at 45 years of age, John recognised that he was a sinner! That's the first certainty.

John had a 'church background'; He believed in the existence of God. He knew about Jesus. But, as he shared when he gave his own testimony, he didn’t have a personal relationship with the Saviour. However, in middle age, he discovered that the very God against Whom he sinned, loved him so much that He had already done something about the situation! In the Persona of the Son, Almighty God took upon Himself human flesh – that very flesh that He had created – and came to live among mankind. He lived a quiet, unassuming, hard-working, life for about 30 years but then became a wandering Teacher and, eventually, as we shall shortly be recalling at Pâques (Resurrection Day), was crucified, and buried in a borrowed tomb.

John confessed his sins, and his sinfulness; he acknowledged that he could never do anything about them; he accepted that, at Calvary, the Son paid the penalty that he deserved to pay; he was born anew of God the Holy Spirit; he became a true son of Almighty God – joint-heir with the Lord Jesus, the Christ; he moved from death to life – a life that continues even although his mortal body has reached the end.

One of John's favourite Bible verses is found in John’s account of the Gospel, in 14:6. It reads « Jesus said …, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” » There is only one way – and that is through the Lord Jesus. Anything else is counterfeit. I cannot earn my salvation; I cannot buy my salvation; I do not deserve my salvation. It is, as Paul wrote to the Ephesian believers “… the gift of God …” (2:8).

Two certainties: As surely as the sun rises in the morning, the judgement of Almighty God will come. But His mercy is just as certain for those who turn from their sin, to the new life in the Lord Jesus.

May all who read this post find that new life for themselves.

Strengthening others.

For my personal devotions, I am still working through the account of the Gospel provided for us by Dr Luke. I am nearing the end and, on Friday morning, I read these words of the Lord Jesus to Simon Peter: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren." (Luke 22:31-32).

If you read the rest of the chapter, and the remainder of the Gospel record, you will discover that, in spite of Peter's immediate bravado, he did indeed deny his Master - but, as we read on into the book of the Acts of the Apostles (also written by Dr Luke) we discover that he has become the de facto leader of the apostolic band.

It is a simple fact of life, and experience, that it is those who have gone through an experience who are best fitted to help other who are going through it after them. This is certainly true in the life of disciples of Jesus. We fail the Lord - but, like Peter, we may be reconciled, and be used to help and strengthen others who face similar situations.

My mind wandered to a man named Barnabas. His name means "Son of encouragement" so, whatever else we know about him, we know that was a man who encouraged others. That would appear to have been his primary gift - and what an important gifting it is. I remember a lady in a fellowship in which I was a member. She was a widowed woman who lived alone near to the top of a block of high-rise flats in Motherwell. Her big complaint was, she informed me, that she had no spiritual gifts. Yet there was no-one in the fellowship who was more welcoming than she was. That was certainly one gift that she had, and that she regularly displayed. Perhaps she had been ignored in a previous congregation (sadly, that can happen!), and she wanted to ensure, to the best of her ability, that no-one in this fellowship experienced the same rejection.

When I was in full-time pastoral ministry I had, on a number of occasions, the sad responsibility of conducting the funeral service for a young child, or even an infant. One thing I was never able to say to the parents was that I understood what they were going through - my children were safely in the manse, growing healthily. Some years later, after I had been called out of full-time pastoral ministry, my wife and I were foster-parents for about ten years. One of our foster-children was only about six days old when we received her. She had been born to a young teen who decided, thankfully, that rather than have her unborn child murdered in her womb, she would give birth, and have the child adopted. 

We had that child for a full year. We experienced so many of those special "firsts". She spoke her first word ("da-da" - to me!). She took her first step. She cut her first tooth. Then she disappeared from our lives! Now, in my head, I knew that the couple who had adopted her would give her a good life - indeed, my only concern was that they might spoil her too much! - but, in my heart, she might as well have died. Both my wife and I were heart-broken. How I wished that I had gone through that experience many years earlier!

Are you going through a difficult time, just now? Do you sometimes wonder how you will ever get over your current set of circumstances? Is your complaint that you have no special 'gifting'? Then take heart! If you are truly open to the working of God the Holy Spirit in your life, then a day will come when you will be turned around and, like Peter, be able to help those who are going through the same kind of experience that is currently yours. Of course, it is essential that you are open to the working of God the Holy Spirit in your life!

May you know His power in your life - both for your own good, and that you may strengthen the faith of others; and, of course, that you may bring glory to the Lord. Be blessed, in Him.

From Hebraic roots to Greek philosophy! (Part 2)

Having just returned from Scotland, where my wife and I attended the funeral service for her mother, I am publishing this post quickly, as we return to Scotland on Tuesday for a wedding, and for our mid-year visit to family and friends.

If you haven't read the first instalment, I would recommend that you do so before you read this second part!

So, let's jump into our personal Tardis (I hope that you know at least that much about Dr Who!), and fly back some 400 years! Malachi, the last of the prophets whose writings are recorded in the Tanakh, has recorded his message – and then there is silence, until the angel Gabriel appears to a Jewish priest named Zechariah, and informs him that, in their old age, he and his wife, Elizabeth, are going to have a son.

But that 400 year-long gap is important. Malachi spoke of the coming of “… Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of YHWH comes.” (4:5). But there was no timetable issued! It was to be a long wait – and still is!

Meanwhile, Artaxerxes II was ruling the mighty Persian empire; the Romans were slowly building up their republic; the Carthaginians were suffering defeats – and, in Athens, a man named Socrates, the first great philosopher of the modern age, was soon to drink the hemlock that ushered him out of his controversial, and influential, life.

And it is on Greece that the spotlight shines during those years of silence. There were many clever people around; people who thought deeply about the world around them, and what made it tick. Following Socrates was his pupil, Plato, whose ideas were to become almost as influential as those of Jesus Himself in the development of Western Christianity – especially his “Theory of Forms”. This is something that is difficult to explain in just a few sentences but – here goes my attempt!

He explains that most human beings live as if they were in a dimly-lit cave. We are chained, and facing a blank wall, with a fire at our backs. All that we can see are flickering shadows playing across the wall of the cave, and this we take to be reality. Only if we turn away from the wall, and the shadows, can we hope to see the true light of reality.

Or, to put it in slightly more philosophical terms, Plato taught that everything we perceive around us – sailing-ships and sealing wax; and cabbages and kings – is merely appearance. The true reality is the realm of ideas, or Forms, from which this appearance derives. This true reality is perfection; what we see is but a poor reflection.

Plato did think that it was possible for a man to escape from the cave of shadows. Those who did would be the “guardians” – specially gifted and trained individuals; the philosophers, of course! These guardians would be rewarded by being granted a view of the “higher Good” – the source of all truth and reason

This “Higher Good” is the ultimate Form – top of the Forms. It is, effectively, Plato’s concept of God – an eternal reality that exists in a higher realm. Our senses are not equipped to see any more than a pale reflection of this “Higher Good”. Plato likens the concept (for this is not a ‘personal’ God, i.e. a God with personality) to the sun. Both, he taught, cause things to exist and grow; and both are sources of light.

Just one more important point (although we have missed out so very much). Plato believed that we are a body and a soul, but that these are totally separate entities, temporarily bound together during a person’s physical lifetime. This is the concept of the duality of man. In Plato’s view, the soul is good and the body is bad (again, this is the basis for some of the teaching of the later Gnostics). If you forget everything else I’ve just shared on Platonic philosophy, please remember this. It’s the Big Consequence of Plato’s Big Idea: Soul = Good; Body = Bad.

We're not even going to look at Aristotle, but merely mention him as a pupil of Plato, who may be thought of as the father of the academic discipline of logic, as he gave himself the task of thinking logically about every aspect of human life.

So, a brief summary of all of that: in the four-century gap, a whole flood of new ideas and ideals was pouring out from Greece – a Hellenistic mind-set as opposed to an Hebraic mind-set. I recently came across this comment in an SU Commentary on Revelation: “As soon as the Hebrew Christian was squeezed out of the church, and the OT was increasingly neglected, Christian theology was poisoned by this Greek concept.” That, I would contend, was the beginning of the corruption of the Body of the Christ! We'll move on in the next section!

Where, death, is your sting?

As far as I can recall, the first piece of poetry that I ever wrote was for my maternal grandmother - on a card that was placed on a wreath at her funeral service. It read, very simply: "Today are met both joy and sorrow. Gran's gone just now; we'll meet tomorrow." Okay, hardly worthy of the Poet Laureate - but those simple words contained a great truth; one of which I was reminded again this morning when my wife and I were informed of the death of a dear friend of many years. 

She has been suffering from Motor Neurone Disease, as did the late Stephen Hawking. However, that was not the only thing that they had in common. It wasn't that my friend ever had the celebrity status of Stephen Hawking. He was known all over the world; she only to her family, her friends, those whom she served for many years in Nepal, those who knew her at a personal level. No, the other thing that they had in common is that both were sinners in the sight of Almighty God.

That, of course, is also where there was a major difference. To the best of my knowledge, Stephen Hawking did not acknowledge his sinful nature, not least because of his declared personal conviction that the Creator God does not even exist. My friend had confessed her sins, and sinfulness, and accepted the salvation that was made possible for her through the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus at Calvary. She is with Him today - not because she was a good and faithful daughter, sister, wife, mother, and grandmother; not because she served for all of those years in Nepal; not because she was kind and helpful (but with, at times, a "wicked" sense of humour!). She is with Him because of the grace of Almighty God, and nothing else.

When I e-mailed her husband, this morning, I reminded him of Paul's words "...  we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope." (I Thess.4:13). The point that I made was that we do grieve! He no longer has the physical companionship of his wife of so many years; their adult children no longer have a mother with whom they may share. However, our knowledge of his wife's life in Jesus assures us that, to use the now well-known words of the late Billy Graham, "She is not dead. She has simply changed address, and is more alive now than ever she was on this earth."

It was Billy Graham who also said that our last breath in this life is immediately followed by our first breath in the next - the fuller life that is assured for those who die (physically) in Jesus. Paul made the same point to the Corinthian believers: "...  we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord." (II Cor.5:8).

Whilst I was never a committed "Trekkie", I did enjoy the early series of Star Trek. However, the opening sequence was in error. It is not space that is the "final frontier", but death! It was Benjamin Franklin who said, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." and, as the Rapture is delayed, that is most certainly true. Of course, I at least know beforehand what taxes I have to pay, and when they are due. Death is not always as considerate! It can come at any time, and tomorrow is not guaranteed to any one of us - rich or poor; male or female; famous or unknown; black or white; religious or atheist. The important thing, therefore, is to be ready for whenever it comes!

How can we be ready? By following the example of my late friend, and coming to the foot of that cross of which many will be thinking especially deeply on Friday, there to confess our sins  and claim the salvation that is available to all who will come to the One Who hung on that cross, in repentance, and faith, and yield their lives to Him.

Have you done that? If you have, then death holds no terror for you, and you may state with Paul: '"Death is swallowed up in victory." "O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?" ' (I Cor.15:55). If you have not, then I urge you to do so, and to do so while you have time. Stephen Hawking, as far as I know, did not do so and, with all of his great intellect, has now entered a Christless eternity. Do not join him there. 

The fragility of life.

During my adult life I have, at one time or another, voted for every major political party - and even for one or two of the 'fringe' parties!   With one exception.  I have never voted in support of any Labour Party candidate in any election in which I have taken part.  Normally, I am not unhappy to see the Labour Party experiencing any form of discomfort.

However, today's tragic murder of a sitting Member of Parliament is a shock to the system.  Oh, I know that there are parts of the world in which such politically-motivated assassinations are not uncommon.  But in the UK; in Yorkshire; in the street outside a constituency office?  That is frightening.

The late Jo Cox was not my own MP, and I only know what I have read in the media, but the young, married, mother-of-two was simply going about her lawful business when, it would appear, a crazed gunman shot her - not just once, but three times - and stabbed her.  Much will undoubtedly be made of the earlier reports that he was shouting some kind of "pro-Brexit" slogan (the MP was involved in the "Remain" campaign) but, at this moment, no-one seems to know the motivation behind the attack.

What we know, for certain, is that a man has been widowed, and two children left motherless, all because of a mindless act of violence.  It is also a reminder of the fragility of human life.  Writing to the church at large, James (the half-brother of the Lord Jesus) exhorts: "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and get gain'; whereas you do not know about tomorrow. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." (James 4:13-14).  Centuries earlier, the psalmist-king of Israel David, had written: "As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more." (Ps 103:15-16). 

It was Benjamin Franklin who said that "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."  However, while many will talk (and talk, and talk!) about taxes, death has become the taboo subject in polite social circles.  Yet, while it is possible to evade, and/or avoid, paying taxes, neither money, nor influence, nor position, nor anything else can enable us to escape the cold hand of death.  And, of course, we do not know the moment in which death will strike us.

Surely, then, the sensible thing is to be prepared for that inevitable event.  How may we make such preparation?  Well, there is the legal aspect of having a will drawn up so that there can be no doubt as to what we want to happen to whatever we leave behind (and that is, of course, everything!). However, I am thinking beyond that.  

The vast majority of humankind believes - even if they do not often voice that belief - that this mortal life is not the totality of our existence.  There is a life beyond the grave for which this life is but a preparation.  Only One has offered any hope for that life - the only One to have conquered death: Jesus of Nazareth, Who was crucified, died, and was buried, but Who rose victoriously from the dead.  Concerning Him, the apostle Paul writes: "... Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a Man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at His coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power." (I Cor 15:20-24).

What you and I need to do is to come to Him, confessing our own sinfulness - and our inability to do anything about it - and receive the forgiveness of Almighty God that the Lord Jesus has gained for us. This is how we may meet death with a steady eye, knowing that our eternal future is safe in Him.

Whenever I conduct a funeral service I try, sensitively, to make the point that, whatever the spiritual condition of the deceased, there is nothing that I can do for them.  However, I can point those who are present to the way of salvation.  Where do you stand in relationship to Almighty God as you read this post?  If you were to die in ten minutes' time, are you fully prepared?  

Writing, again, to the Corinthian believers, Paul reminds them that: "... now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." (II Cor 6:2).   Have you come to Jesus, in repentance and faith? If not, then you are not ready for death. There are a couple of useful links at the right-hand-side of this page and, of course, you may contact me by e-mail at author@minister.com 

When Jo Cox set off to go to her office today, I am certain that the last thought in her mind was that she would never see her husband and children again.  I don't know how prepared she was.  But what about you?  Are you prepared?

Philip's egg.

At Café Church, Bergerac, today, my good friend Brian L mentioned that he had read the post that referred to the eggciting Resurrection Day worship service in Dalziel-St.Andrew's, Motherwell, in which the eggcellent minister used some plastic eggs, in an eggsuberantly eggspert fashion, to get the full story of the Day across to the children.

He had intended sharing the following true story at Café Church, but there was so much to be included that he decided that there was insufficient time.  He asked if I would like to share it on my blog, and I am more than happy to do so.  Have a tissue handy!

"He was 9 - in a Sunday-school class of 8-year-olds.  Eight-year-olds can be cruel.

These children did not welcome Philip into their group.  Not just because he was older.  He was 'different'.  He suffered from Downs Syndrome and its obvious manifestations: facial characteristics; slow responses; symptoms of retardation.

One Sunday, after Easter, the Sunday-school teacher led the children in an activity using plastic eggs - the kind that pull apart in the middle.  The Sunday-school teacher gave one of these eggs to each child.

On that beautiful Spring day, each child was to go outdoors and discover, for themselves, some symbol of 'new life', and place that symbolic seed, or leaf, or whatever, inside their egg.

The youngsters gathered round on the appointed day, and placed their eggs on the table, and the teacher began to open them.  One child had found a flower.  All of the children 'oohed' and 'aahed' at the lovely symbol of new life.  In another was a butterfly.  'Beautiful', the girls said - and it's not easy for an 8-year-old to say 'Beautiful'!

Another egg was opened to reveal a stone.  Some of the children laughed.  'That's crazy!', one said.  'How's a stone supposed to be like a new life?'  Immediately, a little boy spoke up.  'That's mine.  I knew that everybody would get flowers, and leaves, and butterflies, and all that stuff, so I got a stone to be different!' Everybody laughed.

The teacher opened the last egg, and there was nothing inside.  'That's not fair', someone said.  'That's stupid', said another.  The teacher felt a tug on his shirt.  It was Philip.  Looking up, he said, 'It's mine.  I did do it.  It's empty.  I have new life because the tomb is empty.'

The class fell silent.

From that day on, Philip became part of the group.  They welcomed him.  Whatever had made him 'different' was never mentioned again.

Philip's family had known that he would not live a long life; just too many things were wrong with his tiny body.  That summer, overcome with infection, Philip died.

On the day of his funeral service, nine 8-year-old boys and girls confronted the reality of death, and marched up to the front of the church building - but not with flowers.

Nine children, with their Sunday-school teacher, placed on the coffin of their friend their gift of love - an empty egg."

Jesus is risen; the stone is rolled away; the tomb is empty.  And because He lives, so do all who have placed their trust, unreservedly, in Him.  Hallelujah!