Dec | 02 | The Shining

Key Word:- GRACE

Title:- The Shining

John 18:34-36
… “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.”


Today in 1954, the U.S. Senate voted by 65 to 22 to condemn Senator Joseph R. McCarthy for ‘conduct unbecoming of a senator.’ This condemnation, which was equivalent to a censure really, related to McCarthy's callous and very controversial investigation of so called suspected communists in the then government and military, even spreading eventually to society as a whole. The Senator died in 1957 from Alcoholism.

McCarthyism has become the term deemed for any ‘witch-hunt’ and subsequent removal of, anyone who holds contrary opinions to you. Some would say that there is evidence of a rise of such 'McCarthyism' within the church of the Living God even today. If this is the case my question then is three fold:

1) Is such a searching and subsequent ejection of those with differing views in the church ever necessary?
2) Should such a searching of those who differ with us and subsequent ejection be expected and seen amongst us?
3) If so, how can we live and function in such perpetual and bitter turmoil as was clearly evidenced in the era of McCarthyism?

For a church seemingly so consistantly at war with itself these are very important questions.

For years now I have held an ideal of the church being ‘The Safest Place on Earth.’ A place where grace reigns and sinners journey into Jesus and into the loving and waiting arms of the Father. Whilst never condoning or assisting open sin, I will always strive for this ideal. I will always be found amongst sinners, chest beaters, toenail gazers, people seeking mountains of mercy to fall upon them. I have found that there is little danger here among the truly repentant and thankful I can tell you, especially when compared to the wider and established church which is not ‘the safest place on earth’ at all but is in fact, the most dangerous place on the planet. I wonder if well established self respectability always has been and always will be a most dangerous place for struggling sinners? After all, the right and the self righteous have rarely ever taken any prisoners of grace to their hearts.

Phillip Yancey records in his book, ‘Soul Survivor’ ( or how I survived the abuse of the church,) that in his own home church in Georgia, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, was referred to by many white conservative, Bible believing, God honouring, patriotic people as, ‘Dr Martin Lucifer Coon.’ Interestingly, if you were a black civil rights activist then, you were also ‘McCarthyised’ by many church leaders. My point is that war in the church is not new. Even history has shown that the ecumenical councils of the early church, the shed blood of the reformation, the social restructuring of equality instead of slavery, have always produced quakes and shakes within the church. Civil wars over such matters have drenched many a battlefield with the blood of thousands who whole heartedly believed in their cause; one way or another.

Truth, it would appear, has often had to wear a blood red gauntlet. Jesus especially told us that His message would not bring community peace upon the earth, but rather the sword of separation. In addition to this, He told us that the enemy would sow tares amongst the wheat; whilst Paul also gives evidence of such tares in the form of spies and false apostles being used remarkably well by the enemy in the disruption and attempted disfiguring of the church and the gospel. The wider church it seems has always been a dangerous place to be.

What are the answers to my three questions then? How should we deal with those folk who are dangerously contrary to us?

Well, first, you cannot tamper with the gospel! You are twice cursed to do so, even to the emasculation of the giving of life to anyone! Yes indeed, Paul says if you’re going to tamper with grace by adding circumcision to the gospel for example, then just go ahead and chop the lot off! Paul was a radical when it came to the gospel of grace. So if the gospel of grace is being tampered with, then in this case, ejection is not only dreadful and painful, but both mandatory and necessary. Grace cannot be added to. Those that try to, need to leave.
Secondly, because of this persistent infiltration of darkness and warpedness, the church like a mangy dog will often be seen to rise up from the dust and shake itself vigorously. Gentile dogs, redeemed from the termination of the pound, are always vigorous in this kind of shaking. Always. The church like any healthy and living body is always cleaning itself. But please, let's make sure though, that we only get rid of the blood sucking flees.Yes, we must get rid of the blood sucking flees.
Thirdly the church is probably one of the most dangerous places on the planet. We simply need to make peace with that and make sure we are on the right side of many a bloody conflict. This side of heaven, the church will always be a place of conflict and more so as the return of the Lord approaches and false prophets in pathetic pulpits all the more abound.

In the middle of such open war then, how can we the true church, ever hope to remain unscathed and experience at least some measure of peace and unity? After all, being a dog owner of many years, I know, that too much shaking and too much scratching, can lead to unnecessary bleeding, infection, sickness, and disability!

Well, surely Jesus in our text today is saying that we should fight, not for the Kingdoms of this world, but for His kingdom, which is remember, of another world. Again the gospel demands we lift our eyes and seek out the gates of a distant and very distinct Kingdom, coming soon in practicality but here already in a risen reality that shines from our hearts, or should do any way! The kingdom of God changes the places in which we live and we must remember that without ‘the true shining’ without the shimmering of God’s golden grace, such seeming community change is actually forced and not free and often led by the flesh and a thousand other false ideas. All communities are doomed to eventual failure unless they are built on sacrificial love and sacrificial love always fights for grace and the rights of the truly redeemed.

Lastly, let us remember that when all of our shaking exceeds its righteous bounds by beginning to bite and devour one another, then the bad bitch of death has come to gnaw our bones and soon the smell of the prison pound from which we were once so royally purchased, will be upon us once again. All our shaking and ejecting, all our pruning and protecting, must be done in Kingdom light and Kingdom love.

At any cost then, we the redeemed of the Lord, must always manifest the shining of the light of the gracious Kingdom of our loving God.

Listen:- “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” Luke 17:20-21

Pray: - Lord in all our shaking, in all our shedding and in all our civil wars, Shine Jesus Shine,! Let the world see the Father’s glory! Amen.
 

Sep | 08 | Desperate Defilement

Key Word:- GRACE

Title:- Desperate Defilement

Mark 1:40,41 Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.”

Spurgeon the, ‘Prince of Preachers’ , makes a wonderful devotional observation on today’s text. He says “This unclean person had broken through the regulations of the ceremonial law and pressed into the house, but Jesus so far from chiding him broke through the law Himself in order to meet him.”

Two lawbreakers touch and one is delightfully delivered of his desperate defilement. Now isn’t this interesting? Jesus broke the ceremonial law. “Command the children of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper.” Numbers 5:1

This leprous man is desperate in his faith. He breaks all social and ceremonial boundaries to get to the Saviour. Friends today, even today if we let Him, Jesus will still break all social and ceremonial boundaries in receiving those ‘desperate in faith’. Unfortunately, there are still those amongst us so settled and seemingly untouched and untroubled by sin and the conquest of the same, that they are ‘sleepy stories’ once told a long time ago, who to remain undisturbed, ensure that they possess their Christianity in the far right separatist colours of black and white.

I wonder if the increasing defilement of sin, amongst the desperate dwellers in this dark age will once again drive such folk to daring believing faith? When they hear of Jesus will they come running to Him, and when they do will they break our ‘ceremonial rules’ of black and white?

I remember, many years ago, once seeing a young Brazilian woman stand at the end of a sermon in the church I attended (the pastor later related to me that her face seemed to shine like the face of an angel) and publicly pouring out her heart with such thankfulness and tears she was heard to say, “Pastor O Pastor, I believe God has called me to be a missionary.” A long-standing member stood up and with grumbling thunder forming on his brow, took himself and his family striding out of the church because the service had been interrupted and the Pastor, rather than admonishing the outburst, had publicly thanked the young woman for sharing her heart. Like Jesus, the Pastor was moved with compassion. Like the Pharisee, the member stoned her with his silence and wounded her with his walking. A woman interrupting the service, unchecked and unchided in her misled call to ministry. What was the church coming to!

Friends, many of us still have such ‘iconic-like’ rules and laws in our assemblies, that God needs to be compassionate toward us and coming with iconoclastic passion, wielding His hammer of grace He needs to smash them all to pieces! Maybe when our bloody feet stand amongst the irrelevant shards of man-made rules, then those desperate with defilement, will see the blood and bear witness to our brokenness and then to theirs, and finally may dare to approach the reaching hands of the compassionate Christ in us. The hope of glory.’

Listen:- For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Hebrews 4:14-16

Pray:- Compassionate Saviour, rid us of the irrelevant, that reaching grace may reach out through us. O Lord, stretch out your hand and cleanse Your church. Amen.

Apr | 08 | Wincing & Wounded

Key Word:- GRACE

Title:- Wincing & Wounded

Proverbs 18:19 A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city

Truth without grace, is a sword, a hammer, and a fire; yes, truth without grace, is a burning, breaking piercing. The person struck with such truth is often left wincing and wounded, bleeding out their life. Friends I tell you, the sharp cutting pain of such truth, wielded without grace, may put people on their knees, but like Malchus of old, they will have been so wounded, that their receptacle for hearing faith just might have been damaged forever!

People hurt in this way are often so consumed with their pain and their shame, that their anger and seen deformation, often keeps them from any further hearing! Remember that truth though a beautiful thing, is like a sharp and shining sword and it should rarely be wielded by amateurs; especially amateurs in pain.

In the garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus was arrested, Peter, in protective love and passionate anger, had taken out his sword and had in the ensuing foray, delivered a glancing blow to the head of Malchus and taken off his ear. You will remember as well friends, that although Jesus was no doubt exhausted by the passing of that long and torturous night, and fearful of the great mountain of sorrow that was yet to fall upon Him, He nonetheless still called for a ‘time out’ to clear up the mess of his beloved Peter. Jesus took time in the darkness and shouting, to both find the ear of Malchus and to fix it back on to the side of his head! Passion and truth had caused a wound, now grace and truth would heal it and Malchus would never forget it! Do you see that? Do you hear me?

We must not aspire to be like Peter or Paul, Elijah or Deborah, nor any other great Biblical character. No! We must put on Christ; who is so full of grace and truth that He used his last moment of liberty, to both love and to heal a man sent to arrest Him. ‘Grace and Truth’ are better lawyers than ‘Wincing and Wounded.’ They always have been.

Listen:- And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

Pray:- Gracious God, O loving Father, let your grace drip like oil from me today. Amen.

Mar | 16 | Grace Has its Dangers

Dream Word – GRACE

Joshua 24:13 I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and cities which you did not build, and you dwell in them; you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.'

Grace Has Its Dangers!

In our text for tonight, general Joshua, on being aware of the day of his departure from this life, has called Israel together to remind them, gently reprimand them, and refresh them in their conquest.

Sure, Joshua was old and advanced in age but this day, this particular day he is made aware of his particular departure time. He’s been looking upward at the flight departure board and sure enough, his name has just flicked over and appeared on the call board. "Behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth.” Joshua 23:14 NKJV. After a completed life, I too would like to be so close to the Lord, that I might hear Him rub His hands and say, “Robert, it’s today. 14:30hrs. Can’t wait!”

I think Joshua’s knowledge of his departure was not a general summary of the outcome of advancing years, but rather, a certainness of knowing, when all the “No, no not yet’s” are turned into “Yes! Right now’s.” I do believe that some people with listening ears, do get the opportunity to hear their name over the eternal Tannoi. I think we all do, if we want to.

Joshua, his eternal bags all packed, first reminds them of God’s grace and our text for tonight is testimony to that fact. This land was a gloriously great and gracious gift but the danger with that grace, is that it is often received by the erroneously expected with such a quiet and diminishing un-thankfulness, that it results in the cascading and catastrophic lackadaisicalness of inattentive worship, (is there really any such thing?) and quickly following on that state, is lecherous idolatry, which in response will result in the jealous judgement of God, in all consuming anger. In other words, if grace is expected and treated as almost deserved, it does not produce thankfulness, and such unthankfulness diminishes our spiritual stature to such an extent, that we no longer reach up to God, but rather stoop down to idols, causing us, the then rapers of his grace, to be most severely judged.

Now, the scary thing is, that Joshua in his departure discourse goes on to force them into a position of choice. He does it by saying in effect, “I don’t know who you ‘numpties’ are gonna serve but as for me and my house, we are going to serve the Lord.” Israel’s reply at Shechem, is with shocked affirmation! “Oh no, we’re gonna serve the Lord as well. Honest!” And in response Joshua warns them, rebukes them and goads them even farther saying “No you can’t serve Him because He is Holy and Jealous and if you mess with Him, He will turn on You and consume you!” Friends, Joshua could not have been clearer.

So, Israel then, with great clarity and confirmation, enter into the Covenant of Shechem,’ the recorder and witness there too, being a large stone which was set up under an even larger Oak tree, a silent sentinel if you will, to Israel’s words, which would in just a few generations also give witness to the breaking of that covenant by Israel, again and again and again, until God did finally turn on them and God finally did utterly consume them from His gracious land,after previously doing them the greatest of good.

There is some reminding, some reprimanding and some refreshing for some of you who read this tonight. Don’t stoop to adulterous idolatry and force God to turn on you, after He has done you so much good already! Don’t abuse it, don’t lose it, don’t fake it, don’t rape it, for me thinks that grace so shamed, might bear an ever greater retributive consequence than the law.


Listen: - For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame. For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God; 8 but if it bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned. But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner. Hebrews 6:4-10 NKJV.
 
Pray:- Our exclamation to you great King is this: “As for me and my house we too will serve the Lord!” This is our desire, to honour You and to this end we give You both our heart and our soul. Those of us who are the heads of our families, give them all to You and plead with You tonight, to break open the closed rock once more and let the rivers of life pour through each of our generational ravines, that Your chosen and elect, would be graciously washed away, to waiting heaven’s shore. In thankfulness, and remembrance, we shall not shame Your grace. In this we make to You, both our prayer and proclamation. Yes, in Jesus name we ask and say it. Amen and amen.


                                                                                                           

Jan | 21 | The Real Cost of Some of Our Reheboths

Dream Word – GRACE

Genesis 26:19-22 Also Isaac's servants dug in the valley, and found a well of running water there. But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, "The water is ours." So he called the name of the well Esek, because they quarreled with him. Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that one also. So he called its name Sitnah. And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth, because he said, "For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land." NKJV

The Real Cost of Some of Our Reheboths

Less than thirty miles away from the city of Brighton, is one of my favourite old market towns, Horsham. There survives here, an old historical Strict and Particular Baptist church called “Reheboth” whose composite meaning would be 'a broad, made space'. This Reheboth in Horsham was ‘Strict’ in terms of membership and membership access to the communion table and ‘Particular’ in terms of the Calvanistic, some might even say hyper-Calvinistic thought, that Christ died for the elect and only the elect.

In our text for tonight, Isaac had tried to dwell with some peace, space and safety in the land of his sojourn, only to have his first two attempts end in dreadful failure, pictured by the naming of wells once dug, called Esek and Sitnah, or better still, ‘Contention’ and ‘Hatred.’

The naming of the Baptist Chapel in Horsham bears the marks of similar disappointment in its own personal history in that it was, like most Baptist churches, borne out of a church split where just six people at the time set out on their own from talking, teaching and practice which they considered to be contrary to their understanding of the Gospel. They were not alone, for in the 1800s this ‘Strict and Particular’ viewpoint and action was gathering some steam.

Even so, these six disgruntled souls met in an old farmhouse and grew enough in numbers to acquire the monies to rent a vacant chapel building. Here they grew still and soon purchased the property in which they met. Over the next fourteen years, with the help of one man in particular, the wee flock grew further in finances, enough to call and pay for their very first full time Pastor.
I am an ordained Countess of Huntingdon minister, proud of my Selina heritage and her most famous of Chaplains and preachers, the Rev George Whitfield. Indeed, it was from a Connexion Chapel in Tottenham, and one of Whitfield’s churches that a young man who “didn’t even know” there was a God, eventually came to faith in Jesus under the then resident preacher, the Rev John Hyatt. This new convert was Edward Mote.

After apprenticing and functioning as a cabinet maker Edward Mote felt himself ‘called to preach’ and I do believe was himself ordained as a Countess of Huntingdon minister. However, it is this same man, who we now find being that one man in particular in Horsham, who secured the building for a group of Christians most definitely not in line with the beliefs of the Connexion. It was this one man in particular who was also called as Reheboth’s first full time Pastor, and was also offered the trust deed of the property. Mote declined saying “I do not want the chapel, I only want the pulpit; and when I cease to preach Christ, then turn me out of that.”

The history of heaven’s church militant is one most unfortunately marked by consistent contention and hatred, even as we all seek spaces and places to be and to grow. Born today in 1797, I think Edward Mote, the Reheboth Baptist Chapel and their joint history, is a colourful snapshot of the church, which for centuries has been rent asunder by various ungracious divisions. Often, while seeking the true peace of righteousness, the Christian experience of one another in all our fragmentation has been far from gracious. Though its title is often opposite to our personal experience of one another, Mote, in one of many hymns of his, has left us all with an enduring focus of hope. Mote called this hymn, “The Gracious Experience of a Christian.”

Listen: -
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus’ Name.

(Refrain)
'On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.'

When darkness seems to hide His face,
I rest on His unchanging grace.
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.

(Refrain)

His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my Hope and Stay.

(Refrain)

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh may I then in Him be found.
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

Pray:-Lord, help us, the receivers of Your great grace, be so secured in Your righteousness, that we might be gracious to one another and stand so firm in You, that the sinking of ten thousand times ten thousands of our own and homemade 'Reheboths', our own broad and often ungracious spaces upon this broken planet, will make such little difference to our experiential standing in You, that we would always be found rejoicing in You, yes in You, the Great Rock of our salvation. In Your great name we pray, amen.
 

Jan | 17 | Gracious Assimilation

Dream Word – GRACE


Genesis 46:10 The sons of Simeon were Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul, the son of a Canaanite woman. NKJV

Gracious Assimilation

Born in France in 1040, it was Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaqi, better known as ‘Rashi’ the famed author of the first comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud, Torah and Tanakh, first suggested that the ‘Shaul’ of our text for tonight, was in fact Dinah's son by lusty young Shechem! Rashi relates, that following the rape of their sister Dinah, Simeon and Levi later killed all the men in the city, including Shechem and his father. At that time, records Rachi, Dinah refused to leave the bloody palace of Shechem unless Simeon removed her pregnant shame, by agreeing to marry her! Of course Rashi goes on to say that Dinah only lived in Simeon’s house and did not have sexual relations with him. In any event, Rashi relates that because of this redemptive and shame covering marriage, Dinah's son Shaul, is counted among Simeon's children and consequently, Shaul also received a portion of land in Israel in the time of Joshua. Rashi suggests that Dinah, apparently because of her stupidity, because of her rape by Shechem and because of her being buried in the land of Canaan is regarded as that “Canaanite woman” of our text for tonight!

Well what can we say regarding our text and this Rash’ite recounting of a very strange story?

In this strange time in which we live, we are surrounded by women who have children by multiple fathers. The rise of divorce and remarriage has led to a multitude of composite families, of both composite colours and cultures. These are mere observations rather than condemnations, these are just a fistful of frightening facts at the beginning of the 21st Century. It seems that both the world and the church are a mass and a mess of relationships gone wrong!

I wonder if our text for tonight then, mentions Shaul as a special son of Simeon, because he is a figurehead of redemptive assimilation? Shaul’s free acceptance and full adoption into Israel of old, is then a picture of the way in which we need to try and adopt all the unasked for sons of Canaan into the fantastic family of God.

Speaking as a son of a Canaanite woman myself, I know that God puts His love on all sorts of folks and brings them into the blessings of His family and into the very heart the promised land. Let’s make sure in the coming days that we can all, with righteousness and grace, widen our tent pegs of both accommodation and assimilation.

Listen: - And they sang a new song, saying: "You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth." Revelation 5:9,10 NKJV

Pray:- Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honour and glory and blessing! Yes blessing and honour and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever! Amen!