Inugural sermon

Erroll Hulse
Spoke on 1Timothy 3
He had 5 points
1) The chiurch is a spiritual houe hold
Diverse yet united. All kinds of believers you and old married nd single find thier home in the church.
Active in the church Acts2
The church has members Romans 12v 5 Eph 4.
2) Ordered house hold, Elders and Decons,
3) House of the Living God.
Presence of God, felt sense of God at meetings.
Preachers therefore should desire the unction of the Holy Spirit.
4) Pillar of truth – the church defends and upholds the truth. One atonement, one saviour.
5) Foundation of the truth, the truth we believe is solid and can be relied up, thetruth as found in the word of God is eternal, because it reveals God to us.

Our spiritual grandfather!

Lord’s Day September 20th at 3.00 PM there is an inauguration service of the Bradford Community Church. Erroll Hulse is the preacher for this occasion. The historic Westgate Baptist Church is the place of meeting. With the support of Hall Green Baptist Church, Haworth, (pastor Mick Lockwood) this church plant has been in progress for three years. The area surrounding Westgate is now predominantly if not overwhelmingly Muslim. This is the mission field come to the UK. If our prayers are answered for an increase in turning to our Lord Jesus Christ (like we have seen among Iranians) this could be a significant church plant.

Meetings at 3.00 PM every Lord’s Day have been taking place in the hall at the back of the handsome stone church building. These meetings have now begun to take place in the main church building.

Many assemblies would envy the accommodation afforded at Westgate Baptist Church which with galleries is capable of seating large crowds (helpful when we have the next revival!). To conserve heat the galleries have been temporarily sealed off with plastic covers.

The background story of this church goes back to William Steadman (1764-1837) who belonged to the heroic age of itinerant preaching: the era during which the Particular Baptists advanced from the introspection of the early eighteenth century into an age of vigorous expansion. Steadman was a man of large physical stature which characterised the massive contribution he made. He was in every way a huge figure. Powerful, outspoken, without any pretensions as to gentility, style or good looks. Dr Ryland in his indomitable way used to refer to ‘that great lump of goodness, Dr Steadman’! Pastor of a large church, the president of an academy, a great proponent of mission, a leader in associational life, and always a tireless evangelist. Throughout his life he could be found in all weathers, tramping through the dark muddy countryside to humble cottages where he would preach Christ and him crucified. He displayed heartfelt joy at the commencement of the foreign mission movement, which he supported from its outset in 1792.

William Steadman was born in 1764 in Eardisland, 5 miles west of Leominster. His godly mother died when he was six. Due to a serious sight defect, he was unable to read until the age of nine, and received little schooling. Finding himself then so far behind he became consumed with a desire for learning, and effectively educated himself. At the age of seventeen, with minimal formal education but many hours of private study behind him, he started a school. Eventually he assisted in the school run by the clergyman at Eardisland, who helped him lay down a sound foundation of classical learning.

As a teenager he neglected religion, but was convicted on attending a baptism at Leominster. He was converted in 1781 at the age of 17 and was baptised in April 1784. His pastor, Joshua Thomas, encouraged him to begin preaching and then to seek training at Bristol Academy. Taught by Caleb Evans, Robert Hall and James Newton, he was a contemporary with Samuel Pearce, later minister at Birmingham, with whom he maintained a friendship through correspondence.

In 1789 he accepted a call to the pastorate at Broughton, IN HAMPSHIRE a village of about 700 inhabitants, twelve miles from Salisbury in WILTSHIRE. Most of the forty or so church members were poorly educated. This first pastorate was filled with discouragements. He experienced spiritual apathy and opposition from his own congregation, and saw few conversions. He started a Sunday School, but his members would not support it.

On April 16, 1793 he married Sarah Webb, a woman who was spiritual and evidently gifted. They were happily married for nineteen years. In June 1798 Steadman moved to Plymouth Dock (later Devonport), as assistant to Isaiah Birt. He saw greater visible success, with many more conversions than he had seen at Broughton.

His great life work began in 1805 when he moved up to Bradford to pastor the Westgate Church and lead the fledgling Academy at Horton (later Rawdon College). After just eight years at Westgate he had baptised 164 people, and admitted 175 to the membership. By 1819 there were 263 members, and 300 in Sunday Schools. In 1823 numbers were such that a second Baptist church was founded. Eventually Westgate church had to be extended. With ‘hearers’ the congregation often numbered eight or nine hundred.

Steadman recognised the dire consequences of an uneducated ministry. In his diary he noted of his new colleagues in the Yorkshire area: ‘Most of the ministers were illiterate, their talents small, their manner dull and uninteresting, their systems of divinity contracted, their maxims of church government rigid, their exertions scarcely any at all.’ Starting from scratch, he had to overcome prejudice in the churches against ministerial training, and get the new Academy off the ground. In a real sense it was his baby, and he laboured here for the rest of his life, for the next 30 years. He only laid down the presidency in his 72nd year, and he died in his 73rd year. Much of his time and energy had to be spent travelling to raise funds for the institution; right to the end there were periodic questions as to its viability. Steadman regularly had to make real financial sacrifices to keep it from collapse.

The curriculum consisted of English grammar and composition, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, plus geography, history, philosophy and other subjects. Steadman lectured twice a week on Theology, and there were regular sermon classes. The great stress was always on usefulness and ‘laboriousness’. Steadman encouraged the students to engage in itinerant preaching, and saw this as giving vital practical experience alongside taking the gospel to needy villages.

Many testified to Steadman’s warm, fatherly concern for his students. He attended 115 ordinations, and delivered 101 charges to new ministers. Afterwards he maintained a keen interest in their progress. When he retired, 157 students had entered the Academy, nine were still studying, 23 had died, 14 had left the ministry, and 111 were engaged in active ministry all over the world. Moreover, ‘all the neighbouring churches [were] supplied with ministers of his own training.’

As if his labours in the Westgate church and Academy were not enough, Steadman revelled in continued scope for his true passion: village preaching. From 1816 until his death he was Secretary to the Yorkshire and Lancashire Association of Baptist churches, and he used this position to promote village evangelism as well. He also maintained a keen interest in THE overseas mission.

One of his most outstanding characteristics was a genuine humility: he was acutely aware of his own faults. He was more than willing to submit to reproof from others. He examined himself as to his salvation and his motivation for service right up to the end. Another notable characteristic was determination and perseverance. Though largely self-taught, he acquired competence in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, Theology and the other disciplines he taught at Horton.

Steadman’s adherence to Calvinism inspired rather than inhibited his evangelistic fervour, and it was maintained without a contentious spirit. In an Association circular letter of 1807 he argues that as ‘protestant dissenters, as Calvinists, as Baptists’ they have urgent reason to associate together, yet ‘we love all who love Christ, and wish to demean ourselves towards them in such a way, as to convince them of the sincerity of our affection and esteem.’

In 1787 the Yorkshire and Lancashire Association included seventeen churches; by the year of Steadman’s death in 1837 there were 65. Whitley comments: ‘This progress was due directly to evangelism steadied by education, and these were incarnate in one man, William Steadman.’. Steadman produced men who had evangelism and church planting as THEIR primary aim. Even in rough and primitive conditions it was always assumed that all ministerial candidates should study the biblical languages. This reflects a high view of the Word of God which is all too lacking today.

TODAY (OR IN 2009)

This NEWLY-BORN fledging church at Westgate in BRADFORD is small and vulnerable. Yet our omnipotent triune God is glorified in scenes of weakness. It will be wonderful indeed if some of the former glories described above were recovered at Westgate. Let that be our prayer and also the prayer that the associational life of the churches of Yorkshire will increase in vitality.

How to get there

If you come in from Shipley take the Manningham canal road into Bradford. Take the right turn just before the Volvo garage and right at the T junction, onto Queens road, follow the road up the hill, over the next traffic lights, follow the road up through Manningham, past AN ASIAN supermarket on the left and a mosque on the right, round the bend and the church is on the left. If you get to Manningham pools then you have gone too far. There is a big car park on the left before the church.

The above presentation is based on the work of Sharon James which was published in Reformation Today number 161 and is available by e mail.

Recent sermon uncut!!!

2 Timothy 3 v 1 – 17.

1)The Symptoms v2 – 4.

The cause.
Lovers of themselves,
Lovers of money
Lovers of pleasure rather than Lovers of God.
Men loveall thingsother than God this is the great problem with mankind that its loves everything apart from the One who it ought to love with all its hear soul and mind.
Manhas given itself over to idols,
Money, of science of evolutionary thought, of sexuality and sensuality, of pleasure. Heyworship creation and not the creator.
Why would I want to be in Church when I could be in the out doors???

unthankful
unholy
unloving
unforgiving
Next we see the outcome of there false love and idoilatory.
Men are not thankful to God for creation, for the food they eat, for thefamiles, husbands and wife and children God has provided for them.
So they act in ways which show that in unholiness and imporality in being unloving and unforgiving.

Boasters
Proud
blasphemers
disobedient
slanderers
headstrong
Haughty
despisers of good
Traitors
without self control
brutal
These then are the effects of the self loving man, the unloving of others man,
He is boastful, proud and slanderers Haughty without self control.

unthankful
unholy
unloving
unforgiving

The problem being is that we all too often slip back into the old self the old nature, we all to often let those thoughts words actions and ways of the past come back into our lives and become a snare to us.
How often do we find ourselves quoting Paul
Oh wretched man that I am?
Or that which I want to do that I do not do that which I do I do not want to do?
How often have we gone out with non Christian friends thinking it to be be a good oportunity to speak to them, and you find ourself converted to their sport or interest rather than actually having said anything of great effect. !!!!!

How often are we jealous of the world,
The open top merc flying through the dales.
The freind who can run faster than I can.
The chap who can go to all the football matches or golf course rather than the occasional one.
The woman who buy what she wants out of the next directory

2)The diagnosis. V5, v8 – 9.

The effect of these sins is to create a person who is spiritually powerless. A person who has all the outward marks of a Christian but yet does not enter into the experimental nature of Christianity, in faith, in prayer, in action.
Surely this is the case of the evangelical church today.
It has lost the blessings of penticost. It is as if the book of acts never happened in th life of the Church.

a) Outward forms
We have lost the holiness which was the driving force of the early church.
We have the outward forms, the preaching of the word, the prayer meeting, the marriages, the evangelism, the mission but yet not having a powerful ministry and effect upon the lives of others.

b) denying the power of it. Christian living is to be powerful living, having all the power of the risen Christ at work in usand through us. Eph 1v19 – 20. James 5v 17- 20.

Living a half hearted Chistian life is bound to lead to a power less life. Has God changed?

The God of Spurgeon and Mullier.
Of William Carey, Marshman and Ward,
Or of Jim Elloit and Joni Errocsion,
Has our God Changed in the past 50 years that he cannot be trusted or depended upon?
Certainly not what has changed is our lack of faith in Him, our love of this world, our secret sins which are a snare to us.

3) The Cure. V10
My – Manner of life.
Could anyone follow me as I follow Christ?
Is there sufficient about us that would recommend Christ to others.
We can think of those who had been agreat influnece on your life.
But have we been a great influence upon others?

Our maner of life needs to be changed.

In my vergetable plot I grew potatoes carrots and onions.
The potatoes grew strongly.
The onions grew ok but had a lot of weeds to contend with.
The carrots failed abismally due to the weeds overcoming them and chocking them. 4 carrots!
Our lives so often resemble the carrots in that we fail to weed them of all the weeds that would grow up and chock our lives.

Doctrine,
The truth as its found in Jesus. Jesus is Death and resurrection were everything to Paul . Salvation and sactification.
By His death we are saved and justified.
By his ressurection we are given the power to over come sin and the old nature, and are sanctified by the Holy spirit living within us.

purpose,
Paul was definitel a purpose driven man, definitely going for gold,

faith,
Faith in Jesus Christ is the means to eternal life and the contiinual hold upon that savlation offered and secured for us in Christ. It is the gift thatwe should perseve in the faith.

Love,
If faith in Christ is the means of our salvation then love is the mode of oursalvation, Christ love for us Romans 5v 8 Jogn 3 v 16, and also the motive and joy of the chrstian life we are to bemirrors of the Love of God in Christ towards us. 1 John 3 v 16.
What makes Christians visit people in hospital?
Not the money paid to doctors.
What makes Christians help asylum seekers go to courts
Not the money paid to lawyers
Nothing but the love of God in the hearts of believers compelled by the spirit.

long suffering,
Are we long suffering or do we bare fools badly taking everything personally, and holding grudges. Patience longsuffering as the mile markers of the christian life. It is by being longsuffering and patient that we overcome evil with God, that we do not allow division or disputes to separate the brethern.

perseverance
Weare to bethosewho persevere through goodtimes and therough badtimes and sometimesthe badtimes are the easy times when we do not face trial or illness or persecution then our faith becomes flabby and we do not have that focus on Christ as we ought.
Paul saysin the Eph 6v 13, on the evil day – surely the last days to withstand and having done all to stand on that evil day. Sometimes all our people can do s but stand Andy Ball used to say indeed all were but standing compared to andy!!!! A tornado had hit sleepy netley!!!

persecutions and afflictions.
Finally persecution the highst form of suffering as a Christian, the purify of the believers faith as though through fire 1 Peter 1v 6 – 7.

The medicine, – Word of God. V15 – 17.
Word of God – makes a man of God.
The Word of God is the antidote, the tamil flu against all that would harm our Christian lives.

The word of God has the effect of focusing our minds, purifying our hearts, preparing us for and compelling into obedience and service for God.

The word of God when stored in our lives is a great and wonderful recource that we can depend upon in times of trial and difficulty.

Psalm 119 v 36, Incline my heart to your word and not to covertousness
v 38 Establish your word to your sevant.
V66 Teach me good judgement and knowledge,
v71 Affliction causes us to learn Gods word.
Creates a dependance upon God.
Visit rosemary lady in her 70′s hip operation fruit of righteousness, no family, few friends but yet her heart fully resting upon Christ Its the effect of the word upon her heart.

Like a big tree, great big roots going deep into the soil deep into the water course so it doesn,t dry up in drought. Its branches providing cover and protection for many smaller trees and shrubs.

The man of God, What a name? What a character?
Could we ever be described as the man of God all our lives, our our being, all our purposes are given over to servng God.

Used extensively of Elisha and Elijah, Men who were considered greatest amongst the old testament saints. Who eye for the glory and honour of God amongst a people of baal wrshipers was second to none.

If ever a name is in the Bible which I have a struggle with its this one, this is the goal of our Christian life, the hope of the up ward calling of Christ, well done good and faithful servant, yet at the same time I feel so unworthy, so sinful, so earthly to ever claim to aspire to be a man of God.

A chief of sinners,
A sinful man amongst a sinful people,

We feel so useless,
God help us to live and serve another day.

Establishing a church.

What are we doing?
We have been settling those big questions, that have still have to decide
What will be called?
Who are we?
Where do we meet?
What do we believe?
How are we organised?
Who do we consist of?
Who are the leaders?
These are all questions that we had answers to in our minds but yet were not really put down on paper. Settling these questions has not been easy either, with differing opionons from the leadership, differing ideas from the congregation.
Yet as we settle these issues, we do not want to loose the very goal and motive which keeps us going, that is to preach the gospel to those who are without a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
It is in Him and for Him and because of Him that we have this great message to preach, and it is in Him and for Him and beacuse of Him that we are to become a Church.
Yours James

Are we good enough for heaven?

Are we good enough for Heaven?

Whatever our nationality, race creed or colour, the big question which faces us all is are we good enough for heaven? We all have in our consciousness the reality of heaven and hell and meeting our maker.
Our lives are so short, we reach the age of 30 or 40 or 50 and ask where has the time gone? We live for possessions, sport, health or at best family and wonder what is the meaning to life? Surely there is something more to life than the here and now.
So the question of how we please God is very important.
This has been questioned by many religions and philosophies over time.

One of the first men who considered this was Abraham. Or should we say that God revealed it to Abraham. “Abraham Believed God and it was accounted to Him for righteousness”. Gen 15 v6. Abraham didn’t do things to please God. He believed God, he trusted God, he took God at his word.

So every one who is a descendant of Abraham should believe and trust God as he reveals Himself. So when God speaks of His Son as the ruler of the world, who is from eternity – we are to believe in Him. When he gives us His Son as described by the prophet Isaiah as the Saviour, who will save His people from their sins – we are to believe Him.

To be a child of Abraham is to believe God. Without such faith the Bible says it is impossible to please God.

Therefore our pleasing God does not depend upon what we do but rather whether we believe what God has said and done.

Abraham then had his faith accounted . Abraham regularly offered sacrifices to God but little did he know that Jesus would be described (by the prophet John) as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Do you believe God as Abraham did?

Read these words from the Bible
“For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the Law but through the righteousness of faith” Romans 4:13.

“Therefore know that only those who are of faith are the sons of Abraham” Galatians 3:7.

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” Galatians 4:4.

Faith expounded

Hebrews 11 Faith

1) Without faith it is impossible to see or please God.
For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them , not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. Heb 4 v 2.

Are you here this day hearing the word but not profiting from it because you do not have faith? You do not trust it? You despise and ridcule it.

Faith is the underlying trust in God. It is the foundation of what Christianity is all about. Faith in God, that complete trust in God.

If you do not have faith then the Word of God will not profit you. You will go from here much the same person as you came, with out God, without hope and without eternal life.

a) To see God.
Believe that he is.
If we do not believe in God, then how can we expect anything of Him.
It is not intellegent design, or creationism that will persude men to believe in God but rather faith. Which is the antidote to unbelief.
It is thier unbelieve that makes them an athiest, evolutionist, and not the other way around. Creation and science points to God. Yet due to unbelief men cannot see it.

b) To please God.

Hebrews 11 v 6
It is a firm persuasion and expectation that God will perform all that he has promised to us in Christ.

Faith is the firm assent of the soul to the divine revelation and every part of it setting its seal that God is true.
It is faith that has stood the test of time.
Faith believes God in respect to the past, to the present in every trouble, affliction, joy and happiness, and trusts God for the future.

Faith is the means by which we are justified.
Hebrews 4 v 2 Gospel being mixed with faith.
If the gospel is to have any effect in the lives of those around us it must be mixed with Faith. Faith is the prerequisite to beginning the Christian life.
So that when a man or woman comes into the church, we are not wanting them to remain, or to feel comfortable, or to enjoy our company.
But rather to exercise faith.
It is by faith that we come alive to God.

3) Faith is the means by which we live to God.
For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. Heb 11 v 2.
The just shall live by faith Hab 2 v 4.
For we walk by faith 2 Corinth 5 v 7.
The life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God. Gal 2v20.

Faith is the exercise of our Christianity.
In Holy Living.
The life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God.
Gal 2v20.
Purifiying thier hearts by faith Acts 15 v 9

How do we become more holy? By faith seeing who God is, see His character and attributes we see that holiness is at the heart of His character, and if at the heart of his character then we must be holy to be like Him.

Be Holy for I am holy. 1 Peter 1 v 16
If we are to know anything of holiness of is to be by faith in Christ. It is to be by the imputed righteoussness of Christ.
There is nothing quite as bad as self righteous people, particularly english people.
It was the effect of the empire, it is the effect of the religious right, and the liberal left, a morality that is based upon thier own ideas, biblical or otherwise which does not continually depend upon faith in Christ.
I rejoice every time I hear an older Christian saying Lord have mercy on me a sinner, it is the sign of continued faith in the mercy and grace of God.

How we ought to fear when we start taking of saints inside the church and sinners outside of the church.
We are sinners saved by Grace and any righteousness we have is a gift of God in Christ.
As bunyan put it
we are beggers showing beggers where to find bread.
As the Apostle Paul said;-
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief.
Not was chief but am chief.

By faith the heart is purified, we are not only justified, and conscience purified, but the work of sanctification is begun and carried on. M Henry Acts 15 v 9

By faith we see God.
We understand the world was formed by God’s command.

And in seeing God we fear him.
The closer to God and Christ we become the more we will keep his commandments because of his greatness.

In gospel proclaimation,
If we do not have faith in the gospel that it is the power of God to salvation.
Why do we expect that people will be saved.

If we do not have faith in the Gospel we will forsake proclaiming the Gospel. we will end up doing other things. We will try and teach morals we will try and make the church simply a nice place for christenings, weddings and funerals.
And in so doing the church has lost her charter, her great commision, her purpose for existence.
In good works.

James 2 v 14 – 20 What does it profit my bethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him…. Thus faith by itself if it does not have works is dead.

In Prayer
Prayer is the engine of all Christian faith, life and works it drives all that we do, or it ought to.

Prayer without faith is useless, it is but unbelief.
We pray because we have faith in God.
Prayer puts faith to work.
we do we just pray for things which cannot be qualified, that cannot be seen to work, for those people with cronic problems with little faith that they will be made well.

Rather ought we not pray for big expansion of the kingdom?
James 5 v 13 – 18
The prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up.

Conclusion.
We my freinds are at a cross roads, we either have faith in God and boldly proclaim the gospel.

Or we put our feet under the table and become a traditional backwater of irrelevancy.

Faith

What does true faith faith look like?
True faith surely is seen in those who hold on to God despite all troubles and trials that life throws at them.
Job was such a man, he trusted God in the good times and the bad. He trusted God when things were well with his life humanly speaking, he worshiped God in the sunshine of his life and he trusted God when the bowels of hell opened to to give him the full bore, and in such occasions his faith stands out in greater contrast than ever, allowing him to say the “Lord gives and the Lord takes away blessed be the name of the Lord.” When all his children were taken in disasters he still trusted God. He trusted God even though God were to slay him.
Why did Job trust God with such ternacity?
Because he had this hope, this goal that He would see God with his own eyes, and because of that he would trust in God. Do you have such trust, such faith upon God.

True prayer

What does true prayer look like?

1)It is the acknowledgement of God himself. It is an act of faith.
Surely prayer is the first and last gasp of the christian life, from spiritual birth to spiritual death, we live by prayer. Prayer is the Christians constant companion, it is the acknowledgement, realisation and evidence of the life of God in the heart of man.
Prayer is the first expession of faith, in repentance, in praise, in petition.

a) hebrews 11 v 1 Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

b) Faith needed to see God. 11V6
We cannot see God so spiritual sight is needed and prayer is the spiritual conversation we have with God. Be it on our own,in at a meeting, we are sighting, we are look towards God.
c) Faith needed to please God, 11v6
We are through prayer pleasing to God, prayer is the expression of faith.

d) Faith needed to obtain the rewards of the Christian life. V6

How often have we as parents waited for the child to say please or thankyou before giving the what they ask for.
Faith is the mode, the conduit of salvation from God, faith expressed in prayer is the please and thank you of the Christian life to obtain all the blessings that are ours in Christ Jesus.
So that James says the prayer of faith will heal the sick. Prayer and faith are the air and water of the Christian life, we cannot live with out them.

2)Communication of Man to the Almighty God.
a) God is to be feared, 10 v31
God is for real the athiest who denies God on the buses, will not deny him on his death bed. Where he chooses to believe in him or not.
God is more Holy than Muslims or indeed Christians have ever comprehended.
God is merciful says the Muslim, God will look at my good points he says. If I am punished it will belimited they claim,
God is eternal and all Holy therefore his punishment is eternal and proportional to our great sin. The justice of God demands it. God is more awe filling than the strictest headmaster, and the most unbending police officer.
How can we then approach God.
b) We have boldness to entering to the Holiest, into the House of God, we can approach Him, 10v 19
c) We have the saviour
I) By this Man, 10 v12
II) Offered up one sacrifice for sins,
III) by the blood of Jesus, througth his flesh,
There is no sacrifice, no subtitutionary death, no saviour in Islam, Hinduism, or Athiesm,
“Nor is there salvation in any other,for there is no other name under heaven given amongst men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4 v12

3)It is the real and sincere outpouring of ones woes and troubles before God. 10 v33.
Yes God knows all your troubles.
Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer.
Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In His arms He’ll take and shield you; you will find a solace there.

a) Troubles either turn us away from God, 10 v 23 – 25, they were tempted not to meet together v39, tribulation, persection, makes one stumble, and cares and decitfulness of riches choke the word. Matt13v 21 – 22. As the hymn writer Timothy Dudley Smith says – spirits oppressed by Pleasure wealth and care. Troubles in life in churches, in marriages, in work place can make us turn away from God and ask whether God was in all our descions.
When friends leave you and cause trouble the temptation is to throw in the towel.

I am so poor at this when troubles comes we turn to the chocolate or the wine,orthe hobby rather than God. It reminds me of that old halifax? Advert in which a couple talk about there dreams,one is a he is a home bird, wants to have kids, enjoy the garden, grow old. The other wants to see the world, go to Tokyo NY, Paris! So often we can be like the second when God has called us to serve him here in West yorkshire not Barbados spain or maldives.

We turn to the woorld rather than to God.

b) Or Do we turn us to God – in prayer,
When we come to prayer we see the end from the beginning, the wheat from the chafe, gold from the dross, the real from the fake. We come boldly to throne of grace, 4V 16. because God is to be sought an found, Because we have a saviour who makes a sacrifice for us, becauase we have a great high preist who makes continual intercession for us.
Let us come to prayer.

The Muslim Christ

I have just been reading this interesting book called the Muslim Christ, which is basically how Jesus is portrayed in Islam. It is an interesting book as it clearly shows the contradictions  that the Koran has towards Jesus,
Some verses show him the messiah filled with the Spirit of God, others as just a prophet and apostle, other verses show him as having died and risen from the dead, whilst other say he did not die but was replaced by someone else. But above all else what struck me was how little the Koran and the Hadiths have about the historical Jesus as given in the Bible and other ancient literature.
when we come face to face with the real historical Jesus, we clearly without a doubt see that he is the Son of God, sent from God as the Saviour of the world. See John1 v1. (Or indeed many other parts of the Bible)
He is the way of salvation john 3 v 16,  He is one with God John 10 v 30 – 36, He is the way to God John 14 v 6.
He was crucified and rose from the dead days later. John 19 – 20.
Of these things we can be absolutely sure.

Hope in War

Here is Hope

Optimism
by A.V. Ratcliffe
At last there’ll dawn the last of the long year,
Of the long year that seemed to dream no end;
Whose every dawn but turned the world more drear
And slew some hope, or led away some friend.
Or be you dark, or buffeting, or blind,
We care not, Day, but leave not death behind.

The hours that feed on war go heavy-hearted:
Death is no fare wherewith to make hearts fain;
Oh! We are sick to find that they who started
With glamour in their eyes come not again.
O Day, be long and heavy if you will,
But on our hopes set not a bitter heel.

For tiny hopes, like tiny flowers of spring,
Will come, though death and ruin hold the land;
Though storms may roar they may not break the wing
Of the earthed lark whose song is ever bland.
Fell year unpitiful, slow days of scorn,
Your kind shall die, and sweeter days be born.

In this war poem we see the long dark winter days of war give way to the spring of hope. How soldier, family and country as a whole must have longed and hoped for peace. As loved ones fell day after day on the battle fieild, fighter after fighter fell from the skies in the battle of britain and U boats sent seamen one by one to thier watery grave, how the hope of better days must have lay warm iin the hearts of british people like members in a fire in the grate, occasionally warmed by the rousing speaches of Churchill.
Until the day dawned and the cry went up the war is over, that the voice of victory crackled out across the radio, and minutes later people emerge from thier houses as if they were dreaming, until the truth dawns upon thier souls the war is over and peace is here. The joy of jubilation fills thier souls,thier faces and the street.
The christian knows the meaning of this hope too as he awaits the long awaited victory over sin and the flesh. The battle is long and grievous, sin often has the upper hand and gets him low. However there is victor who has gone before and dealt the death blow to death itself. The Saviour Jesus Christ. He went out a warrrior against the great enimy of our souls;- sin, death, and hell and cameback from the dead victorious vanquishing all his foes so that all who trust in him can know certain victory over the worst of enemies.