Youth Fellowship / Sunday School Addresses

Dear Reader,

The following addresses (which take the appearance of a book) are for the use of anyone who may wish to use them as a ‘spark’ for a newsletter, address at an Old Folks’ Home or even for a Children’s Address! I confess that they are too long-winded and over-elaborate—the poor children (and adults) of Kilmallie Free Church, where these addresses were first delivered ‘live’ from the church floor prior to the children going out to their Sunday School classes and the minister going to the pulpit.

However, if you can use any of the material please do so freely. There is very little, if any, original thought and I have used many sources. My apologies to any source not acknowledged in the bibliography. As someone has said, ‘I milk many cows but I churn my own butter.’

(After several attempts, I have been unsuccessful in finding someone to grant permission to reprint the Foreword to Dr Donald Grey Barnhouse’s book, Let Me Illustrate. The advice I have received is that the quoting of parts of people’s work (provided there is acknowledgement of the original source) is common practice and no permission is required. I trust that this is so with a whole Foreword!)

Yours sincerely,

Sandy Sutherland.

50

ADDRESSES

FOR THE YOUNG AND NOT SO YOUNG

From

THINGS FOUND IN AND

AROUND THE CHURCH

SANDY SUTHERLAND

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to the memory of Jack MacLennan MBE who died on 25 June 1999 at the age of 97.

Jack was a member of the Church Militant at Clyne Free Church of Scotland, Brora, Sutherland. He was also a member of the “Secret Army” during contingency plans against possible invasion after the fall of Norway in 1940. He later served with the RASC. He held the local record for running the mile in 4 minutes 10 seconds before the days of Roger Bannister. He worked at the Brora Colliery for 25 years and 25 years at the Brora Woollen Mill. After years of involvement with the registry he, after ‘retirement’, became Brora’s registrar and archivist working in the Registrar’s Office until his death. It was, however, in the church that I knew him best. In 1918 he became Session Clerk; he also served as congregational treasurer, and for 61 years was the Sunday School superintendent. He succeeded his father as the congregation’s Precentor in 1956. He was awarded the MBE in 1986 for services to the community.

‘Then I heard a voice from heaven say, ‘Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord…they will rest from their labour, for their deeds will follow them.” ’

Revelation 14: 13.

Jack MacLennan MBE, 1987.

50

ADDRESSES

FOR

THE YOUNG AND NOT SO YOUNG

From

THINGS FOUND IN AND AROUND THE CHURCH

CONTENTS

Page (s)

Dedication…………………………………………………………………………….…………………2

List of Addresses…………………………………………………………………………………….…..4

Preface……………………………………………………………………………………………..…….5

Foreword……………………………………………………………………………………….…….….6

Quite a Challenge……………….…………………………………………………………………….…7

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………………..….7

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………..….8

Addresses………………………………………………………………………………………….….9-61

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………….……62

All Scripture references have been taken from the NIV

ADDRESSES

1. The Daisy

2. The Dandelion

3. The Buttercup

4. The Birds

5. The Bees

6. The Creation

7. The Gate

8. The Notice Board

9. The Slug

10. The R.A.M.P.

11. The Door Handle

12. The Hand Shake

13. The Bible (1)

14. The Bible (2)

15. The Bible (3)

16. The Burning Bush (1)

17. The Burning Bush (2)

18. The Water

19. The Appearance

20. The Brush

21. The Stain

22. The Spider (1)

23. The Spider (2)

24. The Spider’s Web

25. The ‘Hoover’

26. The Mouse

27. The Butterfly

28. The Fly

29. The Football

30. The Fire Escape

31. Thermometer or Thermostat?

32. The Radiator

33. The Loop System

34. The Light

35. The Roof / Ceiling

36. The Floor

37. The Walls

38. The Windows

39. The Paint

40. The Picture

41. The Newsletter

42. The Sunday School Awards

43. The Clock (1)

44. The Clock (2)

45. The Tuning Folk

46. The Wood

47 The Nails

48. The Chair

49. The Communion Table

50. All Parts Make A Whole

PREFACE

Sometime during the mid 1980s, at the time I was considering putting myself forward for the ministry, I was given a gift of a number of biblically-orientated books by Jack MacLennan BEM which he had on his library shelf from the days (61 years!) he was Sunday School superintendent in Clyne Free Church; and Lay Reader in the Presbytery of Caithness and Sutherland. One of these books, written by Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse who had been a pastor in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, contained various illustrations, stories and anecdotes, suitable for inclusions in sermons. What intrigued me about the book was not only the illustrations and stories but also Dr. Barnhouse’s Foreword to the book. In this Foreword he made a statement, which I was initially quite dubious about but which has since been a source of enjoyment to try to put into practice either for fun or for seeking to illustrate a point in a sermon. As Dr. Barnhouse’s words have stimulated me, I here reprint the whole of his Foreword to his book, Let Me Illustrate (A book of stories, anecdotes and illustrations published by Pickering & Inglis) in the hope that it will stimulate you as much as it has me to find and enjoy spiritual truth from everything.

FOREWORD

One of the books I intend to write is a book on the whole art of procedure of illustrating the sermon. As an introduction let me tell the story of the time I meditated on the fact that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. Suddenly I realised that in the plan and thought of God, I was older than the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, the trees, the garden, and everything else.

“Since God planned me before He planned trees and lakes and mountains, and storms and sunsets,” I said, “everything that there is was created in order to illustrate spiritual truth. Everything. I don’t care what it is—the way the echo sounds if you clap your hands, the way light gleams off metal, the way paper tears, you name it—you can find a sermon illustration in it. A sermon illustration is in the things right around you.”

A tape recorder turning is a wonderful illustration of the fact that all our thoughts are being recorded, and that some day we shall give an account of every idle word. I was driving with three of my small children. I told them this, and my six-year-old said, “Well, how is the white line down the road an illustration?”

“Oh,” I said, “That’s easy, ‘There is a way that seemeth right unto man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death.’ If I felt that I had a right to go over in the left lane and just stay there, ultimately a truck would come and slam me, and I’d be dead. God says, ‘You keep in my path, and my path is properly marked.’ ”

Another child said, “What about the telegraph poles? How are they an illustration?”

I replied, “Well, there’s that pole, and somebody in the next town back of us and somebody in the next town in front of us are talking over the wires. Their words are going over the wires in both directions right now. Suppose one of those poles got knocked down, what would happen next?”

The child said, “The wires would break, and they couldn’t talk.”

I said, “Exactly, and exactly the same way we must keep our communication with God because we’re talking with God. We say, ‘Lord, Lord’ and the whole conversation is carried on by the principles that God puts forth in His Word, and we must not allow sin to destroy any of the points of communication, because if sin comes in, then the communication can be destroyed.”

Again, one of the children asked, “That bird sitting up on the wire, what can that illustrate?”

I said, “Do you see his little claws holding tight on the wire?”

All three children chorused, “ Yes.”

I said, “In the wire someone is talking. Although the words are going right under its feet the bird doesn’t know anything about it. Maybe someone’s saying, ‘Grandpa died,’ or ‘Oh, there’s been an accident,’ or just chatting. These words go through the little bird’s feet, but he doesn’t know anything about them. In exactly the same way I’m resting in God; it doesn’t make any difference what things whirl about me, what messages are bad or evil, I can trust the Lord and know that because I am resting in the Lord, nothing can touch me. None of the bad news that passes through the bird’s feet can hurt it. Thus, ‘we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.’ ”

One night a short time later, a friend took us out to get some ice cream. We were talking about illustrations I had used that evening, and he said, “How on earth do you get such illustration?”

I told him what I had said about illustrations being everywhere, One of the young women pointed to a sugar bowl and said, “Give us an illustration about this sugar bowl.”

I said, “This sugar bowl looks as though it costs at least a dollar or two. If, instead of sitting in this modern, good class restaurant, we were in a cheap, dirty restaurant over on the avenue, the sugar would be in a rough, ten-cent mug. This one costs a dollar. If we went over to the Waldorf, we’d probably find fine bone china. Whether you get a crockery mug, or an ordinary one like this, or a very fine one in the Waldorf depends upon how long it has been put in the fire. The Bible says that we are vessels of honour, fit for the Master’s use. You must be purged and burned in the fire to take on the proper work. Whether you are going to be an ornament cheap and dirty, or whether you will be a vessel fit for the Master’s use depends on how you yield to the Lord for His work in your life.”

Donald Grey Barnhouse

QUITE A CHALLENGE!

Donald Gray Barnhouse was a master at creating illustrations to convey spiritual truth. The challenge of trying to find a spiritual truth out of everything is not only something to do with profit while trying to pass a bit of time with the children in the car travelling from place to place but the mind is stimulated to think on the things of God. However, I have found the challenge to give everything a spiritual application that which comes into its own when one is unable to sleep on a Saturday night not because of the difficulty of knowing what to preach the following day but rather of what one is to say in the ‘dreaded’ Children’s Address!

Some people can find a Children’s Address with, it appears, minimum of effort. Others ’phone up a fellow minister at the eleventh hour for a chat and say, ‘By the way, do you know a good Children’s Address?’ (Never does one ask for a good sermon!) It’s not that there aren’t plenty of books available on Children’s Addresses but very few of the addresses seem to fit exactly what you have in mind, i.e., they’re not good enough for the adults!

So will this book help preachers get a good sleep on a Saturday night? No! Not if my experience of having good books on my ‘Children’s Addresses Shelf’ is anything to go by. But I hope that this book as with other books on Children’s Addresses will stimulate a seed thought which can be ‘watered and grown’ into a mature address suited to one’s own liking. While this book follows a theme—which is itself confined to the simple surroundings of a Free Church of Scotland building—the addresses can be individualised.

Donald Grey Barnhouse was the master at sermon illustration, giving full-orbed associations such as seen in the above illustrations using the sugar bowl and the telephone wires. I have failed the challenge to do this: and seldom, if at all, did my illustrations ‘run on all fours’. And now in the writing up of these addresses they have taken on ‘arms and legs’ which undoubtedly will require amputation depending on the age of the audience. (Text boxes contain material that can easily be omitted when speaking to a younger audience; and Bible references, in the body of the text, are mainly for the benefit of the storyteller.) Nevertheless, in looking for illustrations from things found in and around the church I have endeavoured to convey biblical and spiritual truth to the young people of Kilmallie Free Church and secure a good measure of sleep on a Saturday night.

I hope these addresses will be of general interest but if you are a preacher of the Word of God I hope and pray that these addresses will help ease your Saturday night burden and prove fruitful to the glory of God.

These addresses, apart from one I have adapted from a Nevis Radio ‘Today’s Thought’ I gave during the World Cup 2000, were used with the young people—with the adults in attendance—of Kilmallie Free Church of Scotland, Caol, Fort William, Inverness-shire.

Sandy Sutherland.

Free Church Manse

Fortrose

Ross-shire

IV10 8SY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am greatly indebted to the late Mr. Stewart McLean for information given on Mr. Jack MacLennan’s life and to Mr Duncan Gordon for proof-reading and making helpful suggestions. A special thanks go to the young and not so young at Kilmallie Free Church who listened with great fortitude to these addresses presented live—may it have been and will yet be to their eternal good and especially to the glory of the ever- blessed God to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Soli Deo gloria!

INTRODUCTION

This morning we are going begin a new series of addresses. Each week we are going to take something that we can find, inside or outside the church, and ask, ‘What spiritual truth can we learn from it?’ Sometimes we will learn something about God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) at other times we will learn something about the Bible, the Church, me, you, and me and you together.

We will begin on the outside of the church and as each week goes by we will make our way into the church itself and use the various things we see to help us to be prepared for heaven and the new world that is still to come but also how we are to live in this world.

1. THE DAISY

‘If you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then you will lift up your face without shame; you will stand firm and without fear.’ ‘Life will be brighter than noonday, and darkness will become like morning.’

Job 11: 14-15, 17.

We are going to begin our new series with something that we have all seen but perhaps don’t take much notice of yet there are hundreds of them all around our church and growing in our church ‘lawn’ too! Can you guess what they are? They open up when the sun is shining and they close up when its dark—daisies!

I wonder if you have ever noticed that just like Adam in the Garden of Eden who was asked by God to name the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field (Genesis 2: 20) that we look at the things of the creation around us and we give most things names after what they look like or how they behave. I’m sure Adam looked at the characteristics of each creature and gave a name that reflected each creature’s character. For example we don’t call a Blackbird a Whitebird do we? We call it a Blackbird because it is black. Even a bird, animal or plant’s scientific name often reflects something to do with the creature’s or a plant’s characteristics.

A Wren that we sometimes see in the garden hiding under the bushes and stones of the rockery is called a troglodyte because it behaves like a troglodyte who is someone who lives in a cave. You hardly ever see a wren out in the open—have you any in your garden’s undergrowth? (I hope your garden hasn’t got too much undergrowth! Do you need to help with the garden I wonder? If Dad asks you to clear away the undergrowth you can tell him that the undergrowth needs to stay where it is. And if he asks why? You can tell him, ‘For the troglodytes, of course!

Other creatures and plants even where there doesn’t at first appear to be any obvious reason for why they are called what they are called, it will be discovered that their names come about for particular reasons. Is this not true even of us? I don’t mean that I’m called ‘Alexander’ because I’m a ‘defender of men’ which is the Greek meaning of ‘Alexander’, but I mean I’m called a ‘Christian’ because I follow Christ. In fact I am one of ‘Christ’s ones’ (the meaning of the term ‘Christians’—Acts 11: 26) in much the same way as when something is named after the person who discovers it. I wonder what other names people call me? Or what names do people call you? I hope your behaviour allows people to give you nice names.

So what about the ‘daisy’? The daisy is called a ‘daisy’ because when the sun comes out the daisy opens up its flowers to reveal a bright yellow centre. This bright yellow centre looks like an ‘eye’, an eye that only comes out in the ‘day’—so we have a ‘day’s-eye’. First thing in the morning the ‘day’s eye’ opens up its flowers and looks towards heaven as if to praise God for a new day.

Is there not a lesson here for us? Each day when God’s love and mercy shines on us we are to put away sin and lift up our faces to God without shame. Life will then be brighter than noonday, and darkness will become like morning. When we see the humble daisy we can remind ourselves that we too need to be humble before God and thank Him for a new day and especially for Jesus who is the Sun of Righteousness (Mal 4: 2; Lk 1: 78-79) and the Light of the world.

2) THE DANDELION

‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.’

1 John 1: 9.

Along with the daisy we can see another flower on the way to church and also in the church grounds. This flower (which like the daisy is a wild-flower) is yellow in colour but once the flower turns to seed it is white like the daisy. There are also lots of them at the sides of the roads on the way to church and like the daisy its flowers only open up when the sun is shining. What flower do you think it might be? The dandelion.

What a strange name, ‘dande-lion’! Apparently it gets its name from the French: dent de lion because the shape of each individual seed looks like the tooth of a lion. Well I think we’ll just take these French folk’s word for it—they must be braver than us Scots; I for one am not going to look into any lion’s mouth to find out if their teeth are the same shape as the seed of a dandelion! Lions don’t eat dandelions but they might eat me!

Dandelions are wild flowers but when they come into the garden we call them ‘weeds’. And contrary to how my garden sometimes looks I don’t want weeds in my garden. Our garden is cleaned up from weeds every so often but at the moment there are lots of dandelions in the manse garden and quite a number around the church. Where have they come from?

Have you noticed that when the yellow flower of the dandelion changes into a fluffy white seed head and the wind comes along the seeds of the dandelion get blown into the air because each seed has its own ‘hang-glider’ which takes it up high into the sky and then it turns its ‘hang-glider’ into a parachute and come down—yes, into my garden! All of them, it seems! And if I don’t get them out right away they will put roots deep into the soil and my wife will never be able to dig them out!

These weeds need to be dug up before they get out of control. This is just like seed thoughts that come into our own minds and hearts. Some seed thoughts, like ‘How can I help that poor person?’ grow into nice things like acts of kindness, but all too often we can have ugly seed thoughts like ‘How can I be better than someone else’ and if that seed thought isn’t ‘weeded out’ of our minds it will put roots down into our hearts and choke the good seed thoughts and acts of goodness that we might have done, and instead we will become selfish, greedy and not very nice at all.

A dandelion is a nice flower but I don’t want it growing where it shouldn’t be growing; but all thoughts and acts which are unkind are not nice and have no place in the ‘garden’ of our minds because they will rule our hearts if we are not careful. So we must weed them out immediately—we are to ask Jesus the great ‘Gardener’ of our souls to help us do this, and to forgive us when we have wrong thoughts (and deeds and words) and help us to keep the ‘gardens’ of our souls clean.

3. THE BUTTERCUP

‘In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.’

Matthew 5: 16.

We have spoken about daisies and dandelions, but there is another wild flower, which is not as common as the daisy and the dandelion, but, nevertheless, we can easily see it on our way to church and there are one or two at the side of the church grounds where the lawn mower doesn’t reach them. Like the dandelion this flower’s petals are yellow but they don’t go white like the seeds of the dandelion or the flower petals of the daisy. This flower ‘creeps’ along the ground and have green triangular shaped leaves. Can anyone guess what flower it might be? A buttercup!

I’ve got a buttercup flower with me this morning. Its actual flower is shaped like a cup but do you think it is the same colour as real butter? It certainly is a lovely golden colour isn’t it? I guess real butter is golden unlike some so-called ‘butters’—though we are told that with some pretend ‘butters’ you can’t tell the difference from the real thing!

When I was a boy (a few years ago now!) the boys and girls of our day used to hold up a buttercup flower against someone’s chin to see if they liked butter or not. The idea was that if the shiny golden petals of the buttercup reflected against your skin it was supposed to mean that you liked to eat butter. I don’t think that was true—do you? If you haven’t washed under your chin the colour of the buttercup might not reflect against your skin at all, but you might still like butter.

Is there anyone here this morning who has washed under his or her chin and wants to see if the colour of the buttercup will reflect on your skin? Michael is going to volunteer! This will not work with the daisy or the dandelion because only the buttercup has a glossy surface to its petals, which will reflect its colour on to your skin. There, it does reflect a little bit on Michael’s chin! ‘Do you like butter, Michael?’ ‘Sort of.’ I though that’s what you might say! Perhaps if you like butter a lot it would have worked better?

I don’t really think so; it’s just a bit of fun, isn’t it? But it does make me think that if we are to reflect Jesus in our lives we need to be ‘shiny’. I don’t mean that we need have washed under our chins—though I think that would be a good idea, don’t you?—but that we are to be clean on the inside by trusting in Jesus.

When we spend time with Jesus we will not be ‘dull’ like the petals of the daisy or dandelion but shiny like the petals of the buttercup and will reflect the love of Jesus to others. Of course a person who loves Jesus may not appear to be any different for someone who doesn’t love Jesus but I would hope that the happiness, love, joy and peace that Jesus gives to us would be seen in our lives—and we would be easily spotted as the real thing!

When Moses spent time with God people certainly knew about it. In fact, while he was a special case, his face was so shiny that it was necessary for him to cover his face with a veil to allow people to look upon him. (Exodus 34: 29.)

When we see the shiny buttercup we can remind ourselves that not only are we to be humble like the daisy and give praise each day to God and watch out for wrong ‘seed’ thoughts coming into the ‘gardens’ of our minds (to put roots down into our hearts like the dandelion seeds put roots down in the manse garden and the church grounds) but, through being with Jesus in prayer and saying sorry to God for the things we think, say and do that are wrong, seeking His help to do better, we will reflect His goodness in our lives and people will know that we are the real children of God. Why? Because our light (our ‘goldenness’) will shine before men, that they may see our good deeds and praise our Father in heaven.

4) THE BIRDS

‘Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young–

a place near your altar, O LORD Almighty, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you.’

Psalm 84: 3-4

I wonder if you have noticed, as you make your way from your cars and walk round our church fence and look into the church grounds, the birds singing or hopping about on the church lawn? There is nearly always a Blackbird, sometimes a Song Thrush, usually a Robin, occasionally a Wren—very occasionally there is even (because we are so near the sea) an Oystercatcher! But the most frequent visitor to the church grounds is the Chaffinch, and the in-house bird—always around, chirping away—is the House Sparrow. Have you seen any of these different birds—or heard our House Sparrows—they are noisy aren’t they? Because our House Sparrows are here 24 / 7 I think we should rename them ‘Church Sparrows’!

How would you—like these sparrows—like to live in the church building all the time? An hour on Sunday is probably long enough—isn’t it? Perhaps you had better not answer that question! You will maybe know that Samuel, in the OT, lived in the ‘church’ (the tabernacle) and actually grew up there and served God there. He had a remarkable life and he has two books of the Bible named after him: 1 and 2 Samuel—you could read about Samuel in 1 Samuel.

There are also birds that lived in the ‘house of God’. In Psalm 84 the Psalmist appears to envy (in a good sense) the swallows and sparrows that lived and nested there because they had unhindered access—which he did not have at that time because of troubles in his life—but the birds can freely go there and even nest there and no one troubles them. How he wishes and longs to ‘go up to the house of God’ with others to worship God unhindered and with great joy. (Psalm 122: 1).

I wish there were lots of people who would love to come to church with us and if they couldn’t come, because of being unwell or some other reason, would be ‘envious’ of our sparrows or of you and me having the privilege to be here to worship God in this public way together.

In fact I do know that there are people today of our own congregation who would love to be here worshipping God with us but are unable to do so because they are in hospital or are feeling poorly at home. Sometimes some in our congregation can’t be here because they have to look after other people: a sick mother or aunt; and those in our congregation who are doctors and nurses have, every now and then, to work on the Lord’s Day—which is normally a day when they wouldn’t work because, apart from works of necessity and mercy ¹ God’s fourth commandment says:

‘Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.’

Exodus 20: 8-11.

We come to church to worship God together. We worship God at home but there is a special blessing in coming together because Jesus says: ^“For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Mt. 18: 20). Jesus is always with us but when we come together there is an extra blessing to be gained. I certainly notice that our sparrows are far more ‘chirpier’ when they are together than when they are alone.

Let us learn from them, and whenever we can—except through sickness and works of necessity and mercy—not stop meeting together.

5) THE BEES

‘How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path.’

Psalm 119: 103-104.

I think that there is one important question that you might well ask just as I might ask it or any of the other adults here might ask it too. The question is, ‘Why do we come to church?’ or ‘Why do we come to Sunday School?’ I’m sure you would be able to answer such a question? What reasons can you think of?

‘Yes, we come to praise God together—to say sorry to God for the things we have said, thought and done that are wrong—to ask God for help to do better—to have fellowship with God and with one another—to learn about God, especially about Jesus—to hear the gospel that gives eternal life—to learn how we might please God—to learn about things that only God can tell us, in the Bible, such as where the world and we have come from and what happens after we die, and many other very important things.’

We can, of course, do much of this at home. So, What is so special about coming to Sunday School or church?

Sometimes we may notice at the side of the church, and in people’s gardens around the church, some bees flying from flower to flower. It looks like hard work having to collect pollen from each flower to take back to the hive to make honey. Some flower heads don’t seem to open up very well and the bees have to push their way in. In this they are our instructors for we too have to work hard and push into the ‘flowers’ of God’s Word.

There is much in the Bible that is like food already prepared for us—a kind of ‘quick snack’—but if we are to survive spiritually we need ‘meat’ as well as ‘milk’ (Heb. 5: 12-14). Therefore, we need to be like the bees and ‘push’ into God’s Word. We can, and should, do this at home but one of the reasons Sunday School and church are special is because there are people—your teachers and minister—who have already prepared a generous ‘meal’ for you to ‘eat’ from God’s Word.

Take, for example, the verse that the adults are going to look at later this morning; the lovely ‘flower’ of John 3: 16: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ We can get a quick spiritual snack from just reading this verse; but by being ‘busy-bees’ and ‘pushing into’ the verse we can have a ‘sit down’ feast! There is a ‘menu’ of great variety and sweetness in this one verse but today we have a meal that I have called the ‘Four Gs’ (not Grampian Chicken, Golden Wonders, Gravy and Greens!):

1. There is the Grace of God because it says, ‘God so loved’.
2. There is the Gift of God because it says, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son’.
3. There is the Gospel because it says, ‘whoever believes’.
4. There is the Glory because it says, ‘whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’

Those who believe in Jesus will share in the glory of God because we have accepted the Gift of God offered to us in the Gospel that comes to us by the grace of God.

When we ‘push into’ a verse we get so much more out of it. In the beehive there are different kinds of bees responsible for doing different things; in the church too there are people with different roles to help us make ‘honey’. But just as all of the bees have to work so too do we all have work to do. In the Sunday School workbooks you each gather ‘pollen’ from the ‘flowers’ of God’s ‘garden of words’—the Bible. This enables you, with the help of the special ‘bees’ (the teachers / minister) to make ‘honey’.

In fact, God’s Word is a very special ‘honey’ because, as we read in Psalm 119 it is even sweeter than honey. Ordinary honey is only sweet to the body but God’s Word is sweet to the soul and when the soul is sweetened by God’s Word our whole being is the better for it and we are given direction for our lives and we please God.

But, there is something else that is very important about coming to Sunday School or church. If we love the Lord Jesus, we each bring Him to Sunday School or church with us because He dwells within every believer by His Spirit and when we all come together there is a greater sense of the presence of Jesus (Mt. 18: 20)that makes Sunday School and church a very special place to be. Jesus wants to bless us when we come together.

6) THE CREATION

^‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’

Genesis 1: 1.

We have been looking at some small things: flowers, birds and bees found round about the church—we still have one or two other small things to consider after we come through the church gate and into the church grounds proper and make our way into the church building itself, but before we do that there is one HUGE thing that we can take spiritual instruction from. Can you guess what it might be?

‘Grass?’ Yes, that’s a very good guess because grass seems to be everywhere; but grass is only part of the BIG thing I have in mind. ‘The hills?’ Yes, that’s a very good guess as well because we are surrounded by hills here in Lochaber, aren’t we? But again, like grass, the hills are only part of what I have in mind. ‘The sea?’ Again yes we have the sea on our doorstep, but what I have in mind is much BIGGER! and includes the sea, the hills, the grass and everything else too! ‘The creation?’ Yes, that is exactly right—everything!

The creation is all around the church. We look up to Britain’s highest mountain and we have the shores of Loch Linnhe and Loch Eil on our doorstep—we worship God in one of the loveliest places in Scotland—if not the world!

A few weeks ago, as part of our congregation’s outreach to tell people about the wonderful ‘Good News’ of Jesus, we had a slide show on the creation—a number of you were there. Someone, however, might say that looking at the creation will not do anybody any good in knowing God in a personal way. ‘It would be far better to tell people ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved’ (Acts 16: 31) they might say. I would agree—wouldn’t you? But looking at the creation, especially from a God-honouring point of view, reveals truth to us, and all truth has value.

You may already know that when the apostle Paul saw that the Athenians erected a stone to the ‘Unknown God’ (Acts 17: 23f.) he knew that he had a starting point from which to preach the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ (getting to know personally). Faith is never a step into the dark but a step into the truth from the foundation of truth.

The story is told of missionaries who came to a village in the East and found all the natives except one worshipping the sun. When they asked this man why he was not worshipping the sun like everyone else he said, ‘I do not wish to worship the sun but the one who made the sun’. He did not know God, in Christ, at a personal level for He had never heard of Jesus or the gospel as we saw it in John 3: 16 last week; but He knew the ‘Unknown God’. He believed, from the greatness and design of the creation, in a Creator. It was then that the missionaries told him about the only Way (John 14: 6) to know the One who made the sun—and so he came to know, through believing in Jesus, the God who ‘in the beginning made the heavens and the earth.’

But not only can the wonder, beauty and complexity of the creation be a way of leading others to know the Creator but the believer is given a better understanding of the greatness of the God they have come to know through Jesus. How great God must truly be to have ‘created the heavens and the earth’! Therefore, believers can not only enjoy the creation at a higher level than before they trusted in Jesus but they can also look forward to literally seeing that which they cannot yet see—a new creation! A creation with no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away.’ (Rev. 21: 1ff.)

7) THE GATE

‘I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture.’

John 10: 9.

We all did something in common this morning. Any idea what that might have been? Yes—‘we woke up’. I’m very glad to here it! Yes—‘we all cleaned our teeth’. I certainly hope we all did! Yes—‘we all had breakfast’. I hope so—we don’t want any rumbling tummies during the Sunday School or the sermon, do we?

So, there are quite a number of things that we all do in common. The Bible, however, says that in things that are not right for us to do—like breaking the commandments of God—we are like sheep. ‘We each like sheep have gone astray’ (Isa. 53: 6). Sheep are known to follow one another—if one does something they all do it!

This reminds me of a story that a lady ² told me about sheep—I think she heard it on the radio or in a church service on TV. The story is about a new teacher that came from a big city to teach in a primary school in the country (a small place like Acharacle where Katie comes from). The new teacher was keen to teach the children some mental arithmetic (adding and subtracting in one’s head without the a calculator).

The new teacher looked out of the window and saw some sheep in a field and came up with what she thought was a very clever question to ask young Donald who was really very keen to be answering questions. The teacher thought to herself ‘I’ll just see how smart Donald really is’. So the teacher said to Donald, ‘Donald if there were 100 sheep in that field (pointing out of the class window) and one sheep went through a hole in the fence, how many sheep would be left in the field?’ Donald immediately shouted out ‘None, Miss!’

The new teacher was astonished at Donald’s poor counting skills and wondered to herself just what kind of school she had come to and how much work she had ahead of her if all the children were as poor at adding and subtracting as Donald was. Therefore, she said to Donald, ‘Donald, if you take one away from a hundred that leaves ninety-nine. O Donald, your arithmetic is terrible!’ ‘No Miss’ said Donald, ‘it’s not my arithmetic that’s terrible, it’s your knowledge of the sheep that’s terrible!’ Donald knew that if one sheep went through the hole in the fence they all would have gone through—leaving no sheep in the field. The only right way for the sheep to go in and out of the field is through the gate by the instruction of the shepherd.

The Bible, in a number of different ways, uses sheep as an illustration for how people behave or how they need to be cared for as under a shepherd. It is amazing to think that sheep are found almost all over the world. Therefore, when the Bible is read, in the different parts of the world, everyone knows how sheep behave or the needs that they have.

Jesus speaks of Himself as a shepherd—a shepherd who looks for the lost sheep and cares for the whole ‘flock’ of God’s people from different parts of the world. Jesus, in John 10: 9, describes Himself as a ‘gate’ for the sheep. The amazing thing about Jesus as our Shepherd is that we are actually told (in the verse I mentioned from Isaiah 53) ‘We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.’

There are two ‘gates’ described to us in the Bible. One gate leads to the broad road that leads to destruction and the other is the narrow gate that leads to life. (Mt. 7: 13f.) If people go through the broad gate they are like sheep following the crowd but if they go through the narrow gate they are sheep who recognize the voice of Jesus their Shepherd (Jn.10: 4) and are brought into eternal life.

One other thing we all did in common this morning is that we all came in through the church gate. There is a fence around the church grounds and so we need to come in through the gate to get into the church. Likewise, if we want to be in the true church (the church not made with bricks and mortar) we can only do so by entering through Jesus who is the only way (the only Gate) to enter into salvation.

8) THE NOTICE BOARD

^‘She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’

Matthew 1: 21.

We have now come through the church gate but before we reach the front door of the church and come inside to look at things there that might help us learn spiritual truths, there are still one or two things outside that we have not yet mentioned. One thing is very ‘notice-able’ and nearly every church has one? What do you think it is? ‘The Notice Board?’ Yes, that’s right—how did you guess?!

What might you expect to find on a church’s outside Notice Board? ‘The times of the services?’ Yes—anything else? ‘The minister’s name?’ Yes—that’s what I want to use for our address this morning. My name is our church’s Notice Board: The Reverend Alexander Sutherland.

Now you might just be wondering ‘Who is “Alexander Sutherland”? I thought the minister’s name was “Sandy Sutherland” ’ And so it is! That’s because, as you no doubt know, people often get called something other than their Christian name and often an ‘Alexander’ is changed to a ‘Sandy’. So, it’s OK to call me ‘Sandy’ even although I know some of the adults, because I am the minister, only call me Mr. Sutherland! I don’t really mind what people call me so long as it is something nice!

I wonder if you have ever thought about how your surname came to be what it is? A person’s surname came about as a name to help identify a particular person. For example, if your father’s name was ‘John’ then you could have had the surname ‘Johnson’ (‘son of John’). That’s a bit like the ‘Mac’ surnames such as ‘MacDonald’ meaning ‘son of Donald’. Or it might be that because you lived near the village green that you would be surnamed ‘Green’. Or depending on the stature of your father you might have been given the surname ‘Longfellow’ or ‘Small’, or perhaps the surname ‘Brown’ after the lovely hair of your mother.

Most surnames, however, appear to have come from a parent’s occupation: ‘Cartwright,’ ‘Mason’, ‘Butcher’, ‘Taylor’, ‘Baker’, or ‘Smith’ if you were or belonged to the local blacksmith. Real names today are unlikely to reflect one’s occupation but by-names usually reflect someone’s character or stature or even what they do. In our home church we have two ‘Margarets’ with the same surname but we always know who it is we are talking about because one is called ‘little Margaret’ and the other ‘big Margaret’.

In the Bible God also has different names. Jesus especially is given many different names so as we can know more about His character and attributes. For example the prophet Isaiah (9:6b) calls Jesus: ‘Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.’ The apostle tells us that Jesus, now that He has been raised from the dead, has that name that is above all names (Phil. 2: 9); but perhaps Jesus is best known by the name or title, ‘Saviour’. The angel told Joseph, ^‘She (Mary) will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins’.

Do you know Him as ‘Saviour’—your Saviour? The Bible says, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.’ If we know Jesus as our Saviour then Jesus says to us: ‘I will write on you a new name, the name of God (children with God the Father’s name and God’s character, a heavenly name reflecting the place of our heavenly Father); and I will never erase your name from the book of life.’

My name will one day be erased from the church Notice Board but it will never, or the name of any believer, be erased from the Lamb’s Book of Life. This gives to me, and I hope to you too, the peace that passes all understanding from Him who is ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.’ Saviour. Jesus who has that name that is above all names.

9) THE SLUG

‘God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds.’

Genesis 1: 25a.

‘We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn.’

Hebrews 5: 11.

I wonder if you have noticed when it is raining—and it tends to rain quite a bit here in Lochaber!—that there are quite often ‘snails’ on the church path? Sometimes they are even as high up as the Notice Board that we spoke of last week. I think these ‘snails’ are actually slugs, as they don’t have a ‘home’, a shell, on their backs. These slugs aren’t very fast are they? I guess that’s why they are called ‘slugs’—they are very ‘sluggish’. It must have taken them ages to reach the top of the Notice Board—and what for? I guess they lost their direction.

Are there any slugs mentioned in the Bible I wonder? Can you think on some of the creatures that are found in the Bible? Donkeys, bears, lions, ants, locusts, flies, frogs, different kinds of birds…but are there any slugs?

In the book of Genesis—the first book of the Bible—we read of ‘wild animals’ or ‘beasts of the earth’ and also ‘livestock’ or ‘cattle’. In other words there are some animals that are near to man (such as the ‘beasts of the field’ named by Adam—Gen. 2: 20) that we would call ‘domesticated’ animals, and there are animals that are not domesticated that we would call ‘wild’ animals or ‘beasts of the earth’. But is there any mention of a slug? We have Noah’s Ark where the animals went in ‘two by two’ but is there any mention of a slug?

So are there any slugs mentioned in the Bible? Yes, there are! They are found in the New Testament in Hebrews 5: 11 where we have the word ‘dull’ or ‘slow’. The New Testament was written in Greek and the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews is not being very complimentary when he describes the believers there to be ‘sluggish’—to be liked to a slug! Ugh!

But the writer’s attitude is understandable. If these Christians to whom he was writing were not to drift away from their faith in Jesus and lose their direction (Heb. 2: 1) then they needed to ‘speed up’ and not be so slow in their understanding of biblical things.

The writer could not teach such people because (taking the text literally) they were spiritually sluggish in their ears. You don’t have to go to school or university to be filled with the Holy Spirit: all you need is to have been with Jesus but they had become lazy in their faith. No doubt when they were converted to Christ they were ‘all ears’. But as the newness of it all died away they stopped listening and thereby stopped growing spiritually. They were ‘sluggish’ and in danger of losing direction (like those slugs on our Notice Board).

There is a saying: Use it or lose it. Jesus said: ‘Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him’ (Mt.13: 12). In the light of all this we are challenged to ask ourselves: Am I ‘sluggish’ to learn what God says? If I am then I am in great danger of drifting away from God.

I must not be offended if I am being compared to a slug but instead thank God for a reminder of my need to ‘get a move on’ and listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to my heart. ‘He who has ears to hear, let him hear.’ (Luke 8: 8, etc.)

10) THE R. A. M. P.

‘Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.’

Romans 8: 23.

‘Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.’

1 John 3: 2.

We are making our way from outside the church to inside the church looking at different things and asking, ‘What spiritual truth can we learn from this?’ Before we come to the front door and step inside the church itself there is one more thing from outside that I would like to mention.

In fact, this particular item is new. You might say that it gives to us a ‘lift’! What do you think it is? ‘The ramp?’ Yes—well done! Well done because I asked some of the adults what they thought of the new ramp—and they said, ‘New ramp?!’ They never even noticed that the step that was there before is now gone and in its place there is a ramp? The builders must have done a very good job of getting the gradient of the ramp’s slope just right when many didn’t even notice that it was there!

Because of changes in the law most public places now have a ramp to help people who have difficulties climbing steps or who are in a wheelchair to have access to these buildings—quite right too!

I expect that most churches, because they have lots of steps, have ramps that are separate from the steps of the church but as we only had one step we have taken it away altogether and now the way into church is a low level ramp for everyone to use—whether they need a ramp or not. Whether or not a church has a ramp and steps or just a ramp it is important that the church is open and accessible to everyone. We saw some reasons, when we spoke about ‘The Bees’ just three weeks ago, why it is important to come to church.

This morning let us take the four letters of the word R.A.M.P. to give a further four reasons for why we should come to church and have a ramp in place to ensure that all who can come, even in a wheelchair, have access to our church.

The church is the Right place for everyone to be found. It is the place where Anyone can enter. It is the Meeting place of God’s people and for those who are still searching for answers to life and death. It is the place (but not the only place) to Praise God.

Furthermore, still using the letters R.A.M.P. we have a ramp so that everyone may come and hear about Jesus who is the Rock of our salvation, who was Raised up to be our Redeemer. We can, through Jesus, come to Almighty God and be Adopted into God’s family and have Access to God always. The church is a Meeting place where Man (Mr, Mrs, Master and Miss) can come and Praise God and find Peace with God through Him who is the Prince of Peace and who enables us to Persevere in following Him until we come into heaven and have no more need of a ramp.

When all of God’s people are in heaven then there will be no more tears, sorrow or sickness—no need of a ramp because we will be Resurrected with new bodies—‘the redemption of our bodies’—completely transformed—‘we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is’—for life in heaven and in being Adopted into God’s family we will be living in ‘Mansions’ in Paradise.

Redemption-Adoption—Messiah-Praise.

11) THE DOOR HANDLE

‘So, because you are lukewarm–neither hot nor cold–I am about to spit you out of my mouth.’

Revelation 3: 16.

At last we are almost inside the church itself. In fact the thing that I want to talk about is found outside and inside the church. Any ideas as to what it might be? ‘The door?’ ‘The door’ is a very good guess but, in a sense, we have already dealt with ‘the door’ when we spoke about ‘The Gate’. Instead, today, I want to use that which we need to place our hand on in order to come through the door. What would that be? ‘The door handle’—that’s right.

Of course, by the time you arrive at church the outside door is already open for you and even when you come to the inside door to get into the church itself it too is usually opened for you. You get treated like VIPs in this church don’t you?—with people opening doors for you as if you were Royalty? But, of course, if you are trusting in Jesus you are Royalty because Jesus is the King of kings! You are Very Important Persons—aren’t you? Of course you are! We are all very important and especially we are very important to God. But it isn’t this that I want to talk to you about today.

This morning I want to use the ‘door handle’ for our illustration. While you probably have not yet touched a door handle to get to where you are now sitting in the church it will be the case, when you get up in a moment or two to go out to your Sunday School classes, that the first person to reach the door that leads to the Sunday School will touch the door handle and the last person who closes the door—on the other side of the door—will touch it too.

This door handle, like the other door handles in the church, is made of metal but all the doors are made of wood. The strange thing is that the door handle feels colder than the door but it isn’t! When you go out to Sunday School, or later after your classes are over, you can try holding the door handle and touching the door and you will find that the door handle will feel colder than the door—but it isn’t! Why? Any ideas?

I’m told that the door handle appears to be colder not because the metal of the door handle is colder but rather it only feels colder because metal is a better conductor of heat than wood. This means that heat travels through metal faster than it does through wood; and so when we grasp the door handle it draws heat away from our hand more quickly than wood would do and so this makes us think that it is colder when in actual fact it isn’t any colder than the rest of the door. And so the door handle is ‘neither hot nor cold’; it’s the same temperature as the door itself.

Now, do these words ‘neither hot nor cold’ remind you of something Jesus said? In the Letter to the Church at Laodicea He said to the people there that they were ‘neither hot nor cold’. Jesus was speaking about their spiritual ‘temperature’. Jesus said that they were ‘lukewarm’. Probably Jesus was using the nearby hot springs of Hierapolis as an illustration. The people were not ‘hot’ like the spring water but neither were they ‘cold’ towards Him like unbelievers—they were neither one thing or the other—we might say that they were ‘sitting on the fence’. This condition is so repulsive to Jesus that He even goes as far as to say that such people make Him sick—‘I will spit (vomit) you out of my mouth’!

Now while I mentioned ‘unbelievers’ Jesus is speaking to the church. It is this that Jesus especially does not like: people, in church, who believe who He really is and what He has done but remain unmoved, or only slightly moved—lukewarm, showing no warm love and devotion to Him and His cause. This is all very insulting to Jesus.

The only good thing about our text in Rev. 3: 16 is that Jesus says, ‘I am about to spit you out of my mouth.’ He has not yet carried this out. Therefore, in His love He gives them, as He gives us if we are ‘neither hot nor cold’, an opportunity to change for the better. They were ‘hard-hearted’ but the compassionate Saviour came and said to them, in order to melt the hardest heart: ‘Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.’ (Rev. 3: 20.)

12) THE HAND SHAKE

‘Everyone should be quick to listen.’ ‘Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.’

James 1: 19a, 22.

‘Dear friends, let us love one another.’

^{I John 4: 7a.}

One thing is for sure, boys and girls, that when you come to our church the men on Door Duty will give you a warm welcome and will shake your hand—actually some people even get a kiss!—a holy kiss of brotherly and sisterly love in the Lord Jesus. Isn’t it so wonderful to belong to such a big family of people who love one another? I get a holy kiss from some of the ladies as well—especially if they liked the sermon! But I usually get a handshake. We are very good at handshaking aren’t we? But I wonder where all this handshaking came from?

Apparently it all came about because a long time ago people carried weapons to protect themselves. As most people are right handed they would have carried a weapon under their coat in their right hand. Therefore to show to others that they had no weapon in their hand and that they were friendly they thrust out their right hand and the other person did the same. Then by holding one another’s hand you had a moment of safety to work out if the person was friendly or not. In fact the hand ‘shaking’ might have been to dislodge any weapon hidden away under one’s arm.

This may seem unlikely but along with seeing that a person’s hand was weapon-free there was much to be learned through the friendliness (or otherwise) of a handshake. It’s much the same today. I don’t mean that people today carry weapons under their coats but it is surprising just how much information you can get or give through the kind of handshake you receive or give to someone.

If you appreciate something someone has done for you you would give them a ‘good grip’ handshake. If it is someone who needs a wee bit of support because they have had sad news you would give them both your right hand and your left hand and your handshake would be slow and embracing showing sympathy and support for them. This is a showing of friendliness and support. The Bible urges us to be not only hearers of the Word of God but doers of what we hear.

The Word heard must be the Word done. We know that the Bible (the Word) urges us to love one another and not only to know in our heads that we have to do good to others but rather to put our knowledge into practice. The person who knows how to run a shop will never make a profit unless he actually runs the shop. The doctor who knows how to heal the sick will heal no one if he does not practise his medicine.

Those who are only hearers of the Word have long ears and no hands—‘they’re all ears’ as they say. If a person has long ears (if he listens well), then the better he hears, the guiltier he is if he doesn’t do what he hears. The apostle James says, ‘Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?’ (James 2: 15-16.) Clearly it is no good if we see someone’s need and don’t actually do something to help.

When we come to church and Sunday School we often hear about the things we should do to help others—don’t we? I don’t suppose—with someone who is in actual need—that even a firm handshake or a holy kiss will do much good if it is not followed up by us doing something to help that person who is in need. So if you meet someone on the way home from Sunday School and they say to you, ‘Is Sunday School finished already?’ or ‘Is the sermon all done already?’ You can tell them that the Sunday School lesson or the sermon is all said already but the doing of it has still to be done.

Let us be doers as well as listeners of God’s Word.

13) THE BIBLE (1)

‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’

John 3: 16.

We have been looking at things outside of the church to speak to us indirectly about spiritual matters but today we are going to begin looking at things inside the church. However we begin not with something that speaks indirectly but directly to us about God, ourselves and other things. In fact it would have been most fitting if we had begun our series of addresses on things found in and around the church by talking about this item first. Apart from the presence of God Himself, it is the most important item in our church. What do you think I’m talking about? Yes, that’s right, ‘the Bible’.

The Bible has how many ‘books’? Yes, ‘Sixty-six!’ These are books and letters—39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. The Bible is a ‘letter’ from God to mankind. It tells us, among other things such as the history of Israel and the days of the early Church, what God is like and how we may know Him through His Son, Jesus Christ. The Bible also tells us about things we can’t know about by ourselves such as ‘Where have we come from?’ and ‘Where we are going?’ It gives us guidance for life and for what lies beyond this life.

While the Bible can answer age-old problems such as ‘What came first – the chicken or the egg?’ by telling us in the first book of the Bible (Genesis 1: 21) that God made the ‘birds of the air’ first, the Bible is essentially a letter of God’s love towards mankind. The whole Bible is about the Good News (the gospel) of eternal life through faith in God’s Son, Jesus.

What would you say is the best know verse in the whole Bible? Any ideas? ‘Genesis 1: 1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth….” ’. ‘Psalm 23: 1, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want” ’. You know what I think the best known verse is? John 3: 16! Sometime when you are watching the TV and there is something like an important sporting occasion on (the Olympics or a football final for example) you might catch a glimpse of someone in the crowd holding up a placard with the words ‘John 3: 16’ written on it. I hope that it isn’t wishful thinking but that person certainly thinks that people know what John 3: 16 says. So, What does it say? It says, ^‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’

Let’s go through that verse one more time but this time a bit more slowly and at the same time I will say certain words twice and for each word I say twice let us take the first letter of each repeated word and then join all these letters together to make up a new word. It sounds very complicated but let’s give it a go and see how we get on!

^‘For God God so loved the world that he gave his one and only only Son Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish perish but have eternal eternal life life.’ Did you get the new word? Hands up everyone who got the new word! Well done! Look, none of the adults have their hands up—it just shows you how bright the children of this Sunday School are because I did ask everyone to put their hands up, didn’t I? So, what is the new word? ‘Gospel’! Isn’t that amazing?

We have the whole Bible—66 books / letters—yet the gospel is summed up in this one verse! Yet, having said that, we need to go to other places to know what it means to ‘believe’ in Jesus. We are not to believe in Him simply as a person in history as we might do someone like Julius Caesar or Winston Churchill but we are to believe in Him with our hearts.

For example in Acts 16: 30-31 there is a man there who asks Paul and Silas, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They replied, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved’. Did you notice that there is one word of a difference between John 3: 16’s ‘believe’ and the ‘believe’ of Acts 16: 31? It is the word ‘Lord’. We are to believe in the ‘Lord Jesus Christ’. He has to be our ‘Lord’ (coming before everyone / everything else in our lives). We will then have eternal life when He is first in our lives. This is the gospel message of Good News (God’s News) at the heart of the Word of God—the Bible.

14) THE BIBLE (2)

‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’

John 3: 16.

Last week we learned that the Bible’s main message is the love of God towards us. This love is seen throughout the Bible and is centred upon the birth, life and death of God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead to make eternal life possible for all who will believe in Him as their Lord.

This means being sorry (repenting to God the Father through faith in what God the Son has done in our place) for all the things that we have done wrong. Jesus had no sin but He died because of our sin so that God could forgive us and make salvation possible for all who will believe in Jesus.

Last week we saw that this message of God’s love is summed up in John 3: 16, ^‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ We discovered the word ‘Gospel’ by repeating / highlighting the letters G.O.S.P.E.L.

This week I want us to also learn that in this verse we have that which we might call ‘The ‘Four G’s of God’s Love’. We learn, firstly, of God’s Grace: ‘For God so loved the world’. We learn, secondly, that God Gave: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave’. We learn, thirdly, of God’s Gift: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son’. And we learn, fourthly, that God allows us to share in His Glory: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’

Although God loved the world when He made it (Gen 1: 31) the world is now a world that has changed because of man’s fall into sin but God, out of His love, for Jews and Gentiles (the world) sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him who became an atoning sacrifice for our sin.

(1 Jn 4: 9-10.)

This was made known in various ways in the OT such as in Isa 9: 6, ‘For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. But it is in the New Testament that we have a fulfillment of the Old Testament promises.

If we believe in Jesus as our Lord we too will be called the ‘sons—or children—of God’ (2 Cor 6: 18; Rev 21: 7) but Jesus is uniquely God’s Son (the second member of the Trinity—the Son of God—came in the incarnation never ceasing to be God but became what He never was before, Man), therefore, we see just how much God loved the world to give His only begotten Son to die on the cross to take our sins away.

The Bible teaches us many things but the most important thing is how we can know and please God. To know God and to please God all starts with us responding to God’s grace to us in Him giving to us the Gift of His own Son that we might never die but share in God’s glory. To see Jesus and be like Him (1 John 3: 2).

15) THE BIBLE (3)

‘All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.’

^{2 Tim 3: 16-17}

‘For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.’

2 Peter 1: 21

The last two weeks we have used the most important thing in the church to give us our addresses—the Bible which is the Word of God to man. One of the most valuable proofs that the Bible is ‘the Book of God’ is its unity.

When you buy a book or borrow a book from the school library it is not surprising to find, no matter how long the story is, that it is one complete story from beginning to end. This is because one person has written it over a short period of time. But one of the amazing things about the Bible is that it is one complete story even although there are 66 parts written by about 40 different people over a period between Moses (Genesis) and John (Revelation) of hundreds of years. Therefore, because of the different times, cultures, languages, distances—some books were written as far apart as Babylon and Patmos, hundreds of years apart —it was impossible for there to be any contact between all the writers

The Bible is also written from different viewpoints (such as a king like Solomon or a fisherman like Peter) and in different styles—there is poetry, prose, history, law, philosophy, morals and prophecy. Yet, in spite of all these differences, the Bible combines to make one complete story with an undeniable unity throughout. Not one writer contradicts another. The teaching is consistent and complemen­tary—a harmonious whole.

How can this be explained? Let’s suppose we are going to build a new church here in Kilmallie making it from different kinds of stone from around Scotland.³ The main structure of our building will be made using a mixture of stones—all different shapes and sizes—granite from Aberdeenshire, white marble from Skye, red granite from the Ross of Mull, Lewisian gneiss from West Sutherland (rather than Lewis to keep the costs down!). We are going to cover the roof using Ballachulish slate, we are going to tile the floor using polished Caithness flagstone and we are going to make the window sills and arches out of Torridon sandstone from Wester Ross and red sandstone from Easter Ross.

But once all the stones come to Kilmallie we are not going to touch them with a mallet and chisel or cut them on the site but instead we are going to fit all the stones—of every conceivable size and shape—from all over Scotland—into a beautiful new church building giving us walls, windows, arches, a spire, halls, a vestibule, vestry, etc.; but the most amazing thing is that after it is built there is not going to be one stone left over or one stone too few. There is absolutely nothing lacking in our new building yet every stone was hewn into its final shape in the quarry from which it was taken.

How can this be explained? The only answer is that every quarryman had a set of plans given by a master architect who planned the whole building and gave to each quarryman the precise measurement of every stone and so when all the stones came together they fitted into the Master Plan for the church giving us one complete and beautiful building.

Likewise the Bible was pieced together from different places, times, cultures, styles and languages yet it is ‘built’ together as one united whole telling us essentially the same story of the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ. Behind every writer (‘quarryman’) there was a Master-Author who gave to every writer—without destroying the writer’s own unique style and personality—what He wanted to be written. This Master Author is, of course, God. The Bible is, therefore, the Word of God and there is no other book that is as important as the Bible.

The Word of God is the only book that can tell us what God is like or inform us about things like ‘Where mankind has come from?’ or ‘How God has made the way of eternal life possible—through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.’ Especially the Bible informs us of how we can obtain eternal life for ourselves and of how we can live our lives to please God. The Bible, therefore, is essential reading but not just for reading but also for obeying: ‘You are my friends if you do what I command.’ (John 15: 14.)

16) THE BURNING BUSH (1)

‘There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.’

^{Exodus 3: 2}

What would you say is the most impressive feature of our church building? ‘The stained glass window’. I thought you might say that because it is very outstanding, isn’t it? But, What does our stained glass window represent? ‘The burning bush’ that’s right. Can any tell me in which part of the Bible can we find the burning bush being mentioned. ‘Exodus’ that’s right. I thought that you might get that right too seeing that I know you have been looking at Moses and the Call of God to him in your Sunday School lessons.

But do you know who the burning bush represents? You will probably know from your Sunday School lessons and the reading of your Bibles at home that the Hebrews (Israelites) were slaves in the land of Egypt and it is thought that the bush itself represents them in their humiliation—a bush was not as grand and as stately as a tree such as the cedar of Lebanon. The fire represents the affliction that they were under in their slavery yet at the same time, as the fire never consumed the bush, it meant that God, who chastens His people, was with them and would not allow the Egyptians to destroy them. God will soon deliver them from the slavery they were in and take them on a journey to the Promised Land.

In the Presbyterian Church, the burning bush has become a symbol of God with His people. We will find a picture or an impression of the burning bush on hymn books, on congregational Newsletters or on a tie like my College tie I’m wearing today, or on pulpit falls or a stain glass window like ours—having said that I can’t think of a window like ours anywhere else, can you? It is a lovely window isn’t it?

In Exodus 3: 2 it says that the angel of The Lord appeared to Moses in flames of fire from within the bush. The Bible tells us that we cannot see God therefore God has to reveal Himself to us in a way that we can perceive Him. The burning bush is sometimes called a ‘theophany’—an appearance of God in the Old Testament times before God came to us in Jesus. Jesus said, ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father’.

But in the Old Testament there was no Jesus—this is true but it is not all the truth. In the Old Testament there were appearances (representations) of God up until the time Jesus came into the world. The Angel of the Lord (who appeared to different people in the Old Testament times) is one of these representations of God—a pre-incarnate appearance of the Son of God before He became Jesus without ever ceasing to be who He has always been—God! The Son of God, the second member of the Trinity, came in the incarnation to be Emmanuel, ‘God with us’; but He has always been with His people—the burning bush reminding us about this.

This means that when we see our stain glass window (or the symbolism of the burning bush elsewhere) with its inscription, Nec Tamen Consumebatur (‘And yet it was not consumed’) we are reminded that God is always with His people even although the outward circumstances of His people may not always be very good (like the Hebrews in Egypt). While God can discipline those whom He loves (Heb. 12: 6ff.) those whom He loves cannot be destroyed by the world or even the devil because God is with them even within them (as He was in the bush or was with the Hebrews in Egypt) and will take us on our pilgrimage to the Promised Land where we will see God in the face of Jesus and live. (Rev. 22: 6.)

17) THE BURNING BUSH (2)

‘“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’

^{Hebrews 13: 5b.}

We spoke last week about the burning bush on our stained glass window and pulpit fall. In doing so we mentioned that the Latin words beneath the burning bush symbol, Nec Tamen Consumebatur mean‘And yet it was not consumed’. This means that the people of God, even in difficult times such as when Caesar Nero persecuted the Early Church, they could have the assurance (just like the Hebrews in Egypt) that God was still with them and would never leave them or forget about them.

In fact these are the words that a writer of one of the New Testament letters called Hebrews wrote to those in the Early Church that had suffered persecution and looked as if it would suffer more for following Jesus: ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ Thankfully today we are not being persecuted like the Early Church which means I can tell you an amusing story. ⁴

There was a shepherd whose name was Donald. Once a year Donald took his sheep to the Auction Mart to sell them. At the same time he would make a list of items he needed for his croft so that he could buy them in the nearby town. After selling his sheep he journeyed the short distance to buy all the items on his list. After this Donald headed back home.

However, on the way home Donald had this feeling that he had forgotten something. As he drove along he mentally went through all the items on his list ‘ticking’ them off as he went along. This satisfied him for a few miles until eventually he got out of his van and with his list in his hand he went through all the items on the list checking them off after seeing them: ‘nails’, ‘hammer handle’, ‘10 fence posts’, ‘fencing wire’, ‘gloves’, ‘paint’, ‘new saw blade’…yes, all was present and correct. Donald drove on happy and content in his mind that he had not forgotten anything after all.

When Donald arrived home there was his young daughter Morag waiting at the croft door. She came running out to meet her father excitedly shouting, ‘Daddy, Daddy, did you remember my present?’ ‘Yes’, said Donald, handing it over to a delighted Morag. But then, after a moment or two, Morag turned to her father and said, ‘Daddy…where’s Mummy?’

This is an amusing story but it highlights the point of that which God will never do—He will never leave you; nor forsake you. God can never be absent-minded or forgetful. The burning bush reminds us of God’s commitment to His people.

18) WATER

‘Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ’

^{John 4: 13-14.}

^{Have you ever seen a frog in church? We do get a lot of rain in Lochaber, don’t we, which is ideal weather conditions for frogs—but have you ever seen a frog in church? No! But sometimes you have heard one—haven’t you? Haven’t you!? Yes, sometimes there is a ‘frog’ in church and it lives inside my throat! And it goes ‘croak, croak’ every now and again!}

^{In order to get rid of this ‘frog in my throat’ (should it appear) there is a glass of water in the pulpit every Sunday so that if I’m ‘croaky’ when I’m speaking I can have a drink of water to put the ‘frog’ away. The water in the pulpit is also there in case I’m thirsty from speaking too much—I don’t think I speak too much—do you think I speak too much?—because I hardly ever use the water. Nevertheless, it is there should I need it.}

^{One thing is for sure—I could not and you could not survive without water. We shouldn’t complain too much about the rainy weather because without rain we would have no water and we and everything else would die.}

^{When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well He said to her something that was quite extraordinary, didn’t He? What did He say? He said: ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst again. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life’.}

^{Water will quench natural thirst but after drinking it we will thirst again and again. Yet without water we would die or if we have only a little water we will be ‘parched’—made weak, having no energy to play (games or do anything energetic)—we would have no vibrant natural life in us.}

^{When Jesus speaks about giving to us water that will cause us never to thirst again He is speaking about things at a spiritual level—a water that quenches our spiritual thirst and enables us to be vibrant spiritually—never to be parched or jaded but to live lives that are pleasing to God and fully satisfying to ourselves.}

^{Ordinary water can run out but the water Jesus gives is an everlasting spring in our hearts whereby God sustains us spiritually here on earth with a view to taking us to heaven—we shall never thirst because we have been given a spiritual new birth never to die. The water that Jesus gives is quite different in that ordinary water is for the body—but the water Jesus gives is for the soul. Jesus gives us of Himself for in John 14: 6 He is the way, the truth and the life and no man comes to the Father but through Him.}

^{The eternity that is within man (Ecc. 3: 11) can only be filled by the eternal God. Man without God will never be fully satisfied by the things of the world—he will thirst again—but only Jesus can satisfy man’s soul.}

19) THE APPEARANCE

‘Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false.’

Psalm 24: 3-4

One of the important things of any building is its appearance. The appearance of a place speaks about what sort of people live there. It is important that we keep our homes nice and clean. It is important for us to keep our church nice and clean too because not only do we not want to sit in dirty pews or have filthy carpets and windows but the appearance of our church tells others about how much we appreciate our church building and more importantly it is a reflection of what respect we have for God Himself.

Now, girls and boys, the true Church is not made up of things like bricks, windows, a floor and a roof. The real Church of Jesus Christ is actually His people: those who ‘believe in the Lord Jesus Christ’. And one of the important things about the living Church of Jesus Christ is that it has ‘clean hands’ and a ‘pure heart’. This isn’t so much about an outward appearance but how clean we are on the inside, which does show itself on the outside.

To have a clean living Church is not about cleaning our teeth or washing behind our ears or putting on clean clothes. Though I’m sure you have all cleaned your teeth this morning—let’s see those teeth!—and you all wash regularly, and I can see that you are all smartly dressed for Sunday School. But what I really mean is, are we clean before God on the inside?

It is nice to be smart on the outside—I’m sure if we went to visit the Queen we would make a big effort and have a bath and put on our best clothes. How much more should we put in a smart appearance for Jesus who is King of the Church? Having said that what is important is to remember that God sees into our hearts. It is our appearance before God—how God sees us—that is absolutely important.

Our ladies do a great job in keeping the appearance of our church building up to scratch but there are some parts of our church building that the ladies can’t reach. Every now and then we need to get in a specialist with a ladder or scaffolding to reach the awkward high places where dust gathers; and sometimes we need to use a paintbrush instead of a duster

Likewise when it comes to cleaning our hearts we need to invite God into our hearts to cleanse them because we can’t reach into our heart to do it for ourselves. We clean the outside—I hope!—but only God can clean the inside—our hearts—but He does this when we are sorry for our wrong thoughts, words and deeds. Only through our trust in Jesus and our obedience in following Jesus can we have a clean heart that will make our hands do that which is pleasing to God. Then we will have an appearance that tells others that we love God.

Out of a pure heart we will have clean hands because our heart will be right before God giving to us right actions, attitudes and motives. More especially by having a pure heart and clean hands we will be able to meet with God—‘ascend the hill of the LORD’. This is an Old Testament passage, which is speaking about the hill of Zion with the temple of the LORD on it. But Jesus, in the New Testament, in a similar way said that the ‘pure in heart . . . will see God’ (Mt. 5: 8).

It is, therefore, very important for us to appear before God with a pure heart and clean hands and to let our light shine before men, that they may see our good deeds and praise our Father in heaven. (Mt. 5: 16.)

20) THE BRUSH

‘ “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?” ’

Luke 15: 8-10.

‘Work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.’

Philippians 2: 12.

Last week we spoke about the importance of the appearance of a place and the need for us to appear before God with ‘a pure heart and clean hands’. So we need to continue to sweep out our hearts of all that is impure and which so easily spoils our relationship with God.

One of the things we clean the church with is a brush. I wonder if there is any part of Scripture that you can think of that has mention of a brush in it? Well, while I can find mentions of ‘sweep’ and ‘sweeping’ I can’t find any mention of a brush anywhere in the Bible. However, in Luke 15: 8 there is a woman sweeping her house and she obviously sweeps using a brush as she looks for a lost coin.

The lost coin is very precious to her. Either she hasn’t much money and the coin is required to pay her bills (it is a drachma coin worth about one day’s wages (Mt. 20: 2) or, more likely, as she already has 9 other silver coins, that the missing tenth coin is part of a set that make up a necklace possibly given to her by her husband when they were married and, if she is now a widow, it would have sentimental value as well as being precious. We are told that the woman searches diligently. Houses in Bible lands often had no windows and only earth floors, so the search for something small quite difficult.

Probably this parable should be taken along with the other two parables in the same chapter: the lost sheep and the lost son. These stories taken together undoubtedly teach us about the work of the three members of the Trinity in the work of salvation. Remember, some time ago, we tried to think of as many things as possible that were one yet three. We did this to help us understand that although God is one God He is three Persons—the Trinity or Godhead: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In the first story we have the shepherd looking for his lost sheep. This reminds us of Jesus, the Son of God, the Great Shepherd who has come to search for and save His people. The third story reminds us of God the Father who waits with longing for his lost children to come to Him. Therefore, the woman, in the second of the three parables, might stand for God the Holy Spirit ‘searching’ the world for the children that are precious to God.

While we may say that the three parables tell us about the Trinity’s great love for the lost, we may not say that God does not already know where we are and what we get up to! But once the Holy Spirit has shown us the Father’s love of sending Jesus His Son to save us, and of the Son’s willingness to come to seek and find the lost, we are told that we need to ‘work out our salvation in fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.’ (Phil 2: 12.)

God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—alone gives to us eternal life yet we are involved in our own salvation by continuing to ‘sweep’ out our hearts with the help of God the Holy Spirit. The woman would not stop until the coin was found. And we are not to stop sweeping our heart until God takes us home to Paradise and the great day of overwhelming joy when all the family of God are together forever.

Only God can save us and take us to heaven but we have our responsibilities to will and to act according to His good purpose. We need to get out the ‘brush’ and sweep away our sins placing them under the precious blood of the Great Shepherd who was even willing to die for the sheep to return them to God the Father by the power of God the Holy Spirit.

21) THE STAIN

‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.’

1 John 1: 9.

I wonder if you noticed that there is something new in the vestibule (the small room that we come into where the elders and deacons meet you at the front door)? I don’t suppose you noticed—I certainly never until I had it pointed out to me—but there is something new in that room. It’s not easy to spot because it’s on the ceiling! Do you know what it is? No, it’s not a spider because a spider would not be something new for the vestibule. There’s a spider there most weeks even although we keep putting it back outside! No, the something new is a stain on the ceiling!

How on earth did it get there? Was someone ‘fooling’ around—during an activity time—and threw something at someone else only for that something to hit the ceiling and leave a mark? No! So, how did it get there? Yes, it has come from a leak in the church roof.

O dear! What will we do? There’s a hole in the church roof! Do you think that the best thing to do would be to paint over the stain with some emulsion? What do you think? Painting it over certainly sounds like a great idea but will it work? Yes—but only for a short time. Why? Because the roof will still be leaking won’t it? So what will be the best thing to do? Yes, that’s right. We will need to have the roof repaired to stop the leak and then we can paint over the stain and it will stay clean.

I think that this is a good illustration of how it can be with us when it comes to what the Bible calls ‘sin’—the things that we have done wrong that leave a ‘stain’ before God’s eyes. How are we to get rid of this stain and that which causes it? What does the Bible say? Does it tell us to ignore the real problem and ‘paint’ over our sins by doing something good? No! The Bible tells us that the only way to remove the ‘stain’ and deal with that which causes it is to trust in Jesus Christ—to be forgiven (the stain removed) and the cause of or sin (our fallen nature) repaired—new creatures in Christ.

Now, of course, even those who love Jesus will always, in this world, do, think and say things that are wrong, just as our church roof will always have the potential to spring a leak even after it has been repaired. Christians continue to sin (but not deliberately) but when they do they don’t ‘paint’ them over but come to God the Father through Jesus to ask Him to forgive their ongoing sin and to help them ‘plug the leak’ to prevent them from making the stain even bigger.

Doing one right thing does not take away one wrong thing. Jesus is the only One (the only Substitute and Sacrifice—atonement to give us at-one-ment with God) who removes the stain caused by sin and gives to us a new nature as we wait for the day when we will be with Him and be like Him (1 John 3: 2) with no more ‘stain’ or possibility of a ‘leaking roof’ ever!

22) THE SPIDER (1)

‘God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.’

Genesis 1: 31a.

‘Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid.” ’

^{Genesis 3: 8-10a}

Our church cleaners do a very good job of cleaning the church and hall. However, there is a problem in keeping the church and hall clean because there are ‘things’ that think the church and hall is their home and sometimes like us—in our bedroom perhaps—they think they can mess the place up a bit and get away with it! But what are these ‘things’?

In the next few weeks I will tell you what these ‘things’ are starting this week with a ‘thing’ that has its own ‘web site’ in the church and in the hall. What can this ‘thing’ be? Ah! A spider!

I’m quite sure that we can’t help noticing that from time to time there is a spider on the wall of the church. In fact it is usually a very BIG spider, isn’t it! A spider has, believe it or not, eight legs! I don’t know how many eyes it has! I think there are some kinds of spiders that have more eyes than others. Perhaps if you are brave enough you could take a look and let me know how many eyes our church spiders have! Spiders in this country won’t do us any harm but that doesn’t mean that we are not afraid of them. I’m sure you’re not afraid but some people have nightmares about spiders. I believe that there was even a movie called, ‘Arachnophobia’ (the fear of spiders).

To be afraid is not a pleasant thing. God did not make us to be afraid and He doesn’t want us to be afraid but we can be afraid of many things—especially ‘things’ that we call ‘creepy crawlies’. Why do you think this is the case? God made His entire creation perfect (Genesis 1: 31) and man and woman (Adam & Eve) were in perfect fellowship with God. But when they disobeyed God they immediately became afraid and hid in the Garden where God had placed them. God came to Adam and said, ‘Why did you hide?’ And Adam said, ‘Because I was afraid’.

After this most of the animal creation became afraid of man (Genesis 9: 2) and man became afraid of some of the creation. I wonder who would be the most afraid if, when out for a walk one day, we met a lion! Would we be more frightened of the lion or would the lion be more frightened of us? I don’t think I would like to try it—would you?

Now that we live in a world that is not perfect it is understandable if we are afraid—even of a small spider, never mind these big ones we get here in the church from time to time. But what is particularly sad is that when Adam and Eve disobeyed God they were then afraid of God. God does not want us to be afraid of Him, therefore, so that we can still be friends with God, He gave to Adam and Eve the promise of a Saviour to come (Genesis 3: 15) who would bring peace and not fear between man and God. Do you know who the Saviour was who was promised?

The Saviour, who has now come and will come again, is God’s Son, Jesus. Jesus lived and died and was raised to life again to bring friendship (Rom. 5: 11; 2 Cor. 5: 19) between man and God. After Jesus rose from the dead, having completed all that God the Father asked Him to do, He came to His disciples and…Do you know what He said? ‘Fear not!’ or ‘Peace be with you’ (John 20: 19, 21). Jesus removes our ‘fear’ of God because He takes away the things (our sins) that displease God and prevent us from having friendship with God.

The promise of God is that one day Jesus is going to come back and give to God’s people a new Paradise—a new heaven and earth (Rev. 21: 1, 5). I don’t know if there will be spiders in the Paradise that God has promised to all who love Jesus, but if there are we will not be afraid of them or anything else for there will be no more fear for the old way of things will have gone (Rev. 21: 4); and more importantly we will not be afraid of God because when we believe in Jesus, God becomes our closest Friend and we can look forward to seeing God, in Jesus, face to face (Rev.22: 4a) never to hide from Him as Adam and Eve did.

23) THE SPIDER (2)

‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.’

^{Ephesians 2: 8-10.}

Last week we spoke about being afraid—even of a harmless spider; and of how, more especially and sadly, we can be afraid of God because we have disobeyed Him. There is, however, a ‘fear’ of God that is a good fear because this ‘fear’ means to have a loving reverence for God through being obedient to His commandments.

We cannot, however, please God or be friends with God if we haven’t got what the Bible calls ‘faith.’ We may well, therefore, ask the question, ‘What is faith?’

I remember a time when I was preaching in Mull when a spider came down from the ceiling and stopped just in front of my nose, but it was just too far away from me to prevent me reaching out and removing it; so I had to preach the rest of the sermon with this spider dangling in front of my nose!

In the providence of God it happened to be that I was speaking to the congregation about ‘What is Faith?’ and so this spider provided me with a live illustration of what faith is like. So, ‘What is faith like?’ Let us try to answer this question by using each of the letters that make up the word ‘faith’ to teach us five truths about what faith is:

1. F—stands for ‘fear’. To have fear of the Lord (a loving reverence that includes submission to God’s Word) is the beginning of wisdom. (Ps 111: 10; Ecc. 12: 13.)

2. A—stands for ‘accepts’. Faith accepts the salvation offered to us from God by receiving Jesus. (Rom. 3: 22-26.)

3. I –stands for ‘inclines’. Faith ‘inclines’ (gives attention) to God and His Word—‘the beginning of wisdom’.

4. T—stands for ‘triumphs’. Faith, in the power of Jesus, triumphs. Faith says, ‘I can do all things

through him who gives me strength’. (Phil. 4: 13.)

5. H—stands for ‘holds on’. Faith enables us to continue to follow Jesus even although there may be

difficulties on the way to heaven. (Acts 14: 22.) ‘It is by faith you stand firm’ (2 Cor. 1: 24c).

We come back now to our spider. The spider ‘holds on’. The spider in Mull as everywhere else did not simply ‘float’ down from the ceiling but was attached to the ceiling by a single strand of silk made by the spider. This silk is very strong and does not rot because it has special substances in it that give the spider’s silk thread strength and durability.

God gave the spider its ability to make such a strong thread and it is God who gives to us our faith yet we are the ones who have to use faith to ‘attach’ ourselves to heaven through believing in Jesus Christ. In fact, through faith—our attachment to Jesus—we are already said to be in heavenly realms with Christ Jesus (Eph. 2: 6). We have a ‘line’ to heaven. We are attached to Jesus who is as our anchor firm and secure in heaven (Heb. 6: 19-20).

We are to hold on to Jesus by faith. But at the same time we are to be active in our faith because when we look at God’s Word we learn that it tells us to be ‘doers of the Word’ and not hearers only (all ears and no hands—able to listen but not willing to act). Abraham obeyed God and was called God’s friend. (James 1: 22; 2: 14ff.)

In being active in our faith we have the assurance that we are God’s friends and this too helps us to remove the ‘fear’ of God and replace it with ‘fear’ (reverence) for God.

24) THE SPIDER’S WEB

‘His feet thrust him into a net and he wanders into its mesh. A trap seizes him by the heel; a snare holds him fast. A noose is hidden for him on the ground; a trap lies in his path.’

^{Job 18: 8-10.}

‘Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil.’

Proverbs 3: 5-7

We have said something about the spider as one of the ‘things’ that live in our church but let us now say something about the spider’s web. What is a spider’s web?

The spider’s web is a trap! Spiders have little tubes called ‘spinnerets’ that squirt out liquid silk that flows out when the spider presses the spinneret against something. The strands of silk are so thin and difficult to see that a fly gets caught unexpectedly and once it is in the spider’s web and starts to struggle the more entangled it becomes.

What does this remind us of? The Bible on more than one occasion speaks of the trap set by the devil (1 Tim. 3: 7; 2 Tim. 2: 26) and also traps set by men (e.g. Ps. 140: 5; Ob. 1: 7) as well as the traps of worldliness such as the love for money (1 Tim. 6: 9).

We can easily enough get caught in such traps, or make traps for ourselves, if we behave like the unwise person in Job 18: 8-10 who does not look to God for wisdom like the person in Proverbs 3: 1-7. If we are not careful we will not see these traps and once we fall into them we will be in real trouble.

We are to ‘fear the LORD and shun evil.’ We have already learned that to ‘fear’ God is to have reverence for Him and for His Word: among other things we are not to tell lies and we are to be kind to our neighbours and friends. I’m sure we don’t tell lies but, just as a fly gets caught in a spider’s web because it hasn’t noticed the danger, so too we can get caught telling a lie that lands us in trouble and if we don’t own up it may well land us in deeper trouble.

Let’s say we have some friends round for some fun, food and drink and there is an accident. You accidentally knock over (through being knocked over yourself) a tumbler full of blackcurrant juice on the white bedroom carpet and in trying to cover the matter up you try to rub it off but make the mark worse than it was—and when the mess is discovered by Mam or Dad and you are asked, ‘Who is responsible for this mess?’ you say something like, ‘It wasn’t me!’ we pass the blame on to someone who is innocent or we blame ‘Mr. Nobody.’ ⁵ We break God’s commandments because we, indirectly, blame one of our friends and we have told a lie.

I’m as guilty as any one else for saying (in one way or another) ‘Mr. Nobody must have done it’ because when I say ‘It wasn’t me’ my wife says, ‘We must have an addition to our family because if you didn’t do it, and I didn’t do it and our children didn’t do it there must be someone else living in our house—Mr. Nobody!’

Is there a Mr. Nobody living in your house I wonder? ‘Nobody’ makes mistakes. ‘Nobody’ breaks anything. ‘Nobody’ makes a mess…except Mr. Nobody! But we all know that there is no such person as Mr. Nobody. Mr. Nobody is just an imaginary person we use to excuse ourselves of our own mistakes and wrongdoing.

The problem with Mr. Nobody is that he can make us dishonest—sometimes we don’t know how that mark got on the bedroom carpet, or on Dad’s car, but sometimes Mr. Nobody helps us to cover up the truth by making us tell lies and blame someone else. Usually we will still be found out and end up in deeper trouble than if we had just told the truth and owned up in the first place—after all, accidents do happen.

Besides, God knows the truth—we can’t fool Him. Therefore, let us follow the way of wisdom and not get caught in any web, net, mesh, trap, snare or hidden noose; but instead ‘trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil.’

25) THE ‘HOOVER’

‘The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man.’

Genesis 6: 5-6a.

‘But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.’ Titus 3: 4-7.

The church cleaners will agree with me that the spiders’ webs, which we spoke about last week, are a right nuisance. They may catch flies but if they have been around for a long time—remember what we discovered about the spider’s silk thread which it ‘spins’ to make its web: it’s not only very strong but it does not rot because of special substances in it; they become very dirty because dust sticks to them; and they are usually awkward to remove, especially in a church which has lots of high ceilings which are easy enough for spiders to reach but poor ‘Mrs. Mop’ the cleaner has great difficulty getting up that high to take the spiders’ webs away.

In fact without special equipment these awkward places would never get cleaned. One piece of special equipment is our vacuum cleaner. The man who invented the vacuum cleaner was Mr. H. C. Booth. It must have been very hard work cleaning carpets and floors and reaching up to those awkward bits with the ‘Hoover’s’ extension before the invention of the vacuum cleaner.

For some reason most people call vacuum cleaners ‘Hoovers’—at least I do. But not all vacuum cleaners are ‘Hoovers’ although all ‘Hoovers’ are vacuum cleaners! There is a tendency to call all makes of vacuum cleaners ‘Hoovers’—unless of course you’ve got a Dyson! How many of you have a Dyson at home? How do you fancy taking it down to try on the church carpets? We are always looking for new volunteers to clean the church!

I’m not being serious although I’m sure Mum (or even Dad!) would be glad of a helping hand at home; but there is no need for you to get your hands dirty doing such things down here in the church for we have adults who are willing to do this.

Now, this morning, I want you to remember that the true Church of Jesus Christ is not an actual building made with brick and mortar—having an odd spider’s web in it—but is in actual fact all the people who love the Lord Jesus Christ—the living Church. Some people might think that they can become members of the living Church by making themselves clean—improving their lives, getting rid of the odd spider’s web, so to speak—doing good things and by being pleasant people saying nice things. Such things are very commendable and do make us look good on the outside, but the problem with man is that not only has he a fallen nature which he can’t change but he is so unholy before a holy God that by his own efforts he cannot clean his heart to a level that would please God. Before God the inside of our lives have much more than an odd ‘spider’s web’ to deal with—but who can ‘Hoover’ such a dirty place?

The Great Specialist at renewing and cleaning hearts is God the Holy Spirit. We see in this God’s great love for us—for He hates sin—when He is willing to come into our dirty hearts to clean them. But even after having our hearts washed we still ‘grieve’ God when we allow ‘spiders’ webs’ (the things we do and think and say that we shouldn’t) to gather in our hearts. Therefore we need to continually come to God asking Him, the Specialist, to forgive us our sins and to give us the strength to keep our hearts clean.

‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.’ 1 John 1: 9.

‘

God the Father planned salvation and sent His Son to accomplish it, God the Son was willing to come and carry out the Father’s plan, and God the Holy Spirit is willing to apply the merits of the Son’s finished work to us. On the basis of the finished work of the Son of God, God the Father sincerely offers eternal life to all whom the gospel of good news comes and all who accept that offer will be saved (Jn. 3: 16).

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your body.’

^{1 Corinthians 6: 19-20.}

26) THE MOUSE

‘Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” ’

Matthew 16: 23.

‘How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word.’

^{Psalm 119: 9.}

We have been speaking about keeping the church clean and because our church building is kept clean I want you to spare a thought for the poor church mouse. The place is so clean that apart from the odd sweetie or Pan-drop that gets dropped on the floor by accident there can’t be very much for a mouse to eat—hence the saying ‘as poor as a church mouse’.

I don’t think we have any mice in the church—I certainly hope not and I’m sure the church cleaners wouldn’t like to meet a mouse when they are brushing out the corners of the church or hall. But if we had mice in the church we would probably put a trap down like this one.

There is a story about a little mouse called Willie ⁶ who was warned not to go near a mousetrap. Every time he saw a mousetrap he was to remember what happened to his uncle Hector who had the front part of his nose chopped off because he got too close (ouch!). Now he can’t smell if there is even a sweetie left behind on the church floor!

In using the mousetrap I’ve taken along with me today let’s set it up using this part of the trap (the arm that holds open the trap with the bait on it until it is triggered releasing the part which actually traps the mouse) which we may call the ‘skandalon—or ‘stumbling block’.

The Greek word ‘skandalon’ has different uses in the Bible but what we need to bear in mind here is that if we are not careful in life we can be tempted by the ‘cheese’ and not notice the ‘trip-wire’ (the ‘skandalon’) that is going to trap us into some kind of ‘scandal’. If we get too close to the ‘cheese’ we may be overcome by its delights and take a bite and then (pushing the ‘skandelon’ with a pencil) ‘BANG! We are caught!

We have to watch out for ‘traps’ that can ruin our lives and especially our friendship with God. Peter did not realise it but he was placing a stumbling block, a trap of temptation in front of Jesus, not to go up to Jerusalem to carry out the plan of God the Father’s to save His people from their sins; but Jesus recognised the trap as a lure to take Him away from God’s will for Him. Peter’s advice did not agree with what the Scriptures said the Messiah (Jesus) had to do. A temptation—a juicy piece of cheese on the trap—to lead Jesus into what would have been scandalous behaviour.

Jesus’ example to us is to follow the Scriptures and thereby carry out the will of God. We, therefore, have to be very careful about how we live our lives and how we view the so-called ‘pleasures’ of the world. We need to follow Jesus’ example and be good examples ourselves to others because we too can become a ‘scandalon’ (a ‘stumbling-block’) to others causing them to be trapped by our bad example—‘We put no stumbling-block in anyone’s path’ (2 Cor 6: 3). We are to live in accordance with the Word of God.

Remember Uncle Hector or this broken pencil and don’t go near sinful things because they will damage our lives, and perhaps the lives of others, and our relationship to God.

‘By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.’

^{Hebrews 11: 24-26.}

27) THE BUTTERFLY

^‘In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.^{” ’}

^{John 3: 3.}

We have already spoken about some of the ‘things’ that can be found living in our church. We spoke about the spider and, last week, the church mouse—not that we have actually seen a mouse in our church, nor would we want to. It’s one thing meeting a spider but no one would really like to meet a mouse—but if we did I wonder who would get the biggest fright: the mouse or the person spotting the mouse? What would you prefer to meet—a mouse or a spider!

But there is one creature that we find in our church from time to time and we are not in the least bit afraid of it—in fact apart from the distraction it can cause we are delighted to see it. It appears even on days when it is cold outside because the heat of the church wakens it up probably making it think that it’s summer time.

Can you guess what it might be? ‘A fly?’ ‘A fly’ is a very good guess but it isn’t quite right. ‘A butterfly?’ Yes, well guessed! A butterfly. It often hibernates in lofts, sheds and garages, and churches too are often a favourite place for them to go to sleep in. Let’s hope it is only the butterflies that go to sleep in church! Though it is good to come to church even if one falls asleep because, as a famous preacher once put it ‘one day those who fall asleep in church might be caught napping!’ ⁷

Do you know what is so amazing about butterflies? Any ideas? They come from caterpillars? Yes, isn’t that incredible? I suppose you have heard what one caterpillar said to the other caterpillar when a butterfly flew overhead? ‘You’ll never get me up in one of those things!’ Caterpillars, of course, don’t talk though they must communicate and have the instinct to do certain things like know the difference between one kind of plant and another. They just love Stinging Nettles! The female butterfly lays her eggs (80-200!) under the tender leaves of the young nettles and once the eggs hatch the caterpillars munch their way through the nettles—doesn’t sound very tasty does it? But I have heard of people making soup from nettles. The caterpillars have powerful jaws that are well able to chew plant leaves or flowers.

The young caterpillars grow and grow, changing (shedding) their skin now and again to allow them to grow bigger until they shed their skin for the last time to reveal a chrysalis underneath. It is in this chrysalis (which is a cocoon with a firm case) that something wonderful happens. The caterpillar’s body tissues are changed into a butterfly. The cocoon is like a ‘changing room’ where the caterpillar is converted into a butterfly.

If it were not for the fact that we can see that butterflies come from caterpillars we would probably never believe that such a thing was possible. The wonder of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly is illustrative of being ‘born again’—when we are changed, made new creatures in Christ Jesus. Through Jesus (Jn. 3: 16) we are converted, changed, the old is gone and the new has come.

The wonder of the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly is also illustrative of the promise believers in Jesus have of a renewed body that will, one day, be free from all sickness, pain and death.

‘So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body’

‘For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’

1 Cor 15: 42-44; 53-56.

Changed to be like Jesus for a new life in a new heaven and earth.

28) THE FLY

‘My steps have held to your paths; my feet have not slipped.’

Psalm 17: 5.

Last week we spoke about the ‘painted fly’ the butterfly but there is another fly that we find in the church and that’s the ordinary housefly or the rather annoying bigger flies that we call ‘blue-bottles’.

Have you ever tried to sneak up on a fly to catch it? If you have you will know just how hard it is to catch one.

Have you ever wondered how flies can walk upside down on the ceiling? Or like Spiderman walk up a wall or even a glass window? You might think that they have suckers on their feet but if that were the case I would be able to catch them because they would be too slow if they had to lift suction pads before taking off.

Instead each of their six legs have tiny claws and the pads at the end of each leg don’t have suckers but a kind of ‘non-stick clue’ that enables them to cling on, even to shiny surfaces like glass, and take off quickly. We see in this the work of a Designer—God.

God has designed us differently. If we want to climb up a wall then we will need to get out a ladder! But in the things of life the Bible tells us that we are to ‘hold on’ to the path that God instructs us to walk in.

The Bible often speaks of the path we are to walk in, and some references to the path or road we are not to walk in. ‘Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.’ (Matt. 7: 13-14.)

On the other hand, in Psalm 17: 5 it not only says, ‘My steps have held to your paths’ but also ‘my feet have not slipped.’ God has given to us something that stops our feet from sliding off the path He wants us to follow—the Bible. Furthermore God gives to us Himself. In Psalm 121: 3 it says, ‘He will not let your foot slip.’

We can’t be like the flies but we can be like the man who trusts in the LORD with all his heart and leans not on his own understanding; but in all his ways acknowledges God, and God will make his paths straight. (Prov. 3: 5-6.)

29) THE FOOTBALL

‘For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God’

^{1 Peter 3: 18a.}

We have recently been speaking about living creatures found in the church. I think I had better stop speaking about things like mice, spiders and flies in case I frighten people from coming out to church! In any case we don’t have any mice that I’m aware of and while we see an odd fly we are not troubled too much by them and most of our spiders appear to live in our equipment cupboards.

These equipment cupboards are interesting places—if you dare to open one, not because there might be a spider or two inside but in case something falls down on top of your head like this football! No doubt this football was stuffed into the cupboard after our Sunday School picnic; lying there waiting for some unsuspecting minister to open the cupboard and give him a fright when it ‘jumped’ out of the cupboard!

Now, it so happens, that its ‘football time’ at the moment isn’t it? All the ladies will be just delighted that it’s World Cup time again! Alas Scotland didn’t qualify this time around. Sometimes I wish that the Peles and Ronaldos of this world would have Scottish grannies and thereby they could quite legitimately pull on a Scotland shirt (the Peles and Ronaldos not the grannies!).

Sometimes (with no disrespect to those who can do what I never could) I wish that Scotland’s national team could have a substitute. But the problem then would be that if Scotland had a substitute and that substitute went on to win the World Cup that substitute nation would then get all the credit for winning the Cup and not Scotland.

The problem with ordinary substitution is that the substitute (and not the person or team who couldn’t play) gets the plaudits. This is where the substitution of Jesus Christ (living a perfect life, dying on the cross and being raised from the dead in the place of others) is so different from ordinary substitution because Jesus is not simply a substitute but a representative.

In footballing terms this would mean that the substitute would give the credit to the person or team not playing just as if they had played and won the Cup for themselves. Even if the team that wins the World Cup had represented Scotland, Scotland would never feel as if she had really won it; but by trusting in Jesus the victory over death (among other things) will actually be experienced by the person trusting in Jesus.

It would be nice to think on Scotland one day winning the World Cup but what I hope the most is that we are all, whatever nationality we are, in the winning team (the spiritual Israel from every nation, tribe and tongue) that is absolutely guaranteed the Crown of Righteousness that fades not away.

Jesus said: ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ (John 11: 25-26.) Be a winner over death—know the score! Pull on the shirt of Christ’s righteousness and be on the wining side over the world. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’

30) THE FIRE ESCAPE

‘And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.’

Matthew 18: 9.

‘This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.’

1 John 4: 10.

There is something new in the church today. Have you noticed what it is? That’s right—we have new signs above some of our doors such as the sign above the door that leads out to the small halls where you go for your Sunday School classes. This is because we have just had new emergency lights and signs put into the church to comply with safety regulations.

The new sign beneath our new light says, ‘Fire Escape’. I do hope we never ever have to use that door as an escape from fire but it is a very good thing that our Deacons’ Court is thinking about our safety: fire is a good thing in its right place but otherwise it is very dangerous.

The Bible speaks of a different kind of fire which it calls ‘hell’. We don’t talk about hell very much because it’s not a very nice subject; yet Jesus spoke about hell more than anyone else and He likens it to a place of fire—a fire that never goes out. Not a pleasant place to be. But Jesus also informs us of how we may be saved from going to hell and of how we can enter into heaven—this is the ‘Good News’ of salvation, eternal life, through believing in Jesus as our Substitute and Sacrifice—an atonement for our sins reconciling us to a God offended because of our sins, and enabling God to adopt us into His family.

The problem with our sin is that it is not impersonal. Our sin has offended God our Creator, and that offence must be removed as well as having the price of our sins paid for. Let me put it this way: let’s say you invite me round to your home to show me something you have made—perhaps a model of a Spanish Galleon out of matchsticks. But what you don’t know is that I’ve made a Spanish Galleon out of matchsticks as well.

But your galleon is much better than mine so I become very jealous and accidentally (on purpose) trip on the rug in your hobby room and fall on top of your pride and joy and destroy it! Now even if I come to my senses again and say I’m very sorry and that I’ll give you my Spanish Galleon in place of your one or I’ll pay for the damage, you will probably never speak to me again. Even if you are of a forgiving nature I’m hardly going to be invited round for a cup of tea again far less be adopted into your family. Why not? Because you have been offended; even if I went to jail for what I did you would still be offended.

This is the way it is with God—we have put our fist through His pride and joy—His creation—and the penalty for doing so is death (Gen. 2: 17)—spiritual, physical and eternal death (hell). But the ‘Good News’ is that while the wages of sin is death the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus (Rom. 6: 23). This means that in Jesus’ atonement He not only pays for the crime but removes the offence as well. God has been offended because of our sin but the offence has been removed and so we are adopted into God’s family as His friends. God’s righteous indignation must be dealt with and it is dealt with through Jesus’ atonement giving us ‘one-ment’ with God.

Of course the atoning sacrifice of Jesus is only ours if we appropriate it by faith (Acts 16: 30-31; Jn.3: 16). In John 14: 6 Jesus says, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ Jesus is the ‘door’ that leads to salvation and to heaven—the greatest ‘fire escape’ of all! Going through our door will take you to Sunday School or coming into the church through the front door will take you into this church building but only through Jesus can you and I enter into heaven–eternal life.

In coming through our church doors you will be taught about Jesus; but only by accepting Him as your Lord, Saviour and Friend will you find that Jesus is the ‘door’ that will take you to the heavenly mansions:

‘In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.’

John 14: 2-3.

31) THERMOMETER OR THERMOSTAT?

‘Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another–and all the more as you see the Day approaching.’

^{Hebrews 10: 25.}

I hope that you are all nice and warm down here at the front of the church? As you know we have been having problems regulating the church’s temperature—usually it has been too cold at the front of the church and too hot at the back. But we now have new heaters; and a new thermostat that regulates the heat in the heaters. We will still have to keep an eye on the church’s thermometer to ensure that we are maintaining a constant and even temperature throughout the church by having the thermostat at the right setting.

Thermometers only record the temperature whereas thermostats both read the temperature and change it when necessary. This makes me wonder if a passive thermometer (not able to do anything other than know how hot or cold it is) or an active thermostat (able not only to know the temperature but to change it for the better) best illustrates my spiritual life?

What would you rather be—a thermometer or a thermostat? Would you prefer to be someone who only knows what is wrong—that our land is morally and spiritually ‘cold’—but can’t do anything about it, or be someone who not only knows what is wrong but also has the power to change it for the better?

To be an influence for the spiritual and moral good of our land is not easy but Jesus has given to His Church His Word, prayer and the coming together, as we do today, to be spiritually strengthened. We call these things ‘the means of grace’ or ‘the ordinances’. This includes the likes of the Lord’s Supper, which we will to speak about later in our look at things in and around the church.

These things are called ‘ordinances’ because they are the ways in which God ordinarily speaks to us and spiritually empowers us. They are called the ‘means of grace’ because just as a car (a vehicle) was the means by which you came to Sunday School today so these ordinary things are the vehicle by which God speaks to us and spiritually strengthens us.

Many, however, appear to believe that the power of God is to be found in the unusual or extra-ordinary things that can happen to the people of God—like what happened to the apostle Paul on the Damascus Road. They look for something rare or special to give them a spirit-empowered life.

Dramatic and special things do happen to people; but if we are not using the ‘ordinary’ things that God has given us (such as the Bible and prayer and meeting together) we are in danger of growing powerless because Jesus communicates to us the benefits of all that He has done for us through the preaching of the Word of God, the administration of the sacraments, and through prayer. Besides we are not promised the extra-ordinary but the ordinary (Mt 28: 20; Acts 2: 42; 1 Cor 3: 6; 2 Pet 1: 10). We may wait forever for the unusual, and spiritually wither away while we wait.

The gospel gives to us, by God the Holy Spirit, the inward graces of repentance and faith. But the ordinances (the ordinary things) are outward means (vehicles) through which the benefits of redemption are ordinarily communicated to believers. We must not suppose that we can neglect the means of grace without harming ourselves. It is for this reason that the Scriptures warn us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together and that, while we must not neglect personal Bible reading and prayer, we must not think that we can get by without regular attendance where the Lord’s ordinances are being faithfully kept, “for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore” (Ps 133: 3). ‘Where the two or three are gathered there is Jesus in the midst’ (Mt 18: 20).

Our church’s old thermostat is now unable to read the temperature far less change it. Why? Because it has had its power shut off. I cannot say that I feel particularly powerful but I do know that without maintaining a spiritual link to the All Sufficient Powerhouse by the ordinary means of grace I would be as good as the old thermostat—completely powerless. At least a ‘thermometer’ knows the signs of the times but may God keep us all in His grace, and that we would be found diligently using the means of grace, that we might each actively make a difference in the morally and spiritually cold world we live in as we wait for the Day when Jesus will return.

32) THE RADIATOR

‘You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.’

Matthew 5: 14.

‘Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” ’

Matthew 22: 37-39.

‘A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.’

John 13: 34.

I hope you are all nice and warm this morning. As we said last week we have had our heating fixed and we have, along with rewiring the old heaters under the pews, installed two new radiator type heaters in this part of the church and one in the vestry and two in the big hall. During the winter months we are going to leave these radiator heaters on all the time to keep the building warm. It will cost a little extra to leave them on but it will work wonders for the fabric and well-being of our church and halls.

The heaters under the pews radiate heat whereas the new ones let heat out but either way they all ‘radiate’. To ‘radiate’ means to ‘emit’ something, to let out something such as heat or light.

Christians are to be like radiators because we are to emit warmth and light that will be of benefit—morally and spiritually—to the world we live in and to spread the message of ‘whoever believes in Jesus will never perish but have eternal life.’ Jesus tells us that His followers are ‘the light of the world’ and that they are to show love (‘warmth’) to one another and to others as Jesus showed love to them.

When we think on the love of Jesus we see that is was a sacrificial love in that He was willing even to die for us. ‘Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends’ (Jn. 15: 13). Therefore, the very least we can do is to show love to one another and when ever possible to show love and kindness to others. This will do the true Church (the people of God) good. It will keep us warm towards one another and at the same time we will act as light (giving guidance and even warning like a lighthouse) showing forth the love of Jesus to others—a city on a hill that cannot be hidden.

^{Unlike leaving the church heating on, it will cost us nothing to be warm and considerate to one another and to others. It cost Jesus a great deal to love us—even to die on the cross. But through what He has done in His life, death and resurrection from the dead, and in His going to heaven (His ascension) to the all glorious and sovereign position of all authority at God the Father’s right hand (His session) He sends from there His Spirit (God the Holy Spirit) as an engagement present to His Bride, the Church, to be with her until the Church is with Him.}

^{Having Jesus with us and within us—by His Spirit—gives us the power to ‘radiate’. The power to be warm, loving, considerate—to ‘shine’ for Jesus in the darkness of the world to have guidance, comfort, love and the hope that comes from knowing Jesus for themselves through the Good News of eternal life by faith in Jesus.}

It is through Jesus that we can keep the two greatest commandments to love God with all of our heart, soul and mind and to love our neighbour as ourself. It is Jesus who gives the ‘thermostat’ (above) the power to change the spiritual and moral temperature of our land for the well-being of our neighbours and neighbourhood.

Stay ‘switched’ to Jesus and ‘radiate’—shine forth the love of Jesus!

33) THE LOOP SYSTEM

‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

Revelation 2: 7a.

We are doing well at the moment in our congregation for getting new things: new heaters, new wiring, new emergency lights and signs; and I wonder if today you have noticed a new sign on our Notice Board? It is a picture, or at least as symbol, of a person’s ear. What a strange sign to be on a Church Notice Board or anyone’s Notice Board! What do you think it is informing people about?

It informs people of a very important facility if one is hard of hearing. It is a symbol for our new Loop System that people with hearing difficulties can tune in to using their hearing aid.

When a gentleman came down from Inverness to install this new system he gave me a receiver which I placed in my ear and he spoke into the pulpit microphone to see if I could hear what he was saying if it was being picked up by the receiver in my ear. I’m not deaf but this was just a way of making sure that the system was working properly—and so it was.

I went back as far as I could from the microphone and when the gentleman spoke it was quite astonishing because it seemed as if he was speaking inside my head! I didn’t hear him on the outside at all but I heard him on the inside—how wonderfully weird!

This may be weird but it is a wonderful illustration of that which is not at all weird to those who are tuned in to God. When the Bible is read and preached we can hear what is being said outwardly—even those who are now hearing with the use of the Loop System are only hearing what is being said in an outward sense—but when we trust in Jesus we are, so to speak, given a receiver (a receptive heart) to hear the Word of God inwardly in our souls.

This ‘outward’ and ‘inward’ hearing is a bit like believing outwardly in the existence of Jesus—an acceptance that Jesus was a real figure of history—and the believing inwardly in Jesus as one’s Lord and Saviour—an inward acceptance of all that Jesus has done in our place; a trusting in Him for our salvation and a listening to Him, through His Word the Bible for Him to speak to our souls. We need to believe in Jesus not only with our heads (minds) but also with our hearts (souls). Only then will we be receptive to the Word of God and, in God’s strength, be willing and able to put it into practice.

The amazing thing about the Loop System is that it fills the church with that which the eye can’t see. A cable circles the listening area and carries a current from an amplifier that gets its signal from our microphone through our church’s sound system. The resulting electric current in the circle / loop produces a magnetic field, which corresponds to the sound. You can then pick up this magnetic field if you are sitting within the area of the circle / loop if one’s hearing aid is switched to the ‘T’ setting as indicated on our Church Notice Board sign. The receiver interprets the signal to produce the words aright.

I do not know very much about magnetic fields, signals and receivers but I know that the Loop System works when it is switched to the ‘T’ position; and I know that if I had a radio or a TV set and switched it on I would receive words and even, in the case of the TV, pictures. These words and pictures (and even my words through the Loop System) cannot be heard or seen without a receiver.

Some people say that they can’t believe in the existence of God because they can’t see or hear God. While it is true that we cannot literally see or hear God this does not mean that He is not here or can’t be ‘seen’ or ‘heard’. I can’t hear what is on the radio or see what is on TV but the words and pictures (or signals that give words and pictures) are nevertheless in this room—I need a receiver to see and hear.

Likewise God is in this room—as He is everywhere—but it is only if we have a ‘receiver’ (a heart or ears to hear) that we have a ‘receiver’ to ‘see’ and ‘hear’ God. Jesus said: ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

How do we receive the ‘receiver’ whereby we might ‘see’ and ‘hear’ God? We need a change of equipment! Not a new earpiece but a new heart! ‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.’ (Ezk.36: 26).

Only when we are turned ‘on’ to God—by trust in Jesus—will we be able to hear God speak to us in our hearts from His Word and see Him in Jesus and see His ‘hand’ upon all creation.

34) THE LIGHT

‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’

John 8: 12.

It might seem very strange to take things found in and around the church to help teach spiritual truths but Jesus did something similar when He taught using parables—the greatest stories ever told—using everyday things such as yeast, bread, seed, sheep, and people like the Prodigal Son to give spiritual understanding to those who were ‘hearing on the inside’ (cf. The Loop System.)

We come now to consider something that is quite easily seen in the church and I think gives to us a very easy association to Jesus Himself. Have you a bright idea as to what it might be? There are more than one in the church; and we need these things especially for the evening services mainly in the winter months. ‘The lights?’ Yes, the lights!

Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world’. Without Jesus we would all be sitting in spiritual darkness. We would not know what God is like. What is God like? Jesus said, ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father’. The Bible (Heb. 1: 3) tells us that Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being. The Bible also tells us that God Himself is light (1 Jn. 1: 5); and that Jesus is also the light from God that lights the way for life just as the pillar of fire lighted the way for the Israelites in the OT times. (Ex. 13:21; Ne. 9:12.) No wonder it was said of the people in Galilee, when Jesus came to them, that those who were living in darkness saw a great light and those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. (Mt. 4: 16.)

It would not be very pleasant sitting in here this morning without the lights on—even worse at night. It would be terrible to sit here in darkness—wouldn’t it? Would you come out to church if it was dark in here (remember those spiders!)? Even in the days when there was no electricity there would have been oil lamps to give light and I suppose people met earlier in the day when it was still bright outside to see where they were going when they went home. There would have been no streetlights or even car headlights. I think today we just don’t know how difficult it used to be to have no light or lamps like we have today.

Spiritually it is also, indeed more so, a terrible thing to be without light and especially to be without knowing Jesus as the Light of the world. Without Jesus we are still in spiritual darkness because without knowing Jesus we cannot know God.

When Jesus said (in our text) ‘I am’, the people (who had ears to hear) would have heard an echo of Ex. 3: 14 where God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ The shortened form of this name for God (‘I am’ cf. Ps. 50: 21) is here taken by Jesus; in so doing He claims to be God. Among many other attributes / qualities of God ‘God is light’ (1 Jn. 1: 5) and as Jesus is God as well as Man He is truly the Light of the world and just as the moon reflects the light of the sun so Jesus’ followers are to reflect His light in their lives (Mt. 5: 14; Phil. 2: 15). We can only do this if we have a heart for Jesus.

I have here two of the very large light bulbs that fit into the holders of the light fittings above our heads. The biggest bulbs we have in our lights at home are usually 100 watts in strength but because the church is a much bigger space than say our living rooms these bulbs are 300 watts in strength and so they let out a lot of light; but they can only do so if their filament on the inside of the bulb is not broken.

I have here a good bulb and a bad bulb but because I can’t see through the glass of the bulbs very clearly I can’t tell which one has a good ‘heart’ / filament and which one has a bad ‘heart’ / filament. The only way I can tell which is which is to ‘plug’ them in and turn on the power.

Outwardly two people—a Christian and a non-Christian—can look the same (like these two bulbs). So how can we tell them apart? Can we ‘plug’ them in? In a way we can. When we mention the name of Jesus one person will, so to speak, ‘light up’! Just as the light bulb needs a filament before it can work we need a heart for Jesus before we can receive the power of God to be ‘lights’ in the darkness.

While we need to remember one of the stories Jesus told about the Wheat and the Weeds (Mt. 13: 24ff.) in order to make us careful not to judge what is unseen, we can, nevertheless, expect to recognise Christians by their ‘lights’ (hearts) shining for Jesus.

35) THE ROOF / THE CEILING

‘Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.’

^{Luke 5: 18-19.}

If I asked you, ‘What story from the Bible does the ceiling or the roof of our church remind you of: what would you say?’

• Noah building a roof for the ark. (Gen. 6: 16.)

• Rahab hiding the spies on her roof. (Jos. 2: 6.)

• Samuel talking with Saul on the roof of his house. (1 Sam. 9: 25.)

• David and Nebuchadnezzer on their palace roofs. (2 Sam. 11: 2; Dan. 4: 29.)

• Elisha living in part of the roof of the well-to-do woman of Shunem. (2 Kings 4: 8.)

• The centurion who said to Jesus that he was not worthy that Jesus should come under his roof. (Mt.8: 8.)

• Peter went up on to the roof to pray. (Acts 10: 9.)

What it reminds me of—especially as our ceiling has tiles on it—is the story of the four men who came with the paralysed man and removed the tiles of the roof / ceiling in order to lower him on a mat down in front of Jesus because they could not get near to Jesus because of the large crowds.

A typical house in Israel had a flat roof accessible by an outside staircase. The roof was often made of clay supported by mats of branches across wood beams. So, did Jesus give them a telling off for ruining the roof!? No! Jesus was amazed at their faith. The roof could be repaired but the paralysed man could not be ‘repaired’—at least not by anyone but Jesus. But what is particularly interesting in the healing of this paralysed man is that Jesus healed him without even touching him.

Jesus simply yet profoundly said to the man, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven’ and the man was healed. Jesus then told him to pick up his mat and go home. The people were amazed; but the religious leaders, called the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, were not at all amused because they rightly said that only God can forgive sins and Jesus had said, ‘Friend your sins are forgiven’. The obvious conclusion to come to in the light of God allowing the man to be healed in such a way was that Jesus is God! But, sadly, the religious leaders would not even believe what their own Scriptures said about Jesus (the Messiah): ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel’ (Isa. 7: 14). This was fulfilled in the birth of Jesus when the angel told Joseph, ‘All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”–which means, “God with us.” ’ (Matt. 1: 22-23.)

We must take care not to be ‘religious’ like the keepers of the law and the Pharisees but instead we need to see from this story that Jesus is God as well as Man and that we should be like the men who took their friend to Jesus.

I’m sure that the paralysed man had faith for himself but nevertheless we are to be like the four men who took their friend to Jesus. We are to endeavour to bring friends to Jesus that they may have faith in Him and be spiritually healed having new life in them. You might have to wake some friends out of their beds to get them to come to church but at least you don’t need to break through the roof!

36) THE FLOOR

‘Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.’

Song of Songs 2: 15.

I’m very glad that you don’t have the worries that Mums and Dads sometimes have of having to pay for repairs when something unexpectedly breaks down in the home like the washing machine. Things also break down or are in need of repair in the church too. Last week we had an unexpected bill to pay. We discovered a leak in the roof above one of the toilets.

It was only a very small leak that only drips when it is raining but judging by the floorboards where the drip was landing it looks as if it has been going ‘drip, drip, drip’ for some considerable time. We have only now been able to notice the damage because the floor covering in the toilet was lifted last week and the damage underneath was then seen for the first time.

It has now been repaired but the cost of the repair will be money well spent because if we had just shrugged our shoulders and said ‘It’s only a small drip and it only drips when its raining therefore it can’t do much harm. Let’s not bother repairing it, it will be okay’, we would be very foolish in the extreme because small problems become big problems if they are not taken care of as soon as possible.

If we left this little drip of water to continue it would eventually cause a lot of damage—eventually there would be a hole in the floor or the floorboards would be so rotten that someone might go to the toilet and disappear through the floor!

Likewise if we ignore small sins in our lives and don’t come to God to have them ‘repaired’ then greater harm will be done; among other things our attractiveness before God and one another will be spoiled. I think that this is what is meant when it says in the Song of Songs, ‘Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.’ The ‘vineyards that are bloom’ is probably a metaphor for the physical beauty of the king and his bride. They are in their prime (‘in bloom’) and the desire is expressed that nothing be said or done to spoil their mutual attractiveness.

Jesus is the Bridegroom and the Church is His Bride and the Bride is not to mar her spiritual beauty by allowing ‘little things’ to turn into ‘big things’ just like the little insignificant foxes can in some way do much damage to the vines while they are in bloom spoiling the harvest’s potential.

If we don’t stop to ask forgiveness for our small sins they are in danger of becoming big sins. So-called ‘little things’ like ‘white lies’ if not dealt with will cause us to be in danger of eventually telling bigger lies. Being boastful, being a cheat or being impolite may seem to be unimportant but such things will ‘grow’ and cause us to have moral and spiritual ‘rot’ in our lives that are real hindrances to our fellowship with God and one another. Besides just a small blemish on our spiritual complexion will spoil our attractiveness of being like Jesus or being seen to be one of Jesus’ disciples.

Lately the Space Shuttle due to take off from Cape Canaveral was delayed for 5 weeks not because of major engine failure but because two woodpeckers had drilled holes into the protective layer above the fuel tank. Small holes like small drips or the small damage done by ‘little foxes’ don’t seem to matter but they do because they can land us in deep trouble. (2 Sam. 11: 2ff.)

If we ‘repair’ / take care of the small blemishes, sins and faults (the little ‘drips’), in our lives everything else will look after itself.

37) THE WALLS

‘You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2: 5.

‘Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.’

^{Ephesians 2: 19-22.}

The walls of our church are made of bricks because we can see some bricks at the lower part of the outside walls. There may be concrete blocks and poured concrete in the walls as well and I’m sure metal reinforcing to make the concrete strong.

The living Church of Jesus Christ is also made of ‘bricks’ or at least ‘living stones’. The members of God’s household are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building (the living Church) is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. We are, in Jesus, being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.

In 1849 a man by the name of Joseph Monier tried placing iron bars into concrete to give the concrete strength for the purpose of building bridges, dams and high buildings. The idea was very successful and is still used today in the building industry. Joseph Monier was a gardener who had earlier tried to make larger flowerpots out of clay but found that without wire mesh in the mix the sides of the flowerpots collapsed.

Our church building is, no doubt like other buildings, made strong by having iron in the concrete but the living Church, the body (people) of Jesus, is made strong by the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit. The living Church is so strong that Jesus says that the gates of hell (the strongest force of evil imaginable) cannot prevail against it. A concrete or cemented-together brick wall can be brought down but nothing—not even the devil himself—can destroy those who love Jesus.

The true Church is not literally bricks or stones, but is made up of individual people. This living building derives its life from Jesus, who is the original living Stone. The Holy Spirit, sent by Jesus, has made every ‘stone’ in the building alive. So if we are believers in Jesus we are ‘living stones’ that make up a spiritual temple in which, as a holy priesthood, we are to offer up spiritual sacrifices such as doing good deeds (not for salvation but out of having received salvation).

Being a spiritual temple we do, of course, praise God, and we give of our resources (as you give to the Sunday School collection and the Free Church Project to help others) for the sake of the glory of God and the good of the Church: ‘Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise–the fruit of lips that confess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased’ (Heb. 13: 15-16). Just as the moon reflects the light of the sun so we are to reflect the light of the Son of God to the world.

A single brick is strong but when all the ‘living stones’ of the living Church come together there is greater strength and greater blessing because Jesus has promised that where the two or three (or more) are gathered He is in the midst. Therefore, while it is possible to be a Christian on one’s own the real blessing is when believers come together as we have done this morning. ‘Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another–and all the more as you see the Day approaching’ (Heb. 10: 25).

38) THE WINDOWS

‘Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.’

^{1 Corinthians 13: 12.}

‘This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.’

^{Acts 2: 23.}

The windows of our church, even our stained-glass window, are opaque—you can’t see through them very clearly. They are not clear glass. You can only make out shadows of things or shapes of people when you look through them. This is how it is with a number things regarding eternal matters. For example we are not told every little detail about what heaven will be like but we are given enough information, in the Bible, to inform us that heaven will be greater than anything we can even imagine. But at the moment we are only seeing such things as through a ‘glass darkly.’ (Authorised Version translation of 1 Cor 13: 12.) We can only see a poor reflection as in a polished metal mirror

But the main lesson I want to tell you about today is that God can take good out of bad. As you know our stained-glass window was badly vandalised—in fact it was so ruined by vandals throwing stones at it that it had to be taken away altogether and repaired by an expert artist in stained-glass.

As you can now see it is back in its place and is looking better than ever. Not only that but the wooden surround that the window is sitting in has been completely renewed, as the original window frame was rotten. We are not going to thank the vandals for breaking our window but we are grateful to God that our church insurance has paid for the repairs to the stain-glass and for our new window frame. It hasn’t cost us one penny. If the police catch the vandals it will cost them a great deal.

This reminds me of how God sent His Son into this world but instead of people welcoming Him wicked men put Him to death—but God intended it for good. Wicked people will still have to pay the cost for their wickedness unless they ask God for forgiveness (as we all have to—Rom. 3: 10a, 23) but out of that which was not good God took, and continues to take, good.

Through the death of Jesus, God has provided eternal life for all who will trust in Jesus—even those who crucified Him: ‘Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” ’ (Lk. 23: 34a). On the day of Pentecost, I am quite sure, that Jesus’ prayer was answered when about 3000 was added to the number of those who believed in Jesus as God’s Son and their Saviour; ‘And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.’ (Acts 2: 41, 47b.)Would there not have been some who were responsible for crucifying Jesus found among so many now believing in who Jesus is?

In a sense we are all responsible for crucifying Jesus because He had no sin of His own but died in accordance with the Scriptures as a substitutionary sacrifice to be separated from God the Father (during the three hours of darkness on the cross) so that through repentance of our sins and our faith in what Jesus has done in taking our place, having taken the punishment due His people for their sin, His people will never be separated from God’s love or be punished for their sin or fallen nature and can look forward to the day when they will be with Jesus in heaven when they will no longer see things as through a ‘glass darkly’ but will see Jesus face to face (Rev. 22: 4a) and will know the Lord to the fullest extent possible for an finite being—known fully, even as they are fully known.

39) THE PAINT

‘Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.’

Matthew 23: 27-28.

^‘Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.’

Romans 4: 7.

‘But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him.’

2 Corinthians 2: 14.

What can you smell in the church today? ‘Paint!’ Paint isn’t such a pleasant smell but it does at least smell fresh and the walls and windowsills that have been painted do look lovely, bright and clean, don’t they?

Do you know that there is a lot of work to do before the final coat of paint is put on? Usually there is a coat of undercoat and maybe before the undercoat goes on there might even be a coat of primer and even before that they may be a filling in of any cracks with plaster or wood filler or next to the glass itself some putty. Then the final coat of gloss paint is put on to give a lovely shiny finish.

Paint decorates and protects. It looks good and it keeps the wood and walls of the building wind and water tight on the outside and free from dirt and blemishes on the inside. It keeps the building in good order.

You will remember that the true Church is made up not of bricks but of ‘living stones’ (God’s people). The Lord Jesus gives to His Church, His people, protection on the outside and cleansing on the inside. By His finished work on the cross, after having lived a perfect life, and having risen from the dead, He covers over, even removes, our sins and transgressions. (Heb. 8: 12.)

Through our trust in the work of Jesus He makes us a sweet fragrance to God through the victory He has won making us safe and secure as He leads His Church in triumph to heaven. (Ps. 68: 18; Eph. 4: 8.) Just like, in the imagery of 2 Cor. 2: 14, a conquering Roman general would lead his soldiers in festive procession into somewhere like Rome with people burning spices to fill the normally smelly streets (no sanitation systems in Paul’s day) with sweet fragrance.

Christians are being led in triumph following and praising their great conquering Leader, Jesus. Christians are called to spread the sweet fragrance of Jesus in the ‘rottenness’ (sinfulness) of the world by living God-honouring, holy, lives. Christians are to ‘shine’ for Jesus, spreading His love, yet, at the same time, they are called to fight a spiritual battle against all that is spiritually and morally wrong, ‘rotten’ and hated by God.

But the great thing about the spiritual battle that Christians are in is that Jesus has already won the victory through His ‘finished work’ of being obedient to God the Father’s will, thereby, conquering the principalities and powers of darkness, leading His people in triumph as they spread His fragrance everywhere as they march to heaven and certain glory.

What we must not be like is the Pharisees who were nice and ‘clean’ (self-righteous) on the outside but inside they were, before God, a stench!—quite, quite rotten. In Old Testament times if a person, even accidentally, touched a tomb they became ceremonially unclean (Num 19: 16). Therefore, graves were whitewashed to make them easy to see, especially in the dark when there were no streetlights!

These tombs appeared clean and beautiful on the outside, but they were quite the opposite on the inside. When those Pharisees who were self-righteous opened their mouths there would be no sweet words or fragrance from Jesus or about Jesus. When we hear someone swearing and using Jesus’ name in a bad way it tells us that they haven’t yet been ‘painted’ (renewed) on the inside. What we are on the inside will soon reveal itself on the outside.

Let us, therefore, love Jesus in our hearts and then we will be clean (‘painted’, ‘glossy’) inside and outside—kept in good spiritual and moral order—as Jesus leads us in triumph to heavenly glory!

40) THE PICTURES

‘Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.’

Hebrews 13: 7-8.

When you go out to your classes today you will notice something new on the vestry walls. The Deacons’ Court had this idea of obtaining as many photographs or likenesses of previous ministers of this congregation as possible and have them framed to place them on the vestry walls. This has now been done.

But I think that when the adults see them that they will get a surprise to find that some of the photographs of the more recent ministers look a bit younger than they really are! This is because (and as yet there isn’t a photograph of me on the wall but when there is I’ll have to look out a photo that was taken during my twenties!) the photos were taken some time ago and people change, don’t they? Have you looked at photographs or videotapes of yourselves when you were a bit younger? You too have changed quite a bit since then haven’t you? And you’re not as old as some of the ministers in the photographs and pictures of them.

Sadly some of the ministers whose pictures are on the Vestry wall are no longer in this world but gladly they are now in heaven with the Lord they served. We may quite properly remember them and imitate their faith but we are not to worship them because they are not God as Jesus is. Jesus is both God and Man—one Person having two natures. Jesus is God and because He is God He does not change.

Jesus has received the same wording as God received in the Old Testament that informs us that God does not change (Psalm 102: 27 and Hebrews 1: 12; Isaiah 48: 12 and Revelation 1: 17). No wonder Jesus cannot change. Jesus grew up from being a babe in the manger to adulthood and died on the cross but He rose from the dead and is alive forever more and will never die again or grow old—He changes not. As God He has never changed and now that His work on earth is finished—He changes not—He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Not only will Jesus never grow old but also He is the same in His wrath, love, mercy, compassion and tenderness as He always was while He was here on earth. Jesus who loved His people will always love them. Jesus who hated wickedness will always hate wickedness (though the promise is that there is an end to wickedness in the plan and purposes of God). In Acts 1: 11 it says that Jesus will one day return but it also says that He will be ‘the same Jesus’—He changes not.

This is most reassuring because the Jesus who loved Lazarus and his sister Mary and Martha and all His people still loves them and will always love them—He will be the ‘same Jesus’—He changes not. Jesus still loves the ministers and all others who have now died and gone to heaven. Jesus also loves all those who are still in this world and love Him.

Jesus changes not, therefore, we can trust Him when He speaks because He will not change His mind—God does not lie. What does Jesus say to those who love Him? Many great things, but one promise that He makes is: ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.’ (John 14: 1-3.)

Jesus is coming back! But when He does it will be the same Jesus who loved His people and gave Himself for them (Eph. 5: 1). We change but Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. Jesus loves us with an everlasting love yet the same Jesus demands much of us: ‘and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’ ⁽Matt. 10: 38-39.)

41) THE NEWSLETTER

‘You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.’

2 Corinthians 3: 2-3.

Every now and again we have a church Newsletter. The Newsletter gives us church news about what is happening or is going to happen in our congregation and elsewhere. The Newsletter gives us important information.

The apostle Paul, who wrote our text, describes the Corinthian congregation he is writing to as a ‘letter’—a letter written on his and Timothy’s (1: 1) hearts; but also a letter that is ‘known and read by everyone’. The Corinthian congregation was a ‘living letter’.

Every letter has a writer. Who is the writer of this ‘living letter’? The text informs us that the letter is ‘from Christ’. Now you may say, from the text, that the Writer is the ‘Spirit of the living God’. This is quite true but every king has a personal secretary. Not that God the Holy Spirit is in any way inferior to the God the Son (the King) or God the Father. Together, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit make up the thrice-holy Trinity—one God, three Persons. But the Holy Spirit is pleased to be sent to our hearts by King Jesus who is now—since His ascension—seated at the right hand of God the Father in His Session (all power in heaven and earth having been given to Him—Matt. 28: 18; Eph. 1: 20). We may call the Holy Spirit the Writer and call Christ the Author—the Author and His Agent.

The ‘paper’, in our text, is the heart of man—written ‘not on tablets of stone but tablets of human hearts.’ If we have visited the local pulp-mill in Corpach we will know that the making of paper, especially fine quality writing paper, is a long process. Likewise the heart of man in its natural condition cannot be a living letter from Christ anymore than raw pulp can be written upon.

There needs to be a change—a conversion needs to take place. We are changed from natural material to spiritual material—a new creature / product—when we believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. (2 Cor. 5: 17.) This new product cost Jesus a great deal (1 Cor. 6: 20, 7: 23; 1 Pet. 1: 18-19) but the most amazing thing about this is: ‘While we were still sinners, Christ died for us’ (Rom. 5: 8). He purchased the finished product before it was made!

This gives us great hope if we are not yet trusting in Jesus Christ for our salvation but, nevertheless, we need to trust in Jesus Christ’s finished work on our behalf in order to experience a change of heart. This conversion experience is immediate but nevertheless there can still be—like in the making of paper—a process that leads to a change of heart.

While the apostle Paul quite literally had a ‘Damascus Road’ experience (Acts 9: 3 ff.) he (Saul) nevertheless experienced a process before his conversion to Christ because he had not only seen the Church (the living letter) but also had literally heard Stephen (Acts 7: 59—8: 1a) giving testimony to the work of God in Jesus Christ. God, through the living letter of the Church, was speaking to Saul’s heart of his need of Jesus.

God works in the same way today—through the ministry of the Church. We have all literally heard the gospel message and we have all seen the living letter that is the Church of Jesus Christ—and if we are ‘in Christ’ we are part of this living letter ourselves. To be sure there are often ‘ink blotches’ and ‘spelling mistakes’ to be seen in the living letter because of man’s sinfulness but, nevertheless, there is something very compelling about seeing people following Jesus and thereby witnessing to what Jesus has done for them—taking out, by His Spirit, their heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh (Ezek. 36: 26).

‘You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.’

Once we trust in Jesus by faith and repentance the natural product (the raw pulp) becomes the spiritual product (the paper / the heart) on which Christ the Author now writes—not with ink—by His Agent the Spirit of God.

On our Congregation’s Newsletter—as in any letter—there is an address, a date, who the letter is for, the contents and then the signature of the writer. These things are illustrative of Christ’s letter, the Church:

• Every individual that makes up the Church of Christ has Christ’s address upon them. In Rev. 3: 12 Jesus says: ‘I will write upon him the name (the address) of the city of my God’.

• Every believer also has a date upon them: the day of their new-birth / conversion. Many believers may not know precisely the actual date of their change of heart but Jesus knows it.

• While the Bible is God’s ‘letter’ to the world (‘All Scripture is God-breathed’—2 Tim. 3: 16a) the living letter that is the Church is primarily addressed to unbelievers. The Church is ‘the pillar and foundation of truth’ (1 Tim. 3: 15b). Foundations and pillars hold things up, therefore, the Church supports and advertises (pillars were once used to display public notices) the glorious truth of the gospel: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ The Church witness to the world, directly and indirectly, to the love of God and also to what God’s commandments are for all people (God is not only the Creator of Christians but non-Christians too! God requires obedience of all people. *)

• In the body of the letter itself Christ writes His Word upon His people’s hearts. Sin effaced the image of God in us and so as new creatures Jesus has began to write it back in. In Christ we are immediately justified before God, clothed with the righteousness of Christ, holy and perfect in God’s sight, but in this world we are still being restored to the image of God until we literally come into the perfection of soul and body made perfect through death.

• The letter is signed in Christ’s name, through Christ’s blood by which He ‘purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation’ (Rev. 5: 9b), therefore, when we do die the Church (individually and eventually collectively) will pass through death and into heaven because the letter is sent home via the ‘envelope’ of death which is addressed to: ‘Our Father in Heaven.’ The stamp that pays for our safe delivery is the image of Christ (the seal of the King who wrote the letter). This will ensure that the contents reaches its final abode in safety carried by the heavenly postmen, the good angels, into the presence of God. Being in heaven will give perfection for the soul prior to the Lord’s Second Coming and perfection for the body in the resurrection of the dead when He comes again. (Heb. 12: 23; 1 Cor. 15: 42ff.; 1 John 3: 2.)

Meanwhile, while we are still in this world, a living letter is not a private letter but an open letter. This is made quite clear: ‘You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody.’ We are not shut away instead we are living letters to be read and to be known by everybody—giving very important information to others about Jesus, His wonderful gospel and how God has commanded us to live our lives before Him.

* Cf. Shorter Catechism, Question 39.

42) SUNDAY SCHOOL AWARDS

‘Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day–and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.’

2 Timothy 4: 8.

Today is Sunday School Prize Giving day when the books and awards for perfect attendance, attendance and work completed are given out. This year we also have certificates to give out to those who have excelled themselves in work done in class.

On these certificates, as on the books, I have, as minister of the congregation, written my signature. This gives to the certificates a stamp of authenticity—it’s the real thing! Fakes will not do for the Kilmallie Sunday School / Bible Class children and young people, will they? Anyone can make up a certificate on their computer these days; or purchase the kind of certificates we are giving out in a Christian Book Shop but unless the certificates have my signature on them they are fakes! Not worth the paper they are printed on!

All important documents need to be signed by say the Queen, the Prime Minister, the President of the USA, or the Head of whatever department of Government or country it might be; otherwise the document and what is written on it is useless. Likewise, when it comes to the spiritual, when we pray (which is a bit like ‘writing’ a verbal / unwritten document) to God we need to ‘sign’ it! But how can we sign a prayer? Any ideas?

When we pray to God we ‘sign’ our prayers by saying, at the end of our prayer, ‘in Jesus name. Amen’. Jesus is the King and the Person that God has appointed to receive and present our prayers / petitions to God. Jesus and unless we have the ‘signature’ of the King at the end of our prayers then our prayers are fakes. Some prayers that are still genuine may not, of course, end with the words ‘In Jesus name. Amen.’ But God knows our hearts if we are praying to God in an honouring way with Jesus in our hearts or not.

Sometimes when I go into a charity shop I look at the second-hand books to see if there is anything of interest and often there are old Sunday School Award books. There are many legitimate reasons for why these books have ended up in a charity shop but perhaps in some cases it’s because those who received these books when they were children and then became adults not only got rid of the books but have got rid of Jesus as well.

I hope that the books and awards you are receiving today will be cherished by you always but even if you no longer have any use for them or any room to store them in your new home, once you’re old enough to be married or set up home for yourselves, that you will not discard Jesus or have no room for Him in your lives.

My signature is not very important, but to have the ‘signature’ of King Jesus upon our lives means that we are not ‘fakes’ but the real thing—the children of God and we will receive the greatest ‘Award’ of all: to enter into the joy of the Lord and to receive the crown of righteousness.

Make sure that you build your lives (your ‘homes’) like the wise man who built his house on the rock so that when the rains came down and the streams rose and the winds blew against it it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who does not listen to Jesus builds his or her house (life) upon sand. The rains come down, the streams rise, and the winds blow and beat against it, and it will fall with a great crash!

‘Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal.’

^{Isaiah 26: 4.}

43) THE CLOCK (1)

‘What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.’

James 4: 14.

Have you ever heard the expression, ‘How times flies’? Time does seem to go by very fast, doesn’t it? Those who are older than I am (!) say that the older you get the faster it goes. Of course time goes by at the same rate all the time—there are 60 seconds in every minute and 60 minutes in every hour—but at different times in one’s life depending on what we are doing or how old we are it appears that time is going faster or on occasions, like when you visit the dentist, time seems to drag.

I recall a gentleman ⁸ (who was over 90 years of age) telling a riddle to girls and boys. This very old gentleman asked, ‘What has no legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon and three legs in the evening?’

This gentleman also said that as you look at the face of a clock you can see four quarters. In the first quarter there is a baby in a pram, in the second there is a boy with a football or a girl with a doll, in the third quarter there is a young person with a car and a house and perhaps with a family of his or her own, in the fourth quarter there is an old age pensioner looking a little bent holding a walking stick because of old age.

What this old gentleman was doing was giving illustrations for how fast time goes by and before we realise it we would be as old as he was!

The riddle? In the morning of our lives we can’t walk, hence no legs; then when we are older we are able to walk (two legs in the afternoon), but by our old age, the evening of our lives, we need to use a stick to help us get about—hence three legs.

When we are young we may think we have all the time in the world to think on many things especially spiritual things. But the Bible itself, as well as the testimony of older people like this gentleman, informs us that a person’s life goes by so fast that it is just like mist that appears (perhaps first thing in the morning or like steam coming out of a kettle) for a little time and then disappears.

The teacher in Ecclesiastes says, ‘Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them.” ’ (12: 1.) The psalmist says to God, ‘Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.’ (90: 12.)

We might say that we have plenty of time to decide to follow Jesus but again the Bible, as well as life, says, ‘Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.’ (Prov. 27: 1.) ‘Today is the day of salvation.’ ‘Chose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.’ (Josh. 24: 15b.)

44) THE CLOCK (2)

‘Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritualact of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.’

Romans 12: 1-2.

Last week we thought on how fast time goes by and of how we should trust in Jesus today rather than tomorrow because we just never know what a day will bring forth.

But another aspect of time is that there is a time or a season, under the sun, when it is the right time to do something. (Ecc. 3: 1-8.) Today is the right time to come and give ourselves to God through Jesus if we haven’t already done so. But the Bible speaks about there being a right time for doing many different things. This is obviously the case with the seasons. We wouldn’t sow seed in the middle of winter or take in the harvest when it is snowing. There is a right time to go to school and a right time to come home and a whole host of different things.

Now you will know that twice a year, in our country, we ‘change the clocks’. I don’t mean that we throw out all our old clocks and get new ones! But rather we either put the clock forward (British Summer Time begins) or back one hour (British Summer Time ends). This practice is certainly very useful up here in the north of Scotland because in the winter time it gives us more light in the morning—when we are still half asleep!—to help us get to school or work in the daylight without the same danger of us bumping into one another or worse being bumped by a car!

Now suppose it was the case—seeing that the clocks are changed on a Sunday and God has given us the Lord’s Day / Sabbath for rest and not work—that I could say to myself: ‘I’ll not bother to change my clocks, I’ll just leave the time as it is because I’m not going to obey a man-made rule’. But if I didn’t change my clocks I think that life would be very confusing—don’t you? I would be liable to be arriving one hour early / late for meetings. Imagine if you didn’t change your clocks you would be liable to either arrive one hour too early for school (and school is long enough anyway isn’t it?) or an hour too late and that would be very embarrassing and would, no doubt, get you into trouble.

In not changing my clocks I could think to myself that I would be a great witness to others about keeping the commandments of God (the fourth commandment of keeping the Sabbath-Day *). I would certainly be seen to be different from other people but while Christians are to be different (and honour the Lord’s Day and walk the narrow way that leads to life eternal through Jesus Christ) they are not to be different in the sense of being odd. Christians are to obey the laws or rules of men (Rom. 13) when these laws are for legitimate reasons and do not go against the greater Law of God, which allows for works of necessity and mercy on the Lord’s Day. **

Christians are to be different by not conforming / following the corrupt things of this world. We are to be living sacrifices—at all times—offering up spiritual acts of worship to God. We can only do this by following Jesus, not being odd but being godly.

* Cf. Shorter Catechism Question 57.

** Cf. Shorter Catechism Question 60.

45) THE TUNING FORK

‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’

^{Matthew 5: 48.}

‘We shall be like him’

I John 3: 2b.

I wonder if you have ever noticed Mr. Keith Pettinger, our precentor, reaching into his top pocket and taking out a fork? No he is not going to eat his dinner during the sermon—the fork that he has is a tuning fork.

A tuning fork is an instrument that can only play one note. It was invented in 1711 by John Shore a trumpeter to the great composer George Frederick Handel. It doesn’t sound as if it can be of much help to anyone seeing that it can only play one note, does it?

The tuning fork is, however, a very useful instrument indeed to musicians, and to precentors who sing without accompanying music. It is helpful because it always gives a perfect note every time it is struck which Mr. Pettinger listens to before he starts to precent the psalm we are about to sing.

The tuning fork reminds me of how we are to follow Jesus in order to ‘hit the right note’ with God. If we are to endeavour to live lives that are pleasing to God then we must follow Jesus and the example He has given to us. Jesus gives us the perfect example every time—just as the tuning fork gives a perfect note every time—because Jesus alone is perfect in His Person and in all that He did.

It is quite impossible for us, in this world, to be perfect as Jesus the Son of God was but when we sin (fall short of the perfection demanded by God) the Bible directs us to go initially to the Lamb of God (Jn. 1: 29; Jn. 3: 16) and to continue to go to Jesus who is our Advocate with the Father who continues to forgives us our sins. (1 Jn. 2: 1.)

God can forgive us our sins through Jesus because Jesus lived a perfect life and died a perfect death and His sacrificial substitutionary life and death has the power to forgive us our sins now that He has risen from the dead (Rom. 4: 25) and is at God’s right hand interceding for us as our great High Priest. ‘For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence.’ (Heb. 9: 24.)

Jesus obtained eternal redemption for His people in order to save them from their sins. Do you remember one of the very first messages about Jesus in the New Testament? What did the angel say to Joseph at the birth of Jesus? ‘[Mary] will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,because he will save his people from their sins’ (Matt. 1: 21). In saving His people from their sins we are made ‘pure’ before God so that we might please and serve the living God.

One day, those who believe in Jesus will be made perfect—‘Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself [keeps himself from sin], just as he is pure [the imputed righteousness of Jesus]’ (1 John 3: 2-3)—but until the day dawns when God’s people will be perfect Jesus gives them the perfect ‘notes’ to follow so that we may live pleasing lives to the glory of God.

46) THE WOOD

‘Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.’

John 3: 18.

There is one thing in our church that is perhaps more prominent than anything else and we have not used it yet to see if it can illustrate a spiritual truth for us. What do you think it is? It is undoubtedly something that lies behind the church walls as part of the church’s construction and is also found in the roof but it is also seen every where inside this part of the church we are presently sitting in! ‘Wood’—that’s right! It’s everywhere.

These chairs and communion table are made of it, as is the pulpit and look at all these pews. They are all made out of wood. I suppose wood is one of the most over-looked products in our homes as elsewhere.

I can find 121 references to ‘wood’ in the Bible. There is cypress wood, acacia wood, olive wood, wood of the vine, ‘every sort of citron wood’ (Rev. 18: 12) and cedar wood.

What is it that you think of when you think of something made out of wood in the Old Testament? There are a number of things made out of (or partially made out of wood)—the tabernacle, the temple, the ark of the covenant (which was overlaid with gold), the altar of incense, farming implements: carts, threshing sledges and ox yokes (1 Sam. 6: 14; .2 Sam. 24: 22); and there is mention of different kinds of trees such as the popular, almond and plane trees used by Jacob to increase his flocks at his uncle Laban’s expense (Gen. 30: 37ff.): but what is it that immediately comes to mind (from the Old Testament) that was made of wood? ‘Noah’s ark’—yes, I think above everything else Noah’s ark springs to mind.

What is it that you think of when you think of something made out of wood in the New Testament? My mind immediately thinks on one thing. In any case there isn’t much to chose from in the New Testament—I can only find five references to ‘wood’ in the New Testament and the particular thing I am thinking about isn’t actually said to be made of wood but because it is ‘a tree’ (Acts 5: 30) it most certainly was made of wood. But what is it that I have in mind? ‘The cross’—that’s right! Both Noah’s ark and the cross on which Jesus died were both made out of wood.

Noah’s ark was provided for safety from the flood. But today, as in Noah’s day, there is a greater safety to be obtained, viz., safety, eternal salvation and security, from the judgement that Noah’s flood typified. The apostle Peter tells us that the flood in Noah’s day represents a greater judgement to come (2 Peter 3) and the only way of safety / salvation for us from this judgement is to be safe ‘in Christ’.

Noah offered up sacrifices to God (Gen. 8: 20); these sacrifices represented and looked forward to what Jesus would do on the cross. Old Testament believers looked forward to the coming of the Lamb of Prophecy, to the day of Christ and rejoiced. We look back to the Lamb of History (Jesus Christ’s finished work) but also, with Old Testament believers, we look forward to Jesus coming again and giving to us a new Paradise. (Heb. 11: 23ff. Rev. 21: 1ff.)

There is a Day of Judgement to come but, ‘there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Rom. 8: 1). Believers live their lives in the light of the judgement to come but not in the fear of it; because of what Jesus has done on the cross as an atonement (1 John 4: 10) to meet the righteous wrath of a holy God believers have an ‘at-one-ment’ with God.

The ark preserved life but the cross (or rather Jesus of the cross) saves life. The ark preserved life and typified the salvation from the judgement that is still to come. Let us, therefore, in being warned of things not yet seen (Heb 11: 7), in holy fear, place our trust in Jesus and what He has done in being crucified upon the cruel tree.

Jesus tells us to do so: ‘Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.’ (John 3: 14-18.)

The wooden ark preserved life but the Saviour of the wooden cross saves life—eternally!

47) THE NAILS

‘Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). Here they crucified him’.

John 19: 17-18a.

Last week we thought on what ‘wood’ would make us think about from the Bible—we thought on Noah’s ark from the Old Testament and the cross of Jesus from the New Testament. This week we are going find out what it is that holds the wooden things of our church together and ask, ‘What do they remind us of biblically?’

So, What is it that holds the wooden parts of our church together? ‘Nails’—that’s right. Of course, not everything in the church that is made of wood is nailed together as some things have screws while others things, such as this communion chair, have joints to hold them together. But in the main it is nails that are used to hold wood together or to pin the wood to other materials such as the bricks behind our walls.

I don’t suppose Noah used metal nails but used wooden pins to hold the ark together. In some churches where you can actually see the wooden roof beams you can also see the wooden pins that are used to hold the roof together—these ‘pins’ certainly look more ornate than nails.

There are some people who are looking for Noah’s ark so perhaps one day we will be able to see how Noah built the ark. Building things is great fun—I’m sure Noah must have enjoyed building the ark even if there would have been sadness in his heart at the reason for building it—because of God’s judgement upon a sinful world.

The cross of Jesus was also because of God’s judgement upon a sinful world but in this case Jesus received the punishment due His people: ‘This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins’ (1 John 4: 10). Jesus was crucified—He was nailed to the cross; yet for the joy that was set before Him of saving a people from punishment He endured the cross. (Heb. 12: 2.)

I once heard a minister ⁹ tell a story about a boy who swore a lot and did a lot of bad things. I can’t remember all the details of the story or tell it as well as this minister, but it went something like this:

Every time the boy said something wrong or did something bad his father would hammer a nail into a block of wood. One day the father showed the boy all the nails in the wood and the boy said that he would try to reform himself and stop swearing and doing bad things. The father said to him that for every time his son said something nice and did something good he would remove one of the hundreds of nails. The boy did very well and eventually all the nails were removed from the block of wood. The father took his son to see the nail-free block of wood but to the boy’s great dismay he said, ‘But dad, look at all the holes! Every nail has left a scar!’ ‘Ah!’ said the boy’s father only Jesus can remove the marks of our sin through our trust in Him’.

We can reform ourselves and do lots of good things and I hope say lots of nice things too but what we do and say and indeed think that is wrong leaves, as it were, a mark before God. Only Jesus can remove the damage and take the punishment due our transgressions and sins. He is able to do this not only because He is the Son of God (which He is) but because He is also the Son of Man—the Lamb of God who was nailed to the cross that through His wounds we might be cleansed. Jesus took our sins away, nailing them to the cross. (Cf. Col. 2: 14.)

‘This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.’ (Acts 2: 23-24.)

We may say with doubting Thomas, when the other disciples told him that Jesus had risen from the dead, ‘Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.’ But when Jesus met with Thomas and said to him, ‘ “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” ’ (John 20: 25-29.)

Let us, each one, trust in Jesus and through what He has done let us be joined together as the living Church by the nails that have set us free.

48) THE CHAIR

‘If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Romans 10: 9.

The Bible informs us that it is impossible to please God without faith (Heb. 11: 6) and that our faith unto salvation must be in Jesus Christ (Acts 16: 31). Today we are going to use this chair as our church item to teach us about what faith is like.

The chair gives to us one of the simplest illustrations for faith and trust in Jesus Christ as our Saviour. The illustration comes from a well know missionary called Dr. John G. Paton who was a missionary to the New Hebrides. John was a Scotsman born near Dumfries in 1824 and he worked as a city missionary in the slums of Glasgow until he was ordained as a missionary to the New Hebrides in 1858. The New Hebrides is not to be confused with the Outer Hebrides or the Inner Hebrides of Scotland!

The New Hebrides is a group of thirty mountainous islands, named by Captain Cook. The islanders who lived there practised cannibalism of the worst kind. Earlier missionaries to these islands (John Williams and James Harris) were killed by the islanders within a few minutes of landing there in 1839.

However, John Paton witnessed the triumph of the power of God through the gospel in two of these South Sea Islands. Nevertheless, he had great hardships to endure not least the loss of his wife and child who died suddenly shortly after arriving in the New Hebrides. (Some days after John’s wife Mary Anne had given birth to their son.) If you are interested in having a great ‘missionary read’ then I have a book in my study that you can have which is an autobiography called ‘John G. Paton – Missionary to the New Hebrides’, published by The Banner of Truth.

One of the difficulties John encountered in trying to communicate the gospel to the islanders was in explaining what it meant to ‘believe’ or have ‘faith’ in Jesus Christ. John was also translating the Scriptures into the language of the natives but he could not find a suitable word for ‘believe’ as in the likes of our text or in Acts 16: 31, ‘ “Believe” in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved–you and your household.’

But then, one day, one of the natives came into John’s room and, tired out, he threw himself into one of John’s chairs while putting his feet up on another chair. As he did so he uttered a word which meant ‘how good it was to lean his whole weight’ on the chairs. John had the word he required to explain what it means to trust by faith in Jesus Christ.

When I / we sit on a chair, just like this communion table chair, or like the pews you are sitting on you don’t actually stop and analyse ‘will this pew / chair take my weight’ but rather you just sit on it trusting / believing / having the faith that it will support you.

Likewise faith or belief in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour is to ‘throw’ ourselves upon Him; to place ourselves into His care knowing that He will support us / save us. We are to rest in Jesus knowing with all certainty that by doing so He will carry us to our heavenly rest through our faith / belief in Him.

‘Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith. Now we who have believed enter that rest.’

Hebrews 4: 1-3a.

‘The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.’

Deuteronomy 33: 27a

49) THE COMMUNION TABLE

‘For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.’

1 Cor 11: 23-26

This morning the members of our congregation and the members from other congregations with us are going to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. We have on our actual communion table bread and wine that we are going to eat and drink but our communion table has been extended to include the first 10 pews (those with the communion cloths on them) so that every one who loves Jesus may come forward—at the appropriate moment in the service—and take their place at the Lord’s Table.

I wish this morning to speak to you not about the communion table but about the Lord’s Table or Lord’s Supper that is celebrated around the communion table.

While this actual communion table belongs to Kilmallie Free Church of Scotland the Lord’s Table that it becomes does not. The Lord’s Table is exactly that—it is not the Free Church’s Table but Jesus Christ’s Table where all those who love Him may come together and in eating bread and drinking wine may remember what Jesus has done for them and what He has still to do when He returns. Those seated at the Table look back to the victory that Jesus has won over sin, death and the devil and look forward to the return of the Victor—‘Do this in remembrance of me untilI come ’.

The bread that we use is ordinary bread and the wine is ordinary wine. The church mouse that we spoke about would love to find some crumbs on the floor of this loaf, which we are going to break into pieces after the sermon. I don’t think there is much chance of a mouse coming in and even less of a chance of it finding any bread left over but I only mention it in this way so as to emphasis that there is nothing ‘magical’ about the bread or the wine. They are quite ordinary ‘elements’ but we are going to use them in an extra-ordinary way.

The Lord’s Supper is a simple act of the breaking and eating of bread and the pouring forth and drinking of wine. Yet the Lord’s Supper is also so sublime that it transcends that which is ordinary to give us rich spiritual meaning that is for the feeding of the Christian’s soul upon Christ the Bread of Life. The Lord’s Supper may be a ‘simple’ act but because it is also deeply profound in its meaning it is not easy to explain. Perhaps if we can remember that the Lord’s Supper is both a memorial and a testimony it will help us understand its great significance.

A Memorial

The Lord’s Supper is a memorial (a remembrance) because in the breaking of bread we have a picture that reminds those who celebrate the Lord’s Supper of the body of Jesus broken by scourging, pierced by nails, rent asunder by a spear and broken internally by anguish, grief and abandonment in hell: and in the wine poured out there is no mystification but rather the disclosure of a mystery. The wine represents the blood of the Son of God who became flesh in order that He ‘being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death–even death on a cross!’ (Phil. 2: 8) Jesus poured forth His heart’s blood for the sins of His people.

The Lord’s Supper is a memorial not solely in that it sets out and reminds us of the suffering and death of Jesus, but it is a memorial that is a joyful celebration because the Lord’s Supper also sets out the result of Jesus’ suffering and death. When God’s people take the bread, and eat it, and take the cup, and drink from it, they bring to remembrance not only the fact that Jesus suffered and died but that He suffered and died in their place as a Substitutionary Sacrifice for their sins; and that He is now in glory, having risen victoriously from the grave, and they are in glory with Him as He is their Representative and they shall, one day, be quite literally in glory with Him.

A Testimony

The Lord’s Supper is also a testimony. As those who sit at the Supper see the bread broken and the wine poured out it is a testimony to them of Christ and Him crucified in their place. Sitting at the Table is also a testimony to each participant that they each love the Lord Jesus—they are united in their love for their Saviour. Furthermore testimony is given to God that those at the Table believe in Jesus Christ and acknowledge Him as their Lord and Saviour—the only Saviour. God knows this but He likes His people to confess it in this way. In coming to the Table the participants are saying to God, ‘We trust in Your provision and salvation.’ Taking part in the Lord’s Supper is a form of giving thanks to God the Father for giving His Son to live, die and rise again; and to thank God the Son for coming and carrying out the Father’s work; and to give thanks to God the Spirit for being with the Church on earth until the Church is in heaven with God.

Moreover those who partake of the Lord’s Supper give testimony to the world that He whom mankind crucified is their ‘All-in-all’; and, as they rise to go to the Lord’s Table, they give testimony to those who thirst not for the bread and wine but after the Saviour and His fellowship (with Him and His people) to come and, like them, make public profession of faith in Jesus and take their place at the Lord’s Table.

Therefore our Kirk Session will be pleased to meet with any who may wish to make public their faith in Jesus Christ and thereby come to the Lord’s Table. Can you take these vows: 1) Do you believe in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit? 2) Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour? 3) Do you promise, depending on the grace of God, to confess Christ before men, to serve Him in your daily work (school, Uni), and to walk in His ways all the days of your life? 4) Do you repent of your sins with a humble and contrite heart, and acknowledge your dependence on the grace and mercy of God that are in Christ Jesus? ?

If you can take these vows then let me remind you of a gracious promise given by Jesus: ‘All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away’ (John 6: 37).

Come, therefore, and make profession of Christ and come to His Table and into the family circle of Jesus Christ’s people, and be glad.

50) ALL PARTS MAKE A WHOLE

‘Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.’

1 Cor 10: 16-17

How many parts are there to the Bible? The Bible is made up of 66 parts. There are Old Testament books and there are New Testament letters; but all together they make up one Book or one Letter from God. We have also discovered in the majority of our last 49 lessons (this one is the 50^th and final one!) that our church building is also made up of many, many different parts, isn’t it? How many things of our church can you remember us mentioning in our look at things in and around the church? All these—and many more besides—go to make up only one building.

This is illustrative for how there is only one Church (in heaven and on earth). Did you know that Christians belong to the worldwide family of believers (and are part of the Church—the people of God—in heaven)? But there are some people who don’t believe this because they look at all the different churches (denominations) in the world and say, ‘How can all these different churches be one family? In fact, some people who criticise the Christian Church point to the many different denominations as an example of the lack of agreement between people who believe the Bible to be the Word of God to mankind.

This complaint, however, fails to take certain things into account. It fails to recognise that Bible believing Christians do not disagree on the fundamental truths or central teaching of the Bible. It also fails to recognise that different denominations have come about for a whole host of reasons including cultural, ethnic and social.

Certainly it is true that there are often doctrinal differences of opinion such as who should be the recipients of baptism (infants, adults or both) but such things do not deny the central teaching of the Bible. What is the central teaching of the Bible anyway? Jesus made the main issue crystal clear, ‘Whoever believes in the Son [of God] has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.’ (John 3: 36).

Is it not the case that it is not so much the interpretation of the Bible people have difficulties with but rather their difficulty is in its application? Jesus said to Martha, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ (John 11: 25-26.) We need to apply this to our lives—‘do you believe this?’ If we do believe in Jesus we will then have no difficulties about where the Bible comes from and that there really is only one family of God in the world.

An explanation of the Lord’s Supper would be a good place to begin explaining the worldwide family of God. We learned, last week, that the Lord’s Table is not the Free Church’s Table but the Lord’s Table, and as the Lord’s Table it is open to the Lord’s people whatever their doctrinal, cultural, ethnic and social differences. In the Lord’s Supper we have one cup and one loaf which not only signifies the essential work of Christ (this is my body broken for you) but also the one people of God: those already in heaven (the Church Triumphant) and those still on earth (the Church Militant—‘militant’ in that the Church on earth is in a spiritual battle).

Therefore, if we believe in the Lord (as in the all important central teaching of the Bible) we belong to the one Church of God through what Jesus Christ has done in His life, death and resurrection—celebrated in the Lord’s Supper. Why? Because we belong to the Lord of the Table and the one family of the Church worldwide, and heavenwide!

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

While every endeavour has been made to try and acknowledge all sources used it may well be the case, as some addresses have come from hearing other preachers give children’s addresses and from seed thoughts acquired in one’s general reading, that proper acknowledgement of a source may be overlooked. My sincere apologies if this proves to be the case. However, the following Children’s Address books were used and are heartily recommended for the supplying of ideas to stimulate an address in as personal a way as possible.

Actual Factuals…………………………………………..……….Nancy S. Hill, Tyndale House Publishers.

Actual Factuals 1………………………………….……………… Nancy S. Hill, Tyndale House Publishers.

Actual Factuals 2…………………………………………….…… Nancy S. Hill, Tyndale House Publishers.

Gofors & Grumps (Book One)………………………………………….Derek Prime, Day One Publications.

How Long Is God’s Nose?……………………………..……….John Timmer, Zondervan Publishing House.

Something To Say To The Children……………………………John R. Gray (Ed. Sheila Gray), T & T Clark.

Talks For Children……………………………………..Beatrice Surtees & Ian MacLeod, Saint Andrew Press.

More Talks For Children……………………………………Compiled by Ian MacLeod, Saint Andrew Press.

Even More Talks For Children………………….Compiled and edited by Ian MacLeod, Saint Andrew Press.

What To Teach and How To Reach The Young………………………George Goodman, Pickering & Inglis.

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Other sources:

John G. Paton……………………………………………………………Autobiography, The Banner of Truth.

The Treasury of The Bible………………………………..… Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Baker Book House.

1200 Notes, Quotes and Anecdotes…………………………………………..A. Naismith, Pickering & Inglis.

Notes:

¹ Shorter Catechism Question 60.

² Mrs Catherine MacPhee, Corpach (& Acharacle)

³ Based on an idea by Reuben A. Torrey (related to in an Emmaus Correspondence School course: Thy Word Is Truth by William MacDonald) who proposed to build a temple in Washington from stones of every State in the Union to show the unity of the Bible.

⁴ As told to the author in a phone call he made late one Saturday night (!) to Rev Kenneth I. MacLeod (Urray).

^{5 ‘Mr. Nobody’ was the title to a Children’s Address given by the late Rev. Douglas MacMillan, Buccleuch and Greyfriars Free Church of Scotland, Edinburgh, and inspired this address in Kilmallie Free Church of Scotland some 10 years later!}

⁶ As told by Mr Donald Macleod, Faith Mission Student, in Kilmallie Free Church, 1997.

⁷ Charles H Spurgeon.

⁸ Mr Jack MacLennan MBE, who told this story in Brora’s Fisherman’s Hall (where every Sunday evening, after the village church services, inter-denominational fellowship took place).

⁹ Rev David Paterson (retired Free Church minister) at a Communion service in Kilmallie Free Church of Scotland in 1996.

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