Agricultural Allegory

This post is a guest appearance of sorts, Lindon Josefski, a friend of mine, who runs the Bundy Photo Challenge, shared this with me, and I instantly knew I wanted to share it with you. So without further ado, here are a few deep and well chosen words.

Writing Sermons

I wrote this just over a week ago, before speaking at the Hinkler Family Camp… Hoping to get some time to share about that with you as well… But for now… Some musings on the preparations.

I never cease to be amazed by the process of preparing and preaching a message. It seems to be broken into five distinct sections.

Phase 1: The inspiration

First is the initial idea. You have a flash of inspiration where the Holy Spirit impresses you with a topic or passage to preach on. This is always an exciting point. And I usually feel like this is about to be the greatest sermon of my life, I feel that way about each new possibility.

So… We are still here.

As most of you have likely noticed, we are still here… There was no rapture event last night as was predicted. Earth is still spinning as usual… For you and I at least that may be true… But guess what? Over 50,000 people were faced with their eternity overnight. For them it was a very real occurrence.

Though I firmly believe that Jesus will return to take his people home, we are clearly told in Matthew 24:36;

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.”

So if no one knows, I am going to take that to mean that “no one knows” that is why I take all these predictions with a grain of salt. In fact I am staunchly against them for several reasons.

Firstly, it directly contradicts the Bible.
Secondly, when these people are shown to be either crazy or liars it reflects badly upon all Christians and ultimately upon God himself.
Thirdly and finally, it has a tendency to remove our urgency of preparation.

What I mean by that is simply the fact we become complacent because we perceive Jesus’ return to be afar off, but our sense of urgency should not be tied to the second coming. There are two important points our urgency should be tied to…

The first is wrapped up in the first statistic I shared, over the last 8 hours, statistically, over 50,000 people have died. We will be looking at the same kind of numbers for the next 8 hours as well, and eventually you and I will be personally taking part in that statistic (lest of course we are translated). Far or near, our eternity is sealed at the time of death (or at the close of probation for those alive at the end of time) at that point there are no second chances, so one must be sure what their wagon is hooked to before we get there

The second is the fact that who we are is a composite of our past decisions if we reject the idea of accepting salvation, or even delay it, we form a synthetic, predisposition to unbelief, and if one persists in this, an individual may not even be capable of making such a decision the next time it is presented, thus the urgency we should feel.

CS Lewis, an amazing mind put it this way… “Taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a Heavenly creature or into a hellish creature” we should not delay to make changes we are convicted of, as we risk our own capability to change.

The second coming of Jesus is sure, and I cannot wait for it, but I welcome you all to join me in planning your life as if it were a decade away and prepare your soul as if it were tomorrow.

The Mordecai Theory: Living Behind Enemy Lines

I am scheduling this to post  as I begin my sermon tomorrow (11am, May 7, 2011). Rather than copying all my notes, to make it more useful if anyone wants the material this post will be somewhat of a synopsis of the sermon and the full transcript you will find available as a pdf download.

In this Sermon I have drawn four secrets for “living behind enemy lines”(Earth during the great controversy) and getting out alive, right out of the book of Esther.

• Wait Diligently – Do not grow weary doing good – Galatians 6:9/Esther2:21 – 23
• Do not compromise – Never go against your convictions – Hebrews 10:26/Esther 3:1 – 6
• Let the Spirit use You – Do the bidding of the Holy Spirit – Esther 4:12
• Leave it with God – Let Him fight your battles – Exodus 14:14/Esther 7:5 – 10

Having established these good examples for us to follow. It is then important for us to look to Jesus because of the strong parallels between the story of Esther and the Great Controversy itself. Really this is not the Mordecai Theory at all. It is, in fact the Jesus Reality. Mordecai was a type of Christ, the whole story blesses us not only with a Microcosm of the great controversy but the Living example set for us by Jesus, which was pointed to by the life of Mordecai.

To know more… download the 8 page version: The Mordecai Theory

He is Risen.

Bzzzzzzt. My phone vibrates just before the alarm begins it’s upbeat daily recital, I almost reflexively jump out of bed to still it’s tones before waking the rest of the house. It is Easter sunday, 5:00am. I get ready as fast as I can, grab my camera bag, jump in the Hilux and head for the beach, trying to beat the sunrise to ensure some worthwhile photo opportunities.

As I drive in on the deserted streets I started to think of scripture… John 20:1

“The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the tomb, and seeth the stone taken away from the tomb.”

This was the same time of day and the conclusion that was drawn then is the same one I draw today, “He is not here, HE IS RISEN!” on this profound statement, the Christian faith is founded. It is some of the best evidence for the faith that I and many others hold dear.

How is that so one may ask? Simple. It is the biggest question any sceptic must answer. If they say that Jesus was not resurrected then they create a problem for their own argument because you then have to fill a supernatural, resurrection sized, void in history. There is no other logical explanation for what was at that time an all but disbanded sect of Judaism to go from being a persecuted handful of people in a backwater province of the Roman empire, who’s leader was just murdered, to the predominant religious persuasion of that same empire in just a few hundred years. There has been no movement before or since which has had such a dramatic effect on human history.

The factual, bodily resurrection of Christ is the only thing that even makes vague sense as a motive for the early christians to evangelize the world, and they did exactly that.

There is so much excellent evidence for the resurrection, believer or not I recommend you look into it.

I hope the message is as real to you today as it was to Mary then.

Between the Mountain and the Multitude

I know I have been absent from my blog this year, but time just seems to be getting past me at record breaking speeds, thus not only has my blogging frequency suffered, but at times, I’ll be honest, so has my prayer life, where it has been reduced to duty and rushed routine, this you will know is a recipe for spiritual starvation. However, God, being the loving interventionist he is, waited for me to feel my need…

Onward Christian Soldier

Onward Christian soldiers is a hymn which has stirred many a soul and it is no surprise because in scripture, there are often parallels drawn between war and the Christian experience, and that is understandable, what we are engaged in is spiritual warfare, we take orders from our commander, suffer losses, win victories and only by the grace of God persistently soldier on. This was certainly the experience of the apostle Paul…

Spirit-Lead Humility

This Sabbath Just passed, I preached at my home church and God taught me a lesson in the process, so I thought I would share it…

In the lead up to this sermon, there was much study and prayer (certainly more than my previous sermons) in the past I have preached well and I have preached not-so-well, so this time I was determined to glorify God by diligent study and transmission of the word, as a matter of fact, having been thoroughly prepared, I practiced it all the way up to the Friday afternoon when I stood in my room and preached my heart out. I was satisfied that it was a convincing delivery which I could replicate in the morning.

All the way through the process I was praying that

Thoughts on Worship

I am currently constructing a sermon on worship, it is a word often used and seldom considered. I have been chasing all kinds of verses today and praise the Lord patterns are emerging, even while writing this short post I have had to run off to add to my notes as the Holy Spirit brings things to my mind.

Whilst doing this, I was wondering what you think, if worship is such a big deal (it is what the Great Controversy is all about) what is it? how would you define it? how should we do it? what is an act of worship?

Thoughts?

(Feel free to send this link to others you think would like to comment on the topic)

God Teaches Through Nature

“In the day you will make your plant to grow, And in the morning you will make your seed to flourish.” Isaiah 17:11

Recently I have been through somewhat of a spiritual “Wilderness Experience” which, though uncomfortable, I praise God for, as I know that he calls his people to the wilderness to protect or connect with them, (ie: Elijah by the brook Cherith, The nation of Israel after their captivity in Egypt, John the baptist, Jesus himself, the Woman of Revelation 12 and many other Biblical examples) amidst this, as I was finding it difficult to focus on my Bible I was encouraged by my Mum to get outside and look at God’s general revelation (Nature) I was amazed and encouraged by what I found.

I wandered out into the yard, and decided to inspect a tree… I know it sounds less than exciting, but stick with me here, I prayed and decided to look for christian principles in this corner of creation.