Tomorrow I am preaching on 'Worship' at our evening service. This is one of a series of three sermons on the subject. I am more and more convinced that our great need is for the working of the Holy Spirit. Of course, it is right to see where our worship could be improved, and there is no lack of people to tell us what could/should/might be done. The fact is, though, that churches with different forms of worship can all seem dead and lifeless or can be vibrant, joyful and see spiritual fruit. It is, of course, only too easy to say that we need the presence and blessing of the Spirit, but this is the one factor that makes all the difference. It may be a good thing if nothing else seems to 'work', because then we are cast back upon God. I was impressed by reading again what Jonathan Edwards had to say about the days of revival at Northampton: ‘Our public assemblies were then beautiful: the congregation was alive in God’s service, every hearer eager to drink in the words of the minister as they came from his mouth; the assembly in general were, from time to time, in tears while the word was preached; some weeping with sorrow and distress, others with love and joy, others with pity and concern for the souls of their neighbours. Our public praises were then greatly enlivened; God was then served in our psalmody, in some measure, in the beauty of holiness. Our congregation excelled all that ever I knew in the singing of God’s praises.’

Guidance

Christmas in Northern Ireland and a bout of some sort of viral infection subsequently - perhaps a mild form of flu - though we had our vaccinations, have kept me away from the computer. I have been very impressed by Graham Miller's autobiography, A Day's March Nearer Home, and even more by the character of its author. It is well worth reading and pondering. I have been particularly struck by his reference to Oswald Chambers' definition of guidance:'a deep sense of the rightness of things'. This seems to me to be absolutely correct. It doubtless could be abused, nearly everything can be, but for the person who truly desires to walk in the ways of the Lord this seems to hit the right note.

The power of the Gospel

The piece before this was taken from a book entitled ‘On the Indian Trail in Paraguay and Brazil’. It was written by Rev Harry Whittington who went out to Paraguay in 1907 with a Scottish society called ‘The Inland-South America Missionary Union’, a forerunner of several other missions including the ‘New Testament Missionary Union’. His book remarkable in many ways; it is also understated and, at times, infuriating in that vital pieces of information are not supplied. All that can be forgiven as it was written in old age, probably in the early 1960’s after its writer had retired from the pastorate of Shettleston Free Church of Scotland, Glasgow. Whittington went on a highly dangerous trip to the ‘wild, dangerous, bloodthirsty tribe’ of the Cavegeas with two companions. Joao had been a hit-man and was responsible for three murders, his wife Elena, a witchdoctor, responsible for only one. She had fled from the Cavegeas to escape revenge, but after the extraordinary conversion of both of them she wanted to return to tell the gospel to her own people who she had left thirteen years before. Unable to read or write, she had translated in her head Frances Ridley Havergal’s hymn, ‘I gave my life for thee’ (presumably out of Portuguese) and she wished to sing it to them:

‘In the evening we held our first service among the Cageveas; there, tight up in the mountains, we endeavoured to sing the songs of Zion. Then Elena began to sing the hymn she had translated. Although the music resembled a witch-doctor’s wail more than the original tune, her people were keenly interested and listened most attentively. Then we tried to tell them in the simplest language the story of man’s fall, his rebellion against his Creator, and his separation from God through sin, and of God’s love for sinful men and women. It was a wonderful, yet humbling, experience to stand in the midst of those who had never heard the Gospel, to bring before them the reality of sin, of death, and a coming judgment, and of an eternity that will never end, then to tell of God’s marvellous love revealed in the gift of His Son to pay the price of man’s redemption by His death on the Cross, and point them to the Lamb of God whose blood alone can cleanse the guilty soul from every sin. When finished, one felt somewhat embarrassed (perhaps through lack of faith) to see all present, men and women, trooping forward to express their desire to follow the Lord. Fearing that they did not understand the message given and what it entailed, we attempted to point out some of the difficulties they would encounter in the path, and what following the Lord meant; then we asked Elena to explain to them in their own language that the Christian life was one of self-denial; but to no purpose. On they came until every one in the audience expressed his or her desire to follow Christ as their Saviour. Never before had I such an experience’

The same happened in every village they went to, and went fierce opposition broke out later ‘in spite of the adversary many were standing true, desiring to follow the Lord cost what it might.’

On the Indian trail

I have just recently read a most fascinating book about gospel work in Paraguay and the Matto Grosso region of Brazil. I would like to quote from it further on another occasion, but here is an extract that appalled me for more than one reason:

‘One of the saddest things we encountered among the Cageveas was the small number of children to be seen, in a community of fifteen or more families, the children of school age and under could be counted on one’s fingers. The greater number of little ones are killed either before or after birth. On enquiring the reason for such wholesale murder of little ones, we were told that owing to their custom of unfaithfulness (as a rule, two never live very long together) the mother, being deserted by the father and not wishing to be encumbered, breaks the little one’s neck at birth, if it is not successfully destroyed before birth. The tribe, as a consequence, is rapidly dying out.’

How wonderful is progress; now it can all be done in hospital!

Cum privilegio

Further to my little piece on the AV – authorized or appointed – I see that the first edition of the 1611 Bible had in its considerable list of preliminaries a woodcut of the coat of arms of James1 and underneath, Cum privilegio Regiae Maiestas. In current AV’s this is reduced to Cum privilegio beneath a different coat of arms, and means nothing to most of us. According to Gordon Campbell (Bible – The Story of the King James Version, Oxford University Press) the full Latin inscription means ‘By the authority of the king’. We might quibble slightly with that translation, but I think there is little doubt that this is its intent; in which case those scholars who say that the AV was never ‘authorized’ are mistaken. Personally, I find any reference to King James inappropriate; all he did was make provision for a new translation of the Bible to take place and he had no authority for doing that anyway. I find it strange that most Bibles have on their cover ‘The Holy Bible’, yet that is the one thing you never hear anyone call it. Why don’t ministers announce the reading thus: ‘Hear the words of the Holy Bible from…’?

Rhetoric over reality

Reading some Evangelical literature recently I was struck by the rhetoric being used – and this by good and wise Christian leaders. You would think that the gospel was really affecting the people in the towns and cities of our country. Yet, reading the secular newspapers I cannot help being struck by the way in which the standards and values that are the legacy of Christian influence in the past are more and more rejected and a rampant secularism embraced. How is it that we can be so exuberant in the face of the ignorance of Christian truth and basic morality that we see on every hand? Of course, it is true that the gospel is still the power of God for the salvation of all who believe, but it is not gospel victories we are seeing in our nation. There are some conversions, but it is the powers of darkness that are triumphing today. When are we going to face the situation seriously?

Ernest Kevan - sin and law

Near where I lived at one time there was an open common, through the middle of which there ran a busy main road. It was the custom of mothers to permit their little ones to play on the part of the common near their homes, but to forbid them to cross the busy road to the other section. The road was the boundary, and if a child crossed it in order to play in what seemed the more attractive part of the common, his action would be transgression – ‘trans’ (across) ‘gression’ (going). The drawing of the boundary line was not with the view to denying the child any pleasure; it was a boundary of loving wisdom. In the same way, the boundary of God’s holy law, that has been put like a vast circle around our lives, is a limit of love drawn by infinitely wise and tender goodness in God. This boundary – the law of God – is nevertheless authoritative, just as the word of a parent to a little child, and the transgression of this boundary is a breaking of God’s commandment.