150 years of Grace Baptist Mission

Saturday saw Mary and me at the Renewal Centre in Solihull for the 150th anniversary meetings of Grace Baptist mission. This was a great day, though leaving home just after 7am and arriving back after 10pm made it very long. The main speaker was Don Carson who spoke with his usual passion and biblical insight. Part of the evening service was recorded by the BBC and broadcast next morning on radio 4 (available now on I-player). Don mentioned quite innocuously Muslims and Christians, but this was removed from the broadcast - how sensitive can you get? There was much to stir the heart. Over 1400 people gathered. After the first session we found it better to be in one of the overflow rooms rather than the main auditorium. We met numbers of people from the past, going back right to Bible College days. One thing struck me - some of the more recent missionaries are actually going to the countries from which they originate. This seems a wholly admirable and valuable thing. May more such be sent out.

An old haunt

At the end of last week my wife and I visited Rudyard Lake in Staffordshire where, 20 years ago and more, we often visited with our family. On a beautiful Saturday afternoon we walked, with one of our daughters, sons in law and granddaughter, along by the side of the lake with the sun shimmering on the water. The narrow gauge railway train was puffing up and down alongside and lots of visitors were strolling by or sitting at the water’s edge. The lake is actually a reservoir, built in 1797, to feed the Cauldon canal. It was here that John Kipling first met Alice MacDonald and so they gave its name to their famous son. It was a favourite spot for outings in the Victorian era, especially for people from the Potteries and Macclesfield. It is hidden gem, not so well known when we first used to go there, but having something of a renaissance now – but not too much of one, I hope.

Comments

I see that at the ‘God’s Glory, our Joy’ conference next Saturday in Warrington the opening session is entitled, ‘Building Biblical Churches in an Ageing Society’. How fascinating, and how relevant! Already the proportion of older people in this country is getting greater and greater and that of younger people proportionally smaller. This is the first time I have seen any Christians acknowledge this or suggest we should prepare for it. What differences would this make to our worship? Should it make any?

A commission carried out by the Royal College of GP’s and the Health Foundation charity says that doctors should adopt the role once taken by the ‘local priest’. This, I think, is a challenge to pastors and churches. A pastor, or elder, who really knows the families in the church, and reaches out to relatives beyond the church; who understands people, who knows how to get alongside them, who is able to give good general advice and be a real friend, is doing invaluable work and making openings for the gospel that are hard to get in any other way. I think we have probably failed very much in this area – and I don’t think GP’s will ever be able to fill the gap, even on a social level.

Singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs

In his recent biography of John MacArthur Iain Murray refers to the use of musical instruments in Christian worship. He says: ‘In the Reformed tradition, the use of one musical instrument, simply to set the tune, is a very different thing from introducing a collection of instruments as a part of worship, as in the Temple: a single instrument may belong to adiaphora, or “things indifferent”, no more to be regarded as a part of worship than the pulpit on which the preacher stands.’ It seems to me that this is correct, because it is part of Christian worship for the congregation of God’s people to sing and make melody ‘to the Lord’ (Ephesians 5:19, Colossians 3:16). In most nonconformist services the verbal participation of the congregation is limited to sung praise and possibly the ‘Lord’s Prayer’. It is sad thing when Christians do not realise that it is their privilege, their duty, and should be their joy, to open their mouths and sing to the Lord from their hearts. Who would really want to be playing when he or she ought to be praising?

Holy Island?

We’ve been away on holiday for the past week, so I’m back to the blog now. We spent a most enjoyable holiday in Northumberland and were glad to be able to attend the church in Wooler – where we were staying. One memorable afternoon was spent on Holy Island. The first picture is of Lindisfarne Castle. This loses some of its charm when one realises that the original 16^th century castle was partly built from the ruins of Lindisfarne Priory, seen in the second picture. The castle was then redesigned by Sir Edwyn Lutyens in the early twentieth century as a holiday home! In a way this was fitting. Holy Island is a misnomer; it is now Tourist Island – hundreds of people walking back and forth and round and about. It is doubtless more peaceful at high tide when no-one can get over the causeway, and perhaps in the winter time. Still it seems a fitting symbol of our times: holiness giving way to pleasure and leisure.

Musical theology?

I was intrigued by these two quotations. The first comes from the first volume of Dr Lloyd-Jones on the Sermon on the Mount; the second from an address by Ernest Kevan at Keswick from the book of Galatians.

‘The relation of any particular injunction to the whole life of the soul is the relationship, I think, of the artist to the particular rules and laws that govern what he is doing. Take, for example, the realm of music. A man may play a piece of great music quite accurately; he may make no mistakes at all. And yet it may be true to say of him that he did not really play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. He played the notes correctly, but it was not the Sonata. What was he doing? He was mechanically striking the right notes, but missing the soul and the real interpretation. He wasn’t doing what Beethoven intended and meant. That, I think, is the relationship between the whole and the parts. The artist, the true artist, is always correct. Even the greatest artist cannot afford to neglect rules and regulations. But that is not what makes him the great artist. It is this something extra, the expression; it is the spirit, it is the life, it is “the whole” that he is able to convey. There it seems to me is the relationship of the particular to the general in the Sermon on the Mount. You cannot divorce, you cannot separate them. The Christian, while he puts his emphasis upon the spirit, is also concerned about the letter. But he is not concerned only about the letter, and he must never consider the letter apart from the spirit.’

‘It cannot be said too often that law-keeping can never be the means of sanctification, but it will certainly be the result… The new life of the believer, expressed in a new and active obedience, is itself freedom. “For freedom did Christ set us free.” “Oh how I love Thy law,” cries the Christian. Love now binds him in a manner that legalism never could; but this “bondage” is liberty itself. Love obligates him to an obedience to the will of God from which he has no desire to be released, and this is perfect freedom. As the liberty of a railway train is that it should keep to the track, and to jump the rails would bring nothing but disaster, so the believer, constrained by the love of God will run in the way of his commandments (Psalm 119:32). The Christian now does as he likes, but he has such a new and powerful set of likes that he is held to his Lord and Master in mightier ways than ever he had been held in his slavery to sin. His spiritual freedom is such as the musician experiences when the scales and exercises have become easy, and work has turned to play. The rules are lost in the delight of musical satisfaction.’

After the laying of the foundation stone for the Metropolitan Tabernacle Spurgeon preached a sermon in which he took up the illustration of building and applied it in various ways. I was struck by the following paragraph:

‘Now, there are some of us, brethren and sisters, who are engaged in a very quiet way amongst us. You never hear much about them – it is not often that they can go about to bring in stones, and they cannot polish them – as for judging whether the stone is good or not, that they could not do. They have but very little judgment, indeed, but they are such kind creatures. They exhibit a spirit of meekness, so that if there is a little disagreement they always step in and make it all right. If some brother is a little harsh, there is some kind word just ready. What shall I say these are doing? Why, they are not hewing the stones, or blasting in a quarry, or building or polishing, but they are mixing the mortar, and what a useful part of the work that is! There are many mortar-mixers in this Church. It would have been well, years ago, if there had been still more; and I do attribute much of the quietness and calmness and love of the Church to the fact that we have some excellent mortar-mixers, who, when any little unpleasantness occurs, begin mixing the mortar again. If we cannot do one thing, it is well if we can do another.’