Sermons

"What's interesting about these times when God breaks in with grace and calls upon faith is that it has a word that's used about it a way of writing and it's in our passage that we had in the Bible reading about Jesus talking to the Jerusalemites of how they did not know their time of visitation and the word visitation is used and I've been chasing up ever since that home group about the meaning of the visitation discovering it to be quite a technical word."

"I don't know if you've ever had seen what happens when people are affected in this way by ice. But it's very interesting to compare a story in the Bible that we're going to look at tonight. It's in Luke. Chapter 8. We read the story of a man... A man who shows some very violent and very self-destructive behaviours."

"We've been talking in the morning services about the two covenants, that's to say the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. We don't mean to imply that there's two ways to God. There used to be some people who thought that salvation was by one of two covenants and the Jewish people came in by one covenant and the other people are us coming in by another, the New Covenant. And the idea of the Old Covenant moving to the New is not that there's two ways to get to God and the Jewish people have one and we have another, but it's because of the progress that the one God making one covenant at a time was bringing people to himself. And the progress between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant is a part of what we've been learning. Knowing that we're talking on this topic, I've had some people ask me to comment on certain Bible verses so that this could be made clear, particularly about how do Jewish people get right with God and how do non-Jewish people."

"And no better way to find out how Christianity has been set up by God than to go back to the beginning of the first apostles, Jesus and the apostles. And to go back to the beginning of the first apostles, Jesus and the apostles. And the things that he told them to do. And so as a part of tonight we will be looking at the Great Commission."

"But in actual fact, all it's talking about is the moment when Samuel was dealing with Israelites and he set up the rock to have a significance and the significance is what it's important about. The significance is that God, God stepped in and helped them. And hitherto has the Lord helped us. I think it reads in one of the older versions. In our version that you've got on the screen, now, till now, the Lord has helped us. And basically what it is, is an encouragement, an encouragement to, about the fact that if God has been with you thus far, you can trust him to keep you along the way as well."

"It's talking about things that are not physical, but they're more in the realm of existence, but not necessarily something with your eyes to see. But it's also what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that this world is made up of more things than just the ones that can be analysed by the professors at university. This world is made up by more than all the principles of education. And there's more than the learning to be done, that is good learning."

"He said, 'not just because there are signs should you necessarily believe they're from God'. And he had a list of Bible verses which were actually telling of how some signs are not from God. And I thought gee that's something that we all should learn more about. And so that's where I've gotten this idea of a message tonight and we'll start a very obvious place in the book of Exodus."

"Which covenants are mentioned and taught in the Bible? So they're biblical in the sense that it's the scriptures that have presented that idea to us. And basically there are not as many as you might think. There is the covenant that God made with Noah. And so you could say the Noahic covenant, that he wouldn't judge the world by water ever again. And there's other covenants of that nature. But basically to do with salvation, the only real covenants there are are the old covenant, that God made through Moses, and the new covenant that God made through Jesus. And those are indeed taught as the covenantal framework in which our salvation is set."

"It only really works for the musketeers to give themselves a role. It only really works if the king is a good king. If the king is not a good king, the whole expenditure of their loyalty isn't really worth it. Now, in the case of the Beatitudes, we have the one person who is a good king. It is the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Beatitudes are about how we can come."

"If ever there were a topic, there was a topic, where there's so many details, and so many aspects, and so many different opinions, that's got you a bit confused, I guess it's mostly likely to be about the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The fact that the Scriptures teach that Christ is going to return is called the Second Advent. The First Advent, of course, is when He came at Christmastime and He came to be born, and the Second Advent is when He's coming to rule and to culminate the history up to that point of the entire world. And this is taught in the Scriptures in many different places, including the Old Testament, but certainly in the New Testament, so it's beyond doubt that Jesus Christ is going to come back again."