Quite often last year (via Internet) I visited a church in southeast England called King's Church. This morning I ended up there again, not exactly intentionally, but clearly by the Lord's leading. The sermon I was taken to is by a speaker named Christen Forster. He is a gentle man with a strong message. So much of what he says here resonates with me.
Yesterday evening I opened an e-mail from Keswick Ministries to read about their upcoming summer convention. As well as using the Keswick Ministries site as a resource for listening to excellent sermons and talks, I often follow my favourite speakers home -- looking up their home ministries, that is -- so that I can listen to more of what God has to say through these people. One of the speakers in Week 2 of the upcoming 2016 convention is Jeremy McQuoid, Teaching Pastor at Deeside Christian Fellowship Church in Aberdeen, Scotland. Out of curiosity, never having heard him before, I went to the Deeside Church website. It may have been my Scottish roots that made me curious, although (as you will no doubt hear) Dr. McQuoid is originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland. I'm always amazed at how God can pick me up and drop me in front of a message that He has expressly designed for me to hear at a precise moment. This sermon is based on the last chapter of the book of Ruth. It's a message about redemption. Once, I'm not sure how long ago, I said to God, "I've ruined everything." He didn't miss a beat. I sensed He was smiling; His answer was gentle. "And I've redeemed everything." * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * "There is a Redeemer"
Dr. Jeremy McQuoid, Deeside Christian Fellowship Church, Milltimber, Aberdeen, Scotland August 11, 2013 Ian Garrett is one of my favourite speakers on Clayton TV. He is true to scripture, but he always addresses his listeners with gentleness and respect. Here is a message he preached recently about how a person may go from being judged by God to justified by God. I confess that this message is in some ways hard for me -- much of it goes directly against the way I was raised to think; I still struggle with this. Yet if we think we can face God on our terms, we are sadly mistaken. Happily, God has provided a way we can face Him -- and even know Him -- on His terms. Jesus is that way.
"Trusting in the cross" Ian Garrett Jesmond Parish Church, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Please note: there is a brief audio glitch about 28 minutes in -- the sound should resume after no more than about a minute; clicking the video's volume control may or may not help bring it back more quickly (i.e. I did this and the problem stopped, but it may have been going to stop anyway ;) ). (The video may work best on high definition -- to enable this, click the HD button next to the video's volume control.) One of the great benefits today is the ease with which we can find excellent resources, if we know where to look. The annual Keswick Convention is one such treasure trove to me. When I hear a message that's clear and Christ-focused, I only have to do a quick search to find where the speaker's home base is; this often takes me to a new set of sermons and other resources to add to my collection. Yesterday (Saturday) was a very difficult day for me, and, in some ways I think, for the Lord. He has allowed a number of things to be pulled out from under me, and yesterday I allowed this to drag me far away from His perspective. This morning I woke up early, and after encountering a mix-up on another sermon site I was trying to access, I ended up at the Keswick site, where I found an uplifting talk by a pastor from Buckinghamshire, England. After listening to this talk, I visited the church site and bookmarked it for future reference. God wasn't finished with what He had to say to me this morning, though. Looking through the list of this church's sermons, my eye landed on one by a guest speaker named Graham Wakeman, who is pastor at King's Church in a town called Iver. Trust the Lord to press it on my heart to listen to a sermon called "The Pain of the Cross." I am so glad I did; I've listened to it twice now. It's deeply important, and straight from God's heart. I've given this post the title "Living from heaven to earth" because of something astonishingly insightful and beautiful that's stated near the end of the sermon. May the Lord be greatly blessed and may He greatly bless and challenge you as you listen to this. "The Pain of the Cross: What Christ endured for us because He loved us" direct audio link download link Graham Wakeman (pastor at King's Church, Iver, UK) speaking March 16, 2014, at Gold Hill Baptist Church, Buckinghamshire, UK A dear friend recently loaned me a biography of Hudson Taylor (1832-1905), one of the earliest missionary pioneers to China. It's no coincidence that God has me reading this book right now. Through Hudson Taylor's insights, I see that the critical issues He's been tackling in me recently are the symptom of a much deeper underlying work He wishes to do. I read and re-read this letter Hudson Taylor wrote to one of his sisters, which appears in the biography I'm reading but has also been reproduced online*: "The Exchanged Life" On my second and third readings of this letter, I became increasingly frustrated to read about Hudson Taylor's immediate grasp of the principles God revealed to him. Perhaps because we live in an information-oversaturated age, I can read the very same words he did and not be transformed in the way he was. It helped a great deal, therefore, to read the letters Taylor subsequently wrote to his children (at school in England) and to another sister, in which he expounds on these truths in plainer, but profound, terms: From a letter to his children**:
From a letter to another sister***:
This is part of a new beginning for me. It's not yet the reality of my everyday walk, but one day, before too long, I believe it will be. I have prayed God to make it plain to me, and to help me so to trust in Jesus.
_______________ Sources: * Found on the "Wholesome Words" website, under Worldwide Missions -- Missionary Biographies -- James Hudson Taylor -- The Exchanged Life. ** From page 181 of Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret, by Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor (Howard and Geraldine Taylor), Chicago: Moody Press, 2009. (First published in 1932) *** From page 182 of the same book While visiting the website of Keswick Ministries today, I was drawn to the title of this talk. The speaker is Canadian-born theologian D.A. Carson, whose work I had never encountered before. I find the depth of his insights remarkable.
audio file: "The Ironies of the Cross" (Also available as a download, here) from the July 2010 Keswick Convention series, "Christ Centred Renewal" Very, very powerful.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = YouTube video: Louie Giglio, Passion 2014, "Behold the Lamb of God" = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = "Ichabod or Ebenezer?," a sermon by Charles Price,
presented at the Revival Conference Victoria 2010 posted on YouTube by SermonIndex.net (Edited to add: The film quality of this video is a bit fuzzy. If you find this distracting, there's an audio version of the sermon available HERE, on SermonIndex.net.) "[W]e sooner or later learn that if Jesus Christ was merely a Teacher, He adds to the burdens of human nature, for He erects an ideal that human nature can never attain. He tantalizes us by statements that poor human nature can never fit itself for. By no prayer, by no self-sacrifice, by no devotion, and by no climbing can any man attain to that 'Blessed are the pure in heart,' which Jesus Christ says is essential to seeing God.
When we come to the New Testament interpretation of our Lord we find He is not a Teacher, we find He is a Saviour. We find that His teaching is but a statement of the kind of life we will live when we have let Him re-make us by means of His Cross and by the incoming of His Spirit. The life of Jesus is to be made ours, not by our imitation, not by our climbing, but by means of His Death. It is not admiration for holiness, nor aspirations after holiness, but attainment of holiness, and this is ours from God, not from any ritual of imitation. ...[F]or the instruction and courage of those whose hearts are fainting in the way, ...to whom life holds out no more promises, ...let me bring the message contained in this Psalm [121], even as a cup of water from the clear sparkling spring of life. 'My help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth.' He will take you up, He will re-make you, He will make your soul young and will restore to you the years that the cankerworm hath eaten, and place you higher than the loftiest mountain peak, safe in the arms of the Lord Himself, secure from all alarms, and with an imperturbable peace that the world cannot take away." Excerpt from Oswald Chambers, The Place of Help: A Book of Devotional Readings (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1936) 5-6 |
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November 2022
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Christ Jesus is
gold without alloy -- light without darkness -- glory without cloud -- "Yea, He is altogether lovely." Charles Spurgeon |