UPDATE

Sunday 8th August was the first anniversary of our Rock Salt home church at Kings Cross! During the past year, God has blessed us in many ways - not the least of which was bringing 89 different people through our door. Whereas we started in August last year with thirteen present - mainly friends and visitors, we now have a regular group who turn up each week for a really encouraging time of discussion and sharing, prayer and fellowship!

Although we can only seat a maximum of twenty, any more than this would cause us to lose our personal identity. As distinct from the nature of some churches, we all know one another, and when someone new comes in, we welcome them and encourage them to feel at home the very first week! But we offer an additional evening service once a month  in an effort to catch those who can't make it in the morning. We have about twenty-five regulars, but with five to seven absent each week for one reason or another, we usually have close to our optimum number. If we do grow, we'll eventually seek to start another group in Cronulla, where some of us live -depending not on any merits of ours, but on the Lord's will!

But numbers are not as important as spiritual growth! This morning we had a testimony from one who became a Christian the first week he attended! And next week, another will be sharing how, if he misses a week with us, he feels flat for the rest of the week! Unlike most other churches, we not only have a preponderance of males, the males outnumber females about five to one! Come on girls! You just won't find this kind of ratio at other churches! 

Another difference is that we don't pass around a collection plate because we value people far more than their money! Those who wish to do so still make donations, but the important thing is that we've managed to give some $5000 to missionaries and those in need during the past twelve months! And we don't offer any pastor's stipend because the church is a voluntary offering to our Lord! 

And I suspect that we're way ahead of our time! As older traditional churches are on the decline, and our secular society is making a definite effort to discourage people from becoming followers of Jesus, it is likely in fifty years or less, that Biblical churches could become underground meetings held in private homes! The day of the robed priest and elaborate ritual is likely to disappear in the next generation, and only evangelicals and charismatics will survive the pressures. 

Today we had the most beautiful birthday cake and there was a sense of celebration and victory in Jesus! 

We trust Him to bless our meetings as long as He wills, and I'd like to congratulate our members on their faithfulness to Him! Ken

DOES MY CREDIBILITY MATTER?

                                                                                                                                       Matthew 5:33-37

An American surgeon, named Dr Evan Kane, believed that many operations that were performed under general anaesthetic could be performed under local anaesthetic! He decided to test this theory by finding someone willing to have his appendix removed by local.  In the year 1921, the first patient was wheeled into the operating room. The operation was a success, and who was the  patient?  It was Dr Kane himself! He had performed the operation on himself! He proved that he was willing to do first, what he would ask others to do later! Likewise, Jesus was willing to go to the Cross first, before asking us to take up our cross and follow Him!

 What we’re talking about this morning is believability in ourselves as Christians! Unfortunately, we each suffer from a credibility gap – which is the difference between what we say and what we do! The question is, can others take us seriously, or more importantly, do we take ourselves seriously?  When we promise to do something, do we even believe ourselves that we’ll do it? If we don’t even take ourselves seriously, can we really expect others to take us seriously? Some years ago, I came up with the absurd idea that I’d love to see people wearing credibility T-shirts (with their percentage credibility printed on the front – so that when anyone told us something, we could decide how much to believe them by the level of their credibility!)

Jesus clearly told His followers this is Matthew 5:37, “Simply let your yes be yes and your no be no!” In other words, “Be prepared to do whatever you say – and stick to it!” Years ago, I promised to give one of my mates a TV antenna for his new house, as I had a spare one at home. But somehow, I forgot this promise, and I found from then on, I could never face him because I had let him down. Eventually he became an assistant director of education in where I lived, and as much as I needed to use his name as a referee for many job applications, I didn’t dare contact him or ask him because I had wrecked my credibility with him! I have lived with the consequences of that broken promise ever since!

Our topic  today appears under  the three C’s – Conduct, Consistency, and Commitment.

Conduct – How many times do we as Christians fail to uphold Jesus’ example in our own behaviour? The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 10: 31, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do, do it all for the glory of God! I once went out for a meal with a group of non-Christian friends in the city. I enjoyed the food so much that I gorged myself to the point where I have never felt so bloated in all my life! I spent the next couple of hours spewing it all up in the gutter as we walked along the streets of Sydney! Did I set an example that my friends would want to follow? What sort of example are you setting for your non-Christian friends? (Perhaps we would like to share around the group, just how we have let Jesus down in the example we have set for others!)

Consistency – How often can our friends rely on what we say? If you tell them that you’ll be there in ten minutes, do you take ten minutes or fifty minutes? A mate of mine would sometimes agree to call on me for lunch at midday – but I always knew when this happened that I could comfortably watch the midday movie for the next two hours – and yes, although he’s never been to this church, he does profess to be a Christian! Time means very little to the current generation in particular! But if we are consistently late, instead of consistently punctual, we send the message that we cannot be relied on! Remember again that Jesus said, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no!” He wants us to be reliable and believable! Am I a man of my word – or as with my TV antenna story, have I let others down? And we must each apply this to ourselves! When my wife and I went for marriage guidance counselling, I offered to start the ball rolling by admitting my faults – in the hope that my wife would do likewise! But the counsellor said, “Well it’s obvious why your marriage has failed! You have just explained it! She didn’t even invite my wife to do her bit! Would anyone here like to share how they have let others down? Can people say of us, “He/she  is a man/woman of his/her word?”

Commitment – The Bible contains thousands of God’s promises which have never been broken! Once He makes a commitment to us, He fulfils His word! But when we make a commitment to follow Jesus by handing over our whole lives to Him, do we follow this through, or do we waiver back and forth, as if we’re still trying to make up our mind? When we get married, we do so in public and we make life-long promises to the other person and to God! And if someone says to us afterwards, “Are you married?”we can’t very well say, “I haven’t decided yet!” Likewise, when we commit our lives to Jesus, we not only make a lifelong commitment, we make a commitment for eternity! (This is not so with marriage, because there is no marriage in heaven!) If someone asks us, “Are you a Christian?” we should be able to say, “Yes I am,” or “Not yet!” But we can’t really say, “I really don’t know!” When I was a kid, I attended Sunday school from the age of three until I turned 14. Then I was confirmed as a member of the Anglican church. I saw this as a type of graduation ceremony – meaning that I didn’t have to be a Christian any more! And many people see becoming a Christian as the graduation – now that I’ve done this, I’ve done my bit! But becoming a Christian is the beginning of our new life – not the end of it!

Jesus was willing to give His life for each of us on the Cross! Are we willing to offer Him our lives in return, or are we willing just to make token gestures once in a while? Remember my previous mate i who says he’s a Christian because he goes to church once a year?  The apostle Peter didn’t understand Jesus’ purpose originally, but after Jesus rose from the dead, Peter wrote, (in 1 Peter 2:21, “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps!” The Message translation says, “He suffered everything that came His way so you would know it could be done, and also how to do it – step by step!” Let’s make sure that we take ourselves seriously in following Jesus – so that others can follow our example! The apostle Paul was able to say in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ!” Wouldn’t it be something if we could say the same thing?

WHY SHOULD WE INVITE OTHERS TO CHURCH?

                 Mark 16:9-15

As humans, we tend to divide people into those we like and those we don’t like. But God’s attitude is quite different! Psalm 145:9 says, “The Lord is good to everyone! He showers compassion on ALL his creation!

There is a common story about a beach which was covered with stranded starfish, and one solitary boy who would bend over every so often and pick up one of the fish and toss it into the water, to give it a chance to live! A man came along and said why are you wasting your time with that one fish when there are countless thousands stranded here? What does one fish matter? The boy looked down at the one fish in his hand and said, “It matters to this one!”

Likewise, Jesus says in Luke 15:7, “There is rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents!” He calls on us to be “fishers of men” – that is to seek out the lost on a one-to-one basis! We are not called to be daunted by the millions out there who are lost, but rather to do our bit in reaching out to them one at a time!

I once attended a meeting at the Sydney Town Hall, where Anglicans across Sydney were invited to meet their new archbishop!  I have to admit that I was rather cynical about the whole deal, especially when the MC for the evening said, “If you’d like to ask the new archbishop a question, just grab a pen and paper and put your special question in this box for him!” I thought to myself, “What makes this man such an expert. I’m going to ask him the most difficult question I can, and let’s see how he deals with it! I put my question down on paper, and surprisingly, it was drawn out of the box and the archbishop addressed it! I had asked, “How can we Christians, who are relatively few in number, hope to reach the millions of people in Sydney with the Good News of Jesus?” the archbishop replied:  “Every person living in Sydney probably knows at least one Christian – whether it be the local shopkeeper, the lady at the bus stop, the quiet bloke at work, or a student at our school or college.” If every one of these Christians sets a godly example, it’s possible that those around us may one day ask us a question, which gives us a chance to testify to our faith!”

The question we need to ask ourselves is, “Do I set a godly example to those around me, or do I just mimic the behaviour of the crowd?” We also need to ask, “Do I care about those around me, or do I just live for myself – doing what I want when I want?” The answers to these questions measure us against the most important command of Jesus:  “GO into all the world and preach the good news to all creation!” This is Jesus one law of love in action! The most loving thing we can do for others is to  share Jesus with them – both in words and in the way we live! What did Mary Magdalene and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus do, after they fully realised Jesus had risen from the dead?

The Apostle Paul took this command so seriously that in Acts 20:24 he said, “But life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned to me by the Lord Jesus – the work of telling others the Good News about God’s almighty kindness and love!”  If this is how a Christian must rate his/her life, how many of us would have to rate our lives as nothing? Can we truly say, “I brought such and such a person to Jesus,” or would we have to admit that we haven’t even tried! If we want to translate this opportunity into practice, we could ask, “How many people have I invited along to this church?” If your name is James, you have probably invited ten different people here since we started ten months ago! And many others here have brought people along! But if we are to remain a living church, we have to invite people all the time, because we’re already losing Annie to Queensland this week, we lost Ivan to Brazil recently and we shall lose Joseph and Christine back to Sweden later in the year! Every church loses people as they go to other states or countries, but every church that lives must grow! And every living church points people to Jesus! If I were to embarrass you by asking for a show of hands if you have invited someone along (and I won’t), could you raise your hand?

If we can’t bring ourselves to tell people about Jesus, we can SHOW them Jesus by the way we live!  Pastor Doug Nichols was in an Indian hospital, and no-one wanted to hear him talk about Jesus. But one day when he helped a very sick man who was fouling his bed, to get to the toilet, people started to take notice, and then they began to ask him questions about Jesus!

WHY REACH OUT?

1.       Each human soul is worth more than anything else in the world! Jesus actually says in Matthew 16:26, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his own soul?”

2.       Any soul who is lost is lost for eternity – separated from God forever! Do we wish this of our family and friends?

3.       Jesus died for every person ever born! Why should anyone miss out on what He offers?

4.       Heaven offers glories beyond our imagination. We would write, “Wish you were here!”

5.       Jesus promises that when the Gospel  reaches all nations and peoples, the end will come!

6.       As we reach out to others, we GROW in the faith – even if we don’t know the results.

(The story of the old man who reached out in George St Sydney)

If we KNOW the Gospel, we can GO, SHOW, GROW!

WHAT CAN WE DO?

We can bring others to learn about Jesus, and hopefully give their lives to Him! Are you willing to do your bit by inviting someone you know to join us for a future service? Are you willing to stop mimicking the world’s behaviour and start reflecting Jesus in your life? Are you willing to be part of an outreach team in Kings Cross? Can you do one, or two, or even all three of these things?

WHAT CAN JESUS OFFER OUR WORLD?

A very kind doctor used to keep an account book, and every so often would go through the accounts to check which bills hadn’t been paid.  Whenever he found an account where the patient could not pay the bill, the doctor would simply put a red line through it and write alongside, “Forgiven, umable to pay”. After his death, his wife went through the book and decided that she could benefit from all these outstanding debts. She therefore went to the local courthouse to sue the debtors for the money in the civil claims court – which is where I often work. But the magistrate looked at the doctor’s account book and said, “No court in the world will give you a verdict against those people, when your husband, with his own pen has written, “Forgiven, unable to pay”!

Likewise, Jesus, in His Book of Life, has acknowledged against each of our names, “Forgiven, unable to pay for our sins!” He knows that although we deserve to go to God’s prison (called Hell) to pay the debt for our sins, we can do nothing to offset the sins which stack up against us, except to claim His forgiveness which He paid for on the Cross! As we share communion today, we thank Him for His forgiveness, which frees us from the penalty we so richly deserve!

We live in a world which treats the symptoms rather than to seek a cure!

Examples:           1. Provide clean syringes for heroin users – but don’t offer the users a new lifestyle!

(The Principal of one of my former schools raided the ISCF meeting because we had a guest speaker talking about drugs – he was addressing how prayer meetings have provided rehabilitation! Some people see the Christian solution as more dangerous than the symptoms themselves!)

                                2. Youth centres and even schools provide condoms for teenagers – but don’t offer celibacy as an alternative lifestyle! It’s almost compulsory to experiment with sex these days! This is like offering a pyromaniac a fire-proof suit for protection – but not exposing the dangers of the practice!

                                3. Drunken riots at Bondi Beach are addressed by Waverley Council be roping off a special area for getting drunk – but no celebration of Jesus is offered at Christmas!

                                4. A careers adviser told a mother not to offer counselling to her daughter who is sexually active –just provide the pill – as “She’s going to do it anyway!” And another careers adviser offered a girl the chance to have an abortion instead of the chance to keep the baby!

                                5. If teenagers rebel – just give them more freedom! My elderly neighbour in Taree complained about the noise caused by my teenage tenant using a basketball hoop on his side of my house. He even offered to provide a hoop in the park on the other side, but the boy’s mother defended his actions by refusing to cooperate with the neighbour!

The world’s solution is to offer more fun, more pleasure, more freedom to disturb and destroy! But Jesus offers a new Way, new Truth and new Life!

A NEW WAY: (Hope)

The great evangelist John Wesley was once assailed by a robber who demanded “Your money or your life!” Wesley not only handed over the few coins he had in his possession, but he added, “Stop! I have something more to give you!” And he told the man, “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin! As the robber rode off, Wesley prayed that the words would sink into his heart! Many years later, as people came out of a church where Wesley was preaching, the former robber himself stepped forward to meet him. He was now a successful businessman and a follower of Jesus. He told Wesley, “I owe it all to you!”to which Wesley replied, “No my friend, not to me but to the precious blood of Christ, which cleanses us from all sin!” This is the way of Jesus! And the only way to receive eternal life!

A NEW TRUTH: (Purpose)

The real truth is very narrow! If your doctor was a very sincere man, and had lots of ideas but knew nothing about medicine, would you trust him to heal you? Jesus said in Matthew 9:12, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick! For I have not come to heal the righteous, but sinners!” Jesus, as our Creator, not only knows how to heal our bodies, but more importantly, He can heal our souls and spirits! If we are only willing to trust Jesus and no other religious leader, we are being narrow minded, because, Jesus said, “No-one comes to the Father except through ME!” When Jesus declared Himself to be truth, He wasn’t just claiming to speak the truth, or to  speak about the truth, because He proved Himself to be God, He actually is the truth, and everything we say and do is measured against Him!

A pastor was once asked to conduct the funeral of a gangster and the dead man’s brother gave the pastor a generous donation for the church if the pastor promised to say that the deceased was a saint! When the pastor got up to preach, he said, “This man is a liar, a cheat and a crook! When he saw the horrified look on the brother’s face, he added, “but compared with his brother, this man is a saint! Likewise, when we measure ourselves against Jesus, we see the truth of Romans 3:23, “All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God!”

At another funeral, the pastor said, in front of the open casket, “Here lies Joe, who would probably  have loved to give his life to Jesus, but now it’s too late! But it’s not too late for you who are here! Now is the day of salvation. You don’t have to suffer the fate of poor Joe! You can receive eternal life today!” On his way home, one man said to his wife, “I thought that message was in very poor taste!” His wife agreed, but added, “Yes, but it’s true! It’s not too late for us!”

A NEW LIFE: (Direction)

Another writer I studied in my first year at university was John Donne – a poet who lived a very licentious life, and wrote poems about the sexual relationships he had with many women in his younger life! But in due course Jesus gave him a new life, and eventually he became the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London! He continued to write poetry, but changed his theme from sexual love to the love of God! (At uni we studied both sets of his poems!) And in one of his sermons he wrote this, “For I shall see the Son of God, the Sun of glory, and shine myself as that Sun shines! I shall rise from the grave, and never miss this city (London), for I shall see the city of God – the new Jerusalem!”

When i was going through one of the most difficult times in my life a number of years back, the pastor of my church gave me this verse from Psalm 27:13, “I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!” Jesus offers us new life – both in this world and the next! Will you take the opportunity to begin a new life with Jesus today?

THE END TIMES FACTS!

                                                                                               1 Timothy 3:1-5

Using the acronym THE END TIMES FACTS, we have the following prophecies from the BIBLE

TENSION– Matthew 24:6 says, “You will hear of wars and rumours of wars!”

Since World War 11 ended in 1945, there have been hundreds of wars throughout the world!

“But see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come!”

HOLY LAND RESTORED – “Ezekiel 36:24 says, “For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land!” (This began in 1948)

EVANGELISM WORLDWIDE – Matthew 24:14 says, “And this Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come!” (The Gospel reached Mongolia – the last country to receive it) in 1990 – only twenty years ago.  The Wycliffe Bible translators claim that they will have a portion of Scripture in every language by the year 2025!

EDUCATION EXPLOSION - Daniel 12:4 says, “But Daniel, keep this prophecy a secret until the end times, when travel and knowledge will be vastly increased!”  Knowledge is increasing at an incredible rate since the introduction of the Internet in about 1990. This incredible increase has vastly increased the opportunity for proclaiming the Gospel to all nations!

NATIONAL DISASTERS – Matthew 24:7 says that “There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains!” The world of nature has been going through amazing upheaval and climate change in recent decades!  I was teaching at TIGS in 1989 and when I told this to a class there, they scoffed. But three months later, Australia had its own dramatic earthquake in Newcastle!

DISEASE – Luke 21:11 adds that there will be pestilences along with famine. Since 1980 there has been AIDS and Ebola disease, mad cow disease and bird flu etc!

FALSE PROPHETS – Luke 21:8 says “For many will come in my name, claiming I am HE!” Billy Graham claims that at the Los Angeles Olympics alone in 1972 there were more than 300 claiming to be Him!

APATHY – 2 Timothy 3:4 says Many will be “Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God!” Apathy is the spiritual disease of our time, as people pursue pleasure in every possible way!

CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION – Matthew 24:9 says, “You will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death!  From 30AD to 1900, there have been 15 million martyrs. In the twentieth century, 30 m!

TRAVEL EXPLOSION - Referred to in Daniel 12:4. Before 1950, many people worldwide never left their own village! Plane travel has totally exploded to now include billions!

SPIRITUAL OUTPOURING – Joel 2:28 says, “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people!” (This has happened to all ages, and every kind of person worldwide since 1900!)

Revelation 16:15 says, “Behold I come as a thief!” No-one knows the day or the hour! Be ready! “Blessed is he who stays awake!”

LIVIING IN THE NEW AGE

                                                                                                        Deuteronomy 18:9-13

These days, some people will pray to anything and everything except God.  A classic example involves the TV star David Hasselhoff, star of Baywatch for many years. He has reported that in June 1998, the year after Princess Diana died, a memorial service was held for her in the grounds of her ancestral home in England. When the day came, it was pouring rain, and David Hasselhoff  prayed to her to stop the rain so that the service could go ahead! And he says that the skies cleared – making this her greatest miracle of that day! But only God can answer prayer! And Jesus added that no-one comes to the Father except through Him! And as we come to communion this morning, we remember that through His death on the cross, we have forgiveness through Him also!

Each year Sydney has a Festival of Mind, Body and Spirit! Now since the Bible tells us that we are made of these three components, it seems quite an appropriate kind of festival to have!  But the Bible also tells us to “test the spirits” and determine whether something is really of God, or whether we’re being led up the garden path!  Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says, “May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ!”

The Festival itself though, is not promoting the Christian faith! It is promoting a different kind of faith which its supporters call “The New Age” or “The Age of Aquarius!” Some of the secular radio stations are quite happy to advertise this festival with all its options, but would never promote the Christian faith as one of the options.

 In the 1960s, the Age of Aquarius was the ascendancy of human achievement, when any traditions seen as restrictive were abandoned by many, and this included the Christian faith! But since man is a spiritual being, the New Age has ushered in a whole range of beliefs and practices to fill this need! Most of them have been around for thousands of years, and therefore the New Age should really be called the Old Age! It involves people are searching outside the truth of God and into the spirit world! This was predicted in 1 Timothy 4:1 as a sign of the end times,  “The Spirit clearly says that in the later times, some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons!”

Satan told Adam and Eve in the garden, that they could taste the forbidden fruit and become like God! New Age exponents also accept this idea and have been tasting the forbidden fruit we have just read about so that they would each become like gods! They believe that they themselves are gods, because they believe that “everything there is can be found in the self”! For this reason, they promote the idea of “consciousness raising” activities so that they can discover new truths within themselves through expanding their minds! But what they are really doing is opening their minds to every kind of demonic force available!

This type of activity is called the Occult – which means ‘hidden’ because people seek what is hidden from general human knowledge! Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever!” Whereas Christianity is a revelation of God, the New Age is an attempt to explore what is hidden from us, especially our individual futures! Whereas the occult was previously taboo in our society because of the commands of Duteronomy, our secular society now accepts the whole gamut of these alternate practices as being “respectable”! I’m referring her to such things as wirchcraft, psychic readings, fortune telling and so on! But the new age is simply the occult with a sugar coating! But 1 John 2:24 says, “See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you!”

The Bible teaches that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19) We either allow Him control of our minds and spirits as well, or we surrender to the other spirits! Whereas the Holy Spirit’s main function is to convict us of our sin, and lead us away from it, the New Age philosophy doesn’t believe in sin or evil as such! But sadly, those who think there is no sin live in a fool’s paradise! Jesus said, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves! Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves!”

Proverbs 14:12 also gives us a warning: “There is a way that seems right to man, but in the end it leads to death!” We can’t afford to make the wrong choices! Only Jesus gives us life!  If you would like to seek Jesus more fully today, a number of us are willing to talk to you about this opportunity!

HOW SACRED IS HUMAN LIFE?

                                 Psalm 139: 12-15, Psalm 92: 12-15

The day Jesus was crucified could also be described as the first Mother’s Day! While Jesus hung on the Cross in excruciating pain, His first thought was for His mother. Speaking directly to her, he said to her, “Behold your son!” referring not to Himself, but to His best mate John, who was assigned to look after her for the rest of her life! Likewise, America’s greatest president, Abraham Lincoln once said, “God bless my mother! All I am or hope to be, I owe to her!”

As we honour our mothers today – whether they are with us or not – we remember that without them, we would not be here! When I taught Scripture at St George Girls’ High School some years ago, I had a discussion with my Year 10 class about Abortion and a number of the girls were all in favour of it! I pointed out to them that if their mothers held the same opinion, they probably wouldn’t have been born themselves! Although scientists now know that the tiny embryo inside the mother is a living human being, this was first revealed again through Jesus’ mother Mary! When she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist, the arrival of Mary caused the baby to jump with excitement in his mother’s womb! But let’s get Mary into perspective! She acknowledged herself as a sinner when she sang the words in Luke Chapter 1: “My soul magnifies the Lord and my Spirit rejoices in God my Saviour!” In referring to God as her Saviour, she admits that she needs to be saved from the penalty of her sin!

Our topic today is the sacredness of human life! A group of medical students was once challenged on the subject of abortion. They were given a test case and asked whether the baby should be aborted!  The case study said this: “The mother and fourth child already have tuberculosis! The father has syphilis! The first child is blind, and the second child has died. The third is a deaf mute. Would they abort the fifth child? Most of the students agree that this would be wise! But the lecturer tells them that they have just killed Beethoven! In other words, every child is a creation of God and deserves a chance to live and to love!

Our first Bible reading today tells us that “Every day of my life was recorded in your book! Every moment of my life was laid out before a single day had passed!”  This means that where a human life is artificially terminated, someone is interfering with God’s eternal plan – not only for that life, but also for the lives of those who would have been touched by that life! The sin which seemed to horrify God especially in the Old Testament times was the sacrifice of children! There are many instances where God wiped out whole tribes of people for that sin in particular! When God said “Be fruitful and multiply,” he did not want children to be used either as a contraceptive or a sacrifice!

God’s purpose is the opposite of the enemy, of whom Jesus says in John 10:10, The thief only comes to steal, kill and destroy!” Jesus says the opposite of Himself:  Ï have come that they may have life, and have it to the full!”

But what of the elderly people in nursing homes who aren’t living life to the full? Psalm 92:14 says, “The righteous will still bear fruit in old age!” My mother is 92 and is sadly a shrivelled version of her earlier self! (Some have even said the same of me!) But my mother continues to bear spiritual fruit in her life as she smiles at all who speak to her, and greets each one with a joyful response, as many of my friends can testify! Proverbs 16:31 says, “Grey hair is a crown of splendour: it is attained by a righteous life!”(which probably explains why I don’t have very much!) Genesis reminds us that each of us is made in the God’s likeness! All human life is therefore sacred! Even the most deformed or decayed person is a light of life and part of God’s plan – because each of us will one day be restored without pain or imperfections! Isaiah 35:5 says, “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy!