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!

WHY DO GOOD PEOPLE SUFFER?

                                                                                                                                      1 Peter 4:12-19

A student once told me that he was giving up the Christian faith because he saw his grandmother, a faithful Christian, suffer before she died! His logic was, that if God allows good people to suffer, then he didn’t want to serve God! (Or was this just a cop-out to justify living without God?)

In the movie A Man Called Peter, Catherine Marshall his wife faced a similar dilemma! She was confined to bed with tuberculosis over a long period of time. No matter how much she and her husband prayed, she didn’t get any better! Let’s see what happened in the movie version of the story! This scene takes us from despair to triumph, when Catherine surrenders to God’s will! But we should not assume that when we surrender to God, life will be a bed of roses from then on! (This mistaken belief is called the Prosperity Gospel and is wrongly taught in a number of churches!

There are three reasons I’d like to consider for good people to suffer in God’s world:

1.       Suffering teaches us to rely on God! One of my friends had been very self-sufficient until his wife contracted cancer! He suddenly realised for the first time that we don’t control our own lives after all! But even the death of his wife did not draw him to Jesus! It was only when he landed in hospital himself that the penny finally dropped, and convinced him to surrender to Jesus at last! Peter Marshall himself said that while life is a series of highs and lows, God relies more on the lows to bring us to Himself! And some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else! As we heard from 2 Corinthians 12:9 last week, He told the Apostle Paul, “My strength is made perfect in your weakness!”

2.       Suffering Prepares us for Service! A girl in my youth group contracted a strange muscular disease which left her bedridden for twelve months – just as she was about to do the HSC! But instead of turning away from God, she dedicated the rest of her life to serving God as a hospital chaplain – ministering to the sick and dying and their families! A television movie tells the true story of Edna Gladney who lost her only son at age 5, and then her husband, who told her before she died, “God took your baby from you so that through you thousands of babies may have a chance! Edna spent the rest of her life caring for orphans and deserted children! (This should also remind us that God Himself lost His only Son so that millions could be saved from disaster!)

3.       We Suffer Because the Enemy Hates Us! Satan hated Jesus enough to prompt one of His own disciples to betray Him unto death! Satan also sets out to destroy each of our lives by turning us away from God, as he tried with Job, for example! I once surprised a group of Christian young people in Papua New Guinea by telling them how my Christian group in the boarding school were persecuted for following Jesus! One of them said to me afterwards, “But I thought Australia was a Christian country!” As Christians, we must dare to be different!  If we are doing God’s work, we can expect constant rejection! For example, I messaged some fifteen people during the week to invite them to our service this morning. Of those, only  - have come along!

We are told in 1 Peter 2:21, that we are called to suffer for doing good, “because Christ suffered for you, leaving an example, that you should follow in His steps!”

IS MANKIND MAKING PROGRESS?

                                                                                                                                 Genesis 11

If we define progress as material achievements, we can say “Yes, mankind is making progress!” Japan, for example, has a tower one kilometre high – much higher than the Tower of Babel mentioned in the Bible! But in the year 2000, the world celebrated 2000 years of Christian faith.  And to mark the occasion, the City of London built the world’s largest ferris wheel. Doesn’t it give you a feeling of security, knowing that London has this special landmark? I mean, yes, you do get quite a good view from up there (I’ve been there already) but to me it’s a sad commentary on human progress that we celebrate our faith in this way!

The truth is, that in the 5000 years since the Tower of Babel, the human race has learned very little of real significance! How can I say this? Because we are still making the same mistakes now that the Babylonians were making all those years ago:

1.       Pride – Making a name for ourselves!

 In other words, by glorifying ourselves rather than God, we are concentrating on Humanism – the idea that human beings can ultimately achieve anything! When Tony Blair became the Prime Minister of England for example, he declared in distinctly humanist tones, that the world was about to experience a generation of peace!  I said at the time that this was a ridiculous assertion, especially since Neville Chamberlain, a previous prime minister had declared, “Peace in our time” just before Britain and Germany declared war on each other!  And sure enough, during Tony Blair’s term of office, England became embroiled in two impossible wars – one in Afganistan, and one in Iraq! The Bible has a comment to make on this kind of pride, in 1 Thessalonians 5:3, “While people are saying ‘peace and safety’, destruction will come upon them suddenly!” I must admit that I’d much rather believe the Bible than the Tony Blairs of the world any day! “Whereas John the Baptist said of Jesus, “He must become more important and I must become less important (John 3:30), most people would prefer to believe the opposite!

We can fall into the same trap as the rich fool in Jesus’parable, who kept building bigger and better buildings for his own importance, until God took him unprepared! A quiz champion of the sixties named Frank Partidge had a new home, a new wife, became a father, etc, but was wiped out in a head on collision! I don’t know whether he was prepared for eternity, but he got it!

Adam and Eve developed such pride that they sought equality with God, but even today, most people make gods of themselves, leaving the true God out of the picture!

2.       Prominence  -  Trusting in ourselves, rather than in God! “Let us build ourselves a city!”

These days, humans feel a sense of self-achievement because they’ve put a man on the moon! Scientists are even claiming that computers which focus on data from outer space can reveal the origins of the universe! And members of SETI (search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, claim that by training their computers on outer space, that sooner or later they will pick up signals from other life forms in the universe! But God’s universe is far greater than man or his computers! It is convenient to leave God out of the picture – but not very realistic!

Medical science is now trying to play God by creating life from nothing as God has done! But they will never succeed! We must recognise, as Hebrews 2:10 tells us, that it is GOD “for whom and through whom everything exists!” Not only have scientists and others declared God redundant, but people try to use made-up religions to get into God’s Kingdom! They forget that ‘religion’ means to bind up, while Jesus declared, “The truth will set you free!” (John 8:32) We cannot get to heaven by our own efforts, no matter what we try to do to achieve it! Jesus even tells the story of one man who tried to crash His party by his own efforts, but instead was thrown into ‘outer darkness’!  Jesus also said that His strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Cor 12:9) It is only when we make a point of total surrender that God can really work in us! St Augustine said, “Man will never find rest until his soul finds rest in Thee!”

3.       Pressure from Peers – the idea of safety in numbers! 

One of the fallacies of modern (and ancient) society is that “the majority is always right!” But originally the majority thought that the earth was flat! These days, most people live for themselves rather than God, and in the process, they follow the easy path to destruction! (Matt 7:13) But Christians will always be in the minority! E.g. Lot in Sodom! While I was living in the Republic of Nauru, I noticed that the motto of this so-called Christian country was “God’s Will First!” But when I asked the pastor’s son how many of the people were ‘real’Christians, he estimated that 18% would be generous! People forget that when we die, we will face God alone! We won’t have family and friends there to back us up! Our only ally will be Jesus Himself, who will either welcome us into His presence, or say, “”Sorry, I never knew you!”

Babel was language confusion and no effort can unite our languages (e.g. UN) Only the Holy Spirit can unify languages as a Pentecost! Let us not continue making the mistakes of Bable, and instead surrender to our Maker! Our eternal life begins the moment we do!