Gender Distress              Word on the Week          26th June 2021.

We were reminiscing this week about some of the characters we have known and the peculiarities that marked them out from others.   The conversation turned to one called Peter (not his real name) who had a habit of wearing his underwear as outerwear.    He would often visit us at church especially when there was a clean-up day.  He came at other times too when we were closed and would break into the premises.  We would know it was him because he always emptied the tin of chocolate biscuits!

Apparently before he had reached teenage years he was told he was someone else.   This had a confusing effect which never left him.   The bizarre wearing of clothing was one way he attempted to deal with it.    Sadly, we seem to be in a day when there are many suffering from gender distress and feel they have been born into the wrong body.  Although one could be forgiven for thinking that the current wave of gender dysphoria is being encouraged by the media.

Having cast off from its traditional moorings the nuclear family has morphed into variegated arrangements, some looking for stability others looking for excitement.    Children, for economic reasons or else for hedonistic ones are late in arriving and may no longer be greeted with pink for a girl and blue for a boy!    Gender has become fluid!   The medics have the tools in their bag to arrange gender reassignment.    Naming the child could be more complicated.

The sexualisation of Western Society proceeds at a pace.    In a few days we are to have the ‘pride parades’ publicising the LGBTQ etc. movement with its rainbow colours.   It was interesting to hear the RTE’s ‘Morning Ireland’ commentator remonstrate with a Cabinet Minister who had failed, in her eyes, to censure the Football Association for acceding to the request not to festoon the Munich Stadium with LGBT colours.    “We have to be inclusive” she said.

Now we have talk of a conversion ban.   It seems that having turned their back on God, society does not wish to have their form of conversion upstaged by Him!    Imagine if the tax-collector Matthew responded to Christ’s call to follow him today and to celebrate his conversion he held a large party.  The wider society complained to Christ’s followers, “Why do you celebrate conversion?”   “We want to have it banned!”    Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.   I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (St Luke Chapter 5 verses 29 to 32). And He still does.

How we need the winds of Christian revival to sweep through this land and in its loving wake produce from the broken and disorientated lives followers of Jesus.

Conversations                            Word on the Week                    19^th June 2021.

The G7 (Group of Seven) is an organisation of the world’s seven largest so-called advanced economies. They are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the United States. Included, by invitation, is the EU.   They met, last weekend, in the Carbis Bay Hotel near St Ives in Cornwall in blazing sunshine!

There followed three days of face to face conversations following the guidelines their subordinates had prepared to produce an agreed joint statement on health, vaccines, the economy, the environment and foreign policy.

The elephant in the room – the UK’s non-compliance with the Northern Ireland Protocol which, although only agreed earlier this year, Prime Minister Johnson wished to ditch!   The US sent a rebuke to the UK over this matter some two weeks before the G7 meeting.   It wisely singled out the discordant matters from the conversation!

Speaking after the G7, Boris Johnson said that there was “complete harmony on the need to keep going, find solutions and make sure we uphold the Belfast Good Friday Agreement”.  This piece of fiction presumably allows Johnson to make a meal of the British sausage which will have to pay a tariff to enter Northern Ireland at the end of this month!

Meeting of leaders is deemed to be important in order to get to know each other, to some extent and see how they react to the various crises.  Biden’s meeting with Putin gave each a better understanding of the other.   The fact that the meeting terminated earlier than the allotted time probably means that the existing views of each were confirmed!

On an everyday level sometimes a conversation will stick in your mind.   John Chapman was a well-known evangelist in Australia who visited this country a number of times.   He told the story of the time he brought his vestments to the dry cleaners to be laundered.   There was a feisty assistant behind the counter.   She asked, “Are you a clergyman”?   “You know I am” John replied; “Well why are you not wearing your white neck thing”?   “We are out to get you” John said, “there are hundreds of us you know”!

The conversation paused then she asked, “What I want to know is this, can you forgive sin”?  “Not in a million years John replied”.   “That’s what I thought to” she said – “but I know someone who can” John added.   John then introduced the lady to Jesus!   

He always carried a Bible and took her to the passage where the Apostle Peter wrote about Jesus, who was God incarnate, bearing our sins when he died on the cross (1 Peter Chapter 2 verse 24).   

He explained that another of the Apostles, John, had written that Jesus’s death had the power to purify us from all sin when received with faith by the believer.   He went on to encourage the acknowledgement of our sins in prayer to God and to rely on His faithfulness to forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 John Chapter 1 verses 7 – 9).

Gospel, (that is ‘good news’) conversations can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, bring about lasting change for the better and grant the forgiveness she was looking for.  She would also receive the peace of mind that the Apostle Paul speaks about in his letter to the church in Philippi “And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians chapter 4 verse 7).

And that peace does not need a protocol it is guaranteed by Christ!  

Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs   Word on the Week   12^th June 2021.

Christians sing!   The singing may not always be very musical but since it comes as an expression of the heart it will express profound feelings.   The King James version of the Bible translates Psalm 100 ‘Make a joyful noise unto the Lord’!   It is an exuberant call to ‘all the earth’ i.e. including the Gentile nations to join in thanksgiving to our Maker for his love and faithfulness extend to all generations.

Hymns do not need to be sung!   The Apostle Paul writes in his Ephesian letter to “Speak to one another in Hymns”.    In a testimony which we heard this week the speaker punctuated the different episodes of his life with a hymn which summed up his relationship with the Lord.   Sinclair Ferguson, in his book dealing with the 20 centuries of Christian witness since Christ, concludes each chapter with a hymn written in that century.   Some of these hymns are still being sung today!

One of the earliest accounts of singing in the Bible is Miriam’s song recorded in Exodus Chapter 15 verses 1 to 18.   In it she rejoices in Jehovah’s display of power in delivering the Israelites out of the hand of the Egyptians.    Never before nor since has an entire nation been brought out of another after hundreds of years of captivity.

The book of the Psalms is the ‘songbook’ of the Bible.    During a second period of exile the Israelites find themselves being taunted by their Babylonian captors to sing to them the songs of Zion.   These must have been known to the Babylonians who wanted to hear them.   Indeed, in recent years the words of one of these songs have been recast to produce the popular “By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept – when we remembered Zion” (Psalm 137 verses 1 to 6)! 

It was music and singing that marked the celebration at the sinner repenting.   The joy was not found in the elder brother who saw only the misdeeds of his young sibling.    We are told that even the angels in heaven join in the rejoicing on earth when a sinner repents (St Luke Chapter 15 verses 10 & 25).

This is the redemption which Jesus accomplished for all those who repent and believe the gospel.   It will culminate in that great festal gathering in heaven when the redeemed will sing a new song of praise to the Lamb of God (Revelation chapter 5 verse 8).

Why do Christians sing?   Because they have plenty to sing about!

60 On the Clock               Word on the Week                    5^th June 2021.

Anniversaries inexorably arrive!   They take their subjects somewhat by surprise.   Certain of them are anticipated.   The big ticket occasions!   Then there are those, although significant enough in themselves, arrive rather late for festivities!   The big 60 which Betty and I celebrated this week falls into this category.

Of course, even if we had been so minded, the advent of Covid and the limitations to gatherings imposed by the powers that be would curtail any plans to breakout.   There is also the matter of the ages of the chief participants which, despite relatively good health, impose their own limits!

It is worth casting the mind back to those moments in June, 1961, when, on my knees in front of the church, we heard the Minister utter those powerful words, “What God hath joined let no man put asunder” (St Matthew Chapter 19 verse 6).  This was a Covenant of Companionship for life.  The import of those words hit me with a freshness that came from them being personal and by God’s grace have remained with us to this day.

In this day and age, we need to define marriage.   It is between one man and one woman in a monogamous relationship for life.   In the beginning in addition to companionship, God said they were to be fruitful and increase in number (Genesis Chapter 1 verse 28).    God has blessed us with four wonderful children, each blessed in marriage.   These marriages in turn have been fruitful and we praise God for each of our 10 grandchildren.

Where there is no marriage, there may be some trust but no acknowledged commitment.   By its nature commitment unacknowledged empties the word of meaning.   These transitory affairs may appear to be fulfilling God’s purpose but are drawing water from a well that can never satisfy (St John Chapter 4 verse 13).

God’s creation of image bearers is in the plural.   It is ‘man and woman, male and female, He created them’ (Genesis Chapter 1 verse 27).    Just as God is more than one so to be in his imagine we need to be more than one.   Some believers have the gift of singleness but they are the exception.   Marriage is the rule.

We do not know how much longer we will be here but what lies ahead is the marriage feast of the Lamb.   All who are part of his Church, the Bride, called through the gospel of grace, to the marriage supper of the Lamb – Hallelujah (Revelation Chapter 19 verses 6 to 9).