Author: George Morrison

Imagine a land where marriage ceased to be a picture of Jesus relationship with His church. Fidelity and permanency are gone. Where the legislators deny that God has spoken by enacting laws contrary to His word. The boundary stones have been removed and replaced by lawyers. A land where the new trinity of tolerance, equality and individual freedom have replaced the old communities where needs could be met by shared responsibility. You are looking at Ireland today. Imagine a land where the people never want to grow up, where their sexual relationships with both male and female are “open” meaning partners consent to each other having sex with other people. Where advocates of this type of “freedom” want to produce “varied, creative, and adaptive contours, including small group marriages”. You are looking at USA tomorrow – and Ireland the day after tomorrow. Recently a number of Evangelicals had a letter printed in the Irish Times describing the Biblical boundaries for sexual activity. The responses which the paper printed either ignored scripture or else mangled it. The Government are deaf to the plea for a conscience clause to be incorporated into the Civil Partnership Bill which is soon to be passed into law. Are we making too much of a fuss about this matter? What does the Bible say? The Bible tells it like it is. King David was an adulterer and King Solomon a womaniser. When we read the Bible we need to discern when the characters are sinning and when they are acting in obedience to God’s wishes. Kings were supposed to enact God’s laws and to govern in accordance with them. The majority of them failed and we read again and again that they “did evil in the sight of the Lord”. In Solomon’s case he was not punished because of God’s promise to David but after his death the kingdom was divided and 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel were lost. In the New Testament the sins which we are about to enshrine into law are embedded in lists but not singled out as being particularly heinous. The legalising of them will not affect the church but it will give a false sense of legitimacy to behaviour which God condemns. The speed with which change is taking place means that even at a sociological level there is not enough data to ring the alarm bells and by the time there is – it will be too late to reverse the engine. Apostasy, as in Solomon’s case, impacts the next generation. It’s the children who will inherit the fruit of disobedience. But there is a better way. It’s the way of Love, joy and peace with God. It’s the way of security for this life and the next. It comes not by trying but by trusting in the work of Jesus on the cross. None need join the “race to the bottom” by following the liberal agenda. It can never satisfy. It will always sell you short. Turn to your Maker, who has promised to all who do, to make you a new creation. (2 Corinthians Chapter 5 verse 17).

It’s not the first time a live microphone has caught an aside made by a celebrity when he or she thought it was switched off! Prime Minister Brown’s doorstep chat with Labour supporter Gillian Duffy appeared to go reasonably well, that is until Brown was being driven away in his ministerial car. In its relative seclusion he allowed himself to express his true feelings about the interview. He thought Gillian was a bad choice and wanted to know who had arranged it. He feared the media would show him in a bad light then unwittingly ensured that this would happen by calling her a “bigoted woman”! All of which was broadcast over the on-site loudspeakers. The journalists covering the event had their story handed to them on a plate. Brown had the tape of his off the record words played to him in the studio a short time later. This caused the ministerial car to make a second journey to Mrs Duffy’s house where the now contrite Prime Minister spent the next hour inside with Mrs Duffy. Unfortunately the microphone was not left on this time and we can only guess at the word games which ensued! What has the Bible to say about our words? Can those asides, those throw away lines, be of any consequence to God? It seems that they are because they reflect our thoughts more accurately than our more nuanced words. When the Pharisees tried to discredit Jesus ministry by saying he was a blasphemer he countered them with a severe warning; “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” St Matthew ch.12 verses 36/7. Careless words revealed the condition of the heart of the thief on the cross who despised Jesus. One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him, “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!” Fortunately for us the microphone was left on so to speak and we heard him being rebuked by the other thief who then cried out to Jesus. Notice he didn’t cry to the Priests at the foot of the cross though they had just heard his confession. He didn’t cry to the Apostle John though doubtless he recognised him. He didn’t cry to the Blessed Virgin Mary though she was present. He cried to the only one who was able to help. His words revealed his hearts desire and he put his faith in Jesus, the only one who could save him for all eternity. St Luke ch.23 verses 37/43. We don’t need to have a microphone around our neck to remind us that we are so like Brown. Heaven hears and when the accounts are given we will be like the crucified thieves. May God grant us the grace to place our faith in Jesus that we too, like the confessing thief, may be with Him in paradise.

Dear Friends, This last week has been a reminder that we live in God’s world and, although fallen, is not out of control. All events lie within his permitted will. At present we know in part; then we shall know fully as we are fully known – 1Cor.13:12. In Christ, George. Eyjafjallajokull.  Word on the Week 24th April 2010. Earthquakes have been occurring in South America and China but it has taken the Icelandic eruption to wake up Europe to their horror. Of course we knew about Haiti and Peru. We had even read about China. This one was different. This one hit us! True there was no loss of life and only a little brown dust to wash off the car – but the disruption to air travel! Paralysed we were. Cut off from the homeland in our holiday retreats. Stopped in our tracks for 6 whole days. Much weeping and wailing at the airports while the ferries never had it so good!  The more macho among us had tales of buses, trains and automobiles to tell and those with an equestrian interest made the annual pilgrimage to Punchestown Race Course a do or die affair.  All in all a bit of escapism to get our minds off the economy! What about places where ‘quakes are a common occurrence? Take Muslim Iran for instance. A leading Iranian cleric has told the faithful they must pray and give to the poor to avoid the earthquakes that have often ravaged the country, a Tehran daily reported on Saturday.  The comments by hardliner Ayatollah Ahmad Janati in his sermon at the main weekly Muslim prayers in Tehran on Friday came a week after a fellow cleric warned that immodestly dressed women were causing quakes. “No-one can predict earthquakes with certainty, except those who are pious,” the reformist Aftab e-Yazd newspaper quoted Janati as saying. So now we know! What does the Bible say about earthquakes? Quite a lot. In all three synoptic Gospels Jesus is recorded in saying they would be a regular part of this age (not in the age to come) until the return of Jesus to redeem all of creation. Earthquakes, as you would expect, feature strongly in Revelation – a book which ushers in the end times.  Earthquakes have the ability to concentrate the mind like nothing else. It is significant that they featured at both the Cross and Resurrection; St Matthew 27:54 & 28:2. The first of these events powerfully affected the Centurion in charge of Christ’s crucifixion. The scripture says he was filled with awe and said of Jesus, “Truly this was the Son of God”. The second heralded the moving of the stone to reveal to Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and John the triumph of the resurrection – so well captured in the paraphrase of Psalm 48: – The Saviour died, but rose again triumphant from the grave; And pleads our cause at God’s right hand omnipotent to save. Earthquakes? They strike terror into the heart of man but hold another message for the Believer. Put your faith in the risen Christ. He is returning soon.

Dear Friends, Repentance is commanded in Scripture. Some say repentance is hard – the Bible says it’s impossible! Augustine got a handle on this conundrum when he said; “God gives us commands we cannot perform that we may know what we ought to request from Him”. Pray to the Lord to show you your sin (not just what bugs you) then take it to Jesus. In Him, George. Authority. Word on the Week. 17th April 2010. In Roman times in Palestine there was no difficulty in recognising where the authority lay. Her soldiers used crucifixion. 2,000 in one day makes a pretty clear statement as to who is in charge.  In ecclesiastical matters excommunication, with its attendant fear of hell, enabled the church to establish its authority. Add superstition and the withholding of scripture and authority was relatively easily imposed on the people. Today in our secular society, democracy has hampered those in government from abusing power – in case they lose it! In ecclesiastical societies, the ability of churches to abuse has been dramatically reduced by the availability of an open Bible.  No longer do people look at large buildings and fine vestments and think, “that is where the power lies”. This week the epitome of all that in Vatican City has begun to be exposed. The ability to self-destruct simply by failing to own up to error is built into the human physic. Add the notion of infallibility and you have burned the bridge to Gospel country. What does the Bible say to all this? In Psalm 51 David realises that covering up his sins may fool man but cannot deceive God. “For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away

through my groaning all day long.

For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;

my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to you,

and I did not cover my iniquity;

I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”

and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.” The Bible is not selective when it comes to exposing sin. The Apostle Paul proclaims that “God is telling everyone everywhere that they must repent” Acts 17 verse 30. There are no exceptions. We must look back to the cross where God’s Lamb took the sins of the world. There were no sins too sinful. As St John wrote in his 1st letter “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins…the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin.” Where does authority come from? Authority comes from the God of the Word who has all authority and the faithful application of the Word of God by His redeemed servants. May God grant the grace to truly repent and trust in the work of Jesus.

Cast your mind back to the playground. You are 4 and already well versed in name-calling. It was a gift to your art if the other’s name rhymed with a rude word. Now imagine you have a Nigerian classmate called Toyosi Shitta-bey! You are glad you are Irish, white and speak with the local accent. Even so you don’t like it when you are called names, when you have done something different, stood out from the pack. Then you crave the anonymity of the herd. The safety of sameness! Roll on 11 years and your classmate has survived the name calling. This would have become more sophisticated, developing along ethnic lines. Toyosi has now become a talented footballer. His ability distinguished him from the rest and a note of jealousy has added flavour to the language. His colour meant that his friends tended to be black and this provided an easy pigeon hole in which white prejudice could be placed. His 5 friends could only look on with astonishment as Toyosi was fatally knifed on Good Friday by two older Irishmen.  We may never know what was said, what gesture provoked the attack or was it simply eye contact that created the offence?  Evil needs little justification. Merely to exist can be sufficient motive. Jesus Christ was always going to be an easy target. The main difficulty the powers that be had in disposing of him was his popularity with the people. There was also the ease with which he handled questions and told parables most of them with a double meaning which showed them in a bad light. Then there were the miracles. Not counterfeit ones that could easily be discredited. These were well known people who were healed. He was so different. He was undermining the establishment which they loved. He had seen through their hollow power structure. He was dismantling their man made religion. He must be stopped! And so it was on that first Good Friday “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities: upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed”. “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteousness for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” (Isaiah 53 and 1 Peter ch.3 v 18) We who are evil by nature need to reach out to the nail pierced hands of the only One who can “present us faultless before His Fathers throne”. (Jude 24). His salvation is the only one which can permanently unite young and old, rich and poor, black and white because those who truly trust in Him are, by His grace, radically changed to love one another.

Wouldn’t it have been enough to grant Philip’s request to “show us the Father”? Philip was only echoing Moses request for that elusive blessing of seeing the face of God. Was that not what the Aaronic blessing was all about:- The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, The Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace. This was the ultimate blessing and the opposite of cursing which was epitomised by the Lord turning his back in judgement on those who were disobedient and went after other gods (Deut.11 verses 26-28) To this day no one has seen the face of God and lived (Exodus 33 verse 20). There has been only one exception. St John in the opening 2 verses of his Gospel gives us a picture of intimacy. The face to face relationship between God and Jesus – the definitive blessing. Its absence was the essence of the curse. So what is He doing on a cross – depicted so inadequately in the many Passion Plays taking place this weekend? St Paul says Jesus on the cross has become a curse for us (Galatians 3 verse 13). The synoptic Gospels record God turning his back on the crucified Christ who utters his cry of dereliction, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The death of Jesus is on behalf of us. He takes the curse of the law for sinners. He is our substitute. Jesus said it in many different ways. His life for mine. “I lay down my life for the sheep” (St John 10 verse 15). He paid my debt. “For even the Son of Man came ….to give His life as a ransom for many” (St Mark 10 verse 45). The intimacy that Jesus experienced with the Father was shattered on the cross. At that moment God turned out the lights. The Bible tells us that the world was encompassed in darkness. God was bearing witness to the trauma of the hour. Jesus was forsaken. He was cursed, and had become a sin offering. He was cut off from the Father. He was the anathema. And it was for us. One day believers will experience the fullness of the Aaronic blessing. We will see the face of God.

I think it was Aneurin Bevan who, when a UK cabinet Minister, dreamt of purchasing a rail ticket from Waterloo Station to anywhere in the world without the need for a passport. This last week it almost required a passport to get into the Dublin Passport Office such was the queue created by the current strike! No doubt Bevan would have agreed with the monetary nature of the strike despite the fact that the people most hurt by it were the people he wanted to protect. Fortunately, this week, as our thoughts focus on the cross of Christ and his resurrection, they point the way to heaven. No purchase of a passport is required. The free invitation of Jesus encapsulated in Joseph Hart’s hymn puts it together for us. Come you needy, come and welcome; God’s free bounty glorify; True belief and true repentance, every grace that brings you nigh. Without money, without money come to Jesus Christ and buy.  Come you weary, heavy laden, bruised and broken by the fall, If you tarry till you’re better, you will never come at all. Not the righteous, not the righteous; sinners Jesus came to call.  Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream. All the fitness he requires is to feel your need of Him. This He gives you, this He gives you, ‘tis the Spirit’s rising beam.  So what is the passport to heaven? For those who respond to the Spirit’s promptings the scene changes from looking at self to looking to the Saviour.  View Him prostrate in the garden, on the ground your Maker lies On the awful tree behold Him; hear Him cry before He dies, It is finished! Sinner, will not this suffice?  Lo, the incarnate God ascended, pleads the merit of His blood; Venture on Him, venture wholly, Let no other trust intrude; None but Jesus can do helpless sinners good.  Aneurin Bevan’s dream may never become a reality but those whose trust is in Jesus can travel with Him for time and eternity. Jesus said that journey can begin right now! The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. Gospel of John Chapter 3 verses 35-36.

“Where does it say in the Bible that the pubs should be closed on Good Friday” was the question troubling a heckler at an Open Air meeting? The question came around again this week when those who enjoy pub-time after full-time realised that the Magners League rugby match was scheduled to take place on Good Friday in Limerick. The vintners did their sums and reckoned that the loss to the community would amount to a cool €5,000,000. Presumably they were factoring in a home win over Leinster! A local priest kicked for touch with the suggestion of a public debate. He claimed to know of a couple of players who said their prayers before matches but it is hard to see how he could arrive at a majority without the accusation of tampering with the results! An appeal was made to keep sacred the two most important days in the church calendar – Christmas and Good Friday. Regarding the latter he said, “There was something emotive about it and it had a sombreness to it that allows you to tap into and reflect on personal suffering, and psychiatrists would argue that it’s important to do that.”  What has the Bible to say on the matter? When Jesus remarked that Abraham “rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day” (St John Ch.8 V56) it wasn’t so much Good Friday that was in view but the fulfilment of the promise that Messiah would bring blessing to all nations. For Jesus Good Friday was the day when he finished the work of atonement. The day when he became a sin-offering to his Father for the sins of his people. The Lamb of God substituted for the sinner who looks to Him in faith and finds pardon, forgiveness and a new life in the household of the living God. As to the day itself the Bible is not dogmatic. St Paul writing to the church at Rome says, “ One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind”. (Romans Ch.14V5). As to what happened on that day however St Paul has absolutely no doubt of its significance, “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians Ch.15V3) and that truth should be remembered 365 days of the year.

When “grade inflation” was highlighted in the press this week it was a term new to most of us. It sounded sophisticated. Rather status enhancing. The truth was quite deflating when we learned that exam results in many schools and colleges were being massaged upwards to enhance their reputation. The students who received these higher grades were not going to complain neither were the educational institutes who wanted to look better in the competitive world of academia. There was, what one columnist termed, an “evaluation deficit”. In other words no one was testing the teachers work. The irresistible temptation to step up the grades because others were doing it produced a similar situation to that of the banks but without the international money market to blow the whistle. That was until the consumers of the products from our colleges got together, Google, Hewlett Packard and Intel – all high users of our graduates – and spelled it out. Our educational standards were only average and average was no longer good enough. Cooking the answer to look good was what one young man did when confronted by Jesus’ question about keeping half of the 10 commandments. “All these I have kept from my youth” he replied thinking that life here was some kind of probation period for life hereafter. (Luke chapter 18 verses 18 – 22). The problem with that kind of thinking is you never know if you are making the grade. You might be guilty of grade inflation on yourself! The man St Luke mentioned thought he had scored 100%. Others of us may be more modest markers but if left to ourselves we would be prone to massaging the figures to look good. However we can relax the Bible has already given us our grade. It says that we are all in the same boat. St Paul, quoting from the Psalms in his letter to the church in Rome writes “No one seeks for God, all have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one”. He was referring to us as created beings not the creator, Jesus Christ, who alone has kept the law 100% and lays it to the account of the repentant sinner who turns to him in faith. Jesus advised the man to get rid of all the things that held him back and “come, follow me”. Making the grade in God’s school is more a matter of divesting yourself of “stuff” and following the only one who can present you faultless on that great day. “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen” . (Jude 24/25)

In a country awash with sexual perversions it is almost a relief to read of the serial adultery of Tiger Woods. So skewed has our moral compass gone that the philandering of this superb athlete does not seem so remarkable. What makes his fall from grace intriguing is the fact that he had all his liaisons while he was in the limelight as the world’s top golfer. His wife did not know and the journalists, who make careers out of delving into the secrets of the rich and famous, were taken by surprise. His ability to control the media was in evidence on Friday when he delivered a prepared confession before a hand-picked audience of friends and sympathisers with only three journalists in attendance. They were there simply to take notes – no questions were permitted. After 45 days of therapy Woods was in control. Addictions are hard to handle and Woods struggled to rationalise his behaviour. “I convinced myself normal rules did not apply…I thought only about myself…I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to …I felt I was entitled.” He returns to therapy and to the Buddhism of his youth. In it he would have been taught the “4 Noble Truths”; Life is suffering. Suffering is caused by desire. The cessation of desire eliminates suffering. This comes by following the path between the extremes of sensuousness and asceticism. In Woods own words, “Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves, causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously I lost track of what I was taught.” Like many of the world’s religions Buddhism seeks the remedy within the person. Jesus contradicts this, “For from within, out of the heart of man come evil thoughts… theft, murder, adultery… all these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” St Mark ch.7 V21. All sin is against God because he made the rules which we all transgress. When we sin we create a debt. Even the most elastic conscience knows that. Therapy cannot remove it. Going within is looking for a remedy in the wrong place. We need to look away from ourselves to Jesus atoning work on the cross and believe that he was there in the sinners place. When we recognise that he died for me we experience the freedom of forgiveness which now evokes in the heart a new desire to live in conformity to his word. The addict will always have his Achilles heel. He will be tested. But for the Christian who has personally experienced the love of Jesus there is the power to live above the ordinary and the assurance that he is not alone in his struggles. Jesus has promised that he will never leave or forsake him in this life or the next. Our “tiger” natures need to be tamed by faith in Jesus.