“You have stayed long enough at this place” was the order the Lord gave to Moses after 40 years in the wilderness (Deuteronomy Chapter 1 verse 6). Something similar appears to be happening to our Fellowship after over 180 years in Brunswick Hall – to give the old premises its original name. We too could soon be on the move!
This week saw the completion of much of the detailed agreements with a tentative date for signing put at next Wednesday. Of course the Lord’s timing may not be the same as ours but we believe the date for moving is not far off.
The temporary premises which we plan to occupy is owned by the developer and is close by. It goes by the name “Fireworks” (it was a former nightclub) and is currently undergoing a conversion to meet the demands of its new role.
We do not anticipate our time there to be as long as 40 years although in may at times feel like that! The demolition, excavation (we will have a small basement) and site clearance will make way for the new build which will cover the entire site. In due course Nos 28a and 29 Pearse Street will rise from the dust albeit with five floors of hotel bedrooms perched on top of the new hall! These will link into the hotel next door (whose holding company is the developer) the new bedrooms being accessed entirely from the hotel.
Moses was to prepare the people to enter the land but it fell to Joshua to carry it through, “As I was with Moses so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Joshua Chapter 1 verse 5). Their goal was to bring blessing to the nations.
Now in a very real sense the nations have come to Grace. We are a multi race church. Our orders come through Jesus and are strikingly similar. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (St Matthew Chapter 28 verses 19/20).
God enabling this we will do from whatever premises the Lord provides realising that it is the community of people at Grace that, collectively as well as individually, are his ambassadors as we submit our lives to the Lordship of Jesus in our new surroundings.

After the boxer doping and the illegal sale of Irish tickets there was palpable relief that our rowers won a silver medal! At last the journalists had a good news story and it’s all over the papers. It was pure homespun. That the O’Donovan brothers from Skibbereen in West Cork, proved to be as good craic as the rest of their tribe, was manna for the media!
Perhaps it was the Fiji’s annihilation of the opposition in the rugby 7 asides that drew my attention to that region of the Pacific. The healthy state of sport in Fiji is in marked contrast to the situation next door. It was with disbelief that I read of the atrocities being committed on the neighbouring island of Nauru.
Apparently it is owned by Australia who are using it as a dumping ground for its refugees. This started in earnest three years ago and has been kept secret by virtually banning journalists and swearing to secrecy the Government officials who work there. These people have no future. Australia refuses to accept them but instead hopes that their plight will become a deterrent to other would be refugees from choosing Australia.
What is remarkable is that this behaviour occurs alongside the open policy to immigrants who present themselves from the West and have skills to offer. Many from Ireland have benefitted from this policy especially over the recent recession. But it is how a nation treats the most vulnerable of its people that indicates it’s true worth not the cherry-picking of the talented.
Back in 2001 Australia again showed hostility towards refugees when they tried to prevent 438 mainly Afghans, who has been rescued by a Norwegian freighter M V Tampa, from entering Australian waters. The captain had asked for food and medicine but got commando troops. After an astonishing amount of turmoil including an attempt to prohibit the Tampa from entering Australian waters by passing a Bill in parliament, the refugees were dumped on Nauru!
The treating of refugees like scum is not confined to Australia it’s just that they have developed it to a higher level than most other nations. Like many of us in a crisis they had forgotten “The Golden Rule” – “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (St Matthew Chapter 7 verse 12).
When people get an unpalatable answer, like one requiring a higher degree of love, instead of acting on it they try to get round it like the lawyer who questioned Jesus; “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (St Matthew Chapter 22 verses 36-40).
The Law and the Prophets is shorthand for the scriptures in Jesus day and he sums them up by the requirement to love. And there is no end to its extent “Greater love has no one than this that someone lay down his life for his friends (St John Chapter 15 verse 13).

We now have smart phones but dumb users! Even Millennials believe that photos sent to friends will not find their way onto the internet. For the older generations who relied on the privacy of the phone ‘it’s welcome to the new world of big data’.
The smart phone offers endless possibilities of networking with friends, colleagues and experts in their field. You can tap into the wisdom of the ages. Or it can be used to send jokes, cartoons, trivia and sexually explicit photos of yourself. Since 2012 when the word sexting was coined the latter practice has presented itself to anyone with a camera built into a phone which has internet access.
Because of the embarrassment of having damaging photos available on social media and the fact that your page is open to scrutiny by a potential employer, a more recent development has been designed to get around this problem.
A couple of students at Stanford designed a “disappearing-message app useful for sending nude photos to lovers and lewd doodles to friends”. That was four years ago. Their product, it makes the photo or video disappear in 10 seconds (or less), is now handling 10 million daily users in the UK alone. Their global daily video count runs to an astonishing 10 billion.
Of course only a fraction of these will be used for the inventor’s original purpose. A major revision this year added stickers, easier access to audio and video conferencing, the ability to leave audio or video “notes”. These features are designed to allow users to easily shift between text, audio, and video chat as required.
Of course, even with this app, all the photos do not disappear. The app can be modified or the photo captured by a screenshot. There is a law against circulating photos of minors and also those without the consent of the photographer. When it occurs the psychological damage can be very destructive. Reputations can be lost and the sense of betrayal makes it difficult to trust others in the future.
The Bible recognised the problem from the beginning! It was God who clothed the first humans when, through disobedience they realised their nakedness in His presence. Today’s unclothing marks the ongoing disobedience when it occurs outside the marriage bond. In fact the removal of clothing is one of the clearest indication of our rebellion against God. All the pagan religions exalt the human body or parts of it (Romans Chapter 1 verse 23).
God has provided a covering in Christ’s atonement for us sinners who dabble with the smart phone in not so smart ways and end up in a mess – without hope but for the mercy of God. There is forgiveness for the one who repents and by God’s grace receives the Holy Spirit whose gifts are of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians Chapter 5 verses 22-23). It is the latter gift which is least in evidence today. St Paul writing to the church in Galatia in his day adds “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Put Christ in charge of your smart phone!

Modern advertising promises heaven while charging you the earth! Its tentacles are everywhere colonising the public square and the private house.
In flashing lights, coloured brochures and digitally on TV and film we drown in a sea of guff. The trouble is we have grown accustomed to it. Our thinking gets corrupted. “Because you are worth it” eats into our brain even if the phrase never crosses our lips!
We congratulate ourselves when we refuse to buy. We think we are not that easily persuaded. Our will power has not entirely collapsed! But advertising will not leave you unscathed. It will have its pound of flesh.
Coveting and idolatry are two of the tools used in the craft. They are glamorised so as to disguise the fact that they are sins. They are sold as stepping stones to a successful life. A fulfilled life – not simply better than the person next door but up there with the stars and supermodels. Buy this and you will have your dreams fulfilled as the latest gizmo is flaunted before us.
The advertising people take our God-given desires for love and acceptance, lasting friendships and a sense of worth and go all out to convince us that these are to be found in the goods they are marketing. Instead of “In God we live and move and have our being” (Acts Chapter 17 verse 28) which St Paul said even the pagan poets, who penned these words, realised that these qualities are not to be found in material things but in God.
But we are being seduced by the advertisers to believe a lie and we don’t even know it. The secular cathedrals – our shopping malls – seduce our senses. We have bought into the lie that we must improve on the way God made us. Our bodies become long-term projects requiring large budgets and without a completion date in sight!
In was in the context of wanting things that St Paul went on the say “but godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content” (Titus Chapter 6 verses 6-8).
Jesus had something to say to people who were looking for something in the wrong place. “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (St John Chapter 5 verses 39-40).
Don’t get confused by ‘advertising heaven’ when Jesus offers the real thing.

No one likes to have their business made public. We all instinctively show a preference for privacy when it comes to matters that we consider to be sensitive. Therefore when a USB memory stick finds its way mysteriously onto your desk, with password provided, you would plug it into your computer and see what it had to say.
The content that confronted Denis O’Brien was 339 files, mainly articles that had appeared in the media about his career going back to the Moriarty Tribunal and his links to Michael Lowry. The tone of some of the material which he was able to access was not sympathetic to the business man and the compilation of such a dossier naturally led him to conclude that someone was conspiring to do him down.
Some of the evidence was encrypted so the stick became the subject of a digital forensic investigation. Normally in these investigations the original stick is copied and the copy worked upon but that was not done in this case and the primary piece of evidence has not been kept pristine. In fact O’Brien’s own agent, Coyne, had the stick for 10 days in his office in the Netherlands where the files were accessed, deleted and altered in a way and to a degree that may render the USB stick useless as evidence in a court of law.
The stick was placed in a “radio frequency identification safe” access to which was electronically recorded. Apart from two of Coyne’s associates there is a record of employee number 18883 whose name apparently cannot be divulged. There seems to have been some accidental additions made to the stick which were subsequently deleted in an effort to correct the mistake.
Currently O’Brien has taken a case against Red Flag Consulting in an effort to find out just who instructed them to compile the dossier. At the moment Red Flag, whose principles, according to their internet entry are: ‘We build awareness. We create assess. We deliver advantage’, are not prepared to publically identify their client to O’Brien.
One of the more sober facts the Bible presents us with is that one day all will be revealed. Jesus said, “For there is nothing hidden which will not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret but that it should come to light” (St. Mark Chapter 4 verse 22). There is nothing that the light of the Gospel will not reveal. And again, “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak” (St. Matthew Chapter 12 verse 36). None of us have unblemished reputations. In view of the certainty of exposure we join the Psalmist in his plea for mercy (Psalm 130).
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD! 2 O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! 3 If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? 4 But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. 5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope …. hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.

Bastille Day in the Mediterranean resort of Nice will be remembered for the carnage created this week by a Tunisian lorry driver cum jihadist. The murderous drive down the crowded boulevard at 50 mph left 84 dead and many seriously injured.
How Mohamed Bouhlel was able to park his hired 19 tonne refrigerated truck in an adjacent street to the boulevard, prior to the area being cordoned off for the festivities, is a matter for another day. Suffice to say that someone was less than vigilant. The vehicle presents a new weapon in Europe although apparently common enough in the crowded cities of Iraq. It has the advantage of the operative only requiring a driving licence and perhaps not even that since it is a one way trip.
In Tunisia, where the Arab Spring started, they have had a democracy for the last two years. Presumably this has angered ISIS as there have been five major attacks inside the country culminating with the beach attach in Sousse killing 38 holidaymakers and collapsing the tourist industry. Bouhlel came from Sousse where his father has produced evidence to show his son suffered from depression. The 31 year old Bouhlel was a father of three, was involved in divorce proceedings and lived alone. He may well have been depressed and possibly on drugs as some numbing of feelings would surely be required before undertaking such an evil enterprise.
The object of the Islamic State appears to be to instil terror by creating slaughter in European cities. As their war in the Middle East becomes less successful more Jihads are freed up to return to their homelands. Previously they could have gained employment from the tourist trade but with its demise due to terror attacks in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia they are free to exercise their recently learned skills in terrorism. No doubt some of them will join the westward stream of refugees and end up in nice towns like Nice.
In creating terror in a population the terrorist hopes there will be some retaliation. Nothing disables the moral compass of a nation faster than the cry for vengeance. The meeting of steel with steel. The spilling of blood is a great recruiting sergeant! The cycle of violence escalates spreading destruction that becomes increasingly difficult to stop.
The Scriptures offer an alternative way. These words were written by Isaiah in times of crisis and were used to steady Kings; “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal (Chapter 26 verses 3-4).
Jesus picked up on the illustration of the ‘rock’ and used it to summarise the Sermon on the Mount. St Matthew records there are two things you can do with the sermon. One is to build your life on these words of Jesus, which have an eternal value, the other is to ignore them and face destruction (Chapter 7 verses 24-27).
To those who took Jesus at his word there were these promises given at a time of great anxiety for the disciples; “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid (St John Chapter 14 verse 27). Terrorists may well come but when they do trusting Jesus words can be our Rock.

The exam results are out – Tony Blair failed. Sir John Chilcott has published his findings. They run to 6,000 pages and took 6 years to compile.
The desire to topple Saddam Hussein, euphemistically called ‘regime change’, became the driving objective in 2003 aided by a USA still smarting after the 9/11 attacks. There was an unhealthy tying of the UK war machine to George W Bush’s ambition to go to war. A strategy was developed around the notion that Iraq had stockpiled ‘weapons of mass destruction’ despite the dubious nature of the evidence to support it. In fact WMD were never found.
Saddam was the President of Iraq who surrounded himself with his relatives in office. He was a despot who remained in power by killing any who opposed him. He fought with the neighbours in Shiite Iran and did horrible things to the Kurds. Strangely he did not persecute minority religious groups. He was eventually hunted down, tried and hung for his crimes. This fate is unlikely to be meted out to Blair or Bush although some war widows are finding it difficult to understand the reason why.
Perhaps the worst part of the atrocities was not the slaughter of the fleeing Iraq army on that road of death at the end of the hostilities but the absence of any plan for peace. The ensuing vacuum, without strong leadership, descended into anarchy out of which came recruits for Al Qaida then, more recently, ISIS. The disruption continues to this day.
Not many wars have received the scrutiny that this one has had. With hindsight it is easy to see how Blair put too high a value on the relationship with the US and lost the run of himself in trying to keep up with Bush.
The Apostle James gives us a personal report! “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions… Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. ”Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (Chapter 4 verses 1 to 7).
Jesus invites us to draw near, “Come unto me (in prayer) all you who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest” (St Matthew Chapter 11 verses 28 to 30). This is the rest of the redeemed, those who have taken up the invitation find that the war is over. Both the external war and the war within!

The UK ship of state has become rudderless. There is no one at the helm. The crew are in disarray. Those on the bridge have abandoned the ship!
Europe seems an attractive place by comparison to the unfolding mess in the UK. Much of the arguments prominent in the debates during the Brexit Referendum are now seen to be either flawed or telling only half the story. The notion that the “Leave” people have that the UK will continue to have free access to the common market is delusional. In fact to regain access to the market they will be required to have an open border policy – something the “Leave” side voted to reject.
The trigger for leaving the EU is the invoking of Article 50 which would require to be done by a vote in the House of Commons. How this can be achieved when the vast majority of M P’s wish to remain in the EU is just one of the challenges awaiting the next Prime Minister. Another is the needs of a pro EU Scotland and a Northern Ireland which does not want to reintroduce border controls.
From an Irish perspective the overland trade route to the EU will be cumbered by border checks at entry and exit points. The free flow of goods and services, which we have taken for granted, will be impeded whilst in the offices the paper-work piles up.
To add to the irony of all this we have, this week, joined with the European Nations in commemorating the centenary of the “War to end all Wars”. This idea of a peaceful Europe was one of the foundational planks of the founding fathers of what became the EU. It grew out of the destruction of the 2nd world war and has been largely successful in achieving that aim but not without huge inequalities in wealth and employment currently existing between the nation states.
Jesus said, in a pivotal passage recorded in St Matthew Chapter 16 verses 13 – 23, where St Peter is commended for his insight in recognising Jesus as the Messiah – the Son of God who is alive, unlike the pagan gods whose statues surrounded them in Caesarea Philippi, “I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it”.
Jesus is alive today, unlike the modern gods who have no salvation, and the church prospers by his power. The gates are the strongest part of the city walls but they will not withstand the onward march of the church. Hades is the place of the dead. Jesus is saying that nothing – not even death will overpower the church.
And that ‘nothing’ includes Brexit and its aftermath!

This coming week the UK will decide by referendum whether or not to remain in the EC. Always a reluctant member, reflecting perhaps its long history of wars fought on European soil and a general mistrust of the “foreigner” this debate has degenerated into violence with the killing of Jo Cox the Pro Europe Labour MP.
Apparently the older people in the UK want out and the younger want in. The old see the problems and the youth see more opportunities in a united Europe.
The debate is being fought on immigration, swollen by refugees and economics based on selfish national interests.
But how well has the vision of a united Europe been realised? Its founders knew that European integration would fail if the political ends of the project ever came to be dominated by the economic means. Its priority had to be people organised in democracies relatively free from corruption with participation in central decision making designed for the common good.

This ideal has been tested by the flood of refugees from war-torn countries coupled with a reluctance to accommodate the free flow of economic migrants from Eastern Europe. When a small number of militant Islamists are added the mix gets toxic and democratic freedoms are in danger of being swept away. The social cohesion will be severely tested if Brexit takes place.

Monetary union, which served Ireland well initially, put us into a straightjacket when, through reckless banking, we went broke. Having landed in hoc to our European Bondholders we could not devalue our currency to reflect our bankrupt state and had to climb out of recession using the Euro, a hard currency. This illustrates the difficulty we had with the Euro.
Conversely the Euro, weaker relative to the old Deutschmark, enabled Germany to trade abroad at a massive advantage which has been calculated at being worth €1,500 billion to that country. By contrast the absence of wealth in Spain, Portugal and Greece, who are in financial difficulties similar to Ireland, portrays a Europe with great financial inequalities.
The only solution would appear to dismantle the Euro returning control of their currencies to the individual countries. This would enable the Southern European countries to deal with their high levels of youth unemployment by stimulating foreign trade.

Scripture shows the nation state of Israel separate in order, amongst other things, to reflect God’s laws to the Nations. They were identified by a distinctive language (to restrain evil Genesis Chapter 11 verse 6) and throughout the Bible people are differentiated by their culture and national identity.
It is in the Kingdom of God that we come to see the fulfilment of the Gospel in individual lives and corporately regardless of colour or creed. It is a Kingdom where God rules in the lives of its subjects who have entered, not by crossing a physical boundary but by answering Christ’s call to repent and believe the Gospel (St Mark Chapter 1 verse 15).
It encompasses all of us who have grieved over their sins enough to bring them to Christ in prayer that He might graciously give you the grace to repent by turning from them and trusting Him.
It is a Kingdom that will outlast the EU or a Brexit!

To have the body like that of Muhammad Ali in his prime was the wish of every young man a few decades ago. Bodybuilding has come into vogue again in the form of workouts in the local gym coupled with a course of performance enhancing drugs.
In the old days the Charles Atlas adverts appeared in many magazines. They showed a picture of a bloke flexing his muscles with the caption, “You too can have a body like mine”. Many skinny fellows tried in vain to alter the way nature had made them. Now it’s possible to inject anabolic steroids into the muscles to promote growth and produce a body that would make Charles Atlas proud!
Of course it does not happen by itself. Workouts at the local gym 5 nights a week along with plenty of jogging are part of the mix. Then there are the protein bars sold in filling stations along with protein-based snacks available in convenience stores.

It’s illegal to procure anabolic steroids without a prescription but tablets can be bought on the internet and can be obtained in many gyms. The side effects include liver and heart problems as well as aggression and mood swings which can become hard to control. The treatment is similar to the hormone implants in cattle which increases muscle weight and makes them behave like bulls. The practice is banned in this country.
The Bible does not have a lot of time for strong men. There was only one Samson and he is not one to emulate! In fact when the Prophet Samuel was looking for a King to succeed Saul he was led to David with the instruction “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature…for the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel Chapter 16 verse 7).
This is further emphasised when Zerubbabel is instructed that the Lord works, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit” (Zechariah Chapter 4 verse 6). So it’s not muscle power but prayer and petition to the Lord that brings about change.
Speaking of Jesus, Isaiah says that there was no beauty that we should desire him. He was destined to carry our sins, be smitten by God and afflicted for us! But it is with these wounds, made at the cross, that we are healed (Chapter 53 verses 4 & 5).
When St Paul thought he would be a better Apostle if his body was in better shape his prayers were not answered in the way he had hoped. Instead the Lord said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, (wrote St Paul) I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians Chapter 12 verses 9 to 12).
Many things in God’s economy are the opposite of the world’s values. In God’s Kingdom his strength comes via our weakness. The only workout the Bible speaks of is in Philippians Chapter 3 verse 12 “Work out your own salvation in fear and trembling for it is God who works in you, both to do and to will his good pleasure”.
The perfect body comes in the glory!