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Glen Park Gospel Church >> Archive >> Editorial >> 2003
Each month the Glen Park Gospel Church produce a one page newsletter called the Green Leaf. It's available from the chapel each Sunday. Some months include a topical article or report. We thought you might appreciate reading those previously published.
I Will Seek to Know Jesus Personally
For many of us the only time that we give ourselves to seek the Lord is when we are in need. And like ancient Israel; "When they in their trouble did turn unto the LORD God of Israel, and sought him, he was found of them." We too may find Him in our day of distress.
The problem with this is that we turn away from Him again when our difficulty has passed. We may not mean to, but that seems to be the way it is with human flesh.
There were some Greeks who came to Philip a fellow countryman and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." Philip and Andrew took them to Him. We too need to seek Jesus for who He is. He is the Son of God made like to sinful men, born on that first Christmas morning.
God's promise of long ago is also true today, "If from thence you shall seek the LORD your God, you shall find Him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul."
John found Him, and it was his testimony as he looked back over the years of contemplation and fellowship with His Lord, "And (Jesus) the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." This Jesus we also may share when we search for Him with all our heart.
A New Year Promise:
As Thy Days, So Shall Thy Strength Be
The full text, in the NIV, reads ‘The bolts of your gates will be iron and brass; and your strength shall equal your days.' and it comes from Deuteronomy 33:25 where Moses was giving a blessing to the tribes of Israel before his death, in this case to Asher, in preparation for the arduous task of their entering the new land.
At the start of another year it does us well to remember that the nature, and grace, and love of God for His people has not changed. The promise here is that God will give us the strength to meet the demand of the day from here on in, until He takes us to be with Himself. This is good to know. The mere thought fills us with a sense of encouragement and renewal.
However, this is more than psychological hype. It is a statement of God's plan to sustain and provide for His people in their time of need. Asher's territory is in the northern part of the land close to a formidable pass through which invaders would enter. Here was God's assurance that their frontiers would be safe, even though not trouble free, and that they would have the provision to meet every demand that they would face.
We look to the Lord as we seek to live for Him, to possess that which God has provided in His Son Christ Jesus. All the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus. Draw heavily on Him for all your need.
He Has Chosen Us
"He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world"
Ephesians 4:1
There is great comfort in the doctrine of election. It tells me that my history is a very old one. It did not begin when I believed. My faith in Christ was an event or fact far down in the course of my history.
The story itself, written (wondrous to tell it) by a divine hand, before the world was formed, and covenant counsels concerning me constituted the first great fact. My foundation was there, be my faith weak or strong.
Others brightly outshine me, and rapidly outrun me. I will rejoice in that, and neither envy their fruitfulness nor be alarmed because of my comparative leanness. My origin is as divine and venerable and holy as theirs, and my foundation is as unmovable. Much more luxuriant branches may spread themselves at my side, but we all have the one root.
From ‘Crumbs for the Little Ones'
What is the Gospel
The word ‘Gospel' means good news. It is the good news about Jesus Christ. Paul the Apostle put it this way,
"I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures."
John made it more meaningful in these well known words,
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved."
and we know that sinful men and women, and that includes us all, may find forgiveness and acceptance with God through Jesus Christ.
Good Friday in the park is one way that we seek to make it more personal. Jesus not only died for the whole world, He died for me. Easter is for me. I am that ‘whosoever'.
Have I accepted God's pardon and acceptance?
Have you?
Casting the Net
"Cast thy bread upon the waters for it shall return unto thee after many days"
Ecclesiastes 11:1
This proverb of Solomon does not seem to make much sense, unless we are feeding ducks to later grace our table. To make it intelligent we need to read it with the eyes of the people for whom it was originally intended. It is also, therefore, a lesson in the rules for best understanding the Bible. These two rules to apply:
1. Understand about the readers use of the words. We too use words with double meanings. For example, to push a barrow can mean to promote an ideal, a lid can be a hat. Here the word bread is used as it sometimes was in those days for ‘seed'. For another example of this use look up Isaiah 28:28.
2. Understand the cultural practices for which it was written. In those days seed was sometimes cast from boats onto the flood waters of a river or irrigated land. When the waters subsided, the seed would be imbedded in the silt that remained and, already watered, it would grow to provide a harvest.
The practice was an intelligent laboursaving device for making the best use of the resources to hand. Solomon therefore was far from meaningless in quoting this proverb. We note two characteristics of this practice. It had a certain randomness in that the sower risked his resources to the forces of nature. It also had a definite purposefulness in that the farmer used his knowledge and skill to provide a harvest.
At Glen Park Gospel Church we are doing this same thing in a number of modern ways. One of these is that we maintain an internet web site.
Our web site started in July 2001 almost two years ago with Philip Trinham as Webmaster. It is open to all who wish to visit us. We have placed there information describing the church, its history and a map to aid visitors. There is an archive of articles and snippets that have appeared in Green Leaf over the years. There is a copy of our three year Bible reading plan. There is a summary of our missionary support program and current activities. There is also a copy of our Bible studies which people can down load with permission for their own or community use.
In July 2001 there were 98 requests for information. In the following months there were 168, 161, 10, 0, 22, 30, 30, and then in April 2002 there were 331 requests, and the interest has grown exponentially from there until March 2003 when there were 3621 requests. It is probable that the growth in information providing activity is due to the search engines finding and cataloguing our site, and also the natural increase of information available. These calls come mainly from within Australia, but also across the world. Our service is mainly in text so as to reduce download times, which not only impacts on costs, but also on the patience of those waiting to receive.
Now that the effectiveness of this medium has been demonstrated, it will be important to review the information on offer with the objective of making the simple Gospel message understandable even to those with limited English. It must offer the mercy of God to those who are guilty, guidance to those who are lost and peace to those who are seeking, as well as instruction to those who are growing in the Lord.
If you have not already done so, we invite you to visit us on -
www.glenparkgospel.org.au
The Mystery of Reconciliation
The following is a brief summary of a message on 2 Corinthians 5.11-21 given at the Glen Park Gospel Church on Sunday 15th June 2003, by Pastor John Rush, radio pastor with HCJB World Radio, Melbourne.
When two people are at loggerheads they need to be reconciled. Both need to change, to compromise and find reconciliation within the marriage. However when we are speaking of reconciliation with God, only one individual needs to change. It is we who need to change, not God.
v17. The Miracle of Reconciliation
Reconciliation with God only occurs when a sinner is in Christ.
This is a mystery which Paul repeats over and over again in his
writings ‘Christ in you', a mysterious relationship with
God whereby Christ is in us and we in Him. This occurred when
the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost came and took up His abode
in the body of every believer. As we surrender to the Lordship
of Christ every moment of every day Jesus lives the Christian
life through us. It is a matter of our stopping trying and start
trusting. We are of spiritual value when we are under the control
of Jesus Christ.
v18-20. The Ministry of Reconciliation
The supreme task of the Church is the evangelisation of the world.
God alone can reconcile the world to Himself, but He has chosen
to do it through His church. We have the privilege of helping
people to be reconciled to Jesus Christ as God makes His appeal
through us v20. God is described in this verse as it were on His
knees pleading with a lost sinner to come to Him, ‘Let me
give you eternal life!' This is God's passion for lost souls and
it ought to be the passion of every Christian.
For this task we have been made to be His ambassadors. Now an ambassador can only communicate the policies of His country. Likewise we have been called to radiate Jesus Christ and His message to a world that needs Him.
v22. The Message of Reconciliation
We are not presenting the ordinances and practices of the Church,
and we are not offering alms giving, or good deeds that people
can do. There are many confusing messages out there in the world
and we need to get back to God's message as given in the Bible.
The first part of this is the holiness of God. When Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, unlike us, He was born without sin because His birth was the work of God. He was born genetically without sin and there was nothing to disqualify Him from the work of reconciliation. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us. When Jesus died it was not for His own sinfulness, it was our sinfulness. He drank the cup of Calvary for us.
Our best hope of going to heaven is not God's mercy it is His justice. If God imputed all our guilt to Jesus Christ and if Jesus bore the punishment due to us on the cross and God poured out His wrath on an innocent substitute it would be totally unjust of God to punish the offender as well as the substitute. God cannot punish two people for the same offence. Jesus took our guilt and our sin. He is our hope.
Last we see that on the basis of what Jesus has done on the cross for us, God imputes to us His righteousness so that we might become in Him the righteousness of God. This is greater than anything offered to mankind before. In Christ alone, we have received the Divine nature. This is amazing, and this nature is effective in us as we trust Jesus Christ. That is what is meant by being ‘in Christ'.
This then is our message which we share with others. May God
grant us the grace to be His ambassadors.
The Power of Prayer and Missions
The 100 Year Prayer Meeting
In 1722 Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf, troubled by the sufferings of Christian exiles from Bohemia and Moravia, allowed them to establish a community on his estate in Germany. The centre became known as Herrenhut, meaning ‘Under the Lords watch' It grew quickly and so did it's appreciation and use of prayer.
On August 27 1727, twenty four men and twenty four women agreed together to spend an hour each day in, prayer every hour right around the clock. More joined and then still more. Unceasing prayer rose before God as at least one person was active in intercessory prayer each hour of the day. The group met weekly for encouragement and to share the news of missionaries letters. A decade passed and the prayer meeting continued non-stop. Then another decade. It was a prayer meeting that was to last over one hundred years.
Hand in hand with this chain there was established the work of protestant missions. Six months into it Count Zinzendorf suggested that they attempt to reach others for Christ in the West Indies, Greenland, Turkey and Lapland. Twenty six Moravians stepped forward the next day to volunteer. The first two, David Nitschmann and Leonard Dober were commissioned on August 18,1732 and reached the West Indies in December of that year, beginning what became known as the Golden Decade of Moravian Missions, 1732 - 1742. During the first two years, twenty two missionaries died and two others were imprisoned, but others came to take their places. From those six hundred inhabitants of Herrnhut, seventy dedicated their lives to missions.
Over the years three hundred Moravians travelled to every corner of the globe in the service of Christ. It was Moravians who sparked the conversions of John and Charles Wesley and indirectly ignited the great awakening that swept through Europe and America, bringing many thousands to Christ.
The prayer meeting that lasted a hundred years has had results that reach even to this present day.
Adapted from ‘On This Day' August 27 Thomas
Nelson Publishers
The Beloved Physician
It was Paul who used this endearment for Dr. Luke in his letter to the Christians at Colosse (4:14). It has been noted by many that Luke's writings abound with medical terms and comments of interest. The English reader passes over them unaware of the added depth of understanding and meaning that they can add to the story. Here is an example:
Luke's report on the woman with an infirmity (Luke 13:10-17) is a case in point. Luke observed that she had a chronic case of curvature of the spine and she was so weak and bowed that she could not straighten up. We may not realise how closely Luke's language fits with medicine today. The word ‘infirmity' is from the Greek asthenia which the lexicon says means ‘want of strength, weakness, feebleness'.[1] It is used medically today in exactly the same way as ‘a suffix word to denote lack of strength'.[2] When Luke described her posture he used a word which means ‘to be bent completely forwards'[3] or to be ‘bent double'.[1] Her face would have touched her knees as she sat and when Jesus called her to Him, it would have required serious effort and discomfort for her just to move. Cases like this are not unknown today. The condition and the weakness was such that she did not now have the power or ability to lift herself up.
When Luke said Jesus laid his hands her he used words and the grammar in such a way that we are forced to the conclusion that he manipulated her back in some way, possibly in much the same as a chiropractor might do today. The word epetheken[1] means to raise up against or excite as in a political uprising See Acts 13:50, but here it is applied to the process Jesus used against her condition. Her back was ‘straightened' says Luke and he employed a cognate of the word ‘orthostatic' which is used in medicine today to indicate standing erect.[2] That was some manipulation. The relief and remedy was instantaneous.
Luke does not give us this information just to provide us with the medical conditions existing in ancient Palestine, but as a contrast this woman's condition with the attitudes and prejudices that Jesus faced in His ministry. However it is for us a potent and graphic demonstration of one encounter in the Healing ministry of Jesus. Luke the beloved physician seems to be just the man to bring some of this detail to our attention.
"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever." Hebrews 13:8
[1] The New Analytical Greek Lexicon, Perschbacher
W J, (Ed), Hendrickson Mas. USA 1996
[2] Saunders Dictionary & Encyclopaedia of Laboratory Medicine
and Technology., Bennington J L MD, Saunders, Philadelphia 1984
[3] Strongs Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Strong J LLD,
Hendrickson Mas. USA.
Today it seems fashionable by media to produce material which ridicules a simple acceptance of the Bible as an adequate and trustworthy record of God's message to man, and to demean those who have built their lives upon its precepts. It was both refreshing and encouraging to read this article in Melbourne's The Age. They have kindly permitted us to reprint their article.
Bible Doubters Theory Down the Drain
by Stephen Cauchi
Israeli and British scientists have accurately dated one of Jerusalem's most ancient tunnels, the Siloam, confirming that it is the same structure mentioned in the Old Testament.
The tunnel, whose age has been the subject of fierce debate, was considered one of the greatest works of ancient water engineering.
According to the journal, Nature, in which the research was published, it is the first use of radiocarbon dating for an unquestionably biblical structure.
This makes it one of the best-dated such structures, and refutes theories that it was not the tunnel mentioned in the Old Testament books of Kings and Chronicles.
The scientists confirmed that the tunnel, built to safeguard water supply into the city against invading armies, was built 2700 years ago, not five centuries later as some scholars thought.
The 530 metre S-shaped tunnel, which drains into Siloam pool, is still intact today. The Bible's historical credibility is often tested by comparison with archeological finds, said the scientists.
One of the team, Amos Frumkin, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said 'that biblical structures were difficult to date because they were poorly preserved, hard to identify, hard to reach, and had no materials suitable for dating. "Because of these Problems, no well-identified biblical structure has been radiometrically dated until now," he wrote in Nature. "We conclude that the biblical text presents an accurate historical record of the Siloam Tunnel's construction."
According to the Bible, the tunnel was built by a Judahite king, Hezekiah, about 700 BC. It was constructed to move water from the Gihon spring into a pool within the walls of ancient Jerusalem, protecting the city's water supply in case of siege from the Assyrians.
However, an inscription in the tunnel does not mention King Hezekiah, casting doubt on its age. Architecture of that period and place often praised monarchs for their architectural achievements.
In addition, the tunnel was cleared of debris during the early 20th century, robbing potentially dateable artefacts.
Instead, the team collected "extraordinarily well-preserved" plaster fragments that cemented the tunnel's floor, wall and ceiling, as well as stalactites. These were suitable for radiocarbon dating.
Our dating agrees well with the date commonly assigned to King Hezekiah, whom the biblical text describes as having constructed the Siloam tunnel," wrote the scientists.
The Reason Jesus Came
"She (Mary) will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." Matthew 1:21
The people to whom Jesus came expected that He would deliver them from the Roman yoke and immediately re-establish the temporal kingdom of David to Israel. They could not have been more wrong. The reason Jesus came the angel said, was to break the yoke of sin.
Throughout the ages this simple fact has often been forgotten. It does us good to read God's word simply and believe what it says.
He came to save His people from the penalty of sin. The penalty of sin from the beginning has been death; not only physical death but spiritual death. The two go together. It leads to death and ends in death. Death is separation. It separates us from each other and it separates us from God. Death breaks communication and friendship. Jesus came to restore life to His people and with it fellowship, identity and meaning. He did this by going all the way to Calvary and upon the cross, taking the world's sin upon Himself, He paid it's awful price; and He paid it for us.
He also came to save His people from the consequences of sin. Sin spoils; it robs; it cheats. Sin takes away respect and leaves a trail of sorrow. It is the plague of mankind. Sin is leprosy of the heart, disfiguring the personality and poisoning the mind. It is a consumption of soul that eats away our relationships and breaks fellowship with God and our fellows. On the cross Jesus took upon Himself the horrific damaging effect of our sin.
He also came to break the power of sin over the human life. Sin is a habit forming drug that enslaves. It is a narcotic that feeds its own demand, slowly killing but always demanding more. It is a task master so harsh that it's power is impossible to escape. It is an insatiable demand that can never be filled, a thirst that can never be quenched. On the cross Jesus cancelled out sin and broke it's power.
That's why Jesus came. He came to save His people from their sins.
He breaks the power of cancelled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood avails for me! Charles Wesley 1707-1788
Unless we understand this we cannot understand the relationship between Christmas and Easter. Unless we appropriate this we will ever be dominated and dogged by our misdeeds. Unless we believe this we will die in our sins. Unless we accept this we will never know the true blessings of Christmas.
The reason that Jesus came is that we might be forgiven our sins. The Bible says, "If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." If I want my sins forgiven I must confess my sins. If you want your sins forgiven you must confess your sins. It is a personal thing. I must accept Jesus as my Saviour and you must accept Him as your Saviour.
"You shall call his name Jesus,
for he will save his people from their sins."
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