Two Roads

In the new Kenneth Branagh film Belfast there is a preacher. He is a bit of a caricature but he is based on ones that Branagh heard as a child. Perhaps they were rather austere those preachers then but what the preacher actually says in the film is essentially true.

And where will YOU go? When you shuffle off this pestilential mortal coil. WHERE? ... I will tell you where. Picture the scene. A fork in the road. In one direction, a straight and narrow highway. In the other, a long and winding road which stretches down and away, into an unknowable distance. One will take you to the bosom of the Lord’s grace for ever and a day and caress you with beatific love, and the other will spew you into an eternal pit of sulphurous, suffering, pustulating pain, from which you will never, ever, through the seven circles of hell, escape. And I ask you here and now, which road will you take?

There is a broad road that leads to destruction. Evil will slay the wicked; the foes of the righteous will be condemned.

On the other hand, there is a narrow road that leads to heaven. The LORD will rescue his servants and bring them safely there.

Take refuge in Christ, therefore, and escape condemnation.

Taste and See

In Psalm 34:8 David calls on us to Taste and see that the LORD is good; and he assures us blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. So here is the invitation. Taste and see that the LORD is good.

There's a lot of advertising at the moment for MacDonald's new vegan burger, McPlant. I am not a vegan (or a vegetarian) but I thought I'd like to try one and see if they taste as good as they claim. So yesterday I went along and bought one for my lunch. I can assure you, it's very tasty. I've tasted it and so I can say it is good.

Now David urges us here to give ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord and then we will know by experience how very good he is. A person who takes refuge in the Lord will be blessed indeed. David can say that because he's experienced it and I can say it too to some extent for the same reason. You'll never regret turning to Christ for refuge.

There is a Scottish expression - Better felt than telt. It is not easy to describe how good God is, how wonderful all his ways, but when you experience it - then you'll know.

False Readings

You may remember how a few years ago they found that if these laser speed guns the police used to use are not set up properly, then they can give utterly false readings. When they investigated, the gun was saying things like this parked car is travelling at 22mph, this wall is supposedly going 44mph and this bicycle passing at walking pace registers at 66mph. It's so easy to get a false reading. Rather, we need all the facts at our finger tips and one of them is that the Word was made flesh and pitched his tent among us here on earth in the first century of this common era.

Original sin - Rejected by Paul McCartney

I was reading something by Paul McCartney this week. (His two volume Lyrics). He was expressing his distaste for the Roman Catholic doctrine of original sin - the doctrine taught by Augustine and that is in the Bible - that we are all born sinful. For him it is too depressing a thought. He likes to think that we are not sinners (although throughout his book his bad language and his questionable ethics show he is). That is a massive misunderstanding. Yes it is a heavy truth that we are all born in sin but the great news is that God's grace can overcome it. As Paul puts it in Romans 5:20 where sin increased, grace increased all the more.

The Face of Christ

Sometimes people find themselves in a long distance relationship. They may not see each other for many months. Sometimes such relationships don't last but where there is a true bond of love the couple are able to overcome all the difficulties and stay true to each other until they can be together.

We who believe are in a similar situation but we have this amazing and unparalleled extra. As John puts it here so powerfully No one has ever seen God but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known. (John 1:18) Yes, we cannot see God the Father. We cannot see the Holy Spirit. There is a sense in which we cannot see the Word of God, the one described here as the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father. However, because The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us and We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth then we have seen something more than Jacob or Moses or Isaiah ever saw, as amazing as their visions were. We have been given, in the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:6, the light of the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Christ.

Don't look at the sun - You cannot look on God

I had a lovely book on astronomy for Christmas which I have very much enjoyed. It's a Dorling Kindersley book designed really with children in mind and so every few pages, there are warnings "Remember: never, ever look directly at the Sun - it is so bright it will damage your eyes." In a similar way we have warnings in Scripture such as when God tells Moses (Exodus 33) You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live. This explains the amazement of Jacob in Genesis 32:30 when he says I saw God face to face yet was spared and the fear of Isaiah (Isaiah 6:5) when he says Woe to me! ... I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty. As 1 Timothy 6:16 makes clear God is the only immortal one and he lives in unapproachable light, and so no one has seen or can see him. He is hidden from our eyes - and that for our good. How could we bear his look even for a moment?

Is this it? This is it!

I remember reading how in the sixties many young people in America tried to dodge going to fight in Vietnam by pretending to be crazy. They had various ways of showing that but one man would simply go round picking up any piece of paper he saw and saying "Is this it?". He certainly seemed crazy. "Is this it?" "Is this it?" "Is this it?" he kept saying. Eventually they gave him his release papers and he said "This is it!".

You know people try all sort of things to get right with God. "Is this it?" "Is this it?" they say. But when you come to know Jesus for yourself you say "This is it!". He is the one who is full of grace and truth and who alone can save a person. Trust in him tonight.