The Word is the only Guide for Worship

Quoting R.C. Sproul:

“The worship to which we are called in our renewed state is far too important to be left to personal preferences, to whims, or to marketing strategies. It is the pleasing of God that is at the heart of worship. Therefore, our worship must be informed at every point by the Word of God as we seek God’s own instructions for worship that is pleasing to Him.” (A Taste of Heaven: Worship in the Light of Eternity)

Did Jesus Have A Wife?

Quoting Thomas L. McDonald:

I was going to let the whole “Jesus had a wife” thing pass by in silence, since the discovery of a minor fragmentary unprovenanced 4th century papyrus of a probable Gnostic text is about as relevant to actual Christianity as an episode of Scooby Doo.

If it turns out to be authentic (big if) it may very, very slightly and incompletely expand our knowledge of some of the fringe backwaters that burbled up and rapidly drained away in the early centuries of Christianity. Honestly, though, it doesn’t even really add much to our store of knowledge about Gnosticism (one of the earlier Christian heresies) that we didn’t already know. . . .

Read the Gnostic Noise Machine and the Wife of Jesus by Thomas L. McDonald by clicking here. . . .

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand!

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones closes his sermon to the people of Rhymney with one last reminder of the transitory nature of this world and the eternal nature of the God who abides with us:

This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:27-29 ESV)

Do you know how I look out at life tonight, it is this: “Change and decay in all around I see”. I have preached in chapels in Rhymney that are no longer here, the people I knew here when I first came nearly fifty years ago, they have gone. “Change and decay in all around I see: Oh Thou who changest not, abide with me.” And He will, He will be with me in life, in death and He will present me before the presence of God’s glory, with exceeding joy and I look forward to a day that is coming when out of this world and beyond it I shall see Him as He is and be made like unto Him.

Are you ready to say with me tonight?

*My hope is built on nothing less

Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;

I dare not trust the sweetest frame,

But wholly lean on Jesus’ Name.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand,

All other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness seems to hide His face,

I rest on His unchanging grace;

In every high and stormy gale,

My anchor holds within the veil.

His oath, His cov’nant, and His blood,

Support me in the whelming flood;

When all around my soul gives way,

He only is my hope and stay.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;

All other ground is sinking sand.

*(“My Hope is Built”; [Words] Edward Mote; first appeared in Mote’s Hymns of Praise, 1836)

(From: “A Kingdom which cannot be Shaken”)