Haggai 1
Where does your heart lie, in the building of God's kingdom or the building of your own? In Haggai's day, the house of God lay wasted, whilst the people lived in luxury. Having started well, the people of God were deterred in the building of the temple and lapsed into comfort and ease; God's business simply no longer was a priority and zeal for the house of God had given place to complacency.
Does not the Lord's house lie wasted in the land. Once a missionary sending nation, Great Britain has now itself become a mission field. A call is sounded loudly in this sermon and a challenge issued to all God's people to seek once more the glory and honour of God. Who will give themselves to God and in so doing, give themselves to the work of God? Brothers and Sisters in Christ...it's time to build!!
Bible Prophecy (Pt.2)
When we hear the phrase, “Israel, the birth of a nation”; our minds quite naturally are cast back to just over 65 years ago to 1948, when the Jewish people against all possible odds, miraculously defied the systematic state sponsored genocide of Hitler to wipe them off the face the earth and became a united nation again back in the land of Israel after some nearly 2000 years of exile. However, the real birth of that nation began not in the 20th century AD, but rather some 4000 years ago in the 21nd century BC, when God called a heathen man by the name of Abraham out from his homeland in Babylon to journey to a new land that God was yet to reveal to him; that from him a nation from him might be born!
Perhaps one of the most fascinating themes relating to Bible prophecy is where it concerns this tiny nation; a strip of land around the same area size of Wales!! Yet, Israel’s past, present and future is miraculously contained within the pages of the Holy Bible!! In this teaching we seek to map Israel’s history retrospectively through the lens of the prophetic passages contained Deuteronomy chapter 28, which deals with the blessing and cursing of this nation.
Download Teaching Notes (pdf)
http://traffic.libsyn.com/bethesdashalom/2a_Ancient_Israel_And_Bible_Prophecy_Pt1.pdf
Psalm 130:1-4
There are many things in life that we take for granted; ironically, it is the things most precious and dear to us that we do this the most. If this is true in the natural, then how much true is it in the spiritual! One such thing that we ought never to be too familiar with is God's mercy and forgiveness!! For many the grace has become cheap and common, sin now they say and get forgiveness later!! Such a concept is blasphemous and abhorrent. Yet, at the same time, for some, though God has invited them to draw near to Him in living relationship, they can't because they feel themselves not worthy!
For such who fall into this second camp, this a message of encouragement and exhortation to draw near to God. Say not i'm unworthy, but rather His mercy, His mercy!! In the words of the Psalmist: "If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, o Lord, who shall stand? BUT there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared" (Psalm 130:3-4). The living God of heavens calls us to an audience with Himself, the question is....will you be there?
Bible Prophecy (Pt.1)
Without question, one of the foremost claims to the Bible being the Inspired Word of God is prophecy. A staggering 27% of the whole Bible is prophetic in nature!
“People are named before birth; kingdoms are outlined before their historical existence; battles are described before occurring, and personal destinies are delineated before the persons themselves are born…”
-Bernard M. Ramm, Protestant Christian Evidences
God goes down on record; it is written and if it does not come to pass then the Bible is relegated to being a false book and we certainly have no confidence putting our faith in it. In this first part of a teaching series looking at Bible prophecy, we introduce this fascinating subject and take a look at a prophecy given some 2700 years ago by a Hebrew prophet called Isaiah relating to a nation by the name of Israel and a heathen King by the name of Cyrus. What you will discover and are about to hear will literally take your breath away and is only one of the many hundreds of prophecies contained in the Holy Bible. Fasten your seat belts and be prepared to be amazed!!
Download Teaching Notes (pdf)
http://traffic.libsyn.com/bethesdashalom/1_Introduction_to_Bible_Prophecy.pdf
Matthew 18:21:35
Paul Williams is a Pastor at Temple Baptist Church, Wolverhampton. He delivers a very sobering and informative sermon looking at the consequences of failing to forgive others when offended. He asks three fundamental and heart searching questions: Why should we forgive; what are the consequences if we don't forgive; and how we should forgive? I trust that this sermon will both instruct and challenge you in this most crucial area of forgiveness. The bottom line is this…if our horizontal relationship is out of shape, so will be our vertical one also!!
Philippians 3:1-15
Dear Brothers and Sisters, what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away (Jms. 4:14). Job said “…My days are swifter than a weavers shuttle…my life is wind” (Job 7:6, 7). Oh! the swiftness and brevity of life’s passing moment!! In the words of a famous hymn…”Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day…” In the thirty-ninth Psalm, the Psalmist David lifted up his voice to God and cried “LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am. Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.” Do these words move you? Do they stir your heart?
This sermon is a sober reminder of just how short our days are upon the earth. Oh! that a cry might arise in the hearts of God’s people in the light of life’s passing moment, in the light of life’s little day…”LORD, may you get the glory of my life this side of eternity!!!”
John 20:28
The doctrine of the deity of Jesus Christ is undisputed and affirmed by both the Old and New Testaments. It is maintained and defended by the majority who profess Jesus Christ. Via the avenue of apologetics, the case for the deity of Jesus Christ is proven, the verses are quoted and the texts cited. If it be so that Jesus is God, what must the implications be for our lives? What of its impact? I fear that many can affirm the words “Lord” and “God”, and yet know nothing of the reality of these words in practice!! Could it possibly be conceived that it will do, to simply attach the Lord God of heaven to our lives as an add-on and continue to live as we please?
The question is not whether He is “Lord and God”, of that He most certainly is!! The question is, can you say with Thomas “My Lord and my God”?
Matthew 11:16-24
What happens when one sits under the truth of God’s Word week in and week out and does nothing about that which God is instructing him? Margaret Chan, the director of the World Health Organisation stood up in a conference in 2014 and warned that life as we know it may be about to come to an end. What was the context in which she spoke these words? She was responding to the increasing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. She said that in the last 25 years, bacteria have become increasingly immune to the antibiotics in our medical arsenal due to an overexposure to antibiotics through doctors prescribing them too freely. So it is when we fail to appropriate to our lives the truth of God’s Word, we build up an immunity to truth and our hearts grow hard!! In response to the medical problem, Margaret Chan said that the cupboard is nearly bear!! For the Christian unmoved by truth, I simply ask, what more can be said?
This sermon is a warning against resisting the truth of God. When the Lord is convicting our hearts to turn from sin and is persistent in calling us to such; if we repent not when God has done all to effect that repentance, what more can be done? When everything has been said and done, what then? The Lord reserved some of His most scathing words to such people, may we be not found as them!!
John 15:1-6
For many, the issue of fruit bearing in the Christian life is a mere side issue, one that is perhaps the concern of the more "committed", for those who are the more "spiritual". For such, Christianity is nothing more that a one-way ticket to heaven!! Their sins have been forgiven, their names are in the Lamb's book of life; they attend Church faithfully and try to read their Bible from time to time, but when it comes to bearing fruit, their lives are barren!
This sermon brings home the awesome reality of what it is to truly be born again of the Spirit, namely the kingdom of heaven coming into the soul of a man, the result being a transformed life! We see clearly from the Word of God, that the issue of fruit bearing is not confined to a select few but is and must be the concern of all who name the name of Jesus Christ and profess to be Christians! Are you bearing fruit in your Christian life? The key to bearing fruit is in the words of our Lord; abide in me!!
Psalm 62:11
There exists a generation whose haughty cry ascends up into heaven; it cries forth not that power belongeth unto God but rather, power belongeth unto man. From the media and arts, to the world of science, medicine and engineering, the consensus is the same….man in all his brilliance has superceded God!! Yet, as man pulls further and further away from God, distancing himself from His laws and precepts, an ever widening chasm of blackness is opening beneath his feet that is engulfing our society. To the generation that cries “away with God”, with that same cry shall also flee morality, goodness, safety and light and that society will be plunged into moral darkness!
This message is a timely encouragement in an hour of worsening darkness; our God is still on the throne!! “God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth unto God” (Ps. 62:11). Through the accounts of three great deliverances that God wrought in the lives of three kings, we shall indeed that the battle is not ours, but God’s!! Be encouraged dear Saints of God, know that in the midst of your difficulty, power belongeth unto God!!