Streams of Living Water

I want to start tonight with two different worlds. My first world is approximately 400BC where there was a great man writing a masterpiece. His name was Sun Tzu and he was a general of an army in China. He wrote a book called, ‘The Art of War’ where he discusses the tactics of battle and the strategies of war. My second world is that of Ashes Cricket where, at the present moment, Australia are threatening to whitewash England. Cricket commentators have termed this present Australian Cricket Team one of the greatest to have ever played Test Cricket. But these same commentators also pay tribute to the Australian Cricket Coach, a man called John Buchanan – a ruthless winner with, what sportsmen call, the Eye of the Tiger. Read the rest of this entry »

Read: James 1:1

Having now finished our series of studies on what the Shorter Catechism has to say about Prayer, I thought I would change tack slightly and begin a study in a particular book of the Bible. But, knowing that on a Wednesday night we are all tired and we are here primarily to pray, I didn’t want to burden you with long sermons and heavy thought. So I decided that together we would study the Book of James. I reckon we can get through this book in 15 short studies; in fact, I’ve set myself the target of 15 15 minute studies through this exciting and challenging book. Read the rest of this entry »

Six months ago, or so, I decided to take up birdwatching. I thought it would be a nice, easy hobby to take my mind off things and get me some fresh air. But after a little while, my enthusiasm for birdwatching started to wane – the reason? Because I was struggling to tell the difference between different kinds of birds. In fact, if I am being honest, and I know you’re all going to laugh at me when I tell you this, but I’m still struggling to tell the difference between a crow, a rook, a jackdaw and a raven. And if I can’t tell the difference between these four big, common birds, how am I going to tell the difference between wing patterns on a tiny little bird? I have begun to realise that there is far more to bird-watching than I once thought.
Now the same principle works in the realm of the Psalms even more. Read the rest of this entry »

Bring on the six nations. Listen to what Hugh Miller says about the English physique…

 ”As tested by the dynamometer, the average strength of the full grown Scot exceeds that of the full-grown Englishman by about one twentieth - to be sure, no very great difference, but quite enough in a prolonged contest, hand to hand, and man to man, with equal skill and courage on both sides, decidely to turn the scale. The result of the conflict at Bannockburn, where according to Barbour, steel rung upon steel for hours … may have a good deal hinged on this purely physical difference.”

What a romantic Hugh Miller was! Listen to what he says about the relative intellects of English and Scots: Read the rest of this entry »

Why does God cause the righteous to suffer? That is the question which has haunted God’s people for thousands of years – right back to the days of Job and to Psalm 73. Is that the question which is haunting you tonight as you look at the sufferings of God’s people, or perhaps even the difficulties you are going through at the moment – why does God allow the righteous to suffer? Tonight, I want to look, from James 1:2-8, at, at least, part of the answer to that question. Read the rest of this entry »

The evening of the 13^th April 1746 was grim, at least if your name was MacDonald or Cameron. It was the night before the battle of Culloden and Bonnie Prince Charlie’s troops were exhausted after retreating the 200 miles from Edinburgh. Encamped a few miles away in Nairn were the numerically superior troops of The Duke of Cumberland. As a last attempt to avert disaster, Prince Charlie ordered his troops to march the 12 miles, or so, to Nairn, and, in the dead of night, to ambush the Duke of Cumberland’s army whilst they slept. But, whilst they were still a few miles shy, the alarm was raised and the ambush was called off. At 4am in the morning, the even more exhausted Jacobites returned to Culloden, many of them collapsing where they stood and only waking up the next day to find a royalist sword through their bellies. The eve of the battle of Culloden set the tone for the next day – a next day which would herald the destruction of the clan system and the transformation of the Highland way of life forever. The eve of this battle, and all battles, are all important to the result of the subsequent encounter. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you have a passion for the Glory of God? Do you live for, do you breathe for, do you do all for the Glory of God? Does the honour of His Glory and His Great Name mean more to you than your own reputation? Do you believe that God will not allow the guilty to go unpunished? These are the kind of questions brought up by the penultimate type of Psalm we are looking at – Psalms of Imprecation – Psalms like 137:7-9 where, humanly speaking, we are left scratching our heads at the viciousness of Scripture. After all, how barbaric is it to talk of taking little children and dashing their heads against rocks? I mean, that is so sub-Christian isn’t it? That’s the kind of thing psychopaths do – not followers of the man who said, ‘Love your enemies. Pray for them who spitefully use you’. I mean, you would might expect the Psalmist, if he had any morsel of what passes as modern godliness within him to say, ‘Lord, have mercy on Babylon’, but rather than that, this vicious, vengeful, hate-filled songwriter pens these words of vitriol. This has led to many commentators, even evangelicals, calling these verses, and the other psalms which follow this trend, Psalms like 69, 83 and 109, ‘devilish’. They don’t believe they should be included in the Christian cannon of Scripture because they say that they are simply sub-Christian sentiments – relics of Judaism, not worthy of the disciples of Jesus. Read the rest of this entry »