Category Archives: Christian Life

1 Samuel 1 – The prayer of Hannah – sermon notes

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At last, scientific research seems to have proven what many people have suspected all along.  Prayer does not work.  Prayer does not change things.

A recent study led by cardiologists from Duke University Medical Center tested whether heart patients recovered more readily if they were prayed for.  The three year study involved 750 patients from throughout the USA and 26 prayer groups from different part of the world, including Christians in Manchester, Buddhists in Nepal and Sufi Moslems in America. …

Conscience

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‘Oh, yes,’ said the little Indian boy, ‘I know what my conscience is.  It is a little three-cornered thing in here’ – he laid his hand on his heart – ‘that stands still when I am good; but when I am bad it turns around, and the corner hurt very much.  But if I keep on doing wrong, by and by the corners wear off and it doesn’t hurt any more.’

1.  WHAT IS CONSCIENCE?

The nearest to a definition is Rom 2:14-15  This teaches that even when people do not know God’s law, they still have a very good idea about how they ought to behave, and this standard of behaviour is reinforced by the voice of conscience in their hearts. …

Prayer and revival

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We now move on to consider a vital element of our subject, namely, the indissoluble link between prayer and the coming of revival:-

[It] is God’s will, through his wonderful grace, that the prayers of his saints should be one great and principle means of carrying on the designs of Christ’s kingdom in the world…It is revealed that, when God is about to accomplish great things for his church, he will begin by remarkable pouring out the spirit of grace and supplication, Zech 12:10.

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Repentance and revival

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Sensitiveness to sin

If, as we have seen, a leading feature of revival preaching is the setting forth of God’s holy character, and his righteous law, and his judgement against sin, then it follows that the experience of those being revived will be characterise by repentance.  If revival is to be defined as the coming back to life of something very nearly like a corpse, then it follows that the first act which must be performed is to mourn and confess the spiritual lifelessness from which we would be delivered.…

Thoughts on growing old

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A bishop was making a pastoral visit to an old people’s home in his diocese.  He went up to one elderly lady, sitting in her chair, and asked her how long she’d been living there.  “Why do you want to know?” she snapped.

He carried on regardless.  “Do you have your own room?”

“Go away and leave me alone!” she said.

The bishop wasn’t used to this kind of response.  “Do you know who I am?”…

Lk 9:18-27 – The cost of discipleship – sermon notes

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Luke 9:23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

Jesus has attracted to himself not only a group of 12 disciples, but also a large number of admirers. Events such as the Transfiguration, and Peter’s confession, have marked a change of direction in his ministry. Hitherto, he has been occupied for much of the time in the north, around Galilee.…

Guidance

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Evangelicals these days tend to be particularly uptight about guidance.  Anxiety is caused by: (a) uncertainty about how to get it; (b) fear of consequences of not getting it.  The following notes are based on a chapter by J.I. Packer in Laid-Back Religion, 71-89:-

The desire for guidance is a mark of spiritual health.

The world has alternative sources of guidance: gurus, palmists, astrologers, clairvoyants, agony aunts, counsellors.

The fear of spiritual ruin through mistaking God’s guidance is unwarranted: it assumes that missing one point in God’s plan forever ruins the whole, leading to a permanently second-class Christian life.…

Quotes on repentance

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1.  If I should die in the pulpit, I should desire to die preaching repentance, and if I should die out of the pulpit, I should desire to die practising it.  (Philip Henry)
2.  To do so no more is the soundest repentance.  (Luther)
3.  Our Lord has laid down most emphatically that a man must repent of his sins, and particularly of his critical and independent attitude towards God, or he cannot begin to live the Christian life. …

Quotes on prayer

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To pray is to be identified with God’s will.  (Alan Redpath)

Prayer is nothing but the promise reversed.  (William Gurnall)

Prayer is something more than asking God to run errands for us.  (Anon)

Prayer is the key of heaven; faith is the hand that turns it.  (Thomas Watson)

Prayer in its simplest definition is merely a wish turned Godward.  (Phillips Brooks)

Prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God and a scourge to Satan. …

Matthew 7:1 – “Do not judge”

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Mt 7:1 – “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”

I once heard it said that a generation ago the most celebrated verse in the Bible would have been John 3:16 – “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  But nowadays, the speaker went on to say, most people’s favourite verse is possibly Matthew 7:1 – “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”…