Our first speaker was Lyndsay Brown. Lyndsay was the travelling secretary for UCCF when I began as a student in Aberystwyth. He has gone on to work with IFES in various capacities. He spoke on the phrase so great salvation from Hebrews :2:1-3. It was a great opening message, full of anecdotes.Seeking to encourage us, he spoke of the temptation to lose our sense of wonder at the gospel. In order to counter this, he drew our attention first to various sources – the hymns (eg Wesley O for a thousand tongues), church architecture, the history of science (see Richard Hookyas and Kepler's idea of thinking God's thoughts after him), Michelangelo's diaries, Rembrandt's putting himself at the foot of the cross in his paintings, Handel's sense of the majesty of God, etc.
The modern world is taken up with other things but we ought to be taken up with the wonder of the gospel. Three reasons it is a great message:
1. The Author. It is the message of the Creator, the God of the universe. He illustrated his point by referring to the importance of an author as seen in the pre-publication sales of J K Rowling and the recent discovery of a Caravaggio among the Queen's collections.
2. What it saves from. The gospel provides eternal salvation. He illustrated this from the power of antibiotics, a story from Africa of a woman who had left her husband for another but went back to him and so found freedom, another from a Dutch pastor used in revival in Irian Jaya even though he had once been in the Hitler Youth and done terrible things.
3. What it saved us for. Illustrated from the fictional story of Ben Hur, including the doctrine of adoption. He quoted hearing humanist Marghanita Laski saying on the BBC World service that she knew no-one who could forgive her. He also spoke of hope and added a whole load of quotation from Sartre, etc.
Great start.
The modern world is taken up with other things but we ought to be taken up with the wonder of the gospel. Three reasons it is a great message:
1. The Author. It is the message of the Creator, the God of the universe. He illustrated his point by referring to the importance of an author as seen in the pre-publication sales of J K Rowling and the recent discovery of a Caravaggio among the Queen's collections.
2. What it saves from. The gospel provides eternal salvation. He illustrated this from the power of antibiotics, a story from Africa of a woman who had left her husband for another but went back to him and so found freedom, another from a Dutch pastor used in revival in Irian Jaya even though he had once been in the Hitler Youth and done terrible things.
3. What it saved us for. Illustrated from the fictional story of Ben Hur, including the doctrine of adoption. He quoted hearing humanist Marghanita Laski saying on the BBC World service that she knew no-one who could forgive her. He also spoke of hope and added a whole load of quotation from Sartre, etc.
Great start.
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