Aber Mini Conference 1

We are now in Aber for the EMW conference. For many years one of the features of the week has been a sort of mini-conference where my father-in-law Geoff Thomas preaches three themed sermons on the Sunday morning and evening and the Monday morning. The sermon takes place in the Welsh Baptist Chapel Bethel, diagonally opposite Alfred Place and used because it is larger. Half the conference people come to the mini conference and the other half hear the official conference preachers elsewhere (Tim Gill and Pete Campbell this time).

This year Geoff's theme is mortification or putting sin to death. On Sunday morning we had

1. The nature of mortification

A misunderstood and neglected doctrine it needs to be taught in this the "age of addiction".

Biblical propositions:

1 Every unbeliever is by nature dead in sin (See Eph 2)

2 Every believer has died to the dominion of sin and death (see Col 3:3; Rom 7, 8) Geoff called it definitive mortification

3 The Christian has to deal with the living presence of the flesh.(Gal 5:16, 17)
He warned against the myth of perfectionism and recalled a question asked of Cornelius Van Til about it getting easier as you get older which the professor thoroughly squashed.
Other refs were then made including  Psalm 51, Mark 7, Matthew 5, etc, ending with Hebrews 12:1-3 and the observation that mortification is not everything. We need also to look to Jesus.