Heavenly Worldliness: August 2024

10 Exhortations to the Preservation of Christian Peace by Andrew Fuller

In a sermon on cultivating a peaceful disposition in his Works, Andrew Fuller's second point has these 10 or 11 points. It can be found here (on page 432) or in FGB 268 here.

Let me exhort you to endeavour, by all means, to preserve peace among one another.

1. Be careful to cultivate a spirit of love. There is nothing more conducive to peace than this.

2. Beware of sin. There is nothing more opposed to Christian peace than this.

3. Beware of a disputatious temper. Debates may be productive of good. But they too often originate in captiousness and pride.

4. Avoid a spirit of groundless jealousy. Godly jealousy is necessary when we consider what we all are and by what influences we are surrounded. But an ill opinion of others is the source of much mischief. 5. Beware of a spirit of envy. The members of a church are like the stars. One excelleth another. Then beware of envy.

6. Do not intermeddle with each other’s temporal affairs. What I just now said respecting your conduct towards your pastor, I would repeat concerning your conduct towards one another. Different people have different ways of managing their domestic affairs; and if your brethren do but act [honorably] in the world, what right have you to interfere?

7. Guard against a touchy temper. Charity is not soon angry. “For every trifle scorn to take offence; It either shows great pride or little sense.”

8. Repeat no grievances, especially when acknowledged. “He that repeateth a matter separateth very friends” (Pro 17:9).

9. Strive to heal differences. It is a great honour to be a peacemaker.

10. Encourage no talebearers. Persons that make it their business and feel it their delight to go about telling secrets to the disadvantage of their neighbours deserve the deepest marks of censure.

(Fuller alsohas an 11th point - Be ready to forgive. Without this heavenly temper we cannot expect to live long in peace.)

To the man called Belmonte I say Yes!

Rare pic found in the book (CHS on his 39th)

I bought this book because of its lovely cover and the fact that Spurgeon's name appears on it. I don't always read books I buy straight away but I am glad I did this one as it is very much a book for reading on holiday and although officially holiday is over for me the memory is still lingering at least until September arrives. I think all the material in the book is available elsewhere but it has been put together well and demonstrates that Spurgeon loved his holidays and was a great believer in reading the book of nature as well as the book of Scripture. Wonderful little hardback. Thank you Mr Belmonte.

Lord's Day August 25 2024

It was good to be back in Childs Hill last Lord's Day. In many ways it was typical, with a large morning congregation of around 30 in the morning and a much smaller congregation come the evening. In the morning I preached on Matthew 7:12, as we continue through the Sermon on the Mount. In the evening I preched a one off from Isaiah 64:6. There were visitors in the morning, mostly old friends and in the evening, a Tamil family from Sri Lanka who are professing Christians and who, like other refugees, are living in the nearby hotel. I hope we see them again soon. One feature of the morning service was an almost complete absence of our Iranian friends. The one there is a young man who has recently gained his asylum )he is the last of our current crowd to do so). Several others had taken advantage of the Bank Holiday and goe away, I guess.

10 Famous Foods Invented by Accident

Bakewell Pudding. The Bakewell pudding is said to have been invented by accident in the Derbyshire town of Bakewell, England in 1860, following a misunderstanding between Mrs Greaves, the mistress of a local inn, and her cook. A nobleman visited and requested a strawberry tart, but an egg mixture was erroneously poured on top of the jam. Needless to say, the nobleman was a big fan of the resulting pudding, which is beloved to this day.
Eton Mess. The generally accepted story goes that a strawberry, meringue and cream pudding was dropped at a cricket match between Eton and Harrow in the late 19th century. Instead of being thrown away, it was simply scooped up off the floor and served, smashed to bits, in individual bowls. An even funnier version of how the messy dessert was invented involves a 1930s picnic, a pudding and an overexcited labrador ….
Worcestershire Sauce. When Lord Marcus Sandys, a former governor of Bengal, returned to England, he brought with him a recipe for a tangy sauce he encountered during his travels. He asked two chemists, John Lea and William Perrins, to replicate it, but the sauce didn't quite meet their expectations, so it was set aside and forgotten about. When the duo stumbled upon it again, they found that the sauce had matured and developed a rich, complex flavour.
Mozarella. According to Italian legend, mozzarella was created completely by accident centuries ago in Naples, when some curdled milk fell into a pot of boiling water at a cheese factory. The result? A delightfully smooth ball of fresh, creamy cheese that has since become the world’s favourite pizza topping. In Italy, it's made exclusively using water buffalo milk, though cows' milk versions abound in many other countries.
Caesar Salad. It is said to have been created by Caesar Cardini, an Italian chef, in Tijuana, Mexico. The story goes that business at Caesar's restaurant was so good on July 4, 1924, that the kitchen ran out of everything except lettuce, cheese, bread and the wherewithal for an egg-based dressing with a kick of Worcestershire sauce. The resulting salad was named the Caesar salad, and it went on to become a classic dish.
Cornflakes. Corn Flakes came about when Kellogg’s founders John and Will Kellogg attempted to make granola. The duo accidentally flaked wheat berry, then experimented with flaking corn – and quickly realised they were on to something. The recipe was perfected, and Corn Flakes were eventually rolled out across the world.
Crisps. Amazingly, these wildly popular savoury snacks were first created as a form of revenge. At Moon’s Lake House in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1853, Cornelius Vanderbilt sent his French fries back to the kitchen for being cut too thick. In outrage, waiter George Crum prepared them again – making them as thin and hard as possible – and crisps were born. Although this origin story is sometimes contested, the restaurant is certainly where crisps gained popularity.
The Sandwich. The sandwich is named after 18th century English nobleman John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. It’s said that he was unable to leave a gambling game he was playing in, so requested that his servant bring him meat between two pieces of bread. The meal caught on, and people started saying, 'I’ll have the same as Sandwich'.
Aspartame. Aspartame is an artificial sweetener used in sugar-free food and drinks – and it was invented entirely by accident in 1965 by scientist Dr James Schlatter. While working on an anti-ulcer drug, the doctor licked his finger to pick up a piece of paper, and found that it tasted sweet. It's likely to be one of very few times that accidentally ingesting a chemical in a science experiment has led to a positive outcome.
In Switzerland in the 1930s, doctors wanted to give children who were in hospital vitamin-enriched milk to drink. The problem was, the children thought milk was too babyish and wouldn’t touch it. So cocoa butter was added, resulting in the accidental invention of white chocolate. This nutritionally enhanced chocolate product was so popular it ended up being widely sold, and a modern version is still available in Europe today.

(I should add that the list was prompted by the death of the alleged inventor of tiramisu, another example)

Pilgrim Brother by Seth Lakeman

Some recent Pareidolia

Fan

Tree, Kenwood House, Hampstead Heath

Midweek Meeting August 21 2024

Good to be back in Childs Hill for the midweek meeting last Wednessday. We were eight altogether and we looked first at Psalm 102 and then prayed. Good time.and

Inventor of Tiramisu dies

I read recently of the death of Roberto Linguanotto. Known affectionately as "Loli" to friends and colleagues, Linguanotto is said to have invented tiramisu in the early 1970s while working at Le Beccherie, a restaurant in Treviso, Italy. The story goes that he accidentally dropped mascarpone cheese into a bowl of eggs and sugar, liked the taste, and developed the recipe from there. Many nice things seem to have begun as accidents.

New Murals 2

While in Aberystwyth I noticed a new mural going up on the Bookshop by the Sea. Based on Hokusai, it is now finished. The words are from a poem called My Friend and can be translated

Oh! My dear sister, you to me

As the moon to the sea, constantly,

Following you restlessly are

My heart’s pure affections

It is the work of Cranogwen (Sarah Jane Rees 1839–1916). She was the first woman to win in the National Eisteddfod in 1865. More here.

Also see here.

New Murals 1

Back here in London I notice there is a new piece of art work at JW3 on the Finchley Road.

Lord's Day August 18 2024

Last Sunday, once again, I was not preaching. I was in AP in Aberystwyth. In the morning I heard Ian Jones, one of the elders of the church, and in the evening my son Rhodri, pastor of the church, was preaching. Ian is doing a series on perseverance and faithfulness. This time he took us to Hebrews 10:19-29 especially verse 23 and our responsibility to persevere as Christians. Rhodri carried on in Romans 8 with verses 18-27. Very helpful.

10 Welsh Place Names that include the word Holm

The word holm usually refers to an islet, especially in a river or near a mainland. It can also refer to a piece of flat ground by a river which is submerged in times of flood.

Flat Holm in the Bristol Channel
Steep Holm in the Bristol Channel
Burry Holms off the Gower Peninsula
Grassholm west of Skomer
Middleholm east of Skomer
Skokholm south of Skomer
Priestholm, former name for Puffin Island, Anglesey
Gateholm tidal island off the south west coast of Pembrokeshire
Brooksholm wood near Monmouth
Waterholmes, historical name for a place near Wiston, Pembrokeshire

An African History of Africa by Zeinab Badawi

When I was in Kenya I noticed that this volume had come out and so back here in the UK I got hold of a copy and have now read it. It is not an academic book but it is a thorough trawl through what is known of African history. The material is presented in an interesting and appealing way and what appears to be quite a balanced approach. A great deal of it was new to me and I would recommend it to any African, European or whatever wanting to expand their understanding of the various issues.

Aberystwyth Conference 2024 Session 9 (Evening 5)

There was no official Friday evening meeting last year but it was back with a bang this year. A packed Great Hall listened to Dyfan Williams give the final address of the 2024 conference looking at scenes from the life of Jacob. For me, this meeting (including Alun Ebenezer leading in prayer) was the highlight of the week. Clearly, warmly and with rhetorical power Dyfan expounded the Scriptures very practically and helpfully and ended with a powerful evangelistic call. Judicious use of powerpoint helped rather than hindered the message.

He closed saying,

Now let me ask you this as we come to a close, will you hear Jesus's word tonight? Will you believe the God who sent him? Robert Frost, the American poet, wrote a poem The Road Not Taken and he says "I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence. Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less travelled by and that has made all the difference."

I want to suggest to you this evening, the final day of Aber, two roads are converging for you this evening, two roads, Jesus talked about them didn't he? He talked about the broad road and the narrow road. He talked about the broad road - there are many on it. The broad road leads to destruction. The narrow road, the narrow road they're not on it, so many. The narrow road leads to life, eternal life. And I want to ask you which road are you on? Which road are you on? Will you believe in the Lord Jesus? Will you put your faith in him? Will you get off the broad road and will you trust in this Saviour who promises you eternal life? Will you do it? Paul talks in in 2 Corinthians 5, he says we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were making his appeal through us - be reconciled to God. Well, I want to be that voice this this evening to you. I want to say, God is making an appeal to you through me, through his word this evening - be reconciled to God, come to this God. He is appealing to you this evening. He's saying, come on, come on. Trust in my son. Get off the broad road, get onto the narrow road that leads to life. The consequences are eternal. Robert Frost says that it's made all the difference. It's made all the difference, the road which I took and it's going to make all the difference for us, for you. Get on the narrow road, follow this

Lord Jesus, put your trust in him. There are young people that were with me in Aber at the conference, years and years ago ... there are people who were with me and in our friendship group. They are nowhere now. They are nowhere. They're not following the Lord; they're on the broad road and I don't want that to happen to you. I don't want it to happen to you.

God is appealing. God made Christ who had no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. You can be righteous. You can be right with God this evening through faith in Jesus. You've crossed over from death to life. Take the road less travelled by and that will make all the difference.

Maybe this evening, maybe this evening, this will be the first stage of God's grace for you here. May we all know God's grace through the various stages of life and may we be strong to the finish. Amen, amen.

Aberystwyth Conference 2024 Session 8 (Morning 4)

David Meredith preached on the final morning from Acts 4, a bold move. One of the last things he said was to remind us of that time when there was a Party Conference of the Liberal party and the Liberals had won a couple of seats. They were really excited and the leader of the party said "Let us go back to the country and prepare for government". And they were annihilated at the next general election. We are going to be leaving Aber, he said. He was not saying, "Let us go go back and prepare for government" but that we should proclaim the word of God boldly and as we proclaim that word make it a matter of prayer. ray that the room will shake through seriousness in prayer.

Aberystwyth Conference 2024 Session 6 (Evening 4)

Stephen Clark spoke again last night, carrying on with Colossians, mostly Chapter 3. It was different to the previous message and with lots of illustrations.

Aberystwyth Conference 2024 Session 5 (Morning 3)

David Meredith preached this morning on Jonah, focusing on the revival in Nineveh, which he took as a genuine one.

Aberystwyth Conference 2024 Session 5 (Evening 3)

On our third evening we had a third retired man in his sixties. This time, Stephen Clark, formerly at Abersychan, Llandrindod and Bridgend. He now lves in Cyprus. He took us through Colossians 2:6-23 and was helpfully evangelistic. Near the end he used this well known illustration, which Stephen had heard a friends give at a Senior Camp. He said this "It is an imperfect illustration. If you push it all the way you will end up with a monstrously distorted doctrine of the atonement but it was meant to illustrate just one thing, the love of God in Christ Jesus ... it's a true story of a little girl whose mother had horribly deformed hands and this little girl had friends in school. They'd ask her to go to her friends' houses for tea but she never asked any of her friends to come for tea and she didn't ask them because she was ashamed of her mother's hands. This went on for quite some time and then the mother felt she had to deal with it. She said, "You never ask anyone to come here for tea. Why is that?" The girl didn't want to come out with it. She teased it out of her in the end. She said, "yes it's your hands Mum, I don't want my friends to see the awful scarring and shape on your hands. So she said, "I'll tell you why my hands are like this. I wasn't born like it" she said "I had lovely hands but one day the chip pan was on and you were in the kitchen. You came to the chip pan, your hand went up and if that pan had been pulled down you would have been marred for life and I rushed over and put my hands in the way so that you wouldn't be scarred. And that's why my hands are like this. He to rescue us from danger interposed his precious blood. And that's why you and I can go on in the Christian life. Because we've been rooted in Christ, we've been renewed in Christ and most of all we've been redeemed by the blood of the lamb and that is so immense that that will be the theme of Praise forever and ever. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.

Aberystwyth Conference 2024 Session 4 (Morning 2)

David Meredith continued his series on revival, looking very helpfully at Psalm 126. He referred to Alexander Fraser of Tain and his interesting comment following a revival when he was a visiting student in a church in Argyllshire, in a little place called Drumlemble. He was asked how he coped preaching night after night for many weeks given he only had a few sermons. He wrote "I told him that when fishermen come up from England in the south to fish in their northern rivers for trout and salmon, they bring their fine rods and their newest flies, their gear and their gaffes and all the rest. They flail away and flog our rivers and catch little enough. Then the rain comes. And a wee fellow from a village with a rod that's little more than a stick and a line that he has found somewhere, a hook if he is fortunate and a pin if he is not, comes along and does as well as any of them. The truth is, you can do an awful lot with very little when the spate comes."

Aberystwyth Conference 2024 Session 3 (Evening 2)

Our third session, the second evening one, again featured a retired pastor (and once again a London Welshman). Mostyn Roberts has recently retired as the pastor of Welwyn Evangelical Church and is now living in Herefordshire. He preached from Luke 4 on Believing in the real Jesus. The service can be accessed here.

Aberystwyth Conference 2024 Session 2 (Morning 1)

The main speaker at Aber tbis year is David Meredith from Scotland. He has chosen to speak on the important subject of revival. He began this morning by taking us through the first 14 verses of the famous chapter, Ezekiel 37. A recording can be found at the EMW YouTube Website here.

Aberystwyth Conference 2024 Session 1 (Evening 1)

It was good to be at the official opening session of this year's Aber Conference last night. Our speaker was Paul Williams, recently retired from ministry in Swindon and now living on Swansea. He preached from the heart from Romans 8:32, with the mainaim of assuring any lacking assurance. It was good to be there. A recording can be found at the EMW YouTube Website here.

Pre-conference days in Aber

We are here in Aberystwyth for the EMW conference. We came up from Cardiff on Friday in order to be at the funeral of Arthur Murray, a godly man who lived most of his life in Aber and was for many years a member in Alfred Place, where the funeral was. My son Rhodri led the meeting and there were tributes from one of Arthur Murray's daughters and Stuart Bell.

On the Lord's Day Rhodri preached twice - from Matthew 5 and Romans 8. A great blessing to be there.

On Monday the church had organised an excellent lecture by Heather Nicholas on Whitefield and his books. (Heather is studying Whitefield at PhD level). This was marking the fiftieth anniversary of the church's bookshop, which began near the station and has been next to the church since 1994. Good sales followed I think. (I bought some volumes myself, including one on Whitefield by James Schwenk, which I'd not seen).

A Few Days in South Wales

Cardiff/Cwmbran

Last Monday we left London and headed for Wales. First stop, Newport and my sister's. Two of her daughters were there with their husbands and young daughters to that added to the interest and we had a short but enjoyable time. We then went on to Cardiff where we are staying in my son's house (they are all on camp in West Wales this week). In the evening, we had a lovely meal with Eleri's Cardiff based sister and her husband and son. Nice evening. Tuesday Eleri and I drove into town and had a little wander. We had a cuppa in the museum and then lunch at Shake Shack. Lovely time. In the evening I did some blogging and then we entertained some Cardiff friends who are getting married in November and that was a good time too.

Eleri has spent today and yesterday at the National Eisteddfod, which this year is in Pontypridd, half an hour from here by train. She is helping man the stondin for the Welsh school but it is also a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and she has been having a great time, I think, although today has been rather wet.

I have been spending my time mostly reading and drinking coffee. Yesterday I headed into Whitchurch on foot for a coffee then caught a bus into town. I don't know Cardiff and so I enjoyed little things like the way all the stops are announced bilingually on the buses these days. (The route took us past The Earl Haig Club where I saw Focus in 2022 and the Velindre Cancer Centre where my mother had been a regular back in the nineties). I wandered around town and had lunch in the Caffe Nero in the St David's Centre (Focus also once played the St David's Hall and had someone play the organ for La Cathedrale). I then bussed back here before picking up Eleri. We popped over to Eleri's sister again later.

Today I took Eleri to the station then met up with my sister for a nice breakfast in a nearby Harvester. I then headed to Cwmbran where I enjoyed another coffee and an undercover wander in the rain. I sat in the Library which I now notice has similarities to the Swiss Cottage Library. I had luch in a MacDonalds on the way to Pontypool and then headed back to Cardiff. (Kept my eyes peeled for anyone I might know but saw no-one. I like hearing the local accents, especially hearing people say by here and by there for here and there). In t evening I did a bit more wordling and reading and we watched the news an a couple of episodes of The Turkish Detective. Tomorrow we are off to Aberystwyth.

Pax by Tom Holland

I've just finished Tom Holland's latest book, Pax, subtitled War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age which covers the period from the demise of Nero through the subsequent year of four emperors (69) and on through to the end of the reign of Hadrian (138). It's a general history and so he presents the most interesting bits. I was surprised to see no mention of Domitian's persectuion of the Christians. Otherwise, there are plenty of historical sidelights for anyone interested in the New Testament and early church history. Tom Holland writes quite well and this is an easy way to catch up on Roman history you may have missed. Understandably there are details that are quite coarse and debauched but these are handled fairly well. He also goes some way to explaining what the Pax Romana was.