Westminster Conference 2018 Session 3

Our third and final session of the day featured Phil Arthur on the Great War. Phil Artthur is a trained historian and a great raconteur and he was able to give us a fascinating and nuanced state of the art summary of the Great War of 1914-1918. He warned us against drawing our notions of the war from Balckadder or the war poets studied at GCSE level. He also touched on several other issues such as Israel, the end of African colonialism adn the rise of Christianity there, liberalism and the Downgrade, the doctrine of hell, Darwin, higher critcism, etc.

This all led to the question of whether, as is often asserted, the Great War proved fatal to Christianity in Britain. This was shown to be a myth, the faith of many being strengthened and even ignited during the war as often as it was extinguishhed. The real culprits are Darwinism, higher criticism and the flight from the doctrine of hell. This view was reflected in the discussion although some wanted to suggest that the war did have an adverse affect on the church - in the colossal loss of men for example that the war, together with the Spanish flu epidemic, brought about.

Retro Album "of the week" 48 - Heaven and Hell

We have a had a Vangelis before in this series and I could add more but I'm limiting it to two selections. This second one appeared way back in 1975 and was the fifth solo album. Sensibly instead of trying a heaven section and a hell one, the themes are mixed. The LP contained one part on each side but originally track titles were included. These were "Bacchanale" – 4:40; "Symphony to the Powers B" (Movements 1 and 2) – 8:18; "Movement 3" (from "Symphony to the Powers B") – 4:03 "So Long Ago, So Clear" – 5:00; "Intestinal Bat" – 3:18; "Needles and Bones" – 3:22 (a favourite of mine); "12 O'Clock" (in two parts) – 8:48 (also brilliant); "Aries" – 2:05 and "A Way" – 3:45.

Apparently the album gained worldwide recognition through the use of "Movement 3" as the theme for the TV documentary series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. The album was the first composed and recorded by Vangelis in his new Nemo Studios in London, the studio he used until 1987.

The album has classical overtones, in contrast to the progressive rock of other albums. Vangelis would return to classical style work ten years later, on Mask (1985). He dabbles with choral sections (featuring the English Chamber Choir conducted by Guy Protheroe; Vana Veroutis also features on "12 O'Clock") joined with his now typical electronic washes of sound, a concept he would again return to in the nineties with Conquest of Paradise and Mythodea. The album marks the first collaboration between Vangelis and Jon Anderson, on "So Long Ago, So Clear" (it came about when Yes tried to recruit Vangelis as their keyboard player and continued more fully a few years later). Heaven and Hell reached number 31 in the UK album charts in January 1976.

Unknown success

In her autobiography Frances Ridley Havergal tells how as a very young girl she was struck by a hell fire sermon she heard that awoke her to her spiritual need. She says "No one ever knew it, but this sermon haunted me, and day and night it crossed me." It is that "No one ever knew it" that strikes me. It is an encouragement to every preacher who is faithful. Who knows what a sermon may do.

Lord's Day July 1 2012

Preached on hell again yesterday morning - from Luke 16 this time. It's not at all easy. I felt physically sick at one point. Decent number despite our recent losses and several away.

Numbers 15:1-31 in the evening. Much smaller congregation. Found this sermon by Charles Simeon helpful in preparation. It's sermon 159 on page 74.

Completely forgot my reading glasses both times but managed.

Lord's Day June 24

So another good day preaching at home. We said goodbye again - this time to LTS student Christien Razafimbahiny, who returns to Madagascar this week.  We took another photo as we are aware that there are no typical congregations with us. A quick check just now reveals that we are about the same number in both pictures but about a quarter of those in the first are not in the second and a similar number in the second were not in the first.

The whole morning had a different cast this week as whereas I preached last week on heaven, this week I preached on hell (from Matthew 25). Perhaps it is the most difficult subject to handle of all. I hope I did it accurately and lovingly.

I was also trying out the use of reading glasses while leading, something I am increasingly needing to rely on. I'm not in the habit and so I found it a little distracting. Hopefully the congregation didn't.

In the evening we looked at Numbers 14 and the sin of unbelieving rebellion. I think we are enjoying Numbers and benefiting from it though it is a little difficult in some ways.

I am standing upon the foreshore

I came across this again recently. I was first aware of it when Vernon Higham read it at Dr Lloyd-Jones's funeral in 1981 (see here). He read it from Lorraine Boettner's book Immortality. I can't remember how Boettner introduces it but it appears to be (not by Victor Hugo a some say) but by the Dutch American educator and preacher Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933). Ironically he was one of Machen's early opponents. He refused to listen to Machen in 1923 as he felt his preaching was "bitter, schismatic and unscriptural". That fact puts me off a bit as well as the sentimentality but it is biblical.

I am standing upon the foreshore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to meet each other. Then someone at my side says, 'There, she is gone.' Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and just as able to bear her load of living weights to its place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her; and just at the moment when someone at my side says, 'There, she is gone,' on that distant shore there are other eyes watching for her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, 'Here she comes'.

Hymns Pantycelyn 09

Headed 'The Best Treasure' this is 28 in Hosanna to the Son of David

Gloomy darkness now approaches,
As a horrid deluge, o'er
The creation which shall perish
In oblivion evermore.
The elements shall to their former
Rude and messy chaos turn,
And the starry hosts of Heaven
In the conflagration burn.

Other worlds I must inhabit,
There where time imperial reigns,
And in streams of endless pleasures
Overflow the eternal plains ;
Ocean without bounds or limits,
A beginning or an end,
Millions of revolving ages
Can't it's vastness comprehend.

In those mansions ends my journey,
Where my God sits on the Throne,
And my dearest Mediator
For his brethren does atone.
O what pleasures! O what comforts
Shall detain my ling'ring Flight
From a world of woe and trouble
To the realms of purest light!

All the creatures in connection
Loudly summon, "Come away,
Thou thy precious time hast loiter'd
Careless on the narrow way."
Every tongue now bids me hasten
On the wing whilst I have breath,
Lest the shades of night eternal
Draw the curtain o'er in death.

Have the glorious luminaries,
From their rising to their set,
In the vast extensive heavens
With such object ever met?
Are their treasures in the mountains,
Or the bottom of the sea,
In the thousandth part as precious
As my dear Redeemer be?

Bio 09b Nehemiah Wallington

Here are two extracts from Nehemiah Wallington found on the net

One night I dreamed I was dead, and the day of Judgement was come and I was raised and stood betwixt heaven and hell, but whither I should go I knew not. Heaven I did see was a glorious place, and as it might be to my apprehension a very spacious large room, and there sat in the midst of it our Saviour Jesus Christ, [so] very glorious I cannot express it, and round about heaven sat all the saints that ever was. And on the left hand I saw hell, a large deformed place, only a kind of burning there, and the damned spirits facing one another. Then, thought I, Oh whither shall I go, and I thought I had one foot in heaven. One while I did think I should go into heaven, and another while I thought I should not, and Oh! that I would I were on the earth again, I would live better than ever I have done.

By reason that my son Samuel did not thrive but consumed and wasted after that he had the fits of the convulsions, we were counselled to put him forth to nurse into the country, and so we did send him to Peckham in January (1632). And on the 6 of October 1632 we heard our son Samuel was well, and I and my wife went to see him the Tuesday following, being the 9 day of October. And on the next Thursday at night word was brought that my son was very sick, and I went to see him the next morning betimes and one met me by the way and told me my son was dead. Then I returned back again with this heavy news, and we went to the burial of our sweet son Samuel on the 13 day of October being Saturday, which was a very wet day; and we went a mile and half from their house to his grave, and we were wet to the very skin, for it was a very wet and doleful day...