A blog featuring whatever I fancy, often on the Christian faith but not exclusively
Lord's Day November 3 2019
We began on Sunday with communion and that was good. We welcomed a new member which is also good. This is someone who has been a member of the congregation for a long time. Typically Childs Hill she will be away for three months from the end of November visiting relatives. In fact at least three members or adherents are off soon (to India, Jamaica and the Philippines). In the morning I preached Acts 26. Perhaps I should have broken things up but the end of the book is in sight now and it will be good for it to be complete. In the evening we looked at the three miracles of the cross that came after Jesus's death. We had good congregations morning and evening. It was especially encouraging to see over twenty present in the evening. Visitors included a lady from Trinidad come to London to do an exam (good to be reminded that is part of our ministry too), some old friends passing through and two people, one from Poland and one from the Turks and Caicos Islands originally, more likely to be at Hillsong but happy with the sermon. As ever, there were many people not there (I can think of three members and four others at least). It is so distressing when people are away for whatever reason.
Grove Chapel Bicentenary
It was good to be at the bicentenary celebration in Grove Chapel, Camberwell, this afternoon, part of a weekend of meetings. We have no particular connection with the chapel but it is a bastion of Reformed preaching and there were many people present who we know (as well as many we don't). There have been ten ministers over the 200 years. I know the five still living to speak to and know the names of others like Joseph Irons, the founder pastor and Henry Atherton. Those still living with the dates when they served are Iain Murray (1961-69), Hywel Jones (1970-80), David N Jones (1981-93), Mark Johnston (1994-2010) and Paul Yeulett (from 2014). (Do note the celtic flavour that persists over the years). This afternoon Paul preached on God the Father (although it was really on all three persons). Reuel Abrahams, one of the elders chaired. Nice tea to follow and plenty of chats. We skipped the Q&A.
The coming fourth of Wales
So the world cup is finally over for Wales. A very good campaign on the whole.
Well outplayed by New Zealand today, 40-17.
10 Zoos in the UK
Emőke Dénes, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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1. London Zoo, Regents Park
2. Whipsnade Zoo
3. Bristol Zoo
4. Chester Zoo
5. Dudley Zoo
6. Borth Wild Animal Kingdom
7. Penscynor Wildlife Park
8. Chessington World of Adventures and Zoo
9. Twycross Zoo
10. Edinburgh Zoo
Midweek Meeting October 30 2019
Autumn is definitely with us now but ten of us met in the chapel parlour last Wednesday, as we began a new series on 1 Timothy. We only looked at the first two verses but there was plenty to chew on. I had thought of doing seven verses but decided against it and I am glad I did. By trying to be interactve it ended up quite long. There was enough time for a good session of prayer, however, when most people prayed.
Day off week 44 2019
One of the tasks of most days off is to put away the clothes that magically appear washed and ironed every few days. My wife is a hard woman who expects me to actually put them away. Alo this week I spent a little while putting the hundred and more books that seem to have accumulated around and under my bed over the months into a rickety booksheld brought in from elsewhere. Otherwise I had a ood long chat with a friiend in North Wales by phone and read Private Eye and most of a little biography of Elgar that I picked up in acharity shop recently. There was alos time for blossing and trawling through my computer archives sorting things. I added several pieces to my pulished articles blog. See here.
10 very similar French and Welsh words
2. église/eglwys Church
3. mer/môr Sea
4. triste/trist Sad
5. fenêtre/ffenestr Window
6. terre/tir Land
7. une/un One
8. toi/ti You
9. boue/baw Mud
10. livre/llyfr Book
10 more puns for remembering Welsh words
1. Teledu - I'm watching television, tell Eddie.
2. Hedfan - He is learning to fly, the head van [driver]
3. Ty - The new house is shaped like a T
4. Canu - He can come to you to learn how to sing, can 'e?
5. Cerdd - Listen to the music. Take care th[at you do.]
6. Meddal - The flesh of this peach is so soft it could win a med(d)al.
7. Melys - He's partial to things that are sweet, Mel is.
8. Hawdd - They make it look easy. I don't know how th[ey do it.]
9. Mefus - She loves strawberries does Mavis.
10. Bread - Nothing is better than bread bar a [cake.]
A Word to the elect by Anne Brontë
I came across this anti-Calvinist poem by Anne Brontë recently. It is worth reading and you can see her point. I particularly like the fact she knows we do not deserve salvation. That strengthens here argument. However, she starts from the wrong end. If you start with God it is not that it all becomes clear but at least you begin to see why what she offers here is a false hope.
You may rejoice to think yourselves secure;
You may be grateful for the gift divine --
That grace unsought, which made your black hearts pure,
And fits your earth-born souls in Heaven to shine.
But, is it sweet to look around, and view
Thousands excluded from that happiness,
Which they deserved, at least, as much as you, --
Their faults not greater, nor their virtues less?
And, wherefore should you love your God the more,
Because to you alone his smiles are given;
Because he chose to pass the many o'er,
And only bring the favoured few to Heaven?
And, wherefore should your hearts more grateful prove,
Because for ALL the Saviour did not die?
Is yours the God of justice and of love
And are your bosoms warm with charity?
Say, does your heart expand to all mankind?
And, would you ever to your neighbour do --
The weak, the strong, the enlightened, and the blind -
As you would have your neighbour do to you?
And, when you, looking on your fellow-men,
Behold them doomed to endless misery,
How can you talk of joy and rapture then? --
May God withhold such cruel joy from me!
That none deserve eternal bliss I know;
Unmerited the grace in mercy given:
But, none shall sink to everlasting woe,
That have not well deserved the wrath of Heaven.
And, Oh! there lives within my heart
A hope, long nursed by me;
(And, should its cheering ray depart,
How dark my soul would be!)
That as in Adam all have died,
In Christ shall all men live;
And ever round his throne abide,
Eternal praise to give.
That even the wicked shall at last
Be fitted for the skies;
And, when their dreadful doom is past,
To life and light arise.
I ask not, how remote the day,
Nor what the sinner's woe,
Before their dross is purged away;
Enough for me, to know
That when the cup of wrath is drained,
The metal purified,
They'll cling to what they once disdained,
And live by Him that died.
You may be grateful for the gift divine --
That grace unsought, which made your black hearts pure,
And fits your earth-born souls in Heaven to shine.
But, is it sweet to look around, and view
Thousands excluded from that happiness,
Which they deserved, at least, as much as you, --
Their faults not greater, nor their virtues less?
And, wherefore should you love your God the more,
Because to you alone his smiles are given;
Because he chose to pass the many o'er,
And only bring the favoured few to Heaven?
And, wherefore should your hearts more grateful prove,
Because for ALL the Saviour did not die?
Is yours the God of justice and of love
And are your bosoms warm with charity?
Say, does your heart expand to all mankind?
And, would you ever to your neighbour do --
The weak, the strong, the enlightened, and the blind -
As you would have your neighbour do to you?
And, when you, looking on your fellow-men,
Behold them doomed to endless misery,
How can you talk of joy and rapture then? --
May God withhold such cruel joy from me!
That none deserve eternal bliss I know;
Unmerited the grace in mercy given:
But, none shall sink to everlasting woe,
That have not well deserved the wrath of Heaven.
And, Oh! there lives within my heart
A hope, long nursed by me;
(And, should its cheering ray depart,
How dark my soul would be!)
That as in Adam all have died,
In Christ shall all men live;
And ever round his throne abide,
Eternal praise to give.
That even the wicked shall at last
Be fitted for the skies;
And, when their dreadful doom is past,
To life and light arise.
I ask not, how remote the day,
Nor what the sinner's woe,
Before their dross is purged away;
Enough for me, to know
That when the cup of wrath is drained,
The metal purified,
They'll cling to what they once disdained,
And live by Him that died.
The Secret Rapture - its surprising orgins
I referred recently to the theory that the secret rapture is an idea that finds its orgins in the mind of a little girl in Scotland, a disicple of Edward Irving. I read that years ago in Dallimore's biography of Irving. Apprantly the origin of the theory is two books by Dave MacPherson, The Unbelievable Pre-Trib Origin (Kansas City, Heart of America Bible Society, 1973) and The Incredible Cover-Up (Medford, Oregon, Omega Publications, 1975).
I read that in an article I found here online. This is the relevant section
[J N] Darby began publishing his prophetic speculations in 1831. Coincidentally both he and Edward Irving began to postulate two stages to Christ's imminent return about the same time. First, there would be an invisible 'appearing' when Christians would meet Christ in the air and be removed from the earth, a process which came to be known as 'the rapture of the saints'. With the restraining presence of the Holy Spirit removed from the world, the Antichrist would arise and the seven year tribulation would begin. His rule would finally be crushed only by the public 'appearing' of Jesus Christ.
There is some speculation that this novel doctrine emerged as a result of the Powerscourt prophetic conference held near Dublin in 1831. 'Darby's prominence at the Powerscourt meetings has led to the supposition that he was responsible for it...' While dispensationalists have been most anxious to perpetuate this belief to ensure a measure of orthodoxy, there is much evidence to the contrary. Several have attributed the notion of a secret, pretribulational Rapture to Edward Irving. Dave MacPherson argues convincingly that the doctrine arose through a prophetic revelation given to Margaret MacDonald, one of Irvings's disciples.
Corroborating evidence can be found in the division the doctrine caused among dispensationalists between pre-tribulationists and post-tribulationists at the Niagara Prophecy Conferences from about 1884.
The 'Rapture-Rupture' essentially had Robert Cameron, Nathaniel West, and later W. R. Erdman, holding for a 'Rapture' at the very end of the age. They were to be supported by W. G. Moorehead of Xenia Theological Seminary. An apparent majority of the Niagarans, including Brookes, Scofield, Gaebelein, Parson, Gordon and George Needham, were holding for what has become the traditional pretribulation view.
Gaebelein, writing some fifty years later about the Scofield Reference Bible, looked back at the Niagara Conferences and linked the controversy to Irving.
Toward the end of the Niagara meetings several of the teachers, influenced by one man, who was considered an outstanding biblical and ecclesiastical scholar (as he undoubtedly was), began to abandon this distinction and branded it as mere invention. One of them went so far as to say that the teaching that the Lord would remove His true Church before the predicted Great Tribulation judgment, and that so far as His coming for His saints is concerned that it might occur at any moment, originated in the days of Edward Irving and his spurious gift of tongues revival. And so the blessed hope of the imminent coming of the Lord was more or less charged to the influence of subtle demons.
Gaebelein may have merely been repeating the position known to be held by Darby via Scofield concerning Irving's later eccentricities. Despite the obvious influence Darby and Irving had upon one another in the early days of the Prophecy Conferences at Albury and Powerscourt, Darby eventually disassociated himself from the fanciful prophecies of the Irvingites and the Catholic Apostolic Church. Scofield himself denied that Irving was the source of this doctrine. Responding to criticisms from a former colleague at the Niagara Conference, and following its demise over infighting over the 'rapture' he wrote an anonymous editorial in Our Hope in 1902,
We cannot, however, in the interests of truth, allow the statement to stand that 'until the days of Edward Irving, who was excluded from the Presbyterian Church for heresy, no one ever heard of this 'coming for' and 'coming with his saints.'' As a matter of fact, Irving was excluded, not for heresy in doctrine, but for his view on church order... If the editor of the Watchword and Truth will turn to Zechariah 14:4,5, he will learn of a statement concerning the coming with which considerably antedates Edward Irving... And if, further, he will turn to 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18, he will find a revelation concerning the 'coming for His saints' later indeed than Zechariah by six hundred years, but still about eighteen hundred years before Edward Irving.23
As late as 1976 Walvoord was still anxious to distance the origin of the doctrine of the Rapture from Irving.
The often-repeated charge that Darby secured his pretribulationism from Edward Irving has never been actually documented. One can hardly account for the wide acceptance of pretribulationism by Plymouth Brethren, who are devoted students of the bible, to the offering of this view by a person who had no reputation for orthodoxy.
Canfield notes that Walvoord's position contradicts several British historians who were closer to the issue.
Neatby, writing in 1901, Howard Rowden in 1967, F. Roy Coad in 1968 and Iain Murray in 1971, all find direct and reasonable links between the ideas of irving and the role of J. N. Darby. The link is so evident that a denial, using semantics on Walvoord's part, does not 'wash'.
Bragg The Rapture
I'm a little behind at present with some things. Melvyn Bragg's In our time is up and runing again on Radio 4 and at the end of last month they had a programme on The Rapture with Crawford Gribben and two other academics. You can currently access it here. The programme was very informative, although there is one thing I must chase up that I read in Arnold Dallimore's biography of Edward Irving - that the idea of a secret rapture began with a young girl in Scotland, a disicple of Irving, who began to have ecstatic visions. It was only a45 minute programme.
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