MAC KIRK

  Esther II...chapters 3-6?  ( or something like that)    This is a message about doing the right thing even when it is hard.  We are all challenged in this area.  Sometimes we are quiet when we should speak, and other times we speak when we really should be quiet. Why do we not speak when something needs to be said?   Usually others are speaking anyway I say often , and let them speak if they think they need to. That reminds me of the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. " Some people without brains do an alwful lot of talking " he said to Dorothy,  because he didn't have a brain---only straw. Dorothy said, " You're right." Two verses in ch 4 stand out in this section ch 3-5 or 6.  In Ch 4 Esther is told by her uncle Mordecai of the decree 3:15 that the King had made. This was because Haman the King's prime official was angry with Mordecai, the Jew, because he would not bow down to him.  Haman gave money to the king to have the Jewish pe...

  Esther -- "A Study for our Time" "During World War II a delightful Christian English lady kept a personal diary. It tells of her husband's death in the war effort. It tells of food rationing and the horrible bombing of London . It tells of her children's evacuation to the countryside. One night during the bombings the woman confessed that she woke up and could not get back to sleep. She kept thinking of Hitler, invasion, and the S.S. troops. She trembled until she suddenly thought, "Where is Alexander the Great who gobbled up the world? Where is Caesar's dogmatic rule upheld on the tips of spears? Where is Napoleon? They are all in their graves and come to naught," she wrote. "And that is where Hitler will be, too. The same God reigns!" And she rolled over, laughed, and went back to sleep! The Mid-East, terrorism, crime, abortion -- is this what your eyes are upon? Are you gazing at the world, and glancing at Christ? Rise above it! Lift ...

  (12th Sunday after Trinity .  Got me!  This one is for us all. Theology is not just for the brain) 12th S. after Trinity---older reading  2 Corinthians 3:4 God has made us sufficient and competent to do His work. " Our sufficiency is of God", the Apostle says. " "Years ago, Harry Emerson Fosdick, then at the height of his influence as minister of the Riverside Church, New York City, was making a tour of Palestine and other countries of the Near and Middle East. He was invited to give an address at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, where the student body comprised citizens of many countries and representatives from sixteen different religions. What could one say that would be relevant or of interest to so mixed and varied a group? This is how Fosdick began: "I do not ask anyone here to change his religion; but I do ask all of you to face up to this question: What is your religion doing to your character?" This was a call to consider one of the g...

  CONFESSION OF FAITH  CHAPTER XXVI   OF COMMUNION OF SAINTS     Here is illustrated by several Scriptures the fellowship that Christians have with one another in a very practical section.  . "All saints that are united to Jesus Christ their head by his Spirit, and by  faith, have fellowship with him in his graces, sufferings, death,  resurrection, and glory. And being united to one another in love, they  have communion in each other’s gifts and graces;  and are obliged to the  performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their  mutual good, both in the inward and outward man. " In other words Christian conduct comes from Christ.  I John 1:3 " That which we have seen and declare we unto you, that ye also may  have fellowship with us : and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." communion -fellowship - koinōnía (a feminine noun) – properly, what is shared i...

  Of the Last Judgment. Ch. 33. WCF.     The confession here waits till the end of the work to talk about the Last Judgment. " God hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in  righteousness by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given  of the Father. In which day, not only the apostate angels shall be judged,  but likewise all persons that have lived upon earth shall appear before  the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their thoughts, words, and  deeds, and to receive according to what they have done in the body,  whether good or evil" JI Packer summed up what I liked best, " To know that nothing happens in God's world apart from God's will may frighten the godless,  but it stablizes the saints." " Because He hath appointed a day, in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead."...