A sign

There are a lot of places where sign is mentioned in scripture, the rainbow is a sign that God promised that He will never flood all the world again, there are floods as we well know but never again will God flood the whole earth. There were the signs that God gave when Moses was going to Pharaoh asking for the Israelites to be freed and God said give them this sign and if they don’t believe or pay attention then this will happen, the tenth plague.

I wonder how many signs we see through the day, or how many signs we notice through the day. As I walked up Park Road in Ripley which is only a short street every few yards there was a sign for one thing or another. Where to put your rubbish, no parking, or showing you where parking was, or one way street, so just on that short street there were so many signs and sometimes we can just get used to them maybe because we don’t really need them so we don’t give them a thought. When you come off that street on the main road there is a crossing and when I am driving I am very aware of it as you just suddenly come upon it but it’s amazing how many people will walk past the crossing and then cross just a few yards away from it, it is quite frightening how they just step out into the road when they could cross safely just a few yards down, they ignore the sign. I did see at the other end of Park street a few week ago a couple come down the street in a car the wrong way, but I think that was an honest mistake, they hadn’t seen the sign, the face of the driver said it all really. I asked the ladies at this point if they had any similar experiences whilst driving, there was one or two stories, Julie reminded me of the time we came from Newark and went round a roundabout four times before getting the right exit because we just couldn’t see a sign due to the roadworks, but we kept going round until we were sure! Major Ruth told us of a sign on a street in Cambridge that points to one of the colleges and it is a one way street, and the college is Jesus College, so the sign just says Jesus.

I had drawn some of the signs that we find on our roads and asked the ladies if they knew what they were, they did very well. Then I went through them again. The crossroads sign reminded me that the major crossroads in our lives, is when we realise who Jesus is and our need of Him. Once we have made the decision to follow Jesus as Christians we still get to crossroads and we have to make decisions but the difference is that when we know Jesus as Lord and Saviour, when we know who God is then we know we can turn to Him and He doesn’t just help us through, He guides us through. 

The sign where the road narrows reminded me that as Christians we are on the straight and narrow road. Before we were Christians we were on the wide road, doing whatever we wanted, whatever we desired but I would rather be on this straight and narrow road looking to Jesus and following Him. We don’t know what lies ahead of us and sometimes we have to stop, wait and be patient, and listen so that we know what it is that we should be doing and where it is we should be going. Who we should be talking to, who we should be visiting, all sorts of things, Sometimes it can be something as simple as a phone call, sometimes it is the little things that mean a lot, so we stop and listen and follow God’s leading.

The next sign was for a bend and so we have to be careful that we don’t veer off course, that we keep our eyes on Jesus. Unless we are rooted and grounded in Christ and His salvation, and in His word it is so easy to be distracted. 

The parking sign reminded me that sometimes we need to just stop and rest, 

just be still and sit with the Lord. 

 Talk to Him, listen to Him and just sit in His presence. 

The next sign was one for information, and everything we need to know about our Saviour is in the Bible. When we listen to God’s word expounded in a meeting it helps us to grow in the knowledge of the Lord, it can also give us an opportunity to discuss those things we haven’t thought of, or we have misunderstood, Bible studies help with this. And also daily prayerfully reading God’s word and listening to the Holy Spirit as He teaches us because we are to test everything, Acts 17:11.These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. 

The roundabout sign showed us that we don’t want to be going round in circles but we do need to be joined together as one, in one mind, with one Lord and Saviour. Ephesians 4:3 endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.That way we can make an impact on where we are and the people around us.

The H sign was for hospital, the Healer, sometimes we come to our Lord for physical healing but we don’t always get that but He has given the knowledge to so many people to help us with physical needs but He is the great Healer of our soul. It is absolutely incredible that when we come to Jesus in our filthy dirty rags he cleanses, Acts 3:19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Isaiah 53:5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. He doesn’t just take away our sins but He heals our broken hearts, He heals us. Psalm 147:3 He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds. 1 Peter 2:24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.  

The sign that goes into one lane reminded me of the lovely Salvation Army song taken from scripture Luke 13:29, because in Christ we are all one, and we pray for brothers and sisters worldwide, we cannot imagine the things that people are going through but one day it will all be over. They shall come from the east, they shall come from the west, and sit down in the Kingdom of God; Provided that their robes are clean; then we shall sit down in the Kingdom of God. 

The greatest sign that God has given us, Luke 2: 12 and this shall be a sign unto you; you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. Luke 2: 34 And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; Matthew 12: 39 But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.⁴¹ The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. I shall continue further with that next week.God bless you.

O Taste and See

We had a quest speaker at our Home league on Tuesday, our dear sister in Christ, Sandra from the Somercotes Salvation Army Corps. We had another sweet afternoon, Sandra had brought along some Cadbury's biscuits for us to enjoy with our cup of tea and then told us of her trip with her husband Brian to Cadbury World last year, Brian having links with Cadbury as he had worked in a scientific capacity at Cadbury when he was in his teens. And so they had a trip down memory lane. The talk was most informative and extremely interesting, Sandra gave us the background to Cadbury's and how it started. It definitely is well worth reading about how it all came about, the change and reforms for the workers and all the changes over the years, follow the link to find out more.

Sandra read out the story of the prodigal son with a twist, we had to see if we could work out how many chocolate, sweet, or biscuit related words were in it, we all concentrated hard and added them up, 28 times things like that were mentioned. It is quite a lovely feeling when you are the first one offered the chocolates you have such a variety of choice. Sandra reminded us that we make many choices in life, some good, some bad, we choose where we are going to work, who we are going to marry, where we are going to worship and a host of other things, daily we make choices some of them quite mundane. The prodigal son made a wrong choice when he left the protection and security of his home. But he wanted to go his own way and his father didn't hinder him, of course he squandered everything and the so called friends were soon gone. He now faced a life changing choice he could sit with the pigs in the pig pen or he could go home repentant and seeking forgiveness. He chose the latter, Luke 15:11-32

Oft times we do what we want to do rather than what the Lord wants us to do that is not a good choice, we find ourselves getting into all kinds of scrapes and having to repent and seek the Lord's guidance. Christians never retire we are in God's service right to our last breath, many of us feel that there is nothing we can do, we are too old or too infirmed. But we can pray for those who are in active service, pray for their whole well-being, spirit, soul and body, God is faithful He hears and answers the prayers of the righteous. Most of us like sweet tasting things but there are other more important things in our lives, Sandra read Psalm 34  emphasising verse 8: O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. Sandra reminded us that only in Christ we will find true and rich fulfillment, lasting peace and joy. We are to share with others all the rich fayre of the banquet of God that they too may want to taste and see that the Lord is good. Our daily lives should be a witness to His unfailing grace and mercy as should our church life, no matter where we worship, or which denomination we belong to, first and foremost we belong to the church of God, which is the body of our Lord Jesus. So we should lay aside all the petty things that can so easily effect our witness. Jesus alone should be the centre of our individual lives, our daily lives, and our church life, that others may see how good it is to know the Lord and that they too may want to taste and see that the Lord is good.

We ended the meeting with the song, Jesus, the name high over all we sang the first three verses and read out verse 4 before singing the rest:

O that mankind might taste and see
The riches of His grace!
The arms of love that compass me
Would all the world embrace. 

the chorus is wonderful: 

We have no other argument,
We need no other plea;
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.

I pray that you will know the riches of God’s grace and that you will know true forgiveness through Jesus Christ and taste and see that He is good. God bless you.