Galatians 2.11-14

So far in his letter Paul has been appealing to the Christians in Galatia to follow the Good News he taught them and hold fast to the promises of God.

Just before our text today we learn that the Good News that Paul preaches is verified to be truth by the ‘Pillars of the Church’ - the key apostles and James the brother of Jesus who were leading the mission to the Jews from Jerusalem.  Paul and Peter agree and Paul says that the same God is working through both of them.

Yet now Peter is shown to be in Paul’s bad books.  Paul is telling the Galatians what he is to show them that he has power over other teachers - a power that comes not from himself or his human skill and strength but by divine appointment.  Without this divine appointment it would have been foolish to challenge one like Peter, the foremost of the twelve disciples.

The Story

But let’s start at the beginning.  Paul tells us that Peter – called by his Hebrew name Cephas – comes to Syrian Antioch which is North East of Cyprus when the coast forms a ninety degree angle.  Antioch was the third largest city in the entire Roman Empire and was a major place of culture and influence.  All trade going East and West had to travel through it and by land it was also a point along the main trading road from North to South or the rest of Europe to Egypt. 

Why did Peter leave Jerusalem to come to this gentile city of commerce and culture? We don’t  know but maybe it was due to the kind of persecution we find recorded in Acts 12.1-19 at the hands of Herod Agrippa in the area that is now Isreal.

Whilst in Antioch Peter enters gentile, non-Jewish, houses and eats with non-Jews.  This is something which is a big no-no for Jews living under the Old Testament Law, not only were gentiles and their houses dirty and unclean but they ate non-Kosher food.  Early in Acts we have the account of God revealing to Peter on a roof top that all foods are clean and Kosher and that it is fine to eat and have fellowship with non-Jews.  God has a tablecloth with all kinds of unclean foods like pork and snake and camel and insects come down three times before Peter’s eyes and each time God tells Peter to eat.  At first Peter thinks it is a test and says he won’t but he finally gets the message.  When he does a messenger arrives and Peter heads to the non-Jewish Roman Centurion Cornelius’ house to tell him about Jesus.  Peter thus begins the mission to the Gentiles and radically breaks with the Jewish laws about purity.

In Antioch Peter was living the Good News of freedom, joy, peace, and love.

The fear and hypocrisy

But then people came from James the brother of Jesus, the man who led the early church from Jerusalem.  Whether James actually sent them or they were just associated with him we don’t know.  When these people get to Antioch Peter slowly begins to withdraw from eating and having fellowship with gentiles or thieves or sinners who would be considered ‘unclean’ by the Jews.  Why? Because of fear and cowardice.

Who did Peter, first among the disciples fear? Likely it was fear of the non-Christian Jews.  There were many ultra-nationalist Jews who were seeking and stating a revolution and demanded strict Old Testament Law observance.  If you didn’t keep the Law and keep pure then you faced an inquisition and likely death.

This fear seems to spread to other ‘Jewish-Christians’ and even to Paul’s trusted Barnabas.  But Paul is having none of it – if Christians are martyred so be it but they must not compromise on the Gospel.

Paul publically opposes Peter face to face, mano-a-mano. The gloves come off as it were.  Paul recognises that by his actions Peter is bringing himself and others into condemnation.  Paul considers Peter a total hypocrite – a word which was used to describe actors in Greek plays who wore different masks to play different characters, you never saw their real faces or heard their real voices.  A hypocrite is someone wearing a mask, someone who hides their real self and their real beliefs behind a fake image out of fear or desire to be loved.  It is something God despises – Christ is the light of the world and unless you walk in the light as He is in the light, which shows up all our darkness, then you have no part of Him.

Peter clearly knows the Old Testament Law is exactly that – Old Testament, Old Covenant Law.  He knows that they are now living under the New Covenant and are in the New Testament.  He knows that what he is doing is wrong, that withdrawing from his brothers and sisters in Christ because of their race is wicked in the sight of the Lord.  But still he does it because of fear.  Fear is a powerful emotion, it drives so much of who we are and what we do.  We so often, knowingly or unknowingly let fear create our identity and mould our actions.

Church Discipline

Paul confronts Peter before a crowd – but this raises a big question.  Jesus tells us in Matthew 18 to firstly confront the person alone.  In that passage Jesus sets out how we as Christians should deal with sin and hurt.  First we must go to the person responsible and tell them and rebuke them and ask them to repent.  If they do then you have won back your brother or sister. If they don’t you take two or three witnesses or experts, perhaps church leaders, and confront them again.  Hopefully they repent, but if they don’t you take them before the whole church for judgement in the hopes the seriousness of their not repenting is clear to see and they change their heart and mind.  If they still remain obstinate and unrepentant then the whole church is to treat them like a non-Jew or tax-collector would be in the time of Jesus– in other words the person is to be shunned and ignored by the entire church family till they come back to the fold with humility.  

In modern society and church life it is most unpopular and controversial to ‘excommunicate’ a person because they have sinned – but it is the biblical model and without such church discipline the wolves will quickly infect the sheepfold and destroy it from within. As the bride of Christ, the moment we depart from His teaching we are putting ourselves in danger – like a child who has been told not to play in the road but goes ahead and does it. 

We so often hear people saying, as Miley Cyrus did in her recent hit single, “only God can judge me.”  They are right, God is the judge, He alone hands out the sentence – but as brothers and sisters it is our duty and our responsibility to look out for, lovingly warn and rebuke, those who are living lives where because of Scripture we know what the judgement is going to be.  Cain after killing his brother Abel said to God sarcastically “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The answer was YES.  As a church we must encourage and build up one another, challenge and rebuke one another, we must be open and humble, submit to proper discipline and be fervent in prayer and the pursuit of holiness.  

We are all going to sin, we are all going to be hypocrites who fail to live up to what we preach, and the world may judge us for that, but what makes us different from the world is that where we sin and mess up we repent to God and neighbour, we recognise the enormity of our guilt and, by the grace and help of the Holy Spirit, we act upon it.

  

Why didn’t Paul confront Peter alone and follow the pattern Jesus laid out? Because this was not a normal situation – this was not a private issue between two parties, one of which was wronged.  This was a public issue of huge importance, Paul needed to publically rebuke Peter to make sure others didn’t follow Peter’s example.

So what was the Big Deal?

But what was the big deal? Why the need for such a dramatic and climactic throw down with the Apostle?  We know from 2 Corinthians that Paul was a small man, quietly spoken, humble and not intimidating or prone to public rebuke and controversy.  Why such a change of character? What could have driven Paul to such a radical course of action against Peter?

The answer is simple.  It is because Paul, as he says in verse 14 believes that the very truth, the bone and marrow, the flesh and blood, of the Gospel, it’s very heart, is at serious risk of cancer, disease, and ultimately death.  Paul says that he “saw that they were deviating from the truth of the gospel.”

How were they deviating from the truth of the Gospel?

Because they were living under the Old Covenant and not under the New Covenant. They were living as slaves at Mount Sinai not as sons of God at Calvary.

They were not living by grace alone but were adding in works based salvation.  They were living in the chains of legalism not the sunshine of freedom.  Salvation is not by works of the Law and it is not by a genetic claim to be a Jew.  Peter was breaking apart and tearing asunder the unique freedom of unity, of Jew and Gentile, in one single family – the Body of Christ.  He was rebuilding the very walls that Jesus came to rip down and he was reinforcing the barricade the Holy Spirit had been showing needed to be dismantled. 

Ignatius of Antioch – the Bishop of the same city where all this happened not long after the time of the Apostles – writing around 97 AD to the Megnesian Christians said:

“it is monstrous to talk of Jesus Christ and to proclaim Judaism”

The early church abolished the food laws, it threw away the Passover, it dismantled the Sabbath, and it abolished the Jewish Festivals and Holidays.  The old has passed away and clinging to it can only bring imprisonment.

Paul was making clear that these things had no place in a life lived under Jesus Christ, in a life lived under the Grace of the Cross.

In their song ‘Feeling Good’ the band Muse has the words:

“It’s a new dawn,

It’s a new day,

It’s a new life...

And this old world is a new world

And a bold world...”

It is indeed a new dawn: a new dawn with the light of hope shining from the tomb of Jesus. It is indeed a new day: a new day under the grace of the Holy Spirit. It is indeed a new life, a new life purchased with the blood of Jesus Christ.  It is indeed a new world made from the ruins and sin of the old world - a bold world of freedom and intimate relationship with God.  A world in which the curtains and the walls that divide God and man and man and his brothers have been torn down and trampled under foot by the feet by the angels as Jesus cried out the words "IT IS FINISHED!"

Because of this, as Muse go on to sing:

“Yeah, freedom is mine,

And you know how I feel!

I'm feeling good!”

We must hold fast to the joyous Gospel no matter what persecutions or temptations come.  Do not ever give in to legalism, do not ever submit to the yoke of Sinai – submit to the love and power of Jesus Christ.

Genesis 26.1-33

Genesis 26.1-33

            Here in Genesis 26 we have the only chapter of Scripture that is solely about Isaac.  Yet when reading it feels like a case of déjà-vu.  The whole passage seems to mirror the story of Abraham, Isaac’s Father, in so many ways. 

            First we have “another famine in the land in addition to the one that had occurred in Abraham’s time.”  From the first verse we are drawn into recalling the story of Abraham.

            Then we have in verse two the Lord appearing to Isaac and delivering a confirmation of His covenant to Abraham.  Just as the Lord, the Word of God, appeared to Abraham, so He does Isaac. Just as He made a covenant with Abraham, so He renews it with Isaac.  What we see is that because of the famine Isaac had set his heart on going to Egypt, the bread basket of the ancient world.  This is exactly the same plan his father had.  But this time God steps in to stop him from following in Abraham’s footsteps.  Instead, Isaac stays in the ‘promised land’ and settles in Gerar – just as his father had been a stranger and alien in the land promised to him so now was Isaac. 

            Then comes the ‘shocker.’  Isaac follows his father not only in his faith in God but in his sins as well.   Though this should not really surprise us, how closely he follows the dark path of Abraham is remarkable.  Both Abraham and Isaac fear that their wife will be sought after by the locals for her beauty.  So they both concoct the plan to play her off as their sister!  Remarkably some people even have the same names as back in the time of Abraham.  Perhaps they were related, perhaps not.

            Once again we find a man named Abimelech.  Likely this is not a normal name but a royal name – just as there have been many King Henry’s and a number of Queen Elizabeth’s.  Alternatively it may be a title like ‘pharaoh’ or ‘emperor.’  The fact that it is likely not a real name per-se is shown by the fact that Psalm 34 refers to a king Abimelech but we know from 1 Samuel 21 that his real name was Achish. The word Abimelech means simply “my father is king.”

            Continuing through the story we find that just as his father Abraham had a conflict with locals over water and wells, so too does his son Isaac.  Abraham fought and argued with Lot and Lot’s servants over wells and in the current passage it is explicitly these wells that Abraham dug that are re-dug and become a source of contention.  Both Abraham and Isaac name the same place Beersheba! Again Moses, the author, wants us to see the links between father and son.    

            Just as in Abraham’s lifetime the people of the land sought peace and diplomatic treaties with Abraham, so now they do with Isaac who is so obviously, as was his father, blessed by God.

            Clearly Isaac is a patriarch after his father’s own footsteps and fits snugly in his father’s shoes.

            Yet, Isaac is also a pale shadow of the largely righteous man Abraham was.  He makes many of the same errors as his father but adds countless more.

            Firstly, like Abraham, he does the despicable thing of fobbing off his wife as his sister.  It must have become a national stereotype joke among the locals.  Oh the German’s are efficient and put towels on deckchairs early in the morning, the Italians are smooth and always being romantic, the British are prudes and keep a stiff upper lip, oh and the family of Abraham, well they pretend their wives are their sisters.

            Isaac had no excuse. His father’s testimony should have been clear enough that it was a bad move. Yet in this instance Isaac didn’t even need to do it – he spent quite a while in Gerah and no-one tried to kidnap, abuse, or seduce his wife!

            Then Isaac reveals himself to not only be a liar – a selfish liar – but he is proven to be one who lacks even basic discretion when he is found out because he couldn’t keep his hands off his wife and intimates foreplay with her in public – in clear view of the King’s window!  Maybe this was the equivalent of the modern mile-high club, but in any case it was a stupid move by a man who needed to have his passions under control.

            We also learn from last week and will learn next week too that Isaac favoured his son Esau over Jacob despite, and in rebellion to, God’s clear statements that Jacob was the chosen one.  To his shame, Isaac even fails to find a good wife for Esau, something Abraham had been at pains to do for him.

            Later, when Abimelech approaches him to make a treaty and bring peace Isaac is rude, brash, belligerent and inhospitable.  He is immediately questioning and doubting and insulting the locals whilst refusing to hear their side of the picture first.

            Clearly Isaac is not exactly what you would call a role-model.  Yet he was God’s chosen instrument by which to continue His covenant promise.  Despite the lies, sins, and failings, God blesses him one hundred fold.  He was not only undeserving of God’s love and blessing but ill-deserving of it.

            So why did God do it? Why did God love him and bless him?  Because He made a covenant with Isaac’s father Abraham – though even Abraham was a deeply flawed sinner.  Even though Abraham sinned, in view of God’s free gift of grace, Abraham was seen to uphold the covenant.

            In this sense, Abraham and Isaac are an image of us and Jesus, an image of our salvation.

            God is our Father and we are made in His image.  But we mar and dirty it every day.  We are pale shadows and muddy reflections.  We are sinners from the moment we are conceived, we are born in a state of rebellion against God by nature.  We are all Isaacs who are undeserving and ill-deserving of the promise to eternal life.

            Yet what does God tell Isaac?  “I will be with you and I will bless you.”  This is the first time God is called something like ‘Emmanuel’ – God will be with us, God with us. 

Why?

            Because of the covenant promise He made to us before we deserved it, and He made this promise knowing full well that we would break our side of the bargain.  But to fulfil the covenant the Father gave up to us Jesus His only begotten Son from all eternity.

Why will the covenant occur and all nations be blessed?

            “Because Abraham listened to My voice, and kept My mandate, My commands, My statutes, and My instructions.” (26.5)

            Only Jesus is without sin, only Jesus truly kept all God’s commands, truly kept all His statutes, truly listened at all times to God’s instructions.  Jesus was the sinless sacrifice needed to destroy and remove our sin – to obliterate it as Calvin would say.  Jesus was the sinless sacrifice needed to remove God’s perfectly just and righteous wrath against us and our sin.

            When we believe in Jesus, His record of keeping the whole Law perfectly, of living the perfect life of holiness, is given to each of us just as 2000 years ago He took all of our filth and sin and wickedness, the full extent, the unabridged form, of our terrible record and He nailed it to the cross in His body and blood.  And He died crying out ‘it is finished’ – and at that moment so was our sin, so was our shame, our guilt, our darkness. 

            In verse 24 when the Word of God again visits Isaac He tells us what our response to this Good News should be:

            We should not be afraid.

            We should know that He is with us.

            We should be blessed by God.

            We should all be afraid, terrified even, of God and His righteous judgement, of the sentence of death and Hell against all sins – BUT ONLY IF we don’t believe in Jesus as Lord, God, and Saviour.

            We must acknowledge, humbly, that we are Isaac and have done nothing to deserve God’s love.  But we must know that because He loves the elect anyway – those who truly believe - we who believe need have no fear or condemnation but rather know He is with us in every moment of our lives and He is a God of innumerable blessings.

Remembrance Sunday Sermon 10/11/13

Remembrance Sunday  10/11/13

Today is many things.  To some it is a day of mourning, to others a day of celebrating our freedom, and to some it is a day to reflect on the heroism and bravery of British and Empire soldiers past and present.

Because it is a day of many meanings I have a number of thoughts to share with you.

Firstly, any time of remembrance, even one of mourning such as a funeral, should begin, or at least include, thanksgiving.  Today we give thanks to God Almighty for the victory we have received at His gracious hands and by His mighty arm.  Great Britain has been blessed with victory more than any other nation in all of history.  The history of the British military is one of legendary proportions and global reach such as had never before been seen or ever after till this day been known.

When Napoleon tried to subject Europe under his self-messianic dictatorship, Britain formed that thin red line in the sand of Egypt through to the grass of Waterloo.  By British soldiers and ships He was twice defeated and his dangerous empire left in ruins. 

When the German Emperor Wilhelm II start World War I, hell bent on conquering Europe, we went to the aid of our allies, we sacrificed our men on Flanders’s Fields for their freedom.  And by God’s grace we were victorious.

When Hitler, one of the darkest and most evil, most vile of men, sought to bring the world under his darkness and hatred; When Hitler invaded Poland, crushed France and left Europe on its knees, defenceless before him, when he killed millions of Jews and Romani; When he had the ill and infirm, the sick and disabled, rounded up and killed – Britain did not stand idly by.  When Hitler sought our allegiance and our hand, even in the face of near certain defeat we spat in his face.  We defended our land from the bombs and the planes, we fought in the lands where our fathers had died in the trenches.   We stood for freedom, freedom written in the blood of our heroes.  Imagine if Hitler had won – how evil our nation would be, how evil the world would have become!  But against all odds, by God’s guiding hand victory was won for justice, equality, freedom.

When Korea was torn apart in the 'forgotten war' and the North invaded the South to try an impose communism, over 14,000 British soldiers were sent to fight in a country they knew nothing of.  Over a thousand never returned.  But God gave a victory against seeming impossible odds.

When the Argentineans invaded the Falkland’s we would not stand for the insult, for the destruction of freedoms, and we travelled half way across the world with only a tiny force to take on a whole nation.  And by God’s hand we fought, we lay flat their entire military, air, land, and sea, to such an extent they have still not recovered.  And the Falkland’s were once again free.

Or think now of the wars that rage, the war we fight against terror, against an enemy far more insidious and silent – silent till the trigger is pushed and the bombs explode.  The war we wage to be set free from the fear of our enemies.  Think of the soldiers barely out of school who died in the fiery hell of the Iraqi desert and Afghani mountains.  But victory will be ours.

Today is indeed a day to reflect on all I have just said, on the evil that could have been, and it is a day to praise God the King that He could not allow it to pass.

But today is also a day to mourn the loss of our fathers and our mothers, our sons and our daughters, our brothers and our sisters, our family and our friends.  Those whose light has been snuffed out by evil whilst fighting against the encroaching darkness.  It is a time to remember the pain of a whole nation where in World War I alone only 53 parishes knew not death in all of England, Scotland, Wales, and the entirety of Ireland put together. 

Yet what was the point of their deaths and sacrifice if nothing is changed?

Today is a day to remember the evil of humanity, the evil and darkness in all of us, in each and every one of us.  The Germans who shoved Jews into gas chambers were no different to you or me, they were normal people told to do a job, given permission and set free to do what in the depths of their hearts, and ours, is to be found – evil, darkness, depravity, and sin.  The lust for power, the greed for more, the hatred and anger against others, the smut and the passion for physical gratification that is in each of us is the source of the world’s evil.  When a man wrote to The Times newspaper asking “what is wrong with the world” one man recognised the truth of it, and replied “Dear Sir, I am. Yours G.K. Chesterton.”  Chesterton was not a Hitler, he never killed a man or raped a woman, but he saw clearly the truth of it – in his heart, in his secret thoughts, he was no different than the worst.   Today is a day to recognise this sin in us and throw ourselves on the mercy of Jesus Christ, on the mercy and pity and love of God, who will come again and judge the living and the dead, who will come again and judge you and me.

In 1882 the German Philosopher Nietzsche boldly declared “God is dead... And we have killed Him!”  He said it as a boast, he took pride in it as if it were some great achievement of mankind to be rid of true religion – that is to say Christianity the only true religion and the only way to heaven.  He and so many others saw the success and the power of man and machine, of innovation and science. They asked “Why do we need God? Can we not explain everything in this universe? Can we not heal our own sick? Can we not give sight to the blind and make the leper whole? Can we not cure the insane?  What need is there of God in a Golden Age of atheism and science?” 

What need is there of God in a Golden Age of atheism and science? Indeed!

More have died at human hands in the past one hundred years than all the centuries before combined.  Famed atheists Jospeh Stalin and Pol Pot killed more of their own people in forty years than all the Christian crusades and inquisitions of history put together. Never has poverty been so easily solved and yet forced to remain because of selfish greed. Never has the gap between the super-rich and super-poor been so great.  Never have depression and anxiety afflicted so many – in the past ten years the amount of anti-depressants prescribed has more than doubled, 46 million people are on anti-depressants in the UK, in Wales one in five people are prescribed drugs to help battle depression. One in Five!! Here in Cleveland one in six adults is on such medication. Today there are more slaves in the sex industry than there were slaves in total at the time of William Wilberforce.  An estimated 27 million people are slaves of some form today.  As I speak over 2 million girls under the age of 16 are being exploited as sex slaves against their will. 

If the past one hundred years has been an experiment of what a world is like where “God is Dead” then it was an error in conception and a disaster in execution.  And the world knows it.

Christianity worldwide is growing faster than ever.  Christianity in Britain is now growing and not dying.  Why?  Why would people who have the glories of science and the joy of total autonomy turn to Christ?  Because a godless world can never satisfy those who were made in the image of God Himself. 

And this is why Remembrance Sunday so resonates within our hearts.  This is why this day plays the strings of our hearts more than any other.

C.S. Lewis (or Tolkien, I forget which!) once said that all great stories are merely a retelling of the one true story of God and His saving love.  When we read of good triumphing over evil – either on a national scale like World Wars or on a personal level like overcoming addiction – it is so powerful because we know deep down, spiritually, it is what we long for in our own lives.  We long for victorious living, we long to be saved from all that is wrong around us, and especially - if we are truthful – all that is wrong within us.

It is no accident that superhero movies are so successful.  It is no accident that in them there is almost always a moment of humiliating defeat or a time of weakness and humility that the hero must go through to save the world or win the girl.

It is no accident that often the heroes are so... ordinary.  Think of Harry Potter, a boy who had no great physical strength, who lived in poverty under the stairs in a dysfunctional family.  Think of Peter Parker – Spiderman for those of you wondering who I am speaking about – a boy who was orphaned by the death or leaving of his parents and who grew up with his aunt and uncle in no fantastic wealth, a boy bullied at school.  Think of Bilbo or Frodo Baggins, Hobbits of small stature, not warriors, great only at eating and smoking and gardening.  Hobbits who are the least of all the peoples of Middle Earth and yet save the world from the greatest of evils.  Think of Luke Skywalker, a no-body growing up parentless in a desert as a moisture farmer – some country bumpkin who knows next to nothing of the universe or the Empire he is soon to bring to its knees.      All these heroes fight the impossible from a place of weakness, they are all so normal, so relatable, to frail.

These are so successful, so memorable, because they are but a pale shadow of Jesus Christ.

There was a bridge near Dunkirk in 1940 stained with British blood.  As their friends were evacuated some soldiers stood their ground, made their last stand to stop the Nazis from getting through.  They fought till there were no more grenades, no more bullets, they died with knives in their hands and bayonets in their rifles.  That day they sacrificed themselves and saved the lives of many of their friends and family, their brothers in both blood and arms.  It was a modern day 300 and we must never, ever, forget them.

But on a hill outside Jerusalem, just under 2000 years ago, a greater sacrifice was made, a greater victory won, a greater freedom purchased by the blood of God.

What made this unique was that Jesus didn’t die for His friends as our brave soldiers did at Dunkirk. He didn’t even die for His family.  He died, willingly, for His enemies.  Listen to What Saint Paul in Romans 5 tells us of that fateful day:

“⁶ For while we were still helpless, at the appointed moment, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. ⁸ But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us! ⁹ Much more then, since we have now been declared righteous by His blood, we will be saved through Him from wrath. ¹⁰ For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by His life!”

We are helpless sinners, lost in our sin, at war with God – doomed to the coming judgement. We are evil - whether deep down inside or plain for all to see.  We turn against God day and night; we are under the righteous wrath and anger of God.  We deserve to die in penalty for our sins and wickedness, and we have no right to any future but eternity in hell, an eternity in torment, burning fire, and choking darkness.  We deserve the worst internment camp, the worst Prisoner of War Camp imaginable.  We are not just sinners we are active enemies of heaven and all that is perfectly Holy and Good. 

Yet “while we were helpless” “while we were still sinners” “while we were enemies” Christ Jesus died to reconcile us to God.  By His blood and His blood alone can we be saved from the righteous wrath of God.  For those who believe in Jesus as Lord, God, and Saviour – for them Christ Jesus took all our sin on Himself, He became helpless and put Himself in our place, in the shoes of an enemy of God – and He took our punishment, our just deserts, our judgement and our penalty.  And He died in agony in our place, sacrificed up for us that we might be set free from sin, from our evil nature, and from Devil himself.

Be reconciled to God today, this minute, this moment.  Remember the freedom that was bought for you by British soldiers that you may choose Christ as your King and not fear death and punishment from the state or others.  Throw yourself at the foot of the old rugged cross where Jesus wept and bled and died.  Throw yourself on the mercy of God almighty, repent of your sin, acknowledge the evil within you and cast it upon Him, open your heart to the Holy Spirit that He may fill you with joys unspeakable and hope unstoppable!

In Oxford there is a street that I dare say is my favourite in all the nation – St. Giles.  On one end is found the war memorial for Oxford, a cross rising up out of the ground as a monument to the heroic dead of war.  A monument to celebrate the freedom we have from tyranny of evil empires and rulers. 

At the other end of the street rises up something like the ornate spire of a cathedral, it is a monument to the deaths of three men who were burned at the stake just down the road.  Those men were Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer – the Oxford Martyrs.  They died defending the true faith from superstition and heresy, they died that we might know the freely given love of God, they died that we might know mercy and hope, that we can know that it is not what we do that saves us but what Jesus did on the Cross.  They died for the true religion, the Protestant, Reformed, faith. 

Here in that one street we have two great blessings – freedom from evil on the one hand and freedom to God on the other.  Take up the call and do not squander their gifts to you this day, make a new start in Christ Jesus – rejoicing that you can do so without fear.  And then, through faith in Jesus, one day you will meet Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer, and many of those who died in the World Wars and you may thank them as you all feast at the greatest banquet the universe has ever known.

                                                                                               Amen.