We are looking forward to having Rev Hiralal Solanki and his wife Luxmi, come to us on Sunday September 10th to update us all the ongoing ministry of Indian Reformed Fellowship Australia and the spread of the gospel throughout that wide mission field!
The program is as follows;
4pm: Meet & greet over afternoon tea in the hall
4:30pm: Sharing God’s Word & the work of IRFA
There will be a retiring offering received for the work of IRFA. All are welcome.
After Jesus was rejected by the people of Nazareth, the text of Matthew 14:1-12 shifts to focus our attention on what was happening in the mind and heart of King Herod. Having heard about the miracles and ministry of Jesus, Herod, prompted by his guilty conscience, wrongly assumed that Jesus was John the Baptist ‘raised from the dead’. To fill in why Herod thought this, Matthew then explains for his readers how it was that John’s life ended in martyrdom – ultimately because of a partying King who made an dangerously open-ended promise to a dancing girl.
Message
Outline
• A sad text!
• From Jesus to John…
• Which King Herod is this?
• See how the text tells us about …
Herod’s conscience and yours
The cross – the cure for all sin and guilt!
There’s no doubt that Jesus was a popular among the people of Israel for a time. But not so among the people of Nazareth, his hometown. We read in Matthew 13:53-58 that they rejected His word and even rejected Him. It was by no means a ‘happy homecoming’ for Jesus. And so the question is ‘why?’. Why did the people of Nazareth turn their backs on Jesus and reject Him and His message? Hardness of heart has a lot to do with it – something that we must always pray that God would keep us from.
Message
Outline
• Our new series
• Resistance becoming hostility
• Jesus’ experience in his home town
• See how the text tells us about …
Good and bad news from the prophet Isaiah!
The challenge to those who do and don’t believe!
There’s no debating the fact that the final part of the reign of King Solomon, as recorded in 1 Kings 11:9-43, is something that he would not have been proud of. With the seeds of lust, power and greed sown deeply in his heart, there’s little surprise that these seeds bore fruit. But what is surprising is the speed with which it all ended, pretty much like a snowball rolling downhill gathering speed and momentum. And what of Solomon himself? No-one can say for sure if we’ll see him in glory, but we will see his greater Son, Jesus!
Message
Outline
• Things going downhill…fast!
• The ‘snowball effect’
• Solomon’s sins hit the nation hard
• Note from the text how it tells us of…
Lessons we learn through Solomon…
Jesus the better, unfailing King!
We had a wonderful night at the Eaglehawk Presbyterian Church on Friday July 21 with representatives from Wycliffe/SIL giving us the latest on the task of Bible translation around the world. The good news is that the number of languages who do not have any portion of Scripture translated into the ‘heart language’ of the people is dropping!
When we first started to take an interest in this matter over 12 months ago now, the number of languages was 2,014. Now it is in the order of…1,400! Thanks be to God.
This is very encouraging, but the task is not finished yet. Please join with us in praying for the number to be even lower and ask God to raise up and bless translation teams across the globe.
Much of what we read in 1 Kings 1-11 concerns the heights to which Solomon’s reign reached. The visit of the Queen of Sheba was one of the highlights along the way, but cracks have been appearing, and in today’s text of 1 Kings 11:1-8, those cracks just get wider and wider. The text tells us of Solomon’s 700 wives and 300 concubines, but more than that, it goes to a deeper level and points out a more serious problem – his heart. What led him to marry all these foreign women and worship their gods and abandon the Lord? His heart. His heart was the problem – and with us, the story is no different.
Message
Outline
• Solomon in all his glory, at the top of the mountain
• ‘King Solomon however…’
• How was it that his wisdom failed him?’
• Note from the text how it tells us of how he fell for…
Say ‘no’ to ‘fooling around’ with sin!
Say ‘yes’ to an ‘undivided heart’…
The text of 1 Kings 10:14-29 records the growth in King Solomon’s wealth and his armory. The world had never seen a King like him before – so wealthy, so wise, so much glory! But while all these things could be seen as the fulfilment of God’s promises to Solomon, they could also be viewed as things can could (and did) become a snare and a trap for Solomon. For very good reasons, Paul reminds us that the ‘love of money is the root of all evil’ (1 Timothy 6:10) and this was so true in Solomon’s case where even good things (God’s gifts to him) became that which his heart became enamored with – and so began his downfall.
Message
Outline
• Solomon in all his glory, at the top of the mountain
• One way from here …down
• ‘The best of men are men at best’
• Note from the text how it tells us of …
What Jesus said about storing up treasures
The trap that the King cannot see!
There’s little doubt that the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, as recorded in 1 Kings 10:1-13, was the highpoint of Solomon’s reign over Israel. While there is much speculation over who she was and where she came from, the main point of what the text records is not so much about her, but about the glory of Solomon that she saw and praised the God of Israel for. When Jesus later confirmed the truth of her visit in Matthew 12:33-42, he pointed out the part she will play on the day of judgement – given that she travelled so far to see Solomon, and yet the people who saw Jesus and his miracles, rejected him outright!
Message
Outline
⦁ That top of the mountain…
⦁ Solomon’s rapid climb
⦁ Solomon’s increasing glory…now reaches a peak
⦁ Note from the text how it tells us of …
The King’s words about the Queen and hers to us!
In this second message on the book of Jonah, Rev Peter Phillips explores the rebellious response of the prophet to the Lord’s command to go to Nineveh and preach against their evil. This response of Jonah is indicative of all humanity. None of us, by nature, want to serve God. We would all much rather please ourselves! But God cannot have it that way, and went to great lengths to bring his disobedient prophet back into line and to seeing his own need of mercy.
Message
Outline
• Acknowledging sin and what it deserves
• Knowing and believing that God has provided a Saviour
• Turning from sin and trusting in God’s provision
Sometimes the gospel records are read so often that the reader can easily overlook something of significance. This is certainly the case in Mark 1:9-13, where the events of the baptism of Jesus and the temptation of Jesus are linked back-to-back, with only God’s words spoken from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased”, separating the two events. In this message, Daniel Jansen explores this contrast and shows us the wonder of the Beloved Son who did all that He did for His people’s salvation.
Message
Outline
Introduction
Jesus does what we cannot
Conclusion