- Ex 6-11 was a tough assignment, as it was all about the plagues brought upon the Egyptians as Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites leave.
- Lots of questions came up: What disasters does God bring on people because of their resistance? How should we see natural disasters like the recent earthquake in Haiti? Some friends I discussed this with think that before the Fall of man there were no such events! All the science points to a differnt view. There have always been earthquakes, volcanoes, and what we would call disasters. Without them we would have a very dull featureless earth. An important point for discussion though!
- I really enjoyed seeing the theological points involving the many gods of the Egyptians 'defeated' by the living God of Moses. I had no idea of those things before I started researching it.
- However important the Exodus story is as a statement of God's deliverance, it did occur to me that those poor souls in Auschwitz and Belsen probably remembered these events and asked the question: if God could let his people go then why not now? What do you think?
- I was challenged by the question about whether God actually hardens people's hearts, as it says in Ex 9:12. Coming from an Arminian Methodist background myself I do find that a difficult idea! However it does encouarage us to ask important questions of ourselves. The challenge is to reamin soft hearted towards God and our neighbour. How readily to we shed tears?
- I drew attantion to Moses' perseverance, and encouraged us to keep going despite the setbacks. This all makes sense, but when do the setbacks become signals from the Lord that we should change direction. Remember Luke writing in Acts: that the Spirit of Jesus prevented us'
Tony Haines 25.1.10
Thank you Tony - your sermon was very thought provoking....I was particularly struck by the question "Do bad things happen to bad people because they're bad?". I remember the talk around that famous book "When bad things happen to good people" some years back, which was about understanding undeserved suffering I think. If we are all sinners under judgement, then an interesting question would rather be "Why do good things happen to bad people?" and I think the answer might be around God's grace being unlimited, that is he takes every opportunity to give us good things, whether we deserve them or not, and to come back to your first question, he also puts limits around the scope of the bad things that happen to us.(I've just read a children's story on this last point, called "Monkey and Papa God", from Haiti curiously...) Adrian
ReplyDeleteThank you Nigel for the talk on Sunday regarding To die or Not to die, Assisted Suicide. Difficult subject handled with much understanding.
ReplyDeleteI read on Monday, Terry Pratchet calling for a panel to determine who should be allowed to die! and then Tony Robinson on the Beeb covering the same topic. It is so sad that each fails to see the God side of the discussion and that even the Beeb ignores the religious point of view. On this mornings Today Programme Baroness Warnnock says that Old People are difficult to look after so we should do away with them. The point made on the programme was that children can sometimes be difficult to look after so does the same rule apply.
Challenging times ahead
thankyou Sarah for your sermon on phillipians 2 i found it extremely encouraging and good to reflect on situations in life and to be aware that God can release us into a place of grace when we feel restricted by life situations. the picture was a very powerful image that i will remember for a long time.
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