BITS and PIECES
A random collection of news and views compiled by Frank McClelland for the Toronto Free Presbyterian Church.
216th Edition – November 10, 2024
OUR UNSAVED LOVED ONES
Many of God’s people are discouraged when they look at how their sons and daughters have turned out. Early in life they seemed to be believers, then something happened, and they turned away from God. Despite a godly and good upbringing, they have gone a different way so that the parents can hardly speak to them at all about the Lord. What can be done?
While verbal communication may not be possible, there is something that serious parents can do that can not be stopped by rebellious children. They can pray a very specific prayer for them.
Each of these young people have been taught in their earlier years by faithful parents, Sunday school teachers, and pastors. The Word of God has been hidden within them and is still there.
Our specific prayer must be that the Lord will awaken that long dormant Word and give them no rest or peace until they respond to its commands.
Can this work? Yes, it can. Willie Mullan from Lurgan, Northern Ireland, was a rebellious young man in his younger years. He was in a field ‘casing’ a farm for a robbery he and his friends were planning to commit. In the middle of the field a verse of Scripture he heard three weeks earlier came to his mind with such force that he repented of his sinful ways right there in the field. He went on to become a notable expositor and preacher. Let us pray seriously that the Lord will awaken the dormant word in their rebellious hearts, and save them.
A PRECIOUS LITTLE BIBLE
I have a little gem of a Bible – a 1648 copy of the King James Version. It was given to me some years ago by Dirk Struck of our Calgary congregation. It is quite small (5 x 3 inches) and although 376 years old the pages and binding are in good shape.
When it was published England was in the throes of the Civil War between the parliamentary forces of Oliver Cromwell and the army of King Charles I. The next year Charles would be beheaded for treason.
In 1648 John Bunyan was 20, Montreal was 6 and the law of gravity not yet discovered. One of the most interesting things about the little Bible is the 17 pages of personal, handwritten notes penned by the original owner. The depth of spirituality of the Puritans can be gauged by comparing these notes with what you would find in the average Christian’s Bible today. Here is a beautiful outline on the Word of God.
“The inspired Scripture is the infallible rule of faith, the unmoveable ground of hope, the perfect guide of life, the soul’s storehouse of provision, the spiritual arsenal of munition, the sacred fuel of devotion, the divine subject of contemplation, the everlasting spring of celestial consolation. A small and dim knowledge of it is to be valued above a greater measure of clearer insight in any other science.”
THE OLD EXCUSE – HYPOCRITES
The man who says he is kept away from church because “it is full of hypocrites” is not influenced by them to stay from anywhere else. Business is full of them, but if he sees a chance to make some money, he doesn’t stop because of that.
Society is crowded with them, and yet he never thinks of becoming a hermit. Married life is full of them, but that doesn’t make him remain a bachelor. Hell is full of them, and yet he isn’t doing a thing to keep from going there. He wants to have you think he is trying to avoid the society of hypocrites, and yet takes not a single step to the only place to which no hypocrite can go – Heaven!
[The Orthodox Baptist]
“HIGHER PLANE” CONTEST
It was almost forty years ago when the Toronto church launched its Sunday school “balloon launch” program. About 200 people sent up helium filled balloons from the Warden Avenue church, each bearing a Scripture message, as well as the church name.
The farthest balloon recovered was from Cape Cod, some 600 miles away. Of interest is that one of the prize winners was Jonathan McAnally, who was 7 at the time. Jonathan is now one of our current serving elders.
