30th November

30th November 


“First Posted 3rd November 2021”


Pray (ACts)


Read - 1 Samuel 5:1-5 


Message - Alan Burke


It use to be when you broke stuff it got fixed, alright we do that still with some things like cars but do you remember the man who use to fix toasters, it might have been a woman who fixed yours but I remember a man. I didn’t know his name but when the toaster, the kettle, the TV broke, when I was a wain the thing got taken your ‘your man’, you know your man who fixed things. Now it’s just easier to throw it out and sure we can get it on line next day delivery sure. Well Dagon was off with your man getting fixed because the Lord God had so throughly broken him into pieces, I wonder though what they did without cement and super glue, anyway that’s not the point. The point is that Dagon the one who was supposed to be sovereign over all lay in bits, and the Lord God had defeated him. 


Even without his people, in a foreign land, the Lord his working out his purposes, his people could have done with dwelling more of the question that they asked in light of their initial defeat to the Philistines when four thousand were dead, when they asked… “Why did the Lord bring defeat on us today?” If they had understood that what the Lord required of them, their task, like ours is to honour him in all of lives, to remain faithful rather than trying to twist his arm to do our bidding and do what we want. 


The Lord was not powerless, he is not powerless and he will have the victory. The ark was in Ashdod because the people had failed to live according to God’s way, they had turned from him, they had been faithless. What we are to do is to be faithful, to honour God, to live according to his ways, turning to him in his power, putting him first in our lives, living according to his will in this age of darkness. 


As the church, what we need to know is that the Lord has the victory. The evil age that is under the influence of Satan, that is ever increasingly hostile to the Lord and his people, tells us to change, that we need to sort ourselves out otherwise we will be on the wrong side of history, we need to compromise if we want to survive and have anything to offer. But what we are to do is to remain faithful to the Lord God and to stand abasing the schemes of the devil (Ephesians 6:11). That we are to be faithful, knowing that the Lord will do it in his own time, he will do what he wants, he will make his glory known for he is not some powerless Dagon or the idols and false gods of this world he is the Lord God almighty.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q11 What are God’ s works of providence?
God’ s works of providence are, his most holy, (Ps. 145:17) wise, (Ps. 104:24, Isa. 28:29) and powerful preserving, (Heb. 1:3) and governing all his creatures, and all their actions. (Ps. 103:19, Matt. 10:29–31)