time flies when it’s going wrong

Howdy

Blogspot is not working properly again. I have managed to negotiate my way around it, but that may not last. Sorry! I suspect that they do their maintenance in the middle of the night, but that’s the middle of the night on the other side of the Atlantic and the daytime here, when I need it…

Timing is a tricky thing. We’ve recently had confident predictions of the end of the world which proved to be false. Today the Reverend at the heart of it all has admitted he got the date wrong (big of him) and has offered us a new date in October this year. Considering that Jesus was clear that not even he knew the date when God will put a full stop on time and bring in the renewed heavens and the renewed earth you have to admire this chap’s nerve. Is he suggesting that he has a better line of communication to the Father than Jesus did?

Get serious buddy!

People are fascinated by this, though. A small group of misguided Christians has got people all over the world talking about them. As far as publicity goes, that is pretty impressive. The problem is that you can look rather silly if you go around making claims that are proved to be wrong. The bigger problem that I see is that they are making Jesus and his church look silly.

On Sunday evening we looked at David v Goliath. One of the things that struck me was how the Israelite failure to respond to the taunts and challenge from Goliath and his backing group of Philistines was actually making God look bad. It made him appear weak, even cowardly, because his reputation was closely linked with the reputation of his people. It still is. Let me quote from the sermon, for the benefit of those who weren’t there, can’t listen online, were there but were asleep, or just can’t remember it!

“We need to recognise that God’s reputation is closely linked with the reputation of his church. It does God no credit in people’s eyes when there are public splits and arguments between Christians. It does God no credit in people’s eyes when there are sex scandals involving the clergy in his churches. It does God no credit if churches are boring and cold. It also does God no credit if we are gossips. It does him no credit if we are intolerant or antagonistic towards others. It does him no credit if we cheat on our expenses. It does him no credit if we are willing to compromise his standards.”

An archaeologist was digging in the Negev Desert in Israel and came upon a casket containing a mummy. After examining it, he called the curator of a prestigious natural-history museum.

“I’ve just discovered a 3,000 year-old mummy of a man who died of heart failure!” the excited scientist exclaimed. 

To which the curator replied, “Bring him in. We’ll check it out.”

A week later, the amazed curator called the archaeologist. “You were right about the mummy’s age and cause of death. How in the world did you know?”

“Easy. There was a piece of paper in his hand that said, ‘10,000 Shekels on Goliath’.”

Be blessed. Be a blessing.