Eurovision too

2023-05-122025-06-07 ~ admin

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Vesna ‘are not your dolls’: Eurovision Q&A

Six piece girl band Vesna have already made the final, with a song that urges support for Ukraine.

Coronas

2023-05-062025-06-07 ~ admin

Today is an important day for many reasons. We have crowned a man who is king, who in that crowning made certain clear commitments. We do not have to be monarchists to recognise the benefits of those commitments, and I would suggest that of whatever form of government you want if you do not require of the governor those same commitments then you do both yourself and your fellow countrymen a great disservice. There are only two, or perhaps three, on which comment shall be made here.

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O Miserable man!

2023-04-302025-06-07 ~ admin

An apology coming so soon after the previous one? One would have thought that cartoonists might have learned a thing or two by now. It is fitting however when two interesting articles are placed side by side they provoke an interesting thought, but given that this morning’s sermon was on Romans 12: Be subject to the authorities, I wondered whether political satire may sometimes be haram rather than kosher. But we do have Rutherford’s teaching also on the matter who promoted Lex rex rather than Rex lex, aptly illustrated by when on the appointment of one of his governors, Trajan handed to him a dagger with the words: ‘to be used for me (As Paul said: they hold the power of the sword) and [if I do wrong] in me’. How different from the lèse-majesté of another nation. On the basis of this, the interesting (or not so interesting depending upon your point of view) thought becomes public at the risk of offending those who by their nature are afflicted with the plague of sensitivity to that which is ill aligned with the contemporary notion of politica rectitude, and given with apologies to those who will recognise that I, being ignorant of such matters, have used the incorrect case.

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The defiled mind

2023-04-262025-06-07 ~ admin

Der Spiegel: India anger over ‘racist’ German magazine cartoon on population

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A word you should not use

2023-04-162025-06-07 ~ admin

He was twenty minutes into the sermon when he heard the sound of a little girl’s voice in the congregation. She was speaking to her mother, who was desperately trying to tell her, quietly, not to speak. Then everyone one heard it: ‘But mummy, he used the word which you said we should never say’. He thought back for a moment at what he had just said, and wishing to take away the mother’s now very public embarrassment, he addressed the little girl:

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Taste and see

2023-03-172025-04-01 ~ admin

Taste and see

The Psalmist said: —

Taste and see +
The Lord is good. +

The Psamlist said: Taste and see	Psalm 34:8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in him.
But do not be like those whose Feet shall slip in due course	Deuteronomy 32:35 Vengeance is mine, and recompense; Their foot shall slip in due time; For the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things to come hasten upon them.’
Who having not eaten of the heavenly things But merely tasted then fall away	Hebrews For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put him to an open shame.
Preferring like the dog that Which proceeds from their own mouth than that	Proverbs 26:11 As a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.
Which proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.	Deuteronomy 8:3 So he humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.
It is these Who will say on that day, You taught in our streets; We heard your voice;	Luke 13:26 then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’
We prophesied in your name; We did miracles in your name.	Matthew 7:22-23 Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness!’
He shall spew Them, as tepid water, Out of his mouth saying:	Revelation 4: I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.
I never knew you. Depart from me you workers of iniquity.	Luke 13:27 But he will say, ‘I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity.’
They have not heard the prophet Cry aloud: Come to the waters, come buy and eat Without price, without measure	Isaiah 55 Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money: Come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
To discover that indeed The Lord is good. +	Psalm 34:8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in him.

Press on

2023-03-122025-06-07 ~ admin

On the first January 1989¹ Philip asked us whether we were ready for a new year as men count years, but recognising that we are creatures of times, pressed this home upon us, as we consider the old year and the new year, how things are and how they ought to be, are we considering the most important thing? Moses considered the most important thing when he asked Jehovah to show him his glory. This is the most important thing: God himself. Do we consider that?

Two and thirty years later on the eighth August 2021² he asked another almost equally important question, having in mind that it is God himself who is at work in us:

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A man of God

2023-03-012025-06-07 ~ admin ~ 1 Comment

And so it will be in the resurrection of the dead, we were sown in weakness, we shall be raised immortal.

PLC came into my life something over fifty years ago. Though he was a Welshman among Welshmen, emotional beyond degree, and a true ‘bachgen bach o Ferthyr erioed, erioed’, the serious side in his character would have made the dourness of the Scot look like the elation of a Zulu.

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