London Newsletter

October 2013 / Issue 44

In this issue:

• Upcoming events

• October Letter

• Eternal Punishment

• Things to pray for

• Quotations Worth Thinking About

Upcoming Events:

• Communion – Sunday, October 13, 2013

  Our Communion service takes place on the second Sunday of each month.

• Discipleship 101 – Sunday, October 20, 2013

  Our discipleship course takes place on the third Sunday of each month. The topic this month is “Sharing the Good News” (Chapter 30 of the booklet).

• Special Worship Service – Sunday, October 27, 2013

  Elizabeth Deveau, a Christian singer-songwriter from Nova Scotia, will be visiting us and will lead the worship service. Please consider inviting friends and family to attend this special service.

October Letter

Dear Brethren,

This month we look forward to having a special guest at our services: on October 27^th Elizabeth Deveau will be leading the worship service. She is a Christian singer-songwriter, who became a Christian through the witness of one of our members in Nova Scotia. You can check out her music on her website at www.elizabethdeveau.ca . This might be a good opportunity to invite a friend or family member to church.

This month we will also be starting a new sermon series in the book of Jeremiah. This weekend, October 6, we will be covering the historical background to the book of Jeremiah. It will be helpful if you are able to read through II Kings Ch 21-25 and II Chronicles Ch 33-36 before then.

Thank you very much for your food bank donations each week. As I showed last week, the demands on the food bank continue to increase, so your faithfulness in supporting this cause is much appreciated.

Recently we covered Matthew Ch 24-25 dealing with the end-time and God’s judgment of all nations. I thought that the following article from Dr Tkach might be helpful in adding some perspective to the subject of judgment.

Warmest regards,

Colin and Sue

Eternal Punishment 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” – John 3:16-17 (NIV) 

Have you ever punished your child for disobedience? How long did the punishment last? More to the point, Did you declare that that punishment would last forever? Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? We, as weak and imperfect parents, forgive our kids. We might punish them, but how many of us would think it fitting, or even sane, to punish them for the rest of their lives? 

Yet some Christians would have us believe that God, our heavenly Father, who is not weak and imperfect, punishes people forever and ever. And these same people say God is full of grace and mercy! There seems to be a large gap between what we learn from Jesus and what some Christians believe about eternal damnation. Jesus tells us to love our enemies and even to do good to those who hate us and persecute us. But some Christians think that God not only hates his enemies, but literally roasts them mercilessly and relentlessly for eternity. Jesus prayed for his executioners, but some Christians teach that God only forgives a precious few that he predestined to forgive before he even created the world. 

As much as we human beings love our children, how much more does God love them? It’s a rhetorical question – God loves them infinitely more than we are even able to love them. The truth is, God really does love the world. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” The salvation of this world depends on God, and only on God. God sent Jesus to do the job, and Jesus did that job. 

We are, however, blessed to be able to take part in the process of getting the gospel to people, but the actual salvation of the people we love and care about, and also of those we don’t even know, and even those who it seems to us never even heard the gospel – in short, the salvation of everybody – is something God takes care of, and God is really good at what he does. That’s why we put our trust in him, and in him alone! 

– Joseph Tkach

Things to Pray for:

Please pray for:

• Darlene’s brother (cancer operation); Larry Prekup (cancer); Paul’s sister, Diane (recovery from back surgery); Lloyd Mitchell (failing eyesight); Lisa Masse (continued improvement in health); Fred Zamostny (back problems); Gabriele Hodgins (arthritis and tendonitis; loss of job); Scott Blaine (MS).

• The situation in Pakistan, where 78 Christians were killed and over 100 injured in a suicide bomb attack on an Anglican church in Peshawar last month – just the latest incident in the mounting violence against Christians in that country.

• Our local congregation that we might fulfill God’s will for us. Pray that we might each be a light in our community, manifesting the love of God to friends, family, co-workers and neighbours.

• Opportunities to share the gospel with others, the courage to do so, and the wisdom to know how.

Quotations Worth Thinking About

“Our primary authority is Jesus Christ our Teacher and our Lord, and our submission to Scripture is only the logical outcome and necessary expression of our submission to him. It is to Christ that we come; but Christ sends us to a book. Not that the book to which he sends us is a dead and wooden letter, or an authoritarian ogre. He bids us listen rather to his own voice as he speaks to our particular situation by his Spirit and through his written Word.”

—  John Stott

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less. Humility is thinking more of others“

– Rick Warren