Naracoorte Presbyterian Church

Atonement – an eye for an eye

Bible Readings Leviticus 24:10-23 Deuteronomy 19:15-21 Matthew 5:38 Introduction Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. (Deuteronomy 19:21, NIV) It took me many years to work out what “brotherly love” meant. Our household, like many others I suppose,…
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Look out for false apostles (2)

Bible Readings Luke 21:5-11 2Timothy 3:1-9 Introduction Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, A friend of mine, then a new Christian, returned from morning worship where the sermon was about false prophets. He settled for a cup of coffee with his wife when the doorbell rang. His visitors asked if he would…
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Watch our for false prophets (1)

Scripture Readings Matthew 7:15-23 Matthew 24:1-14 Introduction My dear friends in Christ, On one of my mission trips into the outback of New South Wales, a pastor-friend tagged along for the experience. Fortunately, shearing was on, so to a large extent, the shearing quarters were relatively clean and rid of spiders and snakes. We took…
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Undivided loyalty to the King, Jesus Christ (3)

Bible Readings Daniel 3:8-18 Revelation 13:11-18 Introduction My dear friends in Christ, Long before I arrived at uni, Steve had been there. It seemed that Steve had an academic problem: the lecturer to teach him Greek 1, was a classmate who did Greek 1 with him when Steve was repeating it for the third time.…
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Undivided loyalty to Christ, our King (2)

Scripture Readings Daniel 7:1-14; Revelation 13:1-10 Introduction My dear friends in Christ, It was without fail that, before we set off in our old Chrysler—this was long before the days of seatbelts—that Mom, ever-caring for her little brood of children—would look back over the rest of the front seat and asked, “Have you locked the…
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Biblical Eldership (3)

Bible Readings Exodus 18:13-23; 1Timothy 3:1-7 Introduction My dear brothers and sisters, family in Christ, For some reason, I love the “Air Crash Investigation” programs. About all episodes begin with a simulation of the crash. The pilot is barking out commands to his off-sider, the sirens are loud, in the background, there is this annoying…
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Biblical Eldership (2) “What”

Bible Readings Psalm 23 Acts 20:17-31 Introduction Dear friends in Christ, Lord willing, in the near future, the congregation will elect elders. Last week we learned from the Scripture “why” the congregation of God needs elders. There are mainly two reasons. The first reason is that Christians, however living under the grace of God,…
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Biblical Eldership (1) – “Why?”

Bible Readings Deuteronomy 1:9-18 Numbers 11:10-30 Introduction Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, We will have eldership election in the near future. We have already announced this to you. But before we get to the actual meeting to elect elders, we will listen to what the Scriptures teach about eldership. There will be…
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Perfect knowledge, perfect joy, perfect peace

Scripture readings Ezekiel 36:24-29 John 16:12-33 Introduction Herman Lange, a German Christian was to be executed by the Nazis during WWII. In his cell on the night, before he was to be killed, Lange wrote a note about two feelings which occupied his mind: “I am, first, in a joyous mood, and second filled with…
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Christ makes us his friends, and the world hates us for it

Bible Readings Psalm 9:7-20 John 15:9-16:4 Introduction My dear friends in the Lord, Jesus Christ, My mother was one of the fairest people I knew. Like a hen, she would protect her chicks. Don’t get into Mom’s bad books by spreading stories about her children. As kids, we knew she would always defend us, and…
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