“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Today, let us walk righteously.
Let us pray for our enemies and God will take care of the rest.
I want to say to you my dear friend, you don’t have to promote yourself.
Luke Chapter 14 and verse 11:
“For whoever exalts himself, will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
I want to say to you today, there is nothing which is too hard for God.
He is reassuring you this morning that He will do it.
What we say at Shalom - we have a saying here - you must attempt something that is so big that if it is not of God it is doomed to fail.
Why? Because when it succeeds people will say, “You could never have done that,” and God gets all the glory.
God will not disappoint you.
God will not allow you to go hungry and your family to starve because He is a good God and He is for you and He is not against you.
What does He require from you and me? One simple word, “faith” to believe that our Lord is more than able to supply all of our needs and more than what we need so that we can give to others so that they can glorify Him.
I remember the story of the little boy who was always complaining to his mother because he had no shoes to wear until one day he was walking down the street and he saw a little boy who had no feet and he stopped complaining.
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This is a wonderful opportunity to be in this lockdown time, for us to sit down and ponder our future.
Are you ready if the Lord was to call you tonight?
You know I’m a cloud watcher because the bible tells us that Jesus is coming in the clouds to take us home to be with Him in Paradise and we need to be ready.
Are you ready?
Maybe you are sitting there today and you are thinking, “ I don’t know what to do about the future. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know whether I will have a job. I don’t know whether my business will still be operational after the lockdown is lifted. I really don’t know what to do.”
“Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
That is what we are expecting tomorrow from The Lord to do in men’s lives throughout the whole world.
We are going to stand against the wiles of the devil and we are going to believe that men will be delivered from things like fear, depression, inferiority, things like alcoholism, drugs, pornography, anger, hatred - completely delivered.
Today, I want to dedicate this thought to the heroes, the real heroes.
I am not talking about international sports stars or celebrities or politicians or even preachers.
I am talking about the real heroes;
What is man’s purpose on earth?
Why are we here?
Well, according to The Westminster Confession, the purpose of man on earth is…
We need each other, like iron sharpening iron.
Remember, no man is an island.
We can’t live without each other.
We need to believe and we need to walk the talk.
People don’t follow what we are just saying.
It is our lifestyle that changes people forever.
What is the truth?
What is a lie?
And many of us are confused.
We are getting so much information on the media front that we don’t know which way to turn.
Well, I have got a beautiful scripture for you this morning…
Are you maybe feeling a bit lost?
Maybe you are saying, “Angus, I don’t know how long this thing is going to go on but I am starting to get a bit desperate and I am starting to lose my way.
Well, if we go to the Gospel of John, Chapter 14 and verses 5 and 6 - remember Thomas, one of the disciples said to Jesus,
“How can we know the way?”
And Jesus said to him, “I am the way,…..”
And I really need to leave you with that thought today.
“Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
May God bless you as you have a wonderful weekend and remember, just cast your cares upon Him because He really cares for you.
I want to ask you an honest question.
How is it going?
You say, “It is going a bit tough Angus.”
Yes, I understand.
My dear wife, Jill and I, are sitting at 60 days plus positive and we are still waiting for the tests to come back.
But you know something?
This morning, The Lord Jesus has reminded me that we need to comfort one another - not bring harsh words of judgment - but comfort one another.
I remember as a young farmer, on a Sunday night, I would get all the children in our pick-up.
We only had a bakkie in those days and all five of them, and Jill and I, would go into town, into the little church in the main street in town, and we would hear the Word of God preached and it would comfort us.
And when we had finished the service we would all say together, in fact, we used to sing it, the benediction, coming from the Book of Jude, only one chapter and verse 24 and 25, and this is what it says and I am reading it out of the Old King James Version:
“Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
To the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever, Amen”.
Isn’t that a wonderful comfort?
The Lord is able to keep you and me from falling, from falling away from the faith.
Jesus will do it for you.
He will keep us.
He will bring great joy to us, Jesus alone.
And He is our mediator.
He goes between us and The Father and He encourages us.
Now, is present and forever is for the future.
We really need to lift up our eyes this morning and look unto our salvation, The Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, folks, this is not a time to tell people to pull themselves together, to give them a couple of scriptures on the phone, and then pray for them.
That is not what they want.
We have a young Zulu lady on our farm.
She is in charge of growing the cabbages with her team and she does a wonderful job.
And she came up to the fence the other way and she asked Jill, “
“How are you today?”
She said, “Don’t cry. The Lord will help you. This virus will finish just now.”
Just a few comforting words.
I remember, very distinctly my foreman, Simeon Bhengu.
You know him from the movie, Faith like Potatoes, when I lost my little nephew - he fell off the tractor I was driving and he died in my arms - he came into my workshop one day and he put his arms around me and he said,
“Baba, don’t be afraid, The Lord will help you.”
Those comforting words I have never forgotten, as long as I live.
Love one another.
Put your arm around that person.
Hold them and love them.
That’s all they need.
Comfort one another because that is what Jesus said.
It’s alright to get afraid.
It’s okay to be fearful.
There is nothing wrong with that because we are faced with great challenges but you and I as Christians need to know the answer and the answer is that Jesus has promised us these things.
He said to us in John 16: 33: “I have told you these things. In me you will have peace. In this world, you will have tribulation but be of good heart for I have overcome the world.”
I have been reading through the Old Testament, the Book of Numbers, Numbers Chapter 2, where The Lord instructed Moses how to lead the children of Israel through probably the most difficult time of their lives through the desert.
I have been to that desert. There is nothing there. And yet God took a nation through a desert experience for forty years and led them and how did that happen?
It happened because there was law and order in the Israelite nation. God spoke to Moses, Moses spoke to the leaders and the leaders spoke to their respective tribes.
There was order in breaking the camp down in the mornings.
They were led by a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire during the night.
You and I need to have law and order in our lives at this difficult time of the coronavirus and lockdown.
How little do we really need when it comes to material things?
Some of us are getting ulcers. We worry about something that will never happen.
He said, “I will never leave you and I will never forsake you.”
Mothers are so very, very precious in the sight of God.
I want to encourage you young men and older men, phone your mom today. Tell her that you love her.
You say, "We are on lockdown. We can't get there".
But you can phone her.
You can message her and if you can get to her, spoil her today.