The shocking death of Shaun Dykes

The shocking death of a 17yr old who committed suicide in Derby a number of days ago has really unnerved me. (See http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7652000/7652268.stm for details.) How can people be so callous as to actually record someone jumping to their death and to actually shout taunts like"Get on with it"? This proves once more the words of Jeremiah that the human heart is "desperately wicked and deceitful above all things, who can know it [i.e. who can fully perceive its perversity or fathom the depth of its wickedness]? Having suffered from depression and felt on the brink of despair, I am so glad that God in His grace pulled me back from the measures taken by this young man and thank Him that He put people round me who loved me enough to set me on the road to recovery. We as Christians really need to be praying that God would give us discernment in regard to those we come across to know if they are feeling like this and this incident convinces me more that we need to be using the schoolmaster of the law with the unsaved to bring them to God. If they do not know the corruption of their hearts, they will not see the root cause for their need for Christ. It is frightening to see what a man given over to his sin can do as this incident shows and must make us thankful that He saved us and brought us back from reaching these levels.

Andy.

The work starts today!

This evening at 7pm we'll be giving out invites to our Prince Caspian themed children's outreach.

Then (28th-30th August 2008) tomorrow, Fri and Sat there will be the actual club. Pray that God will be please to use the proclamation of His word through bible verses choruses and bible stories to save children eternally.

Bless Him that He is my help and sustainer always. He is the author and finisher of my faith. Corrie Ten Boom said that when she had a faulty watch she used to send it back to the manufacturer and they always fixed the problem so that the watches always went better. We must do the same when our faith isn't working. We must send it back to God and He will mend it.

Mizpah!

Andy.

Here at last!

Well folks, I have finally arrived to the searing heat of Algeciras. Only my second day here. Still taking it slow, trying to get my bearings. Can still find my away about some places. My hosts are being very good and tolerant of me, which must take a lot of grace! (Just ask my folks!)

I'll write more soon when there's more to tell.

Praise His name for His daily power which keeps me from making shipwreck of my faith and for His gracious providences.

Andy.

My Farewell Service

Last night, Sunday 10th August 2008, I had my farewell service. What a blessed time of fellowship and being encouraged it was.

To all that took part and all who attended, words will never be able to express my gratitude for what it meant to me to have you all stand with me as I step out in faith with the Lord. The generosity that everyone showed with their words, cards and above all, lavish donations has truly blown me away.

Thank you for all the kind words you spoke about what I had to say in my response from the pulpit. I just bless God that He glorified Himself through such an old jar of clay as me! In me dwells no good thing. It is Him who works in me to will and to do of His good pleasure.

As you remember me, please pray for me that I will walk worthily with my God and that I will serve Him in a way that not only glorifies Him but is fitting of the faith and trust you all have put in me. I am so encouraged to know that as I go to Spain you are holding the ropes.

Primarily, I want to thank God for how He blessed the service and was very real in it all.

May God richly bless each of you who have supported me in any way and may you know the Holy Spirit shed His love abroad in your heart.

Andy.

Time keeps ticking into the future!

Well folks!

As of today I only have one week left with my current employer, nine days until my commissioning service and seventeen days until my move to Algeciras, Spain. I can scarcely believe it is true.

Since I found out that all the relevant bodies (Ballymena Baptist Church and Baptist Missions) were giving me their endorsement to take this step, God has been so good. People that I never imagined God would use have encouraged me both in word and deed. He has also provided me with accommodation, a potential "roomie" and the possibility of a job (subject to a successful interview in August i.e. this month). God's goodness should never surprise us but it almost always does because He is so creative in how He bestows it upon us! Praise Him from whom ALL blessings flow, our sovereign providential God!

Shalom!
Andy.

The unfathomable majesty of our Creator God

"I sing the almighty power of God, that made the mountains rise,
That spread the flowing seas abroad, and built the lofty skies.
I sing the wisdom that ordained the sun to rule the day;
The moon shines full at God’s command, and all the stars obey." Isaac Watts

I felt drawn to just extemporise a little on these timeless words of the English language's answer to King David, that eminent hymn-writer Isaac Watts.

To think that God spoke and mountains, in all their cragginess, in their rugged, word-defying beauty just rose from nothing should evoke in us such a wonder as to make us say with Isaiah of old "I am undone!" How anyone, much less the child of God can meditate upon God's general revelation in nature and not sing of the almighty power of God just shows the crippling corruption of our sinful, idolatrous hearts (and I count myself as chief offender here!).

To look at the dangerous power of the sea and the vast expanse of the skies should evoke in us a sense of the total transendence of God and these are but shadows of all He is.

To ponder the omniscient wisdom of a God that designed the moon and stars to give us light at night and a sun to give us heat and light in the day time must needs leave one exultant at the totally stupendous wonder of Jehovah.

That such a God should think of man in the light of His total otherness in comparison to us, in the light of the fact that He never had to be born or learn and that it didn't even cost him one Joule of energy is staggering. Watts says that "all that borrows life from Thee is ever in Thy care". What a thought! The fact of these things alone should make us seek after God but He had to put His love on public display on the cross. He had to bloody His own son and desert the very heart of His own heart to commend His love to the worms of the dust that we are! Oh how we ought to exalt Him! Oh what sinners we are!

Bless His name for ever.

God's impeccable timing

We are so priveleged that not only does a holy God save us as sinners but when He brings us into a relationship with Himself that so often He deigns to speak to us in ways which are so appropriate to our circumstances at just the right moment.

A few weeks ago my job was feeling just like I was like the donkey pushing the grindstone going round and round in circles and I was at a low ebb spiritually. At this time God providentially ordained that I would read the entry from Oswald Chambers' devotional My Utmost For His Highest (http://www.myutmost.org) for 15th June. It reads as follows:


June 15th.
GET A MOVE ON
"And beside this . . . add . ." 2 Peter 1:5
You have inherited the Divine nature, says Peter (v.4), now screw your attention down and form habits, give diligence, concentrate. "Add" means all that character means. No man is born either naturally or supernaturally with character, he has to make character. Nor are we born with habits; we have to form habits on the basis of the new life God has put into us. We are not meant to be illuminated versions, but the common stuff of ordinary life exhibiting the marvel of the grace of God. Drudgery is the touchstone of character. The great hindrance in spiritual life is that we will look for big things to do. "Jesus took a towel . . . and began to wash the disciples' feet."
There are times when there is no illumination and no thrill, but just the daily round, the common task. Routine is God's way of saving us between our times of inspiration. Do not expect God always to give you His thrilling minutes, but learn to live in the domain of drudgery by the power of God.
It is the "adding" that is difficult. We say we do not expect God to carry us to heaven on flowery beds of ease, and yet we act as if we did! The tiniest detail in which I obey has all the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. If I do my duty, not for duty's sake, but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very point of my obedience the whole superb grace of God is mine through the Atonement.

What a good Father the one true God is to speak to clearly to my situation.

Today also I was feeling very sinful and again through Chambers he said:

"If we imagine we have to put on our Sunday moods before we come near to God, we will never come near Him. We must come as we are.

Don't calculate with the evil in view. Does God really mean us to take no account of the evil? "Love . . . taketh no account of the evil." Love is not ignorant of the existence of the evil, but it does not take it in as a calculating factor. "

Oh! Scandalous grace of God that a wretched sinner such as I should be seen as having performed every good deed that Christ ever did and that the blame for all the filth, idolatry, pride, prayerlessness, false piety and all the outpourings of the flesh is laid squarely at the feet of His cross!

Bless our ineffably benificent Creator! The Name above all names!

What a word to a bruised reed!

Forsake your own righteousness and cry out to Him as you are!

Amen.

Encouragements to pray

As Christians we often struggle with prayer. We may find it hard to concentrate or else we may feel that God does not hear us. To help combat this I urge you to re-read what the bible says about prayer and what godly men of old have said about it.

Recently I have been reading The Godly Man's Picture by the Puritan divine Thomas Watson. I find very little to compare with the Puritans' ability to convey truth in a way which is simple yet vivid and powerful. Their writings are redolent with earthy, poetic imagery which anyone could relate to. Watson is a keen example of this with pithy epithets such as "Prayer is a bomb which will make heaven's gates fly open. " When did you last think of your prayers like that? Prayer is the means that God has appointed for us to receive His help and His blessing and if you don't immediately receive an answer often it is because you are not persistent enough. I recently heard a message from Bill Hybels, pastor of the Willow Creek church in Chicago, Illinois who told the story of how he witnessed to his neighbour for six years before he came to faith. Hybels did not explicitly say so but I would be fairly confident that as well as the man being witnessed to by Bill, that Bill was also praying for him fervently during those six years.

Another reason we do not receive what we ask for in prayer is because we ask for the wrong reasons. If you are asking God to bless your finances is it because you want to be able to give more to the Lord's work or because you want to go out and buy a new sports car? God will honour the former but never the latter because you are just seeking to use Him as a cosmic vending machine (thanks to Josh McDowell for this analogy!). Again Watson said "See the reason why men's prayers are not heard. It is because they sin still. Sin clips the wings of prayer so that it will not fly to the throne of grace." This refers to what James calls "asking amiss" and also to the times where we are willfully sinning and slighting God's grace.

For more encouragement to pray you should listen to Leonard Ravenhill's message on Hannah from www.sermonindex.net and Paul Washer and Sidlow Baxter on prayer from the same website. Also read about great prayer warriors like Praying Hyde the missionary to India or of John Smith the great Methodist. There are also some great quotes at http://www.calvarybiblechurch.org/quotations.aspx?keyword=Prayer and at

http://www.bereabaptistchurch.org/banner/PDFs/March2005.pdf

I would encourage you to continue in prayer, even when you don't feel like it and if you feel like it is hard tell the Lord that and ask for His grace to help you to find it profitable. Ask Jesus to intercede on your behalf as you come to pray, for this is His role now, that God would find your prayers acceptable and ask the Holy Spirit to pray with you that He would utter those groans that no man can utter when we struggle for the words to pray.

May God bless you richly.

The wisdom of St. Augustine

Sometimes, we in Northern Ireland are quick to write off those who don't quite fit into our little theological box. Conservative evangelicalism in my home province, in its attempts to fight against the unbiblical teaching of the Roman Catholic church has, in effect thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Saints, because they are revered, yes and sometimes worshipped, are rejected in toto which is to our shame. If we look at what many of them said in their own writings, and forget about the hagiographical hogwash which the church of Rome has built up around them, then we would be a lot better off. St. Patrick is one keen example of this. He was a very humble man, conscious of his own sin and need of God. Another was St. Augustine.

Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo is a figure who most evangelicals don't even realise is key to their whole outlook. If there had been no Augustine there probably would have been no Martin Luther. Luther was an Augustinian monk and it was the founder of his order who keenly influenced his thinking.

Augustine's prayer, "God, command what You will and give [or "grant"] what you command” stressed his belief in man's bondage to sin commonly known as the total depravity of man. Essentially, the Saint is expressing his desire to do whatever God asked him to do but knowing his own corruption, he knew that God's grace was essential for the believer to do God's will. This view enraged a notable monk at the time called Pelagius who believed that Christians could live a righteous life without God's grace. He believed that God's grace was helpful but not essential! This view is of course totally unbiblical as we know from Augustine's hero St. Paul that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3v23), that "no one is made righteous by the works of the law" (Romans 3v20) and that "the just shall live by faith". St. Paul also said "for by grace you are saved through faith,and this not from yourselves it is the gift of God not of works so that no man can boast." (Ephesians 2v8-9). This controversy between Augustine and Pelagius was repeated with Calvin and Arminius, Luther and Erasmus and continues to this day. What this does show is that Augustine was thoroughly Pauline in his view of grace. Although he believed in transubstantiation and other things that might not sit well with some Protestants one read of the confessions, his auto-biography shows this was a man of faith with a great desire for God, who firmly believed that without God man was lost.

One prayer of Augustine's that really is immense and reflects his intense pursuit of God says:

"Oh! that Thou wouldest enter into my heart, and inebriate it, that I may forget my ills, and embrace Thee, my sole good!" In other words He wants God to so captivate (he uses inebriate which means to intoxicate or make drunk!) that nothing else would satisfy and that he would chase after God alone not for His gifts but for who He is, acknowledging that God is the only true benefit of life and the One whom we are created to enjoy and to glorify. This prayer is reminiscent of King David who said "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God." (Psalm 42v1) How many people do you know like that, that want God to come in and make them fall head over heels in love with Him, so much so that nothing else matters? We could do with a few more Christians like that I reckon!

Blessings!

Andy.

Introduction

Hi! I am Andrew McKinney and I a member of Ballymena Baptist Church. I have recently been accepted by Baptist Missions as an Associate Volunteer worker and will be going (D.V.) to Algeciras, southern Spain some time in August. I will be working alongside two missionary couples already working in the area, the Reids who work with the Cristo Viene (Christ is coming) church and the Elliotts who work with the Renacer (Rebirth) church.

My first exposure to outreach in Spain was back in 2001 in Palencia as part of a summer evangelism team. I was then invited by Andrew Reid to come to Algeciras in 2005 as part of the first team they had there. That summer I helped run the children´s outreach on the beach and the other evangelism efforts. I left that year thinking seriously about how I could prepare to come out on a longer basis. I always enjoyed languages at school, particularly Spanish, which I studied right up to A Level and that summer I felt God speaking to me about using that gift in some way for Him.

Having had a teaching background, I decided that the best way to combine my gifts and past experience would be to train to teach English as a foreign language. To enable me to do this, I spent 18 weeks from February to June 2007 at Belfast Institute and completed the CELTA course. (Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults.)

I envisage myself in a sort of tentmaker role where I would be teaching English in one of the many private English academies in Algeciras. This would enable me to make contacts in the community but also would provide me with a level of income towards my overall support. I would also be helping in the life of the Cristo Viene church with music, outreach and possibly visitation. This means that there will be a small team in Algeciras with me meeting regularly with the Elliotts and the Reids.

Long-term the vision is to be able to offer cut-price homework clubs in needy
neighbourhoods. This will depend on how much my time is tied up with other teaching commitments.

Whilst I hope to be mainly self-supporting through my teaching I nevertheless will need to raise a degree of finance, especially for my first months and to tide me over the summers when I will probably earn less. Please also pray for me that I will be able to find a suitable job which will provide me with a reasonable income without impeding my service with the Reids and the Elliotts outside work hours.

I thank you for your interest and pray that God will bless you as you partner together with me in the work of taking God’s message to the land of Spain.