A Heavy Load

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Kids' talk in church 25th September, 2016 Kids carry heavy loads in their backpacks when they go to school. Hard work on a hot day! MORE...

A Sharp Point

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John's Gospel, Chapter 7, verses 1 to 31 You could look at this as being "Jesus makes a sharp point with His opposers", or "Jesus is at a sharp point from His opposers". Either way, He is the victor, and they are the vanquished. MORE...

A Stormy Night

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(Here is the background to my sketch) in this Bible story we see the power and kindness of Jesus, and how much we need Him. MORE...

ChampionsChallenge - Summary

CLICK HERE for the full article ChampionsChallenge: Here are my illustrated Bible stories for a kids' school holiday "Adventure Time" at a church in the Hunter Valley. The theme for the week is "Champions' Challenge", hence the title. This is my 4th (and in 2015, 8th) "Adventure Time" with lots of primary age kids and a wonderful team of all ages from the church. They really do the lion's share of the work, and it is exciting to be with them. MORE...

DanielFiles - Summary

CLICK HERE for the full article DanielFiles: These are my notes on the book of Daniel from the Bible. I began about 2002. The first six chapters are essentially Daniel's life as captive and exile in Babylon. MORE...

Do Christians get Depressed? You Better Believe It!

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to the number of people in the Bible who suffered it too. Here are some:-

• Moses "kill me at once, if I find favour in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness." Numbers 11:15 MORE...

Fear and Fear Not!

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Here is the Christmas story I told with my sketch-board at a "Carols among the Gum-trees" in December 2016. The story begins in the Judean hills near Bethlehem. Some shepherds were sitting at night watching their flocks of sheep. They were not modern shepherds, with quad-bikes and sheepdogs, just poor men who guided the sheep to good grass in the daytime and guarded them at night. It was a dirty, lonely and at times dangerous job, because there were wolves around. Nobody thought much about them, but they just got on with their job. MORE...

Finishing the Race - 2 Timothy 4

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We are creatures in time, creatures of time, for God has made us so. It is no surprise that time figures in so much of our conversation ("how are you going?", "if you have the time...", "I haven't a moment to lose!", etc.) Paul, the mighty missionary apostle is no different, using the word time or phrases that speak of time at least 14 times in the 22 verses of this last part of his letter to Timothy, his young colleague and pastor-in-training. Unlike some religious philosophies time in the Bible's world-view is not our enemy, but rather a servant to be used wisely. It is, I hope, useful to look at these last words of Paul to Timothy using various "times" to hang our thoughts on. MORE...

God Humbles Man's Pride - Genesis 11:1-9

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I set out to tell you about the Tower of Babel, and what it can teach us. However, in a time when there is so much confusion about the early chapters of Genesis, where the story is found, I think it wise to say something about the truthfulness of this whole section of the Bible. There is no final conflict between the actual words of the Bible and the findings of good science. In the one book, the Bible, God reveals Himself in Words. In His other book, the Cosmos, He reveals Himself in His Works. How then could these two ever be in real conflict? MORE...

GOD IS KING

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Genesis chapter 45:25 to chapter 47:12 Brothers, including Benjamin, return to tell old father Jacob the news. Jacob can't believe it at first. They tell him everything (which means that the 10 older brothers had to tell him how they sold Joseph as a slave, and lied to father Jacob). Then he sees the royal wagons of Pharaoh, sent to take him to Egypt, to Joseph. He sees the silver, the fine clothes, the food for the journey. "I'm satisfied - Joseph is ALIVE! I will go to him before I die". MORE...

God Rescues Us (Even) from the Pit of Despair (Numbers 11:1-23)

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• "It's all too hard!" "I can't go on" "I've had enough"; family woes, work overload, money stress, what am I to do...?;
• How many of us have wished at some time "O that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away & be at rest" Ps 55:6; MORE...

God Uses Us Despite Our Failings (Numbers 11:25-35)

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Who of us has not thought at some time, and often, that perhaps He cannot, or will not, make any use of us because of what we see as our failures? "I'm useless - I might as well give up...". Well, I hope to show you that you are not any worse (or better) than just about all the heroes in the Bible, and that we beat ourselves up far too much. Yes, failure is failure, but God is greater!

• Real failures, not just weaknesses; MORE...

GroundBreakers - Summary

CLICK HERE for the full article GroundBreakers: Here are my illustrated Bible stories for a kids' school holiday "Adventure Time" at a church in the Hunter Valley. The theme for the week is "Ground Breakers", hence the title. This is my 5th "adventure Time" with lots of primary age kids and a wonderful team of all ages from the church. They really do the lion's share of the work, and it is exciting to be with them. MORE...

How Are We To Worship? - Guarding Our Relationships

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The book of the prophet Malachi, chapter 2, verses 10 to 16

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James 2:1-13 A Case of Bad Judgement - Breaking the Law of Liberty

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"Democracy is the worst possible form of government, except for all the rest" - Winston Churchill Ditto our legal system - no doubt many problems, but who would want to be in the dock under a dictatorship? MORE...

Jesus, King of Christmas

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Do you get excited waiting for Christmas to come? There is the Christmas tree, and the lovely decorations, the lights, the family get-together, the feast, and of course the presents! The first Christmas, over 2000 years ago, is what gave us all these exciting things, because that first Christmas was more lovely and gave better presents. It was so good that its good things flow down to us even after so many long years! MORE...

Jesus, King of Christmas - Video

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Jesus, King of Christmas - Video I simplified it a little to make it more visible in a large school auditorium. MORE...

Jesus Reveals - John's Gospel chapter 5:1-18

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Jesus, after living 30 years quietly in Galilee, the remote northern province of Israel, has begun His public work of revealing the Kingdom of God. He would reveal Himself to the Jewish people as their long-awaited Messiah, and to all people as the "Saviour of the World" (as He had already to some Samaritans, chapter 4:42).

• The Pool of Bethesda: thought to be a large complex of two pools with covered verandahs to shelter those who gathered there. It seems to have been a place for public bathing. MORE...

Jim's boat - 'Twice Mine!'

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Who MADE absolutely everything? Well, we like to make things too (making things is one of God's gifts to us all). A young boy called Jim loved to make things. Jim spend many weeks making a model boat. He painted it bright colours and put a strong electric motor and some batteries in it so it could go fast in the water. MORE...

Landlubbers! 2006

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Kids' Adventure Time 2006 I really enjoyed spending a a week at a country church in the Hunter Valley as the Bible story-teller/teacher at a holiday "Adventure Time" MORE...

Land-Lubbers - Summary

CLICK HERE for the full article Land-Lubbers: Kids' Adventure Time 2006, 2012 I really enjoyed spending a a week at a country church in the Hunter Valley as the Bible story-teller/teacher at a holiday "Adventure Time" MORE...

Living in God's Time

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Psalm 90 Our lives are obsessed and harassed by the clock, by time MORE...

Martin Luther, Grace and OCD

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Sub-title - How Martin Luther's mental illness drove him to rediscover the heart of the Gospel and rescue Christianity from its deadly sleep. I want to tell you today about 3 things, which link their arms together to present something of the greatest importance to all of us; the third thing in particular is vital for some of us, and useful to all. MORE...

Mission Unstoppable - A Pagan Backlash

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The book of Acts in the New Testament, in chapter 19, shows us what happened when the early Christians, who had "turned the world upside-down" (Acts 17:6 ESV) collided head-on with the paganism of the Greek-Roman culture of the day.

Ephesus

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More Prayers from the Ark

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This is a wonderful book of poems by French writer Carmen Bernos de Gasztold, written during the grim years of the Second World War. Noah and a representative group of animals offer their own style of prayer, some funny, some sad, some full of hope, all brief and fresh. MORE...

Preaching with Passion - 2 MP3s by Mike Raiter

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Mike Raiter from the Bible College of Victoria came up to speak at a seminar on preaching with passion, and also some clues on the practicalities of preaching so that your listeners are neither bored nor starved. I missed hearing him, due to a family crisis, but a friend did the recording for me (usually my task - Olympus WS-100 digital micro recorder). MORE...

PyramidRock - Summary

CLICK HERE for the full article PyramidRock: Here are my illustrated Bible stories for a kids' school holiday "Adventure Time" at a church in the Hunter Valley. The theme for the week is "Pyramid Rock", one the life of Joseph, with his many sufferings, eventual joys, and who God used him to rescue his family from starvation and early death. MORE...

Real Christians Keep Going - 1 John 2:18-29

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Revelation - Summary

CLICK HERE for the full article Revelation: These are my presentations on the meaning of the apparently mysterious Book of the Revelation, from the Bible, given over the 3 years from 2005 to 2008. I make no claim to infallibility, but hope to shed some light as far as I have been able to discern it. My aim through all has been to impose no external theories upon the book, but to let it speak for itself. I have done this largely by using the other parts of the Bible to shed light on it, with others' commentaries left till last, and (I hope) used judiciously and sparingly. MORE...

Revolutionary Command

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Some of you may have heard of this in your schooldays, but unless your maths teacher was a comic, it was probably not in the maths class. There you hopefully heard about "The Square on the Hypotenuse", the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras' famous theorem about the sides of right-angle triangles...

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Revolutionary Man

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No, not Che Guevara, not Karl Marx, not Lenin, not Mao Tse-Tung, but Jesus. He is the author and hero of a revolution more widespread, more beneficial to mankind, more glorious and more costly (to Himself) than any political revolution in all this world's sad and turbulent history. Mark's Gospel in the Bible's New Testament is the shortest account of Jesus' life, and possibly the earliest. Mark doesn't give us as much as the other Gospel's, but he does get to the heart of things. The first verse says The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.(NIV) MORE...

Sketchboard Sermons, by Jim Duffecy

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When I was a young man I had the privilege of watching a great story-teller at work. Jim Duffecy sketched and spoke at the same time, and wove both mediums together into an unforgettable whole. His passion was the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and his story-telling always aimed at that. I think I learned more from him than any other, and when I wanted to do some basic training for would-be Bible story-tellers in 2004, the publishers of Jim's little book "Sketchboard Sermons" kindly gave me permission to copy it for any who wanted it. Thank you, https://oacusa.org/ MORE...

Sketching - Summary

CLICK HERE for the full article Sketching: Sketching and telling stories (and especially the stories from the Bible) is a marvellous way to communicate with kids. I've been doing it for 40-odd years. Here are my brief notes, in the hope that they will encourage others to have a go. You don't have to be a Rembrandt or a Leonardo Da Vinci. If you tend to think in analogies and images, and can doodle, you can probably sketch easily. MORE...

Some Pitfalls in Reading the Bible

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"Cheshire Puss,' (Alice) began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. Come, it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she went on. Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?' That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat. MORE...

That's a Good Question

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A serious-minded 7 year old asked me "How could God make everything out of nothing?", and also "Who made God?". I gave him my best answer on the spot, but thought I could perhaps do better, so wrote this for him and others. Hopefully it is not too confusing, and there are not too many new words without their definitions. Time will tell. MORE...

The Best Miracle

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(from Mark's Gospel, chapter 2, from the Bible) Jesus returns to Capernaum, where He was very well known. MORE...

The First Sign

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Once a person accepts that the universe, including us, has a Creator, there is no logical barrier to believing in miracles. True, there are many bogus "miracles" around. This no more proves the impossibility of miracles any more than meeting many dishonest men proves there are no honest ones. God had promised a rescuer, a saviour, a restorer. To the Jews, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (who was also named Israel) this One was known as "Messiah" (literally "anointed one" - One sent by God with power and authority to be the great, long-awaited, Restorer). MORE...

The Glory, Dignity and Dislocation of Man (with some signposts to Man's Healing)

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Genesis Chapter 1:1-5, 26-31, Chapter 2:4-9, 15-25, Chapter 3:1-8

• "Lets' start at the beginning" - we are fascinated with the future - we should be just as much fascinated with the past, because it is the only place we can find meaning. MORE...

The Lamb of God

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A story about the real meaning of Easter, for children. Here's the story sketch as an animated image MORE...

The Problem of Pain

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"No God But God", Part 2 of "The Story of God" by Lord Robert Winston (a venerated world expert in human fertility research, and an orthodox Jew).

He goes in search of the answer to the centuries old question: "If God created humanity, why does God allow humanity to suffer?"

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The Truth of a Flower, the Truth of Water

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George Macdonald was a 19th century Scottish writer, perhaps best known as the father of fantasy writing. His best works (according to CS Lewis) were Phantastes, Lillith, the Curdie books, The Golden Key and The Wise Woman. Macdonald was also a friend of Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland. MORE...

This World of Dew - Is It?

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My friend C. died this week, suddenly, of a heart attack. He was 52 and super-fit (gym, running and surfing as often as he could). I still have a sense of shock and disbelief, and can only guess how his family are feeling and suffering (only God can know it all). The day I heard of it, these lines came into my mind MORE...

Three Steps to Finding the Perfect Marriage Partner

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This article was prepared as a breakfast talk for a group of men, but as far as I can tell everything here works just the same for women. Just substitute "her" for "him" etc. The ideas here are like a two-edged sword, it cuts both ways! Everyday observation suggests we do indeed have a problem. If we did not have one, how come so many marriages end up in the divorce courts? MORE...

Wisdom for Love, Courtship, Marriage, Sex & Salvation

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The Song of Songs is the last the "Wisdom" books in the Old Testament of the Bible. These books are Job, the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song. In form the Song of Songs (or the "superlative song", the "best song") is a love poem celebrating man-woman love, especially the sexual part, which it does with great delicacy and yet with striking vividness and passion. MORE...

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