Saturday, 22 March 2008

Together for the Gospel,Culloden Style

I would love to attend this years TftG with Al Mohler, Mark Dever, C J Mahaney and Ligon Duncan, however here on Barn Church Road we have four gospel churches and they are together for the Gospel. On Good Friday these four local Evangelical churches got to together to celebrate what Luther called the great exchange, Jesus dying in our place. It was great to see the four pastors interacting together not just as gospel ministers but as friends. I know these guys disagree on some secondary issues but they are united in their belief in the Gospel. I remember when the Watchtower guys came around recently that they tried to say these four churches had completely different understandings of the way to heaven. How wrong they are, Smithton Free Church, The Barn Church CoS, Culloden Baptist Church and Kings Fellowship are agreed that the only way to heaven is by placing our trust in Jesus who died for own sins.

The service started with a short video a son affirmed, the moving tale of a father's love for his newborn son whose life was always going to be short. You can watch the video here 99 Balloons. The sermon was by our own Pastor, Jim Turrent, who told the story of his visit to Budapest where he found himself in serious trouble when the authorites took him aside at the railway station because his ticket had not been stamped and so was invalid. Jim tried to explain that he didn't no that he needed to do this as a visitor to the country. the authorities were having none of it. Jim started to daydream about how the church would react to the Pastors Prison Plight when a stranger seeing his situation, went up the elevator and purchased two tickets. One for Jim and one for Jim's wife, the man paid a price that Jim was unable to. Jim compared this to the great debt we owe to God, and that we are unable to pay it. Yet on that first good friday Jesus laid down His life on our behalf.

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