THE HAMMER

If you walked the length of North Earl Street and Henry Street in Dublin yesterday you would have encountered 4 different groups of Christians sharing the gospel. We were the eastern most of the 4 and the message, delivered by my favourite street preacher, was about the cost of sin..to God, in the crucifixion of His beloved son. A few props were employed but it seemed to be the hammer in her hand that gripped the attention of many! There was stong reaction to the idea that God can't simply forgive with out a price being paid. I reckon about 30 or 40 people gathered to hear the message and I believe it is a foretaste of what is to come as we continue to bring the undluted gospel to the people. Pray for Dublin and Ireland. We are in need of a great awakening! The photo is of Jim on O'Connell Street with Wayne Rooney trying to make his mind up!

FRONT DOOR PROTEST OR BACK DOOR EMBRACE?

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What do we have today at the end of "Ramadan"? During Ramadan, Muslims ask forgiveness for past sins (no forgiveness available without the shedding of the innocent blood of Jesus), pray for guidance and help in refraining from everyday evils (no real way of reformation without getting the "new heart and new spirit" promised by the new birth in Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit), and try to purify themselves through self-restraint and good deeds (Our own righteous deeds are as filthy rags before Holy God and only the works of God done through us by faith in Jesus are of value). In short the intention might be noble but without Jesus (the One who died on the cross)...it's a waste of time. 

Tomorrow an american pastor is putting Christians in persecuted Islamic countries at risk by burning Korans (not a good idea). Many want to be at the front of an abortion clinic protesting but few are at the back door giving hugs to the broken and exploited women. Many want to offend the lost and what they hold dear but few reach out in love to them. There is a time or peace and a time for war (ecclesiastes). Tomorrow remember is September 11th so the depth of some peoples demonic depravity must not be forgotten and tyrants (read Ahmadinejad) ought to be brought to account before they develop nuclear capability, especially with such a public bent on the destruction of Israel. Now  put all that in your pipe and smoke it! Blessings. Ant

BANKRUPT...IN HEAVEN!

At last I remembered to actually record some street preaching. It seems like I'm shouting but that's because the street was noisy and I wanted to be heard!
Ireland was nearly bankrupt recently but guess what: Heaven was bankrupted when the Father sent the Son to this earth. Listen to the message on the right....and enjoy!

AMUSED AND AMAZED

Some people can plan ahead what they will do for God and when. That I find hard. I had been planning and looking forward to attending a Friday night prayer meeting for most of the week but a family matter detained me so that I was more than an hour late. Because the meeting was in the basement of a building and there was no "security staff" at ground floor I found the doors locked with little prospect of entry. Seeing as I was in Temple Bar and it was close to 9pm I decided to do a wee prayer walk myself around the precinct. When I walked by a particular brightly lit corner outside a pub called...you guessed it "The Temple Bar" I asked God to help me and reached into my inside pocket, took out the new Jesus sign which Maurice gave me last week and toold me some "black brothers" had made it.
As always the moment I lifted high HIs name joy and peace flooded me and a Holy boldness. Shortly after Jo and Andy an english couple came up to me asking "What's this?". We spoke about Jesus and what He did for us. I silently asked the Holy Spirit if there was anything wrong with them and then I asked Jo "Do you have a heart murmer?". She said that Andy has heart trouble. I again asked her if she had a heart murmur to which she said yes. She was quite amazed at this. I explained that God knows everything about her, loves her and wants to bring her to HImself. She was open for prayer and so without laying on hands (I felt the Lord said not to lay on hands this time) I asked the Lord to heal them both. The ensuing chat was good and I believe they left with some undertanding of God's love for them in Jesus. They promised they'd go back to their hotels and look at the Bibles in the room.
Later on I said to the Lord "I don't know if they really get healed". I believe the Lord then said to me "nor did you know she had a heart murmur!". He has a great sense of humour!

RICKSHAW RIDDLE

While I was out late last night on Grafton Street I got chatting to 2 Brazilian chaps who were operating rickshaws. They said they loved Jesus but as we continued the conversation I had a sense that they did not yet know Him personally. They were Roman Catholic but, despite their excellent english had great difficulty answering the question as to why Jesus willingly went to the cross. "To show His love for us" one said. I said "Well I love my wife but I wont jump in front of a luas (tram) to prove it" They were stumped. I explained, as had been patiently explained to me, a moderately devout Catholic at age 23 (25 years ago!), that He went to the cross because I was guilty and He was innocent and my sins could be dealt with by that way only. It occured to me that the thief on the cross who turned to Jesus said the very same "We deserve our punishment but this man is innocent". That is the wonderful simple Gospel or "Good News" anything different is a dangerous deception.

THE BLOODY GOSPEL

"With many other words he warned them and pleaded with them" Acts 2:40. How few do that today! Most preaching is of the variety which is scared to warn and plead. What's the root of this? Is it rampant humanism in the body of Christ? Is it compassion turned sour and into "devil petting" or is it a lack of faith and knowledge of the fate of the unconverted? I'm all for compassion...genuinely!. I'd be lost without God's compassion but if we decouple compassion and love from the bloody message of the cross we immediately are in heresy. John 3:16 and 17 shows God's love manifested in the crushing of His only Son...the only way the Justice of Holy God can be satisfied. When I was recently preaching on Grafton Street about this "Bloody Gospel" someone spoke to me after, one to one, and was offended by such mention of violence. He thought this was similar to a radical islam message. I explained that the only blood this referred to was the innocent blood of the Lamb of God and that other human blood was useless as it was unholy and a worthless currency for redemption before Holy creator God.

COUSIN LOSES HEAD AT DRUNKEN PARTY

Haven't posted much of late.The reason is because I have not been fishing for souls but have been ministered to by God almighty and built up following a number of trials my close friends might know about.

If your cousin and greatest supporter had his head chopped off because a wicked king because he made a rash promise during a moment of seduction and manipulation at a drunken party ...how would you feel? More to the point if you withdraw to a private place and then had crowds following you looking for something would you not be tempted to tell them to get lost for a while?..Not so Jesus (Matthew 14:14) "He had compassion on them and healed their sick". Guys...the pity party is officially over! The needs of the lost have not gone away...and nor has God's compassion towards them. He wishes none to perish but ALL to come to repentance and the knowledge of God through Jesus.

Photo shows Leonidas' wife lifting high His Holy Name in Burundi.

CANT DUMP ADAM WITHOUT DUMPING JESUS!

The Creation moments website had a fab article today. Look lads..wake up and smell the coffee!! We have let the athiests and humanists whip the foundation from under our noses as we have let them put Genesis on the same footing as Santa Claus! Lord have mercy on them but they are in for some awful shock when Truth is revealed in person in the clouds!!
“All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:3)
What does the Bible's teaching on creation have to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ? Well, let’s see what happens to Christ's work of salvation if creation is untrue and God actually used evolution. Death in the animal kingdom must have come into the world long before the first man and before sin. If death is not a result of sin, why did Christ have to receive the penalty for sin by death on a cross? So, in challenging man's origin, evolution challenges the origin of sin and its effect on man. Thus, evolution challenges the very heart of Christ’s work! The Bible tells us that all Scripture was given to make us wise unto salvation. That includes Genesis. John's Gospel tells us that all things were created through the Word Who became flesh.

We see that Word in action in Genesis One when we read, “That Word Who made us and everything is the very same Word Who came and purchased our salvation.”

So Genesis, right from the very first words, is actually the beginning of God's revelation to us of the Person and work of the Son of God - our Savior, Jesus Christ. If we reject God's revelation about His Son in Genesis One, we have only part of a Savior - and only part of Christ is no Christ at all!

And the photo... The woodpecker hits the tree so hard and fast that if he didn't have amazing shock absorbers he'd crush his skull. If he didn't have special claws on this feet he couldn't stay on and ...wait for it...if he didn't have an amazing long tongue wrapped around cavities in that amazing shock absorbing skull he couldn't lick up the prey through the newly bored hole!! Now O Evolutionist tell me which awesome bit of these 3 evolved first!! What a designer our God is! Have a fab day. Ant

What are you worth?

Value is determined by the price one is willing to pay for something. The Mona Lisa is often called "Priceless" because it is so valuable. A modern abstract canvas painting may seem worthless to many but if it came into your possession you would be foolish to throw it out and not put it up for auction if there were others who were willing to pay hundreds of thousands of Euro for it!
How much is your life worth? You might think its worthless, just a fat unwanted oversized carbon footprint which arrived in a meaning less way and would be better off absent from this sacred planet!...Think again!... You are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of the Wonderful Creator God and just as the value of a work of art is determined by the amount people are willing to pay for it much more your value is determined by the fact that God our Creator BANKRUPTED HEAVEN by sending HIs beloved son Jesus to take your place in suffering God's wrath against sin and purchasing for you eternal life in right clean relationship with HIm. Bin the sin and surrender to Jesus if you have not yet done so!

Truly Innocent and Truly Guilty

"Who is the most important person in your life?" I asked the man after him spending the last 15 minutes forcibly telling me that the message of the Gospel is "Loooove". "My mother" he answered. "That's idolatry...It's good to love your mother but to put her before God is to break the first commandment!". Earlier in the evening I asked another chap "Do you think there was ever a time that Jesus sinned", "Sure he sinned" replid my friend. I then looked him in the eye and with pointed finger said "That a lie and the the devil is the father of lies. He was the innocent lamb of God who was slain for your sins and mine".

When I consider the incredible power and simplicity of the gospel (the innocent dying for the guilty) I realize that we need to make sure that people understand that Jesus was truly innocent as we are all truly guilty. As long as souls are separated don't stop outreaching! Ant

Stunned and Silent

As soon as I mounted my 2 foot high stool at 10.30pm last night in Temple Bar, with the name above all names lifted high and the guitar strapped across my back, I knew I was in for a riotous time. A group of revellers started shouting back but I, with the higher elevation and superior angelic backing, answered them back. About a hundred gathered to hear the encounter and stayed, with great interest to hear that there is no forgiveness... without the shedding of the innocent blood of Jesus. Kenny, the Irishman who preaches daily in Manila Phillipines was with me and he was not used to such irreverence for Jesus. Where sin abounds grace abounds!!

Later on while witnessing to a french atheist who was not short on words about his opinion on all things biblical I quietly listened..not to him but to the Holy Spirit while I asked Him who knows all men for a Word of Knowledge. Was it a sore knee, leg arm or side? " No" I sensed the Lord saying "but his chest". I cut across his speaking and asked "Do you have a pain in you chest". Instantly he went silent and wide eyed as he stared in shock at me. "God knows everything about you and He wants you to know Him personally. Jesus paid the punishment for you." I said, or words to that affect. He then moved on...stunned and silent.

God has His people in various parts of the world bring the gospel to the unchurched on the street...Please join us for the harvest is rich while the labourers are pitifully few. Don't feel condemned by this call but challenged. I asked Kenny how he started evangelising and he said that after he heard his pastor complain that he had so many tracts but no one to give them out he gingerly took 2 and passed them out with great nervousness....the rest is history for this Irishman on the streets of Manila (see photo)

Miracles of healing!

10 minutes before and 5 yards away from here in Temple Bar this afternoon Jesus healed a chaps sore throat and demonstrated that He is the same yesterday, today and forever. Later a young teens sore legs were healed..To God be all the glory!! Ant

Why Genesis matters

I read today about a debate held years ago in a liberal Catholic school, presided over by a Benedictine monk about God's existence. It read " The evidence was decidedly in favour of the view that there was no God; the arguments went far beyond the obvious: If God was all powerful, he would not have stood by in the face of Auschwitz, Third World Hunger, Hiroshima..." I thought to myself how common this view was but also how Unbiblical and therefore unsound.

After God created He said it was Very Good. Did this involve the Lions savaging the young Roebuck or the horror of a diseased death to man or animal?..I think not. The world we see today is not the world God created but a corrupted version of it. Death is normal in an abnormal world. Yes the beauty does shine through in many ways but the contamination or corruption is the result of man's sin and the resulting entrance of death and decay of behaviour and environment. Many Christians are soft on Macro Evolution. They believe that God used evolving generations to get to Adam and Eve. If this was so then death and decay already existed when God warned man of death being the result of rebellion. It also means that GOD MADE DEATH in the same way he made life.

God is no liar and when he said in Genesis 2:1 "Thus the Heavens and the Earth were created" He meant it. He created the world perfect and he did it before he made the sun, moon and stars. He made the birds before the land animals, and the whole creation in 144 hours. True science supports this as does true application of His word. Denial of this leads to a view of God as the creator of evil who rightly deserves blame when things go wrong. The Gospel is "The innocent (Jesus) dying for the guilty (us)" . the incorrect modern view is that we are innocent and He is guilty....Wake up guys and smell the coffee!