Sermon Audio

Scripture: “He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth”
Psalm 104 :14.

Preacher: Rev. Ivan Foster

Stream or download Food from the Earth

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This psalm has been called the poet’s version of the Genesis account of creation. The author is believed to be David most likely. One can well imagine the observations of nature set down in this psalm being noted by the shepherd boy on the hills of Bethlehem as he tended the flocks of his father.
To the spiritually enlightened mind nature provides much instruction. The seasons of the year are nature’s evangelists. Nature cannot enlighten the mind in the knowledge of God however. This requires an act of regeneration by the Holy Ghost. What nature may do is to reveal the wonderful power and wisdom of God to a mind enlightened by the Holy Ghost.
The Creator manages His Creation for the benefit of His creatures. A sight of this will bring forth songs of praise, verse 1.
Our text is found in the verse 14. The verse commences with a very humbling truth. God causes the grass to grow. Such a common things as grass is formed and brought forth by God. It is not the work of man. He may plant and water and fertilize but he cannot make it to grow. Happy is the man that learns the lesson of the grass. In seeing his own weakness and God’s greatness he is brought to a place where he may learn an even greater lesson — the way of salvation. My text is the final phrase of the verse.
“. . . .that he may bring forth food out of the earth.”

I. EVERY HARVEST REMINDS MAN OF HIS ORIGINS
He that is fed from the earth must have come from the earth. That is what the Bible teaches us regarding man. Gen 2:7.
1. Here is a truth that is fundamentally important. The origins of all things are set before us in the very first words of Holy Writ. How vital must be this truth if it is so presented to us. Man can never know himself or the purpose of his existence if he does not learn this truth.
2. Here is a truth man still rejects. Man refuses to accept the Genesis account of his origins and continues to seek to concoct a theory as to how he originated. 6000 years of searching have failed to produce an answer that can stand examination. Evolutionists claim to have found the answer but their view is so terribly flawed that they must constantly revise it in order to accommodate the contradictions and absurdities within their theory.
3. In rejecting this truth man rebels against his Creator. The rebellion we witness in society is a parallel to that in which man is engaged against the Lord. Children refuse the authority of their parents. Citizens refuse the authority of rulers. Men refuse the authority of God.

II. EVERY HARVEST REMINDS MAN OF HIS DEPENDENCE UPON GOD.
While man may refuse to acknowledge God he is nevertheless dependent upon Him. Man may have harnessed, in a very limited way, some of the powers of nature but he cannot control those powers. The hurricane, the flood, the drought and, above all, the growing of food testify to this fact.
1. God controls the harvest. He causeth the earth to bring forth.
The earth will obey only the Creator. His voice alone can cause the earth to respond and put in motion all the chemical and biological changes that are required to bring forth growth. Man may fertilise but few ever wonder how that it produces the effect that it does. But more than the earth is at work in the harvest. What of the sun and the rain? What of the creatures such as worms whose actions aerate the soil? There are even guardians set over the harvest in the form of tiny insects which feed upon others that would damage crops. Farmers in California have learned that their poison sprays were doing more harm than good in that they killed far more beneficial insects than harmful ones.
2. The earth produces all man requires. Even the synthetic materials are the product of the harvest of the earth. Nylon, Rayon, etc. are by-products of the forests that perished in the great flood. There is nothing that man uses that does not come from the earth.

III. EVERY HARVEST REMINDS MAN OF HIS DESTINY
He that lives off the earth must go the way of the earth. “Behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth,” Joshua 23:14.
1. Note the cycle of life. Spring, summer, harvest, winter. While all these seasons will come to us we do not know how long they will last. Some summers are long and some are short. We can swiftly move from summer to winter.
2. All the earth has a harvest. There is a harvest of the beneficial crops and of the weeds. Good men and evil men will face a reaping. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad,” II Cor 5:10.

IV. EVERY HARVEST REMINDS MAN OF THE CROSS.
1. Christ the seed. Christ calls Himself the corn of wheat.  John 12:24. He was the divine seed that was planted for the food of the soul. He was sown by His Father’s hand for the feeding of the souls of men. John 6:35, 48, 51.
2. He was planted in death. John 12:24.
3. He was raised as a harvest. Food for the soul is to be found upon the cross. As the trees of the Garden of Eden provided for Adam and Eve, so the cross provides for us.
4. He is free to all who will partake. “At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat,” Matt 12:1.
You walk amidst a gospel cornfield and have but to reach out and pluck the corn of life. May the Lord give you a hunger for Christ.

Preached September 5th, 1993 by Rev. Ivan Foster

Stream or download Perjuring Prelates

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Why there is a reluctance by many Church of Ireland clerics to affirm their belief in Article 31 of the 39 Articles of Religion.

“Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the LORD, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the LORD, to the help of the LORD against the mighty,” Judges 5:23

The 39 Articles of Religion form the doctrinal basis of Anglicanism. They were first compiled in 1562, finally replacing the Articles compiled in the reign of Henry VIII. Henry’s Articles  grew out of the confusion of doctrine that was being preached in the land at that time of reformation and upheaval. Henry sent a circular to all the bishops on 12th July 1536, forbidding all preaching until Michaelmas (September 29th) by which time articles of religion would be set down as a doctrinal guideline. The king himself drew up the articles which were duly agreed by both houses  of the Anglican Convocation. They were anything but Biblical and were filled with popish superstition. Baptismal regeneration, transubstantiation, purgatory, prayers to saints, holy water, the sign of the cross, kissing the cross and images as part of worship were all sanctioned by Henry’s Articles. In 1552, Archbishop Cranmer and Bishop Ridley compiled 42 articles which, after an examination by bishops and learned men, were reviewed by Cranmer and Ridley and ratified by King Edward VII. These articles became the basis of the present 39 Articles.

Article 31 deals with the finished sacrifice of Christ upon the cross. It was a subject that lay at the very heart of the controversy between the Reformers and Rome. The article firstly sets forth the Purpose, Parameters and Peerlessness of the Saviour’s death. It then deals with the false doctrine of Rome. It calls Masses a blasphemous fables and a dangerous deceits. Rome claims that the Mass is the same sacrifice as the sacrifice of the cross and that during the Mass, the bread and wine are turned into the actual body and blood of Christ and is then eaten by the worshipper in order to receive eternal life.

In today’s Ecumenical Movement, which is designed to reverse the Reformation, there is a great loathing of these Articles and indeed all the Creeds that come down to us from that time of glorious revival. Anglican ministers, by and large, do not believe them even though they swore to uphold them when they were ordained. Bishop Hannon has epitomised the antipathy of the ecumenists within his church toward these articles by his silent response to my challenge to state clearly that he believes this article. He has affirmed his belief of these articles on a number of occasions during his rise up through the clerical ranks of the Church of Ireland. Such affirmations, however, are lost in the ritual and pomp of Anglican services. I challenged him to proclaim his rejection of the popish mass in a clear and simple manner that could not be disguised by ritual or pomp. That, it appears, he would not do. What does that make the bishop when he is prepared to affirm in the relative privacy of an Anglican service that which he is unwilling to affirm in the much more public arena of a newspaper column? Why is there this reluctance by ecumenists to publicly affirm the teaching of their own churches?

I. THEY NO LONGER REALLY BELIEVE THESE DOCTRINES BUT WISH TO AVOID DRAWING ATTENTION TO THAT FACT

The evidence that they no longer believe these doctrines is clear.

1. They are never heard preaching them.

2. They are most embarrassed by their links with them.  Hence his (and that of others) silence in the face of my challenge.

3. They openly fraternise with those condemned by the doctrines. The Bishop calls Christian those whom his Articles call blasphemers and deceivers.

4. Legally and morally Dr. Hannon could not continue as Bishop of Clogher if he told the truth and acknowledged that he does not believe Article 31. So, illegally and immorally, he continues as Bishop by concealing the fact that he rejects his own standards.

II. THEY ARE MEN BLIND TO THE TRUTH OF GOD

They can engage in this masquerade because they cannot see what will be the consequences. They are the present day successors of a long line of opponents of God’s Truth.

1. Blind leaders are not new. Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch, Matt 15:14.

2. Some are foolish enough to follow them. Who, why those that are likewise blind, blinded by falsehoods.

3. Such leaders lead astray. But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the LORD of hosts, Mal 2:8

4. Leaders and led are heading for disaster. Fall into the ditch. For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed, Isa 9:16. But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction, II Pet 2:1.

III. OUT OF CONCERN FOR THE SOULS OF MEN WE MUST CRY OUT AGAINST SUCH FOLLY

Acts 20:29-31, I Tim 4:6.

1. Without the witness of Truth the lie shall flourish.  If we see the advance of false gospels today it is a condemning of the silence of those who know the truth. Judges 5:16-17, 23. Too busy with business considerations to help even though like Meroz, near at hand. Meroz is an unknown place now. Cursed indeed.

2. The method of Article 31 is to be followed. Christ commended — the lie condemned. We must preach up Christ and expose the falsehoods that threaten to damn the souls of this generation. This is the method God has ever honoured.

 

Preached on 5th September 1993.