Posts Tagged ‘suffering’

One Bible verse has been often in my mind over the past couple of weeks.  Ecclesiastes chapter 7 vs 4: “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart”.

I’m sitting in bed, off sick from work with a cough and cold on my chest (no need for sympathy – I wrote this a couple of months back now). And it’s making me think about illness. Some of us have a continuous struggle with illness every day of our lives. Most of us are ill at some time or another, although you occasionally meet hardy specimens who haven’t missed a day’s work in 20 years.

Yet, even for those folk, the day may well come when they are struck down …

These are to signify that I Obadiah Holmes of Newport, Rhode Island being at present through the goodness and mercy of my God of sound memory and being by daily intimation put in mind of the frailty and uncertainty of this present life, do therefore for settling my estate in this world which it hath pleased the Lord to bestow upon me, make and ordain this my last will and testament in manner following, committing my spirit unto …

Do you expect to be sent to prison?  For a long time, I’ve accepted the fact that I’m likely to serve a jail sentence at some point.

What for?  For preaching the Bible.  And for trying to follow what it says.

How close are we to the situation where Christians in the UK will be jailed for simply preaching the Bible?

No-one knows.  But the answer is ‘closer than most people imagine’.  Already, Bible-believing Christians could be prosecuted for breaking …

Are you enjoying our Sunday evening studies in the book of Revelation?  I doubt it.  I hope we’re finding the studies mind-stretching, edifying, even exciting.  But hardly enjoyable.  Many of the things John sees in his vision are shocking, disturbing, at times terrifying.

One of the most constant themes in the book of Revelation is persecution.  John wrote for believers who were facing persecution.  And he took it for granted that believers in every age will be persecuted.

John was a true prophet.  All through …