PASTORAL CHAT
The Truth How We Are Now Become True Life Bible-Presbyterian Church
In Vol. I No. 43 of our Weekly dated 25 July 2004 last week it was reported “The new name of our Church is gazetted True Life Bible-Presbyterian Church”. How have we now become True Life Bible-Presbyterian Church began like this.
At a Faculty Meeting of Far Eastern Bible College Rev Colin Wong and Rev Charles Seet my two Assistant Pastors at Life B-P Church declared they could no longer take the Dean Burgon Oath of swearing allegiance to the Bible to be without mistake to the last syllable and letter. They said they had discovered some mistakes but these did not affect doctrine and were not serious.
Since this College has required absolute allegiance to the Bible since the seventies I gladly let them resign.
In order to protect the good name of FEBC I declared the Bible to be 100% perfect without any mistake.
As the Session of Life B-P Church took their side it turned out I had to resign from the Church to stand for a 100% Perfect Bible without mistake.
In the first week of October 03 the Lord provided us an Auditorium of RELC, situated near to Shangri-La Hotel, and under the name of FEBC we launched out as FEBC Lord’s Day Service at RELC. We took time to apply for registration as Word of Life or alternative True Life.
Since there is a Christian organisation already registered, the authorities let us use True Life and gazetted it as reported 25 July 04 last week.
I therefore call on our Interim Committee to meet in four days on Thu, 5th August to take action.
Doctrine in the belief of a 100% Perfect Bible without any mistake and doctrine of belief in a Bible with some mistakes but not serious since they don’t touch doctrine resulted in our leaving Life B-P Church to start this service since first week of October 03. Now there are 300 worshipping at RELC and we have booked with RELC for another year.
This is the truth how it all started.
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Dean Burgon Oath
I swear in the Name of the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit that I believe “the Bible is none other than the voice of Him that sitteth upon the throne. Every book of it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every word of it, every syllable of it, every letter of it, is direct utterance of the Most High. The Bible is none other than the Word of God, not some part of it more, some part of it less, but all alike the utterance of Him that sitteth upon the throne, faultless, unerring, supreme.” So help me God, AMEN.
Your affectionate pastor
T T
THE GOSPEL OF LIFE:
Chapter V
John 5:1
Jesus Attends Every Feast
Whether this feast was the feast of Pentecost or Passover, Jesus attends every one that is required of Jewish males under the Mosaic Law. There are three of them according to Deut. 16, which are the Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. Deut. l6:16-17 says, “Three times a year shall all the males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread (Passover), and in the feast of weeks (Pentecost) and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the Lord empty. Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessings of the Lord thy God which He has given thee.”
Thus, when Jesus had reached the age of 12, the age of a Jewish boy being admitted to the Church, He was seen at the Passover with His parents, and “in the temple sitting in the midst of the doctors.” It can be presumed that ever since that first Passover Feast, our Lord had visited Jerusalem every year, for He came not to destroy the Law of Moses, but to fulfill (Matt. 5:17).
What an example is set for us in Church attendance! While we now do not keep the Mosaic ceremonies, these being fulfilled in Christ, there is the Lord’s Day that we should, when we all go to Church on Sunday (Heb. 10:25). There is the Lord’s Supper that is observed in most churches every first Lord’s Day of the month, which we should never miss. And the weekly prayer meeting, “for where two or three are gathered together in my Name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20).
It is said that some members see their pastor only three times in all their life – baptism at birth, wedding solemnisation in adulthood, funeral in old age. God forbid!
John 5:2-7
Angel at work!
The sheep market is thought by some to be the sheep gate (Neh. 3:1; 12:39). Bethesda is the Aramaic name of the pool. It means House of Mercy, inasmuch as the pool is adorned and sheltered by five porches, giving it a sheltered effect.
Some modern commentators, arguing from the omission of “awaiting for the moving of the water” of v. 3 and all of v. 4 in certain ancient manuscripts, take a naturalistic view of the healing. They regard the pool of Bethesda no more than a spa or healthspring. But the difficulty in such argument is that spas and health-springs might help somewhat. To effect a cure of the incurable requires divine power. In this case, the ancient Church believed, as did these invalid, sick and abandoned by Bethesda pool, the healing dispensed through the pool was by the agency of an angel. But it was to the faithful, persevering and earnest ones, who got into the water first, that cures were given. God had to limit grace to a few to find out who were the faithful to receive it. In Matt. 11:12 Jesus says that it is the violent who by force takes the kingdom of heaven. Scofield comments, “It is the violently resolute who would press into it.” Apparently, the man who was an invalid for 38 years had the resolute spirit, but lost out to others because of his physical handicap. Is it for this reason that Christ came to deliver him? “Men ought always to pray and not faint” (Luke 18:1).
A word from Calvin on the miraculous healing by angelic power: “Yet as a witness for the Temple and the sacrifices and the whole of that worship from which salvation was to appear to the world, the Lord retained among the Jews this gift of healing so that they might be aware that God had not separated them from the other nations in vain. By healing the sick God showed openly, as by a hand stretched from heaven, that He approved the kind of worship that they received from the commands of the Law.”
With the advancement of medical science today by God’s increased common grace to mankind, are not devoted Christian doctors and nurses angels too? Then there’s another angel by the name of Nightingale!
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An Invitation
10th Anniversary Thanksgiving Service
Sunday, 1 August 2004, 2 pm
The Pyramids of Egypt
