Word of Salvation – Vol. 53 No.20 – May 2008   The First — And Last   A Sermon by Rev Sjirk Bajema on Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 34 Scripture Reading: Matthew 4:1-11   Brother, sister, young person... Where is your eye? What are you looking at? “Well, Mr Preacher,” you might say, “I’m looking at you actually!” Good! Now let me ask: “Why me?” Don’t hurry, take a few moments to think about what this is all about. Why are you here? Where is your inner eye looking? Are you looking to God? The God who has made himself known...

Word of Salvation – Vol. 54 No.8 – January 2009   Minding Your Language?   A Sermon by Rev Sjirk Bajema on Heidelberg Catechism, LD 43  Scripture Reading: Mark 14:53-65   Congregation... For a commandment that says simply, “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour,” Answer 112 sure seems to have a lot of dos and don’ts. But then this Lord’s Day isn’t really for you, is it? These sins of the tongue couldn’t possibly be yours, could they? I mean, who among us would ever “give false testimony against anyone”? None of us would ever “twist anyone’s words”,...

Word of Salvation – Vol. 54 No.4 – January 2009   Taking,Breaking Or Making?   A Sermon by Rev Sjirk Bajema on Heidelberg Catechism, LD 42  Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 12:1-10   Congregation... How would you feel if you were told a story like the one we read from 2 Samuel 12? A story that tells you of something so absolutely unfair you cannot help but grow very angry. What a terrible injustice! A devastating example of man’s inhumanity to man. How could anyone treat someone the way that rich man treated the poor man, just taking his lamb? The reaction of David...

Word of Salvation - January 2011   DON’T STEAL; GIVE LIFE INSTEAD By Rev. John de Hoog (Sermon 9 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Reading: 1 Timothy 6:6-10, 17-21 Text: Exodus 20:15; Luke 12:13-21   The reading from Luke 12 contains the famous story of the rich fool. A simple story with an obvious meaning - don’t put too much value on earthly goods for you cannot take them with you. Don’t be greedy for more all the time, for you will lose it all in the end anyway.   Let’s think briefly about this parable. Notice three...

Word of Salvation - February 2011   THE POWER OF TRUTH WITH LOVE, Rev. John de Hoog (Sermon 10 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Reading: Deuteronomy 19:15-21; Proverbs 6:16-19 Text: Exodus 20:16; Ephesians 4:15   Human beings are made in God’s image. That basic fact about us gives the Ten Commandments all their power. A couple of examples:   “You shall not murder”. When we murder or attack another human being, it involves attacking God, because we are tearing up God’s image in that other person.   “You shall not steal.” God made human beings to own and...

Word of Salvation - December 2010   PROPER DELIGHT IS THE KEY, John de Hoog (Sermon 8 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Reading: Ephesians 5:21-33 Text: Exodus 20:14; Proverbs 5   Most people in Australia have not thought deeply about God and sex. If you were to ask people in the street what God thinks of sex, what kind of response do you think you’d get? “I guess he’s pretty much against it,” one person might say. “I suppose he tolerates it for married people, but not because he thinks it’s a good thing; it’s got to be...

Word of Salvation - November 2010   SACRED LIVING, John de Hoog (Sermon 7 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Reading: Matthew 5:17-30 Text: Exodus 20:13 & Genesis 9:1-7   When faced with Law, our natural human response is to try to shrink it. We treat Law like the edge of a small circle. Here’s the line you can’t cross, but everything outside the line is fair enough. And we try to shrink the circle.   It’s natural for us; it starts when we are very young. Your children are fighting and you put a stop to it. You...

Word of Salvation - September 2010   HONOURING YOUR PARENTS, John de Hoog (Sermon 6 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Text: Exodus 20:12 Reading: Ephesians 5:22-6:9 Music: BOW 9, 369, “Have faith in God”, “Your grace is sufficient”   Many people see the fifth commandment about honouring your parents as the softest commandment. A sermon on this commandment is going to contain lots of warm fuzzies about family and good kids, and the preacher will tell us to get our act together with the way we are raising our kids, but generally speaking it will all be rather...

Word of Salvation - August 2010   RESTING FROM, RESTING FOR, John de Hoog (Sermon 5 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Text – Exodus 20:8-11 Reading – Hebrews 4:1-11 Singing – BOW 346, 474, “Jesus is our Song (Percival)”, “I am Carried (Bullock)”   How is your day going? What are your plans for today?   Here we are, gathered together as a church for our regular Sunday morning service. Why do we do this?   If an alien from outer space were to observe the world from his space ship, one bit of evidence that there are...

Word of Salvation - July 2010   BEARING THE NAME, John de Hoog (Sermon 4 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Text – Exodus 20:7 Reading – Daniel 9:1-19   God has invited you and me into a covenant relationship with him. In that invitation, he says to us, “You can have my name upon you.”   Have you thought about that?   If you adopt a child, you give that child your name. [Take some examples of adopted children that you and the congregation know about.] You can have my name upon you. That’s what the Lord God...

Word of Salvation - June 2010   THE SECOND COMMANDMENT, John de Hoog (Sermon 3 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Text – Exodus 20:4-6 Reading – Colossians 1:13-23 Singing: – BOW 95a, 379, 116a, 388, “Ancient of Days”, “You are my all in all”   One of the most important questions you can ask yourself is how you are going to relate to God. How is your relationship with God from day to day going to be defined? It’s OK to have knowledge about God; that’s really important. And it’s crucial that you decide that God is going...

Word of Salvation – May 2010   BE A FALSE GOD BUSTER, John de Hoog (Sermon 2 in a series on the Ten Commandments)   Text – Exodus 20:3 Reading – Psalm 115 Singing – BOW 115, 146, 436, “Exalt the Lord our God”, “No foreign gods”   In the First Commandment, God says, “You shall have no other gods before me.”   Is this a command for Christians?   I understand that the Second Commandment is for me – don’t make idols or bow down to them. The Third Commandment is for me – don’t use God’s name in vain....

Word of Salvation – April 2010   NO OTHER GODS, John de Hoog (Sermon 1 on a series on the Ten Commandments)   Text – Exodus 19:9-20:3 Reading – Isaiah 46:5-13 Singing – BOW 170, 161, 515, “God and God alone”, “There is none like you”   Sermon on Exodus 19:9-20:3 “No other gods”   In the 1980s I worked at the Australian Bureau of Statistics in Canberra. For a while I worked on the Census. The ABS conducts a Census every five years; it's a reasonably accurate way of measuring the population of Australia, and of gaining some basic information...

Word of Salvation – Vol.53 No.48 – December 2008   Flower Power  A Sermon by Rev Sjirk Bajema on Heidelberg Catechism, LD 41 Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 5   Congregation... In our studies of the Catechism, we have recently been looking at the second table of the Ten Commandments using a picture of a fountain in a garden. We have used the fountain we are imagining to symbolise the family. What comes out of the family can be compared to the water which comes out of a fountain. The family is God’s way of controlling the quality of the water, of...

Word of Salvation – Vol.53 No.44 – November 2008   Letting the Water of His Goodness Flow  A Sermon by Rev Sjirk Bajema on Heidelberg Catechism, LD 40 Scripture Reading: Genesis 4:1-11   Congregation of our Lord... The Lord saw right through Cain. He looked at his heart. He perceived what was about to happen. He knew he was going to kill Abel. He even says it to Cain in Genesis 4:6-7. “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what’s right, sin is...

The Family is Love's Fountain A Sermon by Rev Sjirk Bajema on Heidelberg Catechism, LD 39 Scripture Reading:  Ephesians 6:1-9   Fellow saints... There is a change here in the Ten Commandments. The fifth commandment has quite a different focus than the first four commandments. This is why the fifth commandment has often been known as the first command of the second table of the Law. And this is the structure our Lord Jesus demonstrated, when, in Matthew 22:37 he said that the greatest commandment in the Law was to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with...

Word of Salvation – Vol.53 No.36 – September 2008   On God's Day Go God's Way! A Sermon by Rev Sjirk Bajema on Heidelberg Catechism, LD 38 Scripture Readings: Exodus 20:8-11; Hebrews 4:1-11   Congregation... There was a movie some years ago which brought out very well the meaning of the fourth commandment. The person who obeyed God by having a day of rest on Sunday wasn’t understood by those around him — and certainly not by the makers of the movie — yet his principle was clear. Not even the Prince of Wales could convince that man to break it!...

Word of Salvation – Vol.53 No.32 – August 2008   Got Your Hand on Your Bible A Sermon by Rev Sjirk Bajema on Heidelberg Catechism, LD 37 Scripture Readings:  Leviticus 24:10-23; Matthew 10:32-33   Congregation... Is this all real? Have we actually met for worship two times this Sunday? Now, could it be, in, say, three years times that I could possibly deny that you and I were here today? Imagine if I were to say then, “You know, I can’t recall that I was actually in the ………………………… Church that Sunday?"  Or even perhaps, “No, I’m absolutely sure I wasn’t...

Word of Salvation – Vol.53 No.28 – July 2008   The Name Above All Names! A Sermon by Rev Sjirk Bajema on Heidelberg Catechism, LD 36 Scripture Readings: Leviticus 24:10-23; Matthew 10:32-33 Congregation in our Lord Jesus Christ... The first and second commandments have very clearly told us that we’re not to rebel against who God is and how He shows Himself in His Word. They are commandments which concern what we are within — they begin with our hearts and souls. They are about inward attitudes. Now, with the third commandment, we move from that inward attitude to the outward...

Warnings that aren’t read My wife bought two new bedside table-lamps recently.  Last week I finally got around to opening the boxes, fitting some light globes (not supplied – of course) and placing them in their appointed location.  On opening the boxes I glanced at the product information leaflet included with each lamp.  After a brief introduction that extoled the benefits of the product there was a list of safety warnings.  In fact there were fourteen of them. Stone the crows!  Why do we need a list of fourteen warnings for a simple product such as a table lamp?  The producers...