Surprised by the Truth

We can face the future because God is in control

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These recent months have seen joyful anticipation of our Queen’s platinum jubilee, lessening of Covid 19 and the horrors of the war against Ukraine.

I have been helped by the C of E Bible Study notes: “Live Lent, Embracing Justice”. They have been very relevant and instructive. I shouldn’t be surprised, the Bible is full of history and prophecy. ”You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed.” Matthew 24:6

Many of us fear whether we would maintain our faith in God in an extreme situation. The royalist side in the English civil war was romanticised, especially after the Restoration in 1660. Richard and I both had ancestors in villages near Edgehill where people were caught in the crossfire and pillaged by both sides, who both claimed the victory.

In 1649 my ancestor (who was a tailor and parish clerk) had a twin who was butler at a manor house where, rumour has it, Cromwell stayed. On his sudden departure, Cromwell left behind some used pewter ware. Maybe a “tactical withdrawal”, or couldn’t pay the bill?  A far cry from, ‘being born with a silver spoon in your mouth’. If we could re-write our own history there is a lot we would alter or leave out!

In the 1941 Preface to The Screwtape Letters’, CS Lewis says: ”Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar. Not everything that Screwtape says should be assumed to be true even from his own angle….the history of the European War, except in so far as it happens now and then to impinge upon the spiritual condition of one human being, was obviously of no interest to Screwtape.”

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The Bible contains lots of information that you would not expect to be included. For example, in Acts 12:11-15.  Peter, being set free by an angel, walks to the house of John Mark’s mother and then knocks on the door. The servant girl, Rhoda, is so surprised to hear his voice, that she forgets to open the door and rushes back to tell the others gathered in the house to pray; they think she is mad! This detail makes it very convincing to me – I can see Rhoda in myself. God’s plan still happens, despite our human failings.  

We all want to stand firm in our faith, especially in these challenging times when people may come to us and ask for advice. The Bible is given to us by God, it’s not the story we might have chosen to write. When our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, he left behind, not used pewter plates, but His Holy Spirit to guide and counsel us. “I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.” John 14:18

We can face the future because God is in control. Jesus says, “Surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)   

And in Revelation 12: 

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power
    and the kingdom of our God,
    and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
    who accuses them before our God day and night,
    has been hurled down.
11 They triumphed over him
    by the blood of the Lamb
    and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
    as to shrink from death.

Author: Mandy Windridge

May God bless and enrich your life

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