Verse for Today

Sunday, November 27, 2011

The Motive for the Coming of Christ

Camperdown Methodist Church, 27 November 2011, 09h00
Rev Steven Jones
(adapted from There's A New World Coming by John van de Laar)

Scripture readings: Isaiah 64: 1-9; Mark 13: 24-27

This past week has been a particularly rough one on the South African politico-economic scene as the controversial Protection of State Information Bill was voted on in Parliament this past Tuesday; the controversy around Mac Maharaj and whether or not he received kickbacks continues to range; and then we have the incoming CEO of Sasol receiving a bonus of around R828,000 after his first month in office, sparking accusations of corporate greed. It’s a good thing that I’m basing this on publicly-available information, since if it were “classified” under the new Secrecy Bill I would probably risk being arrested after the service! As a result, more than one of my friends had commented this week on Facebook that emigration is starting to look like a viable option.

As Christians, we look at the world around us, read the headlines in the newspapers and see the images on TV news, and find ourselves slipping into a state of despair. We live in a world that is ripe for crackpot predictions about the coming of the end of the world. The last one predicted that the world would end on 21 October 2011. I don’t know what happened to the crowd that made this prediction, but their Website was still up as of yesterday! Yet we look at the signs around us, and can’t help wondering whether these are indeed the “Last Days” before Jesus comes again... [To download the full sermon, click here]