Good News for All
Each week on Sundays we meet on a Zoom meeting at 3pm which is then followed by our evening service at 6pm in the Chapel. Every first week of the month on a Wednesday at 7pm there is a pray meeting and bible at the chapel.
PLEASE NOTE: All other Wednesday meetings are on Zoom at 7pm.
Please contact us if you would like to join us, or simple turn up on the allocated days at the Chapel.
At Ebenezer Gospel Chapel we aim to maintain a warm and friendly
atmosphere coupled with clear Bible teaching
Like all South Wales valley churches we are fairly small in number but, we have seen new faces since reopening after the pandemic.
Every blessing,
‘The Elders of Ebenezer Gospel Chapel’
Archives
Covid-19 has caused deep anxiety and awareness of human fragility. The need is for a solid foundation for faith as we look to the future. Thankfully such a blessing is nearby.
London’s British Museum owns an ancient copy of the Bible known as Codex Sinaiticus. A German named Tischendorf discovered it in St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai in 1844. The Czar of Russia obtained it but later the Soviet government sold it to the British Museum in 1933 for £100,000.
The codex was copied approximately 250 years after the New Testament was completed. That seemingly long gap when compared with other works from the ancient world pales into insignificance. The earliest copy of Caesar’s ‘the Gallic Wars’ date from 1,000 years after it was written, while Aristotle’s works are 1,400 years and Plato’s 1,200 years after their completion. Those copies are accepted as authentic, then even more so must the codex.
The codex is one of many copies of Scripture dating from ancient times, with over 5000 copies of the Greek New Testament and many translations, such as the Latin Vulgate. God has preserved His Word and we can confidently read the Bible as the authentic Holy Scriptures. God says, “Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall never pass away” and “The Word of the Lord endures forever”. The Bible maybe criticised but its integrity has never been invalidated nor its truth undermined.
Preserved versions like Codex Sinaiticus remind us that we can trust God’s Word and its message can give us the security of salvation, forgiveness and eternal life.
April 19th 2020
There is a very real sense in which we should approach God in humility, with no arrogance or foolish personal pride. He is the great one and we are simply those who are privileged to approach Him through Jesus Christ His Son. We are utterly insignificant when compared with the greatness and glory of God.
A college girl who was studying music visited the home (now a museum) of the composer Beethoven. She slipped under the rope and began playing Beethoven’s piano. The curator approached her and she said, “I suppose every musician who comes here wants to play this piano.” He explained that recently the world famous pianist, Paderewski had visited and was urged to play Beethoven’s piano. Paderewski replied, “No, I do not feel worthy to play the great master’s piano.”
I don’t know how that girl felt or how she responded, but I should think that she was chastened and left a little more thoughtful than she entered. She could not compare with the great Paderewski, never mind Beethoven.
Similarly we need a sober assessment of ourselves as fallible, finite human beings who are prone to mistakes and sins. We make our own contribution to the failures of mankind and add our little bit to the general misery found on earth today. Yet the great, infallible, infinite God loves us and demonstrated his love in His Son, Jesus Christ. All who believe in Christ, acknowledging their need of Him will be saved and be secure for all eternity. Swallow pride and accept in humble faith the Saviour and His love , especially in these anxious times of Covid-19.
May 2nd 2020
Some of the most wonderful words in the Bible are found in John 3.16: For God so loved… Do we in any way appreciate the deep love of God for us?
The story is told of the time when Britain was ruled as a commonwealth under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell. One man had committed a crime and had been brought before a military court. This was far from the man’s first crime and it was of a most serious nature and so he was sentenced to death. The execution was timed to take place that evening at the “ringing of the curfew bell”. Some hours before that ringing the man’s fiancée climbed up to the bell and tied herself to the huge clapper inside. At curfew time only a muted sound could be faintly heard but no sound of the bell. Soldiers were sent to investigate and eventually brought the woman cut and bleeding before Cromwell. He was so impressed with her deep and sincere love for the soldier and her willingness to suffer for him that Cromwell released the soldier saying, “Curfew will not ring tonight”. It is a wonderful story of sacrificial love and devotion.
The love of God is an even greater sacrifice as Jesus went to Calvary’s cross to suffer the full punishment that we deserved for our sins. He paid a horrendous price at the cross and through faith in Him we can be saved and cleansed from sin and made good enough for Heaven. It is the most glorious blessing to personally trust Jesus and experience the love which God has for us in Christ.
July 2020
The historian, Edward Gibbon lived from 1737 to 1794 and his most famous work was his study into the Roman Empire which was published as, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and in it he traced the reasons for the demise of one of the greatest, most prosperous and well organised empires the world has ever seen. Those reasons were as follows.
The rapid increase in divorce. This undermined the sanctity of marriage and destabilised family life and was a major contribution to the breakdown of strength, stability and integrity in Roman society. The Bible emphasises the need for fidelity and love in marriages, so that children are not disorientated but balanced and healthy through true family life. The experience of Rome gives a warning for us today.
Higher taxes. This became an alarming burden for the working population of the Roman Empire as their wages decreased in value through punitive taxation systems. This led to frustration and disillusionment with government and cynicism about society.
The mad craze for pleasure. This can be summarised as “eat, drink and be merry” and is the philosophy of hedonism. This grips much of society today but we should take warning from history that selfishness leads to social decay. The Bible does not emphasise self-indulgence but self-sacrifice and commitment to the welfare of others.
The building of gigantic armaments. Weapons of mass destruction were relied upon to maintain a prosperous way of life. We have seen the building of more sophisticated, expensive and destructive weapons in modern times and yet we do not feel more secure. True protection is eternal and spiritual through trust in Jesus Christ.
The decay of religion. When there is no true appreciation of and reverence for God and the wonder of His salvation then a society has truly lost its moorings. This was true of the Roman Empire and it seems increasingly true of modern day society. There is need to turn our attention back to God, to His Word – the Bible and to His Son, Jesus Christ.
July 2020
There may be times in life when we think that no one cares about us. Family may have gone, we don’t know our neighbours, friends may have grown distant and it all seems so lonely, pointless and hopeless.
At such time we need to remember that God’s love for us is unconditional even though He knows all about us. People may turn from us if they knew all our dark secrets but God never does that. His love is limitless, immeasurable and free and it is important not to ignore it but to embrace it.
During the American Civil War a young man who was called up to fight on the northern side soon after he was engaged to marry a beautiful girl, the love of his life. They wrote to each other every day and it was always a relief that he had come through the latest battle or skirmish unscathed.
Unfortunately after the Battle of the Wilderness she received a letter written by a friend on his behalf and in the letter it said, “I have been severely wounded and I have had both arms amputated. I realise that you will not want to marry an amputee and I release you from the engagement. I hope you find someone and be happy. I love you very much.”
She did not reply to that letter but boarded the next train which went near the battlefield and eventually walked to the fields where the wounded were in tents. She searched until she found her fiancé and went to him, put her arms around his neck and said, “I will never give you up. These hands of mine will help of you. I will take care of you.”
She showed wonderful, sacrificial love for a fiance who loved her but God’s love is greater. He loves those who hate Him, who blaspheme His name, who claim not to believe in Him, who break His laws and commandments and that includes all of us. In love He sacrificed His Son for us on the cross that through faith in Christ we could be forgiven and enjoy eternal life.
June 2020
There was a couple who sadly had no children but they, and the husband in particular, always claimed that they loved children. Their garden bordered on to a golf course and one summer’s day the husband was laying a concrete path to a gate that led onto the course. He had one of those machines that squirt the concrete into the right place and then spent a long time smoothing it out until it shone like glass. He stood back to admire his handiwork when the next door neighbour’s little boy came through the gate and ran along the newly laid path. The man shouted out in anger and the boy stopped and turned around in the wet concrete and ran back to the gate to escape. The man’s anger was obvious and his work ruined, at least in the short term. His wife heard him through the open window and said, “I thought you said you liked children”. He replied, “I love them in the abstract and not in the concrete!”.
That was literally in the concrete but how many speak of loving others but it is nothing more than theoretical. They have no desire to sacrifice for the good of others or inconvenience themselves that others, less fortunate, might benefit. As long at the needy are far away I can give a little money to salve my conscience but there is no need to get my hand dirty or have my life disrupted in any way. We look on in amazement at those who sit with the homeless on the streets, who run the soup kitchen and reach out to the destitute, the poor, the wretched and the demoralised.
Christ came to earth from the splendour of Heaven. He not only talked about loving us but proved it by humbling Himself and dying the horrendous death on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins. He opened a door and says that all who trust in Him can have their sins forgiven and go one day to the splendour of Heaven, but all who are his true followers mush reflect His character of sacrificial service to others and especially toward those who are in need. We must not simply show love in the abstract but also in the concrete.
June 2020
There were a couple who lived in fear of an atomic attack and the resulting fall-out of radiation. They realised that a nuclear devise detonated many miles away could prove lethal and also they feared what a domestic nuclear facility could cause if mistakes were made and things went wrong. So they decided to look for a safe place, a place of peace and security.
They studied maps and used computer models and found the place with the least likelihood of danger from nuclear war, conventional war or accidents from nuclear power stations. The place, according to all available evidence, were a couple of islands in the Southern Hemisphere. So they moved there from the United States in the early eighties and wrote to their friends back home ‘that they had moved to the most peaceful place on earth’.
Unfortunately they had moved to the Falkland Islands and just a few weeks later Argentinean forces invaded. They had to endure invasion, occupation and the retaking of those islands by the British Task Force. Instead of peace they found war. Instead of tranquillity and safety they found violence and death. Instead of security they found danger. Their illusions were shattered and their hopes were dashed.
It reminds us that peace is not found in a place but in a person. The Lord Jesus is described as ‘the Prince of Peace’. To those who trust Him and embrace Him by faith is to experience the wonder of inner calm and security which is described in the New Testament as ‘the peace of God, which passes all understanding’. I do hope that you have found that wonderful peace through the Lord Jesus Christ.
May 2020
Covid-19 has emphasised the fact that we live in a constantly changing world. Many things change for the worse, they wear out, breakdown, disintegrate and decline with very little being stable or changing for the better. Someone has written, ‘I am sick of this everlasting change’. Yet the ability to change and be different is one of the great gifts the Creator has bestowed upon us, but so often we instinctively want to cling to what is familiar.
The Gospel message insists that there can be change for the better and is summarised in ‘Repent and believe’. To repent means to change one’s direction, attitude, outlook, behaviour, motives, belief and thought processes. It means to leave the self-centred ways of sin and fully yield in total devotion to Christ. Only then can we be made good enough to dwell in the presence of God. Only then are we cleansed and made pure enough for the glorious life of Heaven.
Yet at the heart of our existence and world is one great unchanging God as He is the eternal permanence. His character remains the same, His eternal purposes never vary and He is the same yesterday and today and forever. Therefore our Saviour can be relied upon and we can always reach out for Him as the one who always keeps His promises.
It is such a blessing to know the unchanging God and experience the most wonderful transformation that the Saviour gives to those who believe on Him.
May 2020
Covid-19 has caused deep anxiety and awareness of human fragility. The need is for a solid foundation for faith as we look to the future. Thankfully such a blessing is nearby.
London’s British Museum owns an ancient copy of the Bible known as Codex Sinaiticus. A German named Tischendorf discovered it in St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai in 1844. The Czar of Russia obtained it but later the Soviet government sold it to the British Museum in 1933 for £100,000.
The codex was copied approximately 250 years after the New Testament was completed. That seemingly long gap when compared with other works from the ancient world pales into insignificance. The earliest copy of Caesar’s ‘the Gallic Wars’ date from 1,000 years after it was written, while Aristotle’s works are 1,400 years and Plato’s 1,200 years after their completion. Those copies are accepted as authentic, then even more so must the codex.
The codex is one of many copies of Scripture dating from ancient times, with over 5000 copies of the Greek New Testament and many translations, such as the Latin Vulgate. God has preserved His Word and we can confidently read the Bible as the authentic Holy Scriptures. God says, “Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall never pass away” and “The Word of the Lord endures forever”. The Bible maybe criticised but its integrity has never been invalidated nor its truth undermined.
Preserved versions like Codex Sinaiticus remind us that we can trust God’s Word and its message can give us the security of salvation, forgiveness and eternal life.
April 19th 2020
There is a very real sense in which we should approach God in humility, with no arrogance or foolish personal pride. He is the great one and we are simply those who are privileged to approach Him through Jesus Christ His Son. We are utterly insignificant when compared with the greatness and glory of God.
A college girl who was studying music visited the home (now a museum) of the composer Beethoven. She slipped under the rope and began playing Beethoven’s piano. The curator approached her and she said, “I suppose every musician who comes here wants to play this piano.” He explained that recently the world famous pianist, Paderewski had visited and was urged to play Beethoven’s piano. Paderewski replied, “No, I do not feel worthy to play the great master’s piano.”
I don’t know how that girl felt or how she responded, but I should think that she was chastened and left a little more thoughtful than she entered. She could not compare with the great Paderewski, never mind Beethoven.
Similarly we need a sober assessment of ourselves as fallible, finite human beings who are prone to mistakes and sins. We make our own contribution to the failures of mankind and add our little bit to the general misery found on earth today. Yet the great, infallible, infinite God loves us and demonstrated his love in His Son, Jesus Christ. All who believe in Christ, acknowledging their need of Him will be saved and be secure for all eternity. Swallow pride and accept in humble faith the Saviour and His love , especially in these anxious times of Covid-19.
May 2nd 2020