News & Announcements

1. Pr. Mathews Abraham brings the message to our 1st and 2nd worship services today.
   
   
2. Church Camp: Please note that there will be a Camp briefing today at 12:30pm. It is important for you to attend this to be briefed on the final logistic arrangements for the Camp.
   
   
3. Youth Mission Trip, Cambodia, 14th to 17th June.
   Today 10 Youth Mission Team members will be handing out envelopes to raise
   support for their airfare and expenses ($2,500). Do encourage them with your support and prayers.

God’s View On Homosexuality

Our generally conservative society is today coming under increasing pressure from the "gay rights movement". They seek to have homosexuality legitimized as a normal, acceptable sexual orientation. They claim it is a state in which one is born with, and hence it ought to be accepted. What is more worrying are the comments made by Christian leaders who condone homosexuality as acceptable behaviour.

Changing societies do not dictate God’s standards. God is the ultimate and sovereign Judge of sin. Homosexuality is sin according to His word – it is not decided by public opinion or any particular government’s stand on it. Sin is defined by God for us in the Bible. The Bible condemns homosexuality as a sin.

Lev. 18:22, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is
abomination."

Lev. 20:13, "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with
a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to
death; their blood shall be upon them."

1 Cor. 6:9-10," Know ye not that the
unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of
themselves with mankind (homosexuals), Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards,
nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."

Rom. 1:26-27, "For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their
women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise
also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one
toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in
themselves that recompence of their error which was meet."

Homosexuality goes against the created order of God. God’s design for natural sexual relationships is part of His plan. Homosexuality falsifies what God designed. God created Adam and then Eve, a woman, not Steve, another man! This is what God has ordained and it is what is right. Homosexuality is clearly condemned by the Bible and is evidenced by God destroying the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah which indulged in homosexuality.

As we take a stand to condemn homosexuality in all its forms, let’s not forget that God loves a sinner but hates the sin. Just because someone is a homosexual does not mean that we cannot love him or pray for him. Homosexuality is a sin and like any other sin, it needs to be dealt with. They need Jesus too and their sins must be laid at the cross, repented of, and never done again.

There is hope for homosexuals. God can cleanse and purify all persons from sin. He is able to give deliverance to any who sincerely desire freedom and salvation. As demonstrated in 1 Corinthians 6:11 "And such were some of you: but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God."

In spite of the growing secular humanist trend to think "it’s ok to be gay," let us stand firm and earnestly contend for the faith without wavering. For God has not changed his view of homosexuality as a moral abomination. Yes, He loves the sinner but He hates the sin. Amidst this fight let us also not be homophobic, but do our best to share Christ’s love for all who are lost in sin and save some from eternal condemnation.

In Christ,
Pr. Mathews Abraham

Mission In Philippi (Acts. 16:11-40)

Title: Mission In Philippi (Acts. 16:11-40)
Speaker: Pr. Mathews Abraham

King Asa - Great Start. Bad Finish (2 Chron.14:1-12, 16:1-12)

Title: King Asa - Great Start. Bad Finish (2 Chron.14:1-12, 16:1-12)
Speaker: Eld. Phua Chor Kok

News & Announcements

1. Elder Phua Chor Kok brings the message to our 1st and 2nd worship services today.
   
   
2. Parents please ensure that your older children do not play in the Cry Room, especially during the worship services as this will affect parents with toddlers and babies who are trying to worship. The Cry Room is strictly for toddlers and babies with guardian inside.
   
   
3. Church Camp: Please note that there will be a Camp briefing on 27th May at 12:30pm. It is important for you to attend this to be briefed on the final logistic arrangements for the Camp.
   
   
4. Youth Mission Trip, Cambodia, 14th to 17th June. Next Sunday 10 Youth Mission Team members will be handing out envelopes to raise support for their airfare and expenses ($2,500). Do encourage them with your support and prayers.

Managing Anger

It seems the level of anger has increased over the years as Singapore society becomes increasingly urbanized and affluent. Counsellors and psychologists are seeing an increasing number of counselees having problems in dealing with anger. It can ruin both the joy and health of many, sometimes with severe and irreversible consequences as in the recent case of a heated traffic dispute where a young driver jumped in front of a taxi pulling away. It resulted in his tragic and untimely death.

At its simplest, anger can be described as a strong negative emotion of displeasure that conveys the concept of an inner emotional heat which rises and is fanned to varying degrees ranging from mere frustration to violent hatred. They need to be properly managed.

We ought to try to deal with the roots of anger and expose and sever them before we can manage anger effectively. Proverbs 27:4 warns us that "wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous......" Our pent-up emotions may lead to outburst of uncontrolled behaviour, yelling at others, screaming insults and vulgarities, hurting and injuring others with violence and destruction. The Lord says in Proverbs 29:22 "An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression". It is clear that undue anger is able to unleash a multitude of sin. Anger and hatred can cause strife in the family or at the working place or in the church when one starts to release accumulated pressure of anger. Equally true is that of a "furious man" who will soon abound in transgressions. Mischief and offences will flow from such.

Undue anger is a sin which leads to other sins, giving rise to occasions of swearing, cursing and profanity. "A quick-tempered man acts foolishly" says Proverbs 14:17. In verse 29 it says "he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly". When we are angry we do and say things that we would never do or say at any other times. Hasty temper is bound to bring about foolish actions which we will regret later. In the process we lose the respect of others.

Managing anger requires us to acknowledge the dangers it poses, to seek God’s help and to follow His counsel. "Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offence" says Proverbs 19:11. Since anger often causes one to act rashly, it would be wise for us to be deliberate from now onwards to "think before you act." Let our words and actions be determined by Godly wisdom and not by the sudden surge of emotions.

Proverbs 16:32 "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." We are reminded to "slow" down and not be hasty in our response to others because acting without discretion will lead us to great folly, making us look like fools. Keeping our passion under direction and check will help to manifest Godly behaviour, and this is deemed better than ruling a city.

Walking in and yielding to the Holy Spirit is a sure way to check our sinful passions and anger. When upset or frustrated, pray immediately for God’s help to manage the situation in a Godly and loving manner. Make deliberate attempts to ignore our passion and instead yield to His will.

Finally, pay heed to Solomon’s advice in Proverbs 22:24-25 "Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a furious man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare."

In Christ,
Elder Patrick Lim

Heart Beat Of Jesus (Mathews 9:35-38)

Title: Heart Beat Of Jesus (Mathews 9:35-38)
Speaker: Rev. Goh Seng Fong

News & Announcements

1. We welcome Rev Goh Seng Fong from Hope Baptist Church as the Lord’s messenger to our 1st and 2nd worship services today.
   
   
2. There will be no Children’s Choir practice today. Practice will resume next week.
   
   
3. Church Camp registration has closed with 145 signed up to attend. See you at Pulai Springs Resort, 4th ~ 7th June.
   
   
4. Parents please ensure that your older children do not play in the Cry Room, especially during the worship services as this will affect parents with toddlers and babies who are trying to worship. The Cry Room is strictly for toddlers and babies with guardian inside.

What Is Your Choice of A Career?

We are truly glad that some young people in our midst are graduating and will be entering the phase of “working life.” Many of us, of course, “have been there and done that.” But still we praise God for His provisions for our young people.

People either love work or they hate it, and many today work for the wrong reasons and the wrong rewards. Whilst one extreme encourages us to be workaholics, the other dreams of a work-free leisure society. However, the Bible teaches that both extremes are wrong.

Work was ordained before the fall and therefore was part of God’s original blueprint for humanity. Work is therefore inherently good. God Himself is portrayed as a worker (Gen. 1), planning, deciding, ordering, doing, and evaluating repeatedly in creating the world. Indeed, God continues to work throughout history (cf. Ps. 121) and is constantly working even today (John 5:17). Not only is God a worker, God made men and women to work. When Genesis records the creation narrative for the second time (2:4ff.), it emphasises that the reason that the land was not yet fruitful was because there was no water and “no man to work the ground” (vv. 4-5).

However, God remedies both by providing abundant water (v. 6) and an active workforce (v. 7). The man is then placed in Eden both to “work” and to “keep” the land (v. 15) and soon provided with an ideally suited helper to assist him in his work (2:18-25). At the outset of creation, both work and marriage were tied to the service of God and the active caretaking of the world.

Work is not to be regarded as a necessary evil. When Paul wrote to the Colossians in 3:22-25 on “servants” (KJV) or “bondservants” (NKJV) -- that is -- workers, he commanded them to work sincerely “fearing God”. Humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow is famous for his “hierarchy of human needs.” Starting at the low end, people would want to move up the hierarchy from “physiological” needs (e.g. hunger and thirst) to “safety, social, esteem, and finally self-actualization” needs at the pinnacle.

Spiritual danger -- in the form of selfishness -- lurks in this scheme and way of thinking. Workers or employees who insist that their employers build those stairs up Maslow’s pyramid will miss the deeper truth and would be deluded. The Christian’s pyramid puts “witness-actualization” and “kingdom-esteem” at the top, and these needs can be met in any work situation, even dreadful ones. Fellow workers will be astonished at the believer’s lack of interest at advancement at any cost. Masters will be confused by the “servant’s” excellence in the absence of worldly incentives. Perhaps colleagues and masters alike will investigate the Christian’s motives and discover that pleasing Jesus is the goal. Then they might even find Jesus for themselves. Whether or not they do, the believer’s heavenly reward is secure (v. 24).

In a world where we are conditioned to think, “It’s all about me,” prospects for happiness are elusive. But those who understand that “It’s all about the Lord” will have all the self-fulfilment they can manage, not because they sought it, but because single-hearted devotion to God means abundant life, both on earth and in the world to come.

In a world confused about the place and priority of work, the true church of Jesus Christ has an invaluable contribution to make in any economy. It has God’s word on work. It can call on the lazy and idle to be engaged in work, comfort the stressed and the burned-out with God’s realistic view of work in a fallen world, and warn the workaholics not to be engrossed in work for the rewards it can bring.

In Him,
Rev. Robert Chew

A People For His Name (Acts 15:1-18)

Title: A People For His Name (Acts 15:1-18)
Speaker: Rev. Robert Chew

News & Announcements

1. Rev Chew brings the message to our 1st and 2nd worship services today.
   
   
2. Moriah Child Care has an opening for a Christian Childcare Teacher.
   
   She must be fluent in English, possess a Certificate in Pre-school Teaching (CPT) and be able to work 9 hours on Mondays to Fridays and 4 hours on Saturdays.
   
   Experience in a child care setting and fluency in Mandarin will be an advantage.
   
   Interested person please contact Elder Gary HP 96369432 or email your resume to church office:sembawangbpc@pacific.net.sg.
   
   
3. Good Friday Offering: Thank God for enabling us to support the work of three Christian half-way houses with our Good Friday Service offerings each year. Each of them (Helping Hand, Break Through Mission and Renewal Self-Development Centre) will be receiving $2000 each. Please also pray for the Lord to continue blessing their good work.
   
   
4. In order to encourage more of our people to join the annual Church camp at Pulai Springs Resort, the Session has decided to subsidize the Camp fee by $50 per camper. TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO SIGN UP - DON’T MISS IT!
   

For Such a Time as This: Preaching Truth in an Age of Idolatry

That was the theme of the once-in-five-years congress that I recently attended at Cambridge, England. I would like to thank the church and you for your prayers and support while I was there. It was a blessed time together with about 500 other delegates from all over the world. The intensive 9-to-9 (am to pm) conferences and teaching seminars were held in the St. Andrews Baptist Church in Cambridge (where Charles Spurgeon once taught Sunday School) and workshops were held in Emmanuel College, Cambridge University.

Yes … the challenge today for us all, not only preachers, is: how do we uphold, teach and preach the truth in a "post-modern" age in which there are no moral absolutes or absolute truths, where "your moral absolutes are as good as mine...you do your thing and I’ll do mine."

I am reminded of the passage in Jeremiah 10:1-5, which says, "Hear the word which the LORD speaks to you … Do not learn the way of the Gentiles … For the customs of the peoples are futile; For one cuts a tree from the forest, The work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They decorate it with silver and gold … they cannot speak … Do not be afraid of them … they cannot do any good."

The church in this modern era seems pathetic. For much of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Christianity has been perceived as a drag on important social "progress." Biblical views are routinely dismissed as dated, irrelevant, and powerless to shape public discourse. Instead, public life is now dominated by idolatry—man-made ideologies that have moved society further and further from God and His standards.

In the time of Jeremiah, Judah also appeared to be on the wrong end of social change. A once powerful nation, she was now vulnerable to the military and cultural superiority of the Babylonian empire. Because of this, it would have been tempting for Judah to believe that God had failed her, that the pagan gods of the nations really wielded the power in the world.

In our time, idolatry is just as rampant. Our society has managed to nurture or invent its own idolatries: man-made "religions" or "isms," – pluralism , socialism, Communism, egotism, postmodernism, relativism, naturalism, or materialism. Even in the Church, idolatry raises its head as a gospel of pop-psychology and social well-being or in the reliance on management and marketing techniques over the truth of Scripture. The true Church appears to be a weak minority, soon to be vanquished from the world.

The Lord Jesus, however, promises that He will build His church, and no power in hell can prevail against Him.

Christians should be emboldened by this truth to resist idolatry both in the church and in the world. The idolatries of the surrounding world may seem invincible, but the church must proclaim that in the end, they are powerless before the speaking and living God of the Bible. Amen to that!

In Him,
Rev Robert Chew