Lady Jane Grey (1537-1554)

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Lady Jane Grey was a remarkable character from the history of our country.  She was known as the ‘Nine Day Queen of England’ and she died at the age of 16.  She was highly educated, very intelligent and was a descendent Henry VII the first monarch of the House of Tudor that ruled through most of the sixteenth century.  Jane was born in 1537 and died in 1554.  She had a personal tutor and was able to speak a number of languages and could converse in Greek and even correspond with intellectuals in that language.

She studied not only languages but also the Word of God, the Bible and came to a settled conviction which led her to faith in Christ.  She believed  the Gospel and knew that the only way to Heaven was through faith alone in Christ alone. She grew up with two sisters named Katherine who was very beautiful but not an intellectual like Jane and Mary who had some kind of physical deformity.  Her parents were deeply ambitious and carried the hope that Jane would one day inherit the throne and become Queen of England.

John Bunyan- Lessons from an international bestselling author

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One of the most read books in the English Language is ‘The Pilgrims Progress’ by John Bunyan. Bunyan was a tinker by trade and after his marriage he became interested in the Bible. After first attending the parish church he joined the Bedford Meeting, a non conformist group in St John’s Church Bedford. He later became a preacher but with the restoration of the monarchy the freedom of the non conformists was curtailed with only the Anglican Church Bishops allowed to ordain preachers, a practice rejected by Bunyan and those of the Bedford Meeting. Bunyan was arrested and spent the next twelve years in prison because he refused to give up preaching.

John Bunyan’s writings are a testimony to the strong convictions he held as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. In ‘Election and Reprobation’ he wrote, “Sin where it reigns is a mortal enemy to the soul, It blinds the eyes, holds the hands, ties the legs, stops the ears and makes the heart implacable to resist the Saviour of souls.” A choice piece in,’Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ”, Bunyan makes reference to the return of the Prodigal Son to his father and uses it to go on to say, ‘He that is come to Christ, his groans and tears, his doubts and fears are turned into songs and praises. For he has now received the atonement (reconciliation) and the earnest (pledge) of His inheritance.’

The most famous of Bunyan’s writings is the classic ‘The Pilgrims Progress,’ with over 1300 editions being produced. It tells of the journey that Christian takes on his way to Heaven. Christian is carrying a burden on his back and is seen running till he came to a hill with a cross on it, together with a sepulchre at the bottom. “I saw that just as Christian came to the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, fell from off his back, and began to tumble till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre. It fell in, and I saw it no more”. A most heart warming way to illustrate that the burden of sin is lifted forever at Calvary’s cross by the expression, “and I saw it no more”. This is what salvation means, free from sins burden evermore.  

Lady Powerscourt of Dublin

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As the 19th century dawned there was a girl born in Co Wicklow to the south of Dublin in Ireland. Her name was Theodosia Anne Howard and she was of an old aristocratic family. Through the Rector of Powerscourt, a clergyman named Robert Daly, she came to trust the Lord Jesus Christ as her Lord and Saviour in 1819. From then on she led a life of devotion and service for her Saviour.

She married Richard Wingfield in 1822, who had also trusted Christ as his Saviour about 1820. Richard had become the fifth Earl Viscount Powerscourt in 1809 and subsequently the owner of Powerscourt House. Their marriage was short and marred by tragedy. Their only child, a daughter, died in infancy and Viscount Powerscourt passed away in 1823. Yet despite the tragic circumstances of her life she through her experiences was able to comfort others as she had herself been comforted of God.  

Live forever - are we just biological computers?

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We know that life is constantly changing and that nothing lasts forever. In many ways, this is a harsh and sad reality. Most of us find it hard to accept that we will grow old, that loved ones will pass on, and that children will grow up and leave home. You know the types of things that I am talking about. Sad but true!

Please read on, as I have good news for you. The Bible teaches that God made us with an eternal soul. The soul is the real person, the real you. Although the body stops living upon our physical death, the soul lives on. Many people don't believe this anymore. The late Stephen Hawking, a British Physicist and author, dismissed the notion of an afterlife. He once said 'I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers. That is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark'. 

This argument sounds very feasible, especially when proposed by such an intelligent man. However, it ignores that we are not just biological computers. It ignores man's consciousness, which the best of brains have grappled with but have to admit is beyond their explanation. Consciousness cannot be defined in purely physiological terms. Add to this the evidence for the supernatural and the spiritual, and you have many questions that we will struggle to answer unaided.