Living a lie

In a recent interview Tiger Woods, reputed to be a billionaire golfer said, “I was living a lie, I really was.” He was referring to his marital misconduct involving adultery with several women. A transcript of his confession is in the public domain, which upon examination shows that he did not use the word adultery at all, but referred to cravings outside of himself.

Parts of the transcript follow. < Good morning, and thank you for joining me. Now every one of you has good reason to be critical of me. I want to say to each of you, simply and directly, I am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior I engaged in…..For all that I have done, I am so sorry….I have a lot to atone for….. The issue involved here was my repeated irresponsible behavior. I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated. What I did is not acceptable, and I am the only person to blame.

I stopped living by the core values that I was taught to believe in. I knew my actions were wrong, but I convinced myself that normal rules didn't apply. I never thought about who I was hurting. Instead, I thought only about myself. I ran straight through the boundaries that a married couple should live by. I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled. Thanks to money and fame. I didn't have to go far to find them.

I was wrong. I was foolish. I don't get to play by different rules. The same boundaries that apply to everyone apply to me. I brought this shame on myself. I have a lot of work to do, and I intend to dedicate myself to doing it. Part of following this path for me is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age. People probably don't realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years. Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously I lost track of what I was taught.

In therapy I've learned the importance of looking at my spiritual life and keeping in balance with my professional life. I need to regain my balance and be cantered so I can save the things that are most important to my marriage, my children and me.>

It is sad to see anyone fall into sin of any sort and for that sin to be arrayed in newspapers and on television programs throughout the world,. At this point we must remind ourselves that we are no different to him, we are all sinners, he broke the seventh commandment, “Thou shalt not commit adultery”, most of us would not get past the first one about loving God with all our heart and soul and strength. Jesus said to the people that wanted to stone the woman taken in adultery, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” (John 8:7) Mr. Woods said that he has a lot to atone for.

As a preacher of the Gospel of Christ I have to tell him and any other person that none of us can atone for our sins, only Christ’s death on the cross can avail for guilty sinners and only His precious shed blood can atone for our sins. “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” (1John1:7)

Another notable character that lived a lie was Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples that had followed Christ for three and a half years, but it was not adultery that was his downfall, it was the tenth commandment, covetousness. Judas Iscariot had been given the responsibility of the apron with the scrip or bag that contained the money that had been given to the Lord and His followers for their support. It is John who tells us that Judas criticized Mary of Bethany when she anointed the Lord prior to His death. He said, “Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.”

John wrote his gospel possibly sixty years afterwards and though perhaps he did not know what Judas was up to at the time he certainly knew later, that some of the funds went missing and who the culprit was and so he says, ”He was a thief” Judas concealed his thieving from the others, but the Lord knew all about him. Whatever our sin is God can forgive us if we are repentant and call upon Him in faith for salvation.
Judas is remembered most for his betrayal of Christ.

At this Easter season we recall the events that took place according to prophecy. Zechariah 9:9 says, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass” telling us of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem upon the colt the foal of an ass. In ch.11:12 of that prophecy he says, “And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD. This is the price that Judas sold the Saviour to the priests for, and what happened to that money when he threw it back into the Temple treasury, the Priests bought the Potters field with the money because it was not lawful for them to put ‘blood money’ into the treasury.

Remorse made Judas realize the intensity of his sin and he committed suicide. It is one thing to live a lie, but if one dies in their sin, nothing but perdition awaits them, as it did for Judas. If you die in your sin you can never go to be with Christ in Heaven, but like Judas you will be a son of perdition.

Whatever your sin, turn to Christ in repentance and trust the One who died for our sins, to save us and give us eternal life.

God bless,


Written by Stan Burditt of Northampton

Are Christians good adverts for Christianity?

Good question? Here's another one. Is Christianity in principle wholesome? Clearly from reading the New Testament - Yes. Indeed very strongly yes.

But back to Christians. If I asked you what your mental picture of a Christian was I wonder what you would say? The bible teaches that Christians should be like their Saviour - the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a pretty tall order but in essence that's the biblical truth of following Christ. The purpose of God is to change Christians and make them like the Lord Jesus in thinking and in behaviour.

How is this possible you may be thinking! For this reason. God credits a believing person with righteousness because of the death and resurrection of Christ. That is he legally deals with our sin and guilt and as a result the Christian has an acceptable status in the sight of God. God also guarantees that on the day of redemption (when the Christian dies or the Lord Jesus returns to take the 'church' to heaven) that they will be made perfect not just in principle but in practice.

In the meantime God is working with believers every day (as much as the believers lets Him) to change them and mature them to be and behave like the Lord Jesus.

I am a believer and do not feel I do too well in this respect but I wouldn't change my place with anyone even a lottery winner. What about you? Are you saved or do you still face the prospect of God's judgement for sin. Don't let a bad example of Christianity put you off discovering the most life changing experience you could ever have.

Responsibilty for our actions

I hear all the current chat about whether children are aware of what they are doing or if they should be held responsible for their actions which has started again on the back of the Bulger case. I know that there will always be exceptions but surely we must start from the basic standpoint that we are all responsible for our actions. Children and their parents are or should be accountable for their actions. The failure to accept this belief is a reflection of the state of a society where there is rarely now an acknowledgement of right and wrong or of peoples responsibilites for their actions.
The ability to do wrong is inbuilt in everyone of us. By one man, Adam, sin (evil) entered into the world. We teach and train people to do what is right, it does not come naturally. Part of the responsibilty for the actions of children must lie with parents and society.
For the rest of us we remain responsible and answerable to God as well as to society. Ultimately our general guilty behaviour will catch up with us and condemn us before God. Please read some of the earlier blogs to see how God has made provision for us. We can be guilt free and saved by the grace of God. I pray that you will come to know the blessing of God's salvation.

Expected or unexpected

Happenings in Haiti in the past few weeks have caused the nations of the world to respond to the calamitous devastation brought about by the 7magnitude earthquake. It is estimated that the death toll could be between 150,000 and 200,000. Probably most of them around 5pm on Tuesday 12th January were unexpectedly ushered into eternity at that time. Some people buried under collapsed buildings died later when 15 aftershocks, one as high as 5.9 shook the already demolished buildings, causing further collapse in the rubble and cutting off folk from being saved.
The earthquake was not unexpected! Patrick Charles warned in 2008 that the fault line that runs west/east across Haiti could do immense damage to the island if the plates moved. They did move about six miles below the surface and the rest is history. One can ask the question, ‘What warnings were given to the population and what preparations were made for such a thing happening?’

We call to mind December 26th.2004 when a 9.1 to 9.3mag. earthquake hit the Indian Ocean causing the Tsunami to devastate the coastline villages of India, the east of Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia with massive loss of life. The 9.7 quake in Gujarat on 26th. January 2001, and the Great Hanshin 7.2 mag. one at Kobe on January 17th. 1995 also brought enormous destruction and casualties. At the time of the Kobe quake I wrote an article for View From The Pulpit and before publication I sent a copy to Dr. Wayne Richardson at the International Seismological Institute in Wiltshire for him to examine factually. I had heard him on a BBC program talking about earthquakes and I got his phone number and spoke to him. He told me that there is an earthquake every twelve seconds somewhere in the world, most of them are out in the oceans and only measure 2 or 3 mag. therefore little effect is felt by them. For example, I discovered on http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ that during the past week for California and Nevada there was 522 quakes recorded, the highest at 3.2 mag. The following information about earthquake magnitude might be totally unexpected for you to read in this column, but here we go. ‘Seismologists indicate the size of an earthquake in units of magnitude. There are many different ways that magnitude is measured from seismograms because each method only works over a limited range of magnitudes and with different types of seismometers. Some methods are based on body waves (which travel deep within the structure of the earth), some based on surface waves (which primarily travel along the uppermost layers of the earth), and some based on completely different methodologies. However, all of the methods are designed to agree well over the range of magnitudes where they are reliable. Earthquake magnitude is a logarithmic measure of earthquake size. In simple terms, this means that at the same distance from the earthquake, the shaking will be 10 times as large during a magnitude 5 earthquake as during a magnitude 4 earthquake. The total amount of energy released by the earthquake, however, goes up by a factor of 32.’ There are seventy tracking stations globally measuring seismic activity.
What do I deduce from the above facts? I shall not be booking a holiday between late December and late January to anywhere that there is a geological fault line running along the beach!
There are a number of fault lines running across the world, brought about by the earth’s convulsions in the days of Noah, but don’t worry about that, we read in 2Peter 3:13 “Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” The question is will you be there? Think about that one!

There are two events that will shake this world shortly. The first will be the return of Christ to the air for His Church. He is going to raise believers that have died and change living believers bodies to be fashioned like to His body of glory (Phil.3). His shout will raise the dead as it did when He raised Lazarus, the trumpet sound will gather and marshal this great band of saints to the air, and the voice of the archangel will authoritatively repel all opposing demonic powers in the air where Satan is their prince. “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” (1Thes.4:16) I sometimes startle folk when I tell them that my wife in hr seventies is expecting! Actually, we both are expecting the coming of the Lord! It is imminent.

At least seven years will run before the second event takes place. Daniel tells us about these seven years in ch.9, in the form of a ‘week’, not a week of days but a week of years and it will be the last one of seventy prophesied by Daniel. Read Sir Robert Anderson’s chronology on this at www.whatsaiththescripture.com/Voice/The.Coming.Prince.4.html. We have a great heritage in the scriptures and men that are competent to teach us the meaning of scriptures if we will but read them.
The Lord Jesus Christ taught His second coming to earth in Matthew ch’s 24 and 25 and He referred to Daniel’s prophecy (24:15) and other happenings prior to His return. He likened these days with the days of Noah, how the few expected the flood to come and the majority did not and they perished. When He comes He said, “Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

During those seven years the Church will be in Heaven while the Great Tribulation runs on earth (Rev.ch’s 6 to 19). Those happenings will not be the effect of global warming, which will be the devil’s lie, but the judgement of God upon the world.

What are you expecting? God bless.


Written for Stephen G Baker by Stan Burditt