Wrong doctrines

Today was a windy, rainy, grey, warm day. Not that there was so much rain, but the sun only came out a few times and mostly it was just rather dull outside. So we opted for an indoor day, playing Scrabble, mandolin, mucking about and so on. It was unfortunately a public holiday today and so all the shops were closed – which caught me unawares with no bread in the house, except for two rolls in the freezer! The horrible thing about public holidays here is that everyone takes them very seriously, so absolutely nothing is open. You can’t exactly pop out to the local mall and get take-outs for supper… Dad and I took a walk down to town just to check, and on the way back walked up “The Run”. The Run is a very big gutter which runs from up at the top of town all the way down to the sea, and most of it can be walked. It can be dangerous in sections, and someone recently fell into it in an inebriated state and died. Nick had to go to Vincent’s house this afternoon to collect a box of books, so dad and I went for the drive. He lives extremely far away, about a half an hour drive, but a very scenic drive. Had a pleasant stay, and Vincent played a song on his mandolin to show me how it’s done!

Nick and I attended a funeral recently of a person who, by virtue of birth, belonged to the Church of England. The Bishop took the funeral and boldly proclaimed that we pass from death to life at our baptism as an infant. Of course this is absolute unbiblical heresy, because only faith in Jesus Christ can save us and give us eternal life. It was a false comfort to those who were mourning, and to preach such a thing at a funeral particularly is so dangerous. So Nick, in his sermon last night, made it very clear that the only way to pass from death to life is at salvation, not by works or baptism, but faith alone. The rest of his sermon was about resurrection and judgment, continuing in his series in John, but I unfortunately missed some of it because Aaron was sick and I took him home.