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Can A Nation Be Born in A Day? (Isaiah 66:1-9)

Nov 30th 2025

By Rev. Dr. Ed HIrd

Why do we light five candles at Advent? It is about Jesus the Light of the world who breaks into our darkness. God’s first action in Genesis 1:3 was to say: “Let there be light. 1 John 1:5 says: “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all”. In John 8:12 and 9:5, Jesus said: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” That’s what Advent is all about.

Despite what Carl Jung suggested, God does have not a dark side, ala Luke Skywalker in Star War.  John 1:5 reminds us that “Jesus the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Isaiah 66, being the last chapter, is very similar to the last book of Revelation. Many people are not aware how eschatological and apocalyptic that Advent really is.  Advent is not just about remembering Jesus first coming in a manger, but also preparing for his second coming.  Both Advents are about light breaking into our darkness. As Isaiah 9:2 puts it, “the people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned.” Isaiah 60:1-2 says: “Arise, shine for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you, even in the midst of gross darkness. Have you noticed that the darkness these days is getting much grosser?

2 Corinthians 11:14 says that Satan comes as an angel of light offering counterfeit enlightenment.  Jesus brings the true enlightenment in a very dark and lost world.  As Isaiah 42:6 and 49:6 tell us, Jesus the Jewish messiah is also the Light to all the Gentile Nations. You don’t need to do yoga to get Jesus’ enlightenment. What you need to do, as Bishop Peter often reminds us, is to surrender our wills. 

My late mother Lorna, who used to sit in this second pew, suffered during the winter from SADS, Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Is anyone else affected by the lack of sunlight in the winter? Mom was drawn to the Light in the midst of darkness. That is why we flew as a family to Hawaii in December 1971, right before my Jesus movement conversion.  Hawaii was indeed a Paradise of Amazing light. The only problem is that I brought my personal darkness with me.  When I was born again in a day, I was filled with heavenly light that has never left me in the past 53 years. One Day at a Time. Jesus in Matthew 5:14 calls us the Light of the World. In John 12:36, Jesus said: “Believe in the light while you have the light, so that you may become children of light.” Paul in Ephesians 5:8-9 and 1 Thessalonians 5:5 similarly calls us Children of Light.

One thing that brightened up my mother during the winter was looking at vibrant, colourful paintings. My mother was an amateur painter who took lessons from Bob Hickling, whose arms were paralyzed from polio so he painted with his mouth. My mom loved not only Van Gogh but also Monet, the French father of Impressionism which focused on light, form, and nature. Monet did not use chiaroscuro like Rembrandt, who painted sharp almost three-dimensional contrasts between light and dark. Instead, Monet used extra colour to create effects of light, shadow and depth, giving momentary impressions (hence impressionism). Monet painted the impression of brilliant light by putting contrasting vibrant colors, such as blue and orange, right next to each other. Instead of creating shadows with dark paint, he would create blue and green shadows through which light broke through.

My mother’s love for paintings is now rubbing off on me at age 71. How many of you have or had parents who loved paintings? How many of you have picked up your parent’s love of paintings? How many of you love to actually paint? Both Monet & Van Gogh loved painting sunflowers. (Show painting) His revolutionary method of painting in the outdoors was called plein air. Monet famously said, “To see, we must forget the name of the things we are looking at.”

Some see Monet as the world’s most famous painter. Has any one been to seen Monet’s famous Japanese-inspired garden and pond in Giverny, France? It’s visited by over one half million people annually.  Born in 1840, Claude Monet was passionate about light in his flower paintings. In the early 1890s, he painted Rouen Cathedral first in morning light, then midday light, and then gray weather, showing his deep fascination with the effects of light. What however would light be without colour? Monet said:  • Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.

Monet struggled with depression, poverty, illness, and discouragement. He became so despondent over his lack of sales that in 1868, he attempted suicide by trying to drown himself in the Seine River. Troubled by cataracts, Monet sometimes was so frustrated with his paintings that he destroyed as many as 500 of his own 2500 paintings. He would burn, cut or kick them into oblivion, ripping them to shreds. He once wrote that “age has worn me out. My life has been nothing but a failure, and all that’s left for me to do is to destroy my paintings before I disappear.”

Yet, one of his paintings has since sold for 110 million dollars.

Hitler as a failed painter stole many of Monet’s paintings from Jewish art collectors. In October 2024, after 86 years, the FBI returned Monet’s Bord de Mer painting to the granddaughters of a Jewish couple who fled Vienna in 1938. His fellow impressionists Degas, Renoir, and Cézanne were all antisemitic. Claude Monet however rejected French antisemitism by supporting Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer unjustly accused of treason and imprisoned.

That is why the nation of Israel loves Monet. The Israel Museum in Jerusalem houses several of his paintings. The Tel Aviv Museum of Art holds Monet’s Water Lily Pond. There are around 130,000 painters in Israel. The most famous Israeli painter was Marc Chagall.

Monet had a God-given ability to see light and colour, helping others to see God’s creation in a whole new way. Similarly, through Advent, Jesus removed our spiritual cataracts so that we can see with Kingdom eyes spiritual light and colour, helping others to see God’s new creation in a whole new way. As Hank Williams sang, ‘I saw the Light. I saw the Light. No more in darkness. No more in night.’ That is what Advent is all about.

In Isaiah 66 1, the Lord says:

“Heaven is my throne,

    and the earth is my footstool.

Where is the house you will build for me?

Where will my resting place be?

God is the Father of lights. As James 1:17 puts it, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” The house that God dwells in is full of unimaginable heavenly light.  Do I hear an Amen?

2 Has not my hand made all these things,

    and so they came into being?”

declares the Lord.

“These are the ones I look on with favor:

    those who are humble and contrite in spirit,

and who tremble at my word.

Vs 2 tells us that in order to dwell in God’s heavenly house, we need to humble ourselves with contrition and tremble at His Word?  How many of you tremble at God’s Word?  It is so easy to become blasé and distracted. God wants us to repent of all lukewarmness to His Word and recover our first love for Jesus and the Bible.

3 But whoever sacrifices a bull

    is like one who kills a person,

and whoever offers a lamb

    is like one who breaks a dog’s neck;

whoever makes a grain offering

    is like one who presents pig’s blood,

and whoever burns memorial incense

is like one who worships an idol.

They have chosen their own ways,

    and they delight in their abominations;

Vs 2 & 3 tells us that choosing our own ways, delighting in abominations, it never ends well.  As E Stanley Jones said in his book The Way, there are essentially two choices in life: God’s way or not the way.  Not the way, doing it our own way, always ends in darkness.  Idolatry is all about choosing the darkness. Revival is about choosing to turn from darkness back to the true Advent Light, Jesus. 

4 so I also will choose harsh treatment for them

    and will bring on them what they dread.

For when I called, no one answered,

    when I spoke, no one listened.

They did evil in my sight

and chose what displeases me.”

Revival is about realizing that our way doesn’t work.  Vs. 4 tells us that idols don’t answer or listen when we call.  Doing what displeases Jesus is always a lose-lose.  IF we want Advent revival, we must choose what pleases Jesus, the Light of the World. 

5 Hear the word of the Lord,

    you who tremble at his word:

“Your own people who hate you,

    and exclude you because of my name, have said,

‘Let the Lord be glorified,

    that we may see your joy!’

Yet they will be put to shame.

Vs 5 reminds us that when you choose the Advent Light, not everyone will be happy about this.  They may hate you and exclude you because of your love for Jesus the Light of Advent. 

6 Hear that uproar from the city,

    hear that noise from the temple!

It is the sound of the Lord

repaying his enemies all they deserve.

Vs. 6 tells us that there is no escaping the sound of Light that God releases into our life.  We reap as we sow. As the Creeds remind us, Jesus the Lord of Advent Light will indeed return to judge the living and the dead.

7 “Before she goes into labor,

    she gives birth;

before the pains come upon her,

she delivers a son.

Vs. 7 teaches that breakthrough always require labour pains.  Advent is a season of labour pains, as we are preparing for the Light of the Christ Child. How many of you as mothers had a completely pain-free delivery?  How many mothers have ever suffered or worried about your children post-birth?  How old does one’s children need to before you stop being tempted to worry about them?  Let me ask you: What is God trying to birth in your life, your family, your work?  What is God birthing right now in Israel and secondarily in our nation of Canada?

October 7th, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, has changed Israel forever.  The electric fence failed them. Many Israelis are turning to the Lord in a way that they never did before.  Has anyone noticed that technology, no matter how impressive, is not our saviour. It will let us down.

Vs 8 says: Who has ever heard of such things?

    Who has ever seen things like this?

Can a country be born in a day

    or a nation be brought forth in a moment?

Yet no sooner is Zion in labor

than she gives birth to her children.

Advent represents desert and waiting times for the Light of Christ.  Israel, since 1948, has turned a barren desert into one of the greatest fruit-exporting country on earth, just like the Old Testament prophesied. They export over 800 million dollars of fruit per year, especially dates, figs, pineapples, avocados, oranges, and mangoes. They have also planted 250 million trees throughout Israel.

God has kept his covenant promises to the ancient Jewish people.  Isaiah 11: 12 says, “He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; He will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth.”

In Ezekiel 11:17, “the Sovereign Lord says: I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you back the land of Israel again.’”

Prophetically speaking, the rebirth of the Nation of Israel on May 14th 1948 is “The Time Clock of the Nations.” Many are realizing that this single miracle of Israel, “born in one day,” is the biggest and most prominent sign of the coming return of the Messiah to Jerusalem!

 British Bible teacher Lance Lambert says: “No other nation in the history of mankind has twice been uprooted from its land, scattered to the ends of the earth and then brought back again to that same territory.  Israel has twice lost its statehood and its national sovereignty, twice had its capital destroyed, its towns and cities razed to the ground, its people deported and dispersed, and then twice had it all restored again. No other nation or ethnic group has been scattered to the four corners of the earth, and yet survived as an easily identifiable and recognizable group.” This is a miracle.

The first exile took place under Babylonian rule in 587 BC. As for the second great exile, Roman forces serving under the Roman commander Titus destroyed and dismantled Jerusalem in August AD 70, exactly as Jesus had prophesied 37 years earlier. The Romans killed 600,000 Jewish residents and deported 300,000 more to locations scattered around the Empire. Sixty-five years later in 135 AD, the forces of Roman Emperor Hadrian crushed the last Jewish uprising, led by Bar Kokhba at Masada. 

Hadrian’s hatred for the Jews burned so brightly that he changed Jerusalem’s name to his own name and declared it “a Roman city forever which no Jew could enter under pain of death.” He built a temple to Jupiter on the site of the former Jewish Temple. Then he renamed the land “Palestine.”

In Vs 9, God says: Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery? Do I close up the womb when I bring to delivery?” says your God.

Many Canadians are wondering these days: Is there hope for Canada? Things seem pretty dark. Will Canada survive against all odds? Can a nation like Canada be born again in day? Will a revival of divine light sweep through our dark land?  The existence of Israel, just like the existence of Canada, is miraculous. Humanly speaking, neither Israel nor Canada should have come into existence, or continued to exist.  Yet God keeps breaking his advent light into both Canada and Israel.  I don’t believe that God has given up on either Canada or Israel.

I see both Canada and Israel as like turkeys.  Wild turkeys are amazingly good fliers, considering their substantial bodies. They reach treetops in seconds to escape predators. Once airborne, they can fly at 55 miles per hour! Domesticated turkeys, however, have lost this ability. The question for us Canadians is ‘will we be a wild turkey or a tame turkey?’  Can Canada learn, by waiting on the Lord,  to fly like an eagle or at least like a wild turkey? How many of us here today want to be a wild turkey for Jesus?  John A Macdonald our first prime minister was a wild turkey for Jesus. 

John A Macdonald was a Moses figure who saw the promised land from sea to sea, that Canada might be born in a day.

Every time we spent a ten-dollar bill from 1971 to 2018, we came face-to-face with Sir John A Macdonald.  In 2018, starting with Victoria, eight of Macdonald’s ten statues across Canada have been vandalized and removed by ‘cancel culture, though the one in Ontario’s Queen’s Park was recently returned.  In the name of ‘tolerance’, inclusiveness, and diversity, John A.’ statues have been ‘beheaded’, excluded, and defamed. Three public schools have recently removed his name. Many youth have never even heard his name. 

Could you imagine Americans removing their 100+ Washington statues and renaming the State and District/DC of Washington?  Do we really want, in the words of a former Prime Minister, to be a post-national state with no core identity? Canada’s actual history is now at stake.

Though a complicated man with many flaws, Macdonald was the most famous of all Canadian leaders. Some of his tragic mistakes were the hanging of Louis Riel, the creation of native residential schools, and the 1885 Electoral Franchise Act which removed the right of Chinese people to vote. We must honestly admit John A.’s unfortunate weaknesses while not losing sight of his great accomplishments.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1815, he moved at age 15 to the land of his dreams with his family. Like Don Quixote, John A. dreamed the impossible dream that miraculously came true, a nation from sea to sea (Psalm 72:8).  Against all the odds, Canada was birthed on July 1st 1867 and still exists, despite cries from some Quebecers and Albertans to separate. God keep pouring out his light on Canada, far more than we deserve or imagine.

Without Sir John A. Macdonald, BC would have been lost forever from joining Canada. BC would have become the 51st state, physically connecting to Alaska.  Many American leaders publicly stated that it was BC and indeed Canada’s manifest destiny to join the United States.  The vast majority of early BC settlers were Americans drawn from San Francisco by the 1858 Gold Rush. They certainly were not Eastern Canadians from Ontario.  John A’s promise of the Canadian Pacific Railway won over the hearts and mind of ambivalent BCers. The American miners also liked the law and order of Governor James Douglas and Judge Matthew Begbie, protecting them from being robbed like in the American wild west.

After the tragic death of his invalid first wife Isabella, John A. married Agnes Bernard.  They met on Dec 8th 1866 while both were sauntering down Bond Street in London. By Christmas, they were engaged.  They wed six weeks later, at St. George’s Anglican Church in Hanover Square. This was definitely light breaking into John A’ painfully dark family situation.

Agnes spoke French better than her husband, a real asset in bilingual Canada.  He now had a loving wife who worked tirelessly on his behalf –inviting Conservative MPS to his place for dinner rather than get drunk with them in the bars.

As a devout Anglican Christian, Agnes had a significant impact on her husband’s life, causing him to stop drinking and start attending church.  John A was deeply impressed by the Beatitudes, and made a practice of reading his bible every night before bedtime.  Another MP called Agnes ‘Macdonald’s good angel.’ Biographer E.B. Biggar suggests that Agnes may have extended his life by two decades, saving both his liver and his life. This again was Advent Light breaking into alcoholic darkness.

In 1888, during six weeks of Hunter-Crossley revival meetings in Ottawa, Prime Minister Macdonald had a deep encounter with Jesus Christ.  John Hunter and Hugh Crossley were the Canadian Billy Grahams, leading two hundred and fifty thousand Canadians and Americans to Christ.  As one journalist put it, “When the well-known form of the Honorable Prime Minister arose in the centre of the church, many strong men bowed their heads and wept for joy.” After dining at the prime minister’s home several days later, Rev John Hunter confirmed that “Sir John is a changed man.” Wherever Hunter and Crossley went in Canada, the bars became empty and the churches became full.  How many Canadians know this amazing story of Divine light breaking into a politician’s soul? It is not easy for politicians to be saved with all the pressures they are under.

May the example of John A. and Agnes give us the will to love, live and forgive as a nation.  May Albertans and Quebecers realize that we all truly need each other in this grand impossible dream of Canada.  May God keep our land glorious and free, in Jesus’ name.

And finally, can we as God’s people, and you personally be born, be born again, in a day?  Can Advent light break into our lives this very day?  Can people who come from difficult family backgrounds really change?  Can people who struggle with alcohol or drug addiction really be born in a day?  Is change really possible?  Can Jesus really change your heart, your family, one day at a time? 

How many of you today are willing to change, to embrace God’s marvellous light, to be born again, to surrender your will to Jesus one day at a time? How many are willing to say no to darkness and yes to Jesus our Advent Light? How many want to walk in the Advent light as Jesus is in the light?  Let us pray. 


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BC Christian Ashram videos

Do you ever struggle to forgive people? You are invited to watch the powerful messages given at the July 18th Friday BC Christian Ashram Retreat: As We Forgive Others

BC Christian Ashram Retreat July 19th: As We Forgive Others

Matt Henson, Mark Hird, and Holly Roddam spoke on how forgiveness sets us free.  Matt, who is the Executive Director for the UCAI, shared how the Christian Ashram experience could be a spark of revival both to the Church and to the world.  Imagine a forgiveness revival transforming families and nations. To learn more about the BC Christian Ashram and the United Christian Ashram International, click on http://www.christianashram.com and  https://christianashram.org 


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Francis & Judith MacNutt: God’s Healing Team

Francis & Judith MacNutt: God’s healing team

By Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird

Francis and Judith MacNutt were one of the most remarkable healing teams of God that the world has ever known. Born in 1925, Francis MacNutt’s career dream was to become a medical doctor.

Continue reading…


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 “No Longer Deserted” (Isaiah 62:1-12)

By Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, All Saints Crescent Beach

Click to view the video message

Oct 27th 2024

I have to warn you that this is going to be a relatively bloody sermon.  How many of us have ever been bit by a spider? For the first time in my life while doorknocking perhaps 20,000 homes with Bryan Tepper, I was attacked twice by huge black mechanized spiders. I actually jumped back for a moment in shock. But fortunately those low-tech spiders didn’t actually draw any blood. Makes me wonder though about the next generation of AI Halloween spiders. 😉

Peace Arch News reports that the ‘House of Horrors’ is opening for 24th year in Surrey.

Gibbons commented: “Halloween is growing by leaps and bounds, and I think it’s going to catch up to Christmas one of these days, in the way of spending and that sort of thing, decorating.”

They went on to say: “The new Abomination house offers Texas Chainsaw Massacre-themed thrills on a “farm” with an old RV.

“It’s pretty cool looking with a very bloody kitchen and a bedroom and all that sort of thing,” Gibbons reported. “The farmer has some issues, shall we say. He likes to experiment in dastardly ways, so it’s very cool. I walked through it in the dark for the first time last night and with the lighting and everything, it’s amazing.”

My strongest memories of Halloween are my dressing up as my hero Superman. My dear mother made my superman costume, and even ordered me a blue wig because I was convinced from the comic books that Superman had blue hair.  Halloween back in the 1950s and 1960s was pretty bloodless. For me, it was more about avoiding kryptonite than watching out for bloody displays.  I must confess that I didn’t really like eating my large bag of collected Halloween Candy, so being a good entrepreneur, I made money selling it to my sisters. Halloween decorations however have become much darker, bloodier and violent than those relatively innocent days.  For many, Halloween has become an increasingly adult blood sport. 73% of North Americans bow the knee to Halloween.  Last year, a record $12.2 billion dollars was spent in North America on Halloween, $4.1 billion alone on costumes. This is up from the previous $10 billion dollars in 2022. Perhaps we could persuade people to donate some of their Halloween money to the Oikos renovations at All Saints Crescent Beach. 😉

Some experts say that adults are only supposed to have 25 grams of added sugar a day. Many Halloween candies are made of 80-90 percent sugar. Halloween nowadays is almost a prediabetic training day. RF Kennedy Jr. says that sugar overconsumption is linked to an epidemic in childhood diabetes and other chronic diseases, up from 6% to 60%. In America, 74% of Americans are now overweight or obese, including 50% of their children.  By contrast, only 3% of Japanese children are suffering from obesity. 

Secular culture is also obsessed with dabbling with evil at Halloween because we have been tricked into thinking that evil is just a big joke. Many woke Canadians think that there is no evil, no devil, no right and wrong. Morality and truth are all relative, depending who is in power at that moment.  Politicians, however, when they don’t believe in good and evil, in right and wrong, so easily sell their souls to the devil for political and financial advantage, present company excluded.  Alexander Solzhenitsyn said “The concepts of good and evil have been ridiculed for several centuries; banished from common use, they have been replaced by political or class considerations of short-lived value.”

What do you think of when you think of Christmas wreaths? The hottest new Halloween item I kept seeing while doorknocking is bloody Halloween wreaths with skulls and decapitated hands. As I contemplated the spiritual pull of Halloween while doorknocking, I realized afresh that modern Halloween is obsessed with death.  Irish Americans imported many druid religious practices into the darker side of Halloween. Druids loved to focus on ghosts, demons, witches, and other deadly, half-alive entities. In 1 Corinthians 15:26, the bible tells us that “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” Death is an enemy that cannot be defeated by ourselves, no matter how many bloody Halloween items we place on our front lawns.  Why does Halloween have such a strong pull on our culture? Hebrews 2:15 gives the reason:  The fear of death actually makes us slaves until the blood of Jesus on the cross sets us free. Until we surrender and receive Jesus as Lord and Saviour, turning from our darkness, we remain in slavery.  By the way, if you have never surrendered your will to Jesus and turned from your sins, you could do that this very morning. Just go to one of our prayer teams and tell them that you want to surrender your will to Jesus.

I discovered by the way while recently doorknocking that politics is indeed a blood sport even in BC. Charles Dickens in 1841 said that good people in the United States often avoid running for politics, because the press is so nasty towards them, mercilessly destroying their reputation.  Sadly, politics in Canada and the accompanying media coverage is getting much bloodier.  Our famous Canadian politeness is under assault. Some people think that it is their god-given right to be hateful and rude to others politically.  Alexander Solzhenitsyn prophetically said: “Why should one refrain from burning hatred, whatever its basis – race, class, or ideology? Such hatred is in fact corroding many hearts today.”

Politeness however is not completely dead in Canada.  I saw that politeness with our politicians speaking at the local White Rock/South Surrey Leadership Prayer Breakfast.

While doorknocking, some people told me how they are going to vote for another political party, and then apologized to me, saying that they are sorry.

 Any one nowadays who chooses to be involved in politics will be attacked and wounded, at least by mechanical spiders. To give a personal example, I kept cutting my hands and arms while carrying sharp lawn signs. Then I bashed my left ankle on a hidden plastic pipe, causing a bloody mess. It has taken weeks to fully heal up. It has given me a new understanding for the five wounds of Christ that many people contemplate in prayer, including the wound in his ankle. Spiritually speaking, many wounds in our life will never heal unless we remove the dirt of sin and cleanse our hurts in the healing blood of Christ, especially at Halloween. 

Has any noticed that our southern neighbours are having an election? Charles Dickens in 1841 said because of their Congress having elections every two years unlike the Senate every six years, they never get a rest, a sabbath from politics. When you never get a sabbath, a break from something, it has become an idol. I had a very political friend on the North Shore who broke up with his MLA (Member of legislature) girlfriend because she never took a sabbath break from politics.  She was political to the very core of her soul.  Here’s a quick way to discover one of your hidden idols. What are you actually doing instead when you skip church and/or skip reading your Bible and praying? If it’s sports, or sleep, or siblings or Halloween or politics, those are your idols. Politics easily becomes an idol to the politically involved.  Politics as an idol can become bloody and deadly.  Just think of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and Mao Se Tung.  We need to pray the blood of Jesus over the American election and even our BC election ‘hanging chad’ results so that we don’t end up with a bloody mess.

My late dear father was an agnostic and Sunday morning golfer for much of his life until he was converted in his 50s. As a former United Church member, my father didn’t have pornography in our house, which in the age of the internet nowadays is quite unusual. My engineering father never swore sexually or even about Jesus Christ. This is in stark contrast to our current highly sexualized conversation, with many younger men and even women swearing like troopers, dropping f bombs and Jesus Christ references almost casually. Being a former boy scout, my father rarely ever swore, only when he was deeply upset. His strongest swear word was the rather nonsensical British term ‘bloody hell’. I read that in Australia, bloody is just a generic adjective used to intensify any other noun like someone affectionately being called  a bloody idiot.

In today’s passage Isaiah 62, vs 1, Jesus the Jewish Messiah prophetically says to Israel and the nations: “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet, till her vindication shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch.

Just like my other recent sermons on Isaiah 60 & 61, this is a messianic passage about Jesus who will not keep silent. Have you ever wondered why Bishop Peter will not keep silent about the bloody darkness of Halloween?  Because he doesn’t want us to be deceived. Similarly, Jesus wants Israel and the nations to be set free from deception and gross darkness.

Why do so many of us love to sing “O Canada our home and native land”, especially at hockey games? We all long for a homeland. We all long for home sweet home. As Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz so powerfully concluded, there is no place like home. Woke DEI people love to make us like aliens in our own land of Canada. Government corruption and overspending is causing many Canadians to fear becoming homeless. Many young people in BC now fear that they will never have a place to call home. 

Homelessness has deeply shaped the Jewish experience.  The song ‘Somewhere over the rainbow’ was written by a Jewish person experiencing pogroms and longing to return to Jerusalem. At the end of every Passover feast, after drinking the fourth cup of redemption, Jewish people say ‘next year in Jerusalem’. The first written occurrence occurs in a tenth-century poem by the Spanish rabbi Joseph ibn Abitur.

Strong biblical themes of exile and restoration in Isaiah 62 particularly relate to the land, what Jews call in Hebrew Eretz Israel. Too often being landless and homeless is a very deep metaphor in the Bible for the Jewish people. Accordingly, salvation and redemption for the people of Israel is not just seen as a subjective private experience in one’s heart but rather an actual restoration to one’s land by the Saviour. The cry Hosanna to Jesus on Palm Sunday meant Save us Lord. Save us from the Roman oppressors. Save us from our next potential exile from the land, as happened with the Jews until their miraculous restoration in 1948. Never before has there been a nation like Israel restored from exile after almost 2,000 years. Who might have imagined that the people of Israel, after almost being completed obliterated by Hitler in the Holocaust, might return to their homeland?

Psalm 122:6 challenges us to pray for the peace, the shalom of Jerusalem. Since the bloody Oct 7th massacre a year ago, it is more important than ever for Zion’s sake that we do not remain silent in our prayer for the people of Israel. Jerusalem is mentioned three times in this passage, Zion twice, and the city once. Biblically speaking, there is both an earthly city of Zion, Jerusalem, and a heavenly city of God, called the new Jerusalem. God cares for both the physical and spiritual. In the book of Revelation, the heavenly city and earthy city of Jerusalem become one when Jesus returns to earth.

In Isaiah 62, vs 2, Israel and the nations are told that “The nations will see your vindication, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow.”

How many have actually visited Jerusalem? We went in 1980 and were booked to return to Jerusalem in 2020 when the whole world was locked down. The ultimate glory of Israel is its messiah, Yeshua, Jesus the Christ. Sadly, many Jewish people believe that to believe in Jesus is to abandon their identity as Jews. You can be an atheist Jew, a Buddhist Jew, a new age Jew. Only Jesus is seen by many as verboten. He is only for the Gentiles.  Yet Jesus/Yeshua is the most famous Jewish person who has ever existed.

Speaking of identity, what is your middle name? Do you identify with it? Is it you? How many use your middle name rather than your first name? My dear late mother Lorna actually had Catherine as her first name.  How many of you would like a new name? A new orientation. A new identity.

In 2018, I and over 200 others BC pastors signed the One Accord declaration calling the BC government to get rid of SOGI. In the One Accord, we said that, quote unquote, “We contend that the SOGI message contradicts the Christian truths, disrespects Charter values, and is harmful to school children, their parents, school teachers, and society as a whole,” For some reason, the government back then didn’t listen and doubled-down on the divisive and destructive SoGi agenda. This was the first time, by the way, in Canada that a government didn’t listen. 😉

Instead of SOGI, I would like to share with you today your Spiritual Orientation and Godly identity. Isaiah 62 VS 4 tells us that your new names, orientation and identity ( even more defining than your sexuality or gender) are Hephzibah and Beulah. I checked with our Christian walking group by the way and no one knew what these two names meant apart from being names of Baptist and Alliance Churches. But these two new names are God’s solution for the oppressive darkness around Halloween.

In Isaiah 62 vs 3, Jesus tells Israel and us as the nations that “You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God.”

            God sees Israel as a crown of splendour, a royal diadem which is a royal headband. The good news is that according to Romans 11:19, all the nations through faith in Jesus are grafted into the olive tree of Israel. We the Church have not antisemitically replaced Israel; rather we are mysteriously included. This is very good news! If God could break his covenant promises with Israel, he could do the same with us as the gentile nations. I thank God that he still loves Israel with an everlasting love, even as He calls us to reach the nations with his everlasting love. As Romans 1:16 reminds us, God is a missionary God, to the Jew first and to all the nations.

In Isaiah 62, vs 4, Jesus tells Israel and us as the grafted-in nations: “No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be married.”

 I recently read JD Vance’s bestseller Hillbilly Elegy where he speaks of profound desertion and abandonment again and again by his father and subsequent stepfathers and boyfriends of his addicted, violent mother. His childhood was a bloody mess that with the help of his grandmother Mamaw and his time in the US marines, he miraculously recovered, even getting a Yale law degree, a stable job and a good marriage and children.  The good news is that JD Vance’s mom recently achieved ten years sobriety through AA & NA. Many addicts nowadays are poly-addicted, not just addicted to alcohol as in the old days.

AA & NA uses the acronym H.A.L.T. (Hungry. Angry. Lonely. And Tired) to describe when we are most vulnerable to temptation and addiction. Desertion is at its core existential loneliness. There is no limit to how stupid we can act when we are experiencing the deep pain of loneliness and forsakenness. Jesus quoted My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? on the cross from the key messianic passage Psalm 22. The word lonely was invented by Shakespeare, coming from the Latin word solus or solitude. Loneliness is the counterfeit of the monastic discipline of solitude and aloneness. For a teenager to not participate in the darkness of Halloween is often to be left deeply alone, and deserted like a fish out of water. Self-isolation is connected to what AA calls the moving cure. When we hide from others, even in plain view, our anxiety and pain temporarily reduce, but always bounce back with greater anxiety and pain.

Bishop Peter often talks about how difficult it is to do community in our individualistic western culture, and yet how vital it is to our spiritual growth. I am grateful how Bishop Peter keeps refocusing us on prayer & community, especially in this increasingly bloody season of Halloween.

Have you noticed how people love to blame and persecute the Jews?  When in doubt, it is always their fault. Think about the Egyptians followed by the Assyrians followed by the Babylonians followed by the Greeks followed by the Romans: none of them treated Israel well. Again and again, the Bible describes how the people of Israel have been exiled from their deserted and desolate land for a season.

But God has never given up on his covenant faithfulness with Israel. Even in exile and brokenness, God calls the Jewish people Hephzibah, which means he still delights in them. Jewish tradition tells us that Hephzibah was the name of Isaiah’s own daughter. The root hafz means “guarding” or “taking care of,” to safeguard.” How many of us would welcome God’s safeguarding, his delight, during this bloody Halloween season?

Don’t by the way confuse Hephzibah with Hezbollah (the “Party of God”), the terrorist group in Lebanon. Hephzibah was the name of King Hezekiah’s wife. Those who are sci-fi buffs will know that Hephzibah is the name of Catwoman or Lady Kitten with the Marvel Comics XMan series. After Christopher Summers, AkA Corsair saved Hephzibah from being eaten alive at a banquet), she fell in love with him, swearing an eternal bond.

We as Hephzibah delight in and love our bridegroom Jesus because he first delighted in and loved us. The good news in the messiah Jesus that God also delights in the nations, the goyim, and God also delights in you individually. He takes pleasure in you. Pastor Steve Doerksen, our White Rock/South Surrey Leadership Prayer Breakfast MC, said on Friday that God is smiling on you. What if on Oct 31st  during our Prayer Vigil, we contemplated how much Jesus delights in us and smiles on us?

Our other new name Beulah means married. Our sacramental marriage to Jesus is at the heart of true communion.  Ephesians 5:22 says “This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” Beulah is described by John Bunyan in Pilgrim’s Progress as being on the borders of Heaven. My 47-year marriage with my wife Janice is heavenly; it has brought me much closer to King Jesus. Those of you who are married, never take your spouse for granted. Never stop dating and romancing them. If you want the intimacy of Beulah, you need to spend a lot of quality time with your spouse. Do I hear an Amen? Our All Saints Prayer Vigil starting tonight is Beulah quality time with our bridegroom Jesus.

One of my wife’s love language is quality time, which she sacrificed a lot of it while I was doorknocking for the last nine months.  Since Janice had successful cancer surgery and radiation three years ago, every moment with Janice is a precious gift that I thank Jesus for. Yesterday Janice and I went on a romantic 12-hour date that started with a delicious meal at an AGM with our MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay, and ended with a tasty Subway meal before watching the Kitsilano theatre production Billy Bishop Goes to War. Has anyone seen this play?  A little too much swearing for me, but very well done. Planes fascinate us because both of our dads served in the Air Force in WWII. Remembrance Day at All Saints meant a lot to my late dad when he processed with Ralph Webb, wearing his WWII medals.  Billy Bishop was our top Canadian flying ace in WWI receiving a Victoria Cross for 72 victories. He even fought in the air at Vimy Ridge where my grandfather Vic Hird was in the trenches.  It was Billy Bishop, not Charlie Brown’s Snoopy, who actually fought the top WWI pilot known as the Bloody Red Baron. With a Canadian population of just eight million, our Canadian Armed Forces grew in size during WWI from just 3,000 to a remarkable 650,000 people. 66,000 Canadians made the ultimate sacrifice, including my two great-uncles Harry and Charlie. When Billy Bishop peacefully died at age 62, 25,000 Canadians lined the funeral procession.

The word deserted, by the way, comes from the word desert, meaning left waste, to be empty of people. Have you noticed how cold, wet weather can make Crescent Beach look like a ghost town? Have you ever felt deserted in your Christian Walk? Halloween is often experienced as a heavy, alienating time by people who want to seek first God’s Kingdom.  We are in a battle, a battle over Jerusalem, a battle for the Soul of Canada, a battle for the Soul of BC.

Rejection and desertion are very close. Jesus was both rejected and deserted by almost everybody, except for the women disciples and John.  Teenage Christians often feel great pressure to compromise with evil during the Halloween season in order to avoid being rejected. In Hebrews 13:5, Jesus our bridegroom tells us: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.””

How many have immigrated to Canada? How many have parents or grandparents who were immigrants to Canada? How many of your ancestors came because Canada was seen as the promised land? How many came because they were fleeing oppression? The biblical themes of slavery and oppression in foreign exile are very strong in Isaiah 62. So are the themes of exodus, liberation, and restoration. All of us long to be no longer deserted and desolate especially in this dark time of Halloween

Pastor Ray Johnston of Bayside Church in Sacramento said recently: “If you expect the Christian life to be easy, you will quit when it gets hard.” Never let discouragement and loneliness cause you to give up. The devil, especially during Halloween, loves to exhaust us, isolate us, and distract us. That is one of the key ways he kills marriages, families, churches, and even nations.

You may notice how Bishop Peter talks a lot about the desert, how we are tempted to run away to the desert. Halloween, is one of those times when many believers feel spiritually deserted, when evil seems to be simultaneously glorified and trivialized. It can feel like a spiritual desert. That is why I encouraged you this October 31st to join us at 7pm at the All Saints prayer course. How many would agree that All Saints is an oasis in our BC desert?

In Isaiah 62, vs. 5, Israel and the grafted-in nations are told: “As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.”

Speaking of our new name Beulah, Jesus the Messiah is our bridegroom, and we are his covenantal bride. We are God’s trophy wife. He chose you before anyone could reject you or desert you. Are you married yet to Jesus? Marriage is sacramental and covenantal. God loves to use the sacraments of baptism and communion to help break off the curse of desertion, of abandonment, of god-forsakenness. Sacraments can be a great blessing when received by faith with thanksgiving, particularly during the Halloween season.

Would you like to be married to Jesus? The key, as Bishop Peter keeps telling us, is surrender. Have you surrendered your independence and your will to Jesus? You could do that this morning. As John Bevere, author of The Bait of Satan often says, many people however would rather date Jesus rather than forsake all others and be married to him alone. We love our idols too much to give them up. For many people, Halloween is a very powerful idol.  It is unthinkable for many to renounce Halloween, even to just renounce the darker aspects of Halloween. They may think that they are being disloyal to their parents’ memories who may have taken them out trick or treating.

In Isaiah 62, vs 5, Jesus said: “I have posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.”

Bishop Peter is a watchman on the wall who is never silent sharing the good news and challenging people to turn from darkness. Our extended times of prayer at All Saints are time of the intercessors nightly watching on the wall. I am looking forward this evening to our latest nightly time of prayer as we are trusting God for our All Saints renovation. Let’s not give God or even ourselves any rest, especially during the gross darkness of Halloween. Did you know that spiritual renewal and restoration in Spanish is called renovacion?

Have you noticed that the darkness of Halloween is getting darker and bloodier? The Bible in Isaiah 60:2 talks about both darkness and gross darkness. While doorknocking, it sometimes looked like I have stumbled on an ISIS or Hamas massacre, strewn with decapitated bloody heads, hands and feet. God, by the way, is passionate about establishing and protecting Israel as the praise of the earth. Through passionate prayer, we can make a difference in protecting Israel from its many enemies. When prayerful revival breaks out as with the Jesus movement, that is when many Jewish people open their hearts to the Messiah Yeshua.

In Isaiah 62, vs 8-9, Israel and the grafted-in nations are told: “The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by his mighty arm: “Never again will I give your grain as food for your enemies, and never again will foreigners drink the new wine for which you have toiled; but those who harvest it will eat it and praise the Lord, and those who gather the grapes will drink it in the courts of my sanctuary.”

God’s desire is that both Israel and faithful nations experience biblical sowing and reaping.  How many of us want more of the new wine and Harvest during this Halloween season? Surrender is the key to spiritual Harvest.

In Isaiah 62, vs 10, Jesus says to Israel and the grafted-in nations:  “Pass through, pass through the gates! Prepare the way for the people. Build up, build up the highway! Remove the stones. Raise a banner for the nations.”

God is always calling the people of Israel home from exile. In Jesus, we are all being called home. Are you willing to come back home during the darkness of Halloween? What is holding you back from passing through the gates, from building up the highway for others getting free?

In Isaiah 62, vs. 11, Israel and the grafted-in nations are told: “The Lord has made proclamation to the ends of the earth: “Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your Savior comes! See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.’ ”

Israel’s greatest need is to realize that their Saviour Yeshua/ Jesus is coming again. All of us need this awareness. As we say in the liturgy, Christ had died. Christ had risen. Christ will come again. Jesus alone can save us from the gross darkness of Halloween. Are you willing to ask Jesus to save you this morning?  What do you need saving from in your life?

In Isaiah 62, vs 12, Jesus speaks of Israel and the grafted-in nations: “They will be called the Holy People, the Redeemed of the Lord; and you will be called Sought After, the City No Longer Deserted.”

Jesus is seeking for you as his Holy Redeemed City to choose the way of holiness, to say yes to the light and no to the bloody darkness.  In this Halloween season, are you willing to die to some of your so-called rights that we Westerners take for granted? Once we surrender our will to the crucified Christ, we are crucified with Him. Every right we had was nailed to that cross. What rights are you willing to surrender, to lay on the altar? How about the right to be offended, the right to be bitter, the right to be angry, the right to hang onto unforgiveness, the right to criticize, how about even the right to be right? How about the right to do Halloween just like you have always done, no matter how dark it may get?

How many would like to no longer be deserted? What is God wanting to restore in your life even during the darkness of Halloween? How many want a restoration of your first love for Jesus? How many want a fresh assurance that God delights in you as his bride? I am convinced that in the increasingly bloody nature of Halloween, we need to be pleading the blood of Jesus, especially over our children and grandchildren. What can wash away Halloween? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make Canada whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Let us pray.


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The Disciplines of Seeking a Rebuke & Self Examination

If you click HERE, you’ll find last Sunday’s service—the 12th March—the Third Sunday in Lent.
(In case you missed it, you can find our service for the Second Sunday in Lent HERE.


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The Asbury Outpouring from a UK Anglican perspective

A wonderful reflection on the Asbury outpouring from a UK Anglican pastor who recently reflected the Asbury outpouring in Wilmore, Kentucky.


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Dr Steve Seamands on the Asbury Outpouring


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The Benefits of Self-examination

The Lenten Discipline of self-examination  (Proverbs 27:14-27)

By Rev. Dr. Ed Hird

(part 2 of a 3 part series on Proverbs 27 & 28)

March 12th 2023

Many of us have heard of the recent spontaneous student-led revivals on many college campuses, beginning with Asbury college, Dr E Stanley Jones’ alma mater. Asbury, going back to E Stanley Jones in 1905, keeps having unplanned times of revival decade after decade. The Asbury revival of 1970 helped birth the Jesus movement portrayed in the amazing Jesus Revolution movie. We’ve now seen it three times with various family & friends.

How many of you would welcome an outpouring of revival and renewal in Crescent Beach even during these 40 days of Lent? Because God is sovereign, We cannot make revival happen, but we can prepare our hearts for coming revivals. There are six key Lenten disciplines to help us prepare for revival: prayer, fasting, self-examination, repentance, Bible-reading, and generosity to the poor.  E. Stanley Jones said that there is no freedom without discipline. Many people don’t like the word ‘discipline’. Some people use the alternate term ‘rhythm’ or ‘habit’ or ‘practices’. Either way we need to build these disciplines in our lives to fully prepare to celebrate Jesus’ death & resurrection less than a month from now.

Paul said in Galatians 4 that he was into the pains of childbirth until Christ was fully formed in others. How many of you would like, through self-examination, to have Christ more fully formed in you? Less of you, more of Him.  Sometimes spiritual formation through self-examination can feel overwhelming because it challenges us to move beyond our comfort zone & make changes. It may feel like staring blindly down a dark well. 

Self examination however is a vital Lenten tool in our growth in holiness, what the Bible calls sanctification. How many of us have regular medical, automobile and housing examinations and checkups? How much more important is an annual spiritual checkup & examination during Lent?  As Bishop Peter puts it, Lent is a 40-day journey in the desert. Self examination is a desert discipline.

Some of you may be wondering: What is self examination anyways? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as the study of one’s own behavior and motivations. 

Self-examination is not just what we are doing, thinking, or feeling, but even more importantly why we are doing what we are doing. How many of you came from a family where self examination was practiced and perhaps even taught?

The Greek philosopher Socrates, before being executed, said “The unexamined life is not worth living.”  You may have noticed Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount was always going beyond outward behaviour to inwards motivations. Our heart motivations is the heart of the matter. As Proverbs 4:23 says, above all things, guard your heart for out of it are the issues of life. 

Our woke culture tells us to naively trust our heart but the Bible in Jeremiah 17:9 warns that our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked. 

That is why self-examination is so difficult, because it is so easy to con ourselves. The key here is to be as unbiased and objective about ourselves as possible. This is a tall order. 

So many of us confuse our pseudo-self with our genuine self. The pseudo-self is the imposter, what I call the Hollywood pretend self. Lent is a great time to get real and stop pretending. Lent is about coming out of the darkness, and walking in the light.

Self-examination is about God doing spiritual surgery on us. How many of us want to be put on the operating table during this Lent? When I first served in 1982 as the assistant priest at St Matthew’s Abbotsford, I had an unusual dream where Archdeacon Major wanted me to do brain surgery. I told him, “I had no idea how, but hang on and I will read a book on how to do it.” In prayerfully discerning the meaning of that dream, I realized that I was the patient on the table and God was doing brain surgery on me, renewing my mind. What if we prayed during this Lent, “Rebuke me, O Lord, in your love. I want to change.”?

One of my favorite Psalms 139 in vs. 23-24 invites God to search our hearts and see if there is any wicked way in us and lead us in the way everlasting. It also affirms that we are each wonderfully and fearfully made. Self-examination is not about self-flagellating yourself in a psychological guilt trip.  Self-examination does involve confessing our sins, and faults as in AA’s Step 4 & 5 ‘doing a searching fearless inventory of the exact nature of how we have wronged God and others.”

But it is also about discovering our God-given unique giftedness, strengths, and personality tendencies in Christ. One of the most beautiful thing about one’s spouse is that they are not us. We do not need to apologize for how unique and different that God has made each of us. We are all originals. Don’t try to be a carbon copy of someone else.

What exactly is this self that we are examining? The self in Hinduism is seen as God and therefore sinless. The self in atheistic Buddhism does not exist; it is seen as a mere illusion. (Many people don’t realize that Buddha was an atheist who embraced nothingness.) The self in the Judeo-Christian worldview, however, is made in God’s image and therefore inherently valuable and creative, though broken by sin.

 God, according to Acts 1:24 & 15:8, is the heart-knower. Nothing is hidden from him when he examines us. He counts every hair on our heads. Some of you may know the collect for purity where we pray “Almighty God unto whom all hearts are open and all desires known…” That is why soul-searching is so good for the soul. Getting honest with God during Lent is so liberating. You will feel more whole and healthy inside. It begins with first removing any logs in our eyes, so that we can see clearly.  

During your Lenten self examination, you may want to ask the Lord to show you if you are bearing any grudges.  Dr E Stanley Jones said: “The forgiveness of injuries, the loving of enemies, is the chief characteristic of real Christianity.” Self-examination helps us grow in greater obedience and self-surrender. You might pray: “Lord, I don’t want to forgive that person, but I surrender my bitterness to you.” Our truest self is a surrendered self who is now longer just stuck back in the defeat and rebellion of Romans 7, but who has discovered the Spirit-filled life of Romans 8 and the 2 Corinthians 5:17 identity of being a new creation in Christ Jesus. 

Biblical self-examination as Colossians 3:3 puts it, reveals that we have died. Our new life is now hidden with Christ in God. Rather than being obsessed with self realization, self-actualization, or self fulfillment, Christ is our life, our reason to get up in the morning.  

Proverbs 27 vs. 14 “If anyone loudly blesses their neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse.”

How many of you are early risers? Early risers even prefer to floss their teeth in the morning.  Sometimes they are too noisy before others want to wake up.  I have learned to use headphones in listening to podcasts or music when my wife is still sleeping. Self-awareness and awareness of others helps us not unnecessarily turn our family & neighbours into enemies. I was so clueless when I first got married that I didn’t realize that my wife was not a morning person. Rise and shine, honey! 

15- 16. “A quarrelsome wife is like the dripping of a leaky roof in a rainstorm; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand.”

Perhaps the quarrelsome wife verses are connected to the clueless husband waking her up too early in the morning. Quarrelling marriages and families may feel intergenerationally normal. We lose awareness of how destructive it is. 

17. “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”

Self-examination & self awareness great greatly sharpened through being in a community like All Saints, where iron can sharpen iron. One of the reasons I deeply value being part of All Saints for five years now is that Bishop Peter, with his recovery background, is very gifted in helping people grow in the Lenten spiritual disciplines. 

18. “The one who guards a fig tree will eat its fruit, and whoever protects their master will be honored.”

Might one say that All Saints is a fig tree and Bishop Peter is a guardian of the galaxy? 😉

19. “As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.:

This is a profound self examination verse, taking us to the heart of the matter. The first mirrors ever discovered were likely through people gazing at still lakes. How many times in your life have you looked at yourself? How long have you gone without ever looking at a mirror? God wants us to look at the mirror spiritually, not only but rather especially at Lent. People often use addictions like workaholism to avoid self examination, looking at the mirror.  

Many people secretly hate themselves, so they avoid any self-awareness. They become experts at numbing their consciences and blaming others for any issues in their lives. The blame game always ends badly. Have you noticed? Lamentations 3:40 tells us to examine and test our ways, and return to the Lord.

1 Corinthians 11:26 encourages us to examine our self before we receive communion. You might want to try that this morning. Taking communion glibly without self-examination can actually make us sick or worse. 2nd Corinthians 13:5 challenges us to examine ourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test ourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you?”

Dr Gil Stieglitz encourages self-examination through the use of the Ten commandment or the fruit of the Spirit. In your Lenten self-examining, you might to ask yourself how you have been doing lately in honouring your parents, or telling the truth, not coveting.  Dr Gil also trained us in using the seven deadly sins for self examination (Pride, envy, anger, lust, sloth, gluttony, greed). As Christians, we need to regularly self-examine ourselves about the pride of self righteousness, thinking that I am holier than thou.

You probably know that even in prison, there is a pecking order about who is better vs really unforgivable. You might ask yourself how you’re doing in the area of anger and grumpiness. If you are really being brave, seek a rebuke from your spouse by asking them for honest feedback about any of your irritability. You might also ask yourself and others if there is anything that you are slothfully avoiding. Are you perhaps hiding behind excuses, rather than facing responsibility?

In your self-examination, you may wish to ask: where am I being gluttonous, say, with too many video games, too much internet, or too much food? I used to be addicted to sugar, and didn’t think that food would taste good without it. Through my wife’s encouragement, I gave up sugar and am so much healthier because of it.

It can be painful to face the truth about our brokenness. God is not sat all surprised by our brokenness. You will remember what Bishop Peter says about 95% of people being broken. It can be wise to pace ourselves in our Lenten self examination, one day at a time.

Avoid utopian expectations of a quick fix that will immediately solve all your problems, making you perfectly sinless. Growing up in Christ takes time. Have you noticed? The good news is that because of God’s amazing grace, we can trust that God, who knows the worst about us, still loves us anyway. We have deep value as people made in his image, sinners for whom Christ died. Through the new birth, we have become God’s own adopted children. What higher identity could we have than God’s beloved children?

120. “Death and Destruction are never satisfied, and neither are human eyes.”

This is also a profound look at the potential destructiveness of human restlessness. Our culture is so often never satisfied. What if in our Lenten self-examining, we repented of restless negativity and chose to be thankful rather than complaining?

21. “The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but people are tested by their praise.”

As part of the Lenten discipline of self-examination, we need to guard our hearts against being taken out by flattery. Watch out for people who put you on pedestals. As Bishop Peter often says, don’t believe your own press. This by the way is a gentle rebuke from Peter, a wise warning about the dangers of our celebrity-driven culture. Fame is a deceiver. Galatian 6:3 is clear that if anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. By definition, pretending that we are better than other people is not biblical self-examination.

Have you noticed that so much of high school culture is largely pretend culture? That is why only 2% of high school romances survive into adulthood. Just think of those two teenagers Romeo and Juliet. Romans 12:3 encourages us to not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.

Sober self-examination protects us from being placed on a pedestal or thrown into the dumps. Some half-empty cup people like to use self examination to trash themselves listening to the day and night voice of the accuser: “I’m no good; I’ll never do better; I might as well give up. I am unlovable and worthless.” The Holy Spirit convicts but never condemns.

Philippians 1:6 promises that he who had begun a good work in us will bring it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Thank God as Psalm 103:10 puts it that he does not deal with us according to our sins. We can trust the promise of 1 John 1:9 that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Any self examination must stay right there at the foot of the cross.

Thank God for the finished work done on Calvary hill. That is why Galatians 2:20 says: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” God does not want us lost in narcissistic self-absorption. Excessive navel-gazing will cause us to slowly sink in psychological quicksand.

E Stanley Jones said that the tyranny of self preoccupation brings an unhappy, disrupted self. Have you ever noticed that the most miserable people always want to talk about themselves. Nothing else interests them.  Self-preoccupation leaves us lonely, isolated, and emotional cut-off from genuine intimacy as God intends for our families & marriages.

Robert Murray McCheyne, the famous Scottish devotionalist, memorably said: “For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ.” Glance at your self while gazing on the cross.

22. “Though you grind a fool in a mortar, grinding them like grain with a pestle, you will not remove their folly from them.”

Fools blindly refuse to examine themselves. Don’t be like them. Husbands, perhaps your wife has a point when she keeps bring up that issue she wants you to look at.

23. “Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds.”

 I have watched Bishop Peter in my five years so far at All Saints take careful care for the sheep at All Saints. You can imagine that this Herd verse has been an important verse for raising our three Hird sons and now our four Hird grandchildren.

 I will never forget my dear wife Janice Hird asking me how our visiting Hird grandchild was doing. I said ‘great’. She is being very quiet. Yes indeed, they were quietly putting Vaseline on the wall by our front door. The Bible is right: pay careful attention to your herds.;) Self-awareness and herd-awareness go together. Self-identity and family identity are closely connected.

You can see how deeply family wounds shaped the key people in the Jesus Revolution movie: Pastor Chuck Smith’s control needs related to fear of his failure, Lonnie Frisbee’s fear of abandonment and Greg Laurie’s fear that everyone will leave him in the end. 

24-27“for riches do not endure forever, and a crown is not secure for all generations. When the hay is removed and new growth appears and the grass from the hills is gathered in, the lambs will provide you with clothing, and the goats with the price of a field.  You will have plenty of goats’ milk to feed your family and to nourish your female servants.”

Proverbs 27:14-27 NIV https://bible.com/bible/111/pro.27.14-27.NIV

How many of you want to grow in the area of self examination this Lent? Let us pray:


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The Discipline of Seeking a Rebuke

March 5th 2023

All Saints Crescent Beach

The Lenten Discipline of Seeking a rebuke (Proverbs 27:1-13) (video)

By Rev. Dr. Ed Hird

Dreams are funny things. Last night I dreamt that I was doing substitute teaching, but left early without checking with the principal. Today, as I substitute teach for Bishop Peter, I will make sure not to check out early 😉

A great Lenten discipline can be to do prayer walking. As many of you know, I am in a Christian walking group that walks Mondays & Wednesdays on the White Rock Promenade and on Fridays at Crescent Beach. While we were walking, we discussed about President Eisenhower being raised JW before being converted to Christ by Billy Graham. Out of the blue, I saw two JWs standing by the Beecher street turnaround. I had a wonderful chance to share with them about Jesus being our Lord and God (John 20:28). We even chatted about the meaning of Proverbs 27, today’s passage.

I have a question for you related to today’s Proverbs teaching. What happens when politicians surround themselves with yes men? Have you ever noticed that it never ends well. What might happen if Putin or perhaps Canadian federal leaders surrounded themselves with people who could constructively disagree with them without losing their jobs or perhaps even their necks?

You may have noticed that those who always agree with us, those who celebrate our sinful, destructive behaviours, are not true friends. You will remember Bishop Peter’s excellent series on spiritual friendship. Genuine spiritual friends want the best for us. Real spiritual friends will even risk a friendship if it means saving us from destruction. Do you have a spiritual friend that you can trust to tell you the truth in love? Does anyone have permission to speak honestly into your life? Can any one disagree with you and even privately challenge you without losing your friendship? Without the rebuke of such spiritual friends, we can easily become dangerous, particularly if we are in positions of power.

Many Christians switch churches every time anyone gets close and speaks into their life. We are a culture on the run. So many even as Christians are in hiding, sometimes in plain view. Some husbands have been hiding from their wives for years, even when they are in the same room, perhaps hiding behind a newspaper, tv, cell phone, or video games. Instead of seeking, we are isolating and hiding from the Lord and one another.

Proverbs 18:1 says that “whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgement.” To isolate ourself against such friends robs us of life-giving wisdom. So many of us, even as Christ followers, are scared to death of vulnerability, of letting others speak into our lives. How many of you, as Proverbs 27:17 puts it, want iron to sharpen iron in your relationships?

You may remember when the prophet Nathan rebuked David after he killed Uriah. Who can forget Jesus rebuking his disciples in Matthew 18 when they bickered about who was the greatest? His rebuke was to show them a child. The least is the greatest. Jesus rebuked lovingly, kindly, and gently. Matthew 12:20 , quoting Isaiah 42, says of Jesus “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” Jesus did not crush people with his words. Jesus’ rebuke is not rejection.

Be careful who you seek a rebuke or feedback from. Don’t go to gossips or bad tempered people to seek a rebuke. Go to someone who respects and loves you enough to tell you the truth.

You will also remember in Luke 9:56 when James & John, Zebedee’s sons of thunder, wanted to call fire down to destroy an unfriendly Samaritan village, and Jesus rebuked them. Jesus’ rebukes flipped everything on its head. Significantly, Jesus in Revelation 3:9 said to the Laodiceans, “As many as I love, I rebuke”. Proverbs 3:11-12 says: “Don’t resent his rebuke for the Lord disciplines those he loves.” Don’t harden your hearts to Jesus’ rebukes. When we receive his easier rebukes, then he won’t need to turn over our tables or rebuke us like he did when Peter forbid Jesus from going to the cross.

Proverbs 29:1 says that whoever remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy.” How many of us have struggled with being stiff-necked? You may remember that the resurrected Jesus rebuked his disciples in Mark 16:14 for their slowness to belief and their hardness of heart. Has Jesus ever rebuked you? Do any of you want to share? (Pause)

Seeking a rebuke may feel very countercultural. We live in a cancel culture that so easily takes offense, and then cuts other people off. Have you ever felt like you have to walk on eggs shells around certain relatives or friends? What if we stopped resenting and despising other people’s advice? What if we admitted, as Proverbs 19:20 teaches, that we actually need their wisdom to live a more godly healthy life? No Christian is a solitary island. We need God’s family. Part of belonging to a Christian community is about learning about the Lenten discipline of seeking a rebuke. Titus 1:13 says that such rebukes will make us healthy and sound in the faith.

I first learned about seeking a rebuke from our first Anglican Coach Dr Gil Stieglitz who emphasized how key this was for husbands who want a healthy marriage. Gil suggested that for those who don’t like the biblical word ‘rebuke’, think of the word ‘feedback’. Ask your wife for feedback on how you can improve and grow. Your wife already knows what it will take. You just need to have the courage to ask her. If you non-defensively listen and apply her wisdom, you will be amazed how the intimacy in your marriage will increase.

As Proverbs 15:4 puts it, a Christlike rebuke, needs to be with a gentle tongue. Gentleness is a tree of life. Colossians 4:6 says that our speech needs to always be gracious and seasoned with salt. Galatians 6:1 calls us to restore people in a spirit of gentleness. 1 Peter 3:15 likewise calls us to gentleness and respect. 2 Timothy 2:25 speaks of gently instructing others. A Christ-centered rebuke is quietly and kindly spoken. It is not about yelling, accusing, or finger-wagging. The receiver would not necessarily realize that they had been rebuked. It is too easy to win an argument and lose the person. You will notice when Jesus rebuked and challenged people, he often used a question. You may remember Jesus’ probing question in Luke 9:41 when the disciples couldn’t heal the convulsing boy: “How long shall I stay with you and put up with you?” Have you ever noticed how patient Bishop Peter is with how slow we often are to get things? Have you noticed how from time to time, he will repeat key concepts like the importance of self-awareness, waiting for the penny to drop? Bishop Peter’s rebukes are very gentle. We often don’t even realize when Bishop Peter is rebuking us.

The most effective questions are not usually angry why questions, but rather observational who, what, where, when and how questions.

While doing my doctoral thesis, my professor asked me two breakthrough questions: Have you ever thought of including a glossary? Have you ever thought of including colour pie charts for my data results? On both occasions, I defensively deflected, saying that it wasn’t needed. The rebuke was a very gentle “you might want to think of it.” The gentleness stopped me in my tracks. Why was I so resistant? I decided to do both changes which became the two most complimented parts of my thesis.

Matthew 18:15 suggests that privacy is key, initially just between you and him alone. One of the most loving things anyone can do for you is tell you when you’re wrong. A true friend tells you the truth, even when it hurts. A loving friend will help you identify and remove any logs in your eyes.

How many of you love the Bible? Is it really only full of warm fuzzies? Have you ever heard this verse from Woke 3:16? “Thus says the Inclusive One, I’m ok and you’re OK and that’s Ok. Go and sin some more.”

2nd Timothy 3:16-17 however says “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (…)” Is it okay for the Bible to not only affirm us but also rebuke and correct us? As 2 Timothy 4:2 puts it, correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.

In our highly secular culture, we have lost sight that a Christ-like rebuke is an act of great love that may turn us back from a destructive path. How many of you have ever embraced a rebuke as a blessing?

How defensive are you? Can you welcome a rebuke? Are you willing to seek one from a trusted friend? It takes humility to receive a rebuke.

Proverbs 1:23, 10:17, & 15:10 both teach that correction and rebuke are actually the way to life.

Proverbs 5:12-14 tells us that those who spurn correction will soon be in serious trouble.

Proverbs 6:23 says that if we repent at God’s rebuke, He will pour out his spirit to us.

Proverbs 9:7-9 says that rebuking mockers is a waste of time because they will hatefully insult and abuse you. The wise however will love you when you rebuke them, and become even wiser and learned. How many of you today are willing to learn how to love being rebuked? This has to come through surrendering our will to the power of the Holy Spirit.

Proverbs 10:17 teaches that those who ignore the rebuke of correction will lead others astray from the way of life to death. Seeking a rebuke is actually a life and death Lenten discipline.

Proverbs 12:1 teaches that those who hate the rebuke of correction are stupid.

Proverbs 13:1 teaches that mockers do not respond to rebukes.

Proverbs 13:8 says whoever heeds the rebuke of correction receives honour. Few people make a positive correlation between seeking a rebuke and being honoured.

Proverbs 15:5 teaches that whoever heeds the rebuke of correction shows prudence.

Proverbs 15:32 teaches that those who disregard the rebuke of correction actually despise themselves. Self-hatred cripples us from becoming more self aware & Christlike.

Proverbs 17:10 teaches that a discerning person is actually impressed by a rebuke.

Proverbs 25:12 poetically tells us that like an earring of gold or an ornament of fine gold is the rebuke of a wise judge to a listening ear. Have we ever turned a deaf ear to God’s golden wisdom?

The book of Proverbs teaches again and again that the wise welcome a rebuke. Fools however despise reproof while welcoming flattery.

In this key passage of Proverbs 27:5-6, we are told that “Better is open rebuke than hidden love.

Some people deeply appreciate and value you, but they will never tell you. It is hidden love.

Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.”

The more open and honest, the more effective is the rebuke. Enemies wound you to hurt you. It takes a genuine friend to wound us in a way that heals and brings greater Christlikeness. A healthy rebuke is like healthy surgery.

Proverbs 28:23 teaches that “whoever rebukes a person will in the end gain favor rather than one who has a flattering tongue.” Flattery initially feels very pleasant. Proverbs 26:28 tells us that A lying tongue hates those it hurts, and a flattering mouth works ruin.

Proverbs 29:5 says that those who flatter their neighbors are spreading nets for their feet.

Romans 16:18 says that divisive people deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting with smooth talk and flattering words.

How many of you remember the unctuous clergy William Collins in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, who was always flattering and buttering up Lady Catherine De Bourgh?

The well-known evangelist DL Moody said that there are more people ruined by flattery than by telling them their faults. The Holy Spirit never flatters, but convicts us of sin, and that is the reason, said Moody, that many don’t like Him.

Psalm 141: says that for a righteous man to rebuke us is kindness like oil on our heads. How many of us today are willing to seek such a kind anointing?

Let us pray.

Proverbs 27:1-13 NIV https://bible.com/bible/111/pro.27.1-13.NIV

1. “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.

2. Let someone else praise you, and not your own mouth; an outsider, and not your own lips.

3. Stone is heavy and sand a burden, but a fool’s provocation is heavier than both.

4. Anger is cruel and fury overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy?

5. Better is open rebuke than hidden love.

6. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.

7. One who is full loathes honey from the comb, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet.

8. Like a bird that flees its nest is anyone who flees from home.

9. Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice.

10. Do not forsake your friend or a friend of your family, and do not go to your relative’s house when disaster strikes you—

11. better a neighbor nearby than a relative far away. Be wise, my son, and bring joy to my heart; then I can answer anyone who treats me with contempt.

12. The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.

13. Take the garment of one who puts up security for a stranger; hold it in pledge if it is done for an outsider.”


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Pigs in the Ocean: the socialism of Dostoevsky’s Possessed

By Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird

-an article for the March 2023 Light Magazine

One of Dostoevsky’s most brilliant, darkest and least known novels is The Possessed, also called Demons or The Devils. Dostoevsky, as a devout Christian, often grounded his novels in particular biblical stories. The opening scripture in this novel is about the pigs being cast into the ocean (Luke 8:32-37).

Have you ever wondered what possessed Putin to invade Ukraine, and why he won’t just go back home to Russia? The Russian people still deeply remember the attacking of Moscow by Napoleon and Hitler, as if it happened yesterday. They are possessed by the idea that they are merely defending their fatherland against Western aggression.

Ideologies (fixed systematic big ideas) can easily become idolatrous and possess a nation. That is why Dr. Jordan Peterson wrote a chapter in his latest book Beyond Order entitled “Say No to Ideology”. Ideologies like Marxism, Nazism, and Fascism have caused over a hundred million people to go over the cliff and die like the Gadarene pigs. Tragically, some of these far-left and far-right ideologies are again romantically possessing many young people around the world. The far-left and far-right, being both totalitarian and haters of democratic freedoms, have much more in common than most would imagine.

The Possessed is the most political of all of his Christ-centered novels. In the very year of 1870 that Dostoevsky was writing Possessed, Vladimir Lenin was born.  Lenin sadly refused to read Possessed as he considered it reactionary garbage. Might the Possessed possess and transform Putin, who is reportedly a Dostoevsky fan?

Dostoevsky, like a John the Baptist or a weeping Jeremiah, cried out in this novel to a younger generation about to go over the edge into socialist chaos and destruction. He was a former revolutionary socialist sent in 1849 to Siberia for ten years. Dostoevsky prophetically warned in this book about the destructive whirlwind of communism that would swallow Russia fifty years later.

The protagonist in this book is Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, a so-called champagne socialist of the 1840s generation who liked to flirt in secretive artist groups with trendy new ideas coming from the West. Significantly, he spoke French like a Parisian, giving him great influence among the nobility. None of Stepan’s obscure writing projects were ever completed.  He was a caricature of Alexander Herzen, the father of Russian socialism, who had been in exile in London with his friend Karl Marx.

In the novel, Stepan, a former University instructor, was exiled for his socialist ideas by the Tsar to the fictitious back-water town of Skvoreshniki. There, being funded by the bitter and controlling heiress Varvara, Stepan spends twenty years training up the 1860s generation of younger revolutionary socialists.

Stepan is shocked when these younger people, including his own son, Pyotr and Varvara’s son Stavrogin, are swallowed by the ideologies of nihilism, hedonism, and suicide. Pyotr and Stavrogin are both deeply alienated from their parents, having being sent away to residential schools in Petersburg.  Education trumped family. All the 1840s fathers were either dead or entirely absent from their sons’ lives.  Stepan had only met his son twice in his entire life.  The younger radicals dismiss Stepan and Varvara as outdated fools.  Pyotr said to his father Stepan: “I curse you henceforth!”

 As hard-core atheists, the young men rejected morality, church, and family as forms of patriarchal oppression. Stepan had taught the younger generation that:

marriage is the moral death of every proud soul, of all independence. Married life will corrupt me, it will sap my energy, my courage in the service of the (socialist) cause.  

The 1840s champagne socialists were mortified by the violence: “we first sowed the seed, nurtured it, prepared the way.” Stepan is so appalled by the destructive fruits of his intellectual labour that he flees on foot from the town. There, among the peasants, he meets Sofya, a Gospel woman who sells him a bible. In the midst of the chaotic suffering of his life, Stepan reads the bible for the first time in over thirty years. He learns from the Sermon on the Mount that “we must forgive, forgive, and forgive.” He encounters God and turns from his ideological possession:

I’ve been telling lies all my life…The worst of it is that I believe myself when I am lying. The hardest thing in life is to live without telling lies.

He receives communion, and decides to also become a travelling bible salesman. Dostoevsky noted: “Even fools are by genuine sorrow turned into wise men.”

In this age of MAID and full-term abortion, it is chilling to see young people in the novel imagine that death is the solution to life’s problems: “I am killing myself to prove my independence and my new terrible freedom.” All the key young men in this novel foolishly end up dead, either from murder or suicide. Dostoevsky is fascinated by the biblical themes of wisdom and foolishness: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:22).  Only the women are left to pick up the pieces, as the town is thrown into chaos by revolutionary arsonists.

After Stepan dies three days later, Sofya is ‘adopted’ by Varvara who also wants to spread the gospel. Varvara and Sofya remind us of the women who first saw the resurrected Jesus, becoming the original evangelists. What if women became the key evangelists in the next coming revival?

Dostoevsky passionately wanted everyone, especially his Russian people, to experience the love of Jesus Christ:

If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth.

Thank God that we don’t have to choose between Christ and the truth. Are you willing to let go of your ideologies and share the Truth with a younger lost generation?

Rev. Dr. Ed & Janice Hird

Co-authors, God’s Firestarters