Galatians 5:19-21, Ephesians 4:27-32, Philippians 2:14-16: Green Grenade.

Presented to Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 21 April 2013 and Corps 614 Regent Park, 30 August 2015 and TSA Alberni Valley Ministries, 08 June 2025 by Captain (Major) Michael Ramsay

This is the 2015 version, to read the original, click here:  http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2013/04/galatians-519-21-ephesians-427-32.html 

To view the 2025 version, click here:

https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2025/06/galatians-515-21-ephesians-426-32.html

Back in Swift Current one Sunday my friend, Tim, told me this story:

Early on a Sunday morning before he is up and ready for Church, there was a knock on the door of Tim’s new place. He had just recently moved in. He gets up, answers the door; it is a police officer. She asks, “Are you Tim?”

“Yes”

“I need you to come with me”, she says.

“Why”

She tells him what it is that he has supposedly done. Tim doesn’t think that this applies to him. As far as he knows he has never been involved in whatever the police officer is talking about but “Okay.” He's still half asleep.

“Go get dressed”, she tells him. He does.

The whole time he is wondering, of course, ‘what is going on?’ As he is getting dressed, of course, he is thinking that there is something not right here; so as he comes out of his room, fully clothed, of course, he asks her again, “Who are you looking for?”

As they walk out the door, “Tim”, she says.

As they go to the police car, “Tim who?” he says. “What is the last name of the Tim you’re looking for?”

“You tell me your last name first”, she says. He does. “Show me your ID, please”, she says. He does. “Have a nice day, Tim”, she says. He does. Apparently some other Tim – in whom the police were interested - used to live in this apartment before him; or the new landlord thought he was some other Tim or something like that. But anyway that was Tim’s excuse for missing church that day. I thought that was a good excuse.

This was a case of mistaken identity. In our texts today – especially the one from Galatians – we may have cases of mistaken identity as well. The pericopes we read this morning are all passages from letters that the Apostle Paul has written to the Saints (In the Bible, when we see the word 'Saints' to whom is it referring? Christians). Paul has written these letters to Saints/Christians in various communities he knows well. He is writing these letters to churches he has planted himself. He is writing these letters – in the cases of the Philippians and the Ephesians – to people he loves and respects. And to the Galatians, he writes of their common problem, Galatians 5:19-21:

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

People who indulge in hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy, and the like will not inherit the kingdom of God.[1] This is pretty serious stuff. He is not talking about those who have not claimed that Jesus is Lord (See Matthew 7:15-27; see also Matthew 25:31ff.); Paul is writing this letter to and for people in the churches. Matthew 7:21, Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Paul says that those in the Christian churches – that he himself knows and some of these churches he actually planted himself – Paul says to his friends that those of us who live a life with hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy and the like will not even inherit the kingdom of God.[2] This is serious stuff (cf. TSA doc 10).

This can be a real problem too. Paul had to write this similar sentiment in many of his letters, three of which we have read from today. Paul had to warn people who were meeting in the Christian congregations. Paul had to warn the Saints in these Christian communities. Paul had to warn the good guys not to get drawn into this stuff or, he says, they will not even inherit the kingdom of God.[3]

We know too that just as this was obviously a temptation for people in the Roman world of the first century, it is equally a temptation in the English-speaking world of the 21^st Century. Who of us hasn’t seen or experienced hatred (hating someone), discord (not getting along with someone), jealousy, fits of rage (getting angry at people and things), selfish ambition (wanting to be better than someone), dissentions, factions (this includes getting people on your side, gossiping, talking behind people's back), envy, and the like? And who of us ourselves hasn’t been tempted to consider indulging in hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy, and the like? Here then is the question for us pertaining to mistaken identity. Have any of us been convincing ourselves that we are Saints when in reality we actually regularly partake in hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy, and the like? And if we do, what can we do about it?

These behaviours can be such a temptation to draw us away from a loving relationship with God and our neighbour, can’t it? We have heard the analogy of yeast working its way through dough. When we are surrounded by all of this stuff, it becomes contagious. We have heard the expression, ‘one bad apple spoils the whole bunch’. This is true. Where one day no one is engaged in discord, dissentions, factions, and the like; one person indulges him or herself and gossips with another person who then huddles in a corner with a third person who then tells someone else about all of their perceived problems with someone (which may or may not even be true!) and then they tell two friends and then they tell two friends and then they tell two friends, and so on and so on and so on and soon the whole congregation is full of cliques, factions, whispering, gossiping, fits of rage and the like. And that is not a good place to be. And that is exactly where some of these first century churches were and that is exactly where a lot of the 21^st century churches appear to be and - I don't know the whole history here but - that is exactly where I would hope and pray that we would never find ourselves as a congregation – in this very real danger of – as Paul says - not inheriting the Kingdom of God.

The effects of these things - hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy, and the like - are disastrous. It is like this. I was at an RCMP, a police chaplaincy-training course a couple of years ago in Edmonton. There were many good speakers. The Edmonton ERT (SWAT) Team Leader let us play with some of their toys (their weapons) and he spoke to us about the importance of chaplains in his job when people are shooting at them and when they have to consider what course of action to take themselves.

The keynote speaker, Gerry Fostaty, was a fellow who has written a book, As You Were: The Tragedy at Valcartier, about an incident that happened to him when he was a teenager in military cadets.[4] He was probably about 19 or 20 and he was a leader of younger cadets – probably Rebecca or Sarah-Grace’s age. They were at a cadet camp in Valcartier, Quebec. As part of the camp, they got to play with weapons not entirely unlike we did at the conference in Edmonton. The cadets (even more) learned how to use the weapons properly and how to take care of the weapons and how the weapons worked and all kinds of things like that.

In one class, the adult instructor was handing out dummy grenades for the children to examine. The dummy grenades you can apparently tell from the real grenades because the dummies are brightly coloured - orange, pink, blue – not the military green of combat weaponry. The cadets, these children were encouraged to take apart these dummy grenades, put them back together, examine how they work, etc., etc., etc… Apparently and disastrously in with the orange, pink, and blue-coloured grenades was at least one live green grenade. The children were passing this live green grenade – along with the other toy grenades – along the line of cadets in the class. They were taking the pin out and placing it back in and they were holding (I don’t know what the term is but…) the safety and disabling and reassembling it along with the other coloured grenades and then one little boy pulled the pin on the live grenade and holding it out too long…

The writer of this book was out of the room at the time; he ran in when he heard the explosion and found his little brother who -was not seriously injured- along with many others who were. One deadly green grenade had mixed in with the harmless coloured grenades and this one green grenade brought destruction with it and it brought death with it.

The result of this green grenade in the room full of children is essentially the same as what results when hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy, and the like wind up in our churches. These are our green grenades. When we put ourselves first, engaging in selfish ambition instead of thinking of others as greater than ourselves (as Paul extols us; Philippians 2) the results are essentially the same.[5] Just as the green grenade brings physical death when people handle it and it goes unchecked, Paul reminds us that hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy, and the like, bring everlasting death to those who are consumed with them. Paul says they will not inherit the kingdom of God.

So what can we do about this? The Apostle Paul says, in essence, that we should remove the green grenades from the box; we should remove these things from the church. We should, Ephesians 4:31-5:2a:

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.  Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us…

Remove the green grenades before they go off. Paul says, Galatians 5:16, 22-25:

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh… But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

Remove the green grenades before it is too late. Paul says, Philippians 2:3-4,12-13:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others... Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose. 

Friends, I remind us all today that selfishness, gossip, slander, talking about others in this way, unforgiveness, pulling each other down instead of building each other up. These are the green grenades that can blow the roof right off the top of a corps that to has until now been actively fighting in the Salvation War. When we think of ourselves as equal or greater than others, when we allow ourselves to get worked up about what other people are doing or saying, when we start to talk about others, not forgiving them but tearing them down instead of building them up, that is really our pulling the pin out of a green grenade that the Enemy has tossed into the Holy of Holies, that is the body of Christ.[6] So today I challenge each and every one of us and I encourage each and every one of us here “to be wholly sanctified, and that their whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (TSA doc 10) and as Philippians 2:3,4 records, let us “do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility [let us] value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

Let us pray.

www.sheepspeak.com

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[1] Francis Foulkes, Ephesians: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1989 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 10), S. 139: Quoting the Old Testament again, the Septuagint of Psalm 4:4, he says, Be angry but do not sin. The av rendering of the psalm, ‘Stand in awe, and sin not’, gives a different turn to it. The Hebrew verb rāgaz means basically to ‘tremble’, and it could be with fear or rage (BDB). Whichever was the psalmist’s thought, the Septuagint is meaningful and relevant. There is anger which is righteous anger, such as we see in our Lord himself (e.g. Mark 3:5; John 2:13–17); but his anger never led to sin, because his emotions were kept under perfect control.

[2] R. Alan Cole,  Galatians: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1989 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 9), S. 217: Inherit the kingdom of God; although Paul is emphatic that we cannot by ‘doing’ the works of the law enter our promised inheritance (3:12, 18), but that entry is by faith alone (3:11), yet he strongly asserts here that by ‘doing’ these very different things we can bar ourselves from the kingdom …those who do such things thereby show themselves to be without the transforming gift of faith which leads to the gift of the promised Spirit, which, in turn, leads to the fruits of the Spirit, the seal of our inheritance.

[3] Cf. James Montgomery Boice, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Galatians/Exposition of Galatians/III. The Call to Godly Living (5:1-6:10)/C. Life in the Spirit (5:13-26)/2. The works of the flesh (5:19-21), Book Version: 4.0.2

[4] Gerry Fostaty, As You Were: The Tragedy at Valcartier (Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 2011).

[5] Ralph P. Martin, Philippians: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1987 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 11), S. 101: The ethical terms used here expose the spiritual malaise at the heart of the church, and point to the all-sufficient remedy. Selfish ambition, eritheia (rv, ‘faction’) is the same word as in 1:17 where it is used to describe the inimical intention of Paul’s enemies. Of the Philippians it is used of party squabbles and petty conceits. We might translate it ‘quarrelsomeness’, although that does not quite convey the hint of self-seeking which the word contains. Such a display which Galatians 5:19–21 brands as an ‘act of the sinful nature’ sadly disfigured the inner life of the church.

[6] Cf. Morna D. Hooker, The Letter to the Philippians, NIB XI, 499

Galatians 2:11-14: Do I Know You?

Presented to Corps 614 Regent Park of The Salvation Army 23 August 2015 and 14 July 2013 by Captain Michael Ramsay.

This is the 2015 version, to read he 2013 version click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2013/07/galatians-chapter-2-do-i-know-you.html 

Two years ago, when Colonel Mark Tilsley was just installed as the new Chief Secretary he told us this story:

There was a man who was new to town. He just got transferred to a new city. The company was having a softball game and he thought that this would be a good time to get to know people in the company and the town. He went up to bat. He missed the first pitch and someone yelled, 'good try Mr. Moore'; he didn’t think that he knew anyone; he looked around; he struck out and someone yelled, 'we're cheering for you Mr. Moore.' Who is calling him? Again and again he goes up to bat, inning after inning and each at bat he is just as bad as the previous one but each time he hears someone yell, 'well done Mr. Moore', 'Doing good Mr. Moore', 'We're cheering for you Mr. Moore.' He is looking around. He can't see anyone he knows - except his wife and son but each time he is up to bat - even though he can't hit anything someone is cheering him on, 'Good game Mr. Moore.'

      After the game he asks his family, 'Did you hear that person cheering me on?' 'Do you know who it was?'

      'It was me', his son says, 'I wanted to support you and make you feel better.'

      'Why did you call me Mr. Moore instead of dad like usual?'

      ‘I didn't want anyone to know I was related to you. You were terrible.’

‘Thanks, son.’

 This is not entirely dissimilar to Peter in Galatians 2.  We notice that at first he enjoys associating with Gentile Christians but then some Jerusalem Christians show up and it is as if he pretends that he isn't related to the Gentiles. Whereas Peter was eating and otherwise associating with the Gentile Christians before, now these Christians show up from Jerusalem and everything is different. He won't eat with them.

One of the myriad of Jewish cultural-religious laws - which were fulfilled in Christ - states that Jews can't associate with Gentiles, let alone eat with them - or they'll become 'un-clean' - sort of like Apartied South Africa or segregation in the US. In our text today when the Jewish Christians appear, the Apostle Peter then starts acting like a segregationist: he stops sitting with his Gentile Christians friends and seems to start obeying all these segregationists' Jewish laws.

Now Peter isn't a segregationist and so for anyone familiar with Peter and for anyone familiar with the NT in general and the book of Acts in particular, this is quite strange. All through Acts is recorded Gentiles becoming Christians, at first it seems as if those becoming Christians are already Jewish proselytes but later the Spirit is seen descending on people who are still fully and completely Gentiles (Acts 6,8; Acts 10,11). The Spirit comes on those who eat non-kosher food and who have never been circumcised (Acts 10). Gentiles are becoming a part of the people of God without first becoming Jews. God is welcoming Gentiles to be a part of the people of God (Acts 11:17). They are being saved just as Jews are being saved and they are all saved the same way; we are all saved the same way (cf. Romans 2): through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, not through law and our religious practices.

Peter, Paul, and Barnabas know all of this and Peter has not been following all of the Jewish laws up until this point in his ministry; in fact he is being very sociable with the Gentile Christians when all of a sudden these Jewish Christians from James show up (Galatians 2:11-13). Then everything changes…

Can you imagine what it would be like to be one of these Gentile Christians with him? One minute Peter and the other Jewish Christians are your best friends: worshipping and serving along side you and then some people come from Jerusalem and they won't even talk to you? How would you feel? What would you do? How would this affect the spreading of the Gospel? And why would Peter do this? Why would Peter all of a sudden seemingly turn his back on these people and his whole mission?

Do we remember the dream that Peter had (Acts 10)? Peter sees all these unclean, forbidden foods for Jews descend from heaven and God tells him to kill and eat and Peter knows that this dream means that there is no longer a barrier between Jews and Gentiles. Peter now knows that he is allowed to associate with Gentiles; Peter now knows that Gentiles can be saved just as the Jews can; Peter now knows that Gentiles can be saved without first becoming Jews; Peter now knows all this as he is the first one to bring this Gospel to the Gentiles. And in Antioch, Peter is celebrating, feasting, and worshiping with the Gentile Christians and then everything changes.
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 Why? What has happened to Peter and what happened to Barnabas? What happened to these men used greatly by God in his mission to the Gentiles and others? Why are they now seemingly turning their backs on the Gentile Christians? What is going on here?

Some people have suggested that Peter is all of a sudden self-conscious about his faith. Some people have suggested that Peter is happy being with the Gentiles when there is no one else around but as soon as 'important' Jewish Christians show up he no longer has time for Gentiles because he wants to be accepted by these Jews or because he wants them to tell James about how good he is or something like that.

I find this hard to believe and I find it harder to believe still that both Peter and Barnabas could be tempted to turn their backs on people for such a shallow reason. Remember that Barnabas is the one who stands up to the early Church by vouching for Paul when the others won't have anything to do with him (Acts 9:26-30). Remember that Barnabas is the one who stands up to Paul in favour of John Mark (Acts 15:36-41; cf. Colossians 4:10, 2 Timothy 4:11). Remember that Barnabas with Paul reports to James and the Church in Jerusalem what the Holy Spirit is already doing in the lives of Christian Gentiles (Acts 13-15). How can Barnabas - who has never been intimidated by anyone before - all of a sudden change when these people show up from Jerusalem? And Peter - as we already said -  is the one first used by God to bring Gentiles to the Faith and he is the one through whom God articulates that mission clearly in a dream (Acts 10). Could these two men of God all of a sudden forget everything that they have risked their very lives and everything else for? Could they?

Are they like children who hang out with their church friends at the coffee shop until their school friends show up and then move to another table. Are they like teenagers in the store with their parents, who, spying some peers, all of a sudden totally ignore their parents because they are afraid of what their friends will think? I don't think so. I don't think this is why they are doing this. I think that Peter, Barnabas and the others are acting this way for much more noble purposes but I do think that the end results are just the same.

There is a story I read this week about Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the UK: Once when she was campaigning, she stopped by an old-age home and visited the Alzheimer's wing. She asked a patient, 'do you know who I am?' To which the response was, 'No dear, but if you ask the nurse she can help you.'
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Paul is helping out much the same way here. This letter, Galatians, was probably written ca. CE48-50, in the years leading up to the Jewish revolt against Roman rule that brought so much death, destruction and even the ultimate destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (CE70). There is this destructive wave of nationalism sweeping over the Jewish people. They are separating themselves more and more from the Romans and they are separating themselves more and more from the Gentiles as they are preparing to bring war to the Middle-East. [2]

The early Christians are getting caught up in the lead up to the war. Remember that Peter, Paul, and Barnabas are all Jewish Christians. The people they are with in Antioch and the people in Galatia are Gentile Christians and back home there is a Jewish revolt brewing. Jews are about to start a war against Gentiles. I have read some suggestions that the people mentioned in the text from James here are probably bringing information of this growing Jewish intolerance and impending Jewish revolt to Peter, Paul, and Barnabas.[3] They are warning them about prejudice, violence, and the real possibility of military revolt.

Now, when people rebel against their occupiers, what do they do to the sympathizers of their occupiers? When the ‘Free French’ rebelled against Nazi occupation, what did they do to people they thought were friendly to the Germans - whether they really were or not? When one regime falls and another comes to power - like we have seen in Libya, Iraq, and Egypt in recent history - what happens to supporters, friends, allies, or sympathizers of the old regime? What has the US done to people on the other side of their wars in the 21st Century? Remember Saddam? Remember Osama? Remember Abu Gharib? Remember Guantanamo Bay? Remember all of the even innocent people who were swooped up, dropped off, killed, or even tortured? Remember?

Jerusalem here is on the verge of a revolt against Rome - the America of their day. James in all likelihood has sent these people here to warn Peter, Paul and Barnabas about this and he may even have requested that Jewish Christians stop associating with non-Jewish Christians because if they don't that might put the lives of all the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem at risk. Peter and Barnabas may have been asked to prove that Christian Jews are loyal to Jerusalem by distancing themselves from Christian Gentiles.

On the West Coast, where I am from, we are very conscious about what happened to Canadians of Japanese origin during WWII. In Saskatchewan, from where we just moved, we know what happened to Canadian families of German decent when war broke out. When Susan, the girls and I first visited Ontario as a family a few years ago we visited a museum in Niagara and read about what happened to the Italian-Canadian families in Ontario. I read about one family that had to burn all of their clothes of a certain colour to try to protect themselves, their friends and their family from their own Canadian government. I read of one Italian-Canadian family where -even though one son voluntarily was serving in the Canadian Army- the other son was shipped off to internment camps and the family was broken up. I read of one Canadian family of Italian ancestry where the Canadian government came to take the father away on his young daughter's birthday. He asked to be allowed to stay at least until the candles were blown out. The men from the Canadian government said 'no' and they took him away - this loyal Canadian - at his daughter's birthday party.

It is very likely that Peter and Barnabas believe that if they, as Jewish Christians, associate with Gentile Christians in Antioch, then the Jewish nationalists will do similar sorts of things or worse to the Christian Jews back home - after all the early Christians really are Gentile sympathizers. As Paul repeatedly says, there is no Jew or Greek in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:22, 10:12; Galatians 3:28; Colossians 3:11). Peter and Barnabas could be moving away from the non-Jewish Christians -as referred to in our text today- in order to save the lives of the Jewish Christians back home. Does that make sense?

Now what I am about to say is really important. It seems a reasonable enough thing for them to do this to protect Christian Jews from persecution by Jewish nationalists but Paul says – rightfully so - that it is NOT reasonable. Paul says - rightfully so - as recorded in our pericope today - Paul says that giving up your freedom in Christ for even this reason of trying to save lives is hypocrisy (v.13)! And Paul will go on later in this very letter to express his anger in some of the most brutal language you'll ever read in scripture. This hypocrisy bothers Paul so much that this is the only one of his letters that does not even begin with the customary polite greeting. Paul is in essence saying to Peter, Barnabas, the Galatians; and by extension, Canadians, Salvationists, and all of us here today that if for whatever reason we turn our backs on our faith and fellow servants in the Faith - whether for seemingly trivial purposes such as rules, pride, prejudice, popularity or for really serious reasons such as to protect yourself, to protect your friends, to protect your family, to protect their lives or to protect your life; it is still denying the essence of your faith. It is exactly the same.

Peter, who is used by God to accomplish so much in the world; Peter, who is the rock upon which Christ was to build his Church; Barnabas, one of the most courageous, one of the most heroic, one of the most determined followers of Jesus Christ, one of the most ardent proclaimers of the resurrection and the Gospel of Salvation; when these men turn away from practicing the freedom of their faith; when these men turn away from helping and associating with their Christian brothers and sisters; when these men turn away from sacrificing everything for the proclamation of the Gospel; then they in essence turn their back on our Lord. They - no matter how noble their purposes - are just like the teenager denying her father for her own personal reasons. And their actions hurt our Heavenly Father just as much. Peter and Barnabas, of course, do repent and return to being used by God for the proclamation of the Gospel of Salvation.

Are we ever tempted to fall into the same trap as they did? Are we ever tempted to act like we are not Christians? Are we ever tempted to not associate with fellow Christians? Do we ever talk to people in church but dodge them on the street? Do we ever deny that we have anything to do with the Church or others who do? Do we ever hide our faith by not saying grace at the restaurant? Do we ever dodge questions about whether or where we go to church? Are we ever embarrassed about some of our behaviours that show to the world we are Christians? If we turn our backs on our Christian brothers and sisters, if we deny our Christianity and if we deny our Lord and Saviour before people then - no matter how good our reasons might seem to us for doing so - reasonably, Jesus will also deny us. If we turn our backs on Christ we will no longer be facing him who is reach out to us, wanting to hold us in his loving embrace.

With this being the case: from this day forward let us all commit to carry our cross; from this day forward let us all commit to love God; from this day forward let us all commit to love our neighbour; and from this day forward let us all commit to put nothing before God and the proclamation of His Gospel of Salvation through Christ Jesus our Lord; so that at the eschaton, at the parousia, at the resurrection; we will join Peter, Paul, Barnabas, and all the saints for eternity with our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Let us join them in serving our Lord today.

Let us pray.

www.sheepspeak.com

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[1] Cf. Captain Michael Ramsay, Acts 10:1-11:18: It's All In Who You Know, Presented to Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 02 June 2013. Available on-line: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2013/06/acts-101-1118-its-all-in-who-you-know.html

[2] Cf. Flavius Josephus, ‘The Wars of the Jews’ in Complete Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by William Whiston, A.M. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregal Publications, 1971.

[3] Cf. Charles B. Cousar, Galatians (Interpretation: Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox, 1982), 56-57

Exodus 13:21-24: a Time to Move

Presented to Swift Current Corps, 21 June 2015 

by Captain Michael Ramsay

This week I have been reminded of the Exodus. When the people left the only homes they had even known in Egypt to go to what God had promised them, how did God lead them? What went before them? (A fiery pillar/column of cloud that they could follow night or day.) This pillar would lead them from location to location for a whole generation. Some places they would stay for a long time. Some places they would stay for a short time and some places they would avoid altogether as God led them on a circuitous route eastward. Every time the pillar of fire/cloud would stir, it was time for them to pack up, move and follow God to a new location.

This is not unlike our vocation and experience as Salvation Army Officers. Every time God stirs headquarters hearts like He did the pillar of fire/cloud, it is time for us Officers to move. At some locations we stay for a long time; others we stay for a short time and there are others, of course, that Susan and I have missed altogether as God has been leading our family eastward. Susan, the two older girls and I followed God from Victoria to Vancouver’s DTES where we stayed for a couple of years. We then followed His leading to Winnipeg where we stayed another couple of years and then Nipawin and Tisdale in Saskatchewan before he led us to Swift Current where God has allowed us to serve Him hand-in-hand with each of you, our dear friends for these past six years – and He has even blessed us with another member of the Ramsay clan while we were here.

We have certainly been blessed here but now the pillar of fiery cloud is stirring again. It is time to have packed up our belongings and follow God to His next place for us. We have no idea how long we will be there or even really what we will be doing there; we just know that like the Hebrews whom God called out of Egypt, the Ramsays as we were called out of Victoria, will need to keep following the Lord and -unlike the Israelites- we need to do it without grumbling so that we may experience the joy that can only be found in obedience to the Lord.

And so today we are on the move again. This is our last Sunday. Our car is packed and we are ready to go and though we do not know our penultimate temporal destination, we do know our next stop on the road and we do know that as we are faithful then our ultimate destination of our lifelong journey will be in the Eternal Kingdom, the Age to Come, Everlasting Life.

So as we go from you after the service today, following God in a manner akin to the fiery pillar of cloud, know that you are in our hearts and in our minds and that we will always cherish your friendship and all that the Lord has taught us through each and everyone of you on our stop here in Swift Current. May God continue to bless you as greatly as He has blessed us through you, for now and forever more.

In Jesus Name, amen.

www.sheepspeak.com