Resources by Rees, Stephen
It’s exam-time. Over the next few weeks most of the youngsters who attend the church will be sitting exams of one sort or another. SATS, GCSEs, A levels, university assessments, music exams. . . From early childhood into our twenties, we face one daunting educational hurdle after another and some of us then go back […]
ReadDo you remember the resolutions you made at this time last year? I would guess that many of us resolved at the beginning of 2015 that every day we would have a ‘quiet time’. We told ourselves that this would be the year when we at last would establish a pattern of daily Bible-reading and […]
ReadChristians across the world are suffering. The media, both secular and Christian, report appalling cases of persecution on a daily basis – situations where Christians are tortured, raped, imprisoned, killed. Researchers list at least fifty countries where Christians are known to be suffering in such obvious ways. There are many others where it is officially […]
ReadThis article was published as a ‘Letter from the Manse’ in the church magazine of Grace Baptist Church, Stockport, Cheshire (March 2015). I spent last week with seventeen other men. We came together for a ‘study week’ and we studied. Seven hours together each day around the conference table and personal assignments to be completed […]
ReadThis article was published as a ‘letter from the manse’ in the church magazine of Grace Baptist Church, Stockport, Cheshire, England. Dear friends, I never buy newspapers these days. Most of the newspapers have websites where you can read all the news and comment for free. And you can also see what other readers have […]
ReadI’ve just come to the end of a Sunday morning series on ‘The Five Points’. I have preached several series going through all the great doctrines of the Bible. But I’ve never wanted to pick out the five points particularly. Partly, that’s because I’m aware that some folk have emphasised them in an unhelpful way. […]
ReadWhy should Christians be familiar with the great doctrines of the Bible? Let me give you four reasons. 1) The first is the simplest of all: Because we love God. And if you love someone, you want to know everything about them. If a young man meets a girl and falls in love, he’ll want […]
ReadOn recent Sundays I’ve been preaching on the return of Christ. I grew up with some very mixed-up ideas about the Second Coming, but understanding the doctrine in our heads surely isn’t enough. As I’ve preached these sermons, I’ve found myself asking again and again, ‘how much do I look forward to the return of […]
Read‘What sort of church is yours?’ I’ve been asked that question a number of times recently. Of course, the answer I’ve given has varied according to who I’m speaking to, and why they’re asking. But if I were talking to somebody who really wanted to know, and who had the time and inclination to listen, […]
ReadIn a few weeks time, a group of youngsters from this church, loaded up with rucksacks, sleeping-bags and Bibles will be heading off to camp. It’s thirty-four years since I first set off from home carrying more-or-less the same equipment. My first Christian camp was at Pendine on the South Wales coast. It was run […]
ReadThe Bible talks a lot about hospitality. In Old Testament times one of the marks of God’s people was that they opened their homes to others. Job said, ‘the sojourner has not lodged in my street; I have opened my doors to the traveller…’ (Job 31: 32). Abraham ‘lifted up his eyes and looked, and […]
ReadAs I sit at my desk typing this letter, I have in front of me an austere looking volume bound in grey cloth with a black label on the spine. The gold lettering on the label proclaims the title: Banner of Truth, Vol 1, Issues 1-16.1 I bought the book a few weeks ago. I […]
ReadTHE WRATH OF GOD IS REVEALED AGAINST ALLUNGODLINESS OF MEN. I want to talk to you about God and his character. I want to show you one truthabout him, that he hates evil in every form – greed, lust, violence, falsehoodand so on – everything that is not 100% straight. God created a world […]
ReadAs Femi preaches on Acts and Romans and Galatians and Ephesians, the Albanian church will be confronted by Pauls testimony on every page. It will take huge grace for the church to grasp and to apply Pauls words. by Stephen Rees, Grace Baptist Church, Stockport, Manchester. It was 4 am when we left the house […]
ReadA VISIT TO ALBANIA My wife Anne and I returned on Monday from Albania where I was speaking at a conference. A week in Albania seemed a very long time. It’s a wonderful, tragic, beautiful, confusing country. Perhaps the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen. The astonishing blue of the Adriatic sea, the towering mountains, […]
ReadThe heart of the reformed faith – the heart of biblical Christianity – is God-centredness: the conviction that God himself is supremely important. We define all our doctrine in a God-centred way. Sin is horrible because it is an affront to God. Salvation is wonderful because it brings glory to God. Heaven is heaven because […]
ReadDuring Easter Week Alec MacDougall of Trinity Baptist Church Gloucester took myself and my nephew David on a history tour of that city. We saw the memorial church, built on a site where George Whitefield preached in the open air. I would guess it was built as a Presbyterian chapel. It’s URC now – and […]
ReadWe are asking the question today “How do we assess hymns, and how do we assess hymn-books?” I hope to do three things. Firstly I want to make a general observation about singing in the New Testament. Then I want us to look at Paul’s instructions in Ephesians and Colossians. Then I want us think […]
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