The motto of Glasgow is “Let Glasgow flourish.” It is the abbreviated version of the prayer inscribed on the bell of the Tron Kirk which is, “Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the word and the praising of His name.” The heart of the prayer is the name of Jesus and we flourish as we sing his praises and proclaim, or hear proclaimed, his word out of the Bible. This seems so ordinary and lacking excitement that our society has substituted for it trivial entertainment.
On the day of the Eurovision song contest the 32nd Scottish Reformed Conference was held which is simply to enter into the wise prayer of our forebears in the faith, to listen to the preaching of his word and praise his name. Our speakers were Kevin DeYoung from the United States and Sinclair Ferguson, “one of our own.” During the course of the conference we were in the ‘felt’ presence of the Lord and his glory enriched our souls simply as we sat under the word being preached.
Out of the 500 people present, one young man spoke with tears in his eyes and sincere joy in his voice saying that during the exposition of Romans 5 he was literally overwhelmed by the love of God. It flooded his soul. No entertainment. Just joy, full of glory. Others were blessed with encouragement to go on growing in grace. Yet others, overjoyed that families that represented many the nations of the world were present, and they gloried in the richness of our Christian family bonds – and that the Lord kept his promise that out of every nation, language and dialect he would call his people.
Kevin DeYoung challenged us with the example of the Daughters of Zelophehad in Numbers 36, to possess a ‘gutsy faith’ as we seek to inherit the great and precious promises God holds out to us. As yet in the future and yet we go forward ‘clothing faith with certainty’
Sinclair Ferguson preached from the familiar words of Romans 5 and, pressing upon us again the death of Christ for us, portrayed to us our ‘triple crown’.
Finally, Kevin directed our attention to the promises of divine grace from Jesus himself in Revelation 3, to those who know that they are poor in spirit.
We were again so pleased to have a well selected book stall and again are indebted to John Rawlinson for setting it up. Also, we have the joy of welcoming many families with young children and so we express our grateful thanks to those who gave time to our children’s work.
The conference is time well spent and we look forward with great anticipation of the Lord’s blessing on May 11th 2024 when we welcome Rev Rupert Bentley-Taylor as our main speaker.
Please join us then for much glorious spiritual blessing.