South Featherstone Gospel Hall

  This article is for those who like to pick over the detail. A summary article - in magazine format - can be found on an alternate post -   click the icon to read 📚 Shaun SFGH Church Leader Recorded on the Day Outline 00:00:00 – Opening Reflection 00:01:02 – Tradition vs Scripture 00:02:10 – Focusing on Daniel and Revelation 00:03:30 – Return to the Olivet Discourse 00:04:40 – Jesus Points to Daniel (Matthew 24:15) 00:06:20 – Why Daniel Matters 00:07:10 – Daniel’s Structure 00:09:24 – Key Eschatological Chapters 00:10:20 – Daniel 11: Antiochus Epiphanes 00:12:40 – Daniel 11 from End-Times Prophecy 00:13:50 – Seven-Year Period Before Millennial Reign 00:14:40 – The Seventy Weeks 00:16:00 – Historical Decrees - Artaxerxes (444 BC) 00:17:54 – Rebuilding Jerusalem’s Walls 00:20:08 – Transition to the Sixty-Two Weeks 00:00:05 – Daniel Prophesies Sixty-Two Weeks 00:02:14 – The Final Week (Daniel’s 70th Week) 00:04:35 – The Time of the Gentiles  00:06:55 – Modern Jerusalem (Do...

Led by Shaun  Fereday, Prison Chaplain (Sessional) &  Leader  @SFGH Church  (PART TWO) - Daniel, the Timeline, and the Antichrist...  (Transcribed from Tuesday's Bible Study Group) If you’ve ever sat in on one of our Tuesday evening Bible Study Groups, you’ll know they can sometimes start with a simple question and end with us knee-deep in prophecy, timelines, and history lessons. Last night was no exception. Brian kicked things off with a grin: “Can I be very rude and just ask a few questions before we begin…” And from there, we were off. I pointed at the colourful chart up front – all seals, trumpets, vials, and end-times chronology – and joked that it had nothing to do with tonight’s actual passage. But of course, it soon became the very thing we dived into. Brian wanted clarity: “When you talk about the second coming, are you referring to Jesus coming down to earth for His Millennial reign or the rapture?” “The Millennial reign,” I said, “but it’s trick...

As we are halfway through our look at the Beatitudes, and rather than just continue to build a list of do’s and don’t’s, I thought it might be useful to look at our perfect example, our Lord Jesus Christ. Some years back, within evangelical Christian Circles, an acronym became widespread which was WWJD, which actually stood for a question, “What Would Jesus do?” The question is still valid today and perhaps more so, given world and social conditions and speed of change of attitudes today, and what we, who class ourselves as Jesus’ followers, should do when faced with a multitude of different situations which would never be specifically covered in the Bible. If we were to rely on our human nature to react to situations, sometimes even personal situations, we are ignoring the question above, which should always be uppermost in our mind and which the Beatitudes try to summarise to improve the quality of our service to our Saviour. Jesus was faced with situations and choices on earth that ...

Yesterday’s Family Service gave us another reminder that the Gospel doesn’t always arrive in a three-point sermon—it can just as easily come with six guitar strings and a chorus you can’t stop humming. Our second Gospel message came from Geoff Taylor of Christchurch Xscape, and the full recording is now up on our YouTube channel if you’d like to catch (or replay) the moment. As always, Geoff arrived with his trusty guitar and a heart full of Scripture, treating us to three Jesus-centred songs he’s written himself. The melodies are fresh and contemporary, but the truths they carry are as old as the Psalms and as powerful as the empty tomb. Geoff calls it “new songs from old truths,” and that’s exactly what it felt like—ancient hope wrapped in chords that still sound good on a Sunday morning. Some of Geoff’s music draws directly from the Book of Psalms, while other songs are shaped by the stories of people who met Jesus face-to-face in the New Testament. Each lyric carries the depth of...

John the Baptist had an important but hard road to travel. He was the forerunner to announce the mission of Jesus, so he set the scene and prepared the way for Jesus to takeover. Absolutely vital work and he did it very well. But after Jesus’ baptism, he faded out of the picture, still no doubt seeking to baptise people as a sign of repentance but the crowd now was following Jesus, and eventually Herod imprisoned him. He perhaps expected Jesus ministry to be more dynamic and confrontational, because from prison, being disheartened and starting to doubt how effective he had been, he sent that message to Jesus, “Are you he that should come, or look we for another?” Jesus sent the message back by the miracles John’s messengers saw. Shortly afterwards, an intoxicated Herod made a rash promise, which resulted in John being executed.     Not the result John expected for the work he had done for God, but sometimes that is the way and the plan God has for us. We just need to cast...

Today we shall be meeting together to remember the Lord Jesus Christ, His Person, His Deity, His Humanity, His Sacrifice all symbolised in the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the cup. There will probably be less than 20 of us at that Service, but we are only a small fraction of the total number of Christians who will likewise be remembering Him, in different symbolic fashion maybe, but hopefully expressing thanks and worship from their hearts for His incarnation which has had the most dramatic effect on their lives. There would really be little point in attending a so-called Communion service unless Jesus Christ has saved us. It would be a meaningless exercise and could even be dishonouring to God, yet even at the initiation of this Service, by the Lord Himself, in that Upper Room, before He went to Calvary, there was one there who did not want to recognise Jesus as a spiritual Saviour but wanted some form of political and physical revolution. Also even for those of us who ha...

I wish I knew what I know now about Jesus and my salvation BUT could have been on earth when Jesus was on earth. The words that are recorded in the Bible of the Lord Jesus are perhaps just a fraction of the words He spoke but what is recorded is so profound and inspiring that there was no wonder He drew crowds to follow Him. The fourth Beatitude leads us on in our Christian life and is an ambition we should surely follow. “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled”. The words ‘hunger’ and ‘thirst’ are very strong in meaning. They are used when someone is literally dying of hunger and thirst. They hark back to David’s psalm when he could say, ‘As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God’. Worldly ambition is for wealth, power and prosperity, but Jesus knows, and we now know, that the only thing that satisfies our soul’s deepest longing is Jesus Himself, who IS our righteousness! He could say, “I am the bread of lif...

Jesus had only just commenced His ministry when He taught His Disciples and other followers the Beatitudes. He had already demonstrated His love and power in many miracles and no doubt, this had attracted people to follow Him. His ministry and teaching was a world away from the teaching given by the Pharisees and the Beatitudes would have come as a total culture shock to His listeners. To be ‘poor in spirit’ would have been the very opposite of what the Pharisees taught. With some justification they were proud of their religion, but they took that to excess. There was plenty of ‘mourning’ at the time Jesus was on earth as they were a conquered people under direct and often harsh rule of the Romans. But the next Beatitude would have floored them entirely, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth”. Under the yoke of Roman rule, they could see no way of winning back their own country, never mind the world! And much like today, might is right and meekness is still equated wi...