Last night I was watching a documentary on Noah's ark that I had taped some months ago. The documentary detailed photographic evidence of the ark's existence on Mount Ararat in the Turkish-Armenian border, and included eyewitness accounts of several individuals who claim to have seen what has become known as the "Ararat anomaly". While seeing the photo of the boat and seeing the reconstruction of the ark made by the film producers, it struck me in a big way that all of humanity (as we know it today) was once holed up inside that boat, while the rest of the unbelieving world was perishing. I don't know whether it was watching that, or whether it was the news of the worst floods in Britain in sixty years, but last night I had another nightmare, for the third night in a row. This time I dreamed my niece, now 8 years old, was just a young child again. She was lying in front of me in a small cot, and flood waters were coming up around our ankles. I felt her back which was soaking wet and very cold, and I motioned to someone else in my family that her chances were not good. For some reason I knew that none of us would survive, that the floodwaters would continue to rise and drown us all. It made me think about those that have been caught up in the recent flooding across the world, and made me wonder what it must have been like to experience the flood in Noah's time. It also made me think about the physical reality of God's judgements, that just as the Lord destroyed the earth with a flood and saved those who believed the message and trusted in their ark of salvation, the world once again stands on the brink of a catastrophic global judgement. The ark on Mount Ararat stands as a witness to a fallen world that God's judgements are very real, and that unless they repent and turn to Christ for salvation, there is no hope - period. One of the illustrations the Lord used of His Second Coming was, that it would be "as it was in the days of Noah", Matthew 24:37. The people in Noah's day were given 120 years advanced notice, but the Lord says that in one day the "flood came and took them all away", Matthew 24:39. This world has had 2000 years advanced warning, and its judgement will come with similar speed. Are you ready for heaven? Have your sins been forgiven? Trust in Jesus Christ for salvation today.

Source Turkish Times

My favourite Christian hymn is the King's Business. That's what I call it anyway, as I don't know its proper title. It gives me such hope and encouragement when I feel down and discouraged, for it reminds me that as a Christian, I serve another King and am a representative of another Country. Of course that Country is heaven, as the Bible states in Philippeans 3:20 and Hebrews 11:16. The words of that hymn are as follows.

I am a stranger here, within a foreign land;
My home is far away, upon a golden strand;
Ambassador to be of realms beyond the sea,
I'm here on business for my King.

This is the message that I bring,
A message angels fain would sing:
"Oh, be ye reconciled,"
Thus saith my Lord and King,
"Oh, be ye reconciled to God."

The theme of the song is taken from 2nd Corinthians 5:20, which states that we are ambassadors for Christ. That is, we have been sent by the Lord Jesus Christ into the world to be witnesses in His place, and as Paul states, the message that we bring is "be ye reconciled to God". I hope that the Lord would help me to be a greater witness and more faithful ambassador for Him, for I fall so far short of what that should be. But today I felt like drawing a picture on the computer of what goes through my head when listening to the first verse of that chorus being sung. It's not really that good, as I haven't spent a lot of time on it. But it's a picture of the heavenly country, to which I now belong, a land beyond the sea, where there is no night and where the King of that place wipes away all tears from their eyes.

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