The Gospels

When Herod killed the babies in and around Bethlehem
"In Rama there was a vioce heard, lamentation, and weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted because they were not" (Matt 2v18)
Rachel was buried "on the road to Ephrath which is Bethlehem. (Gen 35v19) The traditional tomb of Rachel is about one mile North of Bethlehem.
Rachel, the Mother of Israel, was barren, and was the one who cried to her husband "Give me children or I die". She is seen here in spirit, weeping for her dead children, and refusing to be comforted.
There is a place with ruins and rubbish on it which lies between Rachel's tomb and Bethlehem and is called RAMA. The population of Bethlehem, at the time could have been around 2000, of which about 20 would have been children under 2 years old.

The Good Shepherd
In the time of Jesus a shepherd looked after his flock seven days a week 24 hours a day. Some shepherds were entirely on their own, apart from their sheep, during this time. Outside most towns and some villages there were sheepfolds where a shepherd could take his sheep, and leave them there overnight. Hired shepherds would look them while he had a break…a chat, a bath and a good bed. In the morning he would go to the sheepfold, pay the shepherds, call his sheep and on hearing his voice the sheep would find their way through all the other sheep and go to him. The sheep were not branded or painted, and the only way that he could prove that they were his sheep would be that they would come at his call. If a sheep did not like him, or was afraid of him, then, if it did not come to him, he would have no way of proving that it was his sheep. The reason why they went to him was not because they liked him, but because they were hungry and knew he would feed them. Do your sheep get fed by you? Do they associate you with food? Do they want to follow you? They are not your sheep if they do not get fed by you.

Some churches come to a rich green field and the sheep feed off that field for twenty years or more. But it will always happen that the sheep will, one day, come to the shepherds saying that they are not getting fed. Where there are several sheep saying this, the shepherds MUST not say that the sheep have been well fed for twenty years in that field and tell the sheep that there is something wrong with them…that they do not want to eat the grass. The grass has been all eaten, and the Spirit of God has moved on. The job of a good shepherd was not to bring green grass to his sheep, but to know where the green grass is growing and go there himself. A good shepherd takes his sheep to green grass until that grass is all eaten and then he finds another place where there is green grass. Wherever the Holy Spirit is there is life and light and green grass. He goes into the desert and life springs up. The good shepherd follows the Holy Spirit. He does not stay in one place.The passage mentions two different types of shepherd. Shepherds who own the sheep, and those who are hired to look after sheep, (hirelings). The hired shepherd only looks after the sheep because he gets rewarded for doing so. The shepherd who owns his sheep looks after them because they are his. The hirelings are Christians in the Christian Church who love God, love their families and love their ministry, and that is all they love. They do not love the sheep. If difficulties arise then they will leave the sheep. I suppose that God is patient because we all start off as hirelings, only in it for ourselves. We probably will not have to die for our sheep, but we will be required to give them our time, love at inconvenient times, and spare money. Many Christians start out as hirelings, but that is what Jesus is all about…..He changes our heart. Matthew 9v5 And they bought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer thy sins be forgiven thee.
The Jews had an accepted belief between physical sickness and sin. The Rabbis had a saying "No sick man is healed from his disease until all his sins have been forgiven." (Nedarim f14)

"You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." John 8v32
Given by Andy Hutchins from Sweden (in about 1970) This verse is for those who want God and tells us how to recognise the word of God. It is tremendous, and has been a great help to many. The only place where it does not work is in the area of romance.
"If you hear anything and it does not set you free then it is not the word of God. Sometimes you can hear a person preach in Church and what he says seems OK, but it does not set you free - it gets you bound up in fear. This verse lets you know that, in that instance, what has been said is not the word of God to you, just because it has not set you free. It might set another person free, but it has not set you free, so it is not what God wants you to hear. It might be truthful, but is not ‘The Truth’. Jesus is ‘The Truth’ and He always sets you free, even when he tells you off."

We call the Godhead, The Father, The Son of God and The Holy Spirit,
but Jesus called The Father - ’Our Father.’
He did not like being called the Son of God. He called Himself - ’The Son of Man’ (It is used to denote the servant of man - "The Son of man has come to seek, and to save all who are lost)"
He called The Holy Spirit - ’The Comforter’.
A sinner will never know God until he is willing to call Him ’his Father’.
People who want to be a son of God will never be satisfied until they become ‘a son of man’.
They will never know The Holy Spirit until they have been comforted by Him.
We think of it as a triangle. At the end of the Bible, it speaks of the square, ‘foursquare’. The triangle was split apart, and a fourth side was added to make a square. The fourth side will be the Church - Redeemed by the blood of the lamb.

"Forgive us our trespasses"
What a lovely word that is. Spoken by a man who cares about us and loves us so much.
"Forgive us our Sins" - - seems too hard
"Forgive us our mistakes" - - seems too soft
"Forgive us our tresspasses" is just right, for we have a wonderful land to explore, but we can 'tresspass' into areas which would harm us, and where we were not meant to be. People tresspass against us and we do forgive them, and Jesus reminds us to remind ourselves that God forgives us - He who loves us much, much more than anyone else

Mentioned in John 9v7 The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary has an excellent commentary.

The Storm on the Lake
The Sea of Galilee is not really a sea, but a large freshwater lake. It is surrounded by hills, and these hills make the lake into suntrap, and on a sunny day there can be a lot of hot air over the lake. 30 miles to the North of the lake is a mountain range called Mount Hermon. Snow capped for most of the year, Mount Hermon, itself, collected a large quantity of very cold air, about 10 miles in diameter. The reason why this cold air did not come down the mountainside and replace the hot air over the Sea of Galilee is because in between the mountain and the lake was a large swamp, called the swamp of Hula. It has since been drained but it had a little lake in the middle of it, called Lake Hula. (This was the swamp that the soldiers of the Northern Kings were chased into. The Bible says that more Soldiers died lost in the swamp than had been killed in battle). This swamp is full of reeds and grasses and bullrushes, and these reeds, grasses and bullrushes create the frictional resistance that stops the cold mountain air from reaching the Sea of Gallilee.But very, very rarely, an icy mist drifts in from the Mediterranean Sea and settles over the swamp. It takes a few days to do it, but it creates the blanket, which allows the huge volume of cold air from the mountain to creep over the swamp on its way down to the Sea of Gallilee. When the cold air reaches the hills in the North of the Sea of Gallilee the hills channel the air into the valleys, and as it is channelled it gets faster and faster until it comes screeching down on the lake, quite without warning. It creates waves over 30ft (10m) high overturns the boats and drowns the occupants. A weird experience because there would not be a cloud in the blue sky above.At the back of the fishing boats was a small covered area that the fishermen could shelter in when there when it rained. It had a curtain for a door. Jesus must have been very, very tired when he was taken over the lake, for he went into this covered area, fell asleep, and not even this killing storm could wake him. (do you want to be like Jesus?). the disciples must have shaken Jesus and even slapped his face to wake him. (Have you ever forcibly been woken up from a deep sleep – horrible isn’t it). There were wet faces right in front of his face, screaming at him – "Don’t you care that we are going to die?" Jesus woke up, and still groggy, drew back the curtain, looked out, assessed the situation and said "You wind – peace, be still. You waves – cease". He let the curtain down and sat on his bench recovering from being woken up, so horribly. The wind immediately stopped. There wasn’t even a breeze. The waves stopped and the whole lake immediately became like a mirror. Jesus drew back the curtain and looked out. There was Peter, bottom in the air still clinging to the mast. James and John still clinging to the sides of the boat. The boat would have been half full of water. Jesus must have laughed.

"Come on" said Jesus, "got to go". He stepped out of the boat and waded ashore, and they followed him like a line of zombies.