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From a man and his wife to his children, fellowship & friends

We sometimes sing,

“O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all works thy hands hath made. I see the stars. I hear the mighty thunder. Thy power throughout the mighty Universe display. Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee. How great thou an. How great thou art."

The light from the nearest star Alpha Centauri takes 4.3 light years to reach us that’s if you don't count the sun as the nearest star. That means that if we could travel at the speed of light we could travel around the world  7 times in one second. If we could travel that fast we could reach that star in 4.3 years. They say we don’t see it as it is, but as it was 4.3 years ago. We are looking back in history therefore, then if that star could explode tomorrow and we wouldn't see that explosion for 4.3 years. We read in the book of Genesis Chapter 1 verse 16 these words, "He made the stars also."

Now if this is true and the Christian faith affirms that this is true, then common sense demands that if there is a design, there has got to he a designer and therefore a plan and a purpose. It begs the question, how big is God?

The songwriter gets around it by saying,

"He's big enough to rule this mighty universe."

Now if we have difficulty with the concept of the nearest star this is where we fail into a back hole. Lets look at it this way. Here where we are worshiping God in Waitakere City not a big city as cities go. We dwell on a tiny island, on a small planet, on a minor solar system on the outer edge of the Milky Way Galaxy.  Now the Milky Way Galaxy is only 1 galaxy of about 20 galaxies that does to make up our local cluster and it is not the largest. It only takes light 30,000 years to travel from one side of the Milky Way Galaxy to the other, but Andromeda, our nearest neighbor, which is about 1.5 million light-years distance from earth, takes light 50,000 years to travel from one side of it to the other. The scientist at Mt. Polymer suggested that there are about 100 thousand  million galaxies_, that's not stars, that's galaxies. I’ve seen that they have revised that upwards and with stars so vast that they couldn’t slide between the earth and the sun. All this is too wonderful for our comprehension but I’ll show you something more wonderful than that...

2000 years ago, lets face it was only yesterday in terms of time, a man hung on the cross. Now there was nothing unusual about that for in those days it was a form of execution man's abomination of the imagination. Of that man the apostle Paul writes, "In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." And he doesn't finish there; he goes on to say, "You are complete in Him." It doesn't matter how morally bankrupt you think you are. It doesn't matter how spiritually bankrupt you think you are. It doesn't matter how physically bankrupt you think you are, you are complete in Him. A brother once told us in this assembly, "He being dead yet speaketh." A Roman Catholic lady, a pillar of the church was visibly upset and he asked her whether there was anything he could do to help her? She said, "Nobody can help me, my priest is dead." The priest who had seen her grow up and who had seen the trouble and sorrows that had made her the type of woman she was today, had died, and with it a new priest who had not seen the sorrow and trails would take over and she was shattered. We brothers and sisters have a High Priest who is touched with the feelings of our infirmities and was in all points tested like as we.

I'll never forget the day.  I can always remember at Finlay Park. It was a warm day, a summer’s day, and a peaceful day, when we went up river for a picnic lunch. The children were playing, birds were singing, everything was so peaceful. I could see Nicole my grand daughter looking wistfully out at the water. She sat there for a while, then suddenly burst into tears, her Mum drew her toward her and she inquired as to what the matter was. And you know what it was? She said, "I don't want anything to change, I don't want anything to change." Young as she was, she knew that the sun would not shine so brightly. Young as she was, the days would be different. Young as she was, things could never be the same again. And she couldn't handle that.

Well things do change. We change, but God remains faithful.

And I want to thank you brothers and sisters for all the love and the care down through the years.

"For as much as you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto Me".

Ken and Lorraine Purchase.  

Back in July 96,  just before an operation,  things didn’t look good.  It during a conversation I taped these words -

  …..I think its vital to grasp afresh the reality of God. Once we’re got that fastened in our hearts & minds everything else falls into place. The problems in daily living don’t become the enormous difficulties because we suddenly realize there’s someone who is greater than we are and has everything in control.  I was looking at a flock of sparrows on the lawn, the other day,  I thought of the Scriptures, ‘now look at the sparrows what are they worth', in the East they are sold for a farthing, their not worth anything over here yet, ‘not one falls to the ground without your heavenly Father knowing'.

This is either a gross exaggeration or the truth

God knows a whole lot more than we really allow, in our mind, that He should know. Some of these things are wonderful truths if only we can grasp them in our hearts. Now if this is the God we know your problems and my problems are nothing, they’re nothing,  because our future is in his hands.

There’s tremendous - tremendous comfort when being renewed in our minds about the reality of God and the power of God working in our lives,  Great comfort”