Salvogesis

  Hello, I am Major Michael Ramsay from TSA. As well as running The Salvation Army, the Bread of Life soup kitchen, shelter and The Salvation Army thrift store, I am a Christian pastor / teacher. This weekend is Easter. That is the most important time on the Christian Calendar. Christians acknowledge Jesus as God. Our teachings tell us that God, as creator, created the whole world. And when He did it was perfect. Not only did we not harm each other, ourselves or the earth; but we never got sick, we never got injured; and the earth itself – the trees did not fall to the ground and die. Animals did not eat animals. All of creation was in perfect harmony. The Creator even walked in this Garden He created with people He created. Then something happened. The first people created made a choice.   Because of this choice, death, decay, harm and hurt entered the world. Where there was none before, now there was illness, injury and death for all of creation. Plants, animals and al...

Doctrine 5:  We believe that our first parents were created in a state of innocency, but by their disobedience, they lost their purity and happiness, and that in consequence of their fall , all men have become sinners , totally depraved, and as such are justly exposed to the wrath of God. …and/but… Doctrine 6:  We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has by His suffering and death made an atonement for the whole world so that whosoever will, may be saved.   Doctrine 5 has been referred to as the doctrine of Original Sin (or more precisely ‘originating sin’) and that concept goes back at least to Irenaeus and Augustine. Doctrines 5 & 6 are how TSA explains corporate (as opposed to individual) Salvation; Corporate Salvation is like getting back to the Garden of Eden – what life was like before the Fall.   This is the garden. Reading from Genesis 2:15-18: 15  The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and ...

Read Genesis 37:12-36, 39:1-20, (Later 41:9-14)   These things and things similar still happen today. They happen here. Jun 26, 2024, 10:18pm, I had a text from David Wiwchar of the Peak Radio Station: "Are you aware of the Vietnamese men who are about to be made homeless by san group?" "No. Not at all...but we can help" I replied.   I immediately set to work to try to find out what was going on. David’s common law wife works for Kuu-us Crisis Line, so I texted her boss, Colin, who used to work for us, and asked him what he knew about all this. He told me that the RCMP and the City were aware of the workers and that it was one of our employees at the Army who brought this all to light: It appears that they came to the Army for help but the information was not kept internal. It was shared with Kuu-us and not with myself and The Salvation Army. I followed up with the employee and let them know that this really is something that I need to know and it would be way bette...

                                    We walked around  Carcassone.  This is an amazing city in wine country. You can see the vineyards. It was beautiful. It was massive; It seemed impregnable. We also stopped in Saint Emilion, Bordeaux for lunch. It was a great lunch! There was wine sold everywhere in many of the shops. We obviously didn’t try any but we tried lots of great food. I believe I had shrimp here. I had lots of duck while we were visiting France. The exciting thing about Saint Emilion, Bordeaux, for me was the church there. Like many places it had been a pilgrimage stop. Like many places it had been attached by the revolutionaries during the French revolution – the French revolutionaries robbed, looted, destroyed, vandalized, attacked many churches. In this amazing church that was very old there were many remarkable things. One was a chair. We were all invited into the church an...

Joseph in our text today was trafficked. His family – his brothers, ten of them, ganged up on him and through him into a pit and sold him to people passing by. The people who bought Joseph took him to a foreign country and sold him as a household servant. His family did not know what had happened to him; his dad never knew what happened to Joseph, his favourite son. Joseph was all alone.   Joseph was a domestic servant with no rights. When his employers was done with him he was sent off to jail.   Trafficking like this isn’t just a thing of the past. We have worked to try and help many different people who have been trafficked in a number of the places we have lived and worked with The Salvation Army.   Here in town there are a couple of businesses that are rumoured to be involved in trafficking people, domestic help, like Joseph – one is a hotel. This hotel apparently has a number of new ‘staff’ come regularly from India, stay and while and then be moved along.   I ...

One morning a man was told that two of his friends had or were about to pass away. He had a vision. His dream was of Genesis Chapter 40. He recalled the story of Joseph's interpretation of the dreams of two of Pharaoh's officials: the cup bearer and the baker. The cup bearer and the baker were each awaiting their fate. One (the cup bearer) had a dream of which the interpretation was that he would be restored to his position and reconciled to his king. The other had a dream of which the interpretation was his time was up. He would not be reconciled. He had missed his chance. We trust in the grace and mercy of God and we cling to the hope of salvation for each person we love. If you have not yet been reconciled to the King of Heaven and Earth, what is holding you back? He wants to restore you in your relationship with Him today and He would love to have you in His service for ever.   www.sheepspeak.com www.facebook.com/salvogesis

  Today is Mother’s Day. Now, I actually I looked up whether it is Mother apostrophe ‘S’ Day (the day of one particular mother) or Mother ‘S’ apostrophe Day (a day belonging to more than one mother) or whether it is Mother no apostrophe ‘S’ Day (a day to celebrate mothers in general). Apparently, it is the former - Mother apostrophe ‘S’ Day (the day of one particular mother) – so, I encourage everyone who is able to today, to honour your particular mother and make her feel special.   We love you mom!   In the Bible there are many amazing women. A few of them who are mentioned specifically for their role as mother. For our time today, we have haikus about some of these particular mothers from the Bible. One from the New Testament, one from the Gospels, one from the Old Testament outside the Pentateuch and one from the Pentateuch and as a bonus we will also have a haiku about Mary the mother of Jesus too. Our first Mother Haiku is from Genesis in the Pentateuch:   EVE ...

 Joseph was trafficked. As a boy, a teenager, he was sold into slavery by his own brothers. From there he spent many years in slavery, taken to a foreign country where he served at the will of his owners and following that he spent many more years in prison – his family did not know where he was, they did not know that he was even alive.     Children are still trafficked today. When we were in Toronto our corps was involved in an outreach to prostituted women and girls. Many trafficked people in Canada are prostituted. In Vancouver people in our corps had an outreach to prostituted boys and men, as well as women and girls. When we were in Saskatchewan, I went with another Corps Officer to speak to our MP about specific people we knew, who were trafficked as slave household labour here in Canada -which for them was a foreign country – very much like Joseph in Egypt. This week is Orange Shirt Day: Also enslaved in Canada are children taken from First Nations and traffi...

These stories (Esther, Terah, Barak, and many like them) have impacted my theology greatly over the years. I think this is one of the many keys to comprehending how God works in our world.   These passages and stories of which they are a part really answer the question, “What do I do when God is calling me to do something?” “What do I do when the Lord has put someone on my heart?”  and to some extent, in some ways, “What happens if I don’t do what God asks me to do?”  “Can God be thwarted?” He can’t. Luke Chapter 19:40: “I tell you…if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”   Luke 19 has the very good news that if it is the time that God wants something done, He will do it. God loves us and He will reach out to us to help us in our distress. The question for us today is what happens if God wants to use us to reach out to others in distress and we refuse? The short answer is that God will do it anyway. In the stories of Barak and of Terah we see that because t...

Genesis 40 has been in my thoughts quite a bit recently. Genesis 40 tells the story of the king's cup bearer and baker who both wind up in prison with Joseph. They each have a dream for which God provides Joseph an interpretation for his fellow prisoners. Joseph informs the king's cup bearer that in 3 days he will be restored to his position and Joseph informs the king's baker that in 3 days he will be executed. I have been thinking a lot lately about 2 employees that used to work for us in one of our appointments. They each had been employed for a while and they each had had some discussions with various supervisors over the years about their employment. There was a significant incident involving both of them. ER needed to be called. A decision needed to be made. One, it was decided, would be returned to their position. One, it was decided, would not.   I imagine that this is similar to the two employees of the King of Egypt in Genesis 40. It seemed to be that the two empl...