Hi Everyone

Here’s this month’s Gone Fishin’ Newsletter.

Every month a team from our fellowship at Calvary Wellington heads out to our regular fishing holes – the Naenae Market and Hillary Court shops, or the Hutt Riverbank Fruit and Vege Market. There we share the Gospel to those in our immediate community. 

Occasionally I publish a simple newsletter that is distributed to the fellowship (or for anyone else who stumbles across this website), as a way of encouragement, and as a tool to equip us to be better evangelists.

You can read the last Field Report from 17/8/25 here.

Enjoy!

Gone Fishin’ Monthly Newsletter – September 2025

“At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison. Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them.”

 (Acts 8:1-5).

Hi Everyone

Trusting everyone is well, and making every opportunity to spread the Gospel!

You can read the August outreach report here.

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 Put your hand up if you enjoy persecution.

OK, leave it up if you want that persecution to continue everywhere you go.

 Of course you don’t want it, but we will discover today that persecution is necessary. In fact, Jesus even promised it:

“When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” (Matt 10:23). 

Note that He says “when”, not “if”.

That is what the early church had to put up with. Saul (later to be Paul) and his band of Pharisaic mercenaries clinging on to religious power by a show of strength and might. They thought killing those in the “Way” would put an end to this annoying rebellion.

So what was the old “way” that the Pharisees felt needed protecting? Follow the Mosaic Law to the tee. Not only that, but all the other 600+ included rules they stacked on top of it.

The law was never designed to work that way. The 10 Commandments and the Levitical law were more than enough to keep God’s people on the straight and narrow. And when they strayed, they had an avenue of getting their sins covered, via the High Priest making an annual sacrificial atonement in the Holy of Holies.

It was working perfectly until during the inter-testamental period when the Pharisees came along. The sacrificial lamb was meant to be a foreshadow of things to come – pointing to the day when Christ, our sacrificial lamb, would make a one-time payment for all the sins of those who place their faith in Him. The Pharisees had turned it into a farce and a burden.

How refreshing that the law no longer has a hold on us! Imagine trying to follow those laws today. I couldn’t even get away with writing this before having to jump through a million hoops. And that’s the heavy burden of the law. Imagine having to stop every step on a journey to check that you have placed your foot in the right place, and you’re heading in the right direction. It would take an age to reach your destination, if ever.

Those that strive to reach holiness via obeying the law are like a hamster on a treadmill. You won’t know how many laws you’ve broken or if you’ve done enough good works to make it heaven. Your only course is to try harder, keep obeying and keep pouring out your good works in the hope that God will give you a thumbs up on judgement day. But even if you lived perfectly from now on, there’s still the punishment for the laws we’ve already broken.

A good judge will not be bribed by your good works and subsequent law-keeping and overlook the punishment you deserve for breaking the law. Yet that is what people expect God to do for them. Those that rely on the traditions of men over the holiness of God will receive a rude awakening in His court.

So, back to our text.

When persecution came, it says “they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria”. Of course the people scattered from persecution. And normally that would result in fragmentation and ineffectiveness. However, the opposite was true: ”Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word.”. Persecution didn’t stop the people, it re-invigorated them! God was using persecution as a way of furthering the Gospel. What the world celebrated as victory, God used to bring more people to Him.

What does this mean for us?

Well, most of us in our little country in the middle of the South Pacific wouldn’t expect death threats for our beliefs. And I would have said the same for a lot of Western countries as well. But after the events of the last week, we now realise we can no longer consider ourselves immune from these things; all because we don’t follow man-made rules dreamed up by modern-day Pharisees that go against God’s plan for all mankind.

This shouldn’t cause us to lose heart. Just like the early church, in our brokenness and eagerness to escape persecution, it should galvanise us to go ”everywhere preaching the word.”.

The world has fallen into thinking that the way to heaven is by being a good role model and keeping the ten commandments, just like the Pharisees. For that, they will fall short of God’s perfect standards on Judgement Day and receive their due punishment.

 Let’s use what time we have left on earth to teach them that Christ has already fulfilled the law for us and has offered Himself as a one-time sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins through death and resurrection for those that place their trust in Him!

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A couple of months ago I wrote the lyrics of a song that spoke of the folly of trusting in our own good works to get to heaven. It also spoke of the passion we should all share of wanting to get out and share the Gospel.

 I plugged the lyrics into an AI song generator, gave it a genre, and it came up with the song below. Click on this link or the picture below, turn the volume up and enjoy!