Warsaw International Church

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Worship every Sunday at ul. Miodowa 21 (near Old Town) at 11:00 AM

Entrance from Schillera Street

Email: pastor@wic.org.pl

Website: http://www.wic.org.pl

WIC WEEKLY 2nd APRIL 2023 FROM PASTOR HARRY

Spiritual Nourishment

Helen Ewan, by James A. Stewart (1910-75)

“For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Cor. 4:5-7).

At the same time that I was saved during a mighty movement of God in my city of Glasgow, Scotland, a girl about the same age was also saved. Her name was Helen Ewan.

She was just a slip of a girl, but at the very threshold of her new life in Christ, she crowned Him as absolute Lord and was thus filled with the Holy Spirit. She had accepted the invitation of her Lord to “drink abundantly” (Song 5:1).

“...If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake He of the Spirit which they that believe on Him should receive...)” (John 7:37-39a). The torrents of living water simply began to flow from Helen’s life.

Helen Ewan was born around 1910 into an ordinary working-class family. She was the only child. Both of her parents loved Christ supremely. The blessed Son of God was the centre around which the whole household revolved. They lived for only one thing and that was to please God in every detail of their lives. Three well-marked Bibles were always conspicuous in their living room when I visited them.

After her conversion at the age of fourteen, Helen’s whole personality was radiant with the glory of the Lord. ...As she studied the Word of God, under the illuminating guidance of the Holy Spirit, He took of the treasures of the Lord Jesus and revealed them unto her (John 16:13-15). This made her heart dance for joy.

Many times she would stop Christians on the street and, with radiant face, tell of some choice portion of Scripture where she had found some new picture of her blessed Redeemer. These friends often left her presence weeping. They said, “We have seen Jesus; we have looked into His glorious face.” The awe of God remained upon their souls throughout the rest of the day.

It was at such times she stood out as a solitary figure, so far removed from the rest of us. She knew the Lord in such a deep, intimate way. Many testified that just her passing smile, or her cheery, “Good day, God bless you,” was an uplifting tonic to them.

Her Prayer Life

Helen arose each morning around five o’clock to commune with her Lord. She would not put on the heat in her cold little room or seek to make herself comfortable in any way, feeling she could be more alert in the cold. And besides, those for whom she would be praying in foreign lands were not sitting in comfort.

She would begin her communion with praise and worship. She then read the Word of God to warm her heart. She remembered the words of her fellow Scot, R. Murray M’Cheyne, “It is the look that saves, but it is the gaze that sanctifies.” Helen gazed with rapture into the face of her Lord.

Then would follow her ministry of intercession for her friends and family, for her assembly, for hundreds of missionaries on the foreign fields, and her prayer ministry for the unsaved. She had a list of unsaved persons to whom she had testified and for whom she prayed daily until they were born again.

Her yearnings after the salvation of the lost were awful to behold. The reason God gave her so many souls among rich and poor, young and old, illiterate and intelligent, was that she agonized for them in earnest intercession inside the veil (Isa. 66:8). There was nothing vague or general about her pleas.

After her Home-going, her mother kindly allowed me to go over her diaries and there I saw that the petitions expressed in them were strong and definite. She gave the date when she began to pray for a person and then the date when the prayer was answered. These diaries revealed a prayer life that moved God and man.

…All through the day Helen sought the Lord’s guidance in matters small and great. It was no small thing for her to shop for some personal piece of clothing and she might be seen to pause in front of a store to seek His guidance before going in for a piece of ribbon. She must please the Lord Jesus in all things and she would not be led by the traditions of men. That no doubt explains the remark of her friends that “Helen was always dressed right.”

Seeking After Lost Souls

…I have been out on the streets of Glasgow near midnight with my tracts on many occasions when I would see Helen busy in her own method of personal soul winning. I have seen her on a cold Scottish winter’s evening with her arms around a poor prostitute, telling her of Jesus and His love. On other occasions she would be dealing with drunken men, seeking to lead them to her Saviour.

In the evangelistic meetings she was always on the alert for lost souls. Sitting near the rear of the building, she would see a woman sitting alone, sorrow written on her face and weariness in her eyes. Under the guidance of the Spirit, Helen would slip over and sit beside her, praying inwardly during the whole of the service. When the lady arose to leave, Helen would leave with her, talking about the message and encouraging the lady to unburden her heart.

In this way, more than one soul who was burdened with the cares of this life and bowed down with the weight of sin and despair was led to know the Saviour – as Helen pointed them to the Lamb of God under the lamp post or while waiting at the streetcar stop.

When she entered the University of Glasgow, she used to walk several miles from her home to the campus each day so that she could distribute tracts along the way. At the same time, she could save streetcar fare and give it to the missionary cause. Needless to say, she had the joy of leading many students to Christ on the campus.

…I was talking one day with two professors from the University of London who were believers. We were talking about dynamic Christianity when one of them suddenly said, “Brother Stewart, I want to tell you a story.” Then he went on to tell of a remarkable young lady on the campus of the Glasgow University when he was lecturing there. Wherever she went on the campus, he said, the fragrance of Christ followed her.

For example, a group of unconverted students would be jesting and telling dirty stories when someone would suddenly say, “Shhh! Here she comes! Quiet!” and this young lady would walk by, unconsciously leaving the power and the awe of the presence of God behind her.

He said that in the university prayer meetings they could always tell if this young student was present whether she prayed aloud or not…they sensed the presence of God in their midst.

I said, “Sir, that could be only one person; that was Helen Ewan!” “Yes,” he answered, “that was her name. She was a remarkable soul winner.”

Her Zest for God’s Word

Another feature of Helen’s life was her deep appetite for the Word of God and a deep spiritual penetration into divine truth. She did not just leaf through her Bible for palatable portions which suited her fancy at the moment; she studied the whole Book from Genesis to Revelation. Thus she became a deeply intelligent child of God, even at the age of sixteen and seventeen.

Her feet were firmly placed on the solid rock of the Holy Scriptures. Even when she was a hard-working student in her secular studies in the university, seeking to make good grades for His glory, she still gave time to Bible study and meditation.

This made her a well-balanced Christian. Though there was no time or place in her life for idle gossip or foolish talk, she bubbled over with clean humour and a zest for life. And yet because Christ filled the whole of her horizon, she sought to magnify Him through a holy life and sacrificial service….

Her Home-going

At the university Helen was preparing herself for missionary service among the Russian people of Eastern Europe where I, myself, was later to labour. Already she was learning the Russian language in preparation for her life’s ministry. But God, in His wisdom and love, called her Home at the age of twenty-two.

She had been spending her vacation with an aunt in the county of Fife and while there was continually about her Master’s business. She was taken ill suddenly and as suddenly was called Home. It was so unexpected that it shocked us all.

I was labouring at the time in an evangelistic campaign in a city in northern England. When the news reached me of Helen’s Home-going, I was stunned. I could neither eat nor sleep. …I was not alone in my sorrow. Thousands wept throughout Scotland and Great Britain. …On far-off mission stations, British missionaries grieved at the news. Alas, who would bear them up so faithfully at the Throne of Grace now? Who would step into this gap and take her place?

O God, raise up others like Helen Ewan!

The Secret of Such a Life

Now, dear reader, what is the explanation of such a life? How could a young lady, still pursuing her studies, never having preached a sermon or sung a solo, never having travelled more than two hundred miles away from her home – how could her life so affect people in all parts of the world that they felt a mighty general had fallen? …The story of her life, translated into many different languages, has continued to bless many today. What, I say, is the explanation? There is only one explanation: She was filled with the Holy Spirit. Helen who was an ordinary young woman, became extraordinary simply because she surrendered all to Christ and appropriated for herself all that was hers in Him.

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Our News

At last Sunday’s service, our newcomers included a couple from the Czech Republic; Robert from the USA; another Robert from Rwanda; Katya from Kharkiv, Ukraine; Daniel, a pastor from Ethiopia; and Birukti, also from Ethiopia.

Sister Dion will be delivering a message from the Book of Ezekiel during this Sunday’s (2 April) Communion service.

Our service on 16 April will exceptionally be held at a different location which we are still negotiating. Further details to be provided in a future newsletter.

We look forward to baptizing three of our sisters by total immersion on Friday 14 April at 7:30 pm at the International Christian Fellowship at ul. Puławska 326. Our three candidates are Sister Temwani from Zambia, Sister Loini from Namibia, and Sister Oleksandra from Ukraine/Lebanon. A Polish brother from City Church will also be baptized at the same service, which City Church is arranging.

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Christian Films

Watch wonderful free Christian films of hope and encouragement! They include films about the life of Jesus, testimonies of Christians who have suffered persecution, and excellent cartoon films for both children and adults on Christian spiritual reformers and missionaries. The link is: https://www.vm1.tv/

Prayer Requests

A great Fathers / Family Celebration event will be held in Wilanów, Warsaw on Saturday 18 June, which could attract thousands of people. The organizer is former US Ambassador Gregory Slayton (an evangelical Christian), in cooperation with the Creality events agency and Tato.Net. This is an ecumenical Christian venture. A hosting committee is being set up, and WIC is represented on it by Brother Dennis from Belarus. We are asked to pray for the success of this venture as much as possible, which is badly needed, given the fact that so many men don’t seem to know what fatherhood involves.

The war in Ukraine continues to escalate, with Putin announcing that Russian nuclear weapons will also be located in Belarus. Meanwhile, Russian terrorism continues to destroy Ukrainian cities and murder its people. One has the impression that the Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine are often more demonized than even Putin and his cronies. Sadly, the Russian people generally are supporting all this, and therefore Russia’s guilt and shame are collective. We continue to pray for the Lord to defeat the enemy and protect the innocent. “Those who live by the sword shall perish by the sword”.

We continue to pray for a great spiritual awakening in our own countries and in Poland, particularly among English-speaking foreigners in Warsaw. Please pray for numerical and spiritual growth at WIC. May there be revival in our church, and may we continue to proclaim the true Christian faith to those around us. Only Christ is our Saviour.

Please pray for WIC to find a venue for its 16 April service, as the sanctuary in which we worship will be used on that day by the Polish Lutheran Church.

Please also pray for a place we can rent on Fridays and/or Saturdays in order to have meetings, singing practice etc.

Last Sunday’s sermon was preached by Pastor Harry on people’s failure to recognize Jesus and consequently their wanting the wrong things from Him (Luke 19:29-48)

Today I want to focus on the events we normally look at on Palm Sunday. So today, in Luke’s version of the account, we were reading the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a young donkey – just as Jesus foresaw would happen.

Jesus must have predicted the reaction of the crowds. The texts suggest that many disciples or followers of Jesus were there, all along the road to Jerusalem. But there would also have been a multitude of other people in Jerusalem, who had arrived for the Feast of the Passover. They were curious and excited, because they had heard of all the miracles that Jesus had performed, and wanted to see Him for themselves. So they gave Him the Jewish equivalent of what we call the “red carpet treatment”: spreading their garments and palm branches on the road which Jesus was travelling along. And they called Him the “King”. Clearly they expected Him to be the new political leader who would free them from Roman oppression. They would have known the prophecy stated in the Book of Zechariah chapter 9 verse 9: “Your King is coming to you, righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey”.

But unfortunately these people were hoping for the wrong things – which explains why they turned against Jesus just a bit later on. When He was arrested, and didn’t behave in the way they expected of a revolutionary, they started to regard Him as a failed leader, a false Messiah, who didn’t even know how to defend Himself, let alone His people. But the citizens of Jerusalem failed to recognize who Jesus really was. They didn’t see that God was in Him and that He had other plans for them than to start a revolution against the Romans.

As Jesus approached the city, He started weeping. He was weeping out of love. Why was He crying? Because the people were spiritually blind. He wanted to help them spiritually, but they didn’t want that kind of help. They wanted something else from Him. They thought a political revolution would bring them freedom and lasting peace. But it didn’t. Forty years after Jesus’ death, the Jews rose up against the Romans, and 600,000 Jews were killed, following a long siege of Jerusalem. The Jews had completely failed to recognize Jesus. “You did not recognize the time of your visitation”. Maybe if they had really understood who Jesus was, and what He came to do, the political events would have been completely different.

But what about us? Do we know Jesus? Do we know the day of our visitation? And what do we want from Him? In another Bible translation, it says: “They didn’t recognize the time of God’s coming to them”. Now, when you think about that statement, it is so unbelievably sad. There are so many people who do not recognize God’s grace: His love and kindness to them. Jesus came to set people free spiritually – and yet He wasn’t recognized for it. God’s love and grace are present to us everywhere, all the time. But most of the time, people are just blind to it.

When I wake up in the morning these days, I lie in bed and remind myself of so much to be grateful for. Once you start thinking like that, you can’t stop. Look back over the food you eat, with its many delicious flavours. The clothes you wear, with their many styles and colours to make you look attractive. The ability to hear: I have a new hearing aid, and many sounds seem amazing to me! The ability to see; touch; smell; taste; think; feel; speak; walk and run; to love.

I remember how sometimes, as a kid, when I was lying on the grass in our garden in Birmingham, on a summer’s day, sun-bathing or reading a book, I felt like I was in heaven. Everything was just perfect! Just the simple pleasures of living can reveal God’s grace and love everywhere. But sadly, we grow up and take it all for granted. And there are monsters around like Putin, who just want to destroy it all. So we are in constant danger of failing to recognize the time of God’s coming to us, His presence, either in everyday life, or when Jesus comes to us in a special way.

When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, He went straight to the temple and threw out all the traders and sellers. Now, the temple is a symbol of our own state of mind: full of sin and rubbish – things which shouldn’t be there. We followers of Jesus are a “temple of the Holy Spirit”! Even as Christians, there are sins we can’t deal with. Christ has to deal with them for us. If Christ in His mercy and love comes to us and clears out all our sinful rubbish, we should be grateful to Him. Imagine you’re addicted to smoking or pornography, and He frees you from that – you will be thankful for His grace and mercy, because He’s proving to you how much He loves you. But sadly, sometimes He comes to us and we ignore or fail to recognize His coming. And we fail to act. We fail to admit and confess our sins. We fail to discern the love and grace of Jesus.

Brothers and Sisters, we will shortly sing a hymn about the love of Jesus (“O The Deep Deep Love Of Jesus”). It’s a hymn that unfortunately my mother-in-law can’t bear to sing. That’s because just before World War Two, she met a group of young Ukrainians from the Soviet Union at a Christian camp in Poland, and they sang this hymn. When the war broke out and Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the Germans murdered that whole group of Ukrainian Christians.

And now it’s Russians who are murdering Ukrainians.

Can we sing, to those who are suffering so much, “O The Deep Deep Love Of Jesus”? It’s very difficult, isn’t it, to preach love to those who have suffered so much pain and harsh treatment. But suffering and love are closely connected. Jesus suffered an agonizing death, because He loved us so much and came to save us. When we sing this hymn, let’s remember that our freedom – both physical and spiritual freedom – always comes at a terrible price, which someone has to pay, for us to enjoy that freedom.

Jesus paid the price for you and me to be free from our sins and unbelief. He went to His death in Jerusalem for you and me.

Are we just going to spread our robes on the ground, as if to initially welcome Him – but then turn away from Him, like the crowd in Jerusalem? Or will we follow Him all the way to the cross, where our “self” – our worldly nature, with its unbelief and addictions – will finally be put to death too? God’s promise is that, if we have the guts to follow Jesus all the way, then He will remove every stain on our soul – if only we really want that and are prepared to renounce our worldly pleasures.

So the question I want to leave with you today is this: “What do I really want from Jesus”? Amen.

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Readings for the 2 April service

Verse for the week: [The Lord says:] “I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it” (Ezekiel 37:14).

Theme: The Lord’s reviving of His people

Psalm: 22:1-11 and 16-19

Reading: Ezekiel 37:1-14

Offering verse: Proverbs 11:25: “A generous person will be enriched”.

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Services and Contributions

WIC is entirely self-supporting. Should you wish to make a contribution to WIC, our church's bank details are as follows:

Warsaw International Church Santander Bank Polska S.A.
IV/Oddział w Warszawie ul. Jana Pawła II 17 00-854 Warszawa Polish złoty (PLN) account: PL 63 1090 1056 0000 0000 0600 9128 SWIFT CODE: WBKPPLPP

Contributions can now also be sent by PayPal. Just open the PayPal application and search for “Warsaw International Church”. You can also use this link for your PayPal payment: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=558F2VK2AJYPC

Our services are also livestreamed on YouTube (11 am CET). The link is: Warsaw International Church - Sunday Service

Recordings of our Sunday services are available on our wic.org.pl website or by googling "Warsaw International Church YouTube".