Falmouth Evangelical Church

13/06/2026

Our services for the Lord's Day 14th June 2026 will be led by our Pastor @ 10:30 am & 6:30 pm
All welcome to both/either service
Devotional from John Hooper for the Lord's Day:

Dear Friends,

“But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.”

(1 John 2:20)

The word unction is not one that drops easily into our everyday conversation. Perhaps occasionally we might use the related word unctuous when referring to someone with a grovelling or oily disposition, and that gives us a clue to the meaning of the word. Unction means oil and John is here referring particularly to the oil of anointing. A few years ago, in Westminster Abbey, an earthly king was anointed with oil to the accompaniment of great pomp and fanfare, but the anointing in our text is a spiritual anointing. It doesn’t come with great ceremony. It is the anointing of every believer with the oil of the Holy Spirit, and how much more blessed are we than the kings and queens of this world! The text is telling us, “You have an anointing from the Holy One.” A little further down the chapter John reiterates this when he writes, “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you...” (v. 27). It is a blessing that will never be reversed.

Our Lord Jesus is called Christ because “Christ” is the New Testament Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word Messiah and it means anointed. It teaches us that our Lord Jesus is the anointed One of God, the Chief Prophet, Great High Priest and Heavenly King of all His people. And we are called “Christian,” a most noble and excellent name. Have you ever wondered what is the significance of that name? Why are you called a Christian? The Heidelberg Catechism (1563) answers that question for us, with an echo from 1 John:

Because I am a member of Christ by faith, and thus am partaker of His anointing.

A partaker of His anointing! What a privilege is that! Yes, intrinsic to the very name of Christian, the name that you and I carry, is an anointing that we have of God in our Lord Jesus Christ. We share in His anointing, no less. The Scottish theologian Robert Candlish (1806-1873) wrote, “We share with Christ His own very unction. Whatever is implied in His being anointed with the Holy Ghost, we are to realise in ourselves as having ‘an unction from the Holy One.’” It implies this: that on the grounds of our indissoluble union with Christ, each one of us holds high office, the triple office of prophet, priest and king. This is the high dignity of a Christian.

Sadly, Christian is a name that is devalued in our age, as it is in every age. We have professing Christians, nominal Christians and even so-called cultural Christians who are really atheists, but how many would “suffer as a Christian,” being “reproached for the name of Christ” (1 Peter 4:16, 14)? How many are truly members of Him by faith, abiding in Him as branches to the vine and the body to the Head?

To be a partaker of Christ’s anointing is not only a high privilege, it is also a serious calling. It brings responsibility. The Heidelberg Catechism goes on to outline just what it means for us to be prophets, priests, and kings in our Lord Jesus Christ. Each one of us can say “I am a partaker of Christ’s anointing

that [as prophet] I may confess His name; and [as priest] present myself a living sacrifice of thankfulness to Him; and also that [as king] with a free and good conscience I may fight against sin and Satan in this life, and afterwards reign with Him eternally over all creatures.”

By virtue of our prophetic office we are called to be students of God’s Word, to search the Scriptures and share the Word with one another; we are to admonish one another in the Lord; we are to confess by lip and by life the name of Christ before one another and before the world, supporting gospel endeavours at home and abroad. But do we?
By virtue of our priestly office we are called to consecrate ourselves wholly – that is, with heart, mind, soul, and strength, in every department of our lives – to the Lord; we are to pray for one another, to bear one another’s burdens and give relief to those in need. But do we?
By virtue of our royal office we are called to go to war against sin and Satan, battling within and without; we are to live in the midst of the world but in opposition to it, lifting high the Word of God; we are to engage with enemies who, though they even bear the name of Christian, deny and undermine the gospel. But do we? In the face of defeat, we are to be assured that the cause of God and truth will be vindicated in the day of our Lord. The battle is His and the victory is His, and through Him we are more than conquerors. The day of Christ will reveal it because when He comes and is revealed before the world in all His glory, we shall be there too, reigning with Him. We will reign as kings with Christ in His eternal dominion of righteousness and what incomparable glory that will be! He has “made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:10).



No need of prophets to inquire:

The Sun is risen, the stars retire.

The Comforter is come, and sheds

His holy unction on our heads.

Josiah Conder (1789-1855)

06/06/2026

All welcome to our services @ 10:30 am & 6:30 pm
Led by our Pastor

Devotional for the Lord's Day 7th June 2026 from John Hooper
Dear Friends,

“I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone….”

(Song of Solomon 5:6)

We can quite easily understand that Solomon might have written these words, and indeed his entire song, on the basis of real, personal experiences, but the thoughts and emotions they convey are not merely those of the human heart. The love expressed is not merely that of human affection. They are words inspired by the Spirit of God and the subject matter is a love that belongs on a higher plane altogether. They lift us up to catch a sight of the spiritual bond between God and His people, the mutual love between Christ and His church.

The Beloved has come to his bride-to-be, “my sister, my love” (v. 2), and He has knocked on the door of her room, but she is not ready. By the time she reaches the door and opens it He has gone. She says, “I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer” (v. 6). All who have been through the experience of courtship and engagement will find in their heart some sympathy for both parties here. We don’t need to imagine the emotions because it is likely that we have known and felt something of them ourselves, but how much more grief is there in the heart of Christ when we, the objects of His eternal, matchless love, do not open to Him.

We are slow; we are not ready; our love is not as warm, not as ardent as it should be. We are unaffected by the voice of our Beloved as He calls us. We find ourselves strangely unwilling to run to His arms, and have to confess with John Newton (1725-1807),

Weak is the effort of my heart,

And cold my warmest thought.

Is not our greatest sympathy with the Bridegroom who finds that his bride is not ready for him? She has been sleeping. Now it is morning and at the appointed hour He knocks, but she delays. She is torn between the comforts of her bed and getting up, putting her feet to the dusty floor and answering the door. There can be no doubt as to who is knocking, but she is full of excuses as to why she should stay where she is and, oh, what volumes this speaks to the Bridegroom. What it tells Him of the state of her love, her heart, her devotion. And do we not recognise ourselves in her? What of our delays, our excuses, our slowness of heart? The time of personal devotion has come, or the time of morning worship on the Lord’s Day, but what is the attitude of our heart? Even more relevant these days is the time of evening worship when He knocks, He calls us, but we list our excuses. It is not that we come late, we do not come at all.

When at last she opens the door, oh, the disappointment she now experiences! He is gone! He was so near, and yet so far! We can detect almost a sense of panic setting in as she goes off in search of her Beloved. She is “sick of love” (v. 8). He is “the chiefest among ten thousand” (v. 10) to her soul, but she has let Him down. Oh, how could she possibly have done such a thing? But she has done it, and she is filled with shame and remorse.

Have we not let down our Beloved? Yes, and not just once but a thousand times. We have tended to ourselves and left Him outside of our plans, our timetable, our desires and hopes. He was not foremost in our thoughts and priorities as He should have been and when finally we opened the door to Him, He was gone. We have missed the opportunity, missed the blessing of His presence. Perhaps we had assumed He would still be there at the time of our convenience and choosing. But no, that is not how we are to treat our Lord, our Beloved. That is not how love behaves itself.

“My beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone.” We all know how disconcerting it can be to answer the door and find no-one there, but this is the bride and she has opened to her Beloved. He is the One who loves her as no other and has spoken to her in great tenderness, “Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair … Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee” (4:1, 7), but He is not there. What does this mean? Has love itself withdrawn and gone? Oh no, says Dr. Gill, “Christ’s love is always the same.” His love for us is not like ours for Him, a love that waxes and wanes like the ebb and flow of the tide. His love is constant, but “the sense of it in believers is variable; the one is sometimes withdrawn, the other never.” Yes, even our Beloved’s absences are demonstrations of His love because He knows what is best.

In love He teaches us lessons, and they can be hard lessons for us to learn but learn them we must that we might love Him all the more with a constant, selfless, faithful love. In His absence, we feel our lack and our thoughtlessness, our unkindness toward the One who is nothing but kindness to us. We reproach ourselves for our selfishness and we go in search of Him until we find Him, and find Him we will. Until the next time. We know too well that our love for Him is not like His for us, whole-hearted, one hundred per cent and undivided. Oh that it were! One day it will be, oh glorious day!

Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul refreshing view
Of Jesus and His Word?



Return, O holy Dove! Return,
Sweet messenger of rest!
I hate the sins that made Thee mourn,
And drove Thee from my breast.

William Cowper (1731-1800)

02/06/2026

Kent County Council has voted to start each meeting with the Lord’s Prayer: christian.org.uk/147601

01/06/2026

THE BEAVER'S BUILT-IN COMB

Most people know beavers for their dams, but few realize they come equipped with their own grooming tool.

On each hind foot, a beaver has a specialized split claw called a double toenail or grooming claw. Unlike its other claws, this one is divided into two parts, forming a natural comb. The beaver uses it constantly to clean mud, remove debris, and distribute waterproofing oils throughout its thick fur.

And those oils are critical.

A beaver's fur contains two layers: a dense insulating underfur and longer guard hairs that repel water. To keep this system working, the fur must be coated with oils produced by special glands. The double toenail acts like a built-in brush, spreading those oils evenly across the body. Without this waterproof coating, cold water would pe*****te the fur, robbing the animal of insulation and dramatically increasing the risk of hypothermia.

Think about the engineering involved. The waterproofing oil, the glands that produce it, the specialized fur, and the split grooming claw all depend on one another. Remove any part of the system and the beaver's aquatic lifestyle becomes much more difficult. The claw only makes sense because the oils exist. The oils only help because the fur is designed to hold them. The fur only works because the claw helps maintain it.

The beaver doesn't carry a comb.

It was created with one.

"The earth is full of Your possessions." Psalm 104:24

31/05/2026

Our services @ 10:30am& 6:30 pm will be led by our Pastor
Devotional for the Lord's Day, 31st May 2026 from John Hooper-
Dear Friends,

“I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved ...”

(Song of Solomon 5:2)

I am sure we are able to enter into something of what the bride is saying here in our text. We know what it is like to be slumbering in the quietness of a garden on a summer’s day, only to be disturbed by the sound of a voice. That is all some Bible translations have at this point, “A voice!” but it is not just a voice the bride hears. It is not the voice of a stranger, a voice she does not recognise. It is a voice she knows very well, a voice she loves to hear. It is His voice, the voice of her Beloved, and she finds herself fully awakened. In the Authorised Version the words “it is” are in italics to let us know that the translators have added them to help us understand the meaning, but when we read it without the “it is” we gain a sense of the startle, the surprise the bride experiences: “I sleep, but my heart waketh: the voice of my beloved!”

Do you know that startle when you hear and recognise the Lord speaking to you? You have been in a state of spiritual drowsiness and suddenly you find yourself awakened by the voice of your Beloved. Perhaps you have been reading the Scriptures rather lazily when suddenly the passage speaks to you as never before and you hear His voice. It may be just a verse or only a word, but in it you recognise the voice of your Beloved Lord speaking to you. You are listening in church to the public Bible reading and perhaps it is a chapter you have heard and read many times, but today some of the words touch you as never before, “it is the voice of my beloved.” You are hearing the preacher when suddenly it is as though his voice fades and it is no longer his that you hear but “the voice of my beloved.”

Christ speaks to you in the Scriptures with words that perfectly address the circumstances in which you find yourself. You have a need and it is met by the voice of your Beloved in the inspired words. You are in distress, but His voice in the Scriptures brings you comfort. You don’t know which way to turn, but His voice in the Scriptures shows you the path you must take. Your heart is dry, there is a coldness and a carelessness about it, so much so that you hardly care whether you hear His voice or not, whether you attend the place of worship or not, but when His voice comes to you it is with a power that awakens you out of your spiritual drowsiness, convicts you of your negligence, warms your heart and revives your drooping spirit. It draws you to Him to worship Him and serve Him with a new dedication.

He speaks in various tones for He knows our state. Sometimes it is the soft timbre of comfort to the troubled, a “fear not” to the anxious. Other times it may be in louder tones, calling us to repentance, to renewed obedience, to greater faithfulness, but always He speaks truth, and always He speaks it in love.

Oh, that we knew such experiences as these more often! Are they so rare that when we do hear Him, His voice comes to us as a surprise? We are startled; “the voice of my beloved”! We have been in church many times and attended to our family and personal devotions with regularity, and yet it is so long since last we heard Him. How long is it with you, dear friend? Have you almost forgotten the sound of His voice?

What brings us to this state of spiritual carelessness and slumber? Why is it so long since we last heard the voice of our beloved? Is it because it is so long since He has heard our voice? Could it be that the sleep the bride speaks of here is the sleep of prayerlessness? Or prayer that has become routine and lifeless, prayer that is not lifted up in faith, prayer that is not heard? Oh yes, we know that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us” (1 John 5:14). But not only that, “And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him” (v. 15). This raises another possibility, that we sleep the sleep of unanswered prayer because our prayers are not according to His will.

But our Beloved is gracious. In our low spiritual state He does not remain silent for long. He does not - He cannot - leave us for long. “I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved!” In love He knocks. In love He calls, “Open to me, my sister, my love…”

O consider this picture; here we have the unchanging and unchangeable love of the Lord, and the changeful, listless heart of His betrothed bride face to face on the page of eternal truth! … Surely the love and grace of Jesus may well make our hearts blush for our neglect of Him.

Marcus Rainsford (1758-1817)



I sleep, my heart awaketh,
’Tis my Beloved’s voice,
He knocketh at the casement,
And bids my soul rejoice.

John S. B. Monsell (1811-1875)

23/05/2026

Our services @10:30 am & 6:30 pm will be led by Patrick Buckley and Ian Leedham (both Hope Church Truro)
All welcome to both/either services

Devotional from John Hooper for the Lord's Day 24th May 2026:
Dear Friends,
“… and the kingdom shall be the LORD’s.”
(Obadiah 21)

This is the glorious note of triumph on which ends the smallest book in the Old Testament. The book is a prophecy of judgment from God specifically on the people of Edom, the descendants of Esau, for their enmity and aggression towards Israel. “For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever” (v. 10). The principle on which the Lord acts is outlined in verse 15: “as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head.”

Esau was Jacob’s brother, and so to this day, too often, it is sadly true that “a man’s foes shall be they of his own household” (Matthew 10:36). The struggle with the kingdom of this world comes painfully near when we experience it in our own families and within the walls of our own homes. It fills us with grief to think of the end of those who are near and dear to us, passing from this world with their hearts still burning with antipathy toward the Lord and His people. Yes, God is impeccably righteous and He always acts righteously; He is just and He always acts justly.

But the outcome of all God’s ways, both in judgment and in grace, is the one foretold in our text. When we pray, “Thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10), it can be with the sure confidence that we will be heard and answered according to the words, “and the kingdom shall be the LORD’s.” These are words that resound throughout the New Testament until they find their ultimate realisation in the words of the angel, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 11:15). Old Testament history teaches us that kingdoms have their day until God raises up greater kingdoms to overthrow them, but greater than all of them is the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The kingdoms of this world are mighty in their own eyes but they are as nothing before His kingdom, and as they have done, so shall be done to them. The end result is that “upon mount Zion shall be deliverance” (v. 17). What a mighty reversal there will be when that day comes!

Beloved, we can and we must take comfort from the fact that the last page of history is not a blank page; it is not unknown. We know what it says! It has been written with knowledge because the author is no less than our God, who has decreed all things from the beginning to the end of the world, and who works all things according to His will. He has revealed it to us here in His Word, a revelation that is written with accuracy and precision because His Word is infallible and without error. It has been written with authority because it is the Word of the King of Kings, and we are to believe it.

We see that final page even here in the last verse of Obadiah. As those who are sheltering in Jesus there is no need for us to view it with foreboding and fear because it is a page that tells of victory. There is no need for us to be alarmed but, on the contrary, every reason for us to live in hope and confidence because we are one with our King and we share in His triumph as citizens and princes in His kingdom.

This is the goal of all history. This is where all the kingdoms and powers of this world have their end: “… and the kingdom shall be the LORD’s.” The triumph of our text is the triumph of our Saviour. It is the victory of the cross, it is the conquest of the empty tomb, it is the glory of Christ’s ascension and the power of the gospel, and He won all for us, His Jacob!

We need have no fear what man will do to us, whatever his weapons. He might arm himself with all the armaments of modern warfare, or with the grossest anti-Christian legislation, or with the vitriol of the press and social media, but his time will be short and his defeat certain because the victory is sure. Our Saviour has come, died and risen again, “… and the kingdom shall be the LORD’s.” Indeed, the victory already is the LORD’s (Psalm 22:28). “Say among the heathen that the LORD reigneth” (Psalm 96:10).

Do we live our lives from day to day, in the service of our King, in the light of this glorious truth? Is your life and mine a song of praise to our all-victorious King of grace and glory? The world lives for the present because the present is all it knows, but may you and I live for the future because for us the best is yet to come.

Hark! How the hosts triumphant sing,
‘The Lord Omnipotent is King!’
Let all the saints rejoice at this,
The kingdoms of the world are His!

Thomas Kelly (1769-1855)

20/05/2026

No prayer meeting tonight!! (20th May 2026)

16/05/2026

Our services for the Lords Day tomorrow 17th May 2026 will be led by our Pastor @10:30 am & by Ian Leedham (Hope Church, Truro) @ 6:30 pm
All welcome to both or either service(s)

Devotional from John Hooper for the Lord's Day:

Dear Friends,

“And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.”

(Revelation 21:5)

I am sure it is true of all of us that we like to have new things. Whether it is a new book to read, new clothes to wear, a new car to drive, or whatever it might be, there is something rather appealing about newness. But it is not long before we discover something about new things that takes the shine off them somewhat: they become old. Children find this out very quickly! A new toy today will be an old toy tomorrow and excitement soon wanes.

Or we might think of a new life born into the world. It grows through infancy and childhood remarkably quickly and soon reaches adulthood. We are told that the human brain reaches its peak performance around the age of thirty, after which it goes into an unstoppable decline. In Genesis 27 Isaac says, “Behold now, I am old” (v. 2); Joshua too, “I am old and stricken in age” (Joshua 23:2); and Samuel, “I am old and grayheaded” (1 Samuel 12:2). Moses wrote, “we spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow” (Psalm 90:9-10). Many of you will have lived long enough to know this from personal experience. It is intrinsic to this life and universe, and will remain true for as long as they exist.

But in Revelation 21 we are given a promise from God that one day things will be very different. The chapter begins with John being given a vision of “a new heaven and a new earth” (v. 1). Speaking from His throne as the Sovereign of the universe, the One who had created all things at the beginning, God says, “Behold, I make all things new.” Just how new becomes clear as we read on, for in this new creation there will be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor pain, “for the former things are passed away” (vv. 3-4). I think we can see from reading these verses that the newness God speaks of here is a very different kind of newness to the one we know in this life and world. It is a different order of newness altogether.

It is a newness of which we will never grow weary. We will not be like the child who grows tired of a new toy within hours or even minutes of receiving it. I am sure we can all remember the high excitement we felt as a child in opening a present, and the sense of surprise and wonder we felt on discovering what it was. Perhaps we still experience a little of it in adulthood, but we cannot sustain that sense of wonder for long. It quickly fades. Will that also be true of our experience when God fulfils the promise of our text? Will we ever lose our sense of wonder in heaven? Not at all! There everything will be for ever new and we will never grow tired and disappointed of it. Peter tells us it will be incorruptible, undefiled, and will never fade away (1 Peter 1:4). It will never become broken, damaged, faulty, lost, outdated, or worn out like the new things of our present life. The thrill, the sense of joy and wonder that we experience when first we enter it will be ours for evermore. We will never grow weary of it.

How can we be so sure? Is it not too good to be true? We can be confident because, first of all, it is promised by God Himself, and has God ever broken His word? Can we point to a promise in Scripture that He has not kept? No! He always keeps His promises and we can hold Him to it. Secondly, the Lord confirms the certainty of it when He says to John, “Write: for these words are true and faithful” (Revelation 21:5). This takes us back to Isaiah 65 where God speaks as “the God of truth,” or, literally, “the amen God,” and says, “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth” (vv. 16, 17). His words are true and faithful because He Himself is true and faithful, the Amen.

Thirdly, we can be sure of all this because God goes on to say, “It is done” (Revelation 21:6). How is God able to say that already? He can say it because all the work has been secured by the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, who Himself called out from the cross, “It is finished.” There is no more to be done. The Lord God is “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end” (v. 6). Richard Brooks has written,

From the very beginning God made all things with a view to the end – the ‘alpha’ must inevitably lead to the ‘omega.’ He controls everything in such a way that all His counsel is accomplished, all His designs fulfilled, all His promises performed and all His ends are reached.

There is just one final question to be asked: Are these new things for me? Are they for you? To answer that question each of us must refer back to our relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul writes, “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). As believers in Jesus Christ we are not only sure of a future “all things new,” but we know that it is already a present reality within. What a glorious gospel!

Thou, Lord, who makest all things new,
O give us hearts both pure and true;
That we, as jewels, ever Thine,
In new Jerusalem may shine.



Christopher Wordsworth (1807-1885)

15/05/2026

Belshazzar- the conclusion

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13/05/2026