The Nation of Australia is truly blessed with a wonderful Land.
We as a Nation have been blessed with God’s Witness through His incredible creation.
The Skies over this land testify to the Great Creator God.
Psalm 19.1 The Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth His handywork.
Way back on Feb 3rd 1788 Richard Johnson the first Chaplin to Australia held a Church service in Sydney under a large tree. He took the text from Psalm 116.
Psalm 116:12 What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?
KJ Cable writes; Johnson soon became one of the busiest men in the colony.. He held services, either in the open air or in a store-house, at Sydney and Parramatta, performed the occasional offices of the church—baptisms, marriages, .. burials—attended the execution of condemned men and worked hard among the convicts. One of them wrote home, amid the sickness and hunger of 1790, that ‘few of the sick would recover if it was not for the kindness of the Rev. Mr Johnson, whose assistance out of his own stores makes him the physician both of soul and body’. … He supported Phillip’s policy of befriending the Aboriginals, took a native girl, Abaroo (Boo-ron), into his family, and once remained as a hostage while Bennelong visited the governor.
John Newton the Hymn writer in England wrote to encourage Johnson and said: “You are sent to New Holland, not to sow salad seeds, but to plant acorns; and your labour will not be lost, though the first appearances may be very small, and the progress very slow. You are, I trust, planting for the next Century. I have a good hope that your oaks will one day spring up and flourish, and produce other acorns, which, in due time, will take root, and spread among the islands and nations in the Southern Ocean.”
Australia has had a wonderful Christian influence since the 1700’s.
Sir Henry Parkes the 5 time Premier of NSW who died in 1896 said “we are pre-eminently a Christian people – as our laws, our whole system of jurisprudence, our Constitution… are based upon and interwoven with our Christian belief” (Sydney Morning Herald, 26th August 1885).
