Sunday, 3 March 2019

Psalm 33


The Bible gives us God’s spiritual programme for all mankind and states,

‘Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord’ and, ‘if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?’

There is no doubt that our nation today, as a nation, is adrift. We have lost our moorings and are like a ship without a rudder, compass, or even a destination.

Having owed much to Christian influence, which brought and kept this nation as one, Christianity is being wrecked and the ensuing collapse of Christian values has led to an unstable society in which family life is being destroyed, and a moral and spiritual vacuum has been created.

There has been a systematic attack on the Christian faith by ideologues in political circles, and by civil servants, to eradicate Christianity from public life. People who betray and dislike the culture which nurtured them, seeking to make it disappear, with national and local governmental bodies bullying it out of existence. This sustained attack is not made on other faiths however.

We face a decision of momentous proportions for the nation’s future, and in trying to come to a consensus have made ourselves a laughing stock to the world as our politicians in all parties wrestle with each other and seek to fulfil personal ambitions. There is a national sense of selfish greed which motivates people to seek that which gives most for themselves, irrespective of the common good. The only consensus vote arrived at in Parliament was the motion to grant themselves a pay rise.

Morally we are bankrupt, everyone does what is right in their own eyes, any mention of sin is ridiculed. The cry goes forth that morality cannot be imposed on people, but the people who cry this the loudest are the same ones who want to impose their agenda on society.

We have no inspirational leadership, and nominally have a Conservative government, but it is impossible to be conservative unless one knows what it they are trying to conserve. In fact, we have a government which is legislating for immorality.
Having re-defined marriage for political purposes, it destroyed the true meaning of marriage and family life, as a bedrock of society, making it of no more worth than any other form of relationship and decreeing a father is not considered necessary in the family.

The Humanist and LGBT activists have fought their cause with military precision and have had much success in setting new ethics; and doing their best to subvert the Christian religion throughout this nation.

Pornography as entertainment for all, unrestricted sex of all kind without any age restriction, children of tender age to be questioned as to their feelings of gender. Divorce is now to be legally made possible for all without fault being necessary. Children from the age of four upwards to be taught explicit sex lessons, without parental approval or right to withdraw. Men allowed on a whim to declare they want to be a woman without challenge, so threatening real women by being enabled to share facilities.

Every civilised nation throughout history has been based on Christian standards and belief, and the place of the Church in every nation has been an important factor. You need only look in the Bible to see the prominence God expected from his Church, yet how little the Church counts in the nation now.

Let us be honest and soul searching, do we have any doubt as to why that is? The Church is led by religious pygmies, many of whom have little firm belief in the authority of the Bible; the Bible has been cast aside as outdated and outmoded from within the Church, as Church leaders sympathise and cohort with those who wish to cast out moral absolutes.

When the Church rejects the Bible, so does the nation and the Church becomes just a place for a nice photograph after baptisms and weddings (we have already given away our taking of funerals to civil celebrants).

Do we really want a paper Church, one that exists for people when it is convenient to visit; one in which doctrine is modified to meet the culture of the age, and to facilitate multi faith worship; one n which doctrine is minimised. The Protestant Church was once known as one where doctrine was faithfully preached, the sacraments properly administered and discipline exercised.

Some may ask what is true doctrine. The answer is to view the Scriptures as the infallible Word of God; to assert the unique deity of the Lord Jesus Christ; his Virgin birth; his miraculous works; his atoning sacrificial substitutionary death on the Cross; his physical resurrection and ascension. This is the message of the true Church, a gathering of people who believe in these things. When you have people in the Church who do not so believe and do not accept such teaching, especially when such people are in high Office, you have division and desertion. Division is destructive and can only lead to falling attendances.

When Churches lose the beliefs that have held them together, they begin to fall apart and disintegrate. It is fatuous and irrational to suppose biblical injunctions which do not conform to modern attitudes can be reinterpreted to suit requirements.

Sadly, the great evangelical preachers have passed on; John Stott, Martyn Lloyd Jones, Billy Graham, and within Churches Ministers have been prepared to make new arrangements and adopt a give and take policy. We are mocked for taking a fundamental approach to the Bible, leaving the unbeliever to not understand why there is so much difference between Churches. Men fought and died to establish the authority of Scripture, their action should be recognised and honoured as an example to us all. God calls us to maintain witness.

The need has never been greater as we see the foundations crumbling, and the nation is crumbling because it has turned away from God. There is urgent need for the Church to return to the old faith, recovering purity of worship and pursuit of holiness. We cannot and have not, the right to ask God’s blessing on a Church which disputes the essentials of biblical faith.

There are issues on which the Church has a voice which should be heard, such as abortion, adoption, and the right of Christians to act according to their faith and beliefs. We will not always win our case, but we can be an awful nuisance. And to be fair, there are a lot of people who will take note of the Church for which they have respect even though they want no part of it.

The problem we face is that the Church just does not have a coherent policy or belief and far too many within are totally partial to society’s ways which are in fact their ways.

An Archbishop stated he had disturbed sleep at the thought of conversion therapy. ( a person who changed gender or sexuality realising their mistake wanting to revert back). His sleep didn’t appear to be disturbed when people were converted the other way.

Another bishop said conversion therapy meant something was wrong in order to be converted, but she didn’t think it was wrong to change gender. Does she ever read her bible?

Much of our food today has a preservative in to avoid it going rotten and perishing. Britain needs the Christian Church to act as a preservative to prevent the moral and spiritual situation perishing, as the nation drifts further away from Biblical Christianity.

What we have in the Church is a cultural war between the conservative wing and the liberal faction so that people don’t know what the Church believes. A whole generation has grown up whose minds have been polluted by liberal educators to whom the Bible is hate literature. Once schools had assemblies and religious education of the country’s heritage Christian faith, whereas now Christianity has become a minor subject subservient to ethnic faiths in places.

Activists have crawled into all the vulnerable occupations, the media, law, education, and are busily engaged in trying to eradicate Christianity from the public arena and destroy all vestige of our historic heritage.

So, what for the future of the Church in general. There is hope and confidence if all members, and particularly the clergy, realize there is no hope if they are content to sit back and say ethereally, ‘God will provide’. Christ did say ‘I will build my Church’, but He expects a little help from His friends.

We have to have faith and optimism. In every walk of life hard times come and require new energy, new initiative. One danger is that prominence is often given to the utterances of Bishops, who in turn make the most unfortunate of statements. The more they get involved in talking of climate change the more ridiculous they become. I don’t think it necessary to have Archbishops tearing their collar in some dramatic gesture which has no effect at all, and no one cares.

Each individual, (that is local) Church has to try and be true to the gospel, as written in Scripture, and when it finds statements being made, which it finds unacceptable, to say so and dissociate itself from them.

We urgently need to promote ourselves vigorously, advertise our presence. Why would major companies spend millions on advertisements if they didn’t produce results?

The Church is beginning to look more influenced by the world rather than the other way around. Nothing is more irrelevant than a Church which tries to be relevant. It sails whichever way the wind of public opinion is blowing, and eagerly follows prevailing popularity so as to be blown in the same direction as everybody else. The Church’s vocation is to sail into the wind and to call on others to its message.

When a Church does this and adopts the world’s agenda it so often ends up going further from truth, so rendering it useless to God and itself and everybody else.

Let us all join in prayer for the Churches in all denominations to return to the Bible, for all clergy to be faithful to their vows at ordination to banish all false doctrine and teach only what laid down in Scripture.

God shed his grace on America, let us pray for God to shed his grace on the United Kingdom that we may be blessed with him being our God and Lord.

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