“Is there any word from the Lord?” This was the urgent request King Zedekiah addressed to Jeremiah as the Babylonian army approached Jerusalem. The same request should be on the lips of all Bible-believing Christians at the beginning of this new decade as the 21st Century plunges headlong into increasingly turbulent times.
I want to share with you a parable through which I have personally learned a lesson that led me to a word from the Lord. I have spent much of the Christmas and New Year period in pain from a tooth that I should have dealt with long ago.
My dentist had been warning me that a large molar next to my wisdom tooth had got a cavity underneath a filling, which was slowly turning into an abscess and dripping poison into my gums. I stubbornly did not want to lose a tooth so I insisted on a refilling, but the result was unbearable. I had to have an emergency extraction which led to 10 days of pain before it finally healed.
Poison in the Church
I learned a salutary lesson. If you allow poison to drip-feed into your body, the whole body suffers, which I believe is a powerful message about the Church in Britain. Last week I spoke to a young Methodist minister who had been told to resign after he had publicly stated that marriage is only between a man and a woman.
About the same time, I heard that Stephen Cottrell, the Bishop of Chelmsford, had been appointed as the next Archbishop of York. He is a notorious unbeliever who has been responsible for driving Bible-believing clergy out of his diocese, in much the same way as the Bishop of Liverpool has been deliberately clearing evangelical clergy out of the Liverpool diocese.
The poison of false teaching in theological colleges and universities together with the insidious invasion of secular humanist philosophies that have drip-fed deception into the spiritual arteries of the Church through the training of ministers and clergy, has now reached a critical point in the history of the Church. Judgment is now inevitable upon the institutional structures that have formed an unholy alliance with our Western secular humanist culture.
Let me hasten to say that this does not mean that we are about to see the collapse of all the denominational churches in Britain! There is good news as well as bad. As I reported in last week’s editorial, there are churches which are holding fast to Scripture and seeing remarkable growth as they reach out to a nation hungry for the truth.
The poison of false teaching, together with the insidious invasion of secular humanist philosophies, have drip-fed deception into the spiritual arteries of the Church.
Separation
What I believe I have been shown is that we are now entering a period of separation: separation of truth from deception. We will see Bible-believing Christians being expelled from ungodly institutions and others finding that they cannot remain in fellowship with those who are denying the very truths on which the gospel is founded. The prominent Scripture is the declaration of Jesus: “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots” (Matt 15:13).
These words of Jesus echoed those of his cousin, John the Baptist, who responded to the religious leaders of the nation coming to him for baptism by declaring, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” He said “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance” and then made the statement that Jesus may have had in mind: “The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt 3:8-10).
Axe at the Root
To come back to my parable of the tooth: I had to recognise that merely refilling an old tooth would not deal with the level of corruption, decay and poison that had got into the system – there had to be an extraction, right down to the roots. John the Baptist did not say that the axe was poised to cut off a few branches, or even to fell the trunk of the tree, which would leave a stump. He said, “the axe is at the root of the trees” – meaning utter destruction, leaving no stump for reproducing new life.
This, together with Jesus’ words that anything not planted by the Father will be pulled up by the roots, indicates a level of judgment that goes beyond pruning, which is what I believe we will be seeing in some of the institutional churches.
Shaking Everything
The great shaking of the nations that was revealed to us at Mount Carmel in 1986 has steadily increased since that time. The word from Haggai 2:6-7, repeated in Hebrews 12, says that everything that can be shaken – that is, created things – will be shaken. This is in line with Jesus’ words quoted above.
Of course, we know that judgment begins at the household of God and therefore we can expect to see a major impact upon the ungodly sections of the churches. The Methodist Church is expected to accept same-sex marriage at its annual conference this summer which is most likely to bring about some form of separation in that denomination. There will undoubtedly be calls for a separation of Bible-believing ministers, preachers and members from a corrupt institution.
John the Baptist did not say that the axe was poised to cut off a few branches, or even to fell the trunk of the tree: he said, “the axe is at the root of the trees” – meaning utter destruction.
Reshaping
A similar separation cannot long be delayed within the Anglican Church and other denominations. Unity in the established Church has always been important. But we may now have reached the point where the cost is too high. If unity threatens the integrity of the gospel, what should Bible believers do?
For a number of years, I worked alongside church leaders in all the denominations, seeing the struggles within the Church of England, the Baptist, the Methodist, the URC and the Congregational churches. I have described some of these struggles in The Reshaping of Britain. A time surely has to come when compromise and fudge can no longer be tolerated by those who value truth.
I am not encouraging people to leave their churches: rather, to be prepared for the cost of witnessing within a place that does not value the truth, because I sense a seismic change at the beginning of 2020. Believers should not sit suffering silently but seek the Lord’s wisdom for how and when to be witnesses to the truth.
Seismic Change
Spurred by the recent fires in south-east Australia, university students block roads in Brisbane protesting about climate change.
You can see the evidence of this seismic change today in many things - the wildfire storms engulfing Australia, the rise of the climate change protests, the growing spirit of anarchism in populist movements. You can also see a seismic change in the outbreaks of anti-Semitism and the increasing numbers of Christians who are suffering martyrdom around the world: both Jews and Christians are coming under fierce persecution. The days are coming when they will be driven together to seek shelter in the Almighty.
A seismic change can also be seen in the cultural battle over the past 40 years which has been led by the LGBTQ+ lobby determined to destroy the traditional family and impose their lifestyles upon the world. The attack on ‘gender’ is taking us to a new point in rebellion against the God of Creation and already causing an increase in mental health issues among children which will disrupt education and family life in the coming decade.
There is also a seismic change discernible on the political front. The Brexit battle will continue to bring disruption and division, not only in Britain but across Europe through the coming decade. But Brexit is of small significance compared with what we face in the Middle East with the growing conflict with Iran. The days are coming when we will see another attack upon Israel, bringing closer the times prophesied in the Bible. Where Britain stands in relation to Israel will be an important factor and I’m pleased to see that Boris Johnson has already made it clear that he supports Israel and the Jewish people.
A time surely has to come when compromise and fudge can no longer be tolerated by those who value truth.
Truth and Deception
The conflict between truth and deception has decisively intensified. It is a battle in which we are all involved. Foremost in the conflict is the Church, as guardian of the word of God, charged with the responsibility for declaring God’s truth to the world.
Every Bible-believing Christian has to make a personal decision as to where they stand in the battle for truth. Of course, we need each other. The community of believers is of great importance today – just as it was when believers faced the hostility of the Roman Empire.
This is why the Holy Spirit has been drawing together believers in small groups to study the word of God and to pray. But being in a small group does not mean that we shut ourselves away from the wider field of conflict – from our calling to be witnesses in our family, among our friends and acquaintances and also to take our stand for truth within the structures of the church, if possible. We each have to make a decision regarding where we should be and to ensure that we are right before the Lord.
An expanded version of this article was circulated by Issachar Ministries as part of their January 2020 monthly News and Prayers update email.