These are questions of fundamental importance for Christians today. But, if the nation is ready for the truth of the gospel to be proclaimed in its streets, the next question arises: is the church ‘fit for purpose’ to lead a spiritual revival today?
A year ago, J.John, chairman of the Evangelists Conference, asked my wife and me to be speakers at this year’s annual conference on 10th to 13 January 2022. Sadly, due to Covid restrictions the decision to cancel the conference had to be taken last week. We had been asked to speak about our experience of evangelism over the past 40 years and the prospects for today. We had done a lot of preparation and it seemed a pity to waste it, so we said that Issachar Ministries would organise a presentation on evangelism past and present, and its relevance for today. This was advertised last week in Prophecy Today and J.John sent out an invitation to his 200 evangelists to join the three-hour interactive Zoom presentation on Wednesday this week.
I believe the nation is hungry for truth today – truth that only the gospel can bring to the nation.
Lessons from the past
The presentation began by looking at the national situation in the 1970s which was a decade of turbulence, with the Vietnam War on the international scene and widespread industrial unrest, strikes, and street demonstrations in Britain. In 1975, the newly appointed Archbishop Donald Coggan gave a call to the nation on radio and television which brought an overwhelmingly positive response from tens of thousands of people across the nation. This showed that there was a longing for truth in the nation. His “Call to the Nation” is printed elsewhere in this issue of Prophecy Today. His words of nearly 50 years ago have enormous relevance for today in the situation we are now facing.
Dr Coggan believed that Britain was ripe for revival – there was a new openness to truth in the unrest in the nation – a hunger that only the gospel could satisfy. He wanted to see an outreach of the gospel from the grassroots with every Christian witnessing to their faith in Jesus. But he was fiercely opposed by liberal Bishops in the Church of England and liberal ministers in the Methodist and other nonconformist churches who hated evangelism and anything evangelical. They did not want a gospel calling for ‘repentance and change’ in the nation. They simply wanted a ‘gospel’ of social action and good works.
The destruction of truth
Donald Coggan fought hard for his beliefs, but he was overcome by the liberal Bishops. Plans for a national effort to share the gospel and reap the harvest were abandoned. He resigned in 1980 after only five years in the job – he was a broken man – hounded out by godless men who paved the way for LGBTQ values, which were just being promoted in the 1970s, to establish a stronghold in the national church. In 1971 the ‘Gay Liberation Manifesto’ was published in London which stated its aims as: “The long-term goal of the London Gay Liberation Front, which inevitably brings us into fundamental conflict with the institutionalised sexism of this society, is to rid society of the gender-role system which is at the root of our oppression. This can only be achieved by the abolition of the family as the unit in which children are brought up.”1
This is where biblical values about the love and forgiveness of God become the most urgent message that needs to be given to the nation.
In sociological terms the ‘family’ is the basic unit in society responsible for the transmission of culture and values from one generation to the next. If the family is damaged, weakened or destroyed, the first casualty is children, who become insecure and unstable, with no firm identity or values to anchor their behaviour. This is exactly what we are seeing in a whole generation of children today.
But what of today’s generation of parents? They also lack a firm anchor of truth since the teaching of biblical values in schools was abandoned in the 1990s. This is one of the reasons why Boris Johnson was elected Prime Minister with a huge majority. His popularity was because people identified with his easy-going carefree morality – “He’s just like us”, they said.
The nation is hungry for truth
The pandemic has shaken the nation, which clearly was God’s intention in allowing the plague to spread across the world – forcing people to think about matters of life and death and what is really important. Is it really good to be boozing and partying, or to be sitting at the bedside of a dying loved one? The nation is being forced to rethink its values. This is where biblical values about the love and forgiveness of God become the most urgent message that needs to be given to the nation.
The pandemic has shaken the nation, which clearly was God’s intention in allowing the plague to spread across the world – forcing people to think about matters of life and death and what is really important.
Is the nation ripe for revival today as it was in the 1970s? I was active in the affairs of the nation back in the 1970s and I can see the same signs of the times today. I believe the nation is hungry for truth today – truth that only the gospel can bring to the nation.
Is the Church ready?
But is the Christian church ready and strong enough to respond to the opportunity that is now being presented to us – to feed the nation’s hunger for truth? Clearly the Methodist Church cannot do it, as they no longer believe in biblical truth.
But the same is true also of the Church of England who have just appointed Stephen Knott as the new Archbishop’s Appointment Secretary to be responsible for senior appointments in the Church of England – bishops, deans, and other senior posts.2
Stephen Knott is ‘married’ to Major General Alistair Bruce of Crionaich, Governor of Edinburgh Castle. The pair were reportedly ‘married’ last year by the Rt Rev John Armes, Bishop of Edinburgh.3
Clearly the Church of England and the Methodist Church are not ‘fit for purpose’ for declaring biblical truth to the nation. The hope of the nation lies with the Bible believing remnant. There are many local churches that remain faithful to the truth, even if their denominational leaders are faithless. There are also many Bible believing Christians to be found in small home-based groups, meeting for prayer and Bible study throughout the country.
The great question today is whether or not the Bible believing remnant is strong enough in faith to rise up and declare truth to the nation, in days that offer the greatest opportunity for the gospel that we have had for 50 years.
The great question today is whether or not the Bible believing remnant is strong enough in faith to rise up and declare truth to the nation, in days that offer the greatest opportunity for the gospel that we have had for 50 years. This is surely something for which we should all be praying! As Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Matt 9:37-38). And be ready to go!
Notes
1 Gay Liberation Manifesto, published by the Gay Liberation Front, 5 Caledonian Rd, London N1. 1971, page 15.
2 https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/news/news-and-statements/stephen-knott-be-new-archbishops-secretary-appointments
3 https://virtueonline.org/lambeth-deputy-become-archbishops-appointment-secretary-married-homosexual