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Friday, 05 April 2019 03:19

Jeremiah 8

Adultery, idolatry and spiritual brinkmanship.

“‘You have lived as a prostitute with many lovers – would you now return to me?’ declares the Lord. ‘Look up to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been ravished? By the roadside you sat waiting for lovers, sat like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness. Therefore, the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to blush with shame.’” (Jeremiah 3:1-3)

All the prophets used the term ‘prostitution’ to mean ‘idolatry’. They saw running after other gods as a form of spiritual adultery. The reasoning behind this was that Israel had entered into a covenant with God at the time of Moses which demanded absolute loyalty to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

It was equivalent to a marriage relationship in which a man and a woman made promises of exclusive faithfulness to each other. To forsake God and engage in intercourse with pagan gods was spiritual adultery. It was breaking the covenant vows taken by the nation.

Worldly Temptations

Jeremiah 3:1-3 is a key passage providing understanding of the situation in Judah in the late 7th Century BC. It was by no means a new situation. Ever since the settlement of Canaan under Joshua, when the Israelite tribes set up their villages and rural settlements among the Canaanites, they had been tempted to worship the local Baals.

The Canaanites were an agricultural people, whereas the Israelites had no such skills in the use of the land beyond herding sheep and goats. They had much to learn from the Canaanites who, of course, told them that for best results they had to pay tribute to the local Baal who owned the land. Ploughing and tilling the soil were totally new to the Israelites and they were dependent upon the Philistines, who were evidently more industrialised than the Canaanites.

All the prophets used the term ‘prostitution’ to mean ‘idolatry’.

There is a revealing little piece of social history in 1 Samuel 13:19: “Not a blacksmith could be found in the whole land of Israel, because the Philistines had said, ‘Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords and spears!’ So all Israel went down to the Philistines to have their ploughshares, mattocks, axes and sickles sharpened. The price was two thirds of a shekel for sharpening ploughshares and mattocks, and one third of a shekel for sharpening forks and axes and for repointing goads.”

Idolatry a Way of Life

From the earliest days the people had been warned against the temptations to idolatry; but remaining faithful to the God of Israel could never have been easy as there was no tangible evidence of his presence.

They had no bits of wood and stone to worship and no altar upon which to present their gifts. For the first few centuries in the land there was no one common meeting-place. This would be the case until the time of King David who, first at Hebron and then in Jerusalem, set up a tent of meeting for large assemblies for offering worship to God and seeking his blessing upon the nation.

Out in the rural areas the people got used to using local shrines, which was the despair of all the prophets. In Jeremiah’s day the Temple services offered daily prayers on behalf of the nation and was open for worshippers to come from all parts of Judah. But for most people, a visit to Jerusalem was probably no more than an annual festival event and for some it would only have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The local shrines were handy and satisfied most people’s need for giving an expression to their spiritual concerns.

So idolatry became a way of life for most people in Judah in times of stress. Even in the city altars to other gods appeared at street corners.

Idolatry became a way of life for most people in times of stress.

Cries for Help, Not Forgiveness

Jeremiah was noting two major factors in the pronouncement we are considering today.

One was the increasing number of people coming into Jerusalem to pray at the Temple from the towns and villages across Judah, where there was increasing anxiety as rumours of the oncoming Babylonian army spread across the nation. So Jeremiah hears God saying, “Would you now return to me?” After being unfaithful for so many years, indulging in spiritual adultery with the Canaanite gods, now because you are afraid, are you coming running back to the God of Israel?

The second major factor was that the spring rains had failed. There was drought right across the land that was affecting the harvest and threatening everyone’s livelihood. Jeremiah saw this as a direct action from God in response to the nation’s spiritual prostitution.

The people were crying out for rain; but nowhere did he hear prayers of confession, people crying out for God’s forgiveness. Surely that was what should be heard right the way through all the towns and villages of Judah.

Danger of Spiritual Brinkmanship

If the people were to come humbly before the Lord in confession of their sinfulness, that would resolve both the major issues: the restoration of the spring rains and ensuring the protection of the nation against Babylonian invasion.

Jeremiah, as always, went to the heart of the spiritual problems of the nation. God had already sent them warning signs which had been ignored: “In vain I punished your people; they did not respond to correction” (Jer 2:30). How much longer, he wondered, would God continue sending warning signs and holding out his hands of forgiveness to a nation that did not respond?

Even if we are right in assuming that God is infinitely forgiving, the threat to the nation from the Babylonians was in real time and the nation was in grave danger of not responding to appeals, even at the 11th hour.

This is the great danger of spiritual brinkmanship. The prophetic task is always to assess the danger and the time-scale. When the nation treats all warning signs with apathy, the danger of out-running the clock becomes real and the results can only be national disaster. This was what Jeremiah feared most, which made his appeals increasingly sharp.

 

This article is part of a series. Click here to read other instalments.

Published in Teaching Articles
Friday, 29 March 2019 02:14

Jeremiah 7

How easy it is to forget God.

“As a thief is disgraced when he is caught, so the house of Israel is disgraced – they, their kings and their officials, their priests and their prophets. They say to wood, ‘You are my father,’ and to stone ‘You gave me birth.’ They have turned their backs to me and not their faces; yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’” (Jeremiah 2:27)

Jeremiah always found it amazing that a nation such as Israel, with its long history of God’s provision in the desert and his loving protection over many generations, could be involved in idolatry as they were in the 6th Century BC.

As a nation, Israel had been in a covenant relationship with God for centuries and they had benefited enormously from his faithfulness and his amazing good deeds: yet they ran after worthless idols, declaring that bits of wood and stone were their gods. It just didn’t make sense!

Forgetting God

They had as many gods as they had towns in Judah, and God had sent them many warning signs which had all been ignored; they simply did not respond to correction, which Jeremiah found utterly irrational and almost inconceivable. He said “Does a maiden forget her jewellery, a bride her wedding ornaments?” Yet God is saying “My people have forgotten me, days without number” (Jer 2:32).

It was beyond anybody’s imagination that a bride could possibly forget to put on her jewellery and ornaments in preparation for her great wedding day. But surely it was equally impossible for the people of Israel to forget the God of their fathers, who had revealed himself to former generations of their people as the God of Creation.

It was he who had flung the stars into orbit and who from the beginning of time had intended to raise up a people of promise through whom he would reveal himself and his plan of salvation to all nations.

Jeremiah always found it amazing that a nation such as Israel, with its long history of covenant relationship with God, could forget him and run after worthless idols.

Height of Hypocrisy

The greatest anomaly was that when they were in trouble, they turned back to the God of their fathers and cried out, “Come and save us!” Jeremiah saw this as the height of hypocrisy. They ignored God all the time that things were going well with them.

In times of peace and prosperity they turned their backs upon God and joined in all the exciting festivals and pagan partying of the Canaanites and their other idolatrous neighbours. They entered wholeheartedly into the orgies of self-indulgence, sexual excesses, feasts and revelries which were part of the religious practices against which Israel had been warned from the time of Moses.

Suddenly, however, there was a change of mood among the people. Rumours were running rife across the land from village to village, spread by the 6th Century BC version of social media – the human tongue! Rumour had it that the Babylonian army was on the move. Whole towns in Syria had been sacked and the countryside raped.

The rumours lost nothing in bloodcurdling detail of what had happened to the people in the towns and villages the Babylonians overthrew. Fear began to grip the people of Judah. Widespread panic spread among all ranks of society – priests and people alike began crying out to God to come and save them!

The Prophet Jeremiah was not impressed. In fact, he was outraged! How dare the people call out to God for help when they had been running after idols for so long? Let them call upon their bits of wood and stone and see if they will help by coming to save them!

How dare the people call out to God for help when they had been running after idols for so long?

Sins of Omission

This is just the kind of thing that we all do. Even if we don’t get into the same kind of idolatry as the people of Judah did, we commit very similar sins – sins of omission rather than sins of commission. When things are going well in our lives and we are enjoying peace and prosperity we are less fervent in our prayers, less eager to seek the presence of the Lord. We don’t actually say that we don’t need God, although this must be how it seems to him.

Sadly, it is not only individuals but whole nations that have turned away from God – the one true God of Creation revealed in the Bible – in recent years. I’m old enough to remember the shock when John Robinson, Bishop of Stepney, published his book Honest to God in 1963. He said that Christians have outgrown the traditional version of Christianity.

He said: “The only way to be honest is to recognise that we have to live in the world even if God is not there. Like children outgrowing the secure religious, moral and intellectual framework of the home, in which ‘Daddy’ is always there in the background, God is teaching us that we must live as men who can get along very well without him” (pp38-39).

This began the great decline of the Church of England in Britain and it was soon followed by David Jenkins, Bishop of Durham, who said that the resurrection was “a conjuring trick with bones”. Once it became clear that the clergy and preachers no longer had confidence in the God of the Bible, faith in the nation rapidly declined. In Scotland last year, more marriages were conducted by humanists than by ministers in the Church of Scotland.1

We worship our bits of wood and stone, yet when we are in deep trouble we cry out to God for his help. The time to call is not when disaster overtakes us, but every day, in the quiet times of reflection that we all need when we can review the past, remembering what God has done in the nation and seeing his hand in our own lives, and in humility confessing our needs. It is then that we feel his arms around us to comfort, to forgive and to love, unconditionally.

 

References

1 BBC Radio 4, Sunday Programme, 10 March 2019.

 

This article is part of a series. Click here to read other instalments.

Published in Teaching Articles
Friday, 15 March 2019 01:01

Jeremiah 5

Exchanging glory for worthlessness.

“‘Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all) But my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols. Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror’, declares the Lord.”

This announcement expresses something of the Lord’s indignation. Justice is outraged! The most appalling thing imaginable had happened. Jeremiah said you could travel from Cyprus to the mouth of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates and never see anything like this. It had never happened before. No nation had ever changed its gods, even though they were only bits of wood and stone fashioned by human hands.

Even more incredible was the fact that the nation that had done this dreadful thing was the only nation to have known the one and only true God – the God of Creation! He was the God who had created the universe and he had chosen Israel to be a special people, his own servant through whom he would reveal himself, his nature and purposes and his teaching to all nations on earth.

Here was Israel, this special nation in a unique relationship with the one and only true God - and they had actually exchanged their ‘Glory’ for worthless idols. It was unbelievable! All the heavens were appalled and were shuddering with horror.

Altars to Foreign Gods

Idolatry in Jeremiah’s time was everywhere to be seen in the land of Judah. In the countryside under a grove of trees, or on the high places up in the hills and mountains, there were altars to pagan gods. In the villages there were Asherah poles and in the walled cities there were street-corner shrines. Even in the holy city of Jerusalem there were altars to foreign gods within sight of the Temple itself.

No nation had ever changed its gods, let alone exchange the Glory of a unique relationship with the one and only true God for worthless idols.

The people of Jerusalem worshipped openly at these urban sanctuaries, especially at the time of the spring fertility festival. They baked cakes with the image of Astarte, the Babylonian goddess known as the Queen of Heaven. They offered their worship to her because they thought that she was responsible for the power of the Babylonian Empire, whose armies were all-conquering in nation after nation. The Israelites thought that if they paid obeisance to the goddess of Babylon, she would bless them and ensure that they were safe from attack by the Babylonian army.

It seemed to them a logical thing to do, but to Jeremiah it was horrific. He could hardly believe what he was seeing:

The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger. But am I the one they are provoking? declares the Lord. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame? (Jer 7:18-19).

Jeremiah and Jesus

Another word tumbled from Jeremiah’s lips as he spread before God the things he was seeing on the streets of Jerusalem and he listened to the outraged indignation of the Lord: “My people have committed two sins: they have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (2:13).

Maybe Jesus had these words in his mind when he sat beside a well in Sychar talking to a Samaritan woman. “Whoever drinks of the water I give him will never thirst.” He said “Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). And on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus repeated that offer to all the people of Jerusalem, declaring that God would give them “streams of living water”, which John says was a promise of the Holy Spirit (John 7:38-39).

Jeremiah saw the Spirit of God as a spring of living water giving new life to all those who put their trust in God and who came into a new and intimate relationship with him.

This is one of the many parallels between the ministry of Jeremiah and that of Jesus. Jeremiah saw the Spirit of God as a spring of living water giving new life to all those who put their trust in God and who came into a new and intimate relationship with him. 500 years later, Jesus would identify this as a promise of the Counsellor – the Spirit of Truth who would be with his disciples for ever. “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said”, he promised (John 14:26).

Promise of Living Water

Springs of the Jordan at Banaias, Israel. See Photo Credits.Springs of the Jordan at Banaias, Israel. See Photo Credits.

Fresh, running water - living water - became a symbol of life for the prophets. At the springs around Mount Hermon, a place known in Jesus’ day as Caesarea Philippi (Banaias today), pure fresh water bubbled up through the rocky ground as it does today.

These are the springs of the River Jordan, which feed the Sea of Galilee. Jesus sat there with his disciples, undoubtedly teaching them about the Father’s utterly dependable, everlasting love for them because of their love for him, and that the Father would send the Holy Spirit to be with them forever.

The Holy Spirit would be like this fresh water bubbling up through the rocks where they were sitting. Pure, clean, fresh and utterly trustworthy without any contaminates; it was constant, unceasing, dependable even in a time of drought - the spring water from Mount Hermon never ceased to flow. It was a beautiful symbol of the Holy Spirit.

The same springs were there in Jeremiah’s day and were honoured by the Psalmist who saw the dew of Mount Hermon falling upon Mount Zion (Ps 133).

Fresh, running water - living water - became a symbol of life for the prophets.

Tragic Rejection

The tragedy that Jeremiah was crying out about was that this wonderful spring of everlasting fresh water – the Spirit of the Living God – that had been given freely to the people of Israel, had been rejected wilfully by them. They had exchanged the spring of pure fresh water for stale, lukewarm, dirty, infected water in cisterns they had dug for themselves – broken cisterns that leaked and would probably run dry when they needed water most! How could they be so utterly stupid?

But is not this exactly what we have done in the Western nations that have had the Gospel for centuries, and where our entire civilisations have been built upon Judeo-Christian biblical principles and values? In a single generation we have destroyed the foundations of our society. We have exchanged the Glory of God for worthless idols of humanism and paganism!

We worship at the shrines of labour-saving gadgets, hedonistic pleasure and material wealth. We are just as stupid as the people in Jeremiah’s day who baked cakes for the goddess of fertility and rejected the word of the Living God.

God withdrew his covering of protection as Jeremiah warned that he would, and Jerusalem was destroyed along with all its great buildings, including the Temple. Is not this a warning for us today?

 

This article is part of a series. Click here to read other instalments.

Published in Teaching Articles
Friday, 04 May 2018 06:11

Equality, Tolerance and Freedom

The Ashers Bakery case goes to the Supreme Court.

This week, the Supreme Court left its usual place in London and has been sitting in Belfast to hear a case that has fundamental significance for the future of free speech in Britain. The Ashers Bakery case dates back to 2014 when an LGBT activist ordered a cake from the bakery with a message in the icing stating "Support Gay Marriage".

The owners of the bakery, Daniel and Amy MacArthur, who are committed Christians, refused to do this on the ground that it was against their beliefs. The initial judgment found that they were guilty of ‘discrimination’ and this was affirmed by the Court of Appeal. The case has now gone to the Supreme Court, but the Northern Ireland Attorney General, John Larkin QC, has already expressed his own opinion that the Court of Appeal was wrong in their judgment.

The case has attracted an enormous amount of interest because of its significance for our cherished freedom of speech. The central question is whether the law can force someone to make a statement that they do not believe.

The Law vs. Freedom of Speech

Does the law have the power to force a Catholic to make a statement criticising the Pope? Does the law have the power to force a Muslim to make a statement that is insulting to Mohammed? Does the law have the power to force any citizen to make a statement that is directly against his or her personal convictions?

This is a question that, for Christians, goes back 2,000 years to the time of the Roman Emperor Domitian in the year AD 95 when all citizens were required, on a certain day, to go to the local shrine dedicated to the Emperor and say "Caesar is Lord".

The case has attracted an enormous amount of interest because of its significance for our cherished freedom of speech.

Emperor Domitian.Emperor Domitian.The Apostle John was in exile on the island of Patmos when he had a remarkable spiritual experience on the very day, known as ‘Lord's day’ (Rev 1:10), when he knew that many of his Christian friends would be signing their own death warrants by refusing to make a statement which would deny the Lordship of Jesus.

For the MacArthurs, being forced to make a statement declaring support for homosexual marriage, which the Bible declares to be "detestable” to God (Lev 18:22) would be equivalent to denying their faith in the God of Creation and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It would be the modern equivalent of saying "Caesar is Lord" and denying the Lordship of Jesus.

Significance for Equality Law

But there are significant legal aspects as well as moral aspects to this case, which is no doubt the reason why the five judges are not expected to announce their decision before the autumn and it may even be delayed to the beginning of next year. Their judgment has profound significance for the future of the Equality Commission and the interpretation of equality law in Britain.

This case is creating panic, not only among LGBTQ+ supporters but across the whole left-wing postmodernist philosophical camp, which has been driving the movement for social change and social engineering in the nation since the 1960s.

Suddenly, there is fear gripping the far-left political elite that they have gone too far, too quickly. They have had enormous success in achieving their objectives since the publication of the Gay Manifesto in 1972 declaring the LGBTQ+ intention of destroying the ‘family’ as the central pillar in the Judeo-Christian structure of the nation.

The judgment will have profound significance for the future of the Equality Commission and the interpretation of equality law in Britain.

The Idol of Equality

They have succeeded, probably beyond their wildest dreams, in persuading the nation that the supreme ethical values in society are ‘equality’ and ‘tolerance’ – that all ethical judgments should be taken at the bar of ‘equality’.

Hence, postmodernists have even succeeded in changing the legal definition of marriage by framing it as an issue of ‘equality’. This worshipping of equality is a recycling of Marxism, which falsely assumes that enforced equality will lead to justice and a better world. Jordan Peterson rightly calls postmodernism the “new skin that the old Marxism now inhabits”.1

Marxism was totally discredited through the fiasco of Communism last century, but it didn’t disappear entirely - later reappearing under the guise of postmodernism, trying yet again to force upon the population the flagship lie of ‘equality’.

But forcing a Christian baker to declare his support for gay marriage may prove to be a step too far which could cause the whole of their false edifice of society to collapse. It is like pulling out a single brick from the base of the Tower of Babel, sending a shockwave right through its structure that brings the whole lot down!

Enough is Enough

The central tragedy of recent history over the past half-century is that neither Church leaders nor politicians have understood the philosophy of postmodernism, with its objectives of destroying Judeo-Christian civilisation. The great question facing us now is: will there be a great awakening of common sense among ordinary people in the general public before it is too late?

The central tragedy of recent history is that neither Church leaders nor politicians have understood that postmodernism seeks to destroy Judeo-Christian civilisation.

Will ordinary people arise and say, "Enough is Enough! We do not want to be driven by Big Brother political correctness. We cherish our freedom of speech and we will not let our children be educated in schools that brainwash them in the false values of ‘equality and tolerance’ and ‘political correctness’.”

Is it too late to reclaim the nation from the clutches of those who wish to destroy Western civilisation?

To the Church of Sardis

The Apostle John had a message for the Christians in Sardis who were facing persecution by the Roman Empire. He warned "You have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die” (Rev 3:1-2). The alternative was that their names would be blotted out of the Book of Life.

The warning signs are there today for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. If we do not wake up soon and challenge those who are driving the nation towards self-destruction, we and our children and grandchildren will perish in the forthcoming holocaust of social destruction.

That destruction has already begun, the evidence of which can be seen all around us, in the breakdown of the family and the consequent rise in crimes of violence, lawlessness and corruption. But this is only the beginning unless we wake up!

 

References

1 Jordan B Peterson, Postmodernism and Cultural Marxism. Interview, The Epoch Times, 6 July 2017.

Published in Editorial
Thursday, 28 September 2017 20:37

To an Unknown God

Diana's death was a merciful release for an undeserving nation.

Near my home there is a bridge on a bend of the road where a young man lost his life in an accident. Friends and relatives decorated the bridge with bunches of flowers in plastic covers which have remained for more than a year.

Little shrines like this are now to be seen throughout the land in towns as well as the countryside in what appears to be a new form of religion as Christianity declines in Britain.

With Bible-believing Christians becoming an endangered species, an agnostic population is developing its own religion. Grieving relatives who have little hope of seeing their loved ones in the life hereafter worship at these plastic altars to the dead, creating a kind of necropolis.

Flowers marking the spot of a fatal road accident. See Photo Credits.Flowers marking the spot of a fatal road accident. See Photo Credits.The Areopagus

It reminds me of the Apostle Paul arriving in Athens and seeing the vast array of shrines to Greek gods. He began telling people about the resurrection of Jesus and some of the local philosophers who loved to debate new ideas invited him to address the Areopagus, an outcrop of rock known as the hill of Mars, which served as the seat of the ancient and venerable supreme court of Athens (Acts 17:19-34).

Paul saw the opportunity to tell them about Jesus but wisely began by referring to an altar he had seen dedicated ‘To an unknown god’. In their polytheistic society, the Greeks were keen not to offend any of the gods by missing one of them, hence this shrine which Paul used to begin his message. His objective was to introduce them to the true God of Creation.

Death of Diana

The plastic altars that are spreading across Britain are symbols of the ‘unknown god’ that have become widespread in the past 20 years since the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, when a vast mountain of flowers in plastic bags was built up outside Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace.

With Bible-believing Christians becoming an endangered species, our agnostic population is developing its own religion.

The 20th anniversary of Diana’s tragic accident was recognised in August this year with more flowers in London and the two princes paying homage to their late mother.

The People’s Princess

The vast outpouring of grief 20 years ago was something never before witnessed in this nation and it took most people by surprise, including the Queen and our political leaders. Newly appointed Prime Minister Tony Blair described Diana as the ‘people’s princess’ which neatly encapsulated the public mood.

Diana was seen as a tragic figure – a beautiful woman deserted by her husband – millions of women in Britain could identify with her. Her TV interview about her divorce in which she had said that there were always three in her marriage touched a chord in millions of hearts. She was the lonely girl deserted by a heartless husband. In crying for her, millions were crying for themselves in socially acceptable grief.

An Orphan Spirit

Diana epitomised the ‘orphan spirit’ that is prevalent in Britain today as family life continues to crumble under the relentless attacks of those who wish to destroy the whole structure of our civilisation by attacking its Judeo-Christian foundations.

Her dispute with 'The Firm' – Prince Philip's nickname for the monarchy into which she had married - became the driving force in her life. She cleverly manipulated public opinion so that she was seen as the helpless victim of a cruel, all-powerful Establishment.

Diana epitomised the ‘orphan spirit’ that is prevalent in Britain today as family life continues to crumble.

Destroying the Monarchy

Her desire for revenge became far more than a personal dispute with her husband. It took on the character of a demonic force determined to destroy the monarchy, bringing chaos and confusion to the nation and tearing down all its major institutions that have held the United Kingdom together for centuries.

In taking as a lover the Muslim son of Mohamed Al Fayed, a man who hated Britain and who had acquired ownership of Harrods by disputed business dealings, Diana struck a blow, not only at the House of Windsor but at the Christian heritage of the nation.

If she had married him the consequences for the future of the nation were incalculable. This is why many people suspected that her death had been engineered by the Establishment to preserve the nation, but Christians saw it as the hand of God and his mercy towards an undeserving nation.

The plastic altar in The Mall in the heart of London at the funeral of the people’s princess represented the new religion of the British people – a nation grieving for its lost soul, deserted by the God of our fathers – now worshipping at the altar of ‘the unknown god’. Our condition is like that described by the faithful remnant of Israel after the destruction of Jerusalem who cried out to God for his forgiveness:

Our offences are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us. Our offences are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities: rebellion and treachery against the Lord, turning our backs on our God, fomenting oppression and revolt, uttering lies our hearts have conceived. So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled on the streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. (Isaiah 59:12-15)

Our nation is grieving for its lost soul.

Turning the Nation

Do we have to wait until ultimate tragedy and social disintegration strike Britain before we cry out to God for forgiveness, as the faithful remnant did after the destruction of Jerusalem? Those who understand the times and can see the destruction looming over Britain if the social anarchists continue their divisive and destructive ways must break their timid silence and proclaim truth into the nation!

The plastic altars to unknown gods will not save us! There is no other hope than confessing our sins before the Lord and asking him to heal our land. The loving promise of God is:

If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. (Jer 18:7-8)

Originally written for HEART of Sussex, October 2017 issue.

Published in Editorial
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