Pride month and the LGBT assault

A message for the Church.

No-one who saw the Grenfell fire on 14 June last year will forget it. It was a literal towering inferno that has had ramifications far beyond North Kensington. It cost the lives of 72 people, displaced not only the survivors but also hundreds who lived nearby and broke the reputation of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) as one of the best-run local councils in the country. More broadly, it exposed deep-seated problems of governance that have shaken the nation.

Over the forthcoming months, the Public Inquiry will reveal more that will no doubt embarrass (in different measures) the Fire Brigade, the Council, the Tenant Management Organisation, the 60+ contractors involved in the refurbishment, the Government department responsible for fire safety and standards, and no doubt a few Government ministers, as well as Parliament. Whether responsibility will be pinned on one or a few, or be much more widely spread, is conjecture. But it is clear that there were very many shortcomings, by many different organisations.

Precisely because of its size - it was the largest such tragedy in 25 years (Hillsborough and Aberfan are both comparable in terms of loss) - and the degree to which it dominated politics and the news for weeks after the fire had extinguished itself, Grenfell needs to be seen both politically and spiritually as a national event, raising national questions.

This is all the more so as - quite ‘coincidentally’ – further tower block fires broke out in Lewisham and Glasgow on the very anniversary of the Grenfell fire. Given that the main news on Thursday was the anniversary of Grenfell, it is as if God, in allowing two fires in similar buildings to break out that same day (although thankfully neither with fatalities) is really trying to get our attention.¹ But many may well have missed these news stories.

Grenfell needs to be seen both politically and spiritually as a national event, raising national questions.

Why Did God Allow Grenfell?

Why did God allow the Grenfell tragedy to occur? First, we need to stress that there was nothing particularly bad about those who died. In Luke 13, Jesus tells his listeners that those who died when the tower in Siloam fell were not worse sinners than others who dwelt in Jerusalem (verse 3). However, he is unequivocal in the following verse that his listeners nevertheless need to repent, lest they too perish.

In other words, the collapse of the Tower of Siloam was allowed by God in order to send a wider message of repentance to those looking on. Just so with Grenfell. Too few Christian leaders regularly acknowledge the degree to which we live in a fallen world, and repentance is a neglected concept. God is very holy and we are very much mired in our sin. We desperately need Jesus’s atoning death to pave the way for eternity.

I also believe God allowed Grenfell in order to expose the sin that lay behind the fire and its aftermath. In a previous article on this subject, I noted that if there was one sin of which RBKC (indeed, the UK as a whole) was perhaps guiltier than most, it was pride, itself the root of all sin.

Thousands join a silent march marking one year since the blaze.Additionally, I believe that God wants to get our attention, as believers and also as UK subjects. It is not his delight to punish, but to show mercy – he wants us to seek his face in serious repentance (not just with lip-service), that he might pour out forgiveness and that we might be restored. Undoubtedly, searching questions need to be asked: not just about who was to blame, but about our entire direction and destiny as a society.

For this reason, Grenfell is first and foremost a wake-up call to the Church, which in turn should bear the message of repentance to the nation. How the Church responds (or fail to respond) will have hugely significant consequences for Britain’s future destiny.

Emotion and Injustice

At a local level, the Church has a role to play in the aftermath of Grenfell which the Government simply cannot fulfil. In my previous article, I looked at the historic reasons for the lack of trust, lack of hope, latent anger and hatred which mark communities in and around Grenfell Tower. I explained that decades – even centuries – of deprivation and disenfranchisement now imbue this area with deeply felt emotions, made worse by the incredible affluence on display virtually next door, in the south of the Borough.

Grenfell is first and foremost a wake-up call to the Church, which in turn should bear the message of repentance to the nation.

But while these problems strike at the heart of Government, concerning as they do issues of decision-making, empowerment and stewardship of resources, they also involve complex social and spiritual problems that our secular Government is unable to properly address - and perhaps was never supposed to.

With a relatively narrow remit, we cannot expect the Inquiry to look into these things. This is where the Church must come in: we need to ask what the role of the Body of Christ should be, and how it can bring true hope and restoration into this situation, and more widely.

Re-Commitment Needed Desperately

As a result of wide-ranging criticisms, many RBKC councillors and staff have moved on and a governance review is underway. There is much yet to be done, but few serious observers would dispute that there has already been significant change.

Whether this could also be said of the local Church is a different matter. The churches immediately surrounding Grenfell Tower responded extremely well to the tragedy. However, their ecclesiology, missiology and theology vary so hugely (and in some cases are diametrically opposed), that the question needs to be asked whether they can all be meaningfully and genuinely Christian. This issue strikes at the heart of the direction in which different parts of the Church in Britain are progressing – and implicitly raises the question of what sort of a god they worship.

In my last article, I noted the need for a re-commitment to evangelism from both church leaders and ordinary Christians, all across the country. This point still stands. As the Public Inquiry has shown, many Grenfell Tower residents were Muslims. They need the true Jesus of the Bible just as much as do the wealthier across the Borough – as indeed does the country as a whole: it is the job of all churches to evangelise the lost – from whatever ethnic background or culture they are. Few of us have shared the Gospel as we should have done, with boldness and seizing all opportunities.

What is desperately needed is a wholehearted re-commitment from churches around the nation to God’s word and his purposes.

However, even a re-commitment to evangelism (while welcome) is not enough on its own. What is desperately needed is a wholehearted re-commitment from churches around the nation to God’s word and his purposes. This would transform not only our evangelism but much else besides – and empower the Church to respond to this tragedy prophetically, declaring its lessons to the nation, as well as serving locally.

The hour is late; the time has come for fearless proclamations of truth, made in the power of the Spirit of God, as well as demonstrations of God’s kingdom purposes - to say nothing of his love. The future of churches – indeed, entire denominations - that refuse this mandate is at stake, for “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt 7:19; also John 15:2).

A Wake-Up Call

While much else besides, Grenfell was a wake-up call to a slumbering Church which has lost its way. The true Church – the Bride of Christ - needs to discern the wider significance of the tragedy and the necessity of repentance just as much as those not yet in the Kingdom.

Many churches local to Grenfell have given fully of themselves and are still doing all that they can. But given that this is a national tragedy, it should be the case that churches across the country are also willing to help as needed – one obvious way being in helping to carry the burden of prayer and intercession: for hope and healing, for repentance and forgiveness, and for the fullness of God’s purposes to be worked out, including through the Inquiry.

The cost of the fire will be borne by survivors until they themselves die, and will continue to mark our society even after. But if Grenfell’s stark warnings about the nation’s precarious position before God cannot be learned and applied soon, it is undoubtedly the case that further destruction will follow. If we do not listen to God’s words, we will have to endure his works: the former may be challenging - the latter much more so.

Leading the way here, declaring the warning and holding out the offer of mercy to a lost nation, should be the true Church of God! If the Church senses the great urgency of the hour and responds as the Father wills, there is yet opportunity for great positive transformation in Britain that would, in some measure, mitigate the indescribable loss of Grenfell.

References

1 See news articles from the BBC, The Guardian and The Telegraph, for example.

Further Reading

Previous article on this subject: Reflections on the Grenfell Tower Fire. Prophecy Today UK, 15 December 2017.

Everett, A, Rev, 2018. After the Fire, Finding words for Grenfell. Canterbury Press, Norwich.

O'Hagan, A. The Tower. London Review of Books.

The Government's propaganda may put people off, or it may deceive them - just as the nation was deceived in the 1975 EU Referendum.

British people dislike bullies. We have a strong sense of fair play and on big issues we like to weigh the evidence and make up our own minds. We are an island people and we value our independence. We do not like being bullied. This is why the huge pressure being put upon the electorate by the Government and their overseas friends, international leaders, big business corporations and bankers may prove to be counter-productive.

The Government promised to help the undecided by publishing the facts. Instead, they have spent £9 million on a blatant piece of propaganda trying to persuade us to stay in the European Union. The front page title of the booklet gives the game away. It says nothing about a presentation of the facts. Its title is "Why the Government believes that voting to remain in the European Union is the best decision for the UK". It then states "The UK has secured a special status in the reformed EU".

We should surely be entitled to ask, what 'special status'? And in what way is the EU 'reformed'? Are the British people once again being deceived by lies from powerful politicians - as we were 40 years ago?

More Deception?

What is happening today looks very similar to how we were tricked into entered the European Union. Ted Heath, the Prime Minister who did the original deal in 1973, readily admitted before he died that he had lied to Parliament and to the British people because he knew that we were not simply joining a trading group but that the intention was always to work towards the formation of a United States of Europe in which we would all lose our sovereign identity.¹

This fact was deliberately kept hidden from the British public when we voted at the 1975 referendum on whether or not we should stay in the 'European Economic Community' ('Common Market') as it was then described. In those days it was largely a trading group with nine member states, whereas today the EU is a very different beast, with 28 members in a tightly regulated organisation bound by treaties, such as Maastricht and Lisbon, and controlled by an unelected Commission backed by an enormous bureaucracy, with institutions such as the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice exercising enormous power over our own parliament and legal courts.

In 1975, we were asked to vote on whether we should stay in a small trading group of nine countries. Today, the EU is a very different beast.

When the Maastricht Treaty was being negotiated there were attempts by churches to get some reference to the Judaeo-Christian heritage of Europe but this was strongly resisted by secular humanists, who prevailed.² The resultant European Union is not only deliberately a godless - in fact, God-denying - organisation, but it is also systemically corrupt, as demonstrated by the fact that it has not been able to persuade the auditors to endorse its accounts for at least the past five years.³ In this country, if a company were in that situation they would not only be prosecuted but they would not be allowed to continue in business.

Miracles in the Past

So how should Christians decide on such an important issue? We surely have to recognise the moral and spiritual battle for the soul of Britain that is involved in the present referendum debate. Christians need to know what God is saying to us, not least by looking at the recent history of Britain in a biblical context. This enables us to understand the purposes of God and what he requires of a nation with a strong Judaeo-Christian heritage such as Britain's.

There are still many people in the older generation who remember that God worked a miracle at Dunkirk in 1940, saving our army from annihilation and giving us victory in the Battle of Britain in the skies. Even Churchill acknowledged in Parliament that it Dunkirk was a "miracle of deliverance".⁴ Those were days when the whole nation turned to prayer.

It was also at a time of national prayer that Hitler took the irrational decision not to invade Britain. It is now recognised that if the German invasion had taken place in 1940 nothing could have stopped them conquering Britain. Dad's Army would no doubt have fought valiantly but German Panzer tanks would have been rolling down Whitehall within days. 

When a nation puts its destiny in the hands of God it can expect miracles to happen. It has happened in the past and it can happen again today – if there is a sufficiently strong believing remnant in the country.

When a nation puts its destiny in the hands of God it can expect miracles to happen. It has happened in the past and it can happen again today.

Opportunity for the Remnant

Of course we know that as a nation we have spurned our spiritual heritage: we have passed many ungodly laws and we no longer deserve to be called a Christian nation. But there is undoubtedly a strong remnant of believers in the older generation and there are many indications of young people coming to faith in Jesus – possibly in reaction to the mess their unbelieving parents have made of the nation. It is the middle generation who are missing in many churches up and down the country today.

Believing Christians know that as a nation we deserve judgement but we also know the love and mercy of God who has given a solemn promise, "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).

The Referendum debate is bringing believing Christians to prayer throughout the country. Many prayer meetings are organised for this weekend, St George's Day, 23 April, and many more are planned between now and 23 June. These prayer meetings give us a chance to seek the Lord and know what he is saying to the nation so that we can pray in line with God's will and vote accordingly.

Word on the EU, 2015

We have already nailed our colours to the mast in this magazine but we know many Christians who are still undecided. We respect their integrity and we therefore encourage them to join other Christians in prayer where they can spend time spreading the whole issue before the Lord who will surely answer in clarity.

If you have not yet decided which way to vote, we encourage you to join with others in prayer and spread the issue before the Lord.

Alongside this article we are printing a prophecy from David Noakes that has already been widely circulated. I was with him when he received this prophecy towards the end of last year. David and I have been close friends and colleagues since the early days of the old printed magazine, Prophecy Today.

We have shared a platform at hundreds of meetings over the years and I have heard him prophesy many times, but I have never heard him bring a word that is as directional as this. In publishing it today, please understand that we are not saying that this is a direct word from the Lord. We offer it in love and humility to our fellow believers for weighing and testing, and we offer it as part of the process of seeking the word of the Lord for Britain today.

References

1 E.g. Quote from PRO/FCO 30/789, Sub-committee of official committee on monetary aspects of UK entry to EEC, 1970. The Heath Government's positive response: PRO/CAB 164/771, Informal talks with the European Commission and the exchange of views with member countries during the negotiation period, 1970.

2 E.g. Anderson, MJ. Ungodly Ways: The Dark Side of the European Union. CRISIS Magazine, 1 June 2003.

3 Waterfield, B and Dominiczak, P. EU auditors refuse to sign off more than £100billion of its own spending. The Telegraph, 4 November 2014.

4 Speech to the House of Commons, 4 June 1940. Transcript available via The Churchill Society.

23 June brings a major decision point for the UK. But what lies ahead after that?

Even if we vote to come out of the EU, will the blessings and protection of God be fully and immediately restored to our nation? Surely there is more to it than that.

An Unforeseen Opportunity

The referendum is a major opportunity to regroup as a nation; at Prophecy Today we are viewing it as an opportunity offered by God to begin the process of turning to him with all our heart. It is an opportunity that many of us did not foresee as, over the years, integration with the EU has felt like a non-return valve, with ever-deepening commitment drawing us in.

We have long had prophetic warnings about God's displeasure with the EU, even warnings that this system was moving ever nearer to the anti-Christian international government described in the Book of Revelation. On account of Britain's Christian heritage and our commitment to God in the Coronation Oath, we have been warned to withdraw - lest we come under the wrath of God.

For years, integration with the EU has felt like a non-return valve – so the referendum is an opportunity to regroup that many of us did not foresee.

Therefore, on the one hand is the danger of the Remain campaign keeping us in this vulnerable position and, on the other hand, the question as to our position before God if the Leave campaign prevails. One step at a time, of course, but let's begin to look at the future of the UK beyond the referendum with some sense of real possibility.

Living in Babylon

Shortly, Clifford and Monica Hill will publish a book and workbook on the theme 'Living in Babylon'. That illustrates where we are at Prophecy Today: our view is that it is useful to compare the situation of modern believers in Jesus the Messiah with that of Israelites living among the Babylonians during the captivity of Judah, under Nebuchadnezzar. Both represent holy remnants trying to work out how to live faithfully in the midst of an unfaithful, even pagan culture.

The cry to "come out of her, my people" of Revelation 18:4 is for the Lord's people to come out of the latter-day world system, likened to Babylon of old. However, whether or not the EU does represent this end-time Babylon, it is shallow to think that a vote Leave would fulfil this command of Revelation 18:4. Much more would be necessary for the UK as a whole to be considered a nation belonging to God once again, so we can't rest on the laurels of our historic blessings from God, profound though they have been.

The situation of modern believers can be compared with that of the Israelites in captivity in Babylon, trying to live faithfully in a pagan culture.

Paganism EnduresPalmyra Monumental Arch in 2010, prior to damage by Islamic State. A replica arch will be erected in Trafalgar Square from 19 April. See Photo Credits.

Much of the Christian world is abuzz at the moment with the news that a replica of an ancient monument in Palmyra in Syria is to be erected in Trafalgar Square this month. The ancient arch has survived attempts to demolish it by Islamic State. Replicas are to be erected in London and New York to celebrate World Heritage Week 2016.¹

With the tide of world affairs being driven by the need to defeat terrorism, this seems to be a symbol of victory – but there is something subtler here. The arch, originally constructed in AD 32, was an entrance to a temple that was consecrated to the Mesopotamian god Bel. It formed the centre of religious life in Palmyra. So, whilst many in the UK are campaigning to come out of the EU, simultaneously some of our prominent leaders are opening the door to the very god of Babylon that the God of Israel warns us about!²

This is an illustration of the confused times in which we live - and a prompt to dig deeper. Despite our Christian heritage, one only needs to walk around the centre of London and other of our cities to see the extent to which we have never really cleansed ourselves of the images of ancient ungodly empires. Take another poignant example: statues of the pagan gods Gog and Magog on London's Guildhall, traditionally associated with Britain through the times of the Roman occupation, were destroyed by the Blitz of the Second World War. In a strange British ritual, they have been considered as the guardians of the City of London, brought out annually to lead the Lord Mayor's parade.

While many Brits campaign to come out of the EU, some of our leaders are opening the door to the god of Babylon in other respects.

Ironically, in 1953, the very year of the Queen's Coronation, the statues on the Guildhall were replaced.² Whilst at the Coronation the Monarch was celebrating the Bible as our Book for guidance in all things, some of her prominent subjects were ignoring the references to Gog and Magog in the book of Ezekiel, where their connection to end time spiritual battles is emphasised.

Idolatry, Inside and Out

Yet that is not all: the centres of our cities abound with statues and images that could be likened to what typified ancient Greece and Rome – as well as modern equivalents like billboards which glorify sensuality and vanity. The philosophy of our age – humanism – ultimately leads to replacing worship of the One True God with worship of idols and false gods. No wonder that one dictionary definition of humanism is the seeking after the philosophies of Greece and Rome.

So there is more to deal with in our nation than simply coming out of the EU. Coming out might provide opportunity for recovery – and perhaps even make a good start - but we also need to reflect on other matters that displease the God of Israel.

Images and idols to false gods is one thing. But these external images point to an inner problem that must also be cleansed. We have highlighted in previous Prophecy Today articles, for example, the many laws that are on our statute books which are an offence to God and a betrayal of our constitution based on the Coronation Oath - laws which have made legal many things that are not legal in God's eyes, hence leading us into individual and corporate sin.

The philosophy of our age – humanism – ultimately leads to replacing worship of the One True God with worship of idols.

Awake, Believers

For the UK as a whole to truly 'come out of Babylon' in every respect, much needs to be done after we leave the EU. Otherwise the UK may remain an outpost of a modern-day 'Babylonian Empire'. The call to "come out of her, my people" will then be for the Christian remnant within to brace up to withdraw from the ungodly nation that the UK may yet become – in or out of Europe.

Now is the time for us to go beyond the current events and look prophetically into the future. There is yet hope while our Queen lives, whose 90^th birthday we celebrate this month. The Coronation Oath still stands as our rallying point and the Lord's promise of Jeremiah 18:7-8 is still valid:

The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it.

For Christians, the challenge is to commit the future to God in deepening intercessory prayer while the signs of his judgment are relatively mild and, firmly but lovingly, call people in Britain to repentance. This will be a deeply emotional process, as we begin to sense the Lord's sadness over our nation - recall Jesus's weeping over Jerusalem prior to his sacrificial death on the Cross, and Jeremiah's weeping over fallen Jerusalem when the Babylonians took Judah to captivity.

For the UK as a whole to truly 'come out of Babylon', much more needs to be done than leave the EU.

Meanwhile, the arguments concerning the EU referendum should not be primarily led by financial considerations or the nation's love of football (even that has entered into the debate!), but by our standing before God. Whether in or out, the Lord can shake all our institutions. If he does bring further shaking to our nation, it will be as a sign calling us back to him.

References

1 See, for example, Gayle, D. Palmyra arch that survived Isis to be replicated in London and New York. The Guardian, 28 December 2015. See also the Institute for Digital Archaeology, which is carrying out the project.

2 Voice for Justice are currently running a petition against the replica arch planned for Trafalgar Square. Click here for more information.

3 Gog and Magog Back in London 1953. British Pathé.