A new era has begun in British politics.

When the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

Modern society is increasingly wracked by division and unrest - but why?

If the nation is in a mess, who is primarily responsible?

Eco-warriors take to playing with fire engines and fake blood. 

What are the spiritual dynamics behind all the Brexit fury?

Home schooling in Britain is growing rapidly - and with good reason.

It is August and the schools are closed for the holidays. Traditionally, this has been a time when children are with their parents, whether at home or on holiday – that special time of the year that offers opportunities for families to be together.

Deuteronomy 6:6-9 comes to mind: a mandate given by God long ago, that all might go well with us. We can picture parents and children considering the beauty of God’s Creation on summer days when, walking and talking, they learn together about him.

Yet in this continuing season of political tension and upheaval, it is much more likely that we will be encouraged to dwell on the new Prime Minister’s tactics to win parliamentary battles (especially the battle to come out of Europe) than on how we might bring up the nation’s children in the ways of God.

Indeed, when September comes round and the schools re-open, for Christian parents the prospect of what will be taught to their children is of ever-growing concern. Watchmen in our nation, such as our own team at Prophecy Today and Issachar Ministries and others such as Christian Concern, inform us of more and more examples of the danger posed to our children through agendas at work within our educational establishments.

Godless Agendas

Unbiblical agendas such as those that have been imposed by the LGBTQ+ movement are impacting even the youngest primary school children, who are being driven to question their God-given biological gender.¹ The movement to eradicate belief in the God of Creation has long imposed itself and now we move on to the consequences, clearly outlined in Romans 1.

For Christian parents the prospect of what is being taught to their children in schools is of ever-growing concern.

Ungodly forces are being allowed to influence the teaching of our children and take them off that wonderful, God-given path for each one. “Train a child in the way he should go” (Prov 22:6) is the mandate given to parents, for which a sensitive, protected, God-given educational programme is needed whereby a child, nurtured first by parents and helped by teachers, learns how to walk with God themselves. Woe to those who perpetuate godless agendas in our schools. Jesus had these words of warning for them:

If anyone causes one of these little ones, those who believe in me, to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. (Matt 18:6)

Pressure Upon Pressure

The latest LGBTQ+ pressures on children add to others already well-established and highlighted in Prophecy Today for many years. The bigger picture, over the longer term, is of powers of darkness at work to divide up families and destroy the faith of an entire generation.

For example, before our eyes are growing numbers of teenagers being drawn into gang warfare and knife crime, to the extent that MPs are now recommending police officers in schools.² Does this not illustrate a society that is increasingly unguarded against the seductive powers of evil?

Even Christian schools are under pressure, as central Government has taken it upon itself to impose pressures to conform to secular humanist ideals, especially through Ofsted. If Ofsted were encouraging biblically-based curricula and putting in measures to protect our children by reinforcing the God-given mandate that parents have been given, then we could be grateful. If instead, we find an increasing departure and enforcement of ungodly educational content and strategy (dubbed ‘muscular liberalism’ by Ofsted chief Amanda Spielman), then it is time to be very concerned.

The bigger picture, over the longer term, is of powers of darkness at work to divide up families and destroy the faith of an entire generation.

Enough is Enough?

Many Christian parents are alarmed at what is happening in schools because of Government pressures to conform, and are saying, ‘enough is enough’. According to Ephesians 6:4 and elsewhere in the Bible, it is parents who have responsibility for their children. In the coming days, I do not doubt that many will seek to withdraw from or avoid the growing corruption of the world, including that which is in many schools.

Home education of children is an obvious, and still legal, option, that has much support in the USA and which many Christian families in the UK are already pursuing with great success. The number of home-schooled children in Britain has doubled in the last four years.³ It could become even more widespread here if those of us with experience in education can help make it an attractive and meaningful possibility.

If there is not a major move of repentance across the nation as a whole, home education could be a vital means to strengthen Christian families for the days ahead. Education of our children in a Christ-centred way should be a central priority in this, and will require those with expertise to seek the Lord in considering how to provide support. Could this be part of God’s strategy for safeguarding faithful families in future? What part might you play?

References

1 It is interesting to note the furore which has broken out in Birmingham primary schools between school staff intent on imposing a radical LGBTQ+ agenda and concerned parents. Most of the parents protesting are Muslim, prompting some difficult questions for the Government on how to negotiate the competing demands of these two minority groups, Islam and LGBTQ+.

2 MPs call for police in schools to cut youth violence. BBC News, 31 July 2019.

3 See here. This is for a variety of reasons, one of which is undoubtedly the impulse of Christian parents to protect their children.

Is this the start of a new era of hope?

Mr Boris Johnson fulfilled his lifelong ambition this week to become British Prime Minister. The rogue old Etonian began in his usual breezy style of easy optimism. But however much we may wish him well in tackling the multiple crises in the nation, realistically the challenge facing any new Prime Minister is no different from that which plagued – and overcame - Theresa May’s administration. The question is: can a new government do anything new?

The challenge of which I speak is that we have an elected parliament that defies the electorate. Whatever deal the new PM does with Brussels in order to fulfil his promise to leave the European Union by 31 October 2019, the possibility of getting the approval of this Parliament (without divine intervention!) is virtually nil. He not only faces the opposition of Labour, the LibDems and the Scottish Nationalist Party, but he also faces the threats of rebels on the Tory backbenches who say they are willing to bring down the Government rather than agree to leave the EU without a deal.

Today, Britain is a more divided nation than it has ever been since the days of the Civil War between Cromwell’s Parliament and supporters of Charles I. How should Christians understand what is going on in the nation? And are there any signs of hope?

Reflecting on the Past

In last week’s editorial we were asking “Is there any word from the Lord?” This led us to some of the things Britain has done wrong on the international scene and especially the need to recognise and say we are sorry for the dreadful things we did to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust back in 1947. Recognising that injustice would be an act of righteousness that I believe would be pleasing to the Lord.

I believe there is a real message of hope and good news in the midst of all the doom and gloom we’ve been hearing for a long time. But we ought also to recognise where we have gone wrong: not only abroad, but also in the things we have done at home in Britain. As we have said many times in these editorials – turning away from biblical values has led to the present days of crisis. This era of great cultural change began with a political Act of Parliament in 1951.

Today, Britain is a more divided nation than it has ever been since the days of the Civil War. What is going on – and is there any hope?

Political Decisions, Cultural Consequences

It was the Fraudulent Mediums Act which abolished the Witchcraft Act that had been on the Statute Book of Britain for centuries. In 1951 witchcraft was legalised. All occult activities were made legal, in direct defiance of biblical teaching:

Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or is a medium or spiritist or consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord… (Deut 18:10-12)

This political decision to defy the Bible was taken by the Government led by Clement Attlee, a Jew-hating atheist, and paved the way for other major policy turnarounds which precipitated great cultural changes in the nation.

The first great cultural change was in the 1959 Obscene Publications Act which paved the way for the legalisation of obscenity in publications, film, video and the internet.

The second cultural change was in the Abortion Act (1967) which made it legally acceptable to kill unborn babies. Currently, about 450 babies a day are killed in British hospitals, bringing the total since 1967 to over 9 million. 2018 saw the number of UK abortions reach an all-time high, and our dysfunctional, rebellious Parliament has now ruled to impose abortion on the only part of the British Isles that still upholds biblical values, defying the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland – as we noted last week in an excellent article from our Managing Editor.

These changes follow the classic path to the corruption of civilisation noted by the Apostle Paul in the first chapter of his letter to Rome. He says that once we stop believing in the God of Creation and start suppressing the truth, we believe anything. We “exchange the truth of God for a lie” and then we abandon all restraints upon our behaviour.

The Apostle Paul says that once we stop believing in the God of Creation, we believe anything and abandon all restraints upon our behaviour.

Church Leaders Responsible

But God does not expect an ungodly nation to repent of things that are not even publicly recognised as being wrong! The history of Israel in the Bible teaches us that God holds the religious leaders responsible for the moral and spiritual state of the nation – it was they who had the truth and the responsibility of declaring it to the people, who otherwise remained ignorant.

Applying that teaching today, God holds church leaders responsible for the nation. But can we expect repentance from them? The bishops in the House of Lords didn’t even bother to turn up for the vote on forcing same-sex marriage and abortion upon the people of Northern Ireland last week. If they had been there, they would probably have voted in favour of imposing LGBTQ+ values upon Ulster.

Hope for the Future

Amidst this seemingly lost situation, God is doing two things: he is blessing the many thousands of local fellowships, large and small, where the word of God is faithfully preached and taught. And he is withdrawing his blessing from those churches that have turned away from the word – including churches within the traditional denominations, which are crumbling, losing members and closing buildings as a result.

The hope for the future lies with the faithful remnant in Britain of Bible-believing, praying people who refuse to be driven by the values of the world and are prepared to take a stand for truth whatever the cost. God is faithful to hear and to heed the prayers of the faithful remnant who grieve over the state of the nation; who repent for our silence when ungodly laws were being passed in our Parliament; but who nevertheless cry out to the Lord to have mercy and to bless the new Government.

We should be appealing to God to remember his covenant relationship with our forefathers, who placed the Bible at the centre of the British legal system, governing the nation, and made it part of the Coronation Oath sworn by our Queen, whom God has wonderfully preserved for these perilous times.

We should be appealing to God to remember his covenant relationship with our forefathers.

There is a solid biblical principle for such an appeal to God on behalf of the nation. Paul says that as far as the Gospel is concerned the people of Israel put themselves outside God’s protection, although he himself would never break his covenant promises “on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29).

This is undoubtedly a special passage concerning Israel, but it also shows that God respects the spiritual heritage of a nation. As he has blessed Britain in the past, using Britain to get the gospel to many nations, we can call upon him to bring us through this time of trial and to restore faith and belief – especially among young people in the United Kingdom – to give us “a hope and a future” (Jer 29:11) as he promised to the people of Jerusalem enslaved in Babylon at the worst moment in their history.

Pray he will follow our Queen in acknowledging a far greater authority

As a Christian who believes in God’s great eternal purposes for Israel as spelled out in the Bible, I welcome the choice of Boris Johnson as Britain’s new Prime Minister. And I will pray for him; he certainly needs it.

He has indicated strong support for the Jewish state – in sharp contrast to the message from the official opposition – describing himself as a “passionate Zionist” for whom wild horses wouldn’t keep him away from visiting Israel as British premier.¹

But there are other factors that leave cause for concern, not least the unprecedented move into No. 10 of a Prime Minister setting up home with his live-in girlfriend – hardly a suitable role model for family life in a country already beset by major problems in this area.

No-nonsense Politics

I warmed to him when he first appeared on the political scene in his jovial, gung-ho, ‘can do’ style, and I am particularly encouraged by his apparently unequivocal rhetoric on Brexit – always on the important basis of regaining our national sovereignty. It’s fudging on the issue that has caused much of the division in the nation.

And I would hope that his no-nonsense attitude on Europe would be extended to wider horizons in order better to deal with irksome regimes like Iran which will no doubt be one of his big tests, in light of the oil tanker crisis.

We have been tainted and weakened for too long as a soft target due to our constant appeasement of dictators over the past century – first the Arabs, then the Nazis and now Iran.

Britain has been tainted and weakened for too long as a soft target due to our constant appeasement of dictators.

The Best Candidate for Years?

Humanly-speaking, Boris seems the best candidate for years to turn the tide of Britain’s propensity for pussy-footing about with dictators. But again, he will need our prayers for the wisdom, strength and authority to deliver. And as one who loves to be loved, and hates to be hated – no doubt the effects of an insecure childhood – this is obviously no guarantee.

As a light-hearted (if a little worrying) aside, I have three times read in recent days of his childhood ambition to be ‘World King’, the infamous role played by the so-called Anti-Christ in the last days before Christ’s return.²

But Londoners assure me that he performed extremely well as Mayor of that great city, except in the case of the buses carrying adverts supporting gay lifestyles, when he apparently intervened to prevent Christians from responding with an ad campaign of their own.

Many Distractions

I don’t know Boris, but have met several members of his delightful family, including his father Stanley who I heard on the radio suggesting that climate change would be an even bigger issue than Brexit for his son to deal with.

But this would be such a distraction from reality. I note that former Education Secretary Damian Hinds encouraged pupils to berate parents for leaving their car engines running at the school gates, in view of the adverse effects on children of the fumes.³ Though I commend Johnson’s general optimism, he must distance himself from this sort of politically correct nonsense if he is to impact the real world.

Israel is also infected by godless cultural changes that have swept the West, but these are merely signs of coming judgment on such sin and lawlessness, as with the increasing violence that preceded the great flood through which only the righteous Noah and his family were saved (Gen 6:11).

Humanly-speaking, Boris seems the best candidate for years - but he will need our prayers for the wisdom, strength and authority to deliver.

Inspiration from the Queen

At some stage the likes of Boris will have to give an account to God for their actions (2 Cor 5:10), which are better based on faith than human wisdom. I am not talking of merely assenting to a set of beliefs, as he might have done many times in Eton’s school chapel, but of acknowledging Jesus as Lord and Saviour, and humbly bowing the knee to the Suffering Servant who will soon return as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Humility is required. Jesus, though he was God, became man and humbled himself, even to death on a cruel execution stake. Boris should follow the lead of our Queen in acknowledging the awesome authority and power of someone far greater than her. The most important decision the new Prime Minister will ever make is whether or not he bows the knee to Christ as his redeemer and Lord!

References

1 World Israel News, 23 July 2019, quoting Jewish News.

2 Sebastian Shakespeare’s Saturday Essay, Daily Mail, 20 July 2019.

3 The Times, 22 July 2019.

An opportunity is approaching that our new PM would do well to take.

Next week Britain will have a new Prime Minister and the first question he should be asking is, “Is there any word from the Lord?” This was the question King Zedekiah put to the Prophet Jeremiah shortly before the Babylonians broke through the walls of Jerusalem and began its destruction. What is God saying to Britain in these incredible days as the Brexit saga races towards the final conflict or consummation?

Several things have come to my notice in the last few days that may be significant. I was looking through some old papers and came across my notes of visiting the elderly leader (Mother Barbara) of the Russian convent in the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem back in the early 1980s. I heard how, as a young lady of 22 in Russia, she had met with Bishop Aristocoli who had given her the now-famous prophecy known as The 1911 Mother Barbara Prophecy (reprinted below).

I had not read it for many years but I remembered that some of its remarkable predictions have already come true, particularly the prophecy that Great Britain, whose empire covered one third of the world’s land space, would lose all her colonies and “come to almost total ruin”.

In last week’s editorial I spoke about the astonishing collapse of the British Empire, saying that it was largely due to the abandonment of our Judeo-Christian heritage. Then on Monday a friend telephoned from Italy. She lives in San Remo and reminded me that next April will be the centenary of the San Remo Resolution, which established in international law the legitimacy of the Arab states and Britain’s Balfour Declaration, heralding the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in what is now the State of Israel. 

Britain’s Sacred Trust

San Remo delegates, 1920, including David Lloyd George.

The San Remo Conference of Allied leaders and international lawyers was an extension of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The purpose was to set up three Mandates, one over Syria and Lebanon, one over Mesopotamia (Iraq/Iran) and one over Palestine – both East and West of the River Jordon. The Mandate for Palestine was entrusted to Great Britain as a “sacred trust of civilisation”¹ in respect of “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”.²

This was a binding resolution with all the force of international law. It was affirmed the following year by Winston Churchill, who told an Arab delegation in Jerusalem:

It is manifestly right that the Jews who are scattered all over the world should have a national centre and a national home where some of them may be reunited. And where else could that be but in the land of Palestine, with which for more than 3000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated?³

The San Remo resolution was a binding resolution with all the force of international law.

Churchill also issued the following statement in 1922, as British Secretary of State for the Colonies:

When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world, in order that it may become a centre in which the Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride. But in order that this community should have the best prospect of free development and provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display its capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance. That is the reason why it is necessary that the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine should be internationally guaranteed and that it should be formally recognized to rest upon ancient historic connection.

Is it just a coincidence that the steep decline in the fortunes of Great Britain began in the 1920s (with the Great Depression and the General Strike) when Britain failed to meet its 'sacred trust' for a Jewish homeland by establishing the State of Israel?

Britain not only reneged on its promises in the 1920s and throughout the 1930s,⁴ but was still favouring the Arabs and resisting Jewish settlement in the early days after the Second World War – turning away leaking old ships loaded with Holocaust survivors seeking refuge in what had been promised as their new homeland – ships that sank in the Mediterranean with the loss of all those on board! Other Jewish would-be-immigrants were actually forcibly sent back to Germany, which was surely the height of inhumanity!

Having sold the Jewish people for barrels of oil, Britain under Prime Minister Clement Attlee (a Jew-hating atheist, like some in the modern Labour Party) actually refused to vote for the establishment of the State of Israel in the United Nations in 1947. We did not dare to vote against the resolution and offend the USA – but in order not to offend the Arabs and endanger our oil supplies, we abstained!!! From that day the British Empire rapidly disappeared from the map of the world.

No! I’m not making a case for colonialism! It was right that ex-colonial countries should have their independence and the freedom to develop in accordance with their own cultures, and I think we should applaud and do all we can to strengthen the ties between nations in the British Commonwealth. But I also think that the fortunes of the United Kingdom have been adversely affected by breaking our promises to Israel and the Jewish people, which were a ‘sacred trust’.

Is it just a coincidence that the steep decline in the fortunes of Great Britain began when we failed to meet our 'sacred trust' for a Jewish homeland by establishing the State of Israel?

Testing Times Ahead

I also believe that the next six or nine months are going to be times of incredible turmoil in the UK when we may indeed, as foretold in The Mother Barbara Prophecy, come perilously close to ‘total ruin’.

But the centenary of the San Remo Resolution in April 2020 will provide an opportunity for Britain to repent publicly of her broken promises and the anti-Semitism that has driven our Foreign Office since the 1920s (brilliantly portrayed in one of the 1990s TV episodes of Yes, Prime Minister⁵). Will our new Government, under a new Prime Minister, have the courage to confess the sins of the past? 

Theresa May, at her last Prime Minister’s Question Time this week, called upon Jeremy Corbyn to clear anti-Semitism out of the Labour Party – but will our new Prime Minister have the courage to risk the wrath of the Arab world and send a delegation to San Remo to clear the conscience of the nation? I believe the Lord may be saying that such repentance, though not enough to save Britain from the consequences of our unrighteous laws, would nevertheless be a vital step in the right direction.

Please join us in prayer as we seek the right way forward in this issue. Maybe someone will start a petition calling upon the Government to send an official British delegation to attend the 2020 San Remo Centenary to acknowledge publicly our historic wrongs.

The 1911 Mother Barbara Prophecy

This prophecy was given to Mother Barbara in 1911 by Bishop Aristocoli in Russia, shortly before his death and before she settled in Jerusalem:

“Tell the women they must belong absolutely to God. They must believe in the great things that are happening and that God is doing on the earth. They must prepare their souls, their children and their husbands. And they will have very much work to do for God. Oh, what a great work the women will have to do in the end times, and the men will follow them.

Not one country will be without trial – do not be frightened of anything you will hear. An evil will shortly take Russia and wherever this evil goes, rivers of blood will flow. This evil will take the whole world and where ever it goes, rivers of blood will flow because of it. It is not the Russian soul, but an imposition on the Russian soul. It is not an ideology, or philosophy, but a spirit from hell.

In the last days Germany will be divided in two. France will just be nothing. Italy will be judged by natural disasters. Britain will lose her empire and all her colonies and will come to almost total ruin, but will be saved by praying women. America will feed the world, but will finally collapse. Russia and China will destroy each other. Finally, Russia will be free and from her, believers will go forth and turn many from the nations to God.”

Cover of Eli Hertz's book on the legal aspects of the Jewish claim to the Land. Maps show the region before and after the division of British Mandate land to create Transjordan.

References

1 Article 22, Covenant of the League of Nations, signed in Paris, 1919.

2 San Remo Resolution, 1920. Read the full text here.

3 Taken from ‘Winston Churchill in Jerusalem, 1921’, Manchester Conservatives.

4 E.g. ceding 70% of the Mandate land to the Arabs (Transjordan, now Jordan). We recommend The Forsaken Promise (DVD) from Hatikvah Films for a fuller exploration of this issue.

5 ‘A Victory for Democracy’. Watch in full here.