Understanding The Times Weekly (Tuesday) Column

THE POWER AND HOPE OF THE GOSPEL

2012-01-24T13:11:00.004Z

I mentioned a fortnight ago that my local church is engaged in a month of prayer over January. My own involvement has been in leading prayer for the world. The research and reading behind that world prayer (much of it from “Operation World”) has given me a fresh sense of spiritual hope as we walk into a very uncertain year ahead. Two of the areas of the world we have majored on in prayer have been China and Africa (China having the larger population!). When we look back over the last century we find that, from the point of view of the gospel and the growth of the church, both these areas show something quite staggering, something that releases a deep joy.

I was reminded yet again that the number of evangelical Christians in China has grown from some 2.7 million in 1975 to over 75 million (some would say more) in 2010. There has been a huge and ongoing revival, with demonstrations of New Testament power. Christians are now to be found in every stratum of Chinese society, with many vibrant urban professional churches. There is a very high commitment level in the church, and “missionary vision” is widespread. There is already a strategic and growing Chinese “diaspora” across the world, a ready vehicle for witness.

We see something similar when we look at Africa. In the 20th century evangelical Christians grew from 1.6 million in 1900 to 182 million in 2010. This is as many as all evangelicals in the Americas combined and is the largest evangelical population of any continent. African Christianity has established itself as a truly potent force, both on the continent and on a global level. It has some of the largest churches in the world, some of the largest prayer gatherings and initiatives and a strong world mission vision.

It was not simply this growth in itself, however, that brought a fresh sense of hope. It had, for me, much more to do with the fact that this had all happened against a background of appalling historical events. The 20th century was not a peaceful century. Europe virtually destroyed itself and its empires by widespread murderous wars. But neither was it peaceful for China; Japanese invasion in the 1930s devastated the proud “Kingdom”, and after W.W.2 the Communist revolution brought further devastation and widespread death, both to the nation and the church.
And yet out of all that carnage came the staggering growth of a massive evangelistic and missionary minded church of a kind which has been described as having “no parallel in history".

When we look at Africa we see the same basic story. Dominated and exploited by European powers for the first half of the 20th century, the second half saw Africa dominated by the struggle for independent nationhood, and that brought a worse story of corrupt despots, war, genocide, displacement of millions and rapid expansion of diseases, including the scourge of AIDS. It still continues. Yet that is the background to the massive advance of the gospel of Jesus in Africa.

One is left full of praise to God that despite the self centred wrath of man and the devastations it causes, God has been utterly faithful to his promise that Jesus would be a Light to the world and his gospel would be preached in all the world. Yes, “the people who lived in darkness have seen a great light” Isaiah 11.

When I see the portents of chaos for the coming century it is difficult in the natural to feel optimistic. But one thing is absolutely certain; whatever may come in the way of the judgement of God or the wrath of man, nothing will stop further years of the fulfillment of God’s purposes. That is the lesson of history. As Jesus said, “I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it”. The warlike, cruel and corrupt earthly principalities, try as they might, will not hold back the Kingdom of God. There will be further great harvests. That is a matter for great rejoicing, for those whose “citizenship is in heaven”!

In all thiis we are not merely talking about church statistics, but about the lives of people who will find hope and an eternal salvation. That's the real joy. It is for that reason that Paul wrote, “Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord”. Prayer is a very important part of that work.

Bob

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THE QUEEN'S SPEECH

2012-01-17T17:59:00.005Z

I listened to a sermon on Sunday last which reminded me very forcibly of how impressed I was listening to the Queen’s speech to the nation on Christmas Day. I remember sitting up sharply at the overt nature of the Christian message which she gave toward the end of her speech. I think it well worth repeating in this column. It was so heartening that the monarch of the Realm and the Head of the Church of England should so simply yet so pointedly give honour to Jesus and to the message of forgiveness that he brought.

So here is her last section:
"For many this Christmas will not be easy. With our armed forces deployed around the world, thousands of service families face Christmas without their loved ones.
The bereaved and the lonely will find it especially hard. And, as we all know, the world is going through difficult times. All this will affect our celebration of this great Christian festival.
Finding hope in adversity is one of the themes of Christmas. Jesus was born in a world full of fear. The angels came to frightened shepherds with hope in their voices: ‘Fear not!’ they urged, ‘We bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.’
Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves – from our recklessness or our greed. God sent into the world a unique person - neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive. Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God's love.
In the last verse of this beautiful carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem, there's a prayer: “O Holy Child of Bethlehem, Descend to us we pray. Cast out our sin and enter in. Be born in us today”.
It is my prayer that on this Christmas day we might all find room in our lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord. I wish you all a very happy Christmas."

This is her year of Jubilee, and we have much to be thankful for in the personal life and the sincere Christian faith of our Queen. She has been a great gift to this country; totally committed to her duty as Queen, and steadfast through both her own personal troubles and the troubles of the nation. She undoubtedly stands out among a long line of national monarchs not all of whom have been so sure footed as she has. It would be very fitting to pray that this Jubilee Year will find her at full strength and having numerous opportunities to give a principled and Christian input to the nation. This would be her own desire, of that I have no doubt. She has certainly given us a lead in speaking out about the Christian faith in a multi-faith society,undaunted by the absurd notion of those who say such speaking is bound to cause offence. She causes no offence because fact is, of course, she speaks with grace and in the spirit of peace.

Bob

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THE PLEASURE AND POWER OF PRAYER

2012-01-10T17:16:00.002Z

I do apologise for this column being posted rather late in the day. The reason is that Tuesday has become a day in which I am particularly involved in leading some prayer in the church throughout the month of January. The church in which I worship has set aside the whole of the month for prayer and cancelled all its normal midweek meetings so that people may engage specifically in prayer. I have been leading a series of sessions called “Praying for the World”.

I haven’t mentioned this just to make an excuse, but in order to say to you how wonderfully refreshing it is to be part of an extended period in which prayer is the dominating activity. There is nothing quite so exhilarating or so strengthening, even though one is aware of constant spiritual opposition. I simply wanted to say that I do hope this year will not go very far before you or your church may become similarly involved.

This has not been a prayer month when anything “grandiose” has been attempted. No special, “big” meetings have been announced, and no “hype”. It is simply that the church and its different rooms are open every day for people to go into and pray in whatever way they wish and for however long they wish. The response has been remarkable with people showing a real appetite to seek the Lord. Various church activities are prayed for in corporate as well as personal manner, but the emphasis is on seeking the face of the Lord for Kingdom blessing in whatever way each person feels important. This is producing a powerful relaxedness. It has brought about a great release of the spirit of prayer which has resided in many church members for some years now.

My own particular burden is to seek God for the church that it might have increased understanding of the world, greater and deeper prayer for the world, and more people being called into world mission. I have had room to express my heart concern with others who have a similar concern. Other heart burdens, different and equally legitimate, have been similarly released. It gives a great sense of the body of Christ moving forward. It’s a great and satisfying feeling.

Prayer in the life of the church is, of course, the supremely important factor for future growth, effectiveness and spiritual quality. Many have said that the church ought always to be in revival as the norm. So indeed it should. Theoretically that is fine, but at the practical level the sustaining of a church in the full power and grace of the Spirit is utterly dependent upon the time we give to God, the time we spend in his presence and the eagerness of our hearts to be about his business and to be utterly godly and righteous.

I feel so blessed when I am part of a genuine prayer movement of prayer, and I simply wanted to encourage you to re-engage in such movement as we move into this new year. I anticipate that it will be a year of real difficulties, one calling for much grace, patience and faith.

Bob

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THINKING ABOUT THE NEW YEAR

2012-01-03T14:15:00.006Z

Well, the New Year has come! We have welcomed it in, largely with food, fizz and fireworks, and offered good wishes.

January 1st is, however, very much a rootless occasion. That is to say it is not grounded on any substantial event or memory. The date has no inherent message. Christmas is rather different since Christmas is rooted in the celebration of the birth of the Son of God and the offer of human salvation. The Jewish New Year as it is presented in the Old Testament is also full of meaning. The first month of the Jewish calendar (Abib) was set aside by God to mark the deliverance of the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt and it included the Feast of Passover. Thus for the Jew the New Year was a memorial of deliverance, of a new freedom and of an assurance that God was their God and would be with them. It spoke of hope.

The Church of England calendar marks January 1st with the Circumcision of Jesus since, as was customary, that ceremony took place eight days after Jesus’ birth. It is not intended as a “New Year” event, and those who are aware of such a festival are an infinitesimal few, even in the church!

The Anglican calendar does not start, however, on January 1st. It actually starts several weeks before Christmas, and it starts with the season of Advent. Advent is the real start of the church year. That can be seen by a quick glance at the Anglican Prayer Book. And when we look at the message of Advent we really do have something substantial with which to begin a New Year!

“Advent” means “Coming” and the message of Advent is simply “Get yourself ready for the coming of the Lord” and “Put your hope in Him”. That is a great attitude, a very positive attitude to adopt as we gather ourselves together and face the uncertainties of the future.

The opening prayer on the first Sunday in Advent goes directly to our fundamental need: “Give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light”. These words are a direct quotation from Romans 13 which is one of the set readings which follow the prayer. Thus we are reminded that at the beginning of the “liturgical” year it is time to take stock of our lifestyle. We dare not go into an unknown future without the cloak of righteousness. If God should come in judgements (as seems all too likely) then only the cloak of righteousness will mark us out and bring us his sparing grace. So “Let us walk honestly as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but putting on the Lord Jesus Christ”. These are deep, serious resolutions made with a recognition in mind of the enabling grace of God.

The opening prayer of the second Sunday in Advent prays that “we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life” through the diligent reading of the Scriptures. That will be an incredibly important mindset for the increasing numbers of those facing persecution in this coming year, as well as those facing the deepest challenges of life. The foundation of true hope is always in the promises of a faithful God.

It’s all rather more sobering and strengthening than a bottle of Champagne!

Bob

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THE ANGELS’ LOVE SONG

2011-12-19T20:10:00.004Z

“Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man at war with man hears not
The love song which they bring;
O hush the noise, you men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!”

The verse quoted above comes from the carol, “It came upon the midnight clear, that glorious song of old …” It’s a carol which speaks in every verse about the presence of angels at the birth of Jesus and what they sang, namely a love song. It’s beautiful to read as well as to sing. (if you want carols to come fresh to you, try simply reading them, pondering as you do)

Apart from anything else, I am thrilled with its acceptance of the “full on” testimony of Luke to the major manifestation of angels at the birth of Jesus. It’s inconceivable to me that this tiny baby into which God poured himself would have been born without the glory of the presence of angels. They were there to announce and they were there to protect, exercising their two wonderful ministries to humanity, which humanity the Word had now taken upon himself. No, they could not possibly be missing, and neither could they have been been anything less than a great multitude in number! Heaven itself was giving witness to the Son of God in the manger. This was a stage and a spectacle where heaven must break through and be seen.

This was no fairy story, but a massive revelation of the supernatural world to which we remain too often desperately blind and which we find difficult to grasp. The Christmas story has many challenges but the challenge to press beyond what we see in this world and to recognise a supernatural world is one of its biggest. We really must press through in our spirituality into the glorious things that are just beyond our humanity, yet for which we are bound. A revelation of the supernatural is imperative for the depth and wellbeing of our faith.

The song of the angels was a love song, which the carol makes abundantly clear. Their song enshrines an offer of peace, goodwill and joy to all mankind. The offer is given not just in words, but incarnate in a human person, a Saviour who will give to humanity the peace which it simply cannot find for itself. Here, in Jesus, is the love gift of which the song speaks. It is a song which is still being sung. He and his salvation is a gift for all, free and life-changing.

The saddest and most poignant part of the carol is the verse I quoted at the beginning. It tells us that “man at war with man hears not the love song ….”. E.H. Shears, the author, wrote that verse about a century and a half ago, and the sentiment remains true today. One can feel his aching heart beat as he pens the words, “O hush the noise you men of strife and hear the angels song”; a sad heart beat, but one we need to take up at Christmas in prayer.

Yet in the midst of our dismay at so much human futility, I pray that the reality of the peace and joy and the wonderful supernatural power of our God in Jesus may bring you that same sense of deep wonder which the angels’ song brought all those years ago. That’s what Christmas should bring us – a deep sense of spiritual wonder.

Bob

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CHRISTMAS and THE POWER OF PROPHECY

2011-12-13T16:48:00.002Z

Advent and Christmas are seasons which are magnificently full of prophecy. The prophet was literally a “mouthpiece”, a mouthpiece for the voice of God, and, as Amos so pointedly stated, his importance lies in the fact that “Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). Thus the purposes and plans of God are to be found in the prophecies of Scripture, and nowhere is this truth more evident than in prophecies of the coming of Jesus.

I have little doubt that virtually every church this Christmas will hear the prophetic words, “For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given … And he will called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his rule and peace there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:6-7). These words were written several centuries before Jesus was born, words drawn out of the heart of Isaiah the prophet by the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit and looking to a future long off. Though so few in number these words encapsulate precisely what was to happen in the birth of Jesus. A child would be born by the normal birth process, he would become a ruler and he would carry the names and descriptions that belonged to God himself, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace. Prophecy frequently merges with the poetic and here in an extraordinary poetic way the vital truth of incarnation is captured. I think myself that the poetic capture of so profound a mystery is worth considerably more than overmuch theological dissection. Certainly the Christian church did not have to invent the idea of incarnation – it’s there, loud and clear, in the prophets, announced centuries before it happened.

This prophetic utterance, magnificent in itself, nevertheless gains from the verses in Isaiah which precede it and which are also normally read at Christmas though not so readily understood; “In the future he will honour Galilee of the Gentiles…. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned … You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy.” It is a prophecy which speaks of the future of Galilee of the Gentiles. It describes that land as one of darkness and distress. This was certainly to be the case in Isaiah’s own era when it was overrun and destroyed by the merciless Assyrian armies and largely repopulated by gentiles, and it was to remain like that right up to the birth of Jesus, always looked down on by the Jews of Jerusalem as a place of spiritual darkness. But the prophecy does not stop there and goes on to say that Galilee would see a great light and resound to great joy.

Even more significant is the fact that the emergence of this great light and subsequent joy was directly connected with the human/divine child who was to be born since the exact words of Isaiah are, “the people who lived in darkness will see a great light FOR (because, on account of) to us a child is born”. The child would bring the light. What an extraordinary fulfilment of that prophecy took place when Jesus grew up and actually became that great light to (of all places) Galilee in his earthly ministry. If the land had been spiritually dark over several centuries it ceased to be so when Jesus walked its towns and villages with his preaching and miracles, and leaving in his wake profound joy and hope among so many people. The light of the kingdom had never shone so brightly before in such a needy place. How astonishing that Jesus actually had his home in Galilee (first Nazareth and then Capernaum) and that not a few of his apostles were Galileans. What a devastatingly accurate prophecy of God’s intentions.

I say that this earlier part of Isaiah adds to the prophecy of the birth simply because of the fact that if we should be tempted to believe that the idea of a human/divine incarnation might be a bit of poetic and imaginative fancy then the accuracy of the prophecy about the great light in Galilee brings us up sharply to recognise that this passage (which is one piece) is moving in the realms of provable reality. The very light shone by his teaching and his power, authority and miracle demand one who is uniquely from above even if he was born so humbly below.

We need always to remember with prophecy that it is given precisely so that our faith and understanding might be strengthened as we see it fulfilled. God speaks, and then he fulfils his words so that we might respond from our depths, “He really is there, and the whole world and its direction are in his hands”. So let's rejoice in the prophetic at this time of the year.

Bob

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THE ENIGMA OF ISRAEL

2011-12-06T12:53:00.002Z

This is the last of three successive columns on the Middle East. This final focus is on Israel which I described in the last column as being in the eye of the storm and watching the confusion of her detractors.

I also said that the outcome of most of what we see is uncertain. However, I make exception for one thing, about which I feel absolutely certain; that is that the intense and bitter hatred towards Israel shown by her neighbouring nations will not go away, no matter what the outcome of their political struggles might be or who may gain power or in what way they may rule.

The reason I am so sure about this is that such antagonism is a spiritual issue, not a political issue, and its certain continuance is an ongoing fact underlined indelibly by the witness of history. The most extraordinary and ironic part of that historical witness lies in the very story of the secular Zionist movement that propelled the Jews into statehood from the late 19th century until the mid 20th century. The founders of that movement were driven by the secular, pragmatic belief that the only way that the Jews would escape the storm of anti-Semitism which raged in Europe in the 19th century would be to find a country of their own in which they could settle. That alone would bring peace, and it would definitely bring peace. Such was the profound conviction that was voiced in Theodore Herzl’s epoch making book “The Jewish State” and inspired his World Zionist Movement at the end of the 19th century. It was the same belief which drove the continued Jewish settlement of Palestine throughout the first half of the 20th century. Thus for sixty years it was the flag of Jewish hope – a new nation of their own in which there would be peace. The bitter fact is, however, that on the very day of the proclamation of the state of Israel, the Jews found themselves locked into an armed struggle for survival against Arab nations determined to repeat the Holocaust and drive them into the sea. They have been locked into it ever since. The failure to find peace is the fundamental failure of Zionism, even though God used Zionism to bring his people back to their historic land.

Israel survived the attempted destruction in 1948 and has survived other concerted attempts since to destroy her. Israel has now had over 60 years of history as a state, but it has been anything but a story of peace in their own land. They remain the butt of a hatred as strong as it has ever been at any time in their history. The essence of the Zionist dream, peace and acceptance, has never been fulfilled. Israel is hemmed in by a ring of nations seeking its destruction, and which at this very moment are targeting her cities and people with any number of missiles.

The failure of the Zionist hope lies in the fact that it was a purely secular and political hope. The Zionists certainly knew how deep the roots of anti-Semitism were, and they knew that for two thousand years the Jews had suffered from it; but they never appreciated the deeper spiritual root of the problem and never countenanced the hand of God in it. They vainly looked for a human and political answer to a problem only God could answer.

Sadly the Jewish state and its leaders are as secular as its Zionist forebears, and can look no further than political answers and sheer force to maintain their existence. This they have done with all the ingenuity that they have showed throughout their history. However, in their unbelief they remain blind to any true spiritual understanding that it is only God who can give them true deliverance from hatred.

A second certainty follows from this first, namely that God will not allow them to be completely destroyed no matter how much pain, hatred and threat they go through. The last 60 year of the history of Israel has amply demonstrated how the providence of God has kept that nation from destruction. He will continue to do so. He will continue to show his “holiness” (i.e. his complete commitment to his promises) among the nations by what he does for his people.

Where will it all end? I have no better guide than Zechariah 12:2ff and 14:2ff. In that prophetic scenario all the nations of the world, led by the spiritual principalities and powers of the world will come against Israel in a final attempt to destroy the nation and frustrate God’s purposes. They will appear to succeed but will be finally met and destroyed by the intervention of God. At the same time the Messiah will be revealed to Israel. That will be the moment of peace. We have seen enough in the last 60 years to make to Zechariah prophecies entirely credible.

When this will happen and what lies between now and then I have no certainties whatsoever except that we shall be watching an unparalleled end time period of history as the process unfolds.

Bob

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HEAVING VOLCANO (Continued)

2011-11-29T12:39:00.002Z

Last week I referred to a prophetic picture of the Middle East which had Israel at its centre and encircled with hurricanes representing its neighbouring states. The hurricanes were getting ever stronger and more violent and were building up into a huge whirling vortex. That picture was given just a few months before arrival of the widespread uprisings that have been called the “Arab Spring”. It is a picture that has proved genuinely prophetic.

Those uprisings began in Tunisia, whence they spread to neighbouring Libya. Yemen was also thrown into turmoil and Bahrain was threatened. Iraq was already in turmoil due to the US invasion. But the critically important developments have been in Egypt and, more recently, in Syria. These two countries are the most influential of the Arab states and form the cornerstone of the Arab League of 22 nations. The situation in both these countries is at a highly critical stage of impasse, with violent revolution and brutal response evident on the streets of their cities. A major split in the Arab League has emerged as the league has censured Syria. It is not at all the sort of things most observes would have imagined twelve months ago.

So what exactly is happening, and why? In historical terms the unrest constitutes a popular movement against the self-serving and brutal autocratic governments that gained power in the ‘60s and 70s, mainly through army intervention, and deposed the corrupt kingships left over from World War 2. It is a movement for greater freedoms and for political re-structuring that will deal with poverty and injustice. This is genuinely the case even though there are among the “revolutionaries” elements which would like to impose their own brand of dictatorship. It is fundamentally a widespread challenge to the old political order, “l’ancien regime” of the Arab world. It is a challenge to autocracy and a call for something more akin to genuine democracy. That is why it has earned the title of “Arab Spring” – a new birth.

The origin of the movement is very deep and widespread. It is the fruit of a globalised world, of new technological information channels and a new sense of awareness among a growing and vocal middle class. It will not go away. Even Saudi Arabia, despite the immense wealth and power of its princes, is an autocracy that will not ultimately hold out. In the long term some kind of popular rule will be achieved. But if it follows the European nineteenth century experience, that could be another fifty years or even more.

In the short term, however, the outcome is anything but certain. Egypt has just had its first election for a popular government, but extraordinarily the result will not be known until next March! Meanwhile the army is determined to write itself into a place of power in any new constitution, and is not averse to using its muscle on the streets. Alongside that it is clear that the only Egyptian grouping or “party” which has any real cohesiveness is the Moslem Brotherhood, and it looks pretty certain they will get a sufficient number of candidates elected to have the largest say in the proceedings. It is extremely difficult to say just how much the Brotherhood will stick to its original militant and fundamentalist Islamism. There is an old core of hardliners, but there is some evidence that a younger generation of the Brotherhood seem to appreciate that an Islamic take over of the kind that happened in Iran under Khomeini is not really an option. So everything is “up in the air” and will take time to clarify.

Syria is a much more difficult case. Unlike Egypt its autocratic president has not yet been toppled; he is deeply entrenched and threatens all out attack on Israel if the West intervenes as it did in Libya. A much stronger Islamic fundamentalist influence is evident with close links to Iran. All this makes Syria a very violent and unpredictable storm centre.

The worst outcome would be a replacement of Arab autocracies by fundamentalist theocracies, but, though that sort of battle threatens, it is by no means a certainty.

Israel lies, so to speak, in the eye of the storm. I think I’m correct in saying that the eye is actually the calmest part of the storm. Those who would destroy Israel are in confusion around her. It is an extraordinary counterbalance to the threat of annihilation coming from Iran, and even there the rumblings of a popular movement are not far below the surface.

For me, I have a deep sense that God is palpably at work in the history of our generation in this part of the world. For that I am profoundly thankful, even if the outcomes are as yet obscure.

Bob

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HEAVING VOLCANO

2011-11-22T11:45:00.001Z

Any attempt at “understanding the times” must include watching the events in the Middle East. That part of the world reminds me of a heaving live volcano, constantly drawing attention to itself with outbursts of fiery and dangerous lava, and ever threatening to burst open with a massive explosion. I have a further image of that area: some time ago I had a prophetic picture of the Middle East with Israel at its centre, encircled with hurricanes representing its neighbouring states. The hurricanes were getting ever stronger and more violent and were building up into a huge whirling vortex. Whether you take the image of a volcano or a huge hurricane, however, the meaning of both is the same; the Middle East has huge potential for destruction in the world.

I have been asking myself one question in particular. Why is it that events over the last few years in the Middle East have brought about a huge exodus of Christians from the area?
At one level this seems easy to answer. For example, the decade-long war in Iraq has actually made that country unsafe for Christians. Whereas under Saddam Hussein, a secularist, they had some protection, now, despite the U.S. presence, Christians have been openly and violently targeted by Islamists and some two thirds have had to leave, fleeing largely to Syria and Turkey. Over this last year, with the overthrow of Mubarak, Egypt has now become less safe for Christians for the same reason as in Iraq, and again large numbers of them have fled, many to the West. The trend can be seen elsewhere in the Middle East.

However, one can ask the question, Why this exodus of Christians? at a another level. Does it indicate the development of a deeper purpose in the mind of God? The region has been, of course, for a long time violently and profoundly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel; there is no readiness to accommodate any Jewish national presence. This antagonism, centred in great measure in Iran, is much deeper even than the bitter antagonism directed at Jews in Twentieth century Europe. And now the region is becoming increasingly hostile to Christians (oddly enough this is true even in Israel, despite the large increase of Messianic Jewish Christians). This hostility is real and growing even though reports are constantly coming through of many conversions of Muslims to Jesus in the most extraordinary and miraculous of ways. Is God taking his people out of a cauldron? I hesitate to offer any answer.

However, as far as I can see, all this intense hostility and antagonism both to Jew and Christian can only be indicative of some profound spiritual undercurrent, or, more accurately, some profound spiritual struggle – even an “end time” struggle. The deeper question is, therefore, where is this struggle leading and how will it develop? How violent will it become and how widespread will be its effect? Will it actually lead to a major crack in the Muslim world? To attempt an answer to these questions would be pure conjecture and speculation. The only thing that is certain is that we must keep our eyes and prayer on this part of the world, constantly giving it up to God since clearly it is here that he is working out some major purpose as history inexorably gets closer to its end. We might well pray something along the lines, “Lord, we are watching a volcano about to erupt. Thank you that you are controlling it, watching over your people and are ready to show mercy in the world”. We should certainly pray for the Christians who are homeless and suffering.

To be continued.

Bob

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NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY

2011-11-15T12:55:00.002Z

When I wrote the booklet “The Contemporary Countdown to Chaos” during the summer the spectre of national bankruptcy over Europe began to appear very menacingly. This last week, after two months of relative absence, it has returned with more menace than ever. Previously it had been confined to smaller countries like Iceland and Southern Ireland, now it is looming over larger countries, most notably Greece and even Italy.

I was utterly taken aback by stark reality of what was happening, "rich" European nations actually facing bankruptcy. When nations go bankrupt, there is no place to run to for help. They can be too big to “bail out”. Italy certainly is. Perhaps in the light of what I had written in the pamphlet, I should not have been taken aback at the development. But I was. It wasn’t so much that I was surprised as that I was appalled, appalled at nations so steeped in debt that they could no longer afford the interest on their debts; nations enjoying standards of living that they could no longer afford, whilst, at the same time, these standards were being perceived as basic “rights”, and civil disturbance was threatening. The “fall out” from the economic explosion of 2008 really was widely and very dangerously making itself felt. I suppose I knew it would happen, but it came none the less as sickening confirmation of the severe word of judgement which rests on the western nations.
This week there is a lull whilst the new Greek and Italian governments try to get organised, but the spectre will be back.

Whereas clear thinking and wisdom belong to God and are his gifts, confusion is always a mark of God’s displeasure, and confusion is so evident in the European leadership. It arises from a fundamental failure to know what really needs to be done with this collapse of solvency. Should solvent nations risk the “bail outs” that might well drag them under water? Are those “bail out”s simply throwing good money after bad? Is there sufficient money anyway for a big enough “bail out”? Even if the countries which need such help agree to put austerity measures into place, will those measures actually restore prosperity? There is, therefore, a veritable maelstrom of uncertainty and confusion facing European leadership, as it walks an uncertain road where it has not walked before.

We should not presume there is some easy economic answer to the problems, not even on the issue of what austerity measures should be imposed to restore economies. The very people who we might think ought to know the answer to that last question, the economists, are themselves divided. Even the IMF (International Monetary Fund) itself, with all its expertise, has destroyed economic growth in a considerable number of nations on which it has imposed restrictions that have proved too severe. So even the IMF has many and powerful critics. The truth is that pulling the economic levers to put a nation back on its feet is a very delicate process and a process for which there is no definitive text book. Thus getting the austerity measures wrong in Europe (and Britain) could do more damage than ever. The problem is not just an economic problem either. Austerity measures inevitably involve huge social issues of anger and discontent, making it a very difficult political problem. That has been immensely evident in the last week or so in the Euro-zone. Yes, confusion and uncertainty are everywhere.

All this gives me a deep sense of the European nations “hanging in the balance” before God. One feels the bottom could fall out. The scenario is a fearful one.

Bob

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GOOD GOVERNMENT

2011-11-08T10:11:00.002Z

“The powers that be are ordained of God”, writes St. Paul. That means God conceives of government as a necessary thing for humanity. Why is it necessary? The simple answer is that built into humanity is a terrible tendency for people to hurt each other. Government in the purpose of God is there to prevent that happening. However, there are powers that seek to frustrate that purpose, and all too frequently we see bad government as well as good government, bad government which is self-seeking, fear inspiring and ruthless. When that happens the hurt becomes multiplied.

What makes for good government? Essentially there are two sides to that question, each seemingly opposite to the other. On the one hand good government seeks to release people into freedom. It seeks to provide space and opportunity where people may fulfil their lives. On the other hand government is there to restrain people. People are to be restrained when they pursue what is evil and unjust. In Paul’s words, government “bears the sword”, in order to bring restraint, and to do so forcibly if necessary. These two different sides of government, release and restraint, are not really opposed, however, but belong together since people can never be truly free if evil is not restrained.

Good government cannot operate properly, therefore, without a clear outline of what is evil and to be restrained and what genuinely belongs to human freedom and is to be promoted. That outline is provided by Law. So, in the case of ancient Israel, fundamental to the exercise of good government was the Law God gave at Sinai. It was essentially a “moral” law, a law of behaviour. It was a law of moral restraints designed to secure genuine freedom. At the heart of all good government there must always be this “moral” law. Good government cannot opt out of “moral” law. If it tries to do so it ceases to be effective as true government. There can be no hazy, “please yourself” moral law. There are many areas where choice is legitimate but moral law is not one of them.

The obligation laid on good government is first and foremost to make sure the nation is educated in the precept and practice of its moral law. It is then obliged to restrain behaviour which does not conform to its law and is harmful.

When government becomes confused about moral law it is in danger of becoming bad government. The modern secular government is confused. One of those areas of confusion has to do with sexual behaviour. It has effectively abandoned any kind of restraint. It has encouraged the notion that sex is a private and personal matter for each person to do as they please; permissiveness is a freedom! This is maintained not withstanding the obvious hurt and harm that results. In this way moral law has become personal moral permissiveness. Sex education bears the stamp of this confusion, and is actually an education for permissiveness – it deals with the how but never the why and the when of sex; restraint and self-control are notions not to be mentioned. There is no control over the exploitation of sex in the culture of the times. It contrasts very sharply with the law as we have known it for many generations, “do not commit adultery; do not commit fornication”.

Government is equally confused about coveting and stealing when it comes to the world of finance and business. When coveting and sharp practice becomes institutionalised in our financial structures it is time for government to restrain.Good government is obligated to do so. The opposition against such restraint is of course extremely strong and among the influential and powerful people who benefit. But government needs to be stronger. Over the last two or three decades it has actually acceded to the removal of carefully built laws of restraint on the indulgence of financial greed, so that regulation is virtually non existent. All this has been done under the specious cloak of reformed and liberal economic theory, in the same way that sexual permissiveness has been allowed under the cover of specious theories of what really belongs to human freedom. More to the point here, the confusion over sexual morals has actually been caused in no small measure by the failure to restrain the world of money making from making full use of sex in its quest for profit and riches.

Pray for good government.

Bob

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THE CHURCH ON THE FRONT LINE

2011-11-01T12:32:00.003Z

It was heartening reading this week to learn that the Church of England is considering withdrawing the large financial investments it has in Internet Service Providers like Virgin Media, BT Broadband, AOL and Sky unless they take more serious steps to curtail the huge and unregulated flow of internet pornography and especially where it might become available to children. This is in line with the Church’s policy not to help fuel the very problems which it is seeking remove from society. I very much hope that the church authorities will act very strongly here, even if it can only bring partial pressure.

It’s a move which has certainly helped to highlight the enormity of a very nasty and corrupting force in the modern world of communications. The most immediate and glaring example of this problem is that presented by the Dutchman, Tabak, who was convicted of murder in the recent high profile case. He was shown to have trawled through an internet site which boasted 58,000 videos and 50 categories of pornography hours before committing his crime. His crime mirrored what he had been looking at.

There are plenty of statistics which bear out a very grim picture of the appalling impact of this internet pornography. It is an “industry” worth £60 billion annually, and reveals the enormous numbers of people who have no compunction in making money out of it. Even more disconcerting, apparently “sex” and “porn” are among the top five search items for children under 18. A third of British teens say they learned about sex from looking at internet pornography. Around 11,000 pornographic films are made every year in the U.S. with most for internet use. Pornography is viewed by 35.9 per cent of U.K. internet users. These sort of facts really take the lid off our society.

The cumulative influence of this on human society and its adverse impact on wholesome and genuine loving relationships between men and women does not bear thinking about. Yet the internet providers are not keen to act, and neither are the police keen to investigate, which renders even current legislation against pornography virtually impotent. But lurid pornography remains one of the most destructive and corrosive forces in society. The church needs to act strongly wherever it can, and if it can make its money “talk” then it should do so.

At the same time that the Church of England made its welcome stand on the issue of pornography, St Paul’s Cathedral clergy also faced a front line problem with its anti-capitalist squatters. Unhappily the clergy have been torn apart and three, including the Dean, have resigned. This, as the Bishop of London said, is a great tragedy. However, it has only arisen because there were those at the Cathedral who wanted to give genuine space for genuine protest and there were those who saw long tern dangers in allowing unaccountable occupation to get a hold, and whose fears were confirmed. The tragedy is that they did not close ranks together and battle through to a solution together. What does remain, however, is the fact that the Cathedral authorities were very aware of the economic and financial injustices that the modern world is presenting and were looking for proper debate on the issue. We can only pray that the Bishop of London, a strong man with real political gift, may get those authorities back on track. We desperately need those in high places to be speaking out about those injustices that the financial world is imposing on our society.

Bob

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A SYMPTON OF DIS-EASE

2011-10-25T11:07:00.000+01:00

The new communication technology based on the ubiquitous computer and mobile phone have made it possible for people to react vocally, speedily and with numerical force to things that deeply trouble them. They have the means to be in instant communication with each other and are avidly listening in for others who are like minded. This is what started the process that led to Gaddafi’s defeat. It’s a challenging new feature of our age.

It is also due to this that in the last two or three weeks we have seen the mushrooming of people camping out in large numbers of the major cities of the western world to make a protest. In the U.K. it has led to the closure of St. Paul’s Cathedral on Health and Safety grounds. The chief point of this protest is simply that there is something fundamentally wrong and unjust with the way the western world is structured financially and economically. The “Capitalism” of the kind we have come to know of recent decades has brought chaos and offers no cures. It radically favours the rich. Something very different has to get in to the system to bring us back in balance.

Newspaper columnists and politicians have treated this protesting as a sort of irritating itch by the ignorant, something to be brushed off. I’m not at all sure this is a wise response. It looks to me much more like an irritating rash that actually is a symptom of a serious disease within the financial and economic body. It is saying, “we are all suffering greatly from unacceptable financial behaviour and business practices, and nothing is being done to address that problem – those who have caused the chaos have got off scot-free and are still doing what they did before”. This sort of gut feeling by the “ignorant” is really a little too near the truth to be treated with contempt. It’s not sufficient to say to people, “You don’t understand how things work”. That sort of answer is always a stop to needed change.

Let’s pin point an issue of protest. If I bank my small amounts of money, my return on it is negligible; my account does not keep up with inflation and I get poorer. On the other hand if I put £1,000,000 in a Hedge Fund or Investment Bank (and I would need that sort of money to do so) I am likely to get a very respectable return and get richer. The reason for that is that the Fund will play the market and its price changes with the latest computer tech. by means of which its constant buying and selling of shares etc. will get me a profit. That’s all such an investment fund does – it just makes money out of money. It makes sure the rich get a profit, and of course that the fund’s traders get a nice slice of that profit in bonuses. What it does not do is to take all that financial resource which is at its disposal and put it to good use in investment of a kind that will profit the community at large by building infra-structure or business. Such banking just makes the rich richer. It’s the bit the banks favour – it’s the golden goose (for them, of course, not for anyone else). Such behaviour is rather like a cancer, living off and destroying the body that feeds it. It has escaped the crash and is as alive today as it was before 2008. The rich like it that way, and the investment banks like it that way. Neither is it purely western, though that’s its source.

This is a massive problem because the rich and super rich have increasingly siphoned off more and more of the world’s wealth and hugely widened the gap between them and the vast majority. The politicians seem to have no handle on them. But it all raises a fair question; how do we control greed? The rich seem incapable of seeing their greed, let alone relinquishing it. That’s the question being aired on the pavements of our cities. It might be uncomfortable for the economic text books but it’s certainly not irrelevant!

Once again I’m back to Amos and his sick society.

Bob

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NO EASY FORGIVENESS

2011-10-18T12:23:00.001+01:00

Last week I wrote about the parable of the Prodigal Son. No matter how far away from the love of his father he walked, it was there ready for him to enjoy when he “came to himself”, humbled himself and went home, seeking forgiveness. It is a parable focusing on the eagerness of God to forgive, the joy he has in forgiving and the change of heart that is required in people in order to enter into that forgiveness. What it does not address, and was not attended to address, is the cost of forgiveness.

It would be an abuse of the parable to deduce from it that God’s forgiveness of our wayward behaviour is simply dependent upon our coming back to him and saying sorry. As Jesus was to make clear, there is another aspect to the story of entering back into the love of God, a very critical and sobering aspect. This has to do with his death.

God is not able to simply and easily forgive and forget the moral failures that stain our lives. Their nature and significance is far too deep for that. Neglect of and rebellion against God cannot just be cast on one side no matter how deeply sorry a person may be. The very love of God itself, a holy love, has decreed the exclusion from God’s presence of those caught up in such behaviour. “Sin” is an eternal affront to a holy God, whose holiness is a blazing spotless love which will not look on evil except to destroy it. Sin is an extremely serious matter. It simply cannot be passed over; it has to be purged. No matter how broken hearted a prodigal may be, there is nothing he can do himself to remove the stain of sin that has marked his life. That is the whole thrust of Scripture from beginning to end.

Jesus knew this, of course, even whilst was telling the parable of the Prodigal, and his mind was already set on the cross. He knew that the love of God had found a way for human sin to be justly purged and forgiven, but that it was a way that would lead him, the Son of God, to bear the due consequences of sin in dying on a cross, derelict and cut off from God. He would “bear our sins”, he would be “punished for our transgressions”, and he would be “made sin for us” so that our forgiveness and restoration would be real.

Thus the patience and loving forgiveness in the heart of the Father as exemplified in the Prodigal story becomes wonderfully magnified into a love that found a way to bring meaningful forgiveness through deep pain both to the “Only Begotten Son” and the Father.What man could not do, they would do.

Our forgiveness was not cheap.

Bob

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WALKING AWAY FROM LOVE

2011-10-11T12:58:00.005+01:00

None of the parables of Jesus is intended to convey the full theology of salvation. Rather each is designed to bring into sharp relief some particular aspect(s) of salvation; they should not be abused by “overstretching”.

This is the case with the parable of the Prodigal Son. What is brought into clear focus in this story is the fact that the father of the prodigal never loses his love for him, despite everything he has done to bring him distress. The father never ceases to think about his son, never gives up hope that he will return. He holds in his heart a deep well of forgiveness, deep enough to cover all the rejection and hurt that he has felt on account of his son’s behaviour. He is not unaware of the selfish motives of his son and his lust for money and pleasure, but none of that quenches his fatherly love. The young man is his son, made in his own image; his love remains strong. What a picture of the love of God.

What is equally clear on the other hand is that the son put himself out of the range of his father’s love. Indeed he had never really seen the love which was in his father, only the constraints and strictures on his freedom to do what he wanted. It never occurred to him that the constraints were the constraints of love and for his benefit. He wanted only the resources his father could give him, and he wanted “his own life”. His father allowed him to make the choice and leave the home. He walked away from his father’s love. That is the fundamental human tragedy where God is concerned.

It proved to be a devastating choice. Of course, like the apple in Eden, its first taste was sweet, but inevitably his selfish love of pleasure soured. His resources ran out, and he was alone. His own concept of freedom (freedom to do exactly what he wanted) had proved utterly illusionary. It had led him to penury and heartache. He was reaping the reward of his rejection of his father – it was his moment of painful judgement. Humanity can walk away from God. It has that option. There is, however, no option with the consequence of that. It is always deeply destructive and bitter. This is true whether we think of individuals or nations. This is an inherent and unchangeable feature of the nature of creation.

A final aspect brought into sharp relief in the parable is to be seen in the expressions, “He began to be in want” and “He came to himself”. The recognition of self inflicted penury brought about a change of heart which in turn brought about a change of direction, “I will go to my father.” Broken, he would walk back into the zone of his father’s love and would seek a restoration. He was not disappointed. He found that love overflowing with forgiveness, affirmation and provision. This “turning round and going back” is so crucial. It’s the great cry of all the prophets to Israel, “Come back to the Lord your God!” It presents a further moment of choice, one on which depends our present peace and our eternal joy. We are called to deliberately make that choice.

Bob

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THE LOVE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

2011-10-04T11:58:00.004+01:00

“I delight in your commands because I love them” Ps 119:47

David was a “man after God’s own heart”. In Psalm 119 we see something of that heart. It’s a psalm well known as the longest of the psalms and as having for its main theme the commandments and precepts of God. It is much more, however, than a mere exhortation to obedience of those precepts. It is the overflowing expression of a heart which deeply loves those precepts, a heart that delights in the righteous ways of God, and a heart that is deeply grateful for those guiding statutes on the way to live.It's a heart in tune with God's heart.

Eight times in the psalm David uses the word “delight” in connection with the statutes and commands of God. He is delighted to read in God’s law the injunction to love his parents, keep himself from marital unfaithfulness, live at peace with others, tell the truth, keep himself from stealing, and be content with what he has. This is no “hard duty”, a pathway of life that is to be undertaken reluctantly and with gritted teeth. Neither is it an idealistic programme, an unrealistic and foolish aim in a cut throat world. It is, on the contrary, a delight. Elsewhere he says this way of life is the “joy of my heart”. He describes it as “wonderful”. He says categorically “you can keep all your money; it can never bring the delight that is given by this godly programme for real living”.

Isaiah speaks prophetically of Jesus (the greater David) in a precisely similar fashion, “He will delight in the fear of the Lord” Is. 11:3. The “fear of the Lord” is an expression linked directly in scripture to the commandments of God. This was the heart of the Son of God, therefore, a heart that delighted in God’s statutes, God’s prescribed ways for living an upright life.

Six times in Psalm 119 David uses an even stronger expression than “I delight in your law”, namely “I love your law”. In fact he says that the delight in the law comes out of his love for the law. He loves it “greatly”. To love something or someone is to pursue that object or person with dynamic eagerness. The “beloved” is the primary objective of life, and the love one feels is an overwhelming impetus in the direction of the “beloved”.

This inner “delight” and “love” of righteousness, felt at the depths of one’s being, is the real root of godly living. This and this alone, has the power to overcome all the other selfish tendencies that swarm around the human heart. This is what fills the human being with joy and satisfaction. This, to change the metaphor, is the “water of life”. It is, however, something that God alone can give. Isaiah, speaking of the delight that Jesus felt, made it clear it was there because “The Spirit of the Lord rested on Him”. Delight in and love for righteousness is an impartation of the heart of God by the working of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. That can only happen through full commitment to Jesus, who alone sends the Spirit.

It is this alone that is the hope for a godless, self-destructing world. It’s the hope we are called to share.

I haven’t given chapter and verse in writing of Ps. 119; may the Lord bless you if you decide to hunt down the quotes yourself.

Bob

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MOVING A BIG BOUNDARY STONE

2011-09-27T10:05:00.001+01:00

Lynne Featherstone is the Government Equalities Minister. She has recently got David Cameron onto her side to “push everyone from allies to adversaries to recognise what we know to be true”, namely that same sex partners have a right to be married. She has set out a timetable to bring it about by 2015.

Marriage is probably one of the biggest boundary stones we have for delineating the way we live. Now, after at least fifteen centuries (possibly from time immemorial!) this big stone is to be wrenched out of its position. The Romans and, before them, the Greeks, certainly knew about same sex relations, but I do not recall reading anywhere that they ever brought that sort of relationship into the category of marriage (which was well known, and established and honoured). I suspect that would have been anathema to them. They were too streetwise about the damage it might do to society. It’s astonishing that “what we know to be true” according to Ms. Featherstone has actually remained unknown for so long! Interestingly enough, according to the National Statistics Office, two thirds of people in the nation are reluctant to seeing such legislation enacted. They do not think it appropriate and are evidently not as convinced as the Minister might imagine!

The motive for this new development is largely in order that the legal benefits that are available in a marriage might be conferred on the partners in a same sex relationship. So, to gain this purely legal end, everything else that is wrapped up in the concept of marriage is to be ignored. This “everything else” is in fact very much more important than the legalities. At the very centre of marriage is the crucial concept that it is a union of one man and one woman, and that it is the union in which children are naturally born and nurtured with a balanced input from a man and a woman. It is a place where a child knows both its father and its mother. It is the place where the natural biological (and psychological) differences of man and woman find their proper fulfilment in a bond of love and family. Life long commitment is an essential part of this union. It is a creation ordinance of God, not a convenience of man. To play fast and loose with such an ordinance is to invite much trouble. It is a fundamental foundation of society and life. No, marriage is not just about legalities.

It is a very sad thing that Lynne Featherstone cannot see how deep the issue is. Sadder, still, that David Cameron, probably on a political wicket where he must find some points of contact with the Lib Dems, has to choose to support this issue. It was good to hear that a Church of England spokesman said, “Our view remains that a marriage is a lifelong relationship entered into by a man and a woman”. Unfortunately, at the same time, rather than cleave to its view, we learn that the Church has committed itself to a wider look at its approach to same sex relationships, and is ambivalent on whether it will allow its clergy to “marry” same sex partners in church. These caveats really mean that eventually we could see a capitulation by the Church rather than a fight for the real truth. The real danger is, of course, not from outside the Church but from opinion within. The outlook is not good.

The boundary stone of marriage has taken some severe knocks over recent decades simply by virtue of the fact that it has been neglected by a society which is both fearful of a possible negative outcome to marriage and also reluctant to take a committed responsibility. Instead it has opted to co-habit. That at least left the idea of marriage intact for those who wish to embrace it. This latest move, on the other hand, makes a mockery of marriage, and empties it of all its essential meaning. It simply makes the boundary stone irrelevant.

A few good well written letters to the Equalities Minister would not be out of place!

Bob

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THE PROPHETIC SIGNIFICANCE OF 9/11

2011-09-20T12:47:00.003+01:00

Once again I’m persisting with something which the blaze of the media spotlight has left, namely 9/11. Things get dated too quickly sometimes in the rush for the latest “spectacular”! I’m very happy to buck that trend, and particularly so because I said in last week’s column that sadly the prophetic aspect of 9/11 had received very little comment and I wanted to say something about it.

It seems very clear to me that whatever way you look at 9/11, and whatever you may see of courage and heroism etc. in it, it remains prophetic of the judgement of God. I pointed out in the new booklet that the destruction of the twin towers was a prophetic pointer to what would happen in the economic and financial world of America and the West as the years progressed. I also pointed out that the destruction of part of the Pentagon was prophetic of the military bruising that America and the West would similarly suffer. It was not just a one off event – it cast a long shadow over the future, and we remain under that shadow.

I realise, of course, that for many the very idea of judgement as being expressed in the happenings of that appalling event is anathema. For them such a thought seems to cheapen the human tragedy, the human pain and the horror of it all. It seems too callous, too hard. “If that is God, we don’t want to know”, is the response. Jeremiah, sitting and lamenting in the ruins and devastation of a Jerusalem burned with fire and with unburied corpses all around him, was intensely aware of the human tragedy of which he was part. He was equally intensely aware, however, that the cause of the tragedy was the persistent, godless sinfulness of that city. With a broken heart, he acknowledged judgement. He also acknowledged the utter need of God’s grace in the midst of it. He clung to God closer than ever, as he sat in the midst of the carnage of judgement.

It is fundamental to our Christian understanding of God that he judges sin; there is a present judgement on sin and there will be a final judgement on sin. Every bit of the bible makes that point very clear. It’s on this account Jesus came. But what does that judgement look like? It is here that 9/11 is so prophetic. 9/11 shows, in awful, devastating manner, what it can look like. It came swiftly, out of the blue (literally), when least expected. It came as an appalling cataclysm. It came with fire. It was utterly destructive, a total collapse of both towers. The agency and manner by which it came was utterly bizarre. It had the same characteristics as a Tsunami. This was no mere slap on the hand from an indulgent father; it was a searing, painful lash of the whip, and worse.

Why did it come? Amos is the best guide here. Two things at least stand out; national pride and economic exploitation. Both are abhorrent to God.

All this means that 9/11 brings us a prophetic challenge. It is a searching demand that we face up to the fact that the eternal God is a holy God, and that there is a day of reckoning both for individuals and for nations. Judgement is an awful reality, and will remain so. We have to take judgement much, much more seriously. We have to measure ourselves and our behaviour, not by our own human and earthly standards, but by the standards God requires. Our purpose on earth is not pleasure and riches, but to seek righteousness and integrity.

Unfortunately the prospects of the nations listening to such a challenge are not good. But God remains rich in mercy, even in the midst of judgement.

Bob

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9/11 - NEW BOOKLET

2011-09-13T11:48:00.000+01:00

During this week we will be putting on the website the material which forms a new booklet called “The Contemporary Countdown to Chaos – The Ten Years Since 9/11”. The Home Page will announce when it is actually on the site. You can, however, obtain the booklet now (free) by requesting a copy (give your postal address) at mail@understandingthetimes.org.uk It’s several months since I mentioned in this column a desire to produce this; it has not been an easy process, but at last it’s here.

It takes its inspiration from a pamphlet I wrote in c. 2003 called “Countdown to Chaos”. The pamphlet was a study of what happened to Israel in the intervening years between Amos’ warning of the devastation and exile of Israel, and the fulfilment of that warning some 20 years later. The study revealed a serious deterioration in the moral, political and social life of the nation during the countdown to that cataclysmic event. I suggested it might well point to the kind of deterioration we would see in our own nation, since we ourselves have been under a severe word of warning since the turn of this new century. This new booklet examines the decade from 9/11 to see whether a similar deterioration has been taking place in our own experience. The evidence that we are on such a downward slope is overwhelming.

The scope of the booklet is actually wider that our own nation, arguing that the western world makes up a group of nations all of which are under judgement in the same way that all the nations surrounding Israel were under the same judgement that Amos declared in his day. We see the U.S.A. as the primary nation of the group, and deterioration clearly written in her history.

The biblical features of the deterioration were 1. Futile Foreign Ventures; 2. Accelerated economic and social decline; 3. Political Corruption, Incompetence and Strife. 4. The Exclusion of God and Moral Degradation. The last decade is examined in the light of these features. It is, therefore, something of an historical survey (though brief). I make no apology for that, however, since we are living at a time when it is very important that we have in one hand the Bible and in the other an account of the times in which we are living. If we do not have the latter we may well be blinded to some very important aspects of the former.

I think it is providential that this booklet has been delayed until the tenth anniversary of 9/11. That event was the defining moment of the decade and, at least in one respect, set the agenda for the decade. The booklet looks at that issue. 9/11 was one of the most devastating prophetic statements that one could ever imagine of what was to come in the U.S. and the West. The tragedy is that, whilst it was accurately seen as a defining, world-changing moment, its prophetic significance has never been either seen of acknowledged. I would like to follow up that issue next week.

Bob

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9/11 VIVIDLY RECALLED

2011-09-05T19:53:00.003+01:00

Watching the replay this week of the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers instantly brought back the unbelievable horrors of that day. Every aspect, it seems, was recorded by some camera or audio recorder. I found the impact of the re-run of the footage intensely sobering. There was no need to go looking for some new aspect of the event as the media is always inclined to do. It was important simply to see again the main story.

The human aspect of it was the most horrific and the most sobering. Four plane loads of unsuspecting passengers, having been murderously hijacked, were deliberately used as highly lethal missiles. In three of them everyone was atomised on impact. We actually saw very clearly one of those impacts taking place! Nothing was left to the imagination. The stunned horror of the watching bystanders was recorded in detail. That horror worsened as the flames isolated hundreds of people trapped in the floors above the point of impact. And then it happened all over again as the second tower was hit by another plane.

Some 200 people jumped from the top floors to avoid incarceration. Their jumps were witnessed by those on the ground; a devastating horrifying sight. It was unbelievable, surreal; a disaster movie of the most lurid kind had come to life. Yet worse was to come; something that no one anticipated. The first tower began to collapse, and collapse very quickly in a huge cloud of dust and rubble. The shock of that to onlookers was enormous. Then the second tower followed suit. There was little or no hope for those still in them. Later it was learned that over 300 fire fighters were killed inside the towers as they were seeking to rescue others. People immediately outside the towers were filmed running for their lives, enveloped in a fast moving, suffocating and toxic cloud. It later came as no surprise, though with awful force, that nearly 3,000 people had died in the towers. Only some 200 or so bodies were identifiable, and of those only a handful was recognisable.

It was a human horror story, an ultimate human tragedy. It was a tragedy indeed for those who were killed. It was also a tragedy for humanity generally in that it revealed once again just how deluded and deranged humanity itself could be in using its talents and sophistication to bring about such cynical and murderous actions, and, in watching it, actually applaud it. It had taken some two hours to unfold. It would change perspectives for a very long time to come.

And this was in New York, New York on what began as a normal working day. This was the capital of the world’s greatest superpower! Separated from the rest of the world by two vast oceans, it was the dominating, invulnerable, proud new empire of the turn of the century. The iconic centre of the trade on which it was built had been demolished in what was virtually a moment of time.

And the whole world watched it as it was actually happening on television screens. This was a truly horrifying aspect. One is tempted to say this aspect was unique, but unfortunately this is not strictly true. The world’s disasters, of whatever kind, are all now watched instantly. We are not told about them, we see them. And there have been many of them now.

Utterly sobering; that is my reaction. By that I mean, you just have to stop and think hard and deep about it. You just have to wrestle with the hard questions that arise. You can’t really go back to the old round of giddy pleasures burying your head at such a reminder of human vulnerability. We have to ask, “What am I doing with my life?”, “Am I accountable for my life?” It’s a very foolish thing to write off questions of life after death merely on the basis of materialistic ideology. For us, life now has to go on, of course, despite the horror, but it is so desperately important to wrestle with the question of what life is about, and why these things happen. Not just at the human level but at the divine level. What was God saying through this? Where was God in this? There’s certainly far more to this than the story of evil people against the good, even if that may be part of it.

Bob

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FURIOUS PLANET

2011-08-30T12:05:00.002+01:00

There will be a great many Americans who will be giving God sincere thanks for the deliverance from a full scale disaster from Hurricane Irene. There will be many petitions, too, for the many for whom the hurricane did spell disaster. The pictures were distressing to watch, very reminiscent of the Tsunami scenes. None the less, there was a deliverance – the wholesale flooding of Manhattan does not bear thinking about; it would have made the New Orleans’ tragedy seem small. But it was a close shave. The vulnerability of the U.S. continues to be highlighted, even though the grace of God stilled the fury of the storm.

We live on a very dangerous planet. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, not to mention asteroids, all make it at best uncertain, at worst terrifying. God made it that way! Why? By contrast, the new creation will be very different; for one thing, as Revelation tells us, “There will be no more sea”. That removes a great source of danger, something that has taken untold numbers of lives – it was the danger New York faced! The fireball of the sun will be replaced by the light of God Himself. That removes the fire element that still burns dangerously at the heart of our planet. So why do we live with such danger now? Why is the planet like it is, a dangerous place?

I have often reflected on that issue, and I have come to the conclusion that in the great wisdom of God the very planet itself (and even the universe) was made in such a way as to remind a sinful race of the appalling dangers spiritually that surrounds it. When a redeemed race comes to populate a new creation such reminders will not be necessary, and the new creation will not have them. Put another way, there will be no need for the new creation to reflect in anyway the danger of the anger of God since it will be a place with people who have come to a full redemption through the work of Jesus. If it doesn’t have to reflect the anger of God big changes can take place.

Take the sea again. From one perspective it is a phenomenon of great beauty, and it speaks of the vastness and power of its creator. From another perspective it can be seen, as one writer put it, as “The Cruel Sea”. It is merciless and destructive. It can be whipped up into a fury. Humanity cannot survive in it. More than that, it is referred to in Scripture as the “abyss”, a term for hell itself. The very creatures that live in its depths are gruesome and grotesque, not to say ferocious and devouring. They reflect the denizens of hell. This is a picture in creation itself of something very real, but something to be aware of and avoid. It has a clear spiritual message for humanity in its present sinful predicament – it is surrounded by the appalling danger of a spiritual abyss.

Or take the sun. Again it speaks of the glory of God; it provides us with light and life. But at the same time it is highly dangerous to humanity if treated without respect. It’s the sun’s rays that control the weather and create the storms that bring distress. Those rays can bring a powerful message, if required, about the spiritual condition of humanity and its rejection of God. In fact the very structure of the creation brings us warnings from all directions, warnings that have been verbalised in the written revelation to the effect that we need to make peace with our Creator.

That is why the lessening of the hurricane into a storm as it neared New York needs to be seen as a mark of the grace of God; it was precisely measured to spare, yet to warn of the need to get back to the ways of God

Bob

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A CHRISTIAN CONTRIBUTION to A DIFFICULT PROBLEM

2011-08-23T12:58:00.004+01:00

There was considerable media comment on the U.K. city riots at the week-end, largely focussed on what caused them, and what can be done to prevent them. It’s important that discussions on these questions continue, preferably out of the media and in a non-partisan, non-prejudiced co-operative spirit. There’s a huge amount to be learned, and no simple answers.

I was heartened by the fact that in some articles there seemed to be a readiness to come away from previous polarised positions and accept the complexity of the situation. The classic socialist view has always been that the real problem is the economic disenfranchisement of an underclass of people (something which globalisation has aggravated in our generation). We have a sink of unskilled, unemployed, frustrated younger people, who are battered by an advertising, “life style” media telling them they must have this and must have that, when their pockets are simply unable to fund them. That is socially explosive. Traditionally the answer has been thought to lie in government policy of redistribution of income toward the poor. While this viewpoint contains an important truth, it is more and more seen as not being whole truth.

The more conservative view has, on the other hand, tended to see the issue as fundamentally a moral issue – a breakdown in family, a loss of basic moral, social values, a degeneration of humanity for which moral input and strong control is essential. Again, happily, its proponents, some at least, have begun to see that though this is important, it is, again, not the whole truth. There is a realisation that people ghettoed into high rise blocks from which there is little escape, being fed a daily diet of violent behaviour and pornography by the media, constantly living financially on the edge, are going to develop a “fight for survival”, “grab what you can” amoral culture that burns angrily all the ime and passes from one generation to another.

The Christian church is by no means “flavour of the month” in such modern discussions – indeed Christian morality is a bit of a “red rag” to the social thinking bull. That should not put us off. The Christian church has a huge contribution to make to the problem. Its history is full of testimony and examples of such contributions. That history is not so much one of social ideas pedalled at government and political level, (though the career of Lord Shaftsbury, for example, demonstrates it has had high level legislative impact), but one of “on the ground”, direct, personal and practical involvement in these socially deprived areas. At the end of the day legislation does not produce culture change though it may help; direct personal involvement has proved itself much more effective in bringing about culture change.

My mind turned to such figures as F. B. Meyer, a 19th century prince of preachers who had his church in Leicester in a down town area, but alongside his church also had a factory where he provided employment for men making sticks of firewood. He directed other activities which were geared to producing a sense of self-worth. Victorian society was full of deprived areas, and a great many Christian workers dedicated themselves to those areas with practical strategies. William Booth, and the Salvation Army were, of course, household names and they operated with the same combination of social relief and the preaching of moral values. It was not just famous figures, however. There were a great many clergy and other individuals, known and unknown, who took on churches, missions and relief work and considered such work as a high vocation. It's not just in the past, either! This is a calling and an opportunity that will always be open so long as such needs are with us. Thankfully it a calling to which many still make response. The need is very much there.

It is in the midst of deep social need and degradation that the church and its gospel for the poor can be seen at its best – if and when it makes direct contact with that need.

It is also so very important to remember that in the midst of deprived areas there are many people who do have moral standards and great integrity and for whom a church on the ground can be a massive support.

Bob

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BANKRUPTCY

2011-08-16T15:57:00.007+01:00

It has been three weeks since I wrote a column (and I apologise that I was unable to do a column last week as intended), and what a torrid three weeks they have been. The spotlight has been on the near financial collapse of certain European nations and the euro, the raising of the U.S. national debt ceiling to over $14 trillion, and the U.K. riots. And all this followed on from News of the World scandal of late July! The theme that runs through all these chaotic events is one of bankruptcy, financial and moral; we have been hitting some devastating “lows”. The problems will quickly move from the News Headlines, but they won’t move so quickly from our society.

The lasting legacy from the 2008 financial crash is the awful spectre of bankruptcy that now stalks the nations of the western world. For some ten years those western nations, and their people, lived on seemingly never-ending debt in a huge bubble of spending. The bankers played with the debt and made huge profits. Now the bubble has burst, the accumulated debt simply hangs like a great crippling ball on the feet of people everywhere and particularly on those sovereign nations who have had to step in and take on the debts accumulated by banks and financial houses through their appalling malpractices. Consequently national debt in all western nations stands at an appalling and unprecedented level. It simply has to be contained; we can’t live with national deficits and growing debt any more. At last the penny has dropped. This stands in sharp contrast to China and Middle Eastern countries which have gained massive savings through financing our debt. Debt means poverty, and we are poor.

This debt problem is not helped by the fact that the 2008 crash slowed down the economy, making large holes in national tax revenue when increases are desperately needed. No one quite knows how to get the economy going again – we can’t spend our way out of it – that means more debt. And while people generally recognise the need for cuts in national expense, they naturally don’t respond kindly to the cuts which touch them personally. It’s a politician’s nightmare! Obama has been badly wounded by the political quarrels surrounding the raising of the U.S. debt ceiling, Sarkosy of France and Merkel of Germany have yet to fully resolve the very difficult euro crisis, and George Osborne, the U.K. Chancellor, can only keep his head down and hope the massive dangers abroad don’t reach him. The ball of debt is firmly chained to all these nations, however, and when one falls (or the euro falls!) we are all likely to fall together.

The riots across the U.K. have revealed another kind of bankruptcy; a bankruptcy of moral and social conscience amongst a violent underclass at the bottom of our society for whom life offers little hope or purpose; an underclass bereft of disciplined family role models and locked into violent acquisitive role models. This has always been a recurring problem of city life and impersonal economic systems, and has a multiplicity of roots. The young teenage aspect is very distressing. Clearly, putting down riots, and forcibly if necessary, is expected from government. But we all know that, though necessary, it only puts a temporary lid on a very difficult issue. Much will be written and said – and that’s good!

Fortunately the rioting has also thrown up a rich vein of real social and moral consciousness among many, even among the victims. There was nothing to match the stature of the older Muslim gentleman in Birmingham who, having heard of the wanton killing of his favourite son, deliberately turned his back on anything of vengeance and pleaded with his neighbours and others from different cultures not to escalate the violence but to act for the quiet restoration of peace. As I thought about him I seemed to hear the loving words of Jesus, “Son, you are not far from the Kingdom of Heaven”. That man was anything but bankrupt. The same could be said of those who were spotlighted because they work among the underclass with incredible patience, sacrifice and compassion to try to reform. It is with these kind of people that future hope rests, when press and politicians have moved on.

What those people are doing propmpts me to say:
“Let your light so shine among men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven”.
That is Jesus' word to every individual living in dark times.

Bob

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2011-07-26T13:13:00.002+01:00

Please note that the next "Column" will be posted on Tuesday, 9th August.

Bob

LETHAL FALL OUT

2011-07-19T13:28:00.003+01:00

We’ve all learned only too well about the disastrous secondary effects of explosions, volcanic or otherwise. Radiation from cracked nuclear reactors made things horribly worse after the Tsunami in North Japan, and the leaking oil from the BP undersea explosion didn’t just waste vast quantities of oil but, far worse, polluted vast areas of ocean, destroying its marine life.

The explosion of scandal which has destroyed the News of the World is already, in less than a week, following this pattern and reverberating in other critically important public areas of the nation. It is clearly set to cause massive pollution and destruction beyond itself. As with the escape of the BP oil this it is incredibly difficult to contain, even if there are many involved in frantic efforts to head it off and save their skin.

The fall out has already gone well beyond the demise of just one newspaper and has invaded the News International media empire; Rupert Murdoch has already lost his ambitious dream of owning BskyB, and there is a shaking of even his American corporate fortress. To change the metaphor, he has a massive personal bush fire to put out, if he can!

But others, on a much wider and more important front, have been caught up in the fall out, most spectacularly the Metropolitan Police, which stands accused of failing to get a grip on the phone hacking. This is not simply because it has shown incompetence, but because its senior officers have been involved in hugely damaging relationships with some of those senior staff of the News of the World who clearly were operating in a culture of corruption. So both the Commissioner of the Met. and his Assistant have resigned within 24 hrs of each other and with critical policing tasks (including the Olympics) on their desks. This Newspaper “Tsunami” really is running a long, long way up the beach!

How far will it go? There are those who are hoping and plotting that it will actually overrun David Cameron, the Prime Minister, and leave him beached like the Police Chiefs. He, too, was over-familiar with the corrupt News of the World leadership and has mud sticking to him that can be exploited. This sadistic scenario can be justified as a “political opportunity for the Opposition” and fair game. David Cameron comes back from Africa to build his breakwater even as I write. It will be his biggest test yet.

The fact is we don’t know quite how far it will all go, but what we do know is that there is a massive “shaking” going on of national leadership. It has been happening for some time now and has already engulfed the financial world. Now it’s the world of political leaders and the forces of law and order. I wonder who will be next. All this comes at a time when what we desperately need is firm, clear and unimpeded national statesmanship, both at home and abroad. It is all too reminiscent of the chaotic historical state of affairs in Israel in the years following Amos’ prophetic word of national judgement.

There’s a good side to all this: it is an opportunity to clean out some very dank areas of corruption in our national life. I pray God may be in this process, and that it will be done. There is a dark side to all this: the growing confusion and dislocation of proper government is exposing more than ever the appalling fall in the nation’s moral standards, for all of this comes out, not of wrong policies, but of corrupt individual behaviour. That is not something God will overlook.

Bob

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"AS YOU SOW .... "

2011-07-12T13:22:00.003+01:00

“As you sow, so shall you reap.”

“Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.”

The words quoted are two fundamental principles on which the world operates; the world is designed this way, and nothing will change it. These principles are so profoundly simple (as God’s ways are) that all may understand them, and they provide absolute basic wisdom for living. This week has brought an appalling example of the truth of their warning.

The News of the World newspaper lived on scandal; it died from scandal. One might argue that the hacking scandal which killed it was probably the biggest of the scandals that marked out the lurid course of its history. Sowing to the wind, it reaped the whirlwind; so quick to put the dagger mercilessly into people who were caught up in scandal, it found itself in less than a week pierced through by scandal and gone, the most popular Sunday newspaper gone. A just nemesis!

“The most popular Sunday newspaper” is the title it earned by virtue of its much larger circulation than any other Sunday paper. Why was that? An edition of “The Times” put fifty “News of the World” front pages as a border to a number of its pages. All, apart from the earliest, had massive and course headlines for the most unsavoury acts of behaviour, and clearly majored on sexual scandal. No person, not even royalty, escaped the pointing finger and the screaming accusations. This was the source of its popularity. The “Times” (a sister paper to the “News of the World”) was not using them to reprimand the “News of the World”, of course, but to cynically use them to liven up its own copy for the day. What a comment on our own society!

A “Times” editorial, commenting on the paper’s demise, bleated on about the importance of a free popular press for democracy, of the importance of telling everybody what the few knew etc. etc. How sad, it said, that the paper had gone! But scandal mongering is never in the public interest; it simply panders to the worst in human nature. It is a compete denial to the sort of responsible attitude that true democracy demands of its free press.

How could the perpetrators of the hacking have imagined that they would always get away with their illegal and callous activity? Their arrogance and hubris is simply mind blowing; sin always blinds, however. It was a re-run of the behaviour of the bankers, and of M.P.s with their expenses. It’s a disease of the age. As one letter writer to the Times pointed out, it’s all pointing to a dangerous and increasing level of corruption within society. Society needs to take a long look at itself, not to offload guilt on to the “bad few”.

Interestingly enough, the News of the World was brought down by the newspaper world’s new rival, the Website, Face-book, Twitter world. This put the pressure on the advertisers to pull out of the paper, and so rendered it “toxic”. Where will this new media world end up, one wonders? Thank God it blew the whistle on this outrage.

Bob

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A THOUGHT FROM WIMBLEDON

2011-07-05T11:39:00.007+01:00

Many of the prophetic pictures or visions which the prophets of the Old Testament received were very simple. Amos saw a bowl of ripe fruit and was simply told Israel was ripe for judgement; he also saw a plumb line against a wall and was told God would spare the nation no longer. It’s actually the very simplicity of the images that makes them very pointed. It’s the same with prophetic actions: Jeremiah was told to buy a clay pot and then to break it in front of the elders of Jerusalem to tell them what God would do to their city. Jesus himself uses the simplest of images for the most important of truths.

I was not, then, really surprised by what seemed a rather simple episode from the Wimbledon tennis. One afternoon, during a ladies match, there was an outburst of thunder and some torrential rain. The only match playable was on the Centre Court where the glass roof had been closed. The rain pounded the roof and seemed desperate to get inside. Only a few drops managed to get through. Apparently the players were unable to hear the ball hit their rackets (a great distraction according to the experts). Very disconcerting!

As I watched this I immediately thought, “This is a picture of God trying to get a hearing, trying to say something to a very engrossed people. He’s desperate to get a hearing, but he’s kept out by a protective glass roof. The people are hearing but not listening”. The crowd seemed to typify people everywhere in the nation, for the rich, the great and the good were there and vast numbers of people across the nation were of course watching on their screens. It was quite a strong thought, but perhaps I might have given it no further attention except that a few seconds later one of the commentators remarking on the storm said, “Somebody somewhere is not very happy about something!", and he was quite clearly alluding to the author of the weather! The commentator had also significantly discerned a note of anger in the storm. My response was very quick, “Too right he’s not!”

A further thought, however, had also been going through my mind before this incident, namely that I felt so grateful to God that he had given us physical bodies and also sorts of thing to do with them (like games) that gave great human pleasure to so many. So there was nothing fundamentally wrong at all with tennis. The tennis was OK, then, but the problem lay in what was happening to the humanity at large that was watching it. The problem was, of course, that it had switched off from God, supposed him to be in a sense irrelevant to life and was not ready to grasp things that were essential to real well-being in life. Tennis and so many other pleasures had become the absolute centre of life; pleasure was the goal and the god.

It was the “glass roof” that really laid bare the problem; this elaborate and expensive protection against anything that might interfere with the game, with the pleasure. It was so hard to penetrate. It was as though the nation had an elaborate, hard, glass roof over it – a roof of indifference, built out of sophisticated thinking and sophisticated pleasure. No way in for God! He would have to smash the roof, and even then there was no certainty that the people would listen.

Oh, well, just a simple thought? I wish that was all it was, but sadly it rang too deep a bell.

Bob

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THE OUTSIDER

2011-06-28T13:05:00.002+01:00

Early on in his prophetic ministry Jeremiah gave vent to the following words, “To whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me? Their ears are closed so that they cannot hear. The word of the Lord is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it. But I am full of the wrath of the Lord and I cannot hold it in.” (Jer. 6:10). He was still a very young man when he said this, and had expected to be heard and thanked for his timely warning about the state of his nation and the danger it faced of judgement. He received precisely the opposite. Apart from a few companions, he was rejected, persecuted and remained so for the rest of his life. He was always an outsider to his nation.

The prophetic burden for his nation, however, burned strong and deep within, and he could never escape from it. The sin was all too plainly there in the nation, laid bare before his eyes – “From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike (all those leaders who should have known better), all practice deceit. They dress the wounds of my people as though it were not serious”. (6:11) But still he could find no audience ready to listen to his warning. He suffered a great deal of hurt and despair, and increasingly so as the years passed.

Much later on in his ministry he remonstrated with the people with these words, “For twenty three years the word of the Lord has come to me and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened.” (Jer. 25:3)He had persisted with warnings of judgement, his ministry reflecting the enormous patience of the Lord much more perhaps than his own. But his word to the nation had not really penetrated. Indeed the resistance had grown harder, and now his word, prompted by God, was to become much more severe until judgement and disaster actually fell on Judah and the surrounding nations. He lived to see it happen all round him, still the outsider.

Some fifty two long chapters of the book of Jeremiah record this daunting ministry and this daunting episode of history. These were not given to us simply for historical interest, but as a record of God’s awesome dealings with nations – as important today as they ever were. Tragically the response to them is very much the same as it was in Jeremiah’s day. Even our “priests and prophets”, let alone our national leaders, treat the clear message of judgement in these chapters as outside the pale of modern acceptable thinking. They are branded as “fundamentalist” or “immoral”. For me that very fact makes them all the more relevant and incisive. It utterly verifies what this prophetic book has to say, and makes hugely relevant Jeremiah’s cry of, “Who will listen?”

God himself knows the “outsiders”, and walks with them, for that is where the nation has sought to place even him.

Bob

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CHRISTIANITY AND WORLD PEACE

2011-06-21T13:10:00.004+01:00

It will never be possible for Christians for the sake of peace to compromise their proclamation of a resurrected Lord Jesus who was crucified for the forgiveness of sin. Neither can they compromise their commitment to a godly life lived in the power of the Holy Spirit and walking in the commandments of God. Indeed Jesus spoke plainly of the strife that such faith would bring and the need to face persecution.

However, one thing stands out very clearly in the teaching of Jesus; whilst we may be persecuted and suffer violence from others, whether political or religious, our calling can never be one of violence. It is totally contrary to the spirit of genuine Christianity to advance its cause in that manner. Wherever that may have been done in the past it has always been an offence to the gospel. It will have happened usually because some political force or person has hijacked and used Christianity for its own worldly ends, or because Christians have sold out to political powers rather than curb them.

Three statements of Jesus in particular make this position of non-violence very evident. First, there was an occasion when Jesus went through a Samaritan village and was shunned by the villagers. The disciples wanted to call down fire on them (expressive of their own untutored and bitter religious hatred). Jesus rebuked them with the words, “You do not know what spirit you are of.” (Lk 9:51). Second, he taught, “Bless those who persecute you” (Matt 5:28). Third, he told Pilate, “My Kingdom is not of this world. If it were my servants would fight to prevent my arrest” (Jn. 18:36). With these statements Jesus flatly turned his back on violence and coercion.

Thus, whilst Jesus never compromised in what he preached nor mollified the warnings he gave to those who refused his offer of salvation, he also never threatened violence. There was nothing in his message that sought to dominate, no words or threats of physical violence for those who would not toe the line. That was not his “spirit”. He was proclaiming a Kingdom of love, and that demanded a totally voluntary response of heart, not a slavish response of fear. He required no savage punishment for anyone blaspheming him; on the contrary he died a criminal’s death on a cross for sinners.

This represents an absolutely fundamental principle that, as far as true Christianity is concerned, “religious” differences are not to be settled by the sword (or the gun). Jesus left people free to choose, even if they chose the false. They were then left with the consequences of their own choice. That is the way of the Kingdom. It is this principle that has to find its way into the world of religious differences in the modern world if we are to know peace. It is this principle that the disciples of Jesus must not only teach, but live out. This is the principle upon which alone true tolerance can be found. We are to live and let live, and allow God to be the judge.

The modern process of trying to blur the distinctives of religions is not a viable way forward to peace; adopting a position of tolerance such as is at the heart of the Christian faith is the only viable way, though one may question the ability of the human heart and of human religion to walk it!

Bob

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RAY OF HOPE?

2011-06-14T12:01:00.006+01:00

I have recently read two separate articles in a leading reputable newspaper by columnists both of whom have raised the same question, “Why do the public want to ascribe moral traits to their heroes?” In other words, why is the public concerned about morality?

The question was prompted by the string of high profile sportsmen, particularly in the field of golf and football, who have been exposed in their lurid and persistent adulterous behaviour. There was something of a public surge of judgemental anger against such behaviour, and particularly over the blatant treatment of their wives; it was not acceptable behaviour; it was wrong. The anger and the reproach found expression is such vivid tabloid phrases as “love rat” and “love cheat” by which each culprit was bitingly described. Even though the glossy gossip magazines dropped on the stories like unclean vultures on carrion, the underlying condemnation was evident. Something much better was evidently expected in the character of such gifted people.

The first of the columnist I read clearly belonged to the “intelligentsia”. He openly declared that he simply could not understand why people should get upset about these antics. For him it meant that people simply had not yet grown up; they had not moved into the educated and enlightened modern world where people could be free in their behaviour. If I understand his argument aright he saw the outcry as retrogressive behaviour in our developing civilised culture.

The second columnist was a sports writer. He pointed out that these sportsmen had been given a “squeaky” clean image by those business companies who used their famous profile in their advertising. The public was taken in, and should have realised that they were just ordinary men. The public expected too much of their heroes. It was absurd to get upset. They needed to adjust their expectations and (presumably) take it rather more casually.

Actually there may well be a real ray of hope here. My answer to the question is that the response of the public to such behaviour seems to indicate that there is still a basic public moral conscience that is active. If that is true it is good news! I don’t think the public have been conned by the advertisers at all. There is a deep public feeling here that if you are going to be looked up to in any way, you have to back it up by your personal life. If as a person you are shown to be deceitful, unfaithful and promiscuous, then you don’t really deserve to be looked up to. It is certainly the established fact, as the advertisers have discovered to their cost, that if the pin-up star advertising your product gets tarnished then he (or she!) ceases to attract buyers for your product. That in itself indicates that moral misbehaviour produces a massive fall in public esteem. If there is, therefore, a public conscience still, then there is some hope for society, despite the avant guard intelligentsia. There is precious little conscience evident among the latter, for which the very word “conscience” is a dirty word.

What is surprising about this public conscience is that it should still exist in our world of visual and written media which peddles in the most coarse and repulsive manner all the adultery, affairs, promiscuity and pornography that it can lay its hands on, and which the same public are soaking in day after day. It is astonishing that the same public can see and read all this, and yet retain an underlying sense that this is wrong. Why is that? It is not because we are just slow in throwing off old shackles; it is because the God given sense of right and wrong is so fundamentally a part of us as human beings. Thank God for that – there is still something for the Holy Spirit to work on in bringing conviction of sin.

Conscience can be cauterised, of course, and it can be found so nullified in so many of the movers and shakers of our society, in those who lead and steer public opinion. They will always remain puzzled by the question, “Why do the public want to ascribe moral traits to their heroes?” I just thank God the public still do! Pray God that they may continue to do so.

Bob

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PENTECOST AND THE NATIONS

2011-06-07T12:37:00.006+01:00

There was very little delay between the physical ascension of Jesus, with his assumption of all power and authority on the throne of God, and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost – just ten days. His earthly ministry had been wonderful, but now Jesus launched his new ascended ministry, no longer a ministry confined only to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel”, but a world-wide ministry to all the nations. He launched not only his world vision, but also poured out the enabling Spirit by which it was to be achieved. Two thousand years later the vision remains and the Spirit continues to be outpoured. Jesus is as active as he ever has been; he continues to see the fruit of the “travail of his soul” at Calvary and is satisfied. And he will continue until the nations and this creation are fully restored.

There are a number of background strands to the Feast of Pentecost, one major one of which is that it marked the beginning of the wheat harvest. It was a harvest festival, and an ingathering of first fruits. This thought was very evident in Luke’s description of the event in the book of Acts, a fact not surprising considering that he himself, a Gentile, was part of the widespread harvest that was being reaped in his time, a harvest in which he himself in fact was a worker. When he heard from fellow Christians what had happened at Pentecost he was not slow to pick up its vast spiritual implications, and especially its inauguration of world mission, world harvest.

Luke makes the point very clearly that at Pentecost “there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5). He emphasises the point by actually listing some of the prominent nations. The largest part his account of Pentecost in Acts 2 is then devoted to how three thousand of this great international throng were gathered into the Kingdom by Peter preaching in the power of the Spirit. Here was an astonishing in-gathering, a real show of spiritual first fruits being displayed in the Temple area. These converts were a great prophetic statement of what was to come among the nations.

Similarly Luke finds real prophetic significance in the way in which the group of disciples on whom the Spirit fell began to speak out in “other tongues”. Though they did not understand the tongues themselves, the “Jews from every nation” quickly recognised the tongues as the actual languages of the nations in which they had settled. Here was a scene where God was being praised in all the languages of the world. No greater prophetic act could be imagined to make the point that a harvest was to be reaped world-wide. The gift of tongues was never a random “ecstatic utterance”; it was always (and still remains) a major prophetic sign of a time when God would be praised in every tribe and nation.

Nothing of the chaos and judgements that engulf the world in which we live will prevent the process of ingathering and restoration which Pentecost inaugurated, for Jesus continues to reign. When the fullness of the Gentiles is gathered in the ascended Lord will himself bring things to a close. Even if the Western world succumbs to a flood of secularism or worse, even in the midst of that a harvest will be reaped.

Our great calling at this time is to be caught up both in the vision of Pentecost and its empowerment.

Bob

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“BE WARNED, YOU RULERS OF THE EARTH”

2011-05-31T12:39:00.002+01:00

A Thought from Psalm 2

Thursday of this week is Ascension Day, the Day when Jesus assumed his rightful place at the right hand of His Father on the throne of God. Psalm 2, prophetically pointing to the ascension of Jesus, proclaims, “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill”. Before and after this proclamation, the psalm powerfully admonishes the nations: “Be warned you rulers of the earth”; “serve the LORD with fear”; “Kiss the Son lest he be angry”. Thus God speaks to the nations to respect Him and his Son “lest they be destroyed in their own self chosen paths”. The whole psalm relates the ascension to the nations of the world.

The Ascension underlines a vital truth we need to grasp firmly in this generation of ours; the nations and their leaders are ultimately ruled from a throne in heaven, not from any throne(s) on earth. They are held accountable at a heavenly court. The standard He requires of them is the standard of righteousness, and that is a righteousness that can only be learned from obedience to Him. The reward for trying to break the “bonds” of righteousness and turning their back on him to pursue their own selfish interests is to feel his wrath.

We are also reminded that God watches the conspiring and the plotting that goes on among the nations in their striving and scrambling for power, for hegemony and for control, and “He laughs,” one might say in paraphrase, “in utter disbelief at the futility of their efforts”. The rulers do not mock God, whatever their comments of unbelief; God mocks them.

The secular sophisticated intelligentsia of the 21st century dismiss such a view with impatient and utter contempt. They have no intention of letting God into any discussion about the state of the nations. To them He is dead. He cannot have anything to offer. They are, therefore, exactly the sort of persons to whom the admonitions of the psalm are made! And yet around them, piled high on every side, is massive evidence of the unspeakable deceit, hypocrisy, ambition, naked greed and violence of so many of those who rule the world around us, who have no fear of God, and who are in fact presiding over a world torn with tragedy, war, famine, disease, terror and brutality. They watch as the human self-destruct button is being pushed every day in this world of ours, with the main motivation of its leaders being personal aggrandisement. And still they refuse to acknowledge the majestic simplicity of the truth that God and His Son rule with judgement amongst the human beings he has created.

In the midst of this carnage, however, God moves toward an ultimate purpose when the nations will be given to the Son as an inheritance (Ps2,v.8). This is also a major theme underlying the Ascension. Each day, even in the midst of his judgements, thousands of people are in fact acknowledging Jesus as Lord and King, people who will become part of that totally new scenario when the nations are redeemed, and the ascended King brings his rule in all its fullness to the earth.

There are, of course, many other magnificent themes to the Ascension (just as there are so many magnificent Ascension hymns). But the Ascension vision of Jesus as Lord of the nations, as the enthroned “Lamb” who alone has the seals which open the future of this world (Rev. 6) is such a welcome vista in this increasingly tormented world of ours.

It assures us of an ear to our praying and of merciful intervention.

Bob

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“UNGODLY FREE-FOR-ALL”

2011-05-24T12:51:00.003+01:00

The nation has been presented with an appalling pantomime this week. A large number of significant figures in all walks of life have been covering up their adulterous activities with legal injunctions and super-injunctions on the basis of their right to privacy. The media, and even the general public on Twitter, have been trying to rip off this legal cloak and indulge in scandal on the basis of the right of freedom of speech. What a commentary on the state of our society!

That there should be such widespread “affairs” is a shame on any society. Historically infidelity has, of course, always been there, a privilege for the rich, a squalid curse for the poor. One has to think only of the Restoration under Charles 11. Riches and fame seem only to encourage it, and the celebrity culture appears to prove that in our own day. What a mockery! “Sin is a reproach to any nation”. Ours is widespread and blatant.

That the legal system should be used to cover up such behaviour is, it seems to me, an abuse of law and justice. That cannot be right. It is there to expose and correct destructive behaviour. It’s almost as though the law is being bought. (How much does an injunction cost anyway, I wonder?). The exposure of unfaithfulness in society is one of the ways in which society can keep a restraint on those who undermine society by behaving in such a manner. We are all susceptible to the reproof of our fellows, and rightly so.

Scandal makes news and sells newspapers. It’s a money spinner. It does so because it panders to a very unwholesome streak in human nature – the love of gossip and the delight in seeing someone being brought down or humiliated. It has a nasty fascination. At one time scandal was actually frowned upon as indecent – not today – it’s now the real stuff of news! It can be nationwide, overnight.

One wonders which is the worse sin, the affair itself or the widespread indulgence, especially by the media, in the sordidness of the story of the affair. Every detail, of course, has to be minutely examined, every headline has to be a loud megaphone. Perhaps the greatest irony of the situation is that the media and the literary culture of our day are themselves the greatest influence for the encouragement of such affairs. They provide a never ending torrent of visual and verbal sexual aberration that is bound to encourage degradation.

There are sections of the press which maintain they do not want to scandalise in their pages but sincerely just want to report truth. I shall be ready to believe the sincerity of that only when I see a discreet report of a divorce reluctantly reported in low key in a remote part of the publication!

So what do the judges and Parliament do now about a Privacy Law? The cry is for a new one. But there are some things that you simply cannot legislate for. There is no law that can function without certain boundaries in moral behaviour. "You don’t kill, you don’t steal" – we can legislate for that. "You can’t gossip in public" – we certainly can’t legislate for that, if the gossip is true. We can only legislate for defamation of character where gossip is based on a lie.

We certainly don’t need a law that will cover up unpleasant activity; what we really need is a national resurgence of moral decency. We need a return to decency and to restraint. Moral resurgence calls for spiritual resurgence, but we have set our faces against that!

Bob

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CRUMBLING FOUNDATIONS

2011-05-17T11:19:00.004+01:00

In Psalm 12:3 David asks a searching question; “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” There could not be a more appropriate question for the times in which we live.

I do not think for a moment that he had economic or political problems in his mind. He was not primarily looking for answers to an economic collapse or a dangerous political impasse, though both may well have been present in the nation. The foundations he was concerned about were much deeper than economics or political concepts. He was looking at the moral foundations of society. It was those that were being destroyed, destroyed by wilful self interest, lustful behaviour and gross acquisitiveness. He knew perfectly well that if these foundations were crumbling there could be no sound economic or political life anyway. Sound economics.demand human trust and where this was undermined by power, deceit and greed economic life went “pear shaped”. It was the same with politics. Human behaviour is the ultimate foundation of society.

No, the problem was a moral problem, a problem of ordinary human behaviour, the sort of behaviour that destrpys positive human relationships. It’s a problem that springs out of lying and deceiving, stealing, acting aggressively and violently, indulging in permissive and adulterous behaviour. David was watching the real foundations of society being destroyed by an increase of this kind of behaviour. So are we, in our generation, and especially by the behaviour of the rich, the clever, the famous and the media who instead of giving a good example, lead the degenerate parade.

“What can the righteous do?” in the face of such a godless flood. The answer to that is primarily to “flee to the LORD”. It is to seek personal righteousness and godliness in a very definite manner. It is to seek to be a strong stake that can hold things together in our own corner. It’s a call to real holiness. It’s a call to seek God for wisdom, courage and sheer grace.

There is actually another way of rendering Ps 12:3; “When the foundations are being destroyed, what is the Righteous One doing?” In other words, “What is God doing?” David is quite clear about one thing here; “He, God, observes the sons of men, his eyes examine them” Ps.12:4. He keeps a close watch on it all. People may well say “There is no God; we will throw off the shackles of restraint”, but every deed is noted on High. He loves the righteous person, the one who trusts in him and fears his ways; he hates evil and reluctantly but surely moves toward a day of reckoning.

Be strong in godliness!

Bob

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“THE ROD OF MY ANGER”

2011-05-10T09:57:00.004+01:00

So Osama Bin Laden has been killed. What are we to think of him, his death and the terror he spawned? What of the future? A biblical parallel from the Prophets might help here.

Isaiah the prophet was speaking to Israel and Judah at a time when those two nations were facing attacks and threats from what could have been justly called the “evil empire” of the era, Assyria. Assyria was a byword for terror with its cruelty, ruthlessness, wanton killing, violence and plunder. It was godless (though full of idols), and cared nothing for Israelite religion. It lived by plunder and the sword, and inevitably it was doomed to die by plunder and the sword. It had to be resisted at all costs, and right would prevail.

Isaiah saw all this but he saw something else in the destructive emergence of the Assyrian terror, something which his Jewish contemporaries were not at all happy about and which brought about a bitter rejection of Isaiah. He saw Assyria, evil though it was, as the “rod of God’s anger”, an anger that was directed to the Jews (Isaiah 10:5-6). Assyria was not simply an evil empire which must be defeated, but a warning to Israel to amend its ways; it was the very unpleasant rod of God’s correction. It had been raised up to bring the Israelites to their senses morally. This was a very unwelcome viewpoint to his contemporaries; it was grossly unpatriotic, immoral and roused their anger. Theologically it was off the radar!

But this is exactly what the prophet of God was for – to provide the deeper explanation of events and to see them from God’s perspective. It was not all black and white. We do well to heed Isaiah when we think back over the last ten years or so since 9/11 where bin Laden left the indelible mark of terror. What would Isaiah have seen in the events of those years?

The fall of the twin towers punctured the overweening hubris of the U.S. The two most iconic landmarks in the capital city of the most powerful nation on earth had been razed to the ground by a handful of madmen who had penetrated the most sophisticated of intelligence screening. The U.S. was very vulnerable after all. American pride had taken a colossal blow. The point would certainly not have been lost on Isaiah; he was acutely aware of God’s detestation of such hubris.

The twin towers soared upwards like two great idols, idols dedicated to the amassing of wealth and money by whatever means. Significantly they rose above all else. Now they were totally destroyed. But though the visible idols were gone, the spirit of ungodly financial gain and dominance was still very much alive. That was to lead to an arguably greater catastrophe seven years later when not merely the towers but the very edifice of the financial structure itself collapsed into a tangled heap of appalling debt, the rebuilding of which will take a very great deal longer than the physical towers. That certainly would not have escaped Isaiah’s notice

Immediately after 9/11 President Bush declared war on terror, leaping on to the moral high ground; but the wars he plunged into in Afghanistan and Iraq had hubris written over all them. Waged with the only power the U.S. understood, overwhelming military might, they have proved disastrous both militarily and economically, doubling the mountain of debt and bankrupting the nation. Arguably it was a great triumph for bin Laden. The whole saga would have left Isaiah heart broken.

In many ways bin Laden as a character was weak and insignificant. He was not a natural leader, but worked with grand and murderous delusions. Perhaps one might think of him, however, as a small human rod through which passed a devastating flash of lightning for our warning. Our call is to look at what the lightning has revealed, and not see the removal of the mere rod as a “closure”!

Bob

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"I WAS GLAD ..."

2011-05-03T10:09:00.003+01:00

I have surprised myself by feeling that I really must comment on the royal wedding!

On the day of the wedding Kate Middleton entered the magnificent edifice of Westminster Abbey to the accompaniment of Hubert Parry’s great setting of Psalm 122, the first lines of which are: “I was glad; glad when they said unto me, we will go into the house of the LORD”. I myself instantly felt wonderfully glad that the central moments of this great day were to take place in “the House of the LORD” and, as the Archbishop reminded us at the very start, “in the presence of God”. This was not going to be solely a “secular” day or a celebrity occasion despite all the media angles of interest. It was going to be, at its very heart, something that involved solemn vows, prayer, scripture and the praise of God. We were in the House of the LORD. I was glad!

I was glad because this was going to be (and was, despite everything else!) a great witness to Christian marriage in an era which has almost forgotten it and desperately needs to be brought back to it. How wonderful! I was profoundly grateful for the simplicity and directness of the Anglican Prayer Book Service (except perhaps the bizarre retention of some archaic phrasing). I remain so thankful that the Anglican liturgy, a remarkable expression of scripture, still underpins these great national occasions. It would have been dreadful to think what might have emerged if an “up to date” service had been devised to accommodate the attitudes of the modern world! As it was we heard solemn vows, total commitment, strong enjoinders to faithfulness, marriage as the heart of family, prayer for grace, all with appropriate gravitas. And some 2 billion people were reckoned to be tuned in! Yes, I was glad!

Both the sermon and the reading have elicited cynical comment from the Press but there could have been few readings as sharp and direct as the verses from Romans that were read about Christian life style. The bride and groom, who chose it, had obviously thought about giving themselves to an upright and useful lifestyle. And the Bishop of London made astute comments on the marriage relationship. I was glad!

I can only hope and pray that some of this really struck home. There was, of course, an enormous amount of alternative interest; the fashion, the carriage rides, the drama etc. etc. Almost 100% of the press coverage I have read has fastened onto all this. I have yet to read anything about it being a great example for us – that, of course would be far too “twee” and “infra dig”. At that point I have to say, “I was sad”.

As I saw it, God was very much in the occasion. He seemed to me to be using what little is left of our Christian heritage to point the nation once more in the right direction. For those with eyes to see, it was a great statement. God was not eclipsed by the pomp and the ceremony of the event. Indeed that very pomp and ceremony, the glory of the bride and the happiness of the event, was a glorious reminder of the enormous joy of our eventual coming into the presence of God as the bride of Jesus. Many were deeply touched emotionally by the ceremony (even men!); not consciously realising perhaps that their hearts were in fact reaching out to the ultimate glory of our union with God. Humanity yearns for glory and majesty and happiness for that is our destiny in God, if we only knew it. That is why we are deeply moved when we see it.

Yes, I was glad!

Bob

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"PEACE BE WITH YOU"

2011-04-26T15:49:00.004+01:00

“Peace be with you!” is the resurrection greeting of Jesus. It is with these words that he met his disciples on Easter Day. They were not just a pleasant greeting; they represented an actual impartation of the peace of God. With these words Jesus re-engaged with his disciples at the point where he had left them at the Last Supper when he said, “My peace I give to you; do not let your hearts be troubled”. It is with these words that he meets us in our own lives now. It is with these words he longs to meet every human person.

The Christian gospel is neither cheap nor shallow. Jesus was not offering “pleasure”, but something very much deeper. Pleasure is what the world offers, what the world craves for; it is the supreme demand of the modern world; and Jesus specifically said “My peace I give you; NOT AS THE WORLD GIVES do I give to you”. Pleasure is a very fickle and short lived boost to life, not offering any real satisfaction beyond the moment. It is no pathway to true happiness. Pleasure fleetingly satisfies the fleshly human desires. On the other hand Jesus’ offer of peace was an offer of deep well-being and a profound and lasting contentment. Its depth is measured by the fact that it is actually the “peace of God” (“MY peace I give to you”). Jesus was talking of a peace that reflected the serenity of the heart of God, something beyond human understanding. His offer was real because his sacrifice at Calvary had been accepted and demonstrated by his resurrection. Now in the fullest measure he was pronouncing what he had died to secure for us, peace with God and peace with ourselves and others.

The peace of God is intimately connected with Calvary, because it is intimately connected with righteousness and godliness. Everywhere in the Scriptures there is a clear link between godly living and peace; “great peace have those who love your law”; “The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”; “there is no peace, says my God, for the wicked”. So only when sin in confessed and forgiven can the peace of God be felt; only when men and women walk in uprightness and godliness can peace rest upon them. And only Calvary can provide what is needed for forgiveness and godly living.

This truth is precisely what Jesus had in mind on Palm Sunday when he spoke with tears over a doomed Jerusalem and said, “If you, only you, had know the things that belonged to your peace”. He was longing that the people would receive him and his call to righteousness, but he knew that, tragically, they would reject him. They would, therefore, never hear the resurrection pronouncement of peace.

The same human tragedy is written large for us to see in our own day. It is heartbreaking to see the blindness of the modern world. Its desperate need is precisely what Jesus offers – peace. It looks everywhere except to him for some sort of happiness, but neither God, nor his creation can bring that peace nor allow peace when there remains a refusal to seek Him and his righteousness, for that alone permits the resurrection blessing of peace.

That is why we need so much to pray for this world of ours. Intercession is the pressing need of the 21st century

Bob

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EASTER GLORY

2011-04-19T14:56:00.004+01:00

The next few days of this week will be very rich spiritually. They will bring us the great central truths of the faith – Jesus’ death on the cross and Jesus’ resurrection. We can never meditate on them enough. Take time for that this week!

Last week’s column highlighted Jesus’ proclamation of judgement on Jerusalem. This week’s column highlights Jesus taking judgement on himself. Not because he in any way deserved it. Quite the contrary! It fell on him because he voluntarily offered himself as a "guilt offering" for all humanity (Isaiah 53). But, as Isaiah reminds us, the reality underlying such a sacrifice is that whoever becomes such a guilt offering has to bear the guilt and punishment of humanity upon himself. This is what the cross of Jesus was all about.He came under judgement, judgement for sin.

There is, therefore, no more stark a place to see the meaning, reality and horror of judgement than the in the death of Jesus. Indeed, if we do not see judgement clearly in that death, we can never see clearly how much we owe to him and how deeply he loves us. Salvation is meaningful only when we understand what we have been saved from. Many have tried to soften the blow of Calvary, because talk of judgement is offensive to modern ears. But to refuse to acknowledge that "he became sin for us – he who knew no sin" is to rob both the Father and Jesus of their glory.
Every judgement that God sends on a wayward humanity, be it plague, famine war or earthquake, is devastating and horrific. But those expressions of judgement in this world are but warnings of a greater and final judgement - the judgement of being cut off from the very source of life, peace and joy and well being, and entering an eternal desolation, cut off from the presence of God. There may be a way back from famine, plague and war; there is no way back from the ultimate judgement.

It is precisely this cup of judgement that Jesus drank as he died on the cross. This is revealed in one great cry, shouted out at the end of the three hours of physical darkness that gripped the world and the three hours of spiritual desolation that tormented Jesus. The cry was, "My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?" Jesus knew he was forsaken; God’s presence was gone. He could not reach it and the sense of loss and desolation was total. Neither could he understand why it had gone; he was blinded during that time to the fact that he was dying for sin, blinded to what he had previously known that "he would see of the travail of his would and be satisfied" (Isaiah 53:). In other words he was blinded to the truth that the dereliction would end simply because there was no revelation from God during those awful three hours. In a sense the three hours were an eternity of indescribable suffering of utter abandonment. It had been the contemplation at Gethsemane of this absolute forsakenness that made him sweat drops of blood and feel deep agony, but at Gethsemane he had at least known it would have an end. There on the cross for him there seemed no end, and no explanation. But we know now that He bore our judgement.

It is for this that that the praises of heaven will rings out eternally for Jesus. It is on account of this that we shall be involved in those praises in resurrection bodies. Doubtless coming to terms with the deeply challenging truth of the judgement of God will stretch many a person’s innermost thinking. But it is a vital truth to face up to and to accept.

Bob

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JESUS – PROPHET TO THE NATION

2011-04-12T10:59:00.012+01:00

This coming Sunday is Palm Sunday, the Sunday before the crucifixion. Palm Sunday was the start of four days intensive of prophetic warning by Jesus to the Jewish nation and to Jerusalem.

Jesus began that Sunday by riding a donkey down the hill from Olivet into Jerusalem, declaring himself prophetically the King of Peace. However, he stopped half way down, with Jerusalem spread out before him, and, seemingly incongruously, prophesied the destruction of the city. It was a prophetic lament, spoken with tears. It was detailed; the city would be besieged and taken; not one stone would be left on another; the people, including children, would likewise be destroyed. For even as he rode the donkey it was rejecting his offer of peace.

The next day, Monday, Jesus cursed a fig tree that bore no fruit. It withered and died. The fig tree was the historic symbol of the nation, and Jesus was clearly enacting in stark parabolic manner what was to happen to a nation in which he could find no fruit. He followed this up by going on to cleanse the Temple, and with violence, saying it had become “a den of robbers”. In so doing, he was giving a foretaste of what was to come.

In the two or three days that followed Jesus would not allow this strong prophetic theme of judgement to rest. Using parables he spoke directly and at length with the rulers of the nation about their fate. In the parable of the tenants he told them about the tenants of a vineyard who refused to give the owner the fruit due to him, and who successively ill treated the owner’s servants and finally killed his son in order to get the vineyard for themselves. Consequently their end was to be destruction. It was abundantly clear to the rulers that the parable was directed at them. Jesus went on to pronounce seven lengthy and severe woes on the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, concluding with another lament for Jerusalem, “O Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets, how often have I longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks but you were not willing. Look your house is left to you desolate”. Finally, in his “Apocalyptic Discourse” Jesus, gazing at the majestic Temple, the wonder of Jerusalem, prophesied that not one stone would be left standing on another.

All this should not be seen simply as a hard act of condemnation by Jesus, but rather as a persistent attempt to get the leaders to see the predicament that faced them and to repent. It was a last attempt to save the nation, an act of grace. The destruction had to come if the nation continued to reject him and the things that belonged to its peace. Jesus did not want that. Sadly the national leaders not merely rejected him, but crucified him. The destruction therefore came, exactly as Jesus prophesied, It came in AD 70 with a Roman siege and appalling destruction and loss of life. That is what judgement meant.

Thus Jesus towered over the nation as prophet to the nation in the last week of his earthly life. He was the Amos of his day, the Jeremiah of his own generation, and had the same message. There was reluctance and heartbreak in the message because judgement is an utterly devastating matter and not something God seeks. This truth of judgement seems almost obscured from our own generation – the reality and appalling nature of judgement. The awfulness of sin, the appalling consequences of rejecting God and his Christ, and the consequences of disdaining the peace-giving commandments of God are not registered very deeply by a self indulgent generation, even a consumer Christian generation. This message of the horror of judgement, however, was going to be brought to humanity even more deeply in the death of Jesus on the Friday of that same week.

For our generation the cross this Easter will be more important a meditation than ever. We cannot treat the things of God lightly, nor the awful fact of judgement – that is the message our own nation finds difficult to read.

Bob

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"THEY WILL PERSECUTE YOU'

2011-04-05T10:41:00.003+01:00

When Jesus looked down the course of history and prophesied earthquakes, famines, plagues and nations at war with each other, he also added a further major characteristic; the persecution of his followers. His accuracy with regard to such persecution through the ages is on a par with his accuracy on the other characteristics. Like them persecution does not in itself constitute a mark of the end of world history, but as with them we may anticipate a marked increase in the incidence of persecution as history reaches a conclusion.

In the book of Revelation there is a very graphic explanation of the dynamic behind this persecution (Rev. 12). John, the author, saw a Dragon ready to pounce on a child about to be born, a child who was to rule the nations (quite evidently Jesus). The child, however, was snatched away from the Dragon to the throne of God. The woman who gave birth to the child fled to the wilderness and was protected. The Dragon, however, made continuous war against her, and against the followers of her child. This is an astonishing prophetic vision of the historic persecution of the Jewish nation (the woman) and the Christian church. It is a persecution rooted in the struggle between Satanic forces and the Kingdom of God and his Christ. It would last throughout the ages, and could be expected to climax as the ages came to a close.

This prophecy explains a number of features evident in the persecution of Christians. It explains first why such persecution comes from every conceivable human “power base” on the earth. The “Prince of this World”, (as in effect Jesus described the Dragon), exerts his rule by force, fear and oppression from any religious, ideological, political base under his control, wherever that may be in the world. That control is widespread and where he exercises it persecution will come. The prophecy explains the dogged persistence of persecution throughout the ages. It explains the viciousness of it and the hatred that so often accompanies it. It explains why, as the gospel reaches more and more to the end of the earth, persecution is likely to escalate in extent and intensity. It explains why the church suffers so much persecution where it grows the fastest.

So, historically, we find that persecution attacked the Christian church from the very first, and from such diverse sources as the Jewish religious leadership and pagan Roman rulers. Even when Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire persecution raised its head in bitter in-fighting among Christians. The mediaeval Catholic Church degenerated into an appallingly oppressive political power base and became the perpetrator of unbelievably inhuman persecution against genuine spiritual Christianity. In modern times it is not simply other religions like Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism that have been the persecution centres, but, perhaps even more so, the secular ideological totalitarian dictatorships such as Russia and China.

The appalling widespread persecution of Christians across the world today is, therefore a remarkable endorsement of the prophetic scenario sketched out by Jesus for world history up to the end times. What has happened and what is happening is precisely as he foretold. However, despite the certainty it gives us of the ultimate triumph of the Kingdom and of the church of Christ, persecution remains very much part of the “beginnings of sorrows”, and it calls for much prayer for those most exposed to it.

There has never been a time of greater need for intercession for those suffering for the sake of the gospel. Thank God this is reflected in the fact that there are more agencies getting involved in such intercession than ever before. The church needs to take it to heart.

As a postscript, one might add that the prophetic vision from Revelation, pointing as it does at the constant attempt of the dragon to destroy the mother of the child born to rule has much to teach us concerning the nature of the vicious and persistent anti-Semitism that the world has witnessed down the ages, since that mother clearly personifies Israel.

Bob

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“THERE WILL BE EARTHQUAKES”

2011-03-29T12:07:00.018+01:00

The first four days of Easter Week saw Jesus making great prophetic statements. The majority of these were concerned with the Jewish nation and spoke of the judgement on the nation that would follow its rejection of him.That destructive judgement came 40 years after his death.

Other statements, however, had a much wider reach and a much longer time perspective; they encompassed the world, and reached to the “end” time. One of these wider prophetic statements is all too topical; Jesus said very simply that over the course of history “there will be earthquakes” (Matt24:7), or “great earthquakes” (Lk.21:11). He also said that there would be famines and plagues (widespread diseases). Furthermore he warned of “wars and rumours of wars”, with “nations rising against nations”. This was not an “optimistic”, “liberal” or “evolutionary” forecast, and could be seen as negative and best forgotten. But 2000 years of history have shown it to be a remarkably accurate statement. It is still as true to-day as ever it has been over those two millennia despite all the humanistic and well meaning declarations of the twentieth century about “a war to end war” and a “war on poverty” etc.

Jesus made it clear that these signs (earthquakes, famines and plagues) in themselves do not mark “the end” of the course of history(Matt 24:6). What he said was that “all these are the beginnings of birth pangs” (Matt 24:8). They are painful reminders of greater pain yet to come, an intense pain that will herald a new creation. In other words the culmination of the historic process in the world will be a period of much greater and intense cataclysm and pain than these "beginnings"No doubt part of that greater pain would be a far greater manifestation and intensity of these “beginnings”,of earthquakes, famines and plagues. For all its difficulties in interpretation this is a plain basic message of the book of Revelation – which itself, it must be remembered, is a prophecy from Jesus through his servant John.

However, Jesus made it clear that “the end” would be marked out by two features in particular. One would be “signs in the sun, moon and stars”, “with nations in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea” Lk. 21:23. The other would be “this gospel will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations (and then the end will come)” (Matt. 24:14). This latter feature we are able to monitor to a degree, and what we see today in the world should fill us with joy for we see an extraordinary and growing fulfillment of Jesus’ words. The former “roaring of the sea” etc. certainly does not seem unrealistic! As we learn more about the earth and the universe it gets more and more credibl.It is really a matter of time.

To describe such events as this as “birth pangs” makes Jesus' message one of great and very positive hope. It is not a “doom” story. These events are the prelude to something new. It is not going to be “the end” in the sense that after these cataclysms there will be nothing – it is not the finish of humanity or creation. It is the start of a re-birth. No one can possibly consider the present state of the world and humanity as being ideal. It has to be reborn. The real problem with the present creation is the warped nature of humanity, rebellious and out of touch with its Maker. The re-birth will deal precisely with that problem. It will bring creation and humanity to the place where God wants it to be. That is why the “end”, the moment of rebirth, will be characterized most of all by the return of Jesus. At the point of greatest pain and anguish he will appear to restore. He will come as Judge ,and the great birth pain will be an expression of his judgement, but he will also come as King, Saviour and Restorer. It will be a massive time of rejoicing. As he himself said, when a woman comes to the point of delivery there is great pain, but the pain is forgotten in the joy of the new child.

We need a perspective beyond the earthquakes – Jesus gave it.

Bob

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A LOUD WORLD WARNNG

2011-03-22T10:40:00.001Z

It is almost exactly ten years ago (Spring 2001) that I was speaking at a representative gathering of praying people on the subject of national judgement. I remember it vividly, not only because of the strong prophetic impulse that I felt undergirded the subject, but also because on the day of delivering the message our nation was gripped by widespread foot and mouth disease. As I spoke thousands of carcasses were being burned on huge bonfires all across the country. I may add that the subject was chosen and the date of the gathering was fixed well before the outbreak of the disease. The bonfires seemed a clear vindication of the message.

My horizon on that occasion was our own nation, and the certainty and devastating nature of the judgement that lay before it. In the years immediately following, when I began to put the prophetic burden into writing, and eventually into this website, the horizon did not move very much; it remained essentially national. Perhaps that was appropriate.

I have to acknowledge some movement beyond the purely national horizon after the 9/11 event of 2001, though in retrospect I can see that my horizon ought to have moved much more quickly and strongly than it did. The 9/11 event struck me immediately as a judgement and made me begin to widen the horizon to the U.S. and then to Western Europe, where one could very clearly see the same kind of degenerate things that were calling for judgement on Britain. It became plain that our whole western society was blatantly under the word of Amos, “I will spare them no longer”.

However, it was the world-wide events of 2010 and particularly the relentless kaleidoscope of shaking events in the first 3 months of this year that have given the most severe jolt to my horizon and turned it into a world horizon. The Lord has a quarrel with the whole world, and is speaking to the whole world. The selfish venal, violent, sexually obsessive, arrogant, God-denying sins that brought condemnation on Amos’ generation abound in all corners of the earth, whatever the political or economic shape of each nation may be. They are not just in the Western world.

This year’s staggering onslaught of natural events, culminating in the unparalleled disasters in Japan, is shouting much more loudly than 9/11. The Japanese disaster starting with earthquake and tsunami has finished with equally devastating human threats and fears in the form of fresh world economic collapse and nuclear meltdown. It is undoubtedly the loudest warning blast that we have had in ten years, and there have been more than a few such blasts. It is contrived to leave us speechless and unnerved. It will have lasting consequences, though we are adept at forgetting.

It is not just natural catastrophes that are shouting at us; it is also the man made “shakings” that are resounding in our ears. The Japan tsunami has pushed to one side events which at another time would be absolutely at the forefront. Gaddafi’s fight for power and western intervention, coming on the back of Egypt’s revolution, are accompanied by a rather more sinister use of force by the Saudi Arabian rulers to maintain their dominance. All this is a huge threat to what has become the crucial life source of the western economy, namely oil. The stakes could not be higher.

The divine pressure on the world is getting bigger and louder at an increasing rate and the world seemingly takes little heed or note. Judgement, like most other issues, is now a global issue.
Pray! – “Lord, in wrath remember mercy”.

Bob

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NUMBERING OUR DAYS

2011-03-15T12:54:00.005Z

“Who knows the power of your anger? For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due to you. Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom”. Psalm 90:12

The earthquake and tsunami that have devastated parts of Japan are yet another huge reminder of our human predicament on this planet. They are a jolt to the whole world! The photographic coverage has been so wide and detailed that it has surpassed anything previous. We have all been visually right in the middle of the appalling chaos and destruction; cars, houses, ships, all piled on top of each other. Thousands of people swept away in minutes. Now Japan faces nuclear threats, and huge, widespread economic dislocation in the third largest world economy. All this happening in just twenty four hours or less!

One could put alongside this the wanton killing and destruction in Libya as Gaddafi holds on to an evil rule, and then add to that a whole string destructive events over the last few months, all of which have come to us with both the vividness and the speed of the technological age.
As I’ve thought over these events I have had very much in mind the words of Ps 46:8, “Come and see the works of the LORD, the desolations he has brought on the earth”. Not a popular scripture, I imagine, for many. Nor is it an easy one to process. But it’s there! It is not only astonishing that the psalmist unapologetically and directly attributes desolations to the LORD (the great I AM), but that he should also beckon us to “come and see”, to take note of them. The television screen has certainly made sure that there is no way we can miss those desolations!

Why should he want us to take a long hard look? The answer to that question is given in the same book of psalms, in the prayer, “teach us to number our days”. God wants us to come to a sober recognition that life is very uncertain and always limited. This is not in order to depress us or make us morbid. It is simply to help us to face up to reality and to face the questions, “what is my life for?” and, “What am I doing with it?” He doesn’t want us to bury the questions and miss the point of life. Unhappily, humanity’s pleasure loving and selfish bias rarely allows us to address such questions unless some disaster or scourge breaks over us. The point of life is not in pleasure loving. The desolations have a remedial intent.

The point of life is to find wisdom and walk in it – something infinitely more satisfying than mere pleasure! It is again the psalms that tell us that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. Wisdom is in knowing God, what he is like, and walking in his ways of righteousness. Wisdom is godly living. The “fear of the Lord” comes from a recognition that a failure to love him and to love others will cause us to end up in desolation and judgement. A proper numbering of our days and an application to “wisdom” is, however, the pathway to life, both here and eternally.

For Chrstians the desolations are not a call to judge (that is God's prerogative), but to seek earnestly a deeper and more righteous life.

Bob

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NO FOSTERING FOR CHRISTIANS

2011-03-07T09:44:00.002Z

The last day of February brought an astonishing ruling from the High Court. In the case of Eunice and Owen Johns the court ruled that they would not be allowed to foster a child because as Christians the couple would not be prepared to encourage a homosexual lifestyle. The court upheld the objection of Derby City Council which rejected their application despite a long record of previous successful fostering. The two judges involved thus determined that the equality laws could override Christian conscience and prevent Christians from performing a useful and helpful function in society.

This does not mean Christians cannot continue to apply to foster children, but it does mean that if objections are made to them doing so by any council there will be no redress for Christians at law. In practice this means there will be an increasing bar on Christians wanting to foster or adopt if they wish to adhere to Christian sexual ethics.

However, the judgement has gone much further than simply barring Christians at law, since the judges also said clearly that Christian beliefs on sexual ethics may be “inimical to children” (i.e. “harmful”). In this they were explicitly upholding a submission by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission that children risk being “infected” by Christian beliefs. They loudly endorsed the notion that we are now a secular society and the Christian religion had no part in the law of the land. This makes a very strong general statement that Christian parents with traditional Christian views are no longer suitable as foster parents.

This judgement, of course, is manifest nonsense; it simply reveals that the judges were making a political and ideological judgement in favour of one point of view on behaviour over and against another point of view which has had a very long history and still today commands the support of the vast majority of people. They have interpreted “equality” in the most bizarre of ways. What it will really achieve is that lot of children are going to be barred from good homes, and a lot of excellent people willing to foster are going to be disappointed.

It is probably one of the most pernicious and absurd judgements that we have yet seen. It steamrollers over a very crucial factor of real social freedom, namely the right of conscience. This is being done not on account of majority thinking but on account of a minority militant pressure group which not only wants the freedom for their own sexual morals but is demanding that all others fall into line. It has, unfortunately, become part of the very real destructive side of modern political correctness, under the specious cloak of equality.

The most helpful thing we have seen is the very large response to this from all quarters which has labeled this ruling as a disgrace. Many articles in the media have taken this stance. This has not come simply from Christians. Hopefully this may the beginning of a come back to real equality, and sanity.

We have so much to pray over in our nation! We have so much also to speak out about!

Bob

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NOW LIBYA!

2011-03-01T13:01:00.009Z

The deep political unrest in the Middle East continues with Gaddafi’s Libya in turmoil, and revolutionary rumblings in Yemen, Bahrain and Tunisia. Egypt has gone quiet, not because any real solutions have been found to the future, but simply because the media is more interested in the immediate blood and thunder aspects of news. It remains at a crucial stage.

It is very important to put this extraordinary revolutionary “earthquake” into historical perspective if we are to get any true picture of what the future may hold.

Up until the end of World War l these Arab countries had no individual existence but were part of the Ottoman Empire, ruled from what is now Turkey. It was an empire renowned for its autocratic rule and its utter poverty and backwardness. World War 1 brought about the dismemberment of that Empire and the formation of new Arab “nations” like Iraq, Syria etc under the “Protectorate rule” of the victors of the war, Britain and France. A sense of national identity emerged in these new nations with some slight flavour of western democratic ways. But they remained under strong local central rule.

World War 2 brought about another move forward as the “Protectorate rule” of the shrinking colonial West was thrown off, and strong autocratic princely or kingly rules were established in their own independent right. These were in their turn overthrown by military rule (e.g. General Nasser deposing King Farouk; Gaddafi emerging in Libya). All this century-long process is in reality the painful process of Arab nations emerging from a dark Mediaeval past into the modern world of the West.

We have now come to a third and very critical stage in that process. This stage is a revolt against the tyranny and corruption of hard, autocratic rule. We are truly witnessing history in the making. We are seeing, in fact, these Arab nations going through something akin to what the European nations went through in the nineteenth century, which was a century of continuing political revolt against the ruling despotisms of Europe, beginning with the French Revolution in 1789 and lasting until World War 1 in 1914.

The same underlying forces that brought about “democracy” in nineteenth century Europe have been in fact at work in the Middle East over the last sixty years. They are primarily an increasingly educated population with access to communication, and an increasingly powerful and vocal professional and business class, both wanting freedom and law. These are now showing themselves strong enough in the Middle East to break through and challenge the narrow, corrupt, elite political rulers.

History shows, however, that the pathway of revolution never provides a “quick fix”! It is always a very dangerous process. The Russian revolution against the despotism of the Tsar in 1917 was an unmitigated disaster. There was not too much difficulty in deposing the Tsar, but the aftermath was actually a descent into the most appalling tyranny under Stalin. The problem was that the revolution was taken over by a virulently violent ideology, Communism. The same has happened in Iran; there was little difficulty in dislodging the Shah, but what emerged was a greater repressive power through the ideology of militant Islam.

The history of revolutions shows us two dangers; first, that reactionary forces do not go away quickly – they tend to lurk in the background and make a come-back at the first opportunity; second, that once dogmatic ideology (religious or secular!) gains control of the revolution there is a regression into a worse scenario. The weak spot of any revolution is that it does not always throw up a cohesive group of able and purposeful leaders that can bring about progressive change, nor does it in itself enable the downtrodden culture of a nation to catch up with the new culture of self governing tolerance that successful revolution demands. Unfortunately religious ideology is much more likely to provide cohesive leadership and general cultural appeal. And such ideology is very much there in the wings in both Egypt and Libya.

All this means that we are in for a long ride! It means a lot of prayer, and much of the grace of God’s sovereign intervention. The media will get tired of the process; we should keep alert.

Bob

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THE ASSAULT ON MARRIAGE CONTINUES

2011-02-22T09:31:00.003Z

A week ago the Government announced its intention to allow Civil Partnerships (i.e. the formal commitment of gay and lesbian people to each other) to take place in religious meetings (something hitherto not permitted). At the same time it announced it might seek to consult on whether such civil partnerships should be defined as “marriage”.

The first proposal will effectively give “religious sanction” to same sex unions and further undermine the strength of the traditional Christian principle of recognizing only heterosexual unions. Unfortunately it has come about, not simply because of the pressure of the gay lobby, but as a result of religious groupings themselves departing from traditional standards of sexual relationships. There are those in every denomination, and at the highest level of leadership, who are anxious to secure this “religious sanction”. This is the most tragic aspect of the whole affair. The church has too many holes in its “front line”!

The government is anxious to make clear that no church will be forced to “host” a civil partnership; they will simply be allowed to if they wish. On the surface this seems at least a safeguard, but there is a real problem as to whether any such safeguard can be made water-tight. What is certain is that a militant gay lobby will test such safeguards by applying to churches that refuse such “hosting” of civil partnerships, and then seeking to challenge any refusal on some other ground such as “discrimination”. The militant gay agenda envisages a complete social revolution not a state of “live and let live” The battle is incredibly determined, indeed vicious.. It could be a devastating battle ground for many a “parish” church! The pressure on all churches to host “civil partnerships” will inevitably grow to breaking point.
It is astonishing how blind governments can be to the shortcomings of seemingly helpful legislation and the utter weakness of safeguards. We have seen it time and again: this is a case in point. (If you write to your M.Ps. simply challenge them on the integrity of the safeguard in the proposed legislation.)

The second Government proposal, to widen the meaning of “marriage”, is equally pernicious. Christian marriage in its basic concept is the foundation of society’s wellbeing, and no individual marriage failures can ever constitute a valid argument against the underlying principles of this Christian concept. It insists on one man and one woman, joined for life by covenant vows, and it insists that such a union is essentially the best place for the conception and nurturing of children. It represents the fundamental natural order of life. Up to now, that has been the common concept of “marriage”, and as such has carried a clear message to society even if people have preferred co-habitation. If the word is made to include any other types of sexual union, it will confuse and blur any real meaning for the word “marriage”, and will be a severe blow for morality and truth. Sadly, neither of those latter two terms has any coinage in the cult of political correctness.

This is another reminder of the devastating inroads that a secular culture continues to make on fundamental Christian principles. The secular concepts of freedom and equality are fundamentally flawed at critical points. We have reached a stage where we are seeing, not the waters getting close to the top of the flood barriers but rather a stage at which they are breaking through them and about to unleash appalling devastation. The times are very grave.

Bob

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TURMOIL IN EGYPT

2011-02-15T09:45:00.002Z

Yes, this week “turmoil” is the word yet again, and this time in the human political sphere; eighteen days of revolution in Egypt, a nation as populous as Germany and the most significant Arab nation in the Middle East. The “dethronement” of a dictator has been the result.

The two most extraordinary features of this revolution have been first, that it was effected by a leaderless people’s movement, and, second, that it took place with virtually no violence. The only violence to be seen was the response of the protestors to Mubarak’s attempt to keep power using violence through thugs, and when that attempt was defeated the protest continued peacefully. And it was certainly not a revolutionary “coup” by the army; neither did the army use force.

However, the fact that the country has not degenerated into political chaos is entirely due to this “third estate” (or perhaps we should say this “first estate”!), namely the army. The army, respected by the people, but being watched nervously, has filled a very dangerous power vacuum and is effectively ruling. It has a crucial stabilizing role.

The question now is, can a fundamentally authoritarian institution, the army, led by aged and senior leaders really find its way to establishing a people’s democratic rule of the kind being demanded by a much younger and freer generation. It will have to give birth to something alien to its own nature and culture. A second question is whether the behavioral restraints, courtesies and non violent toleration which actually make a democracy work are sufficiently implanted in Egyptian society. What will happen, for example, when the ardent Islamism of the “Brotherhood” comes face to face with those opting for secularism or even simply wanting tolerant recognition? Repression, not toleration, has been the culture for the last 30 years. A massive culture change (the most difficult of all changes) is demanded. A third question is where is the new political leadership for such a venture? There is very little evidence of it at the moment.
So the next phase is going to be as momentous (and probably much more difficult) than the first phase just completed.

A huge amount hangs on the outcome, and not just for Egypt. It is a vast challenge to the whole Arab world, where the prevailing political structures are of the despotic and oppressive Mubarak kind that has just been overthrown. Egypt is the pace maker here. Already the rulers of Saudi Arabia are nervous and other despots are beginning to bribe their people! Will this lead to new freedoms in the Middle East, or will it collapse back into a black hole of some worse tyranny? As the events have demonstrated the U.S. and the West are at a complete loss to know what quite to do!

The critical thing to do is to pray, not simply that God will bring these nations into new freedoms, but more particularly that these events will promote the spread of the gospel more widely and deeply throughout the Middle East. Christians have taken a terrible battering in Iran and Iraq in the last decade, and life has been anything but easy for them in Egypt, Saudi and all other countries in the Middle East. They very much need our prayer.

Bob

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TURMOIL CONTINUES

2011-02-08T11:52:00.003Z

For some time now I have been impressed by the double nature of the judgements which are threatening the world. On the one hand is humanity’s destructive behaviour towards itself and on the other hand there is the hugely destructive potential of natural forces. Both of these, I believe, will show a frightening increase as this century proceeds. And my horizon can no longer remain the shores of our own nation; judgement is a world issue.

This last week has seen marked examples of these two forces; massive revolutionary demonstrations in Egypt (reflected in other parts of the Middle East), along with unprecedented natural catastrophes, especially in Australia and the Amazon. This week I’ll comment on the natural phenomena, next week the Middle East.

Only three weeks ago I wrote a column called “World in Turmoil” featuring the great Australian floods. Now we have seen in the same country the worst hurricane in living memory. Its eye was 20 miles across, its impact from was 400 miles across and it reach was some 600 miles inland. Winds reached 180 m.p.h. Mercifully it did less damage than anticipated in the larger towns in its path, but its devastation was huge. Australian courage and resolve have faced it but, of course, cannot lessen it. And this was a hurricane following rapidly after unprecedented floods.

Less known, but perhaps more frightening is the news from the Amazon forest area, the “lungs of the planet”, where in 2010 there has been catastrophic drought. This follows, and is worse than, a previous “one-in-a-hundred-year” drought in 2005. The Rio Negro, which is the biggest tributary to the Amazon, was at its lowest levels since records began at the start of the 20th century. In addition the dryness of the forests has made them susceptible to vast forest fires. All this means that a huge area of the world which has been absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere has begun to release CO2 into the atmosphere. Whereas the Amazon will normally soak up some 2 billion tones of CO2 annually, the 2005 drought released some 5 ½ billion tonnes into the atmosphere, which is equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions from the U.S.A. This is due to the vast numbers of dying and decaying tress and foliage. A Brazilian professor of Tropical Ecology commented; “The predicament of the Amazon and other major tropical forest regions has never been so uncertain”. The increasing climate instability is a factor that will not go away. We know enough science now to know the appalling consequences of such instability; global convulsions affecting world geography, populations, food and water.

A newspaper editorial said, “The world needs massive action, beginning immediately to reverse the existing trends on emissions and deforestation”. Correct! But it is simply most unlikely to happen; the prevailing selfishness and inadequacy of humanity being all too evident.

Three weeks ago I related these kinds of happenings to Jesus’ prophetic words about end-time catastrophes in the heavenly and natural spheres, reminding us they are not simply indicators of judgement but indicators of cosmic rebirth at his coming. One further thought arises in my mind; are the devastating catastrophes he spoke of likely to come “overnight” or will they build up in intensity over time? The sensible answer to that question would seem to be that the odds are even. Personally I would think a gradual build up more likely, but at a pace that was clearly discernable to anyone who had eyes to see and was watching, and a pace that increased with time. Beware! The pace is quickening.

Bob

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A CAUSE FOR OFFENCE

2011-02-01T10:56:00.003Z

We all know of the Christian air stewardess who was suspended for wearing a cross whilst on duty. Some may even know of the council office worker who was told to remove her wedding ring whilst at work. Recently a Christian mental health worker was suspended by the NHS for sharing privately with her work colleagues Christian principles in connection with abortion advice. In the first and last of these cases re-instatement thankfully was made, but only through the intervention of a Christian Legal Agency.

In all three cases the real scandal was the charge preferred against these people: doing or saying things that “some people may find offensive”. One wonders what kind of person would find the sight of a woman’s wedding ring “offensive” – would it be some one who objects to life long vows of commitment? One has to retort that such stricture is itself an act that is grossly offensive..

This kind of arbitration, “because it might offend”, is based on incredibly shaky ground. It never ought to be at the bottom of any stricture. All it does is to give a handle for some people (one might say, slightly obsessive people) to abuse other people who have a different or opposite viewpoint. There is evidence of this across the world in accusations against Christians where they are in a minority. I seem to remember that the argument against the old British blasphemy laws was that there should be no law against non-religious opinion, and such opinion should not be treated as an offence. There was great outcry until these laws were rendered defunct. Now it seems a Christian stance is the new blasphemy in the sight of certain groups of people and the blasphemy law must be reinstated in a new guise to crush such a stance. Certainly there seems to be very little of the “live and let live” in these acts; they smack much more of intolerance, and that in an age which outwardly screams for tolerance as the supreme virtue.

The problem with making a ruling against something “that some people might find offensive” is of course that it is virtually impossible to make any objective decision as to what is or is not offensive. It is totally dependent upon some party proclaiming they have been offended. In such a situation it will always be the louder voice or the greater threat of retaliation that wins the day. A person of militant outlook will be the one who uses the ruling, and will always win against one of a more peaceful outlook. It is indeed exactly the situation in which real tolerance is most likely to disappear. It means a reversion to a “might is right” position.

Individual cases are always important, but there is a very far reaching case being courted at the level of the United Nations. Ironically enough there is a movement afoot to get a ruling which would stricture defamation of religion. It’s a blasphemy law in new clothes! It is based on precisely the same principle as the cases we have looked at above, namely that nothing must be allowed which offends. What happens, however, when one set of religious beliefs are “offensive” to another? And that is the reality world-wide! Once again the loudest voice wins, and the most violent cause overwhelms the peaceable cause. And that is happening in many Muslim dominated areas. If such a ruling is adopted by the U.N. we shall have militant groups using the legislation simply to persecute minorities. There has rarely been such a misleading and dangerous proposal.

Bob

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NUMBER ONE HYDE PARK

2011-01-25T10:22:00.004Z

You may have seen last week the opening celebration of four new blocks of 80 flats in Hyde Park. Some 50 had already been bought, and the “guests” included billionaires from the Gulf States and Russia. The Sheikh Prime Minister of Qatar has bought several of these flats (he is joint owner of the company that controls the flats). Other buyers came from the U.S., Eastern Europe and China, amongst whom were plutocrats, potentates and technology billionaires.

These flats are different, even for London. The four penthouses on top of the four blocks have already changed hands for up to £135 million each, and the cheapest homes, one bedroom flats, were going for £5.75 million. They represent a new high for residential property anywhere in the world, and they revel in unlimited luxury; high quality polished marble and European oak is everywhere. They are, of course, bomb proof, and they have “panic rooms”.

The venture was a gamble for the property developers involved, but clearly they hit the jack pot! The sales have reached £1 billion already. There is talk now of others being built. The government is not likely to object, having netted £36 million already in Stamp Duty - there is always money to be made out of the rich if you know how.

One newspaper report commented, “(this) confirms London as the favoured playground and tax haven of the international elite”. Unfortunately it is a playground in the midst of a very depressed property market for ordinary people, and in the midst of a nation in which one in five young people are now unemployed and are very unlikely ever to own the smallest and cheapest of properties. It grotesquely highlights the difficult times in which we live. “A favoured playground for the rich” is not really the highest honour that could be paid to our nation’s capital at this time. Or indeed at any time! It is in fact an appalling condemnation.

It is exactly the sort of scenario that Amos addressed 2,700 years ago in his own severe warning to the rich of his day. As he pointed out,it is extremely dangerous to have such wealth when there is so much poverty about. There is always a day of reckoning. God watches the deceit and injustice that accompanies so much wealth accumulation. James in the New Testament had some harsh words for the rich of his day; “Now listen you rich people; weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you …” Wealth can so easily destroy real human living for those who indulge in it

Thank God many rich people have taken note of this fact. We’ve always had the super-rich, but we’ve always had many benefactors and philanthropists whose activities have benefited thousands; the Rothschilds, the Carnegies, the Cadburys and latterly Bill Gates, to mention the most obvious. In a world where the richest 1% of adults control 43% of the world’s assets, and the wealthiest 10% control 83% of those assets there is a vast call for a culture of benefactors and philanthropists. The “trickle down effect” of the rich is a very poor excuse for selfish squandering. There are billions in locked up resources that could so beneficially be released, both for giver and receiver.

The Judeo-Christian tradition has the injunction of “giving to the poor” deeply embedded in its foundations. It is a profoundly important foundation for any healthy human society. It has more than a human sanction, it has a divine sanction. It has more than a human blessing, it has a divine blessing. The same tradition has strong warning for those fail to acknowledge that “the love of money is the root of all evil” and who cling avidly to their gains.

Bob

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A PLANET IN TURMOIL

2011-01-18T10:54:00.005Z

“The floods across much of the world have reached epic proportions”. “Much of the blame can be pinned on La Nina, a vast upheaval in the Pacific … and because the Pacific covers a third of the Earth’s surface, that turmoil has stoked up violent weather across a large part of the globe”. An estimated 1,000,000 are affected. So reports “The Times” this week. It adds, “No one really knows why these events come and go when they do …the only sure thing is that signs can appear weeks or months ahead but without knowing where exactly they would strike”.

Put this report alongside Jesus’ prophetic utterance just days before he died: “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. Men will faint with terror, apprehensive at what is coming on the world”. He was speaking of his return, and saying that devastating happenings on the earth would presage that return and that the sea would have a particular place in that sequel.

Be careful here! The atmosphere of liberal, scientific and secular Christianity in which we live unfortunately tends to make even Christians “turn off” when the prophetic is put alongside the scientific. It has rather a sniff of being “over the top”. Better to just retreat into the prevailing cynicism!
Be careful lest that sort of thought creep across your mind, for there could be no greater mistake.

Jesus was adamant about the fact that catastrophic happenings in the heavens and on the earth and the sea would constitute signs of his coming. Natural events and catastrophes are not things that “just happen”. God is the Creator God. He knows all about sunspots, the source of so many problems! They are still within his determining “fiat”; he is still in control.

Why should such catastrophic signs be associated with his return? Well, Jesus’ coming will, of course, be a time of human reckoning and judgement, so what more plain a way could there be to draw attention to so serious a moment than signs that make us aware of such a judgement, and challenge us as to our behaviour.

If scientists can pick up the “signs” of a coming La Nina, though not exactly quite when it would come, Christians should be able to pick up the signs of the coming Jesus even if they cannot say exactly when. Those signs have been laid out clearly enough for us by Jesus himself and they include natural catastrophe. Our generation of Christians has actually shrunk back from any real study and reflection on “end times”, when more than any other generation, perhaps, it should have them firmly in its outlook and thinking. Jesus was not indulging in interesting theological possibilities when he spoke on the last days and his return and the signs of those times; his words were serious, down the line Holy Spirit prophecy.

We don’t know precisely where what we are witnessing in these days fits into the scheme of things. One would not want to say that the things we are witnessing were the fulfillment of Jesus’ words, but they are certainly clear pointers and reminders of the nature of what is to come.

Bob

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WHO OWNS THIS PLACE? or THE TALE OF A POSTAGE STAMP

2011-01-11T10:58:00.011Z

An extraordinary piece of legislation is currently being processed through Parliament, and with some urgency. It is designed to make sure that our postage stamps will always retain their “royal” character and the monarch’s identity. Why the panic? It is simply because the Royal Mail will shortly be up for sale, and of course a foreign bidder may well buy it out. Foreigners are not likely to pay too much attention to upholding some of our cherished traditions! I hope it gets through, or else there is no knowing what sort of nonsense might decorate our stamps.

This all sounds a bit facetious. But actually it is yet another straw indicating which way the national wind is blowing. The government has long made it a matter of policy that we are not really going to prevent national assets from going abroad; we don’t mind being bought up by the rest of the world. The postage stamp sale is saying that we don’t mind the substance being sold off as long as maybe we can just salvage a little pride.It's the image that matters not the substance (that's the bottom line of all policy now).

The big picture that all this illustrates is really very serious. I quote from a leading newspaper: “From water and power stations to roads, airports and rubbish dumps, more than a third of British infrastructure is now owned by foreigners. The Office of Fair Trading has done the first national stocktaking of critical infrastructure assets and concluded that more are owned by foreign investors than by the British Government”. We don’t own our biggest airports, or our ports. Imagine that! Rule Britannia not owning its ports. The majority of our power generation capacity is in the hands of French, German and Spanish ownership. “Not to worry”, says the OFT, “it keeps our prices down”. But in an economic or national crisis, what then? Such companies are not really there for the benefit of Britain, but for what profits they can make.

One could add to this take over of our infrastructure the extraordinary rate at which much of the best and most expensive property in the country is being bought up by foreigners, especially in London. Real estate is more and more foreign owned. “Britain never, never shall be slaves”, - but it looks as though we will be owned by others none the less!

On the other side of the coin it seems that Britain for a couple of decades has systematically put more and more eggs in the basket of the City and financial services. That is a very unstable bubble (nest?) indeed. It seems that everything of real substance is leaking away while the rich continue to gamble.

Is this too hard a comment? I don’t think so. It's a clear message of rapidly decining status and power.Contrast China. It’s a dire, dire waring of real danger, divine danger! It is a classic finger of judgement.

Bob

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2011 - AN UNKNOWN FUTURE

2011-01-04T11:24:00.003Z

A recent cartoon depicted a man happily pushing away the last “0” of the date 2010. No sooner had he removed it than the figure “1” which was to replace it came down on him at great pace and completely flattened him! Welcome to the New Year! It could well be a difficult year.
One of the great mercies of God is to keep the future hidden from us. That means surprises really become surprises, and also that we are kept from fretting about the difficulties that lie ahead. How dull and threatening life would be if we knew exactly how it would pan out!

However, we can be aware of some very important things about the future, things that can give us a confidence and a hope. God very much wants us to be aware of those. They come in the form of promises and they are very positive.

For this seasonal New Year Column I thought I would list some of them (all of them would make a book!). We cannot do better than walk into the unknown future armed with God’s promises. They are certainly more assured than the promises we make to ourselves. They have certainly supported me in 2010 and are still there for 2011.

“No good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless” Ps 84:11 So make godliness the absolute prime aim of your life.

“He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways” Ps91:11 Cling to this!

“The righteous will flourish like a palm tree…like a cedar… They will still bear fruit in old age; they will stay fresh and green, proclaiming, ‘The Lord is upright, he is my rock.’” Ps. 92:15 Old age is no barrier to the blessing of God nor to a useful, helpful life; quite the contrary! Stay godly.

“Though you make me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again” Ps 71:20 Don’t forget this – God can restore from the very depths.

“Light is shed on the righteous and joy on the upright in heart” Ps 97:12 Here it is again; if you remain upright, you’ll understand where you are and where you’re going.

“Blessed is he who has regard for the weak … the Lord will preserve him and protect his life” Ps 41:1 Never forget those who are less fortunate than yourself – and give!

“For this God is our God for ever and ever. He will be our guide even unto the end.” Ps 48:14 God is totally loving, totally faithful and totally strong – you are safe with Him.

These are covenant promises – wear them like a ring, constantly, in the days ahead.

Bob

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SON OF GOD

2010-12-21T10:26:00.007Z

The Christmas story offers us some magnificent themes – if only we can get out of the seasonal rush and really think about them. There are two in particular: that Jesus is as human as I am (this is the essential lesson of the human baby in the manger), and that Jesus is none the less “My God”, or, as the angel described the baby to Mary, “That Holy One”.

His humanity was (and is) obvious to all – and it means that he knows where I’m coming from and what it feels like to be in this world; he is on the wave length of my fears and worries, my hopes and joys. He understands me, is deeply interested in me and can help me. He forgives and he heals. This is something millions have experienced in their lives, and need to go on experiencing.

His divinity was not so obvious, and when he lived in Galilee most missed it. How was it discerned? This is the challenging bit. John, the supremely thoughtful and discerning disciple, gives us an answer from the years he spent with the adult Jesus. Firstly he listened very carefully to what Jesus said about himself and how he identified himself with God. For example, Jesus simply was not afraid to use even the “I am” title of God for himself. John actually heard Jesus say to the Scribes and Pharisees, “Before Abraham came into being, I am”. He heard much more as Jesus made further use of the expression “I am” and said of himself, I am the Good Shepherd, the Resurrection, the Life, the Truth the Light of the World. All these descriptions blatantly and directly betokened divinity.

Secondly John watched very carefully what Jesus did. He took careful note of Jesus’ own comment that what he was doing in the way of miracles bore evidence to the truth of what he was saying. John saw the man blind from birth healed, the five thousand fed, Lazarus raised from the dead and the water turned into wine. These works that the Father was doing in him through the Spirit were a total vindication of the fact that Jesus spoke and taught the truth. “No man can do these works unless he come from God”, said Nicodemus.

All this perception was indelibly confirmed when he saw Jesus risen from the dead. Like his fellow disciple, Thomas, his own heart at that point breathed, “My Lord and My God!” It was time to worship.
In the later years of his life John's ever deepening perception was majestically underscored by two great prophetic visions of the exalted Jesus, one in which he saw the Lord in the midst of his church, the other in which he saw the glorified “Lamb” in the middle of the throne of God (recorded in The Revelation). They were out shone only by the brilliant revelation of the exalted Lord Jesus that converted Paul on the Damascus road.

Many, worldwide, even today, are finding the same exalted divine Jesus through powerful vision and prophetic revelation. This has not stopped! Many more know providentially of the miracle touch that comes into a life given over to Jesus, and so recognise the absolute validity of his recorded claims. Direct experience of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit particularly endorse the truth of what Jesus said and bring consciousness of his own presence.

May this Son of God enfold you, and may you see something of his glory this Christmas

Bob (N.B. THE NEXT “Column” WILL BE PUBLISHED ON JAN. 4th)

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SOCIAL UNREST

2010-12-14T12:28:00.003Z

Lurking behind economic disaster there is always the spectre of social unrest. Economic collapses inevitably cause real distress in many people’s lives which gives rise to frustration and anger followed by unrest. We have seen this phenomenon break out in ugly fashion in the recent demonstrations by students over student fees. There is a degree of inevitability about it

It is not something new, even in Britain (remember the miners’ confrontations when the coal industry began to collapse), but it is never something to be taken lightly or with complacency. It is worth remembering that appalling things have come out of economic disaster and social unrest – the French Revolution, the rise of Hitler, the collapse of the USSR etc. Though we are not quite at that point, none the less all social unrest is ugly. The reason for that is the way in which protest seems invariably to be hijacked by vicious and extremist activists and blatant thugs (as has happened with the student protests); a little of that sort of leaven in the lump changes the whole character of protest, and simply adds chaos to chaos. It is critically important to defuse it in a right manner. Law and order has to prevail. That is the responsibility both of demonstrators and the powers that be. It is difficult when raw emotion (especially anger) displaces hard reasoning. The consequences of escalating social unrest do not bear thinking about!

Lord Rees-Mogg in a newspaper leader wrote, “Britain ought not to be where we are now, having to make decisions under the pressure of riots and huge national debt”. I always gain much from Rees-Mogg, but I think I would have to say on this issue that it was inevitable that Britain would be in the position we are in now in the light of its years of encouragement of wanton consumerism on the basis of debt and its embracing of non morality. We have reached the day of reckoning for a philosophy of living that has embraced debt and indulgence as a way of life. If one generation lives well beyond its means (as the generation from the 60s has) then the next generation will inevitably pick up the tab; this is the root cause of the present situation. It is not surprising that the generation that faces the tab is going to be angry; moreover it will be difficult for that generation to realise that it does not have a “right” to what it wants, having been brought up on an unadulterated doctrine of “my rights” and state provision.

Once again all this needs to be seen through spiritual lenses. If ever there was a contemporary demonstration of the biblical truth that “the wages of sin is death” or, put in another biblical metaphor, “as you sow, so shall you reap”, we have it at the present time. We have lived through a generation that has scorned biblical patterns for living, and is now (at least among its intelligentsia) more scornful and arrogant than ever in its dismissal of those patterns. It persists with pagan hedonism!

We must pray that distress and unrest will lead to widespread and true Holy Spirit revival.

Bob

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WIKILEAKS – A HUMILIATION

2010-12-07T14:57:00.009Z

A distinguished American professor in a current newspaper article has poured scorn on the “latest barrage of Wikileaks”, a quarter of a million classified U.S. government cables now open on the Web, describing them as the “tittle-tattle” of a “juvenile Australian”. His main point is that like a smoke screen they obscure very much deeper and serious problems, military, economic and social that now face the U.S. The title of his article is, “Wake up America”. It’s a call not to get side-tracked, but to take stock of those big issues.

He is absolutely right, of course in his main point. But there still remains the phenomenon of Wikileaks. Recent disclosures may do little harm in the long run, but they are without any question an embarrassing humiliation for the U.S. with more likely to come. The most powerful nation in the world (or is it?) has once again has its tail painfully twisted.

The first feature of that humiliation is that the U.S. has had to go cap in hand to many nations apologising for the sordid nature of remarks that have been made of national leaders etc. Of course, every body knows that it is not just the Americans who make nasty, coarse remarks in private - all the nations do it, some no doubt with greater coarseness and cynicism. And it is something that has always happened, right throughout history. But, none the less, the Americans have been exposed and humiliated in an unprecedented manner. It is certainly going to make their diplomatic relations a little trickier and give others countries a bit more leverage. It’s a blow to pride in a nation that has been full of pride. They have been made to look silly; they’ve lost face.

The second feature of the humiliation is that the security of the U.S. cyber and intelligence world has been seriously called into question. This is more important. The future battles between nations will be fought in cyber space as much as anywhere. At this very moment, it seems, the Iranian progress toward nuclear weapons is being hampered more by hacking into its computer systems that by the threat of military action. Keeping ahead with security in cyber space is very much the new arms race. It is not good to be humiliated on this front.

As I wrote a number of weeks ago, ever since 9/11 this last decade has been one of deep humiliation for the U.S. Its vulnerability has been exposed even as it has vaunted its vast military arsenal. It has failed in its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; it has failed in its economy.

It is impossible for the prophetic eye not to see in all this a “Wake up!” cry from God, not only for America but for the whole of the West, whose future is so intertwined with America’s. When God wants to warn nations (or people), he has an extraordinary way of puncturing their defences, exposing their vulnerability and tweaking their tails.

One should add, I think, that there is a positive mercy in all this. Not for one moment do I think God is unmindful of all the Christian work, and especially the prayer and missionary work, that emanates from the U.S. It may be a painful tweak, but God, in grace, is seeking to warn.

Bob

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CHALLENGE OF ADVENT

2010-11-30T12:39:00.002Z

For many Christians this season of the year is celebrated as Advent, a word that simply means “The Coming”. It refers, of course, to the coming of Jesus, both his first coming to share our humanity and his second coming to gather those who have given themselves to him and have walked with him. The great prophet of his first coming was John the Baptist. John is a major Advent figure, but in these days a sadly neglected figure. I use the word “sadly” because what he had to say is so utterly pertinent to the needs of our generation.

His prime calling was to announce to his own generation that Jesus, the “Word of God” was actually among them offering people the grace of eternal life. We desperately need that message. Alongside that announcement, however, was a very strong call to a radical change of lifestyle, a call to renounce selfishness and greed, a call to embrace generous giving and contentment. John was not a politician with a political agenda. He was prophet with a message for everyone; his call was to people as people, from the highest to the lowest. He was out for a change in the moral climate, a climate made up of the values of every individual person. If people did not have a heart for truth, integrity and justice then there would be no way in which they would be able to recognize “The Word” much less receive him.

He was not, however, simply placing a “choice” of lifestyle before people as though their behaviour was something for them to make their own decision about and was their own “private” decision. He was making absolute moral demands in the name of God. Furthermore he was emphasizing the fact that unless there was such a change for the better there would be national disaster. He graphically described the situation in the words, “The axe is laid to the tree”; the tree was the nation, and it was on the very point of being cut down on account of the rottenness of its corrupt and self-centred fruit. Like every prophet before him, he had words to say about judgement.

The call he was making was actually very plain and simple; they were to “stop getting and start giving”, they were renounce violence and threats and learn contentment, they were to avoid corruption, and they were to live within the time-honoured restraints on sexual behaviour. In other words, they were individually to get back to simple decent standards of behaviour. He was addressing, not political or economic issues (which are secondary) but moral issues (which are always primary).

This is the biggest need of our generation; it is obsessed with the economic and political and has marginalized the moral. That is to build on sand. It is also to become increasingly blind to God and his offer of life. A nation sold out to materialism will need to see materialism evaporate before it will once again seek its Creator God.

Bob

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THE STORM STILL BLOWS

2010-11-23T09:27:00.004Z

Over the week-end the Irish government has had to concede the fact that it is bankrupt and that it needs bailing out to the tune of something like 100 billion Euros. As a member of the Euro Zone it is making arrangements for this bail out with the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank. One analyst immediately wrote, “Even as the details of the Irish package are being resolved, investors and economists are asking: “Who’s next?” The focus is on Portugal, Spain and even Italy. Then the questions arise of how far Europe will be able to keep on bailing out its members and what is the limit to debt. Thus the destructive financial storm rages on some two years after it began, and yet another nation is massively saddled with enormous debt.

Once upon a time a person in debt was considered the most unfortunate of creatures. Now not only are vast numbers of people in that unenviable position individually but nations are struggling desperately to find the interest payments on their vast debts. Debts are easily acquired, but are extremely difficult to get rid of. Debt is always a long term matter, and it is always a matter of very painful “doing without”. Once in debt there is never anything left for a “rainy day” and for individuals and nations alike, such days have a habit of turning up. Another “rainy day” in the current situation would wreak untold chaos, and the outlook for rainy days is distinctly unfavourable.

A leading article in a more reputable newspaper was devoted to telling the Irish that they would have fared better if they had not joined the Euro Zone. It said how much better Britain had fared because it remained independent. We had not been obliged to go cap in hand to foreign institutions for help; we apparently had been able to print out own money, and to bail ourselves out by creating our own enormous national debt. I do not see that the net result in terms of debt is really any better, and it’s hardly sensible to tell another he’s drowning quicker than you are!

I wonder if the sheer enormity of the current situation has fully registered in the western world. I doubt it. Britain’s national debt is astronomical, the very commercial and industrial recovery by which alone it will be reduced is in doubt, government attempts to cut expenditure will certainly cause social unrest and all the while the extraordinary culture of unregulated financial greed which brought all this about remains largely untouched. To add insult to injury we are told this week that house prices in Kensington and Chelsea still rise because the fabulously rich of other nations are buying up our most desirable property. Moreover, for the first time in our history more than fifty percent of offers to buy up British corporations (like Cadbury!) are coming from abroad. We are being bought up and bought out!

So the chastisement continues. It is a chastisement. We have sown to the wind and are reaping the whirlwind. Even as I write that sentence I can hear a great din of contempt and condemnation at such retrograde, obscurantist, ridiculous and even abhorrent thinking. But that is precisely the point that needs addressing – the refusal to come terms with, and the absolute rejection of anything to do with God, his standards and his judgement.

Lord, in wrath remember mercy!

Bob

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FAMILY – THE CITADEL OF SOCIETY

2010-11-16T15:12:00.009Z

When God created the heavens and the earth he saw “it was good”. So, looking at Adam he saw that Adam was good, but that Adam remained incomplete; God’s verdict was, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make him a helpmeet”. Accordingly he made Eve out of Adam’s rib. What was missing from him, became embodied in her. Later Eve bore a son, an embodiment of both herself and Adam. Here, then, was the origin of the family.

The family is, therefore, a “creational ordinance". It is the first “institution” that humanity experienced. It was the institution that every other institution was eventually built upon.It was “good”, extraordinarily good. It was of God’s devising. It is the God-given core of society.

It was extraordinarily good because we can see that family was built with bonds that are much deeper than human “contracts”, or human convenience. With Adam and Eve there was a profound sense of “belonging” to each other, which was carried into the relationship with their children. She was his helpmeet, that necessary addition to make him complete, and he rejoiced in her. Here was the birth of real committment, of respect and of love. Here, later, in a fallen world is a school for restraint and discipline, for thinking of others.

It was good because it provided for the deepest need in humanity, full orbed companionship; “it is not good for man to be alone”. Human beings need others. Man is not born to blatant selfish “individualism”, he is born to society and to relationship. “Individualism” was a phrase first coined by the astute Alexis de Tocqueville when he observed in the young America of the late 18C a new independent social attitude developing amidst the challenges of a rugged new world. The term has since come to describe the attitude whereby we think first of ourselves as individuals, and others as individuals, and act primarily on that basis. It is an attitude which has weakened social links and responsibilities. It breeds self-centredness. It is particularly evident in the Western world.

Much more, very much more, could be said about the shape God had for family, but the lesson for us today is plain; when this essential institution (as devised and shaped by God) is damaged or rejected by society, society itself in its intended and best form begins to fail. Of course, the family as we know it can be dysfunctional, extremely so at times. Nothing, however, shows more clearly the importance of true family than the effects of a dysfunctional family – and there are plenty of examples of the dysfunctional in the Old Testament. Sadly there are far more examples of the dysfunctional family today, frequently the breeding ground of pain, anger, hatred, rejection, violence and crime.

It is a primary call on the institution of government to think of and preserve the primary institution of family. For that it has to think seriously about the major factor destroying family, unbridled sexual freedom. It has to think seriously about marriage and its distinctive vows of life long caring commitment and trust. They are exactly the nettles that it is most difficult to think of government grasping. The storm against the family has reached unprecedented force.
Thus it becomes all the more paramount for the church to take a clear and firm stand. It’s a day of great challenge!

Bob

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MORAL RESTRAINT

2010-11-09T10:30:00.005Z

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites” Edmund Burke.

Burke, a famous and very perceptive political theorist, wrote these much quoted words to a member of the French National Assembly in 1791 as he observed the growth of anarchy in the French Revolution. They may be paraphrased as saying that men will only enjoy real freedom in their society if they all show moral restraint in those areas where their own selfish desires threaten to get the better of them. If they do not, society will descend into anarchy. He was trying to make the point that real freedom is not so much built on the demands for rights, the great cry of the Revolution, as on the readiness to exercise personal responsibility and personal self-restraint in relation to others. It is a much quoted saying simply because it enshrines an essential truth.

Burke uses two words which have been marginalised in our modern thinking, the words “moral” and “restraint” (graphically pictured as “chains”). They desperately need to come back. “Restraint” means there are limits to our personal freedom; we cannot do just what we like, irrespective of consequences upon others. “Moral” means we need to recognise again the force of the words “ought to”; there is a “moral imperative”, a right and a wrong.

The most interesting thing about this statement of Burke is that he is not placing the task of securing civil liberty on government legislation to hold wrongdoing in check (though that has its own place and an important place), but is speaking to all individuals who make up the society and putting responsibility on them. He is making the point that it is the prevailing communal good behaviour of individual people that in the end makes real freedom in society possible. In an age which seems to have off-loaded everything onto “the government”, with the ubiquitous expression, “the government ought” (notice the ‘ought’), we sadly need this correction.

Governments are not capable of bringing freedom and security by restrictive legislation alone, no matter how well intentioned. Moral restraint must be present in the very fibre of the society itself. Otherwise the prisons simply fill up and up, and lying, cheating and corruption in all walks of life rapidly spread, and family solidarity collapses more and more under the onslaught of unrestrained sexual license. Social life becomes more and more oppressed and freedom is lost. It is this need of moral restraint in society as a whole that has to be gripped in our generation. Once we have grasped the need (and there is some way yet to go on this), we then have to answer the question of how this restraint can be re-established after so much of it has been lost.

The short answer is that it has to be taught; but from what text book? The text book of secular humanism is of little help – that is the current prevailing text book and has been found wanting. Neither is philosophy of help. As the British philosopher, Bertrand Russell once said, philosophy provides no real guidelines for moral behaviour. On the contrary modern philosophy has underpinned the removal of absolute standards. It is at this point that the great rock on which Hebrew political and social society was to be built comes to mind with staggering clarity and relevance, namely the Ten Commandments. Here are moral imperatives of extraordinary perception for the well being of a whole society, imperatives which are securely founded on the worship of a “Holy” God, whose word, “Be holy for I am holy” has immense dynamic for every human person. Political theory would do well to follow the lead of divine revelation!

Bob

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“GOD IS GREAT” – THE CRY OF TERROR

2010-11-02T17:23:00.007Z

The scientific secularist makes us ask the question, “Why do you believe in God?” The religious terrorist makes us ask the question, “What sort of God do you believe in?” Both questions are crucial in the modern world, and we need an answer to both. In some ways the latter question is more important than the first, and it has been forced upon us yet again this week by indiscriminate bomb plots on aircraft in the name of God.

The suicide bomber blows himself up with the cry, “God is great”. The same cry enables a man to send his younger brother on a suicidal death mission, and, according to reports, the man responsible for the “cartridge bombs” discovered this week has perpetrated precisely that crime. Suicide and indiscriminate murder are part of the political outworking of religious “jihad” being fought in this world against the great Satan of the west. Martyrdom has been re-defined as killing one’s self in order to kill others, rather than being ready to die for one’s faith at the hands of militant persecutors.

Who is this “God” who is “great” in the midst of such terror? He is certainly a great help to the secularist cause! But the reality is that, despite the fact that the true God is indeed great, the application of that truth to such deeds is nothing more than a blasphemy against his greatness. It is a work of deception in the degenerate human mind. Unfortunately there are many such misrepresentations of God in the world, whereas in the nature of the case there is only one true God.

If one thing becomes immediately clear from all this, it is that the idea that all “faiths” or “beliefs” lead to the same God is manifest nonsense. We might safely say that humble, generous souls with a heart for righteousness and love might well find their way through the labyrinth of religious systems of the world to the one true God (cp. Cornelius). But religious systems more often block the way, or point in wrong directions.
The Judeo-Christian God of the bible rejects categorically both murder and suicide; Christianity as a religion has had its fanatics, but genuine Christianity has always rejected both murder and suicide even in its doctrine concerning war. It cannot be remotely construed as leading in the same direction as suicidal jihad, nor of coming from the same source.

Understanding who God is and what he is like is fundamental, therefore, to real and true faith. But only God himself can reveal his own nature, and the Old and New Testaments claim unequivocally to provide us with that revelation; they do not purport to be human philosophy but revelation. It is when we begin to piece this biblical revelation together and hold it alongside our own experience and living encounters with God that we begin to realise how utterly self authenticating this witness is, and that it is leading us to the truth.

The crucial encounter with God is in meeting the risen Jesus. He is the way, the truth and the life; he is the light of the world; he is the one who has revealed the “name” of God (that is to say, his nature), He has revealed it both in his person and in his teaching. Fundamentally, love totally predominates; judgement and righteousness provide an essential balance to love, are indeed an integral part of love; total provision is offered for every aspect of human need; eternal life is underlined heavily.

He sends us out to love our neighbours, to love our enemies, to do good to all people, and as far as lies within us to be at peace with all. This is self-authenticating truth!

Bob

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THE HEAVENS DECLARE …..

2010-10-26T12:40:00.002+01:00

It is very difficult not to admire the courage of Professor Stephen Hawkins, the Cambridge astrophysicist. After wasting his prodigious intellectual talents in his ‘teens, he was stung in his early twenties into intense and diligent research into the universe by the onset of a progressive wasting illness. He has shown enormous character in the battle of life.

It is profoundly tragic, therefore, that, as yet, he has been unable to leap from the vast erudition of his studies into a grasp of the Creator God. One can only sincerely pray that he will do so. Like a supreme technician analysing exactly how a masterpiece was painted, but never standing back to see what the masterpiece is saying, so Professor Hawkins’ focus is on the "how" of creation, not the message of creation. But the “how” will never yield the “why” – that is a totally different perspective.

For Paul the Apostle the message of this masterpiece of creation was all too clear. He writes, “God has made it plain. Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made”. The words, “plain” and “clearly seen” stand out. It seems to me three things at least demand that we see God in creation; the incomprehensibility of time and space, the sheer unspeakable beauty of it all and the meticulous order of it all. It is a most extraordinary thing that we are actually consciously aware of time and space; we know that something must lie beyond it. That very awareness points to an eternal being.

David, the psalmist, spent many a night as a shepherd contemplating the stars (something of which our city life has deprived us). He, just as plainly as Paul, saw the message of the masterpiece he was surveying; “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Ps. 19). Clearly he was reading the majesty and the beauty of what he saw. He also may well have been frequently in awe of what he was seeing. Certainly he would have been in awe if he had known as much as we do about the distances and time involved in creation.
The heavens “spoke” to him; “Day after day they pour forth speech, night after night they display knowledge” – a constant reminder of our Creator. Not only the heavens spoke, but his own self as a created being spoke to him; “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps 139), not merely physically but mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

Secularism goes on battering at us and has plenty of sympathetic scope in the media, certainly more than the Christian viewpoint. Thank God, however, he has left us a witness that can never be totally obscured. The very creation, as Paul reminds us, leaves us “without excuse”. May God open the eyes of many to the obvious.

Bob

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WISDOM FROM THE CHILEAN MINE

2010-10-18T12:31:00.003+01:00

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” Ps. 90:12

An awful lot of “wisdom” came out of the mine with the rescued trapped miners in Chile. All of them were in a situation where every moment was forcing them to “number their days”, or as we might put it “recognise that their days were numbered”. Face to face with life or death there was no alternative but to take stock of life, and many “applied themselves to wisdom” (where “wisdom” in this context refers to God and his ways).

One of the miners, the grandfather miner (63), simply said on his return to the surface, “Sometimes you need something to happen in your life to really reflect and understand that we only have one life. I am a different person”. His first intent was to give his wife of thirty years standing what she had always wanted – a wedding dress and a marriage in church. He had changed – he had a new and deeper respect for life, for his loved ones and for God.

He was not the only one who felt a deeper soberness about life. Another miner was impressed in a very similar manner and on his return knelt down, crossed himself and then told his girlfriend of twenty five years “we’ll buy you a wedding dress and get married in church”. Yet another miner received a marriage proposal from his girl friend with whom he has daughters and they will get married straight away. Such painfully gained sobriety is all to the good. It is “wisdom”. It is learning the real measure of life. It contrasts vividly with the comments of the editor of the Times who in his editorial comment seems to have felt obliged (as the media generally is) to include only a somewhat sordid sexual reference to another miner’s wife.

Interestingly in the background to the Chilean story we hear of Jose Henriquez who was the drill master and became the spiritual leader of the trapped group; he led prayers and boosted spirits. We hear also that among the “liberty kit” sent down to the trapped men was a T-shirt with the slogan “Thank you Lord, because nothing is impossible with God”. These were sent down by the “Jesus Film Project”, along with a copy of the film of the Life of Jesus for the men to watch. The second miner out, wearing his Jesus T-shirt said, “I never doubted I would get out alive. God and the Devil fought for me, and God decided to save me”. He also said he had “buried 40 years of my life in the cavern”, which one hopes was a remark indicating a new kind of wiser life.

Catastrophe, therefore, does not always end in disaster and death. It can create a focus we too often lack. It can end in powerful and positive amendment of life. When we look at impending catastrophes on a wider scale, in national affairs and in the economy in particular, we can only pray that for a great many people some wisdom, sobriety and renewal will emerge even from them. That is God’s intent and desire.

Bob

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A NEW SONG

2010-10-12T12:26:00.003+01:00

I hope you’ll forgive an illustration from Greek mythology. I heard it used very aptly recently by a bishop. It featured the sirens, fabulous nymphs who lured sailors to destruction by their irresistible sweet singing. The Greek hero, Odysseus, having to pass close by their abode ordered his sailors to fill their ears with wax and tie him to the mast so he could hear but not go after the sirens; the seafarers all escaped, but with huge agony for Odysseus. Another Greek hero passing the same way, Orpheus, simply played even sweeter music and drowned out the sirens; he and his companions also escaped, but in much better manner. The dictionary defines the word sirens as “charming temptresses”.

What a picture of the world in which we live! In our own generation it is full of sirens, sounding out their compelling songs, calling us to follow pathways that are destructive. We have featured them often enough in this column by way of warning; profiteering, unrestrained sex, material possessions, unlimited feasting and pleasure etc. They are not, however, just at one small part of our life’s journey; unfortunately they accompany us every day, and much of the time. The media make sure of that, being the trumpet for such alluring “songs”. And there is no question of the fact that they are alluring, very alluring to the unwary.

We cannot keep wax in our ears all the time, neither can we be so tied down that we can’t physically respond. What we need is, like Orpheus, a better, a sweeter song. Like him we need to keep the better song in our minds all the time. When something better than temptation is sounding in our ears, temptation loses its attraction, and even becomes a matter of distaste.

We’ve actually been given such a song; that is the astonishing thing about our faith in Jesus. This new song is a song about “the beauty of holiness”. In coming to Him we are awakened to the sheer beauty of a godly and righteous life, a “pearl of great price” and something to really sing about. There are a lot of things in the world that are beautiful but never appreciated, and an upright character is one of them. True conversion is to have a clear perception of that and to have an eager personal desire to share in such beauty.

The true follower of Jesus has an eagerness to live as He lived because it is so wholesome, so good to see and so releasing of joy and peace in the innermost being. Those who follow will spend a great deal of their time looking in the mirror, but at their heart, not just their outward appearance that takes precedence in the modern world. They will spend much time thinking on “whatsoever is beautiful and whatsoever is of good report”.
In this way we have a much more powerful music that the sirens of the world; we move much more safely through the world; we are aware of the world’s music, but it is so distasteful in comparison that we recoil from it.

Bob

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BETRAYED BY OUR LANGUAGE

2010-10-05T16:28:00.004+01:00

There are two windows that quickly reveal the inner person. One is the face, especially the eyes; the other is the language that comes out of the mouth. I don’t necessarily mean the content of the language (though that, of course, is always revealing), but rather the very language in which the content is conveyed. So, on the one hand, a look at the many faces that make up a society or community will tell you an awful lot about that community, whether it’s happy, fearful, neglected, oppressed etc. And, on the other hand, listening to the language of those people will be equally revealing of their heart. What does the general language of our society sound like these days? What does it betray about our society?

I was fascinated by a newspaper columnist (a woman) actually challenging today’s public language. She described it as vulgar, hostile and selfish. I was fascinated that she was giving vent to her dismay (and it was genuine dismay) in a newspaper column, a place where we have seen an alarming increase in decadence and vulgarity of expression over the last few years (not to mention content!). It is the media in fact that has underlined and taught our generation to speak with incredible coarseness.

I was also fascinated by the fact that the writer was a woman; it was as though she were taking on the forgotten historic feminine cultural role of trying to keep decency in our language. She would probably recoil from such a notion. But the fact is that culturally womenfolk have held the barrier against vulgarity and obscenity in language. I was reminded of the rather outdated expression, “Mind your language, there a lady present!”

I was encouraged even more by her role because I have noted that in the newspaper column writing of the present time the womenfolk seem to go out of their way to outdo their men folk in vulgarity and obscenity. She was a very welcome exception, even if it looked as if occasionally she had to quote some modern examples of vulgarity in order to gain a hearing!

She spoke of our language as having a “cruel and bullying tone”, “an abandonment of taste and restraint”, and “trying to gain attention by always going a little bit further” (a classic newspaper activity!) This tells us where we have got to as people – coarse, hostile, obscene, aggressive, unrestrained etc. Our language is us! The real tragedy is that most would defend such unrestrained verbal abuse in such terms as “I have a perfect right to say what I want in whatever way I want, and I am going to do so”.

The columnist noted, “Not long ago that kind of language would not be printed in a national newspaper. It would have denied (a person) the company of any people except the foolish and the depraved”. Our lips tell us are a society adrift of our moorings, dangerously moving in an ever quickening current of decadency.

Bob

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THE POISON OF GREED

2010-09-28T13:02:00.008+01:00

There has always been violence and there has always been greed in the world. They are containable when law and good government act effectively against them. They become utterly devastating, however, when they take over the reins of power, override law and invade the national culture. The culture of violence underlay the Nazi party in Germany and brought it to power in 1933. From there it went on to infect the whole German nation and bring world-wide destruction. It found a true bedfellow in the equally strong Japanese culture of violence which devastated the Far East and gave us “world” war.
In our generation the culture of greed has captured the economic high places of Western Society; it is not something that appears in a few hidden places, it is endemic. It is highly toxic, it is virulently poisonous and it has already brought widespread economic devastation – in the U.S. alone a national debt of $13 trillion. It was precisely this culture of greed among the rich, the influential and the rulers that Amos and his fellow prophets exposed in the society of their day. Their call was a call back to a forgotten morality and to the fear of God. Ridiculed and ignored they none the less continued to call.
The new Western systemic culture of greed can be illustrated in the story of the U.S. Long-Term Capital Management fund of the 1990s. A group of extremely able professors and economists from Ivy League Universities thought they had devised an infallible mathematical scheme for forcasting long term movements in financial capital. This meant they could invest large sums of money with inevitable and large profits. It was the ultimate gamblers’ dream. Disdaining their distinguished academic roles, their sole aim was now to make as much money as possible, and their status was in proportion to their pay and their profits. They gambled with borrowed money, in billions of dollars, borrowed from significant and leading investors, and charged those who invested with them enormous fees. They typified the new kind of ruthless shark swimming in the waters of the financial world. They made no useful contribution at all to world economy but made “kills” simply by moving money assets around the table. Finally in 1998 the “infallible” scheme was caught out and the fund collapsed with losses of $billions. A bail out by banks had to be arranged very quickly to stop the shock waves destroying the economy. But many paid bitterly for the fiasco.
This high level culture of greed, however, did not die with LTCM. On the contrary it was growing everywhere, rapidly. It had crossed the Atlantic (and other oceans!) and infected the whole banking system in Britain. The sense of responsibility of banking toward industry and the small customer was lost in the fever of making quick and large profit. Corruption became endemic. The rewards attracted the best brains in Britain to the City and the “bonus” became the essential target. We know where it has all led – to a bail out that dwarfs the LCTM bail out, and to the massive time bomb of unprecedented debt.
But, unbelievingly, the culture still remains, lurking in banks which, despite all that has happened, still stonewall any real restraint being placed on them. They are determined to pursue their “Casino” activities and give them precedence over the really productive banking that gives less profit but undergirds the economy and jobs. If they cannot be restrained then inevitably further disaster, and further collapse, probably complete collapse, will follow.This is a desperate lesson in the need of society for moral restraint.

Thank God there are people still in high places who can see the need for restraint, even if they don’t like the word “moral”. But whether they like the word “moral” or not the fact is that humanity cannot survive without moral restraints. In the long history of political thought, those restraints have never been articulated better than in the Ten Commandments.

Bob

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PROPHETIC POPE?

2010-09-21T12:55:00.014+01:00

The general understanding of the word “prophetic” is that it describes a perceptive and incisive statement concerning the world in which we live, a statement that warns of danger and points to a safe way forward. It refers to something of consequence, something that has the perspective of a broad historical picture, and something that stands back and interprets crucial movements in society. It generally bucks the trend and requires a degree of courage for its expression.
The Pope began his recent visit by saying in the Queen’s presence, “Today, the United Kingdom strives to be a modern and multicultural society. In this challenging enterprise, may it always maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that the more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate. Let it not obscure the Christian foundation that underpins its freedoms”.
This simple statement put its finger on a crucial national spiritual issue, and warned of the national danger of abandoning its Christian heritage. It can rightly be called prophetic. It can be called prophetic all the more so because this was being said at the very highest level of government in the person of the monarch, who is also the Head of the Established Church, and with the national media in eager attendance, eager to hear what this man had to say. It was a godly statement, given to a nation in a way that all could hear. It was not given “in a corner”.
This prophetic statement, it soon became obvious, was not to be a mere starter, it was to be the main course of the whole visit. Later in the day the Pope said, “The evangelisation of culture is all the more important in our times when a “dictatorship of relativism” threatens to obscure the unchanging truth about man’s nature, his destiny and his ultimate good. There are now some who seek to exclude religious belief from public discourse, to privatise it or even to paint it as a threat to quality and liberty. Yet religion is in fact a guarantee of authentic liberty and respect …” Not only did he here again point out the danger but went on to exhort, “For this reason I appeal to you, the faithful. in accordance with your baptismal calling and mission, not only to be examples of faith in public, but also to put the case for the promotion of faith’s wisdom and vision in the public forum.” This warning and rallying call came into focus every time he spoke.
We should be profoundly grateful that such a challenge has been laid down in such high places against the rapid descent of our nation into godlessness, a descent which has been the work of so many of the intelligentsia, intellectuals and libertine opinion formers of our nation. Small wonder the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster said this Pope’s visit could be more significant than Pope John Paul’s great visit.

I have appended below a Post Script of further significant points of the Pope's visit for any who might wish to read further.

Bob

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POST SCRIPT

Further brief comments.

1. The Pope in his capacity as head of the Vatican was speaking to England as a nation, not simply to the Catholic Church as its pastor, though, of course he did do that at the same time. Hence there was a great weight to his addresses.

2. The prophetic message he brought was part of his wider vision for the challenging of secularism across European society as a whole. In fact he touches an issue that affects all western society, European or otherwise. That is a significant perspective we need in our prophetic thinking.

3. The sheer width of the reach of his message during his visit was astonishing. This is because he came as a head of state. He not only spoke to the Queen and, but he spoke to a very distinguished audience of politicians, diplomats, academics and business leaders at Westminster Hall. He spoke in Westminster Abbey to the dignitaries of the Anglican Church. He went on to speak to speak to representatives of other religions, to teachers in the presence of the Secretary of State for Education, to youth and to children. And, of course, he spoke to large crowds of Catholics. This huge reach solidifies the prophetic nature of his visit.

4. The language of his message was such as enabled it to be received seriously. It was very simple and never pretentious; it was direct; one knew exactly what he was saying. It was on the one hand spiritual and on the other hand intellectually of a high order; he knew the issues. There was no religious jargon that might cause an immediate “turn off”.

5. Alongside his wider message he clearly had an agenda as a Roman Catholic. His visit to Westminster Abbey was considered a pilgrimage to the tomb of Edward the Confessor, his discussion of the relationship between politics and religion at Westminster Hall featured Thomas More who was a Catholic martyr, and the beatification of Cardinal Newman who left Anglicanism for Rome became the central piece of his final statement about the importance of the spiritual in human life. We should not begrudge him that stance; after all he is the Pope. It was never arrogant, and it was taken in the context of genuine goodwill and genuine desire for spiritual co-operation on an issue where co-operation could be possible.

6. Seeing a prophetic aspect to this visit in no way implies a compromise concerning purely Christian theological issues. For us the “elevation to the altar” of Cardinal Newman as a figure to be invoked in prayer will always remain a step much too far, as will the central doctrine of trans-substantiation in the Mass. And there are many other issues where we may judge that Rome has strayed. However, if you have a kipper for tea, you would be wise not to throw away the flesh with the bones; we do not have to swallow all, but we certainly have to take on board what is edifying. There was a powerful prophetic stance here that we throw away at our peril.

9/11 - A FADING MEMORY?

2010-09-14T12:21:00.009+01:00

The anniversary of 9/11 has just gone by this week-end with very little mention – at least in Britain! The U.S.A.’s most famous opera singer made mention of it publically in between her songs at the last night of the Proms (which was the actual anniversary date) but it received a muted response.

Of course, in life we need to move on and get over things, bad things especially. But there are some things that really need to be remembered, and 9/11 is one of them. The primary reason for that is that it came with a massive prophetic edge (whatever your definition of the prophetic may be). Right at the beginning of the new century it seemed like a great sign post, a great pointer to the future, a warning sign.

Thinking of the event in retrospect, and retrospective thinking is generally more valuable than immediate response thinking, a particular pattern or interpretation has been in my mind. It comes from the fact that in what was a three-pronged attack the twin towers were completely destroyed, the Pentagon was partially destroyed and the White House escaped.
The twin towers were the epitome of the financial/business world; floor after floor was involved in wheeling and dealing. It was a world in which greed and profit were the motivators. Then the unthinkable, the unimaginable happened – both towers completely collapsed. Such a total catastrophe beggared belief. It is the totality of the collapse that needs to be remembered. When we see what has happened to the financial world in the nine years that have elapsed since 9/11 the startling prophetic nature of the event itself becomes starker than ever. For the financial world has almost hit ground zero; one more collapse and it will. It’s as though the towers symbolised the reality, and the reality itself has now virtually collapsed, propped up in a very shaky and uncertain manner. Many fear a ground zero scenario.

On 9/11 the Pentagon, the symbol and seat of U.S. military power, took a severe knock. Once again the last nine years have seen a further playing out of that event; the American military has taken a severe and very expensive knock in its exploits in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was 9/11 that drew the might of the U.S. unwisely into those wars, exposed the severe limitations of “overwhelming power”, and gave a severe dent to overweening pride.

But the White House escaped. I am not sure what that really points to. However, I must admit that it makes me breathe a sigh of relief; some real political horror was not permitted to happen. I can only hope that if the White House is the symbol of a political system based on freedom and the rule of law then somehow in the years that lie ahead this huge (if imperfect) blessing we have of a free society may be allowed to continue.
We remain totally at the mercy of God. He is knocking very severely at the doors of our western society.

Bob

"GOD GAVE THEM OVER"

2010-09-07T15:48:00.012+01:00

These four words, “He gave them over” are repeated three times in the opening chapter of Romans. They refer to God’s action toward human beings when they deliberately turn their backs on a Creator God whom they instinctively know to be righteous.

What does he give them over to? First, “He gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another" 1:24; second, “He gave them over to shameful lusts. Even the women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones" 1:26; third, “He gave them over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done … filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity”1:28-29.

The consequences outlined so clearly by Paul are the result of a basic denial of God and his restraints in favour of an unfettered pursuit of personal desires. In allowing such consequences God also allows man’s own choices to be his judgement.

Perhaps the most astonishing feature about this analysis of Paul is the marked emphasis of being “given over” to sexual depravity. When humanity turns its back on God there is an explosion of sexual chaos. It is not the only consequence, as verses 29ff make plain, but it is a first and very pronounced consequence. It is an explosion which goes beyond loose and indiscriminate sexual relations and goes into “unnatural relations”. Once the sexual urge is off the lease it goes deeper and deeper into all kinds of aberrations.

Nationally (and generally in the West), since the 1960s we have been witnessing a profound and agonising vindication of this analysis of Paul. Over those last 50 years (a half-century!) we have seen an ever increasing rejection of the Righteous God, an increasing pursuit of personal pleasure, and an ever increasing explosion of sexual chaos (the limits of which, one suspects, have not yet been reached!). If, as the secularists are always reminding us, we need evidence to support Christian analysis, then here is very hard evidence.

For us the challenge is clear – “You are light in the Lord. Live as children of light” Eph 5:8. God in Christ is alone able to keep us from corruption.

Bob

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2010-07-27T10:47:00.005+01:00

JUDGEMENT AND JOY

I will not be posting a column during August, and the next column will be on Tuesday 7th September. It seems good to end the current series on a positive note, despite the seriousness of things happening around us. I am prompted to this by Habakkuk who struggled and grappled with the decadent state of his nation, and quivered at the threats God was making to it, and yet whose collected prophecies end on a note of joy. His words have resounded over many centuries now: “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vine(marks of devastation and destruction)yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour....He enables me to go on the heights”. It’s much more than a “grin and bear it” attitude to trouble; it’s an embracing of the antidote of joy.

Habakkuk had come to a point where the sources of human joy had dried up. Humanly there was very little to look forward to in the nation; quite the contrary. Pessimism and depression seemed the inevitable response to the natural situation. But there in front of him was the “joy of the Lord”. Like Nehemiah he found that the joy of the Lord was his strength.

What is the joy of the Lord? It is joy that springs from that assured knowledge that God is a living God, and that despite difficult present circumstances he offers a future, a hope and a present strength. It is a joy that comes from knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of God. There is a great deal of this sentiment in the prophetic writings: God’s love for his people, God’s love for the nations, God’s purposes of redemption, God’s present help and care.

It’s a joy, therefore, that is anchored in our faith in the love of God.
Perhaps one of the greatest expressions of this is to be found in another prophet, Zephaniah: “The lord your God is with you; he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing”. Zeph. 3:17

May God fill you with such joy! Refresh yourself in Him!

Bob

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2010-07-20T16:04:00.027+01:00

CULTURE AND CORRUPTION

We might define “culture” as the artistic expression of the way in which a society or nation or civilisation thinks, believes and does things. It is a mixture of artistic ability (writing, composing, painting etc.) working on compelling contemporary interests and desires. I grew up thinking it to be also inherently allied to what was noble; culture stood for standards. I’ve had to learn how utterly wide of the mark that early thinking was. I’ve had to learn that no matter how intriguing the artistic element might be, the interests and desires to which it gives expression can be utterly debased; culture can be thoroughly corrupt. Our world does not seem to make that distinction. The Christian must.

The Times “Saturday Review” is typical of numerous places where the intelligentsia unwittingly (or quite deliberately!) reveal just how corrupt our culture is, and take delight in it. Characteristically the large front page headlines this week cried out, “We drank, we smoked, we slept around”. The article which followed featured a group of men engaged in the advertising business, one of who wrote a memoir of their life and behaviour. The memoir inspired a multi award-winning drama “Mad Men” of which the author of the memoir said, “I became an advisor on the show. Audiences were shocked by all the sex and alcohol and outrageous behaviour on the screen. But let me tell you, the reality was so much worse”. The Times article appeared because the memoir has just been republished. The Times felt it was worth a complete front page spread, followed by a second page spread, along with a 14 x 19inch photograph of the author. The article is an extraordinary mixture of obscenity, which provides the real show case for the article, and shrewdness of observation on the advertising world.

What it is really saying is, “Look! This is our culture; this is what we value; this is real living; this is life; let it titillate us!” This sort of article is by no means a “one off”; it is common place. Our culture is as clever and as decadent as ever the “Renaissance” and “Baroque” culture was at its worst, and, it ought to be said, as decadent as great areas of Greek and Roman “Classical” culture.

We should not be snared by the tempting word “culture”, still less by its modern obscenity. The latter is something for profound regret. Music, art, drama should express beauty, something it can never achieve if its subjects are lasciviousness and uncontrolled indulgence, which are the very antithesis of beauty.
Heaven is full of music and poetry, song, drama and endless creativity, but uncorrupted. Things there are “noble and of good report”.

Bob

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THE “UNIVERSAL WOUND”

2010-07-13T13:21:00.004+01:00

The author of a recent newspaper article discussing how music can help a sick mind made the following statement; “To speak to us, artists must connect their private wounds with the fundamental, universal wound that comes from the human condition: that of having been born for insufficient reason and consequently fated to die after a lifetime of incomplete meaning”. Here is an intellectual voicing the deep malaise of our times, a pessimism that says that there is no meaning in our birth and no meaning in our lives. It springs directly from a complete denial of the person of a living God. That is where the denial of God always leads to - a blank wall of hopelessness. The elegance of his words does nothing to help his deep pessimism. Perhaps music might be made to echo that pessimism and perhaps that may be therapeutic to a point, but it can, of course never be a cure for pessimism – it may actually deepen it!
The modern intellectual world, and especially those intellectuals whose voice is heard in the media, is rife with such unbelief. Such unbelief does not simply affect their outlook, it affects behaviour. It is only a revelation of a God who in his very essence is holy and righteous that can keep humanity from falling lower and lower in both its understanding and its observance of moral obligation. Man without God is infinitely more adrift in this world than the intellectuals can conceive: he is blind and on course for disaster.
The denial of God, or the form it mostly takes in our society, the attitude that God is simply irrelevant to modern living, is the great curse of our times. The last fifty years have seen this attitude grow enormously (despite some real Christian growth), not only among the intellectuals but in society at large. The pessimism is felt deeply but for many is buried by the consumerism of “eat, drink and be merry …” and the moral collapse is blatantly obvious. That is why society is also blind and on course for disaster.
We have to be faithful to the uttermost in our witness that “the fundamental wound that comes with the human condition” is the wound of sin, but that God has the cure and the healing balm in the life and sacrifice of Jesus. There is simply no healing, no optimism, no hope, no future, no eternity outside of God, but with him there is an abundance of all these things.

Bob

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ASSESSING THE LAST DECADE

2010-07-06T09:54:00.002+01:00

I can scarcely believe that a full decade has gone by since I first heard God speaking from Amos through the word “I will spare them no longer”. The summary of what I heard is in audio form on the home page of the website, and in printed form in the website articles. It was a word for the nation, it was stark and its fulfilment was just a matter of time – “I will spare them no longer”. I might add that the word seemed equally addressed to all the western nations, not just our own.
In reading further around Amos I became aware that the fulfilment of that word of judgement in his own generation took 25 years or so, and so I became very interested in what those 25 intermittent years looked like. It seemed to me they would hold very significant pointers to the path we were likely to follow as a nation. They would be years in which the withdrawal of God’s favour in certain areas would become more and more obvious. So I attempted to analyse them from the historical and prophetic writings. The analysis emerged as a paper with the title “Countdown to Chaos” (on the website).
After ten years it’s time to appraise that analysis and see if it is indeed relevant. That is what I hope to do in the next few weeks, and hopefully publish the conclusions. Maybe, however, some reading this column might have insights you’d like to offer? Please do!
My first and immediate thought is that the title “Countdown to Chaos” has certainly not been wide of the mark. “Chaos” is a word used with great frequency in newspaper columns in connection with the nation, but it is also used frequently by others who are accustomed to more sober judgements. At the very least “chaos” is no exaggerated term for the current financial affairs of the nation.
The main points of the "Countdown" analysis of the road to judgement under Amos were 1) Political Disintegration, 2) Political Incompetence, 3) Political Corruption, and 4) Devastating Foreign Intervention. It was these that brought about major national collapse. Perhaps I should have made more of economic and social collapse as a specific issue, for it was certainly part of the “Countdown” in Amos’ day. It has equally been part of our journey in the last decade.
In the column last week I pointed to the bleeding sore of Middle Eastern war that followed the 9/11 attack. Political incompetence and corruption has completely surrounded that saga during this last decade, both here and in the USA. More needs to be said on that, and on all the other characteristics of the “Countdown”. It may be that a revision and a more precise analysis need to be made of those crucial characteristics.
It is not a pleasant task but has got to be done. We need to monitor where things are going.

Bob

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AMERICA UNDER SIEGE

2010-06-29T17:31:00.004+01:00

The British Empire lasted at most three centuries. In the 18thC it was “accumulated”, in the 19thC it was extended and “enjoyed”, and in the 20thC it was lost. Such is the pattern of empire that world history presents without exception: empires come and go, no matter how big and powerful. The USA has never had an empire of the British kind, but it has had vast global influence for about a century, the 20thC. Its climax has already been passed, however, and decline has set in. Though, like Britain, its influence will still be significant to a degree, it will no longer dominate the world. The proud title “Greatest Power in the World” is rapidly being washed away. That title is extremely unlikely to survive with any reality even the first half of the 21stC.
The first decade of the 21stC has already clearly demonstrated that. The USA has become embattled with militant Islam and as a consequence ventured into two crippling wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, with little success, draining its economy on a huge, unsustainable and daily basis. Those wars are the real and significant outcome of the twin towers bombing – a bleeding and poisonous sore. On the economic front the US has been plunged into an enormous and unprecedented national debt by persistent high level reckless financial gambling, with the prospect of more debt to come, and with much of its industrial heartland now wasteland. In a mere fifty years it has travelled from enormous wealth to enormous liabilities.

And then there is China, with a much, much greater population and a much greater wealth and military potential moving ahead very rapidly and highlighting the American decline even more.
If one looked at Europe as an entity, one would have to draw a similar conclusion of great decline.
Those who make a study of the decline and fall of empires constantly point to the fact of moral and social collapse (especially, though not exclusively, among the ruling classes) as a powerful contributing factor to decline. Empires collapse when powerful exterior pressure is exerted on them at the same time that their own social strength and cohesion has been sapped by indolent, selfish and pleasure loving lifestyles. It certainly happened to biblical Israel and Judah, to Assyria and Babylon and to Rome. We can see it very clearly in our own times among the powerful and over-proud major nations.
The biblical prophetic message provides the clearest statement of this repetitive historical process; that’s why it is so relevant. That’s why its constant call to come back to God and his ways is so important. The human tragedy lies in its blind and proud rejection of God.

Bob

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VERY DARK CLOUDS PERSIST

2010-06-22T21:50:00.003+01:00

It has been a pleasure in the last two or three columns to have written about the great things God has been doing in our world, and to reflect on the even greater things he has yet in mind. But the prime reason for this site was to bring to mind the less palatable truth that God’s judgements are in the world, and threaten to increase. Paul put the basic issue very simply: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18). Our age has certainly suppressed the truth about God: we cannot watch the consequences of that disdain of God with complacency. Its that more than anything that bring the dark clouds of judgement.
Man without God sows the seeds of his own destruction through his own godless behaviour. In other words, his behaviour itself brings judgement and disaster. The most obvious example of this truth at the moment is the extreme fragility and danger of the economic chaos in which we live. Few would or could deny that the vast debt and the threat of further collapse can only be placed at the feet of gross human self interest, not least amongst those who in positions of responsibility have simply had an eye to personal gain. Even the chaos of trillions of debt has not brought about any real repentance. Every human effort to find a way through comes to grief on the hard rock of our human nature. This debt is an extremely threatening cloud – another crash (much feared by economists) and the situation would be utterly catastrophic for society.
“Utterly catastrophic” – That’s the scenario God seems to be pointing to. The same sort of scenario has been conjured up by both the B.P. oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the volcanic ash. Superimposed on England the spill would stretch from Cornwall to the North Sea – much the greatest of such disasters yet seen - a disaster part human, part natural, but catastrophic. The volcanic ash (conveniently out of the news and forgotten) also gave us a glimpse of the real possibilities of the utterly catastrophic to our modern world.
None of these threats have gone away: a second crash is all too possible; the spill will continue until August at the earliest, and a greater volcano waits to erupt with vastly more ash. They lurk around. The clouds hover. Men do not read them; they have no fear of God before their eyes. The signs are of a massive and destructive storm.

Bob

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ITS DEEPER THAN YOU THINK!

2010-06-15T09:53:00.002+01:00

I published a pamphlet on this website about two weeks ago which was called “A Sign of the Times – the Gentiles”. Its purpose was to demonstrate the astonishing spread of the preaching of the gospel over the last three centuries, and especially during the twentieth century, and to relate that fact to Jesus words, “This gospel will be preached in among all nations and then the end will come”. By the end of the twentieth century virtually every nation had heard the gospel preached. What remained for the fulfilment of Jesus’ prophecy was not so much a question of extension as a question of deepening. How deep was spread of the gospel to be within each nation?
Over the last twenty years much focus has been laid on the expression used in the book of Revelation that people would be found among the multitude gathered to Jesus who came from “every people and every tongue” (Rev. 7:9). This has led to a great deal of research into “people groups” within nations, groups which are distinguished very often by their own dialects or languages. The research has been undertaken not simply for interest sake but in order to focus evangelistic work on such groups where apparently the gospel has not been preached. This is seen as “in depth” work for the proper accomplishment of the work that Jesus prophesied would take place.
This has brought an awareness of the fact that much work remains to be done. Many attempts have been made, therefore, to plant churches within these national “sub groups”, and there has been much prayer for these groups. This has been a very important feature of the spread of the gospel in the last two decades.
However, (and this has sparked this blog) I have just heard of one of these sub groups in China where plans were being made plant a church, only to find that it had already been done by the Chinese themselves. It reminded me instantly of how frequently God is ahead of us. Certainly we in the West are by no means the only (or even main) force for the gospel. The words of the title of this column came immediately to mind with regard to the extent of the penetration of the gospel – “It is deeper than you think”. Jesus is massively at work right across the world. Every day is a day nearer to the fulfilment of his prophecy. It really is a time to look up!

Bob

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REVIVAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

2010-06-08T12:23:00.001+01:00

Having looked in some detail at the numerous and large outpourings of the Spirit which characterised the 20th Century (and to which reference is made in the new pamphlet “A Sign of the Times – The Gentiles), I am left musing on the enormous possibilities for the spread of the gospel in the 21st Century. I cannot believe it will be a century when we shall see a pause in the outpourings of the Spirit, but very much the opposite.
God’s purposes come “in the fullness of time”. It’s easy to see that Jesus came at a time that was very appropriate in purely human terms. At his birth the Roman Empire spanned much of the known world, communications were extremely good across the Empire, and the stage was set for the spread of the gospel right across the Empire. That duly happened over a number of centuries and the gospel was firmly embedded in the Western world.

Likewise in the 18thC new Western empires were about to dominate the world, and global communications were about develop on an unprecedented scale. As a consequence, over the last three centuries the gospel has become embedded in most nations across the world. Global communication now, however, in the 21stC has reached an unbelievable peak with the technological revolution. If, in the Reformation age, the printing of books had such an impact on the spread of the gospel and on the process of making disciples how much more the web age! The stage is set for an advance that could easily eclipse the 20thC.
Important and relevant as this human scenario of communication may be, the dynamic of revival remains crucial. A church full of spiritual life and vigour, impelled by the Spirit has to make use of the opportunities of communicating. Even when opportunities are not favourable for communication, as was the case in China in the 1950s-70s a Spirit-filled church will insist on communicating with extraordinary fruitful effect.
What can we see of revival in the first decade of the 21stC? One comment might be made: something very powerful is happening in the Muslim world. Communication with the Muslim world is at a level much higher than ever before, and there are many manifestations of the Holy Spirit at work right across those nations. Supernatural witness and witness from believers are combining to produce an extraordinary leavening. Pray God it may be a precursor to an ingathering of Moslems which outnumber even the continuing gathering of the Chinese. We may not have had our 21stC Welsh revival or Azusa St. revival in the West, but we must watch for outpourings on a greater scale from other continents and nations.

Bob

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES

2010-06-01T17:56:00.010+01:00

At some point this coming week two new pamphlets will be published on the site. I will put a note to that effect on the home page when it happens. This column is by way of an introduction to those new articles.

They both appear under a new section headed "SIGNS OF THE TIMES". The first one deals with the Gentiles and the second one with the Jews. I've worked on these articles because I feel that the twentieth century has created an historical landmark which no other has since Jesus made his prophetic comments about the future. Two unprecedented historical facts have emerged in the century: first the gospel is now being preached right across the globe, and virtually to all nations; second there has been a return of the Jews from all nations to their own land. These facts are there for all to see.

Jesus made an unequivocal statement about the Gentiles: "This gospel will be preached in all the world and then the end will come" Matt. 24:14 We have no way of knowing exactly what the expression, "the fulness of the Gentiles" means and just how wide or deep the response to the gospel will be before the "end comes". But unquestionably we have reached an unmistakeable milestone in the gobal spread of the gospel. The first pamphlet deals in more detail with this and its implications.

I have a great deal of time exploring the historical facts of the Jewish return to Israel during the twentieth century. In the pamphlet on the Jews as a Sign I have made the point that the real decider of prophetic interpretation concerning the Jews will be the facts of history rather than more theological wrangling. We shall know prophecy is being fulfilled when we see it actually happening in fact. The pamphlet therefore considers a number of evident historical facts about the Jews in the last century with the suggestion that they point powerfully to an end time sign. They seem to find great resonance with Jesus' words, "Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles (fullness of the Gentiles) has come" Lk 21:24

I would particularly like to hear comment on this latter pamphlet. For me it represents an exploration on a critically important issue, and is not set in concrete. We are all straining to see what God is doing and to some extent "looking through a glass darkly", but in the twenty first century we are undoubtedly going to see some extraordinary things in prophetic fulfilment.

If you can take the time to read it and care to comment, I'd be most grateful.

Bob

THE BOTTOM LINE OF PENTECOST

2010-05-25T09:03:00.003+01:00

So good to see Pentecost so widely remembered last Sunday! It is so crucial that we never forget the paramount need of an outpouring of the Spirit for the growth of the Kingdom and the church of Jesus. It needs something more than just celebrating, however, if we are to see new Pentecosts in our midst. The 20th century began with two amazing outpourings of the Spirit in the shape of what we now call the Welsh Revival and the Azusa St. Pentecostal Revival. Akin to each other and feeding off each other they set the scene for a remarkable century of Pentecosts. Our sights must be firmly fixed on new Pentecosts bursting out in the 21st century.
The bottom line, the real starting point for such Pentecosts is always the same: a deep sense of spiritual need and a deep hunger for God to act in power. Pentecosts do not come to complacent churches. They come where people are genuinely grappling with their own spiritual limitations and inadequacies, where they are deeply concerned to see something more of the reality of Jesus and his power. When this is turned into prayer and intercession and where this prayer is persisted in then we find Pentecost returns.
No matter where you turn in revival history (and there is a lot of it now!) this is always the testimony. It was certainly the case with the Welsh Revival and the Azusa St Revival. Jesse Penn-Lewis (a contemporary of the Welsh revival) wrote about the “Hidden Springs of the Revival”, pointing to widespread meetings for prayer for several years before revival broke out; it was hungry prayer and prayer focussed of the need for God to manifest his presence. The same sort of hungry prayer was a feature of many Holiness churches before the events at Azusa St.
That it should be like this should be no surprise. The Day of Pentecost itself was preceded by ten days of earnest prayer by people who had heard Jesus make his promise about sending the Spirit and who were determined to “make a business of prayer” until the promise was fulfilled. The pattern was set then: it has never changed.
Equally important is the fact that Pentecosts are sustained by the same sort of hungry prayer. When the apostles felt they were in danger of losing their boldness they went straight to prayer (Acts 4:23ff). Revivals bring a great impetus to prayer, but if the Spirit is grieved or quenched by some kind of sin (particularly pride or quarrelling) then the flow dries up. So there's a need to watch and pray.
A most important moment in revival history is that moment when the Spirit stirs up in God’s people a deep spiritual hunger for Jesus. Incidentally there is nothing like reading revival accounts to create a spiritual hunger.

Bob

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THE POWER OF PENTECOST

2010-05-18T10:38:00.007+01:00

Ten days after his ascension Jesus made his presence felt on the earth by baptising a small group of believers with the Holy Spirit. That was in effect a phenomenal release of power, of enabling. It transformed that group and gave it such an impetus in witness that within a week it had grown from 120 persons to thousands. No wonder that baptism was signified by a gale-like wind! Thank God this is not just history, but the first example of a ministry of Jesus which is still very much with us. It is released today, as it was in the apostle’s time, by taking hold of the promise of the Spirit (which is timeless) through prayer. The history of the church bears abundant testimony to the reality of that ongoing ministry.
Without that impetus the church would never have got off the ground. The 3,000 that were converted on the Day of Pentecost were first brought together by the extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit and then brought under devastating conviction of sin by the anointed preaching of Peter. The book of Acts goes on from there to relate the history of some thirty years of Holy Spirit empowered activity among the first generation of Christians. That activity spread the gospel all around the Mediterranean world, raised many powerful churches in Gentile lands and saw the emergence of very strong leadership in those churches. It was a witness carried out with great boldness in the face of constant persecution. It was a witness of powerful preaching, miraculous signs, visions, dreams, healings, angelic visitations and much moral restoration among Jew and Gentile alike. It was a Holy Spirit ministry.
Whatever else may come in the 21st century we can be sure of one thing: Jesus will continue to pour out his Spirit on his people in this fashion. He will continue to build up his church, he will work until the fulness of the Gentiles is brought in, until the gospel is preached throughout the whole world and then he will bring in the “end”. The call on the church is to continue to believe the “promise of the Spirit” and to wait on the Lord for its constant fulfilment. This coming Pentecost Sunday is marked as a “Global Day of Prayer” when the church world-wide will look for renewed “Pentecosts”. What a wonderful prospect!

Bob

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THE SEAT OF POWER

2010-05-11T14:36:00.004+01:00

At the moment it’s all talk about who will get the place of political power in the nation. No one knows which way it will go, a real cliff-hanger! Perhaps that is a good moment to reflect on the fact that Ascension Day falls this week.
What is the connection? Well, Ascension Day is essentially about Jesus taking up a place of “all power and authority, in heaven and on earth”, about Jesus being received “at the right hand of the Father”, about the King receiving his rightful position on the throne of God. Ascension is all about the rule and government of Jesus. And there is a very human side to it, for the ascension was very much a human ascension. It was not a vision or a symbolic idea, but a real ascension by a fully human Jesus, albeit in a resurrection body, to a position of the utmost authority.
If you ask anyone about the “ministry” of Jesus they are almost certain to think of him walking about Galilee. That was the time when he was active in the world. Ask about his ascension and the more likely reaction is that that was the time when he retired from the scene, his ministry having finished. It is that response that cries out to be radically changed. The fact is that he is as active in ministry from his throne as ever he was on earth. The ascension, in fact, compels us to examine his present ministry. There is a desperate need for us to do that and to recognise Jesus is very much at work in our modern world.
One aspect of that present ministry is clearly conveyed by the book of Revelation. There we see him as the Lamb in the midst of the Throne (Rev. 5). There we see the purposes of God symbolised by a book of writing in the hand of God, and there we see that only one person has the authority to open that book and bring about those purposes – that is the Lamb. And that is precisely what revelation portrays: Jesus, the Lamb, unlocking the seals which kept the book closed. In other words he is unfolding the future history of the world; he brings about his Father’s will. That is his present ministry (or part of it).
The resultant scenarios are anything but pleasant; war, famine, death, persecution and natural catastrophe. One could hardly quarrel with such an incredibly accurate picture of the world’s progress! But he’s in control and conquering evil. We should not quarrel with that either. He will fulfil all prophecy, he will bring in his kingdom, he will restore peace and redeem humanity and its world. He will not default!

All this is a very necessary corrective to the earthly power scrambles we are obliged to witness. Stability is in Jesus.

“IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID!”

2010-05-04T15:59:00.001+01:00

This famous remark, “It’s the economy, stupid!” was the remark that hung in Bill Clinton’s campaign office when he defeated George Bush in the 1992 campaign for the American presidency. It’s generally acknowledged that by putting this remark at the centre of his election strategy and sticking to it, Clinton really touched the thing that mattered for most. He got to the heart of things, and that ensured his success. The remark has resurfaced in the current British election, and its importance can scarcely be denied in the current economic chaos: the economy is the key to all else.
That is, of course, if we are dealing purely in human wisdom. The ordinary person trying to make a steady way in life with home and family, the marginalised bottom of the pile person, the person over committed to debt and the already over fat banking profiteer look at money issues above all else. Money seems to be utterly central. Who’s really got the answers to the current money problems? – that’s what we want to know.
But money (though the economic problems have to be faced) is not actually the real problem. The real problem is not managing money, but managing people! We have had scenes over the last two decades of the most unbelievable selfish greed among those who ought to have taken responsibility for national institutions, including the banks – a one million pound bonus sets up a lust for more and more. We have had scenes in which the rank and file of us all have changed from gratitude for what we have got to a rabid demand that we have a right virtually to everything, a demand unfortunately egged on by a moribund democratic process, a kind of power by popular plebiscite. We have virtually all finished up in debt, and facing a very bleak future. Add to this soaring crime and corruption and we have a scenario in which humanity has got itself into a devastating mess. Humanity is the central problem. It believes, it trusts it can get itself out of it. The prognosis is not good.
It’s all, actually, a big “wake-up” call to humanity. Somewhere, some how, some moral fibre has got to be rediscovered, some restoration of institutions that inculcate that moral fibre have to become our first priority. Or more chaos will ensue! Not much talk of that in the hustings!
“It’s the economy, stupid!” Not really! A more realistic slogan would be, “It’s humanity, stupid!”. The problem with the economy is very, very difficult. The problem with humanity is, unfortunately, impossible for humanity – only its Creator can put that right!

Bob

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"ALL THOSE IN AUTHORITY"

2010-04-27T09:13:00.001+01:00

We shall shortly be voting to put people into the highest authority in the nation, people who will make the law and who will govern the nation. The existence of that highest authority depends in the last analysis entirely on the fact that we vote. So we have to vote, because if we don’t there will be (at least theoretically) no authority and there will be anarchy! That is why we have a duty to vote, even if we haven’t the faintest idea who to vote for.
It’s a privilege to vote, because most people in the world actually don’t have a say in who takes the highest authority in their land. They are stuck with ambitious, corrupt and often violent autocrats who are there to get as much out of their authority as they can for themselves. That’s another impelling reason to vote.
What we need from such authority is rule that gives the possibility of peaceable living, such living being based on godliness and mutual respect. That, at any rate, is what Paul tells Timothy that his churches should be praying for when they consider those in authority (1 Tim 2:1). It is highly unlikely that any authority will deliver such peaceableness unless those who make up such authority uphold in their own personal lives godliness and mutual respect. One of the modern fallacies about politicians is that it doesn’t make any difference what sort of a personal life they lead, and that it is no business of the electorate; they should only be judged on their abilities. But if a person cannot be trusted in their private life (if they betray their spouse or their business associates) then they cannot be trusted in public life where trust and honesty is actually of great importance. Indeed the besetting sin of politicians seems to be their economy with the truth! Dishonesty is not a disease which can be kept isolated in one part of the human psyche – it spreads. A very able person who cannot be trusted is not always a good thing – we have seen the effects of that in the recent banking scandals where the cleverest of men have caused the greatest chaos simply because they were corrupt and lied, and were clever!
So “Party” talk and policy is not everything we have to look at. It is at least worth a good look to see what sort of a person the candidate is. Probably that’s as good a reason as any for the local “hustings”. If you can’t choose a party, choose a person!!
Most important, it is a time to pray, with supplications intercessions and thanksgivings – that is clearly a scriptural injunction.

Bob

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CLOUD OF ASH

2010-04-20T09:25:00.006+01:00

The editor of the Times newspaper wrote this week, “There is something unavoidably symbolic about the cloud of volcanic ash hanging over Britain”. I agree. He said it “should have prompted a serious election debate about the environment”. I can’t quite follow that extraordinary conclusion! I felt a sense of complete anti climax!
Two phrases had previously come into my mind as I had thought about any meaning or symbolism in this volcanic eruption; they were “human vulnerability” and “frightening immediacy”. A simple confluence of volcano, ice and wind direction (all totally outside of human control) had produced millions of tons of ash that incapacitated the latest aviation technology and grounded hundreds of planes. Staggering! The impact is huge with thousands stranded and perishables in danger of rotting. The vulnerability of this tightly knit, sophisticated human society we live in has once again been completely exposed. This volcano will do more damage yet if it continues.

It all happened so suddenly – that really is the frightening bit. One day all is well; the next day there is chaos. There’s no time to prepare, no time to get back home before the ash is in the sky, no time for alternative arrangements. It’s an instantaneous moment of reckoning.
I don’t need to use “judgement” vocabulary in this reflection, even if it were appropriate. I find myself much more drawn to a verse in Ps. 90 “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (v.11). God teaches us “to number our days” by making our vulnerability obvious. It’s a lesson that a self-centred consumer society needs to learn before it crashes along with its pride in its achievements and its growing mind-set that says it has a right to have what it needs and wants. When we face our vulnerability, then we start to ask questions about life that are rather deeper than just what we are going to buy on the next shopping spree. When the psalm talks about “gaining a heart of wisdom” it is talking about getting divine “wisdom”, that is to say a God centred life, righteousness and care for others.
We live on an “angry planet”. This is not just “unfortunate” or “cruel”. It’s very anger can be a blessing when it takes us down a peg or two, brings home to us our dependence on God, and lifts our thoughts to the way we live and to the fact that there is an eternal life to be lived beyond this planet.
No, the volcano is not symbolic of the environment! It’s symbolic of the need for humanity to really face up to itself and the way it lives.

Bob

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POST EASTER PREPARATION

2010-04-13T09:35:00.004+01:00

There were fifty days from the resurrection of Jesus until Pentecost, that great day which marked the beginning of a great move of the Spirit and the birth of the early church. Those fifty days were essentially preparation days for that event. It’s always good to look at the times of preparation that bring about revival. That’s a big subject, so forgive a short comment.
It could not have happened without the ascension of Jesus (all revival starts with the ascended Jesus), and it was forty days after the resurrection before Jesus took that exalted position and took the gift of the Spirit from the Father. One can scarcely say, however, that Jesus needed any preparation for his ascension. It was his disciples that needed the preparation, and it seems clear that those forty days of continued earthly physical appearances were for their sakes. What they really needed was some further teaching, alongside a deepening of their personal experience of a risen, living Lord.
The subject of that teaching is no secret to us, even if we cannot perhaps imagine the sheer power and conviction with which it was communicated by Jesus. In the resurrection stories we are told that even on Easter day he began to “teach them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself”. One might have thought that they had learned enough in seeing the resurrection, but, no, they had to learn thoroughly why he had died. They could have no valid ministry that was not accurately focussed on his death and clearly presented his total sacrifice for sin. Moreover, they had to learn that there were prophetic scriptures about a ministry that Jesus would continue to exert through the Holy Spirit from his ascended position. The disciples had been a part of his earthly ministry and now they had to understand what it would mean to be part of his ascended ministry. They had to learn afresh the crucial place of the Holy Spirit in that ministry.
So it was that after his resurrection Jesus appeared to them from time to time “speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God”. His post resurrection teaching was utterly crucial, for he dealt with matters that his disciples simply could not have grasped with any sense of reality before the resurrection. Informed understanding is vital for revival.
In context, Jesus was preparing his “church” to be (amongst other things) a blessing to the Jews even though he knew there would be a severe judgement that they would inevitably bring on themselves. Then, as now, whatever the context, he works his grace.

Bob

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THE RESURRECTION and PROPHECY

2010-04-06T14:48:00.009+01:00

What a wonderful day Easter day is! At the heart of every aspect of our walk with God is the resurrection of Jesus; actual resurrection, physical and real. It vindicates all he did on Calvary, prepares the way for his ascension, and for the coming of the Spirit. Spiritual life starts with meeting the risen Lord. Revivals and judgement both start with the risen Lord.
Jesus himself lived his earthly life and moved through his earthly ministry with a profound awareness that he would rise from the dead. It was the load star that guided him through all he faced. That awareness no doubt came from deep inner conviction, but it is also very evident that Jesus drew strength from an incisive understanding of Old Testament prophecy concerning his resurrection. It is not easy to imagine just how alive Jesus was in his spirit to the prophecies of the Old Testament; he didn’t simply work with “proof texts” but lived with the burning truth and revelation that those texts conveyed. It was something of that same burning revelation that he conveyed to his disciples on the Emmaus road. The prophetic revelation of his resurrection was of this calibre.
The book of Jonah provides a very clear example of his prophetic encounters. Jesus saw the emaciated Jonah fresh from three days in the belly of the fish as a startling sign to the Ninevites, but just as clearly he knew his resurrection from the dead would be an even greater sign to his own generation. He profoundly identified with the three days that Jonah spent in the fish; he could see with great clarity that those three days foreshadowed his death, and Jonah’s deliverance from the fish also spoke directly and powerfully of his own deliverance from death and his resurrection. (Matt 12:39ff)
The words of Isaiah, “After the suffering .. he will see the light of life and be satisfied” (Isaiah 53:10) would have had equal impact. Coming immediately after the poignant description of the death of the suffering servant, these words spoke clearly of that servant looking back with satisfaction on his death, indicating clearly that death had been overcome. Jesus, of course, knew he was that suffering servant and grasped the truth that after the agony of the cross would come the massive joy and satisfaction of his resurrection and glory.
Equally powerful to his soul would have been the words in Zechariah which come in the midst of an extraordinary restoration prophecy which said of the Israelites “they will look on me whom they have pierced” (Zech.10:10). Jesus knew the Israelites would pierce him, but equally he knew that later they would see him again as their resurrected and glorified Messiah.
This (and a great deal more) prophetic understanding became the key to his disciples in their understanding and preaching of the gospel after the resurrection.

Bob

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