As the old saying goes: ‘The ‘chickens are coming home to roost’ as far as the DUP is concerned. For quite a few years now they have been compromising on their former position on abortion and also on sodomy.
In 2016 the DUP supported the following motion. “That this Assembly endorses the principle of the extension to Northern Ireland of a number of provisions within the Policing and Crime Bill, by amendment at Lords Committee and Lords Report stage, in so far as they related to UK maritime enforcement powers; UK cross-jurisdictional arrest powers; anonymity for victims of forced marriage and pardons for convictions of certain abolished offences.”
Hidden behind these ‘weasel words’ was a posthumous pardon for all those convicted of violations of the law in the past by their sodomite activity.
Thus the DUP said loud and clear that SODOMY WAS A GUILTLESS LIFESTYLE WHICH MUST BE SEEN AS PERFECTLY NORMAL AND ACCEPTABLE!
And still Free Presbyterians supported this party which was bent on selling out our Biblical heritage.
Shame on those who still, five years later, are in membership of this party of perfidy and those who give support to it.
When a people step onto the slippery path of backsliding and disobedience to God they can only slide further down that path.
That is what is happening within the DUP today. They are going down and away from the Lord and all who continue to support them will go down with them.
The change of leadership within the DUP has been presented as a swing back toward the ‘old paths’.
IT MOST CERTAINLY IS NO SUCH THING!
Yes, the new leader, Mr Edwin Poots is a professing Christian and an office-bearer in Hillsborough Free Presbyterian Church. However, he had hardly settled the ‘leader’s cap’ on his head before he was giving voice to a most evil and unbiblical declaration!
On a BBC radio programme here in Northern Ireland he stated: “Gay people are ‘probably’ born that way and can’t be ‘cured’.”
That is an abominable denial of what the Bible teaches and this we demonstrated in our article in the ‘Burning Bush’ of May 20th 2021.
Sadly, there has been not one word from our Presbytery or from his home church in response to this outrageous statement made by an office bearer.
If this silence, this ‘hiding of the head in the sand’ continues then it will not be long until ‘Ichabod’ is written above our portals. (1 Samuel 4:21-22. The blame for that will rest firmly upon the shoulders of the ‘Elis’ who in the recent past and in the present, are leading our denomination and all those ministers and elders who have silently acquiesced in this shameful betrayal of God’s truth.
On 28th February,1988, on the 350th anniversary of the signing of the National Covenant in Scotland, our denomination solemnly set aside a day in which it sought the Lord and then very publicly entered into a covenant with the Lord. The terms of the covenant may be summed up in some words taken from it “ . . . by His grace, to stand with Christ in this evil day, for all that He is for, and against all that He is against.”
That was signed in each of our congregations on that Sabbath Day by all who attended worship.
I know a copy hangs in the porch of Kilskeery Free Presbyterian Church, though I heard with sadness that one young minister had never heard about such a covenant and was unable to find his church’s copy!
That I believe symbolises the present state of the Free Presbyterian Church – forgetful of its calling by God to stand for His truth in this evil age and its former profession of allegiance to God and His truth!
The increasingly wicked policies that the DUP has embraced were set forth in a Belfast Telegraph article on the new deputy leader of the party, Paula Bradley. It may be read here: Belfast Telegraph article
I need not quote extensively from the article but simply state a few lines.
“New deputy DUP leader Paula Bradley has gone further than any other member of her party has ever done in supporting a woman’s right to choose on abortion. Ms Bradley has also urged the DUP to reconsider its block on other Stormont parties bringing a paper to the Executive in a bid to get abortion services rolled out here.”
“Ms Bradley – who last month abstained in a Stormont vote on banning gay conversion therapy – said that if she had been given the choice by her party, she would have voted in favour of the motion. . . . . “Given the choice, which I didn’t have, I would have walked down that lobby in support of the motion to ban gay conversion therapy,” she added.”
The opponents of this bill to ban ‘gay conversion therapy’ say that the motion to ban was so broad that it would also ban preaching and applying the gospel.
Yet Paula Bradley, even in retrospect, is all for such a ban.
Thus the DUP has a deputy leader who has for years shown her support for the perverted notions of sodomites. In 2018 she, Paula Bradley, agreed to sponsor a ‘Pink News’’ Stormont reception at which it is reported Mrs Arlene Foster spoke. (Irish News, 27/6/18).
Of the DUP we may say: “How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!” 2 Samuel 1:24.
Sadly, if the Free Presbyterian Church does not break the ties which shackle it to the DUP, then it will be taken down with it.
Again I say:
“It is ‘make up your mind time’ for those Free Presbyterians in the DUP”
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
4th June 2021.