“And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathheres, in the mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill Gaash. And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim,” Judges 2:8-11.
I read these words with a trembling and vexed heart on Saturday 19th July, for they all too vividly describe what is happening yet again amongst God’s people! I also read that morning a companion chapter, Jeremiah 15.
In them both there is reiterated the judgment that follows departure from the Lord by His people!
Such is the tendency of the Christian to stray that under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost Isaiah said: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way,”Isaiah 53:6.
That ‘straying’ brought about the Saviour’s sufferings on the cross as the means of atoning for our sins and rescuing us and bringing us to the safety of the fold.
Despite being acutely aware of this truth, God’s people, with sad regularity, drift away from the Lord and set aside the clear teaching of His Word and, in consequence, raise children who because of the ‘drift’ of their parents, KNOW NOT THE LORD, NOR YET THE WORKS WHICH HE HAD DONE.
I. I BELIEVE THAT THE ROOT CAUSE OF THIS SAD DEPARTURE AND CONSEQUENT JUDGMENT, IS THE FAILURE OF THE ADULT GENERATION TO RIGHTLY TEACH THEIR OFFSPRING!
On Friday 18th July ‘The Christian Institute’ issued a statement which was headed:
Long-awaited sex ed guidance removes age limits for sex education
“It is also now explicitly clear that “all” teaching materials for sex education lessons “should be available to parents”, including external resources.
Previously, some schools have refused to allow parents access to materials, citing copyright issues, with providers claiming to be fearful that their content would be plagiarised.
But the new guidance also states that where contracts exist that would prevent parents from accessing “any material at all”, these contracts are “void and unenforceable”. This is because “they contradict the clear public policy interest of ensuring that parents are aware of what their children are being taught in sex and relationships education”.
“While this is welcome, the new guidance does contain some concerning updates regarding LGBT content. Previous wording had stated: “Primary schools have discretion over whether to discuss sexual orientation or families with same-sex parents”.
But this has been replaced by: “We strongly encourage primary schools to teach about healthy loving relationships, and to include same-sex parents along with other family arrangements when discussing families”.
While this statement relates to education on the mainland, here in Northern Ireland, the Department of Education tends to keep in step with what happens in the schools in the rest of GB.
Presbytery’s foolish decision
In response to directives from the Department of Education here in Northern Ireland, the majority in our Presbytery passed a resolution back in March of this year, part of which stated:
“That the imposition of the new ‘Relationships and Sex Education’ directives for schools has launched sustained assaults on so many points of God’s moral law for mankind is a painfully obvious fact.
- To present abortion as a viable alternative to the birth of a child and, in order to deflect from the savagery of the act of slaughtering that unborn child in it’s mother’s womb, to employ such deceptive euphemisms as ‘healthcare’ – is to violate – and that viciously – God’s plain command, “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17).
- To promote LGBT lifestyles as moral and beneficial equivalents to the biblical order – a person from each of the two created genders, one man with one woman in a lasting marital union – is a demonstrable breaking of God’s commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness” (Exodus 20:16; Romans 1:18-32).
- To interfere with a parent and child relationship and, in the case of a 15-year-old pupil, to make the parents’ right to withdraw his child from what he understands to be deviant teaching dependant on the consent of his child is to directly challenge God’s command to, “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee … Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right” (Exodus 20:12; Ephesians 6:1).
However, the Presbytery statement ended with a weak and almost meaningless call to parents to react to the abominations proposed by the Department of Education.
‘Therefore this Presbytery: encourages parents to exercise their rights and withdraw their children from these objectionable elements of RSE (there is a requirement on the Department of Education to make regulations providing for the circumstances in which, at the request of a parent, a pupil may be excused from receiving instruction on these elements we find objectionable);
– asks parents to familiarise themselves with the specific elements that must be mentioned in any letter of withdrawal if they choose not to use the template provided (the official template is provided below);
– strongly objects to the evident restriction of parental rights in the case of 15-year-olds (pupils in year 12).”
In other words this Presbytery statement is saying:
‘Withdraw only slightly from the ungodly and unmoral atmosphere and influence of the state school rather than obey God’s plain command to His people who find themselves in such circumstances: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty,” 2 Corinthians 6:17-18.’
Answering to God!
Our Presbytery must answer to God for directing Free Presbyterian parents to allow their children to remain within the state system of education which teaches the ‘unclean Relationships and Sex Education’ and not instructing them to utterly withdraw their children from a system which can include such perversion in its curriculum.
The state school cannot teach such wickedness in one class and remain pure in the rest of its classes. The teachers who seek to impose upon children this impurity will be impure in all their teaching!
James, in his epistle sets forth the logic of this matter.
“Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh,” James 3:11-12.
The state school cannot teach the impurity of RSE and at the same time set forth ‘pure’ teaching in other subjects!
James is merely repeating the same truth that was set forth by the Saviour.
“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit,” Matthew 7:16-18.
Wrong
Our Presbytery did wrong by implying the opposite to Christ’s teaching and encouraging parents to believe that the ‘tree’ that bears the evil fruit of RSE could also be expected to be a safe place to continue instructing their children!
Despite these very much publicised warnings from the leaders of Christian Education within the Free Presbyterian Church, but encouraged by the folly of Presbytery leaders, many Free Presbyterian parents have ignored the warnings and have sent their children to be taught, instructed and influenced by the ungodly, immoral and anti-God views presented in state schools.
That is basically the same as happened in our text, with the result that the children under such guidance turn from the truth of God to folly.
“There arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.”
That is happening within the Free Presbyterian Church today!
II. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FOLLY OF THE ISRAELITE PARENTS AND THE SUBSEQUENT DEPARTURE BY THE NEXT GENERATION WAS MOST DREADFUl!
“And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim: And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the LORD to anger. And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth. And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies. Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for evil, as the LORD had said, and as the LORD had sworn unto them: and they were greatly distressed,” Judges 2:11-15.
If there are any Christians who cannot see the like happening all around us here in Ulster, in church and state, then great blindness has indeed overtaken such!
Mocking
The world of course, mocks the idea of God acting like this today! Even Christians who have set aside the clear teaching of the Bible and have listened to man’s philosophy and notions, tend to share this foolish idea.
Do we not read:
“God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” Numbers 23:19.
“And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent,” 1 Samuel 15:29.
“For I am the LORD, I change not,” Malachi 3:6.
“That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us,”Hebrews 6:18.
“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever,” Hebrews 13:8.
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning,” James 1:17.
These verses, and many more, support the statement in the Shorter Catechism about God:
Question 4 —What is God?
Answer: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
This same truth is repeated at length in the Westminster Confession of Faith.
CHAPTER II — Of God, and of the Holy Trinity
There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will, for his own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek him; and withal most just and terrible in his judgments; hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.
Lip-service
Sadly, what was said of a former generation may be said of many professing Christians today.
“Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men,” Isaiah 29:13.
While giving professed agreement to and belief in these confessional statements, many Free Presbyterians act contrary to these truths by failing to obey God’s commands about raising their children
Training children God’s way
He says of this solemn duty:
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it,” Proverbs 22:6.
No Christian parent can act in obedience to this command and place their child under the immoral teaching of the state school on sex education, abortion and evolution!
It was said by the Lord of Abraham that: “I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him,” Genesis 18:19.
That cannot be said of a parent who turns their back on Christian education and sends their child to a state school where the basic truths of God’s revelation are denied!
III. THIS TREND WITHIN OUR RANKS ASSURES THE DEMISE OF THE FREE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH!
For many this is an unthinkable, most foolish and reprehensible statement.
Yet it is one that Free Presbyterianism has directed against the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and the Methodist Church in Ireland and indeed Ecumenism in general, since our beginnings in 1951!
The reason for this condemnation of these churches is the fact that they embarked on the very path which there is evidence that some Free Presbyterians have stepped onto. The ecumenical churches gave no heed to the warnings issued by many like W P Nicholson, and went on to become outright apostate, rejecting the very fundamentals of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today, those churches just mentioned tolerate, endorse, encourage and accept within their ranks those who utterly reject all the Bible teaches!
That is where the smallest deviation from God’s Word ends up!
“But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren,” James 1:14-16.
Today there is less excuse for such folly than ever any previous generation could offer for their folly. We have not only the warnings of portions like Judges 2, but we have the living proof of the outcome of departure from the Lord all around us. The religious environment, the political environment and the general behaviour in the homes and on our streets of our land DEMONSTRATES the consequences of abandoning God’s truth!
If a blind eye is turned to God’s Word, the frequent warnings of such behaviour that has been sounded forth from at least some present-day Free Presbyterian pulpits and the public displays in the lawlessness, bloodshed and murder on the nation’s streets, then there can be nothing only that spoken of in Judges 2.
“And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies. Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for evil, as the LORD had said, and as the LORD had sworn unto them: and they were greatly distressed,” Judges 2:14-15.
That is the ‘death’ of the enjoyment of all the mercies the gospel brings to a people! That lies before the Free Presbyterian Church, if its people persist in the present ignoring of God’s truth!
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)