“ . . . be sure your sin will find you out,” Numbers 32:23
It is reported, in an article entitled ‘A reckoning is coming’, that American lawmakers, investigating the activities of the infamous Jeffrey Epstein, have demanded that the former ‘Prince Andrew’ come to the USA and appear before the investigating committee.
The report says:—
‘American lawmakers have hailed King Charles for stripping Andrew of his prince title as they voted to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie spoke outside the Capitol on Tuesday ahead of the vote on the Epstein bill, which later sailed through the House – passing by 427 to 1.
‘There’s becoming a reckoning in Britain that needs to happen in the United States: a prince lost his title, the ambassador to the United States lost his job. We need to see those same kind of consequences here,’ he said.
Massie was referring to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s royal titles being stripped last month and the sacking of Peter Mandelson, the UK’s ambassador to Washington.
‘As my colleague Ro [Khanna] said, there shouldn’t be buildings named after these perpetrators of these heinous crimes, there shouldn’t be scholarships named after them, and there needs to be accounting.’
‘I do think that Prince Andrew does need to come and testify at our oversight committee, and that can be bipartisan,’ Khanna said. ‘But I share [Massie’s] view that the urgency that the British people have shown in getting justice needs to inspire an urgency here in America.’
Whether that happens or not is a big question but regardless, it marks the utter downfall of ‘Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’!
In the wake of the revealing of the content of emails found in ‘Epstein Files’, which the US Senate has just voted to fully release, not only has ‘Prince Andrew’ suffered a humiliating fall but so too has Peter Mandelson, whose perverted lifestyle has been a shameful blemish on the British political establishment, which has long ‘honoured’ him!
He was removed from his position as British Ambassador to the USA because of his association with Epstein.
TRUTH!
As I have observed, these events underline the truth of Numbers 32:23 – “ . . . be sure your sin will find you out.”
But here in Northern Ireland, we have also seen this truth at work. A criminal investigation has been launched into events within the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. At present all that is really known is that it has to do with alleged bullying and abuse within the Presbyterian church over a prolonged period of time. The recently installed Moderator, Dr Trevor Gribben, announced his resignation as moderator last week after an internal investigation found “serious and significant” safeguarding shortcomings between 2009 and 2022.
Apostasy
The Presbyterian Church in Ireland has been following a path of rebellion against the Lord since 1927 when it exonerated Professor J E Davey of the most serious unbiblical assertions in his lectures to ministerial students. It would be true to say that he denied the central and cardinal doctrines of the Gospel including the deity of Christ. Despite this, he was almost unanimously pronounced not guilty by the General Assembly of the charges brought against him by Rev James Hunter, minister of Knock congregation in Belfast. He was a member of the committee of the Belfast Presbyterian College.
In 1953, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland further manifested its defiance of God and its determination to forsake the ‘Old Paths’ (Jeremiah 6:16) and press on in the ways of modernism and liberalism.
It will most certainly reap a terrible harvest in eternity and we may expect to see something of that harvest in ‘time’!
No Confidence
What will come out of the criminal investigation we cannot estimate. I personally would have no confidence in the ‘powers that be’ allowing the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, a central ‘plank’ of the ecumenical scheme of romanising and destroying Biblical Christianity here in Northern Ireland, to be utterly shamed by its wickedness being exposed!
Ulster has seen innumerable occasions when decency, honesty and justice have been abandoned in favour of promoting those guilty of the most heinous crimes. The present establishment at Stormont and its political administration, is headed up by the party which favoured and still does, the terrorist murderers of the IRA!
That shameful situation was brought about by Unionist compliance and assent, born out of self interest and greed!
Given the present political atmosphere and ambience, I cannot imagine any real interest in pursuing a full exposure of whatever perfidy has taken place within the ranks of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. Except perhaps Sinn Fein, supporters of terror, and never slow to hurt Protestantism in any way it can, may see an opportunity to do just that by seeking to shame what was once the strongest of the Protestant denominations in Ireland and the chief instrument of God in the great 1859 revival here, which saw many tens of thousands converted to Christ!
Solemn Warning
Whatever the outcome of the present sorry mess, there is a warning to the Free Presbyterian Church. Numbers 32:23 applies to us as well!
Without question there has been a departing, to some measure and in some places within our ranks, from that TRUTH which we were called into existence in 1951 by the Lord, to stand for and uphold.
75th Anniversary
Next year will be the 75th anniversary of our founding by the courageous men of Crossgar and Ian Paisley. There are very few, if any, records of a people remaining utterly faithful to God and His truth for such a lengthy period.
In the light of the Bible’s record, given us in such books as ‘Judges’, we are to expect that there will arise within our ranks those who desire to ‘seek new paths’! Indeed, some who have long appeared to follow orthodoxy can be expected to cast off their profession and come forth in their true colours.
Judas was not a ‘one off’ deceiver!
What is recorded in Judges 2:8-13, has reoccurred time and time again in the history of God’s people!
TRUTH forsaken and ERROR followed
“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: 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.”
There is, in the slack attitude demonstrated within the ranks of our Presbytery, evidence that some would like to follow the actions of that ‘new’ generation, back in the days of the Judges!
Woe unto us if that is allowed to take place. The same decline from God’s ways as is today evidenced in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and the consequences that have followed, will arise to curse us and bring future generations of Free Presbyterians into bondage and shame!
May the Lord utterly defeat those who desire ‘new notions’, ‘new paths and ‘new terms of associations and fellowship’, ‘new hymns’ and other evidences of an appetite for the ‘sour and bitter’ grapes of apostasy from the Lord, creeping into our ranks.
May the Lord in mercy deliver us from ever having to echo Jeremiah’s lament,
“Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach. Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens. We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows. We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us. Our necks are under persecution: we labour, and have no rest. We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread. Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities. Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand. We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness. Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine. They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah. Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured. They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood. The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick. The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning. The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!” Lamentations 5:1-16.
Let whoever will mock, but the Lord has not altered or changed from His holiness and hatred of sin and backsliding!
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting,” Galatians 6:7-8.
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
21st November 2025