Much has been said by way of condemnation by both church men and politicians with regard to the recent riots in Belfast and in some other areas.
It would appear that the very serious public disorder was sparked off by a murderous Sudanese migrant, who appears to have unlawfully entered Northern Ireland from the Irish Republic. He travelled from the north African country to Paris and then on to Dublin, before catching a bus to Belfast in February 2023.
The border between that separates the Republic from this part of the United Kingdom is exceedingly ‘porous’! It is now acknowledged that the knife-attack suspect Hadi Alodid, was granted asylum under a ‘fast-track’ scheme.
Hadi Alodid attacked a local man, a Mr Stephen Ogilvie, in North Belfast with a knife and caused him serious injuries. The victim has been reported as suffering serious injuries in the attack and being blinded in one eye. It appears that the migrant was attempting to ‘behead’ his victim!
Had it not been for the intervention of some bystanders and the beating the attacker off from his victim, it seems likely that the local man would have been murdered.
Treacherous policy
The lack of border security, a deliberate policy on the part of the British Government in London, which is bent on pushing Northern Ireland into a ‘United Ireland’ under Dublin, played a large part in causing the riots.
But the root cause goes deeper.
Mr Jim Allister, party leader of ‘Traditional Unionist Values’, referring to the attack in Parliament said: ‘What I want to know, and what I know that my constituents want to hear, is what will be done to stop the importation of an alien culture that thinks it is appropriate to try to behead someone within the United Kingdom.” (Read report here).
1. There has been the emerging of a very ‘alien culture’ within the United Kingdom, both from those various foreign lands from which illegal migrants have swarmed into the UK BUT also from within our own indigenous ranks!
The source of the distressing decline in public decency and morality is NOT just the result of those who have imported cultural views and practices that are alien to the traditional culture of our nation but it is the direct consequences of the abandonment of the Bible from which came our cultural ’norms’!
The Gospel impact upon our nation from the days of the Reformation in the 16th century, down through many wonderful seasons of revival blessings, impacted a standard of behaviour in the hearts and minds of many citizens who felt the power of God’s saving mercy and grace in times past!
The influence of those believers, who as a result of saving mercy were regenerated by the power of God’s Holy Spirit and became “the salt of the earth,” (Matthew 5:13) had a restraining impact upon those citizens who had not received the Saviour by faith.
I have no doubt that the godly influence of God’s people, as a result of their declining numbers and the evil impact of two World Wars, and the casting aside of God’s Word during those times of social disorder, have resulted in the departure that is now seen in the ‘ecumenical apostasy’ reigning virtually unchallenged, in the main denominations within the UK.
Under the Gospel, the nation was taught to reject religious and cultural views that were contrary to God’s Word. The nation was taught, just as the converts to Christianity in the first century were taught by the apostles, that the Christian must refuse participation in or be influence by, the views and practices of ‘heathen’ nations. All that was country to the Word of God was to be rejected and avoided.
“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them,” Ephesians 5:11, is the core of that chapter in Ephesians in which the converts in Ephesus were told to alienate themselves from the ways of the citizens of that city, ways which before their conversion they freely engaged in!
The repudiation of the ‘old ways’ would have had a curbing impact upon the unconverted citizens.
That is the story too of the development of a ‘Christian’ culture in former times in our nation.
Pulpits taken over
However, once ‘modernists and liberals’ enter the pulpits and began to preach ‘Universalism’, that is, the philosophical and theological concept that basically all ideas, values, or views possess universal application and relevance and value, the ‘uniqueness’ of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Gospel was cast aside!
That taught by the Saviour that He was, “. . . the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me,” John 14:6, was mocked and cast aside and all religious were to be embraced as being a means of reaching heaven!
Evaluation of Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism, and the myriad of other ‘isms’, on the basis of what the Bible says, was frowned upon.Indeed, it is now the basis of prosecution!
Thus the death of ‘our culture’ was assured and we see that happening today.
Lie
Stemming from that false teaching in the pulpits, there arose in parliament and the various local legislation assemblies, the making of such a religious lie the basis of social behaviour!
Thus Gospel open-air meetings and gatherings are subjected to police harassment should any biblical criticism of the false teaching of heathendom be stated. Usually the police officers involved are totally unaware of what the Bible teaches and react in ignorance!
Our parliamentarians are just as ignorant and believe that it is a precept of Christianity that you remain totally uncritical of the blasphemous views of non-Christian religions even though the Christian is commanded to disown ungodly notions and views
“But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils,” 1 Corinthians 10:20.
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” 2 Corinthians 6:14.
“If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds,” verses 2 John 1:10-11.
Those are but a few of the many commands addressed to Christians to repudiate false religion .
2. The erosion of the settled way of life that the United Kingdom has enjoyed for many, many generations by the embracing of ‘Universalism’, has brought confusion.
Because of the erosion, almost the eradication, of the truths of the Gospel from the ‘minds and hearts’ of the citizens of our nation, there is an unrestrained reaction to increasingly common outrages that are taking place. There is enough of the former ‘Christian culture’ remaining in the nation for the appalling attacks by immigrants on young women to outrage public opinion. Such reports are given headlines every day it seems.
It must be recognised that such atrocities have always taken place in the land and that by native citizens, but not, I believe, with the frequency with which recent immigrants have been involved. It is not uncommon for a migrant who has only arrived to attack a woman. Here is part of a report of just such a case!
‘Ethiopian national Hadush Kebatu was jailed in September after sexually assaulting the girl and another woman, just days after arriving in the UK on a small boat.’
Fires lit
In the face of this increasing wickedness and the unbelievable assistance given to those arriving illegally — benefits not available to native residents — there is a growing frustration at the Government’s refusal to take any heed of the vexation of the populace. This combination of the loss of the restraining power of ‘Gospel grace’ amongst the citizenry, and the actions of Government that apparently shows greater concern for the illegal ‘outsider’ is what lit the fires in Belfast!
Many of those engaged in the disorder in Belfast, certainly not all, but many would have been engaged in the pursuit of the common affairs of life in the days previous to the rioting.
Yes, there were those who needed no incitement to riot. They live in a state of constant lawlessness! But many others perceived in the actions embraced by church and parliament and enforced upon all, irrespective of the loud voice of protest echoing throughout society, the need to protest beyond carrying placards or writing letters to their MP!
Sadly, the events in Belfast are self-destructive. The innocent are targeted as a means of protesting against the hurting of the innocent!
How foolish is that?
Folk who likely would not get caught up in such lawlessness and carried away by such unthinking ‘hasty’ anger are now likely repenting at ‘leisure’!
Condemnation
Condemnation by unheeding self-seeking politicians and by utterly out of touch ecclesiastical ‘nincompoops’, will not ‘douse the flames of outrage and protest.
We have to go to the root of the matter and reinstate Gospel principals and truth. That was Samuel the prophet’s answer to the distresses that had come upon his nation.
“And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the LORD with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the LORD, and serve him only: and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines. Then the children of Israel did put away Baalim and Ashtaroth, and served the LORD only,” 1 Samuel 7:3-4.
However, that will not happen! I have scriptural grounds for saying that! We have entered the last great time of ‘rebellion’ against the Lord which will result in His return to judge the end-time apostasy.
“And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day,” 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10.
Today we have rank rebellion and defiance of God not just amongst the ‘unbelieving’ nations of the world, but it is manifested amongst nations such as the United Kingdom and the United States, both of which have labelled themselves ‘Christian’ in times past.
But now only a tiny remnant of the population of these two nations, and others of their ilk, adhere with true faith to the Gospel. The ‘high and the mighty’ amongst the established ‘Christian’ denominations are advocates and defenders of every foul abomination known to man!
Sodomites and lesbians are in their pulpits and frequently are their public voice. The overrunning of these denominations by corruption is seen in the number of those, of the highest rank, who have been prosecuted for the vilest assaulting of children in their care!
No, I do not believe there will ever be a reviving of the nations like that which has happened in the past. I have no doubt that true believers will ever know the Lord’s presence and power amongst them and they should continue pleading such promises as, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” (Hebrew 13:5), but the likes of the Ulster Revival of 1859 will not be seen again.
We are living in the day that parallels that time spoken of in Jeremiah 14:11-12.
“Then said the LORD unto me, Pray not for this people for their good. When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and an oblation, I will not accept them: but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence.”
There is an old hymn which states the matter well.
There’s a line that is drawn by rejecting our Lord,
Where the call of His Spirit is lost,
And you hurry along with the pleasure-mad throng –
Have you counted, have you counted the cost?
Have you counted the cost, if your soul should be lost
Tho’ you gain the whole world for your own?
Even now it may be that the line you have crossed,
Have you counted, have you counted the cost?
You may barter your hope of eternity’s morn,
For a moment of joy at the most,
For the glitter of sin and the things it will win –
Have you counted, have you counted the cost?
While the door of His mercy is open to you,
Ere the depth of His love you exhaust,
Won’t you come and be healed, won’t you whisper, I yield –
I have counted, I have counted the cost.
That is a truth for individuals to note but also for nations!
Like Judah in the days of Jeremiah, nations who had the truth, cast it away and embraced falsehood and deceit. There is a price for such folly and the price is the judgment of which the Lord has given frequent and clear warning.
Sadly, that warning has been mockingly disregarded and ignored.
Now the reckoning day is coming and that sooner than many realise!
“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS,” Revelation 19:11-16.
It is only when the Saviour “shall rule . . . with a rod of iron” that religious and political lawlessness shall be ended!
“And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more,” Isaiah 2:2-4.
“He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus,” Revelation 22:20.
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
Friday 12th June, 2026