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Throwing away our privileges

Matthew 8:11-12

The danger of casting away our privileges is ever with us!

The spirit of the ‘Prodigal Son’ abides in every Christian and if not crucified will lead to an abandoning of the ‘Father’s House’ and a hastening to the ‘far country’ of worldliness and the abandoning of God’s Word.



Read sermon notes here

 

This is what the Saviour warns of in those well known words: “And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” Matthew 8:11-12.

This message was first preached at the Lord’s Day evening service in Kilskeery Free Presbyterian Church on 29th June 1986, by the minister, Rev Ivan Foster.

The Centurion, whose request to Christ brought forth these words from the Saviour, was a Gentile, a Roman soldier brought up in the darkness of heathendom.

His posting to Israel had been a blessing in disguise. You can imagine how his wife and family, if he had such, reacted to the news of his transfer. Now, however, they sing of the merciful providence that planned it so.

His approach to Christ and his forthright display of faith became the means of delivering a timely warning to a nation, Israel, greatly privileged and in danger of throwing their privileges away.

It has a very present and pertinent application to the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster for it is evident that there are those in pulpit and pew who are seeking a change from the path that the Lord led our founding fathers to in 1951, to new paths which are in conformity to the thinking of this world.

Such a departure will only lead to that crowded path, which the Saviour said “leadeth to destruction.”

Chapter 5: The Second Coming of Christ – Were the early Christians mistaken? (Part 6)

Some photographs from that time of contending for the Gospel

A photo on the front page of ‘The Burning Bush’, April 1970.

The protest took place at the installation of Richard Hanson as Bishop of Clogher, on March 17th, 1970.

The protest brought about the ejecting of us from of a local Orange Hall, Andrews Wood hall, where I was conducting a Gospel mission. The mission continued however, and by the end of April a Free Presbyterian hall had been erected and some months later that year, Clogher valley Free Presbyterian Church was constituted in the hall.

Despite the efforts of local ecumenists and their roping in of some Tyrone County Council officials to aid them, their demand that the hall be taken down and removed, failed.

It can be seen that a hall had been erected and was in use for regular services by June. Many years ago, the hall was replaced by a beautiful permanent building.

The first permanent Clogher Valley Free Presbyterian Church building is on the left and the replacement, opened but a few years ago, is on the right.

The Gospel outreach in the Spring of 1970 in Clogher Valley was the first of a number of missions undertaken by Lisbellaw Free Presbyterian Church that resulted in a permanent Gospel witness in the area.

(Original Cover Page)

AN ANSWER TO FOUR LECTURES DELIVERED IN ENNISKILLEN CATHEDRAL BY THE BISHOP OF CLOGHER RICHARD HANSON

by

REV. IVAN FOSTER

Minister of Lisbellaw Free Presbyterian Church

Published as a booklet in 1970

The rage of the Bishop against the rock of Holy Scripture

 

Chapter V

The Second Coming of Christ – Were the early Christians mistaken?

To further his claim that Christianity has changed, the Bishop tries to imbue his audience with the idea that the early Christians and apostolic writers believed that the Lord Jesus Christ was going to return at a very early date. When this did not happen he says that there was a change of thinking concerning the Second Coming of Christ. To knock this argument down all we have to do is pour a little of the “water of the Word” upon the Bishop’s sandy foundation and his little house of false reasoning will sink out of view. The question then is this: Did the early Christians believe that Christ was to return in their day and were they encouraged to believe this by the writers of the New Testament? Our answer is “No”, but of course the Bishop’s would be “Yes”.

In his second lecture he states: “But the greatest difference of all facing the Church of the 2nd century has yet to be mentioned. By the year 150 it had become unmistakably clear to everybody that the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ was not likely to take place in the immediate future . . . St. Paul’s letters are, of course, the earliest books of the New Testament. From every one of the letters which we can with confidence attribute to him (he never misses a chance to spread doubt, does he?) we gain a strong impression that he expects the arrival of Christ in his lifetime or immediately afterward. The earliest of the Gospels, that of Mark, shows the same intense expectation of an almost immediate arrival of Christ. It is only in Mark that we find the words attributed to Jesus: “There be some of those standing by who shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God coming in power” (Mark 9 : 1). (more…)

‘Frogs in the Bed and Lice in the Hair’

“And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth,” Exodus 9:16. 

Preached by Rev. Ivan Foster on Lord’s Day, March 2 1986.



Here is, at least to some small measure, the faith and hope of Free Presbyterians some 40 years ago.

Is something of the same message preached today in our pulpits? The denouncing of ecumenical treachery and betrayal of God’s truth; the same protest against the political compromising in the face of  Romanism’s, ecclesiastical and political, resurgence?

Or are there many of our pulpits silent on such matters and are there ministers who seek fellowship with those, described in our Presbytery’s statement, entitled: ‘OUR STAND ON SEPARATION’, as ‘brethren who maintain fellowship with those who deny the faith.’

If this is so, what a dishonouring of the God who has been so merciful to us as a denomination and what a judgment we will most surely face if there is not a repenting and turning back again to the ‘Old Paths’ of Scriptural obedience!

Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
Thursday 2nd July 2026