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Here is a matter for earnest prayer, remembering the Word of God:—

“The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will,” Proverbs 21:1.

Sincerely in Christ’s name,

Ivan Foster

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Benn meets Free Presbyterian Church on school fees

The NIO said Hilary Benn had given serious consideration to the points raised

Robbie Meredith

BBC News NI education correpondent

Representatives from the Free Presbyterian Church have met Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn over Labour’s plans to tax school fees.

Independent Christian schools in Northern Ireland are among those set to be affected by the VAT changes.

VAT at the standard rate of 20% will be added to private school fees from 1 January 2025.

In Northern Ireland, grammar school preps and Christian and other independent schools charge fees.

Many have expressed concerns that they will have to charge parents more if the change comes into effect.

Benn met members of the Education Board of the Free Presbyterian Church at Brownlow House in Lurgan, County Armagh. (more…)

‘A beautiful day to have saint’s relics in our parish’

The BBC Northern Ireland news site has been carrying the story of the touring of the bones of a Roman Catholic ‘saint’, French farm girl, Bernadette Soubirous. She claimed back in 1858 that she had seen the ‘Immaculate Conception’. This happened between 11 February and 16 July 1858, and Bernadette claim that the young lady who appeared to her identified herself as ‘the Immaculate Conception’.

The term,  ‘the Immaculate Conception’ is explained as meaning: ‘The Immaculate Conception is the belief that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception. It is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church.’

I find it strange that what the young French girl claimed she saw was not ‘the Virgin Mary’ but ‘the Immaculate Conception’, which is the title of a doctrine of Rome and not a person!

Of course ‘logic’ has no place in this or any of the other notions that Rome puts forth as a ‘doctrine’ to be believed!

What is a truth, however, is that Mary never claimed for herself that she was free from sin. Rather she praised the Lord as the One Who was her ‘Saviour’.

“And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour,” Luke 1:46-47.

If she was not a sinner she had no need of  a ‘Saviour’ and would not have then referred to the Lord as such! (more…)