Reports have appeared in two of our local newspapers today (19.12.25) of the special General Assembly, called by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland over the police investigation into failures to properly safeguard its young people from perverts within its perimeters.
Former Presbyterian moderator Rev Trevor Gribben resigned last month after an internal review found “serious and significant failings” in central safeguarding functions for children and vulnerable adults from 2009 to 2022.
The previous moderator, Rev Richard Murray, stepped in when Rev Trevor Gribben resigned.
The PSNI and Charity Commission have launched investigations into the matter.
Rev Richard Murray called a special General Assembly, which met yesterday. The Belfast Newsletter reported on this gathering.
“Hundreds of Presbyterian clerics and elders from across the island of Ireland have come together to discuss the fall out of the safeguarding scandal.”
The Moderator is reported as saying at the beginning of the special meeting:
“So we are turning to God today to repent of our sin, to grieve and to lament before him, to pray that he would have mercy upon us, and guide us in how we might rectify our behaviour so that these things might not happen again.
Delegates were chided that despite an invitation going to them to come to a prayer meeting before proceedings began, only around 50 turned up.” (more…)
Wailing wall, adjacent to the ruins of the second temple in Jerusalem
Luke 21:5-38
I have often told the congregation of Kilskeery Free Presbyterian Church in the past and, in more recent times, the pupils in Kilskeery Independent Christian School when I speak at their assembly gatherings, that we must come to the Bible as does a detective attending the place where a crime has taken place.
That is, with great care we must, as does the detective, seek to avoid disturbing anything at the scene and observe everything that is there. Nothing is unimportant to the detective. No smudge in the dust, or scrap of paper or any item visible to his eye.
With such care and attention we come to the Word of God and strive to note every word, its tense, be it present past or future! By so doing we will avoid hasty conclusions about what it is the Lord is saying to us.
Remember, “Every word of God is pure. . . ,” Proverbs 30:5. It must be considered invaluable and cannot be carelessly skipped over or ignored if we are to rightly divide the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15).
The passage before us, Luke 21:5-38, is a parallel to that of Matthew 24. The introduction to both passages indicate that.
“And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down,” Matthew 24:1-2.
“And as some spake of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts, he said, As for these things which ye behold, the days will come, in the which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down,” Luke 21:5-6.
As with the statements of any witnesses of a scene or an event, there are differences, though since this is the inspired Word of God, there are no contradictions!
One witness reports slightly more of what was said on the occasion reported.
I believe that I am correct in saying that Luke’s account of the Saviour’s words, which we are going to study, gives details of the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman army and the dispersion of the Jewish nation which followed, whereas, Matthew does not refer to that event.
Many have taken the two accounts as being exactly parallel in order to deny the understanding of prophecy set forth by those who hold to the position of Historic Premillennialism. Such try to apply the whole of Luke 21 to the events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.
That involves a serious error and utterly distorts the prophecy of the Saviour and robs the people of God of the information Christ would have His people understand regarding the closing days of this age, just prior to His return in power and great glory.
FUTURE ANTICHRIST REJECTED
In truth, the reason for promoting the notion that the whole prophecy in Luke 21 refers only to AD 70 is in order to reject a future Antichrist and the attempt to establish the notion of the ‘A-millennialist’ that the ‘Pope’ or series of popes, is the Antichrist referred to in Revelation 13:18. (more…)
The following is one headline that followed the Bondi beach massacre.
Bondi Beach massacre: Church of Ireland archbishop condemns ‘creeping anti-Semitism plaguing the world’
(Belfast Newsletter, 15th December 2025)
The attack on the Jewish families is but the latest in a mounting wave of ‘anti-semitism’
Condemnations abound as are calls by the public and political leaders for action to be taken to stop the victimising of the Jewish people.
What is not evident is an understanding of what lies behind such attacks!
Photograph of part of Old Jerusalem as it exists today
For this we must turn to the Bible and there we will learn that to REJECT the Lord Jesus has terrible consequences.
XENOPHOBIC
To link the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus with the Jewish race is considered xenophobic and racialist by many who are ignorant of the truth of God.
Repeating historical facts regarding the rejection of Christ by the Jewish race is not any more racist than teaching the history of Germany’s part in the Second World War!
That history includes the massacre of millions of Jews in a most devilishly cruel manner. It is not wrong to recall such terrible events and to comment truthfully on them, condemning them afresh!
RECORD
The Lord has given us an inspired account of the sad and inexcusable action by Israel when they, in the words of Isaiah the prophet, some six hundreds years before Calvary, “despised and rejected” Him.
“Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not,” Isaiah 53:1-3. (more…)
Reports have appeared in two of our local newspapers today (19.12.25) of the special General Assembly, called by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland over the police investigation into failures to properly safeguard its young people from perverts within its perimeters.
