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Samuel Morrison: Perhaps this Christmas some of us will reflect on how Northern Ireland has been embraced by spirit of King Herod

​On Monday people across the globe will meet with friends and family to celebrate Christmas.

Anti-abortion protesters march to Craigavon Area Hospital in September. They challenged the outrageous overreach of ‘Safe access zones’ outside places where abortions are performed, in which no-one is permitted even to engage in an entirely silent protest. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye

Anti-abortion protesters march to Craigavon Area Hospital in September. They challenged the outrageous overreach of ‘Safe access zones’ outside places where abortions are performed, in which no-one is permitted even to engage in an entirely silent protest. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye

Many have already attended carol services and nativity plays which, in spite of the increasing secularisation of society, remain an important part of the celebrations they associate with this time of year.

While there are aspects of Christmas which make some Christians uncomfortable – greed, gluttony and covetousness are hardly virtues – there can be no denying that people think more about the birth of a Baby in the final weeks of December than at any other time of the year.

I don’t know if that’s what prompted the BBC to choose this week to run online, radio and TV reports about the effectiveness of misnamed ‘safe access zones’ which have been established outside premises which perform abortions in Northern Ireland but I couldn’t help thinking that their timing was somewhat ironic. (more…)

Such a report as this, copied from the BBC, Northern Ireland news website, we have seen all too often in recent years.

What is to be noted is: “The priest was accused of a long campaign of child sexual abuse but was never prosecuted or questioned by police about claims made against him.” And also, the priest is not named.

Both of which indicate the ‘hands off’ policy many in ‘high places’ of authority adopted regarding the Roman Catholic Church. Its name and reputation was considered more important than the wellbeing of a youngster!

Praise God for that day when “the Lord . . . will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts,”1 Corinthians 4:5.

It is a day when not only Romanism and its evil ways shall be brought to justice but also all those who have happily linked themselves with it, as will be the case when a joint statement with be issued by the heads of all the churches in the next day or so!!!

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Priest abuse survivor gets £500,000 settlement

The hearing centred on alleged sexual and physical abuse over a five-year period in the 1980s.

A man who said he was abused by a priest at a County Down school will receive £500,000 in damages.

The High Court hearing centred on alleged sexual and physical abuse over a five-year period in the 1980s, when the man was a pupil.

According to court papers, the plaintiff was sexually assaulted in a series of locations. (more…)

“For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind,” Hosea 8:7.

These words were quoted by the Commander of RAF Bomber Command in 1942.

“Arthur Travers Harris, known as “Bomber”Harris, became commander of RAF Bomber Command in early 1942. Until then, Bomber Command hadn’t done much, but the energetic and controversial Harris soon changed all that. He became the architect and chief proponent of night-time “area bombing” of major German cities. He developed tactics, techniques, and training for the task.

In March he struck Lubeck. In April he bombed Rostock. Then, on the night of May 30-31 1942, he launched a devastating, 1,000-bomber attack on Cologne. A few days later, Harris went before RAF film cameras and delivered a chilling, two-minute message, shown on newsreels nationwide. He was unleashing a whirlwind on Germany, he said. ‘They sowed the wind,’ he warned, ‘and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.’ They did.

The verse in Hosea are words directed at the northern kingdom of Israel by the Lord. He has charged them with idolatry and other sins. The first verses of the chapter explain to us what the actual words of our text mean.

“Set the trumpet to thy mouth. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the LORD, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law. Israel shall cry unto me, My God, we know thee. Israel hath cast off the thing that is good: the enemy shall pursue him. They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off. Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off; mine anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to innocency? For from Israel was it also: the workman made it; therefore it is not God: but the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces,” Hosea 8:1-6.

The ‘wind’ that Israel sowed consisted of a breaking of God’s Law, acting in defiance of Him, idolatry and a presumptuous assumption of God coming to their aid, all of which kindled God’s anger against them until it was a destroying ‘whirlwind’!

I thought of this verse on a number of occasions of late as I have listened to the reports of Israel’s campaign in Gaza against the murderous terrorism of Hamas. (more…)