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Letter to the Editor, Belfast Newsletter: Secularisation in the nation

Sir,

Secularisation in the nation, as commented upon by some of your recent correspondents, is but one of the facets of the nation turning its back upon God and His Word. We need to realise that what has been noted is but one of the trees in the ‘forest’ of apostasy from God.

Furthermore, this evil development is well announced in God’s Word as being a feature of the last days. Such trends declare the departure from the God Who so wonderfully blessed and prospered our land in centuries past and is a fulfillment of the prophecies set forth in the Old and New Testament.

Paul declares clearly the ongoing assault upon the gospel by deceivers with its final climax in the days before the Saviour’s return, in such places as 2 Timothy 3:1-9. Peter does the same in his second epistle, chapter 2.

Above all, the Lord Jesus tells us of the times that are breaking out around us, in Matthew chapter 24, especially the verses 11-21. The secularisation we see going on around us is but one of the “signs of the times” for which the Saviour said we must watch, Matthew 25:13.

The reader of the Bible will not be surprised by these developments, though doubtless vexed and grieved that a nation so privileged as ours should act so foolishly.

But then it has happened before, as the history of the nation of Israel demonstrates. We should remember and learn from the price it paid for its folly.

Let all remember Paul’s words in Romans chapter 1 of the nations in former times.

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them,” verses 28-32.

 

Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)

Kilskeery, Co. Tyrone

Protest letter to the ‘Belfast Telegraph’

I am sending this letter to the ‘Belfast Telegraph’ sadly, with the expectation it may well never appear.

Sincerely in Christ’s name,

Ivan Foster

Sir,

It brings lasting shame upon the ‘Belfast Telegraph’ that it should publish the wicked blasphemies of Gareth Hanna as are contained in his article ‘Street preachers’ Good News is nothing of the sort’, published in today’s edition.

The shame is increased in that he is likely paid by the newspaper to write such words in defiance of God’s truth.

Under the guise of criticising the follies of some ill-advised street preaching, he attacks the Word of God. The Lord Jesus Christ, said: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him,” John 3:36.

Thus, He plainly states that the consequences of rejecting the Bible’s message is ‘abiding wrath’! The Gospel does indeed tell men, putting it in in simple terms, that they must ‘turn or burn’, something Hanna mocks and calls ‘toxic theology’! (more…)

An approaching universal judgment of which the world knew nothing

Building the Ark

“By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith,” Hebrews 11:7.

The Lord Jesus likened the circumstances that will mark the end of this age unto those that prevailed in the days of Noah, just before the destruction of mankind by a universal flood.

“But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be,” Matthew 24:37-39.

In Hebrews 11:7, there is mention of the ignorance of mankind regarding the approaching judgment. The sins that provoked the judgment of Noah’s day are the very sins which are prevailing today as, of course, is the ignorance of the harvest such sins will invariably reap.

“And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them,” Genesis 6:5-7.

Mankind has become so inured and hardened to what is going on, there is little notice taken of the flood of iniquity inundating the nations. Terror, murder, torture and slaughter of the young and innocent, the aged and infirm, the acceptance of shameful immorality as the norm and the rank abandonment of God’s law and gospel. Those religious institutions which have a credal acknowledgement of God and His truth, have generally speaking, abandoned all pretence of believing and acting according to their own avowed confessions and creeds.

This is apostasy. (more…)