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The following article appeared in ‘The Burning Bush’ some eleven years ago. Given the betrayal of the Ulster people by successive political leaders in London with their constant yielding to the demands of Sinn Fein/IRA, the effective removal of Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom by their ‘Brexit Protocol’, agreed with the EU, their enforcing of new and unacceptable abortion guidelines which entail the permitting of abortion up to the time of birth and their recently announced amnesty for terrorist murderers, gives this article an almost ‘prophetic’ significance!

Furthermore, this being the centenary of the founding of Northern Ireland, we have all been given a vivid picture of the bondage into which the Democratic Unionist Party sold us with their ‘power-sharing’ deal with Sinn Fein/IRA in that the supporters of murder refused to ‘grant’ approval for as much as a rose bush being planted to commemorate that wonderful event!

See the following articles.

Thorn in the side for Sinn Fein

Unionism needs to recalibrate

It surely indicates that the direction in which things were moving regarding the future of Ulster was not hidden to all in this Province for the article was read with approval by many believers and challenged by no one!

For this reason we are remounting the article on our website.

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The Union with today’s Great Britain holds out no hope for the Ulster Protestant

By Rev Ivan Foster (Kilskeery)

Written at the request of the Belfast Newsletter and published in its edition of August 13th 2010.

Given that few unionists in Ulster would have believed at the beginning of 2006 that, before the year was out, the DUP would have embraced the murderous IRA’s front men as partners in government, to contemplate what the next eleven years might bring to our land is to look through a very dark glass indeed.

That which motivated the opposition of the majority of our forefathers to “Home Rule” in the 1880s was a love for the gospel and its mercies. They believed that it would entail the enthroning of Roman Catholicism and undermining of their civil and religious liberty. Their fears were summarised by the maxim – “Home Rule is Rome Rule!” and expounded in the “Ulster Covenant” of 1912. (more…)

This article is the substance of a message preached at the Annual Easter Convention in Martyrs Memorial Free Presbyterian Church on 29th March, 1986. It was remounted on our website in 2010. Now 11 years later we remount it once more.

It contains information and Biblical instruction which is even more relevant today. I challenge any minister to openly refute the principle that the Bible teaches the need for Christian schools. The moral and spiritual climate of our Province and the United Kingdom has sunk further down over the intervening years and the children of Christians have suffered as a result.

There is a mention of the opening of Clogher Valley Christian school at the end of the article. Sadly, I understand that its school management committee has just taken a decision to close the school.”

Ivan Foster.
15th July 2021.

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A MESSAGE FROM A QUARTER OF A CENTURY AGO…WHICH SHEDS LIGHT ON OUR PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES. 

Foreword

In 1978, the Presbytery of Ulster of the Free Presbyterian Church heard a request from Rev Ivan Foster to consider the need for Christian schools. Following a discussion, a delegation of ministers and elders met officials of the Department of Education. The outcome of that meeting was a recommendation to Presbytery that permission be granted to any church that wished to start a school. The Presbytery agreed in principle and appointed a Presbytery Education Board, chaired by Rev Foster, to supervise the new missionary enterprise. In September of the next year, Kilskeery Free Presbyterian Church started the first Free Presbyterian school. Mrs Ann Foster B.A. was its Principal and only teacher. It had 13 pupils. Today, the Free Presbyterian Church has schools attached to its churches in Newtownabbey, Ballymoney and Bangor as well as Kilskeery with a total enrolment of 125 pupils. These schools are served by 8 full-time teachers and 6 part-time staff. In the case of Kilskeery school, it provides a full range of primary and secondary subjects. Last year a number of pupils sat CSE and GCE ‘O’ level examinations, obtaining marks above the national average. Two pupils sat and passed, with very good marks, 11 ‘O’ level subjects each. The other schools are also moving into secondary education with Newtownabbey and Bangor already providing first form and first, second and third form tuition respectively. (more…)

We continue with our extracts from Benjamin Wills Newton’s book, Prospects of the Ten Kingdoms, the chapter 14 —

“ORDER OF EVENTS CONNECTED WITH THE APPEARING OF CHRIST AND HIS MILLENNIAL REIGN”

We come to part 3 which covers page 318 to a suitable place to end this extract, half way down page 324.

Click here to see the other articles about this book.

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The condition of the earth at the period of the Lord’s descent into the air is to be regarded in four aspects.

First, there will be the Jews partly in their own Land, as at the time of the Crucifixion, partly scattered throughout the nations, and many of them in captivity.

Secondly, there will be the Ten Nations of the Roman World — all owning Antichrist — all apostate from God — their armies gathered around Antichrist at Armageddon, and advancing upon Jerusalem. (Rev. xvi. 16; Joel iii.).

Thirdly, there will be many countries still sunk in the darkness of heathenism — countries, of which it is said, that up to that moment they have not heard the fame of Jehovah, nor seen His glory. (Isaiah lxvi. 19.) (more…)