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While totally abhorring the actions and words of the group picture below, and their followers and supporters, one cannot but feel distress for them in the light of God’s Holy Word which they so blithely and blatantly defy!

The ‘smug smiles’ will fade one day when they face the Holy God Whose law they despise!

God’s Law states very plainly: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination,” Leviticus 18:22.

Furthermore, it reveals the consequences for those who defy this law.

Hear and heed the words of the Saviour:

“Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed,” Luke 17:28-30.

“For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; and spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; and delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)” 2 Peter 2:4-8.

“And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire,” Jude 1:6-7. (more…)

“That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD: Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits: Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us,” Isaiah 30:9-11.

The new moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Dr Trevor Gribben, was reported on 9th June in the ‘Belfast Newsletter, as taking as his theme, “inspiration from the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah.”

He says of Jeremiah that he “gave a message of hope to God’s people, Israel – despite the fact that they have been taken captive to the “strange” land of Babylon.”

He noted the “prophet Jeremiah told Israel in exile” — he then quoted from what I presume was a perverted translation of the Scriptures: “For I know the plans I have for you . . . plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

The proper translation of the portion he refers is found thus in the Authorised Version of the Holy Scriptures: “For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart,” Jeremiah 29:10-13.

I have labelled Dr Gribben as a ‘shallow evangelical’ and that for a number of good reasons.

First of all, like those before him who feel it necessary to conform to those who wish to ‘modernise’ the message of God, irrespective of the integrity of the translation, he adopts one of the modern versions, which as the Trinitarian Bible Society has repeatedly shown, do not compare with the Authorised Version for accuracy of translation from the Hebrew and Greek of the originals or for beauty and elegance of style of the English language at its purest.

Furthermore, he says, “the prophet Jeremiah told Israel in exile”. In this he shows his shallow knowledge of Holy Scripture. (more…)