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“For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil,” Ecclesiastes 12:14.

News reporters notoriously seek out the most lurid headlines in order to intrigue the reader and encourage further reading or viewing. Selling their product is of the utmost importance and all other considerations, such as concern for the person or persons being featured in the article, the impact of the article upon friends and family or even truth itself, take second place.

There is an important place for the news media in society. There is a need for information on a whole range of matters which impact our lives and about which we need to be informed in order to make appropriate decisions, whether they be moral, political or financial.

Governments desire to control the ‘news’! Even in the freest of societies that takes place. There are many means used to accomplish this ‘control’. The issuing of false reports — ‘kite-flying’, simply ‘buying’ a reporter to set forth what the government wants the people to hear or conceal what they do not want the electorate to know.

Here is Ulster, there has been much of that over the last 50+ years! Elements within the government, the civil service and the various media outlets have been most keen to hide from the public the truth with respect to the long-term objectives of government, regarding the activities of Irish Republican terrorism.

Ever since William Gladstone introduced the ‘First Home Rule Bill’ in 1886, Ulster Protestants have been deeply suspicious of London’s intentions. The Home Rule Bill, and the successive attempts that followed would have placed Ulster’s Protestant majority under a Roman Catholic, Dublin based regime! Our forefathers back then adopted the slogan, ‘Home Rule is Rome Rule’ and they would have none of it. Indeed, when it appeared that London was prepared to use the British Army to force Protestants under Rome rule, our forefathers formed the Ulster Defence Force and prepared to resist such treachery by our own British government.

Members of the British Army prepared to Defy Orders

Providentially, there took place what was termed, ‘The Curragh Mutiny’.  Wikipedia comments on the incident as follows.

“The Curragh incident of 20 March 1914, sometimes known as the Curragh mutiny, occurred in the Curragh, County Kildare, Ireland. The Curragh Camp was then the main base for the British Army in Ireland, which at the time still formed part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Ireland was scheduled to receive a measure of devolved government, which included Ulster, later in the year. The incident is important in 20th-century Irish history, and is notable for being one of the few occasions since the English Civil War in which elements of the British military openly intervened in politics. It is widely thought of as a mutiny, though no orders actually given were disobeyed.

With Irish Home Rule due to become law in 1914, the British Cabinet contemplated some kind of military action against the unionist Ulster Volunteers who threatened to rebel against it. Many officers, especially those with Irish Protestant connections, of whom the most prominent was Hubert Gough, threatened to resign or accept dismissal rather than obey orders to conduct military operations against the unionists, and were privately encouraged from London by senior officers including Henry Wilson.

Although the Cabinet issued a document claiming that the issue had been a misunderstanding, Secretary of State for War J. E. B. Seely and Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) Field Marshal Sir John French were forced to resign after amending it to promise that the British Army would not be used against the Ulster loyalists.”

‘The Curragh Mutiny’

Abiding Animosity!

It is a long time ago that in a press conference in December 1971, the then British Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling, made reference to an ‘acceptable level’ of violence in Northern Ireland.  It was deemed a ‘political gaffe’ on his part but I have no doubt it revealed the animosity that abides still within the hearts of many mainland politicians toward the Protestants of Ulster and the sympathy those politicians have for Irish republicanism. (more…)

The text that I wish to bring to your attention is one that indicates that God works to a timetable.

Nothing proves this better than these verses.

“But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons,” Galatians 4:4-5.

In like fashion, we are told that that the Lord, “Hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation,” Acts 17:26.

God having timetable, which He most certainly will keep to, is a source of encouragement for us to live holy lives as Paul taught. “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not,” Galatians 6:9.

Above all, do we not long for that time, unknown in its preciseness to us but absolutely certain nevertheless! “Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead,” Acts 17:31. We are to, “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh,” Matthew 25:13.

There have been many great days in the calendar of God’s mercy. Few greater than that of 31st October 1517! According to Philip Melanchthon, 31 October 1517 was the day Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Electorate of Saxony, in the Holy Roman Empire.

Have we not much to rejoice in and be thankful for on this the 507th anniversary of that glorious day!

I trust you benefit from this study.

Sincerely in Christ’s name,

Ivan Foster

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“It is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void thy law,” Psalm 119:126.

The above verse is part of the scheduled Bible reading (McCheyne’s Bible Reading Calendar) for 30th October. The time to tell the Lord to work has arrived when there has been a making ‘void’, or ‘disannulling or causing to cease’ God’s Law.

It has been that time in the British Isles for a long time now!

In very recent days, that ‘Arch-apostate’, Justin Welby, the leader of the Church of England, that religious organisation of which British monarchs have long held an honorary ‘headship’, and which has given a lead to the rebellion against God and His Word for a very long time now, has descended to depths he had not heretofore gone! (more…)