“Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein,” Jeremiah 6:16.
In our previous study of this verse, I sought to set forth the uncomfortable, but nevertheless sadly true, assessment of the state of religion amongst us, which may be likened unto the defiance of Judah, reported by the prophet Jeremiah in our text.
I sought to show that amongst us today, are those who are showing the signs of committing this sin of refusing God’s call to return to the ‘Old Paths’!
I listed a number of issues very obviously seen amongst us that indicate a desire by some to embark on ‘a new path’!
By no means did I list all that could have been offered as proof of what I alleged. However, I believe I presented enough to make my case.
There therefore follows this simple conclusion:
I. THESE DIGRESSIONS INDICATE A DESIRE TO ABANDON THE ‘OLD PATHS’!
Let it be said clearly, that is how apostasy begins! Remember what is said in the Judges chapter 2.
“And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathheres, in the mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill Gaash. And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim: and they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the LORD to anger. And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth. And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies,” Judges 2:8-14.
There is a passing of that generation of Free Presbyterians who witnessed the power and blessing of God in earlier days, days of faithful adherence to the 1951 principles of separation and of protest against the errors of Ecumenism and bore reproach for their stand.
My own wife Ann, who went to be with the Saviour on 8th June last year, was refused teaching positions simply because she was a Free Presbyterian.
She was contacted by what was then the Collegiate Girls Grammar School in Enniskillen in late 1967 and asked if she would consider a post as a French teacher. The school had contacted Queens University asking if they had any graduates in French who had not yet obtained a teaching post and the QUB put them in touch with Ann.
She was invited for an interview which went well for the then principal, Mrs Ada Malone, introduced her to members of staff as the new French teacher and she was also shown an apartment that went with the post!
She went away assured that she would be officially appointed since the School Management Committee left such things to the Principal.
Over a ‘cup of tea’ with Mrs Malone after the interview, Mrs Malone noticed that Ann was wearing an engagement ring. That prompted the question of who was her intended?
A few day later, she was told that the Committee had refused her appointment!
She was also interviewed by Enniskillen High School and turned down. The principal of that school, Mr Ronnie Hill, was a Christian man, I believe, for he and his wife spent six years in Africa as missionaries before coming to teach in Enniskillen. He followed Ann out of the interview and told her that because of who she was (were married by this time) she would never get a position with the Western Area Education Board!
He advised her to put her name down as relief teacher in the neighbouring Southern Area Board. Mr Hill was a victim of the 1987 ‘Poppy Day IRA Bomb’ in Enniskillen. He was very seriously injured and remained in a coma for the next 13 years and died in December 2000.
Advice
Ann followed Mr Hill’s advice, and in 1974, she was contacted by Fivemiletown High School and offered a temporary position as a French teacher about the month of April. The head of the French Department was Miss Eva Martin from Lisbellaw.
Miss Martin was also a part-time member of the Ulster Defence Regiment. Tragically, on 2nd May 1974, Miss Martin was murdered by the IRA following a mortar attack at Clogher Deanery, the local HQ of the UDR in Clogher, Co Tyrone.
She was the first Ulster Defence Regiment female soldier (Greenfinch) to be murdered.
Ann was immediately asked if she would now fill the post of acting head of the French Department and she willingly did that until the end of the school term in June.
The school principal approached her and asked if she would consider accepting a permanent post in the school and she said she would pray about the matter. We both considered the offer prayerfully and felt before God the she should accept the offer.
But the bias against Free Presbyterianism was very much alive back then. When the school committee met, under the chairmanship of a Church of Ireland Orangeman, I might add, they refused Ann the position and appointed a Roman Catholic teacher from Newry, who did not even have the qualifications to teach French!
We took that as from the Lord, which it turned out to be very much so. For a few days later the girl contacted the school to inform it she had decided to take a post in a convent-run school in Newry!
Under the rules of appointment, the school was required to appoint whoever was the second choice and since Ann had been the only other candidate, she was appointed.
She taught there until June 1978 and then resigned to become the principal of Kilskeery Independent Christian School.
Truly, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose,” Romans 8:28.
I have given details of what was our treatment at the hands of ‘Ecumenical Bigots’ for such bitterness toward Free Presbyterians was very common back then in Ulster. Ann was by no means the only Free Presbyterian treated in this fashion when seeking employment.
Today’s Generation
Today, however, the younger generation know very little of that opposition simply because our pulpits rarely raise as much as a whimper against Ecumenism and Popery, despite the fact that the abominations of these latter-day falsehoods have become more brazen and wicked!
Rather, protests have been cast aside and ‘new thinking’ has come into force. The Free Presbyterian Church has become to a large degree ‘respectable’ and accepted just like the other churches.
There is a deliberate turning away from the example of the Lord.
“But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward,” Jeremiah 7:23-24.
“Then the LORD said unto me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them. For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even unto this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice. Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart: therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do; but they did them not. And the LORD said unto me, A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, which refused to hear my words; and they went after other gods to serve them: the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers,” Jeremiah 11:6-10.
“From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, even unto this day, that is the three and twentieth year, the word of the LORD hath come unto me, and I have spoken unto you, rising early and speaking; but ye have not hearkened. And the LORD hath sent unto you all his servants the prophets, rising early and sending them; but ye have not hearkened, nor inclined your ear to hear. They said, Turn ye again now every one from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD hath given unto you and to your fathers for ever and ever: And go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no hurt. Yet ye have not hearkened unto me, saith the LORD; that ye might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt,” Jeremiah 25:3-7.
No, today many Christians when urged to follow the old paths, respond as did the disobedient in the days of Jeremiah.
“But they said, We will not walk therein.”
II. THERE IS A FEARFUL PRICE TO BE PAID FOR SUCH DEFIANCE OF THE LORD
“Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken. Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it,” verses 17-19.
It is strange that Christians, to whom the warnings of judgment have been committed by the Lord to care for and publish to sinners, should neglect to recognise that their failures and defiance and sins will also be subject to God’s judgment!
It is true that they shall not suffer as will the rejector of Christ – eternally in the lake of fire and brimstone.
“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death,” Revelation 21:8.
No, the Christian has been redeemed eternally from the wrath of God by the shedding of the blood of Christ.
Mistake
But there must be no mistake about this matter — Christians who disobey God and live contrary to His Law WILL SUFFER PUNISHMENT if such disobedience is persisted in and not repented of.
Just think of what the Saviour said to the Christians in the church in Pergamos!
“But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth,” Revelation 2:14-16.
Think also of the experiences of some in the church at Corinth because of their sins.
“Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation (condemnation) to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged,” 1 Corinthians 11:27-31.
There were those whom the Lord Jesus put to death because their sinfulness brought such shame upon Him and His Word.
We only have to think back to the great man David who, when he sinned, paid a heavy price for his folly!
“And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul; and I gave thee thy master’s house, and thy master’s wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things. Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun. And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die,” 2 Samuel 12:7-13.
David’s repentance spared him from the full judgment of God. Nevertheless, what he suffered as a result of his sin is a most solemn and fearful lesson for us all to carefully note today!
The Enemy
In the passage we quoted from Judges 2, please recall what the Lord said He would do to the rebellious by way of retribution.
“And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies,” Judges 2:14.
That happened many times in the history of Israel. The delivering of Judah into the hands of Babylon for seventy years is perhaps the prime example in the Old Testament.
“Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations. Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle. And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years,” Jeremiah 25:9-11.
Events here in recent years!
I wonder just how many Christians have considered what has happened in Northern Ireland since the rise of Ecumenical apostasy in the main denominations?
The Ulster in which I lived in the 1940s and 1950s was an entirely different place from today. I am not talking of technical advances and the changes of that sort. I am thinking of the moral and social atmosphere that prevailed. The Belfast to which our family moved in 1953 was a city which to a very large decree observed the Sabbath. The city was quiet. The roads were almost deserted and all shops and business premises were closed. A child was perfectly safe to play on the side path out side their home and mothers had no real concerns for their safety.
How different that is now!
The Sabbath is completely ignored and in some cases, younger professing Christians feel free to engage in all sorts of activities they should not engage in on any day of the week, never mind the Lord’s Day!
No child is safe on its own. And it is likely to meet with the most hideous cruelty at the hands of the perverted monsters that have emerged from the dark jungle that has sprung up in the absence of the Word of God being faithfully proclaimed.
Look who governs the country and just where we are incontrovertibly sliding day by day, despite the mouthing of spineless Unionist politicians.
A united Ireland is just around the corner, indeed, we see the ‘Tricolour’ draping over many institutions already. The ‘superannuated’ Gaelic language is being imposed despite the feeble flailings of Unionists opposed to it being foisted upon a a majority that want none of it!
The moral deviants marches in smug and arrogant complacency, despising the warnings of God’s Word as to the eternity they face.
“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. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities,” Jude 1:7-8.
This and more, is the fruit of that saying ‘NO’ to the Lord’s call to “Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.”
Daniel’s prayer
I was made to think of the words of Daniel in his great prayer in which he confessed the sins of his people, which I read in my daily reading on Friday 24th October.
“Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against him. And he hath confirmed his words, which he spake against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil: for under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth. Therefore hath the LORD watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice,” Daniel 9:11-14.
Who amongst us can deny that the hand of God has been moving against Ulster in recent days?
The need of the hour
We ought to be praying as did Daniel!
“Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord’s sake. O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God: for thy city and thy people are called by thy name,” verses 17-19.
Moses
He was praying in response to what Moses said in Leviticus 26:39-42. In principle, we may do the same in the midst of the distress brought upon us by our disobedience and sin.
“And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them. If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; and that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity: then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.”
Promised Peace!
Where is the ‘peace’ the Ecumenist predicted and which so many foolish people embraced and relied upon? They may point to the ‘Good Friday Agreement’ and the IRA ‘cease fire’ of sorts but all the GFA brought were the gangsters and the murderers and the terrorists becoming ‘statesmen and politicians’, wined and dined by Westminster and Washington!
But ‘the leopard’ of Sinn Fein/IRA his not changed its spots but they are still the slinking, cruel creatures they ever were! Michelle O’Neill, Sinn Féin’s manicured and mascaraed leader, may prate about being ‘First Minister for everyone’ but in truth she shows whose interests she truly represents and promotes when she unashamedly attends the gatherings around the graves of IRA murderers to partake in the rapturous but utterly baseless eulogising of these monsters.
HOW?
How have we come to this?
“Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.”
It has been our rejection of the “old Paths” that have brought us to this sorry end which has yet to deepen and become even more unspeakably abominable as the harvest of disobedience ripens further.
Free Presbyterian minister and elder, what have you done to protest against and hinder the departure from the “old paths”?
Have you in truth done ‘what you could” or have you just kept your head down, preserved your secure ministerial position and shut your eyes to the folly all around?
Dear brother, you will doubtless have had your attention drawn to these words of Paul at your ordination or at an ordination you have attended.
“I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing,” 2 Timothy 4:1-8.
As God is my witness, these words, preached to me by Dr Paisley in the day of his power, in Lisbellaw Free Presbyterian Church, back in April 1968, have been before my mind and heart all my days and I believe I can say that all I have preached and written I have carried out in the light of these words.
May the day of Christ’s appearing and our standing before Him move us to declare for Him now in this world.
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
Tuesday 28th October 2025