“Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?” Lamentations 2:20.
I frequently marvel and tremble at the disregard, the indifference, that all too many ministers and elders show with regards the consequence of casually setting aside the eternal Word of God.
The most indifferent and blasé reading of God’s Word will nevertheless bring before us the most terrible warnings that the Lord God issues regarding the ramifications of ignoring and disobeying His commands.
In the ‘Lamentations of Jeremiah’, recorded after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 588 BC, there is contained the most heart-rending depictions of the consequences of Judah’s failings to heed the warning of the ‘Weeping Prophet’ which were commanded of God to be preached over a period of some 41 years, according to James Ussher’s chronology.
During that time, the people showed their dismissive disregard for the Word of God by repeatedly abusing and ill-treating the messenger of God, the prophet Jeremiah.
Commanded
In the year 609 BC, the prophet was commanded of the Lord to:—
“Stand in the court of the LORD’S house, and speak unto all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in the LORD’S house, all the words that I command thee to speak unto them; diminish not a word: if so be they will hearken, and turn every man from his evil way, that I may repent me of the evil, which I purpose to do unto them because of the evil of their doings. And thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD; If ye will not hearken to me, to walk in my law, which I have set before you, to hearken to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I sent unto you, both rising up early, and sending them, but ye have not hearkened; then will I make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth.
So the priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the LORD. Now it came to pass, when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak unto all the people, that the priests and the prophets and all the people took him, saying, Thou shalt surely die. Why hast thou prophesied in the name of the LORD, saying, This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate without an inhabitant?
And all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the LORD. When the princes of Judah heard these things, then they came up from the king’s house unto the house of the LORD, and sat down in the entry of the new gate of the LORD’S house. ¨s and to all the people, saying, This man is worthy to die; for he hath prophesied against this city, as ye have heard with your ears. Then spake Jeremiah unto all the princes and to all the people, saying, The LORD sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the words that ye have heard. Therefore now amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the LORD your God; and the LORD will repent him of the evil that he hath pronounced against you. As for me, behold, I am in your hand: do with me as seemeth good and meet unto you. But know ye for certain, that if ye put me to death, ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves, and upon this city, and upon the inhabitants thereof: for of a truth the LORD hath sent me unto you to speak all these words in your ears,” Jeremiah 26:2-15.
What words are these?
When I read these words I noted :—
1. The people were led by blinded and ignorant priests to reject the Word of God.
2. The courageous prophet did not back down but repeated most indubitably what it was the Lord had sent him to preach and which had enraged the people so much.
3. Furthermore, Jeremiah understood that he could well be murdered, but he declared his innocence of wrong-doing and was prepared to die rather than join them in their disobedience!.
Jeremiah was not on his own in proclaiming these solemn warnings, for he had said, as directed by the Lord, “I have set before you, to hearken to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I sent unto you, both rising up early, and sending them,” verse 5.
Chief means
However, Jeremiah seems have been the chief means used by the Lord to warn the people of the consequences of their wicked rejection and defiance of His Word.
From the very beginning of his ministry when he was but a young man, maybe not quite out of his teenage years, he was most faithful. He did on at least one occasion despair because of the treatment he was receiving.
He even went so far as to express a complaint, thinking the Lord had deceived him!
“O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me. For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the LORD was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily. Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.
But the LORD is with me as a mighty terrible one: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail: they shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not prosper: their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten,” Jeremiah 20:7-11.
The FIRE that burned in the prophet’s bones, in the very heart and fibre of his being, would not let him quit, no matter what opposition he faced!
Missing today!
That FIRE is sadly missing in today’s generation of preachers! Most are silent in the face of the clamour of the apostasy of all around.
What a witness the Free Presbyterian Church raised in former days! Yet, today, when the blasphemous tumult of the ungodly is manifoldly increased since the earlier years of the testimony of our church against the ecumenical churches, we find that the voice of opposition to the corruptions of this age has almost disappeared.
I noticed just today the following headline.
Pro-life group plans Belfast City Hall protest over abortion illuminations
That protest, according to the report, is being organised by the ‘Pro-life group, Precious Life.’ a Roman Catholic organisation.
We say ‘well done’ to them, but sadly, I see no response from the Free Presbyterian Church. I trust there will be some form of protest eventually, but I have no doubt in former times our church would have been the first voice raised to protest at the abominable actions of the ungodly Belfast City councillors who wish to floodlight the Belfast City Hall to mark International Safe Abortion Day, next month.
No, there is little of the ‘Fire’ that once burned in our pulpits and prayer meetings. Sadly, there seems to be no real desire to have the Lord reignite the holy flame of sanctified zeal for truth and righteousness, and for a fighting of “the good fight” against the increasing apostasy of this day.
A different ambition
No, sharing platforms and marching alongside compromisers and defiers of God’s command to “come out from among them, and be ye separate”, is more in favour with all too many who wear the name ‘Free Presbyterian’.
Membership of the DUP, a political organisation that has abandoned its former position of outright opposition to sodomy and now endorses and supports it and its associated perversions, must take precedent over God’s truth.
Being ‘cool’ and ‘woke’, are but two of sickeningly meaningless idiomatic expressions that all too many run scared of failing to measure up to in these days of the moronic ‘herd’ mentality!
Church magazine
One of our church magazines even had a call for the use of the ‘prayer’ of the Romanist ‘saint’ Thomas Aquinas, an Italian Dominican friar and priest.
At the close of an article on prayer in the ‘Vision’ magazine, July/August 2024 edition of FP Vision the writer, Jonathan Storey, minister of Mt Merrion Free Presbyterian Church, recommended that we adopt the prayer of the Romanist ‘saint’ Thomas Aquinas, an Italian Dominican friar and priest.
I commented in ‘The Burning Bush’ on this unbelievable folly from an ordained Free Presbyterian minister.
Was he taught anything of our witness in our ‘College’? How could such an exhortation go out under the auspices of the FP Vision? Our ‘Vision’, professedly is the exact opposite!
Apart from a feeble and pathetic ‘clarification’ that the statement was an oversight, I have not heard of any form of discipline or rebuke directed at the writer of such ungodly nonsense from those charged with the spiritual oversight of our Presbytery.
This was no mere ‘oversight’! How could such a blasphemy come from the pen of a Free Presbyterian minister?
Indifference to the backsliding and deviance from the ‘professed stand’ of the Free Presbyterian Church in 1951, has been a mark of our Presbytery’s attitude in recent years!
How long until anyone who dares to preach the Word of God to this generation suffers the fate of faithful Jeremiah?
High Price
There is a terrible price to be paid if the present backsliding and the ignoring of its presence within our ranks, is not ended.
The text of scripture at the head of this article must surely present to us a most dreadful picture of the depths to which God’s judgment plunged His professing people!
“Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long?”
That took place in the siege of Jerusalem and it brought about the surrender of the city. This is what a people are reduced to who defy God and all His calls to return.
Is not the Free Presbyterian Church on that path of defiance? Is it not the case that any who seek to call the church back to the “the old paths, where is the good way,” (Jeremiah 6:16) are vilified and criticised in an open Presbytery meeting without the proper and due notice being given to them as is required in the ‘Book of Church Order’!
On such ‘social media’ platforms as ‘FaceBook’ the preaching of the Word of God and a call to return to the position and stand to which the Lord led our forefathers, is deemed ‘heresy’ by those who assert that they are Free Presbyterians!
Despite the Word of God stating most plainly, so that “he may run that readeth it,” (Habakkuk 2:2) that “Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses,” 1 Timothy 5:19, this defiance of God continues without any intervention of Presbytery.
Just where do our ’spiritual leaders’ think such action will end?
Do they believe that God takes no interest in their dereliction of duty? Are we approaching a day, like that referred to in Jeremiah 7:8-10?
“Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?”
These evils are not found or sanctioned amongst us but let us remember that there was a day that they were not permitted amongst the people of Judah but carelessness caused a sliding downhill until such things were countenanced freely amongst them.
History cries out against what is happening in the Free Presbyterian Church. The testimony of men like Henry Cooke, Hugh Hanna, W P Nicholson, aye and Dr Paisley and his companions of the early years of the Free Presbyterian Church.
Dr Paisley’s early warnings may still be freely heard and heeded in the recordings of his sermons that are available to this generation.
WHY will people not heed these warnings?
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
Saturday 5th September 2026