I have been asked in a comment under one of my recent YouTube videos, how do I know they’re not genuine? This is an important question and one that has several important answers, some of which I will concisely list at the end of this blog.
Back to 2018?
Reflecting on the emergence of the Unite the Kingdom movement, led by Tommy Robinson and co., and observing Christian men and women discussing respective ‘pros’ and ‘cons’, feels to me very much like going back in time to the occasion of Bishop Michael Curry officiating the royal wedding of May 2018. (You can read here what I wrote then).
One type of evidence of the ongoing spiritual whoredom of the unfaithful Church is one unfit Arch Bishop in particular who has now resigned in disgrace. Another type of evidence is that repentance has not been called for by Christian leaders, preachers and teachers (and therefore not granted by God in sheer kindness). It follows that the ramping moral declension in Britain is now as obvious as Yorkshire’s disappearing Holderness Coast which has been eroded year-on-year for centuries. Though forged millennia ago, these British coastlines of Christian witness have been relentlessly hammered by the waves not so much of Islam and secularisation, but rather those of spiritual capitulation, immorality and cowardice. Our shorelines are now crumbling to within an inch of their lives and it has been by a facilitation of apostasy living under steeples of granite.
This country now looks around at foreign nations and, wanting Saul to be their King, hails very lovable British Marines as a safe go-to source of national security for our disintegrating shorelines. But we must note that it is a national security problem that is now primarily manoeuvring by a counterfeit form of spiritual ballast.
Simply put: so bad has our national spiritual situation become that those who do not even bother to personally take the LORD’s Name on their lips, (much less drawing near to Him with their hearts), are now leading something that many are calling Christian. The reformers of old would turn in their graves because the love of most has grown horribly cold, a vacuum has been created and hence now tides of sham-Reformation are rushing in.
Quasi-christianity
As evidence of the national plight that I describe, the huge Unite the Kingdom event in central London on Saturday, along with the stage-led anti-Christ presences of Ant Middleton, Elon Musk, Eva Vlaardingerbroek, Katy Hopkins and others, has once again polarised so-called ‘Christian’ opinion in the country: some think it’s a great opportunity for the gospel (where have I heard that before?); others think it is a great ecumenical enemy to the true Gospel.
Personally, I have no doubt that the Name of Jesus Christ is certainly being dishonoured and provoked unto jealousy.
Why? Because laced throughout Saturday’s sprawling events was a rousing cultural form of nothing more than quasi-christianity which, far from ‘harmless’, is actually antithetical (opposing) to the Christianity of the New Testament in which if a man does not renounce all that he has, he can not be Christ’s cross-carrying disciple, (Luke 14:33).
In fact, Saturday’s show of quasi-christian nationalism is actually worse than Islamic takeover because the Muslims, at least, do not leverage the Name of Jesus on their lips while their hearts lustfully rage in resistance against Him.
“And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with lustful talk in their mouths they act; their heart is set on their own gain.” (Ezekiel 33:31)
How Do I Know?
As a minimum, let me now try and provide three concise reasons why I know that Saturday was not of God:
Firstly, assuming the YouTube question is addressing the smaller number of speakers rather than the thousands of others who followed to listen, there was no sense from any of them that they have personally repented before God for their sin and rebellion against His holy Name; neither was there any awareness of our precarious condition as a nation before the eyes of God. The LORD is not as concerned about Islam as much as He is the pandemic of sin and lawlessness. Jesus says in Matthew 7 that we can identify the true from the false by the fruit that is produced, and the fruit Jesus is referring to is not an ability to draw a large crowd (as much of the false churches suppose). Jesus is talking about purity of heart/mouth/life that comes from the indwelling Holy Spirit when someone is born again (see John chapter 3). I think you might agree that the filthy language and godless ‘tone’ on Saturday does not speak of holiness, humility nor the fear of the LORD (which is the beginning of wisdom— Proverbs 9:10). Although truly a Christian country once upon a time, these references to Britain being a “Christian nation” now is nothing more than an expression of cultural christianity as a reaction of the flesh against the heinous capitulation to Islam on our shores. But it is not biblical Christianity that is rooted in personal-corporate repentance.
Secondly, the Church at large are in a chaotic mess of contradiction and compromise and to such an appalling state that the true gospel of repentance is virtually nowhere to be seen or heard. No wonder that chaps like Tommy Robinson and Ant Middleton do not understand the true gospel because the churches have been unfaithful for a very long time. Therefore the ‘leaders’ and prison-visiting ‘pastors’ of the churches are spouting nice-sounding platitudes but without the authority or power of the Spirit of the living God. (I have diagnosed this systemic ill and prescribed the solution by writing here).
Finally, (in an attempt to keep this blog short as possible), in answering your question it would be important to reflect on the moments in biblical history when a true repentance and turning to God did genuinely occur and then consider how this compares to what is happening in Britain today. If you were to read the book of Ezra, as just one example, you would see Ezra and Nehemiah weeping, fasting, tearing their clothes and pulling out their beards —all as an outer demonstration of an internal reality of heart: they were ruined, devastated and overwhelmed by the corporate state of the covenantal people of God, and the dire consequences of a nation as a direct result of sin. (See this related video). Then they were surrounded by others whose hearts the LORD God had also stirred in the same way. The scenes on Saturday showed absolutely no evidence of this ‘rending’ of heart, lament and distress for the sake of His Name that would approach a proportional or reasonable response to the collapse of Judeo-Christian culture that we are witnessing.
As I said in the very first sentence of the introduction of, The Glorious Few,
We must always beware a “prophetic word from the Lord” that ends in congregational applause rather than stunned silence or the faint beginning of tears.
This is how I know that they are not genuine: there are no tears. On the contrary, there are proud boastings of personal gain.
Maranatha?
In short, I know that the chat about ‘christianity’ on Saturday was not genuine because, like vast swathes of the Church itself, there was absolutely no expression of love of the Lord’s appearing (2 Timothy 4:8) for which true disciples will be calling as a preference over anything this life (or country) has to offer.
Quasi-christianity is, as with Bishop Michael Curry’s royal ‘sermon’ of 2018, not something to merely roll ones eyes at as ‘less than ideal’; it is a great evil, inspired by Satan, to deceive millions and, ultimately, dishonour Jesus Christ.
That is The Problem; What then of the Solution?
Further Writing
firebrandnotes.com 