This evening on YouTube we are beginning a devotional series reading through and discussing – chapter by chapter – Dane Ortlund’s wonderful book, Gentle & Lowly.
You can catch the first episode this evening at 7:30pm and watch the preview session here.
For anyone who is interested in spending their Friday evenings in live Bible reading, we have two weeks left of our 8-week reading through Isaiah.
In late August we will then be having a longer streaming session reading the whole of the book in one go. We’ll be welcoming other readers to both lighten the load for Mairi and I as well as being a refreshing variety in voice.
The forming play-list of other books can be found here.
Here’s is last Friday’s session from our make-shift set-up while away from home.
To begin with, a very genuine and heartfelt thank you goes out to each and every one of you for whom what I am about to write is not relevant. Thank you for your contact, your love and your support. If we are arrested we’ll let you know.
You can listen to the podcast version of this blog here.
I have a very simple thought for you this morning and I hope that you will receive it, reflect on it in humility and prayer and, if needs be, in repentance: when was the last time you were genuinely concerned that you might be visited by the police as a consequence of your responsibility as a witness of Jesus Christ? When was the last time you had felt the need to rehearse what it is that you would say to police officers were they to knock on your front door and ask to come in? Indeed, When was the last time that you felt the need for a brother and sister in Christ to get off their bottom and truly engage with you?
In recent months, the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives has resulted in our own repentance and coming out of hiding. He has led us from the closeted concealment run-of-the-mill, (in which we rarely shared our faith), to local notoriety fanned into flame by the anti-Christ.
It has been for us like finding and following a scarlet thread, buried by centuries of church apathy and disuse. One step has led to another…
Repent Now; He Loves You – creatively & furiously defaced
Following the publication of our gospel booklets earlier this year, inspired by the prolific gospel-witness of J. C. Ryle, it has been for us like finding and following a scarlet thread, buried by centuries of church apathy and disuse. One step has led to another and now we are taking a 7-ft cross out not only into Edinburgh’s streets in a generic way, but, much more specifically, to target false christianity, wicked mosques (that falsely claim love for Jesus) and the crème de la crème of fake christians and false christian leaders (who do exactly the same).
Target with what? The witness of Jesus Christ, the only way of salvation! (Acts 4:12).
Islamic lies & deceits in central Edinburgh
To think that there wouldn’t be a lashback to this kind of reviving, awakening gospel activity — one that is cloaked in the pride of man but inspired by the rage of Satan — is utterly short-sighted and ridiculous.
Which leads me very briefly to the first five chapters of the book of Acts, the new-born Church — the ekklesia — and the terrorising fear of the Lord Himself.
We prefer the absence of fear and trembling over the presence of His power.
In my experience as a Christian, biblical study and teaching is often dishonoured by the masses of Christians who listen (for example, we recently finished a 20-month teaching series through 1 Corinthians and heard back from virtually no-one – ie virtually no-one from tens of thousands of people who listened).
What’s more, Christian digital content generally, (blogs like this, videos, publications etc.) and even specific calls to action and spiritual/financial support, are often met with…wilfully deaf ears.
Stuffy ears pervert the kingdom cause.
Don’t get me wrong: some of us don’t respond or engage because we’re not sure how to in technological terms, or because some are penniless and in prison themselves, in that sense it very much is the thought and prayer that counts.
But I would chance my arm in banking on the fact that the great majority don’t engage (nor break their own cover) because they simply don’t want to…our personal preference is simply that we would prefer not to. We prefer the absence of fear and trembling over the presence of His power. We are governed more by the commonly accepted selfishness of our own lives than we are motivated by the expansive, expanding and forcefully advancing Kingdom of God.
We want the Messianic rest of Matthew 11 but not the spiritual violence that the Messiah commands.
Ananias and Sapphira were killed by the angel of the Lord for harbouring this kind of selfish attitude that attempted to deceive the precious Holy Spirit, (Acts 5:9). This very same otherworldly fear (strange terror) of the Lord Jesus is sorely missing from our personal and collective minds today.
I will anonymously share that just this week I was witness to one of the most shocking and disturbing displays of intensely conditioned selfishness, (from a mature, seasoned Christian), that I have ever seen in my life: personal convenience and agenda, including outright refusal to miss a game of tennis on the TV or a lukewarm meeting at a church, was more important to this person than an opportunity to meet up with dear people, in person, who they say they love and value and haven’t seen in many years.
In a similar way that Ananias and Sapphira (and perhaps the wider church community) were tempted to think that the selling of a property and the withholding of monies for the apostolic mission wasn’t that big a deal, today we very commonly think that our lack of generosity, kindness and basic effort with one another doesn’t seriously grieve the heart of God.
But, friends, it does!
In the book of Acts, the Lord actually killed disciples for selfishness and lies; today, Wimbledon on TV is more important to us than the Kingdom of God and we talk jovially of “meeting up next decade instead”.
It’s disgusting and it’s very sick.
My point is this: whether you are a weekly imbiber of costly, quality Christian teaching (online or in person) and never so much as reach out to make contact with the teacher; whether you are an insatiable YouTube viewer but never bother so much as to like a video, comment or share it (and hence monopolise YouTube’s algorithm); whether you are a disciple who is more bothered about your own larder and shire and peace and quiet than you are the literal destiny of Middle Earth and each and every one of its citizens, we are grieving the Lord and inhibiting the Holy Spirit’s work in His Body.
In Acts 5 (and other chapters of the same book) we see a rapidly intensifying spiritual culture in which sharing the news of the resurrection of Jesus resulted routinely in imprisonment, alienation, torture and death. The church prayed as a church should and their prayers were answered. (Read Acts 12).
Today in the Western church, we can not even be arsed to turn off the TV. Keith Green was right,
Jesus rose from the grave and you can’t even get out of bed.
Keith Green
Please prayerfully reflect on how it is that you are personally engaging with the work of the Lord Jesus, the cause of His Name in your immediate and wider locality and the reality of the coming of a King from a very different kingdom.
When I don’t have any confidence in a YouTube being supported, a teaching series honoured or a MailChimp being courteously respected, what hope is there of support when the police come knocking?
How is the Lord expecting you to behave and conduct your affairs in a way that you would simply rather not?
How is it that you are obstructing the ministry of the Holy Spirit?
Personally speaking, when I don’t have any confidence in a YouTube being supported, a teaching series honoured or a MailChimp being courteously respected, what hope is there of support when the police come knocking?
The church need a proverbial rocket up their proverbial derrière that they generally can not be arsed getting up from.
“The main characteristic which is the proof of the indwelling Spirit is an amazing tenderness in personal dealing, and a blazing truthfulness with regard to God’s Word.” — Chambers
I hope you’ll watch this video below, share on to your networks and be encouraged by considering the unique relationship between the fear of man and the power of God.
Yesterday, my friend and I stood outside a false church in Edinburgh in bold defiance of the anti-Christ “gospel” that they proclaim.
While a celebration of “pride” unfolded inside, as women with pushchairs and beards, self-harming scars and gender dysphoria arrived through the doors, as homosexual “Christians” dismissed the gospel of repentance with confidence, sickened by the thought of Jesus while boldly claiming knowledge of God, the gospel thundered.
As hundreds of lost people passed by with questions and fears, as young men burdened by mental illness and recent mental asylums in Europe, as groups of lads buoyed by strong masculine presence on the streets, as drunkards proclaimed our psychosis, Jesus was honoured.
I’m in the process of writing a second book and follow-up to Body Zero. that will powerfully explain what has happened in our discipleship following Jesus as we made the brave decision nearly three years ago to say “No more!” to compromised churches and fake gospels.
The quagmire of “business as usual” is the devil’s delight.
What Am I learning?
Our post-pandemic world is presenting us with an unparalleled opportunity but it is a two-fold opportunity easily missed: People are more willing to hear about Jesus than we might think; people are angrier at God than we are prepared to face.
The fields are truly white unto harvest and we must acknowledge that He is commanding His workers to be out busy in them.
Are you going to continue in a lukewarm, local church context? What’s keeping you? Evangelism and witnessing by proxy?
The quagmire of “business as usual” is the devil’s delight.
The fear of man is an appalling snare. Rarely is there the power of God without the context of fear and trembling – this was Paul’s exact context when he arrived in Corinth.
Make a Cross & Take Jesus to People
Edinburgh’s Royal Mile (in the video below) is beautiful but with it’s own very dark history and anti-Christ present. What will I desire more: the absence of fear and trembling or to see the Holy Spirit save lost men, women and children in His Presence and Power?
This is the choice of our lives that will ripple throughout eternity.
I challenge you to make a 7ft cross and take it out into you own parish and high streets, rebuking the work of darkness and heralding the soon return of the Lord of Glory.
As a brief follow-up to my video last night (you can watch it below), I want to highlight the other recent news item that has caught my eye.
Yesterday, a 42 year-old man in Norway targeted a LGBT district of Oslo, killing two people, injuring 21 more and terrorising countless others.
We tend to measure these atrocities mainly based on deaths and injuries when in fact the aftermath is much wider than that, including the invisible spiritual agenda.
As a primary case in point concerning this wider aftermath, it wasn’t coincidental that, on the very same day that the Rode vs Wade case filed out of court and tumbled into public euphoria and despising alike, a ‘lone wolf’ terrorist picked up arms to target the LGBT ‘community’ of Oslo.
It is not only the LORD who is preparing His people.
This is spiritual landscaping at the hands of Satan.
My warning video yesterday about “seeker-sensitive” and “inclusive” churches, (their unpreparedness to stand without correct teaching), relates directly to the way that Satan is increasingly leveraging the despising of true Christians now as well as preparing the intensifying conditions in which this tinderbox will be lit in the future.
It is not only the LORD who is preparing His people.
The warped “haters gonna hate” narrative of mainstream media is being stoked, both by the historic U.S. abortion law U-turn and, I suspect, its conflation with the same kind of demonic lunacy that shoots gay people dead in Oslo.
Every enemy of Jesus Christ only loves on his own, personally subjective terms meaning that Jesus’ standard will only ever be regarded as hateful. This is spiritual landscaping at the hands of Satan.
What will cause the kind of future despising of Christian martyrs (witnesses) that will result in hunting, marginalising and death? Exactly this: the lie that those who are “pro-life” regarding little babies would be no different to those terrorists who’d kill gay people in Europe.
In other words, ‘hate is hate’ and that whether via temporary victories (abortion U-turn) or permanent atrocities (terrorist attack), Satan is manoeuvring so as to form hearts and minds now against those who will stand for righteousness in future years to come.
While the swelling of lawlessness will ironically result in crescendos of, “Peace! Peace!” and “All we need is love”, it is vital to see that, to the anti-Christ/atheist/secular psyche, those who choose to stand against abortion will simply be considered a variant of the same disgusting species of humanity who gun down homosexuals in cold blood.
Increasingly, there will be no nuance and this is exactly the scheme and strategy of Satan.
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Isaiah
“When Christ bids a man, He bids him come and die”
