In her profoundly beautiful testimony concerning that which God is teaching her about IVF, Mairi spoke to a woman’s group in London a couple of years ago. You can watch/listen here.
“I know that no child would replicate the joy of God speaking.”
Now, after significant examine, study and ultimately prayer, Mairi is starting a new blog in which she will be sharing articles, vlogs and podcasts about this horrific bio-ethical reality.
In November 2011, Gary Speed, the wonderful Newcastle, Everton and Leeds footballer, (and Welsh national team manager), very tragically committed suicide.
Men in their forties are known as being in the most vulnerable demographic for suicide which highlights a duty of care that The BBC have to Jermaine as well as the women with whom Jermaine has been inappropriate.
Does what has happened here with Jermaine, unlike Huw Edwards, warrant being sacked? Does it require Jermaine to “lose everything”?
No, The BBC have thrown him under the bus because of their chronically damaged reputation, which lies in tatters, and their gross, amoral hypocrisy. It is they who should be sacked.
For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.
(Hebrews 13:14)
We have just returned from a very long road-trip (and sequence of road-trips over the last months) during which we have removed belongings from storage, given things away, thrown things out and sought to find the right path forward.
“Forward” in our heads however is often not the same as the express will and purposes in the heart and mind of the LORD; we struggle on with the unresolved (and perhaps even unresolvable) details of life, functioning with engrained assumptions much more than we realise.
But whether or not Christ comes in our personal lifetimes, surely we are living through a period of history in which Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7 prove to be both poignant and extremely important:
1. The appointed time has grown very short (v29)
2. The present form of this world is passing away (v31)
As with Bilbo Baggins, the places that we call home are very powerful motivators for us, both in a keeping sense, (retaining and even detaining us), and in an attractional way so that we assume our trajectory and direction based on the further assumption of an end-game that is not actually His.
But these enchanting narratives are not without cost. See this 10 min teaching video:
When can we not be His disciple…?
Isn’t the sojourning life of the Christian supposed to be the standard and rule rather than the rare exception? Wouldn’t this be a lot easier if we all committed our way to a different kind of journey?
Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
Psalm 84:5
(Other translations: Whose hearts are set on pilgrimage)
Short creative film: Jesus Sojourn (Part III of The Bothy Sessions)
Questions
1. What are we really looking for?
2. What is our actual priority in this fleeting life?
3. Are we willing to be led by the Spirit of God into discomfort and suffering?
4. Husbands and Fathers, are you leading your family?
5. Wives and mothers, are you following your husbands and modelling submission for your children?
Ultimately, we are learning to ask ourselves if our allegiance is truly, fully to Christ the coming King…
We pray, ‘Lord have Your way, in ourselves, for Your glory and for the good of Your Bride…’
If you would like to support our work you can do so here.
This is the sentence that resulted in my being cancelled by a senior Christian leader in the US who had just weeks before phoned me to express gushing love and admiration,
“However, like a pimp’s walk of shame from one whorehouse to another, it is a ludicrous solution for an adulterous Bride and a false, spawning ‘gospel’, to ignominiously traipse to another brothel in search of fidelity.” (You can read the article in full here)
What is going on? What was the charge against me? What does this have to do with CBR-US/UK and the disgrace of Keswick’s senior leaders?
The right hand of fellowship is an essential safeguard for the darkness that is coming upon the earth. All of us must be better at protecting it and acting when it has been threatened. (All relevant links are in the podcast show notes). 👇🏻
Jesus issues a warning of great exclamation in Luke 12 — that we must be very careful to fear Him who has authority to throw us into hell…rather than man who can but kill the body. I publish this video because I fear Him infinitely more than any man.
I rebuke the Church that will start to whine and whimper at such brazen blasphemy…but who for decades and centuries have refused to get their doctrine straight. Read Galatians 1 — any deviation from the gospel is the desertion of a Spouse. The Church, the Body of Christ, have deserted Him into the denominational cesspit that we have today. He will erupt. The Lamb Who was slain is standing in heaven and He, Faithful and True, will come with a sword in His mouth. May God have mercy.
Watch, listen and learn:
An eight-part Bible study diagnosing the whoredom of the Church
Listening to Jordan Peterson’s greatly anticipated conversation with Elon Musk this week was like witnessing a younger, less mature man embody an older frame while playing verbal tennis with an elder man supernaturally endowed with younger flesh.
But what would Paul of Tarsus say to them both?
The Peterson-Musk box-office conversation, flitting around various chilling realities of our imploding world, would have been greatly improved had Peterson been more composed, more reclined and more sensitive to allow Musk to answer his questions. When hosting someone in conversation, (as he did with Nigel Farage a couple of weeks ago), Peterson needs to speak much less than the interviewee and give more extended space for their thoughts to air rather than constantly interjecting his own in response.
Because of this, while fascinating in parts, it was a near two-hour discussion that was punctuated with awkwardness that at times bordered on the embarrassing.
Full teaching VLOG
However, my purpose in this video today is not so much to dissect and analyse the content of Peterson and Musk’s conversation but rather to highlight the danger of so-called ‘cultural christianity’ as the shadow of eternity (not so much war) increasingly looms large over us.
Beyond gross sexual immorality and perversion, the Corinthian trouble was in their discussing philosophy, their theorising and speculating, guessing, conjecture and the brazen and subtle skewing of truth — the very same problem displayed again this week in the influence of Jordan Peterson.
This is increasingly the problem in a world in which a form of biblical knowledge, (claiming to result in saving wisdom as a pseudo relationship with God), and notional, conceptual gestures to the Name of Jesus Christ, is becoming increasingly vogue. This is especially true concerning men, like Peterson, who think they understand the Bible when in fact they prove that they do not.
Matters of First Importance
Fourteen chapters before our text, (1 Corinthians 15:1-5), the radically floored Paul of Tarsus addressed the Corinthian chaos of divisions, celebrity hysteria, matters of food, demons and conscience, schisms and a form of godliness that denied the power of God. Now at the end of his letter, Paul wrote to the church about the adultery of concentrating on lesser things to the expense of the matters of “first importance”, (15:3). As with the Galatians, some of the bewitched Corinthians had forgotten the gospel and the resurrection; they had not resolved to ‘know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified’, (1 Corinthians 2:2).
However, it is the gospel of Jesus Christ alone which is the power of God unto salvation, the only message that has power to genuinely bring a person to conversion in Christ and, by faith and grace alone, to provide the only escape from the sheer terror of our personal precipices above hell.
Listening to Jordan Peterson speculating and even disciple others about ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’ as part of an admixture of geopolitics and psychology is counter to the only way of salvation, Jesus Christ. He is not merely an ethical/moral exemplar of ideas and idealistic philosophies. HE IS THE PERSONIFICATION OF THE ONLY GOSPEL OF SALVATION, OF STRENGTH-IN WEAKNESS, LIFE-IN-DEATH.
Indeed, all else is anti-Christ.
This human tendency to stray and become bewitched by digital media and space exploration and vast wealth is precisely why Paul wrote to the church in Corinth — to remind them of the gospel that he had preached to them, (15:1), and that some of them had forgotten. They had received it once (15:1) but needed reminding.
So too do you and so too do I.
Arminians would take 15:2 as a proof text that salvation is an eternal gift that you can lose but Paul is not saying that. He is holding a spotlight on the question as to whether or not the claim of “Jesus is Lord!” was genuine in the first place, and it wasn’t if it isn’t.
THIS IS THE QUESTION FOR PETERSON AND PETERSONIANS — is the claim of understanding the gospel and the matters of first importance truly genuine?
I honestly don’t think so.
Peterson weeps when mentally unwell people run up to the stage where he is speaking from, but he also weeps in the presence of wealth and grandeur and gifted men. That doesn’t prove anything. Peterson writes of parenting in a way that betrays the teaching of Paul and of Christ about holy matrimony and covenant and produces a following of out-spoken men whose regurgitation of his ignorant claims are the only echoey substance to their own immature lives.
But all true religion is marital which means if you get marriage wrong — if you get husbands and wives and children wrong — you get the gospel wrong. It is not true religion. It is demonic; it is anti-Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:1-5 says to these ‘pop gurus’ and their followers, (AND TO ALL WHO WOULD CLAIM HIS LORDSHIP), that you don’t understand anything if you do not understand the matters of first importance — THAT CHRIST DIED FOR OUR SINS IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE SCRIPTURES, THAT HE WAS BURIED, THAT HE WAS RAISED ON THE THIRD DAY IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE SCRIPTURES, AND THAT HE APPEARED TO CEPHAS, THEN TO THE TWELVE vv 3-5). … and MORE THAN THAT, if you don’t demonstrate that these matters of first importance are just that to you personally: OF FIRST IMPORTANCE.
Peterson speaks of Jesus’ sermon on the mount and the stories of the Bible, we who wrestle with God, but minimises the significance of the cross and the resurrection by providing these matters of first importance with merely cursory reference.
But it was required of Paul that he must forsake all of his colossal learning and oratory skill and intellectualism, (that would dwarf the “greats” of today), in order to be faithful to “Christ and Him crucified”.
Does Christ dominate Jordan? Does Christ rule him? Does Christ control Russell Brand? SHOULDN’T IT BE OBVIOUS? CAN IT BE CONTAINED OR PACKAGED FOR THE CELEBRITY?
You must not teach about Christianity until you know what Christianity is.
Imagine Paul having two-hour conversations with the celebrity greats in Greece or Egypt or Syria or Rome and not having this singularity of focus of the matters of first importance. Imagine him straying into philosophy, into theorising, into conjecture and intellectual exchanges…to Babel…imagine the hell of that!
NO! Even to the extent that others thought he was proclaiming a new god named Anastasia, (resurrection) Paul resolved to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Anything other than this most important matter of ‘first importance’ is harlotry, whoredom and false so-called cultural christianity…and it is extremely similar to much of the Church’s current witness — culturally sensitive and even culturally informed.
Could you mistake Jordan or Russell’s proclamations as being of a new god called Resurrection?
Men, please, by all means, listen to those about politics or psychology or technology who understand and know what they are speaking about, BUT please only listen about matters of eternity to those who manifestly prove that they understand them. And, for those of you who are truly in Christ, don’t be so sensitive so as to avoid fights and social media bar-brawls and robust exchanges; don’t be so squeamish so as to avoid the losing of face with fools who claim that they know Christ and His word but who, by their words, prove that they do not.
Have you received Jesus Christ? Do you stand in Him?
Has Jesus Christ become your Lord? Does He rule you? Is every element of your life on the table of sacrifice? Does the love of Christ compel you to share the gospel and to accept no imitations? Do you know peace with God? Have you received the work of the cross as your personal cleansing, forgiveness and justification?
Do you know that you belong to Him? Would you stake your life on it?
Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.
You can download the whole eBook for the I AM JEALOUS YouTube series here with all info here.
Relationships with Western church leaders are extremely difficult and uniquely painful if you experience godly human jealousy for the LORD God Jealous.
One of the most immediate consequences of the embers of godly human jealousy being kindled by the Holy Spirit in your life will almost certainly be discord with pastors. I say that because men who run churches are very rarely wanting the disruption of the Spirit of God to rip through their congregations in fire.
Fire purges and refines and consumes and engulfs; it is a safeguard not a threat. Indeed, it is the refining work of God, via godly human jealousy, that actually starts wars rather than stops them and which is unlikely to result in ‘church growth’ as much as it is fall-out.
When Phinehas did what Phinehas did, (Numbers 25:11), a war began between Israel and Midian which resulted in many casualties, sleepless nights and shrinking head-counts. But Phinehas’ slaying of Zimri and Cozbi was not premediated or strategised; like with Samson and Gideon, the Spirit came upon them — clothed them no less — and so they too leapt to decisively radical action that blessed Yahweh and Yahweh’s covenant people.
By contrast, far too many of us are willing to follow a church leader who is not jealous for the glory of God: who tolerates false doctrine, who panders to ‘powers that be’ and who trivialises apostasy while ‘catastrophising’ a lack of church membership. Church leaders are a major contributing part of the spasming output of our collective sinus arrhythmia.
The Church is suffering because it is being run by men, (and, tragically also by women), whose voracious instinct is to slay the prophetic witness within its walls. This means that Phinehas-types are virtually always labelled ‘hurt’, ‘unteachable’, ‘unbiblical’ and even ‘unloving’ when they begin to express their God-given jealousy. And so the Church plummets into ever-increasing degrees of unjealousy.
Therefore, the greatest danger threatening you and your family is not so much the wokerati of our very sick society, nor the simmering lawlessness coming to the boil within the nations, but rather a host of church leaders who refuse to ‘course correct’, to contribute their voice to a national solution to our lukewarm ‘business as usual’ that has rendered us a laughing stock.
We are not called to spear fornicating adulterers to death in the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, but we are called to choose carefully, ask wise questions, probe for clarity and to always, always insist on biblical truth.
In my experiene, especially since the fall-out from COVID-19 and the megalomania of ensuing lock-downs, pastors are actively opposing the prophetic witness of godly human jealousy in the Body of Christ by extinguishing, rejecting and vilifying the summons to repentance across all evangelical/Protestatnt denominations.
It stands to reason then that you and I have a decision to make:
Invite the fire of the Holy Spirit to set you ablaze for Christ, or remain within the neutered, effeminate, squeamishchurch cultures of our land.
You have a choice of continuing to go through the motions of Sunday mornings and perhaps mid-week gatherings, stupefying in spiritual monotony, compromise and boredom, or else cry out to the Lord for a company of Christians to be a part of, (or even to begin), with whom you are able to take the kind of decisive action that resulted in the utterly God-absorbed Phinehas being revered.
It is right and proper to call leaders to account, to call good men to answer for their cessationsim and egalitarianism and ecumenicalism, but if they heed you not it is assuredly not you who are causing the grievous tearing of schism. Rather, it is they who refuse to listen.
You are not called to remain silent within a group of so-called Christians who tolerate —and even enjoy — false doctrine and apathy; you are called to use your fleeting life to magnify God.
If this therefore requires you leaving an unfaithful and likely unjealous church in order to read your Bible and pray thoroughly…that is perfectly fine. Or perhaps if radical action requires you connecting with others with whom the inhaling embers of godly human jealousy can also be allowed to breathe, then praise God!
But I rebuke the church leaders of this country who make slight of doctrinal contradiction but who crucify the brother who exercises courage in separating himself from falsity and compromise.
Indeed, spiritual gangrene must be dealt with much like the two brazen idolaters copulating in full-view of a repentant people.
I pray for church leaders every day, often with tears, but it is now time for more of us to act.
In the words of the late Jim Elliot who, at the age of twenty-eight, gave his life for the glory of God by dying at the end of another type of spear:
“He makes His ministers a flame of fire.’ Am I ignitable? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of ‘other things.’ Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be a flame. But flame is transient, often short-lived. Canst thou bear this, my soul – short life? In me there dwells the Spirit of the Great Short-Lived, whose zeal for God’s house consumed Him. ‘Make me Thy Fuel, Flame of God.”
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