£9m for the Gospel!

Posted on 18 April 2012 by Peter Horrobin (PP)

No, this announcement is not news of an amazing donation for evangelising our desperately needy nation, but is from an extraordinary Press Release from the British Library. They have successfully acquired the St Cuthbert Gospel, a miraculously well-preserved 7th century copy of St. John’s Gospel, which is “the oldest European book to survive fully intact and therefore one of the world’s most important books.”

The £9 million purchase price for the Gospel has come through the largest and most successful fundraising campaign in the British Library’s history, with a £4.5 million grant coming from Government funds and a further £4.5 million pounds from many other charities and private donors. The Library states that “this precious item will remain in public hands so that present and future generations can learn from it” and says that they “are now taking the first steps to increase public awareness and understanding of the Gospel.”

This remarkable seventh century book was only preserved so well, in its original red leather binding, because it was placed in the coffin of St.Cuthbert when he was buried in AD 698. The book was later discovered when the coffin was opened in 1104 for his reburial in Durham Cathedral.

Of one thing we can be certain – the book was only placed there because it was the most precious item that Cuthbert possessed – not because it was a valuable book, however, but because it contained treasure that is beyond earthly value.

As a book-lover, I am delighted that this extraordinary book has been preserved – but as a believer in the One we read of in the book, I wish the Government and other charities were as concerned to communicate to the nation the message of the Gospel as they have demonstrated that they are to preserve a copy of it!

I pray that the Library’s desire to “increase public awareness and understanding of the Gospel” will cause people to think – not just about the importance of the book as a physical object, but also about the importance of the content of the book. A digitised copy of the Gospel is now available on line for anyone to read – in Latin of course! But that can only be a good thing – for those who want to find out why this book was so important to St.Cuthbert will have to buy a Bible to read it in their own language.

I’m praying that there will be many serious minded individuals who will do more than gaze in wonder at the manuscript pages – and will want to find out why the book itself was so important to St.Cuthbert. And that as a result many will read the Gospel of John for themselves and be so impacted by what they read that the message of John 1:12 and John 3:16 will transform their lives.

And then I’m praying that there will be at least one of these who will be so impacted by what God has done for them that they will become another John Wesley who will rise up as an evangelist to the nation. Come to think of it, the Government could well have unintentionally funded one of the most effective evangelistic efforts there has been for many a long year!

£9 million pounds is a huge amount of money for anyone to pay for one book – but if one person is saved as a result, in God’s economy it will be worth it. But just think what the consequences for the Kingdom of God would be if that person had as remarkable an effect on our 21st Century world as John Wesley had on his 18th Century world. £9 million pounds would be a very small price to pay for the consequential incredible blessings to the nation.

Will you join with me in praying that everyone who goes to see this amazing book will be impacted by the presence of God? And that deep in their hearts they will start to ask questions about the content of the book – questions that would never have occurred to them, were it not for the book’s extraordinary age and value? God can still move in mysterious ways!

Posted in Current Events, General | 7 Comments

Bouncing Bombs!

Posted on 16 April 2012 by Peter Horrobin (PP)

Since my last blog post we have been thrilled to be sharing with a thousand other people in our International Conference, God of the Breakthrough, at Blackpool in the UK. It was a wonderful time of fellowship and teaching from a fantastic team of guest speakers! It was amazing to see how so many different speakers were all sharing a similar message from the heart of God – this is a time for BREAKTHROUGH in the lives of God’s people and His Church.

In the opening session of the conference I referred to what happened when, in 2 Samuel 5:17-25, the Philistines twice came against David after he had been established by the Lord as King over Israel. The enemies of Israel were not pleased!

It certainly seems as though today, that the enemies of God are ranged against the Body of Christ in a similar way. In those days, David immediately took the problem to the Lord in prayer and God showed him what to do on both occasions. Scripture records that the effect of what God did on the first occasion was like waters breaking out with an unstoppable force – and the Philistine attackers were defeated.

This reminded me of what happened during the last war when the RAF targeted the hydro-electric dams of the industrial heartland of Germany. They had an amazing and unprecedented new weapon – a bouncing bomb! This bouncing bomb, devised by an extraordinary British engineer, Barnes Wallis, was designed to bounce across the surface of the reservoirs before sinking right at the wall of the dam and then exploding with devastating effect deep beneath the water.

As a student at University I was privileged to meet Barnes Wallis and share a meal with him. I didn’t know then that he was a devout Christian, but that meeting was one of those moments when I knew I had met and shared hearts with an extraordinary genius. His biographer described him as “a man of deep faith who was happy to produce experimental proof for unbelievers”.

The film, “The Dam Busters”, which many of you will have seen, made Barnes Wallis a household name in the UK, and has recently been re-released in a digitally re-mastered version. It’s a remarkable film which I first saw when I was at school.

I recently watched the film again and as I did so God began to speak to me about some very important spiritual principles:

1. The Bouncing Bomb principle. The 5 tons of bouncing bomb explosive were powerless to do any serious damage to the industrial targets of the Ruhr. But what the bouncing bomb could do, if exploded deep under the water by the edge of the dam wall, is destroy the dam. And then the waters would break out and do the damage to the industries below which no bomb at that time could have done. David said, “As waters break out, the Lord has broken out against my enemies before me.” (2 Sam 5:20). The waters of the dam broke out with extraordinary force and effectiveness. This reminded me that the things we do in obedience to God are a bit like the bouncing bomb. What we do when we are on target with our obedience to Him may seem small to us, but in the hands of God the result of our obedience is like the waters of a massive dam breaking out. The consequences of what wedo are far greater than we could ever imagine!

2. The Converging Lights: For the bouncing bomb to work it had to be released from the plane at exactly the right height (60ft). To achieve this accuracy, two angled spotlights were mounted on the front and the rear of the plane. When the two spotlights converged, the pilot knew that the plane was at exactly the right height. The spirit of man and the Spirit of God are like the two converging spot lights. When the spirit of man is in harmony with the Spirit of God, then we know that we will be on target to fulfil our destiny in God.

3. The Bomb Sights: Not only had the bomb to be dropped from the plane at the right height – it also had to be at the right distance from the dam wall. To get this part of the operation right, two nails were mounted on a sight guide – the bomb had to be released at the precise moment when the two nails were seen to be exactly in line with the twin turrets of the dam. In David’s second encounter with the Philistines, God told him to wait for a precise moment before attacking – when he heard “the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees”. David waited and listened and because he got the timing right, the Philistines were once again defeated. When the Lord shows us something He wants us to do, there is often a timing in God for the moment of action. We need to listen to His voice and only act when He gives us the go ahead.

4. Perseverance: One of the things that most impacted me personally about Barnes Wallis was his quiet determination to press through with the vision until completion -  no matter who stood in the way or what problems he encountered. In the film he is quoted as saying “If you believe in a thing as much as I believe in this, there isn’t really any other work worth doing until you’ve seen it through.” The fact is the enemy will always try and make us give up on what the Lord asks us to do. But be sure of this, if we know that we are doing the work of God, then there is no other work worth doing until we’ve seen it through!

My encounter with Barnes Wallis was a significant and God-ordained moment in my life. One of the messages from Blackpool was that now is the time for the people of God to begin releasing many spiritual bouncing bombs into His world. We desperately need the waters of God to break out against the powers of darkness and for the Body of Christ, the Church, to rise up and re-take the ground that has been lost in our nations.

Note: To obtain copies of the audio or DVD versions of all the teaching from the God of the Breakthrough Conference, please go to: www.ellelministries.org/shop.

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The Sanctity of Life, Marriage and Death

Posted on 14 March 2012 by Peter Horrobin (PP)

We are living in days when the secular governments of our western nations are trying to rewrite the statute books in order to eliminate the ideas of morality and moral boundaries from every area of society.

A recent paper on Medical Ethics argued that because there is no fundamental difference between the life a baby has inside the womb and the life a new-born baby has outside of the womb, that there is also no fundamental difference between terminating the baby’s life before or after birth. Once this argument has gained acceptance, then the legal barrier to infanticide, if the baby is found after birth to have any obvious birth defects, can be eliminated from the mind of our legislators.

But I also read in our papers this week about a secret under-cover report on a well-known abortion clinic, highlighting the fact that the life of some babies had been terminated (illegally at the present time) simply because they were the ‘wrong sex’. As far as the parents of those babies were concerned, the wrong gender was a birth defect! Gender-cide has reached the shores of our nation.

At the other end of life we have also had to endure increasing pressure from our legislators for adopting the specious arguments for euthanasia. Reasons for the elderly and the infirm to feel distinctly unsafe in their beds are gaining ground.

When a child goes to a boarding school, the parents delegate responsibility for the care of their child to the school authorities. The school then becomes “in loco parentis” (in place of the parents) while the child is in their care. It seems that we are very rapidly moving to a situation, where governments are putting themselves “in loco Dei” (in the place of God) and legalising killing at both ends of life – in direct rebellion against the sixth commandment. Crimes which in earlier centuries would have been labelled as murder, and punished accordingly, are today being legalised in the name of choice!

In the UK we are also in the middle of a major national debate about the government’s intention to introduce something called “gay marriage”. There are obviously many forms of relationship which people can have, but the purpose of the marriage relationship is different from every other sort of relationship that people can ever enter into.

This is expressed most clearly in the Book of Common Prayer which, since 1662, has enshrined the teaching of Scripture in its pages and has stated unequivocally that “marriage is an honourable estate instituted of God . . . and first it was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy Name.”

The first objective of marriage, therefore, is that it should provide a safe spiritual environment in which to conceive, have and bring up children. There are other objectives, of course, but this is the first objective and unless this first intention is respected, in the knowledge that children are only conceived through normal male-female sexual relations, then whatever you want to call same-sex relationships they cannot ever be referred to as marriage.

Only if it were possible for two men or two women to be stranded on an otherwise uninhabited desert island, and nine months later produce a baby, would I have to reconsider my theology and my opinions! But I don’t think I’m in any danger of ever having to change my understanding of marriage on these grounds!

This week I am thanking God that the Archbishops of the Roman Catholic Church in the UK have come out so clearly and strongly against the government’s objective of authorising ‘gay marriage’. For the reasons stated above this very terminology is a contradiction in terms – the word gay (in its modern meaning) and the word marriage are mutually incompatible. Would that all the other denominations would stand shoulder to shoulder with the stance adopted by the Catholic Archbishops.

There is only one reason why government after government has tampered with the statute books and systematically eliminated the authority of God’s Word and God’s law from legislation – it’s because there is no longer any fear of the Lord in the land. No wonder the Scripture tells us that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10). The absolute sanctity of life, marriage and death is no longer respected. Wisdom has departed from the corridors of governmental power.

When any nation believes that it can stand in the place of God, and play fast and loose with God’s Word, then it is putting itself on notice to get ready for the consequences, for Scripture also says that “God cannot be mocked – a man reaps what he sows” (Galatians 6:7). When we mock God, His Word and His laws we lose the protection of God and move out from under the covering which is the source of His blessing (Psalm 91).

Never before has our nation faced such head-on attacks on its spiritual foundations. It’s time for our spiritual leaders and all our intercessors to drop to their knees and remind themselves of 2 Chronicles 7:14: “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and will heal their land.”

Posted in Current Events, General | 8 Comments

Restored to Run!

Posted on 13 February 2012 by Peter Horrobin (PP)

I will never forget the day in 1970 when I acquired the wreck of a 1934 Alvis Speed 20 car. It was already 36 years old and  in an unbelievably impossible condition. Most sensible people would have consigned it to the scrap heap without any hesitation!

Alvis Wreck

Alvis Wreck

Bits from the Wreck

Bits from the Wreck

The problem is that emotions can have a nasty habit of clouding one’s judgement, so that anything but sensible decisions are made! The truth was, I had fallen in love with the dream of owning an Alvis Speed 20. So, when I acquired the wreck, I didn’t see the sad remains of a hopeless case, I saw in my mind both the gleaming beauty that had left the Alvis factory in 1934 and what the car would look like when I had fully restored it to its former glory. The magnitude and near impossibility of the task that lay ahead of me never entered my head – all I could see was the restored car and enjoy driving it in my dreams.

So, I wasn’t ready or prepared for what God would do in the very early hours of Friday June 19th 1970. As I looked at the wreck of my Alvis Speed 20 I realised that the chassis itself was bent and, possibly irreparable. Tears began to roll down my cheeks.  And then it was that God spoke! To me it was as clear as an audible voice which echoed within my spirit, “You could restore this broken car, but I can restore broken lives.” And then He asked, “Which is more important?”

It was in those precious moments, that in a few seconds of earthly time I caught a glimpse of timeless eternity. I saw things that I’m still unpacking. I saw into the heart of God and with His eyes I looked at the wrecks of broken lives – hundreds of them, thousands and millions of them. And there on the sidelines was Satan grinning over the lives he had wrecked and which he was wanting to send to the scrap-heap, without hope.

As I looked I sensed the joy there had been in God, when each life had been created in all its pristine beauty. But then I saw His tears at the wrecks that so many of these people had become. Finally, however, I became aware of the joy that would be His, if those broken lives could be restored as their maker had intended them to be, and for which His Son had died.

I realised that God’s emotions over broken lives were not dissimilar in nature to the ones I had experienced when I looked at the wreck of a broken car – only broken lives are much more important than broken cars. God never shrinks from the magnitude of the task. In Him there are no hopeless cases – none are beyond the healing love of a God who is passionate about His creation.

The thrill I have had in restoring the car, is nothing compared with the thrill there is in the heart of God when he sees one of His children restored in His image and likeness. The healing ministry is not, intrinsically, about making people feel better so they can carry on living self-centred lives, it’s about the restoration of God’s order in their lives so that they can live in the destiny God prepared for them in advance – and which the enemy has so assiduously tried to rob them of.

God was right, I could restore that broken car, but it’s taken me forty two years to do it! Forty years longer than my longest initial estimate, during which God has been doing the work of restoring thousands of broken lives. And in those forty two years I’ve driven that car thousands of trouble-free miles in my dreams!

But later this year, when the car’s finished and the dream has become reality, I intend to drive it to all our UK Centres and across the Channel to our Dutch Centre as well. The car has been restored to run and so I will be conducting a new training course at each centre, simply called Restored to Run – because that’s what God wants to do with each one of our lives, restore them so we are able to run the race of life.

If you would like to see a short video about the vision, the car, Restored to Run and the Alvis Tour, just click here:

www.thealvistour.com/video

Posted in Ellel Ministries, General | 4 Comments

When God Fired His Gun!

Posted on 24 January 2012 by Peter Horrobin (PP)

Back in 1985, before the work of Ellel Ministries had begun, I was sitting on the back row of Sheffield City Hall. John Wimber was speaking about healing. I was so encouraged to hear his teaching, which spoke so powerfully into the vision for healing and restoration that I had already been nurturing for many years.

I knew God had called me into such a ministry, but I confess that I was getting downhearted. The years were passing and no doors had opened. I was already over forty and supposedly by then, on the downhill path towards being put out to grass! I had lots of questions for God, but no answers. Perhaps I was now too old for God to use and I’d missed the boat – whatever God’s boat might have looked like!

I’d read in the Christian press about John Wimber coming from the USA to Sheffield for a conference on healing. I decided to go and spend four days concentrating on whatever the Lord had to say to me through the teaching and ministry. I was in complete agreement with all that John Wimber picked out from the Scriptures about both healing and deliverance. My heart was beating in rhythm with what was in the Word of God, but I knew that something had to happen to kick-start the vision that had burned within me by then for fifteen years.

At times during that amazing conference I felt as though I was the only person there. I was aware of crowds of people in one sense, but at the same time I was oblivious to their presence. God had got my attention. I’m not sure whether I was wrestling with God or God was wrestling with me. I knew there were deep issues being tackled, largely associated with what the cost and the consequences would be of being totally unconditional with God.

It’s so easy to say ‘Yes, Lord’, without too much thought about what those two words really mean. But now the inner wrestling was going deep into the inner recesses of my soul – touching depths that I didn’t even know were there and facing challenges in the spirit that I knew one day I would have to face in the flesh. I felt so inadequate, unsuited and unprepared but at the same time I was straining at the leash desperate to get going.  But God was showing me that if He had let the leash go too soon, I would have gone out like a greyhound on a track to try and build God’s Kingdom my way instead of His!

There is a breaking that leads to wholeness and destiny. And deep inside me there was a breaking of my own will taking place as one by one I placed every area of my life into God’s hands, decided to trust Him unconditionally with the consequences and agreed to follow Him wherever the journey would take me.

On the last night of the conference I was extraordinarily aware of the presence of God during the worship. It was irrelevant to me what anyone else was experiencing. I felt as though I was being pinned to that back wall of Sheffield City Hall by the presence, the power and overwhelmingly by the love of God. It was as if a series of three huge waves came rolling in to cover me and across the top of the first wave was written, in huge letters, the word ACCEPTED.

At that moment I didn’t just know God’s forgiveness as a theological proposition, it was pervading my whole being, And realising that there was nothing that God hadn’t forgiven, meant that I could unconditionally believe that He really loved me – every single bit of me. The acceptance I felt at that moment was totally life transforming.

I was just recovering from this wonderful experience when a second wave came in and covered my soul. Across the tops of the wave were spread the letters of the word RESTORED. It seemed as though in all the areas of my life where I had known God’s acceptance and forgiveness, he was now healing and restoring my soul. New strength came into my being as I realised that the restoration of God was equipping me for whatever lay ahead.

I had no idea what would happen next. I was relaxing in the presence of God – the joy of His love was filling my spirit and my soul – when the third wave came rolling in and to my enormous surprise written across the top of the wave was the word COMMISSIONED. Deep down I knew exactly what this word meant. It was as if in a moment of time, years of preparation were coming to a head and that whatever it was that God was calling me to Himself to do, was about to begin.

A commissioning marks the beginning of something new. On the day a new ship for the Royal Navy is commissioned, the years of building and preparation are over, and it enters service. I had no idea what commissioning would mean for me, but as the impact of those thee waves subsided, I knew that a new phase of my life was beginning and that I was entering service.

Shortly after that God opened the doors for the work, that became known as Ellel Ministries, to begin at Ellel Grange. It was as if at that conference God had fired a starting gun over my life. It was a time that I can’t forget, for what God did then is part of who I am today. This is the first time I have ever put an account of what happened to me at that conference in Sheffield into print.

Since then we have been enormously privileged to conduct many similar conferences through Ellel Ministries. The first one, The Battle Belongs to the Lord, was a life-changing event for many hundreds of people. It seems as though when we take time out to really seek God, and listen to His voice in a focussed and concentrated way, that He rejoices to hear the cries of our heart and answer our prayers.

Right now we are in the thick of preparing for the next Ellel Conference at Blackpool, God of the Breakthrough at the end of March. I know that in these very testing and difficult days there are many people looking to God for a personal breakthrough in their lives, their circumstances, their local church and even in the life of their nation. I have a deep sense that this is going to be one of those conferences of which, in years to come, people will say, “God changed my life at Blackpool in 2012.” For me it was Sheffield in 1985.

Yes, I am a little older now, but I’m still young enough in spirit to be looking forward to Blackpool with eager anticipation – like a child, dreaming of something very special that lies ahead, but not fully aware yet of all that’s going to happen! I’m wondering what starting guns God is going to be firing over the lives of those who are present, as they seek His face and come before Him in faith and expectation. I’m ready and waiting!

You can find out more about the conference at www.godofthebreakthrough.org

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Farming for Profit and Building the Church!

Posted on 22 January 2012 by Peter Horrobin (PP)

An elderly landowner had two grandsons, both of whom longed to be farmers in their own right. Two of his farms, of equal size and value, had lain semi-derelict for decades. He was keen that his inherited land should remain in the family so, when he died, he left one farm to Grandson A and the other to Grandson B. Additionally he left each of them £50,000 to help with running the farm and turning it into a profit-making operation.

Grandson A was so excited to receive the deeds of his farm and he immediately went out and spent all his money on the very best animals he could find and set out to make his fortune on the farm.

Grandson B, however, spent the whole of his first year of ownership of his farm repairing the buildings and, especially, mending the fences and rebuilding the broken down walls. By the time he’d finished all this work, he only had a small amount of his money left, with which he bought a small flock of sheep.

Meanwhile, Grandson A was having a lot of problems. He placed his prize cattle in the field in front of his farm but, to his horror, found that they were all gone in the morning. As animals will do, they had soon found the holes in the walls and fences and by the time morning came, they were scattered all over the place. And, sadly, one of them had got onto the main road and caused an accident in which the animal was killed, and as a result of which a child lay seriously injured in hospital. It wasn’t long before legal papers arrived which made it very clear that the farmer was responsible for the accident by not having had his fences in good order. Not only did he lose the animal that had died, but another person’s life was terribly scarred. Eventually he had to sell all the rest of the animals, and the farm to pay the damages.

Grandson A had first thought that Grandson B was wasting his opportunity by spending so much time on mending the offences and repairing the walls. But now he realised that his own failure to spend time and money on this had eventually brought disaster upon himself and he was left with nothing.

Grandson B, however, had taken time to protect his small flock of sheep. They soon multiplied and year on year his farm became more and more successful. Everyone came to see how he had made the farm so profitable and he told everyone who came the most important principle he had learned – mend the fences, keep the boundaries secure and the flock will be safe.

Two young men became Christians from very similar backgrounds. Both had been into many things in their former lives. But they joined different churches.

Christian A’s church was so excited that such a worldly young man had found the Saviour, that they soon had him doing all sorts of things right away. He was a great musician and he gave his testimony everywhere. He was paraded around like a trophy and became quite a star in his church circles. But beneath the surface there were problems. Pride became a real issue and the more publicity he was given, the bigger the problem became! He had come from living quite an immoral lifestyle – the boundaries of his life were quite disordered – and because nothing had been done to mend the fences of his broken down life, he was soon found to be straying into fields that Christians shouldn’t be entering. Before long his testimony was quite discredited and he left the church –he’d tried Christianity, it hadn’t changed anything and he finished up throwing himself headlong into his former way of life.

Christian B’s church, however, rejoiced in the fact that he had become a Christian, but immediately set about the task of making this new Christian into a disciple. They spent time with him, looking at the areas of his life where the moral boundaries had been breached in the past and where there were real issues that needed healing. They prayed with him through the issues that caused him problems and little by little the areas of weaknesses were dealt with and he became strong. For quite a while the church leaders were content to see him slowly but surely become established in his faith as a member of the congregation. But before too long it became obvious that he had some very real gifts that God could use and he was carefully released into using his gifts and became a very effective and valuable member of the fellowship. Years later, when he became a Pastor himself, and would share his testimony with his congregation, he would always say that those years of ‘doing nothing’ in the church, except learning to be a disciple were the most important part of his Christian story. Without them, he said, he would have soon gone back to the world he had come from through the gaps in the fences of his life.

All the above is a parable which filled my mind yesterday morning as I looked out of my bedroom window and saw a flock of sheep in a well-kept field.

The Lord’s voice was unmistakeable, “Spend time helping people to mend the fences and maintain the boundaries of their lives and you will be building leaders who will be able to lead the Church in times of temptation and testing. If you fail to do this the enemy of souls will have little difficulty in plundering the flock.”

There was a quiet soberness in my heart as I travelled into Ellel Grange, knowing that God had just spoken deep into my spirit to remind me of what the great commission is all about – “Go into all the world and MAKE DISCIPLES.”

Posted in General | 7 Comments

Holed in Safe Waters

Posted on 14 January 2012 by Peter Horrobin (PP)

As I write this blog, the television news bulletins are showing pictures of a massive Italian cruise liner lying on its side off the coast of Italy. It’s not yet known exactly how many people have lost their lives, but, amazingly and thankfully, the majority of the passengers and crew were rescued from the Costa Concordia. The fact that over 4000 people were rescued at night, from a rapidly sinking ship, is something of a miracle.

No doubt there will be a full enquiry into the cause of the disaster and we will learn exactly what happened last night, when the ship was sailing in what should have been the safest of waters and in the calmest of weathers.

Almost exactly 25 years ago, on the 6th March 1987, the Herald of Free Enterprise sank just outside Zeebrugge harbour. This ship was a large roll-on roll-off car ferry. It had crossed the North Sea many hundreds of times and had already made four crossings on that day between Belgium and the UK.

When disaster struck 193 people lost their lives. The tragedy of this tragedy is that it was totally avoidable. It was not an accident. The ship set sail with the bow doors open and as the ship hit the open sea, water flooded the car decks. The ship took a heavy list to one side as vehicles began to move and then the whole ship capsized in just 30 feet of water.

As I watched a documentary TV programme about the disaster, God began to speak to me of the dangers of sailing through life with the bow doors open. The crew had set sail like this on many previous occasions without consequence, but on this occasion the unthinkable happened. The Captain of the ship was responsible for setting sail with the bow doors open. The crew were responsible for not closing the doors in time. The victims who died were innocent bystanders of an avoidable drama.

We are all individually responsible for the ship of our lives. If we are sailing with the bow doors open, then nothing untoward may happen for a long time. There is little danger when the waters are smooth. Complacency and pride can make us careless in our conduct. But when the unthinkable happens it’s not only the individual who suffers, but all “the passengers” who were depending on us for their well being are in danger of becoming victims.

Those passengers include our own families, our colleagues, those who work for us and all who look to us for spiritual input and care at various levels of church life. For a Pastor or leader of a Christian ministry, the passengers include their whole congregation, staff and even the wider Body of Christ. When the disaster occurs to a high profile Christian leader the ripple effect can become a tsunami.

Many of those I have prayed with, whose lives had experienced some form of shipwreck, had been sailing through life with the bow doors of their lives wide open. For some, disaster struck by way of public exposure of immoral conduct. For others the torment of inner guilt was the root cause of personal breakdown. For yet others the circumstances of life had turned against them and when everything was laid upon the table, it was painfully evident that bow doors which had been left open years ago had never been closed.

The enemy will use anything and everything in our lives which is out of harmony with God’s covenant of blessing. The ten commandments are referred to as God’s covenant in Deut. 4:13 – they represent God’s very best for us. Unresolved sin issues always condense down to a willful choosing to ignore one or other aspect of God’s covenant of blessing.

There may be reasons in the past as to why a particular sin has remained out of control – such as abuse or various aspects of parental damage – but sin is still sin and it is far better to face the fact of it and receive healing for the cause than to wrestle on one’s own to close a bow door that has been jammed open and which seems immoveable. There are answers. If the bow doors are not closed there will come a time when disaster will strike.

There are many disasters waiting to happen in the Body of Christ – people who are shipping water privately through open bow doors. Those disasters can be avoided. All the problems a person has in this life are not automatically resolved at conversion. When we get to heaven the old man will fall away, but right now we are still wrestling with the consequences of the fall – even after we are born again. We all need healing. Conversion is but the beginning of a journey of discipleship.

It’s clear from the dramatic pictures of the holed vessel that the ship hit submerged rocks. With modern safety equipment on board, that can warn the Captain of such dangers in good enough time to change course, it’s hard to understand how such an accident could have happened. But happen it did.

The enemy loves to deceive us, in our own personal voyage of life, to sail into waters we thought were safe but which, in reality, are strewn with underwater rocks. We desperately need to have our spiritual radar switched on at all times. God has promised to lead His people when they trust in Him. How we need to keep close to Him so we can always hear even the whisper of His voice and avoid the rocks that could make shipwreck of the vessel of our lives.

Posted in General | 5 Comments

Long May She Reign!

Posted on 30 December 2011 by Peter Horrobin (PP)

Long May She Reign!

In recent months our national Christian leaders in the UK seem to have been very reluctant to speak out anything which remotely sounds like a Christian message, or to speak up for the Christian faith and Christian truth in the media. This has been so noticeable that powerful voices from outside the church have been expressing their surprise and disappointment.

In my last blog, for example, I reported how the Prime Minister, David Cameron, chided church leaders in Christ Church, Oxford for their lack of commitment in the public arena to what Christianity is all about. I was surprised and thrilled that he should speak out in this way.

But on Christmas Day things got even better! And it wasn’t because those churchmen had heeded what David Cameron had said, but because a certain 85-year old lady used the opportunity of her Christmas message to do what others had singularly failed to do!

In 1932 King George the Vth was encouraged by the BBC to use the new medium of radio to address the people of Britain and the nations of the then British Empire. His broadcast was an instant success and ever since the King or Queen’s Christmas address has been a long-standing Christmas tradition. The broadcast has always been timed for 3.00pm in the afternoon so that replete with turkey and Christmas pudding the nation can settle back to watch and listen to what the Monarch has to say. 2011 was no exception, but it was radically different from every preceding Christmas address there has ever been, although many of them have referred to God and the Christmas message in various, generally low-key, ways.

One of the most memorable was the first wartime Christmas and New Year message, delivered by King George the VIth, the father of our present Queen. In this highly significant address he made the following words from Minnie Harkins poem famous, when he quoted:

“I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied, ‘Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!”

There is no doubt that the Queen will have remembered her father speaking those words. In this year’s Christmas message she made it very clear that she had put her hand into the hand of God and that there could be no compromise about the true meaning of Christmas.

The Christmas address is traditionally always written by the Queen herself – it is one of those rare public utterances about which she does not turn to the government for advice. There is little doubt that if she had submitted her address for comment and approval it would have been politely returned to her with suggestions that her message should be more inclusive of people of other faiths and be a little more politically correct! But as the most senior member of the Church of England, it seems that God’s hand was clearly upon hers as she wrote the words that would be broadcast to the nation on Christmas Day.

In an era when the leaders of our churches in the UK seem to have lost all confidence in the Gospel, I am giving special thanks for the Queen of England who, remarkably, in her personal Christmas message to all the peoples of the 52 members of the Commonwealth of Nations, decided to give the heart of the gospel to all her peoples.

After referring to the importance of family and of God-given love that brings people together, this is what she said towards the end of her televised address. What a relief that the Head of the Church of England could give such a clear testimony to the truth of the Gospel!

“Finding hope in adversity is one of the themes of Christmas. Jesus was born into a world full of fear. The angels came to frightened shepherds with hope in their voices: ‘Fear not’, they urged, ‘we bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

‘For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.’

Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves – from our recklessness or our greed.

God sent into the world a unique person – neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive.

Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God’s love.

In the last verse of this beautiful carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem, there’s a prayer:

O Holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us we pray.
Cast out our sin
And enter in.
Be born in us today.

It is my prayer that on this Christmas day we might all find room in our lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord. I wish you all a very happy Christmas.”

I doubt if we were the only ones who were choking back the tears, as in stunned amazement we realised that the Queen had just told the world that she was praying for all who listened to her, that they would find room in their lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord!

Judging by the number of people around the world who normally listen to the Queen’s Christmas message – probably as many as hundreds of millions – this broadcast could possibly go down in history as the most succinct and widely listened to Christian gospel message ever!

I found myself praying the words of the national anthem “Long to reign over us” with renewed thanksgiving for the Queen and what she had just done. The Queen is unchallenged as the most senior and most respected of all the world’s Heads of State and I believe this was an event of great spiritual significance for the nation – and not just for the UK, but for all the countries of the world. Long, indeed, may she reign.

Posted in Current Events, General | 4 Comments

There’s a Light Upon the Mountains!

Posted on 24 December 2011 by Peter Horrobin (PP)

One of the responses to my last blog entry asked the question, “What then are we to do?” The world is in such a mess, can there be any hope for this and future generations? Even this week the papers have rejoiced to headline how Christianity is now being systematically marginalised in the UK. Less than 0.5% of the Christmas Cards on sale at our major supermarkets bore any relation whatsoever to the real facts of Christmas. Some of the most popular anti-religious cards are also, unashamedly, the most openly vulgar and obscene.

People who profess to believe in the Christian story are supposedly irrelevant fringe freaks. Their critics are saying things like, “why should we pander to their weird beliefs by showing any respect for Jesus?” The picture is indeed black and bleak – and I’m not drawing attention to these things because I’m a depressed sort of personality who can never see the good in anything – actually, I’m the very opposite! But I am deeply concerned with truth and reality.

But before you dismiss me as a gloom-merchant, come with me to a remote corner of the angelic realms somewhere about the date we know as 4 BC. Two angels are looking at the darkness that surrounds the mess the world is in. They shake their heads in dismay, their wings hanging limply as if they hadn’t been called on to serve mankind for a very long time.

These were some of the darkest years in history. 500 years had passed since the last of God’s real prophets had told the world that one day the “sun of righteousness would rise with healing in its wings” (Malachi 4:2). Since then generation after generation had ignored the God of their fathers. And what was left of the religious leaders were so legalistic that no ordinary person could ever be good enough for God.  Immorality, violence, rebellion, apostasy, idolatry and a return to the old pagan gods had become the way of the people. Life was literally hell on earth.

The angels were dismayed at what they saw and without actually questioning God’s wisdom, they did get pretty close to thinking that if God didn’t act soon, it would just be too late! But just as they were about to enter another round of angelic gloominess, there was an almighty stirring of the spiritual atmosphere. The sense of spiritual authority being exercised and the sound of Gabriel’s wings in action were unmistakeable. Something was happening and they watched from their perch on the edge of Heaven’s ramparts as Gabriel swooped down from heaven’s glory towards a remote village in northern Israel. The angels had to consult their gazetteer to identify it as Nazareth.

Why would the great Archangel Gabriel be visiting Nazareth? “Why not Jerusalem?” they asked? They watched in awed suspension as Gabriel made himself presentable to human-kind and stood before a young unmarried woman, Mary by name, and gave her a message (Luke 1:30-35) from the throne-room of Heaven, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. You will be with child and give birth to a Son, and you are to give him the name of Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most high. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, his kingdom will never end.”

“How will this be” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”

And so it was that it was at the end of a season of great darkness that Jesus, our Saviour and Messiah came into the world. And so it will be again that at the end of another period of great darkness that this same Messiah and Saviour will come again. It will be, says Scripture, as it was in the days of Noah (Luke 17:26-30) when the Son of Man is revealed once again as the King of the Kingdom that has no end. Today all moral boundaries are systematically being removed from the societies of the world – the days of Noah are upon us once again. Rebellion and apostasy, heresy and atheistic humanism are climbing on the throne provided for them by the god of this world. And I just have a suspicion that our two angels are sitting on those same ramparts of Heaven with a profound sense of déjà vu – and are saying we’ve been here before!

The incredible good news for those who are in Christ is that as the darkness gets darker so the day of His coming gets nearer. There’s an old hymn my father used to sing as he contemplated the coming again of his Lord. He sang it with a certainty in his eyes and his voice that knew the days are hastening on when all the world will see the coming glory of the King – and for those who know Him – what an incredible moment that is going to be! At that moment the darkness around us will be irrelevant.

There’s a light upon the mountains,
And the day is at the spring,
When our eyes shall see the beauty
And the glory of the King:
Weary was our heart with waiting,
And the night watch seemed so long,
But His triumph day is breaking
And we hail it with a song.

In the fading of the starlight
We may see the coming morn;
And the lights of men are paling
In the splendours of the dawn;
For the eastern skies are glowing
As with light of hidden fire,
And the hearts of men are stirring
With the throbs of deep desire.

There’s a hush of expectation
And a quiet in the air
And the breath of God is moving
In the fervent breath of prayer;
For the suffering, dying Jesus
Is the Christ upon the throne,
And the travail of our spirit
Is the travail of His own.

He is breaking down the barriers,
He is casting up the way;
He is calling for His angels
To build up the gates of day:
But His angels here are human,
Not the shining hosts above;
For the drum beats of His army
Are the heartbeats of our love.

Hark! we hear a distant music
And it comes with fuller swell;
’Tis the triumph song of Jesus,
Of our King, Immanuel!
Go ye forth with joy to meet Him!
And, my soul, be swift to bring
All thy sweetest and thy dearest
For the triumph of our King! (adapted from word by Henry Burton)

So, as we contemplate the babe of Bethlehem this Christmas season, remember those two angels that sit in a corner of my imagination, and keep your ear attuned to the distant music as it comes with fuller swell, ‘tis the triumph song of Jesus, Of our King, Immanuel. I am not afraid of the darkness, because the Light is coming.

I pray you will have a wonderful Christmas, even in the midst of the world’s darkness, as you celebrate the One who came two thousand years ago and look forward with great joy, in the midst of the darkness, to the One who is coming again. May the joy of knowing Him be truly yours and may He be with you every step of the way, whatever 2012 holds for you in the year ahead.

Posted in Current Events, General | 5 Comments

What Have We Done?

Posted on 19 December 2011 by Peter Horrobin (PP)

There is a massive difference between breaking God’s law (sin) and breaking the laws of the nations we live in – although sometimes they can look very much the same. A man who murders another is clearly both sinning and breaking the law of the land. Conversely a man who covets in his heart something  that is forbidden to him – such as his neighbour’s wife – is not breaking any law of the land, but he is sinning.

In Hebrew 4:12 the writer clearly states that the Word of God judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart – irrespective of whether or not what was dwelt on in the heart was ever actually committed. And Jesus added to this thinking by redefining adultery (Matthew 5:28) as the lust of the eyes which fixes on a woman’s body with a view to imagining having a sexual experience with her. Job made it clear that he had not fallen into this trap by saying he had never looked wrongfully on a girl (Job 31:1).

So, everyone reading this blog would probably agree that lust is a sin, but the fact is we now live in a world where it is not illegal to aid and abet lust by producing, displaying and selling pornographic images in ever increasing detail and general availability. The number of so-called ‘adult’ channels on free to view and satellite TV channels grows by the day and makes pornography available to anyone, whatever their age, at the click of a button on a remote control. Sadly, the purveyors of such material are not breaking the law of the land, but they are breaking God’s commandments and facilitating sin. And the same can be said of the governments that license the TV moguls to transmit such material.

The government’s current plea to the makers of Blackberry mobile phones, not to allow pornography to be viewed on their screens because it might damage young people, would carry more weight if the legislators had the courage to make the transmission of pornography illegal in the first place. Suggesting to a phone manufacturer that it shouldn’t do something which successive governments have legitimised through law is, surely, the height of hypocrisy! If they believe pornography is harmful, why don’t they have the courage of their convictions and make the open transmission of all pornography a criminal offence?

One could follow this line of thinking in many other areas. For example, it is not illegal to ask for an abortion, or for a doctor to provide one – but it is sinful. Government rules and regulations are definitely not in line with God’s Word. Respect for human life begins with respect for the unborn child. The fact published this week which states that 25% of young people lost their virginity before the legal age for marriage (16) speaks for itself – abortion is portrayed to this generation as just another form of contraception. What a travesty of the truth.

There are probably hundreds of other ways in which Government legislation permits people to break God’s law without legal retribution. But the tragedy is, sin is not without its consequence – as Paul said to the Galatians, “God is not mocked” (Galatians 6:7). The fact that something sinful may be legal does not remove the consequences of sinful actions from the life of man.

The unchecked practice of sin does, of course, lead to anti-social behaviour, and anti-social behaviour leads to what the UK Government are now calling ‘troublesome families’. There are believed to be about 120,000 such families in the UK and together they cost the British tax-payer about £9 billion every year! Because they cost so much, they have come to the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is keen to save some money in these economically stringent times.

So, the Government is now intent on reducing the size of the problem by spending another half a billion pounds on employing a small army of family advisors, whose job it is to try and help the families sort out their own problems and so take a slice off the £9 billion pound cost to the taxpayer.

I doubt if there’s ever been such a blatant example of trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted – and not just, in this case, one horse, but a whole  string of out-of-control horses that are galloping at full speed across the land that was once Great Britain.

There are no longer any moral boundaries to keep the horses in the stable and we fondly think that a band of family advisors, with no moral authority can do the job! Ultimately, when a nation dismisses God from its statute books, as if He is irrelevant to the needs of a humanistic modern-day society, there will be no fear of God in the land. And where there is no fear of God, there is no restraint (Proverbs 29:18) and where there is no restraint, the people are perishing because there are no limits to the depths of moral rebellion. And where there is no restraint the people will die for lack of knowledge. Only the fool says in his heart that there is no God (Psalm 14:1)

The genie is out of the bottle. And no army of advisers to troublesome families will ever be able to re-capture the essence of rebellion that has been unleashed on our society. It’s interesting that only this week the Prime Minister, David Cameron, addressed churchmen in Christ Church, Oxford and urged them to boldly declare the Christian faith to the nation. I have no doubt that David Cameron realises that without a spiritual awakening, he is fighting an impossible sociological battle, having only political weapons to fight with.

I can’t pretend that in my youth in the fifties people didn’t sin. I’m sure they did. But the difference between then and now is that then people knew when they were doing wrong! Today, people have no knowledge of the difference between right and wrong, between godliness and sinfulness. This generation of young people has been betrayed by the leaders of Church and State who, in the last fifty years, have systematically destroyed the godly foundations of government, education and social behaviour and dismissed the authority of the Bible as an irrelevant anachronism.

The whirlwind is just beginning to gather speed and only when it has done its worst will people realise what they have done and bemoan the crucifixion of truth and the passing of righteousness into the history books.

Perhaps the historians of future generations will shake their heads in utter amazement at what was thrown away by our generation in exchange for a mess of potage (see Genesis 27). The conduct that would bring God’s blessing was sacrificed on the altar of humanism and hedonistic self-indulgence.

O God, what have we done?

Posted in Current Events | 8 Comments