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 21^st Century world as John Wesley had on his 18^th 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!

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.

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.”

Alvis 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 19^th 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

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

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.”

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 6^th 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.

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.

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.

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?

They were discovered when water levels fell because of a prolonged dry spell. The bigger of the two bombs weighed 1.8 tonnes (4000 lbs) and was dropped by the Royal Air Force between 1943 and 1945.

Nearly half the city’s population – 45,000 – had been evacuated, including the inhabitants of two hospitals, seven nursing homes and a prison. It is the biggest bomb disposal operation in Germany since 1945.”

Unexploded bombs are an enormous hazard, and they have their spiritual equivalent in the lives of God’s people. Things that happened a long time ago can lie in the riverbed of our lives. These unexploded bombs can be unresolved sin issues that have been swept under the carpet, in the hope that no-one will ever discover them. But when they are discovered they can sometimes explode, causing enormous damage.

When such hidden secrets are exposed, especially of sexual, financial or other relational indiscretions, the effect on those involved, and their families, can be devastating. And when those hidden secrets were in the lives of Christian leaders, the consequential explosion can affect the lives of thousands. People feel betrayed and let down by those who were meant to provide a godly spiritual covering.

Mercifully, the bombs in Koblenz didn’t go off. They were successfully defused by the bomb disposal people. In the work of Ellel Ministries we sometimes feel like a spiritual bomb disposal squad, as we help people come face to face with the unexploded bombs in their lives and then carefully defuse them through God’s proven methods of confession, forgiveness, deliverance and healing.

Not only can these bombs be put there through our own ungodly choices, but they can also be left there through what others have done to us, for example through cruelty, abuse or unresolved traumas.

Often people have been tip-toeing round these bombs all their lives and have desperately struggled in their own strength to avoid setting them off – but the cost and the consequences have often been huge in terms of spiritual, emotional, psychological, psychiatric or even physical damage, to themselves and, sometimes, others as well.

If you know there are unexploded bombs in your life, may I encourage you to deal with them now and not wait for them to go off!

The good news is that when, with the Holy Spirit’s help, the bomb is defused and Jesus deals with the bomb, whatever it may be, you can start to live again. Then you don’t have to live your life under the constant tension of sitting on an unexploded bomb that could go off at any moment. The Gospel of salvation, bringing with it God’s healing and deliverance, really is the most wonderfully amazing and very good news!

But when it rained the ark took on a different perspective. Its availability was a sheer miracle of God’s grace – but it wasn’t built by angels in the sky and then lowered on angelic ropes, to save a grateful mankind! It was built by a man for whom holy fear of a holy God (Hebrews 11:7) had become his way of daily living.

God has not stopped asking people to build arks today! He is still calling on men and women to have a long-term goal for their life. I call it their destiny – something that can only be entered into through vision that comes from God – and something that they, and only they, have been asked to do. But be sure of this, whenever a vision is conceived in our hearts from God, the enemy will do everything he possibly can to either take us off course or kill the vision before it has even got off the ground.

So often, whether or not your particular ark gets built will depend on whether or not you live in the false enjoyment of today’s temptations or choose to respond to what God has said into your life. If you let all of today’s activities be controlled by having such a love for God, that you live in holy fear of ever stepping outside of His will and His best for your life, you will build the ark which only you can build.

Satan is so boring that he doesn’t bother thinking up new temptations to take us off course – for the simple reason that the old one’s usually work! He doesn’t even mind us thinking about those long term, even God given, goals provided that in the short term we respond to his temptations and put obedience to God off till tomorrow. That’s all he has to do to rob us of our destiny and to rob God of an ark that could have been an extraordinary blessing to you – and to all those who would have been blessed through what God had really called you to be and to do with your life.

No wonder Paul in Ephesians 4 and 5 lists a whole heap of temptations that believers were falling in to – everything from laziness, through greed, sexual immorality, wrongful anger and a whole catalogue of things that, surely, believers wouldn’t even think of doing – or would they? The fact is, Paul knew that they would think of doing them, so he warned these believers not to give a foothold to the devil by doing them (Ephesians 4:27)!

And therein lies the problem, because when we do something, we first think about it. And if we feel it’s OK to just think about sin, then eventually we’ll finish up doing it! And when we shelve the opportunity for today’s obedience to God and replace it with satisfying the fleshly desires associated with pride, money, sex or power, for example, then we are robbing ourselves of own destiny and robbing God into the bargain!

There is only one way that the arks of our lives will be built – by choosing holiness, one day at a time. Holiness is not the dreadful legalism of religious bigotry, but is simply doing today what God requires of us today! John summed it up in an amazingly simple way by saying “walk as Jesus did!” (1 John 2:6). So what did Jesus do?

Jesus only went were the Father told Him to go. He only did what the Father had told Him to do. He only said what the Father had told Him to say. The conclusion of His life of daily obedience was not the building of a physical ark that saved one family, but the opening of the gates of salvation to all (yes ALL) who believe and receive Him – for He is the only Way of Salvation (John 14:6).

The Father will never tell you to do those things that Paul listed as traps from the enemy in his letter to the Ephesians. He will never tell you to go places so that you can satisfy the lusts of the flesh. He will never tell you to say things, for example, which push others down so that you can push yourself up. For many years people have been taught to ask the WWJD question – What Would Jesus Do? I would like to stop suggesting people ask the WWJD question, and start asking them to simply “Walk As Jesus Did.”

Maybe we should start a new WAJD way of life for believers – something as dangerously radical as actually doing what the Father wants us to do today – instead of just talking about it as a future dream for tomorrow, that in our hearts we know will never be realised. For in reality tomorrow never comes – it’s always too late to do then, what the Father asks us to do today!.

I was once very frustrated by an Indian friend. He would say something like, “We’ll do that tomorrow.” Of course, the following day I was fully expecting to do what he had said. But when it never happened, I eventually realised I needed to ask him what he actually meant by the word ‘tomorrow’. His answer was very revealing, “Not today!”

Many believers have a similar attitude towards obedience to God – they say they’ll do it tomorrow – but in their hearts they are really saying, “Not today”. So there’s never any obligation upon them to actually do tomorrow what was promised today. And of course it never does happen, because “not today” becomes their permanent message back to God – and tomorrow’s promised obedience rarely happens.

I’m actually writing this blog in Singapore en route to Hong Kong for a special Ellel Ministries Training School. I flew with Singapore Airlines, and on the TV screen in front of my seat there was constant information being relayed to passengers about how far they had come, how far it was to their destination and how long it will be before the wheels touch down at Changi International Airport, Singapore. The short version of Singapore on the screen was simply Sin. And throughout the flight I was being told how long I had left to Sin! Only 9 hours and 52 minutes. Then 9 hours and 51 minutes and so on. I was constantly being reminded of how much time I had left to sin!

I wonder what the effect would be on believers if there was a flashing screen in front of our spiritual eyes, telling us how many hours there were left for us to sin before being called to stand before a holy God to give an account of our lives?!

Some, tragically, would rush off to make the most of the remaining opportunities to taste all the sins they had dreamt of? Others, however, would meet the challenge head-on, in repentance, realising that the time we have left to ’build our ark’ is finite and diminishing. How we would respond to such a sign would be a measure of whether or not in our hearts we were responding to the love of a holy God or responding to the impure selfishness of an uncleansed heart.

None of us know how much longer ‘we have to sin’. But one thing we do know is this – if we choose to walk in God’s ways and not to sin, we do know ‘how long’ we will have to enjoy the presence of God – it’s called eternity! Satan tempts us to trade a short-term sinful experience for the fulfilment of our destiny. It’s a bad deal – don’t fall for it. Never forget that today’s choices determine tomorrow’s blessings! Holiness is only ever realised one day at a time – that’s how arks get built!

God told Joshua to “choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan.” They were then to put them in a certain place so that in the future “when children ask you what do these stones mean?” you can say “these stones are a memorial to the people of Israel forever”. They were to be a permanent reminder of what God had done when they crossed over the river.

This is just one of a number of Scriptures which encourage us to always remember what God has done in the past and to tell the future generations. Many years ago, Tom Marshall, one of my favourite Christian writers,  and a very much appreciated visiting teacher in the early days of the ministry, told me to tell every generation of people who come into the ministry the stories of how God established the work in the first place. It’s vital that they know where we have come from and can then be faithful to the work God has called us to do in the future.

One of the most significant of Ellel’s memorial stones was our first international conference, The Battle Belongs to the Lord. There were nearly 3,000 people present in 1990 at the Brighton Centre – it was a true watershed in the history of the ministry, having a massive effect on the lives of those who came.

Only this last week I met with a man who I thought I was meeting for the first time. But his opening words surprised me when he said. “It’s good to meet you again – I was at The Battle Belongs to the Lord!” But then he went on to explain that what God did at that conference had totally transformed every single day of the rest of his life!

He told of how the teaching changed his understanding of personal ministry and how God spoke to him about a radical change in direction for his future career. As a direct result he established a new and very successful business at the leading of the Lord and explained how today he is working with young people, helping them to get established in life and build their own business enterprises for the Kingdom of God. He told of hundreds of young people who had come to faith in Jesus – all of which, he said, was a direct result of what God did at the conference.

It was both very encouraging and deeply challenging to hear his story – to be reminded again of the event itself,  but, much more than that, to realise how every day of our lives has the potential to impact someone else’s life for the Kingdom of God. None of us know what the fruit of that investment will be in the future.

I call these Kingdom links strands of destiny – things that God uses to envision people and move them into the place of His calling and service. I think that one day, when we compare notes in Heaven, we will all get a few surprises when we see what God did with what we offered Him! My meeting this week encouraged me to keep on pressing on with doing today what God asks us to do today, knowing that as we trust Him every step of the way, we will one day see our service in faith become a miracle of God as the strands of destiny are unfolded in eternity!

But yesterday’s birthday celebrations, in a hired marquee on Ellel Grange lawns, were made so very special for a different reason! Here’s the story.

25 years ago the completion of the purchase of Ellel Grange had been timed by the lawyers to take place at 4.00pm on the 31st October 1986. A small group of us were waiting to enter the building and take possession of the property for the Lord. When we did so, however, the vendors reported that their lawyer was saying that the money wasn’t all there and there was a £100 shortfall. So we were asked to leave the property again!  By the time this apparent discrepancy had been resolved, and completion had taken place, it was getting on for half past four. But that was twenty five years ago . . . !

So what happened yesterday?

The day began with one of our long-term advisers to the ministry, Bishop Graham Dow, launching the day in prayer. After the worship Bishop Graham then shared something of his own experience of healing and deliverance. And within this he mentioned that from Genesis to Revelation God had used the natural elements to speak to mankind. It was to prove a prophetic word for the day.

Following Bishop Graham’s words, the Lord prompted me to repeat several times in my own teaching that our God is a God who speaks. Then, in the afternoon, when Stuart McAlpine was teaching on the joy of the Lord, quite suddenly it began to rain heavily. And then it happened!

Those who could see out of the plastic windows of the marquee were no longer listening to Stuart’s teaching – they were pointing to something going on outside. They got up to look closer and Stuart himself got down from the platform to see what it was all about!

What we all saw was totally spectacular. A huge gap had opened up in the clouds and the late afternoon sun had come streaming through. Right in front of our eyes, over Ellel Grange, was the most brilliant rainbow most of us had ever seen – it was a complete rainbow – a double rainbow – a sensationally bright rainbow. The complete arc was too wide for anyone to get into one picture on their camera. It was totally stunning.

But then I was reminded of the fact that the time at which the rainbow had appeared, was at exactly the same time as, twenty-five years ago, we had finally entered Ellel Grange as owners of the property, and given it into the hands of the Lord. Everyone knew that God was speaking His covenant promises to the ministry. He had set His bow in the clouds once more. The God who speaks had spoken.

Rainbow over Ellel Grange 31 October 2011

Over 3000 years ago God spoke to Noah and said, “I have set my rainbow in the clouds . . . and whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you  . . .” Genesis 9:13-14. We were experiencing one of those ‘whenevers’!

We were so encouraged to realise that God had spoken into our celebrations with a statement of his own, that he is a covenant-keeping God – and that we can totally trust our future into His hands. I am in healthy spiritual shock as I am typing these words, just wondering what lies ahead for the ministry – but knowing that whatever does lie ahead, we know that God has given us His promise for the season to come, and it was written in the sky!

The nation of Israel is surrounded by hostile nations. In order to protect their people, most parents have to send their sons and daughters as conscripts to serve in the army. Gilad Shalit was nineteen when he was captured and his long incarceration was something with which all Israelis could identify, regardless of their other differences. His freedom has been high on the wish list of every Israeli and every Israeli leader since the day of his capture. They wanted him back and there was great rejoicing when he arrived home. But, in spite of the vast difference in numbers of prisoners released on the two sides of the conflict, I believe the media were so very wrong when they called it the most unfair prisoner exchange in history! Let me explain.

As I watched the TV coverage of Gilad Shalit’s release, my mind went back to an earlier prisoner exchange that also took place In Israel, when another convicted terrorist was released in exchange for an innocent prisoner! The terrorist’s name was Barabbas, the name of the innocent prisoner was Jesus. In this case the innocent prisoner was retained in custody and received the sentence that undoubtedly Barabbas was destined for.

Then the innocent prisoner had to carry his own cross to the execution site, where he died a criminal’s death. But here, at Calvary, an even greater exchange took place. It wasn’t the exchange of one life for another, as it had been with Barabbas, it was much more than that. For, ever since the fall of man, the whole of humanity had been born in jail under sentence of death, and was subject to the control of the jailer!  And it was from Heaven that God planned the greatest ever prisoner exchange – not just in the history of time but throughout time and eternity!

Through the fall mankind had inherited Satan’s judgment – death (Matthew 25:41). At the cross an innocent man, whose sinlessness meant that he was not subject to human death, actually chose to die so that all who chose to accept His pardon could be released from the jail of time and eternity. He took your and my place. But because death was not his inheritance, death could not hold him and on resurrection morning the plan for God’s great prisoner exchange was complete. Jesus is alive for evermore – and all who choose to accept Him (John 1:12) are also alive in Him – for time and eternity.

Yes, the exchange of over a thousand prisoners for the life of one Jew, Gilad Shalit,  may have seemed like the most unfair prisoner exchange in history, but in reality it cannot even begin to be compared with the exchange that took place at Calvary when the life of another Jew, Jesus Christ, was given in exchange for the life of every person on the planet who chooses freedom from mankind’s jail!

As I saw the joy on the faces of Gilad Shalit’s family, I had a tiny glimpse of the joy there must be in Heaven over every sinner who repents! (Luke 15:10).

The man was a believer offering up to God everything that was good about his life – all the things he thought God would want and could use. He was really happy to be giving to God his gifts and abilities, his experience, his knowledge, his understanding, in fact everything he thought God would want to use.

But then I saw his crestfallen face, as he realised that what he was offering to God was not what God really wanted! For God was looking over his shoulder at a very dark and hidden area of his life, which he was doing everything he possibly could to hide. “That’s what I really want,” the Lord was saying!

“But,” the man replied, “that part of me is so dirty, unclean, even filthy, surely you don’t want all that? I’m really ashamed of those things. You can’t possibly want those, Lord. You can’t do anything with them.”

But the Lord was persistent, “Yes,” He said, “that’s what I really want. You’ve offered me the good, but unless I have the bad and the ugly as well, you can never be really clean. And you’ll be spending all your energies trying to overcome them and keep that part of you hidden from me! And while you’re doing that you’ll never enter into the best that I have waiting for you! You will always be spiritually tired, fighting a battle that you can never win. Unless you give me the bad and the ugly you will spend much of your life going round in circles, trying in your own strength to deal with them, but failing time and time again and then coming back to me to say sorry – again, but never letting me into the mess. Your prideful independence is your own worst enemy.”

“You see,” said the Lord, “it was the mess that  I died for and unless you give it to me it will always be your master.”

“But, Lord, you don’t really understand. All that muck you can see, that’s the real me, it’s filthy, it’s who I really am.”

“Exactly,” said Jesus, “it’s who you really are. But don’t you realise that unless I have you all, you can never be whole. You will always be trying to hide something of yourself from me. You will be choosing to be divided on the inside – cutting the real you off from me. I’ve always known about that bit of you which, because of your shame, you’ve always tried to hide. But don’t you understand that’s exactly why I died – to deal with the stuff that you can never deal with? I bore the shame of your sin – it’s already dealt with.

“I know all about the real you – and I really love the real you. And can’t you see that unless you give it to me, as far as you’re concerned my death was in vain! For here you are, carrying around all that filthy muck and ugliness on the inside, hoping that you’ll be able to keep it hidden and that it won’t get in the way of your relationship with Me. But the truth is this – unless I have that bit as well, you can never have the depth of relationship with Me that you long for. And as long as you are spending so much energy protecting your sin and your pain, you will never know the real joy of what it’s like to be free. Satan loves to exhaust my children by tempting them to fight battles that I have already won.”

I was deep in thought as I pulled into the car park at Ellel Grange. I was acutely aware of the presence of the Lord knowing that I had a message that I had to share. In a few minutes I would be taking the bread and the wine and as I walked towards the building I knew that I, too, had some personal business to do with God. “Lord,” I said, “will you look over my shoulder and tell me what You see. I want you to have it – all of it.”

I have preached on the cross hundreds of times and shared in communion thousands of times, but last Tuesday morning I was privileged to understand at a new depth what Jesus died for. And then as I took communion the Lord showed me how so  many people fail to enter into the wholeness and healing that the Lord longs for them to enjoy, because they’re hanging on to unclean trash, thinking that God wouldn’t want it! But the truth is, He really does want the bad and the ugly of our lives, as well as what we deem to be good! That way we really can be whole.

Then tonight, as I was leafing through the Scriptures, I came across this question from the book of Job, “How can a mortal be righteous before God?” Job 9:2. There is only one answer to that eternal question – and that is by being clothed in the righteousness of the eternal Son of God who even loves the bad bits and longs for us to give those to Him – for those are the bits He really wants so that he can change us from the inside out!

In the early days of the charismatic renewal, along with many other people, I would sing the song “I am the Lord that healeth thee!” I passionately believed those words and would sing them with as much understanding as I could muster! For we were, of course, singing a great truth. But no matter how much truth there was in the statement, when I carefully read Exodus 15:26, I discovered that the phrase ‘I am the Lord that healeth thee’ was, in fact, only the last seven words of a 61 word sentence! The other 54 words were all about the conditions God’s people needed to fulfil, in order to experience His healing.

Another classic phrase is the glorious message that “the truth will set you free” – but only, said Jesus in John 8:31-32, if we hold on to His teaching and discover what it means to be a disciple! Then, said Jesus, we would know the truth and the truth would set us free – as He promised. Our carnal nature may want the freedom – but God says there are conditions to be fulfilled!

I have been ministering to people and teaching about healing for well over twenty years. In my journey I discovered that many, many people were crying out to God to transform their lives, but weren’t actually wanting to take responsibility for their choices and the way they lived. So I began to write a series of teachings, as part of the online training programme, Ellel 365 (www.em365.org), that would help people see the importance of not just believing the truth, but applying it as well. Many people write in with their testimonies, but last week there was one which deeply impacted my spirit and made me leap with joy!

I was on my way back from teaching at a healing and deliverance conference in the USA, and when I read the testimony I almost danced round Orlando airport, I was so excited by what I was reading! For this lady had truly grasped the message I was trying to get across – that if we unconditionally apply the teaching of Scripture into our lives, then we really can expect God to transform our lives from the inside out. This is some of what she said:

“I don’t even want to think of where I would be if I hadn’t ‘done’ Ellel 365!! Wow, God is so gracious, so full of mercy, so patient, so loving, so, so God!

I would have to write a book to explain how God reached into my very being and began to speak into my heart and slowly change me from the inside out. He’s renewed my mind, healed my body, gently convicted me of sin and brought me to repentance and loved me through it all. I was convicted of unforgiveness and I could go through a childhood of pain and truly forgive with love. The peace He has brought to my heart, is beyond all understanding.

Before, I experienced overwhelming worry and fear, that robbed me of sleep, I now have a trust in my Father God that everything is in His hands. An overwhelming sense of wanting to ‘let go’ and forgive has replaced feelings of vengeance, pay back and desire to hold on to every little hurt, so I can go over it again and again. Before, I couldn’t put anything down and it wore me out – but now I am refreshed!

Ellel 365 has radically changed my understanding of God, who He is and who I am in Christ. I have learned that I can have a relationship with God and He is interested in every detail of my life. What an incredible privilege it is to be walking in Christ. I feel so sad that I have been attending ‘Church’ all my life, and that in my adult life my husband and four children were so involved in ‘church’, but we did not know our Lord and Saviour. I can’t help but cry when I see that in writing. When I look at the wasted years, I praise the Lord for His mercy and Grace – I am free and the “Son has set me free, so I am free indeed!!” Hallelujah praise the Lord!“

I was tired after a very exhausting ministry trip when I read those words – but now, as I climbed on to the plane in Orlando, I had such a spring in my step, that people might have wondered what I’d had to drink!

But as I tried to get some sleep on the overnight flight, my joy was tinged with sadness as I thought of the thousands of people around the world who ‘do church’ but who have never experienced the blessing of what can happen when the Lord of the Church becomes Lord of their lives. At times like this I sometimes feel the grief of God, knowing that He longs to answer our prayers, but perhaps has to shake his head and say, “If only . . . .!”

Netanyahu’s response was a brilliant speech in which he carefully set out the history of Israel and the region, and the conflicts there have been in our generation between Israel and its neighbours. He made it very clear that Israel wanted peace and wanted to negotiate that peace, but that in reality you cannot negotiate peace with anyone in any circumstance who does not believe that you have a right to exist.

As Netanyahu  brought his speech to a close he suddenly switched into Hebrew as he read from the prophet Isaiah. But what he read was truly astonishing, for these were his words when he read the sentence in English: “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light”, and then he said words that were effectively a prayer as he looked at his audience and spoke to the world as he said, “Let that light be the light of peace.”

He was quoting from Isaiah 9:2, which is the beginning of Isaiah’s Messianic prophecy about the coming of Jesus – a prophecy which is declaring that the light that was to come was in fact the one we also call the Prince of Peace. Just four verses later Isaiah describes the light that was to come using these words: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

Tears came into my eyes as I realised what I had just witnessed – the Prime Minister of Israel, a Jew, speaking words in the form of a prayer that were telling the assembled body of the United Nations that their only hope of peace lay in the Messiah, the Prince of Peace – the One we know who has already come and for whom believers are waiting with increasing expectation to come again. Indeed as we see the nations struggling to cope with the rapidly changing world situation many will be turning to the end of Revelation where John penned those words “Amen. Come Lord Jesus.”

Earlier in his speech Netanyahu had quoted from a famous Rabbi. Rabbi Lubavich, who had reminded him that even in the darkest place, the light of a single candle can be seen far and wide. That darkness is certainly there for all to see. And it surely is true that only when the Light of the World pierces that darkness, and puts His feet down in Israel for the second time, that for the first time in history the world will know the peace that only the Prince of Peace can bring. Yes, Lord, come quickly. The world needs you now!

As I mulled over what I had just seen and heard, I sensed that what Netanyahu had said to the assembled representatives of all the world’s nations was of much greater significance than most of those present could ever have realised. It felt like a starting gun had been fired in the heavenlies, and that I had just witnessed a turning point in world history – the moment when the Prime Minister of Israel told the nations that only the Messiah can solve the world’s problems!

Footnote: If you would like to watch the whole of Netanyahu’s speech for yourself you can watch it here on You Tube:

Each and every one of us has a carnal nature which instinctively wants to respond to the attractions posed by the sins of the flesh. None of us are exempt from having the potential for such carnal desires, which have a habit of relentlessly pulling on the strings of our heart! But there is a massive difference between having the carnal desires (inherent sinfulness) and doing things that are wrong (actual sin!) None of us is exempt from sinfulness, but we can all make choices as to whether or not we choose to actually sin!

On holiday this summer we had great fun setting crab and lobster pots on the sea bed and then going back a few days later to see what we had caught.

Lobster!

The lobster in the picture provided us with a very tasty supper a few hours later! But how did that lobster get caught?

Lobster Trap

A lobster-pot is a simple framework which, as you can see, is covered with a strong net. On one side of the pot is a small hole shaped like a funnel and the bait is placed inside the pot – usually a dead mackerel. The lobster first smells the mackerel, then sees it inside the pot and finally does everything it can to get inside. Eventually it finds the funnel leading to the tasty bit of mackerel and climbs down the funnel, but once inside it’s impossible for the lobster to enter the narrow end of the funnel and get out again. It’s trapped by its own desire.

As I looked at these lobster pots the Lord was showing me how sin operates in our lives. We are tempted by something sinful that we would like to have or to do. We make a choice to go after it and look for a way of getting what we want – preferably without anyone else knowing. We enter the ‘sin-pot’ by something equivalent to the funnel on the side of the lobster-pot and enjoy the ‘sin’ (the mackerel). But then we realise that the choice we made has trapped us into the consequences of that choice – we are caught in the pot! This is the essence of sin – choosing to do what we know to be wrong and finding a way of doing it. No matter how much inherited sinfulness we may have, we cannot ever blame anyone else for the sins we commit, they are always a consequence of the choices we make.

But how can we ever make the right choices knowing that the enemy will constantly use the carnal nature to tempt and test us? Praise God, there is an answer! For, not only have we inherited a carnal nature, because our very life comes from God himself we have also inherited what Ecclesiastes describes as “eternity in our hearts” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). This operates in our conscience like a plumb-line of truth giving us the opportunity to know what is right and wrong and respond accordingly. Instinctively, therefore, we have a choice – whether or not to respond to the desires of the carnal nature or to choose to look at our desires against God’s plumb-line. We can then decide what we’re going to do – go ahead anyway and sin, or reject anything that’s out of line with His truth.

So what can we do about it when we’ve made the wrong choices and got it wrong? For, just as the lobster cannot get out of the lobster-pot, we cannot get out of the ‘sin-pot’! We are trapped through our own sins and we need help. Our sin has left us under the control of the ‘sin-pot’ and there’s no escape!

The mercy of God is centred  on the cross, the place where God stretched down into time, and into what had become the kingdom of the god of this world, to rescue us from the consequences of both our iniquity (inherited sinfulness) and our sins (the wrong choices we deliberately make). Jesus paid the price for our sin and thankfully, when we come before Him with a repentant heart, He lifts us out of the ‘sin-pot’, restores our soul and puts us back in the sea of life. But without obtaining His forgiveness and mercy, we remain trapped by those sins forever.

Many of the people who come to us for help at Ellel Ministries have entered the ‘sin-pot’, often many years previously and have needed to come to a place before God, whereby they honestly confess their sins and begin to receive the forgiveness and healing that God promises in His Word (James 5:16).

I couldn’t help but contrast the destiny of the lobster after it was caught in the pot with that of believers who have been redeemed and set free! That old chorus says it all:

“Oh, the love that drew salvation’s plan,
Oh, the love that brought it down to man,
Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span, at Calvary!
Mercy there was great and grace was free;
Pardon there was multiplied to me;
There my burdened soul found liberty,
At Calvary.”

Why would anyone ever want to reject such love? Perhaps it’s because the god of this world has blinded their eyes to the reality of what happens to those who are trapped in prison by their inherited sinfulness and have then been caught in the enemy’s ‘sin-pot’ – as a result they never discover the remedy for sin and the only way of escape. And perhaps it’s because there is now so little teaching of what the Bible says about judgement and hell, that so much of the church has lost the desire to evangelise. After all, why would we need to bother telling people about the Saviour, if we have no understanding of what it means to be ‘lost’?

Scottish Sunset on 4th September

Before going on holiday, I had decided to make the Psalms my holiday reading from the Scriptures, and earlier in the day I had been reading Psalm 25. When I got to verse 14. I had been suddenly overwhelmed with the knowledge of a profound truth that I had never really grasped before. This is what Verse 14 says: “The Lord confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them.”

It was that word ‘confide’ that was grabbing my attention. All of us who know and love the Lord are often confiding in Him – telling him the things that are on our heart, sharing our innermost thoughts with Him, confessing our sins to Him and generally expressing ourselves to the Lord in a variety of different types of prayer. We confide in Him in this way because we know we can trust Him. In fact we will only ever confide in someone about things that are private if we know that we can trust them.

And that was it – the sudden realisation that the Scripture was saying God confides in those who fear Him. And that must mean that when we truly fear Him, that He trusts us! This is not the fear that arises from being terrified of an ogre-like god, but the holy fear that fills our hearts when we love the Lord so much that to walk in His ways is our deepest desire.

And so it was that as the sun was setting over the Atlantic Ocean, that I was lost in wonder, love and amazed praise that the God who had just painted that sky would want to confide in me, and to share His heart. It was then that I realised what the Lord was really teaching me – that the fear of the Lord is the absolutely foundational key to receiving His guidance – for then the Lord truly confides in us what are His plans for our lives, His purposes, His instructions, His encouragement, His direction, His warnings, and His truths.

When, in the future, people ask me questions about guidance or are looking to me for advice about how to live their lives, I think I will respond, “Do you really love and fear the Lord?” For if they do, then they will soon be getting the answers to their questions themselves, direct from the only source that really matters – the God who painted that incredible picture in the sky and loves us so much that He longs to confide in us, His children. Oh what an amazing God we serve!

“The role of a father is not restricted to that of being a biological parent of a new human life. There are also spiritual fathers, city fathers and fathers of the nation. In parliament we refer to our most senior MP as the Father of the House.

Fathers should exercise responsibility for those who are under their covering and protection. If the covering is securely in place, then all those under that covering will grow up and live securely in the protection provided for them. But if the covering is missing, or damaged, then those who are supposed to be protected will also be damaged as a result.

It is common sense that the child conceived through a casual one-night-stand between a drunken man and a woman who needed some money to pay for her drugs, will not have the same opportunities in life as a child conceived and brought up in a secure home by a loving and caring mother and father. The covering is missing.

The phrase sins of the fathers comes from the Old Testament – the reference goes on to say that the sins of the fathers will be visited on the children. They are the ones who will suffer. Not because God has punished them, but because one generation after another has left them with the consequences of a disordered, godless inheritance.

A visitation can be either welcome or unwelcome. What we are currently experiencing in England is an unwelcome visitation. The sins of the fathers have caught up with this generation big time. Yes, this generation of offenders are accountable for what they have done, but the inheritance they received left them without boundaries and with no understanding of godly order. They are adrift on an amoral sea with no boundaries and no hand on the tiller of their lives

It’s easy to point the finger at the absentee fathers who have deserted the nuclear family. Or the mothers who have consciously chosen to be single mums. It’s less welcome, however, but just as important to point the finger at the absentee spiritual fathers who have failed in their leadership of the church, the town and city fathers who have failed to care for their communities, and the governmental fathers who, through their systemic amorality have removed moral boundaries from government legislation and deserted the spiritual principles which gave society its backbone.

The prophet Hosea expressed the consequences of such abdication. When the nation rejects what is good, makes idols for themselves and rejects what is pure, he says, “They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.” (Hosea 8:7). And the Apostle Paul expressed the same thought another way when he said, “The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction” (Galatians 6:8).

The evidence of such destruction lies smouldering in our cities, in the businesses that have been destroyed through mindless criminality and the looted goods which were the subject of illegitimate greed. There are families grieving the loss of loved ones and thousands of traumatised citizens for whom the pleasure of personal freedom has been replaced by the spectre of fear. Some will never fully recover from what they have suffered.

I weep at the lack of courage and moral conviction of those who are in a position to speak out on behalf of the church, but who have nothing to say. They seem incapable of articulation of the spiritual issues which lie at the root of society’s problems. The spiritual fathers have left a moral vacuum and a moral vacuum will always be filled – now it is clear, for all to see, what it has been filled with. Sadly, the weakness of many Christian leaders has only provided excellent ammunition for TV and the media to use, in their constant search for easy targets of their misplaced humour.

We have never lived in a totally moral society. Sin has always had its attractions. But the past two generations have deserted any pretence of adhering to a belief in the benefits of godly morality. They quickly traversed a season of history when immorality lost its shame and now, a generation later, we don’t even live in an immoral society  – a society which still knows what is right even though it often chooses to do wrong. We now live in an amoral society where neither right nor wrong count for anything and the moral compass lies crushed beneath the feet of a generation for whom the very idea of morality is a concept that is either long-forgotten or, more often, never learned.

The nation has had a visitation through the sins of the fathers. And the unwelcome truth is that the ordered society that took hundreds of years to establish has taken a few short years to destroy. Is there an answer?

Not without forgiveness and repentance -  forgiveness of the fathers in all categories of fathering, from personal to governmental, for their betrayal of those they were meant to be covering. And repentance by all generations for their wilful participation in desertion from the godly order that both  underpinned society and was formerly the foundation of our rule of law.

Magna Carta, perhaps the greatest ever legal document underpinning the affairs of any nation, begins with these words, “KNOW THAT BEFORE GOD, for the health of our soul and those of our ancestors and heirs, to the honour of God, the exaltation of the holy Church, and the better ordering of our kingdom . . .” For close on a thousand years these words have been the bedrock of sound government . They have blessed and benefited all the generations which since then have made up the citizenship of our land. Sadly, in today’s  secular society which makes no pretence of acknowledgement of a superior being, the foundational principles of Magna Carta, have now become a historic irrelevancy.

But let us not forget our history too quickly – the penultimate clause of Magna Carta says that, “We have remitted and pardoned fully to all men any ill-will, hurt, or grudges that have arisen between us and our subjects . . .” An act of forgiveness is built into this remarkable document – and that is what is needed today.

Today we are desperately in need of the ‘better ordering of our Kingdom’ of which Magna Carta speaks. We need to repent. We need to forgive. And then we need to move on.

Now that everyone can see, in horrifying detail, what the consequences have been of the desertion from our duty as fathers of the nation, is it too much to believe that out of the ashes of England’s riots could arise a determination to establish a new Magna Carta, through which future generations of this nation will experience the benefits and blessings of which Magna Carta speaks, and not have to continue suffering because of the ‘sins of the fathers’?”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14417362

Here you will read of the Rev Klaas Hendrikse who presides over the Sunday service at the Exodus Church in Gorinchem, central Holland. It is part of the mainstream Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN), but Mr Hendrikse tells people to “Make the most of life on earth, because it will probably be the only one you get!”

Klaas Hendrikse doesn’t believe that God exists at all as a supernatural being. And he describes the Bible’s account of Jesus’s life as “a mythological story about a man who may never have existed”

So, why is he still the minister of a mainstream protestant church – especially after traditionalist Christians have called for him to be removed from his office?

The answer is frightening. A special church meeting decided his views were too widely shared among church thinkers for him to be singled out. A study by the Free University of Amsterdam found that one-in-six clergy in the PKN and six other smaller denominations was either agnostic or atheist. Klaas Hendrikse is not just an odd-ball cleric with no followers – he is one of a growing band of atheists still holding office in so-called Christian churches.

If you ever doubted the truth of Scripture read 1 Timothy 4:1: “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.”

If there ever was a time for a modern day Jeremiah, Ezekiel or Elijah to arise it’s now. We are living in days when Satan doesn’t need to attack the church from the outside, for its own members are destroying it from within. The apostate church is with us now – and we can’t look at Holland and isolate ourselves from what’s happening there as if that’s only their problem – the evidence of similar beliefs and practices, growing in all our western nations, is there for all to see. For example, according to a recent survey in the USA only 43% of Americans who consider themselves Christians believe in the existence of the devil. The problem is – Jesus did!

The time has come for weeping. In Isaiah 1:13 and 15, Isaiah spoke the heart of God when he said of such people “I cannot bear your evil assemblies . . .  even if you offer many prayers I will not listen.” Perhaps the situation is worse in Holland than other nations at this time, because this is the nation that has pioneered such libertarian attitudes towards all manner of sexual and moral license. The door has been opened and the enemy has used the foothold he was given (Ephesians 4:27). In the light of all this it is perhaps not surprising that establishing the work of Ellel Ministries in Holland has proved harder than in many other countries.

When the Lord raised up Ellel Ministries as a healing ministry in the North West of England back in 1986, we soon discovered that without godly order (discipleship) in a person’s life, real healing was often very elusive. Today we know that healing and discipleship cannot ever be separated – for without the willingness of heart to walk in the ways of the Lord people cut themselves off from experiencing the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. And where a Church denies the deity of Christ it is not the Holy Spirit that is at work in the midst of them, but a deceiving spirit.

How I thank God for our brethren in China and the East, so many of whom have been raised up by the Lord in the face of great opposition and persecution. They are a blessing and a challenge to western complacency – here we need to pray for God to raise up a new generation of Isaiahs, Jeremiahs and Ezekiels, to challenge both the church and the world with the reality of what we have done with what God gave us through the sacrifice of God’s saints in generations past.

While sharing coffee with other members of the Leadership I casually picked up the Blairmore House Visitors Book and began to read out some of the comments left there by people before they returned home, ready to get back on the road of life and fulfil their destiny under God.  As my American friends say, they were ‘awesome’! If we’d asked someone to write a piece for our Handbook, telling people what God is doing at Blairmore House, they couldn’t have written anything more powerful than the amazing things already written down on those precious pages. Their words described nothing less than miracles wrought by the hand of God in their lives. We were laughing at the fact that often we struggle to find words to tell people in our brochures what they will experience, when they come on a course or a retreat at one of our Centres. It crossed my mind that all we really needed to do was let them read the Blairmore House Visitors Book!

Then, on the way home I called to see a friend who himself had reached the limit of his (and his wife’s) capacity to handle the reality of a life which was supposed to be that of a distinguished Christian leader, but which, on the inside, had all the hallmarks of a man who had left morality behind in his search for answers to the pain of his past. He was one of those who, reluctantly at first, went to Blairmore House for help, but really believing that there was little hope for him. Today he is so radically transformed that his wife marvels at the joy his restoration has brought to them both. The enemy was wanting to rob them of their destiny, and had almost succeeded in convincing my friend of the hopelessness of his case. But God had other plans.

Then, yesterday, after returning home, I went to inspect the fruit trees I planted about ten years ago, on a bit of land at the bottom of our garden. They were absolutely laden with fruit. The apples and the pears are not ready yet, but the plums and the greengages were a different story. They were deliciously ripe – their taste was fantastic. So we had a family harvest time and I am writing this blog at the kitchen table surrounded by baskets of wonderful fruit. The team at Ellel Grange are in for a surprise!

Peter and Fi's Plum Harvest

But as I walked round the plum trees, I saw something that grieved my heart. Some of the branches were so laden with fruit that they had gone beyond their breaking point. Sadly, the branches had snapped under the strain of bearing so much fruit. As I looked at those broken branches, I sensed God speaking to me about a coming time of harvest. We see a world that his running headlong into its own end-times rebellion against a holy God. But in that world God sees that there are still many who are desperate for an answer which is not tainted by the lusts of the flesh, greed, futile wars, religious battles, economic collapse and which is controlled by fear. For the day will come when there are ‘multitudes in the valley of decision’ (Joel 3:14) looking for someone to show them the only Way out of the mess.

Then the Lord spoke to me saying ‘time is short and my people are not ready. If all the harvest were to come in now, the branches of my Church would break under the strain of trying to bear fruit on branches that are weak and ill-equipped for the season that is to come. Many branches have forsaken their trust in My Word, no longer believe that My Son is the only Way of salvation and no longer understand what I am saying to My people. Some branches are morally rotten on the inside and will snap under the strain. Other branches are so preoccupied with themselves, and their own petty arguments, that they’ve forgotten what a branch is for. Yet other branches are weak because they have not been taught what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, And some, even, like the Laodicean Church are blind, having lost sight of the work I still have for them to do on Earth.’

I was tempted to think about all the other branches there are in the Body of Christ, thinking that this was their problem, when I sensed a loving, gentle but firm rebuke from the Lord, saying, ‘This is for you. I’m only pointing out the obvious things you see around you, so that you can use them as a mirror to look at yourself.’

And so it is that I know I have to do my own heart searching and business with God. A time of fruitfulness is coming and God is looking to the branches which our lives represent. He wants to prepare them for harvest because He has planned that they should not break under the strain of bearing much fruit (John 15:1-17). Will you join me?

Oswald Chambers wrote these words almost a hundred years ago – they are profoundly prophetic, pointing the finger at the fact that if we are spiritually unhealthy, then we will look for the thrill of substitutes and even experience things which may look like the Holy Ghost but which are, in reality, counterfeited by the enemy – for who else would want to counterfeit the Holy Ghost?

In our generation there has been a lot of thrill-seeking and there are many counterfeit spiritual experiences available for the undiscerning to choose from. There is also a lot of immorality around – even inside the church as people seek the thrill of wrong relationships, evidence of their lack of spiritual satisfaction and the sheer poverty of their relationship with the Lord.

It is only because their relationship with the Lord is so superficial that many people have little or no ability to either resist temptation or to discern the false from the true. I don’t say this from a position of arrogance or judgement, – just from a position of reality, knowing many of the things that come pouring out of the heart when people have reached the end of themselves and are now desperate for help.

If we have lost (or have never found in many cases) a relationship of intimacy with the Lord, then it is only a short step to cross the line and then be more intimate with the devil and his ways, than we are with the Lord and His ways. Then we are opening the door and giving the devil a foothold – which he is never slow to take advantage of! (Ephesians 4:27)

When the Lord led me to draft out the contents of Ellel 365, I was at first doubtful about what I was writing down. At first it seemed a little disconnected from the healing mission that God had birthed within Ellel Ministries. It seemed too focussed on helping people to understand and apply the foundational truths of what we believe and not enough on what Ellel 365 is described as - Personal Transformation – One Day at a Time.

But as time has passed, I have seen the profound wisdom of the Lord in leading us in that direction. For what is happening is that people are discovering the deepest healing in their lives through getting back into a healthy personal state with the Lord. This is undermining unreality, self-deception and in some cases ignorance of the Word, with truth. People are becoming far more aware of the presence of the Lord in their daily walk with Him and are no longer looking for the thrill-based substitutes that the enemy will tempt us with, if we are in a spiritually unhealthy condition. Neither are they stuck in the sterility of gaining information without application. God is healing people, quite radically in many cases, in His way – and I’m thrilled by what is happening.

Only this morning I received this from a lady who is doing Ellel 365 in Mexico: “It´s just amazing the incredible things that have been happening to me. I’m just amazed by what the Lord is doing in my life. I would like to know  if there´s anything that I can do to bring Ellel Ministries to the whole country of Mexico . . . Now I understand so many things that I couldn´t understand before . . .  I have seen God´s hand working in me and delivering me from rejection and pride. I can only say: THANK YOU! and I want more of this! Thank you for being faithful in what the Lord gave you.“

Maybe a lot more people would have been attracted to Ellel 365 if it had been more ‘me-centred’ – but we can only experience true spirituality and the deepest healing when we move from being ‘me-centred’ to‘Him-centred’! And that is a journey that we all need to be on - from ‘me’ to ‘Him’.

As I meditated on what Oswald Chambers had written, I began to see some things in my own life in a new way and even now, as I am writing this blog, I’m conscious of a tugging  by the Spirit to look again at those areas where I may be tempted to be dependent on my own ability, rather than to look for the fruit of His presence and to walk in the ways He lays before us.

I found myself praying, “Lord, help me to desire your presence above all else” knowing that outside of His presence there are dangerous deceptions and temptations will increase. I just wonder what would happen if we gave greater attention to desiring His presence in the intimate place of our hearts? Would we then see more of the revival that people pray will happen in their churches and communities? I’ve never forgotten those words written by J.Edwin Orr, ‘O Lord, send revival, but start the work in me!’

This led me on to think about some of the ‘Ifs’ of the Bible which have been important for us over the years in the work of Ellel Ministries, beginning with that moment when God declares Himself to be the One who heals, but first says: “If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who, who heals you.” (Exodus 15:26).

The Lord is definitely our Healer, but it is very clear from these verses that if we want to know Him as our Healer, then we need to be making the right choices about whether or not we are going to walk in His ways.

One of the most often quoted promises in the Old Testament is 2 Chronicles 7:14, which says, “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 sin and will heal their land.” Our lands are desperately in need of God’s healing, and there are many people asking Him to do so – but there is a condition attached to the promise which requires the people of God to humble themselves before Him and to deal with their sin. So often we have prayed with people who want God’s healing, but later we have discovered there has been unconfessed sin in their hearts. And where there has been sin on the land, the promise of healing the land is directly linked to the people of God humbling themselves before Him.

In the New Testament Jesus is speaking to the Jews who have believed in Him and He said to them, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” This wonderful promise that the truth will set us free is not as straightforward as some people make it out to be. It is not an unconditional promise. Jesus requires us to hold on to the teaching which means ‘hang on to it for dear life’! Are we as concerned to listen to the teaching of Jesus and obey it as we are to want His freedom?

Finally, the Apostle Paul says something very similar in 1 Corinthians 15:2, but is very clear about the possible consequence of making a wrong choice, when he says: “By this Gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.” To Paul there was a very real possibility that someone who had been saved through the good news of the Gospel could then discover that all their believing was in vain, because they had ignored that word If, and chosen not to obey the teaching that Paul gave them.

I found these four verses profoundly challenging. They are all very encouraging verses, because of the wonderful promises they contain – but it’s clear that none of those blessings are automatic. That little word ‘if’ stands in the way. It tells us there is a choice to be made – a choice that can mean everything from personal healing, to healing of our land, to knowing the freedom that Jesus came to bring and ensuring that our believing has not been in vain.

There are many more divine Ifs in the Bible – but perhaps these few will encourage you to do your own study and search out some more and see what God says to you through them. Have a great adventure as you seek out the blessings we can receive through understanding what that little word ‘if’ can really mean!

“Can you tell me how to fully surrender to the Lord? I have read Andrew Murray’s book Fully Surrendered a long time ago, but it was a thing that seemed too hard or it seemed I was not ready. I don’t think we’re ever really ready. I have some very hard consequences in my life now and it seems that to really hear from the Lord I need to know that I am all the way in with him. I need his protection and words of wisdom in my life. If you read this please write me something.”

For the past few days, these words have been going round and round in my mind as I have been wrestling with how to answer the question. Many books have been written on this and similar subjects, and I could possibly add a few thousand words of my own, but I really sensed that the writer of the question wasn’t looking for a long theological answer, but a practical response which really works in the everyday activities of normal life!

So, at risk of sounding simplistic, I’m going to make the answer brief and to the point and say, One step at a time! Now that may sound terribly obvious, but in my experience, it is the terribly obvious things that often get overlooked, especially when people try to look for a comprehensive answer, that will cover all possible situations and types of people.

There is only one place you can start from in your search for a solution – and that’s the place where you now are. And there is only one way you can move from where you now are – and that’s one step at a time. You cannot suddenly find yourself a few years down the road of life, or even a few weeks down the line, with all your problems solved – you can only live today’s moment – none of us can live life in any other way!

So, ultimately, the answer to the question is a little like the Chinese proverb which says:  the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And when that single step has been repeated many, many times you will discover you’ve travelled a thousand miles from your starting place.

So, if your spiritual objective is to live a fully surrendered life, don’t try and imagine what that might look like and then try and live up to the spiritual image you may have conjured up in your imagination, because you cannot get from where you are now to that longed for destination in one big step! So stop imagining what the end-result may be and only think about the next step – for that’s the most important step in the whole of your life – get that one right and then you can think about the next one, and the next one, and the next one and so on!

Tomorrow’s miracle is always built on the foundation of today’s obedience – and that’s the most important key of all to living that fully surrendered life. Today’s obedience will always lead you in the right direction. I don’t know any people that might fit the category of living a fully surrendered life who got there in one big step. It was always a fruit of determined perseverance, looking to the Lord for His direction about each and every step of the way.

So, having made your decision that you want Jesus to be Lord of every area of your life, simply review every step you make, one at a time, before Him. If you’re not sure what to do, wait until you are. The peace of God will guide you. God does speak to His children. One of the reasons why I wrote Ellel 365 was to help people get to the place where they would be able to know and recognise the voice of the Lord, so that each step they take will be in God’s direction for today – and having made that step we can then leave the consequences with him as we review the next one.

Holiness isn’t delivered by angels, like food from a fast-food outlet! It grows on and in us as we make the right choices on a daily basis. There are very few big decisions in life, only lots of small ones. But when you’ve made lots of right small decisions you will be surprised at how significant are the consequences of the journey you’re on.

A great artist looks at a blank canvas and then meticulously covers it with tiny brush strokes. You may look at the finished work and stand in total amazement at what you now see. But even though you can see the whole picture in its finished state, the painting is not made with one magnificent, artistic gesture, through which the whole image suddenly comes into view. It takes thousands of single brush strokes – one at a time – in the hand of a master artist to create the finished image.

And each one of us is like an artist’s brush –  with it we place a blob of paint on the picture of our life. But when THE Master has hold of the brush, and we allow him to decide where the blob of paint will go, then we can be confident that out moment by moment surrendering to Him will one day give other people the impression of what a fully surrendered life looks like!

Historically there have been some amazing times when God seemed to intervene sovereignly in response to the prayers of the saints, but those moments have been rare. But when you research these you generally discover that what may seem to have been a spontaneous and sovereign move of God, has invariably been God’s response to the intercessions of men and women who have not just been praying for revival, but who have humbled themselves before Him in holy fear!

History tells us that the Kingdom of God has been built more by the perseverance of the saints than revival manifestations. And yet we all still seek the reality of God’s presence and his revival power to more fully enable us to do the work He has called us to do.

On one occasion, I took time out with the Lord to ask Him the hard questions about why it seems so few of the prayers for revival were getting answered – for there certainly seemed to be a lot of people praying for it. The answer I got surprised me. It was as if the Lord simply said, “They’re praying for the wrong thing!” I then had a problem – how can it be wrong for people to be praying for the reviving power of God?

My next question was more to the point. “What, Lord, should we be praying for?” The answer came as three words – but I had to thoroughly search the Scriptures for the first word, before the Lord gave me the second one, and so on. The first word God gave me was Vision. As I studied the Scriptures, skimming through the stories from Genesis to Revelation, I realised that the normal way God speaks to His people about what He wants them to do is through vision. No wonder it says that “without vision people are perishing.” (Proverbs 29:18). I suddenly realised that instead of praying for revival, we should be seeking God’s vision for our lives, so that we will then be praying into the plans and purposes of God and not just praying for something we blandly called revival to land on us from the heavenly realms!

The next word the Lord gave me was Faith. On the face of it the meaning of this was obvious, but the more I meditated on the word faith, I realised that what God was saying to me was that the purpose of faith was to enable us to trust Him, come what may. So that, when God gives vision, faith trusts in what God has said, and does not doubt that what God has said can and will happen – but only when the third word the Lord gave me is put into action.

The third word? Obedience. It is obedience to move forward in action that ensures the things that began with vision from God will be finally fulfilled. James tells us that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:20). Or, to paraphrase its meaning you might say. Even if you have a vision from God and the faith to trust Him, unless you start acting in order to fulfil the vision, nothing is going to happen.

Noah embodies all three words in his extraordinary life. He had a vision from God about the ark. He required an enormous amount of faith to trust that such a crazy idea actually came from God in the first place. But then he had to spend a large number of years being obedient to what God had said. There was no sign of any great revival throughout the years of working on the ark. But when it was finished and the rains came, it became the most important symbol of revival and salvation the world had ever known! You might say that Noah’s obedience saved the whole of the human race – now, that being the case, you might also say, that Noah experienced extraordinary revival!

But how did it happen – through perseverance and determination to be obedient to what God had asked him to do. And therein lies what I believe is one of the most important lessons we need to learn, understand and put into practice in these days.

Unless we learn how to hear from God, as to what he has envisioned for our lives, and then exercise the dynamic faith which enables us to trust God whatever the circumstances, and finally to use our human resources and energy to walk in obedience to what God has said, then the likelihood is that revival will elude us. But if we observe the protocol of God and live a life of vision, faith and obedience we may just discover, like Noah, that we are living in the revival reality of experiencing the purposes of God being fulfilled beneath our feet as we walk in his ways.

If we walk like this, I know from experience that we will have the living reality of God’s presence and power transforming our own lives and the lives of those around us.

“Blow the trumpet in Zion:  sound the alarm on my holy mountain!  Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near – a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.  The earth shakes, the heavens tremble.  The sun and the moon are darkened and the stars withdraw their shining.  The Lord utters his voice at the head of his army; how vast is his host!  Numberless are those who fear his command.  Truly the day of the Lord is great; terrible indeed – who can endure it?

Yet even now, says the Lord.  Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing.  Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relents from punishing.

Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people, sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children; even infants at the breast.  Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her canopy.

Between the vestibule and the altar let the ministers of the Lord weep.   Let them say, ‘spare your people O Lord and do not make your heritage a mockery.’” (Compilation from Joel Chapter 2).

We are living in days when our prideful western culture (at least in the UK) mocks those who still believe in Jesus – that’s a belief for the unenlightened mind of an age gone by. Or, as Stephen Hawking, the world’s most well-known scientist has just said “God is a fairy tale for those who are afraid of the dark!” Political and media cynicism have derided those who stand apart as ministers of religion.

It’s very sad that some ministers have lived a life of self-centred hypocrisy – but the whole church is reaping the consequences of their unbelief.  And now God is allowing the stones to be lifted, in order to bring exposure to the ‘creepy crawlies of deceit and deliberate sin’ that have lain hidden.  However, at the same time there are many more true and sincere servants of the Lord who, although not perfect and are prone like all human beings to failing (like Simon Peter), do love the Lord with all their hearts and humbly seek Him, trusting in the work of Christ and His Holy Spirit with a desire to uphold His Word.

To drown out their voices, their experiences and the voice of the Lord through them would be to drown out God Himself.  For God has chosen to speak through human channels and vessels.    And for those who want to listen, He is speaking loud and clear directly through His Word, and He is shouting through the events of world history. There is a desperate need for those who know the truths of God’s Word to sound the trumpet, as Joel did in his day.

It is incredulous to watch our political leaders, the finest brains of the nations, top experts of every description, desperately scurrying back and forth in an attempt to find a solution for the imploding world we are living in.   This is not intended as a disrespectful statement since it is most admirable what man can do in positions of extremity. Yet, in the face of the onslaught, we are like ants going about the business of our small life in comparison to the massively bigger and more intelligent picture around us that there for those with eyes to see.  The striving of man is ultimately futile without the mercy of God.

We are watching mankind endeavour to make human sense of their problems and threats to man’s existence using their finest intelligence, but without personal connection to their Creator.  In fact some are doing so with deliberate intention to try and obliterate the very idea of a Creator, through  the use of their supposed higher intelligence based on modern-day secularism and humanism.

What answers does mankind think they have in the face of forces way beyond their control?  How can they make laws and sneer at those who seek the face of God and want His truth as the basis of law?   How can they ignore seeking out those who humbly study and live by the Word of God, who know God like Daniel did and who have witnessed generations of Christian blessing and protection?   How can they live in ignorant dissociation from the fact that man was created to be a spiritual being by a spiritual creator?  This is surely the greatest stupidity – to believe that you can do it alone without God the Creator!   It is hard to get your brain around the fact that the finest minds in our world believe they have the answer without God, only tolerating those who do search for God with cynicism and hypocritical patronage. Why should this be?

One answer is that as Christians, we have grown weak and complacent.   Our Christian calling and life has been reduced to church on Sundays and maybe house-group one night weekly – an appearance of Godliness.   We have lost sight of the radical call the gospel gives us according to the Word of God.   We have reduced the effectiveness of our calling almost to that of patronage of ‘the lost’ or the ‘poor and needy’ neither of which is wrong in itself.  However, if it is not harnessed to the law of love – a life of self denial, self sacrifice and self-decreasing that He may increase, we cannot expect to have any ultimate cutting edge.  And we must ask ourselves the hard question, are we any different than those who live a secular life? Is there anything attractive about us?

What evidence can we see of the corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying so that multiplication of life takes place?  So much of the living church of God is starved of finance, talent, time, energy, vision, zeal and passion.   It is time to be honest with ourselves, others and the Lord and confess our sin as it is.  We so often live out of a motivation of self focus, carnal attitudes of meeting my own needs, comfort and complacency.  These can lead to an appearance of Christian living but do not lead to life.

Why would the world be attracted to such an expression of the Christian faith?  Maybe some are, but it is clear that in many areas of the world the church has been reduced to being a good Christian club which does not require anything of me other than to say the right words and to sign up. The world’s values are often in the church, sometimes even creeping into its very foundations.  This weakened and watered down Gospel is leaving millions of sincerely believing Christians in a powerless, ineffective and demoralised state in the face of a society which no longer tolerates the Church and has no respect for it.

Another answer to the world’s dissociation from Church and Christianity is its pride.   The conclusion has been reached that ‘we no longer need God.’   In fact most if not all politicians have bought into the fact that what they see as ‘religion’ has been man’s problem.  To get man to be tolerant, loving and accepting of all is the answer.  Our politicians become our God.  They tell us through the secular laws of the land how to live morally.  But, where are the moral absolutes?  Where is the line drawn?  How far can you go on being your own god?   If I am the most important one, where does it stop me from selfishly leading my own path?   Who tells me what is right and wrong, bad or good, sinful or righteous?  Where is my determiner of truth and my plumb-line?

By being my own human determiner of truth, I can do anything.  I can betray, rob, cheat, mock, rebel, claim my rights and the list goes on.  The laws of the land may stop me robbing but what about robbing my wife, children, friends – robbing them of their time, loyalty, trust, personhood and more?   What laws are there, what moral code?   If there is no fear, no right or wrong, no plumb line – I can do anything.   This dangerous slide is out of control.

Recently a couple, in the UK, having lovingly fostered needy children for years, have been prevented by our ‘human moralistic law’ from fostering further children.  Why?  Because they want their foster children to grow up with an understanding of God’s normal created order, which is male and female marital relationships and reproduction.  Instead, our supposedly highly principled human moral code wants children to grow up believing that same gender sex is normal.  Common sense alone would say it is not!  Creation itself determines that females produce babies and are created to do so by being impregnated by a male.   Even the animal world has not disintegrated into such disorder.  To lawfully penalise someone for standing by creation’s order and protocol has put man in the place of behaving like a god himself!  He knows better, he can do anything and his views have been given authority through the laws of the land. What pride!

Why would anyone think that if there was a God, He would not be angry?    If God was angry, how would we know and how would we expect that anger to show?   Given the gift of freewill , God has, in His love, allowed man to make his own mind up.   God set His laws in His word.  Blatantly we have thrown out the relevance of His way.  We are doing it ‘our way.’  There has to be a consequence, the law of sowing and reaping is at work.

Surely it doesn’t take much intelligence to realise that man in his pride is walking a catastrophic plank of self-destruction without returning to a Holy God?      The gods of relativism, secularism, humanism and tolerance are not the answer to man’s need. They may be what we want but they are not what we need.  We need a return to the absolute of truth which is contained in the Word of God which is wholly balanced and relevant for today, containing all we need for life and fruitfulness.   We need repentance for turning away from God’s ways to our ways and we need to seek Him afresh whilst He may be found.

May God grant us the humility to turn before it is too late and to know Him who is abounding in steadfast love and mercy and has placed eternity in our heart.  All is not lost but found in Him.  He is our security and protection in a world which is in turmoil and desperate need of restoration of relationship to a Living God.

We commit those who have been swept away in the tsunamis, the quakes, the fires, the floods, the famines, the wars unto the One who alone is righteous in loving judgment and eternal destiny.  We do not allow their stories to leave us unchanged but rather become a force for change in our own lives, as we cling to our God and walk away from our self reliance onto reliance and loving obedience to Him, not counting our own cost.   In the face of the world tottering on its pillars, He is our only relevancy.  Now is the time to return to Him.

May He give us the grace and humility to do it.
Fiona Horrobin

This I was delighted to do, for St Aldates isn’t just a large and very dynamic Anglican Church in Oxford, it is the very church to which I went when I was an undergraduate studying chemistry at Christ Church, just across the road from St.Aldates.

On my first day at Oxford I found a stack of welcome literature in my pigeon-hole, from all sorts of organisations who seemed keen to get my attention. But the one which really caught my attention was the sermon programme from St. Aldates, telling me who was preaching, and on what subject, throughout my first term.

I still have that brochure, which had been carefully prepared by the St. Aldates team (Keith de Berry was the Rector in those days) to attract new students to St. Aldates on their first weekend away from home. I kept the brochure because those Sunday morning services became an important part of my life, and even today I thank God for the impact they had on me, at what could have been a very vulnerable time.

Many students came to personal faith in Jesus through the ministry of St. Aldates and many others, such as me, were strengthened in their faith and encouraged to believe God for His leading and direction on their lives and careers. The church fellowship back in 1962 made an investment of their time and their money in me and I have no doubt that I owe a personal debt of gratitude to them for the resultant blessing there has been on my life and, indeed, the whole work of Ellel Ministries.

So, I opened my sermon on giving last Sunday, by telling them of the rather shy young student who crossed the road to St. Aldates on his first Sunday morning in Oxford and found an anchor for his University life in the fellowship of the church. 49 years have passed since that first Sunday – the investment they made in me, and many others, is still producing a return, and because this sort of investment gets multiplied as the years and the generations go by, the return on the investment will keep on accumulating until Jesus comes again! It wasn’t difficult for me to encourage the people of St. Aldates to give towards such a brilliant investment!

Investing in the lives of the young is never a waste of money. You may not see much of a return on your investment in the short term, but in the long-term who knows what God will do with the lives of those who are so impacted by God that they decide to make obedience to Him their ultimate purpose in life.

As I looked at the students in St. Aldates last Sunday morning, I found myself wondering if any of them would come back to St. Aldates in 49 years time to tell that generation of what God had done in and through their lives! Then at the end of the service, a young American student came up to me and said just that – I’ll come back in 49 years and tell my story! I doubt if I’ll be there to listen, but I’ll be looking out for him in Heaven!

On last year’s visit to St. Aldates Fiona prayed with a lady who had been unable to conceive a child for quite a number of years. The Lord showed Fiona just what to pray for – it was so special to be able to meet this lady and her husband again this year, and see that she is now well advanced in her first pregnancy! What a joy and privilege it is to serve such an awesome God!

Also this week I was blessed to be able to teach a session to the new NETS students at Ellel Pierrepont. Through the course God helps them deal with their past, equips them in the present and prepares them for their future. What a privilege, also, it is to invest in each one of them, from twenty different nations, and make just a small contribution to their journey towards God’s destiny for their lives!

I never personally met David, but have had opportunity to see the evidence of what God has done in the places where he put down his feet for the Kingdom of God. The fruit is universally good.

As a young man I was personally impacted by the remarkable true story contained within The Cross and the Switchblade. It read like an adventure story. It was certainly an adventure, but it wasn’t a made-up story, every word was true. Out of his work among the drug culture of New York City grew the mightily effective ministry of Teen Challenge.

In the centre of New York the Times Square Church became the focus of the work that grew out of his own life and ministry. And from there the tentacles of faith have spread all over the world – including to Israel where David and Karen Davies established a work among the drug community of Haifa, from which has grown a remarkable fellowship where we have been privileged to teach and minister.

On that world-shaking day in September 2001, the terrible events of what became known as ‘nine-eleven’ gave the Times Square Church an amazing opportunity to minister to the traumatised people of New York. They took it with open hands and open hearts and many were grateful.

Throughout David’s life and ministry he has constantly taught powerfully through both the written and spoken word. He is one of the most respected and quoted of modern day prophetic figures.  He leaves behind a huge legacy of vital material.

His are not the sort of ephemeral prophecies that entertain for a moment, but soon disappear into the winds of time. His prophetic words, throughout his long years of ministry, have always soberly reminded both the church and the nations of the consequences of ignoring both the Word of God and the God of the Word. They will be eagerly sought after by the discerning as the Body of Christ seeks to understand the days in which we are living.

He was not shy of warning his own nation, the USA, of forthcoming judgement for their rebellion against the God who has so blessed their history. These are not words that only appeared in recent days, but were given many years ago, in time to be a warning that gives people an opportunity to change. But his words were largely ignored by the leaders who most needed to take note of them. Many commentators believe that his words about judgement are already coming true. He also never hesitated to remind the Church and the Governments of the World of the consequences of betraying Israel.

While the accidental circumstances of his death have catapulted the Christian world into the grief of mourning, I am praying that in the overall strategy of God, the way his death has become worldwide headline news, will draw the Church’s attention to the priceless treasures of truth that poured from his lips and his pen.

Just as with the prophets of old, who spoke from the heart of God, not just for their own generation, but for all generations to come, I believe David Wilkerson will increasingly be seen as one of the most significant voices of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He may no longer be with us, but what God said through him will not and, indeed, cannot die.

While this is a time of mourning, it’s also a time of great thanksgiving – thanksgiving for a life well lived and for the extraordinary fruit that grew on the branches of faith that broke out from his work in New York. The world may be poorer for his passing, but Heaven has gained a remarkable saint.

These are some of his words:

“When we stand before God at the judgment, we won’t be judged by our ministries, achievements or number of converts. There will be but one measure of success on that day: Were our hearts fully surrendered to God? Did we lay aside our own will and agenda and take up his? Did we succumb to peer pressure and follow the crowd, or did we seek him alone for direction? Did we run from seminar to seminar looking for purpose in life, or did we find our fulfilment in him?

I have but one ambition and that is to learn more and more to say only those things the Father gives me. Nothing I say or do of myself is worth anything. I want to be able to claim that I know my Father is with me, because I do only his will.”

His life was one of full surrender to the will and purposes of God. What a challenge his life is – not a challenge to try and copy him and walk in his steps, for the pathway of David Wilkerson’s life was a unique pathway laid out by God for him – but a challenge to be sure we are walking in the unique pathway God has laid out for each one of us, fully surrendered to the One who surrendered all for us.

What an extraordinary conversion experience – changing a well-used piece of paper, with a picture of the Queen’s head on it, into something that deliciously melts in the mouth – the best chocolates I’d ever seen!

A book that was a favourite of yesterday’s generations was The Adventures of a Three Guinea Watch by Talbot Baines Reed – a story which related the adventures of the watch as it passed from owner to owner, describing in the first person everything that happened to it.

There were many variations on this theme in popular literature – especially the adventures of a sixpence, a shilling, or even a five pound note! In those days of my father’s youth, such notes were white, very large and very valuable – probably more nearly equivalent to about £500 of today’s money. I did see one once when I was a child!

Money has that extraordinary capacity to be converted into just about anything we like. When we spend it we get something back and that ‘something’ can be very good or, sadly, very bad. The money has no ability to make its own choices. It is only spent according to the will of its current owner.

Spend money on drugs and the money could kill you. Spend it on some chocolates from The Chocolate Factory and you will experience a short period of intensely enjoyable eating. Spend it on some vital medicine and it could save your life! Spend it on the Word of God and it could be used to show you the way of eternal salvation.

Not everyone, however, has money to spend, even on chocolates. But there is one thing, that is equally distributed among every single human being that everyone can spend. Nobody has more of it than anyone else. And no-one can complain that they’ve got less of it than someone else! What is it? Time!

Time is an extraordinary thing – we all spend exactly the same amount of it every single day of our lives – 24 hours, or 1440 minutes or 86400 seconds. That’s our daily allowance. And we can’t save it up and spend it tomorrow either. If we don’t use it we lose it.

So what we do with our time has to be the single most important consideration for each one of us.  For one thing’s certain – the time we have left to live is getting shorter by the day! Every twenty four hours that passes adds another day to the time we have been on the earth, and lessens the amount of time we have left!

In seeking to help people who are struggling with the consequences of what they have done with their lives, one of the commonest expressions I hear is “if only . . .” And what follows is usually a description of something they spent their time doing which has only produced bad fruit in their lives.

Sometimes people regret the years of pleasure seeking at a time when they could have sought the Lord – and, having missed the opportunities to put their lives on a solid foundation when they were young, they didn’t have anything to fall back on, later in life, which would have given them the wisdom to know how to avoid those catastrophic mistakes.

No wonder Hosea wrote “it’s time to seek the Lord”. He knew that if we miss out on the most important search we can ever make, we will never be able to experience the “showers of righteousness” that God longs to bless us with (Hosea 10:12).

I was in the middle of writing this blog post, when I heard the tragic news of David Wilkerson’s sudden passing in a terrible car accident.  Everyone knows of David as ‘the Cross and the Switchblade man’ and the founder of the Times Square Church in New York. I will write more on David’s amazingly fruitful life on another occasion, but his sudden passing came to me as a very timely reminder that while my times are in God’s hands, how I choose to spend the time that God has given me is definitely my responsibility.

After hearing the news of David Wilkerson’s passing, I returned to writing this blog with a renewed sense of urgency, knowing the importance of only spending my time on those things that will be a blessing – to God, to others and to myself.  The day when time runs out for any one of us is not something we can determine or plan for.  It’s always time, therefore, to seek the Lord’s plans and purposes for our lives – yes, every day.

PS. For those who are now curious about the location of The Chocolate Factory, it’s in the village of Orton in Cumbria, UK – a great place to visit, and a good cafe as well.  You can find out more at: www.kennedyschocolates.co.uk

The line marking the edge of the playing area is called the boundary. If, when the batsman hits the ball it runs along the ground and crosses that line, the batsman is said to have scored a boundary and four runs are added to his score.

But if his shot travels so hard and high through the air that the ball lands the other side of the boundary, the batsman scores six runs. This is the most any batsman can score with one hit of the ball. In 1968, the great West Indian batsman, Gary Sobers, became the first batsman ever to hit six consecutive sixes in professional cricket!

It is only in cricket that clearing the boundary is a mark of great achievement – that is not the case in other areas of life.

There is a sturdy high fence alongside the railway track near our house. The boundary fence is there to protect people from the danger of accidentally straying onto the high-speed track. There is a crash barrier running down the centre of our motorways in order to prevent vehicles accidentally crossing into the way of oncoming traffic. When cars do manage to cross that boundary, fatal accidents commonly follow. At the edge of the decks of a cruise liner is a strong rail, designed so that passengers can lean on the rail without crossing the boundary and falling overboard.

Crossing any of these boundaries is dangerous and the authorities go to considerable lengths to ensure that people are not able to cross them and put themselves in danger. People recognise that boundaries, such as these, need to be respected and in normal circumstances people have no desire to cross these boundaries of safety.

But there are other boundaries – boundaries which can be even more dangerous when crossed, and which western society has been systematically dismantling over the past fifty years. And the god of this world has very effectively blinded the eyes of mankind to the consequences of crossing the moral boundaries that God put in place for the benefit of mankind.

As a result, people seem completely oblivious to the fact that on the other side of those boundary fences lies an enemy of souls who is enthusiastically deceiving people into thinking that such boundaries were imposed in a bygone age, which has long past, and which has no relevance to modern society.

A few weeks ago, a fairly high profile Anglican Vicar announced her forthcoming marriage to another Anglican priest. Even the London Daily Mail expressed surprise that these two representatives of ‘the cloth’ saw no problem with sleeping together before they got married. And in view of the fact that William and Kate have been living together for quite a while now, it is hard not to assume that they already know each other rather better than they should, in advance of next Friday’s Royal Wedding.

In reality, there are no longer any sexual or moral boundaries which limit the behaviour of society. And tragically, the boundary-less world we now live in has, even, become the norm within the Body of Christ.

Instead of believers being salt and light in the world, the world has entered the Church big time. The self-indulgent fruit of living in a boundary-less world has so corrupted the world in which we live that an amoral, secular, post-Christian, humanistic society controls the law-makers and this week, a Christian engineer has been disciplined, and is in danger of losing his job, for putting his Palm Sunday cross on the dashboard of his van. Such behaviour is said to violate the human rights of other workers! The world has ‘turned turtle’.

There are now many areas of our amoral society in which behaviour according to the laws of God is ridiculed as being contrary to the human rights of the individual. Judaeo-Christian morality is no longer a basis for law in the lands which owe their very success as countries, to the determination of former generations to respect the law of the Lord and govern according to the Judaeo-Christian morality they now reject.

We are now living in the times of which Isaiah spoke when he said, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness . . . for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the words of the Holy One of Israel.” (Isaiah 5:20 and 24)

The time is coming when there will be such spiritual darkness across the face of the land that those who are looking for God’s answers will wonder where they can find the truth. Praise God that candles are only made for the darkness, so let us determine that however dark the prevailing darkness may become that He who is the Light of the World, will always have a place to shine in and through the lives of those who remain faithful to Him. Let us not use the fact that others are ignoring God’s boundaries as an opportunity to do likewise.

Just as ignoring the boundaries of safety on a motorway can lead to a fatal accident, ignoring God’s boundaries can have terrible consequences. I am not saying this as mere speculation, but as hard evidence from the lives of thousands of people who have come looking for help at an Ellel Ministries Centre. They have crossed God’s boundaries and found themselves in deep trouble. No wonder the writer of the Proverbs said, “Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones!” Proverbs 3:7-8.

Scoring amoral or immoral ‘sixes’ is not good for the soul or the body and the dangers of crossing God’s line can have ramifications in this world and the next! We need boundaries – God’s boundaries and we need to do everything we can to live life within them – and not try to go beyond them.

Wren's Nest at Ellel USA

With the barbecue lid down there is only a small hole through which the birds can fly in and out, but with the lid up, as in the picture, you can see the whole nest, and the well-camouflaged mother bird protecting her already hatched babies. Apparently, this is the third year running that this particular bird has raised her young in exactly the same place!
As I looked at the wren caring for her young, I felt a deep sense of God’s presence and He was saying that from time to time His people may be asked to go into places that are potentially dangerous, like the inside of a barbecue. But that when He asks us to go, it is safe – and we need not be alarmed.

But we must learn to be specially sensitive to His voice and His timing, for if we go into a potentially dangerous place without the knowledge of His clear leading, then we may be endangering ourselves and, possibly, others. Those baby wrens feel no fear or concern – and neither should we, when we are in the place God has prepared for us.

It certainly feels as though the political temperature of the world is being turned up right now, and on so many different fronts – it’s definitely a time when we need to be listening carefully to His voice, walking in his ways and trusting Him.

The consequence of chasing after what seems to be a new and powerful anointing can eventually lead some people to have doubts about God, depression and a deep sense of personal failure.

Because they are so impressed with the signs and wonders, they lay aside their discernment, and open up their heart to a new, and often false, reality. They believe the supernatural things they are seeing must be from God, forgetting that Scripture also warns about the possibility of false prophecy, false signs and false wonders.

Deep in their psyche they conclude that this special anointing must be better and more powerful than anything they have ever experienced before – and they want it. They don’t realise that in seeking after someone else’s, apparently greater anointing, they are also saying that ‘whatever anointing I have must be inferior to what they’ve got!’

This is now fertile ground for doubts to arise about the God they have been worshipping all these years, who now seems so weak and powerless by comparison. There will be many who have chased an anointing who will eventually be in danger of losing their own faith in the true God, because the God on display seems bigger and better than their own.

They could look back on their own life of apparent inadequacy and hear the voice of an alien spirit saying, “how come your God so betrayed you, that he let you serve him for all these years without ever letting you have such power?”

What an awful dilemma! This is Deuteronomy 13 in 21st century clothing. In that very important chapter, God warns of prophets whose words come true but who, at the end of the day, will turn your heart away from the truth about God. What an awesome warning. God never told masses of people to try and receive another man’s anointing.

The miracle of the incarnation and the cross is that God has already given us His best – salvation through His Son and baptism in the Holy Spirit. People who run around the world trying to better this by catching another man’s anointing are, in reality, telling God that what He has already given is not enough. What an insult to our wonderful Saviour, what a deception. God will anoint us for service in the place of His calling. I can’t give my anointing away and I don’t want anyone else’s! I only want what God has for me.

The main reason people run after fancy new things is a mixture of their present dissatisfaction with what they have and their desperation for either healing, power or a new experience.  There is such a lack of understanding in the Church about real healing of the human heart.

So many people want to deal with their inner inadequacy with something external and fancy. It’s the spiritual equivalent of the bling that the stars wear to catch everyone’s attention and impress their fans. Real beauty is never an add-on extra, but flows out of a saved and healed heart.

That’s why I am so passionate about real healing – not just because I long to see sick people getting better, but because it is God’s desire to make us beautiful for Him using the amazing, wonderful gifts of the Spirit we already have.

“We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that this all-surpassing power is from God AND NOT FROM US.” (2 Cor 4:7). And this real treasure is definitely not caught from anyone else as part of a transferable and tangible anointing. And if we have to travel up to a third heaven to “get it”, you can be sure that what is brought down is false. Jesus came down from Heaven because fallen man couldn’t go up!

The only scriptural example of a genuine third heaven experience left Paul not even wanting to identify himself as the one who had had such an awesome experience (2 Cor 12). What a contrast to what’s happened in various parts of the world today as people are encouraged to have their own third heaven experience at will – not God’s will, as with Paul, but their will!

O God, help those who are caught in the deception of thinking that God’s amazing gift of Salvation and the baptism of the Holy Spirit is inferior to the “spiritual bling” that is appears to be on offer in Satan’s jewel shop!

Not long ago, my wife and a friend had some fun trying on fancy jewellery (bling) while on a short holiday. Later, she and her friend had a good laugh about all the wonderful diamonds they couldn’t afford and began to sing the old hymn, “When He cometh  . . . to take up His jewels” They fell asleep laughing with thanksgiving that we are His precious jewels and we don’t need any additional spiritual bling to make ourselves attractive to God!

Today I looked into the eyes of a boy and his ten-year old friend. They were playing in the street outside a shop. Their eyes were empty of love, nurture and a knowledge of God.

I thought of my own childhood where loving parents made sure that I grew up with a knowledge of God, His love and care for me and the eternal consequences of sin. And what is more, they introduced me to the Saviour.

Today is Sunday, a day when today’s generation of children are growing up without any understanding of having one day a week set apart for God.

I thought of how Sunday had been such a special day – a day when there was time to learn about God.  Church and Sunday School were at the heart of life and I knew that the centrality of Sunday worship held the key to life seven days a week.

Yesterday I read in the Daily Telegraph that today’s generation of mothers consider children to be an interruption to their social life.

I thought of how my own Mum and Dad joyfully anticipated and welcomed me into their world. Their children were the heart of their life – not an interruption. I knew I was loved, wanted and precious.

Earlier in the week I read of how the latest contraceptive advances, with no possible side-effects, will simply make the lining of the egg unwelcoming to an advancing sperm, preventing fertilisation, and making perfect birth control a soon-to-be experienced reality.

I realised that the hidden motive behind advances in “family planning” have never been aimed at creating a better family, but only at liberating society from any commitment to sexual faithfulness in marriage.

That night I scanned the TV programmes and saw that anyone could watch the most intimate details of sexual expression, pornographically displayed for informational entertainment.

I realised that with 70% of our children having their own TVs in their bedrooms, and there being no longer any holiness about intimacy, that we have a generation of children growing up without boundaries or restraint. What they see – they will do.

On the other channel was ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Voodoo’, chronicling the adventures of discovering religion by a member of a well-known pop-group.

I remembered that I was brought up in a world where every school in the land began their day with an act of Christian worship and that whether or not one practised the faith, it was implicitly understood that Christianity represented the truth about God. In today’s multi-faith jungle there are no longer any absolutes, an act of Christian worship has virtually disappeared, a Christian nurse would be breaking the law if she prayed with a dying patient and no TV channel would dare give an hour of precious TV time to ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Becoming a Christian’!

Then I watched the advertisements for the new generation of children’s toys. The overt message behind the adverts was that the toy can now become your friend, your mother and your father! I saw, too, that the latest exciting computer toy for kids comes with its own built in daily horoscope.

I realised that the toy makers are trading on the lack of human parenting, by creating toys that will fill the love-shaped hole in every child’s heart. A cuddly doll was sharing a pillow with a child and singing her to sleep with a lullaby. The child-sized toy pony would be your ‘friend for life’ and the horoscope message on the computer has completed the transition from awareness of God to worshipping a new age, occult spirit.

I turned on the news and heard of a man who was killed by stones while playing cricket with his son in the park. His murderers were children aged twelve to fourteen. And another young teenager lies dead in a city centre with a bullet through his head.

I remembered the discipline of my childhood at school and at home – and thanked God for it.  Discipline is no longer a feature of our wayward society and society is paying the price for its own rejection of what constitutes Godly order.

I opened the newspaper again and learned of a famous pop singer who was arrested for the drugs she was carrying on her way into the country in which she was performing. And another one has had her children removed from her care by the authorities because of her unsuitability as a parent.

I realised that in the name of entertainment the enemy has won the hearts and minds of a teenage generation who worship their “pop-idols” and then do what their idols do. No wonder over half our teenagers have tried drugs at school and many are hopelessly addicted to the thrill of the next fix.

I read that over half our children are now being raised in one-parent families, the majority being raised by Mothers with little or no in-put from a Father.

I grieved over a generation of fatherless children who will never have the encouragement of a Dad’s ‘Well Done’, will never experience the love and discipline which provides the security to grow, make mistakes and grow again or be able to look up to the Father role model that all children, boys and girls, need to have as a solid reality in their lives.

I went to my room and wept for a generation of lost children who will never know the innocence of growing up, the thrill of doing things with Mum and Dad or the joy of discovering the Jesus, without whom I could not have survived what was to come.

They are children of the children who were born in the moral revolution (rebellion) of the wayward sixties and seventies. Real love, morality and discipline have largely disappeared and in its place we have false love (sex), many comfort substitutes, amorality and rebellion. The sins of the fathers, like chickens, are coming home to roost. The wind has been sown, the whirlwind is to come.

Over a hundred years ago William Arthur wrote of the then British Empire that “The morality of England affects the world”. The worldwide influence of Britain meant that this statement was a fact of nineteenth and early twentieth century life. As a result God used the spread of Empire as a unique vehicle for spreading the Gospel from a Kingdom whose morality and law was solidly built on scriptural foundations.

Today our nation (and the world) is very different. Neither Godly morality nor the laws of God are any longer at the root of our society. We have sold our birthright – and we are now wallowing in “the mess of potage”. The enemy is delighting to use whatever channels of influence we still have to export the mess.

As I turned my tears into prayer, I was haunted by the face of the boy with whom this meditation had started. I felt the heart of Isaiah when he became aware of the filth of the society of his day – living among a people of unclean lips. Today we live in a society which is corrupted by uncleanness – from top to bottom. God did not wash his hands of the society Isaiah came from, but he did ask Isaiah a question, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” (Isaiah 6:8)

I am praying that the look in the face of a child will freshly envision each of us to both a renewed commitment to being a true disciple of Jesus and a renewed willingness to be one of God’s special agents, carrying the message of our Saviour to a lost generation.

As I watched these two people being lifted to safety, I suddenly realised that this picture of great joy over the ones that had been rescued was not dissimilar to what it must be like for the Father when one of His precious children comes to Him and is lifted to safety from the morass of human rebellion and rejection of Him and His love, through what His Son did for them on the cross.

Headline after headline this past week has only confirmed the picture of a world that is suffering the consequences of tsunami-like devastation. For close on two thousand years the warnings that God has sounded have been largely ignored. The pride of man continues to tell Creator God that he has a better way and ignores the truth of God’s Word!

In a news report on the Libyan situation, one senior general referred to the Security Council of the United Nations as the highest authority there is in this world! This is both a very true and an arrogantly false statement at the same time. Humanly speaking, when the United Nations act together, they are declaring themselves as the ultimate world authority. But they conveniently forget what Jesus said at the end of His time on Earth, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Matthew 28:18). I’m so relieved that ultimate authority really is in His hands and not the hands of man!

Most of the people who were fortunate enough to hear the tsunami warnings in Japan, and flee for their lives without turning back for anything, reached the safety of higher ground. But tragically the majority of those who, for whatever reason, chose to ignore the warnings or couldn’t escape from their particular situation, perished as the giant wave annihilated so many communities. It’s dangerous to ignore such warnings.

I am reminded of those poignant words from the book of Hebrews, which ask the question, “How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?” (Hebrews 2:3). The good news is that there is always hope for those who look to Him – no matter how terrible anyone’s personal situation may be. We don’t need a helicopter to lift us out of the wreckage of life, but we do need to humble ourselves before Him and, as the Scripture says, “He will lift us up” (James 4:10).

At the same time as these events are unfolding, with devastatingly unstoppable momentum, the Arab world throughout the Middle East is in the sort of political self-inflicted meltdown that has the commentators lost for words. The unspeakably cruel and horrid realities of civil war in Libya, the collapse of Egypt’s previously stable dictatorship,  and the trembling of the Gulf States as Saudi Arabian troops cross the borders into Bahrain, have left the oil-dependent west with its own unthinkable scenarios of economic disaster, as the price of oil soars way beyond $100 a barrel.

Meanwhile, a new fear has begun to grip the western world – fear of the economic consequences to all the other nations of what is happening in Japan. The world-wide insurance market alone will have to find something like $40 billion to satisfy the insurance claims and if there is a nuclear disaster in Japan it won’t just be the Japanese who will suffer, the global village which the world has become will all have to pay something of the price. Worldwide recession is a spectre which strikes fear into the heart of the commercial world, which is only just beginning to shake off the shackles of the previous economic downturn.

In the midst of all this truly apocalyptic scenario, none of the western media that I know of carried even one report of what happened in a Jewish community in Samaria, when a man climbed stealthily into the home of a Jewish family and systematically cut their throats, killing five people, including children in a horrendous religious killing. It is hard to compute how anyone could possibly do something so shockingly awful at any time, but to do it in the name of religion is totally beyond comprehension.

One event after another, after another, after another, leaves us increasingly numbed by the horrors our fellow human beings are suffering in different parts of the world. Cause for fear is dominating the world’s headlines. And when fear grips the world as it does right now, there is only one person that anyone can trust for their security and their eternal destiny – Jesus. When earthly securities fail, our need for eternal security becomes paramount. And it is only in the certain knowing of the fact that He really does have the whole world in His hands, that we can find and experience any real peace. It is a peace that does go beyond our ability to understand it. ”Perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18).

In the midst of all that is happening there will be those who deep in their hearts are looking for the One who is the world’s only answer. The Churches may have failed to get their message across, but as individuals together, whatever our local church affiliation may be, we ARE the Church. So let’s be vigilant to always be ready to speak a word of hope and encouragement in season to any and all who are ready to listen. However unspeakable world events may be, the effect on some will be to drive them to their knees and cry out to God for help. May all those who truly know the God who is peace, have the courage not to be ashamed to speak that word in season when the moment comes – as it will. We may not have all the answers to their questions at our fingertips, but we can introduce people to the God who IS the answer.

Chris eventually went into the Christian book world and finished up as a publisher with Marshall Pickering, and I went via a university lecturing career into the book world as a specialist publisher of books on Architecture and Building. In 1982 God gave me the vision for the songbook for Billy Graham’s Mission England and I began to look for a publisher. Naturally I favoured the contract being given to Chris Mungeam at Marshall Pickering.

Chris was very enthusiastic and ordered a very large number of copies from the printer – more than Marshall’s thought was wise and in difficult trading conditions Chris was soon out of a job! The book, however, went on to sell far more copies than Chris had printed – while Chris was looking around for something to do with his redundancy money.

Then Chris took an enormous step of faith and used the money to set up the Christian publishing company, Sovereign World! So, both Sovereign World and Ellel Ministries were established within months of each other and before very long I was looking for a publisher for the first book to emerge from Ellel Ministries, Healing Through Deliverance. The publishing platform for Sovereign World was for books which brought together the Word and the Spirit, and so Chris and Sovereign world were the obvious publishing choice.

So, some thirty five years after we were singing the same choruses at Pastor’s Hour – the regular young people’s Sunday night meeting at Cheam Baptist – we were together again as Publisher and Author. Healing Through Deliverance has now been continuously in print with Sovereign World for over twenty years.

When Chris finally decided it was time for him to retire, Sovereign World eventually became part of Ellel Ministries – so that the company that was indirectly born out of Mission England Praise is now continuing to do the work that Chris established it for – publishing books which bring together the ministry of the Word and the life of the Spirit within Ellel Ministries.

And when Chris’s wife Jan, launched the charity Sovereign World Trust to give away books to third world Pastors, a wonderful ministry was born which has produced great fruit around the world and continues to do so.

The reason I’ve made this story the subject of a blog for today, is that it is exactly twenty five years ago today that the company was born. So, in conclusion, Happy Birthday Sovereign World – and congratulations to Chris and Jan Mungeam for launching this very important ministry company onto the seas of life. And congratulations Paul Stanier, for continuing to run the company so successfully today. And, above all, thank you Lord for the way you have blessed Sovereign World throughout its history.

And now we are living in an age of electronic books, which can be down-loaded from mobile-phone signals in seconds on things like Amazon’s Kindle. Books, as we have known them for thousands of years, will soon cease to be needed! All knowledge will only be stored electronically, and will be available to everyone, the whole world over, in their computerised world of electronic information.

Two of our leaders recently retired and we wanted to give them a personal gift as a token of our immense gratitude to them, for all they have poured into the work over so many years. So we gave each of them a Kindle! It was a salutary moment for me as I looked at what we had bought them, and realised that in this one small piece of equipment – about the size of a man’s hand and no thicker than today’s Newspaper – they could store thirty times more books than the average household contains in the UK!

The need for bookshelves in the modern home will disappear – and I, for one, will bemoan their passing. I love books! I love the feel, and even smell, of books. I love glancing through their pages, appreciating their design and all the loving effort that has gone into the finished item.

When I came home after the Kindle presentation I looked again at my own bookshelves and picked up a few of the old friends who have been with me through many years of life’s experiences. I was soon lost in a world that is passing from the future experience of today’s children!

I then began to imagine what the next generation would make of my own collection. There are books on motoring, poetry, many biographies of famous and not-so-famous (but important to me) people, books I published in my pre-Ellel business days, classic children’s titles, historic and collector’s items and many others. I realised that by studying my bookshelves anyone would get a pretty good idea of what sort of a person I was. It’s true that a man’s books are a prism which sheds light on his soul.

My eye fell on a very well-used and tattered volume – it was literally falling apart. Inside the fly-leaf of my teen-age years Bible was a book-plate, saying it had been presented to me by Sidney Jackson, the leader of the Ewell Crusader Class in 1955. Crusaders was an amazingly fruitful Bible Class movement that spanned most of the twentieth Century and which impacted the lives of thousands of boys and girls in their growing years. Crusaders was an important part of my childhood life.

As I flicked through the pages I was impacted by the many underlinings and notes I had added to its pages, and I realised afresh how thankful I am to the Lord for all that He put in to my life in my growing years. We used to sing a chorus at Crusaders called ‘Kept by the power of God’. The words went on to say ‘Day by day, come what may, kept by the power of God.’

There were tears in my eyes as I showed Fiona some of the pages and realised what a keeping influence on my life the Word of God has been, and how grateful I am now to all those who lovingly, day by day, and week by week taught me the value of walking in God’s ways. Many times I have experienced His keeping power and I’m so very grateful. It was a precious moment as I put the book back on the shelf, hiding as it does on its pages the record of a young person’s experience and excitement of learning first-hand some of the amazing truths that are hidden in God’s Word.

There is no doubt that the Bible has influenced my life more than any other book. But there are many others on my shelves also, which have been reflectors of the truths contained in the best book of all. I have been blessed to enjoy books and learn from them and from time to time in this Blog, I will pick out titles from the shelves and tell you how and why they have influenced my life. I’m looking forward to a little bit of ‘memory lane stuff’ as I turn again some of the pages.

Somehow or other, I don’t think the soul-less electronic pages of a Kindle will ever replace the experience of holding and reading a good book. There again I may be wrong. But when I see people in a meeting, scrolling down their i-phones to read something from the Bible, I do wonder if it has the same long-term value in our Christian pilgrimage as a well-worn Bible that is heavily underlined and annotated with the things God was saying at the time you read the words? Just thoughts – as I look again at the old friends on my bookshelves!

One of Uncle Will’s maxims was never to go to bed until you’ve cleared the day’s activities with both men and God. Which meant that any unwritten correspondence was answered before he climbed into bed, and his final acts of the day were always to read from his well-marked Bible and have a good-night conversation with His Lord. So, if the Lord took him in the night everything in his life would be “up to date” and there would be no outstanding business he would leave undone. And that’s exactly what happened. His life was totally up to date – with both man and God when early the following morning Uncle Will passed into God’s eternal presence.

I’m not sure how Uncle Will would have coped with Blogs, E-mails, Websites and the like! But his example reminds me of how important it is to say thank you to you all for the comments you’ve been posting on this website. I read them all and am glad to hear from you. I’m sorry that I’m not able to personally answer you all – as Uncle Will may have tried to do! But please keep the responses coming – they’re much appreciated.

Redhill Christian Centre

At one stage I was trying to illustrate the fact that many people come as they are to Jesus, and put their faith in Him for eternal salvation, but sadly, they stay just as they are and never move on in their Christian pilgrimage or experience His healing restoration in their lives.

As I was teaching, the Lord reminded me of Philippians 2:12 in which Paul tells us “to work out our salvation in fear and trembling.” I suddenly began to smile at the picture God was giving me!

Near our base in Florida is a gym. It has solid glass walls to the outside world, through which you can see men and women in all sorts of different conditions doing their work-outs – trying to lose weight, get fit and be in peak condition for living. It looks really hard work as the beads of sweat break out on their brows!

I thought how stupid it would be if someone paid their subscription and joined the Gym and then thought that holding their membership card in their hand was all that was necessary to get fit and just having the card would enable them to lose weight automatically! They would be the laughing stock of all who knew them. Everyone knows that in order to get fit you have to do your work-outs – and do them often. Joining the club does absolutely nothing for you if you don’t put in the effort in the Gym.

As I thought about the parable God was giving me, I had a fresh understanding of what Paul was saying to the Philippians! When we become a Christian it’s as though we join a very special club, but the cost of membership has already been paid for us by Jesus. There’s nothing we can do to earn our salvation – it’s a free gift. But if we really want to get fit for living this Christian life, then we have to play our part in getting fit – we have to do our work-outs – or, in Paul’s language – we need to work out our salvation day by day!

In that way we will be able to lose weight (Hebrews 12:1) and prepare ourselves for running the race of life that God has set before us. A couple of weeks ago we had a special event at Ellel Grange for people who are doing Ellel 365. One lady described how, after doing 16 weeks of the course, she felt so much better – not just spiritually, but physically as well! Every day of Ellel 365 she had been doing her ‘work-outs’ with God and her life was changing little by little as she got spiritually fitter. It was an amazing testimony.

I came away from Redhill with a new insight into gaining spiritual fitness. We need to stop waving our membership card in the air and get into God’s Gym!

Thanks Stephen and Bryony for hosting us all – and especially for the ‘bacon butties’ and coffee we enjoyed for breakfast, as soon as we got out of the car. They were really good! I now need to do some real physical work-outs as well!

Sharon & Otto Bixler with Peter & Fiona Horrobin at the Hungarian Thanksgiving night.

When we first acquired the land at Ur Retje, on which our Hungarian Centre now stands, we all sensed the presence of God on the place. At the time we had no idea that this place, which God had set apart for the ministry, had already been dedicated to him for a work such as this over sixty years earlier!

Ur Retje has not only been the base for the work in Hungary, but from here teams have travelled through eight time zones – even to beyond Siberia – and have scattered the seed and brought the message of healing to peoples whose lives had long been devastated by the oppression of Communism. It was time, not only for the political walls to come down, but for the spiritual powers to crumble as God began to set His people free in these far-flung places.

I could tell you hundreds of stories of the things God has done – often through His miraculous intervention – transforming lives and bringing hope and healing. I will never forget our first Battle Belongs to the Lord conference in Budapest, where so many people’s lives were dramatically changed by the power and presence of God. That was the week when the last Russian tank left Hungary and the doors were flung open wide for the Kingdom of God. They were exciting and challenging days.

But back to Otto and Sharon – what an amazing ministry they have had. They first joined the work of Ellel Ministries from California and then became the pioneers who established the work in Eastern Europe. Right across the region they have left a well-worn trail of blessing.

Now they are entering into a new season as they return to the USA, from where they’ll still be supporting the work of Ellel Ministries at different centres around the world and looking to God for showing them the next steps of their life’s journey.

The farewell event at Ur Retje began with a wonderful thanksgiving banquet. People came from all over the region to share their appreciation of Otto and Sharon’s lives and ministry. It was a very emotional time as so many wanted to express their love and appreciation and say their thankyous. We all laughed and cried at the memories we heard and the pictures we all saw. Six of the Executive Leadership of Ellel Ministries also travelled to Hungary to share in the event.

Roger Pook who, with his wife Christine, has already served in Hungary for many years has taken up the reins of responsibility as the new Regional Director of the work. Christine will look after the work in the surrounding nations and Tomas and Angela Kovacs are well-established as national leaders of the work in Hungary.

The Hungarian team gave Otto and Sharon an amazing 3-D crystalline model of the Hungarian Centre as a permanent reminder of all their pioneering work. And the Russian and Ukrainian teams gave them a wonderful tablecloth embroidered with bunches of grapes – each one of which represented the fruit that  that has been produced in all the many places they have travelled in two decades of serving God in the region.

Otto & Sharon receiving the embroidered tablecloth from the Ukrainian and Russian Teams

As Fiona and I flew back home I couldn’t help but reflect on the extraordinary fruitfulness there can be in someone’e life, whenever they are in God’s place for them, in His timing, and doing the work He has prepared for them to do.

Thank you Otto and Sharon for being so obedient to God’s call on your lives and being ready for anything He asked you to do. Somehow or other I don’t think God’s finished yet in giving you Kingdom assignments!

Even the world at large recognises and respects this sort of quality in – Jesus is admired by the majority, even of other religions, but not generally followed. For there is something in the heart of all men and women that wants to find a reflection of the eternity that God has placed in their hearts (Eccles.3:11). The previously unbelieving man, who wrote the BBC’s nativity drama last Christmas, said that when he read the words of Jesus he found them to be the most truthful things he had ever read!

Real holiness is attractive, even if it’s unpopular for everyone else! For the majority of people the price of holiness is too high, even though Scripture encourages us to believe that there is a direct correlation between holiness and happiness.

So, in these days, the western regions of the world, in particular, are rushing headlong into the much more popular political correctness of secular state jurisdictions, with no respect for godly morality or the boundaries that morality introduces. But there is still a spiritual vacuum in the heart of man, and the enemy is using that God-given desire for the spiritual things of life to lead people into manifold deceptions.

We see it in almost every magazine and newspaper under the sun, as the spiritual aspirations of many of our generation are absorbed in increasingly bizarre New-Age beliefs and activities, and in an anything-goes falseness, where everything’s OK if it’s OK for you! Satan has done what he’s always done well. He’s substituted a lie for the truth and persuaded people that believing the lie is good for them. It doesn’t matter what the lie is – as long as people are not discovering THE Truth, he’s happy for them to believe it.

But what happens when those who are thoroughly sick of the societal consequences of moral collapse – especially in the areas of relationships and sexuality – look for an alternative to the mess which has become the daily fodder of our tabloid newspapers and gossip magazines? It would be nice to think that they would be flocking back to the Church.

Last week one of our team had a routine visit from the representative of a local hearing clinic. As part of the conversation he told the young English lady what Ellel Ministries is all about. “Oh”, she replied, “I’m a Muslim.”  There then followed a good and very interesting conversation and she left with an Ellel Handbook!

This young lady is one of many. Another checked my passport at immigration the last time I flew back into England. Statistics tell us that in 2010 well over 100,000 British people converted to Islam. Their average age was 27-28 and the majority were women. A recent newspaper report on these findings stated that the majority of these found Islam attractive because it offered them a form of morality that is missing from our hedonistic and increasingly godless society.

They were wanting to satisfy that inner desire that was in their hearts – they were looking for a reflection of the eternity within. They wanted emotional and moral security, something that they felt the rigidity of Islam offered them.

Many, having run from the deceptions of the New Age or the extremes of amorality and immorality, have, sadly, now bought into another alternative for THE Truth.

How do we respond to situations like this?  Let me encourage you. In Elijah’s day there were still 7,000 who hadn’t bowed the knee to Baal! My personal intercession is not just to pray a general prayer for our nations, but to pray that God will stir up that secret army of believers in the nations – the modern day equivalent of Elijah’s 7,000 – to become the intercessors for their generation and the succeeding generations. It is not too late.

I’m praying that God will have them on their spiritual knees, humbling themselves before our holy God, crying out for mercy and that the tidal flow of people who are looking for real answers will start once again to flow back into the Body of Christ, and that the Body of Christ will rise up ‘like a mighty army’ and do battle in the heavenlies for the peoples of our nations.

Oh how I pray that the day may come when the peoples of our nations will once again discover that there is only one person who can satisfy the desire for eternity in the heart of man – and that is the Man who came into time from eternity. Only Jesus can redeem us out of the hand of the enemy, and set us free from believing the lies that the enemy has sown in the hearts of men and women.

View from the boat

Our tour guide suggested that we took some time alone to reflect and pray. It was a flat calm day without direct sunshine and the water was misty and tranquil. As I gazed upon the well known scene, which cannot have changed in 2000 years, I felt an urge to turn my gaze downwards into the waters of the Lake itself. The only obvious sign of life was some gasses, bubbling up to the surface from the mud on the bottom.

I felt a strong sense that the Lord was saying that although everything may look and feel tranquil and peaceful on the surface, there was unseen movement and eruption going on below.

We live in a world where we like to think everything will stay the same in the sense of our peaceful existence, but I felt a clear warning from the Lord that a shaking is taking place and darkness is coming across the face of the earth, even if at this time we cannot see it and it may feel safe and quiet. It is time to prepare ourselves and to dig deep into knowing the Lord, His ways and His Word as we watch and pray.

We should not be taken unawares through complacency or passivity. The signs are there if we watch and listen. Right now, for example, a crisis has erupted in Egypt. Underneath all the powers and pillars of world governments, God is moving and shaking. Isaiah Chapter 19 came powerfully to our attention – it’s all about Egypt. Beneath the surface things are definitely bubbling!

This is my first contribution to the blog! Peter and I are doing our best to move into twenty-first century communications! We are the most ordinary of folk but we do serve an extraordinary God and it is such a privilege share with you some of our adventures with Him. This blogging business is certainly, for me, stepping out of my comfort zone into another adventure with God into the unknown! How much easier it would be to stay in the safe and familiar – but without change there is no growth and without growth there is no fruitfulness. So, here goes………….!! And thank you for sharing the journey with us!

There are five programmes in the series and you can listen to them all by clicking on the following link, which will take you straight to the right spot on the Messianic Vision website.

Peter on Sid Roth radio programme.

Then all you need to do is click on each of the five days in turn and you can listen to the programmes on your computer.
On the second programme I tell the story of a lady who had been chronically anorexic for fourteen years and had determined to commit suicide. But on our very first healing retreat God healed her so deeply and completely that she was able to eat a plate of fish and chips! She and her husband then went to Bible College for training, and for the past twenty five years she has been a Salvation Army evangelist! It’s quite a story – one of those unforgettable experiences of seeing God at work!

Sid Roth recorded a second series of programmes on Healing Through Forgiveness – these haven’t been broadcast yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as they’re available.

Fishing today on the shore of the Sea of Galilee

We climbed the hill which must have been very close to where Jesus spoke to the disciples and the crowds, in what we know as the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6 and 7). We were amazed at the rescued remains of a fishing boat that had been excavated from the mud at the bottom of the lake – a boat that is proven to have been in use on the lake at the same time as Jesus lived. Who knows, He may even have been in that very boat?!

2000 year old boat like the ones the disciples must have used

These were the places where Jesus spent much of His time – for Him they were ‘home’, the familiar places He loved so much and to which He returned at regular intervals.
It then struck me that there was a day when Jesus left Galilee, when He knew that his journey from ‘home’ to Jerusalem would be the last time he’d be making the journey. Only He knew that He wouldn’t be returning along those familiar pathways with His disciples. He must have had some very mixed emotions as He left the lake behind, and all the places He was so familiar with, and headed south towards Jerusalem, where His eternal destiny was soon to be fulfilled and the cross awaited Him.

Even though He would never again be physically at ‘home’, anywhere on earth – in a much more important sense His journey to the cross was actually a ‘stopping place’ on the way to His eternal HOME – the place from where He had come, and to which He knew that one day He would return. After the cross, the resurrection and His ascension to glory, His place at the right hand of the Father was secure for eternity. And there He was going to prepare a place for all those who would come to know Him as the way, the truth and the life (John 14:1-6).

So, whenever and wherever we travel – whether it’s locally to the shops or to the other side of the world, there are two homes that matter to us. We love our earthly home, it’s precious to us and we’ll always be glad to return to it. But we know that one day we’ll take a journey from which we will never return, because we have gone to our other HOME! The one that has been prepared in eternity for all those who love Him.

In the earthly sense it doesn’t actually matter if we don’t come ‘home’ – but what matters more than anything else in the whole universe, is the fact that when we know the One in whom we have believed (Jude 24 and 25), we can depend on the fact that He will be waiting to welcome us HOME at the end of our final journey!

It’s the assurance that we have a HOME to go to which gives us the freedom and the energy to keep on going places, and pressing on with the calling and work of the Kingdom here on Earth. We wouldn’t want to be doing anything else!

For some time now, different members of the Ellel Ministries team have been encouraging me to do this. But I’ve never been very confident that people would want to read it, or whether I can keep up a regular flow of things that are both worth reading, and which will prove to be a blessing to those who read them.

However, a few weeks ago I was thinking and praying about the idea, and I sensed a very clear encouragement from the Lord to start writing and trust Him for the content – and with the consequences – and not to worry whether anyone will ever want to read it! So, now I feel very much more relaxed about the whole project and am trusting and praying that for you who read these regular jottings, they will be a blessing.

The blog won’t be appearing regularly every week on the same day or at any other specific interval, but only when I sense the Lord has given me something to say.

The life that Fiona and I lead inevitably entails a lot of travel, going from Centre to Centre encouraging our teams, teaching at conferences and Centre events and sharing in the responsibilities of leadership.  As a result we are very privileged to see some exciting and fascinating places. While we really do love visiting all of them, when we are asked what place we like going to most, much to most people’s surprise, we always say ‘Home!’

Peter & Fiona

While we love being away, in reality there’s nothing quite like opening your own front door and enjoying the place which contains so many happy memories and all the things you are most comfortable with. For me, leaving home for any lengthy journey always gives me mixed emotions – the excitement and privilege of going somewhere special, to serve the Lord within the ministry, and the sense of wanting to stay a little longer in the place I call ’home’. And the older one gets, the stronger it seems, that feeling becomes!

Anyway, whether I’m at home or away, I’m already beginning to look forward to writing entries for the blog – so, welcome to all those who will be sharing with me on life’s journey. And watch this space!