Britain’s Sad Plight
The spiritual and moral decline of a once highly favoured land is evident on every hand. National newspapers daily produce evidence of our moral degeneration. The marriage bond, once the anchor of family life, is cast aside on the least provocation, or on no provocation at all. Britain heads the divorce league of Western Europe. A de-Christianised culture has brought forth its own fruit. Promiscuity, lauded by a pagan culture, has become endemic. Abuse of young and old is habitual. The legalisation of euthanasia — more properly termed the murder of the elderly and infirm — is being contemplated to complement the practice of abortion, practices reminiscent of the worst excesses of heathenism. Persons living in unnatural relationships are counted suitable persons to adopt children. The Saviour is mocked on television by godless producers. The word of God is set aside as a thing of nought. The house of God is forsaken. Britain is in economic decline and men wonder why it is so. How blind men can be to the cause of the nation’s woes. We have forsaken the Fountain of Life and what wisdom is in us?
The way of return to God is the only hope for a decadent nation. The call of God went out long ago to Israel — “Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings.” Well it would be for Britain today if, hearing this call, she responded in the words of Scripture, “Behold, we come unto Thee; for Thou art the Lord our God.” Without such a return to the Lord, greater and greater judgments must be expected on a backsliding land.
The Government and Europe
Many years ago our government made the fatal mistake of allying itself with the predominantly Roman Catholic nations of Western Europe. It was said at that time that it was merely an economic union, though it was evident to anyone with eyes to see that ultimately a political union was contemplated. Whatever commercial benefits Britain may have obtained from this alliance, they were surely short lived. Now the eyes of the people have been opened to see how they have been duped, and opposition to political union is rising. Britain trusted in a broken reed and is now reaping the consequences. May the Lord in His mercy deliver her, and may she be brought once again to trust in God, her Maker.
Far from the Truth
The Bishop of Durham has for some time provided a particularly clear example of where present trends are taking the Church of England. He is certainly particularly forthright in the way he expresses his views. One of his latest public pronouncements makes clear that his moral ideas are as unscriptural as his doctrines. He has contributed a foreword to a book of prayers for homosexuals, which has the shameless title, Daring to Speak in Love’s Name. The bishop’s action has special significance because the book was dropped by SPCK (Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge) who were originally to be its publishers. They dropped it when the Archbishop of Canterbury threatened to resign as its president, albeit on the rather lame excuse that some passages might give the impression that AIDS is an exclusively heterosexual disease.
A Church of England source was quoted as saying, “The Bishop of Durham’s views are well known, but Lambeth Palace (the Archbishop’s headquarters) will still be furious.” It is of course a complete abdication of responsibility for the Archbishop to leave someone like Bishop Jenkins in the high office which he holds, and without so much as a rebuke. Someone who can complain, as the Bishop did, of the churches “seeming to curse homosexual friendships and commitments” has particularly flagrantly rejected the authority of the Scriptures which he is pledged to uphold, for these Scriptures make it perfectly plain that such sins are specially under God’s curse. When will the leaders of the Church of England take seriously their responsibility to give clear moral and spiritual direction to their people, and to do so exclusively in the clear light of the Bible?
— K.D.M.
The National Bible Society of Scotland
As time passes it becomes more evident that this Society has moved further and further from a due regard to the Holy Scriptures. Several of their leaflets referring to Bible scenes are in the form of ‘cartoons’ bringing the solemn high doctrines of the Word to the base level of ‘comic strips’. This is nothing short of blasphemous, in our opinion.
The contents of some of their literature, specially prepared for the sick and the dying, are calculated to administer false comfort and delusive hopes. There is one, for example, entitled ‘Gone from View’ which is referring to death. The cover has the design of a ship, and the reading is that one watching the ship disappear says ” ‘There’s she’s gone’. Gone where! Gone from view that is all. Just at that moment there are other eyes watching her coming and other souls taking up the glad shout, ‘There, she’s coming!’ AND THAT IS DYING.”
In our opinion the Society is guilty of great sin in treating the Word of God as it does, and people supporting this Society have their own responsibility.
A.E.W.N.
Euthanasia
The recent conviction of an English doctor for attempted murder raises wide questions about the conduct of the medical profession in this country. The doctor in question administered a lethal injection to a dying woman who was in particularly great suffering. This injection could have no effect in reducing pain; hence the conviction for attempted murder. An injection whose intended effect was to relieve pain, but also hastened death, would be legal. Obviously there are difficult questions involved. But in the midst of all the difficulties we must keep a firm hold of the fact that no man has the right to take away anyone else’s life — (except in exceptional circumstances, as when the state takes away the life of the murderer).
After such a case, which involved a person in particularly severe suffering and the conviction of a doctor whose good qualities were sufficiently extolled at his trial, there is always the danger of a groundswell of sympathy which could eventually sweep away the safeguards of our present law, which prohibits euthanasia. It is a good question how far the present law does prevent doctors from hastening the death of terminally ill patients. Certainly an unnamed GP was quoted in the press as admitting to having done just this on more than one occasion. God’s word must provide the basis for all our moral judgments, but in a society, which is moving further and further away from God and His Word it need not surprise us to find the medical profession drifting in the same direction.
It is in a godless environment like ours that a clamour could arise for a change in the law to permit euthanasia. Thankfully this conviction for attempted murder will act as a restraint on the medical profession for the time being. It gives no guarantee of permanent protection if public opinion, without the stability of Christian conviction, swings in the same way as it has done in approving of murder in the womb on the present horrific scale.
At present, doctors in the Netherlands are in certain circumstances safe from prosecution if they take away the life of someone who has requested them to end their life. Their opinion polls suggest widespread public support for voluntary euthanasia; people get used to any kind of sin. But when acceptance is secured for voluntary euthanasia, how long can it be before there is pressure for compulsory euthanasia? Who then will be condemned to die? The unconscious? The terminally ill? Those with acute loss of memory?
And where will it stop? And how can those feel secure for the future who are still relatively fit? Or even those in the best of health? God’s Word gives the only sure foundation: “Thou shalt not kill”. Any tampering with the present law can only prove disastrous. — K.D.M.
Letter from Kenya
Dear Friends
It is now time to try and tell you about some of our travels in Malawi.
On Friday 14 August, we flew from Nairobi to Lilongwe, the capital city of Blantyre. We were met by Mr Neil MacDougall and stayed with them for one night. Mr and Mrs MacDougall showed us much kindness.
The next day we flew from Lilongwe to Blantyre. The house we rent is in a quiet area of the city, and is very comfortable. Blantyre itself is a beautiful, well kept little city. It seems to be better organised than Nairobi, and things get done more efficiently. On the other hand, there are an amazing number of beggars, from little boys who run up holding out their hands and whining “Hungry sir, buy food” and asking for “tam-bala” (ie pennies), to some of the most pathetic sights I have ever seen. Some of them have legs which are literally skin and bone, completely devoid of any muscle at all. They walk on their hands, pulling their legs along behind them, usually with cloth tied round their knees to protect them from scraping on the pavement. As a white person, you are automatically considered to be rich, and also likely to be more generous than their fellow Malawians, so you become a target for all the beggars in the area. Side by side with this destitution are some of the most wealthy people I have seen, both black and white.
The mission’s situation in Malawi is very different from that in Kenya. There are far more stations, and they are spread over a very wide area, covering the southern half of the country and the mission house is located in the city of Blantyre, so that you do not have the feeling of living among the people.
There are three native evangelists employed by the church here, Mr Phiri, Mr Mwaze and Mr Tembo.
Our first visit was to one of the mission stations near Blantyre in an area called Thyolo. It is one of the stations in which Mr Phiri works. The church is an old shop building, and there were about fifty present. Mr Phiri started by catechising the congregation and then Mr MacLeod preached.
We also went to an area called Bangwe. It reminds me of the pictures I have seen of shanty towns, very run down and dilapidated. Yet amongst it all we found the people had built a little church, almost unaided, with broken stones for a floor, and a few home made benches to sit on. When we arrived, a bell was rung to call the people to worship. While we were waiting Mr Phiri started singing psalms with the few who were already present. It struck me as being a particularly good way of spending time while waiting for the service to begin. The singing was very good indeed, although the selection of tunes is fairly limited. When the people know a tune well, they sing with beautiful harmonies, and I managed to get down the notes of a particularly nice one which is one of their own melodies. Many of them could not read, or did not have psalm books, so Mr Phiri gave out the line! It is fairly similar to our way of doing it except that the precentor only sings the first few words of each line. Eventually we started the service with 46 present. Mr MacLeod preached on 1 Timothy 1: 15.
Later that afternoon, Mr MacLeod and I went to buy some bags of maize flour to take with us on our visit to the south where there are many very hungry people.
On Tuesday 18 August we travelled south to the area in which Mr Tembo works. We left Blantyre at 10.30 am, and after a short while, the road goes very suddenly down a very steep incline into the valley of the river Shire (pronounced Shee-ray). As we went down, it got much hotter, and the landscape became very dry and barren. I spent the journey in the back of the truck, along with 100 bags of Mr MacLeod’s maize! Perched on top of them, I got a good view of the surrounding countryside, and could not help wondering what the people live on. When I say there was no sign of any food growing, that is no exaggeration, and I learned later that the people had planted seed three times this year, and each time nothing grew. Those of us who are blessed with a competent portion of the necessities of this life should surely remember those who are in such dire straits.
We reached Ngabo, where Mr Tembo lives, and gathered for a service in a rented shop building. It was about 3 pm, and by this time very hot, and the sun beating down on the iron roof made the church feel like an oven. Mr MacLeod spoke on Isaiah 55, and was attentively listened to. One young boy in particular caught my attention. He was immediately noticeable, because he had only one leg. His right leg was lost as a result of an accident, and in its place he has a strange looking contraption consisting of two metal rods, attached to his thigh, which lead to a cylinder of wood, the bottom of which he walks on. As the service progressed, I could not help noticing how intently he seemed to hang on to every word that was said. I found out later that he is 14 years old, and that he WALKS about three miles each way to church every Sabbath with another boy the same age. His parents do not attend the church so he receives no encouragement from them, yet he is one of the most attentive in the congregation, and diligent in learning his catechism. I found the story very moving. Surely we should be asking ourselves whether we would make such efforts to attend the means of grace so diligently. It is sad that so many young folk in our own lands seems to have so little interest in the gospel, especially when we hear of such desire among our fellows in areas that do not have the privileges we do.
The church building here is not really suitable, and as this is the village where Mr Tembo lives, there are plans to build a permanent one. The estimated cost is about 15,000 Malawi Kwacha (about £2000), each brick costs about 16p! Again, a little money goes a long way.
The following day we carried on our journey south, and reached the very bottom tip of Malawi, right on the Mozambique border. The scenery was just what I had imagined Africa to be like. On either side of the road, as far as the eye could see, there was dry parched scrubland, with a few stunted bushes here and there. There was red dust everywhere, and the heat hung in a shimmering haze over everything. Every now and then we would catch sight of the round thatched roof of an African mud hut. It was hard to believe I was actually there, jolting along the road in the back of a truck. We passed several “rivers” which were nothing more than dry, dusty river beds. The drought has badly affected the area, and many people are in need. I saw with my own eyes for the first time, children with bloated stomachs and matchstick limbs, the marks of prolonged malnutrition, and we passed an area where the previous week five little ones had passed from the scene of time, never to return, as a result of starvation. Even more solemnising is the realisation that most of those killed by the famine have never heard of the Bread of Life which came down from heaven. What a responsibility there is on us who have heard. How are we using what we have, for the good of our own souls and the good of others. It breaks my heart to think of children, as well as men and women, perishing from hunger, and going out into the blackness of darkness for ever, when there is enough and to spare in Christ. Also, humanly speaking, a lot needs to be done to help these poor people in their bodily needs. We passed several places where the Red Cross, United Nations and the like are feeding thousands of people, and I could only admire the efforts of such worldly people. Surely those of us who have tasted that God is gracious should be even more zealous in caring for our fellows. The Bible says:
“Whoso hath this world’s good and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3: 17,18).
We arrived at Mankokwe refugee camp, which houses thousands of Mozambiquan refugees who have fled the civil war in their home country. The people, being refugees, have very little, but are generally reasonably well fed by relief organisations. In fact, they are often better off than the native Malawians, but they have no income, and are very poorly dressed. Our connection with them came about in quite a remarkable way. One of the men from the camp was present at a service held elsewhere by Tembo and decided he wanted our church to come and preach to them in the refugee camp. He went back and got the people to build a church, completely out of mud! The walls are mud, and so are the seats, platform and pulpit! There is even a mud bookboard in the pulpit! They had no thatch for the roof, and no money to buy it, so they sold the blankets they had been given since they had fled home with nothing, and with the proceeds roofed their church. Then they asked the church to come and teach them. The camp is huge, and full of false missionaries, predominantly Romanists and charismatics, but those who attend our services ask not to be forgotten, and say that when they are allowed to return to Mozambique, they wish the church to come and teach them there also. So yet another field could open up to us, right in the middle of Roman Catholic dominated territory. How we need labourers sent by the Lord of the harvest. We had a congregation of about 65, and Mr MacLeod preached on the Pharisee and the publican. We then set off on the return trip, and on the way called in at another refugee camp at Nyamatutu. This was set up to take the overflow from the first which was overcrowded. The story of our church there is even more remarkable. The man who was so instrumental in establishing a congregation in Mankokwe was among those moved to this new site. Undeterred at having to leave his church behind, he set about establishing yet another! He organised the making of mud bricks, and single handedly raised 300 Kwacha for roofing by selling maize and blankets from the relief supplies he received. To give you an idea of the extent of his efforts, K300 is about two months earnings in Malawi, and as a refugee, this man has no regular income whatsoever! Such dedication and effort is quite overwhelming to think of. This man would have been made very welcome by any of the religious groups in the new camp, or he might have been ready to give up, after being moved from the scene of his original efforts, but he persevered, by grace we believe, and as a result we now have a congregation of between fifty and sixty in this camp also. Truly God honours those that honour Him. The question we must all face in the light of such heroism is: will the refugees of Mankokwe and Nyamatutu rise in the day of judgment and condemn us, in spite of all our gospel privileges? To whom much is given, much will be required.
On Saturday 22nd August, we set off on the last of our long trips, this time north of Blantyre to the area where Mr Mwaze works, and on Sabbath Mr MacLeod and I travelled up to Ntaja, about two hours drive north. This is Mr Mwaze’s home town, and to get there we had to drive for part of the way along a very bumpy sand road. We arrived safely at Ntaja where we picked up Mr Mwaze, and a few others, and drove on for about 40 minutes, along little dust tracks through the scrub till we came to a village called Namikhango. The church was nearly full with about seventy people, and Mr MacLeod preached on Genesis 13: 8. Again, as so often in our travels, I could not help noticing how attentively many of the people seemed to listen to the Word. We then returned to Ntaja, and had another service, this time in Mwaze’s house, with about 45 present. Later on I was reading in Luke chapter 10, and was struck by the appropriateness of verse 2: “The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He would send forth labourers into his harvest”. There is undoubtedly a great need here. Mr MacLeod took a note from the evangelists, and we worked out that in Malawi alone, there are over two thousand people attending our churches, at over twenty different stations, spread out over half a country, all to be covered by three lay evangelists, who must travel on foot, by bike or public transport. What a great door lies open for us. We must seriously ask ourselves how we are to bring the gospel to these people.
I cannot finish my account of my time in Malawi however, without telling you about my friend George! George is a little 11-year-old boy who begs on the streets of Blantyre. As I said before, there are many such here, but George has a certain skill and persistence which is very hard to ignore. George’s father is blind and cannot work. There is no social security in Malawi for the poor, and so the family had been supported by George’s mother. Eighteen months ago, she died, leaving her blind husband to look after George and his little sister Margaret. So at 9½ years old, George had to leave school and take on the responsibility of providing for his family by begging. Even if they could afford the fees, if he were to go to school, he and his sister and father would starve.
I then asked him if he went to church at all, and he told me that he went to the Christian centre every week. The “Christian” centre is a Charismatic establishment which as well as holding services, has a bookshop absolutely full of books telling us why christians should not be sick or poor. Meanwhile, they let George beg on the streets of the city. The sooner the face of the earth is purged of such pestilent people and places the better. I have since found out that we have opened a preaching station fairly near to George’s home, so the next time I see him, I will tell him, and ask him to start attending.
There are literally hundreds of such street children here, mostly little boys. Many have to sleep out on the streets at night since they are orphans and have no homes. Last winter, there was a flash flood one night, and scores of youngsters sleeping under some of the city’s bridges were drowned, and swept into eternity. These harrowing tales could be multiplied, and one is left wondering what is to be done, in the face of such tragedies. What havoc humans have brought upon themselves by sin. If there was only some way of providing a secure Christian background and education for these children, then by God’s grace we might see many of them turning to him, and becoming salt and light in their own generation.
We arrived safely back in Nairobi on Thursday, 27th August, and the following day I had to say ‘Goodbye’ to Mr and Mrs MacLeod as they returned home to Scotland. We were all thankful to God for His care and keeping of us during the time we were together, and I was especially thankful that the way had been opened up for me to be introduced to the mission folk by Mr MacLeod who knew them so well.
Well, I will close here for the time being. We beseech you “brethren, pray for us” and for all involved in the work begun here, “that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified”. I have mentioned many matters above which we hope will be brought to a Throne of Grace by God’s people. Let us not be forgetful of the poor and the needy, and let us call on the God of mercy for provision for all needs, bodily and spiritual. Above all let us seek that salvation which is for time and eternity, for ourselves and our fellow men, desiring that God’s kingdom may be established in our own hearts and throughout the whole world.
Best wishes to you all.
Donald MacDonald