United Kingdom General Election
The UK goes to the polls on May 7. One cannot feel optimistic when all the major parties united in the last parliament to legalise same-sex marriage, though significant numbers of Conservative MPs and smaller numbers from other parties voted against. Nor can we feel optimistic when the leaders of two of the major parties are professed atheists. Yet, at such an occasion, prayer is called for – not only to be guided as to one’s personal voting choice, but also that God would overrule the millions of individual choices to give the best possible outcome in our circumstances as a nation. May the Lord, who rules over everything, bring order out of moral confusion and “do exceeding abundantly above all that [His people] ask or think” (Eph 3:20)!
Eclipse of the Sun
Great public interest was generated on March 20 by a partial eclipse of the sun over much of Europe, North Africa and Russia. And a total eclipse could be viewed over parts of Greenland and Norway, while many flocked to the Faroes to observe the phenomenon at its darkest.
A solar eclipse occurs when the moon comes between the sun and the earth, blocking the sun’s light. Although the sun is around 93 million miles from the earth, and the moon is only around 384 000 miles away, the two appear approximately the same size from the earth. God in His infinite creative wisdom has placed the sun 400 times further away and it is 400 times larger. And the sun has exactly the right influence to sustain life on our planet. “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; He made the stars also” (Gen 1:16). These two “great lights” are held in space by the word of His power, as are the earth and all the other planets and stars, in perfect harmony performing God’s will in their motions with precise regularity. Truly “the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge” (Ps 19:1,2).
God has overruled these natural laws at least twice in history; once was when He caused the sun to go backwards 10 degrees as a sign to Hezekiah that he would recover from his sickness (Is 38:8). Before this He fought for Israel as described in Joshua 10:13, when the sun and the moon stopped in their courses for a whole day. Thus God reveals His mighty power in doing “according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth” (Dan 4:35). While there was considerable interest and excitement about the recent eclipse, many sadly do not recognise God behind these wonderful works. Indeed the atheistic evolutionist, leaning on his own wisdom, scorns it. To him there is no intelligent designer, far less the true God of creation. He believes that these phenomena occur by a process of natural selection and a myriad of coincidences, both on the macro and micro levels.
Then there are others who take a deep and dark interest in these things – so deep that they worship these celestial bodies and their movements. We recently wrote about Hindus worshipping the “sun god” in addition to other gods. There are others: pagans, witches and various occult figures claiming that great “spiritual energy” was released during this latest eclipse. Different groups met in woodlands across the UK seeking contact with spiritual forces; they were wearing robes, chanting, using dark rituals and spells and carrying out other occult activities. The fact that the event occurred at the equinox apparently added greater significance to their rituals. As more and more people reject God, the influence of Satan becomes ever more powerful and will inevitably bring greater spiritual darkness into our land and world. In Iceland, there was a special ceremony during the eclipse to open a new pagan temple – said to be the first built in Europe for 1000 years. It was claimed that “sacrifices would be made to the supernatural beings of the area”. Surely we should be crying to God to deliver us from such evil!
God-fearing believers, however, glory in the Creator. But they also look to the Saviour, who is called the “Sun of Righteousness”. When the natural sun was eclipsed, the temperature dropped several degrees, as the earth darkened; when the Saviour’s face is hidden from His people they feel the coldness and the darkness. But just as the sun returned to its brightness and the temperature rose after a period of time, so to them who fear His name “shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in His wings” (Mal 4:2). They have a day coming when God will say to them: “Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended” (Is 60:20).
KHM
Reverent Worship
One of the lessons of the Old Testament was that the worship of the God of Israel was holy. He was to be worshipped with reverence: “God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of His saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about Him” (Ps 89:7). Those that presumed to come to Him irreverently, in ways of their own devising, were in danger of death, as Nadab and Abihu found to their cost (Lev 10:1). When God slew them, He said to Moses and Aaron: “I will be sanctified in them that come nigh Me, and before all the people I will be glorified” (v 3).
The New Testament has changed the form of the worship, but not the holiness of it, nor the need for reverence. As Paul says: “Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:28-29). The outward ceremonies have been removed, but in their place has come something infinitely more weighty and solemn: the blood of Christ. “If the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb 9:13-14). Even the danger of death remains, as many of the Corinthians learned when they behaved irreverently at the Lord’s Supper: “for this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep [that is, they had died]” (1 Cor 11:30).
It is with trepidation, therefore, that we read in the Press and Journal for February 17 of a Free Church of Scotland congregation where the worship, especially the singing of the psalms, is said to be “fun”. The psalms are sung in “an interactive way” with a “call and response approach” and with the accompaniment of modern musical instruments. This is said to be “a fun and accessible way of singing”. Such an irreverent view of worship is shocking in a denomination which until recently was fairly conservative. From a human point of view, we expect that the congregation will soon get bored of this gimmick; but from a scriptural point of view we think that they are in great danger, possibly of some physical chastisement, but more likely (and far worse) of being given over to deeper spiritual blindness. There is no “fun” in hell, and the word “fun” is completely inappropriate for heaven. “In Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps 16:11).
DWBS