The Platinum Jubilee
The Queen’s “Platinum Jubilee” (70 years on the throne) was marked with extended festivities, many of them, sad to say, taking place on the Sabbath. We are grateful to the Most High for the stability that the Queen has given to the nation over this long period of time, although it has been a most fearful period of spiritual and moral decline.
The idea of a jubilee is a biblical one (Lev 25:8-13) and the name derives from the Hebrew “yobel” meaning “jubilee” and “ram’s horn”. The fiftieth year, which was the year of the jubilee in Israel, was marked by the blowing of the ram’s horn. There was a proclamation of liberty to poor Israelites who had sold themselves as servants or slaves to their fellow Israelites, and there was a restoration of land.
This pointed to the liberty for sinners that Christ came to proclaim: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me; because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” (Is 61:1). Those that are in bondage to Satan, which is everyone by nature, are invited by the gospel to go free, with the freedom that Christ has purchased for sinners. The proclamation of this spiritual jubilee
is a “joyful sound”, and those that “know” or understand this sound in their souls are blessed: “Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of Thy countenance” (Ps 89:15).
The jubilee was also the culmination of the Sabbath. Every seventh year there was to be a sabbatical year, when the ground lay fallow, and the Lord would provide an abundant harvest the year before to tide them over, as He had done in the wilderness with the manna on the sixth day, before the Sabbath. The jubilee marked the passage of seven sabbatical years, or a Sabbath of Sabbaths. The Sabbath principle is partly one of restoration – the body being restored by outward rest and the soul by finding, or returning to, its rest in Christ – but also one of spiritual-mindedness. The restoration of wealth to the poor at the jubilee taught men that they had to seek their purpose in something higher than in accumulating the things of this world. They could not pride themselves on their wealth as lifting them above others. When Christ proclaims the gospel jubilee to the soul, He gives it a place of rest, and sets it free from the pursuit of this world, with its pride and vanities, to seek after heavenly things.
The great need of the United Kingdom is to hear and to “know” the joyful sound of the spiritual jubilee proclaimed by Jesus Christ. But along with that must come the knowledge of sin. “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins” (Is 58:1). DWBS
Homosexual Marriage and the Church of Scotland
On May 23 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland approved the proposal to conduct same-sex marriages by 274 votes to 136. Ministers who wish to perform such ceremonies must apply to the Principal Clerk’s office, who will then apply on their behalf to the Registrar General for Scotland. This legislation states that no minister will be compelled to perform a same-sex “wedding” or be involved against their will in the arrangements for one. One wonders, however, how long it will be before ministers who refuse to perform such ceremonies are put under pressure, or even vilified, for not following this unscriptural practice.
Proponents of the change argue that the change shows a compassionate and loving care towards those who are homosexual. But there is an infinite, eternal and unchangeable God who is perfect in wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth; He knows what is best for His creatures and He has decreed that marriage should be between a man and a woman.
Rev Scott Rennie, formerly of Aberdeen and now minister of Crown Court Church of Scotland, London, is himself in a same-sex “marriage” and was
in favour of the change. He said in a radio discussion, “People’s understanding of human sexuality has developed; we’ve grown better; we know more; and so we read the Scriptures in that light”. Mr Rennie, and those who voted for the measure, seem to have lost sight of the truth that God is the same yesterday, today and for ever, and His Word does not change with the times for man’s convenience.
Rev Phil Gunn, minister of Rosskeen Parish Church in Alness, Ross and Cromarty, told the Assembly that the Kirk was “stating loud and clear that the Bible, God’s Word, is no longer our authority, that it’s OK for us to pick and choose what we like and ignore the rest, that it is OK for us to rewrite Scripture so that it looks good in the eyes of a society that already thinks we are hypocrites”. The Covenant Fellowship Scotland, a group of Evangelicals within the Church of Scotland, has issued a statement accusing the Church of making a “serious mistake”.
Truly it can be said: They “plot against the Lord, and His / Anointed, saying thus, / Let us asunder break their bands, / and cast their cords from us.”
FRD
An Unbiblical Observance
Thirty years ago or more, the Free Church in the Isle of Lewis gave at least the outward impression of being more conservative than Free Church congregations elsewhere. In those days it would scarcely have seemed credible that people in the Free Church congregation in Carloway could participate in a “Palm Sunday” procession in conjunction with others, from the local Church of Scotland and the Stornoway congregation of the Scottish Episcopal Church.
According to a local information website, this ecumenical event took place on Sabbath, April 10, and involved people from the various congregations, with palm leaves, joining in a procession following locally-owned donkeys to the respective church buildings in the centre of the village, in a supposed reminder of the manner of Christ’s entry to Jerusalem before His crucifixion. Of course, there is no warrant for the observance of such festivals in the Christian Church and for processions of this kind, especially not on the holy Sabbath. They are essentially popish in nature and it is no surprise that the Episcopal Church was involved in introducing this particular practice to Lewis.
Presbyterians ought to have nothing to do with such unbiblical observances. But the introduction of such a custom illustrates a profound spiritual departure from the regulative principle of worship and the old paths of godliness on the part of the current Free Church. In the time of Balaam, the dumb ass rebuked the madness of the prophet, but now in Carloway the donkey
procession stands as a rebuke to the spiritual ignorance of all who were involved in this event.
We fear that this sad and ridiculous spectacle may well grieve the Holy Spirit further away, tend to bring down the Church in the estimation of the community, and contribute to hardening the hearts of the worldly in Lewis against religion. Furthermore, it is an object lesson in how quickly modernising and liberalising tendencies can set in to corrupt the witness and practice of Churches which once held to Biblical purity of worship. It should serve as a warning to us all, for “let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor 10:12). AWM