Criminals Refusing to Attend Their Sentencing
The issue of convicted criminals refusing to attend court to hear their sentencing has come to the fore, with some recent prominent cases, and with legis-
lation to compel attendance being discussed in Parliament. Probably it is not the announcement of the sentence that the criminals wish to avoid but the reading of the “impact statements” of victims – a practice which has been introduced in recent years. Some have denounced the criminals who refuse to attend their sentencing as “cowards”, but none of us would wish to hear the impact of our wrongdoing read out in public. The sins of Noah, Lot, David and Peter injured the people of their generation, and how much harm have the sins of believers done to those around them in all generations?
At the Day of Judgement, there will be no absentees at the sentencing, and no one who does not have to face the effects of his sins. It will then be a matter of astonishment for the perfected saints that Christ made atonement for people as wicked and injurious as they find themselves to have been. DWBS
LGBT Pride
How is it possible for a movement such as LGBT Pride to have obtained such a stranglehold on our society? Many heterosexuals in public life wave the Pride banner: central and local government, banks and major business organisations all bow the knee to the false religion that is called Pride. To question or to resist participation in its promotion is a sackable offence in some places of employment. Teachers may be required to indoctrinate pupils with the notion that male and female are choices and interchangeable and transvestites are invited into primary schools to read their gender-bending stories as part of the indoctrination process. Some children and parents accept this as a sort of pantomime, but it is not a pantomime, it is sinister. The workplace is full of requirements such as recognising the month of June as Pride Month.
The use of pronouns is a minefield which needs to be carefully negotiated for fear of reprisals. Even some of our major churches such as the Church of England, Church of Scotland and the Methodists have made room for this perverse and wicked nonsense. Legislation is suggested which will encroach on the preaching of the gospel if it can be construed as going against the new publicly endorsed religion of Pride.
The underlying reason for the success of the Pride movement is love of self. The Shorter Catechism summarises the Bible teaching: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God”, but the natural man thinks his chief end is to satisfy self, and anything and everything is justified to attain that end. Only a very tiny proportion of society are sodomites or transvestites but those who worship self are prepared to support the “rights” of their co-religionists. All wishes must be satisfied, all desires must be gratified, however bizarre. The LGBT Pride movement therefore grows and appears to carry all before it. If
the Church of Rome is Satan’s masterpiece, then this new phenomenon is another of his clever devices.
“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 Jn 2:16).
FRD