Two days ago, we saw a glimmer of light in the nation when MSPs rejected the assisted suicide bill in Scotland. But last night, that glimmer was promptly snuffed out when the House of Lords voted to allow full term abortion. The elation and relief of Tuesday night turned to despair and defeat last night. We have to ask ourselves: Where is the church today in the midst of cultural chaos and moral decline?
This is a moment of profound darkness for our nation. A line has been crossed and there will be grave consequences for the nation. We cannot continue to wave our fist at God and pretend the nation will be fine and prosperous. God will not be mocked and he will bring judgement at some point. We should not test when that point is, lest we find out to our peril.
None of the events leading up to this evil decision took place in a vacuum or happened by accident. There have been gradual deliberate steps towards it over many years with a recent acceleration towards further liberalisation of our already very liberal abortion laws. One of the main issues we have is these decisions are being made without a mandate or public consultation and with only limited debate in Parliament. This means proposals have barely been scrutinised. Polls suggest only 1% support full term abortion and a majority actually favour limiting term limits for abortion, yet our liberal parliamentarians have railroaded this derisible change through. At every stage over the last few years, those who oppose these proposals have consistently failed to advance the positive case for life and have tried to argue from a position of weakness which rarely works out well. Worse still, church leaders, bishops and leading Christian voices have been far too occupied with climate change and other fashionable ‘in’ topics to bother themselves with speaking out against these heinous proposals.
Abortion was made legal in certain circumstances in the 1967 Act of Parliament, designed to only permit it in exceptional cases. Pro-life campaigners at the time said it would open the door to further liberalisation and the laws would be misused. How right those warnings were for the figures for abortion today are truly staggering: One in three pregnancies now end in abortion. Over 40% of abortions are to women who have had at least one previous abortion. The total amount of abortions carried out in the United Kingdom is greater than the total population of London. These statistics should give us cause for considering what we have allowed to happen in our nation. No one did this to us – we have done it to ourselves.
“many of the problems we are seeing today in our nation are a direct consequence of our glib attitude towards life and failure to protect life in the womb”
Life is a precious gift from God and not to be played around with or discarded on the altar of convenience. Life must be protected, not hollowed out and reduced to a mere commodity. God places such a value on life that I believe many of the problems we are seeing today in our nation are a direct consequence of our glib attitude towards life and failure to protect life in the womb.
The present mess all stemmed from a clack of clear teaching on the value of the pre-born life in the womb, combined with a rejection of God in the nation. When a nation rejects God, the state becomes the highest authority in people’s lives and thus becomes their god. That is exactly what has happened in our nation. People now look to the secular state as the moral judge of what is right and wrong, based on subjective emotion rather than objective truth. People use deliberately emotive language such as, ‘women should not be forced to carry a baby to full term’ and ‘its abuse to bring a child into the world when it wont have much or be raised in difficult circumstances’. These may sound reasonable arguments on one level, but if you value life, they are a non-starter. Only when you do away with the objective value placed on the life of the child in the womb as a gift from God who created that child in his image and therefore has inherent value can these ideas be advanced.
The church has a lot to answer for in this regard. For it is the church that bears the responsibility to teach people right from wrong. Yet, too often the church today is either complicit in compromise or silent on the key issues of our day, which simply amplifies the ensuing cultural chaos. Instead of speaking moral clarity rooted in the truth of the gospel into the issues of the day, the Church has decided to follow the world and attempt to tack a vague notion of God onto a morally bankrupt way of life rather than calling people to repentance that they be “transformed by the renewing of their minds”.
“too often the church today is either complicit in compromise or silent on the key issues of our day, which simply amplifies the ensuing cultural chaos”
The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 4:17 that, ‘Judgement begins at the house of Lord’. This is because we are charged with the responsibility to be pure and uphold truth. When we allow ourselves to become defiled by false teaching and accepting sin, we grieve the heart of the Lord and he cannot and will not sit by and allow it to go on forever. We are meant to be his pure and spotless bride. We are meant to be the carriers and purveyors of truth. Where is church today? In large part it is sleeping, caught up in the things of the world rather than focussed on its calling to be a prophetic voice to the nation in this hour. It is utterly shameful that only 43% of Bishops bothered to turn up to the vote in the House of Lords last night. Their continued silence on matters of life is a disgrace. If our Bishops cannot or will not prioritise the basic issue of the defence of life then they must reflect, resign and repent for they have brought shame on their office and completely absolved themselves of their responsibility to be salt and light in the Parliament they are privileged to hold a seat in.
“If we, who are charged with this responsibility to be the image bearers of Christ step away from that calling then who will proclaim Jesus in this hour?”
The church must urgently wake up. We need to be more far confident in who we are. We need to know what we believe and in whose name we operate. We need to boldly, uncompromisingly and unashamedly proclaim the glorious and life-giving truth of Jesus to a lost and dying generation. How many pastors even mention abortion and assisted suicide in sermons? How many churches have prayer meetings on these subjects? How many church leaders joined campaigners outside parliament yesterday and Holyrood on Tuesday? If we, who are charged with this responsibility to be the image bearers of Christ step away from that calling, then who will proclaim Jesus in this hour? Who will defend life in this hour? Who will declare objective truth to a people caught up in relativism and lies? Who will stand in the gap and bring clarity amidst chaos in this hour?
There are many people wandering around lacking purpose in life. Many have lost hope. They look around and simply wonder what the point of it all is. Men have been attacked for being men. Feminism has encouraged women to take on the role of men and ignore their natural calling as wives and mothers. Families are breaking down as a consequence. Men are being told they can become women and women can become men that creates yet more confusion. Many of our towns and cities are ravaged by addiction. Crime is out of control. Our borders have been flung open and we have imported a mass population of people completely opposed to our way of life. Our economy is in tatters, our education system reduced to a mere programme of indoctrination. Our government has no answers, the media have lowered the standards, but God is still God.
This is all the result of the nation turning its back on God. The nation turned its back on God because the church stopped confronting the darkness and instead tried to appease it and in some cases, become friends with it. Instead of seeking to shape the world, the church has come to be shaped by the world. Amidst all this chaos, decline and destruction the church is busy hosting cosy coffee mornings, putting on food banks and hosting worship nights that give a great feeling but bring zero transformation. Pastors give feel-good sermons that itch ears but do not challenge people to change their lives. The result is a church in compromise and apostasy. The result is a church that exists but does not live. The result is a church that is sidelined and lacking impact in the nation. The result is a church that is not being the church. This must stop now.
The church is meant to be so much more than this. The church is meant to proclaim the truth, it is meant to confront the problems of the day, not just tacitly endorse them or worse still ignore them. People are crying out for authenticity. People are crying out for hope and purpose. We have these answers in Jesus, but we have become too unstable in and unsure of our faith to be prepared to put our heads above the parapet. Our nation needs prophetic voices that will lead it out of the darkness and into the glorious light of Christ. We need these voices today more than ever.
“People are crying out for authenticity. People are crying out for hope and purpose. We have these answers in Jesus, but we have become too unstable in our faith to be prepared to put our heads above the parapet.”
To the church pastors and leaders in our nation I say this: Do not compromise, do not back down. You carry the precious message of salvation, hope and transformation your church and our nation needs to hear. Do not shy away from speaking the truth in love on the key issues of our day. Do not try to appease error and evil, but confront it directly. Preach the whole gospel, not just what you feel comfortable with or the bits you think are acceptable. Step into your calling to be a prophetic voice in this hour. Raise the standard, proclaim the truth and let God do the rest.
To the people of this nation I say this: The United Kingdom is at a crossroads. Which way will we go? Will we continue to go our own way that seems right to some but has a destructive lake of fire at the end of the road, or will we turn to Jesus and see the nation turned around? Will we dare to accept the error of our ways and chart a corrective course, or will we continue to sail towards judgement and total destruction?
“We must not be swayed by emotive arguments, but be resolute and firmly rooted in the truth that every life has value, every life must be defended and every life is worth contending for”
I do believe God has unfinished business with this nation and he is prepared to come and turn things around, but we cannot afford to go on waving a fist at him and expect everything to simply pan out well in the end. Life is a precious gift from God that we must protect, defend and uphold. We must not be swayed by emotive arguments, but be resolute and firmly rooted in the truth that every life has value, every life must be defended and every life is worth contending for. The church has an opportunity to awaken to the hour and arise to the challenge of the hour. Will the church bring clarity in place of chaos or will it continue to cower in the corner of irrelevance?
