FIEC Churches Event in Glasgow (April 2015)

Unchanging Truth in a Changing Culture

Written by Andy Hunter on 14.05.2015

In a city with more bookmakers than evangelical churches, there has never been a greater need for gospel-centred churches to encourage one another. Scotland Director Andy Hunter reports on a gathering of FIEC churches in Glasgow which was designed to do just that.

Article Tags

• Local Church
• Scotland

Glasgow, like other large British cities, is a mixture of the poor and the affluent, the built-up inner city and the leafy suburb, the ‘born and bred’ and the newcomer, the religious and irreligious – all making up an increasingly ethnically diverse population.

No single church will be able to reach an area as diverse as the West of Scotland. Rather a range of churches situated in different locations with a variety of ministries is needed if the different communities and cultures that coexist in today’s urban areas are to be engaged with the gospel.

Fortunately Glasgow’s FIEC churches – along with other gospel churches there – are situated in different parts of the city and reflect different aspects of its make-up.

Gospel need and gospel hope

At the end of April six FIEC churches from around the city came together for an evening of fellowship, praise, prayer and ministry. Despite their differences the FIEC churches are united by the great gospel hope they proclaim and hold out. Similarly the many different communities around them are united by their shared need of the gospel.

It was that gospel need and gospel hope that John Stevens (FIEC National Director) brought home in his address to those gathered. He spoke of the unchanging truthfulness of the gospel, its culture and time-transcending power, and thus the need for churches to steadfastly hold on to it and proclaim it without dilution or compromise.

Looking at a number of New Testament passages connected to the church in Corinth, John showed how similar its first century culture was to our own: diverse, immoral, pluralistic and spiritually confused. However, John highlighted that gospel faithfulness was not to be confused with cultural inflexibility. In 1 Corinthians 9v22 Paul writes that he becomes ‘all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some’. The danger of personal preferences and old habits becoming obstacles to communicating the gospel was powerfully summed up as John said:

‘We become in danger of calling people to come to church and be like us, rather than to come to Christ and be like Him.’

Finally, John spoke of the gospel’s enduring power to save and the hope that gives us. Paul was not to give up on Corinth because the Lord had his people there (Acts 18v10) and we must not give up on our own cities and communities today.

Many parts, one mission

The gathering in Glasgow included reports from the FIEC churches on how that gospel call is being put into practice. Iain Shaw (Clarkston Baptist Church) and Al Lightbody (Lenzie Christian Fellowship) represented churches in better-off middle class areas – but they pointed out the huge spiritual poverty there is among those caught up in materialism and who feel no great need for God in their lives.

Raymond Barr (Crosshill Evangelical Church) and Bill Blair (Yoker Evangelical Church) spoke of the challenges of inner city ministry – transient populations, poverty and ethnic diversity.

Philip Teji (Finnieston Evangelical Church) represented a church which is predominantly Asian in its make-up and spoke of its ministry to Christians from Indian and Pakistani backgrounds.

All spoke of the various ways in which their churches are reaching out to their communities, whether through church-based activities (toddler groups, children’s and youth work), direct door-to-door contacts and leafleting, or through community events. These, along with the day-to-day personal contacts of church members, are ensuring that the good news about Jesus Christ is being made known in the West of Scotland.

The event also included a contribution from Alan McKnight (Harper Church) who has been gathering data on the number of gospel churches of all types serving the city. Even considering the most generous estimates, Glasgow’s gospel need is immense with only one ‘evangelical’ church per 7,000 people.

It was consequently great to hear from Pete Stewart (an FIEC Pastors’ Network member) about a new church plant being planned for one of the city’s neediest areas in Barlanark. Pete, along with fellow planter Pete Bell, is backed by 20Schemes and hopes to launch this new work later this year.

Sharing the same Great Commission

The evening was a great reminder of the real unity and fellowship that God’s people share in the gospel. It brought home the challenges but also the opportunities of being a local church in 21st century Britain. Most of all it was a huge encouragement to see a range of churches, different in many ways, sharing and praying together as they carry out the same Great Commission to ‘make disciples of all nations’ for the glory of the same Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Andy Hunter - FIEC Scotland Director

Before joining FIEC in November 2013, Andy worked for Greenview Church in Glasgow for nine years, prior to which he trained at Oak Hill College in London. He is married to Jessica and they have three children.

ISIS - 'DISNEY LAND' FOR THE GTA GENERATION

Over recent weeks our media and political leaders have been wrestling with, what to them, is the apparently inexplicable attraction of ISIS (‘Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’) to significant numbers of young Muslims in the UK. The several hundred young men who have travelled to ISIS held Syria & Iraq are now being followed by numbers of young Muslim women – most recently by three teenage girls from Bethnal Green in London.

The shocking brutality of ISIS is so seemingly antithetical to Western values that our leaders seem genuinely dumbfounded by these developments. Sadly, as reprehensible as ISIS is, this incomprehension is just a further sign of the hubris and moral confusion that is endemic among our Western ruling elites. The lure of ISIS and the rejection of Western values is complex but probably not that surprising for a number of reasons.

1.  'DISNEY LAND' FOR THE GTA GENERATION

For young men (and it is especially men) brought up on games such as Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty it’s not too hard to see why ISIS might have some appeal. Having pumped yourself up with digital brutality, easy killings and a fantasy world of cold callous machismo – the offer of the real thing could be just the ticket to maintain the adrenalin rush. Like the pornography that often accompanies this lifestyle package, the initial thrill needs to be sustained by increasingly hard-core material – with the prospect of doing ‘it for real’ being the ultimate fulfilment.

GTA is, by all accounts, graphic in its depiction of violence, drugs, cruelty and sex. One teenage player of COD remarked to me, ‘It’s really realistic, it really feels like you’re shooting people’.

The fact that ISIS is a ‘closed shop’ religiously means that the people going to Syria & Iraq are inevitably all Muslim. But if the offer of guns, glamour and unlimited sex was extended, without religious restrictions, I think you might see a bit of uptake from white British young men as well. Let’s face it, if you are a young man regularly immersing yourself on Cert. 18 video games and pornography, and whose life-expectations amount to getting a job in a Cash n’ Carry in some northern British town, you might be tempted yourself.

Ironically it’s the West that produces, markets and gets hugely rich on filling young men with these depictions of sex and violence - but then feigns shock and dismay when a section of its target market take up the offer to go and try it out for real. None of which absolves anyone from their personal responsibility or the vileness of copying what they see – but it should temper the moral superiority the West is so quick to claim for itself.

2.      THE REJECTION OF WESTERN MORAL RELATIVISM

Now of course, not all the young men heading to Syria & Iraq are just glory hunting sex addicts. As former jihadi Aimen Dean told Radio 4 recently, some go in order to find redemption from those very things – seeking the martyrdom they believe will absolve them of such impurities. For such ISIS then becomes an escape route from what they see as the contaminating effects of Western culture. 

You don’t need to be radically religious to look at the fruit of the moral relativism that now pervades Western societies – family disintegration, sexual unfaithfulness, promiscuity, hedonism, narcissism, materialism, corporate greed, corruption – and to think it’s rotten.

Double standards abound – the case of the three Bethnal Green girls being a case in point. There was great criticism of the police for not directly informing their parents that they had concerns about one of their friends. Instead the police wrote to the girls directly but those letters were never passed on. Yet this is a society whose government would be happy to see those same girls prescribed the Pill or given an abortion without any permission or notification being given to their parents. Yet suddenly the prospect of them being sexually active, even promiscuous, in Syria suddenly becomes a monstrous violation of their innocence.

Many in our political and media elites, however, are so absorbed and self-congratulating about their liberal values they find the idea of dissent almost impossible to compute. So the fact that young Muslims could be attracted to ISIS is explained away as the result of their ignorance of Western values. If only they were educated in ‘British values’ they would see sense, goes the thinking. Hence the pressure to close down ‘faith schools’ and ramp up the secular indoctrination.

What they never seem to comprehend is that many, not just Muslims, in society understand perfectly well the moral relativism of liberal secularism but just don’t like it. The very values so relentlessly promoted by our media and legislated for by politicians are for many not the means of inclusion but of alienation.  

3. SPECKS, PLANKS & THE GOSPEL ALTERNATIVE

Of course ISIS is unspeakably evil and we should thank God every day for the blessings and freedoms of residing in a place like the UK. Equally the moral confusion and hypocrisy of Western society is not responsible for ISIS or its crimes. It is absolutely right to point out the ‘plank of evil’ in Syria & Iraq today – but our Western hubris (dangerous self-serving hubris) is to think our own society is ‘speck free’ (Matthew 7:3-5).

It is a tragedy that so many young men in the UK today are either so corrupted or repulsed by the immorality and double standards around them that ISIS actually has an appeal to them.

The Gospel, however, offers an alternative to such nihilism. In Jesus there is no need for martyrdom as a means of redemption – His own death is sufficient to take away the impurity that defiles us. In His resurrection a new power has been released – the power to free men and women from the tyranny of sin.

Jesus must weep over Syria and Iraq, over its suffering and horrors – but He weeps also over the young men and women enslaved by sin and seeing no hope or joy anywhere else. Syria and Iraq need the Gospel – but so does Yorkshire, Lancashire and everywhere people contend with the simultaneous glorification and guilt of sex and violence.   

Pathways 2015 - Ways Forward

Written for the FIEC Website

Ways Forward

Written by Andy Hunter on 24.02.2015

Andy Hunter reports back from the inaugural Pathways Conference in Scotland.

Article Tags

• Pathways
• Scotland
• Training

“There will be two equally good outcomes from this weekend: One is that you will realise that vocational Christian ministry is not for you, or not for you at this time. That will be a good outcome. The other is that you will realise that vocational Christian ministry is the way forward for you. That is also a good outcome, but not a better one than the first.”

So was introduced the very first Pathways Conference for men and women considering vocational Christian ministry. Held in Glasgow at the end of January, the conference was designed to offer the same kind of help for people in Scotland as has been provided by The Hub Conference in recent years.

Like The Hub, Pathways is intended to be one component of a process in which delegates, in conjunction with their local church leadership, can work out how they might best serve God in their lives. As quoted above, for some that might be a call to full-time or part-time vocational Christian ministry. For others the call to serve God is not any less significant, but will be worked out in the secular workplace.

As a new venture it was especially thrilling to see almost 90 people gathering together for this weekend of teaching, discussion and networking. Delegates came from all parts of Scotland (but also the north of England and Northern Ireland), and from a variety of church backgrounds.

The content

The conference began with Andy Gemmill speaking on the challenges and dangers (including ourselves) to maintaining Gospel-centred ministry. On Saturday, Robin Sydserff took us to Mark’s Gospel to show us the central component of authentic gospel ministry – speaking the Word to people.

Our own Trevor Archer (FIEC Training Director) outlined the character requirements of those suitable to be set aside as Gospel workers. He noted that a bit of realism and honesty at this point can save delegates and churches a lot of grief down the line. The closing session on Sunday was taken by Jeremy McQuoid who gave an inspiring presentation of the cost, responsibilities and privilege of God’s calling from Exodus 4. All of which was supplemented by 15 seminar sessions covering a wide range of ministry issues.

The needs

One emphasis of the conference, both mentioned in the main sessions and included in the seminar programme, was the growing need for workers who can serve bi-vocationally. With so many small, yet strategically important gospel churches, there is a great opportunity for workers who can, at least in part, support themselves financially. If the nation is to be reached, the old expectation that ministry training will lead to a full-time position with a pre-existing congregation needs to be rethought. Those entering ministry in the coming years will need to be much more flexible and creative in how they envisage their arrangements in serving, revitalising and planting churches.

At a time when Christian affiliation in Scotland is even lower than in England, and evangelical Christians are reckoned to make up only 1 or 2% of the population, there is an urgent need for a new generation of gospel workers to be raised up and equipped ‘north of the border’. So it was a huge encouragement to see so many men and women who were prepared to take this time to seriously think through what their own role might be in the great task of making Christ known again to the nation.

The future

The feedback from delegates has been overwhelmingly positive with many reflecting on the unique helpfulness of the conference, especially for those considering ministry from Independent church backgrounds. The Steering Group will be meeting soon to review all aspects of the weekend but the hope, and dare I say expectation, is that Pathways will be back in 2016.

Please give thanks for much answered prayer in seeing this year’s Pathways Conference come to fruition in such an encouraging way. Pray for the delegates as they reflect on the weekend and seek God’s will in their lives going forward, and pray for the Steering Group as they consider the future options for Pathways. Finally, please ask the Lord that He will have mercy on Scotland and send His workers into its harvest fields.

The Pathways Partnership

The initiative for Pathways came from FIEC but, recognising the different church scene in Scotland and the smaller number of FIEC churches there, a wider partnership of some key church leaders and training providers was convened. In order to make the conference as affordable as possible the conference fee was subsidised by financial contributions from FIEC and the JW Laing Trust. It was particularly encouraging that in order to keep costs down all the leaders agreed to pay their own conference fee.

The Training Providers represented were Edinburgh Theological Seminary, Highland Theological College, Faith Mission Bible College, 20Schemes, Tilsley College, Cornhill Training Course Scotland, the Charlotte Chapel Apprenticeship Scheme, and the Chalmers Church Apprenticeship Scheme.

Andy Hunter - FIEC Scotland Director

Before joining FIEC in November 2013, Andy worked for Greenview Church in Glasgow for nine years, prior to which he trained at Oak Hill College in London. He is married to Jessica and they have three children.

Four lessons from Charlie Ebdo

The attack on Charlie Hebdo, including the murder of two police officers, was both a horrible crime and a reprehensible assault on the most basic of freedoms – free speech. However offensive Charlie Hebdo’s publications might have been (and were intended to be) there could never be any basis for such wickedness and violence. The incident has been the subject of wide-ranging debate covering political, security and religious issues.  Many of the problems are longstanding, complex and seemingly intractable – in other words way beyond the capacity of a blog to deal with. There are, however, a number of observations that can be made in reflecting on Charlie Ebdo from a Christian vantage point.

1.       Freedom of Speech is a declaration of Christian faith

Historically Western freedom of expression has often been summed up by Voltaire’s famous maxim: "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.” It is a principle that allows for disagreement, debate and objection – but rejects censorship and repression. Such a premise is really only morally permissible, however, because of the Christian confidence that good ideas will prevail over bad ideas. It is why Christians, who although claiming custody of Truth, can tolerate other points of views - because ultimately they believe God Himself will vindicate that which is right and expose that which is false.

It is thus a hallmark of Biblical faith to leave the final verdict on such matters in the hands of God – ‘the day will declare it’. Insecurity in faith, on the other hand, is typically marked out by the need to attack and coerce opponents into agreement now. As one radio journalist so starkly expressed it when interviewing a militant Islamic leader some years ago, ‘Surely the eternal fires of hell are punishment enough for infidels: why do you need to kill them now?’ It was a question that went to the heart of what real faith convictions look like. Muslim violence, or indeed Christian expressions of vilification, towards faith opponents simply suggests that those perpetrating such acts fear, deep down, that they might not be proved to be right in the end.

So Christians can uphold the freedom of Charlie Ebdo to ridicule and mock religion, not because such actions are commendable, nor because it is the price to be paid to ensure freedom of speech for all – but because defending Charlie Ebdo is a profound declaration that they actually believe in the God they profess.

2.       Secular media hypocrisy

Bryan Barkley expelled from
the Red Cross after 20 years
of volunteering for opposing SSM. 

Much of the secular media on the other hand have demonstrated a deep hypocrisy in this matter.  The reaction of journalists has been shock and outrage at this attack on freedom of speech – feelings heightened of course by being the victim in this instance. The many media expressions of protest against this attempt to intimidate and suppress free speech, are of course quite right, but would have more moral authority if not for their own inconsistency in this area. That is, our ostensibly liberal media have a track record of not defending the right of free speech for those out of step with their own approved viewpoints. We live a country where people have lost their jobs, been demoted and generally bullied for expressing non-violent and moderate opposition to Same Sex Marriage – but we hear of no media consternation at such practises. Indeed it is the fear of negative media comment that often drives and encourages such draconian reactions.

The inconsistency extends to our politicians – Holyrood, which refused to include a respect clause for those with religious and conscience-based reservations on the issue of Same Sex Marriage, has no doubt sent its message of condemnation about this attack on freedom of speech to the French people.

It would be heartening to believe that the media might become champions not just of their own freedom to question and dissent but also of those with non PC views. The likelihood of course is that Charlie Ebdo will quickly become yesterday’s news – and the media will revert back to its previous partiality.

3.       The hellishness of twisted religion

During the Rochdale Child Sex scandal one silhouetted girl described her experiences being trafficked around by the gang using her for sex. She mentioned in the passing that the men gave her crisps, but only Cheese & Onion, as meat flavoured crisps might be non-Halal. It was a detail that revealed the hellishness of twisted religion. The very idea that there might be a god in heaven who would be more concerned about the flavouring in your crisps than about trafficking under-age girls for sex is beyond damnable. Such perversions can happen in any religion of course – sadly Christianity has not been immune from its own distortions. Too often the trappings of Christianity have become more precious to its proponents than its message - its religious robes elevated above righteousness.

Such misuses point to the sinfulness endemic in humanity – a world in which good things are frequently misused for evil purposes (whether medicines, the internet, or indeed free speech). Some will seek to use Charlie Ebdo as the proof that all religions and expressions of Faith are dangerous and nasty; a position no more credible than suggesting the Labour party will inevitability result in Stalinism, or that the RSPCA is just a breeding ground for anti-vivisectionist criminals. The answer of course to all such misuse and extremism is not non-use but correction and right use.

4.      The Contrast of The Cross

It is why the Bible is such a challenging book – because it relentlessly confronts such misuses, starting ‘at home’. Israel was fiercely held to account by the prophets for its misuse of faith, its hypocrisy, its neglect of the poor and its tendency to substitute outward religious observance for loving God and their neighbours. Jesus explicitly banned His followers from using violence in order to defend or promote Him (Matthew 26:52). Those who follow Jesus are to be those who love their enemies and who bless those who curse them. The New Testament makes it painfully clear that Christianity is not a faith for those seeking worldly power, advancement or status: rather it is a faith most fully expressed in weakness, turning the other cheek and putting others first.

 

The glory of Christianity is that at its centre is one whose response to His enemies – to those who abused him, mocked him, slandered him – was not retaliation but to lay his life down for them. Even on the Cross, his response to his executioners was to pray that they might be forgiven. Despite His innocence, and even his divinity, he was content to entrust himself to the one who judges righteously (1 Peter 2:23).

The final word on all the issues surrounding Charlie Ebdo is still to be pronounced and it will be God’s – who knows all hearts, all truth, and judges with absolute justice. For now it stands as a warning against insecure faith, double standards and twisted religion. But it also points us to the astonishing grace and wonder of the Gospel – a man dying for his foes that they might be blessed. 

God's love: unfathomable not perverse

Hogmanay Message at Greenview EC 

⁶ You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

⁹ Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! ¹⁰ For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! ¹¹ Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Romans 5

Insecurity

2014, like every year before it, proved again that the only certainty in this world is that life is fragile. Whether Ebola, terrorism, war, getting on a plane, playing cricket or just going Christmas shopping in Glasgow – in a moment, out of nowhere, lives can be turned upside down. Hopes, dreams and plans snatched away.

We hate uncertainty – it’s debilitating, at worst paralysing. It’s why as individuals and as a society we invest hugely in order to eradicate it and guard against it. Some of those efforts are good and constructive – Health & Safety, Insurance. Some are just futile and wasteful – checking a horoscope or buying a Lottery ticket. Either way underpinning all such attempts is the deep human desire to find security, and to base our lives on something dependable.

This is no less true spiritually – although for most people that is a ‘hole’ the try to fill with all the wrong stuff. A deep spiritual emptiness won’t be filled with material possessions any more than a sieve will be filled with water. However, even for the Christian the reassurance of spiritual security (i.e. the deep confidence of being at peace with God, forgiven and under His loving care) can be lacking. Sadly, all too often the experience of Christians is one of doubt, worry and fear in their sense of spiritual well-being.

Rolling back the years

You see when a person becomes a Christian – that is, recognises their sin and need to be forgiven, recognises that Jesus is the Son of God who on the Cross made forgiveness possible, recognises that they need to say sorry to God and put their life back where it should always have been, under God’s rule – it is typically an experience of joy. There is the excitement of being a friend of God now. There is relief that a fresh start in life has been granted - a chance to do things God’s way and leave the floundering of the past behind.

But the years pass and some of the old sinful traits and behaviours can seem hard to shake off. Faith inevitably begins to feel familiar rather than fresh. A strange thing happens: you start to become even more sensitive and aware of your sinful inadequacies – so rather than receding over time your failures seem all the more inexcusable and damming. Subtly and stealthily joy gets replaced with anxiety, confidence with introspection, and hope with fear. The Christian walk once so invigorating, morphs into the uneasy sensation of straining God’s goodwill and tiptoeing along the edge of His rejection.  

Non-deductible love

It is the scenario for which Romans 5 was written. The reminder of God’s non-deductible love. It is the reminder that God knows every one of your sins and failures even better than you do. He even knows about the sins you haven’t yet clocked onto – those attitudes and perceptions that you are think are fine and normal but actually leave much to be desired. He knows you fall far short of the person he saved you in Christ to be. He knows all your nonsense – all of it.

But you know what, even when it was far worse than that, far worse than it is now – He loved you. He loved you when you cared not to give God any great honour in your life. He loved you when you had no real care or concern about Jesus.  He loved you when sin was easy and failure and faithfulness caused you no great worry. You see, while we were still sinners (that is, not saints – not Christians) Christ died for us (v6).

This is remarkable – we might put ourselves on the line for a friend or a nice guy. But Jesus gave up His life for the intransigent, the hard-hearted and the utterly ungrateful. He didn’t wait for signs of improvement, for a bit of appreciation or even to be asked. He loved them so much He sacrificed Himself for them when none of the above were ‘on the table’.

This great assurance of these verses is this: now you’ve been saved, now you are a follower of Jesus Christ – albeit an ever so imperfect one; now that sin does bother you; now you are grateful to God and thankful for His grace; now that you at least try and make an effort to please him some of the time and wish you were someone who did all of the time – do you think that God will now love you less?

Unfathomable not perverse

God’s love for us is unfathomable – but it’s not perverse. He isn’t going to love you less for caring a bit as opposed to not caring at all!

If Jesus died to open up the way for you to be forgiven, changed and saved – do you think having gone through that, and having begun His work in you, there is any chance that He will now get fed up with you and turn frosty?

The Cross is the great historical and tangible proof that you can never be too much of a failure, too much of a loser, or too great a sinner for God to love you. Because the hope of the Gospel is not in us now – but in Jesus then, now and forever. Whatever happens in 2015, God’s love in Jesus, for those trusting in Him, is certain. This truth about God’s love is the ultimate security – the bond and relationship that nothing can sever.

It is a reality to give us confidence – to allow us to enjoy our blessings, use our gifts and celebrate our faith. It tells us to leave our sins and failures where they belong – at the Cross. It is the invitation to live as free men & women – liberated, hopeful and confident that God is for us and will be with us no matter what.  

³¹ What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?³³ Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶ As it is written:

‘For your sake we face death all day long;
    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8 (NIV)

2015 Policy Review

Isaiah 7

Ahaz came of age in a time of uncertainty, rumours and threats. His little Kingdom, like a cork on the sea, seemed to be at the mercy of forces far beyond his control. Over the horizon lay the mega-power of Assyria – the military monster poised to have nations like Judah for breakfast. Around him were the other small powers, all in a flap and desperately trying to figure out ways to escape Assyria’s clutches. Two of them, Israel and Aram, had teamed up in the face of their shared enemy.

For Judah this was a galling development – Israel, part of God’s covenant people, Judah’s own flesh and blood, was now in league with idolaters in order to save its skin. Ahaz now faced the consequences as Israel and Aram turned on him – Israel’s policy of anti-Assyrian co-belligerence had a sting in the tail! Judah was panic-stricken by these developments (v2).  But in the midst of the crisis God speaks. Isaiah is told to take his son and meet Ahaz as he inspects the siege facilities (v3).

The message is simple: the threats faced are not to be feared – not that Israel and Aram were imaginary or couldn't have the power to harm – but they were not the final word. They were not the masters of Judah’s fate. The ‘Sovereign Lord’ is speaking now (v7) – that is, the Lord who controls everything: politics, the weather, the outcomes of battles, even the very heartbeat of kings.

So… Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. (v4).

Be careful – the temptation is to meet threat with threat, scheming with scheming, unholy alliance with unholy alliance – to match human might and ability with dependence on your own. In other words, Ahaz, your hope is not in being stronger, smarter or quicker than your adversaries – but in the Sovereign Lord. 

In 1940 Britain teetered before the greatest threat to its ongoing way of life it had ever faced. The military monster of Nazi Germany had eaten up the European continent and looked set to invade a massively out-gunned Britain. Churchill, on becoming Prime Minister that May, gave one of his most famous speeches to the House of Commons. In it he said: ‘You ask, what is our policy?  It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us…You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: victory; victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be.' It was a call to arms and a declaration of Britain’s refusal to falter despite the seemingly impossible odds.  

For Ahaz and Judah – God’s call was not to arms but to Faith. 

If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all. (v9)

If Ahaz were to address the nation that day – he should make it clear that his policy, in the hour of crisis, was ‘Faith’. Faith on all fronts, faith with every ounce of strength and every breath that God gave him. Sadly however, for many, including Ahaz, faith just seems too ethereal to hang their hopes on. The nuts and bolts of hardware, the promises of others, cash in hand, good marketing - all seem much more useful and substantial. But the Word of God is unambiguous: If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.

In a world where everything in our lives can be swept away in a moment, where there is nothing in that can be guaranteed – hear the word of the Lord - the only sure policy is ‘Faith’. That is, faith in God - who cannot be overcome, who cannot be thwarted. Faith in God - who can be trusted, who knows and cares about you. Faith in the God who is good.

Grounds for Faith

So good, that He gives us grounds for faith – the provision of a sign to bolster weak faith and to give people confidence to ‘stand firm’ in it.  Ahaz is offered a sign (v10) – a token of God’s reliability if He is trusted. Astonishingly Ahaz refuses – his mock piety a cover for faithlessness (v12). Ahaz will do his own thing, thanks very much! It was a decision that could only lead to ruin (v17), he became the fulfilment of Isaiah’s warning – by not standing firm in faith he very simply would not stand at all.

In his abounding grace God nevertheless gave the sign – the sign of a virgin who would bear a son called Immanuel (v14). It was a promise that in the centuries ahead would be a lifeline to Judah and Israel – the promise that deliverance would come, that God would rescue His people, and a Kingdom of peace and justice would be established upon the earth. It was the sign made good at Bethlehem – the sign that the God and Father of Jesus Christ is trustworthy, faithful and to be believed.

2015

Where will you look for help, protection and deliverance as you face your fears in the coming year - whether social, financial, medical, vocational, spiritual…? What will be your policy for 2015? Make it faith – faith on all fronts and in all circumstances. Because only faith will lead to ultimate victory - the defeat of sin and death - and the glory yet to be revealed in us. 

This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. (1 John 5:4)

Ask the God and Father of Jesus Christ to give you the strength not to falter in faith however great the odds against you might seem. Faith is the ultimate practical policy because only those who stand in faith will stand at all.

Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. (1 John 5:5) 

The hate that Jesus rebukes

New blog on Christian Today...



Why a New Zealand pastor's attack on a gay author was so wrong.