Monday PrayerCast – 21st March 2022
News and Prayer Update.
It’s Monday morning, 21st March 2022, so welcome to our weekly NI News and Prayer Update – a very brief look at the news, as it affects the church here, with some suggestions for prayer.
Ok. Let’s begin with
Ukraine.
Do keep praying for Ukraine, for the aid efforts among those fleeing over the borders, and especially for the Christian Churches there. Bear in mind that Ukraine is not a perfect democracy, and that many of the paramilitary, Neo-nazi groups there, like the notorious Azov Battalions, have now been armed to the teeth with western weaponry. In NI, we know exactly what happens when paramilitary forces are armed by foreign governments. They turn on their own people and use their new found military might to increase their criminal activities. The ordinary people of Ukraine, the decent hard working people who live in the cities and the country will need our prayers in the days ahead, even when the present conflict ends.
The Assembly of the Wicked.
The NI Assembly at Stormont, AKA “the Assembly of the Wicked” had the second confirmatory reading of the “Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Bill” last Monday, the 13th March. Again, the motion passed, with 57 MLA’s voting for the bill, and 28 against. This is the bill that will criminalise Christians who offer prayer, help, and support for women who attend abortion clinics to have their children killed in the womb. The bill will not only deprive Christians of a valuable opportunity to share the good news and offer help to young mothers in turmoil and difficulty, it will criminalise those that proclaim God’s love to mothers and babies, and will deprive many of these women with a last opportunity to think about what they are doing, and the lifetime of guilt and regret that can follow. In the days leading up to this second reading, many Christians have been lobbying professing Christian members of the Ulster Unionist Party. If just two of those members had been prepared to obey God, rather than man, – or rather – a man – their party leader, they could have joined with the other anti-abortion MLA’s to sign a ‘Petition of Concern’ which would halt the Bill in its tracks. There are MLAs who are members of evangelical churches, Presbyterian elders, who voted FOR the Bill. One wonders what their pastors think of them, and what Christian teaching they are receiving in their local churches. The psalmist, in Psalm 1:1-2, Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful; 2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
The final reading will of the bill will be tomorrow, Tuesday22nd and that will pass this Bill into law. Pray that God will give these MLA’s the courage to be like the Hebrew lads of the book of Daniel, who refused to bow the idolatrous image of the king of the land. Pray that the bill will fail.
The House of Lords
On Wednesday 16th March, Lord Forsyth’s assisted suicide amendment was defeated in the House of Lords by 179 votes to 145. No doubt will be a major upset for the assisted suicide lobby who were expecting to win that vote. They’ll be back though. Keep praying.
The United States of America.
Now, just when I thought I’d the script for this podcast finished, the American president, Joe Biden pulled a rabbit out of the hat! What a man! Last Thursday was St Patrick’s Day, when all the really important Oirish people go the home of Oirishness… WASHINGTON DC. They were all there and the big event of the day was the shamrock ceremony where Irish Joe gets presented with a bowl of shamrock by a real Irishman, from Ireland, except that it couldn’t be done, because the real Irishman had COVID. Anyway, a video of Joe appeared later on Twitter, and there he was, with his sprig of shamrock on his lapel, and Joe saying, “I may be Irish, but I’m not stupid!” What an insult to the very people and culture he was supposed to be celebrating, – to imply that people from Ireland are stupid! Actually, I don’t really blame Joe Biden. I think the man is ill; I think he really needs to be in a care home, certainly not in the White House. The blame lies with the people who elected him, and the faceless people who are manipulating him behind the scenes, and manipulating far more than him. What a thought – the leader of the free world is clearly senile. God help us and preserve us all from these conniving merciless, ruthless people.
On an even more sinister note, this year Lia Thomas has won the highest US national college swimming title winning the women’s 500-yard freestyle. Except that Lia Thomas is a man, – William Thomas. A man with 15% more muscle mass and 15% more lung capacity than a woman. People are asking why the real female athletes didn’t boycott the race – but in the American college system, scholarships depend on participation in sport, but the girls who won the second third and fourth place did make a stand, – actually standing together, and apart from the man who unfairly beat them, for a photo-call.
Today’s Grace Gem Is from A W Pink. He wonders, – Why is it that even among those who profess to be the Lord’s people, that there is so little real subjection to His Word, and that its precepts are so lightly esteemed and so readily set aside? Today, it is not just AS W Pink who wonders that! When we see professing Christians having little regard for the precepts of God, we ask, have they forgotten that the God we serve expects us to obey him, to honour him, to fear the Lord?
Pink again,
Ah! what needs to be stressed today, is that God is a God to be feared!
Happy is the person who has been awed by a view of God’s majesty, who has had a vision of . . .
God’s unutterable greatness,
His ineffable holiness,
His perfect righteousness,
His irresistible power,
His sovereign grace!
Time was, when it was the general custom to speak of a believer as “a God-fearing man”. That such an appellation has become extinct, only serves to show where we have drifted. Nevertheless, it still stands written, “Like as a father pities His children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him!” Psalm 103:13.
Find more like that on GraceGems.org
That’s it for today. If you have any news from NI, that you’d like included – I can’t include everything – email me, bob@bobmcevoy.co.uk. This week on the podcast, join me tomorrow (Tuesday) for Catechism Class, going live on Spotify at 1pm, and shortly after, on the other Podcast platforms. Then on Thursday, a lecture on the modern philosophy of Malthusianism, – a talk that I gave at Templepatrick Reformed Church last Friday evening, – and on Saturday morning a sermon from the Book of Acts series.
That’s all for now! Don’t give up, – lift up your head! Don’t be discouraged, – let’s keep watching, and keep praying, and keep believing in our Sovereign Lord, who overrules everything in the universe.
The Salty Scrivener 