Dear Praying Friends,
Since our last newsletter another busy ‘ministry trip’ has passed into history. The conferences and meetings involving Rob Zins, Mike Gendron, Stephen Murphy and myself took place against a backdrop of great ‘national’ uncertainty. ‘Foot and mouth’ was uppermost in the minds of the vast majority of people as we travelled around the British Isles. In England in particular the media focussed much on this virus and the desperation to find a cure for the problem has at times reached fever pitch. No one really seems sure as to the right way to deal with the problem. Government ministers, medical experts and farmers leaders have all had an opinion [usually differing] to express. The last thing that any of them might consider is that the God of Heaven is passing judgment on the spiritual bankruptcy of the nation. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury in his Easter ‘message’ dismissed any notion of that sort – but then he would with his single-faceted ‘God of love’. In 1865 in the midst of a similar outbreak of ‘foot and mouth’ J C Ryle, Bishop of Liverpool wrote a little booklet entitled ‘The Finger of God’. In it he listed 7 national sins [all still relevant today] and went on to conclude ‘I believe firmly that these things are crying to God against England. They are an offence against the King of Kings, for which He is punishing us this very day. And the rod He is using is the cattle plague. The ‘finger of God’ I believe is pointing at our seven great national sins’. Oh that God might raise up another generation of J C Ryles!