Turn to
JesusTurn to
JesusIn previous times, we aimed to be a Christian country. Since the second world war, we have turned our back on God in many ways as a nation, and we are now seeing the fruit of that.
One example that came to my attention when the pandemic started is abortion. This is the shedding of innocent blood (James 5:6). The 1967 Abortion Act removed the right to life for children in the womb who were not yet twenty-four weeks old. Since then, nine million abortions have been carried out in the UK. Last year, it is reckoned that a quarter of all UK pregnancies ended in abortion. By the time women are 45 years old in our country, a third will have had abortions. In January to March 2020 there are estimated to have been nine million abortions world wide. See here for more and how I was almost aborted.
We have lost the idea of the sanctity of life. Is this how God wants his people to live?
Or take what we have done to marriage. At the creation, we were told that a man leaves his father and mother and is united with his wife to become one flesh (Genesis 2:24). This was repeated by Paul and by Jesus, who added the words "What God has joined together let not man divide." But our generation has abused this teaching so much that half of our marriages now end in divorce. It is not right. Of those couples that live together without marrying, only one in nine will still be together when one of them dies, we are told.
Or take the advice from Paul that the love of money is the root of all evil, or the root of all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6:10). Our generation has ignored that and made the pursuit of wealth a goal to be honoured. Small wonder we have had the fruit of this - "Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs (Verse 11)."
What pleases and displeases God is best learned from the Bible. One example is observing the sabbath day, having a day of rest one day in seven. He is very keen that we should have a day off, and personally I wouldn't give up a day off for anything, but since 1994, our country has yielded to the pressure for seven day trading. This has forced the poor and disadvantaged to work while the rest of us take advantage of them by shopping. A friend of mine died in his fifties from working seven days a week with no holidays for several years, which I found very sad. See here for more on this, and how long our current sabbath rest at home, as I call it, might last.
I could multiply examples, but these are enough. Consider the fruits of our ways. Mental health problems have exploded in our country. Our prisons are overflowing. It is reported that a third of teenage girls in our country self harm. Suicide has become frequent, especially among young men. Something has gone badly wrong.
How did we get to this place? I believe that as a nation we have been telling God to push off, and being the gentleman that he is, he has done so, allowing the devil to have a field day. It's time to repent, have a change of mind and heart, to use the biblical word.
This increase in sorrow is what the Bible predicts for those who run after other gods, i.e. people who make something other than the living God the centre of their attention (Psalm 16:4).
If you don't agree with my analysis and think we are doing fine, or don't think that you have any bad ways to turn from, then thank you for visiting this web site and best wishes for your life. But my belief is that we need to fess up as individuals and seek God as a nation and turn back to Jesus, who said "The thief comes only to steal to kill and to destroy. I have come so that they may have life in all its fullness (John 10:10)." It's time to choose Jesus rather than let our happiness be stolen from us.