Pencil Portrait of John Calvin

This year marks the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth.

One of the teachers in our Christian school in Newtownabbey has drawn a A3 Pencil Portrait of John Calvin.

Copies of this Pencil Portrait are available to anyone wishing to purchase them with the proceeds after costs going towards the work of our School.

The prices are:

A3 Print + single Mount
£ 18.00/US$ 27.00/ Can$ 33.00 + p&p

A4 Print + single Mount
£ 12.00/US$ 18.00/Can$ 22.00 + p&p

A5 Print + single Mount
£ 8.00/US$ 12.00/Can$ 15.00 + p&p


We are also offering the possibility of getting the A3 Print + Double Mount framed [50 mm black frame].

The cost for framing a A3 print & Double Mount would be £55.00 in total. The smaller sizes can be framed as well with single mounts.

There is also the possibility of a few original drawings [signed and dated] done on a first come, first served basis as there is considerable work in this [about 3 days].

The cost of an original would be £75.00 for the drawing + double mounting & framing which would cost another £45.00. £120.00 in total.

If anyone is interested please contact me.

Soul Winners' Convention

Newtownabbey
Free Presbyterian Church

Ballyclare Road, Corrs Corner, Glengormley

Soul Winners' Convention

Saturday 19th April 7.30 pm

Missionary report by Miss Joanne Greer
on her recent trip to Liberia

Preacher: Rev William McDermott [Moneyslane FPC]

Offering for Whitefield College of the Bible

Supper will be served

Lord's Day 20th April

11.30 am Preacher: Rev Ian Brown [Londonderry FPC]
7.00 pm Preacher: Rev Jonathan Creane [Convoy FPC]

All welcome For further details Tel 9083 5942

… the night cometh, when no man can work. John 9:4.

Special series marking the 150th anniversary of the 1859 Revival

Newtownabbey Free Presbyterian Church

First Lord's Day of each month January - June 2009
at 7.00 pm

Preacher: Rev Brian McClung

January
The Need of the Revival

February
The Origin of the Revival

March
The Spread of the Revival

April
The Features of the Revival

May
The Impact of the Revival

June
The Heritage of the Revival

The Newtownabbey Times carries my criticism of cross community carol service

The Newtownabbey Times has finally carried a much watered down article outlining my criticism of the cross community carol service which took place in Glengormley Methodist Church. I had initially written a letter which they have not published but only quoted a few lines.

They evidently don't want to rock the ecumenical boat too much!

The 1859 Revival preceded by a banking collapse

It became known as 'The Bank Panic of 1857'.

Prior to the third Great Awakening in America in 1857-58 there was a collapse of the banking system in America that also spread to Europe. Due to the long, hard winter of 1856-1857, transportation and trade transactions were delayed. The spring of 1857 brought some relief, but by the end of summer, businesses had begun to collapse. Before September 1857, the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company of Cincinnati, with a branch in New York City collapsed causing panic.

Some banks refused to redeem their promissory notes, while others suspended operations altogether, including eighteen of New York City's leading banks. On 14th October, 1857, the extensive banking system of the United States collapsed bringing ruin to hundreds of thousands of people in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and the industrial centres of the nation.

The Panic caused rich men to go broke literally overnight. Suicide and murder increased, and people roamed the streets of the cities destitute.

May there be a parallel with our times and 1857 in more than just a banking crisis. May the Revival that followed this banking crisis in America and which came across to Ireland come again in the aftermath of the financial crisis that is presently being experienced in 2009.

Letter sent out from the General Assembly in 1858 on the subject of Revival

Due to the news of the Great Awakening in America 1857-1858 and the initial stirrings of the Holy Spirit in the district of Connor in 1858 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church discussed the subject of Revival when they met in Londonderry in June 1858.

As a follow up a pastoral letter was sent to every minister, elder and member. It is well worth reading as it contains a challenge to each individual to personally seek for Revival. True Revival is more than the conversion of the lost. It is the putting right of matters among the professing people of God.

Here is a short extract from that letter:

What then are we to do? How are we to seek an awakening among ourselves? Not certainly by mere imitation of the American meetings; not by any mechanical process of new and laborious measures, productive of little else than a transient and barren excitement; not by any instrumentality apart from individual consecration of the heart and life unto God.

Dear Brethren, if you really wish to see a solid permanent work of God advancing amongst us, begin with your own souls. Seek a revival there. When you complain as sometimes you do, of the low state of the church, you are generally disposed to look away from home for an explanation. You are prone to find fault with ministers and elders with the Synods and Assemblies. You seldom think of estimating your own particular share in the amount of the our general delinquency. Let every member of the Church put away the beam from his own eye, and then shall he see clearly to take the mote from his brother's eye.

Again look to the state of religion in your own households. What have you to say of family prayer? Of family catechising? Of your efforts to bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Put away the strange gods that are among you, if you would be prepared to meet and to hold communion with the Lord.

Further, consider that as members of the Church you are sacramentally pledged to be fellow-labourers in Christ for the emancipation of your fellow-countrymen from the bondage of Satan and of sin, and for the establishment of the kingdom of God over the whole earth… Beloved brethren, we have much to do in our own hearts, much to do in our own homes, much to do in our own Church, much to do in our own country. Let us regard these as our primary duty.

May the Lord indeed help us to take heed to ourselves!

New Testament teaching on Separation from Apostasy

In the New Testament the term ‘apostasy’ comes from a word which means ‘a falling away’. It is found in 1 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition. The same word is also used by the Jews when mistakenly accusing Paul of forsaking the teaching of Moses in Acts 21:21 And they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs.

‘Apostasy’ is the term used to describe a revolt against and a departure from the truth of God. The use of the word in Acts 21:21 shows that it properly describes a forsaking of the great truths of the written Word. The written Word of God and nothing else constitutes the faith once delivered to the saints. We are warned in Scripture that there will come a falling away from the truth of God as the return of Jesus Christ approaches. The love of many shall wax cold!

The question to be addressed is: what is to be the Christian’s attitude to this falling away? We have the answer in the written Word of God.

1. We are to mark out those who depart from the faith. Romans 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. The Christian is to measure up all that they hear taught against the infallible standard of the Bible.

2. We are to reprove them. Ephesians 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. The child of God is not to remain silent and complicit with error, they are to speak out against the error, reproving those who teach it.

3. We are to reject them. Titus 3:10 A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject. If there is no turning from error after repeated counsel then we must reject those who teach the error.

4. We are to have no fellowship with them. 2 Corinthians 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? We cannot remain in fellowship with any who teach error.

5. We are to separate from them. 2 Corinthians 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. Not being able to fellowship with them we must part company from them and join a Church that does hold to the faith once delivered to the saints.

Update - The Bible also teaches Secondary Separation, that is, it requires the Bible believer to separate from other believers who are walking disorderly: Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us.…And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother, 2 Thess 3:6,14,15.

Ecumenism in Glengormley

The Newtownabbey Times has reported on the Community Carol Service which took place in Glengormley Methodist Church during December. This event is in its third year and 'rotates around the four Glengormley Churches annually, under the auspices of the Glengormley Clergy Fellowship'.

Invited guests include local retailers, representatives from local community groups and schools, as well as the Mayor of Newtownabbey, Alderman Victor Robinson, the Mayoress and local councillors. Taking part in the service was: Rev Mervyn Kilpatrick of the Methodist Church; Rev David Brice from Glengormley Presbyterian; Rev William Boyce from St Brigid's Church of Ireland; and 'Father' Dan Whyte of St Bernard's Roman Catholic Church.

This event further highlights the gross apostasy of the mainline Churches which can conduct joint worship with a Roman Catholic priest. A letter was sent to the Newtownabbey Times pointing this out:

The ecumenical spirit on display at the Community Carol Service in Glengormley is a sad betrayal of the Gospel of Jesus Christ by those Protestant ministers who joined with and permitted a Roman Catholic priest to participate. 

Romanism is not Christian therefore no Romish priest should be taking part in any service in a Protestant Church. The doctrinal statements of the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church, as well as the teachings of John Wesley which forms the basis for the doctrinal beliefs of Methodism, clearly emphasis this. 

God can only be properly worshipped on the basis of truth, John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. There can be no common ground between Romanism and Biblical Protestantism. 

The 'Christ' that Romanism preaches is one totally different to that revealed to us in the Word of God. It is not possible for these so called Protestant ministers to profess allegiance to the Saviour and the Bible and at the same time associate with one who openly denies the Christ of the Bible. Romanism preaches another Christ and 'another Gospel' which will not save anyone, Gal 1:6-9. 

Sadly we live in times when great departure from historic orthodox Christianity has taken place. These Protestant ministers are part of that growing departure, 2 Thess 2:3. 

Born again believers should have no part in such a service and also have no association with those who betray the Gospel in this fashion. 

We are commanded in the New Testament to mark out those who have departed from the faith, Rom 16:17; reprove and reject them, Eph 5:11, Titus 3:10; have no fellowship with them, 2 Cor 6;14 and separate wholly from them, 2 Cor 6:17. That was evidently not happening at the community carol service. 

May in this year that marks the 150th anniversary of the 1859 Revival we see a return to Biblical Christianity.

The Sound of an Alarm

During the ministry of Rev Ivan Foster in Whiteabbey Free Presbyterian Church in the mid 1960s a church magazine was commenced entitled 'The Sound of an Alarm'. The words of the title were taken from the Book of Joel 2:1: Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand. Its purpose was to be a witness in the area among those who could not come in under the sound of the gospel; and also to challenge the apostasy as some of the local papers refused to carry articles critical of the departure from God's word prevalent in the mainline Churches. Copies of some originals still remain.

It is the desire to recommence that witness in the form of a personal blog. May the Lord be honoured in all that is written in the days to come in His will.