What seems permanent, is not.

Posted on 28 November 2025 by Peter

One year ago, I had a dream. I was staying in a house, and exploring the local area. The neighbourhood looked normal, houses, trees, cars, all the standard trappings of life – a pleasant environment. But at some point I became aware that this land was hollowed out, completely undermined.

Beneath the surface layers there were gaping chasms. What pinned the surface to the bedrock was eroded away, and there was precious little remaining to retain stability; collapse could happen at any moment.

That moved on to seeing the whole landscape starting to shift. First gradually shifting, little rockfalls, houses becoming akilter, rocks damaging cars. And then the sense that all was about to give way. To borrow the metaphor – first gradually, then suddenly.

So many of the structures, organisations, and buttresses in our society are now weakened and hollowed out. Failing in their duty to underpin and provide anchor point stability. The church is not immune from this. So much has shallow roots, and is ready to slide with the rest, rather than being rooted down deep – which was the first vision I received for this ministry more than 20 years ago.

When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?
Ps 11v3

What indeed? Jesus tells us:

‘Everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.’
Mark 9:49-50

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God
Micah 6:8

Save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear – hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh
Jude 1:23

‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
Matthew 22:37

He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.’
Psalm 46:10

Five months ago, I had a variation of the same dream. I was staying in a house on the side of a hill. Further up the hill were two more houses. Suddenly a rockfall took them both and collapsed them. I watched, saddened, but it was like watching something happening far away from me, like a disaster you see on the news. But then the picture shifted, and I noticed the little rockfalls starting closer to my house. I realised then the danger, and that I needed to leave, even if nothing had really happened where I was…yet. The last picture I had was something akin to an exodus, a line of cars leading out through a town.

I’ve been sitting on these for a while, but felt now is the right time to post them. So, what could it mean? First, to be aware that so much that seems permanent, that has been here ‘forever’, really isn’t and will not be. That our real taproot is Jesus. In no other place can security be found. Also that nothing that was, is, or will be, is unknown to God. He already sees the future, and if we abide in Him, we need not fear. Indeed, if we are rooted in him, our feet on the solid rock of Christ, we may yet save the lost as they sweep past. But only if we ourselves are not caught in that raging torrent, when all we cling to disappears like mirages. Only if we are anchored to the One who will never be uprooted.

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Hope

Posted on 18 October 2025 by Peter

Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Romans 5 v2-5

Every so often I come back to the theme of hope. Not the anemic hope that the world offers – fleeting and insubstantial. But the one that is true, lasting, and shines through whatever circumstances we face. The hope that is within us, carried in these jars of clay, given substance and life by the One who loves us, who drew us out of the pit of our own despair into His perfect light.

We have no more need to try harder. To do more. To build a world where we are our own gods, as if we could ever build the palaces of our own happiness.

No, all that came to an end with the words “It is Finished“. The sacrifice, once for all, was made. The darkness that clouds our eyes, hiding God, was once and for all swept away. And nothing has been the same since.

So when the world whispers to you, ‘no hope’, whisper back, ‘Jesus is my hope’. That is the one hope that will never fail.

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The full gospel

Posted on 22 August 2025 by Peter

Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!
1 Corinthians 9:16b

We live in a desert, the land parched dry. We have so much materially, even the poor amongst us are rich by historical standards. But we are not rich where it counts. We are parched dry, having almost forgotten what true water even tastes like.

We live in the barren bones of a society formed in more fertile times. Dry, dead, and mostly insensate. Distracted by vain things . Small things we have built our lives around. Souls that have eternal value, reduced to grubbing around in the dust, dead people simply existing.

We have truly lost the source of living water, Jesus himself. And the Church herself bears much of the blame.

For so many of us, we are peddling a false gospel, or a half gospel, shorn of the power to save. Like an inoculation to protect us from the real thing.

Because if the key is to save, then save from what? We instinctively shy away from the implication. Too risky, we may offend somebody. Let’s just talk about the Jesus who loves us. Let’s not inquire too closely what that love actually looks like.

Let us never mention hell. It’s unpleasant. People may think we are mean and judgmental. It’s not something for polite conversation.

And as we do so, we rob the gospel of its power. We preach a neutered Gospel, inoffensive and powerless. We offend no-one, and attract no-one.

What if instead we were to preach that hell is real? What if we were to let the cat out of the bag, and let people know that Jesus came to save us from something, not just to something?

Can you imagine any preacher now preaching as Jonathan Edwards did?

Now God stands ready to pity you; this is a day of mercy; you may cry now with some encouragement of obtaining mercy. But when once the day of mercy is past, your most lamentable and dolorous cries and shrieks will be in vain; you will be wholly lost and thrown away of God, as to any regard to your welfare.

Um, no. That just isn’t seeker-friendly is it? Let’s catch our flies with honey rather than with vinegar. And then we wonder why so many in our church are biblically illiterate.

It isn’t love to neuter the Gospel. It is cowardice. Oh that the Lord would send a generation of preachers who have no fear of mankind, no desire to keep the peace, but the fire to give people the bitter medicine that our souls require!

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Life or Death

Posted on 21 June 2025 by Peter

Recently MPs voted to decriminalise abortion in the UK. The image used in that article is striking, more profound than perhaps was intended. When I looked at it, all I could see was this:

See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. 

But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them,  I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Life in one hand, death in the other. And sadly, we still choose death. Our country is so off base it seems we no longer know which is which. This is still the verdict: Light has come into the world, but we love darkness instead of light because our deeds are evil.

And as I write this, the death dealers have chosen to end the frail and aged as well, in the same way as as they chose to snuff out the life of the unborn.

This is the time for the Church, the true Church, to stand up. Satan would choose to paint this country in the greys and beiges of evil. We have a better palette – in the light of Christ, we can paint in vibrant beauty a picture that will give hope to the hopeless, value to those who feel they have no value, purpose to the purposeless.

If we will stand up, and not seek to camouflage ourself in the same dismal rainment, hiding away in timidity and fear. The nation needs prophetic voices, unencumbered by the need to dissemble, as if light had some kind of fellowship with darkness.

Sing praises to the Lord, enthroned in Zion; proclaim amongst the nations what He has done. For He who avenges blood remembers; he does not ignore the cry of the afflicted.
…
The nations have fallen into the pit they have dug; their feet are caught in the net they have hidden. The Lord is known by his justice; the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands.

The wicked return to the grave, all the nations that forget God. But the needy will not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the afflicted ever perish.

Arise, O Lord, let not man triumph; let the nations be judged in your presence. Strike them with terror, o Lord; let the nations know they are but men.
Psalm 9 v11-20

This is the judgment that is on us. Only those in Christ will remain; not in their own strength but in His.

Though it is not as if we require a massive judgment of God, for we are the self-executors of our own judgment. The tree is rotten to the core, and cannot stand.

We don’t just need a quiet revival, we need a burning down of Holy fire to eviscerate the haunts of darkness enveloping this land. And the truth is, one way or another, He will do this. There is no darkness so deep, no blackness so thick and cloying, that the light of Christ cannot pierce.

But to some that piercing will be joy, to others despair. There is no middle ground, there never has been.

Now is the day to choose – life in all its fulness, or death and destruction. And the Lord still says: choose life, that it may go well with your soul.

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Which Jesus?

Posted on 13 June 2025 by Peter

‘I baptise you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing-floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’

Matthew 2 v11-12

This is not the gentle Jesus, meek and mild – sanitised, an insipid god, safe for all. But the all-powerful One, who sits above all thrones and dominions, and in time will gather all into His threshing halls, the chaff separated from the wheat – for all time.

He is the kindest one, the most faithful friend, the most Holy one, burning with unquenchable fire. The great I AM. Before all things, containing all things, surpassing all things.

We take Him lightly at our peril. He is more real and more immediate than the sum of our time-bound reality – the star burning at the centre of the universe, and within every cell of our bodies.

He will not be denied, and on His day every knee shall bow and acknowledge Him as King.

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The gift of the Cross

Posted on 18 April 2025 by Peter

‘As I looked, thrones were set in place,
    and the Ancient of Days took his seat.
His clothing was as white as snow;
    the hair of his head was white like wool.
His throne was flaming with fire,
    and its wheels were all ablaze.
 A river of fire was flowing,
    coming out from before him.
Thousands upon thousands attended him;
    ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.
The court was seated,
    and the books were opened.
Daniel 7 v9-10

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
Galatians 4 v4-7

We, who see dimly through the lens of our humanity and preconceptions, how are we to really understand the height, the depth, the breadth and the substance of this gift? We hear the words of salvation, repeating them every Sunday, losing the absolutely transcendent awe that this would invoke in us, were we able to encompass even a part.

God, the Holy one, the one clothed in flames and light, the one who, if we to catch even a glimpse, would be our undoing. The bright morning star, the beginning, the end, in whom all things were created and in whom they hold together. The one whose righteous judgments should make us tremble. The great I Am.

The one who then stooped down. Became one of us. You have heard the words before. But the meaning is deeper than the grave, and higher than the heavens. The One who rent the dividing screen in two, ripped it apart, tore it away. This One. By whom we can, miracle of miracles, walk through to the very throne of the Holy of Holies and call Him…Daddy.

Is that not the craziest story ever? How could such a thing be? It cannot be encompassed. But if we are to take Jesus in any way seriously, if we are to receive the gift He offers us, then indeed we must do so. Step into that Throne room, gaze into the face of the One who has called us His own child.

And, as if in immediate translation, we find ourselves walking in the renewed garden, Eden restored, in the cool of the morning. The garden our forebears trod in innocence, and were banished from in guilt, now restored, renewed, and more poignant and beautiful for the purchase through the veil of tears. Now knowing, as we are known.

If only we could see. What is claimed by faith is so much deeper, of more substance and reality than the mortal lands we currently inhabit.

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The hollowness of the West

Posted on 16 February 2025 by Peter

The West is a bit like a tree that looks strong from the outside, but yet has rotted within and is hollowed out. It retains the illusion of strength – but look not to the outside, rather see what has happened on the inside. When the storm passes this tree will be laid low, and the pride and arrogance that goes alongside our cultural hegemony will be no more.

The important question is, how much have we as the Church unconsciously taken on our cultures assumed strength? Quite a bit I suggest. Revelation 3 v17 is written for those with ears to hear.

You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.

A Romanian pastor once said, “95% of believers pass the test of persecution, while 95% of believers fail the test of prosperity.” Many of the things we consider blessings have in fact become to us snares.

How often do we trust, truly trust, in the grace of Christ?

 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

We have no ‘need’ of His Grace, therefore neither do we know His Power. And it is only that power that can turn around hearts – of people, communities and nations.

I pray that we would have our eyes opened to see our true poverty. For it is only in that realisation that we will come to a full understanding of who and whose we are meant to be. And only then can we fulfill His purposes for us at this time.

I have faith that He will do this. He will build His Church – the gates of hell will not prevail. But I harbour no illusions that this will be easy. No, it is the battle of our generation, to birth His Church from the often moribund and atrophied structures that have claimed the name.

Don’t you have a saying, “It’s still four months until harvest”? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.

May the Lord send us as reapers into those fields.

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Dignity, or Pride?

Posted on 6 December 2024 by Peter

In the assisted suicide debate much has been made of the notion of “dying with dignity”. By that, is meant without weakness, without pain, without loss of function, without dependency, without helplessness, without a loss of self.

Now in one way this makes sense; nobody would call those things good. But in another way I wonder if this can be a cover word for pride – i.e. dying with pride.

Our original sin, our baseline of rebellion, is to attempt to dethrone God and put ourselves in His place. To me, “dying with dignity” may be just another manifestation of that. We will have control of our lives, we will enthrone ourselves, and we will be the arbiters of how and even whether we live or die. Or at least the closest approximation we can achieve.

Of course it is all foolishness, we are not able to be God, but it doesn’t stop us from trying.

But the Church has a better message. Our dignity, our real dignity, comes from being made in the image of God and bearing His likeness. No decay or brokenness can change that. We are made as treasures in jars of clay. The jars may – will – get chipped, cracked, leak and break. We were sown perishable: born in death, all our bodies can do is die. But yet the treasure is not lost, for God loses nothing, rather we will be raised imperishable into bodies that will not fade with time.

What we don’t want to do – as the redeemed of Christ, is to get sucked into a false sense of compassion, of ‘dignity’, of concealed pride, and lose what, and who, really gives us dignity.

Nothing I say here is to diminish the pain of brokenness, of losing our function, our abilities, our very identity. We live in this world of decay, and creation groans to be redeemed from it. But that’s not the end of the story. We have been saved by the One who has captured and defanged death.

‘Where, O death, is your victory?
    Where, O death, is your sting?’
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthian 15 v55-57

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Made in the image of God

Posted on 30 November 2024 by Peter

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1 v 27

A grey decision, by grey people, on a grey day in November. Or so the vote in favour of “assisted dying” in the UK appeared to me when announced yesterday.

It’s always a tell when euphemisms are deployed, that what it in the inside is not the same what’s being sold on the outside. If you can’t call it what it really is, there is usually a good reason for that.

Assisted suicide is by its very nature coercive. Once the option is on the table it will not be removed. The pressure will always be there, insidiously working its way into every conversation at the end of life. The idea that physicians will be able to detect coercion makes a number of assumptions, not least that the physicians are not the ones themselves indulging in the practice. Death as healthcare inevitably corrupts.

There’s a lot of talk about choice, how that’s a good thing, but for the poor, unrepresented and marginalised, the only choice they are likely to have is between pain and death – just look to Canada to see how that works.

All this makes for grim reading, but this is the natural outcome of a decaying, pseudo-pagan society. Long ago we jettisoned any policy based on the idea of the sanctity of life, being made in the image of God. We are reducing to a nihilistic utilitarianism.

This is where the Church should come in. If we are sent to anyone, it is the poor, the marginalised, those who are cast out by society. But to do this we have to recapture a sense of who we are. Far too long have we basked in the fading gleams of our decaying culture, hoping that somehow the echoes of what once was will sustain us in the current climate.

How many Churches will preach this Sunday on the evils of assisted suicide, confident in the value of a human being made in the image of God Himself?

And how many will pass this by (too risky a subject! people will be offended!), or only make weak and vacillating references?

If our roots are no deeper than the society in which we are embedded, then it should come as no surprise if we share in the same decay. For if salt has lost its saltiness, what use is it? It will be thrown out.

Only those who have salt in themselves, the kind that is refined through fire, will be able to stand in the evil day. Stand yes, and rescue others – the least of these, the ones the world considers useless, but yet the ones amongst whom Jesus will be found.

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The sacrament of abortion

Posted on 3 November 2024 by Peter

Childlessness in the West is starting to cause enough problems that even the mainstream media are starting to notice. There was an article in the BBC recently saying how the birthrate in the UK had dropped to new levels. In the ongoing discussions as to why and what could be done I was amazed at our blindness. Was it that we can’t see or just won’t see?

What’s the biggest cause of death worldwide? Scroll to the bottom of this page to see. Murdering our unborn at catastrophic levels is unsurprisingly a significant factor in the low birthrate. But this is our secular sacrament, and nothing shall touch it.

It’s not just the UK of course. In Canada you can kill your baby for any reason up to birth. Why stop there? Well, they didn’t, with the euphemistically phrased “Medical Aid in Dying” – a convenient way to dispose of those unproductive people. Something that will soon to come to our shores. It’s not much better in the States, where baby murder is now deemed to be an election winner.

I put it in stark terms because it is stark. No civilisation in history is so steeped in the blood of the innocent as our generation. And then we wonder, as it has multiple impacts in society, why could this be?

Unless we change – unless we repent – we will collapse our civilisation. And unless the Church starts speaking hard truth to our culture, and yes, being hated for doing so, we will be complicit in this destruction.

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