The centre of Uxbridge heard the name of the Lord Jesus Christ uplifted on July 22nd as Pastors Peter Simpson and John Sherwood proclaimed the everlasting gospel.
A Muslim entered into conversation with Pastor Sherwood and argued that Muslims and Christians have so much in common that there is no need for them to be divided.
The North London minister replied that there is a fundamental and irreconcilable gulf between Islam and Christianity centring both on the Person of Christ (He is fully God and fully man) and on the necessity of blood-bought atonement for sinners ever to be reconciled to God. These two issues constitute the heart of the Christian gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and there is none other who can do this. Furthermore, God has decreed that without shedding of blood (there) is no remission (of sin)’ (Hebrews 9:22). When Islam denies that the Lord Jesus died on the Cross, it is rejecting the only means by which the sinner can be saved.
As Pastor Simpson was preaching, a man walked up to him from a nearby public house and told him in the most unpleasant and vulgar manner possible to remove himself from the town centre. He then tried to snatch the minister’s Bible from his hand. Pastor Simpson responded by saying that in any dispute about the subject of the preaching, the preacher had in fact already won the argument, because all that the opponent was able to offer was personal abuse, which suggested that there was no real valid objection to be made against the Christian message. It was also likely that two or three glasses of beer had not improved the man’s reasoning capabilities.
Pastor Simpson also entered into lengthy conversations with groups of teenagers about both LGBT issues and abortion. One girl argue strongly that it is wrong to call homosexuality as in because people are born like that and cannot help it. They are just being themselves.
Pastor Simpson responded that all people are born with sinful hearts, and then choose the types of sin which they wish to follow. So the person who chooses to embrace the homosexual lifestyle is no different than the person who chooses to embrace a lifestyle characterised by heterosexual sins outside of marriage. In the sight of God both are guilty.
The Biblical prohibition upon homosexuality is an aspect of God’s moral law. To argue that people cannot help being homosexual is to argue that the Almighty Creator did not know what He was doing when, for example, He ordained through Moses the law set forth in Leviticus 18:22. One can no more argue that homosexuality cannot be repented of, because one was born with such an inclination, that one can argue that adultery cannot be repented of, because one was born with a genetic disposition to be an adulterer. The Lord would not demand obedience to His law if people (by His grace) were incapable of being obedient because of an innate and unchangeable condition which He Himself had brought into being.
It was also tragic to see teenage girls vigorously arguing for the legitimacy of abortion. Pastor Simpson challenged a group of them : Should you not be developing your natural maternal instinct whereby you desire to create and protect life, rather than seeking to destroy it? The girls tried to argue that any prohibition of abortion was grossly unfair to women. The preacher responded by reminding the girls that 50% of the aborted babies are female. Are they not women with rights as well?
What has our society done to our young people that their minds are so polluted by the God-rejecting propaganda which argues that destroying human beings is somehow to be desired?
Time and time again the girls employed the complete red-herring-argument of ‘What about rape’? Pastor Simpson endeavoured to explain to them that the number of abortions on the grounds of rape was infinitesimal (see https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/a-rape-and-incest-exemption-would-still-ban-more-than-98-percent-of-abortions/), but even where there was a pregnancy due to rape, the child in the womb should not be punished for the sins of its father. The girls retorted that it is not right to bring a baby into the world who is not wanted. The minister rebuked them at this point, making clear the moral responsibility that all are under to consider the possibility of pregnancy BEFORE they engage in sexual intercourse, not afterwards.
May the Lord open the hearts of these poor deceived girls and indeed the hearts of many other non-Christians – both young and old – who heard the gospel in the centre of Uxbridge upon this day.
