Pastor Peter Simpson was proclaiming the necessity of repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ in the centre of Uxbridge on September 29, helped by some local believers, including Mr Pablo Sharma.
Mr Sharma for a long period held up a poster showing the words of 1 Timothy 1:15, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”. It was necessary to hold the poster, because the council has banned the display of our usual posters which were laid against small trolleys under a ‘Public Spaces Protection Order’. It is, of course, outrageous that the public display of God’s word in this manner has been banned in Uxbridge as being an antisocial act. Mr Sharma also held up a sign showing Acts 4:12 concerning the name of the Lord Jesus Christ : “There is none other name under heaven … whereby we must be saved”.
At one stage a young Muslim man approached Pastor Simpson and said, “Show me where the Bible teaches that Jesus is the Son of God; it does not; he was just a prophet”. The minister responded that the Lord Jesus received worship, and the Jewish leaders accused Him of blasphemy, precisely because He spoke of His equality with His Heavenly Father. We read in John 5:18, “The Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God”.
The Muslim sadly did not seem at all interested in this reply. In John 10:36, the Lord actually states, “I said, I am the Son of God”, and that whole verse tells us that He was again accused of blasphemy for having done so. Therefore our Lord clearly claimed a complete oneness of nature and being with His Heavenly Father.
The Muslim then started calling out in a loud voice to the people walking past, declaring that Jesus is not the Son of God. What wonderful freedoms we still have in this nation (thanks to the influence of the Christian gospel) that he was able to do that, with no concern about what might happen to him as a result. One wonders, however, how much the Muslim friend values that freedom, for would a Christian be able to stand in a public place in a Muslim country and publicly criticise Mohammed or deny basic Islamic doctrines without any severe adverse consequences? I think we know the answer.
At this point, in God’s providence, a Christian brother from Slough who was visiting Uxbridge for his secular work and who knew Pastor Simpson decided to respond to the public denials of our Lord’s deity now being made to members of the public in aloud voice. He mounted the platform of a nearby statue and started preaching with much conviction about the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. A crowd had gathered because there were one or two who were objecting to the Muslim’s actions. In a situation which could have deteriorated Pastor Simpson made every effort to keep the debate with the Muslim young man polite and friendly.
Before all this, as Pastor Simpson was preaching, he spoke of how the Lord Jesus Christ is the Judge of all men. All have to prepare for the day when He returns in flaming fire. There is coming a day of vengeance upon this God-rejecting world.
The preacher asked a passing Muslim who appeared to be listening , Are you prepared to meet your Judge? He replied that he was trusting in Allah. The minister politely came back and said, “There is no atonement in Islam”. There is no sacrifice where blood is presented to God as an atonement for sin (blood representing death – the penalty for sin). Yes, there is animal sacrifice in the Islamic festival of Eid al Adha, but “it is noteworthy that the blood of the sacrificed (beast) is discarded” (1). It is not presented before God on an altar, but even if it was, the Bible tells us that “it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). The only blood sacrifice which can do this is that of the spotless Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, in His death upon the Cross. This sacrifice was totally acceptable to God the Father and is a sufficient satisfaction of justice to atone for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2).
Mr Davis and Pastor Simpson had a good conversation with a young lady who had come from a Christian family, but who was not personally a committed believer. She had seen videos of Pastor Simpson on the internet as he was preaching at the London Pride parade. She asked him about the propriety of doing this. Surely it was unnecessarily antagonistic to preach against people when they were celebrating. The minister replied that London Pride is a public celebration of the trashing of God’s holy law, and that there many thousands of people supporting the parade who desperately needed to ear the gospel that they might be saved from their sins.
The young lady also asked Pastor Simpson about abortion, arguing that surely it was justified in cases of rape. The minister replied that the vast majority of abortions were not due to rape anyway, any child subsequently conceived must not be punished for the sins of the father. Even in the case of the wicked act of rape, God can work amazing good out of that situation, having ordained in His perfect providence the new life which is being brought into existence.
As Pastor Simpson had been preaching for about a quarter of an hour, a young man came up to him wearing a baseball cap with the name of the rock band Black Sabbath on it. He also had a motif of the Devil on his tee-shirt, and was pulling a trolley with an amplifier on it. He started playing loud rock music as the minister was preaching in a deliberate attempt to nullify the message and to express his contempt for it.
Pastor Simpson responded to the playing of the music by asserting that God is not mocked. As long as this world lasts, the gospel will be proclaimed, no matter how much men try to drown it out. He warned the young man that anarchic rock music, no matter how proudly assertive of its independence from God, will not be of no help whatsoever to him on the Day of Judgement.
My many who heard the gospel in Uxbridge come to realise the reality of the impending judgement of God. May many urgenmtly take to their hearts the truth that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:10).
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qurban_(Islamic_ritual_sacrifice)#:~:text=It%20is%20noteworthy%20that%20the,and%20another%20to%20their%20family.