Article

On the 11th April, I received an email from a reporter working for ‘The Impartial Reporter’, a newspaper which circulates in Fermanagh and South Tyrone. Part of the email reads: “We are doing a series in the paper regarding the Belfast Agreement and wondered if you would be interested in contributing a short comment piece.”

Since I had received a similar request 25 years ago when the ‘the Belfast Agreement’, also known as ‘the good Friday agreement’, was first signed, I was happy to give my opinion on this ‘sham peace’ agreement, much lauded by the deceitful politicians and ecumenical ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ over the last twenty-five years .

Here is the article.

Sincerely in Christ’s name,

Ivan Foster

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The ‘Good Friday Agreement’

(Rev Ivan Foster)

In the summer of 1998, I along with fellow Free Presbyterian ministers in Co. Tyrone, issued a statement in the wake of the Omagh bomb, which resulted in 28 men, women and children brutally murdered as well as many more seriously injured, commiserating with the families so wickedly bereaved.

Part of that statement read: “We accuse our Government and in particular the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Mo Mowlam, of pursuing a policy in Northern Ireland that has encouraged this atrocity and the many others that have gone before, by seeking to placate terrorism through immoral concessions such as the present early release of convicted terrorists. Yesterday’s murderous monsters have become today’s ministers-in-waiting! We have already heard words of condemnation from the lips of those politicians, who favour the release of convicted murderers and bombers, that are but an echo of the words employed to condemn the actions of those terrorists they are now determined to release. . . .  The politicians who have supported the present policy of appeasement that underwrites the “Peace Agreement” cannot escape having blood on their hands after today’s evil. (more…)

The phrase ‘keep company with’ refers to marriage, religious affiliations, social associations and business partnerships.

It is important to the Lord just what impression the Christian’s ‘crowd’ sets forth.

I recall my maternal grandmother being quoted as having said on this matter: “Show me your company and I will tell you who you are!’

I suppose that very well known adage: ‘Birds of a feather flock together’ states the same basic truth. Who you are drawn to and with whose company you are content and happy to be in, tells an observer what your views and affections are.

It is for this reason that the Lord, like any father, shows concern about the crowd we identify with and the Holy Scriptures contain many directives on this matter.

MARRIAGE.

Whom a Christian marries is not a matter of indifference to the Lord, any more than it is to caring earthly parents. Thus we find Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, urging this maxim upon Corinthian Christians. “‭The wife‭ is bound‭‭ by the law‭‭ as long‭ as‭ her‭ husband‭ liveth‭‭; but‭ if‭ her‭ husband‭ be dead‭‭, she is‭‭ at liberty‭ to be married‭‭ to whom‭ she will‭‭; only‭ in‭ the Lord‭,‭”‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬ 1 Corinthians 7:39. The choice of the woman as to who it is she marries is limited by this rule. She is at entire liberty to marry, or not to marry, and to marry whom she pleases. That is not forbidden by the laws of God. But she is limited by the ‘spiritual’ character of the man she would marry. The marriage union must be ‘in the Lord’!

The word ‘only’ clearly indicates that she is limited to one category of men from which she would choose her husband. He ‘must’ be a Christian, he must be one of the Lord’s people.

My fifty plus years of pastoral labours have brought me into contact with many households, both within my own flock and outside it. I have noted on many occasions the unhappy price paid by a man or a woman who ignored this injunction and instead allowed their own feelings and emotions to overrule God! I saw that it invariably brought unhappiness to the disobedient Christian, to the one they married and to the children born of the union. Irrespective of the circumstance of how the unscriptural union was formed — often as a result of an unsaved person making a false profession of faith in Christ in order to find acceptance with the Christian whose hand in marriage they desired — without exception it had a grievous impact upon the family unit thus formed. (more…)