January 2010

Sir, there can be no doubt that it is out of love for the TRUTH, his fidelity to Christ, his Master and King, and a zeal for the honour of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that answer the motives for Shaun Willcock and Bible Based Ministries and those so aptly expressed by Charles H. Spurgeon when he wrote: “Popery is contrary to Christ’s Gospel, and is the Antichrist, and we ought to pray against it.  It should be the daily prayer of every believer that Antichrist might be hurled like a millstone into the flood and for Christ, because it wounds Christ, because it robs Christ of His glory, because it puts sacramental efficacy in the place of His atonement, and lifts a piece of bread into the place of the Saviour, and a few drops of water into the place of the Holy Ghost, and puts a mere fallible man like ourselves up as the vicar of Christ on earth; if we pray against it, because it is against Him, we shall love the persons though we hate their errors: we shall love their souls though we loath and detest their dogmas, and so the breath of our prayers will be sweetened, because we turn our faces towards Christ when we pray.”

Second, I would address the comment that reads: You may not condone murder but they themselves (the murderers) believe in the papist paranoia that freaks like yourselves express without actual fact. They themselves too possibly agree in the most hateful rhetoric against catholics.

Sir, neither Shaun Willcock nor Bible Based Ministries condones violence. You cannot lay the blame or cause of the sectarian violence perpetrated by some that has plagued Northern Ireland society for decades to his charge!

The “hateful rhetoric” of which the writer speaks is the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  Rather, it would be “hateful” if Shaun Willcock were to willfully refrain from preaching the “good news” of God’s love for sinners through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Regardless of “political realities”, the Gospel Minister is to speak the Word both “in season and out of season” (2 Tim. 4:2), that is, when it is convenient and when it is not!  In addition, the Gospel Minister is duty-bound to His Lord and Master to expose “false apostles and deceitful workers who come as ministers of righteousness” (2 Cor. 11:13-15), who make “merchandise of the gospel” (John 2:16), who are “false prophets that come in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves” (Matt. 7:15), who “teach for doctrine the commandments of men and reject the commandment of God” (Mark 7:7-9), all charges to which Rome stands accused.

That which is referred to by the writer as “papist paranoia”  must be vigorously denounced for it is “another gospel” (Gal. 1:6-8) . . a “false gospel”, and as such must be opposed and exposed as stridently today as it was in Luther’s, Calvin’s, Ryle’s, Spurgeon’s and Martyn Lloyd Jones’ day.  Rome has not changed and is as irreformable as ever, and remains the implacable enemy of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ of free and sovereign grace, so the “good fight” continues.