And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die. Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die”.2 Samuel 12:13-14. KJV
Recent reports revealed Islam is fast growing in the United Kingdom. Fewer people are becoming members of the Church of England. There’s also fast growth of Muslim fundamentalists and magic.
Again, reports revealed that the Church in Britain has greatly declined. Over 2,000 churches have been closed down, many churches are now theaters, Muslims and Atheists have purchased several church buildings, and other religions are buying Churches at an alarming rate, less than 10% of Britain attends church services once a month, 5,200 Britons are converting to Islam every year, and the total number of converts so far is about 100,000.
Muslims in England sum nearly 4 million -about 6.5% of the population, the proportion of non-believers has increased as over 55% have no religion. Another shocking report revealed that Europe has now returned to paganism.
Most churches in England hold services for gay marriages, and ordain women as priests and bishops. A new report released recently reveals an increase in intolerance, discrimination, Arson, thefts, physical attacks, anti- Christians hate crimes against Christians in Europe, especially in the UK.
I can go on and on, mentioning the ills, sorrows, lawlessness, and spiritual misfortune that is rife in Great Britain. “What happened” hits the gavel of rhetoric questions.
This was what occurred in greater dimensions in Scotland, Wales, and in the entire Europe where great revivals had taken place. Let’s draw our minds down memory lane, Great Britain was the place where several selfless and tireless generals of God emerged from and changed and transformed the world for Christ in decades past.
It was the place where the light of the Gospel shone on many nations of the world. Britain gave birth to many great missionaries, Bible translators, intercessors, prophets, men and women of virtue, the likes of William Carey, George Miller, Hudson Taylor, S.G Elton, and several others of blessed memories.
Why the fall?
My question is, Why did Great Britain fall?
Where has Britain disappointed God? What particular sin gave birth to the numerous sins which led to her sudden spiritual destruction? The answer shows up almost suddenly, PRIDE. But how can pride destroy a man or such a nation of destiny?
Proverbs 16:18 warns, “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
Digging deeper into the word PRIDE and how it translates as the mother of all sins. Google lays explanatory emphasis on it better “In the theological sense, pride is defined as an excessive love of one’s own excellence. As a deadly sin, pride is believed to generate other sins and further immoral behaviour and is countered by the heavenly virtue of humility”.
ATTRIBUTES OF PRIDE
In Mark 7, Jesus explained that it’s not what is outside of a person that defiles him, but what is within, what’s in the heart —not excluded Pride: “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality” .
We can induce from the statement of Jesus Christ that the action of pride springs up from the heart, the latent place, it’s from the heart, that the attributes of pride are revealed.
Pride can be categorized into three major classes. Namely, dignity, superiority, and arrogance. Pride entails crediting ourselves over something that God has accomplished and, as such, taking the glory that belongs to God alone. Pride is basically self-worship, self-praise, and self-glory.
The inception of the Sin of Pride sprung from the Devil, our adversary, and our enemy. Pride, therefore remains a deadly sin because from pride came all other sins proliferating humanity up till now.
Pride with respect to Satan’s conduct is conceived of as high self-esteem in beauty and splendor. Satan desired to become God, mainly because he allowed what the Lord made of him to get into his head. According to the word of God, He was crafted by God his Maker, beautifully and almost exceptionally, because of this beautiful workings upon his being, a dangerous desire called Pride set in his heart. (Ezekiel 28:12-19).
He wanted to become like the Most High. The inevitable result of his action was his ban from a place of beauty to a place of disrepute and throe.
Pride therefore is dangerous to the doer and even those around the doer. It is essentially self-exaltation as a result of one’s position, height, title, achievements, status, and class. The one inevitable consequence of Pride is God’s disapproval and grievances towards such action and if there is no action -immediate and genuine repentance, the end result becomes disastrous to the doer.
In Genesis 3, we understand through revelation that when Satan started his deceptive plan of proliferating the sin he started, the words he uttered to Eve show his plan of proliferating the action of pride towards the battle axe (MAN) in the hands of God. He uttered words of his heart to Eve “and the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil”.
Genesis 3:4-5. This reveals the heart of Satan towards becoming like God and his failure to achieve it, He proceeded to make man achieve his failed attempt and so the sin of disobedience erupted from the sin of Pride.
Another annex scripture on the action of Pride by Man is the activity of erupting the edifice called the TOWER OF BABEL.
Genesis 11v 1 to 9 shows man’s second action of Pride that led to the termination of God’s plan for humanity. God wanted to make people of one race, language, specie, and tribe. This was the plan of God for man; along the line when man was becoming populous, they entertained the sin of Pride, they saw themselves as capable and more than enough to create something outside of God’s will and plan, and they rebelled against God’s plan through Pride.
They proceeded to make a name but with the activity of building an edifice that reached Heaven. That was clear self-independency. They saw what they could achieve for themselves, their capabilities probably due to their rapid growth.
They proceeded to accomplish an achievement with the aim and motive of making a name. Verse 4 reveals that probably they had a pre-knowledge of God’s creation of people who will multiply the face of the earth but with one race, tribe, language,, and one species.
So, they went in Pride to think for themselves as capable of performing such a prideful feat. They rebelled against God’s plan for man, and in the process, God saw through their pride,, and before any further damage could be caused, He eliminated their plan and schemes by scattering them all over the Earth with different languages.
Hence, language differences and disparities came out of the action of Pride which led to the obliteration of God’s plan for man. This was the same in the case of the devil, he was cast and thrown out from a place of beauty to a place of torment.
The same was true with Adam and Eve, close communion with God was altered and the proliferation of sin erupted. Genesis 3:23-24.
In a nutshell, Pride is foolishness, in fact, it’s the greatest foolishness on earth. Pride makes one think of his achievements or present status a result of personal abilities and the likes, which leads to self-glory, self-exaltation, self-praise, and a foolish step to achieve greater accomplishments that would surely lead to a dammed end and pause. The end result of pride is a painful and disastrous fall from grace to grass.
With pride comes disgrace, but with humility, wisdom. Proverbs 11:2 This scripture shows Humility, being the opposite of pride, as a great asset that can bring honour, praise, and promotion. This is clearly seen in Proverbs 29:23
Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gains honor. Humility is a sincere appreciation and acknowledgment of who and what brought you to the position you are. The person to whom be glory is God, all the praise should be given to him. When this happens, God is pleased and showers honour and praise on such humble hearts.
When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me. Hosea 13
BRITAIN’S RISE AND GLORY DAYS
In the past, Britain was visited by a great revival that spread all over the world like wildlife. Because of this revival, the Church in Britain sent and commissioned missionaries to all the nations of the world.
As a result of this move, God rewarded Britain with prosperity and promoted her to become the number one nation in the world, She brought civilization with the gospel to the entire world, as this time, the commonwealth nations were under British rule.
Many unreached people were reached with the Gospel. The gospel penetrated many closed-door nations, and many missionaries invaded the nations from Britain. God was happy because Britain was obedient to her heavenly vision and commission.
Prayer, Intercession, mission, and godly activities became their goal.
So many hymn writers sprung from the nation of Britain. There was spiritual advancement and economic prosperity in Britain. In the past, if Satan’s mercenaries killed even one missionary in a mission field by whatever means, many more would volunteer to go regardless of death for the gospel to be propagated.
They never gave up on Mission activities, their zeal and service with enthusiasm for the Gospel’s advance was top-notch. The Revival was performing 360-degree effects on the nation of Britain. Satan, gods, idols, and deities were boycotted from many lands and territories. Their passion for souls led them to various missionary trips and undertakings which led to many being drowned in the seas, others devoured by wild animals, eaten by cannibals, some died and were buried in mission fields, others ended up as martyrs and while some were brutally murdered by those they presented the Gospel of light to.
Various spiritual achievements were achieved by Britain, God really worked through Britain to propagate the Gospel of Christ, spearhead the move of the Spirit, and advance the spiritual growth of other nations.
The Bible was translated into many languages of the world by many British missionaries. Many were involved in the abolition of slave trade. The mighty work of revival was having its effects on the nation of Britain like rain affecting the soil of the earth.
The fall
But suddenly and there, the church in Britain began to slumber like Prophet Jonah who slept in the ship while on a voyage to another country with the aim of escaping from God’s presence. Their sleep was a sleep of spiritual devastation, deviation from the laws of God, and prideful snoring.
At a point, when God prospered her, Britain began to think that she had arrived at the pinnacle of power and honour, she began to gaze at her glory and dominance, and she then began to utter words of arrogance about her achievements, of her strength and wisdom in the entire world.
Britain deviated and fixed her hope in intelligence, science, military, and economic power. She detached herself from God. Then pride got into her and her vision for the mission blurred away. This was spurred by her pride and arrogance.
The Fulfilment of Hosea 13 came on full glare in the nation of Britain “When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me”.
Along the line, Britain decided to reveal her opulence, glory, strength, and dominion to make a name for herself just like our forefathers did and erupted the Tower of Babel. Just like America turned away from God and banned prayers in schools. She decided to mount up to the height of becoming the World’s power. She proceeded to build the biggest ship in the world.
Britain boasted that this particular ship was “unsinkable”. Reports say that after the construction of the Titanic, a question was given to a man concerning the safety and security of the ship, to which the man replied, “Not even God can sink it”. God proved his superiority over prideful heart, the unsinkable ship they called actually sank. This led to the death of about 1,500 passengers and ship personnel.
That reminded me of God’s declaration in Psalm 14:1 (KJV), “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, There is none that doeth good”.
Also, Jesus declared in “Matthew 7:24-27(KJV),
“Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it”.
Above, Jesus Christ warns of the action of pride and arrogance against the existence and supremacy of the Ruler of all creation. It also sheds light that whatsoever is not built upon the Rock, having his foundation on the word of God which is Jesus Christ (word of God)(John 1:1-5) will certainly sink. Titanic ship SUNK!
Beloved, the nation of Britain, initially ordained for the evangelization of the world fell into the sin of pride -the mother of all sins. As a result, Britain lost her relationship and intimacy with God. God does not joke with sin. Scriptures says “His eye is too holy to behold iniquities”. That was why when Adam sinned, there was a separation between Adam and God, the communion was altered and God began to commune with Adam from afar, thanks to Christ whose death on the Cross restored man’s close relationship with God.
Since Britain sinned, she fell (a result of pride Proverbs18:12), her spiritual and physical doors were forced opened by the devil, and as such, Satan positioned his gaze on her and proliferated the rise of iniquities and idolatry, which led her into paganism, wickedness, idolatry, abominations, spiritual decline and deformation and all other evil that is presently ravaging the nation of Britain. God backed off on the nation of Britain!
What a great tragedy!
Read also: America’s moral descent and hope for a new awakening.https://churchtimesnigeria.net/americas-moral-descent-and-hope-for-a-new-awakening-by-john-abiola/
After the Titanic sunk on April 15, 1912, with 1,500 people, the deaths of Britons increased greatly, WW1 broke out on June 28, 1914 reports revealed that some 8,500,000 soldiers died, the greatest number of casualties. In WWII there were 384,000 soldiers killed in combat, but a higher civilian death toll (70,000, as opposed to 2,000 in WWI), 40,000 civilians died in the seven-month period between September 1940 and May 1941, almost half of them in London. This is just an iceberg of what’s coming not only to Great Britain but to the entire world, WW3 is looming. Repentance is the only way out.
Repent!
Is there any hope for the church in Britain?
Is there any hope for the nation of Britain? Certainly, Yes!!!
I see a new wave of a mighty move of God upon Britain that will lead to the restoration of biblical principles and holiness to the Church and will sweep multitudes of non-believers into the kingdom of God. This great move will shake Britain to its foundation. Many established institutions, structures, organizations, and personalities will be greatly affected. The fire would spread progressively to Europe and the whole world. But, says the judge gavel. This would happen if the action of repentance is achieved.
This repentance would lead to a move of Judgement that would quicken the fire of revival.
It is similar to King David’s case in 2 Samuel 11-12.
David at the peak of his kingship, was one of the greatest kings, here in the Bible, a man after God’s own heart fell into the darkest period of his reign. He fell into sin of pride, committed adultery with Bathsheba, killed Uriah, her husband, and then attempted to cover up his sin and wickedness. God in His agape love and kindness, God who hates sin passionately but also wants sinners to repent, turn back to Him, and be revived sent Prophet Nathan to confront him of his evil deeds with a message of Judgement. David with a sincere heart cried out to God with great lamentation. He was sorrowful in repentance for his sin. This led God to hearken unto his prayers, revive him, and restore him back in communion with Him. Nevertheless, he also faced a backhand of God’s judgment. His son born in adultery died.
What was predominant in this story? Repentance, Judgment, and Revival. But the repentance came from David himself, which led to a touch of Judgment with the aim of revival.
David’s response is Psalm 51 (NLT) A Repentant prayer of David, regarding the time the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.
1. Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love.
Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins.
2 Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin.
3 For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night.
4 Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight.
You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just.[a]
5 For I was born a sinner—yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.
6 But you desire honesty from the womb,[b]
teaching me wisdom even there.
7 Purify me from my sins,[c] and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me —now let me rejoice.
9 Don’t keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me.
11 Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit[d] from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.
13 Then I will teach your ways to rebels, and they will return to you.
14 Forgive me for shedding blood, O God who saves; then I will joyfully sing of your forgiveness.
15 Unseal my lips, O Lord, that my mouth may praise you.
16 You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God”.
Britain would be restored back to God if there is an action of repentance executed by them, this would lead to her revival along with judgement.
Is there any hope for the Church in Britain, Is there any hope for your church? Yes. Repentance and action of a change of heart back to God genuinely. There is hope for every backslidden believer and sinner who repents and changes their ways back to God.
Revelation 2:4-7 sheds light on Jesus’ rebuke and a call to repentance of the church at Ephesus.
The church at Ephesus had abandoned their first. God rebuked them with a warning and a call to repentance.
Verse 5: “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.”.
Here it is stated categorically, REPENT and do the works you did first.
Therefore, I speak just like John the Baptist spoke out to the children of Israel, calling them to repentance. I proclaim a call of repentance first to the Church in Britain, because if God wants to visit a nation, He first visits his own backslidden people, then through them visit the people around them.
I proclaim a call to repentance in the whole Nation of Britain Repent!!! I proclaim a call of repentance to non-believers, a call of repentance to you, whether backslidden or not saved. Repent!!!
I proclaim a call of repentance to the world Repent!!!
If only you would REPENT and pray persistently and consistently, God would shower his rain of revival that would lead to Britain’s restoration and as well, restore the fallen state of the Church. Christianity will not be wiped out anymore. Non-believers will put their faith in Jesus Christ. The church will be restored back to biblical principles values, and holiness lifestyle.
Revive Us Again series 89.
Written by John Abiola a prophetic voice; an intercessor and a revivalist, who has been in seclusion along with his wife for many years, praying day and night for the next move of revival in the Church and the Nations that would bring an unprecedented harvest of souls into God’s Kingdom in preparation for the imminent return of Christ. They currently live in Nigeria. Hope you’re blessed by the series of our publications, support the Revive Us Again series, and our ministry.
John Abiola could be reached through his email: prophetjohnabiola97@gmail.com.
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