Judgement and catastrophe

This morning I joined our near neighbours at Christ Church Summerfield for their monthly breakfast meeting.

The "draw" for me was Bob Dunnett the former vice-principal of the Birimingham Bible Institute.

Bob is always a challenging speaker and I haven't heard him, apart from at a funeral, for about ten years.

His message was unusually sombre. For nearly thirty years he had preached about revival and then in 2000 his perspective changed and he began to think and preach about judgment.

Just in case I misrepresent what he says please go to his website http://www.understandingthetimes.org.uk/ for a fuller explanation of his views.

Bob's basic argument is that Britain and the west have been judged in much the same way that the people of Israel were judged in the time of Amos. We now await catastrophe. This could be some decades in the future. Lest we feel that the Old Testament has been superseded entirely by the New Testament, Bob reminded us of Jesus's predictions about the impending fate of Jerusalem - overrun in AD70 and totally destroyed in AD131.

He sees hope in two ways. Firstly we can pray for revival, and there is much evidence that revival often precedes catastrophe for example the 1906 revival was followed by the Great War and the 1859 revival by the American Civil War. Secondly we can ask God in his wrath to remember mercy. Bob referred us to the final book of Habakkuk.

Prophecy isn't normally on my beat (in fact I run a mile when people start quoting the Books of Daniel and Revelation, but Bob quoted neither this morning), however Bob's quiet delivery, his deep understanding of scripture and his sense of urgency, made me realise that he has something very profound to say to today's Church and the surrounding society.