Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Another William Booth...

The Daily Mail is not my favourite newspaper, it tends to be conservative, middle class, sensationalist and unreliable. It doesn't generally print news but merely comments on it. However, in a recent edition it ran the following story:

A vast study of youngsters' wellbeing in 30 industrialised nations ranked Britain among the worst for health, lifestyles and school standards relative to public spending levels. Under-age teenagers in Britain are more likely to get drunk than those in any other country, and the proportions of teenage mothers and single-parent families are amongst the highest in the survey. In "risky behaviour" - a combination of drinking, smoking and teenage pregnancy - Britain's performance is worse than all nations other than Turkey and Mexico. Educational achievement is low given the billions poured in by Labour, with more than one in 10 youngsters aged 15 to 19 not in school, training or work. This is the fourth highest rate in the 30 countries. Only Italy, Turkey and Mexico perform worse. . . The report, published by the economic think tank the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, compared data from 30 leading countries on children's welfare. . . Teen drunkenness, as measured by the number of youngsters aged 13 and 15 who have been drunk at least twice, tops the league table at 33 per cent.


By coincidence (I think not!) the letters page in the same edition contained correspondence from Derek Hanna, of Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim. It said:

One of the nation's greatest sons, William Booth, once said: "The chief danger of the 20th century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, politics without God, salvation without regeneration and heaven without hell."

According to Mr Hanna what hope does the UK have? That God will raise up another William Booth, or another John Wesley.

What set Wesley and Booth apart from other men and women?

Booth was once asked (close to the end of his remarkable life) what was the secret of his success, was that he had given everything to God when he was a young man? He replied (words to the effect of – I can't remember the exact quote) that there was nothing extraordinary in his giving everything to God, such consecration was not uncommon, what set hi apart from other men was that he never took anything back!

We need holiness, we need it now and we need it to be not complete but consistently complete.

"O thou God of every nation,
We now for thy blessing call;
Fit us for full consecration,
Let the fire from Heaven fall.
Bless our Army! Bless our Army!
With thy power baptize us all."

Grace and peace to all who love Jesus!

A

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