Faith on the Margins: The Future of Churches in England
Oct. 4, 2024
Host: Dr. Isaac Crockett
Guest(s): Rev. Kyle Paisley
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 10/4/24. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Isaac Crockett: Well, hello, welcome to the program. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and joining me today is a friend of mine who is a pastor, not here in America, not in the United States, but he’s a pastor in Suffolk, England, the Reverend Kyle Paisley. Kyle, thank you so much for joining us on our program today.
Kyle Paisley: Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure.
Isaac Crockett: Well, Kyle, I’m excited to talk to you today. I want to talk about really the state of the church in England. We talk about the state of the church in America, but we really like to look at what’s going on across the world and so many times what’s going on in England and in Europe. We see it similar trends here in the United States, and we’ve seen so many things over the history of our country and of the spiritual revivals starting in England, and great people, great Revivalists, George Whitfield and Charles Wesley and songwriters, and preachers and pastors. We’ll talk more about this coming out of England and Ireland, and so it’s interesting to see where we are at with that now. But Kyle, for those listening today, many Americans will just notice your accent and they’ll say, oh, that’s a cool accent. But some might actually be listening and saying from England, that accent sounds more like somebody from Ireland. Could you tell us, maybe Kyle, a little bit about your family and your background? Maybe even tell us some about your father and the ministry he had within the church and within the government.
Kyle Paisley: Yes. Well, they’re right in thinking it’s an Irish accent. It’s from the best part of Ireland, which is a north part. I hail from Belfast, that’s where I was born, and a family one of five actually. I have a twin brother who is just a few minutes younger than me and I like to remind him about that just in case he gets too big. All joking aside. And then I’ve got three sisters all older than me, a sister who’s just 13 months older than me and my other two sisters, Sharon and Rhonda. Rhonda actually was a BJ grad. She graduated in 1981 from Fine and Fine Arts from BJU. So that is my family. My father, he, as many people will know, folks in the states particularly will know listening in. I think that they will recognize the name as well-known pastor and preacher from Northern Ireland.
Kyle Paisley: He went to Bar School of Evangelism in Wales where he did his training, but that later became South Wales Bible College and years, a long time after that. And then his first charge after finishing his training in Northern Ireland at the Reform Presbyterian Seminary, his first charge was in a place called Ravenhill Evangelical Mission Church, as my memory serves me best. I think it was a non-affiliated, completely non-affiliated, completely independent work. And then that later became the fourth church fellowship within what was known then as the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. His ministry in leading the Free Presbyterian church was really from its foundation in 1951 up until his retirement when he reached the ripe old age of 85. So most years, I think there was a couple of exceptions. He led as the moderator of that evangelical body, and it was a secession group. The churches, when it was founded in St. Patrick’s Day in 1951, it was a secession from the mainstream Presbyterian Church of Ireland, the largest Protestant denomination probably in the whole island of Ireland. Certainly in the north we seceded the Free Presbyterian seceded, much the same as the church, the Free Church of Scotland, some long time before that. Seceded from the main Church of Scotland for its liberalizing trends in theology. So that’s a little bit about my background and a little bit about my father’s ministry as well.
Isaac Crockett: Now, your father is also known, some, maybe we’d call him a firebrand, but there was contention during not so distant past in Northern Ireland. And could you maybe tell us a little bit about that, the fighting, the tensions between the Irish groups that were Catholic versus your father and some of the Protestant majority there, and especially for us Americans who don’t always know a lot about the history over there. Could you maybe tell us just a little bit about that in a couple minutes we have here?
Kyle Paisley: Yes. Well, Ireland was partitioned. The island used to be under as one unit under the government of Great Britain, it used to be. And then because of divisions and the attempt by Britain to put the whole island of Ireland away from British rule altogether, there was a lot of division over that. Ireland was partitioned at the most northeasterly six counties in the Northeast, which had a Protestant majority, a more notable Protestant majority than certainly at present. They eventually left and formed. They didn’t go into an Irish, an independent Ireland. They had their own government in Belfast, still under the British crown, so to speak, while the 26 counties in the rest of the island of Ireland became an independent country. Now, partitioning as brings with its own, its own troubles, its own problems as it did in those days, but in more recent times, we’re talking about the trouble period. Now in the late sixties and in the seventies, eighties, early nineties, there was an attempt by Irish Republican groups to force pressure on the British government and to put Northern Ireland into or to give Northern Ireland up so that the island would be, partitioning would be undone and the island would be one again, but not under Britain, just entirely under government from Dublin and a completely independent country, all 32 counties.
Kyle Paisley: As it happens, that did not happen. And presently in Northern Ireland, they have their own local democracy. Northern Ireland still remains under the United Kingdom as part of the United Kingdom, but it has at least its own local democracy where it can govern itself. A legislative assembly is the proper name for it. So it governs itself now and still for the meantime at least remains part of the United Kingdom.
Isaac Crockett: And there was a lot that went on with that that your dad was right in the middle of and a part of. And your dad, was he the first Secretary of the state or I can’t remember all the titles he had, but your dad was I guess maybe first minister of Northern Ireland.
Kyle Paisley: First minister mean in the old storm in Parliament, which had been running from partition up until the time it was paroled in the early seventies, he was one of the last leaders of the opposition. But in the present day, the legislative assembly of Northern Ireland, he was not the first of the first ministers there, but I think he was the second of the first ministers in Northern Ireland. So he held that position just for,
Isaac Crockett: And we often talk here about ministers together, the ministers of government that God has ordained in government, ministers in the church and their positions. And your dad knew so much about that because he was involved with both and such a great example. And so we want to talk to you some about the condition of the church in the United Kingdom. We want to look at the role, is it getting healthier, where is it at, where do you see it as in your point of view from the ministry you’re at? We have a lot more to talk about. We’ll, right back on Stand in the gap today. Welcome back to our Friday program of Stand in the Gap Today. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and I’m speaking with the Reverend Kyle Paisley, the pastor of Alton, broad free Presbyterian church, not here in the United States, but over in Suffolk, England.
Isaac Crockett: And we were just talking a little bit, Kyle, with your background being from Northern Ireland and your dad, Ian Paisley Sr. Who was so well known by many people really in the seventies, eighties, and nineties. But even he started things at the church starting the Free Presbyterian Church movement there in Ulster in 1951. And that has spread all over. And sometime I’d love to talk more about that, about how that church got started and your involvement in the Free Presbyterian Church and really the trajectory of that church. But I want to talk to you about the state of the church general of churches in England and throughout the United Kingdom. And you’ve been at your church and it seems hard to believe, and I will say for our listening audience that you were very, very young when you went there, but you’ve been there at your church, I think you told me for over 30 years. Is that right? Is it over 30 years there in Suffolk?
Kyle Paisley: Just passed 33 years in August there.
Isaac Crockett: Okay. Oh wow. So you’ve been there for a long time and you have a lot of breadth of knowledge, especially growing up in your family with your dad’s involvement in church and in government and things. So you’ve seen a lot in your life. I want to kind of pick your brain a little bit about how things, how you would describe what you are seeing in your area and what you see nationally, but just personally what you’re seeing, I’m not holding this as some sort of fact finding mission or something, but just what you are seeing personally at your church and your family life interested in what you’re seeing with spirituality with Christianity in England. And again, realizing that England was such a founding for modern Christianity, for the church movement, it had such a profound impact, not just on America, but on so many colonies and sending out missionaries all over the world, the impact that was made. But I think of even in a little bit more recent times, like a Charles Hadden Spurgeon from London and the impact that he had, of course, going back to colonial times, the Wesleys and Whitfield, and you look at our music, how many of our hymns were written by great English pastors and English hymn writers? Just incredible. And so I’m wondering what is the current state, what do you see of spirituality of Christianity in England from your point of view?
Kyle Paisley: Well, you’re right in the history there, England has been peculiarly blessed. I’ve often said the church here, I’m saying this as an noal manner, as an Irishman, I often said outside Israel, there is no country in the entire world. So signaling blessed spiritually speaking on England because of the way she’s been used by God over the years in the ways that you’ve just mentioned today. Of course, I mean East Anglia, which is the part of England that I live in, the kindest Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, an awful lot of puritans were grounded there, had their ministries in those areas. And today there’s still something of that influence still left. And certainly a lot more recent times, when I say recent times, I’m talking about the last a hundred years, the last known revival that took place in mainland England would’ve been right in this locality where I am in loof.
Kyle Paisley: And to this day, there is as English towns go comparing with what other ministers in other areas of the country tell me low staff and open broad are really considerably better off in certain parts. And I think that’s one of the, when it comes to evangelical type churches, we have a church of England not far away, and it’s known for its evangelical leanings and ministries race. And we have it in independent evangelical churches in the eastern counties too. So as this area goes compared to other parts, big cities and other parts of England, we’re not that badly served for evangelical testimony. But we do struggle, they must say, and you maybe get this on a greater scale in other places we do struggle against indifference. There’s an awful lot of indifference even amongst professors and Christians. Somebody here locally said to me lost of does a wash with backslider people who come and go and you don’t see them and then you do see them.
Kyle Paisley: And there is quite a lot of indifference amongst professing evangelicals. And on another level, there is some really basic ignorance too as well. I was out in Norwich sitting nearby, preaching in the street with some colleagues of mine, and there was a lad that one of the gentlemen stopped to talk with and he hadn’t, this chap had been in his thirties, he hadn’t, he’d been living in England all his days and he hadn’t heard the first time he’d ever heard the name Jesus. That’s quite incredible, quite incredible. So you’ve got ignorance, you’ve got indifference, and you have an occasions hostility. It’s greater in some areas than in others, but my view is that England is better off, I think spiritually speaking than the other two countries in mainland Britain, which are Scotland and Wales. Some people have assumed because Ulster, Northern Ireland, because of its traditional Protestantism and Presbyterianism reformed religion, and because Scotland as much they got in our history that Scotland therefore will be an advance of the rest of Britain, of England and Wales, but it’s not really, and Wales had a tremendous evangelical history, but it’s as dead as the dodo in many areas.
Kyle Paisley: So England may have its problems, but I don’t think England is as badly off as some parts of the UK
Isaac Crockett: When you’re saying that it really hits home to me. I pastor a very small little church that has been around for about 180 years, and there are many other little churches in the towns around my town that they have churches that have been around 180 200 years and they were founded during times of revival in this part of Northeastern United States. And yet now you fast forward and it’s almost where the revivals burned the brightest that it seems to be charred the hardest and it’s so hard to get people interested to talk the Bible, interested to talk about things of the Lord going out on the street or door to door is very difficult and it sounds similar to what you’re talking about. And these are some of the same areas that have produced some of these great theologians of years gone by. Very interesting. Well, and I know there’s not time to ask you all the questions I would like to talk about, but as you look at the church in England and if you want to comment on the greater part of the United Kingdom, do you see a generational divide in the church regarding their commitment to biblical and conservative values?
Isaac Crockett: I know here in the states we talk about that a lot, the different generations and the differences between them. Do you see that kind of a generational divide in the church in the areas where you are?
Kyle Paisley: There is a kind of a generational divide. I mean, I think the older generation who I know ones I’ve administered with would take not a legalistic view, but a kind of stricter view of course than the younger generation would do off the use of the Christian Sabbath, the Lord’s day. I think there is that to be said, and generally out in society, not in the church. Now, if we could just go beyond the bounds of the church, I think you can see that the older generation, yeah, there’s definitely a marked difference. And just that was come in just with if the church loses its spiritual power and influence, it affects society. If there’s no power in the pulpit, there’s no power in the pew, society is affected and there will be a difference. And of course the liberalizing laws on moral issues by success of governments in this country have helped to just erode the conscience of the younger generation with regard to spiritual things and with regard even to the Lord’s day, we have Sunday opening, had it for many years and that was actually introduced by a conservative government. So there is a move away from what you might have called years ago, conservative views. And although I don’t see that so much in my own assembly, my own church here, but there is certainly in general terms, there’s a change. There’s a difference of attitude between the different ages.
Isaac Crockett: What are you seeing, and it only have a moment for you to respond to this, but we see a lot of progressive ideologies within church denominations here in the United States that traditionally had been conservative many years ago. Do you see anything like that with denominations that used to be Bible believing that have become very progressive over there?
Kyle Paisley: Oh yes. I prefer to call it digressive, but certainly not. That’s a good one. That’s very good. I mean the Methodist church in England as a body, they have certainly perhaps more than other mainstream denominations have moved away from the preaching of holiness that John Wesley, we founded them, Charles Wesley, find them, were renowned for, I mean I think now they’ve sanctioned it to the best of my knowledge. It was recently that their governing body sanctioned to allow gay marriage within the confines of Methodist churches. You’ve got those liberalizing trends in the Church of England. Most mainstream denominations are going that way and it just really is a sign of the times sign of time. And of course when you think about evangelical and the trends within general evangelicalism, the term evangelical has become, it’s become less of a narrow term. We all knew what it stood for years ago, but in this neck of the woods, evangelical means anything. That’s basically anything that’s not high church. So it could mean something that was biblically evangelical or it could mean something biblically liberal.
Isaac Crockett: That’s so interesting. We just recently, I think this was a month ago or so, I was talking with George Barna, Dr. George Barna does so much research on churches here and we were seeing that you have to define the terms nowadays, especially using terms like evangelical. What’s so interesting that Reverend Kyle Paisley from England we’re talking to, we’re going to take a quick time out to hear from some of our partners when we come back. We want to keep looking at some of the spiritual side of things going on in the United Kingdom in England and see how it applies to us here in the United States too. We’ll be right back on Stand in the Gap. Welcome back to our program, to our Friday edition of Stand In the Gap Today. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and I’m here with well over the technology that we have. I’m with the Reverend Kyle Paisley over in England.
Isaac Crockett: I’m in New York just a few miles away from my church, which is in Pennsylvania and he’s over in England and Suffolk, England right now. But we’ve been enjoying a great conversation and even talking to him a little bit about his family history, many of you will recognize the Reverend Ian Paisley Sr. His father involved with the founding of the Free Presbyterian church movement, Ulster free Presbyterian church, and that’s expanded all over, but then he was also involved in government over there for the cause of freedom. But we’ve talked about so many things going on and if you are just joining us, welcome to the program and I would encourage you to go back and listen to this entire program. You can get our Stand in the Gap app. I know we have a lot of people downloading our Stand in the Gap app. It has archives, audio and transcripts and some videos too of all of our radio programs as well as videos of all of our TV programs and so many other things right there on the app.
Isaac Crockett: You can also go to our website, stand in gap media.org and find it on there. You could go to our Facebook, I would highly encourage you to look us up on Facebook or X used to be called Twitter, things like that and find some of our posts and share these things. Our producer, Tim does a lot of work behind the scenes putting everything in there very nicely, and he also does podcast. He puts it out there on all the podcast platforms. In fact, not too long ago I was at a conference and I ran into a lot of people that you’re listening, not just on radio but on our podcast. So thank you for that. But it makes it easy to share it. And Tim does podcast q and as where he just takes one or two questions from a program and puts it out there so that if you just want to share one part of the program with somebody, it makes it easy to do.
Isaac Crockett: And really our goal in all of this is to glorify the Lord, to seek first the kingdom of God and to make it an easy resource for you to use, whether you’re a pastor, a Sunday school teacher, a Christian parent, a grandparent, or just somebody who loves the Lord and you want to share this information with somebody else, we want to get this into your hands and get you putting it to the hands of other people. That’s how we’re seeing this ministry grow over the years is that you who are listening are sharing this with others and we thank you so much. And so we want to go back to talking about the state of the church in England looking at it historically, just incredible how God has blessed and used church leaders in the United Kingdom, especially in England throughout the world and throughout our modern church history.
Isaac Crockett: But unfortunately as things go on, we see church denominations, and Kyle was mentioning some of these in the last program, denominations that are no longer standing for the Lord. And so in this segment, I want Kyle talk to you a little bit more about some of the things I think some people would look over in the United Kingdom and say that Christianity, at least Bible believing Christianity, true evangelical Christianity being saved and born again, that they’re being marginalized, that they’re kind of being looked over, given less power or less of a voice maybe than they used to have. And so Kyle, I’m wondering how are churches in England? How are they trying to use some of the modern technology we have, social media and things like that, what we’re doing even right now using technology, and what are some of the challenges that Christians face in doing so whether it’s online or even we’re talking about preaching in the street, are there things that you have to be careful of out in the public square when you start to preach the good news and the true word of God?
Kyle Paisley: Yeah. Well, some churches are using social media very well to not just advertise themselves but get the message of the gospel out. When I think about social media thinking of course about Facebook and YouTube and all those various platforms. Also radio, it’s not really that’s been around for a long time, but I know the nomination with time part of has used radio very, very well and broadcast in different parts of the world, north America, far East and so on back in and Great Britain and Ireland under the banner, let the Bible speak broadcasting network. So some churches are using it very well. It really depends if you’ve got the personnel to manage it. I know where we are. There’s very few that I can call upon to maintain something like that. So I’m limited as to what I can do in my own church, my own congregation, but some are using it very well and some are using public preaching very well too.
Kyle Paisley: I work alongside a group that’s known as the open air mission. It’s an evangelical based group, but they’re completely non-denominational. So it’s not a free Presbyterian thing, not a Baptist thing, it’s just evangelicals, biblical evangelicals that commit to a statement of faith, which is certainly evangelical. So I think some of the problems with regard to social media and with regard to even the preaching on the street, and I’ve had to remind myself of this that good as those platforms are, and you use every tool that God can give you, use them all, every tool that comes your way you use to forward the gospel. But those tools are no substitute for the Christian pulpit. They’re meant to assist the pulpit, but they’re not a substitute for the pulpit. So when I say that, I think there are certain issues which I would not address on a social media platform or even in street preaching because when you’re on a social media platform, as I say, you’re using somebody else’s means they’ve provided for you for your use, but you’re using their means.
Kyle Paisley: So in a certain sense you’re on their patch. And when I go out on the street, well, I’m on my own patch, everybody’s patch at the same time. So there are certain issues I would not raise on social media, for instance. I wouldn’t, I don’t know, it may be done differently or they may have more freedom to do this in the states, but I wouldn’t do it myself and I wouldn’t encourage any minister to do it just to raise controversial issues like the LGBT, all that kind of stuff. I don’t raise that publicly when I preach on the street, but I can do it in my pulpit. I’ve got liberty to do it in my pulpit if I choose so to do. Same as in social media. I find that when I’ve passed comments and issues like that on social media, you get a storm, an unnecessary storm of criticism. I’m not ashamed of what I think on certain issues, but I think certain issues are best kept, particularly in street preaching, I would say best kept off the street. Unless somebody comes up and approaches you and asks you What do you think about this? Then you’re bound to tell ’em an answer. You can’t dodge the column then. So churches can use it, but I think we need to exercise practical wisdom and always remember first and foremost the Christian pulpit takes first place.
Isaac Crockett: That’s so interesting because we have seen a decline in the power of the pulpit here in the American church and we’ve seen a decline in preachers willing to speak the truth from their pulpit. So I like what you say that these other things should be there to assist the pulpit, but the real power is in the pulpit. And Jesus says to be wise as serpents, harmless as doves, and to be prepared to give a man an answer for the hope that lies within us as the Bible teaches. But even as Paul tells us to walk circums respectfully redeeming the time because the days are evil. And so very, very good advice there. We’re getting close to another time to hear from our partners, but let me just ask you real quickly here, how are churches and England specifically those that you’re involved with encouraging believers to remain faithful to the core values of scripture in an environment that as we’re going along right now, it seems to be getting increasingly hostile to what we believe?
Kyle Paisley: Well, they encourage it on Christians. Christian churches can encourage their congregations to remain faithful in these days by getting them to the place of prayer. You need power to stand and power to be strong in days like this, and you’ll never get it anywhere else. You’ll not get it while you watch online addresses and ministries. I’m not against that. I mean I did it and encourage others to do it during lockdown, but there’s no substitute for getting a loan as a congregation and praying sad thing is in parts of this country and even parts of the town that I live in, there are certain churches that don’t have like a general public prayer meeting that break off into various groups for house prayer meetings, but not one general one. So I would encourage people stay strong, but pull together and pull together your resources when you come to pray your spiritual strength, when you come together as a church to pray. That’s the secret of it all. I think
Isaac Crockett: The title of our program is Stand in the Gap and we talk about standing in the gap for truth. And you can’t stand, you can’t take a stand if you don’t go to your knees in prayer. And I want to talk to you about that more. In fact, I think we could probably talk a lot more about that on a whole segment. But there’s a gentleman that we’ve interviewed not too long ago, Samuel Lee of sermon audio.com, and that’s actually something that I believe you have, I think hundreds of sermons from your church on sermon audio.com. If you’d like to go there, if you’re listening to us, you go to sermon audio.com and look up Kyle Paisley. But one of the things that this brother is doing is prayer meetings where he’s getting people to come in person and getting people from all over and he’s emphasizing prayer meetings.
Isaac Crockett: And when we look back at these revivals, Kyle, that you and I were just talking about revivals here in America, but also over there in Great Britain, these revivals start with prayer meetings and preaching and we can plan and we can hope for and we can spend money on so many things, but we take it back to where does that power come from? It comes in prayer. And when Jesus sent out his disciples in Luke chapter 10 to go out two by two throughout the land, he tells them first to pray to the Lord of the harvest, to send forth laborers and then to go out. And so what a powerful admonition there that we need the power to stand by turning to the power of prayer. And that’s a power that some who are listening right now maybe are without power because of the hurricane.
Isaac Crockett: There are many places throughout the United States that have been affected by that, but the power of prayer is with us anywhere, everywhere at any time. This has been a great conversation. We’re going to take another brief time out to hear from some of our partners and we’ll be right back with Reverend Kyle Paisley right after these messages from our partners right here on Stand In the Gap Today. Alright, well welcome back to our last segment of this program. I’m talking with Pastor Kyle Paisley from Suffolk, England and looking at what’s going on in the UK and specifically there in his part of England and just hearing his heart as he talks about what he has seen in over 30 years of ministry there. Well, Reverend Paisley, what advice would you give to pastors and church leaders who are concerned as they see society changing? Many are afraid that their voice is not being heard or not being heard as well as it used to be. What advice would you give to those Christians?
Kyle Paisley: Well, my advice would be very simple. Get as many people as of the same mind. Get them together as many feel as you do, get them together and bond together. As I said in the previous questions, bond them together to pray and to pray specifically for grace. And then one other thing, to pray for a baptism of the Holy Spirit. Years ago, I just bring up an illustration from the past and my father was having good meetings and some people were being converted, but they just felt he and a number of people in his church, this is before he became particularly prominent in public life, they felt that there was just something missing. And so they bonded together to pray that God would take a real dealing with them and give them a real unction from heaven. And they prayed for a day, a day and a half was nearly two days and remained where they were and they all rose from their knees.
Kyle Paisley: One particular evening, early evening of the second day with the assurance that God had nothing peculiar happened, but with the assurance that God had baptized him with the Holy Ghost. And from that day onwards, there was hardly a fruitless week in the father’s ministry, if not people getting converted or returning from backslidden ways to the Lord under his ministry in the church. And certainly hearing from people who had come under the influence of maybe the audio ministry or something like that, that was essential. And of course it gave him a voice and it gave him a voice for biblical fundamentalism. So if we want a voice, want our voice to be heard again, we’ve got no voice unless God gives us that voice and you need a baptism of the Holy Ghost to get it. So come together, pray with as many people as are like-minded and seek for a baptism of the spirit. That’s what I would say.
Isaac Crockett: I like that we’ve got no voice unless God gives us a voice and we need to ask him, ask and he shall receive, but we need to be on our knees praying for his will to be done and for his will to be done in our lives. What do you see for Christians and United Kingdom as they prepare for what lies ahead, the possibility that there could be an increasing of them being what we call maybe marginalized or even the real threat of persecution in some places? How can Christians be prepared for maybe a time when society doesn’t accept us? We’ve grown up in Christian nations that we just expected of, but how can we be prepared for a time when our culture and society maybe turns against that?
Kyle Paisley: Well, of course toleration, it’s one thing for people to tolerate you, but toleration can wear thin and toleration can turn to open hostility. So there’s always that possibility. And of course, as the conscience of people is becoming eroded, aided, and embedded by governments which just seem to get worse in their attitude to general morals as that happens, there is a distinct possibility that open hostility to the evangelical believers could happen. And then of course you’ve got the rising tide of militant Islam and their attempts in certain parts certainly is happening in certain parts of England. They’re wanting to, I don’t think they’ve succeeded yet, but they would like to introduce Sharia law, which of course is a real threat, but the only way of dealing with it, I think the only way that we have to be prepared should that ever happen is by revival. And it’s interesting that I think it’s in Haber Cook, the revival that came in his days revival, in the midst of the years that revival happened before there was the captivity of Judah. So sometimes we look upon revival, oh, bring revivals because it’s going to save us a lot of trouble sometimes revival is there to prepare you for trouble too. So one way or the other, we need it. We need it. And if we have revival, then the church can be ready for anything.
Isaac Crockett: I love that if we have revival, the church can be ready for anything. And you’re right, as we think about the prophet there, as you say Habakkuk, I think he said Habakkuk maybe is kind of an American way of saying it, but you look at what he went through and that he was able to rejoice in the Lord in times of, and it brought about this amazing revival. And you see the despair at the beginning of that book of the Bible. And then as God shows himself to the prophet, how he’s able to rejoice in it. And through that you see this revival in his heart and in the hearts of the people. And so we want the Lord to revive us again, to revive our hearts. And we talk about this so much, the main host of this program, the President of the American Pastors Network, Sam Rohr, he talks about that so many times about looking for revival and having this awakening in our lives.
Isaac Crockett: Don’t look for it to happen somewhere else or to somebody else. Look for it to happen with you. Look for it to happen with me that we’ll see the Lord use us and be prepared and we prepare for the worst possible things that could happen by having revival in our own lives and our own churches and our own communities with great sage advice there. As we close, you’ve talked about prayer. We all know that prayer works and we so often say that we need to pray, but we so often don’t take the time and actually spend minutes and hours and days on our knees, supplicating to the Lord. What role do you see for prayer and revival? Because you’ve said we need revival and addressing the spiritual and political issues that face your country, but also for us here in America today, what role do prayer and revival really take in that? If you could emphasize that as we close the program?
Kyle Paisley: Well, it plays an essential role really. Sam five talks about revival. Well, they’re not revivals again, that people may rejoice and they then goes on to say that glory may dwell in our land. So the spinoff of revival, or at least one of the spinoffs of revival is that it will give a different outlook to all aspects of society, all aspects of social life, social habits, social manner, society in general is affected. Not everybody is saved or converted, but every level. And that, of course what was bound to effect. I think every real revival will have an effect upon political behavior and political outlook. Glory comes to dwell in the land when the church church is revived, so there’s no doubt about that. But over here in lof, the Congregational Church, which was our first building as a free Presbyterian group, there were three or four buildings on the same side over years that had grown somewhat.
Kyle Paisley: But the first building that was planted as a congregational church, which eventually became ours, it started in 1857 as a result of prayer meetings in a local woman’s house. And that congregational church for a considerable period of time had certainly had an influence for God in the area that’s a local, but if you just take that onto the national platform, if that’s what can happen locally through prayers, what could not happen generally in the country through prayer. So yeah, there’ll be no changes, but you can’t change the church by changing politics, but you can change politics when the church is quickened and the church is late and the church is spiritual parts, it’s that way around rather than the cart before the horse.
Isaac Crockett: That is excellent. You can’t change the church by changing politics, but we can influence and change the politics by having revival, by changing the church. Excellent advice. Well, Reverend Kyle Paisley, thank you so much for your service to the Lord, thank you for taking the time to be on this program and for everybody listening, thank you for listening to our program. Please pray for our communities. Please pray for this ministry of the American Pastors Network, and we appreciate you listening to us. Please tell everybody about standing in the Gap and I pray that today you will do just that, standing in the gap for truth, wherever you are.
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