Faith in Action – a New Year Message for 2025

An inactive faith that shakes nothing will never change the world. The ministry of Jesus was love in action. It shook the religious hierarchy to the core with unmatchable, life-transforming, power and authority. The Pharisees tried to quench the fire at Calvary, but the cross became the gateway to resurrection life which, empowered by the Holy Spirit, changed the history of the world.

Faith in action, otherwise known as the Church, exploded across the world. Since then the Church has gone through many cycles of Christian history, including seasons of self-seeking, deception and corruption.

On October 31^st 1517 Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the door of the Church in Wittenberg, challenging the unscriptural and corrupt practice of selling indulgences for the forgiveness of sins. His action shook the self-centred, abusive, complacency of the Roman Church and opened the floodgates of the reformation to a renewed understanding of salvation by faith alone.

It was during a reading of Luther’s commentary on Galatians, in London’s Aldersgate Street, that John Wesley’s heart “was strangely warmed” by the Holy Spirit. The embers of his dry religion became a blazing fire which carried John Wesley’s faith in action the length and breadth of the land. It shook the Church of England rigid and brought torrents of abuse onto Wesley’s head. But Wesley’s ‘faith in action’  changed the destiny of the nation and, indeed, impacted much of the western world.

Hudson Taylor’s great grandfather was converted through the ministry of John Wesley. In 1786 Wesley spent two nights in their home in Barnsley, telling them “Remember, you have nothing more important to do that compares in importance with saving souls.” The subsequent Taylor generations were firebrands for Jesus, including young Hudson, whose parents, on the 21^st May 1832, gave the gift of their son back to the Lord, for His life to be spent in His service.

At a tender age his heart was set on fire for China – a fire that never died. As a result millions of Chinese became believers through his dedicated faith in action. My own young life was impacted through the lives of those who had gone to join Hudson Taylor in China! And, later, by John Wesley who was actually ordained in my own college Chapel.

But What Will Impact Today’s Generation?

The history of the UK as a predominantly Christian nation is now being put through the shredding machine of wokism and secular humanism. Every mention of life-changing faith has been virtually eliminated from the media and marketplace of life. Anyone who attempts to hold up God’s Word as the plumbline of truth is quickly ridiculed and sidelined even, sadly, sometimes by the church itself.

And the deafening silence of our national Church leaders, when it comes to proclaiming the Gospel to the nation, would indicate a profound absence of belief that the Word of God has such divine authority that we dare not trespass against it. Action-stirring faith is not even on the back-burner and fear of man (and of what others will think, say and do) has replaced holy fear of a holy God as the dominant controlling religious force in the hierarchy of the church. Those who dare to stand firm on the historic orthodoxy of Christian belief are quickly made to feel the lash of disapproval and worse.

As the nation, and the world, continues to descend into an abyss of its own making, organised church seems helpless to prevent the slide into godless oblivion. Believers are right to be in heart-broken intercession for the people of our nations, longing for there to be a church which is true to its name, as those who are called out (the ekklesia) to be a shining light in a dark world.

Today’s generation of young people is almost completely untaught about the things of God – in much the same way as it was in Wesley’s day when “drunkenness, licentiousness and gambling were the three great sins of the nation with the churches empty and the ale-houses overflowing.”

Even though much of the nation was abandoned to vice and heathen ignorance there was, nevertheless, still a historic fear of God among the people. No-one had yet taught them that the idea of ‘a Creator God is an illusion or a religious fantasy’. “In the beginning God created . . . . “ was still understood to be the truth. Hell was still clearly understood to be what it is, and when Wesley preached the Gospel of Salvation for sinners, people were touched by the Holy Spirit, convicted of sin, and gladly accepted the free gift of eternal life.

But today, sin and sinfulness are dirty words. Use them if you dare! They are considered to be insulting accusations, not God’s description of man’s condition. People do not have a fear of either Hell or God.

Why should they? A generation that has been taught that the whole of the universe is an accident and that everyone is, ultimately, a product of endless evolutionary steps, has no reason to fear a God who, in their educated understanding, does not exist. And if God doesn’t exist then there is no reason to fear His judgement, or the consequences of dying outside of His Kingdom. The prospect of a godless eternity no longer has the power to shake complacency – even with the dying.

By way of evidence, there isn’t even one hymn in the latest top twenty or so funeral songs chosen in the UK! Jesus doesn’t even get a look in. Last of the Summer Wine theme music, You’ll Never Walk Alone by Gerry and the Pacemakers (and Liverpool Football Club!), My Way by Frank Sinatra, Match of the Day theme music, Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz and Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven are leading examples of a godless generation’s first port of call when looking for music to celebrate a life gone by. The Lord’s my Shepherd no longer features, simply because people no longer consider Him to be so.

Inner Conviction

As 2025 approached, I became more and more conscious of my own personal heart-break at what is happening around us. But, I didn’t descend into a spiral of hopelessness. I remembered how in centuries gone by God raised up generations of ‘faith in action’ people, in the most extreme of circumstances, with a message for their time.

With so much of the church, so paralysed that it is afraid of speaking the Gospel to today’s generation , I found myself asking what ‘faith in action’ message could possibly penetrate the hardened spiritual defences of today’s godless generations.

It’s over forty years now since I began to pioneer the healing ministry in the UK, leading to the establishment of Ellel Ministries International. The message of healing and deliverance was not universally welcomed. They were tough times, requiring considerable perseverance. There was a lot of opposition to what God was doing. But through the believing ‘faith in action’ of a few, the message went round the world transforming many thousands of lives. What many opposed, the common man was desperate to hear.

I am not prone to making prophecies, but there was one prophetic word that I spoke out on many occasions in those early days of the ministry. I believed that the day would soon come when the words of the Gospel would not be listened to, but that the message of healed lives would catch the attention of those in need of a touch from the Saviour.

I could ‘see’ a time coming when people in the community would be impacted for the Gospel in much the same way as the people of Sychar were impacted by the testimony of the woman at the well in John 4. She had a personal encounter with Jesus. She was so dramatically changed that the people of Sychar wanted to find out more and John tells us how the message of salvation was brought to her town and the people then declared “we know that this man (Jesus) really is the Saviour of the world” (John 4:42).

I spoke out this prophecy on many occasions, saying that in the end-time days it would be a church that heals the hurting and the broken-hearted (as in Isaiah 61:1) that would be an evangelising force into the nation, drawing people to the Saviour.

This was why people followed Jesus – He healed people. His words had power and authority (Luke 4:36), people were healed and set free from the powers of darkness. What else would make a crowd of five thousand people chase round the edge of Galilee to be waiting for Him when He landed? Matthew tells us that when Jesus saw the large crowd “he had compassion on them and healed their sick” (Matthew 14:14). If believers are to be followers of Jesus, how can they do so without having compassion on the hurting and broken of society?

Healing was at the fore-front of Jesus’ message, even in this most hostile of social, political and religious environments. A despot puppet King (Herod) was on the throne (who beheaded John the Baptist), pagan Roman armies had occupied the land and all were living under the judgmental eyes of seemingly godless, pharisaical leaders (John 8:42-47)!

When, at Nazareth, Jesus said that He was about to fulfil Isaiah’s prophetic Scripture about healing (Isaiah 61:1), they threw him out of the synagogue and tried to kill him (Luke 4:28-29). But when Jesus started to heal the sick, mend the broken-hearted and set people free from the powers of darkness through deliverance, the common people followed Him and listened to what He had to say.

The Time Has Come

I believe those days are here again when the common people will seek and find answers for their needs. We are living in an era when the younger generations are cursed with ever-increasing diagnoses of psychological conditions and mental illness. The rising tide of people surfacing with long-term consequences of abuse-related trauma are a constant challenge to the health services. And we are living in a world traumatised by the consequences of war. Who can meet the needs of broken hearts that can only be healed by the One who specialises in doing so!

The health services are stretched beyond their capacity to meet the need – and even when they can, they are largely helping people live with the problems they face for, in reality, it is only Jesus who can truly heal them. And it is only God’s people, the ekklesia, who are called and able to carry forward the ministry of Jesus to bring true healing to a generation of lost and hurting souls.

In Wesley’s day a new church rose up to take the Gospel to the lost. In our day a new church must rise up to bring healing to those in need in parallel with taking the Gospel to the lost. We must not any longer contain the healing ministry within isolated centres, important though they may be, it must become the bread and butter of the church in every town and city across the nations of the world. Every local church should become a Gate of Hope.

Many believers have been praying for revival for years. But could it be that revival will only come in its fulness when the church discovers healing for its own woes, and then starts to do what Jesus commissioned the first disciples to do – make disciples by proclaiming the Kingdom, healing the sick and casting out demons!

It will be a costly walk, but I would rather look forward to a heavenly reward than fail to live the life of ‘faith in action’ while there is yet time! There is a hurting world waiting to hear.

“It is high time to awake out of sleep . . . the night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light . . .  be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed for the Lord thy God is with you.” (from Romans 13:11-12 and Joshua 1:9).

In my next blog I will be sharing more about what I believe God wants Churches to be and to do, as they become Gates of Hope for the people.

Copyright © Peter Horrobin 2024.

Peter Horrobin is the Founder of Gates of Hope International. To find out more about the work please go to www.gatesofhopeinternational.com or, in its abbreviated ‘Go-High’ form: www.gohi.world. To receive regular updates about the work of GOHI, please register your name and email address on the website.

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