Readers’ Letters
HEART is sent free to churches, Christian bookshops and care homes, so our letters page provides a forum for Christian opinion. Include your name, town and county with your letter.
Letters should not be longer than 200 words and may be edited.
Comments sent via our website will be considered for printing unless marked ‘Not for publication’.
Deadline for the June/July 2022 letters page is 3 May 2022.
Please email letters for publication to letters@heartpublications.co.uk as letters sent on paper cannot easily be retyped.
False promises
The question on page 1 of the Feb/Mar issue (“Dare we believe a New Year’s Eve prophecy that promises a leader who cannot be bought?”) gets a “No” from me.
We have had so many predictions of blessing just down the road and all of them have come to naught. It seems that people can desire something good to happen and then make a prophetic utterance that says that God is about to do the thing desired.
You note on page 9 that these prophecies need to be weighed, but by putting this on the front page you give credibility to something that has not been weighed.
“To the law and to the testimony”; I’m taking Isaiah’s advice and ignoring what “prophetic ministries” say.
Sorry if I sound judgemental, but I can’t let this go by.
Keith Parker
York
The lost tribes
Your editing greatly improved my article, but there was one possible minor error!
The added sentence: “They (the ten northern tribes) would lose their homes and their freedom for a generation” is not strictly true.
“Many generations” would be more accurate. Some did return and others escaped to Judah beforehand but the majority became what is controversially known as the ten lost tribes of Israel. They will certainly be reunited with Judah in the Messianic Kingdom or perhaps already, depending upon how Ezekiel 36:16-28 and 37:15-28 are interpreted.
Jesus ministered in Israel and said he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel (Matthew 15:24). So, were all tribes represented? Who knows? It is an historical dilemma.
Richard Prendergast
Chichester, West Sussex
Eating at Easter
How many feel that as a nation we don’t commemorate Easter properly?
Easter has, for many, become an extension of Christmas. “Happy Easter” is proclaimed, and chocolate eggs, bunnies and hot cross buns proliferate – this last being a particular offence to the Lord as it combines the pleasure of eating with the terrible suffering of the Cross.
All this detracts from what Jesus went through to bring us salvation.
How can we change this emphasis on eating at Easter?
David Dodd
Hailsham, East Sussex
No hope for wolves
I was very shocked at the opening comments (“May they rot in hell”) of the ‘Wolves in sheep’s clothing’ article (Prophecy Today section, Feb/Mar).
Surely the writer should have expressed some Christian hope: “May they repent and be saved in prison …”?
John Simmons
Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex
A fruitful creation
Our Sunday school teacher shared these inspiring thoughts with the whole congregation:
“Genesis 1:2 says that the earth was a dark, formless and desolate emptiness. So we, too, before we gave our lives to Jesus were aimless, powerless and chaotic voids, dark in our thinking and ways before God called us out of the darkness and into his wonderful light.
“God separated the light from the darkness and similarly separated us from this dark world and brought us into the kingdom of his dear Son.
God said: ‘Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, [and] fruit trees…’ (Genesis 1:11). Thus he gives us, too, a life full of joy and purpose, each of us filled with the seed of the new creation to scatter in our fields.
“When we resist the separation between the light and the darkness, our vegetation struggles to grow. “So let’s embrace his light and life each day and our hearts will be filled again with the joy and gladness of the new creation.”
Esme Sowerby
Sheffield, Yorkshire
Sabbath is for all
I appreciated Charles Gardner’s article on the sabbath (Prophecy Today section, Feb/Mar).
God’s laws and commandments (Exodus 20) may not be deemed applicable throughout the wilful nations. However, not to observe his sabbath rest, is to one’s own detriment; both physically and spiritually, as Charles Gardner writes.
The Bible tells us to meditate on God’s law and to obey it, because it is the source of blessing, as King David says (Psalm 119:1 – KJV):
“Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord”.
And Isaiah promises: “If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath, a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob, thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it” (Isaiah 58:13 – 14)
Valerie A Vince
Bedhampton, Hants