Thank you for your post.
I went to your link and listened to Paisley’s sermon, “Why I Am a Protestant.” I have heard him in other sermons, always powerful, but this, on the hour of his death, is especially poignant. It deeply stirred me. These thought came to me:
I doubt there has been since the prophets of old, John the Baptist, Jesus in Matt. 23, Peter at Pentecost, has there been such a powerful and courageous voice raised! If one can’t discern Acts 1:8, “Ye shall receive POWER after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you,” in Paisley’s preaching there is something wrong with him.
The shrill voices of Popery we constantly hear on FR sound like a bunch of silly little nerds - lightweights compared to Paisley. The power of real Protestant preaching like Paisley’s, trumps all of them.
I am saddened by Paisley’s passing, it now falls on the rest of us to pick up the banner of truth and carry it on. In this sermon Paisley said: “The Romanists have Christ locked up in a box (literally as the wafer in a tabernacle), with only the priests the power to open and release Christ to the world (in the Roman mass),” he said. “Its the priests who need to be put in the box,” he said, while we with the truth release the power of Christ to the world!”
Amen and amen. God give us the kind of faith and courage Paisley had.
Sadly, (for Paisley), he had become an anachronism in his own country and any "power" which was present in his preaching appeared to have largely evaporated. Protestantism in Northern Island is essentially moribund as indeed is religion in general in the UK, Islam aside. Orange parades still occur but they have nothing to do with religion and the message of salvation. They're largely a celebration of tradition and cultural Protestantism, not unlike Saint Patrick's Day parades.
As for Paisley's preaching, it never was a message to come to Jesus. It was a mixture of political activism tied to Westminster due to the historical Protestant roots of the Crown, mixed in with a generous measure of anti-Catholicism. As the British state gradually abandoned any pretense of religiosity and both Anglicanism and the monarchy fell into disrepute, the hollowness of his cause became obvious. Britain was no longer the flagship of Protestantism in the world but a pagan and apostate nation.
Perhaps as a result of this, Paisley himself mellowed significantly over the last couple of decades. The political Paisley began to work with the likes of McGuiness and Adams and the outbursts about Popery became fewer and less intense. The British no longer feel threatened by a Papist takeover of their country and are too busy making whoopee to take seriously the historical Paisley. In the end, it's not clear that the 2014 Paisley really believed the 1969 Paisley.
May God reward the good he did and be merciful to him in his sins.
RIP.
I couldn’t say it any better. And I’m glad you listened to his sermon. I’ve heard it, but it’s been a long time. I think I will listen to it again later.
Soli Deo Gloria!