Rev John Stanbridge brings Mary worship to Ballycastle Presbyterian Church

On Monday night, Protestantism continued its incremental sell-out to Romanism with the latest meeting of the Ballycastle Prayer Partnership.

Held in the Presbyterian Church in that overwhelmingly Roman Catholic seaside town in North Antrim, the main participants were members of Ballycastle Presbyterian Church, Church of St Patrick and St Brigid Roman Catholic Church and Holy Trinity Parish Church (Church of Ireland).

These three churches are part of the ecumenical grouping, Ballycastle Church Action, one of many such groups which held their blasphemous ecumenical walks on Good Friday, which we previously highlighted. A newsletter from the Church of Ireland in that town also advertised a Women’s World Day of Prayer event in St Patrick’s and St Brigid’s Roman Catholic Church. We have previously addressed the God-defying nature of the Women’s World Day of Prayer.

The so-called Protestant clergymen involved in the ecumenical sell-out are Rev John Stanbridge (Presbyterian, pictured, top) and Rev David Ferguson (Church of Ireland, pictured, below), both committed ecumenists.

In fact, according to a Ballycastle Church Action newsletter from 2013, its author expressed their excitement at seeing the pair ordained in their respective churches so they could lessen the load of running this anti-Biblical grouping which was then on the parish priest, a ‘Father’ Brian Daly.

The Ballycastle Prayer Partnership would appear to meet on a monthly basis or close to it, as we have, scanning back through the Roman Catholic parish bulletins, seen notices for the meetings in three of the four months thus far this year, all of which were in the Presbyterian Church premises.

If Rome is inviting you to attend a supposedly religious gathering, then you can be confident it’s not worth attending.

We have posed the question on numerous occasions previously on ‘Protestant Revival’, and it remains entirely relevant – to whom are the attendees at these gatherings praying?

Rome blasphemously teaches of prayer to Mary and saints, but the Bible teaches only of prayer to God, through Christ.

1 Timothy 2:5 says: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

Hebrews 7:25: “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”

John 14:6: “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

There is no other person we approach God through but His Son, who shed His precious blood at Calvary that we might be saved.

The idolatry of Mary worship practiced by Roman Catholics is expressly forbidden in the Bible.

Exodus 20:4-5 tells us to steer clear of idolatry. It says: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them:”

This message is reiterated in Leviticus 26:1: “Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the Lord your God.”

Exaltation of and prayer to Mary can be found absolutely nowhere in the Bible, so why does Ballycastle Presbyterian Church play host to a ‘prayer partnership’ with a church which teaches this blasphemy? And why does the Church of Ireland in Ballycastle also engage in it?

Is one person in the gathering praying to Mary and the person beside them praying to God? What confusion, and we can say with assurance that “God is not the author of confusion” (1 Corinthians 14:33).

Of course, their prayers are not getting beyond the ceiling of Ballycastle Presbyterian Church because God will not hear the prayers of such people as are gathered there.

Proverbs 28:9: “He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.”

Those in attendance at this ‘prayer partnership’ have ignored God’s law, and that means every prayer offered up there on Monday night was rejected by God as an abomination.

Abominations are no new thing at Ballycastle Presbyterian Church, sadly.

In the summer of 2014, the Church played host to a Service of Prayer for Christian Unity as part of the Focolare Movement’s Mariapolis.

You may ask, what is that?

The Focolare Movement is a Roman Catholic movement whose chief goals are “to cooperate in the consolidation of unity in the Christian world, with individuals and groups, movements and associations; to contribute to full communion with Christians of different churches; and to work towards universal brother / sisterhood of all peoples, regardless of religious beliefs”.

An ecumenical nirvana then, where religious beliefs are left at the door.

Pope Francis, speaking in relation to the grouping, has said: “The Work of Mary, that everyone knows as the Focolare Movement…”

It is another method by which the Roman Catholic Church worships Mary and the Focolare Movement’s Mariapolis is a medium by which this is carried out. Mariapolis means “city of Mary” and wherever the event is held, that place becomes a “city of Mary”.

Therefore, by celebrating this God defying festival, Ballycastle Presbyterian Church made itself part of the “city of Mary”. What utter blasphemy!

That same meeting was also addressed by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Down and Connor, Noel Treanor, while a recorded video greeting was sent by the Church of Ireland Bishop of Connor, the Right Reverend (another Right Eejit in actual fact!) Alan Abernethy.

Ballycastle Presbyterian Church also, in 2015, played host to an ecumenical ‘Songs of Praise’ event celebrating the Moyle District Council, which was at that time absorbed into one of the new larger councils.

Among the utterly unacceptable participants was a representative from the Corrymeela Community, the home of Northern Irish ecumenism which is based in Ballycastle, and the closing prayer was performed by the already-mentioned ‘Father’ Brian Daly.

Rev John Stanbridge, and Rev David Ferguson will have to answer to God for their heresy and betrayal of His Word.

They are supposed to be proclaimers of God’s truth and ought to point the way to salvation but they cannot when they endorse Romanism, which is a pagan corruption.

Ezekiel 33:6: “But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.”

Oh the blood on the hands of so many alleged religious leaders in Ballycastle.

Please, dear reader, don’t allow some apostate preacher to have your blood on their hands, but look to Christ and ask Him to cleanse you in His precious blood so that you might be saved.

1 Peter 1:18-19: “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”