From condemning the devil’s buttermilk to celebrating gin and whiskey distillery – the DUP and Diane Dodds

Proverbs 23:29-32: “Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.”

The headlines have been utterly dominated this week by news of Arlene Foster’s demise as leader of the DUP, with much mention made of her softening stance on moral issues.

The final nail in the coffin for her leadership appeared to be her abstention on a motion at the NI Assembly in relation to “gay conversion therapy”, and that is something we intend to, in the will of the Lord, address in another post next week.

However, a matter arose a few weeks ago which we wish to highlight first and which, we believe, is indicative of the degenerative plight of the DUP in recent years, a plight accelerated under her catastrophic leadership.

It is the matter of professing Christian Diane Dodds, determined Arlene acolyte and now an MLA and Minister in the Stormont Executive (no doubt due to her dazzling political acumen and not in any way connected to who her husband is) celebrating and smiling proudly at the opening of a new gin and whiskey distillery in the town of Ballynahinch in County Down.

It is certainly rather at odds with her former party leader Ian Paisley’s stance of describing alcohol as “the devil’s buttermilk”.

In her role as Economy Minister, she visited the new ‘Hinch Distillery and visitor centre’ to wish them every success in the promotion and sale of a very strong variant of the devil’s buttermilk.

Speaking about the distillery, the professing Christian said: “Northern Ireland is known globally for our great hospitality along with the pure natural quality of our produce.

“Investments like these will help us sow the seeds of recovery and rebuild our economy following the impact of the pandemic. The hospitality and tourism industry has been especially impacted so I am delighted to be here today to be able to celebrate this investment, and I want to congratulate Terry and his team and wish them every success.”

Her quotes can be found in this article you can find by clicking here. Diane Dodds also retweeted the Department of the Economy tweet plugging this investment, so she is certainly not ashamed of it. Her retweet of that post is pictured below.

Diane Dodds evidently considers hard liquor to be “pure natural quality” rather than a debauching, harmful, addictive substance which ought to be discouraged from consumption, especially by a professing Christian.

And she states that she was “delighted to be here” and wishes “Terry [Cross, the distillery owner] and his team every success”.

How odd it is that Diane Dodds should be delighted to be at a distillery and smiling like the cat who got the cream beside the owner of the distillery and chief distiller, standing with three bottles of booze on a barrel?

Should her delight not be in the Lord (Psalm 37:5) and not in the world?

Diane Dodds wishes this purveyor of intoxicants “every success” – how on earth can that be consistent with what ought to be a godly desire to live a separated life?

Proverbs 20:1 reminds us of the damage done to the individual of alcohol in general, with specific reference to strong drink, which whiskey undoubtedly is.

It says: “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.”

Does Diane Dodds or her party wish to have such characters as those mentioned in Micah 2 held up as desirable examples?

She says in the quotes signed off by her above that “investments like these will help sow the seeds of recovery and help rebuild our economy following the impact of the pandemic”.

Micah 2:11 says: “If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people.”

It would appear that Diane Dodds is “prophesy[ing] unto thee of wine and of strong drink”.

Those false prophets told the people of the land that better days were to come despite the reproaches they were under of the Lord. They were prophesying to the people that there will be wine and strong drink in abundance in the days to come, that their crops will be bountiful, their produce and prosperity abundant.

And that was the type of character the people wanted to have as their prophet.

Do the comments of Diane Dodds not bear a striking resemblance to those type of sentiments condemned by the Lord through Micah?

Read what she says again: “Investments like these will help us sow the seeds of recovery and rebuild our economy.”

Her prophesy of wine and of strong drink will lead to “recovery” and “rebuild our economy”.

She is telling us we will all be better off as a country with more gin and whiskey being flogged and with more people visiting the tourist centre to have the image of alcohol, an addictive drug no less, further polished up and glamourised.

Sorry Diane Dodds, that is an utterly unacceptable comment from anyone, but especially from a professing Christian, and we would urge you to reflect on this and think upon it.

So many lives have been ruined and debauched by the demon drink, yet you seek to fund it, promote it and tell us we will be better off as a nation as a result?

Professing Christian Diane Dodds’ promotion of this distillery and expression of hope for the success of this business means she wants people to buy and consume this alcohol.

Think about that – Diane Dodds, a professing Christian and DUP Minister, actively wants people to buy and consume strong drink, indulging in a lifestyle utterly synonymous with the sinful world around us.

We would call on Diane Dodds to publicly repudiate her shameful actions and apologise for them.

Oh the folly of indulging in alcohol!

We will finish as we started, in the hope the message may get through.

Proverbs 23:29-35: “Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things. Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast. They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.”

Coronavirus ‘certainly not’ a punishment from God, say the DUP

Surely any true child of God cannot fail to see the judgment of God at work during this coronavirus crisis.

As this world grows ever more rebellious against our Creator, it is tempting Him more and more.

God is patient, we are reminded of this in 2 Peter 3:9, which says: “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

However, God’s patience does not last forever.

He gave Sodom and Gomorrah every chance to turn from their sin, but eventually He visited judgment upon them.

He let Saul hold the throne of Israel for 40 years, but eventually He took him away.

He let many other evil kings hold their positions of power for lengthy periods, such as Ahab, who reigned 22 years, Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, renowned for making Israel to sin, reigned the same period of time, while the second king called Jeroboam reigned for 41 years.

God bears with evil men sometimes for not long, but often He bears with them for a long time.

It can seem there are no consequences for wilful and persistent sinning.

Ecclesiastes 8:11 touches on this, when it says: “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.”

This is no slight on God in allowing wicked men to carry on in their sin, but rather a condemnation of the totally depraved heart of man.

We bear the guilt of our own actions, as the Saviour even outlined in Matthew 18:7: “Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!”

However, we are sure that, whether it be immediately, as was the case even for some of the evil kings of Israel and Judah, or whether it be “in the long grass”, as we might say, God will reckon for sin.

And are we not seeing that even now in the death, misery, sorrow, isolation and financial ruin being caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic sweeping across the world?

So much of this world has turned its back completely on the Lord.

Throughout the world now there are moves to celebrate that for which God destroyed the aforementioned cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, with ‘Pride’ parades polluting so many city centres.

Throughout the world now, infanticide, known euphemistically as abortion, is so commonplace, it is the biggest killer worldwide. At the time of writing, there have been nearly 12.7 million abortions carried out globally this year so far. That is an average of about 117,000 every day.

So far, coronavirus has claimed the lives of somewhere in the region of 160,000 people worldwide.

Roughly that same number of unborn babies have been done away with in the past 33 hours.

Due to the threat posed by coronavirus, the world has came to a virtual standstill out of fear over how many lives will be lost, yet babies continue to be murdered en masse with a callous disregard for their lives.

Indeed, baby murder campaigners have been howling with outrage that Northern Ireland’s health minister, Robin Swann, didn’t seem to be prioritising the implementation of the new wicked abortion laws in our country enough for their liking. Apparently his preoccupation with a global pandemic was an unsatisfactory explanation for his mind being elsewhere.

The Alliance Party MP Stephen Farry intervened to state his belief abortion pills should be made available for women to conveniently kill their own flesh and blood from the comfort of their own home, showing once again for all to see what a wicked group the Alliance Party is.

Northern Ireland has, of course, recently had the foul, retrograde laws forced upon us to allow baby murder on demand and facilitate sodomite marriage.

And it is in this environment that a DUP Councillor took to social media to express his belief the coronavirus pandemic was a punishment from God.

Naturally, this was met by a huge outcry from the same easily offended people who are not in the least offended by the notion of murdering a baby in their mother’s womb.

His horrendously offensive Facebook post said: “I said when abortion was legalised that our nation would be judged by God because of its departure from his word and the legalisation of the murder of the unborn child as well as same-sex marriage.

“You reap what you sow and our nation is now reaping the judgment of God because of an immoral and corrupt government.”

Not a thing wrong with what DUP Councillor John Carson, who represents the Ballymena area in County Antrim, said there.

However, sadly he then issued a craven apology to anyone he may have offended.

He said: “…anyone who knows me will know that l would not intentionally set out to cause hurt or offence to anyone and if l did then for that l humbly apologise.”

John Carson went on to say he would not apologise for standing up for his Christian beliefs but he already effectively had.

The enemies of the gospel are loud and proud in their rejection of God’s Word, yet Christians seem reluctant to share God’s Word and apologetic if they do.

Matthew 5:13-16 gives us the words of the Saviour when He speaks of how we are not to be ashamed of Him.

He says: “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

While John Carson backing down was sad, it was much sadder still to hear the view then expressed by his party, the party founded by Rev Ian Paisley, a man who, in his heyday, was a fearless preacher of God’s Word, used mightily of the Lord in our land.

Diane Dodds (pictured, top), recently parachuted back into Stormont after a number of years as a Member of the European Parliament and promptly landed into the vaunted (and generously paid at £87,500 per annum) role of economy minister (no doubt her being married to the party’s deputy leader, Nigel Dodds, is in no way a factor in her abrupt promotion), said “it certainly does not reflect the views of the DUP”.

What a long way the DUP has fallen that they shun the view that God’s hand is in the affairs of men, but rather that God is detached from the world we live in.

Worse still, when asked if John Carson would be disciplined, Diane Dodds said she was “presuming it will go to party officers”, a euphemistic way of saying “yes”.

So the DUP is at the very least threatening a councillor who took a Biblical view (before his cowardly backtracking) with censure or punishment of some kind.

How far this party has fallen.

If you are as yet looking at the DUP with any type of hope, believing they might just be willing to take a stand for God, we would urge you to reconsider.

The DUP has a lesbian councillor, the DUP has allowed one of its MLAs (Paula Bradley) to sign off on allowing a disgusting ‘drag queen’ act be held at Stormont, the DUP has funnelled thousands of pounds to sodomite groups and one of its senior MLAs, Mervyn Storey (pictured, below) met with and congratulated the leader of the utterly God-defying Corrymeela Community on 50 years of its existence.

This is the direction of travel within the DUP – the number of born again Christians within the party, both elected representatives and party officials, continues to dwindle.

How often do we hear a Biblical case put forward by the DUP any more for anything?

John Carson, who, despite his backtracking, is better than those who stay silent, was pushed back into his box very quickly by the DUP party machine.

May God save us from relying on any political party for succour, but rather let us look always to Him.

Let us keep our eyes firmly fixed on the Saviour and not on man.

Psalm 118:8-9: “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.”