Evangelicals Now
Christian news worldwide
magnifying glass Search archives
home Home check the archives Archives Subscribe Subscriptions Advertising Information & booking of classifieds Adverts Find a local evangelical Church Find a church for the search engines and extremely curious! About us Contact us Site Map
Printable
Version

The house built on the sand

Pointing to Jesus

THE HOUSE BUILT ON THE SAND
By Tony Pearce
New Wine Press. 94 pages
ISBN 1 903725 70 4

Tony Pearce leads Bridge Lane Christian Fellowship in Golders Green, North London, and is well known for his links with the Messianic Testimony.

The book is essentially evangelistic in that it attempts to draw people to Messiah Jesus by engendering concern about future trends and the ultimate judgements of God upon the world system during the coming Great Tribulation. I am unhappy with this approach as I feel it tends to replace the conviction of the Holy Spirit with human worries about the future of ‘Western civilisation’.

However, it is a compelling broad-brush overview of recent developments and possible future trends. For that reason alone, it deserves to be read widely — so long as the reader keeps in mind that the future trends set out in this study are possibilities, perhaps even probabilities, rather than inevitabilities.

In the USA and Europe, we seem very secure in our assumption that modern technology will continue to grow apace and make life more practical for everyone — and that leisure time will increase for all. In contrast, the author rightly highlights the fragility of a tight system based almost entirely on limited oil supplies. He also shows how the USA and European countries are reluctant to tackle issues of human rights abuses in the oil-producing states for fear of the effects of any reduction in supplies. Many such important comments are supplied as asides throughout the book.

The main weakness of the book is the author’s attempt to tie down some of his concerns to specific biblical prophecies. Although the author is wiser than many who attempt this, it still unfortunately weakens the impact of this rightly disturbing book. The author’s pre-tribulation rapture view obtrudes directly only twice, but I feel that his underlying attitude has somewhat skewed his general approach to prophetic Scriptures.

This book will help the reader gain an understanding of current international trends in the light of the Bible.

Mike Taylor,
London