Time Is Up - Prepare For Pain
- Josh MacDonald
- Apr 17
- 8 min read
On Saturday 11th April, engineers disconnected the mechanism of Big Ben’s western clockface so they can carry out weatherproofing repairs on that side of our capital’s famous clocktower without damaging the dial. Three of the four clockfaces are behaving perfectly normally, but the western dial of Elizabeth’s Tower is frozen at 12 o’clock, and will remain so until Tuesday 21st April.
I noticed this when a friend of mine posted a video on her WhatsApp status on Tuesday 14th April showing educators from the Centre for Bioethical Reform working at a public information display outside parliament, sharing vivid images of the bruised and disfigured bodies of dead babies killed in the womb at late stages of gestation, alongside beautiful images of live developing babies, and expectant mothers.
They were there on that particular day to remind the House of Commons that, should they approve the Crime & Policing Bill in their final debate that afternoon, and that Bill go on to receive royal assent at their recommendation, those procuring or performing an abortion at any pre-birth stage would no longer face legal penalty, and neither history nor God would look upon them kindly for having changed our law in such a way.
I watched the video, mentally honouring those brave witnesses, and noticed that the clock on one face was stuck at 12:00, whilst the adjacent face visible on the video continued at the correct time. It struck me as odd, but I was busy, and quickly moved on. It was only when that same friend re-posted a clip of the same video and made a brief point about the clock, and I viewed that second video the next day, when it finally clicked in my mind, and I remembered the horses.
Horses bolt while time stops
Do you remember what happened on 24th April 2024? If you don’t, at the bottom of this post you can watch a video about it – it’s a video I recorded soon afterwards which unpacked the events of that day, so I won’t go over all the details again here. But you might remember that, as a bleeding white horse and a black horse bolted through central London beginning around 08:40 on the morning of the 24th April 2024, Big Ben stopped for approximately 1hour and 15minutes, restarting at 10:15, after the chimes for 11:00 had sounded early at 10:06.
Many found all this very curious, and I made the point that we believed God Himself had stopped the clock to reveal to us that, in His sight, as a nation, we stood then at the 11th hour, approaching the deadline that 12 o’clock (midnight) represents – the passing from one day to another, from one place or time or season to another new and distinct one.
I believe God was supernaturally and powerfully warning us that we didn’t have long left. That we needed to repent and cry out for mercy, because the twin judgements the two Revelation chapter 6-like horses spoke of – people killing each other (the white horse with fiery red blood), and food costing ten times what it used to (the black horse) – were just around the corner.
So this time the clock has stopped again - in April - two years after last time. This time it hasn’t stopped supernaturally. This time it’s only one face, the one that faces west. But there it is, stuck at 12, for all of us to see, every day, for ten days. And I believe that again God is speaking to the nation powerfully, and He is saying something like this:
"Midnight has come. I warned you. I gave you two years. And because of what you have done with those two years, I must now allow these two painful punishments to come. I never wanted to do it. But I have to bring justice - justice I hoped would not be necessary - to teach you that your ways before me are deeply rebellious and that your laws are abhorrent. I love life, and I must act to make you know it."
I find it amazing that, back in April 2024, an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill previously tabled by Diana Johnson MP was awaiting debate, scheduled for May of that year. That amendment proposed that women be removed from the criminal law related to abortion, and was essentially the precursor to Tonia Antoniazzi MP’s very similar amendment to today’s Crime & Policing Bill that will, assuming that the King spinelessly looks away from unborn lives just like his mother QEII did in 1967, become law very soon.
What our lawmakers said in the Commons
Before I leave you with a final thought, I want to give you a quick flavour of the debate that happened in Parliament yesterday. It was shameful. Disgusting. And, with two significant exceptions, evil.
Tonia Antoniazzi declared that she had previously been “horrified to learn of the increasing number of cases in recent years of women facing criminal investigations and prosecutions on suspicion of illegal abortion offences”, describing what more than 100 women who had aborted their babies had been forced to endure at the hands of the law as “abject cruelty”, that the present law was “barbaric and completely unnecessary” and that she had chosen to “stand up for women.”
Thankfully, and inspirationally, two men stood in support of the babies, the 300,000 babies being suffocated, suctioned, torn apart and stabbed to death in the womb every year in this great nation. The first was Sir Edward Leigh MP, who in the midst of a debate about fly-tipping said:
“Fly-tipping is very important, but can I refer my hon. Friend to a matter of life and death? As a result of Lords amendment 361 and the amendments to it, somebody who illegally procures a late-term abortion will receive a free pardon. I refer my hon. Friend to Mr Justice Cooke, who said in the Sarah Catt case that Catt had robbed the baby of the life it was about to have and that the seriousness of the crime lay between manslaughter and murder. At sentencing, the judge told Catt that she clearly thought the man with whom she was having an affair was the father and she had shown no remorse. Is it not a terrible indictment of our society that a human life can be taken when it is about to be born, at 39 weeks, and that there should be a free pardon in such a serious case?”
It is precious to me that God used Sir Edward to show us exactly what we are doing – fly-tipping lives created by God. Throwing them out into the incinerators and onto the refuse heap for someone else to deal with. Hoping they go away. But they won’t. Because God is holding them. And they are alive in His hands, and they will receive justice, and we now must face a measure of that in our streets and our homes. Because He surely must make us see what we are doing.
Matt Vickers MP followed up Sir Edward by saying:
“I share my right hon. Friend’s concerns—I think many people across the country share them—not only about the issue, however strongly people might feel about it, but about the way that it was added to this Bill after Committee stage, meaning that some of the scrutiny that might otherwise have happened did not, and no evidence on it was given at the evidence sessions. It was slipped into the Bill, and I do not think that there was adequate scrutiny of it. Lots of people across the country share that concern. Such a seismic change in the relationship between the state and individuals should have had more scrutiny in this place.”
Towards the end, government minister Sarah Jones declared that “the Government do not have a view on this, because it is an issue to do with abortion, and it would not be correct to take a view on that.” Well let me tell you, God has a view on it. And I believe He is about to let us know How he feels about it.
What we must do to prepare
I believe God is saying that time is up - we have missed many opportunities to repent, and unless there is a sudden change of course across the nation, a deeper level of judgement and refining is now inevitable. So what do we need to do?
Well, we need to do what all God’s people down through the ages have done when God has revealed impending disaster. Roused by God’s signs in the nation, and knowing that God longs to be merciful, we need to wake up and urgently cry out in this final hour, repent of our laziness and lack of love towards the unborn, the vulnerable and the orphan, and urgently change our ways. But at the same time, as we recognise what is coming upon our land, we need to spiritually and practically prepare.
Half of the battle is accepting that it really will come. That fighting will increase in the streets and they will become very dangerous places to be. That our food will become incredibly expensive and we will not have much of it. That some of our physical safety and some of our financial comfort will be removed.
If we can accept it, then we can ready ourselves. We can reassure ourselves that yes, our joy is found in Jesus alone, and that no matter the circumstances, we will praise Him all the same. And the only way to do this is to really and truly get a hold of our Bibles and drink in the beauty of Christ and the fullness of His sacrifice on our behalf, and know and have peace in the fact that we are saved and can look forward to eternity.
Joseph stockpiled grain in obedience to Pharoah’s prophetic dreams, and the early church disciples, in response to Agabus’s prophecy about a great famine that would go throughout all the world, “each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea” (Acts 11).
In other words, they didn’t just retreat into a bunker, re-mortgage the house, start planting veg in the garden, sell their stocks and shares, and order a Morrisons delivery of rice and pasta (though all those things might well be what God is asking you to do). They opened up their hearts and their eyes, and they started looking after those that didn’t have enough.
For too long, friends, we Christians have just looked after number one. These painful punishments falling on the nation will also fall on us. Let’s make sure we respond as Christ wants us to – with courage, and with compassion. The Lord is with you. Be strong!
And there’s a glorious encouragement for us in those horses of Revelation 6. When the black horse of famine comes, a voice cries out ‘do not damage the oil and the wine!” (verse 6). Now I and others take that to mean that God set limits on how much the rider of the black horse could destroy. The roots of the olive and vine go deeper than the crops of wheat and barley, so would not be limited by the drought that is forecast there in Revelation 6. So you can be really comforted by this fact: God is going to provide for you, as you put your trust in Him!
As mentioned above, we released this video in May 2024 about the horses in London:
