Ribble Valley Monkey Glands

Submitted by Alan Marsden on Fri, 08/10/2021 - 00:00

During the Prime Minister’s recent party conference speech at Manchester, he asked:

"What monkey glands are they applying in Ribble Valley? What Royal Jelly are they eating that they live seven years longer than the people of Blackpool, only 33 miles away?"

The Ribble Valley is the district in which our chapel is located, known for its large, expensive houses, affluent inhabitants and pleasant scenery. Blackpool, on the other hand, though famous for its tower and candyfloss, suffers from economic deprivation, with a shorter life expectancy to match. One answer to the First Treasury Lord’s question might be the return to pre-Covid Universal Credit levels; the £20 'top-up' was effectively a relocation of wealth from the tax-paying Ribble Valley to the tax-receiving borough of Blackpool. Even without this, however, the denizens of Blackpool were dying much sooner than their East Lancashire cousins. Poverty, worse education, higher crime, excessive quanitites of fish & chips, might all be cited to answer Mr Johnson's question.

Ribble Valley folk might live longer, but they are as ripe for hell as the less respectable scallies and tinkers of Blackpool. They have better jobs and live more desirable lifestyles, but their leafy lanes and smart avenues are as contaminated by sin as the grotty alleys of Blackpool. In fact, well-to-do folk might actually be worse off. The rich find it hard to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, the Lord Jesus observed. Their exquisite manners, social niceties and charitable giving only inflate their pride and sense of self-worth. Delaying the trip to hell by a few years does little long-term good. Prisoners on the run will still serve their sentence. Genteel, middle-class sinners warrant God's righteous anger as much as any antisocial yob or ill-educated oaf.

Whether you are a well-heeled burgher of Whalley, or a grimy drug-pusher of Norbreck, you need Jesus Christ and His gracious re-ordering of your life.

This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. 1 Timothy 1:15