Month: October 2020

Reflection on Exodus 4:18-31

/ newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

Scripture

Then the people of Israel were convinced that the Lord had sent Moses and Aaron. When they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshipped.

Observation

Moses leaves Jethro, his father-in-law. He takes his wife and sons and heads for Egypt.

Along the way, the Lord confronts Moses. Zipporah, his wife, circumcises their son. Aaron meets up with them along the way, and they travel to Egypt together.

When they call the elders together to tell them all that the Lord has said, Moses also performs the miraculous signs. The people believe and they worship the Lord.

Application

After years of slavery and misery, the Hebrew people finally hear some good news. God is going to rescue them.

It must have been easy to believe that the Lord had abandoned His people and even forgotten about them. But Moses comes along with the message that the Lord has not forgotten them.

When we are feeling discouraged in life, how wonderful it is to remember that God has seen our misery.

This is not just a doctrinal statement. Yes, we know that God sees everything about our lives. Nothing is hidden from Him. More importantly, the Lord sees our misery and has compassion.

God does not just see our suffering- He experiences it and feels it as we do. How awesome is that!

God sees and feels our disappointment, our grief, our suffering, and our failing. He is not looking for things to smite us for, but He looks for reasons to show compassion, and He walks through our difficulties with us.

Prayer

Lord, I thank you that you see my misery, and you turn it into joy. You walk with me in the tough times and turn them into victories of your grace. Thank you. Amen.

Reflection on Exodus 4:1-17

/ newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

Scripture

Then the Lord asked Moses, “Who makes a person’s mouth? Who decides whether people speak or do not speak, hear or do not hear, see or do not see? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go! I will be with you as you speak, and I will instruct you in what to say.”

Observation

Moses asks the Lord, “What if they don’t believe me?” The Lord tells Moses to throw down his staff, and it turns into a snake. When he catches it by the tail it is restored to a staff. Then the Lord tells Moses to put his hand inside his cloak, and it is covered with skin disease. He puts his hand back in, and it is restored.

The Lord tells Moses that if the people don’t believe Moses’ words, they will believe these signs.

Moses then claims he is not very good with words, but the Lord says that He is the one who makes a man’s mouth and who decides whether he should speak. He appoints Moses’ brother, Aaron, to be Moses’ spokesman.

Application

Moses is having a conversation with the Lord who is speaking to him from a bush that burns without being consumed. Yet Moses is reluctant to go as the messenger of this powerful God.

The same Lord calls us to go to our friends and neighbours with the wonderful message that Jesus saves. Yet we have the same objections that Moses had- they will not believe me, they will think I am crazy.

To these objections the Lord says that He designed our mouths and can direct us to speak. It is His problem whether people listen or not.

The Lord gives each of us a message to take to a person or a group of people, perhaps even a whole nation. Whether it is the gospel message, a prophecy or a word of encouragement, we must trust God to speak through us, and leave the results to Him.

Prayer

Lord please give me courage and confidence in you so that I can share your message of salvation to the people I see each day. Amen.

Where Legalised Euthanasia Leads

/ newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

In the middle of a pandemic and footy grand final fever the Queensland Premier announced, just two weeks out from an election, that if re-elected she will move to legalise euthanasia/ assisted suicide/ death camps. It doesn’t matter what you call it, it all ends up in tyranny of the powerful over those deemed “expendable.”

If you have a vote in the Queensland election, read this carefully before you vote.

 

From caldronpool.com

 

The Netherlands Pushes for Children to be Euthanised by Doctors · Caldron Pool


 
Children between the ages of 1 and 12 could soon be euthanized by doctors in the Netherlands, Health Minister Hugo de Jonge told Parliament last Tuesday.

Children between the ages of 1 and 12 could soon be euthanized by doctors in the Netherlands, Health Minister Hugo de Jonge told Parliament last Tuesday.

De Jonge said the new policy would see around five to ten terminally ill children legally executed every year.

According to the NL Times, doctors are presently only permitted to “give palliative care, like sedation, or withhold nutrition over an extended period of time until the patient dies.”

Doctors, who have been calling for more regulation, say there is a “grey area” between normal palliative care and active life termination.

The Health Minister said his proposal will protect the interests of children and will afford more transparency to the “grey area.”

The Netherlands became the first country to legalize euthanasia in 2002. Since then, the country has seen an increase in those requesting death by assisted suicide.

Cases include a man who was killed by doctors because he was an alcoholic; a 45-year-old woman, and a woman in her 20s, who had traumatic childhood memories; a 54-year-old woman who had a pathological fear of germs; and a 34-year-old mother who was chronically depressed.

It was also reported that a doctor in the Netherlands “euthanised” an elderly woman against her will.

In the first-ever case of its kind, Dutch authorities accused the doctor of performing euthanasia on an unwilling patient after a regional review board found the doctor had “overstepped the mark” by euthanising a 74-year old woman whose final will was “unclear and contradictory.”

However, a court in The Hague ruled that it is not necessary to obtain confirmation of the request when a patient is no longer able to express his or her wishes. The judges also noted that the doctor did well not to ask the patient herself if she wanted to die as it might have caused “agitation.”

In her final moments, the elderly woman reportedly struggled with hospital staff and attempted to prevent the doctor from giving her the lethal injection.

Euthanasia in the Netherlands is getting so out of hand that 200 Dutch doctors took out an advertisement in a major newspaper, which stated: “[Assisted suicide] for someone who cannot confirm he wants to die? No, we will not do that. Our moral reluctance to end the life of a defenceless man is too great.”

Read the rest of this article here

Ephesians 3:17

/ newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

Here is my commentary on Ephesians 3:17. I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site, http://www.new-life.org.au

Ephesians 3:17

“… So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and grounded in faith…”

Paul is continuing his prayer for the Ephesians (and for us).

The previous verse was a prayer that they receive power through the Spirit of God. He finishes that sentence now.

The prayer to receive this power is directed to the result that ”Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”

Some theologians disapprove of “asking Jesus into your heart.” Jesus is in heaven so it does not make sense, they claim. Buy here Paul is explicitly stating that Christ does live in our hearts.

To state the obvious, this is not a reference to our physical hearts. There is not a Christ – shaped hole in our heart that Jesus slots into when we pray the sinner’s prayer.

The heart is often used as a synonym for the soul, which is the seat of our character, will, and emotions. Paul is praying that Christ will come and fill our souls.

That raises the question of what it means to have Christ in our hearts or souls. To me, it means that we give over that part of our being, our internal life to him. In other words, we are no longer self-directed, but Christ – directed. We are no longer living a marred, sinful life, but one which is clean and sinless. We don’t do what we want to do, but what Christ wants us to do.

The prayer is that Christ dwells in our hearts. He makes the place his habitation, his home, and is not just a visitor .

This means that we allow the Holy Spirit to direct us. We daily invite the Lord to be present in our hearts in everything, and seek to hand over our desires and plans to him.

This is a lifelong process that should not end this side of Heaven.

Some people seem contend to have Christ steer their lives at home and church, but work is a different matter where the customs and rules of the business world dominate.

Other people allow Him in sporadically. They might have a spiritual experience at a camp or conference, and they know that Christ is with them for a few weeks. But then it is back to the old ways until the next “high.”

Christ wants to dwell in our hearts – to stay there every day.

When Christ is dwelling in our hearts, then we can be rooted and grounded in love.

The word for love here is agape, the totally selfless and unfailing love that God has for us. With Christ dwelling in our hearts, the very embodiment of agape love, then we can know that we are loved unconditionally.

God’s agape love, transforms a person’s life. Many of us suffer feelings of shame, rejection, unworthiness, and so on. We have been hurt, bullied, or abandoned. But God’s love heals the traumas of living in a sin-filled world.

We need to be rooted and established in God’s love. Love, to be effective, needs to be constant. God’s love is constant, but our ability to believe and receive it is not.

To be rooted in God’s love means that we grow deep emotional and spiritual roots in him. Paul describes this as “by faith.” In other words, we taste the love of God and by faith we learn to live in it.

Trees that only grow shallow roots are vulnerable to being blown over in storms or dying of dehydration in droughts. Only trees that push their roots deep into the soil will live a full and long life.

We must push our roots deep into the love of God so that, even when God seems to be absent, we trust in his provision, persistence, and protection.

Key points in this verse

  • Christ wants to dwell in our hearts, that is to make His home there
  • We need to learn to be Christ- directed rather than self-directed
  • We need to put deep spiritual and emotional roots into God’s love
  • God’s love heals us of the hurts that come from living in a sin-filled world

Reflection on Exodus 3:1-22

/ newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

Scripture

There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire form the middle of a bush. Though the bush was engulfed by flames, it did not burn up. “This is amazing,” Moses said to himself.

Observation

One day, while tending his father-in-law’s sheep, the Lord appears to Moses in a burning bush. The Lord identifies Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The Lord tells Moses that He is about to set His people free and so Moses is to go to Pharaoh and demand that he let them go. When Moses objects, the Lord says that He will be with him.

Moses then asks the Lord what name will he tell the people is the name of the God who has sent him? The Lord says “Tell them ‘I Am has sent you.’”

The Lord warns Moses that, although the elders of Israel will receive him, Pharaoh will resist until, through a series of miracles, the Lord will strike the Egyptians.

Application

This must have been an awesome sight for Moses to see- a bush that burned without being consumed. It was unusual enough for Moses to stop what he was doing and listen to the voice of the Lord.

One reason that we don’t hear the voice of the Lord is that we don’t make space for that. We live in a noisy world, surrounded by electronically generated voices clamouring for our attention. We live in an “always on” world,

To hear God, we have to silence the other voices. We need to turn our phones, computers and TVs off then learn to turn our anxious brain off as well. Then, as we focus on God, we can start to hear the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit.

It takes time, effort and conscious decision, but we need to do it to connect to the true God, the source of our life.

Prayer

Come Holy Spirit and speak to me in the stillness. Be the burning bush for me today. Amen.

Reflection on Exodus 2:1-25

/ newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

Scripture

God heard their groaning, and he remembered his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He looked down on the people of Israel and knew it was time to act.

Observation

A woman from the tribe of Levi gives birth to a baby boy, and rather than having him thrown into the Nile River as the law required, she keeps him at home for three months. Then she makes a little basket and floats him in the river.

Pharaoh’s daughter comes to the river to bathe and discovers the baby. She decides to adopt him. The baby’s mother nurses him until he is old enough to be weaned. When it is time for him to go to the palace, the boy is named Moses.

Many years later, Moses sees an Egyptian overseer beating a Hebrew slave. Enraged, Moses kills the Egyptian, but he realises that he has been found out, and so he flees to Midian. There he settles down and marries Zipporah.

Finally, God decides it is time to act to rescue His people,

Application

Sometimes we overlook the time frames in the Bible. Moses was about 40 years old when he killed the Egyptian, and he was in Midian for another 40 years before he was called by God to set His people free.

At the end of this chapter, God is thinking it is time to act on His promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but still, from a human perspective, nothing is happening.

We might feel something similar about promises we have received from God. Maybe we have been praying for decades for a promise to come to pass.

God’s timing is not the same as ours. But His timing is always perfect.

We live in an era where faster is always better and fastest is still not fast enough.

God works on the principle that there is a right time, an appropriate time for everything.

The people of Israel had no idea of what do was about to do for them. It must have appeared that God had forgotten about them. In God’s time, the perfect time, a great rescue was about to be launched.

Prayer

Lord, please help me to be patient as I wait for your plans to unfold. Amen.

Reflection on Exodus 1:1-22

/ newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

Scripture

Because the midwives feared God, they refused to obey the king’s orders. They allowed the boys to live too.

Observation

Generations pass and the descendants of Jacob prosper in Egypt. A king arises who knows noth8ing of what Joseph had done for Egypt. He becomes fearful of the threat that the Hebrews may pose to his reign.

The Egyptians make the Israelites their slaves, hoping to wear them down with crushing labour. The king is ruthless, but still the Hebrews prosper.

The king orders the Hebrew midwives to kill all baby boys that are born. The midwives fear God, so they refuse to obey this order. When questioned later, they say that the Hebrew women give birth too quickly for them to get there in time, and so the baby boys live.

God continues to bless the Hebrew people and the midwives. They continue to grow in number and in strength.

Application

The Hebrew people are in a place of captivity. The Pharaoh tries to reduce their population by ordering the midwives to kill all the baby boys. The midwives fear God and so refuse to obey this order.

The king was an absolute monarch. There were no human rights then. The Hebrews were a feared ethnic minority. The midwives stood in defiance of an absolute ruler who could do what he liked to them.

Because these brave women were faithful to God, God blessed them with children of their own and continued to bless the people of Israel.

The Covid pandemic has forced some churches to ask themselves whether it is right to obey the Government and close their doors for a season, or to obey God’s commandment to meet regardless of what the Government says? The availability of technology and shorter shut downs in some areas made that decision easier for some than for others.

Christians in the medical community sometimes have to make a stance against participating in abortions or euthanasia. Some have lost their jobs or licence to practise over these issues.

Whatever the situation, we must always be prepared to defy human rulers if they require us to go against God’s will.

Prayer

Lord, please hep me to be faithful to you, to follow your ways rather than the ways of people. Amen.

A classic fallacious argument: “If masks don’t work, then why do surgeons wear them?”

/ newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

A classic fallacious argument: “If masks don’t work, then why do surgeons wear them?”

 
Jim Meehan MD
meehanmd.com
Wed, 22 Jul 2020 05:49 UTC
 
 
face mask

A response to people who use the classic fallacious argument, “Well, if masks don’t work, then why do surgeons wear them?”

I’m a surgeon that has performed over 10,000 surgical procedures wearing a surgical mask. However, that fact alone doesn’t really qualify me as an expert on the matter. More importantly, I am a former editor of a medical journal. I know how to read the medical literature, distinguish good science from bad, and fact from fiction. Believe me, the medical literature is filled with bad fiction masquerading as medical science. It is very easy to be deceived by bad science.

Since the beginning of the pandemic I’ve read hundreds of studies on the science of medical masks. Based on extensive review and analysis, there is no question in my mind that healthy people should not be wearing surgical or cloth masks. Nor should we be recommending universal masking of all members of the population. That recommendation is not supported by the highest level of scientific evidence.

First, let’s be clear. The premise that surgeons wearing masks serves as evidence that “masks must work to prevent viral transmission” is a logical fallacy that I would classify as an argument of false equivalence, or comparing “apples to oranges.”

Although surgeons do wear masks to prevent their respiratory droplets from contaminating the surgical field and the exposed internal tissues of our surgical patients, that is about as far as the analogy extends. Obviously, surgeons cannot “socially distance” from their surgical patients (unless we use robotic surgical devices, in which case, I would definitely not wear a mask).

The CoVID-19 pandemic is about viral transmission. Surgical and cloth masks do nothing to prevent viral transmission. We should all realize by now that face masks have never been shown to prevent or protect against viral transmission. Which is exactly why they have never been recommended for use during the seasonal flu outbreak, epidemics, or previous pandemics.

The failure of the scientific literature to support medical masks for influenza and all other viruses, is also why Fauci, the US Surgeon General, the CDC, WHO, and pretty much every infectious disease expert stated that wearing masks won’t prevent transmission of SARS CoV-2. Although the public health “authorities” flipped, flopped, and later changed their recommendations, the science did not change, nor did new science appear that supported the wearing of masks in public. In fact, the most recent systemic analysis once again confirms that masks are ineffective in preventing the transmission of viruses like CoVID-19: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article

If a surgeon were sick, especially with a viral infection, they would not perform surgery as they know the virus would NOT be stopped by their surgical mask.

Read the rest of the article here