Month: July 2021

Will Australians Ever Be Free?

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Written by James Bolt

2 July 2021

ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN SPIKED

It is estimated that there are fewer than 300 active cases of Covid-19 in Australia. Yet over 12million Australians are currently living under lockdown – more than half the population. This is madness. And it is going to be the norm for Australia for a long time to come.

Sydney’s two-week lockdown began on 26 June, after the state of New South Wales recorded 18 new locally transmitted cases. There was just one person in intensive care with Covid in the state on the day the lockdown began. At the time of writing, there is still only one.

Perth’s four-day lockdown began on 28 June. It was brought in after two cases of community transmission were detected – bringing the city’s ‘cluster’ up to three cases. No one in Western Australia is in hospital with Covid.

Darwin’s snap two-day lockdown, announced on 27 June, has already been extended to five days. There are 10 active cases in the entire Northern Territory. Ten people are in hospital, though none in ICU.

Much of Queensland is in lockdown, too. A three-day lockdown began on 29 June after four new cases were discovered in the state. There are 41 hospital beds taken up by Covid patients in Queensland, but no patient is in ICU.

Even those Australians who are legally entitled to leave their homes cannot escape the Covid mania. In South Australia, new restrictions were brought in on 29 June that limited venue capacity to one person per two square metres. The restrictions also meant South Australians were banned from standing while drinking at pubs and clubs – to stop the spread of Covid, of course. There are just 18 active cases in South Australia, by the way. And nobody is in hospital with Covid.

Australia was the envy of the world in 2020, managing to keep Covid cases and deaths very low. We are now the world’s laughing stock. And it is all because of our reckless Zero Covid mentality. All Australian leaders, even if they won’t say it, are clearly committed to the idea that Covid can be eliminated. And all policies are on the table to achieve that. When elimination is the target, no risk is too small to necessitate draconian restrictions.

There was hope that New South Wales would be different. It had the only state government that appeared to recognise the harms of lockdown. It looked as if it wanted to find a way to live with Covid. But those hopes have now been dashed.

No matter where you live in Australia, your leaders can lock you down at any time. There is no escape. And nor will there be for a long time to come. Prime minister Scott Morrison, after returning from the G7 summit in Cornwall, had this to say: ‘Even as the UK is finding with an 80 per cent vaccinated population, they’re not there either because they’ve got over 100 people dying every week… That’s not a situation that I’m prepared to countenance.’ What a terrifying statement for Australians to hear: that even when 80 per cent of adults have been vaccinated, lockdowns will still be a regular feature of our lives.

Then there is the failure of Australia’s vaccination rollout. Australia has fully vaccinated less than six per cent of the population – the lowest of any country in the OECD. Catching up with the UK could take years at this rate.

We will have to get used to lockdowns. And to constant border closures – another policy deployed by our leaders at the first sign of risk, regardless of the humanitarian cost. Here are two stories of what border closures can do.

Moe and Sarah Haider were in hotel quarantine when Sarah was forced to have an emergency C-section. Following the successful procedure, they were banned from visiting their newborn because they had not completed their hotel quarantine. They could not hold their child for the first week of his life, nor visit him even when wearing full PPE. Both of them were fully vaccinated.

Then, there was the family from Victoria who wanted to holiday in Queensland. They opted to take an airport shuttle bus from the carpark to the airport terminal in Melbourne. This counted as entering a ‘Covid hotspot’ and meant they were forced to quarantine in a hotel.

Australians know these things could happen to any of them at any moment. The public needs to start speaking out more loudly. We cannot just trust our leaders to do the right thing.

And what is all of this pain for, anyway? Evidence from around the world shows lockdowns aren’t working. Research from the National Bureau of Economic Research in the US compared the Covid policies of 50 US states and 43 countries and found no evidence that lockdowns led to lower death rates. ‘To the contrary’, the authors claim, ‘we find a positive association between [lockdowns] and excess deaths’.

And yet Australia’s state governments keep throwing us into more and more lockdowns. Australia’s success in 2020 went to our leaders’ heads, and now no suffering is too great to wake them up from their Zero Covid fantasies. If they ever do wake up, what is going to be left of Australia?

James Bolt

James Bolt is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs

Adam Piggott: Let Democracy Die

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A remarkably good post from Adam Piggott today about the idols we have erected.

I don’t do social media, but when I do it’s only on Gab. There are a lot of Christians on Gab, and when I chance to glance at it my feed is invariably filled with politics. At present the topics vary from Trump won, to Trump is a Jewish-controlled moron, to how this one Republican representative is the only one that gets it, (hint: she doesn’t), to something about ballot counting in Arizona, to how we need to form a real political party that represents real – insert your Anglo-Saxon nation here – and take back our nations, you get the drift.

It’s not just on Gab, it’s all around the websites and forums of the right. And I’m here to tell you that it’s the dead wrong approach. It’s not just a waste of time, it plays into the hands of the Enemy. Because democracy, our most lauded and precious democracy, is the work of the devil himself.

Democracy has no inherent moral compass. This is because all morality comes from God, and thus anything not focused on God is immoral. Our democracies were never focused on God from the beginning. They might have pertained to do so, but the separation of Church and state meant that the world turned from focusing on the spiritual to focusing on the material.

The reason that the vast mass of people are willing to subject themselves to the poison peck is because they look to government as their guide for goodness. They want to be good, (or at least to be seen to be good), but lacking their own internal moral compass due to a complete absence of personal spirituality, their only recourse for guidance is what the government tells them. The catchall is that the people in government, running the government, are in exactly the same position. They too have no moral compass. What are the substitute moral compasses of humanity today?

Read the full article here

Quote for the Day

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If you look at the behaviors of the most industrious workers in a church, you will see the culture of that church in action. Those dutiful servants embody the life of the church. Thus, a church’s culture is not incidental. Scot & Laura McKnight

Ephesians 4:30

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Here is my commentary on Ephesians 4:30. 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 4:30

“Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”

We are not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

The word “ to grieve” has a similar meaning in Greek as in Hebrew. It means to cause sorrow or grief or to distress. Paul is telling us we must not distress the Holy Spirit.

This follows immediately after the instruction to not let any unwholesome to come out of our mouths. Some commentators suggest that this is important because the Holy Spirit is especially concerned about our communication within the fellowship and to unbelievers. The words that we use and the ways we talk to one another are important to the Holy Spirit and can cause Him grief or distress.

It is also true that our habitual or repeated sins of any character can distress the Holy Spirit. We are told repeatedly in the scriptures that we are to be holy just as the lord is holy. To be constantly in sin is to desecrate the holy vessels that God has called us to be and which Christ died to purchase.

The fact that we can grieve the Holy Spirit is a reminder of the personhood of the Spirit. We can sometimes think of the Spirit as being an impersonal force, perhaps because we fail to adequately grasp who the Holy Spirit is.

We must affirm that the Holy Spirit is God, and therefore a person, in the same way that the Father and the Son are also God and persons .

We use the word “spirit” very loosely at times – the spirit of Christmas, team spirit, the spirit of Australia. In this context the word means a vaguely conceived connection, a bond, or a shared purpose. This is not the character of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is God active in the world- whether the context is seen in individual believers, in non-believers, in a culture, or in the church.

When we grieve the Holy Spirit, we grieve God. This occurs through our sin and rebellion, and it opposes the whole concept of our salvation.

Paul here describes the Holy Spirit as” the Holy Spirit of God.” He could have referred to him as the Spirit, or the Spirit of God, or the Holy Spirit. In this way, Paul is emphasising that the Spirit of God is Holy. This is not a name or a title, but a description of the nature of the Spirit of God.

God is Holy. When we use the word “holy” about God, we don’t mean the same thing that we mean when we describe a created thing or a person as holy.

To say an object is holy means that it has been set apart for God’s purposes. The object then cannot be used for ordinary or profane purposes. Similarly when the scriptures say that we are to be holy, they mean that we are now devoted to God’s purposes and we cannot do just whatever we want to do.

To say God is holy is to say that God is untouched in anyway by sin. We can’t say this of any created thing because, just by being in the world, they are touched by the general state of corruption which sin has brought into the creation.

God is holy because He cannot do anything that is opposed to His own character. The Spirit of God is likewise holy. Jesus, the Son of God, was tempted in every way that we are, but He remained without sin. He is holy.

Because God is by His nature untouched by sin, He does not change in His holiness. We are assailed in every direction by temptation, and often we give in. We can be righteous one minute, and commit some grievous in the next minute, but God’s holiness is constant and unchanging .

The Spirit of God is holy because He is God, and He does not change .

We were sealed with the Holy Spirit of God for the day of redemption.

A seal was often placed on a document to serve two functions.

Firstly, it served as a guarantee of the source of the document. It was a sign of ownership. The document could be trusted as a genuine letter from a king, because it contained the king’s seal. The Holy Spirit’s presence in the life of the believer is a sign that we belong to God.

The second purpose of a seal was to guarantee the document’s authenticity. A letter that was sealed could be trusted to be free from alterations as long as the seal remained intact.

The Holy Spirit is a sign or a seal that we are the real thing as far as Christ is concerned. We carry the mark of God in our spirits to show that we are not a forgery. Our salvation is real because the Holy Spirit is really in us.

The presence of the Holy Spirit seals us for the day of redemption.

The day of judgement, when the sheep are separated from the goats, and the wheat from the weeds, can make us feel anxious. Judgement sounds like it is about condemnation or punishment.

The day of judgement is, for christians, the day of redemption. We will be declared free and righteous on that day. The Holy Spirit in us will be seen as the true sign of our salvation .

Christians have nothing to fear from God’s judgement. We know, or we should know, that Jesus’ death on the cross has bought our salvation. We look forward to eternal joy spent in the presence of God.

Those who do not know Christ will be judged and condemned to the lake of fire.

Our culture does not deal well with binary, or black and white, decisions. We like to have grey zones where the edges are blurred, where laws have loopholes. God has stated clearly that those who die in Christ will be raised to eternal life, while those who die away from Christ are doomed to hell.

To choose for Christ is the most important decision any person can make.

Key points in this verse:

  • To grieve the Holy Spirit means to cause him pain or distress
  • Our words and our sins can distress the Holy spirit
  • The Holy Spirit is God and is a person not a force
  • God is totally untouched by sin and cannot sin
  • We are sealed with the Holy Spirit as a sign and guarantee that we belong to God
  • For Christians the day of judgement is the day of freedom

Reflection on Matthew 22:1-14

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Scripture

“The feast has been prepared. The bulls and fattened cattle have been killed, and everything is ready. Come to the banquet.”

Observation

The kingdom of God is like a king who prepared a great wedding feast. When everything was ready the king sent out his servants to fetch the guests. They all refused to come.

The king sent out more servants. The guests ignored them, and some even killed the messengers.

The king was furious, so he sent his army to kill the murderers. Then he instructed his servants to bring in everyone “good and bad alike.” One man in the feast was not properly dressed and so the king had him thrown out into the darkness.

Application

The last few decades has seen a massive cultural change in the West. A centuries long tradition of adherence to christianity has been overturned by hypersexual individualism. No longer are christians in the majority in many countries, but they are becoming increasingly marginalised and harried by the cultural leaders.

There have been many attempts in the church to reverse this culture war. Christians have been made to feel guilty in many ways. If only we evangelised more or better. If only our churches were more welcoming of Generation Z’s or Millennials.

This parable was originally aimed against the leaders of Israel who failed to see Jesus was the long- awaited Messiah bringing in the promised Kingdom. They were the invited gusts who refused to come to the party.

But now we have a new culture where people have rejected the gospel. We are the invited guests living in the privilege of a culture that was dedicated to God’s values. We said “No” to the king’s invitation, and now the Spirit of God is calling people in Asia, Africa and South America to “Come.”

A faithful remnant intercedes for their nations and share the gospel. Will we see the invited guests change their minds and join the feast?

Prayer

Lord, I pray for Australia. Bring this nation back to a place of repentance before you. Revive us! Amen.

Clever Mimicry in Marine Fish

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Instead of cleaning parasites off the host, this aggressive mimic will actually bite them instead.

I just love the huge variety in the world of marine fish. They are a testament to the amazing creativity of the Creator God. Here are some examples of the ways in which some fish try to mimic other fish for a variety of reasons.

From Saltwater Aquarium blog

7 Sly Examples of Mimicry in Saltwater Fish

Let’s face it, it’s a fish-eat-fish world out there. Carving out a niche and surviving is a full-time job. One of my favorite survival strategies among animals is mimicry–and we’re fortunate to have several great examples of mimicry in saltwater fish.

7 Stealthy Cases of Saltwater Mimicry

If you want to jump right into things, you can scroll down to see the first case of mimicry in saltwater fish for yourself, but it might be helpful to provide some background about the few interesting types of mimicry that will be shown in this article:

  1. Batesian mimicry
  2. Self-mimicry
  3. Aggressive mimicry

Batesian 

The first, and perhaps most well-known type of mimicry is called Batesian. It is named after Henry Walter Bates, who put forward a theory that this visual copy-catting is an evolutionary adaptation/strategy that helps avoid predation.  Batesian mimicry occurs when a relatively harmless species imitates the coloration patterns of a species known to be toxic or have harm-inducing defenses. It’s sort of a distastefulness-by-association approach, where the harmless animal benefits by association, while the species being copied is largely unaffected.

Click here to read the rest of the article

Voluntary Assisted Dying

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CHRISTIAN MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS SAY: SIGN PETITION TO STOP EUTHANASIA

At a time when our nation should be trying to save lives and provide better aged care, new laws promoting euthanasia and assisted suicide are putting vulnerable people in danger.ADVERTISEMENT

Seeing the risk that these euthanasia laws pose to patients and medical professionals, the Christian Medical and Dental Fellowship of Australia is rising up to oppose assisted suicide and to promote more ethical health care.

The Christian Medical and Dental Fellowship of Australia (CMDFA) is an organisation of doctors, dentists and associated healthcare professionals who are urging all Christians to sign a petition calling for New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian to oppose the introduction of new laws which would allow euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in NSW.

This is to oppose the new ‘Voluntary Assisted Dying’ legislation that Independent MP Alex Greenwich hopes to present to the NSW Parliament in September, after releasing a draft in July.

Greenwich argues that similar laws have now passed in Victoria, Western Australia, Tasmania, South Australia and New Zealand. Queensland has committed to a draft bill.

But is that any reason for NSW to jump off the same cliff?

Professor John Whitehall, National Chair of the CMDFA, is one of many medical professionals who say no.

Speaking on behalf of his CMDFA colleagues, he says:

“We have great concern for those who suffer with terminal illness and agree that end-of-life care needs to be improved. We are, however, very concerned about the recent moves across Australia to legalise euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.”

“The CMDFA agrees with the World Medical Association [an international organisation founded by physicians from 27 different countries] that the practice of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide is unethical and must be condemned by the medical profession.

“Euthanasia is in conflict with basic ethical principles of medical practice and we reject Mr Greenwich’s suggestion that these practices constitute a form of medical care.”

Professor Whitehall points to what’s happening overseas and why legalising euthanasia can be a slippery slope:

“The experience in Canada and the US state of Oregon, where they’ve already legislated to allow euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, reveals that it is not possible to legislate in such a way that wrongful deaths do not occur.”

Here in Australia, the death toll from euthanasia is tragically rising. Whitehall says, “Our colleagues in Victoria [where euthanasia has been legalised] are reporting distress as they are asked to facilitate the ending of their patients’ lives within the healthcare system.”

It’s little wonder these caring professionals are distressed, when you look at the statistics.

A recent report shows that since the ‘Voluntary Assisted Dying Act’ commenced in Victoria in June, 2019:

  • 224 people have died from taking the prescribed medications.
  • Applicants accessing Voluntary Assisted Dying were as young as 20 years old.
  • The average age of people accessing this was 71.
  • 23 per cent had a non-malignant diagnosis (not uncontrollable or resistant to therapy).

Seeing that doctors have taken an oath to preserve life, Professor Whitehall says, “We believe it is wrong for a doctor to kill a patient or to facilitate their suicide.”

Many feel it’s particularly wrong that such practices should be proposed at this time, after the Aged Care Royal Commission revealed a significant crisis in aged care in this country. Legalising euthanasia, as Whitehall and his colleagues in the CMDFA say, is not a suitable solution where the provision of palliative care has been shown to be inadequate.

“Our goal is to transform healthcare in Australia by maintaining ethical standards of medicine and protecting the vulnerable members of our community whose lives would be put at risk by such laws,” says Professor Whitehall.

You can take a stand with Christian doctors and other healthcare professionals in the CMDFA by signing the petition to oppose the introduction of unethical laws to allow euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in NSW .

Have your say today by signing the CMDFA petition here.