Month: August 2021

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR: SPEAK UP AGAINST GOVERNMENT OVERREACH

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Kurt Mahlburg writes:

A commonly-repeated criticism since the beginning of 2020 has been that if you prioritise freedom over safety, you are being selfish. In many Christian circles, it is said to be “not loving your neighbour” if you vocally defend freedom. Such ideas continue to circulate, even as heavier lockdowns and curfews are imposed in Victoria, New South Wales and beyond.

But they mostly miss the point. Such criticisms assume that every measure that could be introduced to protect Australians against covid is by definition necessary and good. They seemingly deny the possibility that any cure could be worse than a disease, or that there is such a thing as going too far.

The executive director of the Menzies Research Centre Nick Cater has expressed sensible concerns about this. He argues that good public policy has been near-impossible to implement over this period because fear has overtaken reason in our risk assessments:

We are caught in a feedback loop, a vortex of fear, where politicians can no longer act sensibly because they have to respond to public fear. If they opened up now people would go berserk and say that it’s not safe to go outside…

I have come to the conclusion that the government has lost control. It has to obey this mantra of fear, and as a result of that it takes no risks whatsoever.

This reflects the broader culture of our times, not just in Australia but in the Western world more broadly. Nobody is prepared to put up with the slightest amount of risk. Wherever risk occurs the government has to deal with it.

Consider, for example, that while daily case numbers of covid reached into the hundreds this week in Australia, daily calls to suicide helplines reached into the thousands. Lifeline has had its three busiest days in history since Monday, with up to 3,500 people calling the helpline per day. And that’s just one of many such services available to distressed Australians.

Surely “loving your neighbour” also means being concerned — and indeed, speaking out — about government policies that are inflicting this level of distress. As Christians, we believe that people are not machines that merely require a certain set of material inputs to get through life. We are made in God’s image. We are relational creatures who survive and thrive through active involvement in our communities, and meaningful work and service to others.

Even the World Health Organization recognises this holistic view of health, or at least it did until recently. While we seem to have redefined ‘health’ to mean the absence of sickness, the WHO’s Constitution, drafted in the 1940s, pushed back against this reductionistic view:

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity… Governments have a responsibility for the health of their peoples which can be fulfilled only by the provision of adequate health and social measures.

Of course, covid is deadly. But so are many things — including some of the measures our governments have implemented in the name of ‘health’. We have allowed fear to redefine our most basic understanding of what it means to live and function as a healthy human being.

To protect their health, Australians have been told to not talk to their neighbours, not to engage in outdoor recreation, not to attend church, not to watch sunsets, not to leave home for more than an hour a day. In all this time, we are yet to hear a single public health official or minister promote exercise, good diet, sunlight, weight loss or vitamin supplements. All of these simple, everyday strategies are important aspects of health, and are known to boost our immune systems and reduce our chances of suffering the most debilitating impacts of the virus.

Meanwhile, measurable deadly impacts are now linked to government lockdown policies. Australian data shows an 87 percent increase in couples separating and an 86 percent rise in the number of people seeking help for addiction. Stay at home orders saw NSW chart historic highs in homebound sexual assaults, and Victoria find that one in ten of its citizens contemplated ending their life.

Is this healthy? Is it “loving our neighbour” to stay quiet?

Read the rest of the article here

God Reports: Bold Afghan Christians sharing the Gospel with Taliban

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In the rural villages of Afghanistan, especially among known Christians, the Taliban are taking young women and girls and giving them away as plunder to their fighters.

“In young families, the husbands are being executed and the women are being taken, raped, etc.,” says Joel Richardson, a teacher and author affiliated with Global Catalytic Ministries.

Some believers are fleeing to the countryside. “They are going to the mountains, the ravines, sleeping out with their sleeping bags and blankets, trying to weather the intensity of this moment, assuming they can eventually go back to their villages.”

Incredibly, many believe the country of Afghanistan has the second-fastest growing church in the world, next to Iran. “Christians are aware of what’s coming. Some are saying they will stand firm. Some are still sharing the Gospel – it’s amazing.”

Richardson has received reports of Afghan Christians who are choosing to stay and share the gospel. “They say, ‘we don’t care, we’re here because we love this nation, we love our people, and we’re going to share the gospel regardless, even if it means losing our lives.’

“In one village that had been taken over a few weeks ago, the Christians started sharing Bible stories with the Taliban and the Taliban in their village have been studying the Bible and praying.

“They are actually studying the Bible with the Taliban! They haven’t made a confession of faith yet, but seem very interested.”

The fearless nature of these believers reminds Richardson of the character of the believers in the Book of Revelation. “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. They did not love their lives unto death. We are seeing that in real time.

“Our brothers and sisters are demonstrating the character that will be required to navigate the days ahead, as we approach the Last Days. Jesus made it clear, the gates of hell will not prevail against the kingdom of God!”

Gary Demar: The Nagging Persistence of Failed Eschatologies

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End Of The World – Just Ahead sign with bad day on background

As happens at least once a week, I get involved in a discussion concerning eschatology. What’s happening in Afghanistan and the push for a global reset is bringing out the prophecy pundits.

The following comment caught my attention:

Do you also blame the Roman empire on the present-day rush towards globalism, a global digital currency, and a global government? how does Nero factor into what you are seeing with your own eyes today? I know you gotta brand your trying to protect, but that brand is as useless as a Weimar deutchmark.

Here’s my response.

I suggest you read Frank Gumerlock’s book The Day and the Hour for a detailed study of nearly 2000 years of failed prophetic speculation. Where does the Bible talk about “global digital currency”? In what way is the “buy and sell language” of Revelation 13 about digital currency? How would the first readers of Revelation have understood that a digital currency was being prophesied?

When we let the Bible define buying and selling, we come away with a different meaning. Jesus mentions buying and selling in Matthew 21:12. There is certainly a literary connection. Revelation 13 is not describing a modern-day technological society because, in Revelation 6, the earth would have been destroyed by “the stars” that fell from the heavens “to the earth” (21:13). And if that didn’t mess things up, in Revelation 12, we read about a “great red dragon” whose “tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth” (12:3–4). How could the earth survive let alone keep track of people implanted with microchips or Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) implants after such devastation? If stars hit the earth, the earth would not exist. If these stars are meteorites, the destruction they would bring would wipe out civilization as we know it.

If stars are symbols, then so is what we read in Revelation 13. So are beasts and buying and selling. I’ve written on the meaning of “buying and selling” in “The Mark of the Beast and Buying and Selling.” It’s an eye-opener if you stick with the Bible and not engage in “Internet Exegesis.” If James Jordan is right (and I believe he is), then everything you’ve heard or read about buying and selling is most likely incorrect.

Even though the book of Revelation is fulfilled prophecy, it does not mean there are not principles that can be applied to our lives. Tyranny is tyranny, whether it was ecclesiastical tyranny in the first century when the religious leaders in Jesus’ day wanted Him (John 8:59) and His disciples dead (Acts 7–8) or maimed (2 Cor. 11:28) or political tyranny during the time of Nero and the lead up to the destruction of Jerusalem that took place in AD 70.

While we’re dithering about the “rapture,” Islamists are making plans for world domination. Taliban commander Muhammed Arif Mustafa told CNN: “It’s our belief that one day, mujahedin will have victory, and Islamic law will come not to just Afghanistan, but all over the world.”

Eschatology and law matter. Also, our elected officials have been downplaying Islamic ascendancy since 9-11. “Islamaphobia” became the new watchword while white conservatives (including Christians) became the supposed real terrorist threat to the US and the world. So while this is going on, prophecy pundits are still preaching the “rapture of the church.” No worries, “since,” according to the late Jimmy DeYoung, “all Christians leave earth at the Rapture three and a half years before the mark comes into play.”

Some might ask, “But isn’t this all evidence that Jesus is coming soon?” No, it’s an indictment of a crippled biblical worldview and an escapist eschatology that is not taught in the Bible.

Read the rest of the article here