I opened my mouth, weeping aloud, and the words I heard murmured stunned me: “I love you, Jesus!” And again, “I love you, Jesus! I love you, Jesus!” Immediately I realized, Here is my victory! In my lowest point the cry of my heart was one of love to Jesus. Andrew Brunson
Just a week ago there was a theory that no two countries that both had McDonalds outlets had gone to war against each other. Not any more.
John Roskam writes:
ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN THE AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW
For the past quarter of a century, we’ve wanted to believe Francis Fukuyama and Thomas Friedman were right. And we’ve acted as if they were right.
Fukuyama’s book The End of History and the Last Man, published in 1992 at the end of the Cold War claimed ‘history had ended’ because every country would become a liberal democracy.
Friedman’s book The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization, published in 1999, at a time when the intertwining of national economies seemed inexorable, made popular “the Golden Arches theory of conflict prevention” – “no two countries that both had McDonald’s had fought a way against each other since each got its McDonald’s”.
There are at least 700 McDonald’s outlets in Russia and more than 100 in Ukraine.
The idea of a new world order of peace isn’t new.
In the 18th century, Immanuel Kant envisaged a “perpetual peace” because, ashumanity embraced “reason”, communities would no longer tolerate “all the miseries of war”.
The day after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, George Will wrote that “the nation’s decade-long holiday from history [has come] to a shattering end”.
Although he was referring to America and its political debates, which appeared to him to have reached “a nadir of frivolousness”, what Will said could easily have applied to the West as a whole.
Read the rest of the article at the IPA web-site
Scripture
He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing all that time and became very hungry.
Observation
Immediately after His baptism, the Holy Spirit direct Jesus into the wilderness where He is tempted for forty days.
At the end of this time, when Jesus is very hungry, the devil provokes Jesus to turn some stones into bread to prove His Sonship. Jesus rebukes satan with scripture.
Next, the devil takes Jesus up to a high place to reveal to Him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. This will be given to Jesus if He worships Satan. Again Jesus rebukes him with scripture.
The devil takes Jesus to the highest place of the Temple and says He should jump off so tha the angels will come and rescue Him. Again Jesus rebukes satan with scripture.
Finally the devil leaves Jesus.
Application
I can’t imagine what forty days of temptation must have been like for Jesus, alone with satan in the wilderness. It must have been intense as satan tried to get Jesus to sin or even just deviate from the path that the Father had set for Him.
I have been through times of torrid temptation. It would seem to be so easy to walk away from God’s calling, but I recognised what was happening.
Less obvious, and so easier to miss, are the lesser temptations. Satan entices us to seek something, to compromise just a little, to lose control or to give in to our passions.
Jesus is our great High Priest. He has been tempted in every way, just like us, but he did not sin. He understands the pressures that satan and the world put on us. He has compassion and forgives us readily when we turn back to Him.
Prayer
Thank you Jesus for this assurance that you know what temptation is like and you understand my weakness. Please help me to stay strong in you. Amen.
Jo Nova writes:
If only the $3 million dollar a day ABC could afford a science team that could do as much research as one unpaid volunteer does in a day?
Thanks to Cliff Ollier and Ken Stewart for the BOM graph of past Brisbane Floods. Clearly things were worse in the 1800s.
If CO2 has any effect perhaps it reduces flooding?
One day when the ABC finally gets the Internet they’ll be able to find official pages like “Known Floods in the Brisbane and Bremer River Basin“. And one day the half billion dollar BOM agency will be able to update graphs like this within a week of a new flood peak, like bloggers did (above).
As Ken reports the ABC made a fuss over three Queensland sites recording more than 1 metre of rain in just four days. But neither the ABC or the BOM is telling Australians that there have been at least nine similar “Rain Bombs” before and most of them were more than one hundred years ago.
I went looking at Climate Data Online for four day rainfall totals over one metre, to compare with the recent totals above at Mount Glorious, Pomona, and Bracken Ridge. For a start, Pomona’s BOM station has been closed for years, and Bracken Ridge is not listed at all, so those reports are from rain gauges external to the BOM network and can’t be checked. That’s OK. In about half an hour I found the following four day rainfall records.
| Crohamhurst | 4/2/1893 | 1963.6mm |
| Yandina | 3/2/1893 | 1597.8mm |
| Tully Sugar Mill | 13/02/1927 | 1421.3mm |
| Palmwoods | 4/2/1893 | 1244.6mm |
| Buderim | 3/2/1893 | 1150.3mm |
| Bloomsbury | 20/01/1970 | 1141.8mm |
| Dalrymple Heights | 6/04/1989 | 1141mm |
| Innisfail | 3/04/1911 | 1075.8mm |
| Nambour | 11/1/1898 | 1013mm |
1893 was a wet year! Crohamhurst had 2023.8 in five days, and Brisbane had three floods in two weeks in February and another in June.
And there is no such thing as a “rain bomb”, a term invented to make it sound unprecedented. This was an entirely natural and normal rain event. Slow moving tropical lows drift south every few years in the wet season, producing a large proportion of Queensland’s average rainfall.
It’s another Red pill moment. Spread the news. Australians need to know the media and the BOM are not giving them the whole truth. Has anyone in the BOM called up the ABC and corrected their mistake? Isn’t that their job?
I imagined a modern, high-tech safe with a hand scanner on the front as well as a turn handle. God and I were the only ones able to open it. I took each of my questions and doubts and deliberately placed them in the box. Andrew Brunson
For the first time I realized that I was in the hands of a dreadful, malevolent spiritual power. The dread of this welled up inside of me and gripped my heart. I felt weak and powerless, a man alone, held captive by a vast, dark force. Andrew Brunson
Scripture
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Observation
Paul longs for the people of Israel be saved. They are zealous for God but don’t understand that Christ has accomplished all that the law was given for.
Moses writes that the law’s way of making a person right with God requires obedience to the commandments.
The message of God is this: if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Believing makes us right with God and confessing Jesus as Lord saves us. Jews and Gentiles have the same means of salvation. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Application
The gospel message is simple. God has provided the means of salvation through Christ’s death on the cross. As Paul writes it here, we have to confess a Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead.
No complicated rituals and costly sacrifices. The Lord has provided a sacrifice beyond price.
This is God’s love in action. He did not want any person to perish, so He sent Christ into the world to pay the price for our sins.
Now, everybody who truly believes that Christ is alive and they confess aloud that Jesus is their Lord, they will be saved.
Promoted from the kingdom of darkness to the light of God’s glorious grace. Rescued from the destiny of eternal torment and put on the road to heaven and eternal joy.
Our God is a loving and gracious God.
Prayer
Thank you Lord for the good news of salvation. You have rescued me from the dominion of darkness. Hallelujah!
From Eternity
A winding-up order to dissolve Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic Party (CDP) has been issued by Justice Black of the NSW Supreme Court. The Party is not insolvent – the winding-up order that will cause the Party to no longer exist – because it cannot govern itself.
The Party has not had valid officeholders for several years, Justice Black finds. For example, Fred Nile is not the President of the Party, or Annie Wright the State Director – the Party failed to appoint them and previous officeholders properly.
This mess is due to the Party’s constitution, which is unworkable – a clause requiring officeholders to have a 75% approval vote from the Party’s State Council has been ignored for years.
Charles Robert Knox, a former party treasurer who started the litigation which has brought the Party down, has been vindicated in the court finding seeking Fred Nile and other officers do not hold their offices.
Justice Black notes that the Party’s receiver Schon Condon was appointed “for an improper purpose if it was directed to terminate the proceedings brought by Mr Knox in this court” but records “it is not necessary to determine that question”. That’s because his orders to wind up the Party quickly make it irrelevant.
In Black’s judgement, he is critical of the CDP using a receiver to attempt an election to resolve the Knox litigation. “The voluntary administration regime is directed to the position of an association that is insolvent or likely to become insolvent, and does not provide the means for controllers of an association to conduct annual meetings or elect new boards….”
A significant part of the dispute has revolved around which party branches are valid and which members can vote to elect branch delegates. Rather than a snap election, these disputes have dragged on since May 2021, with frequent, costly hearings before the NSW Supreme courts.
If the “Nile party” – the erstwhile party officials, Knox, and an intervenor in the dispute Graeme Collins – get their costs paid by the Party along with the receiver, the Party would have very little left. The receivership and litigation by the various factions will have used up all the Party’s resources.
Justice Black has concluded that the court can wind up the Party. But says he “will stay that order for a period to allow yet another opportunity for the parties to resolve their differences or at least agree on the basis on which a meeting of the association could be held to elect officers and resolve the ongoing dispute as to the identity of the electorate branches whose delegates could vote at an Annual State Council meeting.”
The judge makes it clear that “hostilities between the parties” and “a lack of apparent resolution of the internal disputes” support a winding-up order.
Eternity’s soundings concur with the judge’s assessments. The parties seem fixed in their view on which branches can vote – their disagreement persists.
The judge clarifies that unless they can agree on who can vote at a party meeting, there is no future for the Party.
The judge has stayed the winding-up order to March 29, at 4 pm. That’s the deadline to see if the CDP can survive.
The river of glory is a kingdom reality—the river flows from the throne, the place of sovereign rule. The currents of the river are quickened through worship, for worship establishes His throne and magnifies His majesty. The river flows inside of Us. Andrew White
Overcast and breezy this morning. Hard work on the bike!
New Life Narrabri 
