Judge Not Lest You be Judged

Matthew 7:1-2 “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”

One of the most difficult things Christians face is to stop themselves from judging non Christians and even other Christians. It is very easy to condemn other people for their perceived sins not realising that you are coming from a position of spiritual pride.

Another issue is what people tend to consider as being big sins. Sins like homosexuality, adultery, witch craft and prostitution. These in the eyes of many Christians would be seen as gross transgressions of God’s law and therefore mean instant condemnation in the eyes of God.

Actually, sin is sin. We are all born into sin as children of Adam and Eve. Romans 3:10 says that “There is none righteous, no not one.” Romans 3:23 says “For all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God.” While Romans 6:23 says that “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” All of humanity needs the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ.

How Christ Jesus handles sin is described in John 8: 3-11 “The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?” They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you? She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.” NASB

What it comes down to is that the person standing front of you is not just the sum of their parts. They are not defined by that one sin that you condemn them of, rather they are a person standing before you worthy of the grace and mercy of God. You on the other hand are not the instrument of God’s judgment but actually the instrument of His grace and mercy. As I John 4: 7-8 says “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

Some who proffer the gospel have become so practiced at it that they have built judgment into their technique. As they talk to the potential convert, or may be victim would be a better description, and they discern from the persons conversation where they assume that their thinking lies. Often the evangelist is very proud of their technique and understanding. They do not see their approach as being judgmental or unloving. The will often describe the process to a friend in a most dispassionate way. Neither keeping the target person’s privacy intact nor displaying a single drop of love toward them. Rather railing against the potential convert for not heeding their ministrations. They wonder that people do not welcome their testimony when at the moment they give it their disdain is clearly evident in their arrogant attitude. They are in effect modern day Pharisees.

Others deride the idea that Yahweh Elohim is love as weakening the image of God preferring to see God in more macho terms. The fact is that the Jews have many sacred names for the different parts of the character of God. This is perhaps because they understood that we are mere humans and cannot truly understand God in His entirety and so broke his character down in an effort to better comprehend his nature. For instance the name Jehovah means I Am—The Self Existent One; Jehovah Jireh – The Lord will Provide; Jehovah Roi – The Lord is my Shepherd. There are many more besides these three which illuminate the Jewish perception of God’s personality. Thus they understood that God is love and if we have not love then God is not in us.

Jesus was asked which is the greatest commandment and he mentioned two commandments which underpin all of the Law and which were well known to the Jews of the first century. Matthew 22: 36-40 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law? And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Upon these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets.” NASB. So all of the Law is underpinned with Love for God and for your fellow man. We don’t judge our fellow men we love them.

Jesus was asked how much we should be prepared to forgive our fellow man. Were we doing well if we forgive them seven times? Jesus said this in reply in Matthew 18:22 “Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy-seven times.” NASB. So the standard of God’s love and forgiveness far exceeds what we might see as the appropriate response. He who has not love does not know God.

In Matthew chapter five Jesus told the crowd during the Sermon on the mount to love your enemies. Matthew 5:44 “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” So can there be a clearer direction to love and pray for those who hate you? We are not to judge, not to condemn, not to patronise or look down on those we seek to lead to the Saviour. Completely the opposite. We are to be compassionate, understanding, loving and seek to gently guide them to Christ Jesus in all humility with a lowly heart so that we might be as Jesus and that His yoke that is light is the same yoke we extend to the lost.

I can’t claim to be in anyway perfect. I am a lowly servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. I will make it to heaven because of the grace and love that Yahweh Elohim has extended to me and the faith that he has graciously given to me that I might believe on his only begotten Son who bore my sins upon the Cross at Calvary. I can say this though. Judgment in the heart of a Christian is a terribly destructive force when employed against a person lost in their sins. Only the Holy Spirit can convict a sinner and bring him or her safe into the Kingdom of God. To the Christian love and forgiveness are their best chance of leading a sinner toward the Saviour.

The Last Days Coming to a Place Near You.

Back a while in December 2016 the Prime Minister of New Zealand resigned for no apparent reason. Prior to that in 2015 the United Nations called a summit to evaluate the lack of progress with Agenda 21. At which it was decided to alter the date to a more realistic 2030 but to make sure that date was adhered too.

In 2017 the Labour Party won the election in New Zealand. After that sanity took a permanent holiday and the secular agenda went into overdrive. Gay folks began to proliferate in politics, in the news media and throughout society in positions of authority and as role models to us all.

Critical Race Theory began to proliferate in public and private organisations and even conservative religious ones. Not only was it visible. It was now treated as if it came with a scientific evidence based pedigree. Surely the best kind that it could ever be based on. It doesn’t have any kind of scientific credibility of course as it is just a perverted secular philosophy aimed to tear at the foundations of Christian values. Which it is doing quite effectively as society turns its back on God.

There was more talk about vaccination than usual and then out of no where came the Christchurch massacre in March of 2019. Of course this was not contrived by the leftists to conveniently allow the government to address gun ownership. Only a conspiracy theorist would entertain such ideas. It seemed that things were never going to settle down for very long from now on. Toward the end of 2019 the dreaded measles epidemic happened to folks in New York, Auckland and Manu Samoa. It seemed more like Small Pox in Samoa and there were a number of fatalities. The Vaccination thing was back on top.

In December of 2023 there was a rumour of a new Corona Virus outbreak in Shanghai China. By February of 2020 it was running rampant around the globe and by March. You guessed it. Covid was here in New Zealand and lockdowns, vaccinations, mandates and all of the accompanying paranoia were to be found in plenty for the next two and a half years. Along with long Covid and vaccine reactions of course.

By February 2023 there was little excitement to be had in New Zealand politics for a new political celebrity like Jacinda Ardern. The glitz and glamour had worn off for her and the voters and quite a few social media nasties were threatening her with mayhem. So she decided to dump her beloved Labour Party and to step away from politics.

In the background to all of this has been the continuing immigration crisis and the emerging homeless poor. This isn’t a recent thing as it was going on during the Key and Clark governments. The population was lifted from three to four million and then four to five and the economy was run on austerity to reduce the debt level. At the same time the impact of the resource management act and the rise in housing prices combined to slow the building of new homes and push house ownership into the province of the wealthy. Thus people began to live in cars and sleep on the streets. In 2020 Jacinda Ardern, bless her heart, decided to house the homeless in hotels which was a great idea although housing them all in Rotorua turned out to be problematic. This situation also begged a question the went something like this. When does a person cease to have value in the eyes of the state? Another question is “What will the state do to valueless persons when it makes a final decision about it?”

Then there’s Climate Change, the global rivers and rivers of fire. Some believe Climate Change is man mad and it may well be. Either as a consequence of man abusing the environment or the use of super weapons to manipulate the weather, or the result of centuries of accumulated emissions changing the atmospheric balance. Or, what seems more likely to me that these are the last days of this age. Yahweh Elohim is sending climate change on the Earth to wake man up to his sin and prepare him for the judgment to come.

Something else that seemed innocuous enough was the end of annexation or war against Afghanistan in August 2021. It seemed as if Mr Trump said “It’s over be seeing you.” The NATO forces pulled out and the Taliban took over in a matter of days. Allowing national starvation and genocide for those who had helped the West. The media seemed to play the issues down. Oh, some journos made a fuss in a small way but overall it was not covered as well as it should have been and the people of Afghanistan were abandoned. It has always seemed to me that this event was much more significant than it has appeared to be. There was something there that we all missed like “Why was Trump so determined to leave Afghanistan to its fate?”

Next came the return of the Right to fame, fortune and power. Some of the Seventh Day Adventist commentators have noted that the Right Wing of Politics has begun to come back to power across the Western World. This was particularly evident in the Ukraine where the right gained control of the government and were identified by Moscow as a threat to the Baltic fleet and Russia’s general security interests. In that regard Moscow considered the Ukraine which had been in the former Soviet Block to be still their property and found the Right Wing and Western interference to be a complete affront to their national pride. The West and NATO made no attempt to reconcile the situation and that led to the outbreak of war in February 2022. It has subsequently led to the death of 190 thousand troops and thousands of civilians and untold thousands more heinously injured in less than two years.

Across Europe the Far Right have begun to reassert themselves. They are in power in Finland, in a Coalition in Sweden and are ahead in the polls in Austria a year out from the elections. They have made significant gains in Germany and have won seats parliament in the recent elections in Greece, Of course we have a National party win in this years general election in New Zealand but they are center right not far right. What I believe we are seeing here is a swing toward a similar political landscape in Europe to years before the Second World War. Could this be part of the run in to World War Three?

Finally, I want to touch on biblical prophecy as it relates to Russia-Magog and Israel’s new war over Gaza. We see in the news of the last week the uproar across the Middle East that the attack against Israel and the subsequent retaliation against the people of Gaza and Hamas has caused. We read in the Bible, in the book of Ezekiel chapter 38 & 39, of a huge invasion force that rises against Israel from the North, captained by a king called Gog, which is vanquished by Yahweh Elohim with fire from heaven. Revelation 9 speaks of the 4 Angels of the Euphrates and an army of 200 million which attack and kill a third of mankind. These two prophecies may be related and happen in the times in which we live. If that is so I wonder if the events which we are witnessing now are the hooks being drawn into the jaws of Gog and his people Magog and those nations that accompany him to battle and to die on the hills of Israel. I could imagine Vladimir Putin riding at the front of his army on the highlands of Israel. Such is his vanity.

In conclusion, I would just say that we live in perilous times. It is important that Christians be fervently prayerful, repentant and close to God, fasting daily and walking in the Spirit while taking up the full armour of God. Those who do not know the Lord need to seek Him while He may be found in the earnest knowledge that if they believe on the name of Jesus they can be saved and their sins forgiven. Come Lord Jesus.

Deception in the Day of Jacobs Trouble

We live in deeply disturbing times. Times where there are no clear guidelines. Times which are hard to interpret. Times which are so filled with confusion that it is difficult to know what is going on. Times where every man does what is right in his own sight. Times which are well described by the following scripture. Judges 17:6 “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

Today everyone believes their own spin about their own ideology. So that, they are deceived and refuse to accept truth that would be obvious if they were to look into their own hearts and at the whole of creation which is around them. False teachers abound and ear ticklers are easily found even at the pulpits of many churches. Hence scriptures says this. Jeremiah 9:6 “You live in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me,” declares the LORD” NIV

The people do not acknowledge the Creator, Yahweh Elohim, and fail to appreciate the consequences of their folly. They do not understand that their sin will bring God’s judgement upon them. Luke 17: 28-30 “Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all— so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed.”

Today with the digital world and social media it is more possible than ever before to deceive the people. They are surrounded by information, some true and some not, that is drowning them in deception. It is possible to know the truth and at the same time believe the falsehood that is buried beside it in the detail of the information. Psalms 101:7 “No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house; no one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence. NIV Those who are responsible for this deception will ultimately fail and be judged by the Almighty.

It is important that we as believers are aware of all of this deceit. It is important to understand the truth of the times in which we live. These are the last days. One has only to look at Israel and the war that is building around it to know that time is short. In that vein it is essential that we are not deceived. The devil seeks to deceive even the elect because if we are deceived then who will bare the truth to those who seek it? Colossians 2:8 “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.” NIV

Believers need to trust the Lord and obey Him. To walk in the Spirit is the only way to avoid being taken captive by deceptive philosophy. It is the only way to be protected from lying lips and deceitful tongues including our own lying lips and deceitful tongue. The human heart, as the prophet Jeremiah said in the Old Testament, is desperately wicked. The tongue is the door to the heart just as the eye is the window to the soul. Only a life sown to righteousness can allow the Spirit to purify our heart and protect us from lying lips and deceitful tongues. Psalms 120:2 “Save me, LORD, from lying lips and from deceitful tongues.” NIV

Thus in this the Day of Jacobs Trouble - The End Times. If we are to be a light on a hillside leading the way to salvation for the lost. We need to seek God when He may be found. We need to ask the Spirit to reveal His righteousness in us and to make us obedient to to the will of Jesus Christ. Only then can we avoid deception and lying lips in ourselves and in the World around us.

Israel Controversy

Wow, did I have a clash with my son over the Israel / Gaza War. To clarify things from my perspective. I am a Christian who supports Israel. I believe that the restoration of the nation of Israel in 1948 was and, as it continues, is an act of Yahweh and the fulfillment of Bible Prophecy.

Now with this perspective comes some pitfalls. The Palestinian people are human beings too and the way that Israel retaliate against innocents is not palatable at all. Demolishing buildings and houses with air to surface missiles is just ridiculous and heavy handed in the extreme. So why do they do it?

Well, Israel believe they are God’s people and Israel, the country, or Canaan is the promised land. I believe that as well. So, in AD 70 the Jews were invaded by Rome and sent packing from the land. They dispersed to the four corners of the then known world but God had promised them that they would be regathered in the last days. This began after the holocaust at the end of WWII and culminated in the restoration of Israel in 1948.

There have been several skirmishes with the Arab nations around them such as the Six Day War in 1967 and Yom Kippur in 1973. Since the seventies Israel have held an uneasy truce with their neighbours and fought against a continuous guerilla war based in Gaza and on the West Bank. These have been pursued by the PLO and more recently by Hamas with the backing of Iran supplying missiles and other weapons.

Israel defend their people with an anti-missile system that they developed called Iron Dome. It is a war of attrition on both sides with a lot of bitterness and regret. I have often marveled the Israel haven’t annexed Gaza and the West Bank although their allies in the United States and their enemies in the United Nations have tended to perpetuate the situation rather than assist it to be resolved.

What most people don’t understand is that Israel are still the people of God. No one will ultimately prevail against them. However, many of their enemies have and will in the future be destroyed for attempting to destroy the nation of Israel.

Now, I don’t believe for a minute that God wants Israel to kill innocents as they are at the moment. The people of Israel need to repent and accept the Messiah, Jesus Christ. If they were prepared to do this God would hear their voice and heal the land. This scripture was written to the nation of Israel in II Chronicles 7:13 -14 “If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, And My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” We need to pray that they will do this and that they will have continuous peace.

Oh Boy did I Get Into Trouble Over My Big Waha and the Election

I have this approach to debate where I feel it is helpful to understanding the issues if you can hold the same idea as the person you are talking too while you discuss aspects of a topic. So I talk to left wing folks as if I share their opinions and to right wing folks as if I share their opinions.

Yes, it is a little two faced and if you get caught you can tend to annoy the people around you. However, I am not particularly worried what people think of me so I think it is a useful strategy to discuss the issues and to promote greater understanding. Not to mention to slip in some Christian ideology and values as we debate the issues.

Then the election rolled on and I had no real idea who I would vote for right up to the moment I went into the election booth. I decided my local candidate for the party that took the night fits closest to my own values. He voted against abortion and euthanasia so I locked him in and I usually vote for a certain elderly maverick politician but I decided we needed a government with a majority this time so voted for the party that won the night.

So, does this mean I'm wide eyed and innocent, expecting the Caped Crusader to win the day for all Kiwis in the next three years. Well no, it means that we really need him to do that but we are, in terms of bible prophecy, in Matthew chapter twenty four territory. We’re hearing of wars and rumors of wars, famines, floods and pestilence. The new Prime Minister’s allegiances are probably closer to the last Prime Minister’s allegiances than any grass roots New Zealanders.

We are nationalists and he is a globalist. I suspect that Agenda 30 is higher on his priorities than housing the homeless. We have a full fledged Climate Emergency, remember, so we need to get the global population back to 500 million or less. I do hope the new PM will go easier on our farmers and maybe we will see less cones around the place. Perhaps they might open up a new refinery so that we can get some better quality roading materials, and slightly lower fuel prices?

Who knows really? All that I can say is that we would seem to be in that End Times - End of the Church Age corridor. If that is the case we need to batten down the hatches. Christians need to go hard on sharing the gospel of Salvation in Jesus Christ. We need to be on fire for Jesus and prepared for tough times ahead.Times for Spirit Filled Believers to excel in the service of Yahweh Elohim.

Matthew 24:13-14 “But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”

Atheism and Evolutionary Science - Through the Years

I have always tended to read science fiction. I used to think it balanced my view of the world and enabled me to empathise with non Christian people. One thing that it did give me an understanding of was how atheists think as many science fiction writers are atheists.

It intrigues me that older science fiction novels were very reflective of the times in which they are written. For instance in the fifties the writing was often quite conservative with little time devoted to profanity or the bedroom. An example would be “The Day the Earth Stood Still” by Harry Bates which was a short story and led to two films in 1951 and 2008. Even the later version has no bedroom scenes and is highly moral with a definite tilt toward man destroying the planet and being held to account by a greater power.

Whereas, today scifi novels are largely a lot more violent and the bedroom scenes leave nothing to the imagination and reflect the society of the post modern era. Neal Asher’s novels would be a good example of the contemporary type of science fiction. Another example of a contemporary author would be Peter F Hamilton whose novels are more moral and although they contain some hard reading episodes they are fairly sane.

To those of us who remember the decades of the fifties and sixties with some fondness. We can say they were simpler times and the people were gentler and more caring and definitely more Christian. Both in attitude and in reality. This impacted on the world around them with even the unbelievers being much more gentle and caring people. This was certainly the case in New Zealand in any case

As the years have gone by and Christianity has waned the Western World has gradually adopted the atheist style of the old Soviet Union. Based around a philosophy that proclaims a brand of evolutionary science that rejects any form of morality, sin or accountability for actions.

This has led to some of the most terrible atrocities in modern history with Stalin and Mao Zedong responsible for the deaths of millions during their respective reigns. It has changed the attitude of people in the Western societies to one where there is more complacency. A mantra of “Mind Your Own Business” is prevalent so that even when there is violence at the bus stop others who could help ignore the situation. Neighbors do not know their neighbors and the children of the street do not play together.

With the advent of smartphones people do not talk to each other. There is a growing sense of isolation in the community where people live lives that are separated and introverted. This begs the question as to whether this makes people more controllable because sensible conversation with neighbors does not happen. Decisions are made for the individual by the state as a proxy. This is accomplished by indoctrination through school and social media. It is assumed that the authorities are completely trustworthy and therefore unimpeachable so that every word that comes from the state must be truth and must be believed.

In sharp contrast to this is the group of folk born in the 1930’s who are in their nineties now and grew up in a society which was the complete opposite of the secular socialism that we see today. They walked, they talked, they worked with their hands, they danced and socialised. They knew all of their neighbors for miles around and if they were not bible believing Christians they upheld Christian values. They also gardened and shared the produce of their gardens with their neighbors. They were fair minded, generous and honest to the point that most didn’t lock their doors when they left the house and neither did they lock their cars. They taught their children to live their lives the same way.

Which they did but they didn’t do as well at transmitting their Christianity or their Christian values to the next generations which has seen a steady decline in Protestant Christianity and Christian values through the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty first centuries in the West. Many churches closed because all of the congregants passed away and the next generation did not adopt the Christian beliefs of their parents. Thus we live in the society today that is rapidly becoming similar to that which the people of the Soviet era had to endure in the member countries of the Soviet Union.

The impacts of evolutionary atheism or secular socialism are as religiously based as is Christianity. “No!” I hear you cry. I am afraid the answer is still “Yes.” It takes a great deal of faith to believe that everything came from nothing. Particularly, if you look at the complexity of life and the structure of the Cosmos. It all comes together very well if you add a Creator God called Jehovah. It is a monumental stretch of the imagination to state that all of the universe is just a curious happenstance. Even the most ardent skeptic hopes that a race of ancient aliens is responsible for the order and complexity that exists around us. They just do not want to accept that Jehovah is the creator. Anything but that and I believe that as the Messiah, Christ Jesus, said. This is because they are the children of the devil (John 8:44).

So, Satan touts his only commandment “Do what you will.” And the world full of the wicked Sons of Men rush to take advantage of this simple command that fits so snugly with the desires of the flesh that rage in their bodies and minds. Dragging them down into the marsh of despair and despondency. Ultimately leading to great sadness or to personal destruction and eventually to emotional breakdown or else consequences of criminal activity to offset addiction leading to incarceration.

Then there are the youth of today, who are increasingly financially poor, educationally poor and socially poor. Who struggle to collaborate, co-operate or to even like each other. Only too prepared to hang each other out to dry on social media or by rendering violence at a bus stop so that they can stream it all to the Internet. To whom the commandment “Love your neighbor as you love yourself is meaningless and incomprehensible. So through Godlessness are consigned to being cannon fodder or the human basis of a coming revolution based on their discontent with a world that has no love, no mercy, and in their belief of the secular narrative, no Savior to rescue them from their sins.

So what can be concluded? Well those who believe in the Creator do so believing that “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” They have faith in God and the Savior Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit who indwells them (Hebrews 11:1). Those who believe in Atheism or Godless Evolutionary Science believe there is no God based on secular science as an explanation of the world around them. Which makes the point that Atheism, secular science, evolution or evolutionary science, whatever you choose to call it. Belief that something comes from nothing, that life simply happened by chance, and continues to develop in the face of the entropy which degrades the building blocks of the subatomic realm. That is not achieved by evidence based science. It is the product of faith making Atheism and Evolutionary Science just as much a religion as Buddhism, Shintoism, Satanism or Hinduism.

Romans 1:20-23 “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.