Lux Mundi

"I Am Thirsty"

2020-03-19T10:14:00.000+07:00

“I Am Thirsty”

A short study of Jesus’ humanity

Khen Lim | March 22 2020

Image source: nymag.com

Introduction

From what we can tell scripturally, Jesus was put to the cross at 9:00am. There, under the scorching sunlight, He endured the first six hours. Then darkness came and stayed for three hours. At the end of it, on the ninth hour, He cried out, “Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?” Translated, Jesus said, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mt 27:45-46)

At the cross, Jesus, the Son of God, showed the world a powerful and evocative sense of humanity. Jesus’ humanness was, in fact, far more so than many of us could display in all our lives. The first three statements He made were focused on people other than Himself. He spoke about His enemies, the two thieves next to Him and also to His earthly mother, Mary, and His disciple, John.

But it was ultimately His final three statements that underscored Jesus’ humanity. In centring on Himself, His last words were about His body, His soul and then His spirit. In speaking of His body, Jesus simply said, “I thirst” (Jn 19:28) although in original Greek, it was only a single four-letter word (more of that later).

It is this part that we will be concentrating on in this article. When He spoke about His soul, Jesus said, “It is finished” (v.30; Isa 53:10) and then when it came to His Spirit, His last words were, “Father, into Your hands, I commit My spirit” (Lk 23:46) and with that, He was taken up.

Body. Soul. Spirit. They were all offered up in obedience to the Father by the Son. But it is the one in which He said, “I thirst” that Jesus’ choice of a single word that tells us so much about who He was on earth and how He allowed Himself to suffer so that we may realise in His humanity, He was just like any one of us.

When we read about Jesus in the Gospels, we could really imagine Him as someone sent to save the world. He was our superhero. He was greater than Spider Man or Captain America or even Superman for that matter. Jesus was the One to confront evil unlike any of us could. He could cast out demons and perform miracles that attested to His extraordinariness.

In fact when we look at Him through His brief years of ministry, it really seemed that nothing could hurt Him. Yes, He could and was disappointed in people but physically, He appeared invincible or at least, some of us could imagine that. After all, He was God.

Of course, the Gospels also taught us that Jesus had incredible compassion and often was touched and moved by human needs. Hence the miracles that He performed and then too, the Sermon on the Mount, which, in many Christians’ eyes, was His most powerful, unforgettable and meaningful sermon imparted to us. He could have gone on forever but therein laid the cross and from thereon, it was His humanity that came to the fore. It was at the cross that His expressions of humanity surely overshadowed His divinity.

In the run-up along Passion Week, we take the opportunity to have a closer look at the humanity of Christ and how it defined the way He suffered so extraordinarily. Like I said, Jesus expressed His humanity in ways many of us cannot relate to simply because He suffered far more than most of us could ever imagine in our own lives.

At the cross, His humanity was brought into sharp focus by the way He was betrayed and by the manner in which He was so unjustly charged and then found guilty of crimes He never had a hand in doing.

In His humanity, He experienced how people turned their backs on Him and walked away. In His humanity, He took the deadly floggings and still managed to cling on to His fragile human life so that He could fulfil prophecy. In His humanity, He was finally crucified. Not many of us can ever say that we’ve been through all of those experiences. Perhaps some of us may have in parts but even so, they cannot hold a wick to the extent of suffering and torture that Jesus had to go through.

Description of Jesus suffering

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It’s easy just to take in a ‘snapshot’ understanding that Jesus suffered at the cross and then He died and rose on the third day. That would underplay the extent of how much He really did suffer. We live in a generation where people’s general understanding of a crucifixion is at best sterilised and no matter the effort Mel Gibson put to his masterpiece, ‘Passion of the Christ,’ no moviegoer would truly understand let alone appreciate the intense and excruciating pain Jesus had to deal with.

Nailed to the cross on both hands and feet, Jesus was in a terrible position because essentially, there was no bracing to support or prop up His physical body. Gravitation force alone would have caused Him great sharp pains as it pulled Him downwards against the large and coarse nails that held his hands and feet in place. Eventually, He would soon tire out of sheer exhaustion just to keep His body up.

His arms would fatigue first because of the constant tension caused by the nails that held His hands up. This was further exacerbated by Jesus desperately trying to gain His composure. But then came another problem – His back muscles were now cramping, forming excruciating knots that added substantially to His pain. By now, He was facing a gamut of different pains – sharp ones, throbbing ones and numbing ones from deep within His body.

At the same time, Jesus found it increasingly hard to hold Himself up and as He tried and tried, His ability to breathe worsened. That was because in His physical state, he had now found it very hard to exhale even as air was brought into His lungs. All this while, He had to stave off the pain while He tried to keep Himself raised.

And because carbon dioxide was now slowing developing in His lungs and entering His bloodstream, the back cramps appeared to partly subside offering Him temporary respite. Jesus would use this as an opportunity to just nudge Himself up a little enough to properly exhale. This was necessary if He stood any chance of continually breathing in fresh air.

All of this went on for hours on end. The cramps came and went, bringing sharp searing pains each time. All His joints at the wrists, elbows, ankles, heels, shoulders including His hips and knees were threatening to tear off once the tendons and ligaments began to stretch and weaken. In the meantime, the crown of thorns He was forced to wear had clawed into His scalp, causing blood to flow down His head, occasionally obstructing His vision.

Let’s not forget Jesus’ rapidly deteriorating back muscles as well. With every little bodily movement up and down the cross, He not only struggled to breathe but also had to endure the lacerations on His back rubbing forcefully and painfully against the rough timber texture. Without any clothes, it was flesh against wood splinters and everything else. These lacerations were the result of the lashings and floggings that He sustained earlier but had hardly the time to heal.

Towards the end, as serum started filling up His pericardium – the double-layered sac around the heart – causing His heart to compress. This was not helped by the earlier floggings that had caused fluids to enter His lungs, which alone, would cause poor oxygenation of His blood. In turn, this caused His breathing to quicken unnecessarily (‘tachypnea’).

And then, there were the occasional falls along the way to Calvary because carrying that huge heavy cross was no small feat. Falling every now and then would have bruised His chest, causing pericarditis (painful inflammation of the pericardium), which, by itself, would have made breathing hard enough.

Yet, that wasn’t all. Those falls would also have caused Jesus’ heart to begin palpitating. At the same time, it’s likely He also developed a cough and a low-grade fever not to mention that His entire body would also have substantially weakened.

By this time, the end was precipitously near for Jesus. Other than the critical loss of tissue fluids, His compressed heart was losing the battle to frantically pump thickened blood into the muscular tissues. Also, His ravaged lungs were equally as frenetic, trying very hard to draw even the smallest possible gulps of air in. Those severely dehydrated tissues now flashed out a stimuli to the brain.

With that, Jesus, nearing death now, finally gasped, “I am thirsty.”

The offering of the wines

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Through the ordeal on the cross, fleeting thoughts rushing through Jesus’ mind. These were desperate thoughts that the psalmist had recorded and they described the Son of Man’s despair:

“My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help? Every day, I call to You, My God, but You do not answer. Every night, I lift My voice but I find no relief. Yet You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. Our ancestors trusted in You and You rescued them. They cried out to You and were saved. They trusted in You and were never disgraced. But I am a worm and not a man. I am scorned and despised by all! Everyone who sees Me mocks Me. They sneer and shake their heads, saying, ‘Is this the One who relies on the Lord? Then let the Lord save Him! If the Lord loves Him so much, let the Lord rescue Him!’ Yet you brought Me safely from My mother’s womb and led Me to trust you at My mother’s breast. I was thrust into Your arms at My birth. You have been My God from the moment I was born. Do not stay so far from Me, for trouble is near and no one else can help Me. My enemies surround Me like a herd of bulls; fierce bulls of Bashan have hemmed Me in! Like lions, they open their jaws against Me, roaring and tearing into their prey. My life is poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, melting within Me. My strength has dried up like sun-baked clay. My tongue sticks to the roof of My mouth. You have laid Me in the dust and left Me for dead. My enemies surround Me like a pack of dogs; an evil gang closes in on Me. They have pierced My hands and feet. I can count all My bones. My enemies stare at Me and gloat. They divides My garments among themselves and throw dice for my clothing.” (Ps 22:1-18, NLT, m.e.)

These are not just very human thoughts but they uncannily express desperation. In eighteen verses, Jesus tells us of His despair that the Father seemed to have looked the other way in His darkest time of need. Even so, He could recalled the Father’s sovereignty and how He was always there for His ancestors, meaning the Israelites.

However that did not stop Him from crying out to the Father not to desert Him. Towards the second-half of the passage, Jesus described His suffering on the cross in fairly graphic detail. After talking about the Father, He turned His attention to those who were His enemies before He concluded with a description of His unbearable agony.

By this time, Jesus knew that His mission on Earth was finished but He still had one final thing to do in order that Scripture be fulfilled, which is to say, “I am thirsty” (Jn 19:28). The apostle John recorded that very moment in time:

“A jar of sour wine was sitting there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put it on a hyssop branch and held it up to His lips. When Jesus had tasted it, He said, “It is finished!” Then He bowed His head and released His spirit.” (Jn 19:29, NLT, m.e.)

Just prior to this, Jesus was offered wine of a different type where myrrh or gall was mixed in (Mt 27:34). Jesus did taste it but did not drink from it. Both myrrh and gall were used as poisons to dull the pain and quicken the rush to death.

During those days, it was common practice for people to offer this to the condemned on the cross out of sympathy for what could be days before they died. As Jesus was treated like a common criminal, that offer was made, presenting to Him the opportunity to relieve Himself of the physical pain and expedite His death.

He refused the offer because He didn’t want His mission to be diminished or His sacrifice to be belittled. Had He taken the wine, it would be easy for anyone to mock Him, saying He was afraid to suffer. That wasn’t an unacceptable remark since that was essentially what the wine could do. More critically, it would make a mockery out of His purported suffering. If He had chosen to cut short His ordeal, it would make everything meaningless.

In His refusal, Jesus demonstrated the humanness of His pain and suffering, all at His expense though through no fault of His. He suffered because He took on all our sins and transgressions. In other words, He endured the burden of sin that was not His doing purely for our sakes. He knew very well that if He didn’t do this, we would never be reconciled back to the Father. Only He could do what He was chosen to do even before He was born.

Jesus did not refuse the wine because it tasted awful. Taste had nothing to do with it. He simply was not interested in taking the easy way out. On the other hand, that’s something most of us would have preferred. We just can’t find it in us to match Jesus on that count. That’s because we’re constantly looking for a better life, a better job, a better car, a more comfortable home, better holidays, better food and just about better in every facet of life. And if we can, some of us might even think of a different marriage!

Some people just can’t be satisfied with what they already have. That’s because we’re just very hard to please. The quest towards betterment is as much a vanity issue as it is about our unwillingness to do things the harder way. We don’t want manual transmission cars because auto boxes are easier. We prefer the ease of the microwave oven because we’re done with all the waiting. We like picture-taking smartphones because it’s far easier than having to lug around a proper camera. We love remote controllers because we can just do everything seated in our easy chair without needing to get up.

But of course, better things offer more comfort. We can look at homeless people and shun them for sleeping on park benches and eating leftovers scrounged off bins at the back of a MacDonald’s joint. Meanwhile back home, we hardly feel the guilt of tucking into a comfortable bed every night with the air-conditioning on.

With all that comfort that comes with better things, we can also be very difficult to please. On a warm day, we complain as much as if the day is too cold. We’re simply never satisfied. Even taking the easy way out doesn’t mean we stop complaining either. Often it only means our thirsts and longing for even better things become more intense.

Jesus knew too well that the myrrh or gall wine would have meant a world of difference to Him. The constant searing pain would have easily reminded Him that the wine was a ready-made solution because it could take the sting off it. But it was nothing more than a cop-out and He rejected it for that reason. It wasn’t so much the wine per se as it was the ‘promise’ of relief and quick death that He didn’t want because taking it would have obfuscated His mission.

In denying Himself the wine, Jesus set an example of how we are to follow or emulate Him. Of course, we have a choice whether we want to or not but in this case, He encourages us to take a different path, a path less travelled perhaps but in the end, a path that deny ourselves the pleasures of the world. Well before then, Jesus said something that reflected this:

“If any of you wants to be My follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow Me.” (Mt 16:24, NLT, m.e.)

To deny one’s self isn’t something many of us are particularly good at doing. Offer some cannabis to a drug addict or some liquor to an alcoholic and watch self-denial fly out of the window. Someone who says she can’t live without checking her social media is no different.

In the same way, a person who just can’t resist overeating even though he has been warned by his doctor is in a similar boat. It is evident that the inability to deny ourselves is as much a weakness of character as it is an addiction. At the cross, Jesus showed us very clearly that self-denial and suffering can be redemptive.

It was after He had said, “I am thirsty,” that the sour wine was offered to Him. The difference between the myrrh or gall wine and the sour wine is stark. While the former was akin to a painkiller (but also hastener of death), the sour wine was essentially nothing more than alcoholic vinegar. If that sounds awful, it probably was because essentially, it was just cheap plonk. Roman soldiers who did duty at Cavalry usually brought along the sour wine to share as they waited – often for hours – for the condemned to die at their respective crosses.

This time, Jesus drank what He was offered. Unlike the painkiller, He accepted the vinegar wine just to help keep His mouth moistened. It had nothing to do with alleviating His pain but to ensure that He could form His next words clearly (Jn 19:30). In true prophetic style, “It is finished” was Jesus’ final fulfilment and the very definition of His humanity.

Jesus’ stark humanity

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Jesus’ final moments on the cross weren’t the first time we witnessed His humanity. In the Bible, we read of His tiredness, frail emotions and hunger, not to mention, His need to be alone and away from the crowd. But in all of Scripture, it was on the cross that we saw His deepest expression of humanity. Remember the apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians where He described Jesus:

“Though He was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, He gave up His divine privileges; He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When He appeared in human form, He humbled Himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.” (Php 2:6-8, NLT, m.e.)

Jesus’ humanity had humble underpinnings. For example, unlike most others, He was born in a stable. His earthly father was not a member of the royalty but a simple carpenter and in all likelihood, he probably died young since there is a dearth of information about him after Jesus was born. To put it simply, as a human, He had no special privileges or status in society.

But why is all this important? It is because to save mankind, God had to hatch a mystery plan in which a major sacrifice had to be its centrepiece. This would be a sacrifice unlike any the world had ever seen. It would also be unexpected in the sense that no one could have foreseen or figure out. Blood will surely be shed figuratively and otherwise. Torture and suffering would be thrown into the mix as well. And the torment would be so gruesome that it would rattle everyone who witnessed it. But then, there was a problem with this plan – an eternally living God cannot die!

And so, the Son of God became man. Born without His divine privileges, He took on the full force of humanity, meaning Jesus was just as vulnerable to sin and temptation as any normal human being. He was also just as susceptible emotionally and physically as any human was in that He could feel pain, sadness, disappointment, anger and everything in between. In fact, He was able to experience the same full spectrum of emotions as us in daily life. He could now feel what we feel.

In taking on the frail and vulnerable humanity, Jesus set Himself up for the fall, one that was manifested in the Father’s mystery plan that no one knew much about including Satan. Although His crucifixion was actually foretold in the Old Testament, it seemed many had not understood what it meant until the day everything came into sharp focus with Jesus nailed on the cross.

On the cross, the Son of Man took on the responsibility to suffer on our behalf. Hours earlier, He was flogged to within an inch of His life like a common criminal subject to Roman law but instigated by the Sanhedrin. And before that, there was the setup at the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus experienced betrayal by no less than one of His very own disciples. To make things worse, it was His own fellow Jews who would ultimately send Him to His death preferring a criminal insurrectionary, Barabbas, to be freed instead.

Nailed to the cross, the Romans chose to flank him with two condemned thieves in a disgusting act designed to destroy His reputation and demean His integrity. In cohorts with the Sanhedrin, the Roman authorities were keen to, once and for all, consign the Lord to history’s ignominious and forgettable heap.

By cloaking Himself in humanity, Jesus became our best hope to understand us. More importantly, it was now entirely possible for Him to suffer on our behalf.

A humanity more than most humans

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Be not surprised that some people have a view of Jesus that might not necessarily be the same. The problem is because some believe Jesus is all-God while the others think He is all-human. Both are, of course, wrong, because Jesus is both God and man. In that sense, therefore, Jesus is the Son of God and also the Son of Man.

Being the ‘Son of Man’ means Jesus was truly a human being. In much the same way, God also called Ezekiel ‘son of man’ and in the Bible, we can actually find 93 such occurrences. Simply put, the Lord was referring to the prophet as a human being. Just as John recognised Jesus as fully God (Jn 1:1), he too acknowledged Him as a human being (1:14).

Those who assert that Jesus is all-God insist that He did not have a real or natural body during His life on Earth. In other words, all people saw was a mere apparition of an apparent body. Called Docetism (Gk. dokein to mean ‘to seem’), this is pure Christian heresy because it pronounces Jesus’ divinity at the expense of His humanity.

A person who is bitter over his sufferings lashes out at God, saying, “You don’t understand. You will never understand what I’ve been going through. You have absolutely no idea the pain and suffering I have endured because you’re God and I’m not. But I’m human and you’re not.”

In a complete opposite manner, someone else could say, “Isn’t it easy for you, Jesus… to live on Earth without a worry and then to die on the cross. After all you’re God. You think You know what suffering is but You don’t.”

Both scenarios are heretical. Docetists deny Jesus His human body because they consider all physical matter inherently evil and thereby reject the notion that, as God, He could appear in such a form. However, in subscribing to this belief means Jesus did not have the humanity to understand pain and suffering the way we do. More importantly, Docetists deny Him the suffering experience at the cross and if that’s the case, Jesus did not die for our sins.

In other words, Docetism maintains that Jesus couldn’t have suffered because He is ultimately God. But Jesus didn’t just suffer like any human; He suffered far more than His fair share! The Son of Man took up all the sins and transgressions of the world on His shoulders. In doing so, He died to save all of us. For that, He couldn’t have done it if He were God but not man (and vice-versa). By being fully God and fully Man, Jesus had the sinless purity of an all-loving God and the full humanity of the Son of Man to fulfil the role.

Christian suffering sets a different standard

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Here is the Son of God whose simple phrase, “I am thirsty” sets Him distinctly apart from what any other world religion could ever teach you. There is simply no parallel whatsoever when it comes to Jesus’ humanity and what it means in the larger picture of salvation and redemption. Unlike what other religions may or may not have covered, Christ knows suffering and He thirsts for God in ways unfathomable by others who do not walk His ways.

So what does Islam has to say about suffering? According to Surah al-Hadid (The Iron) 57:22 (surah is chapter in Quran), “No misfortune ever befalls on Earth, nor on yourselves but We have inscribed it in the writ of destiny before We make it manifest. Surely that is easy for Allah.” The footnotes say that, “it is not at all difficult for Allah to preordain the destiny of each and every one of His creatures.” [Note: bold effect is mine]

What the Quran is saying is that all misfortunes that befall us are preordained. Little wonder that whenever Muslims suffer from mishaps or tragedies, they invariably say it is destiny…even if they were the result of human errors. Often you hear Muslims say, “Mashallah” or “Mash’Allah,” which broadly means “God willed it.” It’s a Muslim-Arab phrase that acts as a reminder that everything is achieved by the will of God.

Islam’s answer to suffering is nothing more than simply something that is within God’s will. If God wills it, there’s nothing man can do, in other words. However, nothing in the Quran says that their prophet Muhammad would take on man’s sin and suffer for it.

What about Buddhism? What does it say about suffering? The general notion is that suffering is part of life and everyone experiences it until he achieves the state of Buddha or enlightenment in which case, his hardships will end.

However in Buddhism, people pursue nothingness in the mind. This is because the human mind is said to be corrupt and therefore, the prime thing to do is to get rid of all thoughts. Given that being the case, then there is no concept of good and evil. Hence then, the concept of sin is as non-existent as the spiritual warfare between God and the devil.

But the problem with Buddhism is that there is no God. The Buddha that is at the centre of their worship is actually not a God but an Indian prince by the name of Siddhartha Gautama. In Buddhism, therefore, there cannot be any perfection or purity in the sense that there is no God.

If Buddhism lacks an expression for sin, then there is no need for salvation but that doesn’t explain why man is wicked and how spiritual justice is meted out as a result. If there is no need to be saved from sin’s damnation, then there is no need for anyone to come and take that sin away.

NOTE: None of these suggests that I am an expert in either Islam or Buddhism because I am not. What I know is what I can understand from simple reading and research that I have done based on resources that are readily available on the Internet.

In contrast, the Gospels teach us that there is a God who not only understands and knows about suffering but He has chosen to endure them because He loves us. He took on the whole world because He wanted to offer His promise of salvation and eternal life to everyone.

We have a God who wills Himself to cop the flak by going through the whole process of being a human until which point He took all the blame and ultimately suffered for it by sheer sacrifice of His life. He did all that just so His blood washed all over and cleanse us of our sins.

At Lambert Dolphin’s website is a nicely-written short play called, ‘The Long Silence,’ anonymously written prior to the summer of 1982 that is worth the few minutes to finish reading. In the end, you’ll get the idea how man thinks he knows about suffering in ways they assume that God doesn’t. Here’s the play:

At the end of time, billions of people were seated on a great plain before God’s throne. Most shrank back from the brilliant light before them. But some groups near the front talked heatedly, not cringing with cringing shame – but with belligerence.

“Can God judge us? How can He know about suffering?” snapped a pert young brunette. She ripped open a sleeve to reveal a tattooed number from a Nazi concentration camp. “We endured terror… beatings… torture… death!”

In another group, a Negro boy lowered his collar. “What about this?” he demanded, showing an ugly rope burn. “Lynched, for no crime but being black!” In another crowd, there was a pregnant schoolgirl with sullen eyes. “Why should I suffer?” she murmured. “It wasn’t my fault.”

Far out across the plain were hundreds of such groups. Each had a complaint against God for the evil and suffering He had permitted in His world. How lucky God was to live in Heaven where all was sweetness and light. Where there was no weeping or fear, no hunger or hatred. What did God know of all that man had been forced to endure in this world? For God leads a pretty sheltered life, they said.

So each of these groups sent forth their leader, chosen because he had suffered the most. A Jew, a Negro, a person from Hiroshima, a horribly deformed arthritic, a thalidomide child. In the centre of the vast plain, they consulted with each other. At last, they were ready to present their case. It was rather clever.

Before God could be qualified to be their judge, He must endure what they had endured. Their decision was that God should be sentenced to live on Earth as a Man. Let Him be born a Jew. Let the legitimacy of His birth be doubted. Give Him a work so difficult that even His family will think Him out of His mind.

Let Him be betrayed by His closest friends. Let Him face false charges, be tried by a prejudiced jury and convicted by a cowardly judge. Let Him be tortured. At the last, let Him see what it means to be terribly alone. Then let Him die so there can be no doubt He died. Let there be a great host of witnesses to verify it.

As each leader announced his portion of the sentence, loud murmurs of approval went up from the throng of people assembled. When the last had finished pronouncing sentence, there was a long silence. No one uttered a word. No one moved. For suddenly, all knew that God had already served His sentence.

Understanding the word ‘thirst’

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All this while, we have been looking at the word ‘thirst’ for what it usually means. The story we’ve been focusing on reveals Jesus’ physical thirst and how intense that moment before His death was. Yet, there is something a little deeper and more significant than that. Beneath the physical façade, Jesus was also encountering a spiritual thirst. Before we go further, a bit of exegesis of the word would be helpful.

Scripture translated into English uses three words, as in, “I am thirsty” but in Greek, it’s a single solitary word, Διψῶ (pr. Dipsō), expressed as a present indicative active verb in first personal singular form.

In the Strong Concordance (Greek #1372), the usage means ‘to thirst for’ or ‘to desire’ or ‘to long for.’ We find the same usage, not surprisingly, in John 19:28. The full usage of the word is, thus, “…Scripture, He says, ‘I thirst’” (Gk. γραφὴ λέγει Διψῶ; pr. graphē legei Dipsō).

An interesting aside in this part of the story is the hyssop branch. The apostle John recorded the event, narrating:

“Jesus knew that His mission was now finished and to fulfil Scripture, He said, ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar of sour wine was sitting there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put it on a hyssop branch and held it up to His lips. When Jesus had tasted it, He said, ‘It is finished.’ Then He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.” (Jn 19:28-30, NLT, m.e.)

Hyssop is a common herbaceous plant found throughout the Middle East. In Scripture, by virtue of the number of times it is mentioned, there is something symbolic to it than just a fragrant medicinal herb.

In the part of the Book of Exodus where the tenth and final plague was pronounced against Pharaoh, God commanded His people to mark the whole front door frame with blood of an unblemished lamb so that the angel of death would not visit but instead pass over them (hence the commemorative Passover event). To do that, He ordered them to use a bunch of hyssop, treating it like a ‘paintbrush’:

“Drain the blood into a basin. Then take a bundle of hyssop branches and dip it into the blood. Brush the hyssop across the top and sides of the door frames of your houses. And no one may go out through the door until morning. For the Lord will pass through the land to strike down the Egyptians. But when He sees the blood on the top and sides of the door frame, the Lord will pass over your home. He will not permit His death angel to enter your house and strike you down.” (Ex 12:22, NLT, m.e.)

It is true that a bunch of hyssop stalks is stiff, robust and long enough to do the job of reaching the necessary height to reach Jesus but its cleansing properties also meant that ancient Hebrews used in purification sprinkling rites. Given that, it is probable that God used it to symbolically mark His people as ‘pure.’ In other words, rather than target them for judgement, He would only deal with the Egyptians.

In the Book of Psalms, David also mentioned the same plant:

“Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” (Ps 51:7, NIV, m.e.)

Here, David isn’t talking about physical cleaning but spiritual cleansing. In his confession of sin, He asked God to purify him. In much the same way, when Jesus mentioned thirst, it wasn’t just physical but instead, it carried spiritual significance.

John mentioned that the Roman soldiers used a sponge dipped in sour wine and pierced it on a stalk of hyssop before offering it to Jesus (Jn 19:28-30) essentially, as it seems, to wet His lips. An act like this couldn’t have possibly quenched His thirst in a physical sense but was probably enough to allow Him to form His final words.

The significance of the hyssop at the final stage of Jesus’ life just as He was about to say, “I am thirsty” has symbolic importance as it offers us a picture of purification at the very last moment when the Son of God, as the sacrificial Lamb, purchased and paid in full our forgiveness.

Just as it is mentioned in the Old Testament where hyssop – together with the blood of a clean bird (as well as cedar wood and scarlet yarn) – was sprinkled on anyone healed from a defiling skin disease (leprosy, for example) as ceremonial cleansing (Lev 14:1-7), so it is that Jesus’ shed blood purified us from the defilement of our sin.

As mentioned earlier, the word ‘thirst’ used in John’s passage is a verb, meaning it defines a physical action. John himself used it five times in his Gospel and in all the five times, it referred to the same spiritual thirst. In three of those, the word ‘thirst’ takes centre stage in the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well:

“Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.’ ‘Please, sir,’ the woman said, ‘give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to get water.’” (Jn 4:13-15, NLT, m.e.)

In the above passage, Jesus distinguishes between physical water – water in the well – and that, which He freely gives, which in Chapter 7, He calls ‘living water.’ While the quenching properties of physical water aren’t permanent, Jesus’ living water promises that whoever accepts it “will never be thirsty again.”

In the part where He said, “It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them,” Jesus reveals that the living water lives within the one who accepts it, offering him eternal life.

Jesus, once again, referenced living water – although He didn’t use this description – when the crowd gathered to ask Him what they should do to perform God’s work (Jn 6:28, NLT). He replied:

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in Me will never be thirsty.” (Jn 6:35, NLT, m.e.)

In the following chapter, Jesus brought it up again although this time, He mentioned ‘living water’:

“On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, ‘Anyone who is thirsty may come to Me! Anyone who believes in Me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’’ (When He said “living water,” He was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in Him. But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into His glory.)” (Jn 7:37-39, NLT, m.e.)

When we look at Jesus’ use of the word ‘thirst’ – and how He links it to ‘living water’ – it is evident that He was referring not to physical water but to the spiritual desire for God. It’s an emotional longing that is welled deep within us. It operates in every human being created in the image of God, meaning it is also available to unbelievers. All it takes is to simply believe. It is a thirst that only Jesus can quench for all eternity. For unbelievers, it means going to and seeking it from Him and Him alone. For no one else can offer what He can.

In verse 39, John added that this ‘living water’ Jesus spoke about and promised refers to the Holy Spirit that is given to “everyone believing in Him.” That alone is enough to realise that when Jesus said, “I am thirsty,” He was talking about the spiritual thirst that He Himself was experiencing just before the Spirit left Him.

Poured out for all of humanity

Image source: youtube.com

This was exactly what Jesus did on the cross – He poured out for all of humanity. But take specific note that other than Him, there is no one who could do what He did. That, in essence, is why He is the Messiah and no one else is.

“I am thirsty” underlines the premise behind Jesus pouring Himself out for all of humanity. It is a gesture that everyone else was unfit to or unqualified to do. It took a sinless person – the Son of God, no less – to bear the weight of all the world’s sins and depravity so that humanity can be saved. That is what the promise of the living water, the very desire to live in harmonious perfect eternity with God, is largely about.

Without a doubt, this is the connection to what was foretold in the Old Testament:

“Do not stay so far from Me, for trouble is near, and no one else can help Me. My enemies surround Me like a herd of bulls; fierce bulls of Bashan have hemmed Me in! Like lions they open their jaws against Me, roaring and tearing into their prey. My life is poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, melting within Me. My strength has dried up like sun-baked clay. My tongue sticks to the roof of My mouth. You have laid Me in the dust and left Me for dead.” (Ps 22:11-15, NLT, m.e.)

Note that Jesus speaks about emptying Himself. He said, “My life is poured out like water.” There is no doubt that water has been mentioned many times in His brief ministry. In the first miracle He performed at the behest of His mother, He turned water into wine (Jn 2:11). Then came the encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well where He tied the idea of ‘living water’ to the Holy Spirit and eternal life (4:1-26).

It was also evident that Jesus had an abundance of this ‘living water’ in Him. In exhorting the crowd, He spoke of never ever being hungry or thirsty again. And once more, He drew them to the ‘living water’ that was freely on offer to anyone who came to Him (6:35, 7:37-39). Just by believing in Him, anyone could satiate his thirst forever and thence, “rivers of living water will flow from his heart” (op cit).

So how can someone like the Son of God who has an infinite supply of ‘living water’ could actually have it all poured out for all of humanity? Does that mean that He has no more ‘living water’? How could Jesus Himself become thirsty? If He had so much to give to all of man, surely He would still have some left in Him for Himself? But empty Himself He did and in its fullness before the Spirit left Him. And that explains why all of this was so sobering and bleak.

Yet the idea that Jesus could speak so voluminously – and inspiringly – about the ‘living water’ and still became thirsty hardly made sense. Is that because the ‘living water’ wasn’t really living after all? Or could it be that the Roman soldiers did not give Him enough of that sour wine? The point is He talked of saving others, offering them eternal life and now He was about to die? Why couldn’t He save Himself?

Just as it was foretold, Jesus was roundly mocked and jeered and all of this was part of the picture of God’s plan for humanity. For the Son of God to deliver on the promise, there was much humiliating and shaming that He had to endure. It was all part of the deal. As inspiring a rabbi that He was, He was now scorned and then given a crown of thorns and a purple robe to wear. Jesus could have easily risen above all the fracas. He could have pulverised his enemies instead of feeling the despair of being left for dead (Ps 22:15).

But He didn’t do any of that. He didn’t run away from His mission. He paid the full price of redemption for us. And we all know He certainly didn’t have to because we surely didn’t deserve it either. It wasn’t as if Jesus just pulled out a credit card and pay cash to free us. That would have been too simple and besides, everyone could have done the same. It wouldn’t be anything exceptional or out of this world. Instead Jesus gave His life up after He carried the burden of all our sins.

Those sins couldn’t be shouldered by anyone less than Jesus. He knew this. He was aware that only He could do what He did and if He had succumbed to His despair or took that myrrh (gall) wine, we wouldn’t be where we are today. We certainly wouldn’t be able to preach the Gospel to unbelievers and have them realise who Jesus is.

So as He emptied Himself that day on the cross, He paid the full invoice to unchain us from the shackles of sin. This was where His ultimate thirst, shame and death were all meshed into one. This is His glory and, in every way (possibly unthinkable to many), His joy.

But to be able to do all of this, Jesus had to lean on His Father. Remember that when He cried out saying, “I am thirsty,” it wasn’t mere physical thirst. As we know, He was in need of more than just a sponge’s worth of sour wine. That thirst had Him praying to God, expressing His own inner thirst…the thirst for God. It perfectly echoes what He preached when He taught us, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled” (Mt 5:6, NIV, m.e.) from the Sermon on the Mount.

As Jesus said, only when we thirst or long for God that we understand and experience true contentment. We can buy the grandest home, the sportiest car and marry the most beautiful woman in the world and we still won’t be anywhere near the kind of contentment that can only come from God.

We can have all the political power in the world, amassed the most amount of wealth and live in luxury beyond our wildest dreams and we still feel that emptiness inside us. We can even own the world and do whatever we like and still remain unquenched because something in life still eludes us.

All of that sounds strangely like Solomon’s expressions of emptiness in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Void of contentment, Solomon experienced depression as his quest for happiness through worldly materialism had come to nought. He said much about such voidness in these passages:

“Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content.” (Ecc 1:8, NLT, m.e.)

“I said to myself, ‘Look, I am wiser than any of the kings who ruled in Jerusalem before me. I have greater wisdom and knowledge than any of them.’ So I set out to learn everything from wisdom to madness and folly. But I learned firsthand that pursuing all this is like chasing the wind. The greater my wisdom, the greater my grief. To increase knowledge only increases sorrow.” (vv.16-18, NLT, m.e.)

“But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless – like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.” (Ecc 2:11, NLT, m.e.)

Solomon’s lessons here resonate with many of us today as well. But then he realised that faith in God offered him a way out of his conundrum and with that, a renewed sense of purpose that finally led to contentment for him. It is this faith that produces longing for God that Jesus meant when He said, “I am thirsty.” Just as Solomon discovered, our search would always be fruitless if God isn’t centred in our lives.

Everything is meaningless. Whatever we strive for and achieve in this world will also be meaningless. Without God, even a long life has neither reward nor purpose in the end. Solomon understood that a life void of God produces, at best, temporal but non-lasting pleasure. Worldly pleasures might fill us with joy for a while but in an eternity time frame, they wilt and wane.

Only by thirsting for and finding the Father, Jesus could find contentment. Even as He has poured Himself out for all of humanity on the cross, the Father would fill Him again with life. So, despite the momentous shouldering of all the world’s sins, Jesus will Himself be rejuvenated. Even as He poured all of Himself out, His reunion with the Father will be all He needed to quench that thirst.

Of suffering and sacrifice

Image source: reelgood.com

In the end, the lesson of the cross is not too difficult to understand. As Jesus neared the end of His mission (and life), we learn that “I am thirsty” takes on a meaning that is more than just physical. And in unveiling its true message, Jesus is encouraging all of us to look to God as the path to lasting contentment.

By embracing the way of the cross, we leave behind our worldly desires and all our feel-good creature comforts and instead, head towards a new gold standard in our lives. In short, follow Jesus by embracing sacrifices and sufferings. It’s time we realise there’s no easy way out when we focus on fulfilling our Christian expectations. We simply can’t have the cake and eat it.

Recall in Matthew’s Gospel about a rich young man who asked Jesus what he needed to do to attain eternal life. After a bit of back and forth, the Lord then said:

“If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” (Mt 19:21, NLT, m.e.)

Quite likely the young man wasn’t expecting such an answer. He thought he’d done well complying with the commandments that Jesus said had to be kept (vv.17-20). Now, he was told to give up everything if he was serious about following the Lord. That meant surrendering all his worldly properties and giving away all his money to the destitute.

The important key to understanding Jesus’ reply in this regard is to realise that He said, “If you want to be perfect.” View that as you may, the context is that those were the things a person had to do for God to consider him perfect. Putting that aside, Jesus’ answer obviously didn’t sit well with the rich young man:

“But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.” (v.22, NLT, m.e.)

There are three simple things to observe with the young man. Firstly, he was sad. Secondly, he went away. Thirdly, Matthew took pains to mention that, “he had many possessions.” The first two were reactions following what Jesus had said. The third was simply the fundamental reason why he couldn’t accept. It meant that he was too attached to his possessions to sacrifice.

To put that in another way, we could surmise that they were too important for him to forego; perhaps, too valuable to him to have Jesus displace as a priority in his life.

Then, turning to face His disciples, the Lord used the departed rich young man as an example and said:

“I tell you the truth, it is very hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I’ll say it again – it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!” (vv.23-24, NLT, m.e.)

Just as Jesus’ words had confounded the now-departed rich young man, they too were too much for His disciples to take in. To them, it meant no one would ever be able to be saved. With that, they asked the inevitable:

“‘Then who in the world can be saved?’ they asked. Jesus looked at them intently and said, ‘Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God, everything is possible.” (vv.25-26, NLT, m.e.)

Jesus felt it was a fair question because no one could fulfil those requirements he had set. Perhaps then, it was understandable that the rich young man left in frustration. However, it is in the second part of His answer that was critical for Jesus confirmed that even as we find it impossible to do what is asked of us, “with God, everything is possible.” Had the young man not left so quickly, maybe he would have had a clearer understanding of what God could do what man couldn’t.

Three verses down, He added more clarity, outlining the bountiful dividends when a person sacrifices much of his worldly life to follow Him:

“…everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or property, for My sake, will receive a hundred times as much in return and will inherit eternal life. But many who are the greatest now will be least important then, and those who seem least important now will be the greatest then.” (vv.29-30, NLT, m.e.)

The lesson of the cross reinforces what we learn from the above dialogue. What Jesus said to the rich young man and then to His disciples offers us a clear insight into the way to view His attitude on the cross towards, firstly, the myrrh (gall) wine and secondly, His cry, “I am thirsty.”

To set ourselves right with God means to deprioritise our material needs and not let them dominate our attention. To focus on Christ is to not allow anything to come in between us and God. We have to be as single-minded about what we want and how we are to claim it. Jesus did precisely that when He rejected the easy way out with the pain-numbing drink. To Him, completing His mission as not as important as the way He did it.

It is also important to realise that suffering is part and parcel of a life in which we are to follow Christ. Suffering can come in various forms. Trying times can involve retrenchments, health issues, relationship problems, domestic conflicts, loss of loved ones, humiliation, hatred, persecutions and encounters with drugs, pornography, obesity, alcoholism and even incarcerations.

Some of the most powerful Christians are often those who have ‘scars’ to show in their lives. Sufferings mould their Christian integrity, allowing them to understand and appreciate how Christ healed and comforted them in their moments of darkness.

Such is the cost of following Jesus. The sufferings and sacrifices we make are a large part of what this cost is about. In following His footsteps and emulating Him, the world will come to despise us as it has long despised Him:

“If the world hates you, remember that it hated Me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you. Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave is not greater than the master.’ Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you. And if they had listened to Me, they would listen to you. They will do all this to you because of Me, for they have rejected the One who sent Me. They would not be guilty if I had not come and spoken to them. But now they have no excuse for their sin. Anyone who hates Me also hates My Father. If I hadn’t done such miraculous signs among them that no one else could do, they would not be guilty. But as it is, they have seen everything I did, yet they still hate Me and My Father. This fulfils what is written in their Scriptures: ‘They hated Me without cause.’” (Jn 15:18-25, NLT, m.e.)

And so the message of the cross for this Easter is to reinforce our desire for a life that is in Christ, a life that ultimately takes us away from hedonistic pleasures and worldly priorities. This Easter, the idea of sticking to the same trodden path as Christ takes on a renewed sense of urgency as we take one further step into the End Times. The Wuhan Coronavirus is simply a stark reminder of the opportunities to right what is wrong in our lives before it’s too late.

Take comfort, therefore, in the fact that Jesus’ final words on the cross can open new doors for us to seek God but only if we redefine our pursuit of contentment. And once we sharpen our focus on a life enriched by Christ in us, we can then be assured of a brand new undertaking that will lead us away from the pains and sufferings of this world, detached from the importance we place on material desires. If we do this, no one will ever have to say, “I am thirsty” because the One who said it first, has said it to teach all of us.

Inexplicable Problems!

2020-03-08T00:09:00.001+07:00

Inexplicable problems!

Khen Lim

Just a quick note to let my readers know that my latest article, “Is the World Going Out of Control or Is God Losing Control” has been quite problematic to publish on Blogger and I’m not sure why that’s the case.

Everything I have done in this article is identical to all the past articles I have done and posted here. Yet I have come across some persistent issues. After I have uploaded the article, Blogger informed me that saving the work is not possible. Even after clicking ‘Dismiss,’ Blogger persisted in auto-saving and came up with the same impasse. After fine tuning the layout of the article, the problem still wouldn’t go away and that is after I have added the usual images to break up the texts. Images actually mean very little but I use them to make the texts a little more readable (and less intimidating!)

By now, it was well past midnight and so my last resort was to remove everything and upload the article all over again. This time, I did it section by section and then attempted to save it one bit at a time. That way, I hoped to catch the problem.

For the whole article, it appeared I had no problems saving it. Every section I progressively uploaded was successfully saved that is, until I got to the Reference part where I would list the resources (including links) I relied on in building up the article. Once I got to this part, Blogger gave me problems in saving the article. Tried as I did, this uploaded part just wouldn’t save successfully but once I had it removed, the problem was gone. At least that was what I thought.

I then decided to reinsert the images, beginning with the title image at the very start of the article. The moment I did that, the problem returned. It was most irritating and inexplicable. It was really so late into the night that I had to give up and just publish the article as it is.

I apologise for all this but I’m not sure if I can lick the problem even later in the day or coming week. If there are no changes to it, suffice then to say I will have surrendered completely to the gremlins of annoying technology.

Nonetheless, I hope the article is readable and you find it interesting. God bless.

To read the article, Is the World Going Out of Control or Is God Losing Control?.

Is the World Going Out of Control or Is God Losing Control?

2020-03-07T23:44:00.001+07:00

Is the World Going out of Control or is God Losing Control?

A scriptural perspective to the Wuhan Coronavirus

Khen Lim | March 8 2020

After the many faith articles I have written in the past number of years and the sermons I have done, I know a very difficult one to tackle when I see it. The Wuhan Coronavirus – also known as COVID-19 – that is plaguing the world is a worrisome problem. Talking about it with fellow Christians can be even more problematic due to the contradictory attitudes towards the coronavirus. Meanwhile, fatalities show no signs of waning and it’s hard to know when it will all end.

The other reason why it’s difficult to talk about it is the controversies surrounding the spiritual implications. Exactly what should or do we say about it? Can what we say be construed as insensitive? Can the truth that Christians accept be embraced by the secular world? Will the world hate us for what we believe is the honest truth? In fact, how much of what we know scripturally can be applied in this case?

Let us begin by reading an open letter that a certain Chinese pastor wrote in the midst of the deadly coronavirus. His name is Pastor Tan Songhua and he hails from the Cornerstone Church in the epicentre of the coronavirus itself, Wuhan. His letter has drawn incredible inspiration for many Christians worldwide and I reproduce it here in awe of the fearless stand he makes for Christ. His faithful service to God in the middle of potential persecution, let alone the outbreak, serves a lesson for all of us to take note.

Before reading it, take note that the original letter was written in Simplified Chinese. It is hence possible that the resulting English translation does not retain “the colourful and idiomatic language” typical of the “strong regional context.” By the same token, the translated theological expressions might appear odd or even conflicting but all of these might just be because it’s never easy to fully and even faithfully reflect the pastor’s original writing.

Be that as it may, here is Pastor Tan’s open letter courtesy of John Little of Omegashock.com:

“Peace to brothers and sisters:

In the past few days, Wuhan pneumonia has almost become the centre of my thoughts and life. I always looked for updates, and always thought about how my family and the church should deal with it. As for my family, I stored some masks and food. I tried to go out as little as possible, wear a mask when I went out, and left the rest to God.

On the church side, the safety of meetings, the witness of our faith, and the possibility of members contracting this disease – all pose great challenges to us. Obviously, we are facing a trial of our faith. Even though the situation is so grim, however relying on God’s promise, we believe that what He gave is the mind of giving peace, not the mind of disaster (Jer. 29:11). He allows the trial to come to us, not because He wants to destroy us, but to build us up. Therefore, Christians should not only suffer with the people in this city, but also have the responsibility to pray for this shaken and scared city and bring to them the peace of Christ.

First of all, let the peace of Christ reign in our hearts (Col. 3:15), and let the peace of Christ take control of our hearts (Col. 3:15, new Chinese translation). Christ has already given us His peace, but His peace is not without suffering and death. We have His peace in suffering and death, because Christ has overcome these for us (Jn 14:27, 16:33). Otherwise, what we believe would not be the Gospel of peace (Eph 6:15), and we would panic in this epidemic and despair in the face of death, just like the people in this world.

Why should only Christians have such peace? Because of sin, a man is worthy of any affliction that comes. Jehovah says: The wicked will not have peace (Isa 48:22). We were all wicked, but because of our faith, Jesus bore the penalty of sin for us and gave us His peace. So Paul said, who can accuse God’s chosen ones? God called them righteous (Rom 8:33). Christians face suffering like the rest of the world, but this suffering is no longer a judgment for them, but an opportunity to draw close to God, cleanse the soul, and witness the Gospel.

In other words, when suffering comes to us, it is a way that God loves us. And just like Paul said, who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can suffering? Can difficulty? Can persecution? Can hunger? Can nakedness? Can danger? Can a knife? … But, in the Lord who loves us, we have more than victory in all these things. Because we deeply believe that whether it is death or life or an angel or a demon or a powerful entity or any present thing or things in the future or if its high or if it is low or other creatures, none of them can separate us from the love of God; this love is in our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 8: 35-39).

Applying this to our current situation, this epidemic in Wuhan city cannot separate us from the love of Jesus Christ either. This love is in our Lord Jesus Christ. Such words comfort us very greatly. We have become one with Christ. We take part in His suffering, we also take part in His glory. Everything of Christ becomes ours, and everything of ours becomes Christ’s.

Therefore, Christ is in this city, with us to face this epidemic. The epidemic cannot hurt Him, and it will not hurt us. If we die in this epidemic, we still are witnesses for Christ and have the opportunity to enter into His glory.

Therefore brothers and sisters, I encourage you to be strong, relying on the love of Christ. If we, in this epidemic, experience death more deeply and understand the Gospel more deeply, we will then experience the love of Christ more deeply and be closer to God. Just as our Lord Jesus, through faith experienced cruel death, but God raised Him from the dead and set Him on His right hand side (Acts 2: 32-36).

If after reading all these truths, you still do not have peace, I encourage you to read the Scriptures listed above with all your attention and ask God to make you understand until the peace of Christ rules you. You must know that this is not only a visible disaster, but also an invisible spiritual battle. You must fight for your heart and then for the soul of this city.

I also hope that you will know that a sparrow needs God’s permission to fall to the ground (Mt 10:29). Shouldn’t this be truer for the many lives in Wuhan that face this epidemic? Isn’t what we are experiencing like what Abraham faced with Sodom and like what Jonah faced with Nineveh?

If God would not destroy Sodom because there were righteous people, and not destroy Nineveh [where] there were more than 120,000 who could not distinguish between their left and right hands, what about Wuhan where we are? We are clearly the righteous in this city. And not just one, but there are at least tens of thousands who are righteous. Let us all be as sorrowful as Lot for our cities (1 Pt 2:7), and pray for Sodom as earnestly as Abraham (Gen 18:23-33). You see, Jonah reluctantly preached the Gospel to Nineveh, and the city of Nineveh repented and was saved. We are the Abraham and the Jonah of this city. We must, for Christ, pray for this city to reconcile with God, and for this city, call out for God’s mercy, so that the whole city will receive peace through our prayers and witness.

I believe that this is the mission for which God has called us to live, in Wuhan. We must pray for peace for this city, peace for infected patients, peace for the medical staff at the front line, peace for government staff at all levels, and peace for all people in Wuhan! We can also use the Gospel to guide and comfort relatives and friends through the Internet, reminding them that their lives are not in their own hands, that they must entrust their lives to the faithful God.

In the past few days, I have received greetings from many [Chinese] pastors outside of Wuhan. They and their churches care about this city, and even more about us. They are facing this epidemic with us and serving this city with us.

Therefore, I strongly invite you to turn your eyes to the Lord Jesus, and no longer worry about your safety, and no longer lose heart, but pray in the name of the Lord Jesus. The kind people of the world are using their actions to serve the city, especially the medical staff who risk their lives. They are carrying worldly responsibilities, shouldn’t we bear even more spiritual responsibilities!

If you do not have the burden of prayer, ask the Lord to give you a heart that loves souls and prays earnestly; if you do not cry, ask the Lord to give you tears. Because we deeply know that only the mercy of the Lord is the salvation of this city.

Tan Songhua

January 23, 2020”

Translation admirably provided by Mrs. Little

NOTE: Words bolded are my emphasis

The Wuhan Coronavirus needs little to no introduction. Unless you’ve been hiding in some truly remote cave, it’s unlikely that you do not know something about it. But even so, let’s take the opportunity to run through some of what we understand about the coronavirus.

Basic definition

I call it the Wuhan Coronavirus but the World Health Organisation would like us to refer to it as COVID-19, which is short for COronaVIrus Disease 2019. This change of naming sentiment is probably made under pressure from the veto-wielding Chinese who are doing all they can to dissociate themselves from the coronavirus. Call it what you want but it’s political correctness at its worst. But no matter the dissociation, the coronavirus itself does not discriminate. Beyond China, its lethality has taken on the rest of the world with a sense of vengeance that is frightening in its pace and spread. As for the latest numbers, we’ll look at them later.

The ‘corona’ part of its name refers to its visual resemblance to a royal crown. The word itself – ‘corona’ – is Latin for ‘crown’ or tiara, the royal official headgear that kings and queens wear. The way the word is used here is to refer to the crown of spikes that helps attach the pathogen into the human biology and send its deadly payload to kill. While it looks rather spectacular in all the dressed-up images we’ve been seeing, it is hardly impressive in what it does to humans.

Being a member of the wider coronavirus family means it is related to the common flu as much as it is to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and MERS (Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome) in that they are all respiratory based. The Wuhan variety kills by stifling the host body of much-needed air, which makes it strikingly similar to pneumonia. That might explain why it wasn’t difficult for the Chinese authorities to misreport at least some of the cases, calling it pneumonia instead of the Wuhan Coronavirus.

Hence the many widely touted claims that plenty of fatalities have actually gone under the radar, meaning they have not been added to the official count. While the current ‘official’ death toll is frightening enough, many are saying that the real figure is far worse. But if we are bogged down by numerous unreported cases in China, then what we currently are told is largely misrepresented.

The Wuhan Coronavirus’ close cousin, SARS, appeared in 2002-2003, killing 775 people amidst 8,098 confirmed cases. We thought 775 was a huge figure but the Wuhan strain is now manifold worse. Unlike the geographically-distant MERS, SARS hit home far closer. I recall how SARS frightened the living daylights out of so many of us. Remember, even without social media back then, news of SARS approaching was alarming enough. One can imagine the pandemonium if Facebook or WhatsApp was available then.

Like SARS, the Wuhan Coronavirus originated from China but we’ll talk more about this later.

One of the most outstanding aspects of the Wuhan Coronavirus is its symptoms. Unlike anything we’ve seen in the past, the symptoms here are as unpredictable as they are confusing and worrying. It appears right from the outset that medical experts including those from the World Health Organisation (W.H.O.) haven’t the foggiest idea. All this while, the incubation period – meaning the time a person is infected to the time his symptoms show – was said to be anything from 1 to 14 days. We now know that to be false because it looks more like 25 days but even this new claim might not last for long but it’s lengthy enough to cause all sorts of worries.

Even at 14 days, most of the quarantine facilities available in different parts of the world cannot cope. The U.K. has just begun to find out that they’re running out of beds to accommodate suspected and confirmed cases simply because 14 days is too long to hold up a bed. Unless the patient shows symptoms much earlier – say, 3 days – hospital resources will be stretched to the maximum. At 25 days, it just isn’t plausible to expect quarantine facilities to cope especially if confirmed cases keep mounting.

Before the person even gets to be quarantined, the problem with an unpredictably long incubation period is that he could be infecting others without realising it. And he can be doing that anytime up to 25 days virtually undetected! This problem is what is occurring today with worrying clusters created out of nothing. It explains how and why Italy has become a hot epicentre for European infections.

Let’s assume a person who holidayed abroad in a place that is known to have confirmed cases returns to home soil unaware that he’s been infected. Of course, he has no way of telling because the symptoms are not yet apparent. And let’s also assume that he’s not interested in getting himself self-quarantined because he believes he is not infected since he hasn’t been anywhere near the so-called viral hotspots. So, he’s been up and about everywhere, attending meetings, joining up with friends in clubs and restaurants and then having dinners with the family and others. Throw in the times he went supermarket shopping during the weekends when the crowds are inescapable.

Because, in this example, the person is already infected before he headed home. That means he’s carrying the Wuhan Coronavirus even though he didn’t go to Wuhan or China for that matter. However, where he visited, he was in at least one area in which someone carried the disease and was near enough to pass it to him without him realising it.

Now that he has become a carrier himself, he has brought the coronavirus home and has been freely spreading it around undetected mainly because he has not shown any symptoms and he has chosen not to have himself quarantined. Because he might be able to do this for 25 straight days, it is unimaginable how many different places he can go in that period of time not to mention the number of people he will have come in contact with.

Some reports have suggested that in such cases, once the symptoms become apparent, it might be quite serious already. That, I believe, was what happened to the whistleblower, the late Dr Li Wenliang, who initially appeared fine but once his symptoms showed and he was hospitalised, it did not take long for the coronavirus to claim his life.

What this means, of course, is that trouble emerges the moment the symptoms surface. Experts tell us that these may be mild, moderate or serious symptoms and yet that person can still succumb. In very serious cases, pneumonia can set in rather quite quickly and then develop into something that looks like SARS. If by then, the patient cannot be stabilised, his vital organs – such as his kidneys – can begin to fail. Quite tragically then, death won’t be far along.

Deadliness and contagiousness

Not that long ago, many in the medical community were looking to benchmark the Wuhan Coronavirus against SARS for two reasons that I know. One is that was all there was to compare with. The other is that SARS was not too long ago and it was truly a frightening experience. Figures available online tell us that from 8,098 positive cases, 775 died from SARS. Whatever that figure does or doesn’t do to you, its deadliness really hit very close to home. From Singapore, we heard terrible stories that would make your skin crawl.

But benchmarking SARS proved underwhelming because it didn’t take long before the Wuhan Coronavirus showed what a ‘superior’ spreader it now is and along the way, its death toll put it clearly in the shade. By February, it was evident that the Wuhan Coronavirus was in a completely different league of its own. Let’s look at some of the current figures:

SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome)	Wuhan Coronavirus (at 12pm, Feb 29 2020)
Date: November 2002 to July 2003 Total confirmed cases: 8,098 Total confirmed deaths: 775	Date: Late 2019 (actual date is disputable) Total confirmed cases: 85,179 China-only unconfirmed cases: 79,251 Non-mainland-China confirmed cases: 5,928 Total unconfirmed deaths: 2,920 China-only unconfirmed deaths: 2,835 Non-mainland-China confirmed deaths: 85* * Deaths outside mainland China comprise the following: Iran (34), Italy (21), South Korea (13), Diamond Princess (6), Japan (5), France (2), Hong Kong (2), Philippines (1) and Taiwan ROC (1)

SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome)

Wuhan Coronavirus (at 12pm, Feb 29 2020)

Date: November 2002 to July 2003

Total confirmed cases: 8,098

Total confirmed deaths: 775

Date: Late 2019 (actual date is disputable)

Total confirmed cases: 85,179

China-only unconfirmed cases: 79,251

Non-mainland-China confirmed cases: 5,928

Total unconfirmed deaths: 2,920

China-only unconfirmed deaths: 2,835

Non-mainland-China confirmed deaths: 85*

* Deaths outside mainland China comprise the following: Iran (34), Italy (21), South Korea (13), Diamond Princess (6), Japan (5), France (2), Hong Kong (2), Philippines (1) and Taiwan ROC (1)

By comparison (above), the Wuhan Coronavirus figures are damning. Far worse then that we realise there is no stopping or containing it for now. To put it simply, things will worsen even as we speak.

So far, here are what we know of the Wuhan Coronavirus’ deadliness:

#1. It is markedly deadlier than SARS or any coronavirus-related diseases before

#2: It can incubate for up to 25 days but even this can change given the propensity to mutate

#3: As mentioned above, it can mutate just like any common flu

#4: Fomites contaminated with the coronavirus pathogens can infect for 5 days under ideal conditions

#5: Contrary to what was claimed earlier, it is transmissible by air

#6: With ‘clusters’ appearing of late, it means people are getting infected without having visited China

Now, let’s consider how man has made the Wuhan Coronavirus deadlier than it should:

#7: Earlier delays in China, sometimes inexplicable, have worsened its lethal nature

#8: Ill-preparedness and what appears to be incoherency among the world’s medical experts (including the W.H.O.) gave the coronavirus even more time to become more unpredictable

#9: It is possible that some have overestimated their ability to contain the virus (see Italy and Iran)

#10: With some not closing their borders, the virus continue to have free passage to spread (see Hong Kong)

#11: Shortage of diagnostic kits heightens risk of the virus infecting without detection (see Indonesia)

#12: Severe lack of suitable facemasks, gloves and hand sanitisers adds to the problem of self-protection among those who face such shortages in hard-hit communities

#13: Deniers who blame the hype on Western conspiracies become frighteningly ill-equipped to defend themselves when the virus hits (much like not inoculating children when attending schools)

#14: Those who dismiss the seriousness and therefore ignore advice and instead, travel abroad

#15: Disturbing evidence of (some) infected Chinese visitors whose misinformation strikes at the heart of infection outbreaks in some countries (see S. Korea and Singapore)

#16: Malicious lack of cooperation with government authorities allows the outbreak to spread at an alarming rate (see Daegu)

No doubt about it, man must be held responsible for worsening the prospects of ever containing the Wuhan Coronavirus. It is bad enough that ignorance, indifference and/or negligence have played a fairly significant part in adding to the problem. However, there is also a strong element of political underhandedness and covert subterfuge that adds ugliness to the whole problem. We’ll look into these later.

What we now have is a tragic case of misinformation, ignorance, indifference and misplaced loss of face that have played into the deadly hands of the Wuhan Coronavirus. If we look at the figures posed earlier, we can now ascertain what the fatality rate looks like:

Death rate calculations based on figures as at 12:00pm Feb 29 2020

Overall death rate (unconfirmed): 3.42%

China-only death rate (unconfirmed): 3.71%

Non-mainland-China confirmed death rate: 1.72%

On February 2, almost one month ago, the fatality rate was measured at 2.03%. As much as the Chinese authorities were looking to maintain (or lessen) this, it rose, 20 days later, to 2.7%. One week later, it escalated to 3.42%. Mind you, these are based on ‘official’ fatality numbers in China. In other words, chances are that the real figures are significantly higher.

Chinese authorities recently declared that they ‘expect’ to contain the virus by late April. Many experts in the West, on the other hand, have said that containment is too late. Nobody really knows who is right but judging from the recent spade of poor predictions made on the virus, it’s hard to take any more promises. The persistent underestimation of the Wuhan Coronavirus isn’t doing anyone any favours. Furthermore, scientists are struggling to find enough opportunity to know and learn more about the coronavirus. This means going public with any predictions will always be fraught with unpredictability or false optimism.

Another real problem

Already, everything we know – or claim to know – about the Wuhan Coronavirus is worrying. When news surfaced that a certain ophthalmologist, Dr Li Wenliang, an avowed Christian, was castigated and publicly humiliated by Chinese authorities for what was a private chat message to friends concerning the outbreak, it was initially baffling because many of us didn’t know what that was all about. The coronavirus was still to be named let alone properly identified since information was very thin on the ground.

It didn’t take long for the truth to be told, that Dr Li had not acted unethically but instead was a real ‘whistleblower’ in the true sense of the word. What he told his friends on December 30 last year was indeed something that happened but Chinese authorities did all they could to clamp him down and shut him up. 39 days later, on February 7 2020, the 33-year-old Dr Li died of the virus he wanted the world to know. First accused of “making false comments on the Internet,” his death proved so deeply unpopular with the Chinese public that local authorities decided to play the blame game.

In all honesty, the real problem isn’t what little we know but what we do not know about the coronavirus because so much is still withheld from public knowledge. It has been said in some circles that the W.H.O. knew about the true nature of the original outbreak but chose not to expose them. Instead they elected to sing China’s praises for their ‘quick’ response. By then, it became common knowledge to many that China was not forthcoming with the real and important information concerning the coronavirus. By then, the horse had already bolted out of the stall.

An increasing number of people are convinced that the ‘official’ death count in China needs to be questioned. Many of those who are cynical about these official numbers cited statistical analytical evidence to point to the implausibility of these statistics that come out from China. In time, we were treated to a brace of statistics and inside information that somehow were ‘leaked’ out into social media. Much of these details were only available for a small window of time before they were removed to prevent authorities from tracking them down.

As to why China has not been transparent about the outbreak would probably make for an epic, if not exciting, book. Then again, as a communist state, not coming forward about many things in the past and present is not unusual. What we gather from such behaviour is that China is keener in covering its tracks because they have something to hide. But what are they trying to hide? What tracks are they so keen to cover? Indeed, what is the real picture of the Wuhan Coronavirus?

We now have our hands on some of the things that have leaked out from China via social media. They are often not reported at all by the liberal mainstream media. What we were privy to was an unexpurgated view of the very things that have been taking place in China that ultimately shocked us into numbness. These were video images that paint a completely different picture of the coronavirus. They tell us that the Chinese authorities have been struggling to cope in containing the coronavirus.

Here are some of the more surprising issues that we have learned from ‘unofficial’ channels of information:

#1: Hospital front-line staff have been so overwhelmed that many who came to them were treatment were sent home for self-quarantining but this presented a significant problem because many of these died at home and their deaths were misrepresented, thus impacting the real death toll arising from the Wuhan Coronavirus.

#2: Similarly, there were also many who were infected but refused to go to hospital for treatment and hence, their deaths were also similarly misrepresented, thus were excluded from the real death toll.

#3: The bodies of many who died from the coronavirus were actually very quickly cremated even without their families’ consent so much so that these cremations had gone undetected and possibly unrecorded, which means their numbers are unlikely to be part of the official count.

#4: Before Wuhan was placed in lockdown, as many as 5 million inhabitants left the metropolis and following the lockdown, not all of them returned home, which leads to the distinct possibility that outside infections were now possible.

#5: Between the time the lockdown in Wuhan was finally announced and the time it was imposed, a further number of the inhabitants forced their way out of the city and went elsewhere, again, leading to the possibility of spreading their infection to others in China and abroad.

#6: Of those from Wuhan who made their way out of the city, many found their way to other parts of the world (including Malaysia) before flight cancellations came into effect, meaning the likelihood of a wider outbreak is far higher again.

No doubt these six points are quite a handful to worry about already but it gets worse because many are not so sure anymore whether the original outbreak began from the Wuhan Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. At a size equivalent of 7 football pitches, there are more than 1,000 vendor stalls officially selling seafood but many of them will also sell you contraband wildlife animals, dead or alive. So, don’t let that word ‘seafood’ fool you because in this Market, you can even find koalas, let alone raccoons, marmots, deer, leopards, snakes, porcupines, scorpions, sea cockroaches, migratory birds, peacocks, bats, rabbits, foxes, ostriches and badgers and probably more. According to one of the stalls’ menu board, a live deer is worth 6,000RMB (Renminbi) albeit with its leg tendons destroyed just so it cannot run away from its cage!

It’s easy – and believable – for Chinese authorities to blame the outbreak on the Market. After all, SARS and MERS had originated from the civet and dromedary respectively. Experts also said that the Ebolavirus also came from animals, most notably, monkeys, chimpanzees and fruit bats. The fact that bats are notoriously known for carrying diseases made them an easy target. Sure enough then, the Chinese horseshoe bat was blamed for the Wuhan Coronavirus outbreak, which then led to the ‘immediate’ closure of the entire Market.

When scepticism grew concerning the bat being the source, some began to wag their finger at the snake and when that didn’t appear too believable, the poor pangolin came in for mention with the international news media giving undue coverage over this unusual looking anteater. None of this can take away the fact that the Market was appallingly dirty. Raw meat were seen selling in open spaces exposed to nearby dirty stray dogs. Fish vendors were descaling and cleaning fish squatting next to mountains of fish stacked over the filthy looking gutters. Exotic wild animals were housed in unlined cages stacked atop one another with droppings everywhere. In one case, there were snakes slithering everywhere on top of a counter space.

Today, the Market remains closed as local health authorities have taken the precaution of thoroughly cleaning it as well as fumigating the interiors before the vendors can return and presumably, resume business. One thing for sure, China is now contemplating seriously to ban the sale and consumption of exotic wildlife animals. However many aren’t sure if all this is nothing more than a smokescreen to distract people from looking 20 miles across the river where there is a covert government agency that conducts ‘biological research’ into all kinds of deadly diseases including the Wuhan Coronavirus.

The problem with the Wuhan Institute of Virology – one of China’s four Biosafety Level-4 (BSL-4) virology laboratories – is that it doesn’t just conduct research but in the most sinister fashion, a considerable amount of activities centre on the development of military-grade biological war weaponry of the type that is banned throughout the world. The idea was to develop Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that gives China a huge leg up against the rest of the world.

Early this year, in January 2020, Radio Free Asia rebroadcast a 2015 Wuhan television report segment that showcased the Institute, branding it as China’s most advanced in virology research. Being Level-4 compliant meant that it was China’s only declared site capable of working and stockpiling lethal diseases and pathogens. Former senior analyst in the Israel Defence Force (IDF) military intelligence and the Ministry of Defence as well as microbiologist and specialist in chemical and biological warfare, Lt. Col. (res) Dany Shoham believes that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is connected to the country’s covert programme in biological weaponry.

It is easy to get carried away with rumours and fake news on the Internet. Every one of us, at some point in our lives, has read and been taken for a ride with such information. There’s also plenty of conspiracy stories of which perhaps, the most notorious is that the U.S. never landed man on the moon or the countless theories about how and why President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. With the rush of fake news since the start of Obama’s presidency, it is difficult sometimes to tell true from false. And so, it is important to look for corroboration and not spread unsubstantiated news irresponsibly.

To that end, news surrounding the Wuhan Institute of Virology are always going to be new to those who stick close to the left-leaning liberal mainstream news media that essentially hog much of the industry. But consider that at 20 miles apart, a virus outbreak in one will spread quickly enough to the other without breaking sweat. To not comment on something like this arouses suspicions unnecessarily. The point is people need to have the air cleared about such allegation and therefore, silence by the Chinese authorities add to the concern over the coronavirus.

When it comes to developing biological weapons, it is common knowledge that China is a cosignatory to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC)*, joining and ratifying the treaty on November 15 1984. This means they are not supposed to be dabbling in anything lethal like anthrax, botulism including coronaviruses like the Wuhan strain.

* NOTE: The full name is ‘Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction’

It is debatable whether anyone outside of China was aware of what went on in the Institute but then something happened in Canada that was finally reported in July 2019, well before the Wuhan Coronavirus became publicly known. Back then, a group of Chinese researchers attached to the National Microbiological Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba were caught stealing dangerously infectious diseases. The last we know a married couple – Dr Keding Cheng and his wife Dr Xiangguo Qiu – including an unknown number of fellow cadres of the Chinese Communist Party were removed from Canada’s only BSL-4 virology lab.

Experts feared, at that time, that this could be a matter of national security because there was a strong case of intellectual property theft, which China remains infamous for. According to the director of the University of Alberta’s China Institute, Gordon Houlden, “The NML would have some pretty sensitive biological research material that… could be shared with or without authorisation with foreign countries.” Yet, “all of this is unproven but even microbiology, sometimes especially microbiology, can have issues that involve national security.”

Almost six months after that, on December 9 2019, U.S. customs officials at the Boston Logan International Airport apprehended a Chinese national who was on a Harvard-sponsored study visa, Zheng Zaosong, of trying to smuggle 21 vials of specimens out of the U.S. wrapped in a plastic bag and then concealed in a sock packed in his suitcase. The 30-year-old allegedly stole them from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre where he worked. The idea was that he planned to steal the vials and have them transferred to the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital where he would then write and publish a paper in his name on the proviso that the research would be successful.

Although this episode seems to have nothing to do with the coronavirus, the importance here was that the student had purported stolen research for the Chinese government. The U.S. District Court even considered him to be a flight risk because the communist authorities that offered him scholarship had actually funded his travel home using Hainan Airlines. Yet, when digging deeper, new disturbing discoveries opened the way to some connection with the Wuhan Coronavirus.

Firstly, the 30-year-old Zheng was actually involved in China’s ‘Thousand Talents Plan and was affiliated with the Wuhan University of Technology, considered a prestigious Chinese tertiary institution to do with science and technology. The ‘Thousand Talents Plan’ is a well-known program run by the Chinese government that rewards Chinese nationals for stealing proprietary information and violating export controls. Think of Huawei and you might not be too far off the mark.

For details of the actual charges levelled at Zheng by the U.S. Department of Justice, go here to download.

Other than Shoham, the creator of the 1989 U.S. Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act (BWATA), Prof. Francis Anthony Boyle, is also convinced that the Wuhan Coronavirus is a direct result of China’s biological warfare program. Inevitably, he linked its development to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He even believes that the World Health Organisation is aware of this but have chosen to overlook it on the basis that the Institute itself is also “a specially designated W.H.O. research lab). Dr Boyle isn’t your typical airhead activist or conspiracy theorist.

In an exclusive interview conducted by Geopolitics & Empire, the well-respected 70-year-old professor of international law believes that the Wuhan Coronavirus simply escaped from the Institute. He is also certain that apart from its lethality, it has been developed as “an offensive biological warfare weapon or dual-use biowarfare weapons agent (that is) genetically modified with gain of function properties, which is why the Chinese government originally tried to cover it up.”

Experts also said that the United States had joined Canada in mounting investigations into the Chinese researchers amidst serious concerns over breaches of national security to do with highly sensitive intellectual property theft. But then all of this should not come as a surprise at a time when China has continually escalated their aggression in several parts of the world.

All of this leads us to the covert operations at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its close proximity to the Market. The short distance itself would not be an issue under normal circumstances but in the outbreak of the coronavirus, that distance could easily become a hot talking point especially in view of the lab itself. One question then needs answering – what are they hiding that they have refused to comment on? Once containment became impossible, transparency was necessary for the outbreak to be reined in.

This transparency became a huge wedge between the Chinese government and the rest of the world because the seriousness of the outbreak drew the attention of not just the W.H.O. but also America’s C.D.C. (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention), both of which volunteered to step in and help bring the coronavirus under control in Wuhan. China declined. Given the covert nature of what takes place within the Institute, perhaps that is not something unexpected. However, hiding facts is one thing; saving lives as early and quickly as possible is quite another.

Not long after the interview, Arkansas U.S. Senator Tom Cotton rejected the mainstream media’s assertion that the Market (and its dead and live wild animals) was to blame, citing a Lancet study that clearly demonstrated evidence pointing to the first cases – including Patient Zero – having no connection whatsoever with the Market.

“As one epidemiologist said, ‘That virus went into the seafood market before it came out of the seafood market.’ We still don’t know where it originated… I would note that Wuhan also has China’s only biosafety level-four super laboratory that works with the world’s most deadly pathogens to include, yes, coronavirus,” Cotton said. In his Tweet on January 30 2020, he added:

“China claimed – for almost two months – that coronavirus had originated in a Wuhan Seafood Market. That is not the case. @THELANCET published a study demonstrating that of the original 40 cases, 14 of them had no contact with the Seafood Market, including Patient Zero. pic.twitter.com/pdgqghjkgy

With so much damning scepticism levelled at China’s claims, it’s also easy to blame them all on conspirators working overtime. It’s a no-brainer that, aided by pro-China online activists, all of these are nothing more than vacuous allegations designed to oppose China by pro-Trump supporters. But here’s the problem with this accusation: The earliest round of news of the coronavirus actually began way back in July 2019. At that time, what we now call the Wuhan Coronavirus had not even made any news headlines. Secondly, that newsbreak was not American but Canadian in origin. It was the Canadian authorities that revealed investigation into the theft of dangerous viruses that invariably allowed others to join the dots to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Thirdly, China had all the opportunities to comment but they did not.

What you make out of all this will always be your decision. But to discount all of these is unwise. You can if all these pieces of news had come from ultra-right-wing news sites but they didn’t. The CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corporation) cannot be labelled as ‘ultra-right wing.’ The same can also be said of News.com.au, which is an Australian news website owned by News Corp Australia. The Harvard Crimson is one of many official news sites belonging to Harvard University, which is as liberal as they come. The U.K.’s Express is left leaning.

To blame a defenceless bat or snake and then, the pangolin is easy. Dead animals don’t tell tales. Even when alive, they don’t have a voice. Animals are easy game because SARS and MERS including the Ebolavirus were all animal derived. The civet was apparently responsible for SARS. MERS originated from a dromedary and in the case of the Ebolavirus, the factsheet says it was monkeys.

But that doesn’t always mean that animals are necessarily to be blamed. Like civets, bats are well known as disease carriers. In other words, it’s not such a great idea to eat them no matter how tempting. Someone on the Internet suggested a theory that maybe a bat infected at the Institute could’ve escaped to the Market where it was then caught and sold in the Market before it was consumed by one or more humans. In that sense, the bat is not a true originator of the coronavirus.

But even that suggestion doesn’t fly because the Lancet has reported that 14 among the first 40 cases of the infection were nowhere near the Market.

The extent of the spread

Here are some worldwide figures for you to digest:

Region: Worldwide

Confirmed cases: 94,250

Countries affected: 159

Fatalities: 3,221

Fatality rate: 3.42%

Region: China (mainland only)

Confirmed cases: 80,270

Fatalities: 2,981

Fatality rate: 3.71%

Region: Outside mainland China

Confirmed cases: 13,941

Countries affected: 79

Fatalities: 240

Fatality rate: 1.72%

List: Asia, Europe, Australasia/Oceania, Middle-East, North America, Central & South Americas, African subcontinent

Region: Asia (excluding mainland China)

Confirmed cases: 7,063

Countries affected: 18 (excluding Diamond Princess)

Fatalities: 52

Fatality rate: 0.74%

List: South Korea (35), Diamond Princess* (6), Japan (6), Hong Kong (2), Thailand (1), Taiwan (1), Philippines (1), Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Macau, India, Nepal, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Indonesia

* Although an ocean liner, Diamond Princess is included because of its high number of infections onboard

Region: Europe

Confirmed cases: 3,505

Countries affected: 35

Fatalities: 85

Fatality rate: 2.42%

List: Italy (79), France (4), San Marino (1), Spain (1), Germany, U.K., Russia, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Croatia, Switzerland, Greece, North Macedonia, Georgia, Norway, Romania, Denmark, Estonia, Netherlands, Lithuania, Belarus, Iceland, Monaco, Czech Republic, Portugal, Rep. Ireland, Luxembourg, Ukraine, Latvia, Andorra, Armenia, Liechtenstein, Poland

Region: Australasia/Oceania

Confirmed cases: 44

Countries affected: 2

Fatalities: 1

Fatality rate: 2.27%

List: Australia (1), New Zealand

Region: Middle-East

Confirmed cases: 3,138

Countries affected: 11

Fatalities: 93

Fatality rate: 2.96%

List: Iran (92), Iraq (1), Israel, Lebanon, U.A.E., Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, Afghanistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan

Region: North America

Confirmed cases: 161

Countries affected: 2

Fatalities: 9

Fatality rate: 5.59%

List: United States (9), Canada

Region: South and Central Americas

Confirmed cases: 12

Countries affected: 6

Fatalities: 0

Fatality rate: 0%

List: Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Chile, Argentina

Region: African subcontinent

Confirmed cases: 13

Countries affected: 5

Fatalities: 0

Fatality rate: 0

List: Algeria, Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia

Top 3 countries with the highest number of confirmed cases (other than China): South Korea (5,621), Iran (2,922), Italy (2,502)

Top 3 countries with the highest number of fatalities (other than China): Iran (92), Italy (79), South Korea (35)

Top 3 regions of the world with the highest fatality rate: North America (5.59%, 9 of 161), Middle East (2.96%, 93 of 3,138), Europe (2.42%, 85 of 3,505)

Top 3 regions of the world with the largest number of countries infected: Europe (35), Asia (18), Middle-East (11)

These are staggering numbers, made even more alarming when you see how they stacked up back in January or even at the beginning of February. In recent days, the biggest changes outside of China are Iran and Italy where big numbers are racking up at a rate that has taken everyone by surprise. In the 24 hours leading to March 4, 516 confirmed infections sprung out of South Korea, increasing the outbreak to a total of 5,328 cases. At the same time, 4 died, pushing the number of fatalities to 32. Outside of China, this is the worst epidemic since December 2019.

From about 25 countries in January, we now have almost 80 in the first week of March, an increase of more than three fold. Two months ago, the coronavirus had not caught on in South and Central Americas including the entire African sub-continent. In the Middle-East, only the United Arab Emirates had but one confirmed case. There were none in Australasia and North America. Essentially the coronavirus was focused very geographically in the main parts of Asia. Today, it’s clearly everywhere.

Look at Iran and Italy. Having added another 227 to a total of 2,263 cases, Italy has the largest cluster after South Korea. Number of fatalities climbed from 27 to 79 in a matter of days. The Italian government must have been shell-shocked enough to close not just schools and universities in the hard-hit northern districts including Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna but now throughout the country. Its Serie-A soccer league has not been spared as well with matches now all played behind closed doors, meaning that fans are not allowed to watch.

Iran’s numbers are no better with the clerical government not really sure what they need to do. With its Senior Advisor to the country’s Supreme Leader dead from the coronavirus and vice-president for women and family affairs including the Deputy Health Minister infected, Iran is reeling despite assurances to the contrary hardly days ago. In recent days, worshippers to their ancient shrines were seen literally licking the gates as a show of defiance against the coronavirus. And if that’s not stupefying enough, the Iranian government decided to release tens of thousands of prisoners in a bid to slow the outbreak in the crowded penitentiaries but they might not have thought enough about public safety though.

That’s just a small glimpse into the recent events but let us not forget the 5 million odd inhabitants who left Wuhan before the lockdown was announced. Authorities have thus far failed to release these figures. It took social media to leak them about 1 to 2 weeks later for everyone else to know. The list of numbers that was leaked revealed a total of 21 destinations across 5 continents:

Rest of Asia: Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan ROC, Thailand, Vietnam

Europe: France, Italy, Russia, Turkey, United Kingdom

Australasia: Australia

Middle East: United Arab Emirates

North America: United States of America

Looking at this list with what we know today, there are some countries missing, particularly those in the Middle East such as Iran. But that’s not fully the point. What is more important is that these numbers corroborate with how the epidemic has been fanning out. If we correlate the countries which the Wuhan inhabitants had spread to with the outbreak numbers that we know of, we can then see how they make sense.

For now, let us look at the numbers that have been leaked out and see where they went:

Note: ‘Entry pts’ refer to the number of different airport destinations used to enter the country

Country	Arrivals	Entry pts	Country	Arrivals	Entry pts
Thailand	25,152	6	Cambodia	3,078	1
Japan	14,478	3	Turkey	2,650	1
Singapore	9,934	1	United Kingdom	2,650	1
Taiwan	6,166	2	Indonesia	2,520	1
S. Korea	6,135	1	Italy	2,385	1
Hong Kong	5,866	1	Russia	2,313	1
Macau	5,647	1	Australia	2,169	1
Malaysia	5,418	1	France	1,971	1
U.S.	5,409	2	Myanmar	1,682	2
Vietnam	4,732	2	Philippines	600	1
U.A.E.	3,180	1

If you’ve been counting, you will realise that the above doesn’t add up anywhere near 5 million. At a little over 114,000, that’s not even 5% of the total that went missing before the lockdown. Someone suggested, quite plausibly, that the others went to other parts within China. At any rate, these numbers reveal that the popular destinations are mainly in Asia with most of the rest going to Europe with the exceptions being Australia, the United States and the U.A.E.

Now that you can see where some of these Wuhan inhabitants went, let us match those numbers up with the current outbreak numbers:

	Wuhan arrivals (recorded prior to lockdown; Jan 2020)	Current outbreak numbers (Mar 5 2020)
	Wuhan arrivals (recorded prior to lockdown; Jan 2020)	Cases	Deaths	Others
Thailand	25,152	43	1	1 serious
Japan (excl. D. Princess)	14,478	319*	6	29 serious
Singapore	9,934	110	0	7 critical
Taiwan ROC	6,166	42	1
South Korea	6,135	5,621	35	25 critical, 27 serious
Hong Kong	5,866	101	2	4 critical, 2 serious
Macau	5,647	10	0
Malaysia	5,418	50	0
U.S.A.	5,409	128	9	6 critical, 2 serious
Vietnam	4,732	16	0
U.A.E.	3,180	27	0	2 serious
Cambodia	3,078	1	0
Turkey	2,650	[so far nothing]
U.K.	2,650	53	0
Indonesia	2,520	2	0
Italy	2,385	2,502	79	140 serious
Russia	2,313	3	0
Australia	2,169	42	1
France	1,971	212	4	8 serious
Myanmar	1,682	[so far nothing]
Philippines	600	3	1

Of course, not all the outbreak numbers (column #3) are directly linked to the departed inhabitants from Wuhan. As we’re now beginning to see, infections don’t even need to involve people who have been to Wuhan. You can be infected by touching a contaminated surface or through air transmission, which means that the confirmed cases for each country can come from any number of possibilities. Such is the case with the Shincheonji Church of Jesus cult group in Daegu, South Korea. The spike numbers there were largely attributed to the huge clusters comprising members who had recently visited Wuhan.

Indonesia is another issue of concern. So far, they have not racked up numbers but time will tell. Not long after the Indonesian government had said they had no confirmed cases, out sprang two. There is growing evidence that someone from Wuhan had visited the island of Bali and currently, investigators are attempting to track the person down.

But Indonesia has another problem and a more serious one at that – apparently they have run out of diagnostic kits and the government has shown little to no interests in buying more. With a population of close to 270 million, Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim nation of which many live below the poverty line spread across an archipelago. If there is an outbreak and the medical staff lack diagnostic kits and they do not have adequate quarantining facilities, it would be completely calamitous.

From the list given, it is understood that some 5,418 inhabitants from Wuhan arrived in East Malaysia in the city of Kota Kinabalu. Interestingly, none entered the country via the usual Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in the peninsular. That alone begs an obvious question – why? Why would over 5,000 Wuhan visitors suddenly flock to Kota Kinabalu? If it’s genuinely about tourism, Malaysia offers plenty of such attractions everywhere else too. Some bird flew to my ear to tell me that the answer might have something to do with ‘flying in under the radar.’

We should also ask where the 5,000 went after arriving in Kota Kinabalu. Apart from the known 108 who shortly thereafter left for home, there is no idea where the rest went let alone how many of them were carrying the coronavirus.

The counterpunches so far

The counterpunch to contain the Wuhan Coronavirus has so far been lacklustre at best. At worst, it’s a complete pandemonium. As we have been able to witness, not everyone in the medical community is reading from the same page and that includes the W.H.O. Even the simple matter of whether or not wearing a facemask helps, the opinions have been too diverse to mean anything. All of this send the wrong messages to the people who not only tire at the disunity but are confused and frustrated.

The issue of the facemask has been diabolical. We saw on news media how different medical experts – let alone health ministry personnel – tell us all sorts of things. Some insist that they are pointless. I witnessed an interview with a medical expert representing a civil aviation body who advised against wearing facemasks while in flight. And, of course, I’ve also come across those who say they do work. In a TIME magazine interview (available on YouTube), Prof. Yuen Kwok-yung, the acclaimed microbiologist who discovered and resolved the SARS virus in 2003 not only insisted that the world must treat the Wuhan Coronavirus seriously but was adamant that the facemask is an important piece of defence against it.

Freshly after the initial outbreak of the coronavirus, local pharmacists were persistently recommending the 3-ply surgical facemask over the costlier and less-comfortable-to-wear N95 NIOSH respirator. It took the W.H.O. almost forever to finally admit that the coronavirus is air-transmissible, forcing a deference to the N95 instead. By then, there was already a serious shortage in supply throughout the country. Still many sceptics remain disinterested in acquiring facemasks. Instead they have gone on the offensive to accuse others of making a meal out of it.

In spite of all the confusion over what precautionary measures to take – facemasks, gloves, goggles, hand sanitisers etc. – one thing everyone agrees on is the adoption of good hygiene management. This means rigorously scrubbing our hands. 20 seconds is a good benchmark to ensure that every part of our hands is covered. A good seven-step handwashing procedure should include the following:

Step 1: Rub the palms together

Step 2: Rub the back of both hands

Step 3: Interlace fingers and rub hands together

Step 4: Interlock fingers and rub back of fingers of both hands

Step 5: Rub thumbs in rotating manner followed by area between index finger and thumb for both hands

Step 6: Rub fingers on palm for both hands

Step 7: Rub both wrists in a rotating manner

NOTE: Steps courtesy of Values Formation and Social Transformation Council, Philippines Int’l Inc., 2008, in conjunction with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) Awareness Campaign

That’s not all. A more comprehensive hygiene management list in addition to wearing an approved facemask must include the following:

1. Avoid touching any part of your face (with your hands)

2. Cough (or sneeze) into a handkerchief or your elbow but not directly at someone

3. Stay at least 2 metres (or more) away from the person you’re talking to

4. Avoid open or closed crowded enclosures where possible

5. Avoid directly touching common public surfaces (eg. door handles and knobs, elevator buttons, staircase railings etc.)

6. Be on alert of anyone from China (and not just Wuhan) you are to meet up with

7. Be alert of anyone who has just returned from countries with outbreak issues

8. Don’t consume foods prepared by unhygienic vendors

9. Do not be exposed to farm or wild animals for the time being

10. Try not to eat raw or near-raw animal-based foods such as oysters, steaks, fish, eggs etc.

In China, the counter-response to the coronavirus has been nothing short of breathtaking but in truth, it’s not as if there is anything less that the authorities could resort to. Beginning with Wuhan and its purported 11 million population, the government has resorted to tough measures like lockdown, which, in effect, is large-scale quarantining of the entire metropolis. After Wuhan came a string of six other major cities within the blighted province of Hubei. All told, a total of near 60 million people were affected by the multiple lockdowns.

Under lockdown, people cannot enter or exit the city without special permits. Earlier, authorities had given one day per week for people to leave their homes and go outdoors but even that has now been taken away in view of the risks involved. Now that we are in the month of March, more cities, covering even more people, may face lockdowns but we just won’t know.

Even for cities not under lockdown, compromising measures have also come into force. These measures curtail personal liberties that the people have no other choice but to comply. Numerous public amenities and places of interests such as the famous Great Wall, Summer Palace and Tiananmen Square are, for now, out of bounds. It’s surreal that many of the streets and highways around the cities of China are completely void of traffic. No cars parked on the side of streets. People are missing from them as well. These might as well be ghost towns.

Chinese authorities have now banned the sale and consumption of wild animals, which might or might not work simply because these are considered very popular delicacies at the dinner table for many locals. Banning them may simply make them even more sought-after and at exorbitant prices. None of this has stopped some NGOs from petitioning for them to be permanently banned.

Perhaps the most publicised part of China’s rescue plan was the construction of the first two prefab hospitals in Wuhan that were completed at ‘lightning’ speed. Once they were completed, there were an additional 2,300 much-needed beds to house the infected. However it didn’t take long for authorities to see all these vacant beds taken up to full capacity. Invariably, the pressure was on to build more prefab hospitals but China could face yet another problem of a depleted workforce numbed by the outbreak and paralysed by more deaths than before.

But even mighty China with the world’s second largest consumer market also faced chronic shortages that are now life-threatening. With supply of facemasks depleted, China was forced to look elsewhere but that wasn’t easy as similar shortfalls were now experienced by an increasing number of other countries. And before the dust had even settled, many other items had similarly flown off the shelves and in quick time, supermarkets around the world were plundered until even things like toilet rolls were wiped out.

In desperation, China sought far and wide and found 10 years’ worth of stockpiled facemasks that Italy were willing to sell but as Rome painfully realised, they too need them badly now that the outbreak had scorched their own people. With more than 2,500 confirmed cases and 80 dead (as at March 5), Italy must be rueing that massive sale. Even as China thinks that the worst might probably be over, the pandemic had just begun for the rest of the world. Italy will likely be joined by numerous other countries in the worst possible way.

In what was supposed to be a concerted counterpunch against the coronavirus, it was the W.H.O. that dropped the ball quite spectacularly. After a series of hesitations that appeared more farcical by the day, the much-awaited shift from ‘serious global emergency’ to a declaration of a ‘pandemic’ was finally called. But all this while, many knew to call it that but under Chinese veto, W.H.O.’s hands were likely tied. By the time that ‘dreadful’ word was used to describe the globally threatening Wuhan Coronavirus, many experts felt that it was now too late to contain its spread.

Despite the W.H.O.’s monumental flubs, there were countries that decided to push ahead in the interests of their own national security. So while the world stood by and waited for the word ‘pandemic’ to be mentioned, more and more countries closed their borders, stopped flights in and out of China, forbade Chinese students from returning to their campuses to continue their studies, organised mercy flights to evacuate their own people from Wuhan, banned Chinese nationals from touring, banned ocean liners from mooring, shuttered schools, colleges and universities, cancelled planned major entertainment and sporting events and escalated the manufacturing of additional facemasks.

Saudi Arabia took the extraordinary measure in shutting out all pilgrimages to Islam’s holiest sites. As for the 2020 Summer Olympics, the I.O.C. in conjunction with the Japanese government are now seriously mulling the idea of postponement to sometime later in the year (if at all). Meanwhile, China had abandoned all hope of staging the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Shanghai slated mid-April 2020.

So what then is missing from China’s counterpunch? Or have they finally turned the corner in countering the Wuhan Coronavirus? The Chinese authorities might think so but some of us are doubtful. Have the pandemic peaked as they believe? At best, it’s a little early to say. Sure signs are not quite there yet. Have the numbers begun to recede? We wouldn’t really know until we get our hands on the real numbers!

Three months after the coronavirus was officially unveiled, one thing remains beyond the pale and that is, China had clearly dropped the ball in the way they mismanaged the outbreak. But it’s also apparent that even now, the Chinese are still trying to defend their inactions and intransigence. As much as they would like, developments behind the scenes have begun to unfold. The Lancet’s report was damning despite efforts to ignore it. The Canadian incident with the theft of vials of biomaterial cannot be ignored. And other than Dr Li Wenliang who has since died from the coronavirus, there are other whistleblowers who have since ‘disappeared.’ Most irritatingly, China doesn’t want to talk about them.

China’s subterfuge behind the W.H.O.’s conduct concerning the outbreak remains unacceptable in the eyes of many because the resulting holdups allowed the outbreak to go from strength to strength. Instead of working hand in hand with international medical experts, China has resorted to finger-pointing, blaming as many people as they can find. Airlines are pummelled for cancelled flights in and out of the mainland. Countries are criticised for closing their borders to Chinese visitors as well as ‘hyping up’ the outbreak.

In response to their critics, China has organised counter-information on the blogging level to respond to social media and also on official news media channels. Having very deep pockets and a communist-style resolve helps and China will spare nothing to push back and defend their opaqueness. And, of course, the biggest elephant in the room remains the Wuhan Institute of Virology. To no end, China will not talk about this no matter how much mounting evidence builds in the next many weeks to months.

The economic impact

17 years ago when SARS struck, it was like the end of the world for many but it didn’t do much to dent the economy. On a larger scale, the global economy remains relatively unscathed. Not so with the Wuhan Coronavirus, which has amplified the vulnerability of all China-linked economic issues across the world.

In China, virtually every pillar of society has been affected. The economy has been so impacted that no industry is left standing unscratched. From small businesses to enterprises to multinationals, the Chinese economy has been pummelled by halted production, worker shortages, uncertainties and orders to stand down. Businesses dealing with fast-food eateries and diners plus coffee joints such as McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Luckin Coffee and Burger King and many others have seen half their number of outlets shuttered across China.

Many businesses like Microsoft, Google, Facebook and countless others including banks and financial institutions have ordered their staff to work from home, curtailed all unnecessary travelling especially if it involves going in and out of China. Basically the instruction was to not go out particularly if it involves work.

The same can be said of the information technology, travel and tourism, transport, entertainment, sporting, apparel, banking and finance, automotive and aviation industries just to name a few. With 91 airlines (counted as at Jan 25) cutting out at least some (if not all) flights in and out of China, impact on the bottom line can only be devastating. In many airports around the world, it’s now a common sight to see parking lot after lot of stationary passenger planes left unflown while flight crews all take a hit on their salaries with non-paid leaves.

Just as hard hit is the automotive industry that is closed to standstill until now. Although there is talk of some degree of production resuming, there’s still a long way from full resumption. Most of the car companies are struggling to reopen their production lines because their supply chains are similarly hit with parts shortages that make it implausible to properly manufacture their vehicles.

When it comes to the automotive industry, that means shortages will affect worldwide supplies. Orders from around the world are now not likely to be easily fulfilled as car companies scramble to find alternative options to parts that aren’t getting out from China. This problem affects innumerable companies including Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Citroën and others.

Unlike SARS, the Wuhan Coronavirus’ reach is far deadlier and we’re not just talking about fatality numbers. The economic impact in China has since spread like the Domino’s Effect on the rest of the world. Stock markets and oil prices have reacted in the worst possible way. But what might leave a scar on the world is the lesson learned from being overly dependent on China’s manufacturing base. With virtually everything made by the Chinese, the onslaught of the coronavirus have almost brought life to a standstill as so many products are now inaccessible with supply lines all but down.

From smartphones to laptops, from sports runners to jeans, tees, casual pants and all, from electric keyboards to amplifiers and speakers, from hardware tools to bathroom floor tiles, virtually everything that the home needs is made in China. And alarmingly, that also includes some of the most crucial medicinal drugs needed. Over the years, Western reliance on Chinese manufacturing has made plenty of nouveau rich billionaires, funded the growth of megapoles across the whole Chinese landscape and catapulted Chinese smartphones to the top of the heap. With the wakeup call prompted by a very ravaging coronavirus, the world might slowly realise that diversification could be necessary to prevent something like this from happening again. In other words, big brands might look to contemplate moving out to other countries.

And thus, the fallout from the Wuhan Coronavirus may have just begun. Yet one huge problem remains since no one knows how long this pandemic would last. And the question is whether or not these businesses have what it takes to ride through the next many months.

Is the vaccine coming?

We’re constantly told by the media that a vaccine is coming but no one has a firm date. To date, the number of countries racing to come up with a vaccine includes the United States, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Australia and Israel.

The latest news coming from the Jewish State is that the Israelis are merely ‘weeks’ away from producing the vaccine. This is despite the W.H.O. saying that the earliest possible is some 18 months away. The case with Israel is unusual because scientists at MIGAL, a Galilee-based research institute, happened to be coincidentally working on a poultry-based coronavirus model in the study of a different infectious disease. By chance, that model is genetically identical to the Wuhan strain.

“All we need to do is adjust the system to the new sequence. We are in the middle of this process and hopefully in a few weeks, we will have the vaccine in our hands… to prevent coronavirus,” said Dr Chen Katz, MIGAL’s biotechnology leader.

At the same time, another Israeli company, BATM, has successfully produced a rapid-response C.D.C.-compliant diagnostic kit for testing against the Wuhan Coronavirus. At this point in time, production is quickly underway in order that they can be shipped without delay to the battlefront in China and other countries that are in dire need for them.

Outside of Israel, efforts have been doubled to compete with Israel in the rush to get a vaccine out as quickly as possible. Thankfully, funding doesn’t seem to be an obstacle unlike the case with SARS. After SARS waned, funding dried up and all research towards a producing a vaccine grounded to a halt. Till today, there is no vaccine available should SARS reoccur. Let’s hope it doesn’t because we’re simply not prepared no matter the opportunities available to produce one in the past.

But here’s the interesting thing. China is not short of technology, at least not from the common public vantage view. At the forefront, the communist state has a powerful naval presence with a growing force of aircraft carriers in the South China Sea and is looking to build on it. Not long ago, they became the first Asian nation to send astronauts into space. They also ‘design’ and produce their own jetfighters that look uncannily like those from the Americans. Soon, they are slated to produce their first home-grown commercial airliner as well.

In the meantime, it’s common knowledge that China wants to dominate broadband networking wireless technology. With the world on the brink of going all in with 5G, news media tells us that state-sponsored Huawei is leading the competition. And there’re billions and billions of lucrative business dollars involved here.

Look at China’s remarkable metropoles with their stunning highways, skyscrapers, bridges, tunnels and truly monumental structures. Don’t forget the country’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a bold outreach to help third-world countries develop their infrastructure through soft loans and building expertise. This strategy covers 70 countries in Asia, Europe and Africa and involves trillions of dollars.

But despite such an admirable rollcall of achievements and expertise, China still cannot seem to put their best experts to produce a vaccine fit to overcome the Wuhan Coronavirus. They appear adept at developing biological weapons but they can’t cure it. And it’s not for want of funding – China’s deep pockets are significantly deeper than most other countries in the world. With their communist resolve, they can also do virtually anything they want. That’s one conundrum that is hard for many to understand.

So with China out of the picture, the world is resting on the five nations – and any others – to help thwart the coronavirus. While many agree that it is too late to save the first wave, hopefully it will come in time to stop the coronavirus from mutating any further. But let’s not underestimate the effort required to develop a vaccine. It might sound straightforward but it isn’t. To finally come up with a vaccine that works, scientists need time (and funds) to conduct lab tests before going to time-consuming human trials. Provided that all these are successful, the vaccine will need certification, compliance and type approval, which in the U.S. would be the F.D.A., C.D.C. and quite possibly also, the H.H.S. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). For the rest of the world, it is the W.H.O. that will control its distribution and use as well as legal contexts.

Right at this moment, there’s some talk in Thailand and possibly, Hong Kong that two particular antiretroviral drugs – Lopinavir and Ritonavir – designed to battle HIV/AIDS could be effective against the Wuhan Coronavirus. This means that tests need to be conducted that will take some time although nowhere like creating a vaccine from scratch. And if they prove successful, the same compliance, certification and approval will be needed from the same bodies before they could be legally used. But this means more time, time that might not be on our hands. The only way out of this is to attain ‘compassionate’ consent from the W.H.O. or F.D.A. to avoid legal complications.

What people say about the coronavirus

Our collective Christian community has had much to say about the Wuhan Coronavirus although that doesn’t mean everyone is on the same page. But one thing is certain – not all these views are also well accepted in the secular community since they may also be apocalyptical or they speak of God’s retribution. Needless to say, seculars and atheists have no time to listen to such views and so they dismiss them outright.

Here’s what a woman said when asked if the coronavirus is a sign of the End Times:

“I suppose. The great thing about the Bible is that it is so ambiguous and so easily applied to virtually ANY philosophy or point of view that it takes very little distorting to make any modern day event a ‘prophecy.’ A person can literally point at the Teletubbies and insist that it is part of the ‘End-Time Bible prophecies’ and folks would be hard pressed to disprove it.”

One person whom I came across online sounds like a bitter and cynical ex-Christian. He has this to say:

“Prophesying something which has been part and parcel of man’s condition since time immemorial is not a prophecy – it’s a comment on prevailing conditions. The Bible interestingly mentions things which were of that time and fails to mention anything in the future, which was prevalent at the time of writing. Wars? Had them. Seen them. Bought the t-shirt. Pestilence? Always been around. Men being lovers of money? Wow! Didn’t see that one coming! I would have been more impressed if the prophecies had predicted plastic in the seas, the ozone layer, climate change and Sharon Osbourne. But no! Predicting the predictable is not very convincing.

Just like the cynics, there are those who dismiss the significance of the Wuhan Coronavirus. The clichéd standard line of argument is that the common flu kills more people in a year than the coronavirus ever will. Besides, sensationalised coronavirus news sells and the mundane flu doesn’t. In other words, the Wuhan Coronavirus is overrated because too many people give it too much attention.

This guy obviously has an axe to grind with the Christian eschatological view:

“The SARS virus is a coronavirus. Fortunately, an epidemic in 2003 was brought under control, although minor outbreaks have since been reported. The newest coronavirus, codenamed 2019 n-CoV, is the latest and perhaps the most potent of recently reported coronaviruses. Only a fevered religious mentality would see this as fulfilment of some kind of biblical end-time prophecy.”

Sceptics often believe they know more than anyone else. Their main line of argument is that it is all a conspiracy. In recent days, sceptics who are also anti-American (or pro-China, depending on where you stand) have been making a lot of noise about the coronavirus being American in origin. Here’s someone who echoes some fellow churchgoers view that some of us are guilty of hyping up the Wuhan Coronavirus. According to him, we’re nothing more than fearmongers:

“Why do people constantly hyperbolise the hope for the ‘end of days’? Is life just so horrible for them? Or, could it be, that they place themselves above all others and wish for everyone else to suffer while they are ‘miraculously taken up into the ‘sky’? No, the Bible makes no particular mention of coronaviruses. No, the coronavirus is not a big threat to humans, there are much worse everyday diseases, like the flu, that takes hundreds of thousands of lives every single year. No, the ‘end’ is not ‘beginning.’ Stop being afraid. Stop listening to fools who shout ‘the end is near.’ Stop causing fear in those around you (hey, guess what, that’s a sin).

From the way different people respond to the Wuhan Coronavirus, it is evident that not everyone is in agreement about its deadliness. Despite its increasing severity, some are still adamant that all of this are overdramatised by sensational news reporting. Even the fact that those who have recovered from it who then suffer a relapse and die doesn’t appear to mean anything to them. But they point to the rush-hour madness in last-minute frenzy shopping at many supermarkets across the world.

The manic stockpiling that even toilet rolls are all cleaned out. The emptied supermarket shelves among deserted aisles. All the talk about prophetic End Times. In Hong Kong, there are gangs that go robbing people not of gold and jewellery but of masks, toilet rolls and stuff like that. Even some Christians don’t quite agree with this panic buying. But there’s nothing to agree or disagree. The problem is with human nature and when people smell serious trouble just ahead, the idea is to stock up to safeguard their own families. Call it selfishness or survival, that’s not an unpredictable outcome when there is a pandemic.

Of course, the popularity of social media hasn’t helped one bit. The Twitter world has been moving as rapidly as Facebook in spreading news, real and otherwise. There is also plenty of confusion caused by a medical community that has not been in agreement with the seriousness of the pandemic. Just the simple matter of whether facemasks work or not appears to be too much to ask of the experts.

Ezekiel’s prophecy

In a recent online article, an internationally-renown but controversial rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto spoke of a vision he had before China officially announced the coronavirus outbreak, which was around early January 2020. In that vision, the Moroccan Chief Rabbi said:

“On Shabbat, I had a vision that was not at all simple. There is about to be an enormous shock in the world on the scale of the assassination of a world leader or the 9-11 terrorist attacks.”

“It will be a very difficult scale and come in ways that are very difficult. All the Jews must gather and strengthen themselves to pray and repent. The world is going to undergo a shock that will go down in history as one of the worst. This will begin in only a few days. We have to begin right now to ‘sweeten the judgement,’” the rabbi added.

About a month later, when the coronavirus became a full-blown affair, the rabbi confirmed that his vision was about this outbreak (at that time, it was approaching but not quite a pandemic). He called it a ‘catastrophe on the same level as the Holocaust” as well as “the hardest period the world has experienced in several countries.” Quite alarmingly, he also said that, “China is on the verge of total collapse.”

Then he added this scriptural verse:

“I will pour out My anger upon Sin, the stronghold of Egypt, and I will destroy the wealth of No. I will set fire to Egypt; Sin shall writhe in anguish and No shall be torn apart; and Noph [shall face] adversaries in broad daylight.” (Ezek 30:15-16, m.e.)

Being a rabbi (and a Jew), he would have quoted the above from some Hebrew Bible. English translations of the Bible uses different names although some follow the above. Nonetheless, they offer us useful clues as to what these places are and possibly, what they mean. Of the three names mentioned, the one that stirs the greatest curiosity is Sin.

In translations that do not use the name Sin, the substitutes are either Pelusium or Sais. Instead of No, the alternative names are Thebes, Memphis or Alexandria. Strangely, the names Memphis and Thebes are used by some translations as replacements for Noph as well. In certain translations, Diospolis is used instead. No doubt all this gets confusing. A cursory study of these names didn’t make things any clearer but in essence, here are what we know from the Concordance and other biblical resources:

The name Pelusium is originally used in the Latin Vulgate and is derived from the Greek word ‘pelos,’ which means clay. It refers to a frontier city on the easternmost branch of the Nile, which places it around 2½ miles from the sea. Its modern name is Pheromi. In Hebrew, it is called Sin, which means ‘mire.’ It seems the Greek alternative is Sais (Ancient Greek: Σάϊς) as preferred in the Septuagint.

The city of No is also referred to as ‘Hamon No’ or ‘Amon No,’ both of which are Hebrew names. The Amon part of the name refers to the temple of Amon, who is the chief divinity of Thebes. No is an Egyptian city that is probably better known by the names Thebes or Diospolis Magna. While it is difficult to place a meaning to the name No, its derivation is Shemitic. The name Diospolis Magna lends its origin to the city of Jupiter. It is the name used in the Septuagint while the Latin Vulgate preferred the name Alexandria.

Thebes, on the other hand, has a more formal name that is, Thebe Egyptiacae. Thebes itself is derivatively ancient Greek (Gk. Θῆβαι, Thēbai). Memphis is the name preferred by the Septuagint. It is the Greek and Roman form of the name that comes from the Coptic ‘Menfi,’ which appears to be abbreviated from an Egyptian name, ‘Men-nofer,’ meaning ‘the good haven.’ The Hebrew equivalent of Memphis is either Noph or Moph.

In other words, the cities of Sin, No and Noph are names that are more native to Hebrew Bibles although there are eight known translations that retain their origins. They are the NKJV, KJV, JPS Tanakh 1917, American KJV, Darby, ERV, Webster’s and Young’s Literal Translation. It is this of the three names that the rabbi has chosen to highlight.

What is interesting about the name Sin is that in other forms, it refers to the frontier city on the Nile. Written in Hebrew originally as סִין (and derived from סִינִים‎), Sin is also used to refer to the inhabitants of the land of Sin itself. The use of the name also appears in Isaiah 49:12 just as it does in the above passage (Ezek 30:15-16). The name Sin can also be found expressed as Sinim, which many scholars associate with China because in etymological terms, it closely resembles Sinae, which is the Latinate expression of Qin, in reference to the kingdom state of Qin founded in the year 778BC by Qin Shi Huang-Di.

Digging more into the name Sin reveals even more interesting little nuggets that have little to do with Egypt. For example, the 1879 Young’s Analytical Concordance to the Bible questions rhetorically if Sin refers to “a people in the Far East; the Chinese?” The Septuagint, on the other hand, has insistently pointed in a similar direction, which explains its reference to “an eastern country.”

Despite contemporary belief that the Jews never found their way to China but this might not be correct. After all, there is now proof that the people of Qin were exposed to the first four books of the Old Testament, which goes some way in explaining the embedding of biblical narratives in many of the classical Chinese characters. For now, let’s look at what the prophet Isaiah has to say about Sin or in this case, Sinim:

“Behold, these will come from afar; and lo, these will come from the north and from the west, And these from the land of Sinim.” (Isa 49:12, NASB, m.e.).

In this passage, God made the promise that the lost Israelites would return from the Diaspora, which, among other parts of the world, also included “the land of Sinim.”

Quite interestingly, the background behind the name Sinim may be linked to a tribe living in heavily fortified hamlets cosseted in the high mountain ranges of West Szechuan, perched on the Chinese-Tibetan border. Called Chiang-Min, they were said to be descendants of the ancient Israelites who settled in China hundreds of years before Christ.

In the early 20th century, Scottish-born Protestant missionary Tommy Torrance (1871-1959) was despatched to Chengdu fresh from completing his theological training in 1895 but disagreements compelled him home. After some persuasion, he returned 16 years later, in 1911, but this time with a wife in tow. Again he came home after encountering interferences but in 1934, he made his final return though without his family. This time, he stayed for seven years. It was this time that he came across the Chi’ang (a.k.a. Chiang-Min) people whom he was convinced were part of the Lost Tribes of Israel that Isaiah prophesied.

Torrance observed that the Chiang-Min tribe bore strong resemblances to the Israelite branch of the Semitic race in terms of customs and traditions that were unerringly very ancient Israelite. He wrote:

“The plough the Chiang use is similar to the ancient Israelite plough and is drawn by two oxen, never by an ox and an ass.”

By what he wrote, “never by an ox and an ass,” Torrance alluded to part of the Mosaic Law described in the Book of Deuteronomy, which says:

“You must not plough with an ox and a donkey harnessed together.” (Dt 22:10, NLT, m.e.)

NOTE: A donkey and an ass are interchangeable.

But of course it wasn’t just that. Torrance also discovered that the Chiang-Min were monotheistic, which set them apart from the usual Chinese practice of polytheism. And when in duress, they often cried out aloud something that sounded uncharacteristically as “Yahweh!” as if calling out to the God of Abraham. And then, there was the Chiang-Min priests who looked like splitting images of their Israelite counterparts in that they not only wore girdles that bound their robes but also held a sacred serpent-like rod just like the one Moses fashioned in the wilderness:

“Then the Lord told him, ‘Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. All who are bitten will live if they simply looks at it!’ So Moses made a snake out of bronze and attached it to a pole. Then anyone who was bitten by a snake could look at the bronze snake and be healed!” (Num 21:8-9, NLT, m.e.)

But then, here’s the big mystery: Sin in Hebrew draws reference to China in one way or another but in the other translations, the different names used – such as Pelusium or even ‘Raamses’ – clearly describes a completely different place in ancient Egypt where it is often defined as a ‘stronghold.”

Just like ancient Hebrew, Modern Hebrew – founded by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858-1922) – also points to China. In English, we know that the etymological link from Sin to ‘Sinophile,’ taken to mean a person who likes all things Chinese. In another example, a Sino-American essentially means a naturalised American of Chinese origin.

But of course, all of those don’t necessarily mean that we can come to the same conclusion in Ancient Hebrew. Perhaps the best is to use Scripture to corroborate. Here’s another passage from Isaiah:

“‘I will make all My mountains a road, and My highways will be raised up. Behold, these will come from afar; and lo, these will come from the north and from the west, and these from the land of Sinim.’” (Isa 49:11-12, NASB, m.e.)

One way to better understand the intricacies here is to resort to some rabbinical literature (mefarshim) from the Mikraos Gedolos Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). Here, many Jewish scholars and rabbis look to the north and west in the passage as pointing to a land in the East. And in all likelihood, that’s China. In exegesis, Strong’s Concordance also mentions that, “Sinim is a distant Oriental region.” Put the two together and we might consider more seriously that the Hebrew idea of ‘east’ alludes to none other than China.

In revisiting Ezekiel 30:15-16:

Rabbi Pinto’s reference to this message is a foreboding one. His vision affirms the idea that what is happening in China with the Wuhan Coronavirus could really be an expression of God’s wrath. Basically if we replace ‘Sin’ with ‘China,’ here’s how Ezekiel’s passage will read:

“I will pour out My anger upon China and I will destroy its wealth… China shall writhe in anguish and… shall be torn apart… and… shall face adversaries in broad daylight.”

Of course, that’s a long stretch and not exactly a very biblically astute thing to do. For the mere purpose of name replacement, it may be possible to see the rabbi’s message a little more clearly. The possibility that Sin could refer to China – at least in Isaiah’s and Ezekiel’s cases – is quite real even if there are some controversies to do with how some commentaries shape their arguments. In other words, it’s not conclusive but it certain warrants further investigation.

Is the coronavirus part of eschatology?

None of us should be new to the idea of associating deadly diseases with the coming of the End Times. In fact, virtually every major cataclysmic event is somewhat a catalyst for many Christians to think of doom. SARS, Ebolavirus and then before that, the sudden proliferation of HIV/AIDS infections. Going beyond diseases and epidemics, signs of the end of the world were also evident with the sweeping Aceh tsunami in 2004 and then, seven years later with the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Even the growing series of earthquakes can be seen as a prelude to something more sinister.

When these catastrophic events occur, we often want to desperately lean on God for answers to age-old questions to do with when and how it will all end. But at the same time, some of us are also inclined to question why He’d allow such terrible disasters to take place where so many die often so tragically. In the midst of the terrifying Wuhan Coronavirus, for example, some of us would have liked God to confirm if it’s a sign of the End Times. In much the same way, many of us did the same when SARS came visiting between November 2002 and July 2003. Those nine months felt like nine years because fear and trembling were breathing down our neck from as close as Singapore. If SARS brought us to our knees, the Wuhan Coronavirus would make us jump out of our skin and in that sense, we keep looking to the Lord for whatever signs He could proffer.

Looking at Scripture for some indication, we can find instances in which God brought plagues and diseases to bring people to heel. Everyone including His Chosen People and His enemies would be compelled to bear witness to His awesome power over all of life. In the story of Moses projecting God’s will to Pharaoh, this was what He said to the stuttering prophet:

“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Get up early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh. Tell him, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let My people go, so they can worship Me. If you don’t, I will send more plagues on you and your officials and your people. Then you will know that there is no one like Me in all the earth. By now I could have lifted My hand and struck you and your people with a plague to wipe you off the face of the earth. But I have spared you for a purpose – to show you My power and to spread My fame throughout the earth.” (Ex 9:13-16, NLT, m.e.)

God’s message to Pharaoh was exemplary in its simplicity. He made it clear to the obstinate Egyptian leader that only He has sovereignty over all life including his. Furthermore His omnipotence covered the fullest extent of all life-threatening diseases, meaning that every single life-crippling disease is at His disposal. Indeed, for those who suffer their afflictions and those who died from them, God also knows their identities. And when all is said and done, He also has full knowledge of the Wuhan Coronavirus. However the Chinese authorities want to hide the truth from all of us, He already knows. Only fools would think they can conceal anything from Him.

In the Book of Leviticus, Moses wrote about how God warned His people of the heavy cost of disobedience:

“If even then you remain hostile toward Me and refuse to obey Me, I will inflict disaster on you seven times over your sins. I will send wild animals that will rob you of your children and destroy your livestock. Your numbers will dwindle and your roads will be deserted. And if you fail to learn the lesson and continue your hostility toward me, then I myself will be hostile toward you. I will personally strike you with calamity seven times over for your sins. I will send armies against you to carry out the curse of the covenant you have broken. When you run to your towns for safety, I will send a plague to destroy you there and you will be handed over to your enemies. I will destroy your food supply so that ten women will need only one oven to bake bread for their families. They will ration your food by weight and though you have food to eat, you will not be satisfied. If in spite of all this you still refuse to listen and still remain hostile toward Me, then I will give full vent to My hostility. I myself will punish you seven times over for your sins. Then you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters. I will destroy your pagan shrines and knock down your places of worship. I will leave your lifeless corpses piled on top of your lifeless idols and I will despise you. I will make your cities desolate and destroy your places of pagan worship. I will take no pleasure in your offerings that should be a pleasing aroma to Me.” (Lev 26:21-31, NLT, m.e.)

Later in the Book of Numbers, Moses wrote of the two occasions in which 14,700 (Num 16:49) and 24,000 (25:9) perished as a result of their respective plagues. Following the provision of the Mosaic Law, God issued His warning: obey or suffer the consequences. Though not exactly very pleasant reading, the Book of Deuteronomy tersely outlines this warning. To that, there is no question. The consequences were dire and they included “curses, confusion and frustration in everything you do until at last, you are completely destroyed for doing evil and abandoning Me” (Dt 28:20, NLT).

In the next verse, God not only added diseases as another consequence but He would unleash them “until none of you are left in the land you are about to enter and occupy.” The extent of graphic detail in which God went to in describing the disease is sobering. Some say it sounds a little like the Ebolavirus:

“The Lord will strike you with wasting diseases, fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew. These disasters will pursue you until you die.” (Dt 28:22, NLT, m.e.)

Young Christians are inclined to skip all this ghoulish reading and prefer to focus on the Pauline letters but in these parts of the Old Testament lay clear complexion of what God expects of us in the event that we disobey Him. They may be divisive for those who purely envision the Lord as wholesomely loving and merciful and nothing else. That is what prosperity theology promotes but it’s so hopelessly one-sided in the way we understand Him.

To put it simply, the same loving God can also be wrathful, furious and angry towards His own children. But when we choose to view Him through rose-tainted glass, we only get to understand what we want to understand. In other words, the full spectrum of how God truly feels towards everyone will simply escape us. We will have no understanding of the disciplining Father who seeks to straighten His children only because He loves them enough to want their wrongs righted. And if we do not understand this part of Him, there is little chance we will appreciate that through His tough love, He merely seeks our repentance so that He may then restore us back to Him.

The corollaries of 2 Chronicles

All of this brings us to what God said to Solomon in 2 Chronicles 7:13-14:

“At times I might shut up the heavens so that no rain falls or command grasshoppers to devour your crops or send plagues among you. Then if My people who are called by My Name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.” (NLT)

This passage is often misused because context is usually overlooked. If we apply this to the Wuhan Coronavirus – as some are inclined to – then it is important not to dismiss its contextual relevance. For that, we need to know the verses before and after so that with a clearer and bigger picture, we can determine if it fits into the appropriate narrative. At the same time, it is also useful to gain a historical understanding and cultural context behind what God meant when He said that to Solomon.

It is obvious that this is one of the more famous and often-quoted passages in the Bible and the reason for that is that it appears plain and straightforward enough to understand (without context, that is). Made famous recently by the 2015 feature film ‘War Room’ (directed and written by the Kendrick brothers), it is not difficult to see 2 Chr 7:13-14 establishing itself as a scriptural source of inspiration for many to draw from. Yet what it truly means (within proper context) could be something else. Hence before we see how it fits into the coronavirus narrative, it pays to dig a little deeper beforehand.

After Solomon dedicated the temple, God appeared at night to warn but assure him at the same time. Here is what He said to him:

“Then one night, the Lord appeared to Solomon and said, I have heard your prayer and have chosen this Temple as the place for making sacrifices.’ At times I might shut up the heavens so that no rain falls or command grasshoppers to devour your crops or send plagues among you. Then if My people who are called by My Name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.” (2 Chr 7:12-14, NLT, m.e.)

Reading it carefully, the three verses reveal how they pertain to Israel and the temple. At the same time, they also tell us that, every now and then (“at times”), God will send judgement upon the land using a variety of ways including drought (“no rain falls”), locusts (“grasshoppers to devour your crops”) or pestilence (“plagues”). That’s not too difficult to understand but then, a few verses down, the context becomes clearer.

Here’s a look at the preceding four verses:

“‘But if you or your descendants abandon Me and disobey the decrees and commands I have given you, and if you serve and worship other gods, then I will uproot the people from this land that I have given them. I will reject this Temple that I have made holy to honour My Name. I will make it an object of mockery and ridicule among the nations. And though this Temple is impressive now, all who pass by will be appalled. They will ask, ‘Why did the Lord do such terrible things to this land and to this Temple?’ ‘And the answer will be, ‘Because His people abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who brought them out of Egypt, and they worshipped other gods instead and bowed down to them. That is why He has brought all these disasters on them.’” (2 Chr 7:19-22, NLT, m.e.)

Given the oral tradition as the prime means of human communication at that time, there’s little doubt that Solomon was aware that God’s warning was a protraction of what Moses recorded in Deuteronomy 28. Back then, God had entered into a covenant with His people, promising to care for and prosper them but there was a condition and that was, they had to obey Him. Failure to do so would incur His wrath and curses and that, essentially, is His warning. Given that this was a covenantal relationship, we can also see two corollaries. In the first, prosperity was indelibly tied to Israel’s obedience. In the other, the converse applied, meaning hardship would result from disobedience.

This pair of corollaries is also echoed in the Book of Judges as part of the Mosaic Law. Chapter 2 bore reference to what we call, ‘The Cycle of the Judges’ where with Israel falling into sin, God would use another nation to judge them after which they would repent and, once again, call upon the Lord who then would raise up a judge to deliver them from destruction. Everything would be fine for a while until they would, once more, backslide into sin and the cycle would repeat itself over and again.

2 Chronicles 7:13-14 records God’s reminder to Solomon of the previous covenant complete with the same two corollaries – obey and be blessed or disobey and judgement will befall you. Quite importantly, one must understand that God wasn’t interested in judgement purely for judgement’s sake. Just as it was before, God’s purpose with Israel was to bring her into repentance and then pave the way for restoration to take place.

“Then if My people who are called by My Name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.” (2 Chr 7:14, NLT, m.e.)

That is why God reassured Solomon in verse 14 that if His people were to humble themselves, pray and repent, He will then deliver them from judgement. Therefore, in the right context, 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 speaks of God’s promise to Israel then and perhaps even now. And that promise is what the dual corollaries are about. We see that encased in the above verse – repent and return to the Lord and He will save them.

Now, if we look at 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 in the right context, we can see that many Christians have been misusing it. Incorrectly, it has become somewhat of a battle cry, which it shouldn’t because that is not its intention. Americans have been using it for as long as we can tell as part of their rallying call. In fact, 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 was one of several capstones for rallying conservatives and evangelical Christians to back Donald Trump in his 2016 presidential campaign. Interestingly, only recently, Malaysians were mimicking their American counterparts in using it as a rallying call in light of the political usurpation of power to topple the incumbent federal government.

In its contemporary – but blighted – context, Christians use 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 to call God to heal their land on the condition that they call His Name, humble themselves, pray and seek His face and repent. This ‘healing’ is often taken to refer to the moral, political and economic complexion of the nation itself be it America or Malaysia or wherever. However the real question is whether or not this is appropriate or even right because unlike Israel, no other nation in the world possesses the same covenantal relationship with the Father, the U.S. included. By reshaping or even distorting the original context is at best misinformed and at worst, deceiving.

This covenantal relationship that Israel enjoys with God is unique and unprecedented. It expresses a Father-to-Chosen People exclusivity that is incomparable. No other nation on Earth has the same relationship but even so, that doesn’t mean that in the event of trouble, we cannot call upon Him to intervene. Of course, we can be prayerful and repentant as well because that will help when it comes to God. But then, there is also another important point of contention.

2 Chronicles 7:13-14 sets down the marker for ancient Israel to repent and seek the Lord en masse. That means the whole of Israel got down on her knees and went before God in complete humility. While that certainly doesn’t mean literally every single Israelite but it’s a call to the nation per se and in a single collective, Israel responded to the call and repented. In that sense, when some Christians in Malaysia used the same passage to rally all Christians to call His Name, humble themselves, pray and seek His face and then repent, it wasn’t just inappropriate but it was also wrong because they simply constituted a minority. On the other hand, Israel responded as a nation. That is not a minority.

Yet, that doesn’t mean that when a minority prays, the fate of their nation will or won’t change because that is not the point when it comes to 2 Chronicles 7:13-14. What we need to understand is that God’s promise to deliver was predicated on the repentance of an entire nation, one that is called Israel. In other words, it is not a minority-driven issue. So, when we apply 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 to Malaysia, it is not too difficult to understand that it is largely the true believers of Lord Jesus Christ who make up the minority or the ‘righteous remnant’ but by the same token, we also need to be aware that in its original context, we must observe the following two:

- Malaysia isn’t Israel: The original context focuses on a covenantal relationship and only Israel has it with God. Yet this shouldn’t stop us from seeking the Lord in prayer and supplication. It certainly doesn’t mean that God will not respond as well.

- This is a call to an entire nation: A minority or a righteous remnant does not constitute a whole nation. Again, that doesn’t mean God will not listen if we’re not praying as a collective nation.

Scripture does tell us that even though these two points undergird what 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 is about, there is at least one exception in the Book of Jonah where God turned around and spared the people of Nineveh after Jonah had preached to the Ninevites. The Ninevites were people whom Jonah understandably disliked because these pagan worshippers had long been nasty towards his fellow Israelites (Jnh 3). In that sense, Jonah’s reluctance to help them repent was not difficult to empathise with although it is still incorrect because God had commanded him to preach to them and offer a chance to atone for their sins. But this Ninevite lesson isn’t quite the same as calling the whole of Malaysia to kneel and repent and pray in humility to God.

Still, there is nothing inappropriate about confessing our sins to God and pray. In other words, we shouldn’t allow technicalities to come in between us and our Father. After all, as Christians, this is what we are born again to do. It is as much an expectation as it is our duty to do so in order that sin does not become a hindrance in our lives (Heb 12:1). At the same time, nothing should stop us from interceding for our nation and those in authority (1 Tim 2:1-2). It matters not whether we agree with the governing leadership in place because what is more important to God are our supplications.

When we call out to God to heal our nation, it is in His grace that He chooses to bless us. He may or may not but this is His sovereign right. To put this in a nutshell, God makes no iron-clad guarantee that He would deliver our nation from sorrow or wickedness. And if He doesn’t, we do not possess the right to hate or despise Him. We may not understand His reason but as the King of kings, Lord of lords, we accept in humility all His decisions. Our nation’s politics might be so mired or our economy might be in a logjam and badly needs to be put right. Deepening corruption might have poleaxed everything we might have wished for in our nation. But it is still for God to determine whether or not our nation will be saved and healed.

As children of God, our personal salvation is guaranteed (Rom 8:1) and by that too, He can and will use us to fulfil the plans He has not to harm us but to prosper us and to give us hope and a future (Jer 29:11-13). Just as Christ came to do the will of His Father, so too will we do the same that He has purposed us for. As believers, it is our calling to live godly lives, to seek God at all times and to commune with Him. Jesus states that is a royal commission to go share the Gospel so that we may spread the joy of the promise of eternal life to those who are yet to know.

To recap, therefore, nothing in Scripture tells us that God guarantees any nation (other than Israel) that He will heal and restore be it politically, culturally or economically. None whatsoever. And so, in the midst of being blighted by the Wuhan Coronavirus, getting on our knees to pray, seek His face and to repent in humility is not a problem at all. In fact, as Christians, it is what we are born to do but that does not mean that rallying a nation to do that as per 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 is correct. In that sense, we should stop twisting Scripture to fit our agenda.

Healing from sicknesses

Talking about healing, the New Testament has numerous examples of Jesus doing just that to and for people who suffered from “every kind of disease and illness” (Mt 9:35). He has even “called His twelve disciples together and gave them authority to… heal every kind of disease and illness” (Mt 10:1, Lk 9:1). People were so in awe with Jesus’ power to heal that “all the sick people eagerly pushed forward to touch Him” (Mk 3:10). Indeed it was His healing powers that helped to establish His identity as truly the Son of God.

In Jesus’ days, we don’t need something the likes of the Wuhan Coronavirus to plague people. There were plentiful sicknesses around back then and some of them were debilitating while others were akin to life-long medical conditions. The point of all these sicknesses is that God allowed them to fulfil His own purposes so that ultimately, we may see miracles unfold in His glory. Unlike the advanced medical technologies today, many diseases back in Jesus’ days were intractable and man had no means to deal with them to any great effect. Jesus’ healing miracles were just that… they were incredible miracles at the right time and right place. They laid ample proof that He was truly the Son of God.

Sometimes diseases exist simply because they reflect a sad world creaking under the burden of sin. World-scale pandemics like the Wuhan Coronavirus could very well fit in this regard. For too long now, man has been living in a fallen world that is so replete with every form of transgression that brings nothing but displeasure to God. Ultimately, the point is we just don’t know if any pandemic has a particular spiritual cause or not. With more than 3,000 dead from the coronavirus, we really still don’t know. However what we are certain of is that God is in supreme control over the whole of Universe (Rom 11:36). He will work all things together for the good of those who know and love Him (8:28).

For Someone who is in total control over all life, it would mean He is completely aware of everything that takes place in the world. It doesn’t necessarily mean that He deliberately makes everything happen the way He wants them to. If we consider the lessons learned from the Book of Job, we will realise that sometimes, things happen not because God wills it but all the same, He is certainly aware that they do. A serious outbreak like the Wuhan Coronavirus is, in my view, a foreshadow of even greater pandemics that are yet to come and these will signal the End Times far more so than what we’re weathering today.

When envisioning the last days, Jesus did refer to the plagues of tomorrow, saying:

“There will be great earthquakes and there will be famines and plagues in many lands and there will be terrifying things and great miraculous signs from heaven.” (Lk 21:11, NLT, m.e.)

These ‘plagues of tomorrow’ are also mentioned in the Book of Revelations where two witnesses have the power vested in them “to shut the sky so that no rain will fall for as long as they prophesy” (Rev 11). They will also “turn the rivers and oceans into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they wish” (11:6). Five chapters later in Revelation 16, seven angels reveal the final severe judgements after unleashing the seven bowls of God’s wrath. With these, we lay witness to many terrible diseases that would likely put the coronavirus in the shade. They include:

1. “Horrible, malignant sores” (16:2)

2. The death of all sea creatures (v.3)

3. Incineration by “this blast of heat” (v.9)

4. More “pains and sores” (v.11)

5. History’s worst recorded “great earthquake” (v.18)

6. The destruction of Babylon (v.19)

7. The vanishing of “every island” and then the levelling of every visible mountain (v.20)

8. The abominable hailstones (v.21)

Living in a world awash with evil and wickedness, we cannot help but notice that everything around us will soon be falling apart. Big businesses will collapse under the weight of a teetering world economy. Unimaginable disasters will take place before our eyes in all forms. Secure buildings can fall all of a sudden. Bridges get washed away in terrible life-claiming floods. Tsunamis can return and sweep many lives away just like it did in Aceh not too long ago. Airliners can be taken out of the skill by a simple press of a button. Corruption of the worst kind can go brazenly unhindered even as we watch. The Wuhan Coronavirus certainly isn’t going to be the last we’ll see but perhaps it will return in an even deadlier form as mutations begin. So whether or not, the current global outbreak qualifies as one of these, no one knows for sure. While everyone may have his own opinion, none are authoritative or necessarily correct. Since we don’t have a date or time of Jesus’ return, we need to be cautious about the predictions we make and the opinions we hold concerning pandemics and whether they link to the eschatological truths that we learn scripturally.

Unbelievers will also have a different take on all this. Having no experience of Jesus as their Saviour, they are at a disadvantage in understanding what truly is going on in eschatological terms. Yet nothing stops them from appreciating the fragility of life on earth. With the plagues that have so far visited us in recent times, it sometimes feels like we’re walking on a tightrope – some survive and some don’t. When SARS hit almost two decades ago, over 700 deaths felt huge. The Wuhan Coronavirus dwarves that significantly enough to drive a wedge into our own sense of confidence. In other words, at any time, any of us can lose it.

Yet an even bigger picture tells us that if the Wuhan Coronavirus is shockingly terrifying – and it is – then hell is simply of no comparison. But here’s the big relief – we are Christians and our lives are enwrapped in a God-guaranteed gold-standard eternal salvation. Wearing that assurance means we are thankful that it is the blood of Christ shed on the cross that saves us from the very worst that plagues can throw at us. And that includes the Wuhan pandemic that we’re facing today.

“But He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.” (Isa 53:5, NLT, m.e.)

Read this one again: “He was whipped so we could be healed.” Jesus took the lashings made far worse because the Romans would have used whips that would tear chunks of flesh out of His back. We know very well that He didn’t deserve any of this. We know He felt the pain of loneliness at that point, which was why later on the cross, Jesus cried out, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani” (Gk. Ἠλὶ ἠλὶ λεμὰ σαβαχθάνι), meaning, “My God, My God, why Thou hast forsaken Me” (Mt 27:45-46, Mk 15:34). In the Book of Psalm is the foretelling of the same cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from saving Me, so far from My words of groaning?” (Ps 22:1, 71:11)

Jesus bore the price of our sins, not His for He is sinless. But in doing so, we are able to recover from our sins. It is this healing that offers us a far larger picture of how even the worst coronaviruses cannot touch us. Our spiritual restoration to God through Christ allows us to rise about even the most debilitating pandemics that life can throw at us.

Today, the Wuhan Coronavirus dominates headlines around the world, our coffee table chats and even our thoughts and prayers. It is tempting to allow it to grab our attention away from God but let’s not. Instead, let us remember that Jesus was whipped so that we could all be healed and transcend all of life’s obstacles.

“And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgement, so also Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for Him.” (Heb 9:27-28, NLT, m.e.)

I wish you well no matter what the Wuhan Coronavirus might throw at all of us. Just don’t take your eyes off the main reason for our very being – Christ.

Prayer Brings Change (Acts 10:1-48)

2020-01-19T00:29:00.001+07:00

Prayers Bring Change

Based on Acts 10:1-48 | January 19 2020

Khen Lim

Image source: lds.org

Introduction

Here’s an interesting (fictitious) story that I once read on the Internet:

One day, a pastor attended the usual monthly meeting with the church elders and deacons but unlike before, he came to share an idea that he felt had come from God. The hope was that everyone would be on the same page as far as the idea was concerned. In his presentation, he pulled out all the stops to promote the idea to all present but despite his all, they voted 15 to 1 against him.

“I’m sorry, Pastor Jeremiah. As it turned out, that one solitary vote in favour came from you. For whatever reason, everyone else didn’t think it would work,” the condescending elder said.

“Well, that’s it, folks. We can now call it a night and go home,” he added as he closed his diary to get ready to leave.

“What? Aren’t there anything else to discuss?” the pastor asked.

“Oh no, Jeremiah. We all came to listen to your idea but I’d suspected it would turn out the way it did,” the elder replied.

The pastor was shocked to hear that but before he could reply, the elder quipped: “Anyway, why don’t you do the honours and close the meeting with a prayer…”

Although crestfallen, the pastor didn’t give up although he didn’t show it to the others. He knew the idea had come from God and so he wanted to see it materialise. Raising his hands up towards heaven, he prayed as if it were his last.

“Oh Lord of Heaven! You have seen how my brothers here don’t share the vision You have given me. Try as mightily as I have, I have only failed you. Lord, I pray You will move them to see and realise that this is not mine but Your vision,” he prayed.

“And if it is, Lord, let us all do Your will,” he continued. “So, show us a sign. Let us know this is what You want us to do. In Jesus’ most precious Name we ask and pray, Amen!”

Before the others could say ‘Amen,’ a bolt of lightning appeared amidst a thunderous outburst, crashing through the window pane closest to where they were. The powerful lightning struck the table they were all sat at, shocking everyone. Many were taken aback by the suddenness that they fell backwards in their chairs. In the end, all were on the floor except the pastor who was still seated.

He looked at them, calmly, and asked, “So what do you reckon now? Should we put the idea back to a vote?”

Picking himself off the floor, dusting himself off and straightening his jacket, the elder said, “Well, I guess that’s now 15 to 2 but you still lose.”

For some people, change is just a word. They just can’t stomach the idea of changing. Even a bolt of lightning doesn’t cause them to rethink things. Change is never a good idea if it isn’t theirs in the first place. Some of us have come across people whose grievous sins are finally exposed and their promises to change amount to a bluster of hot air.

In other words, they can’t be bothered to change. Life’s too good for them the way they are. The idea that God knows about their sins hardly made a difference. And they go about their lives unperturbed and unchanging.

For many of us, change is way too difficult because old habits die hard. Ask any chain smoker or alcoholic. Or any drug addict you know. Sexual perverts and predators know that too well also. If change is so nigh impossible, then these are the people who can’t muster turning a corner in their lives. They will never renew their mindsets nor re-evaluate their prejudices. They don’t have the wherewithal to lift themselves from their sinful miseries.

Today’s article focuses on the story of Cornelius and Peter (Acts 10:1-48). Here are two characters of whom one we are familiar with and the other, not so much. In this true story, Jesus’ disciple Peter faces one of the biggest challenges in his life and ministry in the post-Christ era. In this challenge, God brings before Peter a great opportunity to change, one he never knew he had to. Faced with change, Peter’s response is what we’re going to look at.

This change has long been spoken about throughout Scripture. It is the same one that Paul had spoken about as a mystery kept hidden from Satan. However he did reveal it to the saints (Col 1:26) but it was to the Ephesians that he did so in much greater detail. In the change, the Gentiles would inherit the Kingdom and become members of the same Body of Christ. They are to be the co-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.

Because Peter bore the responsibility of fathering the Church for Christ, God’s first priority was to lead him to reorientate his thinking without which, the Church would not be ready to implement His plan to save the Gentiles. But of course, the story also involves a person named Cornelius, a Roman centurion and a Gentile whom God moved to press the issue on Peter. By bringing two disparate people together, God answered two separate prayers, merging them to and for His glory. This, in brief, is what Acts 10:1-48 is essentially about.

In the 49 verses, we can read the story in six distinct sections:

1-8 > I. Cornelius receives a strange vision

9-16 > II. Peter also receives a similarly odd vision

17-23a > III. Cornelius’ messengers seek out Peter

23b-33 > IV. Peter arrives in Cornelius’ home

34-43 > V. Peter shares the Good News

44-48 > VI. Cornelius and family receives the Holy Spirit

I. Cornelius receives a strange vision (Acts 10:1-8)

“¹ In Caesarea, there lives a Roman army officer named Cornelius who was a captain of the Italian Regiment. ² He was a devout, God-fearing man as was everyone in his household. He gave generously to the poor and prayed regularly to God. ³ One afternoon about three o’clock, he had a vision in which he saw an angel of God coming toward him.

‘Cornelius!’ the angel said. ⁴ Cornelius stared at him in terror. ‘What is it, sir?’ he asked the angel.

And the angel replied, ‘Your prayers and gifts to the poor have been received by God as an offering! ⁵ Now send some men to Joppa and summon a man named Simon Peter. ⁶ He is staying with Simon, a tanner who lives near the seashore.’ ⁷ As soon as the angel was gone, Cornelius called two of his household servants and a devout soldier, one of his personal attendants. ⁸ He told them what had happened and sent them off to Joppa.” (Acts 10:1-8, NLT, m.e.)

The important part of this story is that Cornelius wasn’t just a Roman and an army officer but was a Gentile. Scripture tells us that he was a “devout, God-fearing man” and so were his family members (“his household”). Cornelius was also someone who “gave generously to the poor and prayed regularly to God.”

There are two interesting things to note at this point. Firstly, we can and do find non-Christians who do believe in and pray regularly to God. It’s just that they might not have a personal relationship with the God we know and of course, they are yet to receive salvation through Christ Jesus. Secondly, it is also possible to find a non-Christian who might display godliness better than many Christians we know. In other words, Christians don’t necessarily behave better than non-Christians. Unfortunately, we do know this to be true in so many cases, don’t we!

In Cornelius was someone, a Gentile, who was better known to the Jews as an outsider. To the contemporary Christian, an ‘outsider’ would be someone who isn’t a member of the church, any church. Cornelius certainly wasn’t a disciple of Jesus but that didn’t stop him from wanting to know more about God. He was definitely prepared to do what it took to achieve that.

And because Cornelius was willing to be instructed and guided, his attitude paved the way for God to enter into his life and lead him. The point is if you avail yourself to the will of God and you have a natural desire to truly want to know Him, He will certainly make it all happen. In other words, the ball has always been in our court.

There’s that phrase: “Instructed and guided.” In verse 5, the phrase encapsulates how the angel instructed Cornelius to “send some men to Joppa” and then “summon a man named Simon Peter.” To be “instructed and guided” by the angel means that the Roman centurion was an exemplar of obedience. But then, being a centurion in the Italian regiment, obedience was a strong prerequisite. In this case, Cornelius was obedient not to his generals but to God, allowing Him to take over and lead him to hear the Gospel for the first time. Through the vision presented to him, he did exactly as he was told.

A little interesting point that we shouldn’t overlook is that Cornelius despatched not only two of his servants but he requested a soldier to follow along. Quite likely the soldier was part of his 100-strong platoon (called ‘century’). Scripture took note of the soldier being “devout” as well, meaning that he too believes in God and was probably too, a prayerful person.

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II. Peter also receives a similarly odd vision (vv.9-16)

“⁹ The next day as Cornelius’ messengers were nearing the town, Peter went up on the flat roof to pray. It was about noon, ¹⁰ and he was hungry. But while a meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. ¹¹ He saw the sky open and something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners. ¹² In the sheet were all sorts of animals, reptiles and birds. ¹³ Then a voice said to him, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.’

¹⁴ ‘No, Lord,’ Peter declared. ‘I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure and unclean.’ ¹⁵ But the voice spoke again: ‘Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.’ ¹⁶ The same vision was repeated three times. Then the sheet was suddenly pulled up to heaven.” (vv.9-16, NLT, m.e.)

Just to get the time frame as close to correct as possible, take note that verse 9 says that Cornelius’ entourage was close to arriving at their destination by the following day. We don’t know exactly what time they left the previous day but we do know that the same verse says “about noon.”

During those days, a trip from Caesarea to Joppa would be around 35 miles (56 km) in the southerly direction along the Mediterranean coast. On the assumption that they walked at a speed of 3.7 mph (6 kmh) with brief breaks here and there, the journey would take up to half a day to complete. Given that they were due to arrive a little after midday (v.9), it is likely that, at the earliest, they departed in the late afternoon the day before, possibly sometime around 3:00pm.

The amazing thing about this story is that these were two people who began by not knowing each other. In fact, they had no reason to know each other since their lives were so completely different. More to the point, one was a Jew while the other, a Gentile. Yet each of them ‘happened’ to have a divine encounter of his own after they began to pray. These visions were admittedly quite different in nature but even so, God used them to draw each to the other.

Though this might sound quite extraordinary, much of life itself is filled with similar experiences where God brings two or more people together for the purpose of fulfilling His will. I can certainly say that it was the Lord who brought my wife and me together. Given the unlikeliest of circumstances, there was no chance that we could have otherwise met. I can apply the same to other relationships and friendships that have come together, again, in quite unlikely ways. Indeed, through my experiences, I can say that He brings people together to bring glory to Him. Peter and Cornelius certainly did.

In Peter’s case, God put him in a trance just as he felt his hunger pangs. Quite incredibly then, the vision Peter had was about eating. He was told to slaughter and eat “all sorts of animals, reptiles and birds” (v.12). But he baulked because in his mind, they were unclean.

In the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 14:3-20 underlined the Mosaic Law about meats that Jews could and couldn’t consume. But as we soon will see, Peter’s encounter in this case resulted in him declaring that under the new covenant, no creature of God was to be considered unclean (Acts 10:11-15). We also see this reflected in Mark’s Gospel (Mk 7:19).

Upon receiving the vision, Peter actually rejected God because “our Jewish laws” appeared more important for him to comply but the Lord put him in his place by saying that He “has made [them] clean.” Peter was a striking example of a typical Jew steeped in his tradition and customs. To him, abstinence from eating “impure or unclean” meat is as important as many of the laws that bound them. And they still bind them today.

Given that this was how he felt, it’s not hard to imagine how he would have been totally confused by the vision. But in this case, God is telling Peter to eat what were essentially unclean animals; animals that were rendered so in Deuteronomy 14:7. He did so for two reasons. Firstly, when God said He has cleansed them (Acts 10:15), indeed He has. He must have done something to have made these unclean animals clean and hence, acceptable for consumption.

Secondly, Mosaic Law’s coverage of dietary stipulations and standards made up one of the key cultural points of separation between the Jews and Gentiles. Where the Gentiles could and would eat anything, the Jews relied on their laws to differentiate the clean from the unclean. But it was this very law that God would finally use Peter to tear it all down.

In verse 16, the vision is said to be repeated three times, meaning that in total, it had appeared four times. Why this many times, no one is sure because Scripture doesn’t explain it. Some say that this was because Peter had such trouble understanding it. Others suggest that it had something to do with Cornelius having sent three messengers thus helping Peter to understand that their purpose in seeing him had something to do with God’s command to all of them.

III. Cornelius’ messengers seek out Peter (vv.17-23a)

“¹⁷ Peter was very perplexed. What could the vision mean? Just then the men sent by Cornelius found Simon’s house. Standing outside the gate, ¹⁸ they asked if a man named Simon Peter was staying there.

¹⁹ Meanwhile, as Peter was puzzling over the vision, the Holy Spirit said to him, ‘Three men have come looking for you. ²⁰ Get up, go downstairs and go with them without hesitation. Don’t worry, for I have sent them.’ ²¹ So Peter went down and said, ‘I’m the man you are looking for. Why have you come?’

²² They said, ‘We were sent by Cornelius, a Roman officer. He is a devout and God-fearing man, well respected by all the Jews. A holy angel instructed him to summon you to his house so that he can hear your message.’ ^23a So Peter invited the men to stay for the night.” (vv.17-23a, NLT, m.e.)

In these passages, we now come to the encounter between Peter and Cornelius’ messengers but not before the apostle was inundated with perplexing thoughts concerning the vision. In the midst of such confusion, the messengers were already at the outside gate, standing and waiting to see him. Even more interesting then, Peter was stopped in his tracks by the Holy Spirit who told him accept Cornelius’ messengers without question. The command was to accept them and later go with them back to Caesarea.

So there you have it – the instruction had come and the message was quite clear by then. Being made clear, one would expect Peter to understand and obey but he didn’t. In verse 21, he actually asked, “Why have you come?” Before that in verse 14, he seemed quite happy to also argue with God over the unclean animals. It’s obvious that Peter can be quite obtuse. If God were to command any of us to go, we just get up and go. If we are to walk the whole 35-mile journey, we walk. You don’t ask why. You certainly don’t keep baulking at God all the way.

In such a situation, Christians, as disciples of Christ, should respond to God by saying, “Lord, Lord, I may not know why or where but I know I will do as You ask.” In every sense of what this means, Peter shouldn’t need to ask why. So do we given the same situation. But poor Peter. His head must have been spinning like a top by now. From strange vision to strange people, it was all getting a little too much.

Of course, it wasn’t just Peter alone. Cornelius was also intimidated by the appearance of the angel to the point of fear:

‘Cornelius!’ the angel said. ⁴ Cornelius stared at him in terror. ‘What is it, sir?’ he asked the angel. (10:3-4, NLT, m.e.)

After all, it isn’t everyday that everyone of us gets to see a real-life angel before our eyes. It is interesting that while Hollywood persistently paints pictures of angelic beings looking, well, ‘angelic,’ it is obvious that Cornelius didn’t. An expression of terror pretty much says it all. It must have gotten worse when the angel instructed him to get his messengers to go seek someone by the name Simon Peter.

But once both Peter and Cornelius got a grip of what was happening, they decided to heed God’s command. In both their cases, they acted immediately. For Peter, he said it so in verse 29 below.

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IV. Peter arrives in Cornelius’ home (vv.23b-33)

“^23b The next day, he went with them, accompanied by some of the brothers from Joppa. ²⁴ They arrived in Caesarea the following day. Cornelius was waiting for them and had called together his relatives and close friends. ²⁵ As Peter entered his home, Cornelius fell at his feet and worshipped him. ²⁶ But Peter pulled him up and said, ‘Stand up! I’m a human being just like you!’ ²⁷ So they talked together and went inside, where many others were assembled.

²⁸ Peter told them, ‘You know it is against our laws for a Jewish man to enter a Gentile home like this or to associate with you. But God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean. ²⁹ So I came without objection as soon as I was sent for. Now tell me why you sent for me.’

³⁰ Cornelius replied, ‘Four days ago, I was praying in my house about this same time, three o’clock in the afternoon. Suddenly, a man in dazzling clothes was standing in front of me. ³¹ He told me, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your gifts to the poor have been noticed by God! ³² Now send messengers to Joppa and summon a man named Simon Peter. He is staying in the home of Simon, a tanner who lives near the seashore.’ ³³ So I sent for you at once, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here, waiting before God to hear the message the Lord has given you.’” (vv.23b-33, NLT, m.e.)

Verse 23b tells us that Peter thought to bring along “some of the brothers from Joppa.” ‘Brothers’ in this case might not be his siblings. After all, there is a difference in wording between “the brothers” and ‘his brothers.’ They were more like like-minded fraternal friends who happened to live in Joppa and not where Peter originally hailed from.

Peter’s decision to bring along his friends is unusual because the angel’s command to Cornelius was that he needed to meet only him but not anyone else. One might be able to read into this a sense of distrust or doubt on Peter’s part. Perhaps it was because Peter had no idea who Cornelius was let alone the two servants and the soldier he sent. They might be ‘devout’ to their master but Peter wouldn’t know any of this. But then Peter’s instructions came not from another human but from the Holy Spirit. In other words, if he couldn’t trust the Spirit, who else can you? (1 Jn 4:18)

It’s obvious that even Peter didn’t remember that his descendants failed to claim the Promised Land that God told them to because they too doubted Him. In Num 13:26-14:4 lies the story of how mortal fears overrode spiritual sense in God. As a result, they sent 12 scouts in who then returned, gripped with fear.

The rest of the story was, well, tragic. Thankfully, this time, God seemed more forgiving. Meanwhile it wasn’t just Cornelius who waited with mounting excitement for Peter to arrive but also his relatives and close friends. He was generous in also wanting his loved ones to experience the message from God.

In fact, Cornelius was so respectable that when Peter arrived, he “fell at his feet and worshipped him” (v.25), a gesture that Peter was quick to correct. It was also the kind of expression that those who were accustomed to pagan worshipping would have done. Being of Roman culture, that was an understandable mistake on Cornelius’ part. In the same way, we are never to take glory unto ourselves even as we do great things for others.

Someone I used to know would take delight in telling me how his late father would build schools, hospitals and playgrounds in some provincial part of China to show how he used his wealth to substantiate his generosity. The father chose that specific part of the country to do so because he was born there in the previous century before migrating to what was once called Malaya. However, there was a common feature on all these building structures – they all were emblazoned with his late father’s name. Just to make sure no one could miss it, the name was large and visible from the main roads.

That’s the kind of behaviour Peter was alluding to with Cornelius. For whatever our achievements are, God deserves all the glory no matter what. Because God is always in control (Prov 19:21, 16:9, Ps 115:3), our successes and failures are essentially what He allows or disallows. Every outcome in our lives is something God is aware. When someone has the means of building schools, hospitals and playgrounds to benefit communities, it is only because God allowed it to happen. It has nothing to do with the person’s abilities.

In these passages, we get to the crux of the article – both Peter and Cornelius are people who experience the kind of change that could only be brought on by God. But their reactions were quite different. Peter began by casting doubts and experiencing confusion. Cornelius, on the other hand, was terrified (v.4) by the angel’s “dazzling clothes” (v.30) in his presence before he quickly understood his instructions. Thereafter, he did not hesitate to send his servants and soldiers to bring Peter back.

The potential to change came to both Peter and Cornelius but they didn’t exactly produce the same outcome, at least initially. As we know, one of two outcomes was markedly more proactive. What made this story stand out was that these two changes were the result of two simultaneous prayers by two disparate people in two contrasting places. In God unfolding His plan, He brought together two people who knew nothing of each other.

One was a Jew and an apostle and the other a God-fearing Gentile. By bringing these two people together, God’s plan to bring salvation to the whole world could take place. In issuing instructions to the two, God merged their actions and in unifying them, the promise of salvation was finally materialising for those not of his own Chosen People.

But of course, it wasn’t as straightforward as it may sound. In particular, it was Peter who had the odds stacked against him. For him to overcome his own cultural challenges was going to be an uphill task. It was something he was never brought up to do but then again, one could say that of almost every Jew during that era.

When it came to dealing with Gentiles, the Jews only had verboten in their minds. For one, they could not visit a Gentile’s home. For another, they could not be associated with Gentiles, physically or otherwise. It was mainly both of these that Peter found himself confronting as a result of the vision.

Although he had problems accepting such challenges at the beginning, Peter did respond fairly quickly soon after but not before he was rebuked by God. In his eventual meeting with Cornelius, he admitted as much what that change was and how God altered his mindset. Of great importance was that he explained how such Jewish Laws concerning impure and unclean animals were finally abrogated by the Lord.

Needless to say, once Peter got over his earlier cultural inhibitions, God could finally use him to and for His purposes. Meeting Cornelius became the cornerstone of God’s greatest gift to the Gentiles because Peter finally moved in divine harmony. Or at least that was what most of us would have expected but, no, it seemed that his head was still stuck in the fog when quite incredulously, he asked, “Now tell me why you sent for me.”

It now appeared that the full weight of the chance encounter had yet to bear on Peter. He finally understood the vision of the impure and unclean animals. He joined the dots between that and how he should now treat the Gentiles. He obeyed the Holy Spirit’s orders to meet Cornelius’ messengers and join them in returning to Caesarea. He finally met Cornelius himself. And he explained all that he understood…except not having even the foggiest idea “why you sent for me.”

The full weight of God’s plan had still eluded Peter! In other words, it hadn’t dawned on him to share the Good News to this Gentile family. Maybe after all, Peter’s awareness was as sensitive as his namesake, a proverbial rock! It took Cornelius, a Gentile, to draw him to his senses. It was his account of the story that prompted the Gospel to be told (v.33).

A notable thing at this point is the sheer enthusiasm and anticipation that Cornelius and his relatives and friends displayed in wanting to hear the Gospel. Ironically, Cornelius’ hunger in this sense is truly spiritual but Peter’s earlier pangs of hunger were simply about wanting to eat (v.10).

No doubt about it, Cornelius’ desire to hear God’s message is what every aspiring evangelist in us would love to encounter. Cornelius and his friends epitomise the kind of people we all dream of meeting because they make our job far easier and more straightforward. Just imagine for a moment of some stranger coming up and say to us, “Listen, pal, I’d love you to tell me every wonderful thing you know about God because I’ve been hungering to hear it!” Now, what an enduring experience this would be!

As Jesus has commanded us to “go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Mt 28:19), the Bible doesn’t give us any hint if Peter was actually glad to do so with the likes of Cornelius. We know that Cornelius was itching to hear the Good News but that doesn’t necessarily mean Peter reciprocated. At this point of the story, of course, we’ll never know if it might just be because of his lingering cultural inhibitions.

V. Peter shares the Good News (vv.34-43)

“³⁴ Then Peter replied, ‘I see very clearly that God shows no favouritism. ³⁵ In every nation, He accepts those who fear Him and do what is right. ³⁶ This is the message of Good News for the people of Israel – that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. ³⁷ You know what happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee, after John began preaching his message of baptism. ³⁸ And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.’ ³⁹ ‘And we apostles are witnesses of all He did throughout Judea and in Jerusalem. They put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross, ⁴⁰ but God raised Him to life on the third day. Then God allowed Him to appear, ⁴¹ not to the general public but to us whom God had chosen in advance to be His witnesses. We were those who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. ⁴² And He ordered us to preach everywhere and to testify that Jesus is the One appointed by God to be the judge of all – the living and the dead. ⁴³ He is the One all the prophets testified about, saying that everyone who believes in Him will have their sins forgiven through His Name.’” (vv.34-43, NLT, m.e.)

It is only when Peter finally began sharing the Good News that his confession started. He said that God showed no favouritism (v.34), meaning the Gospel wasn’t just for the Jews but for everyone throughout the world including all the Gentiles one could find. This would have been sweet news to someone like Cornelius who was there to hear this firsthand because “no favouritism” means God is not partial to any particular race, creed or colour.

Neither would He favour a materially successful Christian in an affluent First World nation more than He would a homeless hobo in a Third World nation. He accepts Christians from “every nation” (v.35) just as He would welcome unbelievers into His midst albeit with the condition He mentioned (ibid). In fact, as we all know, a rich man who thinks he’s a Christian might have more cause for concern than his opposite counterpart.

Recall the story of this man who came across Jesus and asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” to which he replied that he must know the commandments (Mk 10:17-19). The man replied that he had honoured all of them throughout his life but Jesus said he had still left one that had yet to be fulfilled. This was what Jesus said he had yet to do:

“²¹ ‘Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’ ²² At this, the man’s face fell and he went away sad, for he had many possessions. ²³ Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, ‘How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God!’ ²⁴ This amazed them. But Jesus said again, ‘Dear children, it is very hard to enter the Kingdom of God. ²⁵ In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!” (Mk 10:21-25, NLT, m.e.)

It doesn’t mean that rich people don’t make it to heaven. God isn’t saying that it is sinful to be rich. He also isn’t saying that He hates rich people. What God is actually saying is that rich people might have priorities that do not allow them into His Kingdom. In the above story, the man only became crestfallen after Jesus told him to rid himself of all his possessions and give the money from the proceeds to the poor.

For him, his priority was to horde his possessions. It’s this kind of priority that Jesus was talking about. Yet He genuinely loved this man (v.21). Hence when God says He shows no favour to anyone in particular, He loves everyone, rich and poor. No one is excluded.

Perhaps the most significant part of Peter’s message to Cornelius and his friends was when he said, “that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all,” it was the last bit – “who is Lord of all” – that would have been played to maximum impact because it simply said that Jesus is, unreservedly and unconditionally, Lord of every creation.

Putting that into perspective might help us to understand how cringeworthy it is when we hear Christians telling their unbeliever friends to accept Jesus as their Lord and God. Why? Because Jesus is the Lord of all! Whether someone accepts this or not is immaterial because He remains his or her Lord. Irrespective of the people we talk to whether they are atheists, socialists, agnostics, anti-Semites, Satan-worshippers, Muslims or Buddhists, Jesus still is their Lord. There is no escaping this fact no matter what they might want to do. Richard Dawkins and everyone at ACLU, take note of this:

“¹⁵ Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, ¹⁶ for through Him, God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see – such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through Him and for Him.” (Col 1:15-16, NLT, m.e.)

And even if these people refuse to acknowledge that Jesus is Lord, they all will end up doing so. It’s only a matter of where and when they will do that:

“⁹ God elevated Him to the place of highest honour and gave Him the Name above all other names, ¹⁰ that at the Name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Php 2:9-11, NLT, m.e.)

Take note that the phrase ‘under the earth’ refers to the underworld, which is just another name for hell. What this means is even those who have died and aren’t in the Kingdom of God will nonetheless acknowledge Jesus no matter who they were when they were alive. They may reject Him, admonish and abuse His Name, repudiate Him and condemn Him for all they want because Jesus will have the last say.

As Peter continued with his message, he added, “In every nation He accepts those who fear Him and do what is right” (v.35). And with this, he would have introduced an interesting almost-dichotomous concept to Cornelius; one where we are to love but fear God who then calls us His friends and children. It’s pretty much similar to parenting itself where children are to love their parents but at the same time, fear them enough to respect and obey. That is why parents who overplay the role as their children’s ‘best friend’ could eventually get into trouble when conflicts arise.

It is for the same reason that being the employer, we need to be circumspect when we befriend employees and blur the distinction. In my days running an IT outfit as an IBM reseller, that was precisely my problem. I had unwittingly – but foolishly – become too friendly to the point where it became too difficult to confront derelictions of duty.

Imagine if the King of kings show up at your home. Despite His towering height, He calls you His friend. He looks at you with a warm smile and His hand reaches for your shoulder. You sense His friendship but then will you return the favour and slap Him on His back? Will you wrestle and mess with Him as physically-inclined friends typically do? Will you tell ribald jokes as if you’re sharing a beer with Him in a pub? Or will you feel the gratitude of His friendship and hence, in your humility, bestow even greater respect to Him? Because He considers you His friend?

Remember Jesus saying this:

“¹⁴ You are My friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you slaves because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now You are My friends since I have told you everything the Father told Me. ¹⁶ You didn’t choose Me. I chose you.” (Jn 15:14-16, NLT, m.e.)

“11 He came to His own people and even they rejected Him. 12 But to all who believed Him and accepted Him, He gave the right to become children of God.” (Jn 1:11-12, NLT, m.e.)

God not only calls us His friends but His children. But there is a condition. In the above passages, Jesus first says, “You are My friends if you do what I command (v.14).” And then He adds that “to become children of God,” we must first believe and accept Him. Only then will Jesus accords us the right. Those conditions make it very clear that even though He treats us as His friends, He remains someone we must learn to fear.

Yet this fear has more to do with respect. In other words, when you fear someone, it can also be because you respect him. To put this in another way, when you fear someone, it may lead you to show him respect. To me, both appear to make a lot of sense. But then there is this verse to consider:

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” (Prov 9:10, NIV)

In other words, wisdom can only come after we learn to fear God. And only when we know who He is will we begin to understand life around us. Going back to what Peter said about those who fear God and do what is right are those whom He accepts. This is reverential fear; fear that is out of how much we revere Him. It is not fear just for the sake of fear.

Despite all the flaws or shortcomings we may find in the way Peter handled himself, he did share the Gospel and he did it very well; well enough that we can all learn from. From his sharing, he proclaimed the following to Cornelius and his friends and relatives:

- Jesus was sent by God the Father and that He was equipped and empowered by Him together with the Holy Spirit

- Jesus is Lord of all; ‘all’ meaning every single creation on earth and throughout the Universe

- Jesus was sentenced to die on the cross but God the Father raised Him from the dead on the third day to once and for all overcome the perdition of death

- He himself (Peter) and the other disciples including Jesus’ mother were all witnesses to Jesus’ ministry on earth including His dying on the cross and ultimately His resurrection

- The outcome of all this was Christ’s forgiveness of sins and the emergence of a new relationship with God; one that includes the promise of salvation and eternal life beyond death

Towards the end of the message he shared, Peter revealed that the Son of God “ordered us to preach everywhere and to testify that Jesus is the One” (v.42). Yet he himself was the one who was slow to come to his senses for it took him awhile to even figure out why he was ‘taken’ to see Cornelius.

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VI. Cornelius and family receive the Holy Spirit (vv.44-48)

“⁴⁴ Even as Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message. ⁴⁵ The Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles, too. ⁴⁶ For they heard them speaking in other tongues and praising God.

Then Peter asked, ⁴⁷ ‘Can anyone object to their being baptised now that they have received the Holy Spirit just as we did?’ ⁴⁸ So he gave orders for them to be baptised in the Name of Jesus Christ. Afterwards Cornelius asked him to stay with them for several days.” (vv.44-48, NLT, m.e.)

If Peter had any scepticisms about being in the home of a Gentile, the intervention of the Holy Spirit would wipe them all out. Now, he as well as the Jewish friends who came along witnessed something they never imagined they ever would. Watching the Gentiles becoming the recipients of the Holy Spirit and then speaking in tongues, it must have been an incredible sight.

To say that Peter was shocked would be an understatement. Scripture says he was in the midst of saying, “Whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins” (v.43) when suddenly, the Gentiles were visited upon by the Spirit before they began to speak in tongues. In verse 45, Luke recorded that Peter was “amazed” at the sight of it all.

In other words, Peter had no control as to where or when the Holy Spirit would act. Neither does any pastor today. No one has the Holy Spirit on his beck and call. No one can command Him on cue to do anything he’d like. It’s easy to forget that the Holy Spirit is God and in His sovereignty, He does as He wills, to whom He wills and when He wills.

Considering that he once thought of his exclusive Jewish background, this would have surprised him. And thus was the powerful conversion that Peter experienced. Being a disciple of Christ and having followed Him throughout His ministry, he probably thought he’d seen it all. He probably also thought he was ready for all the life could throw at him. But God knew better.

The Lord foresaw that Peter needed to be differently prepared in order to fulfil His plan. Peter himself had no idea that he needed some hard lessons in order that he changed his culturally-restrained mindset. Therefore, witnessing the outpouring of the Holy Spirit right in the home of a Gentile was enough to convince him that Cornelius and his friends and relatives were all ready for baptism.

The last verse tells us that Peter and his Jewish friends stayed with Cornelius for a few days (v.48), which would be completely unheard of prior to this event. But now, through the shared love of Christ, they – the Gentiles and the Jews – were able to dispense with the past many generations of animosity and prejudice and begin a new relationship bound in the sharing of the Gospel.

Now that God has fulfilled His will with the Gentiles, it is the Jewish church that, next, faced its need for change.

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VII. Peter retells the story in Jerusalem (11:1-18)

“¹ Soon the news reached the apostles and other believers in Judea that the Gentiles had received the Word of God. ² But when Peter arrived back in Jerusalem, the Jewish believers criticised him. ³ ‘You entered the home of Gentiles and even ate with them!’ they said.

⁴ Then Peter told them exactly what had happened.

⁵ ‘I was in the town of Joppa,’ he said, ‘and while I was praying, I went into a trance and saw a vision. Something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners from the sky. And it came right down to me. ⁶ When I looked inside the sheet, I saw all sorts of tame and wild animals, reptiles and birds. ⁷ And I heard a voice say, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.’

⁸ ‘No, Lord,’ I replied. ‘I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure or unclean.’

⁹ ‘But the voice from heaven spoke again: ‘Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.’ ¹⁰ This happened three times before the sheet and all it contained was pulled back up to heaven. ¹¹ ‘Just then three men who had been sent from Caesarea arrived at the house where we were staying. ¹² The Holy Spirit told me to go with them and not to worry that they were Gentiles. These six brothers here accompanied me and we soon entered the home of the man who had sent for us. ¹³ He told us how an angel had appeared to him in his home and had told him, ‘Send messengers to Joppa and summon a man named Simon Peter. ¹⁴ He will tell you how you and everyone in your household can be saved!’

¹⁵ ‘As I began to speak,’ Peter continued, ‘the Holy Spirit fell on them just as He fell on us at the beginning. ¹⁶ Then I thought of the Lord’s words when He said, ‘John baptised with water but You will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.’ ¹⁷ And since God gave these Gentiles the same gift He gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?’

¹⁸ When the others heard this, they stopped objecting and began praising God. They said, ‘We can see that God has also given the Gentiles the privilege of repenting of their sins and receiving eternal life.’” (11:1-18, NLT, m.e.)

As an adjunct to Acts 10, the following chapter reveals an important scene concerning what took place between the returning Peter and the Jewish church. Because Peter spent a few more days in Caesarea, that meant that news of the Gentiles getting baptised had reached the church well before they arrived, which explained why the believers criticised them. It was all too evident that they weren’t keen about what had happened.

Knowing he now had some explaining to do, Peter revealed what had happened but considering the sensitivities involved, he was careful how he told his story. He spoke about his vision of the unclean animals followed by the command to rendezvous with Cornelius’ messengers. He then recounted Cornelius’ side of the story. In rounding off his explanation, he concluded by saying, “And since God gave these Gentiles the same gift He gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?” (11:17)

The key part of his conclusion was important – “Who was I to stand in God’s way?” – because Peter is plainly reiterating that nothing that took place was theirs to decide or determine but God’s. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit could never be dictated by anyone and when He came, all Peter and his friends could do was to watch in awe. As it seems, that was all that was needed to finally convince the Jewish believers.

Or at least that was what it appeared by the end of the chapter. However, in truth, the Jewish church remained resistant to the idea. Five chapters later in Acts 15, we learn of many more objections that surfaced, resulting in a council being held in Jerusalem purely to resolve them.

Old habits die hard, they say, and it is often true. It’s certainly true with the early Jewish church. The baptism of the Gentiles was a rude awakening to a church that felt they were the ones exclusive to God. They knew next to nothing about His plan to broaden Kingdom appeal to the Gentiles around the world. Cornelius’ conversion had now forced the believing Jews to finally grapple with their old habits, customs, biases and prejudices. And they didn’t like it one bit.

The three takeaways

From this remarkable true story of Peter and Cornelius, we can take home three main points that proved inescapably dominant.

Firstly, God’s sovereignty is not up for debate. He is our Creator, our Lord, the King of kings and the Author of everything that is living on earth. He also happens to be the Creator of the entire Universe. As His creation taken after His image, we serve Him and to do that, we must be in obedience to Him at all times and that implies how we are to be in step with His plans. Not knowing the reasons behind these plans is immaterial – He may, after all, tell or not tell. He also can determine how long before He finally reveals His plans.

Irrespective of what plans God has in mind, we are submissive to His will. This means we are at His command no matter what. In His sovereignty, we can’t even question God’s motives in whatever He wishes to do. Even if we do, He doesn’t have to provide us with an answer. And so if we’re left grappling for answers, He remains God over all.

Still, because He is a moral God, righteousness in our lives is important to Him. What we feel is right or wrong might not matter much to Him because only His moral codes stand. In other words, we cannot invent our own to supersede His. In God’s sovereignty, He can forgive anyone He wishes – including mass murderers, corrupt politicians and rapists and so on – and there’s nothing we can do.

Often when that happens, it is because we do not have the depth of understanding to know how God thinks. It is said that our intelligence does not prepare us to properly perceive divine providence in its fullest form.

In this story, God exposed Peter’s understanding for what it was – inadequate, antiquated and not in line with His plan. As much as the Jews liked to think of their exclusivity, it was ultimately God who decided that the Gentiles were part of His plan. Just as it was He who determined when unclean animals could actually be made clean (vv.11-16) much to Peter’s bafflement. And when that happened, Peter couldn’t accept it at the beginning. If it were any of us, we too would find ourselves in the same situation as Peter.

And if God could turn the Mosaic Law upside down, He would have no trouble dealing with manmade Jewish laws about whose home the Jews could or couldn’t enter much less fraternise with. Peter learned the difficult way as to how manmade legislations were no match for God’s supremacy. No matter how immutable we think our worldly laws are, God can make fools out of any of us.

Consider the odds that a fledgling modern Israel was against when the Arabs decided to invade its sovereignty shortly after its creation in 1948. In the three wars that span 1948 to 1973, the tiny and poorly-equipped Jewish state was constantly on the back foot against an enemy that was armed to the teeth by the Soviets. Time and again, the size of their army, infantry, air force and navy were dwarfed by the combined Arab contingent comprising Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Libya and several others.

In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel was seriously caught out. Having underestimated Arab resolve, Egyptian and Jordanian forces on opposing flanks found themselves with the best opportunity to finally annihilate Israel. It was so grim that much of the Israeli population had dug fresh graves in readiness to die. Hope was thinning by the day and gloom was cast over the entire Jewish state. After the victorious 1967 Six Day War, tens of thousands of Israelis felt this was the end, the ultimate shoah.

But God turned the tables on Israel’s enemies and made fools out of every media observer who predicted its destruction. Beyond 1973, Israel was always under the shadow of Arab threats but God was constantly on their side. As we now live through the looming emergence of Iranian nuclear weaponry, the Lord will show His sovereign hand even if the rest of the world continues to deride Israel’s chance of survival.

Secondly, God doesn’t take sides, not even if you’re avowedly a Christian. Consider Martin Luther, the undisputed Father of Reformation and the protagonist of the Protestant movement, God did not agree with his well-documented hatred of the Jews. Some historians are of the opinion that Luther’s anti-Semitism could arguably be the motivating factor behind Nazi Germany’s genocidal ambitions against the Jews.

Some of us, too, might harbour sentiments that the Jews did not deserve to be part of God’s plan simply because we like to hold them responsible for sending Jesus to the cross. Yet we forget the biblical significance of the Jews being God’s Chosen People. In other words, it’s not God’s fault that our opinion on the Jews is wrong.

By the same token, the Jews think Gentiles don’t have the right to share the same salvation plan as them and by and large, most Judaists today retain that same opinion. Again, it’s not God’s fault that they have little to no understanding of His plan. Persistently, many forget that Scripture does say that His thoughts are nothing like ours (Isa 55:8). In God’s impartiality, His love is for all to enjoy. Hence the Good News is for everyone who cares enough to listen and accept. Here is a lifetime of eternity with Him. It’s an offer He wishes for everyone to savour and not just a select few.

God does not look at us the way we do. While many of us are inclined to be discriminating to some extent and in some form or another, God looks past our creed and colour, social or economic standing, religion, cultural background or history. He will accept anyone who decides to come to Him by way of His Son. If we accept Jesus as the Son of God, the Father would welcome us. There’s biblical evidence of this and no one can dispute it.

This aspect of God’s impartiality saves many of us from certain doom. When the world doesn’t want to have anything to do with the uneducated and the poor, God opens His arms and greets them with promise of eternal life. When the world judges those who have been body-shamed and cast them aside, God offers them a chance for true peace and happiness. When we’re so down the social and economic pecking order with no chance of lifting ourselves, God leaves a door open for us to be redeemed. He loves us so much that He allowed His Son to die on the cross just so we have a way back to Him.

Thirdly, we persistently think we know everything until God exposes us. Even the best among us fall into this trap at least once in their lifetimes. It always takes God to show up our flaws. We’re often so into head knowledge that we forget that for all that we know in life, it’s probably only a small infinitesimal fraction of God’s limitless knowhow. It would be way beyond our comprehension to come to terms with the expansiveness of what He knows.

Man’s past history is enough to be daunting. Some historians think they have it down pat but oftentimes, their understanding might be flawed. Consider Darwin’s evolutionism and how misleading it turned out to be. Then there is carbon dating, which modern science swears by but Christian scientists know it to be deceptive. And of course, we’re now having to contend with climate change. Again hordes of scientists, researchers, environmentalists, climate activists and not to mention, politicians and liberalists are all forcing the rest of us to read from the same page.

Yes, many of us are arrogant enough to think they know everything there is to know. In truth, that is completely false and without proof. And the more removed we are from God, the more we like to believe in our expertise. This shortcoming prevents us from learning to develop the mind and perspectives of God. And so long as we reject His thoughts and ways are persistently higher than ours, we will never see the truth of life itself.

One of the worst aspects of Christian behaviour is our belief that we are superior to unbelievers simply because our head knowledge tells us so. We use our biblical knowhow to pummel others into submission just because we can. We know that if we want to win battles on Scripture, all it takes is to reel off an impressive series of verses to shut our opponents’ mouths. We look at unbelievers and we judge them as hell bound. We listen to unbelievers and we think we can teach them a thing or two. Our tendency to constantly judge others is simply a reflection of our smug attitude; that in knowledge we worship, not God.

Focus on Peter

John Stott once wrote, “The principle subject of this chapter is not so much the conversion of Cornelius as the conversion of Peter.” He’s not wrong. Acts 10 offers us a powerful lesson based on Peter’s intransigence concerning what God wanted to teach him although in the end, he relented after realising God’s grace in reconciling the Gentiles. It’s not difficult to see the very same lesson that many churches around the world must learn.

For many centuries, Scripture has been teaching churches about conduct but there are still so many that choose ignorance. Throughout the history of the church right up till today, there are churches that justify their own actions even if they are unbiblical. There are churches that infamously take God’s word out of context. Abound with the alluring prosperity gospel, these are churches that discriminately choose to ignore the multifaceted nature of God’s word. It’s a dangerous doctrine but they don’t seem to care.

There are also churches insist that certain Bible translations are superior to others. Such churches advertise this as their standing position, meaning that if you use any version other than the one they uphold, you’re unfit to join their services. It’s alarming but it is true; they do exist even today. And they’re not about to change their views.

In the past number of decades, progressive churches are also fast becoming very involved in social issues to the point of taking up political lobbying. In doing so, they have painted Jesus as a social worker with an activist agenda. To that end, these churches are constantly embroiled in highly politicised issues like climate change, unemployment, gun control, illegal migrants, and of late, the notorious Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements.

Many churches not only in the west coast of America but across Europe are not just welcoming illegal – but questionable – migrants but also protecting those who have broken laws. Countless of these migrants have raped and murdered; yet there are churches that choose to be blind to their actions.

But the ones that raise the most serious alarms are those that use Scripture to justify their positions on homosexuality, same-sex marriages, transgenderism and gender neutrality. So long as these sexual unions are anything but one between a man and a woman, it’s without a doubt a perversion of God’s word. It is clearly evident in Scripture but astonishingly, these churches still manage to distort the message to fit their sexual agenda. And they do all this by also removing everything else that they do not agree with.

The point is there are so many churches that are resistant to change the way Peter was at the beginning. So long as the change is something churches disagree, it wouldn’t matter even if it is biblically sound. Paul’s Ephesian inside-out transformation sounds great but many of these churches would either be indifferent to it or they twist it to fit into their ‘beliefs’ much like forcing a square peg into a round hole.

In Malaysia, there are mainstream churches that look fine on the surface but beneath the outer skin, there lurks an attitude that could surprise many. Most churches, for example, would think twice about inviting beggars and homeless people into their Sunday services especially if they haven’t had a bath in ages. The same could easily apply to those they know who are prostitutes, gigolos, gays, lesbians and anyone who isn’t ‘normal.’

On the converse, there are also churches where known bigamists attend but no one is interested in ‘rocking the boat.’ In a similar way, many churches welcome ‘big givers’ who may not conduct themselves in a Christian manner though this is tolerated so long as the generous funds keep coming in. Never mind if the money is clean, so long as the church benefits, everything is ‘fine.’

Donald Fortner in his book, ‘Life after Pentecost’ (Evangelical Press, 1995) wrote:

“Pride and racism are intolerable evils and must never be accepted by the church of God. All who are in Christ are one in Him, be they rich or poor, black or white, male or female, learned or unlearned. All true believers are brothers and sisters in Christ. In Christ, there are no distinctions of race, sex or social class and none should exist among us.”

Peter’s earlier attitude towards Gentiles is Fortner’s idea of racism but of course, today, there are many other types of problems beyond social ills that underscore the churches’ resistance to change. When progressive churches mix politics with their evangelical imperatives, they often lose track of or compromise their identity. Such involvements are no longer about spiritual empowerment but instead, they become nothing more than political fodder. In some cases, the politics in the church gets so intense that its members end up not filled with love but bursting with hatred especially for those whose opinions and viewpoints they don’t agree with.

A lot has changed since Fortner published his book in 1995; not just with churches in general but the society at large. There has been so much change going on but unfortunately, for the most parts, these aren’t the kinds of change God encourages. With so much undermining going on that stems from within the church walls themselves, Peter’s lesson in Acts 10 stands out as a strong reminder of all that is wrong that needs to be righted. In his case, it was God’s rebuking that finally made him understand what was at stake. As a product of his time and culture, God has shown the errors of Peter’s ways.

All this while, Jews like Peter were led to believe that Gentiles were not their equal but they were treated like dogs. With attitudes like this, it becomes easier to understand Jewish practices like shaking the dust off their feet once they left Gentile territory. As horrible as it sounds, that was standard fare at that time. Jews were also told neither to eat with a Gentile nor to welcome one into their homes. Or even be seen to visit one in his home. The legalism got so extreme that Jews would not even use the same cooking pots as those used by the Gentiles unless they were thoroughly cleaned.

During my parents’ years before becoming Christians, they would practise strict vegan diets on special auspicious days on the Buddhist calendar. During those days, they didn’t share the use of the kitchen appliances and dining utensils with me. They kept and washed them separately and then stored them away from my view just so that I didn’t accidentally use them and hence ‘destroy’ the purity of their tradition.

My mother especially was so intractable over the matter regardless of how or what I said about it. No amount of logic could sway her. It was only after they became Christians that they understood the legalism and false piety. In similar ways, such practices are no different than some Muslims we know who hide their lasciviousness and corruption by dressing piously, attending prayers at mosques and looking very holy for the benefit of others.

None of these Jewish traditions were authorised by God. They were all contrived out of self-righteousness. Priding themselves over such practices, the Jews likened themselves as separate – and superior – to every Gentile back then. It was likely that their awareness of being God’s Chosen Ones had gotten into their heads. Hence the cultural supremacy. It’s therefore not too difficult to understand Peter’s confusion at the point of the vision itself. It’s possible that he was under the impression that Gentiles could only become Christians through ‘Jewification.’ In other words, they had to be proselytised as Jews first. We’ll never know, of course, but it’s not an impossible speculation.

Whether or not that was the case, Peter did finally understand that in God’s eyes, Gentiles were not subordinate to the Jews. By way of the vision that appeared in his trance, God made it clear that those who weren’t Jews were also part of His plan of salvation even if they needn’t have to be circumcised or wear a yarmulke. In other words, Gentiles were free from such requirements. For these reasons, Stott believes that Acts 10 was more about Peter’s rather than Cornelius’ conversion.

Gentile conversions, however, aren’t new by the time we come to Acts 10. In fact, two chapters earlier, we learn of the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch, a treasurer at the court of Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, en route home to Ethiopia (Acts 8:26-40). While on his way home from Jerusalem, he was studying the Septuagint when he chanced a meeting with Philip who, himself, was bound for Gaza. Having found Isaiah a difficult text to understand, he sought Philip’s help and through that, he was, according to Jerome and Eusebius, converted and baptised in Bethsura, which was not far from where Gaza is today.

The point is the eunuch was headed home. He did not spend time in the hospitality of any Jew. He met up with Philip but that was along the journey and not in a home. To put that into context, no Jewish traditions were breached. In contrast, the same cannot be said of in Peter’s case where the conversion of a Gentile was even followed by a few days of fellowship between the two.

In other words, the baptism in Caesarea was ultimately cause for celebration between the Gentiles and Jews. And ultimately the Jewish church not only recognised the admission of Gentiles but without even becoming Jewish proselytes. This was real witnessing of the very first order!

In John MacArthur’s words, “In God’s providence, the time had come to reconcile Jews and Gentiles in the church” (MacArthur New Testament Commentary, 1994). MacArthur is saying that, without God’s orchestration, the reconciliation of the Jews and the Gentiles in church would not have been possible. Through separate prayers by Cornelius and Peter, God hatched His plan that led to the reconciliation becoming possible despite all the cultural and customary hurdles. Indeed, Acts 10 offers us stunning evidence of how only God’s grace could make the whole event so miraculous.

Cornelius and Peter had now set the tone to launch world evangelism of which the apostle Paul would eventually blaze the trail for the others to follow. With the two of them having broken the mould, everything gathered speed and before we knew it, missionaries from an essentially Gentile church were despatched across the various territories of the world for the Gospel to be shared.

As it was then, hatred continues to be the present-day bulwark against Christian evangelism. And we see that everywhere including China, North Korea and Iran and many other countries throughout the modern world. We see this hatred manifesting in persecutions of Christians from the mild to the serious, from simple banishment to beheadings and all forms of executions. Christians are made to pay the price for their faith but in glory to God, they go from here to a far better place, of course.

What is surprising isn’t the persecution in non-Christian parts of the world but the increasing entrenchment of institutionalised antitheism in countries allegedly blessed by God including America. In the U.S. of A, Christian evangelism is facing incredible odds because of leftist politics that outright reject God and the frenetic and immoral nature of political correctness. And therefore, we see an interesting turnaround where God is using missionaries from elsewhere who are now making their way to evangelise First World countries that include even Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

At Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, the Centre for the Study of Global Christianity (CSGC) estimated that in 2010, some 400,000 missionaries from worldwide were despatched. Of the top ten missionary-sending countries in that year – apart from the U.S., which sent out 127,000 missionaries – they included Brazil, South Korea, India, South Africa, Philippines, Mexico, China, Colombia and Nigeria.

While America continues to be the top despatcher of missionaries to the rest of the world, the nation itself is besieged by an incredible plethora of problems beyond just ethnocentrism. Assailed by mainstream and radical leftism, Christians are constantly under attack on all fronts and in all forms. Blacks hate whites at all social, corporate and institutionalised levels.

But now even the whites hate whites, although it’s quite hard to wrap our minds around this piece of illogic. Women hate men but now certain women also hate certain other women based on gender preferences. Men pretend to be women so that they can dominate gender-based sports and invade women’s personal safe spaces such as bathrooms and changing rooms. And all of these are an affront to Christianity on the whole.

But as we have seen in Acts 10 with Peter and Cornelius, only the grace of God will overcome all these.

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Focus on Cornelius

Inasmuch as many biblical scholars believe that Acts 10’s focal point is purely on Peter, there is merit in considering that Cornelius’ role was equally as important. This is, after all, a great story of God’s amazing grace in not just sanctifying a saint but in saving a sinner. In this account, Cornelius was no less a recipient of God’s grace. God’s hand was on him for the purpose of carrying out His plan to redeem the entire human race and not just the Jews. What we have here is nothing less than the incredibly miraculous unfolding of sovereign grace.

Just to remind us that the Gentiles are very much a part of God’s children, recall what the apostle John says of God’s sheep from “another fold”:

“¹⁶ I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to My voice and there will be one flock with one shepherd.” (Jn 10:16, NLT, m.e.)

Cornelius is, indeed, one who was from another “sheepfold” to which Jesus said, “I must bring them also.” We should then be greatly encouraged – and grateful – that God has not forgotten those of us who aren’t Jews. The Lord’s plan didn’t only cover His Chosen Ones but to bring us all into His fold because Christ died for everyone. Cornelius’ account of the story offers us as clear a picture as Peter’s. So as we now shift our focus to the Roman centurion, what can we learn from his experience?

Firstly, there’s no doubt that Cornelius was deeply religious. William Barclay (Westminster Press, 1955) recalled Tacitus saying of Roman centurions, “[They] are desired not to be overbold and reckless so much as good leaders, of steady and prudent mind, not prone to take the offensive to start fighting wantonly but able when overwhelmed and hard-pressed to stand fast and die at their posts.”

In other words, people like Cornelius were not rash minded, impulsive or spontaneous in the way they responded to situations. Rather they were measuredly circumspect and mentally organised. They knew precisely what they were doing. Cornelius’ decision to desire God wasn’t one hatched from a wild idea but instead one that was carefully thought out.

However, despite his devoutness, Cornelius was also lost. He was religious but in his desire for the One True God, he struggled to forge a relationship with. Being a part of Roman society, exposure to its poly-paganism was a given. It would have been simple enough to pursue the many gods in its midst. Yet Cornelius chose to abandon them to pursue Yahweh but short of being proselytised to Judaism. The proselytisation didn’t work for one obvious reason – Jewish tradition and custom simply forbade it.

People like Cornelius couldn’t have numbered many at that time. A Roman centurion who walked away from their own pantheon of gods was, in all likelihood, quite an uncommon case. Given that, he would have been very much on his own and with alienation coming from the Jews, someone like him would also have struggled in his spiritual life. But that didn’t stop him from influencing his own relatives and close friends, all of whom, quite miraculously, desired the same relationship with God. In other words, they too wanted to know the One True God.

Such desire might not be too hard to come by in Roman society but in Cornelius, one thing stood out – he actually prayed to God even though he had yet to establish a direct spiritual relationship with Christ. Richard Longenecker wrote:

“It seems that we must understand Cornelius to have been a Gentile who, having realised the bankruptcy of paganism, sought to worship a monotheistic God, practise a form of prayer and lead a moral life, apart from any necessary association with Judaism.” [m.e.]

Not being proselytised to Judaism may not necessarily be a bad thing. It just depends on how one sees it. Regardless, he wasn’t deterred in his desire to know God. Not being a Jew might have ‘prevented’ him from being circumcised but as a Gentile, he lived up to the light that he had. For that, God delivered a whole lot more light to him than he could have dreamed of. Such was the incredible power of Cornelius’ life of prayer that God rewarded him in great abundance.

Having desire was one thing. Like the Ethiopian eunuch or Saul who ‘excelled’ at persecuting Christians, he too was a man of nobility. Much respect was bestowed to him as a respectable Roman centurion. He was, like the other two, a godly man though one who was undeniably lost. Charles Erdman wrote:

“It is almost startling to note the character of the men who are described in the Acts as needing the salvation that can be found in Christ alone. This section of the book narrates three notable conversions: that of the Ethiopian prince, of Saul, and of Cornelius, but all of these were godly men; they were not only of irreproachable morality but they were zealously religious. Are such men lost? Is it absolutely necessary today for men of this character to experience a “new birth”? These narratives seem so to affirm and they remind us of the words spoken by our Lord to the great teacher of Israel: “Ye must be born anew.” [m.e.]

As Erdman rhetorically said, people like Cornelius were lost and therefore in need of being saved. The idea was they needed to experience “a new birth,” which isn’t difficult to understand. In our contemporary times, many people I know came to Christ because they were lost. They’ve been seeking the truth but they were looking in all the wrong places.

In coming to Christ, they had nothing to lose but everything to gain such as the peace, calm and the reassurance. They felt rarefied comfort that only Christ could offer. They also found good reasons to finally be happy once again. In Christ, they now found their brand new identity. They experienced a rebirth and forged a direction in life unlike ever before because this time, they were sanctified to the Lord.

As Jesus puts it, Cornelius belonged to a ‘different sheepfold.’ That didn’t stop him from adopting his prayerfulness, which the story reveals in some detail. Acts 10 tells us he began his regular praying one day at the ninth hour. According to Jewish custom, the day begins at 6:00am rather than our midnight. Therefore, the ninth hour means 3:00pm in the afternoon. Given that Jews then as now prayed three times a day, Cornelius’ afternoon prayer – called Minchah – was of great importance even though he was not proselytised. Interesting then that he then “had a vision in which he saw an angel of God coming toward him” (Acts 10:3).

Therein, the angel had a great message for him. He said, “He [meaning Peter] will tell you how you and everyone in your household can be saved!” By that message alone, it is evident that despite all his praying, Cornelius was still not saved but the angel now told him that God had given him the opportunity to be. And all that because he prayed. Of course, little did he realised that God was using him to move Peter into revealing and sharing the Gospel with him and his relatives and friends.

When Cornelius heard that from the angel, he did not hesitate in following his instruction. Scripture tells us:

“⁷ As soon as the angel was gone, Cornelius called two of his household servants and a devout soldier, one of his personal attendants. ⁸ He told them what had happened and sent them off to Joppa.” (Acts 10:7-8, NLT, m.e.)

Therein lies the next important aspect of Cornelius – his urgency. He wasted no time in sending his messengers to Joppa to seek out Peter. That alone set him apart from Naaman who was recorded in the Second Book of Kings as having a vastly different attitude. Even though he was deeply respected by his own king for the great military victories resulting from his relationship with God, he still refused to be washed seven times in the Jordan River as prescribed by the prophet Elisha to heal him of his leprosy. He only relented after his own officers succeeded in persuading him (2 Kgs 5:9-14).

Naaman’s refusal puts him in stark contrast to Cornelius’ sense of urgency. We don’t know why Naaman hesitated but we do know that Cornelius acted quickly because his desire to strike a relationship with God was undoubtedly strong and meaningful. His rapid response was also a sure sign of someone who wills himself to be obedient to God.

Cornelius’ part of the story affirms the wonders of praying. He proves that God delivers when we pray with all our heart. As Cornelius showed so clearly, when God answers, we must move and move quickly. Delaying or even rejecting in Naaman’s case is not the right thing to do. Similarly, we must not just sit around and wait for God to begin working in our lives. Instead, we need to be proactive. If you’re a parent, encourage and teach your children to read the Word of God, to pray ardently and to obey Him. Alternatively, if you’re a ministry leader, do the same for those who are under your leadership.

Don’t waste time. Don’t drag your feet. When God calls, do what He asks you to. And do it now.

Can we change to transform ourselves?

All of this brings us back full circle to some wide implications for us individually and as a church.

Firstly and without a shadow of doubt, God answers prayers. And this happened to not one but both Cornelius and Peter. He didn’t just answer them but He used the both of them to flesh out His plan for humanity. Cornelius’ desire to know the Lord prepared him well as the ideal candidate for His plan. His credentials were perfect – a Roman centurion, a zealous God-fearing Gentile and a generous person who loved helping people.

But Cornelius alone was only one part of the grand plan. Enter Peter. Again, here was a person who also loved God. In fact, he was one of Jesus’ closest disciples and the one chosen to lead the church. And because he was a Jew, he’d fitted into God’s plan to disassemble his attitude towards Gentiles. This meant prising apart every one of his prejudices and inhibitions against them.

So putting the two together, Peter played the role of the transmitter and Cornelius, the receiver. In his role as the transmitter, Peter was the unwitting change agent, the one God used to bring change to the early church and the one who would witness the outpouring of the Holy Spirit onto a Gentile. As the receiver, Cornelius was first set up by a visiting angel who simply instructed him as to what to do to get saved.

There’s an old saying about the three ways God answers prayers. The first is He answers them immediately by providing exactly what the person asks for. The second is He answers them but not before the person is made to wait a while. The third is He answers by giving the person something different but better than what he asks for.

But there is a fourth one that people often overlook. When God answers prayers, it doesn’t always have to be in the affirmative. ‘No’ is also an answer though invariably, it’s not a very popularly accepted one. Nonetheless, it is still an answer. So when God says no, it still qualifies as an answer. It would be arrogant and presumptuous of us to expect God to always give us what we want. The point with God’s answer – yes or no, for that matter – is that it is always in our best interests. In other words, we should still be grateful to Him if or when He says, “No.”

The problem with God saying “No” to us is that we don’t have the ability to discern. Whenever we pray to God, asking for something, we tend to ask Him for a sign to confirm His answer to us. The issue with this is that invariably, that sign is supposed to be a verification for a “Yes” rather than a “No” response. In other words, no one I know of ever prays to God looking for a negative answer, meaning we have no way to tell when it’s not a “Yes.”

That of course makes it a touch hard to figure out. However, as life’s many lessons teach us, a negative response might sometimes be the better answer but often, that’s only in retrospection. If I look back at my life and think of all the past relationships that didn’t work out, I am now actually thankful they failed. I certainly wouldn’t have thought so back then but with the benefit of hindsight, I’m glad I broke up with them. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met my wife and I certainly wouldn’t have had my lovely pair of twin daughters. It is sometimes in failure that we rise up and do something successful.

However, not everyone thinks like that. When God’s answer to a person’s prayer is a ‘No,’ that is as good as not answering at all. Sometimes even a zealous Christian might react wrongly to such a response. On the mistaken basis that God doesn’t care as much as we think, that explains why He doesn’t even answer our prayers. It might sound reasonable to think that way but it’s not true.

To help us to understand this, consider when we were young kids with not a care in the world. Back then, we lived in an age where we’d like to believe that at the click of our fingers, our parents would rush out and buy the toys we wanted. We like to imagine that parents were great only when they did as we liked them to, gave us what we wanted and took us to the coolest places in the world including Disneyland. Some of us might have liked to fantasise getting smartphones from our parents without even working for them. Or our first brand spanking new car for college.

That’s just a fantasy because for most of us, that just doesn’t even sound realistic. Loving parents just don’t do that sort of thing because doing otherwise would have spoilt and pampered us. Besides, if we’d gotten everything we demanded from our parents, there’d be no limit as to how far we would go. Being spoilt also meant that we would grow up irresponsible, undisciplined and arrogant and so on. In other words, there is nothing go about asking and then getting everything we wanted.

It doesn’t make sense that every prayer we pray gets answered purely on our terms. God wouldn’t give us things that He knows would end up harming us. He loves us too much not to act on what He knows would happen to us. As His children, we are His flock and He safeguards us as His sheepfold. When He senses trouble looming, He will shield us from its dangers. Saying “no” to our prayers is all about protecting us from harm that we can’t see.

Secondly, bigoted attitudes prevent the sharing of the Gospel with others. We see this in Peter’s ill-regard for the Gentiles. Had it all been left to him without divine intervention, the Gentiles would never know about the Gospel because he would have allowed Jewish traditions to rebuff them. As we saw later in Acts 11, even Peter’s actions in Caesarea were heavily criticised by his own brethren in the Jewish church back in Jerusalem, proving that bigotry is a formidable enemy of the Gospel.

All this points us to Jesus’ telling of the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37). Presumably Peter and the other disciples were there to hear their Master preach it to the people. Unlike some, this one wasn’t a difficult parable to understand and yet the message there hadn’t struck Peter on the day he was given the vision by God.

Given that in the parable, it was the Samaritan who saved the Jew’s life and still, he failed to see that a Gentile’s love transcended race. Here was a person – Jew or otherwise – who laid on the side road, seriously injured. His fellow Jews ignored him, preferring to mind their business and let him die. But not the Samaritan who crossed the road and helped him.

In the story of Peter and Cornelius, the disciple was blinded by Jewish intolerance towards the Gentle that he failed to love his neighbour as himself (Rom 13:9, Mk 12:31, Mt 22:36-40, 1 Jn 4:7,20-21). Instead of viewing Gentiles as people, they were taught to treat them like dogs. It was so ingrained into Peter that he even rejected God’s invitation in the vision. It was only after the Lord rebuked him that he realised his mistake.

On Cornelius’ part, he did not have any trouble accepting orders from an angel whose sudden dazzling appearance had initially terrified him. He didn’t even once felt the trepidation of sending his messengers to seek out a Jew. He would have realised that Gentiles weren’t allowed to mingle with Jews let alone enter their homes. Yet he did not reject the angel’s instructions. Instead, he urgently put the angel’s command into action. All because he was eager to hear God’s message via Peter.

I was once at a local coffee shop finding a vacant table to sit at and have a meal when I saw a lady and her friend already seated nearby on their own. Their table was large enough to accommodate other people in the event that all the other tables were occupied. I noticed a gleaming cross around her neck, a confirmation that she was a Christian and so was her female friend. Seeing he had no choice, a stranger approached to ask the lady if he could share their table.

Quite unexpectedly, the two ladies told him he couldn’t and then signalling to him to find somewhere else to sit. I was horrified to have seen something as unfriendly as that but worse, I overheard one saying to the other that as Christians, they were not to share any public space within proximity with unbelievers lest something bad happened to them.

If these two ladies were correct, how would believers evangelise to unbelievers? If we can’t share common space with unbelievers, some of whom may actually be quite keen to hear the Gospel, then we cannot fulfil the royal commission. Similarly if we are so unwelcoming, how do we convince them to visit our church or attend our care group meetings or even join us on social fellowship outings? How do we make unbelievers feel unaccepted when we appear so unfriendly? In other words, if we are so filled with hatred for and judgement against unbelievers, we will go on in life denying every opportunity to change. We cannot open ourselves to new evangelical opportunities even if they do come from God.

It goes without saying that no church is perfect. Ours is so far from it as well. Yours is likely to be the same too. In our case, we don’t even appear to know where we’re headed and that in itself is just one of several problems that plague our church. It is therefore painful to have seen first-time visitors come and not return. It all seemed promising when the visitors shared breakfast after Sunday service and our fellowship felt positive. But when they don’t return the following weekend and beyond, that’s when we know something isn’t quite right.

Years earlier at a time well prior to our arrival, we were told of hordes of youth who simply got up and left. They too didn’t return. Some went to other churches while a few simply dropped out completely. Word has it that all of this was the result of poor leadership management from a ministry leader. In some other cases, it was the church’s elder leadership that was the problem.

Since then, nothing has changed. The opportunities were there but the leadership never took to them. We were once before a church with a three-figure congregation size. Today, we’re nowhere touching the century mark. It’s hard to say what exactly these ‘leadership issues’ were but in broader terms, bigotry of some form would probably not be too far off the mark. It appeared that the church youth were bereft of love, appreciation and value. They received none of those during those days. And yet we should be familiar enough with what Scripture teaches us about these qualities in fellowship.

Last but not the least, being a Christian doesn’t prepare us with an automatic knowledge download. Unless we will ourselves to embrace change, we will be too complacent to want to learn. And if we don’t seize the opportunity to learn, we’ll never be able to interrupt ourselves enough to want to change. It’s a vicious cycle that just keeps on pinning us against the wall. Peter’s experience in the story proved that his close relationship with Jesus failed to prepare him to anticipate God’s plan for the Gentiles.

Here was a person who was involved in Jesus’ public ministry. He heard Him preach. He was there at the Sermon on the Mount. He was with Him in the boat that threatened to capsize amidst a gruelling storm. He witnessed many of His miraculous healings. And of course, he was there when Jesus was nailed to the cross only to come alive three days later. Yet he was too ill-prepared to understand that no manmade laws could ever compare with God’s plans for humanity.

On the other hand, Cornelius knew he didn’t know enough about God. That was why he was so eager to meet Peter and hear God’s message through him. He knew nothing about what a relationship with God was like and that was why he kept a prayerful life, waiting for the Lord to change him. He was aware that good works alone wasn’t going to be good enough to save him. After all, he was a man known for his generosity towards the poor, a trait that God recognised and rewarded him. Cornelius’ thirst for knowledge about God set him up for the greatest change he could have ever hoped for in his life. It was this quest that finally led him to Peter.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we all know how much God wants to bring change into our lives. The renovations of our hearts are a big concern to God because they are needed so that we may turn ourselves into the kind of Christian that He wants us to be. Our need for God to intervene and bring change to us is simply because we don’t have it in us to change on our own. We’re just not cut out to complete such a task not just because of our very nature but mainly because we don’t have the capacity to do so.

In certain other cases, maybe it’s because something in our past that scarred us made it difficult for us to change and move on. I have stories to tell that offer me a window into how difficult change can be because of some lingering pain from my past. One such story involved my mid-teen schooldays when I was a victim of a frame-up.

To cut the story short, someone hated me enough to get me into trouble that lasted more than just a few months involving a few schoolteachers who all happened to have been the country’s judo contestants at the Olympics. In those long agonising months, they took every opportunity to drag me out of class to physically brutalise me away from prying eyes. With an alibi to keep me in sight, I stayed out of trouble until the culprit was finally caught.

This and a few other horrible encounters would paint me a permanent impression of a school I did not want to have anything to do with in my later life. Today I have neither the desire nor the enthusiasm to get in touch with most of my old schoolmates. I have no interest in revisiting the school even if it was a simple walk through its grounds. I do what I can to block images of the school away from my mind simply because those encounters remain vivid and horrifying. They leave a bitter aftertaste that just wouldn’t go away. And I found I couldn’t change myself from that state of mind.

Image source: cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com

Perhaps a more interesting – and far more encouraging – story I came across on the Internet involved a guy by the name of Ken Parker who happened to have a fairly dark past. Parker was not only a former neo-Nazi – Regional Director of the huge Detroit-based National Socialist Movement (NSM) – but he also carried the high rank of a Grand Dragon of the notorious white supremacist group, Ku Klux Klan. From 2017 to 2018, Parker had two experiences that weren’t only unforgettable but one would lead irretrievably to the second.

Deeyah Khan (Image source: m4ufree.sx)

The first was the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017 where 32-year-old lawyer and civil rights activist Heather Heyer was run over and killed amidst violent clashes between the white nationalists and the counter protestors. As he and a few of his fellow white supremacist buddies sat down to catch their breaths following the police dispersing the crowds, Norwegian filmmaker Deeyah Khan of Punjabi/Pashtun descent caught up with him, asking if he was alright. Parker recalled the moment:

“I pretty much had heat exhaustion after the rally because we like to wear our black uniforms, and I drank a big Red Bull before the event. And I was hurting and she was trying to make sure I was OK. She was completely respectful to me and my fiancée the whole time. And so that kind of got me thinking: She’s a really nice lady. Just because she’s got darker skin and believes in a different god [sic] than the god I believe in, why am I hating these people?”

Khan was in America shooting her documentary piece called, ‘White Right: Meeting the Enemy’ and Parker invariably was immortalised on film, spewing hatred against Jews and the gays. Yet the effect of the encounter made him begin to doubt his own bigotry over the next few months. These doubts were finally confronted when he came across a neighbour of his apartment complex, a black pastor by the name of William McKinnon III. It was at a poolside cookout where Parker had an intense dialogue with the All Saints Holiness Church pastor.

Being a card-carrying KKK stalwart, such an encounter would have normally ended up in blows but for some reason, that didn’t happen. In fact, that meeting alone changed Parker’s life forever. Upon McKinnon’s invitation, Parker was curious enough to attend a church service during one Easter some time later. And before he realised, he was stood right in the middle of a mostly black congregation. That was when he gave a glowing testimony that the congregation was not about to ever forget. This was part of what he recalled saying:

“I said I was a grand dragon of the KKK and then the Klan wasn’t hateful enough for me; so I decided to become a neo-Nazi – and a lot of them, their jaws about hit the floor and their eyes got real big… but after the service, not a single one of them had anything negative to say. They’re all coming up and hugging me and shaking my hand, y’know, building me up instead of tearing me down.”

Ken Parker, right (Image source: nbcnews.com)

Not long thereafter, Parker donned on a familiar white garb. The only difference between this one and the white KKK gown that epitomised so many of their rallies. Here, on July 21 2018, Parker was getting ready to walk into the Atlantic Ocean for his baptism in Christ as his fellow church members watched on complete with his tattooed swastika, Klan symbol and Confederate flags, which in September that year, he spent months using laser treatment to remove.

In resigning from the NSM, Parker said:

“Love thy neighbour as thyself. It doesn’t differentiate between the Jewish neighbour, a Mexican neighbour, a black neighbour. It says love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Parker, News21, 2018)

Parker’s turnaround, from being a bigot who hated blacks, Jews, gays and lesbians to a believer in Christ is stunning. God had offered him a meeting that he did not reject and in turn, he set himself on a path that would forever change him to the glory of God.

In the Gospel, the apostle Matthew recalled the time when Jesus visited him at his home (Mt 9:10) much to the disapproval of the Pharisees who considered tax collectors like him and the others “scum” (v.11). While the scribes’ hearts were probably too hardened to change their views, people like Matthew did and eventually, he responded to Jesus saying to him, “Follow Me and be My disciple” (v.9).

Yet another tax collector, Zacchaeus, somehow had a great change of heart and followed Jesus. He was so enthusiastic that he even climbed up a tree just to catch a view of the Messiah (Lk 19:1-4). With Jesus at his home as his guest, Zacchaeus’ turnaround was equally as stunning for he, the chief of all tax collectors, said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!” Yet, just like it was in Matthew’s case, there were Jews who were displeased with the encounter, labelling Zacchaeus as a “notorious sinner” (v.7).

Most people will say that change is never easy to do especially when it demands some form of personal sacrifice. When Peter changed his position, he gave up his long-held cultural inhibitions to follow God’s direction. Although he felt the initial resistance, he quickly changed his tune. When Cornelius sent his messengers to Joppa, he surrendered the same inhibitions that would have prevented the meeting he was now trying to set up.

He could have remained a comfortable wealthy Roman and continued the senseless worshipping of pagan gods but he switched his attention in desiring God and God alone. Even the two tax collectors, Matthew and Zacchaeus, would have had an easy life collecting taxes off their fellow Jews. But even though they were richly rewarded by the Roman government, they too decided to follow Christ.

But once Peter and Cornelius were able to sense the purpose of the change, both set themselves apart to God, merging their paths to the full glory of the Lord. Through their actions inspired by the vision of the Holy Spirit, world humanity was saved. By welcoming Gentiles into the fold, the world changed forever.

Conclusion

As Acts 10 comes to a close, a new chapter reveals the intransigence of the Jewish church to accept change. But persistent praying eventually broke through even the most stubborn of attitudes. Over time, even though Judaism dug its heels in, Christianity blossomed through the subsequent centuries. And the numbers prove it.

It is estimated that there are just under 15 million Jews in the world. By the term ‘Jews,’ that also means those who have adopted Jewishness and embraced Judaism. A rough rundown on the numbers in 1998 looked like this:

Israel	6,500,000	United States of America	5,700,000
Europe	1,500,000	Latin America	400,000
Canada	400,000	Africa (overall)	75,000
Australia/New Zealand	125,000	Asia (excl. Israel)	40,000

In all the years since, these numbers have only changed marginally. While the world population has grown by more than a billion – having increased by 20 percent – and the U.S. population has increased by greater than 15 percent, the Jewish numbers have remained fairly static. Had they grown alongside, the total number of Jews in the world would have, by now, exceeded 15 million.

In fact, it is said that the worldwide Jewish population has not changed much at all. Since the Holocaust, they have grown by around 25 percent even when the U.S. population has since more than doubled. Perhaps the same intransigence has something to do with this.

According to the Jewish Virtual Library run by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE), the present numbers look like this, side by side those in 1998:

Country	1998	2017	Country	1998	2019
Israel	6,500,000	6,700,000	United States of America	5,700,000	5,700,000
Europe	1,500,000	1,400,000	Latin America	400,000	380,000
Canada	400,000	391,000	Africa (overall)	75,000	74,000
Australia/New Zealand	125,000	121,000	Asia (excl. Israel)	40,000	145,500

In fact, if we look at the overall Jewish numbers across the years, they don’t look any better:

1880	1900	1922	1931	1939	1945	1948	1950
7.8	10.6	14.4	15.7	16.7	11.0	11.5	11.3

1955	1960	1970	1980	1990	2000	2010	2018
11.8	12.0	12.6	12.8	12.9	13.1	13.8	14.6

On the other hand, Protestant Christian numbers have skyrocketed. In the last century alone, the Christian population has quadrupled from around 600 million in 1910 to more than 2 billion today and it has remained by a fair margin, the largest religious group globally, making up 32 percent of the entire population of the world. In America alone, there are about 247 million. Brazil has 176 million while Mexico has 108 million. It is said that more than 50 percent of the world’s total number of Christians reside in just ten countries.

Simply put, there is no contest. Christians outnumber Jews by a factor of 154 to 1. And that’s not going to change anytime soon. What makes these numbers so staggering is that during the days of Peter and Cornelius, orthodox Jews far outnumbered Gentile and Jewish Christians (Messianic Jews).

Possible reasons: Exactly what happened over the many centuries that stunted its population growth is hard to pin down but some scholars say that because Judaism wasn’t into proselytisation the way Christianity did, the numbers were impacted. Christian missionaries went virtually everywhere – including China and Japan – while the Jews didn’t.

Another compelling reason is mass persecution. Following the destruction of the First Temple, only 35 percent of the Jews remained while the others were routed. World War Two’s Holocaust accounted for another 6 million Jews, not forgetting the countless pogroms and exilic movements throughout modern history.

Cornelius proves that even Gentiles can be God-fearing. Even Gentiles pray to God regularly. Even Gentiles are receptive to the Gospel and from there, they too receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. By regularly seeking God, Cornelius showed that you needn’t have to be a Jew to desire God with as much fervour as the Jews. And with all the praying, he set the stage for God to unleash His plan.

Peter’s prayerfulness led to the witnessing of the vision that brought change to the way the original believers accepted Gentles into the sheepfold. But unlike Cornelius, Peter’s willingness to go along with God’s plan was tested until he was ultimately rebuked. Change came hard with Peter but when it did, some of the worst Jewish taboos were finally shattered. Though Peter’s prayer was probably different to that of Cornelius’, seeking God made him instrumental in God’s unveiling of His mysterious plan.

Footnotes

Author unknown (Sept 2018) Former KKK Member Ditches White Supremacy for Jesus (Universal Life Church Monastery) accessible at https://www.themonastery.org/blog/former-kkk-member-ditches-white-supremacy-for-jesus

Author unknown (Sept 2019) Vital Statistics: Jewish Population of the World, 1882-present (Jewish Virtual Library, American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise) accessible at https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-population-of-the-world#africa

Barclay, William (1955; Nov 2003) The Acts of the Apostles: The Daily Study Bible Series (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox Press) available at https://www.amazon.com/Acts-Apostles-Daily-Study-Bible/dp/0664226752

Bruce, Richard (Nov 2019) Brief Summary of World Christian Statistics (richleebruce.com) accessible at http://richleebruce.com/churchstat.html

Dashefsky, Arnold and Sheskin, Ira M. () The American Jewish Year Book 2018, Vol. 118 (Dordrecht: Springer)

Dick, John (c.1923; Oct 2012) The Conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch – Lectures on the Acts of the Apostles (Ulan Press) available at https://www.amazon.com/Lectures-Acts-Apostles-John-Dick/dp/B00ARS7B66

Erdman, Charles Rosenbury (1966; Dec 2015) The Acts: An Exposition (Philadelphia: PA: The Westminster Press) available at https://www.amazon.com/Acts-Exposition-Charles-R-Erdman/dp/B019RSSL2O

Fairchild, Mary (Sept 2018) How Many Christians Are In the World Today? (Learn Religions) accessible at https://www.learnreligions.com/christianity-statistics-700533

Harrison, Everett F. (Oct 1986) Interpreting Acts: The Expanding Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan) available at https://www.amazon.com/Interpreting-Acts-Expanding-Everett-Harrison/dp/0310318505

Longenecker, Richard N. (Dec 1995) Acts (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary with The New International Version) (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan) available at https://www.amazon.com/Expositors-Bible-Commentary-Richard-Longenecker/dp/031020108X

MacArthur Jr., John F. (Oct 1994) The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Acts1-12 (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers) available at https://www.amazon.com/MacArthur-New-Testament-Commentary-Macarthur/dp/0802407595/

Maclaren, Alexander (Nov 2015) Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform) available at https://www.amazon.com/Expositions-Holy-Scripture-Alexander-Maclaren-dp-1519340133/dp/1519340133/

Mindel, Nissan (n.d.) The Three Daily Prayers (Kehot Publication Society) accessible at https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/682091/jewish/The-Three-Daily-Prayers.htm

Rich, Tracey R. (c.2019) Jewish Population (Judaism 101) accessible at http://www.jewfaq.org/populatn.htm

Robertson, A.T. (1930; Dec 1982) Word Pictures in the New Testament, 6 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House) available at https://www.amazon.com/Word-Pictures-New-Testament-Vols/dp/0801077109

Ross, Megan and Hepp, Brooks and Gardner, Kianna (Aug 2018) Hate in America: Profile of a Neo-Nazi (Indian Country Today) accessible at https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/news/megan-ross-brooks-hepp-and-kianna-gardner-news21-memphis-ken-parker-was-baptized-in-a-LWpx6L01m0CO5mYlk08iGA

Steffan, Melissa (Jul 2013) The Surprising Countries Most Missionaries Are Sent From and Go To (Christianity Today) accessible at https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2013/july/missionaries-countries-sent-received-csgc-gordon-conwell.html

Stott, John R.W. (Feb 1994) The Message of Acts: The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England: InterVarsity Press) available at https://www.amazon.com/Message-Acts-Bible-Speaks-Today/dp/0830812369

Walton, John H. (Oct 2001) Genesis: NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan) available at https://www.amazon.com/NIV-Application-Commentary-Genesis/dp/0310206170

Warren, Steve (Aug 2018) Former KKK Member Denounces Hate Groups, Becomes Christian One Year After Violence in Charlottesville (CBN News) accessible at https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2018/august/former-kkk-member-denounces-hate-groups-becomes-christian-one-year-after-violence-in-charlottesville

Satan Flares Up

2019-12-08T00:06:00.000+07:00

Satan Flares Up

The Devil’s schemes throughout history to stop the Messiah

Khen Lim | Kledang Community Chapel

December 8 2019

Image source: latrogenicaddiction.wordpress.com

The fight between good and evil has been going on for as long as man has been alive. And the fight has only worsened in recent years.

Take for example, the Americans. Our friends across the Atlantic have been having trouble telling good apart from bad government. If it weren’t for God’s intervention in November 2016, Hillary Clinton would have by now completely destroyed the United States of America. Only because of His hand, the overwhelming prediction of a Clinton shoo-in was itself swept aside.

And in its place, Donald J. Trump, a leader God chose but man finds pleasure in despising till today. Yet Americans miss the big picture – that another eight years of torrid moral abandonment had been avoided.

Of course, it isn’t just America. Our British friends have not been having it easy also. Six months before Trump clinched the presidency, the British voted to leave the European Union in what is today popularly referred to as ‘Brexit.’

Now that the exit date of March 2019 is long gone, the liberals and socialists’ fight to overturn Brexit has just intensified. This is a move that is morally against the will of the people who voted to leave the E.U. but it was also one that cost Teresa May her prime ministership. Boris Johnson, the man who replaced May is fighting for his political survival as he struggles to steer the U.K. safely towards Brexit.

Two years after Brexit and Trump, Malaysia finally turned the tables on kleptocracy and decades of high crime by tossing out the political party that had long overstayed its welcome. Succumbing to the will of a deeply unhappy populace, the people voted for an untried combination of opposition political forces to steer the country through rough waters and into transparency, accountability and integrity. But it has been anything but smooth sailing.

Right from the get-go, it was never going to be straightforward. The bad dug its heels and despite a breathtaking slew of charges against the top most corrupt political leaders plus the hunt for the key players of the infamous 1MDB scandal, their undermining of the integrity of a considerably inexperienced government has so far proven very effective.

Elsewhere throughout the world, the battle between the good and the bad doesn’t look good as well. In this troubled world we live in, hope appears to fade at a worrying pace. In every corner, the situation is bleak.

Virtually the whole of Africa is forever in trouble. South Africa’s Johannesburg continues to have the unenviable reputation of being the rape capital of the world.

The 2019 Hong Kong protests (Image source: The Independent)

The various nations in Asia’s Far East continue to have to look over their shoulders at the menacing totalitarian communist giant that is now the world’s second largest economy. Of late, Hong Kong has been trying to stand boldly on their principles of democracy against communism’s largest – and most brutal – example but it doesn’t bode well.

Meanwhile in south Asia, India and Pakistan are forever bickering and skirmishing with each other over their shared borders. To the north, South Korea not only has to contend with their northern neighbours but also Japan. And of course, Taiwan will always feel like a scythe over their heads amidst the perpetual threat from China.

Europe is of course spiralling out of control. Their social experiment and increasingly uncontrollable migration fallout are fast showing signs of being a complete disaster.

Across in Latin America, Venezuela is holding on to a thread with its economy reeling into hyper-inflation. So long as socialism remains in control, it’s basically teetering on a complete humanitarian crisis. Bolivia is now facing a national rebuilding, having chased out their socialist dictator who was given exile by the Mexican government.

In the Middle East, military threats are a constant feature of the landscape. As the only democratic nation there, Israel bears the brunt of anti-Semitism from around the world and looming economic sanctions of all kinds.

Across both ends of their borders, threats of annihilation come from the Gazans and Palestinians on one side and also the Syrians, Iranians and Iraqis on the other. There’s also the small matter of the Iranians now finalising their nuclear program, which means at least one warhead will be ready to destroy the Jewish State.

In all of what we can see and read about, the world is reeling from the devastating effects of Satan’s interference. His deadly schemes have produced a wide variety of outcomes: enmity among warring nations for territorial conquests, atheism principally against the Christian God, exclusionism against Christians in all walks of life, the lording of the arrogant and the economically powerful lording over the lesser nations, immorality in all forms and in every conceivable way, unimaginable greed that sees the rich and powerful exploiting the poor and vulnerable, preying acts of abomination against the weak and defenseless, selfishness of those who have against those who don’t and so on and so forth.

Satan’s sweeping influence has seen to it that whatever that holds potential good for mankind will invariably rear its ugly head. An otherwise good person can turn bad without much effort. Advances in medicine are used to aid abortion and euthanasia just as much as they are also used for helping the delusional to look forever young.

Increasingly sophisticated computing power that has given rise to wireless connectivity and the Internet at large has allowed social media to ruin lives but help IT giants to grow richer and more powerful. It has also enabled despotic movements including Islamic terrorists to wreak misery on the innocent across the whole world. Whatever great innovations that see the light of day will invariably produce something terribly bad as well.

Former FIFA head, the scandal-tainted Sepp Blatter (Image source: The Independent)

Globalising sports so that everyone in the world gets a chance to watch and enjoy has also paved the way for greed and corruption to take place. We see just as much of this in the staging of the Olympic Games as well as the FIFA World Cup as we do with other sports including cycling, swimming and athletics. Indeed, there is nothing left in the world where the good remains uncontested. In fact what good there is, bad is its dominating companion.

This struggle between good and bad is not something we can avoid because it confronts us wherever we are be it via the TV in the living room or the radio in the car or on the move via the smartphone. The noise all this makes in our lives often distracts us from the biggest and longest fight between good and evil. This fight has been going on even before the time of Adam and Eve.

It is the fight in which Satan is constantly devising ways to stop God from carrying out His plans. Till today, we keep seeing this fight taking on different forms and unfolding at unpredictable times especially after the devil’s failure at stopping Jesus at the Cross.

The scheme to thwart the birth of the Messiah

Movie impression of Herod the Great (Image source: fumcwharton.org)

Scripture teaches us that Jesus came into the world beating a path of redemption, salvation and peace for mankind. And in doing so, Man at last has a foolproof option of escaping the devil’s lair.

For the first time, Man learned and understood Christ’s promise of salvation and through this, we knew to call Him our Messiah. The Old Testament prophesied Christ’s birth enough that the old world had elected to wait for such a long time just for it to take place.

But if we do not read Scripture carefully enough, we’d miss the point of Satan labouring very hard to try and force God on to His back foot. The idea was to prevent Him from sending His Son to Earth. The Messiah’s birth would be something Satan truly feared.

“But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil.” (1 Jn 3:8, NLT, m.e.)

And so began the first of many of the devil’s various schemes designed to destroy Him. With Christ’s birth prophesied, Satan began by getting into Herod the Great’s head, stirring provocation after provocation until he tasted fear. Understanding that the real King was coming to unseat him and rule the world was enough for Herod to undermine the wise men who had travelled from faraway lands just to see and bestow the baby Jesus with gifts (Mt 2:1-12).

Not surprisingly, Herod was joyless listening and understanding the significance of Jesus’ birth. Flying off the handle, he felt no other option than to prevent the new King from being born. If that was too late, Herod would still see to it that Jesus would not survive being murdered en mass. It might not be history’s first genocide but it was the very first one levelled at Jesus’ personal life just as Herod did everything he could to stop anyone from usurping his throne.

But even so, God proved He was well ahead of Satan’s plot. He despatched an angel to warn Joseph:

“¹³ After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,’ the angel said. ‘Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.’ ¹⁴ That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, ¹⁵ and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: ‘I called my Son out of Egypt.’” (Mt 2:13-15, NLT, m.e.)

Out of obedience, Joseph heeded the warning and promptly left for Egypt. There he and Mary stayed until Herod’s demise. As baby Jesus was born, His birth would forever by marked by a royal decreed mass murder that was meant to kill Him before He had any chance to wreck the devil’s own plans. But try as he might have, God defeated him thus scuttling one of his many nefarious plots.

Even though he couldn’t stop Jesus from being born, he made sure that throughout His life on Earth, he would do everything in his power to get ahead and stop Him. For instance, sending Him to death on the Cross was supposedly a crowning glory to Satan.

He certainly thought this would be the pinnacle of his ‘achievement’ but incredibly, it turned out to be just the opposite. It was not for trying. Satan just wasn’t aware that through the Cross, Jesus could show in all His grandeur His death nailed in between two common thieves before He unveiled His resurrection.

To that end, Satan failed miserably to prevent the one thing that he so desperately wanted to stop from happening. That Jesus overcame sin and death on the Cross marked an event far too unbelievable for the devil. By that action alone, the Son of God didn’t just silence him but He also rebuked him at the same time. We’ll study this a lot more closely towards the end of the article.

For now, let’s take a short trip through history just before Jesus’ birth and see Satan’s vain attempts at stopping God come what may.

The devil’s hand at marring Creation

Lucifer and the fallen angels (Image source: youtube)

There was a period before God created the world that Satan had enormous power and influence over many of His angels. Back then, he was more commonly known by the name Lucifer. Lucifer was a magnificent creature in his own right. He was not only glorious looking but also mighty. Unfortunately, he also had his own plans that ran afoul of God.

When he gained knowledge of God’s plan for Creation, Lucifer decided that he had enough of being His mere underling and so he wanted out. It was then that He wanted everything. He wanted to be like God. It was going to be all about him. Isaiah recorded this Satan’s self-indulgence very vividly here:

“For you said to yourself, ‘I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars. I will preside on the mountain of the gods far away in the north. ¹⁴ I will climb to the highest heavens and be like the Most High.’” (Isa 14:13-14, NLT)

Depending on what your source is, Lucifer summoned a large number of angels to rebel against God, resulting in their fall from grace. Invariably, they were all kicked out of heaven. The Apocalyptic Book of Jubilees put that figure as nine-tenth of all the angels available, meaning that only ten percent remained loyal to God. But then somehow, this figure was omitted and hence we have the Book of Revelation saying only this:

“⁷ Then there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels. ⁸ And the dragon lost the battle, and he and his angels were forced out of heaven. ⁹ This great dragon – the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world – was thrown down to the earth with all his angels.” (Rev 12:7-9, NLT, m.e.)

Though some claim it to be one-third – the reverse of what the Apocalyptic Book says – as you can see, nowhere is it mentioned the actual proportion of angels that Satan took with him. However, we might have a bit more clue here:

“⁴ His tail swept away one-third of the stars in the sky, and he threw them to the earth.” (Rev 12:4, NLT, m.e.)

Some scholars believe that the “stars in the sky” attest to the angels in heaven. Indeed, in Revelations, there is, perhaps, a passage that substantiates this:

“²⁰ This is the meaning of the mystery of the seven stars you saw in my right hand and the seven gold lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.” (Rev 1:20, NLT, m.e.)

But we do know for certain that there were angels who sinned and these were the ones who were thrown out of heaven together with Satan (2 Pt 2:4, Jd 1:6). The one thing that the Bible did not describe is how the angels rebelled against God at Satan’s behest (Rev 12:7-9). I can imagine for a second that together they could have laid waste to Earth. In doing so, they reduced it to ruins, leaving it completely in a terrible state. That may be why the earth was not in shipshape condition:

“² The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters.” (Gen 1:2a, NLT, m.e.)

The fundamental basis for God’s Creationism is that Earth was not liveable until He began to transform it (Gen 1-2). It was only after He filled it with all the bare necessities that He was then ready to create Man in His image. It was ultimately this very creation of the human being that would permanently destroy Satan’s relationship with God.

Through Man, God now has a creation whom He was pleased with. And by giving stewardship to Adam, all His other creations on Earth were under his dominion. It wouldn’t be surprising if all of this angered Satan enough to direct all his vicious attacks at. Compared to going head-on against God, attacking Man would have been far simpler. While the devil is not match for God’s wisdom, it would be more straightforward to handle Man because his innocence made him particularly vulnerable.

It is for that reason that Adam and Eve were simply not prepared for the devil’s conniving ways. And so in the Garden of Eden, sin in Man was born and since then, it has become Satan’s signature triumph. He did the unthinkable by separating Man from God and as a result, life from thereon forever changed.

What was supposedly a perfect life under perfect conditions was completely compromised by sin. The curse of sin roared its way into and became the centre of the life of Man till today. And because of sin, we lost our battle against death.

Some people just think it's fun turning up as Satan let alone doing a movie on him (Image source: Daily Beast)

But Satan does not have the upper hand. Inherent in his own nature is his profound weakness. His preoccupation with himself over everyone else makes him very susceptible for the fall:

“¹² ‘How you are fallen from heaven, O shining star, son of the morning! You have been thrown down to the earth, you who destroyed the nations of the world. ¹³ For you said to yourself, ‘I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars. I will preside on the mountain of the gods far away in the north. ¹⁴ I will climb to the highest heavens and be like the Most High.’” (Isa 14:12-14, NLT, m.e.)

In the Book of Isaiah is the infamous passage that reveals Satan’s conceitedness. In just three verses, his self-importance is impossible to ignore. Reminders of his narcissism can be found four times – three ‘I will’s’ and one ‘my’ – and alone, they flesh out an egotism that God found detestable. When the Lord begins the passage, saying, “How you are fallen from heaven,” it is a significant indictment of Satan’s character.

Knowing all that makes it easier to understand why the Lord declared to the devil himself:

“And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Gen 3:15, NLT)

If we’re looking for a verse that resembles a declaration of war, this one is as close as we can get. The significant part in God’s declaration is what He said here: “He will strike your head and you will strike his heel.” Three distinctions are important here.

Firstly, the head belongs to the serpent – the same one as expressed in Revelation 12:9 – which is symbolic of Satan himself. In the second point, ‘her offspring’ in some other Bible translations is worded as “the seed of the woman,” which would be a direct reference to the Messiah Himself. Unmistakably then, being “the seed of the woman,” Jesus would come to Earth born not of a human father but of the Father Himself and be seeded in the womb of a human but virgin mother.

In Matthew 1 (as well as Luke 3:23-37), the genealogy of Jesus is outlined, going all the way back to Adam. We know that Eve was created from Adam’s rib and so was effectively born from him. Therefore – and here’s the third point – the ‘he’ in God’s declaration refers to Jesus. In other words, the Father says that, Jesus will crush Satan’s head and Satan himself will strike His heels.

Satan will shore up all his evil and bear it all on mankind. His vindictive desire is to bury Man alive as a way of getting back at God. But he faces an impossible problem because God would crush him first. And then on the Day of Judgement, he will finally be flung into the fiery lake.

Although God’s declaration was explicit enough, Satan may or may not be aware of the virgin birth. But whether he did or not is immaterial because he couldn’t have known who Mary and Joseph were at that time. They were, after all, very ordinary people plucked from anonymity.

It was only when the wise men turned up in Jerusalem looking to pursue the birth of the Messiah that Satan’s ears were prickled. It was then that he acted quickly to stir Herod the Great into action. Rubbing his hands in glee, the devil would have thought victory was finally at hand.

By then, judging from what the wise men said, destroying the “seed of the woman” before He could be born was not possible anymore. So the second best thing to do was to have every single male offspring up to 2 years of age killed.

With any luck, little Jesus would be among those killed. Had he been able to do that, history would have been very different. In fact, all of humanity could have gone up in smoke shortly thereafter because there would have been no one to save us from our sins.

But God acted well before Herod could do anything and so, before his soldiers arrived in Bethlehem, Joseph and his young family had already bolted in haste for Egypt. But before we look at this in great detail, let’s journey back to the immediate post-Adamaic days.

From creation, Satan worked on Cain

Cain murders Abel (Image source: The Disciple Maker)

Having done all he could to get Adam and Eve evicted from the Garden of Eden, Satan’s work has only just begun. But in tasting ‘victory’ this early, he also knew he had his work cut out for him. There was much to do that laid ahead and so, he would have been quite motivated to wreak even more damage to Man.

Even though Earth’s first married couple were forced out of their natural home, that didn’t stop them from starting their family and with that, the vital lineage that would lead to God’s next plan further down the road. As of now, Adam’s two sons were already born. They were Cain and Abel.

“Now Adam had sexual relations with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant. When she gave birth to Cain, she said, ‘With the Lord’s help, I have produced a man!’” (Gen 4:1, NLT, m.e.)

It’s interesting to note that Eve said, “With the Lord’s help, I have produced a man!” only because at that point in time, she really thought that Cain, being their first born, was the so-called “promised seed.” In deference, Satan knew that wasn’t the case and with that, he resorted to stirring Cain to a fit of jealousy towards Abel, a fit that was enough for him to hatch a plan to murder his own brother.

Satan knew that Eve was wrong in thinking that Cain was the “promised seed.” He on the other hand believed that honour fell to Abel, his younger brother. Having done enough provocation, Cain did finally murdered his own younger brother. He really felt good about the murder. Abel was dead and there was no way out of this. The lineage was destroyed and he could now go home, sit back and relax.

All of this was well documented in the apostle John’s letter where he wrote:

“We must not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and killed his brother. And why did he kill him? Because Cain had been doing what was evil, and his brother had been doing what was righteous.” (1 Jn 3:12, NLT, m.e.)

While it is likely true that it was Abel who held the initial key to the genealogy that led to Jesus, God wasn’t stuck for ideas. With the murder of Abel, the Lord gave Eve another child who, they called Seth. And indeed, it was through the line of Seth that the Messiah would invariably come from.

With his brother’s blood on his hands, God banished him to the land of Nod. It’s tempting to think that the Lord should have destroyed Cain for being a murderer but He didn’t. God displayed as much mercy here as He did all that while with Satan himself. However, of course, Cain would spawn a genealogy of his own that would play into the devil’s hands.

Everything around Noah faced destruction

The site purported by the late Ron Wyatt to be where the Ark landed (Image source: Wyatt Museum)

A little more than 1,100 years separated Cain and Noah’s times but that has not stopped Satan from attempting to corrupt the human race. Winding the Genesis story forward to the days of Noah and we now witness unprecedented debauchery in society. It got so bad that God had regrets creating Man:

“⁵ The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and He saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. ⁶ So the Lord was sorry He had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke His heart.” (Gen 6:5-6, NLT, m.e.)

But one man stood blameless for he was a righteous man who “walked in close fellowship with God” (v.9). Unlike what God saw in the others, Noah and his family were a rare exception. Lost in a landscape filled with evil, God’s disappointment with Man was enough to make Him decide to wipe them all off the face of the Earth. Other than Noah and his family, every single Man standing would be destroyed.

Satan’s hand in the debauchery of Man was very evident. Spiritually weak men caved in to his evil and succumbed to his abomination. In turn, society broke down to an irreparable state with unyoked marriages, pagan worship, violence and “the extent of human wickedness” that must have been beyond what God had expected. It has to be very bad because “it broke His heart.”

But here’s the incredible twist. God’s instructions to Noah to build an Ark so that he and his family could escape the flood that was to come possibly sounded too implausible to Satan. Many questions could be asked at this point even though Scripture is silent about any answers.

Was the land very parched then that rain was rare? Was Noah located at an area near enough to any sea? If not, did building the Ark in the middle of nowhere appear odd to the people around him? Or was shipbuilding a common industry in that part of the land? How long did it take for Noah and his family to complete building the Ark?

These and other questions help raise the issue of whether or not Satan was even aware of what the Ark was about. Could he be so engrossed with all the violence, corruption and wickedness that he ignored the Ark being constructed? However, one thing was certain – God’s instructions to Noah were clear. After everything was ready to set sail, He said that seven days were all it took thereafter for Him to unleash enough rain for forty days and forty nights to truly flood the Earth (Gen 7:4).

It is probable that Satan did not expect God to wipe every evil person off the face of the Earth… not least, with a flood. Perhaps then, he didn’t think much of Noah building the Ark. It might have all sounded too ridiculous to him. God’s sovereignty over all of Creation meant that it was entirely His right to decide what to do with all that wickedness He saw. It was hence His divine right to destroy as much as it was His decision to feel “sorry He had ever made them and put them on the Earth.”

But by wiping all the wickedness away, God could start with a clean slate and work His covenant around the surviving Noah and his family. Once again, Satan’s best effort was thwarted successfully.

From Babel to Abraham and beyond

Nimrod (Image source: Youtube)

Another 340 years after Noah and the others left the Ark that we arrive at the Genesis story of the Tower of Babel (Gen 11:1-9). The central Babel character of note was Nimrod but according to Scottish minister and writer, Alexander Hislop (1807-1865), his mother Semiramis also played a key role in undermining God.

Described in the Bible as “the first on earth to be a mighty man” (Gen 10:8), Nimrod was a formidable hunter-warrior who conquered much of the land of Shinar around him including Babel before advancing to Assyria and annexing the city of Nineveh.

Although there are several theories as to her actual identity, Hislop not only claimed that Semiramis was Nimrod’s wife but that she was also instrumental in helping the both of them to be coronated as god and goddess. Together, they denied God His divinity, replacing Him with an astrologically-based polytheistic system.

Semiramis, who was once an innkeeper (a ‘brothel mistress’ back then), was the original Queen of Heaven mentioned by the prophet Jeremiah:

“¹⁵ Then all the women present and all the men who knew that their wives had burned incense to idols—a great crowd of all the Judeans living in northern Egypt and southern Egypt – answered Jeremiah, ¹⁶ “We will not listen to your messages from the Lord! ¹⁷ We will do whatever we want. We will burn incense and pour out liquid offerings to the Queen of Heaven just as much as we like – just as we, and our ancestors, and our kings and officials have always done in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For in those days we had plenty to eat, and we were well off and had no troubles! ¹⁸ But ever since we quit burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and stopped worshipping her with liquid offerings, we have been in great trouble and have been dying from war and famine.” (Jer 44:15-18, NLT, m.e.)

Semiramis’ assumed divinity was also known by other names including Astarte and Ashtoreth. Online resources tell us that Astarte is the Hellenised version of the goddess of Ashtoreth, which in itself is an Eastern Semitic form of Ishtar. It was worshipped from the Bronze Age through classical iniquity. Astarte was symbolic for the divine power over fertility and sexuality but in some other cases, she was supposedly a battlefield goddess.

Semiramis’ widespread influence links her quite credibly to the latter-day female deity concepts we see today in the forms of Taoism’s Goddess of Mercy (Kuanyin), animism’s famous primordial deity of Mother Nature called Gaia as well as Roman Catholic’s Mediatrix, the intercessory mediator of the Virgin Mary and many others across various different religions. All of these are, of course, attempts to discredit God and usurp His divinity.

Source: Iamthewordthecomforter.blogspot.com

But it gets worse. Semiramis bore Nimrod a son who eventually joined her to create the world’s first mother-and-son cult. This pair went on to inspire the ancient mythical Egyptian goddess Isis and her husband-reincarnate, Osiris, who also, somehow, became her son. In their union, they produced Horus, the protagonist of the bewildering Osiris myth. Yet that’s not all. Through Semiramis, Satan cultivated others beyond Isis and Osiris, including the Greco mythology of Venus and Adonis as well as Hindu’s famous Ushas and Vishnu.

In Scripture, Semiramis is not mentioned – at least not by name – but Nimrod is. His infamy will always be tied to the Tower of Babel and the defiance against God that it stood for. Nimrod corrupted the human race by introducing a united politico-religious system that he’d hoped would challenge Him:

“⁴ Then they said, ‘Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.’” (Gen 11:4, NLT, m.e.)

The idea was Nimrod wanted to deify himself by uniting the people around him to defy God:

“⁵ But the Lord came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building. ⁶ ‘Look!’ he said. ‘The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them!’” (Gen 11:5-6, NLT)

Almost 4,300 years later, the spirit of Nimrod persists in the form of the European Union (E.U.). Like Nimrod, the E.U. had built a system in which, “nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them.” Today, the E.U. has stripped individual European member states of much of their sovereign rights and replaced them with collectivism or in another word, socialism.

EU politicians are apparently aware of their Parliament building being modelled after Brueghel's Tower of Babel and what that means (Image source: Bible Light)

While different languages continue to have local relevance, the monetary, judicial, political, economic, financial, education and many other governing ministries are now all unified under a single umbrella. That is why leading states within the E.U. mechanism have reacted with such hostility towards the U.K.’s Brexit. They see the British move to divorce themselves from the Union as a threat to their conglomerating agenda. But that is exactly what Nimrod wanted to achieve.

In view of what he was attempting to achieve with the Tower, God sent a confusion of tongues to force the people to scatter abroad thus ruining Nimrod’s grand plans of deified domination and outwitting Satan once more:

“‘⁷ Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.’ ⁸ In that way, the Lord scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ That is why the city was called Babel, because that is where the Lord confused the people with different languages. In this way, He scattered them all over the world.” (Gen 11:7-9, NLT, m.e.)

A little less than 400 years later came a man from whose lineage Jesus would emerge. His name was Abraham:

“God gave the promises to Abraham and his child. And notice that the Scripture doesn’t say ‘to his children,’ as if it meant many descendants. Rather, it says ‘to his child’ – and that, of course, means Christ.” (Gal 3:16, NLT)

In other words, Abraham was extremely important to God’s covenant plan. Paul in his letter to the Galatians says just as much when he alluded to Scripture saying, “to his child” meaning not anyone else but Christ. However, for Abraham to forge the lineage leading to Jesus, he needed to have offspring to carry on his line. Seeing that his wife Sarah was barren, that would be a tad difficult. Conception, in other words, was, pun unintended, inconceivable.

Yet God had promised him that from him and his descendants would a nation come:

“¹⁴ After Lot had gone, the Lord said to Abram, “Look as far as you can see in every direction – north and south, east and west. ¹⁵ I am giving all this land, as far as you can see, to you and your descendants as a permanent possession. ¹⁶ And I will give you so many descendants that, like the dust of the earth, they cannot be counted! ¹⁷ Go and walk through the land in every direction, for I am giving it to you.” (Gen 13:14-17, NLT, m.e.)

Sarai’s inability to conceive a child was one thing; how she’d reacted to God’s promise and what she’d do as a result were different matters altogether. Of course, she could’ve just obeyed the Lord and allow Him free rein to fulfil His plan. After all, if He’d said she would bear a son – whom God said would be called Isaac (Gen 17:19) – then surely, she would bear a son! But that did not happen.

James Tissot's 'Sarai Sends Hagar Away' (Image source: Wikiart)

Instead Sarai took matters in her own hands and did what was right in her eyes:

“² So Sarai said to Abram, ‘The Lord has prevented me from having children. Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.’” (Gen 16:2, NLT, m.e.)

God did not say He would provide an offspring to Abram and Sarai through someone else, much less their pagan Egyptian servant. To do things counter to God’s instructions would be nothing less than disobedience. In that sense, Sarai did something that could have put a risk to the covenantal line.

It would also be an act that would have delighted Satan to no end. Here was a perfect opportunity for God’s plan to be thwarted. We can imagine how Sarai was so into her own thoughts that perhaps Satan might have set her up for the fall:

“But when Hagar knew she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress, Sarai, with contempt. ⁵ Then Sarai said to Abram, ‘This is all your fault! I put my servant into your arms, but now that she’s pregnant she treats me with contempt. The Lord will show who’s wrong – you or me!’ ⁶ Abram replied, ‘Look, she is your servant, so deal with her as you see fit.’ Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she finally ran away.” (Gen 16:4-6, NLT)

We can read many things in the above passage but what we cannot ignore is Sarai’s emotions. For a woman who can’t give her husband a child but becomes a witness to someone else who can, must be tough. In this story, Hagar took advantage to gloat as well and in the end, each woman treated the other contemptuously and vice-versa. It’s not hard to picture Satan rubbing his hands in glee and laughing all the way in the background as he witnessed the scene.

Sarah was so emotionally vulnerable that the matter of who would provide her and Abram with a son became contentious. But this was not just any son. Unlike Ishmael, Isaac was to be the covenantal son. God told Abram that through him, a nation would come and so would descendants as many as the stars in the sky (Gen 15:5). In His covenant with the now-renamed Abraham, God said that out of his fatherhood will come many nations (Gen 17:5) and some of his descendants will even become kings (v.6).

Some scholars familiar with ancient traditions back then claim that surrogacy was the custom of the day but in the context of what took place between Sarai, Abram and Hagar was far more than that because it added an unnecessary layer of complication that threatened to derail God’s plan. Had Abram and Sarai fallen for it and settled for Ishmael, that would threaten the covenantal genealogy that the Lord had in mind.

But of course, God couldn’t possibly be so easily rebuffed. There was nothing Satan had on Him that would turn the tables decisively. He might complicate things but he couldn’t ever mount a successful challenge to God. That covenant son was finally born to two aged parents, Abraham and Sarah (Gen 21:1-7). Isaac then grew up to marry Rebekah (Gen 25:20) and like his mother Sarai, now his wife was also barren:

“Isaac pleaded with the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was unable to have children. The Lord answered Isaac’s prayer, and Rebekah became pregnant with twins.” (Gen 25:21, NLT, m.e.)

NOTE: Some scholars believe that Satan was behind Sarai’s barrenness. Even if that was the case, he still failed because God had the power to open her womb. At any rate, Sarai admitted it herself that, “the Lord has prevented me from having children” (Gen 16:2). In other words, the likelihood is that Sarai’s barrenness had nothing to do with Satan.

Just like in Sarai’s case, Rebekah’s womb was also closed but Isaac prayed, pleading the Lord to overcome her barrenness. It worked. God answered and the twins, Jacob and Esau were born (Gen 25:20, 25:26). And with that, God’s covenant was kept alive and unhindered. Again, whether or not Satan had anything to do with it, God could not be denied.

Jacob steals Esau's birthright (Image source: studyjesus.com)

Those familiar with this biblical story would remember well that Jacob stole Esau’s birthright (Gen 27:1-30) after which, he ran as far as he could away from his twin brother (Gen 27:41-28:9). Knowing he would be really mad with him, Jacob didn’t return for many years and in that time, he was deceived by his father-in-law into marrying Leah (Gen 29:15-25) when who he wanted was her sister, Rachel. Eventually he did get to marry the love of his life (vv.26-30).

Despite all that merriment, a pall laid overcast on Jacob’s life because of his estrangement from his twin brother, Esau. He knew he had to resolve it but he was also aware that it wouldn’t be easy. In fact, Esau might still be so angry with his misdeed that he might still want to kill him.

Scripture leads us to believe that Jacob and Esau were fraternal twins, meaning they were not identical. In particular, Esau was “very red at birth” and was “covered with thick hair like a fur coat” (Gen 25:25), implying that Jacob was completely the opposite. Even though Esau was the biological firstborn, God knew he would in his adult life, form the nation of Edom. As we know from Scripture, the Edomites turned out to be pagan worshippers and staunch enemies of Israel.

NOTE: Also known as Idumeans, the Edomites underwent cultural assimilation to eventually mould themselves into the ‘Palestinians’ of today. Psalm 83’s portrayal of the “tents of Edom” appear today as refugee camps as propagated by the notorious Palestine Authority. In their heydays, the Edomites were not only constantly at odds against the Israelites but they occupied some of Israel’s most fertile land as well. Under King Saul’s rule, the Edomites did attack Israel but all that came to a grinding halt when his successor, King David succeeded in stopping them at their tracks and annexing their land.

With the fall of the First Temple, it was, again, the Edomites who attacked Judah and laid waste the Temple. Having been laid under siege, the Edomites eventually converted to Judaism (often against their will) by Hasmonean leader and Jewish high priest, John Hyrcanus (164-104BC) and became an integral part of the Jewry.

One particularly famous Edomite was Herod the Great who not only built the Second Temple but was also responsible for orchestrating the genocide in Bethlehem in order to have baby Jesus killed (Mt 2:16-18). Following the death of Herod, the Edomites – who by then became known as the Idumeans – gradually faded into oblivion as prophesied by Ezekiel (Ezek 35:15). Incredibly as well, as was foretold to Rebekah that the older child (Esau) would end up serving the younger (Jacob), Israel proved stronger than Edom despite the efforts of the latter to constantly lay siege over the Jews.

Satan’s pharaonic insurrection

The 400-year slavery period was prophesied to Abram (Image source: Christianity Malaysia)

In the time of Moses, Scripture tells us that the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt for hundreds of years. But there seems to be some controversy as to how many years they were there for. The Book of Exodus appears to make it clear:

“⁴⁰ The people of Israel had lived in Egypt for 430 years. ⁴¹ In fact, it was on the last day of the 430th year that all the Lord’s forces left the land.” (Ex 12:40-41, NLT, m.e.)

This passage certainly puts it at 430 years. Verse 41 amplifies the fact that after the last day of the 430th year, “all the Lord’s forces” – meaning His chosen people – departed from Egypt.

On the other hand, rather than Exodus 12:40, rabbinical tradition places greater importance on the following passage:

“¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, ‘You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years.’” (Gen 15:13, NLT, m.e.)

The context for this passage is when Abram fell into a deep sleep and God spoke to him in his dream. The ‘400 years’ here speaks clearly of the length of time in which the Jews would suffer in slavery. Compared to the ‘430 years’ from Exodus 12:40, this one is arguably more specific.

So assuming that by way of rabbinical tradition, 400 years is the benchmark for bondage in Egypt, it marks the total period counting from the birth of Isaac. When Esau and Jacob were born, Isaac was 60 years of age (Gen 25:26).

When Jacob was aged 130, he stood before Pharaoh, having been introduced to him by his son Joseph (Gen 47:9). So, when Jacob made the trip to Egypt at that age, 190 (60 + 130) of the 400 years had already passed, leaving 210 years, which is the number of years that the rabbis claim that the Israelites were suffering as slaves in Egypt.

We can argue whether it was 430 or 210 years for the next many years but the key point remains that the entire nation of Israel was ensconced in Egypt in terrible bondage. That fact remains incontestable. Just like bonded migrant Bangladeshi blue-collar workers are today in Dubai working as hard labourers, the Israelites in Egypt were pretty much the same.

It wasn’t the life that the children of Israel had hoped for but God had long forewarned this when He told Abraham in his dream (Gen 15:13). Throughout four centuries of struggle and hardship, the Lord exhibited great patience with Satan. He proved that He was slow to boil and abounding in mercy:

“⁸ The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. ⁹ He will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever. ¹⁰ He does not punish us for all our sins; He does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve. ¹¹ For His unfailing love toward those who fear Him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.” (Ps 108:8-11, NLT, m.e.)

God did this for two reasons. Firstly, He wanted His people to be patient as He used Moses to unleash the ten plagues one after another after which they would leave their slavery behind filled with “great possessions” that the Egyptians would give them (Ex 12:35-36).

Secondly, He needed to deal with the iniquities of the sinful and paganistic Amorites while they were still occupying the Promised Land. God had said that one day soon, He would destroy them and make way for the Israelites to live in (Num 21:31-32, Josh 10:10, 11:8).

Certainly the 400-year period was not without incidents. In each of them, Satan challenged God, seeking to destroy Him or at the very least, tamper with His credibility and reputation. A case in point was Joseph, son of Jacob.

Joseph’s preservation of God’s people in Egypt in a time of great famine was a miracle that Satan didn’t see coming. Although his eleven jealous brothers did all they could to get rid of him and despite the initial tough time he endured in Egypt, Joseph defied the odds and rose to become Pharaoh’s right-hand man and he wasn’t even Egyptian! (Gen 37-50) And of course, Joseph, much beloved by Jacob and Rachel, held the key to the genealogy of Christ.

300 years on, Scripture tells us how Moses’ life was spared although it appeared he would, among all other male Hebrew children, be killed. In Pharaoh’s concern of the threat posed by the Hebrew’s rapid birth rate, he organised a deadly purge to quell their numbers.

But Moses escaped because his mother placed him in a waterproofed papyrus vessel and floated him down the Nile where he was noticed by Pharaoh’s own daughter (Ex 2:3-6). In his later years, Moses grew up assuming the stature of an Egyptian prince poised for great things (Acts 7:22) although God ensured that he would still know his Hebrew faith (Ex 2:7-9). But things turned swiftly and ugly.

While visiting his own people one day, Moses witnessed an Egyptian senselessly battering a fellow Hebrew. Losing his composure, he murdered and then buried him in the sand (vv.11-12) but not before his act was secretly witnessed by another Hebrew. By then it was too late and Pharaoh sent his soldiers to hunt him down and kill him. With no other choice in hand, Moses fled Egypt and lived in the land of Midian (vv.13-15) where he settled down as a herder, married to Zipporah, daughter of Jethro (v.21).

Yet God had plans for him that no one, not least Satan, expected. Forty years thereafter, God pressed him into service in their encounter at the burning bush (Ex 3:2-3) in order to save His people from “the burden of slavery” where they were “crying for help” (v.7). But here was a man whose past he’d rather forget. He lacked the self-confidence to do anything beyond his station in life as a herder (Ex 3:11, 4:10).

Together with his brother Aaron, Moses returned to Egypt to free his fellow enslaved Hebrews. And through all the trials he endured against Pharaoh, God unleashed plague after plague (Ex 7:9-10:23) but stubbornly, he stood his ground even though his people and land suffered devastatingly. But it was the tenth and final plague that forced Pharaoh’s hand because among all the Egyptian firstborns who were killed was Pharaoh’s own (Ex 11:4-8, 12:29-30). And with that, 430 years of slavery ended.

With as many as 600,000 Hebrews, Moses and Aaron led them out of Egypt and bondage but not before, as God prophesied, the Egyptians gave His people “whatever they asked for” including clothing, silver and gold (Ex 12:35-36, Gen 15:14). Unfortunately, not long after they left Egypt behind, Pharaoh reneged on his promise and sought to destroy them (Ex 14:3-9), which then takes us to the climactic scene at the shores of the Red Sea.

As God commands, Moses parts the Red Sea (Image source: jbrown67.deviantart.com)

Painted to a corner with nowhere to escape, God’s people felt the doom of death (v.9b). It was going to be either killed by the Egyptians or drowned in sea. With Pharaoh’s army just around the corner, there was no middle ground. For Satan, this was a perfect moment even he couldn’t have orchestrated. Did God just lead His people to a dead end? Was that why the people were now wailing and showing their fists to God? No one could imagine there was any way out of this (vv.10-12).

It’s hard to imagine that after thousands of years, Satan still could underestimate an omnipotent God but again, this was what happened. Even with the people’s backs against the wall, there was still an incredible miracle to witness:

“¹⁶ Pick up your staff and raise your hand over the sea. Divide the water so the Israelites can walk through the middle of the sea on dry ground. ¹⁷ And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they will charge in after the Israelites. My great glory will be displayed through Pharaoh and his troops, his chariots, and his charioteers. ¹⁸ When My glory is displayed through them, all Egypt will see My glory and know that I am the Lord!’” (Ex 14:16-18, NLT)

Through a strong easterly wind that night, Moses parted the sea as instructed. The waters were prised apart with an open corridor in between two high-standing opposing walls. The winds blew through the night, transforming a typical seabed into dry ground so that the people could walk across safely (vv.21-22).

Nobody, not even Satan, could look at such a sight and not be stunned because no one expected something of this scale to take place. But if this was incredible, what followed immediately was unbelievable:

“²⁶ When all the Israelites had reached the other side, the Lord said to Moses, ‘Raise your hand over the sea again. Then the waters will rush back and cover the Egyptians and their chariots and charioteers.’ ²⁷ So as the sun began to rise, Moses raised his hand over the sea, and the water rushed back into its usual place. The Egyptians tried to escape, but the Lord swept them into the sea. ²⁸ Then the waters returned and covered all the chariots and charioteers—the entire army of Pharaoh. Of all the Egyptians who had chased the Israelites into the sea, not a single one survived.” (Ex 14;26-28, NLT, m.e.)

You don’t even have to be a Christian to know something of this story. Even Hollywood is quite familiar with it. Still, after 3,300 years, it remains an amazing story. Not only did all of God’s 600,000 Chosen People escape unscathed but since, “not a single one survived,” that means every single Egyptian in Pharaoh’s army was wiped out. That God could be this devastating couldn’t have escaped Satan who would have looked on with disbelief. You don’t mess with a God who’s told us that, “vengeance is Mine” (Rom 12:19), do you!

Looking back, Satan probably didn’t think God would save His people especially after they complained bitterly and expressed regret at heeding God’s command to leave Egypt (Ex 14:11-12). He expected Him to unleash His fury at them. He probably assumed He would leave them to Pharaoh’s army since that was their complaint. But then Satan has no understanding of God’s love of His people. Love itself is an alien concept to him.

However, even in crushing defeat, Satan was certainly not done yet. He doesn’t seem to learn from what he has seen of God’s power. So the devastation of Pharaoh’s army did nothing to quell his determination to continue waging war against Him. After all, his overriding mission is to stop whatever plan He has in mind of carrying out (though he had no idea what that is).

The massacre in the house of Judah

Jehu annihilated Ahab's descendants and family members (Image source: blog.edsuom.com)

Throughout Israel’s history, there was one time in which Satan came within a hair’s breadth of annihilating everyone in a royal household. Save for an escapee – a little toddler by the name of Joash – he would’ve tasted sweet victory against God in the massacre of “the rest of Judah’s royal family.”

This story – some 436 years after Moses parted the Red Sea – is told to us in the Second Book of Chronicles where the boy and his nurse were bundled out and put into hiding in the temple for six years (2 Chr 22:10-12). It begins with the reign of King Jehu of Israel whom the prophet Elisha had anointed. God had a mission for the new king and that was to wipe out Baal worship throughout the land. He was to do this by eliminating all of King Ahab’s descendants:

“Then the young prophet poured oil over Jehu’s head and said, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I anoint you king over the Lord’s people, Israel. ⁷ You are to destroy the family of Ahab, your master. In this way, I will avenge the murder of My prophets and all the Lord’s servants who were killed by Jezebel. ⁸ The entire family of Ahab must be wiped out. I will destroy every one of his male descendants, slave and free alike, anywhere in Israel. ⁹ I will destroy the family of Ahab as I destroyed the families of Jeroboam son of Nebat and of Baasha son of Ahijah. ¹⁰ Dogs will eat Ahab’s wife Jezebel at the plot of land in Jezreel, and no one will bury her.’” (2 Kgs 9:6b-10, NLT)

As to why God felt this way about Ahab and his family, here’s the reason why:

“²⁵ (No one else so completely sold himself to what was evil in the Lord’s sight as Ahab did under the influence of his wife Jezebel. ²⁶ His worst outrage was worshipping idols just as the Amorites had done – the people whom the Lord had driven out from the land ahead of the Israelites.)” (1 Kgs 21:25-26, NLT)

After hearing what the Lord had decided to do to him, Ahab repented. He mourned and mourned and in his humility, God actually spared his life but not during his son’s reign. That was when God had now reserved His vengeance for. Armed with such a task, Jehu set about to deal with Ahab’s son, Joram, who by then was the king of Israel. The idea was that by ridding Israel of Joram, Jehu himself would be king. In Judah, Ahaziah was the king and he was as wicked as Joram (2 Kgs 8:25).

Not surprisingly, Ahaziah and Joram did much the same as the latter’s parents used to do during their reign:

“²⁷ Ahaziah followed the evil example of King Ahab’s family. He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, just as Ahab’s family had done, for he was related by marriage to the family of Ahab.” (2 Kgs 8:27, NLT)

By divine consent and acting out God’s command, Jehu killed both Ahaziah and Joram (2 Kgs 9:21-27). Next, he executed Jezebel, Ahab’s wife (vv.32-33). After that, it was Ahab’s descendants (2 Kgs 10:7-8). Lastly he killed all of Baal’s prophets and followers before he set forth to destroy whatever that remained of the pagan worship (vv.20-28).

Despite achieving so much for God, Jehu himself was compromised by Satan. He ended up not walking in the ways of God (vv.29, 31) but due to the enormity of the tasks he had accomplished for Him, he and four of his subsequent generations were spared and they all went on to assume the throne of Israel although the size of the nation shrank (vv.32-33).

Across in Judah, Ahaziah’s murder did not go unanswered. His mother, Athaliah, stormed Judah and seized control. Lost in her violent rage, she had everyone in the royal household killed and with no one to resist her, she took the throne of Judah for herself. As it turned out, she missed out on the little toddler, Joash.

Once again, God outfoxed Satan. In an unexpected twist to the story, God used Jehosheba, who was Athaliah’s sister, to rescue Joash and his nurse. By hiding in the Temple of the Lord, both were safely out of sight even though all the other children were gruesomely murdered.

Athaliah ruled Judah for six years (2 Kgs 11:1-3) but in that time, Joash grew up. By the seventh year, the priest Jehoiada finally unveiled him to the Carite mercenaries and the palace guards with a solemn oath:

“This is what you must do. A third of you who are on duty on the Sabbath are to guard the royal palace itself. ⁶ Another third of you are to stand guard at the Sur Gate. And the final third must stand guard behind the palace guard. These three groups will all guard the palace. ⁷ The other two units who are off duty on the Sabbath must stand guard for the king at the Lord’s Temple. ⁸ Form a bodyguard around the king and keep your weapons in hand. Kill anyone who tries to break through. Stay with the king wherever he goes.” (2 Kgs 11:5-8, NLT, m.e.)

Once full-time all-round protection was firmly in place, the public was shown Judah’s young future king in the making who survived the massacre seven years ago when Athaliah went on a vengeful rampage. In the coronation and before a joyous crowd, the priest also gave him a copy of God’s laws and then proclaimed him the rightful king (v.12).

Athaliah attempts to stop Joash's coronation (Image source: master1844-dc.blogspot.com)

Roused by the noise from the Temple, Athaliah rushed to see what the commotion was. When she saw the coronation, she shouted “Treason! Treason!” hoping to summon her guards to disrupt the ceremony and arrest everyone including Joash and the priest. To her dismay, it was she who was restrained and then taken outside the Temple gate where she was then put to death (vv.13-16).

In his 40-year reign, Joash “did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight (2 Kgs 12:1-2). From his rule, Jerusalem benefited through his talent for organised funding. Notably, the Lord’s Temple was a chief beneficiary where money was needed to maintain it (2 Kgs 12:4-5).

He also made sure that those who worked on the Temple maintenance were properly recompensed so as not to shame God (vv.9-14). He was also smart enough to convince the Aramite king not to invade the city by giving away sacred objects during the era of the previous kings (vv.17-18).

Set against these achievements, Joash’s reign was unfortunately mired by his failure to rid Jerusalem of the many pagan shrines and therefore his people continued to make sacrifices and offerings that displeased God (v.3).

That did not stand him in good stead with God and once his trusted priest Jehoiada died, he became vulnerable to wicked palace advisors who also did nothing to help him dispose of the pagan shrines. In fact they managed to persuade Joash to abandon the Lord’s Temple so that the people could turn away from God (2 Chr 24:17-19).

Tragically, Joash fell prey to sinful advice and chose not to heed the prophets who were despatched by God to warn him. Now filled with evil, he ordered the prophet Zechariah stoned to death (v.21). In a shocking twist of events, it turned out that he was the son of Jehoiada, the priest who not only crowned and served him decades ago but was central in deposing Athaliah. Until Satan’s influence, he now had blood on his hands.

* Not to be confused with the person behind the Old Testament’s Book of Zechariah.

In a matter of a single decision, Joash went from hero to zero. He might’ve started well but his end was anything but. As it turned out, his own officials murdered him (2 Kgs 12:20). In the larger scheme of things, Satan failed once again because saving Joash from his grandmother’s wrath ultimately proved his undoing because that ensured that the Messiah’s covenantal line was once more restored.

The Persian subterfuge

Esther identifies Haman as the culprit (Image source: coatofmanycolors.net)

Very few people would’ve envisaged a Jewish woman helming the royal household of a defiantly pagan-worshipping empire such as Persia. As wife of the powerful King Xerxes (a.k.a. Ahasuerus), Esther was in many ways a surprising feature of Jewish history but as unthinkable as it might have been, she was very much part of God’s plans. And in equally as many ways, there is no doubt that Satan was so opposed to her fellow Jews that he found himself at the centre of Esther’s adversary, Haman.

The Book of Esther recalls that part of history where God’s people were within a hair’s breadth of a catastrophe that scale of Holocaust. In this story, Haman, a descendant of Agag, king of the Amalekites, was a powerful official in the Persian regime. Just as Esther had a story to tell from God’s viewpoint, the account of Haman’s actions reflect Satan’s resounding defeat.

As an Agagite, Haman came from descendants with a particularly dark history. These descendants were part of the larger Amalekite tribe, which were into pagan worship (Ex 17:14-16). Their enmity against the Israelites was already so well entrenched in people like Haman that revenge was all they could ever think about. Haman was that sort of person. And in Mordecai, Esther’s cousin, who was also an official within the Persian government (Est 2:19), he had an axe to grind.

Mordecai refuses to bow before Haman (Image source: Wikipedia)

Simply put, Mordecai wouldn’t put up with Haman’s hubris, meaning he refused to worship at his feet (Est 3:2-4). No matter what his position in officialdom, Mordecai would not give him the pleasure but that could also be seen as an insult that Haman could not forego without punishment. Mordecai’s refusal to be drawn to attention pushed him to want to destroy him. Discovering he was a Jew made it ‘easier’ for him to expand his plot to encompass the entire Jewish community (v.6).

And so Haman cloaked his scheme into a suggestion, which he forwarded to the king that those who refused to obey his laws should not be shown mercy:

“⁸ Then Haman approached King Xerxes and said, ‘There is a certain race of people scattered through all the provinces of your empire who keep themselves separate from everyone else. Their laws are different from those of any other people, and they refuse to obey the laws of the king. So it is not in the king’s interest to let them live. ⁹ If it please the king, issue a decree that they be destroyed, and I will give 10,000 large sacks of silver to the government administrators to be deposited in the royal treasury.’” (Est 3:8-9, NLT, m.e.)

In the king’s subsequent decree, a method was used by way of lots (called ‘purim’) where “all Jews – young and old, including women and children – must be killed, slaughtered and annihilated on a single day” (v.13). It was a shockingly cruel command and one that caused a great deal of sorrow among the Jews (v.15, 4:3). The very prospect that tens of thousands of Jews could perish as a result of this decree was obviously not lost on the community within the Persian empire.

Obviously, it didn’t take long for the news to reach Mordecai and when it did, he became distressed. Inevitably Esther came to hear of her cousin’s depression and how her own people were all in throes of deep sorrow. Amidst such a dark situation for the Jews in the land, God was in control.

He was (in control) right from the time the king chose Esther among a harem of 400 women to be his wife and queen consort. In other words, for a Persian king to pick a Jewish woman was unprecedented especially when he wasn’t aware of her ancestry.

While God was walking Esther through her stature in life, Satan was orchestrating Haman’s. While it seemed Haman was on the ascendancy, Esther’s people appeared to be coming to terms with a massacre of untold proportions. Esther and Mordecai’s position looked hopeless. Haman’s position, on the other hand, looked unassailable. He had the king’s ear and his irreversible decree (v.12b) proved it to the extent that he and Xerxes even enjoyed a drink while the city of Susa was thrown into chaos (v.15b).

Knowing that Mordecai and all her people had reached the point of despair compelled Esther to accept that she had to “go to the king to beg for mercy and plead for her people” (Est 4:8). But, as only she knew, that was easier said than done because no one, including her, could just go and talk to the king. As she baulked at the audacity of seeking the king’s audience, Mordecai reminded her of God’s purpose in her being there at the right time and the right place:

“¹⁴ Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?” (Est 4:14, NLT, m.e.)

Esther perfectly understood that in her being made queen in the Persian empire was that inherent sense of purpose and presence. She realised then that indeed, God put her in such a place to act with faith and so, she responded:

“…though it is against the law, I will go in to see the king. If I must die, I must die.” (Est 4:16b, NLT, m.e.)

And with that, God put into motion an incredibly spectacular turnaround from what looked like a helpless lost cause. Using a woman and her cousin, God delivered a plan that would cause Haman’s wicked but seemingly foolproof plan to come undone. Through two consecutive banquet invitations, Esther set up Xerxes and Haman (Est 5:4-8) that would set the Agagite for the fall.

In between the two banquet invitations, the king had a night of sleeplessness. Waking up in the middle of the night, he ordered for a record of his reign to be recited to him. This was obviously something quite odd to do but this was the beginning of God’s counteraction to unravel Haman. Quite unbelievably, it was then that Xerxes realised Mordecai’s earlier effort in staving off an assassination attempt on his life had gone unrewarded. He knew then that he had to do something to redress the situation.

Meanwhile Haman was conferring with his wife and friends about putting up a public gallows just so they could have the pleasure of witnessing Mordecai hanging off it (vv.9-14). Getting worked up about the prospect of annihilating all the Jews in the land, an excited Haman decided to hurry off to see the king. He wanted him to approve of his plans to hang Mordecai.

In a sudden confluence of contradictory ideas, Haman found himself listening to the king’s decision “to honour a man who truly pleases me” (Est 6:6) and so he didn’t have the chance to talk about the public gallows. Thinking that such a man had to be him, he told Xerxes that it would be proper to parade him through the city square in nothing less than his own royal robe and riding his own horse, proclaiming, “This is what the king does for someone he wishes to honour!” (vv.8-9)

Of course, it all sounded great but imagine Haman’s expression when the king told him that the particular man in question was actually Mordecai, the very person he wanted the king to hang him on the public gallows. Seething in hatred and anger but not wanting to let the king in on his feelings, Haman obeyed the king.

Humiliated by the sudden turn of events, he returned home and told his wife and his friends what had happened. And in completely unexpected foresight, they said to him:

“Since Mordecai—this man who has humiliated you—is of Jewish birth, you will never succeed in your plans against him. It will be fatal to continue opposing him.” (Est 6:13b, NLT, m.e.)

Tragically for Haman, he couldn’t see the deadly prophecy. And if he did, it was obvious he didn’t pay much attention at it. Not long thereafter, the king’s eunuchs arrived and took him to the second banquet (v.14) that would seal his fate. Sensing the moment had arrived, Esther told the king what he needed to know about her people:

“³ If I have found favour with the king, and if it pleases the king to grant my request, I ask that my life and the lives of my people will be spared. ⁴ For my people and I have been sold to those who would kill, slaughter, and annihilate us. If we had merely been sold as slaves, I could remain quiet, for that would be too trivial a matter to warrant disturbing the king.” (Est 7:3-4, NLT)

Taken aback by what Esther said, he wanted to know who’d dare do such a thing to her and her people. Right in the Agagite’s presence, the hater of God’s Chosen People, she said:

“This wicked Haman is our adversary and our enemy.” (v.6, NLT)

Haman's actions toward Esther seals his fate with Xerxes looking on (Image source: mediastorehouse.com)

To Haman, it must have felt like the earth below had opened up to swallow him. Quickly he got on his knees and pleaded Esther to spare his life just as the king went out to the palatial garden, likely to calm himself. Meanwhile, Haman had gotten even more desperate as he “fell on the couch where Queen Esther was reclining” (v.8). Right at that moment, the king re-entered the palace and saw Haman in his compromising position. Not surprisingly, he thought he was attempting to molest his wife.

We’d never know if Xerxes had returned to offer clemency but even if that were the case, nothing could’ve remained of such a hope. Seeing the accused in such a position doomed him once “his attendants covered Haman’s face” thus signalling the end for him.

At the same time, one of the king’s eunuchs reported to Xerxes of Haman’s 75-foot-tall sharpened pole in the courtyard of his home, which he’d intended to execute Mordecai (v.9). Nothing could have been harder for the Agagite to hear from the king than the words, “Then impale Haman on it!”

As God’s plans prevailed and Satan’s receded into failure, great things took place. Firstly, in a rare move, the king reversed his decree. Secondly, all of Haman’s properties were given to Esther. Thirdly, Mordecai took up Haman’s authority. And fourthly, with new found respect shown to Esther’s people, many of the Persians even became Jews themselves (Est 8).

Satan had what seemed an impenetrable plan but God still outmanoeuvred him. Through the story, there were many instances in which it was impossible to see God at work. Firstly, Esther was chosen to be Xerxes’ queen but no one knew she was a Jewess. And if her identity was cloaked, how would she be useful to God?

Secondly, Haman was in a more powerful position than her cousin, Mordecai and arguably, he was closer to the king’s ear. Thirdly, a Persian king’s signet ring once used would’ve meant an irreversible decree. In other words, that proclamation in almost every situation would have signalled the death of all Jews in the land.

All three points make Haman’s plot impregnable. Understandably, Satan would’ve felt the same. What no one saw in the first place was how God was so many steps ahead when He positioned an innocent Jewish girl to be a pagan king’s queen.

The plan to stop Jesus’ birth

What a church of Satan looks like on the inside (Image source: chaostrophic.com)

From his fall from grace before the world began, Satan has since been unequivocally known as “the prince of the power of the air.” Here’s where we get the phrase from:

“And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; ² Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: ³ Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” (Eph 2:1-3, KJV, m.e.)

And here’s how the more contemporary NLT version calls it:

“Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. ² You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil – the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. ³ All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.” (Eph 2:1-3, NLT)

In this passage of his letter to the Ephesians, the apostle Paul described Satan as a “prince” or a “commander,” one who is powerful (1 Jn 5:19) but ‘unseen by human eyes’ (which is what “air” is taken to mean). Why he didn’t refer to him as a king but a prince is easy – there is but only one King and He is Jesus Christ (1 Tim 6:15). In case the reader is unaware, Satan’s power does come exclusively from the King Himself, God:

“⁵ Then the devil took Him up and revealed to Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. ⁶ ‘I will give you the glory of these kingdoms and authority over them,’ the devil said, ‘because they are mine to give to anyone I please.’” (Lk 4:5-6, NLT, m.e.)

In a moment of insanity, the devil had the audacity to make offers to Jesus although his motive was to destroy Him. As the passage says, his authority over the kingdoms “are mine to give.” That authority obviously comes from a higher power and that is God Himself.

As mentioned above, the part that says, “the air” is a reference to what is ‘unseen by human eyes,’ which is another way of referring to the spiritual realm above the Earth. This is the invisible part of our life that can play havoc with us. This is also where Satan and his army of fallen angels inhabit, move and disrupt our spiritual wellbeing.

Yet, this space we speak of is in a location well within Earth’s atmosphere. That is why Paul used the word “air.” As Paul mentioned four chapters later in the same letter:

“¹¹ Put on all of God’s armour so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. ¹² For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6:11-12, NLT, m.e.)

Very interestingly, he describes his earlier use of the word “air” using three definitions that all point back to the same place. The “unseen world” or “this dark world” or “the heavenly places” all bear reference to the foreboding spiritual realm where warfare has been waged since time began. Even the apostle John equates the “air” with the “world”:

“‘³¹ The time for judging this world has come, when Satan, the ruler of this world, will be cast out. ³² And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to Myself.’” (Jn 12:31-32, NLT, m.e.)

In other words, how John uses the word alludes to the entire world being the devil’s playground. Matthew, by the way, also referred to it in much the same way (Mt 4:8-9).

Satan’s power is prodigious enough to be of great concern to all of us. Recall the story of a woman whom Jesus healed on Sabbath while teaching in a synagogue (Lk 13:10-17). Here was someone whose back was bent so badly for eighteen years by some evil spirit that she could not stand upright. Although such crippling condition is easily healed by Jesus, it would undoubtedly be physically excruciating for any of us to cope with.

Paul’s mention of his own thorn in the flesh (2 Cor 12:7) may or may not be some sort of illness but we’ll never know. And yet, he describes this thorn as “a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.” Also in a way as well, the devil also has power over death as Paul wrote:

“¹⁴ Because God’s children are human beings – made of flesh and blood – the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could He die, and only by dying could He break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. ¹⁵ Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.” (Heb 2:14-15, NLT, m.e.)

As it is with death, Satan’s grip over some people is indeed extraordinarily powerful. Scripture offers some useful references here:

“He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.” (Eph 2:2, NLT, m.e.)

In the original KJV translation, “those who refuse to obey God” are referred to as “sons of disobedience.” In other words, they are those among us who choose not to place their trust on Christ as Lord and Saviour.

“¹⁷ And I will rescue you from both your own people and the Gentiles. Yes, I am sending you to the Gentiles ¹⁸ to open their eyes, so they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. Then they will receive forgiveness for their sins and be given a place among God’s people, who are set apart by faith in Me.’” (Acts 26:17-18, NLT, m.e.)

The apostle Luke reported Jesus describing the “sons of disobedience” as those who are in darkness and subject to the power of Satan who need to turn to the light of God and “receive forgiveness for their sins.” Paul refers to them as those “who are perishing” and who are not privy to the Good News preached because their blinded minds prevent them from believing. And in their disobedience, they are not capable of experiencing the joy of the Good News let alone understand any of its messages:

“³ If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing. ⁴ Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.” (2 Cor 4:3-4, NLT, m.e.)

Satan’s henchmen, his demons, are all under his rule. They all do his evil bidding. The apostle Matthew recorded the Pharisees as referring to him as “the prince of demons” (Mt 12:24, 9:34). And as Jesus said later in the same passage, Satan has his own kingdom (Mt 12:26) and possesses a throne, which Jesus mentioned was in the city of Pergamum (Rev 2:13) or for that matter, in whichever part of the world that his evil is predominant.

Satan’s power and authority are impressive by human standards and with the world as his playground, he wreaks so much havoc that much of Earth creaks under the burden of his evil. Yet he has nothing that God in His sovereignty cannot rein in (Job 1:12). With his wickedness, Satan is definitely influential but that is only because God allows him so. Still we need to be reminded that his evilness is neither permanent nor forever (Rom 16:20).

Perhaps the challenge for all of us is that we are not told as to when Satan’s world dominance will come to an end. Because the Lord has not revealed the date, some of us have been investing a lot of time and effort in guessing and predicting. It’s a thriving industry but it’s not productive because God has said under no uncertain terms that He has made a way for us to escape Satan’s grip.

That way is through His Son, Jesus Christ (Acts 26:18, Col 1:13-14) who in view of the Cross, said victoriously and unequivocally:

“³¹ The time for judging this world has come, when Satan, the ruler of this world, will be cast out.” (Jn 12:31, NLT, m.e.)

In Jesus’ own words, Satan “will be cast out.” That means his reign will finally be over and never to be repeated ever again. But all this has to have a beginning point. This is where Jesus must be born in this world for it is His birth that begins His mission to stop the devil once and for all.

This prince of the air is aware of this though he didn’t know the full extent of it. He knew enough to do all he could to prevent Jesus from being born. His birth, in other words, had to be stopped at all cost. Some believe that he even had knowledge of the archangel Gabriel visiting Nazareth. Whether or not that is true doesn’t seem material because all the same, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Invariably, as it always has been, God is steps ahead of Satan. Through the passages of time, we have witnessed all sorts of schemes and plots but come what may, evil always succumbs to the power of God’s pure goodness. It might come close but God always prevails. We saw in Esther’s case how razor-sharp the margins of error were but God was in control. The same thing occurred at the Red Sea. Just when the people were flailing arms and giving up, God still had an ace up His arm.

Mary is visited by the archangel Gabriel (Image source: Pinterest)

And so when the Lord chose Mary to be the earthly mother to Jesus, He set into motion the world’s biggest and historically, the most significant pursuit. The moment Mary was visited by Gabriel to be told of God’s plans for her (Lk 1:26-38), the race was on for Satan to deny Jesus His birth. When Joseph discovered that Mary was pregnant with child, the Lord has to deal with the risk that their betrothal could be annulled (Mt 1:19-21).

Next came the imposition of taxes against those born in their own cities. Caesar Augustus launched his decree that resulted in censuses for every city and town throughout the land (Lk 2:1-3) thus forcing Joseph and Mary to make the long arduous trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem, a journey through treacherously mountainous country stretching more than a hundred miles and pockmarked with robbers and thieves looking for unwitting victims.

Throughout the journey, Joseph walked while the pregnant Mary was perched atop their solitary donkey. No doubt this was a trek someone like Mary in her condition shouldn’t be doing. The risks were extremely high. The possibility of a miscarriage could never be dismissed. Anything could happen that could rob them of their lives. But given no choice by Caesar’s decree, the trip was unavoidable. It doesn’t take much to imagine Satan salivating at the thought that this young couple could actually meet their death. And Jesus would then not be born.

What a miracle then that Joseph and Mary made it safely to Bethlehem but that was just the start. More obstacles laid their way that they had yet to encounter. Exhausted and hungry on arrival, Mary was also very advanced in her pregnancy. Yet they knew not where they would be spending the night let alone find a suitable place for the childbirth to take place. And this one proved a formidable challenge.

Scripture offers us an impression that such a search would be all but impossible. There are a few possible reasons why but none were actually offered by any of the Gospel writers. One belief was that because Mary was pregnant but not married yet to Joseph, Bethlehemites were not ready to share their stigma, meaning most were unwilling to offer the couple a place to lie over.

There is another belief that such stigma could not have applied because Joseph was a local and locals didn’t treat one another with such disdain back then. In the third claim, his fellow Bethlehemites would have been keenly aware that Joseph was also of royal blood (Lk 2:4), meaning that he came from the revered line of David. With such fame attached to him, it’s hard to imagine he would be poorly treated. In that sense, how we interpret Scripture might not necessarily be correct.

Fourthly, Mary was so pregnant that it was hard not to notice. That large bump she was carrying would have told anyone that there was an urgency to find them accommodation. And besides, here’s a passage that might shed some light as to Joseph actually having enough time to find suitable arrangements for the both of them. For Mary, her relatives in Judea weren’t too far away from Bethlehem if that was where they’d prefer to go:

“⁴ And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He travelled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. ⁵ He took with him Mary, to whom he was engaged, who was now expecting a child.” (Lk 2:4-5, NLT, m.e.)

In yet another interpretation, there might be a translation problem concerning the word ‘inn.’ It is possible that the original Greek meaning during the time of Jesus might not be faithfully followed or understood within its correct cultural context. And because Aramaic as spoken by the Jews then – despite Greek being the official lingua franca – translation difficulties might have arisen.

A typical Israelite home during Jesus' days (Image source: firstcenturypalestinejl.weebly.com)

When we speak of an inn today, we imagine it to be an old-fashioned word for hotel, hostel, motel or a guesthouse. In other words, we envision it to be a place with plenty of rooms available where one pays to stay at for a certain short period of time. However, back in Jesus’ days, an inn might actually mean something else.

For example, the ‘inn’ that is mentioned in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:30-37) might offer us some clue. Here, Jesus talked about how the kind Samaritan paid “the innkeeper” for looking after the injured Jewish man (vv.34b-35). It’s doubtful we can find innkeepers today who will offer such personal services as the Parable suggests back then. This little difference is enough to indicate that possibly, the word ‘inn’ should be interpreted a little differently.

So let’s return to the nativity scene and try to understand the word ‘inn’ once more.

Here, Luke describes the nativity scene and in it, he used words that could shed some light:

“⁷ She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped Him snugly in strips of cloth and laid Him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.” (Lk 2:7, NLT, m.e.)

In the original Greek, the word ‘inn’ as used in this context is exegetically distinctive. We see this quite clearly in this passage said by Jesus:

“¹⁰ He replied, “As soon as you enter Jerusalem, a man carrying a pitcher of water will meet you. Follow him. At the house he enters, ¹¹ say to the owner, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with My disciples?’ ¹² He will take you upstairs to a large room that is already set up. That is where you should prepare our meal.” (Lk 22:10-12, NLT, m.e.)

The phrase ‘guest room’ is derived from the Greek word κατάλυμα (pr. katalyma) to mean a particular type of dining enclosure that is more akin to a guest chamber. In Luke’s previous passage (2:7), the same word κατάλυμα is used but scholars inform us that the meaning is a little different because here, it relates to a break point midway through a journey. In that sense, it is more of an inn or a lodging place than a dining enclosure.

As you will see, it gets more complex.

Back then, Mid-Eastern dwellings feature only two rooms; one the family room while the other the stable for animals and their feedstock. Even so, households commonly move their animals into their family rooms because they’d provide much-needed warmth particularly during cold winter nights. And because of this, it wouldn’t then be a surprise to find mangers dug out of the ground or made from wood so that animals could have their feedstock. In other words, where the manger was, that could be the family room and not quite the stable.

Given that possibility, one other thing might help us to understand the nativity scene a little differently:

As one belief suggests earlier, Bethlehemites would have recognised David as from the royal line and that Mary was about to give birth. Both of these points would have raised some alarm for the locals to do something and help. Speed was the essence, given that Mary was really in need. If this interpretation sounds plausible enough, then it is quite possible that one family could have given up their own sleeping space so that Mary could give birth to Jesus.

As this point, we’re simply only looking at possible interpretation issues. This is not about rewriting Scripture but more about how words with ancient contexts might not be what we think they mean today. And as a result, there is a possibility, no matter how remote, that a story such as the birth of Jesus might have had received a less hostile reception than we might have thought.

It is therefore also possible that even a lowly village like Bethlehem could have accommodated this young couple because there was a need to come to the aid of a very pregnant Mary. Like the shepherds who were told, like the wise men who, too, were told, the story of Christmas might actually be more pleasant than how it’s been interpreted. But in the end, admittedly, we don’t really know for sure.

And if we all think that the misinterpretation did take place, then we can consider the possibility that Satan wanted us to believe that even the Jews themselves could be so hostile against their fellow kind, Joseph and Mary. By hijacking the narrative, we are to believe that even at such an early stage, the Jews were unwittingly sabotaging the birth of Christ.

Herod’s plan to kill Jesus

A motion picture impression of Herod the Great (Image source: joeybonifacio.com)

1,400 years prior to the birth of Christ, Satan had already tried mass murder. At that time, he worked through Pharaoh to kill Jewish babies to lessen the threat of numbers against his rule. Now, he was at it again but this time, his instrument was the Edomite Herod the Great. Through his command, all boys up to the age of two in Bethlehem and along its coast must be killed (Mt 2:16).

Following the birth of baby Jesus, wise men from afar flocked into Bethlehem to worship “the newborn king of the Jews” (v.2) but not before they stopped over in Jerusalem. Alarmed by the birth of a “king of the Jews,” Herod’s interest perked up not because he was keen to visit Jesus but because he was intimidated enough.

And so he convened privately with the wise men (v.7) in order to learn as much as he could about this baby boy he knew so little about. But because he had no idea where Jesus was, he cunningly invited the wise men to return after their visit and tell him His whereabouts so that he could “go and worship Him too!” (v.8)

Unaware of his evil, they said they would but God warned them in their dreams “not to return” but to take a separate route back to their own country (v.12). Shortly after their departure, an angel of the Lord also went before Joseph in a dream to caution him to leave immediately for Egypt with his family (v.13). Not only did they flee straightaway but they stayed beyond Herod’s reach until he died (v.15).

Satan was again stymied. First, Caesar’s decree forced Joseph and Mary to make the long trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem. That didn’t work because God protected them all the way. Secondly, Herod connived to get the wise men to tell him of Jesus’ whereabouts. That didn’t work because in their dreams, God told them not to return and divulge the location.

Thirdly, Herod’s murderous plot was not something Joseph and Mary were aware of and they were about to walk straight into his trap. That in the end didn’t work because Joseph managed to immediately escape to Egypt thanks to the angel of the Lord who told him to do so in his dream.

All of these events weren’t just proof of Satan’s ruthlessness but they were also a fulfilment of what God had foretold through the prophet Hosea:

“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and I called My Son out of Egypt.” (Hos 11:1, NLT)

Herod was naturally angered. Outdone by the wise men who wised up to his cunning, he decided to cast a bigger net by killing all male toddlers no older than two years old in and around Bethlehem. That way, he hoped that Jesus would be among those killed (v.16). By the time his soldiers arrived, Jesus was of course long gone but tragically, countless little boys would’ve been murdered because of Herod.

Satan’s action cost the lives of many innocent children. This alone couldn’t have gone down well with God.

Interestingly, the apostle John was given a similar vision of Satan looking to destroy Jesus:

“³ Then I witnessed in heaven another significant event. I saw a large red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, with seven crowns on his heads. ⁴ His tail swept away one-third of the stars in the sky, and he threw them to the earth. He stood in front of the woman as she was about to give birth, ready to devour her baby as soon as it was born.” (Rev 12:4, NLT, m.e.)

In this revelation, the hideous “red dragon” is Satan while the “woman” who “was about to give birth” is Israel. The “baby” whom Satan is “ready to devour” is none other than Jesus Christ.

The revelation continues here:

“⁵ She gave birth to a Son who was to rule all nations with an iron rod. And her child was snatched away from the dragon and was caught up to God and to His throne. ⁶ And the woman fled into the wilderness, where God had prepared a place to care for her for 1,260 days.” (Rev 12:5-6, NLT, m.e.)

Jesus was to reign supreme over all nations and He will do that “with an iron rod.” In the above revelation, just as Satan was about to get to Him, He was “caught up to God and to His throne.” In other words, the devil has once again failed to destroy the Messiah.

The paradox of the Cross

Death has no power over a resurrected Christ (Image source: Youtube)

Jesus has proven to be an elusive target for Satan. Try as he might over a millennia, he still couldn’t hold Him down. And he’ll never ever. Yet none of his past failures deterred him. Instead he took his fury all the way to the Cross when he finally witnessed Jesus nailed to His death in between two common thieves. It was something he had long cherished and now this had to be the climax for him.

Up until then, Satan tried many times to trap Jesus during His earthly ministry. None of them worked. Jesus was simply too formidable for him to do that to. But then, in Judas Iscariot, Satan found someone with a vulnerable spot that he could exploit (Mt 26:14-16). Judas’ Achilles Heel made it possible for the devil to undermine and in the end, it was his betrayal that ultimately led Jesus to the Cross.

With Jesus’ death at the Cross, Satan’s job was finished. God appeared finally defeated. And with that, a weakened God should be ripe pickings for him. He could now usurp His heavenly throne and rule the Universe as he dreamed. With Jesus out of the way and the Father’s power waned, it should be easy.

Satan could now look back to the thousands of years of humiliating failures and know that they were all worth it because they have all led him to his finest hour. And Judas delivered what he desired so desperately. Never mind that the betrayer ultimately betrayed his own self by sending Jesus to His death.

Realising his life was essentially over, Judas hanged himself (Mt 27:3-5). Satan wasn’t the sentimental kind to worry over someone he could just use and throw away like a rag. Judas’ death was no different from the millions he had exploited centuries past.

Oh what sweet victory for Satan to see his avowed enemy, the Lord Jesus Christ die on the Cross. He enjoyed watching every minute of His slow death. He laboured so much just to get to this point. It had to be worth everything to him. Yet strangely, Satan realised he didn’t know enough to understand why Jesus was so willing to die on the Cross. He suddenly began to wonder why He didn’t resist when He could have just as easily done that.

Satan remembered that at Gethsemane, Jesus did say the following:

“‘⁵³ Don’t you realise that I could ask My Father for thousands of angels to protect us, and He would send them instantly? ⁵⁴ But if I did, how would the Scriptures be fulfilled that describe what must happen now?’” (Mt 26:53-54, NLT, m.e.)

In other words, Jesus dying on the Cross was too good to be true. Satan began to wonder that there was something to His death that didn’t add up because he assumed that death was death; there was no other way to define it. When someone dies, he dies and that’s the end of it. He doesn’t come back alive. Incapacitated in death, a person becomes useless. It was plainly obvious that Satan missed reading the fine print about Jesus’ episode in bringing Lazarus (Jn 11:1-44) and the little 12-year-old girl (Mk 5:35-43) back to life during His ministry.

What was supposedly the sweet smell of victory turned awry once Satan understood that Jesus’ death freed the human race from the bondage of sin and the death penalty. Ultimately he failed to appreciate that as the Son of God, nothing could hold Him back; not even death:

“I am the Living One. I died, but look – I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.” (Rev 1:18, NLT, m.e.)

Jesus is the Living God. He is the Eternal One. Through Him, we have eternal life. Through Him, we die only once:

“I tell you the truth, anyone who believes has eternal life.” (Jn 6:47, NLT, m.e.)

Jesus did not cheat death to attain eternal life. Not like someone who faces certain death by firing squad and somehow receives a pardon at the very last minute. No, Jesus is the Living God. He has no need to cheat death because death has no power over Him. Death cannot vanquish the Living Christ. The fact was simple – Satan underestimated the power Jesus has over life and death.

"It is the one to whom I give the bread I dip in the bowl" (Image source: mitchchase.wordpress.com)

Although that is true, no one can deny that Satan was right at the centre of the betrayal, arrest, torturing and finally, the execution. In every instant, he was the chief supreme orchestrator. Perhaps the climactic example of Satan’s insidiousness was during Jesus’ final supper with His disciples:

“²¹ Now Jesus was deeply troubled, and He exclaimed, ‘I tell you the truth, one of you will betray Me!’ ²² The disciples looked at each other, wondering whom He could mean. ²³ The disciple Jesus loved was sitting next to Jesus at the table. ²⁴ Simon Peter motioned to Him to ask, ‘Who’s He talking about?’ ²⁵ So that disciple leaned over to Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, who is it?’ ²⁶ Jesus responded, ‘It is the one to whom I give the bread I dip in the bowl.’ And when he had dipped it, he gave it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot. ²⁷ When Judas had eaten the bread, Satan entered into him. Then Jesus told him, ‘Hurry and do what you’re going to do.’ ²⁸ None of the others at the table knew what Jesus meant.” (Jn 13:18-28, NLT, m.e.)

That part of the passage that says, “Satan entered into him” is as spinechilling as one can get. This is the evil craft that defines Satan’s power to corrupt. When evil entered Judas’ mind, he became the betrayer. Luke also said something quite similar:

“Then Satan entered into Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve disciples, ⁴ and he went to the leading priests and captains of the Temple guard to discuss the best way to betray Jesus to them.” (Lk 22:3-4, NLT, m.e.)

Here is the conundrum for Satan: We know he can’t wait to destroy Jesus (Rev 12:4) but then on the other hand, to do that would be the final undoing of Satan himself. That’s because destroying Jesus will never fulfil his own objective. If Satan destroys Jesus, he is, in effect, handing the opportunity to the Son of God to prove that death is powerless on Him.

When we understand this paradox, we come to the point of realising that Satan is in an ever-losing proposition. Here’s what Paul said about Satan’s ultimate failure:

“¹³ You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for He forgave all our sins. ¹⁴ He cancelled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ In this way, He disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by His victory over them on the cross.” (Col 2:13-15, NLT, m.e.)

The important parts of the passage alludes to the power of the Cross of Christ. Paul emphasises how Jesus “cancelled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.” By dying on the Cross, Jesus made it possible for all of us to have our sins washed away by the blood of Christ. By His death on the Cross, Jesus turned defeat to victory and in the process, “disarmed [and shamed] the spiritual rulers and authorities.”

As many know how to say, “Be careful what you wish for.” In Satan’s case, his long-held desire was to see Jesus destroyed. That has always been what he’d wished for. And now his wish has come true – Jesus died. On the Cross and by that, He cancelled out our debt and had them all nailed to the Cross. He did that so that we could enjoy eternity with Him. Through His victory at the Cross, we can claim the promise of salvation that only He could offer:

“I am the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except through Me.” (Jn 14:6, NLT, m.e.)

It was the very last thing Satan expected from Jesus. That death became the perfect opportunity for the Son of God to reveal His power to resurrect. That was all it took to silence him. In masterminding Jesus’ death at the cross, Satan simply made it easier for Him to fulfil prophecy. In effect, therefore, Satan did everything he could to undo his own motives.

All of this begs the obvious question – why? Why do the very thing that would unravel your own self?

After all, no one can ever deny that Satan was very intelligent. But then if he was that intelligent, how could he not foresee God’s plan? How could he let something like this happen that invariably would lead to his own demise? Scholars appear to agree on three possible reasons why:

Submissiveness

Some scholars think that because God was sovereign, He could easily twist Satan’s hand into crucifying Jesus. In other words, he didn’t act on his own free will and he couldn’t get away from doing it either. Since God is always in control, fulfilling prophecy was simply a matter of deciding who He would use to do His bidding.

Perhaps this passage says it all:

“²³ But God knew what would happen, and His prearranged plan was carried out when Jesus was betrayed. With the help of lawless Gentiles, you nailed Him to a cross and killed Him. ²⁴ But God released Him from the horrors of death and raised Him back to life, for death could not keep Him in its grip.” (Acts 2:23-24, NLT, m.e.)

Luke’s keyword here is “prearranged,” taken to mean preordained, prescribed or pre-planned. Whatever the word you prefer, it suggests that God had a script to work on and that was how the cookies crumbled. And Satan was a mere pawn in the whole big picture.

Sadism

Scholars here focus on the very fact that Satan has a huge axe to grind. Ever since the pre-Adamaic period, he had been at war with God. With his fallen angels, Satan has been obsessed with destroying Him and in his never-ending rage, anger and hatred, he probably couldn’t help himself.

In other words, nothing could stop him from wanting to see Jesus dead. Even if doing so would gift the Son of God the perfect opportunity to save humanity. Even if it meant that man would be saved from the precipice when his original intention was simply to destroy everything that God loved.

Scripture does substantiate Satan’s character as someone bent on destruction at all costs:

“⁴⁴ For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (Jn 8:44, NLT, m.e.)

For someone as murderous as Satan, there is no remorse. He kills because it is in his sadistic nature to. If destruction brings him joy, that is precisely what he would do. That means he will lie if it suits him to. Remember that the Bible calls him, “the father of lies” and rightly so. Given his deceptive nature, Satan’s evil is limitless.

Therefore, the irony is Satan knew about the Cross and its implications and yet he risked his own doom purely because his sadism offers him unparalleled pleasure. He enjoyed watching Jesus die on the Cross and he wouldn’t trade that for anything else. When it comes to watching the Son of God bleed to His death nailed to the Cross, resistance was futile.

Seizure

More traditional scholars look to Gustaf Aulén’s canvassing of the idea of ‘Christus Victor’ as the answer. Latin for ‘Christ the Conqueror,’ Aulén cites the Early Church Fathers’ concept of atonement, asserting that, “the work of Christ is first and foremost a victory over the powers which hold mankind in bondage: sin, death and the devil.”

Anselmo d’Aosta (or Anselm of Canterbury)’s Satisfaction Theory, on the other hand, proposes that Christ was compelled to die in order to restore God’s honour so tarnished by man’s debauchery. As an extension of Anselm’s Satisfaction Theory is the Reformer’s Penal Substitution Theory where Jesus was punished for the sake of justice and that God’s just punishment of sin was satiated by Christ in order that punishment would not be levelled at humanity.

Of these three concepts, it is Christus Victor that lends credence to the presumption that Satan could actually hold Jesus down in death. We know that to be untrue. In fact, he couldn’t. But mainly, Satan completely underestimated the Lord’s power to resurrect:

“¹⁴ Because God’s children are human beings – made of flesh and blood – the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could He die, and only by dying could He break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. ¹⁵ Only in this way could He set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.” (Heb 2:14-15, NLT, m.e.)

When all’s said and done, all three theories carry their own weight. There is no doubting that each of them is valid in its own right. But as credible as these theories may sound, perhaps Satan really hadn’t a clue what would happen once he crucified Jesus.

Satan’s own struggles

Jesus raises Jairus' daughter (Image source: iconsandimagery.blogspot.com)

Jesus didn’t just rise from the dead on the third day but He also had the power to bring people alive. The Bible recalls several examples of this. In fact by Him beating death, Jesus showed us evidence that we too can be like Him if we accept Him as our Saviour. Today, this is the cornerstone of Christianity. Yet back then, it seemed Satan underestimated Jesus’ resurrection powers.

In fact, well before Jesus demonstrated such powers (Jn 11:38-44, Mk 5:35-43), there were already prophecies recorded in the Old Testament to which Satan would have access to the same way we have. In other words, if everyone else then could read about and learn from them, surely he could have done the same. It shouldn’t be too much to expect someone as intelligence as Satan to have prior knowledge of Jesus’ powers to resurrect.

Scripture teaches us that shortly after Jesus’ baptism, his encounter with Him in the desert revealed such knowledge:

“³ During that time the devil came and said to Him, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.’” (Mt 4:3, NLT, m.e.)

And also here:

“⁶ If you are the Son of God, jump off! For the Scriptures say, ‘He will order His angels to protect You. And they will hold You up with their hands so You won’t even hurt Your foot on a stone.’” (Mt 4:6, NLT, m.e.)

Not only did Satan acknowledge that Jesus was the Son of God; he showed that he knew Scripture quite well. He was even able to recite Psalm 91:11-12 (ibid) ad verbatim. As we can see in the above passage, he certainly was proficient enough in Scripture to twist God’s word to suit his purpose. So right now, the issue is whether or not Satan’s understanding of Scripture was enough to prepare him for Jesus’ mission to resurrect Himself.

Perhaps, Satan is just like so many of us – he may be aware of the various prophecies but he might not always or fully understand them. After all, many of us fall in this category also. We read but that doesn’t necessarily mean we grasp the full meaning or significance. In fact, so many of us read and end up misinterpreting!

When we look back at biblical history, we come across many occasions of normal people struggling to come to terms with what Jesus said. And that includes His own disciples who couldn’t cope with His teachings, much less His prophecies. And sure enough, the Pharisees and the scribes were no different. In fact, exactly how many people did Scripture record could properly understand everything that Jesus said during his earthly ministry? And I mean ‘everything’?

A good case in point was when Jesus rode into Jerusalem riding a donkey (Mk 11:7). It wasn’t something people were expecting because they could not come to grips with Jesus’ concept of the Suffering Servant. They had assumed Jesus would ride into town looking like a knight in shining armour; maybe even riding a white stallion and looking fittingly like a powerful Conquering King.

If David did looked like a warrior about 1,000 years earlier – and he too was a King – what more Jesus whom the people saw as their gallant ‘saviour’ against the Romans?

In yet another example, after Jesus fed a crowd of five thousand with just five barley loaves and two fishes (Mt 14:13-21), the people were overwhelmed by the miracle and they exclaimed, “Surely He is the Prophet we have been expecting!” (Jn 6:14, NLT) But of course, that wasn’t all. Check out what they actually wanted to do to Jesus:

“¹⁵ When Jesus saw that they were ready to force Him to be their king, He slipped away into the hills by Himself.” (Jn 6:15, NLT, m.e.)

Just as normal people make gaffes or misconstrue what they read, Satan could have done the same. As smart as we know him to be, misreading cues can happen to him or any of us. Remember, only God is perfect. So, there is never any guarantee that even someone like Satan can perfectly anticipate everything in life.

In the most important aspect of the Good News, there is a distinct possibility that Satan didn’t think of the very idea that Jesus was born simply to die. That the Messiah came to Earth to save us but with a twist – Jesus’ offered us salvation by dying on the Cross so that He could defeat death and opened the way for all of us to be saved. The core of the Good News was that He died and rose again. But it was the dying part that confused so many, including Satan.

It is a fair thought that as the Messiah, Jesus was supposed to project military power and lead His people in an armed struggle against the Romans. The idea was to liberate His people in the most visibly convincing way and what can be more convincing than by way of military conquest! In all probability, that could be what Satan thought would unfold.

Keep in mind, therefore, what Isaiah 53 prophesied about Christ. Many scholars believe that back then, Judaism did not interpret that verse as the death and resurrection of the Messiah. Neither did the Sanhedrin see it as suffering. Drowned in profuse legalism, there is no way possible for the Jewish leaders to view Jesus as anything close to the Messiah. Rather, the Son of God was no more than a nuisance and an obstacle to the way they ruled over the people.

The Suffering Servant in the motion picture, 'Passion of the Christ' (Image source: lambertplanet.blogspot.com)

In fact, D.A. Carson agreed:

“There does not seem to be an unambiguous pre-Christian source within Judaism that identifies the Suffering Servant of Isa. 53 with the anticipated Messiah.” (Baker, 2007)

Quite tragically, it was only after His death at the Cross – and His subsequent resurrection – that His disciples began to understand what Jesus had said and predicted. To underline this point, remember the time when Christ spoke about His impending death before a growing crowd:

“‘³⁰ The voice was for your benefit, not Mine. ³¹ The time for judging this world has come, when Satan, the ruler of this world, will be cast out. ³² And when I am lifted up from the Earth, I will draw everyone to Myself.’ ³³ He said this to indicate how He was going to die.” (Jn 12:30-33, NLT, m.e.)

At the core of their confusion was Jesus saying He would be “lifted up from the Earth.” They had very little idea what that actually meant even though He intimated that He “was going to die.” No matter what, the people remained confounded:

“‘³⁴ We understood from Scripture that the Messiah would live forever. How can you say the Son of Man will die? Just who is this Son of Man, anyway?’” (Jn 12:34, NLT, m.e.)

Here is an interesting passage. “We understood from Scripture” offers us a glimpse of the Jews believing they understood what they read but in reality, they had not. “How can you say” reinforces the very fact that they found what Jesus said to be unacceptable when compared to what “we understood.” “Just who is” confirms the fact that in actuality, they really have no idea what Jesus had just told them.

This struggle wasn’t just limited to the people who came to listen to Jesus’ ministry. His disciples were also notoriously known for this. Take Simon Peter for example. After Judas left the room during the final support, Jesus said:

“‘³³ Dear children, I will be with you only a little longer. And as I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for Me, but you can’t come where I am going.’” (Jn 13:33, NLT, m.e.)

Simon Peter had difficulties with this. Predictably then, he questioned Jesus, asking, “Lord, where are You going?” (v.36) The Lord chose not to answer his question but then he persisted and asked once again: “But why can’t I come now, Lord?” (v.37) By repeatedly asking, Simon Peter proved his lack of understanding.

Even the Lord’s cousin, John the Baptist, a remarkably righteous man himself, struggled to fully understand His mission on Earth. Though he did declare that He was “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29, NLT), he remained unsure – even sceptical, perhaps – as to His true identity. When he was in prison about to be executed, he even sent his disciples to verify if indeed Jesus was who He said He was:

“² John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, ³ ‘Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?’” (Mt 11:2-3, NLT, m.e.)

If Simon Peter and John the Baptist had difficulties understanding, rest be assured that the other disciples wouldn’t likely to have found it any easier. Luke’s Gospel reveals the extent to which Jesus spoke about His impending death and resurrection (Lk 18:31-33). One would assume that given the details that the Lord went into concerning the subject, someone might understand but that didn’t appear to be the case:

“But they didn’t understand any of this. The significance of His words was hidden from them, and they failed to grasp what He was talking about.” (Lk 18:34, NLT, m.e.)

Hindsight is a beautiful thing. Two thousand years later, we can pick up a Study or an Application Bible and come to grips with what Jesus meant by the things He said concerning His death and resurrection. Sidebar information would lend great support in helping us to understand. There’re plenty of additional information available on the Internet and in church, there are enough Bible Study opportunities to make sure anyone interested – believer or otherwise – understands. But the disciples then had none of these luxuries.

But as the passage above reveals, what Jesus had said was not something they understood because the truth behind His message was deliberately cloaked. That means He had a reason for hiding it but essentially, what was it that Jesus hid from the disciples?

The Gospel, of course. That the message of the Gospel would be the culmination of His death and resurrection at the Cross (Lk 18:31-33) was what the disciples couldn’t understand, let alone accept. Yet, that was exactly what Paul wrote so clearly about in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 15:3-4).

So, all twelve disciples were as blind to the truth as any of us before we were converted. Without conversion, a person will be blind to the truth of the Gospel. Paul explains that Satan plays a role in this blindness:

“³ If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing. ⁴ Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.” (2 Cor 4:3-4, NLT, m.e.)

Three years of ministry directly from the Lord Himself and the disciples remain blinded to the message He preached. In other words, after three years of being with Jesus, they were still unconverted in their hearts. If you stay unconverted, you essentially don’t understand the message simply because you do not have the means to. The disciples had, by then, listened to Jesus preach countless times and still, they didn’t understand Him.

None of the disciples ever properly understood Jesus' message (Image source: jesusfilm.org)

The apostle Mark confirmed the same thing. In fact, it was said that they “were afraid to ask Him what He meant”:

“³⁰ Leaving that region, they travelled through Galilee. Jesus didn’t want anyone to know He was there, ³¹ for He wanted to spend more time with His disciples and teach them. He said to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of His enemies. He will be killed, but three days later, He will rise from the dead.’ ³² They didn’t understand what He was saying, however, and they were afraid to ask Him what He meant.” (Mk 9:30-32, NLT, m.e.)

The apostle Matthew put it a little differently:

“²² After they gathered again in Galilee, Jesus told them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of His enemies. ²³ He will be killed, but on the third day, He will be raised from the dead.’ And the disciples were filled with grief.” (Mt 17:22-23, NLT, m.e.)

Amazingly, they were “filled with grief.” That was the disciples’ reaction to what they heard. Similarly so, many people would feel the same at every Good Friday when they hear the message of how Jesus was killed. Sadness would cast a pall over those who listen to the story of Good Friday. But being sad doesn’t mean the person is converted. The two things are mutually exclusive.

Even more amazing was that Jesus had clearly preached the Gospel to His disciples earlier. Matthew recorded this event:

“¹⁷ As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside privately and told them what was going to happen to him. ¹⁸ ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence Him to die. ¹⁹ Then they will hand Him over to the Romans to be mocked, flogged with a whip, and crucified. But on the third day He will be raised from the dead.’” (Mt 20:17-19, NLT)

It couldn’t have gotten any more straightforward than this. Jesus’ words were as clear as bell and yet His disciples were incapable of understanding. As unconverted as they were, Judas went even further and betrayed Jesus before he left the room. Simon Peter went to the extent of rebuking the Lord. Six chapters later, we learn that, “all the disciples deserted Him and fled” (Mt 26:56).

The point is that if the disciples had fully understood what it was that Jesus said to them, Judas would probably not go through what he did and Simon Peter wouldn’t have gone as far as to chide the Lord. And the rest of the disciples wouldn’t have run for their lives. None of this would have occurred had all of Jesus’ disciples were converted:

“² Jesus called a little child to Him and put the child among them. ³ Then He said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Mt 18:2-3, NLT, m.e.)

To be converted is to “turn from your sins.” In translations like the KJV, the phrase is more to the point: “Except ye be converted” with the emphasis on the word ‘converted.’

All of this suggest that if Jesus’ disciples had such difficulties in understanding His Gospel message mainly because they were all blind to its significance, then it goes to reason that Satan himself, who blinded them in the first place, couldn’t also have understood it too. Like the others, he was certainly unconverted. He had no capacity to come to grips with the Gospel message.

But here’s where I believe we can join some dots – the concealment of the significance of the message (Lk 18:34, 2 Cor 4:3-4) was made deliberate not only that the disciples don’t understand but that Satan couldn’t intercept it. Paul said that, “Satan … has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe” (2 Cor 4:4) but he was, without a doubt, also one of those “people who are perishing” (v.3). In other words, Jesus intentionally veiled the Gospel so that it wouldn’t be exposed to the devil.

That was also why Judas proceeded with the betrayal – he simply didn’t understand the purpose of Jesus’ plan. He knew nothing about His message and he didn’t make the effort to find out what it was. If he truly understood the message, he wouldn’t have betrayed Christ. He certainly would have realised His innocence (Mt 27:4).

Judas commits suicide (Image source: Quora)

As Scripture tells us, when Judas became aware of his mistake, he not only flung the silver coins on to the Temple floor but he went on to hang himself (v.5). To put it simply, it was the inability to understand the message that brought about all these consequences. And this inability was itself the result of not being converted in the first place.

Ironic then that if was only after Jesus’ resurrection that “the significance of His words” were no longer hidden from them. Instead His purpose became clear:

“Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. ⁴⁶ And He said, “Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day. ⁴⁷ It was also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of His name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: ‘There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.’” (Lk 24:45-47, NLT, m.e.)

The above passage crystallises Jesus’ notion of the Suffering Servant that even His disciples didn’t understand. But of course, by the time they understood what it meant, the Son of God had died on the Cross and risen. In the same way, Satan too failed to understand. He too couldn’t do anything about it. It was simply too little too late for him to undermine the Messiah’s plan.

By then, it was clear to Satan that manipulating Judas to do his dirty deed was a big mistake. As victorious as it might have seem at the beginning, it was the worst thing he could ever have done because dying on the Cross opened the way for humanity to be redeemed. The Son of God defeated death and in doing so, the promise of salvation was now forever open to all who chose to believe.

Without the truth of the Holy Spirit in him, Satan looked positively gullible:

“But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.” (1 Cor 2:14, NLT, m.e.)

The epitome of Satan’s foolishness are the super-intelligent of the secular world. Those who are supremely knowledgeable and intellectually astute fall into this category in the same way as those who thrive on redoubtable nature of logic. These are people who find confidence, assurance and superiority in who they are. They purely thrive on their own personal ability to excel, depending on no one else, much less a Divine Authority.

Similarly foolish are those who have neither the attachment to nor the belief in the spiritual realm. They reject the existence of God and the devil. They do not believe in the reward of Heaven or the threat of Hell. Life is short but its meaning ceases after death. They believe in making the most of life but it’s hedonistic.

In the world we live in, many of these people may well be the world’s most creative designers, ingenious technologists, brilliant engineers, visionary corporate leaders, outstanding statements or famous entertainers and headlining celebrities and anyone whose stripes are earned in Hollywood. They can also be those who are anti-Christian including not just atheists but essentially also socialists, communists, fascists and all forms of radical political extremists.

Without the Holy Spirit in them, they are merely fools with no means to understand Jesus’ message. They lack the discernment to tell the moral difference between good and bad, right and wrong. They are nothing but useful fodder to Satan. What these people don’t understand is useful fodder eventually becomes garbage once the prince of the air has no more use for it.

Satan himself is, beyond any shadow of doubt, a very intelligent being. He shares that self-important preoccupation with the materialistic values projected by the world we live in. Beyond his nose, he cares for no one else but himself. His selfishness means he is obsessed with power and control, centring his focus on destroying God even if that means using people who ultimately mean nothing to him.

These are not the people who will ever understand Christ’s message. It looks like even if the message were not concealed, they still wouldn’t perceive its significance. That is because they do not have the humbleness of heart to properly comprehend.

“At that time Jesus prayed this prayer: ‘O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank You for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever, and for revealing them to the childlike.’” (Mt 11:25, NLT)

And this is where we’re all at – when we think so highly of our own abilities and knowledge, we actually end up all the more foolish because the truth of God’s word is unavailable to us. Satan was too confident about the things he knew but he cared nothing about the things he didn’t know. And that did not prepare himself to understand the significance of Jesus’ message. Invariably he had set himself up for the fall and he had no one else to blame but his own self.

But it wasn’t just his intelligence that got in the way. Satan’s limits prevented him from being omnipresent as well. Unlike God who can be in multiple places at any one time, the devil couldn’t:

“‘³⁰ I don’t have much more time to talk to you, because the ruler of this world approaches.’” (Jn 14:30, NLT, m.e.)

The context of the above passage was Jesus’ talking to His disciples, sharing the many things He wanted for them to know. The ‘problem’ was that His time was dictated by Satan’s proximity. In saying that, “the ruler of this world approaches,” Jesus was alluding to Satan not having the ability to be in different places at the same time. His approaching quite possibly suggests that the devil was nearing Him and His disciples, having come from somewhere else. In other words, Satan couldn’t possibly be omnipresent.

It also means that he had no knowledge of Jesus’ plans and what He shared with His disciples up to that point. Had Satan been omnipresent, it would’ve been a cinch for him to eavesdrop.

No concept of love

Loveless and a liar (Image source: livingword-of-god.blogspot.com)

Here’s something we all know: Satan has no love. He doesn’t understand love. He has no appreciate for love. He probably doesn’t care if no one loves him because he requires no love to survive. But here’s the problem for him – because there is no love in him, he also doesn’t have the ability to understand what motivates God to do the things He does. He certainly won’t be able to figure out why He would go the extra mile to save us from damnation.

Therefore when Jesus died on the Cross, there was no way for Satan to understand why He would do something like that. Of course, Satan has seen how despicable man can be. Over the thousands of years of world history, Satan himself has travelled the four corners of the world and witnessed the evil in man. He knew them to be worthless but he also knew enough to exploit their weaknesses to advance his motives.

But what he cannot understand is why God would want to save man when man has nothing but evil in his heart. In other words, he can’t wrap his mind around God’s love for humans including even those who have proven to be wretched and hopeless sinners.

To Satan, if ever the word ‘love’ is applicable, it is in the form of self-indulgence. Satan indulges purely in himself. He invests importance in only the things he wants to achieve. He pursues his own glory at the expense of everyone else. He has no interest in anything or anyone including God. However, his mistake is he thinks everyone is like him. And he also assumes that because man is a sinner, he is, like him, incapable of love.

All this leads to Satan’s inability to consider that the Son of God would glorify Himself by being nailed naked and bloodied on the Cross (Jn 17:1). In fact, all of what Jesus did during His time on Earth must have been inconceivable to him. Nothing the Lord did was palatable in his sight.

Given that he has no concept of love, Satan would not be able to emulate Christ in the way He redeemed us. He certainly wouldn’t contemplate helping us in whatsoever manner. If he is ever seen doing so, it would be a pure deception. Because of his lack of love, Satan didn’t see it coming that Jesus would die on the Cross and rise again just to save us. All he could see was that we were all not worth the fuss, whatever that fuss even meant. C.S. Lewis’ demon character Screwtape and his letter to a fellow demon is worth reading given this context about Satan (HarperOne, 2009, pp.99-101).

Convinced that everyone was like him, Satan probably believed that God was also loveless. That was where all his lies and deceptions came from. He tells as many of us as he can that the Lord was nothing more than a despotic tyrant who doubles up as a control freak, bent on self-glory and demanding that everyone bowed to worship Him. That was because he himself was exactly that. In his deceptive depiction of a loveless God, what Satan is doing is to project his very own image of an unloved, selfish and ruthless being.

None of this would have been of much concern if not for the Cross. The importance of the Cross helps us to understand the significance of what Satan wanted to do. Unquestionably, Satan detests God. He hates the fact that God loves because he doesn’t. He despises God for the abundant love He has in Him. He could never understand how or why He would allow His Son to die on the Cross. But then one doubts if he himself understood why he led Him to the Cross only to realise that in the end, it was stunningly self-defeating.

All the accusations Satan levelled against God ended up pointing back at him. He said God was hateful but he was. He said God was despotic and tyrannical but instead, he was. He said God was a control freak but in the end, he was the one who wanted to deprive man of his freedom. Everything he accused God of backfired because they were the very accusations that described him to the very tee.

Satan’s failure to connect love and sacrifice prevented him from coming to terms with the nature of our relationship with God. He could never reconcile with the idea that Christ would and did die for us even though we were unworthy of such love and sacrifice. And because of this inability, he would always be out of sync with everything God meant to us and everything we meant to Him.

Satan’s accusations vanish

Misguided churches are vulnerable to Satan (Image source: The Daily Beast)

By this point in this article, we know that Satan’s accusations are as pointless as they are toothless. Deprived of his power by the Cross of Christ, God not only exposed his lies but He also proved that everything He was accused of were in effect, Satan’s very character. It is for this reason that Jesus said this of him on the night prior to His crucifixion:

“³¹ The time for judging this world has come, when Satan, the ruler of this world, will be cast out. ³² And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to Myself.” ³³ He said this to indicate how He was going to die.” (Jn 12:31-33, NLT, m.e.)

The Cross of Christ represents everything that Satan didn’t understand. That is why he just couldn’t wrap his head around. Finding himself in a quandary, he did the very thing he shouldn’t have done but if he didn’t do the very thing he did, he still wouldn’t know if he did the right thing. And at the fundamental core of it, it’s Satan’s rejection of God’s love that caused him not to be able to foresee why Jesus had to die on the Cross:

“He cancelled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the Cross. ¹⁵ In this way, He disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by His victory over them on the Cross.” (Col 2:14-15, NLT, m.e.)

If Satan’s accusations of God were even a fraction true, the above passage wouldn’t make one iota of sense. There is no evidence of selfishness here; instead, we witness a God who loves us enough to be willing to forgive us of our sins. We also read of a God who has not forgotten, even over the ages, of Satan’s treachery.

Of even greater importance is that for thousands of years, God’s promise had not changed. He still delivers and He still loves us unreservedly. No one has the degree of patience and sacrifice that God has. This doesn’t mean He will suffer fools gladly though. What it means is that with His longstanding promise, God has never forgotten us

Check out what Paul writes in this regard:

“¹³ For He has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of His dear Son, ¹⁴ who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.” (Col 1:13-14, NLT, m.e.)

That is why Satan’s accusations not just don’t make sense but they also have no power over us. As Paul says above that Jesus came to Earth to make certain that we are delivered from darkness into Christ’s Kingdom and that it is Him who paid our ransom and wiped our dirty slates clean.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus reveals His plan to get the apostle Paul to deliver the Gentiles from darkness and into the light; from Satan’s stranglehold to His Kingdom where their sins are forgiven and a place among God’s people is given to them. There is no doubt whatsoever that only the One who loves can do all these. None of Satan’s accusations can ever be levelled at Him whose love is boundless:

“Yes, I am sending you to the Gentiles ¹⁸ to open their eyes, so they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. Then they will receive forgiveness for their sins and be given a place among God’s people, who are set apart by faith in Me.’” (Acts 26:17b-18, NLT)

Over in the Book of Hebrews, Paul explains Jesus’ reason to die on the Cross and by His sacrifice, He was able to overcome Satan’s grip over our lives. And only through Christ can all of this be done in love and sacrifice. Jesus, by being human and dying on the Cross, did the one thing that no one else could do. He liberated us from a life doomed in bondage to the devil:

“For only as a human being could He die, and only by dying could He break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. ¹⁵ Only in this way could He set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.” (Heb 2:14b-15, NLT)

There is nothing in the above passage that gives us the impression that God is selfish or conceited. To believe in Satan’s accusations is to entirely miss the opportunity for the Lord to show us His lovingkindness, generosity and trust. And if we miss all of what He has to offer, we will never be repatriated to Him to whom we belong. And because of the Cross of Christ, Satan’s dominion over us through the fear of death is forever gone.

The trouble God went to

If lightning is frightening, imagine God's omnipotence (Image source: Bible Study Tools)

Let’s not kid ourselves – at any time, God could destroy Satan be it thousands of years ago or right now. With His omnipotence, God’s power is far too much for anyone to withstand, including the devil himself. Indeed, there is nothing He can’t do to neutralise or completely obliterate whoever stands in His way. As the psalmist reveals, there is nothing that can stop the Lord in whatever He seeks out to accomplish:

“Who in all of heaven can compare with the Lord? What mightiest angel is anything like the Lord? ⁷ The highest angelic powers stand in awe of God. He is far more awesome than all who surround His throne. ⁸ O Lord God of Heaven’s Armies! Where is there anyone as mighty as you, O Lord?” (Ps 89:6-8, NLT, m.e.)

It’s inarguable that Satan is no match for God and the reason why he’s still around is because He allows him to. The devil and his hordes of demons do whatever they do because He has not decided to annihilate them. Yet. But in good time, prophecies tell us that it will happen. Until then, the Lord will choose to repudiate all his spurious claims.

What this means is that God is waiting to destroy Satan but that will have to wait. His priority is to deny him now, which in so many ways is an affirmation that the devil’s lies need to be seriously dealt with. That’s another way of saying that Satan’s lies and deceptions are very destructive though that should not come as a surprise.

Many have often said that the world today is preoccupied with fakery. It’s all around us. It affects virtually all pillars and walks of life. There’s plenty of fake news and information. There’re also fake people living fake lives. There’re even fake products. Even online product reviews and customer feedbacks can be fake. It’s become such a norm that it’s difficult to tell truth from lies anymore.

Satan promotes fake lives (Image source: Iamthewordthecomforter.blogspot.com)

A less kind word to describe fakery is lies. Fake news and information aim to deceive people often for political gains. The left-wing mainstream media is a good example of this. Fake people leading fake lives do so often out of a sense of insecurity, wanting someone else’s identity because they hate theirs.

Living a life of lies hurts everyone including themselves. Some people are motivated to produce fake products by stealing copyrighted designs and ideas. Some go even further where their fake products produce deadly results such as the case with counterfeit formula milk and eggs.

These are all happening throughout the world. Lies offer us a world full of false impressions that lead us astray. In some cases, they lead us to sin. Living in a world filled with lies means we will never know the truth. That means not having a real idea of what is happening as well as what is truly said.

The most famous lie ever told was a very deadly one because all of us till today is still paying the price for it. It begins in the Book of Genesis:

“The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, ‘Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?’ ² ‘Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,’ the woman replied. ³ ‘It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’’ ⁴ ‘You won’t die!’ the serpent replied to the woman. ⁵ ‘God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.’” (Gen 3:1-5, NLT, m.e.)

In this renowned story, Satan was in full flight. Seeing that God had left Adam and Eve on their own in the Garden of Eden, he moved in for the kill. Being innocent meant they were simply at the mercy of the one prepossessed with a desperation to destroy lives.

As the passage tells us, Eve was bought lock, stock and barrel by the father of lies who took advantage of her innocence. And he did that by lying. The way Satan lied was to undermine God’s reputation. He basically ‘corrected’ Eve’s understanding of what the Lord said to her, replacing her version with his. Although Scripture doesn’t say, it is possible that Satan knew he could get away with his lies because Adam and Eve were like fresh pickings for him.

Not having been exposed to a treacherous liar like Satan meant neither Adam nor Eve were ever in the position to be able to expose him. Furthermore, without God being around, Satan was having a field day as he plied one lie after another for as long as he could so long as he was getting the results he wanted. The result was tragic – Adam and Eve both fell for his lies and life was never the same from that point onwards. Having betrayed God, both were forever evicted from the Garden of Eden.

Throughout Scripture, Satan’s success rate threatened, on many occasions, to derail the covenantal line of David. Many characters fell to the wayside because of his lies. Even though God was always able to stay ahead and defeat him, Satan’s lies meant that many along the way paid a hefty price. And it gets more complicated.

If Christ had chosen to come not as a Suffering Servant but as a Conquering King instead, Satan himself might actually have benefited even more so. As a Conquering King, God would have been significantly militaristic in his view to overcome the enemy. That would’ve meant killing every Roman soldier and officer of the army throughout the land but that wouldn’t be all.

Quite likely, He would eliminate the Jewish religious leaders of the Sanhedrin as well. And if his thirst for vengeance continued unabatedly, He might even flatten the entire Roman Empire. And while He was at it, there would be no stopping Him putting Satan out of his misery.

Think for a moment what the reaction would be if God did do all of the above. Imagine the uproar and the scathing criticisms. While some quarters of the Jewish community would have enjoyed watching God destroying their enemy, not everyone would be on the same page. Many would likely view God’s actions unfavourably. And this would be because Satan had long sold the Lord short by way of false criticisms and unfounded allegations, not to mention accusations that had no basis whatsoever.

Behold the Hands of the Suffering Servant (Image source: Youtube)

If God came to conquer militarily, Satan would relish the very idea that finally he could prove that the Lord was selfish, obsessed, unforgiving and incapable of loving. In short, he would be correct in his view that He was nothing more than a selfish, conceited and arrogant Creator of the Universe.

The God we learn about in Scripture is certainly not the one with the Conquering King complex but if He were one, He would be the type who solved problems through the barrel of His howitzer. None of us would get second chances. One transgression and He’d blow our heads off. He won’t tolerate anyone who questions Him. He certainly wouldn’t bother to respond.

At the same time, a Conquering King would end up proving to us that Scripture is errant because many if not all of the prophecies will be unfulfilled. The whole idea of jettisoning the notion of the Suffering Servant will be the proverbial train wreck in every Christian’s faith. That might be what Satan would like to see but that’s not God’s way.

God is certainly sovereign, meaning He can decide to do anything He wishes and it will be His right. Anywhere within the wide expanse of the Universe, God reigns supreme bar none. He is righteous and in His perfected grace, He does whatever pleases Him. Therefore if God behaves in the way Satan accuses Him of, then His character will be suspect. Satan’s lies will be vindicated. God’s integrity will be tarnished. Again, that’s not how God works.

The authors of ‘God’s Strategy in Human History’ (Wipf & Stock, 2001) wrote:

“We may indeed accept that He had the sheer power to stop or even destroy Satan. The problem is that in this case, even as Satan sank under God’s wrath and destruction, he would have gone with a sneer on his lips as though to say, ‘I told you so.’”

If Satan get things done his way, he’d want to prove to the world that he didn’t lie at all. And if his lies stick, that means he will die a martyr. The world will be able to justify its heinous behaviour and worship him. Hollywood would celebrate and so will every evil, debauched and anti-God person throughout the world who have felt hamstrung because of God’s moral righteousness.

The authors continue:

“It was not lack of power that prevented God from crushing Satan – it was a matter of principle [my emphasis]. It is, perhaps, comparable to the moral restraint that makes it impossible for God to lie. Satan’s accusations must be answered and they cannot be truly answered by a force that simple crushes the accuser.”

And so God chooses to be patient with Satan. Rather than to spontaneously combust him, He stuck to His plan to deny him the pleasure of fulfilling his accusations.

Unfurling the mystery

Image source: pottypadre.com

It probably stemmed from a common Judaist misassumption that the Messiah would come as a Conquering King. That vision of a powerful military knight in shining armour is the complete anathema to the idea of the Suffering Servant. To the Jews who themselves were suffering at the hands of the Romans, Jesus as the Suffering Servant was hard to swallow. Even His disciples were struggling to cope with such an idea.

The occupation of the Romans was more than enough to rile the Jews into armed action. We know that the Sicraii (סיקריים siqari’im), a radical splinter militia group from the Jewish Zealots were involved in knifing its enemies (including sympathisers) in crowded areas around Jerusalem. In fact, the disciple-cum-betrayer Judas’ surname, Iscariot, is quite possibly a corruption of the Latin ‘sicarius’ (tr. murderer, assassin or dagger man), which itself indicates his family origins were linked to the Sicarii.

The Sicarii weren’t, of course, the only ones within the Jewish community to wish to see the backs of the Romans. Very likely, there were others. But it wasn’t just the Romans who were terrorising the Jews. Bearing the brunt of legalistic religiosity had also added to the burden of the Jews. Hence Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7) was like a breath of fresh air to them. The Sanhedrin had made Judaism so impossible to practise that people were suffering as if they were oppressed.

Given the oppressive atmosphere that the Jews had found themselves in, a Conquering King would be most welcome. Scripture told them of the Messiah that was to come but they failed to translate the idea of the Suffering King although it was reasonably well spelled out in the Book of Isaiah. In some ways, every Jew was probably dreaming of a Conquering King because they were bereft of ideas beyond their comprehension.

Listen to what the demons even had to say in their possession of two men when Jesus met them in Gadarenes. They were screaming at Him:

“Why are you interfering with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torture us before God’s appointed time?” (Mt 8:29, NLT, m.e.)

The implication is simple – the demons didn’t think anything about Jesus coming to torment Himself. The Cross meant nothing to them. Instead they thought He was there to torture them and in that sense, Jesus had given them the impression that He came to conquer evil in the stereotypical vanquishing manner.

Even the demons had no understanding of God’s plan, what more the ordinary people. Before Jesus came, no one knew of God’s mystery plan, including Satan. Even after He came and in His ministry days, people still didn’t understand His plan. It was so inconceivable that they just couldn’t see the real reason behind His dying on the Cross. In other words, had Satan knew what the crucifixion meant, he would’ve done things completely differently. He certainly wouldn’t be so quick at sending Him to die.

Here’s what Paul has to say about the mystery:

“Yet when I am among mature believers, I do speak with words of wisdom but not the kind of wisdom that belongs to this world or to the rulers of this world who are soon forgotten. ⁷ No, the wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God – His plan that was previously hidden, even though He made it for our ultimate glory before the world began. ⁸ But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord.” (1 Cor 2:6-8, NLT, m.e.)

Some scholars believe that the “rulers of this world” in the above passage pertain to those in the time of Jesus including Pilate, Caiaphas, Herod and the Sanhedrin itself. They are, of course, instrumental in driving Christ to the Cross more so than anyone else. But in Paul’s other letters to the churches in Corinth and Ephesus, it mightn’t look that way:

“³ If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing. ⁴ Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.” (2 Cor 4:3-4, NLT, m.e.)

“¹² For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6:12, NLT, m.e.)

In the first passage, Paul wrote to the Corinthians, identifying Satan as the “god of this world.” But to the Ephesians, he wrote about “evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world” as well as “mighty powers in this dark world” and also “evil spirits in the heavenly places.”

Here are three clear references and they certainly don’t refer to “flesh-and-blood enemies.” Without a doubt, these references point to demons of the dark spiritual realm who have been deceived by the Cross of Christ. Since they didn’t have even the foggiest idea about God’s mystery plan, they were comprehensively trounced. Their desire to destroy Jesus backfired spectacularly and of course, every Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we remember this very well.

Cloaked from publicity, Satan simply had no means to prevent God from revealing the mystery plan to those who possess the Spirit to know and understand. In Paul’s case, the mystery was the message of salvation to which God had commanded him to reveal it to every Gentile he met in his missionary work “so that they too might believe and obey Him” (Rom 16:26, NLT):

“God has given me the responsibility of serving His church by proclaiming His entire message to you. ²⁶ This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past but now it has been revealed to God’s people. ²⁷ For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing His glory.” (Col 1:25-27, NLT)

In his letter to the Colossians, Paul finally revealed what the mystery was. Had Satan understood what this was, he wouldn’t have been pleased because it bears a direct reference to God’s idea of salvation through His Son who died on the Cross and was then resurrected.

The Good News is the mysterious plan (Image source: ekronbaptistchurch.com)

In another letter – this one written to the Ephesians – Paul is even more descriptive about the mystery:

“As I briefly wrote earlier, God Himself revealed His mysterious plan to me. ⁴ As you read what I have written, you will understand my insight into this plan regarding Christ. ⁵ God did not reveal it to previous generations but now by His Spirit, He has revealed it to His holy apostles and prophets. ⁶ And this is God’s plan: Both Gentiles and Jews who believe the Good News share equally in the riches inherited by God’s children. Both are part of the same body and both enjoy the promise of blessings because they belong to Christ Jesus.” (Eph 3:3-6, NLT, m.e.)

Unlike the one to the Colossians, Paul’s description to the Ephesians was clearer about the involvement of the Gentiles. By that inclusion, both the Gentiles and the Jews “share equally in the riches” and that “both are part of the same body.” Hence, “both enjoy the promise of blessings because they belong to Christ.” And that “Christ lives in you” (Col 1:27, NLT).

Satan might be frustrated to realise that, according to Paul, the mysterious plan might not, after all, be all that hidden away. While the “previous generations” were not privy to the mystery, the “holy apostles and prophets” were.

Continuing from his letter to the Ephesians, Paul wrote more about this plan:

“By God’s grace and mighty power, I have been given the privilege of serving Him by spreading this Good News. Though I am the least deserving of all God’s people, He graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ. ⁹ I was chosen to explain to everyone this mysterious plan that God, the Creator of all things, had kept secret from the beginning. ¹⁰ God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display His wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. ¹¹ This was His eternal plan, which He carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Eph 3:7-11, NLT, m.e.)

Interestingly, Paul now says that despite its mysteriousness, the plan was available albeit to those who were “in Christ.” That plainly means that it was hidden in God Himself. Ultimately, therefore, no one really knew about it and that included the angels. And if that is the case, there is absolutely no way that Satan could’ve come to know about it. And if you look more closely at verse 10, Paul says:

“God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display His wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” (v.10, NLT, m.e.)

With the plan made so mysteriously, God intended to utilise His church to make known to the “unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” His character.

But what is this character of God that Paul alludes to? It is “His wisdom” that God has decided to show Satan.

In His wisdom, God, this time, finally revealed to the public the whole truth behind the idea:

“For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed His life, shedding His blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when He held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past…” (Rom 3:25, NLT, m.e.)

And with that, the whole plan is known to every man, including all the angels in the heavenly realm. And that includes Satan and his demons. And because none were wiser about this mystery, the angels themselves are now “eagerly watching these things happen” (1 Pt 1:12, NLT). In fact, they are attentive to all that take place on Earth (Lk 15:10, 1 Cor 4:9, Eph 3:10, 1 Tim 5:21).

Imagine for a moment how the angels were watching the tragedy of Jesus’ death on the Cross. Picture how they must have been very perplexed as to why the Son of God had to be killed. It’s not difficult to question why He couldn’t, wouldn’t and didn’t defend Himself. And with these questions, any angel would know of Christ’s divine powers.

As the Son of God, He didn’t need to go through the gruesome death. He could have executed the salvation in a different way. And of course, He could have just vanquished Satan and subject him and his demons to a miserable death. In other words, it must have been very difficult, not to mention cruel and hard to compel the angels to watch Christ die on the Cross without understanding the mystery that was behind this plan.

And then, imagine when the angels finally understood the Father’s salvation plan encompassed not only the Jews but also the Gentiles. It would’ve been awesome that the angels realised God’s incredible nature was beyond even their understanding.

Ultimately, the mystery plan unfolds a salvation that underscores the unprecedented power of Christ’s sacrifice. It also bears perfect evidence to God’s brand of love; something beyond even our comprehension and certainly something Satan can never understand nor appreciate.

Where Satan’s head is at

The fast decaying morality in the world (Image source: medium.com)

Now that we understand how God’s great plan was kept a mystery from everyone, one begs to ask the question what Satan was thinking as he watched Jesus nailed to the Cross and left to die.

Could he be gloating, happy to see his great adversary finally ‘defeated’? Or could he possibly realise, to his horror, how wrong he was to have set Christ up for the Cross?

Whether you think he was happy or otherwise is finally immaterial. As Scripture reveals, Satan, even in understanding the full extent of the power of the Cross of Christ, he wasn’t the least bit deterred. Merely, it spurred him to wreak more havoc in our lives as we can see in the last century. In fact, we do have evidence that rather than depressed, he was quite the opposite:

“Therefore, rejoice, O heavens! And you who live in the heavens, rejoice! But terror will come on the earth and the sea, for the devil had come down to you in great anger, knowing that he has little time.” (Rev 12:12, NLT, m.e.)

Furious might be an even better word. And importantly, Satan is now pressed for time. This means he will go all out and terrorise all of us and he will do that as quickly and intensely as he can. And in the process, he will not be taking any prisoners along. It’s destroy, destroy and destroy.

On October 27 2019, the ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, found himself cornered with nowhere safe to go by a surprise raid carried out by the U.S. Special Ops at his home in northern Syria. Clearly defeated and with not a hope left to escape, al-Baghdadi snatched three of his young children with him and raced down a tunnel hotly pursued by canine units belonging to the Americans.

Once he reached the dead end of the tunnel, he detonated his suicide vest, killing not just him but three innocent children. It was one thing for the world’s most wanted terrorist to die under such miserable circumstances but in his desperation and recklessness, al-Baghdadi did the unthinkable with three children who didn’t deserve to be blown up.

After the Second World War’s D-Day, a defeated Hitler realised that he was doomed. But instead of coming to terms with the harsh reality, he resorted to committing even greater terror. Like al-Baghdadi, he wasn’t going to go quietly. Digging in deeper, he exhorted his remaining forces to fight even more brutally. Even in the throes of losing the war, Hitler took to executing POWs in Valkyrie including pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

The point is Satan realises that humanity has been saved from the brink by Christ’s death and resurrection. Yet he can justify continuing to wage war. His hatred for God must be so intense that he will not go down without fighting even if all his battles are a lost cause. That explains why as we enter the End Times, Satan is very hard at work, looking still to destroy God or at least discredit Him.

Look at how he has managed to steer so many millions of people away from God. Churches are not exactly growing, at least not in the Western world. Many are either downsizing or they have shuttered. Woman are told lies that drive them away from God and into Satan’s bosom where they are made to feel that preserving their lifestyles is more important than preserving the lives of their unborn children.

Satan has clocked up some startling milestones by confusing the youths and their understanding of gender. Because God has been driven away from many of their lives, they have no understanding about Adam, Eve and the call to procreate. As a result, we now struggle to cope with the LBGTQ movement not just in society but within the grounds of our very own churches.

By spurning God, Satan has convinced millions to dispense with the morality code. By doing so, people are so messed up that they don’t know right from wrong anymore. Today, governments are encouraging illegal immigrants to breach their own borders where they then commit heinous crimes and get away with them. Yet they continue to protect them from the very laws that they are supposed to uphold to protect their own citizens.

Image source: South China Morning Post

With 8 in 10 Malaysians spending as much as 8 hours 5 minutes a day on social media alone, Satan does appear to be weaning people off reality and into a world of subtle self-destruction. Imagine there really are people who because of social media, are in depression. Many even have committed suicide.

Satan has been driving people mad with all the wrong and misguided ambitions just so he can defy God. From climate change (formerly called ‘global warming’) to the all-electric car and going to Mars on a one-way ticket, man has essentially made a fool of themselves. Worse, none of these even made sense when you dig right down to the truth.

If he cannot defeat God directly, Satan plans to destroy or sever our relationships with Him. None of the above activities will ever draw us near to the Lord. And it isn’t just these two instances either; the devil has an endless array of convoluted ways to get us to ignore Him and ultimately leave Him. He has at his disposal countless material objects and people who will do his bidding. Satan can get our close friends to undermine our relationship with God, in the same way as he uses flashy lifestyles to uproot our faith in Christ.

Make no bones about it – Satan will relentlessly pursue us wherever we are and tell us the kind of lies he once told Eve in the Garden of Eden. Being the “father of lies,” lying has always been something he excels in. So he doesn’t have problems doing this all day long. And for sure, this has been his most prolific activity since time immemorial. It goes without saying that deception is his choice weapon in breaking apart our relationships with God.

But it doesn’t matter. Satan is running down the clock and no matter how much damage he thinks he can inflict, God remains in exclusive control over everything. The fact that the Lord has chosen to wait for the best moment to finally punish him means He can be as patient and persevering as He is kind, loving and forgiving. The point is God chooses His timing to teach Satan a lesson and in doing so, he does make use of his time to bring havoc to our lives though we shouldn’t look at things that way.

As for Satan, he has and will continue to try everything he can think of to destroy our lives and serve his notice of intent. But as history proves that in defeat, he is a poor learner.

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Lutzer, Erwin W. (Sept 2015) God’s Devil: The Incredible Story of How Satan’s Rebellion Serves God’s Purpose (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers) available at https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Devil-Incredible-Rebellion-Purposes/dp/0802413137

May, Owen (n.d.) The Nativity – Lost in Translation (Bible Reflections) accessible at http://www.bible-reflections.net/articles/the-nativity-lost-in-translation/5889/

May, Owen (n.d.) The Nativity – No Room at the Inn? (Bible Reflections) accessible at http://www.bible-reflections.net/articles/the-nativity-no-room-at-the-inn/5890/

McCallum, Dennis (Jun 2009) Satan and His Kingdom: What the Bible Says and How It Matters to You (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House) available at https://www.amazon.com/Satan-His-Kingdom-Bible-Matters/dp/0764206494

Schreiber, Mordecai (Jun 2007) The Shengold Jewish Encyclopaedia, Golden Anniversary Edition (Rockville, MA: Schreiber Publishing) available at https://www.amazon.com/Shengold-Jewish-Encyclopedia-Mordecai-Schreiber/dp/0884003280

Swindoll, Chuck R. (Dec 2008) Great Lives: Elijah: A Man of Heroism and Humility (Nashville, TN: Word Publishing) available at https://www.amazon.com/Elijah-Heroism-Humility-Great-Lives/dp/140028032X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Telushkin, Rabbi Joseph (Jun 2008) Jewish Literacy Revised Ed: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History (New York, NY: William Morrow) available at https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Literacy-Revised-Ed-Important/dp/0061374989

Unilad (Oct 2016) Scientists Find ‘Proof’ That Moses Actually Parted the Red Sea (UNILAD) accessible at https://www.unilad.co.uk/science/scientists-find-proof-that-moses-did-part-the-red-sea/

Walton, John H. (Oct 2001) Genesis – NIV Application Commentary: From biblical text to contemporary life (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic) available at https://www.amazon.com/NIV-Application-Commentary-Genesis/dp/0310206170

Wright, David (Jul 2010) How Long were the Israelites in Egypt? (Answers in Genesis) accessible at https://answersingenesis.org/bible-questions/how-long-were-the-israelites-in-egypt/

Dealing with Social Media

2019-10-27T00:42:00.000+07:00

Dealing with social media

Khen Lim | October 27 2019 |

Source: socialmediaexplorer.com

In a busy local coffee shop, most of the tables were already occupied. At one of them, a family of six were seated, waiting for their orders to arrive but no one seemed interested in talking. You couldn’t see their faces. That’s because all of them had their heads down. Looking and catching up with social media in their smartphones. While their fingers were busy swiping and stroking the phones, not a word was exchanged among them. It was surreal but increasingly, this is the picture we persistently see around the country.

Across the street was an upmarket Chinese restaurant. And inside, there were tables of seated patrons. At one of them was a young couple. At another were friends and family members supposedly celebrating some occasion. Seated at yet another was a simple family – parents with young toddler kids, a grandma and an Indonesian maid. All but the maid were busy with their social media. Seated in their baby chairs, the tots were held hostage to some blaring YouTube cartoon clips while their parents were busy responding to their own social media. Meanwhile the bespectacled grandma was playing online mah-jong on her tablet. All while the poor maid sat glumly with no one talking to her.

In a departmental store, salespeople manning counters at retail outlets were all doing the same instead of cleaning the display shelves. In one instance, a person walked in and patiently waited to be served while the salesperson was busy with his? Social media. In a civil service department, numerous government workers claimed to be on their break but we found them all seated along a stairwell busy doing two things – chain smoking and on social media. In public hospitals, we find nurses stopping – usually sight unseen – responding to their social media in the middle of their jobs. Clinic assistants in private hospitals are just as rampant.

At a McDonald’s joint, I found a uniformed staff hiding in the washroom, engaging in social media on his phone. Drivers on the road prefer to check their social media and not concentrate on driving their cars. Very often, even bikers were doing the same with one hand on their phones and the other on the handlebar. A few times, I even managed to see coach drivers driving along the interstate highway doing the same unbeknownst to the scores of passengers they were responsible for. Workers standing by the roadside who were supposed to direct traffic flow at construction sites prefer to be distracted by social media.

Even in churches while the pastors were busy delivering their messages, some members are busy checking their social media but of course, they put in the effort to hide their activities from view. Still, the optics were as obvious as daylight. It wasn’t just the sermon but throughout worship, smartphones were lighting up with social media intruding into the culture of praise, worship and sharing.

Indeed, nothing is sacred anymore. The new whip is the ubiquitous smartphone. Their god is the irrepressible social media. And it’s death by technology.

Social media and the Christian youth

Source: shepherdshillacademy.org

Much has been made about social media networking and even more have been talked about its worrying impact on society. Within Christian circles, this impact can either be good or otherwise. If we say it’s good, it usually means that social media has helped us in our walk with Christ. Or that it has given us the means to reach unbelievers and share the Gospel message. In either case, social media has given us a shot in the arm when it comes to injecting something exciting in our faith.

If social media can be a fruitful endeavour for our Christian faith, how bad can it be otherwise?

It’s quite easy to find numerous online articles and video clips that talk about the good and bad aspects of social media. When we talk about the good and bad of social media, we’re referencing its effect on various aspects of family integration and society. Just how pervasive has social media been for the past decade or so can be seen from these simple but eye-opening numbers:

- Apparently, only 2 percent of youths and young adults between the ages of 18 and 30 attend church but on the other hand, as many as 10 million of them can’t seem to survive without Facebook (or other forms of social media) every day.

- 51 percent of churches in America claim that at least one staff member blogs or posts regularly on social media. Presumably these are blogs focused on the faith but that’s not necessarily true.

- If 1 million websites have their inter-connectivity integrated with Facebook, is it even possible to avoid social media? If it’s not Facebook, it’s Instagram, Pinterest and many others.

- If 23 percent of Facebook users check their FB account at least five times if not more in the space of a single day, how many of church members do it during Sunday service?

- For every cycle of 24 hours, Instagram receives uploads of more than 5 million photos. Exactly how edifying these photos are, the statistic doesn’t tell.

- 25 percent of all social media users don’t even bother with their privacy settings. Little wonder so many get into problems eventually.

- The amount of music that Facebook users listen to via their social media network is equivalent to 210,000 years’ worth. It would be naïve to think that even half of that are praise and worship music.

- 8 in 10 users prefer to engage with brands using Facebook rather than directly with the manufacturers. That’s just half the story of how millennials have grown so dependent on social media.

- Google tells us that active users spend more than 60 minutes daily across their range of products. In case you’re not aware, Google’s stranglehold on the world’s users of technology is even more powerful than Facebook.

There is a saying that describes the significant chasm today between reality and disreality.* It goes something like this: “You used to be what you had but now you are what you share.” It’s frightening but it’s real.

NOTE: “Disreality” means self-worldbuilding.

The picture that these statistics paint for us is a disturbing one. They tell us that while we used to physically interact and relate to one another in the past, today, we purely share information among ourselves without even needing to know who we really are in reality. It also tells us, quite shockingly, that people can accept facts and figures without verifying if they are true. If someone writes and posts them, they must be right!

Today, people are so overwhelmingly dependent on what they learn from the Internet that they have lost the sense of knowing what is and isn’t right anymore. That is how we have all come to experience the rise of fake information. Fake information wouldn’t have been a reality had it not been for the presence of the Internet and the sheer influence of social media. Without them, fake information couldn’t possibly have existed and even if it did, it wouldn’t have spread so uncontrollably. All that proves to us that our dependence on social media can be our undoing, much more so when it comes to our Christian youth whose lives are firmly intertwined with social media.

The problem with social media networking is that it’s a double-edged sword. In other words, it can cut both ways. Depending on how you use it, it can be a blessing and it can also be a curse. For this article, we take a little time to explore what they may be and what you can do to maintain or protect your spiritual character in Christ.

A blessing and a curse

Source: thestar.com

In the years since the advent of first, the tablet, and then the smartphone, social media networking has exploded beyond recognition. Today, it’s difficult to imagine any young person without one in his pocket. Even someone on a tight budget will still own one, albeit with less bells and whistles but nonetheless, he can still access his social media. And take pictures. Never mind whether call reception is good or not, so long as it can connect to the Internet and allow him to share messages as well as take and send pictures, those are all that matter these days.

Just so we know the impact of social media, consider these statistics:

- There are some 2.41 billion monthly active users on Facebook as of the Second Quarter of 2019. Even China’s vast population pales by comparison.

- In India alone, there are over 270 million Facebook users. To put that into context, if these subscribers band together and form their own country, it would easily be the fourth most populous in the world.

- In Malaysia alone, there were 22 million users in 2017 with a projected increase to 24.2 million by the year 2023. Of the lot, 17.9 million of them use their smartphones to access the Internet. Expect that 2021 will bring in 21.72 million savvy smartphone users.

- As of March 2017, 67.7 percent of the entire Malaysian population access the Internet. These are all considered active social media users with more than 17 million on the smartphone every month, making the country among the biggest markets for Facebook in the ASEAN region. That’s quite staggering when you consider that Malaysia’s average Internet connection speed is more than four times slower than South Korea’s (at 29 Mbps).

- On average, 140 million Tweets are posted daily. On Saturday, August 3 2013 in Japan, in a single split-second moment, the Japanese took to Twitter and posted a staggering 143,199 Tweets! To put that into perspective, there are usually a high of 5,700 Tweets on a normal day of around 500 million daily. In other words, on that day alone, the Japanese peaked at 25 times greater than normal.

Of course, social media isn’t just Facebook and Twitter. Don’t forget the other very visible big-hitters like Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and WhatsApp. Look wider and you’ll also find Snapchat, LinkedIn, Google Messenger and Skype. Look even further and there are Quora, Xbox and Yahoo Messenger. And if you think of China, you cannot ignore WeChat, TikTok and Tencent. These are all potentially the biggest mind-numbing influencers of our time and their role in shaping the millennials and beyond has been grossly under-documented and so poorly publicised.

All of them compete for your attention literally every second of the day, 365 days of the year. It’s a full-on battle to take up all your time doing everything you think you want to and can do with your life. These companies are willing to spend big bucks hiring the craftiest application engineers to devise ways and means to get us hook, line and sinker. And that invariably means they will incorporate every possible means that will lead to consumption addiction.

However, millions today tell us that social media has been a blessing to them. I guess if we look at it in a slightly skewed manner, that might actually be the case. Using a broad paintbrush, we could say that Facebook users have brought down dictators and other political autocrats in the same way as they have also announced births, weddings and all sorts of anniversaries.

Source: csmonitor.com

For example, Facebook was at the centre of the revolutionary Arab Spring anti-government movement that gave way to mass protests, uprisings and armed insurrections fanning across North Africa and the Middle East in the early 2010s. In those two years from 2010 to 2012, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen saw their leaders either ousted or killed. In countries like Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Morocco and Jordan, constitutional reforms were carried out.

But let’s not forget that Facebook was also the social media platform that was used to give the world unbridled access to the witnessing of suicides, beheadings and even murders and massacres. In these cases, people looking for sensationalism or just a way to cast fear would do a videocast so that millions could actually tune in to whatever macabre they have in mind of showing.

Over the last decade or thereabouts, social media has grown subtly but exponentially. In other words, tens of millions have been so engrossed with how it changed their lives that they did not pay much attention to the speed at which it burst at its seams and simply grew and grew into the behemoth that it is today. As to how one responds to such growth is an almost impossible task. At any rate, social media is here to stay and nothing anyone can do will ever eliminate it from society.

In recent times, some have begun to raise concern over a potential pandemic centring on mental health, political subversion as well as brazen theft of millions and millions of users’ personal information to fund their objectives. With IT giants like Facebook and Google controlling the ins and outs of Internet use (despite whatever antitrust laws in place), it hardly ever seems plausible for anyone to force social media into submission.

Even governments find it very difficult to rein in these IT giants let alone criminalise their actions or force class-action lawsuits against them. And if it’s that difficult for them, there isn’t much hope for the ‘little people’ like us to force them to back down and change. Today, all of this have, in fact, not remained the same. That’s because they have worsened to a substantial degree. With the enormous power they wield, companies like Facebook and Google are protected not just by their fawning fans but also by profoundly misguided zealotry.

When it comes to assessing activities on the Internet – by that, we also refer to websites, blogs etc. – we think in terms of how they are ‘good, bad or ugly.’ So how do we define these three words?

‘Good’ Internet activities are safe. Good websites are okay to visit and their links lead you to not just harmless resources but are considered to be useful and edifying. Faith-based websites that are also doctrinally acceptable are not just good but they also provide us with a better understanding of the word of God. That can only be a good thing.

‘Bad’ Internet activities, on the other hand, are worrying because they are sources of bad influence. Websites that are not faith-based aren’t necessarily bad as many can be considered ‘good’ at least in an entertaining sense. For example, we can all enjoy reading and watching sports events. Car fans love websites with information on the latest cars. If you’re into knitting, there are websites that will satiate your interest.

Those who enjoy photography would take an interest at websites with beautiful images of landscapes, birds, architecture and so on. None of these are centred on faith but they are also harmless. In fact, they can be enjoyable in many ways so long as they stay within the common boundaries of decency and moral uprightness.

‘Bad’ Internet activities go beyond harmless entertainment but encroach into morality issues where sinful activities and evil behaviour are even proudly personified but evidently normalised. They are therefore bad because they project an incredible disdain for being morally upright in order to drive home the desire to be ‘liberated’ from the strictures of God’s commandments. In other words, disobeying God is fine and acceptable.

Source: saynsumthn.wordpress.com

Examples of ‘bad’ websites are those that promote abortion, political correctness, atheism, cruelty, materialism and anything that is anathema, not to mention socially and politically abhorrent. Moral ignorance is inexcusable but ‘bad’ websites peddle this as if it is socially acceptable. In other words, they don’t see it as anything wrong.

‘Ugly’ takes things to a devastating level. This is horrific beyond the coverage of what ‘bad’ means. These are Internet activities that are so morally repugnant that they even make non-believers cringe. Websites with such ugly contents aren’t the ones anyone decent should even spend a second in. Websites that teach visitors how to make suicide vests or do your own narcotics are no worse than those that openly worship Satan, promote anti-Semitism, racism, pornography and anything that is destructive to humanity.

‘Ugly’ websites even make the usual morally ignorant cringe. At the ultimate level of cringeworthiness, those who indulge in ‘ugly’ Internet content are so off-the-charts that it is difficult to relate to them. If you’re a Christian youth, ‘ugly’ is impossible to relate to but that’s not to say that they are beyond salvation. We have a God who knows no limits, whose grace is boundless and is merciful beyond human understanding. But wisdom suggests it’s best to neither pander nor tolerate for the sake of our own spiritual welfare.

‘Good, bad or ugly,’ these are empirical benchmark references that some use to categorically assess Internet websites and their contents so that we can have a broad-based but better idea of what to embrace and what to avoid. When we apply these references to social media, we can see some disparate differences from one’s experience to another. The difference in experience can help us to better assess where we’re at in terms of our involvement with social media. More importantly, it should also open up awareness as to how threatening some aspects of social media may be although for most parts, many aren’t even aware of or they may not care enough to be concerned with.

Destructive effects of social media are both well documented and at the same time, conveniently ignored. It is well documented because you can actually find much that is written about it that warns us how dangerous it is and how this has been proven over a period of time. On the other hand, powerful factions of society conveniently ignored these effects and seemingly, governments have been finding it too hard – or complicated – to do something about it.

There is no denying that social media does have its good sides. First popularised by Facebook – but now that playing field is far more crowded – social media was able to draw on its interconnectivity that can reach far corners of the world in an unprecedented manner. As a result, it has helped numerous people to reunite for the first time in years.

Long-lost family members have benefitted immensely from this and so do those who have been forcibly separated from their biological families. Old school friends were able to come together and relive memories of years gone by all the way back to their kindergarten days. Even old flames can rekindle their friendships and perhaps even find closure in their broken relationships in order to move on.

Age-old work colleagues have been able to organise reunions that proved the immense value of nostalgia. We can say the same thing about many other types of people in a whole variety of different scenarios. All of them have found social media to be a powerful uniter of people regardless of culture, background and history and certainly non-discriminating of national borders and boundaries. Often the result was the ability for people to reunite in joy but also to once again share their lives in ways they would otherwise not be able to.

Social media has also proved instrumental in breathing life to those who are socially reclusive to the point where these people are incapable of connecting with others. By being able to avoid physical confrontation, social media has opened up opportunities for them to gain their self-confidence because it allows them to speak without worrying about how it may or may not come across to the other person. That way, people can lose their inhibitions and progress to the point of being able to finally overcome their shyness or even their fear of rejection.

But then all of these make it possible for social media to be manipulated and abuse. Like a gun, social media itself is harmless because it is only a tool. It has neither emotions nor intelligence in its own self but it can be misused for selfish purposes. We do know that social media is such a powerful tool that can weaponise political and social advancement in ways that are often not understood by the average person. But to politicians and those who deliberately influence the world through social engineering for their ideological advantage, social media is a dream come true.

One of the most oft-quoted ‘success’ stories for social media (such as Facebook and Twitter) is how tyranny was put in check over the years. And of course, the earlier-mentioned Arab Spring instantly comes to mind. It is this particular event that put social media on notice as a defining tool that people can use to share information and coordinate effort that finally overthrew despotic leaderships and corrupt governments.

But it is also arguable as to whether or not the results of such overthrows were desirable. For that matter, it is also debatable as to who gets to define a good from a bad government. That is because politics are a very subjective matter. Just as one woman is beautiful in someone but not everyone’s eyes, the same can be said of political leaders. A tyrant of one country might be an advantageous leverage to a political leader of another even if many might see him as nothing more than someone to get rid of. As many would note, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’

Other than what I have noted above, there are likely many other instances in which social media shows its strength and blessings. To those touched in the most positive way by social media, they sing praises that others might not be so quick to join in. But then social media’s dark side is hard not to notice. Here, we cannot avoid the ‘bad’ and the ‘ugly’ side of the Internet that has been made so pronounced by the likes of Facebook. For the uninitiated, the naïve, the vulnerable and the innocent, social media can unleash terrible things that can at times destroy.

Here is a look at what some of them are:

Cyberbullying	Sheltered arrogance	Threats and insults	Sexual predating
Break-ins (robberies)	Wanton personal abuse	Battery and violence	Rapes and assaults
Online stalking	Doxing	Trolling	Phishing
Scamming	Faking	Theft of personal data (which is used to facilitate crime or sold without authorisation for profit)

Of course, there’s no way to shoehorn social media into just these instances. By far and large, there are many other effects that I have no included above. Suffice to say, this is only one article; to cover the far fuller extent of social media’s nefariousness would require years of study and volumes of texts beyond my personal capability.

For the purposes of what we have in mind here, we can safely accept that social media’s ugly side is extremely subtle. In other words, many don’t take the time to sit down and honestly reflect because if they do, it’s not too difficult to see how ugly social media really is. In fact, it is far more troubling than we realise.

What we’re up against is public traction. In other words, social media is so popular throughout the world that people just don’t realise how dangerous its effects are. Underestimating social media is one thing but dismissing its danger is today the norm. If we look back at the last hundred or more years, that was what smoking meant to the general public. Just like now with social media, no one believed smoking was bad. Even when medical science began to show evidence of smoking being linked to lung cancer, tobacco companies were making a mint, fleecing the public. It took legislative muscle to finally seal its fate.

Source: knowyourmeme.com

Consider the smoking problem as a reference model and we may begin to understand what it takes to contain social media but even so, most governments are not exactly doing anything substantial or meaty enough to put the likes of Facebook in check. The U.S. government tried this year to do that but nothing big came out of it. It was a wasted opportunity despite evidence pointing to how close they got to forcing its founder Mark Zuckerberg to finally buckle.

Anyway, I have listed five serious problems that social media has raised that are so evident and yet so little has been done to quell its devastating effects:

- Astonishing waste of time

Addictive websites are aplenty. These websites suck up so much valuable time that people don’t even notice. Or maybe, no one bothers about it. If you’re wondering what websites these are, take a look at those who indulge in online gambling, dating, pornography, movie streaming, photo-video sharing, gossip mongering, lifestyle, celebrity news and reality shows and of course, social media.

YouTube alone can be a ridiculous source of time-wasting with its over-120-billion video clips. In terms of music videos alone, Google claims that people are uploading at a rate of 300 hours’ worth every minute. In our occasionally desperate desire to escape from our daily grind, it’s often a no-brainer to get on the Internet and visit any of these websites. But the irony is that we will then complain of how we just don’t have the time to get anything done.

Addictive websites aren’t just about time-wasting. They can also impact our various relationships. When we spend so much time on unproductive websites, we are depriving ourselves of social interaction with our loved ones. At the same time, we also end up telling our churches that ‘our hands are full’ and we have no time to contribute to ministry work.

- World of fakery

Source: demilked.com

It’s never in doubt that the chief culprit and most veritable source of fake information is social media. To be more specific, Facebook is the one that started it all but of course today, Twitter and a few others run feverishly close.

The use of the word ‘fake’ is just a more polite way of saying they’re nothing more than lies and deceptions. And we don’t need reminding who the father of lies and deceptions are, do we? On the Internet, real facts – truths in other words – are easy to distort for different reasons.

Firstly, people aren’t so wise these days. They don’t appear to want to know if they are true. When they get any sliver of interesting information, all they do is to forward the articles to as many people as possible that is, without verifying. Secondly, people are getting increasingly lazy, meaning they are too indifferent or uncaring to bother anymore.

Thirdly, people are naturally sensitised to sensationalism. In other words, the more ‘amazing’ the news is, the more they believe it and the likelier they are in spreading the fake information. Fourthly, deceivers deploy written language that make them appear as if they are disseminating facts when they aren’t.

Fifthly, fact-check websites themselves are not really verifying checks. Instead almost all of them are politically funded and motivated to advance their ideology even if that means fortifying lies and deceptions. Lastly, because fake information is peddled by very credible names in the business of mass media, people are likelier to believe them. In communism, we call that propaganda. In Western societies, we refer to it as fake information. Both are one and the same.

Fake information can come in different flavours but the easiest ones to pick at are the ones that appear most obvious to us. Some men lie because they are hiding their illicit affairs. Some others lie because their sexual immoralities drive them to. Certain other men lie so that young girls would pander to them. Some women lie to appear younger than they are. Some other women lie about who they really are.

Politicians lie to please their supporters and win votes. Some cops lie because they obviously did something unlawful. Big businesses lie because they want to make even more money. Restaurants lie in order that they sell the most expensive dishes on the menu. Second-hand car yards lie so that they can get rid of the worst lemons on their blocks.

What this means is that fake information is literally everywhere. And they’ve been around since time immemorial. However, the advent of social media has simply made things far worse than it has to be. Although many people lie, lying using social media allows the deception to spread like wildfire.

To put it simply, lies may not get very far during the pre-Internet era unless they are propagated by newspapers and television news. This is because people have to resort to lip service be it manually or via the telephone. And because of that, the spreading of lies is too slow to be properly effective. Therefore, the effects are limited.

Social media, on the other hand, expedites lies, fanning flames that can reach the farthest corners of the world within the blink of an eye. In literally less than a few minutes, just one piece of lie can snowball beyond comprehension because of the sheer speed of broadband Internet.

Closer to home, social media opens up dangerous platforms of opportunity for personal delusional ambitions as well. If you have a base desire to deceive your online friends, it’s really not that difficult. All you need to do is to ‘create’ a new personality and ‘adopt’ someone else’s looks and then ‘give’ yourself a whole new different set of personal information including name, occupation and age and so on. By creating your own persona, you are spreading fake information to lie about who you are. And you do that because you truly believe you can get away from the law simply because you can conveniently hide behind some firewall.

People are motivated to do that for a few reasons. The worst reason is that men look to be sexual predators looking for easy victims on the Internet. With social media so rife and popular with young girls, older deviants do their hunting by parading different – and younger – and more attractive personalities.

Some others do it just so that they can feel better about themselves. They want to be better looking and so they resort to using Photoshop to make themselves look physically less blemished. They want to be wealthier than they are and so they photograph themselves next to material wealth and upload the pictures, telling the world they own them. They want to be desirable and so they fake their background information including where they studied, what qualifications they have and where they used to work including whatever awards they won. It’s all in a day’s work for them.

To fuel their obsession, people go to the extent of stealing pictures from others and then use them for impersonation purposes. That is why it is absolutely dangerous to post photos that are high enough in resolution for people to steal and use as their own.

The big pathological problem with that is eventually, these people end up deceiving themselves into believing their own lies. In other words, the more you tell a lie, the more you will believe that lie. And eventually that lie becomes truth to you. That’s when you really begin to live out the lie.

That is, unfortunately, the worst possible result arising from being a fake.

- Sheer abandonment

The most amazing feature that social media boasts of is also what compels so many millions to fully embrace it and that is, the freedom it offers. Not just the Internet per se but in the strict guise of social media, people feel the exuberance of being complete free to be whoever they want to be.

Free from being chained up by reality’s terms and conditions. Free to be anyone you want to be. Free to say anything you want to say. Free to express yourself without any shackles. Free to post whatever messages, videos and photos you feel like. Free to respond to what others post. Free to take on anyone else’s identity. Free to even use anything that is posted to the Interne that doesn’t even belong to you.

Of the many age groups that are involved in social media, the youths occupy the most vibrant of its users. To them, social media is a welcome diversion with the feeling of driving a powerful sports car on a road with no speed limits and no one to govern you. It’s a long straight stretch where you have absolutely no concern of crashing yourself. And even if you do, you can reinvent your car again and go racing once more to your heart’s content.

Social media promises all of the above and it delivers time and again. The no-holds-barred feeling that social media is so infamous for encourages people to be reckless with wild abandonment. It allows people to reveal far more about themselves than they really ought to and in the process, they unwittingly expose their vulnerabilities in the most alarming way. It’s a level of foolishness that social media bares in so many people that none of us would have thought even possible.

With wild abandon, many people have been using social media for all the wrong reasons. Desperate ones seek attention in the worst possible way and thus become easy prey for predators, robbers and all sorts of criminals. Immature users who flaunt their recklessness with the way they conduct themselves in text, photos, videos and what not go from hero to zero in no time. What’s worse is they don’t even know it.

Young kids who desperately want to unshackle themselves from their parents’ grip not only welcomes social media with open arms but relish that idea of being able to do anything they like. Some of them become monsters on the Internet, pretending to be adults but fail miserably. Those who are lonely act weird or reveal all the wrong things about themselves. Many have found refuge in the wrong people and by trusting them, they disclose their personal problems that inevitably place themselves in foolish life-threatening situations. Some others behave so outrageously on social media that they are unrecognisable to their real friends and families.

The thing is social media, more often than not, bring out the worst in people. Normally restrained adults find themselves in opportunities to do terribly immoral things behind the backs of their loved ones be it illicit activities, sexual immoralities, extramarital affairs or even become terrorists bent on mass murder.

Christian youths who expose themselves to the openness of social media can find themselves at the mercy of amorality in ways they are ill-prepared to handle. Unless they are properly equipped in their hearts and minds, social media is one playground that can lure and bait. And its success rate is too disturbing to underestimate.

- Life in a bubble

Source: reddit.com

As many enjoy life in social media because of the unbridled freedom it offers, that simply creates a bubble world that does nothing but isolate them from reality. It’s the perfect way to escape the realities of a world they don’t want to deal with (for whatever reason).

Bubble worlds are dangerous because they give people a false notion of what life is (or isn’t). By shunning reality, there are plenty of social media users who actually think that it’s a charmed life worth embracing in place of the real one they prefer to leave behind. It’s this sort of disreality that can be worrying because they are convinced that it’s less complicated.

Unlike the real world, these people don’t have to meet others face to face and that in itself helps ease control. Already insecure in nature, social media simply lets them dig deeper holes for themselves. Replacing reality with virtual relationships is like a sex-obsessed person satiating his carnal desires by using an inflatable doll. These people believe life is worth walking away from because they believe social media’s bubble world offers them the kind of security and buffer that they can live with and enjoy.

- Dubious quality

Relationships born of online introductions are, in general, never going to be as meaningful – or even real – as physical ones where you actually meet the person in person. Other than the usual pitfalls, virtual relationships are fraught with all sorts of risks and dangers. Chief amongst them is whether or not their online identities are real. It’s easy enough to hide behind some computer, pretending to be the sort of ideal dream person you want to meet so anxiously all your life.

Instead of watching real words come out from real mouths, you come off second-best with two-dimensional texts that you tersely read off your screen. Rather than being able to visually feel the actual expresses articulated through physical gestures and all sorts of body languages, your virtual paramour resorts to emoticons and memes to make his/her point. And again, you come off a distant second in terms of accuracy and authenticity. What is worse is you don’t even know if these graphic expressions are that person’s truthful response.

What about tonal responses? Or a facial snigger that you can detect even at a moment’s notice? How about the person rolling his eyes or lifting his eyebrows in mockery? Ever figured how you can tell if your virtual friend is nervously biting his nails or constantly looking at the clock? Good luck with that.

The wealth of experience in the real world doesn’t map successfully into the virtual world of social media networking. You’re never going to enjoy the vast range of synapsoidal reactions because it’s simply not set up to do so. And if you don’t have all these at your fingertips the way you normally do in reality, then you have to work out how you’re going to tell if that virtual friend is putting you through the grinder or hanging you up to dry or just faking it all the way.

The short answer is you can’t. And if you persistently going to remain gullible, then you’re only setting yourself up for a big fall. And that’s going to hurt big time.

If all that isn’t bad enough, the really ‘ugly’ side of social media is:

- No legal restraint

For almost twenty years since the world’s first blogging sites appeared – and hence, the humble beginning of social media – there is still no valid internationally-ratifiable legal framework drawn to protect individuals from harm arising from his involvement in social media networks. That is alarming but it’s also proof that the world is either disinterested or it’s too weak to do anything.

Without such a legal framework in place, cyberbullies and online harassers who drive people to commit suicide via social media are likelier to escape punishment. Whatever sliver of law that we think exists appears too weak or too arbitrary to pose a serious challenge against these people.

In the United States, the efficacy of law enforcement against cyberbullies and those who indirectly drive victims to suicide is sketchy because 50 states don’t all provide the same effective legal protection. Some are, as a result, stricter than the others. Some have quite serious punishment while others don’t. And so if the suicide occurs in a lenient state, you just don’t have much hope of justice being done.

The same also applies to personal data stolen online or used without the owner’s permission. There is yet to be effective legislation to offer the kind of peace of mind people are looking for. Let’s not even bring in online scams, spam mail and any such rubbish that come our way that we never asked let alone allow in our Inbox. Today, powerful IT giants continue to brazenly abuse their privileges and getting away with it. There is yet to be any law powerful enough to force them to rethink their behaviour. And until that happens, we cannot hold them legally or criminally accountable.

In the Book of John, Jesus says:

“…you are My friends since I have told you everything the Father told Me. You didn’t choose Me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using My Name.” (Jn 15:15b-16, NLT, m.e.)

Jesus’ use of the word ‘friends’ is certainly not one that is shared by Facebook that uses the same (word) to define a click action process to invite anyone to have access to your personal social media page. Needless to say, the original meaning doesn’t apply in social media. And if it doesn’t (apply), it’s hard to figure if its legal meaning makes equally no sense or not.

The three views of social media

Source: latrobe.edu.au

After two decades of virtually uncontrolled exponential growth, social media networks have gone farther, wider and deeper than even the wildest optimist could imagine. It’s now so expansive that it is nigh impossible to think of putting the brakes on. In other words, applying restraint, whether voluntarily or otherwise, looks completely out of the question.

And so long as no one can stop the likes of Facebook, addiction to social media will continue unabatedly into the tens of billions throughout the world. Once upon a time, a long time ago, smoking was an addiction that seemed impossible to quell and that was largely because tobacco companies had governments throughout the world in their deep pockets. But just as we thought it was going to be a losing battle all the way, the tide changed and finally, we could savour victory (although in truth, its replacement, legalised marijuana, is far worse).

Just like smoking, we have many other troubling addictions to deal with such as obesity owing to over-consumption of junk food, kleptomania, legalised and illegal use of opioids, alcoholism and so on and so forth. All of these are certainly bad but if I were to line them up with the ill-effects of social media, they pale by comparison because the latter is significantly worse. The scope and nature of the damage caused by social media is magnitudes more alarming in a longer term mainly because its effects are not as visible in the immediate sense.

To have said that does not mean that I dismiss the seriousness of the other addictions. I merely want to address the critical risks that the overt use of social media brings about. These risks inflict a far wider damage to the fabric of society. They wreak havoc on the family, bringing about disunity, fragmentation and ultimately destruction. From the family unit, damaging impact arising from social media will progressively fan out radially to encompass communities and then societies at large.

So, how should we respond? Let’s identify the three basic ways we view the problem:

The optimistic approach

Not surprisingly, this is the popular view. Many throughout the world actually believe that there are no problems associated with the use of social media and further added that conservatives are having an unjustified kneejerk overreaction. No guessing needed that these are the same people who are not only fascinated by social media but cannot live without it. They don’t see any need to shackle them either.

In case you’re wondering, this group of people is large enough, influential enough and undergirded by powerful lobby groups that have so far been successful at muzzling political resolve. That is why we have yet to see class-action legal suits against landmark companies like Facebook and Google. It’s a worry whether there will even be a time in the future where they will face due justice.

Of course, social media itself is the irony. There is so much good in what it can do but the evilness of man ensures that sin irretrievably corrupts it. In the end, social media is transformed into the monster that we now struggling to cope with. No doubt that some of us still use social media to good effect but the underlying power to addict remains just as strong. And that’s because we don’t seem to understand how persistently addictive it is.

Consider the following, see if any of them is part of your routine of reading messages in your phone:

- The first thing when you wake up

- While you’re brushing your teeth in the morning

- Before you enter church and join in the Sunday service

- When you’re supposed to be listening to the sermon

- In front of your guests at the dinner table

- Whenever you have spare time

- While waiting for a friend to arrive

- Before you head to bed at night

- While walking in the street

- While driving (or riding your motorbike)

If all that surprises you, don’t be. That is how social media has affected hundreds of millions around the world. It is endemic. And it will wreak havoc on the world.

But the real problem is people are incapable of seeing this. They simply see the good side of it and conveniently ignore everything else. Here are some of the responses you’re likely to hear from those who are blinded by social media:

- It affects others but ‘not them’

- They’re not ‘big-time’ users

- They ‘only’ check their messages once in a while

- They are ‘occasional’ users

- They ‘only’ use it to connect with friends

- Others have it far worse than them

These are nothing more than examples of delusional thinking.

The pessimistic approach

Those in this category don’t necessarily think that social media is all-evil. But although they recognise its usefulness, benefits and advantages, they have a better sense of reality because they can see not only the dark nefarious side but also its underlying longer-term effects. While it’s not difficult to see the wrong from right with the obvious aspects but subtle addiction is where the debate is at. However, people in this group are likelier than others to recognise the dangers that lurk within social media.

Unfortunately, this is a minority group. The sphere of their influence is simply not big enough to change things. Yet they are sufficiently aware not to be bought in by social media. They are wise enough to avoid social media’s pitfalls because they tend to be more conservative in the way they interact with people. And furthermore, their choice of lifestyle probably reflects it.

Although not all Christians fall into this category, it may be more probable to say the reverse is truer. In other words, you could see a larger proportion of evangelical Christians in this group. Whether or not this is true doesn’t matter in the end because even the best of all Christians are still vulnerable to the understated ill-effects of social media addiction. In other words, people in this category do use social media except that they have a better control over how they use it.

Because they practise restraint far more prevalently than the optimists will ever do, those in this group shield themselves better from the longer-term effects of social media. If you belong to this group, at least some of the following practices are familiar to you:

- You set strict time limits on how often you access your phone

- Your exposure to social media does not include Facebook and its common ilk

- You do not share or upload personal photos and videos

- You restrict content that talks about your family members

- You do not willingly reveal personal information unless you really have to

- You do not participate in social media content at all

- Your only means of online communication is emailing

- You do not show any pictures of yourself on the Internet

People in this group recognise the darkness of the Internet although that doesn’t mean they do not use it at all. But it does suggest that they are careful of where they go on the Internet and they read enough to safeguard their actions so that they do as much as possible to avoid its effects.

However that doesn’t mean they do not fall or get unwittingly drawn into them. Those who are not as Internet savvy but belong in this group are susceptible enough to encounter things they do not like and then get affected. The Internet – including social media – is rife with immorality that it doesn’t take much effort to bump into them. Even an innocent Internet search can bring up all sorts of obscenities when you least expect. A science student who types the word ‘breast’ will surely find images that he/she is appalled by even though his/her intention is academic. A little kid who wants to look at images of ‘pussy’ (as in cat) could find herself in a similar morally-challenged quandary.

Treading the middle

Social media is like a seesaw – there’s good and there’s evil and the trouble is how one may or may not counteract the other. People in this group view social media through the same optic. They believe that it’s not easy – nor is it practical – to think that social media is necessarily all-bad or for that matter, purely good.

Those who belong to this group consider social media as a necessity in life and they view its facilities as useful and productive all because they are able to keep in touch with their friends and loved ones from distant lands. The convenience that social media offers cuts across vast geographies in a way incomparable to any conventional means and that alone is likely the influencing inertia behind this group.

But they do recognise social media’s darker side and they admit that its nastiness clouds its potential to do good. However like tens of millions of others in the world, addiction holds them back from advocating change. Unwilling to accept that social media needs to be corralled and yet acknowledging its culpability, those in this group find it just as difficult to incriminate as it is in defending.

On the other hand, to tread the middle path is to use social media to greater advantage but giving in to its propensity to addict. That takes work but people in this group probably believe this can be done. Or at least they will put in the effort and try.

Christian youths can use social media to spread the Word and share the Gospel far more effectively than if they resort to conventional means. With the speed of light, messaging through social media is lightning quick, enabling outreach to be quicker, more spontaneous and effective. All of this can still go on. Knowing evil is still around doesn’t mean we stop progressing. It only means that we put things into proper perspective and remain cagey about the sinister aspects of social media.

The point is even if Facebook were to collapse in a heap and disappear, social media will continue. There are hundreds to thousands of other social media platforms ready to absorb those who no longer can use Facebook. This means sin will remain predominantly a feature of social media. In a fantasy world of no Facebook, evil will still exist.

Six-point Christian response to social media

Source: cypresslakeslodge.com

Like I said, social media is here to stay. It’s a little too late to stop it now that the juggernaut is everywhere around the world. So, to say that you will outright reject social media is not very practical especially if you are already involved. Unless you’re someone with exceptional presence in the world – think of Denzel Washington – you will find it quite impossible to walk away from it.

In other words, where reality is concerned, having a Quaker attitude to social media doesn’t work. Given that you are in a society where most people stay in touch using social media, tuning yourself out and practising social media celibacy is too difficult to do.

Even in Communist China where Facebook and Google – and all their affiliate online apps – are banned, social media is engaged by 647 million users as of 2018, rising to 800 million by 2023. This is because China has their own copycat versions including Weibo, WeChat, Tencent QQ, Baidu and TikTok among many others. They may not like the freedom of speech peddled by these companies but they sure like the idea of social media because it’s a nice way for the government to monitor its populace.

So what can a Christian do in a world encumbered by the endless presence of social media? Are there anything one can do to protect oneself from harm and still use these apps? Is it even possible to come out unscathed while we come to grips with social media?

Yes, it is possible but it requires you to consider at least these six guiding principles:

Deference

Source: gadgets.ndtv.com

In a world determined to free itself from God, the one thing they persistent want to do is to remove as much of His presence and impact as possible. Anything to do with God is anathema to those who hate and reject Him. Even the sound of His name drives them nuts. That is why we’re seeing a proliferation of anti-theistic activities throughout the world but none more apparent than in the United States where even symbols that remind them of His presence are to be permanently removed.

Other than dismantling crosses from signs and even crests and emblems, the modern world’s main preoccupation in rejecting God is to abandon the idea of sin. In other words, sin doesn’t exist in their lifestyle. And if sin doesn’t exist, that means everyone is free to do whatever seizes their imagination. By abandoning the notion of sin, man can practise evil and not be concerned about its repercussions. With God out of the world, even these repercussions don’t exist. It’s freedom that man has been coveting but never quite attained in the past but today, with the advent of social media, ideologies that reject God and everything about Him can be freely embraced with no price to pay in modern society.

Source: nydailynews.com

Without sin, there is also no need for hell. Everyone gets to heaven no matter what. No one has to worry about facing God’s wrath and being thrown into the lake of fire. That’s because people like to live in a world where their vocabulary does not include words like sin, evil and hell. In modern language, such a belief is called Universalism and it embraces the idea that you don’t have to accept Jesus as the Christ and the Son of God to be able to receive His salvation and hence, eternal life.

For Universalists, claiming heaven is effortless because of the promise of God’s grace. Living under His grace, we are perpetually forgiven for our transgressions. We can repeatedly do wrong things and God’s love is abundant enough to have us forgiven. In other words, we can pillage, murder, embezzle and do all the most hideous and immoral acts in the world and still find our way to heaven unhindered. What Universalists are therefore telling us is that when we ourselves reach heaven’s gates, we shouldn’t be surprised to find jihadists, terrorists, murderers, rapists, hideously corrupt politicians and royalties and the wicked.

Like the Universalists, the modernist has no time for God’s dichotomous principle of good and evil, right and wrong. Unlike God who teaches us that there is a heaven in as much as there is also a hell, the modernist abhors it. Some don’t exactly care if there is indeed even a heaven but those who do, embrace the belief without having to accept that there is spiritual warfare happening above our heads.

We live in a world where we are increasingly seeing how sin is normalised in society. In a leftist world, sin profits at the expense of the everyday person who bears all the suffering no matter how unjust. The Internet merely amplifies all this to an incomprehensible extent.

Modern society simply has no time to deal with sin but since they have rejected the very notion of it, no one needs to care anymore. Sin has long decided that killing an unborn baby is as acceptable as a young woman finds her pregnancy unacceptable because it hinders her lifestyle. Since 1973, the legalisation of this ideology has seen over 57 million babies violently destroyed. And because it is now legalised in so many parts of the world, many people don’t see the killing of babies as a sin anymore.

Just as abortions are normalised, so it is with many other immoralities. Sleeping with someone else’s spouse was once a criminal offence but not anymore. Smoking dope was also once illegal but in an increasing number of places in the world other than in the United States, the consumption of marijuana in more than one form is now legally acceptable. Euthanasia – or the act of ending one’s life – is now an everyday part of life in various forms worldwide and if the country of residence does not allow it, nothing stops the person from going to Switzerland where it’s welcome.

These are just three examples but there are many others.

To have deference means to know that sin not only exists but to acknowledge that Satan will try and try to continually undermine us until we give in to him. As Christians, spiritual warfare is real and the battle is for the devil to claim our soul. This warfare is non-stop. Even while we are asleep, the battle continues relentlessly. That is why we cannot afford to be blasé about it when we’re engaged in social media.

In the guise of social media, sin finds many veneers to hide behind, which is why it’s never an easy subject to venture into with unbelievers. We overlook or dismiss its effect via social media at our peril. Even as we are concerned over unbelievers not understanding the power of sin to usurp us, Christians too are falling off Internet’s slippery slope.

Often, when we think we can handle it, in truth we are too ill-prepared. Disrespecting the power of sin is a dangerous thing. The problem with this is that inexperienced young Christians can find themselves victimised on social media without even realising. Sin is so well covered up in social media that it is just about invisible to most people. And it gets more frustrating when people mistake evil for outreach and the sharing of information. Because people treasure the benefits of both, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to get them to see evil for what it is.

There is nothing encouraging about all this. To see evil prosper under the guise of social media is disconcerting and frustrating but that’s what it looks like. To know that all this is happening right under our nose is even harder to take but without a doubt, this is precisely what we have to deal with. As we Christians acknowledge the danger of encroaching sin, we also feel helpless because there is too little effort in the works to remedy the situation though we’re not holding our breath.

With social media powered by IT giants devoid of Christian love, it’s also hard not to complain. It’s hard to look at social media for what it is and turn a blind eye to what takes place under the skin. Personal information shared or even sold without our permission is just the tip of the iceberg. What is even more problematic is how social media is playing a central role in breaking families apart. Knowing this and seeing it before our eyes is hard when we also realise that our hands are tied.

We are constantly reminded that of the principle religions of the world, Christians are held to the highest standard. The bar is set very high for us because of the principled stand we take against immorality (among other reasons). The world expects us to walk the talk. Since we are the children of God given stewardship of the world including the holy observance of the 10 Commandments, morality is ours to uphold steadfast to.

That is why when Christians err publicly, people are wont to say things like, “…and he calls himself a Christian!” Whether that’s warranted or not depends on the situation and what really happened but the bottom line is that we can’t be seen to do the wrong things no matter how slight it may be. Because we are Christians, our every move is closely watched. Our every word is carefully monitored. Everything we respond to becomes left, right and centre of attention for haters. In other words, no one cuts us any slack.

Being held to an impossibly high standard is an irony. To Christians, high standard means adhering to God’s will and live a life of obedience and submissiveness to Him. To the secular world, it’s meant to break us. Therefore we are to refrain from following and doing what everyone else does. Insofar as social media is concerned, our Christian standards do not say anything about eschewing the use of it or the smartphone or, as a matter of fact, any communications device. What our standards demand of us is to use it without shaming or disappointing Christ.

While most everyone use social media for all the wrong reasons, we mustn’t follow them, blindly or otherwise.

In his letter to the church of Philippi, the apostle Paul wrote:

“Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticise you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless.” (Php 2:14-16, NLT, m.e.)

Here’s a good reminder of why we must set ourselves apart from the world. As others use social media for all the wrong reasons, we must liberate ourselves from being tethered to the ways of the flesh. In Paul’s words, we should “do everything without complaining and arguing.” We must “live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people.” How do we achieve all this?

Here’s Jesus’ answer:

“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are My disciples.” (Jn 13:34-35, NLT, m.e.)

In the surest sign of rejecting and mocking God, the world has long since normalised sin but even so, the efforts are getting increasingly more intense and radical. The world today is filled to the brim with atheists, Satanists, and socialists (and pseudo-socialists) and those who think it’s cool to dismiss Him. Some lead in the effort while others blindly follow. Either way, there’s a heavy price to pay that will come their way.

The more sweeping he normalisation of sin becomes, the more greatly threatened our lives are. Consider how much more sin we’re dealing with today compared to, say, fifty years ago. Back during the Sixties, the most prominent sins society dealt with were organised crime and socialism. If you consider smoking as a sin, include that as well. Today, we have an encyclopaedic range of sins. Anyone would run out of breath figuring out the number of sins that plague our everyday lives. Even more disturbing are those sins that don’t appear apparent but lurk just under the surface. Social media is just one example of this.

Source: rt.com

For us to keep a safe distance from evil, we must cling on to our faith as tenaciously as possible. We must learn to love one another as Christ loves us. We must be prayerful even for those who are our enemies. We must be kind in thoughts and deeds. We must be forgiving of those who hurt or harm or say terrible but unfounded things about us. And we must keep equipping ourselves with the word of God.

When we conduct ourselves in Christ righteousness, people sit up and take notice. It’s not just knowing right from wrong or good from evil but it’s also how we react or respond that people will be watching us. But when people see God in our lives, they will also witness His grace that comes from our action and response. In social media, millions can be witness and also be inspired when we become lighthouses for Christ to shine His light into the lives of those who dwell in darkness.

So whether we wake up on the wrong side of bed or have a day to forget at the office or one where nothing goes right, cease behaving like most others would. Let’s not be quick to shoot our mouth off. Let us be mindful of those who use social media to vent their spleen, cuss and swear and curse others without shame. Let us not be influenced by what the world would do but be instructed by God’s commandments instead.

Having said that, be ready nonetheless. There will always be those who will brandish daggers when they realise we are Christians for these are the ones who hate Christ and therefore, they will hate us:

“If the world hates you, remember that it hated Me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you. Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave is not greater than the master.’ Since they persecuted Me, naturally they will persecute you. And if they had listened to Me, they would listen to you. They will do all this to you because of Me, for they have rejected the One who sent Me. They would not be guilty if I had not come and spoken to them. But now they have no excuse for their sin. Anyone who hates Me also hates My Father. If I hadn’t done such miraculous signs among them that no one else could do, they would not be guilty. But as it is, they have seen everything I did, yet they still hate Me and My Father. This fulfils what is written in their Scriptures: ‘They hated Me without cause.’” (Jn 15:18-25, NLT)

We can all see this phenomenon throughout the world and it’s not going to get better. In other words, when we face trials and tribulations in our lives, we should neither use social media to air our dirty linen nor confide in a person of worldly wisdom.

The Book of Proverbs does talk about talking and sharing with someone with whom we can speak openly and in person. The writer considers such a person as a trustworthy and devoted friend:

“A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need.” (Prov 17:17, NLT, m.e.)

If a brother or a close friend is this loyal and willing, imagine God!

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” (Php 4:6-7, NLT, m.e.)

Paul is of course correct. What man can do, God can do manifold times better. Better still, God can instil in us His sense of peace that no one else can do, let alone match. It is this tranquillity that can separate us from the raucousness of the world around us. As Paul says, God’s peace “exceeds anything we can understand.”

Decisiveness

Source: telegraph.co.uk

The Internet isn’t the best place to go wandering without a care in the world. It’s certainly not somewhere you expect to always find wonderful things. As far as virtual worlds go, the Internet is almost infinite in breadth and depth and while there are some amazing websites you can visit, you can also stumble across sites that are unsavoury and positively evil.

The trouble is these sites might not appear so from the onset but by the time you dig in and get your hands dirty, it might be too late. Such is the case with the way people are so wrapped up in social media. Millions have taken the plunge into social media and the deeper they went, the more they appear to love the whole idea of it. After all, what’s there not to like? Under one roof, Facebook offered endless features to keep anyone busy for the whole day and beyond. It is so all-encompassing that people don’t even care to get anywhere else on the Internet.

The victims of social media, right from the beginning, have always been those who are misinformed or that they simply lack judgement. Some of them think they know enough to know when to stop. Quite a number of them scoff at those who warn them of the risks because they just don’t see anything wrong with social media.

These victims cut across the full age range. From the young to the old, everyone is vulnerable so long as no one practises proper judgement, care and awareness. Even today, there are plenty of articles written about the risks involved in social media (much like this one) but it doesn’t look like many of them have taken heed.

So what are these pitfalls that the Internet is so filled with?

The most obvious ones are those that came the earliest – spam mail followed by all sorts of other menacing ‘hooks’ such as web links within the email message that don’t do what their titles say. These links, when clicked, will open up a whole can of worms for the user. Today, there are a whole lot more types of dangers that the Internet has that is truly frightening for the uninitiated. Here are some examples:

- Free installable utility apps with ‘bonus’ features

These are utilities that allow you to convert your video or audio files. There are endless numbers of them available and all of them make the same claim of being free. Sure enough, they are free but after once you begin installing the app, you will receive an onscreen invitation to also download add-on features including even search engines and browsers, all of which are, by and large, dangerous.

When that happens, you can always click ‘No’ and the installation process will apparently not include them but, in some cases, that might not even be true. The real problem begins when you decide to uninstall the utility program either because it doesn’t work as well as you’d like or you finally come to your senses that it’s not that good.

While the app will likely uninstall as a result, the add-ons are likely to stay behind. In other words, standard uninstallation will not remove the nefarious parts. Instead they will likely remain hooked into your Windows operating system for a long time to come.

- Hidden viral compromise taking place on your hard disk

Up till the days prior to Windows 95, viruses were physically destructive. This means that they would actually damage hard disks. Before that, they did ‘cute’ things like making texts look like they were falling all over the screen or they twirl around in a mock spin cycle. At least back then, your data was, generally speaking, not so much a direct target.

That’s no longer the case today. Viruses have transmuted to become dangerous in a different way. Functioning like burrowing worms, they gain access into your hard disk through the ‘back door’ method. This means either via an email attachment or something you surreptitiously clicked in some website without realising. It might even come from someone else’s USB thumbdrive that you plugged into your computer. Whatever it is, it’s what we call a Trojan virus.

The current trend for these viruses is to steal information from your hard disk and they do this in the background so that you don’t know it’s even happening. These viruses are designed to know precisely where to go in your Windows operating system in which your vital information is contained. Depending on the type of virus, the information in question may be your personal contact list complete with names, email addresses and even phone contact numbers. It can also be your banking details including credit card numbers.

As you can imagine, people make money out of the information they steal from our computers. Such information carries an enormous value on the black market and are sold to an assortment of businesses including criminals. If you ever wonder how you can suddenly receive email or SMS messages from people you don’t know but who seem to know your personal particulars, your answer could lie here.

I have a friend who recently was an unwitting victim of ‘ransomware,’ a kind of virus that breaches your computer’s operating system security before locking up your data files, preventing you from opening them. On discovering that many of his picture and work files in his hard disk were ‘hijacked,’ he then received an email from the perpetrator, informing him that to recover access, he must remit a huge sum of money via some banking procedure outlined to him.

Ransomware is big business to the underworld. Perpetrators can earn millions in the most unthinkable way. In 2016 alone, damages amounting to as much as US$1 billion have been recorded, according to a report by a cybersecurity group. For my friend to regain access to his own files turned out to be such a hefty payout that he had no choice but to sacrifice all of them. Even Microsoft was not in the position to be able to help.

- Fake information used to bait those who are ignorant

There are websites that you are interested in going to but somewhere you don’t seem to be able to get there. Encrypted auto-diversion is a common ruse that scammers use to bait innocent (gullible) users into visiting.

For example, let’s say you’re looking for an old favourite movie that you’d like to download. And so, you do an Internet search and find possible links to the websites that might offer you the right service. On what you believe is the right link, you click at it but instead of going to the website as advertised in the search, you are taken somewhere else that has nothing to do with the movie download.

In fact, if you’re attentive enough, you can actually see the website address change midway in the URL box to something completely different. And it’s not as if you can do anything about it.

This is, of course, hijacking of a different nature where you never get where you want to go in the first place. Instead, you invariably end up at some gambling, adult dating, gaming or some form of illegal website.

The point of this section is Decisiveness. It is not whether or not you will come across dangerous websites. The fact is you may whether you like it or not. It is not be design or choice but at some point, accidents may lead you to such websites. And if you do, the question is whether or not you are decisive enough to prevent yourself from getting too involved. This is especially true when it comes to social media.

Because of its immense appeal, sites like Facebook can and will draw you in like a magnet and since there are so many things you can do in it, you can really end up spending all your time doing all sorts of things. Apart from finding long-lost friends, you will find a gazillion other trivial things to do; things you normally wouldn’t have time for but like millions of others, you get sucked into it.

Sites like Facebook are so addictive that given the many things you can do there, the likelihood is that you will find something that will draw and rivet your attention be it some games, juicy gossips, aggregated news, dating matches, sharing of photos and so on. In a world of curiosities and busybodies, there are all sorts of stuff that will invariably prove appetising enough to take up all your time.

And that’s where the problem is. How will you be decisive about the time you spend if you are too weak willed to control yourself? How will you overcome the temptations that keep baiting you, vying for your undivided attention when you keep on finding new and exciting things in social media to occupy you?

The key to decisiveness is to pray for God’s wisdom so that the Holy Spirit will nudge you to know what, where and when you should be doing things. Within the context of what we’re dealing with, decisiveness means getting a firm hold on how you manage your time spent on social media. It means not allowing it to undermine our better judgement, not to let it manipulate us into submission when we’re too vulnerable to do anything about it. Decisiveness therefore calls upon us to be alert at all times so that we do not breach our own moral limits.

Of course, the six-million dollar question is whether or not you really need to be involved in social media. Or if you are already in social media, maybe the question is how much of it you need to be involved. Some people spend so much time in social media – being involved in as many networks as you can imagine – that they really leave themselves with no time to live a normal life. For them, their reality is in the virtual world. It’s little wonder that some of them don’t know how to make friends in the real world.

For Christians who indulge in social media, here are some questions for you to think about:

- Do you consider yourself a light, moderate, heavy or very heavy user of social media?

- On a daily average, how many hours do you normally spend on social media? Do you spend your time online with one or more certain people? And if so, are they Christians as well? Do you know them outside the Internet (as in real life)?

- If you’re active in social media, what online activities do you get involved in and what contents do you normally pursue? Are they the kinds of stuff that God would approve of?

- Do you or have you set limits on social media networks for yourself? If so, what are these limits and have you set them too low or too high or just right for yourself? Have you been able to comply with these limits? If you have, is it because you’ve set the bar too low? If you haven’t been able to, is it because the bar is too unrealistically high?

- Have you ever felt close to divulging your personal information online at any stage on social media in the past? What happened then? Did you feel like you were almost tricked into doing so?

- Do you think you can go through a week without accessing any social media networks while your phone is turned on? If you think that’s impossible, why? If you think it’s doable, have you tried?

- Does the amount of attention you give to social media compete with the time you should be spending in church ministry work?

- Do you consider overindulgence in social media a form of idolatry to God? After all, if your involvement in social media is taking you away from contributing to church work, wouldn’t that be so?

- Have you used social media to share the Gospel? If so, how often do you do that? If not, why not? Has your sharing of the Gospel using social media bore any fruit? If not, why? If it has, explain how this has happened for you.

Defensiveness

Source: jpninfo.com

The one precarious thing about the Internet is once you have posted something, you can’t quite take it back. Yes, certain social media platforms do allow you to withdraw and delete but not all offer this feature. WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, for example, provide a small window of opportunity because the time period is very short. So, whether you sent a message to the wrong person or you regret sending the message, you don’t have a lot of time to mull over it. Even if you manage to retract the message, you have no idea who might already have seen it by then. Whoever did see it could’ve taken a screenshot of it already.

In some cases, you may only be able to delete the message on your end but not the recipients’. That’s just the same as saying, you can’t erase the message. To put it simply, posting messages on social media is not something to be taken lightly because changing your mind might not be possible.

This risk becomes worrying if the message pertains to your own personal information. Being tricked into uploading such detail is one thing but not being able to retract – once you realise your mistake – is very troubling indeed. The Internet is not a place for you to make such mistakes because once your private information is somewhere floating in virtual space, everyone has a chance to grab at it. When that’s the case, the damage you would have done to yourself can be incalculable.

Quite often, people upload offensive posts that draw flak from readers. When the criticisms mount, the person quickly deletes the post but that might already be too little too late. That’s because others might already have screen captures of the post and fanned it out to others to read. This is such a widespread problem on social media that some of us think that to post and then withdraw later is nothing more than a cynical ploy just to drive home the point. For others, it’s just plain stupidity.

So before you feel like slamming someone online, it’s best to cool off and think beforehand because you might not be able to change your mind. The same goes with giving away private information about yourself or anyone else for that matter.

In today’s world, the English vocabulary has a new word called ‘doxing’ (or ‘doxxing’), which means the broadcasting of private information about an individual or organisation on the Internet for others to take note of. The idea of doxing is to pull the covers off someone so that haters can be unleashed on to him with the intention to either hurt him or his family. Herein the information includes name, age, email address, residential address, contact phone numbers, photographs, spouse and children’s names, workplace (and school) details and so on. It may be scary that people can do this these days but this is the reality we are faced with.

In the most ethical of concerns, private information should stay private. After all, that’s what the word ‘private’ is supposed to mean. Any piece of personal information that can be used against you should not be made public and that includes not just your banking details but also whatever negative or derogatory comments you may have made against others because these might one day come back and haunt you.

In other words, whatever insults you feel like hurling should be kept to yourself. Some people actually enjoy offending others, often without any justifiable reasons. They think it’s cool to be abusive, scathing, vile or cruel. However once these nasty words are let out into the Internet, they will always be accessible no matter how many years ago, they were then said. Anyone looking for dirt on you in order to bring you down or destroy your reputation has it easy. All he has to do is to spend some time and effort sleuthing online. If he’s savvy enough, it won’t take him long to ‘discover’ all those nasty words.

When you fail to exercise defensiveness, a lot of awful things can happen. Here are some examples:

- Because a 16-year-old child failed to properly set her Facebook privacy setting, 1,500 strangers gate crashed at her birthday party because they all read about it on her social media. No surprise then that she learned a costly lesson here.

- Families that post pictures that show where they’ve been or where they live but have overlooked the fact that GPS settings are embedded in them learn to regret such a mistake that is, after their homes were broken in and comprehensively robbed on the day they weren’t around.

- People who post parts of their documentation but didn’t do enough to conceal what should not be shown invariably reveal far too much personal information that can prove costly. Imagine if the person’s savings number was unwittingly revealed in the snapshot.

- One of the college photos available online that is taken decades ago of a political leader shows him doing racist gestures could bring down his career amidst public uproar.

- A person’s very private photos posted online reveal enough of her to get her fired from her job by her employer with no chance of appeal.

- A worker’s insulting online comments about a major customer he served is brought to his boss’ notice resulting in him being dismissed from his job.

- A student somehow reveals his homosexual tendencies to the wrong crowd that invariably used it to harass and bully him to the point that he commits suicide.

The bottom line is think carefully before you post anything on social media. As Christians, our every action must not shame God. If we are to glorify Him, then make sure that we use social media with responsibility. Always remember that much of the world out there is always looking to fault us. Therefore, as Christians, consider how these questions portray our action on social media:

- Will people see the goodness of God in the way we conduct ourselves?

- Will people want to know more about our faith in Christ because of what we post online?

- Will fellow Christians want to share whatever we post within our faith community?

- Or will people condemn God because of our online behaviour?

- Will people use our poor conduct to ‘prove’ that Christians are undesirable?

So, here are two questions to ask before posting anything up on social media for others to see and read:

- Does your post promote love or hate? Does it sound forgiving or otherwise? Does it prove that God is caring or not?

- Does what you write online advance or diminish the Gospel? Does it edify or obfuscate people? Does it make people want to seek God out or does it turn them off?

- Does our behaviour on social media reflect the goodness and love of God? Or does it tell others that we’re no different from anyone else?

Because we Christians are held to a more stringent yardstick, we must be absolutely sure that what we post online does not disgrace God. The most fundamental thing we should do, to begin with, is to proofread what you write before we post it on social media.

Foremost in our proofreading is to check our motive for posting. The question is whether or not we are doing the right thing by texting our message using social media. Or is it something we can do privately? If it’s just one person you’re trying to reach, does it make sense to talk to the person face to face?

In your proofreading, check the language you’re using to write the message. Did you write it in a fit of anger or are you perfectly calm and rational? Maybe you intend to be caustic or sarcastic. Perhaps you’re plotting to expose the person’s foolishness with the sole purpose of shaming him. And in all of this, your choice of words may be suspect.

If your post includes photos, see if they’re lewd or suggestive. Remember, your morality yardstick isn’t from the secular world. If your photos demean the holiness of God, then you’ll need to rethink the whole post and not just the photos. Whatever your intent is with sharing such photos on social media, it can’t be honouring Him. Furthermore there is a real risk that your actions will cause others to stumble.

Source: nytimes.com

When you proofread, does it look like your post is all centred on yourself? Is it all about you? Does it sound like you’re somewhat bragging? Even foodie pictures can, to some people, smack of braggadocio. Many people just don’t realise that such posts (and photos) reflect a low self-esteem because the sender is simply trying too hard to draw attention to himself. Such self-centredness merely elevates yourself and relegates God, which is just the opposite of what we should do (Jn 3:30).

None of this suggests that all your posts must be about God or they must be contextually biblical. Of course not. You don’t have to get theological in everything you post and share on social media. Neither should all of us sound like pastors preaching at a moment’s notice. Or worse, we shouldn’t use social media to behave like a holier-than-thou Pharisee just to make others feel inferior.

While your posts don’t have to be directly of God, they should reflect the love and gentleness that is His unerring trademark. It should, in other words, reflect His character since we are all created in His image (Gen 1:27). What we say must mirror Him. And since we are created in His image, we are thus called to be ourselves and not have to pretend to be someone else. We are given a unique character and personality; so use it.

Therefore what we post online should somehow reveal the hope we have in Christ whether directly or otherwise:

“Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ.” (1 Pt 3:15-16, NLT, m.e.)

Discernment

Source: couriermail.com.au

In his letter to the church members in Thessaloniki, Paul wrote:

“Do not scoff at prophecies, but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good. Stay away from every kind of evil.” (1 Thess 5:20-22, NLT, m.e.)

The apostle calls on us to know right from wrong, good from bad. To put it simply, be discerning enough to avoid trouble. Only be seeking and applying God’s wisdom will we then know how best to “stay away from every kind of evil.”

Although Paul’s advice is meant for the real world, it is just as appropriate to apply it to the time we devote to social media. Hence, we can take to heart his exhortation to not leave any stone unturned but to “test everything that is said.” In the virtual world, Paul’s advice would be to be very cautious when using social media and not be thoughtless, dismissive or naïve. Instead of stepping beyond the precipice of damnation, we must therefore “hold on to what is good.”

The problem with discernment is exactly what Paul said. When he wrote, “Do not scoff at prophecies,” he is talking about those who are smug enough to write off the threat of evil. These are the people who flirt with sin because they think they have what it takes to contain evil. Though it is obvious to many of us that this is foolish, some obviously think they know what they’re doing that is, until serious trouble strikes.

Paul’s take-home message is a simple one: Where there is even the tiniest hint of sin or evil, walk away. And don’t look back. Savour everything that is good and discard the rest.

That even includes the ‘likes’ and ‘follows’ that social media entices you to click whenever you come across stuffs that you read or watch online. Always remember that whatever it is that you participate in social media, the decisions you make reveal your attitude and conviction of the works and deeds of others. If you are seen to ‘like’ saucy images and people find out you’re a Christian, the shame that will bring to God and the entire Christian community is incalculable. There cannot be any goodwill that can be done to undo the sheer embarrassment of your action.

There is nothing beautiful about seeing pictures of people dressed scantily. Neither can anyone say that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Lewdness or nakedness has no bearing on God’s attitude to beauty. While the world feasts its eyes on the vulgarity of naked flesh, the Lord’s concern is focused on inner beauty:

“Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewellery, or beautiful clothes. You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God.” (1 Pt 3:3-4, NLT, m.e.)

Equally as foolish are those who would do anything in front of camera so long as it draws attention to themselves. The desire for self-importance is often followed by acts of poor taste where one makes a complete fool of himself simply because of the publicity he craves. This is becoming increasingly evident over the number of years since the advent of YouTube where people post up video shorts of just about anything they like.

Of late, people have been indulging in a video phenomenon called ‘unboxing’ where they proudly display what they have purchased – usually (but not necessarily) a smartphone or a digital camera – by training the camera on the process of removing the box and carefully unwrapping, showing the innards. Exactly how is an ‘unboxing’ video useful to anyone who is interested to know how good the product is especially when that is all it shows?

When we do foolish things to attract attention, we are also deprioritising God at the same time except that in addition, we make ourselves look pretty stupid to the whole world. We keep forgetting that our pleasure on social media is not God’s concern. What He wants us is for us to place Him at the centre of our lives and then to project that impression outwardly so that other people around us may see and feel His holiness.

Discipline

Source: asianlite.com

Another word for Discipline is Self-Control. That’s like saying you must draw a line and know never to cross it. In politics, we call that the ‘red line.’ It’s a boundary between peace and war. To cross the ‘red line’ is to inadvertently or otherwise declare war. Setting a similar boundary for ourselves is to know when our involvement in social media is way past rational limits.

But when it comes to social media, what or when is ‘too much’? It’s fair to say that there are different interpretations of this. Here are just seven of them:

- When you don’t even know how to socialise in the real world anymore

- When your parents have to resort to social media to communicate with you while at home

- When you don’t really have real and physical friends or when most of your social life is actually spent online

- When all your activities suggest you don’t really care much about what’s happening in the real world

- When you begin to act ‘abnormally’ enough for your own family to notice and be concerned

- When you appear so absorbed by social media that your academic grades show signs of failure

- When you willingly break relationships with real friends just so you can spend more time online

No doubt, some of you will think of more but in these seven, the worrying signs are real enough. When ‘too much’ means we are losing our sense of reality, that means we have begun to lose the ability to tell reality from disreality. When we become so detached from our real earthly life, we also become separated from fellowship with our Christian brothers and sisters. And if nothing is done about this soon enough, this alienation can become permanent.

Slavery to social media is on the rise but even so, very few recognise it as such. It’s not far different from people who are inebriated who then say they aren’t. Within the context of social media, addiction and slavery are the two edges of the same knife. Both cut the same way. Both carry the same message and produce the same devastating result. And in the end, both inherently talk about the same thing.

To be enslaved to social media doesn’t appear to be all too difficult. In the world we live, there are tens of millions of such people with an incredible addiction that they just can’t put down their phones. But worse, the addiction has caused rifts in families and in other social circles.

Slavery begins the moment you step past that boundary we spoke of. And as you deepen your involvement past that point, slavery tightens its grip on your life. You eventually start to lose control over your real physical life as you withdraw from one and indulge more intensely in the other. Virtuality takes over and soon, your entire sense of reality will be fragmented. If you don’t get treatment soon enough, that fragmented reality could become irreversible.

I don’t say any of this with any medical expertise. I’m not a physician or a psychoanalyst. But from what we all have been noticing around, the above is not something out of a B-grade science fiction movie. It is very real and it’s happening rampantly wherever you are. In my semi-retired profession as an English Communications coach, I have had students who were bordering on that phenomenon and was safely hauled back into reality. They can tell us a thing or two about their own experiences too.

Today, there are plenty of social media platforms to become slaves to. Other than the ubiquitous Facebook, there are a shocking number of them for the Western world and equally as many of them for mainland China. Altogether, they command an enslaved population probably larger than the whole of communist China itself.

How has it come this far? How on earth did social media become such a shocking source of addiction? The answer may not be as obvious as you may think.

Aze Raskin (source: ghanaguardian.com)

In a BBC article, the writer identified Aze Raskin, a former Mozilla and Jawbone employee said, “Behind every screen on your phone, there are generally like literally a thousand engineers that have worked on this thing to try to make it maximally addicting.”

Raskin should know what he’s talking about. It was he who invented the Infinite Scroll, a feature that enables a pageless view, meaning the web page just doesn’t end but instead continues without a limit. This and other similar innovations compel users to keep looking at their phones for a far longer period than necessary. The idea is to get as many people as possible to be hooked.

Leah Perlman (source: acento.com.do)

The inventor of Facebook’s notorious ‘Like’ button, Leah Perlman, said she herself became addicted on social media once she allowed the number of ‘likes’ to establish her sense of self-worth.

“When I needed validation, I go to check Facebook. I’m feeling lonely, ‘Let me check my phone.’ I’m feeling insecure, ‘Let me check my phone,” Perlman said.

In fact, she tried so hard to stop using Facebook after she left the company but found it very hard going. From the company’s founding president, Sean Parker, there was easily explained by the fact that Facebook had set out to compel users to spend as much time as possible on their social media network. And of course, it worked.

Parker said it was “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”

“The inventors understood this consciously and we did it anyway,” he added.

Sean Parker (source: businessinsider.com)

If all that sounds disturbing to you, it gets far worse. In its quest to see if they could actually control the mood of the user (without his knowledge, that is), the company conducted experiments involving the adjustments to the news feed. Not surprisingly, we’re seeing the horror of its results today. Experiments that have gone completely wrong have now given us an insane train wreck of political correctness and a social media that is dominated by only one set of opinions. If you fall outside these opinions, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble.

Parker has since confessed his regrets in helping to shape Facebook into the beast that it is today.

“I don’t know if I really understood the consequences of what I was saying, because of the unintended consequences of a network when it grows to a billion or 2 billion people and it literally changes your relationship with society, with each other. God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”

Chamath Palihaptiya (source: internethistorypodcast.com)

Days after Parker said that in November 2017, Facebook’s former vice-president of user growth from 20o5 to 2011, Chamath Palihaptiya, told an audience at the Stanford Graduate School of Business something very unsettling. He said, “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works.”

“No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth,” he continued, “and it’s not an American problem. This is not about Russian ads. This is a global problem.”

How big a problem is this? The best way to answer this question is to consider that today, there are actually therapy programmes available for those who suffer from social media addiction. Just a cursory check on the Internet will easily unearth a range of similar programmes.

At Lakewood AspenRidge Recovery in Lakewood, Colorado, they is a programme called ‘Social Media Addiction Treatment’ that actually comprise a range of different therapies. One of the world’s leading addiction specialists, Dr Stanton Peele, runs a recovery assistance initiative called ‘Life Process Social Media Programme.’

There is also an online therapy company called Talkspace that offers a 12-week US$400 ‘Social Media Dependency Therapy’ package that is “designed to help you manage your use of, and response to, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and more.” The Social Media Addiction Treatment Centre in Foothills at Red Oak Recovery in Ellenboro, North Carolina runs programmes centring on social media and smartphone addictions.

If you’re wondering why there is no mention of similar treatment centres in Malaysia, that’s because searching through the Internet revealed none. Perhaps there are and if so, that might mean that this problem has not received sufficient publicity. In other words, unlike elsewhere, people in Malaysia might not think it’s such a big problem.

Whatever Malaysians in general think of social media addiction, it is real and IT giants like Facebook, Google and the whole lot of them have been deliberately incorporating technologies that subtly entices users to dig deeper and spend more time in social media. The inescapable facts remain irrefutable – IT giants aren’t in the business of being compassionate when it comes to mental health issues. The Internet represents the most powerful cash cow they can milk for decades and if you’re vulnerable enough to be sucked into the vacuum, you’re easy meat. The serious problem is hundreds of millions of users throughout the world are easy meat.

But it isn’t just about money. After all, IT giants have bottomless bank accounts. Just last year alone, Facebook has a market capitalisation and nett worth of US$470 billion. That’s absolutely huge but at US$715 billion, Google’s market capitalisation is more than 1.5 times larger.

Besides the enormous money-making venture that social media is, it’s also the enormous potential to wield influence and sway opinions across hundreds of millions of users worldwide. There is no doubt that in social media, IT giants have found their perfect springboard for not just socio-political discourse but real change. It may not be democratic. It certainly isn’t very legal. But with social media, IT giants are able to mobilise vulnerable users to root for their cause with devastating results as we have been witnessing in the past number of years.

Source: creativecultureint.com

Given their enormous financial power and the ability to influence mindsets, users like you and I are nothing but fodder in their hands. But we do have a choice – we can either let forces beyond our control sweep us along or we can be disciplined with the way we use social media. That means we recognise our limits and apply them. It also means we do not let it control and undermine us. Social media is a wonderful tool but that’s just where we should draw a line. In other words, we do not cross it.

Recall that one of the Ten Commandments talks about keeping the Sabbath:

“Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day He rested. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.” (Ex 20:8-11, NLT, m.e.)

From the above passage, the lesson is the Sabbath itself. As a principle, Sabbath teaches us that there must be times when we just stop indulging in things that take us away from our spiritual priorities and instead, take a break. At some point, even rush hours must also come to a stop. Life is too important to let it drift away simply because we are led to think that there are things so crucial that they require our undivided attention.

From this lesson, social media becomes the elephant in the room. It is the prime culprit in sucking all the energy from our lives. Social media is so consuming that we unerringly give everything to it, leaving nothing behind for our real friends and families. But it does all these in such a subtle manner at the beginning because it starts with being fun, amazing and entirely pleasurable. Eventually once it crosses the threshold, social media becomes a potential death wish.

That’s when we see people constantly updating their status, liking and sharing posts, messaging even people they don’t know, uploading photos of anything and everything, vlogging or blogging (or both) and commenting on whatever others are (commenting).

Just these alone can take up an entire day and when they do, real friends and families are left behind. We create a bubble of virtual friends with whom we share everything in our lives with complete with photos and videos and everything else. Then our mindset changes. We begin to transform ourselves into whatever news we read and learn from within social media.

A scene from the movie ‘The Circle’ (source: catchnews.com)

In the 2017 movie called ‘The Circle,’ we see Emma Watson’s character, Mae, being told that those who work for the powerful tech company (called the Circle) are all ‘one community’ together, meaning that no one keeps secrets at all – all secrets are ‘bad’ – and that their lives are to be open books. That ultimately means everything is shareable including deeply confidential family matters and confidential government discussions and matters concerning national security.

That’s of course nonsense. If you’re a mature adult, you should know that. As a Christian, you cannot but know none of what social media ‘promises’ is true because ultimately, the hidden agenda is to drive us into addiction and pull us as far as possible from God. Contrary to naïve thinking, that is not difficult to do. When any of us take our faith for granted, it will happen right under our nose.

Keep your discipline in check. Take a break from social media. No, take breaks from social media and do that as often as you can. Shut out social media so that it cannot take over your life. Between your real life and virtual life, choose real life. Walk away the instant you feel that social media is creeping up to consume you. Apply strict control in your life and constantly remind yourself not to slip away from God.

If I’m honest with you, I’d say let’s go back to the pre-social media days because it’s far simpler and less threatening. But we can’t. Social media is now here to stay and it won’t go away any time soon. Social media won’t change. The people who engineer the way social media works won’t have a change of heart and dial out the addictive features. That won’t happen today and I doubt it will ever happen at any time in the near or distant future.

However, we can change. Even if social media is here to stay, we can make amends in our lives by choosing to leave it at any time. You may not want to permanently walk away from social media but you should know that you have the right to do it as and when you like, for a few days at your convenience or for no matter how long you feel like it. Don’t let social media dictate your life. Don’t allow it to make you lose touch with reality. Don’t make it the idol that God detests.

If you haven’t tried it before, why not. Turn off your smartphone for the whole of next week and see what happens. Hopefully you won’t go into meltdown but one thing is certain – that social media network will still be there when you choose to return. And if you keep having such breaks every now and then, you’d have done something very positive for yourself – you have acquired the discipline to dictate social media and not the other way ‘round.

(Keep your) distance

Source: rebelcircus.com

In other words, maintain a relevant life. Don’t be drowned by social media to the extent that you unwittingly end up walking away from the real world. The Internet is nothing but a few computers electrically and electronically connected together so that electrons in the form of data are shared. If that sounds clinical, that’s because that is essentially what it is all about.

The problem with the Internet is that we tend to give it a sense of life. Over the decades, we have turned the Internet into a living organism with exponential cellular growth much like a biomass. In 1991, there was only one website. Three years later, in 1994, that had grown to around 3,000 websites. By 2014, that figure has grown to more than 1 billion. That’s a staggering 33 million percent increase in a space of two decades! The site ‘Internet Live Stats’ tells us there are, as of this time of writing, some 935,950,654 websites. And growing.

And yet all of these websites are not physical but completely virtual. The people you meet online to talk and share things with are virtual. They do exist but you don’t really see them in real life unless you make it a point to actually meet them physical. But that might not be all that practical – or realistic – when thousands of your friends are halfway across the world.

To stay relevant means keeping your distance from social media. You can make as many friends as you like on social media but there are two evident things you should be aware of.

Firstly, at least some of these friends might not be who you think they are. It’s easy enough to hide behind the computer 15,000 miles away and pretend to be anything and everything you want him/her to be. For someone who’s looking for the ideal girl in his life, the other person may be a guy in real life but he can feed your fantasy and potentially ruin you before you even know it. People can do and say anything they like but that doesn’t mean they’re telling you the truth. In reverse, you can do the same to some unsuspecting victim across the other end of the Internet.

Secondly, you may notice that you ‘like’ the same things as another particular person with an ‘interesting’ name but that doesn’t necessarily guarantee you that you will hit it off with him/her as a friend. In social media, people treat one another simply as ‘likes’ but ‘likes’ don’t automatically translate into usable statistics. However, everyone will tell you that the more ‘likes’ you have, the more important they feel about themselves. That might sound like hogwash but it’s pretty true to many millions of social media users. But the truth behind the ‘likes’ is that you’re nothing more than a number in the vast pool called social media.

Where social media accords you a specific number – an IP address, if you like – the real world is so dramatically different. Unlike the virtual bubble of make-believe companionships, the real world comes with real physical friends, flesh and all. You meet and chat with them. You sit down and have a cup of coffee with them. You shake their hands and feel their warmth. You listen to every word they say complete with all the insinuations and overtones. You see the reactions and facial expressions. You may eye contact with them. You hear with your ears and you feel with all your senses that the person you’re conversing with is just as real as you are.

Source: long-distance-lover.com

Because we see people in reality, we can like them as much as we may or may not. We can make informed choices based on everything we see in the person. Our judgements are worth standing up to because they are entirely based on an actual visual and aural experience. But the same cannot ever be said of the virtual friends we make on social media and for that reason, there is simply no contest at all.

Just as we keep a distance to those who fake their presence on social media, be mindful that we can also do the same, which means others can also keep their distance from us. Without a doubt, fakery is rampant throughout the Internet. It’s not just social media but there are plenty of websites that are built on false information meant to deceive all of us. It’s the same as email messages that contain fake links that when clicked will spell enormous problems for us. Some of these problems can mean the end to all our hard-earned savings.

As an example of a notorious social media platform, Facebook is no exception. Although it offers us great opportunities to connect with friends and families regardless of geographic distance. Unfortunately, it is also a hotbed for those looking to satiate their fantasies, those who use it to lie and cheat others as well as attention-seekers who desire the world to fete them. Some of us are so desperate to fit into that part of society where the pursuit of fake visages eclipse honesty in importance.

Christians are often told to be friendly to others but at the same time, many of us hanker for attention one way or another. We also upload photos and post articles that others may like them. And we like the fact that they like them too. Not all of us like to see our names in billboards or like the idea of signing autographs but that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy a bit of attention every now and then. It is a human weakness that also afflicts us Christians but it is also this personality trait that social media is very good at exploiting.

The very notion that one can find himself hugely popular on social media rings a lot of bells for youths; Christians included. And with that Facebook is an important vehicle for doing that although in recent times, there are other social media platforms that one can do the same. Many Christians do use social media to do ‘good works’ because they too understand that visibility is high using such networks. Your ‘good works’ do get noticed more easily than using conventional non-Internet means. But that in itself can also be potentially problematic.

What we may not understand or occasionally forget is that we are not saved by our good works but by the grace of God. For that, we are all called to glorify Him with all that we are, not all that we do or say. While we are called to transform ourselves from the inside out, God has no interest whatsoever in whether or not we look cool on the outside. So even if friends on social media think we’re hip with the way we talk or the way we look in the uploaded photos, God is simply not bothered:

“So we keep on praying for you, asking our God to enable you to live a life worthy of His call. May He give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do. Then the Name of our Lord Jesus will be honoured because of the way you live, and you will be honoured along with Him. This is all made possible because of the grace of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ.” (2 Thess 1:11-12, NLT, m.e.)

Take notice in the above verse that we are to “live a life worthy of His call” and by doing so, we honour Christ “because of the way you live.” In other words, to be “worthy of His call” means we are to live according to what God has called us to. And that has nothing to do with the ‘wonderful’ things we say and do on social media.

Respond to our calling

Source: adelaidenow.com.au

The thing about social media is that whatever it purports to do, it does it very well. In reaching out to long-lost friends, social media is peerless. In finding all sorts of things to do and finding amazing things to enjoy are both hallmarks of social media too. And even as a news aggregator, social media offers incredible convenience, all under a single roof (provided you like the news it ‘selects’ for you).

In Christian communities worldwide, social media is commonly seen as a very effective outreach tool. Many of us use it to advance the Kingdom of God by sharing the Gospel and witnessing to unbelievers. Enthusiastic Christians use it with fervour and often, they are savvy enough to maximise social media’s potential to great effect. And we’re finding newer ways to do an even better job just as social media is constantly ‘improving’ by way of more advanced technologies.

For so many of us, social media has been a boon. Its popularity is literally blown the roof off. That is why we see millions of people so engrossed in social media regardless of where we see them, be it in coffee shops, restaurants, hospitals, banks, department stores, taxi ranks and bus stops and even while they’re supposed to be watching movies in cinemas. People simply can’t put down their phones. Even while walking in streets, they’re looking at their phones. As they cross busy roads and intersections, they’re still scrolling through stuff on social media.

Surely social media must be doing a lot of things right and ticking a lot of boxes for so many millions of people. But its strongest suits are also its weakest ones. The so-called positive aspects of social media also happen to carry dark sides. In other words, what appears to be remarkable capabilities are also social media’s more nefarious powers of influence. For example, you may love the fact that you can keep scrolling and scrolling because it means you don’t have to click to open the next page and so on but this feature is one of many reasons for keeping you hooked to social media.

There is nothing in this article that can offer you solutions to overcoming social media addiction. What the reader finds here are just things to be aware of and how we should view social media from the Christian perspective. With the six principles highlighted here, it is my hope that you find them worth understanding and practising. By no means they are the only ones for Christians to live by but perhaps, they may offer you a launch pad to move in the right direction in countering (or at least, containing) social media.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians offers us a good reminder that we are all called to live for God in every area of our lives:

“…whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Don’t give offence to Jews or Gentiles or the church of God. I, too, try to please everyone in everything I do. I don’t just do what is best for me; I do what is best for others so that many may be saved.” (1 Cor 10:31-33, NLT, m.e.)

Sources for further reading

Abdul Razak, Dzulkifli (May 2019) Curb social media addiction (New Straits Times) accessible at https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnists/2019/05/491186/curb-social-media-addiction

Andersson, Hilary (Jul 2018) Social media apps are ‘deliberately’ addictive to users (BBC Technology) accessible at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44640959

Author unknown (no date) 37 Church Statistics You Need to Know for 2019 (Reach Right Studios) accessible at https://reachrightstudios.com/church-statistics-2019/

Bernama (Jan 2019) Malaysia ranks top 5 globally in mobile social media penetration, highest in region (New Straits Times) accessible at https://www.nst.com.my/lifestyle/bots/2019/01/456119/malaysia-ranks-top-5-globally-mobile-social-media-penetration-highest

Brown, Jennings (Nov 2017) Former Facebook Exec: ‘You Don’t Realise It But You Are Being Programmed (Gizmodo) accessible at https://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-exec-you-don-t-realize-it-but-you-are-1821181133

Conrad, Andrew (Mar 2018) 10 Powerful Church Statistics on Social Media Use (Capterra) accessible at https://blog.capterra.com/church-statistics-social-media/

Elgan, Mike (Dec 2015) Social media addiction is a bigger problem than you think (Computerworld) accessible at https://www.computerworld.com/article/3014439/social-media-addiction-is-a-bigger-problem-than-you-think.html

Kapahi, Ashish and Siow-Ling, Choo and Ramadass, Sureswaran and Abdullah, Nibras (Jun 2013) Internet Addiction in Malaysia Causes and Effects (Universiti Sains Malaysia) accessible at https://file.scirp.org/pdf/IB_2013062717052986.pdf

Lafrance, Adrienne (Sept 2015) How Many Websites Are There? (The Atlantic) accessible at https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/09/how-many-websites-are-there/408151/

Lewis, Bex (May 2016) How social media is changing the church (The Conversation) accessible at https://theconversation.com/how-social-media-is-changing-the-church-57405

Luther, Daisy (May 2018) Is Social Media Destroying Humanity on Purpose? (The Organic Prepper) accessible at https://www.theorganicprepper.com/is-social-media-destroying-humanity-on-purpose/

Palmer, Danny (Sept 2016) The cost of ransomware attacks: $1 billion this year (ZDNet) accessible at https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-cost-of-ransomware-attacks-1-billion-this-year/

Smith, Rick (Jan 2013) Social Media Facts and Statistics Every Church Needs to Pay Attention to (Ministry Tips) accessible at http://www.ministrytips.com/social-media-facts-and-statistics-for-2012/

Trey (Jan 2017) 10 Statistics on Social Media Use in Church’s Today (Wakefield Central Baptist Church) accessible at https://www.wakefieldcentralbaptist.org/10-statistics-on-social-media-use-in-churchs-today/

When the Pulpit is Powerless (Mt 7:28-29)

2019-09-28T22:59:00.003+07:00

When the Pulpit is Powerless

Based on Matthew 7:28-29 | September 29 2019

Khen Lim

Image source: embracingjesus.blogspot.com

“When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at His teaching, for He taught with real authority — quite unlike their teachers of religious law.” (Mt 7:28-29, NLT)

Teaching is something I have been doing for more than three decades now. It all began when I was a Journalism student in college and I tutored students from my same year on a voluntary (unpaid) basis at my own rented flat. Not long thereafter, I joined a commercial music school and taught piano to students from age 8 to 70. That went on for as long as I was in college as a means of financially supporting myself.

Then came photography where I conducted student workshops within the college campus and then years later, officially for Olympus firstly in Australia and then in Malaysia. I also managed to conduct tutorial classes for computing students in the subjects Systems Analysis and Design and also Software Engineering.

For the past five years, I have been teaching private classes in Communication English where I developed my own curriculum, wrote my own materials, set up my own PowerPoint slides including English quizzes, competitions and projects. It seems teaching has been in my blood for longer than I cared.

Through all these many years of teaching, I was long on ad lib but short on methodicity. Academics and educationists speak of pedagogy but for me, I preferred the ad hoc approach of trusting my own instincts to teach. Admittedly, I did quite well doing just that. At least I never once had anyone complaining that they didn’t understand or that I was boring.

Much to my surprise, no one came up to me to insist that I had to learn a methodical approach to teaching. Not even when I was teaching at the music school or even tutoring at the computing college. Because I’ve always relied on my own unorthodox approach, I didn’t really know what methods were or weren’t good.

Besides, teaching for me was not quite a qualified profession. As far as I was concerned, either you can or you can’t teach. And judging from my track record, I felt I could. If you have what it takes to teach, you obviously don’t need any methods! Or at least that was what I thought then.

But then, after my first few years of teaching, I began to understand that no matter what, I needed a systematic approach even if that meant I had to come up with some reasonable structure of my own. When I started to organise photography workshops during the late Eighties, I formulated a structured approach based on not just common sense but seemingly with goals in mind. From then on, I found myself honing and shaping it into something that made better sense. There was now a more coherent flow to how I taught.

The truth was that after years of teaching, it became impossible not to accept that a well-developed method always offered better practicality and reliability in how I could organise the teaching contents. So, today, good methodology is a staple must for all of my teaching. A methodical approach invariably helps to deliver my messages far more proficiently than otherwise regardless of what I teach.

That’s been the same when it comes to teaching the word of God. Drawing from the Book of Proverbs, it’s not difficult to understand that wisdom equips him to know what to teach as much as how to teach:

“The tongue of the wise makes knowledge appealing but the mouth of a fool belches out foolishness.” (Prov 15:2, NLT)

Similarly, down a few verses in the same chapter is a reminder of how wisdom is important, and therefore necessary, when we teach:

“The heart of the godly thinks carefully before speaking; the mouth of the wicked overflows with evil words.” (Prov 15:28, NLT)

In the following chapter, the subject of wisdom once more receives greater attention:

“The wise are known for their understanding and pleasant words are persuasive.” (Prov 16:21, NLT)

Two verses down, there it is again:

“From a wise mind comes wise speech; the words of the wise are persuasive.” (Prov 16:23, NLT)

These verses and more found in Scripture offer us proof that teaching without an effective approach is not a good thing. Knowing what the Bible says is a start but it doesn’t end there. Given a platform to deliver the message, we need to come to terms with how to teach it.

So how can we help others to understand God’s message? Should we care enough with the way we deliver so that God’s message is clearly understood? Should we make more effort and spend more time improving the way we teach so others may understand? We may find the collective answer in what Paul wrote to Timothy:

“I remember your genuine faith, for you share the faith that first filled your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice. And I know that same faith continues strong in you. This is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you. For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity but of power, love and self-discipline.” (2 Tim 1:5-7, NLT, m.e.)

Paul says that, without a doubt, Timothy possessed the strength and vibrancy of his faith to share but he also reminds him not only “to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you” but that He has given each and every one of us “a spirit of… power, love and self-discipline.”

In other words, Paul encouraged Timothy to work on his potential to teach and preach because that was “the spiritual gift God gave you.” But Paul’s exhortation isn’t just aimed at those who are gifted to teach but also to all of us who seek to do our best to teach because we are all called to minister to the world at large.

Jesus’ teaching approach

Image source: zackdonaldson.org

Let us begin by revisiting the scriptural theme:

“When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at His teaching, for He taught with real authority — quite unlike their teachers of religious law.” (Mt 7:28-29, NLT)

Now that we have reached this point of Matthew 5-7, we will have journeyed past the entire Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ most significant teaching of His public ministry. Herein lies the unmistakable sense of comfort and challenges that punctuate His teachings. Despite these highs and lows, this very part of Scripture has been a reassuring friend to us in, arguably, incomparable ways.

That’s because the Beatitudes and Jesus’ application of law speaks to us of a brand of truth that we otherwise won’t learn from anyone else. Unlike run-of-the-mill friends who merely tell us what we want to hear – even if that involves embellishing the truth - Jesus says it as it is and points us to the right path.

Verses 28 and 29 underscores the reaction of those who were privileged enough to have heard the Sermon on the Mount that day. That reaction was significant enough for Matthew to especially take note. He recalls the people’s amazement because Jesus had taught them as someone with exceptional authority. It was notably exceptional because it was “quite unlike their teachers of religious law.”

The fact that Matthew used the word “amazed” meant that Jesus’ teaching had such an impact on those who listened. They were literally shocked and dazzled and the likelihood was because they heard and understood. It is probable that the other reason was Jesus had no formal training even if they respectfully called Him a rabbi.

He was neither a Sadducee nor a Pharisee. He was not a scribe but merely a carpenter’s son and His friends were almost entirely fishermen and tax collectors. With such friends keeping Him company, how was He able to speak with such incredible authority?

In my many years of being involved in the pastoral ministry and having attended a variety of churches, I have come across different speakers; some who could keep me riveted to my seat as equally as those who, unfortunately, could perfectly drive me to sleep.

I recall an episode (Act 3 Episode 1) in the hugely popular British sitcom called ‘Mr Bean,’ where the title character himself attends a church service and progressively starts to fall asleep in the most comical manner. The vicar’s boring sermon appears to drone on in the background, driving Bean to do everything he could to stay awake. Humour aside, dull messages, no matter how rich the content may be, seems to be part of the landscape in at least some of the churches.

Boring sermons don’t hide the fact that many who speak at the pulpit – including the dull ones – are sufficiently decorated with titles and letters after their names as a visible reminder of their prestigious qualifications to preach before any congregation. Although seminary education has proven to be relatively immaterial to some of the more naturally brilliant preachers and Bible class teachers, people in general continue to give it a great deal of weight, sometimes enough to puff some up like peacocks showing off their plumes.

Years ago, I know of a local physician who was so keen to be a pastor that he took a sabbatical and headed to New Zealand with his family in tow to study at a seminary. I’m not sure how long he was there for but eventually, he returned and began as a part-time preacher though none of that education stopped him from sending half the church to sleep. Despite his discovery of using pictures in his slideshows, people still couldn’t keep awake. And amazingly, he hadn’t noticed anything amiss with the way he taught.

Although a theological education is always useful, it doesn’t guarantee that a person can preach effectively. Neither does a person who makes claims of having read the Bible from cover to cover multiple times. Instead, what makes anyone truly qualify to preach is his deep passion for God and His Word.

Naturally, if God has gifted the person with the spiritual talent to teach, that helps immensely but those who lack that shouldn’t be discouraged from teaching at least in an informal sense. What I’m trying to say is that true power and authority to teach effectively does not lie in institutionalised learning and training but rest purely on God and God alone.

Given such a view, it is then useful that we look closely at the way Jesus taught. Observe a number of outstanding characteristics that are part of the portrayal of Jesus the Master Teacher. For that, here’s what we can do:

Firstly, we observe His usual teaching practice. Next, we look for the principle that defines the way He teaches and based on (the principle), we can then explore how it may apply to our lives. If we can do all that, we will be able to identify nine areas of Jesus’ trademark teaching style. They are naturalness, relatability, discernibility, straightforwardness, legitimacy, conviction, applicability, purpose and (clarity of) principle.

Now, let’s begin.

Naturalness

Image source: thevcs.org

As a teacher, Jesus was certainly a natural. It is in His nature be one. In fact, He was born to do precisely that.

But of course, not all of us can say the same. In today’s modern and demanding world, teaching requires running a curriculum around a proven structure with timely scheduling but in Jesus’ time, teaching was all spontaneous and unpredictable (at least for Him).

One day, He’d be on the Sabbath at the synagogue. On another day, He would be preaching by the Galilee. As for the Sermon on the Mount, it is said that Jesus was at the Mount of Beatitudes somewhere on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus’ teaching was so spontaneous that it was impossible to plan and that is because it came so naturally to Him.

In fact, the Sermon on the Mount is a nice example of Jesus’ knack for spontaneity, which probably worked quite well since He was rather capable in drawing huge crowds who yearned to hear Him and be taught. His brilliant natural teaching skill was very likely what attracted so many to listen to Him. He was so adept at it that none of the scribes were ever able to compare to Him.

So how spontaneous can Jesus be? Very.

When Jesus was invited to the home of Simon the Pharisee and then found His feet being washed by the tears of a woman known for her sins, He jumped on the chance to teach about forgiveness (Lk 7:36). That’s spontaneous… and timely.

When His disciples quibble over who was the greatest, Jesus seized the opportunity and used a child to give them a lesson on true greatness (Lk 9:46). It is in this uncanny ability to respond to all sorts of situations and with such dynamism that He was set apart for such greatness Himself. And that greatness arose from sheer unbounded naturalness.

As we read in the Gospels, Jesus’ natural approach is so effective because He works His teachings around the day-to-day problems and circumstances of life. Rather than limiting His teachings to specific formal situations, He made sure that what He taught was practical, relevant and widely applicable. We see this receiving wide confirmation across Scripture in the following verses:

“Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your foreheads as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Dt 6:4-9, NLT, m.e.)

“Devote yourself to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart. Pray for us too, that God will give us many opportunities to speak about His mysterious plan concerning Christ. That is why I am here in chains. Pray that I will proclaim this message as clearly as I should. Live wisely among those who are not believers and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone.” (Col 4:2-6, NLT, m.e.)

“And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ.” (1 Pt 3:15b-16, NLT)

All of the above passages reveal that Jesus’ teaching happened less so in restricted or rigid settings but far more in the wide unbridled openness of casual situations. Jesus’ main audience wasn’t students in a seminary or a synagogue but the average man in the street. He was Joe Blogs or Mary Jones. Just as Deuteronomy 6:4-9 reminds us, such impromptu opportunities arise when you possess God’s truths in your heart and mind. It can be anywhere, anyhow, anytime. And you can reveal God’s message in just as many different ways.

The spontaneity that these verses describe tell us something else too. They illustrate that the sharing of God’s truths do not always have to be from the pulpit. They don’t always need to be formally structured. They don’t always have to be part of some liturgy in some church. Spontaneity tells us that the obligation to teach falls on the shoulders of every believer as and when such opportunities arise.

In other words, you don’t have to be spiritually gifted in the ability to teach to be the ones who do the sharing. Just as you do not have to be a talented teacher to guide your own child through life, you too don’t have to be a pastor or a deacon to teach.

If you’re a parent, you’ll be able to relate to how sometimes impulse drives you to teach without preparation. As formally untrained as you may be as a teacher, the heart of one who teaches is invariably filled with love and the desire to help one another to understand God.

The teaching of God’s truths therefore exists on two levels.

One is structured as in formalised teaching. This one essentially describes those scheduled to preach at the pulpit or teach in a classroom setting as in the case with theological studies at the seminary. They are also very likely those with the gift of teaching and a strong calling to fulfil.

The other is unstructured as in natural or spontaneous teaching. You can either be spiritually gifted in similar ways or you may not be. Because of its spontaneous nature, you do not need to be formally trained to be capable of responding with a natural teaching approach. This is where all believers should find themselves in.

Since it is unstructured teaching, preparation calls for the readiness of the heart and mind to share God’s truths. At the same time, we also must be immersive with the Word of God. Attending Bible study classes is a good way to do that but even studying Scripture at your own personal pace is a good start but that’s not all. Saying that doesn’t been there’s insignificant, of course, but a more important prerequisite is how much you value your personal walk with God.

When it comes to readying your hearts and minds, it is this walk that takes precedence over whatever Scripture studies you take up. In other words, your personal encounters with God matters the most because they help you to carry the most powerful message when you teach.

The more that He influences your individual life, the greater and more profound the effect on your teaching. As it is written in Deuteronomy, God said, “you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly (Dt 6:6, NLT),” meaning that our commitment must be fully heartfelt.

One problem with the way some people teach is the failure to perceive the needs of their listeners. We can all teach with our heads in the sand and when we do that, we fail to realise or understand the kinds of issues that people find themselves swimming against the tide.

As they struggle to listen, they are drowning but we might be too self-indulgent with the way we teach to actually see it. Rather than lacking sensitivity, let us be attentive to those who are listening to know what questions they hold before we assume the answers they need.

That way, people may find the kind of answers that address their troubles. Such teaching is empowering and the Word of God does not appear irrelevant or powerless. Teach in order that we can perceive what people need to hear and not just what we think they should hear.

Relatability

Image source: image-i-nations.com

In John 4, Jesus encountered a Samaritan woman on His arrival in the village of Sychar in Samaria. He was on His way to Galilee when He stopped by Jacob’s well in the field that he gave to his son Joseph. Tired from His long walk, Jesus decided that resting by the well would be ideal. That was when the Samaritan woman came by to draw water from the well.

Seeing that she was about to do that, Jesus asked her for some water, which surprised the woman who then said, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink? (Jn 4:9, NLT)” In other words, Jews basically didn’t talk to Samaritans since they both didn’t see eye to eye with one another, much less hold a dialogue.

Of course, Jesus was aware of that. But He also knew that He had to respond spontaneously in a way that would make sense given what she just said. In other words, He needed to relate to the situation. And so when He shared the Gospel with her, He did so with a simplicity that she could understand and view from her own cultural background and deeply personal circumstances.

Jesus knew the way He related to her was very important. Asking her for some water was the preamble but not the main issue. The main issue was for her to hear the Gospel and receive salvation. And so, in His reply to her question, Jesus said:

“If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask Me, and I would give you living water.” (Jn 4:10, NLT)

With what Jesus said, the Samaritan woman’s reply proved the effectiveness of His approach. By shaping His dialogue to ease her understanding, He could lead her right into the heart of the Gospel:

“But sir, You don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this well is very deep. Where would You get this living water? And besides, do You think You’re greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can You offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?” (Jn 4:11-12, NLT, m.e.)

From her reply, it was obvious that she had no idea who Jesus was but that didn’t matter yet. The main thing was that He had her headed in the right direction. The nature of her reply tying the well to Jesus’ talk of “living water” paved the way for Him to lead her to salvation:

“Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” (Jn 4:13-14, NLT, m.e.)

Something similar also happened with Jewish religious leader Nicodemus. The apostle John recalled that Jesus taught him something truly spectacular but too perplexing for him to understand (Jn 3:1-21). He just couldn’t wrap his head around the idea of being ‘born again’ and as a result, he was bewildered.

In fact, the idea was so radical that even with Jesus’ explanation, he failed to relate. But then you see, Nicodemus was a typical Pharisee, blinded by what he thought he understood about God. If it was any comfort to him, none of the religious leaders then had any understanding of it either.

More than 2,000 years later, the Word of God has remained as eternal as it is immutable. But we surely cannot say that of other things. Our audiences around the world have changed over the passage of time. The way they understand things, the way languages have evolved over the many centuries and the shift in the way we use our vocabulary.

All of these and more have made our task of sharing God’s unchanging message very challenging because we now need to respond proactively with the view that we must constantly adapt our approach.

Both apostles Paul and Peter seemingly share the similar principle in the way we must prepare ourselves:

“Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart. Pray for us, too, that God will give us many opportunities to speak about his mysterious plan concerning Christ. That is why I am here in chains. Pray that I will proclaim this message as clearly as I should. Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone.” (Col 4:2-6, NLT, m.e.)

“Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear.” (1 Pt 3:15-16a, NLT, m.e.)

Language proficiency and communication skills are important. If we can’t speak to make people understand, then sharing, much less teaching, is going to be difficult. But even if you are an accomplished speaker, that doesn’t necessarily mean you are capable of sharing the Gospel at anyone’s beck and call. That level of readiness will be nothing but an uphill task unless there is passion for the Word.

Without this passion and commitment, any attempt at teaching anyone about Jesus at the drop of the hat is never going to be successful. When Paul urged us to “make the most of every opportunity,” he meant that if and when we see a person who desires to know, we should not walk away but help him hear about the Gospel in a “gracious and attractive” way.

Paul’s expression of “gracious and attractive” is not something to be taken frivolously. These two words are meant to describe an appealing way of reaching out to unbelievers without which that sharing might not be possible let alone successful.

Paul’s use of the expression also means that we are not to add to or take away from the Word of God (Dt 4:2, 12:32, Rev 22:18-19). That can also imply that we shouldn’t concoct stories of our own just to make our sharing “more attractive” or “appealing.”

Paul’s words in this regard point to the importance of being accommodating in a nice and courteous manner so as not to offend or upset the unbeliever. Many unbelievers, without a doubt, have spiritual needs. Some are aware of them while others mightn’t.

I’m even convinced that atheists do have spiritual needs as well except you’re not likely to hear them owning up to it. All of this is because we are all born with a spiritual seed planted inside us and it is this seed that eventually generates a strong enough sense of curiosity to go look for the meaning of life.

The problem of course is that curiosity can lead many to look for the wrong things in the wrong places. But it is also this curiosity that offers us a window of opportunity to share the Word of God in the most “gracious and attractive” fashion. That means we should be considerate, kind and empathetic whenever we have the chance to teach unbelievers about Christ. At the same time, we should do our best not to bore them as well.

All of this might work out well so long as our hearts and minds are in it. Sharing with unbelievers demand that our outreach is authenticated by a powerful drive and conviction. If we treat our outreach as something of an obligation to carry out where our hearts and minds are completely somewhere else, then success will elude us.

It is only when the Gospel is shared with wholesale commitment to Christ that people will not only find us appealing but they will also sense how compelling we sound. They can listen and then feel the power of our testimonies, realising that they’re finally learning something remarkable about the Living God.

Discernibility

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Throughout Scripture whenever we read of Jesus teaching, we can also take note of how He was sensitive towards the different people He spoke to. He was discerning and discriminating as to how and what He wanted to say or explain to them. His timeliness was also remarkable.

It was almost as if He knew exactly how, when and what to say that would get the listener to fully understand the gist of His message. That seems to be a given but not before the listeners would be bowled over by His choice of words and phrases.

There are four different areas of discernibility we can see from Jesus’ teaching approach:

Firstly, timing is everything. Jesus often shows no inclination to simply unload everything on the person. He never felt compelled to tell them everything He knows. Instead He believes that there is a time and place for everything. The important thing is that He knew what people were and weren’t able to understand. Both Mark and John say as much about this:

“Jesus used many similar stories and illustrations to teach the people as much as they could understand. In fact, in His public ministry He never taught without using parables; but afterward, when He was alone with his disciples, He explained everything to them.” (Mk 4:33-34, NLT, m.e.)

Mark puts it quite nicely, saying that Jesus uses parables to reach out to the people. Once He does that, He would then be selective in what He wanted to say to them and how He’d liked them to hear His message. But the opposite was true when He was with His disciples. Then the approach was altogether different. There and then, unlike His public ministry, He “explained everything to them.”

That was Mark. John, on the other hand, recorded quite the opposite. Accordingly, Jesus would’ve liked to tell His disciples everything “but you can’t bear it now,” He says.

“There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own but will tell you what He has heard. He will tell you about the future. He will bring Me glory by telling you whatever He receives from me. All that belongs to the Father is mine; this is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever He receives from Me.’” (Jn 16:12-15, NLT, m.e.)

Jesus was not in a hurry to reveal everything in a single session (if at all). Just as He was during His public ministry, He was also selective and discerning when it came to the way He taught His disciples. His message was that there was a time for everything. When the need is there, they will know it. When they have the necessary maturity to grasp it, He will teach it.

Secondly, be mindful with who we’re selective with. As in the above example from Mark, Jesus chose not to reveal everything to the people but with His disciples, it was a different matter. With His disciples, the Lord set them aside to explain certain truths that He did not reveal to others. Using rather strong words, Jesus said:

“Don’t waste what is holy on people who are unholy. Don’t throw your pearls to pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you.” (Mt 7:6, NLT, m.e.)

This wasn’t the only time He felt this way about people. The apostle John also wrote something similar:

“Because of the miraculous signs Jesus did in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration, many began to trust in Him. But Jesus didn’t trust them, because He knew all about people. No one needed to tell Him about human nature, for He knew what was in each person’s heart.” (Jn 2:23-25, NLT, m.e.)

Years later, Paul felt the same when he wrote to advise Timothy:

“You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others.” (2 Tim 2:2, NLT, m.e.)

Jesus’ penchant to be selective is very much a thing of wisdom. From Him, we learn to be diligent enough to discern the amount of time and effort we invest in different people. In other words, as crude as it may sound, some are worth the trouble while others aren’t. After all, Jesus was precise that – His commitment to teach people directly relates to how the individual responds in terms of what He taught.

That is why He said this:

“‘For everything that is hidden will eventually be brought into the open, and every secret will be brought to light. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.’ Then He added, ‘Pay close attention to what you hear. The closer you listen, the more understanding you will be given – and you will receive even more. To those who listen to My teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.’” (Mk 4:22-25, NLT, m.e.)

Thirdly, be choosy over who you counsel. Many a times I have come across people who come seeking advice but the truth is they were merely looking for someone who’d just shut up and let them pour out their grief. In reality, they just wanted to use me as their punching bag to vent their spleen. That means in the end, they never had any interest whatsoever in the advice I gave. It might look that way from the outset but it never was for these people.

Experience taught me that it is foolhardy to spend so much invaluable time and effort to teach those who cannot be bothered to listen. Inadvertently those who have no interest in listening learn nothing worthwhile. They have little to no inclination in wanting to change their lives for the better. Indeed they mightn’t even believe that they need to change.

Alternative, they could be looking to me for answers they prefer even if they are anything but true. So long as that’s what they want to hear, I’m their man. In other words, selectivity works both ways – people too can be choosy over what they prefer to listen to, rejecting what they are uncomfortable with. That sounds awfully like those who filter the Bible to exclude parts they don’t agree with and embrace those they do.

Lastly, be selective in what we teach. Not infrequently, I notice people who, during their Bible studies, zero in on wanting to know the kind of things that are not in their interest to know. You might tell them that till you’re blue in the face and they’d still persist in wanting to know.

In the Gospel, Luke recounted how the disciples expressed a similarly persistent interest in wanting to know when the Kingdom would be restored but Jesus sidestepped because it was not that important an issue. He felt it wasn’t the kind of question that should preoccupy His disciples. To Him, there were more pressing things to talk about:

“So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking Him, “Lord, has the time come for You to free Israel and restore our kingdom?” He replied, “The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be My witnesses, telling people about Me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:6-8, NLT, m.e.)

The scribes and the Pharisees were equal to the task in annoying Jesus. They were too focused on foolish things and unnecessities to the extent that they drew scathing but deserved criticisms from the Lord:

“Blind guides! You strain your water so you won’t accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel!” (Mt 23:24, NLT)

However, let’s not get too ahead of yourselves. Even the best among us sometimes enjoy majoring in the minors. We too occasionally pour too much effort concentrating on trivialities and banalities and invariably, we find ourselves so far off tangent. It doesn’t matter if the target is right under our nose when we are blindsided by the wrong or insignificant issues.

Straightforwardness

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During my time at the seminary, I came across a lecturer who often found herself mired in one controversy after another. It seemed she either revelled in it or she simply had an axe to grind. Either way, no one knew why. Perhaps it was just in her nature to behave like that.

One day during a campus chapel service where she was scheduled to preach, many of us were actually nervous because we didn’t know what to expect from someone as unpredictable as her. Not surprisingly, her message was garbled.

It was so convoluted that it left many of us in a state of flux. Some thought they knew what she said. Others weren’t so sure. And in the end, none of us seemed to be able to agree with what her actual message was about. Out of fear of retribution, no one cared to make this an issue for further discussion.

The point is without a simplified approach, even the simplest message can easily get lost in the translation. When the person lacks clarity in his delivery, the listener hasn’t a ghost of a chance to know what the message is about. As a result, the truth of the message cannot be learned and the whole thing ends up in a heap. It was no surprise that the chapel service became farcical.

Simplicity’s best known acronym is well known throughout the world. Called K.I.S.S., people know it as ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid’ (alternatively known as ‘keep it short and simple’ or ‘keep it simple and straightforward’).

First conceived by aircraft engineer Kelly Johnson of the U.S. Navy in 1960, it is a principle driven by an emphasis on simplicity in order that systems work best. It is an acknowledgement that complication muddles things up. Therefore simplicity not only became a core design goal for the Navy but it gained even greater popularity by 1970.

Centuries earlier, Leonardo da Vinci subscribed the same thing, saying, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” William Shakespeare echoed the same, saying, “Brevity is the soul of wit” while Ludwig Mies van der Rohe once famously wrote, “Less is more.” Before Shakespeare, even Antoine de Saint Exupéry wrote, “It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

Yet it’s simpler said than done. Just to keep things simple has often proved the undoing of some, creating problems mainly because people try too hard. Simplicity is also the unwitting victim when we seek to say too much without pausing for clarity.

But not for the Master Teacher. In ensuring that people were able to grasp His message, He went for clarity so that no one would go home struggling to figure out His teaching. The Bible never recorded anyone ever wondering what He said because He knew perfectly how to help people understand. There are four approaches to simplicity that Jesus adopted:

Firstly, He kept the motive simple. What this means is to have a simple aim. Rather than having a thousand objectives in a single message, teaching just one alone would ensure that your listener fully grasp it. Listen to what Paul has to say in his letter to the Romans:

“If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.” (Rom 12:7-8, NLT)

The key to achieving what we are called to do is to be absolutely clear about our goal. And the best way to do that is keep things simple. When things are simple, we can better train our energies at making sure we do it well. It is this single-mindedness that enables us to teach effectively. On the other hand, if we try to do too much, all we end up doing is to cause confusion among our listeners.

Unlike some of us, Jesus’ purpose in teaching wasn’t to impress people. Despite the astonishment of those who heard Him teach, that was never His intention for He had neither the need nor the want of their acclaim. Instead, He taught purely to please the Father and that should be the same for us. We can see this very clearly here:

“He went on a little farther and bowed with His face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from Me. Yet I want Your will to be done, not Mine.” (Mt 26:39, NLT, m.e.)

Even though the moment of agony was beginning to get to Him, Jesus remained faithful in His desire to do the will of His Father. For Him, the praise or adulation was immaterial. Instead He simply wanted to fulfil what was asked of Him. His motive was as clear as it was single-minded and that was to please the Father just as the case when He spoke to the unbelieving crowd in Jerusalem:

“I don’t speak on My own authority. The Father who sent Me has commanded Me what to say and how to say it. And I know His commands lead to eternal life; so I say whatever the Father tells Me to say.” (Jn 12:49-50, NLT, m.e.)

Before a crowd of unbelievers, Jesus knew what His task entailed but even so, He had no intention to embellish His message. He kept it simple, to only “say whatever the Father tells Me to say.”

Secondly, Jesus delivered His message with simplicity in mind. Seasoned presenters will know that an excellent presentation helps convey their messages loudly and clearly. A slick presentation may add layers of gloss but it’s the fundamental message that remains crucial. Yet, for some, it’s the gloss that can cut both ways.

Without a doubt, the scribes and the Pharisees were full of themselves. As undisputed masters at presentations, their expertise laid in the crafting of ostentatious veneers to a hostage public. That is, of course, before Jesus came and exposed their treachery.

To the followers, they were erudite scholars who not only claimed to be faultless but looked the part. Appearance was everything. They looked important and they were made to be so. The prestige in being religious leaders defined that importance as something very glamorous and exclusive. With the spotlight trained on them, it is little wonder that in their presentation, the limelight was on the speaker and not the message.

The sad thing about all of this is that the Pharisee’s sense of self-importance had not died away. In the modern church of today, they exist. But rather than label them scribes or Pharisees, we identify at least some of them as prosperity messengers whose version of the Gospel is on material wealth. Prosperity messengers peddle their message as part of the overall slick presentation. In other words, the messenger himself is part of that message.

Unmistakably, prosperity messengers like Joseph Prince (incidentally, not his original name) hold great commercial value. He is adored by his fans and followers. Blinded by the promise of wealth and prosperity, the face of Prince is everywhere. Where there is self-promoting merchandise, there is his indomitable face with the latest fashionable hairdo. Nothing beats that in-your-face marketing that progressive prosperity churches are really into.

Like the scribes and Pharisees, Prince persistently indulges in false teaching by taking the Antinomian stand of equating freedom from Mosaic Law with freedom from morality. Many in the evangelical Christian community have found the likes of Prince quite unpalatable.

One writer on the Internet went so far as to equate him to “a prince and representative in particular of Baal, the pagan hero god of old.” It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Prince teaches that sanctification is an unnecessary part of salvation, going to the extent of saying anyone can be saved regardless of lifestyle.

Whereas progressive preachers of the prosperity Gospel ply their trade on sophistry and embellishment, Jesus went purely for simplicity. His presentation style is what you see is what you get. There is no read-between-the-lines or check-out-the-fine-print.

Put plainly, you understand what you hear. Jesus’ teaching approach is simple and straightforward enough that even someone with a child’s level of education can’t miss the meaning of His message.

However that does not mean that His teachings are dull or boring. Far from it, in fact. There is evidence that Jesus has presentation panache but not quite the way the others resort to. In the Lord’s case, His delivery style was filled with incredible insight with a dash of humour every now and then. After all, if Jesus’ approach were dull or boring, there wouldn’t have been such huge crowds riveted to every word that came from His mouth.

Unlike the likes of Prince, Jesus’ teaching approach was all about the Father’s truths. He only had to unpack the cryptic laws and made them easy to understand. To do that, He used practical illustrations together with life-like examples.

Thirdly, simplicity and subtle persuasion aren’t the same. If you carefully read what Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians, you might be able to see how he explains this point:

“The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God. As the Scriptures say, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.’ So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. Since God in His wisdom saw to it that the world would never know Him through human wisdom, He has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe.” (1 Cor 1:18-21, NLT, m.e.)

A person with great worldly presence has subtle persuasive power in himself alone. He doesn’t have to do anything remarkable to sound or appear convincing. That’s because he has the wisdom of the flesh and the necessary smarts to sound winsome. Someone with powerful oratory skills qualify with a similar sense of projection, presence and power.

While there is nothing subtle about such skills, it is the power of his presence that draws people to him. They are awed by his extraordinariness. They are swept away by his apparent ingenuity. They are bowled over by how visually impressive he looks. And excitement consumes his fans and followers whenever he opens his mouth and speaks.

Paul says such people will be destroyed by God. They may appear out of this world because of their puffed-up knowledge, profound philosophies, scientific know-how or intellectuality but God will show them up for what and who they are. For all that they think they are, God will undermine their “foolish preaching (teaching) to save those who believe.”

Such people run diametrically to those who preach the simple but true message. Homiletics is fine. After all, there are more than one way to preach or teach effectively. The art to preparing and preaching good sermons is just as appreciated as the techniques to teaching even if we’re talking about informal settings.

But catch this – homiletics isn’t about using über tools to sound cool. Sharing God’s truths require no gimmickry. Teaching those who yearn to listen doesn’t require us to use the very latest technology, dress like a maharaja or speak like David Attenborough.

What we do learn from homiletics in this regard are the different but effective means by which we can teach that is free from all forms of distractions. And the one key distraction to the message is the speaker himself. We would do very well to switch the spotlight from the messenger to the very message itself.

Lastly, Jesus’ teachings were never too complex to understand. When He taught, His messages carried purposes that were always as clear as a bell mainly because of His simplified approach. He never once shied from revealing the purpose behind everything He said. And because of its simplicity, no one misconstrued what He said or meant. Nothing was too bewildering or beyond simple comprehension.

The people whom Jesus taught were astonished by what He said only because He taught in such a remarkably simple way for them to take in. After all, if the humble fishermen could understand, how much more a more educated person?

In contrast to Jesus’ way, the scribes and Pharisees would deliberately twist and turn their messages as a way to keep the people ignorant and dependent on them. In their hands, they were nothing more than fodder for the leaders to take advantage of and control. Making the message appear complex was also a nifty way for people to assume that what they couldn’t understand, only those privileged by ‘proper’ training could.

In a similar way, the original Bible was jealously guarded so that it might remain in the Latin language, which was far beyond the comprehension of normal folks. In other words, translating it into any local vernacular was considered blasphemous and treasonous, a crime punishable by death.

The idea was that the papacy was desperate to stay in power and control the people. Translators like Tyndale died a fiery death because they sought to make Scripture available for everyone in England to access and read but of course, the Catholic authorities had no stomach for such a notion.

And so, using the simplest of words and phrases, Jesus’ teaching approach was as straightforward as we can imagine today. No one in any crowd had any reason to complain or feel disgruntled because His explanations were too complex or He spoke too fast or He used words that sounded alien.

Even in the midst of anything controversial that He broached on, He never once sought to change the subject just to quell any unrest. As we know from the Gospel, Jesus never shirked from confronting even the most difficult debates.

But here’s the sticky point – some people are actually impressed by those who speak in obscure terms. This is because they mistake opacity with depth. In other words, when someone teaches in a fashion that sounds like Einstein or Hawking expounding on the Quantum Theory, then he must be a fully authenticated deep-thinking genius. He must be so intellectually brilliant even if no one understands one iota of what he’s blabbering about. Invariably, someone will hail him as the best thing since sliced bread.

In my years of working in the various different private industries, there was no shortage of speakers who make themselves sound incredibly smart but unfortunately in reality, they were anything but. Worryingly, this is what we face in today’s world. Politicians who suddenly dream up radical ideas that tap into the vulnerability of the people will invariably sweep them off their senses. They then introduce some strangely convoluted idea and packaged it to appear as if they’re about to save the world. If that sounds far-fetched, look no further than the endless stream of peddlers of climate doom.

For years now, we have been constantly besieged by the climate change narrative. It’s not just America. Throughout the world, including Malaysia, news about increasing climate change takes up front-page attention but no one seems to take much notice of whether or not all those complex explanations are substantiated. Meanwhile we are all led to believe that the world is on the brink of a global catastrophe.

Day in, day out, environmentalists, climate activists including hordes of scientists and researchers are piling up so-called scientific data on melting ice caps and glaciers, heightened temperatures, wildly fluctuating sea levels and so on and so forth.

Not surprisingly, not many people questioned the veracity of the data although in numerous – but often unreported – cases, climate sceptics have proven that they were fluffed, fudged or completely faked. Still, the public has bought it all lock, stock and barrel. It seems that the more complex the threat sounds like, the more they chose to believe.

The problem with this conspiracy is that it sounds hugely complex but enormously credible. If everyday folk buys it, that means the truth behind it will forever be buried. This is a worrying issue because those who are doing the burying are not just the intellectuals, scientists and researchers but also the academics, mainstream media, left-leaning politicians and Hollywood. Together, they control the diatribe of intelligent-sounding ‘evidence’ (1 Cor 1:20). When the truth has no chance of being clearly heard, then the public is deceived.

Teaching with deliberate complexity means you either can never understand it or the way you understand it is wrong. This is a case of people with what appears to be credentials who muscle in and seize the talking points. They do this to advance a deceptive goal but by the way of their message, very few know the truth behind it because much effort is made to conceal it.

In stark contrast, Jesus’ approach is based on a proven personal integrity. His credentials are tested against the scribes and the Pharisees. Jesus has stood the test of scrutiny and emerged with flying colours. People soon realised that He never taught to please crowds.

Instead He taught because He wanted people to know the truth. He never said anything to make Himself popular. Politicians who peddle the climate change agenda do so to gain mass popularity – and hence political power – in order to wield control over the public.

He never sold Himself short simply to gain political mileage against the Romans. Climate activists and their followers sacrifice their integrity at the altar of lies and deception and the undeliverable promises of socialism in exchange for social elitism to separate themselves from the great unwashed.

Even if (or when) truth raised anger and opposition, Jesus never shied away. Neither would He obscure those parts of His controversial message. Rather He laid it all out in truth and integrity, facing the people with the rationale of His teaching.

When climate activists or their supporters are challenged, facts are buried and the narrative is hijacked. Topics are switched and nobody reports them. The media deliberately denies visibility to the challenge and they do so until the controversy dies out after which, they continue to peddle their deception.

While deceivers boast that they know everything (when they don’t), Jesus never pretended:

“However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son Himself. Only the Father knows.” (Mt 24:36, NLT, m.e.)

One of the most annoying things to see is people lying to make themselves look and sound knowledgeable. Often the motive behind such behaviour is the desire to feel authoritative. With authority, people feel a sense of superiority when they’re not.

Time and again, that is what I personally encounter. People are inclined to want to impress others whether or not there is the motivation to lie so much so that it’s becoming a rarity to hear someone say, “I’m sorry but I wish I knew” or “Someone else might know but I honestly don’t” simply because, in truth, they really don’t know anything about it. All of this puts James’ words in the proper perspective:

“But most of all, my brothers and sisters, never take an oath, by heaven or earth or anything else. Just say a simple yes or no, so that you will not sin and be condemned.” (Jms 5:12, NLT, m.e.)

And so when all’s said and done, let a yes mean yes and a no mean no. It’s when we mix the two up that we run into a whole lot of unnecessary problems. If you don’t have the answer to a question someone asked, don’t say you’ll let them know the next day, knowing very well that you have no interest in following up. Instead, have the integrity to simply admit you don’t know.

Legitimacy and authenticity

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Literally no one prior to Jesus could ever claim legitimacy in what He taught. He was clearly incomparable in that respect. Where the scribes and Pharisees were dull, Jesus’ teaching was power-packed, authentic and unique. Being the Son of God, every word that came out from His mouth defined His unmatched legitimacy.

All of this was because the Jewish religious leaders were doing nothing more than hashing and rehashing the same ancient time-worn traditions and even so, they often remained unsubstantiated. Lacking the level of legitimacy that Jesus possessed, they could never deliver the kind of messages that people could feel amazed by. By surrounding themselves with Jewish custom and tradition, the Pharisees adopted an approach that had become jaded. That is why they lacked the kind of crowd sizes that Jesus was pulling in.

By comparison, the Lord’s unorthodox teaching approach lacked the pretentiousness of the Pharisees. Because He was neither a Pharisee nor a scribe, Jesus also had none of their prestigious status. But then again, without them, He was also not burdened by such branding image. He could therefore teach with great effect.

By His deeds, He revealed the Father’s truths and often backed them up with incredible revelation, miraculous signs and wonders. He didn’t just claim He was the “resurrection and the life (Jn 11:25) but He actually proved it beyond any shadow of doubt by raising the entombed Lazarus to life before the eyes of his sisters Mary and Martha.

Jesus’ legitimacy was also such that when He taught, things actually took place. His teaching points are pockmarked by stories that were not just well presented but also had that unmistakable lifelikeness to them. Rather quite incredibly, His approach to teaching and the things He taught were of a level of authenticity unheard or and unexperienced by anyone. For there was none like Him or the way He taught.

As for the contents of His teachings, Jesus had an unusual style that was especially evident in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:21-48). In every point He brought up, He admitted that the people would have heard it. He would say, “You have heard it said” but He didn’t just end on that note. Consistently, He added “But I say” to clearly suggest three things.

Firstly, what the points He raised were not originally His and therefore, they were nothing new or exceptional. Secondly, these points were, by then already, made known to them by the Laws or the Prophets. In other words, they would’ve learned them from the scribes and the Pharisees.

Thirdly, despite all this, He had things to say about them that they had no idea of, which is where He added meaningful details that proved astonishing to those who heard them. It was these details that proved what they were long taught lacked substance.

As legitimate as Jesus’ teaching was, He wasn’t here to challenge or reject the Laws and the prophets. What His Father laid out as commandments were not His to overturn. He was not there to challenge or reject the Father’s truths but instead, He was there to help people attain a clearer and more helpful understanding of the Laws. Instead of efforts to obfuscate – which the scribes and Pharisees masterfully did – Jesus was there to equip the people with a more honest view of the Father’s commandments.

It’s easy to write this off as a rare exception but obfuscation is today an art form so honed that it is often used for deception and selfish reasons. People with malicious intent have often been found to quote Scripture passages by taking them out of context in order that they fit their personal agenda. Churches that embrace the prosperity Gospel are infamous for doing this, lifting verses out of the Bible to justify the pursuit of worldly wealth and materialism.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Image source: footwearnews.com)

A more recent example comes in the form of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-D), a socialist Democrat firebrand, who deconstructed Scripture for her own political benefit. Even so, she distorted the original message, twisting it to fit her purpose.

At the epicentre of some of the fieriest dialogues on climate change, Ocasio-Cortez has a longstanding notoriety in fearmongering but some months earlier this year, she made a stunning exception of using choice Bible verses to justify her concern for climate change. Beyond any shadow of doubt, this was done to court fawning liberal evangelical youths in a thickly-disguised recruitment campaign designed to drive a wedge in the Christian community.

During this year’s Martin Luther Day event, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that the world would end in twelve years. Here is one of her Scripturally-laced tweets ad verbatim:

“Genesis 1: God looked on the world and called it good not once, not twice, but seven times.”

In the same tweet, she continued:

“Genesis 2: God commands all people to ‘serve and protect’ creation. Leviticus: God mandates that not only the people but the land that sustains them, shall be respected.”

Any believer who is familiar with these verses will know all too well that Ocasio-Cortex is treading dangerously. Two immediate questions come to mind. The first is whether or not she is correct. Secondly, what was her reason to quote from the Bible? Was it correct for her to claim that God looked on the world and called it good seven times?

Did God tell man to “serve and protect” all creation? Was there really – and specifically – a mandate from God that in her words, “man must respect the land?” In a nutshell, did she maliciously distort God’s word to help her climate activism and socialist agenda?

In the first question, Ocasio-Cortez was correct – God did say seven times that it was good (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). But in the second question, we have doubts. Her claim that God commanded “all people” to “serve and protect creation” cannot be found let alone be verified in the Bible. Stopping short of calling her a heretic, this deliberate twisting of God’s truth just to gain religious traction among the youth has proven very unpalatable by large swathes of the Christian community.

It is worth reminding ourselves that Ocasio-Cortez is a self-avowed socialist. Socialists, like communists, are essentially atheist. They are anti-God. There is no place for them to diligently use the Bible and quote from it. Remember too that the Democratic Party under Barack Obama officially renounced their faith in God seven years ago by voting Him and Israel out of their political platform.

Ocasio-Cortez was, without a doubt, ‘original’ in her scheme to twist biblical truth for political mileage. Not every politician has the stomach to do that. It is certainly unusual but it is also exceptionally illegitimate. What she did lacked authority and legitimacy. When someone intentionally misrepresents God’s message, there is no dignity in it. In using it to advance a hoax, that’s even worse.

Conviction

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Of everyone we encounter in the Bible who spoke of and for God, none carried the same level of conviction as Jesus. As the Son of God, He has the undisputed authority to teach compared to anyone else at any time.

That is why when He concluded the Sermon on the Mount, the people were simply overwhelmed by the manner in which He taught and the things He said. His unmistakable conviction and authority carried His word further than any scribe or Pharisee:

“When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, for He taught with real authority – quite unlike their teachers of religious law.” (Mt 7:28-29, NLT, m.e.)

Whatever ‘authority’ that the scribes and the Pharisees possessed up until then vanished when the One with true divine conviction arrived. Just from the way He spoke and taught, Jesus proved beyond compare that His brand of authority was unlike any other.

While the scribes and Pharisees ‘claimed’ authority from the formal tutelage they received and the social status they garnered (demanded), Jesus, on the other hand, came merely as a “carpenter’s son.” It was an image as humble as any Nazarene. It was also an image most would mock:

“When He taught there in the synagogue, everyone was amazed and said, “Where does He get this wisdom and the power to do miracles?” Then they scoffed, “He’s just the carpenter’s son, and we know Mary, His mother, and His brothers – James, Joseph, Simon and Judas.” (Mt 13:54-55, NLT, m.e.)

The fact that Jesus came from nowhere and then taught at the synagogue before moving to open public areas made Him distinctively different and uniquely powerful. His authority was not from any seminary or rabbinical apprenticeship but straight from the Scripture as foretold in the Old Testament. Unlike Saul (later called Paul) who studied under Gamaliel, Jesus was no one’s apprentice or understudy.

Just as we say that Scripture speaks for itself and, therefore, has no need for our defence, the same can be said when Jesus taught. His was the unexpurgated expounding of Scriptural truth in all its originality and purpose. He never had to twist and turn. At any rate, there is no biblical evidence whatsoever that He distorted or coloured its meaning. In His trademark lucidity, Jesus taught with incredible authority only the Father could have bestowed on Him.

Today, we see authority in the form of unbridled arrogance and presumptuous dogmatism. Most unfortunately, this isn’t just confined to the business world. In many churches I have come across over the years, flashy authority was evident to the congregation in the form of cocky pastoral leaders and church administrators who strutted their stuff like peacocks showing off their plumes.

In church, authority can come in different guises. People who hold high positions may think they’re holier than others. Families with high-profile status may assume authority over others just as those who have financially contributed significantly believe they have better merit. Don’t forget that those in ministry with formal theological training (having attended one or the other seminary) are also prone to feel that they have every reason to puff up.

We might assume that such behaviour is nothing more than a desperate act to want to be noticed. I once had dinner with a friend of my father who despite his advanced age was so eager to show off his Apple Watch that throughout the meal took every opportunity to bury it in my face in case I failed to notice. That is stupefying desperation.

Many in church stamp their authority in different ways too. I have seen some church members hijack discussions so that others didn’t have the chance to speak just to ‘prove’ they were more knowledgeable. However rather than being impressed, many felt quietly repulsed though no one actually said anything. In some churches I had visited in the past, pastors breathed fire at their congregation, pounded the pulpit and even threatened to blacklist presumably errant members.

In some cases, church members regale the pastor and his wife in order to seek favour for their families such as occupying positions of authority themselves. I have personally witnessed the two senior pastors of a particular church who abused their pulpit authority to openly chastise a church member and his family. The humiliation was immediately felt by the congregation because everyone knew who they were talking about. And with that, he and his young wife and mother were made to leave the church.

Authority in church does not also imply that we can simply colour the word of God simply because we don’t have such a right to. Jesus made it clear that His intention was never to do away with the Law but instead to fulfil its purpose:

“Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God’s law will disappear until its purpose is achieved.” (Mt 5:17-18, NLT, m.e.)

In some other translations, Jesus says, “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished.” In other words, we are not to add or subtract from God’s word. We have no right to embellish, distort, twist or exaggerate when it comes to Scripture.

If ever there is a reason why the Bible is fast losing its sheen as the infallible Word of God, that’s because there isn’t the kind of conviction or authority that people need to feel when it is taught. Two possible reasons come to mind:

Ever realise the growing lack of dynamism when God’s truths are taught? Whether it’s at the pulpit or in the classrooms or even at any informally organised group discussions, people may listen but they don’t hear so well. People seem harder to convince that God’s word is not only believable but inerrant.

In the second instance, people suspect those who shoehorn Scripture to fit their own agenda. They misuse Bible verses in different ways. By taking verses out of their true biblical context, they can then misapply them to support their immoral lifestyles. They can also use scriptural verses or phrases to fit their own selfish agenda.

Called eisegesis to mean ‘to lead into,’ this is just the opposite of exegesis, which is the examination of any biblical texts in order to interpret it as accurately as the original author had intended. As part of the process of hermeneutics, good biblical exegesis is demanded in Scripture so that we know exactly what we are learning from God.

On the other hand, those who practise eisegesis deliberately force biblical texts to gain immoral advantage, exploiting whatever vagaries they find and bend them to their will. When people see eisegesis at work in church, it is not surprising that they become disillusioned with the Bible. Where God’s truths are supposedly inerrant, incontrovertible and immutable, exploitation has weaken its reputation, damaging the trust people once have in the Word.

If we are careless with the way we treat God’s truths, we can all end up guilty of doing the same thing. Poorly-conducted Bible study classes will do that and potentially cause disrepair. That, after all, is how religious cultists have their starting point with Christianity. In fact, the innocent among us have tended to make the same mistake. Here’s a classic example, using the famous verse from the apostle Matthew:

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Mt 7:7-8, NIV)

Prosperity Gospel churches love verses like these because they justify asking God for materialistic overreach be it a flashy sports car or a new fashionable wardrobe. Taking things out of context, the above verses appear to suggest as if Jesus is saying that He will give anything if only we ask.

In other words, all we have to do is just open our mouth and ask. But the truth behind the verses is that all the asking, seeking and door-knocking is about our sanctification process and never about material needs. Knowing the context helps us to get to the truth.

Being familiar with biblical texts doesn’t always guarantee that we use them correctly. Even Satan is familiar enough to quote it against Jesus. Remember after he took Him to the highest point of the Temple overlooking Jerusalem, he said:

“If You are the Son of God, jump off! For the Scriptures say, ‘He will order His angels to protect You. And they will hold You up with their hands so You won’t even hurt Your foot on a stone.’” (Mt 4:6, NLT, m.e.)

When we abuse biblical authority, we drive people away. Instead of giving people reason to listen to us teach, they leave, looking for God’s truth elsewhere. The risk is when we drive them away, they might end up looking in all the wrong places. And this happens because we don’t care enough to use Scripture with care and respect.

Applicability

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In a time long before I met my wife, I was in a relationship with someone who hailed from a family of Methodists. It’s not incorrect to say that they were of a ‘simple faith.’ Armed with this most rudimentary of faith, they attend church only because, ‘it’s what Christians do.’ Whether they got anything out of their Sunday attendances or not, it’s difficult to say. More likely, it’s not for me to know or judge.

Although a believer, her father never felt the compulsion to go to Sunday services. He once quietly muttered to me that Sundays were best spent hunting wild boars with his friends instead of listening to all the women in his family arguing or screaming over one another. And therefore with the exception of Christmases, he would stay as far from the church as possible.

Her mother loved doting on him. She simply adored him to the point that he could never put a step wrong. When he chose not to go to church with the family, she was perfectly alright with it. On the occasion that I joined them for Sunday services (I went to a different church then), we would all come and go in my car. When she was in a chirpier mood, she would ask me questions about God.

The nature of these questions reflect how little she (and the rest of the family) really knew or understand Him. So I thought I would be doing everyone a favour by asking if she or anyone else would be interested in having some informal Bible study classes at their home. It would be a pleasure to prepare the lessons and teach. We could make it as interesting as possible and if the mother liked, she could get her friends to join in to make it more fun and rewarding.

“Don’t you even think about it! Please don’t get me involved in anything like that!” she almost literally screamed at me. Shocked was not the word. I was so taken aback by such a response that I just went silent. From that day on, I didn’t ask anymore. I just didn’t want to be disappointed.

For anyone calling himself a Christian and show no interest in learning more about God is hard to understand. For her mother to respond as if I was asking her to do something terrible was something I never wanted to see again.

As I began to reflect back on that episode, I tried to understand why she would so vehemently reject my offer. And the more I thought about it, the more I felt that maybe, she thought it would be too difficult for her to come to grips with the Bible. It is quite possible that she was excessively worried about confronting theology and find herself embarrassingly stumped.

My guess is that her mother is not alone in this case. There are many in church who I believe feel the same way. Other than a total lack of interest (boredom, maybe?), there are no other plausible reason why any church member would not commit to want to know more about their faith. Fear over theologically challenging dogma, doctrines and abstract issues is not something to belittle. Understandably, no one relishes being the only one who hasn’t a clue what’s going on in class.

But if the teaching approach has a stronger emphasis on practicality, things will change. Practicality in this case takes into account the application of God’s truths in our personal lives so that those who are taught can better understand God’s hand at work in changing our lives. And because we’re talking about true-to-life testimonies and not some Hollywood fiction, there is a better chance that people will look at what they’re taught from a different perspective; one where they may apply the teachings to themselves.

Looking at Jesus’ public ministry, we realise He actually didn’t preach, at least not from the church definition of the word. There was nothing formal about the way He taught. He didn’t teach based on a set curriculum. He wasn’t going on a scheduled sermon setting with strict talking points. He wasn’t given a set time limit to get His message across.

What Jesus did was He taught by applying the Father’s truths in a way ordinary people could easily understand. That doesn’t just mean avoiding the use of cryptic and complex words. It also means breaking down the message into bite-size chunks that the people can cope and relate to. It is these chunks that embodies the personalised application of God’s word.

Someone once said to me that unless we live the Word, Christianity is only theological at best. In other words, we can read and read the Bible from cover and cover and still can’t come to grips with what God is saying because those words just don’t leap off the page.

Because God’s Word is alive, Scripture must be lived in order that mere preaching becomes powerful teaching. That same friend introduced to me the very notion of ‘personal theology’ to mean that unless we have testimonies to back up what we teach, it is going to be abstract.

The personalised part of the application is very important. It means you are teaching God’s message from a personal standpoint. Those who are listening to your teaching comes face to face with God’s truth in terms of what you personally experienced in your life. It is neither contrived nor scripted. It is not someone else’s story but yours to tell. That deep personal touch is there that makes your teaching come alive for your listeners.

When my mom passed away four years ago, I was extremely worried about my dad. Emotionally fragile, his spiritual life had always been based on what and how my mom believed in Christ. My mom’s personal walk with Christ was all that His faith had banked on. Her stories of miracles defined not just her relationship with God but also that of my dad’s. That’s because he had nothing very personal in his spiritual walk to call his own. And so his faith was just a fine thread linking mom’s stories to God. They had nothing to do with his own life but that was all he had to cling on to.

Things began to change after I explained to my dad the importance of owning your own spiritual experiences. He had to let go of mom’s stories and take ownership of his own. And if he hasn’t had any yet, it was as good a time as any to start now. In other words, he really have to begin his walk with Christ on his and not mom’s terms. The practicality aspect of his Christian life must now be embodied in his own stories.

And that’s how it has turned out to be today for my dad. Today, my dad believes not just because mom believed. He believes because he has felt the hand of God on him. And that’s because he has now experienced how God’s word, as described in the Bible, applies in his life.

My dad’s personal walk with God adds life to the way he learns from Scripture. It’s no longer simply reading and then forgetting. What he reads now sinks in. It’s now a more meaningful read for him. Because of his deeper relationship with God, he enjoys a new sense of purpose because he can see how biblical truths are exercised in his own life.

While that doesn’t mean he now fully grasps everything written in the Bible, at least it’s no longer the big mystery in his life. Perhaps many of the abstract theological concepts may remain out of his reach but he no longer fears not understanding them. Some messages may still remain hidden and his understanding of them might require a bit more time and effort. But because of the encouraging experience, he’s off to a good start now.

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By the lakeshore after teaching the large crowd, Jesus was alone with His disciples who decided to ask Him what the parables He spoke about meant. Using the Parable of the Lamp, Jesus then said:

“For everything that is hidden will eventually be brought into the open, and every secret will be brought to light. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.” (Mk 4:22-23, NLT, m.e.)

In the next two verses, He added:

“Pay close attention to what you hear. The closer you listen, the more understanding you will be given – and you will receive even more. To those who listen to My teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.” (Mk 4:24-25, NLT)

The way Jesus taught, believing leads to the desire to express that belief. As the Lord says, careful diligent listening equips one to not only understand His teaching but to then practise what he is taught:

“Anyone who listens to My teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears My teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.” (Mt 7:24-27, NLT, m.e.)

You will find the same thing echoed here in John the Baptist’s own words:

“When the crowds came to John for baptism, he said, ‘You brood of snakes! Who warned you to flee the coming wrath? Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. Don’t just say to each other, ‘We’re safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.’ That means nothing, for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones. Even now the axe of God’s judgement is poised, ready to sever the roots of the trees. Yes, every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire.’ The crowds asked, ‘What should we do?’ John replied, ‘If you have two shirts, give one to the poor. If you have food, share it with those who are hungry.’ Even corrupt tax collectors came to be baptised and asked, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ He replied, ‘Collect no more taxes than the government requires.’ ‘What should we do?’ asked some soldiers.” (Lk 3:7-14, NLT)

These verses underscore the important of applying what we learn and unless we do that, we have failed to embrace the truth. What is the point of hearing if you don’t do something about what you have learned? There may be umpteen reasons why we don’t do what God expects us to but the fact is we just don’t do it. Understanding what we are taught is a good start but the absence of personal application makes that meaningless.

Therefore if we like people to embrace God’s truth, we must make sure that understanding it in the right context is just the first step. The next is to apply what we learn in reality. The proof of understanding is in seeing God’s truth in action in our lives.

For instance, in driving home the point that better church leaders must lead by example, we cannot expect leaders to merely say, “Well, OK, I’m gonna try and become a better (elder or) deacon” and leave it at that. By the same token, members of the church shouldn’t just reciprocate by saying, “Well, yeah, we should listen and submit to the church leadership.” Why?

Either response is nothing more than paying lip service to the simple principle of leading by example. If we say we’ve learned the lesson well, we need to do a whole lot more than just come up with a non-committal one-liner. We need to be far more specific in terms of what it is that we must do. Otherwise, there is no meaningful commitment. “I’ll do better” sounds fine but it carries insignificant weight because ‘better’ alone doesn’t say much.

If they say ‘better,’ they should flesh out their response in greater and more meaningful detail. Here are some examples of what someone in that position should do:

- Roll up the sleeves and do some heavy lifting

- Play a more upfront role to improve dynamism in his own ministry

- Think of things to say and do that will inspire the congregation to follow him

- Offer to be a real spiritual mentor to a youth member in church

- Focus on his own mistakes and failures and eliminate them one by one through change and correction

- Put a check on his own moral code and be ready to stay to be corrected

- Finally attend to the tasks in church that you have been putting off all this while

For as long as man can remember, God’s truths have not been successfully applied in life and the repeated failures have given Christianity a black eye. So many errors along the development history of the faith have had telling repercussions.

From England’s Mary I’s reign of terror to Hitler’s horrific Holocaust all the way to Planned Parenthood’s uncountable millions of abortions, gay and lesbian pastors, paedophilia (in church), same-sex marriages and the climate change hoax not to forget the fake Darwinism and many more, God has been soundly denied even by many of His churches.

For centuries, Christians the world over have defamed and slandered God through terrible actions. Countless have distorted biblical truths to suit their evil deeds. There are so many who have misapplied God’s word by denying Him the proper context. Some of us have lied to Him because we would say one thing and then do quite the opposite. Not a few but many have also consistently been carrying out ungodly sins very likely because they have no fear of God.

And as a result, over the many recent decades alone, many church leaders have fallen out of God’s grace. And I’m sure more will in time to come. It will not end. So long as sin continues to firmly grip our lives, the devastation will continue even as we keep reading the Bible. The problem is we lack righteous application. In the American Standard Version (ASV) translation, the apostle Paul wrote the following:

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?” (Rom 6:1-2, ASV, m.e.)

NOTE: In other translations, the phrase is “Certainly not!” “Absolutely not!” “Heaven forbid!” “No, we should not!” “Far be the thought,” “May it never be!” “Of course not!” “By no means!” “That’s unthinkable!” “No!” “What a ghastly thought!” “I should hope not!” “Not at all!” “What a terrible thought!” “No, surely not!” “Far be it,” “Let it not be!”

The phrase” God forbid” (see other versions in fine print above) is, without a doubt, an expression of horror, one intended to be so by its author, Paul. It’s a personal warning not to pervert what they have been taught. He’s basically vocalising his concern that the readers must stay away from misapplication of biblical truths because the results would be devastating otherwise. If Paul were to be in person saying this, it would’ve been as loud as he could make it so that everyone could sense his horror.

A huge part of the problem behind the many cases of misapplication centres on the mishandling of doctrinal issues. From one church to another, doctrinal complications have been difficult to handle. And there are many examples to show. As a result, rather than being opportunities for meaningful discussion, doctrinal misapplications have given rise to abuse.

Just to highlight one such example, consider the ‘once saved, always saved’ (OSAS) doctrine. As far as doctrines go, this one is hugely infamous. The following verse is one of several that many misuse:

“I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from Me, for my Father has given them to Me, and He is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.” (Jn 10: 28-30, NLT, m.e.)

No one can say this is not true. Jesus’ message is loud and clear. Yes, once we are saved, we will always be saved. Salvation once received cannot be removed by anyone because it is God who gives it. This verse alone makes the doctrine easy enough to understand and embrace.

But unfortunately, it isn’t that simple. If it were, it wouldn’t be so controversial today with both sides contending the validity of their arguments. Very clearly, there are those who reject OSAS because they reasoned that God would not be mocked by those who abuse such a privilege. Others make a clear distinction between OSAS and ‘eternal security,’ claiming that one does not imply the other. We can have ‘eternal security’ but our sins will all be checked by God.

It is not the purpose of this article to debate the OSAS issue. To do so would require a separate lengthy discussion but it’s fair to say that there is no clear right or wrong. Good people stand on both sides of the argument and they put forth their viewpoints with a sincere heart. In short, they were passionate about how they feel. Both sides have no intention to defraud God. Their views were to defend Him and not take advantage of His grace.

And yet, of course, both sides cannot be right. Clearly, one is but the other one isn’t. That’s not to say that ultimately, bad people do exist on the ‘other side’ of the argument. Neither should we point the finger and accuse them of being ignorant.

To put it plainly, what God has promised (OSAS, in other words), many have exploited and abused. With salvation safely in the pocket, many believe sinning is not a problem because God’s grace abounds. In other words, God will forever be forgiving and merciful so long as we go before Him and confess our transgressions. If and when we do that, we will be fine. At the same time, because we are forever and permanently saved, access to the Kingdom of God is assured no matter what we do on earth. Therefore we now have carte blanche access to do as we wish and still reach Heaven.

OSAS has become, for many, a guarantee for all the wrong reasons. It’s a classic case of learning God’s truth but misapply it. Because the application is horribly wrong, people use it to justify their immoral lifestyles. That being the case, all that makes a complete mockery of Paul’s insistence that we must transform our lives (Eph 4:20-24).

One way to around this OSAS impasse is to realise that no one can continue to sin as if he’s never been saved. If anyone believes he has received salvation, then it is not possible that he can go on living a life of debauchery and immorality. Whoever shows neither the desire to live by God’s standards nor a deep desire to please Him is not only not saved but he never was in the first place. And if he never was saved, then the issue of OSAS does not even apply at all.

Anyone can go around calling himself a Christian but salvation still eludes him. That’s because salvation is nothing more than just paid lip service. I call these people, ‘Card-Carrying Christians.’ Others might call them ‘Nominal Christians.’ Some refer to them as ‘Christmas-Only Christians’ but you get the point. In support of this argument, the apostle John offers useful reinforcement:

“Everyone who sins is breaking God’s law, for all sin is contrary to the law of God. And you know that Jesus came to take away our sins, and there is no sin in Him. Anyone who continues to live in Him will not sin. But anyone who keeps on sinning does not know Him or understand who He is.” (1 Jn 3:4-6, NLT, m.e.)

As Jn 10:28-30 attests, salvation is guaranteed once we accept what Christ offers us but on the other hand, if we never really truly lived in Him and we sin, then the likelihood is that we will continue our lives as sinners with no clear idea nor understanding of who God is in our lives. In history, we learn of many who fall into this category. An often-used example is Adolf Hitler (1889-1945).

After all, even he referred to himself as a “follower of Christ.” Apparently, Hitler was baptised a Roman Catholic, became an altar boy and at one stage, had premonitions of becoming a priest. As leader of Nazi Germany, he even displayed support for the Church by signing the NSDAP-Vatican Concordat in 1933.

Karla Faye Tucker (Image source: pinterest.com)

So would it be a fair certainty that Hitler will not make it to Heaven? I guess that’s how many of us will view it. Can we say the same of Karla Faye Tucker (1959-1998) who became the first woman to be lethally injected in America since 1984 for her murderous crimes? Because she found Christ in prison briefly before her execution, we presume she accepted His promise of salvation. But she murdered two people in the most violent fashion, using a pickaxe.

The point is that in the end, we should not be surprised at all by who we find in Heaven. There will be those we least expect to make it. They will be there just as much as perhaps some might not expect us to be there too. By the same token, those we have always expected to be in Heaven might never make it. Whether Hitler or Karla Tucker is now in Heaven, only God knows. The best we can do is guess.

As Christians who live in, by and for Christ, we are called to learn what is taught through Scripture. To learn is to presume that we apply God’s truths throughout our lives. We are to be exemplars to advance the Kingdom. So, whoever teaches the word of God must realise the importance of personal application just as much as conviction and authority.

Sense of purpose

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During Jesus’ all-too-short years of public ministry, He taught with a single-minded purpose. With a clear-cut objective in mind, His message lacked for nothing. By training His intent on what He wanted to achieve, those whom He taught learned successfully.

Now, consider this part of a story from 1 Kings:

“An Aramean soldier, however, randomly shot an arrow at the Israelite troops and hit the king of Israel between the joints of his armour. ‘Turn the horses and get me out of here!’ Ahab groaned to the driver of his chariot. ‘I’m badly wounded!’” (1 Kgs 22:34, NLT, m.e.)

This passage comes from the battle between the Arameans and the armies of King Jehoshaphat of Judah and King Ahab of Israel. In it, Ahab thought he could avoid his enemy’s attention by persuading Jehoshaphat to wear his royal robes instead. That way, he could then hide under a disguise that prevented the Arameans from recognising him on the battlefield. But in all likelihood, Ahab never told Jehoshaphat why.

Under instructions, the King of Aram made it clear that his chariot commanders were to look for the King of Israel and no one else. The idea was to kill him. And so the commanders trained their eyes on seeking the one who wore the royal robes. If they saw anyone wearing such, he had to be the one.

And saw they did. But of course, it was Jehoshaphat and not Ahab. Realising a mistake was in the making, Jehoshaphat called out that he wasn’t Ahab and summarily, the commanders decided to look elsewhere. However, out of the blue came a random arrow shot from the bow of a certain Aramean soldier that somehow managed to find its way in between the joints of Ahab’s front armour, piercing deep into his body, wounding him fatally. Verse 35 reveals that he eventually died from that fateful arrow.

Talk about a stray arrow finding its target, this story is unlike any. When you teach with an unmistakable sense of purpose, you’ll find at least someone who will listen and understand your message even when you least expect. That someone might even be a person you didn’t think will be affected by what you taught.

Like the bowman, you only need to answer the call to teach, put your heart in and do your best, that sense of purpose will touch someone’s life and put him on the path to change. It might appear unlikely but we’re dealing with a God of Incredible Unlikelihood!

When we teach with good intent, God’s truth will find its target. By saying that, I mean that when we pour our heart and effort and teach, He will do the rest. So long as we make available the word of God, someone will invariably listen and understand it in any of the following four ways that Jesus means it to.

The first is when Jesus used His teaching opportunities to help people to see the difference between the Kingdom He talked about and the one subscribed by the scribes and the Pharisees (Mt 5-7). That is the point behind the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ most powerful and meaningful in all of Scripture. He did this not to abolish the laws of the prophets but to equip the people with a better understanding.

Secondly, His teachings arouse curiosity and interest but in the mix, He also purposely masked the truth from the others strategically using parables (Mk 4) for good reason:

“You are permitted to understand the secret of the Kingdom of God. But I use parables for everything I say to outsiders, so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled: When they see what I do, they will learn nothing. When they hear what I say, they will not understand. Otherwise, they will turn to Me and be forgiven.’” (Mk 4:11-12, NLT, m.e.)

Thirdly, Jesus used His teaching to comfort and encourage. This was apparent at a time when all the people saw ahead was a hopelessly bleak future (Jn 14). In His reassurance, He spoke to His disciples about “another Advocate” who would come in the guise of the Holy Spirit “who leads into all truth”:

“He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive Him, because it isn’t looking for Him and doesn’t recognise Him. But you know Him, because He lives with you now and later will be in you. No, I will not abandon you as orphans – I will come to you.” (Jn 14:17-18, NLT, m.e.)

Lastly, Jesus set up the way He taught so that others would end up ‘opposing’ Him. This was when He revealed His death at the cross and His subsequent resurrection to which the disciples were shocked (because they were at that time incapable of understanding):

“From then on Jesus began to tell His disciples plainly that it was necessary for Him to go to Jerusalem, and that He would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day, He would be raised from the dead.” (Mt 16:21, NLT, m.e.)

In his state of shock, Peter obviously disagreed and in fact chided Jesus:

“But Peter took Him aside and began to reprimand Him for saying such things. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to You!” (v.22, NLT, m.e.)

Getting into the very purpose of things, all of this opened a way for Jesus to reveal His plan for all of humanity:

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If any of you wants to be My follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow Me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for My sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? For the Son of Man will come with His angels in the glory of His Father and will judge all people according to their deeds. And I tell you the truth, some standing here right now will not die before they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom.” (vv.24-28, NLT, m.e.)

Every now and then, someone would stop and ask me why the Bible was made available. That’s the same as asking why God inspired men to compile His word for the world to read. What was His aim in doing so?

Just like Jesus who died on the cross for an amazing life-giving reason, God also used the Bible to help man to understand Him and His purpose for us. As Jesus died and then rose again to defeat sin, God turned the Bible into the richest source of life-giving information as well. The two purposes were single-minded; both were singularly purposed to save us. The Bible presents a clear path to personal change and obedience to Him, which are exactly the kinds of teachable lessons we can draw from.

That is why Satan tried so hard to prevent God’s word from being made widely available to the whole world. Just as the Chinese-translated Bible today is worth its weight in gold, the English-language version had a very blood-stained history where countless number of innocent people including the translators themselves were tragically martyred. In that alone, not everyone could get their hands on the English-language Bible during the 300 years spanning from the 15th to the 17th centuries.

Today, according to the Guinness Book of Records, the Bible is not just the world’s bestselling book but also the most-read. It is also the most-printed and most-distributed. At an estimated 5 billion copies sold and distributed by 1995, the Bible Society said half that number were printed between 1815 and 1975. The Bible has now gone beyond just English and German to include another 347 languages. Of these, at least one book of the Bible is available in 2,123 languages.

As we venture to teach and share His word, the motivation must be to inspire people to change. After all, that is one of the key purposes of the Bible. God’s truths can and often speak to us across the globe in all the umpteen languages cutting across wide swathes of culture, creed and colour. That is why God’s word demands that we act on it just as we are taught, just as we read and just as we understand what it is that He is asking of us.

When we are called to teach, it will not be a matter of whether or not God has specifically gifted us. It will purely be our duty as believers to not treat God’s word lightly or inconsequently. Neither is it simply an obligatory task to fulfil. As believers of Christ, we should be all fired up to teach as many people as possible and to do so with passion and desire.

At the same time, let’s stay on track with what and how we teach. Methodologies and techniques are just as important as content. In other words, the materials are great but we need to raise our game and improve the way we reach our listeners. Teaching aimlessly is like not having a plot – no matter how hard we try, we’re doing no more than wander around like a headless chook. What we therefore need is to pray for a carefully laid-out approach and faithfully stick to it.

Our church has been diligently pursuing the Beatitudes as an introduction to the Sermon on the Mount. Both have taken almost half a year to complete, utilising different speakers to present them. As it is the way at our church, informal discussions called ‘Table Talk’ follow from the sermons on the same Sunday after breakfast time. Here, members get together and share their views and ask questions. Though these are done in an informal setting, the productivity is surprisingly good.

As a support mechanism, ‘Table Talk’ offers church members an opportunity for better understanding of what is taught. The sense of purpose is undeniable and the results are encouraging because it fulfils what conventional formally-structured Bible Study classes might not be able to.

That’s not to say that the latter are unimportant; it’s just that ‘Table Talk’ appears to have a broader mass appeal and so far, is able to reach those who would otherwise shy away from formal studies. Here too, just as anyone can ask questions, anyone can also answer them although the host moderates the discussions to ensure that doctrinally, everyone is on the same page.

Remember what Paul said in his letter to Timothy:

“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realise what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip His people to do every good work.” (2 Tim 3:16-17, NLT, m.e.)

Therefore let us teach for three reasons: firstly, to teach God’s truths, secondly, to correct (some use the word ‘admonish’ or ‘reprove’) what is wrong and then thirdly, to train people so that they may do good works that bring glory to Christ.

Clarity of principle

Image source: faithequip.co.za

Let’s be honest – many of us tend to look at the forest. The scribes and the Pharisees did, which is why they were inclined to only focus on the precepts when they taught God’s truths in the Old Testament. As a result, the people they taught only knew God’s word as nothing more than stringent and suffocating rules.

But Jesus came and He homed in on the individual trees. Unlike the scribes and the Pharisees, He placed emphasis on the principles and not the precepts. In doing so, He had the people view the Father’s truths as compelling reasons. He was especially in His element when He taught the people the Sermon on the Mount (see Mt 5:21-48).

With the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ teaching approach was unusually effective but unique. No one else taught like Him. While He acknowledged that it was the law of the prophets that the people had learned from the scribes and the Pharisees, He did not dismiss them but instead added His contrast to each principle He taught.

He did this because He knew very well that the people had no real understanding of what they were taught earlier. And so the purpose of His teaching style was so that people could compare how they once learned to how they heard the truth from Jesus.

For instance, when the issue of murder was raised (Mt 5:21-22), the precept was simply not to murder, as in don’t kill a person unlawfully and with intentional malice. Predictably, the scribes and the Pharisees taught the people the literal meaning of the word. However Jesus went further than that, explaining the principle behind the commandment.

The difference between the words ‘precept’ and ‘principle’ is important for us to understand how Jesus taught so differently compared to the scribes and Pharisees. A precept is simply a mandate just like the Ten Commandments are that God instructed His people through Moses. In other words, they are directions given as a rule of action or conduct.

A principle, on the other hand, is the all-important truth from which other truths can be derived. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus expounded the principles, ensuring that the people were able to understand a mandate beyond merely a direction in life.

In Mt 5:21-22, Jesus reasoned that while the scribes and Pharisees taught about premeditatedly killing people (precept), the real principle was to not harbour murderous thoughts or even just malicious notions in our head. In simpler terms, He placed far greater importance than previously taught, on avoiding feelings of anger and hatred because that’s how the decision to murder is built from. What Jesus is saying is that if we can extinguish such deadly thoughts, then we wouldn’t feel murderous.

In the case of forbidding adultery (vv.27-30), the traditional notion was to adopt Jewish legalism and then cite the outward prohibition albeit in a convoluted roundabout way. Doing this, however, merely invite hypocrisy while doing nothing to curb lasciviousness. Understanding the precept has little to no effect on getting to the principle matter at heart.

Jesus, on the other hand, zeroed in on the mind and talked about the kind of immorality that entrenches itself as a simple but very dangerous lustful thought. From this insightful teaching, He showed more clearly than ever before how adultery begins from deep within our carnal imagination. It is from Jesus’ expounding of the principle that we come to the modern-day notions of ‘bedroom eyes’ or ‘undressing her in his mind.’

The kind of Jewish legalism that the scribes and the Pharisees specialised in still exists today. As it permeated society back then, preventing God’s truths from being understood, the same effects persist in contemporary times often without us realising. Not surprisingly, we keep looking in the wrong places for the reasons why certain things happen in church.

It could very well explain why many youths have left church and abandoned the faith. Or that they practise premarital sex while they serve roles in ministry. Or they are selective in the way they read and accept God’s truths and values. In other words, they embrace what they agree with and ditch what they don’t or feel uncomfortable with.

It comes as no surprise that all of this might be owed to legalistic churches that buried themselves in rules without reasoning. There are a lot of do’s and don’ts but never enough reasons why. The problem is young people are constantly looking for the reasons why so that they can have a better and clearer understanding of the things they are told to comply with.

Obedience with sense and reasoning is what they’re after but oftentimes, puffed up church leaders demand compliance without bothering to explain themselves. In arrogance, they expect people to fall in line and often, they themselves don’t. In worse situations, they issue threats in place of reasoning.

In His public ministry, Jesus did not ignore all this. He foresaw the problem with legalism, understanding all too well that people would ask, “Why?” That is why He taught the way He did, laying out the principles behind the directives, making the Sermon on the Mount the most far-reaching and important part of all His teachings.

Summary

Image source: inspirationalpowers.blogspot.com

Having outlined nine of Jesus’ approaches to teaching doesn’t necessarily guarantee that the reader will instantly become Christ-like in the way he teaches. Far from it that anyone should think this way. Jesus’ teaching approach is not a mechanistic formula and should not be construed as such. It’s not a magic wand that anyone could use to transform ourselves into super-teachers of God’s word.

As Paul reminds the people in Corinth:

“There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us.” (1 Cor 12:4-6, NLT, m.e.)

Paul says that God gifts each and every one of us accordingly. Yet we are all entirely dependent on the Holy Spirit for the effective dispensation of our gifts. Remember, Paul wrote, saying that:

“…no one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” (1 Cor 12:3b, NLT, m.e.)

So, how much else teaching then? In other words, the same will apply to teaching be it in a formal or informal setting. With that, how effectively we understand let alone adopt Jesus’ teaching approach is best left to God to manifest in us.

All that is well and good but we also have to acknowledge that great and inspired teaching isn’t just about being a gift of the gab. Neither is it entirely about how intensively trained or coached we are. It doesn’t even matter if we are eloquent in the language.

Two other things matter just as importantly when it comes to great and inspired teaching – equally great material and personal experience.

Great material is available – it’s called the Bible. More specifically, in this case, the Gospels. Herein lies the richest source of information needed to live righteously and obediently in praise of God. And with that, we will never run short of things to teach.

Personal or ‘first-hand’ experience refers to our life’s trials and tribulations. These are your testimonies, the real-life events that define our own walk with Christ. Fleshing out our teaching using our own personal experiences will open eyes and prickle ears.

It’s the ‘personal theology’ that a friend often phrases it. When our teaching incorporates personal experiences, it not only puts our own struggles into a clearer spiritual perspective but it provides listeners with evidence of how we ourselves, as disciples of Christ, are in the process of leaving our sinful self behind.

That, in a nutshell, is how we ought to teach Scripture.

For further reading

Boice, James Montgomery (Jan 2016) The Parables of Jesus (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers) available at https://www.amazon.com/Parables-Jesus-James-Montgomery-Boice/dp/0802414494

Chu, Jeff (Nov 2013) Joseph Prince and the New Creation Church (OZY) accessible at https://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/joseph-prince-and-the-new-creation-church/3515

Comfort, Ray (Feb 2012) Hitler, God and the Bible (Washington D.C.: WND Books First Edition) available at https://www.amazon.com/Hitler-God-Bible-Ray-Comfort/dp/1936488248

Hafichuk, Victor (n.d.) False Teacher – Joseph Prince (The Path of Truth) accessible at https://www.thepathoftruth.com/false-teachers/joseph-prince.htm

Harris, Tom (n.d.) Once Saved, Always Saved? What do the Scriptures say about salvation and eternal security? (Active Christianity) accessible at https://activechristianity.org/once-saved-always-saved

“Joseph Prince” (Wikipedia) accessible at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Prince

“Kiss Principle” (http://people.apache.org/~fhanik/kiss.html)

“Kiss Principle Definition” (Nov 1994) (MONASH Marketing Dictionary) accessible at (https://www.monash.edu/business/marketing/marketing-dictionary/k/kiss-principle)

Kowalski, David (n.d.) A Brief Overview of the Teachings of Joseph Prince (Apologetics Index) accessible at http://www.apologeticsindex.org/3115-joseph-prince

McKeever, Joe (Jul 2014) 7 Questions About ‘Once Saved, Always Saved’ (Crosswalk) accessible at https://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/joe-mckeever/7-questions-about-once-saved-always-saved.html

Myers, Jeremy (n.d.) I believe in Eternal Security… but not ‘Once Saved, Always Saved’ (Redeeming God) accessible at https://redeeminggod.com/eternal-security-once-saved-always-saved/

Partridge, Eric and Dalzell, Tom and Victor, Terry (editors) (Jan 2015) The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge 2nd Edition) available at https://www.amazon.com/Concise-Partridge-Dictionary-Unconventional-Unconvetional/dp/0415527201

“Principle vs. Precept” (Coaching Churches – Helping Churches Navigate Change) accessible at http://www.theconvergencepoint.org/coaching/?p=749

Quora (Apr 2018) What is Joseph Prince’s birth name accessible at https://www.quora.com/What-is-Joseph-Princes-birth-name

Rich, Ben R. (1995) Clarence Leonard (Kelly) Johnson 1910–1990: A Biographical Memoir (Washington D.C.: National Academies Press) accessible at http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/johnson-clarence.pdf

Robertson, Gordon (n.d.) Was Adolf Hitler a Christian? (Christian Broadcasting Network) accessible at https://www.cbn.com/700club/features/churchhistory/godandhitler/

Yahoo! Answers (Apr 2009) Does anyone know why Joseph Prince changed his name? accessible at https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090904085910AA0zfcI

Understanding the Golden Rule

2019-08-21T20:50:00.001+07:00

Understanding the Golden Rule

Based on Matthew 7:12

Khen Lim | August 25 2019

Introduction

The very verse that is central to the title of this article is none other than the Gospel According to Matthew 7:12 in the New Testament. As many will know, it is an integral part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and is a very well-known verse that goes by the name, the ‘Golden Rule.’

As for the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7:12 is the fitting summation. Let’s take a look at the verse here:

“Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.” (Mt 7:12, NLT)

Not unpredictably, there are a few ways to look at this verse. In some translations, it seems to be independent of others, standing on its own and a self-sustaining way. In some others, it appears to be an extension to the preceding five verses that centre on how to pray effectively (vv.7-11).

Yet some of the words in the verse hold key to some more far-reaching implications. Let’s read it again:

“Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.” (Mt 7:12, NLT, m.e.)

As the words “in the law and the prophets” suggest, there is a way to link it back to two chapters earlier where the teaching of ethics begins:

“Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.” (Mt 5:17, NLT)

As some of us know, the clarification that Jesus offers above is connected to elsewhere in the same chapter, all of which offers us even better definition. Here are just some of them:

Verse 20: Jesus talks about righteousness that must not be equated to those of “the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees.”

Verses 21 to 22: Jesus sharpens the definition of the word ‘murder’ by extending on what “our ancestors were told.”

Verses 27 to 29: Jesus goes beyond “the commandment” by saying that adultery is committed even when a person “looks at a woman with lust.”

Verses 31 to 32: Beyond the definition of “the law,” Jesus says that whoever divorces his otherwise faithful wife, will ultimately cause “her to commit adultery” in the same way as when a man “marries a divorced woman.”

Verses 33 to 37: Again, Jesus takes what “our ancestors were told” and sharpens the implication of what it means to “break your vows.”

Verses 38 to 42: Despite having “heard the law,” Jesus tells us we must “not resist an evil person!” And with that, He proceeded to offer examples of what we must otherwise do.

Verses 43 to 44: Once again, it’s “the law” that Jesus asks us to reinterpret not by hating our enemies but to “pray for those who persecute you!”

These many preceding verses lend force to how “the law and the prophets” link to them. In fact, in the Luke’s Gospel, the Golden Rule is also present right after similar teachings about how to cope with enemies, making the same link just as if not even more explicit:

“Do to others as you would like them to do to you.” (Lk 6:31, NLT)

While gouging out the lustful eye seems a little hard to perform in actual reality (Mt 5:29), perhaps the verse that defines the Golden Rule is more reasonable and achievable.

The irony of Gandhi

Image source: Times of India

The Internet offers plenty of exposure to the late Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s – better known as “Mahatma” Gandhi (1869-1948) – statements about Christianity. This is because he said one thing but meant another in the sense.

In other words, he admired Jesus Christ but he rejected Christianity. There was much he said about this of which the most infamous was, “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Admittedly, that does sound a little dichotomous. Maybe we can read a short excerpt from Jyotsna Kamat’s reflection of Millie Graham Polak’s very incisive portrait of Gandhi and find out more:

“Is Mr Gandhi a Christian?” a visitor asked Millie. Ms Millie asked for further clarification whether she meant one converted to Christianity or one who believed in the teachings of Christ. The visitor emphatically told she meant [the] former. She was talking about him with some friends and they were wondering that Gandhi knew Christian Scriptures so well and fond of quoting words of Christ frequently and hence her friends thought he must be a Christian.

Ms Millie brooded over. What the visitor said was true. Mr Gandhi frequently quoted the sayings and teachings of Jesus. The lesson of the “Sermon on the Mount” seemed constantly in his mind and was a source of guidance and inspiration to him. There was [a] beautiful picture of Jesus Christ that adorned the wall over his desk.

(There was no picture of the Buddha or of Krishna in the office and only three other pictures were to be seen on the walls. One was of Justice Ranade, the great Indian social reformer. Another was of Annie Besant, ever eager to defend the downtrodden and to denounce injustice.

The third picture was of Sir William Wilson Hunter, editor of “Imperial Gazetteer of India” who had very strongly written against the system of Indian indentured labour, which he called as “semi-slavery” and at home, there was [a] photograph of Dadhbhai Naoroji, grand men and women who were fighting for liberation of the oppressed and so were dear to Mr Gandhi’s heart. But in the centre of his office room was the face of Christ.)

When asked why he did not embrace Christianity, Gandhi has said that he had studied the Scriptures and was tremendously attracted. But eventually, he came to the conclusion that there was nothing really special in the Scriptures, which he had not got in his own, and “to be a good Hindu also meant that I would be a good Christian. There was no need for me to join your creed to be a believer in the beauty of the teachings of Jesus or try to follow His example,” he said.

“What do you think is the essential lesson for man in the teaching of Christianity?” Gandhi asked Millie. “I could think of two or three. But one that stands out strongest is, “One is your Master Christ and all ye were brethren,” said Millie. “Yes,” replied Gandhi, “and Hinduism teaches the same great truth and Mohammedanism and Zoroastrianism too.”

At least a few modern Christian scholars have shared the same irony – and a little suspicion – about those who reject Christianity amidst its exclusiveness and uniqueness on the one hand and then acknowledge their deep admiration for Jesus on the other.

Just as it is with Mr Gandhi. The problem is that people who say they deny the faith but find much to admire about the Son of God are either very confused, misinformed or simply erratic with the way they see things.

But then, Gandhi wasn’t so. For a man as learned, intelligent and perceptive as he was, none of those can be levelled at him. This apparent inconsistency might be because of the way he understood the Gospel especially the Sermon on the Mount, which we understand he often read and allegedly was impacted by.

It certainly appears that someone like him was actually being selective with what he liked and not liked. With the subtlety of an expert mental censor, it is obvious that he simply discarded whatever he read of Jesus’ teachings that he did not agree with, which of course included anything he’d also found offensive.

According to literature from the Gandhi Research Foundation, it was said that he regularly conducted prayer meetings every evening at around 7:00pm when he’d recite the Sermon on the Mount standing up. In other words, Gandhi wasn’t ignorant about Jesus’ most famous sermon covered in Matthew 5-7. Specifically, he would have been very familiar with 7:12-14, which is of course very interesting, considering how paradoxical he was about Christ and Christianity.

Like every other Universalist, Gandhi would have been quite beside himself reading about the Golden Rule (7:12). No doubt there would be unbridled admiration for it in very much the same way as anyone raised in other faiths because by this one verse alone, Jesus’ reputation as a man of peace and lovingkindness is arguably unprecedented. That being said, what about the next two verses that follow:

“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell* is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.” (Mt 7:13-14, NLT)

(* Greek description: The road that leads to destruction)

After Jesus says that we should treat others the same way as we’d like others to treat us, He goes on to use the analogy of gates and roads (highways) to underscore the way to eternal life. What He is saying is that by rejecting Him, there is neither life nor hope. The route to eternal life will then be replaced by a sure path to eternal destruction and damnation.

For Gandhi to read this during every prayer meeting and not understand it is perplexing. A trained lawyer with a gift of words and understanding in no less the English language, it is not possible that he would not know what verses 13 and 14 mean and how they link to the previous verse.

How can anyone accept and admire Jesus and then turns around and reject the truth He offers? In other words, if anyone fails to accept and admire Jesus who is the One and only way to eternal life, then he too cannot, with any consistency, accept and admire Him for teaching how we are to do to others what we’d like others do unto us. It just doesn’t make any sense at all.

And in the end, we really need to ask if Gandhi, as revered as he is the world over, really truly did learn anything from Christ. After all, as we all know, you can attend a thousand prayer meetings and still not scratch the surface of Jesus’ teachings.

We cannot simply be selective with what we read and learn from Scripture. The Bible is a manual to life and obedience under the One True God. It is not a guide by which we pick and choose what is conveniently agreeable to us. We cannot be choosy over only the things we can gladly call the One “Lord.”

The same Jesus who said, “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you” (7:12) happens to be the same Jesus who also said, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one can come to the Father except through Me” (Jn 14:6, NLT).

The significance of the word ‘therefore’

Before we proceed to disassembling the verse, out of curiosity, there is the use of the adverb ‘therefore’ at least in some of the translations such as NKJV/KJV, GNV (1599 Geneva Bible) and HCSB (Holman Christian Standard Bible). In other cases, we have something similar:

KJV (King James Version): “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.”

NIV (New International Version): “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

NASB (New American Standard Bible): “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

ESV (English Standard Version): “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

ASV (American Standard Version): “All things, therefore, whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them: for this is the law and the prophets.”

AMP (Amplified Bible): “So then, in everything treat others the same way you want them to treat you, for this is [the essence of] the Law and the [writings of the] Prophets.”

And with the use of such an adverb, the real question then is how verse 12 links to the preceding parts of the Sermon on the Mount. The word “therefore” offers us a clear connection that is undeniable.

Could it be linked to verses 7 to 11 in connection to effective praying? Could it be linked to verses 1 to 6 that talks about how we critically judge others? Or perhaps it is meant to function like a capping just like 5:17 where one opens while the other closes the main portion of the Sermon on the Mount and in both cases, Jesus teaches us that the kingdom of God fulfils rather than abolishes the law and the prophets.

In other words, the adverb “therefore” is there to help us to relate verse 12 all the way back to the whole of the Sermon on the Mount up until the point of 5:17. You can then see that both the start and end verses underscore the expression that compliance to the Golden Rule “is the Law and the Prophets.”

Verse 7:12 is, hence, the second (or the end) capping of Jesus’ entire Sermon. Between the two cappings (some call it ‘bookends’), He offers clear explanation as to what the actions and attitudes are in order to fulfil and summarise the Law and the Prophets.

The significance of verses 13-14

Source image: maxprofetadedeus.blogspot.com

Although a bulk of our focus is on the Golden Rule (Mt 7:12), we’ve seen how the significance of verses 13 and 14 certainly cannot be overlooked but there is also the question of whether they are linked to what precedes or follows from them for the remainder of the chapter. After all, if we look at the way Jesus describes the “narrow way” where He tells us what the outcome is with the two options:

Good way: “But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult and only a few ever find it.” (7:14, m.e.)	Bad way: “The highway to hell is broad and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way.” (7:13, m.e.)	Outcomes: “to life” or “to hell”
Analysis: By saying that “only a few ever find it,” Jesus reiterates the reward to those who make the effort no matter how difficult the way is. Verse 14 talks about the way that ends in eternal life. Between it and the preceding verse, He contrasts the narrow and the broad gate as well as the difficult road that few will be determined enough to find and the one in which far more people will end up choosing, leading to destruction.
Good way: “A good tree produces good fruit and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit.” (7:17-18, m.e.)	Bad way: “So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into fire.” (7:19, m.e.)	Outcome: “chopped down and thrown into fire”
Analysis: Jesus uses verses 17 and 18 to juxtapose the good and the bad tree that produces two contrasting outcomes. The significance of the good fruit is that only a good but not ever the bad tree can produce. In the next verse, He tells us that God has no use whatsoever for trees that don’t bear good fruit and therefore is consigned to fire (meaning ‘hell’).
Good way: “Only those who actually do the will of My Father in heaven will enter. Anyone who listens to My teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock.” (7:21, 24-25, m.e.)	Bad way: “But anyone who hears My teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.” (7:26-27, m.e.)	Outcomes: “the Kingdom of Heaven” or “will collapse with a mighty crash” (destruction)
		Analysis: Jesus uses verses 22 and 23 to describe those who are untrue in discipleship to Him. In the next two verses, He talks about those whose foundations are and aren’t solidly made in Him where one leads into and the other is excluded from the Kingdom of Heaven. One yields stability while the other is steeped in complete ruin.

From verse 13 to 27, Jesus adds the gloss in His description of the life that He calls us to live and in doing so, He also provides a window into the life that He asks us to avoid. The lifestyle He exhorts us to take up is as clear as the one He warns us to avoid. So, on the one hand, the way is narrow, difficult and few will find while the other is broad, easy and plenty will follow.

It’s easy for people to adhere to a life that has no restrictions on behaviour or even opinions. Any of us will have no problems in saying that they admire what Jesus says but can’t find it in them to follow Him in obedience and discipleship. Gandhi’s excuse is the Hinduism offers him as much as Christianity and yet on the walls of his home, there was neither a picture of Buddha or Krishna. Talk is cheap when action is conveniently missing.

Remember the rich man who came to Jesus. He asked, “Rabbi, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” (Mt 19:16) However Jesus’ response simply left him despondent (vv.21-22). As He said, “…the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult and only a few ever find it” (7:14).

Describing Jesus’ Golden Rule

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In the non-Christian circle, the command is also called the Ethic of Reciprocity. The world knows it as a ‘sensible notion’ that is integral in the developing of an ordered society. Lesser known as the Golden Rule, secular society accepts that it allows people to rationally shape their behaviour – and laws – in order to ascertain the best possible chance for order, justice and peaceful existence.

Typically, the origin of this Ethic of Reciprocity does not find a home in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount but as it turns out, many ‘believe’ that its home is in ancient Egypt around 2000 BC or in some other hypotheses, it was allegedly found in the philosophies of ancient Babylon, India, Greece, Judea and even China.

It was a Catholic catechism dated either 1567 or 1583 in which it appeared for the first time in modern English form, having been translated from ancient Greek manuscripts that are linked directly to Matthew 7:12 as well as 22:39 as well as Luke 6:31.

In fact, regardless of whether one calls it by one or the other name, many will say that all the world’s religions and leading philosophies carry a version of it, meaning that none has any valid hold to it. For example, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama once said, “Every religion emphasises human improvement, love, respect for others, sharing other people’s suffering.

On these lines, every religion had more or less the same viewpoint and the same goal.” Although he didn’t explicitly mention the Golden Rule, he made it apparent that all organised religions agree on this point and that it applies to the entire human race.

The Golden Rule is quite possibly the most pivotal part of the modern human rights concept because it calls for one’s individual right to equitability and also a sharing of responsibility in the assurance that justice is for all. With the Golden Rule, people are to live with consideration for one another beyond just those who are family members and friends.

It means that the same rules that govern fairness with people we know also apply to strangers in our midst. As such, it is not unusual to find that the Golden Rule is the cradle of modern society where irrespective of the culture, it is a standard to determine what is and isn’t civilised.

However, there is one distinctly Christ-centric flavour in the Golden Rule that does not appear in the secular or ancient versions. In fact there are four clear forms of interpretation based on how this ethical code (or morality) is expressly worded:

Interpretation	Nature	Direction	Voice
One should treat others according to how one would like others to treat him	Christian	Positive	Passive
Treat others as you would like to be treated	Christian	Positive	Active
One should not treat others in ways one would not like to be treated	Secular	Negative	Passive
Do not treat others in ways you would not like to be treated	Secular (a.k.a. the Silver Rule)	Negative	Active

In many ancient cultures, Jesus’ command is often expressed negatively as shown above. Here are some of the ones I know of:

“Do not impose on others what you do not desire others to impose on you.” – Confucius (551-479BC), ancient Chinese philosopher (Confucian Analects)

“What things make you angry when you suffer them at the hands of others, do not you do to other people.” – Isocrates (436-338BC), ancient Greek Attic rhetorician

“Let no man do to another that which would be repugnant to himself.” – Mahabharata, Bk 5 Ch 49 v.57

“Human nature is good only when it does not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self.” – Dadistan-I-Dinik, 94:5; in Muller, Ch 49 Vol 18 p.69 (ancient Zoroastrian sacred texts)

“Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.” – Udanavargu 5:18 (Buddhist sacred texts)

“If I choose I may rule over you. But what I condemn in another I will, if I may, avoid myself.” – Herodotus (c.484-c.425BC), ancient Greek historian (The Histories, Bk. III Ch.142)

It isn’t just ancient texts that reveal this negative form. Contemporary leadership also applies the same negativity: “Don’t do what you don’t want others to do unto you.” “Don’t abuse your authority if you don’t want others to do the same.” “If you don’t do your part, don’t be surprised that others won’t do theirs too.” “If you’re always going to be late for work, don’t get upset if others follow your example.”

Modern leaders exhort others using identical negative expressions that make it obvious when we compare with Jesus’ positive expression but how is this significant? The late Robert Mounce puts it best when he said, “In its negative form, the Golden Rule could be satisfied by doing nothing. The positive form moves us to action on behalf of others.”

On the other hand, Jesus’ command is not only positive but is in an active voice, meaning that He requires us to be of active service to others. And unlike the negative versions, Jesus has set a far higher standard by asking us to pursue the highest good and excel in a positive standard so that others may be the same to us. Using the above negative leadership expressions, we can put a positive spin on them:

Negative: “Don’t do what you don’t want others to do unto you.”

POSITIVE: “Do to others what you want others to do to you.”

Negative: “Don’t abuse your authority if you don’t want others to do the same.”

POSITIVE: “Respect the authority vested unto you and others will do the same.”

Negative: “If you don’t do your part, don’t be surprised that others won’t do theirs too.”

POSITIVE: “If you do your part, don’t be surprised that others will do theirs too.”

Negative: “If you’re always going to be late for work, don’t get upset if others follow your example.”

POSITIVE: “If you’re always on time to work, you’d be happy to see that others will follow your example.”

Adding a positive spin to the expression makes it significantly more active and demanding, more searching and substantive. D.A. Carson in his 1982 publication, “The Sermon on the Mount: An Evangelical Exposition of Matthew 5-7” wrote, “Here, there is no permission to withdraw into a world where I offend no one, but accomplish no positive good either.” In other words, a negated expression of the Golden Rule achieves nothing worth noting because it makes no demands on us to accomplish anything substantial.

In its Christian form, the Golden Rule, in a nutshell, defines the spirit of the whole Sermon on the Mount because the principle of the matter is regardless of what the situation is, you can do whatever you want so long as you know that the same will be done back to you. This tit-for-tat approach is the underlying concept behind what Jesus is saying.

Because He knows that we would never intentionally or maliciously harm ourselves, He calls us to treat others in the same way. In that sense, if everyone were to just obey this verse alone, what a different world it would’ve been because the transformation would have prevented wars and all forms of conflict, hatred, murder etc. from taking place.

In more ways than one, the apostle Paul is talking about the Golden Rule here also:

“Owe nothing to anyone – except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbour, you will fulfil the requirements of God’s law. For the commandments say, ‘You must not commit adultery. You must not murder. You must not steal. You must not covet.’ These – and other such commandments – are summed up in this one commandment: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfils the requirements of God’s law.” (Rom 13:8-10, NLT, m.e.)

We can also find it equally mirrored in the Old Testament through Moses’ writings:

“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord.” (Lev 19:18, NLT)

Just as it is in the New, it is also in the Old Testament. God’s inerrant words through thousands of years reflect a sense of timelessness where the Golden Rule exists with the same level of importance then as it is today. Spoken by Moses, Jesus basically reinforces it and Paul reconfirms it. It is so central to everything that God wants us to live by that we simply ignore it at our peril.

Synoptically, we find the parallel in Luke’s Gospel although it is somewhat a little different to Matthew 7. Here, Jesus words His expectations in no uncertain terms:

“Do not judge others and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others or it will all come back against you. Forgive others and you will be forgiven. Give and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full – pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.” (Lk 6:37-38, NLT)

Jesus’ standards define the kind of expectation on how we are to act towards one another that is, if we wish to be blessed by Him. The phrases used here – “you will receive,” “your gift will return to you in full,” “the amount you get back” – bear a strong resemblance to such unmistakable rewards awaiting us.

But at the same time, notice also the way the four ‘do-or-else’ exchanges conceal a serious threat. In other words, we stand to be judged, condemned, unforgiven and deprived if we do not relent from judging, condemning and not forgiving others.

The primacy of the Golden Rule places in stark contrast society’s mantra that we must look out for ourselves first before we consider the welfare of others. The idea is to be selfish – take first, talk later. But in looking back at the Golden Rule and taking in the wider all-encapsulating view of the Sermon on the Mount, we can see how it connects us all the way to the promises of asking, seeking and knocking in verses 7 to 11. In other words, what we ask, seek or knock for, or in general term, conduct ourselves, the same will be done back to us.

Therefore, how we conduct ourselves before others in the way we treat them will set the tone for how God, in return, will treat us. If we all love our neighbours as ourselves, there will be positive repercussions throughout society at large and the whole world as a matter of fact. If such love abounds, there will be no laws required to put us in moral check because we won’t lie, steal, covet, murder, lust after, be adulterous, slander or be jealous about.

The problem with the Golden Rule is that, like God’s other laws, sin makes it impossible for us to fulfil it on our own. Under our own tainted mortal power, it will be beyond our reach. It may be the world’s greatest solution to all its ills but without God, we don’t have any hope of ever being able to overcome our shortcomings. Only Jesus can draw us to the Golden Rule as nobody else can.

And this draws us to the two gate options that Jesus raises and what they mean for us.

The gates and the roads

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Let’s revisit the two verses once more:

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it.” (Mt 7:13-14, NLT)

These verses are filled with different contrasting opposites. You have a wide and a narrow gate. And then you have a broad and a narrow road also. And then there are two distinct destinations; one that leads to destruction and the other that leads to life.

Furthermore, it seems there are two different groups of people too; one that comprises many and the other, a far smaller group with fewer people.

So, here are the four sets of contrasting opposites:

Gates	“…narrow gate”	“…wide is the gate”
Roads	“…narrow [the] road”	“…broad is the road”
Destinations	“Life”	“Destruction”
People groups	“A few”	“Many”

To get into the thick of it, we’ll begin by looking at the road (way) and the gate. The question is which one comes first. Does one get past the gate and then embark on the road or does he take the road to get to the gate?

The likelihood is that he will unlatch the gate and embark on the road. This is because Jesus mentions the gate first, saying, “Enter through the narrow gate” (Mt 7:13, NLT). In the subsequent two sentences, the gate is consistently mentioned before the road.

In all probabilities, the gate refers to conversion while the road could be a reference to the Christian life itself; in other words, the walk. In other words, one cannot begin his Christian life unless he is converted first.

In explaining the Golden Rule, Jesus begins by positioning us to first notice two gates in front of us. The choice is which gate to head to and open. Open one and not the other gate takes us down a particular road. Open the other and a different road is available.

In other words, we are faced with a decision that begins with the gate and once we make our choice, the road is set. There will be no backtracking. Neither will there be any layovers. It’s just one long road that leads either to eternal life or hell. The only recourse is to realise our mistake and diligently change roads through contrition and confession.

So, one gate is wide, which then leads to a broad road. This is the superhighway with a mind-boggling number of lanes to travel on, making travelling easy and effortless. This is the road with plentiful attractions (distractions) and people are all rushing through the wide gate, clamouring for all the ‘promising’ bright lights. Filled with excitement, people come through the wide gate, packed to the gills with everything they’ve got, not leaving anything behind (including their sins).

As John Stott commented about this road:

“One way is easy. The word means ‘broad, spacious, roomy.’ There is plenty of room on it for diversity of opinions and laxity of morals. It is the road of tolerance and permissiveness. It has no curbs, no boundaries on either thought or conduct. Travellers on the road follow their own inclinations, that is, the desires of the human heart in its fallenness. Superficiality, self-love, hypocrisy, mechanical religion, false ambition, censoriousness – these things do not have to be learnt or cultivated. No effort is required to practise them. That is why the broad way is easy.”

This is the road that leads to the normalisation of sin in our society. This is where people can be in wild abandon, doing whatever they feel like without being ‘shackled’ by all that talk about right and wrong, good and bad. Morality doesn’t exist for one just goes with how he ‘feels’ is right by him. This is the road that is paved with glitter except it’s fool’s gold.

The other gate is, as Jesus puts it, “small” and because of the size of its opening, the road henceforth is narrow. It’s not an easy road to travel on. By the sounds of it, it might not even be that straightforward to find, let alone stay on it. And because it is narrow, it is also fairly easy to miss or overlook. As narrow as the eye of a needle, this is a road that is less travelled also because so many aren’t likely to choose it.

For one, people will realise that to enter such a “small” gate, they have to leave everything behind; otherwise, you cannot get past it let alone get on the road, which, again, is narrow. What you leave behind is your emotional baggage, sinfulness, selfishness (self-centredness), ambitiousness (ruthlessness), covetousness (lust) and so on.

In fact, for some people, it might also mean leaving behind friends and family just as Jesus has said (Lk 9:23, 14:26-27, 33, Mt 16:24, 10:38, Mk 8:34).

Here’s the continuation to Stott’s description:

“The hard way, on the other hand, is narrow. Its boundaries are clearly marked. Its narrowness is due to something called ‘divine revelation,’ which restricts to the confines of what God has revealed in Scripture to be true and good. It is a fact that revealed truth imposes a limitation on what Christians may believe, and revealed goodness on how we behave. The gate leading to the easy way (broad way) is wide for it is a simple matter to get on the easy road. We need leave nothing behind, not even our sins, self-righteousness or pride. The gate leading to the hard way (narrow way) is narrow. One has to look to find it. The entry into it has to be entered one by one.”

Being a “small” gate likely means entry to the road is very restricted in a single-file manner, which means one cannot enter as a collective group of multiple people. Hence, there will be no barging in and no one can force himself past it. The decision to get through this gate will be personal. There is no peer group pressure to force anyone to rush for it.

Because it is an individual choice, there are three things to be mindful of. Firstly, your decision has nothing to do with your parents or spouse or child and what they believe or not believe in.

Secondly, no matter what threats you receive, your single-minded choice to believe in Christ means no one can change your mind one way or the other. It is purely you and yours alone.

Thirdly, it will have nothing to do with where you come from, which denomination church you attend, how successful (or otherwise) you are, academically or career-wise, in your worldly existence or whether or not you are married. And that also includes if you have a run-in with the law.

Having to go through such a “small gate” also means that you cannot bring everything with you. Other than yourself, no baggage would be allowed. In the analogy, the word ‘baggage’ will mean non-physical items as Stott puts it.

The part that says, “Only a few find it” is mystifying because it suggests that the gate might be hidden from view and only certain people so equipped can track it down. Armed with faith, loyalty and obedience in Christ and with eyes that can ‘see’ God (as in ‘seeing is believing’) is what characterise this sparse group of people than the ones clamouring for the wide gate.

No thanks to Adam and Eve, we all are, by default, born with sin and that means that we are put on the road to destruction. We don’t even have to do anything to get on this road. We don’t need special passes to access the broad gate let alone grease any palms. Our destiny is always to head down this road to perdition unless our sins are forgiven. The only way this is ever possible is to enter that “small” and narrow gate of faith in Jesus Christ.

In case you get confused, some translations refer to roads as “ways.” In other words, both “road” and “way” are interchangeable and mean the same thing.

The road we find ourselves on will ultimately depend on which gate we choose to get through. Even though we are, by default, born into sin and therefore find ourselves on the broad and easy road, we do have a choice to abandon and switch. The road that the “wide” gate leads into has a bewildering abundance of worldly attractions. It glitters with conveniences, riveting entertainment, colourful lures and so on.

In the days of Joseph and Mary, the trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem was arduous. They had to travel through very rocky terrain and along the journey, they faced the risk of getting harassed or worse, getting robbed of whatever they owned that they had with them. On the other hand, one can imagine how much ‘better’ it would’ve been had the road been easier, more convenient and safer to travel on.

The road “broad” used in this verse comes from the original Greek word εὐρύχωρος (pr. euruchoros) to mean spacious (chora) or wide (euru). According to BibleWorks (#3290), the word can also be used to describe “a large room” where one can “live comfortably and unmolested.”

Stott adds that people have plenty of latitude on this road as they have freedom from moral obligations in as much as they also have the liberty to normalise their behaviour along the lines of anything sinful and wicked. Everyone is happy because no one can tell anyone what to do, think or say. There are no limits as to what (or who) you like to feel, criticise, condemn, threaten or mock.

Through the “small” and narrow gate, things are completely different to the point of looking gloomier. This is because on immediate impression, there are none of those worldly incentives that you see on the broad road. Jesus describes such a road as “difficult,” which comes from the Greek work θλίβω (pr. thleebo) to mean to make narrow, persecute, afflict, suffer tribulation or trouble.

Little wonder then there this is a gate that ultimately leads to loneliness, difficulties and barrenness. It is also not surprising that very few will get to enter this road although those who do choose it will see something amazing along the way that they otherwise cannot on the broad road: a cross (Mt 10:37-39).

Stott says the road is narrow because those who travel along it are restricted in accordance to God’s revelation that in Scripture is “true and good.” On this road then, not only are the boundaries “clearly marked” but the narrowness also means that in discipleship to Christ, we are bound by very specific terms and conditions that govern the way we live and conduct ourselves. The liberties that define life on the broad road are missing here and so are the luring attractions of the flesh. With the narrow road, there is no ‘steering of the wide berth.’

The problem is in contemporary society, both the broad and narrow gates appear to be the way to God although in truth, only one will. That’s because there are no labels or markings on the broad gate to indicate otherwise. You won’t get to see any signage that tells us it will lead to destruction. Only those who read and understand Christ’s Golden Rule will know that.

The thing is people themselves will take to task in describing the gates in however way they want and in all likelihood, such descriptions will merely be convenient to the way they think. If they consider the broad gate to be the way to heaven, that’s because to them, that’s what it looks and feels like.

After all, what’s there not to like along the broad road? Filled with entertainment of all kinds, carefree but destructive lifestyles, immoral ideologies and rebelliousness against God, that’s what millions today enjoy and embrace. The deceptiveness of the broad road is as dangerous as it seems and unless you are equipped with the Word of God, you will be completely misled as Solomon says:

“There is a path before each person that seems right but it ends in death.” (Prov 16:25, NLT)

No doubt that this deception is well entrenched today. Hedonism in society points a crooked finger at the righteous lifestyle and accuse us of painting a life that is as dull as it is morose and in the end, we seem to offer nothing but suffering, affliction and trials.

The fact that exegetically, the word “narrow” as explained earlier simply refers to all of that. People of the epicurean world will call us dullards who take the fun out of life. We are killjoys who seem to take pleasure out of the trials of life, replacing vivid colours with dull lifeless greys.

That’s why many don’t go to church. That’s one of the reasons many backslide and enjoy a life of ‘fun’ when they should be worshipping in church on a Sunday or get themselves involved in ministry activities. With mainstream media hand in hand with Hollywood dismissing righteous living, the danger is very apparent that many will not come to personally know God through Christ. Or they will simply outright reject Him despite the joy of His promise of salvation. Regardless of how only He can forgive us of our sins and only He can offer triumph over temptation, many will just walk away.

Invariably there will be many who will think we are not only dull but foolish, backward and incapable of joy. But how wrong they are. The joy Christians experience isn’t of the worldly type. Ours is for eternity. We may suffer today under persecution but we look forward to a great celebration in the kingdom of God. People of the world who prefer the promise of worldly pleasures may enjoy now but suffering will be eternal for them. So, no, the gate may be “small” and the road narrow but it leads to life and not destruction.

Comparative crowd differences

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Jesus is distinct here:

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it.” (Mt 7:13-14, NLT, m.e.)

There are clearly two very different crowds here. Not just in size terms but also in who they are by nature. The crowd size difference is characterised by the choices they each make. The ones who choose the wide gate that leads to a broad road are many but the ones who manage to find the “small” gate and narrow road are few.

God’s way is a narrow one because He is specific about what we must do to qualify but the world continues to reject Him by and large, which is why we have a huge crowd that loves the broad and easy way but a far smaller one that prefers His.

The majority holds the opinion that they have strength in numbers but they find the “small” gate and narrow road too frustrating for their liking. To begin with, the gate can’t even take their crowd size! So, though Christ’s way is grossly unpopular, it means it takes some very special people to truly understand and want it.

As for how these numbers translate to how many will be saved, that’s a little more challenging. Scripture offers us a few glimpses of what the answer might be:

“For many are called but few are chosen.” (Mt 22:14, NLT, m.e.)

This verse comes from Jesus’ Parable of the Great Feast (aka Parable of the Wedding Feast), which tells of how the father is repudiated by his people’s decision not to accept the invitation to attend his son’s wedding banquet. But it was more than that. The king’s servants who went to share the joyous message were also mistreated and some were even killed.

Angered by his people’s appalling reaction, the king not only avenges the death of his servants but extends his invitation to strangers good and bad. These were people who were never part of the king’s plan but now it is them who fill out the wedding hall.

The parable draws parallel with how many Israelites reject God’s kingdom, which then led him to take the Gospel to the Gentiles. And it is on that basis that Jesus says, “For many are called but few are chosen” (v.14). In fact, the parable foreshadowed how the Jews rejected the Gospel as told in Acts 13.

The Apostle Paul’s words to them echo the parable’s king who said that those who reject the invitation ultimately “did not deserve to come.” Similarly, Paul said something similar: “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46).

With that in mind, the above standout verse speak more about God’s own people, the Jews.

“Someone asked Him, ‘Lord, will only a few be saved?’ He replied, ‘Work hard to enter the narrow door to God’s Kingdom, for many will try to enter but will fail.” (Lk 13:23-24, NLT, m.e.)

In the MSG translation, we have a more contemporaneous interpretation of Jesus’ reply. When asked that question, He replied, “Whether few or many is none of your business” before proceeding to say pretty much what we know from the NLT version. In other words, Jesus didn’t exactly provide an answer.

Instead He points to the challenge of salvation itself, which is when He said, “for many will try to enter but will fail.” Perhaps then the impression is that indeed, few will be saved.

“And I tell you this, that many Gentiles will come from all over the world – from east and west – and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at the feast in the Kingdom of Heaven. But many Israelites – those for whom the Kingdom was prepared – will be thrown into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Mt 8:11, NLT, m.e.)

The backdrop behind these verses were two people, a Roman centurion who met Jesus and his very ill servant who neither had the means nor the opportunity. The centurion had gone to Jesus begging Him to heal his servant who was paralysed and in pain. The story has two important aspects that lead to the question of salvation here.

Firstly, the servant is like all of us as he badly needs to be saved and in accordance to God’s promise of salvation, he would be. And so despite being beyond his means to reach out to Jesus, God will save him. In other words, getting saved isn’t something within his capability to do. Without God’s grace, salvation would never be available simply because we don’t deserve it.

Secondly, the centurion is not a Jew but a Gentile and as such, he had cultural obstacles that would have prevented most from having access to a rabbi’s assistance, much less someone like Jesus whom he addressed as “Lord” (Gk. kurios).

As a Gentile, he knew Jews face the risk of defilement if they enter his home and so it was out of the question that Jesus could go even if He did say, “I will come and heal him” (v.7). But then such an obstacle presents itself as an opportunity to show his faith and that he did when he said to Jesus, “Just say the word from where You are, and my servant will be healed” (v.8).

And that was what spurred Him to say, “I tell you the truth, I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel!” All (of) Israel. Not only was this a significant remark but Jesus added the next verse that is the headliner in this section, something that the Israelites couldn’t have been more ashamed of.

In the headlining verse, Jesus made two bold predictions. On the one hand, many Gentiles (that’s us) from everywhere will be saved and they will be in the Kingdom of Heaven. On the other, many of God’s own people “for whom the Kingdom was prepared” will not. Instead, they will face destruction and damnation.

So in this case, many will not be saved but the focus here is on God’s people.

Rev 7:9, NLT, m.e. – “After this, I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands.”

The key phrase here is “a vast crowd,” which in some other translations, is “a great multitude.” This is by no means a small crowd of people but a hugely significant number. The next part that says, “too great to count” confirms that this is as close to infinite that we can get. It is, in other words, beyond all power of computation, as Albert Barnes’ commentary describes. And so the apostle John didn’t bother to count.

The interesting thing here is that being such a “great multitude” puts it in stark contrast with the commonly-held opinion that only a few would be saved. But if we take in the big picture, we can put this number into better perspective. What Scripture is saying is that although it seems that vast numbers will not be saved, there is reason to accept that, at large, a vast majority of the whole will make it to heaven.

The problem we currently have is that as the Gospel is still making its way around the world and so long as Christ is yet made known to everyone in all of the world’s four corners, it might take a while before we truly see the extent of what an all-reaching faith looks like.

And when it does, it seems quite possible that the numbers of those saved may even exceed all those who have been lost in the past. It will be beyond anything we have ever seen especially if we also consider those multitudes who will sit on the thrones and have been given the authority to judge in the afterlife (Rev 20:4-6).

Do the gates refer to the many religions and philosophies?

Ms Pollak far right with Gandhi on the left (Image source: Alamy)

Although it is tempting to take the Universalist’s point and believe that they well could, the answer is still no, they don’t. There remains always that the two gates lead to only two ways that shape our eventual destinies. We either choose eternal life or death will permanently choose us.

But it is understandable that some might view the gates as such. After all, there are apparently anywhere between 4,200 and 4,300 different religions throughout the world today and most if not all of them claim exclusive ideologies.

At the same time, ideologies parading as philosophies also seek to become religions such as Nazism, Socialism (Communism by any other name), Fascism, Universalism, Atheism and Agnosticism and many others. You could even argue that Materialism has gained a widely embraced worldwide cult face that has cut through all cultures and societies.

While violent ideologies bring about pain and suffering, misery and mass deaths, materialistic philosophies are hedonistic in nature with a strong centrism on self-indulgent love. Naturally both come in direct contrast to a belief in Christ. When tempted by Satan in the wilderness to turn stones to loaves of bread in order to address his hunger from fasting, Jesus retorted:

“No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Mt 4:4, NLT)

Even Gandhi himself was thoroughly misguided. From one of Polak’s many interviews (1931), he said:

“It was impossible for me to believe that I could go to heaven or attain salvation only by becoming a Christian. … It was more than I could believe that Jesus was the only incarnate Son of God and that only he who believed in Him would have everlasting life. … My reason was not ready to accept that Jesus by His death and by His blood redeemed the sins of the world.

“I could accept Jesus as a martyr, an embodiment of sacrifice and a divine teacher but not as the most perfect man ever born. Though I took a path other than the one my Christian friends had intended for me, I have remained forever indebted to them for the religious quest that they awakened in me. His death on the cross was a great example to the world but that there was anything like a mysterious or miraculous virtue in it, my heart could not accept.”

Reference reading sources

Author unknown (Sept 1993) Declaration Toward a Global Ethic (Chicago, IL: Parliament of the World’s Religions) accessible at https://web.archive.org/web/20130411195746/http://www.parliamentofreligions.org/_includes/FCKcontent/File/TowardsAGlobalEthic.pdf

Author unknown (nd) Morality and Ethics – The Declaration of a Global Ethic (Religious Tolerance) accessible at http://www.religioustolerance.org/parliame.htm

Barnes, Albert (1834) Barnes on the Whole Bible: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Whole Bible () accessible at http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/cmt/barnes/index.htm or in Kindle form at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27225486-barnes-on-the-whole-bible

Beversluis, Joel (editor) (Jun 2000) Sourcebook of the World’s Religions: An Interfaith Guide to Religion and Spirituality (Novato, CA: New World Library) available at https://www.amazon.com/Sourcebook-Worlds-Religions-Interfaith-Spirituality/dp/1577311213

Blackburn, Simon (Sept 2009) Ethics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press) available at https://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Very-Short-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0192804421

Blomberg, Craig L. (May 1992) Matthew: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 22) (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press) available at https://www.amazon.com/Matthew-Exegetical-Theological-Exposition-Commentary/dp/0805401229/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Carson, D.A. (Jun 1982) The Sermon on the Mount: An Evangelical Exposition of Matthew 5-7 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House) available at https://www.amazon.com/Sermon-Mount-Evangelical-Exposition-Matthew/dp/0801024803

Davies, W.D. and Allison Jr., Dale C. (Nov 2000) A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (International Critical Commentary Volume III) (London, UK: Bloomsbury T&T Clark) available at https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Exegetical-Commentary-According-International/dp/056708518X

Epstein, Greg M. (Oct 2010) Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers) available at https://www.amazon.com/Good-Without-God-Billion-Nonreligious/dp/006167012X

Fowler, Harold (1968) Bible Study Textbook: The Gospel of Matthew Volume One (Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company) available at https://www.amazon.com/Bible-Study-Textbook-Gospel-Matthew/dp/0899000290

Fuller, Reginald H. and Westberg, Daniel (1984) Preaching the New Lectionary: The Word of God for the Church Today (Collegeville, MN: The Order of St Benedict, The Liturgical Press) available at https://www.amazon.com/Preaching-Lectionary-Church-Today-Third/dp/0814627927

Gandhi, M.K. (Dec 1955) My Religion (Ahemadabad, IN: Navajivan Mudranalaya) accessible at https://www.mkgandhi.org/my_religion/my_religion.htm

Kamat, Jyotsna (Jun 2019) Gandhi and Christianity (Kamat’s Potpourri) accessible at http://www.kamat.com/mmgandhi/christian.htm

Kidder, Rushworth Moulton (Nov 2009) How Good People Make Tough Choices Rev. Ed.: Resolving the Dilemmas of Ethical Living (New York, NY: Harper Perennial) available at https://www.amazon.com/Good-People-Make-Tough-Choices/dp/0061743992

Küng, Hans (Feb 2004) Global Responsibility – In Search of a New World Ethic (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Pub) available at https://www.amazon.com/Global-Responsibility-Search-World-Ethic/dp/1592445608

Küng, Hans (editor) (Dec 1993) A Global Ethic – The Declaration of the Parliament of the World’s Religions (New York, NY: The Continuum International Publishing Group, Inc.) available at https://www.amazon.com/Global-Ethic-Declaration-Parliament-Religions/dp/0826406408

Lama, Dalai (1988) Kindness, Clarity and Insight: The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso (Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications) available at https://www.amazon.com/Kindness-Clarity-Insight-Fourteenth-Holiness/dp/B001WBKVX2

Luz, Ulrich (author) and Linss, Wilhelm C. (translator) (Dec 1989) Matthew 1-7: A Commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) available at https://www.amazon.com/Matthew-1-7-Commentary-Ulrich-Luz/dp/0806624027

Mounce, Robert H. (May 1990) Matthew (Understanding the Bible Commentary Series) (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group) available at https://www.amazon.com/Matthew-Understanding-Commentary-Robert-Mounce/dp/0801047218

Nazareth, Pascal Alan (n.d.) Gandhi, Christ and Christianity (Bombay Sarvodaya and Gandhi Research Foundation) accessible at https://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/gandhi_christ.html

Polak, Millie Graham (1931) Gandhi, The Man (London, U.K.: George Allen & Unwin) available at https://www.amazon.com/Mr-Gandhi-Millie-Graham-Polak/dp/B0008B1IIO

Raj, Frank (Dec 2014) Gandhi Glimpsed Christ, Rejecting Christianity as a False Religion (Washington Times) accessible at https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/31/gandhi-glimpsed-christ-rejecting-christianity-fals/

Spooner, W.A. Spooner (nd) The Golden Rule in Hastings, James (editor) (1920) Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. XI, Sacrifice-Sudra (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons) available at https://www.amazon.com/ENCYCLOPEDIA-RELIGION-ETHICS-XI-SACRIFICE-SUDRA/dp/B0016D7JRW

Stott, John R.W. (Feb 1985) The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7: Christian Counter-Culture Book 100) (Leicester, U.K.: Inter-Varsity Press) available at https://www.amazon.com/Message-Sermon-Mount-Matthew-Counter-Culture/dp/0877842965

Strobel, Lee (June 2016) God’s Outrageous Claims: Thirteen Discoveries That Can Transform Your Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan) available at https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Outrageous-Claims-Discoveries-Transform/dp/0310345766

Strobel, Lee (Aug 2016) Random Acts of Kindness Aren’t Enough (Faith Gateway) accessible at https://www.faithgateway.com/random-acts-kindness-enough/

All You Need to Know About Biblical Fasting (Mt 6:16-18)

2019-07-11T15:57:00.000+07:00

All You Need to Know About Biblical Fasting

Based on Matthew 6:16-18

Khen Lim

Source: Grammy.com

During the Eighties, American songwriter, singer and fellow Christian, Dolly Rebecca Parton (b.1946) was interviewed by the People magazine and was asked, “Where do you get such a strong character?” That’s when Dolly recounted how faith was central to her entire family, beginning with her grandfather who was a preacher.

“I quote the Bible real good!” she answered.

Undaunted by such an answer, the interviewer then asked, “What about psychiatry?”

“So many people find the need to get counselling especially in the stresses of show business.”

“No,” Dolly replied, “I don’t see a psychiatrist. I fast instead.”

That response hit the interviewer like a ton of bricks.

“You what!?”

“I fast!” Dolly replied.

“Is that like a diet?!” the stunned interviewer asked.

“No!” she said, “I do it to get in touch with God! Sometimes, I’ll fast 7, 14 or 21 days… I don’t drink nothing but water and I don’t ever say when I’m on a fast… Scripture says you’re not supposed to.”

Dolly went on to say that no major decisions including song-writing ever gets done before fasting and prayer. In fact, she revealed that she always returns to the mountains and does her fasting there before she writes any new music. Now 73 years old, the country music legend sets aside quiet time to get spiritually comfortable because she fully believes that doing so helps set her creative mind in gear all the time.

“One of my favourite things to do in the world is to have time set aside, like two or three weeks, to say I'm just going to write,” she said.

The interviewer was completely astounded by Dolly’s response. Yet the truth remains and that is, Jesus doesn’t command but He nonetheless expects us to fast. When we fast, we invariably come in view of the very contours of our souls that gives our characters an inherently sharp definition. In that moment, we become who we really are before God.

Hunger strikes aren’t fasting

Source: The Asian Post

Many people actually think that hunger strikes are a form of fasting. A simple search of the Internet reveals how both have come to be the one and the same. One of the titles say, “Gandhi begins fast in protest of caste separation.” Another one says, “Fasting as a Method of Public Protest in India.”

A LiveScience article bears the title, “What Happens on a Hunger Strike | Fasting.” In a July 2009 article, the Guardian newspaper describes the imprisoned suffragette Marion Wallace Dunlop who went on a hunger strike. The journalist called it, “three and a half days of fasting.” BBC online pretty much said the same thing. In fact, Wikipedia defines hunger strikes as “a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest…” Some others equate hunger strikes to ‘protest fasting.’

The short answer is, yes, it is a form of fasting but it certainly isn’t biblical. From scriptural standpoint, hunger strikes and biblical fasting are not the same thing. As Wikipedia defines, hunger strikes are acts of political protests but they are also a form of self-starvation with a real risk of killing oneself. As in other cases, killing oneself is categorically suicide, though it’s not how many would be inclined to call it that.

I don’t know where the Protestant Church’s view is on hunger strikes but the Catholic Church has made it clear that peaceful protest against any cause by way of a hunger strike for a few days is deemed acceptable mainly because they have no teachings for or against such conduct so long if it does not compromise the person’s health.

On the other hand if a hunger strike bears a real risk of committing suicide should the person’s demands not be met, then the Catholic Church cannot but condemn it. Like I said, I’m unsure if this is the view shared by the Protestant Church.

Source: Evening Echo

Consider that the Lord Mayor of Cork Terence MacSwiney (above) died 74 days in Brixton Prison after his self-imposed hunger strike against the British during the Irish War of Independence in 1920.

Would that be suicide? If he knew that he would face death if he continued, why didn’t he stop? Wouldn’t that be considered taking one’s own life even if he’d thought it was for a noble cause? Would God consider it a noble cause? If I were to go on a hunger strike to protest against the government’s ill-treatment of my father and then I die, would God approve of my motive even though it became deadly?

Of course, MacSwiney wasn’t the only one to die from a hunger strike. Over the many years, hunger strikes have voluntarily claimed numerous other Irish political prisoners in the Eighties including many others elsewhere in the world.

(Note: The online National Review has a terrifying March 2010 article by Jay Nordlinger entitled, ‘Death by Hunger Strike’ that describes the conditions by which those who died of hunger strikes. Perhaps those of us who are too harsh in our views of those who die from them might want to read it.)

The biblical aspect of fasting has no suicide component because that is not what it’s about. Hunger strikes can lead capriciously to death by suicide because they are imminently powerful tools for so-called peaceful resistance in our flawed society. Just because in some cases, hunger strikes may appear to have some ‘religious’ motive does not make them any more acceptable from a biblical standpoint.

Unlike hunger strikes, fasting is also not a form of sacrificing for others. Hunger strikes are well known for being political causes but biblical fasting has no such agenda. And it shouldn’t have no matter how well intended it might be or how noble the cause. So for what reasons then should Christians fast?

1. Fasting in repentance of sin

The Bible offers at least three reasons why believers fast.

The first is Repentance. People fasted because they know they have sinned and they need to feel and understand the contrition. Essentially, they have wronged God and they knew it. It’s a way to say, “I’m awfully sorry and I want to make amends.” It’s an opportunity to put things right in God’s presence.

Many years ago, I witnessed a friend of mine and his wife disciplining his little boy for something he did wrong. He began by asking the boy what he thought he did that was wrong. Gradually, he coaxed out of the child the whole story plus the part that mattered the most.

The father made sure the boy understood the significance of his wrongdoing. Reiterated and reiterated until without question he felt the gravity of his mistake, this little boy of no more than 6 years old felt terrible about his conduct. He actually understood that he had done wrong by his father.

With his head down, it was obvious the boy was downcast and very sad. Tears welled in his eyes the more he thought of how his actions disappointed his father. And then, the father asked if the little one understood why he had to be punished. Sobbing quietly with tears streaking down his cheeks, the boy nodded in agreement.

After a moment’s pause, the father then asked him how he should be punished. And with that came the wait. To the father’s surprise, his little boy asked to forego supper for two nights in a row. The father raised an eyebrow and gently asked if he really thought that was an adequate punishment considering the seriousness of his transgression.

For a more drawn-out pause, the little boy stooped and thought hard about his father’s question. Sheepishly, the boy summoned his courage and told him that maybe, just maybe, he would have to give up accessing the Internet for a week. When asked if he knew what that meant, the boy cried a little harder but nodded.

The father tugged at the boy’s arm and quickly without thinking, he gathered himself into his arms. And they hugged like there was no tomorrow. The boy buried his head in the crook of his father’s arm and cried. And cried. And cried as if his burden had finally lifted because the confrontation was over. It was an expression of regret and willingness to repent that helped him reconcile with his father. And in this case, the little boy put things right by making amends that the father agreed to.

On March 30 1863, the Iowan Senator James Harlon introduced to the Senate the Resolution that asked President Abraham Lincoln to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting. This was in response to the U.S. Civil War that was tearing at the seams of the nation.

Grief stricken, Lincoln called on all his fellow Americans to gather together on Thursday, April 30, to use that day to collectively fast and pray. Here is part of the Proclamation that Lincoln himself wrote (bold emphasis is mine):

“It is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognise the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

“And insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People.

“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God.

“We have forgotten the gracious land which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

“Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the Thirtieth day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer.

“And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.”

Such a powerful call to pray and fast can only come from someone who has a deep desire to do right by God. Lincoln asked the people of the United States to humble themselves by committing to prayer and fasting. Even as the National Day of Prayer had continued to this day and upheld by most (though not all) of America’s recent presidents, they are all, by comparison, hollow and to some extent, meaningless, particularly in light of Lincoln’s exceptional proclamation.

A. A repentant David fasted

Source: blog.elpals.com

From Scripture, a repentance-led fasting is evident. The first example comes from David with his infamous encounter at the palace rooftop one summer’s evening with someone else’s beautiful wife supposedly having her bath in private (2 Sam 11:1-12:25).

Enchanted by Bathsheba’s beauty, he schemed to have her to his own, leading him to lure her to his bed. Once he realised that he had made her pregnant, David thought to bring her husband Uriah the Hittite home from battle in a hope that by reuniting them, they would sleep together. Using that as a cover, the pregnancy could be easily explained but then, Uriah chose celibacy and not enjoy his wife for two straight nights while his men were risking their lives in some battlefield.

Realising that his cover could now be easily blown, David’s conspiracy moved up a gear when he instructed Joab to send Bathsheba’s husband to the front lines of battle. The idea was to get the front line to suddenly fall back, leaving him entirely exposed to enemy attack. Needless to say, it worked. Uriah ended up killed. And with that, David assumed he’d gotten away with his adulterous conduct. Being a king has its privileges, he thought.

Soon thereafter, he married Bathsheba and a son was born to them. But as we know, “the thing David had done displeased the Lord.” With the child born, God sent His servant, the prophet Nathan, to confront the royal adulterer. He did so, using a parable of a rich man who took a poor man’s only sheep and had it killed, even though he had many flocks of his own.

Being a former shepherd himself, David understood the injustice and in his anger, said, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die!” giving the irony that “he did such a thing and had no pity.” Of course, he thought this was a true story.

And with that, the prophet pointed at David, sternly saying:

“‘You are the man! The Lord, the God of Israel, says: I anointed you king of Israel and saved you from the power of Saul. I gave you your master’s house and his wives and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. And if that had not been enough, I would have given you much, much more. Why, then, have you despised the word of the Lord and done this horrible deed? For you have murdered Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the Ammonites and stolen his wife.

“From this time on, your family will live by the sword because you have despised Me by taking Uriah’s wife to be your own. This is what the Lord says: Because of what you have done, I will cause your own household to rebel against you. I will give your wives to another man before your very eyes and he will go to bed with them in public view. You did it secretly but I will make this happen to you openly in the sight of all Israel.” (2 Sam 12:7-12, NLT, m.e.)

Stunned, he collapsed in grief, realising that God not only knew of his lie but had just confronted him with it. He was now acutely aware that God’s judgement was upon his family in the form of cursed violence. In Psalm 51, we learn of David’s repentance. From Nathan, we also know that God would take away his sin and that he would not have to die but instead, there would be no reprieve for his newborn son who died a week later though not before David pleaded with Him.

In a later verse, we read of David’s prayer and fasting in a bid to repent:

“David begged God to spare the child. He went without food and lay all night on the bare ground.” (2 Sam 12:16, NLT, m.e.)

Many other translations prefer to use the word ‘fast,’ which is more specific. In fasting, David struggled in his repentance, seeking out God’s mercy and forgiveness.

B. A repentant Ahab fasted

Source: jw.org

Next, in 1 Kings 21, is the story of Naboth the Jezreelite whose reputation, life and property were all stolen from him by king Ahab and his wife, Jezebel. Naboth was the owner of a vineyard, which Ahab had coveted. Located not far from his own palace in Jezreel, he yearned to turn it into a vegetable garden and so, he made an offer to either buy over the vineyard or swap with him a better one somewhere else.

Since this was an inheritance from his forefathers, Naboth turned Ahab down no matter how attractive his offer was. From God’s viewpoint, he had done the right thing because the Lord had said that a family’s inheritance must not be sold (Lev 25:23, Num 36:7). In other words, while Naboth had obeyed God’s law, it was Ahab who preferred to ignore it.

Upset, Ahab retired to his palace, “sullen and angry” because he couldn’t get what he wanted from Naboth. He sulked and refused to eat, not that he ever considered fasting! Having been told of the encounter, Jezebel said to him that as king, he could do whatever he wanted before adding that she would bring Naboth’s vineyard to him on her terms.

In her plot, she first forged letters from Ahab that directed the noblemen and elders of the city to “proclaim a day of fasting and seat Naboth in a prominent place among the people.” After that, she had two connivers sit close enough to him who, acting on Jezebel’s instructions, falsely accused him of cursing God and the king. She needed two because the law of the land could not accept only one witness (Dt 17:6).

In other words, Jezebel abused the law to her advantage to send someone to die needlessly and committed her lies, theft and murder. Not surprisingly then, Naboth was dragged out of the city and stoned to death for something he never did.

To cover her murderous intent, she first schemed to make Naboth appear the depraved (and not Ahab) and secondly, made a holy impression of herself by proclaiming a day of fasting. Once Naboth was confirmed dead, she hurried Ahab to quickly possess the vineyard, which he was only too happy to comply. This shocking conspiracy was so repugnant that God sent a message to them by way of the prophet Elijah.

Just as Ahab was delighting in a tour of his ill-gotten vineyard, the prophet appeared before him, saying, “Have you not murdered a man and seized his property?” And with that, the king heard God’s condemnation on his life: “This is what the Lord says: In the place where dogs licked up Naboth’s blood, dogs will lick up your blood; yes, yours!” But it gets worse. Elijah prophesied that God would heap even more grief on Ahab’s family.

According to the prophecy, every male offspring in his household would not only die but would also be denied any proper burial. Gruesomely instead, their corpses would be torn apart by wild beasts. As Ahab quaked in his legs, the prophet said his wife would not be spared for the dogs would also devour her. In David’s case, his sin cost him his newborn son while his family was befallen with tragic violence. But in Ahab and Jezebel’s case, it was more terrifying and humiliating.

Frightened by what he heard, Ahab repented of his actions and criminal complicity. He “tore his clothing, dressed in burlap and fasted” (1 Kgs 21:27, NLT). Scripture tells us he went as far as to sleep in his burlap (sackcloth) and committed himself to deep mourning. To that, God said to Elijah:

“Do you see how Ahab has humbled himself before Me? Because He has done this, I will not do what I promised during his lifetime. It will happen to his sons; I will destroy his dynasty.” (1 Kgs 21:29, NLT)

C. The repentant Assyrians fasted

Source: rainbowtoken.com

We all know how Jonah had initially fled from God following His command to preach against the wickedness of Nineveh. Instead of going to where he was told to, he preferably sailed for Tarshish, which was even further away from his home of Gath-hepher near Nazareth. At more than 2,500 miles apart, Tarshish was five times the distance compared to Nineveh to the west. His idea was probably to distance himself as far away as he could from the Assyrians in occupied Nineveh at that time.

Jonah had no desire whatsoever of relaying God’s warning to the Assyrians. To him, these were very idolatrous, proud and ruthless people who did nothing but lay conquest on and be a living threat to Israel. No surprise then that when God had an errand for him to warn them, he baulked. His fleeing was to ensure that God’s mercy would not be extended to the Assyrians who were, after all, Israel’s enemies.

But of course, it was all futile. Like everyone else, Jonah could not run away from God (Jer 23:24). Instead, He was with him literally wherever he went including the time he spent inside the cavernous stomach of a huge fish.

Finally when God spoke to him the second time, he obeyed and headed for Nineveh where he issued His warning to them, shouting, “Forty days from now, Nineveh will be destroyed!” Very likely, Jonah was surprised by the Assyrians’ willingness to not only heed the warning but to repent of their sins. The Bible says:

“The people of Nineveh believed God’s message and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow.” (Jon 3:5, NLT, m.e.)

In fact, Jonah’s warning was so effective that the king himself got off his throne, removed his royal robes, then donned on burlap and seated himself “on a heap of ashes.” Not unlike Lincoln in modern times, he proclaimed to his people, saying:

“No one, not even animals from your herds and flocks may eat or drink anything at all. People and animals alike must wear garments of mourning and everyone must pray earnestly to God. They must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence. Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will change His mind and hold back His fierce anger from destroying us.” (Jon 3:7-9, NLT, m.e.)

On seeing that literally everyone in Nineveh had halted their wickedness and turned to fasting and repentance, God “changed His mind and did not carry out the destruction He had threatened” (Jon 3:10, NLT).

D. Israel the nation still fasts

Source: Ibtimes.com

Fasting is such a predominant feature in Jewish life that it is very much an integral part of the nation itself, Israel. In fact, the Jewish state today observes three broad types of fasts, including firstly, those decreed in the Bible or instituted to commemorate the actual biblical events or secondly, those called for by the rabbis or thirdly, those conducted on a personal and individual basis.

As for those that are biblically sourced, they are as follows:

1. Yom Kippur (more on this later) as specifically ordained in the Pentateuch

Other name: Day of Atonement

Purpose: Commemorates the day when Moses returned from Mount Sinai after praying to God to forgive Israel of her sins including the grave sin of worshipping the Golden Calf

Source: Lev 16:29-31, 23:27-32 and Num 29:7)

2. The Ninth of Av

Other name: Tishah be-Av

Purpose: Day of mourning to observe the destruction of the First and Second Temples

Source: Jer 52:12-13

3. The Seventeenth of Tammuz

Purpose: To commemorate the breaching of the Jerusalem walls during the period of the First Temple

Source: Jer 39:2

4. The Tenth of Tevet

Purpose: To commemorate the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar

Source: 2 Kgs 25:1-2, Jer 52:4 and Ezek 24:1-2

5. The Third of Tishri

Other name: Tzom Gedalyah, Fast of Gedaliah

Purpose: To observe the slaying of Gedaliah and his men

Source: Jer 41:1-2, 2 Kgs 25:25

6. The Fast of Esther

Other name: Ta’anit Ester

Purpose: Observed on the Thirteenth of Adar, the day prior to Purim, to remember Esther’s call on all Jews to observe fasting for three days

Source: Est 4:16

Of these, without a doubt, the paramount one is the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur. This comprises four days of fasting that were observed as far back as the Second Temple period. This was when the prophet Zechariah prophesied that one day, they would be transformed into days of joy and gladness (Zech 8:19).

For Yom Kippur, the Jews observe fasting as literal abstinence from food and drinks from sunset to nightfall on the following day. On the other three days, fasting lasts from before dawn until nightfall within the same day. Other than those whose health is at risk or in cases of pregnant and nursing women (under certain conditions), fasting is an expectation.

Source: CNN

As a fasting event, Yom Kipper has no precedence. It is Israel’s holiest and most solemn day every year. On our Western calendar, it falls between September 14 and October 14.

It commemorates the day when Moses returned from Mount Sinai after forty days of praying to God to forgive Israel of her sins. It was upon his return that God forgave His Chosen People of the grave sin of worshipping the Golden Calf. As such, it is also an event that centres on two important themes, which are Atonement and Reconciliation, which in themselves are worthy of separate in-depth study.

Yom Kippur is so important to Israel that on the four days, there would be neither any form of media communication nor functioning public transport. No shops or businesses will also be opened.

Little wonder that Israel’s neighbouring Arab enemies, Egypt and Syria, chose this day to launch a surprise attack in what is now called the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

With most Israelis praying in synagogues or at home atoning, massive Egyptian and Syrian armies crossed ceasefire lines from two opposing directions and respectively entered the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights into the Jewish State.

Because Israel was completely unprepared for war, annihilation was a distinct but unsavoury reality but as it often is with God’s Chosen People, there were incredible miracles abound.

Many recounted the one where Israeli troops were looking at withdrawing from confrontation with the massive Syrian army when their commander realised, to his horror, that they were all trapped in a heavily loaded minefield. Aware that only a miracle could save them, he ordered his troops to crawl on their bellies while using their rifle bayonets to try to locate the mines without detonating them.

Right at that moment, one Israeli soldier uttered a heartfelt prayer. All of a sudden, a windstorm blew in, forcing the soldiers to hunker down. Miraculously, the winds removed the top soil and once they subsided, the soldiers could then see all of the mines exposed, making it easy enough for every one of them to escape unharmed.

In another incredible story from the war, a small Israeli force had spent four days holding back a huge Syrian army from advancing in an area known as “the Valley of Tears.” Unbeknownst to its commander at the moment of collapse, the Syrians actually retreated! He didn’t know this until he was told after the war.

In the end, due to a number of similar miraculous occurrences – not unlike those of previous wars – Israel emerged victorious in the face of insurmountable odds. As the war came to a close and ceasefire declared, more than 2,000 died on Israel’s side. Compared to previous conflicts with their Arab neighbours, this was a massive loss but nowhere compared to the toll suffered by their enemies.

Not only did the combined Egyptian-Syrian forces not succeed in destroying Israel, they actually had at their disposal, more than twice the number of troops as well as tanks. As they say, the numbers told a story of miracles that can only be explained by the hand of God.

On the Day of Atonement right at the heart of the country’s holiest day of repentant fasting and reconciliation, God delivered at the expense of the Arab Muslims and blessed His Chosen People even when they unknowingly had their backs to their rampaging enemies.

2. Fasting to remember tragic lessons

Scripture tells us that the second reason people fasted was to Remember. For the Jews, remembering is a very important virtue. Remember, God was persistent in reminding His people to never forget.

For example, in His creation of life itself, God set aside the seventh day as a holy day of rest and… remembrance. As creation is the mark of His sovereignty on all of life, it was also a reminder of His right to rule as the One True God (Ps 96:5, Jer 10:10-12 etc.)

Remember too that God also spoke of giving man His Sabbath as “a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them” (Ezek 20:12). In Deuteronomy, God recalled how He brought His people out of bondage in the land of Egypt and commanded them to remember that they were once servants enslaved by the Egyptians. It was only by His sovereignty that they were freed (Dt 5:14-15).

Perusing the Bible, one will come across numerous other instances where God commands us to remember and from that point, comes our second reason to fast.

A. David’s remembrance fast

Source: Pinterest

From 1 Samuel, we read of how Saul and his son Jonathan together with the latter’s two brothers met their fate in a later battle with the Philistines. Grievously wounded and facing death, Saul wanted his armour-bearer to finish him off rather than to allow his enemy to mutilate and parade his body in humiliation.

Seeing his unwillingness, Saul decided to fall on his own sword, an action that so aggrieved the armour-bearer that he too suicided. To put that into stark contrast, Jonathan’s righteousness, even in death, overshadowed his own father, for he did not die on his own sword.

2 Samuel begins with the terrible news brought by an Amalekite messenger to David’s camp. When asked how he knew that Saul and Jonathan were dead, the Amalekite retold the time while watching the battle, he witnessed Saul turning to him, asking to be killed. He then confessed to not only killing him but that he also took his crown and armlet, which he then presented to David.

This was, of course, totally untrue because Scripture recorded that Saul took his own life (1 Sam 31:4). Whichever way it was, David was taken aback by the news. He “took hold of his clothes and tore them and so did all the men who were with him” (v.11).

Despite Saul wanting him dead all this while, David still expressed his deep and profound grief for God’s anointed. And for that, he and the whole of Israel “mourned and wept and fasted all day for Saul and his son Jonathan… because they had died by the sword that day” (2 Sam 1:12, NLT).

With the mourning over, David asked the Amalekite how it was that he wasn’t afraid to kill Saul. It was an important question because as someone anointed by God, his life wasn’t for anyone but Him to take. With that, the Amalekite paid for his foolishness with his life.

David’s decision to mourn and fast the whole day for someone who long wanted him killed is precisely because just like him, Saul was also God’s anointed. Even though the prophet Samuel had decreed that God had eventually removed the kingdom from Saul and had given it to David instead, the young king remained devoted towards his predecessor. There are possibly four reasons for this.

Firstly, Saul was many young Jewish boys’ hero, David included. When David was just a mere reedy young shepherd boy, Saul was already famously popular for his victories over the Philistines. He restored confidence in Israel. He made every Israelite feel hopeful once again. David knew all this and his admiration for Saul likely never ceased and even till the days he was hounded by him, he remained in admiration of his hero.

Secondly, David saw in Saul a father figure with good reason. In the early years, Saul had taken in the young David in accordance to God’s will to groom into his lieutenant. Later, he married the Israelite king’s daughter Michal to become his son-in-law. So, not only was Saul a hero he admired but he was also someone he grew to respect and love as a son would a father.

Thirdly, given that they had a close-knitted relationship, David could see into his heart of struggles. Remember that he was often called to play the harp to soothe Saul’s often jangled nerves when he was most vulnerable. In his court, he had the privilege of witnessing his daily struggles to cope. Torn between forces of good and evil, David could probably understand his pain and remorse better than anyone else, especially after succumbing to temptation.

Lastly, David’s fear of the Lord is reflected in his acceptance of Saul being His anointed. Saul’s kingship was, as he witnessed, the doing of God’s hand. An anointing such as this was for life and therefore, it was not for anyone to take. In David’s eyes, to attack or kill God’s anointed was to want to attack and kill God Himself.

In all the four possible reasons, David perfectly understood the need to remember not just God’s anointed but in so many ways, his dearest and closest friend (apart from Jonathan, that is). It was his way to honour father and son in death.

It perfectly demonstrated David’s heart and how sad he was that Saul died before he had his opportunity to repent. And so, the very best way to bestow the highest possible honour to both Saul and his son Jonathan was to call on the nation of Israel to remember them and grief in a day of fasting.

B. Daniel’s remembrance fast

Source: Bible Series Guide

When he read the holy Scripture, the prophet Daniel was reminded of the seven decades of desolation of Jerusalem that Jeremiah prophesied (Jer 25:11, 29:10). These were prophesies to be fulfilled in which Daniel understood God’s vengeance against the house of Nebuchadnezzar. Yet he saw no evidence that his fellow Israelites would be delivered despite how Jeremiah foretold (Dan 9:2).

Not comforted by this, Daniel resorted to prayer and fasting. And so facing Jerusalem, Daniel prayed, seeking God’s favour on behalf of his own people. Pairing the use of the words “prayer and fasting” (Dan 9:3, NLT) underlines the earnestness of Daniel’s deep desire in seeking the Lord’s mercy.

To him, Jeremiah’s writings were as significant as they were bleak. His description of the calamities that would befall Jerusalem and its temple were too troublesome to ignore but they did offer him an irrepressible impression of how sinful his people would become. All this meant that the occasion was too important for him to overlook or dismiss so much so that a simple pray would not suffice.

Given what was at stake, Daniel felt it more proper to fast as well by humbling himself before God and reviewing the sins of a nation so beloved of God for which they now suffered. Fasting was, in his mind, the only reasonable means of presenting himself humbly.

C. Israel’s remembrance fast

Source: oneyearbibleblog.com

Despite the prophet Jeremiah’s earlier warning, King Zedekiah chose not to heed but struck an alliance with Pharaoh Hophra (also called Apries or Wahibre Haalbre) and launched a revolt against Babylon. Sure enough, as it turned out, Nebuchadnezzar II was annoyed enough to return and rout the Egyptians before he laid siege on Jerusalem in what was the horrific destruction of 587 BC (2 Kgs 25:1–2).

In that siege, Nebuchadnezzar not only obliterated the city’s surrounding walls using the Chaldean army but he also burned the Holy Temple to the ground and razed the homes of Jerusalem’s illustrious citizens including its king. In the process, Zedekiah was captured alongside his sons who were then executed in his presence.

Already devastated, he was then blinded and placed under the watchful eye of Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard before he was delivered to Babylon while the rest of the others including the deserters and the remaining multitude stayed on in the city (Jer 52:10-11, 2 Kgs 25:9-12).

From Zedekiah’s foolishness and ignorance, the state of Judah lost its independence and became no more than a Babylonian province. To add insult to injury, the Babylonians gave it a new name, calling it Yehud.

Looking back then, the desolation of the Lord’s Temple was a painful experience in the history of the Jews. Scripture records some significant items that the Babylonians wrested from the Temple such as the elaborately crafted 27-foot-tall pillars, water carts and basins all of which were fashioned in bronze.

Other things ransacked from the Temple before being burned to the ground also included ash buckets, shovels, lamp snuffers, ladles, incense burners, basins and other bronze articles meant for performing sacrifices. Articles crafted from gold and silver were also pilfered and carted off to Babylon.

Not long after, Babylon appointed Gedaliah, a native Judahite, as Judah’s first governor in captivity (2 Kgs 25:22). Diligently, he reached out to his fellow Jews who, by now, had sought refuge in neighbouring but unfriendly countries like Moab, Ammon and Edom, to return home. It is fair to say that he was quite successful in turning Jerusalem’s fortune around.

But even with prosperity restored to some extent, he and his Babylonian advisors as well as most of the Jews who joined him were all murdered some two months later by a group of ten of the leaders and officials of Judah led by Ishmael, son of Nethaniah, a surviving member of the royal family who now craved the throne.

Less than two days after the massacre, eighty men arrived in Jerusalem with shaven beards and torn clothes as a show of sorrow for Judah’s destruction but they had no inkling that Gedaliah was already murdered. Taking advantage of their ignorance, Ishmael impersonated the murdered governor and greeted them before leading them to a place where they met their death.

After their murder, the bodies were discarded in a pit and buried to hide news from Babylon of their massacre as well as the earlier deaths of Gedaliah and his advisors. However, ten of the men were spared their lives because they were allowed to harvest the crops from which they could then pay Ishmael a ransom (Jer 41:8).

As for those whom Nebuchadnezzar left behind in Jerusalem, Ishmael moved them to some land that the Ammonite king, Baalis, claimed following the destruction of Israel. There, in agreement with Baalis, he had looked forward to establishing his own kingdom, looking like some power-sharing pact between the two.

Seemingly some leaders did escape and they sought Johanan, son of Kareah who was loyal to Gedaliah so that they could all be united in hunting Ishmael down and freeing his captives. They managed to do that but although the captives were rescued, Ishmael and eight of his men managed to escape and retreated to the Ammonites.

Fearing fierce and swift retribution from Nebuchadnezzar (should he find out of the murders in time), an exodus of Jews – including Jeremiah himself – fled to Egypt for protection, thus establishing the first Jewish Diaspora by the end of the second decade of the 6th century.

Understandably, many Jews at that time considered this a shocking event not unlike a Holocaust because Ishmael’s orchestration just about wiped out their entire race. This alone made it the saddest and most mournful day in the Jewish calendar.

Called Tisha B’Av (or the Ninth of Av, since this is what it means), it is a day to remember the destruction of the First Temple as mentioned above but it is also a commemoration of the Second Temple destruction in 70 AD by the Romans.

In fact, the root source for Tisha B’Av can actually be traced back earlier to the days prior to the Israelites entering the Promised Land. The Book of Numbers recount how they decided to despatch reconnaissance spies to scour the land. It was on the Ninth of Av that the spies returned with negative reports and thus betrayed their faith in God.

The repercussions were swift and the punishment harsh for the unbelievers except for Caleb and Joshua. Not only were the people forbidden from entering but God also decreed that it would be another forty years before their chance would come again, meaning only another generation who would be able to enter. As the Israelites wept for false purposes on this day, God made this a day of weeping for true misfortune forever (Num 13-14).

What is even more tragic about Tisha B’Av is that many other modern catastrophes have since fallen on this day for the Jews, making this an even more profoundly important day of mourning for the nation of Israel.

These are all historical but tragic events including the eviction of Jews from England in 1290, from Spain in 1492, the Nazi’s approval in 1981 of the Final Solution that ultimately led to the Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews and not least, the 1942 en mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland to Treblinka where they were all murdered en masse. Remarkably, all of these fell on the Ninth of Av.

As such, most if not all pleasurable activities are curtailed with numerous restrictions in place, making it somewhat similar to Yom Kippur. In remembrance and mourning, Tisha B’Av comprises a full day of fasting where even the brushing of one’s teeth (or bathing) is not permitted. According to the Hebrew calendar, this year’s Tisha B’Av will fall on Saturday, August 10 2019.

There is no question that these are all terrible events. But in fasting, Jews around the world take these commemorations as an opportunity to never forget the pain and hardship.

3. Fasting to refocus on God

Very often, I find myself struggling to keep my attention on the work I had to complete. Invariably, it’s the sermons that take up the most of my attention because I have this difficult habit of trying to do three things when it’s my turn to share from the pulpit. I not only have to prepare what I need to say but I also have to put it into writing so I can upload the article on to my website (where you’re now reading it) not to mention that there is also the slideshow to complete for use during the Sunday sermon. All of that makes for quite a challenge to get everything done perfectly before the deadline.

Invariably when that fateful weekend begins to come into view, it’s always pandemonium in my family. As strange as it sounds, it always takes place about a week or less before I have to present my sermon. There will be umpteen distractions and upheavals to deal with. Little Heather invariably demands my attention.

And no less than the same with her twin sister Bridget. Both will end up jostling just so I am forced to have to choose one over the other, except that’s not what I really want to do lest I intend to unwittingly start a civil war! That’s just twins for you.

Once the fighting boils over, the screaming and the scuffle will soon blow open the roof. Next, the crying will start with accusations and counter-accusations from the two little girls.

Before long, there’s no telling which part of the house the earthquake will destroy. Being twins mean that the sharp wailing will come in full Sensurround stereophonic effect. Inevitably, all I want to do is to cup my ears with my palms if only to save my eardrums from rupturing. Sure enough, something will crack.

From the kitchen, I will hear my wife raising her voice over the mayhem, asking what in the world is going on while she too tries to get her own act together. So now, I have to contend with multiple voices at top volume coming from three women all at once with two in devastatingly piercing high pitch.

In and amongst all of this, the nearest television is loudly blaring out whatever is supposed to be that the kids are told to watch except that they’re not watching but busy orchestrating a full-scale war to end all wars.

By now, it doesn’t take much to realise that I have completely lost track of what it is that I was thinking, let alone typing out my sermon. The notes might be there but I have just lost my proverbial train of thought. Whatever great idea I had germinating in my head is now fully evaporated. Like vanishing vapour, it’s all lost. Naturally I get frustrated but I know that at this point in time, I can really become a wrecking ball if I’m not careful.

And so I now have to take a pause by closing my eyes. And refocus. To do that, I must drown out all the ambient noises that threaten to muddy my own thoughts. I have to detune from everything around me in order to tune in to what I’m desperately trying to do. With everything that is seemingly getting out of control, refocusing means gathering my thoughts, rearranging my priorities and knowing precisely what I need to get done first.

If that sounds familiar, that’s because we all go through similar motions in our complex modern lives in our own different ways. And this is precisely what we all have to deal with in our relationship with God. We get so worked up with all the mess around in our lives that they threaten to crowd God out. We’re constantly inundated with so many things to do, many people to attend to, many chores that are mounting up, many problems to solve and many decisions to make that it’s easy to lose track of Him.

A. Esther pleads for her people

Source: jw.org

The story of the Persian Queen Esther revolves around not just her hidden Jewish identity (Est 2:10) but how she was placed in such an influential position “for such a time like this.” In other words, she was not a queen by accident but instead, God has set her up to rescue His people by outmanoeuvring Haman who was poised to orchestrate a Jewish genocide in the land.

Haman was an Agagite who was given great authority and honour by King Xerxes but he was also someone who had an attitude problem plus a serious grudge against the Jews. Esther’s cousin Mordecai was another person whom the king recognised and credited because his information had stopped an assassination plot against his life, resulting in the execution of two conniving guards (vv.21-23).

The problem between the two came to a head when Mordecai refused to bow to Haman even though the king had issued a command for his officials at the gate to kneel in his presence (3:5). In all probability, that command could have included Mordecai as well, since he too worked at the gate but as a Jew, he’d only bow to the Lord God of Israel (3:5).

Enraged by his refusal, Haman dug into Mordecai’s background, looking for dirt, which was when realised he was a Jew. In his anger, he plotted not just Mordecai’s execution but also the extermination of every one of his like in the kingdom of Xerxes (v.6).

And so Haman sought the king’s audience in order to convince him that all the Jews were against his royal rule (a lie) and by that, they should be killed. Having been granted the order with an authorisation date in hand, Haman now had the king’s edict to launch what would amount to mass murder of Holocaust proportion.

When Mordecai caught wind of the edict, he mourned in burlap and ashes (4:1). It wasn’t long before Esther heard of her cousin in mourning though ignorant of Haman’s plot. So she despatched her eunuch to ask why he was so sorrowful.

Mordecai passed the eunuch a copy of the edict, hoping that she could understand the plight that was to befall her people. His hope was that Esther could plead the king for mercy and spare every Jew in the land (v.8).

Gripped with fear, she was reluctant. To approach the king uninvited for whatever reason was to court death (vv.9-10). As she sat on the decision, the eunuch returned to Mordecai with her response. Crestfallen to hear of his cousin’s inaction, he sent word back to her, telling her that there was nothing comfortable about not doing anything. Neither would she and her family escape death.

Still, as he explained, God’s will be done and His people would nonetheless be delivered even if she refused to do anything and then ultimately gets killed in the end. In ending his message to her, Mordecai made sure that she understood why she had come to her royal stature “for such a time as this” (vv.13-14). Her place in history had to be for a reason. It was time that she understood what that reason was.

And with that, Esther had to somehow work around the Persian law that forbade access to the king even if thoughts of death hung over her head. In that sense, she realised, “If I perish, I perish” (v.16).

In true Jewish stoic sense, she called on all Jews in the land to join her to pray and fast for three days and three nights. Only then she would have God’s blessing to go before the king with her pleading.

After the fasting was over, she sought out the king and invited him and Haman to join her at a banquet she’d planned the following day (5:1-4). Accepting her invitation, the king decided to wait till the next day to ask what her request was.

Yet somehow that didn’t materialise, leading to Esther asking for their presence again at a second banquet on the second night in a row. As he was unaware that Esther was a Jew, Haman was only too pleased to enjoy the company of royalty for not one but two banquets in two straight nights.

On his way home and feeling happy at how things were going for him, the Agagite stumbled across Mordecai at the king’s gate. He noticed that he was impervious to the edict because he hardly behaved like one who should be in fear. Worse, on seeing him, he still didn’t bow in his presence (v.9). Filled once again with rage, Haman then ordered the construction of an imposing 75-foot-tall gallows so that he could gleefully once and for all watch Mordecai swing off it by his neck (v.9).

That night after the first banquet, the king found himself sleepless and restless. Wide awake, he rose from his bed and ordered his chronicles to be read to him. It was then that he realised Mordecai was not duly rewarded for previously saving his life.

To rectify that, Haman was summoned to the palace where the king asked what he would do, in his opinion, for someone whom he delighted in. Setting aside his desire to get the king to seal Mordecai’s fate, he figured that the king was referring to him whom he found favour in. Without hesitation, he advised the king that only extravagant gifts and honour would suffice for someone like that.

Much to his complete dismay, the king then ordered him to immediately take Mordecai through the streets of Susa as a fitting tribute to his good deed (6:10-11). Accompanying him on such a parade was the last thing he could ever find pleasure in doing for an enemy like Mordecai. And so Haman failed to gain the king’s permission to have him hanged.

If that incident was humiliating enough for Haman, it got far worse on the following night at the second consecutive banquet. Not surprisingly, the king asked Esther to finally reveal her request. As God would have it, she finally called him to rescue her and her people from the annihilation that the nefarious Haman had planned behind his back (vv.3-6).

Having now uncovered the plot, a furious King Xerxes subjected Haman to death using the very same gallows he had built to hang Mordecai. In the cruellest of ironies, Haman was hanged to death while the Jews were cleared of all wrongdoing. In overcoming the evil plot, Mordecai was once more rewarded with a promotion that made him second in rank to the king (10:3).

When Esther felt the burden of her people and acknowledged the need to reach out to her king, she did the one thing that was important – she fasted and also asked all the Jews of the land – including her own maids – to do the same alongside her as well. In doing so, she focused on what it was that God wanted her to expressly do. And as His plan unfolded, it was clear how amazingly He responded to Esther’s pleading.

B. Ezra plans his journey home

Source: dwellingintheword.wordpress.com

The prophet Ezra was the second of three key leaders to depart from Babylon and return to rebuild Jerusalem. Scripture tells us that while Ezra restored worship, the other two – Zerubbabel and Nehemiah – reconstructed the temple (Ez 3:8) and rebuilt the walls (Neh 1-2) respectively.

Continuing where 2 Chronicles ends, the Book of Ezra records the decree issued by Persian King Cyrus that paved the way for Jews in his kingdom to return home after a banishment that lasted seventy years. In His sovereignty, God used unbelievers like Cyrus just as He did with Artaxerxes to fulfil His plans. With Cyrus, the Jews had permission to return. With Artaxerxes, God used him to authorise and fund the return home for His people.

Although Ezra had his work cut out for him, he probably wasn’t ready for disappointments. He’d assumed that his people, upon return, would be glad to serve the Lord but that left him sad and frustrated.

Still, he did not relent but instead, doggedly trusted God to bring changes to an otherwise intractable situation. Ezra’s whole priority was centred on making the Jews aware of the importance and indispensability of the Word of God.

At the same time, not every Jew in the land returned to Jerusalem (Ez 1:5-6). Even though King Cyrus offered freedom to all the Jews, it seems only those “whose hearts God had moved” did go home. They were essentially family heads of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin as well as the priests and Levites. The others who stayed back “assisted them with articles of silver and gold, with goods and livestock and with valuable gifts, in addition to all the freewill offerings.”

That sounds fine on the surface but the real story was somewhat different. Quite apart from those who were too old, too infirmed or too incapacitated to travel that far, there were those who simply had no intention to because Babylonian creature comforts were too hard to resist. Leaving for a place they knew nothing about – especially those of exilic birth – was unthinkable if anything else.

Then there were also those who, having earned sufficient rank and file under Cyrus, felt they belonged in such an established society. The others were just too overwhelmed by what they felt was too much hard work to restore a broken nation because other than Jerusalem requiring a complete rebuild, its city walls also needed to be put up to protect against foreign adversaries. For all these, it was probably too difficult to expect them to change their minds.

But there, too, were those who might really have wanted to join up but had cause to be concerned due to personal safety. After all, they were also bringing home with them sufficient baggage of silver and gold including livestock and valuable gifts on the 900-mile trek into the land of Judea to bring to the attention of robbers along the way. In other words, the risks were simply too perilous.

Set against this backdrop was Ezra’s unwillingness to ask for Persian state protection throughout the journey. He said:

“I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers… since we had told the king, ‘The hand of our God is for good upon all that seek Him, and the power of His wrath is against all that forsake Him.’” (Ez 8:22, NLT)

Having made such a bold statement about God’s protection, he, too, was now nervous about making the trip given that his people were going to be truly exposed and vulnerable. It was because of this concern that Ezra called upon his people to fast in order to humble themselves before God and seek His help (v.21). For this reason, he could then say:

“The hand of God was upon them and He delivered them from the hand of the enemy and from ambushes on the way.” (Ez 8:31, NLT)

Insofar as spiritual leadership is concerned, Ezra’s action is as impeccable as the other Old Testament patriarchs. From 2 Chronicles, he laid claim to God’s promise, using it when he and his people were most susceptible to harm. This is where God’s words rang so true for him:

“If My people who are called by My Name humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven.” (2 Chr 7:14, NLT)

Two things ring true here. Firstly, we are to humble ourselves (v.21) and secondly, we are to turn our backs on sin and seek Him in earnest prayer (v.23). Only then God hears and avails His forgiveness, healing and protection. So, from Ezra comes an invaluable lesson about fasting where he said:

“I proclaimed a fast so that we might humble ourselves.” (Ez 8:21, NLT)

The link between the two is a precious one – fasting is – and must be – a way to humble ourselves. Without humility, there is no sense in fasting. But when a person humbles himself, fasting is a natural thing to do. Indeed, fasting is an opportunity for us to go before God, humbled by His presence and overwhelmed by His love.

In fasting, we basically say to the Lord that, burdened by our sins, we knowingly do not deserve our daily bread. Instead, we deserve nothing but punishment from Him. With fasting, believers have the chance to help us reconnect to a merciful God who will hear our prayers and deliver us from our plight.

C. Jesus’ focus on His public ministry

Source: romancatholicman.com

While we’re not exactly certain of how far apart the two incidents were, we do know that after John had baptised Him, Jesus committed Himself to fasting just that once in the desert. In other words, apart from this one time, there is nowhere else in the Bible that reveals He fasted often. In fact, His detractors would rather criticise Him for His “eating and drinking” (Mt 11:19).

For those interested in this subject of Jesus’ fasting, then you’ll enjoy reading Ian Paul’s article in his blog called Psephizo at https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/how-often-did-jesus-and-his-followers-fast/ or click here.

For Jesus’ post-baptismal fasting, the apostle Matthew wrote that the Son of Man was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness where for forty days and forty nights, He ate nothing (4:1).

As many of you may know, the number ‘forty’ is significant because it is indicative of God’s plan to save humanity like when Noah and his family weathered through torrents of rain that sent the world awash for forty days and forty nights. The same was evident when Moses fasted for the same duration atop Mount Sinai to seek forgiveness for the people and receive from God the Ten Commandments.

In the case of the Jews having been released from bondage in Egypt, they too spent forty years in wilderness before God ultimately led them to the Promised Land. In the same way, Jesus’ flesh was at its most susceptible through the forty days and forty nights of fasting because it was then that Satan persistently tempted Him with attractive worldly alternatives in deference to the Father’s plans.

Satan’s plan wasn’t just to lure Jesus’ fleshy desires (including ours) but it was also to play havoc with His identity as the Son of God (4:3). Having said that, God turned the incident around, making it more of an opportunity to shape Jesus’ 3-year world-changing ministry in several ways.

Remember, Jesus’ fasting was not an isolated event that bore no worthwhile cause. Instead, by enduring the desert for this long, He received, as a Man, a very physical and spiritual training that helped him to face the challenges that were to come in His life on Earth. In other words, He was simply equipping Himself for the ultimate battle between good and evil.

In a similar vein, God took forty days and forty nights to rid the Earth of debauchery before He began a new covenant with Noah. Similarly, the second lot of forty years that the Jews spent in the desert before they could enter the Promised Land was God’s retribution as well as part-preparation.

So for this to happen, Jesus found strength in the Word of God to overcome Satan’s temptations and be victorious over sin and in doing so, gave us good evidence that when we fast with humility, we allow the Holy Spirit to draw us closer to the Lord.

After the fast, Satan did depart from Jesus and then the “angels came and attended Him” (4:11). From thereon, He returned to Galilee, fully empowered by the Spirit to attain mastery over His human nature (Lk 10:21).

Not only had He conquered temptation, He’d readied Himself for the very purpose that the Father had in store for Him. Armed with the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus now did not have to rely on His humanity to perform miracles or deliver the oppressed or even overcome death.

At a stretch of forty days and forty nights, Jesus’ fast is equal in drama as Moses’ in all of Scripture. It’s obviously major enough that all the Synoptic Gospels picked up on it. Some assume that being the Son of God meant that fasting for this long shouldn’t be problematic.

After all, we’re talking about the One who multiplied fish and loaves of bread, who refilled a whole drum of red wine, brought a dead man back to life and so on and so forth. In other words, a forty-day-forty-night fast should be a no-brainer, right?

That might be so but we should note that all the Gospel writers were at pain to point out that He did not perform any miracles to endure the forty days and forty nights of fasting. Yes, Jesus could’ve performed miracles to get through His fasting but He refrained from doing so. Instead, He chose to set an example that led Him to feel the same hunger pangs as any of us:

“Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River. 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.” (Lk 4:1-2, NLT, m.e.)

When Scripture says that Jesus “ate nothing,” it doesn’t mean that He also drank nothing. In other words, He would’ve survived on water just like any of us. What we can draw from this is that fasting can just simply imply not eating. It was for this very reason that Satan taunted Jesus:

“Then the devil said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.” (Lk 4:3, NLT, m.e.)

Satan said that because it was obvious to him that Jesus was getting hungry. It was an acknowledgement that He had a body as human as ours. It was also a confirmation that he was focused on Jesus’ hunger and not thirst. Perhaps this was evidence that he was aware that He drank water.

Without a miracle, there is no way for any man to go forty straight days and nights without consuming any water and that obviously included Jesus. On the other hand, in the case of Moses, it was the Lord who sustained him for the same number of days and nights with neither food nor drink on Mount Sinai (Ex 34:28).

As for going the full distance without food for forty days and forty nights, it isn’t impossible even by today’s standards. Common biological wisdom does suggest that a healthy person can go without food for that long because in most cases, we have enough energy stashed away in our body fats.

In general terms, for every pound of human fats, we can produce 3,500 calories of energy, meaning that 30 pounds will produce 105,000 calories, which is enough for forty days and forty nights so long as the person is able to access the stored fats in his body. For a well-nourished person, that’s not too much to ask.

Even so, that doesn’t necessarily mean we must all comply with a forty-day-and-night water-only fast. Although with careful practice and planning – and wisdom in place – we can all do that but remember, it is not a mandatory thing even for Christians. Remember that Jesus did not command us to fast and since that’s the case, where do we really go from here?

The fact is He expects His followers to follow Him but it was not a tacit command. Clearly, it wasn’t an order as in, “Do it or else…” What it is, is an anticipation. It is something Jesus looks forward to us participating with Him. But at the same time, He made it clear that we are not to “do our good deeds publicly” (Mt 6). Here’s the warning:

“And when you fast, don’t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and dishevelled so people will admire them for their fasting. I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get. But when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face. Then no one will notice that you are fasting, except your Father, who knows what you do in private. And your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.” (Mt 6:16-18, NLT)

Fasting is a private affair. It is between you and God. It has nothing to do with anyone else. Jesus warns against acting up or even looking the part in order to win brownie points with people.

When we fast, we are not to garner admiration and neither should we be posting it on Facebook just to get ‘Likes.’ We are not to bathe ourselves in glory, looking to become a backyard celebrity. We are also not to crave for or attract attention (v.2). When praying, either be discrete or go somewhere where only the Father can see you (vv.5-8).

What the Bible says about fasting

Source: hookedonthebook.com

Not only does Scripture reveal sparingly about Jesus fasting, in no part of the New Testament does it ever say that His followers are to be commanded to do so. We’ve said it enough earlier in this article that it was less a command than it is something that Jesus anticipates (Mt 6:16-18, Mk 2:20).

In the Old Testament, it was only on the Day of Atonement (Lev 23:27, 29, 32) that Jews were instructed to fast. That’s merely one day in the whole year. In fact, any rabbinical leader who issues a command to fast or to restrict the consumption of any particular food does so without any biblical validity.

Yet, Jesus did fast as we know from the previous section (Mt 4:1-11). And because He implicitly expects His believers to follow suit, the question must then revolve around a proper approach to fasting. For that, the Bible does reveal details beginning with the following four different types:

Fasting that is limited to a certain type of food

Dan 1:8-14

Fasting that forbids consumption of all foods

Dan 10:2-3

Fasting that forbids all forms of foods and water

Lk 4:2, Acts 9:9

Fasting that places limits on certain activities

Ex 19:15, 1 Cor 7:5

It goes without saying that this means the approach (to fasting) will vary accordingly. Yet there are certain things about fasting that don’t change regardless.

Here are a few to get started:

1. Never shy from seeking God’s wisdom

“If you need wisdom, ask your generous God, and He will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask Him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.” (Jms 1:5-7, NLT)

Ask Him how He wants you to fast and for how long.

2. Like Esther, set a time frame

“‘Go and gather together all the Jews of Susa and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will do the same. And then, though it is against the law, I will go in to see the king. If I must die, I must die.’ So Mordecai went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.” (Est 4:16-17, NLT)

When fasting, we are to place ourselves in God’s will like Esther did.

3. You must be clear as to why you wish to fast

“And there by the Ahava Canal, I gave orders for all of us to fast and humble ourselves before our God. We prayed that He would give us a safe journey and protect us, our children and our goods as we travelled… So we fasted and earnestly prayed that our God would take care of us and He heard our prayer.” (Ez 8:21, 23 NLT)

Given the risks his people faced, Ezra called on God to help by fasting and humbling themselves and seeking Him.

4. Fasting must be more than just a focus on food

“Moses remained there on the mountain with the Lord forty days and forty nights. In all that time, he ate no bread and drank no water. And the Lord wrote the terms of the covenant – the Ten Commandments – on the stone tablets.” (Ex 34:28, NLT)

When we fast, our focus must not be on anything of the world but God and that includes even the food (and water, in Moses’ case) we have decided to forego. As many in Scripture attested to, fasting has proven to be a very effective way to draw close to God.

Scripture reveals that different people fasted and prayed for various reasons. Some wanted something specific to happen. Certain others like Paul wanted God to change them. Some others like Esther wanted their circumstances to be different. A few others like Moses wanted God to reveal something to them. People like Ezra wanted God to help and protect them.

It’s important at this stage to say that fasting might not be for everyone. Those healthy enough won’t have much of a problem but if you have certain medical conditions, caution must be exercised and if you’re unsure, consult your doctor beforehand. You may be eager or desirous in fasting but if you’re medically limited, you need to abide by what advice your doctor gives.

Here’s another thing you should be wary of: the Internet. It may be a veritable source of limitless information but that doesn’t mean everything you read is true. In my research on uncovering what medical conditions would prevent one from fasting, I almost came up with nothing.

Pages after pages of search results proved futile in my search because more often than not, people are actually saying that fasting can actually ‘cure’ diseases or ‘improve’ medical conditions, which I personally think we should be careful not to believe every one of these claims.

There are many different types of medical conditions that will require you to be careful about fasting or even prevent you from doing so. At the very least, your doctor’s clearance to commence fasting is very important. Listed here are just the few that I can find (though I suspect there are more):

Diabetes	Unhealthy diets (eg anorexia)	Liver condition
Kidney issues	Pregnancy (any stage)	Wasting diseases (eg malnutrition)
Dysfunctional immunology	Cardiac arrhythmia	Hepatic-biliary (renal) problems

Take note that the above is only a guide. No doubt there are other medical conditions not listed here that one needs to exercise caution or abstain from fasting. As I’ve said earlier, talk to your doctor if you’re unsure. Remember that there is no biblical command that as followers of Christ we must fast. In other words, if a medical condition prevents you from fasting, don’t be too sad.

For those who wish to fast, make sure your motives are in the right place. If you’re fasting because you think it’ll help you to diet, go ahead but that’s not what we’re talking about here. Neither is fasting in order to manipulate God because that just won’t work.

Similarly if you intend to fast because it will help your particular medical condition, that’s alright but, again, we’re not talking about this. Fasting will not move God to do anything that is not in His will to do so.

In case you aren’t aware, fasting is more about us than the Lord. It concerns the inward changes that God wants us to make so that we may then be able to carry out His will. Therefore our decision to fast must hinge on our willingness to submit to God’s will rather than ours. As the Book of Proverbs says:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all that your ways, submit to Him and He will make your paths straight.” (Prov 3:5-6, m.e.)

In our submissiveness, we surrender our will so that His will be done. And in that very sense, His plans become our plans and His plans are, in Jeremiah’s words, stupendous:

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” (Jer 29:11, m.e.)

Once we become a vessel for God to use, we will have availed ourselves to changing inwardly so that we may better reflect Christ in our lives. In fact our lives recede and in its place, Christ lives (Gal 2:20, Jn 3:30, Php 1:21). The apostle Paul’s words in his letter to the Romans also puts it best:

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Rom 12:1-2, m.e.)

Despite the Bible’s sparing instances of Jesus fasting, the practice itself has clear spiritual benefits. Apart from the examples cited earlier, there are others that are worth a notice:

[NOTE: Related verse is shown followed by the number of days of fasting; where N/A is shown, that means Scripture does not provide such information.]

General (Acts 13:1-3); N/A Spirit led, the Antioch church elders prayed and fasted before sending out Paul and Barnabas for special work as the first missionaries	General (Acts 13:2, 14:23); N/A Believers fast in order that they may hear from God when it comes to important decisions they are expected to get right, let alone make	Daniel (Dan 10:1-3); 3 weeks Fasting for three weeks, Daniel also prayed for understanding of a vision that revealed what would happen to God’s people in the future
Darius (Dan 6:4-9, 18, 25-28); N/A Darius fasted for his friend Daniel’s safety after he was thrown into a den of deadly lions after he himself was handily tricked by his own conniving lawmakers	David (2 Sam 12:1-23); 7 days David mourned his child’s illness, praying and fasting to the day he died, after which he cleaned himself up, ceased his mourning and began to eat again	Elijah (1 Kgs 19:4-8); N/A The prophet Elijah prayed and fasted while escaping from Jezebel’s deadly clutches after she discovered his victory over her prophets of Baal at Mt. Carmel
Esther (Est 4:15-17); 3 days Esther prayed and fasted for three days, calling on all Jews to follow suit to seek God’s leading in averting Haman’s planned genocide	Ezra (Ez 10:6-17); 3 days Ezra prayed and fasted, mourning over the sins of his people as they began their long and precarious journey home to Jerusalem	Jesus (Mt 4:1-2); 40 days/nights Jesus prayed and fasted for forty days and nights after His baptism in readiness by the Holy Spirit for Satan’s temptations in the desert
Moses (Dt 9:9-18); 40 days/nights Moses prayed and fasted for forty days and forty nights before receiving the Ten Commandments	Paul (Acts 9:1-9); 3 days Following his personal encounter with Christ and subsequent conversion on the road headed to Damascus, the apostle Paul prayed and fasted for three days

By no means is the above compilation exhaustive but one notable thing we can gather from these examples is that fasting and praying go hand in hand (Lk 2:37, 5:33). The second notable point is that depending on the person, fasting can last anywhere from days to weeks or even slightly more than a month.

Other than Jesus and Moses whose fast lasted 40 days and 40 nights, many did it for far shorter periods. Thirdly, fasting wasn’t always done in full as some were partial and at least in one other example, selectively. While Moses’ fast was absolute (meaning, both food and water was abstained), others included water. Nonetheless, anything sacrificed for temporary abstinence is still considered a fast (1 Cor 7:1-5).

Importantly, don’t use a long fasting period to claim hero status. A long-period fast might actually be bodily harmful. While fasting is an effort to focus on God, it should not be used for punitive self-abasement. Neither should it be seen as a dieting opportunity because your sole purpose to fast is to draw closer to a deeper and more meaningful fellowship with God.

Connecting fasting to praying

Daniel praying (Source: dwellingintheword.wordpress.com)

There is no doubt that fasting and praying are somehow interconnected although Scripture doesn’t offer any specific explanation for that. What we do know is that in many if not all cases, when one fasts, one also prays. However, the reverse may not always apply; when one prays, he may or may not have an accompanying fast. Yet without question, fasting doesn’t exist without praying at least as far as biblical examples go.

In other words, praying seems to be the most natural companion activity when a person fasted likely because it helps the fasting person to hone his attention towards God probably out of sheer need and dependence in times of adversity. We see that very often with David, Esther, Ezra and others.

In David’s case, praying and fasting were not enough. For the grievous sin he committed, he naturally also mourned and repented over his critically ill baby boy (2 Sam 12:16) to the point of weeping (vv.21-22). It was also the same with Nehemiah who was in similar despair over the desolation of Jerusalem.

After being informed by his brother, Hanani, of how the returnees were deeply troubled by their discovery, he “mourned, fasted and prayed to the God of Heaven” (Neh 1:4, NLT). We see this so noticeably in his prayer that is punctuated by desperation, remorse and humility not to mention, also, emotional distress, outpouring of deep concern and heartfelt pleadings (vv.5-11).

The other prophet Daniel was similarly impacted over the same problem with Jerusalem. His response was to turn “to the Lord God and pleaded with Him in prayer and fasting” (Dan 9:3, NLT). Furthermore, his prayer has identical overtones as those of Nehemiah’s (vv.4-19). And like him, Daniel also fasted and prayed. Check out Daniel’s devastatingly humbling prayer here:

“We have sinned and done wrong. We have rebelled against You and scorned Your commands and regulations. We have refused to listen to Your servants the prophets, who spoke on Your authority to our kings and princes and ancestors and to all the people of the land.” (Dan 9:5-6, NLT)

Looking to pluck up her courage in what she feared was a terrible risk, Esther secretly rallied her fellow Jews in the land – including her own maids – to fast and pray together with her. The purpose was to petition God to clear a way for her to reach out to King Xerxes and appeal for the lives of her people (Est 4:16). After all, the only real way she could overcome the risk was by way of God’s intervention. Nothing but a miracle was her only solution.

That all may be true but in the New Testament, fasting and praying aren’t so inextricably connected with mourning and repentance. In Luke 2, for example, the prophetess Anna “never left the Temple but stayed there day and night worshipping God with fasting and prayer” despite her ripe age of 84.

This was part of her service to the Lord as she lived almost purely to anticipate the presence of the Saviour (Lk 2:37, NLT). Many years later in an Antioch church, the people were fasting and praying as they were worshipping when all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit came and spoke, directing them to God’s plan to use Paul and Barnabas for mission work.

Even if it appears (so far) that fasting is an integral part of Jewish worshipping practices, there is absolutely no scriptural evidence that God answers prayers better or more effectively because we choose to fast. That is simply untrue.

Fasting simply offers us the opportunity to express our sincerity and desire for God to help us address whatever predicament or challenge we find ourselves in. There’s no question that fasting expedites our ability to articulate our focus on Him but that doesn’t mean He will respond any faster.

To illustrate this point, let’s look at an example from Mark concerning Jesus’ encounter with a possessed young boy in which He casts out a demon. The narrative between the boy’s father and Jesus goes like this:

“One of the men in the crowd spoke up and said, ‘Teacher, I brought my son so You could heal him. He is possessed by an evil spirit that won’t let him talk. And whenever this spirit seizes him, it throws him violently to the ground. Then he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked Your disciples to cast out the evil spirit, but they couldn’t do it. Jesus said to them, ‘You faithless people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy to Me.” (Mk 9:17-19, NLT)

The above dialogue alone underlines how crucial our faith is even as God has given us the authority over unclean spirits. Following from Jesus’ rebuke, the Gospel tells us that He sent the evil spirit packing. As the boy healed and recovered, the disciples asked Him why they had failed. Jesus answered:

“Afterwards when Jesus was alone in the house with His disciples, they asked Him, ‘Why couldn’t we cast out that evil spirit?’ Jesus replied, ‘This kind can be cast out only by prayer.” (vv.28-29, NLT, m.e.)

Now, that was what the apostle Mark wrote. In Matthew, we have more information of the same incident:

“‘You don’t have enough faith,’ Jesus told them. ‘I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible. But this kind of demon won’t leave except by prayer and fasting.’” (Mt 17:20-21, NLT, m.e.)

NOTE: Allegedly, some translation manuscripts don’t include verse 21. In some cases, the word ‘fasting’ is missing such as in the case of Mark 9:29

Like Mark, Matthew confirmed that the demon in this case was quite a challenge to exorcise, which explained why Jesus said only “by prayer and fasting” can it be forcefully repulsed. Such a tough adversary can only be met with an equal dose of gritty faith undergirded “by prayer and fasting.” As Christians, we should know that there aren’t anything comparable in power terms as a determined prayer. As far as spiritual weaponry goes, it is unprecedented:

“Put on salvation as your helmet and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.” (Eph 6:17-18, NLT)

In the context of his letter to the church in Ephesus, Paul penned an outline of the whole armour of God where the ‘helmet’ and the ‘sword’ are just two of a few features he was using to describe spiritual weaponry. In this case, the sword epitomises the Holy Spirit.

Therefore to pray in the Spirit is as imperative as to do it with persistence and alertness. Just as we pray determinedly, we can add to it fasting for its effect in helping us concentrate our prayers to God.

Even though no biblical demands have ever been made to compel us to fast, Christians should view it as a striking opportunity for undivided single-minded self-expression to God. As far as the welfare of our spiritual life is concerned, fasting is a powerful though not mandatory conduit. It is a devotion that, if done correctly, offers us an uninterrupted communion with the Father away from the distractions of the world at large, food and drinks included.

Different fasting approaches

Source: parrocchiadironcaglia.it

It’s no rocket science when people assume fasting is nothing more than not eating food for a certain spell. Some others will add that drinking water during a fast is also acceptable and they’re not wrong too. But there’s a lot more to it than just that. The Bible presents a few variations to fasting where not everything revolves around food.

While Scripture reveals how people fast for different reasons, in most cases, the motivation is repentance. Apart from David, the entire ancient nation of Israel including the Assyrian-occupied city of Nineveh all prayed and fasted in sheer contrition.

In the separate cases of Jehoshaphat and Esther, fasting was accompanied by passionate but humble prayers in pursuit of God. The key operative word here is ‘humble.’

To drive home that point, let’s revisit the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector:

“Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other was a despised tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank You, God, that I am not like other people – cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week and I give You a tenth of my income.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exact themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Lk 18:9-14, NLT, m.e.)

In his commentary on Isaiah 58:3-7, John MacArthur said something quite similarly but very profoundly:

“The people complained when God did not recognise their religious actions but God responded that their fastings [sic] had been only half-hearted. Hypocritical fasting resulted in contention, quarrelling and pretence excluding the possibility of genuine prayer to God. Fasting consisted of more than just an outward ritual and a mock repentance. It involved penitence over sin and consequently humility, disconnecting from sin and oppression of others, feeding the hunger and acting humanely toward those in need.”

Of all the different variations, the most obvious one is Regular Fast. This is because it is the most common form featured in the Bible. This is a complete abstinence of all types of solid and liquid foods although water is still permitted. It’s the kind of fasting that Jehoshaphat carried out once he realised that Judah was about to be besieged (2 Chr 20:3). Through his heartfelt prayer, God overcame the enemy (vv.24-27).

No differently, the prophet Ezra exhorted the returnees to pray and fast so that God may protect them throughout their journey home (Ez 8:21). As He prepared Himself to be challenged by Satan, Jesus too fasted in a similar way after He was baptised by John the Baptist (Lk 4:2).

The second type is the Partial Fast. Needless to say, the word ‘partial’ gives it away. In the Book of Daniel, the young prophet freshly captured and delivered to Babylon commenced a three-week fast where he refused to consume the meat and wine as per the king’s instructions (Dan 10:2-3). He also avoided the use of any skin lotions, meaning the oils that would’ve otherwise kept him refreshed.

Daniel’s fasting approach is today simply known as the ‘Daniel Fast.’ It has become quite popular among the different fasting variations. Its origins are rooted in Daniel’s early days of captivity in Babylon at the defeat of King Jehoiakim (1:1-2) with his repudiation of the royal food and wine.

Instead he sought permission from the chief official to withdraw from partaking such meals from the palace. Under normal circumstances, such behaviour would have been a straightforward death wish but God moved the official to not only grant him favour but to actually express concern for Daniel’s welfare.

Said the official, “I am afraid of my lord the king, who has ordered that you eat this food and wine. If you become pale and thin compared to the other youths your age, I am afraid the king will have me beheaded” (Dan 1:10, NLT).

In response, Daniel assured the attendant appointed by the official that it would not come to that.

“Please test us for ten days on a diet of vegetables and water. At the end of the ten days, see how we look compared to the other young men who are eating the king’s food. Then make your decision in light of what you see.” (vv.12-13, NLT, m.e.)

Quite unusually, the attendant agreed to Daniel’s terms.

Daniel and three of his friends were part of the selection of young people that was to enrol in a three-year Babylonian training programme designed to eventually induct them into royal service. They were chosen because they complied with the stipulation that only “strong, healthy and good-looking young men” (v.4) among the captives applied. For that, they were also given new Babylonian names by the chief official (v.7).

Inductees like Daniel and his friends were to be trained and familiarised with local Babylonian culture including its laws and practices, beliefs, traditions, language and literature. The earliest problem to strike Daniel and his friends was the incompatibility between Babylonian culinary habits and those defined by the Mosaic Law that they were brought up on.

It was because of this issue that Daniel could not eat meat that was likely sacrificed to Babylonian false gods and idol worship. And with that, the agreement Daniel struck with the attendant over the radical diet of pure fruits and vegetables for the next ten days.

As far as modern-day health food diets, the Daniel Fast dovetails quite nicely that even unbelievers will find it appealing. And as the Babylonians eventually discovered, the dietary benefits were visible (vv.15-16). Just as the Babylonians found such results so positive in ancient times, so should anyone today.

The problem then is what motivates a believer to adopt this fasting approach. Would the motivation be Christian or dietary based? While there is no biblical compunction to observe such a fast, the point is whether or not a Daniel Fast is the best way forward for you. To answer that question, you’d need to look into your Christian conscience.

The third type is the Full or Absolute Fast. Unlike the previous two, this one forbids the consumption of both food and water. The most oft-quoted example in the Bible is when Esther was told of Haman’s plan to kill all of God’s people in the land.

Following Mordecai’s impassioned plea, she resolved to respond by calling on all her fellow Jews – and her maids – to pray and perform an absolute fast for three whole days before any thoughts of drawing King Xerxes’ to her plight (Est 4:16).

In the Book of Acts comes the story of Saul who was blinded in his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. Up to that point, Saul was not only a student of Gamaliel but he was also a vicious and brutal killer of Christians.

From his encounter with Jesus, Saul was converted. Following that experience, he neither ate nor drank anything for the next three days that he remained sightless (Acts 9:9) after which, he dedicated his life for Christ and in the process, changed his name to Paul.

Three days was what people like Esther and Saul spent on their absolute fast but Moses and Elijah did it almost thirteen times longer. Moses did his forty-day-long fasting in his encounter with God at the top of Mount Sinai to receive the tablets of the Ten Commandments (Dt 9:9). Elijah did it for just as long in the desert amidst his desperate flight to stay out of Jezebel’s reach (1 Kgs 19:8).

Fourthly, there is also a Sexual Fast. Just as the name suggests, a fasting person in this case would refrain from sexual relations with his spouse. As part of their preparation to encounter the Lord at Mount Sinai, the people of Israel abstained from conjugal activities for three days (Ex 19:15).

Perhaps Paul explains this better in his letter to the Corinthians where he describes how a married couple can mutually agree to briefly hold off sex in order that they can commit to prayer. However, he also insists that they must “come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (1 Cor 7:5).

Make no bones about it, fasting is not a clarion call for God to act for us. You’re not going to summon the Lord as if He’s a servant at our beck and call to grant us every wish. Whichever approach you take, fasting is a way for us to seek His attention and to go after His heart in our attempt to embrace His loving presence. Whatever other benefits we like to pursue are moot because biblical fasting sets us apart to God in ways no other types of fasting does.

Steps before, during and after fasting

Source: catechistsjourney.loyolapress.com

The following are general guidelines that are the result of research done on the subject of biblical fasting.

Part I: Before you fast

1. It is paramount that you humble yourself.

Fasting isn’t about you; it’s about how you relate to God. Therefore the thing to do at this point is to centre your motives on Christ. Just as you’re about to start your fast, make sure you understand the reason why you want to do it in the first place. For example, don’t mistake a biblical fast from one that is centred on dieting. Note that the two are poles apart.

Good reference point:

Whitney, Don (Jul 2011) 9 Reasons to Fast Other than ‘It’s Swimsuit Season’ (Christianity.com); refer to back page for details

2. Secondly, pray with all your heart

Confess all your sins before God and then invite the Holy Spirit to lead you from the front. Surrender your will to Him and give Him every opportunity to head you in the right direction. Let Christ know that you wish to commit to a personal relationship with Him. Confess to Him that He lived a sinless life, died in our place on the cross for our sins and then rose on the third day to free us from perdition and then let us claim His free gift of eternal salvation.

In the fullest of such knowledge, ask Him to forgive you for each and every person you have hurt and then in reverse, forgive those who have hurt you also. The reason for this is that you must not enter into a fast while still holding on to grudges. Neither should you be envious, prideful, angry or hurting because Satan will use any of such vulnerabilities to derail your intention.

Good reference point:

Bright, Dr Bill (n.d.) 7 Basic Steps to Successful Fasting and Prayer (Campus Crusade for Christ or CRU); refer to back page for details

To get your ‘Fasting Starter Kit,’ use this URL: https://www.cru.org/us/en/train-and-grow/spiritual-growth/fasting/fasting-starter-kit.html or click here

3. Ponder about the Gospel and on the holiness of the Lord

Think of how God forgives us when we trespass. Think of His omnipotence and omniscience. Consider His incredible capacity to love unconditionally. Consider how He allowed His One and Only beloved Son to die on the cross in our place and then feel the immense gratitude to the Father. Realise that for all the sins that infest our lives, we have no right to claim any relationship with Him and yet only by His grace, we are saved.

It’s also a good time to find and think of everything that God has done in your life for whom you could take this opportunity to show greater appreciation.

Spell them out as you meditate on the Gospel and draw parallels between what you understand of the Good News and how Christ is centred in your life. Praise Him for all of these. Submit your life to Him and all that He has done for you and your family.

Good reference point:

Wetherell, Kristen (Sept 2016) 5 Steps to Meditating on Your Bible (The Gospel Coalition or TGC, U.S. Edition); refer to back page for details

4. Determine the length of your fast

Think of how long you’d like your fasting to be. Scripture reveals that people can fast for three to ten straight days, a whole week or even forty days and nights. For example, Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights albeit without foregoing water.

On the other hand, Moses went for an Absolute Fast by even abstaining from water admittedly only possible because of divine intervention. But that doesn’t mean you should or must do the same.

If you have no fasting experience, you might want to start with a short fast first and then gradually progress from there. As you do so, pray and ask the Holy Spirit to indicate to you how long you should fast for.

Good reference point:

Author unknown (n.d.) How Long Should Christians Fast? (Beyond Today, United Church of God); refer to back page for details

5. Consider the fasting approach you’ve been called to

If you have come this far in the article, you will then be aware of the different approaches to fasting. It’s time now to make a decision based on the approach that the Holy Spirit has called you to.

For example, a Partial Fast means giving up certain types of food. In a Daniel Fast, you can consume juices but not solid foods. In that sense, fruit and vegie juices are not a problem.

Good reference point:

Author unknown (n.d.) Fasting as a Christian (Northwoods Community Church, Central Illinois); refer to back page for details

To get your Fasting Guide & One-Year New Testament Reading Challenge, use this URL: https://s3.amazonaws.com/northwoods-web-cdn/wp-content/uploads/20180111155553/Fasting-Tips-with-NT-Reading-Plan.pdf or click here.

6. Whatever you do, don’t not drink

Water is life-supporting. In His forty-day-night fast, Jesus also drank water. Your body may be able to cope with a Regular Fast (because of your stored body fats) but drinking, on the other hand, is as essential as breathing.

Ignoring this can be perilous to the point of death. Should you dehydrate after two to three days, you may find yourself becoming delusional before you fall into a life-threatening coma. So be forewarned.

Good reference point:

Author unknown (n.d.) When Fasting, How Often Do You Pray? (Never Thirsty, The Master Ministries, Tucson, AZ); refer to back page for details

Part II: During your fasting

7. Never not do your morning worship

In fact, make it a point that the moment you’re up and prepared yourself in the morning, you should begin by worshipping and praising Him. You can of course do your devotionals at the same time.

For me, Chip Ingram offers a lot of edifying and encouraging things I can listen to that will get me in the right state of mind to face my fast. Some of my friends go for Max Lucado and that’s just fine. Take your pick as there are plenty out there for you to link up with.

Make sure too that you include time to read God’s Word and meditate on it. Seek God’s wisdom to fill your day with sense, understanding and purpose. Pray that His Word can make a powerful imprint in your life not just throughout your fast but your whole life. Pray also that His will be done and that the Holy Spirit will uphold your conscience as He guides you through your days.

Good reference point:

Hess, Andrew (Oct 2016) 5 Ways to Sweeten Your Morning Times with God (ChurchLeaders); refer to back page for details

8. Take a tranquil walk

It’s a good time to take a prayerful walk with God by your side as you take in His wonderful natural creations. Considering how the day warms up as it gets closer to midday, a nice walk could be in the brisk morning or in the evening setting.

Observe all that is around you and consider His creative hand at work. Thank Him immensely for how Nature has become such an important part of our lives on Earth. At the same time, ask God for a spirit of gratefulness, humility, thanksgiving and appreciation that you can still enjoy walks like this.

Good reference point:

Author unknown (n.d.) What is Prayerwalking? (WayMakers, Austin, TX); refer to back page for details

9. Think of others around you and pray for them

Many years ago, a church friend offered me an invaluable piece of advice and that was to pray for others first before we petition on behalf of our own personal needs. To put the concerns of others first is integral to Christ’s servanthood nature.

For that reason, fasting is also a good time to do exactly the same. Pray for your church leaders that they may preach and practise the Word of God. Pray for your church members so that they may all uphold the Body of Christ in prayerfulness, lovingkindness, fellowshipping and generosity of heart.

Pray for your friends and family members so that they may keep developing a closer and more loving relationship with Him. In the case of those who have yet to believe, pray that God presents Himself in their lives so that they may be awed by and accept Him.

Pray for your nation’s leaders so that they may govern with accountability, truthfulness and honesty and if they happen to be unbelievers (as in the case of Malaysia), pray then that they submit to Him and do His will.

Lastly pray for those who are your enemies, who hate you enough to despise everything about you and the things you do. Pray that they may know Christ while you implore God to forgive them for they know not what they do.

Good reference point:

Piper, John (Aug 2008) The Mind of Christ: Looking Out for the Interests of Others (Desiring God, Minneapolis, MN); refer to back page for details

Part III: After your fasting is over

10. How to break your first day of fast

The most important thing not to do is to go and gorge yourself silly with food. I know you’ve held out for so many hours but take things easy and learn to return to your normal eating habits gradually.

In fact, for your first day of breaking your fast (presumably you’re doing that in the evening), you should incorporate some fresh vegetables in your breaking meal like lettuce leaves, cucumber slices and so on. If you can prepare a Caesar’s Salad for yourself, that’s perfect. Otherwise, a clean vegetable soup could do just as well.

Good reference points:

Author Unknown (n.d.) Fasting Guidelines and Information (International House of Prayer, Kansas City, MO); refer to back page for details

Bright, Dr Bill (n.d.) 7 Basic Steps to Successful Fasting and Prayer (Campus Crusade for Christ or CRU); refer to back page for details

11. How to break your second day of fast

For your second day of breaking fast, consider adding a fairly large baked potato to your meal. Because local potatoes (in Malaysia) tend to be on the small side, you might find imported American potatoes in your supermarket to be better suited.

Still, keep your meal as simple as possible and avoid too much richness. As for the baked potato, keep it clean, no indulging fatty or salty dips. Avoid mayonnaise, for example.

Good reference point:

Bright, Dr Bill (n.d.) 7 Basic Steps to Successful Fasting and Prayer (Campus Crusade for Christ or CRU); refer to back page for details

12. How to break your third day of fast

If your fast is three days long, then this would be your final day. Even if it’s not, this is the day in which you can start to progressively add more foods and richer drinks into your breaking meal.

Good reference point:

Larimore, Dr Walt (Oct 2007) Medical and Spiritual Considerations for Christian Fasting (Dr Walt’s Blog, Colorado Springs, CO.); refer to back page for details

Ideas worth considering when fasting

· Fasting is not a time to save up on your worries. Instead it is a great opportunity to release all your cares to Christ, which means it is as good a time as any for personal prayers. In fact, it is the best time to think of anything and everything to pray about because in our communing with God, we can tell Him everything. He is a personal God; so you can really share the most personal things with Him.

· Should you find it very difficult to break out of your eating habit, you might even accidentally consumed something while fasting. Or perhaps, it wasn’t really accidental. Maybe you lost your discipline and succumbed. In either case, pour out your heart to God in repentance before returning to and resuming your fasting.

· If you’re new to fasting and wish to be cautious in how you go about it, spend a week or thereabouts eating smaller meals. While you’re at it, avoid sugary foods including caffeine, which means not only coffee but also tea. Herbal teas are fine. If you can cope with this, you’re likely on your way to your very first serious fast.

Two days prior to the day, start eating fruits and vegetables exclusively to prime your mind and body for actual physical fasting. In other words, you’re now conditioning yourself to go without your favourite foods and snacks. You should also begin to drink purely water as well.

· If you’re doing a Partial Fast with the intention of consuming fruit and/or vegetable juices in replacement of solid foods, try fresh watermelons, grapes, bananas, cabbages, beets, carrots, celeries, cucumbers, spinaches, kales, parsleys and any leafy greens in any combination you feel fanciful about.

However, it’s best to avoid acidic juices like lemons, limes and cranberries (pH 2 to 2.8), apples, oranges pineapples, peaches, pears, strawberries and blueberries (pH 3.3 to 4.6).

o A morning drink of something fresh and non-acidic is a good kicker for your fasting day. That means avoiding fruits that have a low to very low pH value such as those mentioned above.

o By midday, grab yourself a cup of fresh vegetable juice. That should be an ideal lunch replacement for your fasting days. Again, refer to the above for more information.

o By mid-afternoon, around 3:00pm, make yourself a cup of herbal tea. The emphasis is on the word ‘herbal’ because it means there is no caffeine content.

o By the time evening washes over your day, grab some vegetable broth (congee). You can let someone else eat the vegies while you take the broth. To prepare the broth, boil some carrots and diced potatoes in water but don’t add salts or oils. If you like, you can buy frozen mixed vegetables from your local supermarket and use them instead. That way, you can also have green peas.

· To help maintain a constant focus throughout the day, print out relevant Scripture verses on loose sheets of paper and then have them pinned (or bluetacked) around the house as reminders of why you’re fasting. These verses may or may not have anything directly to do with fasting but they should relate to why you’re doing it in the first place.

· If you’re the type that must have a constant hit on snacks and small meals throughout the day, replace them with prayer when you feel peckish. Pray in a way that you can set yourself to improve. Use prayers to distract you from the things that right now, mean nothing to you.

· If you’re a parent with young children, it is important to let them know you’re fasting and why. Explain what fasting is and why it is important that Christians practise this every now and then or when there is a great need to align our focus on God. And, no, you don’t have to have your kids fast with you especially if they’re on the young side.

· Another means of avoiding thoughts of eating is to do reading for edification purposes. You might want to put on some worship music and sing along with it to while the time away.

Precautionary measures to take

· When you fast, your body can and often will weaken to some degree. However that’s definitely not the time to hit the gym and do a serious workout. Neither should you be jogging either. Not even for half a lap. When you’re fasting, it’s a good time to get plenty of rest so that your body can better cope. In other words, no hero activities, please.

· Although it’s tempting to think of fasting as a nice way to bring our weight down, refrain because having such thoughts will only cause you to lose all the spiritual significance behind your actions. There will then be no sincerity behind your fasting. Losing meaning and purpose will not help you to accomplish anything spiritual in the end.

· When you break your fast (be it in the evening or the afternoon), don’t go ordering the whole menu. You might feel like eating a horse but you can’t. And you shouldn’t. To understand why this is not a good idea, you must know that when you fast, your digestive tract is at rest but by the time fasting ends (presumably quite some many hours later), it will have become quite sensitive.

In its sensitised state, an incorrect breaking of fast will add great stress to your digestive system. As a matter of fact, incorrect breaking of fast can cause your body to gain weight even more rapidly than the rate by which you lose it. In other words, it is not a healthy dietary habit to adopt.

The best way to properly break a fast is to consume juices, raw fruits and/or vegies. As for solid foods, which you no doubt crave after a bout of fasting, these need to be slowly reintroduced. The general rule of thumb is to spend half the length of your fast on gradually bringing back solid foods.

For example, if you’re on a three-day fast, then take 1½ days to slowly bring back solids into your diet. This way, you don’t burden your already sensitised digestive tract.

· Be aware that diarrhoea can occur after you return solids to your diet even if it’s been days since you completed your fast. In fact, some seasoned fasters experience this quite frequently. This is because your digestive tract, having rested and become inactive, is suddenly overwhelmed by a great lot of food in such a short space of time.

Since the tract is inactive, there will be little to no enzymes present to help cope with the digestion. In other words, you’re forcing your body to do something that it’s not ready or primed for after a spell of inactivity.

Good reference points:

Oz, Dr Mehmet (n.d.) 10 Simple Habits That Could Help You Live to 100 (Doctoroz.com); refer to back page for details

Rubin, Kathryn (Oct 2011) Top 5: Best Foods to Break the Fast On (The Jerusalem Post, Jerusalem, Israel); refer to back page for details

Watson, Katherine (n.d.) Guidelines for Breaking a Fast – Introduce Foods Carefully and Gradually is Key (All About Fasting… for Health and Healing); refer to back page for details

· If you’re doing a Partial Fast (or the Daniel Fast) where you’re consuming exclusively juices, be forewarned that if this is your first time in a long while (or if at all), you may experience some dizzy spells. So don’t go driving your car or operate machinery immediately.

· Fasting for some people may involve body tissue breakdown and/or loss of electrolytes. If you’re concerned about this, you should consult your personal doctor and seek his advice before you commit to a fast.

· If you have any medical conditions concerning eating disorders (eg. anorexia, bulimia etc.) of whatever kind, you should not be fasting at all. Even if you’re prone to the occasional diarrhoea, don’t. If you have deteriorating kidney or liver condition, simply do not fast.

In fact, if you have any physical condition that requires you to undertake regular prescribed medication, you really need to be serious about whether or not you should be fasting. But of course, discuss this with your doctor beforehand.

· Never ever gloat when you fast. Don’t think you’re holier than those who don’t fast. If you’re ever in doubt as to why you shouldn’t do that, read Matthew 6:17 to remind yourself.

Loving as God Loves

2019-06-23T07:00:00.000+07:00

Loving as God Loves

Based on Matthew 5:43-48

June 23 2019

Khen Lim

Source: olsterwijk-marketgarden.com

The time was September 1944. The place was Arnhem, Holland. Allied airborne forces were looking to capture a very important bridge here in what was an error-filled Operation Market Garden. This is the story of a remarkable man, Major Robert Cain (1909-1974) who did the unthinkable in what was the most improbable of escapes, turning it into the unlikeliest of triumphs.

Major Cain commanded the B Company of the 2nd South Staffordshire Regiment, which was a glider-based unit of Britain’s 1st Airborne Division. On a mission to fight the Germans, his men landed eight miles off from the Bridge at Arnhem in a place called Ultrechtseweg.

Here, the British 2nd Battalion were in a desperate fight to hold on to the Dutch north end but then disaster struck. Cain found themselves in an ambush together with the A Company just beyond the Municipal Museum. Brandishing Stug III self-propelled guns, the Nazis blunted Cain’s mission, leaving 300 of his soldiers dead including two of his closest friends.

Source: quora.com

Finding himself in a hollow in the slope just outside the Museum and under constant tank fire, he only had PIATs with them since they were all quite lightly armed. These were Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank man-portable weapons.

Together with him was Lieutenant Georges Dupenois, the commander of B Company’s Nr 12 Platoon. Together, they held off the Germans for a good two to three hours until their PIAT ammunition dried up but beyond that, things became untenable and they had to withdraw. Otherwise, they would all be in a “death trap.”

By this time, most of Cain’s men were either killed or wounded or taken prisoners. In fact, things got so bad that the A and B Companies of the 2nd South Staffords had ceased to exist. With what’s left of his men, he took the reins of the C Company and secured the high ground near Den Brink but even so, the Germans spotted them and shelled them into submission with mortars.

Worse, the ground was so thick with roots that it proved almost impossible to dig in. Summarily even more of his men were killed or seriously wounded. By now, German tanks had begun to pummel them, forcing Cain to pull back further.

This time, they retreated from Arnhem and made their way to Oosterbeek. There, he led the mixed parties that were assembled near the church not far from the river. Among them were Cain’s remaining 100 men from his depleted 2nd South Staffords.

It didn’t take long for the Germans to continue their assault as they now attempted to cut Cain’s men off from the river. As simple as that may sound, it was a serious dilemma for the Brits. Either Cain continued to fight to the end or he could surrender. He had lost so many of his men by now and it was only a matter of time for him and his remnant battalion to eventually meet their death. Or at least that was how it looked to most observers especially after he had lost another forty men.

To make things look completely impossible, they were the last bastion at a village that was completely surrounded by over 6,000 enemy soldiers backed by tanks, rocket launchers and at least 100 heavy guns. But he refused to submit to the Germans.

Source: Flickr

As the Germans tightened their grip around the village, Cain wrestled a PIAT and took on the approaching tanks. With an artillery officer hiding in a nearby house providing him with information, he lobbed almost fifty bombs in the direction of the German tanks. Although some of the bombs would have hit the tank, it managed to fire at the house and killed the officer and then caused the chimney to collapse, almost taking Cain along with it.

Next, he crawled to the corner of his trench and saw another Stug self-propelled gun coming down the road towards them along with a second tank. From thirty yards out, he fired his PIAT and damaged its tracks. The tank retaliated but missed him.

With all the smoke and dust thrown up by the tank blocking his view, Cain didn’t take long to fire his second PIAT bomb, which again prompted a furious response from the enemy that is, until a 75mm Howitzer was somehow available to finish it off with an armour-piercing round. Cain made no mistake in killing off the tank crew who were trying to escape the blazing tank.

Turning his attention to a third tank within his proximity, he quickly engaged it with his PIAT but the bombs exploded in front of his face. The impact threw him backwards and caused him to be temporarily blind. It was a miracle that he survived the explosion. Once he recovered, he shouted for someone to get a PIAT and finish the tank off, which they did.

In an incredible turn of events, the Germans have had enough and backed off from their assault, returning to where they came from. It was only then things became clear that in a rather spectacular fashion, Cain had single-handedly destroyed three highly formidable Tiger tanks, while standing in the open.

He had swiftly turned a completely unwinnable certain-death defence into a lethal counterattack that was ferocious enough to thwart the Germans and in their hasty withdrawal, the chance was available for his men to safely escape over the Rhine under night cover.

Source: Tynwald.org.im

By the end of the Battle for Arnhem, Major Robert Cain was reportedly responsible for destroying or maiming a total of six tanks of which four, and not three, were the dreaded Tigers not to forget also a fair number of self-propelled Stug III guns. For his incredible courage and valour, he was awarded the Victoria Cross, which cited his responsibility and leadership in not ceding ground but instead, successfully drove the Germans off in complete disarray.

The Cross was, of course, the highest and most prestigious award ever to be given for gallantry. And what is perhaps a sobering thought was that in its 149-year history, only one in ten of the 1,354 recipients of the Cross lived to be honoured with one. That is because the awardees were usually posthumously decorated.

Jesus’ radical idea of love

This is a truly moving story but in today’s millennial culture, it begs the question of what it takes to be a hero in many people’s eyes. As the Second World War begins to recede away from view and even many of the school history books, it is becoming increasingly easier to forget who people like Major Cain was and what heroics they did with their lives. It’s even easier to think that many of today’s celebrities are deservedly considered heroes.

Source: vt.co

There are many who adore people like the Kardashians. Or even the pot-dulled Mars-bound Elon Musk. Or the destructive socialist Ocasio-Cortez. It’s not difficult to find fans who still clamour for the Clintons or even the Obamas. Or those who think the world of Hollywood’s catalogue of über liberal A-graders, none of whom have any idea of the sacrifices made by heroes like Major Cain much less understand the significance of democracy and freedom in light of the world wars fought and won by the Allies.

You really want to wonder who today’s heroes are as far as your friends are concerned. If you’re married, what about your children? Or grandchildren? Whose posters do they pin on their bedroom walls? Whose jerseys do they wear every day? Whose movies do they clamour to watch all the time? Who do they imitate? What kind of people are they inspired by and aspire to emulate? In fact, who do we hope our children want to be like in their lives?

Without a doubt, war heroes like Major Robert Cain garners more than just a simple mention. He and many others who fought in the war are justifiably hero status. That’s because these were the people who paid the ultimate sacrifice. Remember Jesus said:

“There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friend.” (Jn 15:13, NLT)

There is no question that when Jesus revealed this to His disciples, it was considered a very radical idea. But then so is this:

“‘You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbour’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For He gives His sunlight to both the evil and the good and He sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.’” (Mt 5:43-48, NLT)

Here, Jesus lays down the precise steps to becoming a real hero. And in these steps, He has called us to go beyond even giving our lives to save a friend or putting our lives on the line for a neighbour or fighting to defend our country. He has redefined heroism by calling us to a lifestyle that the world has no idea of.

In the above passage, Jesus begins by reminding those who have heard it from the Pharisees. According to their teachings, loving one’s neighbour must come with hating one’s enemy. Jesus refutes the second part, correcting it to, “loving your enemies” as well. He goes further by asking us to do the following five things:

Pray for those who persecute us

In other words, we are to be concerned for those who do terrible things to us just because we are Christians. Despite the suppression and whatever repressive things our persecutors inflict upon us, we need to think prayerfully about their actions and seek God to bless them instead. In other words, we should not pray that God will punish them.

Behave as “true children of your Father in heaven”

We are called to conduct ourselves to be children of God in the truest sense of what the relationship means. To be true children means to be righteous like Him, to be holy like Him and to be forgiving just like He is forgiving towards us.

Love those who don’t love us

This is the radical part where we are to dismiss the Pharisaic claim that we must hate our enemies. Instead, Jesus calls on us to show love even to those who don’t care about or think lovingly of us. We all know it’s easy to love those who love us but He challenges us to do beyond what “corrupt tax collectors” do. Jewish culture then considered “tax collectors” as heinous and godless people whom they disassociate with.

Be kind to those who are unkind to us

No less radical is Jesus’ call to us to be kind even when people are unkind to us. Saying that even the pagans are kind to one another, we now need a much higher benchmark to extend our kindness to everyone and not just to those who feel the same about us.

Be perfect just as our heavenly Father is perfect

This is Jesus reminding us that we are not only created in the Father’s image but that He holds us to a much higher standard than anyone or anything else. Because we are created in His image, it means that our behaviour has to be a reflection of His. We are to pursue an image that others can see God in.

Should we hate our enemies?

According to the Pharisees, without a question we must hate our enemies because they hate us. This is clearly laid out in Matthew 5:43, which says exactly that:

“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” (Mt 5:43, NLT)

There are two things that are fundamentally – and deliberately – wrong with this advice. Firstly, the Pharisees had narrowed the meaning of the word ‘neighbour’ and secondly, they have distorted God’s use of the word ‘hatred.’ We shall look more deeply into these two issues.

The word ‘neighbour’ has been intentionally narrowed to only referring to the Pharisees’ fellow Israelites. And so to “love your neighbour” would specifically mean to only show love to their own kind but not to others. As for the others, the Pharisees suggested that the Israelites must then hate.

In this command, the Pharisees are basically commanding the Israelites to love one another but consent to their hatred for anyone else who wasn’t their “neighbour.” That is why when Jesus broached on the subject of love and the neighbour, one of the Pharisees prodded by asking, “Who is my neighbour?” in a bid to trap and embarrass Him.

The apostle Luke recorded this event in the Gospel to show how the Pharisee had sought to justify his own position. By restricting its definition, he could ‘prove’ that it was right to narrow the scope of love to only themselves but not the others. In other words, the Pharisee was looking for a technical comeuppance but he was getting none of that from Jesus.

Source: youtube.com

To answer him, Jesus related the Parable of the Good Samaritan:

“‘A Jewish man was travelling from Jerusalem down to Jericho and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up and left him half dead beside the road. By chance, a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there but he also passed by on the other side.

“Then a despised Samaritan came along and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn where he took care of him. The next day, he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.

“Now which of these three would you say was a neighbour to the man who was attacked by bandits?’ Jesus asked. The man replied, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’” (Lk 10:30-37, NLT, m.e.)

Jesus showed the Pharisee himself that the neighbour isn’t necessarily a fellow Israelite. In the Parable, He underlined that the neighbour was anyone who demonstrated mercy. More specifically, he was anyone within his circle of influence or anyone who is within the position to help another person.

Regardless of creed, colour, race or religion, a neighbour doesn’t even have to be anyone who has shown you love in the past. In fact, he can even be someone who has hurt you before. In other words, if a person helps you, he is your neighbour and by that, you are to love him as yourself.

As for the part that says, “hate your enemy,” the Pharisees misused God’s hatred for evil and directed it to personal enmity against one another. Here’s one instance:

“When the Lord your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy. You must not intermarry with them. Do not let your daughters and sons marry their sons and daughters for they will lead your children away from me to worship other gods. Then the anger of the Lord will burn against you and He will quickly destroy you. This is what you must do. You must break down their pagan altars and shatter their sacred pillars. Cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols.” (Dt 7:2-5, NLT, m.e.)

In the above passage, Moses was describing God’s instructions against the Canaanite nations. There is no question that God hated them. According to the details given, it was the worshipping of other gods – idols, in other words – that bothered God tremendously. For that, He made it specific that the Canaanites must be completely destroyed.

Without a doubt, God’s mercy is not evident here. There is no reason to believe that the “love your enemy” suggestion works here. On the other hand, it’s quite easy to see that such a passage works very well with the Pharisees interpretation of hating one’s enemy. But we have to be able to discern something else here.

God’s commands to destroy Canaan is unique at an extraordinary time in history. This is not something we can apply in our persona lives. Instead, this was a ‘holy war’ in which God was judging a nation of people who defiantly chose to commit to idolatry. This was a war of God that was clearly against a world of increasing corporate idol worship.

Yet, despite such hatred shown against the Canaanites (as an example of such nations), it wasn’t God’s idea that His own people would also hate their own personal enemies. The Bible is clear in the view that God takes no pleasure or delight in putting anyone, even the wicked, to death. When He makes such special commands, just like He will in the Last Days, these are unique in the sense that they are on a national level, which is a different scope to hating our own enemies on a personal level.

Other than Deuteronomy, the Pharisees would have delved into another one. Let’s try Psalm 139:

“O God, if only You would destroy the wicked! Get out of my life, you murderers! They blaspheme You; Your enemies misuse Your Name. O Lord, shouldn’t I hate those who hate You? Shouldn’t I despise those who oppose You? Yes, I hate them with total hatred, for Your enemies are my enemies.” (Ps 139:19-22, NLT, m.e.)

By comparison, the passage in Deuteronomy is tame compared to this one. Often referred to as an example of an Imprecatory Psalm because they invoke judgement, calamity or curses upon one’s enemies or those regarded as enemies of God, the Pharisees could also have used any one of the others including Psalms 5, 6, 11, 12, 35, 37, 40, 52, 54, 56, 58, 79, 83, 137 and 143. All of them carry sufficient venom because they call down deadly curses on God’s enemies whoever they may be.

These psalms don’t sound anything like loving our enemies. They are hardly encouraging or inspiring in that sense. But like the one in Deuteronomy, these do not talk about neither do they refer to our personal enemies. They have nothing to do with the kinds of enemies we make in our daily lives. They are also not relevant to people who decide we are their enemies. Either way, they don’t apply.

What this means is that they have nothing to do with hatred for our personal enemies. They cover exclusively God’s enemies. In other words, they do not talk about hating our personal enemies, which is where the Pharisaic position is all wrong. It’s not that because someone hates me, I must then count him to be my enemy.

That may be the Pharisee’s viewpoint but that’s not what Jesus calls us to do. It is that someone hates God in which case, I do not consider him my friend. I am not to hate those who hate me. I only have no liking for those who hate God.

In some Bible translations, the term ‘perfect hatred’ is used in Psalm 139. While the word ‘hatred’ refers to a feeling of destructiveness as in being malicious, hostile, envious or in strife, Perfect Hatred points to the things that God hates that we also share. Because God hates sin, we are to hate sin.

But on the other hand, we are not to hate or be hateful towards others in return (Mt 7:12, 1 Pt 2:22-23). This is because this form of hatred does not belong to God nor does it define Him. Instead this is the hatred the world teaches and even encourages.

Remember that Jesus said that anger (or hatred) in the heart is a prelude to murder. John Stott once said, “There is such a thing as perfect hatred, just as there is such a thing as righteous anger. But it is a hatred for God’s enemies, not our own enemies.”

It’s also important to understand that we have no knowledge as to whether a person who professes to be God’s enemy will or won’t come to Christ by hearing and knowing the Gospel. That’s Jesus’ way of telling us to love all our enemies by praying for them to come to know Him.

Christ’s love for the enemy

Ed McClully, Pete Fleming and Jim Elliot (Image source: starrycluster.wordpress.com)

Almost exactly four years ago, in June 2015, a retired missionary, Elisabeth Elliot passed away at the age of 88. But to evangelical Christians who held her in the highest regard, she was a legendary inspirer who did the unthinkable in 1958 by returning to the savage tribe of Waoranis and ministered to them, fully aware that her missionary husband was brutally murdered by them.

Elisabeth’s young husband, Jim Elliot, was one of five missionaries who fleshed out their dream of going to the rainforests of eastern Ecuador to spread the Gospel to a tribe of American Indians who were known for their intolerance and violence.

Commonly referred to as ‘Aucas’ (meaning ‘violent’), the initial reception in January 1956 was cordial when the missionaries – Nate Saint, Pete Fleming, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully and Jim himself – landed on a beach along the Curaray River and made camp.

“Biti miti punimupa,” Jim and the rest would have said when they met the Aucas for the first time to mean “I like you, I want to be your friend.” It was straight out of the Waorani textbook, meant to be a friendly icebreaker and a way to bring a message of love and salvation to a tribe notoriously infamous for having killed all outsiders who were caught in their area.

Nate, the missionary-cum-supply pilot, thought of the idea of lowering a bucket filled with supplies to people on the ground while flying above them so as to offer gifts to the Aucas without endangering his fellow missionaries. They’d especially use an amplifier to speak out friendly Aucas phrases.

Months followed before there was a breakthrough in communications. This was when the Aucas returned a gift offering, which they placed in the bucket dropped down by Nate. Inspired by the sudden turn of events, Jim and the others felt it was time to finally meet the Aucas face-to-face. And so after the beach landing, they erected a tree house as a safe measure in case contact was still hostile.

Source: karencone.org

Nate then proceeded to fly over the Aucas’ village and made the invitation to meet at the beach. Four days later, an Auca man and two women emerged from the rainforest and despite the communication difficulties, they managed to share a meal together. Every effort was made to extend friendship to the tribal members with invitations to bring others the next time.

On the sixth day, two Auca women came. Excited, Jim and Pete waded across the river, rushing to meet them except that when they got close enough, it appeared that they weren’t friendly. It was then that they heard a terrifying cry coming from behind them. It sounded like a war cry. That’s when they saw a group of Auca warriors armed with spears, preparing to launch at them.

Due to some inexplicable miscommunication in which the tribe misconceived to be a threat, the Aucas decided that the missionaries were hostile. Even though Jim had carried a gun for safety and had reached for it, he somehow hesitated. Though he thought to, he knew he couldn’t use it.

Before they set off on their mission to Ecuador, each of the missionaries had promised they would not kill an Auca who did not know Jesus to save himself from being killed. Within seconds of encountering one another, the Auca warriors threw their spears, killing all the missionaries: Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, Nate Saint, Pete Fleming and Jim Elliot.

Late the following afternoon, January 8, Jim’s wife, Elisabeth, waited by the two-way radio, looking forward to hearing from her husband and Nate. They were to discuss how things had fared and what the plan was moving from that point.

But no call came and as evening turned to nightfall, the wives had become worried for they knew the omen wasn’t good. After all, they were dealing with the Aucas and from what everyone knew of this tribe, no news was not good news.

Source: youtube.com

The next morning, another missionary pilot decided to fly over the beach in search of the men. What he saw was a badly damaged plane beached by the river mouth, looking deserted and beyond easy repair. On his return, news quickly spread around the world of the five missing missionaries. Eventually, the U.S. government despatched a search team to the same area where they found the five spear-pierced bodies.

It would be predictable for most people to assume that Operation Auca would’ve failed and subsequently be abandoned as a result of the deaths of the missionaries. But that didn’t happen.

Hardly two years after their deaths, Elisabeth Elliot including her 3-year-old daughter, Valerie, and Rachel (Nate’s sister) decided to move to the Auca village. Presumably, this would not have been without people desperately trying to discourage them from their decision. The feeling was that they would meet the same fate as the five missionaries.

Source: maf-uk.org

However the result of their decision was nothing should of stunning. From the efforts of Elisabeth and Rachel, many Aucas had come to Christ through the sharing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. From their message of love and salvation, they became a friendly tribe.

Today, missionaries including Nate’s son and his family, still inhabit among the Aucas. Elisabeth herself even helped to make a movie about Operation Auca called ‘Through Gates of Splendour,’ showing real-life scenes of the five missionaries on the beach with friendly Aucas prior to their untimely demise.

There were also footages of the two years in which she spent with her toddler daughter living in rain-swept huts in an Auca village at the foothills of the Andes, subsisting on barbecued monkey limbs and other local fare.

It’s very hard to imagine how these two women could share the Word with the very men (and women) who had killed their husband and brother but because of their boldness and loving witness, many of the Aucas turned to Christ. Beyond any shadow of doubt, Elisabeth and Rachel truly understood Jesus’ words in this passage – love your enemies.

During his short life, Jim had longed for more people to become missionaries but in his tragic and untimely death, however, he came to inspire even more people to go on missions – even dangerous ones – just to share the love of Jesus than he ever could have done in life.

In his death, he and Elisabeth inspired so many to understand Christ’s definition of love that surpasses hate and anger. Fuelled with true forgiveness covered in love and kindness, the Aucas experienced Christ in a way totally unimaginable by a world so wrought in enmity.

The Bible contradicts the Pharisees

Source: christianitymalaysia.com

One would assume that the Pharisees’ stand on loving your neighbour but hating your enemy would have been anchored on lessons embedded in the Old Testament but that is not true. As we have seen earlier in the deliberate distortions applied to the words ‘neighbour’ and ‘enemy,’ there is enough in the Old Testament to negate the Pharisaic standpoint.

In looking at the Pharisee’s focus on how the trap was laid on Jesus by forcing Him to ‘identify’ the neighbour, we come to the point in Leviticus where the issue isn’t so much who but how:

“Do not stand idly by when your neighbour’s life is threatened. I am the Lord. Do not nurse hatred in your heart for any of your relatives. Confront people directly so you will not be held guilty for their sin. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord. (Lev 19:16b-18, NLT, m.e.)

What is evident in the above passage is that it does not emphasise on who the neighbour is. It seems God has no interest whatsoever in properly identifying any specific person or race or ethnicity. In that sense therefore, who the neighbour is, is immaterial and unimportant. What is more important is how you are to love your neighbour and Scripture affirms that you love as you do yourself.

As for the Pharisees’ decision to hate one’s enemy, at least two passages in the Bible will reject that standpoint. Both instruct us under no uncertain terms that we are to be good to our enemies:

“If you come upon your enemy’s ox or donkey that has strayed away, take it back to its owner. If you see that the donkey of someone who hates you has collapsed under its load, do not walk by. Instead, stop and help.” (Ex 23:4-5, NLT, m.e.)

That doesn’t sound like God wants us to hate our enemies. Considering that this is from one of Judaism’s most important books in the Bible, it is hard to understand how the Pharisees could have missed this. It is clear that whoever the enemy is – whether he is someone from our own stock or not – we cannot be hateful. Instead, God says we are to be of assistance. The following verses aren’t any different:

“If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat. If they are thirsty, give them water to drink. You will heap burning coals of shame on their heads, and the Lord will reward you.” (Prov 25:21-22, NLT, m.e.)

People often say, “With friends like these, who needs enemies?” In other words, some friends can be nasty enough for them to blur the distinction between themselves and our enemies. Friends can be so unfriend-like that they might as well be our enemies.

In the case of the above, when we treat our enemies like our friends, then, the better question is, “Who needs friends?” If we do not distinguish between what constitutes an enemy from a friend, then it is true that we don’t exactly need any additional definitions. In a world where we treat everyone with love, there is no longer any need for social distinctions. There will be no enemies. Neither will there be friends. Simply because both are the one and the same. That is Christ’s love.

Christ’s love for the enemy, Part Two

Source: faz.net

This is the story of a Lutheran pastor called Uwe Holmer. Set in the years towards the final stages of the Cold War (1947-1991), it tells a powerful story of love and forgiveness, the two most potent antidotes to hate, and the nullification of the enemy attitude.

Born in 1929, Uwe Holmer undertook theology when he was 19 years of age with the dream of becoming a pastor. This he did, leading a small Christian community just outside of East Berlin, caring for the mentally challenged, the elderly, the infirmed and also those who were afflicted with epilepsy. By this time, Nazi Germany had since collapsed with the cessation of the Second World War. In its place was a Communist-ruled East Germany and the beginning of the Cold War.

Under Communism, religion was at best tolerated but generally frowned upon by the leaders to the extent that no one would openly practise Christianity because no one was welcomed to. Holmer would invariably find himself at odds with the Communist leadership helmed by the General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED* in short), Erich Honecker (1912-1994). It’s a miracle that neither Honecker nor any of his henchmen saw reason to have him disposed of or even despatched to some labour camp.

* Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands

Like most East Germans, Holmer’s family was a victim of Communist persecution. For him, he tried as many as eight times to try to get his eight of his ten children enrolled at the local university in East Berlin. Eight times, the Ministry of Education turned him down. It was, of course, not in its jurisdiction to have to explain themselves why but it wasn’t too difficult to guess.

Source: ndr.de

As a Lutheran pastor stationed in Lobetal, an East Berlin suburb, his faith was hardly popular with the Communist regime; in this case, the Ministry of Education was led for 26 years by none other than Honecker’s wife, Margot.

Being the man solely responsible for the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, Honecker was just as unpopular with the masses. With the Wall dividing German families from being reunited, many would have had axes to grind and emotional accounts to settle.

None would have been sympathetic when the Wall finally came down in November 38 years later amidst a stunning wave of democratic reforms that swept across eastern Europe including the Soviet Union.

Deposed as the country’s leader, the Honeckers found themselves homeless after they were booted out of their official residence, a luxury apartment in the Waldsiedlung housing area in Wandlitz, an exclusive suburb of palatial homes meant exclusively for the senior SED party members.

But it wasn’t just that. As the country’s most deeply resented and hated political figures, the Honeckers had nowhere to go and no one wanted them near their homes. Apparently even their daughter made no suggestion to join her family.

Friendless and with no resources to bank on, he and his wife were essentially persona non grata (stateless). And now, they were also beginning to feel the weight of criminal prosecution as cases mounted against Honecker’s earlier involvement in the callous killing of East Germans.

Source: faz.net

At the same time, he had become physically sick and weak. Other than kidney problems, Honecker was diagnosed with cancer of the liver and badly needed all the help he could muster even if that meant seeking it from those whom he and his wife had long persecuted.

By now, even the Communist party had turned their back on them. But help ultimately did come and quite unbelievably from the unlikeliest people – Pastor Uwe Holmer and his wife.

Consider Holmer’s ordeal under Honecker. Apart from having further education denied for his children, he also had his phone tapped so that Communist authorities could listen in on his conversations. Having his personal right to travel around the country denied, Honecker made sure he couldn’t attend his father’s funeral.

All his mail correspondences were closely monitored where letters were brazenly opened at will. And of course, Holmer’s family members were constantly harassed by the authorities who took it upon themselves to make life as difficult as possible.

But now, oh, how the tables had turned. The persecutor was now a hunted man. He was homeless and increasingly facing exile from his own homeland. In his sickly condition, he was also likely to go to jail if not executed for his crimes against humanity. And Holmer and his family had every reason to hate Honecker for the man he was towards them.

It would have been perfectly understandable had he turned his back and walked away. After all, it wasn’t his problem that the ex-leader and his wife were facing serious predicaments that were their own doing. But he didn’t turn his back on them. In their hour of dire need, Holmer and his family’s action taught them a powerful lesson in Christian compassion, forgiveness and love.

Source: bz-berlin.de

Looking back after all these years, Honecker’s wife Margot in a 2012 interview revealed no remorse to her actions as the former East German first lady. Breaking a longstanding silence since the dissolution of East Germany, she continued to idealise a “lost nation,” calling it a “tragedy” that it has conceded its sovereign validity to the forces of democracy.

She showed no understanding, let alone compassion or regret, for those whom her husband had killed for attempting to escape to the West. As to any sense of contrition or guilt for their past actions, she said, “It didn’t touch me at all. I have a thick skin.”

In contrast with that was a pastor and his wife who clearly understood Christ’s concept of love. Like Elisabeth Elliot, they knew and felt called to love their enemies. After all, how much bigger an enemy is there than people like the Honeckers? For those who remember the repression of living under Communist rule, the Honeckers were monstrous.

Contrary to expectations, the Holmers offered their vicarage to the ex-leader and his wife on the last day of January 1990. Their actions were, of course, completely misinterpreted. Not only that no one felt it the right thing to do but no one understood why anyone would do something like this.

Source: gettyimages.fr

Public discontent erupted with many protesting raucously outside their home. Their phone didn’t stop ringing with many venting their anger and issuing deadly threats. It got so unmanageable that the police couldn’t guarantee their safety. Even church members became disillusioned enough to halt their offerings.

The condemnation was widespread across the whole of East Germany. For the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg that assisted the Honeckers, there was much recrimination and condemnation with public hue and cry.

After all, they have long been held responsible for the discrimination and persecution of Christians throughout East Germany especially those who did not conform to the Communist regime’s ideological practices. The fact that the Honeckers stayed at the Holmers’ residence until April 3 (of the same year) didn’t help.

With all that appeared seemingly wrong with Holmer’s gesture to the deposed anti-Christian Communist leader, the uproar was palpable and didn’t appear to quell. In fact, it wouldn’t have been surprising had the incensed public become uncontrollable enough to cause deep fractures within the Christian community. It was obviously time for someone to act but there wasn’t any surety as to who would be best fit to explain let alone pacify such an unsettled lot.

It was then that Holmer wrote to the local newspaper. In the letter, he wrote in German, “In Lobetal, there is a sculpture of Jesus inviting people to Himself and crying out, ‘Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.’”

“We have been commanded,” he continued, “by our Lord Jesus to follow Him and to receive all those who are weary and heavy laden, in spirit and in body but especially the homeless… What Jesus asked His disciples to do is equally binding on us.”

And with that, we are witness to the power of Christ’s love. And that love fully extends to our enemies. Holmer’s reaction to the one person who prevented his children from attending university was to offer him and his wife refuge at a time when it was the most deeply unpopular thing to do.

Holmer’s action was undergirded by the power of Christ and not mere humanitarian spirit. To care for an enemy like Honecker requires far more than doing the politically correct thing. It requires something far more out of this world, a kind of spiritual guidance and strength that can only be found in the Word of God.

Romans 13 is also another good vantage point to gain a better understanding of this. The day might come for each of us where we must choose to either stand up and do what Christ calls us to or just go with the flow as far as public sentiments are concerned. In other words, we either follow the Lord’s hand and cede to divine inspiration or be consumed by a worldly mindset.

Christ’s love for the enemy, Part Three

Image source: thestoryofliberty.homestead.com

Pastor Christian Führer (1943-2014) of Leipzig’s St Nikolai Church reminded us of a past darkened by almost unbearable tension between the communist East and the democratic West. The Cold War had cruelly sliced the once-proud Germany into halves, dividing families and breaking hearts. It was a sobering time for many who thought then that an already-broken Germany could set the stage for the Third World War within a space of a few decades.

One must understand that this was once a time when the East German communist authorities had vastly upped police-state controls by way of the cruel Stasi, its secret police, unleashing a brand of brutality Germans equated to the Gestapo of the Third Reich. In fact, many thought it was worse – this was unseen oppression clouded by masses of suspicion and mistrust.

Set against this backdrop in 1981, Führer made his church available to young people who were looking to express their frustration and anxieties. Aware of unseen eyes, these gatherings took place late in the evening where people would come and showed concerns over the frailties of peace under communism and the increasing arms race.

Führer initially thought it was going to be less than a handful but as it turned out, more than a hundred appeared, mostly though not exclusively all young but entirely disapproving of Honecker’s government.

With the disenfranchised who had now gathered at his church, Führer brought them to the central altar of the sanctuary where he got them seated on the floor. There, he laid a large roughly hewn wooden cross and placed it on the floor where everyone could encircle it. Then he asked everyone to take a candle, light it and place it around the cross if and when they had a point of concern to raise.

Thinking that this might not go down well with the dissidents, imagine his surprise when farce gave way to collective action as each and every one of them did exactly what he wanted them to.

Source: disappearingman.com

Invariably, what was supposed to be an informal get-off-the-chest dialogue became an incredible prayer meeting in the short history of East Germany (officially then the German Democratic Republic or GDR in short). In no time, the bare wooden cross had glowed with the intense illumination of more than a hundred candles.

No one wanted to leave. From barrenness and hopelessness, all who came to the prayer meeting was filled with the camaraderie of openness and freedom where everyone embraced an unforgettable night. No one foresaw that this would set the tone for even more amazing things that would forever change their lives.

Führer recalled that Jesus was truly present in the sanctuary because “we are trying to do what He did and what He wants us to do today.” And with that, the church doors of St Nikolai Church were thrown open for everyone who felt marginalised by Honecker’s government to come and be accepted into the wide open arms of Christ.

“Come unto Me, everyone who is troubled and burdened and I will relieve you!” And they came and they came!” Führer remembered saying.

From that point onwards, the Evangelical-Lutheran pastor boldly arranged what he called ‘peace prayers’ on the first evening of every week. People would come together and prayed for peace not just for East Germany but for the entire Europe and where conflicts arose.

But that was not all. Those who prayed would walk into the streets, holding candles as witness to peace and freedom that was to come. No one had ever seen let alone experienced such phenomenon in the oppressed land but it offered remarkable inspiration and hope to anyone who felt there was no future whatsoever with Honecker in charge.

Following what everyone knew to be a rigged election in May 1989 with the Communists claiming 98 percent of all cast votes, an outraged public cried out for reform but only to be suppressed by the government. All routes to Führer’s church were blocked in a deliberate plot to hinder access and eliminate its influence.

There was no doubt that Honecker believed that the church was fuelling political dissension and public-wide insurrection. But nothing stopped the people who turned out in even greater numbers.

Source: Associated Press

Hardly half a year later came East Germany’s 40th anniversary of communist rule and with that, the Soviet Union’s President Mikhail Gorbachev was invited to attend the nationwide celebrations in East Berlin alongside Honecker.

Unlike any of his predecessors, Gorbachev decided he’d had enough with socialism’s serious shortcomings and introduced sweeping economic and political changes, which he called Perestroika. Within this repurposing of the communist framework was ‘Glasnost,’ an unheard-of openness in discussions of economic and political realities that were radical for the Soviet Union throughout the 80s and 90s.

Honecker saw all of this as threats to his regime and how he wanted to run East Germany. He also knew that if Gorbachev were to be given full podium to air his views in public, he’d have riots on his hands because what the Russian offered was pretty much what the people had been yearning.

And so to quell public unrests, he had the police batter and bully peaceful and defenceless demonstrators in Leipzig for ten hours straight since that was where Führer’s church was. Despite the violent tactics, no one fought back with countless put into Black Marias and taken away.

Source: flammentanz.tumblr.com

Given the tumultuous events of October, Führer had not stopped with his peace prayers despite government warnings not to incite trouble through “further demonstrations.” Honecker did everything in his power to stop them. Short of a public massacre, he used armed police and the military to instil fear into the people through an intimidating show of force.

He also forced the city into lockdown with the town closed for business and schools shuttered until further notice. He erected roadblocks with stringent checks through all passing traffic. Tanks were very visible as they encircled the city’s central district, baying for blood. Fearing the worst, hospitals throughout Leipzig had filled their stocks of blood plasma and multiplied their supply of beds.

Word went around that Honecker was studying and considering the use of the freshly-minted “Tiananmen Method,” seeing that the Chinese government had ‘effectively’ forced the public to back off in Beijing. It was a massacre no one in Leipzig wanted but for Honecker, it was an interested solution that could work for him. If intimidation didn’t work, mowing down scores of demonstrators might force the public to rethink their demonstrations.

As for Führer’s weekly prayer meetings, Honecker despatched as many as 1,000 SED members including the Stasi secret police in order to ruffle a few people up with the view of scattering them. By early afternoon, there were already 600 people milling around the church.

These were people who had heard the Word. They were exposed to the Gospel and had been impacted by Christ. Quite incredible, Führer could recall, “I was always glad that the Stasi agents heard the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount every Monday. Where else would they hear these?”

And so when Monday prayer service approached, St Nikolai Church became the epicentre of something very unusual. As the centre stage, it couldn’t get any bigger or more important but it was more than that. While there was a huge turnout to pray at the church, there were also other churches throughout the city that experienced the same phenomenon. The peace prayers had truly fanned out beyond just one point.

Even more amazing than the numbers was the sense of peace and calm. Atmosphere at the service was composed if not relaxed. With only standing room around the sanctuary at St Nikolai, Führer reminded everyone to avoid angry confrontations and refrain from provocation or responding to one. In pleading with the congregation to resist violence, he spelled out the Sermon on the Mount once again.

Source: welt.de

As the 2,000-strong congregation opened the church doors that led to the street, they were greeted by a sea of people welcoming them in their midst with candles in their hands. That night, there were some 70,000 fellow East Germans who took to the streets guided by Führer’s reminder to be at peace. Make no mistake about it, there were also a strong presence of the police and military wherever the people quietly marched. But no one was deterred by them.

“Our fear was not as big as our faith. Two hands are needed to carry a candle and to protect it from extinguishing. So you cannot carry stones or clubs at the same time,” Führer said. That would explain how not one window broke (since no one carried stones).

In fact, a government official commented on how well prepared both parties were but even so, the authorities had no idea as to what to expect let alone respond to the night march. But he did say, “We had planned everything. We were prepared for everything. But not for candles and prayers.”

Source: newstatesman.com

A month thereafter, the Berlin Wall finally came down and with it, the entire Communist stronghold over Europe. In a November 2009 article for the Aquila Report, Führer added, “In church, people had learned to turn fear into courage, to overcome the fear and to hope, to have strength. They came to church and then started walking and since they did not do anything violent, the police were not allowed to take action.”

Jesus goes against the grain

“But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For He gives His sunlight to both the evil and the good and He sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Mt 5:44-48, NLT)

The Pharisees taught the Jews to love their neighbours but not their enemies. Hate became a cornerstone of Semitism where anyone who wasn’t a Jew was to be worthy of their hatred. That is the complete antithesis of what the Old Testament has to say, which was to “do good to your enemy.” Between the two opposites, Jesus commands us not only to do good to your enemies but to in fact sincerely love them.

In other words, it’s not an outward action but a deep inward desire to truly care for them to the point where we should pray for their wellbeing in a hope that God will forgive them and bless them.

Remember that our actions are not as important to the Father as what goes on in our hearts and minds. It is our sincere intention that He wants to know because that defines our real motives far more than any outward impression.

Jesus said this in the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew and Luke:

“‘You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!’” (Mt 5:43-44, NLT, m.e.)

“Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.’ And the soldiers gambled for His clothes by throwing dice.” (Lk 23:34, NLT, m.e.)

In the above passage from Luke, Jesus prayed for His enemies, knowing that they had all done wrong by Him. And yet He sought His Father so that He may forgive them of their transgressions. It wasn’t as if Jesus did all this in the knowledge of His enemies. They had no idea that the person whom they sent to His death would ultimately do the very thing that sometimes even best friends don’t do.

As He neared His death, hanging on the cross, He still had the inner resolve to not just pray but to forgive His enemies. Note that He didn’t pray to ask His Father to unleash cruel deaths upon them. His prayer wasn’t about vengeance but of loving forgiveness.

Source: survivalblog.com

In a world of eye-for-an-eye retribution, all this was both radical and unprecedented. Ancient teachings talk more about taking the fight to our enemy with the view to destroying them. It was all about conquest, annihilation, subjugation and possession. It was all about looting what isn’t ours because the victor takes all and the triumphant writes the history books. No one ever cared about the enemy and if he’s fallen, he’s as good as forgotten.

But Jesus turned the table on this ancient dogma and taught about the kind of love that enemies knew nothing about. The Pharisees would have been appalled to learn something so diametric to what they believed in. This was a command that went way beyond the usual statement of love. Jesus wasn’t just asking us not to seek revenge on those who hate and despise us or even those who go out of their way to hurt our feelings.

He went farther by commanding us to actively pursue their goodwill and to love them from deep within our heart. Hence the enemy becomes our neighbour as well and with that, he in turn becomes our friend. So while the haters will drown in their bigotry, Christians are to savour the real meaning of love.

Jesus understands that His command is radical to even stumble some of us. It’s well and good to tell us to love our enemies but how on earth can we do that? What exactly does it even mean or entail? What do you really have to do? Will it be too difficult? Will it ask too much from me? I mean, is it even possible in reality?

Predictably, the Son of God offers us four things to do:

Righteous love: Pray for our persecutors

Jesus said so in Matthew 5:44. Luke also mentioned how Jesus actually did so in 23:34.

“Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.’ And the soldiers gambled for His clothes by throwing dice.” (Lk 23:34, NLT)

Source: charismanews.com

But praying for our persecutors is often easier said than done. In the practical realities of a harsh world, we are all taught to think differently when confronted by our persecutors. At the very least, if we don’t lash out at them or hurt them in return, simple worldly wisdom suggests we should keep our distance and not befriend them. If we don’t talk to them or be involved in whatsoever manner, they can’t keep on harming us.

Yet Jesus’ view is completely different. Unusually different. He commands us to reverse our attitude and instead to love our persecutors. Christian author R.E. Nixon once said, “Persecutors are the most difficult enemies to love.” He’s certainly not wrong. If we can love them the way East German Pastors Christian Führer and Uwe Holmer could, we could draw our inspiration and do the same.

Because the command “love” is in the present tense like the verb “persecute,” the implication here is that this is a continual action that Jesus expects us to carry out. In other words, it’s not a past activity but one where we are called to actively love and pray for our enemies even as they step up their persecution against us.

Another key point to make here is that Jesus asks us to pray for and not against our persecutors:

“‘You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!’” (Mt 5:43-44, NLT, m.e.)

The prepositional difference between ‘for’ and ‘against’ is obviously staggering. To pray for our persecutors mean we are to means to be well-intentioned in our prayers. It means our prayers should demonstrate concern and thoughtfulness, care and kindness. To pray against would be quite the opposite because our prayers are otherwise weaponised to do battle against our enemies. To pray against our enemies is to ask God to not only stop them from harming us but to vanquish them.

When Jesus says to pray for our enemies, He is asking us to bless and not curse them, which is what the imprecatory Psalms are essentially about. With these Psalms, we declare our enmity against the enemies because they hated God in the first place. These aren’t our personal enemies; instead, they are enemies of God. Jesus’ call is in reference to personal enemies, meaning those who have a specific axe to grind with us in our daily lives.

Prayers are the centrepiece that links the victim to the victimiser. They are what brings us together with those who hate us and want to do us harm. To partake in prayer is to possess a love for those we pray for. Without such love, prayers are simply not possible and no matter how hard you try to make it sound like one, they don’t mean anything to God.

Prayers that really work are those that come from deep in our hearts where there is a groundswell of love, all ready to be given to those who hate us. Elisabeth Elliot knew this very well. If she didn’t, she couldn’t possibly have made that trip to the Aucas freshly after knowing that her husband including four others were speared to death by them.

Without prayers, Uwe Holmer couldn’t have possibly justified what he did when he and his wife opened the doors of their vicarage to the once-powerful but now-homeless Honeckers. It would have been just as impossible for Christian Führer to justify sending the congregation out to the streets had it not been his belief that prayers for their persecutors were important.

As each day takes us one step closer to the End Times, persecution will only grow more intense. We have already seen the last number of years where Christians around the world have suffered at the hands of their persecutors in unimaginable ways. While developed nations generally witness persecution through the use of politically and legally-motivated repressive measures, those in Third-World nations experience it in a more gruesome fashion including fire-bombings, beheadings, rapes and genocides.

Prominent Italian sociologist and writer Massimo Introvigne cited statistics that showed that in 2016 alone, more than 90,000 followers of Christ were killed. Overall, an average of 105,000 Christians are killed annually simply for their faith.

Source: telegraph.co.uk

In Communist China where persecution of Christians has been greatly amplified of late, there has been an almost inexplicable explosion in numbers of Chinese who have come to embrace Christ. While there is an estimated 30 million who attend the Three-Self Patriotic Movement Church sanctioned by the government, the numbers who attend the underground illegal house churches are far greater though there’s no telling how many.

American pastor Francis Chan’s view of this explosive growth is that it is founded in Chinese Christians believing that Jesus was enough. And from that point, they were able to make disciples far beyond our imagination even in a country well known for its persecution of Christians.

Chan thinks that the reason behind the unstoppable nature of its underground church growth was that the Chinese were ready to embrace suffering at the hands of their persecutors. On the contrary, churches in the West have stumbled because they are “so stoppable the moment it gets too difficult.”

Central to the Chinese Christians’ embrace of suffering is their willingness to undergo personal sacrifice. They were willing to do the really difficult things. They understood and accept that where Christ was tortured for them, they too are prepared to do that for others.

And more often than not, that also means their prayers would focus on forgiveness of their enemies that they, too, may come to know Christ and embrace Him. For Chan, this fact alone is what separates the Christians in China from those in the West. While the former has come to embrace suffering for the glory of Christ, the latter is still procrastinating.

Such persecution will worsen from one year to the next. One day, it won’t just be China alone. As the world learns to intensify its hate, there will be even greater suffering abound. As Christians, we need to be ready to stand firm, be ready to go into deep intense prayer and be ever ready to love those who persecute us.

Christ’s love for the enemy, Part Four

Source: religionnews.com

The great Charles Spurgeon once told a story during one of his sermons that encapsulates Christ’s love quite perfectly. From his June 1857 sermon comes the following story in his very own words:

“There was once a young man in your position: he had begun to pray, and his father knew it. He said to him, ‘John, you know I am an enemy to religion, and prayer is a thing that never shall be offered in my house.’ Still the young man continued earnest in supplication. ‘Well,’ said the father one day, in a hot passion, ‘you must give up either God or me; I solemnly swear that you shall never darken the threshold of my door again, unless you decide that you will give up praying. I give you until tomorrow morning to choose.’

“The night was spent in prayer by the young disciple. He rose in the morning, sad to be cast away by his friends, but resolute in spirit, that come what might he would serve his God.

“The father abruptly accosted him—‘Well, what is the answer?’

“‘Father,’ he said, ‘I cannot violate my conscience, I cannot forsake my God.’

“‘Leave immediately,’ he said.

“And the mother stood there; the father’s hard spirit had made hers hard too, and though she might have wept she concealed her tears. ‘Leave immediately’ he said. Stepping outside the threshold the young man said, ‘I wish you would grant me one request before I go; and if you grant me that, I will never trouble you again.’

“‘Well,’ said the father, ‘you shall have anything you like, but mark me, you must go after you have had that; you shall never have anything again.’

“‘It is,’ said the son, ‘that you and my mother would kneel down, and let me pray for you before I go.’

“Well, they could hardly object to it; the young man was on his knees in a moment, and began to pray with such unction and power, with such evident love for their souls, with such true and divine earnestness, that they both fell flat on the ground, and when the son rose there they were; and the father said, ‘You need not go, John; come and stop, come and stop;’ and it was not long before not only he, but all of them began to pray and they were united to a Christian Church.

“So do not give way. Persevere kindly but firmly. It may be that God shall enable you not only to have your own souls saved, but to be the means of bringing your persecuting parents to the foot of the cross. That such may be the case is our earnest prayer.”

Live as befitting of our Father’s true children

Source: revderrickkeeter.wordpress.com

“In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For He gives His sunlight to both the evil and the good, and He sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.” (Mt 5:45, NLT)

In learning to love our enemies, we are partaking in a transformation that makes us act like our heavenly Father. In the above passage, God puts it in such a way that one form of action explains He does the things He does. Because He blesses both us and our enemies, He therefore expects us to conduct ourselves in a way that reflects our relationship as “true children” to Him.

As He puts it, He posts sunlight that doesn’t just benefit us but also others just as it is when He sends rain. And that’s the way it is and always has been. God offers His love readily to all without distinction.

The use of “sun” and “rain” in the passage are indicators of God’s blessings. For the Jews whose lunisolar calendar was (and still is) agrarian-based, both the sun and rain – including the moon – were important.

Being so, it is obvious that where crops were concerned, rain would be a significant blessing. It wouldn’t have mattered how it might inconvenience some people so long as agriculturally, it was indispensable. The same applied to the sun, the giver of Life, and the very source of sustenance that only God, its Creator, is capable of raising.

Both the “sun” and the “rain” are divine providence without which the Jews have historically felt life itself was unsustainable. It is such with the sun that the entire order of life and its cyclical existence depends on how it works in accordance to God’s perfect timing. Since He is the Creator, everything to do with its astrological properties is indeed divine.

And so, the mention of the “sun” and the “rain” in the above passage is central to God’s incredible grace. They are also one of life’s most evident proof of blessings that God bestows upon humanity beyond His Chosen people. So although His saving grace is only meant for those who place their trust on the Son of God, His daily blessings are unreservedly for everyone because even unbelievers are His creation. That also includes our enemies.

The very act of loving our enemies isn’t just about winning them over as friends. We don’t know if they will ultimately become friends to us and so we cannot count on that as the motivating reason.

More importantly, our change in conduct reflects more on us being God’s true children because we act like Him. And since we are created in His image, it is only appropriate that our actions and the things we say should be a true reflection of us being the unique creations of His hands.

In God’s dispensation of fairness and justice, God still loves His children including our personal enemies. But that doesn’t mean He tolerates sin. It’s not too difficult to apply that viewpoint to us who are His believers also. As it is said:

“And you must show mercy to those whose faith is wavering. Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgement. Show mercy to still others but do so with great caution, hating the sins that contaminate their lives.” (Jd 11:22-23, NLT, m.e.)

Christian evangelism need to be punctuated with mercy for the sinner and a robust dislike of sin and its deadly effects. In much the same way, God does love the sinner – which includes us as well – but He detests his sins. For Him to love the sinner, it means He is merciful to everyone and not just those who believe in Him:

“As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die?” (Ezek 33:11, NLT, m.e.)

The Book of Romans reveal how even the apostle Paul struggled with sin in ways so humanly relatable to us. He, too, desperately wanted to be freed of sin’s ravaging effects in his own flesh (Rom 7:21-25). If God didn’t hate sin, He wouldn’t have sent His Son to die in our place so that our sins could be forgiven.

But are we to love the sinner? Of course! Luke amplifies this so profoundly with Jesus’ words:

“‘But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you.’” (Lk 6:27-28, NLT, m.e.)

To love the sinner is the same as saying to love someone who is an enemy for it is he who sins or acts wickedly. We shouldn’t escape the irony of this statement because at times, we Christians also behave in sinful ways that make us enemies of others.

In that sense, just as we are called to bless those who wish evil and to pray for them, there will be others who will do the same for us because we, too, are wont to sin from time to time.

Make no mistake here – God does not sugarcoat sin even when it is we who commit and carry it. He calls on all of us to personal repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. As you know, this means we are put in the same basket as our very own personal enemies.

In this way, we can love our enemies and still label their actions as undesirable. Hence, when we show affection for our enemies, we do the thing Jesus calls us to and that is to pray for them as well. Only then can we be considered as true children living in harmony with our heavenly Father.

As Christians, we are to excel in love

Source: crosswalk.com

“If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that.” (Mt 5:46-47, NLT)

It’s a no-brainer – everyone is capable of love, unbelievers or not. Even celebrities tell you that when they’re on stage with a mike in hand before thousands of their adoring fans. Loving someone doesn’t take a lot because for many, it’s just what someone says. Yet of course, there are those who express their love in more genuine terms. They love their family members as well as they love friends, work peers and anyone they care to.

A husband loves his spouse. A mother loves her little girl. A friend loves another friend. There is nothing to stop anyone from loving another person because everyone is entirely capable of it. But that has nothing to do with whether or not the person is saved. In other words, one can love without Christ’s salvation.

But here’s the big rub – Christian love and natural human love aren’t and shouldn’t be the same and that’s because as Christians, we demonstrate affection borne of God’s own lesson in love. Where we are called to be the salt and light to the world (Mt 5:13-16), it means our love for others is incalculably dissimilar. Everyone else loves but Christians love differently and at a magnitude that can only come from knowing Christ.

Jesus was very blunt when He says it’s not a terribly big deal to love those who love us back. Worse, He says “even the tax collectors do that!” In ancient Jewish custom, those who were “tax collectors” were considered heinous and are largely alienated from society.

So to put it simply, Jesus considers loving those who love us is as banal as it is completely insignificant. Hence, there is no reward in something everyone is entirely capable of doing. But there’s more.

Jesus said the same thing about kindness. There’s nothing especially unique if we are only care for those we count as friends simply because everyone – including pagans – do that anyway. Like “tax collectors,” “pagans” or unbelievers are stigmatised in ancient Jewish culture. In other words, even godless people know how to be kind to one another and therefore, it’s not a difficult thing to do.

Christians have to do better than that. We have to reach higher because expectations are higher. In the Gospel According to Matthew, that is precisely what Jesus says:

“…unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Mt 5:20, NLT, m.e.)

Source: smoodock45.wordpress.com

It is a well-known fact that Jesus has no time for the Pharisees. In the Sermon on the Mount, He often alludes to them teaching incorrectly or that they distort His Father’s commandments.

In that sense, He doesn’t hold their views to any high regard for He considers theirs to be of an unacceptable standard. That may or may not be the standard of the world as well but all the same, our righteousness must be “better than” – take that to mean “higher” or “superior” – any unbeliever or worldly person.

So what does “better than” mean? It means that, as Christians, we need to benchmark Christ when it comes to defining love. In that sense, it’s not just mere love but extraordinary love. Forget the mushy, faux, veneered Hollywood-ingrained love. Humans indulge in human love, which may be fine by world standards but as believers, we emulate Christ.

But how do we do this in practice? Well, Scripture does provide insight to this and much of it has to do with how we change ourselves so that the love of Christ may shine from within us.

Firstly, don’t argue with people even if that means having to defend our faith in Christ against those who attack us (Php 2:14). Instead pray and ask God for wisdom to discern the genuine nature of the question in mind.

After all, some are sincere in their desire to want to know while others aren’t really interested. All they want is to put us in our place or simply to keep us at arm’s length. In all of that, we just have to make sure we’re always ready to answer and do so with gentleness and respect:

“…if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it.” (1 Pt 3:15, NLT)

Secondly, pray for those whom you know who need Christ. If you want to love them in the way of Christ, praying that the Holy Spirit convicts them of their sin is a powerful way. Through and by the Holy Spirit, they will be convinced of the truth of the Gospel and from there, they will be saved and the precious gift of eternal life will be theirs.

Thirdly, be sensitive to the feelings of those around you. Know when to speak and when to keep your counsel. To love others the way Christ loves us is to allow Him to open doors for us to speak and when that happens, we must then point them to Him and tell of what He has done for us and in us.

Lastly but not least, be an example of Christ’s love to others. Giving the best sermon is one thing but living a life of Christ is quite another. As they say, talk can be awfully cheap but to act in and for Christ elevates our love to a level that the world knows very little about.

From all of these, the question is whether or not others see Christ in you. Do they see His love in your conduct? Do they experience His patience through the way you fraternise with them? Do they feel His purity in how you respond in times of trials? Do they sense His joy when you share your life with others?

Source: frank-answers.com

Here are just some of what you can do to love others like Jesus:

- Love the person seated in front of you be it on a bus or train or if you’re waiting at a terminal but of course, if you’d like that to happen, you have to get off your smartphone and talk

- Bake a cake or cookies or simply bring food to your neighbour and then engaged in pleasant small talk but do so without bringing up any invitation to your church

- Invite your neighbours over for a cup of afternoon tea but make it simple, informal and chirpy event where everyone can banter, laugh and enjoy without turning it into a Bible study

- Buy some food and hand it to a homeless person by the sidewalk without expecting anything in return and that means no praises and not even a thank you and while you’re at it, give him a hug

- While the kids are doing their activities, refrain from retreating to the car and checking your smartphone but instead, mingle with the other parents and engage in friendly chats

- Volunteer in a soup kitchen to feed the poor and the homeless and commit to it regularly

- Offer to coach your local school sports team so that you can be an inspiration and a source of encouragement to them

- Visit a local hospital and pray for patients who are in need of and who welcome prayers but not before you listen to what they can tell you of their maladies

- Be the bearer of gifts and visit an orphanage and then spend time with the kids by talking to them, listening to whatever they can tell you and then be a source of encouragement to them

Be perfect as your Father is perfect

“…you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Mt 5:48, NLT)

This is the verse that brings to a close this section on loving our enemies. In this part, a good question to ask would be, “How good does a person have to be to go to Heaven?” A short answer is, “You need to be perfect.” Perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. And that means to be completely, totally and morally perfect, the very sense of perfection in loving the way God loves.

Theologian Alfred Plummer (1852-1916) once defined perfect love by saying, “To return evil for good is devilish; to return good for good is human and to return good for evil is divine.” If I hurt you because you hurt me, that’s returning evil for evil. In the equal but opposite direction, I will do good just to reciprocate your goodness.

On the other hand, if I hurt you even though you have been good to me, that’s wicked. But despite being hurt, I still persist in being good to you, that’s love perfected in Christ. That is moral perfection founded on the way we love because God loves.

All that is fine but the little problem we have is that we can never be perfect in this life we live. Burdened by a world creaking under the deadweight of immorality, we are prone to stutter in sin ourselves. That is why Jesus said in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the poor in spirit… blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied” (Mt 5:3, 6, NASB). Because He is well aware that we will stumble and sin.

Source: earstohear.wordpress.com

Danish Christian writer, Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) once told of what he called, “the Parable of the Ducks” but in just as many words, it’s also a story of how we can exceed ourselves. As to why Kierkegaard aimed the story at the church, it is because he often found it to be so forlorn of the teachings of Christ that it was laughable. And with that, he spared nothing in critiquing the church.

What he saw was a clergy that did everything to dilute Jesus’ messages to the extent that it might as well be something completely different. The people themselves were already estranged from the truth. They had long lived lives that were absent of passion and commitment but with a clergy that was essentially ‘reinventing’ the Gospel, it was all Kierkegaard could do to illustrate this through his “parable.” And so he decided to tell a story of a land in the kingdom of ducks where there is a church for ducks.

And Kierkegaard’s parable goes like this:

One Sunday, all the fluffy ducks dutifully tottered their way down the main street and to town church. There, the duck choir sang magnificent hymns accompanied by the chief duck organist at the pipe organ.

After that, the preacher duck went to stand at the pulpit with his bill stuck upright as he began to quack his sermon. Opening his Bible, he flipped to the page where God spoke of His great gift of wings to all ducks.

And with that, the preacher duck said, “With wings, we ducks can fly! We can mount up like eagles and soar the heavens on high!” We can liberate ourselves from the confines of our pens and fences. We can finally get to relish the euphoria of what real freedom feels like!”

And all the ducks cheered so loud that for a moment, it looked like the roof of the church was lifted up.

“Let us all give thanks to God for such a great gift of wings!” the preacher duck exclaimed. In absolute joy, all the ducks present stood up and in a single chorus, gave a hearty “Hallelujah” followed by many instances of “Amen!”

Satisfied that his fellow ducks have now seen the great light, he began to usher them home. The ducks all got up from the pews, turned around… and waddled home.

Kierkegaard’s parable underlines how easy it is to fall into the same mundane trap every day. Remember that Christ called us to rise above mediocrity so that we can present the fullness of our capabilities to Him. None of us was born to live ordinary, meaningless and banal lives with an average existence in mind.

God has bestowed upon each of us a range of different gifts, talents, skills, abilities, intelligence, passion and energy to do extraordinary things. He has given us the raw untapped potential so that we can achieve exceedingly for Him. So, don’t waddle, fly!

Kierkegaard’s funny little parable should remind us that the purpose behind studying the Sermon on the Mount is not to make us smart. It is not learning that is the goal. Neither is it a pursuit in increasing our head knowledge. The aim is to strive for inside-out transformation as each and every one of us endeavour to strive for perfection so that we can be more like Christ.

Kierkegaard isn’t saying that we can attain perfection on earth. What the parable tells us is that while we will never be perfect in our mortal life, God has called us to embark on our walk of sanctification where we are called to a process of perfection.

In other words, we all have plenty of room to grow and improve. We have goals to aim for that takes us closer to holy perfection. We have many more things we can do to attain perfect righteousness. We can do many things for many people around us that spells Christ perfection in love.

Remember, Jesus said, “You are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Mt 5:48, NLT). And that brings me to a nice little tale that goes like this:

It was the day after Christmas when Mr Humboldt drove up to the main road downtown. As he got to the curb side, he turned his new car into the parking lot, got out and walked towards the newsagent. It was something he did each morning before he had his breakfast and head out to work.

At the newsagent, he would get his usual morning paper and a carton of fresh milk. The only difference this time was he got to drive his brand new and shiny wheels for the first time to town.

Source: Flickr

As he got close to the newsagent, he noticed an unkempt raggedy looking kid peering at his car with the obvious yearning look. That got him a bit worried and twitchy. He could picture the instant when he turned his back, he could look to steal something.

Perhaps the nice badge on the hood. Maybe the hub covers. Or even the roof-mounted antenna. You’d never know these days what kids can steal, he thought to himself.

And so he reminded himself to not waste time. Get to the newsagent, grab the morning paper and a carton of milk, hand over the exact change and return quickly in case something really went missing in his brand spanking new car.

With that playing in his mind, Mr Humboldt got out of the newsagent quicker than usual. With the paper rolled up under his arm and the carton of milk in his hand, he strode towards his new car and opened the door. Right at that very moment, the same kid was there. Mr Humboldt was nervous though he tried hard not to show it.

“Sir, that’s a real nice set of wheels,” the kid said.

“It sure is, kid. It’s brand new too,” Mr Humboldt replied.

“Sir, may I ask how much a new car like that costs?” the kid asked.

He replied, “I don’t really know, kid.”

“My brother got me this new car as a Christmas gift,” he added.

For a moment, there was nothing but silence from the boy. All he could do was to look stunned at the car and then switched to glance at the towering Mr Humboldt. And then he switched back to the car. And back at him. He still couldn’t believe what he heard.

With complete bewilderment, the kid uttered something that froze Mr Humboldt. He never saw such a comment coming. Not from anyone. Especially not from a kid like this one.

You’d expect someone, anyone, to maybe say, “Gee whiz, how I wish I had a brother like yours” or something to that effect. But that wasn’t it.

Instead, the kid said, “I’d love to be like your brother, sir.”

Righteousness is only from God

“For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” (2 Cor 5:21, NLT)

In other words, only God can give us the kind of righteousness that allows us to enter Heaven, the kind that defines absolute or completely virtuous moral justification. It is the kind that is only mirrored by God’s own perfection in every sense of the word, every attribute, every attitude, every behaviour and found in every sinew of His being.

The apostle Paul’s above words are pretty profound. What he is saying is that God made Christ who is sinless so that He may shoulder our sins for us. And in doing so, through Christ then all of us can thus become the righteousness of God.

That’s another way of saying that it is impossible for us to attain righteousness in any other way. Without Christ, there is really no righteousness for us. We don’t stand a chance of attaining it elsewhere or from anyone else. Righteousness is freely available from God. It is His gift to us that comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all His believers.

Remember that it was on the cross that Jesus swapped out our sins and then made His perfect righteousness available. He did so in order that one day, we can stand before God and He will not see our sin because in its place is His holy righteousness. This means that we have been made righteous in the sight of God. On account of what Jesus did on that cross, we are now accepted as righteous and is treated as righteous by God.

Loving our enemies not possible without God

Peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1979 (Source: jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

“And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.” (Rom 5:5, NLT)

It’s effortless for anyone to show love to those among our family members or friends who also love us back. Tit for tat, love for love, it’s easy and everyone does it very well. We send greeting cards, hampers and buy gifts to people we feel deserve it because they’re nice, they’re friendly, they’re thoughtful and because it’s the kind of friendship we love to keep.

And we can keep doing this year in and out as we remind ourselves to keep that friendship running because it’s worth every bit of our time and effort.

But doing that to those who have nothing good to say about us, stab us behind our back, nasty and selfish, arrogant, run us down and hell-bent on destroying our reputation would very likely be impossible. Even if we do send people like this a greeting card, it would be void of warmth.

Instead it’s just an obligatory act just for show because deep inside us, we too have nothing good to say about them and we have no intention to do anything about it. Very likely too, we will also have enough people around us who will influence us enough to keep our distance from those who are so obviously, simply by their words and actions alone, our enemies.

Loving our enemies is just not a normal thing to do. Human love is always an emotion we invest in those who love us back in return. Christians often can discuss loving our enemies but to put that into action is something else altogether.

Our theological understanding of loving our enemies is almost essentially an on-paper thing. To find another Pastor Christian Führer or Pastor Uwe Holmer or Jim Elliot at any corner of the world isn’t easy because the world has been force-feeding us on a diet of hatred towards our enemies.

To really and truly love our enemies, we need God’s help. We need Him to pour out His love into our hearts (Rom 5:5) simply because we just don’t have that kind of love to work on.

Calling ourselves Christians and not being able to love our enemies is abnormal because God would have poured out His love into our hearts. His divine love should have been inside us. It should be evident enough in our lives that people can see that it points to God.

If you feel that way about yourself, you’re in good company. In fact, all of us who call ourselves Christians need to re-evaluate the way we love others and not just those who love us back. We might need to go back to the drawing board and turn back on our ways, realising finally that to love our enemies, we must cede to Christ to love them through us.

While sinners, Christ died for us

Source: americanbelievers.blogspot.com

“But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, He will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of His Son while we were still His enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of His Son.” (Rom 5:8-10 NLT)

And that’s the point: While we were still sinners, we remain God’s enemies. And even though we were enemies, Christ died for us. God demonstrated that He could still do the ultimate to love us sinners. By sending His Son to die on the cross, He showed us the brand of divine love that no one can match.

No human love comes even remotely close to Christ’s love. While human love limits us to exclude our enemies, Christ’s love keeps on breaking new ground, doing the very things we commonly find not just undoable but also abhorrent.

The fact that Christ died for us while we were still sinners speaks volumes of the exemplary love that many of us keep struggling to learn. It is the kind of love that people like Elisabeth Elliot and Rachel Saint knew about.

We can say that because these missionary wives knew to go and share the Gospel with the very men (and women) who murdered not just their husband and brother respectively but three other young American missionaries.

In case you wonder how they did what they did, the answer is simple. They not only they knew about Jesus but they actually had a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. They are fully aware of that Jesus died for them when they were still sinners. And then, armed with that awareness, they extended their reach in true love and forgiveness to the Aucas who had sinned against them.

God never asks us to do anything He hadn’t done in the first place Himself. Just as God loved us when we were His enemies, He now calls us to love our enemies in the same way.

Interesting reading materials

1. Ambroise, Angela (April 2011) Elisabeth Elliot (update from Valerie Elliot Shepard) (Gateways to Joy) accessible at https://angelaambroise.blogspot.com/2011/04/elisabeth-elliot-update-from-valerie.html

2. Ambroise, Angela (Dec 2010) Interview with Valerie Elliot Shepard (daughter of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot) (Gateways to Joy) accessible at https://angelaambroise.blogspot.com/2010/12/interview-with-valerie-elliot-shepard.html

3. Author Unknown (July 2014) Christian Führer – Obituary (The Telegraph) accessible at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10938435/Christian-Fuhrer-obituary.html

4. Author Unknown (May 2012) The End of Honecker (University of Cambridge Research) accessible at https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/the-end-of-honecker

5. Author Unknown (nd) Erich Honecker (Military Wiki) accessible at https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Erich_Honecker#cite_note-91

6. Benge, Janet and Benge, Geoff (Jun 1999) Jim Elliot: One Great Purpose (Christian Heroes: Then and Now series) (Edmonds, WA: YWAM Publishing) available at https://www.amazon.com/Jim-Elliot-Purpose-Christian-Heroes/dp/1576581462

7. Bickle, Mike (no date) Session 11 Replacing Passive Love with Active Love (Mt 5:42-48) (International House of Prayer of Kansas City, Free Teaching Library) accessible at http://www.mikebickle.org.edgesuite.net/MikeBickleVOD/2012/20120701_Replacing_Passive_Love_with_Active_Love_SOM11.pdf

8. Blake, Daniel (June 2011) Shocking Figures Reveal 105,000 Christians Martyred Each Year (The Christian Post) accessible at https://www.christianpost.com/news/shocking-figures-reveal-105000-christians-martyred-each-year.html

9. Briggs, Megan (June 2019) Christians ‘Sing Hallelujah to the Lord’, Join Hong Kong Protests (ChurchLeaders) accessible at https://churchleaders.com/news/352793-christians-sing-hallelujah-to-the-lord-join-hong-kong-protests.html

10. Carson, D. A. (Dec 1999) The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway) available at https://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Doctrine-Love-God/dp/1581341261

11. Childs, David, ed. (1985) Honecker's Germany – Routledge Library Editions, German Politics (London: Taylor & Francis) accessible at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781315727585

12. Dennis, Mike (1993) Social and Economic Modernisation in Eastern Germany from Honecker to Kohl (London, UK: Printer Publishers) accessible at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/central-european-history/article/social-and-economic-modernization-in-eastern-germany-from-honecker-to-kohl-by-mike-dennis-london-printer-publishers-and-new-york-st-martins-press-1993-pp-viii-252-4500-isbn-0312085699-st-martins/5EAFFED028A29B46045F6F39030D418C

13. Elder, Eric (nd) I Believe in Forgiveness (Christians.org) accessible at http://www.christians.org/creed/creed12.html)

14. Fulbrook, Mary (Dec 2008) The People’s State: East German Society from Hitler to Honecker (London, UK: Yale University Press) available at https://www.amazon.com/Mary-Fulbrook-Honecker-2008-12-17-Paperback/dp/B00KM03U3M

15. Hays, Mike (Sept 2014) “…We Must Obey God!” Romans 13:1-7 (Britton Christian Church) accessible at https://www.brittonchurch.com/we-must-obey-god-romans-131-7/

16. Klett, Leah MarieAnn (Jun 2019) Chinese Christians Memorise Bible in Prison: Gov’t ‘Can’t Take What’s Hidden in Your Heart’ (The Christian Post) accessible at https://www.christianpost.com/news/chinese-christians-memorize-bible-prison-cant-take-whats-hidden-in-your-heart.html

17. Miller, Susan (Oct 1995) Jim Elliot – Missionary Martyr (1927-1956) Heroes of the Faith series (Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour Publishing) available at https://www.amazon.com/Heroes-Faith-1927-1956-Barbour-Paperback/dp/1557487324

18. MJS (Nov 2018) The Forerunner of Mercy (Christian Doctrine) accessible at https://www.christiandoctrine.com/christian-poetry/prayer/2073-the-forerunner-of-mercy

19. Newell, Roger (Sept 2014) Reflections on Pastor Christian Führer of the Nikolai Church in Leipzig (Contemporary Church History Quarterly, George Fox University) accessible at https://contemporarychurchhistory.org/2014/09/reflection-on-pastor-christian-fuhrer-of-the-nikolai-church-in-leipzig/

20. Nieuwint, Joris (Sept 2015) Major Cain, The One Man Tank Destroyer Who Received a VC at Arnhem (War History Online) accessible at https://www.warhistoryonline.com/military-vehicle-news/horten-229-v3-flying-wing-48-images-have-you-seen-all-of-these-before.html

21. Pang, Jessica and Zaharia, Marius (June 2019) ‘Sing Hallelujah to the Lord’ an Unlikely Anthem of Hong Kong Protests (Reuters) accessible at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-extradition-protesters-halle-idUSKCN1TJ16T

22. Pham, John-Peter (Dec 2008) Erich Honecker (Alternation) accessible at https://alterfaith.wordpress.com/tag/erich-honecker/

23.Pierce, Larry and Pierce, Marion (2010) Modernised Edition of Spurgeon’s Sermons (Winterbourne, Ontario) accessible at https://answersingenesis.org/education/spurgeon-sermons/138-prayer-the-forerunner-of-mercy/

24. Potter, Deborah (Nov 2009) The Church That Helped Bring Down the Berlin Wall (The Aquila Report) accessible at https://www.theaquilareport.com/the-church-that-helped-bring-down-the-berlin-wall/

25.Price, Joe R. (Nov 2016) Perfect Hatred (Topical Sermons) accessible at http://bibleanswer.com/perfecthatred.htm

26. Roberts, Sam (June 2015) Elisabeth Elliot, Tenacious Missionary in Face of Tragedy, Dies at 88 (The New York Times) accessible at https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/18/us/elisabeth-elliot-tenacious-missionary-to-ecuador-dies-at-88.html

27. Siemon-Netto, Uzve (June 1990) East Germany: Luther vs Lenin (First Things) accessible at https://www.firstthings.com/article/1990/06/east-germany-luther-vs-lenin

28. Smith, Samuel (Dec 2016) 90,000 Christians Killed in 2016, 1 Every 6 Minutes: Study (The Christian Post) accessible at https://www.christianpost.com/news/90000-christians-killed-in-2016-1-every-6-minutes-study.html

29. Smith, Samuel (Jun 2019) Ex-Muslim Who Planned to Kill Christians and Faced Death for Becoming One Tells Her Story (The Christian Post) accessible at https://www.christianpost.com/world/ex-muslim-planned-kill-christians-faced-death-tells-her-story-defying-jihad.html

30. Spurgeon, Charles Haddon (1883, republished June 1995) Spurgeon’s Sermons (5 Vol. Set) (Baker Books, 4th Printing Edition) available at https://www.amazon.com/Spurgeons-Sermons-5-Vol-Set/dp/0801011132

31. Swindoll, Charles R. (Dec 2009) Jesus: The Greatest Life of All (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Great Life Series) available at https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Greatest-Life-Great-Lives/dp/1400202582

32. Von der Heydt, Barbara (Dec 1993) Candles behind the Wall: Heroes of the Peaceful Revolution That Shattered Communism (Woonsocket, RI: Mowbray Publishing) available at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Candles-Behind-Wall-Revolution-Shattered/dp/0264673328

33. Warmbrand, Leigh (Sept 2017) Love Your Enemies (Central Plains Evangelical Free Church) accessible at http://cpefc.org/love-your-enemies

34. Weitz, Eric D (1997) Creating German Communism, 1890-1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press) available at https://press.princeton.edu/titles/5889.html

35. White, Kathleen (Jun 1990) Jim Elliot (Men of Faith) (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers) available at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1556611250

36. Williamson, Forschungsmitarbeiter Mitch (Aug 2015) 2nd South Staffords – Arnhem Part II (Weapons and Warfare – History and Hardware of Warfare) accessible at https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2015/08/19/2nd-south-staffords-arnhem-part-ii/