PIONEERS

Pioneers

 When I think of pioneers I picture wagon trains rolling across western prairies as seen in the old Westerns. However, it goes without saying that Adam was the very first pioneer. After the LORD God had formed him He put Him in His garden (Genesis 2:8). We can imagine Adam pioneering the five senses by seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting things in the garden and processing the information. Adam pioneered scientific study and exploration by studying, cataloguing and naming the living creatures (Genesis 2:19-20). Adam pioneered marriage when the LORD God made a female ‘clone’ of him and married the couple (Genesis 2:21-23). Adam and Eve pioneered families by having offspring (Genesis 4:1-2: 5:3-4).

Of course, the major thing that affects us all began when Adam pioneered sin (Genesis 3). To sin is to disobey God either by failing to do something He has commanded you to do or doing something He has forbidden you to do. Thus when Adam sinned he was pioneering private interpretation of God and His revelation (2 Peter 2:20). He wanted to interpret the facts according to his own set of criteria and not God’s! All humanity has followed suit (Romans 3:23). God makes Himself known by the things He has made and by His written Word (Genesis 1:1; Psalm 19:1-4; Romans 1:20), neither of which is open to private interpretation. Thus Adam became the pioneer of every argument and every pretension that sets itself against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:5).

It was only after God had confused their tongues at the Tower of Babel that the wagon trains began rolling across the earth in tacit obedience to God’s Cultural Mandate (Genesis 1:26-28; 11:9). Pioneers discovered new countries and continents as mankind began to spread and settle throughout the earth. Man even took his wagon trains to the surface of the moon and back! The Presbyterian Elder Buzz Aldrin pioneered partaking of the Lord’s Supper on the moon! The Communion elements were the first food and liquid consumed on the moon. The bread and wine proclaim the death of the One who owns all creation until He comes again!  

Enter the new Adam. Jesus Christ by His life, death and resurrection is the pioneer of the new humanity. He has redeemed His people from their sin and His creation from the adverse effects of human sin. Saying, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me’ He sent the wagon trains into all the world with the Good News of salvation. He has pioneered the salvaging of human beings and their planet (Colossians 1:19-20). He is the firstborn over all creation. ‘And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist’ Colossians 1:17. He is the firstfruits of the resurrection and as such He has pioneered for us the conquering of death. All who follow Him will defeat death too! He pioneered the interpretation of creation and all therein and the Scriptures. We are to interpret these in light of Him. He is the Word, the key to truly understanding all things. He is wisdom incarnate. He is reason in the flesh.

Jesus has pioneered everlasting life for all who will hitch their wagon to His train. If you haven’t done so already, join the pioneers, and follow Him into the new frontier. There is a new heaven and the new earth that need exploring.        

JESUS: The Sin Removalist

Jesus: The Sin Removalist

“The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him, and said, ‘Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’” John 1:29.

Introduction

Jesus is referred to by various descriptive names in the Bible. In one place the Apostle Paul refers to Jesus “Our Passover.” In another place Jesus refers to Himself as the bread from heaven. He calls Himself the Vine and also the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep. He says elsewhere, “I am the door.” We see in the verse of Scripture before us that Jesus is called the Lamb of God. Therefore, it would be good to do what John Baptizer is inviting us to do. There’s Jesus walking towards you. Look at Him as He draws nearer to you.

Now, if you’re anything like me, you’ll have a load of sin you’ll be wanting rid of. And, since Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, who better than Jesus is there to take away your sins from you?

The general gist of what we’re looking at in the following is this: Keep on handing over your sins to Jesus Christ the Sin Removalist.

The Pick-up

Each of us has a load of sin we need removed. According to the Bible we live in a world full of sin[1] and that each one of us is full of sin.[2] Now, when the Garbos[3] go on strike the garbage piles up in the street! Sometimes the garbage piles so high the Government has to send in the army to remove it. Sin is the pile of rotting Garbage that comes between us and God. And God won’t come near us until the garbage and its stench is removed. Therefore God sent His Son Jesus Christ to remove the sin of the world. God loaded the sins of His people onto the back of His Son. Then God incinerated our sin. The incinerator is Calvary’s cross. God poured out His fiery wrath upon His Son as He hung on a cross with all our sin. Jesus Christ, then, is the Sin Removalist!

Now then, since each one of us contributes to the sin of the world, each of us has a load of sin that needs to be incinerated on Christ’s cross. We know that Christ died for the sins of His people some 2000 years ago. I wasn’t around then and neither were you. However, Scripture tells us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.[4] Therefore we today can look to Him and seek Him to take away our sins for us. Otherwise, at the end of your life you’ll be left with a pile of rotten sin on your back with no one to remove it. And, according to Scripture, the God who hates all sin will pour His fiery wrath upon you. Horrible as it sounds, this means that you will be incinerated forever, which means eternal conscious torment in the fires of hell!

Now, I know that hell is not a popular subject nowadays. And who likes talking about a place about which Jesus says, “It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire – where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.” Mark 9:47. It’s a picture of the dump outside of the city of Jerusalem. The carcasses and the offal of the sacrificed animals were thrown into the dump and burnt. Those carcasses around the edge of the fire were full of worms and maggots. It’s a horrible thought and who in their right mind would want to spend an eternity there, especially those who have seen the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world! But it’s all to do with sin, isn’t it? – the sin of unbelief which is prevalent today.

Think about it, every time you break even the least of God’s commandments you are throwing another piece of rotten garbage on the street! And, just as you can be fined if caught littering on the street, so God holds each one of us accountable for every one of our sins. However, the penalty is not a slap on the wrist. And what is sin? “Sin is the want of conformity unto, or transgression of, any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature.”[5]

I’m sure you reckon that you are reasonable creature. You have the God given ability to reason whether something’s right or wrong. And of course we apply our reasoning in light of what the Bible says is right and wrong. We measure whether a thing is right or wrong against what God says in His Word.

Now let’s test our ability to reason: Is it right or wrong to murder your next door neighbour? Instead of borrowing sugar, you kill him for no reason, is that a right or wrong thing to do? It’s a wrong thing to do, isn’t it? But what makes it wrong? If you are one of those who been brought up to think we were not created by God to be His image but that we all evolved accidently from slime you’ll have some troubling answering that question. How can it be morally wrong to rearrange a bunch of chemicals, i.e., murder someone – if that’s all we are? Well, the Bible says God designed and made us in His own moral image. So, we’re not a bunch of atoms and gases that accidentally bumped into each other one dark night Therefore it’s wrong to murder your neighbour because God who made us says so!

So, let me state again that sin is ANY failure to measure up to whatever God requires, or any disobedience to any of His commands given as a rule for creatures with reason. Does that sound reasonable to you? We all know about the sins we see each other do outwardly. But what about those sins we commit inwardly? What about those invisible sins, the ones that no one else can see? No one but God that is! There’s a spiritual dimension to sin then.

You’re sinning inwardly by hating someone in your heart! You’re committing murder in your heart. You’re sinning inwardly or spiritually by lusting after another’s wife or husband! You’re committing adultery with him or her in your heart! I can’t see what goes on in your heart, but God can! However, I know that I sometimes pile up garbage in my own heart. How about you? I’ve got one or two old banana skins in my heart. They cause me to slip from time to time. Therefore, I need to watch out for the Sin Removalist and have Him take them away!

What was the first piece of garbage to be produced in the world? It was a piece of rotten fruit, wasn’t it? It wasn’t rotten when it was hanging of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden. But it started to rot when Adam sunk his pearly-whites into it! God had told Adam not to eat the fruit of that tree. Did Adam listen? No! So the rotten garbage of sin began to pile up.

As Adam and Eve had children it began to pile up more and more in the streets of the world. It was Adam then, who produced the first load of rotten garbage.[6] And each one of his descendants all the way down to you and me have added to it.[7] The sin of the world, then, is the sin that separates us from God. And the garbage dump is a place full of filth and disease. And so became the world after Adam disobeyed God. However,  God sent His beloved Son into the world to remove the world’s garbage. So, Christ is the Sin Removalist who takes away the stinking load. “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

 Truth be known, we can hardly move for the amount of sin around the place! Sin restricts us. It trips us up. We fall over it. We even wallow in it like a pig in mud. Even those good things we try to do are to God like filthy rags![8] As Job says, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one!” Job 14:4. A world full of sin cannot produce something untainted by sin, can it? So how are we to get back to a Holy, Righteous, Sinless and Perfect God? Well, the only way back to the presence of God and Paradise is for Him to come and remove our load. i.e., our load of sin.

When I lived in Canada I had a friend who had his own garbage removal business. I gave him a hand for a few days. It was nothing like what we now have here in Brisbane Australia, you know, where the guy sits in his cabin and the big arms pick up you wheelie-bin. No! Back then wheelie bins hadn’t caught on in Canada yet. So what we had to do was run after the garbage truck and throw the garbage bags into the back of it! I did this for three days one hot summer. Yuk! (And the pay was even worse!) But anyway, he sometimes got called out at night to pick up a dead deer or elk or even a moose from lying in the middle of the road. I gave him a hand one night to manhandle a dead white-tailed deer into the back of his wagon. I was thankful that it was the freezing cold winter and not the roasting hot summer. For you know how terrible is the smell of rotten carcass in summer! Well, the sin of the world has the stench of death clinging to it! The trouble is that we’re so used the smell that we hardly even notice it. However, the Son of God came willingly to take away the sin of the world. God loaded the sin of the world onto His Son’s back.

Jesus became the scapegoat for all those who lay their sins upon Him. The Bible illustrates it like this: In Leviticus 16:6 we’re told that once a year, “Aaron the high priest, shall take from the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the goats as a sin offering.” And according to Exodus 12:5 it was permissible to use either a young sheep or goat. Sometimes it’s really hard to tell the difference between and sheep and goat anyhow. Anyway, the sheep or goat had to be without a blemish on it. Then lots would be drawn to decide which of the two would get to do what. One of the animals would be sacrificed as a sin offering required by God, while the other would be set free in the wilderness.

Now, both the scapegoat and the sacrificial goat picture what Jesus did as the Lamb of God. Take the scapegoat. Israel would confess her sins before God. Then the high priest would lay his hands on the head of the goat. As he held its horns the sin of the people would symbolically be transferred or imputed onto the back of the goat. The young goat or sheep would be led into the wilderness. It was the lamb that takes away the sin of the people. It was their scapegoat. Of course, it didn’t really take away their sin. The scapegoat just reminded them of their need to have their sins removed. And as for the other young sheep or goat, well, after the sin of the people was symbolically transferred or imputed to it, it was sacrificed.

Now then, it’s not hard to see how this applies to Jesus. Think about the time when Jesus was baptized by John. Mark 1:4-5 says, “John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. And all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to Him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.”

So get the picture, the people of God are confessing their sins. And having water applied to them as a the picture of the washing away of the filth and stench of sin. And then we read in John 1:29, “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” After Jesus was baptized with water and the Holy Spirit, Mark in his gospel says 1:12, “Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness.” Therefore Jesus fulfilled the role of the Old Testament scapegoat.

But what about the other young goat or sheep that was to be sacrificed? Well, Jesus fulfilled that role too, didn’t He? The justice of God demands that our sins be paid for, either by you or a substitute. Christ is our scapegoat who takes away our sin. And He is our sacrificial Lamb who pays the debt we owe to God for our sin. So then, we’ve seen that Jesus Christ the Sin Removalist. And each of us needs Him to pick up our sins and take them away. Even as we have our garbage picked up and taken away.

Now we need to consider the place where Jesus went when He took away our sins.

The Delivery

Jesus took away our sins upon the cross, didn’t He? My friend, the one who owned his own garbage truck had to go to the city dump every time his truck was full. He would take the Perimeter Highway which had to be the bumpiest road in Winnipeg! Before they would let him into the dump they would get him to drive unto a platform. They would weigh the contents of his truck and charge him certain dumping fees according to the weight of his load. Jesus had the weight of the world’s sin upon Him. And the price He had to pay to dump our sin was death (as per the wages of sin[9]).

The bumpy road to the cross was slow and painful for Jesus. Behold! The Lamb of God betrayed and arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane! Behold! The Lamb of God as they took Him away to sacrifice Him. Behold Him as they paraded Him down the street. Behold Him as they spat upon Him as he walked along the road to His death. Behold Him as His legs buckled under the weight of our sin, your sin and my sin. Behold Him as He set His face to take the muck and filth of our sin to deliver it to the city dump.

If you want to see what it’s like to be in hell then look no further than Christ on the cross. Listen to a Man whose soul feels forsaken by God. Hear Him cry out, “My God, My God why have You forsaken Me? ... My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue clings to My jaws; You have brought Me to the dust of death.” Psalm 22:1,15.

But see if you can catch His eye before He goes there. See if you can catch His eye as He walks along the road. See if you can get Him to take your sin with Him to the dump too! If you can see Him you won’t be too late to catch Him. He won’t race away. He’ll wait for you. That’s why He came. He came to take away the sin of the world.

Confess your sins and repent of them. Place them on the back of Jesus as He struggles up Calvary’s hill. Only He can bear your sins. He can bear the sin of the whole world! But you have to behold Him in order for Him to take away your sins.

What’s it like when you forget to put out the garbage and you miss the garbage collection? You’re left with a bin full of garbage and you have to try to dump it by yourself, don’t you? I remember when we were out in Springsure (Central Queensland) I missed the garbage collection. Of course it was about 40 degrees Celsius in the shade. So I loaded the maggot infested garbage into the church’s new car and drove along the dusty road to the village dump.

Jesus Christ carried our sin on His back and He walked to the city dump. He made one trip and one trip alone when He went to the cross with our sin. But let’s say a person missed out on Jesus taking away his sin. Let’s say this person was you. Would you be happy to deal with your own sin? What do you think will happen when you get to the city dump? (For that is where God will send you.) What will you do with all your sin when you are weighed on the weigh scales? What will you use for money to pay to dump your sins when all you have with you is garbage? What will you do when you’ve used up all the credit God has given you and now at the end of your life He’s demanding payment?

God demands the penalty of death for sin and there you and I are sitting with a whole life full of it! So it’s a bit useless to say that you don’t have any sin since God is weighing you on the scales. And the trouble is that God demands payment for even the smallest of sins – the payment is death. Look at Jesus on the cross if you don’t believe me – that’s the price of sin! And the sin He had wasn’t even His sin for He was sinless! No, it was the sin of all those who look to Jesus to be delivered from their sins. It’s better to catch the eye of Jesus and have Him take your sins away now, because if you die without them being removed, you’ll spend eternity paying for them. However, always remember that God forgives those who have had their sin removed by the Sin Removalist.

What’s it like then to have your sins forgiven? Well, Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” We know we are in Christ Jesus, and we know our sins have been taken away, when we are beholding Christ. When you keep on looking for Christ and keep on looking to Christ you know you haven’t missed the Sin Removalist. For He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

Conclusion

Always remember that Jesus is The Sin Removalist. He is the One who has picked-up the sins of those who keep on keeping their eyes on Him . He is the One who has delivered us from our sins by taking them to Calvary’s cross. So keep on beholding the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And, to keep your conscience clear, as you become aware of them, keep on handing over your sins to Jesus Christ the Sin Removalist.

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[1] Romans 8:20-22.

[2] Romans 3:23; Galatians 3:22.

[3] Australian term for garbage-collectors.

[4] Hebrews 13:8.

[5] Westminster Larger Catechism Q&A 24.

[6] Genesis 3:11.

[7] Romans 5:12f.

[8] Isaiah 64:6.

[9] Romans 6:23.

GOD: The Healer (Moral Injury continued...)

God: The Healer

“Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Isaiah 1:18.

Introduction

Notice what the LORD is saying in this verse. Almighty God is inviting us to reason with Him. He is inviting us to confess our sins to Him and have Him forgive us for them. However, more importantly, God is saying that He will forgive you your wrongdoings! Like removing our backpacks after a long foot-blistering hike we are to unburden ourselves of our load of sins. As we hand over our sins to God He takes away our guilt and our shame. This in turn results in us no longer having to struggle with a guilty conscience! Thus we move from Moral Injury to Moral Repair.

A Reasonable Faith

It stands to reason that if God wants us to reason with Him then first we must believe, (i.e., have faith) that He exists. The writer to the Hebrews says, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6. Think about it, the reward for diligently seeking God (among other things) is peace of mind, i.e., the removal of a guilty conscience.

Some people have actually said to me, “I wish I had your faith.” Well, according to the Bible every human being believes in God. We simply suppress that knowledge through our own wickedness. To say that we know God is simply another way of saying that everyone begins with the presupposition that God exists. Each of us inherently knows that God exists because God has built it into our being. We are made in His own image and likeness. From here it is simply a matter of what people do with that congenital presupposition that results on whether they will end up with a clear conscience or not.

Almighty God your Maker is inviting you to reason with Him. However, it stands to reason that you would not be reasoning together with God if He is absent from the conversation or dialogue, absent from your thoughts. Strange as it may seem, this is the way that some people treat God, as if He is simply a mathematical abstraction or philosophical equation and not the personal Triune God who created us in His own image and likeness. It is because God is a Person, (actually God is three Persons, i.e., the Father, the Son or Word, and the Holy Spirit, Matthew 28:19), that we are able to have a personal conversation with Him.

Jesus says, “No one comes to the Father except through Me” John 14:6.  We speak to the Father in the power of the Spirit through the Son and God speaks to us by His Spirit with His Word. In other words, we pray to Him and He replies to us through His Word, the Bible.

But again, notice that we are not speaking into the void. We are not calling out in an empty building, “Is there anyone there?” God is! And He is everywhere at once. We are to reason with God, the God who is there! Think about it, if you do not believe that God exists then why would your conscience be troubling you? Why do I ask this? Well, your conscience is part, a big part, of one of the ways that God is using to make His existence known to you. This has to do with you being made in His image. As a mirror would not reflect your image unless you existed, so you and I would not be the image and likeness of God if He did not exist! However, God through His Word, the Bible, says that we are His likeness. “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness.” James 3:9. Like a “Hall of Mirrors” our own sin distorts us individually as the image of God. Therefore, none of us (apart from Jesus) gives His true reflection.

A Reflecting Faith  

 Wrestling with one’s own conscience (a prominent symptom of Moral Injury) is a first step on the road towards reasoning with God! Feelings of guilt come about when one has failed or is failing to measure up to one’s own idea of moral good. The conscience is the measuring stick whereby we determine how far we are short of the mark. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23.

Let us once again reflect on what Richard Sibbes said: “The conscience is the soul reflecting upon itself.” Note the difference between the soul reflecting upon itself and wrestling with one’s own conscience. Whereas the former is you reasoning with yourself, the latter is you arguing with yourself! Isn’t it better simply to examine your own reflection that to attack it like some angry bird attacking its reflection in a window pane?

Here’s the rub: Healing begins for the individual when he or she recognizes that Moral Injury, like its sibling PTSD, is a spiritual problem. Now it becomes easier to see one of the reasons why Western psychiatry and psychology are having so much trouble healing people suffering from the symptoms of PTSD and Moral Injury. These systems are based on an Atheistic premise which denies the existence of soul and/or spirit as commonly taught in the Bible and Christianity. The Bible says, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Corinthians 2:14. The bottom line is that spiritual things (including spiritual problems such as PTSD and Moral Injury) are spiritually discerned.

Now, this is not to say that modern psychiatrist and psychologists can offer no help to their patients. However, like any other science that detaches itself from God and His Biblical revelation, they are missing the key component of what they are dealing with, which is God and that which is His image, i.e., human beings.

One discerning doctor I was talking to about PTSD said, “You know? PTSD is so hard to fix because we’re dealing with something invisible!” Think about it, we only know that a person suffering from PTSD or Moral Injury by way of revelation. If that sounds too Biblical then let me state it in another way. We only know that PTSD and Moral Injury exist because someone has told us about them. We cannot see, hear, taste, smell or touch PTSD and Moral Injury. They remain invisible until someone reveals them to us.

If this is beginning to sound a bit like gobbledegook to you then I would suggest that it is because Western Science has had some success in trying to extricate itself from the science of Theology. This is what I mean by Atheistic science. It follows a Materialist philosophy and it ignores and even denies that which is spiritual. Therefore, the road to recovery for those suffering PTSD and Moral Injury (and Western Science itself!) is a return to the inclusion of Theology in scientific discussion instead of its present ostracism.

“God is Spirit.” John 4:24. And a human being is a soul-spirit with a body. (2 Thessalonians 5:23). God is invisible (Colossians 1:15) and so is the spirit and the soul of a human being. God is the Father and the Son/Word and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). “The Word became flesh” John 1:14, which is to say that Jesus is God and also is a soul-spirit with a body, i.e., a human being like us. How do we know that Jesus is God? The same way we know that someone has PTSD or Moral Injury. Revelation!

Because PTSD and Moral Injury are spiritual we are only offering band-aid solutions until we acknowledge the “Father of spirits” (Hebrews 12:9) and ask Him to intervene and heal us. Spiritual healing is the healing of our spirit by God’s Spirit. Once healed, as the writer to the Hebrews says, “Pray for us. We are sure that we have a clear conscience and desire to live honourably in every way” Hebrews 13:18.

Conclusion

The first step toward being healed of your PTSD and/or Moral Injury is to acknowledge that as a human being you are God’s moral agent by His creation, and as such you have broken His Moral law and need to seek and to receive His forgiveness.

The second step is to acknowledge that God has made you like Him, i.e., triune in Nature. You are body and soul and spirit, i.e., a soul-spirit with a body, and as such and with God’s enabling are able to dialogue (i.e., reason with Him).

The third step is to acknowledge that you, like the rest of humanity, as a human being are fallen in nature. There already is something morally wrong with you from conception and birth. This is discovered with the first pang of conscience!

The fourth step is to acknowledge that your accusing conscience is revelation of that which is spiritual, i.e., God and the human soul and spirit. It lets us know that something is wrong with you and that you need God the Spirit’s help and healing.

The fifth and final step is to acknowledge that God alone can fully heal us.

(Excerpted from my e-book Moral Injury: Towards a Theology in US at) - http://www.amazon.com/MORAL-INJURY-Neil-Cullan-McKinlay-ebook/dp/B00VFBJ72A/ref=la_B006NTVAWY_1_22?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427788714&sr=1-22

In UK at - http://www.amazon.co.uk/MORAL-INJURY-Neil-Cullan-McKinlay-ebook/dp/B00VFBJ72A/ref=la_B006NTVAWY_1_22?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427788869&sr=1-22
 

ANZAC

ANZAC

ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) originally referred to those who had served on Gallipoli in WWI. However, the acronym has been seeping into the Australian psyche since 25 April 1915, so much so that now, one hundred years later, the mere mention of the word commands Aussie pride to stand to attention! Thus the word has been spiritualised. The ANZAC spirit is that which animates the body of Australia. It is the breath in her lungs, the hot wind on her sunburnt back, driving her towards a bright future. Through drought or flood, bushfire or cyclone that invisible spirit – first noticed at ANZAC Cove, Gallipoli – manifests itself in Aussies through their care and compassion for the casualties of life’s battles.

The ANZAC spirit is epitomised by Simpson with his donkey carrying a wounded soldier to safety. Its presence is felt as a lump in our throat each 25^th April. It is a spirit of tearful thankfulness, of appreciative camaraderie, of brotherly oneness! The ANZAC spirit is the glue which holds Australia together. It is the stumps upon which her house rests. It is the cool breeze that comes through her open windows.

Whence comes this ANZAC spirit? It is an outward expression of an inner compulsion. It comes from Australia having been a Christianised nation. Thus the ANZAC spirit comes from the teachings of the Bible as exemplified by Jesus. It is the sum of the second table of the Ten Commandments, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ Mark 12:31. How does one love ones neighbour as oneself? ANZAC Cove, Gallipoli gives a pretty good example! They were in it together. It wasn’t ‘every man for himself!’ It was mateship during hardship.

National conflict and turmoil is the crucible in which Christ’s precious ‘Golden Rule’ of ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ is purified and then tested. Perhaps Australia more than most nations has disasters in which to express the ANZAC spirit. From deluged towns and cities to droughts in the sun-baked Outback to raging bushfires the size of Scotland!

Australia was born in 1901 and she drew breath into her infant lungs when she had her bottom smacked at ANZAC Cove, Gallipoli! Now she smells of sweet gums. Red ochre is under her nails. Cicadas ring in her ears. The roar of the mighty Pacific surrounds her. Her heart bleeds red. At times she can be as quiet as walk in a rainforest. At others she’s as noisy as Sydney at rush hour! With Tasmanian devils to the south, cassowaries to the north and koalas in between, Australia has a rich diversity of wildlife. There’re rich resources in the ground, there’s sun-power, wave-power and wind-power to be harvested. Australia abounds in nature’s (read God’s) gifts.

‘Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and free; we’ve golden soil and wealth for toil; our home is girt by sea; our land abounds in nature’s gifts of beauty rich and rare; in history’s page, let every stage advance Australia fair!’

One hundred years have passed since the ANZACs landed on Gallipoli on 25^th April 1915. So far, so good? What do you think? Has Australia moved closer to or further away from God in Christ? To where is Australia advancing?        

BOOKS, TV/MOVIES

Books, TV/Movies

Speaking of books, I spent a year or two reading or rereading a lot of the classics including such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, and his Jekyll and Hyde, also George Orwell’s Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. I especially enjoyed The Adventures of Roderick Random by Tobias Smollett (1721-71). Rather than watch the in-flight entertainment I read this 1748 novel on a plane trip to and from Hawaii, also enjoying reading it on the beach at Waikiki! I couldn’t, as they say, put it down! Some books, TV shows and movies, like Doctor Who’s Tardis, seem to be able to, if you will let them, transport us to other times, other cultures, and other worlds. On a trip back to Scotland I had to stop off at a monument to Tobias Smollett. He comes from the place where I grew up!

I remember deciding as a sixteen-year-old that I was going to read the whole Bible. I got to the middle of the third book, i.e., Leviticus, before my wheels really got stuck in the mud of ye olde King Jamesian English of the Bible version I was attempting to read. I gave up only to pick it up again sixteen years later. This time I came at it armed with a dictionary. With the Bible in one hand and a dictionary in the other I was able to complete the mission! And wow! The Book transported me from Earth to Heaven and back to Earth again! In other words I became a Christian convert through reading the Book of Books.

The Bible is made up of sixty-six books written in ancient Hebrew and Greek (with a smidgin of Aramaic) over a period of some fifteen hundred years by over forty different authors. Books, TV series and documentaries galore have been made about the Bible and the stories contained therein, not forgetting major movies. Some are pro-Bible and others are anti-Bible. And others are just downright weird! Yet for all the criticism of its contents the Holy Bible is still the best-selling book ever. Why? Why in an age of entertainment would the Bible be a bestseller? Well, first off, the Bible does not say that entertainment itself is wrong. Indeed, many of the Bible stories are designed to be entertaining. However, not in the sense of leaving us entertained as in amused, but rather to leave us in a state of awe, (though some stories are amusing, such as when Moses confronted his brother Aaron about the golden calf and Aaron said, ‘They gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!’ (Exodus 32:24b). Hilarious! We are awestruck, for example, when God delivered Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego from certain death in the fiery furnace, Daniel from the den of lions, David from Goliath, Jonah from the belly of a fish, (not to mention the Ninevites from judgment), and a huge portion of humanity from Hell.

Not all books, (and not all TV and movies) are about entertainment. There are text-books, history-books, technical books. The Book of Books primarily is about salvation, i.e., how God in Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world and all who believe in Him for salvation. Have you read it? I was pleased when someone, after I had struggled to read the whole of ye olde King James’ Version, gave me a version in modern English! I wish I had known about the easier to read versions sooner! Och well, the end result would have been the same. I would have become an adopted child of God with His only Son, Jesus Christ, as my Saviour! 

The Shadows o Ben Lomond

THE SHADOWS O BEN LOMOND

 

Upon white pillow ma grey heid

No far fae gabbin wi the deid

Aroon ma bed ma faimily stauns

A’ greetin as they haud ma hauns

 

But me Ah’m runnin up the brae

Tae catch the sun at the break o day

And watch the light dance on the loch

Fae the shadows o Ben Lomond

 

 

 

 

Leave me go, don’t haud me back

Let me go runnin up that track

Beneath ma feet yon bluebells squeak

 Their fragrance lifts me tae the peak

 

Aye me Ah’m runnin up the brae

Tae catch the sun at the break o day

And watch the light dance on the loch

Fae the shadows o Ben Lomond

Whit’s that that’s tuggin at ma airm

Ah know it disnae mean me herm

For Ah must go up yon great height

Tae see the loch at the mornin’s light

Aye me Ah’m runnin up the brae

Tae catch the sun at break o day

And watch the light dance on the loch

Fae the shadows o Ben Lomond

 

 

 

 

Well, ma faimily, Ah love ye a’

But noo it’s time an’ Ah must awa

Tae scale the ben, an Ah cannae be late

The Keeper o’ the Loch has set the date

Aye me Ah’m runnin up the brae

Tae catch the sun at the break o day

And watch the light dance on the loch

Fae the shadows o Ben Lomond

Politics

Politics

 Voting is compulsory in Australia. Therefore, unlike Scotland where the citizens are free to reject the candidates in an election simply by staying at home, Australians have to drag themselves to the polling booth in order to ‘spoil’ the ballot if they wish to reject all the candidates! Yes, some are not happy with politics and others would substitute ‘politicians’ for ‘Cretans’ in the adage ‘Cretans are always liars’ Titus 1:12. Why would politics cause some to speak so? It might be a whole range of issues including economics, taxes, national roads, abortion, marriage redefinition, refugees and a whole lot more. We try to vote in politicians who share our views on these and such-like issues. Therefore Western political systems depend on the honesty of their political candidates.

Some would claim that an honest politician is an oxymoron. But is this a fair assessment of Western politicians and politics? Well, it doesn’t help the cause of politicians when we see them never directly answer any questions when being interviewed. No doubt they ramble on about their ‘talking points’ out of fear of the ‘gotcha’ questions whereby some interviewers purposely set out to trip them up in their speech. Thus the derogatory term ‘spin doctor’ has been used of certain politicians.

Should Christians give politics a wide berth? I know of at least one Atheist who thinks Christians ought not to become politicians because they cannot separate their religion from their politics! One can only wonder at the arrogance of this sort of anti-Christian view of politics in light of the fact that there is still a Christian majority in most Western nations![i] However, and more to the point, it is thanks to Christianity that we have democracy in the West in the first place! If it is true that the West was built on the back of Christianity then that which is contrary to it would be sand in the gearbox!

Lenin, Marx, and Engels introduced Atheism into Western politics with their different forms of Socialism in which the citizens ultimately serve the State rather than God, by which the God-given rights of the individual began to give way to the imposed will of the collective. (Some Christians still buy into various shades of Socialism!) Then came the ‘thought police’ in the forms of the KGB and SS etc. in the 20^th century. These have morphed into the Political Correctness (PC) movement of the 21^st where it is now difficult even to discuss issues without being demonized for disagreeing with the narrative of ‘mob thinking’!

The West was built on the Westminster-system of politics which in turn was built upon Biblical principles. Presbyterianism still clearly displays those biblical principles. There is an ‘issue’ (or a motion). There are those who speak for the motion and those who speak against it. There is a moderator (or referee). After the issue has been discussed sufficiently by both sides it is then put to a vote. The majority wins. This is Western democracy in practice! It is Christianity in politics! No one is shouted down and drowned out by ad hominem attacks! This is freedom of speech!

Because of this system we tend to have a two-party system, i.e., those with left wing views of the issues and those on the right. Yes, some politicians are Independents but they too tend to be either left or right on issues. Always remember, “The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbour comes and examines him." Proverbs 18:17.

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[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_by_country