CLOSETS & CHRISTIANS

Closets & Christians

It’s understandable that in times of persecution a Christian might possibly stay quiet about his beliefs. That aside, Christianity by nature needs to be expressed before others.  The true Christian has a life-transforming message backed up by a transformed life. Christianity is not a private religion. Therefore closet Christianity is a contradiction of terms.

However, this is not to say that the Christian is not to spend time in the closet. Jesus says to His disciples, “But you, when you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret shall reward you openly.” Matthew 6:6.

The word ‘closet’ or ‘room’ as used here is the same word for ‘storehouse’ elsewhere. A storehouse is a building in which goods are stored: a warehouse. Thus the Christian is to spend time in his heavenly Father’s storehouse talking to Him and asking Him for things. Therefore, as soon as the Christian opens his mouth to talk to His Father his little closet becomes a giant warehouse full of goods!

Is there anything that God is not able to supply? Jesus says, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” Matthew 7:11.

The Christian’s prayer closet is a room with a view. It is where time meets with eternity, the finite with the infinite. Thus the Christian’s closet is a box of paradox. The creature meeting the Creator is a speck of dust engaging the Omnipresent. God remains everywhere at once while He condescends to fully engage His spiritual child by wrapping His everlasting arms around him and lifting him up to hear what he has to say.

Prayer is an infant’s gurgling and lisping. And as a wide-eyed toddler in a massive toyshop the child of God excitedly asks for things he wants. But the only wise God gives us what we need. And as a doting parent showers its infant with kisses, so the heavenly Father showers His children with blessings. 

Jesus lists some of these blessings in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.  Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:2-10.

God confirms His covenanted blessings to the Christian when he enters his closet. But these are only some of the plethora of good gifts contained in God’s infinite storehouse. They are tokens of God’s saving grace.

God’s saving grace cannot be earned. It is a free gift provided by Jesus Christ. Enter your closet and seek God’s grace. But do so only in Jesus’ name. “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12. It’s just as Jesus says, “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6b.

And when you exit the closet share the grace He has shown you with others. The Christian cannot remain in the closet. He is compelled to express God’s love by loving his neighbour as himself. Do this, and see if God won’t reward you openly. 

BODIES & BORDERS

Bodies & Borders

Why do countries have borders? One might as well ask why humans have bodies. Both are because God created man to occupy specific geographical locations. Thus man and countries are restricted by borders. To be sure, we expand our borders as individuals as our bodies increase from infancy to adulthood. But still, like nations, we are restricted by boundaries. We put on weight, we lose weight. And so the tide goes out, and the tide comes in on our nation. Those boundaries have been put there by God who made us.  God alone has no boundaries.

Who knows how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and why should we even care? But we do know that each angel and each collective host of angels, though not having material bodies, occupies restricted space. For God alone is omnipresent. Even the Devil can’t be everywhere at once, having to go “to and fro on the earth” (Job 1:7). Same with those wicked angels who left their own abode to join him (Jude 6).

              God has us all right where He wants us to be, and when He wants us to be.  And even when we die we still occupy a restricted space individually and collectively. And, we won’t escape from our bodies for long; for mankind’s Resurrection Day is ahead (John 5:28&29).

Let’s face it, as individuals we are as restricted by our bodies just as countries are restricted by their borders. Is this such a bad thing? Not if you have groped for God and found Him. For Scripture says, “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each of us.” Acts 17:26&27.

Individuals are to grope for God. Nations are to grope for God. Therefore individually and collectively we are to seek the God who made us of one blood in Adam. It’s a sad thing when a person closes himself to God. It is even sadder when a nation closes its borders to God. But the good news is that God has no boundaries! No heart of stone and no ‘Iron’ or ‘Bamboo Curtain’ can stop Almighty God entering should He wish.

As individuals we are to use our bodies to glorify God (1 Corinthians 6:10). Collectively, as a nation, we are to glorify God (Psalm 117:1). “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people He has chosen for His own inheritance. The LORD looks from heaven; He sees the sons of men. From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works.” Psalm 33:12-15.

Why fade away and disappear as an individual? Why disappear as a nation? Open your heart and borders to the true and living Triune God who “… did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” John 3:17.

The sovereign God has put you in your body and you in your nation. Therefore look only to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit if you would seek to extend your own, and your nation’s, borders. Think outside your own body!

JEFFERSON'S TEARS - out now!

My new paperback Jefferson’s Tears is now out in all good bookstores. The following is a synopsis of the book’s content:

Great hope accompanied the movement of freed African-American slaves who migrated to Liberia. The Liberian national constitution was a nurtured sprig from the American tree. Yet the African soil proved relentlessly challenging. Over the decades, Liberia became a morally bankrupt nation beset by criminality and vicious revolution. How could God save a young man in such a cauldron of chaos?

Jefferson Williams Kollie’s story is one of horror, despair, and deliverance. The degraded and revolution-torn African country of Liberia reduced a boy's life to brutal survival. The once-promising nation was now threatening both body and soul. Yet somehow Jefferson found hope and life. Could grace and redemption experienced by one man presage that of an entire struggling nation? Read how one traumatized young man confirmed God’s radical emancipation in his new home of Australia.

Read a sample of the book's contents at Nordskog Publishing: https://www.nordskogpublishing.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/SampleJEFFReading.pdf
https://www.target.com/p/jefferson-8217-s-tears-liberia-s-founding-and-fall-one-man-s-horror-and-hope-paperback/-/A-5400
TARGET online: https://www.target.com/p/jefferson-8217-s-tears-liberia-s-founding-and-fall-one-man-s-horror-and-hope-paperback/-/A-54000583

GLOBAL WARMING

Global Warming

The issue of global warming is probably settled. The issue that it is manmade is still moot.

At the same time as people in hi-vis “yellow vests” were rioting in the streets of Paris over French President Macron’s draconian “Carbon Tax”, which is due to his adherence to the “Paris Accord”, at the UN’s Climate Change Summit in Katowice, Poland (November 2018), David Attenborough was saying,

If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilsations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon… Right now we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change.[1]

            Talk about scaring the kids! While all of this was going on, there were teachers who allowed their classes to attend a protest instead of school. On Friday, 30 November, 2018, these scared kids gathered in Brisbane city. Says ABC News in an article,

Thousands of Australian students have defied calls by the Prime Minister to stay in school and instead marched on the nation’s capital cities, and some regional centre, demanding an end to political inertia on climate change. Protests were held in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Coffs Harbour, Bendigo and other cities, as students banded together to pressure the Morrison Government in the lead-up to a federal election. “The politicians aren’t listening to us when we try to act nicely for what we want and for what we need,” said Castlemaine student Harriet O’Shea Carre. “So now we have to go to extreme lengths and miss out school.”[2]

So, at the same time there was one lot protesting their President’s unwavering adherence to “The Paris Agreement”, we see another lot protesting their Prime Minister for not adhering to it enough! Who is right? Well, President Trump! The Climate Change protests are all about unfair taxes.

How can we talk about Global warming without mentioning the Prophet of Doom, Al Gore and his Inconvenient Truth propaganda movie? In 2006 Al Gore said that sea-levels would rise 20 feet. Denis T. Avery refers to this in the following,

The study, “Snowfall-driven Growth in East Antarctic Ice Sheet Mitigates Recent Sea-level Rise.” was led by Curt Davis of the University of Missouri, and reported in Science on June 24, 2005.

Thickening ice in the Antarctic, in fact, is just about offsetting the meltwater being released from the edges of the Greenland ice sheet–which has also been thickening in its center. This leaves us with a global warming sea level gain of about 1.8 millimetres per year–or 4 inches per century. The rise has remained constant during the 20th century despite the moderate 0.6 degree C warming of the planet.

In the movie, a whole Antarctic ice sheet shatters on Gore's computer screen. In the real world, that isn’t happening. It is only the Antarctic Peninsula–2 percent of the continent’s land area that sticks up toward the far-off equator–that is warming. It recently earned headlines by calving an ice flow as big as Rhode Island, not an unusual event.

But the East Antarctic ice sheet is more than 2,000 times bigger than Rhode Island, and the ice is two miles thick!   John Stone of the University of Washington, reporting in Science on January 3, 2003 says the West Antarctic ice sheet has been retreating so slowly for the past 10,000 years that it still has not fully accommodated the end of the last Ice age, and apparently still has about 7,000 years of ice to melt–and the East Antarctic ice sheet is melting even more slowly than that.

So, Al Gore says Antarctic melting will suddenly raise the sea levels by 20 feet, and the experts say 4 inches per century.”[3]

If we start with an ice-age all are agreed that the planet is warmer now than then. But, what caused the great glacial ice-sheets to recede? This is where we enter the area of speculation. Likewise, when we discuss contemporary global warming, its rate and its causes. If we begin with the Ice-Age we will quickly see two opposing views emerge, viz., the Christian (or Biblical) perspective and the Uniformitarian. Let’s call the former ‘Creationist’ and the latter ‘Evolutionist’, noting there’re variables within both these worldviews.

Though believing that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, because of global warning, like a religious zealot, the Evolutionist believes that ‘the end is nigh!’ – if we do not do something. Panic! The Creationist? Well, the Creationist looks to God and His written Word. ‘And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling. But He [Jesus] was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to Him, ‘Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?’ Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace, be still!’ And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. But He said to them, ‘Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?’ Mark 4:37-40. The Lord controls the weather. Consider Jonah fleeing from the presence of the LORD. ‘But the LORD sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up.’ Jonah 1:4. Examples could be multiplied. Does what we do affect the climate? You bet, but it’s more moral than physical. We need to consider Noah’s ark and the Flood. ‘And God said to Noah, ‘The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.’… All the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights’ Genesis 6:13; 7:11b-12. As it was for the Egyptians chasing the Israelites, so it was in the global Deluge. The divided waters came together sandwiching man and beast across the earth. That is why we find millions of dead things that have been buried quickly in solidified sediment, including fossil fuels, i.e., oil and gas reserves.

Post-Flood, primarily due to the ensuing soaring global humidity, centuries of heavy snowfalls caused the polar regions to greatly expand. Therefore, unlike the Uniformitarian/Evolutionist, who works off a timescale of billions of years, the Creationist looks to the ensuing effects of the global Flood some 4,300 years ago. The Ice-Age lasted for a few hundred years. Job, who lived before the time of Abraham, when speaking of snow and ice (not normal for his region), may be referring to the Ice-Age. ‘The waters harden like stone, and the surface of the deep is frozen’ Job 38:30. (E.g., see also Job 6:16; 9:30; 24:19; 37:6; 38:22,29.) That, in a nutshell, is the Creationist take on global warming.

Is the planet warming? Yes! Should we panic? No! Are fossil fuels the primary cause? If Western nations stopped using fossil fuels it would have minimal effect on the climate. Does God want us to be good stewards of His earth? Yes! ‘Therefore, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.’ 1 Corinthians 10:31. 

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[1] Evening Standard (on-line), 04 December, 2018.

[2] ABC News (on-line), Friday 30 Nov 2018.

[3] Denis T Avery, Will Sea Levels Rise as Gore Predicts? Canada Free Press, Tuesday, July 11, 2006. https://canadafreepress.com/2006/avery071106.htm

WEDDINGS FIRST & LAST

Weddings First & Last

I had the privilege of walking my eldest daughter down the aisle and presenting her to her husband to be. I also had the privilege of marrying her to her husband. I don’t know which wedding number this was on the long list of weddings that have taken place since the beginning. The very first wedding took place on day six of ‘Creation Week.’ Of course, like every other wedding, this wedding was special. But unlike every other wedding since then, this wedding was even more special. For God had first to build the woman He was going to give to the man!

It was no problem for the eternal God to bring into being the whole of creation out of nothing. He simply spoke and things that were not became things that are. He formed Adam from the dust of the ground, and showed Adam all the birds and animals. Adam named them all. Thus Adam could see that not even a chimpanzee was comparable to him. As Scripture says, ‘But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.’ Genesis 2:20b. Chimps, cats, dogs, and budgies might be good company, but who wants to marry one? Each according to its kind! The very first wedding is prefaced with the following: ‘And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”’ Genesis 2:18. Marriage is very good because God instituted it because it was ‘not good that man should be alone,’ and also because at the end of that very first wedding-day we read these words, ‘Then God saw everything He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.’ Genesis 1:31.

‘And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place.’ Genesis 2:21. Back in the 60s and 70s cloning was the stuff of science fiction. Then in the 90s some son of Adam named a Scottish sheep ‘Dolly.’ This sheep was special. It was the first cloned animal to survive – for a wee while. Why then should anyone think it strange that the first woman was ‘built’ from a man’s rib? ‘Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made [lit. built] into a woman, and He brought her to the man.’ Genesis 2:22. Then the LORD God – as her heavenly Father – walked Eve down the aisle and presented her to Adam. Then He married the two. And just as there are wedding speeches today, so the very first wedding speech was uttered by Adam who waxed poetic and said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ Genesis 2:24. Adam knew exactly what the woman was. And they both knew that they could now lawfully also reproduce themselves, for Scripture says, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.’ Genesis 2:24. ‘Leave and cleave’ is how we put it nowadays. And so we see that marriage was instituted in the beginning by the LORD God Himself.

It is interesting to note that Jesus performed His very first miracle – attesting to the fact that He was the Son of God in the flesh – at a wedding. As the LORD God transformed the dust of the ground into a man, and the rib of the man into a woman, so Jesus transformed into wine the water in six large water-pots  (of over twenty gallons each) filled to the brim (John 2:6-10). Why so much wine, especially since the wedding guests had polished off whatever wine there was till that point? That great Reformer, John Calvin, offers the following answer: ‘But it is wonderful that a large quantity of wine, and of the very best wine, is supplied by Christ, who is a teacher of sobriety. I reply, when God daily gives us a large supply of wine, it is our own fault if His kindness is an excitement to luxury; but, on the other hand, it is an undoubted trial of our sobriety, if we are sparing and moderate in the midst of abundance; as Paul boasts that he had learned to know both how to be full and to be hungry, Philippians 4:12.’

Nothing to everything, the dust of the ground to man, a man’s rib to a woman, and water to wine, nothing is too hard for God. He can even transform a multitude innumerable, dead in its trespasses and sins, into the living Bride of Christ ‘that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.’ Ephesians 5:27.

O to have our heavenly Father walk us down that aisle on the last day and present us to His Son! I love weddings! Such joyous occasions!

AUTHORS, POETS, & ARTISTS

Authors, Poets, & Artists

In eternity-past God the Author had in mind the finished book of eternity-future. Then, the Father plucked a feather from the Holy Spirit and, dipping the holy quill into an inkwell filled with His Son’s blood, the Ancient of days began to write the history of the world.

By skilful use of repetitive redemptive themes, the Author bound the pages of His Book together. By pregnant promise He attracts and keeps His readerships’ attention from beginning to end. Word by word, sentence by sentence, line by line, chapter by chapter, His Spirit guides them through all the twists and turns of His inspired Word. Whether describing calmness in a garden or panic in a wilderness He uses every jot and tittle to maximum and dramatic effect. His Word is living, and His Spirit works with it in the diligent reader’s heart, in all those who will attend His Book signing.

In eternity-past God the Poet had in mind the full-blossomed anthology of eternity-future. Beginning with His eternal Word, by His Spirit, the Poet then brought together every letter of His alphabet, from the first to the last. The buzzing bees of thesaurus collected the pollen of prose from poppy petals to make the honey of His written rhythmic Word.
By use of couplets of contrast, such as light and darkness, good and evil, night and day, Heaven and Hell, and pairs of paradox, such as God as a human, Gospel Law, to live, you must die, He painted poetic word-pictures and hung them in the air like lark-song.
In accordance with His story the dim flame on the melted candlewax of hope would all but sputter and die before He set the Light of the World a pedestal. With His Breath and with His Word He began to breath hope into the hearts of those who sat in darkness, those who walked in the shadow of death. Then the Morning Star arrived, first by bursting forth from the womb and then from the tomb. The Word rose with healing in His wings. The Spirit is now drawing all the nations to His recitals.

In eternity-past God the Artist had in mind the full picture of eternity-future. Donning His coat of many colours and crimson beret, with palate in hand, the Artist began to dip the brush of His Providence into the three primary colours of space, time, and matter. His rainbow covenant was in the sky as His arcing paintbrush flashed back and forth from eternity to time, and from time to eternity. Daubing the canvass of His creation with His covenant colours the picture of eternity future began to emerge from the seeming chaos. By clever use of light and shade He began to give His painting depth and meaning. With the adoring crowds gathering in His gallery we await His masterpiece’s future and unveiling.

As encouragement to all authors, poets, and artists: ‘The Teacher searched to find delightful sayings and to record accurate words of truth. The words of the wise are like goads, and the anthologies of the masters are like firmly embedded nails driven by a single Shepherd’ Ecclesiastes 12:10-11 (Berean Study Bible). ‘I have filled [Bazalel] with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs…’ Exodus 31:3-4a. Says Francis Schaeffer, ‘A Christian should use these arts to the glory of God, not just as tracts, mind you, but as things of beauty to the praise of God. An art work can be a doxology in itself.’

WAR & PEACE

War & Peace

What is wrong with everyone? Why can’t we all just get along with each other? Why do people argue with others? Why are there wars? Well, the Bible says it’s all to do with enmity. My dictionary says enmity is deep-seated unfriendliness, hostility.

“Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war among your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.” James 4:1&2. Thus enmity comes from deep within, and it has to do with coveting. 

To covet is to break the 10^th Commandment. That Commandment slew the Christ-hating and Christian-hating Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:1; Rom. 7:7-11) who, by God’s grace alone, became Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ. The Pharisees kept up an outward appearance of keeping the 10 Commandments. But how does one keep “You shall not covet…” outwardly? God’s Moral Law is spiritual. Therefore it goes straight to the heart and shows you that you are a sinner! The covetous lusts deep within us prove that we are not content with our lot. Wars are the extension of our inner wars.

The war began with the rebellion in a garden some six thousand years ago. It was then that mankind sided with Satan against God the Creator. Satan used a serpent to deceive Eve into eating the fruit God had forbidden her and her husband Adam. Listening to the befriending Devil, Eve began to covet that fruit. “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.” Genesis 3:6.

Enter the LORD God into His garden to deal with the rebellion. In the course of His address to Adam, Eve, and the serpent, He made a wonderful promise. Speaking directly to the serpent He said: “…And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”

Man brought enmity into God’s creation by listening to the Devil and thereby declaring war on God.  But God, by His gracious promise, as it were, beat Adam’s pruning hook into a spear to be used against that serpent, the Devil. There was to be enmity between those who love God and His Moral Law, and those who don’t.

The summary of God’s Moral Law is the Ten Commandments. These are summed up again in the words, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and your neighbour as yourself.” Mark 12:30&31. The Son of God, Jesus Christ was nailed to a tree on account of His perfect love for God and His neighbour. It turns out that He is the promised ‘Seed of the woman’ (Gal. 3:16). His cross was a mortal blow to Satan’s head.

It is through His life, death, resurrection and ascension into Heaven that all wars begin to cease. He is the Prince of Peace. “Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end…” Isaiah 9:7a. And “He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” Isaiah 2:4.

He reconciles with God all who trust in Him alone for salvation. In Him we have peace with God – the peace that transcends all understanding (Phil. 1:7).