It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, Hebrews 9:27
There are two kinds of appointments. One is mutual, where both parties agree to meet at a certain place and time. The other is where one party is summoned to an appointment by the other. An example of the first is a date, something to look forward to. An example of the second is a summons to court over a transgression of the law. The first kind of appointment is usually eagerly anticipated, and the approach of the second kind of appointment is usually accompanied by trepidation at the least, and fear at the worst.
We all agree that we all have one thing in common at least. Rich or poor, smart or dumb, weak or strong, powerful or impotent, we are all going to die. Well actually we all have two things in common. After we die we all have an appointment with the Judge of all mankind. You are probably in agreement with me about the first thing we have in common, but if not, it won’t make any difference, you will die anyway! Neither does it make any difference if you disagree with me about the second thing, for you will face judgement as well anyhow! Why? Because God says so!
Let me enlighten you about something. The reason you are going to die is because God said so. If He is right about that, rest assured He is also right about the judgement. You do have an appointment, time and date unknown, before the court of heaven, and so do I.
Let’s clear up any misunderstanding here. God did not create us to die! Think about it, it makes sense. If a turtle can live over 400 years, why is it that the pinnacle of God’s creation can only manage one quarter of that time? The answer is found in Genesis 3. Adam and Eve were created to be immortal. They were made in God’s image. They could reproduce, they could create, they could choose to do whatever they wanted to and they had dominion over the earth and its creatures. They were in fact lords of the world, by the decree and authority of its Creator! They were created with built in immortality! In that state they were in communion with God. Genesis records that Adam walked with God in the garden. If you really want to talk to someone and get to know them, go for a long walk in the country. God and Adam fellowshipped together like that! Wow!
What broke that relationship? For it surely has been broken, I am sure you will agree with me on that point! Relationships are broken by agreement and trust being violated. God trusted Adam with stewardship of all He had made on the earth, and withheld only one thing. God said that if that trust was broken, Adam would suffer death. Why? God was not being petulant or vindictive. He is not a man, and does not act out of wrong motives. God is pure, holy, and without fault. As soon as Adam disobeyed God, he betrayed His trust. Do you remain on good terms with someone you do not trust? No. It does not make for a relationship of any sort. Now Adam’s life was directly dependent on his continuing relationship with God, just as his body’s function was dependent on food and water, just as the earth as a habitable planet is dependent on the sun. Take away the source of life and death is inevitable. If God continued in relationship with Adam, His holiness and purity would be compromised. That cannot happen of course, so the only alternative is that Adam and Eve would have ceased to exist completely. So they were driven out from Eden, from God’s presence, which had now become deadly to them. Separated from the source of their life they began to die. Corruption set in, and eventually took it’s toll, and they died, just like their descendents did. And you and I will. It could be no other way. The Bible says in Romans 6:23 that “the wages of sin (breaking of relationship with God by disobedience to His law) is death.” That’s not all it says, but I’ll come back to that later.
Before the fall, relationship with God was a privilege. Now the privilege is withdrawn. What do you do when a privilege you value very highly is taken from you? For example your car is impounded because it is unworthy. You pay the fine to have it released of course, and then you pay to have it made roadworthy again. That’s what you do isn’t it? Anybody would.
So what price will mankind pay to get right with God? What price will you pay? The history of the world is littered with mankind’s attempts to get right with God. They are known as religions. They all have some things in common. Firstly they are all inventions of men. I can prove it. What do you do when the thing you cherish most is insulted, rejected, belittled, despised, abused, miss-understood, and scorned? You get angry, that’s what you do! Ring any bells? Does a Muslim get angry if Jesus is insulted? How about Mohammed! Muslims own Mohammed, they don’t own Jesus, That’s why!
Listen to what Jesus said to His followers about their reaction to Him being insulted…
`A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you (John 15:20). You have heard that it was said, `You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, Matthew 5:43 & 44
How many wars, persecutions, massacres and suppressions have been carried out in the name of religion? Even people who are followers of the same religion despise and kill one another! More people have died in Iraq from sectarian attacks than from the action of coalition forces! The bitterness and division in Ireland has its roots in religious intolerance Are we stupid enough to think God is impressed by this? If we think that we can get right with God by following the rules and regulations of a religion, we are sadly deluded! Look at what Jesus had to say…
Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying,
"Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.'' But He answered and said to them, "Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? "For God commanded, saying, `Honor your father and your mother'; and, `He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.'
"But you say, `Whoever says to his father or mother, "Whatever profit you might have received from me has been dedicated to the temple'' is released from honouring his father or mother.' "Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. "Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:
These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honour Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.' '' Matthew 15:1-9
For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.
As it is written: "There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all gone out of the way; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.
Romans 3:9-12
The benchmark here is the one set by God in the 10 commandments. Sorry, you can’t set your own benchmark! But that is exactly what religion does! How absurd! Here’s a good idea. If you want to go to university, just set your own admission standards! Hey, let’s all go. Sorry, but it won’t work. We can all see that, so why do we delude ourselves into thinking we can write our own ticket to heaven? You can dress it up with a fancy name, like Catholicism, or Anglicanism, or Judaism, Islam, or Buddhism, or Hinduism, or any ism you like, but it WILL NOT WASH!
So back to the 10 commandments. Jesus said to him, " `You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' "This is the first and great commandment. "And the second is like it: `You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' Matthew 22:37-39
Oh! Uh.. hands up anyone who has managed the first two? No, well that’s no surprise! Hard isn’t it? In fact it’s impossible to keep the commandments! So why did God set an impossible benchmark? Come on God you say, cut us a little slack, it’s not fair! Actually God had no option. He is holy and perfect, and to gain admission to His presence we have to be holy and perfect too, or we will be destroyed. Remember when God was going to appear to Moses on the mountain? God found a fault in the rock, a deep cut into which Moses could go. Thus surrounded by the rock, he saw God pass by the opening to the cleft with His back to Moses. Even so Moses barely survived the encounter! When he returned to camp his face shone for days afterwards. It wasn’t sunburn, it was Godburn! This is an old testament example of a new testament truth. We can only enter God’s presence if we are hidden in Christ, the Rock of our salvation. He is our advocate at the court of heaven. He fulfilled all the demands of God’s law and lived a perfect life. When he laid down His life, he offered it up as the penalty for our sin, our rebellion and disobedience. There is nothing any of us can do to deserve the pardon that He freely offers us. Clutching our pardon in our hand, we approach our appointment with God at the court of heaven with confidence knowing that our pardon has the seal of God on it, because it was purchased with the blood of His precious Son!
Remember Romans 6:23? The wages of sin is death? The second part of that verse says “but the gift of God is eternal life!”
Funny thing about a gift. You don’t have to earn it. You earn your wages, and the wages of rebellion is death. We have all sinned, and we shall all die. Eternal life however is a gift. To obtain it you only need to do an about turn towards God, hold out your hands and receive it! The about turn is repentance. That means to turn around, to change direction.
“For godly sorrow produces repentance to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” 2 Corinthians 7:10
Being sorry for your sin is good, but it is not good enough. On it’s own it won’t alter your destination. Godly sorrow causes you to turn from your rebellion, and set’s you off in the opposite direction, in fellowship with Jesus Christ, the fellowship that Adam lost.
“For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” 1 Corinthians 15:21&22.
We all have an appointment with death. We don’t know when or where. There are no guarantees. The appointment could come at any time. Are you ready? Afterwards we have an appointment in the court of God for judgement. We are all guilty,
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23
Is your defence prepared? There is no defence. Jesus said…
"If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.” John 15:22
There is no defence, there is no excuse! There is however a pardon available. Do you have it? Without it there is no entry to God’s presence, only everlasting torment over a wrong decision that cannot be rectified.
To those who reject the Son of God He says…
"But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. "So he said to him, `Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?' And he was speechless. "Then the king said to the servants, `Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
Do not delay. God says ' Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” 2 Corinthians 6:2
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me”. Revelation 3:20
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
Go your own way
I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. Jonah 2:9 & 10
It’s not always easy to obey God.
It’s much easier than disobeying Him though!
God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and warn that city that they were heading for disaster unless they altered their ways. Jonah figured that the Ninevites would not exactly give him the keys to the city for such a hard word!
So Jonah had a better idea, he would go in the opposite direction, even if that meant taking a ship, because to the west was the sea! Have you ever noticed that our good ideas are usually in opposition to God’s? What was Jonah’s motivation for disobeying God? Fear of man. I’m sure that if he had read in the Nineveh Herald that the mayor was offering a well paid position in the administration for a prophet of God, he would have taken a fast camel east! Jonah wasn’t that dumb however. He was street wise, he knew that a wicked bunch like the Ninevites would probably lynch him, or at best dump him in a really gloomy damp smelly jail!
Actually, talking about a damp smelly dark dungeon….
It turned out that God cared too much for the people of Nineveh to let Jonah retire to a villa in Tarsish! God sent a storm his way. Now we have no guarantee that life will be storm free, but I can guarantee that if we refuse to abide in the will of God for our lives, we will encounter more than our share of storms.
If you want to know the best way out of a storm in your life, ask Jonah. Say what you like about Jonah, but he was a quick learner. (Or was it a case of necessity is the mother of invention, as the boat was about to go down with all hands?) Whatever, he quickly realised that he was the cause of this, and consequently the solution. His bottle deserted him when it came to jumping ship however, so he asked the crew to chuck him overboard. This is getting worse! Nineveh seems like a good option now!
Look, whatever your situation, God will provide a way out as long as you want out! Just be prepared for the unusual. A giant fish is probably not Jonah’s first choice of lifeboat, but it did the job!
Back to that damp dark smelly dungeon… look on the bright side, he’s not dead – yet. Well when all else has failed, what’s the worse that can happen? You die and go to heaven? Well not yet, you see there’s that Nineveh thing. “Ok God I give up! I will praise you in spite of my situation, and I repent of my disobedience”!
Well it’s about time Jonah! Hey fish. Spew that pain in the gut out, and while you’re at it, point to the east!
God got His way in the end, and because of Jonah’s citywide crusades, there was a revival in Nineveh.
But it could have been easier on Jonah!
Option 1. Say yes Lord, book a seat on a camel east to Nineveh, and preach to whoever will listen. Leave the rest to God.
Option 2. Run away. Take a ship instead of a camel, and go west to Tarsish instead of east to Nineveh. Your choice. Only pretty soon you run out of choices. Now it’s between going down with the ship or going overboard. Some choice!
When we are disobedient and choose to live our lives outside of the will of God, we start to find our choices becoming increasingly less attractive. We find the destination we set for ourselves unattainable. Plans and dreams fall apart. Health fails, circumstances are unfortunate, situations are gloomy, money is wasted, (I reckon a camel fare to Nineveh was cheaper that a cruise to Tarsish, even if it did seem less comfortable)
If your life has turned out like that, if you find your choices running out, you still have one choice left you can make. You can choose to praise God and repent and obey Him. If you commit your ways to the Lord, He will direct your path and turn your life around. Only be prepared to go to Nineveh! It’s never too late to go to Nineveh.
Hey it’s got to be better than the fishy mess you’ve been in so far right?
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5&6.
It’s not always easy to obey God.
It’s much easier than disobeying Him though!
God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and warn that city that they were heading for disaster unless they altered their ways. Jonah figured that the Ninevites would not exactly give him the keys to the city for such a hard word!
So Jonah had a better idea, he would go in the opposite direction, even if that meant taking a ship, because to the west was the sea! Have you ever noticed that our good ideas are usually in opposition to God’s? What was Jonah’s motivation for disobeying God? Fear of man. I’m sure that if he had read in the Nineveh Herald that the mayor was offering a well paid position in the administration for a prophet of God, he would have taken a fast camel east! Jonah wasn’t that dumb however. He was street wise, he knew that a wicked bunch like the Ninevites would probably lynch him, or at best dump him in a really gloomy damp smelly jail!
Actually, talking about a damp smelly dark dungeon….
It turned out that God cared too much for the people of Nineveh to let Jonah retire to a villa in Tarsish! God sent a storm his way. Now we have no guarantee that life will be storm free, but I can guarantee that if we refuse to abide in the will of God for our lives, we will encounter more than our share of storms.
If you want to know the best way out of a storm in your life, ask Jonah. Say what you like about Jonah, but he was a quick learner. (Or was it a case of necessity is the mother of invention, as the boat was about to go down with all hands?) Whatever, he quickly realised that he was the cause of this, and consequently the solution. His bottle deserted him when it came to jumping ship however, so he asked the crew to chuck him overboard. This is getting worse! Nineveh seems like a good option now!
Look, whatever your situation, God will provide a way out as long as you want out! Just be prepared for the unusual. A giant fish is probably not Jonah’s first choice of lifeboat, but it did the job!
Back to that damp dark smelly dungeon… look on the bright side, he’s not dead – yet. Well when all else has failed, what’s the worse that can happen? You die and go to heaven? Well not yet, you see there’s that Nineveh thing. “Ok God I give up! I will praise you in spite of my situation, and I repent of my disobedience”!
Well it’s about time Jonah! Hey fish. Spew that pain in the gut out, and while you’re at it, point to the east!
God got His way in the end, and because of Jonah’s citywide crusades, there was a revival in Nineveh.
But it could have been easier on Jonah!
Option 1. Say yes Lord, book a seat on a camel east to Nineveh, and preach to whoever will listen. Leave the rest to God.
Option 2. Run away. Take a ship instead of a camel, and go west to Tarsish instead of east to Nineveh. Your choice. Only pretty soon you run out of choices. Now it’s between going down with the ship or going overboard. Some choice!
When we are disobedient and choose to live our lives outside of the will of God, we start to find our choices becoming increasingly less attractive. We find the destination we set for ourselves unattainable. Plans and dreams fall apart. Health fails, circumstances are unfortunate, situations are gloomy, money is wasted, (I reckon a camel fare to Nineveh was cheaper that a cruise to Tarsish, even if it did seem less comfortable)
If your life has turned out like that, if you find your choices running out, you still have one choice left you can make. You can choose to praise God and repent and obey Him. If you commit your ways to the Lord, He will direct your path and turn your life around. Only be prepared to go to Nineveh! It’s never too late to go to Nineveh.
Hey it’s got to be better than the fishy mess you’ve been in so far right?
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5&6.
Greed
Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do so. Do not say to your neighbour, "Go, and come back, and tomorrow I will give it,'' when you have it with you. Proverbs 3:27-28.
Ford motor company made a car in 1971 called the Pinto that was prone to bursting into flames when it was rear ended. The cost of fixing the problem was $121 million.
The potential compensation to victims was calculated at $50 million. Ford decided not to fix the car!
Ford is not alone in this respect. Ralph Nader has spent his life exposing the appalling safety record of the 3 major American car manufacturers. The callous cynical attitude shown by Ford, GM and Chrysler towards their customers is typical of many corporations past and present who place their own self interest above that of others. No surprise then that their customers have switched in droves to Toyota and Honda! No surprise either that they are all in trouble, and in danger of disappearing altogether.
Why have I chosen these examples? Because they are typical of human nature and behaviour. Look after number 1. Why do today what you can delay indefinitely?
The world is in a mess because of this attitude. In fact it’s always been in a mess because of this attitude. History is littered with examples of Empires, nations, kings, corporations and individuals who thought self interest was the right choice. God disagrees!
Not only does he disagree, He gets really ticked off when he sees one group of people taking advantage of others by grabbing all they can for themselves, and ignoring the plight of those less fortunate.
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Matthew 23:25
Instead of Scribes and Pharisees we should substitute Chief Executives and Chairmen, to bring the quote into the 21st century. In the 19th century it would have been Mine owners and Mill owners, in the middle ages Cardinals and Barons, and so on and on.
God is not opposed to wealth, provided it is obtained legally and morally, and it is used wisely. After all He bestowed immense riches on Soloman after he had asked for wisdom. Some people use their wealth wisely. (Watch Bill & Melinda Gates, their lives will be long and are blessed.) Others accumulate wealth like a cancer. It’s only purpose is to grow! They will employ any means to get it, increase it, and keep it. They spend it on themselves, wasting it on frivolities. (Jeffrey Skilling was jailed for 24 years, and Ken Lay died of heart attack. Both CEO’s of Enron Corporation.)
Unfortunately there seem to be more Skillings and Lays than Gates in the world. When William Wilburforce set about the abolition of slavery, he had only a couple of allies in the house of commons. All the rest were either against him, or indifferent!
It’s a shocking indictment on the elected representatives of this country that they resisted efforts to end slavery for as long as they did. Hardly surprising though, as many of them had investments in the slavery business, and though it lay in their power to do good to the slaves, they preferred to protect their own wealth and privilege
Tsar Nicholas II was the last of the Romanovs, a dynasty of kings that had ruled Russia for centuries. Under the feudal system that they perpetrated, millions of Russian serfs had no rights in law, and were effectively slaves of the Tsar and the nobility of Russia. Other European nations had long since abandoned this system, and France had suffered a bloody revolution in the 1790’s because of a system that actually treated its peasants better than the Romanov’s did! Alexander, the Tsar at the time ignored the lessons of France, and 130 years later his descendant Nicholas II was deposed and murdered along with his family by the Bolshevik revolutionaries led by Lenin. One of Lenin’s co-revolutionaries was a man called Joseph Stalin. France’s revolution spawned Napoleon Bonaparte, who plunged Europe into war for 23 years, killing millions in the process and ruining France. Russia’s revolution spawned Joseph Stalin who was responsible for the deaths of millions of Russians and others in the ethnic regions. He actually made the lives of the Russian peasants worse, and was instrumental in causing a famine in 1921-22 that claimed an estimated 5 million lives! Stalin once said that the death of one man was a tragedy, but the death of a million was a statistic! The history of eastern Europe after the second world war is a tragic testimony to the monster that the revolution spawned. I wonder what the Tsars would have thought of him? I wonder if they would have accepted their responsibility for his rise to power?
After the first world war the allies (including Great Britain) imposed punitive war reparations on Germany, even to the extent that France stripped the Ruhr region not only of it’s autonomy, but also of much of its industrial capacity. The burden was so onerous that in the 1920’s inflation was so bad that people had to cart money around in barrows to purchase food. Then at the end of the decade the world fell into the great depression, and conditions for the people of Germany got even worse! Meanwhile a small party led by an ex army corporal was growing in popularity on the back of all this misery and discontent. By 1933 they had by fair and foul means managed to get 33% of the vote, which made the Nazi party the largest in the German Parliament, and it’s leader Adolf Hitler the most powerful man in Germany. I do not have room here to give you the rest of the story, most of which you will know anyway, except to say that by 1945 most of Germany and Europe lay in ruins, and over 60 million people were dead!
Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do so. Do not say to your neighbour, "Go, and come back, and tomorrow I will give it,'' when you have it with you. Proverbs 3:27-28.
Jesus said…
But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. Matthew 5-44.
When will we ever learn?
The current world recession is the result of greed, immorality and selfishness. As Christians we must show the world a better way, the way Jesus trod. We must also pray for world leaders, for them like Soloman to desire wisdom above all else, or if not, for God to remove them. Above all we must pray that the present folly will not lead to a worse catastrophe!
Ford motor company made a car in 1971 called the Pinto that was prone to bursting into flames when it was rear ended. The cost of fixing the problem was $121 million.
The potential compensation to victims was calculated at $50 million. Ford decided not to fix the car!
Ford is not alone in this respect. Ralph Nader has spent his life exposing the appalling safety record of the 3 major American car manufacturers. The callous cynical attitude shown by Ford, GM and Chrysler towards their customers is typical of many corporations past and present who place their own self interest above that of others. No surprise then that their customers have switched in droves to Toyota and Honda! No surprise either that they are all in trouble, and in danger of disappearing altogether.
Why have I chosen these examples? Because they are typical of human nature and behaviour. Look after number 1. Why do today what you can delay indefinitely?
The world is in a mess because of this attitude. In fact it’s always been in a mess because of this attitude. History is littered with examples of Empires, nations, kings, corporations and individuals who thought self interest was the right choice. God disagrees!
Not only does he disagree, He gets really ticked off when he sees one group of people taking advantage of others by grabbing all they can for themselves, and ignoring the plight of those less fortunate.
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Matthew 23:25
Instead of Scribes and Pharisees we should substitute Chief Executives and Chairmen, to bring the quote into the 21st century. In the 19th century it would have been Mine owners and Mill owners, in the middle ages Cardinals and Barons, and so on and on.
God is not opposed to wealth, provided it is obtained legally and morally, and it is used wisely. After all He bestowed immense riches on Soloman after he had asked for wisdom. Some people use their wealth wisely. (Watch Bill & Melinda Gates, their lives will be long and are blessed.) Others accumulate wealth like a cancer. It’s only purpose is to grow! They will employ any means to get it, increase it, and keep it. They spend it on themselves, wasting it on frivolities. (Jeffrey Skilling was jailed for 24 years, and Ken Lay died of heart attack. Both CEO’s of Enron Corporation.)
Unfortunately there seem to be more Skillings and Lays than Gates in the world. When William Wilburforce set about the abolition of slavery, he had only a couple of allies in the house of commons. All the rest were either against him, or indifferent!
It’s a shocking indictment on the elected representatives of this country that they resisted efforts to end slavery for as long as they did. Hardly surprising though, as many of them had investments in the slavery business, and though it lay in their power to do good to the slaves, they preferred to protect their own wealth and privilege
Tsar Nicholas II was the last of the Romanovs, a dynasty of kings that had ruled Russia for centuries. Under the feudal system that they perpetrated, millions of Russian serfs had no rights in law, and were effectively slaves of the Tsar and the nobility of Russia. Other European nations had long since abandoned this system, and France had suffered a bloody revolution in the 1790’s because of a system that actually treated its peasants better than the Romanov’s did! Alexander, the Tsar at the time ignored the lessons of France, and 130 years later his descendant Nicholas II was deposed and murdered along with his family by the Bolshevik revolutionaries led by Lenin. One of Lenin’s co-revolutionaries was a man called Joseph Stalin. France’s revolution spawned Napoleon Bonaparte, who plunged Europe into war for 23 years, killing millions in the process and ruining France. Russia’s revolution spawned Joseph Stalin who was responsible for the deaths of millions of Russians and others in the ethnic regions. He actually made the lives of the Russian peasants worse, and was instrumental in causing a famine in 1921-22 that claimed an estimated 5 million lives! Stalin once said that the death of one man was a tragedy, but the death of a million was a statistic! The history of eastern Europe after the second world war is a tragic testimony to the monster that the revolution spawned. I wonder what the Tsars would have thought of him? I wonder if they would have accepted their responsibility for his rise to power?
After the first world war the allies (including Great Britain) imposed punitive war reparations on Germany, even to the extent that France stripped the Ruhr region not only of it’s autonomy, but also of much of its industrial capacity. The burden was so onerous that in the 1920’s inflation was so bad that people had to cart money around in barrows to purchase food. Then at the end of the decade the world fell into the great depression, and conditions for the people of Germany got even worse! Meanwhile a small party led by an ex army corporal was growing in popularity on the back of all this misery and discontent. By 1933 they had by fair and foul means managed to get 33% of the vote, which made the Nazi party the largest in the German Parliament, and it’s leader Adolf Hitler the most powerful man in Germany. I do not have room here to give you the rest of the story, most of which you will know anyway, except to say that by 1945 most of Germany and Europe lay in ruins, and over 60 million people were dead!
Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do so. Do not say to your neighbour, "Go, and come back, and tomorrow I will give it,'' when you have it with you. Proverbs 3:27-28.
Jesus said…
But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. Matthew 5-44.
When will we ever learn?
The current world recession is the result of greed, immorality and selfishness. As Christians we must show the world a better way, the way Jesus trod. We must also pray for world leaders, for them like Soloman to desire wisdom above all else, or if not, for God to remove them. Above all we must pray that the present folly will not lead to a worse catastrophe!
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