Evil Has Limits

 

Image: Unsplash

Another couple of paragraphs from a book I am writing,

“The devil is a threat to us, he is dangerous, he is the ultimate enemy of mankind. But no matter what the devil does to us in this life, we have eternal glory in Jesus. It’s not a coincidence that in the midst of all of the judgement and terror going on in the book Revelation that twice, as things are ramping up and evil has its most powerful influence in the world, that we read this:

“9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”...13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”^[1]

We read the something very similar in Revelation chapter 14^[2], the chapter after the pinnacle of evil, the beast, is revealed. God is showing us that even at the devil’s most powerful moment on the earth, in the great tribulation itself, the Devil cannot take your soul if you cling to Christ. This application holds true whether you consider there to be a future seven year tribulation, or rather that we are in the tribulation now and it consists of the whole of time before the coming end. Either way, the message of Revelation is very clear that the power of the devil is severely limited.”^[3]

Christians need to walk in the tension of recognizing how dangerous the evil one is, but also not giving him more credit for his power than is his due. Satan is placed within limits by our Lord Jesus Christ, who will finish him off in the end, on our behalf. We need to be aware of the evil one’s schemes, but not fearful of him. If we trust in the Lord, he will save us from the power of Satan. If we trust in the Lord, he will rescue us from the evil one’s clutches.

This should be a warning to all the non-Christians out there, that if you are not protected by Christ, you are in reach of the evil one. The devil has limits, evil has limits, there is a boundary fence around what it can do, but we need to trust in Jesus to get the full benefit from those limits. It does not mean that bad cannot happen to us, it simply means that no matter happens, we are secure in Jesus, if we keep our faith in him...if we keep our faith in him. 

 

---

[1] Revelation 7:9-10.

[2] Revelation 14:1-5.

[3] Should I talk about Job here?

Divorce and Decadence

 

Image: Unsplash

To what degree is the high rate of marriage breakups a twisted luxury of a kind of a well off, and overly pampered people? The easy way out in a culture where people have little resilience and lots of opportunity for giving in to weakness? In any culture there are marriages that fail. We see this even in ancient cultures and traditional cultures, the woman at the well in John 4 comes to mind here, as do other examples. So, you will never have perfection. But in a lot of cultures divorce rates are quite low.

One of the reasons for that is that it's hard for women to survive well on their own. So, in traditional cultures without high social safety nets and permissive cultures, divorce is relatively low. Which is why over the last 80 or so years, the overwhelming majority of welfare, and progressive policy has favoured women. To help them live without their husbands if they choose to, what feminists call “empowerment”. This has led to women divorcing at rates unheard of in history. The overwhelming majority of modern divorces are initiated by women. Because, though there are still challenges, in many ways life in the West has been made very simple. Women who left home could get a cheap rental, get all sorts of assistance from a variety of government and private sources, and in some cases they could even thrive because they could get a good deal with the house or assets, etc. Society often even encouraged this choice.

But now, government assistance cannot keep up with the rising costs of living in Australia. Even women with good careers are starting to struggle, if they are single, according to some reports. The massive inflation caused by the pandemic money handed out has broken the system in serious ways.

Will this have an effect on the divorce and separations rates going forward?

Will this incentivize people to choose to stay in a marriage that they once would have left, but now recognize that they are better off remaining in?

Was our high divorce rate, just a sign of an overly pampered society, where divorce was made economically easy, or even attractive and therefore common?

Will the rising cost of living stop a lot of divorces, or in other words save marriages?

The kind of divorces that really happened over minor reasons[i] (and there are lot of these, not all divorces are for serious reasons) in the past, might be too costly going forward? 

Is reality going to bite hard enough, to get people to stop acting like they have been? One can hope so. Our society needs to stop treating marriage as the lowest of all agreements, when it should be the highest of all covenants between human beings. That is, marriage between a man, and a woman, which should go without saying, because that is what marriage is, but in todays world it needs to be said. This kind of marriage is the highest of covenants that any two people, man and woman, can enter into, and it should be held in that kind of esteem again.  

I know some people will read this and think, "Yea, but Matt, what about this marriage that is too bad to stay in, or this one had to fall apart, or this woman was abandoned...etc, etc. I get all of that. Even in more traditional societies men abandoned women, and women could get divorce for certain reasons. You'll never have perfection in this life, as I said. But our modern society has taken this to plague proportions.

Many of the things we can get away with in society when things are easy, will be brought to a screeching halt by hard times. We are starting to see the beginning of this. When things get tough, not being totally satisfied with a personal relationship ranks far below starvation, cold and hunger. It should not have to get to this to prove to our society the importance of marriage. But we have had it so financially good for so long, we have forgotten basic truths. Will this kind of change be the upside of the coming hard times?

References

---

[i] Like marital dissatisfaction, or whatever that means.

ABC, 2023, Reality bites for thousands of Australians living in housing stress, https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/markets/reality-bites-for-thousands-of-australians-living-in-housing-stress/ar-AA1bjSpX?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=4269a705c26646c0b382ac42f3064af6&ei=11

Revisionist History

 

Image: Unsplash

The history of World War 2 will one day be told very differently. We all know the victors write the history, and they particularly write the history to make their side seem both more righteous and more justified in the whole affair, than the enemy. But one day people will be able to evaluate the events of World War 2 from afar, with non-biased goggles and little emotional attachment to the events, and when that day comes, and the many war crimes of all sides are properly evaluated, the history will be recounted very differently,  

“French and German authorities are preparing to dig in search of a mass grave in a forest in Corrèze after a 98-year-old former French resistance fighter who had kept silent for decades described the summary execution of German soldiers there in 1944.

Edmond Réveil spoke to local media this week about how, as an 18-year-old officer for the resistance on 12 June 1944, he had witnessed the mass execution of 47 German soldiers and one French woman accused of collaborating with the Gestapo.

Réveil first spoke about the killings at a veterans’ meeting in 2019, but he did not go to the media. As authorities now prepare to search a wooded area near the village of Meymac and dig in coming months, he told his story to the local paper La Montagne and other local media.

Réveil, who was codenamed “Butterfly” when he became a teenage resistance liaison officer, told France Bleu radio on Thursday that he had waited so long to speak out because he had been under pressure to stay quiet at the time. “It had to stay secret – it was wrong to shoot prisoners.”

Smedley Butler was correct when he said that War is a Racket. But so too is much of the retelling of the war in many circles for some time afterwards. The events of World War 2 created the world order that we live in today. And as long as that world order remains in power, then the dominant telling of the war will be the one determined by the elites of that world order. Such is true throughout history for all wars really, some more than others, but for all wars. Didn’t Caesar dress up his desire for personal glory in dominating the Gauls as a necessary step in protecting Rome from the German tribes across the other side of the Rhine?

As the comedian Jimmy Dore says, and I will likely butcher the quote and his joke, “America, a capitalist nation, borrowed money from China a communist nation, to bring democracy via conquest to Iraq a Muslim nation, that did not want it in the first place. What people tell themselves about war, and what nations tell themselves about war, and what historians are allowed to and not to say about what actually happened are often very different to the reality on the ground.

How many more events happened like the one that this former French soldier is confessing to, after all this time? Many. War brutalizes the men involved. At the start of the war, it is said the Americans were horrified with the British policy of carpet bombing German cities, and by the end of the war they had gone far beyond what the British could accomplish. Committing atrocities that are unfathomable in scope. It will be interesting to hear what future generations think about these wars, that people living in modern West, are not supposed to think today. 

Sometimes history has to be revised, because we were never properly taught it. 

Reference: 

Angelique Chrisafis, 2023, https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/french-resistance-fighter-98-reveals-mass-execution-of-german-prisoners/ar-AA1bmUns?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d4346720d899460c903babac1bb6ee59&ei=23

Atomization

 

Image: Unsplash

Another paragraph in a book I am writing:

“What is true for individuals, married couples and families, is true for society as well. If society is given over to sexual sin, it tends to destruction. Sexual sin breaks bonds all across society and atomizes individuals while simultaneously enslaving them to their lusts. These bonds between people are the foundations of a healthy society. Break enough relationships apart and you break the whole of society. Eventually it is too atomized to function in a healthy manner. Neither policy, nor government can turn this kind of situation around, only repentance.”

Atomization is the goal of the evil one. Because when you break everything down to its constituent parts, you are left with nothing but atoms. This is the goal of a destructive force, to break something apart. Whether it is a building, a family, or society itself. To destroy it you must break it down to its constituent parts.

Sexual sin is an effective means of achieving this goal. Avoid it at all costs. 

Gullible

 

Image: Unsplash

Former Premier of New South Wales and former foreign minister, Bob Carr, has noted the obvious about Australia’s situation in the world,

“Australia is gullible about the relationship with the United States, former foreign minister Bob Carr says after Joe Biden pulled out of a major trip down under.

The US president pulled out of the Quad leaders' meeting - which was due to be held in Sydney next week - to handle negotiations with Congress over the debt ceiling, which needs to be resolved by the end of the month to avoid a catastrophic default. 

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese subsequently cancelled the meeting, which also included the Japanese and Indian leaders, on Wednesday after receiving a call from Mr Biden.

Bob Carr said Australians shouldn't believe the Quad "is as significant a forum as some suggest".

"We Australians have been enormously gullible and optimistic about our American partner," the former foreign minister and NSW premier told Sky News.

"We've got to start to factor into our view of the future in this world the prospect that America could be more unpredictable and unreliable.”[i]

Australia needs to start acting in our region like we are largely on our own, because that is the reality, even if it does not appear that way yet to many. I have friends who are big believers in the alliance with the U.S. and believe that America is still the military power that it once was, or near enough to not matter. But this is not the case. It is no longer an American power, as it is dominated by an increasingly multicultural foreign elite. It is no longer leaps and bounds ahead of its competitors, have pushed much of its advanced technology manufacturing overseas. And it no longer has the ability to unilaterally project where it wills in the world, more powers are rising up to stop this.  

Australia has always thought of itself as a serious player in the world, by virtue of our relationship to the serious players, the U.K. and the U.S.. But this self-assessment has always been off base, and it is becoming riskier and riskier for us to tie ourselves to the United States’ foreign policy goals. It is good to see that there are political elites in this country who are willing to address this publicly. Because if Australia bases its foreign policy and domestic policy on the proviso that we need to do everything we can to keep America on side, we run the serious risk of placing our nation is danger of putting offside many of our neighbours, who are starting to align with the new rising power.

“We've got to start to factor into our view of the future in this world the prospect that America could be more unpredictable and unreliable.”

Therefore, we should be making sure that we can drill, refine and supply our own oil. We should be making sure our energy sector is as reliable and sustainable as possible and this means using the vast array of resources we have here. We should be making sure that less and less do we need to buy our supplies and technology from overseas. We should be preparing ourselves for the day that the United States empire decides to withdraw its forces from Australia, just as the Roman Empire withdrew its forces from the province of Britannia.

The day is coming. Better that we prepare with foresight, rather than we wait to fix things after it happens. 

References

---

[i] Dominic Giannini and Andrew Brown, 2023, Australia 'gullible' over US commitment: Bob Carr,  https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8200007/australia-gullible-over-us-commitment-bob-carr/

Hindsight is Not Good Enough

 

Image: Unsplash

If you live in Australia and are active on social media, or are a fan of the former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, you may have seen his interview with the former treasurer Peter Costello. If not, click here on this link[i] and go to minute 28:40 and you can watch the relevant parts of the interview, which goes for about 5 minutes. In that interview Costello said the obvious, Australia went way to far in its response to the pandemic. Truer words have never been spoken.

Watching Peter Costello talking about how crazy the overreach of the Covid hysteria was, is both encouraging and deflating. It is encouraging because he is one of the most prominent living Australians, a man who is respected across the country and in this interview on this topic[ii] he is speaking real sense. Pretty much everyone would admit this now. I have had private conversations with people who say, "Yea, well in hindsight, we went way to far..." Most people get it now. They realize that we threw out our principles in a moment of hysteria.   

But it is deflating to watch this now, because thousands of us were saying this in the middle of it all, and we were sidelined, prominent people stayed silent and allowed those of us speaking out to be hung out to dry, because we were lacking any prominent support. People who advocated for long held and cherished western and Christian principles were slandered as radical libertarians, conspiracy theorists and more. This does not mean it was wrong to speak out. In fact, this is why it was so important that we did, so our posterity will know that some of us spoke out against what was happening. But during the time we were abandoned in almost every quarter and attacked from multiple directions.  

All that leaders of churches needed to do during the hysteria, was speak out as sensibly as Peter Costello did in this interview and things would have been very different. That is how powerful the voice of the Church can be. It has stopped things like slavery, it has stopped wars, it has brokered peace between nations, it has been a vehicle of the introduction of human rights[iii] across the world. It has been a stabilizing force creating nations even, throughout history, and particularly in the West. All that was needed was for the Church leaders to speak the truth that was clear and obvious: we, nationally speaking, were acting like a bunch of fools, giving into fear and calling it wisdom.  

Hindsight is not good enough. Foresight should be the specialty of the church.

Hopefully many of us have learnt from this, because as Costello says in the interview, chances are there will be another pandemic. How will we act then?

References.

---

[i] Conversations, with Peter Costello AC, Former Treasurer of Australia, April 14, 2023, https://johnanderson.net.au/conversations-peter-costello-ii/

[ii] I have not watched the full interview and therefore cannot speak to anything else that he talks about.

[iii] The good kind, not the crazy modern version.

At The Mercy Of The Climate

 

Image: Unsplash

If you have read enough ancient history, or maybe even just a little bit, you will know that ancient civilisations died for a host of different reasons. Sometimes they were conquered by more powerful nations, sometimes they ran out key resources to make their society function, sometimes they died of plague or disease, or other disasters, sometimes they were just overrun by constant streams of invaders. But there is a key element that was often involved with a host of these other factors: climate change.

Climate Change is by no means a modern phenomenon, or a man-made issue for civilisation. Climate change is a constant factor in this fallen world, where everything, including the aggregate weather of regions and the world, otherwise known as climate, are subject to decay because of Adam’s sin. Sometimes this took out very complex and sophisticated societies. Like the Indus Valley civilisation. 

There is much we don’t know about this society, as it thoroughly disappeared,  

“But one mystery looms larger than the rest: How, when and why did the Indus valley civilization disappear?

Experts generally agree that a drought hit the Indus valley around 4,200 years ago, but the “exact timing and magnitude” of these dry conditions was unknown, researchers said in a study published April 4 in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

Answers to these elusive questions were hiding in the Dharamjali Cave in the Himalayas.

Near the far end of the shallow cave, researchers seeking to solve the mystery found a stalagmite with a telling combination of features. The cave formation was in a weather-susceptible habitat — yet protected enough that it formed during this ancient period.

Based on layered mineral deposits in the stalagmite, researchers reconstructed historic rainfall patterns beginning 4,200 years ago, the study said.

Their results offered a slightly different and much more detailed picture of ancient life than that of previous experts. Rather than a “single megadrought that lasted about 100–200 years,” researchers identified “three major dry periods” between 4,200 and 3,900 years ago with each period “lasting 25–90 years.”[i]

What killed this civilisation? Climate change in other words. Their climate changed and they could no longer sustain their way of life. Some might see in this a strong argument for us to do more to combat climate change. But, really it should teach us the opposite. Why?

Well, all human societies to one degree or another are dependent on their climate. If the weather is too extreme, then it makes it hard for life to flourish, which is why the only people in Antarctica, officially at least, are seasonal researchers doing various kinds of surveys and the like. The closer you get to the poles, the lower populations get. The more desert you live amongst the same thing happens. So, all civilisations must work within their local climates.

But modern technology has enabled humanity to largely overcome the dangers of climate. We don’t have to rely on sunshine alone to warm us, we can live in coal powered heated homes. We can truck or pipe water in over long distances. We can overcome the dangers of travelling on foot across dangerous environmental hazards with trains, planes and automobiles, and boats. We can overcome many of the ways that nature wants to kill us, with floods, storms, cyclones and other elemental dangers.

Ancient societies often disappeared in bad climates, precisely because they were dependent on various renewable technologies and did not have the vast access to the fossil fuels that we do. They were completely at the mercy of the climate, we have overcome that in large measure. And forcing society to go back to wind, sun and water driven power, will place human civilisation again at the mercy of windless days, cloudy seasons and low water flow. All these things can slow even a modern society down. But if they went on for too long ancient societies could not survive. Modern society can counteract these issues to a larger degree. 

Living at the mercy of the climate is a foolish way to go as a society. We want to work with nature wisely and sustainably. But we should not see nature as a benign force that means humanity no harm. Nature, and this includes the full rage of climate, can be ruthless. It has no pity for mankind or beast, and therefore, we should not reject the Christian principle that it needs subjection, or we will place our way of life in great jeopardy.

 

References

---

[i] Indus valley civilization disappeared 3,600 years ago — we finally know why, study says,

Aspen Pflughoeft, 2023, https://ca-movies-yahoo-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/ca.movies.yahoo.com/amphtml/indus-valley-civilization-disappeared-3-173551724.html?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQGsAEggAID#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16835895452127&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fca.movies.yahoo.com%2Findus-valley-civilization-disappeared-3-173551724.html