Book Sale

Saturday 28 September 2024

Progressive Christians Don’t Treat The Foreigner Biblically

 



Refugees. The progressive side of the Church in the modern world thinks it has a lock on following what the Bible says about the foreigner, sojourner, or as they would say it in today’s terms the immigrant or refugee. They would simply say that the opposition of Christians to immigration is racist and unbiblical, we are commanded in the Bible to take the foreigner in. So open the gates, and let the welfare checks flow. 

They would use a passage like this, Exodus 22:21, “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt, and this, Exodus 23:9, “You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.” And like this one in Malachi 3:5,

“Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.”

Case, set and match, they'd say. This means that if you want to be biblical you need to take in refugees, and immigrants, and you need to give them the full rights of citizens as soon as well. To do otherwise is to be like the oppressive Egyptians that exploited the Hebrews when they were sojourners in Egypt. Or so the argument goes. 

The problem with this application is that it is not based on what these passages are saying at all. Firstly, to compare an immigrant, or settler, to a sojourner, is simply dishonest. A sojourner, is a temporary resident. Someone who is far from their home and on the move. How did Egypt oppress the Hebrews when they were sojourners? By forcing them into slave labour and by not letting them go when they wanted to.

In other words, the progressive Christian actually inverts what the Bible is saying here. They say that to oppress the sojourner is to turn them away from settling in your land, but according to the law, first and foremost, to oppress the sojourner is to keep them in your land for cheap or free labour. Which just happens to be two of the goals of modern immigration policies in our country. Immigration is designed to bring in new settlers and to suppress wages. The way immigration achieves this is by creating more competition for employment, and therefore, allows employers to offer lesser conditions and lower wages. So modern immigration is used to oppress the immigrant and the citizen. The progressive actually inverts what the Bible is saying on this issue. 

To not oppress the sojourner is to treat them well as long they are guests in your land, and then send them on their way. Think of it like this: if you have guests in your house, you should go out of your way to treat them well, honour them, and protect them. But if they won’t leave you can kick them out. To oppress them would be to lock the doors and make them slaves in your house. This is exactly what the Egyptians did to the Hebrews. To say, ok, time for you to go home now, is not only not oppression, it is good, right and biblical.  

To compare how the Israelites were to treat small groups of strangers in their country to large mass immigration is also very dishonest. The Bible has a term for mass movements of peoples into another land, war. That is what the Israelites brought to Canaan. The mass movement of Israelites into Canaan is called ‘The conquest of Canaan’ for a reason, because that is what it was. How did the Canaanites respond to this invasion? They fought against it. How did the Israelites respond to future attacks on their country by mass movements of people? They fought against them. To politically oppose mass movements of people is not the equivalent of oppressing the foreigner, it is simply the business of being good citizens and wanting to preserve your people’s integrity as a nation.

But there is another significant way in which progressive Christians ignore what the Bible says about the ‘sojourner’ or temporary resident or immigrant. Progressive Christians and even many conservative Christians tend to be very pro-multiculturalism. They tend to consider treating the immigrant justly to mean that they can bring their religion, their culture and their ways to this country, and to say otherwise is oppression. But the Bible does not support this in the slightest.

The law of Israel required all sojourners, whether temporary, which is what the word means, or those who would like to stay, to follow the laws and customs of the people of Israel, or face the same punishments for rejecting God that the Israelites faced. For instance, Exodus 20:8-10, one of the ten commandments says this,

“8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

We all know how strictly the Sabbath law was meant to be applied in ancient Israel. This law was intended for all who lived in their land of Israel, whether Hebrew or foreigner.

Leviticus 24 shows us that this applied to other laws as well,

“13 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 14 “Bring out of the camp the one who cursed, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. 15 And speak to the people of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. 16 Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death” (Lev. 24:13-16).

Now, of course we do not live under the law of Moses anymore. No one is arguing that we should. But progressive Christians like to pretend that they are closer to the heart of God because they are pro-immigration. They often get strongly involved in pro-immigration and refugee programs. But what would they say if you said, fine those people can come here, but they must give up their religion, their language, their culture, and all their foreign ways and follow Australian founding values and culture from day one? They would flip out and say you were trying to oppress the foreigner. But they would be unequivocally wrong. This is part of what the Bible called living your neighbour. 

To not oppress the sojourner, or foreigner in the Bible was to make sure they were not exploited, to make sure the destitute were treated with mercy (Lev. 19:10 for instance), and to not force them to remain in the country. In other words, the Israelites were to be good hosts and treat their guests well. They were not commanded to take in large amounts of people, like is happening in our country today, and they were certainly not allowed to change their laws and ways to suit foreigners and their desires.

The foreigners even had the opportunity to become part of Israel. We read in Exodus 12:48-49,

“48 If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. 49 There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.”

Numbers 9:14 also reiterates this same law. Foreigners were allowed to partake in the privileges of the Israelites, however they were to first become Hebrews, and the males were to be circumcised. In other words, the law of Israel was designed to avoid the very situation we are in with modern western countries. It was designed to make sure that those who came into the country came in small numbers and conformed to the customs, rules and laws of Israel. Circumcision by itself was a major stumbling block for many. 

This article is not an argument for why we should obey the Mosaic law today. It is simply a refutation of the idea that progressives are closer to the heart of God on this issue. A nation is a good thing and it does not exist for foreigners. It exists for the people who are of that nation, the kin of the tribes or peoples from which it was founded. Others can become a part of it, but this only works if it is done slowly, and strictly in a way that preserves the nation’s identity, culture and religion. What is happening in the West today is more like what Karl Marx argued for, that there should be no nations, just large conglomerations of mixed peoples, than anything from ancient Israel. It is not an accident that our culture is so ungodly and looks just like the godless empire that is ruled by Babylon in Revelation 18:15, “And the angel said to me, “The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages.” The evil one knows what he is doing. Multiculturalism has always succeeded in suppressing the faith of a people.

Don’t let progressive Christians guilt you into think you are less near the heart of God because you are not pro-mass immigration. Whether it is legal or illegal, mass movements of people moving into a nation change it markedly. Just think of it like this: did the mass movements of English settlers from Britain make this country more British or did the settlers become more like the Aborigines? The answer is obvious. Mass immigration is nowhere required of a people in the scriptures, any more than mass apostasy is.

 

 

 

 

Friday 27 September 2024

What Is Jacob’s Trouble?

 


If you are familiar with this term ‘Jacob’s trouble’ you know immediately what I am talking about. But rather than me explaining it for those who may not be as familiar, let me quote a source on the subject which gives a succinct definition,

“Jacob's trouble or Jacob's distress refers to the difficulties the Jewish people will face during the seven-year tribulation period. During this time, the Jewish temple will be rebuilt, yet desecrated. The Antichrist will break a covenant and set himself up as ruler and expect to be worshiped. He will force all people to receive a mark to buy or sell goods. In addition, much war and famine will occur, with Jews fleeing Jerusalem to the mountains.”[1]

As the article also notes this phrase comes from Jeremiah 30:7 which says this in the NKJV, “Alas! For that day is great, So that none is like it; And it is the time of Jacob’s trouble, But he shall be saved out of it.” The ESV notes that it is a time of distress of Jacob, but both translations carry the precise same meaning. The time of Jacob’s trouble will be a period of testing for the Israelites, a time of distress. The word for trouble used here ‘tsarah’ can also be translated tribulation. So, you can see why there are many Christians who see this phrase as referring to the tribulation period being a time of distress for the people of Israel.

But the passage does not just say this, as the article notes it also points to hope,

“In previous verses, God promised He would someday restore His people to their land, meaning the land of Israel. Despite a great time of distress for the Jewish people, the Lord would save them from it. Jeremiah 30:8-9 make it clear that this time would be a period in which God's people no longer served other masters, but would serve the Lord and "David their king, whom I will raise up for them" (v. 9).”[2]

So, according to this reading of Jeremiah 30:7-9 Jacob will go through a time of deep and terrifying trouble at some future date in the great tribulation, but this time would also turn into a time of liberation, or freedom from oppression, as verses 8-9 say, “8 ‘For it shall come to pass in that day,’ Says the Lord of hosts, ‘That I will break his yoke from your neck, And will burst your bonds; Foreigners shall no more enslave them. 9 But they shall serve the Lord their God, And David their king, Whom I will raise up for them.” This verse is a glorious promise, and God’s people should meditate on it and what it says about God’s loyalty to his people even in a time of distress. But we should ask the question, does this verse refer to some future exile, distress, tribulation, that is entirely focused around refining physical Israel?

The answer is no, it absolutely does not, and the context makes this very clear. In fact, it is a bit audacious that someone would take this verse and apply it in that way. Let me show you why.

Let’s take a step back, what comes before Jeremiah 30? Jeremiah 29 of course. This is another passage with a famous verse in it that is often taken out of context, Jeremiah 29:11 of course, which says this, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”[3] This is one of those verses people love to quote, put on their walls, their bookmarks, and even t-shirts. A friend of mine gave me a plaque with this phrase on it as a little in joke after I preached a sermon on Jeremiah 29 many years ago. It was his favourite verse and it was the first time he had heard it put into context, and was shown how it was often misapplied. He thought it was funny to buy me that plaque, as a memorial of that event. I still have it today, it sits on one of my bookshelves.

Of course, the issue with this verse, as with Jeremiah 30:7, is that it is often taken out of context and applied to modern Christians or issues, without considering its immediate context. The NIV is a particularly popular version used to memorize this verse, because it implies that God’s plan is to prosper believers, “11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (NIV). Is God saying that his plan is to prosper Christians? If this is the case, where is all that prosperity?

But if we take a step back we can see that God is not promising us current prosperity, he is promising that he will enrichen the Jews in exile in Babylon, as part of his plan to look after them and bring them back out again, once their time of discipline is over. Let’s confirm this,

“1 Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the remainder of the elders who were carried away captive—to the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon. 2 (This happened after Jeconiah the king, the queen mother, the eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem.) 3 The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, saying,

4 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon:

5 Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. 6 Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters—that you may be increased there, and not diminished. 7 And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace. 8 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed. 9 For they prophesy falsely to you in My name; I have not sent them, says the Lord.

10 For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.

15 Because you have said, “The Lord has raised up prophets for us in Babylon”— 16 therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king who sits on the throne of David, concerning all the people who dwell in this city, and concerning your brethren who have not gone out with you into captivity— 17 thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will send on them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like rotten figs that cannot be eaten, they are so bad. 18 And I will pursue them with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence; and I will deliver them to trouble among all the kingdoms of the earth—to be a curse, an astonishment, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them, 19 because they have not heeded My words, says the Lord, which I sent to them by My servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; neither would you heed, says the Lord. 20 Therefore hear the word of the Lord, all you of the captivity, whom I have sent from Jerusalem to Babylon” (Jer. 29:1-20).

If you want to destroy a pretext all you need is a little context, right? Reading this passage in its wider context shows that what God is giving here is a specific promise to the exiles in Babylon that God is going to make sure they don’t just do well, but prosper in Babylon, so that they are safe and secure for the return at the end of their prison sentence. But he is also promising to punish those Judeans who are still rebelling against him and following a corrupt King and false prophets. Both these prophecies were completely fulfilled. God did punish Judah and he did prosper the Judeans in Babylon. In fact, the rest of Jeremiah 29 outlines God’s specific plan to punish some of the rebellious leaders and prophets in Judah and explains why he will do this.

This brings us to chapter 30. If chapter 29 is about how Judah should live in the exile, then what is chapter 30 about? It is about the restoration of Judah out of exile. Let’s read some of it in context,

“1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, 2 “Thus speaks the Lord God of Israel, saying: ‘Write in a book for yourself all the words that I have spoken to you. 3 For behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘that I will bring back from captivity My people Israel and Judah,’ says the Lord. ‘And I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.’”

4 Now these are the words that the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah. 5 “For thus says the Lord: ‘We have heard a voice of trembling, Of fear, and not of peace. 6 Ask now, and see, Whether a man is ever in labor with child? So why do I see every man with his hands on his loins Like a woman in labor, And all faces turned pale? 7 Alas! For that day is great, So that none is like it; And it is the time of Jacob’s trouble, But he shall be saved out of it.

8 ‘For it shall come to pass in that day,’ Says the Lord of hosts, ‘That I will break his yoke from your neck, And will burst your bonds; Foreigners shall no more enslave them. 9 But they shall serve the Lord their God, And David their king, Whom I will raise up for them. 10 ‘Therefore do not fear, O My servant Jacob,’ says the Lord, ‘Nor be dismayed, O Israel; For behold, I will save you from afar, And your seed from the land of their captivity. Jacob shall return, have rest and be quiet, And no one shall make him afraid. 11 For I am with you,’ says the Lord, ‘to save you; Though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you, Yet I will not make a complete end of you. But I will correct you in justice, And will not let you go altogether unpunished’” (Jer. 30:1-11).

As you can see the passage leaves no room for doubt, this passage is referring to the return from exile. It is as egregious to take Jeremiah 30:7 and apply it to the future tribulation, as it is to take Jeremiah 29:11 and say that God’s plan is to prosper all believers. These verses are part of twin prophecies by Jeremiah that were written to both encourage the Judeans in exile and warn them, but also to document that when Israel returned out of exile, that this was done according to the definite knowledge and foreplan of God.

It should be noted that the Apostles do take phrases like this out of the Old Testament and apply them in a general way to the experience of the church, and the ministry of Jesus. But they were led to do this by the guidance of the Spirit, to show how God was long ago pointing to the Messiah and his multinational expansion of the church of God in the New Testament age. But when we don’t have their authority, we should tie ourselves to how the apostles speak of these issues. And there is no passage anywhere in the New Testament that teaches the tribulation is a Jewish specific time of trouble that will be used to refine physical Israel. It is rather referred to as a time of testing for the whole world, which includes both Jew and Gentile. God’s people is already comprised of both Jew and Gentile, there has never been a church without Jewish believers, and to say that these two peoples have a separate salvation plan flies in the face of the scriptures. And Jeremiah 30:7 does not justify such a claim at all.

In fact, Paul’s argument in Romans 11 is that the gospel would be so successful amongst the Gentiles that this would eventually drive more Jews to believe in Jesus. God’s plan to save “Jacob” is the same as his plan to save everyone else,

“11 I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. 12 Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! 13 For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, 14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. 15 For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?” (Rom. 11:11-15).

25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own [f]opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be [g]saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; 27 For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins” (Rom. 11:25-26).

God’s plan for physical Israel is that they rejoin true Israel by trusting in the “deliverer” who “will come out of Zion”. This is and can only be Jesus Christ.

There is nothing wrong with holding to the idea of some future revival for the Jews. It is possible to read Paul this way. But to take passages out of the Old Testament and tell people that God has a separate salvation plan for the Jews in the tribulation, when those verses explicitly refer to the ancient exile is irresponsible. Those verses convey fulfilled promises. To take rock solid fulfilled promises that prove God’s word is faithful, and then use them to make spurious claims about future events that tie into American foreign policy and the niche views of some churches, is to take the firm and make it shakeable, and one should just not handle God’s word in that way. These are fulfilled promises they should be used to point us to the faithfulness of our Lord, as the Apostles often did.  

I wish more pastors would examine these teachings in context and challenge these readings of the text, because they have led to all sorts of bad ideas about the modern nation of Israel in the church. Jews are not the special people of God, they are a mission field like any other people. Any teaching that contradicts this undermines the idea that there is only one way to be among the people of God, and that is through Jesus. Our eschatology must always come back around to making that the primary focus. If you want to see Jews saved then the best way to achieve this is to become a missionary at home, or overseas and reach as many people as you can. Because Paul says explicitly that their revival is contingent on the fullness of the Gentiles coming in, not on some future time of Jacob’s trouble.

List of References


[2] Ibid.

[3] All my references, unless otherwise noted in this article are from the NKJV. I usually use the ESV for my writings, but I have been reading the NKJV more and more, and as this article is titled after a phrase that comes from the NKJV translation, I will simply stick to it in this article.

Thursday 26 September 2024

The Enemy From The North

The Enemy From The North



If you hold to a certain kind of eschatology, or end times view, right now, it is really hard not to see that we are living in the end times. All the ducks appear to be lining up in a row. There is a prominent strain of futurism in the church that looks at the books like Daniel, Revelation, passages in Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah and other books as all, and see their prophecies as pointing to a future end times event that centres around the nation of Israel in the land of Canaan.  

Generally, those who hold such an end time’s view tend to be Christian Zionists, or dispensationalists. These are broad categories, and I am sure there are people who will read what I am writing and say, “Hey, I’m a dispensationalist and that’s not my view.” Or there might be people who hold this sort of end times view but not be strictly in those categories. But broadly speaking Christian Zionists are believers who categorize the Jewish people as God’s primary people. They see the fate of the Jews and Israel as central to God’s plan. They tend to see this as all coming about at an unspecified future date, but think it will probably happen imminently. And they tend to see nations like Iran, Russia, and China, to one degree or another, along with the religion of Islam, as major players in the end times events that immediately precede, or happen during the Great Tribulation, which many in that school of thought would also call the “time of Jacob’s struggle” (cf. Jer. 30:7).

One of the most consistent things you will hear coming out of this school of end times belief is the idea that Iran is one of the enemies that will attack Israel from the north in a coalition of nations, and will help precipitate the final battle, or one of the final battles.

Now, just consider for a moment how the world currently looks if this is your theological perspective? You have a war in the far north between Russia and Ukraine. Just put aside all the political discussions from both sides about what led to it, you have Russia on the move, even if in a moderate way. You have China rising and spreading its influence around the world. East Asia experts are making predictions about when China will make its move on Taiwan, and you have a slowly escalating competition for dominance between China and the United States in the South China Sea region. And in the Middle East Israel is at war against the Palestinians in Gaza, it is making moves against the Palestinians in the West Bank, it is under rocket attack from the North from Hezbollah, and it has exchanged fire with Iran. If you have the eschatology that says these nations will rise up in a coalition against Israel, then this is going to be sending your end times radar into overdrive mode. How could it not? All these key players in what you consider to be rock solid biblical prophecies are stepping up to the plate. This feels like slam dunk to someone with this end time's view.

 


A more astute observer will point out here that Iran is not to the north of Israel, it is to the far east. However, in the ancient world when attacks from the major Mesopotamian powers came towards Israel, they came across west to the north of Syria and then would attack down through Syria into the land of Canaan, sometimes going all the way to Egypt. This was just the route that horse and infantry-based forces were required to take to avoid the Arabian desert which would kill any army that tried to cross it. So though none of the nations which attacked from the major Mesopotamian powers were actually north of Israel, that is the route they would have taken.

But what do these passages about an attack by a coalition from the north actually say? Do they point to a last day battle between “God’s people” in Israel, and the forces of the evil being constituted by Iran and co? Let’s examine some of these prophecies.

The first mention of a direct threat from the north explicitly in the Bible is in Isaiah 14 and it is actually given to the Philistines, and refers to them being attacked by Babylon,

“28 In the year that King Ahaz died came this oracle: 29 Rejoice not, O Philistia, all of you, that the rod that struck you is broken, for from the serpent's root will come forth an adder, and its fruit will be a flying fiery serpent. 30 And the firstborn of the poor will graze, and the needy lie down in safety; but I will kill your root with famine, and your remnant it will slay. 31 Wail, O gate; cry out, O city; melt in fear, O Philistia, all of you! For smoke comes out of the north, and there is no straggler in his ranks.”

Earlier in Isaiah we see that God threatens to bring Assyria down to bear on Israel and Judah (Isa. 7:17). But there is no explicit mention of the “enemy from the north” in that passage, though of course Assyria did attack from that direction. Here in Isaiah 14 God is warning the Philistines (Palestinians) that danger is coming to them from the north, “For smoke comes out of the north…” This is a reference to the burning cities they will see in the distance as the Babylonian armies come to bear on their nation. This would also apply to the camp fires of a mighty host of soldiers on the move.

The next explicit mention of an attack from the north comes from Isaiah 41:25 which says, “25 I stirred up one from the north, and he has come, from the rising of the sun, and he shall call upon my name; he shall trample on rulers as on mortar, as the potter treads clay.” The context makes it very clear that this is referring to Babylon. For instance, we know from the historical record that it was Babylon that eventually came and was used by God to discipline Israel. And Isaiah 39:6 tells us that, “Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord.” But we should also note that Isaiah 43:14 also says this, “Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “For your sake I send to Babylon and bring them all down as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, in the ships in which they rejoice.” God is going to use Babylon to discipline Israel, but he is also going to bring back the fugitives and we will see later also punish Babylon for their attack. So, the threat to the north here is clearly Assyria first, and then Babylon. Which is precisely what we know from the historical record, and many other passages in the Bible, actually happened to Israel.

Our next significant mention of a threat from the north comes from Jeremiah. We read in chapter 1 of Jeremiah that,

“13 The word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see a boiling pot, facing away from the north.” 14 Then the Lord said to me, “Out of the north disaster shall be let loose upon all the inhabitants of the land. 15 For behold, I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, declares the Lord, and they shall come, and every one shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its walls all around and against all the cities of Judah. 16 And I will declare my judgments against them, for all their evil in forsaking me. They have made offerings to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands.”

Now this is interesting, isn’t it. We see here a clear mention of a dangerous threat from many nations to the north of Judah. But what does this refer to? Well all we have to do is read the rest of the book of Jeremiah and we can see that this is referring to the coalition of subject peoples that will be coming with Nebuchadnezzar when he conquers Israel. For instance, Jeremiah 25:9 says this,

“9 behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares the Lord, and for Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants, and against all these surrounding nations. I will devote them to destruction, and make them a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting desolation.”

Something that a lot of people may not be aware of is that the Mesopotamian powers bordered the great steppe nations of the central Asian and East European steppes. From these steppe tribes came the Scythians, the Cimmerians, Sarmatians, the Medes, the Persians and countless other conquering tribes. These were dangerous peoples that continually emerged from the steppes and conquered various people. The control of these tribes changed hands, sometimes they conquered the settled lands, sometimes the settled lands conquered some of them, but only on the outskirts of the steppes. Never were they fully conquered or tamed in this era. That would not happen until the musket was introduced to warfare. However, under Nebuchadnezzar a coalition of these tribes and other nations would make up the threat from the north that Israel would have to deal with. We see Jeremiah mention this threat again and again,

Jeremiah 4:5-6 – “Declare in Judah, and proclaim in Jerusalem, and say, “Blow the trumpet through the land; cry aloud and say, ‘Assemble, and let us go into the fortified cities!’ Raise a standard toward Zion, flee for safety, stay not, for I bring disaster from the north, and great destruction.

Jeremiah 6:1 – “Flee for safety, O people of Benjamin, from the midst of Jerusalem! Blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise a signal on Beth-haccherem, for disaster looms out of the north, and great destruction.

Jeremiah 6:22 – “Thus says the Lord: “Behold, a people is coming from the north country, a great nation is stirring from the farthest parts of the earth.

Jeremiah 10:22 – “A voice, a rumor! Behold, it comes!— a great commotion out of the north country to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a lair of jackals.

The context of Jeremiah shows that these warnings about a threat from the north apply to the nation of Babylon, and all these prophecies were fulfilled in the days of Jeremiah. Babylon attacked Jerusalem, destroyed it, broke down the temple and carried the people off into exile. Babylon even defeated Egypt at the time (Jer. 46:24), there is also another prophecy against the Philistines as well that they will be attacked from the north (Jer. 47). The book of Jeremiah clearly identifies this threat as the historical Chaldean, or Babylonian empire, technically the Neo-Babylonian empire.

What is interesting is that Babylon is also warned that a nation will destroy them from the north. Remember the Medes and Persians were originally steppe peoples that came into the settled areas and eventually conquered much of the known world. So, as the Persians are identified as the kingdom that defeated Babylon in the Bible, you could argue they are a kingdom from the north that are a genuine military threat. But they were not a threat to Israel, they in fact destroyed Israel’s greatest enemy and it was a Persian king who sent the Judeans home from exile. In fact, a Persian king, Cyrus, (remember the Iranians are Persians), is even identified as the Messiah in Isaiah 44:28-45:7. So they can hardly be described as the enemies of Israel in the Bible, as it is Cyrus who proclaims one of the only Jubilees in the Bible and sets the captive people free, and it is Persia that funds the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple. This hardly puts them in the category of mortal enemies, does it?

Even Ezekiel identifies the Babylonians as the threat to Israel from the north,

“22 Therefore, O Oholibah, thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I will stir up against you your lovers from whom you turned in disgust, and I will bring them against you from every side: 23 the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them, desirable young men, governors and commanders all of them, officers and men of renown, all of them riding on horses. 24 And they shall come against you from the north with chariots and wagons and a host of peoples. They shall set themselves against you on every side with buckler, shield, and helmet; and I will commit the judgment to them, and they shall judge you according to their judgments” (Ez. 23:24).

Babylon is identified as the threat from the north also in Chapter 32. Also Ezekiel mentions Nebuchadnezzar by name, the same as Jeremiah did, in Ezekiel 26:7. This is a consistent string of identifications stretching across multiple major biblical prophets, and also different eras of the history of Judah.

So, when we come to Ezekiel 38, the famous passage about Gog and Magog that mentions Persia by name as an enemy from the north that comes against Israel, we need not immediately think of this as some future battle. When Babylon attacked Israel it would have brought with it auxiliary troops from every nation around it, including Persia (which at this point was still a relatively minor player). In fact, many of these passages we read have noted that very fact. Babylon would come with a “host of peoples.” This would be peoples from the breadth of its empire, and beyond, because they would have put the call out to mercenaries, and other troops to join with them in their conquest. This is just how ancient empires did battle.

However, let’s look at what Ezekiel 38 does say,  

“1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him 3 and say, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. 4 And I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great host, all of them with buckler and shield, wielding swords. 5 Persia, Cush, and Put are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; 6 Gomer and all his hordes; Beth-togarmah from the uttermost parts of the north with all his hordes—many peoples are with you” (Eze. 38:1-6).

You could read this as a reference to the last days. But it could also be a reference to the fact that when Babylon attacks Israel, they will bring with them many other nations, including Persians, and then God will judge Babylon. In fact, 1 Chronicles 1:17 notes that Meshech and Tubal are sons of Aram, who is related to Asshur. The Arameans have been historically connected to the Amorite peoples who were the founders of the original Babylonian empire. Here we have synchronicity. Which is always nice.

Also, if you read Jeremiah 50-51 you will see that these passages prophecy that God will judge Babylon for what it did to Israel, along with a host of other reasons, and there is good reason to believe that Ezekiel is saying the same thing here in Ezekiel 38-39. Babylon was defeated by the Persians and taken over, and its people humiliated, after all. Though, you can see why some think this is all future and is pointing to a final battle where Iran, or Persia, joins with a host of other nations to attack Israel. But there is no requirement to read it this way, and a lot of good reasons to read this as fulfilled prophecy.

A good one in the immediate context is that Ezekiel 39 appears to tie this prophecy to the time of Israel’s conquest by Babylon,

“21 And I will set my glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid on them. 22 The house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God, from that day forward. 23 And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they dealt so treacherously with me that I hid my face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword. 24 I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid my face from them” (Ez. 39:21-24).

All these prophecies appear to have been fulfilled, at least in larger measure. Israel and Judah were attacked from the north, by Assyria and Babylon respectively, and Judah was sent into exile in Babylon. Babylon was then later attacked from the north and destroyed, by Persia and a host of other steppe tribes and other nations. And it was Persia that restored Judah to its land and funded the building of the temple and the city. So, there is really no reason to believe that there will be a repeat of this in some final battle. All of these prophecies have been fulfilled, and this is recorded both in the Bible and in history. To apply these prophecies to a future date is unnecessary and flies in the face of them having been fulfilled in the ancient world. Note, also that when Israel is destroyed in the New Testament era, it is by Rome, who is not identified in these passages at all. It is best to leave these prophecies where they belong, as examples of God’s word having been fulfilled in the past, so we know that we can trust in his promises that we do have for the future.

We should no longer think of the nations of the north to what is today called Israel as a threat to the people of God, but rather as the mission field for the church. We read in Psalm 107 this, “1 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! 2 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble 3 and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.” And of course Jesus says the same thing, Luke 13:29, “And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God.” Don’t look to the north in fear of what might be the end of days, look at every point on the compass and see the places God wants his church to seek to reach people.

It is desperately sad that so many Christians are stuck in an Old Testament framework for how we should think of the nations of the world. Nations exist of course still, they will be there are the end, but as I noted each one should be seen as mission field. This is not the era of thinking of who is a threat to a nation of Israel in Canaan from the north. That was something for the days of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Today we should be thinking in terms of how the gospel can be taken to these places. And this is important; the West’s, and the evangelicals church’s, favouritism for Israel, because of a bad reading of these ancient prophecies (among other reasons of empire of course), is a stumbling block to evangelizing many countries in this world and bringing them the good news of Jesus Christ. An Israel first message is not going to help the gospel spread to the nations of the world. But a universal call where national identity is no advantage to faith in God and salvation through Jesus, will.

When you consider this topic in these terms, you can understand why the devil has worked so hard to sidetrack the church on this issue. So many Christians are concerned that all the end time events have to centre around a small nation in the Middle East. But one, that God says he will redeem the people of Israel in the future, according to Paul in Romans 11, does not mean this has to have anything to do with the modern nation called Israel. Secondly, there are simply no biblical prophecies that must be read this way. And third, Jesus said it hinged on taking the gospel to all nations and tongues. So, we better be about the king's business then, right?

 


Wednesday 25 September 2024

Freewill is in the Bible Part 2.

 




A week or two ago I wrote an article outlining that freewill is in the Bible. I am coming back to this topic today. It is very simple to demonstrate that this concept is in the Bible. A good example of a passage that could be used to demonstrate that God recognizes the concept of “freewill”, by which I mean the ability to choose between good and evil, is from the book of Joshua. In this book the prophet, Joshua son of Nun, stands up and challenges all the Israelites who are gathered before him, and this is what he says at one point,

“14 Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:14-15).

This is one of the most famous passages in the whole Bible, and it sets the tone for much of the rest of the Scriptures, especially the phrase, “…choose this day whom you will serve…” How many people have this on the wall in their homes? Lots. This could be called the perennial question of the scriptures. Who will you CHOOSE to serve, God, or the false gods of this world? This is the most important question you will ever be asked, and the passage makes no indication that this is something that people cannot make a decision on. The passage throws down the challenge, "Which God will you use your free will to follow?" And the people are forced to make a response.

Someone might note here that verse 19 indicates that the Israelites cannot choose, because it says, “You are not able to serve the Lord…”. But look what it says in wider context,

“19 But Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. 20 If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you, after having done you good.” 21 And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the Lord.” 22 Then Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord, to serve him.” And they said, “We are witnesses.” 23 He said, “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord, the God of Israel.” 24 And the people said to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and his voice we will obey.” 25 So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and put in place statutes and rules for them at Shechem” (Josh. 24:19-25).

The people whom Joshua says are “…not able to serve the Lord…”, not only prove him wrong by choosing to serve the Lord, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord, to serve him,” but their choice is used as the basis for a voluntarily-entered-into-covenant between this people and God. Clearly when Joshua says they are not able to serve the Lord he is goading them, or challenging them, to provoke a response and a choice. He wants them to show him he is wrong here. It was their exercise of their freewill which is a witness against them that they are responsible for this choice. This passage, alone, makes a mockery of the idea that people cannot choose the things of God. The whole point of the Bible is that it is written to reason with people to encourage them to make the right choice. This passage is a powerful example of this. 

Of course, what is an even more foundational passage on this issue is Genesis 2 to 3, the passage of the Bible which does the most to explain to us human nature as it exists in this fallen world. We are told there that Adam and Eve were placed in the garden, and that they were not to eat from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen. 2:15-25). But we are then told a little later on after they ate from the tree, this,

“22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life” (Gen. 3:22-24).

These two chapters tell us something very clear about humanity, that we have the capacity to choose to reject God, and we did. Adam and Eve ate from the tree (Gen. 3:6). But these passages also tell us that the fall did not take away the ability for humanity to choose between good and evil, in fact, it did the opposite, it gave people experiential knowledge of just how to do this. Genesis 3:22 clearly states that humanity's ability to choose between good and evil is retained, and now is practiced and experienced. How does good judgement come about? Experience. How does experience come about? Well that comes from poor judgement. This is the first example of this in the Bible, learning about good and bad from experience.  


And this ability to choose between good and evil is again seen when Cain is told to resist sin lest it have him. If he could not say no to sin then why did God himself say to Cain, “And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it” (Gen. 4:7). That Cain gave in to sin is not proof that Cain could not have rejected the temptation to murder his brother, what God said to him is proof God saw in him the ability to say no to sin. In other words, he still had the ability to choose between good and evil. This ability to choose is foundational to the Biblical concept of original sin, and the concept of human responsibility. To undermine this is to make God the author of human sin, when Genesis chapters 2-4 go out of their way to show he is not.

This also might be a shocking thing for some Christians to hear but the phrase ‘sovereignty of God’ is not once used in the Bible, but the phrase ‘freewill’ is used often. If you type “freewill” just like this in the search bar on the Bible gateway website for the ESV translation, you will find there are 23 results for the phrase. If, however, you type in “sovereignty of God” in the same search bar you will find there are zero results. Now, don’t misunderstand me, I am not saying that because the phrase is not used that the concept is not in the Bible. I would not make such a silly, facile argument. The word trinity is not used in the Bible but the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all clearly there and have equal divinity (c.f. Matt. 28:19-20 for instance). We simply must evaluate both the phrases and the concepts according to the scriptures. If you type in the word “sovereign” you will find in the ESV there are precisely four uses of the word, one of which is an added title for Romans 9. So. the concept of sovereignty, in some sense, is there.

The question is, as we discussed in the last piece, what does it mean? Well, the answer is simple, a sovereign is simply a king, he is the highest authority. No Christian denies that God is the highest authority, the King of kings. He is the sovereign above all other sovereigns. But what we should question is the extra meaning imported into the word sovereign from some schools of theology. We will come back to this in a future post. But for now, let’s focus on the fact that the term "freewill" is used 23 times in the ESV. Here are some examples of its usage,

Exodus 35:29 – “All the men and women, the people of Israel, whose heart moved them to bring anything for the work that the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done brought it as a freewill offering to the Lord.”

Leviticus 7:16 – “But if the sacrifice of his offering is a vow offering or a freewill offering, it shall be eaten on the day that he offers his sacrifice, and on the next day what remains of it shall be eaten.”

Leviticus 22:21 – “And when anyone offers a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord to fulfill a vow or as a freewill offering from the herd or from the flock, to be accepted it must be perfect; there shall be no blemish in it.”

Psalm 119:108 – “Accept my freewill offerings of praise, O Lord, and teach me your rules.”

Of course, this is only four examples out of 23 in the ESV, but I want to drill down on one example that is not in the ESV, but that you will find in the NKJV. In the ESV Leviticus 19:5 says this, “5 When you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord, you shall offer it so that you may be accepted.” “When you offer” is a phrase that is consistent with freewill, but there is no explicit mention of freewill in this passage, or is there? The NKJV version makes it abundantly clear that there is, “5 And if you offer a sacrifice of a peace offering to the Lord, you shall offer it of your own free will” (Lev. 19:5). This verse makes it clear “freewill offering” is not just some title of a category of offerings, it is, rather, a term referring to the phrase we recognize as freewill, “you shall offer it of your own free will” or of your own free choice. That is what we call an iron clad affirmation of the idea of freewill in the Bible. 

Except for one seemingly embarrassing fact, the ESV translates the phrase “so that you might be accepted…” This appears to undermine our usage of this phrase, correct? Especially at first glance. However, it does not do away with all the other passages we have mentioned, so maybe it is not that important a verse to lean on? And secondly, because it can be translated more ambiguously it appears to be a verse we should leave to the side anyway. But that is only at first glance. A more careful look shows that this verse not only strengthens our case, but makes it incredibly ironclad.

First, let’s note that neither the ESV nor NKJV translate this verse wrong. Strong’s concordance tells us that, the words is “râtsôn, raw-tsone' From H7521; delight: - (be) acceptable (-ance, -ed), delight, desire, favour, (good) pleasure, (own, self, voluntary) will, as . . . (what) would.” This shows that “of your own freewill” and “so that you may be accepted” are both fair translations. Neither translation is being questioned as the legitimate one in this instance. Rather what we should note is that this word shows us that the idea of “freely chosen” and “acceptable” overlap so much in the Hebrew that in some instances they even had one word for both concepts. You cannot separate these two ideas in the Bible. A sacrifice that is acceptable is one that is done of one’s own free will. This is actually a deeply important part of the Bible's concept of worship. 

Take this passage for instance, Isaiah 29:13-14,

“13 And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, 14 therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”

What is this passage saying? That God despises worship that does not come from the freely chosen heart of man. When our heart is far from our lips, that is when we profess worship of God, but do not show it in how we live and do not really choose him, he condemns us for his. Worship that is acceptable is worship that comes from the heart, through ours lips and into our actions. It is a whole of life offering to God. In other words, worship that is acceptable to God is that which follows his commands and is done by our own freewill, or choice. After all, without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6), right? Hence why these two concepts of “freewill” and “acceptable” overlap so deeply. So, the ESV reading of Leviticus 19:5 does not weaken our argument it solidifies it.

Acceptable does not just mean what we choose, we must follow God’s guidelines, of course. But nor is it acceptable if you follow the guidelines without the genuine choice of your heart. The two must come hand in hand. God wants us to choose him. He wants us to use our capacity for good to say no to evil, and what is a greater good than choosing God? Nothing, of course. 

Like my last piece, I do not expect that this article will fully convince every determinist that our will to choose the things of God is real and genuine. But I think it does prove that those who hold that the Bible affirms free will have a thoroughly biblically grounded and reasoned argument that takes into account a broad sweep of scripture on this issue. The ability of man to choose between good and evil is not just the chief assumption of scripture, it is explicitly labelled as foundational to the experience of man after the fall. It is the character of the man as compared to the beast. Any attempt to take it from the man appears to fly in the face of a lot of the Bible, including how it wants us to understand the fall and sin. 

Monday 23 September 2024

It Is Not The Same Anymore

 



If you are a millennial like me you have sat through more than a few conversations in your days with some wealthy boomer, who never finished school, had some kind of trade (builder, cabinet maker, carpenter, etc, etc.), or even no trade, who is laying out how easy it is for the average man with a low income not only to succeed in life, but do really, really well. I can remember some of these conversations really well, and they are both interesting because they give you insight in what our culture and society once was, but they are also disturbing because they show how disconnected from reality so many people can be today. Things are not the same anymore:

Saul Eslake says decades of ‘bad policies’ have inflated demand as report finds about 20% of households effectively ‘locked out’ of the market

Housing affordability has deteriorated over the past year to reach its worst level since records began in 1995. First home buyers now rely on wealthy families or high-income jobs to enter the market, according to the latest housing affordability report from PropTrack.

Driven by high mortgage rates and increasing home prices, affordability further deteriorated this financial year to the point where a median-income household earning about $112,000 could afford just 14% of homes sold – the smallest share since records began. This share has declined from 43% in just three years…

…The report showed how hard the situation had become for first home buyers, with a median-income renting household being able to afford just 11% of homes sold over the past year. In comparison, a median household with an existing mortgage could afford 34% of homes sold over the same period.

Paul Ryan, a senior economist at PropTrack, said in the short-term, high interest rates and prices had created an accute affordability issue. First home buyers trying to get into the market were now in an almost impossible position, he said.

“The unspoken message here is that wealth matters an enormous deal in the Australian housing market at the moment, in a way that it didn’t just one generation ago.”[1]

20% of households are locked out of the market and most houses are out of reach of the average income home. And this has worsened in just the last 3 years. A household where the man was a maths teacher, or woolworths manager, or middle manager, and his wife a stay at home mum, could afford to buy far more homes in 2021 than he can now, and this is true for many similar families.

The idea of a high school dropout with a trade or no trade being able to build the kind of wealth that boomers and older Gen x were able to create is simply a pipe dream today, unless your family already has significant wealth and resources from which to draw. The property treadmill is throwing off more and more Aussie families.

I like how the article notes towards the end that,

“If you were really wanting to do something about that, the first thing you would do is stop doing dumb things,” he said. “Stop needlessly inflating demand by scrapping all the programs that needlessly inflate demand, and stop constraining supply by stop doing the things that constrain supply.”[2]

This article comes from the Guardian which is a far left of centre news organization, but the two major causes of inflation the last three years are government stimulus and mass immigration, things the Guardian will avoid mentioning like the plague. At this point every Australian who cannot afford to buy a home needs to recognize that the government is stealing from your security to benefit foreigners, and that is a simple fact. But they are also willing to pretend to be helping by dumping more and more money on the economy to help the needy…which in many cases includes those foreigners who just got here.

This has been happening for so long now there is no way this is unintentional either. The liberal government worked out in the late 90’s the by increasing immigration they could artificially grow the economy, and grow housing wealth at the same time, and every government since then has only increased this. This is not some random policy, it has been tried and tested for some time now. I think it is far past time that we should be admitting that the elites of our society have almost no regard for Australians, and are quite content to give our inheritance to any and sundry if they can find some benefit for themselves in it.

As the article notes “stop doing dumb things…” There is no doubt that these policies are dumb and counterproductive. Growing tent communities filled with unfortunate Australians is proof of that. But just because they are dumb, does not mean they are not also malicious.

I can’t help but think of this verse in relation to what is happening, Deuteronomy 28:43, “The sojourner who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. 44 He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him. He shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.” It is very obvious that God is judging this nation, in fact the West in general. When he wanted to judge the Rephaim he sent in the Amorites into Canaan and when he wanted to judge the Canaanite he sent in the Israelites, and many other examples could be given.

But getting back to where we started the old boomer advice is no longer relevant. Really, what they did was recognize that the housing market was an untapped resource for wealth building in our country, and like all other limited resources, this means of building wealth has been consolidated by the few, and shut off from the majority, and they have simply created a situation where others, even foreigners, can profit lavishly off their children. That same generation has the wealth and the political power to change all of this, as well, by transferring the wealth to their children and grandchildren, and changing the laws to stop the kinds of things which led to this situation from happening again. But do they have that in them?

List of References

Friday 20 September 2024

On Trial For Spectator Posts

 


What do you think the punishment should be for a doctor to share Spectator articles online? Maybe a public flogging, followed by putting the perpetrator in stocks and pillory for 24 hours in the town square? What about the old tar and feather treatment? This is a ridiculous question isn’t it, and even more ridiculous suggestions. In fact, why would someone even conceive of this question in our modern world? Well, the answer is simple, because while we may have done away with the stocks and the pillory, and the tar and feathering for thought crimes, we have revived the old spirit of punishment for those who speak different to the expected fashion. Dr Jereth Kok has been suspended from practicing as a doctor because of speech and thought crimes, and among his crimes is sharing Spectator posts. 

Dr Kok is a medical doctor who lives in Victoria, Australia. He is an upstanding member of the Australian community, and he is also a dedicated man of faith with strong principles that are guided by his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Even though Dr Kok, is a well-respected and competent medical professional with 15 years’ experience, he was suspended by the Victorian Medical Board in 2019 after being targeted by an anonymous complainant.[1] What was he reported for doing? Well, it was certainly not medical malpractice. As we said, Dr Kok is an upstanding and principled member of his community, and he has never received a single complaint from any of his thousands of patients he had treated during his career.[2] His indiscretion was to share his informed - both medically and scripturally mind you - opinion on some of the more radical medical situations in our society on his private social media page where he speaks as a citizen of Australia. These are not things which impinge on his ability to do his job, at all. Yet, the Medical Board pursued selective complaints about Jereth’s social media posts discussing his personal beliefs on religious and political matters like abortion, marriage, Covid lockdowns and transgender ideology.[3]

Among his indiscretions was his promotion and commentary on articles shared by the Spectator in recent years that have been challenging the radical gender ideology that has been rapidly marching across our society. These articles have been used as evidence against him in a conduct inquiry that is ongoing. Among these articles is a 2020 article for the Spectator written by Leah Gray[4] in which she discusses how in Victoria the government, at least in 2020, was happy to help people into the LGBT community, but not help them out of if they so choose.

 

Figure 1: Dr Kok sharing Leah Gray article.

 

As Dr Jereth says in his commentary,

“I can’t think of many things more cruel than denying help to people suffering from unwanted passions, sexual brokenness, or a confused sense of self. Making it impossible for them to enlist the support of a pastor or other trained professional as they seek after wholeness of being, and righteousness of conduct.

What a disastrous irony that so-called “progressive liberals” would trample on people’s right to self determination.”

Precisely what crime has Dr Jereth committed by sharing a deeply held belief among the majority of Australian Christians, that a person struggling with gender identity issues should be free to seek the counsel of a trusted pastor, Christian friend, church elder, or someone else, and not fear that they are putting that person in any legal jeopardy?

The other article that has been used against him as evidence is a 2020 article on the transgender minefield that many young people face in this modern world. This article was written by the notable and also incredibly principled Moira Deeming[5], who herself in recent years, has also come under pressure for ‘wrong think’ in Victoria.

Figure 2: Dr Kok Sharing Moira Deeming’s article.

In sharing these articles, Dr Kok was exercising his democratic right as both a Victorian, and an Australian (yes those two things overlap, even if we northerners joke sometimes that they don’t) to speak his mind on issues of both social and political importance. I need to again stress that Dr Kok shared his opinion as a principled evangelical Christian, and his views sit well within the mainstream of Christian thought in Australia. So, he did not step outside his bounds as a citizen, or as a Christian, and yet the medical board is seeking to punish him. One would think with the crisis we have in the shortage of doctors and hospital beds in Australia that the medical board would not be seeking to investigate a doctor for his political or religious views. But here we are in modern Au-STASI-a, with a well-respected doctor being barred from doing his job for 5 years because of thought crimes.

It is not just Spectator articles that have been listed as evidence for Dr Kok’s thought crimes. He has also been questioned for sharing articles from The Babylon Bee, a noted satire website based in the United States. Commentary by people like Mark Latham, Matt Walsh, Allie Stuckey and other noted commentators. And an article from Caldron Pool, a right of centre commentary site based in Australia. In fact, one of the articles used against him is an article written by myself, and three other Baptist ministers[6], during the crazy times we now call the Covid Years, about why Christian leaders should be doing more to fight for the conscience of their people.

Figure 3: Dr Kok sharing a Caldron Pool article.

In commenting on this article, Dr Kok says in part,

“No believer in Jesus Christ must ever be coerced or compelled to act without faith, and therefore sin…Every Christian, and especially those who are called to be pastors and elders, must commit themselves to fight for liberty of conscience. A church which has little regard for conscience is a dead church.”

Of course, at the time Dr Kok was speaking to the issue of mandated vaccine and the social segregation that accompanied it. But his application of his faith and the principle of liberty of conscience goes far beyond just that situation and extends to every aspect of his life and belief. This also happens to be a right and privilege of being an Australian. Dr Kok lives in Victoria, so this legalisation below does not apply precisely to him in the same way, but the Queensland Human Rights Act of 2019 states,

“(1) Every person has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief, including— (a) the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of the person’s choice; and (b) the freedom to demonstrate the person’s religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching, either individually or as part of a community, in public or in private. (2) A person must not be coerced or restrained in a way that limits the person’s freedom to have or adopt a religion or belief.”[7]

This is the law in Queensland, showing that the ideas that Dr Kok is expressing are not just mainstream Christian ideas, they are mainstream Australian ideas as well. The Spectator has done a lot of great work seeking to defend these rights over the years, along with many other great Australian institutions, and it is beyond a travesty that sharing articles from this institution, or other similar commentary sites, should be used as evidence of misconduct in an inquiry against a principled Australian doctor. Being a vocal outspoken Christian and a doctor should not be a contradiction in terms, yet this very thing might become the case if the Medical Board of Australia succeeds in its prosecution of Dr Kok.

Remember also that Dr Kok is not just fighting for himself in this case. He is fighting for the right for other health professionals to express their deeply held religious beliefs publicly, and also their political views, something all Australians should have protections to do. I asked Dr Kok what it was like to face this trial and he said it “is very surreal, and unsettling, to be hauled over the coals for stating things that derive directly from my Christian beliefs.” He has had to cope with “unemployment, surviving on Centrelink payments and great uncertainty about the future,” and he has had to retrain in a completely different field to seek to provide for his family. Remember also that he has been torn away from patients with whom he has built a professional relationship with over the years, which is deeply painful for him. And consider the anxiety that this has caused for his patients who had their doctor taken from them. Don’t we need such a man in his role looking after his patients?

Defending yourself in this country from such things is very expensive, and Dr Kok has a great team of lawyers around him who are avidly fighting for his right to be reinstated. But he is in need of more funds to really fight this case to the end. As you now know Dr Kok has not been able to work as a doctor since 2019, and his family’s income has taken a serious hit because of this, and even still such a case is long, drawn out and very expensive. Already with generous donations over $231,190 has been raised, but his legal team has determined that they need up to $330,000 to run a strong defense. This is not a voluntary lawsuit for Dr Kok, he is being forced to defend himself and he needs financial help to have this done as best as it possibly can. As anyone who has ever been to such a trial, or ever watched The Castle and any number of other good legal shows, knows, good legal representation is very expensive. If you are able, could you please consider donating to Dr Kok’s GiveSendGo campaign[8] to help him fight this injustice.

List of References



[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Leah Gray, 2020, Victoria offers all the help in the world to enter LGBT life, but wants to ban receiving help to leave it, https://www.spectator.com.au/2020/11/victoria-offers-all-the-help-in-the-world-to-enter-lgbt-life-but-wants-to-ban-receiving-help-to-leave-it/

[5] Moira Deeming, 2020, The cultural juggernaut of transgender ideology: not kids’ stuff, https://www.spectator.com.au/2020/08/the-cultural-juggernaut-of-transgender-ideology-not-kids-stuff/

[6] Bodrdoni, et al, 2021, Christian Leaders, Fight for the Conscience of Your People: Vaccine Mandates and Letters of Exemption, https://caldronpool.com/christian-leaders-fight-for-the-conscience-of-your-people-vaccine-mandates-and-letters-of-exemption/