“Our once great western Christian civilization is dying. If this matters to followers of Jesus Christ, then we must set aside our denominational differences and work together to strengthen the things that remain and reclaim what has been lost. Evangelicals and Catholics must stand together to re-establish that former Christian culture and moral consensus. We have the numbers and the organization but the question is this: Do we have the will to win this present spiritual battle for Jesus Christ against secularism? Will we prayerfully and cooperatively work toward a new Christian spiritual revival ― or will we choose to hunker down in our churches and denominationalisms and watch everything sink into the spiritual and moral abyss of a New Dark Age?” - Mark Davis Pickup

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

BE A WITNESS FOR CHRIST IN COMING DAYS EVEN IF IT HURTS


 The future threatens to be difficult for Christians. Governments are apt to pass laws and implement policies that directly offend Christian consciences, not only in America but internationally, as we enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Civil disobedience may be required. Christians can expect to be pressed to the wall to accept immorality or told not to evangelize. At some point we will have to choose whether we will obey man or God. Do not be surprised when this happens. Remember that the Apostles faced similar predicaments. 


“The apostles were brought in and made to appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name [Jesus],” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.” Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings!””[1]

 

You may have noticed anti-Christian bigotry and hostility are increasing and becoming bolder, more overt. Our once great western Christian civilization is being attacked and brought down at every turn. I fear direct legal and technological persecution of the church, its people, its ministries, hospitals and education. Prepare yourselves. We will need the wisdom of Solomon to discern what we must do. For example, will we be intimidated into silence about the wanton slaughter of the youngest members of the human family by abortion?  Will we lose our tongues over medical killing by lethal injections of suicidal disabled and terminally ill people.

 

We must remember that medicine used be Hippocratic: Doctors pledged to obey the ancient Hippocratic Oath which prohibited both abortion and euthanasia.  But Hippocratic medicine has been overthrown by an aberrant, distorted form of medicine governed by bioethical utilitarianism. Clever wordsmiths euphemistically promote killing of unwanted pre-born children as "choice" or "reproductive rights." They couch euthanasia as "self-determination" and "autonomy" for those with serious disabilities and have despaired of life. The disabled and terminally ill who are suicidal get medical help killing themselves by lethal injections euphemistically “medical assistance in dying” when in fact it is medical killing. Homicide. Do not be swayed by clever wordsmiths who will make evil sound good and good sound evil, or what is right appear wrong and what’s wrong appear right. There will come a time—not so far in the future—when obeying Christ’s great commission will be prohibited, under the guise of tolerance, or some other pretence. Will we obey man or Christ:

 

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”[2]

 

Do not be surprised if the Bible is declared hate literature. In some jurisdictions, it already has been. It may even banned from libraries, hotels and schools. Beware, we are entering into a treacherous time of shadows. 

 

Perhaps the barbaric Brave New World we are entering will provide opportunities for your greatest witness as you stand with the light of Christ shining in you against the darkness of a twisted generation of unbridled depravity. We do not yet know the full darkness of the abyss into which we are descending, but Christ will be with us. The psalmists wrote:

 

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.[3]

 

There is nowhere on earth that God’s presence is not found. Remember what He said to Jeremiah:

 

“Am I a God who is near,” declares the Lord,

“And not a God far off?

“Can a man hide himself in hiding places

So I do not see him?” declares the Lord.

“Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the Lord.[4]

 

Regardless of what depravity, brutality, persecution and fear we may face in the coming years, God is all-seeing, all-knowing, and He will be with his people. Do not lose your moral courage. He is with you and me.  I know this first-hand: He has been near to me throughout 35 years of neurological terrors of MS, and cancer. Like Saint Paul, I am convinced nothing can separate us from the love of God.

 

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[5]


Stand strong, fellow Christians. Witness for the hope of Christ that abides in you.

MDP



[1] Acts 5.27-29. Cf. Acts 4.18-20.

[2] Matthew 28.19-20.

[3] Psalm 139.7-10.

[4] Jeremiah 23.24.

[5] Romans 8.38-39.

Wednesday, January 6, 2021

COMMUNITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

 


So many people ignored public health guidelines at Christmas, despite pleadings from medical officials. I fear we are going to see a spike in COVID cases from people getting together. The public good came second to their desires. Autonomy versus community. (I used to refer to this in my speeches across North America.) Community lost.

 

As I’ve said previously, we were unwittingly asked that most ancient of questions: “Am I my bother’s keeper?” So many people answered ‘No’ and ignored public health guidelines. Their answer was the same as Cane’s—the first murderer— after killing his brother Abel. People reading this article may indignantly exclaim: “How can you equate people ignoring public health rules to be with family with murder?” I didn’t. I said their answer as to whether they have a responsibility to other people’s welfare was the same as Cane’s answer. By their actions they said No. Someone else could say, “It’s so easy for you. You were with your wife, the romantic love of your life, but we were not and wanted to be those we love.”  I understand that desire; my wife and I also wanted to be with our children and grandchildren. We were separated from them.

 

Sometimes in life we are called to do something, as citizens, we do not want to do. This was one such occasion. But for the greater good, we must do what is being asked of us. Quite simply, it was irresponsible and disrespectful to thousands of families who have lost loved-ones to the pandemic. Now, I fear we are going to pay a heavy price in the days to come.  Love for family does not negate our responsibilities to the community.

 

Here’s something else that I fear. I’m hearing rumblings about something called the “Great Reset” that is about to descend upon us. I’m hearing it will a global secular (Godless) fraternity of humanity, loosely based on a communist model. I hope I’m wrong.

 

Communist rhetoric is contrary to communist behavior. Can you think of any communist country that has raised humanity— individually and collectively—to new heights of liberty and freedom? Russia? China? North Korea? The former east Germany? If communism is so ideal why are so many people so keen to escape? Are people from the West flocking to get into those countries? Why would we think any “great reset” in a communist model would be more successful?

 

Communism is anti-Christian. But as someone else so elegantly said, “the brotherhood of man needs the Fatherhood of God.” This is why communism will always fail. Without God as our guide, eventually the lives of the most defenceless and vulnerable will become hell on earth.  Except for an elite cadre at the top, everyone becomes part of the ‘great unwashed’ masses.

 

Now, I am going to switch gears and defend the individual rather than the community in what seems like a contradiction of all I’ve advocated over the years. As I see it, it’s not an ‘either or’ but ‘both and.’  But ‘both and’ what? Both  and God. God must be at the foundations of both. This is the only path to true freedom and liberty.

 

It is freedom of individuals who understand their responsible to the whole that makes a civilized whole. It comes with the understanding that every human being was endowed with the image of God the night they were conceived; everyone possesses a natural human dignity we must honour and dare not offend or rob from them.  The individual behaves in keeping with God’s love and commands. The state formulates and enacts laws according to God’s law, in what we have come to refer to as ‘Judeo-Christian’ more ethic and cultural ethos. 

 

I suspect that the great reset will be based on images of people at their best when they are in benevolent moods and joining arms for a rousing chorus of Kumbaya—not images of burning buildings and violence in the streets with masked Antifa thugs. It will supress images an abortion’s bloody hands or the victims of “choice,” or euthanizing the sick and disabled. Human benevolence is arbitrary and uncertain. It is based on feelings that can shift in an instant when emotions turn to anger. 

 

The basis of the West civilization’s laws, moral codes, institutions, and mores is Common Law. The foundation of Common Law is Christianity.  Although the current crop of moderns tries to deny the Christian roots of Western civilization, and rewrite, override or expunge Christianity and its influence from the culture, this is new. People of previous generations knew it western civilization is based on Christianity.  In fact, in 1829, Dane Professor of Harvard University, Joseph Story, said: “There never has been a period in which Common Law did not recognize Christianity as laying at its foundation.”[1]  This is what a great reset will try to overthrow. Will it be successful?

 

For Christians the principles of a great reset will sound lofty and compatible with Christian faith, but its error is putting humanity on top instead of God. That is idolatry. Jesus said: 

 

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”[2] Christ’s exhortation. It is only by being loved and loving God, that man is capable of truly loving. Christ’s command and Jewish law remains to override unstable human emotions. Earlier in Matthew Christ said, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.[3] The basis of this is not reciprocity, rather a love for God, and love as Christ loves us. We treat others as we would want them to treat us—even if they do not treat us as we wish they would. The golden rule.

  

It is God, not us, who lifts us to our best potential. Happy 2021.


MDP


[1] Quoted in Perry Miller, editor, The Legal Mind in America (New York: Doubleday, 1962), p.178.

[2] Matthew 22.37-40. Cf. Deuteronomy 6.5 & Leviticus 19.18.

[3] Matthew 7.12. Also see Mark 12.31, Luke 6.31 &Luke 10.27,