GOD’S LOVE FOR HIS PEOPLE IS INFINITE AND UNCONDITIONAL

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“But [King David] covered his face, and the king cried out with a loud voice, ‘O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!’ 2 Samuel 19:4

Absalom, like King Saul, had a kingly and charismatic appearance but a self-serving bent. He gradually began to see himself as a potential successor to his father’s throne and began gathering supporters among the northern tribes of Israel. It was his intention to raise an army, mount a rebellion against his father, and take over the throne. But in a battle with David’s armies, Absalom was killed, throwing David into an extended season of grief. Even though Absalom was his enemy, David loved him unconditionally, even at the time of his death. 

Loving an enemy unconditionally is the New Testament’s picture of our salvation. Even while we were God’s enemies, He sent Christ to die for us. Thank God today for His unconditional love.

“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” Romans 5:8

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.“ Romans 8:35

“God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:5

GOD IS A RIGHTEOUS GOD AND HIS WRATH WILL BE POURED OUT ON AN UNREPENTANT WORLD

God poured out His wrath once before on an unrepentant world at the time of Noah’s Day and we know from Biblical prophecy that He will pour it out again in the not-too-distant future with the Trumpet (Revelation 8) and the Bowl (Revelation 16) judgements.

“But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” Romans 2:5

MIRACLES AND SCIENCE

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Origins science uses the principles of causality (everything that has a beginning has a cause) and analogy (e.g. we observe that intelligence is needed to generate complex coded information in the present, so we can reasonably assume the same for the past). And because there was no material intelligent designer for life, it is legitimate to invoke a non-material designer for life. Creationists invoke the miraculous only for origins science, and as shown, this does not mean they will invoke it for operational science.

Miracles are an addition to natural laws rather than a loophole within them. This is because natural laws are formulated in isolated systems. For example, Newton’s 1st Law of Motion states that objects will continue in a straight line at a constant speed — if no unbalanced force is acting. But there is nothing in the law to prohibit unbalanced forces acting—otherwise, nothing could ever change direction!

If God exists, there is no truly isolated system. Thus there is no basis for disallowing miracles unless you could prove that God doesn’t exist, but you can’t prove a universal negative. And if Jesus really were God Incarnate as I believe (see documentation), He could certainly bring other forces into play without violating science.

C.S. Lewis applied these concepts to the virginal conception of Christ: that is the zygote was made by the Holy Spirit’s action on Mary’s ovum, i.e. an addition to the system. But after that, the embryo developed in a normal manner.

Second, this comment treats natural laws as real entities. In reality, scientific laws are descriptive of what we observe happening regularly, just as the outline of a map describes the shape of a coastline. Treating scientific laws as prescriptive, i.e. the cause of the observed regularities, is like claiming that the drawing of the map is the cause of the shape of the coastline.

The Bible explains that: we are made in the image of a rational God (Genesis 1:26–27), God is a God of order not of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33), God gave man dominion over creation (Genesis 1:28), and He commanded honesty (Exodus 20:16). Applying this, as well as a correct understanding of the nature of scientific laws as description, leads to a worldview that historically led to science without jettisoning miracles, as previously stated:

These [founders of modern science], like modern creationists, regarded ‘natural laws’ as descriptions of the way God upholds His creation in a regular and repeatable way (Col. 1:15–17), while miracles are God’s way of upholding His creation in a special way for special reasons. Because creation finished at the end of day 6 (Gen. 2:1–3), creationists following the Bible would expect that God has since mostly worked through ‘natural laws’ except where He has revealed in the Bible that He used a miracle. And since ‘natural laws’ are descriptive, they cannot prescribe what cannot happen, so they cannot rule out miracles. Scientific laws do not cause or forbid anything, any more than the outline of a map causes the shape of the coastline.

C.S. Lewis pointed out that arguing against miracles based on the alleged total uniformity of nature is actually circular reasoning (from Miracles):

No, of course we must agree with the empiricist, David Hume that if there is absolutely ‘uniform experience’ against miracles, in other words, they have never happened, why then they never have. Unfortunately, we know the experience against them to be uniform only if we know that all the reports of them are false. And we know all the reports are false only if we know already that miracles have never occurred. In fact, we are arguing in a circle.

Without a belief that the universe was made by a God of order and that we are made in the image of this God, the Logos, we have no basis for either an orderly universe or that our thoughts can be trusted. Atheists can treat these premises as axioms, i.e. accepted as true without proof, but they are theorems for Christians since they follow from the propositions of Scripture. Indeed, atheists can’t prove that the universe is orderly, because the proofs would have to suppose the order they are trying to prove. Similarly, they can’t prove that their thoughts are rational because the proofs would have to assume this very rationality. Yet evolution would select only for survival advantage, not rationality.

You cannot derive an orderly universe from the proposition ‘God does not exist’. Indeed, you need to accept an orderly universe as a ‘brute fact’, which ironically was actually plagiarized from the Christian world view.

This article has been adapted from an article by Jonathan Sarfati Miracles and Science on the website http://www.creation.com. First published 2/09/2006

DO ALL TO THE GLORY OF GOD

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Where do I come from? Where am I going? What is the meaning of life?

Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts them together to see what they mean.

I love listening to John Lennox. He is an evangelist extraordinaire. He makes it so simple and at the same time exciting as he reveals God’s truth about the universe He created. Christians will enjoy this video immensely and want to share it with others. Non-Christians will hate it as it challenges their faith to the core.

GOD’S WORK DONE IN GOD’S WAY WILL NEVER LACK GOD’S SUPPLY

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We often hear people say, ‘The end justifies the means.’ In other words, it’s okay to do something dishonourable, if necessary, in order to achieve something honourable. But that is not a biblical perspective. God is as concerned about the process as much as the product.

“So they brought the ark of the Lord, and set it in its place in the midst of the tabernacle that David had erected for it. Then David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord.“
2 Samuel 6:17

Early in King David’s career, he learned this lesson the hard way. He was moving the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. But he failed to follow God’s instructions on how to transport the Ark. A man died as a result, and the Ark’s movement was delayed for three months. There is a lesson there: God cares about how we serve Him as much as He cares about what we accomplish. For example, not only are we to speak the truth, but we are also to speak the truth ‘in love’ (Ephesians 4:15). We are to defend the faith but with ‘gentleness and respect’ (1 Peter 3:15).

Do God’s work today—yes! But do it God’s way so He is free to bless and honour it.
God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply. Hudson Taylor

“In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:6

“Turn away from evil and do good; so shall you dwell forever. For the LORD loves justice; he will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever, but the children of the wicked shall be cut off. The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever.” Psalms 37:27-29

God tells us what is next on His agenda for this world. The rule of Satan and man on planet Earth is coming to an end. We are fast approaching the last seven years prior to Jesus’ return to this earth to establish His Millennial Kingdom about which we are given a lot of detail in God’s Word.

Check out http://www.millennialkingdom.net and Matthew Bryce Ervin’s book, One Thousand Years with Jesus – The Coming Messianic Kingdom.

“Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be released for a little while. Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also, I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.” Revelation 20:1-6

GOD IS YOUR SOURCE OF EVERY GOOD THING

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Unless you truly get this basic truth you are missing out on all but what you can generate on your own for the short time God allows you to live on the planet He created. Above all, you are missing out on eternal life.

Happiness can’t be bigger than its source. God is primary; all other forms of happiness—relationships, created things, and material pleasures—are secondary. If we don’t consciously see God as our source, these secondary things intended for enjoyment can master us.

Only God can satisfy the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things” (Psalm 107:9). We are finite and fallen, and we lack what’s required for true happiness. All those who look within themselves for pleasures and delight are doomed to misery. We just aren’t big enough and good enough to supply the happiness we crave!

When the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God, being deceived by the already fallen angelic being Satan, God withdrew the Holy Spirit from Adam and Eve’s spirit. They died spiritually then and physically some 900 years later.

“The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all his innermost parts.” Proverbs 20:27

Our spirit, as the lamp of the Lord, was always meant to house the Holy Spirit. What an amazing truth, the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is the oil that allows us to function as God intended.

The wonderful news for all who accept God’s solution for our rebellion (JESUS paying the price, dying that we might live) is that Jesus made it possible for our Heavenly Father to send the Holy Spirit to once again indwell our spirit, enabling us to live as He intended.

Christ-followers enjoy what God provides first and foremost because they enjoy the God who made them and provides for them. Unlike us, God is infinite and without flaws. Secondary things bring some joy, but God alone is our “exceeding joy” (Psalm 43:4). Scottish theologian Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661) wrote, “It is the infinite Godhead that must allay the sharpness of your hunger after happiness, otherwise there shall still be a want of satisfaction to your desires.”

Secondary things are not incidental or unimportant— they’re God’s gifts to draw us to Him—so we should never disdain the created world. But by putting God first and His creation second, the world and its beauties become instruments of joy and worship. We love them better when we love God more than them.

In the mid-1600s, Puritan John Gibbon said, “God alone is enough, but without him, nothing [is enough] for thy happiness.” Whether or not we’re conscious of it, since God is the fountainhead of happiness, the search for happiness is always the search for God.

The only place you will find out the truth about this Cosmos and the meaning of life is in God’s Word, in which He gives us the entire story of the Cosmos we inhabit from its beginning to its fiery end. My recommendation would be either The Open Bible Expanded Edition (New King James Version), Thomas Nelson Publishers, or the ESV Study Bible (English Standard Version) published by Crossway.

GOD ANSWERS PRAYER

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Jesus makes it plain that forgiveness is an essential requirement of all prayers. He also makes it abundantly clear that He will respond to all prayers of believers that are operating in obedience to God’s will, which will be the Holy Spirit’s leading.

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” Mark 11:24-25

First, go and be reconciled to them” (Matthew 5:23-24). They may not forgive you, of course; they may reject your attempt or react with renewed anger over what you did, but then it becomes their problem, not yours. You will have done everything you could to let them know you regret what happened, and that you want their forgiveness.

Paul makes it clear that God answers humble prayers given with thanksgiving. We can also then be confident that the peace of God will “guard our hearts and minds“.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7

See what David has to say about prayer. He loves God because He knows God responds to his prayers. Note what David says about calling on God as long as he lives. Also, note David differentiates between his body and soul.

“I love the LORD because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live.” Psalms 116:1-2

“The LORD preserves the simple; when I was brought low, He saved me. Return, O my soul, to your rest;
for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.” Psalms 116:6-7

“For you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life.” Psalms 56:13

“For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling; I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.” Psalms 116:8-9

I love the following Scripture on prayer, it tells us so much 1. Rejoice always, 2. Pray without ceasing in all circumstances, 3. When we do, rejoice, be thankful, and pray we are in the will of God, 4. Do not quench the Holt Spirit within you, 5. Do not despise prophecies (there are about 2000 prophecies of Jesus’ second coming), 6. Test everything, be Bereans, 7. Hold fast to what is good and reject the rest.

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-21

GOD LOVES HIS CHILDREN TO BE THANKFUL

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Our thankfulness glorifies God and makes Him joyful:

“The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!” Psalms 50:23

Puritan John Boys echoed the sentiment of the psalmist: “As the Lord loveth a cheerful giver, so likewise a cheerful thanksgiver.” But God isn’t the only one affected when we give thanks.

A. W. Tozer wrote, “Gratitude is an offering precious in the sight of God, and it is one that the poorest of us can make and be not poorer but richer for having made it.”

In Choosing Gratitude, Nancy Leigh DeMoss writes, “True gratitude, Christian gratitude, doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it has an Object.”

Psalm 138:1-8 How to Have a Thankful Heart

Check out Psalm 138:1-8 for reasons why you should have a thankful heart

God gives us hundreds of reasons to be grateful every hour— ask Him to make you aware of His gracious provisions surrounding you. The Holy Spirit will oblige. He is your counsellor and teacher. Developing the habit and discipline of gratitude results in greater praise to God and greater joy for ourselves.

When life’s tough, we can be grateful that God is with us in our suffering, that He’s using it for our good, and that He promises to end it once and for all.

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-21

Randy Alcorn reported on this study in his article on Thankfulness on the Patheos blog: Psychologists asked undergraduates to complete a survey that included a happiness scale and measures of thankfulness. Over six weeks, the participants wrote down, once a week, five things they were grateful for. This practice had a dramatic effect on their happiness score. The study concluded, “Students who regularly expressed gratitude showed increases in well-being throughout the study.”

Likewise secular books on happiness document gratitude’s role in making people happier. But cultivating gratitude proves difficult for people whose worldview leaves them with nobody to thank! Yes, they can thank someone for loaning them a car or being their teacher. But whom can they thank for sunshine, air to breathe, the capacity to work, and enjoy pleasure? People who don’t believe that a sovereign God is at work through the kindness of others must thank their “lucky stars,” random circumstances, or—at best—other people. Since people are small when compared to God, the object of their gratitude is small, shrinking their capacity for happiness.

God’s common grace offers unbelievers a degree of happiness that’s greatly enhanced through thankfulness. As Christ-followers, however, we find gratitude multiplied when we return it to God, the ultimate and primary source of all goodness.

I suggest you keep a Holy Spirit journal (HSJ) as He is your counsellor, teacher, and comforter. He produces the fruit of the Spirit in your life (Galatians 5:22, all nine) and also provides the spiritual gifts for ministry (1 Corinthians 12:4-11, all nine). You might also want to keep a section of the HSJ to record daily, God’s evident goodness around you. You’ll find that in time, you’ll see more and more gifts from Him—not because there are more, but because you’re finally seeing what has been there all along.

God, we know from Biblical prophecies that Jesus second coming to earth, this time to restore righteousness is not too far distant but may we not wait until we see you, Lord Jesus, for our every breath to be filled with gratitude for your saving work on The Cross, the continuing work of the Holy Spirit in our lives along with every other gift you made it possible for the Father to provide. May our hearts overflow with gratitude each day!

WHO JESUS CHRIST IS AND WHAT HE HAS ACCOMPLISHED

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“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” Galatians 4:4-7

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him, all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things; in Him, all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.” Colossians 1:15-20

“Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” John 8:58

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, He has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs.” Hebrews 1:1-4

“And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20

At the end of this age, Jesus has told us what is next on His agenda: His Millennial Kingdom on this earth.

“They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.” Revelation 20:4-6

SIGNPOSTS TO GOD

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Another great article in Creation Magazine 2023, Vol 45, Issue 2, this time by Peter Howe Dip. Th., B.Th., M.A. A trained primary school teacher, Peter pastored several churches as an ordained minister in the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia.

Evidence of design

Flicking through a magazine one day as a child, I came across a photograph of Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, with the unmistakable likenesses of four American presidents carved into the rocks. Knowing nothing of how these came to be there, I remember thinking, “How strange! These can’t have happened by accident.”

Precisely! No one could seriously suggest that these shapes resulted from wind or rain or glacial erosion. These carved faces are clearly the result of creative design and effort.

Though not professing a commitment to anything like the God of the Bible, Paul Davies, former professor of theoretical physics at The University of Adelaide, writes in his book The Mind of God:

“Through my scientific work, I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as a brute fact … I cannot believe that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama.“

The humblest believer in God as Creator must exercise far less credulity, and has far less explaining to do, than the most ardent evolutionist materialist.

Of course, fallen humanity has devised many increasingly sophisticated speculations of how nature could nonetheless have made itself. Ministries like CMI provide people with specific answers to such challenges. Even so, it pays to step back and contemplate the ‘big picture’ of what is claimed, and its affront to common sense itself.

The evidence within

Another signpost is human nature. We have been made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Thus, we have spiritual capacities that cannot be explained apart from God. Language, reason, ambition, creativity, humour, wonder, worship—all these have no counterpart in the natural world. These qualities mark us out as different from the rest of God’s handiwork. This is another way of saying that our Creator has endowed us with the capacity to relate to Him at a personal level.

Within human nature, conscience is another sign pointing to God. Proverbs 20:27 says of the human spirit that it is “the lamp of the Lord, searching all [man’s] innermost parts.”. Our conscience is responsible for our intuitive knowledge of right and wrong, good and evil. The Apostle Paul states that even those who don’t have God’s law in written form still have a conscience that commends them when they instinctively do what it commands and accuses them when they don’t (Romans 2:14–15).

An image of hand

Even without a ‘book of rules,’ we know it’s wrong to lie, steal, covet, and murder. Conscience ‘puts a pebble in our shoe’ whenever we violate it. The standard it sets and the guilt it inflicts point us to God—the Source of all good and the Judge of all evil.

Eternity in our hearts

Our longing for eternity is another pointer to God. Somehow, we know and feel that this life is not all that there is. Archaeologists have discovered how carefully and elaborately the ancient Egyptians prepared for the afterlife, and they had no Bible to tell them about a life to come. Where does this longing for eternity come from? Everything on Earth is subject to change and decay:

“Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end.” Psalm 102:25–27

These ‘immortality longings’ we all feel at various moments are pointers to the God who created us in His own image.

Hunger of the soul

Another signpost to God is our longing for meaning and purpose. We always knew when our cat Simba was hungry and wanted to be fed. (Any cat owner knows that dogs have masters, but cats have staff!) He would eat his prescription dry food and go away content; his next meal seemed to be the limit of his horizon. But we can’t live at that bare, subsistence level—at least, not for long. We crave meaning and purpose in our lives; we long to enjoy significant and satisfying relationships.

This sense of longing is often called ‘the homesickness of the soul’—and rightly so, for that’s precisely what it is. The true object of our longing is God. The words of the psalmist reflect this truth:

“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?” Psalm 42:1–2

Of all the signposts pointing to God, the Bible is by far the clearest. When a British monarch is crowned, he or she is given a copy of the Bible, and told, “This Book is the most valuable thing that this world affords. This is the royal law; these are the lively oracles of God.” When we read the Bible with a humble and teachable attitude, we find it to be a source of supernatural wisdom and power. The psalmist prayed: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18). Paul reminded his young associate Timothy that Scripture provides the wisdom and instruction that leads to “salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15).Scripture’s major theme is Jesus Christ, God’s only Son. As “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), Jesus is the clearest and most compelling witness to the existence and greatness of God the Father. Jesus Himself said: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). He is the perfect transcript of what God is like.

But the supreme demonstration of God’s love and care is the sending of His Son into the world to suffer death on the cross, to save us from our sins, and to reclaim us for Himself. The Cross is more than enough to convince us that God loves and cares for lost people (Romans 5:8). Jesus Himself said that He came “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

To help us find our way to God, there are signposts everywhere, but the most vital one is Jesus. He said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

GOD IS SOVEREIGN

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We know as Christians that God places rulers in power to accomplish His purposes, as difficult as that might seem for us.

“He changes times and seasons; He deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. Daniel 2:21

“Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” Romans 13:1

These verses and others like them are great reminders of God’s sovereignty in history. These are the kind of bedrock verses to meditate on when a new government arises headed by an Islamic leader, who seemingly will be big trouble for Christ-followers.

Our faith cannot be shaken by whoever is in the driver’s seat of any given government. God is in control and often we get the leader we deserve. In Australia, the Victorian people voted in the ungodly Daniel Andrews and they are now getting the anti-God legisation they deserve.

It is useful to reflect on how God uses kings for His purposes. For example, Divine judgment came against the Lord’s people by means of King Nebuchadnezzar and the nation of Babylon. God refers to Nebuchadnezzar as His servant, meaning that the king was doing the work of God in punishing the people of Judah.

The fact that Nebuchadnezzar was referred to as the Lord’s servant should not be interpreted to mean that he was a righteous king. It is also not an indication that Babylon was replacing Judah as God’s special people. This is made clear as God’s judgment would later be pronounced against Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon.

“‘Then it will be when seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,’ declares the Lord, ‘for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it an everlasting desolation. I will bring upon that land My words which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations.’” Jeremiah 25:12-13

We must drill down into the Rock. Jesus and cling to Him as world events continue to mold a godless future at a faster rate than ever seen before. We must also use the many prophecies of these future events for what I call apocalyptic evangelism. They prove the inerrancy of the Bible and the fact God is in control of History. The Bible clearly indicates the world gets darker as the world comes under greater control of Satan and his demonic powers. God even allows Satan to install his Antichrist and prophet to rule for three and a half years prior to Jesus’ return to earth with the glorified Saints to rule and reign for 1000 years.

“They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.” Revelation 20:5-6