Painted into a Corner

Painted into a corner.

Or more specifically I have painted myself into a corner!

I have deliberately up till now not engaged with the relevant current events – the most alarming of which are: Europe at the behest of the German Chancellor and like minded people has welcomed a huge number of Islamic “refugees” - overwhelmingly young men of military age. France has suffered an orchestrated Islamic terrorist attack. German police, politicians and media tried to cover up over 1,300 attacks by large groups of “refugee” men during the new year's eve celebrations (About half these were sexual assaults on women).

Partly my silence was because there was no lack of commentary – at least outside Europe – in the media. Partly it was because I wanted to establish some Biblical principles through which to view these events and their probable causes and significance. But for the West, with Europe in the lead, rejecting God and his ways as foolishness may be a plausible cause – in which case God handing us over to the consequences of our foolishness may be the real significance.

The Biblical model for individuals and nations receiving deliverance from God is always “repent, throw away your idols and turn back to God”. What varies is the particular sins that have the person or society entranced, and what idols they have put in God's rightful place in their lives.

So somewhere we need to look at how our national lives measure up. Somehow we need to identify the sin of our age. And we may need to trace how we got into this mess for these things to become apparent.

If you are like me (and the other Christians I know) when the Holy Spirit convicts you of the next sin on God's list for you (from Romans 7 not even Paul after 20 years as an apostle had got through his life's punch list!) you know exactly what you have to repent of! On the other hand just vague, woolly guilt feelings (even if they are almost overwhelming) are not from the Holy Spirit.

Now you see how I am cornered! There is no lack of people eager to preach what they think is the sin of our nations! About the last thing I want to do is add another human voice proclaiming more such things that are just of human origin. The Old Testament is full of denunciations of the swarms of false prophets in those days who encouraged the wicked and disheartened the righteous!

Two simple examples of voices I think are wrong would be:
a) the classic progressives who are fiercely pro-abortion – and at least 95% of abortions exactly fit the Biblical definition of murder, but at the same time passionately anti-capital punishment, which the Bible gives at least an “in principle” mandate for (how this mandate should be applied is another matter)
b) anti-nationalism to the extent that, for example, some Americans are saying they are so ashamed of their nation's conduct past and present that they think God should destroy America! Dinesh D'Souza in his book and film “America, Imagine a World Without Her” gives a very powerful rebuttal of this doctrine.

But all this means a lot more work is required comparing the various claimants against the Biblical model before we can get beyond the proverbial shouting match “You say – I say”.

Which brings me to the crunch: I need to go and do some more research before I write any more!

So …. I will not be writing any more blogs for about eight weeks …

please come back for my next blog: First Weekend in APRIL