Under Shepherds, Represent the Great Shepherd

Some readers of Sojournal may be disappointed that for months now we have moved away from our typical content and focussed on issues covid, particularly the mandates and the tyranny that is being imposed on a once free people. I make no apology for this. Nor are words like tyranny out of place, contrary to the opinions of well-meaning friends who think I’ve gone off the deep end. I am not a slave, and I will not be dictated to by a deity grasping state about what I will put in my body. To hell with that. And I mean that quite literally – that grasping authoritarianism is reminiscent of the evil one himself and clearly signals its diabolical origins. So covid dominates, because this is the issue of our time. This is where the battle currently is, and to ignore it is a dereliction of duty for those who claim to be followers of the king. Unfortunately in too many churches in New Zealand, covid and the issues arising from it have been studiously ignored and ‘spiritual’ matters focussed on. All hell (literally) seems to be breaking loose in our little country, and many under-shepherds of Christ seem content to lull the sheep into a false sense of security rather than train them up for battle and prepare for persecution. Some have even joined the enemy.

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Deluded Slaves

Everyone is religious. Everyone is a worshiper. It’s not whether you bow before a god, it’s just a matter of which god you worship. The modern western secularist pretends they are above worship. They delude themselves (and regrettably not a few Christians) that they are neutral on the religious front. This is strategic gold as it has allowed them to promulgate the lie of separation of religion and politics, thus removing all their other competition from the public sphere and proclaiming their faith as the only permissible faith and the lingua franca of the public realm. Yet the secularist is not neutral. Sure they say they are atheists and they may write ‘non-religious’ on the census form, but they are as much worshippers and adherents of a faith as those primitives who kneel before an unseen deity.

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Irrational Fear

Propaganda works. It really does. For near enough to two years, we have had covid (deliberately non-capitalised, as I do not deign to give it a capital like it is some kind of deity) splashed across our screens non-stop day in day out. And this has taken its toll on everyone, but particularly the weak-minded and emotionally unstable. These poor petals are scared stiff of covid. They think our government has done us a favour by locking us up like prisoners and treating us as their slaves by forcibly vaccinating us. They believe the propaganda, not backed up by science, that the unvaccinated pose a huge risk to them and ought to be shut out from civil society.

Once again, the New Zealand Herald, part of the government harem of media whores, continues to spread fear through ignorant and emotionally unstable women. While I should not need to add a rider to the previous sentence, for the sake of the overly sensitive, note we are not talking about all women. We are talking about ignorant and unstable women. This is a subset of women which incidentally includes not a few men! There are plenty of women who are fighting valiantly on the side of freedom at the moment. Take for instance the women behind VFF.

But policy of late has been dictated by the fearful and those who would mother us to death. Last week we had a precious mother who was up in arms about an unvaccinated young man passing on covid to her daughter who then proceeded to get a cough and a runny nose. This week we are presented with ‘Kaye’ another ‘useful idiot‘ in the government’s media-aided campaign of fear. She has epilepsy and therefore is forced to use public transport. She is terrified that when covid spreads she will be at risk from the unvaccinated who are using public transport. This could trigger a seizure. Kaye is angry that she is ‘put in this position.’ It seems like many other scared witless New Zealanders, she would be quite happy to see the unvaccinated banned from yet another aspect of public life. But while insufferable self-righteous petals like Kaye winge on about the position they’ve been put in, there are families who have lost their livelihoods due to government tyranny. There are people who struggle to find a place to rent because our government has introduced a new apartheid. But poor dear Kaye, she has to share public transport with members of the public she doesn’t want to share with. They should be forced to move out of the white clean section of the bus to the coloured unclean one or better still, they should not be allowed on at all – the filthy Jews vermin. Little do foolish women like Kaye care for the fact that vaccinated people can also pass on the virus, and indeed given that one needs to be vaccinated or have a negative test to fly these days, all of the omicron cases in New Zealand at this point in time are most likely vaccinated people. Our own Ministry of Health pointed out that when vaccination coverage is high, (above 80%) transmission is more likely to occur from a vaccinated than an unvaccinated individual. But Kaye and other hysterical attention-seeking drones will not let the facts get in the way of their 15 minutes of media fame.

Finally, take Janine who rang Kerre McIvor’s talkback show on Newstalk ZB. Janine is clearly terrified of the virus. She believes that many more would have died if our government hadn’t taken the disastrous approach that it has, and wants us all to be grateful for the way we have been ‘looked after’ by our government. I agree with Kerre. Who wants to be looked after by the government? If looking after is taking away the livelihoods of my friends and colleagues through endless lockdowns or because they have the temerity to make medical choices for themselves then I don’t want to be looked after. I actually think I can do a far better job of running my life than they can. I’ve got along quite nicely without the government thus far thank you very much. Besides, why would you trust these incompetent clowns to look after you? After all, they promised to fix the housing issue and instead have overseen a median house price rise of $395,000. Their KiwiBuild policy was supposed to supply 100,000 houses over 10 years. Stuff reported in May last year that at their current rate they would take 400 years to achieve this goal. For a list of broken promises from their first term, see a useful summary here. Whatever they touch they ruin. These are the incompetent idiots that unstable and fearful chicken littles sitting at home watching the one o’clock daily press conferences and the six o’clock news trust to ruin our lives. Again I ask, would you trust these people to run a booze-up in a brewery, let alone our health system, our education system, our housing and infrastructure, media and our very lives? What we need in New Zealand is a movement toward freedom. Hopefully, what we are seeing is the beginning of this. Less government, more individual independence and freedom. God did not make us to be slaves of a tyrannical and out of control prissy mother with delusions of deity attempting to treat us like a school prefect would third form students.

What do we need to do? Get the fearful and emotionally unstable women of both sexes out of decision-making positions. We cannot lead our society with fear. We must have leaders of hope and vision who will encourage (give courage) to our citizens and lead us toward freedom and prosperity without meddling in our lives like anxious mothers trying to prevent Johnny from getting a scraped knee. We don’t want to be the societal equivalent of a 30-year-old son stuck at home under his domineering mother’s loving care.

The Resistance – Evangelism and the Lordship of Christ – Part 4

Due to the events currently taking place in New Zealand, we had to postpone continuing The Resistance series. The events including mandated vaccines for health care professionals, teachers and others as well as rules that will punish churches who choose to operate non-segregated services. This only goes to prove what we suggested at the beginning of this series.

It certainly feels like we are on the edge of something. And when I say “something”, I do not mean pink cupcakes with chocolate sprinkles. More the kind of something that Gandalf refers to when sitting with Pippin on the walls of Minas Tirith and says, “It’s the deep breath before the plunge.”

Things are certainly intensifying, fault lines are showing, and we are beginning to see division. In some ways this is healthy. All around New Zealand the reactions to what is going on are telling. We learn which pastors are courageous, and those who can only talk a good game. Those who have sold out because of their desire to look socially acceptable to the powers that be are obvious as are those who are controlled by fear of man rather than fear of God. We continue to see the divide between Christians who actually have a Christian worldview and those who have a personal faith, but have been deluded by the shallow and deceptive philosophies of this world. I suspect these divisions will become clearer and lead to changing alliances and movement among churches.

So now is a good time to once again continue our series on Christian resistance in these times. Thus far we have covered the first 3 requirements: repentance over individual and corporate sin, dependence on the Word, Spirit and prayer and confronting the dualism that has stripped the church and its members of strength.

Today we will briefly focus on the fourth requirement of Christian Resistance.

We must develop and practise an evangelism that not only calls for personal salvation, but Christ’s lordship in every sphere of life. In other words we must disciple the nations to obey everything that Christ taught and call unbelievers to recognise Christ’s kingship on earth.

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Holding Us to Ransom?

In the past few weeks, I have begun to hear the phase ‘holding us to ransom’ a lot more frequently. Specifically, it is the unvaccinated who are apparently holding the country to ransom. Really?

Let’s imagine a scenario where a terrorist grabs two teenage children of wealthy elites and asks for a ransom from both sets of parents before he will release them. The parents of one immediately pay the ransom, and the other set, not so sure that paying the ransom will in fact lead to the release of their child, refuse to pay. The parents who have paid the ransom then turn on the other more suspicious parents and say, “Stop holding us to ransom!” While I can understand their frustration, it is in fact the terrorist who has held them to ransom. Not paying the ransom is not equivalent to holding someone to ransom.

In my mind, it is actually many unvaccinated people who are being held to ransom. Those who are teachers or nurses are being told that unless they bow to the government’s wishes they will have no job. Others who have no vaccine mandates (yet) will be denied entry to restaurants, big events and churches. Not bowing to the government on this is not holding others to ransom. It’s refusing to pay the ransom. We don’t negotiate with terrorists!

Most unvaccinated people I have chatted with are happy for the government to open up society. They have made their choice based on their own risk-benefit analysis. They tend to be a lot more clued up on the stats than many who have just gone ahead and got vaccinated. It is not they who are holding us to ransom, but our government. Our government is threatening people with loss of livelihood and like the grinch is planning on stealing Christmas too unless we all bow to their demands. Don’t turn on your fellow prisoners. Remember who the real enemy is in all of this.

A Parable…

Dear Pastor,

I am having some trouble with my wife. I commanded her to wear a chicken suit every time she leaves the house, but she refuses. Can you please tell her to submit to my authority since wearing a chicken suit is not sinful and would not hinder her from proclaiming the Gospel? In fact, quite the opposite. I believe this is a loving thing to do as it would bring joy to many people and open a door for sharing the Gospel. She can tell people “I’m a Christian and look how I’m submitting to my husband. Don’t you want to want to become a Christian, too?” Surely this kind of submission to authority will win many people to Christ. After all, we have been told this by many famous evangelical leaders, so it must be true. Thank you for understanding. My wife and I await your speedy reply.

Thanks,
I. M. Consistent

Posted on Gab by NullifyandInterpose

Vaccine Mandates – A Small Business Perspective

The Sojournal asked, following Scott Kennedy’s post, if anyone else had their own experience to share, so I thought I may offer a few cents.

I must start by saying that I have a confession to make.

For quite a number of months now I have been struggling with the question of when it is time to take a stand. Without getting bogged down in the detail, I love freedom, and I believe we have God-given freedoms as image-bearers of God, that to some degree are covered by our Bill of Rights. But I also know that God is the ultimate authority that installs Governments and does so for our good. There are sometimes circumstances that require the government to use extreme measures and I do want to think well of the intention of my government, even where I disagree. There is a balance with these things, but with a balance, there is also a tipping point, or as Scott put it in his post, a “line in the sand”, where you no longer can sit back hoping for the best but have to start putting yourself into uncomfortable positions.

While thinking and struggling with this I was often reminded of the well-known quote by German Pastor Martin Niemoller:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

My confession is that I think I left it too late.

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The Resistance – Unholy Dualism – Part 3D – Conclusion

Statement 7: On the Authority of the Church

We have all grown up in times where it is assumed that the church has authority in the spiritual realm and the state in the physical realm. This is a misunderstanding. Yes, the church’s authority is a spiritual authority, but we misunderstand spiritual if we presume it means non-physical. The church’s spiritual authority has effects in the physical world. When an adulterer is excommunicated he is excluded from the Lord’s table and from the fellowship of believers until such time as he repents.

This misunderstanding of ‘spiritual’ has caused an unhealthy spiritual/physical divide. The church now has abdicated its authority in the material world to such a degree that when the state government orders it to close for months because of a virus, it complies. Without even a whimper. There seems to have been no widespread outrage at the state presuming it has the authority prevent Christ’s church from gathering.

Now part of this of course is fear. Anyone in New Zealand who is even half aware of what’s going on will realise that we have not been led by particularly courageous men in these times. (I do not write this because I am courageous. I’m not and would be no better if I were a leader in the church.) We know there would be public outrage against us if we decided to flout these man-made rules. So there has been barely a whisper on the closure of the churches. So let’s not berate our leaders too much. Most of us laity too have been cowed in these times. We need to assist them and help them develop courage. They need to know we the laity are behind them. We need to encourage them. So encourage your pastor, minister or priest. Ask them about standing up to this seemingly endless shutdown of the gathering. We are, after all, the ecclesia, the church or the gathered. It’s somewhat ironic that we aren’t gathering.

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A Diagnostic Test for Deity

What is the functional god of a society? This struck me as I was driving somewhere recently. The news came on, and every single item in the bulletin related to the state. I was informed that the government was doing this or that, or in a few cases told what the government ought to be doing but was currently not doing.

This got me thinking. News bulletins are a reflection of what is considered newsworthy. What is newsworthy is a reflection of what a culture considers to be important. What a culture considers to be important is indicative of its worship – or its functional idol if you will. In our case, as I have argued previously this is the state.

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