As the Pharisees waited for Jesus' answer of judgment on the adulterous women, Jesus stooped over and wrote with his finger on the ground.“This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear. So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first." And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground”( John 8:6-8). He did so to separate the sinner from those that would condemn her and to deliver the sinner into freedom. He stilled the voice of her accuser and provided mercy that had the power to change her.The Pharisees brought the women to the right person but for the wrong reason. They brought her to Jesus for judgement for sin, instead of help for her sins. There is nothing wrong with the law in its ability to condemn us but it can’t help us live up to its standard. The law is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. The purpose of the law was not meant to bring death to people but death to sin. The purpose of the law is life and righteousness. In His life, Jesus fulfilled the law not destroyed it and through His love, forgiveness and empowering grace, Jesus can fulfill the law in us.The only one without sin, cast no stones but instead said: “Go and sin no more.” Grace doesn't free us to continue sinning but it tells us what type of life, is now possible. Grace releases empowering gratitude and life-changing self-worth and value.

Friend, the best thing that happened to the woman and to us, was that we are caught by the law and brought to Jesus and His powerful grace.

God met Moses in the desert.

The Lord said, “What is that in your hand?" Moses replied, "A rod."  And He said, "Cast it on the ground." So he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. Then the LORD said to Moses, "Reach out your hand and take it by the tail" (and he reached out his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand”(Exodus 4:2-4).

Moses looked down at the old shepherds stick he held in his hand and felt a twinge of shame. Moses thought it was only a shepherd’s rod; but worse, he felt it was a symbol of the 40 years spent in the wilderness and all the mistakes he’d made in the past. It reminded him of the time he lost his temper and made some serious mistakes. It represented all his failures and all his worst moments.
When God said to take the rod and cast it away from him onto the ground, God was helping Moses get some perspective. ” Stand back, get some perspective and see it as the serpent that it is. It is not you; it is separate from you. Your past is not you, it just happened to you. Failure is never a person but only an event”
The enemy had spoken lies to Moses for 40 years. “You are useless, you blew it, you're pathetic, your no use to God and no use to the Hebrews” and it had crippled Moses with regret and shame ever since.
It is never the things that happen to us that become the problem but it is always the lies that Satan attaches to those events and failures that affect us most. God wants us to see that the past is not our identity and wants us to be free from every lie of the devil.
Finally, God said, “Take the snake by the tail it will become a sign of your authority from me.” As Moses tentatively picked up the serpent, it became a rod which he took with him on his mission to Egypt.

Friend, our past is not our identity. Once free from our past, it can become a great ministry tool to those you are called to reach. Take up your rod today. God is about to turn the mess of yesterday into your message of freedom tomorrow.

C.T Studd the missionary talked about Chocolate Soldiers in the church.  Those that melt in the heat and who need to be wrapped in foil to survive life.

We all live through the heat of battle at some stage in our lives.   In Gideon’s day, the Midianites always waited till Gods people were about to harvest and then they attacked. They come to steal the harvest and fruit from Gods people. Just when it seemed that God was giving something to Israel, the enemy came to take it away.  They needed a Gideon.  Maybe you were just beginning to prosper in an area of ministry or life and something came along and it brought you back to square one. You were tripped up or did something stupid in your life.  It seems like it has been two steps forward and one step back.

God has a way to defeat your enemy but it will require you. It is never “whatever will be will be”, but whatever you let be will be.  With God, whatever you defy can be defeated but we cannot conquer what we will not confront.   Gideonites beat Midianites.

God calls his Gideon “a mighty man of valour” and God calls you that today. You are what Heaven says you are.  God sees something in you, you can’t see in yourself.  Hell only fights you over what Heaven calls you. The devil didn’t show up until after God said to Jesus “You are my beloved Son.”  The devil only turns up after the Dove.   Father tells us who we are and the devil comes to see if we believe it!

Friend, believe it today. You are not chocolate; you were birthed from above and sent from God. The same heat that softens the chocolate only tempers steel and prepares earthen vessels for Him.  You don’t need to be wrapped in foil because God has promised to be your shield and buckler.  Stand up and drive the devil off your harvest, your family and your finances.

Many years ago I “hit the wall”. In the space of one year, I lost my mentor, my assistant pastor left, my own father died, and we lost a child before it was born. One day I found myself refusing to answer the phone - I could not face another problem or loss! Whether it was emotional burnout or depression, it all felt the same to me.
Depression is now a major health problem in the world and is the leading cause of suicide. Apparently, depression is experienced more by females than males and it occurs most in the 40–55 age bracket. In saying that, anyone can feel depressed in a very stressful time of life.
Depression is an emotional state marked by feeling of sadness, worthlessness, dejection, and worry, but it is not new. The earliest book in the Bible records the acute depression of a man called Job. After losing his possessions, his children, and any understanding from friends, he exhibits all the symptoms of a depressed person. We also know that Elijah and David’s had bouts of depression.
There is a continuum of severity of depression, from situational depression, to neurotic depression to clinical depression. Clinical depression (or major depressive disorder) is more severe than situational depression; it can be caused by disturbance in neurotransmitters, organic or hormonal imbalance. People who experience this are not able to respond to teaching, advice or being told to cheer up. They will not respond positively to parties, picnics or even prayer meetings. Anyone in this situation and anyone suicidal should see a doctor and receive treatment.
However, nearly everyone at some time experiences some situational depression stemming from emotional and mental stress. Jesus, in His humanity, certainly felt emotional pain and depressed emotions in the garden, but He fought it off perfectly. Depression can stem from a severely oppressed upbringing or losing someone or something important to you. It can also be brought on by a blow to our sense of value, a virus, or wrong priorities that bring on fatigue. It can be as the result of a traumatic event such as childbirth, divorce, the death of a friend, a serious accident or retirement. Sufferers may look sad, and feel empty, pessimistic, rejected and unloved. Their eating and sleeping can be affected and if agitated, can find it hard to sit still. Sometimes they have episodes of crying and may withdraw from activities and it can be accompanied by suicidal thoughts. Most people who experience situational depression begin to have symptoms within 90 days of the triggering event.
While there are many possible causes, it is far more profitable to know how to get out of it, rather than to know what causes it. Bestselling author and psychologist Dr Minrith of Minrith clinic believes that there are things we can do to help ourselves and that there is no reason why a person, particularly a believer should fall into situational or neurotic depression. Depression is not something a person chooses but it is something that we must choose to deal with. Dr Minrith states while it is totally avoidable, we must follow the right path to avoid it. In other words, happiness is a choice. Depression is not caused so much by the initial problem, but more by our response to that problem. Doctor Minrith, after treating thousands of depressed people, says the most common root condition that predisposes people to all types of depression, is pent up anger, either toward themselves or from holding grudges toward others. He said some people come to him thinking they have endocrine deficiency or hypoglycaemia, but what they actually have is an unconscious resentment they aren’t aware of, (or they are too ashamed to admit that they have). These people he said, have found an excuse for their bitterness and call it battling depression.
Dr Minrith says three things enable any person to overcome depression and live a happy life: Having a personal sense of value, intimacy with other people and feeling right with God.

Ourselves: Make sure we are not angry at ourselves through guilt or even false guilt. True guilt is our conscience telling us that we have violated Gods law; we feel guilty because we are guilty. Thank God He forgives us when we ask Him. Guilt also should motivate us to change our behaviour - when we stop doing the wrong, we can stop some feelings of depression.
False guilt and shame on the other hand, comes from breaking some convention of man or because of the judgments of significant people in our lives (like parents or partners). E.g. feelings of not measuring up or meeting their expectations. We need to refuse guilt that does not stem from some specific disobedience to God and receive assurance that our value comes from our Creator, not from what people may think. It is good to admit to friends that you need timeout and it is important to eat healthy food and exercise. For me, a quiet week in the country helped restore my soul a lot.

Others: Remove all resentment or grudges against others. If we do not deal with it daily, we will wake up depressed. We need to forgive people fully, finally and freely every day. To get angry is not sinful yet it can become sinful when it hurts you or others. If we have got a “thing” about a parent, a sibling or someone else we must forgive them. Refuse family feuds- do you best to resolve it and leave the rest to God. Continue daily routines regardless of your feelings and even do something good for others every day or week- it will make you feel better. Build important relationships by going out with your wife and playing with your kids. Create balance in your work life. You may need to earn a living for your family, but your family needs you, 1000 times more than they need the extra money. Spend time each week with people that leave you feeling better not worse. Do not wait for others to come to you but take the initiative to build a strong relationship with two or three friends lest one leaves town. Jesus in his darkest hours chose some close friends to be with him. He shared with them his feelings and asked for their support in prayer and proximity (Matthew 26:36-38).

God: If you need to, get back into relationship with God. Each day relate to Him as an understanding Father who runs to help you in your failures. Be thankful for your blessings and pray for patience and strength in your battles. Jesus poured out his heart in prayer “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me” but in the end He rested His soul in the wisdom of God. Then we need to intentionally reprogram our mind with God’s promises, so it does not just replay on a loop of negative depressive thinking. It is uncommon for people with a positive attitude, to succumb to depression.

Being burdened by shocks in life is inevitable but failing under their weight is not. In Gethsemane Jesus shows us a way that is not painless but also is not passive. He was delivered troubles that He never wanted but He found a way through. He shared with His trusted friends and asked them to watch and pray with Him. He poured out His soul to the Father and rested on the wisdom and love of God. Jesus looked beyond the pressures of the moment to a future before Him that was filled with joy and hope. Although difficulties in life are not avoidable, it seems that depression might be.

The film “Frozen” is a favourite with the kids of every age. I have seen it myself and my grandkids can sing the songs. What is better than a princess who can turn things into ice. Of course, hundreds of popular films are based upon superpowers, miracles, and witchcraft where people can transform themselves into other things or creatures. It is great entertainment, but I came away thinking about how closely it parallels the real world in which truth is stranger than fiction.
Last year a frightened woman asked us to come to her house where a spirit had taken up residence. The spirit appeared at nights in the adult son’s bedroom and that half of the house had become really cold, like frozen. The son had shifted his bed into the lounge to stay warm and refused to go near his bedroom. After sharing how Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil and to forgive and save us, they received Christ. We removed all the witchcraft items from the house and commanded the spirit to go. The next day they rang me, happy that the apparition had gone and the man was back in his bedroom plus the house had become warm again.
A few years back I was in Vanuatu holding a village crusade. While I was preaching there was a commotion at the back, and after the meeting, some boys came forward to explain what had happened. Apparently, a local witch doctor had morphed himself into the form of a dog and was coming out of the bushes to disturb the meeting. When the boys threw rocks at the “form,” it cried out with a man’s voice and ran back into the bushes. Three days later the witch doctor from three villages away, died. This was a bit hard to believe until a missionary acquaintance of mine told me how he was threatened on a mountain road in Mexico, by spirits appearing as mountain lions and by witchdoctors who flew through the sky like bats.
While these things are strangely fascinating, they have a more sinister message for people everywhere whether in the west or the third world. There is an unseen world just as real and more long-lasting than the one we can see with our eyes. Paranormal TV shows catch on camera, the activity of spirits but seem unaware of the origin and disposition of demons. Mostly they conclude that they are the spirits of a long-departed resident or a friendly or sometimes crotchety ghost, rather than a demonic spirit impersonating a departed person. The spirits of dead people do not stay around the house, instead evil spirits remain among us deceiving and destroying everything God wants for people: peace, happiness, freedom, relationships and health.
We know that evil spirits hate the Lord Jesus and people, not just because the Bible says so, but from experience. One night I was visiting a couple who had been involved in witchcraft. As I sat in their lounge calmly explaining from the Bible how they could be put right with God by repenting and calling on the name of the Lord Jesus, the woman suddenly leapt up from her chair and rushed at me snarling like a wolf with her hands out to grab my throat. The name of Jesus prevailed! Another lady in our church had been involved in a coven and although she had left the witches coven, they continued to torment her. On the night of the coven meeting, spirits would astral travel into her house and sprinkle the walls with blood. Also, when she initially took the Lord's supper, she would break out in welts all over her body.
After rebelling against God, Satan came to earth to deceive the people and usurp worship by standing behind idols, false religions and godless philosophy. He has continued to promote rebellion against the Creator, by convincing people to decide for themselves what is right or wrong. He blinds people spiritually, so they remain unaware of the spiritual realm (naturalism) or illuminates them to the world of the occult, witchcraft or the calling up of spirits. He fosters pride in people’s hearts to think that they can fix the world themselves (humanists) or foolishly claim they know everything about a world they cannot even see (atheists). In ancient history, he spawned numerous religions that demanded human sacrifice and sexual perversion, resulting in broken relationships, hatred and mistrust in families. Today the altars for the human sacrifices are abortion rooms, perversion spews continuously from the TV and false religions are considered part of some nations culture. One family after seeing their son set free from drugs and alcohol, came to enquire how this happened. After sharing the love and power of Jesus, the whole Hindu family committed to following Jesus Christ. At their house, we removed all the idols and altars and that night for the first time in many years, the mother was not attacked by snakes from the spirit realm as she slept and was free from what had been nightly torment and pain. Removing idols is necessary as demons inhabit or associate with any occult object or “deathly hallows,” in your house. I once told a tormented man to destroy a death mask he had in his house and a scream came from it, as we burned it.

If evil spirits operate on a family or personal scale and they do, then we know that they will also have a global presence and strategy to ensnare mankind. The Bible tells us there are spirits that seek to rule cities, nations and even the world itself.
Demons do not just inhabit Hogwarts and cold castles, but also the halls of powerful political and financial establishments. There is a demonic scheme to extend the devils rule on the earth through human representatives and a global government. He cares not whether people are religious or secular, Satan only needs the world to ignore Christ and for people to give in to the same three temptations which Jesus refused as a man, in the wilderness: To act independently from His Father, to distrust Gods protection, and to want something other than Gods will. Thankfully, Jesus did not want to be independent of God, He did not need God to prove Himself and Jesus did not want the world, He wanted only us.
Jesus came to warm frozen hearts, to deliver people from the icy grip of a hateful enemy, and to bring us into His kingdom and His care forever. To be on the right side of history and eternity, we too need to choose dependence upon God, believe without seeing and reject any allegiance with the “lord of the flies.”
There is only one Spirit on the earth who wills our good. He is as powerful as He is loving. The Holy Spirit is called the Helper, the Comforter and the Counselor. We do not have to call him up or draw him down with candles, bells, food offerings or altars, we only need to receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, and the Holy Spirit will come to us. He will dwell in our homes and our hearts and warm our lives with His presence and help until at last, we dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Many years ago, my wife and I were in Israel. It was beautiful to be there but surprising in many ways, particularly the philosophy of the kibbutzim. The early settlers to Israel were from Marxist Russia and families continued their community and farm practices, in Israel. With both parents working the collective farm, they had little time with their own children, who were brought up by other workers. All the comrades ate communally, and the children of both sexes had joint showers even up to their teens.

Marx, the founder of communism, hated God and admitted, “My object in life is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism.” The church and the family presented obstacles to his Utopia and the hierarchical society affirmed by Scripture prevented the rise of the proletariat. The Garden of Eden was replaced with “Utopia” and God by the collectivist state. Under communism, all property is communally owned, the state controls all aspects of economic production, and theoretically provides citizens with their necessities, including food, housing, medical care and education.

However, communism has failed everywhere and since Lenin forced his theory upon the Russians in 1917, communism has been responsible for more deaths than Hitler by a huge margin. One hundred million died in Russia, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam, China and other places where Marxist socialism was implemented. One estimate says almost half of all martyred Christians since the time of Christ, were killed by communism.

Thankfully, in New Zealand, we are not ruled by communism, but we are affected by socialism, communisms safer cousin. Marx and Engels themselves did not clearly differentiate communism from socialism and modern communists refer to socialism as the first, necessary phase on the way to communism. Under socialism, individuals can still own property, and their socialist goals are pursued through the democratic processes within existing political structures, not by violent revolution.

World over, citizens in democratic nations generally get to vote for parties that seek less government control (liberal-conservative parties, the right) or ones that seek more government control (socialist/green parties, the left). The socialist left claim the moral high ground, promoting social equality and invoking concern for the “disadvantaged” but in modern western nations, both left and right parties have concern for the poor in society. After the first world war politicians from both sides of the house, informed by the Word of God, socialism and British law, created social welfare legislation which protects and assists the vulnerable. Think Michael Savages “Applied Christianity.” While New Zealand and other nations have adopted social programs (state housing, free education, health care, child care), the thing that makes all these semi-socialist states work, is capitalism. Someone needs to make taxable money to pay for the benefits that the more socialist governments give in their attempt to redistribute wealth. We need the government to promote economic growth for business and individuals and both sides of the house will assure us of their intention to do so.

If parties seem much the same, does it really matter who governs? What we are more voting for, is the philosophy that guides the parties. If humanism has replaced Christian thought within the parties, support for the vulnerable may continue, but the morality that informs social policy to do with marriage, abortion, cannabis, gender issues, justice, euthanasia, will have decreased or totally disappeared.

The biggest problem with socialism is not its social programs but its rejection of God. “The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.” – Karl Marx. Under humanism (the religion behind socialism) there is no god, so there are no absolutes and no moral rules to govern its decisions. Humanism believes that man is inherently good, therefore if a person acts wrongly, they must not have been given the type of society and support they needed from the government. According to socialists "The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great moral issue of our time, it is the great economic issue of our time, and it is the great political issue of our time."(Bernie Sanders) In other words, all the world problems can be solved just by spreading money around. A totally materialistic worldview based upon the idea that that salvation or even human good is achieved by the re-distribution of stuff. Jesus asserted the opposite saying that seeking God, not seeking natural things, was the place to begin. (Matthew 6:31-33). Fortunately, all people can be equally blessed with the most important things in life. Jesus said that a full and abundant life comes not from possessions but from a Person.

The next great curse of socialism is its injustice. It often punishes character when it distributes wealth to individuals according to their need, regardless of effort and the reasons for their need. Of course, there are people in genuine need, but the Bible teaches that any able person who refuses to work when it is offered, should be refused aid. Socialism punishes the industrious, taking their “talents” and giving them to those who may never have used the talents that they themselves were given. Socialism spawns from a deep resentment of the bosses and the bourgeois. It does not serve the socialist agenda for a nation to have millions of wealthy people. Only the votes of the people dependent upon the government can be brought by the promise of more benefits. It suits them to grow the needy masses, but we need people who can generate huge amounts of wealth, who own businesses so people have places to work, and we need developers, so we have houses to live in. I notice the ruling socialists have not capped their salary to the level of New Zealand average wage.

Finally, as we ourselves saw in Israel many years ago, socialism from its beginning has sought to destroy marriage and family. Friedrich Engels, the co-author of the "The Communist Manifesto, said that “the society he envisioned would be one where the single-family ceases to be the unit of society and the care and education of the children becomes a public affair.” Essentially, what godless socialism seeks is for the state to replace the family and for the state to decide what religion, philosophy, and morality will be taught our children in our state schools.

It seems obvious to me that we should look for political parties that still honour God, promote wealth in society and protect the family. Surprisingly, a recent Barna poll found that 24% of Americans thought Jesus would prefer socialism and only 12% believed He would prefer capitalism. Probably because Jesus helped and healed the sick and needy but unless you are able to multiply bread from nothing and find money in a fish’s mouth, you will need to have some money if you are going to help your needy neighbour. Two “broke” people cannot help each other. But Jesus is not American, and He does not represent any “ism.” He was not from here and He did not come as a candidate but as the King of Kings. Jesus was inevitably political - He talked about two-kingdoms and asked for allegiance to only one Kingdom - His. His goal was not just to give people bread from the cradle to the grave but to give all people an abundant life now and eternal life beyond the grave.

Around about 1512, the Italian astronomer Copernicus wrote his book shocking the world and the church with the idea that the sun was the centre of our solar system. For the previous 1500 years, since the days of the Greeks, people believed that all celestial bodies revolved around the earth. Both Catholic and Protestants castigated Copernicus as a heretic and Martin Luther even called him a fool but, embarrassingly for the church, Copernicus was proved to be right. It took a while, but it eventually prompted a change of theology with scientific discovery ultimately helping to clarify Scripture.
A few years ago I spoke to a man whose son wanted to study civil engineering but he was told that if his son believed what the church taught him, about the age of the earth, he would never pass the exams. This was relevant to me because I also had studied civil engineering when I left school. It wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I got saved in a Baptist church, and one night saw a movie they were playing about creation, produced by Ken Ham, which I found brilliant and convincing. He regarded the Bible as a factually inerrant record of natural history. He proposed that the earth was about 10000 years old and believed that the earth and life were created in six 24-hour days. (Hebrew word for the day: Yom) It was clear to me then that my lecturers in geology were wrong about the age of the earth. Now I understood how the geological structures of the earth were created in the great flood and that, although the earth appears old, it was created instantly “mature” like Adam. Men and dinosaurs lived at the same time, and the proof of this found in the fossils record. The “young earth” adherents believe that there was no death at all on the planet until the fall of man.
What I didn't realize (back then) was that there is another group who believe the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God, but also believe that the earth is as old as scientists say. People like the Christian Astrophysicist Hugh Ross, and many conservative theologians, embrace the old-earth idea. People like Francis Schaeffer, R.A. Torrey, Edward J. Young, John Ankerberg, Bill Bright, Chuck Colson, Hank Hanegraaff (Bible Answer Man), Jack Hayford, J.I. Packer, Lee Strobel (author of The Case for Christ ), and Dallas Willard, to name a few.
For them, the word “Yom” need not be a 24hr day but a long period of time, even an “age.” Respected scholar R.A. Torrey says “The use of the word ‘day’ is not limited to twenty-four hours. It is frequently used to denote a period of entirely undefined length…there is no necessity whatsoever for interpreting the days of Genesis 1 as solar days of twenty-four hours long.”
For these “old creation” believers, God created the universe from nothing (ex nihilo) and created life from non-life. He miraculously created the earliest primitive micro-organisms on earth approximately 3.8 billion years ago and then continued to create life through the “days” of creation (long epochs of time), including all plant life, sea and flying creatures, and land animals (including any primitive primates) without any evolution. Finally, God then created humanity’s actual historical parents, Adam and Eve (God’s “crown-jewel” of creation), from whom humanity’s sin originated. (It still could be six to ten thousand years back to Adam.)
Although they believe that Noah’s flood was a judgment on the sins of man, they also believe that the earth’s surface was formed through both rapid catastrophic processes (earthquakes, flash floods) and slow processes (plate tectonics; mountain building; formation of coal, oil, & diamonds; coral reef formation, etc.). Because of the age of the earth “old earthers” believe animal death was part of God’s creation long before Adam fell. Augustine also did not consider animal death to be a direct result of the Fall but that “animals were designed to be the nourishment of other animals. To wish that it were otherwise would not be reasonable”.

A few years later I left the Baptists and joined David McCrackens New Life Church, where he was teaching something different again which would be called the "Gap theory". This "gap" was a huge gap of years between the original creation millions of years ago (Gen 1.1) and the recreation of the earth as described in (Genesis 1.2-31). During this “gap” darkness somehow had come upon the earth but, over six literal 24 hour days, God restored the earth to how we know it today. This idea was very popular in the 1900s and held to by people like Oral Roberts, Cyrus I. Scofield, Arthur Pink, Finis Jennings Dake, and Chuck Missler. For them, the genealogies were complete, and a global flood took place. Earth appears old because it is old and there was death before the fall. By positing such a gap, the age of the Earth, the age of the universe, dinosaurs, fossils, ice cores, ice ages, and geological formations are allowed to have occurred as outlined by science, without contradicting a literal belief in a seven 24hr day “recreation”.
So there we have it, three versions of creation and they all defend their positions strongly with fairly complex reasoning. They cannot all be right, so who is right, and does it really matter? If you are not going to do engineering at university, a 10000-year-old earth will be just fine, and if you are going to study the sciences you have options!
Jesus mentioned Adam and Eve and the flood of Noah, so we can vouch for history back to the garden. Before Adam, timeframes are a little more debatable. This is not an issue of faith, salvation or orthodoxy but of hermeneutics and interpretation. Augustine once wisely wrote, “In matters that are obscure …in Holy Scripture, different interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith. In such a case, we should not so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further truth undermines this position, we too fall with it.” Unlike the Church in Copernicus' day, but as Augustine suggests, we should hold our views lightly. All three views are held by godly men seeking to honour God and the reason this means so much to all sides is that we live in a miraculous and wonderful world.
Have you noticed that people sing about love not about science, about beauty not cause? In his signature song, Louis Armstrong does not sing about how old and fertile the ground is, only that the grass is green, and the sky is an amazing blue. When he sees the beauty of red roses and rainbows, and the awesomeness of a mobile god-like creation being able to say “I love you” to another, how the Grand Canyon was formed seems unimportant. Instead, he sung of the bright blessed day, the dark sacred night and he thought to himself what a wonderful world.
The point of the Bible is not to tell us when or how the world was made but who made it and why. And the answer to that we find in Genesis 3, on the last day of creation where God came down in the cool of the evening to walk with His ultimate creation-mankind. God made the world for people who He wanted to love and with whom He wanted to live forever.
Apparently, Copernicus was wrong. The whole universe revolves around God and His greatest love - us!

For the last few months, we have been given a weekly reminder that our country’s “COVID fight” is commanded by the United Nations. We are told by WHO Director Tedros that we must all obey their edicts to be saved (stay safe). Who is the WHO and how does it have the authority to command our sovereign nation? Tedros was once a member of a terrorist group in Ethiopia before he was nominated by Bill Gates to be the director of the WHO.  

The United Nations was established after Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill held a secret meeting following World War II. The U.N. is now a global diplomatic and political organization which they say is dedicated to international peace and stability. Beginning with 51 member states, today the organization has 193 members. To make the world’s population ready for its secretly growing powers, they have made issues out of overpopulation, global poverty and wealth inequality, manmade global climate change, and apparently rampant environmental destruction.  It has spawned thousands of non-elected, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in every area of life which offer (or buy) themselves influence with regional authorities, often bypassing a nation’s elected governments.  NGO’s such as the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, which set themselves up as the world authority and expect all the earth to follow their rules. 

 https://iclei.org/en/members-search.html?region=Oceania

The UN, which is funded by the mega-rich like Bill Gates, and member nations (except USA) has goals similar to the closely linked Club of Rome. Climate problems was an idea started by a group called the Club of Rome who also state that the world is overpopulated, and numbers should be reduced. Founding member Ted Turner said China’s Mau Tse Tung’s reduction of the dissident population was a great achievement. Today they are pressuring all governments to adopt their 2020 Planetary Emergency Plan, which is the same as UN’s Agenda 21, and they are calling for governments and the UN to declare a planetary emergency and to adopt a plan of action.

 https://clubofrome.org/impact-hubs/climate-emergency/

Another powerful group in league with the UN is the World Economic Forum. Since COVID, the World Economic Forum has kicked off the Great Reset initiative. Their idea is that the governments of the world should spend $10 trillion per year and create 37 million nature-positive jobs by 2030. Resetting the environment should not be seen as a cost, but rather an investment that will generate economic activity and employment opportunities.

https://www.weforum.org/great-reset

Affecting every nation today, is the slowly becoming known Agenda 21; or the UNs global blueprint for Sustainable Development. This was signed on your behalf by NZ leaders and 178 other world leaders at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. Sustainable Development is the code word they now use for a global New World Order. Agenda 21 calls for a complete re-orientation of the world system of governance in every area in which humans have an impact on the environment.

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/outcomedocuments/agenda21

Agenda 21 promotes socialist goals that will erode our freedoms and liberties. Most of its vague, lofty sounding phrases cause the average person’s eyes to glaze over, making it easier to accept by tuned out citizens. In order to keep total control of the world and its people, the UN leaders involved are constantly thinking of euphemism and nice-sounding terms for their intentions. J. Gary Lawrence - Bill Clinton’s Advisor for Sustainable Development said “Participating in a UN advocated planning process would very likely bring out many... right-wing conspiracy groups... who would actively work to defeat any elected official...undertaking Local Agenda 21. So we call our process something else, such as “Comprehensive Planning”, “Growth Management” or “Smart Growth.” SDG is often promoted with the environmental message of “going green”, or “being a good steward” but in reality, it has (like Communism or Fascism) a doctrine or philosophy complete with its own agenda, beliefs, and goals. Its three pillars are Ecological Integrity, Economic Prosperity and Social Equity. While these sound-like reasonable goals, their methods are not reasonable. All activity which fails to achieve this perfect balance is considered unsustainable, meaning that traditional western capitalism is an inequitable system that must be replaced with a new financial and governance system. Already many Universities and young people have become indoctrinated with this radical, collectivist philosophy. Agenda 21 goes well beyond environmentalism! Other broad goals include, combating poverty, changing consumption patterns, promoting health, and reducing private property ownership, single-family homes, private car ownership, and privately owned farms. It seeks to cram people into small liveable areas and institute population control. What they call “social justice” is the forced redistribution of wealth. People will be required to surrender individual rights and, in some cases, private ownership of land for the good of the collective.  The ‘environment’ will be used simply as the means to promote a political agenda. A restructuring of the governmental systems of the world’s nations will be made so that every person in the world will become a subject of a global collective where food, water, medicines, travel, and the way children may be raised are all controlled. If it seems to you that there is a lot of migration being encouraged around the world, along with laws to encourage the breakup of families on a global scale, consider this quote from the UN.  “To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism, and religious dogmas.” Brock Adams the Director of the United Nations World Health Organization, SCP Journal, 1991. According to the UN’s special expert on freedom of religion, the views of UN human rights bodies must take precedence over the mainstream beliefs of many leading world religions, when it comes to law and policy.

https://c-fam.org/friday_fax/un-expert-world-religions-should-defer-to-the-authority-of-un-experts

 The United Nations, due to their deceptive use of euphemisms in speeches and on their flashy websites, can make a global commitment to totalitarian world government sound like something we would all want. Certainly, the Gen X,Y and Z’s will think it sounds beautiful. Twenty years ago, all this was hidden because it would be unacceptable to the masses, but now they are quite brazen about their goals due to increased acceptance in people’s minds (particularly young people) and every year have a celebration called “Goalkeepers” hosted by Bill Gates to talk about progress toward the global goals. 

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/

Now if this sounds bad, it gets worse when our Prime Minister Jacinda proudly promised Bill Gates and the rest of the “Goalkeepers” that New Zealand will be the first nation in the world to fully implement Agenda 21. There are two big players in the world at the moment.

One is W.H.O. of which the Bible may well describe.  “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Job 38:2. Their plan is to crush and control the people of the world…...and then there is another “WHO” that loves us and wants us free. “Who is like You, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, Fearful in praises, doing wonders? (Exodus 15:11.)

Our future as a globe and as people will depend upon which WHO we follow.

The number of children involved in sport is falling. Recently six sporting codes agreed the reason was that there is too much emphasis on winning. Maybe it's by pushy parents but I also think kids know that games tend to be based on points and someone has to win. Just imagine if my grandson’s hockey team won 6 to 2, but the organisers then equalled out the score to 4 each so the losing team did not feel sad or oppressed. This point redistribution might cover up the fact that one team didn't practice or put any personal effort into the game but, if that was the case, losing as a team was inevitable and what it should do is motivate them to practice more next week. If they tried hard and still lost, it only points out that teamwork is a skill to be learned or that children’s skill levels cannot all be equal. That is the way life has been forever! And point redistribution would be an injustice!

The idea of social justice has come to mean “putting things right in society,” and campaigners work on a variety of issues like ageism, gender wage gap, girls being kept from education, world hunger and global health outcomes etc. Some Christians think we should just preach the Gospel rather than engage in social justice issues, but other believers feel that social justice was the centre of all that Jesus did. The problem is always that people have different definitions of social justice.
A biblical description of social justice is found in Micah 6:8 ..And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?
To Do Justice:
Justice means “rendering impartially and proportionally to every one his due.” Aristotle wrote, “the formal principle of justice is that equals should be treated equally and that unequal’s should be treated unequally”. So, if a man and a woman are working for the same company, with the same training, the same experience, the same diligence and work the same hours etc they should be paid the same; that is justice. If anyone of these factors change (i.e. less hours or less skill), to be paid the same would be an injustice. If an able-bodied person down the road was offered the job and refused to work, preferring to play video games, but still receive a similar “universal wage” that would be an injustice.
The biggest challenge, to treating equals equally, is knowing whether they are indeed equal. The criteria for judging whether two people are equals can never be based on eye colour, race, gender, wealth or social position, for none of that matters in true justice. Rather, the criteria of “equalness” is based on merit, behaviour, achievement, need and the effort they put in, and every case must be judged individually.
Justice is essential, whether it's Commercial justice (people actually getting a quarter pound of meat in their burger), Civil justice (where the guilt or innocence of people is truly determined), and Distributive Justice (where the benefits and burdens are equally shared by those responsible or affected).

Since the late 1800s, there is a new brand of distributive justice called Social justice which is mostly about distributing wealth on a national scale (Socialism). For the reasons of criteria above, it's impossible to provide justice by national legislation or social engineering because everybody's personal situation is different. Justice means that people should have equal opportunity to learn and to earn, but the government is not responsible to ensure that the outcomes for everyone will be equal. Everyone is free to decide how they will spend their income, how much they will save, and where they will live. The effects of their own education and economic decisions is something everyone has to live with. If they forgo spending in their youth, they will have more money later in life but if they spend all their income when they are young, they will pay a financial price later in life.
Generally, the Bible teaches individual responsibility where people work to meet their own needs and the needs of those they love, in fact, the Bible condemns laziness. Jesus told a parable about three men given the same amount of money by their boss. All three showed different levels of diligence and the boss commended the man who increased the boss’s money the most and gave him even more. A distinctly un-socialist concept.

Love Mercy:
But Jesus also told another parable of the Good Samaritan who showed voluntary mercy to a stranger just because he was in need. The early Church showed mercy, meeting the needs of the widows, orphans and poor among them with voluntary gifts (Acts 2:42–47). Showing mercy to those infirmed or unable to work is giving them what they are due just because they are fellow human beings. The Salvation Army in New Zealand has a saying “Justice in society and between societies”. This means seeking to end things like hunger, trafficking, and child abuse in our society and it also means showing mercy to those in other nations who are short of food, water and health resources. Charities like World Vision should be supported, and missions can be more than reaching souls. Mercy is often more important than justice. Instead of receiving Gods just judgment (for our rebellion) we can all be glad we were shown undeserved mercy.
Walk Humbly with Your God:
Finally, social justice is not achieved by walking with Karl Marx but with Jesus. The justice He wants cannot be provided by any person or government and it is always more than economic and social justice. He came to bring freedom from all forms of mental, emotional, religious, and spiritual oppression. His greatest victory was not feeding the 5000 but delivering millions from Satan’s power. Jesus' miracles were not a protest against injustice in human society but a demonstration of the power and provision of His heavenly Society. What He did do was offer hope, not only to the poor but also to the rich, because even people with wealth and status still commit suicide. He preached against life draining religions that offered false hope. He loved everyone because being disadvantaged was not the prerequisite for His love. He was moved even by the hunger of people after a 3-day conference, not just those with malnutrition. He never promoted a social justice where everyone has the same outcome in this life. This is the fantasy of those seeking a Marxist utopia. People with no hope of a just eternity will always think it right to even out the available treasures and pleasures of earth. But Gods accounts are not made up on the 20th of the month. The first now may be last in Gods kingdom and vice versa. Let us just be sure we are in His kingdom.

As disciples, we are to do justice, show mercy, and walk humbly with our God. We can start by making sure we “give the full quarter-pound” to our customers and by not passing by the neighbour in need on the other side of the street. Some people are capable and called to make a big difference to a lot of people in society, the rest of us are called to make a difference to a few. We do not need to look for great things to do but to do some small things with great mercy.