Big trauma is seriously hurting the people of Israel. Thousands demonstrate in vicious support of enemies of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel and antisemitism is rife. Why should that be so unless the people of Israel are still God’s chosen people (Gen 17:7-8, 19:5-6, Jer 31:35-37)?
Christians are grafted in to Israel’s spiritual root (Rom 11:17-18) and Christians too have the same enemies. Trauma against God’s people is increasing. Christians are being killed by mobs full of false belief in many places, particularly in Nigeria, Pakistan, North Korea, Sudan and India. The demons know that Jesus is Lord. If Jesus Christ is not real and about to return, what is all the fuss about?
Trauma and opposition
God is working out His purposes and He will prevail. Jesus will return to Zion and reign with His saints for a thousand years. But the purposes of God cause some people to feel traumatised by the challenges He poses. Sin does not become apparent until God becomes apparent (Rom 7) and people who do not know God have no means of dealing with their guilt and feelings of offence. So people feel traumatised by God’s people and get crazy and violent against them.
... the purposes of God cause some people to feel traumatized by the challenges He poses.
The people of Israel are suffering. Christians are suffering, more in some parts of the world than others. But Almighty God confers Holy Spirit to encourage and guide those of us who thankfully accept redemption through His only begotten Son Jesus and who willingly give their lives to Him (Eph 1:13-14). His presence will give us His peace in the face of trouble and violence.
When you think about it, we human beings face opposition from the moment we are conceived, but the life in us prevails against it. Blood was shed when we were implanted into our mother’s womb. We were born in trouble and pain. We have struggled with all we have had to learn, against difficult people and against illnesses that could kill us. Yet if we will use it, God’s help is always at hand.
Amongst all the misunderstandings, deceptions and powers of this world which seduce us into dead ends, He shows us the way into justice, peace and truth (2 Cor 10:3-5). Confessing our mistakes and persevering with the Lord builds character, which produces hope in our souls for overcoming the odds (Rom 5:3-5).
Getting right with God, which is called righteousness, vastly improves our immunity against disease and madness (Prov 4:18, 23) and there is good scientific evidence to prove that fact, despite its current dismissal by powerful agencies with an agenda for one-world government. Righteousness is not really a matter of religiously imposing biblical morality; rather it is God’s free provision for health and healing.
Righteousness is not really a matter of religiously imposing biblical morality; rather it is God’s free provision for health and healing.
Those who stay alert and right with God are most likely to survive when things get rough (Mark 13:33). Complacency is not an option. Those who seek to depend upon mankind for their safety and health, and on the politically administered secular state, will discover, as things get worse, that such trust is misplaced and will not withstand future assaults (Jer 17:5-8, Matt 7:24-27).
It is necessary for each of us to have a personal relationship with God through Holy Spirit, listening to Him and obeying. This will not be achieved by constraining people through imposing laws, but rather through His Spirit drawing us freely to love Him. Holy Spirit is given when we thankfully accept Jesus Christ as our redeemer and saviour, allowing ourselves to be refreshed by drinking and enjoying the living water of His words (John 7:37-38).
Deception
Particularly since the end of the Second World War, a plague of deception can be seen to have been covering the earth with increasing virulence, with an apparently philanthropic agenda perpetrated by the media. As a result, the influence of Holy Spirit has been gradually withdrawn from Christendom, as foretold in 2 Thessalonians 2:7. For several decades it has not even seemed blasphemous to say “God is dead.” This deception can be seen to be a consequence of secular thinking without God.
Logically it will end in chaos and violence because people are driven into their own little solipsistic, narcissistic worlds by being faced with information overload, unable to discover sufficient truth to deal adequately with the trouble other people seem to cause them. Lost in a world that does not seem to make sense, everything offends them. People become subtly anxious and constantly stressed, which harms their immune system and impairs their ability to remain healthy. Many wonder who they can really trust. Their situation is subtly traumatic. In this way the plague of deception puts them out of kilter with their Creator.
People become subtly anxious and constantly stressed, which harms their immune system and impairs their ability to remain healthy.
This trauma of deception is subtly disguised with a sugar-coating of “Did God really say…?” (Gen 3:1.) The implication is that we people can improve on God’s provision. So, does He really want us to believe that righteous living will lead to health rather than that illness afflicts us solely by chance (Prov 4:20-22)? Did He really say He heals all our diseases (Ps 103:3, 1 Pet 2:24)? Did He really mean we can cast all our cares on Him (1 Pet 5:7), that He does not want anyone to perish (2 Pet 3:9), and that He will show us the way (John 14:6)?
Will He really set us free from our past waywardness, wickedness and sin, and the consequent accusatory voices from the Devil which traumatise our consciences (Eph 1:7)? Will he really give us authority to bind or cast out demons (Matt 18:18)? Does He really want us to believe that our salvation will come from Him rather than through secular ratiocination and science (Col 2:8)?
Repentance
It is necessary to repent of allowing ourselves to be made insensitive by deception (Isa 6:9-10, Acts 28:26-28). Our hearts have become callous. But Paul proclaimed that Gentiles like us “will listen” (Acts 28:28). Christendom has decayed because for many years we have failed to muster sufficient faith in Almighty God to face pain, suffering and death with Him.
Christendom has decayed because for many years we have failed to muster sufficient faith in Almighty God to face pain, suffering and death with Him.
We have believed the secular welfare state that conveniently deals with all the rubbish to be God’s answer for all the ills we should have faced personally with God ourselves. Effectively our consciences have become “seared as with a hot iron” (1 Tim 4:2) through calling upon other gods, deities of humanism, paganism and Eastern cultures, in the false hope that they might rescue us from our sicknesses and pains.
Academic theology, once ‘Queen of the Sciences’, never developed sufficient Holy Spirit chutzpah to advise and influence government policy for the sound public benefit. We have become experts in diplomacy and compromise even to the extent of allowing pagan spirituality into holy places.
Perhaps some outsiders may recognise that true people of God do listen and can be trusted to wait on Him, and that they are worth joining in with. But it looks as though those of us who already belong with Him shall have to be personally sensitive enough to discern who to associate with. This way God will provide for us until we are taken to join Him eternally.
John Gordon was formerly a GP, a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst. He is now a licensed minister in The Order of Jacob’s Well.
