THE PLOT THICKENS

Is this piece about a telenovela or a new best-seller? Wished it were. 

This is way more sinister, blacker than black. 

A pied piper has been deluding our children with honey-coated tar—to lure them to the cliff, unfortunately. 

"My body, my choice." "My gender is up to me." "Truth is mine to concoct, nothing is absolute." But to what ends?

And it seems we’re (parents) helpless to stem this tide. 

My, how the powers of darkness squirm with delight. Satan and his underlings, heaven's fallen angels, have since the beginning of time been at it—preventing babies from seeing the light; and dragging to hell those who make it through life.

If he can get babies destroyed early enough in utero, the more guilt-strapped women he can trap. If he can harden children's hearts early enough, the more prone they would be to rejecting God.

Satan's puppets—those who unwittingly do his bidding to orchestrate his dubious plans?  Power-hungry and greedy politicians, idiologues and their fawning sycophants have become his deputies. Yet they think they're doing all of us a favor, that women's rights be upheld, and children be free to decide which lifestyle suits them—yet to their destruction. 

Their latest strategy? Take parents out of the equation. Bar them from exercising authority over their children.

Before you dismiss this as one grandma's hyper-dramatic rambling, read today's news and be shocked. 

In it's AB 1184 bill passed last year, the California Family Council effectively prohibits insurance companies from revealing to policyholders (parents) "sensitive services of anyone on their policy, including minor children—such sensitive services including abortions, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, except sex change surgeries."

Ergo, parents need not know if their kids opt for, say, abortion or hormone treatments. 

And how's this for craziness: "they" should now be used instead of the pronoun "his" or "her". LBTQ has been expanded to LBTQIA+. In the long history of mankind, when has plain "girl" or "boy" not sufficed? 

Genesis 5:2 He (God) created them male and female and blessed them. Doctors and scientists would agree with God on that. 

The sadder part? The multiple sex and permissiveness culture is being shoved upon our throats through the educational system! So if one's middle schooler wants a sex change or if a girl who gets pregnant orders abortion, as demanded, he or she would get it! In California and seven other states. Because, hey, girl, "it's my body, my choice!"

What about the unborn's right? Abortionists and misguided rights groups argue, "They're just a bunch of tissues."

But it's not just in this part of the world that the assault on children—be they unborn or otherwise—is happening. It's a worldwide campaign waged by Satan in so many forms.

Some interesting facts... 

When Moses was born: Exodus 1:22—"Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: 'Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.'" Pharaoh feared the Egyptians would be overpowered by their Israelite slaves. 

Matthew 2:16-18 details Herod's massacre of infants to make sure that Israel's promised Messiah—one who would be safe Israel—would be eliminated. 

Since the US Supreme Court decision in 1973 to legalize abortion nationwide, 63 million abortions have been done in the US. This law has of course been overturned recently, so women's rights proponents have furiously taken to the streets again for it's reinstatement.

Wikipedia: China has a history of infanticides spanning 2,000 years. It's 1980 one-child policy had led to unprecedented abortions till 2015. 

Per the World Health Organization (WHO): In sub-Saharan Africa, 45% of all child deaths are linked to malnutrition. This is traceable to wholesale corruption in government. 

UNICEF stats: More than 125 million girls and women alive today have undergone some form of female genital mutilation. 11% of girls world-wide are married off before age 15. Leading causes of death in children under 5 years are preterm birth complications, pneumonia, birth asphyxia, diarrhoea and malaria. About 45% of all child deaths are linked to malnutrition. Mostly attributable to corrupt governance. 

Child Labor Foundation: 25% of human trafficking involved children who were sold for forced labor and sex. 

Glean the pattern. Since time immemorial, babies and children have been the enemy's object of destruction. 

Who will lobby for them? Who will protect them? Aren't parents supposed to be their children's primary advocates? 

It is a frustrating going-against-the-tide effort for many families. Thank God for organizations taking up their cause even to the courts, or NGOs and missionaries caring for children and women in oppressive regimes. 

We can do volunteer work, like counselling young women on making right choices, helping them appreciate the sanctity of life; or contributing to organizations engaged in such efforts. 

Yet, let's start with our own families. Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it." 

I worry for my grandchildren's future. I'm sure you do too. Yet, the Bible assures us, fear not, for He has conquered the world, and the evils plaguing it. So pray! Pray that the Lord's protection be upon all the children of the world; and we'd all be vigilant and take action, as the Lord leads us. 

THE BIG PICTURE

Image credit: Reuters.com

“If there is a God, why is there so much evil in this world?”

“Why poverty?”  “Why disasters?”  “Why wars?”  

The list goes on ad nauseam.

We’ve at one time or another asked these questions, right? I have. And they’ve boggled my mind.

Have many rejected God for these reasons? Would you, pretty please, bear with me and patiently read this introspection…  

I’m no brainiac, scientist or preacher, yet I see it clearly. This beautiful world we live in, and the universe we’ve come to know more and more because of NASA, speak loads about One so powerful and mighty, He must have made all of these possible.  

Any scientist worth his salt will attest: nothing comes from nothing; for every action, a reaction. Everyone’s quite agog about the big bang theory; yet who or what ignited the big bang, and what causes the universe and its milky ways to percolate as they’re doing so now? We’d surely be crushed to smithereens without someone powerful enough controlling them. Could only be God!

Image credit: NASA.com

Here’s the mind-boggling part for me: the nature of man. Dust, you and I are, right? (Ever peered at the cremation chamber and seen one’s material remains—maybe once an illustrious and powerful person—now burnt to a crisp, then to dust?) The bible is right, “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” Genesis 3:19b.

So if we’re mere dust, what are we really? God’s awesome creation—just like the mind-boggling universe. But God desired something better for this dust. He breathed life into it, Genesis 2:7.

Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” That’s what it means “to be created in His image”—not this body we pamper with age-defying enhancements and blings.

Our body is just the laminate. The breath of God in you—that’s the real deal!  

And being created in His image, we too have the same free will as God’s. Freedom of choice is the one distinctive which makes man stand taller than, say, elephants, whales, dolphins, dogs—no matter how smarty-pants they’ve been trained to be.

Free will caused man’s downfall. Adam and Eve fell for the serpent’s (actually the devil’s) ruse. Yet, God being God had prepared in advance a rescue plan. Jesus, who reigned with Him from eternity, came to save lost humanity. No one else could ransom sinful man from sin but God’s only Son.

He thus set aside for Himself a nation—Israel—through whom Jesus stepped down to earth. A man just like you and me, He became acquainted with our grief and struggles. By His dying on the cross, He ransomed us from sin, reuniting us with our Creator God.

Yet man is still given a choice. Salvation is not automatic. Remember, He has given us free will.

Image credit: missionaries.com

That’s why today, those who have already believed in Christ are being sent to the ends of the earth to make Jesus known—the Savior of mankind. To thus reunite man with our Creator God. Jesus is our way back to the Father! History’s sinners, and today’s sinners—as long as they placed their faith in God, and later on, in Jesus—could now be back in His grace!

So, dear John and Judy, let’s circle back to our original question. “If there is a God, why is there so much evil in this world?”

You and I live in a fallen world. Sin abounds. It has caused us to abuse our limits, skew our sense of right and wrong, blur our senses from discerning truth from lie, enthrone dictators and autocrats who enslave and invade others to quench their thirst for power and conquest.

God is continuously calling us out. He’s still withholding His full wrath, patiently demonstrating His love through Jesus, and waiting for people to repent and accept His grace. This verse is key: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that those believe in Him might not perish but have eternal life,” John 3:16.

Image credit: crosswalk.com

What about the tribes and nations who worship vain idols and false gods? Worry not. He promised that the end will not come until the gospel has been preached to everyone. Everyone!

Christian missionaries have infiltrated once unreached tribes. The internet has made it possible for the gospel to go viral, everywhere.

It’s a phenomenon! Throughout history, billions of I-me-and-myself-centered and prideful souls who’ve encountered Jesus have testified of changed hearts and lives. The living Word—Jesus—turns lives around, no matter their circumstance. In closed cultures and tribes—those who worship detestable  gods—no amount of beheadings, burnings and abuses could stop believers from believing in Jesus.  

So, is God a hard taskmaster, having let suffering to proliferate?

Ann Graham Lotz: “For years, we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools… government… our lives. And being the gentleman that He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and protection if we demand He leave us alone?”

This book by Amir Tsarfati
might help you understand
the Book of Revelation.

God does not leave us in the dark about His plans. Jesus warned us in Matthew 24 of the signs to usher in the end times, e.g., wars, famine, earthquakes, increased wickedness. Are we seeing these now? Most definitely, and with greater intensity. Yet, greater wrath is yet to come.

Read Revelation. More terrible times lie ahead, that’s for sure. Yet this shouldn’t surprise us or cause us to fear. His love and grace still abound. He’s still waiting for everyone to repent. Have you? Call on Jesus that you may be saved. 

That’s God’s whole s scheme of things. How do you see yourself in it?

God being God never misses a bit. His purpose will prevail. He wants everyone to humble himself before Him—that the curse of sin and death may vanish and we be restored to a relationship with Him, in the kingdom He originally planned for us to inhabit.  

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank you for your great love. You’ve patiently waited for me. Today, I let go of my pride, forgive me. I repent of my sins. Jesus I confess I am lost without you. Be my Savior and my Lord. Save me from the wrath that is to come. Holy Spirit, help me to obey, in Jesus’ name. Amen.