Chinese – MessageWeek

China’s Takeover

I bought a computer. It was made in China. I bought a welder. It too was made in China. So is my phone, my dinnerware, and a gift from a Christian bookstore is also made in China. Thankfully my car was made in Australia – but the truth is that its manufacturing plant closed down three years ago in favour of cheap imports.

So what? The computer works well. The welder is an improvement on my old one. My phone is used for secure two-factor transactions all the time. I love the text from the Bible as printed on our dinnerware, and frankly, who cares if a gift I treasure was also made in China.

I care. For one reason alone. Our aging gray hairs reveal an underlying weakness that we refuse to own up to. In our loss and confused identity of post modernism morphed into secularist ideals, we’ve become more dependent on our enemies who cleverly disguise themselves as trading partners.

When I was a boy, Australia was distinctly a “Christian nation”. When my father migrated from post-war Europe and became an Australian citizen, he was given a Bible (which he read). We sang “God Save the Queen” and recited the “Lord’s Prayer” in high school assemblies. But in recent decades, we’ve hastily abandoned our founding principles for more secular ideals – ideals founded not on hard work, faith and honesty, but on gain, mammon and self-interest. That’s the face and enticement of secularism.

A Chinese academic once marveled at how the United States could become the greatest and wealthiest nation on earth. After careful examination, he concluded that their phenomenal success had to do with their religious convictions which manifested in selflessness, love of freedom, liberty, honesty, sacrifice and God. Thus, the US constitution worked when honesty, service and compassion flourished.

Today, however, no longer content with such great achievements and the accompanying wealth and the responsibility that goes with it, our current generation has been indoctrinated to demand their rights, to decry traditional values, and seek power in the name of equality. Marriage has been redefined. Babies are killed right up to birth. Protestors burning buildings and destroying infrastructure are seen as legitimate, non-violent expressions of “the oppressed”. Our scientific endeavours has more recently introduced deadly pathogens (viruses) into our communities.

This change of ethos and momentum, is in fact, history repeating itself all over again. People who abandon their forefathers tried-and-true value system founded in the Judaic-Christian ethos similarly found themselves eventually overcome by other nations, to become vassals and slaves, where once they reigned.

To quote from antiquity:

“The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand, a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young. (Deuteronomy 28:49-50 ESV)

The Chinese have bought our cotton plantations, various airports and shipping ports. They have built their skyscrapers in our cities, and invested in our gold mines. Their reconnaissance devices occasionally get caught up in our fishing nets. Their fishing fleets edge ever closer and wantonly towards our shores. They are moving closer, progressively, determined, yet all the while protesting their innocence. Those who subscribed to their “belt and road” initiative ought to look at, for example, how the Chinese have plundered Myanmar’s jade-bearing mountains for decades.

The sad thing is that our politicians and academics seem powerless to take a stand. And our enemies know that.

Within a few short years, the balance of power that we’ve known in the western world for the past seventy or so years is about to change. The freedoms we’ve largely taken for granted will be swept away. Globalism means control. Control of your finances. Control of your time. Control of your speech, and thought, and your life. We’re becoming slaves.

But borne through suffering, slavery and deep regret, redemption is at the heart of the Christian gospel message. At the very time when the globalist-controlled world is groaning beyond despair, when socialism wreaks its iron hammer, and our people’s cry for deliverance betrays their earlier wantonness, that same ancient text quoted earlier tells that a Saviour finally comes.

Then, perhaps we will remember that our computers and welders and phones and dinnerware were omens portending a future we had foolishly mocked. That history does indeed repeat itself.

Are we listening? For the sake of our children and grandchildren, may we awaken to forsake our godlessness secularism, and turn, and change, and challenge the current tide of sin, oppression, slavery and death.

Pandora’s Box of Biological Warfare

“There’s something puzzling about the Chinese COVID-19 virus,” chuffed Peter as he sipped the last of his tea. This old timer had thought he’d seen it all. He went on to explain what he thought about the coronavirus pandemic.

He explained that nothing like the serious travel restrictions has ever occurred before in his memory. He went on the say that the gene complexity of this deadly pathogen defies the possibility of randomly generated mutations. The ongoing media and scientific narrative from a variety of sources don’t seem to collectively make sense. Did a smelly wet animal market in a Chinese province really spawn this kind worldwide pandemic? Or, are there more sinister players involved? Did a deadly lab-generated pathogen specifically designed for biological warfare accidentally escape? What about the Chinese cover-up?

Those lab men in white coats studying the COVID-19 virus around the world are not entirely satisfied that the DNA signatures completely match known animal sources. Were human genes spliced into this now deadly pathogen? Is this virus designed to be targeted at particular groups of people? What other important information is the public being shielded from, as increasingly strict quarantine measures are being put into place? These are some of the unanswered questions Peter wrestled with.

I was surprised by Peter’s conclusions. Of course, conspiracy theories abound at a time like this. Large social media concerns and political pundits are working hard to quash what they term “fake news” and misleading viral messages. President Trump said, “This is war!” What did he mean? Iran accused the US for manufacturing a strain of the virus to attack them. A Chinese leader blamed a US serviceman for bringing the coronavirus to China. And, so the misinformation continues.

Peter conceded that if this virus is indeed a biologically engineered tool of war, then the calamity emerging from Pandora’s Box is the hellish nightmare that will forever alter, if not destroy, the world as we know it.

I asked Peter whether he’d like another cup of tea. He paused, before mumbling, “No thanks. A cup of tea just isn’t the same anymore with all this mayhem happening.”

On behalf of our children

Surely someone will speak up on behalf of our children! Acquiescing to a popularist, media-driven agenda is nothing less than dangerous � if not fatal.

The definition of marriage and family life is one father, one mother, married for life, providing both emotional and spiritual nurture for their children. Anything else, like homosexuality, paedophilia, adultery, fornication, incest, bestiality and the like are an aberration. In other words, these deviations are plainly sinful and wrong.

Who says so? Why, Jesus, of course! And so do His followers � or at least they should by their example.

When entire countries, supported by their judiciaries and driven by the media, begin “voting in” and incrementing what become sweeping immoral changes, then perhaps we ought to spare a thought, first, for our grandparents who would shudder to think that such immoral antics are undermining the very society they pioneered, and secondly, for our children whose minds and hearts become irreparably damaged because they�ve never known the true love and identity that only a loving father and mother in marriage can provide.

The greatest of civilisations rapidly declined when their morals also waned. Babylon, Persia, Greece and then Rome were once thought invincible. The writing is again on the wall.

Violence today is generally accepted to be on the rise, whether highlighted in other countries or in our own suburbs. Mental illness is a growing scourge, with suicide dramatically increasing. And when our children become the pawns because of our immorality (deprived of a father and mother combination), when we kill the unborn with abandoned wanton (and call it “pro-choice”), when our sophisticated, immersive entertainment becomes more violent and pornographic � then it isn�t long before the law of natural consequences catch up.

Political correctness is dangerous as it is deceitful. We label a baby in his or her mothers� womb as an “embryo” or “foetus” as the underlying notion is that they are not human. They are. They�re our children. And yet we so easily succumb to a politically correct violence that dissects their little bodies before they gain their first breath of air. And we proudly call it “pro-choice”.

We�ve thrown “God” out of our society. “Hooray”, you say! We no longer introduce children to the Bible. “Ditto”. We no longer believe in absolutes, that right is right, and wrong is wrong. And so, if this God has anything to say about this, it�s in the law of natural consequences that He designed.

Jesus said, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet and show my people their sins.” (Isaiah 58:1)

He said the defiantly rebellious would be “pursued with the sword, with famine, with pestilence; they�ll be delivered into trouble among all the kingdoms of the earth � to be a curse, an astonishment, a hissing, a reproach among all the nations… because they have not heeded My words…” (Jeremiah 29:18)

“The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head and you shall be the tail. All these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God…” (Deuteronomy 28:43-45)

And so, accordingly, history is beset to repeat itself. Nations of strange language and customs seem to assert their power as never before. The Islamic State, for example, defined by their throat-cutting brutality and an ominous black flag seem uncannily unstoppable � perhaps because our will-power and weakened response has become one of containment. Their goal is to raise the black flag of Sharia law on the entire world, and they begin by enticing our gullible youth.

Another example is the increasing Chinese influence through trade and expansionism. It isn�t all that it seems, as this economic juggernaut sponsor the construction of military bases well beyond their recognised international borders. Our policies of acquiescence, appeasement and containment will not work. No need to reiterate the details of the Ukraine crisis at the moment.

The days of western dominance and economic might are over.

Hope for a return to basic morality might seem distant. Revival and right relationships, according to history, do however return, but only it seems after a time of suffering � a time of suffering when our enemies are victors, when perhaps Sharia law displaces democracy, and when the entire world is at war. That is, in effect, what Jesus says. That�s what the Christian Bible echoes in both old and new testaments. And that�s what we need to understand.

War is coming. We have the nuclear missiles, the warships, tanks and planes, as well as the protagonists. And in this war, be it outright conflict or through years of attrition, because of our immorality, it will quickly become apparent who is the weaker side.

Now the “politically correct” might describe our embrace of Jesus� teachings as “homophobic”. They also commonly tout the term of “marriage equality”. Such trendy buzzwords are subtle inventions designed to linguistically sound appealing to the voting public. And yet marriage historically and culturally has always been defined as the covenant lifetime relationship between one man and one woman to the exclusion of any others. Homosexuality isn�t marriage.

Followers of Jesus cannot remain silent; we�re called to shine the light in both our life example and in the things we speak out for. And as our words find momentum and authorship in the Holy Spirit, then we would have committed the greater sin by remaining silent.

So, cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and allow Jesus� words to again echo across this country. Someone has to speak up!

Written by John Klassek

John and Rebecca have been married for 26 years and have six children.�He serves in ministry in the Church of God (Seventh Day) in Australia, and works as a film producer for MessageWeek Ministries.