We’ve all seen the child in the grocer’s aisle, on their back kicking air and emptying their lungs of razor blades whilst clutching a bag of confectionary. We tut-tut like we’ve never seen such appalling behaviour and because we know that that amount of sugar ain’t good for a kid. We as parents know this because we pay the price. Maybe it’s hyper-activity, bad sleeping patterns, high dentist fees or obesity related illnesses down the track. More likely our fear is that it could set a precedent for coming tantrums that will erode all the future bad stuff we will exhaustedly acquiesce to.
We’ve seen various responses from parents. How some just stand there injected with cement, rummaging their recesses for an appropriate response. Then those who have red-faced wrestled the bag from their braticus undulatus while others ambled calmly out of view down the next aisle, leaving their child entertaining complete strangers, a portent for vocations to come.
Parents who console themselves that this is just a phase wake up one day to a tween who no longer wants any parenting. Helpless they watch their child fend for themselves making one bad decision after another. Some might regret not having endowed the iron scepter, more courage a prerequisite in large doses to the title.
Two decades later this pattern still plays out on repeat. Adults with no ‘parent’, no God, no religion, no faith who lie on their backs in the consumerist aisle kicking and screaming clutching their bag of democracy, their bag of new government, their bag of new satellite nation, new sexuality, new gender and even their bag of rain. Imps pretending to be adults who want their cake while refusing to pay a single cent and certainly don’t want any ‘parent’ telling them they can’t have what they want.
Let’s interrogate the players in our little drama with some burning questions. Why does the kid want the sugar? What is sugar? Is it right and just for a kid to have sugar? What is the right response for a parent saddled with a brat? Who am I, parent or brat?
The kid wants the sugar because it’s nice tasting – pleasurable. Why does the adult want democracy? Because it is their identity. Also pleasurable and of course just, even if it is in the eye of the beholder. We’ll get to justice in a minute.
What is sugar? It’s a thing that lies to us. Whether the natural confectionary company or a democracy it consistently promises long term jubilation even though it lasts as long as an ejaculation. Sugar constantly lies to us, which is why we often take to the streets like drones with our placards and petrol-bombs like it’s all new. Of course it’s new, it’s a new generation. Democracy is not a bad thing, but make it our veneration, our highest good without a Creator then it is nothing but a sinful, worthless idol.
We cuddle our pleasurable sins like the confections they are but we still want the world to be right. We want to cut away all the Christians who constantly talk about sin but even when we get our wish we can’t seem to cut away the guilt that lingers, so we wage wars of hatred instead. We want governments to reduce carbon emissions but we won’t reduce the hardened omissions in ourselves. We want hand-outs from the government to pay for our dead farms but we won’t lift a finger to revive the dead form inside of us.
There is a word for these state of affairs.
This week the last Sumatran Rhinoceros died making it extinct, but we fail to make the connection between us killing animals and our sins. Since the fall of Adam and Eve animals were sacrificed to pay for our sins. Jesus came and put an end to that sacrifice for his followers, but not for the ones who reject him. The unfaithful’s sins are continually being atoned for through the death of the innocent. Extinction means time is almost up. The atheist continually fails to make the connection because their hands are too busy clutching the ‘plastic’ they paradoxically pay lip service to rejecting, erstwhile finding pleasure in spiting their parent.
What is the right response for a parent faced with an unappreciative hellish hellion, because make no mistake, if a parent does not act appropriately and decisively, society will pay later. Someone always pays. The prisons testify to our lack of parenting and the question remains, what is the just response?
The just, right and appropriate response is we die for our sins. We deserve to melt away with the ice caps. We deserve to roast to a crisp on this continent, and yet God in His great love for you and me has reversed this future by giving up his boy to be tortured in our stead. Does this not compel and overwhelm us to show our appreciation and live out a life of value accordingly? Is this not right, just and fair?Deep appreciation is the difference between a parent and a brat.
Which brings me to the perennial question for my farmer friend I had dinner with this evening, who told me this has been the worst drought ever experienced in Australia. At great risk to our friendship I answered him honestly, as I am answering you now below.
Australia is burning. Why? Because our land is suffering a severe drought. Why?
When I was a kid I knew a family who were God-fearing farmers. Their neighbours were not. When the black frost came it destroyed all the surrounding neighbours’ crops but stopped right at their fence line. The death angel had passed over.
Why is there drought in Australia?
At the time of writing this the controversial Israel Folau is severely criticized for giving his reason for Australia’s roasting fires because of the drought as the nation’s return to apostasy in the passing of the same-sex marriage and abortion bill and yet… no one cares to ask whether Israel could be right?
Why is there drought in Australia?
Because it is written into universal law by God Himself. “Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to blush with shame.” – Jeremiah 3:3. Was that a paradigm only for Israel for that time, or can we learn something from it today?
Why is there drought in Australia?
Because the rain belongs to God, and we not only have to ask nicely, but we have to consistently play nicely, with each other and with our Father. “They do not say to themselves, ‘Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives autumn and spring rains in season, who assures us of the regular weeks of harvest.” – Jeremiah 5:24
Why is there drought in Australia?
Because we regard form over substance as more important, engage in activities and dote on things far more than our Parent, our Maker. “Do any of the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies themselves send down showers? No, it is you, Lord our God. Therefore our hope is in you, for you are the one who does all this” – Jeremiah 14:32
Speaking with my daughter Noa she asks me two good questions. “How many people does it take to turn away God’s wrath?” One. His name is Jesus. “Why does it rain on other nations in apostasy and not on us?” Famine takes many forms. I am here to speak for this nation only.
It is my deep-seated desire to say that whether we live on the land or in the cities, whether regional or metro it is every single Australian’s responsibility to turn their heart towards God so that we together may alleviate the drought. It is the only way. And it is my built-in hope that words can turn hearts. But the time has passed for those words to be uttered because the drought has reached my tongue. And the Bible tells me it’s pointless. You will not listen. You are content on the floor of the aisle with more tears to spend. And so I pray for the only thing I can pray for, that the Lord will rapture His saints so we may escape what is about to come as Jesus admonished us, as the world plunges itself further towards the seven-year apocalypse, before the glorious kingdom will break this darkness with its ancient light.
Your kingdom come.
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