Character determines competence. Let's hear the word of the living God, it's found in Isaiah 36 and verse 8. Isaiah chapter 36 and verse 8. Character determines competence. Let's hear the word of the living God, found in Isaiah 36 verse 8. I will give you 2,000 horses if you are able on your part to put riders on them. This challenge was made by one of Sennacherib's generals, Rabshakeh, during a speech demanding the surrender of Jerusalem. The Assyrians had come upon Judah like a wolf upon the fold, and Rabshakeh presented a powerful piece of propaganda laced with lies, half-truths, boasting and blasphemy. His speech was designed to demoralize and discourage the people of God and persuade them to give up all hope and surrender to the Syrians. That was the goal. This was psychological warfare. In his speech, he insulted and he taunted the representatives of King Hezekiah. And one of his memorable taunts was, how could they possibly resist the overwhelming military might of Assyria, even if he, Rav Shaka, were to give them 2,000 horses. It would do them no good, because they had no trained cavalry to be able to ride them. If you are able on your part to put riders on them, as he said. However, the word of the Lord came through Isaiah, in Isaiah 37 verse 6 to 7. Prophet Isaiah said, Do not be afraid of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed. blasphemed me surely I will send a spirit upon him and he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land and I will cause him to fall by the sword of his own hand that's in Isaiah 37 6 to 7 and then we read in Isaiah 37 verse 36 to 38 then the angel of the Lord went out and killed in the camp of Assyrians 185,000 And when the people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses, all dead. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went away, and returned home, and remained at Nineveh. Now it came to pass, while he was worshipping in the house of Nishrak, his god, that his sons struck him down with a sword." And that's in Isaiah 37, 36 to 38. Behind all this and amidst this drama of the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Assyrian army, you get this remarkable propaganda speech by Reb Shacker and amongst it is a gem, a gem of wisdom and insight. Horses for those who are able to ride them. I will give you 2,000 horses if you are able on your part to put riders on them. And this ties in with Luke 19. So, if we can turn to Luke 19, we've got the parable of the talents. And the Lord Jesus taught in the parable of the talents, starting in verse 11, Luke 19, verse 11. Now, as they heard these things, Jesus spoke another parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they thought the kingdom of God would appear immediately. Therefore Jesus said, a certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. So he called 10 of his servants, delivered to them 10 miners, and said to them, do business till I come, or occupy till I come. But his citizens hated him. And they sent a delegation after him saying, we will not have this man to reign over us. And so it was that when he returned, having received his kingdom, he then commanded these servants to whom he had given the money, to be called to him, that he might know how much each man had gained by trading. Then the first came, saying, Master, your miner has earned ten miners. He said to him, Well done, good servant, because you are faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities, Second came, saying, Master, your miner has earned five miners. Likewise, he said to him, you also shall be set over five cities. Then another came and said, Master, here's your miner, which I've kept away in a handkerchief, for I feared you, because you're an austere man. You collect what you did not deposit. You reap what you did not sow. And he said to them, one, out of your own mouth, I will judge you, you wicked servant. You knew that I was an austere man, collecting what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow. Why then did you not put my money in the bank that at my coming I might have collected it with interest? If I could just pause at this moment here, notice the biblical principle that when you put money in a bank, the bank pays you interest. The modern principle where you have to pay the bank interest, is usury, which is condemned well over 60 times in the Bible, and was a primary focus of Magna Carta condemning usury. The present usurious system of the banks charging you interest while they are spending and using your money for all their investments is iniquitous, it is condemned in scripture, it's thoroughly unbiblical, and I think Stephen Goodson has documented that in his History of Central Banking and the Enslavement of Mankind. But let's go back to the passage. And he said to those who stood by, take the miner from him and give it to him who has ten miners. But he said to them, Master, he already has ten miners. And Jesus said, for I say to you that to everyone who has will be given. And from him who does not have, even the little he has will be taken away from him. But bring here those enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them and slay them before me. And that's the word of God in Luke 19, verse 11 to 27. So when you put this together with what we read in Isaiah, horses to those who can ride them, we see opportunity reveals your character. Although three men received different amounts, one ten, the other five, third one one, two of them succeeded in multiplying those gifts. But the third failed to take advantage of any opportunity and he failed in a responsibility entrusted to him. He did not lack opportunity. He did not lack ability. He lacked the character required, and this caused the man to squander his opportunity and fail in his duty, and not fulfill his responsibilities. Your opportunity reveals your character. Now when the day of reckoning comes, which ultimately for us is the day of judgment, but in this case the man, the prince comes back and he's received his kingdom, Those who prove themselves able by their character to make the most of the opportunities, entrust them, they will be rewarded with greater gifts and new opportunities and more responsibilities. However, those who fail to fulfill their responsibilities in small matters will not be trusted in large matters. In fact, if they fail to be productive because of their lack of character, they will lose everything they have. This is the Lord's redistribution of wealth. He takes away from those who have little and gives to those who have much, because those who have much have made a lot of what they were given, and those who have little have sworn their opportunity. So, the Lord's redistribution is exactly the opposite of what the Socialists' idea is. The socialists believe that you should subsidize the parasites and you should penalize the productive. The Lord reverses that whole around. Luke 19 verse 26, For I say to you that to everyone who has will be given, and from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. That's Luke 19 verse 26. This is the Lord's redistribution of wealth. He'll take away from the unproductive and the lazy and the unreliable and He will give to those who have proved themselves faithful, diligent and hard-working. The industrious are rewarded in God's kingdom. The world is inclined to penalize the productive by overtaxing them and to reward the parasites by giving them lots of free things. However, the Lord makes it clear that His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. His ways are much higher than our ways. The Lord Jesus teaches in the parable of the talents that he will punish the unproductive, he will reward the productive. Lack of work ethic disqualifies a man from mounting the horse of opportunity, and the horse of influence, and the horse of usefulness. Horses to those who can ride them. To whom much is given, much is required. To whom much more is given, much more is required. We are saved to serve. We are not to be buckets. We are blessed in order to be a blessing. We are saved to serve. We are forgiven so that we may be an instrument of God's grace and mercy to reach other people with the message of God's forgiveness. We're not meant to just become stagnant, dead seas like the Dead Sea into which all other rivers flow, but nothing flows out of the Dead Sea. That's why it's dead. It receives, but it does not give. Your character determines your competence. Therefore, in 2 Timothy 2 21 read, Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the letter, he will be a vessel of honour, sanctified, useful for the master, prepared for every good work. If we want to be used by the Lord, we need to be sanctified, useful, prepared to do every good work. The Bethlehems often spoke about unhelpful help, people who say I want to help, but in fact they are more of a hindrance. And then there are those who are extremely helpful. You know that George Washington Carver was one of the exemplary figures in American history. He saved and worked to be able to get to college. When he got to college, he discovered that the fees were so much more than he actually had saved for. I don't know if the price had gone up or whatever the issue was. And he sat there in the registrar's office, quite downcast, and the secretary walked past and put a brim next to him. And he kept walking. George Washington Carver sat there for a while and he looked at it and then he thought, what's he got to lose? So he swept up inside and out very well. The secretary came back and said, would you like a job that you can help to work your way through college? He said yes please and he's given that and he ended up being a phenomenal discoverer, inventor, a very productive person in history. But the same thing happened with George Whitfield. George Whitfield's mother was a a widower in a little, little hotel, Bailey Worth being called a hotel, and he couldn't afford to be in Oxford, so he was a servant to the other students in Oxford to be able to put himself through study. But there are people who can make an excuse, and there are people who can make a plan. And the more industrious will receive greater rewards. That's what the Lord is saying. Character determines competence. Horses to those who can ride them. Cars to those who can drive them. Equipment to those who can operate the equipment. Messages to those who will deliver them. Ministries to those who can serve faithfully. Missions to those who can complete them. Your attitude determines your accomplishment and your achievement. Places are important for waiting for a man or woman who can fill them. Achievements are waiting for those with the character, the determination, the diligence, and the discipline to accomplish them. But you must make yourself worthy, prepared, ready, and fit. Victory loves preparation. Your attitude will determine your achievements. There's always a lot of excuses as to why we cannot accomplish our task. But obstacles are only there to be overcome. There are those who make an excuse, and there are those who make a plan. Anyone can make excuses for why a job is not done. But people of character will make a plan, adapt, innovate, overcome, and persevere to accomplish the task. Your decisions determine your destiny. Every decision you make helps to shape your destiny. C.S. Lewis emphasized this, that every temptation you resist makes the next temptation easier to resist and harder to give in to. Every temptation you give in to makes the next temptation easier to give in to and harder to resist. Every decision you make puts you more on the narrow path to life or on the broad way to destruction. So C.S. Lewis said, while there are some key decisions you make, in many ways, people make thousands of decisions on the path upward to life, or the downward, broad way to hell. It's not generally one decision, it's normally thousands of decisions. But they go in clusters. The first one's hard. Each succeeding one becomes easier, in the positive or the negative direction. And so there's a story in history of Alexander and Uselaus. Alexander the Great was not only one of the most accomplished military commanders in history, but he's also a fine horseman, which he had to be back then, I mean, it's just the main form of transport. One day as a youth he saw a beautiful black horse by Selaus, about to be rejected by the king's officers because one officer after another tried to mount him and he was rearing and plunging and kicking about, and as they were thinking of getting rid of this horse, Alexander requested to be able to ride the horse, and after first speaking soothingly to the horse, calming him down, he turned him around and then vaulted onto his back and rode gracefully around to the maidservants of the king, who said you can have this horse, and on that horse Vassilisi conquered Asia. And Alexander had noted something very simple. The sun was behind the horse and the horse's shadow was spooking the horse. So, after calming him down, he turned him around so that the sun was in front and he didn't have the shadow to scare him. Now, why did all the others miss that? Sometimes just a minor, minor thing. On one of his military campaigns in India, Alexander was struck by an arrow. You can imagine the way arrow heads are. So it's easy to get in, it's hard to pull out. And so as his men were about to operate on him, the strongest men took his shoulders to hold his arms and shoulders and legs down while the painful operation to extract the arrow began. And Alexander dismissed him and he said, you do not need to hold one who can hold himself. He could keep himself steady while they pulled it out. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control. Violated law breaks us. It's not so much that we break God's law. In one sense, nobody breaks God's law. God's law breaks us. It's like gravity. Gravity is not just a good idea. It's the law. You step off Table Mountain, you die. I remember the first time I took Laura up there, she was horrified coming from America and Europe. She said, there's no barrier around the mountain. People just fall off. Yeah, this is Africa. Same thing up in Victoria Falls. No fences, no walls, no barriers. I mean, you could just slip, slide, and straight off and go 300 feet down in Victoria Falls. And when I've asked the locals, they said, oh, every year lots of people. I said, tourists? Lots. I said, why do I never read about it? It's not good for tourism. We never report it. And that's the point. There's a lot of places where these things happen because it's the law of gravity. It's not that they just broke the law of gravity. Gravity broke them. It's not how fast you fall that kills you. It's the sudden stop at the end. You cannot violate the laws of God without serious consequences. Everything has consequences. Ideas have consequences. Choices have consequences. And we will have to pay. the consequences of decisions we've made, decisions we have not made, that we should have made, but for the grace and mercy of God that spares us the eternal consequences that we all deserve. Those who would control others as leaders must first control themselves. Self-discipline is absolutely essential to any effective and productive life. Where opportunity is the most abundant, the temptations will also be the most seductive and the most powerful. And so they say, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. And the people who might have been a perfectly normal person, you put them in positions of extreme power, extreme privilege, extreme opportunities, and there's abuse. You can just see what happens in governments where there doesn't seem to be any restraint. So, isn't it incredible how universities univeritas, one truth, have moved from being places of great learning and advancement to cesspools of debauchery, frivolity, temptation, and blatant evil, and intolerance, and hate speech. There was a time when universities were the hotbeds of the Reformation. Cambridge was known as Little Germany because the writings of Luther had made such an impact, and out of Cambridge came people like William Tyndale and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, one great man of another. In fact, as Cambridge University says, Cambridge produced the reformers that Oxford burned. And sure enough, there is the Martyrs' Memorial in Oxford with all Cambridge graduates. The great bishops Ridley and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and so many others were burned at the stake. Cambridge graduates burned at Oxford. There's a big competition between Oxford and Cambridge, especially when it comes to rowing, but it's even stronger when it comes to the strong gospel influence of Cambridge and the pretty anti-gospel influence of Oxford. But that's another matter. I've been to a lot of universities, and over the entrance to universities like Harvard, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. And another university, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Another one, let only the earnest, thoughtful, and reverent enter here. Things like this. There was one university where a humanist ordered, engraved in stone, he wanted man the measure of all things. So he wanted that to be put in stone. The stonemason was a Christian, and he had just finished man, and he thought, this is wrong, I can't do this. When this principle came back, what was written on the side of the wall in stone was, who is man that you're mindful of him? From psalm 8. That's the real spirit of the old universities. Universities used to be where revivals broke out. There was the university's mission that responded the most enthusiastically to David Livingstone's call for mission in East Africa. It was the university's mission that sent out Bishop McKenzie and others who transformed Malawi from a slave killing field into a magnificent Christian country. A lot of great things came out of universities, but not much these days. I mean, it used to be universities missions and now it's pretty bad now it's BLM and Antifa and all of that nonsense that's coming out of universities. Fees must fall, science must fall, knowledge must fall, everything must fall. But Many will testify how they went to universities, even before they got this bad, and squandered their opportunities by indulging in a never-ending series of parties and drunkenness and time-wasting diversions. Libraries of wisdom were ignored as the students disqualified themselves from the school of life. by ignoring precious opportunities for advancement in favor of frivolity and time-wasting. And you don't have to just go to the universities to see this. There are people who've gone through universities, people who've gone through Oxford and so on. In Harvard, you go to the libraries and you're just overwhelmed. The greatest treasure houses of knowledge and wisdom imaginable. But what did they spend their time on while they were in university? Drugs, parties, video games, porn, riots, whatever. The last thing they did was enter the library and read books. But it's not just there. I've seen people coming to our Biblical Wolfie Summits. Coming in here because they're waiting for a lift and sitting in this boardroom staring at the ceiling or at the screen. Now they're surrounded by a library. There's all kinds of magazines and literature for free. There's all kinds of things to read. They probably have a Bible somewhere in their backpack. But they could waste hours doing nothing. And then you get people who've come to this mission, who have sometimes been here for years. Barely touching the library, means surrounded by some of the greatest insights from centuries past. Many of these books are old, great books. Missing the opportunity. I mean, just imagine that a person's got a treasure trove of Aladdin's cave available to them and so on. Let's have a donut. And the way how opportunities are squandered and missed If yielded to, temptations of the flesh will disqualify any man or woman from riding the horses of influence and usefulness. Horses to those who can ride them. And that is why the scriptures command us to study to show ourselves approved unto God. Do you know how many Christians have been Christians for years and have never read the Bible? It's worse than that. There are pastors who've never read the whole Bible. One of my professors, Baptist Theological Seminary professor for itself, used to regularly ask me, here's Old Testament exposition. And so at the end of any particular given semester when we were studying books as small as Daniel, or as big as Psalms, or Ezekiel, or Exodus, he'd say at the end of the semester, so who's read the whole book of Psalms, or Ezekiel, or Psalms? And there'd be a few hands, a few. a minority of the students would raise their hands, we've just had a semester on this book. And then someone said, I've read the commentary. And Professor Housewood said, you don't read the cookbook and skip the meal. And then I remember famously at the end of one year at Baptist Theological Seminary at the chapel. We'd have all years, all students and staff at any chapel service every day. And by the way, we'd have to wear a time jacket for every class and we'd have to wear academic robe for every chapel. And the principal said, get used to it, you'll have to be dressed like this the rest of your life anyway. Well, little did he know what would happen in pulpits and pews in the next few years, but I went back to college recently and they looked like they were all on the way to the beach. or just come back from the beach or sleep in your clothes for that matter. And that's not even the students, that's even the lecturers look like that. So that's pretty bad. First time I went up to UCT, 1977, I was in Matric and we were being shown University of Cape Town where we were getting scholarships and so on next year. And the students were mostly time jackets and the lecturers were all time jackets and academic robes. I'm talking about 1977. What has happened over there? But still. I'm getting distracted from the point that Fritz Haas asked us, how many of you have read the whole Bible? And hands started to go up in... I wasn't talking about just doing college studying, ever. And somebody said, you mean the New Testament? Professor Haas smiled and he said, no, I mean the whole Bible. And hands went down everywhere. If I remember right, There were two of us students across four years of students who kept their hands raised. I was one of the new converts. I'd only got converted a few years before. Some of those people had been brought up in the church. How can a person be a Christian for years and not read the whole Bible? 1,187 chapters. If you read just one chapter a day, you'd get through the whole Bible in four years. If you read four chapters a day, you get through the whole Bible in one year. Four chapters is not that much. I'm not talking about studying, but just reading. Reading through it. Chronologically, preferably. But how shocking is it that we have got pastors and pulpits who've never read every book of the Bible. Not even once. It's really very bad. There's no excuse for a Christian who's been a Christian for a few years not reading every book of the Bible. When Gary Player was the world's greatest golfing champion, somebody commented to him, you're lucky. And Gary Player said, yes, I'm lucky. The harder I practice, the luckier I get. And it's true. Victory lies in preparation. It's true whether you're talking about sports, whether you're talking about study, whether you're talking about writing, whether you're talking about preaching, whether you're talking about computer skills, whether you're talking about publishing, whatever the field is. The harder you practice or study, the luckier you get. Luck has actually got nothing to do with it. It's about diligence, it's about training, it's about preparation, it's about attitude. Jeremiah 48 verse 10 has this incredible verse, Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord deceitfully. Cursed is he who keeps his sword from bloodshed. The first half is dealing with how we handle the Word of God, that we study the Word of God carefully and that we do the work of God diligently and not with slackness. But the second half, cursed as he keeps his sword from bloodshed, pacifism and passivity has become complacent and to just tolerate all manner of evils and heresies and problems out there. But as God says through Jeremiah 48 verse 10, cursed as he keeps his sword for bloodshed. We've got to fight the good fight of faith as we sang in the beginning. And the word of God, the sword, the spirit. And a surgeon who fails to apply the scalpel to cut out the cancer, tumor, whatever it may be, is a bad surgeon. A doctor is not meant to be tolerant of disease and infection, and a policeman is not meant to be tolerant of crime and corruption, and a fireman should not be tolerant of fire hazards, and a teacher is not meant to be tolerant of mistakes, and so on. We should be people of discernment. In fact, when I was growing up, the word discrimination was a positive word. They'd use it in advertising. For the man of discrimination, whether we're talking about discriminating tastes in terms of cigarettes or in terms of clothing or suits or whatever it may be, that you were discriminating meant you chose wisely. Now, discrimination is a dirty word, a swear word in the eyes of the political left. But we're meant to be discriminating in the sense of discerning between right and wrong and good and better and best and so on. As Christians, we are called to wholehearted service because God deserves our very, very, very best. Colossians 3, verse 23. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you're working for the Lord and not for men. If anything is worth doing, it's worth doing well, it's worth doing completely, and it's worth doing excellently because, again, our Lord was, on earth, a carpenter before he began his earthly ministry. Can you imagine what any woodwork done by our Lord would have been like? Could you imagine it being a table that wobbled, or a chair that has a nail stuck out to catch you as you walk past, or these kind of shoddy things that people put up, or a bookshelf that doesn't have the proper supports under it so after a full number of books on it that the whole thing collapses to the ground? Do you think the Lord would have made anything that would have been less than perfect? And as His children, we should be aiming at excellence in everything. Anything else is an insult to God. It's like pig's wool and dog's breakfast dished up as a sacrifice to the Lord. The Baptist and many other missionaries point out that how care packages would include that they meant to take to Periskey Church in East New York. Dirty, unwashed, torn and broken clothes. Couldn't even clean them or repair them. That is not an offering as unto the Lord. Used tea bags, dead serious, shipped across the Atlantic, used tea bags. The kind of rubbish that people dish up sometimes as a sacrifice, an offering as to the Lord. But you remember the scripture, it's very clear. Any offering brought to temple has to be without spot or blemish. But if it's for the Lord, it's got to be your first fruits, it's got to be your best. You know that, for example, if you've ever traveled overseas and you've come across South African apples, oranges, bananas, anything, it's like, wow, these are better than the ones we get at home. Yes, the best to send for export. And that's the way it should be. We represent a country with the best. That's the way it used to be. I don't know if it's the way it is now. But the ideas and offerings to the Lord should be our very, very, very best. The greatest commandment is, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And you shall love your neighbours as yourself. I mean, that's the standard. Wholehearted. Not the sum of or most of, but all of. Revelation 4.11 You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they existed and were created. That's what's inspired our soli deo gloria, which is still on our one-ran coins in this country. Soli deo gloria, one of the five solas, one of the five battle cries of the Reformation. Everything should be done in the glory of God alone. Soli deo gloria. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thou alone should all glory be given. Revelation 5, 9 to 10 and they sang a new song saying you are worthy to take the scroll and to open the seals for you were slain and you have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation and you've made us kings and priests to serve our God and we shall reign on the earth Everything we do here on earth is preparation for eternity. Our decisions, our diligence, our duties and our destiny now is going to affect eternity. Just as the parable of the talents gives that in accordance with our faithfulness to small matters here on earth, God will trust us with greater responsibilities in eternity. Revelation 5 13 and every creature which is in heaven and on earth and under the earth and such as in the sea and those that are in them I heard saying blessing and honor and glory and power be to him who sits on the throne to the Lamb forever and ever. There's a scene in the Lion King when all the animals gather in front of Pride Rock and the new lion cubbers lift up. In a sense that's a bit of a human picture of the great day when all of creation will stand before the throne of God and give glory to the Lamb of God who was slain. And so it's such a privilege in everything of all of us, including the birds and the fish and the whales and every creature that is in the earth, even the ones we didn't know about, all giving glory to the Lord on Day of Judgment. Both the church militant on earth, the church triumphant in heaven, and every creature, all honour belongs to the Lord. And so our Great God and our Redeemer, our Creator, our Eternal Judge, He deserves all praise and all honor from everyone, not just every person, every creature. And anything less than the very best isn't good enough. And that should motivate and guide and design everything we do. And it deserves, He deserves, our faithfulness and our zeal and our dedication. It's a terrible sin to be lax in doing the work of the Lord. Jeremiah 48 verse 10, curse a deceiver who does the work of the Lord with slackness or deceitfully. Different translations emphasize the two parts. Amos 6 verse 1, woe to you who are complacent in Zion. And that woe is a serious woe. 2 Chronicles 24 verse 5 which catalogues the people building the temple. It mentions the ones who sacrificed, who worked and so on. But then it's got, for all eternity this is recorded, Nehemiah 3 verse 5. But the Levites did not act at once. The Levites, the priests, were slow to get involved in building the temple. Did they think as priests they were somehow above building the temple? But the nobles would not put their shoulders to the work. Now you know the term putting a shoulder to the work. Imagine you've got to move something really heavy. This is a rebuke. The nobles and Levites are detailed in two chronicles which is mostly a catalogue of people who did great things and sacrificed a lot and worked hard. But God noticed and he put it into his inspired word where for 2,500 years it's been there as a rebuke to those who at that time did not put their shoulder into the work. or we're slow to get started in the duty. Luke 12 verse 47, our Lord Jesus says, this is red letter, if you've got a red letter Bible, the servant that knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. James 4 verse 17, anyone then who knows the good he ought to do and does not do it sins. Now God has many blows to use on us. And I know the first time I came off my motorbike and I was rolling in the road at about 90 k's an hour with cars swerving to get around me, just on an off-ramp, into Kempton Park on the way to Hospital Christchurch, I knew, even as I was bouncing around the road, I hadn't come to a stop yet, and I was still seeing the sparks and so on, what God was punishing me for, what he was rebuking me for, and I could have come to full repentance before I came to a full stop. rolling on the ground there. I know people who say, God never uses sickness. Well, God used sickness to bring my father to the Lord. God used sickness to bring my mother to the Lord. God has used arrests and imprisonments and very unpleasant experiences in my life to bring me back onto his path when I've wandered here and there. There are different ways that God has. So you may think, well, gee, I'm glad they don't beat servants who are slow to be ready and so on these days. Well, God's got his other ways of beating us. If we don't listen to his voice, then we will feel. And there's consequences, like the law of gravity. I mean, the laws of God are there. They cannot be violated. We only break ourselves on them. In 1 Samuel 15 we read of Israel's first king Saul, who knew what God had commanded but failed to fulfill His divine instructions. 1 Samuel 15 verse 2, this is what the Lord Almighty says, I will punish the Malachites, now go and attack the Malachites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare any of them. Then the scripture records in 2 Samuel 5, I should say 1 Samuel 15 verse 9 to 11, But Saul and his army spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and the cattle, and everything that was good. They were unwilling to destroy these, but everything that was despised and weak, they totally destroyed. Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel, I am grieved that I have made Saul king. Because he's turned away from me and he's not carried out my instructions. Samuel was troubled and he cried out to the Lord all that night. And when the prophet Samuel went up to meet King Saul, 1 Samuel 15 verse 12, he was told, Saul has gone to Carmel, there he has set up a monument in his own honor. How bad is that, setting up a monument in your own honor? So when Samuel reaches Saul, Saul says, the Lord bless you, I've carried out the Lord's instructions. Samuel says, what then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear? And it's pretty pathetic, the excuses that Saul comes out with. And then the word comes to Saul, why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on a plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord? Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice. To heed is better than the fat of rams, for rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft, divination, and arrogance is like the evil of idolatry. In fact, pride and idolatry are. But what's the middle letter of pride? I. Middle letter of sin? I. Middle letter of lie? I. Middle letter of Lucifer? Also I. That's a bit of a coincidence. I mean, the Bible wasn't revealed in English, but interesting how that works. I, selfishness, sinfulness is at the heart of our problem. Our biggest enemy is ourself. And so the word of the Lord comes and says, God has rejected you as king. You have rejected the word of the Lord, and so God has rejected you as king over Israel. The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and given it to one of your neighbors, to one better than you. Do you know who that was? David, a man of God's own heart, who delighted to obey God. And although King Saul thought partial obedience was good enough, look how much I've done, instead of look how much I chose not to do, the Lord utterly rejected him and described his partial obedience as arrogance and pride and idolatry and rebellion, which is the sin of witchcraft. In Revelation 2.12 we read in the letter to the church at Pergamum that the Lord rebuked the believers for tolerating the sin of idolatry and immorality. in the Nicolaitans. Now it's not that they were committing adultery and immorality, it's that they were tolerating it from others. Revelation 2 verse 16, repent therefore, otherwise I will come to you and fight against them with the sword of my mouth. Warfare calls for conscription, sacrifice, rationing, dedication, determination, courage, tenacity, risk. If people realize we're at war, in a serious war, in a state of emergency, well, that could be very different. But many think that we're on holiday. In warfare, you're required to fight, to attack the enemy, to apply all the force that's necessary in order to defeat the enemy and to defend your homeland. Shall your countrymen go to war while you sit here? Numbers 32 verse 6. Judges 5 verse 23, in the Song of Deborah, Curse Meroz, says the angel of the Lord. Curse its people bitterly, because they did not come to help the Lord, to help the Lord against the mighty. And it names those tribes that failed to go to war. And so it will be when it comes to whether it's a standing up against idolatry, apostasy, or stepping up for evangelism, or witness, or reaching a neighbor's Lord. We have a Great Commission. Many Christians are, oh, we can't do this any other because of coronavirus, or because the government lockdown, or because the Senate. But the Great Commission is still in force. the commands of God over seawallers, and besides which even the Supreme Court said that these regulations are unconstitutional? And how can any government abrogate the Great Commission of Our Lord Jesus Christ? If persecuted churches in Russia and Romania and Red China could minister even under persecution, then what excuse do we have? A bunch of wimps and cowards in the West, even jellyfish, filleted of spine, who are using government regulations and a virus as an excuse for laziness, disobedience and inactivity of the church. Praise God for some like John MacArthur who decide to go ahead anyway and defy their governor saying you have no authority over the church. It's outside your jurisdiction and your competence. King David was an extraordinary sultan. King David was a devoted servant Lord God and he is Israel's greatest king and he was author of many of the most beloved Psalms and hymns and he was described as a man after my own heart. No one else in the Bible is described that way. Yet 2 Samuel verse 11 reports the most disastrous fall into sin by King David and all began with these ominous words. In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David remained in Jerusalem. 2 Samuel 11 verse 1, the danger of inactivity. You see, some temptations come to the industrious, but all temptations come to the idle. The devil is evil work for idle hands. Our biggest enemy is idleness and apathy. Adversity is not a problem. Adversity can make us stronger. Apathy and indolence make us weak. The quickest way to destroy your spiritual zeal is to respond to biblical commands with apathy and inactivity. It's a guaranteed pathway to spiritual disaster. And this is my concern, especially during this time of enforced lockdown, that a lot of people in enforced inactivity and lockdown have headed into not just physical and emotional depression, but spiritual backsliding. Because it's not healthy to be quiet and locked up and inactive. Physical activity is important, spiritual activity is important, mental activity is important, but inactivity on any level is bad. It's physically disastrous and it's spiritually even worse. When God speaks and we do not listen, when the Bible teaches and we don't apply, when God commands and we don't obey, when God sends and we don't go, there's a tremendous danger in passivity. Inactivity is deadly to spiritual life. James 4 verse 7 says, to know the good that we ought to do and not to do it is sin. Remember, in Matthew 25 our Lord describes the Day of Judgment not so much in terms of bad things we did as much as good things we failed to do. He defines the Day of Judgment in his own words, red letter, if you've got a red letter Bible. You did not visit those in prison for their faith. You did not care for the sick. You did not visit hungry, you did not clothe the naked. You did not care, effectively. Departing in prison, the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels. The Lord himself defines the Day of Judgment primarily in terms of the good things we fail to do, rather than the bad things we've done. I'm not undermining the seriousness of bad things you do. Those are of course all bad, but it's not good enough for us to sit in church and think, I'm a good person. I'm not like, you know, I'm not homosexual. I'm not an adulterer. I'm not a fornicator. I'm not a pervert. I don't steal. I'm generally a very good person. I don't smoke. I don't drink. I don't do drugs. I don't gamble. Yes, I mean, look at all these bad things I don't do, which is good. I mean, we shouldn't do them. They're bad. But on Day of Judgment, the Lord's primary focus is going to be what we fail to do. Matthew 25 is very clear. And so you think of those people who pat themselves on the head thinking what good people are, but what have they actually done to fulfill the Great Commission, or to speak up for those who can't speak up for themselves, or to rise up for the Lord against evil doers, or to make a stand against the workers of iniquity, to expose the fruitless deeds of darkness, to actually care, to rescue the perishing, to hold back those staggering towards death, to love our neighbor as ourself. When duty calls or danger, be never wanting there. We were just saying that, didn't we? When God commissions us to fight, we dare not flinch from our duty. And God is not impressed if we call ourselves conscientious objectors. I don't believe in confrontation. I don't believe in spiritual warfare. No, I don't believe in fighting. I don't believe in offending people, as Joel Olsen said. No. Sin. We don't deal with sin. We don't go there. I just seek to encourage people. 99% of people are really good people. And every day of Friday. All that sort of thing. Your best love. So, what are people like that? They are conscientious objectors. I'm not going to fight God's enemies. I'm not going to join God's army. I'm not going to fight good fight, I'm not going to be involved in spiritual warfare. I'm a conscientious objector. I believe in passive things. I mean, Satan's probably just misunderstood. He's going to come around to God somewhere along the line anyway. I actually heard someone arguing that, a Christian. He's sure that the devil gets saved before death judgment. So, everyone ends up in heaven. Love wins out. Rob Bell kind of stunk in that. So, you get this universalism that's gone off the chaffs, over the edge. As Christians we have the obligation to love our neighbours, to put our love into action, to care for the persecuted church, to publicise their plight, to mobilise pressure against the persecuted, to rescue those being led away to death in the abortion industry. There's so many things we can and should do and I must say as a Christian, I praise God I did things the easy way. The first time I heard the gospel, I went forward and surrendered my life to Christ and joined a local church. The first time I heard about baptism, I went to baptismal classes and got baptized. The first time I heard about the Great Commission, I committed myself to missions. The first mission representative that passed my church, I joined his mission. I did it the easy way. And when I was studying Operation Wald, praying through an army, and Mozambique was on my heart, when I came out of the army, the first thing I did was prepare. get a motorbike, didn't know how to ride it, but anyway, and headed off across the border with the Jesus film, Gospels, World Missionary Press materials, and New Testaments, and took the Gospel tour, and that's just the beginning. And the point is, it's So good to step out the back. First time I heard of Script Union needing volunteers, volunteered. Off to Somerset West. I was only a Christian for about not even two months. And I was on a team for a holiday mission for SU. And when they need people to put up posters, putting up posters all over the place. We used to put up 600 posters in parlance advertising an evangelistic crusade every three months in the local synagogue. Door to door for EE, volunteer, just volunteer for everything. And I'm glad I did. It's spiritually refreshing and healthy to respond to commands of scripture and needs with positive action. Just putting feet to your faith, getting out there and doing what's got to be done. And it didn't cross my mind that I couldn't do it because I didn't have the means or the money. Got on the road and hitchhiked. Walked. 140,000 kilometers hitchhiking. Many times, nowhere to stay, laid out in a sleeping bag by the side of the road in the park, even when it's raining, got a police station to give her. So the opportunities are there. I remember one person who spoke at one of our camps saying, to get involved in Christian work you need at least $40,000. Now $40,000 back in 1985 is a lot of money, it's a lot of money now. But you need $40,000, you need a four-wheel drive vehicle, you need this, that and the other. I remember saying, did the Apostle Paul have all this when he started? I don't ask stupid questions. But the fact is, honestly, how much do you need to fulfill a Great Commission? You think of Sadhu Hussain, initially to Tibet. He walked into Tibet, he didn't have anything. It's nice to have the kit and the equipment and the petrocards and so on, but we can still do it even without. I know we can. I've gone on missions where I had to leave my motorbike on the way in somebody's home or church's backyard because I'd run out of petrol and just hitchhiked the rest and picked it up on the way back. You don't have to give up. There were times when I sold my spare shoes and sold our spare tyre to get petrol to get back from Malawi and Zambia to get back to South Africa and so on. That was 1991. I'd been going for 10 years at that stage and we had problems that happened. and we were bankrupt, but we kept going. There's always an excuse why you can give up, but as Christians we're meant to make a plan. Colossians 4 verse 17, be sure to finish the task you were given in the Lord's service. Be sure to finish the task you're given in the Lord's service. Why should God speak to me a second time if I haven't listened to what he told me the first time? Why should God give me a second assignment if I haven't finished the first assignment? And so on. It's just a matter of be sure to finish the task you're given in the Lord's service. It's terrible to finish something somewhat and then not complete it and then just keep quiet about it. You know, like a project that's almost finished but none of us knew about it and so It wasn't actually uploaded because it was hidden somewhere in the system, like the French translation of Nouveau Forme, for example. It's been ready for months, but somehow or another nobody knew about it. What's the good of a partially finished, even a 99% finished job? Until it's 100% finished, what's the point? We've got to finish our tasks. Philippians 1 verse 10, according to my earnest expectation hope that nothing shall be ashamed, but with my whole heart, with all boldness, so may Christ be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. Acts 20 verse 24, Paul says, I don't want any of these things to move me. I don't count my life dear, so that I may finish my race with joy. And the ministry which I received from Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God, to finish the race, to fight the good fight of faith, to complete. I've been to many a battle site around Africa. One of the most moving is Isandlwana. And on many of those tombs, you see, I finished the race. I've kept the faith. Verses that show that some of the people there, or their families, plainly had scriptural motivations. Then you come up for others which is a bit flat, like for Queen and Empire, and you think, well the Empire's gone and so has the Queen. Pity he didn't invest in something for eternity. You can learn a lot in cemeteries and on graves. And let's say on everyone's grave you've got two numbers with a dash in between, you know. I'm born 1960, then there's a dash, and then there's a death. They said, the important thing is what you put into that dash between those two dates. What are you putting in that dash? Only one life that will soon be passed, only what's done for Christ will last. Where God guides, he provides. The will of God will never lead you, but the grace of God won't keep you. General Stonewall Jackson said, duty is ours, the consequences are God's. I'm not responsible for all the results. Something's out of my hands, but I am responsible for doing my duty. When I've done my duty, when I've done everything I can, then I can trust God to do what I cannot. But I have no right to trust God for what is within my power. Why should I? A farmer can't lie in bed and say, give us this day our daily bread. He's got to get out there, he's got to plough the fields, he's got to scatter the corn, he's got to irrigate, he's got to de-weed, he's got to whatever else has got to be done and harvest. And then of course the wife's got to do the kneading of the dough and preparing and baking of the bread. When we pray, give us this day our daily bread, that doesn't mean I'm not going to do everything I can. But what can't I do? Well, I can't bring the rain. I can't make the seed to grow. I mean, some things are out of my control. And also, my health, to be able to do this. So I praise God for the sun, for the soil, for the seeds, for all that he's put into nature to enable the seasons, and the health he's given me, and the farm he's entrusted. But I've got to do the work. Jesus is the way, but you must do the walking. He guides us, but we must still put feet to our faith. And so some people have got a kind of Christianity, and I often cringe when I hear, especially charismatic pastors, talking about just let go and let God, just trust God. So often I think many people have got that idea that I can sit back and do absolutely nothing. But that's not faith. Faith is obeying the Bible, doing everything we can do, and trusting God to do what we cannot. A lot of people are, you know, I've spoken to people on the street who say, God didn't come through for me. What do you mean God didn't come through for you? I didn't get that promotion. I didn't win the lottery. Serious. What gospel are you talking about? God didn't come through for you? That's not the gospel. What are they getting here? The gospel of prosperity cult? And so many people think God is the magic genie. Rub him up with enough faith, he pops out and says, your wish my command. It's totally the other way around. God's command should be our will. Whatever happens, conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel. There are horses for those who can ride them. There are ministries for those who are prepared to serve. There's messages for those who can deliver them faithfully. There are missions for those who can complete them. When it comes to talents and opportunities, use it or lose it. Carpe diem. Seize the day. Let's pray. Lord God, we want to thank you for the privilege we have of being your sons and your daughters, your servants and your soldiers. We thank you for the privilege we have of being involved in your work, being part of your army, your family, your church, your mission worldwide. Help us, Lord God, to be more fervent, more diligent, more focused. Guide us, we pray. Help us, Lord God, to encourage and strengthen and support one another so that as a team we can be more effective. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. So, comments, questions? observations any other insights it's just interesting the lazy person according to proverb says there's a line outside you can't go to work there's a line outside always an excuse i mean i've heard it before too i actually heard this one when i got up this morning I turned the door handle, the handle came off my hand, so I knew God was guiding me to stay home. I said, I think God is guiding you to fix the door handle. Serious, I mean... And then you've got these people that, well I laid a fleece and didn't come back, and one fleece was... My first co-worker in the field, on my first mission to Mozambique, his fiancée laid a fleece on whether he should stay on missions or not, and she entered a competition for a golf, PW golf, that if she won it, God wants her to stay on missions. And would you know, if she didn't win the competition and God didn't want her on missions, he left and never got involved again. How's that for a self-serving fleece? And then there's, you know, classic, when you really don't want to do something, you say, Lord, I'm laying a fleece before you. If you really want me to obey what's in the Bible and do what you've clearly told me to do, may seven mice walk into this room and walk seven times around the table, and the seventh time shouts, hallelujah, seven times. Then I will know that you want me to obey your word. Now, doesn't that sound super spiritual? I've laid a fleece before the Lord. And there's some things that are almost that weird out there. There's some pretty... But I think people can get creative at how to sound spiritual at being disobedient. I don't feel led to take part in that outreach. All we can do is pray. Great, we've got a pre-meeting and they can't make the pre-meeting in. Yes, which is probably a lie, that probably does. Yeah, any other observations? Our school badge motto was, Nodanta So Lord. Yes, Nodanta So Lord. Great solidarity abroad. It certainly meant something when we were at school. Which is also why I cringe when there's applause for a worship song performed by church choir or music. Because if it's a worship service, I can understand if it's in a city hall, quite right, appropriate, great performance. But if it's a worship service, if it's under Lord, if I was the musician, I'd cringe. Just like in some churches when I finish preaching and they applaud. I just cringe. This is not being done for you. It's wrong. And it should grieve us. Like Paul Washer. Yes, what did he do? When they clap hands, they said, why are you clapping hands? I'm talking about you. That's classic. say is intentional disobedience, maybe a lack of discipleship. Oftentimes there's so much poor discipleship and, oh, just trust God, let's just not do anything, let's just sit here and trust the Lord. You have to hold them both up and not say, oh, just do this or just do that. Because if you get too out of balance, you actually lend to legalism or you lend to laziness. So I think it's important to hold both of them together. You trust God, you pray, and then you go out and you do everything you can to reach the lost. Do you have that great term, trust and obey, if there's another way? No. where the Lord says to Moses, and through Moses, stand still and see the salvation of God. And I've heard that preached in quite a few times. But the context is, they had to walk a long distance to get there. They've got a lot of other walking to do. And there's a whole lot of things they had to do, like gathering up men in the morning and so on and so forth. But on an occasion, there was an occasion, stand still. and see the salvation of God. They did what they could, now watch God do what they cannot. He's going to open the way to deliver them from Pharaoh's horse. So there are occasions in our life when the right thing to do is be still and know that I'm God. But that's not to say there's not a lot of activity before and after those occasions, but there are times when you've done everything you can, there's nothing else you can do, now just watch what God can do. And those times come, but you can't have that as your... watch Word for every day of the year. Yeah, it's not as if the Red Sea opened and the gods would stand still and continue to watch. Yes. I mean, they had to walk through. Yes. So, I mean, everything in the Bible's got context. You've got to go back to the Bible and say, yes, is this normative? Is this a command for every day? Or is this for a specific occasion? And again, this business of, a lot of people like the business of trust, because if anything goes wrong, it's God's fault. It's not like, it's my responsibility, All I had to do was trust him. That's the problem. But as you say, there's got to be this balance. Because if we've done everything we can, then we can trust God to do what we cannot. But until we've done what we can, we don't have the right to ask for God's intervention to do what is within our power, and in fact is our responsibility by the way of teaching Scripture. Yeah, but also when you're trusting, you also have to be careful that you're not trusting God for what you want, but you're also trusting God for the world, because often, you know, you can like, I'm trusting God for this, and it doesn't happen, and you're like, oh. But actually, it's something that you're trusting that's not really, you're not trusting that God will do the best, or have the best for you, you know. What I think is the best. What I think is the best, yes, you know. With hindsight we'll look back and we'll see that what he chose was the best. But at that time it doesn't always look like that. I remember many times when God really frustrated me and did exactly the opposite of what I wanted. And later I can look back and say, praise God he didn't answer my prayer. My prayer was not intelligent. It was not the right thing for me. But at that time that's all I could see. This is the only possible will of God for me. And we can convince ourselves. That's why it's important to be in an accountability relationship with the local congregation, that we can get good teaching and have other people balance this out. But also, as Herman Hu from Toddfield on hermeneutics, where he says, Bible studies are not meant to be Well, how do you feel? Well, I feel... That's not the question. What does the Bible say? What's the context? Let's get God's word here, not just have a sharing of ignorance session where people... sometimes it's bizarre what you can hear in some so-called Bible studies. It's got nothing to do with what's in the Bible. It's just people sharing weird theories. Well, to me this means... Okay, what did the author mean to say? The connection with the flesh and the spirit. You want to do the right thing, but you don't always do the right thing. Yes. That is the tension. The spirit is willing, flesh is willing. That's why... diligent. duty, responsibility, work is so key. And over the years, we've had quite a few people who have said, you know, traffic jams on. It's so much easier. Can't you just work from home? Well, we just experienced this with lockdown. It is actually hard. There are some things that can be done remotely for a limited time when there's no other alternative. But frequently, when you're in an environment of a team and you've got all the things around and the equipment, you can be so much more productive. And it's amazing how, as one missionary said to me, work expands to fill a time allotted to it. You can sometimes do things in a lot shorter time when there's a crunch. And I've kind of got used to it over the years. Well, especially when you've got to get ready for a mission, and then there's all that preparation for a mission, and really that you're up to date for your responsibilities while you're away. Then you come back and you try to catch up with correspondence, get the reports done. And so you're always on a... Actually, you have to be spiritually healthy to be under pressure. What's gone on with this lockdown and everything going so much more mellow, especially with churches, it's spiritually deadly. It's physically deadly. It's bad on so many levels. It's emotionally deadly. So we've got to get back into a real diligent, good paced, focused, we can't just coast, there's too much coasting. It's got to be far more diligence and we've got to be ready because one of these days they're going to stop the sawing, hacking and drilling upstairs and we're going to have to move in, make the most of, reorientate, host, events, seminars, workshops, education days and so on. And things are going to have to move and we will curse our idleness and waste of opportunities now that we weren't more ready for the increased speed and operations that's coming. And we are behind on a whole lot of things. So a lot is coming. We can curse this government and World Health Organization, and Wuhan, and the Chinese Communist Party, and everyone else who's behind this blasted lockdown. Because they have not just killed tens of millions of people's jobs and works and so on, but they have destroyed the diligence and discipline and healthy habits of so many people. Everything from church, friendships, relationships, activities, outreach, there's so many things that have been put on hold. That's not healthy. And the damage done to our economies and our lives and our spiritual discipleship over this time, and the backsliding and so many things that have happened from it, this is destructive on every level you can look at it. Now of course there's some good things that can come out of even bad things, there's silver lining to every cloud, but still, on the whole, the lockdown is very negative. we have to fight and resist, just like we've got to fight our selfish, sinful flesh every day, especially in the middle of winter, when it's cold, it's dark, and you want to sleep in, but you know, you've got to get up, and you've got to get out there, you've got to do what's got to be done, and so on. And we haven't had as much of it as we'd normally have, because missions, travel, catching early flights, getting across the border, making these things, all that requires us to be a lot more disciplined and lose a lot more sleep. We haven't had as much of the travel as we would normally have or would even want, but the trouble is many of us have gotten some bad habits and we've got to get physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally fitter and more focused as a result. Good. Any other comments, observations? I just know a lot of our elders say that this lockdown period has been more stressful and taxing, and in terms of not being able to meet, so everything's done by Zoom and everything, and I mean, the heart is not to speech over, and obviously there's a lot more counselling needed because of lockdowns. They're actually working harder now than... I think so. I think so, yes. It's just more... Because there's more backsliding, there's more things, there's more counselling happening. Well, I've seen you to address revolutions and communism, because in a sense, I had the thought that, you know, those of us who lived through the 80s, and we reached 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall, well, everyone knew that communism was a complete and utter total catastrophic failure. And now we've got this whole new generation with communism's wonderful future. And so things I haven't taught them for years, to reorganize and so on and come back to this, because they're making a second coming. I mean, there's this comeback of communism, which is insane. It didn't work then, but it will work here. Nobody else has got it right. It destroyed the 20th century. Let's see if it can destroy the 21st century as well. Maybe we should do a homeschool open day on that. Communism. That's a good idea. Communism and revolutions. It's staggering, staggering, staggering. So I've seen the need to do a whole lot and the new lies that are coming out and the garbage that they've come out of to suddenly rise to those occasions and get to them. So yes, things aren't static and when you see the threat that... Do you know one of the first things the revolutionaries did in the French Revolution? replace the National Assembly with government by committee, which is called the Committee for Public Safety, a small committee. What's happening in this country? We're no longer being run by Parliament, we're run by a committee of six. But don't worry, they consult their ancestors, which means they're getting demon dictation. Because, as you know, we can't communicate to the ancestors, but they're demons who all pretend to be. And so, what we've got is this, as Jesus said, there's this block between you cannot reach across. Therefore, when you have people thinking they're talking to ancestors, like my father said that when his mother died he got hold of a clairvoyant to try and communicate to his mother. Well, all the communication he got would have been from demons. Clairvoyance is forbidden in scripture. It's bad. And now we've got a government of six in a committee who are getting guidance from what they think are the ancestors. What can go wrong? But this is the thing, when you move normal checks and balances of a country to government by committee, that's what a Soviet means, basically. A Soviet is a committee. Instead of government by rule of law and checks and balances and so on, legislative, executive, judicial, now you've got government by committee. Let Fauci and all these characters up there decide what the rest of us can do. We get all of our instructions from the Communist body of China, basically. But they know what's best for you. Yes, exactly. They do, you see. So, government by committee is, in fact, the worst and most dangerous type. That's exactly what the French and Soviet revolutions were. So, I see this as very urgent, very serious. We are in a serious, serious, disinterested economic meltdown because of the lockdown. This is a spiritual meltdown. This is a revolutionary threat. For Christians anyway, we should always be in a state of emergency and a state of war because of the fact that emergency is sin and the world is in rebellion to God. And eternities at stake and every day on a normal day of the year, 148,000 people die worldwide of all causes. So the way how they're putting this checklist of corona victims, it's so deceptive because even now, more people die of TB and cancer and murder than COVID-19. But they're so bombarding people. Most people aren't aware of what the statistics of normal deaths are worldwide. And so they're getting dazzled by this and it's a spirit of fear. God's not behind the spirit of fear. This is Satan's way, getting people afraid to even get out and evangelize. It's always wrong. So this is why, in a sense, in a real sense, we've got to work harder, smarter, more Dulgerig, more focused than before, because the situation is not only urgent and important and desperate, but it's an opportunity. The need is, if anything, more great, more urgent right now than normally.