The Shaking of the Nations

On Dec 11th 2008, 80 Christian leaders in the UK, from most branches of the church, from both Houses of Parliament, business and education met in the House of the Lords to consider the moral and spiritual implications of the financial crisis.

Rev. Dr. Clifford Hill, a man of God’s word spoke here on the significance of the nations of the world being shaken. It is an important and rare message for today. Is God still in control? Does he still intervene?

He says, “The speed with which the financial crisis has developed is amazing and the extent to which has already reached into the hearts of nation after nation. There are probably no nation that are totally secured and isolated from the effects of this crisis. It is the rich and the most powerful nations who are at greatest risks whose wealth and affluent lifestyle are almost threatened.”

On the 28th of February 2009, leaders from the fields of education, church, government, media, business, health and community are gathering together for a special day of prayer in Westminster to wait on God because of the troubled state of the United Kingdom. Its a great privilege for Wolf and me to participate in it. Please pray along wherever you are that God will give to his church his clear mandate and instructions.

Click here for the audio recording of the main talk by Rev. Dr. Clifford Hill.

You Mean, A Debt Free Nation?

An excerpt from “Starfish Manifesto” By Wolf:

…When God created Adam and Eve, he did not put them into a vacuum, but placed them into a world that was created and completed for them. It was a “very good world,” with clean water, rivers, gardens, fruits, seeds, animals, a world that was in an incredible balance with God, mankind and itself. When sin destroyed this balance and open communication, enmity came into the world, strife and war not only between man and God, but between mankind itself, mankind and animals, and even among the animals themselves. God started a long road to reconciliation and, in my opinion, lovingly and strategically planned salvation history and its every step.

As the children of Noah’s sons Ham, Seth and Japheth became many nations and the first societies emerged, God chose in Abraham and his heirs the people of Israel to make them a model nation, a blessing and light to the world, so that all other nations in a Godless darkness could watch and see how it is when people live in the light again, in communion with their God. This also included God’s master plan for the corporate, the political set-up of society and not only a salvation plan for individuals. This is why God laid down strikingly simple yet effective political principles, intended for his people to flourish and become all he created them to be. Landa Cope wrote a book calling these principles “The Old Testament Template”. After God liberated Israel out of Egypt, he gave them the Ten Commandments, a foundational Magna Charta regulating the core essentials of a life with God and each other, and therefore provided the very foundation for a civil society.

But that was not all. God went on to establish an entire complex political system, complete with principles that included an open interface and the “traffic laws” between God and mankind (the religious system), the setting down of rules of respect for elders, families, clans, and tribes (the societal system), and establishing principles of learning and teaching (the educational system), simple and transparent tax, hereditary, and debt-cancelling laws (the financial system), clear laws on what is right and wrong, including appropriate penalties and principles of applied forgiveness, complete with legislative, executive, and judiciary institutions (the legal system), and even a system of sleeping and waking, working and celebrating, maintaining a healthy rhythm in life (the life-balance system). In this entire spectrum of society, we can clearly state: God did good to man, in every holistic aspect of the word…

Andrew Jones has published a fascinating speech of Prof. Prabhu Guptara on our current “global culture of debt”. A must read.

More Than A Global Economic crisis

If we can accept the fact that the shaking that is happening in the finance world is of the Lord’s doing to achieve his purpose, then we can stand firm because our hope is in God and not in Mammon. Now you may think that I can say this easily because I am not affected by it. To tell you the truth, God pays what he orders. We go back again and again to take his orders, discern it prayerfully and do only that he orders without expecting any return on investment. Is it challenging? Absolutely! And God is teaching us everyday to wait on him for our DAILY (literally) bread. So, no it is not easy to live by daily wage and unpaid wages. Whether or not paid, we want to stay committed to our call and my confidence and hope in God has deepened ever since.

I had a bad sleep last night. Why? Because I was fighting with God, about you and many others that are in similar situation like you. Once in a while we receive a kind of SOS mail from people. They say: I am at the cross roads, I am about to hit the bottom, would you kindly ask the Lord for a prophetic word.

My main argument with God was, why should I pray for you? I don’t even know you, you never contacted us when things were going good for you. But only when crisis strikes, people realize that they have been walking so far away from God that they cannot for themselves hear his voice any more. They now need someone else whose walk is closer to God than themselves to recommend them to him. Honestly,this is not how any Christian should behave. I said to God, “no, I am not a people’s servant to jump when they need me, and forget that I exist the rest of the time. I want to be your servant and I will only jump to my feet for you, not for any man. I am your servant and no one else’s.” This was my wrestling with God in the night.

For the LORD your God is a merciful God. Mercy triumphs over judgment! So guess who won the argument.

Then the Lord brought to my mind two examples.

Watch the fire fighters. When the bell rings, within seconds they are ready to move. They have gone through tough training for years just for that bell to ring. They know what they should do, what they don’t know is the current condition of the situation where they are going to go. They don’t know if the mission will be successful or not until they have engaged with it themselves.

Watch the soldiers. When the siren sounds, they are ready, even in the middle of their deep sleep, to be disposed to face the enemies. The general gives them a command, off they go. The general does not give them a guarantee to return to the base alive. Again, they were trained hard to live for this moment.

God had given us good years the last few decades. Did we train ourselves to trust God in those good years or did we rather put our trust in those good years than in God? Did we learn to do what he desires in those good years or did we give too much attention to our own selfish desires? The fire fighters and the soldiers have committed their lives by oath to stay loyal to the sound of the bell. Have we covenanted with God to stay loyal to his decrees?

How do we escape the tongues of consuming fire and return to the arms of everlasting love? Thank God for all the goodness he has showered over you all these years. If you have made anything else your trust than God then repent of it. Learn to do what he desires and shun away from your selfish desires. He is looking in you for a person that desires to do his will. Again repent of all your own negligence and ignorance of God’s will in your life. And wait on God, without losing hope. I pray that God will not delay.

The Bible is full of stories of how the Israelites forgot God and followed false gods when days were good, then God struck them with war, sickness, dryness… as a punishment for forgetting his laws, his commands, then they would cry out (only when crisis hit them) again God in his mercy would reach out to them and save them, they did fine until they followed their own heart and showed loyalty to false gods, God struck them again and the cycle goes on. How different is it with us who believe that we are God’s children and are his body? Who are we really following? Who do we really trust? Why would we fall when the world shakes? Aren’t we just in this world but not of this world?

This is not just an economic crisis; its a hearing crisis. Because if we don’t have ears, we don’t hear either.

Am 8:12: Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.

May God think of us and be quick to redeem us from our troubles.