“Well, maybe he jolly well should be worried about climate change, because look what it’s doing to his beloved humans and the lovely, good creation he made for us. Doesn’t he care that we are perishing?” 

Oh dear, that’s a bit blunt, but that last part was actually said to Jesus, and to his face too, when his terrified disciples had shaken him awake in  the middle of a ferocious storm, with waves crashing over the gunnels of their boat and filling it up with copious amounts of Galilee lake water. 

Jesus, meanwhile, had been snoozing on a cushion at the back of the boat. But now that he was awake, having been shaken from his sleep by his terrified disciples, what had he got to say now, eh? Because the wind was still howling, the boat was being rocked to near tipping point, and the lake water was up to their kneecaps. How much more of a bashing could they take before they were all tossed into the raging waves? The disciples yelled at Jesus in a most accusatory fashion, then, “Don’t you care if we drown?’ (Mark 4:38).  

So, was Jesus worried too? Did he cling to the mast – if, that is, there was  any clinging room left not yet taken by the disciples? Or did he cry out, “Grab the oars, men, and head her into the wind, it’s the only way we’ll survive this”? Or did he look a bit flummoxed himself, that he’d got them into this situation in the first place, having set sail so late in the day (verse 35)? 

Actually, what he did do was stand up, with no mention of hanging onto the mast, or the gunnels, or to a disciple. And once he was up he yelled out, “Shut up, be quiet, be still.” And it soon became obvious who or what he was yelling at because the wind immediately stopped howling, and the waves became a gentle whimper. And then he turned to his disciples – a sight to see, I imagine, with their eyeballs as big as saucers and their jaws bouncing off the boat deck – and in the silence, all but for the gentle lapping of water at their feet, he asked them, “How come you chaps are so frightened? Haven’t you figured out who I am yet?”

Well, no they hadn’t, because with knees still knocking they were huddled together whispering to each other, “Who is this guy, that even the wind and waves obey him?” 

And, what’s more, he hadn’t been worried one bit by the wind and waves either. A storm coming at them out of the blue – or in our terms today, climate change hitting the headlines and scaring the liver out of us – wasn’t, and isn’t, a worry to God. He could stop whatever’s terrifying us in a flash shorter than a flash of lightning. He’s God. He made the planet. He made the weather systems. And now we know from Jesus that he can stop damaging weather systems in their tracks if we’re frightened.

So why doesn’t he do it today, then, as well?

It was so sad listening to two girls, one around twelve years old and the other a 24 year old Cambridge university graduate, both frantic with fear about their future and what’s going to happen because of climate change. So was a young boy when he arrived home from school, because they’d been taught that day we’ll all be under water in 15 years because of rising sea levels. 

So what could we say from Scripture to ease their fear? Or do we as Christians believe the end is near as well? Well, why not, when verses like 1 Peter 4:7 (“the end is at hand”) and Romans 13:11 (“now is our salvation nearer”) have stirred Christians through the ages to wondering “Is God about to wrap things up soon?” – and especially in times of war when evil cares nothing for the planet or people. 

“A good war might be just what we need, though,” a young man told me, “it would knock the population down and give us breathing space for a while.” I can’t blame him for thinking that way because he’s got a lot of life to live yet, and it doesn’t look good for him the way things are. That being the case, wouldn’t it be better, then, if God did wrap things up soon, got this agony over with, cleaned out the lunatics and started again with Christ in charge? God could certainly do that, so what’s he waiting for?

But “bear in mind,” Peter writes, “that our Lord’s patience means salvation,” 2 Peter 3:15. God’s focus is on saving people, not getting rid of them. “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance,” verse 9. For how long will he wait, though? Because in the mess we’re in we can’t last much longer, surely. 

But, Peter replies, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness,” verse 9. God’s definition of slow has nothing to do with time. It has everything to do with “keeping his promise.” And what is that promise? It’s to make a “home of righteousness” for us, verse 13. He’s building a world for us that won’t have the problems our world has. 

How? By transforming us. By making human beings “spotless, blameless and at peace with him,” verse 14. Think what the Earth would be like if everyone was like that. Well, that’s exactly what God is patiently putting together for us, so we’ll have a home that will last us forever.

And he’s not being slow about it, either. According to Peter, God’s smack on target because he keeps his promises. That perfect home we all hope for one day is in the works.…

Flu killed around 50 million people between March 1918 and June 1920. Half the world’s population was infected, including people in the Arctic. The Spanish flu, as it was called, has been described as “the greatest medical holocaust in history,” and it’s been popping up in mild and lethal form ever since. In its lethal form it causes a massive overreaction in the immune system, among healthy people especially, and that’s what makes it so deadly. 

To add to our worries, there’s a strong hint in Romans 8:20-21 that God made lethal viruses on purpose. “For the creation was made subject to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in the hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay.”

First of all, God made us “subject to frustration” – and how true that has proved to be, because we cannot stop ourselves dying. How frustrating. But God also put us in “bondage to decay,” where we cannot stop ourselves falling apart before we die either. No matter how hard we try we cannot reverse the ageing process, or eradicate all the diseases that kill us. We can’t even stop flu. It remains a constant threat, and if it doesn’t burst into pandemic proportions this year, it’s a ticking time bomb for the future. 

But why would God do such a thing to us? 

Paul answers that in verse 21 – it’s “in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” What we long for and hope for – a world free of death and disease – will happen one day. But before it happens there’s a lesson to be learnt – that we are children of God, not God. 

It’s an important lesson, because our destiny, Paul writes, is to live as God’s children in his loving care and freedom forever, but how will that ever happen if we think and act as if WE are God and masters of our destiny?

So God creates a world where it becomes obvious we are NOT masters of our destiny. He creates a flu virus that can kill us, and no matter what we throw at it we cannot kill it off. It simply mutates and pops up in some other form, to get the point across to our thick, resisting heads that we’re not God. God is God, and he proves it by making us subject to death and disease – whether we like it or not, BUT always “in the hope that” we STOP thinking we’re God and we’re happy being his children instead.

The world seems to be dividing up into two camps – those with power and wealth who want to control our every thought, word, act, and movement, and those who wish to be free to choose for themselves what they think, say and do, and where they go, without being pressured by outside forces against their will. 

So what does Scripture favour – freedom or control? Well, it presents a case for both of them, and even in the same verse, like Romans 8:9, where Paul writes, “You are no longer ruled by your desires, but by God’s Spirit who lives in you.” On the one hand, then, freedom from the controlling force of our desires, but on the other hand becoming subject to the power of God’s Spirit. Likewise Romans 6:22 – on the one hand “freed from sin,” but on the other “enslaved to God.” 

So there’s both freedom and control – or “enslavement,” as Paul calls it.  But these verses also sound like we’re always under the control, or rule, or influence, of one power or another – by either sin or the Spirit. Our choices are very much decided, therefore, by which power is at work in us the most. 

Paul gave an example from his own life too, in Romans 7, that on the one hand the driving force in his mind was being “a slave to God’s law,” but there was this other “law at work” in him that made him “a slave to the law of sin.” Either way, his life was determined by which power was controlling him at the time.   

So, actually everything in our lives is a type of slavery. Slavery, first of all, to being “ruled by the selfish desires of our bodies and minds,” Ephesians 2:3, but then later on, when “our minds are set on what the Spirit desires,” Romans 8:5.

So where’s freedom come in? If our lives are dictated by either our selfish desires or the Spirit’s desires, when can we ever choose for ourselves what to think, say, and do? 

But we do choose. It’s totally within our free will and choice as to which power we wish to be driven by. It’s actually the first time in our lives we’ve had a choice at all, because when our natural desires controlled us we had no choice. But now we can set our minds on what the Spirit desires as well. We can, as Paul writes in Galatians 6:8, “sow to please our sinful nature,” or “sow to please the Spirit.” Our choice. And what motivates our choice? The outcome of it. And experience, as well as Scripture, tells us what that is. 

So how does this apply to those who wish to control us with their freedom destroying dictates, agendas, and ideologies? We have a choice. We can let the thoughts, words and actions of our own nature dictate (and best of luck with that), or dive into Scripture for the Spirit’s thoughts, the outcome of which is certain, because it “always works for good,” Romans 8:28. 

In the book of Esther there is no mention of God. Which seems odd, because magical things happened, but God isn’t given credit for any of them. He doesn’t seek any credit either, which is a bit disturbing because Esther was living in a mad, mad world, and yet God didn’t seem to be involved – or want to be seen to be involved – at all. 

So is that the same for us today? Because here we are in a mad, mad world too, and God doesn’t seem to be involved in our world either. At least not visibly or obviously. So why would he do that? Why appear to be absent in a world where evil is rampant, and we need his intervention more than ever?

But look what happened to Esther. She’s a Jewish lass, growing up in a non-Jewish Persian culture, but amazingly ends up becoming its queen. Her Persian king hubby, who knows nothing of her Jewish background, appoints Haman, an anti-Semitic racist, to be his personal political advisor, a position so high and mighty that all must kneel in his presence. But Esther’s uncle Mordecai refuses to kneel, which blows a fuse in Haman’s touchy ego, and since he knew Mordecai was a Jew he manages to persuade the king to issue a death sentence on all Jews.

So where was God in all this? Well, keep reading, because amazing things happen. Mordecai appeals to Esther to go to the king to plead for their people, so she plans a banquet for the king and Haman to make her request. But the night before the banquet the king can’t sleep, so he has the records of his reign brought to him, in which he discovers that Mordecai had saved his life by exposing an assassination plot. 

And who could have guessed what happened next? The king orders Haman to publicly honour Mordecai by personally parading him through the city streets, with Mordecai dressed in the king’s royal robes. 

At the banquet the following day, Esther then makes her request to the king to spare her people because, she says, some awful person had been plotting to annihilate them. The king furiously demands who the blaggard is, and it’s Haman of course, and, again – who could have guessed it – Haman ends up being hanged on the gallows he’d had built for Mordecai. 

Every step of her story is amazing, from becoming a Persian queen as a non-royal Jewess, to revealing to her hubby king that actually she was Jewish, to being allowed by the king to make a plea for her fellow Jews, to Mordecai being honoured because the king couldn’t sleep, to Haman and his evil cunning being exposed, and all the enemies of the Jews being hunted down and killed by the king’s decree. 

Could the same thing happen in our world, therefore, when things are looking desperate for us too, as the lunacy virus takes hold in the minds of those infatuated with power, wealth, and self-advancement? 

Well, how much more obvious could it be that God was present in Esther’s mad, mad world? All those amazing coincidences leading up to a deadly enemy being exposed. It took a while for the evil to be exposed and destroyed, but it happened, so please, God, give me the eyes to see you being just as present in our world, exposing evil and destroying it, and to keep on trusting if at present it doesn’t seem like you’re involved at all.  

That’s a daft question because why does God have Christians preaching good news if he doesn’t want the world to get better? And why have Jesus crying out, “The time has come, the Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news,” Mark 1:15, if the Kingdom of God wasn’t near, and there wasn’t any good news to believe?

So, of course God wants the world to get better. And he demonstrated his wish with convincing clarity in Jesus making people’s lives better when he was here. Jesus healed all those who looked to him for healing, he sent demons packing, and his teaching stunned people into realizing there had to be another world order in operation that was so much better. And crowds followed him wherever he went, because they wanted to hear more.  

The world getting better was predicted in the Old Testament too, and it was written down so people could see it happening when it happened. And what was written was amazing, because it spoke of a great leader setting up a new world order, a grand reset that would guarantee never-ending peace. So when that leader came, get on board, because things were about to get better.

It was a bit of a shock, though, when it turned out that a carpenter’s son of humble origin was that great leader. But it gradually became obvious that he was the one predicted, by how much better people’s lives became wherever he went. And what he said to those who followed him was amazing too, because after a life of doing amazing miracles that changed people’s lives for the better he said, “You can now do what I’ve been doing, and even greater things after I’m gone.” 

Meaning there are people in existence right now who are demonstrating God making this world better. How? By living what Jesus taught and showing what happens to them. Or as Jesus put it in Matthew 5:16, “let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” 

So God isn’t hiding what he’s up to, he has people “shining” what he’s doing by the kind of people they are and what they do. They’re not treading water waiting to be whisked up to heaven one day, they’re clued in to Jesus saying God’s kingdom is “near,” that God’s new world order is happening right here and right now. Meaning we can be part of the action now, making this planet home of ours into what God had in mind when he created it, and that he perfectly equipped us for too.  

The trend today is to be compassionate and tolerant to everyone, no matter how bizarre a person identifies as, or how criminal a person’s behaviour is, or how rude, demanding and violent people become if we don’t accommodate, celebrate, affirm and even applaud their versions of truth, or their sexual fantasies, or their fragile feelings.   

But wasn’t Jesus compassionate? Yes: “When he saw the crowds, he was moved with compassion for them,” Matthew 9:36, “because they were distressed and dejected, like sheep having no shepherd.” The Greek word for compassion here is esplanchnisthē – which, according to Charles Spurgeon was a made up word, because they couldn’t find a word “in the whole Greek language that suited their purpose, and therefore they had to make one.”

Because what they saw in Jesus was extraordinary. To quote Spurgeon again, “those who watched him closely perceived that his internal agitation was very great, his emotions were very deep, and then his face betrayed it, his eyes gushed like founts with tears, and you saw that his big heart was ready to burst with pity for the sorrow upon which his eyes were gazing. He was moved with compassion. His whole nature was agitated with commiseration for the sufferers before him.”

Or as Matthew put it, Jesus saw people as “sheep without a shepherd” – a vivid picture – because domesticated sheep, uncared for, are pathetic creatures. Left alone they die easily from simple things like fright, bloating, being too wet, or even just being upside down. They suffer easily when uncared for as well, because their wool keeps on growing until it becomes heavy, dirty and full of parasites, and their hoofs grow to the point they cannot walk. 

Sheep are stupid too; they get their heads stuck in things (in one case, a kettle), and they’re easily defeated too, like the sheep perched on top of a tree stump with all four feet off the ground, crying in distress rather than trying to find a way off. And why was it on the stump in the first place? I’ve read many stories about sheep, and they all say the same thing, that sheep are not easy to look after. But they stir deep feelings in some people, who are willing to care for them in all weathers, night and day, and it shatters them to lose a lamb to sickness or predators, or a ewe that dies giving birth.

So there’s our picture of how Jesus views us. He loves us, and it really hits him in the gut (the meaning of the root word for compassion in Matthew 9:36) when we’re struggling because of the mess this world has made of us. His heartfelt desire is to patch us up, heal our wounds, and flourish in his care. 

But would he extend that same heartfelt desire to weirdos and degenerates? To say “No, he wouldn’t” would, according to Paul in Romans 2:4, be “showing contempt for the riches of God’s kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that his kindness leads you toward repentance.” 

So, of course Jesus has compassion for them, but notice what the end game of his compassion is. It’s not affirming, accommodating or celebrating their weirdness and stupidity; it’s doing whatever gets them to repent. It’s still compassion, because it hits Jesus in the gut seeing how lost and damaged they are, but it’s compassion that also exposes their nonsense to wake them up and admit how wrong they’ve been, so they stop being weird and stupid. 

It was in a tiny bakery shop that a large red plaque with “Lest We Forget” written on it caught my attention. It brought back memories of the stories my Dad told of being shot down, captured, confined in a prisoner of war camp, escaping, being caught and force marched across Germany as the Allies pressed in, on rations of only one potato a day. 

He retold his stories to his youngest grandson too, so that’s two generations in our family that won’t forget what he went through. But is that what “Lest we forget” is for, to never forget those brave souls who gave up their careers, dreams, families, mental health and even their lives to protect us from tyrants? 

It’s become that way, yes, but that wasn’t what it was for originally. It was first used in a poem by Rudyard Kipling for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, that began with the line, “God of our fathers, known of old,” so it was actually a direct appeal to God – the appeal being, “Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, lest we forget – lest we forget.”  

But not forget what? Well the rest of the poem makes that clear, that no matter how much power a nation has, or how great its military might, nothing lasts forever. And we seem to forget that, which is why Kipling ends his poem with, “For frantic boast and foolish word – thy mercy on thy people, Lord.”     

Because the “frantic boasting” and “foolish words” never end, do they? Presidents and Prime Ministers bang lecterns, shout with blazing eyes what they will do to anyone who dares threaten them – including their own people. They love boasting of their power, and become so infatuated with it they feel they can say anything, no matter how mad, callous, hypocritical or brazen lying it is. They utter words so dumb and foolish that they lose all respect, but don’t even notice it. And nor do many of their people, who just soak up their nonsense and vote for them anyway. No wonder Kipling begged God for mercy. 

But not in a negative sense, because despite the endless frantic boasting and stupid nonsense spouted by our leaders that pit nation against nation, and even family members against each other, Kipling remembers that God’s mercy is forever too. 

And without God’s mercy where would we be? He lets us primp and posture with our inflated egos, allows us to strut and threaten and head for yet another cliff, charging at its edge at full speed without even blinking – but for some incredible reason we’re still here, aren’t we? The planet is still intact. Madmen (and mad women) still rule us, but in every one of their lives their balloon of pride finally bursts, and their reign of nuttiness ends. Again and again, God only lets us go so far. 

Which is what the “Lest we forget” plaque in that little bakery shop reminded me of, that “The Lord God of hosts is with us yet.” Despite every madness we’ve done to the planet and to each other, he hasn’t given up on us, has he?  

We’re sort of stuck because the Father, whose children we are, “causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous,” Matthew 5:45. And Jesus then says in verse 48: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” 

Which means, as Jesus points out in verse 44, that we are to “love our enemies” just as the Father loves them. And Jesus lived that way too, when asking the Father to forgive the evil, mad, and dangerous people who were instrumental in his death, “for they do not know what they are doing,” Luke 23:34. 

But does that mean we treat everyone with love, compassion and forgiveness, no matter how monstrous or hideous they are? 

Well, God set the boundaries on how we deal with people in John 3:17. Simply put, he’s not into condemning, he’s into saving. Which gives us a clue on how we love our enemies: our focus is not on wishing eternal death on them, it’s hoping that in some way they will wake up to their awfulness and want to put it behind them forever. 

For example: some of the most evil, mad, and dangerous people on the planet right now are those who want to sexually mutilate young children and teenagers through surgery to supposedly change their gender. Does God still cause the sun to rise on them and send rain on them? Yes. So he doesn’t condemn them, does he? BUT, he also sent Jesus to save them. 

Our hope, therefore, is “that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will,” 2 Timothy 2:25-26. 

This was Peter’s hope too, when he told Simon the sorcerer to “pray that the treachery of your heart may be forgiven you” in Acts 8:22. That’s because, Simon, “God is not mocked,” Galatians 6:7. He makes sure that “we reap what we sow.” We get what we deserve. We are held accountable for what we do. Paul put it bluntly in Romans 2:9, that “There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil.” And Jesus said of such people, “How will you escape being condemned to hell?” Matthew 23:33. So whatever one thinks hell is, it’s guaranteed for people with “stubborn and unrepentant hearts,” Romans 2:5.

But what if these stubborn, unrepentant, evil, mad, and dangerous people realize what they’ve done is “evil in God’s sight,” Psalm 51:4, like King David did? And again, like David, they beg God for the chance to “teach transgressors your ways, (so that) sinners will turn back to you,” verse 13? It happened to Saul the psychopath, who “was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief,” 1 Timothy 1:13, who then became Paul the apostle as evidence of “God’s unlimited patience,” verse 16. And how many sinners did Paul then turn back to God? 

So amazing things can happen to evil, mad, and dangerous people, because God is God and he can get through to the worst of them – and maybe through how we deal with them too. We love ‘em – BUT – we also wish upon them whatever it takes to wake them up.    

“Let us pray,” the minister mumbled into the microphone. Here we go, I thought, another tired old prayer on Remembrance Day. 

But this prayer was different.

“Great Father of us all,” the minister began, his voice rising, “We, your suffering children, come to you in our embarrassment and shame to say how sorry we are for all the death and misery you’ve had to witness for yet another horribly violent year. And here we are on Remembrance Day, sorry yet again that we have to put you through the same old routine: we march, we cry and we pray, and we get terribly serious about the horrors of war and we seek your comfort for the bereaved – but nothing changes. Year after year it’s the same; we never bring you good news, only bad.”

“We think of you shaking your head at our blindness, because you told us in your word how wars happen, but do we see it? You’ve given us warning and wisdom like a good Father should, but do we heed it? You told us what to do when evil threatens, but have we listened? You told us of powers much greater than ours we can trust in, but have we believed you? You told us you sent your Son to bring us peace, but are we interested? So now you have to watch us shuffle off home for another year, and we’re none the wiser, as usual. And we’ll be back at this time next year too, with more sad stories to tell you of those who died in wars, and our helplessness in protecting the innocent – as if you haven’t heard enough of such stories already.”

“What must it be like to be a Father to children like us? Could we ask you, therefore, to do something for us, that would bring some joy to this day instead? Could you give us the sense this year to go home and read what you wrote about peace and for you, then, to help us understand and believe it, so that next year we can come to you with different stories, of the courage you gave us to try your way, and how surprised we were by its success.”

“And could you really bless those who are seeking peace your way? Those  who, this coming year, take up your offer and your challenge to be living proof now of your promise that peace will reign on this amazing planet you created.”

“In conclusion, we humbly seek your forgiveness and boldly seek your power, dear Father, because we, your struggling children, are in desperate need of help.”