13 December 2019

Foreign intervention: Is it good... ever?

The news about a Chinese spy 
(https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-26/pressure-is-on-to-reign-in-chinese-spying-in-australia/11736530) 
and the possibility that foreign powers were trying to place a person in parliament reminds me of the Manchurian Candidate. Duncan Lewis, the recently retired ASIO director-general, gave an early glimpse of this new-found resolve when he revealed the domestic spy agency was battling "unprecedented levels" of foreign interference.


He said, "Foreign interference laws have been introduced, we have transparency schemes for people acting on behalf of foreign governments to register themselves on, but to date, there haven't been prosecutions of people carrying out foreign interference in Australia.
"Yet every day we're getting more evidence that it is happening."

Over in the USA, the impeachment proceedings continue with daily and nightly tweets and continual coverage of the possibility that Donald Trump invited foreign intervention in the past or in the future 2020 elections from Russia or Ukraine or ... 


Of course, it's the Silly Season here in Australia, with Christmas parties and Black Friday sales and the continual barrage of goods and services. If Santa and David Jones didn't exist, what would we do with this holiday time? The real story is not about either St Nick or department stores, but a Jewish man in Bethlehem.  


Wait a minute, what does a Jew from 2,000 years ago in a land far, far away have to do with us? Isn't that foreign intervention? Ah, the Bible makes two things very clear. 


1) God so loved the world which He created, that He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. 


2) The earth is the Lord's and the fullness of it. So it's not really a foreign intervention; the world is His. He's got the whole world in His hands. 


Christmas is about the birth of Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah, foretold long before GF Handel wrote his oratorio. Foretold by Jewish prophets like Isaiah and Micah, and recorded in the Jewish Scriptures, the Tenach. That may seem foreign to you, but it's the most native reality for those of us who have found "Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."


Join with us and the angels and the shepherds, and those massive choirs singing "Hallelujah" for the kingdoms of this world have become "The Kingdom of our Lord and of His Messiah!"


Merry Messiah-mas!



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