Monday PrayerCast 18th April 2022
News and Prayer Update.
It’s Monday morning, 18th April 2022, this is our weekly News and Prayer Update from NI with a Christian perspective. Let’s begin with…
The On-going Sexualisation of Children.
And I mean tiny children. I’ve already reported on the leaked video conference at Disney, where the executives openly discussed the unnatural and perverse sexual agendas that form the policy of their company. But closer to home, the so-called ‘Family Sex Show’ is currently touring English theatres. Its aim is to promote sexual pleasure to children and young people.
Listen to the PODCAST HERE
https://embed.acast.com/$/625b1ec1fa71dd0012e45d50/monday-prayercast-18th-april-2022
This show is marketed at children as young as five and features actors stripping naked and sexually explicit performances of an adult nature. Children are introduced to concepts of masturbation, gender, boundaries and consent. Now, small children cannot attend a theatre alone – an adult must agree to their attendance and must take them along. There are parents who are subjecting their tiny kids to the work of these perverts. And who would want to ‘act’ in a pornographic production aimed at corrupting primary school children, barely old enough to tie their own laces. Why can’t children just be children?
Christians must be aware of these influences in society, and pray for children, for families and for parents.
There’s a petition on CitizenGo which you might like to sign: https://citizengo.org/en-gb/fm/207302-scrap-family-sex-show
Covid Lockdowns.
Disturbingly, the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, speaking recently in an interview with MPs Esther McVey and Philip Davies, said that future lockdowns cannot be ruled out in the UK. That contrasts greatly with what he was saying earlier, when he ruled out another lockdown – but then party-gate was in full swing at the time, – and Ukraine has seemingly taken the heat out of that debacle. It’s not Johnson’s first major policy U-Turn, but before he implements any such strategy, perhaps he should take a look at what’s been happening over in Shanghai, in the People’s Republic of China, where, at the time of writing, around a week ago, the city was entering its third week of a strict lockdown. People have been locked in multi-storey apartment buildings, food for many is running out, and violence is threatening. Listen to this 30 second sound clip…
That was the sound of the streets of Shanghai after dark, people screaming in despair from the windows of their tiny apartments. They can’t leave for fear of being fined, for China is a heavily regulated totalitarian society. Their surveillance culture, their social credit system of policing, their central bank digital currency mitigates against any mass protest. Even standing on your apartment balcony without a mask results in a fine, as the facial recognition technology marks down your credit, and the fine is deducted from your digital wallet. Pray for the people of China, and watch out for growing signs of totalitarianism in our own western societies. Click the links and read for yourself.
https://news.sky.com/video/covid-19-looting-and-unrest-in-shanghai-amid-strict-lockdown-12587852
https://nhglobalpartners.com/china-social-credit-system-explained/
https://www.heritage.org/technology/commentary/sleepwalking-china-style-social-credit-system
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/we-need-to-act-now-to-block-britain-s-social-credit-system
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/534342-qr-code-social-credit-system/
China is the blueprint for UK’s Digital currency idea: https://thecurrencyanalytics.com/altcoins/governments-can-decide-how-cbdcs-should-be-spend-using-programmable-technology-38875.php
Staying with Our National Leaders.
Boris Johnson, the UK PM and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, have been fined by the Metropolitan Police, for breaches of the COVID Regulations. Apparently they held a birthday party for Johnson during the National lockdown, which Johnson and his government had imposed on all of this. Much is being made of his hypocrisy, and the opposition, as you would expect, is calling for his opposition. What do you think? Should the PM resign over this? Personally I’m apathetic about it. I don’t care whether he resigns or not, for I expect that whoever replaces him will be no better, and will be no more morally responsible. Johnson’s crime, in my opinion, was not just breaking his own lockdown, – it was imposing the lockdown in the first place. It was the crime of closing doctors’s surgeries, closing churches, limiting access to hospitals, imposing the dehumanising masks, depriving children of their schooling and social contacts, leaving old people to die alone in nursing homes, the rate of undiagnosed heart disease and cancers… lockdown was immoral, and a national crime imposed upon millions of people, and all for an illness with a 98% survival rate.
The Christian response to all of this, the lying, the deceit, the immorality of our leaders, is to pray for them. The Apostle Paul lived under a despicable system of government, and in the last years of his life, he lived under Caesar Nero, – utterly immoral and merciless, a man who hated Christianity, hated Christ and hated Christians. Yet in 1st Timothy 2:2, Paul wrote to Timothy, “Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.”
Universal Basic Income
I suppose this next item is also related to the COVID Lockdowns. Last week I mentioned that some of the politicians standing in our local elections were supporting a trial of a Universal Basic Income, a sort of social credit system, where everyone, regardless of need, and non-means tested, will receive a payment from the state. Some might say it was trialled already, in the form of the Furlough payments, made by the state during 2020, – payments made for people to stay at home from work, – payments that equalled around 80% of a persons salary. It’s a utopian dream, the hope that if everyone has something, no one will be hungry. But one of the acknowledged difficulties with this policy is that it will encourage people who don’t want to work to be content with the state largesse, while the burden of taxes needed to pay the UBI rests upon the responsible, hard working members of society. Is there a biblical theology of work? Of course there is. When God created Adam, he placed him in the garden of Eden to tend it and to make it productive and gave him the task if classifying and naming the wildlife. Adam was a farmer, a grower, a botanist and a zoologist. What a clever man! Work was a creation ordinance, introduced into the life of mankind, before the fall.
In the NT, Paul deals with it too. Feckless idlers were discouraged as being a drain on resources. There were people in Thessalonica who didn’t want to work, who wanted to depend on others for their income, while spending their time in idle gossip. Paul had never been like that. He was a working man, even when he was involved in a heavily committed preaching and teaching ministry. So he wrote to the local church, in 2 Thess 3:7 For you yourselves know how you ought to follow us, for we were not disorderly among you; 8 nor did we eat anyone’s bread [b]free of charge, but worked with labour and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, 9 not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us. 10 For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. 11 For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies. Work is honourable and is good and is commanded by God.
I can hear the liberals crying, “how heartless you are… there are people who can’t work because of disability or sickness…”. Of course, but in this country we already have a safety net for these people, a Universal Credit system, that should pick up those difficult cases and provide help. The UBI is unnecessary, unworkable, financially unsustainable, and probably an open door for socialists to draw us even further towards a controlled, communist style society, where you depend on the state for everything, and where the state can withdraw support if you are a dissident, a conscientious objector, or someone who believes that society should be structured on Christian principles. In Canada there is a serious discussion taking place linking a UBI with COVID Vaccine acceptance. Click the link on the episode notes to find a list of Northern Ireland election candidates who are supporting this dangerous socioeconomic experiment.
https://www.ubilabnetwork.org/pledge-for-ubi-in-northern-ireland
Todays Grace Gem is from Octavius Winslow:-
The visible church has been celebrating the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, in the season called easter. Of course the proper time to remember his atoning death and resurrection is around the Lord’s Table, and we do that as often as we meet in that manner…
Winslow wrote: “Oh, there is no single truth which embodies and conveys so much blessing to the believer as his Lord’s resurrection. Trace its sanctifying tendency: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” To be sensible of this amazing power in the soul is to be born again- to be raised from the grave of corruption- to live on earth a heavenly, a resurrection-life- to have the heart daily ascending in the sweet incense of love, and prayer, and praise, where its risen Treasure is.”
Find more inspirational quotes on Gracegems.org.
Let’s pray…
Heavenly Father, thank you for this short opportunity to consider some of the concerns that we have as Christians. We pray for our children, those little boys and girls who are being influenced in our schools and even in their homes, and we know that there are dark forces who seek to sexualise them, to corrupt their tender hearts while they are still young. Please protect our children we pray, from those who want to harm their little minds and souls. Lord we are concerned at the way politicians and leaders are dealing with their civic populations all over this world. We see what is happening in China, and we pray for those who are living there. We ask you that our leaders would seek your face, to govern in a godly manner. And we thank you for Jesus, God’s only Son, who died on the cross for sinners, and who rose again on the third day…
The Salty Scrivener 