News and Prayer Update.
News and Prayer Update.
It’s Monday morning, 23rd May 2022, and this is the regular Monday PrayerCast – where we take a look back over some of the recent news and events in Northern Ireland and further afield, with a Christian worldview. Let’s start with the amazing Ukrainian victory! Slava Ukraini! I’m referring of course to the Ukrainian victory in the Eurovision Song Contest. When I was a boy we used to talk about a ‘corny joke.’ A corny joke was one where the punch line was so predictable that no-one laughed. The Eurovision Song Contest is the ultimate corny joke.
Listen to the PODCAST HERE
Let’s get serious, and move on to the advertising industry and I wonder how much international clothing brands actually influence our culture, or conversely, how much their advertising is a reflection of the prevailing culture? Calvin Kline is a case in point. A graphic has been circulating on social media, showing three advertisements, firstly a 1999 ad, depicting a stick-thin model in a bathing costume; then a 2019 ad, where the model is an obese black woman slouching on a sofa, with the slogan, “I speak MY truth in my Calvins.” In those 20 years the advertising campaign moved from open seduction and bodily envy to postmodern virtue signalling. But the third image on the graphic is from 2022, where a woman is holding in her arms a supposedly ‘pregnant man.’ The person concerned is very clearly pregnant, but sports facial hair, and has no female breasts on the naked upper torso. Now, factually, men don’t get pregnant. They don’t have the internal organs for it, so we ask, is the image manipulated, ‘air-brushed,’ or is this actually a woman who has been surgically and medically mutilated by the removal of her breasts, and a diet of hormone altering drugs. Either way, this W.H.O.gender-bending, biology denying advertising campaign is hideously destructive, taking virtue signalling postmodernism to new heights. The obese black woman in 2019 was ‘speaking her own truth’ – this ad is nothing but blatant lies, touted as as a reflection of the philosophy, lifestyle and worldview of Klein’s customer base. It should be banned for failing the basic standards of being ‘honest, decent, legal and truthful.’
When Jeremiah was describing the terror of the men of his day, when the fear of captivity came upon them, and they trembled, he pointed them to an incontrovertible fact – the fact that men don’t have babies. He said, in Jeremiah 30:6 Ask now, and see, can a man bear a child? Why then do I see every man with his hands on his stomach like a woman in labour? Why has every face turned pale? Jesus said, Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female… Matthew 19:4 -oOOo- (#2#)
Over the past few weeks I’ve been reporting on the inflation caused by the government’s lockdown policies, and the prospect of food shortages. Of course, the mainstream media have hardly mentioned these problems, but surprisingly, on 16th May, in the Daily telegraph, the Governor of the Bank of England warned of “apocalyptic” global food price rises and said he is “helpless” in the face of surging inflation as the economy is battered by the war in Ukraine. Mr Bailie, the governor of the Bank claims to be ‘helpless’ in this situation. But it was his central bank that caused the problem by its policy of quantitive easing, – printing money it didn’t have, to appease the government’s wasteful lockdown policies. “Don’t blame me, wasn’t my fault, Putin did it” simply won’t wash. Your organisation fiscally underwrote the cabal who did the damage. Own up, repent, and start to put it right.
The World Health Organisation is preparing its Global Pandemic Response Treaty, – it’s not being talked about on the mainstream media, but the essence of it is that the WHO wants to co-ordinate your nation’s response to future pandemics. Some commentators are saying that it will be binding upon those nations that sign, others are saying that it simply cannot override national sovereignty. But we know how these things work. Even if the WHO Pandemic response, (let’s say, masks, lockdowns, mandatory vaccines, vaccine passports and so on), cannot override national laws, – our local legislatures, – packed full of globalists, will simply enact regulations – forcing government departments, schools, the media, businesses that need government contracts – all will have to comply. And just at the right time, a new pandemic looms – MonkeyPox has now appeared, and you can be sure that the news media are talking about that, and showing graphic images of nasty looking swollen boils on the skin of sufferers. The New Scientist Magazine published an article asking, “Could monkeypox become a pandemic?… Dozens of confirmed and suspected cases have been reported worldwide to date, some with no obvious origin, which means the virus could be spreading undetected.” Nothing like spreading a bit of panic to get those vaccine sales going! And guess what – there’s a vaccine, just waiting, developed back in 2019! And on Friday, the UK government posted on its website a ‘MonkeyPox‘ Vaccination protocol. What an amazing coincidence!
Well last Thursday, May 19th, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mr Brandon Lewis MP, made an announcement in the House of Commons to the effect that he would be commissioning full and permanent abortion services in the province. Essentially, forcing hospitals and trusts to open dedicated abortion clinics for pregnant mothers who want to murder their babies. It is estimated that around 6500 unborn children, who have committed no crime under the law will fall foul of this death sentence every year. Just think of the magnitude of that. The euphemistically named ‘NI Troubles’ – the murderous campaign of violence perpetrated by the criminals of both the IRA and the loyalist paramilitaries, left over 3,000 people dead. The Secretary of State’s roll-out of abortion services, if enacted will result in twice that number of deaths in ONE YEAR. The birth rate in Northern Ireland is around 24,000 babies every year. Abortion commissioning could kill over 25% of those babies. A quarter of them. And the Secretary of State, and the liberal leftist cultural Marxists who dwell in the Assembly of the Wicked at Stormont call it health care. The malthusians in government, in the ruling elites and in the media will no doubt be delighted with this supremely wicked move.
Here, the local minister of health, Robin Swann is apparently seeking legal advice on Mr Lewis’s bloodthirsty directive. We are reminded of the responsibility of Christians, minister and churches in this matter, in Proverbs 24:11, Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. That’s an imperative. We have no choice but to comply. We MUST go to whatever length we can to rescue children, whose lives have been marked for destruction, by the very person who should love them most.
Well, links to all these stories are available so you can read and research them for yourself. Follow the weblink in the episode notes to www dot Semper hyphen Reformata dot com to do more research.
No Grace Gem today, instead I want to read you a poem. I came across it on Twitter a few days ago, and it’s by Spike Milligan, – yes, that Spike Milligan, – and it’s about abortion, and it is a poem full of sadness, and tragedy and grief. It’s called:
Unto Us…
Somewhere, at some time They committed themselves to me, And so, I was! Small, but I WAS! Tiny in shape Lusting to live I hung in my pulsing cave. Soon they knew of me, My mother - my father. I had no say in my being I lived on trust And love. Though I couldn’t think Each part of me was saying, A silent “wait for me I will bring you love.” I was taken Blind, naked, defenceless By the hand of one Whose good name Was graven on a plaque in Wimpole Street And dropped on the sterile floor Of a foot operated plastic waste bucket There was no Queen’s Council to take my brief, The cot I may have warmed, Stood in Harrod’s shop window, When my passing was told, my father smiled, No grief filled my empty space. My death was celebrated With tickets to see Danny LaRue Who was pretending to be a woman, Like my mother was.
Spike Milligan
Let’s pray…
Our Heavenly Father, Our world, the world that you created, is a fearful and wicked place. You did not
create it like this for you looked at your creation, and you saw that it was good. But sin has entered into this world and everything in it has been corrupted and ruined, and evil and darkness are all around. Preserve your people from the evils of this present age, and send your light into this world we pray. We thank you today for Jesus, God’s only begotten Son, in whom there is salvation, who is the light of the world. We ask that that saving light would reach into the depths of the darkest of hearts, our rulers, our politicians, those compliant and indolent clergy who turn their faces away and will not speak out against evil, turning people away from their sin, granting them repentant hearts and bringing them to Christ who alone can save. Amen.
That’s all for now! Catechism class is tomorrow – Tuesday at 1pm, and there should be a sermon podcast on Saturday.
Don’t give up, – lift up your head! Don’t be discouraged, – let’s keep watching, and keep praying, for greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world..
The Salty Scrivener 