A Wonderful Miracle...

A rancher named Joshua lived in the Australian outback. Being also a naturalist, he was fascinated by the presence of a termite colony not far outside his territory. Many a time he stood near it to watch the activity taking place there, impressed with the tall tower they had managed to build.

Then one day he receives a letter announcing the construction of a road which will pass along outside his ranch boundary, thus adding an extra link between two principal cities. Joshua was alarmed by the contents of the letter, for he knew that the termite colony was going to be right in the middle of the bulldozer's path.

So he tried to communicate with the termites, warning them of the impending doom of the colony as the bulldozer approached, and pleading with them to abandon their present structure and relocate to within his ranch where they would all be safe. But without any success, for the man was unable to speak the language of the termite. Furthermore, each bug was way too busy in its part in the running and the maintenance of the tower in which the insects lived and worked - even to be aware of the man's existence.

Therefore there was only one thing for Joshua to do: Become a termite himself.

Incarnated into one of the many eggs laid by the queen, this termite larva still had all the mental, emotional and will of Joshua the human. For even within this new tiny body, his soul and spirit were still altogether human, with all knowledge and memories intact. As the other termites carried out their instinctive duty and fed the larva, as with all the thousands of other youngsters, the larva eventually pupated and then later, emerged as a full adult male termite, identifying himself with all the other male soldiers, whose job was to protect the colony from invading predators while all the females carried on as workers.

With a level of despair and able to communicate in their language, Joshua the termite began to warn the entire colony of its impending doom. He then pleaded with them that if they believed and followed him, Joshua would lead them to a safe place within his own everlasting domain, and there, a new colony can be established, safe in Joshua's ranch, for this present colony will meet its end very soon.

With around twenty thousand termites making up the colony, over six thousand of them believed and were willing to follow Joshua, including the queen herself. But the rest didn't like Joshua at all. How dare he tells them to abandon the tower which took a great many years to build and constantly maintain! And no, they will not abandon their home to relocate elsewhere.

Yet, word of Josua's warning spread fast throughout the entire colony. The queen herself was alarmed but believed, and she then recommended Joshua's exhortation for a mass evacuation. But as the believing termites were getting ready to evacuate, a group of soldiers purposely killed the leading termite, Joshua. Thus Joshua rose from the dead to become a fully-grown man again, fully human and owner of the ranch. He then watched the huge queen being carried on the backs of believing workers and soldiers alike as they all evacuated the present tower to relocate within Joshua's ranch.

It wasn't long before the bulldozer appeared and in due time, the entire mound was uprooted, killing all the remaining termites, including all the larvae.

A nice story perhaps, but again, just a story, the kind read during children's bedtime. 

Or is it. Could it actually be a re-telling of history?

While we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly -Romans 5:6.

While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. -Romans 5:8.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners... 1 Timothy 1:15.

Christ Jesus, truly God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, through the incarnation of a fertilised ovum within the womb of a Jewish female named Mary, a wonderful miraculous phenomenon known by theologians as the hypostatic union, God became man and dwelt among us, fully God, fully human. He came to rescue us from our present state of sin and death and to give eternal life to everyone who believes.

It's glorious, so glorious to God!

When a sinner believes, not only all his sins are forgiven, past present and future, but the righteousness of Christ is imputed into his account, therefore equally loved by God the Father as His own Son. And thus we become sons of God, forever into his family.

Termite queen and workers.

And as I write this, a dark cloud hangs over the land. The thought of another national lockdown is looming. Indeed, it was already predicted that this coming winter will be dire, a gloomy season when there is a possibility of the Police to break into someone's house on Christmas Day if suspected of having more than six people within. Or even just one other person from another household. It all depends on the severity of the restrictions.

If this lockdown is still ongoing by Christmas, then nobody will be able to attend church to thank God for the birth of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, maybe this could be a time of sobriety, reflecting on the birth of Christ, his ministry, death, burial and resurrection. As I was pondering early this morning whilst I was still in bed, when the announcement over the radio of another lockdown is about to hit this nation, at first I felt dumbstruck. Then I thought, well at least this will not be as bad as warfare. With Armistice Day coming up, followed by Remembrance Sunday, I thought about those fighting in the trenches during the Great War, for King and Country, kneeling in the ditch in freezing cold weather as the enemy's bullets whistles past.

It is sobering to think. I can imagine many a young soldier fighting in the trenches on Christmas Day while imagining those childhood days of church attendance, then the cosy home with a Christmas tree, cheap presents, and a sumptuous dinner with relatives, maybe friends too, all sitting around the table with a cheerful, cigar-pungent air and a crackly coal fire ablaze - all fading into a distant memory as the bullets whizz through the freezingly cold wind.

Among these fighters, others are kneeling alongside, longing for the embrace of their mothers or the cuddles of their wives and girlfriends they had left behind. Others have left their pregnant wives behind with the realisation that they may never return to see their unborn child or their children growing up.

Yet we are running scared over a virus which is fatal to only 0.2% of all who gets it, according to an article in the Daily Mail written by Dr Mike Yeadon and supported by other scientists, including top epidemiologists and pathologists who also happen to have enough common sense not to support any further lockdowns.

As my good friend Dr Andrew Milnthorpe wrote recently on Facebook, this fear, this hysteria can and does, reveal who are the "Chocolate Christians" who melt when the heat is turned up, like in August this year at an alfresco Bible study group when I tried to find a place to sit at a widely-spaced circle consisting of just eight people. The resulting commotion and lost tempers caused quite a scene, despite that the chance of picking up the virus over more than two metres apart in the open air is practically zero.

And so our beloved country is split into two groups, the larger group (75% give or take) fearing an economic catastrophe a full lockdown can bring, including businesses going bankrupt, job loss, rising unemployment and poverty, many non-Covid patients failing to have their illnesses diagnosed (eg, cancer, heart failure etc) or the rise in mental illnesses, against the remaining 25% who fears the virus itself, thus the latter group supporting a full lockdown (source: Daily Mail Newspaper, October 31st 2020, p.5.)

And then, as I have already written about before - if ever there is an opportunity to fall on the mercy of God, then this is an opportunity if, and when the dark cloud of a national lockdown darkens the sky over us. As it is written, God will accept anyone who comes to him (Acts 10:34) regardless of which nation he was born in. But I tend to think we're just like those termites, running to and fro in our community, with practically no idea of God's existence, and since He has already incarnated into a man some two millennia previously, he may need for a second appearance.

But all I need to do is delve into the media, whichever form it takes - books, newspapers, television, internet - and this hostility towards God is not unlike the hostility shown to Joshua by the unbelieving termites. Just as Joshua the termite was rejected by his own species, so the man Christ Jesus was rejected in the same way by his own countrymen. But with God, he is very patient, and it's not his will that anyone should perish but all should come to repentance. I guess Joshua the termite had the same motivation - powered by immense love.

Although I don't say this much on this page, this time I will - God loves you. God loves me. I know this cannot be so easily reconciled with the realities of life, especially by atheists who have a good knowledge of the Bible. Yes, God loves them too. Even when the atheist ponders why wearing two different types of garments is wrong, along with planting two different crops in a field (Leviticus 19:19) or why is clipping the side of the beard so bad (Leviticus 19:27) or to have a tattoo (v. 28) or why it's so bad (from an atheist's point of view) for two men who love each other to sleep together? (Leviticus 20:13.) Again, according to the atheist's point of view, why does Jesus himself encourage hatred of parents and siblings, hatred of his own wife and children to qualify to be His disciple? (Luke 14:26.) But the biggest cruncher of all is found in 1 Samuel 15:1-3. This is where God, through Samuel, commands King Saul to slay all the Amalekites - men women, children and infants, as well as all their livestock, for something they did several hundred years earlier when none of that generation was even born.

Therefore an atheist who hates all organised religion comes up to me and show me all those Scriptures (and more) and asks me to persuade him to believe that God is love and He loves him dearly. Hmm. I might not get very far.

But in reality, God does love us. He loves us immensely, yearning for all to be reconciled to Him. And the one demonstration of his love is of His Son crucified, the Second Person of the Trinity hanging there on the cross, experiencing excruciating pain as well as receiving cruel mockery from his enemies as they surround Him. All this so we can live and not die.