Battle Lost, War Won.

Nearly all of my blogs on this page covers a range of subjects including various current affairs approached from a spiritual angle. Generally I enjoy writing about my opinion on such topics as remaining or leaving the European Union, Nationalism, Cultural Issues, the behaviour of celebrities or of men and women of high standing, a Creationist's view of Darwinism, different religions and their fruits, even on church life, and so on. Sometimes I involve Bible study to a greater or lesser degree. But I prefer to stick with contemporary issues rather than just dig into Bible study - there are enough blog authors on this website who writes on serious chapter-and-verse topics, and I myself have been edified by reading such posts. Where I might be more personal is often to do with travel, a subject I enjoy indulging in, or my own experience in various situations. But seldom do I relate much about myself on a personal level, or that of my wife and our three daughters.

So a special agreement was made between my wife and myself before commencing on this week's blog, which I hope will sufficiently demonstrate how much of having faith in God means to both of us, and to inspire hope to anyone reading who is at present in need of some encouragement. However, I feel it's better not to mention the names of either of my three daughters here.

Before I married at a mature age of 47 years, I generally enjoyed life as a single person living alone at a bachelor's apartment. Not only was I enthusiastic for the Bible but also for church life - despite the latter often being geared more for families rather than single people, although to be fair, around 1980, the "Singles Group" was formerly held on a weekly basis at the home of the Pastor after the main evening church service, until the Pastor himself, his patience exhausted, threw them all out of his house almost violently, due to their lack of serious commitment. Luckily for me, that was the one night I wasn't in the mood to attend, but instead went straight home from the evening service, therefore missing out on the drama! - I also spent a lot of my spare time reading books written by authors whose intent was to broaden my understanding of the Bible. I always loved "the bigger picture" - that is, the completed jigsaw picture the Holy Scriptures represent rather than putting too much emphasis on one or two single pieces and using those pieces for devotional purposes or for debating. Not that any of that is wrong in itself, but I have found that too much of this form of study tend to lead in forgetting - or never realising - what the whole Bible is trying to tell us. 

A classic example of this "single piece" debate which I was dragged into, was centred on Hebrews 6:4-6, about whether salvation can be lost or not, while forgetting or not even realising that the whole book was written to the Jews, as the title itself implies, explaining to them that the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ had ushered in a New Covenant which is far better than the Old, and therefore making the Old obsolete. The snag was that many of the Jews had rejected the Gospel after examining and even partaking in its benefits, and reverted back to the Old Covenant. Maybe if the whole letter was taken seriously, such debates would not have needed to have arisen in the first place, as we will see, this subject holds a hugely important place in our faith.

Aside from spiritual matters, travel was my passion, having rejected package holidays for independent backpacking, which I did mainly on my own. Hosteling was the preferred form of accommodation, necessitating on buying the ingredients and preparing my own meals, which along with meeting other backpackers and making new friends in the member's kitchen, also creating a huge saving on the budget. 

But it was the day I married Alex that had a massive impact on life. My career as a long-haul, far-flung backpacking days were over, and I rather grudgingly accepted the reality of package holidays, at least with the honeymoon itself, a flight-and-hotel package at the Mediterranean island of Rhodes, which was suitable for couples. But I guess my real travel bug wouldn't fully rest, with a backpacking trip to the Holy Land to celebrate our first anniversary, by then Alex being 18-20 weeks pregnant with our first daughter. This was her first and only trip to Israel so far, but my fourth trip, after visiting in 1976, 1993, and a year later as a volunteer at a Christian Conference Centre in 1994. Later in our marriage, we managed a package trip to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, a second trip to Rhodes to celebrate our tenth anniversary, a trip to Kos, another to Malta - all packages, and an independent trip to Sicily to mark our seventh anniversary. By then, any feelings of grumpiness faded away to be replaced with thanksgiving to God for allowing us to go on these trips as a couple. They were exhilarating to her as much as to myself. However, since our wedding day, I had never set foot in a dormitory of a backpacker's hostel. Alex would have none of it. The thought of sharing a room with sleeping females had no appeal to her.

Our First Anniversary in Israel

How could I forget the day my first daughter was born? Delivered by elective caesarian due to her breach position at the time of delivery, I spent the next hour with the baby sleeping in my arms while her mother was wheeled to a recovery chamber before admitted into the maternity ward. As I watched her tiny chest rise and fall in her natural breathing, I had a mental vision of the whole of my life passing by, from my school-days through to a dogsbody at work, to my conversion to Jesus Christ as Saviour, to backpacking, to getting married.

My second daughter was born just over three years later, the two birthdays being just two weeks apart. Unlike with the birth of the first, the second was a fully natural birth. But it was the first-born I adored. Except for work and the weekly trip to the sauna, the first-born accompanied me wherever I went. Much of this was that I wanted her by my side as much as possible, while at the same time giving my wife some relief. How I enjoyed taking her out whenever I had to go out to buy something, and to take her into town, patiently spoon-feeding her at a cafeteria, and changing her diaper. Also train trips to Reading and even a day trip to London, just the two of us, allowing her to run around the garden fronting what used to be the college I attended between the years 1968-1971. And the times I took the family to the coast for the day, and even enjoyed short holidays, mainly in Cornwall.

But for some reason, unknown to us at the time, we were struggling. Struggling to raise our children as normally as we could. To cut a long story short, the time came, much to our shame and detriment, when we had a Social Worker assigned to us, a slim and quite a pretty woman. I believe her, at the time, to be in her late twenties or early thirties. Yet there couldn't have been a worse person to have been assigned for such a role. Not very long out of university, she made sure of our awareness of her superiority in her nationality, her high level of education, her social class, her income, and her authority. A self-confessed atheist, she had a short fuse, quickly angered, she was proud, arrogant, and quite patriotic. How such a person could qualify as a social worker for the care of children beats me! One thing I was aware of: the last family under her assignment fled their home and were found in Scotland. She was given one more chance in her assignment over us.

We were not the only ones who feared and hated her. The school teachers of our first-born kept well clear of her. Her own colleagues at the office stayed out of her way as well. She was disliked by all other Social Workers at her department. Really, she was using us as pawns in a desperate attempt to save her career. And I'm not exaggerating. So not very surprising, our own anger was roused at last - my wife growled at her and I ordered her out of our house. Her authority challenged, she meekly walked out of the door, which I slammed shut behind her.

And that spelled the end of us as a family. A couple of days later, at three in the morning, two or three police officers entered our home, accompanied by a couple of females I had not seen before. They went straight into both our daughter's bedrooms and ran out of the house with our semi-awake girls. It was actually a dawn raid, leaving my wife screaming and screaming.

A few weeks later, our Social Worker, who applied to the County Court for permission to have our daughters taken from us, finally cleared her desk. Her contract annulled, she disappeared - and she was never seen again. And that was more than a decade ago. But what had brought all this on in the first place? Why were we initially struggling? According to the Social Worker, we were rebels with a large proportion of stupidity, and both of us too thick to raise children. However, the Psychologist who we both spent several hours with during the assessments came up with something else - we both suffer from Asperger's Syndrome, something I had not heard of until the diagnosis was made. Nowadays its seen as the milder side of the Autism Spectrum, affecting mostly boys with a higher intelligence quotient. And true to form, the mental ability test I had to go through at the Psychiatrist's office revealed a higher-than-average intelligence, a ray of sunshine amidst storm-clouds of constant criticism, judgements, and negative analysis as parents.

Greek Island of Kos, our 12th Weeding Anniversary.

And what of over the years to follow? At first we made as much effort to live as normal lives as a childless couple. Our girls were adopted permanently. For the first few years we were allowed to spend ninety minutes a year of heavily supervised contact at a neutral area - well away from both our home and of the adoptive parents. It was during this period that we flew out to Lanzarote, to Sicily, to Rhodes, to Kos, and to Malta, nearly all to celebrate our wedding anniversary. But the shock of our loss caused me to have daily paroxysms of rage, mainly in the mornings downstairs with Alex still upstairs in bed, and therefore out of the way as I prepare to set off to work. This must have lasted for up to two years, maybe even longer. Fortunately, through prayer and meditation, I was eventually set free from such mental and emotional torture.

Then the annual contacts stopped, most likely due to the strong affection remaining between the first-born and myself, ending in prolonged hugs which irritated their adoptive guardians. It was this when my dearest began to lose the ability to walk normally, and became confined to a wheelchair. Despite all efforts from the NHS, which involved four months as a hospital in-patient, no cure could be found, except a lifelong daily dose of antidepressants and other vital medicine.

If anything could challenge my faith in God, it is to wheel my beloved out of the house in a specially-made chair. No longer able to nip out to the shops to buy a pint of milk, she is not able to power the wheelchair on her own - she needs me to push her wherever we go. I look back and remember how we both cycled together, to go out on long walks together, especially abroad. As we looked forward to see our daughters again in the Summer, there was always a simmer of hope which kept us going. But at present, as I look back on better times when a quick decision to book a flight meant a week or two in a foreign land - with a wheelchair that is no longer the case. I recall the times we strolled along the beach arm in arm, both during the day and into the night, gazing at the clear starry sky. The evening we sat at an outdoor restaurant in Kos, with the sea lapping at the wall we sat next to. Strolling along the harbour, watching the moored boats gently bobbing by wave action. Enjoying the ancient Greek and Roman ruins with pungently fragrant herbs thriving around them. Such lovely experiences which took our minds off the loss of our daughters.

But now pushing a wheelchair with my dearest sitting helpless within. Crushingly sorrowful. Sometimes feeling lonely and helpless, as there are even Christian believers around lacking empathy, not understanding what we have been through, what we missing, and what we are going through now. There are times I feel despair. After all, watching the very one I love more than anyone in the world in such a helpless condition...haunted by memories...

That's when there is still hope. Faith in God. Knowing that he is with us and knows what we are going through. And our belief in Once Saved Always Saved, as mentioned earlier. Did you know that this very concept is the strong bulwark of our faith? The very thought of us needing to hold faith or be forever lost would have caused us to crumble under the weight of the stress. Rather, after being assured of knowing that all things work for the good for those who are called according to his purpose, we are given the promise that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:28, 38). Eternal Security is vital for our daily situation and ongoing circumstances.

On top of this, not long after our daughters were taken from our home, I felt God speaking to me while reading from the prophet Jeremiah. In it I came across these words:

A voice is heard at Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more.
This is what the LORD says:
Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears,
for your work shall be rewarded, 
declares the Lord.
They will return from the land of the enemy.
So there's hope for the future,
declares the Lord.
Your children will return to their own land.
Jeremiah 31:15-17.

Our third daughter was born, again by natural means, three years after our two daughters were taken. Just prior to her birth, a conference was called among the Social Services Department on the future decision for the unborn child. I was present at the conference. There I was offered two plans. Plan A was for us to keep the child but to have our names on the Child Protection Register, as before. That means a steady stream of professionals coming and going through our door for the next eighteen years. Or Plan B, which is to voluntarily give our daughter away for adoption. We chose Plan B without hesitation. No way would we ever want a repeat of what happened before. Not for our sakes only, but for our unborn's sake as well. We know perfectly well that if we are unhappy, so will the child be as well. Far better for her to grow up in a happy environment under adoptive parents who will give her the best she could possibly have.

At present everything looks gloomy, hopeless, defeated. We had lost the battle. But God in whom we trust, has already won the victory for us through the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ.

And eventually we shall win the war. Hope will never be entirely lost.

Father God I Wonder...

The moment I walk out our front door, it is impossible not to see and hear parents with their young children. Like just a couple of hours before typing this, when I went to do the weekly grocery shop at our local superstore, there was this toddler constantly screaming his head off, his high pitched voice piercing the air and drowning any normal-tone conversation. Eventually, his mother took him out into the car park even as the child constantly remained restless, while the father (I assume) continued with the shopping alone.

Just another family, one of countless others I see each day, whether at work (never far from a primary school) or at a leisure attraction, as well as at the shopping mall. Such one attraction, Coral Reef Water World, just a few minutes walk from my home, has always been a haven for screaming children, in most cases as expressions of joy and excitement with all the fun features the venue provides, but never without an occasional cry of frustration as the parent or guardian refuses to let the little one have his own way. (For me, at least, I go straight to the Adults Only section for a gym workout and relaxation in the sauna, where not a single whimper from a child's mouth could be heard.) And it's the same where ever I go, parents constantly keeping their young offspring to conform to the environment they are in, often with the adults feeling the frustration themselves, usually with the rest of the crowd apparently staring. I suppose that is natural enough. A sudden loud cry from an infant usually turn heads, does it not?

So it looks to me that the average Mum and Dad takes their children as if for granted in the Western World. Yet I can still imagine the sheer exuberance when a young man (or the not-so-young, as was the case with me) finds out that his wife is pregnant for the first time, either vocally or from a urine test strip showing a positive result. In my case, I was tempted to shout out from the window, but being British, I don't do things like that, tut-tut, I know. Instead I all but burnt out the 'phone line with calls to our relatives and friends. After the birth, my daughter was the apple of my eye, a darling I just about worshiped. I think that becoming a father for the first time at an age approaching fifty intensifies the bonding between father and daughter to a level which younger fathers tend to see as more of a right than as a privilege. So I have always believed.

So there were no negative feelings when I took her out to the superstore, to the town centre, even boarding the train to various other locations, including the coast, as well as on holidays, even on ferry sailings to the Channel Islands. I loved the moments when I spoon-fed her, often when eating out. Each night, around three in the morning, she would wake up and cry. I have never felt a moment of burden in getting up and seeing to her needs, diaper change, hugging and holding her in my arms. I cant help thinking of Stevie Wonder's classic hit Isn't She Lovely? coming to mind as she falls asleep in bed with her in my arms as my wife sleeps soundly on.

So sometime in the past there might have been a mother in her early thirties, named Rachel. She was devoted as much to her infant son as I was to my daughter. The main difference being that not long after the birth of the child, her husband died of an illness. So after months of mourning, she was left with his offspring. And therefore unhindered by anyone else in her household, she devoted herself to her upbringing of her son. She always made sure he was adequately fed, bathed and wrapped in clean clothing. Then night after night the two of them shared the same bed, with him fast asleep in the comfort of her arms. Then during the daytime, it was never rare to see the infant sitting on her lap while she sang and made baby sounds to him.

But one particular night, Rachel was bewildered at the unusually bright star in the heavens, which was directly overhead. Was the star a messenger of glad tidings, a bearer of good news? Or could it be an omen of something dreadful about to happen? As her eyes were transfixed to the sky above, she sensed that rather than being ominous, it meant that something wonderful was about to happen, if it had not happened already. Could the birth of someone highly important, such as a king, had just occurred?

It was a couple of days later, when she was cooking in the kitchen with her son playing on the floor nearby, when she began to hear the screaming of women within the town, along with angry shouts of men. As the menacing noise grew louder and nearer, suddenly a Roman soldier burst into the house, carrying a sword. He searched around the tiny house and he saw Rachel reaching frantically for her son. But the soldier was quick, and thrust the sword through the child's small body. The sword-bearer then quickly left, as if deeply hating the task he was ordered to carry out. Left with the tiny corpse, Rachel's screams joined those of other mothers in the streets of the town.

For weeks, even months, Rachel was in a dreadful state emotionally. She being a devoted Jewess, could not understand how her God could allow such catastrophe to occur in her personal life. It was even worse than her neighbour's. At least some of her neighbouring mothers had other children who were older than two years, and as such, escaped the slaughter. In addition, their husbands were still alive, and some of the women affected by the slaughter had become pregnant again. But not Rachel.

Instead of cursing God for her lot in life, she spent time in prayer, believing in her heart that somehow something good will come out of this. She believed in the resurrection of the dead on the last day, as was the general belief among the Jews, and she had an inkling that she would be reunited with her deceased son, and maybe her husband too. So instead of cursing and throwing her wrath heavenwards, she gave thanks, and managed to worship God at the Temple precincts whenever she can make the journey. And on one occasion, while praying at the Temple, someone handed her a parchment with a portion from the prophet Jeremiah penned on it. This is what was written:

This is what the LORD says:
"A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping,
Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted,
because her children are no more."
This is what the LORD says:
"Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears,
for your work will be rewarded,"
declares the LORD.
"They shall return from the land of the enemy.
So there is hope for your future,"
declares the LORD.
"Your children will return to their own land."
Jeremiah 31:15-17.

When she read the script, her eyes widened with hope, and reading her own name gave her a feeling of joy. She knelt down and heartily gave her thanks to God, along with a beast to offer as a sacrifice of thanks at the Temple. Then she returned home, knowing that her all loving Father in Heaven has heard her cry, and has responded favourably to her.

So earlier this week, a solicitor came round to our home to discuss about making a Will. I suggested that all of our assets should go to our three birth daughters at the death of both of us. But the visitor warned that this may be impossible, because of their different surnames, unknown by us, and growing up to couples not related to us at all, yet they having all legal rights to them as parents. At this point my poor wife broke into tears.

I recall the dreadful night early in 2005 when the Police and Social Services ran into our home at three o'clock in the morning and took away our two daughters. The entire operation took just a few seconds. Yet, how my dear wife screamed and screamed, just like Rachel did two thousand years earlier. Despite my effort to comfort her, I knew that our lives would be changed forever. The shame, the embarrassment, kept us quiet about all this for a decade. Only now we tell it as it is. But why did this happen in the first place? What was it that deemed the State to judge us unfit to raise children? Did we commit a crime? Drugs? Alcohol addiction? Abuse? Neglect? No, it was none of these things. To summarise, the reason why we were judged unfit to be parents was because we both suffer mild autism. And in the wake of national scandals of child abuse hitting the headlines, our daughters were taken into care, which means that never to set foot in our home to this day. At least it gave us a crumb of comfort to know that the Social Worker involved had lost her job over the incident.

So what has been our response over the years? Did we curse God and turned our backs on him? Rather, we ran towards him, as the righteous runs into the Strong Tower, and they are safe. It wasn't long after that someone in our church fellowship came up to us with a revelation that our children will return. Then, not long afterwards I was browsing through Matthew's Gospel, and came across the story of the Innocents. My Bible cross-reference directed me to Jeremiah chapter 31, and by reading the Scripture, I felt strengthened, knowing that God is my heavenly Father who looks out for the welfare of his children. It is amazing what Scripture mixed with faith can accomplish. Not only the source of edifying myself spiritually, but it has been the source of strengthening and encouraging Alex, and also added new life to our marriage, binding us tighter together in Christ, even to the extent that my wife can be the source of encouragement when my chips are down, and that despite her emotional suffering being more intense.

God is our heavenly Father, we ourselves adopted into his family. By law, our daughters are no longer our family members, even if every genome, every chromosome in every cell of their bodies, are Alex's and mine combined. No amount of paperwork, not even as high as Mt. Everest, can change the genome of a single cell in them. But they are legally the offspring of those who have adopted them. We do not know their new surnames, let alone knowing where they live, which schools they attend, which shopping mall their parents take them to. But God knows. All we can do is commit them to his care. But all this is good news for us. We are adopted into God's family through faith in Jesus Christ. Just as our daughters cannot return to us before coming of age, so we cannot return to the adversary's domain for ever. Furthermore, we are born into God's family through regeneration of the spirit, making each one of us temples of the Holy Spirit, who will dwell within us for all eternity, according to John 14:15-17.

So it can be said that our adoption into God's family is much stronger and a lot more secure than the legal adoption of our daughters, because when of age, our daughters can return to us if they desire. But we cannot be disfranchised from God's family because this is more than mere legal adoption. It involves a rebirth of the spirit, making us a new creation altogether, perfectly fit and suitable to heavenly life with Jesus Christ.

These are wonderful, wonderful truths! It is these truths which allows us to look upon the world with open eyes, to commit ourselves to each other in marriage, as well as to God as our heavenly Father. These truths allow us to live our daily lives without upset or mourning over our loss, to give thanks for what we do have, to enjoy some travel together, to commit ourselves to our roles as husband and wife, and most important, to edify each other when things look grim and unbearable.

Rachel found her strength through faith in God in Scripture. The same applies to us. Our encouragement to you is to read your Bible, and believe that all things work for the good for those who love God, and are called according to his purpose. Like that you can be a source of strength to those who has also suffered distress.

My thoughts...Your Thoughts...

Last week I concluded my blog with the words, This may be the last blog for a while. I wrote this with the hope that this week I would be offered a bed at Harefield Cardiac Hospital in order to have open heart surgery. But instead, on the day before the date of admission, the 'phone rang with the message that there were no beds available, and with it another appointment for admission a week later. This sort of delay is very common here in the UK, where we have the public-funded National Health Service. All it takes is for someone to go down with cardiac arrest, and he goes in straight away as an emergency patient for treatment, leaving the routine patient, such as myself, standing by the wayside.

It is so frustrating! I get hyped up for the procedure, only to be told that someone else had jumped the queue. Then to add to this, there is always that dreadful possibility that I could be settling in my bed at the ward, just hours away from the operation, when the Doctor approaches with the instructions that I must leave and go home straight away, untreated, as another emergency admission had just taken place. Such is the day-to-day running of a small cardiac hospital just outside the Greater London area and the Home Counties of the South East of England, an area in the UK with the most dense population. But again, if the Doctor were to ask if I would be willing to give up the bed for another with a life-threatening condition, most likely I would give in, maybe with the proviso that I would be given special priority at the next call.

I was surprised when I saw the hospital for the first time last Autumn. It is a lot smaller than I had imagined, and under the same Trust as its sister cardiac hospital, the Royal Brompton, in Central London, where my late father had a pacemaker fitted. In a situation like this, I wish that Harefield had a much bigger hospital, with many more beds, more skilled surgeons, doctors and nurses, and more operating theatres. Yet these two are among many hospitals dotted in the Greater London area, most of them huge institutions each housing hundreds of in-patients, along with its constant flow of out-patients. When considering the addition of many more sick people taking prescribed medicine at home, it goes to show that our nation's health isn't that great. And that is the paradox. We live at an era where we enjoy the forefront of scientific knowledge and technology. We have explored the genome, found suitable drugs to tackle illness, we have learnt how to eat the correct kind of food, we have discovered that a sedentary lifestyle without proper exercise isn't good for us. We have seen the debilitating effects of smoking and excess drinking. Yet the National Health Service is bursting at the seams: Patients at Accident and Emergency have to wait in corridors, even remaining in ambulances that had brought them to the department, Government funding always making the News headlines, the fight between private and public investments - all proving that there are more sick people than what the N.H.S. can handle or afford.

Yet we read for example of Abraham, who lived up to 175 years, and was still fathering children in his old age. Yet there is no indication that he ever felt ill, let alone visit a hospital. Then Moses lived to 120 years, and apparently never suffered an illness in his life either. Sure enough, Job did suffer a life-threatening illness, yet he pulled through to live to 140 years, fathering children in the process - without any doctor's appointments or being cared for at a hospital ward. There is even a tradition that the Apostle John lived to a good old age. Just what was it about living in a tent on the backside of the desert? Plenty of sunshine and little, if any rain? Does our cool temperate climate affect our health? Or could our poor state of health be the outcome of life's modern stresses, anxieties, worries, especially on income, job security, level of education, household budgets, unexpected expenses, debt, marriage breakdown, an uncertain future? At least, since the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, there has been, for example, no Divine in-group/out-group division within the whole of modern society, for God has always had his arms open to anyone who would come to him through faith in Jesus Christ, with the churches continuing to invite all unbelievers to repent and believe the Gospel.

But on the flip side of the coin, reading whether one is a victim of an in-group/out-group culture had a negative effect on me when reading the Old Testament. In the last few months my daily Bible reading is in the process of covering the entire section the Jews refer to as the Torah. That is the first five books of the Bible. For an example, in Numbers chapter 31, God instructs Moses to sent Israeli troops to take vengeance of the Midianites for allowing their women to seduce the men of Israel to worship their god Baal (Numbers 25.) After slaying all the adult men, the Israeli soldiers brought all the women and children to the Hebrew camp. Then in anger, Moses ordered all mothers, along with all the boys to be slain. Only virgin girls were allowed to live. So I visualised women screaming in front of their sons as they met their end, and young boys screaming for their mothers as they too were killed. It must have been a dreadful spectacle, and I must admit of being rather upset over this throughout the day.

This ties in with an event which took place several hundred years later, when God through Samuel orders King Saul to slay the entire population of the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15) including children and infants (v.3), along with every livestock they owned. So imagine a stout Israeli soldier about to leave a house as the young couple lies dead on the floor of the lounge. But as he leaves, he hears a cry coming from a side room. He turns to see a eighteen-month old girl crying her eyes out, in her hand is an uneaten piece of bread her mother had given her. The soldier takes his sword and thrust it through her tiny body. Of course, she knew nothing about the sins her ancestors committed hundreds of years earlier, neither would she had known the difference between worshipping Baal or Jehovah of Israel. But her unfortunate situation of being one of the out-group does not seem to affect a gangster or Hell's Angel motorbike rider, three thousand years later, who after growing up into a life of violence, gang rivalry and bloodshed, becomes radically converted to Jesus Christ and is gloriously saved, and becomes a son and ambassador of the Lord, and whose seat is guaranteed in Heaven, while the soul of the Amalekite toddler remains lost in Hell forever. At least so that how it looks.

Such a situation I find very upsetting. Those poor boys and girls, so young and innocent of the sins of their ancestors, simply were unlucky enough to be born of the wrong parents, of the wrong time in human history, and on the wrong side of God's national division. From this perspective, I have a good idea where atheists like Richard Dawkins are coming from. He accuses Jehovah of the Old Testament of being a sadistically cruel, megalomaniac, a proudly jealous bully who endorses infanticide, and I have to agree, after reading the Old Testament, I would find it virtually impossible to argue against him. As a result, I have wondered how could I love a God like that? Even as a matter of interest, the Israelis who had fought the Midianites had shown a far greater degree of mercy towards women and children than either Moses or God himself. Try and counter Richard Dawkins with such reasoning, especially when the atheist reminds me that the Midianites were cousins of Israel, both stemming from their father Abraham.

I can imagine you thinking right now: the Midianites and the Amalekites were wicked sinners who sacrificed newborn babies to the fires of idols. Fair enough. Also the Hell's Angel killed someone in a bloody fight. The fact is, we are all naturally under sin. The Apostle James says that whoever keeps the whole Law but stumbles at just one point has become guilty of all (James 2:10). In other words, we all stand guilty before a holy God, not a single person in a billion years can plead innocence. So what's the difference between a Jewish Pharisee, an Amalekite and a Hell's Angel?

Then again, I'm thinking as a human thinks. I see the love the mother has for her child. A natural human re-action. But to complicate things further, when Jesus Christ was on earth, he had shown compassion towards children. When mothers brought children for him to bless them, he blessed them (e.g. Matthew 19:13) and has declared that unless one becomes like a little child, he will never enter the Kingdom of God (Luke 18:16-17) and such are the Kingdom of God. But while he was here, he was ministering to Israel, and not to Gentiles, as so demonstrated when he spoke to the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21-28.) So even in his day, the in-group/out-group between Israel and the rest of the world was still standing. How did Jesus have felt towards non-Israeli children?

On the face of it, it looks like God has been grossly unfair to the point of sheer cruelty throughout human history - allowing Abraham to live to 175 years, ordering an Amalekite toddler to be slain, saving a wild, murderous gangster, the latter because he was fortunate enough to be born after the Cross. How would he have fared had he been born during the days of King David? Then again, consider a child born in the far East, where Hinduism, Buddhism or even Islam dominate. What would be his eternal fate then? Or even a French, Spanish or Italian who had never understood the true Gospel of Christ. How would they fare at God's judgement throne? Again, human thinking, human reasoning, human emotions. But concerning human thinking and feelings, God had this to say:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
As the heavens higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8-9.

God's ways of thinking and acting will always be higher than ours, as his wisdom is greater than our wisdom and reasoning. Looking at the slaughter of the Midianite mothers and their sons, this took place at or near the Hebrew camp. Every single day the Levitical priests offered bulls, rams and calves as guilt, sin and fellowship offerings, and as such, there might have been the possibility of the sins of these people had been covered by these sacrifices, allowing their souls into paradise. It's just a thought of course, but the same reason might have been behind the order King Saul had received from Samuel, to slay all the livestock belonging to the Amalekites. As without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22) - the slaying of these beasts could have been the way for these children into paradise. The fact that King Saul had disobeyed the order and allowed the beasts to live, does not shorten God's power in making atonement. Rather, King Saul paid the price of losing his kingdom to a rival youth, the shepherd David.

Going back to the hospital appointment, it does look to me to be unfair for a routine patient who had never abused his body, having to stand at the wayside in order to admit an emergency patient whose condition was brought about my heavy smoking and excess drinking. It's unfair, but I suppose I could see myself as a "health pharisee" looking down on the "health abuser" - yet it is the latter who enters hospital before the former. A reflection of God's grace?

At the time of this writing, another appointment for the procedure has been set for the coming week. If I am put aside again, then I'll continue with normal living - going to work, looking after my wife, writing blogs. And so I'll continue until the day a bed is assigned to me.

Watch this space. The presence or absence of next week's blog will say everything.

...You Have Done It Unto Me

Hebrews 6:4-6 is perhaps one of the most controversial passages of Scriptures found in the entire Bible. These mere three verses reads as this:

For it is impossible for those who have been enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,

And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
If  they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

Such words can cause such controversy within the Christian faith: One group says "Oh, these words mean that one can be convicted by the Holy Spirit and then reject the Gospel without ever being born again." While the other group says that these were true believers who had departed from the faith to such an extent, that they had crossed the point of no return, and they are lost forever, unable to repent.

And so the debate rages on. If you were to go to the Internet, and simply type in Hebrews 6:4-6, a whole list of websites would appear listed, all to do with these verses. And You Tube also, has countless videos of individuals talking to the camera, debating if one can lose his salvation after conversion, or not.

 

I have watched and listened to those who believe that these verses teach that salvation can be lost. They tend to look sad, as if apologetic, and none of these speakers had any edifying power. Rather, time and time again, they pull my spirit down whenever their videos of their speeches come across. And I'm not alone. Many years ago we as a Baptist Church in Bracknell had a visiting speaker from a Pentecostal church at another town a few miles down the road. This was in the mid 1970s, possibly 1975 or -6. Apparently our congregation was rather shocked as this preacher threw out any assurance of eternal salvation by using, among other Scriptures, Hebrews 6:4-6. The attitude of this guest speaker was one of smugness, as if delivering a basic truth which was meant to free each one of us from the shackles of deception, namely that we believed in eternal security of the saint. A few of us, including myself, complained to one of our deacons, which was passed on to the senior pastor, who himself was away preaching at another church that particular Sunday. Apparently, our guest speaker was barred from further preaching at our fellowship, as he was never seen again.

 

Hebrews 6:4-6 was also used by the leader of a small Pentecostal church which met at his home roughly about the same time, maybe up to two years later. He used it to prove that our salvation this side of death is not eternal and can be lost. But the biggest affray, leading to a near riot, took place at Minehead, Somerset in Spring 1994. There in front of a large auditorium, a Methodist minister used the same text of Scripture to explode the "myth" of Once Saved Always Saved, which he had abbreviated to OSAS as a further means to discredit its truthfulness. In all these cases, when a preacher delivers a message that salvation can be lost, it has always brought my spirit down and shackled me into bondage of fear, a direct opposite of edifying faith, and I found this to be universal among those who believe in salvation being eternally secure. The near riot in Minehead said it all. Had the message been edifying, the closing worship which followed would have resulted in adoration and rejoicing, with hands lifted up to a holy God. Instead a song was sung which was centred around Romans 8:39 where it says that nothing can separate us from the love of God, followed by a mass counselling session to allay fears. It goes to show how devastating such misapplied Scripture can bring!

 

Recently I read an article posted by a blogger who I follow on this site. What he wrote not only edified me, but confirmed what I believed for a very long time. That is, the letter in question is called To Hebrews - or Pros Ebraious in Greek. In other words, the letter was written to Jews, Jews, Jews! In every English Bible or New Testament, Hebrews, or To the Hebrews were adequate titles. What was the object of the whole letter? It was to contrast the finished work of Jesus Christ as the final fulfilment of all the Old Testament ordinances along with Temple furniture and regular rituals. The writer explains that these Temple ordinances had only a temporary effect in covering sin, and had to be repeated over and over again. But the Atonement which Jesus had accomplished succeeded in putting sin away forever, for all time, therefore making the Temple, its ordinations and rituals obsolete.

 

Before the Temple was flattened by the Romans in 70 AD, there were a number of Jews who were familiar with the teachings and fellowship of the churches, especially in Jerusalem, where on Pentecost and soon after, thousands became believers in Jesus Christ. But some of these Jews were not satisfied with doing away with the regular animal sacrifices, and after experiencing the new life among believers, decided to return to the Temple ordinances in order to be saved. To return to animal sacrifice meant that the crucifixion had failed to atone, and because of this, the death of Jesus was treated as of no effect, and something which could be trodden into the ground as a non-event. To them, Jesus was just a condemned criminal who bore his own shame. These Jews felt much happier in keeping with their sacrifices and Temple ordinances. Even in Judaism today, without the Temple and without sacrifices, rituals in synagogues are held, denying the effect of any Atonement Christ had made on the cross.

 

Have you ever sacrificed a bull on the Altar in Jerusalem? If so, then you have trodden underfoot the cross of Christ, putting him into open shame, because by doing you have denied his atoning effect. On the other hand, as a true believer, did you depart from the faith for a few hours, several days, months, or even years? Have you returned to the faith after decades in the desert? (I knew some who did.) If so then you have not trodden underfoot the Son of God. And will stick my neck out to declare that during your exile in the desert, you had never lost your salvation, as salvation is God's doing, not yours.

 

Yet there are scores of such well-educated teachers and preachers who claim they know the Bible inside out. They are often upheld by their supporters. The Methodist minister at Minehead was actually exalted by his followers to the status of a prophet, equal in authority to Isaiah, Jeremiah or Micah, an idea I have thoroughly opposed. Most, including myself, have tossed to and fro which of the two sides is right, for surely, both cannot be right. Years of one's Christian life can be wasted on such a debate, when he could have been spending his time serving God in a way that would have brought him the greatest honour. Instead, books were written, websites created, and videos shot, throwing theories and debates to and fro, and leaving me spiritually exhausted and often crestfallen.

 

Yet there are simple, straightforward principles the Bible outlines which is indeed pleasing to God. These are not debating doctrine but in actual doing of God's word. Doing - something which someone else will benefit, both physically and spiritually. For example, someone with an income sponsoring a child growing up in poverty in the Third World, particularly in Africa. This was something I began doing in 1997, after returning home from Australia, and receiving scores of leaflets from the Christian organisation, Tear Fund (now Compassion.) It took me weeks, even months of persuading, but eventually I got round to sponsoring. The first child had abandoned the project, the second child died soon after he was assigned to me, but the third I stuck with until he became of age. A beautiful relationship blossomed between us. By sponsoring him, he was delivered from poverty, went to school, received qualifications and, I believe, gone to university. Thus fulfilling what Jesus Christ had taught:

 

Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Matthew 25:40.

 

What I write here, I'm not trying to give myself credit, as at first I was unwilling to help. It took months of persuasion to change my mind, simply because by nature, I hate junk mail, and such leaflets tend to end up straight into the bin. But this goes to show the patient grace of God, who did not give up on me when I refused to respond, but in a way, kept on knocking, because at the end of the day he wanted to bless me. It was the patient enduring of God's part that had brought the blessing.

 

Only the day before I attended a Compassion conference in central London. Believe me, it was a real eye-opener! Here I learnt about the dreadful poverty such families grow up in. One was about a single mother of several children, each with a different father. I thought, "Oooooh!"

Then the speaker asked us all,

"Hands up if any of you felt judgement against this single mother."

Nobody raised their hands, but I knew that I should have done. The mental "Oooooh!" was a glint of mental judgement. Then the speaker went on:

"The only way that this mother could bring food into her house was by prostitution. She had no job, no income and often no food at all in her house. During those times she would boil some water in a pan just to give the impression of cooking. But she had nothing to cook. Prostitution was the only glimmer of hope for survival."

 

We were told that along with poverty, there was desperation, loss of hope and prone to illness, particularly AIDS. When one of her children received a sponsor, life for the whole family changed dramatically. Not only food and a chance of education arrived, but love and hope - and conversion to Jesus Christ as Saviour. The boy who grew up under my sponsorship also grew up spiritually, enough to send me encouraging Scripture, often when I needed to be encouraged. I'm looking forward to meet him one day in Glory.

 

Sponsoring a child is one of many of doing God's will. For me personally, learning to be patient, especially in checkout lines, is something I needed to put into practise, and believe me, it was not easy, and even at present, I'm prone to relapse. One of the more testing times is when a customer in front uses a lot of our time trying to redeem a few pennies from a voucher which the till does not accept, and talking continues on between client and teller. Or as a domestic window cleaner, a customer taking a long time to pay his fee, often days or even weeks, and we have a household budget to see to. In all these cases, I have discovered that patience is an oil which makes good relationships and does not put the client under duress. But patience is a virtue I can only acquire by being filled with the Holy Spirit. I believe that having good relationship with an unbelieving client not only avoids unnecessary conflict, but has a greater likelihood of bringing him to the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

 

The blogger who I follow had put out this test - if what you have read has edified you, then it's likely to be the true Gospel. In turn, anything which brings you down is most certainly a false gospel. I can see the wisdom in his words. After all, Jesus did say:

 

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. John 10:10.

 

Now one can't argue over that, far less cause a riot.

Daddy! Daddy! I Want...Give Me...

On July 3rd, 1997 I boarded a Boeing 747 at Sydney Airport, Australia, which took off around five-thirty in the evening, bound for Los Angeles, California.  After flying across the vast Pacific Ocean, featuring a splendid view of Hawaii basking in the morning sunshine, the 'plane landed safely at around one o'clock in the afternoon on the 3rd of July.

Yes, I can say that I have literally went back in time, landing in Los Angeles before I took off from Sydney, despite being suspended more than thirty thousand feet up in the air for the better part of thirteen and a half hours. But that is one of the strange anomalies of long-haul travel, as the airline was literally travelling faster than the rotation of the Earth on its axis, the crossing of the International Date Line meant I had to re-live the whole of the 3rd of July instead of landing at Los Angeles on the 4th as a result of flying through the night. This make travel so exciting! This, along with looking up at the Australian starry night and seeing the Southern Cross Constellation right above my head, or the brilliant display of stars seen from the bottom of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. Not to mention the abundance of tropical vegetation - Mangrove trees in particular, growing out of the sea at high tide, a phenomenon totally unknown around the UK, Europe or the Mediterranean.

A Mangrove tree at Arlie Beach, Queensland, 1997.

Travel became something of an obsession, I think, since I first believed in Jesus Christ as Saviour. It was due to the fact that I started reading the Bible, and the Old Testament in particular said a great deal about the nation of Israel with its capital city, Jerusalem. So in 1976, after touring Italy for the last three years as a solo backpacker, I flew out to Israel to see the city the Bible had spoken so much about, together with a stay in Tiberias, on the lake of Galilee, that part of the world so familiar with Jesus Christ and his disciples. Gosh, how I wanted to see Jesus at the time, while walking on territory he once walked on. As a twenty-three year old, I was quite naive and not realised that not only was he already with me, but also lived in me, and in a sense, was guiding me along where he had been before his crucifixion. After visiting Israel in 1976, my desire to see the rest of the world, particularly California, began to increase, a lot of this to do with big screen and television movies.

God allowed me to fulfil my travel dreams, simply because he is my Father, as Jesus taught us to regard him. As my knowledge of the Bible began to accumulate, my curiosity over the city of Jerusalem began to grow, and I wanted so much to be there to see for myself. I can't remember if I specifically asked whether I can go, but even as such an immature Christian back then, God knew my heart and he had opened the door. Apparently, for one to backpack the Middle East was so unusual back in the mid-seventies, that after I returned, it became quite a sensation at my place of work, a precision engineering factory which employed around two hundred people, both in the offices and shop-floor.

One of the Scriptures I have become familiar with is found in Matthew 7:7-11, where Jesus instructs his followers that God is willing to give good things to those that ask him. Good things? In my younger days, to me good things meant travel, and loads of money to do this. As a single person, good things also meant meeting a girl of my dreams, marry and raise a family. However, a fast car was not on the agenda, as I have proved myself not to have taken to the steering wheel. But reading what Jesus was comparing here, he was saying that although our hearts are evil, as fathers we are keen to give good gifts to our children when they ask for them.

Perhaps life was very different during Jesus' day. Did children really ask their dads for bread, fish or an egg? According to Jesus and his followers, these seemed to have been the normal things to ask for, as these were the only goods that existed in a primitive agricultural world. Yet in our modern day, I don't ever record asking my parents for food such as meat and vegetables. Neither have I ever seen or heard about any children ask for bread or a fish. Sweets (candy) - yes, and often given as a reward for being good or obedient. As for toys, I have seen more than one child scream as he or she was pulled away by Mum from a toy shop at the shopping mall, but I have yet to see a child scream if he or she is pulled away from a grocery store. Also it can be hard work trying to persuade children to eat their Brussels sprouts, or greens in general. Rather than ask for these items, they are often the last  taken from the plate, if they leave the plate at all. And that despite that vegetables have a lot of nutritional goodness in them.

And that's the point. When I was young, if someone had placed a portion of boiled cabbage and a bar of chocolate in front of me, then told to choose which to eat, I would have chosen the chocolate, even if there was much more protein in the cabbage. Would I have chosen the chocolate because I was rebellious? Not at all. I would have chosen it simply because I was a child, and the taste of chocolate is far more enjoyable than the taste of the vegetable. Because of this, I would have regarded the chocolate as an undeserved treat, while eating the cabbage was more of an act of duty. A lesson may be learned here with a plate of biscuits (cookies). When my Mum had a packet of chocolate biscuits and some plain wheat ones too, what she did was to wrap the plain ones in silver foil, and present them in the same dish as the chocolate ones. The ruse always worked. The ones in the foil stood out as special, and taking one of those represented a special treat, and I felt the need to eat it despite the anticlimax.

And as a young Christian, even as an adult, I regarded the goodness of God in a very similar way. How come? Because in Matthew's version, Jesus says that the Father will give good things to those who asks him, while in Luke's version (11:9-13) he says that the father gives the Holy Spirit to those who asks him! Therefore as a young Christian, I found Matthew's version a whole lot more appealing. With it, I did ask the Father if I could travel around the world. I did ask the Father if I would ever cross the International Date Line sometime in my life. I did ask the Father if I would be married one day. I also asked the Father if I could qualify for a desk job in an office - not because this was always my aspiration, but because I would be better loved, respected and accepted by other people, particularly in my church. But asking for the Holy Spirit? Not quite so appealing, despite that he was the best I could have asked for.

According to my experience, there seems to be a parallel between growing up physically and growing up spiritually. In I Corinthians 3, Hebrews 5:13 and 1 Peter 2:2, the apostles wrote about babes in Christ, who were engaging in quarrelling and envying instead of bathing in the grace of God. And these Christians were adults, yet they were spiritual children. It seems to me that it's natural for the new believer to pass through a stage of spiritual childhood, and yet we have a Heavenly Father who understands this. There is absolutely nothing wrong in desiring things we see around us or what other people have gotten or have achieved. Travel was, and still is, my passion and God has granted me the ability to have travelled the world, and enough money to finance it. God has also granted that I would have a wife, a partner for life. But he did not grant me to have a cosy desk job at an office, neither did he allow me to fulfil my childhood ambition to become a medical doctor or journalist. Back in 1980, when I was out of a job, I wanted so much to climb out of my working class status and become middle class. If only I could land an office job, I would have bridged the divide.

At my old church, the person's worth was evaluated by level of education and professional occupation. And one who came out of university was held in higher regard and greater respect than the one who didn't. The graduate found it easier to make friends, was wooed by the girls and even the Elders gave the graduate greater responsibilities as house group leaders and teachers of Junior Church, and so on. As a result of all this, there were times that my personal relationship with God was under some strain, and even thought, erroneously, that God loved some people more than others and I was near the bottom of the pile. World travel became the antidote against this line of thinking.

It is as I grew older both physically and spiritually that I began to realise that Luke's version of what Jesus taught was far superior. Whether these two sayings were slightly different variations of the same speech delivered or whether he spoke on the same theme at different times and places, really that does not matter. For Jesus to say that the Holy Spirit is available just by the asking is the greatest demonstration of grace God can bestow upon a person. Furthermore, it is an unqualified statement, it does not respect the recipient's level of education or social status. As with travel, this always ends with a bout of "post holiday blues" - a deep feeling of melancholy as I walked into an empty, silent but oh-so-familiar apartment after so many nights spent at a lively, bustling hostel socialising and making friends in the far corner of the globe, with the distance from work and daily responsibilities to match. But asking for the Holy Spirit to flood my soul with himself is actually a lot more fulfilling, not only because the gift is eternal, but particularly when I go through a difficult patch wondering how long my window cleaning business will last, the growing threat of rivalry due to superior sales patter, better equipment which demands hundreds, if not thousands of pounds investment, and an estate of ageing clientele leaving me very unsure about the future.

I have found that trusting in God and asking for the Holy Spirit to fill me on a daily basis has not only helped along in facing an uncertain future, but on the positive scale, has given me patience in dealing with difficult clients, to be gentle and accommodating when others poses levels of difficulty. And I give credit to the power of God in my life, a Saviour who is fully capable in renewing a sinner's heart. A long backpacking holiday, or even a sabbatical, may be an exciting idea but also a return ticket is included in the package. Not so with the seal and guarantee of eternal life. No return ticket there! Realising that asking the Father for the Holy Spirit is equivalent to a child choosing the cabbage instead of the chocolate, to walk into a clothes shop on a cold day instead of the toy shop, or for that matter, if a choice between a pretty picture postcard or a £20 note was presented, the child choosing the money above the postcard, despite that the card is far more prettier.

I believe that God's wish is to bless us. I don't believe that God is reluctant to bestow material blessings, which includes the opportunity to travel. After all, wasn't Abraham rich? And so was Job? And one of the richest men who had ever lived was King Solomon. Never mind that he erred in later life. Solomon was bestowed with a supernatural wisdom which could have only come from the Spirit of God, and was particularly loved by God at his birth.

King Solomon's splendour. 

God has blessed me richly with a wife and a nice home, two computers, a photo library of travel experiences, and niceties which enhances the pleasantness of being at home. But the best gift God has given me is salvation and having not just having the Holy Spirit dwell in me, but all of the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit taking delight in making me their home.

Adam and Eve - Historical? You MUST be Joking!!!

It was my intention to write about the truth of pre-Abrahamic Scriptures, as this was on my mind for the past week. The idea was stirred in my heart after the Media delivered report after report of the riots which at first broke out in Tottenham, North London, after a man was shot dead by Police. The riots then quickly spread across London, then into various provincial cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. Along with the rioting, shops were ransacked and destroyed and merchandise looted.

Then only yesterday I came across this article in the Saturday's Daily Mail newspaper. Written brilliantly by A.N. Wilson, this columnist believes that the basic reason for the decline of our society is based on the breakdown of the family unit which, he writes, was sustained throughout history by a bedrock belief in the truth of religion. He praises Muslims, Hindus and Jews for allowing their faith to bind families together, yet let out a blast particularly at the Church of England for wringing her hands while congregation numbers dwindle. He then lets rip on the academics, particularly on what he calls "the nuttier fringes of the chattering classes" for leading the nation away from belief in God and the Bible's truthfulness. Two people he names: Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, both having written books debunking Divine Creation and the early history of the human race for the theory of Evolution. They present a very convincing argument in the name of Science that we are here as an end result of a long process of organic evolution covering a time span of around 200,000,000 years. At the same time, these two are convinced that religion is a poison to the fabric of society.

Thus faith in the Bible has been severely knocked, particularly in the early chapters of Genesis. If the Bible is likened to a vessel, say a pail or large bowl, to have the truth of the early chapters of Genesis called into question would result in a hole at the bottom which would render the vessel useless for holding water. Likewise, the Bible has been rendered ineffectual as a book for spiritual and moral guidance. It has become a book for fanciful stories and myth, at best these myths provide some hidden truth on how one should behave, but remains totally insufficient in historical and spiritual content. Yet the Bible, particularly the book of Genesis, contains the very essence for a stable, crime free society - the institute of marriage and the family unit: father, mother and children brought up in a godly manner. Yet our academics, as A. Wilson rightly comments, are responsible for our nation's moral and spiritual decline.

So in this article, I will try to show the historical truth of the early chapters of Genesis, much maligned by the academics, and how it applies to us today.

It is in the first chapters of Genesis where the institution of a man and woman bonded together in a marriage covenant had its origins. Marriage between a man and a woman began with that of Adam and Eve, and has been ongoing ever since, even to this day, whether the Bible is believed in or not. If the Bible is just a book of mythical fables, then why does history itself testify the importance of marriage? Even to the extent that the Church of England itself had its beginnings over the dispute between King Henry VIII and Pope Clement VII over the King's wish to divorce his first wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon.

In this article, I wish to spell out the historicity of the early chapters of Genesis, and to do this I need to write two separate blogs, this one and the one to follow, in it I will deal with the Noachian Deluge.

In 1973, when I was young in the faith, a man only a couple of years younger than me approached and asked:
"If Adam and Eve had sons Cain and Abel, who was Cain's wife?"
At that time I was stumped. He was better informed of the narration than I was, simply because as one new to the faith, I only read the story recently. Furthermore, the same question was asked several times by different people in different places.

In the account, we are told that Adam was created from the ground. He must have been created as an adult with full brain powers, for he was able to give names to every animal which passed him by. Each species were a pair, male and female. When Adam realised that he had no mate of his own, he felt incomplete in himself, and God was able to see this. Thus God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep while an operation was performed - exactly the same kind as performed in hospital theatres today where the patient is put under anaesthesia before an operation is carried out. A rib is removed from Adam's body, itself a living thing, and from it God created a woman who is to become Adam's wife and mother of all living.

Adam and Eve, by Michaelangelo, Sistine Chapel in Rome

The supernatural creation of both Adam and Eve as well as a talking snake which tempted them afterward are all easily debunked as a fanciful myth simply because none of these things had ever occurred in our lifetimes. We never experienced any talking animal, let alone a snake! But that does not mean that it couldn't have happened. Why not? Yet the snake has kept on saying the same words for millennia! As we shall see.

The Edenic Lie is closer to reality than we care to believe. The temptation the snake used were twofold, first that God was a jealous liar in declaring that they would die if they ate fruit from a specific tree. Secondly, the snake offered to exalt their status from the one they were already in (the crown and pinnacle of Creation) to one of divinity, with knowledge of what's good and evil, if they would just eat the fruit. In short, eat - and become gods, full of knowledge.

Our quest for education, knowledge and becoming gods are in all of us. It is like this as an individual, a family, group or nation. Hitler and his Nazi Party provides a good example of national superiority. Just as he wanted to bring his Reich into the rest of Europe, including the UK, he also believed in the lie that the Jews were an inferior race to his, and as a result, ushered in the Holocaust, with the needless slaying of six million Jews. It is interesting to realise that Hitler's slaughter of the Jews was the snake's attempt to prevent the Jews in returning to their own land to form the new State of Israel which, in turn, would eventually bring the return of its Messiah and the end of the snake's power.

Just as Adam and Eve disregarded God's commandment to abstain from eating from that particular tree in the belief that they will be exalted, so too the Edenic Lie, as with Hitler, is in all of us. We are more than happy to disregard God and his commandments for the quest of becoming gods ourselves. The theory of evolution, which denies the Biblical record of Creation, is but one proof of man's strong desire for the gradual climb towards divinity.

Therefore, this disregarding of God's commandments for personal exaltation to divinity makes up the threefold nature of sin, what it really is. First, sin is a rejection of God's Holiness. This includes hate, murder, adultery, blasphemy, lying and many other sins. Secondly, sin is a rejection of God's leadership with the desire to lead our lives our own way, independent from God. Idolatry and pleasure-seeking may be classified as this. Thirdly, a rejection of God's provisions where pride in self achievement may play a role in this, along with stealing, dishonesty and greed.

After our first parents fell into sin by eating the fruit and disobeying God's commandments, God made a promise that the woman's seed shall bruise the snake's head, a way of announcing total defeat for the snake. Also the snake shall bruise the seed's feet, which indicate that the battle will not be easy, but will itself involve death of the seed. Further action is also demonstrated with God slaying an innocent animal to clothe the couple. Therefore innocent blood was shed to cover their nakedness, just as the blood of the innocent Lamb was shed to atone for our sins. This was of contrast to the aprons which they made from fig leaves soon after they fell. Aprons made from fig leaves defines Religion, the attempt to reconcile oneself to God by self-effort. When the beast was supernaturally slain and the couple clothed, God totally disregarded the fig leaves. It is worth of note that Adam and Eve did absolutely nothing in gaining their new clothes. God did everything. No one can be saved and be reconciled to God by self effort, not even the smallest made by man. The seed of the woman is, of course, Jesus Christ.

We now see Adam and Eve expelled from the Garden of Eden and Eve becomes the mother of Cain. Then after this, a sibling is born, Abel. We are told that after a period of time (but we are not told how long) both Cain and Abel set up altars. Cain's sacrifice, based on self-effort, was rejected by God. Abel's, based on faith in the Promise, was accepted. In a furious rage, Cain slays his younger brother, whose blood soaks into the ground. Then having received his judgement and punishment from God, we are told that he departed from the Lord, knew his wife and begotten a son, and went eastward to the land of Nod, and there built a city, and called the city after the name of his son, Enoch.

Taking this narration at face value, it's no wonder why skeptics ask, "Who was Cain's wife?" For here we read of only four characters: Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel. Abel was killed, leaving only three people on earth. So we see Cain, after the murder, pleading with God: "...that everyone who finds me will slay me...(Genesis 4:14). Everyone? With just his Mum and Dad sharing the whole land? And how on earth could he build a city by himself. It does not make sense! It is the next chapter which gives some answers, and I'm quite surprised to be asked, "Who was Cain's wife?" if only a little research was needed to solve this problem.

Here we read:
And Adam lived 130 years, and begat a son of his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth. Just earlier, the narration tells us that Adam and Eve fathered a son, Seth, to replace Abel, because Cain slew him. (4:25). Therefore we can dismiss the idea that the murder of Abel took place a mere twenty years after Creation. It was more likely to be closer to 130 years after Creation. This was the reason Seth replaced Abel as the father of the Messianic line. Originally, the Messianic line began with Abel, but the snake through Cain tried to have this line cut off before the Messiah arrived to bruise his head. The snake, of course, is the Devil.

So we can conclude here that during the 130 years between Creation and the birth of Seth, many other children were born to Adam and Eve. This would have been the fulfillment of the first command God gave to the innocent, unfallen couple. "Multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over it." (1:28). Not to have children during the next century of their existence would have been totally absurd! We have no idea how many children Adam fathered between Abel and Seth. But let us assume it was thirty. 15 boys and 15 girls. This would give Eve a rest period of over three years between each pregnancy. We assume that along with Cain and Abel, two baby girls were born. This would give Cain a wife straight away. He would have married his own sister, not only acceptable but a necessity in those days. If each of the thirty other children (i.e. 15 couples) had eight offspring each, this would raise the population to 152 people. And that's a very conservative number. If each of the 120 grandchildren of Adam (60 couples) had eight children, the population would have risen to 480 great grandchildren, plus 120 grandchildren, plus 30 children, plus two original parents, would equal 632 people. If each of the descendants of Adam's sons had much more than eight children each, and there is absolutely no reason not to be the case, the population would be much higher. So by the time of Cain's murder of Abel, it might have been possible that the population could have reached into the thousands.

Therefore it all makes sense. At the time of the murder, Cain had reason to be afraid of revenge, even from his own descendants, but more likely from his nephews and great nephews and nieces. As for building a city, this was probably on the banks of the River Euphrates (not the present river of that name, but the antediluvian predecessor). With the help of his relatives, the city might have started as a few houses along the river bank. But over the next thousand years or so, it could have grown into a sizeable city, perhaps like Ninevah, which took three days to explore. The city of Enoch could have been much larger, perhaps the size of Greater London or Los Angeles. After all, it took the last few centuries for London to grow to its present size.

To conclude this article: The narration of the early chapters of Genesis is perfectly historical, and we can see the effects of this to this day. From the dawn of history the institution of marriage between husband and wife and raising children is not only Biblical, but necessary for the survival of civilised society.

Maybe if our academics promote the truthfulness of Scripture instead of spending their lives debunking it as fable folklore, most likely the riots of last week may never had occurred.