Blog 2 - 2026

  

Blog Two - February 1^st 2026

I’ve been hearing about changes in education and comparing them to the changes with the world around us and wondering. We see the controversy that Mr Trump is causing in America with his oligarchical philosophy. I think many think he is somewhat fascist in his reasoning but I think he is actually more of a nationalist with dictatorial tendencies. An American Putin.

The same applies to those leading New Zealand at the moment. The Coalition is powering along making changes in the hope of restoring the New Zealand that used to be? The reality is they are working within a system that is implementing another agenda altogether, again within reason. Education is an example of this.

Last year the government brought out a curriculum update and issued new texts to support it. This has only had one year of operation and a new even more austere update has been rolled out which smacks of nineteenth century Prussian educational dogma. We will make our children a product of the state. Will teach them all what they need to know. Part of this is teaching the same content at the same time every day in every school. Don’t get me wrong, there are benefits of this type of system but it is not the type of system that we Kiwi’s would choose for ourselves. Far too constricted and proscribed.

Christianity is another area that has been undergoing changes in this modern world and has arrived in an odd state of equilibrium. When I grew up the Christian church was strong and virtually everyone, whether a church goer or not, held to christian values. Doing the right thing, bringing up your children in a family with a mum and a dad and with love and discipline in equal measure.

With the advent of secular culture and the focus on godless evolution enshrined in pseudo science. Honestly, you don’t have to go to far into this nonsense to realise that nothing begats nothing and the complexity of life around us, from the cell on up, screams at the top of it lungs “There is a God!” However, the church has dissolved from the inside out and only the cults are left. Adventism, Calvinism and Pentecostalism have inherited the mantle that used to belong to simple bible and gospel based Christianity.

So how does this all fit together. Well when we talk of politics or education or, the Church we are really talking about systems. For me as an older person the systems I grew up with and which seemed to work have changed and in my opinion don’t work so well anymore. I have a feeling that as a kiwi in my sixties this isn’t my world anymore. It belongs to the younger generation. I fear for my children and their children.

Particularly, when you add activist driven biculturalism, rampant immigration and the impacts of one in one hundred year weather events every few months. The systems they are changing and not for the good. One way or another, this little country isn’t the way it was and as change comes in so does the age old question. “Is this my country anymore?”

We have governments that seem to be hell bent on global elitist chaos. We have free education and health systems in deliberate decline. This with the implication that education and health will only be for the wealthy in the future. This goes for the insurance industry as well, as even insuring your house is no longer a given when it used to be a government guarantee.

The church is no longer what it was and in many ways doesn’t do the job of proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ anymore. Which is what it is there for. Of course, God has got this and there will be a remnant working in the background and following the great commission. There always has been a group of dedicated Christians obeying Christ.

Matthew 28 verses 19 and 20: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

As an older person I guess these are the types of thoughts are very common. As you pass the age having a real impact on life the world seems to pass you by. However, these are real issues of concern for the next generation. As I mentioned before I worry for them as they face them. The implications of those issues could be life changing.

Blog 1 - 2026

 

What I’m Thinking - Jan '26...

Hear we are at January 13 already. I was thinking I might start a blog about some of the things I’ve been thinking about lately. One of the current news issues at the moment is, if we were to try to put a name to it, “Who is Donald Trump and what do we do with him?”

He recently abducted the Venezuelan president and his administration is saying strange things about taking over Greenland. Europe are up in arms, nothing new there but: What is this Donald Trump fellow up to? I mean the United States does radical stuff all the time. They operate all over the world but usually their missions are shrouded in secrecy. Trump is just such a talker, it must drive the CIA, FBI, NSA and all the other acronyms crazy.

You know Trump is not a traditional conservative, right? As a Kiwi I would cite men like Sir Keith Holyoak, Sir John Marshall and Sir Brian Tallboys as being traditional conservatives. Men who held no nonsense values and favored a hard working life where everyone had equal opportunity. Something like that in any case. No, Mr Trump is a billionaire oligarch like Mr Putin and his friends which is why they get on so well. I’m fairly sure that when they look at you and me they see a herd of cattle or a flock of Emus or something of that ilk. What I’m saying is that they pretend to like us to control us but don’t see us being equal to them.

So how do we assimilate this information. I guess we’ll just have to passively wait and see what happens. The bible tells us that God installs our leaders to keep order and achieve His objectives, paraphrase but you get my meaning. You know what I think anyway. I believe these are the last days of the Church Age and Jesus will return soon but first a time destruction known as the Time of Jacob’s Trouble. Never a dull moment.

Benjamin Netanyahu

So, I recently wrote a few supportive comments about Benjamin Netanyahu on Face-book and encountered a bit of opposition from the alien invasion lunatic fringe muttering about brown haired blue eyed Jesus and a killing children will get you into hell. You know open minded well informed kind of thinking. Interestingly, I was searching up Palestinian DNA the other day to see if they were descended from the Philistines. The blurb said they weren’t but the results might be fudged. However, one article said that the Philistines are thought to have been descended from a European tribe. The Palestinians are genetically similar to middle eastern Jews and Arabs. So the reason they hate Israel; Simply Palestine is Islam and they hate Israel; even though many of the Palestinians could be the same race as the Israelis’. Hard to credit.

As to Ben Netanyahu. Although he is not against Israel being involved in the global economy he is a strong nationalist and a loyal Israeli whilst being at the same time probably the most capable leader Modern Israel has ever known. I believe he is God’s man for the time. Ultimately though, God can defend Israel and he will do so. Therefore we need have no fear, for Israel is here to stay. Despite what all of naysayers and other disenfranchised folk have to say about it. I rather liked this post from face book: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=ben%20netayahu%20amos

Getting Old

I turned sixty five recently and I can tell you that aging is a bit of a concern. You suddenly realise that you may have to retire soon and that the financial ramifications of that are significant. I also seem to be facing hearing which is going into a decline to add to my sight which while being better than 20 – 20 is becoming increasingly long sighted so, I’m blind out to around one meter.

I had a hip replacement some years ago and the fact that the new hip doesn’t match the existing one in gait results in stress on my knee joints and back which leave me in a world of pain. Ligament damage in my left leg causes me to drag myself upstairs with my arms which is causing nerve damage between my shoulders. It all seems to be down hill from here. Oh well, never mind.

Computing

I decided to get back into using Linux just because you have to use the command line a bit more than just clicking install. I started with Neon and Kubuntu two distros by KDE, one of the Linux organisations. I wasn’t that pleased with them this time round and so replaced them with another distro call Arch Linux. Arch is more of a skilled user unit and you have to know what you’re doing to use it, or so I’m assured. I find that there is so much information on the Internet these days you can cut and paste commands and solve problems that someone who knows has fixed before you. You just need to be a bit discerning. I like Linux because it does challenge me and keep my mind active so, it is a part of my anti Alzheimers initiative.

The Weather this Month

The fires are raging in Australia and have been happening in Kiwi-land, as well, over the last months despite what has seemed like a very wet season here. My sister lives in Australia and is in the fire zone so it has been a tense business waiting on the outcomes of alerts and the need to have bags packed and being ready to move. Speaking of fire risk, there is a paddock of rank grass beside our property which isn’t being controlled effectively at the moment.

There is a subdivision up the road from us and a storm water system was needed so the powers that be went to work and after two years had created two large dams and an equally large spillway. The spillway area is being grazed but for some reason the area beside our place is being left fallow. It is covered in rank grass, at the moment, and is a fire hazard. One of the problems with a move away from capitalism is that the signals which cause people to produce more either don’t happen or are ignored in the supposed best interest of something else. Possibly what is happening here… ?

MMP – One Party State

A case in point is the land surrounding Lake Rotorua and the other lakes. This land is under grazing control meaning you can only have a certain number of animals per hectare on that country, The result is a general lack of grazing control and productivity of those farms going through the floor. The land is going to waste. People talk about communism by stealth but when the state controls how land is used at the expense of the economy doesn’t that imply that the government is now more closely aligned to socialism than capitalism. My question is when did this take place. When we changed to MMP did we unknowingly sign onto a one party state. Where political parties are now just sects of the same one party system ??? Is this system socialist?

That’s it…

So, that’s some of the things that are on my mind at the moment. Probably the only thing left for me to mention is “What we are here to do in this life.” I don’t think a lot of people really give a much thought to what they are here for. Most seem to think its about being successful and becoming somebody, or getting your family into a better situation where they are no longer dependent on creating enough wealth to survive.

I am afraid there are over eight billion other people on the Earth who share your aspirations and then we move into the area of social responsibility. Creating a decent level of wealth not just for your family but for everyone. But is this what our existence is really all about? Life is so arbitrary. One minute you’re doing great and then a cancer diagnosis or a car accident and things either change or, suddenly this life is over. Just like that!

Its no great secret that I am a Christian. I believe this life is a temporal and a temporary thing. It is more like a test than a competition. We’re not competing with those around us to be most successful but God is testing us to see if we will seek Him. You see, He wants a people for His own possession, a people who will choose Him and who would want to reign with Him forever.

In that vein, when our first parents disobeyed God and broke their connection to Him. He planned to become a man himself and to take the sins of the world on Himself. Jesus Christ bore our sins on the Cross and shed His blood as the sacrifice for our sins. So that we can believe on Him and receive eternal life. So that we can repent and be baptised in His name for the remission of sins and to receive the Holy Spirit.

You see, if you confess your sins, God is faithful to forgive your sins and to cleanse you of all unrighteousness. Thus, this life is about choosing God or rejecting Him. About, becoming his special people or choosing to forego eternity and to endure the second death. It’s up to you, but it’s not about getting wealthy in the assets of this world rather it is about storing up wealth in the life to come by choosing to obey the one living God, Yahweh Elohim.

There ya go...

 

Do You Have a Hope of Salvation...

I have a friend who has investigated the authenticity of the scriptures to the best of his ability and he has come to the conclusion that King David, King Solomon and Jesus Christ are works of fiction loosely based on several characters who lived at the same times as these central religious figures. This has laid waste to his faith and he no longer truly believes in truth as it is outlined in the Bible.

To me I look at this situation from a certain perspective. I have faith that there is God and that he so loved us that he gave his only son, Jesus Christ, that who ever believes on him will receive eternal life. It makes no difference what anyone says to me I will always believe this to be true. I believe in the trinity: The father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I believe in God and I dare to say that I have a hope of Salvation.

The devil is the prince of this world and he will attack everything that God says or does in an effort to cast doubt upon it and to discredit it. He is very thorough and will leave nothing undone in his effort to prevent the majority of humanity from finding the truth about God and finding salvation.

If you would search history to find proof of the truth of the holy scriptures and the promises of God you will most likely find much to cause you concern and doubt. There are myriads of similar but substantially different texts that will cause you to be uncertain about the truth of God's word. But these are as ancient as the Torah and the writings of the New Testament and impossible to verify other than the fact that they exist.

The bottom line is that you have to have faith if you are to believe in God. Whatever you think about the voracity of the scriptures there basic tenants that will always hold true.

1. Man is separated from God by sin. 
2. To be spared from the judgement of the law (ten commandments), for that sin. You must meet the conditions of the law.
3. Man in the flesh cannot set himself free from sin.
4. God addressed man's sin debt by sending his own son to live a life of sinless perfection and as a sacrifice to pay that sin debt.
5. To believe God in this matter is to have faith in God and his promises.
6. To have entered into an agreement with God and asked his forgiveness for your sins by believing on his only Son, Jesus Christ, This is to have gained a hope of Salvation.

Regardless of what you know about the scriptures if you believe God and that he will pay your sin debt through the shed blood of Jesus Christ his only Son. Then this is reckoned to you as Faith. To have a hope of Salvation you need only have Faith that God will honor his promises. 

Awareness...

There are some experiences in life that make you more aware of the battle between the devil, his principalities and the Christian. I have noticed that when an event of spiritual significance takes place and the enemy are attacking that I have trouble thinking clearly. It seems as though time slows down,  moments seem to take minutes and things that are really out of place seem normal. It feels like my mind is being pulled in a direction I don't want to go and I'm not in control of my faculties.

However, something that I have become aware of more recently is that everyday life is much like those significant spiritual attacks. Items that God warns us about in the scriptures and which can become idols. TV shows, the Internet, Sport, anything that distracts us from the path that God intends us to follow maybe an event where the enemy is actively leading us from the way. It only takes a minute and we are off the true path and on our way up a side road. The enemy is attempting to neutralise us as Christians and Believers. All day, every day and in every way that he can so as to minimise the the impact we have on the world and maximise the impact the world has on us.

We need to seek God to cover us, our families and other believers to:

Make Straight the Way;
Make Clear the Path;
Make Plain the Instructions.

So that we are in no doubt as to what His will is for us each day and we know exactly what we are doing as Christians. Aware of our place in God's great work which is the battle against the Satan. 

Let our Body;
Our Soul;
Our Spirit.

Be continually and forever at the disposal of the our Lord the Almighty and His only Son Jesus Christ. Let the Holy Spirit indwell each of us revealing Christ in us and empowering each of us to take up the full armor of God to defeat the enemy. 

Perceptions

I use Facebook as an outreach quite often by posting a verse of scripture or creating a link to a relevant Christian website. For the most part, people in my sphere of influence don't react to my small but highly visible attempts at open evangelism. This causes me to consider how they perceive me as a Christian or for that matter how they perceive Christianity in general.

I remember while teaching Bible 'n Schools some years ago that I recounted the tale of the great English woman missionary to India, Amy Carmichael. One of the stories of her life was of a dream she had where she saw her self walking amongst a river of people. Those around her seemed to be walking in their sleep toward a cliff and certain doom. She tried to wake them and turn them away from their dire fate but only a very few woke up and heeded her warnings.

I don't dare compare my trifling attempts at sharing the truths of the gospel to the works of a truly devout saint like Amy Carmichael but I do relate to the feelings of inadequacy she described from her dream. People happily respond to mere worldly banter and discourse of sweet nothings that dominate most of the interaction on the social websites, but mention anything of a spiritual nature and suggest real consequences of inaction, then the silence becomes deafening.

I guess that what I'm trying to say is that I would love to tell my friends and the community on Facebook that it's going to be fine so don't worry. I'd love to be able to make them feel secure and happy that they're moving on the right course but the fact is that this is not the case. Mankind is separated from God by our sins and God has made a covenant with man through Jesus Christ who bore our sins upon the cross, that if we believe on him we shall not die but inherit eternal life - John 3:16.

This is not a popular message and Christians may seem a little out of step with a world that accepts only that which can be measured and defined by rational science rather than faith. However, even those who promote evolution have to make some allowances for inconvenient anomalies within that theory which amounts to showing a certain degree of faith and shows that it is really just as much a religion as any other.  

So what is a Christian to do then? Do we just walk away and leave the lost to their fate, since it seems that they don't want to be warned about it. Or, do we just keep on going and present them with the same old message that they don't want to hear. I guess we can be popular in this life or we can listen to the scripture which tells us we will be persecuted for the gospels sake and suffer as Christ suffered. Not a popular message at the end of the day but I suppose it comes down to seventy years in this life versus eternity in Paradise.