Orwellian

Valerie Cullers 15 Comments

This week, our government announced it was forming a Disinformation Governance Board under the Department of Homeland Security. It was couched under the guise that it was being formed to protect the public from disinformation from foreign sources. Understandably, people are concerned about the government using this board against its own citizens are speaking out. The idea of it is truly Orwellian.

One has to ask oneself, “Do I want my government to be a sifter of information and then purvey what they believe to be acceptable information to the public?” Of course not. It is reminiscent of The Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s novel 1984, where the people in the ministry were constantly spreading propaganda to the public in an effort to have them believe the lies the government was disseminating to its citizens. This Disinformation Governance Board could easily become like Orwell’s Ministry of Truth.

Is this something new that is happening in our society? Hardly. Our society has been slipping into an Orwellian dystopia for many years. For example, the Ministry of Truth had a department where they rewrote history to fit with the current orthodoxy of the day. People were punished for speaking certain words, and those words were taken out of the dictionary. By taking words out of the dictionary, the government was trying to control the thoughts of individuals in society. Does our current “cancel culture” reflect any of that form of speech control? Do our “alternate history” teachers use a similar approach when teaching our students a history that reflects their orthodoxy?

When one looks at repressive totalitarian regimes around the world, there is always a pattern when it comes to “Disinformation.” One only has to look at the Nazis or the Stalinist regime of the former USSR. The government first comes for its political enemies. Next, the media is constrained to only spew government-controlled information. The political dissidents are arrested next, and finally, the governments always come for the Christians and the Jews. It is a pattern seen over and over in countries like China, North Korea, Russia, and the former Nazi government of Germany.

Why do they always come for the Christians and the Jews in the end? Because they are the people who believe in liberty, free speech, and take a moral stance that is in direct conflict with totalitarian regimes. Do you think it can’t happen in the U.S.? Take a good hard look at what our government is proposing and then tell me why you don’t think it could happen here.

Thanatos

Valerie Cullers 25 Comments

The other day, I was asking the Lord about the things that were happening in the world. The world seems like it is in a desperate state at the moment. I was lying in bed that evening, about to go to sleep, when I heard the word Thanatos. I knew the word was probably Greek, and so I looked it up on the internet. Ancient Greeks believed that Thanatos was the bodily incarnation of Death. “Hm-m-m,” I thought. The next morning, I looked up Thanatos in my New Testament Greek dictionary, and it was the word Death.

I thought about it for a moment and looked in Revelation 6, 7-8. “When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come and see.” So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name on him who sat on it was Death (Thanatos), and Hades followed him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.”

Many believers don’t believe the four horsemen of the Apocalypse will be released until the church has been taken to heaven in the Rapture. They believe that the seal judgments will not start until after that event. For me, I don’t know.

Could the horsemen be riding now? I have thought about it this past week. When I look around the world what do I see in Mariupol, Shanghai, Chicago, New York, Yemen, Africa, etc.? I see Thanatos. Is he riding on his pale horse or just walking the streets? That’s for you to decide. For me, I can see him riding through the world bringing death and destruction. Perhaps it is later than we think on the prophetic timeline.

Painting by Gustave Dore

Fine Linen

Valerie Cullers 13 Comments

Last week when I was reading the Easter story, I noticed a few things about Joseph of Arimathea. Scripture tells us that Joseph went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus after the crucifixion so that he could bury it. The text in Mark 15 tell us that Joseph received permission from Pontius Pilate . It then tells us that Joseph “bought fine linen, took Him down, and wrapped Him in the linen.”

It struck me that Joseph was giving his best to Jesus. He could have bought any kind of material but he bought fine linen, which must have cost him a pretty penny or denarius if you will. I checked the current cost for linen and regular linen will go for about $5.00 a yard. However, fine linen can run you up to ten times that much, i.e. $50.00 a yard. So even by today’s standards, buying fine linen was costly indeed.

Maybe that doesn’t impress you much. Perhaps you’re thinking, “What are several yards of cloth going to cost you, four to five hundred dollars? So? But that is not the extent of Joseph’s generosity, not by a long shot. The text then tells us that Joseph “laid Him in a tomb which had been hewn out of stone.” We know from the Gospel of Matthew that this was Joseph’s new tomb. No one had been put in there before. Talk about expensive. Can you imagine the cost of having a tomb carved out of rock? Just like today, an endeavor like that would be extremely expensive; and yet Joseph didn’t hesitate to give his tomb to Jesus. By today’s standards the tomb could have cost upwards of $50,000 dollars.

I don’t know about you but before this past weekend, I had never really considered the cost of what Joseph had done. I knew he shown courage when he asked Pilate for Jesus’ body but I had never really thought about his generosity. When I think about what he did and how quickly he made his decisions, I am impressed.

And the takeaway? For me, it is to examine myself and check my own level of generosity. What would I be willing to give to the Lord? Would I hang on to my money or would I be willing to give him my best? Definitely a question I need to think about as I move forward this year! What about you, how is your level of generosity?

Image by D William. Courtesy of Pixabay

Scars in Heaven

Valerie Cullers 13 Comments

This week is Holy Week for those who believe in Jesus Christ. It is the week when Jesus entered Jerusalem, held the Last Supper, was crucified and rose from the dead. There is not a more important week in Christianity. Today is Good Friday, the day Christians celebrate Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

When Jesus came back from the dead, He had a spiritual body. You could look at it and touch it. He would appear in one place and soon after appear in another. Doors and walls were no obstacle to Him. He didn’t look exactly the same as He had in life, but there was one thing on His body that made Him recognizable: His scars.

When He rose from the dead, His body had the scars from His crucifixion. One of His disciples Thomas would not believe Jesus rose from the dead unless he could touch His scars. He wanted proof that Jesus had in fact risen from the grave. When Jesus appeared to the disciples, he allowed Thomas to touch His scars and see for himself that He was real. Thomas’s response was, “My Lord and my God.”

For all eternity, people in heaven will see the marks the crucifixion left on His body. His sacrifice will be paramount to His followers, for it will be the only reason they are there, having been reconciled to the Father.

Image by Tre Harris. Courtesy of Pixabay

Slain

Valerie Cullers 7 Comments

Behold the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world.

SO WHAT DOES THAT REALLY MEAN?

In Revelation 13:8, we see Christ described as “slain from the foundation of the world.” Before the world was created, before man was created, Jesus knew that man would be a sinner and that someone would have to pay the penalty for that sin. Before we were even created, He willingly chose to come to earth and pay the price for our sins.

It is hard to comprehend that kind of love, that kind of sacrifice, but that is exactly the kind of love that brought Jesus into the world and eventually onto the cross.

During this season, place your eyes upon Christ on the cross, dying for the sins of the world; for you, for me and for everyone who ever existed. That is the kind of love that God has for us and that is the sacrifice He made for us.

The Brink

Valerie Cullers 7 Comments

Ever since the war in Ukraine started, the world has been on the brink of WWIII. A cursory look at the last two world wars shows us that these wars don’t always start immediately when a conflict begins. Sometimes it takes several months for different countries to be pulled into the skirmish. In this day and age, when combatants are using smart technology, we know that a bomb or drone can get off course and accidentally strike the wrong target. It wouldn’t take much, perhaps a bomb exploding over the border in Poland or Romania, to draw NATO into the conflict, and then voila, thirty more nations are involved in the conflict. It could happen today, tonight or tomorrow. We hope and pray that it doesn’t, but it is a real possibility.

When we think about the possibility of a wider conflict, knowing we are on the brink of another world war, we feel sober. Yes, very sober indeed. Our way of life could change in an instant, and we could be the ones facing shortages, famine, and exploding ordinances on our own soil. This idea certainly diminishes any sense of security we might be feeling, being a continent away from the current war.

When we think about our own sense of security, we base it on many variables: where we live, work, drive, our economic status, our health, etc. When we think about our lifespan, we look at our parents’ lives, i.e., how long did they live, and what might our chances of a long life be? As a believer in Jesus Christ, I get a lot of my security from knowing Him and from the words in the Bible. In this case, though, the Bible does not give me a lot of security. It doesn’t tell me that I will live a long life; in fact, it tells me a different story. It tells me that I also live on the brink in this world. Only this brink is the brink of eternity. Over and over, I am reminded that my life is short, very short indeed in light of eternity. James 4:14 says, “For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”

In light of this particular brink, am I even aware of it? Do I believe that my life is short in an eternal sense, or do I feel I have lots of time to make decisions that may affect my eternal destiny? None of us are guaranteed tomorrow; any decision we need to make had better be done today. So, I would urge you to make those choices that will ensure a positive outcome in eternity. In the words of Isaiah, “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”

On the brink. Yes, it is a sober thought. But there is something we can do about it that will give us a greater sense of real security while we watch the events around us unfold.

Grief

Valerie Cullers 26 Comments

Grief, like a blanket, envelopes the room. I lay awake in bed thinking about the relative who took his own life and wonder, “Why?” I think about his pain but mostly about the pain of those left behind: his sisters, his cousins, his niece and nephews. I hang on to hope. The hope that comes from the Lord knowing that He is with all of us at this time. I thank God for the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Comforter, who comforts us in our distress.

I am forever grateful that the Lord knows our pain and can heal even the most broken heart. How could we ever hope to survive without Him?

Image by Karen Nadine. Courtesy of Pixabay.

Gravitas

Valerie Cullers 16 Comments

Gravitas is a word we don’t hear much of these days. It is a Latin word that has made its way into our vocabulary. It means, “dignity, seriousness or solemnity of manner,” according to Oxford Languages.

There is a lot to be serious about these past few weeks since Russia invaded the Ukraine. Unfortunately, thanks to the twenty-four-hour news cycle, some have made comments that show a lack of gravitas or at least good sense. I have heard remarks calling for the assassination of Vladimir Putin. Do not these people remember what started World War I? In 1914, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo. A chain of events followed and Europe was plunged into the First World War. This ended with the loss of 40 million lives and the devastation of Europe.

Many are calling for NATO to establish a No-Fly Zone over Ukraine. If just one NATO plane is shot down by the Russians, it will invoke Article 5, the commitment clause of the Alliance, forcing all countries in the Alliance to engage in the war. War is hell; there is no doubt about that. We are no longer talking about conventional war, though. Many of the nations involved have a nuclear capability, and heaven forbid, we could be talking about nuclear war.

Those of us who have lived in the nuclear age know that the possibility of nuclear war is very real and we should be ever so careful to not enter into a conflict that could trigger such a war. Words matter and we need to have a certain gravitas when discussing the possibility of actions that could indeed escalate into a nuclear conflict.

Image by Boa Photo Studio, courtesy of Pixabay.

The Russian Bear

Valerie Cullers 7 Comments

The Russian Bear has surrounded Ukraine with its arm. It is quickly drawing it into its orbit in order to annex it. How long will the Ukrainians be able to hold him off?

When Hitler began to annex countries into the Third Reich, those that were not well armed did not last long.

Czechoslovakia lasted 24 hours.

Poland held him off for 35 days.

France lasted six weeks.

Norway held the Nazis off for two months.

Please pray for our brothers and sisters in Ukraine. They are brave but not well armed, and every day they are able to stand against the might of the Russian army is a miracle. May God help them.

Image by Hakan Carlander. Courtesy of Pixabay.