One of the things that happened yesterday is that I went down to a marina to check ferry timetables. (The ferry was closed: Auckland has poor public transport). And we looked at new developments. The Pro photographer was horrified by the apartments and conjoined houses. She was more horrified when she was told the prices. A four bedroom house, 40 minutes out of Auckland, new, is over a million dollars: the same house outside the boundaries of Auckland and a 90 minute drive in is 800 000 dollars. With the average wage in NZ around 60 000 these are unaffordable. I see nothing but a bubble.
At the moment NZ is fairly prosperous with low-interest rates. But that will not be sustained. And there will be a reckoning: that which cannot go on will not, and you cannot pauperize the working adult population without payback.
“And I will set my glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgement that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid on them. The house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God, from that day forward. And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they dealt so treacherously with me that I hid my face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword. I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid my face from them.
“Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel, and I will be jealous for my holy name. They shall forget their shame and all the treachery they have practiced against me, when they dwell securely in their land with none to make them afraid, when I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them from their enemies’ lands, and through them have vindicated my holiness in the sight of many nations. Then they shall know that I am the LORD their God, because I sent them into exile among the nations and then assembled them into their own land. I will leave none of them remaining among the nations anymore. And I will not hide my face anymore from them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, declares the Lord GOD.”
(Ezekiel 39:21-29 ESV)
We can see the economic and political currents in our society, but we are often blind to them in the church. If the neo-liberal economic consensus has delivered nonsensical property prices and inequality and oppression, then the dilution and frank blasphemy of the leadership within the church will lead to destruction.
I feel sorry for by homosexual brethren. I do. Seriously. Because of the case of Milo: he shows that a gay man (and he is very gay, and we should pray he repents and converts) is not allowed to step outside the approved forms of discourse. He cannot speak truth. He cannot be a Tory. Now, Milo is both, and independently wealthy: so Twitter no platforms him, BLM disrupt his talks, and many places refuse to let him in because he may “trigger” them.
The liberals want to take over, and claim that all the reformers and church history point to them. But they are lying: their God is their desires, and their path leads to hell. Regardless of the rhetoric. Regardless of how clever they think their comics are. And how easy they are to find on Tumblr.
We have the example of Israel before us. When they became apostate, they were warned, and did not repent. They were sent into exile.
So may we repent.
Including in the mainstream churches; for the people of God need to be fed the pure milk of the gospel, not hatred and heresy.
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