Day: February 12, 2020

Taiwan’s air force scrambled a second day in a row on Monday, February 10, to intercept Chinese war planes that approached Taiwan, the island claimed by China. Reports from Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said Chinese jets, accompanying H-6 bombers, briefly crossed an unofficial midline in the Taiwan Strait that separates the two nations, fueling a potentially dangerous military situation.

China has been flying what it calls “island encirclement” drills on and off since 2016 when Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen first took office. Beijing believes Tsai, who won re-election last month, wishes to push for the island’s formal independence. President Tsai says Taiwan is an independent country called “The Republic of China.”

China angrily urged Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party—the DPP—“not to play with fire.” China said that Taiwan has been “adopting a stance that increases cross-strait confrontation, intensifying new moves   for Taiwan-U.S. collusion, using the opportunity to seek independence and openly carrying out dangerous provocations.”

These latest menacing fly-bys from China came as Taiwan’s vice-president elect, William Lai, was returning from a visit to Washington, where he attended the high-profile National Prayer Breakfast, at which U.S. President Donald Trump spoke. China denounced Lai’s trip. The United States is Taiwan’s most important backer and arms supplier.

It seems like the folks in Hong Kong don’t like China, and the people in Taiwan don’t like China, either.

One word describes China – “Bully.”

China has been plagued by the bird flu, then the swine  flu, then SARS, and now the coronavirus. Do you think God is trying to tell them something?

It’s pretty hard for the Chinese Communist Party to listen to God since they think they are God. What else God will bring upon them is anyone’s guess.

For a couple of weeks after the first reports of a new and deadly virus had been reported, millions of people poured out of the central Chinese city, Wuhan, cramming  onto buses, trains and planes as the first wave of China’s great Lunar New Year migration  broke across the nation. Dr. Li Wenliang had reported on social media to his colleagues about the strange new virus, but the Chinese government censured him for spreading rumors.

The government was slow in reacting. It did not want to create the impression that it had lost control of the growing epidemic. When it finally began to seal the borders on January 23, it was already too late. Speaking to reporters a few days after the city was put under quarantine, the mayor estimated that 5 million people had already left the city. Where did they go? Your guess is as good as mine, but that is probably why there has been such a rapid increase in the number of infections and in the number of deaths from the coronavirus.

The Associated Press analysis of domestic travel patterns using map location data from the Chinese tech giant Baidu shows that in the two weeks before Wuhan’s lockdown, nearly 70 percent of trips out of the central Chinese city were within Hubei province. Another 14 percent of the trips went to the neighboring provinces of Henan, Hunan, Anui, and Jiangxi. Nearly 2 percent slipped down to Guandong province, the coastal manufacturing powerhouse across from Hong Kong, and the rest fanned out across China. The cities outside Hubei province that were top designations for trips from Wuhan between January 10 and January 24 were Chongqing, a municipality next to Hubei province, Beijing, and Shanghai. These travel patterns broadly track with the early spread of the virus. The majority of confirmed cases and deaths have occurred in China, within Hubei province, followed by high numbers of cases in central China, with pockets of infections in Chongqing, Shanghai, and Beijing as well.

“It’s definitely too late,” said Jin Dong-Yan, a molecular virologist at Hong Kong University’s School of Biomedical Sciences. “Five million out. That’s a very big challenge.”

Numerous reports in the Arab press have accused the U.S. and Israel of being  behind the creation and spread of the deadly coronavirus as part of an economic and psychological war against China.

According to MEMRI—the Middle East Media Research Institute—a report in the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan claimed that it was no coincidence that the coronavirus was absent from the U.S. and Israel, though this is despite the U.S. having twelve confirmed cases at the time of writing. Al-Watan and other Middle East news outlets should not compound the problem by circulating half-truths, whole lies, and fabrications for their political, anti-America, anti-Israel propaganda.

Unfortunately, it is happening all too often. Al-Watan wrote that “the virus was discovered yesterday in China; tomorrow it will be discovered in Egypt, but it will not be discovered either today, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow in the U.S. or Israel, nor in poor countries such as Burundi or the Comoro Islands,” the report said.

Al-Watan also went on to accuse the U.S. and Israel of being behind other outbreaks over the past several years in China and in the Arab world. The paper said, “As soon as Egypt announced, a few years ago, that it would rely on poultry raised in the country, and that it would even export poultry abroad—that is, that it no longer needed poultry from the U.S., France, and so on—suddenly there appeared from underneath the ground, the avian flu virus … with the aim of nipping Egypt’s economic awakening in the bud.”

At the beginning of February, the Syrian daily newspaper Al-Thawra also claimed the coronavirus and other outbreaks were part of a U.S.-China war. “From Ebola, Zika, SARS, avian flu and swine flu, through anthrax and mad cow disease to the coronavirus—all these deadly viruses were manufactured by the U.S. and threaten to annihilate the peoples of the world,” the report alleged. “The U.S. has turned biological warfare into a new type of war, by means of which it intends to change the rules of play and shift the conflict with the peoples of the world away from the conventional path,” the report stated.

A report on the Egyptian news site Vetogatye.com built on this theory even more, specifying why Wuhan was supposedly chosen as the epicenter of the current outbreak: “American factories are the first to manufacture every kind of virus and bacteria, from the virulent small pox virus and the bubonic plague virus to all the viruses we saw in the recent years, such as mad cow disease and swine flu,” the site claimed. “Wuhan, the city that has now been struck by the coronavirus, is an industrial town, but it is nevertheless the eighth-richest city in China after Shanghai.”

These charges are based on circumstantial evidence. Things do happen, but that does not mean they prove what someone may hope they prove. They are coincidental. For example, I could argue against these reports by saying that Arabs historically hate Israelis and Americans. How convenient that they would use such reports to implicate America and Israel in some kind of a conspiracy against Arab nations. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

While President Xi Jinping had been dreaming of the coming “Chinese Century,” it looks like his dream is crumbling because of the deadly coronavirus. More intent on preserving secrecy than in ridding the country of the deadly virus, Beijing is fast losing the confidence of the people.

The problem in China is not limited to health. Global commerce now hinges on China’s $14.55 trillion economy, which in turn is governed by an opaque, authoritarian regime tightly coalesced around President Xi. This evil autocrat has amassed more power than any Chinese leader since Mao Tse-tong. He has leveraged Beijing’s economic clout to forward his ambitions, but he has struggled with failure and frustration like no other leader. “Since Zi came to power, problem after problem have occurred on his watch that he seems unable to effectively manage,” says Jude Blanchette, a China analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and international Studies. These include bad beef, swine flu, SARS,  growing unrest in semiautonomous Hong Kong, a disruptive trade war with President Trump, and now an unfolding health crisis that will only get worse.

For decades, the sales pitch for China’s single-party rule was the superior performance of its political system when faced with both short-term crises and long-term challenges. It built thousands of miles of high-speed rails and helped drag hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.

But anger began to boil in the hearts of many Chinese when Dr. Li Wenliang recently died, the doctor who first warned his colleagues about the virus back in December of 2019. He was treated harshly and accused by the Wuhan police of rumor-mongering after his messages were posted on social media. Dr. Li is being hailed as a hero. His death has sparked anger among Chinese citizens, who say they feel they were lied to by the government.

Confronting a pandemic requires more than just an ability to throw up hospitals in a few days. It necessitates trust. And from the beginning, China’s public response to the virus has raised questions. Even multinational institutions like the  World Health Organization are feeling this as the coronavirus worsens. Beijing is resisting help from the outside that it desperately needs to solve the problem. The Chinese Communist Party must cooperate with the world and permit the free transmission of information among ordinary Chinese on the front lines of the disease. But when Chinese Internet users flooded social media sites with indignation following the death of Dr. Li, their calls for freedom of speech were scrubbed from the Internet by censors. And the man who filmed piles of body bags at a Chinese hospital was arrested and interrogated by police officers pretending to be hospital workers. Sadly, the central authorities, under the control of President Xi, explicitly prioritize political security over fighting the epidemic with tragic consequences for the general population.

Let’s pause briefly for a word of prayer for China and for the whole world. With international travel, the possibility of a pandemic affecting the whole planet has increased many times over. Dear Lord Jesus, we come in your name, and by the power of your blood, to intercede for China. We pray for openness, and we pray that this tragedy might lead many to realize that no human being, political party, or ideology that leaves you out of the picture will ever succeed. We pray that the coronavirus may be an object lesson reminding people of the truth that you have historically brought about the doom of many dictators and that you work sovereignly in history. May the Chinese Communist Party be humbled, and may there be a yieldedness in all parties involved to receive your grace, power and direction. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

A hypocrite is someone who claims to have moral standards or beliefs to which his or her own behavior does not conform. Of course, hypocrites are everywhere, but their existence in churches does cause a definite problem. Isn’t the church a place where people go to have their hearts and lives changed?

We could give many examples of hypocrites. Let’s do a little brainstorming. Here’s are examples of hypocrites in church

• The Bible study leader who teaches moral purity but walks out on her husband and kids and into the arms of another man.
• A churchgoing, Bible-quoting boss who cheats on the sales figures “just a tad” to get a better market rating for his  company.
• A respected minster or priest, trusted by their congregations, who preaches piety but covers up his sexual abuse of children.
• A charismatic youth minister who calls young people to sexual purity, but then is caught in a secret life—one checkered with illicit sex and illegal drugs.
• The perfect soccer dad who sits in the church pew every Sunday and never misses a service, but goes home to a hidden habit of alcohol abuse and violence toward his wife and children.
• The religious neighbor who pretends in front of others that “every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before,” but in reality is filled with fear, anger, resentment and jealousy.

These are just some of the common examples of hypocrisy. I think every one of us could try our own experiment. Ask some non-Christian friends, “Have you ever encountered a hypocritical Christian?” Most likely you will hear lots of stories such as, “My daughter’s playground friend keeps correcting her behavior saying ‘Jesus wouldn’t want you to do that,’ but her family is doing things I know Jesus wouldn’t want THEM to do either.” Or, “That politician claims to be a Christian, but look at how he treats his wife!” Or, “My coworker has a Bible on her desk and Christian bumper stickers all over her car, but she has never even once offered to help when someone is sick and out of the office.”

Unfortunately, statistics seem to bear out the perception that many Christians often fail to live out their stated spiritual ideals. David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, authors of the book unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity, have done research showing that there isn’t much measurable difference between people who claim to be born-again Christians and the rest of the world. Here’s what they found: “Born-agains were distinct on some religious variables, most notably owning more Bibles, going to church more often, and donating money to religious non-profits. However, when it came to non-religious factors—the substance of people’s daily choices, actions, and attitudes—there were few meaningful differences between professing Christians and non-professing Christians.”

Isn’t the church supposed to be a hospital for sin sick people? No one would expect to go into a hospital and find that all of the patients occupying beds were in good health, would they? Churches have people who are struggling and far from perfect. And we can’t neglect the fact that there are some people in churches who are very committed. Most of the churches in America are really very small. Pastors sometimes work two or three jobs. Some farm, some drive school buses to supplement their income.

And I think some people come to church for the wrong reasons. Perhaps they come just for social reasons. People in some of the larger churches go to church because that’s where they can find business opportunities. Some bring their sons and daughters so that they will marry someone who is the son or daughter of a city official.

Lee Strobel, the atheist who turned Christian apologist, described the negative impact hypocrisy had on him before he was saved.

“Holier-than-thou Christians repelled me. Smug and self-righteous, they painted themselves as being much better than they really were, and tarred people like me as being much worse that we really were, as if every social problem in the country stemmed from the fact that everyone didn’t agree with them 100 percent. The other folks who chased me away from the faith were cosmetic Christians. They had a skin-deep spirituality that looked pretty good on the outside but didn’t penetrate deep enough to change their behaviors and attitudes. … Frankly, I don’t think anything repulses people like the hypocrisy of cosmetic Christians.”

I think when our friends condemn the hypocrisy in churches, we need to remind them that they are on Jesus’ side. Many people who use this issue to blame God or to resist Christianity need to be reminded that Jesus agrees with them. He is their ally. He condemned religious hypocrisy in no uncertain terms.

We also need to remind people that Jesus Christ is our only perfect example. He won’t disappoint us. Everyone else will.

And this is not to excuse hypocritical church members. The Bible claims moral perfection for only one person, and that was Jesus Christ. According to Hebrews 4:15, Jesus is our perfect example. He faced all the trials and problems that we face, yet He did so without ever sinning.

The late Ruth Bell Graham, Billy Graham’s wife, told a story about Pashi, a young college student from India. Pashi once told her, “We of India would like to believe in Christ. But we have never seen a Christian who was like Christ.” So, Ruth Graham said she spoke to a Christian doctor, a man from India, and asked what should her response be. He said, “I would tell Pashi, ‘I am not offering you Christians. I am offering you Christ.’” A wise statement. We preach Christ, not Christians.

In the 1960s, the world came to realize the serious effects of radiation poisoning. A number of nuclear devices had been detonated above ground. Unsuspecting subjects were subjected to radiation exposure in an attempt to learn what a nuclear bomb blast would do to humans, animals, and plants. In short, the answer: “Nuclear radiation is far worse than we thought!”

Recently,  however, the scientific world was shocked to learn that a type of black fungus that eats and flourishes on radiation was discovered inside the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. In 1991, the strange fungus was found growing up the walls of the reactor, which surprised scientists due to the extreme toxicity of the radiation-heavy environment. Researchers eventually realized that not only was the fungi impervious to the deadly radiation, but it seemed to be attracted to it.

A decade later, researchers tested some of the fungi and found that it had a large amount of the pigment melanin—which is also found, among other places, in the skin of humans. People with darker skin tones tend to have much more melanin, which is known to absorb light and dissipate ultraviolent radiation in the skin.  However, in fungi, it reportedly absorbed radiation and converted it into some type of chemical energy for growth.

A paper was presented in 2008 at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York that noted that large quantities of highly melanized fungal spores have been found in early Cretaceous period deposits, when many species of animals and plants died out. Some have suggested that there could be places in outer space were organisms could live in radiation-filled environments.

I think that this proves that we do not know as much as we think we know. This is true for the world of science, and it is also true for the spiritual world of angels and demons. While there is a lot of reporting about divine healing and angelic encounters that has a questionable flavor to it, some of it is from reliable sources by reliable witnesses. Lee Strobel’s book, The Case For Miracles is an example of the former. Two new books on angels, one by SkyWatch TV writers Allie Anderson and Donna Howell, and another by David Reagan’s associate, Nathan Jones, cannot be easily dismissed.

I think we have to be very careful about limiting God. That’s exactly what the Pharisees and teachers of the Law did in the days of Jesus. Their minds were closed to Jesus’ messianic identity. We need to prove all things, but when the proof is forthcoming we must follow the evidence where it leads. There is nothing in the Bible to lead us to believe that God is no longer working supernaturally and miraculously today.