1990 Issue 4
South Africa: Excerpts from A Journal
(The Reverend Joe Morecraft and his wife, Becky, were in South Africa from February 24 until March 17 of this year. The editors asked Becky to provide the readers with a personal perspective of her impressions of the people and let us see South Africa through her eyes. What will follow in three installments are notes she made in a daily diary and they are printed as recorded by her. ED.)
These and many other similar headlines have been appearing splashed across American newspapers the last 2-3 years. Some have shocked and bewildered American Bible-believing Christians. Other headlines have been greeted in the Evangelical community with excitement. Most don't realize that Nelson Mandela is not a "black" nationalist but a "non-racial" South African Communist who addressed the world when released standing behind a Soviet Hammer-and-Sickle flag! He affirmed his faith in Sanctions, the armed struggle, socialist nationalization, and the so-called classless society. It is as if he hasn't noticed the dramatic rejection of Marxism by the citizens of Eastern Europe!
In all our thinking and in all our doing, we must consciously begin with God. Having been created by God, it would be a denial of our Creator if we were to begin with anyone or anything else, and yet that is precisely what is being done in all the world. What is commonplace is to begin with man or with man's situation.
The subject of Law and Liberation is only one of many subjects that can illustrate the fact that, in the final analysis, there are two major starting points which are in conflict, each claiming to be the only legitimate starting point in our thinking and doing. On the one hand, to begin with God in the matter of Law and Liberation will require an acceptance of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, as the self-attesting, inspired, authoritative, infallible, inerrant, complete word of God with its major themes of creation, fall, and redemption. On the other hand, to begin with man will reflect laws that are in conflict with the Bible and a liberation which denies the true state of man's nature, fails to discern man's real need, and thinks to raise man to the position of God. You shall be as God. That was the Tempter's tactic in the Garden of Eden at the beginning of history. It is unmistakably evident in every sphere of life today, being particularly brought to the fore by Liberation Theology and the New Age Movement.
Everyone is familiar with the story of Daniel in the Lion's Den. However, most people miss the real significance of that miraculous deliverance. The real issue isn't simply God's miraculous power to deliver His people from danger, but THE TRIUMPH OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD OVER THE KINGDOMS OF MEN!
The Book of Daniel is not primarily about Daniel but about Daniel's God. Daniel 6:26, "I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence THE GOD OF DANIEL." That is the point of the book: THE TRIUMPH OF DANIEL'S GOD!
The first four men that Jesus called were fishermen. Peter and Andrew were brothers and they were the first called. And very soon after he called them to follow Him, He called two more brothers, James and John, also fishermen. Jesus had a very simple message as He began His ministry -- Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He went about healing every sort of sickness and disease and news of him spread all around, and great multitudes began to follow him, not just from Galilee but from all regions of the land of Palestine.
Our federal government continues to move closer and closer to the complete socialization of America's health care system with such plans as Secretary Bowen's Catastrophic Health Insurance and Senator Kennedy's Mandatory Health Insurance. It refuses to recognize that socialized medicine is the death of the practice of medicine that is inexpensive, effective and available to all. All nations with socialized medicine, such as the USSR, Great Britain, and Canada lack one thing, writes Harry Schwartz: "enough money to provide quality medical care and to take full advantage of modern medical technology." Health care in the USSR is a disaster. Britain's health care system is in shambles, and Canada's is on its way down.
