The desire to lead is so attractive – to help others, to assist – but so easily drifts into a desire to rule, to dominate, to control and even claim possession of the very life of others. In doing so, we lose sight of God’s way completely – supplanting it with our own – and make our service to Him a fake, a parody of Holiness [ Matthew 7:21-23 21 ]. Christianity tends to rebuke Jews for their refusal to accept the Christ – yet as Solomon said:




because Christianity – in its desire to lead - fails to serve in so very many of the same ways.


As God’s current stepping-stone – successor to the first, the Jewish system – if Christianity truly wishes to herald in the new era, it should endeavour to avoid the attitude which misled the religious rulers of God’s nations in the past. So let us look at some examples of that attitude, and of those who tried hard to return the direction of worship into the way God had ordained.


Isaiah acted as the great prophet spanning the reign of four different kings of Judah. This one – who prophesied about and in some instances was a pattern for the Christ – warned the religious rulers against complacency when he exposed their flawed reasonings following the Assyrian withdrawal from besieging Jerusalem:




The problem was not that there was no guidance from God – Isaiah was, after all, God’s prophet – but that the religious rulers wanted to be it. They saw their cultivated social positions as that of de facto prophets, they did not want to listen to real prophets of simple and varied backgrounds. Their desire for prominence blinded them to God’s way, seeing first and foremost the preservation of their positions. Had they been truly focussed on God’s way, they would have recognised and welcomed! His prophecies when they came – infact their very lives would have been almost completely God-oriented, without an eye to anything in the world. But lacking that inclination, they spoke as “prophets” from their own initiative – ignoring and opposing Isaiah and his fellow Divine servants – and so made their service to God a dis-service.


In the reign of later kings, Jeremiah was appointed prophet to Israel and Judah. He made clear that their absolute ignorance of Jehovah as God would mean utter catastrophe for God’s nations. The people were making the same mistakes which Isaiah warned them about:




In an echo of His action against Sodom, God would have forgiven Jerusalem if Jeremiah could find one single just and faithful person [ Jeremiah 5:1-2; Matthew 11:23-24 ]


– but God warned him in advance that he would not, nor would the people even listen to him. Their position had made them deaf and blind to God’s true counsel.


For his solitary service, Jeremiah was disinherited and hated – even to death – by his own people and city. He was dogged by feelings of unworthiness as a prophet, of isolation, and of sadness over the fate of God’s people. Eventually the pressure of seeing God’s nations so wayward became too much for Jeremiah. He tried to encourage them – denouncing their idols and saying Jehovah was the only real God, the source of their success - but in his misplaced desperation he declared:




...when God has said no such thing


Yet Jeremiah loved God – that was what separated him from the religious rulers. He loved God more than anything, he did not seek prominence; his failure was through human stresses and not through ambition. Jeremiah admitted his sin [Jeremiah 10: 19-25] declaring how he had felt their loss of sons as if it were his loss of sons, their loss of land his loss of land. Uniquely in the scriptures, Jeremiah not only confesses without being prompted, but records his failure in his writings - and Jehovah forgave him, repeatedly, and retained him as prophet.


Perhaps the most significant mistake was in rejecting the Messiah, something which has had and will have repercussions even down to the fast-approaching end of this era. When the religious rulers saw how the people were becoming mild-tempered behind the Messiah as the king entered into his temple and looked on all things, they feared for their authority they said:




Although high priest and prophet, Caiaphas’ prophecy was only fulfilled in regard to his own reason, and not that of the Almighty. For his advantage in removing Jesus from the scene was short-sighted and ignored the prophecy of Jeremiah which declared to them:




- for immediately on Christ’s death God slashed the sanctuary curtain – hours before the greatest festival of the Jews – and the priests had no contingency plan; they did not know what to do, and the matter became public…. And within that generation, the 1900 years of ruin of the Jewish homeland and centre of worship was brought about.


In all the scriptural debate about the Christ between traditionalists and Christians, this savage cutting-off of the old way – the glaringly obvious sign of God’s disfavour - seems to have been ignored while contenders seek solace in the contortions of debate and logic and rhetoric.


Yet we need to learn because Christianity has made the very same mistakes – relying on debate and vagueries in order to ignore its own monstrous and on-going mistakes. Churches declare salvation for their members – the urgency of the preaching of the Christ - when in truth the issue of the era is not about that kind of salvation; they make prophecies about an imminent Armageddon and an imminent rapture, yet without any Divine or scriptural justification at-all; and even the very sin of Judah is carried on blatantly and without a shred of regret. Just like High Priest Caiaphas and his group in Jesus’ day and the religious rulers in the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah, a title and a showy garment and a big enough following isolate people into believing their own rhetoric.


In contrast, God did not stand aloof; He would reason profusely through Isaiah and Jeremiah. He would not threaten, He would not ignore those who wanted to know - and His prophets in His service did not stand aloof either, though humiliated and slaughtered for their trouble. John the Baptist when questioned:




God Himself – all powerful – who could have removed the adversary and the first two humans, has instead taken the decent action: reasoning with and helping creation rather than imposing that superior show of force, even though it has meant a long separation from His creation for thousands of years. If this is the attitude of God and His prophets, should not Christianity leave behind its superiority and act as they did?


It took a great deal of courage for the prophets to separate themselves from the way of the religious rulers. Those prophets doubtless had their own beliefs and ideas also, yet they left these behind in order to do what God wanted - even the deeply pressurised and weakened character of Jeremiah recovered his direction. In Jesus’ day, some like Nicodemus and Joseph and the young ruler were a little too afraid – but they did not continue in opposition! Many who were cured willingly joined Jesus on his journeys; even the demonised man - the non-Jew therefore unable to follow him on the road - did Jesus’ bidding and proclaimed everything to those he knew in the Decapolis.


Today there are no prophets for God – but many presumptives. In contrast, God’s contention in His 1^st prophecy is attested to by the Last Prophet - the earth, in the throes of the climate crisis – and His solution the Divine Rescue is simplicity itself, perfectly in step with His scriptures. The message may be simple, it may take only minutes to completely explain, it may lack the oh-so-enticing mysterious depths which draw people into deeper and deeper investigation in various religions – the esoteric knowledge, the convolutions, the strange reasonings – but that very simplicity is the way God intended...


Simplicity means we make friends with God, rather than look elsewhere. Adam’s own distraction – the root of the 1^st prophecy – was due to his heart wandering. Surrounded by everything made good, with creation to give names to and a first partner to create the new creation of his own kind, he did not sufficiently rely on God for his growth: he wondered what “not good” was like, and was eventually swayed into rebellion.


We cannot serve God is we are looking elsewhere. Christian religions all profess the Christ, but the devil in the detail – the deep and intricate and vague and contestable details – which are too enticing for most to resist. Yet God’s simple message for our time – set before Christianity or Judaism or even our era of independence began – is the message which we really must preach.


God’s simplicity really belongs to an era yet to come [1^st to the Corinthians 15:24-25] – when we will be satisfied with the fruit of His truth rather than concoct our own. Nevertheless, we can taste that clean fruit now – show our hearts are preparing for that era – by heeding the Isaiahs and Jeremiahs of the scriptures. Just as the overthrow of Israel’s cities must surely have been an indicator for those in Judah, so the turmoil caused now by the climate crisis in its infancy must convince people that God’s 1^st prophecy is about to be addressed.


We don’t have long to wait, the dawn of Christ’s active reign and God’s rescue from the climate crisis and the sound of everyone alive expressing gratitude to both God and to His Christ [Revelation 5:13] – what a day is approaching! This is the opportune time to choose the simplicity of God’s Own prophet’s direction and reject the sophistication of religion which has kept us captive for such a long time. Debate can last forever and preaching that Jresus is the Christ is certainly true, but the great prophetic issue - the Divine message, as timely as those delivered by Isaiah and Jeremiah and John the Baptist - will show God as great and benevolent, and will take away fears for the future in believers and non-believers alike.

After a low peak and a standard dip, the ice coverage figures for the Arctic have muted just a little.


For a while, the day’s figures were roughly two weeks’ ahead of what they have ever been before – meaning that we were seeing accelerated melt in the Arctic. Today, the figures are about one week ahead – still the lowest on record, but less dramatic.


What is dramatic is the change of dynamics over the last few years. The Atlantic conveyour belt which brings warm waters up from the equator and north of Scotland is showing a trickle of divergence into the Arctic Ocean. This warmer, saltier water – detrimental to sea-ice stability – has formed an ocean hot-spot in the Barents sea north of Scandanavia with profound implications. Warmer temperatures continue in the Bering Staits between Alaska and East Russia, and Northern Russia is experiencing much warmer temperatures than is common.


However the break-up of ice by the Beaufort Gyre is causing real concern. While figures for ice coverage / extent have slowed their descent, the shattered slush of so much ice in the Arctic makes the figures misleading. While every effort is being made to correctly analyse the various statistics (most of which show detrimental decline compared to historic levels) these and other new dynamics mean we are in genuinely unknown territory whose dynamics had not been envisaged or even hypothesised before.


For a scientific view and educated opinion, the Arctic Forum provides a wide spectrum of vastly experienced views on pertinent measurements from some of the longest serving and intuitive minds in the field of climate change.


In terms of God’s purpose, this traumatic situation is a mere catalyst to our acknowledging that we cannot survive without help. While it may be difficult for some to contemplate the existence of God, the danger is all too apparent – it is easy for us to reach the conclusion that we need assistance; that is inevitable now. God’s intervention at the call of the world leaders may be a relief and a surprise to some, but if we are wise it will help us to grow in a way that means we will never face such a horrific catastrophe again.