Tuesday, November 18, 2008

LOVE YOUR ENEMIES:

It has long been my initial intention just to write a short statement in an attempt to address the never-ending phenomenon that has been a plague to many people in general if not then at least definitely to some people I know including myself. At first we try to ignore our enemies but sometimes our enemies consumes us or worse still, we became as bad as our enemies by our retaliation. “Love your enemies”; but before we go into that infamous phrase, let us first go back in time, to when I was a child, to a time when I thought if I do not bring harm to anyone I would not have any enemies; strange enough though, that is not true. Enemies, eventually comes looking for you, even though you try your best to avoid trouble. What enemies are we talking about here? The type of enemies we encounter everyday, for example in my case, enemies of the state; enemies at the work place or school; enemies in societies; enemies in your neighbourhood; enemies lurking around the seen and the unseen; enemy within the household; and worst of all the enemy within ourselves as sometimes you are your worst enemy and you don’t even know it! So, be it country or office politics, religious or personal; instead of the head on attempt to “love my enemy”, God recently asked me this question, “What seest thou?

What seest thou? Or What do you see? God occasionally asked me this question. Sometimes my vision is so blurred I can’t see very far. I am physically short sighted, both literally and figuratively. If I were an aeroplane, I would be grounded indefinitely. The fog that clouds my mind sometimes gets so thick that I can’t see past the end of my nose. Then again, many times we are forced to take a second look at life.




Like this interesting drawing from http://www.joe-ks.com/
A horse or a frog; what do you see? All I see is a clever drawing or is it? Certain things mean differently to different people or depending on which angle you are looking at or from whose point of view.





Frankly speaking, in my childhood memories, I see God so much more clearer when I was 3 years old then when I was 30 years old. Doctors’ says that a child’s physical development – especially the eye’s visual development reaches visual maturity at the age of 9 +. For me, it was the other way around. I began to loose sight of the Lord after the age of 9. Lack of personal discipline, perpetual prayer and discussions about God; the weakness of the flesh slowly but surely gets us absorbed into this world and worldly stress and worries of school life and later work life clouded my vision quite badly.


CHILDHOOD DAYS:
When I was born, God’s mission was clear to me. Now after years of blurred vision, I only began to see patches of my memory returning to me. Pieces of the puzzle have started to form a picture. When I was a baby, I could not wait to speak. Speaking one or two words at a time, when I was just 5 months old. Still wrapped in swaddling cloth, rather speak than cry (well, actually my family told me that they have never heard me cry like a normal baby [even the moment I was born I did not even make a sound as I was barely hanging on to life, even the doctors could not even hear my very faint heart beat when I was still in my mother’s womb; when my identical twin sister had just died in my mother’s womb earlier after another gynaecologist who probably broke her neck or something when my mother was just 7 months into her pregnancy] because when I do cry, I sound more like a serious grown up person’s lamentation than of the usual baby’s cry), I had to call specifically for my mother or father, milk feeding time or diaper change because my mother had forgotten to feed me on time again…. By the time I was 7 months old, still tightly wrapped in swaddling cloth, I was able to speak in short sentences. Yep, my family thought it was a bit unusual, even astonished at times. My mom was delighted and thought maybe I was going to be a genius, some kind of child prodigy, but I was no academic genius. I do not have photographic memory, though I wished I had, ha! ha! ha! I did not do very well in school, just an average student (…or probably it was my fault for being just plain lazy as I did not like to read books during my childhood school days; my interest in reading books only started to develop when I was 16 years old….). At work, I was kind of like Jack-of-All-Trades, not exactly master of none, I try to master my work but it is not exactly rocket science, just office work and manual labour really.

When I was 4 years old, we moved to a new neighbourhood and our immediate neighbour had a daughter who was about 3 years old. Her parents said she does not speak and suspected that maybe she could not speak at all but when she brought out her one big box of toys to play with me, all of a sudden to her parent’s surprise, she has a lot say and we were talking in Cantonese about our make belief world and about the toys and about her pets. I asked her why she does not speak to her family. She said that they speak too fast and full of nonsense (her parents were speaking in rough Hokkien and Cantonese dialects, unlike Mandarin which I think is a more genteel dialect than any other Chinese dialects), that is why she does not bother to speak to them at all. I guess a word of advise to parents who speak like the bullet train to their children, please speak gently to your children. When I was 5 years old going on 6, we moved into our cousin’s house for about a year. I too seldom speak unless spoken to. There was this 17 year-old cousin who thought that I had Down’s Syndrome because I do not run around shouting and playing like other children. I do not really remember what I said to her but I remembered asking her a question, “Do you know who is God?”; which started a half hour debate only between the two of us that left her in shock and flabbergasted. My sister came into our conversation towards the end and asked what had happened, all my cousin could say repeatedly was; “I didn’t know your sister could speak like that!”. Although my parents had not spoken to me about God until my late teens, somehow, my memory of God was so much more clearer when I was a child then when I was grown up.

Ah! The good old school days, where they teach you to have “ambition”, among a whole lot of other rubbish and nonsense like Darwin’s theory. I went to a former mission school, Methodist Girls’ School (“MGS”), now it is just a Government school. At that time, I thanked God we had chapel sessions at least once a week. Immediately after my last year at MGS (1988), the government abolished the Chapel sessions. When I was 17 years old, after my SPM examinations (equivalent to G.C.E. Ordinary Level in the United Kingdom), out of the nine subjects I took, I only had one “A” and six credits. I was crushed. I did not have the grades nor the money to further my studies (when I learned that my dad had gambled away all the family’s savings), I could not do what I wanted to do and to go where I wanted to go. My vision got worse. During my school days, I wanted to be a missionary or a zoologist or veterinarian when I grow up, but terribly shy unable speak in public and a penchant for a life as a hermit are not exactly ideal traits for a missionary. Thus, my dad dragged me to a nearby technical institute to study London Chamber of Commerce and Industry “LCCI” Diploma in Accounts/Economics. Although I much preferred to study to be a chef or Hotel & Catering, where I could study and work at the same time but my dad said, “NO! Every company in this world has an accounts department. It will be easier for you to find jobs.” I was thinking, I nearly failed my simple “O” level mathematics, how on earth am I going to pass my Diploma in Accounting? But by some miracle, I did pass my LCCI exams. Just after the last day of the LCCI exams, my dad dragged me off the very next day to find work at my sister’s work place, a Taiwanese electronics factory.


WORKING DAYS:
After a year at the Taiwanese factory, I went to Singapore to work at Orchard Road’s now defunct Crown Prince Hotel’s accounts department for five years (1991 to 1995), then after my father passed away in January 1995, I was frazzled, bewildered and consumed by guilt in mourning, unable to hold a permanent job, worked in a series of odd jobs in Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia, at supermarkets, grocery store, stationery shop and the Perak Family Planning Association. Then when money dwindled to a point where we can only had one meal a day, my mother had to sell our little house (a 10 feet x 50 feet government low cost house) for $36,000 (RM) and we moved mother south to Johor Bahru, where my sister and I went back to Singapore to work. 3 years at Coffee Club Singapore (Singapore’s version of “Starbucks” or “Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf”, that serves exorbitantly expensive gourmet coffee, tea, light meals & etc) (1996 to 1998) as an assistant supervisor and later promoted to supervisor. The store manager wanted to groom me as an assistant manager, gave me pep talks like, I must show more leadership and that I must learn to be a leader! and all that nonsense; but I told him I am not a leader and am just a follower (of Jesus Christ), always have been and always will be. Tired of standing 8 hours a day rotating work as cashier, bartender and waiting on tables, I resigned from Coffee Club to look for office work where I can sit down. Then in 1999 to current date, it will be 10 years in April 2009, I have been working at James Wong & Company (a Public Accounting Firm) and its associate company Hosanna Consulting Pte Ltd (accounting and corporate secretarial services company) as an accounts/corporate secretarial assistant, went though several promotions and now my so called job title is “Accounts/Corporate Secretarial Manager”. Staring at the computer screen for 10 hours straight and piles of paperwork started to get on my nerves, well many a time, I hated my job and my life; but wait a minute, it was probably my fault again, I actually asked God for this kind of job and He did indeed gave it to me, didn’t He? Next time, I must be more careful of what I ask for isn’t it???

All my life, I do not think I have ever had a proper vacation or sabbatical leave. I have been dragged from one place to another kicking and screaming (I can’t even stay in my mother’s womb comfortably for nine months when I was so rudely expelled out from my mother’s womb before my time!) I am so tired of this world, at first I blamed my parents, then my sister and then at some point in time I even blamed God. Give me a break, please!!!, but nope, it was not the kind of break God wanted me to take. (Even my dog, named Lucky, had to calm me down whenever I am agitated at life crying & screaming, my dog would whimper softly and climb up to me and put his left paw over where my heart is and pressing lightly, somehow like through thought transference telling me its okay, calm down.) As the years pass, I began to see the kind of rest that I must learn. God’s peacefulness and rest was not the type of rest I was looking for at first; but what I had forgotten when I was a child, I must now learn all over again.

Working at James Wong & Co. was one of the greatest endurance test that I have encountered. I wanted to resign the first day I started work; my employer had just scolded me with much profanity for some mistake that was not my fault (or is it?), the computer was old, slow and just hanged when he wanted to print something urgent. I spent one hour of my lunchtime, hiding at the fire escape staircase, crying for one straight hour, I had already decided to tender my resignation immediately after I finish crying; but then, something unexpected happened. God spoke to me in a still small voice in my heart, which cannot be heard with human ears but felt like a very clear strong forced intuition, I heard Him through my spirit. God said clearly, “Stay and help him”. I didn’t know what to make of those strange instructions. God seldom speak to me like this before. Later, I understood why God put me there; it is because my boss did pray for help when all his staff resigned together (a few days earlier) after a major quarrel. On my first day of work there, the office was empty left only one Audit manager who did not resign. Business wise, the company was not doing very well, dwindling, loosing clients, no wonder my employer was in such a foul mood. Anyway, that was then, later on by God’s miracle with a little Midas touch and the golden goose laying a few golden eggs, business has since then doubled and hopefully triple in the near future. Sad to say, I have been whining and grumbling for the past 9 years (Just recently in the past few months I have finally stopped my self-absorbed grumbling). First 6 years was spent crying almost everyday enduring verbal abuse from my boss. I thought I was going blind, I was becoming more like a human faucet. More than 50% of the employees that resign from this Company, ended in very bad terms with the employer. Staff turnover was an average 1 to 3 years. The company employs about average 7 to 9 full time employees including myself. Many people including myself, think I am a fool to stay on as long as I did. Was it blind obedience to God or even blinder obedience to a sadistic boss? Many former employees treated him as their enemy, including myself, but God said, love thy enemy? Well, a couple of years back, I asked my mother (she is always quite precise when it comes to assessing people’s characters), my mom said that my boss (people in general guessed that he is an illusive young looking 50 years old plus bachelor (or divorcee?) – after 10 years working for him, he still refuses to tell me anything personal about himself including where he lives or his birthdate, which leads me to believe that maybe he does not have a birthday, practically lives in the office and that he is a devil sent to torment me – does the movie “Devil’s Advocate” ring a bell?) is basically a kind and generous person, so much so that all his life he has been badly used by other people that made him the type of person he is today. One vice however, that can be clearly seen, (although she is not sure about those other vices that cannot be seen clearly??) is that he has his terrible pride that will one day lead to his ultimate downfall. Wow, for a minute there I felt pity and wanted to rescue my boss. What can he do? Repent and sin no more? In a way, my employer’s temper and outbursts have improved tremendously (gradually) compared to 10 years ago; today he is 95% more calm & relaxed and occasionally business clients tells me they think he is quite charming and friendly……hhhhmmm…....the fascinating world of paradox. Well, he tells people that he does go to church on Sundays. I have not been going to church on Sundays for a very long time. So what does that say about me? Church going folks may say I am going to Hell in a wheelbarrow isn’t it???

For the past 10 years I have tried to find a positive working attitude. I see some Christians and even many non Christians who are absolutely positive in whatever they do, they are perky and cheerful at work, active in Church or after work activities, smiling and full of energy all the time. How do they do it? Is it normal? Are they some kind of clones or what? I have no idea. Maybe its like those TV advertisements were after drinking Yomeishu alcoholic tonic drink would give you energy and vigour the whole day long……? Occasionally, I actually did try Yomeishu, Waterbury’s Compound, Brand’s Essence of Chicken and etc but those did not really have any major effect on me, much like alcoholic drinks have not much effect on me either! I can drink several shots of Brandy or Whisky without any effect; but of course I never tried drinking anymore than that. For many years, I tried to be like “Mary Poppins” a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down? Find the element of fun and snap, the job is a game? Or perhaps like in the movie “Enchanted”, “sing a happy working song”? Oh, please, tell me what kind of element of fun could I possibly find after 12 hours work sifting through paperwork from 8:30 am to 8:30 pm and that excludes travelling time from my home in Johor to Singapore about 2 to 3 hours depending on traffic and vice versa. Many times, I do not even have the mood to eat lunch and dinner. (I only have mood to eat when I reach home near midnight) I work 5 days a week, throughout the whole year except on Public Holidays and 14 days Annual Leave which I usually take when I am not feeling well because I am not sick enough to get a Medical Leave from the doctors. If I am not working, I am watching movies while I am eating dinner late at night or sleeping (or fainted is more like it). Weekends are non-existence to me. I dropped dead for about 16 hours of sleep during weekends because from Monday to Friday, I only get to sleep about 2 to 3 hours a day. I have become grouchy, sarcastic, opinionated and AAARRGGHHHH!!!…fat .... fat cat? What does that remind me of????….hhhmmmm….Oh no, oh no, I had reduced myself to a cartoon character, Garfield. No wonder, Garfield is one of my favourite cartoon characters. I must have watch Garfield 2 – Tale of two kitties, at least 20 times. Whenever I am sad, I put on the Garfield DVD. Frankly speaking, the Cantonese version is the really funny version. Two thumbs up for the people who dubbed the movie in Cantonese. The Mandarin version’s direct word for word translation is not really funny at all much like the original English version. There is one scene for example that is something like what’s happened to me; where Prince the cat was living Garfield’s life, saying that his life seems to revolve around 3 things, watching TV, sleeping and eating lasagna, until he can’t begun to recall where he came from and that he had some notion of a duty unfulfilled but never mind, back to sleep……………….



About 7 years back, on my way to work, as I was crossing a very dark highway on foot early in the morning at about 5:30am, the sun has not come up yet. I tripped fell down in the middle of the road. I was in shock and in pain unable to pick myself up quickly. I turned a saw the headlights of a car coming straight at me. In a few seconds, I thought, is that it? Squashed in the middle of the road? I set out to do God’s work and is this it? Feeling like a complete failure with a sense of unworthiness, even go to Heaven to meet my creator. Well, anyway, as the car came nearer, it slowed down and swerved to the side to avoid hitting me. God will fulfil His promise according to His time and it is not up to us what we can or cannot do.

We had rented a house in Ulu Tiram area, Johor Bahru from 1996 until 2001. My mother was complaining that she does not want to die in a stranger’s house, whether be it a rented house living with us or living at the old folks’ home. There was once, my sister and I contemplated to put mother into an expensive comfortable old folks home because she is always forgetful either to turn off the tap water or electric hot plate (that is why we stopped using gas stove), she must never be left alone but my sister and I are always not at home; we wanted to live and work in Singapore without having to travel to and fro all the time. However, God put it off our thoughts almost immediately like for example when two dogs are fighting, we would pour a pail of water over them and the dogs would stop fighting – well, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t; anyway, as we were discussing with mother about leaving her in a old folks home, we heard a big splash of water on our roof top – literally God poured a “Giant Pail of Celestial Water” on our roof and metaphorically said, “break it up!”. Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! We immediately ran outside to see and it was not raining but only our entire roof top and house was soaking wet and it was NOT the water tank or pipes bursting. Our left and right neighbour’s terrace houses were dry as if nothing happened. Then my mother told us that she was crying in her heart to the Lord because she does not want to live with strangers. That day all of us felt that the Lord did indeed put His hand down on us when we were about to go astray, as such, my sister and I (both of us had full time jobs at that time) planned to buy a house when there was an offer from a housing developer in Kulai, Johor, free stamp duties and lawyer fees, 100% + RM5000 loan from the bank and we can move in just like that. We did not have to fork out a single cent upfront. Both of us agreed to pay 50% each on the housing loan monthly instalments for up to 30 years.

At home in Kulai, Johor, West Malaysia, my family and I encountered and got ourselves entangled in a web of deceit, ghosts and black magic from our “mafia like” neighbour. We moved to Kulai sometime in late 2001. In Malaysia, black magic is called “bomoh”; in other countries “voodoo” or “witchcraft” and etc. However, you want to call it, or in whatever language, it is the same in any part of the world, in any country; fallen angels & devil’s bag of tricks or is it really? Childishly thinking that if I am a Christian, in that alone I would be free from the effects of black magic but I was wrong. Black magic no doubt has gained worldwide popularity, tragically even among “Christians” who cannot wait for God’s judgement because they deemed Him too slow to take action and because they were told by the witches/wizards or conjurers of black magic that the curses will not get bounced back to the sender and it cannot be traced back to the sender either and hence, if someone dies there is no evidence for the police. 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
What is worse, nowadays, for $9.95 you can even purchase your very own voodoo dolls or black magic kit through the internet!!! It is a serious epidemic of sorts, and if possible, must be eradicated from this world as if it is the plague itself but knowing that many evil doers (Revelation 9:21) will not change, at least to start off, it must eradicated from the lives of God’s chosen people NOW.
REVELATION Chapter 9:21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.

KING JAMES VERSION
2 PETER 3:1-18
:1 This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
:2That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:
:3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
:4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
:6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
:7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
:11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
:12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
:13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Isa 65:17, 66:22
:14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
:15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
:16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
:17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.
:18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.


LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR?
A strange case started the day we moved into our new house in Kulai, a double storey terrace house (22 x 70 feet intermediate house with a very small garden in front). We had just learned that the house on our right hand side belonged to a family of five. Husband Indian (Mr. B) – marketing/distribution manager and later on doing his own business dealing in car oil, housewife Chinese (Mrs. A) with two sons aged 6 and 7 and one baby daughter. Husband and wife was in their 30’s, they said that they are Christians and we were glad to hear it. They day we moved in, the wife and 3 children just let themselves in because the gate was open for the movers to carry boxes into the house. We welcomed them but we were very busy unpacking and the wife just stood around for hours and their children were ransacking our boxes. We thought they were just playing, so we let them be. When the movers had gone, our neighbour still wouldn’t leave. We had to politely insinuate that they had to leave because we were very tired and that we had to take a bath and a lot of unpacking to do.

Strange enough, this happens every single day; playing and shouting at our front gate and not at their own house and many times they would let themselves in without invitation and it would be hours before they would go back to their own house. My sister welcomed them for the first few weeks, as she tried to be a good role model to the children but their persistence was beginning to feel very vexing and taxing. We wanted to be good neighbours and what we had in mind was the kind of neighbours that is not afraid to lend a helping hand when you need it but knows how to draw the line and does not intrude into people’s lives.

A few months later, one of those days, the mother and three children was standing at the gate wanting to come in because they wanted to take a closer look at our newly planted garden but we had locked the gate and our front door because it was Sunday and we just wanted to be by ourselves. They started to rattle the gate asking to be let in but we told them we are not properly dressed and we are not free to invite them in, maybe some other day. Then the children became violent and their mother’s eyes were enlarged and pupils were blackened and lifeless and her face turned red with very angry countenance, they went back into their house and from that day onwards, until today, the children would do anything at their mother’s bidding, all three of them would scream at the top of their voices like hooligans and making animal noises or ghostly noises and etc (even though the boys had grown up to 13 and 14 years old this year – still behaving the same way, much to our astonishment) and slam their front door or car door very loudly and deliberately throw with full force their garden buckets and pots whenever they see or hear us come out of our front door, throw rubbish into our house and dump piles of their own rubbish in front of our house and when they thought we have fallen asleep, climb into our garden or roof to dismantle or destroy something and et cetera. With such behaviour, my mother and I had decided never to let them into our house again. Their inhuman persistence and deliberate annoyance somehow turned us into them; we too had become hateful and screamed back at them, gave back to them whatever rubbish they dump at our house and my mother even pronounced God’s curses on them if they do not stop disturbing us; but many times, my sister have tried to speak to them on neutral grounds outside the house and asked them why are they doing all these things and as Christians we should forgive one another and start afresh. Their firm and proud answer is very much like the gangster in Stephen Chow’s movie Kung Fu Hustle (also one of our favourite movies…); Mrs A and her two boys declared to us saying, “Nobody can tell us what to do or how to behave, we will do whatever we want and nobody can intimidate us only we can intimidate others”. Her husband Mr B even tried to scare us by carrying a large meat cleaver while walking around our house. I suppose, when we tried to introduce propriety and decorum to them, we are intimidating them? Ha! Ha! Ha! Okay, okay, it is probably all my fault again; sometimes, taxi drivers who are complete strangers, used to tell me that I look like the head of organised crime! Oh really? It must be one of “those days” when I feel that everybody is guilty until proven innocent kind of day. Thank God, I have never heard that sort of remarks from anybody else though nowadays…… Lately we have even tried to clean up the neighbourhood and help them to clean up their rubbish and whatever rubbish they throw to us and around the neighbourhood as sort of heap coals of fire on their heads kind of theory; but it did not work? My sister even tried to invite them back into the house and give them treats as a gesture of peace but that did not work either. Then we tried to ignore them because my mother said she can never bring herself to love this kind of enemy and she will try her best not to hate them is good enough. Ignoring them did not work either. Luckily, all our other neighbours (who by the way, are all non – Christians) are actually good neighbours and without Mrs A’s family, I would consider this neighbourhood to be quite ideal……. Hhhmmmm…….although the local police statistics show that crime rate per capita in our small city is equivalent to Kuala Lumpur (KL) and New York City USA!…..In the whole of Malaysia, only KL and Kulai/Johor Bahru are considered the top crime areas. Other places in Malaysia are mostly quite peaceful, like for example, I have stayed in Ipoh for more than 10 years and rarely heard of any major crimes, unlike in Kulai for example, major crime happens like breakfast, lunch and dinner. Even a police chief, who stayed near to our house just two blocks down the road, was assassinated in the inviolability of his own home.

Mrs A’s black magic attacks started about a year later after we moved in, that is immediately after we went to act as witnesses in a police case for another neighbour of ours across the street (Mr. C). Now, Mr C (an owner of a large corn processing factory, plantation and corn distribution business - who even invented a clever way to extract the corn kernel from the cob in whole pieces thus keeping the vitamins and minerals fully intact during washing and storage) is a very civic minded and friendly gentlemen with a young wife, newly weds that just moved in about less than a year before us. It seems that Mrs A’s family even before we moved into this neighbourhood, had already made enemies with Mr C. One sunny afternoon, when the whole neighbourhood was either indoors or out working, Mrs A and her children, went across the street, began destroying Mr C’s garden around his house, stamping with their feet the plants and at times used blade to cut up the plants and on other days stealing fruits from the trees inside their house compound. My mother saw everything through our window upstairs. When Mr C’s family returned home, they were shock to find their garden had been ransacked and they suspected Mrs A’s family because they had done it before many times but for that particular day, they had no other witnesses except my mother. Of course, we have to tell exactly as we see it, as there is no other way to put it. Mr C then called the police and we went over to their house to give statements. We informed the police that not only both our families have been attacked but almost 10 other houses were attacked for example stealing flowerpots, fruits and vegetables from other houses and etc but nobody else dared to call the police. The police went over to Mrs A’s house to give warning and I guess that definitely sealed their hatred for us (especially when Mrs A told my sister that they will hate us forever until the day she sees us dead); but what are we suppose to do? We have to help our neighbour right? We have this habit or bad habit in this case of telling the police or voicing out the problem just as we see it. What would YOU have done? Yes, although may times we have considered that “ignorance is bliss” and say among ourselves and mull over the fact that we should have kept quiet and just don’t care, just do not be busy bodies.

Eventually, a couple of years down the road; we erected a seven feet wall around our small garden to lessen contact and face-to-face intimidations. Mr B even tried to get the local municipal council to tear down our wall. Other houses have built high walls too; we are not the first to do so. The local municipal council asked us to lodge a police report about the purpose of the wall as a protection against our neighbour, only then they will allow us to keep the wall.

Then the final straw came when the children attacked my mother when both my sister and I were not at home. They can threaten me as often as they fancy but if they lay a hand on my mother, that is it! They heard my mother came out into the garden for a while and began throwing large pieces of rocks and broken flowerpots at my mother. My mother said it was like a continuous shower of bombs because it made very loud noise when the rocks hit the floor and aluminium awnings. My mother hid under an umbrella that we had placed earlier in the centre of the garden and then she quickly ran indoors. We had to call the police again; although we should not have called the police but should have stayed at home and pray to God to trust patiently in His wisdom and guidance instead but we were too impulsive because of our anger. The funny thing is, calling the police reminded me of another one of my favourite movies, Dana Carvey’s “The Master of Disguise”. The scene when Pistachio’s parents were kidnapped, he called the police, saying that his place was full of ransackery..……..and the police said, “don’t call again”……..and then Pistachio said, “heavenly father, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do……….…”
Have you ever encountered a situation where you really don’t know what to do anymore; in our case, countless times. Lord, “are You not the defender of fatherless children and the widow as it is written in the Bible?” All our neighbours tell us that Mrs A’s family like to bully us because we do not have a man in the house. When my father passed away, I have always thought that Christ is the head of our house now.

The police did not want to entertain us anymore as they think it is just domestic dispute. I had to spell “MURDER” to them, before they finally dispatch a police car to our house. I asked the police to please imagine, what if the rocks had hit my mother’s head and she falls down and breaks a bone or two and the shower of rocks continue to hit my mother when she is on the ground. Don’t you think a 75 year old woman could possibly survive such a fall and being stoned to death. I have heard of old ladies who died or had broken their hipbone from just falling on the slippery bathroom or kitchen floor. (However, my mother is actually quite strong and healthy for a 75 years old woman and angels were protecting her that day.) The police could not do much; they gave the children warning but thought that their mother Mrs A was a fine woman. Huh??? It seems that she can actually turn on her evil charms to mesmerize the two police officers and they believed what she was saying to them more than what we have reported. She told the officers that she is a very busy woman who does not have time to look after her children and that she was not at home when the children attacked my mother. Then we argued, “What about those everyday persistent attacks?” Mrs A told the police that it is all our imagination and that where on earth could she have found the time to do all that we had accused her of doing or allegedly have done? Even Mr C who had seen those things that Mrs A and her family had done to us, has even given up all hope of trying to help solve this case and resorted to keep away from their own house by spending more time at his mother’s house in another town.

What kind of family are they? What kind of insanity or madness that could have driven Mrs A and her family? Later we found out that inside her house looks like somebody’s nightmare or looked like Emily Rose's house from the movie “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”, it was dirty, dark, chaotic and smelly demon possessed kind of house, I guess this is what you get for playing with black magic too much. Mr B even tried to hire maids to clean up their house but all maids resign a few days later because they said that they were unable to clean up their perpetual mess. Yes, had Mrs A been busy cleaning her house, she would not have the time to bully us the whole day; but she would rather dedicate her waking hours tormenting us than to clean up her house. Mrs A told us that she had just tied her fallopian tubes after her daughter was born just because she does not want any more children. Personally, I think that other than serious illness or cancer that makes hysterectomy or salpingectomy inevitable otherwise, a normal healthy person should not opt for such operations. Medical studies have shown that side effects are evident in nearly 100% of women who had this kind of operation. Depression, mild or serious insanity are among the major symptoms. However, in Mrs A’s case, she was already wreaking havoc even before she had her tubes cut or did that worsen her behaviour? Hhhmmmm…….????

Mrs. A’s family is a perfect example of a basic Nicolaitane. Clever professing Christians who by their actions make people of other faith look down on Christianity. Which is exactly what our non-Christian neighbours are questioning; why is this “Christian” family (Mrs. A’s family) behaving that way. Thus achieving the devil’s goal of discouraging people (free-thinkers and of other religions) from the possibility of believing in Jesus Christ. The Ten Commandments of God are the very basis of humanity. For the Nicolaitanes, all ten commandments are broken by the fruits of their deeds.

So what can be done for a Nicolaitane? The key question is, can they change? A question that my mother and sister frequently ask. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Their sole purpose of existence is to consume our time, take up our energy, covet and deprive us of our possession, and ultimately strain or sour our relationship with God. No, they cannot change; but my dad used to say that a man’s heart is made of flesh and not stone. The devil and his seed after him are who they are. What God will do (in His time) is to suppress with His Spirit; limit their destruction; subdue their evil deeds; strip them of their demonic powers and all they have left is their basic humanity.
Interesting example would be the movie, Imposter (The movie is about aliens created in the image of humans are sent to earth to destroy the planet and its people but in the process the aliens themselves do not even know that they are aliens and thought that they are actual humans living on earth).
2 Thessalonians 2:7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
Genesis Chapter 3 verse 15: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
Although Genesis Chapter 3 verse 15 refers to Christ and Satan, it also relates to the life long enmity between Satan's seed and God’s people.



BLACK MAGIC 101:
Interesting movies examples would be like, Constantine, Skeleton Key (a probable reason why God sent Hurricane Katrina…..), Snow White - a tale of terror, Practical Magic, Final Destination, Hong Kong movie Double Vision and et cetera; Partial reality or fiction? I leave that to you.

My very first “bomoh” encounter was when I was a baby, just a few months old. My dad was working as a security guard and he had reported to his superiors about a colleague who drank toddy (Indian coconut wine) and was always drunk during working hours. This made his colleague who was also our neighbour very angry because the senior officers reprimanded him. Many times, he would use his leg to kick with full force the wooden wall that divided our rooms and called down curses on us. It was so loud that I was awakened trembling while I was tightly wrapped in swaddling cloth, my mom could still see my whole body shaking in shock. One day, my mother realised by the silent prompting of the Lord, that there was a piece of folded black cloth with white tread stuck with a pin above our front door. She climbed onto a chair and took down that thing and in it were some incense and ashes. My mother quickly prayed and threw away the black cloth and incense/ashes into the dustbin. A short while later, our neighbour’s mother passed away and he resigned and moved away. A few years down the road, my father heard that his former colleague’s leg was cut off while working in a factory; an industrial accident or the “twilight zone”……………. ??

Back to Kulai, Mrs A did not actually directly confess with her mouth that she used bomoh on us but when my sister listed out the type of black magic she had used, she was amazed that how on earth did we know it was her and Mrs A nodded her head in agreement and did not deny or defend her innocence at all. She used all sorts of black magic from Malaysian Chinese, Indian, Malay, Thai and etc to western type “mirror of death”. All sorts of temple chants, yellow temple papers and ashes were found stuck in our house compound and etc. When an attempt to rob us using 3 trucks and about 6 men failed, Mr B threw a “mirror of death” into our house compound. Now, according to the ever informative world wide web internet, the mirror of death must be thrown into the house compound and the mirror must be broken to release the demon from the mirror which will take at least one life from the household and blood must be shed within how many days I am not sure and etc. The very next day, a mysterious car sped pass by our gate at least 100 miles per hour just as my sister was about to take out our dog Lucky for a walk but she paused or else the car would have knocked Lucky or her down. Now in our housing estate, the speed limit is only maximum 40 miles per hour. What was the car doing speeding at 100 miles per hour around our narrow roads? When my sister opened the gate, she saw right in front of our house a turtledove flattened by that speeding car. She quickly scooped up the bird to bury it. Wild turtledoves among other birds always fly into our garden during the daytime to play and find food. Later within the same day, my sister had an accident while using a blade to cut some dry branches in the garden. The cut was so deep into the palm of her hands that a fountain of blood gushed out. Okay, blood spilled and a life taken (apparently God sacrificed a turtledove in our stead); what next?

First they wanted us to move away, but later came the death chants. There is a type of black magic that made us feel hot and uneasy, unknown fear that grips us whenever we are in the house and serious contemplation of moving away all the time; then a series of sudden gripping fear and mental deterioration; sudden occurrence of mysterious illness with no prior symptoms and ultimately serious contemplation of suicide. My sister and I heard footsteps on the staircase many times when there was nobody there and my mother and sister heard conversations in a specific sections of the house where there are nobody there, and all of us began to see flashes of what looked like a person/ghosts walking around the house. I used to sleep with the lights off but nowadays, ever since these encounters, I always sleep with the lights on!


THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN EMEMIES:
A few days before we moved into this new house, I had a dream or more like a nightmare, and in that nightmare, “I was talking to my mother upstairs in one of the bedrooms and then I went downstairs and saw my sister talking to my mother! I called out to my mother, if you are downstairs, then who was it just now that I was talking to upstairs!!!!!! A ghost who looked exactly like my mother!!!???” Then I woke up screaming. The scary thing was, a few years later, it happened EXACTLY like in my nightmare but at least I thanked God that I was not speaking to the ghost. I saw a woman walk pass my bedroom door upstairs that looked and dressed just like my mother, just that my mother was downstairs drinking tea with my sister!!!!!!! I was screaming for my sister and mother to come upstairs and they came running upstairs to see what happened. I was also beginning to see and feel the presence of demonic forces in my work place in Singapore as well. (I sometimes reach my office at around 6:30 am and work starts at 8:30 am, so I get to take a nap before I start work) Cold icy hands tried to grab hold of my hand while I was taking a nap in the office early in the morning before work starts, I hear traffic of hundreds of people walking pass me in the lonely office early in the morning before the sun rises, sightings of a clown with a colourful costume walking pass the office space, Oh! Come on! Was that a joke! Started to hear strange things like as if other people or colleagues are talking bad about you but in fact they were actually talking about something else entirely. I guess that is how most office politics in this world get sour when demons are inciting people to hear the wrong things and playing with our minds.



KING JAMES VERSION
Matthew 5:21-26
:21 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgement:
:22 But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgement: and whosoever shall say to his brother, raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
:23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
:24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
:25 Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
:26 Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.


HOUSEHOLD ENEMIES:
Most of the death wish and sudden illness attacks were directed at me because I was forced to become the sole-bread winner of the house. My sister had stopped working 3 years ago, which caused a series of heated arguments between us until all hell broke loose. I stopped arguing with her when I saw that her entire eyeballs were blackened in hatred and anger because she does not want to go out and work anymore but stay at home and be a housekeeper. In those arguments, my sister even deemed me proud and controlling and said just because I am earning money, I have no right to control her. Me proud? Did I have a choice? All I wanted to do since the day I started work 19 years ago was just to stay at home and to do housework. Did God let me stay at home? No HE DID NOT, so how is it my fault that I have to go out and work? Did I give birth to my sister? How on earth am I going to bear the housing loan all by myself? Worse still, my sister and I had earlier gone to buy on credit terms, a lot of household furniture and electrical goods by instalments. It was back to square one and worse, the mountain debts that I had to pay off. My neighbours suggested that if my sister refuse to go out then maybe she can teach home tuition or baby-sit for the neighbours like what some other neighbours are doing; but no, my mother does not like people coming to our house and my sister abhors human contact (Even when she was a baby, my sister showed signs of discomfort when my mother cuddles her or kisses her. For me it was quite the opposite, some of my very first words were calling out to my mother to cuddle me!). As the years, mother slowly passed on all the household chores to my sister and it is better now that there is additional person at home to look after mother and take charge of the household chores and caring for the family pets. My mother can finally rest and enjoy her life without worrying about household chores and I do not have to worry about mother being alone all day and I do not have the energy to do any housework anyway. I have finally reconciled to the idea that my sister will never work “outside” again and I have stopped relying on my sister but instead rely on God 100%. I was angry because I relied on my sister instead of fully relying on God.


THE ENEMY WITHIN:
With illness such as high blood pressure, high fever, thyroid instability, chronic bronchitis, sudden surge of asthma attacks, sudden excruciating pain on my knees and leg so much so that each time when I had to climb onto a bus or climb stairs, my eyes well up with tears, topped off with mounting debts, demonic attacks and receiving no consolation from my sister and my mother as usual just kept quiet to herself and offered no comfort to me; I felt like the loneliest person in the world, even when I am in a crowded place.

I had no joy and what little love I had left was promptly turned into mere duty.

My Lord, my Lord, why have you abandoned me in a slimy dark pit? Have I become like the man of God in the Bible, 1st Kings Chapter 13? Is my end is to be slain by a lion and my carcase left by the way side? I just wanted to curl up in one corner and die, or walk in front of a speeding lorry. How low have I become? Crying by the roadside like a complete paranoid idiot because I had just missed the last bus home and the taxi fare costs around RM50.00 whereas bus fare was only RM3.30, work requires me to do overtime almost everyday and when I called my mother to ask her to prepare the taxi fare, she told me there is not enough money for me to take taxi home because she did not set aside that much money for transport to last the whole month (and we do not have any savings at all set aside for emergency use). What did she expect me to do by saying that? Seriously contemplating of sleeping at the bus station bench or walking towards on coming traffic, but then, sighing…., an idea came, why don’t I just take my Singapore dollar lunch money set a side for the next few days and convert it to ringgit for the transport money, so that I can go home in a taxi. My pathetic idiotic behaviour and paranoia, was it finally my penalty for being financially poor? A few years back, my boss scolded me out loud, “THIS IS YOUR PENALTY FOR BEING POOR” in front of all my colleagues and the diners at the “Raffles Bar and Billiard Room” buffet restaurant because I was unable to fork out a few hundred dollars to pay for the table after he brought us there for a Christmas Eve lunch. He wanted me to pay first and then he would reimburse me later. If he did not bring enough cash, how on earth did he expect me to carry around so much cash? I did not even have enough cash to eat lunch on normal days let alone a few hundred dollars in my pocket? He actually walked out of the restaurant with the bill in my hands! I was too stunned even to cry. Did he expect us to wash dishes for the restaurant? Thank God, one of my colleagues has a supplementary credit card that his rich family had given him and he offered to help me pay the bill. After when I reached home that day, it was Christmas Eve, and I was crying the whole night. I thought that being poor in itself was bad enough; but as it turned out that there are even penalties for being poor??? What on God’s good earth is that??? Sigh……….


OFFICE POLITICS:
Back to my office at JW, I encountered a group of colleagues who started off as good friends, but ended with a death wish and indignation curse of wanting the make the whole world hate me. Office politics, just when I swear never to get involved, I was once again dragged into something unwittingly. Now these particular group of colleagues (all Singaporeans) sometime around 2002/2003, started off hardworking and friendly; we would go on company financed trips together and etc and I thought that they were my good friends. On their third year at JW, their personality started to change, their productivity slowed down, and started to spend whole day at the office, just talking to each other or friends over the phone. Now my boss pulled me aside and asked me to report to him what was happening and demanded that they must submit their workflow time sheet everyday. He said that if I do not do report to him then I am directly hurting the company. So, from that day onwards I reported to my boss whenever there was any irregularities, slacking or anyone breaking company rules or regulations. Well, I guess by doing this I just made enemies with everyone in the office who labelled me a spy, backstabber, watchdog and whatever other names they want to call me. A few years down the road, when my boss insinuated that I was a backstabber and unable to get along with any of my colleagues; THAT IS IT! No more reports from me! Being sold out by my own boss it is like in the movies when a person is doing work for the CIA and if anything fouls up the CIA denies ever knowing that person. I no longer report to my boss anything when I was working the last batch of colleagues who started work about one and a half years ago. This batch of colleagues was quite good and efficient, they are all University accounting graduates from Malaysia because my boss said Malaysians are more hard working than Singaporeans but they did break some minor rules like chit chatting over the phone with friends and surfing the net during working hours but I just closed one eye as long as they are producing work whatever else they do are insignificant, are we not just humans and not robots? I tried to defend this batch of colleagues as long as I could but somehow their relationship with my boss did not get on so well and they resigned just after less than one and a half years later. These past few months, another round of new colleagues that my boss hired, all of whom are also from Malaysia. In July 2008, we had shifted to a new office location after being stationed in the same office location for nine years; this new office is sectionalised into walled rooms and with high cubical unlike the old office where all staff from every department sit together in rows of tables without any partitions – which made it easier for me to see and hear what they were doing. Today, even if I still want to watch over them I could not possibly do so because of the new office structure and furniture. Instead I try to practise diplomatic impartiality towards everyone.


COUNTRY POLITICS:
Enemies comes from the oddest places and even sometimes when you least expect. Take, 13th May 1969 for instance. For those who have not heard of this infamous date in Malaysian history, can look it up on the internet or buy Dr Kua Kia Soong’s book “MAY 13, Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969.” It would only be fair to also read the Dr. Mahathir’s so called defense of the Malays, the politician who started it all, please read Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad’s book, his basic response to the May 13 incident, “The Malay Dilemma”.

May 13th 1969 was like any other day, (although the government blamed the Chinese for holding proud riotous rallies during and after the election where the Chinese opposition party did quite well – for instigating and provoking the Malays to attack) in city areas where there are mostly likely to find plenty of Chinese people, for example, at Chinese cinemas and Chinese hawker food stalls and shops, just a normal citizen’s day out to catch the latest “Shaw Brothers” kung fu or romance movies or having their meals at the roadside hawker food stalls (going to the cinema to watch Chinese movies was also my parent’s favourite pass-time but by the providence of God, they had not gone to the cinema for a long while because of my dad’s shift work that made it inconvenient for him to bring my mother out to the cinema). These are the normal public citizens with no political affiliations or agendas in mind and that they are not even those directly involved in the earlier so called riotous election rallies, were taken completely by surprise.

Large groups of Malays armed with machetes, axes and knifes were standing outside the cinema waiting for the movie to finish; as those folks walk out the front door of the cinema, the slashing execution began promptly. Those inside the cinema waiting or queuing for their turn to come out of the bottlenecked door did not even know that they were being attacked outside. (This kind of made me think twice before going to the cinema nowadays huh? ……hhhmm….nnahh……not really, I stubbornly went to the cinema anyway….) Likewise, for example, families with children, dating couples, old man eating alone in one corner, groups of friends gathering chit chatting after work like any other day, as they were eating at those Chinese food stalls, they were suddenly slashed to death without any time to react. Those armed men came in buses and by the truckloads systematically rained terror on the unsuspecting people. It sounded very much like carefully planned ethnic cleansing to me. Official government censored numbers, 196 killed out of which 18 were Malays and some Indians. There are many Malays who looked like Chinese and could have been mistaken for a Chinese when they were killed, as there are also Malays/Indians and other races who learned Chinese languages or any other language for that matter. In short all three races was normally seen keeping company with each other which was very much then as it is until today a very common sight throughout Malaysia’s melting pot. As such, it is not a surprise if a few Malays and Indians were killed in the process. I am not very good with numbers, but let us just make a simple calculation with my fingers and toes, one cinema can hold at least 200 people and not only one cinema was attacked but many others as well and this number alone does not include those roadside diners, shop houses burnt down and other places up and down the country in other states as well all at the same time and et cetera. It did not only happen in one isolated place in Kuala Lumpur. I leave the calculation to you but my dad said at least minimum 1000 people were killed that day.

Everything happened so fast that the Chinese heads of state and Chinese people in general did not have time to gather themselves to properly organise a retaliation which exactly what they were going to do immediately after the wave of murder, but like clockwork, national emergency was called, national guards who were like prophets of doom or “professional cleaners” were already on standby as if they had already predicted it even before the stench of death arose.

Although I was not born yet at that time, but my father was there to witness the aftermath. My parents and sister were safe indoors at home in Batu Gajah, Perak, miles away from the hotspots. However, schools were closed for many days to my sister’s delight, its school holiday!. My dad has acquaintances that narrowly escaped the cinema ordeal and lived to tell about the events that transpired. Even neighbours and strangers told of the same events that happened. When complete strangers frantically tell of the same story all at the same time, it clearly shows that it was not fabrications and lies; it was not a “conspiracy” to destabilize the country’s ruling government. It was just the plain chilling truth. Those witnesses did not even have the time to conspire anything with each other as most of them were in hiding because of the strict curfew or at refugee camps because their houses and shops were burnt to the ground or being arrested for questioning. Huh??? Wait a minute, something does not sound right here….….the very people who nearly got killed and narrowly escaped with their lives hanging in a balance and they are the same ones who were arrested for questioning by the army??? Now, who were the enemies of the State; the aggressor or the victim? Somebody was fulfilling some mystical political agenda? Or are the murderers merely puppets playing to the tune of the master puppeteer, Satan? So, can you really blame the whole Malay race for what a fraction of them did? Dr Mahathir’s New Economic Policy (NEP), after more than 30 years down the road, did no better to help the really poor end of the spectrum Malay people than what Mr. Lee Kuan Yew can do for the same poor people with his Meritocracy policies in a bigger country such as Malaysia compared to Singapore where a small country is much easier to control with his kind of policies. The rich Malays got richer and the poor Malays got poorer; and I am not just talking about Malays here. The poor Tom, Dick and Harry or over here in Malaysia, the poor Ali, Ah Kau and Raju (Malay, Chinese and Indian names) are still poor; while the rich got richer because of preferential government contracts. Who is poorer still are those aborigines “orang asli” but they do not have any concern about politics as long as you do not disturb them in their natural habitat in the jungle where they are happiest. In such a case, if one wish to talk about whose country is it actually belongs to; it belongs to the Aborigines is it not? Aborigines the world over, for example like in Malaysia, Australia, North America have been grossly mistreated or slaughtered by strangers that take over the land. Is Malaysia’s treatment to the aborigines here any better than America’s treatment to their native American Indians? Dr Mahathir and gang’s stand-off against Al Gore’s seeming rude behaviour (although he was probably just trying to help Anwar Ibrahim in the spirit of democracy) in a foreign country during Mr Gore's address at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit dinner conference, is quite funny from that point of view. Although most probably on the individual level, both Dr Mahathir and Mr Al Gore will claim that they do care about their local aborigines. The NEP did not include the “orang asli” in Peninsula Malaysia and why is that so? Are they not the true sons of the land of Malaysia; and reports of their rural area Christian churches being torn or burnt down for whatever purpose, who knows? Is it just because they have the right to believe on whom they choose to believe? Whose country is it then?

(Let us pray that with the new US President, things will change for the better for all US citizens and over here in Malaysia, primitive mindsets must change first irrespective of race before economic conditions can change) Are we still living in ancient times or so-called modern times now? We no longer live in an age where you can wipe out the Canaanites or any race just like that. Even so, God did once regret making the human race. Therefore, let us pray and let God roll out His plans for us; do not take matters into our own hands.

Five months after the May 13 incident, in October 10th 1969 (please read my parent’s testimonial “Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven” at www.crossofjesuschrist.com), God Himself came down to visit us to REMIND us ALL of HIS promise of Salvation through Jesus Christ and with His Spirit the Comforter to subdue the country, from then onwards, it was as if the Lord injected a giant syringe of sedative into the country. Today, Malaysia is a unique harmonious nation where Malays, Indians and Chinese are able to live, study, work and play together side by side so seamlessly as one nation. In most other countries, we still see segregation like “Chinatown” a separate place where the majority Chinese people can congregate to do business in the UK or US for example. A friend of mine and long time pen-pal from the UK (a Hong Kong Chinese – UK citizen) who came to Johor Bahru to visit me once several years ago expressed surprise at the social fabric in Malaysia being able to so intricately mix. It is the uniqueness of Malaysia that is a glimpse of a form of utopian society that we all strive and hope for isn’t it? Whatever social grudges that are still boiling underneath it all will continue to stay under the surface and hopefully as time passes by, all its fury will be quenched by the continuation of hope and peace and faith in God.

Do you know where the “today’s progressive Malays” come from? Let us go back to at least one thousand years ago, where Indian Kings and traders and Chinese princesses and merchants from China cross paths in what we now call Peninsula Malaysia. All along the shores of Peninsula Malaysia and Indonesia, through time and space, the ancient races that date back to the time of the Tower of Babel nearly six thousand years ago – the Indian and Chinese races have been inevitably mixed with the local aborigines to form what we call the “Deutero Malay” people today who only existed not more than 1000 to 1500 years ago. Was it the sins of their ancestors to inter-marry that a fragment of the Malays today would want to kill the Chinese and the Indians; the very people that brought about their existence in the first place? Before the Malays converted to Islam, a thousand years ago, all the Malays before that were either believers of Buddhism or Hinduism just like their parents.

A few months ago while I was in a taxi from JB to Singapore (about one hour journey) early in the morning on my way to work, the taxi had four passengers (I was the only Chinese there with 4 Malays including the taxi driver), they were discussing vigorously about politics and then suddenly they were talking about the May 13 incident and killing off all the Chinese people if Anwar Ibrahim wins the next election. Huh? Not again, killing off the Chinese people just to dethrone somebody just like they dethroned Tunku Abdul Rahman? I was halfway snoozing in the taxi and they want to “kill the Chinese”? I am thinking, Oh please, with the number of people who want to kill me (my mother’s gynaecologist, my neighbour, colleagues at work and who knows what other people or entities), please take a Queue Number and wait in line to kill me! Meanwhile I am going back to sleep. Snoring…….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.


Fruit of the Spirit:

NEW KING JAMES VERSION
Galatians 5:22-26
:19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness,
:20 Idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,
:21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like
; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
:23 gentleness, self-control.
Against such there is no law.
:24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
:25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
:26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.



Desperate times called for desperate measures. Have you ever felt that after all the effort that you put into something or some work or project that when it fails, it feels like everything and all your faith and strength are being flushed down the toilet. When s**t happens, quickly flush it down the toilet. Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! The jokes at http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/shit-happens.html really got me rolling in laughter. All these adversities and foolishness prompted us to quickly take stock of our metaphoric “fruit trees”. The husbandman always put animal manure as the best kind of fertilisers compared to artificial fertilisers for any fruit orchard and God said that HE is our husbandman right? Wow, look at all the types and piles of manure HE has laid in our orchard! I remember back home in Ipoh, we had planted several fruit trees in our small garden; star fruit, guava, coconut, mango and etc; at first the fruits were not so sweet as compared to afterwards when we had used a lot of animal manure fertilisers, the fruits became exceptionally sweet!!

Fruit of the Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Longsuffering, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness (meekness), Self-control (temperance).

Aaarrgghhh!!!!!!! Oh my Lord Jesus Christ, save me! Sorry for screaming again, but it was just that I got a shock when I saw that my metaphoric “fruit orchard” was in a mess, trees of all shapes and sizes and some trees are not bearing any fruits or have not been bearing any fruits lately, some trees have just a few fruits but it looks like they are about to drop off. In my sister’s orchard she even tried to hang artificial plastic fruits on the trees! (or buy fruits from the market and place them on the trees!); meaning, you read and find out, get to know and learn something but never really experience it before or that God have yet to bestow upon us.

The fruits of the spirit are all gifts from God. Lets us examine briefly each of the fruits mentioned in the Book of Galatians.


Love.
Come to think of it, I do not even remember ever having said those words “I love you” in my entire life, although in my heart I do love God and I love my family but I never actually said it out loud to my parents or God before. I have these lines on the palm of my left hand, in the centre of my palm there is a very clear line that forms a cross of Jesus Christ! I seldom looked at it before but several months ago, as I was listening to Michael Card’s CD – “The Word, recapturing the imagination”, in it, the song lyrics of “The Prophet” that goes like this, “with the names of the ones He loved craved into His Hands”. Then all of a sudden, as if everything fell into place, just as the Lord had craved the names of the ones He loved into the palms of His hands, the Lord had actually carved the name of the one I love into the palm of my hands as a remembrance. As tears gushed out, “Father, please forgive me, I have been so foolish as to have forgotten my first love. The weakness of my flesh has turned love into a cold empty space of duty and a struggle to survive.
God is our first love because He loved us first even before the foundation of the world. Mankind is incapable of loving the Lord with his own strength because of his fallen state. The Old Testament kind of “love the Lord” by the strength of the flesh and through good deeds; but when flesh fails, that was when election stands when God chose Abraham, Isaac and Israel. This is one of the reasons why Christ came to reconcile us back to God.

New King James Version
Isaiah 49:15-16
:15 Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you.
:16 See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;


I took a ruler and measured the cross and I was surprised at the measurements in centimetres as it was so precise and the lines were as straight as the ruler itself.








Joy.
I have very faint memories of Joy. King David says, “The joy of the Lord is my strength.” In the book of Psalms 21: verse 1, “The king shall have joy in Your strength, O Lord; And in Your salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!”
No wonder I do not have much strength, it is because I had no joy in the Lord. Let us go back in time to before the fall of Adam and Eve, they had so much joy in their lives and in their work in the Garden of Eden and tending to the animals was interesting, exciting and joyful. Its paradise! I prayed desperately for joy to return to me. Slowly but surely, like the rising of the morning sun with a clear crisp breath of fresh air, the Lord restored joy into my life.
I thanked the Lord for His instruments of praise and worship; the Christian song writers and musicians. God Bless you all. Without you, people like me who do not know how to play musical instruments and do not even have a musical bone in our body, we would be lost. Continue to lead us in song and praise to our Creator, so that all whom the Lord loves is able to praise Him continually in Spirit and in Truth.
The joy of the Lord is different from happiness that the world can offer you; take for example, winning the lottery jackpot, job promotion, business success, 1st class luxury vacation, shopping to your hearts content and etc. The joy of the Lord is a form of happiness and a whole lot more than that plus gladness, contentment and it is uplifting! In short, its absolute bliss!

Peace.
Peace of mind or peaceful surroundings? Nope, I did not experience those for a long while. In the Beatitudes, Jesus Christ said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Well, let us pray and hope that God shall make us all His instruments as peacemakers. God exudes His power of peace through His people a calming, soothing and pleasant presence of God without strain of human exertion.

Longsuffering.
I had to look up the dictionary for this word and then I looked at my life, need I say more? Yep, the suffering has been long but is it anything compared to what Jesus Christ had to endure when we nailed Him to the cross? Oxford dictionary says, “bearing problems, troubles, especially those caused by another person with patience”
Why should we bear the problems caused by others? God teaches to be patient, repent and be obedient to His will and wait on His righteous retribution in this present time because God’s ways of dealing with people or our enemies are different from our ways. In the Bible, Jonah who was disgruntled when God did not punish the people of Nineveh; do not be disappointed when your enemy repents and God heals them. Likewise, do not rejoice if and when should God decide to punish your enemies – at times through natural disasters, war and pestilence.

Kindness.
Well, I am sure all of us would like to have more of that all around; but before we expect others to be kind to us, why don’t we start with ourselves and flow outwards. If we are not kind to others, do not greedily expect others to be kind to you first. Spread a little kindness to people and even kindness to animals; do you know how many people actually torture animals for fun! Just ask your nearest SPCA.
How about those people who take advantage of your kindness? Kindness from the Lord is not human kindness; His kindness of course does not expect anything in return and not of this world. The kindness of the Lord convicts the guilty conscience and subdues the haughty spirit.

Goodness.
Nobody is good in this world except the Lord.
Matthew chapter 19 verse 17, sums it all up, “So, He said unto him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but One, that is God, But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
Psalms chapter 23 verse 6, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever.”
Trust in the Lord and wait for His mercy and judgement and His goodness and mercy will follow you.

Faithfulness.
The gift of faithfulness is towards God and family. We must be faithful to God and family. Husbands be faithful to your wife; and wives, be faithful to your husband. Friends you can choose as they come and go but the family unit will have a solid foundation if it is ordained by God; have patience if you wish to build a family, wait a little while for a marriage made in heaven which is better than the impulsive marriage made that will probably end up in hellish conditions. The sanctity of marriage is faithfulness and without it naturally falls apart. Likewise, without faithfulness to God, our lives will start to fall apart. Faithfulness, loyalty and integrity in the Lord are cornerstones to which you build your house upon.
The Book of Ephesians, chapter 6 verse 16: “Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.”
Without solid foundation in the Lord, the devil’s hell fire of treachery will burn you to the ground and you would not even know what hit you!

Gentleness (meekness).
In the Beatitudes, Jesus Christ said, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Try a little meekness and gentleness as it can subdue any roaring fire of anger in due course.

Self-control (temperance).
Sometimes it sounds easier said than done, but if you truly have the love of God within you, He can get you through it. Have a little faith.
Self-control basically comes through patience, understanding, knowledge of the Lord and awareness of the human condition and environment of your fellow man, social or economic deprivation and its structure of your fellow neighbours be it near of far away in another country, religious or spiritual condition be it Christianity or other religions.
In order to have self-control, in this case, ignorance is NOT bliss. Your ignorance in whatever situation it maybe will likely to spiral out of control if you do not get your facts straight.
Personal self-control would be easier if you have a little bit of all the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit; pray to the Lord that peradventure that He is willing give you a gift today, did not Jesus say, ask and it shall be given? Did not the leper humbly ask of Jesus Christ, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me whole.”?



Bible's description of LOVE
NEW KING JAMES VERSION
1 Corinthians 13:2-8
:2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
:3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and strength I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

:4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
:5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
:6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
:7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
:8 Love never fails.
But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
:9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part.
:10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
:11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
:12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then 1 shall know just as I also am known.
:13 And now abide faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.



So finally today, in my limited experience and short years on earth, do I love my enemies? It has been a long and arduous road; initially with much difficulty and reluctance but of course I do! ha! ha! ha!…., I love my sister and mother, I love my boss, I love my beautiful country, I love the Malay people who are basically a very courteous and friendly people and I love my neighbours! They are who they are as appointed by God and some of them can never change. A Leopard would not be a Leopard without its spots and a Zebra likewise has his stripes.
It is I who must change my ignorant and selfish ways, with hope by the grace of God that He is willing to tend to my vineyard/orchard and let fruits will grow abundantly, hopefully to be less and less self absorbed through time and to obey the commandments of God without fail whenever possible by the grace of God; to be more conscious about the care of nature and the environment because God will destroy those who destroy the earth as it is written in the Bible.
The more I struggle to use my own strength instead of trusting in God’s strength, I seem to get thrown a few steps backwards. One step forward, two or ten steps back. If we use the strength of our flesh alone, our works bears no fruits or worse, it gets flushed down the toilet. By my own strength, no doubt I will sink like a rock faster than Peter if Jesus were to bid me to walk on water with Him that day. It is an amazing paradox, when we must not use our own strength and learn to let go of this world completely without an inkling of struggle and yet we must stand firm in faith and fight with all our might to the very end in the Lord and we must love the Lord with all our heart with all our might and with all or strength and yet it is God who loved us first. Liken unto what John the Baptist said, we must decrease our own strength and hold on this world so that we can fully rely on Christ's strength. JOHN chapter 3 verse 30 "He must increase, but I must decrease"

Like my dog Lucky, always calms me down without words, “relax, its okay.” Everyday when I reach home, I would greet my dog Lucky and say, “Lucky, how are you today!” There was one particular day, I could have sworn that Lucky actually answered me back when he was walking towards me smiling widely, and said “Hello, how are you?” I immediately froze and looked at my dog with my eyes widen and my mouth agape. Then I could have sworn again that my dog immediately stopped walking and said, “Oops”, my dog then quickly closed his mouth and tip-toe to his usual corner and sit down quietly. Is Dr. Doolittle for real? For years I thought I was going nuts but now I know I am………..ha! ha! ha! but Balaam’s donkey did speak, right?
KING JAMES VERSION
MATTHEW 14:25-32
:25 And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.
:26 And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear.
:27 But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.
:28 And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.
:29 And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.
:30 But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.
:31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?
:32 And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased.


Be in this world but not of this world and if you find any evil that does not wish to change then be wise as a serpent but harmless as doves. Find a way to stay away from evil if possible and do not throw pearls to pigs lest they turn around and rend you apart. When you are surrounded by the people of this world who do not believe in God, it does not mean that you have to become like them; you are in this world BUT not of this world. You need not conform to this world in order to save it. God did not mean for you bow your head to get slaughtered or become doormats just because you wanted to prove a point of loving your enemies. Exercise Spiritual Discernment by the grace of God. Even God hates the deeds of the Nicolaitanes. Has anyone ever seen a Nicolaitane or how can you ever identify them? It will be very hard and very tricky to be able to identify the Nicolaitanes because today they resemble the very heart of Christianity but they are not of God.
[Nicolaitanes according to Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Bible Commentary:- is a professing Christian, who like Balaam, introduce false freedom, licentiousness; a reaction from Judaism, the first danger of the Church, combated in the council of Jerusalem, which, whilst releasing Gentile converts from legal bondage, required their abstinence from idol meats, and concomitant “fornication”; also in the epistle to Galatians. These Nicolaitanes, or followers of Balaam, as Christ designates them by a name expressing their true character, abused Paul’s doctrine of the grace of God into a plea for lasciviousness. They persuaded many to escape obloquy, by yielding in what was a test of faithfulness, the eating of idol meats: going further, they joined in the fornication of idol feasts, as permitted by Christ’s “law of liberty”. Thus the “love-feasts” were made like heathen orgies.]

In Matthew chapter 3 verse 8, John the Baptist said to the Pharisees and Sadducees, "Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:" and in Acts chapter 15 verse 20, tells us the basic requirements of those who wish to turn to God, practised since the times of Moses!. God is not a hard task master; those chosen by God will be able to follow His will and all His commandments that are stated in the Bible, for example such as in Acts 15:20, and if a Nicolaitane claims to have repented and that he does believe in God and know His Commandments, then say to him, "let him bring forth fruits meet for repentance", let all of the 9 fruits of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the book of Galatians be his evidence!
KING JAMES VERSION
ACTS 15:16-21
:16 After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: Amos 9:11
:17 That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.
Amos 9:12
:18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.
:19 Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:
:20 But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.
:21 For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.
Today, Acts 15:16 refers to the rebuilding and restoration of God's promises to His people. The rebuilding of the tabernacle of David not so much refers to the actual temple of Solomon but rebuilding the lives of God's people through Jesus Christ.
That is why Jesus Christ refers to His own body as the temple in John chapter 2 verse 19, "Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
The same meaning is also implied in the Book of Revelation chapter 3 verse 18, "I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see."
God many times allows trials and temptations to try, deconstructs us like melting gold in fire so that He may rebuild and remould us again into His perfection which was what the original Adam was like before the Fall and that is the original purpose of God to bring us back to the origin of man that He made in the Image of God, thus we emerge like gold tried in fire.

Even today, as we detest the actions of the Sanhedrin or the Pharisees who delivered Jesus Christ up to the Gentiles to be crucified, the Church today inadvertently even though with much care and consciousness have become the Sanhedrin or like in movie, The Chronicles of Riddick, “Necromongers” – authoritarian dictator. Christians today, are so absorbed into this world and mixed with false religions that they have become like Balaam. We must remember that Christ is not like that. Remember the days when Christ would sit among social outcasts and prostitutes that the Sanhedrin had deemed them beyond redemption. Then look forward two thousand years later, Christ is coming back to reign on this earth for another thousand years. Are all the social outcasts today and those who are not Nicolaitanes really beyond redemption, that you have so quickly condemned them to hell?

Luke Chapter 17 verses 34, 35, 36
Those chosen few of God’s people today for example like the 144,000 faithful ones stated in the Book of Revelation who will be caught up to heaven without having the need to taste physical death, at the end of this age before the new millennium begins. Do not worry about those who are already inscribed in the palms of God’s hands; but it is their children who will continue on to live and step into the next millennium. Think then, by the grace of God, how you can best prepare them to live on with the knowledge and goodness of God’s mercies.

Through God’s Love, if you know of any enemies who will not change, do not provoke your enemies, do not behave rudely or parade yourself with pride before them as stated in 1st Corinthians chapter 13 verse 5. When you have God’s love, you have hope and endure other types of enemies that maybe one day, will change, because change many a time, does not happen overnight. It maybe years or decades before someone change for the better.
There are some people who only know of the lovey dovey sugary sweet romantic version of love; because this world has commercialised God's love and turn it into something else and in man's fallen state, humans are preconditioned to see love sometimes in a distorted form and what comes out of it are fornication and adultery with each other and with the world. We are not talking about romanticizing your enemies or the devil. Like parental love, romantic love is also pure only when it has its foundation in God's faithfulness.

KING JAMES VERSION
Matthew 7:1-6
:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
:2 For with that judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
:3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
:4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and behold a beam is in thine own eye?
:5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.
:6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.


When we are angry with our enemies, by our reaction of anger, it is a form of judgement on our enemies, by doing so, we have already pass judgement on our enemies, but the Lord said, “Judge not, that ye be not judged”. Are you so sure that during a fit of anger, your enemy is entirely wrong and you are entirely innocent? Even so, for cases where you are indeed entirely innocent, then let God be the Judge, vengeance is mine said the Lord. Forgive your enemies and let God take over. God’s judgement is far greater and magnificent than we can ever imagine. As for me, when I am angry my vision and reason eludes me. Whatever petty vengeance we can imagine cannot compare to what God can do.

There are times when we encounter enemies that hate us for no reason. Why is that? Jesus Christ tells us in the Bible, John chapter 7, verse 7: “The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil.”
Are you sure that they hated YOU before you ever did anything to them? In a way, God is without time for He is outside of our time frame nor is He constrained by time and as such, those that do evil in the sight of the Lord or those that dwell in hell have already been judged. That is why they hate you because God has already judged the Devil and all his seed after him.
Genesis Chapter 3 verse 15: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
Revelation 12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.


KING JAMES VERSION
1 Corinthians 4:1-5
:1 Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
:2 Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.
:3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgement: yea, I judge not mine own self.
:4 For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord.
:5 Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.



Today, after 7 years of ignorance and battle against the dark forces, God has always kept the situation at a certain level before it goes out of control or becomes fatal and now we are mentally free from the curses of black magic but physical (illness) healing came gradually (although during those 7 years of torment seemed like it was going on forever). Not because we endured, not that we found self-righteousness or that we are innocent but simply because it is time to repent and be healed. In Deuteronomy chapter 28, God tells us that we must “diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and statutes” or else curses will come upon you and overtake you. The one who empowers the curses is not the devil but God himself. God’s appointed oppressors, who do you think empowered the Leviathan in the book of Job to rule over proud people?
Job 41:34 He beholds every high thing; He is king over all the children of pride.

NEW KING JAMES VERSION
Job 42:1-6
:1 Then Job answered the Lord and said:
:2 “I know that You can do everything, And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from you.
:3 You asked, “Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?” Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
:4 Listen, please, and let me speak; You said, “I will question you, and you shall answer Me.”
:5 “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You.
:6 Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.”


So, in the end, when all that is said and done,
The Lord asked me again, “What do you see?”
I answered my Lord, “Forgive me Lord Jesus Christ, for my past reactions and complaining things I do not understand. Thy wondrous and marvellous works I have yet to learn. In times past, I have heard of the Lord through your eye-witnesses, my mother and sister, and about your miraculous Cross in the sky; but NOW my eyes sees YOU. Therefore I abhor myself, and REPENT in dust and ashes.”



Psalms 17:15 As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.

Romans Chapter 8:19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.


This world is just a drop of water in a bucket compared to the God’s Kingdom as spoken by the prophet Isaiah.

KING JAMES VERSION
ISAIAH CHAPTER 40:1-31
1 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
2 Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD's hand double for all her sins.
3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Mt 3:3 Luke 3:4 John 1:23
4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: Luke 3:5
5 And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. Luke 3:6
6 The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: 1 Peter 1:24
7 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. 1 Peter 1:24
8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. 1 Peter 1:24,25
9 O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!
10 Behold, the Lord GOD will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.
11 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.
12 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
13 Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him? Rom 11:34
14 With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding? 1 Cor 2:16
15 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.
16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.
17 All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.
18 To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?
19 The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains.
20 He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved.
21 Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:
23 That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.
24 Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.
25 To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.
27 Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?
28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

When you least expect, just as the wind blows where it wishes, behold, the Kingdom of God is suddenly upon you and when you are born again, God will open your eyes and let you see that the Kingdom of God is actually all around you. I remembered that I was born again in 1995 1st of February, and for one day, the fullness of the Spirit of the Lord was upon me, I could almost hear Angels singing praises to the Lord that fills the Heavens and the trees clapping their hands in songs of praise to the Lord as the branches sway with the wind and animals bearing witness of the glory and power of their Creator. What more of us, who are created in the image and likeness of our God, can actually forget Him in our fallen state? Remember then, the Lord who is able to give life where there is no life and He is able to call into existence when there is nothing but an empty space.

Therefore, remember whence you have fallen and repent.


Now, pray, tell us, what do YOU see?



NEW KING JAMES VERSION
John 3:16-21
:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
:17 “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
:18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
:19 “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”
:20 “For everyone practising evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”
:21 “But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”


2nd edition on 19th November 2008.

All Bible quotes taken either from King James Version or New King James Version.



Copyright © Genesis Yew. The reproduction and non-commercial use of this material is permitted.

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2 comments:

emii said...

That was a long post. One day, when I feel like reading a story, I'll come back here, to read the story of your life so far. And to tell the truth -- I can't wait.

xxx emily

Genesis Yew said...

Thanks Emily, for comments.

It is not that I desire an audience because I thoroughly dislike the mass communications media in general but when nobody turned back to speak to me as a person, sometimes I feel as if I am trapped in a tiresome monologue (like when Lord Dargis locked Garfield up in the dungeon - in the Movie - Tale of 2 kitties).

Although I may sound condescending sometimes....okay....most of the time, but I did not mean it in a bad or "pointy nose" way and I can take criticism if I am wrong.

Frankly speaking, none of my friends and relatives turned back out of their own free will to speak to me or to give any comments except you.
(friends and relatives who gave replies were only those that were obligated or coerced into replying to me......sigh....)

Now finally I understood how Jesus must have felt when He spoke the following verses:-
Luke 17:17 "And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?"
Luke 17:18 "There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger."


Praise the Lord that you are spiritually mature for a 13 year old. I have a 14 year old neighbour
who still behaves like a 2 year old baby spiritually although he claims to be innovative and cunning in the ways of the world and evil matters....

Thanks for reminding me that I am still a human being after all.