Well, good evening everybody, it really is my
pleasure to be here in, of all places, in Bunbury, Western Australia. I didn't think I would ever
come to Bunbury, Western Australia but, you know, these things, the fact is, we had ‘The Truth of
It Live’ tour, well we call it ‘The Truth of It Live’ tour but actually it's an elaborate lockdown
evasion strategy, which I think, about three of us have cooked up to great success and as we leave
each state, as each successive border falls, it works out really, really nicely. So we are
leaving Western Australia later this week, so I apologise for whatever happens after that. I think
the favour of God might travel with us, we trust. But ladies and gentlemen thank you for coming,
it really is humbling and it's an honour to have so many people everywhere we go, to listen
to these events, and I didn't actually realise, but standing just off stage over there, I saw
that what I have to say tonight, it really is very much on the theme of what's, you know,
being discussed already. I am talking about salt and light, I am talking about Western
Australia, in particular, and I hope to anchor it all around a question, which is,
"What should we do?" You say, "What should we do about what?" Well, the pressing moral issues
of our time. I assume that's why you're here. I assume you are concerned about such things,
that you take an interest in such things. And what I’m going to do, is give you an autopsy
of Western Australia to start with, to thoroughly depress you, and that is my specialty, and
from that point, however, I hope to inspire you to show you how we might think about these
things well and act in the light of them. Now, some of you might not know this about me but I was
involved in the establishment of a group called the Human Rights Law Alliance, just a few years
ago, and HRLA, or the Alliance, is a law firm which is dedicated to helping people who get in
trouble with the law for living out their faith. And you might say, well, you'd hope that such
a service isn't necessary, and to be honest I wasn't sure when it first started, but the fact
is, it has been extremely busy ever since it began and it continues to be busy today. It is, in
fact, in the capable hands of a West Australian lawyer, John Steenhof, who now has moved
to Canberra to take up the role and to run that very capably. But it doesn't just get cases
from WA, it gets cases from all over Australia, but there are cases in WA. For example; when
the West Australian State Government declined our bookings for venues, when we tried
to come here, HRLA stepped in to help. Now, that was something that was justified under
the basis that we didn't share the values of the West Australian State Government, or as it
said, the vast majority of Western Australians. Now, that's actually very concerning. And
it's concerning because the places where you have governments that try to cancel people who
disagree with them, are not democracies, that is quite simply the mindset of what the Communist
Chinese government might do. And I do wonder, where is the mindset of the person who writes
that policy, and thinks that's a good idea. I mean, who are they employing? Who is working
here? It's a totalitarian mindset, and that's why it was concerning. Now, we're not too worried, on
the whole, about whether people want to have us or not, but when it came to the government that was
a different story. Now, this is something I want to point out to you that is becoming a bit of a
new normal for many Christians across the country, it's been fairly normal for us for a while, but
someone's got to be the lightning rod. But it's becoming a new normal for many people across the
country, many Christians, and I’m going to show you how. And when I start to do this a lot of
people, they say, "Oh, you're just playing the victim." Look, I will never be a victim because
Jesus died for me, it's not possible, so we're not victims, no one in the room is a victim -
let's not get that mindset - but we need to tell the truth about what is happening so that we know
how to respond well, okay, and that's what I’m going to do this evening. We knew that we would
have some trouble on this tour, we knew that. We knew that we might have some protests, we
knew that there would be some activist activity on our ticketing system, which there was, we
knew we might end up with some venue challenges, took a lot longer than we expected, to be honest,
because this is fairly normal, we've been dealing with this over recent years, quite a lot. I mean I
never forget, in fact, it's actually easier at the moment than it was a couple of years ago. I’ll
never forget, I worked for ACL back in December 2016, previous Managing Director, and I'll never
forget the car bombing of our office. An activist blew up a van in the car park and took out part of
the office. That was the sort of situation we were in then, so it's actually alleviated, just a bit,
but you know, a bit of pressure is coming on now. Now, we knew this through the Human Rights Law
Alliance, as well. I said that the HRLA took cases from WA. For example; one of the cases that
they're running at the moment, it's fairly long running, is the case of Byron and Keira. They're
West Australians, and they applied to become foster parents for children under the age of five,
to provide them with respite care on weekends and so forth, while they're between foster homes. That
is a critical, urgent need, in Western Australia. Now, they had to go through a selection process
for that and they filled out all kinds of surveys and they knocked it out of the park on every
selection criteria, they were absolutely front and centre, no problems. Until of course,
they had to do a quiz on the SOGI issue - sexual orientation, gender identity - and they
were asked very particular questions about their faith convictions on these subjects, and
they filled it out faithfully, and it was perfectly, you know, there was nothing surprising in it,
there was nothing nasty in it, it was just faithful, Christian belief on the subjects
at hand, and then they were declined. Now the thing is, that they made a very good
point when they were filling it out, they said, well, we've applied to be respite
carers for children under the age of five, so it's hardly likely to apply, which is a good
point, right? However, on that basis, they were declined to become foster carers because they were
told that their home was not safe for children. Jason, is a West Australian-based photographer, that
we helped. Jason was in a situation where an old school friend of his decided to reach out to him
to take some family photos. The lady in question was lesbian, by identity, but it wasn't an issue,
Jason wasn't going to, wasn't declining service, it wasn't one of those kinds of cases, at all.
But what happened was, that in the course of the negotiations, Jason shared his faith with
this lady and explained to her what he believed, and he did so in quite a lovely way, I read
the messages, and it was perfectly reasonable, what he said, but he was taken to the State
Administrative Tribunal, for what he said. Because the allegation was made that he had
put some kind of condition on his service, on the basis of someone's identity. I don't know
what the condition would have been if they had actually gone to court, it would have been quite
an argument to make. Fortunately, it was settled, or it was dropped, after it became quite public,
but that was Jason’s situation. But also, there was a guy called Ian, who now lives
in WA, and we helped Ian when he posted on the Alice Springs community notice board,
because he was in Alice Springs at the time, he was a school teacher, and he was put under
discipline by the Department of Education because he put posts on the Alice Springs community
notice board around the same-sex marriage time, and there were lots of posts on there supporting
it, and he put a post up there saying, this is why I don't support it. Again, it was reasonable,
it wasn't inflammatory, it wasn't off message or anything like that, and he was put under
discipline by the Department of Education. Now, these sorts of cases are pretty normal, they're
common. There's a bit of a hotline to HRLA that people ring up with employment issues, with issues
with their academic institutions, with issues with their accreditations. We've had doctors ring,
the medical board is on a bit of an ideological rampage, at the moment, and hunting down all sorts
of people with conservative opinions and having a go at them and saying they're not safe for their
patients - that sort of language comes up, a lot. But the laws, the legal mechanisms that make this
possible are also getting more muscular. It's not just that there's activists at work, there's laws
that are passing to make it easier. And one of the ones that's relevant to you in Western Australia,
is this law which is horrifically named, conversion therapy legislation, I mean
as soon as you say, 'conversion therapy', everyone you know has a freak out and thinks that
you're talking about something terrible. Well, here's the reality, conversion therapy is not
happening in Western Australia, okay, now there might be one guy, somewhere, with a shingle out,
I don't know, but basically, it's not happening. It's not a Christian idea that you can therapy-ise
someone into conversion, or anything like that, that's not the situation, at all. But what this
law does is, it uses that name as a cover, so that people don't have the guts to speak against
it, and it uses that name as a cover, to do all sorts of other things. The other things include,
as Peter told you, for example, it actually makes it legally fraught for a parent to speak to
their child about issues of gender identity, if the child claims to have gender dysphoria or
identify as the other, it could be a 10 year old, an 11 year old a 12 year old, they could have
gone to school, they could have heard about all the stuff that they talk about at school, with
gender bending and all the rest of it, and if the parent talks to the child and says, well you
know, even if they say, well let's wait and see, let's just wait and see, which is the way that
the large part of the medical profession deals with this issue and has dealt with it, up
until now, that could be a criminal act, that could be a criminal act. Now, it's not
just me saying this, we have better lawyers than me writing submissions into the Victorian
State Government when they pass this law. You had the Victorian Law Institute oppose the law and
they are not conservative, let me tell you that. You had the AMA of Victoria oppose the law, so
this is not a small thing, it's quite a big deal, and I did a video where I just go through
the legislation line by line and show what it plainly says, which includes this. For example,
the legislation also, and I think this is a Australian first, the legislation in the Victorian
scenario, it specifically names prayer, as a potential criminal offence. I don't think that's
ever happened before, no, it definitely hasn't, but if you pray for someone even by request and
your prayer relates in any way to their gender identity or their sexual orientation, or anything
like that you, could be committing a criminal act. Again, if you're a pastor and you speak on
these issues, some of my talks, if I say God's will for a person's life is, if I’m a man,
God's will for my life is either to remain single, in a minority of cases, or get married to a woman,
for the rest of my life. That is inducing people to suppress their sexual orientation because
I’m saying God's approval rests on this, through the statements that I’m making. That could
be a criminal act and if someone goes and says, "That harmed me," and that's all you need, and
the harm could be temporary mental discomfort, in the definition, then that
could be an imprisonable offence. And you say, "No, that's never going to
happen." Well, the law says, it could happen and I know a few activists who would love nothing
more than to try and do that. Because what the law actually does, in effect, is it potentially
criminalises a whole side of the debate, right down to speech. In fact, the explanatory
memorandum of the bill specifically says, that conversations can be in breach of the
law, conversations with community leaders i.e. pastors. That's the conversion therapy
legislation, so, they say conversion therapy, does rather a lot more. And I’ve often,
yeah anyway, that's the situation with that. There's also a number of social policies changing,
from which it's harder for Christians to opt out. You find, for example, in abortion legislation,
conscientious objectors don't really get out of it. If somebody feels like they can't perform
abortions, they have to under law, refer to somebody who definitely will. Now, that's
not really much of a break in the chain, is it? So there's no respect for the conscientious
objection of people who feel they can't do this, which wouldn't be too hard to legislate. In
fact, there's been a case out of Victoria, on that very, it's always Victoria
isn't it, not always, but often. There's been a case out of Victoria on
this very matter, where a guy, a doctor, had a couple come to him for a late term
abortion because the child was a girl. And he thought that was terrible, because
the child was viable, at the time, and so he reported it. But silly him, they didn't
go after the couple, they went after him, because he had declined and he'd declined to refer, and
that was illegal. You also see difficulties around euthanasia, as well, for people who say, "Well, I
can't kill someone, I just can't do that. I draw the line there," and plenty of Christians are in
that situation because it is wrong, by the way, just in case you needed me to tell you. You
know, you can't kill someone. But again, you've got to give a leaflet with the information
that sends the person to the right place. All of these things, there's this sort
of muscularising of so much stuff, and yeah, look, I was actually going to make a
comment about covid, but in the interest of time, I won't. You can ask me about it in
the Q & A. "Where is it going to end?" That's the question. And I don't
know quite where it's going to end, but I’ll tell you what, now that I’ve got
you depressed, I want to go back to the original question, 'What can we do?', what
can we do. And the answer is; it depends. Because there's two kinds of problems,
which demand two kinds of answers. First, there's problems we can do something about, that are in our control to some degree,
but there's also plenty of problems that are out of our control, genuinely, and about which
we can do nothing and we need to distinguish the two. Because, if you vex your soul over those
things concerning which you can do nothing about, and you let them weigh you down, you will
lose your peace, you will lose your joy, you'll be defeated by misery and anxiety. And
this is the reason I was going to mention covid, is because there are some people who are
letting it drive them crazy, they really are. Now, I’ve got my issues with what's going on, I
really do, but there's some of that stuff that is just out, its global, right? There's a big global
thing happening here and there's lots of angles from which people are fearful. There's fear of
the disease, there's fear of the policy response, there's fear of governments, there's fear of
mandatory vaccinations, all of those things, I understand all that. But the truth is, there's
a crucial sense in which it's not in our control. And what are we going to do? Vex our soul until we
lose our peace and joy and go practically frantic on Facebook? Come on, we've got to distinguish
between what we can do and what we cannot do. And I want to deal, firstly, with
the things that we cannot do, that we cannot do. The things we cannot
control and I mentioned one of them. Another one is just the big social trends that
are going on all around us, at the moment, there's a few of those. You know, you think
of the education system and all the stuff that just keeps heaping into that. A lot of
that is part of a huge big trend all around us and there's a huge trend there which you
can't snap your fingers and fix tomorrow, that thing is more complex. Or indeed, you could
look at something like Afghanistan - just for an obvious example - what are you going to
do about Afghanistan? It's challenging, right? There's nothing I can do today about
Afghanistan. There are things that are out of our control. Do you know, there's a surprising source
of inspiration for some of these things that are out of our control, and I don't think inspiration
and the word Job are usually put together, but it inspires me to think about these things
well because here was a man who had to wrestle with things that were beyond his control. And they
didn't just look and feel ominous, they impacted him very personally, in very profound ways,
they'd really come home to roost in his life. And you all know the story, there's a
heavenly meeting with God and Satan, and God points out Job’s incredible testimony
and says, here's a righteous and blameless man, the finest man of all the men in the east, it
says. So Job was a good guy. And Satan says, yeah but if only You'll, he says, You've put
a hedge about him, You've made him prosper, he says. If only You'll let me at him, he
says, he will certainly curse You to Your face, are the words that he uses. And so, God says,
okay, but don't lay a finger on him personally, but do anything else, and so off he goes.
And you get that terrible passage where Job’s sitting there one day, minding his business, and a
messenger shows up and the messenger says to him, hey you know what, there was ploughing going on
and the Sabeans attacked and took all your donkeys and all of your oxen and killed the servants and
I’m the only survivor. And then the second servant shows up while he's still speaking and says, well
actually the fire of God just fell from heaven and it burned up the sheep and it burned up the
servants and they're all dead and I’ve escaped to tell you. And while he's still speaking
another guy comes along and he says, well he says the Chaldeans formed three units, made a
raid on the camels and took them and killed all your servants and I alone have escaped to tell
you. And while he's still speaking another guy comes along and says, actually a great big wind
just whipped up for no reason and blew the house down and all your ten kids are dead and I’m the
only one who's escaped to tell you. Now, here's a guy who had to deal with things that were out
of his control and they're a little more serious, even than some of the things we're talking
about this evening. But here's the question, right, that we need to figure out; first of
all, who was in control if it wasn't Job, who was in control? Because behind Job’s
calamity are the Chaldeans and the Sabeans, and the cyclone, and a raging fire, all on the
same day, but behind the Chaldeans and the Sabeans and the fire and the wind, well we know it was
Satan, right? And the first lesson is this; Satan does actually have great power. The forces
of evil are very real and they're very strong. These forces are not only seen
in human nature, in sinful people but they are also seen in the systems
of our world, even on a national and a global scale. Now people instinctively
believe that there's some truth in this. I say, Satan and evil, and they say well
you're a kook. But everyone believes this, why else do progressives and Marxists and these
types, why do they go about systemic oppression, systemic racism, systems? They believe that
there's systemic evil, they all believe that. They just misunderstand what it is, and they also
underestimate human evil, and the capacity of the human heart for sin, including their own.
I mean, that's the human condition. But we know something different, the Bible teaches this
very clearly. In 1 John 5:19 it says, it says, "We know that we're of God and the whole world
lies in the evil one." That's powerful words. That there is unseen and supernatural
power that fights for control and it is evil. In John's Gospel, three times,
Jesus calls Satan the ruler of this world. He operates through people and he operates through
the systems of the world. In Ephesians 6:12, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood
but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness,
against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” You know, behind the powers
of this world is the system of evil, trying to gain a foothold. Do you know, I was in Shanghai, a
number of years ago, which was really interesting. I’m not just a tall man in Shanghai, I’m a
novelty giant. And while I was in Shanghai, I walked into a clothing shop and I was looking
around, you know, just because I was bored, and then I saw a bloke come out from this the clothing
rack, he sort of appeared through the clothes, and he walked off. And I thought, oh you
know, like lots of shops in Shanghai, it must have a back room somewhere, with
all the good stuff. And so, I sort of you know parted through, walked out the back, and
I realised I wasn't in a clothing shop anymore. I had come into an establishment
of ill repute, I shall call it, and lucky I wasn't the MD of the ACL at the time.
I would've run real fast, but no, I did run real fast, I thought, "Oop mistake," and I realised
something, I realised that that shop was a front, for something else. And we're all familiar with
that concept, of something being a front for something else. You know, maybe it's a business,
it's actually a front for some money laundering, or maybe it's an establishment that's a front for
organised crime. Here's something really true, very often the systems of power in our world are
a front, for the forces of evil, that is true. And certainly, when I first got into politics,
seven odd years ago, it hit me like a freight train. You know this, I often wonder, I mean,
anyone who's spent any significant amount of time in Canberra, it's a certain kind of place,
it is the most irreligious city in the country and that's factually true. And I
just think, that can't be a mistake, can it now? You know, very often, it's these
places of power, and this all came to the national consciousness, recently, with that young
woman that was tragically raped in the minister's office. And then all this other stuff started to
bubble up, of all the naughty things going on, all the darkness that's in Parliament House, let me
tell you, we all know it's all true and far more, and far more, it just touched the surface. Now,
this is the nature of these systems of power; like a moth to the light, they do attract
evil intent, they do attract evil intent. Now, I want to ask a question; if behind Job’s troubles were the Chaldeans
and the Sabeans and the wind and the fire, and behind the Chaldeans and the Sabeans and the
wind and the fire was Satan, who was behind Satan? Hey that's right! In Albany
there were way more onto it, there must be different theology around here.
[Laughter] But here's the reality, right, and this is at first confronting, it's hard to get your
head around, but the fact is, it's comforting. Because if God was not always ultimately in
control, then evil would serve its own purposes, its own ends, and have its own
way. And I’ll tell you this, it might be out of your control but it's not
out of His and it will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ultimately be, able to serve its own ends.
One of the proofs of that in the Bible is Joseph's story, and he's got incredible perspective
in Genesis 50:20, where Joseph says to his brother after all the evil they did to him, he
says, well what you meant for evil, he says, and here's the miracle, God used it for good.
And it really was evil, and God didn't author it but ultimately, it's submitted to God's purposes
anyway. And Ephesians 1:11 teaches the same thing - and I mentioned this up in Perth - that
all things, all things submit to the council of His will, in Ephesians 1:11. And that includes,
in the Bible, the falling of a sparrow, the rolling of a dice, it includes the installation
of kings, the decision in the hearts of kings. The forces of evil are real and
we must take them seriously, and it does make us sober minded and
careful, and it also makes us prayerful. I have a friend who used to say, you know
what, he said, if you can't control something or, you know, you're facing some
issue he says, go above their head, pray, and it makes us prayerful and it also
makes me very careful. There are times I’m not quite sure where to step, and you're sort of
praying about every step, like a crooked plank over a shark infested water. The fact is, there's
a lot of unseen stuff out there. But listen, this is the point, that may be true but none of this
would be happening in the world if God was not allowing it to happen and it must be allowed for
a reason, it must be. You say, what's the reason? I haven't a clue and that's okay, it's okay
that I don't have a clue because Job cried out in the pit of his despair, why in the world
is this happening? And the answer really to that question is, no, you've asked the wrong question.
Because the reason wasn't in this world at all. The reason, and Job never saw this, we get this
unique, behind the curtain perspective, at the start, Job never saw that the reason, actually,
for what was going on, in the first instance, was in heaven and he never got to see that.
It was truly beyond him from start to finish, it was outside of his sight, he's hearing, his
touch, and his smell. It was in another realm and sometimes things happen that
are in the purpose and plan of God, and they're not even seen to us here on earth.
And you know, a lot of people get very angry about this. I recently did a segment in 'The
Truth of It' on high profile deconverters; people who were high profile Christians, who then
renounced their faith. And there was a common theme in all of their stories. They were all
very angry that they didn't know the mind of God. They were angry that they didn't know why evil
existed in the world, why bad things happened. I mean, what makes us think we
would even understand the answer? I mean our synapses might blow up. It's clearly
not told to us. But they were also really angry about the fact that, you know, why doesn't
God do things their way? Or why are God's laws written like this? And why can't I just do what
I want in this area? They were at war with the fact that they weren't God. They were at war with
the fact that they were creatures and sometimes, we've got to remember, that we are of the dust,
we are creatures. And there will always be, and everyone Christian or non-Christian, lives with
mystery in their life, they live with unknowns, they live with 'why's' and unanswered questions.
Well, the Christian knows why there's a mystery, because there are things about God and
another realm that you will never understand. But here's the thing, the reason might be
unknown and Job had to face that in the face, God might truly be in control, so what
is the answer? And really, for Job, he realised that he found the answer
when he didn't want the answer anymore. He prayed to God for many chapters, and
then blow me down, God showed up, and He sat down and unleashed a volley of 77 questions,
non-stop, none of which Job could hope to answer. And Job realised Who had the power,
and he realised Who had the wisdom, and he realised Who had the plan. And he realised
that regardless of everything his trust was not misplaced, and he put his hand on his mouth, and
he effectively said, I have no questions anymore. Those questions I thought I had, I don't
have them, and he never got an answer, and that was fine. And he returned to what he said
right at the start, which was, "Though He slay me; I will trust Him." It's a bit like Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego, in the fire. You read where they say, "Our God is able to deliver us!" And
they go, oh but if not, then we trust Him anyway. Their trust is not misplaced. And we are called
to face so many things that we cannot control but we must know, all of us,
that our trust is not misplaced. Jesus did say, 'It is not given to you to know
the times or the seasons that the Father has set by His authority." There's a mystery here, and you
will find yourself perplexing over what's going on in these big realms. But the life of faith is the
life that looks, really to God, and trusts Him, even in the things we cannot see. One of the best
definitions of faith I ever heard, or descriptions is probably, the best descriptions of faith
I ever heard, was that 'faith looks to God'. It doesn't matter what context that word is used
in, it doesn't matter what particular kind of faith it's talking about, it always includes
an element of looking to God. But of course, we can answer a question now about what ultimately
was the point of all that happened to Job. Well for starters, the book of Job itself. How
significant do you suppose that book has been to hundreds of millions more people throughout the
eons of the centuries that have passed? How many people's faith do you think it's strengthened?
How many answers do you think it's supplied? Enormous, right? Again Job never saw
that, but his trust was not misplaced, his story was used. But here's another question,
I want to leave us with on this particular point; who was it that suffered more than Job? The answer is Jesus suffered more than Job.
And the thing we must always remember is that, we're never asked to deal with any more
than Christ Himself ever dealt with. He it was, Who sweated blood at the very
prospect of what was to happen to Him. He it was Who was condemned to death by the people
who He created. John says, He came to His own creatures and His own creatures did not receive
Him and they did not know Him and they said, away with Him, we won't have this man to rule over us.
And He was put to death by the most brutal means, not only that, but he was also cursed
by God Himself. And it doesn't matter how far down things go, doesn't matter how
far down they go for us, He went further. But also, here's another point to remember, that
was the darkest hour of all of human history, to this point in time, nothing worse has ever
happened on the face of the planet than that. And probably, the forces of evil were thinking
they they'd won, but the truth is that that was the greatest victory that the cosmos has ever
known, bar none, in that moment. [Applause] And the question I ask then, is our trust
misplaced? Remember they mocked Him on the cross, and said, "Well He trusted in God, let Him
deliver Him." Well, God did deliver Him, just not in the way they expected. His trust
was not misplaced, ours is not misplaced either. Let me just make these two points, real fast, one, at the resolution of Job’s issue he was at
peace, and it goes back to my original point, what do you do about the things that are out of
your control? Trust in God and have peace in that. It's so important that our peace is not robbed of
us and taken away. It's so important that our joy does not go. I meet a lot of people in politics,
they are not very joyful, they've been defeated, because they've lost that vertical perspective and
they've let it overwhelm them. The first thing we must do about those things out of our control is
not be defeated by them. And the second thing we must do, and if we really see that they're out
of our control but they are in someone else's control, we will pray about them. I often say in
these talks, you know, all through the Bible you see so many occasions when the world goes to
custard and then God moves through one person, who's ready to be used, and He changes things.
But a piece that I miss out, of course, which I sort of thought of when I was preparing this was
that, very often, it's in response to prayer, it's in response to prayer. You think of
Nehemiah, God's people in such a terrible state, off in exile, the temple destroyed, how did all
of his commissioning and story began? He prayed, and it took a little while, and his prayer was
answered. Or you think of someone like Hannah, how was Israel delivered by Samuel? It all started
with a prayer, it started with a prayer of his mum and God heard it and answered. And there's often
that verse quoted, and people say sometimes, it's out of context, but it makes a really
important point. If my people humble themselves and pray - we know the verse, right - I will
hear from heaven and if they repent of their sins, I’ll hear from heaven and heal their land etc.
The most important word is 'if', if they will. And you know, I think that in times like these,
I think if something like covid, this global, disaster, is not enough to drive
the people of God to prayer, then nothing is. And that is
really how we should be responding. Not necessarily that it will go away, but that
God's will will be done, and as the Apostle Paul would have prayed, that it would all work
out for the furtherance of the Gospel, that is the most important thing. That is how we think
about those things over which we have no control. [Applause] Sometimes I forget to do it, and people always
come up and say, "Hey..." But I can reveal a secret to you all, which I’ve never done, on this
piece of paper it just says, "Nice catch." So... I don't know if anyone actually caught it there. Let me, much more briefly, deal with this
point - otherwise we'll have no time for Q & A, let me deal with this point. What
is it that we do about those things where we can respond? And I particularly
want to single out issues where, issues where it is happening 'on account of
righteousness'. What do I mean by that? Well just think of it like this; the Christian parent,
facing the conversion therapy laws that I talked about, or the Christian foster parent, facing the
system, or the Christian citizen facing the state when they demanded to do something they don't
want to do, like don't pray for that person, well, you probably should pray for that person.
Christian employee, you know, facing HR when something goes wrong, when something's been
said and there's been a complaint lodged. What about these situations? Well the first thing
we need to understand is that Jesus thought of this before you did. And He said something very
interesting about it. In that opening monologue I detected a little bit of depression, which is the
point, but this is what Jesus said when He thought about this, He said, "Blessed are the persecuted
for righteousness sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." In other words, He said, there's
a blessing here, perk up, there's a blessing. I mean do we believe that? And He goes on and
doubles down, He says, "Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven." And
I think it's very sad to see Christians living for this life, Christians living
like this, like they've got blinkers on, and they're worried about all that's going on
around them and the pressures of other people and the pressures of the institutions and all
this kind of stuff. But do you know, the plumb line for your life, the basic guiding posts for
your life should be founded in the next life, and what you do daily, should be defined by the
next life. Jesus said, you know, if you're making treasure on earth, you know, and it's, you know,
it's nice to make treasure on earth, it's fun, but here's the reality, it's all going to go.
Moth will come in and eat it, rust will get in and rust it, as He says, and He says, thieves
will break in and steal it. He says, you know, the only lasting thing is the, 'well done,
good and faithful servant', and what comes next, and we must never forget that. And people get
overwhelmed in these moments and they forget where their anchor post is supposed to be, that is for
context every day. Some people do turn to me at this point, because I’ve spoken on Matthew 5 before
and they say well, they say, Martyn but it's not persecution, steady on, steady on, persecution
is the lion's eating you, and you know, lit up as torches in Nero’s day, fair enough.
I’m not going to take that away from anyone who's been through that experience. But I want
to make it very clear, Jesus defines His terms, He says if they revile you, if
they're angrily disgusted with you, if they insult you, if they speak all kinds of
evil against you falsely for My sake. Now what does He mean by revile, angry, disgust?
Well how's this; bigot, hater, homophobe. We know that's not true, don't we, it's just
not true, in fact, it couldn't be possibly more wrong, and yet there you have it, that's
the zeitgeist, that's the belief of our day. I think He is thinking about these things, I
really do. Actually, it's getting harder and harder. I was actually following a live feed
discussion thread during the Olympics because I was in Tasmania biding my time to get over the
Berlin Wall to come into WA, and I watched TV for the first time in at least eight years, can you
believe that. And I turned on the Olympics, and, I don't know if that's a badge of honour or if it's
weird, actually, but I turned on the Olympics and it was interesting, I was watching this live feed
discussion thing of the Olympics and you remember Nicola, was it Nicola McDermott, was that her name?
The high jumper that got silver, you know, and of course she was obviously a Christian and she was
there with her journal with the cross. Honestly, the anti-Christian commentary just vomiting out of
these people, for minutes, they just couldn't let it go. And I thought, yeah, wow, okay, this is how
so many people think about Christians. But Jesus said, well take heart on this as well, because they
persecuted the prophets who were before you, they had the same attitude. Here's an important thing,
it's a feature not a bug, in the Christian life. It's really important to understand. When we do
The Download, we get a lot of young people come along and one of the biggest pressing concerns
for them, because they're just starting to realise they're not that popular in their beliefs,
particularly at university and places like that, fair enough, right. And the concern is, but how
can everyone love me? How can I say it so that it doesn't land like a dead fish? How can I say it so
that they all continue to be my friend? I’m sorry it's a feature, not a bug, they're not all going
to like you. Truth makes its own enemies. Jesus would never have said, "For righteousness sake,"
if this stuff didn't happen for righteousness sake. Now, that doesn't mean be a jerk, of
course, that's a whole other discussion, so don't, but my point is, you will never ultimately get
there, because it is the fact, the truth that makes the enemy, so often. Now, I just want to
be clear, Jesus saw this as situation normal. It comes out so clearly in all that He said,
especially in John's Gospel. But He describes the Christian character in the Sermon on the Mount
on the Beatitudes and His next statement is, "Blessed are the persecuted." He's thinking, this
is normal. There's two things He calls us to do, two things. Number one - and these are what
we can do - number one; He says, be salt, now what does that mean? The thing about
the salt is, it's got to keep its taste. How does salt lose its taste? Salt loses its taste
by reason of moisture compromising it. In other words, the environment it's sitting in, gets into
it. And so He's saying, when you're feeling the pressure the most important thing to do is,
do not compromise on the things that matter. And that begins with your Christian character.
He says this very thing in Luke’s Gospel in the midst of Him saying, if your right hand offends
you, cut it off. If your right eye offends you, pull it out. It's not really saying, cut your
hands off, what He is saying is, get serious about sin in your life, very serious, get serious
about holiness because you're living in a putrid world that seeks to corrupt you and its standards
are not God's standards and they are not holy. And I think what we have to do, as Christians,
first and foremost, if we're to abide by this salt metaphor, and it comes before being light,
it comes before the work of God going forward in the world so people glorify God, which
is the next two points He makes, but first, He's talked about character in the Beatitudes
and now He says, don't compromise, and it starts in here. And this is why - for those of you who
were watching the Perth live stream - this is why, I touched on the subject of what we're
putting into our brains and through our eyes. There's so many Christian people who are
allowing things to happen on screens in their lounge rooms that they wouldn't allow
to happen in their lounge rooms otherwise, and it's compromising them and
it's numbing you to sin and evil, and it's making you weak, and it's wrong, wrong,
wrong. We have to start with making sure that we in our own hearts are not compromised and that
we are getting serious about sin in our lives, we must. Now people say, oh but you know,
it's there for artistic value, and I say, well that means you're being entertained
by it, it's worse, not better, okay. It starts there. And I make that point hard
because I do believe that so much of what we want for the world starts with the people of God. And
if we want the world to revive, if we want people to be changed in the world, we've got to change
and we've got to be the people God can use to make that change. And I tell you, you know, light
shines light. A dim light shines a dim light, a light that's gone out, shines no light. Really,
the nature of the thing itself, is so often what creates its effect, and that
is true with salt. No compromise. But of course, it doesn't just mean that, it
means in actions, publicly, as well. For example; I think of that law, 'don't pray'. Well
what's a person going to do if they get asked to pray, about such a thing, for such a person?
The answer is you've got to pretend the law doesn't exist, at that point, you've got to pray
for them. Obey God, not men. There's not many laws in this country where that clash happens, but
that is one of them, where it's very, very, clear. We've got to make sure we're not bending
to these standards. We've got to, in fact, make sure that we are a Daniel. Daniel knew that
he couldn't plan his life better than God could. He knew that he couldn't be pragmatic and
practical, and figure out how to generate the right outcomes. He knew when his day of
testing came, when they said, compromise. You know, whether it was his prayer, whether it
was his eating of the king's food, all these things, what did he do? He said, no, I will do the right
thing today, I won't compromise even in Babylon, and God will take care of tomorrow, and so He
did. It's the story of Daniel’s life. It didn't hurt him did it? He served five kings. I’m
not saying that's definitely going to happen but that's the reality, salt, no compromise.
Here's the second thing, second thing we can do, the last thing we can do; be light. Be light. In
other words, be visible don't be under a basket, and this is a big challenge. The thing
about being a Christian is, you can hide, there's nothing really, you know, hopefully you
look like a relatively nice person, but there's the fact is, you don't have to reveal who you
are - that ship has sailed for me, let me tell you - but I didn't realise how I got away with it,
until I got the job with ACL. Because people will ask you early on in the conversation, "What do
you do?" You got to reveal, right, you got to say. But see that's a good thing. I have a friend
actually, and he said to me, you know, he said, my pastor was saying a good thing the other day, he
said you should introduce yourself as a Christian. I’m not saying in a weird, awkward way, be
like, "Hey, I'm Martyn, I’m a Christian." But I do mean it should lead, it should lead in how you interact
with the world. You know, you shouldn't be in a workplace where they don't know. Shouldn't be
in a university course where they don't know. People should know. Now the problem is if you're
visible you've got to live like it, right? And that's the challenge. Because the point
is if you are visible and if you're salty, you're going to make a difference in people's
lives. People will ask you, you know, if you are different, they will ask you and you will get
opportunities. If you think well, I never get any opportunities, well, pray for some opportunities
and they will come I can tell you from experience, or create some, maybe do say, "I’m Martyn and I’m
a Christian," not Martyn, whatever your name is. And see what happens, they might not pick it
up, they might drop it, but visibility is so crucial because if you are visible, then people
know what makes you tick, they know why you are the way you are, and you can just, don't
get too keen about what you can accomplish, sometimes you just accomplish something, with
someone. You know, you're not going to change everyone's world view in a single conversation,
that's a big mistake we make, right? We think we'll have a conversation with someone and
they'll just say, "Well, you're right, blow me down." It doesn't usually happen that way, you might
get to loosen one of the bolts, right? Good, the light's got to be on to loosen one of the
bolts. Or you might be given an opportunity to to put a rock in their shoe, as a friend of mine
used to say, that's something that makes them think, you know, you just never know. And I will
say, I mean I don't want to, I’m always mindful talking about these things, it's not it's not us
versus LGBT, but I do want to say this about the LGBT communities, they've done this brilliantly.
Visibility; brilliant, right? Cracking strategy. And everybody knows someone from the LGBT
community, I’m sure most of us here do, but the thing is, when you do the surveys and you say to
people do you know, you know, a serious Christian? The numbers don't stack up. People say, "No," when
they surely do, because there's so many of them, a huge number of people, but the light's got to be
on. And if we do all of that, the work of God will advance. Do you notice we started this section
about persecution it was, where you're on the back foot, all of a sudden we're walking the other
way. Jesus says, “They will see your good works and glorify your Father Who is in heaven.” That's
how He closes out. Now, He doesn't say they might, or He doesn't say, make it so, He says they
will. If you're salt and light, they will, see your good works and glorify
your Father Who is in heaven. Sometimes the noise and the
negativity is very loud, I’ve certainly found that. And we
can think that that's all there is, but let me tell you, if you're salt
and light, the good stuff is happening, but it usually happens very quietly. We've been
so blessed, particularly through this tour, to meet people who come up to you and say,
this is how I’ve been impacted and you go, oh good stuff is happening in the world, you
know, and you get the quiet stories whispered in your ear. It is happening. Jesus said that
it would happen and I want to finish with this. Note what is the ultimate
goal. We can't lose this, even in the political sphere. The ultimate
goal is that people would glorify God. The ultimate goal is the changing of hearts,
the restoration of souls, God's glory. We're not here just to do good things
for the sake of doing good things. You know, well done good and faithful
servant for pretending, you know, deliberately not mentioning Jesus or the Bible every time you spoke,
and just doing good things for the sake of it, and letting people win the whole world and lose their
soul - I don't think that's how it's going to go. The reality is that ultimately we must never
forget that the final destination that God desires for every single person is that they would know
Christ. And we need to be salt and light to that end, to that end. And so we must never hide the
true reality of that in our lives so that it may transform other lives on the same basis. There's
all kinds of ways in which people are drawn into that, and that's why we do so many things, in so
many public places, but what's the ultimate goal that we've always got in the back of our head?
It is Christ and it is that people would come to know Him. I’m Martyn Iles, and that was ‘The
Truth of It. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
