Matthew Littlefield, Caldron Pool, Mar. 2024
People forget how much God wanted to bless Ishmael too:
“As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation. 21 But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year”. Gen. 17:20-21
If God treats Ishmael this good, I wonder how he thinks about how the West treats Ishmael’s descendants, the people of the Arab nations?
People forget that before there was ever a church in London, Berlin, New York or Brisbane, the Arab peoples were filling churches in their own land and taking the gospel far. Some of these churches still stand to this day.
No people is made to be cursed without redemption. And redemption squandered brings about a worse curse. Because the latter state is worse than the former, as Peter the Apostle himself said,
“20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire”. Peter 2: 20-22
If the low state of the descendants of Ishmael in the world today, relatively speaking, is because they rejected, in large part, the message of God. Imagine how bad it will be for the West, which has chosen evils even worse than Islam.
Some people might think, “How can you get worse evils than Islam?” Well, that is how depraved humanity is, it is capable of thinking up and applying many types and levels of evil. But it is really very simple to answer this question.
How is the evil that has overcome the West, worse than Islam? Countries can flourish, even prosper under Islam, as many have, for centuries. Today some of the wealthiest and most industrious parts of the world, places with influence and power over much of the world, are nations where Islam is the dominant religion.
Islam may be oppressive, but it is also conducive to preserving the family and the nation and that is the key point. Anything that conserves the family and the nation is better than that which does not, even if it is not an ultimate good. Whereas whatever you want to call the evil that has overcome the West, whether Communism, Marxism, Feminism, Satanism, Globalism, GAE, or whatever else, it is not capable of sustaining either the family or the nation, hence the massive birth rate declines, and the massive reliance on immigration to plug those holes.
The evil that grips the West is worse. This is a pretty confronting truth to ponder, because for so long now the West has considered itself the good guy on the world stage, but it is a dying civilisation rotting from the core, and it can no longer sustain itself without fresh-minted citizens and fake money; both being things that’ll backfire in the end.
We may be shocked at how low the Western nations can fall on the ladder of the nations before it hits rock bottom and does the soul-searching required to make itself great again. But we should not be shocked that this is what happens when a nation rejects the Lord Jesus Christ in such a large and thorough measure.
Reverend Matthew Littlefield is the pastor of New Beith Baptist Church. He is an ordained Minister in the Baptist Union of Queensland. Matthew has a Masters in Theology.
Even if Islam the lesser of two evils, it is still morally repugnant.
It doesn’t produce virtuous persons of the best moral character. It only arbitrarily selects which vices are to be punished, unjustly and pitilessly brutal and far beyond what the crime justly merits. That is, cruel and unusual.
Islam also has a false idea of what Heaven is, presented as a carnal one rather than a spiritual one. And if I’m not mistaken, Islam has no Hell where the souls of sinners go; Its version of Hell is right here on this earth.
Islam does not represent the just and true God and can therefore never be chosen as the lesser of evils. That would be a betrayal of the One, True, God.