Now is not the time for timidity.

So where are they?

New Zealand society has seen legislation passed in our house of parliament restricting travel,

• where you can eat,
• where you can go,
• who and how many people you can be associate with,
• how many mourners you can have at your funeral,
•  where you must scan your family in for Christmas dinner.
• How many guests can attend your wedding?
• Which toilet you can use and worse of all,
• Where hospitality business trade in fear of  a $15,000 fine for compliance failure over vaccination passes
• We are encouraged to turn on our neighbour, to dob them in.
• Having to produce a pass to get a haircut, play sport, to participate in life.
• who and how many people can attend church.

So where are they

Where are they, I ask

Have these leaders all been muted or are they cowering from a government rampantly imposing restriction one after another?

Who are we talking about?

My friends, I am talking about the voice of the church in New Zealand.

A voice that has been quiet for far too long

A voice we should have heard roar like a Lion with despair

When this government changed the status of marriage.

When it legalised prostitution.

When it altered the protection clauses for the unborn.

When it allowed people the choice whether they lived or die.

When it refused to acknowledge the name of Jesus in its debating chamber.

This same government has turned truth upside down to the point where everybody is confused as to what is real and what is not.

So where are they?

Where is the voice of the church in 2021?

Let me tell you where they are.

Right now they are locked in their churches like the apostles were following the death of Jesus, hiding and whimpering for fear of man.

To those pastors, ministers, priests, and other church leaders to get out the bible.

Open it and roar with the authority of the word of God your condemnation like a lion who is protecting his pride, his family, his territory.

This country has never, ever been in such dire straights as it is today.

Friends, what is happening in New Zealand is not a matter of health, the pandemic was and remains an excuse for control.

If you think New Zealand is going to return to its old way, think again.

This is the time we should see and hear the pulpits across this nation on fire, for the truth of God.

Dispensing salt to alter the culture to bring Light for those to find their way out from the darkness.

If you are failing, then can I suggest you are as much use as the slave who hid his masters talent.

But its not just the church leaders I am directing this to it is those in the congregations of this nation who are standing in front of their pastors.

I am talking to you if you are in a congregation who has criticised your pleaders for the fiery sermon he may have delivered on sin.

To those who may have left a church to seek a congregation where their ears can be tickled every Sunday.

To you I say: “Get out of the way and let your leadership through.”

We call these people shepherds; we call them leaders. You can call them a dozen names.

But remember who called it is who calls them to the role

Who called you and remember the reason you were called?

We all want a simple life but friends, now is not the time.

We do not want to be in a church congregation like the one in war time Germany which was adjacent to a rail line.

The congregation knew the long train regularly going past during the service with boxcars full of Jewish men women and children on their way to the Gas chambers.

When they heard the train coming, they sang louder not to give the occupants hope but to drown out the cries from the train.

Solomon reminds us in Ecclesiastes 3

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

Just like Moses, Joshua, Daniel, Esther, Ruth, David, Noah. Isaac, Paul, and others were called to serve God is calling you at this time

Now is not the time for timidity.

God’s people are looking to you for leadership.

They are frightened and confused.

When they see government demanding segregation and encouraging discrimination and see leadership complying by discriminating who can or cannot attend a service.

And then teach about the three Hebrew boys who refused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar.

Their refusal showed they feared God, rather than man as they were cast into the fiery furnace.

That is how our church leadership should be.

They should fear displeasing God rather than fearing man.

Our pulpits need to be on fire.

We can see and we can grumble about what is happening in our country.

But we need to stand together to stop this evil which is dividing our nation.

We need not whimper but the church needs to roar.

We need to oppose this oppression happening in this nation.

Its only a vaccine, It is only a booster, its only an ID bracelet,

Its only, its only, its only, but it is not

Wake up church and strengthen what remains

So, the question is where are they?

Where are these mighty men of God?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said

“If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders,

 I can’t, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead.

 I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.”

If we as followers of Christ believe in Justice, truth, and love, then we cannot be mere spectators as some were in Nazi Germany.

We must with all our strength wrestle and speak out with conviction about the direction we are heading .

We must stand with our brothers and sisters

We must stand with our king and saviour without fear

We must not remain silent when we’re called to speak out against the injustice facing this once proud Christian Nation.