TOWN HALL MEETING – AUGUST

pRAY-VOTE-STAND

Full transcript of presentation by Mike Bain, Christian Voice New Zealand

Hello and welcome to this, our seventh Town Hall Meeting based around the topics of Pray, Vote, Stand.

Over the months, during these virtual meetings we have attempted to highlight topics this nation needs to hear and act on.

We have been forthright about the nations need to return to the base our ancestors founded New Zealand on and that was a biblical belief that God is sovereign.

We have discussed on what the country needs in the way of prayer and provided prayer points; things needed in this country where God can assist.

New Zealand can genuinely boast its corridors of power has the largest number, more per capita than any other country in the world of Lesbians, Homosexuals and LGBTQI+ members in its chamber.

An Australian member of Parliament asked me, “How’s that going for you?” 

On the theme of Vote, we have encouraged everyone who can to take the opportunity to exercise the freedom to vote, it’s a luxury few in the world have these days.

Without telling you who to vote for, because we accept it is not our place, but I would like to think we have challenged your thinking.

Under the heading of Stand, we have encouraged both Christian and non-Christians to make a stand, to draw a line in the sand over many issues.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord Ps 33 I think it would be fair to say this nations God is not the one in Heaven who created mankind and this country is as far removed from being blessed.

To live in New Zealand today is like being on a passenger on the train Te Huia on a trip between Hamilton -Auckland, not knowing the engineer has just taken the train through a red light, not knowing if there is another train coming directly towards it.

With not so many days until the election, if you believe the polls, people are starting to wake up, that this government in power

• has not been in control,
• has not been transformational, 
• has not been successful in lifting children out of poverty,
• has not delivered one hundred thousand new homes,
• has not delivered a smokefree New Zealand,
• has not delivered anything which points to a zero-road toll,
• has not achieved better health outcomes for all New Zealanders,
• has not provided a decrease in Crime,
• has not achieved its goals on Climate Change
• has not provided this generation it’s nuclear free moment.  

I do not have time today to list, this governments long list and it’s a very long one of failure after failure.

In the space of five years, we have seen a country go from one of prosperity, hope, and a future to one likened to a third world country,

• divided by race,
• divided by income,
• divided by generation,
•  divided by geography.
• divided by medical status,
• and divided by town and country.

Blessed is the Nation whose God is The Lord.

But you know, we as New Zealanders, and in that statement, I am calling on everyone from every group, whether you be of European descent, Māori, Pacifica, Middle Eastern, Asian, or Indian, If I am being honest, we all came from somewhere, we are all in reality “Strangers in a strange land.

Let’s all come together and sort out and decide just.

• what sort of Nation it is we want to live in and,
• what sort of a nation do we want to be?
• What sort of people we are.
• What sort of future we want, for ourselves and those who come after us.

Before we head to the ballot box in October, as a nation we need to look to the past just as those who came to this country did from across all the oceans, and make some decisions on where, as a nation we want to go.

I want to take you back to the early seventies, for those of you who failed at Maths at school that’s 50 years ago.

The 1970s was a time when I was young a time when we had no sense of fashion, men wore flared jeans, paisley shirts, and were often encouraged by fathers to get a haircut.

The girls were not conservative about dress length, they thought a wide belt around their waist was modest enough as the tripped along on their platform shoes.

All that aside it was a time of resistance to such outward signs of modernity and progress.

And very briefly, it was also the time of Norman Kirk, who became New Zealand’s second Labour Prime Minister between 1972 and 1974.

The first Labour Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage was revered as the leader of the most transformational government ever in this country, so a lot was expected of the man we called “Big Norm.”

Although only in power a short time, before he passed away, Big Norm managed to straddle the generations need for the status quo and the desire to move forward as a nation.

Norman Kirk connected with people’s desires for those who wanted “someone to love, somewhere to live, somewhere to work and something to hope for” – and for those who wanted a state for which those things were also the priority.

Without giving Big Norm a free pass, his belief was that “We came to nationhood with no legacy of bitterness” which doesn’t pass muster today, even if it was orthodox thinking then.

Kirks social conservatism would certainly be ridiculed by the majority today as he lacked support homosexual reform, and it was on his watch we saw the stat of the dawn raids on illegal migrants.

Norman Kirk was both large in stature and heart, but he gave us a framework in which to look at life.

Some of what is seen is familiar: Here is “Big Norm” as the internationalist, cancelling a proposed Springbok rugby tour and driving the first (and to date only) “state-sponsored physical anti-nuclear protest” when the frigates Otago and Canterbury sailed to Mururoa in 1973.

Kirk’s politics around nuclear weapons were attributed to the fact that his father had been a conscientious objector in the first world war.

And here he is as visionary – the first prime minister with a Pacific sensibility and an independent foreign policy, in which New Zealand was no longer “an island off the coast of western Europe”.

Whether you were a National or Labour supporter, it was a time when New Zealand the little nation at the bottom of the world was like the mouse that roared, and the world took notice.

It was a time when New Zealanders knew who they were and where they were going.

We were proud to be a New Zealander, can we say that today, as we watch this country shatter into many pieces, and the question now comes as to who is responsible.

Christopher Luxon recently blamed former leader Jacinda Ardern and has left her predecessor Chris Hipkins with the carnage.

But it’s not fair to put all the blame on Ardern, Covid, nine years of a National Government, colonisation or the economy, the blame must fall on all of us as a government is only in place at the will of the people.

In 2020, New Zealand spoke clearly giving Ardern’s government the biggest majority ever under MMP to see transformation, a restart in our future direction for the country.

Their failure to drive change was as successful as driving the Te Hua train from Hamilton to Auckland, they ignored the warning lights, they ignored the signs, they failed to communicate with it’s base and come October, it may find itself derailed.

The failure of our country is perhaps the number one reason, top of the list things we should be praying for, which leads me into our first heading called Pray.

If we want to fix our country, we really do need to fix what we can, the things we can control.

Citizens of the seventies wanted a government who could give them or provide a way for its population to have “someone to love, somewhere to live, somewhere to work and something to hope for.”

Realistically, no government can provide you with someone to love and nor should they.

But if we were to list the things we should pray about, top of the list? You.

Think about this for a minute are you capable of loving anyone and are you the type of person who can be loved.

There are so many people in our country who are in that situation, so My suggestion is put yourself top of the list, ask yourself why you cannot love or be loved?

Look around yourself, what am I doing which is different to others? Let me see, many today live a life by choice a life of solitude.

Their only interaction is by Facebook, text messaging or group chat, and even in the break room at work, what is it everyone is doing.

It’s the same for young people, and when they do, they have no skills in face-to-face communication.

Let me just give you a biblical perspective on this subject by asking this question.

If we carried and spent as much time looking at the Bibles as much as we carry and look at our phones, what sort of a country do you think we would have?

So yes, let’s pray not just for ourselves. We need to pray for our country, we need to pray for our leaders, and we need to pray we can return the nation back toits foundation based on the Bible.

For this to happen we need to have strength in the pulpits in our churches, Germany in the 1930s saw the rise of fascism, a bit like we see the rise of Marxism happening today, in Germany history records what happened to a god-fearing nation when the church remained silent.

We should Pray for the pastors in our country.

Like the prophet Hosea I am calling on the many timid church leaders who have caved – conforming to this world to return to teaching the truth about Gods word. 

Pastors maybe under a lot of pressure to tell people what they want to hear as their congregations aren’t always interested in what God says.

We must stop confusing God’s patience with His approval and preach with conviction from the pulpits again— “as dying men to dying men.”

We do not need hesitancy in our pulpits but strong leadership and united churches in this country to rise.

We need to hear the united voice of the church putting pressure on our government, for weakening what Christians hold as holy,

• Marriage.
• The family.
• Standards on entertainment.
• The moral breakdown of our society.
• Bibles in schools.
• The ten commandments.

We need strong leadership from our pastors today, who need to open a bible and stop neglecting the truth, confusing and deceiving audiences teaching them to live a form of Christianity void of repentance … void of truth…”

We need stop confusing people about Judgment, encourage repentance and stop making excuses for sin.

Moving onto our second topic Vote.

Where do you start? Really where does one start?

This is how I am going to start, with what the expectation of New Zealanders wanted from its leadership half a century ago.

“Someone to love, somewhere to live, somewhere to work and something to hope for.”

Can anyone tell me, have we achieved those goals. We are 50 years on from the day Norman Kirk took control of the treasury benches and still today we are still asking the government of the day for

• conditions we can have which makes it easy to love our families,
• conditions where we can have adequate housing rather than sleeping in our cars or living in temporary accommodation like motels.
• conditions which provide incentive for business to prosper local, nationally, and internationally which will provide an honest day’s wage for an honest day’s work.
• conditions, which will abate the fear of parents today as to what kind of a world will our children inherit. anything which the country has hope for?

What is the definition of “Hope.”

Hope is described as an optimistic state of mind, based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one’s life or the world at large.

I asked where do we start?

As a country we have spiralled downwards over the last nearly six years into a country that has become unrecognisable.

I hear the beating of drums growing louder as New Zealanders are awakening.

There is a mood for change, but I come back to a question I asked earlier, What sort of country do we want to be?

I hear prime minister Chris Hipkins is in it for you, Great but does anyone want to define its.

Really what Labours slogan should read is “We’re all in it, because of you.

Let’s be bold, let’s be truthful for once.

Mr Hipkins where in the proverbial deep.

I’m so glad you have your waders, but if only you took off the red tinted glasses you will see the country has submerged so far into economic ruin, brought about your parties mismanagement secularist, woke, and divisive policies, the only way you can breathe is using a mask and snorkel.

To be fair to Hipkins, he has only been Prime Minister since the beginning after Ardern jumped ship, but have you noticed a lot of our issues are world-wide.

Like many governments around the world, we have been sucked into becoming puppets of the United Nations and the World Economic Forum.

It’s true, look at all the causes, the roots of our problems, then look at the plans of Agenda 2030, The great Reset and tell me our issues don’t come from those initiatives.

Now can I point out, New Zealand’s involvement in Agenda 2030 goes back over successive governments since the turn of the century.

The little mouse that roared back in the seventies is now just a compliant lap dog. Photo:(Hipkins/Schwab)

So, we look for change.

The problems in New Zealand especially the growing racism cannot be repaired overnight.

On the right and centre right Christopher Luxon’s National Party, and David Seymour’s ACT party are desperate to be the government.

Both can sell their souls for power, desperate to please the people with their promises, but therein lies an issue.

Luxon has promised he will repeal legislation which Labour is wanting to enact like three waters, Health, Education, Justice, Law,

He wants to get the economy moving again, it all sounds great until you realise, he too will continue to tow the same line as the previous government- a line attached to the United Nations.

To be fair to both Luxon and Seymour, they will have a tough job ahead of them to convince us they are different, but all we will see are superficial changes to appease the electorate.

We are too far down the road, whatever they do to stop the Maorification of this country will result in some form of anarchy.

Which leaves us with the agenda driven Greens and Te Pai Māori.  Say no more but I am going to.

First The Greens, I like a  lot of what the Greens stand for, a better world, as keepers of the earth we have failed and the Green Party, if they stick to their knitting could be a force to reckon with, but they don’t, they have allowed themselves to be distracted into social, racial issues and now they are trying to teach other parties how to suck eggs on the economy.

The Greens agenda on Climate Change while admirable have been nothing but divisive where they along with Labour have created a division between town and country.

Hard to believe when you go to the supermarket, but we are in the middle of a global food shortage which I have spoken at length about in the past, but for the Greens to suggest we cut back on food production in this country is reckless.

Once again, this type of policy is a part of Agenda 2030. In Europe the governments are trying to buy up farms, they are slowly pushing farmers to the brink of collapse in the name of Climate Change.

Interesting quote from a man once heralded as a leading botanist David Bellamy.

He maintained a view that man-made climate change is “poppycock”, insisting that “climate change is part of a natural cycle, and there’s nothing we can actually do to stop these cycles.” He then went onto say “The world is now facing spending a vast amount of money in tax to try to solve a problem that doesn’t actually exist.”

Interesting, Bellamy was sacked by the BBC because his view did not fit the narrative.

Te Pati Māori. If you believe we have race issues in this country, then look no further for the source.

Here it is, yes, we can all agree, Te Pati Māori disagrees with the Treaty, but this country and previous governments have attempted to resolve and recompense for past wrongs.

But sorry, the leadership of this party, their lack of respect to generations of New Zealanders who have worked to make New Zealand the great country it once was, is out of order.

We were one nation, we should all be one nation, but the actions, inferences, and behaviour like this example are not any way to bring all parties together, but to divide.

Truth is, we don’t really have racism toward Māori in this country, I am not naive to downplay the issue and acknowledge that there is a certain edge of racism in the country, but Māori cannot claim to be the only victim.

Te Pati Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi in Parliament on July 25 suggested in the house that the Westminster form of governance has been forced upon Māori because of its misogynistic views on Māori women.

Parliament is an unsafe place for Māori women and the current form of Government needs to be replaced with a Treaty centric governance.

We are really getting down below the five percent with several parties who have been trying to represent minority voices for years and others which have been spawned from the Covid Mandates.

We must not forget what it is they are standing for and remember the reasons we had so much conflict this nation had seen and how all political parties ignored the voice of freedom.

We talk of division in the country, if you want, there it is, brought about by the government of the day and supported by all the opposition parties at the time.

Briefly because I am aware of time, Democracy is under fire, Democracy as we know it is like every other thing which is changing.

Willie Jackson summed it all up when he said on Q &A last year, when he said ”your democracy is not our democracy.”

I am going to put this out there and those who follow and watch our podcasts will know that the agenda of all governments is to move towards a global government.

New Zealand has initiatives already in place to ensure we conform.

We have shown Government our willingness to conform, our reserve bank is in the process of creating a centralized digitalized banking system, so you won’t have money and for those conspiracy theorists among you, you are correct, the government has been monitoring you for years.

Rewind the history clock to the Garden of Eden, the question over governance was raised back then as to whether man should be in charge and not God.

Look at history, mankind has tried every type of government and none, not one model has stood out as lasting, ideal for governing the masses, so where to now?

The drumbeats are beating or as one speaker I heard years ago put, the winds of change are coming. There is without a doubt, a real mood for it.

It is not my intention or place to tell you who you should vote for, but you can have a say in the type of country, the direction you want this country to take, an influence on the hope you can have for coming generations, it is your right to exercise your vote.

Personally, I will be in a polling booth on election day, and I encourage you to do the same and I know many Christians think it’s wrong, but it is biblical, and it was Jesus who told us we should be the light and salt.

By exercising our right to vote we are adding some seasoning into our immediate future and provide some light in a darkening world.

Like you, I am looking upwards for my salvation to come and look forward to the day when King of Kings and Lord of Lords Jesus Christ will reign over the earth.

And moving onto our final subject “Stand”

I am going to make this quick.

If we are wanting change, if we want to love, if we want somewhere to live, and we want somewhere to work, and something to hope for, let me give you an answer from the Bible.

Blessed is the Nation whose God is The Lord,

It’s simple we need a return of basic Christian principles and that means we need to stand on the Bible and all it contains.
The word of God is a good foundation of love, security, and hope on offer.

Nothing else comes close, you may be interested to know, but the Westminster system model of government which we practice in this country is based on the same system Britain, Australia, and many other democratic countries.

It has been the basis for many other countries who have moved onto hybrid systems like Israel, South Africa, and Canada.

Its foundations are rooted firmly on the same law God handed to Moses, The Ten Commandments and expanded from the Mosaic law found in the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus.

Why would someone like Rawiri Waititi suggest we change it.

When it comes to government, we cannot expect it to provide us with someone to love, and we should not expect our government to provide somewhere to live, we cannot expect the government to provide us with work, but we should expect a government to provide us with something to hope for.

Norman Kirk was able to bridge the wants and needs of generations, today’s leaders now must bridge culture, apathy, race issues, economic woes, security, health, education, but above all it must bring open, transparent and bold leadership for the future.

As a country going to the polls I repeat, we need a government which will lead us to sort out and decide just,

• what sort of Nation it is we want to live in and,
• what sort of a nation do we want to be?
• What sort of people we are.
• What sort of future we want, for ourselves and those who come after us.

To achieve this, I encourage you to continue to pray, exercise your right to vote, and to stand steadfastly on the word of God.