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The World Has Gone Mad And Irresponsible

The global economy no longer grows as a result of industrial production and services expansion and almost all economies do not act responsibly to balance the fiscal budget anymore.

The article by Peak Prosperity explained how money printing out of thin air is used all the time to solve all economic woes at the moment and running budget deficit and not balancing budget is now the new normal.

https://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/113383/what-could-pop-everything-bubble

“This is the lesson of the past eight years: if a problem can be solved by creating new money and buying assets, then central banks will solve that problem.

Problem: stock market is declining. Solution: create new money and buy, buy, buy stock index funds. Problem solved! Market stops falling and quickly rebounds as “central banks have our backs.”

Problem: interest rates are inhibiting lending and growth. Solution: create a few trillion units of currency and buy enough sovereign bonds to drop interest rates to near-zero.

Problem: nobody’s left who can afford to buy the new nosebleed-priced flats that underpin China’s miracle-grow economy. Solution: create new currency, lend it to local government agencies who then buy the empty flats.

Problem: stagnant employment and deflation. Solution: create a trillion in new currency, buy a trillion in new government bonds that then fund infrastructure projects, i.e. bridges to nowhere.

And so on. Any problem that can be solved by creating a few trillion out of thin air and buying assets will be solved.  The mechanism to solve these problems—creating currency out of nothing—is like a perpetual motion machine: there are no intrinsic limits on the amount of new money that can created at near-zero interest, as the interest payments can be funded by new money.

Even better, the central bank (the Federal Reserve) buys Treasury bonds with the new currency that generate income, which is then returned to the Treasury: a perpetual-motion money machine!

The policy of creating trillions in new currency and buying trillions in assets has inflated an everything bubble, a bubble in all the asset classes being supported or purchased by central banks and their proxies.

Many observers wonder what, if anything, could pop the everything bubble.”

The article gave 3 reasons which could be the catalyst to pop this everything bubble.

  1. For non-tradable sectors of the economy, it is already running red hot and printing money will not cool it.
  2. Social Disorder. Soaring wealth-income inequality will come to a head sooner or later.
  3. Fragmentation Of The Elites. The disappearing middle class will be a major concern very soon.

Migrant Chinese Ministry

I got to know the late Pastor Ng Tong San about a decade ago. He shared that he was called to share the gospel to the migrant Chinese working here.  He would assist interested local churches to start weekend worship services for these migrant Chinese workers and in 2010,  I was invited to serve and was roster-ed as worship leader and preacher in one or two such weekend worship services.

In 2011, he asked me to join him to minister to many elderly folk staying in a certain neighbourhood in Shenyang, China.  Some of the elderly folk were the parents of migrant workers here.  Commuting to the local church was difficult for these folk due to several reasons so he sponsored the rental of a shop unit for regular worship and fellowship.

His love for the Lord was evidenced by his zealous obedience in saving souls. Despite having not much in material possession and in less-than-desirable health, he was so generous in giving both time and resources for the Kingdom sake.

He had finished his race well at 63. I am sure our Lord would welcome him and said, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.”

A life well lived for the Lord without any regret. A glowing encouragement to me to do likewise to the very end.

Pastor Ng was seated next to me, the third counting from the right.

The Day God “Ruined” My Life

(Shared the following message at a half way house to encourage the ex-convict brothers who are struggling with being accepted by society.)

At 39, I was at the pinnacle of success. I just had it good for only the next 2 years and Jesus asked me to give up everything to follow Him. He just came abruptly and “ruined” my life of living in dissipation and fleeting happiness.

I doubt St Paul would give up his illustrious life as a Pharisee without a Damascus encounter. So was I without the 911 encounter.

(http://www.jcmanifesto.org/vision-of-911-at-wtc-on-8-september-2001/)

Unlike the rich young ruler, but like St Paul who had more confidence in the flesh than most in Jewish society, I had to settle for a life in which I had to “suffer” now living as an exile and serve as a fool for His sake instead. Before, I was so well respected, had no financial worry, and lived in real creature comfort.

After which I began life in a new kingdom stripped of all such encumbrance but with a different peace and joy altogether :

From a life of meaningless existence to meaningful existence,

From a life of vain perishable pursuits to a life of meaningful imperishable pursuits,

From a life of vain hope to a life of real hope,

From a life lived eternally in self-scentedness to a life lived eternally in perfect love,

From a life eternally alienated from my Creator to a life eternally reconciled with Him,

You can say I chose to be Lazarus with no “quality” of life rather than the Rich Man.

You can also say I chose the reproach of Christ over the treasures of “Egypt”.

If Christ had not risen, just as St Paul said, I will be among men the most to be pitied. I should just eat, drink and be merry.  I chose to imitate St Paul as well in many areas as he imitated Christ our Lord.  I counted everything as garbage to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ our Lord.

Hallelujah ! He had risen and is coming back soon for us !

The Infiltration Of Secular Humanism

What is humanism ?   It is defined in Dictionary.com as any system or mode of thought or action in which human interests, values, and dignity predominate.

Not to be confused with Christian humanism, secular humanism aims to glorify man as the author of his own and progressive salvation.

Watch the following video and see how far secular humanism has wormed its way into the Christian faith in the postmodern world today and changes her gospel into a veiled humanist gospel which is now widely known as the hyper grace gospel.  The glorification of man is veil-wrapped under God’s amazing grace and agape love.

Over the centuries, the chief aim of Christians is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  The hyper grace theology has just changed this Westminster Catechism to :

“The chief aim of God is to glorify man and make him happy.”

My friend, Samuel Tai, put it this way : “How the gospel has changed. ‘It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure’ (Phil 2:3) has now become ‘it is God who is at work for you, both to will and to work for your good pleasure’ (Humanist 6:6)”.

Watch the following video and hear these words from Victoria Osteen,

“..When you obey God, you are NOT doing it for God…When you come to church,  when you worship Him, you are NOT doing it for God really. You are doing it for yourself.  For that is what makes God happy…”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbZHgGMe31s

 

A Spirit-filled Life

Some of the important ministries of the Holy Spirit are : pointing us always to Christ our Lord, helping us to fulfill the Law as in sanctifying us, leading us into God’s will and empowering us with gifts for service.

As we learn to walk by the Spirit, that is, fixing our heart on the triune God, meditating on His Word, communing with Him in prayer and ministering to one another in the One Body of Christ, we will start to experience His ministries in our lives in glorifying Christ our Lord.

(Eph 5:18-21. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.)

And the following physical evidence of being filled daily by His Spirit will manifest :

  1. Singing spiritual songs and making music from our hearts to the Lord and to one another.
  2. Always giving thanks to God for everything in the name of Jesus our Lord.
  3. Submitting to one another and bearing each other’s burden for the sake of Christ our Lord.

What Do We Live For ?

The Journal of Humanistic Psychology Vol 43 No 1, Winter 2003 lists some of the common themes for the meaning of life:

1.   To enjoy and experience life.

2.  To love, help or serve others.

3.  To contribute to something greater than ourselves.

4.  To become self actualized.

5.  To create your own meaning.

6.  To serve or worship God and/or prepare for the next (or after-) life.

Appended are some quotes falling broadly into these universal themes :

“People ask me – what do you live for? Is it for God, gold or glory? Or for girls?’’ he says with a laugh. “Those are the four G’s. I’m not saying I don’t believe in God. But I’m saying that I don’t live for God. I think God is here,’’ he says, placing an emphatic hand on his chest.  “If you’re honest with yourself that’s good enough. Do I live for gold? I’m lucky, I live beyond gold because I’ve made it. So I think I’m living more for glory. That’s a sense of achievement.”

– Ron Sim,  Founder, Osim International

“When the end approaches and we look back on our lives, will we regret the latest mobile phone or luxury car that we did not acquire? Or would we prefer to die at peace with ourselves, knowing that we have lived lives filled with love, friendship and goodwill, that we have helped some of our fellow voyagers along the way and that we have tried our best to leave this world a slightly better place than how we found it?”

–  Lee Wei Ling, Director, National Neuroscience Institute, Singapore

“The human being needs a challenge, and my advice to every person in Singapore and elsewhere: Keep yourself interested, have a challenge.  If you are not interested in the world and the world is not interested in you, the biggest punishment a man can receive is total isolation in a dungeon, black and complete withdrawal of all stimuli, that’s real torture.  So when I read that people believe, Singaporeans say: “Oh, 62 I’m retiring.” I say to them: “You really want to die quickly ?”  If you want to see sunrise tomorrow or sunset, you must have a reason, you must have the stimuli to keep going.  Have a purpose driven life and finish well, my friends.”

– Lee Kuan Yew, former Minister Mentor, Government of the Republic of Singapore

“The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly.  The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body.”

– Mohandas Gandhi,  Father of Nation, India

“…What is the meaning of life? To be happy and useful…We live very close together. So, our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”

–  Dalai Lama,  Religious Leader, Tibet


“If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:  circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.  But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.  I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ…For me to live is Christ;  to die is gain.”

–  St Paul,  Apostle,  Kingdom of God

“Knowing that there is judgment after my appointment with death, I seek to reconcile with my Creator by receiving His grace in Christ Jesus.  It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live, I live by faith in Christ Jesus believing fully He has gone ahead to prepare a room for me in His coming glorious Kingdom.  So I seek His Kingdom and His righteousness above all and forsake all worldly perishable pursuits in exchange for these imperishable ones.”

–      Anthony Ho, a child of God, Kingdom of God

The Coming Collapse Of China’s Ponzi Scheme Economy

A very well written article by a financial columnist of South China Morning Post, Mr Jake Van Der Kamp, explaining the mechanics of a ponzi scheme economy of China.

Using example of steel production as representative of all manufacturing industries,  the article explained this way :

“Why is so much steel needed?

Simple. It is needed to build more steel mills so as to build more shipyards, ports, railways and bridges so that more ships can be built to carry more iron ore to more ports and thence along more rails and bridges to more steel mills so as to build more shipyards, ports, railways …

What we have here, in short, is a giant Ponzi scheme. In a Ponzi scheme you pay out the winnings of the first entrants with what others later pay into it.

As long as it keeps growing everything is fine. When it stops growing it collapses.

In this case you justify production with demand based purely on more production. As long as you keep pushing production up everything looks fine. At its peak in 2014 China turned out 30 times more cement than the United States, and the latest production figures are only a smidgen less than 2014’s.

Command systems may be good at deciding where to direct economic effort in wartime but they are hopeless in peacetime at deciding when to stop and do something else.

They just keep going down the same old track and then what you get is economic cancer, uncontrollable growth.”

You can read more in the following link.

http://www.scmp.com/news/article/2108442/my-prediction-coming-collapse-chinas-ponzi-scheme-economy

Testimony (16)

In an earlier testimony, I shared about the terrible eczema condition of my eldest son when he was 18 years of age.  Unlike my eldest son whose condition only worsened when he was in his teens,  my youngest son suffered terribly from it since birth.

He had eczema all over his body and even on his face.   He could not sleep every night waking us up all the time in the early morning.   I could not manage and I had to hire 2 domestic helpers to help us tend to him round the clock in bathing him and applying moisturizing cream often throughout the whole day.

One day, one of the domestic helpers even fainted due to exhaustion taking care of him.

We tried several methods of easing his pain so that he could have a good night’s sleep such as having him putting on one set of wet pajamas  and another set of dry clothes over it, or sewing specially made pajamas that did not allow him to scratch his body.  All specialist treatment then were ineffective.

We could only turn to God to plead for His healing in desperation when it was really unbearable for us to see him suffering at such a young age.   All praise and thanks to the Lord that his face and his body were cleared of eczema except his knees and elbows very soon which allowed him to sleep right through the night.   (We thanked God for forgiving our weakness in faith as well for not going to Him in the very first instance.)

By the grace of God since his stressful toddling days, his eczema has been contained and confined to knees only which are controlled well with moisturizing cream today.   He can even participate in field sports and rigorous training now.

Testimony (15)

When I was first called into ministry,  I was led by the Spirit of God to minister to one keen pre-believer living in the most radical place in that particular country which is hostile to our faith.  One afternoon, together with my mission partners, a local missionary who acted as my translator and this other brother who invited us,  I explained the Scripture to him and his family.   Later he believed in Christ our Lord.

Subsequent trips to this place allowed me to share the gospel to another cleric of this other faith who is a friend of these two brothers.   He shared that I was not welcome as I was like one stirring up muddy waters.  The translator did not translate to me as he was worried I would not be comfortable in sharing further.  By the grace of God,  this cleric eventually believed and he turned out to be very enthusiastic in sharing the gospel himself.  In one further trip,  he could come up with a gospel tract explaining why our Lord is the only way for salvation.  We were pleasantly pleased.

Before long, there was already a big group who believed and were baptized.  We decided to go once every 2 months to ground them in the Word of God.  We also supported their desire to meet regularly by providing the snacks and coffee and travel allowance.

I usually prepared my teaching way in advance.  But in this last trip, somehow I did not have a topic or anything to share right up to the day I was in the plane traveling there again for a 3 day conference with the leaders of this 105 member fellowship group.   Usually they would travel to the nearest city near their villages.   This time, I had a prompting from the Spirit of our Lord that I should stay in the capital and encouraged all to travel by train.   It was quite a hassle to get all ten of them to travel to meet us instead of having just 2 of us to meet them as usual in the nearest city and also to get last minute hotel accommodation.

As I started the first day of the conference in the hotel, the Lord impressed upon me to share about persecution.   I chose Luke 21 and Matt 24 to 25 as the text.  In the afternoon, we had the workshop to discuss on how to prepare ourselves to meet persecution.  I could not give any meaningful answer as I live in a country that is among the safest and allow religious freedom.

The conference was cut short as in the late afternoon, the translator received word that his brother had died in an accident and we could not continue any meaningful discussion or teaching without him.

We received word 2 days later that all of them were persecuted by a mob of a few hundred who razed their homes.

We could not contact anyone since, except the translator who had escaped to his extended family’s home in another city overseas.

I did not have any inkling of what was about to happen then but I obeyed the prompting of the Spirit of God despite the logistical hassle.   I did so not because of fear, but because I believe in the guidance of the Holy Spirit as St Paul was often guided in such instances mentioned in the Book of Acts.

We thanked God for the warning.  Firstly,  we were protected from possible harm so that the conference could continue.  It was so necessary as we discussed on persecution for the very first time.  Secondly, the brothers got to learn that they should not be surprised to encounter persecution and that enhanced their faith to face it.

Some Tips To Save A Penny

Ask For Discount Always

It does not cost us anything to ask for discount in a restaurant or any entertainment  place.   Sometimes, out of goodwill, the restaurant may offer you a dessert free of charge even if there is no discount offer.

Dinner At The Mid Range Restaurants

Go around 9 pm as most restaurants take the last order at 10 pm.   As you finish your dinner at around 10 pm, they are likely offer you a dessert or cake which will otherwise be disposed anyway.   Similarly for food kiosks,  if you purchase at this late hour, you are likely to get a hefty discount or a lot more food thrown in free.

Discount For Members

Whether it is supermarket, restaurant or any entertainment place, sometimes members get to enjoy discounts and membership points to redeem gifts.  It is not a hassle to ask any member to make the purchase for you. You get to enjoy the discount while the member receives more membership points.

Car Park Charges

Once I parked my car in a 5 star hotel car park for several hours to attend a seminar.  The car park charges were exorbitant. In most 5 star hotels, if not all,  the guests are entitled to complimentary parking.   I went to the bar and asked the first foreign guest I saw sitting at the bar counter whether he was staying at the hotel.  When he replied in the affirmative, I asked him for a favor.  I asked if I could buy him a drink in exchange for his complimentary car park privilege.  He saw no harm as he earned another drink while I need not pay for the car park charges.  You may find yourself in such situation sometimes because the seminar or exhibition may be held in 5 star hotels but the organizer does not offer you complimentary parking.

Theme Park Entrance Tickets

Most theme park offers bulk discount and usually the shops just outside the entrance of the theme park may have these discounted entrance tickets.  It is not a hassle just to walk over to ask all these shops on the availability of these discounted entrance tickets.

Online Purchase

Do not be surprised that you can get even good quality brand goods delivered to your door-step for a fraction of what you will pay in the retail shops in the mall.   Today, so much stuff can be purchased online.

You can even design your own promotional banner, flyers, brochures,  curtains, covers, etc, for only a fraction of what you will pay engaging professional services in shops or offices.