Reveling with Guevarra, Albayalde

Batas Mauricio .

TRULY admirable were the recent appointments made by President Duterte at the Department of Justice (Secretary Menardo Guevarra) and at the Philippine National Police (Director General Oscar Albayalde). There are no derogatory criticisms against the two, serious or otherwise, and so the country could not help it if they revel in Guevarra’s and Albayalde’s having been given their new positions.

What I would want to see now, and which I would like to bring to the attention of Guevarra and Albayalde even on bended knees, and, perhaps, to the attention likewise of everyone else that the President has installed in different positions in government under his presidency, is their compliance with and obedience to the standards for outstanding officials or leaders which are written in the verses of the Bible.

The first among these standards is this: having the Spirit of God. This is found in Genesis 41:1-40, in the story of the seven-year famine that was to hit Egypt. This famine was prophesied to happen in a series of dreams that came to the king (or pharaoh) of Egypt which, initially, were not understood by everyone except Joseph, one of the 12 sons of Jacob.

After Joseph (the dreamer) clarified what the king’s dreams were all about, he also explained to the Egyptian king what must be done by Egyptians to overcome the famine that was to hit their land for seven long years. Joseph said the king must choose someone who will manage the country–someone who was gifted with discernment and in whom the Spirit of God dwells.

The king took a hard look at Joseph, and saw that there was discernment in him precisely because the Spirit of God was in him. Then and there, the king decided to appoint, as he indeed appointed, Joseph as Egypt’s second ruler, with the primary duty of preparing for the famine. With Joseph at the helm of running the country second only to the king under the guidance of God, Egyptians prevailed against the hunger that hit their country.

On the other hand, the second standard of who is a good leader is shown by Exodus 18:13-23 of the Bible, in the promise that was given to Moses by his father-in-law, Jethro. Jethro saw that Moses was all by his lonesome in settling disputes among the Israelites, and in running the affairs of his countrymen, so he gave his son-in-law what to him were qualities of a good leader.

The first quality that Exodus 18 mentioned for a good leader to possess is having fear of God. The second is a distaste or disdain for wrongful financial gain or benefit. In my readings of the Bible, I saw what is meant by “fear of God”, and distaste for wrongful financial gain.

In Ecclesiastes 12:13, King Solomon (or the king who had no equal in intellect among the kings before him and even among the kings after him, even up to the present) clarified that the duty of mankind is to fear God and obey all His commands. This simply means it is well for men and women to know the commands of God (through a reading of His Bible), and obey everything written in them.

Jesus prohibited, on the other hand, the accumulation of riches–or the wealth of the world–by any man, because this brings destruction, bringing the wealthy to the hell of fire and worms (Matthew 16:26). Then, 1 Timothy 6:10 clarified, the love of money is the root of all evil, which brings nothing but misfortune.

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This an appeal to concerned TV companies to be more circumspect in the choice of the programs they air, to prevent Filipinos from lessening in, or altogether losing, their belief in God.

With due respect, one example of programs that is bound to all the more negatively affect the faith of Filipinos in God are those with themes dealing with the supposed capabilities of witch doctors to interchange the souls of people who are still living, to enable those souls to inhabit the bodies of other persons.

In the Christian faith–which I am certain is the faith espoused by the owners of the aforesaid TV companies–there is no man anywhere in the world who has the power to transfer souls of people to other bodies. This kind of a power, if ever, belongs only to Jesus, our God and Savior who is God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Be that as it may, if only a more serious study of the Bible is made by anyone, it will not fail to impress them that, yes, there are people who have been gifted with the power of magic or of great miracles which other human beings have not been blessed with. But this power of magic and of great miracles can never prevail against the power of God.

This much is shown by the story of Moses and by the miracles that God performed through him to compel the king of Egypt then to allow the nation of Israel to leave the country and worship their God. In the first tragedies that God sent to Egypt, the magicians and sorcerers in the service of the king managed to duplicate what God had done through Moses.

But in the curse of the gnats which came from the dust of Egypt, the king’s magicians and sorcerers failed to produce their own gnats. They were forced to confess to their king that the gnats “were the handiwork of God” and that they didn’t have the power to imitate the production of gnats. Subsequently, not one of these magicians and sorcerers succeeded in replicating the other more serious plagues that God sent through Moses.

At present, the prophecy from the Bible that many will abandon their faith in God and would be obeying instead the deceiving teachings and directions of evil is undeniably taking place already (1 Timothy 4:1).

As a consequence, during the end times (the very time where we are all in right now), many will turn to sin in their thoughts, speech, action, and appearance.

There is only one who will be happy with this. It would be the devil, because this would enable him to bring many to the hell of fire and worms. That being the case, all those who truly believe in God must act and obey His commands: snatch away those who have been destined for hell, and no believer must say that he has nothing to do with this work of snatching away, for God knows their hearts and would correspondingly punish them.

The question here is simple: how can believers snatch away those who have been destined to go to hell if people continue receiving deceiving teachings and directions of evil, through television, radio, newspapers, and even through the Internet? Media must then endeavor to stop the airing of any material that encourages drifting away from God!

E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com