Chapter 5
THE MIDDLE-AGED & THE POOR
Yes, we have one other candidate who is in the middle – neither young nor old. In his 60s. This third candidate is from among the poor. The two Lopezes are from the rich.
He drinks but does not lose control, does not become a drunkard. This is only his weakness, but not a big one. His heart molded in poverty and by the Word of God; therefore, I, after, writing all these articles and reading God’s will, do hereby prefer this third candidate, Mr. Juan ‘Jun-Jun’ Lacierda!
But as God instructed, we must “always listen and look to the wisest among you in order to willingly receive the decrees of God, both general and personal… ”[1] “the wisest shall serve all and be a counselor to his brothers”[2] and “Abolish all superiority…so that all shall be equal as brothers and sisters, and appoint only the wisest among the common people as future leaders…When you see that they are capable and suitable as leaders and supervisors, lay your hands on their foreheads and shoulders, thereby bestowing on them the necessary power”[3] – is Nong Jun-Jun the wisest one from among the common people?
My answer: By virtue of his origin as a son of a poor family, by virtue of his struggle against the abuses of the Marcos regime as a student leader that nearly cost his life and did cost him his academic license (he was not able to take the bar examination and had to escape from being monitored and hunted by the Marcos goons), by virtue of his being a very intelligent person, by virtue of his being a former No. 1 kagawad (councilor) in Loon although he was not able to complete his service due to his disappearance and by virtue of the 20 years of reflection that mental-spiritual refining that followed, he has returned as, not maybe the wisest, but certainly, among the wisest!
And since we have only three candidates for mayor, I dare to say that, casting the influence of vote-money aside, Nong Jun-Jun is the wisest of the three candidates.
He has not articulated but he has personally declared that he is in full support of the platforms (agenda) for the people that I have posted in http://www.platform4loondevelopment.blogspot.com/
Anyone of you who has a son or daughter who can access the internet, let him or her read it and ask him or her about these platforms. I intend that the 20% intelligent, educated, preferably internet-literate portion of the population be first informed, educated and initiated with this knowledge and the remaining 80% who are the old, the younger, weak, and less educated or illiterate and are mostly staying behind or left in the countryside, be personally instructed with this knowledge – with these facts and truths -- by this 20%.
For fuller education, I enjoin this 20% to log at http://www.cocoy7.blogspot.com/ How important is this undertaking on educating our people?
It is very important because as Rizal once asserted, EDUCATION IS THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE, PEACEFUL METHOD TO BLOODY REVOLUTION!
The main leader of this ‘change of mind and heart’ work is certainly not Rizal but Rizal, together with Marcelo H. de Pilar and a few others, was the most important part of this. The main leader however is Jesus Christ!
Jesus has been taking charge of this CHANGE OF THE HEART AND MIND. This has been His task ever since to create His nation Israel. God’s spiritual nation Israel is to be composed, not only nor necessarily by the physical descendants of Patriarch Israel, but by those whom Christ called out from all walks of life from every nation to form a new nation. This is the new spiritual Israel.
“The time is coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah… This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time…I WILL PUT MY LAW IN THEIR MINDS, AND WRITE IT ON THEIR HEARTS. THEN I WILL BE THEIR GOD AND THEY WILL BE MY PEOPLE.”[4]
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone [callousness] and give you a heart of flesh [gentleness, compassionate]. And I will put My Spirit in you and move you to [willingly and happily] follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws.”[5]
Then…
“You will live in the land I gave to your forefathers. You will be My people and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and will not bring famine upon you. I will increase the fruit of the trees and the crops of the field…”[6]
So, these Christ-trained men already around, shall we continue to deny their God-given right to be our leaders by continuing to accept the bribe (votemoney) of by-God-disapproved self-appointed votebuyers-candidates?
God likes the righteous men He has molded by the crucible of poverty and daily trials. They are the ones who will not lead us away from Him. They are the ones who will lead us to Him. These men shall help in our salvation. They will not tell us that vices are harmless. They will tell us to our face that vices will steal our salvation. They will tell us the truth that vices remove us from the road of salvation and divert us to the path of destruction.
They will tell us that sins and vices are not innocent. Their pleasures are a trap – a deception; for vices are deep-rooted sins; not just mere sins. Vices are well-entrenched sins. Vices are not mere seedling sins; they are full-grown big-trunks of sins. They are the hardest kinds of sins to remove.
That is why we need a powerful Savior to overcome our vices. Vices are very difficult to curb; no outside force can conquer them, not the police. Why? Because vices have taken roots inside our hearts and minds and derive from there their daily food or sustenance and so, how can the police or government or any other outside forces destroy vices – since their roots are inside our heart and mind, well beyond the police’s reach?
Vices are like well-watered trees on fertile soil; these vices thrive inside undetected and only their branches and leaves [that is, acts of the vicious man] keep on reaching out, expanding, or like octopus whose tentacles keep on reaching out capturing and strangling its victims.
Vices are also like a water-spring whose source is the deep ground. How can you stop it from flowing? You may close or cover its mouth; but its underground supply will remain abundant. It will seek another outlet or exit. You had not made an end of vice!
Thus, vice is precisely like mountain-size city garbage, thrown into a deep valley, and covered by a thick mass of soil. How dangerous is this landfill as every real landfill in the world is? It is like a simmering bomb underground waiting for the right time to explode!
Vices are not passing sins; they are repeated sins, minute by minute in our mind and heart, hour by hour in our words, day by day in our actions, week after week in the form of secret acts and, at times, when ripe, in the form of crimes against humanity – causing more and more damage like a wildfire creeping wider and wider burning more and more! Vices are hardened bad habits – very harmful and destructive habits!
All you need to die and leave your family in misery is just one vice, not many! All you need to harm humanity by your bad example to the people and corrupt impressible young minds is just one vice, not many!
One germ will multiply into billions.
One example is gambling. Gambling was started by Spaniards – cockpit and cards. Now, some 400 hundred years later, the germs have multiplied. It is billions of Filipinos contracted and sick of it! Billions of Filipinos are now hugging these vices and their innovations, like a long-lost friend or a wife in the thick of the night – only to wake up one morning that we had made love with a monster!
What were the two demonic objectives of the Spaniards?
First, to dull and deadened every Filipino’s mind so this will close its doors and not let wise and bright ideas to enter. Result: dull and corrupt minds; hence, weak and coward mind.
Second, to plant a different kind of love, self-indulgent love, to fill the heart so that there will be no space for love of God, love of fellowmen, and often, the space allotted for wife and children were demolished.
When these have been accomplished, it was time for the Spaniards to exploit us materially. They were eyeing our natural resources. Greed or material gain was the third aim of the Spaniards!
However, it is not man who is our enemy. For those of us who still presume that man is the enemy, Jesus said, Love [him you considered as] enemy. And pray for those who abuse you.
Our enemies as the apostle Paul says in Ephesians 6:12 are not “flesh and blood” [that is, human beings whom Christ told us to love]. Our enemies are the invisible forces of wickedness bombarded as (1) temptations into our minds and hearts as evil thoughts, feelings and desires and those of these that had managed to settle in our hearts and minds have become (2) our habits, our attitudes, our character – or more precisely, our vices.
These temptations, sins and vices are real enemy. These forces. As well as those invisible persons (read: beings) who personify these evil forces.
“Our struggle is against the rulers of this dark world, against its authorities, against its powers and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”[7]
Now elsewhere, the invisible Lord Jesus Christ has been training men of integrity for leadership roles in the country. He has done His part: creation of a new heart and a new mind – new character.
Now, it is all up to us to do His will: look for : “However, it is God’s will that you will always listen and look to the wisest among you in order to willingly receive the decrees of God, both general and personal. But beware of ever according such as a wise one more respect, love and reverence than another not yet wise, but still most willing and dear brother.
“And the respect for the one wise out of God’s grace shall consist in nothing else but love of God, love of the neighbor and the most willing obedience to God’s directives through the humble heart of a wise brother.”[8]
“Abolish all superiority…so that all shall be equal as brothers and sisters, and appoint only the wisest among the common people as future leaders. However, do not ever let them occupy the royal palaces, for they shall live in the simplest and most lowly huts.
When you see that they are capable and suitable as leaders and supervisors, lay your hands on their foreheads and shoulders, thereby bestowing on them the necessary power.”[9]
* * * * * * * * * *
Nong Jun-Jun is not a perfect one. But certainly his pro-poor heart makes him the better one!
The camp of the older Lopez requested me to help them answer the young Lopez camp’s derision and accusation “Senior Citizen na kana sila” which connotes that they are already old, and so, slow, obsolete or even inutile, and so must not be voted.
I must admit that, knowing now God’s higher will or preference, Nong Jun-Jun is the better choice – the better alternative among the three candidates! Not because he is my closer neighbor, but because he is closer to God’s description of ‘being the wisest from among the common people’!
I am also surprised to discover what he has kept from our knowledge for a long time now – he is a devotee to God’s Word! So, this means that he has a great love for God, truth and justice, and the man who has this love is the one who also loves his poor fellowmen.
So, Nong Jun-Jun is the wisest of the three, although he may not be the wisest of all people; but certainly, among the wisest ones in our town.
Bookmark that. And we will see not just in the next three years, but beyond!
FOR THE MOMENT, LET PEOPLE’S WILL PREVAIL
Man has freewill. It was God who gave this freewill. This freewill is inviolable. It means that: neither Satan nor God can force man to make decision against his (man’s) will. Satan can only tempt; God can only teach or show the way.
But the consequences for disobedience and for obedience are all intact. You will reap what you’d sow.
In the arena of government, election is not God’s method. God foreknew the incompetence of the people. He knew already long time ago that people, evil and ignorant as they are, could not be trusted to choose the best leader who could lead them away from ruin onto salvation and eternal life.
The voice of the people is not always the voice of God. Often, the voice of the people is not the voice of God. The Church or the man who teaches “The Voice of the People is the Voice of God” is a great liar. The “voice of the people” who pressured Aaron to cast a golden calf to be worshipped in the wilderness, was it the voice of God? Exodus 32. The ‘voice of the people’ of Sodom and Gomorrah to follow wickedness, was it the ‘voice of God’?
Although God could turn the sour lemon into sweet lemonade, nevertheless, was the ‘voice of the people’ to crucify the innocent Jesus, ‘the voice of God’? Or more precisely, was the heart of that mob motivated by love for God and His Christ? Hardly!
If our elections have been the voice of the people, and if after every election the people got poorer, the prices of commodities got higher, the value of our salaries or peso got lower, and so each of our meal got smaller, and our stomach hungrier, our faces thinner, our arms and muscles weaker – HOW CAN IT BE THE VOICE OF A LOVING GOD? HOW CAN OUR MISERY BE HIS WILL?
I say, hardly!
It is us who deceived our own selves. Our will – our voice – our decision – is seldom God’s!!!
We are just deceiving our own selves! And how are we to be set free from this self-delusion, only bitter fruits of our own decisions will bring us to our senses! And it is not going to take too long!
[1] Household of God I/34:8-9
[2] Household of God I/33:15
[3] Household of God I/8:19-20
[4] Jeremiah 31:31 & 33
[5] Ezekiel 36:26-27
[6] Ezekiel 36:28-31
[7] Ephesians 6:12
[8] Household of God I/34:8-9
[9] Household of God I/8:19-20
No comments:
Post a Comment