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Nelson Mandela International Day, Microsoft Word format
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Nelson Mandela turned 92 on the 18th July this year.  The fawning praise heaped upon him was sickening to behold, with newspapers full of birthday greetings from tearful admirers, and the media literally awash in adulation that seemed to never end and to reach ever greater heights of idol-worship.

Mandela, the world is told over and over ad nauseam, supposedly “gave 67 years of his life” for his people.  Someone then dreamed up the idea of turning his birthday into “Mandela Day”, in which people across South Africa would be asked to give 67 minutes of their time, or more, to charitable deeds, in his honour and to carry on the “Mandela legacy” into the future.  The real “Mandela legacy”, however, is a country awash in violent crime, with dozens of murders and rapes being committed every single day.  This is what Mandela, with his support of an armed revolution against the state before he became president, has bequeathed to South Africa: entire generations of black people who know nothing but violence and revolution, and who now continue to live by the sword years after Mandela’s ANC came to power.

Ironically, the “Mandela legacy” of a crime-ridden society touched the Mandela family itself: his daughter Zindzi and some of her family members were attacked in their driveway in Johannesburg as they were returning home after celebrating Mandela’s birthday!  In the old South Africa, which Mandela and his like never tire of telling the world was akin to a Nazi state, crime levels were extremely low and people were safe in their own homes.  In Mandela’s new South Africa, his own family is held up by criminals in the driveway of their home.  Yet no doubt this act, too, will be declared a “legacy of apartheid”.  Anything except to lay the blame where it should be squarely laid.

Anyway, huge numbers of people, indoctrinated by years of pro-Mandela propaganda, fell for the idea of “Mandela Day”, with the media full of all kinds of details about the works of charity being done by ordinary people in his honour, “to make the world a better place for all” (sounds like something out of child abuser Michael Jackson’s mouth – another Mandela junkie).  American actor Morgan Freeman, sufficiently blinded by the Mandela myth to have played him in a movie, came to SA and built a fence at an Aids Centre in the black township of Khayelitsha.  He also participated in a “celebrity” motorbike ride from Johannesburg to Cape Town to observe the day in honour of “the world’s greatest icon.”

What’s more, the United Nations decided to honour the old terrorist by declaring his birthday, from henceforth, to be “Nelson Mandela International Day”!  To see and hear the world’s assortment of terrorists, dictators and tyrants heaping praise on his head was disgusting.  But such is the world we live in today, where the worst of men are honoured and treated as heroes and demigods.  “Help, Lord; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.  They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak…. The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted” (Psa. 12:1,2,8).

After the hysteria was all over, the Nelson Mandela Foundation thanked the South African public for making the first Nelson Mandela International Day a success.  And its spokesman, Sello Hatang, took it all one step further.  He said, “We would like people to remember that every day should be a Mandela Day.” [1]

Has the whole world gone stark, staring mad?  The answer, of course, is Yes.  Nelson Mandela is the latest in a line of wicked men who have been elevated to the status of demigods by a sinful world.

In a letter to The Witness, a South African daily newspaper, I wrote:

“A man who was and is an unrepentant supporter of Communism, a friend of some of the worst dictators and tyrants of modern times, and a man deeply involved in the formation of a terrorist outfit (MK – to call it a “liberation army” is to give it a status this murderous monstrosity never deserved).  A man who was sent to prison for a very good reason, after a fair trial, and who did nothing to warrant being released.  A man now deified as some kind of god-man.  A man whose organisation (the ANC) set this country aflame, with its bombs and necklaces and other instruments of terror.  And yet now, in honour of this man, we are expected to observe a day and all pitch in and serve like unworthy little sycophants who can’t hope to ever aspire to his greatness and sanctity.  Are memories so short?  Are people so blind?  Can’t they see that the emperor has no clothes?  Only a few still see it, so great has been the makeover he has received.  The majority fawn on him like lovesick puppies, including such as the odious UN, the messianic aspirant Obama, fool actors and doped-up rock musicians who know nothing about anything, hypocritical liberal bleeding hearts who claim to be against violence while praising a man who blessed an armed revolution that resulted in thousands of deaths, and every slimeball tyrant the world over.  It is pathetic and nauseating and a sign of the times we live in, when a man like this can be worshipped by the world.”

At the time of this writing, it remains to be seen whether it will be published.

This world is rushing to judgment.  The Lord Jesus Christ lived such a sinless, spotless life that not even His enemies could truthfully accuse Him of any sin whatsoever (Jn. 8:46).  His life was holy, harmless, and undefiled (Heb. 7:26).  He was God manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16), sinlessness itself (2 Cor. 5:21).  “Never man spake as this Man” (Jn. 7:46), never man lived as this Man.  But is this wondrous Man’s life considered worthy of praise by the people of the world?  No; not in the least.  The world sees no beauty in Him.  Instead, “He is despised and rejected of men” (Isa. 53:2,3).  His matchless life is mocked, His words are disregarded, and yet – men desire a Messiah, and so they set up substitutes in His place: and in our day, Nelson Mandela is the world’s darling.  He is the substitute Messiah for those who have rejected the true Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Just as the mad crowd would rather have a thief and murderer like Barabbas released to them than Christ, so today the masses would rather exalt a terrorist and Marxist than the Son of the living God.  Him they despise; Mandela they adore.

To their shame and disgrace, even professing “Christians” do the same.  An organisation called the Global Network of Christian Indian Leaders (Goncil) hosted a banquet in Durban, South Africa, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first Indians in South Africa, and they held it deliberately on Mandela’s birthday.  David Reddy of Goncil said the “1860 Christfest banquet” would honour Mandela.  “Our former president turns 92 on Sunday and recognising where we are today, we realise that Madiba [Mandela’s name among his supporters], Gandhi and many others sacrificed a lot to see us free.” [2]

What vile wickedness this is!  Not only do these professing “Christians” (who are not worthy of the name of the Lord Christ) honour a Marxist terrorist, but also Gandhi, an idol-worshipping Hindu![3] Instead of speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ who came to set His people free from bondage to sin and Satan, they honour two men who were committed solely to political “liberation” – one of whom was even prepared to use violence to achieve it!

Of course, when we look into the Goncil organisation and see what a Pentecostal-based, ecumenical, self-exalting body it is,[4] we are not surprised that it falls over itself to honour a Marxist and a Hindu.  But tragically, many will view this religious organisation (and others like it, including “church” denominations, which poured equal praise on Mandela’s head) as being truly Christian – and so they will be misled by these men into accepting a false gospel, a gospel of “social justice” which is nothing but one of Satan’s lies.

The now-elderly Mandela’s earthly life is nearing its close and he will stand before a holy God and answer for his deeds.  Unless the Lord grants him true repentance and saving faith, all the praise of men heaped on his head during his lifetime will count for nothing on that great Day, and he will face a Christless eternity.  True Christians might pray for his salvation.  And they should pray for the wolves in sheep’s clothing who lead their ignorant flocks astray; and for the lost in general, who cannot bear to submit to the easy and light yoke of the true Messiah (Matt. 11:29,30) but who so long for a godlike figure of some sort that they readily place men like Mandela on pedestals of divinity and bow before them, crying, “We are not worthy!”  Such is the benighted state of men’s souls that the devil has them falling at the feet of mere mortals with their backs towards the only true God and the only Mediator between God and men, the Lord Jesus Christ (Jn. 17:3; 1 Tim. 2:5).

July 2010

Shaun Willcock is a minister of the Gospel, and lives in South Africa.  He runs Bible Based Ministries.  For other news articles (which may be downloaded and printed), as well as details about his books, audio messages, pamphlets, etc., please visit the Bible Based Ministries website; or write to the address below.  If you would like to be on Bible Based Ministries’ email list, to receive all future articles, please send your details.

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ENDNOTES:

[1].The Witness,July 20, 2010.

[2].The Witness, July 15, 2010.

[3].For some revealing information about Gandhi, see article, Gandhi: “Struggle Hero” or Segregationist and Indian Supremacist? by Shaun Willcock.  Bible Based Ministries, January 2006.  Available at www.biblebasedministries.co.uk.

[4].See http://goncil.com.

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