In Scotland we have a phrase ” He’s not worth tuppence.” Tuppence meaning two penny’s. It does not get cheaper than that. Maybe my American friends would say “I wouldn’t give you a dime for him.” Whatever phrase you know or use, the meaning is clear, somebody or something is worthless. For a Christian to use this phrase about anyone would be horrible. To believe yourself or someone else to be worthless is to not understand the most basic principle of Christianity which is Joh 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” If you are known personally by God, If He knows every hair of your head, then how is it that you could ever imagine yourself insignificant? Is that not a lie from the pits of hell? How much evil and mischief has the enemy of your soul been able to achieve by simply convincing you that you have no worth and are insignificant?

How many arguments between a man and wife have occurred because of the tyranny of perceived insignificance and one does not feel “worth,” within the marriage? How many men and woman have committed adultery because of this? Sibling rivalry that can last a lifetime because one feels less worth than the other. And the ultimate tragedy, how many suicides have occurred because of this feeling , this lie,this lack of worth? What is the answer to this problem that goes deep into the heart of the psyche? How does one overcome the tragedy of insecurity and lack of worth? Of course there are  tens of thousands of books on this subject and it keeps psycho analysts in full-time employment around the world. Yet there is no cure in the natural world. It is the realm of the supernatural that we find our answer. Calvary. You see, God so loved you that He gave His only Son for you. Can you grasp it? I am going to suggest that it cannot be grasped by the natural mind. It has to be accepted, but more than that it has to be experienced. The knowledge of Calvary, and I use that word in the Biblical sense of “knowing,” is what transforms us. Joseph did not “know,” Mary until after Jesus was born. The word in that sense means an intimate physical encounter, intercourse. To “know,” God is something so much deeper than any relationship we could ever have with another human being and it comes by revelation and Inspiration by the Holy Spirit.

You can read the Gospel accounts of Calvary a thousand times and you may understand it in your head. Yet, if it never gets into your heart, the place of damage, you will remain babes in Christ and your road to wholeness and understanding of who you are in Christ will be blocked. Cry out to the Lord to give you a divine revelation of Calvary, of what it cost Jesus, of what it cost your heavenly Father, and then when you ” see” it you will know that you have worth, not based on humanism or self-esteem, but based on “Christ in you, the hope and glory.” Your worth comes from the fact that He knows you and that He loves you and that He died for you, it comes from nothing else. If you make this the foundation of your life, then you can begin to build something that will stand. He loves you and you are the apple of His eye, you must learn this, experience this and embrace this. When you do, you will begin to break the chains that bind you and become Christ like. It will affect every area of your life, every person in your life and you will begin to change the world around you. Do not let the tyranny of insignificance chain you down, you are a child of the Living God and He loves His children equally. You are more than a conqueror in Christ, you are mighty men and women of valor. You may not see it right now, but God sees it.

I have written several times in the past about the tactics of the Nazis in shutting down free speech through violence and intimidation. Anyone who did not toe the party line was targeted for assassination and that included communists and socialists, trade unions, Christians and of course Jews. Unless you walked in lockstep with their ideology you were outed and shamed then targeted for violence.

“In Berlin, under the leadership of Goebbels, so-called Rollkommandos were organized for the purpose of disrupting political meetings of all non-Nazi groups. These Roll kommandos were charged with interrupting, making noise, and unnerving the speaker. Finally the Nazis broke up meetings by Rollkommando raids. In many cases, fights resulted, during which furniture was destroyed and a number of persons hurt. The Nazis armed themselves with blackjacks, brass knuckles, rubber truncheons, walking sticks, and beer bottles.” (https://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/document/DOCNAC8.htm)

You can see how the tactics of interrupting meetings with crowds and noise in an effort to intimidate the speaker was a mainstay of the Brown-shirts of the Nazi party. In an intolerant society that is heading towards totalitarianism, all opposition, any voice that does not hold to the group-think view must be silenced. The very first step in the march towards the breakdown of civilization as we know it is to end civil discourse . There can be no quarter given to any opposing views and those holding any opposing views must be demonized. Demonization is the first step on the road to dehumanization. It has been the favored tactics of terror down through the ages.

I would like to suggest that we have entered into the beginnings of such a time once again. We have, it seems, learned nothing from the past. Free speech is the cornerstone of Democracy and a free and civil society. A free and neutral press is another cornerstone. It is not good enough to a free press, that is only one side of the coin. Unless the press is neutral then we may see a thousand little Goebbels running cover for their political overlords.

“Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect. Truth is unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology.”

Goebbels here is making the argument that sentiment and emotion are much more powerful than truth and of course he is correct. If you can brand someone a racist or an Islamaphobe or bigot and a hater, it matters not whether they are any of these things or not, just launch these words into the hot air of emotion and psychology and watch them take flight.

“This is the secret of propaganda: Those who are to be persuaded by it should be completely immersed in the ideas of the propaganda, without ever noticing that they are being immersed in it.” (Goebbels)

I would like to suggest to you that there is an immersing going on today.If one is to be immersed there must be deep waters or a flood. Today’s society in the west has been flooded by an extreme ideology. Those who do not conform to the ideals of this ideology will be publicly shamed, they will be “outed,” shouted down, intimidated, fired from their jobs, ridiculed and ruined such is the hatred that fills our atmosphere. A woman was questioned for a documentary on the rise of the Third Reich. She was asked how she managed to fall for and be so passionate about something so hateful and destructive. Her answer has stuck with me for decades and it haunts me. “There was something in the atmosphere and we all breathed it in.”

I would like to suggest that there is a poison in the atmosphere and the world at large is breathing it in. It is deliberately breathed in because it connects to the primal hatred that there is beating in the heart of man. A desire for revenge, a desire to see those we disagree with destroyed an inability to hear views that we disagree with. Each step of the downward spiral is volitional. We deliberately take each step as we descend slowly but surely ever deeper down to the gates of hell. And when we collectively arrive there, the gates are open and hell rushes forward and we are consumed.