It seems that News of the World has managed to make world news. I bought a copy of News of the World, Edition number 8,674. I have to confess that this was the first and the last time I will buy News of the World, for no other reason than the fact that it will never be on sale again as a result of its closure; and of course for some or other reason I had personally never bought one before.

 

So what was it that brought an end to a 168 year old newspaper?

 

 I would venture to postulate that it is nothing other than what Jesus seems to address in so much of His interaction with people while He was here on earth. Power!.

 

With some careful reading of the Gospels we see that Jesus so often directly or indirectly addresses the matter of power; whether it’s the power of money, influence, tradition, or simply the corruption of power.

 

This is the one thing that, according to Scripture, had its origin with Lucifer and not in the order of heaven before sin. All indications are that it was Lucifer that strived to go beyond the peaceful heavenly order to move equal to or above God. ‘You have said in your heart; “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God… I will be like the Most High.”’ (Isa. 12: 12-14). As a result of this he became the ‘adversary’ rather than the one who was perfect in all his ways. (Eze.28:12, 15)

Power has been the downfall of mankind. It was promised to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when the first recorded lie was told. You will surely not die, but have power over the knowledge of good and bad, could be a close enough paraphrase.

 

Someone once said to me, with more acid in his voice than in my car battery, that it is the fault of and as a result of religion, and he meant Christianity, that every war has ever been fought. My candid answer to him was… ‘I should jolly well hope so, how futile to have war outside the realm of Christianity!’ This had him puzzled and it gave me the opportunity to tell him about the first war that ever took place, the war in heaven, which became the catalyst of all other wars until the final one will be fought.[1]

 

Power and control over the media and of course the need for profits led to the downfall of many. Those in the media world that were aspiring to be first have become last. They have lost so much credibility that for some of them the price tag came with a prison number on. And the power game will go on to the point where we will wonder who is lying the most. Strange…. that lying and power go hand in hand. I seem to have read somewhere that Someone told the Pharisees that their ‘father’ was a liar and a murderer from the beginning.

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