Forgive me for calling it thus, but there is a new ‘trinity on the block’ that is certainly not sacred.

Three bullying, megalomaniac leaders of America, Russia and Israel, covetous of other people’s land, minerals, oil and resources, appear willing to stop at nothing to claim them for themselves.

This unholy trio is destabilising the democratic world, increasing insecurity and fear globally, using threatening language and violence, flouting international sovereign law and convention, disregarding communications from the United Nations and undermining the authority of NATO.

Historically, another unholy trinity — Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito — did much the same for similar reasons: power, control and land grabbing.

In the September 1939 Frensham Parish Magazine, the Rev. Launcelot Allen wrote: “As I write, the European situation looks appalling.

“We can at least get this much good out of it, that we can with greater earnestness turn to God and, realising the chaos which results from forgetting Him, resolve afresh to seek first God and His righteousness.

“Remember whatever happens, it cannot be worse than what happened on Calvary, and if love could triumph then, it will surely do so again. Yet we cannot but pray — even as our master did in Gethsemane — ‘let this cup pass from us’ — not just from you and me, but from the men and women and children of every nation.”

Then in October 1939 he wrote: “So, what we dreaded has happened: the cup has not passed from us and the answer to our prayers is the strength to do God’s will and to keep our faith in him undimmed to the end … and how shall we do that except by prayer and worship, humble, confident and sustained?”

Our cup at present is troubling, but let us look to the Holy Trinity and to God’s love shown through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, trusting that God will always triumph over the evils of this world.

Through prayer, let us give our anxieties to God and face whatever cup we are dealt, knowing that these ‘bullying threesomes’, who may forget the almighty, omnipotent and omnipresent God, can never take away the divine relationship offered to those who live and believe in the infinite love and eternal life of God.