This Book Is for You!

I have never spoken before a group of people, nor have I ever even spoken into a microphone. The closest that I came was the plant wide intercom system at work and I was never really good at that. This blog has been almost perfect for me. I write as if only one person might visit and there were times that I thought that was the case. On the other hand I do become encouraged when the statistics show that people from all over the world somehow come across Specialdogg, but then again, it may be just you and me tonight. I was never interested in reaching other Reformed or Reformation Theology Christians, rather I wanted to give my own particular thoughts to anyone interested in Christianity and Christians living in America. So the level of discussion in theology has always been on a conversational level, which is good because that is me. I want to do something very specific in this blog. Here is the scenario; you are either a new, or "thirty year" new Christian, or someone who is where I was at in 1981, that being an inquirer or a researcher in just about anything, who God was beginning to draw to Himself. Now in this particular instance you have to be somewhat of a reader for I'm going to recommend a book to you that might startle you when you see it. It's a systematic theology. The following is a description of the book on the back cover; "The Christian Faith is written for a growing cast of pilgrims making their way together and will be especially welcomed by professors, pastors, students, and armchair theologians (me.) Its features include: (1) a brief synopsis of biblical passages that inform a particular doctrine; (2) surveys of past and current theologies with contemporary emphasis on exegetical, philosophical, practical, and theological questions; (3) substantial interaction with various Christian movements within the Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox traditions; and (4) chats, sidebars, questions for discussion, glossary, and an extensive bibliography, divided into different entry levels and topics." There are plenty of blurbs recommending the book by people that some of you may be very familiar with, R. C. Sproul and David F. Wells being just two. The title of the book is The Christian Faith, A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims On the Way and, in my opinion, there is no better theologian on this earth today than its author, Michael Horton. You can blame him if you want for many of my theological beliefs today but probably not the concept of political thought and the Christian, the description of this very blog, for he hasn't won me over on that one. Ideally, a person is drawn by God and immediately finds a church, where he hears Christ preached every Lord's Day and is taught the Christian faith in its entirety and with clarity, from the get-go. Unfortunately this is not possible with the church demographics of this age. It's often a monumental struggle finding a strong and true church even though one can cross over many denominations in trying to do so. So who is Michael Horton? To me he's a young whippersnapper for he was about thirty years old when I first heard him on the radio and doesn't look much older today, almost twenty years later. He's a seminary professor, author and radio talk show host of the White Horse Inn. I've never met him and that's good because I would probably stumble over my own name if I did. He's certainly not the only Christian teacher that could help you but I am totally convinced that he is one of the best. Invest the money for the book if you can, and if you can't, you obviously have the ability to access this resource on the web. I'll never know if you do but I do know this, that God works at times in very mysterious ways and I might just be the Agatha Christie (no relation to Chris Christie but they do kinda look alike) of attempts at Christian ministry.

Michael Horton describes systematic theology in the book as "draw(ing) together particulars into an integrated whole while allowing the whole to be determined by the parts" and  "like the box top of a jigsaw puzzle, (while) every believer is a theologian in the sense of putting the pieces together" and "if we fail to realize there is a box top, we will have only a pile of pieces."  The information is easy to digest and the book ($49.95) can be ordered from Amazon.com for under $32, or Cumberland Valley Bible Book Store, cvbbs.com, for just under $35, or directly from the White Horse inn (http://www.whitehorseinn.org/) for $30.99 (all plus shipping)

A Supermajority...not A Super President

My blog of this past November 8th titled The Unoccupied American included these comments, "The American political landscape is an important part of the architectural plans of these elites (and establishment politicians) for in order to retain power, they have to insure that real independent, honest thinkers with integrity, do not enter their enclaves as had happened in 2010....I suspect that they have a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A is doing everything that they can, incognito of course, to help the former governor of Massachusetts. Should that fail, Plan B would have to be a brokered convention, something that we have not seen since 1952. Should no one arrive in Tampa in August with enough delegates for the nomination the back-room shenanigans will go into full force and names such as Jeb Bush and Chris Christie will be offered up in a deal we can't refuse....this is how they work...we are to be manipulated and if this is not possible, we are to be overcome with political force." Yesterday, the topic of a possible brokered convention came up with a number of different news sources and the names of Jeb Bush and Chris Christie were at the top of the short list of possibilities. One name that I did not see was South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint and there is a reason for that for no one scares the establishment Republicans more than he does. He's not only another Reagan, he is potentially a better than Reagan. On my recent trip to the south I started a number of conversations on politics. We would talk for a few minutes and then I would bring up the name of Jim DeMint. The response was always the same and along this line, Oh...Jim DeMint...yeah he's the best!" This blog isn't about him for I have written often on who he is for a few years now. Rather, the blog is a reaffirmation of my thoughts in yesterday's blog. The powers that be in Republican politics want a candidate of their choosing to further the direction that they have had us on for quite some time. Mitt Romney is acceptable and they are more than a little concerned right now. We, the electorate, need to do our best on the White House but focus specifically on the Congress. If we had a supermajority of 67% in both Houses of Congress, even Barack Obama would have a very hard time achieving his goal of transforming this nation into a second-rate socialist member of the world body of nations. The Tea Party forte is not in a national election but rather in elections throughout the nation. The American voter will have no excuse whatsoever this time around for although Barack Obama's place of birth, associations and mentors, academic and scholastic records remain hidden in obfuscation and denial his contempt for the Constitution, his mobster mentality in rewarding cronies, his fiddling while America burns foreign policy and his shell game economic policy litters his campaign trail even now. If Barack Obama is given a second term then the travesty of justice would be for us not too collapse. Ultimately, our future is in our pulpits. If they preach the latest church growth, social gospel, touchy-feely, deification of man, this is your day for a miracle sermons it would not matter what person is our President our even what party dominates our Congress.  Our problems are far deeper than than the political sphere but, by and large, we don't realize that. Presidential politics actually turn us away from what we need which is a representative government... representative of a God-fearing, well-informed, down to earth, humble, hard working people who know that liberty is God given and only sustainable if we give the credit to who bestows it. Only the cross of Christ liberates, all else is the self-imposed tyranny of Bunyans's Vanity Fair.

http://www.senateconsevativesfund.com/

A Coup In Progress

It's only natural that we can show courage while only on the periphery of conflicts but when we are actually involved in the conflict the reality of fear creeps in. Here is why so many nations of the world have one up on us for they do not live in perennially safe harbors as America has been. Take Lebanon for example. The people there may know that a war is imminent but they also know exactly what to expect. For us it is different. My concern for the safety of our nation began over a decade ago. One would only have to read here and there in my blog to get a glimpse of my extreme concerns. I write about tyranny and totalitarianism with defiance but I know very well that all of life changes when the final assault begins and I see that final assault beginning right now. Consequently that defiance becomes mixed with dire trepidation. This is no game. It's not just political rhetoric where exaggerations are often used to motivate people. I refer you to my blog of just a few days ago on Erwin Lutzer's book When A Nation Forgets God, 7 Lessons We Must Learn From Nazi Germany. The Obama administration methodology is way too similar and very likely purposely patterned after the power grab of the Third Reich. Pshaw...you say? Might I remind you that most of the German people said the same thing. Our current government, through its many tentacles, is not merely discouraging dissent but applying pressure, even threatening, what has been a bulwark of our freedoms. The assault on our churches is already beginning and one need look no further than the move against the Catholic church in the last few days to see this. Our schools have long since been commandeered to program our children. Even our families have been given notice of their proper place and there is disdain for our Constitution on the Supreme Court, the very body charged with upholding it! If one complains too loudly he is immediately under suspicion. Two things are necessary on our part: the first is the temporal and the lesser of the two in importance. We need an overwhelming Republican control of our Congress for it is the branch that, by design, is closer to the people and more responsive to those who put them in office. It can impeach the President and remove Supreme Court justices, and of course it can make law. Our Executive Branch can too easily be chosen by the elites of this nation, by big money and by any other coalition that has power over the people's minds. I want to see a strong Democratic Party but only as it pertains to checks and balances within our political process, not as a tool, a bully pulpit and a rubber stamp for subversive forces pretending to be compassionate and patriots.  This particular President has been amassing powers that were in no way given to him by our Constitution. It is a coup in progress. He needs replaced this November but even his successor will need to be reigned in. The second, and by far the most important thing that we as a people have to do is this; every American that loves their family, their country and their freedoms needs to escape the cultural quicksand that permits, even encourages, one to gaze in amazement up at the bright lights of our technological wonderland and entertainment paradise while at the same time sinking into the muck and mire of our Godless quest for self-autonomy, and pray with an earnestness heretofore only seen in our own personal emergencies. We need to pray for forgiveness for permitting these travesties to come upon us, pray for mercies not deserved, pray for discernment previously not sought and pray for the strength that only comes from Christ who strengtheneth. I have no idea if we have enough time left to hold on to our country. Jonah preached a warning to Nineveh but Nahum, years later, preached only impending doom to the same city. I had breakfast today in a restaurant where two televisions blared on my left and my right. On the one the audience was obviously thrilled by merely being in the presence of the ladies of The View, on the other was raucous laughter with Ellen DeGeneres. I could barely eat my food knowing that much of American womanhood had been enticed into this pit while at the same time our men waste their time on trivialities at the expense of their family's security, their country and their eternal souls. We refuse to learn from history and consider ourselves immune from tyranny and collapse. Why? Because we were pampered, then we became demanding of not liberties but entitlements and now we are just going to stamp our feet and hold our breath until we get what we want but such is not how God deals with men. Ultimately, we will either humble ourselves...prostrate ourselves...before the One who was not only our Benefactor but our Sustainer, or we will learn the hard way that we will fall as easily as any nation or empire before us. No, there's a lot of bravado before the war but it dissipates quickly when the canons go off and the armies charge. Many of us rail on about tyrants, and not many more than I, but the door of the wooden horse has opened and the barbarians are within the gates. It is for us now to apportion our time where we might defend our Constitution and secure a future for our children and even more importantly to heed the words of Isaiah 55:6-9

Seek the Lord while He may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

No Problem Mon

The ten day break in posts here was due to a cruise my wife and I and 160 other Christians of like mind had taken. I know.....160 other people even slightly similar to me is a scary thought! Only two incidents kept it from being a perfect trip. I walked into a restroom at the Atlanta airport only to wonder why there were so many big round mirrors and also why the first two (of about 20) people I saw looking into those mirrors looked liked women. This took all of two seconds as I ran out to a chorus of laughter and comments on the coloration of my face. The second incident involved losing all of my tobacco at the beginning of the trip. I was determined to find pipe tobacco in the small town of Falmouth, Jamaica. No problem mon! I was taken down an alley (some will do anything for tobacco) and sold this rope of what I was assured was pipe tobacco. I mean, like man, that tobacco was groovy. I mean peace and love was all I could think about while smoking it, that and maybe robbing a bank to get money for some more.....Folks...I'm kidding here!!!   It was just tobacco and did suffice (barely) for a couple of days. Anyway, as I always do when travelling, I try to strike up conversations. Two in particular stand out. We met a young Asian Canadian who attends York University in Toronto. He was very intelligent, choosing all his words carefully, and so polite. His parents are conservative and try their best to influence him but he has so far retained a liberal bent to his thinking. The other conversation was with an Englishman. I asked him if he was interested at all in politics. He gave me a firm "no." I persisted a little bit and he opened up. He talked about Margaret Thatcher...excuse me...Lady Thatcher and Churchill with great admiration. He went on about today's politicians and used a word I had not heard before...and subsequently forgot so I can't look it up. He talked about the solemnity of the moment when he visited the river and the spot that The Bridge On The River Kwai was filmed. All this and more from someone not interested in politics! By the way...there was no Internet for me on the cruise. No Internet and no (good) tobacco....the only thing left to sustain life was air, food and water and fortunately there was plenty of that. The remainder of this blog is more serious, and directed, as I've done in the past, to people from other countries who happen by this blog while navigating the World Wide Web. You ask me my thoughts on politics in America? Well, I'd be happy to answer your question. We are a quasi-democratic society right now. Oh yes, we have elections but don't let the appearance of democracy lead you to believe that it always accurately describes what is actually taking place. Take our current presidential primary season.....we are free to vote but not to think beforehand. It is what's going on in our minds that departs a little from democracy in action, particularly this year where big money is vying to be the determining factor. The "elites" place their bets and control the spin of the wheel. "We the people"... get to watch. I sat in a seat at Gate B19 of the Atlanta airport and had to laugh as the CNN newsman on the television over my head adamantly declared that after the Nevada primary win for Mitt Romney, it was time for Newt Gingrich to get out. I don't think that Tass or Pravda could work more efficiently at times than our own "news" media. It's said that the Independents (those neither Republican or Democrat) will decide this election but that is not correct. It is rather that the non-thinker...the "oh look, there goes a bunny!" and "what in the world are you writing a stupid blog while the Super Bowl is on" American whose vote will decide, and whose vote can be bought with minimal use of smoke and mirrors. In order to beat the system in this particular election a candidate for President will have to reach beyond the pocketbook and no one is doing that very well right now. We have a Marxist President and they are ranting and raving over the menu on the Titanic. Unfortunately for the Elites, we the people do have more control over our Congress but even here we have to struggle, for once someone has had that special parking spot at the Capitol for a couple of years, or the Kremlin's or Parliament's I presume, it's tempting to give in to the bullying to keep it. Unfortunately also for them we have a rock-solid, perspicuous Constitution that should protect our freedoms but unfortunately for us they have had remarkable success in appointing the judges who adjudicate that Constitution. Are you with me so far? Yes it's bleak... but we have one redeeming characteristic. We are a very religious people... but unfortunately again, we are also a prodigal people now sleeping with the pigs. I wish that I could tell you where we will wind up but I don't know. I am though, confident to write this...if we recover from what we have become it will have had to have coincided with a revival within America and a reformation within the American church, and if we do not recover, something not only possible but probable, the church will be revived and reformed in the devastating aftermath. Either of the two scenarios will only bring glory to God.

Dupes....Redux

The following is a blog from September 15th of this past year.

September 15, 2011
The relationship between the American Progressive and Communism has always been a dysfunctional one, the Progressive longing for someone to look to as a hero and the Communist not only abusing that adulation but sneering at those so gullible as to think that there is anything compassionate or daring about them. The communist knew the extraordinary weaknesses of the liberal American mind and has taken advantage of it from the beginning for a century now! It has a new face today, hiding behind a semi-capitalist veil, for it retreated and reinvented its outward appearance. The generation will never be able to say that they were not told, nor warned, for the evidence is everywhere if only we would look. I've reported on more than a dozen outstanding books on the deteriorating condition of our nation and its causes in this blog of almost three years but none of secular content more needed than the one I put before you today. I do not believe that any liberal can read this book and not be concerned that they may have been duped. One might very well read a chapter and then throw the book away, or skim it and not accept its message but if one reads the book through they will view our political landscape differently. The title of the book is Dupes, How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives For A Century. I'm very familiar with the author for I had read a few of his previous books and although I admired him as a Professor of Political Science at Grove City College in Western Pennsylvania, one of America's finest colleges, I did not know that he had it in him to produce such a monumentally important work, with such clarity, and systematized in such a way to take the reader on a trip through American history and awaken him in the process. Professor Kengor filleted the meat of Communist propaganda so expertly as to expose the rotten flesh and release the stench that permeates liberal politics, higher education and the mainstream media. You have to read this book...if you care about America. A blurb from Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute says the same thing: "Face it. you are going to have to read this book!" Why...so that you show your knowledge of Communism in some future conversation? No, rather that you can read it and weep and hopefully sound your own alarm in that future conversation. In another blurb, Fred Barnes wrote that it left him "amazed and a bit frightened." The Weekly Standard's Barnes has been sounding an alarm for decades yet it still made him a bit frightened! Reading the book was a culmination of research that I had already been doing, that the Communist has reappeared in America in a new guise, and yet i was dumbfounded by the volume of evidence and not a little disappointed in being reminded of my own history of being duped in the late 1970s. Kengor is going to take you back to September of 1919 in Chicago where communism first began its assault on the American mind. You will see the essence of class hatred in it from its beginning and recognize the tactic from the Left today. you will see one celebrity or person of note after another taken in by the lies, many waking up  later, angry and indignant. Even the most ardent admirer of Franklin Roosevelt will have to reassess that admiration as Roosevelt was taken in by Uncle Joe Stalin thanks to the leftists all around him. Read and weep at how much of our media was not only taken in but even today ridicules those who are not duped. Will they have the character to admit that they were wrong, if and when they also awaken, as many of their predecessors did? You will see heroes and you will see buffoons who were, and are, very useful idiots for communism, and too many who were out-and-out traitors. You will see how Hollywood was used and many of the biggest names duped. Compare this to the stars of today while you read. And you will see Ronald Reagan as a liberal Democrat and head of the Screen Actors Guild in 1947, admittedly himself duped for a time, and recognize his courage and greatness on display even then! No one made this man and he was no late bloomer. Communism has a new face but the essence remains the same, for God is still banished and revolutions are still started, as despicably as ever, through hatred and propaganda. Lying is as common as breathing. One class is pitted against another. Educators are still sought for their influence on the youth. Unions are still infiltrated as are the arts. College students are intellectually brutalized and the new media is still wooed with dreams that they might actually be more important than the news they report. The SDS mentality (Students for a Democratic Society)  that the Communist so effectively used against our miltary's efforts in Vietnam is alive in many of its former leaders who have grown up, quite naturally to become college professors, and in the case of bill Ayers, prepare their comrades, and those they mentor, to run for elective office, even the presidency. Communism is alive but not well because it can only remain beneath the surface for so long until the rains of tyranny expose the caskets of dead ideas, tyrants and false promises. Paul Kengor lays it our very clearly for the reader how lies told about George Bush's intentions in Iraq and how accusations of a warmongering, racist, America that has lured the college student, the idle and the malcontent over the past thirty years, are just reheated deceptions dusted off from older communist scripts where only the names have changed. Who is Frank Marshall Davis and why was the media silent on this Communist mentor to our current President? Why is Jimmy Carter still a dupe? How was Edward Kennedy, who I had volunteered for, one of the biggest dupes of all? One need not be a card-carrying member of the Communist Party to be a Communist as Kengor points out, and one can think of themselves as a patriot and yet be a prize dupe. Kengor says that they will continue to call us scare mongers and McCarthyite fanatics but this is just another tired and true tactic from the bowels of Moscow's Comintern. He concludes his book with these thoughts, "The most mordant irony for the liberals who lend cover is that while they laugh at the anti-Communists, they seem to have no idea that the loudest howls have always emanated from the Communists who take them as dupes: gullible fools to be used to advance the Communist cause."

Communism For 1000, Alex

Today's blog feeds off of the previous blog so I did something that I haven't done before. I went back and highlighted the specific passages that pertain to what I'm going to write about here. What we saw in last night's State of the Union Address was a form of mind control, a form of Alinskyite political philosophy and worse. Senator Jim DeMint said that it could not even be taken seriously. Rush Limbaugh called it "chock full of lies" and Newt Gingrich wrote "Obama is a very sophisticated Marxist philosopher, combining the highly advanced social manipulation tactics of Alinsky with careful, long-developed insights in how to craft a modern, neo-Marxist message to sell to a majority of modern America" Misinformation propaganda never worries about telling lies, in fact, as previously mentioned, the bigger the lie the better....just keep telling it and the initial shock will wear off replaced by a boredom where the truth challenges the lie until no one really wants to hear of it anymore. The media impression of a President announced with regal bearing, slowly walking with his cortege into the magnificence of the United States House chamber is a powerful tool, but one report had the speech given at an eighth grade level. I've warned consistently throughout this blog that the GOP had better not base this whole election on the economy. There's a scene from Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid where the duo is trapped on a cliff overlooking a river. Butch wants to jump while Sundance is nervously hesitant. Butch presses the issue and the response he hears is "I can't Swim." Butch is incredulous, "You can't swim? The fall alone will probably kill you!" The health of the economy is important but there are numerous other issues with even more potentially devastating implications. Today's rampant doublespeak fits perfectly into the statistical world of economics. Proclaim what you want...whose going to challenge it...except people who actually know the subjects and no one is going to listen to them anyway. We have a Marxist president but how many people would even care about that. A poll recently released in Germany states that "one in five young Germans has no idea that Auschwitz was a Nazi death camp" and that "Auschwitz meant nothing to 21 percent of 18-29 years" and "nearly a third were unaware that Auschwitz was in today's Poland." Far too few Americans know what Communism was and is, nor Marxism. In fact they are voting for it! This whole issue is at the core of the Republican primary contests. If one sees this danger at the very doorstep of America, in its entirety-in its potential horror and its home grown support, one gravitates quickly to Conservatives. If one cannot see the imminent chaos hovering over us like a vulture they fit nicely in with the Moderates. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave these words to Sherlock Holmes spoken to Dr. Watson, "You see, but you do not observe." Dear readers, please at least attempt to observe the method behind the man and the tactic behind the words. My blog of June 21, 2011 titled Focus On The White House points to only some of the other issues, constitutional, domestic and international, that have to be kept at the forefront of this coming election campaign, should God even will us to have another before His long-suffering with us reverts to judgment.

Those Who Ignore History.....

Erwin W. Lutzer is an Evangelical and long-time pastor of Moody Church in Chicago. He's the author of Hitler's Cross and is known for his studies into Hitler's Germany, its relation to the German Christian church and for warnings to America on the temptation of such a mass movement as Nazism. He followed up his award winning book with When A Nation Forgets God, 7 Lessens We must Learn From Nazi Germany. This book can be purchased from Amazon.com for under ten dollars and I encourage you to give it to your loved ones, to friends and to anyone concerned about the path that America has taken. What you will find in this paperback are remarkable similarities of Hitler's methods in conquering a culture for illicit purposes and our own slide into oblivion. This book answers questions on how we have come to the state that we are in by simply presenting strong evidence that the reader recognizes on the weakness of the human mind when in the hands of master villains. Erwin Lutzer begins by writing that "There were circumstances and widely accepted ideas that enabled the population (of Germany) to become a part of an evil that was greater than that of any individuals." He message is similar to Mark Levin's in his book Ameritopia but much more relevant to the Christian therefore even more needed here in America. That message, and the message throughout this blog, is that our allegiance is first to Almighty God and that if allegiance to the state is perverted by maniacal power hungry tyrants, the state becomes a god seeking to destroy the only true God. Lutzer informs us that "The experience of the church in Nazi Germany reminds us that Christ must always stand alone...worshipped as One who stands...not...alongside the government leaders of this world but as standing above them as King of Kings and Lord of Lords." His first warning is that Hitler first tried to make peace with the church on his terms, then took power away from the German Parliament and finally used that usurped power to "obliterate" the church... "transforming (it) so thoroughly that every vestige of Christianity would be smashed." The "Confessing Church" of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoller that challenged Hitler was dealt with harshly. The state would take over from the church on all issues such as dedicating infants, marriage and holidays which would become paganized. God would be so separated from the state that He became an enemy of that state. Lutzer relates to us German theologian Niemoller's warning in a sermon, "We have all of us-the whole church and the whole community-we've been thrown into the Tempters sieve, and he is shaking and the wind is blowing, and it must now become manifest whether we are wheat or chaff. Verily, a time of sifting has come upon us, and even the most indolent and peaceful person among us must see that the calm of meditative Christianity is at an end." Examples from today are given, one being a Florida Principle and Athletic Director threatened with jail for the crime of praying before lunch at school. Some reading this will say,"well, that's against the law," oblivious to what transpired in the enacting of that law. Lutzer's title of his first warning is When God Is Separated From Government, Judgement Follows. His second warning emanating from the Nazi experience is It's Always The Economy. I had a friend tell me just last week that he voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 for one reason and one reason only...the economy. Lutzer reminds us that Hitler "could never have come to power if the German economy had remained strong after World War II." Hitler exploited the crisis and the result was National Socialism. The author writes (as if we here do not already know and have not seen evidence of it today) "an economic crisis is always a gift to a leader who wants to capture a nation." Lutzer points out that "Hitler not only attracted the support of the middle class, but also of university students and professors." Hitler created emergencies when needed and the Germans didn't care if they were losing their freedoms as long as the economy improved. Even the "majority" of Lutheran churches sided with Hitler and when eventually "mandated to swear personal allegiance to Hitler," 800 pastors who refused to do so were "arrested and imprisoned." Hitler satisfied the people through monetary policies that would only later be shown as disastrous and on this Lutzer quotes Thomas Jefferson in "The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." He also quotes Abraham Lincoln in "We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor." Lutzer quotes Scripture in the feeding of the five thousand and the demand that Jesus be made king, "do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you." (John 6:27) Lutzer's third warning is about the Law and is titled That Which Is Legal Might Also Be Evil. Hitler created his own laws to legitimate his crimes. The Jews were not persons, so the SS could "legally" kill them. In fact this was the defense given by many in the post-war trials. We suffer from this malady today for in the postmodern mind, laws are tools to accomplish our desires, not statutes of eternal truths. Today, Czars create their own laws in the form of regulations. One need look no further that Roe v. Wade to see how we legalized murder and one's conscience is clear simply because one is within the law. Same-sex marriage applies the same thinking. Under attack today are the thoughts of the Samuel Rutherfords and William Blackstones of yesteryear. Lutzer lays it out very clearly in, "A student of the history of law in the Untied States should have been able to predict that human life would soon be reclassified as unworthy of special protection. Abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, homosexual marriage- these are the inevitable result of secular humanism's (and evolution's) worldview. When God dies, so does man." Too often today we legislate from the bench, for the Constitution has become a "living document....(and), the Constitution is not absolute, judges are." Lutzer turns next in his warnigs to propaganda in Propaganda Can Change A Nation. We've all seen the response that Newt Gingrich has been given for comments in the debates. In my opinion, it's not the former House Speaker that generates standing ovations, but the fact that someone is finally shouting from a rooftop that the American media has long since become a Ministry of Propaganda. Anyone telling the truth to the American people in these debates would have been received with standing O's. Lutzer spends a lot of time on Hitler and his personal propaganda, quoting him from Mein Kampf, "The first task of propaganda is to win people for subsequent organization. (emphasis mine) The second task of propaganda is the disruption of the existing state of affairs and the permeation of this state of affairs with the new doctrine, while the second task of the organization must be the struggle for power, thus to achieve the final success of the doctrine." Just to be clear, that is Hitler writing...not Saul Alinsky. Lutzer continues, "Of course as any skilled propagandist knows the masses should never be told the end-game, that is, where the leader actually intends to take the people." Hitler believed that in order for people to believe the obvious lie that they had to be part of a "cultural current"..."He believed that many people would never change their minds individully, but would do so if they were in a crowd of several thousand convinced followers. When a seeker steps into a crowd of thousands, wrote Hitler, that seeker is swept away into the mighty effect of suggestive intoxication and enthusiasm...confirm(ing) to him the rightness of the new doctrine." Hitler knew that "terms and slogans could be used for broader appeal."  Read, meditate and weep, if you will, on this quote from Mein Kampf ..."The magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil, and that, therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds , they more easily fall a victim to the big lie than to the little one, (emphasis mine) since they themselves lie in little things but would be ashamed of lies that are too big." And yet another Hitler quote, "By clever and persevering use of propaganda even heaven can be represented as hell to the people, and consequently the most wretched life as paradise." Lutzer writes of Albert Einstein's feelings on Nazi Germany in that the universities, the newspapers and the intellectuals gave in to Hitler...only the (Confessing) church "stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing the truth...I am (therefore) forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly." Lutzer turns next to Parents-Not The State, Are Responsible For A Child's Training Hmmm...where have I heard that concept before? From Hitler again..." German youth... must be consciously shaped according to principles which are recognized as correct...according to the principles of the ideology of National Socialism." Private schooling was abolished and "all education was unified under the Nazi ideology....textbooks were rewritten." Children's natural desire to be independent of parents was "exploited." Attitudes were taught and "values" were "clarified" and "facts were deliberately distorted." Here is another quote, from many years ago, this time from Harvard University professor Chester Pierce...(are you sitting down?) "every child in America who enters school at the age of five is mentally ill, because he comes to school with allegiance toward our elected officials, toward our Founding Fathers, toward our institutions, toward the preservation of this form of government....the truly well individual is the one who has rejected all these things...the true international child of the future." Lutzer's final plea..."take charge of your child's education." Erwin Lutzer's last two lessons to be learned have to do with what our response should be to what is going on. Are we to take hold of, what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called, "cheap grace," or be inspire by costly grace? His last lesson is labelled We Must Exalt The Cross In The Gathering Darkness. From my perspective, and I have blogged upon it many times, the church today has found more powerful concepts to preach than the cross of Jesus Christ and here is the rub as it pertains to this book, preachers will look you in the eye after preaching a sermon that is 100 percent "application," void of the gospel, and tell you "well, the gospel is actually in the application." The overall church suffers immensely, is susceptible to all forms of poor teaching to heresy, and is perfectly content to live in a dumbed-down doctrinal Christianity, all because the shepherd has configured his logic in such a way that the gospel is not present...but present. American Christianity can learn a lot from the experiences of the German church, the first is that very difficult days are likely ahead and the most important that, as Lutzer conluded his book in a quote from Bonhoeffer, "it is before (the) cross and not before us that the world trembles." Erwin Lutzer took pains to emphasize that "Nazism did not rise out of a vacuum," that "cultural streams" were more problematic than individuals and I would like to emphasize that our peace in Jesus Christ is intact, through His strength so I offer once again, in part, a Puritan prayer from Arthur Bennett's Valley Of Vision, highly recommended for daily devotions and also available at Amazon.com:

Lord God Almighty,

May I maintain a supreme regard to another
and better world,
and feel and confess myself a stranger
and a pilgrim here.
Afford me all the direction, defense, support,
and consolation my journey hence requires,
and grant me a mind stayed upon thee.
Give me large abundance of the supply of
the Spirit of Jesus,
that I may be prepared for every duty,
love thee in all my mercies,
submit to thee in every trial,
trust thee when walking in darkness,
have peace in thee amidst life's changes.
Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief
and uncertainties.