Who Really Built It...?

Barack Obama's comment "If you've got a business, you didn't build that" has reverberated much further than he intended it to. Essentially it was a Marxist rant inferring that other people built the product that you sell and even the roads that bring in that product for you to sell; therefore you owe them something, that something being your profits, your liberties and all the future decisions on your business. There is an element of truth in his statement but one that he would cringe upon hearing. Our European ancestors that he so virulently hates braved a seemingly endless ocean, storms and hostile inhabitants to secure the land that this business was eventually built on. Disease and famine almost destroyed their dreams. Pulpits proclaimed Christ and a people were born. Brilliant minds formulated this great American Experiment. Blood was shed in war after war securing this union and then defending it from tyranny. Americans died on battlefields, the sinking of their ships and the freefall of their aircrafts...all for security of their families and hence our families that would live in this land, work this land, and continue to defend it when necessary, but the highest form of thanksgiving is due for what happenned on a skull shaped hill outside of Jerusalem and a sepulcher carved out of rock. No Mr. Obama, those that came before us...not those who labor beside us... are the ones to be thanked, not with remuneration but through remembrance; but what is more important is that they built upon rock and not sand, that rock being Jesus Christ who guided our forefathers, had mercy upon them when they strayed which was often, strengthened them and gave them wisdom. And now Mr. Obama, you want to tear down and rebuild...on sand. If our economy is ever to be restored it won't be at the foot of a statue of Karl Marx nor will it be at the foot of a statue of Adam Smith that Mr. Romney would have us believe. It will be at the foot of an old rugged cross where we had our beginnings and without which we sail into a tempest with no rudder, no ballast to keep our ship of state upright and no Captain to bring order within the maelstrom that may soon engulf us.

Take Up And Read

         I've recommended quite a few books in this blog and I stand by every one of those recommendations but all books in my life, other than God's Word of course, come behind one particular book written in the 17th century. For most of these many years since it was first published it has been the biggest selling book of all time, and it's never been out of print! It's a Christian book but also a masterpiece of classic of literature.....while being written by a tinker...a tinker being a man who went from house to house repairing pots, pans and other utensils.
         William Makepeace Thackeray named his Vanity Fair: A Novel Without A Hero after Bunyan's allagory. Mark Twain, e. e. cummings, Louisa May Alcott, Charlotte Bronte and John Steinbeck all referrenced it in their writings while C. S. Lewis modeled one of his own books after it. The great 19th century London preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, is said to have read the book 100 times and I believe that for I am probably pushing a dozen readings myself.
         The book is John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, a recounting and a foretelling of the Christian life over its entire course. It is written as allegory from a dream of the main character...Christian. The book begins with Christian's conversion along with the appearance of a great burden on his back as he is aware of his sin. He is rejected by nearly everyone and stumbles around until he is guided to the foot of the cross where his sin falls off of his back and rolls into a open grave. It's here that his journey truly begins.
         I have been a professing Christian for thirty years and every person that I have ever encountered is somewhere in these pages penned by the Tinker of Bedford. I often can see myself in those who Bunyan does not present in a good light and I can only hope that I bear some traits of those who came into fellowship with our Christian. He continues to stumble at times while at other times is a soldier of the first rank...serving the King of all kings as he faces the author of all evil while living this life in a tent of mere flesh. He is given the help, the weapons, the fellowship and the determination in his battles.
         Every conversation that he has will ring in the ears of the Christian today. Every failure will bring introspection, every victory will humble. Every scene is familiar, every path has been tread at one time or another... this anyway to the Christian who has enough years, for that is the only limitation.
         The non-believer, reading this only as great literature, cannot help but understand the intent of the author even if he cannot empathize. The Christian reading it will recognize danger after danger, decision after decision and encounter after encounter. The book will be a source of strength to the Christian reader if for no other reason than to see how short life really is, that it is truly just a vapor even though we often live it where every minute is magnified as the only real moment in the world's history, and every breath as if the world turns on it; but when seen in Bunyan's allegory the flower wilts before our very eyes and the vanities seem so very worthless compared to what awaits us at journey's end!
         The Pilgrim's Progress is presented in two parts and you will not likely pause in between. Christian has died, he had come to the river and crossed but Bunyan's words do not end here for Christian's wife, Christiana, then follows in the same pilgrimage that she made so much more difficult for her husband. 
         Do not most Americans live life as if God were really as the Wizard of Oz, a fake if he at all exists, albeit a good-hearted old man if discovered in his deceit and allowed to exist as such. L. Frank Baum's book, The Wizard of Oz, lives on today as we go out of our way to make sure that our children see the movie while Pilgrim's Progress gathers dust on the shelves. If you might permit me to be straightforward, do you read books such as The Shack and Heaven Is For Real, books that are at best no help whatsoever,... and ignore the gold bullion of Bunyan's book crammed somewhere in the classics section of Barnes & Noble if not your own bookshelf? Will you read a popular novel over a period of weeks yet fail to seek the precious metals used as ink in Bunyan's book? Will you sit in the stands and cheer for a professional sports team while your life passes by. If so you are in Bunyan's Vanity Fair.
         Read this book before it is too late, for this culture and the technology that drives it has even greater plans to keep you away from books of which many can lead you to where you have never been and give you a view of the Celestial City that Christian entered. I haven't used this post to describe the characters that Christian meets nor the places he visits for I want you to read them from the master who gave them to us. Break out of the prison that modernity has given us and that postmodernity has labelled as a paradise.

Liberal, Churl And Conservative

We often hear people saying that they don't like labels. I understand where they are coming from, or at least where they think they are coming from but in reality we all fit some label, it's just that some fit the particular label perfectly and some fit not so perfectly. Liberal, Churl And Conservative is the topic of this blog. It's funny how many of those who say that they don't like labels such as liberal will then proceed to label themselves a moderate. Does the Bible say anything about the liberal of today? Actually it does...sort of. Read for yourself Isaiah 32:5, this from the KJV, "The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful." The ESV and many others translate the word as noble instead of liberal but the general meaning is the same. Here is the setting behind this verse: Isaiah is describing a time after Jesus returns in which man will live in peace with each other and honesty will prevail among men and no more will the vile person be called noble or liberal, for these men, as in the day of Isaiah, boasted of their good deeds and compassion but were in fact vile and in rebellion to God. They were acclaimed to be noble or liberal, but were anything but. Solomon wrote that there is nothing new under the sun. The culture back then that acclaimed the vile to be noble is more than similar to today. As I wrote of in a recent blog the Democrat of yesterday who was often liberal in the noble sense of the word has been replaced by the liberal, in Isaiah's vile sense of the word, who happens to be Democrat. I'm speaking here of the leadership in the Democrat Party for the past twenty or so years. They claim to care for the poor, the oppressed, women, children and minorities but it is a facade. They take pride in the word liberal but are the vile acclaimed as noble. What about the churl? Merriam-Webster describes a churl as a "stingy, morose person" and the Hebrew implies a person who withholds due benefits. This sounds, to me anyway, like the movers and the shakers of today who rake in millions of dollars, mostly in bonuses given partially on profits and partially on the backs of anyone who they depend upon to make those profits. We in the conservative movement come perilously close to labelling these churls as merely bountiful or successful. We glorify capitalism and the free market but they are mechanisms that can be, and often are, corrupted.  What about the conservative, those who hold to traditions, who are skeptical of change without proof that the change would be an improvement for otherwise change can send us reeling backwards. The conservative is generally a law abiding, hard working, God-fearing person who just wants to live in peace. I'm speaking here of the ideal of conservatism, not everyone who claims the label. The average conservative may not be perfect but the cause is noble even if he, she or I fall short. The NKJV translates the word in question in this blog as generous and verse 8 of the same 32nd chapter of Isaiah reads, "But a generous man devises generous things, and by generosity he shall stand." May God bring us together in this country but only as we seek His will which is perfect and not ours which we can corrupt.