Handle With Care

        This is my Lord's Day offering and it's from October of 2010:


         At my first holy communion in the second grade the custom was to receive a Bible. It was my uncle who provided me with one and I remember being somewhat disappointed for it was pocket size and very unreadable. I can't remember why it was that I desired a regular Bible but the desire was real. In grades three through six we would attend Mass every morning and I did have a missal that was a prized possession. I liked its smell and the thin pages and was particularly impressed by the Latin that was recited from the altar and repeated by us in the pews. In high school. we were given two paperback textbooks, one was the Old Testament and the other the New Testament and we studied them for their literary content. I still had no concept of the Bible and no personal Bible of my own.      
         Scan ahead to about 23 years of age when I had come out of the army and started at Pitt. My habit was to stop in the National Record Mart on Forbes Avenue in Oakland and browse their books before catching the bus home. I often came out with a purchase and one day it was a modern language paraphrase of the New Testament. I have this paperback in my hand now and can remember the feeling then of holding something special but not really knowing what that was....
         I've told this story before....my wife and I were on a Caribbean cruise and a severe storm rocked the ship as we rounded the western end of Cuba. We even had difficulty retreating to our staterooms. Things were sliding off of the table. I opened the drawer in the table next to the bed and there was the ubiquitous motel room Gideon Bible. Opening it up and reading from where my finger had wound up, I read from the 93rd Psalm,

The floods have lifted up, O Lord,
The floods have lifted up their voice;
The floods lift up their waves.
The Lord on high is mightier
Than the noise of many waters,
Than the mighty waves of the sea.

         As a new Christian, God was gracious to give me this glimpse of His Word through an unorthodox method, a method that I would not presume upon now for I no longer pick up his Word without knowing that it is not a mere book but God breathed words to his people.....please consider these words from Hebrews 4:12 For the Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
         If one wants to remain in rebellion to God one would do well to not pick up His Word, for, should God will it, it will make very clear the folly and repercussions of holding on to our own autonomy. It will convict the conscience. On the other hand, if one desires to see just what is in this perceived time capsule, as I had for so many of my early years, it will be an illumination that is easy on the eyes, sweet to the pallet, exhilarating to the touch, soothing to the ears and of a pure aroma of cleanliness. It is powerful and will remain powerful even into old age. It is provision for all that we will need on this journey. It is nourishment. It is radiation to kill cancer cells and minerals to build bones. It is exercise, laughter and fulfillment. It is knowledge and understanding, intellect and emotion, humility and motivation. It is oxygen itself to the Christian life but it is kryptonite to Nietzsche's uberman. It will not only cause you to love but define love itself. Its unity will bring division. Discerning its division will bring unity to the mind. So, the next time that you pick up a Bible, please know that if you are not careful, an ax may be laid at the root of your paradigm of life.

Tall Hats and Gold Watch Fobs

        When the following post was written, in March of 2012, we still had a chance to nominate one of the non-elites to run against and beat Barack Hussein Obama. I bring this post back because the men with the Tall Hats and Gold Watch Fobs in both parties are thumping their chests once again over Syria. The first part of the post was on David Axelrod and Karl Rove so I pick it up after that. Whether it be electing a chief executive or implementing military action we have to depend on the one who rules in the affairs of men and nations.
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 .......There is only one answer to our problems, that being a God fearing, culture decrying, Rule of Law people who, in effect, take back their government through the ones whose branch offices are never more than a few miles away...the Congress. I realize that my fellow conservatives can become apoplectic at my stance but I ask them to consider that we cannot salvage our nation while scuttling our conscience. With Gettysburg still in my mind I add the following blog from March of this year.

Tall Hats And Gold Watch Fobs

         There's a scene from Ted Turner's Gettysburg where Brigadier General John Buford, played by Sam Elliot, scans rocky heights and farm land that would in one day become a battlefield and literally spews out these words as he foresees carnage in the Union army if the politicians and generals play their war games as usual, "afterwards men in tall hats and gold watch fobs will thump their chests and say 'what a brave charge it was'..... I've never seen anything as brutally clear as this.... Its as if I can actually see the blue troops in one long bloody moment....as if it were already done....as if tomorrow already happened and there ain't nothin you can do about it..."

         He went on to lay a plan to change that, "We can block that road till the main body gets here, and deprive the enemy of the high ground!" There are a significant number of Americans who feel the same way about our nation today. The Republican elite, or Republican Establishment are the "men with tall hats and gold watch fobs" who are playing their political games while bursting forth all around us (in the opposition party) have been venomous attacks on our Constitution, our national defense, our financial stability, the American Creed and the very essence of our being, that being a nation blessed by God, (while) packs of wolves split us and devour those that did not have the foresight to prepare themselves for such an onslaught. The high ground in this coming election, should the Lord even permit us to get there, is at the feet of Jesus Christ, humbly prostrating ourselves for thinking we could do anything at all, let alone succeed and flourish as we had in the past, without reverence to and dependence upon Him. The GOP elite seek just the opposite. They avoid the One who guided those ships to these shores so many years ago, who gave us the perseverance to blaze out upon the frontier, who gave wisdom to men in founding a nation, who in spite of our waywardness kept us together and strengthened us as Nazism, Fascism, Communism and all sorts of totalitarianism swept this beautiful ball hanging in the expanse of His universe. This is the answer they give...shun Him, and those who trust Him, and make our own paths! I easily turn to those scripted words given to General Buford for unless we block that road we will lose the high ground of our calling and America will no longer exist in its present form. We will have let down our God, our country and our children. The ballot box is only one target of our prayer and petition and it would do us well to remember David's words in Psalm 18:1-3:

I love you, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

Game Changer!

         The following was my very first post back in November of 2008! The topic was A La Carte Cable.

         If only it were just a "vast wasteland!" Unfortunately, television sculpts and molds the American mind. We have become a society that learns from visual sources rather than the written word and we are at the mercy of the cable package. There is a bill in the Senate on giving us the right to choose our stations but its purpose was to lessen our cable bill. Some say that it will not do that. I don't care. I want to support only stations that have prefigured the effect on a society into its programming. Boycotts cannot do the job. Give us a year of "a la carte" and some networks will respond. In my mind, this is not a minor thing. I can see a major improvement in how our society forms a consensus on many issues simply by weaning itself from what television throws at us. If you agree with this please talk the issue up and contact your Representatives and Senators.

         As I write, the Fox News web site is highlighting a bill in Congress that would give consumers the right to purchase only cable channels that they wish to have come into their home and also make it that they would no longer be financially supporting those that they want no part of. The recent MTV Awards show brought the issue to the fore once again and it will probably return to the back burner as the outrage subsides.
     Yes, there is a bill in Congress but the only way that it ever get to be voted on is if the people demand it. If the article on Fox is gone by the time that you read this you might Google "A La Carte Cable Bill, Act Would Give Parents Power to Pick TV Channels." As I implied in my first post, the consequences of a la carte cable would be nation changing.
         The only way that the Barack Obamas, Hillary Clintons, Joe Bidens, John Kerrys, Susan Rices, Samantha Powers, David Axelrods, Nancy Pelosis, Harry Reids etc. etc. of this nation could attain and retain power in the highest echelons of American government is because a sizable enough proportion of its people have lost all discernment, all ability to analyze, just about all common sense and logic and rendered themselves defenseless and gullible patsies. Television has been a tool of the Communist and the Progressive. Take that tool away and their game plan will be severely compromised. Take that drug away and many more Americans will awaken in a state of outrage at what has happened to their nation.
         No, this isn't a minor issue, nor an issue over consumer prices or moral outrage. Give us this key to unlocking and freeing the captive audience and it will become a fair fight and the forces that have pummeled our Constitution, ravaged our families and taken us to the very precipice of destruction will be routed.
         As the articles states, A La Carte Cable will be vehemently opposed. I concluded that first post with "If you agree with this please talk the issue up and contact your Representatives and Senators." I'd like to change that. Prayer is more powerful than those contacts and those contacts without prayer will be futile anyway.
    

And If It Be Evil In Your Eyes......

         The following post is a few years old. Christopher Hitchens has since died but America's heart continues to beat although with dangerous arrhythmias that threaten our very survival.

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         The New International Version of the Bible translates Joshua 24:14-15 as Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD. Most Christians are familiar with the last part of Joshua's proclamation. It's a statement that we should want to make.
         The English Standard Version, a newer translation and one much more preferred by me, throws a different light on the words preceding the well-known Choose you this day often memorized ending. The ESV says And if it be evil in your eyes to serve the Lord. There is a big difference between serving the Lord as being undesirable and being seen as evil. Certainly the Gospel, as the Bible presents it, is at least undesirable as heard by modern ears, for it is not good news to them that we await a just condemnation even if God has provided a way. Today, the modern conception of the Gospel, can be very desirable; one simply retains their own views on most issues on salvation and adds Sunday church service. There is no need to be born again. It's one thing to simply not desire something and another to consider it evil.
         I've written a few times about Christopher Hitchens' book God Is Not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything. Mr. Hitchens is at least honest in giving his opinion. It's my contention, and I think the ESV is correct, that most people consider Christianity, even God Himself, to be more evil than just undesirable, although they would never admit it. Faith is fine as long as it is not explicit enough to involve guilt or punishment in any way. The watered down evangel of today, the good advice as today's broadcast of the White Horse Inn described it, can indeed  be seen as only undesirable, or it can be embraced, where one chooses to go to church, profess Christianity if asked or if it comes up in a conversation and even become fanatical on issues such as abortion and homosexuality, for these issues do not cut to the bone of our own rebellion against God, our own lost condition and just condemnation when we take our last breath. Is this important?  In polls, over 80% of Americans claim to be Christians but only a fraction of them admit to even the most basic of essential Christian doctrines.
         God's act of saving us involves a ripping out, a tearing asunder, a heart transplant, every bit and more as devastating to our person as that medical surgery but this is not indicative of much of American Christianity. Any description of America as a Christian nation is deceptive and any hope that God will uphold us for that Christianity is futility. Our hope is more that God will protect our nation so that the Good News can continue to be proclaimed within and without. Disagree with me on Christian issues and certainly on political issues but if you cannot admit, joyfully, astonishingly admit, to having been regenerated, to having been rescued from a sure eternity in hell, then you must address why you do not.

Egypt

         My thoughts on what would happen to Egypt after Mubarak was summarily removed from power proved to be accurate. The Muslim Brotherhood came to power claiming to be reasonable but immediately began a heavy-handed attack on their constitution and liberties given to the people. The following post is from February13, 2011:

February 13, 2011

         MSNBC, newspapers and other news sources are headlining the Egyptian shouts of We are free! We know that the crowds in the square believe this, but how does the rest of the population feel? Many are more worried today than they have been in decades. Just how free are the people? At one moment they were fairly free from outside influences, sources that would turn them into an Islamic state and then turn their aim towards Israel. That freedom is considerably lessened. There was some freedom for other faiths to worship but that may erode quickly. They were free to struggle along with the rest of the world during this economic upheaval but they may eventually wish they could turn back the hands of the clock as their young men may wind up dying on battlefields.
         Freedom comes at a price and the crowds demanded freedom right then without even looking at the price tag. As for our involvement, we abandoned yet another ally and endangered a second and what did we get for it... favorable headlines, the holy grail of the political animal! The Muslim Brotherhood will play Egypt like they played our White House and are now in a better position to win, for they are patient and brutal.
         The Russian Revolution of February, 1917 had similarities to today's Egypt. Wages were down and food prices were rising. Mass demonstrations erupted. The Tsar, Nicholas II, abdicated in March. The provisional government was moderate in many ways but Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia in April and the minority Bolsheviks rallied. The Bolshevik Revolution would follow. The headlines of the New York Times on November 9, 1917 were Revolutionists seize Petrograd; Kerensky flees. A pledge was given by the Bolsheviks to seek an immediate democratic peace with Germany in the then current world war. The Bolsheviks were unpopular and as the New York Times reported from those fleeing Russia, they were "not 1%, of the total population in Moscow, and all Russia outside of Petrograd, would stand together (against the Bolsheviks.)" Another quote from the same paper described the fleeing provisional leader this way "the excellence of Kerensky's motives and ideals is recognized, but he is too gentle a man...it has been shown that the policy of mildness with the Bolsheviks does not pay."
         (After continuing in this post on the topic of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ it concluded with this) True freedom comes when one has been ripped, not out of the clutches of a dictator, but of Satan's, and but for the embattled Christian in Egypt who may be looking for Christ's coming more than we do, there may be more freedom as the world sees it, but far less security.

All She Has Is Her Principles

        The following post was written in September of 2011. Christine O'Donnell did what most of you and I will never do, She actually acted upon her convictions in such a way that made her a national target of ridicule. She challenged the liberal establishment of Delaware while being criticized by the establishment of her own party! Even today her name is often brought up in relation to the problems that the Tea Party can cause. In reality she was, and is, part of an army of conservatives trying to oust the royalists from the Republican Party. Would not three Bush presidents out of five be a reasonable facsimile of a royal line of monarchy? One thing we can do is when Christine O'Donnell's name is brought up by Republicans in derision, we can defend her efforts, and deny the Republican royalists this inaccurate, dishonest and unethical argument.


         Feudal lords in the upper echelons of the Republican Party treated Delaware Republicans as vassals as they worked against the candidacy of Christine O'Donnell while labeling her  as a troublemaker. How dare her challenge their dictates and not only run for a seat in the United States Senate but beat their handpicked candidate in the primary! O'Donnell titled her newly released book Troublemaker and I highly recommend it to you. She is not only the essence of the Tea Party but also of the overall resurgence of conservative America.
         America's political transformation was jump-started by women.... mothers who were not going to turn their children over to the state, and the Christine O'Donnells who showed the feminists what real womanhood was. I don't have the exact quote before me for I quickly passed her book on, but it was essentially this: Mike Castle, her primary opponent in Delaware, brushed off her challenge to him this way "She has no money, no organization...all she has is her principles". South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint has a seat amongst these same feudal lords and they don't particularly like it. A recent CNN report quoted him in "I don't have the support inside Washington or even inside my own party." The report continued "DeMint took hits from leaders in his own party when Republican incumbents and establishment-favored candidates were brought down by his tea party favorites. This summer, he proved to be one of the most intransigent members of Congress, refusing any compromise with the Obama administration in debt-ceiling negotiations." DeMint is quoted again in, "I was lectured in front of the whole Republican Conference saying, 'DeMint, you don't understand how this place works. It's not about principle, it's about the numbers.' "
         Thomas Jefferson wrote "In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current." Principle is when the corporate executive resigns rather than swim with the current. It's when the incumbent says "If I lose, then I'll go out and get a real job once again." It's when the teacher says "My primary pension will be the responsible citizens, functioning well in our society, who were taught in my classroom." It's the minister who says "I preach Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." It's the editor who says "My job is to inform not instruct."
         Abraham Lincoln wrote: "Important principles may, and must, be inflexible," and that thought is an anathema to the professional political strategist of today. O'Donnell's book is a quick read and an enjoyable read as she is personable, humble and honest. Read it and you too may become a troublemaker to the fiefdoms whose Mike Castles' continue to crumble.

No Place For Truth

         I wrote what follows in January of 1999. Back then I had to rely on a copier, envelopes and stamps to get my message out. Reading this old A Pilgrim's Progress showed me that in many ways the message hasn't changed. The great books that came out during this time period really transformed me and they are every bit as valuable today if you should choose to read them! It is God that touches people hearts and not drivel such as I write. I have never wanted to be anything but a messenger, and to be able to put these books, and these men, before you... is a great blessing in itself!

A Pilgrim's Progress.....January, 1999

         A few years ago David Wells wrote a book called No Place For Truth, Whatever Happened To Evangelical Theology. Although this was not the first book on the topic, it proved to be a catalyst to a movement attempting to call the church back to its theological moorings that had been weakened after decades of sectarianism that quite naturally evolved when creeds, confessions and catechisms of the historic church were devalued, even ignored. Os Guinness wrote a small book, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds, that accused evangelicals of not thinking and even mapped out the peculiarly American characteristics such as "pluralism, pragmatism" and five other "isms" that quite naturally influenced our evangelical church. Mark Noll's Scandal Of The Evangelical Mind was given the Book Of The Year award. Gene Edward Veith did the best work on postmodernism in Postmodern Times.  Michael Horton has repeatedly addressed these issues, his latest effort being a call to return to the Apostles Creed in We Believe. John Armstrong, Iain Murray, R. C. Sproul, John MacArthur, John Piper, Alistair Begg, James M. Boice D. A. Carson, Hank Hannegraaff, Don Matzat and many others have taken turns trumpeting the dire need of a Reformation today.
         What was it that they spoke of that all of a sudden made me realize that I was treading on holy ground? Maybe it was the Puritan William Gurnall's great work Christian In Complete Armour  that made me realize that my understanding of spiritual warfare was dangerously in error? Maybe it was Sproul's Knowing Scripture  that caused me to use proper hermeneutical tools in studying Scripture? Maybe it was Horton's Putting The Amazing Back Into Grace that made me understand that I did not choose Christ, that if He did not choose to have mercy on this poor miserable soul that I would never have seen the glory of Christ? Maybe it was the incomparable John Bunyan, the tinker whose Pilgrim's Progress, written from prison, that states so poignantly and profoundly that we truly are pilgrims on a journey, people of The Book on our way to the Celestial Kingdom? Maybe it was Arthur Bennett's compilation of Puritan prayers, Valley Of Vision, that sits worn on my dining room table that every dinner time lays me low in my wretchedness only to enable me to more clearly see and feel God's grace? Please forgive my rambling like this, for I look lovingly at these men but fully realize that it is Christ who redeemed me, it is the Father who chose the weakest, unsightliest jar of clay and it is the Holy Spirit who dragged me to belief, opened my eyes and gave me faith. And it is Christ again who keeps me, who keeps all of us, though we let Him down time after time.
         The modern church bears scant witness to the glories that underlie the gospel. Its doctrines permit man to credit His own choosing of Christ as evidence of his salvation. Christ is less than sufficient, the Bible is less than adequate and the Holy Spirit hastens to our beckon call. Large churches legitimize us, oblivious of the warnings to the Laodiceans. Reformed churches sit on the laurels of sound doctrine forgetting the command to the Ephesian church to return to their first love. Evangelicals pass out 'four spiritual laws' booklets with a place for a signature for salvation as if they were handling out coupons for a free Big Mac. Pray for a Reformation, that we return to the cross of Christ, that pastors would preach His glories, that fathers would teach His truths and that we would be salt and light to a destitute nation.

Aaaaah....Dostoyevsky!!!

        
This from June of 2010:

         There was a movie a few decades ago, a comedy, where a man was trying to impress a young lady who was very cultured. Advice given to him was that if the topic of classical music came up, just say Aaaah...Bach and that may get him by. If Old English Heroic Epic Poetry ever comes up in a conversation, I may just say Aaaah...Beowulf.  I read Beowulf in high school. It was a great learning experience. I learned how to read thousands of words straight through and not understand a single thought they conveyed. I wasn't the greatest student in grade school and high school, but I was neat. A nun once beat me with a pointer because I was cleaning out my desk during a test, and my freshman high school history teacher once threw all my books out of the fourth floor window for the same offense.
         I once held a fancy for a young lady in college who was very cultured, in fact she taught Theater Arts 101 as a grad student. I think this was the beginning of my really reading for I signed up for the class and devoured that text book to impress her. I even took an acting class and went to plays....Aaaah...Moliere!  The peak of my impressing her was when I cleared up a long standing mystery at the local playhouse. I correctly identified King Edward VIII out of a dozen characters in an old Hirschfeld mural, an answer that eluded even the director. I guessed correctly for I knew it was either the king, later the Duke Of Windsor, or Dagwood Bumstead....Aaaah Blondie!  But alas, I'm not cultured. I'd rather go to a Three Stooges marathon than a ballet. I read everything I had to through high school, but I didn't really read it. But I've since had a metamorphosis, Aaaah...Kafka!  
         Reformed theologian, pastor and teacher R. C. Sproul, through his Ligonier Ministries, publishes a monthly devotional/Bible study called Tabletalk after Martin Luther's work of the same title. This booklet comes to our house early so I'm usually a little bit ahead of schedule. Today I was reading the July 15th offering and the Bible verse to be considered was Joshua 1:8, This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous. Sproul writes that Authentic meditation...is not some exercise wherein we try to empty our minds and expunge all desires in order to achieve some kind of mystic experience or melding with the transcendent. What R. C. is directing us to is a pondering and a considering of the scripture that we read.
         Many years ago, a friend commented to me in a bit of theological debate, that he had read the entire Bible...cover to cover. I can only hope that he got more out of it than I did with Beowulf. Just this past Friday, another friend volunteered the information that he was reading the Bible every morning. He seemed reticent to say that he only read a little bit every day and had to think hard on what he was reading. I was stunned for he was reading it in the most beneficial way!
         We have a tendency today to think that merely passing the words from our eyes and through the brain permits the reading requirement to be checked off. For an analogy, consider a time when you had a significant problem in some area of your life and you meditated on it throughout the day, trying to find and answer. You might re-read, over and over again, the letter you received in the mail detailing the problem. There are books that I fly through and others that I devour every letter of every word. Pilgrim's Progress is one, and I have often meditated on the various parts of Christian's journey and the people that he met along the way.
         R. C. Sproul concluded with We meditate on Scripture not simply to fill our minds with knowledge, but to prepare ourselves to act rightly even when the text is not before us.  If you are new to reading Scripture, ponder over what you read and meditate over the implications in your own life. If you need help with this, and we all do, go to www.ligonier.org and take advantages of their resources......Aaaah....Tabletalk!