Buck Up Special Dog

Buck Up Special Dog.......April, 2011

         It was quite a few years ago, maybe ten, while listening to Renewing Your Mind that R. C. Sproul dropped his guard for a moment and mentioned how some in the religious academic community had mockingly referred to him as Le folle (madman) Sproul or some similar disparagement. A few years ago Rush Limbaugh had a similar weak moment although in his case thirty four million dollars a year may ease the pain somewhat. More recently South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, openly displayed discouragement to radio talk show host Roger Hedgecock in that he, at times, felt all alone in the Senate in fighting the forces arrayed against our nation. Hedgecock responded Buck up man...we (the people of the United States) got your back and DeMint continues today to lead the charge in that formerly august body. (and today at the Heritage Foundation)
          At the complete opposite end of the spectrum in importance there is me, I get dejected and dispirited at times too. Day after day and year after year of sounding a warning can take it out of you. I have given up so much for so long! I could be clubbing a small white ball and then motoring up to it in a little cart to club it even further. I could take a wall out of my house, or call someone to do it anyway, to make room for a giant television to stare into the pores of Katie Couric. I could be working on my abs, assuming they are under there somewhere. I could be Tae Bo-ing with a room full of hot chicks who recently dropped 120 pounds. I could have the Pittsburgh Steeler logo tattooed on the back of my neck. I could wander aimlessly around the Jersey Shore for the summer hoping to get into a fight with Snookie. I could take Yoga and learn to touch the top of my head with the back of my thigh. I could take an interest in vampires..all of them except Hillary of course. I could learn how to tweet; for instance right now I'd tweet My stomach just growled from that half bag a tortilla chips and jar of salsa I just ate, and forget Barack Obama, I'd want to see Suzanne Somers' birth certificate. But no, I have chosen to forgo all these pleasures. For what? For monitoring a measly totalitarian takeover of the world! And I'm the only one! Oh poor poor me :(
          On a more serious note, and truer to the intent of this particular blog entry, one does have to fight discouragement, for the calamity that we see coming is unparalleled in American history. There is no satisfaction in later being able to say we told you so. Winston Churchill was fortunate in that after subjecting himself to criticism verging on ridicule as he warned against the Nazis, he was able to lead his government, and the world for some time, in bringing Adolph Hitler to that dark bunker in Berlin in April of 1945. It is difficult seeing one's country, that one loves, lose its purpose, its essence, and the security that it once had in its might as it distances itself from, and even blames, the One who bestowed all of these blessings upon it.
          Churchill, in the second volume of his history of the Second World War wrote of Britain's malaise as Hitler built his war machine "Official responsibility rested upon the government of the time. But moral responsibilities were more widely spread." I have personally given decades to the demise of this nation through self indulgence. Churchill also wrote (I am reading this volume, Their Finest Hour, right now and have his words at hand) that the British people had a remarkable unity when war was waged against them, "because everyone realized how near were death and ruin." And in his speech to the nation on May 13, 1939 he said "without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realized; no survival for the British Empire...." Fortunately for the British there were far less distractions and far fewer toys than we have today, and they had an even greater ally in the wings (us)that had not yet evicted God from its schools and its halls of power.
         We have no such ally but we have something far greater in a God who is merciful as He is just but if we do not desire Him as our Lord and as our Savior, He is as swift in judgement as He is fair. So the message to myself, from myself, in this blog is buck up Special Dog...for there is no other choice. The encouragement is in knowing that if we fall, even this will ultimately be to His glory, and if we rise it will be to the glory of His name alone!.

A Pilgrim's Progress

        I wrote what follows in January of 1999. Back then I had to rely on a word processor, copier, envelopes and stamps to get my message out. Reading this old A Pilgrim's Progress showed me that the message hasn't changed. The great books that came out during this time period lit a fire under the church that has expanded in many areas. I'd like to recommend one area here. It is 24/7 sound biblical radio/internet teaching from many teachers that you probably already have heard of and can easily be accessed at www.refnet.fm.
        We are indeed a "destitute nation" as I concluded the following writing with but I could not have imagined back in 1999 that we would elect a communist as our president and that the elites of the Republican Party, the Guardians of our intellect and decisions if you will, would turn their wrath, not on the enemy within but on those trying to salvage a national defense, an economy and our very heritage. But I was aware then and know very well today that politics could never save us. Yes we have to be involved but if that involvement impinges upon the realization that there never was, is not and never will be any glory for America or its heritage unless that glory is gratefully thrown at the feet of Jesus Christ to whom it belongs, then all of our efforts will be in vain!

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 and 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 wrote 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.