A Good Example

People look at me like I'm crazy when I bring up THE Communist  AGENDA at work here in our beloved land of the fee. First, here's the list of goals presented to our cONGRESS in '63 to review at Conservative Refocus.  And here is one of the numerous and all to common examples at Right Angles.  They're not doing this secretly and yet the most common reaction is " Yeah, things are really changing man, BUT you really don't think it's a conspiracy do ya? Actually, I do. It's built upon Marx's technique of graaaadualism [It's the slow boil,  Kermit!]. There does come a point when it's too late to get out.

Lemming Small Talk

I've been reading the paper again! I don't pay for that kind of aggravation but still subject myself to it at lunch time. I read a column [you're never going to believe this] demonizing the republicans for failing to fall in line with Obummers' health care and inability to control his spending habits. That in and of itself is normal enough. We all know the mantras. Why I subject myself to this would require some extensive self analysis, but I don't do the self thing very well.

Anyway, they've been trying to steal my goat for a while and they finally got it! So fair is fair. I know we've all heard the comparisons of sodomites with slaves .... I'm leaving that one alone. Now, it's slavery and health care. Did you know we were the last ones to abolish slavery and now we're the last ones to adopt commie care. It's shameful, to say the least, in the keen eyes of our ever so observant columnist. Still, hanging on to a semblance of rationality, I'm trying to understand the connection of granting freedom to a group of people and the compulsory [forced] enlistment to commie care under penalty of fine, loss of driving privilege, and lean on property and/or bank account. They always try to make an argument between the two [freedom and enslavement, choice and no choice], smile and wonder why we don't get it. They're right! I can't make my mind twist that way. In the case of slavery, the republican party, after the abolishing of slavery, passed twenty-three civil rights laws. The demoncrats spawned a wing of their own during the same period, the KKK. They were just as successful hanging 4800 republicans, that was the qualifier, with about a fourth being white. Yes folks, we had black congressmen, [former slaves] writing civil rights bills and the republican party passing them as quick as they hit the floor. Not to worry though .... It was enough to rally the demoncrat party and they repealed them all in 1896 when they regained the House, Senate, and the Presidency. This gives me pause to wonder????? Why can't we [the people] get anything repealed now! Anyway, they redeemed themselves when Johnson got Kennedy's civil rights bill that he borrowed from Eisenhower [republican] passed. Well, they could only get 44% of the democratic vote when they just needed a simple majority. Not to worry again, they used 7% of the republicans 83% to secure their place in history. Sorry, I'm rabbit trailing a little bit.

Actually, now that I caught my train of thought before I derailed and said something spiteful, I can better understand the similarities between slavery and abortion. You just simply persuade the court to nullify a person's personhood and reduce them to property to do with as you please and walla you have an indisputable tie between the two. It's the democratic way .... actually it's kind of habit with them democratic type of people, but .... it had it's upside, the creation of a small radical bunch of terrorists that formed a republican party that had the audacity to call slavery and abortion wrong. Actually, really, really wrong. Hitler tried it. He made Jews non-people and his loyal compatriots made the case at the Hindenburg trials that they were justified under the law. They hung them anyway. Still, they're making a better world for us despite our apprehensions that this path is leading where it always has in the past. We can, at least, be another bad example to exhibit to the world. We can become first once again if only by coming in last.

So, as the one lemming said to the other ................................................................................................

Types of Government, Explained

This was, once upon a time, common knowledge in a far away land, now relegated to a state of mythical distortions and buried with all of it's companion virtues. Still, in the like manner of Christianity and her Saviour, Jesus, watch for the unexpected ressurection.

A Must READ!

Please don't pass up this posting by Dan [ The Bumbling  Genius] What has the Church to do with Capitalism

Marriage Counseling

Following is my response to a comment written by Stan.  It was too long for the comment box.  You can read his comment under my post, "Marriage, It's a Given?"

Stan,
I sometimes wish I hadn't elected to comment on that particular post. I always use the ten before and after rule when looking at scripture. Obviously, according to this particular passage, salvation can not only be lost, but also, after reaching a certain point in our walk with the Lord, as in regard to the qualifiers mentioned in the post, salvation cannot be regained. The author has admonished us to go beyond the "milk stage" to the "strong meat" that "belongeth to them that are of full age". Have I tasted of the powers of the world to come? I'm not sure, as I stated, where this point is. I don't understand what would cause this sort of fatal falling away from someone that has become "of full age". I know that my desire is to reach that stage, not to fall away of course, but to obtain that obedience. A common thought is that Paul is addressing the Jewish converts who were now rejecting the gospel, hence the stern warning. The impossibility of return could be likened to man that has fallen into a well, thrown a rope, and then slashes the rope beyond his reach, the rope representing Christ’s atonement by the cross. God is not sending another messiah that meets his expectations nor is it a possibility except by Christ’s sacrifice, already a done deal. There’s only one meal on the menu, the Bread and the Blood. Christ’s once for all sacrifice insufficient,” seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” and relapsing back into a system of repeated animal sacrifice, probably not a good idea. Is there a connection possibly related to the unpardonable sin? I don’t know. I had hoped for someone wiser than I for enlightenment or discussion.

Actually, election came into the discourse because no one seemed inclined to talk about the Hebrew passage. Dismissal accompanied with repeated attempts to defend a once saved always saved doctrine along with the “if” does not mean “if”, if it doesn’t reinforce my position, clarifications were the default responses. Hence the posting I wrote which actually had broadened considerably to respond to my position. It seemed the kinder thing for Neil’s sake than to use His site for a platform. I’m not sure how to give you greater clarity and am afraid I’ll be just restating the same thing and it’ll be wordy and repetitive. As far as election, the elect are always in reference to the believers that the author is writing to. I have a hard time conceptualizing unbelievers falling away. How does that happen? What exactly have they fallen away from?  Chosen and choosing to accept the calling is a believing Christian. Colossians 1:22-23 affirms this position with Paul’s warning, “In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: If ye continue grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; [amazing, after ofter only 32 years from the crucifixion, the known world evangelized] whereof I Paul am made a minister.” Free will opens the door to rejection, corruption, violence and cruelty, and falling away. Now, remember I learned cognitive dissonance from you and Dan so don't be sensitive about it. I watch Barney too [video – we don’t do tv]. My point was in reference to God giving a person free will and then at the same time withholding it. God may indeed be willing that none should perish but His holiness and justice are such as to not allow the salvation of an unrepentant, unwilling, recipient. God's sovereignty is not impugned or diminished. Lewis talks of intrinsic possibilities and impossibilities. It's impossible for God to lie for example of an intrinsic impossibility. As Lewis would say "the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but non-entities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God". Cognitive Dissonance? I'm not willing that my children not walk with the Lord. I'm not willing that any of them be damned. Still it’s an undeniable fact of life. It happens all the time. My love is not severed from them and they were not snatched away, they walked away. Involuntary union is not love. It’s certainly not God like. It’s god like, the god of self, what we must be willing to surrender and let God kill. For me it’s a takes a constant beating, every day I wake up to the struggle of my flesh. Of one thing I’m sure, I’m in the race and the race is not over.

Do I believe the Hebrew passage as written and inclusive of the possibility of not being renewed unto repentance? Yes.

I had the opportunity to meet a man from India whose Grandfather [a Hindu priest on his way with another to beat up the new missionary] was converted to the faith by the Holy Spirit not knowing the language of the missionary. He was, of course, rejected by the village and family and forced to move. His grandmother died and the family decided he should be allowed to return for the funeral. She was three days dead when he arrived. He prayed over her and raised her from the dead in front of three hundred people. His family was converted on the spot. This is the short version of course. It came to pass that he was approached by a denomination that would support his ministry if he would do it under his name. He couldn’t find anything in the Bible to explain how the church could be divided into things called denominations and the offer was rejected. He did find a lot about healing, praying for the sick, casting out demons [commonplace in his ministry], and a host of other things that he uses based on a simple belief that the Bible is truth.

I was raised lukewarm, am a lapsed liberal, former Baptist, former Open Bible, and now simply a Christian. I don’t take the name of anyone but Jesus. I don’t pet the sacred cows anymore to acquire membership in a denomination. I look at passages like Hebrews 6:4-6 and believe simply because it’s in the Bible. It’s true I don’t understand it all, but I understand more than I did twenty years ago.  I rode with Tankachin (The man spoken of above) in the back seat to a church in Rapid City, about sixty miles, and after spending that afternoon with him I was completely embarrassed about my walk with the Lord. He couldn’t comprehend how two Christians could divorce; he has a two to three percent rate among his converts. He said, “Even if man beat woman, we fix.” How come we don’t see God moving like you do I asked? He replied, “You don’t need God, you go to the doctor, you buy everything with money, you make God second, you don’t believe God.” If the Bible said it he believed it. “In India we preach the gospel and then we prove it, preach and prove.” He got that straight out the Bible. He runs around India in his Volkswagen bus with the old Barney style police horn on top singing about the blood of Jesus and people possessed or oppressed, never hearing Jesus name before, run screaming out of the village and he goes to work. We sit and we blog. It was a turning point with me that night. I sat in my seat ashamed while he never stopped praying unless spoken to. It’s good to be small.

I don’t spend much time like this on the Internet. I love reading Dan’s work, his style and reason, Neil’s engagement of our common enemies of the faith, and Glenn’s relentless footwork keeping me current on things I don’t have time to research. I haven’t had time to read a lot of what you’ve written but have thoroughly enjoyed what I have. My focus is primarily on fundamentals of the faith, things that will bind us together, though I do enjoy a little jousting in the spirit of Christian brotherly love. At any rate I’ve read enough to know you’re a brother in the faith and will not be offended at any differences in opinion and will read any response with an open mind and heart.
 
      Sorry so long,
      Gordon

Inductive Equality Inducement

     It's not just because election time is rounding the bend and equality is such a great seller for our politicians that equality is tumbling around in my poor little mind. It's that it has been ingrained so deeply into the fabric of our collective national conscience. We demand it and we'll have it because it appeals to our sense of fairness. We're created equal! My question is " How so?" In what way can we be possibly equal as in, perhaps, the domain of reality? I think the question is fair as we are constantly under a barrage of rhetorical embellishments of life fulfilling eutopic conditions all consummated under the banner of equality for all. Once again I would ask ... "How so?" ... and how do they suppose this can be done? ... and how would this make things better?
  
     It's obvious to me that "equality" is elusive to say the least. I don't possess the same aptitudes of anyone else I know. A persons station in life ... Isn't that connected to aptitudes and abilities? Does a collective education drawn from standardized requirements solve the problem dissimilar interests? Does being born into into equal circumstances level the field, somehow, as to motivational inducement? I can't see that equality exists anywhere. As a Christian, I can't find it in the Bible or as anything that is to be sought after. As a church, a body of believers are all different ... elders, teachers, exhorters, some less honorable [ that's me ... sometimes I'm doing good just to be a poor example] and on and on it goes. Still it's the big seller and we're somehow induced into the idea that all will be fine if we can attain it. Once again ... "How so?"

     Is it just me or are the ones pushing for equality really pushing for equality or are they pushing for crowd control ... or a more manageable herd? The equality under the law seems a bit elusive. Variable consequence dictated by purview of assessors of political correctness in the name of equality and fairness doesn't seem all that fair. To be equal would seem to be related to what standard of convictions one would have to hold or rather, at least the convictions one had been assigned. The idealistic appeal of equality disappears into a mist of confusion when one ponders as to who dictates what one's convictions should be. Dictate seems to hold the key to this puzzle. One needs to have a dictator to dictate.

     We'll there you have it ... I've become transparent. I think all these politicians selling the "equality for all" are up to something sinister. "All things being equal" idealistic gas of the worst kind. Purity and perversion? truth relativized? wrong and right?, sloth and industrious under the same roof? Equality doesn't reside there. Light and dark merge to produce gray for the sake of inductive equality? It produces questions for sure. Take a few moments to reflect on the answers. We're born with unalienable rights for freedom and the pursuit of happiness that would all be negated by a society that ignores the possibilities that reside in God's unique gifting and precepts made for us as unique and varied as His creation. The "equality" they sell is a promise of security in exchange for these God given opportunities based on ability, commitment, diligence, forbearance, and faith that yield their reward and harvest according to their merit and God's grace. It raises disturbing thoughts for those who have little interest in cultivating any of the aforementioned traits. The ranks of those thus crippled by the lure of a free ride and guaranteed entitlements grows and empowers the corrupt who at the time of victory will just as quickly deem them a liability. But then, it's possible that at that time they're dreams of equality will be realized.

ll Peter 2:19 "While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption; for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into bondage."

Marriage [ It's a given?]

Always start with a disclaimer. Because this concerns a post on Neil's "Eternity Matters" titled "Once Lost always Lost?” this in no way diminishes my respect and admiration for my fellow brother in Christ and the work he does. In fact, he would probably be the first to warn me about skipping around in mine fields and snake pits. Of course in this matter he doesn't lead by example. 

I like things simple. The Bible doesn't always seem to accommodate. The simplicity of the Gospel message is astounding, while the depth of Scripture is unfathomable. I believe in a six-day creation for many reasons, but primarily because the Bible says so. I believe Hebrews 6:4-6 for the same reason. I would like to be able to get beyond its abrupt dismissal to looking at the qualifiers made for the people in question.  

1. "for those who were once enlightened"

2. "have tasted of the heavenly gift"

3."made partakers of the Holy Ghost"

4." tasted the good word of God"

5."and the power of the world to come" 

It also looks as though all of these qualifiers are things to be sought out by any truly professing Christian and yet are the demise of all hope when they are then rejected when one has fallen away. The question for me is "am I there yet?" As in all election, there are qualifiers to be in the running or to be elected, or we merely reduce this to a state of random selection. "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9. It would be contrary to the will of the Lord to say he imposes limitations in the extension of the hope of redemption by a simple selection process. This isn't a mere question of sin blocking our way to the kingdom; Jesus removed that obstacle. Still, sin too is a process. We're told that when it is full grown or fully manifested that it becomes death. You don't fall away in a moment of doubt either. It's a process of rejection when brought to completion that not only negates a return to redemption but also the desire. 

I don't understand this state. I've seen it. People that have been passionate in their walk with the Lord fall away. This doesn't undermine the security I have in the Lord. To put it in a Biblical perspective, I don't wake up in the morning wondering if I'm still married. I know I am. I cannot conceive that there is anything that could separate me from my wife. Still prudence tells me that my marriage is something to be guarded, so does Scripture, but I know that divorce can happen. Christ as the groom is infallible, but His bride is not. Christ has done everything He can possibly do. It's not His will that people perish or that people fall away. So is it His will to pick and choose while willing that none should perish? [cognitive dissonance, Stan?]The Father does indeed draw us to the Son. There is no other way. But can enough light pass through a dirty window to light a room or does He have to show us how to clean it. We have the Bible. We have access thru the Spirit to the Son, and by the Son to the Father, and by the Father to the Spirit, and thru the Spirit to the Son, and so it goes. The question is "who partakes and how can you partake and is there a share in the participation for you?" 

"Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept." Mark 10:4-5  This verse scares me. I have a healthy fear of the hardness of my own heart. Christ is the groom and he asks that I should step into this role regarding my own marriage. The only beauty that the church can possess is the beauty Christ gives it. The beauty my wife possesses is from me. That in itself places me in a position of responsibility I'm reluctant to accept. Her submission to the same Biblical model places her in a position of responsibility she's reluctant [though maybe not as reluctant as I with mine] to accept. Still this is God's will and plan if our marriage is to survive and be glorifying to God. This is the narrow path and many cannot abide in it. It breaks God's heart, it's not His will or plan, and he still loves us, but the separation remains, not because He chose it to be that way but because we did. 

Am I married? Believe it, I do. Am I fear driven? You bet! It's a healthy fear Jesus taught me.  

Mathew 25:24-30 "Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed.: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkess: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."