Morning
Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines.
Song of Solomon 2:15

A little thorn may cause much suffering. A little cloud may hide the sun. Little foxes spoil the vines; and little sins do mischief to the tender heart. These little sins burrow in the soul, and make it so full of that which is hateful to Christ, that He will hold no comfortable fellowship and communion with us. A great sin cannot destroy a Christian, but a little sin can make him miserable. Jesus will not walk with His people unless they drive out every known sin. He says, "If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love, even as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love." Some Christians very seldom enjoy their Saviour's presence. How is this? Surely it must be an affliction for a tender child to be separated from his father. Art thou a child of God, and yet satisfied to go on without seeing thy Father's face? What! thou the spouse of Christ, and yet content without His company! Surely, thou hast fallen into a sad state, for the chaste spouse of Christ mourns like a dove without her mate, when he has left her. Ask, then, the question, what has driven Christ from thee? He hides His face behind the wall of thy sins. That wall may be built up of little pebbles, as easily as of great stones. The sea is made of drops; the rocks are made of grains: and the sea which divides thee from Christ may be filled with the drops of thy little sins; and the rock which has well nigh wrecked thy barque, may have been made by the daily working of the coral insects of thy little sins. If thou wouldst live with Christ, and walk with Christ, and see Christ, and have fellowship with Christ, take heed of "the little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes." Jesus invites you to go with Him and take them. He will surely, like Samson, take the foxes at once and easily. Go with Him to the hunting.

Evening
That henceforth we should not serve sin.
Romans 6:6

Christian, what hast thou to do with sin? Hath it not cost thee enough already? Burnt child, wilt thou play with the fire? What! when thou hast already been between the jaws of the lion, wilt thou step a second time into his den? Hast thou not had enough of the old serpent? Did he not poison all thy veins once, and wilt thou play upon the hole of the asp, and put thy hand upon the cockatrice's den a second time? Oh, be not so mad! so foolish! Did sin ever yield thee real pleasure? Didst thou find solid satisfaction in it? If so, go back to thine old drudgery, and wear the chain again, if it delight thee. But inasmuch as sin did never give thee what it promised to bestow, but deluded thee with lies, be not a second time snared by the old fowler-- be free, and let the remembrance of thy ancient bondage forbid thee to enter the net again! It is contrary to the designs of eternal love, which all have an eye to thy purity and holiness; therefore run not counter to the purposes of thy Lord. Another thought should restrain thee from sin. Christians can never sin cheaply; they pay a heavy price for iniquity. Transgression destroys peace of mind, obscures fellowship with Jesus, hinders prayer, brings darkness over the soul; therefore be not the serf and bondman of sin. There is yet a higher argument: each time you "serve sin" you have "Crucified the Lord afresh, and put Him to an open shame." Can you bear that thought? Oh! if you have fallen into any special sin during this day, it may be my Master has sent this admonition this evening, to bring you back before you have backslidden very far. Turn thee to Jesus anew; He has not forgotten His love to thee; His grace is still the same. With weeping and repentance, come thou to His footstool, and thou shalt be once more received into His heart; thou shalt be set upon a rock again, and thy goings shall be established.

Tags: governance, Moola

In Monday’s, “The Wealth Creation — Tax & Debt Redistribution Continuum” we offered the thesis that wealth creation was an inalienable right given to humanity by the Creator. We, who have been blessed to be immigrant citizens to these shores, also have the benefit of a codified structure for national development, outlined in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. For a broader context we also posted this article under the blog tabs at Deep Woods Moola and The Creation Leadership Center.

As a founding right, given to us by God, wealth creation belongs to the individual in the literal sense. We proposed that not only was wealth creation an inalienable right it is also a fundamental right of all Americans. Upon further reflection, it is not really a stretch at all to state that the wealth creation right, is essentially the Absolute inalienable fundamental right of all Americans, for the concepts of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness all flow through this highest of all birthrights.

We further proposed that new wealth is basically an ex nihilo creation in the mind of an individual that combines the energetics of faith with the information of the enterprise to form a wealth seed. Through the introduction of equity liquidity, meaning a total commitment, not just debt involvement, this seed can sprout and become a viable product, service, profession, or vocation.

Taxes and debt can serve as means to grow the germinated seed, either directly or indirectly, but contrary to what has been promoted through a half century of a diseased American Federalism, debt and taxes can only redistribute present and future wealth through money, they cannot create fundamental new wealth.

This wealth creation reality is part of the general revelation of God in nature; hence its status as the Absolute inalienable right, but it is also part of the specific revelation the Bible. Monday we used the Apostle Paul’s constructs of Faith, Hope, and Charity, found in 1 Corinthians 13. In the legal definition of a corporation, since it is a creation of man’s laws, it does not live outside of the legal code; therefore it has no real life, no soul, or true creative ability, except what is given it, through legal precedent. Only a real person in the natural sense, can plant the wealth seed in faith, hoping for a growing wealth producing plant, relying only on charity of others should the opportunity fail.
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Tags: wealth, God, Redux Rendezvous, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Alan Greenspan, Barack Obama, tax cuts, 2 BIG 2 Work, Wall Street, Main Street

Give me that old fashioned (like last year), change we can believe in. Last Tuesday’s primary elections signaled, throw out all the bums, and let us choose the less — most desirable between who is left. The grizzly bears moved back to a very realistic position on Wall Street. The Senate finally passed a financial reform bill which will help the 2 Big 2 Fail, sort of, not change a whole lot and provide bennies for some others to continue to over leverage our worthless money supply. On Sunday we heard from the Feds, that if BP continues to miss the deadlines on stopping the Gulf oil spill that they are going to take over. That will surely help, I’m sure?

Through it all Americans continue to learn about, and demand a redux of our founding constitutional principles, but all the pundits, spinners, commentators, and politicians think this will help them, when in reality the issue really is much more complex than can be articulated in a brief media story. Furthermore even if they could, their spin is so dumbed down and politically correct, that it could be shown that they would be quickly eliminated from the TV show, and then must announce that they are not smarter than a fifth grader.

So in the finest efforts of the Texas Board of Education’s textbook curriculum revisions, let us develop some context of what is really happening.

Way back in Colonial days, the people of the revolutionary era were very religious and in the process of writing a formal constitution they did a miraculous job of creating a secular government based on Absolute Christian religious principles.

Today we live in a very secular world and what we are trying to do is to take secular principles and redux them to Absolutes that will provide security in a rapidly changing world. In simple terms, back then most were committed to their religion, and a very few were secular. Now most are very secular, and a very few are committed to religion. Read More...

Tags: Absolutes, Founding Prinicples, religion, PREFER Ltd, money, wealth, God, Natural Law

Morning
The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me.
Psalm 138:8

Most manifestly the confidence which the Psalmist here expressed was a divine confidence. He did not say, "I have grace enough to perfect that which concerneth me--my faith is so steady that it will not stagger--my love is so warm that it will never grow cold--my resolution is so firm that nothing can move it; no, his dependence was on the Lord alone. If we indulge in any confidence which is not grounded on the Rock of ages, our confidence is worse than a dream, it will fall upon us, and cover us with its ruins, to our sorrow and confusion. All that Nature spins time will unravel, to the eternal confusion of all who are clothed therein. The Psalmist was wise, he rested upon nothing short of the Lord's work. It is the Lord who has begun the good work within us; it is He who has carried it on; and if he does not finish it, it never will be complete. If there be one stitch in the celestial garment of our righteousness which we are to insert ourselves, then we are lost; but this is our confidence, the Lord who began will perfect. He has done it all, must do it all, and will do it all. Our confidence must not be in what we have done, nor in what we have resolved to do, but entirely in what the Lord will do. Unbelief insinuates-- "You will never be able to stand. Look at the evil of your heart, you can never conquer sin; remember the sinful pleasures and temptations of the world that beset you, you will be certainly allured by them and led astray." Ah! yes, we should indeed perish if left to our own strength. If we had alone to navigate our frail vessels over so rough a sea, we might well give up the voyage in despair; but, thanks be to God, He will perfect that which concerneth us, and bring us to the desired haven. We can never be too confident when we confide in Him alone, and never too much concerned to have such a trust.

Evening
Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money.
Isaiah 43:24

Worshippers at the temple were wont to bring presents of sweet perfumes to be burned upon the altar of God: but Israel, in the time of her backsliding, became ungenerous, and made but few votive offerings to her Lord: this was an evidence of coldness of heart towards God and His house. Reader, does this never occur with you? Might not the complaint of the text be occasionally, if not frequently, brought against you? Those who are poor in pocket, if rich in faith, will be accepted none the less because their gifts are small; but, poor reader, do you give in fair proportion to the Lord, or is the widow's mite kept back from the sacred treasury? The rich believer should be thankful for the talent entrusted to him, but should not forget his large responsibility, for where much is given much will be required; but, rich reader, are you mindful of your obligations, and rendering to the Lord according to the benefit received? Jesus gave His blood for us, what shall we give to Him? We are His, and all that we have, for He has purchased us unto Himself --can we act as if we were our own? O for more consecration! and to this end, O for more love! Blessed Jesus, how good it is of Thee to accept our sweet cane bought with money! nothing is too costly as a tribute to Thine unrivalled love, and yet Thou dost receive with favour the smallest sincere token of affection! Thou dost receive our poor forget-me-nots and love-tokens as though they were intrinsically precious, though indeed they are but as the bunch of wild flowers which the child brings to its mother. Never may we grow niggardly towards Thee, and from this hour never may we hear Thee complain of us again for withholding the gifts of our love. We will give Thee the first fruits of our increase, and pay Thee tithes of all, and then we will confess "of Thine own have we given Thee."

Tags: Wall Street

Beginning with the Absolute that there is a God and at specific times and places, working through human personalities created in His image, stupendous changes are created in both nature and human civilizations to redux the past into the future.

Absolutes are defined as truth residing outside the auspices of human understanding. Another way to describe an Absolute is that it is a natural law in which we humans can only apprehend, but cannot change in the sense of its universal application. The reason we must resort to the use of the term Absolute is that the old term of truth has been so distorted and made politically correct that it no longer really defines anything but a spin of a faux reality.

The term Absolute, as a modern philosophical construct, became popular through the ministry and the writings of Francis Schaeffer. While produced in the turmoil of the 1970s, Schaeffer’s most famous work, “How Should We Then Live” is a video series that essentially dramatizes the cultural changes we now are having a very difficult time believing.

In our enlightened world, the reality of Absolutes causes all sorts of angst. How can we be continually evolving onward and upward when there already exists a standard that makes our best efforts seem moronic in their best spin?

So we see a contrast between the things of God and the things of man. As we have pointed out in previous weeks, Godly change works from the Universal to the individual. Human change begins with the individual to form a collective, to be administered by the more highly evolved above us.
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Tags: Francis Schaeffer, Absolutes, Christian Diaspora, Christian Redux, God, dry bones valley, propitiation, justification, revivalism, Protestant Liberalism

It was only a week ago when we woke up to understand that with a little encouragement from President Obama, European countries had come up with a trillion dollar plan to save the Euro and everything would soon be back to change we can believe in. One week later, we are wondering compared to the dollar how far the Euro will fall, or even if the currency will continue to exist.

Then there is all that dirty air over there, caused by that pesky volcano in Iceland. How in the world are we supposed to fly around from here to there, showing everybody how wonderful all the stuff we have created is doing, when we are thwarted by our efforts by some tiny airborne particles of abrasive rocks?

Here in the good old USA the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill continues, with no apparent understanding of how well the funny pipe thing fix installed yesterday is going to work. So in the absence of any news on that front, concern has shifted to what is happening to all the oil that is now floating around. Should we use dispersants that may cause more ecological problems than the oil itself? How far will the oil go, how fast? Can BP even continue to exist as a company in light of all the expenses and legal claims? One thing I did learn is that deep sea water is about 3 degrees Celsius, (35 Fahrenheit), and at those depths and pressures that is really a different place than what we naturally can understand, so perhaps we should cut those engineers a little slack.

Less we forget, there is no real news on what caused the near 1000 point fall in the Dow a week ago last Thursday. There was some discussion of a big trade(s) made by somebody about that time, but whoever they were, denied that they had anything to do with it. So the search goes on, but with markets being controlled by computers using models based upon past histories and triggered by various algorithms of risk, we should really have nothing to worry about. That is especially true if we are big and sophisticated enough to buy some credit default swaps, to insure our leverage, so that the white holes in the universe that spew out money will remain our back stop.

Let’s see what else caught our attention? Out of Washington, if Elena Kagan becomes the next Supreme Court Justice, this Washington state’s governor, Kristine Gregoire is favored to be the next Solicitor General. That would be a real blessing out here, for after her life as both a mediocre state Attorney General and Governor, the best we could ever hope to do is shuffle her off to that other Washington and get her out of the state, hopefully for good.

Then again maybe she could replace Eric Holder as the national Attorney General, she is wise enough to understand before you go spouting off about the Arizona Immigration Law, she would have read the 16 or 10 pages of the Arizona bill, before and after amendments. Read More...

Tags: Euro, Gulf oil spill, Elena Kagan, Kristine Gregoire, Eric Holder, Glenn Beck, money, Deep Woods Moola

Morning
All that believe are justified.
Acts 13:39

The believer in Christ receives a present justification. Faith does not produce this fruit by-and-by, but now. So far as justification is the result of faith, it is given to the soul in the moment when it closes with Christ, and accepts Him as its all in all. Are they who stand before the throne of God justified now?--so are we, as truly and as clearly justified as they who walk in white and sing melodious praises to celestial harps. The thief upon the cross was justified the moment that he turned the eye of faith to Jesus; and Paul, the aged, after years of service, was not more justified than was the thief with no service at all. We are to-day accepted in the Beloved, to-day absolved from sin, to-day acquitted at the bar of God. Oh! soul-transporting thought! There are some clusters of Eshcol's vine which we shall not be able to gather till we enter heaven; but this is a bough which runneth over the wall. This is not as the corn of the land, which we can never eat till we cross the Jordan; but this is part of the manna in the wilderness, a portion of our daily nutriment with which God supplies us in our journeying to and fro. We are now--even now pardoned; even now are our sins put away; even now we stand in the sight of God accepted, as though we had never been guilty. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." There is not a sin in the Book of God, even now, against one of His people. Who dareth to lay anything to their charge? There is neither speck, nor spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing remaining upon any one believer in the matter of justification in the sight of the Judge of all the earth. Let present privilege awaken us to present duty, and now, while life lasts, let us spend and be spent for our sweet Lord Jesus.

Evening
Made perfect.
Hebrews 12:23

Recollect that there are two kinds of perfection which the Christian needs--the perfection of justification in the person of Jesus, and the perfection of sanctification wrought in him by the Holy Spirit. At present, corruption yet remains even in the breasts of the regenerate--experience soon teaches us this. Within us are still lusts and evil imaginations. But I rejoice to know that the day is coming when God shall finish the work which He has begun; and He shall present my soul, not only perfect in Christ, but perfect through the Spirit, without spot or blemish, or any such thing. Can it be true that this poor sinful heart of mine is to become holy even as God is holy? Can it be that this spirit, which often cries, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this sin and death?" shall get rid of sin and death--that I shall have no evil things to vex my ears, and no unholy thoughts to disturb my peace? Oh, happy hour! may it be hastened! When I cross the Jordan, the work of sanctification will be finished; but not till that moment shall I even claim perfection in myself. Then my spirit shall have its last baptism in the Holy Spirit's fire. Methinks I long to die to receive that last and final purification which shall usher me into heaven. Not an angel more pure than I shall be, for I shall be able to say, in a double sense, "I am clean," through Jesus' blood, and through the Spirit's work. Oh, how should we extol the power of the Holy Ghost in thus making us fit to stand before our Father in heaven! Yet let not the hope of perfection hereafter make us content with imperfection now. If it does this, our hope cannot be genuine; for a good hope is a purifying thing, even now. The work of grace must be abiding in us now or it cannot be perfected then. Let us pray to "be filled with the Spirit," that we may bring forth increasingly the fruits of righteousness.

Anymore every time I hear the word “change,” I cringe. Still I find it amazing that most of the time the user of the change slogan is trying to paint change in a positive light. Like they want me rush to their simplistic point of view and acknowledge the enlightenment they are peddling.

The problem is that the world is to such a point that the status quo is just as unacceptable. The old saying, “Stuck between a rock and a hard place.” seems to apply. Except for the reality that “between” only encompasses two real directions, it’s more like being ground to dust in the interface of a glacier and a mountain, except that also is terribly abstract and impersonal.

In all this, we long for the good old days, but back then we also had problems. When you come right down to it however, if we could use those nostalgic times and make them better, perhaps that will help us design the future in a positive way, for wandering into a chaotic future makes no sense either. Hence the concept of redux. Redux comes to us from the Latin and literally means lead from the past, or more commonly brought back or revived.

The whole world needs a lot of redux, for the alternative is anarchy or chaos. It is also true that those who don’t learn from the past are destined to repeat those mistakes. So how far back do we go, on which to begin the building process?

Last week in the Christian Diaspora we basically developed the context that construction or creation-wise, God works from the universal to the individual. From the solely human perspective we find the Babylonian model that builds from the individual to the collective. That clash of those two creative constructs has brought us to the place in which change is only something we reluctantly accept.
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Tags: Christian Diaspora, Christian Redux, United Kingdom, Religious Right, Glenn Beck, George Whitefield, John Wesley, Social Darwinism, Barack Obama

It only took a week for Federal government officials to determine that the 1 May terrorist attack in New York’s Time Square was not the work of a lone disgruntled new American citizen, but that he had training, finances and other resources at his disposal from Pakistan’s Taliban. So again we see that even though America’s politically correct do not believe that Islamic jihadis are trying to create chaos here in the United States, it is just those poor misguided religious people just don’t understand how warm, caring, we infidels really are. It is such a shame that they are too primitive to understand our evolutionary scheme, not only for America but the whole world.

Likewise on Sunday we learned that the Obama Administration’s homeland security and counterterrorism team has no evidence that Thursday’s near 1000 point drop of the Dow Jones was caused by any cyber attack. So from the guys that were behind the lone disgruntled bomber spin, we are to believe that they finally got something right. Just like they were busy with the Gulf oil spill, “From day one.”

It is just nine days until the world celebrates the 110th anniversary of the publishing of the prophetic book “The Wonderful Wizard of OZ.” For now it seems the Wizards of Washington and the Wizards of Wall Street want us to believe that they are not part of that fable, but for now they are not doing a very good job. So we are told to believe some computer glitch somewhere somehow was responsible for the mystery of the disappearance of roughly a trillion dollars and then a return of a good chunk of it a few minutes later. We could blame it on an act of God, but that would require a belief in a Supreme Being and since that is currently un-American we will have to leave that Godly interpretation in the hands of Islamic human caused disaster creators.

So today business is back to our usual yellow brick road to a unified kerfuffle theory and we will have to wait until we learn what really happened as America’s financial wizards try to determine what really happened last Thursday — from day one. Meanwhile over in Europe the wizards of the European Union have come up with a trillion dollar plan to stabilize the Euro as Greece continues to hemorrhage financially and physically. So that they don’t feel lonely the citizens of Great Britain have to wonder when their election results will finally lead to a new Prime Minister wizard, who will cobble together a government.

Maybe a stupendous tornado will come about and we can be all transported back to Kansas, 110 years ago!
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Tags: Moola, money, Wall Street, Euro, Washington DC, New York City, Moola Redux

Morning
And there followed Him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented Him.
Luke 23:27

Amid the rabble rout which hounded the Redeemer to His doom, there were some gracious souls whose bitter anguish sought vent in wailing and lamentations--fit music to accompany that march of woe. When my soul can, in imagination, see the Saviour bearing His cross to Calvary, she joins the godly women and weeps with them; for, indeed, there is true cause for grief-- cause lying deeper than those mourning women thought. They bewailed innocence maltreated, goodness persecuted, love bleeding, meekness about to die; but my heart has a deeper and more bitter cause to mourn. My sins were the scourges which lacerated those blessed shoulders, and crowned with thorn those bleeding brows: my sins cried "Crucify Him! crucify Him!" and laid the cross upon His gracious shoulders. His being led forth to die is sorrow enough for one eternity: but my having been His murderer, is more, infinitely more, grief than one poor fountain of tears can express.

Why those women loved and wept it were not hard to guess: but they could not have had greater reasons for love and grief than my heart has. Nain's widow saw her son restored--but I myself have been raised to newness of life. Peter's wife's mother was cured of the fever--but I of the greater plague of sin. Out of Magdalene seven devils were cast--but a whole legion out of me. Mary and Martha were favoured with visits--but He dwells with me. His mother bare His body--but He is formed in me the hope of glory. In nothing behind the holy women in debt, let me not be behind them in gratitude or sorrow.

"Love and grief my heart dividing,
With my tears His feet I'll lave--
Constant still in heart abiding,
Weep for Him who died to save."

Evening
Thy gentleness hath made me great.
Psalm 18:35

The words are capable of being translated, "Thy goodness hath made me great." David gratefully ascribed all his greatness not to his own goodness, but the goodness of God. "Thy providence," is another reading; and providence is nothing more than goodness in action. Goodness is the bud of which providence is the flower, or goodness is the seed of which providence is the harvest. Some render it, "Thy help," which is but another word for providence; providence being the firm ally of the saints, aiding them in the service of their Lord. Or again, "Thy humility hath made me great." "Thy condescension" may, perhaps, serve as a comprehensive reading, combining the ideas mentioned, including that of humility. It is God's making Himself little which is the cause of our being made great. We are so little, that if God should manifest His greatness without condescension, we should be trampled under His feet; but God, who must stoop to view the skies, and bow to see what angels do, turns His eye yet lower, and looks to the lowly and contrite, and makes them great. There are yet other readings, as for instance, the Septuagint, which reads, "Thy discipline"--Thy fatherly correction--"hath made me great;" while the Chaldee paraphrase reads, "Thy word hath increased me." Still the idea is the same. David ascribes all his own greatness to the condescending goodness of his Father in heaven. May this sentiment be echoed in our hearts this evening while we cast our crowns at Jesus' feet, and cry, "Thy gentleness hath made me great." How marvellous has been our experience of God's gentleness! How gentle have been His corrections! How gentle His forbearance! How gentle His teachings! How gentle His drawings! Meditate upon this theme, O believer. Let gratitude be awakened; let humility be deepened; let love be quickened ere thou fallest asleep tonight.

Tags: Social Darwinism

Last week we wrote about those awful sinners that control, or seek to control the land, the Social Darwinists. Those really bad guys are really bad, because they only think of themselves and that is because they haven’t asked Jesus into their heart.

I once attended a church where the young pastor in a Sunday sermon brought up the reality that sinners — sin! The reaction from the congregation was one of almost dumbfounded amazement. He pointed out that sin was their job description. “It can’t be true, people need Jesus, but to call them sinners is almost un-American.”

In this particular denomination the world is made up of three classes of people, the saints, the carnal Christians, and the people who need Jesus. Not a sinner in the group! In Bible days within the Jews, they had three similar groups, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the gentiles or the goyim.

The interesting thing about the financial crisis was it was brought about by sinners — sinning. It was their job description. We called them last week Social Darwinists, but why are most Americans so dumbfounded that the greedy elitists were doing just what comes naturally?

But what is even more amazing, is that people think that with a massive set of regulations passed by Congress, signed by the President, and codified through reams of bureaucratic regulations, this is somehow going to curb the abuses.

We are nearing the point where we will reach the cross over where if we had let the too big to fail — fail, would be bypassed by real bankruptcies and the new growth of a financial spring, but that is a missed opportunity, a road not taken. This was a political decision based pretty much upon the basis of short-term political expediency. Now again short term political expediency (that must be complete before the fall elections) again is called upon to make a long-term decision on how to regulate the unregulated.

None of this understands the basic tenant that common sense easily comprehends; a big bungling bureaucratic government dinosaur cannot catch a fleet footed competent individual, unless the individual makes a really stupid mistake. So why try? Read More...

Tags: Social Darwinism, sin, Christian Diaspora, Absolutes, entropy, grace, God

Two weeks from today, 18 May 2010 will hallmark the 110th anniversary of the publishing of the children’s book “The Wonderful Wizard of OZ.” For most of that interlude American adults have tried to move to OZ, simply because it was a fantasyland as far from the reality of Kansas as they could get. So today, as with real children, they are mad, because the Wizards of Washington and the Wizards of Wall Street haven’t the ability to maintain that fable.

In that context, the Tea Parties, the protesters of Arizona’s new enforcement of immigration laws, and the whining and moaning about the evils of Wall Street, do really little but unmask the reality that all our hoped or hyped wizards are really just men, many times small men, not related to their physical size, who try to maintain at great expense the fantasized illusion of their wizardry they eagerly promote.

I have to give credit for this new found insight into the illusion of America to none other than Glenn Beck. So with deference to Shakespeare, let me set the stage. On Saturday afternoon I returned after a short hiatus to Spokane. This trip, which may become an annual affair, was to commemorate 30 April, which in Washington State is the date that the first half of the year’s property taxes are due. This year for reasons external to this reporting this was a significant and memorable event.

So later that evening I began to catch up on programs recorded on my DVR. On the Thursday show Beck was spun very tight because he believed that all those liberal Progressives seemed out to get him, and furthermore they were trying to turn the United States into a series of Emerald Cities through Cap and Trade. To which my first and continued response is, “Duh?”
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Tags: Glenn Beck, tea party, Cap and Trade, Seattle, Puget Paradox Disease, Wizard of OZ, God, Christian Diaspora

Morning
I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world.
John 17:15

It is a sweet and blessed event which will occur to all believers in God's own time--the going home to be with Jesus. In a few more years the Lord's soldiers, who are now fighting "the good fight of faith" will have done with conflict, and have entered into the joy of their Lord. But although Christ prays that His people may eventually be with Him where He is, He does not ask that they may be taken at once away from this world to heaven. He wishes them to stay here. Yet how frequently does the wearied pilgrim put up the prayer, "O that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away and be at rest;" but Christ does not pray like that, He leaves us in His Father's hands, until, like shocks of corn fully ripe, we shall each be gathered into our Master's garner. Jesus does not plead for our instant removal by death, for to abide in the flesh is needful for others if not profitable for ourselves. He asks that we may be kept from evil, but He never asks for us to be admitted to the inheritance in glory till we are of full age. Christians often want to die when they have any trouble. Ask them why, and they tell you, "Because we would be with the Lord." We fear it is not so much because they are longing to be with the Lord, as because they desire to get rid of their troubles; else they would feel the same wish to die at other times when not under the pressure of trial. They want to go home, not so much for the Saviour's company, as to be at rest. Now it is quite right to desire to depart if we can do it in the same spirit that Paul did, because to be with Christ is far better, but the wish to escape from trouble is a selfish one. Rather let your care and wish be to glorify God by your life here as long as He pleases, even though it be in the midst of toil, and conflict, and suffering, and leave Him to say when "it is enough."

Evening
These all died in faith.
Hebrews 11:13

Behold the epitaph of all those blessed saints who fell asleep before the coming of our Lord! It matters nothing how else they died, whether of old age, or by violent means; this one point, in which they all agree, is the most worthy of record, "they all died in faith." In faith they lived--it was their comfort, their guide, their motive and their support; and in the same spiritual grace they died, ending their life-song in the sweet strain in which they had so long continued. They did not die resting in the flesh or upon their own attainments; they made no advance from their first way of acceptance with God, but held to the way of faith to the end. Faith is as precious to die by as to live by.

Dying in faith has distinct reference to the past. They believed the promises which had gone before, and were assured that their sins were blotted out through the mercy of God. Dying in faith has to do with the present. These saints were confident of their acceptance with God, they enjoyed the beams of His love, and rested in His faithfulness. Dying in faith looks into the future. They fell asleep, affirming that the Messiah would surely come, and that when He would in the last days appear upon the earth, they would rise from their graves to behold Him. To them the pains of death were but the birth-pangs of a better state. Take courage, my soul, as thou readest this epitaph. Thy course, through grace, is one of faith, and sight seldom cheers thee; this has also been the pathway of the brightest and the best. Faith was the orbit in which these stars of the first magnitude moved all the time of their shining here; and happy art thou that it is thine. Look anew to-night to Jesus, the author and finisher of thy faith, and thank Him for giving thee like precious faith with souls now in glory.