Next Stop: Serfdomville
PDF 
Print"I'm no fan of the banks bailout and TARP, but the ability for a business like mine to get capital has been insanely difficult." This quotation comes from Michael McKean, a Florida entrepreneur, as the last line in a Wall Street Journal article, “Entrepreneurs Mixed on Small-Business Bill”, which president Obama signed into law with much fanfare on Monday. This article follows the general tone of similar articles, of similar media outlets, which still bother with something called journalism.
The main focus of the bill is some billions of dollars in small business loans which the bill seems to make harder to get, but might really help those who qualify.
Where in the world did we get the idea that we could run a country and a world solely on debt financing?
I might be getting old, but as best I can recall, the serious slouching toward Serfdomville must have begun during the Johnson administration where we decided we could fight a military industrial complex war and construct a Great Society at the same time. But back then I was just a stupid kid with a worldview that consisted of athletic competitions.
Some conservative commentators have stated that after the Republican landslide in this November’s midterm elections, the 2012 Republican presidential candidate will be running as a reincarnation, or channeling of the Gipper, Ronald Reagan. My suggestion is perhaps they should find someone whose ideas are not a generation old, but then again, I am not a member of the progressive-lite elite.
A few years ago, I was shopping at one of the best known independent sporting goods stores in the Spokane Valley. When I returned from looking at the boats and canoes, there was a man putting a swivel seat in a new fishing boat. You could tell by the demeanor and the way he approached this somewhat menial task that he was highly overqualified for the position of seat installer. As we discussed the state of the world he made the comment, “Pretty much everybody in Spokane has a job, but nobody is making any money.”
I thought that was a rather profound statement for a city that essentially owes its existence to a regional service distribution center.
Read More...
Man's Religions
PDF PrintThis week in our Cult Football series we look at the religions of man and how the world’s, and especially America’s problems, are really centered on mutually exclusive religious conflicts. An evolving paradigm of our post-modern world is the belief that religion is really a vestigial remnant of our primitive past, which is totally unnecessary in our enlightened world. Hence those who confess no religion at all are by definition, culturally and mentally superior to those who regress to their religion and guns to find comfort in these difficult times.
However this worldview forces all religious thought subservient to human intellect, which in reality states we have reached the zenith of human understanding, and hence we have become gods in our own eyes. That in reality is just a religion of man.
Those who don’t hold to the doctrines of the religion of man, look to some sort of higher power, either personal, or in karma, or some force. Since this deity is by definition superior to human intellect, the rights and rites associated, creates a religion for man. This gives mankind external absolutes and attributes by which we make sense out of change in this world, that doesn’t seem to make any logical sense to our finite humanity.
The United States was founded upon the religious principles of Divine Providence, and also the highest duty and reward in this life is to serve the Creator with every attribute of our lives. This is affirmed by the salutation of the Declaration of Independence which reads: “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
This universal religious view of the American founding can perhaps be best understood in the common-ordinary religious statements of Benjamin Franklin. God lives — We will meet him when we die — He will judge us what we do in this life — We should therefore serve Him — The best way to serve Him is to serve your fellow man.
Franklin also is the author of the famous quotation, often thought to be from the Bible, “Heaven helps those who help themselves.”
In the context of what we have been trying to express in this column, these are common-ordinary transcendent views of reality. They do not necessarily fit with any specific revelation of God, or the supernatural, but rather just truthfully proclaim an absolute moral code applicable to all humanity. They are definitely at odds with the enlightened atheistic view, so prevalent in our world today.
Read More...
Morning & Evening for September 26th - Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Morning
The myrtle trees that were in the bottom.
Zechariah 1:8
The vision in this chapter describes the condition of Israel in Zechariah's day; but being interpreted in its aspect towards us, it describes the Church of God as we find it now in the world. The Church is compared to a myrtle grove flourishing in a valley. It is hidden, unobserved, secreted; courting no honour and attracting no observation from the careless gazer. The Church, like her head, has a glory, but it is concealed from carnal eyes, for the time of her breaking forth in all her splendour is not yet come. The idea of tranquil security is also suggested to us: for the myrtle grove in the valley is still and calm, while the storm sweeps over the mountain summits. Tempests spend their force upon the craggy peaks of the Alps, but down yonder where flows the stream which maketh glad the city of our God, the myrtles flourish by the still waters, all unshaken by the impetuous wind. How great is the inward tranquility of God's Church! Even when opposed and persecuted, she has a peace which the world gives not, and which, therefore, it cannot take away: the peace of God which passeth all understanding keeps the hearts and minds of God's people. Does not the metaphor forcibly picture the peaceful, perpetual growth of the saints? The myrtle sheds not her leaves, she is always green; and the Church in her worst time still hath a blessed verdure of grace about her; nay, she has sometimes exhibited most verdure when her winter has been sharpest. She has prospered most when her adversities have been most severe. Hence the text hints at victory. The myrtle is the emblem of peace, and a significant token of triumph. The brows of conquerors were bound with myrtle and with laurel; and is not the Church ever victorious? Is not every Christian more than a conqueror through Him that loved him? Living in peace, do not the saints fall asleep in the arms of victory?
Evening
Howl, fir tree, for the cedar is fallen.
Zechariah 11:2
When in the forest there is heard the crash of a falling oak, it is a sign that the woodman is abroad, and every tree in the whole company may tremble lest to-morrow the sharp edge of the axe should find it out. We are all like trees marked for the axe, and the fall of one should remind us that for every one, whether great as the cedar, or humble as the fir, the appointed hour is stealing on apace. I trust we do not, by often hearing of death, become callous to it. May we never be like the birds in the steeple, which build their nests when the bells are tolling, and sleep quietly when the solemn funeral peals are startling the air. May we regard death as the most weighty of all events, and be sobered by its approach. It ill behoves us to sport while our eternal destiny hangs on a thread. The sword is out of its scabbard--let us not trifle; it is furbished, and the edge is sharp--let us not play with it. He who does not prepare for death is more than an ordinary fool, he is a madman. When the voice of God is heard among the trees of the garden, let fig tree and sycamore, and elm and cedar, alike hear the sound thereof.
Be ready, servant of Christ, for thy Master comes on a sudden, when an ungodly world least expects Him. See to it that thou be faithful in His work, for the grave shall soon be digged for thee. Be ready, parents, see that your children are brought up in the fear of God, for they must soon be orphans; be ready, men of business, take care that your affairs are correct, and that you serve God with all your hearts, for the days of your terrestrial service will soon be ended, and you will be called to give account for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or whether they be evil. May we all prepare for the tribunal of the great King with a care which shall be rewarded with the gracious commendation, "Well done, good and faithful servant"
Brute' says humans need to learn how to be human again
Polar Worldviews
PDF PrintSpring has sprung
Fall falls today
And this November election; will make winter colder than usual.
Well, maybe on Election Day in Sarah Palin’s Alaska, winter’s early polar blasts will be felt, but usually in the lower 48, these extreme frigid conditions will hold off until toward the end of November. In the Pacific Northwest Thanksgiving often features the weather of icky. Of course we are not talking about the weather however, but the polar extremes of the two worldviews that have become visible because of the stark barren frosty political landscape they have created in between their antagonists.
When you think of it in the proper context, these Arctic political blasts took on a previously unseen fury when Sarah Palin and TEA Party favorite, Christine O’Donnell became the Delaware’s Republican Party candidate for the U.S. Senate. Sarah now also has to share the polar platform with someone without any respectable credentials, other than being just a very average conservative American, who for some strange reason wants to be a Senator.
If you listen to the Republican pundits, the spin from Karl Rove, Dick Morris, Ann Coulter and others, is that the divide with the Democrats is small government contrasted with big government. The Democrats counter it is really big government saving us from destruction at the hands of the Capitalist Fat Cats.
There is some discussion of the people being upset with the totality of the Federal Government, that includes both incumbent Republicans and Democrats, as we mentioned last week, the MICE (Make It Complex Einstein) and MICE Lite, just don’t seem to get the frustration of the American people generally, and the TEA Party specifically. “Throw out all the bums,” doesn’t seem to register in the elite of both sides of the political class.
Let’s see if we can Keep It Simple Stupid so that we can add some context to what is happening, so that the American people can begin to see that they really are part of something grand that probably hasn’t happened in America and perhaps the world since the eighteenth century, maybe since the sixteenth. Read More...
Progressive Christianity
PDF PrintSince this is our third Cult Football Category undertaking, it would be nice to remember why this category was selected, simply because football at all levels is in a way the most popular religion in the nation. That is American and Canadian smash mouth football, not that boring football that dominates the rest of the world. The cult football premise used here signified something you definitely wouldn’t learn at a football game. The original title before football being, “Things they won’t teach you in church!” That statement made every church part of the inclusive, which is not the case, but still is a general rule.
This week’s game however, does make this article a Kantian general law, probably without exception. Hopefully it will be short on words long on homework, which pretty much seals the case. This week we begin with some insights about the Second Great Awakening, the leaders all born within 150 miles of Boston, but who’s religious influences began slightly farther to the west in upstate New York in an area described to this day as religiously “burned over.”
This week we will confine our look at Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS – Mormons) and Charles Finney essentially the patron saint of American evangelical revivalism. Before we get into specifics, the implied worldview of this article states nothing happens in this world without the specific will of God. There is no such thing as luck or karma. You can choose to believe that or not, but just try to understand the concept and attempt to follow it through, not only the words herein, but also as you do your homework.
What this worldview means, is God is in active control and everything happens for a purpose. In that light why were Smith, and Finney along with Mary Baker Eddy – Christian Science, William Miller – Adventists, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau – Transcendentalism, born so close together?
Read More...
Morning & Evening for September 19th - Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Morning
The liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.
Galatians 5:1
This "liberty" makes us free to heaven's charter--the Bible. Here is a choice passage, believer, "When thou passest through the rivers, I will be with thee." You are free to that. Here is another: "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee"; you are free to that. You are a welcome guest at the table of the promises. Scripture is a never-failing treasury filled with boundless stores of grace. It is the bank of heaven; you may draw from it as much as you please, without let or hindrance. Come in faith and you are welcome to all covenant blessings. There is not a promise in the Word which shall be withheld. In the depths of tribulations let this freedom comfort you; amidst waves of distress let it cheer you; when sorrows surround thee let it be thy solace. This is thy Father's love-token; thou art free to it at all times. Thou art also free to the throne of grace. It is the believer's privilege to have access at all times to His heavenly Father. Whatever our desires, our difficulties, our wants, we are at liberty to spread all before Him. It matters not how much we may have sinned, we may ask and expect pardon. It signifies nothing how poor we are, we may plead His promise that He will provide all things needful. We have permission to approach His throne at all times--in midnight's darkest hour, or in noontide's most burning heat. Exercise thy right, O believer, and live up to thy privilege. Thou art free to all that is treasured up in Christ--wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. It matters not what thy need is, for there is fulness of supply in Christ, and it is there for thee. O what a "freedom" is thine! freedom from condemnation, freedom to the promises, freedom to the throne of grace, and at last freedom to enter heaven!
Evening
For this child I prayed.
1 Samuel 1:27
Devout souls delight to look upon those mercies which they have obtained in answer to supplication, for they can see God's especial love in them. When we can name our blessings Samuel, that is, "asked of God," they will be as dear to us as her child was to Hannah. Peninnah had many children, but they came as common blessings unsought in prayer: Hannah's one heaven-given child was dearer far, because he was the fruit of earnest pleadings. How sweet was that water to Samson which he found at "the well of him that prayed!" Quassia cups turn all waters bitter, but the cup of prayer puts a sweetness into the draughts it brings. Did we pray for the conversion of our children? How doubly sweet, when they are saved, to see in them our own petitions fulfilled! Better to rejoice over them as the fruit of our pleadings than as the fruit of our bodies. Have we sought of the Lord some choice spiritual gift? When it comes to us it will be wrapped up in the gold cloth of God's faithfulness and truth, and so be doubly precious. Have we petitioned for success in the Lord's work? How joyful is the prosperity which comes flying upon the wings of prayer! It is always best to get blessings into our house in the legitimate way, by the door of prayer; then they are blessings indeed, and not temptations. Even when prayer speeds not, the blessings grow all the richer for the delay; the child Jesus was all the more lovely in the eyes of Mary when she found Him after having sought Him sorrowing. That which we win by prayer we should dedicate to God, as Hannah dedicated Samuel. The gift came from heaven, let it go to heaven. Prayer brought it, gratitude sang over it, let devotion consecrate it. Here will be a special occasion for saying, "Of Thine own have I given unto Thee." Reader, is prayer your element or your weariness? Which?
Brute' says human problems are caused by a lack of transcendence in their lives.
Missing the Barn
Last Tuesday I delivered some rough-cut lumber to my cousin’s barn in Chewelah. The barn serves as storage for stuff that they don’t have space to store at their house in Spokane. The barn is an ideal place to cure the green lumber, because it is out of the weather, dry, without the temperature extremes that the sun’s heat might cause in a smaller building.
This barn used to be part of a small working dairy farm; very similar to those that once dotted the Colville Valley. My grandfather had worked the place, until he rented it to my uncle, when he retired from farming in the early 1950s. My uncle ran it as a dairy and worked in town until the milk processor required dairies to put in bulk tanks, a few years later. That was a significant investment that would never pay for itself, with the eight to twelve cows that the farm would support, so the dairy ceased to exist, and my uncle soon bought a larger place across the street that would allow for more profitable farming operations, while he still worked in his mechanic job in town.
I don’t know for sure, but I assume that much of the bulk tank emphasis was technology driven, but some it had to stem from making our milk safer. Just because nobody had got deathly sick from drinking pasteurized and homogenized milk products that came to market in old-fashioned cream cans, instead of a bulk milk tanker, probably saved all our lives. In any event I don’t know of any dairies in the Colville Valley any more. So that family farm monetary source is gone forever.
As I continued to think about missing the mark, I realized that the real problem with America is that there are a lot of similar old barns standing in America; the best of them serve as storage, essentially for junk. The unlucky ones stand completely unused, too proud and strong and well built to collapse, but without function, without purpose. In reality the barn still stands, but really the barn part of the barn is missing.
Read More...
Ray Stevens creates a Wonder Spring in Arizona
If they had the guts to take that stand and do something like that, I wonder what would happen if I did this about this thing, that I believe is good and right, but which nobody seems to care?
The answer is that all of this amazing wonder, plants a seeds of creativity, in a unique human personality, and begins to build a Wonder Spring pilgrimage oasis, where others my come and be refreshed. This refreshment gives us the courage to attempt what we once thought impossible.
With God’s help, I can do something to make a difference.
Take a visit to Ray Stevens’ Wonder Spring in Arizona:
For many months I was looking for a quote from Abraham Lincoln, which I think I heard in Disney Land many years ago. I recently found that quote and published it as our Friday Quotation of the Week on our other websites; Deep Woods Moola, Redux Rendezvous, and The Creation Leadership Center.
All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865); 16th U.S. President Read More...
Great Awakenings of Mean Americans
One book I clicked on was the latest from Julia Duin, the author of “Quitting Church” which we review here. This latest book, “Days of Fire and Glory,” recounts and reports on her experiences in the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Houston, Texas. I read the book reviews, thinking that the book is just and appropriate individual view of what really, more than we would like to admit, is the essence of American Christianity. I placed the book on my Wish List.
Naturally, as well as in the human tradition, there are three nation states residing in North America, in many ways very similar, yet still culturally distinct. Our history of European settlers to these shores begins about 500 years ago, but there is strong evidence of other peoples that lived here, from somewhere, unrelated to the indigenous immigrants we call here Indians and Native Americans and in Canada, First Nations, that arrived in the Americas from Asia near the end of the Ice Age.
Canadians, both the English and the French, first came to these shores essentially for economic reasons. That reason was furs, to provide the finest luxury to the British Empire’s successful capitalists. What Christianity that came to Canada, came subservient to the Protestant work ethic.
Mexico on the other hand, was conquered by the Spanish, in a sense, a fine example of national imperialism. They too came for wealth, in this essence gold, but that gold was to serve the rich of the Spanish monarchy, not some individual capitalist mandate to get rich. Religion in Mexico was Roman Catholicism and their missionaries came not only to provide religion to the conquers, but also to convert the heathen to true religion and true civilization.
The, to be United States, on the other hand, was settled by religious misfits. Pilgrims and Puritans, Quakers and Shakers, Baptists, Congregationalists, Reformed and not so reformed; all came to America for religious freedom. As long as they could live in isolation the process worked rather well. However religion became much more complicated when they were forced to tolerate their neighbors. While those neighbors were known to be very religious, they really didn’t get the truth all that well, After all, those neighbors had some really strange beliefs that were close to the edge of the pale of Christian orthodoxy, and some, well, only the grace of God could save them.
Read More...
Morning & Evening for September 12th - Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Morning
God is jealous.
Nahum 1:2
Your Lord is very jealous of your love, O believer. Did He choose you? He cannot bear that you should choose another. Did He buy you with His own blood? He cannot endure that you should think that you are your own, or that you belong to this world. He loved you with such a love that He would not stop in heaven without you; He would sooner die than you should perish, and He cannot endure that anything should stand between your heart's love and Himself. He is very jealous of your trust. He will not permit you to trust in an arm of flesh. He cannot bear that you should hew out broken cisterns, when the overflowing fountain is always free to you. When we lean upon Him, He is glad, but when we transfer our dependence to another, when we rely upon our own wisdom, or the wisdom of a friend--worst of all, when we trust in any works of our own, He is displeased, and will chasten us that He may bring us to Himself. He is also very jealous of our company. There should be no one with whom we converse so much as with Jesus. To abide in Him only, this is true love; but to commune with the world, to find sufficient solace in our carnal comforts, to prefer even the society of our fellow Christians to secret intercourse with Him, this is grievous to our jealous Lord. He would fain have us abide in Him, and enjoy constant fellowship with Himself; and many of the trials which He sends us are for the purpose of weaning our hearts from the creature, and fixing them more closely upon Himself. Let this jealousy which would keep us near to Christ be also a comfort to us, for if He loves us so much as to care thus about our love we may be sure that He will suffer nothing to harm us, and will protect us from all our enemies. Oh that we may have grace this day to keep our hearts in sacred chastity for our Beloved alone, with sacred jealousy shutting our eyes to all the fascinations of the world!
Evening
I will sing of mercy and judgment.
Psalm 101:1
Faith triumphs in trial. When reason is thrust into the inner prison, with her feet made fast in the stocks, faith makes the dungeon walls ring with her merry notes as she I cries, "I will sing of mercy and of judgment. Unto thee, O Lord, will I sing." Faith pulls the black mask from the face of trouble, and discovers the angel beneath. Faith looks up at the cloud, and sees that
'Tis big with mercy and shall break In blessings on her head.
There is a subject for song even in the judgments of God towards us. For, first, the trial is not so heavy as it might have been; next, the trouble is not so severe as we deserved to have borne; and our affliction is not so crushing as the burden which others have to carry. Faith sees that in her worst sorrow there is nothing penal; there is not a drop of God's wrath in it; it is all sent in love. Faith discerns love gleaming like a jewel on the breast of an angry God. Faith says of her grief, "This is a badge of honour, for the child must feel the rod"; and then she sings of the sweet result of her sorrows, because they work her spiritual good. Nay, more, says Faith, "These light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work out for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." So Faith rides forth on the black horse, conquering and to conquer, trampling down carnal reason and fleshly sense, and chanting notes of victory amid the thickest of the fray.
"All I meet I find assists me
In my path to heavenly joy:
Where, though trials now attend me,
Trials never more annoy.
Blest there with a weight of glory,
Still the path I'll ne'er forget,
But, exulting, cry, it led me
To my blessed Saviour's seat."
Brute' says forget about burning the Quran tomorrow. Go to a football game!
Structured for Failure
That really brings us to a couple of deeper questions. If we haven’t maintained this infrastructure, as we should, do we really need it? Are we just spending money we don’t have, on something we should be doing different in the future?
However this proposal seems rather foolish, to think that even if the bill is frontloaded to over $10 billion the first year, this will be much more than chump change in a $14 trillion economy. It looks more and more like our current form of Federalism is structured for failure. Trickle down, whether it comes from the government or through a corporate structure — doesn’t. This is especially true in the government sector when deficits are used to fund Eisenhower’s Reagan-Bush neocon military industrial complex, or the liberal agenda of social justice through wealth redistribution; primarily focused on big unions at the expense of everyone else.
What is the American vision? Seriously, What is the vision to take the United States of America into the twenty-second century?
It seems rather obvious that buying stuff, we don’t need, with money we don’t have, until we can retire to ease and cease to do anything in anyway productive, is nothing more than a structure for failure, the chaos of destruction, the reality of the sin-cosmos.
Where do we begin, or should we just start over?
Read More...
Things they won’t teach you at Cult Football
On the Saturday before, was Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” program in Washington DC. As I watched the analysis and commentary of that program, I came to the conclusion that there were a number of things within that theme to which we could add both depth and breadth.
The first installment of that effort was Wednesday’s “Nature’s negative rights myths” which after it was finished left me with a number of questions about the whole article. The article was written above a level beyond what I try to communicate, but I could find no way to simplify what was said. Editing was equally frustrating. So at the end I was left with questions, was it not good, or was I just too dense to understand and edit what I had written?
As I was working on the beginning of today’s article I realized I was trying to describe in natural law terms, expressed in creation, what theologians describe as the nature of the Trinity of the Godhead, unity in diversity. The Founders of the United States understood this Divine concept of Nature’s God applied to humanity, and did a miraculously good job of incorporating this concept into both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
The Founders found this concept so significant they made it the motto on the Great Seal of the United States, it is found on many coins, as well as served as the de facto motto of the United States until “In God we Trust” replaced it officially in 1956. That unity in diversity concept is the Latin “E Pluribus Unum” (Out of Many One). So now I don’t feel so bad about the myth article, for I really was in over my head and if you decide to read it again, begin with E Pluribus Unum in mind.
Since I had broken the Sunday threshold, I decided that publishing additional articles Sunday afternoon would not be a bad thing, since from the nation’s and the world’s time zones, the Pacific time zone, is late in the day for most people, so Sunday posts really will be read by most people on Monday, which is also the reason why we now post Spurgeon’s “Morning and Evening” on Saturday afternoon.
With Sunday now set for a publishing date, I needed a title for the series that reflected upon the common religion of the United States. My first thought was, “Things they won’t teach you at church.” That is true for much of American Christianity, especially in a lot of evangelicalism, but it really does make an overly broad statement that really can’t be specifically quantified, especially since most people think they go to a decent church, or they wouldn’t be going there in the first place. I needed another concept.
Thursday was the last of the National Football League’s (NFL) preseason games and now they are making their final roster cuts and getting ready for the new season next Sunday, where the professional goliaths meet in the nation’s most elaborate religious temples. Liberal guru Noam Chomsky claims these events are the opiate for the masses. We will stick with just an interesting faux human religion. Friday evening on the local news they talked about the beginning of high school football programs here in the State of Washington. On Saturday was the beginning of most of the college schedules. Musing about the whole concept, even I am enlightened enough to understand, from now and for the next five months, American football, not that boring soccer football of the rest of the world, really is the American national religion for almost everyone.
While you might learn some profound religious teachings here at Wonder Springs, that you might or might not find at your church, you surely won’t learn them at the football game. That is true with a small crowd at a high school field, or with the hundreds of thousands of rabid fans at some college games, as well as in the NFL. With a little bit of work it wasn’t too hard to come up with, “Things they won’t teach you at Cult Football.” Cult here not necessarily referring to a religious cult, but more of “a popular or fashionable section of society.”
So until we run out of material, or until after the Super Bowl, our Sunday blog category will deal with what you won’t learn from the seasonable American religion of Cult Football.
Read More...
Morning & Evening for September 5th - Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Morning
Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar.
Psalm 120:5
As a Christian you have to live in the midst of an ungodly world, and it is of little use for you to cry "Woe is me." Jesus did not pray O that you should be taken out of the world, and what He did not pray for you need not desire. Better far in the Lord's strength to meet the difficulty, and glorify Him in it. The enemy is ever on the watch to detect inconsistency in your conduct; be therefore very holy. Remember that the eyes of all are upon you, and that more is expected from you than from other men. Strive to give no occasion for blame. Let your goodness be the only fault they can discover in you. Like Daniel, compel them to say of you, "We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God." Seek to be useful as well as consistent. Perhaps you think, "If I were in a more favourable position I might serve the Lord's cause, but I cannot do any good where I am"; but the worse the people are among whom you live, the more need have they of your exertions; if they be crooked, the more necessity that you should set them straight; and if they be perverse, the more need have you to turn their proud hearts to the truth. Where should the physician be but where there are many sick? Where is honour to be won by the soldier but in the hottest fire of the battle? And when weary of the strife and sin that meets you on every hand, consider that all the saints have endured the same trial. They were not carried on beds of down to heaven, and you must not expect to travel more easily than they. They had to hazard their lives unto the death in the high places of the field, and you will not be crowned till you also have endured hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Therefore, "stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong."
Evening
Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?
Job 38:16
Some things in nature must remain a mystery to the most intelligent and enterprising investigators. Human knowledge has bounds beyond which it cannot pass. Universal knowledge is for God alone. If this be so in the things which are seen and temporal, I may rest assured that it is even more so in matters spiritual and eternal. Why, then, have I been torturing my brain with speculations as to destiny and will, fixed fate, and human responsibility? These deep and dark truths I am no more able to comprehend than to find out the depth which coucheth beneath, from which old ocean draws her watery stores. Why am I so curious to know the reason of my Lord's providences, the motive of His actions, the design of His visitations? Shall I ever be able to clasp the sun in my fist, and hold the universe in my palm? yet these are as a drop of a bucket compared with the Lord my God. Let me not strive to understand the infinite, but spend my strength in love. What I cannot gain by intellect I can possess by affection, and let that suffice me. I cannot penetrate the heart of the sea, but I can enjoy the healthful breezes which sweep over its bosom, and I can sail over its blue waves with propitious winds. If I could enter the springs of the sea, the feat would serve no useful purpose either to myself or to others, it would not save the sinking bark, or give back the drowned mariner to his weeping wife and children; neither would my solving deep mysteries avail me a single whit, for the least love to God, and the simplest act of obedience to Him, are better than the profoundest knowledge. My Lord, I leave the infinite to Thee, and pray Thee to put far from me such a love for the tree of knowledge as might keep me from the tree of life.
Brute' says Americans want a shot of opportunity, not a serfdom vaccination.
Nature's negative rights myths
Keeping with our last post on “Our Sin-Cosmos Demise” the increasing federal power over the history of the United States can be portrayed as the slow eroding of the essentially ex nihilo informational energetics of the nation’s founding. This erosion follows the first two laws of thermodynamics. If our sin cosmos analysis is correct, over time that created stasis will reach a point that without significant increases in thermodynamic informational energetics, the whole process will collapse in a manner similar to that shown in radiation half-lives.
Whether you believe that enviable collapse by that mechanism or not, there are a couple of natural laws that provide the basis for those federal limitations of Obama’s negative liberties. Both natural laws basically find their power from the negative reality of sin, but each law focuses on different ends of our created human spectrum of inalienable rights. Both are found in the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis.
Since the highly evolved collective elite considers the Bible essentially a book of negative myths of evolutionary history, the reality of their application is beyond the paradigms of their enlightened worldview. Irreconcilable variations exist between the evolutionary millions and billions of years contrasted with a Biblical constructionist need to compress the creation account and mans’ history into thousands of years. However when you look seriously at that debate, creation historical dates are just differing applications of our two underlying natural laws.
The first sin focuses on the individual and is found in Genesis 3; generally referred to as the fall of mankind, and the beginning of the Christian concept of total depravity. Stated in specific terms this is the individual desire to be like God, to know the difference between good and evil and to be able to define our own specific works as good.
The second is found in the Tower of Babel experience and the confusion of the human language into languages. Stated in Biblical terms, which we have no problem understanding, our highest community desires is to work together so that there is really nothing that human abilities cannot accomplish. That is especially true if we are able to evolve beyond these negative myths. Read More...