Author/Pastor: John Franklin In three previous articles I endeavored to answer the great question gripping our nation and more specifically Christians, “In the devastating plague of moral decline, what is the antidote of hope that will cure the infectious spread of evil?” For those who have read the previous articles, you will remember that I argued the antidote is recapturing a proper fear of God. In a nutshell, my logic is: If fear is the antidote, how does God reestablish fear? Precisely by doing the opposite of what caused man to lose it. Scripture exposes the reason men left to themselves despise God when Isaiah 57:11b asks, “Is it not because I have held My peace from of old that you do not fear Me?” Likewise after listing the sins of sinners God declares in Psalm 50:21, “These things you have done, and I kept silent; You thought that I was altogether like you; But I will rebuke you, and set them in order before your eyes.” Since men lose the fear of God when God withholds judgments against them on earth, then it logically follows that for God to reestablish His fear, He must do it by actively judging sin in the earth (Ps. 58:11, Is. 26:9). And that is precisely what you find throughout all of Scripture whether for nations or His people. Large portions of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Revelation warn nations of God’s impending judgments against them. When His own people continued in sin, the same books warn them of judgment. Since God is the same yesterday, today and forever, He still reestablishes His fear by judging sin. This begs the question - if God reestablishes His fear by judging sin then what would that look like today? What would be the indication that a nation or His people are under judgment for sin? Let’s begin with a nation. Too many evidences exist for the brevity of this article, so please allow me to list the one I deem most serious. Job notes in 12:13-25 that God does as he pleases with the nations. He “makes them great and destroys them.(vs 23)” When God is destroying a nation, Job identifies which judgment of God He exercises, “He takes away the understanding of the chiefs of the people of the earth…(vs 24)” To Job the worst judgment God could inflict is the deprivation of wisdom. This holds true in other passages as well. In Isaiah 3:1-5 God begins to judge the nation of Israel by taking away everything that benefits them. Notice that the list includes, “the judge and the prophet…the honorable man” and “the counselor…” – in other words the people with wisdom. In Romans 1:18-32 Paul lists how the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness in a three-step progression of increasingly severe judgments – all of which relate to the understanding. To sum up the final state in verse 28, Paul notes the continual loss of wisdom eventually leading to a completely debased mind. Is the Scripture clear? Whenever a nation begins to be deprived of wisdom, it ought to recognize it is under the judgment of God. This being the case, America ought to be quaking. Our understanding has already been darkened to the point of accepting homosexuality as a viable lifestyle, and with the rise of cultural violence we are not far off from the completely debased mind described in Romans 1:29-31. Evidently since we have not thought it worthy to retain a knowledge of God, He has righteously judged us unworthy of retaining knowledge and wisdom. This horribly severe judgment against our nation indicates that God has already begun the process of destroying us. Of course that process can be reversed by repentance, but the departure of wisdom evidenced by turning from God, family breakdown, broken relationships, and increasing violence ought to reawaken us to fear God so that we will repent and plead for His mercy before He renders a final judgment. What about the church? Is she under judgments of God as well? Unfortunately many Christians’ theology does not allow for this possibility because they limit the idea of judgment to end times and eternal destiny. However numerous passages in the Bible point to the reality that God’s people have an earthly accountability for sin (Lev. 26, Deut. 28, 1 Cor. 11:27-34, Heb. 2:2-3, 10:30, and Rev. 2-3). Since this is an Old and New Testament reality, this begs the question, “How would the church in America know if she were under judgments from God?” Scripture and history record that when God’s people please Him, He answers their prayers affirmatively and grants them favor by transforming their culture. This happened in the Old Testament, the Roman Empire, Europe and America. When we displease God the converse happens just like it did in the Old Testament, Europe and America. This being the case, we ought to ask some questions. In America where we once had widespread respect, honor and influence, why have we now lost it? Why is sin advancing in our land? Why are we being turned over to immoral leadership in our nation (Job 34:29-30)? Why are our enemies succeeding (Lev. 26:17)? Why are great numbers of our youth being led astray? Why are Christians now the only politically correct group to bash? Why have we been praying for the abortion decision to be overturned now for 27 years yet God has withheld His hand? Could it be that the main problem lies not in our culture, but in our relationship with God? In light of the fact that the majority who profess Christianity basically do the same things in the same proportions as the culture, does it not make logical sense to ask if God is righteously judging us because we no longer fear Him? Since we have not honored Him, could it be that He is no longer giving us honor in our society? Could the cultural antagonism against us be God-allowed because God is calling us to account for sin? Do you see the implications of which conclusion you draw? If nothing is wrong then we should only intensify what we’re already doing. However, if God Himself is judging us, if this withholding of His hand on our behalf is because we have displeased Him, then the solution demands that we stay before God until we identify where we have departed from Him and repent. I contend that the signs indicate we are not right with God; therefore, we ought to ask what are the sins for which God is calling us to account. In the next article I will try to identify the main ones, but for now suffice it to say that our nation is under the severest judgment of God it can incur before final destruction, and that Christians by and large have departed from God and also are incurring judgments as evidenced by the fact that we are losing the battle. Both realities ought to be interpreted as God seeking to reestablish His fear because we have ignored His standard of holiness.
Source: SermonIndex.net
Whenever the fear of God is lost, you can be sure the greatness of God has been lost. And whenever man loses the greatness of God, he unfortunately finds the greatness of man. The more man finds his own greatness, the less he acknowledges God, until finally God becomes despised or lost to his consciousness. Once respect or God-consciousness is lost, man becomes ultimate. When man becomes ultimate, he loses any sense of accountability or ability to be convicted of sin. Conversely, whenever the greatness of God increases, man’s awareness of his accountability to God increases and he departs from evil. Therefore the cure is to regain the fear of God.
- Praying for Richmond, VA and the Greater Richmond Area
- God Bless America?
- Oh Your Wicked Heart!
- The Nature of Mankind
- Examine Yourself
- Repent!
- Judgment, not Warning
09.07.2013
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Fear of God Regained Through Judgment
God Regains His Fear Through Judgment -
The Liberal God Dies Again
The Liberal God Dies AgainAuthor: Daniel Greenfield
Source: the Sultan Knish blog - 12.04.2013The god of liberalism is an idea and ideas are notoriously fragile things. They fall apart once they make the transition from the ivory tower of the mind to the mud and dross of reality. Every writer and artist has had the experience of holding a perfect ideal in his mind only to lose it as he struggles to set it down on canvas or paper. The creative process is that recognition that the ideal cannot be made real.
Liberalism, progressivism and the various names by which the modern left identifies and is identified is the belief that the ideal can and must be made real. That anything short of the ideal is a savage state of repression, tyranny, patriarchy, fascism and the whole litany of crimes against ideal humanity.
The liberal god rises as an idea and dies again. And rises again. No matter how many times the whole thing ends in blood and bankruptcy, the worshipers return to worship the coming of the god again.
"People in every corner of the globe who saw in him a hope for the future and a chance for mankind. We weep for our children and their children and everyone’s children: For he was charting their destinies as he was charting ours," Art Buchwald wrote in the International Herald-Tribune after the assassination of JFK.
In Buchwald's crude Stalinist panegyric, JFK was a deity who charted the destinies of the whole world. "He cared about all of us," he writes. No sparrow could fall but that JFK would see it. JFK would help the "Negro", the "working man", "the artist, the writer and the poet", "teachers and pupils" and even "old people".
But John F. Kennedy the man with flaws and strengths is not present in the North Korean scale orgy of leader worship because it isn't really him that Buchwald is mourning. It isn't Kennedy the man that liberals weep for every year. It is liberalism.
Camelot is liberalism. The death of Kennedy was the death of the idea. Liberalism didn't die, but its best avatar did. The ideal became the real with a magic bullet. The man who was supposed to chart the destiny of the world couldn't save himself from a "single lousy Communist" who killed the hope that he was supposed to represent.
The god of liberalism vests in an avatar like Kennedy or Obama. The avatar is messianic. It is superhuman. Its empathy is unlimited. Its liberal godhood elevates us all by merely being in its presence, hearing it speak or reading one of its speeches. It is the idea made flesh. The secular god.
But the god of the left must die. It is a mad illusion to think that any man can chart the destinies of the world. Buchwald put far too great a burden on JFK. Had a lousy Communist not killed him, then, like Obama, he would have lived to disappoint and infuriate his followers.
The Russians went mad when Stalin died. The North Korean weeping was equally insecure. When you believe that your destiny is charted by a man who is the only hope for your future; what can you do but weep, not for him, but as Buchwald writes, "We weep for the millions of people who are weeping for him."
- Catastrophic Failure of Human GovernmentThe ideas of the left always fail because the avatars and muses always fail. The ideas that seem so bright in theory fail when confronted with the actual task of charting human lives and the unpleasant reality that the Negro, the working man, the old people and the students may not want the same things that the idealists want for them.
For a golden moment, the avatar of liberalism makes it seem as if all things are possible, he weaves an enchanting spell of transcendence that promises that paradoxes can be reconciled and that people will set aside their "selfish" needs and interests. They will stop thinking of themselves and start thinking of what they can do for their country. They will become the change they were waiting for.
The progressive ideal is that all men and women will become avatars of the liberal god in the same way that what we think of as Communism was only meant as a temporary system of rule that would give way to the true Communism in which there would be no more need for rulers and secret police because each man would be a true Communist with no need for external pressure and coercion.
Instead of this golden age, the tyranny of the avatar grows, coercion increases, protests spread and the project decays into a totalitarian state or is overthrown. The golden age never arrives. The ideal is slain by the real. And the true believers go into mourning for what might have been.
The tyranny of the ideal is the most brutal of all tyrannies for men and women are not ideal; they are real. Its plans are bound to fail and yet it has such a passionate grip on the minds of its believers that it is bound to rise again and again.
And so this cycle of the liberal god who dies and rises again, dies and rises, keeps repeating. As long as the tyranny of the ideal remains a rallying cry, as long as men and women choose to believe that a better world can be created through central planning, forcible redistribution and mass reeducation then the cycle will continue. No matter how often the liberal god dies, he will rise again.
The secular god of the progressive ideal has become an entity of life, death and rebirth. Its failures only incite its followers to believe that it will come again. It does not matter how many gulags and mass graves lie in its wake. It is a matter of faith. And in a secular world, there is nothing left to believe in except a better world.
- Making A God of GovernmentObama is dying now. ObamaCare, his great work, has failed. Like Ra and all the others, he will pass into the darkness and the ideas will reemerge again in a new avatar. Perhaps it will be Elizabeth Warren. Or someone else. And it will not be remembered that health care nationalization does not work. Like Communism, it will only be another experiment that was carried out incorrectly.
Men are flesh and blood. They are born and they die. But ideas appear to transcend them. That is what attracts men to ideas. Even the worst of them carry the taste of immortality on their lips.
"Alone--free--the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he IS the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal," O'Brien declares in Orwell's 1984.
And so the messiahs come offering transcendence through submission to the Party. But they die and they fail, and the Party, that ugly confused creature with a million mindless heads, a trillion talking points, and no soul, looks around for a new avatar to embody its secular religion.
A man who will call for the submission of the world so that the world may become the Party and the Party may become the world.
"'We are the priests of power, god is power," Orwell tells Winston. This is the liberal priesthood of community organizers and activists, NGO chiefs and talking heads, senate aides and prattling pundits who wait for a god who will justify their power and their cruelty, who will convince them that their immortality within the body of the Party is within reach.
And then he dies and they appoint another avatar to embody the progressive godhood and wait again for their community organizer god to be born anew.
- The Man Behind the MaskThis liberal avatar will care for the Negro, the working man, the artist, the poet and writer, the teacher and the pupil, he will "save us from war", "command" us and "chart the destinies" of the whole world. He will do what he was unable to do in any of his prior reincarnations-- he will make the ideal into the real, he will make the impossible ideas of the left finally work.
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LYING LIBERAL LIARS
Lying Liberal LiarsAuthor: Daniel Greenfield
Source: the Sultan Knish blog - 11.23.2013Every morning the media paws through a dictionary looking for the most innocuous ways to describe Obama's big health care lie.
According to the New York Times, Obama "misspoke" when he said over and over again that if you like your plan, you can keep your plan. But unlike the times that the smartest man to ever put up his feet on the table in the Oval Office thought that Austrian was a language or that the United States had 57 states, he wasn't misspeaking.
44, as Politico likes to call him, was doing what 1 wouldn't do after he chopped down a cherry tree. And to call a lie, misspeaking, is itself a lie.
Rob Ford didn't misspeak when he claimed not to be on crack, despite being on crack. Barack Obama didn't misspeak when he promised to let you keep your health plan, when he had no intention of letting you do any such thing. And the New York Times didn't misspeak when it tried to pass that lie off as a mere slip of the tongue.
The New York Times, which never hesitated to call George W. Bush a liar, switched up its euphemisms and began calling Obama's lie an "incorrect promise". NBC News called it a "promise they couldn't keep." The Associated Press called it an "inflated promise."
A few of their more honestly dishonest colleagues in the media argued that Obama did the right thing because he could never have pried the health plans of Americans out of their grubby little hands if he hadn't promised them that his government takeover of healthcare would affect everyone else but them. Some of the pundits making that argument included those on Obama's regular reading list.
The excuse that Obama lied blatantly about the impact of a law he wanted to pass in order to pass it will no doubt be a great comfort to those gun owners who were willing to trust that his crusade against gun rights would stop where he told them it would and those Republican supporters of amnesty for illegal aliens who believed that he really would secure the borders once he got his millions of newly minted Democratic Party voters
If Obama lied to pass one law, what sensible argument can any of his supporters make for believing him the next time he promises, “If you like your guns, you can keep your guns” or “If you like your borders, you can keep your borders”?
Obama wasn't the first politician to lie. He won't be the last. But most politicians who lie don't have an army of reporters swarming around them to explain that they didn't lie, but just inflated their misspeaking. One man did not get up in front of the microphones and cameras and lie over and over again. The entire liberal establishment lied. And it's still lying.
- The Reverse Racism of Black DemocratsThe media’s lies and excuses, even more than the original Obama lie, reveal why liberals can never be trusted.
- Barack Obama and the Media AllianceIf Obama had only lied about being on crack or with an intern, that might be an impeachable act, but an understandable human failing. But he wasn't lying to cover up something shameful that he did. He lied because he didn’t think Americans deserved to keep their health plans… or the truth.
Obama lied because he is a liberal.
That Obama would lie was an inevitable as the sun rising in the morning and the taxman coming in the spring. The lie was baked into the nature of the progressive movement that he identified with and its social experiments with human lives for the greater good that he participated in.
Lying isn't incidental to a liberal. Liberal is another word for liar. Someone who believes, as Obama and his media cronies do, that Americans are too stupid and ignorant to be trusted to choose their own health care, isn't about to trust them with the truth.
Telling someone the truth shows that we respect them as people. We give them the information and then trust that they will make the right decision. Trust and respect are the key words here.
Liars don't trust and respect people. Neither do liberals.
- Gay Activist Admits Truth
Liberals don't believe that the people they lie to are their equals. If they did, not only wouldn't they lie to them, but they wouldn't subscribe to a skewed leftist take on liberalism that compels them to take away choices from people for their own good.
You don't take away someone's right to choose unless you think that they are inferior to you. The policies of liberalism can only be justified by assuming that the people whose lives they run into the ground are their ethical and intellectual inferiors.
If you think that the next person over can run his life just as well as you run yours, then there's no reason to take over his life and to lie to him about it. But if you think that he’s probably a racist moron who worships the flag and clings to his gun and bible and can't be trusted to buy a car, raise his kids, drink a large soda and see a doctor; then you're probably a liberal. And a liar.
- The Truth About LiesThat's the difference between liberals and conservatives. Conservatives respect people's choices. Liberals don't. And if you don't respect someone's choices, you don't respect them.
If you think that the average person is a moron, then the only answer is to set up to some ideal republic of liberal philosopher kings who will nudge the marching morons into the death panels for their own greater good while lying to them that the death panelists are really the judges for the next hot talent competition.
If ordinary people don't deserve the basic decency of being allowed to make decisions about their own health care, then they also don't deserve the basic decency of not being lied to their faces about those decisions being taken away from them.
If Obama had trusted and respected Americans, he wouldn't have lied to them about ObamaCare. But if he had really trusted and respected them, then he wouldn't have engaged in a massive government hijacking of their health care options, mandated their participation in health plans at virtual gunpoint and then rewritten the regulations to destroy as many of their grandfathered health plans as possible.
And so if Obama had really trusted and respected Americans, he wouldn't have inflicted ObamaCare on them.
The existence of ObamaCare made it inevitable that Obama would lie about it in the same way that a burglar smashing the window of a jewelery store won't hesitate to lie to the owner about what he's doing. A man who is willing to rob a store or a nation will easily and casually lie about his crime.
Obama's crime isn't the lie. The lie is the cover-up of the crime. The crime is that Obama packaged a tax, a welfare program and a government takeover of health care together and called it reform. That was the bigger lie and there was no misspeaking involved.
The media has shown that Obama's lie was no isolated incident by lying about the lie for the same reason that he told the lie. The health plan lie wasn't the lie of one politician protecting his reputation; it was the big lie of a liberal establishment protecting its agenda.
The liberal media manipulates its readers, listeners and viewers the same way that liberal governments manipulate their citizens. And they both do it because they don't believe that the ordinary person has the right to the truth or the right to his life.
The liberal media manipulates its readers, listeners and viewers the same way that liberal governments manipulate their citizens. Unlike Clinton's lie, Obama's lie was not one man's mistake, but a movement's arrogance. And not only hasn't Obama stopped lying about his lie, but the media and the rest of his movement haven't stopped lying about his lie.
Obama’s big health care lie shows why liberals can't be trusted. Any movement that believes its members are superior to ordinary people cannot be trusted to represent them or to tell them the truth.
- The Psychopathology of the Liberal Mind -
MANUFACTURING INTOLERANCE
Manufacturing IntoleranceAuthor: Daniel Greenfield
Source: the Sultan Knish blog - 11.30.2013By now everyone knows that Dayna Morales, the lesbian waitress who claimed to have been denied a tip over her sexual orientation, was lying. It's not the first politically correct receipt hoax and it won't be the last. These hoaxes happen because leftist activists promote them and the media picks them up. The world is full of liars and con artists, but it's revealing to see which of their lies and cons succeed.
- Examining Homosexual Myths
Morales' hoax is a blip in the larger pattern of faked hate crimes. Bigotry is the witch hunt of the modern Salem and progressive witch hunters are just as careless about facts and evidence. Now as then, the goal is to stamp out an attitude and a cultural threat, rather than to enforce the law, and that leads inevitably to the entire tawdry parade of hysterical denunciations and moral panic.
But what is behind this need to manufacture intolerance?
The left built up its replacement for class warfare around identity politics. Though we take most of these identities, including the racial trinity and homosexuality, for granted, they are really modern artificial constructs that define how people should define themselves, rather than accepting them as they are.
Strangely enough, racial and sexual identities were more nuanced centuries ago than they are today where the "one drop rule" now goes completely unchallenged in matters of race and equally so in matters of sexual orientation. Anyone who can be claimed on any grounds by the victim group, must be identified with them or face accusations of false consciousness.
We are less willing to contemplate biracial and bisexual today than we were a century ago. Instead leftist collectivism demands that everyone be either one thing or another. Everyone is divided into categories of victim and oppressor. Just as no one can be both on both sides of the class struggle; so too the left rejects the idea of being on both sides of the victim line in race or sexual orientation.
- The Church of VictimologyOn Seinfeld, Jerry's dentist joined Judaism for the jokes. Leftists are joining native tribes for the victimhood. Meanwhile they're defining those identities solely in terms of victimhood.
The absurdity of people lining up to be victims has led to the proliferation of fake Indians, like Elizabeth Warren and Ward Churchill in the United States, and white aborigines in Australia. The fake indigenous tribal has little in the way of a genetic or cultural connection to any native people; but chooses to trade in his or her white identity, at least temporarily, to enhance their leftist politics.
They are engaging in a fraud much bigger than a forged receipt; but they are doing it for the same reasons.
An identity defined in terms of victimhood needs fresh injections of oppression to sustain its existence. Those African-Americans who define "blackness" not in terms of positive values but in terms of negative values, need white racism, the real thing or the fake one, to remind them of who they are. And the same holds true for other oppressed minorities who define themselves not by their culture or values; but by their resentments.
Intolerance has become identity. If you define your minority identity on the left's terms, then if you aren't being oppressed, you aren't real. And if you constantly read accounts about other black people or other gay people being discriminated against and those experiences don’t match yours; you begin to wonder if something isn't wrong with you. If maybe you aren't an authentic member of the group.
- Deconstructing Liberal ToleranceThere are two ways out of this intellectual trap; either recognizing that an identity need not be based on a sense of persecution or becoming "creative" about finding new forms of persecution.
It's easy to mock Dayna Morales for forging a receipt snub. If only she had learned about critical race theory, she would have been able to denounce the family in question for their privilege. Instead of faking a receipt, she would have been able to express her internal need for persecution in the political language of the left.
Dayna only forged a single receipt. Obama spent five years in the White House forging phony racism accusations to protect him on every issue from the economy to ObamaCare.
The left's need for victimization means that increasing levels of tolerance actually lead to escalating confrontations with these manufacturers of intolerance. The assertion that all white people are innately racist because of their privilege is one such response to increasing tolerance. By claiming that whiteness itself is racist, the left gets back to political identity, rather than actual discrimination, as the source of conflict and redefines even the most tolerant university multicultural spaces as racist.
The manufacturers of intolerance, whether they're tenured academics like Ward Churchill, professional politicians like Barack Obama or angry waitresses like Dayna Morales, respond to tolerance with provocations. Their goal is to elicit evidence of intolerance to sustain their political identity. The more tolerance they encounter, the more they escalate their provocations.
Their goal is not a tolerant society. It's not a multiracial society or a post-racial society. It is a society perpetually at war over identity politics. That conflict is what gives them power.
Tolerance provokes them by challenging their identity as members in good standing of the officially oppressed. Being accepted insults the entire basis of their identity. Schizophrenics experience the discontinuity between the real world and the distorted world in their heads as threatening. Likewise the left, which insists on racism, reacts with paranoia to any talk that the country has become more tolerant. Their political schizophrenia is unable to accept America as it is. Instead they are bent on seeing the bigoted country that they experience inside their own heads.
- Zero Tolerance for Non-ComplianceParanoid schizophrenics manufacture things to be paranoid about. Identity politics manufactures its own illusory bigotries. The schizophrenic Two Americas of liberals are really the America that exists and the hateful cartoon of it that they draw in their own heads, depict in movies, scrawl into articles and broadcast on television.
Liberals claim to want a better America, but they reject it at every turn. Their cynicism even poisons what should have been their triumphs.
Obama's victory was an opportunity for healing and unity. Even many Republicans cheered his inauguration, but liberals rejected the gift that Americans were giving and instead doubled down. Racism became their response to everything. Now every week brings another editorial accusing skeptics of government health care of being the new Confederacy. The New York Times even ran an op-ed describing a new Mason-Dixon line composed of states that rejected Medicaid expansion.
As disappointing at this behavior was to many, it was an inevitable as that forged receipt. The left derives its purpose from defending the oppressed and doling out social justice. If racism were gone, it would have to find a new reason to justify its existence. It had to go through that once when class warfare imploded under the pressure of American prosperity. It isn't about to go searching for a substitute for the racial tensions it manufactures.
The dominant political identity groups have responded to growing tolerance in the United States by defining intolerance down or provoking intolerant responses through aggressive publicity stunts. If the stunts don't bring out disgust and anger that they can work with, then they will simply invent intolerance wholesale by claiming that bigotry isn't an act or a word, but an innate attitude that lurks buried deep within the majority group. And that the only healing can come when the majority rejects its own identity and joins a minority group.
Beyond the community organizers, the academics and the political hacks who feed off that hatred are the millions of Americans who have not only unknowingly swallowed their dogma, but who have built entire identities around that sense of insecurity and oppression. These people are driven to organically manufacture intolerance because it defines who they are.
The left has dumped millions of Americans into this shadowy world where they have no positive reason for existing, only a negative one of defying some phantom establishment of patriarchy and some nebulous idea of white privilege.
Wearing chips on their shoulders they seek to provoke the confrontations that give them meaning and when their anger is met with tolerance, they manufacture intolerance with forged receipts, with accusations of white privilege, with fake hate crimes and phony accusations of racism.
- The New BarbariansIt's a short distance from Dayna Morales forging a receipt to get some money and attention to Barack Obama faking accusations of racism to win a political fight and score another term.
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You Were Warned About the Past!
Young Obama’s Dreams of a Communist Revolution in America
Author: Jamie Glazov
Source: Frontpage Mag - 08.08.2012Related Link: Concerns for Richmond, VA and the Greater Richmond Area
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Dr. John C. Drew, a political scientist who tried, without success, to alert the media and the John McCain campaign back in 2008 that young Occidental sophomore Obama had been a Marxist socialist looking forward to an inevitable Communist revolution. Since then, Drew’s take on young Obama’s ideological extremism has been featured in books including Michael Savage’s Trickle Up Poverty, Paul Kengor’s Dupes, Stanley Kurtz’s Radical-In-Chief, Jack Cashill’s Deconstructing Obama and most recently in Paul Kengor’s newest book, The Communist – Frank Marshall Davis: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor. Dr. Drew has contributed at least four articles regarding young Obama’s ideological extremism to American Thinker and has posted articles at Breitbart.com and PJMedia. Key elements of Dr. Drew’s story have been verified by liberal authors including David Remnick in The Bridge and most recently David Maraniss in Barack Obama: The Story.
FP: Dr. John C. Drew, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Let’s begin with you sharing how you met the young Barack Obama.
Drew: Thanks Jamie.
I met him through my girlfriend, Caroline Boss. She had taken two political science classes with young Obama at Occidental College – one in the spring of 1980 and one in the fall of 1980. She was the co-president of the Democrat Socialist Alliance at Occidental College and wanted to introduce young Obama to me over Christmas break 1980 as “one of us.” By that time, I was in my second year of graduate school at Cornell University where I was working on my Ph.D. in political science.
FP: What was the young Obama like ideologically?
Drew: The young Obama was a garden variety Marxist-Leninist. He and Boss and his sophomore year roommate, Hasan Chandoo, believed that social forces where creating an inevitable Communist revolution in the U.S. and that it was important to have a highly trained elite of educated leaders guide this revolutionary process and oversee it once the revolution took place. Remember, this was at the height of the Cold War in 1980. Ronald Reagan had just been elected president and the USSR was still our mortal enemy. In a lot of ways, the young Obama was more radical than me because by that Christmas break I had stopped believing in the possibility of a Communist revolution and no longer believed a pure Communist economic and social system – one without private property or profits – was possible anymore.
FP: What did Obama say that made you think he was a Marxist?
Drew: I only remember bits and fragments of the actual conversation. I remember that Obama reacted negatively to my suggestion that it was wrong to ever expect a Communist revolution in the U.S. given the experience of Western Europe. I definitely remember him talking about the need to prepare ourselves and the people for the coming Communist revolution. I remember that he was particularly good at arguing the perspective of Frantz Fanon’s anti-colonial revolutionary thought. I had read Fanon, but his writing was not authoritative to me the way it seemed to be for Boss and Obama.
FP: Tell us why this is significant today.
Drew: I think it is significant, in part, because it helps demonstrate the impact that Frank Marshall Davis had on young Obama. It was very unusual for such a young student at Occidental College to be such an intense believer in Marxist ideology. It turns out Obama last met with Davis only about four months prior to Obama first meeting with me.
The really crucial issue, however, is that Obama does not seem to have a conversion story which explains how he quit being a Marxist. In the experience of me and others, being a Marxist is sort of like being in a religious cult. It ends up controlling what you do with your life, the friends you choose, the mentors you pick and the careers that make sense to you. I have a fairly detailed conversion story. I remember the exact moment when I first realized I was no longer a Marxist. Obama, however, does not seem to have a conversion story in his autobiography.
FP: What do you expect to accomplish by sharing this story?
Drew: I think that if I had gotten my story out earlier in 2008 that it might have been enough to keep Obama from becoming president. The McCain campaign and the mainstream media, however, did nothing to pick up my story. I want to leverage the communication channels available to me now to make sure that the Romney campaign understands the strength of the case regarding young Obama’s ideological extremism. There are a lot of Ph.D.s now – Savage, Kurtz, Cashill, Kengor and me – who are making a very convincing argument that Obama has been lying to the American people about the strength and intensity of his Marxist ideology. If the folks running the Romney campaign have not been reading these books, they really need to.
FP: Have you received any hate mail or violent threats?
Drew: My father was worried about that when I first went public with my story in February 2010. He even offered to hide my wife and me at a special safe house. It doesn’t look like I’m that attractive as a target. Besides, harming me would only call more attention to my story.
FP: If you had a question for Obama, what would it be?
Drew: I’d really like to hear whether or not he has a conversion story. David Horowitz has a conversion story. Whittaker Chambers had a conversion story. I have a conversion story. I’d really like Obama to share the moment when he turned to Bill Ayers or Rev. Wright or Alice Palmer and said, “Hey – you guys are wrong.” I want to know what it was like when Obama shared with these folks that he no longer believed in their revolutionary ideology.
FP: Do you have any tips for the Romney presidential campaign?
Drew: Yes. Rush Limbaugh just mentioned my take on young Obama last month. It was obvious to me that Rush – even with all his resources – wasn’t up to speed on the Obama literature. My take was a complete surprise to him. I suspect that there are a lot of folks in the Romney campaign who haven’t been reading what Kurtz, Kengor, Cashill or me have been writing about the young Obama and his ties to extremist ideology.
I think if they read this literature they will see that it is completely solid and they should feel comfortable confronting Obama’s ideological extremism. The voters suspect Obama has secrets up his sleeve regarding what he wants to do to us if he wins reelection. The Romney campaign can leverage all the intellectual work done by these fine scholars to remind swing voters that Obama does have a history of keeping secrets. In the long-run, I think a lot of Obama voters are going to feel that he fooled them in 2008.
FP: Dr. John C. Drew, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.
To watch a video detailing Barack Obama's Marxist background and future agenda click HERE.
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The New Racism is Worldwide
Environmentalism Is the New RacismAuthor: Daniel Greenfield
Source: Frontpage Mag - 11.27.2013At the heart of all the left’s political agendas is wealth redistribution. That is as true of the Global Warming eco-scam as it is of anything else.
The left knows that idealism is a puny force compared to the power of profit. It may employ the slogans of idealism, recruiting college students to wave signs, dress up as polar bears and cry Armageddon; but it uses the appeal of cold hard cash to invest as many people as it can into its cause.
Wealth redistribution gave the left a firm grip on power in America. No matter how many lies it tells or how many crimes it commits, it knows that when election time comes around those who profit from its wealth redistribution programs will flock to the polls; caring about nothing but their own bottom line.
The Global Warming scheme began the same way with tiers of economic interest.
The first tier came out of the expert elites; scientists who had grant money waved under their noses and environmentalists who went from waving signs outside corporate offices to working as consultants for those corporations. Publicizing the scam were the journalists and politicians who reinvented themselves as environmental crusaders pumping out books warning that the end of the world was near.
Soon an entire expert class was profitably employed predicting doomsday and teaching corporations to Greenwash their products. These were the Green versions of the leftist sociologists who had predicted race wars if economic inequity went on and the radical Black activists like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who had monetized their instant racism into sensitivity consulting firms and national organizations.
The second tier came from the bankers and corporations looking to profit from the crony capitalist sphere known as the Carbon Economy by selling other companies the power to impose costs on their rivals and customers through environmental regulations.
An entire fictional economy sprang up with artificial shortages and imaginary products and services sold. Artificial shortages were used to limit carbon emissions requiring the purchase of credits. Environmental regulations made carbon into a currency using the threat of catastrophe and the promise of profit.
Once again, Green followed Black. J.P. Morgan had received hundreds of millions in state payments from its food stamp card empire. Herbert and Marion Sandler made billions from subprime mortgages and Google is cashing in on housing project tax credit funds managed by a financial services company heavily invested in by Warren Buffett.
The dirty little secret of the welfare state is that most of the money doesn’t go to the minorities on whose behalf it operates; but to the big banks and liberal billionaires who keep the wealth redistribution going, not for the sake of the poor or the planet, but for their own personal profit.
While the public was dazzled with daily accounts of melting poles and polar bears fleeing the far north for London and New York as harbingers of the tidal waves of melting ice that would soon sweep across the coastal cities; their pockets were being picked by the gangs of eco-criminals.
Substandard products were pawned off on customers by calling them Green. In the kitchen, lower quality paper could be used in paper towels while more dish detergent had to be used to wash the same amount of dishes so long as the environmentalists were paid to certify the inferior products as Green.
And if the customers chose not to go along; the combined pressure of Green activists and corporations would eliminate any other option through regulatory mandates. Greenwashing compelled customers to pay more for less while the corporations and environmental consultancies pocketed the profits.
Once there was an expert and financial constituency in place to press for further changes; the third tier of large scale wealth redistribution could be unleashed.
The dreams of the Green criminals were modest. A worldwide carbon economy in which every human activity would be taxed, where everyone would need a permission slip to sneeze out some carbon in the spring and universal employment for environmental consultants with environmental impact reviews required for every single business down to the tykes with their neighborhood lemonade stand.
At stake were trillions of dollars; a dizzying amount that made the biggest financial frauds of the century no more than clumsy pickpockets lifting wallets.
To achieve these ends, the constituency had to be broadened with large scale wealth redistribution. Al Gore, James Hansen and a handful of bored college kids were never going to shake loose the insane sums of money that would make Green into the new Black and Environmentalism into the new Racism.
Enter the Third World.
Climate reparations bring poor countries on board by promising them billions for every island state that gets hit by a typhoon and every African warlord whose territory suffers from drought. If your weather is soggy or your wheat just won’t grow; blame the white man with his terrible industrial machine.
It’s the grandest crime of a new century that will outshine the massive welfare state looting before it. Twentieth century wealth redistribution was imposed by fear of race riots. Twenty-first century wealth redistribution however is being driven by threats of planetary annihilation.
The obscene trick of climate reparations is the seduction of Third World countries hit by natural disasters with promises of getting back on their feet with loads of cash stolen from the First World. Western taxpayers and consumers buy relief from the apocalypse and the Third Worlders become a wealth redistribution constituency demanding more free money in a system of blackmail and lies.
It’s the same scam that destroyed the Black community in America extended across the Third World. The welfare state did more damage to minorities than anything else. Now the Greens would like to repeat the process worldwide; pitting the First World against the Third World and profiting from the massive climate fraud that they have been slowly unrolling.
Radical regimes like South Africa, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Bolivia had already climbed aboard the “Bad Weather Reparations” express; but the global walkout from climate negotiations in Poland shows that the greed for climate theft cash has spread throughout the Third World.
The same crony capitalist dynamic that induces corporations to attack their rivals by supporting environmental regulations is playing out globally. China pushes for climate reparations by the First World while Western countries demand that China slow down the pace of its industrial production.
The hypocrites who congregate at these summits don’t believe the scams that they’re selling, but are exploiting them to handicap each other’s economies while their corrupt expert elites greedily predict absurd visions of doom that their own data no longer supports.
Global Warming has become a micro-economy and a macro-cult; a massive financial scam for a world financial system running low on ways to escape its collapse and a pseudo-religion for a secular world. These believer-profiteers are turning environmentalism into the new racism using the dead from every typhoon and weather tragedy as poster children for their terrible eco-scam.
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SEDGEFIELD COMMUNITY - December 2013
Prayer RequestsSedgefield Community of Ashland, VA
Constitution of the United States, Amendment I:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.[Related Article: Praying for Richmond, VA and the Greater Richmond Area]
The Sedgefield community of Ashland, VA:
Please pray for Mark B., that he would be convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Pray that he would be delivered from spiritual blindness and self-deception. Please pray that God would heal and bless him and his family.
Please pray for Cheryl R., that she would be convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Pray that she would be delivered from spiritual self-deception and an antichrist spirit. Please pray for her daughter, Samantha, for conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment leading to repentance and genuine salvation.
[Related Articles: Is It Really "All Grace"? / The 'Jesus' the World Loves / When Tolerance Is Sin!]Pray with me for my neighbor Wendy McCreary, and her brother Mike-pray that the conviction of the Holy Spirit would descend upon their hearts and penetrate the spiritual darkness...that they would be convicted of sin, righteousness, and the final judgment to come...that they would receive Jesus Christ and be saved; and that Wendy would be delivered from the antichrist spirit which is controlling and manipulating her...
Pray that Wendy would be delivered from her arrogant lifestyle, profanity, and public drunkenness...
Pray that her daughter would be delivered from the rebellion and ungodly worldviews which she has picked up from her mother...
Please pray that Wendy's shouting of profanity and blasphemy would be silenced. Pray that Wendy would be removed from the community to a place more suited to her lifestyle.
[Related Article: The Spirit of This Age]
Please pray for the individuals who are encouraging her lifestyle and behavior:
Please pray for Roger and Kelly: praying that they would be delivered from rebellion, arrogance, and self-deception. Pray that they would be set free from the powers of darkness, and that the Holy Spirit would penetrate their hardened hearts with a godly conviction of sin, righteousness, and the judgment to come. Pray that they would repent of their spiritually lawless lifestyles and surrender their lives to Jesus Christ.
Pray for her friend employed with Glass Doctor. Please pray for his conviction of sin, judgment, and righteousness leading to surrender and salvation in Jesus Christ; praying also for the salvation of his entire family. Pray that they would be delivered from antichrist spirits of pride and rebellion.
Pray for Brandon, that he would be convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Pray that he would repent and receive Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
Please pray for Michelle; pray for her repentance and salvation. Pray that there would be a complete surrender to Jesus Christ, and deliverance from false doctrines.
Pray for Trent and Mary....pray that this couple would repent of their sinful nature and believe in Jesus Christ for their forgiveness and salvation.
Please pray for Erick, Shirl....pray for their salvation; that they would be convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Pray that they would be delivered from the spiritual blindness and deception of Satan.
Pray for Greg B. and Kimberly. Please pray for their salvation and deliverance from the worldviews and lifestyle of this morally corrupt world.
Please pray for Tiffany and Tina...
[Related Article: Repentance...the Missing Message]
RELATED ARTICLES:
The Spirit of Antichrist (ONE WAY)
Ten Lies of Feminism (Thoughts.com)
What Is Freedom? (Thoughts.com)
God's Wonderful Plan of Salvation (Thoughts.com)
An Open Letter to Richmond, VA (Thoughts.com)
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Why Does God Allow Evil?
The Problem of EvilHow Can A Good God Allow Evil?
Author: Rick Rood
Source: leaderu.comThe Problem of Evil - Introduction
John Stott has said that "the fact of suffering undoubtedly constitutes the single greatest challenge to the Christian faith." It is unquestionably true that there is no greater obstacle to faith than that of the reality of evil and suffering in the world. Indeed, even for the believing Christian, there is no greater test of faith than this--that the God who loves him permits him to suffer, at times in excruciating ways. And the disillusionment is intensified in our day when unrealistic expectations of health and prosperity are fed by the teachings of a multitude of Christian teachers. Why does a good God allow his creatures, and even his children to suffer?
First, it's important to distinguish between two kinds of evil: moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil results from the actions of free creatures. Murder, rape and theft are examples. Natural evil results from natural processes such as earthquakes and floods. Of course, sometimes the two are intermingled, such as when flooding results in loss of human life due to poor planning or shoddy construction of buildings.
It's also important to identify two aspects of the problem of evil and suffering. First, there is the philosophical or apologetic aspect. This is the problem of evil approached from the standpoint of the skeptic who challenges the possibility or probability that a God exists who would allow such suffering. In meeting this apologetic challenge we must utilize the tools of reason and evidence in "giving a reason for the hope within us." (I Pet. 3:15)
Second is the religious or emotional aspect of the problem of evil. This is the problem of evil approached from the standpoint of the believer whose faith in God is severely tested by trial. How can we love and worship God when He allows us to suffer in these ways? In meeting the religious/emotional challenge we must appeal to the truth revealed by God in Scripture. We will address both aspects of the problem of evil in this essay.
It's also helpful to distinguish between two types of the philosophical or apologetic aspect of the problem of evil. The first is the logical challenge to belief in God. This challenge says it is irrational and hence impossible to believe in the existence of a good and powerful God on the basis of the existence of evil in the world. The logical challenge is usually posed in the form of a statement such as this:
1.) A good God would destroy evil.
2.) An all powerful God could destroy evil.
3.) Evil is not destroyed.
4.) Therefore, there cannot possibly be such a good and powerful God.It is logically impossible to believe that both evil, and a good and powerful God exist in the same reality, for such a God certainly could and would destroy evil.
On the other hand, the evidential challenge contends that while it may be rationally possible to believe such a God exists, it is highly improbable or unlikely that He does. We have evidence of so much evil that is seemingly pointless and of such horrendous intensity. For what valid reason would a good and powerful God allow the amount and kinds of evil which we see around us?
These issues are of an extremely important nature--not only as we seek to defend our belief in God, but also as we live out our Christian lives.
The Logical Problem of EvilWe have noted that there are two aspects of the problem of evil: the philosophical or apologetic, and the religious or emotional aspect. We also noted that within the philosophical aspect there are two types of challenges to faith in God: the logical and the evidential.
David Hume, the eighteenth century philosopher, stated the logical problem of evil when he inquired about God, "Is He willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is impotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Whence then is evil?" (Craig, 80). When the skeptic challenges belief in God on the basis of the logical problem of evil, he is suggesting that it is irrational or logically impossible to believe in the existence of both a good and all powerful God and in the reality of evil and suffering. Such a God would not possibly allow evil to exist.
The key to the resolution of this apparent conflict is to recognize that when we say God is all powerful, we do not imply that He is capable of doing anything imaginable. True, Scripture states that "with God all things are possible" (Matt.19:26). But Scripture also states that there are some things God cannot do. For instance, God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). Neither can He be tempted to sin, nor can He tempt others to sin (James 1:13). In other words, He cannot do anything that is "out of character" for a righteous God. Neither can He do anything that is out of character for a rational being in a rational world. Certainly even God cannot "undo the past," or create a square triangle, or make what is false true. He cannot do what is irrational or absurd.
And it is on this basis that we conclude that God could not eliminate evil without at the same time rendering it impossible to accomplish other goals which are important to Him. Certainly, for God to create beings in his own image, who are capable of sustaining a personal relationship with Him, they must be beings who are capable of freely loving Him and following his will without coercion. Love or obedience on any other basis would not be love or obedience at all, but mere compliance. But creatures who are free to love God must also be free to hate or ignore Him. Creatures who are free to follow His will must also be free to reject it. And when people act in ways outside the will of God, great evil and suffering is the ultimate result. This line of thinking is known as the "free will defense" concerning the problem of evil.
But what about natural evil--evil resulting from natural processes such as earthquakes, floods and diseases? Here it is important first to recognize that we live in a fallen world, and that we are subject to natural disasters that would not have occurred had man not chosen to rebel against God. Even so, it is difficult to imagine how we could function as free creatures in a world much different than our own--a world in which consistent natural processes allow us to predict with some certainty the consequences of our choices and actions. Take the law of gravity, for instance. This is a natural process without which we could not possibly function as human beings, yet under some circumstances it is also capable of resulting in great harm.
Certainly, God is capable of destroying evil--but not without destroying human freedom, or a world in which free creatures can function. And most agree that this line of reasoning does successfully respond to the challenge of the logical problem of evil.
The Evidential Problem of Evil
While most agree that belief in a good and powerful God is rationally possible, nonetheless many contend that the existence of such a God is improbable due to the nature of the evil which we see in the world about us. They conclude that if such a God existed it is highly unlikely that He would allow the amount and intensity of evil which we see in our world. Evil which frequently seems to be of such a purposeless nature.
This charge is not to be taken lightly, for evidence abounds in our world of evil of such a horrendous nature that it is difficult at times to fathom what possible purpose it could serve. However, difficult as this aspect of the problem of evil is, careful thinking will show that there are reasonable responses to this challenge.
Surely it is difficult for us to understand why God would allow some things to happen. But simply because we find it difficult to imagine what reasons God could have for permitting them, does not mean that no such reasons exist. It is entirely possible that such reasons are not only beyond our present knowledge, but also beyond our present ability to understand. A child does not always understand the reasons that lie behind all that his father allows or does not allow him to do. It would be unrealistic for us to expect to understand all of God's reasons for allowing all that He does. We do not fully understand many things about the world we live in--what lies behind the force of gravity for instance, or the exact function of subatomic particles. Yet we believe in these physical realities.
Beyond this, however, we can suggest possible reasons for God allowing some of the horrendous evils which do exist in our world. Perhaps there are people who would never sense their utter dependence on God apart from experiencing the intense pain that they do in life (Ps. 119:71). Perhaps there are purposes that God intends to accomplish among his angelic or demonic creatures which require his human creatures to experience some of the things that we do (Job 1-2). It may be that the suffering we experience in this life is somehow preparatory to our existence in the life to come (2 Cor. 4:16-18). Even apart from the revelation of Scripture, these are all possible reasons behind God's permission of evil. And at any rate, most people agree that there is much more good in the world than evil--at least enough good to make life well worth the living.
In responding to the challenge to belief in God based on the intensity and seeming purposelessness of much evil in the world, we must also take into account all of the positive evidence that points to his existence: the evidence of design in nature, the historical evidence for the reliability of Scripture and of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In light of the totality of the evidence, it certainly cannot be proven that there are no sufficient reasons for God's allowing the amount of evil that we see in the world...or even that it is improbable that such reasons exist.
The Religious Problem of Evil - Part I
But the existence of evil and suffering in our world poses more than a merely philosophical or apologetic problem. It also poses a very personal religious and emotional problem for the person who is enduring great trial. Although our painful experience may not challenge our belief that God exists, what may be at risk is our confidence in a God we can freely worship and love, and in whose love we can feel secure. Much harm can be done when we attempt to aid a suffering brother or sister by merely dealing with the intellectual aspects of this problem, or when we seek to find solace for ourselves in this way. Far more important than answers about the nature of God, is a revelation of the love of God--even in the midst of trial. And as God's children, it is not nearly as important what we say about God as what we do to manifest his love.
First, it is evident from Scripture that when we suffer it is not unnatural to experience emotional pain, nor is it unspiritual to express it. It is noteworthy for instance that there are nearly as many psalms of lament as there are psalms of praise and thanksgiving, and these two sentiments are mingled together in many places (cf. Ps.13, 88). Indeed, the psalmist encourages us to "pour out our hearts to God" (Ps. 62:8). And when we do, we can be assured that God understands our pain. Jesus Himself keenly felt the painful side of life. When John the Baptist was beheaded it is recorded that "He withdrew to a lonely place" obviously to mourn his loss (Matt. 14:13). And when his friend Lazarus died, it is recorded that Jesus openly wept at his tomb (John 11:35). Even though He was committed to following the Father's will to the cross, He confessed to being filled with anguish of soul in contemplating it (Matt. 26:38). It is not without reason that Jesus was called "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isa. 53:3); and we follow in his steps when we truthfully acknowledge our own pain.
We cross the line, however, from sorrow to sin when we allow our grief to quench our faith in God, or follow the counsel that Job was offered by his wife when she told him to "curse God and die" (Job 2:9b).
Secondly, when we suffer we should draw comfort from reflecting on Scriptures which assure us that God knows and cares about our situation, and promises to be with us to comfort and uphold us. The psalmist tells us that "the Lord is near to the brokenhearted" (Ps. 34:18), and that when we go through the "valley of the shadow of death" it is then that his presence is particularly promised to us (Ps. 23:4). Speaking through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord said, "Can a woman forget her nursing child, and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you" (Isa. 49:15). He is more mindful of us than is a nursing mother toward her child! It is of the One whom we know as the "God of all comfort and Father of mercies" that Peter speaks when He bids us to cast our anxieties on Him, "for He cares for us" (1 Pet. 5:7). Our cares are his personal concern!
The Religious Problem of Evil - Part II
We noted that when suffering strikes it is neither unnatural to experience emotional pain, nor unspiritual to express it. But we also noted that when suffering strikes, we must be quick to reflect on the character of God and on the promises He gives to those who are enduring great trial. Now we want to focus on one of the great truths of God's Word--that even in severe trial God is working all things together for the good of those who love Him (Rom. 8:28). This is not at all to imply that evil is somehow good. But it does mean that we are to recognize that even in what is evil God is at work to bring about his good purposes in our lives.
Joseph gave evidence of having learned this truth when after years of unexplained suffering due to the betrayal of his brothers, he was able to say to them, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good" (Gen. 50:20). Though God did not cause his brothers to betray him, nonetheless He was able to use it in furthering his good intentions.
This is the great hope we have in the midst of suffering, that in a way beyond our comprehension, God is able to turn evil against itself. And it is because of this truth that we can find joy even in the midst of sorrow and pain. The apostle Paul described himself as "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing" (2 Cor. 6:10). And we are counseled to rejoice in trial, not because the affliction itself is a cause for joy (it is not), but because in it God can find an occasion for producing what is good.
What are some of those good purposes suffering promotes? For one, suffering can provide an opportunity for God to display his glory-- to make evident his mercy, faithfulness, power and love in the midst of painful circumstances (John 9:1-3). Suffering can also allow us to give proof of the genuineness of our faith, and even serve to purify our faith (1 Pet. 1:7). As in the case of Job, our faithfulness in trial shows that we serve Him not merely for the benefits He offers, but for the love of God Himself (Job 1:9-11). Severe trial also provides an opportunity for believers to demonstrate their love for one another as members of the body of Christ who "bear one another's burdens" (1 Cor 12:26; Gal. 6:2). Indeed, as D.A. Carson has said, "experiences of suffering... engender compassion and empathy..., and make us better able to help others" (Carson, 122). As we are comforted by God in affliction, so we are better able to comfort others (2 Cor. 1:4). Suffering also plays a key role in developing godly virtues, and in deterring us from sin. Paul recognized that his "thorn in the flesh" served to keep him from boasting, and promoted true humility and dependence on God (2 Cor. 12:7). The psalmist recognized that his affliction had increased his determination to follow God's will (Ps. 119:71). Even Jesus "learned obedience from the things He suffered" (Heb. 5:8). As a man He learned by experience the value of submitting to the will of God, even when it was the most difficult thing in the world to do.
Finally, evil and suffering can awaken in us a greater hunger for heaven, and for that time when God's purposes for these experiences will have been finally fulfilled, when pain and sorrow shall be no more (Rev. 21:4).
© 1996 Probe Ministries
Resources for Further Study:Blocker, Henri. Evil and the Cross. Tr. by David G. Preston. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994.
Briggs, Lauren. What You Can Say...When You Don't Know What to Say: Reaching Out to Those Who Hurt. Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1985.
Carson, D.A. How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1990.
Craig, William Lane. No Easy Answers: Finding Hope in Doubt, Failure, and Unanswered Prayer. Chicago: Moody Press, 1990.
Dobson, James. When God Doesn't Make Sense. Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1993.
Dunn, Ronald. When Heaven is Silent: Live by Faith, Not by Sight. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1994.
Feinberg, John S. The Many Faces of Evil: Theological Systems and the Problem of Evil. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994.
Ferguson, Sinclair B. Deserted by God? Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993.
Geisler, Norman L. The Roots of Evil. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1978.
Kreeft, Peter. Making Sense Out of Suffering. Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Books, 1986.
Lockyer, Herbert. Dark Threads the Weaver Needs. Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell, 1979.
McGrath, Alister E. Suffering & God. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995.
Plantinga, Alvin C. God, Freedom, and Evil. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974.
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The Truth About Evolution
The Truth about EvolutionAuthor: Rachel D. Ramer
Source: equip.org
The Truth about Evolution: IntroductionThere is more to discussing evolution than debating the age of the earth or the wing breadth of the archaeopteryx. There is value, for example, in examining how evolutionists make their defense. Looking beyond the argument to the arguer’s techniques can expose fallacious reasoning which keep many from considering the God of Creation. If Christians plan to argue from the Genesis account of creation, they must first support biblical authenticity. Although the Bible can be supported, that may be the long way around. When Scripture is introduced, evolutionists launch into one of their “best” fallacies: false distinction — the banning of “religion” from scientific debate. A shortcut is to point out how evolutionists engage in logical fallacies such as the “straw man,” “bias ad hominem,” “false distinction,” and “non sequitur” fallacies. The first three are used in attempts to invalidate the creationists’ stance; the fourth endeavors to validate macroevolution (the change from one species into another) as legitimate science.
The Truth about Evolution: The Argument You So Eloquently Refuted Was Not Mine!
A strawman fallacy involves the misrepresentation of an opponent’s argument to refute him or her easily. Stephen Jay Gould, in his article, “Evolution as Fact and Theory” in the May 1981 issue of Discover Magazine, attempted to refute creationism by saying, “We have abundant, direct, observational evidence of evolution in action, from both the field and the laboratory.” His point: evolution is an irrefutable fact, and creationists ignore this certainty. Yet, the evidence he cited supported microevolution, involving changes that take place within separate species. Creationists have no contention with the concept of microevolution. In fact, A. E. Wilder-Smith, in his book The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution (T.W.F.T. Publishers), makes a case for both negative and positive mutations (microevolution) working against macroevolution. Negative mutations weaken the creature, a tendency that does not support survival of the fittest; positive mutations make it a stronger creature, helping to preserve its own class. In the latter case, the variations are the means that allow the species to survive distinct from other species. The fact that many evolutionists use microevolution to refute creationism shows the seriousness of this fallacy. Pointing this out can dispel the misconception that Christians do not accept scientific fact.
The Truth about Evolution: Religious Bias Disqualifies.A bias ad hominem fallacy has to do with disqualifying someone’s argument simply because the arguer has a special bias in the issue. For example, someone with a religious experience or belief is disqualified from having a valid opinion about his or her own religion. It is fitting to check the soundness of a biased person’s argument, but it is wrong to reject the argument solely because of the arguer’s bias. In the 1982 trial of McLean vs. Arkansas, which centered around teaching both theories of origins in public schools, questions were raised concerning the religious beliefs of the creation experts. Objections by the defense (creationists) were consistently overruled. Yet, what the proponents believe is beside the point. Of course, there are those who combat evolution who are not religious, but even that is beside the point. Religious belief is not necessarily based on fact, but neither is it necessarily founded in falsehood. A “religious” view might actually be true. If we don’t allow it to be heard, how can we claim to uphold free inquiry?
The Truth about Evolution…Because Creationism Is Religion.The “false distinction” fallacy relegates creationism to a different category, thereby falsely nullifying it. To evolutionists, religion often disregards science (illustrated in the church-motivated condemnation of Galileo). Science is described as what is observable, repeatable, and falsifiable. With that definition, creationism is not science. Yet, neither is macroevolution. The false distinction is between evolution and creationism as “science versus religion” instead of evidence for evolution versus evidence for creationism. If the argument never gets to that level, again free inquiry is stifled.
The Truth about Evolution- To Believe in the Miracle of Evolution.Suppose evolutionists abandoned the above three problem areas and debated creationists on equal terms. Would their position then prove reliable? Not really, because the fallacy known as non sequitur — Latin for “it does not follow” — becomes an immediate issue. Microevolution leading to macroevolution, discussed earlier, is one example. The celebrated “missing links” as concrete evidence is another. The role of fossils as transitional forms is speculative at best in comparison with documented, trackable microevolution. Yet, evolutionists often use these “proofs” interchangeably as though the reliability of the one naturally follows the credibility of the other. Also problematic is concluding from molecular biology that there is a common ancestry for all organisms. It does not follow that because all life shares a common biochemical basis, that relationship was brought about through evolution. In engineering this type of creative diversity from the same basic building blocks is good design, the result of a designer. Finally, it does not follow that because religion was wrong about Galileo, it is in error about creationism. The same evolutionists who insist that their own past mistakes should not be held against their position (e.g., promoting false “missing links” such as the Piltdown man) are often unwilling to allow their intellectual opponents to have human failings as well. Because the above fallacies are common, many people cannot “hear” the scientific evidence for creation, they cannot accept the Genesis account, they cannot listen unbiased to what they consider a biased view. If we can expose these flaws, we may earn the privilege of leading them beyond God as Creator to God as Savior.
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Are You Using Your Bible?
AN APPEAL TO CHURCHES TO USE BIBLESAuthor: Jim Elliff
Source: Christian Communicators WorldwideI’ll never forget my shock the first time I attended a Bible-less church. My kind of church was a Bible-teaching one and Bibles were standard operating equipment. The last word I heard as I got in the car to drive to church was, “Jimmy, do you have your Bible?” A child might forget his belt or socks, but never his Bible. Just as dutifully, the church children found their mothers after the church meeting to load her up with their Bibles while they ran around the church building with their friends. If a family was not using its Bibles at home, at least you could find them behind the back seat in the Buick, curling up under the sunlight, all ready for next Sunday.
I was a young married man when I first attended a mainline Protestant church devoid of Bibles. I wasn’t in a Communist country where Bibles were confiscated and therefore rare, but in a southern state. The mainline church I attended that day was built upon its founder’s love for the Bible. In rain or shine, that 1700's apostle and his cohorts had carried the Bible to villages and cities all across England and the United States in order to proclaim a message with authority. But, that day, I looked all the way down the long row on the left and didn’t see a Bible. On the right, as far as I could see, the people were sans Bibles. I’m sure the church’s founder would have hung his head in shame.
When the message was given by an otherwise articulate pastor that day, he successfully annihilated the Bible story of the Gadarene demoniac. Demons became distractions rather than evil spirit beings—distractions such as parent meetings, club gatherings, and soccer games—since, to him, the story was all about our fractious lives. But, the listeners didn’t care. They had no orientation to the Bible or concern about correct interpretation. They swallowed what was being said without choking because the church had long ago replaced the Bible with warm religious sounding words, emblems and ceremony rather than reality.
The Sunday School class for adults that day was no different. Since no one had Bibles, the short form of the 10 Commandments was put on the board for everyone to see and discuss. The first discussion from the Bible-less participants was quickly knocked out. “No other gods before Me” with a few verbal contortions, became “people who worship other gods are sincere therefore OK before God.” In fact, a spokesman said, “they are more sincere than we are.”The opinions from the group trumped whatever might be in the Bible, which to them was only another symbol of some kind of benevolent Being out there somewhere.
I don’t place the blame entirely upon the people in the churches however. The Bible left because the seminaries marginalized it. Professors keeping up with their peers in other schools of higher learning trained young pastoral students to think less of it. The mainline seminaries were mostly about doubt, and the power of professors to create it—heady professorial stuff to destroy a student’s naïve beliefs, to be sure. It was necessary to learn to express themselves with some Bible-like tones—everyone knew that— but full adherence to the Bible itself was unpopular, and even dangerous. Too much Bible will lead to a kind of Bible idolatry, they would say.
Gradually, it became easier for pastors to avoid the kind of discussions that would arise with Bible-believing members from the old school. They didn’t mind if such people left the churches actually, though they wouldn’t say it. Looking directly in the Bible to teach the people was a pattern that died because the pastors died. Now, not carrying Bibles, and that kind of Sunday teaching arrangement that does not invite hearers to look in Bibles, are the well-accepted marks of the liberal church. You almost never find it otherwise. It wouldn’t be said aloud perhaps, but the Bible for many churches is a sort of embarrassment and might cause people to forget just what kind of church they were a part of after all.
But . . . there are some exceptions in the membership of many of these churches. There are some people here or there who long to return to the Bible. They remember what church life once was like. They feel that the church has been hijacked while they were sleeping. Or, better yet, they have a hunger for His word that comes from a higher source, the Spirit himself.
Why Should Churches Return to Using the Bible?Whether the Bible is under your arm or on your tablet or phone, it must be used. Here are some reasons to turn back to the use of the Bible in our church meetings:
1. It is axiomatic that the people of God are led by the Word of God. In fact, I think I could go so far as to say that a church is not Christian without demonstrating that it uses God’s word as the revealer of Christ, guide to heaven, rule of life, and explanation for all that is.
2. Failure to use the Bible says that man’s opinions are the final arbiter of truth. How can one think otherwise when the Bible is not looked to - or when it is only used to place a scent of godliness over man-made ideas?
3. The people are dying with their doubts and need to be rescued. Some churches are proficient at raising doubts about truths held by the Bible. But the end result is devastating. This is not to mean that doubts are not to be addressed. But using the Bible faithfully goes a long way to saying, “Doubts are answered here; troubles are resolved.” I mean to say here that liberal churches can turn from being doubt producers to solution-givers through the Bible.
4. Some will find life in Christ through use of the word. I know that we cannot guarantee that everyone who hears the Bible will live. Yet, it is through the message taught faithfully that God promises forgiveness and a future with him. This theme is replete in the Bible. Only truth will lead us there. So, going to the source of all our understanding about Christ and to God’s best revealer of Himself, is the very thing we must do for the salvation of people.
5. A right use of the Bible publicly, will encourage its use privately. All of us know that people ought to read the Bible, but where will they get the encouragement to do so? Likely only through the example of those leaders who focus much attention on it. When a pastor or teacher opens the Bible and talks from it, with the eyes of the people looking at it as the pastor or teacher explains its meaning, is a strong encouragement to read the Bible at home. Indeed, those who do this best publicly will see the most private use of the word among its audience.
6. A people using the Word as teaching takes place, assures that the truth will rule in the church. No pastor or teacher is infallible. And, we know that even the true words of Scripture can be wrongly interpreted. But the open Bibles of the people will go a long way to assuring that what is taught is true. Their evaluation and discussion about the texts, openly and in private, move the church toward truth consistently and positively.
7. Spirituality is dangerous without the use of the God’s word. Man is incorrigibly religious. All kinds of spirituality emerge from man, most of which are condemned by God. How spiritual were the worshippers of false gods in the Bible and how dangerous was the heart-felt worship of Gnostics who emerged in the early church? Worship that is offered to God must be true, fully informed by His word. Using the word to guide worship and life in the church is the way we assure ourselves that our spirituality is accepted by Him.
Could Churches Return?
There is hope. Without turning back to a visible and rigorous commitment to the Bible, churches will continue to lead the way in moral decline, giving credence to all kinds of errant and ungodly ideas. Why are some churches, for instance, on the vanguard for homosexuality when the Bible clearly places homosexuals outside of His people? Homosexuals are to be loved, also a biblical truth, but repentance is necessary for homosexuals to be accepted into the visible body of Christ. Only people without the word of God as its guide can miss this easily discernible message.
I do mean it when I say that there can be a return to the Bible in any professing church. Even if pastors struggle with its claims, emphasizing that people need to hear it and talk about it and hold it in their hands to study it can be a step in the right direction. But leaders must get over their embarrassment concerning the Bible. As with many important reforms, leaders can make a difference. Suppose a leader humbled himself before God on this important issue. What would happen? Who would follow? Could God possibly be unhappy when a leader becomes this humble, seeking to obey God through His revealed word? And can God not help him to become the man of the Bible God calls leaders to be if only he will seek the truth in the right place and the right way?
But leaders are not the only ones who can make a difference. Any member with an intense interest in the Bible can speak out about that desire, can meet with others who are interested for Bible study, and can become an instrument for change. It is hard to speak against such actions in any professing church since we all know that a church is at least supposed to be interested in God’s word. That is at least among the first things to do.
But I have to say, a bit sadly, that members who cannot thrive as Bible believers in one church, even if it is the church they have always attended, must consider finding a more biblical one. If they cannot find any true concern and room for growth in the Bible where they are, a change must come. If you are a member of a horse-riding club, but the leader never takes the horses out of the stable for you to ride, you have to find another association that accomplishes that purpose. There is no possible logic for you to remain in a church that has abandoned the Bible for its own perceptions of truth.
Copyright © 2013 Jim Elliff
Christian Communicators Worldwide, Inc.
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