Dismantling America, Part II

Many years ago, at a certain academic institution, there was an experimental program that the faculty had to vote on as to whether or not it should be made permanent.

I rose at the faculty meeting to say that I knew practically nothing about whether the program was good or bad, and that the information that had been supplied to us was too vague for us to have any basis for voting, one way or the other. My suggestion was that we get more concrete information before having a vote.

The director of that program rose immediately and responded indignantly and sarcastically to what I had just said -- and the faculty gave him a standing ovation.

After the faculty meeting was over, I told a colleague that I was stunned and baffled by the faculty's fierce response to my simply saying that we needed more information before voting.

"Tom, you don't understand," he said. "Those people need to believe in that man. They have invested so much hope and trust in him that they cannot let you stir up any doubts."

Years later, and hundreds of miles away, I learned that my worst misgivings about that program did not begin to approach the reality, which included organized criminal activity.

The memory of that long-ago episode has come back more than once while observing both the actions of the Obama administration and the fierce reactions of its supporters to any questioning or criticism.

Almost never do these reactions include factual or logical arguments against the administration's critics. Instead, there is indignation, accusations of bad faith and even charges of racism.

Here too, it seems as if so many people have invested so much hope and trust in Barack Obama that it is intolerable that anyone should come along and stir up any doubts that could threaten their house of cards.

Among the most pathetic letters and e-mails I receive are those from people who ask why I don't write more "positively" about Obama or "give him the benefit of the doubt."

No one -- not even the president of the United States -- has an entitlement to a "positive" response to his actions. The entitlement mentality has eroded the once common belief that you earned things, including respect, instead of being given them.

As for the benefit of the doubt, no one -- especially not the president of the United States -- is entitled to that, when his actions can jeopardize the rights of 300 million Americans domestically and the security of the nation in an international jungle, where nuclear weapons may soon be in the hands of people with suicidal fanaticism. Will it take a mushroom cloud over an American city to make that clear? Was 9/11 not enough?

When a president of the United States has begun the process of dismantling America from within, and exposing us to dangerous enemies outside, the time is long past for being concerned about his public image. He has his own press agents for that.

Internationally, Barack Obama has made every mistake that was made by the Western democracies in the 1930s, mistakes that put Hitler in a position to start World War II -- and come dangerously close to winning it.

At the heart of those mistakes was trying to mollify your enemies by throwing your friends to the wolves. The Obama administration has already done that by reneging on this country's commitment to put a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe and by its lackadaisical foot-dragging on doing anything serious to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. That means, for all practical purposes, throwing Israel to the wolves as well.

Countries around the world that have to look out for their own national survival, above all, are not going to ignore how much Obama has downgraded the reliability of America's commitments.

Iraq, for example, knows that Iran is going to be next door forever while Americans may be gone in a few years. South Korea likewise knows that North Korea is permanently next door but who knows when the Obama administration will get a bright idea to pull out? Countries in South America know that Hugo Chavez is allying Venezuela with Iran. Dare they ally themselves with an unreliable U.S.A.? Or should they join our enemies to work against us?

This issue is too serious for squeamish silence.

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.

Evangelism Under the City

Dismantling America

by Thomas Sowell

Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official -- not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate, but simply one of the many "czars" appointed by the President -- could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?

Did you think that another "czar" would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers -- that is, to create a situation where some newspapers' survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?

Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called "experts" deciding who could and could not get life-saving medical treatments?

Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life and death decisions about your loved ones?

Does any of this sound like America?

How about a federal agency giving school children material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.

How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? President Obama has already floated the idea of a national police force, something we have done without for more than two centuries.

We already have local police forces all across the country and military forces for national defense, as well as the FBI for federal crimes and the National Guard for local emergencies. What would be the role of a national police force created by Barack Obama, with all its leaders appointed by him? It would seem more like the brown shirts of dictators than like anything American.

How far the President will go depends of course on how much resistance he meets. But the direction in which he is trying to go tells us more than all his rhetoric or media spin.

Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to "change the United States of America," the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles, and the people of this country.

Jeremiah Wright said it with words: "God d--- America!" Bill Ayers said it with bombs that he planted. Community activist goons have said it with their contempt for the rights of other people.

Among the people appointed as czars by President Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen the public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans, to a captive audience of children.

Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn't know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?

Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government -- people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, as well as resenting America's influence in the world.

Any miscalculation on his part would be in not thinking that others would discover what these stealth appointees were like. Had it not been for the Fox News Channel, these stealth appointees might have remained unexposed for what they are. Fox News is now high on the administration's enemies list.

Nothing so epitomizes President Obama's own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year -- each bill more than a thousand pages long -- too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed. That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question -- and the biggest question for this generation.

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Dr. John MacArthur Calls Obama A "Non-Christian"

Is Obama to Sign Away U.S. Sovereignty?

I care for my country, and I think what this current administration is doing is wrong, so I make no apologies for spreading these warnings. Please listen:

Declaring War on "the Sinner's Prayer" by Paul Washer

Hear this:

THE WAY WE APPROACH TRUTH

"The present chasm between the generations has been brought about almost entirely by a change in the concept of truth. Wherever you look today the new concept holds the field. The consensus about us is almost monolithic, whether you review the arts, literature or just simply read the newspapers and magazines.... On every side you can feel the stranglehold of this new methodology—and by ‘methodology’ we mean the way we approach truth and knowing. ... And just as fog cannot be kept out by walls or doors, so this consensus comes in around us, till the room we live in is no longer distinct, and yet we hardly realize what has happened....

"Young people from Christian homes are brought up in the old framework of truth. Then they are subjected to the modern framework. In time they become confused because they do not understand the alternatives with which they are being presented. Confusion becomes bewilderment, and before long they are overwhelmed. This is unhappily true not only of young people, but of many pastors, Christian educators, evangelists and missionaries as well. So this change in the concept of the way we come to knowledge and truth is the most crucial problem... facing Christianity today.... The shift has been tremendous."

-Francis Schaeffer from "The God Who is There" (1968)

Environmental Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Here is a good article by Chuck Colson from thechristianpost.com on our society's warped view on the issue of environmentalism:


These are discouraging times for environmentalists. The momentum to adopt sweeping measures to combat man-made global warming has slowed, even ground to a halt in some places.

Australia and New Zealand, for example, have rejected and repealed their attempts to reduce CO2 emissions. And the French public is up in arms over the government’s plan to impose a “carbon tax.”

Even after all the scare stories, people are having second thoughts about the cost of-or even the need for-reducing greenhouse gas emissions. What’s needed, according to one prominent environmentalist, is a more reliable source of motivation-that is, religious belief.

At the British Science Association Festival, Lord May, the group’s president, said that population growth, climate change, and other environmental offenses “threaten our existence on this planet.”

This litany is a familiar one whose power, judging by recent events, has diminished. May, the former chief science adviser to the British government, told attendees that better motivation for changing behavior is needed.

So what better motivator than religion? May noted that “religion had historically played a major role in policing social behavior through the notion of a supernatural ‘enforcer.’” Since “religion may have helped protect human society from itself in the past,” it may be able to do it again by invoking this “supernatural punisher.”

Actually, what May wants isn’t so much the threat of punishment as the respect for authority and the obedience produced by religion, Christianity in particular. If people won’t reduce their carbon emissions for the sake of Mother Earth, perhaps they will do so for their Heavenly Father.

Mind you, Lord May is an “avowed atheist.” Still, as the British magazine Spiked summed it up, “desperate times call for desperate measures.”

For people who believe that “we are already exceeding the ecological footprint which Earth could sustain,” having others invoke a non-existent deity is a small price to pay for averting catastrophe.

The transparent cynicism of this appeal is almost amusing-what’s not is the willingness of religious people, including some Christians, to play along.

In providing a religious rationale for the policies of people like Lord May, they are not, as they suppose, caring for creation. As Robert Acuff pointed recently pointed out at our new website, ColsonCenter.org, the kind of environmentalism espoused by May and others is a kind of idolatry. It elevates the creation above the Creator-and everything else.

As I have said before, for this kind of environmentalism, the problem is people. “Nature” can only thrive if human beings are diminished. It’s why a new study by the London School of Economics, revealingly entitled “Fewer Emitters, Lower Emissions, Less Cost,” concludes that contraception is the most cost-effective way to reduce global warming.

Christians ought to have no part in promoting this kind of anti-human environmentalism. If May and company desire the aid of a deity, well, their own idol will just have to do.

The Hijacking of 9/11

By Jan Markell

The infamous date of 9/11 is about to be hijacked. This effort to reshape the American psyche has nothing to do with healing the nation and everything to do with leading the nation along the path of the radical transformation of America. The president signed into law a measure in April that designated September 11 as a National Day of Service.

September 11 is hardly a sacred day. Those days belong to God. But it is one of the most memorable days in American history when 3,000 Americans died a horrible death just for being Americans. So what's wrong with the plans being made for this solemn day?

President Obama was counting on two Marxists who blame America for the 9/11 terrorist attacks to help turn September 11 from a day of solemn remembrance into an unseemly celebration of radical environmentalism and big government. One of them was Van Jones, a radical Marxist who thankfully stepped down this past weekend after Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, and others revealed his perverse connections. The other is Lennox Yearwood, an ordained minister of the Church of God in Christ who is also a Marxist, wishing America no good.

As stated in The American Spectator, "about 60 groups including those associated with Yearwood and Jones, are planning to help the Obama administration greenwash the meaning of 9/11. They want to turn each September 11 into a National Day of Service focused on the importance of bicycle paths, ethanol, carbon emission controls, putting solar panels on your roof, and radical community organizing." Some of those groups are ACORN, the AFL-CIO, Friends of the Earth, Rainbow-PUSH Coalition, the Urban League, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, and the unsavory left-wing pressure group Color of Change.

Though Jones stepped down a few days ago, one has to wonder why he was one of the appointees in the first place. What kind of judgment does a person have to appoint a Van Jones to a committee who after 9/11 stood with the terrorists? Just one day after 9/11, he held a vigil in which he expressed solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans as well as "victims of U.S. imperialism around the world."

World Net Daily reports those who are opposed to health care reform are to be blasted as "right-wing domestic terrorists" on 9/11. As The Heritage Foundation says, "The Obama team has designed September 11 as the day to liken conservatives to al-Qaida terrorists."

The antics of the religious Left are not much better. The appointed guru of this movement is Jim Wallis, himself a Communist. Shane Claiborne, writing for Jim Wallis's magazine Sojourners, suggests remembering 9-11 by donating to Christian Peacemaking Teams (CPT). Clairborne writes,

"We lament the violence suffered by 9/11 victims and their families, and we lament the violence that people in Afghanistan and Iraq have suffered these past eight years. We cry out against the violence, and we want to act now for peace."

Note the religious pacifist's moral equation. The U.S. suffered "violence" on 9-11. And Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered "violence" at the hands of the U.S. ever since then.

Sadly, this comes down to politics. The Left believes that 9/11 is a "Republican day" because it focuses on issues like patriotism, national security, and terrorism. According to the Left, 9/11 was long ago hijacked by Republicans and their enablers and unfairly used to bludgeon helpless Democrats at election time. The current plan is to turn a "day of fear" that helps Republicans into a day of activism called the "National Day of Service" that will help the Left. Nihilistic liberals are planning to drain 9/11 of all its real meaning.

September 11 is a national day of mourning and not a day for service projects led by hard-core Leftists and Marxists. Taking the focus off the events of 9/11 disrespects and dishonors the memory of those who died. But we must never forget that God had His hand on America that day. The terrorists had hoped to kill hundreds of thousands. Their plans were foiled. As horrific as the day and its aftermath were, remember that it could have been 100 times worse.

Rather than politicizing this event, how about spiritualizing it? Use the time to pray for America and thank God that He has kept us safe for eight years. How much longer will He have mercy on this nation?

And remember that 3,000 people got up that morning thinking life would go on a lot longer for them. It came to an abrupt and agonizing end. The same could happen to you. Eternity spent in the right place will be glorious. Eternity spent in the wrong place is unthinkable because forever is a very long time. If you are unsure of your salvation, I encourage you to turn your life over to the Lord Jesus today -- while there is still time. There may not be time tomorrow.

Awaiting His return,

Jan Markell

"Persecution or Great Awakening?" by Paul Washer

Great insight from our brother Paul Washer:

Outside the Camp

by Charles Spurgeon:

"JESUS, BEARING HIS cross, went forth to suffer outside the gate. The Christian’s reason for leaving the camp of the world’s sin and religion is not because he loves to be singular, but because Jesus did so; and the disciple must follow his Master.

Christ was “not of the world.” His life and His testimony were a constant protest against conformity with the world. Never was such overflowing affection for men as you find in Him; but still He was separate from sinners.

In like manner Christ’s people must “go out to Him.” They must take their position “outside the camp,” as witness-bearers for the truth. They must be prepared to tread the straight and narrow path. They must have bold, unflinching, lion-like hearts, loving Christ first, and His truth next, and Christ and His truth beyond all the world. Jesus would have His people “go forth outside the camp” for their own sanctification.

You cannot grow in grace to any high degree while you are conformed to the world. The life of separation may be a path of sorrow, but it is the highway of safety; and though the separated life may cost you many pangs, and make every day a battle, yet it is a happy life after all.

No joy can excel that of the soldier of Christ: Jesus reveals Himself so graciously, and gives such sweet refreshment, that the warrior feels more calm and peace in his daily strife that others in their hours of rest. The highway of holiness is the highway of communion. It is thus we shall hope to win the crown if we are enabled by divine grace faithfully to follow Christ “outside the camp.”

The crown of glory will follow the cross of separation. A moment’s shame will be well recompensed by eternal honor; a little while of witness-bearing will seem nothing when we are “forever with the Lord."

The Reaction & Revulsion of a Holy Nature

This was posted on Challies.com. I found it to be a helpful reminder of God's just displeasure with our sin.


What makes you angry? We all have our triggers, don’t we? We all have certain things, certain situations, certain affronts to our dignity or pride that stir anger within. I know I’ve got mine. And actually, I know quite a lot about anger, as Aileen could attest (and probably will if you think to ask her!). When she and I talk about God’s grace in our lives, and evidence of it, she will often point this out—that God has mellowed me, taken away that anger that often bubbled within and occasionally boiled over. When I moved out of my parents’ home on the day I got married, I left behind a hole in the wall (hidden from their view by a strategically-placed poster) that I had smashed in a fit of anger a few months before. At one of the first homes Aileen and I lived in I cracked a door frame when I tried to smash it shut, once more in a fit of stupid anger. My immature anger just sometimes boiled over and got me into trouble. I always felt like an idiot after acting out, but in the moment my anger got the better of me; I often surrendered to it. I am profoundly grateful that God, in his mercy, has blessed me and blessed my family by taking away much of the immaturity, the irrationality, the lack of self-control that caused me to lash out like an angry toddler. I still known what it is to be angry, but no longer tend toward violent reaction.

As I sat yesterday and pondered anger I eventually turned to a dictionary to seek a definition of it. According to one, anger is a strong feeling of displeasure, a kind of belligerence aroused by a wrong. And from experience I can say it is equally likely that it is anger aroused by a perceived wrong. If someone truly wrongs me, I may well express anger and do so with some justification. If someone slights me or otherwise damages my pride, it may also cause me to act angry but with no justification at all. Anger is inherently reactive, awaiting a trigger and then waiting to react in accordance with my nature.

I think we’ve all met angry people, haven’t we? People who react to tough situations with anger and people who often act out in this anger. Such people may react in surprising, unexpected and terrifying ways. They act as they do out of emotion. And anger is not one of those enjoyable emotions. It may channel a strange, sick kind of pleasure for a moment or two, but like all sin, it very quickly loses its luster. There is something scary about seeing a person act out in anger. And the bigger that person, the more powerful his position, the greater the fear. If my three year-old gets angry and lashes out, I am bothered but not much afraid. But if I were to become angry and act out in anger, she would rightly be terrified because of what I could, I might, do to her in my emotion.

It is little wonder that man fears an angry God. If we believe that God is so much greater than we are, so much stronger, so much more powerful, and if we believe that God is capable of anger and wrath, then we have little choice but to fear him as a child may fear a parent. And, indeed, man’s history with deity, whether with the true God or with any number of idols has often been a position of terror, seeking by deed or sacrifice to appease his wrath. And so often, I think, we confuse human anger with divine wrath, imposing our own sinful, irrational, emotional anger upon God’s just, perfect, holy wrath. So no wonder, then, that we seek to appease him, to assuage our guilty consciences and to hope against hope that we may have turned aside his wrath for another day.

And here it strikes me just how different the wrath of God is from my anger, from what we see in most human anger. Charles Leiter has said it well: “God’s wrath is not a temporary loss of self-control or a selfish fit of emotion. It is His holy, white-hot hatred of sin, the reaction and revulsion of His holy nature against all that is evil.” God’s wrath is revulsion. It is not mere emotion and is not at all irrational. It is so much more than emotion. You may know what it is to be revulsed. Some time ago I heard of a woman who, upon finding out that her husband had been cheating on her, immediately vomited. It was as if her whole body was so affronted, so repulsed by her husband’s sin that it acted all on its own. Revulsion may be our reaction to a lukewarm sip of water when we were expecting ice cold or piping hot. We spew it out, repulsed. And this is sin to God. God’s wrath is a holy reaction, it is a holy and white-hot hatred of all that is evil. This is a good and just and fair reaction to something that is absolutely, fundamentally opposed to God’s very nature. For sin is against all that he is and all that he wants us to be.

God’s reaction to sin is the good and the necessary, the absolute best and perfectly just reaction. He will not act rashly in anger but will act justly in wrath. He will express this wrath against all sin. He must express this wrath against sin, for sin opposes all that he is as the perfectly holy creator of all that is. And how good it is, when we ponder God’s wrath, to know that his wrath has already been satisfied for those who trust in him. For there on the cross, Jesus Christ took that wrath upon himself on behalf all those who were his own. There God required the just penalty due for that sin. And there the Father found perfect, eternal satisfaction for his wrath. And there you and I can turn our eyes and turn our hearts and trust and believe and know that Jesus Christ has paid it all and has paid it for us if only we cast ourselves upon him.

A Puritan Prayer

Great God, 
in public and private, in sanctuary and home, 
may my life be steeped in prayer, 
filled with the spirit of grace and supplication, 
each prayer perfumed with the incense of atoning blood. 
Help me, defend me, until from praying ground 
I pass to the realm of unceasing praise. 
Urged by my need, invited by Thy promises, 
called by Thy Spirit, 
I enter Thy presence, worshipping Thee with godly fear, 
awed by Thy majesty, greatness, glory, 
but encouraged by Thy love.
I am all poverty as well as all guilt, 
having nothing of my own with which to repay Thee, 
but I bring Jesus to Thee in the arms of faith, 
pleading His righteousness to offset my iniquities, 
rejoicing that He will weigh down the scales for me, 
and satisfy thy justice. 
I bless Thee that great sin draws out great grace, 
that, although the lest sin deserves infinite punishment 
because done against an infinite God, 
yet there is mercy for me, for where guilt is most terrible, 
there Thy mercy in Christ is most free and deep. 
Bless me by revealing to me more of His saving merits, 
by causing Thy goodness to pass before me, 
by speaking peace to my contrite heart; 
strengthen me to give Thee no rest 
untiI Christ shall reign supreme within me 
in every thought, word, and deed, 
in a faith that purifies the heart, overcomes the world, 
works by love, fastens me to Thee, and ever clings to the cross.

What Will They Do In Heaven?

“Look at the greater part of those who are called Christians, in every part throughout the land…What are the tastes and pleasures of the majority of the people who live there?…Observe the manner in which they spend their Sundays. Mark how little delight they seem to feel in the Bible and prayer. Take notice of the low and earthly notions of pleasure and happiness which everywhere prevail, among young and old—among rich and poor. Mark well these things—and then think quietly over this question: ‘What would these people do in heaven?’“

~ J.C. Ryle; Regeneration, p. 26.

You Might Be Emergent If...

I didn't write this but it's good. It's from Tim Challies' newsletter quoting Kevin DeYoung from the book he co-authored entitled Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be)


You might be Emergent If...

"...you listen to U2, Moby, and Johnny Cash's Hurt (sometimes in church), use sermon illustrations from The Sopranos, drink lattes in the afternoon and Guinness in the evenings, and always use a Mac; if your reading list consists primarily of Stanley Hauerwas, Henri Nouwen, N. T. Wright, Stan Grenz, Dallas Willard, Brennan Manning, Jim Wallis, Frederick Buechner, David Bosch, John Howard Yoder, Wendell Berry, Nancy Murphy, John Franke, Walter Winks and Lesslie Newbigin (not to mention McLaren, Pagitt, Bell, etc.) and your sparring partners include D. A. Carson, John Calvin, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Wayne Grudem; if your idea of quintessential Christian discipleship is Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, or Desmond Tutu; if you don't like George W. Bush or institutions or big business or capitalism or Left Behind Christianity; if your political concerns are poverty, AIDS, imperialism, war-mongering, CEO salaries, consumerism, global warming, racism, and oppression and not so much abortion and gay marriage; if you are into bohemian, goth, rave, or indie; if you talk about the myth of redemptive violence and the myth of certainty; if you lie awake at night having nightmares about all the ways modernism has ruined your life; if you love the Bible as a beautiful, inspiring collection of works that lead us into the mystery of God but is not inerrant; if you search for truth but aren't sure it can be found; if you've ever been to a church with prayer labyrinths, candles, Play-Doh, chalk-drawings, couches, or beanbags (your youth group doesn't count); if you loathe words like linear, propositional, rational, machine, and hierarchy and use words like ancient-future, jazz, mosaic, matrix, missional, vintage, and dance; if you grew up in a very conservative Christian home that in retrospect seems legalistic, naive, and rigid; if you support women in all levels of ministry, prioritize urban over suburban, and like your theology narrative instead of systematic; if you disbelieve in any sacred-secular divide; if you want to be the church and not just go to church; if you long for a community that is relational, tribal, and primal like a river or a garden; if you believe doctrine gets in the way of an interactive relationship with Jesus; if you believe who goes to hell is no one's business and no one may be there anyway; if you believe salvation has a little to do with atoning for guilt and a lot to do with bringing the whole creation back into shalom with its Maker; if you believe following Jesus is not believing the right things but living the right way; if it really bugs you when people talk about going to heaven instead of heaven coming to us; if you disdain monological, didactic preaching; if you use the word "story" in all your propositions about postmodernism--if all or most of this tortuously long sentence describes you, then you might be an emergent Christian."

The Prayer Meeting

"It is good for us to draw nigh unto God in prayer. Our minds are grieved to see so little attention given to united prayer by many churches. How can we expect a blessing if we are too idle to ask for it? How can we look for a Pentecost if we never meet with one another, in one place, to wait upon the Lord? Brethren, we shall never see much change for the better in our churches till the prayer meeting occupies a higher place in the esteem of Christians."

-- Charles Spurgeon from his sermon, "The Kind of Revival We Need"

Give God No Rest...

Challies.com had an old Puritan prayer in his post. The last sentence spoke to me the most. I hope this becomes my life one day:

"strengthen me to give Thee no rest 
untiI Christ shall reign supreme within me 
in every thought, word, and deed, 
in a faith that purifies the heart, overcomes the world, 
works by love, fastens me to Thee, and ever clings to the cross."

A Man's Good Opinion of Himself

"In all unbelief there are these two things--a good opinion of one's self and a bad opinion of God. Man's good opinion of himself makes him think it quite possible to win God's favor by his own religious performances; and his bad opinion of God makes him unwilling and afraid to put his case wholly into His hands. The object of the Holy Spirit's work (in convincing of sin) is to alter the sinner's opinion of himself, and so to reduce his estimate of his own character that he shall think of himself as God does, and so cease to suppose it possible that he can be justified by an excellency of his own. The Spirit then alters his evil opinion of God, so as to make him see that the God with whom he has to do is really the God of all grace.

But the inquirer denies that he has a good opinion of himself and owns himself a sinner. Now a man may SAY this, but really to KNOW it is something more than SAYING. Besides, he may be willing to take the name of sinner to himself, in common with his fellow-men, and yet not at all own himself such a sinner as God says he is--such a sinner as needs the cross, and blood, and righteousness of the Son of God. It takes a great deal to destroy a man's good opinion of himself; how difficult it is to make a man think of himself as God does! What but the almightiness of the Divine Spirit can accomplish this?

Unbelief, then, is the belief of a lie and the rejection of the truth. Accept, then, the character of God as given in the gospel; the Holy Spirit will not give you peace irrespective of your views of God's character. It is in connection with THE TRUTH concerning the true God, "the God of all grace," that the Spirit gives peace. That which He shows us of ourselves is only evil; that which He shows us of God is only good!"

--Horatius Bonar (1808 - 1889)

Little Sins

Beware of "little sins". If not repented of, they always lead to much worse.

"Oh! take heed of those small beginnings of sin. Beginnings of sin are like the letting out of water: first, there is an ooze; then a drip; then a slender stream; then a vein of water; and then, at last, a flood: and a rampart is swept before it, a continent is drowned. Take heed of small beginnings, for they lead to worse."

--Charles Spurgeon, Sermons Preached and Revised by C. H. Spurgeon: Sixth Series, p. 205, published 1860

Dirty-Mouthed Christians

Here is a timely topic from A.W. Tozer. He offers a point of view which needs to be considered in our culture of reckless speech, in many cases within the church, unfortunately.

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers… Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. (Ephesians 4:29; 5:4)

"One of the most shocking things in the church is the dirty-mouthed Christian who always walks on the borderline. There is no place for borderline stories that embarrass some people, and there is nothing about sex or the human body that is funny if your mind is clear.

There was once a gathering of officers, and George Washington was present in the room. One of the young officers began to think about a dirty story that he wanted to tell, and got a smirk on his face. He looked around and said, “I’m thinking of a story. I guess their are no ladies present.”

Washington straightened up and said, “No, young man, but there are gentlemen.” The young officer shut his mouth and kept the dirty story inside his dirty head and heart. Anything you could not tell with Jesus present, do not tell. Anything you could not laugh at were Jesus present, do not laugh at.

What an important reminder, Lord! Keep my thoughts pure. Amen."

(A.W. Tozer, Tozer on Christian Leadership, May 30)