We want you big brother

August 17, 2009

Our Road to Oceaniaby

Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

In George Orwell's allegorical novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the picture of "Big Brother" appears constantly in the adoring media.

Perceived enemies are everywhere — supposedly plotting to undo the benevolent egalitarianism of Big Brother. Citizens assemble each morning to scream hatred for two minutes at pictures of the supposed public traitor Emmanuel Goldstein. The "Ministry of Truth" swears that the former official Goldstein is responsible for everything that goes wrong in Oceania.

In Orwell's Oceania, there is a compliant media that offers "Newspeak" — recycled government bulletins from the Ministry of Truth. "Doublethink" means you can believe at the same time in two opposite beliefs.

America is not Oceania, but some of this is beginning to sound a little too familiar.

We see Barack Obama's smile broadcast 24/7, in a fashion we have not seen previously of earlier presidents. A Newsweek editor referred to Obama as a "god." MSNBC's Chris Matthews claimed physical ecstasy when Obama speaks. A Washington Post reporter swooned over Obama's "chiseled pectorals.

"Former President George Bush — our new Emmanuel Goldstein — remains a daily target of criticism. Diplomats continue to discuss the need to hit a "reset" button that will erase the past. Last week, the president said those in the past administration caused our present problems — and so should keep quiet and get out of his way.

Bush is somehow culpable for the newly projected $2 trillion annual deficits. Bush caused the new unemployment levels to soar to nearly 10 percent. Bush's war on terrorism failed. Bush is responsible for the most recent trouble abroad with Iran, the Middle East, North Korea and Russia.

There are similar Big Brother attacks on recent critics of the Obama administration's healthcare initiatives. Once-praised dissent has become subversive. Protestors are a mob to be ridiculed by the government as mere health-insurance puppets. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is suspicious of the nice clothes the protesters wear. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., used a few isolated incidents to claim that the healthcare dissidents are "carrying swastikas and symbols like that" to compare Obama and Democrats to the Nazis.

At a meeting with Democratic senators, Obama's deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina, urged them to "punch back twice as hard" against these critics, according to two people who were in the room. An official presidential Website now asks informants, in Big Brother style, to send in emails and Internet addresses that seem "fishy" in questioning the White House healthcare plans.

Doublethink is common. Presidential sermons on fiscal responsibility tip us off that deficits will soar. Borrowing an additional trillion dollars to manage healthcare is sold as a cost-saving measure. Racial transcendence translates into more racial identity politics, reflected both in rhetoric and presidential appointments.

The government wants to determine how some executives should be paid. The administration assures millions of citizens it will now intrude into everything from buying homes and cars to how they go to the doctor.

If some Americans chose to purchase a roomy gas-guzzler rather than an uncomfortable but more efficient compact car, a kindly Big Brother will now "correct" that bad decision and buy the "clunker" back. If we bought a house for too much money, the government will assure it was not our fault and redo the mortgage. If our doctor wants to conduct a procedure, a government health board will first determine whether it is cost-effective and in the collective interest.

Despite the absence of another 9/11-like attack, we are still told by the new terrorism czar, John Brennan, that the old war was largely a Bush failure. Administration officials keep inventing euphemisms. Some have dubbed the war on terror "an overseas contingency operation.

"We were once told that military tribunals, renditions, the Patriot Act and Predator drone attacks in Pakistan were George Bush's assault on the Constitution rather than necessary tools to fight radical Islamic terrorists.

Not now. These policies are no longer criticized — even though they still operate more or less as they did under Bush. Guantanamo is still open, but no longer considered a gulag. The once-terrible war in Iraq disappeared off the front pages around late January of this year.

George Orwell, a man of the left, warned us that freedom and truth are not just endangered by easily identifiable goose-stepping goons in jackboots. More often he felt that state collectivism would come from an all-powerful government — run by a charismatic egalitarian, promising to protect us from selfish, greedy reactionaries.

Orwell was onto something.

©2009 Tribune Media Services

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9-11

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So may all your enemies perish, O Lord! But may they who love you be like the sun when it rises in its strength. - Judges 5:31

stand before God guilty

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The Babel Syndrome

excerpts taken from: Nearing Midnight Commentary

http://www.raptureready.com/index.php

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We are witnessing today powerful movements toward disaster, movements generated by a singular humanistic mindset. It is a luciferian mindset that is suctioning every unregenerate soul in its vortex toward total rebellion against the Creator of all things. The phenomenon, long ago prophesied for the end times, I've cocooned within the term “the Babel Syndrome.”

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“The Babel Syndrome” afflicts everyone alive on the planet today. We see it in daily headlines, with the movement toward one world government, one world economy, one world religion, and on a myriad of other fronts. It's perhaps only a matter of a short time until a satanically inspired, Nimrod-like leader imagines to complete the tower—in type, at least—like the attempted construction of that edifice of antiquity. The results will be the same. God will intervene with judgment. This time, however, the changes brought forth on planet earth will be God's change, not the decimating changes wrought by fallen mankind.

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http://www.raptureready.com/rap16.html

Genesis 11:3-6

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%2011:3-6;&version=9;

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Man without God is a beast

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Allan Erickson: I met Saul Alinsky once
Violence, Alinskyites & the Endless Struggle:

It is not about forming a more perfect Union, but it is about all out war.
by Allan Erickson

"A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage — the political paradise of communism.”
- Saul Alinksy
Anybody seen any of that paradise lately, or ever?
Law of the Jungle: dominate or be dominated. The overarching rule is there are no rules.
Meet the genius sociopath godfather of the contemporary radicalized American Left, i.e., the modern-day Democrat Party, Saul Alinksy, patron saint of the Obama machine. Think of it: the most influential men in Obama’s life—Saul Alinsky, Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, and Franklin Davis Marshall—all pervert revolutionaries, all America haters, all communists.
To this day, most Americans do not fully understand what they are up against, and it may be too late for them to open their eyes to see their executioner clearly.
Selected Alinksy quotes paint the picture:
” . . . the primary assault would be on Biblical absolutes and Christian values.”
“Yesterday’s immoral terrorist is today’s moral and dignified statesman.”
“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.”
“One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other.”
“In a fight almost anything goes. It almost reaches the point where you stop to apologize if a chance blow lands above the belt.”
Read all of Alinsky’s poison in his 1971 book “Rules for Radicals,” which he dedicated to Lucifer. (Not kidding.)
He was a prophet of revolution, preaching any means are justified in the war against capitalism, the only moral value is victory.
He encouraged his followers to pose as middle class traditionalists, urging them to infiltrate, grab power, and attack. For Alinsky, those standing in his way were the enemy, and as with all enemies, they had to be destroyed.
So now you understand what has been happening since January 20, 2009.
Alinsky nurtured a special hatred for Christians.
Among Alinsky’s devoted disciples: Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and most of the people drawing salaries in the executive branch including Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod.
I met Saul Alinsky once. He came to our college campus to speak. At the time I was part of the student group sponsoring his appearance. Although I did not spend a lot of time with him, perhaps two hours, it was enough to see he was an angry man, seething, agitated, vindictive, arrogant, tough, mean, vengeful. Chain smoker. Dark circles under his eyes. He spoke about the evils of capitalism with passion and hate. He said revolutionary change was the only option, at any cost, using any means, because that was the only way the powerless could overcome the powerful.
When he was done, he grabbed his check, and left without so much as a thank you.
Saul Alinsky was the kind of man who would use his own activists to shoot and kill his own comrades if he thought he could blame it on his enemies. The means justify the ends. You know, like what the Sandinistas did to skewer the Contras.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Christian activist motivated by love using the tactic of non-violence to achieve social justice.
Saul Alinksy was altogether otherwise, an atheist thug motivated by hate using violence to achieve only strife and division, packaged as the march to social justice, change, hope. Sound familiar?
Which man does Barack Obama most closely resemble?
Is it any wonder then we have SEIU union thugs attacking a man opposed to ObamaCare outside a town hall meeting recently, video here. What is especially grievous, the union thug is Black, and the conservative activist protesting ObamaCare is Black. Please remember, Obama exhalts the SEIU, has worked on their behalf, and loves Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, which sanctions violence and thuggery like this. So much for the post racial unifier. Obama is nothing more that a tool of radicals, a willing participant in promoting anarchy.
This is not about unifying the country. It is about dividing us, and conquering.
Leftists, like Alinsky, are constantly angry, resentful and seething with envy. They can never gain political ground showing their true face, so they recruit golden boys like Obama to be their front men. As a group, they refuse to take personal responsibility, always blaming someone else, and demanding the rich pay their bills. Since the rich are in the minority, the rich are an easy target because they cannot adequately defend themselves.
But that is only part of the story.
The Left hates the middle class too, always has, always will. The ultimate coup is demonizing the rich, then lulling the middle class pretending to be allies, then plundering the middle class via government grants to fund stuff like ACORN, The Apollo Alliance, MoveOn.org, Code Pink, Public Allies, AmeriCorp, The Annenberg Challenge, The Woods Fund, Media Matters, Soros, SDS, NARAL, and the DNC, a virtual army of Alinsky assassins, Obama allies.
And if you are poor, do you think these people really care about you?
Ask the poor in Russia or North Korea or Cuba or Venezuela about their lot. Any improvements in the last 80 years, anywhere? How about all those poor folk Obama organized in Chicago. Do you think they are better off today than they were 20 years ago? What tangible difference for the good has Obama or Alinsky or Soros or Ayers ever contributed?
Zero, zip, nada.
You see the truth is, the Rules for Radicals only apply for the purposes of creating exclusive access for elitists like Obama, Hillary, Ayers, Axelrod, Emanuel and Pelosi. Once they are in power, everybody else can go to hell. Still, they have to put up a good show. And that is what healthcare ‘reform’ is all about. It is also about gaining more iron-fisted control, for the Left is all about control, total control.
Funny how the cherished proletariat always get stuck under Alinsky’s dictatorship. The “paradise of communism” never ever shows up.
Bottom Line: Man without God is a beast. Beasts like Alinsky and Obama now roam the country, occupying the halls of power, invading every aspect of life, dictating to us what we will and will not do, and when. The Beasts are thoroughly self-serving.
Increasingly, people see them for who and what they really are, and, it is quite possible, the end is near.
The American Republic, populated by citizens endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, still offers the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
Are we going to let Alinsky’s flying monkeys destroy it?


http://investigatingobama.blogspot.com/2009/08/allan-erickson-i-met-saul-alinsky-once.html

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Strategy for forcing political change through orchestrated crisis

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Strategy for forcing political change through orchestrated crisis

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First proposed in 1966 and named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

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The key to sparking this rebellion would be to expose the inadequacy of the welfare state. Cloward-Piven's early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. "Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules," Alinsky wrote in his 1972 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judaeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system's failure to "live up" to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist "rule book" with a socialist one.
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Their article called for "cadres of aggressive organizers" to use "demonstrations to create a climate of militancy." Intimidated by threats of black violence, politicians would appeal to the federal government for help. Carefully orchestrated media campaigns, carried out by friendly, leftwing journalists, would float the idea of "a federal program of income redistribution," in the form of a guaranteed living income for all -- working and non-working people alike. Local officials would clutch at this idea like drowning men to a lifeline. They would apply pressure on Washington to implement it. With every major city erupting into chaos, Washington would have to act.

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To read the whole article go here:

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6967

writing in the sand

Some think it's persecution when unbelievers pass laws that contradict our beliefs and restrict our freedoms while promoting the freedom of others. But maybe it's just them turning on us for the way we've pushed our beliefs on them, like the Lord said they would.

http://www.raptureready.com/featured/kelley/jack77.html

proles

Inner Party: Congress

Outer Party: Unions, Government Workers

Proles: me

A looming problem has received far too little coverage from a liberal-dominated media: the power of public pensions to destroy our nation's finances and ransack our wallets.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/public_workers_versus_the_publ.html

"These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more than a whimper to their masters.

http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/009/3-servitude-deceit.htm

oligarchy

government by the few, especially despotic power exercised by a small and privileged group for corrupt or selfish purposes.

"Zeal for your house will consume me."

He both began and ended His public ministry by cleansing the temple at Passover time (Matt.21:12, 13; Mark 11:15-18; Luke 19:45, 46).

John 2:12-17 (New International Version)

Jesus Clears the Temple 12After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.
13When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"
17His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me. [a]
Footnotes: [a] John 2:17 Psalm 69:9

He took time to make a whip out of cords. He had time to look and listen to all that was going on in the temple as He was making the whip.

The second cleansing of the temple was near the end of His ministry and He said, Luke 19:46 ,"It is written," he said to them, " 'My house will be a house of prayer'[a]; but you have made it 'a den of robbers.'[b]"

[a]Luke 19:46 Isaiah 56:7
[b]Luke 19:46 Jer. 7:11

This cleansing of the temple was His first official act entering Jerusalem. By it He unmistakably asserted His lordship over the temple.
This incident has a twofold message for today. In our church life, we need His cleansing power to drive out bazaars, commercialism, and a host of other money-making gimmicks. In our personal lives, there is constant need for the purging ministry of the Lord in our bodies, the temples of the Holy Spirit.

2009

carry your cross, don't rebuke it

by. John MacArthur
Charismatics and the Sovereignty of Satan
I received an interesting letter the other day. It came from some people who came to Grace [Community] Church from a Charismatic church – a very large, prominent Charismatic church.
That’s quite a jump — to leave there and come to Grace Church. The only thing they knew in their church about me was that I didn’t have the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s all they knew — that I didn’t believe [in the continuation of the gifts], so I didn’t have the power of the Holy Spirit.
They didn’t know much else [about our church], but as circumstances indicated they came to Grace, on a visit, and they never left. . . . There are a number of people who were in this group that came, and one of the ladies wrote a really interesting letter to me. It is an amazingly well-written letter. . . [And] in the letter, this is what was laid out. When you think of the [broader] Charismatic movement, you think of speaking in tongues, or healings, or Benny Hinn knocking people down, and things like that. But there are some underlying things in the Charismatic worldview that are really very, very terrifying. And she pointed out this in the letter. She said:
You know we lived all our life in this movement and one thing dominates that movement, and it is that Satan is sovereign. If you get sick, it was the devil. If your child gets sick, it was the devil. The devil made your child sick. And even if your child dies Satan somehow got the victory. If your spouse, your husband or your wife gets cancer, that’s the devil that did that. If you had an accident, the devil did that. If you lost your job, the devil did that. If things didn’t go the way you wanted them to go in your company or your family and you wound up with a loss of job or a divorce — the devil did all of that. The devil has to be bound and so you have got to learn these formulas, because you have got to bind the devil or he is really going to control everything in your life.
The devil dominates everything, and he is assisted by this massive force of demons who also have to be dealt with, and you have got to do everything you can to try to overcome these spiritual powers, and they are invisible and they are fast and they are powerful, and they are really impossible for you to deal with on any permanent basis, so it is an ongoing, incessant struggle with the devil.
And the lady in the letter just basically said, “We lived our whole lives thinking that everything that went wrong in the entire universe was basically because of the devil. The devil is really sovereign in everything and even God, along with us, is really struggling like crazy to overcome the devil.”
She said:
I lived with heart palpitations, panic attacks, anxiety, frightening dreams — waking up in the middle of the night terrified that the devil might be doing something to my child while he’s lying in his bed. Just living in this constant terror of what Satan was doing; that when the wrong guy gets elected — Satan put him there. That when the society goes a certain direction it is all under the control of Satan. Satan is really the sovereign of everything and it is really difficult to get control of him — even God is up there wringing His hands trying to get control of this deal.
I lived with that fear and that terror because I took my church seriously.” And she said, “I came to Grace [Community Church] and one thing just totally shocked me. You said that:
The fact is, God is in control of everything! . . . When you get sick, or when somebody gets cancer, or when something goes wrong in the world, or when you lose your job, that is not outside the tolerances of God, that is not outside the purposes of God, in fact, God works all things together for good.
This was absolutely earth shaking. This was a total change for us, and the difference we found was so powerful that it totally changed the way we think about life.
That is the issue. We do not believe Satan is in charge of history; we believe God is in charge. That changes everything. That takes all the panic out. I can honestly say that I have never had a panic attack. I have never awakened in the night worrying what the devil might be doing, because God has not only conquered Satan, but God has put Satan under our feet it says, and, “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world” [1 John 4:4]. So we know God controls history. And this might surprise you, the devil is God’s servant. If you want to read a great book, read, Erwin Lutzer’s book on Satan, in which he points that out so capably.
Erwin Lutzer's book: the serpent of paradise
the incredible story of how satan's rebellion serves God's purposes

Tota Scriptura

Tota Scriptura by R.C. Sproul
In centuries past, the church was faced with the important task of recognizing which books belong in the Bible. The Bible itself is not a single book but a collection of many individual books. What the church sought to establish was what we call the canon of sacred Scripture. The word canon comes from a Greek word that means “standard or measuring rod.” So the canon of sacred Scripture delineates the standard that the church used in receiving the Word of God. As is often the case, it is the work of heretics that forces the church to define her doctrines with greater and greater precision.

We saw the Nicene Creed as a response to the heresy of Arius in the fourth century, and we saw the Council of Chalcedon as a response to the fifth-century heresies of Eutyches and Nestorius, with respect to the church’s understanding of the person of Christ. In like manner, the first list of canonical books of the New Testament that we have was produced by a heretic named Marcion.

Marcion’s New Testament was an expurgated version of the original biblical documents. Marcion was convinced that the God of the Old Testament was at best a demiurge (a creator god who is the originator of evil) who in many respects is defective in being and character. Thus, any reference to that god in the New Testament in a positive relationship to Jesus had to be edited out. And so we receive from Marcion a bare-bones profile of Jesus and His teaching, divorced from the Old Testament. Over against this heresy, the church had to define the full measure of the apostolic writings, which they did in establishing the New Testament and Old Testament canon.

Another crisis emerged much later in the sixteenth century, in the midst of the Protestant Reformation. Though the central debate, what historians call the material cause of the Reformation, focused on the doctrine of justification, the underlying dispute was the secondary issue of authority. In Luther’s defense of sola fide or faith alone, he was reminded by the Roman Catholic Church that she had already made judgments in her papal encyclicals and in her historical documents in ways that ran counter to Luther’s theses. And in the middle of that controversy, Luther affirmed the Protestant principle of sola Scriptura, namely that the conscience is bound by sacred Scripture alone, that is, the Bible is the only source of divine, special revelation that we have. In response, the Roman Catholic Church at the fourth session of the Council of Trent declared that God’s special revelation is contained both in sacred Scripture and in the tradition of the church. This position, called a dual-source view of revelation, was reaffirmed by subsequent papal encyclicals. And so we see the dispute between Scripture alone versus Scripture plus tradition. In that controversy, the issue had to do with something that was an addition to the Bible, namely, the church’s tradition.

Since that time, the opposite problem has emerged, and that is not so much the question of what is added to Scripture, but rather what has been subtracted from it. We face now an issue not of Scripture addition but of Scripture reduction. The issue that we face in our day is not merely the question of sola Scriptura but also the question of tota Scriptura, which has to do with embracing the whole counsel of God as it is revealed in the entirety of sacred Scripture. There have been many attempts in the last century to seek a canon within the canon. That is to say, restricted portions of Scripture are deemed as God’s revelation, not the whole of Scripture. In this case, we have seen movements that have been described by historians as neo-Marcionite. That is, the activity of canon reduction sought by the heretic Marcion in the early church has now been replicated in our day.

Perhaps most famous for this in the twentieth century was the German theologian Rudolf Bultmann, who made a significant distinction between what he called kerygma and myth. He taught that the Scriptures contained truths of historical value and of theological value that were salvific in their content, but that those truths were hidden and contained within a husk of mythology. For the Bible to be relevant to modern man, it must be demythologized. The husks must be broken in order that the kernel of truth buried under the mythological husk can be brought to the surface.

Beyond the radical reductionism of Bultmann, we have seen more recently attempts among professing evangelicals, and even within the Reformed community, to seek a different type of reduction of Scripture. We have seen views of so-called “limited inspiration” or “limited inerrancy.” That is to say, the Spirit’s inspiration of the Bible is not holistic, but rather is limited to matters of faith and doctrine. In this scenario, proponents suggest we can distinguish between doctrinal matters that are of divine origin and what the Bible teaches in matters of science and history, and, in some cases, ethics. Therefore, there are portions within the Bible that are not equally inspired by God. In this case, we see the reappearance of a canon within a canon. The problem that arises is a serious one. Perhaps most severe is the question, who is it who decides what part of the Bible really belongs to the canon? Once we remove ourselves from a view of tota Scriptura, we are free then to pick and choose what portions of Scripture are normative for Christian faith and life, just like picking cherries from a tree.

To do this we would have to revisit the teaching of Jesus, wherein He said that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We would have to change it, to have our Lord say that we do not live by bread alone but by only some of the words that come to us from God. In this case, the Bible is reduced to the status where the whole is less than the sum of its parts. This is an issue that the church has to face in every generation, and it has reappeared today in some of the most surprising places. We’re finding, in seminaries that call themselves Reformed, professors advocating this type of canon within the canon. The church must say an emphatic “no” to these departures from orthodox Christianity, and she must reaffirm her faith not only in sola Scriptura, but in tota Scriptura as well.

Dr. R.C. Sproul is founder and president of Ligonier Ministries, and he is author of the books What’s in the Bible? and Getting the Gospel Right.

Feeding Sheep or Amusing Goats?

Feeding Sheep
or Amusing Goats?

by Charles Haddon Spurgeon
1834-1892 (but it could as well be today)

An evil is in the professed camp of the Lord, so gross in its impudence, that the most shortsighted can hardly fail to notice it during the past few years. It has developed at an abnormal rate, even for evil. It has worked like leaven until the whole lump ferments. The devil has seldom done a cleverer thing than hinting to the church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them.
From speaking out as the Puritans did, the church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day. Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses.
My first contention is that providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as a function of the church. If it is a Christian work, why did not Christ speak of it? "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). That is clear enough So it would have been if He had added, "and provide amusement for those who do not relish the gospel." No such words, however, are to be found. It did not seem to occur to him.
Then again, "He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some evangelists; and some pastors and teachers .., for the work of the ministry" (Eph. 4:11-12). Where do entertainers come in? The Holy Spirit is silent concerning them. Were the prophets persecuted because they amused the people or because they refused? The concert has no martyr roll.
Again, providing amusement is in direct antagonism to the teaching and life of Christ and all his apostles. What was the attitude of the church to the world? Ye are the salt" (Matt. 5:13), not the sugar candy---something the world will spit out not swallow. Short and sharp was the utterance, "Let the dead bury their dead" (Matt. 8:22) He was in awful earnestness.
Had Christ introduced more of the bright and pleasant elements into his mission, he would have been more popular when they went back, because of the searching nature of His teaching. I do not hear him say, "Run after these people Peter and tell them we will have a different style of service tomorrow, something short and attractive with little preaching. We will have a pleasant evening for the people. Tell them they will be sure to enjoy it. Be quick Peter, we must get the people somehow." Jesus pitied sinners, sighed and wept over them, but never sought to amuse them.
In vain will the Epistles be searched to find any trace of this gospel of amusement! Their message is, "Come out, keep out, keep clean out!" Anything approaching fooling is conspicuous by its absence. They had boundless confidence in the gospel and employed no other weapon.
After Peter and John were locked up for preaching, the church had a prayer meeting but they did not pray, "Lord grant unto thy servants that by a wise and discriminating use of innocent recreation we may show these people how happy we are." If they ceased not from preaching Christ, they had not time for arranging entertainments. Scattered by persecution, they went everywhere preaching the gospel. They turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6). That is the only difference! Lord, clear the church of all the rot and rubbish the devil has imposed on her, and bring us back to apostolic methods.
Lastly, the mission of amusement fails to effect the end desired. It works havoc among young converts. Let the careless and scoffers, who thank God because the church met them halfway, speak and testify. Let the heavy laden who found peace through the concert not keep silent! Let the drunkard to whom the dramatic entertainment has been God's link in the chain of the conversion, stand up! There are none to answer. The mission of amusement produces no converts. The need of the hour for today's ministry is believing scholarship joined with earnest spirituality, the one springing from the other as fruit from the root. The need is biblical doctrine, so understood and felt, that it sets men on fire.

Spirit-Led or Purpose-Driven?

http://www.crossroad.to/index.html

http://www.sliceoflaodicea.com/

http://bloodtippedears.blogspot.com/

It's not surprising. Today's "positive" gospel emphasizes love, minimizes doctrine and ignores divine justice. The essential Biblical truths that prepare hearts for genuine conversion no longer fit. A postmodern "believer" may be full of self-confidence but woefully short on spiritual awareness.

When church leaders use energizing music, emotional stimuli and short, light messages to satisfy the flesh with its "felt needs," they tend to obscure our deeper spiritual needs. Fed a diet of simplified sermons designed to please everyone, both seekers and believers may lose their appetite for the solid Biblical teaching which -- by His Spirit -- produces conviction of sin, genuine repentance, actual regeneration, true spiritual renewal and the continual joy of walking with Jesus.

by Berit Kjos, Crossroad.

"What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?"

The religious trial was ended, and the civil trial is about to begin. The scene is the hall of judgment or the palace of the governor. The Jews did not want to go into the palace of a Gentile. They felt that they would have been defiled and would thus be prevented from eating the Passover. It did not seem to bother them that they were plotting the death of the Son of God. It would have been a tragedy for them to enter a Gentile house, but murder was a mere trifle.

Augustine remarks:

O impious blindness! They would be defiled, forsooth, by a dwelling which was another's, and not be defiled by a crime which was their own. They feared to be defiled by the praetorium of an alien judge, and feared not to be defiled by the blood of an innocent brother.

What then shall we do with Jesus who is called Christ? First, we better get the right Jesus. Jesus is the Son of God - in a class all by Himself. As the Son of God, He is equal to God. Lord Jesus is one of the Members of the holy Trinity, one of the Persons of the Godhead. The Jesus of the New Testament is the Jehovah of the Old. "Make straight the way of the Lord."Remove everything in your life that would hinder you from receiving Him. Repent of your sins, so that He can come and reign in you. Jesus tells us that the gate of Christian discipleship is narrow and the way is difficult. But those who faithfully follow His teachings find the abundant life. Following Jesus requires faith, discipline, and endurance. If you choose the easy way, you will have plenty of company, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: