Bio

Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, the author of Truthspeak and his new book, The Gospel of Grace and Truth: A Theology of Grace from the Gospel of John," both available on Amazon.com. A copy of his book, Microbes in the Bloodstream of the Church, is also available as an E-book on Amazon.com. If you would like to a receive a copy of his weekly Bible studies and other articles of biblical teaching and application, you can do so by writing to Dr. Halsey at michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net and requesting, "The Hangar Bible Fellowship Journal."

Comments may be addressed to michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net.

If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.

Come visit the Hangar some Sunday at 10 AM at the above address. You'll be glad you did.

Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:

notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org
clarityministries.org

Also:

Biblical Ministries, Inc.
C/O Dr. Richard Grubbs
P. O. Box 64582
Lubbock, TX 79464-4582

Friday, March 30, 2018

A FRENCH RESURRECTION

Voltaire was an 18th century French philosopher and deist who rebelled against the corrupt Roman Catholicism of his day. But lest we think of him as someone who would agree with Martin Luther who opposed Catholicism based upon New Testament doctrine, Voltaire wanted to break Catholicism's hold on people by attacking New Testament doctrine.

AN EARLY VERSION OF DAN BROWN

He attacked the doctrines of the Trinity and the deity of Christ. In his opposition to the deity of Christ, he conveniently overlooked the fact that from the earliest writings of the faith, Christ was declared to be God in the flesh. Voltaire promoted the false idea that the church, over hundreds of years built Christ up to become God incarnate.

 Voltaire also overlooked the fact that the church councils which met about the deity of Christ did so because His  deity was being attacked, not to "make Him God." Those meetings affirmed the doctrine of His deity; they didn't manufacture it nor vote it into existence. They convened to refute by a formal statement those who said He wasn't.

IMMORAL MOTIVATION?

Perhaps there was a hidden motivation in Voltaire's attack. He didn't like the high ethic of Christianity. Henry A. Stimson, writing in 1904 said:

"[Voltaire's attack] is by common consent the most unspiritual, immoral, and irreligious of them all. The 'infamous thing,' as he termed it, against which his main assault was dealt, was simply continence and chastity. To him chastity was the mystic key of the Christian holiness.  

"Voltaire and his friends held that chastity is no virtue at all, but generally an impediment to free human happiness. This, in the testimony of the historian to-day, is the underlying motive of the line of attack upon Christianity which has never ceased from that time to this, and has lost none of its virulence."

VOLTAIRE, THE MAN OF REASON?

Voltaire furnishes us with a classic example of the unreasonableness of unbelief when he wrote: "If in the market of Paris, before the eyes of a thousand men and before my own eyes, a miracle should be performed, I would much rather disbelieve the two thousand eyes and my own two, than believe it.”

A FRENCH EASTER

Voltaire was a member of the Lodge of the Nine Sisters, named in honor of the mythological muses, a Masonic Lodge in Paris. It was a lodge consisting of the so-called "free thinkers," the greatest writers and artists. When Voltaire died, the Lodge of the Nine Sisters held a memorial service for him a few months after his passing.

They draped the lodge in black, using only candles for its dimly lit illumination. They sang songs and gave speeches. Then a flame of light revealed a painting of Voltaire called an apotheosis which is
the elevation or exaltation of a person to the rank of a god. The artist had depicted Voltaire emerging from his tomb to be presented in heaven by the goddesses of Truth and Benevolence. 

Then a member of the lodge took the Masonic wreath from his head and solemnly laid it at the feet of the painting. That man was Benjamin Franklin. (from Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson)


 SUCH IS THE WAY OF FALLEN MAN

Such is the way of fallen man, who, in his rebellion, continues to believe the lie of the serpent in the Garden: "You shall be like God." Man continues to seek to deify himself and others, a deification which will culminate in the anti-Christ who will demand the worship of the world.

The culminating book in the Bible has a detailed word for those who hold to the apotheosis of any man: "From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.” (Rev. 19)




Friday, March 23, 2018

BIBLIOPHOBIA

Eun, is a third-grader. Her teacher is giving the class a special assignment. She tells the students that their assignment is to go home and look for a book, and if it’s the right book, the student(s) will be honored. Eun goes home and finds a Bible and brings it to class the next day.

 For finding the right book, Eun receives a prize. When she returns home that day, her parents aren’t there.

If Eun's parents were typical of Christian parents who are brave enough to share their faith with their children, or extended families, they would have gathered in the darkened back rooms of their homes and whisper their prayers and hymns. Often their Bibles are scattered pages to disguise what it is.

Eun lives in The Hermit Kingdom, the country which "Forbes Magazine" calls the most hostile nation to Christianity on this fallen planet--North Korea, also called, "The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,"

"orbes" reports: "Christian parents try to hide their faith as far as possible to avoid arrest and being sent to a labor camp. Thus, being Christian has to be a well-protected secret, even within families, and most parents refrain from introducing their children to the Christian faith in order to make sure that nothing slips their tongue when they are asked.”

WHAT'S SO TERRIFYING ABOUT THE BIBLE?

"Forbes" hits the nail square in citing the reason for The Hermit Kingdom's bibliophobia: it's because the Bible reveals that one's loyalty to God is to come before loyalty to the North Korean state. No tyrant can tolerate such a belief because, with such a truth, no state can remain totalitarian.

TOTALITARIANS INSIDE THE GATE

Something is going on in higher education, not in The Hermit Kingdom, but here at home. Totalitarians are inside the castle. They were once outside the gates, but now they're in.

One of my college professors had an excellent pedagogical philosophy: he encouraged questions and he encouraged us to voice our opinions with which he might disagree. We could do so as long as we were respectful and weren't trying to waste class time, or take up time with endless speculations, and weren't off the subject or trying to show off. He later told me that he had this philosophy because it made him think when students respectfully challenged him with good questions or excellent statements. (Now, that's a teacher with a capital "T.")

THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW

But it would seem that the academic landscape has shifted and my exemplar of a teacher with a capital "T" in higher education is long-gone. And it shifted without any opposition. It was as if the barbarians entered the gates and found no one to defend the castle. There were no administrators and no parents to guard the youth from what the Huns and the Vandals wanted to do to the groves of academe`.

Recently, in a university in the Keystone State, a teacher of theology was lecturing the students about the now hot topic of gender. It must have been an odd theology class because none of my extensive systematic and biblical theology classes informed us about gender back in the days of yore. (What is "yore" anyway?)

One student who either knew Genesis 1 or biology, or both, raised his hand to observe that there were two genders. (Back in the days of yore, this would have been like raising one's hand in advanced trigonometry and opining, "2+2=4.")

For this statement of what's obvious to 99.9% of any population anywhere in the world, the teacher expelled him from the class with the admonition, "And never come back!"

The expulsion triggered an inquiry and the usual official formalities until the president of the school stepped in and reinstated the student who was out of step with the thinking of the Hermit Kingdom of the Pennsylvania university. But think about this: in the setting of of higher education, it now takes courage to say, "There are two genders." (!)

O tempora! O mores!"--Cicero should see us now!

We are now where Orwell said we would be--"Freedom is the freedom to say, '2+2=4," that is, freedom means you can state reality, the obvious.


Friday, March 16, 2018

DAD? DAD? DAD?

"For many, immaturity is an ideal, not a defect."........Mason Cooley

There are no parents in sight of the 60,000 youth at South Padre Island, Texas. The situation is so bad, they need a 32-bed mobile hospital. In one day, there are more than 60 casualties, at least 15 of those because of drugs. Among them is a girl of 19 who ‘freaked out’ while on Ecstasy. Dozens more, many of whom are underage, have drunk too much and have either passed out or collapsed in the arms of medics. One medic, a veteran says, "I've been in Iraq; this is worse."

The legs of a teenage girl won't work; she's drunk. Two policemen grab each of her arms and begin to drag her away. A kid named Brady bites off the head of a hamster. One person is shot and killed. Fifty arrested. Pictures of the events can't be published published because of obscenity laws.

 In Miami, 4,000 of the sunburned, the drunk, and the drugged take over the city streets. Traffic isn't moving. Police don't have backup and are afraid to intervene. One resident says, I’ve been here 30 years, and I’ve seen everything. From my window, I see stabbings that precipitated murder, public defecation, fights, hit-and-runs. I see sexual assaults. I’ve seen everything you can imagine — stuff that shouldn’t be seen on the public right-of-way,"

WHAT'S GOING ON?

It's spring time and spring means "Spring Break," a time when there's not enough police to maintain order, a time of hedonism, moral relativism, and debauchery on a grand scale among teens and 20-somethings. It's a time for the morally immature. They fly in and drive in by the thousands to the beaches of the southern United States for their yearly worship of Bacchus. They stay in hotels, imbibe in immorality at the clubs until 5 in the morning; they eat at restaurants during four or more days of a revelry that would be the envy of Nero and Caligula.


"During spring break, the average male reported drinking 18 drinks per day and the average woman reported 10 drinks per day. More than half of all men and more than 40 percent of all women drank until they became sick or passed out at least once."
— Journal of American College Health
...
THE HEDONIST AND THE WHALE

The hedonist says, "I will do what I want to do and when I want to do it. My moral code is that there is no moral code." John Adams had a warning about that: "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge . . . . would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other."

Our Constitution wasn't written for those in South Padre and Miami. get ready: the latest generations raised on relativism are getting ready to go through the net on a massive scale.

BUT WAIT. A QUESTION

Who's paying for the $20 million spent at South Padre? Whose dollars are going to Delta, Southwest, and American Airlines to get them there? Who's paying the bill and leaving the tip at the clubs? Who's paying the day after day, the night after night of the room service at the Hilton and the Holiday Inn?  Not these immature profligates. Mommy and Daddy are paying the bill for their daughters to run wild and their sons to chase them.

Daddy is financing the drugs and the alcohol consumption of the immature who have yet to pay a mortgage, procure car and health insurance, endure the shock of a grocery check-out bill, and who've never had to figure out ways to stretch what's left until the end of the month. Besides that, there are credit cards and student loans from which the cash can flow. Daddy can pay for those too.

These are the youth described in Proverbs 29:3: "He who keeps company with harlots wastes his father's wealth." At South Padre they burn through $20 million in a a few days. 

Which brings up a question: Are there no fathers to say, "No"? Fathers, by definition, are those who set the boundaries, those who hold up the "Stop!" signs and mean it. They mean it because they are the protectors who should be the ones protecting their sons and daughters from spring breaks. By saying, "Yes," and opening their wallets, they're putting their own children in danger.

OR MAYBE

Or maybe this is a horrendous result of there not being a father in the picture. Our culture is declaring dads unnecessary baggage anyway, so the protector, the boundary-setter, has left the building and the lives of his sons and daughters. Repeatedly Proverbs speaks of the blessing of a father who sets boundaries (3:12; 6:20;13:1) But where is the father for these, the immature?

Dad? . . ..Dad? . . . Dad?








Friday, March 9, 2018

LITTLE WORDS MEAN A LOT

There was a popular song called, "Little Words Mean a Lot." In the song was this sentiment:

Send me the warmth of a secret smile
To show me you haven't forgot
Now and forever , that always and ever
Little things mean a lot

Consider the nearly fatal fall of an Eastern Airlines jumbo jet over the Atlantic Ocean in May of 1983. The airplane with 172 people aboard plunged 12,000 feet to within 3,900 feet of the ocean. All three of the L-1011’s Rolls-Royce RB-211 engines overheated and stalled at the same time in mid-air. Why? Two careless mechanics had failed to install six tiny rubber seals on the engines’ oil plugs in routine maintenance--the O-rings. Because they were left off, the oil leaked out of the jet engines once they were cranked up. Little things mean a lot.

The Yankees lost the 7th game because on a sure double-play ball hit to shortstop Tony Kubek, the ball, the ball hit a pebble on the ground, took a wicked hop, hit Kubek in the throat, necessitating him to have to leave the game and be hospitalized, and the runners were safe. ALL because of a little pebble.

Speaking of ALL, that's a little word, but, as the song says, "Little things mean a lot." Let's go back in history to the 16th century, to a man named Theodore Beza. He came up with something new, something no one in church history, no one in the history of man and the world ever heard of. He came up with the idea that Christ died only for a relatively few people called "the elect." But this is an unbalanced view of what the Bible says.

First of ALL (there's that word again), there is no verse in the Bible which says, "Christ died for the elect." The Bible does sometimes focus on Christ's death only for those who trust Him as Savior. For example, Christ said that He came to give his life a ransom for many;" He said, "I lay down my life for the sheep." Paul said that Christ purchased the church by His blood; he wrote that "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law;" also he wrote that Christ "loved the church and gave himself for it:" Peter reported that Christ "died for our sins once for all."

It's granted that the Bible sometimes focuses on the death of Christ as being for those who believe in Him. But, that's not all (that word again) the Bible says about Christ's death. On many, many other times, the Bible relates the glorious truth that the atonement was unlimited, that Christ died for all the world. How about John the Baptist's statement introducing the Messiah as, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world"?

We could turn to the most famous text in the Bible, John 3:16 which speaks of God's sending His son because of His love for "the world." Or we could remember the angel's birth announcement of the Savior when he said, "I bring you good news of great joy which will be for ALL the people;" then there's I John 2:2--"and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world." In John 4:4, the Samaritans say that this One the woman who came to the well discovered "really is the Savior of the world."In II Corinthians 5:14-15, we learn that "one died for ALL." Paul told Timothy, speaking of God, "who would have ALL men to be saved."

When we go into the Old Testament, we read that ALL of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned his own way; bu the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us ALL." Not leaving it at that, Paul writes, "So then as through one transgression there resuted condemnation to ALL men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to ALL men. 

We could go on and on, but let's leave ALL of the texts which focus on Christ's death for the sins of the whole world and look at some of the results of denying it.

If a person believes that Christ died only for a pre-chosen few then that means that God has created billions and billions of people only for the purpose of sending them to hell. If a person believes that Christ died only for the relative few, and it's therefore impossible for the billions to be delivered from a fate decided before they were ever born.what does that do the love of God? If a person believes that Christ died only for a limited few, he could never, in all honesty teach his children to sing, "Jesus love the little children, ALL the children of the world."

If a person believes that Christ died only for a limited number, what does that do to the Great Commission? Such a person can't honestly tell another, "Christ died for your sins," because he has no idea if He did or didn't.


Friday, March 2, 2018

BEWARE THE PEOPLE WEEPING

"There is sobbing of the strong,
And a pall upon the land;
But the people in their weeping
Bare the iron hand:
Beware the people weeping
When they bear the iron hand."

Herman Melville wrote those words in a poem he called, "The Martyr" upon the death of Abraham Lincoln Those are wise words about our fallen nature and who we are--when in emotional turmoil, tempers flare, irrational and angry words pour forth. A rage no one wants to control roars front and center. Irrational deeds follow.

1865

In the aftermath of the Lincoln assassination, America boiled over in rage. A mob outside Ford's Theater where the murder had occurred, threatened to burn it down with the actors in it; the actors who had nothing to do with Lincoln's murder. The military had to quell their blood lust.

Outside the theater, those in the North who were sympathetic to the South hid in their homes or fled to police stations for safety. A man, hearing the news of what Booth had done expressed his delight and, had it not been for four armed soldiers nearby, a mob would have lynched him.

Some were tarred and feathered, others were ridden out of town on rails. There were instances of open supporters of the South being beaten to death, and of Union troops shooting people who exulted in Lincoln’s death. Police arrested some for insulting Lincoln, dragging them to courts where prison sentences were meted out. Alternately police were called upon to save the lives of others who had uttered some similarly foolish comments.

Newspapers fueled the public fury, calling for vengeance on the South for the Good Friday assassination. On Easter Sunday, just two days after the assassination, preachers in the North joined with those who had lost their moral bearings and called for retribution against the South even though there was no evidence of their involvement. The same pulpits compared Lincoln to Moses, even to Christ. 
1963
In the aftermath of the assassination of President Kennedy on Friday, November 22, 1963, a mob formed outside the Texas Theater where the assassin was hiding and upon seeing the police bring him out, there were cries of "Kill him!" 

The press began to fuel the fires of rage by blaming, not the killer who pulled the trigger, but the city in which the murder occurred. Texans who were traveling had their cars vandalized.
People in legislative positions rushed to rename things--schools became "John F. Kennedy" schools; Cape Canaveral became "Cape Kennedy," The space center became the "The Kennedy Space Center." They changed the name of streets and avenues. On December 24, 1963,  Idlewild Airport in NYC became "The John F. Kennedy International Airport." (Even the President's widow saw all the renaming as ridiculous.) 

The new President called on an emotional Congress to pass legislation that Kennedy wanted made into law. They did so in an emotional hangover.

Phil Ochs paid tribute to Kennedy in his song, "That was the President," which he wrote shortly after the assassination, and again two years later in a composition called, "Crucifixion," connecting Kennedy and Christ. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
When the Dallas Cowboys played the Cleveland Browns in Cleveland two days after the assassination, the play-by-play announcers were instructed not to refer to the team as the "Dallas Cowboys" during the game, but as "the Cowboys." The Dallas players were worried about getting shot on the sideline. Their coach, Tom Landry, told the players, "Don't go to a restaurant and say you're with the Dallas Cowboys. Don't go in large groups, try to stay inconspicuous."
The owner of the Cleveland Browns was so concerned for the safety of the visiting team that he stationing police sharpshooters throughout 83,000-seat Cleveland Municipal Stadium. As players took the field, men toting weapons also stood guard on the roof of the aging building. Beware the people weeping.
2018
The recent high school shooting in Florida brought forth words of rage and irrational calls for "something" to be done. As fast as they could, the media put cameras on and microphones in front of parents rubbed raw by grief in order to broadcast their "insights." And out came rage and irrationality with the familiar refrain of blaming the National Rifle Association for being an organization of "child murderers." 

Print and media journalists immediately intruded into the shock and grief of distraught and crying students asking, "What was it like," and "What do you think should be done?" We're consulting the immature for advice?

Politicians and journalists rushed to, as the motto goes, "Never waste a crisis," and we heard their calls for legislation, as they turned mass murder into political hay for their cause. Our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution so as to make it a long and cumbersome process to pass legislation, lest it be done with the stroke of pen without calm deliberation.

Within days a plan was in the works for a national student walkout from the classrooms calling for something to be done in Washington, thus marking a giant step toward the politicization of American high schools.

A representative of the NRA fired back at the media, saying, "Many in legacy media love mass shootings. You guys love it. Now I'm not saying that you love the tragedy. But I am saying that you love the ratings. Crying . . .  mothers are ratings gold to you and many in the legacy media in the back (of the room)." Her first two sentences should have never been said. Then there were those in the NRA who started talking about a civil war.

 ENTER PROVERBS

Proverbs tells us to make our words few and measured. It's best to be silent when in an emotional upheaval, giving ourselves time for biblical reflection. Proverbs 10:19: "When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, But he who restrains his lips is wise." "He who restrains his words has knowledge, And he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding." (Prov. 17:27) 

And what does Galatians say is a fruit of the Spirit? The last one mentioned is "self-control."Winston Churchill said, "Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut."

Melville was eloquently right: Beware the people weeping.