EXPLETIVES NOT DELETED

The ancient Roman writers have given us a clear picture of the character of the Gauls. They recorded that they  had sharp and quick minds, exercised prompt and vigorous action, and were impressionable. That was one side of them. 

These authors remarked that the Gauls also showed an inconsistency, were treacherous, quarrelsome, and easily discouraged. The ancient writers stressed the more disappointing characteristics, thus stressing Shakespeare's observation, "The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones."  (Mark Antony in "Julius Caesar.")

There is one recorded aspect of their national character that fits well with the picture of the Gauls that emerges in Paul’s letter to the Galatians: their fickleness of temperament. "Wishy-washy" is the term. (That's an odd expression, but it gets to the point.) 

SECOND YEAR LATIN

Second-year Latin students read Julius Caesar's, "The Gallic Wars" in which, he mentions this instability of the people and complains that they they're driven by the desire to change.This is what Paul excoriates in the book of Galatians. We see it quickly in the opening salvo of his polemic: “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him” (1:6).  (We see this same characteristic in our churches--the craving for the new, the novel, all for their itching ears.) 

THE STEALTH BOMBERS

There were those in the Galatian churches who'd flown in under the radar. They were false teachers who were causing havoc ("there be some who trouble you") by changing the gospel. Oh, they agreed with Paul and the other apostles, but only to a point. They agreed that Christ died for our sins and they agreed that on the third day He rose from the dead. But, they said, "There's more. There just has to be more than faith alone."

"The more" was their addition of the Ten Commandments and some other parts of the Law to the gospel, which meant that they we're adding works to the gospel's crystal clear message of faith alone in Christ alone. And it was this sounds-good-addition that caused Paul, under divine inspiration, to take his quill and write Galatians 1:6-9 with expletives undeleted.

By expletives, I don't mean that he became vulgar, but that strong language poured out in torrents from his quill. He used language we don't hear in our polite circles as we meet for milk and cookies. Listen to Paul blister their ears in Galatians 1:6-9: 

"I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you [a]by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.  But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel [b]contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be [c]accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel [d]contrary to what you received, he is to be [e]accursed!"

Whoever read the letter to the churches in Galatia must have paused to take a deep breath after that initial shot across the bow! Talk about getting the attention of the assembled! If we listen closely, we can hear the ladies dropping their tea cups. We can see the false teachers' faces twist into disapproving shapes as they think, "Nobody's ever talked to us like that! Who does Paul think he is!"

WHY THE PASSION?

Why does Paul get so hot and bothered? A good question which deserves an answer.

BECAUSE IT'S INSULTING

First, to add to the gospel is an insult to the cross. To add to the gospel which is without cost, is to say, "Let Moses finish what Christ has begun," i. e., "Keeping the Ten Commandments will finish Christ's work on the cross." 

It's like saying, "You've got to finish what Christ has begun; baptism must complete it." Or,  "Forsaking your sins must complete the cross."

BECAUSE THE SOULS OF MEN ARE AT STAKE

Second, If you're a grace-faith-alone-in-Christ alone person, I'm sure you've heard this criticism of your presentation of the accurate gospel from a person whose face is turning red: "Well, you're judging who's save and who's not!" 

Hold on, Sparky. Is that true? No, we're not judging who's wheat and who's a tare. That's not what we're saying. What we're saying is that a faith-mixed-with-works-gospel has never saved anyone and never will. And that's why Paul wrote with expletives undeleted.

Eternal destinies are at stake. No wonder Paul was so ferociously earnest about the gospel. He knew what the pilots of the stealth bombers were dropping on the Galatian churches was manufactured in hell itself, what he called, "doctrine of demons." 

WHAT THIS SHOWS US IS . . 

This demonstrates that Paul took theology/doctrine seriously, so seriously that he said when a person tampers with the gospel, let him be cursed. He was passionate about the gospel, and for good reasons-- for the above two reasons and because he knew that God will not tolerate that doctrine. 

So, now having looked at Paul's reaction to the dissemination of a false gospel, do you feel the same way?

THERE'S IGNORANCE, BUT MORE THAN THAT

We've all read the surveys from time to time, surveys about the ignorance of the American people about the Bible.

Al Mohler reports: "Multiple surveys reveal the problem [of biblical illiteracy] in stark terms. According to 82 percent of Americans, 'God helps those who help themselves,' is a Bible verse. Those identified as born-again Christians did better—by one percent. A majority of adults think the Bible teaches that the most important purpose in life is taking care of one's family."

BILLY GRAHAM PREACHED WHAT?

He continues: "Some of the statistics are enough to perplex even those aware of the problem. A Barna poll indicated that at least 12 percent of adults believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. Another survey of graduating high school seniors revealed that over 50 percent thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife. A considerable number of respondents to one poll indicated that the Sermon on the Mount was preached by Billy Graham."

Yes, we've all seen the abysmal surveys, those reports which indicate our homes and churches aren't doing what Luke said that Jesus did--Luke records that Jesus was all over Israel "teaching the people."

Nor or they doing what Jesus commanded: "Go into all the word . . . teaching . . ."  Paul commanded Timothy to "teach the Word." A qualification of an elder in a local church is that he be "skillful in teaching." Where are these people?

WHY THE DEARTH?

We're familiar with all of that, but why the dearth of teaching? That's a good question. One reason for the famine in the land is that's not where the money is. Ecclesiastical fat coffers await those preachers and churches that can create a feel-good experience. That's what people with itching emotions are looking for, an experience to make them feel good once a week.

But there are other reasons. In many churches, preachers have groomed their congregations to expect a weekly beat-down, plus the every Sunday admonition, "Now, this week, try harder; you can be good if you really want to."(contra: Rom. 7)

Another factor is that more and more, people are seeing the Bible as irrelevant, errant, and therefore, possessing no authority.

OLD NEWS, NOW FOR THE NEW

Yes, there's ignorance of things biblical; we know about that, but now, there's more than that abroad in the land.What's happening is a rising tide of hostility toward the Book and Christianity. There's a deliberate King Jehoiakim attitude toward the Scriptures:

"So they went to the king in the court, but they had deposited the scroll [of Jeremiah] in the chamber of Elishama the scribe, and they reported all the words to the king. Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it out of the chamber of Elishama the scribe. And Jehudi read it to the king as well as to all the officials who stood beside the king. Now the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth month, with a fire burning in the brazier before him.  When Jehudi had read three or four columns, the king cut it with a scribe’s knife and threw it into the fire that was in the brazier, until all the scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier. Yet the king and all his servants who heard all these words were not afraid, nor did they rend their garments."

When the King, enraged at what Jeremiah had written, took the scroll, he didn't heave it into the fire in toto. No. He took a knife and slowly, deliberately cut it into pieces and threw those pieces into the fire, one by one. This was both a dramatic and emphatic demonstration of his hostility to the Word of God.

Here was a man, the king, of all people, who was to be, by law, a man of the Book (Deut. 17:18-20). Instead of being in it and under its authority, he burned it. This wasn't merely a cavalier attitude toward the Bible, it was calculated malevolence. 

LOOK AROUND

Dennis Prager, surveying the current milieu, writes, "What we have today is worse than ignorance of the Bible. It is contempt for it. Just about anyone who quotes the Bible, let alone says it is the source of his or her values, is essentially regarded as a simpleton . . . " or worse, we might add.

He continues, "And yet, from the time long before the United States became a country until well into the 1950s, the Bible was not only the most widely read book in America; it was also the primary vehicle by which each generation passed on morality and wisdom to the next generation."

Prager writes this perceptive paragraph and asks a penetrating question at its conclusion: "I have believed all my life that the primary crisis in America and the West is . . . the dismissal of the Bible. Virtually everyone on the left thinks America would be better off as a secular nation. And virtually all conservative intellectuals don’t think it matters. How many intellectuals study the Bible and teach it to their children?"

We might ask at least the first part of Prager's question to the leading conservatives in our nation: Rush Limbaugh, Rich Lowery, Victor Davis Hanson, Mark Levine, and Ben Shapiro. (At least David Limbaugh does.) Write them and ask in a courteous letter. See how they respond.

We see the hostility in the media and the arts as they stereotype the idea that we'd be a better society without the Bible by embedding the idea into our movies, books, and TV shows which portray someone with a Bible or quoting the Bible as a lone nut who will eventually kill people if the police don't get him first.

We're so conditioned by the media's portrayal, that when a member of the clergy or a member of a church enters the plot, we automatically know that he/she is going be an evil hypocrite. (It didn't used to be that way, the church-goer and the churchman were the good guys who came to the aid of one and all.)

EXAMPLES

Examples of the hostility abound: A car with just one bumper sticker on it in Portland, Oregon, said,  "So many Christians, So few lions." The Washington Times reported that a ten-year-old New Hampshire girl had been ordered to attend public school. The reason? The state disapproved of her mother's firm Christianity and says she must be exposed to other religious faiths, which being interpreted means, her faith must be destroyed.

Hostility to the Bible and Christianity aren't confined to America; Europe is taking a hostile stance as the following account demonstrates:

"Aideen Strandsson, a Christian woman from Iran, is facing deportation from Sweden after her asylum application was denied by authorities.

"The woman converted from Islam to Christianity . . . and has already received threats from Muslims because of her conversion.

"Aideen came to Sweden in 2014 and received a public baptism. When she pleaded that she could face the death penalty in Iran as an apostate, she got told by Swedish officials, “"It’s not our problem if you decided to become a Christian, it’s your problem”.

That's an example from Europe, now over to England: British author, Philip Pullman wrote a children's book entitled, "The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ." A children's book! We recall Christ mentioned something about a millstone.

ANYBODY PACKING A SUITCASE?

Our elites and glitterati at whose feet millions of sycophants worship, think that we'd be better off as a society without the Bible. Really? Do we see any of those people packing up to move to Albania? How about North Korea? Cuba? Red China? Anybody moving to Iran? Those are some of the countries that ban the Bible.

When Berliners lived in the days of the Berlin Wall, which way were they jumping and tunneling--from Christian West to the atheistic East or from the East to the West?

When the armies of Soviet Russia and the Americans were coming into Germany, one from the east and the other from the west during the final days of WWII, to which of the two armies were the Germans desperately wanting to surrender? The Americans.

You know the answers to all of the above. It's not hard to figure out why: The Bible's impact on the West.

Case closed.

  

WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?

Back then, a group of Jews put their heads down. They hurried across a bridge.They were in a rush because a group of Nazis were yelling at them. Not content with one vociferous insult, they added another--they greeted the Jews with a "seig heil," which is illegal in today's Germany.

Back then, there was the Jewish Quarter with its marketplace. In it were items for sale, anti-Semitic trinkets. You could buy a button with a swastika on it. You could purchase a figure of a Jewish man with a large nose and coins glued to his body. If you needed a magnet, there was one showing a Jewish man as a beggar. Then there was a wooden paddle with a cartoon picture of Jew on it with the words, "I'll guard your money."

Back then, while a group of Jews was heading home from a synagogue service, a gang attacked them. One of the Jews felt a sharp kick in the back as he stooped to tie his shoe. Back then, The descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had to flee.

Back then, a passerby shouted, cursed, and shoved a rabbi's wife. The anti-Semite told her, "Get out!" As others looked on, it was clear--no one cared. Nobody helped the Jewish lady. Although there was a police station nearby, the Jews were told, "No use to report it," and no need to ask for protection. It wasn't to be forthcoming from those in power back then.

BACK THEN?

Back then? How far back? What you've just read, the shouts of "seig heil," the trinkets for sale, the rough-handling of the rabbi's wfe, and the pervasive no-one-cares-attitude were not culled from the history books. All those events occurred to a Jewish tour group around Christmas, 2017, in, of all places, around Auschwitz  . . . in Poland. It's not Nazi Germany, it's now. Violent anti-Semitism is today's news in Poland.

WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?

In 1965, Peter, Paul, and Mary sang a protest song in which the recurring refrain was "When will they ever learn?" Poland was a hotbed of anti-Semitism prior to and during the Nazi era. "World Future Fund" reports:

• In 1936, the Polish government ordered that all shops include the name of the owner on their sign.  This order marked out Jewish businesses.  Attacks on Jewish businesses surged after the marking order went into effect.
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• In May 1937, the membership of the Polish Medical Association adopted a paragraph into their professional charter excluding Jews from the medical profession. 
• 
  
• Also in May 1937, the Polish Bar Association adopted a similar measure.  This was followed by official state action in May 1938 restricting the ability of Jewish lawyers to attain licenses to practice law.
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• In January 1938, the General Assembly of Journalists in the city of Wilno added a provision to its by-laws stating that anyone Jewish could not belong to their organization.
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• In April 1938, the Bank Polski, the Polish state's largest financial institution, adopted a provision excluding Jews.
•  

POLAND SUFFERED

The Polish suffered the heaviest proportionate human losses during World War II, amounting to 16–17 percent of its population. The number of ethnically Polish victims was as high as 2,000,000.

^{Although the Polish people and leaders have no idea where their irrational hatred of the Jews originates, we do. Although the Polish people and leaders had no idea where those restrictive laws came from, we do:}

Satan has tried to wipe out the Jews through the Babylonians, the Persians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Hittites, and the Nazis. But he’s failed every time because God is not finished with Israel. Romans 11:26 tells us that some day all Israel will be saved, and this can't happen if Israel no longer exists. 

Therefore, God will preserve the Jews for the future He has promised them in the Abrahamic, Palestinian, Davidic, and New Covenants, just as He has preserved them throughout history, until His plan comes to pass. Nothing can thwart God’s promises for Israel and the Jewish people.

Revelation 12 shows the worldwide ages-long hatred of the Jews is satanic in origin. The Bible also says that those who do not give Israel her rightful place in God's plan will be cursed by God. 

SO?

So that's our question to the rulers of the world and their followers: When will you ever learn?

WHY DICTATORS SHRED THE BIBLE

Dictatorships forbid, outlaw, and put the Bible into the flames and shredders. Why is that? Why is the Book banned in so many countries? What's in the Bible that dictators fear? We're so accustomed to the Bible that we don't read it as a Stalin or a Castro would. If we did, then we'd see what's so scary about the Scriptures. We'd see that the Bible is a serious threat to every dictatorship everywhere. 

LENIN

 The leader of the Russian Revolution of 1917 built a cult-like status for himself: to cite one example, when Russian workers visited him in his office in the Kremlin, they had to go through a disinfectant room before being ushered into his presence. 

STALIN

Stalin, Lenin's successor, instigated his own cult: "Propaganda was everywhere, indoctrinating the people, conditioning them to believing that Stalin was infallible and god-like, working to achieve perfect socialism. . . 

"An example of how grotesque his propaganda was can be seen with the celebration of his 70th birthday: a gigantic portrait of him was suspended above Red Square from a balloon and the day's copy of "Pravda" devoted every line of its 12 pages except for 2 column inches of women's chess to him. 

"Cinemas displayed Soviet documentaries. His images were all around, and there were icons of of him in every home, marches and parades involved giant banners. His image had penetrated society and and bound the people to his constant presence, regardless of their educational background. His cult was visually forced upon them. . . 

"At his funeral, the [adoring] crowds were such that many were crushed to death." (From "The York Historian")

HITLER

Adolf Hitler made school children his propaganda priority. A student describes part of what took place in the classroom: "the students were taught to worship Adolf Hitler. As the teacher entered the class, the students would stand and raise their right arms. The teacher would say, For the Führer a triple victory, answered by a chorus of Heil! three times... Every class started with a song. The almighty Führer would be staring at us from his picture on the wall. These uplifting songs were brilliantly written and composed, transporting us into a state of enthusiastic glee." (From "Spartacus Educational")

BUT THE BIBLE SAYS

From a study of dictatorships and dictators, we can see why the Bible is a dangerous Book to them. First, because the words of Jesus drive a stake through the heart of the allegiance all dictators demand: "And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’" (Matt. 22:37) 

Thus, the ultimate loyalty is to be to God, not to Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, or Castro. We see this ultimate loyalty to God in Acts 4:12, where Peter and John answer the religious dictators of their day with, "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

Furthermore, the dictators of their day had warned the Apostles with a direct order, as described in Acts 5:28-29. They had said: “We gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in this name, and yet, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.” 

The Apostles answered: “We must obey God rather than men." Such a declaration is an assault on every dictatorship because it demonstrates that there exists a higher authority than the state.

The dictator must also convince the population of his own infallibility. The Bible has strong words for him: Jeremiah 17:9; Ecclesiastes 7:20; Romans 3:10; and John 3:19. To the dictator, these words are intolerable. 

Wherever the Bible goes, it brings freedom.