How often have we heard it? It's an old excuse that few examine or even understand what they're saying. It's the statement, "I don't go to church because it's filled with hypocrites."
I've never heard the hypocrite argument used in connection with any meeting other than church. I've never heard anyone say, "I don't eat at McDonald's because its full of hypocrites," or "I don't go to football games because there are too many hypocrites in the stadium." Somehow the church has carried the full load of the hypocrite diatribe.
But, like I said, let's examine the statement by asking, "What is a hypocrite?" According to the New Testament Greek, it was a word used in show business to describe someone's playing a part on stage, that is, acting as if they're someone else. So the question is, is the church filled with people acting as if they were someone else?
Jesus' day saw its share of hypocrites, the Pharisees were playing the part of the godly, the good, and the righteous when they weren't. They were legalists and legalists by their very nature are hypocrites. So, yes, a church will have hypocrites in it, if it has legalists plaguing it.
But, let's think a bit more about this. Let's take a person who attends church regularly. Does his attendance make him a hypocrite? Of course not. A hypocrite is someone who plays a part and is pretending to be something he's not. But wait a minute, that church attender sins during the week, probably everyday, and yet there he is on Sunday, big as life. Isn't he a hypocrite? A person who attends church is not a hypocrite because he sins. If that were the case, then every last one of us would be a hypocrite, because we all sin. Sinning doesn't make the church attender a hypocrite.
Then what does? What makes the hypocrite is not the sins in his life; hypocrisy occurs when he pretends he doesn't sin and acts accordingly. The hypocrite will never admit he's a sinner or is sinning. Pretentious self-righteousness makes the hypocrite.
Is a church filled with sinners (and they all are) a church filled with hypocrites? Only if they're denying their status. Take a typical church. Unfortunately, when you look behind the curtain that is their Sunday service, you see a roiling cauldron of grudges, hatred, with one group plotting against another to gain the power and run the show. There's no business like show business.
In the Sunday service, the congregants are sitting there dressed to impress, pretending nothing untoward happened last Sunday at the business meeting, all the while knowing that someone stormed out of that meeting, someone slammed the door to emphasize their disgust as they left the meeting, someone called a secret meeting after the meeting, and that someone in the congregation did an anonymous mail-out accusing a deacon of malfeasance. They know that it was church business as most of theirs are, a meeting during which tempers flared, people found themselves under attack, and every minute of the meeting was filled with the snarls of the saints.
Yet, the Sunday services roll along, as the great pretenders sing and open their Bibles. As they turn their heads toward the pulpit, they have that sweet-saint smile. Yes, those people are "I'm-always-right-hypocrites." They are the great pretenders, pretending that nothing is wrong, nothing is broken. Each Sunday is show business, and there's no business like show business for them.
But in the church, there are those who bow before the Scriptures, humbly seeking a word from God, and with a healthy fear of the Lord, they see their sin without denying it, and like Isaiah, say, "Woe is me for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips.
WITHOUT COST
Friday, August 1, 2014
Friday, July 25, 2014
DAVID TYREE, DAVID TYREE, WHEREFORE ART THOU, DAVID TYREE?
I remember David Tyree for his famous "Helmet Catch" which enabled the New York Giants to win a Super Bowl. The Giants were trailing; it was 3rd down and 5 yards to go late in the 4th quarter when Giants quarterback Eli Manning, playing the part of Houdini, escaped a gang of would-be tacklers to sling the ball way, way down field, a ball which Tyree caught by pinning the pigskin to his helmet as he fell to the ground. It was now 1st down with 59 seconds left in Super Bowl XLII. The Giants won, 17-14.
David Tyree was the toast of the Big Apple and loved by Giants' fans everywhere.
But that was then, this is now.
David Tyree is not so admired today. He's the center of a storm, as is the team for which he played. The owner, the General Manager, and the coach find themselves in a mushrooming maelstrom of controversy, a public relations nightmare as they read their names in "The New York Times,"in hositle name-calling articles on the Internet, and hear themselves vilified by commentators on ESPN, MSNBC, "The View," and in "The New York Post," as well as other newspapers around the country. All this because of hiring the hero of Giantdom, David Tyree.
What did Tyree do? Molest children? Sell secrets to the Chinese? Spy for the Russians? No, not at all. David Tyree had the gall to say, "Marriage is between a man and woman." And in spite of that statement, the NY Giants have hired the retired player to take the job of Director of Players Management in their organization. Various groups are demanding that Tyree be fired. It's like pressure washing a house--all the blasts of the water are now laser focused on Tyree and the Giants and it won't let up until they drown him. The mortar fire against this hiring includes saying and writing that Tyree is "misinformed," "ignorant," and, (get this) "dangerous."
Over the past three years, Tyree has stated his beliefs with the following statements:
"This [same sex marriage]will be the beginning of our country sliding toward, it's a strong word, but anarchy. How can marriage be marriage for thousands of years and now all the sudden because a minority, an influential minority, has a push or agenda ... and totally reshapes something that was not founded in our country.”
In 2011, Tyree said the unforgivable:
“Nothing means more to me than that my God would be honored. Being the fact that I firmly believe that God created and ordained marriage between a man and a woman, I believe that that’s something that should be fought for at all costs. So I’ll lay down everything I am to preserve the honor and integrity of the God that I serve.”
In 2013, he said:
"I don't agree with [gay marriage] because God doesn't agree with it. As a Christian, I don't agree. Society may be changing but God is not, This is not personal. I can be tolerant, but the problem is people aren't tolerant of the views people like me have. If you don't agree with that lifestyle, you're a bigot. I'm not a bigot. I have different viewpoints."
David Tyree isn't killing, rampaging, destroying property or even advocating such. He's not demanding that anyone believing in same sex marriage be fired. All he's doing is telling others what he believes.
It's come to this?--someone in America is in danger of losing his job for saying that marriage is between a man and a woman? As the little boy pleaded with Shoeless Joe Jackson of the Chicago White Sox in 1919, "Say it ain't so, Joe." How did it come to this? (That's a question for another time.)
If we're going to fire people for stating a belief that offends, then tomorrow what's next? Unemployment would skyrocket and breadlines and soup kitchens would materialize overnight if people were fired for saying something that offended somebody else.
This is like saying, "You have freedom of speech, as long as you say things that we approve of." It's strange that Thomas Jefferson didn't understand that the right not to be offended was "unalienable," since he only listed "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" in that category when he wrote our Declaration of Independence.
A reddish sky around sunrise means a lot of water vapor already present in the atmosphere. That's why those in the nautical game have the saying, "Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning." Rain is on the way. (Cf. Matt. 16:3) What is our "red sky" saying to us? It's going to get rough out there as witness the following: "Police in Fayetteville are on the lookout for a man who allegedly said something racist in the middle of the night through an open window on the University of Arkansas campus." Something said in the middle of the night through an open window is a crime?
If Tyree can be fired for his belief and his use of freedom of speech to express his view, then who's next? Will they nail a church door shut or levy a fine with sensitivity training because that church won't allow a same sex marriage ceremony in its building? Will someone overhear your remark in the elevator at work and you find yourself sentenced to sensitivity training or, worse yet, be told to turn in your I. D. and leave? If one person can lose his employment, his property, or his means of earning a living for stating his belief, then you and I can too. [By the way, has anyone ever heard of a person's being sentenced to sensitivity training for offending Christians? I nominate Bill Maher.]
Tom Brokaw wrote "The Greatest Generation," which, in his opinion was the generation of Americans who were raised in the Great Depression and went on to fight and win WWII. They were great, all right, but were they the greatest? I don't think so and neither does historian David McCullough. He believes that the greatest generation of Americans was the Revolutionary War generation. (That would make for a good discussion, wouldn't it?)
One thing the Revolutionary generation and our Founding Fathers realized was that if the government could do just one thing to violate the Constitution, it could do anything. For example, if the government could impose an unconstitutional tax on the people, no matter how small the amount of tax was, the same government could just as easily line people up and executre them without due process of law.
it's an interesting study of hypocrisy--in the 1960's many colleges saw their students marching, disrupting classes, demonstrating, yelling, and getting violent in order to exercise their right of free speech to say anything anywhere anytime. Now those same people are demanding that David Tyree shut up and be fired.
David Tyree was the toast of the Big Apple and loved by Giants' fans everywhere.
But that was then, this is now.
David Tyree is not so admired today. He's the center of a storm, as is the team for which he played. The owner, the General Manager, and the coach find themselves in a mushrooming maelstrom of controversy, a public relations nightmare as they read their names in "The New York Times,"in hositle name-calling articles on the Internet, and hear themselves vilified by commentators on ESPN, MSNBC, "The View," and in "The New York Post," as well as other newspapers around the country. All this because of hiring the hero of Giantdom, David Tyree.
What did Tyree do? Molest children? Sell secrets to the Chinese? Spy for the Russians? No, not at all. David Tyree had the gall to say, "Marriage is between a man and woman." And in spite of that statement, the NY Giants have hired the retired player to take the job of Director of Players Management in their organization. Various groups are demanding that Tyree be fired. It's like pressure washing a house--all the blasts of the water are now laser focused on Tyree and the Giants and it won't let up until they drown him. The mortar fire against this hiring includes saying and writing that Tyree is "misinformed," "ignorant," and, (get this) "dangerous."
Over the past three years, Tyree has stated his beliefs with the following statements:
"This [same sex marriage]will be the beginning of our country sliding toward, it's a strong word, but anarchy. How can marriage be marriage for thousands of years and now all the sudden because a minority, an influential minority, has a push or agenda ... and totally reshapes something that was not founded in our country.”
In 2011, Tyree said the unforgivable:
“Nothing means more to me than that my God would be honored. Being the fact that I firmly believe that God created and ordained marriage between a man and a woman, I believe that that’s something that should be fought for at all costs. So I’ll lay down everything I am to preserve the honor and integrity of the God that I serve.”
In 2013, he said:
"I don't agree with [gay marriage] because God doesn't agree with it. As a Christian, I don't agree. Society may be changing but God is not, This is not personal. I can be tolerant, but the problem is people aren't tolerant of the views people like me have. If you don't agree with that lifestyle, you're a bigot. I'm not a bigot. I have different viewpoints."
David Tyree isn't killing, rampaging, destroying property or even advocating such. He's not demanding that anyone believing in same sex marriage be fired. All he's doing is telling others what he believes.
It's come to this?--someone in America is in danger of losing his job for saying that marriage is between a man and a woman? As the little boy pleaded with Shoeless Joe Jackson of the Chicago White Sox in 1919, "Say it ain't so, Joe." How did it come to this? (That's a question for another time.)
If we're going to fire people for stating a belief that offends, then tomorrow what's next? Unemployment would skyrocket and breadlines and soup kitchens would materialize overnight if people were fired for saying something that offended somebody else.
This is like saying, "You have freedom of speech, as long as you say things that we approve of." It's strange that Thomas Jefferson didn't understand that the right not to be offended was "unalienable," since he only listed "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" in that category when he wrote our Declaration of Independence.
A reddish sky around sunrise means a lot of water vapor already present in the atmosphere. That's why those in the nautical game have the saying, "Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning." Rain is on the way. (Cf. Matt. 16:3) What is our "red sky" saying to us? It's going to get rough out there as witness the following: "Police in Fayetteville are on the lookout for a man who allegedly said something racist in the middle of the night through an open window on the University of Arkansas campus." Something said in the middle of the night through an open window is a crime?
If Tyree can be fired for his belief and his use of freedom of speech to express his view, then who's next? Will they nail a church door shut or levy a fine with sensitivity training because that church won't allow a same sex marriage ceremony in its building? Will someone overhear your remark in the elevator at work and you find yourself sentenced to sensitivity training or, worse yet, be told to turn in your I. D. and leave? If one person can lose his employment, his property, or his means of earning a living for stating his belief, then you and I can too. [By the way, has anyone ever heard of a person's being sentenced to sensitivity training for offending Christians? I nominate Bill Maher.]
Tom Brokaw wrote "The Greatest Generation," which, in his opinion was the generation of Americans who were raised in the Great Depression and went on to fight and win WWII. They were great, all right, but were they the greatest? I don't think so and neither does historian David McCullough. He believes that the greatest generation of Americans was the Revolutionary War generation. (That would make for a good discussion, wouldn't it?)
One thing the Revolutionary generation and our Founding Fathers realized was that if the government could do just one thing to violate the Constitution, it could do anything. For example, if the government could impose an unconstitutional tax on the people, no matter how small the amount of tax was, the same government could just as easily line people up and executre them without due process of law.
it's an interesting study of hypocrisy--in the 1960's many colleges saw their students marching, disrupting classes, demonstrating, yelling, and getting violent in order to exercise their right of free speech to say anything anywhere anytime. Now those same people are demanding that David Tyree shut up and be fired.
Friday, July 18, 2014
HILLARY, HILLARY, WHEREFORE ART THOU, HILLARY?
The title is a simple question to answer, but let's look at some background first.
When Hillary Clinton speaks, most listeners don't know that she's earning $3,750 a minute. This is easily calculated because her contract demands that her speaking and the question/
However, there are other contractual conditions before she comes to speak and these conditions must be met by the host shelling out such happy cabbage. Hillary will have final approval of who introduces her to the audience. You'll also find in the contract that, while Hillary is speaking, no one else is on the stage.
Speaking of the stage, Hillary's press agency will will have final approval of any “sets, backdrops, banners, scenery, logos, settings, etc which are in any way related to her speech or any other activities associated with the speaker’s appearance."
The organization sponsoring the event must furnish a stenographer whom they'll pay $1,250 for the time Mrs. Clinton is speaking. The sponsor must agree that the transcript is the speaker's property, not the organization's.
There will be a question and answer time (that's part of the sixty minutes) and Hillary has the final approval of the moderator, since the questions will not be addressed directly to her, but will go through the moderator.
THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION OF THE TITLE
So, the answer to the question the title asks is, "All alone on center stage."
Many may shake their heads at Hillary's demands, but should we, since Paul writes, "Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things." (Rom. 2)
We may not have the contractual clout of Mrs. Clinton, but do we "practice the same things?" Any battle-fatigued veteran of countless church business meetings will testify in any court of law that he has witnessed people's demanding and taking center stage, bulldozing others to do things their way.
He's seen people's taking center stage to manipulate the church to his way through angry words, name calling, and storming-out-the-door-tactics. Our battle-scarred veteran has seen the same people using secret meetings to take center stage, working behind the curtain. Satan has torn up many a church by using "the center stage" strategy.
This demand for center stage isn't limited to church meetings; marriages crumble because one partner is constantly manipulating the other to get their way through tears, yelling, threatening, or even physical abuse.
Such is the way of the human being, the unsaved and, to our shame, the carnal saved.
THE BETTER WAY
When Hillary Clinton speaks, most listeners don't know that she's earning $3,750 a minute. This is easily calculated because her contract demands that her speaking and the question/
It’s
simple: It is all about Him, end of story. Ephesians 1 illustrates how
Father (1:6), Son (1:12), and Holy Spirit (1:14) each work together for
the glory of God. His activities serve His own purpose of expressing His
character, demonstrating His glory. If we will understand this simple,
central Biblical truth, our lives will be more fruitful, and we will
have a much better grasp of what He is doing in and around us. - See
more at:
http://www.drcone.com/2013/12/02/7-core-values-for-effective-life-and-ministry/#sthash.s7njGmgo.dpuf
answer time will not, under any circumstances exceed one hour, thus bringing her the sum of $225,000 per speech. (Hard work, but somebody has to do it.)However, there are other contractual conditions before she comes to speak and these conditions must be met by the host shelling out such happy cabbage. Hillary will have final approval of who introduces her to the audience. You'll also find in the contract that, while Hillary is speaking, no one else is on the stage.
Speaking of the stage, Hillary's press agency will will have final approval of any “sets, backdrops, banners, scenery, logos, settings, etc which are in any way related to her speech or any other activities associated with the speaker’s appearance."
The organization sponsoring the event must furnish a stenographer whom they'll pay $1,250 for the time Mrs. Clinton is speaking. The sponsor must agree that the transcript is the speaker's property, not the organization's.
There will be a question and answer time (that's part of the sixty minutes) and Hillary has the final approval of the moderator, since the questions will not be addressed directly to her, but will go through the moderator.
THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION OF THE TITLE
So, the answer to the question the title asks is, "All alone on center stage."
Many may shake their heads at Hillary's demands, but should we, since Paul writes, "Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things." (Rom. 2)
We may not have the contractual clout of Mrs. Clinton, but do we "practice the same things?" Any battle-fatigued veteran of countless church business meetings will testify in any court of law that he has witnessed people's demanding and taking center stage, bulldozing others to do things their way.
He's seen people's taking center stage to manipulate the church to his way through angry words, name calling, and storming-out-the-door-tactics. Our battle-scarred veteran has seen the same people using secret meetings to take center stage, working behind the curtain. Satan has torn up many a church by using "the center stage" strategy.
This demand for center stage isn't limited to church meetings; marriages crumble because one partner is constantly manipulating the other to get their way through tears, yelling, threatening, or even physical abuse.
Such is the way of the human being, the unsaved and, to our shame, the carnal saved.
THE BETTER WAY
It’s
simple: It is all about Him, end of story. Ephesians 1 illustrates how
Father (1:6), Son (1:12), and Holy Spirit (1:14) each work together for
the glory of God. His activities serve His own purpose of expressing His
character, demonstrating His glory. If we will understand this simple,
central Biblical truth, our lives will be more fruitful, and we will
have a much better grasp of what He is doing in and around us. - See
more at:
http://www.drcone.com/2013/12/02/7-core-values-for-effective-life-and-ministry/#sthash.aOOYsXpB.dpuf
But there is a better way and we can sum it up by saying: It's simple. It's all about Him. End of story. We are far less important than we think we are. He must increase, but we must decrease. If we stand with that posture, then our lives will be fruitful, with less self-induced misery and the misery we cause others when we seize center stage.
It’s
simple: It is all about Him, end of story. Ephesians 1 illustrates how
Father (1:6), Son (1:12), and Holy Spirit (1:14) each work together for
the glory of God. His activities serve His own purpose of expressing His
character, demonstrating His glory. If we will understand this simple,
central Biblical truth, our lives will be more fruitful, and we will
have a much better grasp of what He is doing in and around us. - See
more at:
http://www.drcone.com/2013/12/02/7-core-values-for-effective-life-and-ministry/#sthash.aOOYsXpB.dpuf
It’s
simple: It is all about Him, end of story. Ephesians 1 illustrates how
Father (1:6), Son (1:12), and Holy Spirit (1:14) each work together for
the glory of God. His activities serve His own purpose of expressing His
character, demonstrating His glory. If we will understand this simple,
central Biblical truth, our lives will be more fruitful, and we will
have a much better grasp of what He is doing in and around us. - See
more at:
http://www.drcone.com/2013/12/02/7-core-values-for-effective-life-and-ministry/#sthash.s7njGmgo.dpuf
It’s
simple: It is all about Him, end of story. Ephesians 1 illustrates how
Father (1:6), Son (1:12), and Holy Spirit (1:14) each work together for
the glory of God. His activities serve His own purpose of expressing His
character, demonstrating His glory. If we will understand this simple,
central Biblical truth, our lives will be more fruitful, and we will
have a much better grasp of what He is doing in and around us. - See
more at:
http://www.drcone.com/2013/12/02/7-core-values-for-effective-life-and-ministry/#sthash.aOOYsXpB.dpuf
It’s
simple: It is all about Him, end of story. Ephesians 1 illustrates how
Father (1:6), Son (1:12), and Holy Spirit (1:14) each work together for
the glory of God. His activities serve His own purpose of expressing His
character, demonstrating His glory. If we will understand this simple,
central Biblical truth, our lives will be more fruitful, and we will
have a much better grasp of what He is doing in and around us. - See
more at:
http://www.drcone.com/2013/12/02/7-core-values-for-effective-life-and-ministry/#sthash.aOOYsXpB.dpuf
It’s
simple: It is all about Him, end of story. Ephesians 1 illustrates how
Father (1:6), Son (1:12), and Holy Spirit (1:14) each work together for
the glory of God. His activities serve His own purpose of expressing His
character, demonstrating His glory. If we will understand this simple,
central Biblical truth, our lives will be more fruitful, and we will
have a much better grasp of what He is doing in and around us. - See
more at:
http://www.drcone.com/2013/12/02/7-core-values-for-effective-life-and-ministry/#sthash.aOOYsXpB.dpuf
It’s
simple: It is all about Him, end of story. Ephesians 1 illustrates how
Father (1:6), Son (1:12), and Holy Spirit (1:14) each work together for
the glory of God. His activities serve His own purpose of expressing His
character, demonstrating His glory. If we will understand this simple,
central Biblical truth, our lives will be more fruitful, and we will
have a much better grasp of what He is doing in and around us. - See
more at:
http://www.drcone.com/2013/12/02/7-core-values-for-effective-life-and-ministry/#sthash.aOOYsXpB.dpuf
Friday, July 11, 2014
MILEY CYRUS, WHEREFORE ART THOU?
Let's play a word association game--what words come to your mind when I say, "Miley Cryus?" How about, "outrageous," "vexatious," "galling," or "insufferable?" She may be all of those things in your mind, but there's something that she's doing to our society, along with a lot of other people.
There's a age-old question, "Does life imitate art?" or, "Does art imitate life?" Let's think about that for a while.
Celebrities compose part of the artists-elites of our society. They shout at us from their movies and the grocery store magazine covers. Their words and deeds carry a message.
Their language consists of grade school grammar (if that advanced). Just listen to almost any interview with a college or professional athlete and you'll hear double negatives abounding along with multiples of "ain't." They have no clue as to how to construct a proper sentence in English.
What's amazing in all of this is that when they're quoted in newspapers and magazines such as "Sports Illustrated," the editors don't correct the horrendous grammar or vulgar language for publication so, if our heroes talk that way, why can't we?
In the summer of 1946, a group of Missouri school teachers complained to the Federal Trade Commission that Dizzy Dean's broadcasts were "replete with errors in grammar and syntax, and were having a bad effect o the pupils." ("He slud into second base!") We hear no such outcry today. Dizzy is a linguist compared to today's athletes.
When we look at the lives of the artists-elites of our society, we see lives that are a mess. They wreak havoc everywhere they go. It seems their mission is to shock us; at least it gets there names in the paper.
Our society likes to see what the celebrities are (almost) wearing as they hang on their every word. These celebrities, these serial monogamists who run through one marriage after another as often as they change their socks, their child custody cases, their scrapes with the law, their fights, their overdoses, and their DUIs, these elites have no problem appearing before us every four years to tell us for whom we should vote, as if we should listen to them.
But what they're doing to our society is far more dangerous; they are giving permission--they're giving us permission to use their language and to live as they do morally. After all, we hear their language on the big screen. We see their portrayal of an immoral life style on the small screens, right there every night in our dens.
On other shows, we hear the audiences applauding (on cue) the latest examples of their misbehavior or life styles. We take it for granted that a couple is living together with no marriage license, "That's just what people do," we hear on every hand.
Their language? "That's just the way people talk today." Their fractured marriages and remarriages? That's just what people do today.
But when the public hears and sees all of this, it presents a drip-drip-drip to the saturation point of permission--we talk and act this way; we imitate.We have their permission to do so. They make it acceptable.
We should expect nothing else of the unbeliever; he can do nothing else. It's for certain that he can't imitate Christ, that he's always under the control of his sin nature. Even his good works, as Augustine said, are "splendid sins."
But you and I? We can, as we submit to the Scriptures, imitate Christ, full of grace and truth.
There's a age-old question, "Does life imitate art?" or, "Does art imitate life?" Let's think about that for a while.
Celebrities compose part of the artists-elites of our society. They shout at us from their movies and the grocery store magazine covers. Their words and deeds carry a message.
Their language consists of grade school grammar (if that advanced). Just listen to almost any interview with a college or professional athlete and you'll hear double negatives abounding along with multiples of "ain't." They have no clue as to how to construct a proper sentence in English.
What's amazing in all of this is that when they're quoted in newspapers and magazines such as "Sports Illustrated," the editors don't correct the horrendous grammar or vulgar language for publication so, if our heroes talk that way, why can't we?
In the summer of 1946, a group of Missouri school teachers complained to the Federal Trade Commission that Dizzy Dean's broadcasts were "replete with errors in grammar and syntax, and were having a bad effect o the pupils." ("He slud into second base!") We hear no such outcry today. Dizzy is a linguist compared to today's athletes.
When we look at the lives of the artists-elites of our society, we see lives that are a mess. They wreak havoc everywhere they go. It seems their mission is to shock us; at least it gets there names in the paper.
Our society likes to see what the celebrities are (almost) wearing as they hang on their every word. These celebrities, these serial monogamists who run through one marriage after another as often as they change their socks, their child custody cases, their scrapes with the law, their fights, their overdoses, and their DUIs, these elites have no problem appearing before us every four years to tell us for whom we should vote, as if we should listen to them.
But what they're doing to our society is far more dangerous; they are giving permission--they're giving us permission to use their language and to live as they do morally. After all, we hear their language on the big screen. We see their portrayal of an immoral life style on the small screens, right there every night in our dens.
On other shows, we hear the audiences applauding (on cue) the latest examples of their misbehavior or life styles. We take it for granted that a couple is living together with no marriage license, "That's just what people do," we hear on every hand.
Their language? "That's just the way people talk today." Their fractured marriages and remarriages? That's just what people do today.
But when the public hears and sees all of this, it presents a drip-drip-drip to the saturation point of permission--we talk and act this way; we imitate.We have their permission to do so. They make it acceptable.
We should expect nothing else of the unbeliever; he can do nothing else. It's for certain that he can't imitate Christ, that he's always under the control of his sin nature. Even his good works, as Augustine said, are "splendid sins."
But you and I? We can, as we submit to the Scriptures, imitate Christ, full of grace and truth.
Friday, June 20, 2014
LET'S TAKE A SHOW OF HANDS
It's what Superman stands for: Truth, Justice, and the American Way. The American Way? Everybody knows what that is: democracy. It's so ingrained in us that President Woodrow Wilson led us into The Great War, the war to "make the world safe for democracy." Looking at the world today, that didn't go so well.
Somehow we've forgotten that our Founding Fathers didn't think that direct voting was so hot, so they set up the Electoral College to elect the president and they set it up so that the voters in the individual states didn't vote for their own senators (an amendment later changed that in 1913). The only thing we directly voted for were the candidates for the House of Representatives.
BUT OH, THOSE PRESBYTERIANS
For some reason, churches decided that they would adopt a one man, woman or child, one vote, and they would be standing, like Superman, for the American Way. And now, what's it come to?
Read on.
On June 19, 2014, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the largest Presbyterian denomination in America, met in Detroit at Cobo Center for a show of hands as to whether or not the denomination would allow its ministers to perform same-sex marriages.
It is quite something isn't it? The truth of Lev. 18:22; 20:13; Deut. 23:17; I Kings 14:24; Rom. 1:26-27; I Cor. 6:9; I Tim. 1:9-10 was up for a show of Presbyterian paws on June 19 in Detroit City, US of A.
THIS JUST IN . . .
They met, proposed the motion; it was duly seconded and they took the vote. The motion passed 76% to 24%. Not even close. And so now, according to that vote, all ministers of the Presbyterian Church (USA) may perform same-sex marriage ceremonies in the 19 states where it's legal.
ANALYSIS
Let's think about this. Something unmentionable in times past, something undebatable and unthinkable in churches is now discussed, voted on, and approved. It's not only the Presbyterians; all other mainline denominations will, one way or another, sooner rather than later, be forced to consider the issue and render a verdict.
Let's think about this: where did churches get the idea that truth is subject to a vote? Is the Great Commission a "voteable?" if I don't like the Great Commission because it makes me uncomfortable, can I try to gather votes in the church to vote it out? Of course not. If I like Law, can I lead a group to vote out grace? No way.
But here's the problem--once a church starts voting on one thing, like the position of "janitor," what's to stop them from voting on everything?
Friday, April 4, 2014
AMERICAN BABEL
On Christmas Eve, 1968, three Americans were out of town. Way out of town. 238,900 miles out of town. They were the first human beings to orbit the moon and they were doing it numerous times on that Apollo 8 mission. The people in charge of the mission, those back on earth, noting how historic it would be, told the trio before they left the surly bonds of earth, "Do something appropriate to mark the occasion."
So, on their last orbit around the moon, astronauts Lovell, Borman, and Anders did something appropriate--they read Genesis 1:1-10 to their earthbound audience, all one billion of them, the largest television audience ever, at the time, and therefore, the largest audience ever to hear a human voice.
As you might suspect, some people got all huffy about the reading and, under the leadership of Madalyn Murray O'Haire, collected a "whopping" total of 28,000 signatures on a lawsuit petition demanding that astronauts or any other government official, be forbidden from citing Scripture while on duty. (Had this lawsuit been filed and won in the 19th century, Lincoln would have had to censor the dozens and dozens of references to or quotations from the Bible he made in his speeches.)
The lawsuit went nowhere other than the courtroom trashcan. Today, few, if any, remember her or her outrage.
That was 1968.
In 1999, the British Broadcasting Company ("The BBC") developed a series of documentaries on "The Planets" and they included a program titled, "The Moon," about the race between the Soviet Union and America to land a man on the moon and get him safely back home. The program was an interesting one; it included the son of the Soviet Premier at the time, Nikita Khrushchev, the fellow who was infamous for banging his shoe on the table during a U. N. meeting and also for saying to America and the capitalistic West, "We will bury you." (Or something like that.)
The BBC fellow narrating "The Moon," told us, "Discovering the origin of the moon became the official stated scientific goal of the American lunar program." This "official stated goal" was years before Christmas Eve, 1968.
But if that was our only purpose for going to the moon, we should have stayed home. We knew its origin sometime around 1440 BC when Moses wrote Genesis. In addition, the three astronauts read the origin of the moon to one billion people on Christmas Eve, 1968, while in orbit.
I had always wanted to be an astronomer and have the cushy job of sitting in a massive observatory like Palomar, eating pralines and discovering new planets. Such was not to be, because my math skills started decaying when I was in the 7th grade. That's when "ciphering," as Jethro Bodine used to say, got hard.
One day, in elementary school, the teacher called my daughter to her desk and asked, "Did your father help you with your homework?" My daughter proudly answered, "Yes, he did." The teacher replied, "Tell him to stop; he doesn't know what he's doing; your paper is all wrong."
So, I gave up my dream of pralines and planets--7th grade arithmetic was the stake in the heart that killed it. But I've always been interested in astronomy, and just last week I discovered that series on TV on the subject, the aforementioned one by the BBC.
In the program on the moon, the BBC gave a platform to a professor sitting all comfy in his easy chair, and, in an affable manner, he told us about the theories back then in his day, 1999, about the origin of the moon:
1. The earth and the moon had grown together, side by side, for a long, long time. Or,
2. The moon formed somewhere else in the solar system and later came into the earth's orbit and was captured by the earth. Or
3. Maybe (his word, not mine) the earth was spinning so fast that it spun the moon off and it flew off like a drop of water from a spinning ball. Or, and this is the professor's theory . . .
4. Long, long ago there were all these huge worlds competing for space in the universe. The earth was one of those competitors. In the competition, a body the size of Mars collided with the earth and, as a result, there was a lot of debris which collected and grew into the moon.
The professor went on to say, "Perhaps, maybe, all the moons of all the planets came from other collisions as well, as did the rings of Saturn." We might call this competition the "Primal Olympics." In this Olympics, the earth won; we beat the big boys like Jupiter and Neptune--we got all of the air, water, vegetation, heat, and we got Lubbock, TX! Go earth!
However the professor didn't tell us the origin of all these large bodies in the universe which were competing for space in space. Nor did the professor tell us that no one was around at the time to observe this theorized "competition," and therefore, his personal theory (#4) is to be taken by faith, as are #s 1-3. (By the way, his theory is the predominate one today.)
When all this is said and done, as you can see by the theories, God is never in the discussion, nor was God in the discussion for the entire program. Genesis 1:1, 16-18 never came into the program.
Can't we discuss it? The Bible tells us interesting other interesting facts about astronomy: 1) the earth is round--Isaiah 40:22 and 2) God suspended the earth on nothing; it's floating--Job 26:7.
But let's go back. Does the "official stated reason for our going to the moon trouble you? I know it's a point of pride for us, but do you find that reason uncomfortable? Whatever else we might say, it certainly was an achievement.
And so was the Tower of Babel, that ziggurat born on the drawing board of Nimrod's rebellion and and steeped in the heady wine of "Let us make a name for ourselves." (The motto of humanity.) The Tower was their spit thrown in the face of God because the Tower made its own architectural statement, "We will not spread out as You commanded us to do; we will unify and collectivize!" Babel was the first organized, systematic rebellion against God.
Do you think that the officially stated reason scientifically for our going to the moon was an explicit, officially phrased rejection of Genesis 1: 1, 16-18?
However, we shouldn't expect the unbeliever to live and think as the Christian thinks.
So, on their last orbit around the moon, astronauts Lovell, Borman, and Anders did something appropriate--they read Genesis 1:1-10 to their earthbound audience, all one billion of them, the largest television audience ever, at the time, and therefore, the largest audience ever to hear a human voice.
As you might suspect, some people got all huffy about the reading and, under the leadership of Madalyn Murray O'Haire, collected a "whopping" total of 28,000 signatures on a lawsuit petition demanding that astronauts or any other government official, be forbidden from citing Scripture while on duty. (Had this lawsuit been filed and won in the 19th century, Lincoln would have had to censor the dozens and dozens of references to or quotations from the Bible he made in his speeches.)
The lawsuit went nowhere other than the courtroom trashcan. Today, few, if any, remember her or her outrage.
That was 1968.
In 1999, the British Broadcasting Company ("The BBC") developed a series of documentaries on "The Planets" and they included a program titled, "The Moon," about the race between the Soviet Union and America to land a man on the moon and get him safely back home. The program was an interesting one; it included the son of the Soviet Premier at the time, Nikita Khrushchev, the fellow who was infamous for banging his shoe on the table during a U. N. meeting and also for saying to America and the capitalistic West, "We will bury you." (Or something like that.)
The BBC fellow narrating "The Moon," told us, "Discovering the origin of the moon became the official stated scientific goal of the American lunar program." This "official stated goal" was years before Christmas Eve, 1968.
But if that was our only purpose for going to the moon, we should have stayed home. We knew its origin sometime around 1440 BC when Moses wrote Genesis. In addition, the three astronauts read the origin of the moon to one billion people on Christmas Eve, 1968, while in orbit.
I had always wanted to be an astronomer and have the cushy job of sitting in a massive observatory like Palomar, eating pralines and discovering new planets. Such was not to be, because my math skills started decaying when I was in the 7th grade. That's when "ciphering," as Jethro Bodine used to say, got hard.
One day, in elementary school, the teacher called my daughter to her desk and asked, "Did your father help you with your homework?" My daughter proudly answered, "Yes, he did." The teacher replied, "Tell him to stop; he doesn't know what he's doing; your paper is all wrong."
So, I gave up my dream of pralines and planets--7th grade arithmetic was the stake in the heart that killed it. But I've always been interested in astronomy, and just last week I discovered that series on TV on the subject, the aforementioned one by the BBC.
In the program on the moon, the BBC gave a platform to a professor sitting all comfy in his easy chair, and, in an affable manner, he told us about the theories back then in his day, 1999, about the origin of the moon:
1. The earth and the moon had grown together, side by side, for a long, long time. Or,
2. The moon formed somewhere else in the solar system and later came into the earth's orbit and was captured by the earth. Or
3. Maybe (his word, not mine) the earth was spinning so fast that it spun the moon off and it flew off like a drop of water from a spinning ball. Or, and this is the professor's theory . . .
4. Long, long ago there were all these huge worlds competing for space in the universe. The earth was one of those competitors. In the competition, a body the size of Mars collided with the earth and, as a result, there was a lot of debris which collected and grew into the moon.
The professor went on to say, "Perhaps, maybe, all the moons of all the planets came from other collisions as well, as did the rings of Saturn." We might call this competition the "Primal Olympics." In this Olympics, the earth won; we beat the big boys like Jupiter and Neptune--we got all of the air, water, vegetation, heat, and we got Lubbock, TX! Go earth!
However the professor didn't tell us the origin of all these large bodies in the universe which were competing for space in space. Nor did the professor tell us that no one was around at the time to observe this theorized "competition," and therefore, his personal theory (#4) is to be taken by faith, as are #s 1-3. (By the way, his theory is the predominate one today.)
When all this is said and done, as you can see by the theories, God is never in the discussion, nor was God in the discussion for the entire program. Genesis 1:1, 16-18 never came into the program.
Can't we discuss it? The Bible tells us interesting other interesting facts about astronomy: 1) the earth is round--Isaiah 40:22 and 2) God suspended the earth on nothing; it's floating--Job 26:7.
But let's go back. Does the "official stated reason for our going to the moon trouble you? I know it's a point of pride for us, but do you find that reason uncomfortable? Whatever else we might say, it certainly was an achievement.
And so was the Tower of Babel, that ziggurat born on the drawing board of Nimrod's rebellion and and steeped in the heady wine of "Let us make a name for ourselves." (The motto of humanity.) The Tower was their spit thrown in the face of God because the Tower made its own architectural statement, "We will not spread out as You commanded us to do; we will unify and collectivize!" Babel was the first organized, systematic rebellion against God.
Do you think that the officially stated reason scientifically for our going to the moon was an explicit, officially phrased rejection of Genesis 1: 1, 16-18?
However, we shouldn't expect the unbeliever to live and think as the Christian thinks.
Friday, March 28, 2014
THE SHATTER HEARD ROUND THE WORLD
It's 1947 and a young Bedouin shepherd, one we might call a good shepherd, left his flock of sheep and goats to search for a stray. He's in the region of the Dead Sea where David was once on the run from King Saul and Jesus was tempted "in the desert."
While on the hunt for the one stray, he comes across the crumbling limestone cliffs on the northwestern rim of the Dead Sea and there amid the cliffs, he finds a cave. As most youths, the cave intrigues him, almost as if its singing its siren song for his ears only. He picks up a stone and throws it into the cave. That's when it happened, the shatter heard round the world.
Expecting to hear nothing at the end of the flight of the stone into the dark cave, the sound of something breaking startles him. He goes into the cave and finds a mysterious collection of clay jars, most of them empty, but when he examines a few of them, he notes that they're intact, lids still in place.
When he opens the lids, what he's about to discover is the greatest archeological find of the 20th century. He has discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls. But to him, at the time, he's thinking that he's only found some old scrolls, some wrapped in linen and blackened with age.
He and a few friends take the scrolls to an antiques dealer named Kando in Bethlehem who sends the shepherd and his friends back to search for more. They return with seven more. The shepherd sells four of them to Kando and three to another antiques dealer.
Eventually Professor Sukenik of Hebrew University in Jerusalem hears about the scrolls and finds the antiques dealer who bought the three. The professor says that when he started to unwrap them, and when he unrolled them and saw the beautiful Hebrew lettering, his hands began to shake as he realized that he was seeing what no one had seen for more than 2,000 years.
Since that shatter heard round the world, we have found 900 more manuscripts and we now know much more about them.
We know that the Scrolls contain portions of every Old Testament book except Esther. We know that the texts of those Old Testament books line up with 99% accuracy with our Old Testament. What makes this remarkable is that, prior to that time, our Old Testament was based on the Hebrew Masoretic text from the 10th and 11th centuries AD.
But we also know something else, something very, very important.
I mentioned that the Dead Sea Scrolls contain portions of every Old Testament book except Esther, but I didn't mention that the Dead Sea Scrolls do contain one complete book of the Old Testament. That complete book is in 54 columns and contains all 66 chapters of the book of Isaiah and is one of the oldest of the Dead Sea Scrolls, taking us back a thousand years older than the oldest manuscripts of the Old Testament we had before the discovery of the Scrolls.
We now have 19 copies of Isaiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls and five commmetaries from the Dead Sea Scrolls on Isaiah. (Isaiah must have been the favorite book of the Qumran Community scholars believe was responsible for the the manuscripts.)
And that's important because within those 66 chapters of Isaiah is Isaiah 53, the most complete and detailed prediction of the penal substitution and resurrection of the Messiah in the Old Testament. Of the 166 words in the Hebrew of Isaiah 53, there are only 17 letters in question. Ten of those letters are only a matter of spelling which doesn't affect the sense of the chapter. Four more letters are minor stylistic changes, such as conjunctions, like our word, "and." So what we have is that after a thousand years of transmission of the text of Isaiah 53, there are only three letters in question and that one word does not significantly change the meaning of Isaiah 53! (Norman Geisler)
Today, the Dead Sea Scrolls are in Jerusalem in a special place called The Shrine of the Book. The temperature is expertly controlled as is the lighting. Two thirds of The Shrine of the Book is underground. Isaiah is so protected that no bomb yet invented can destroy it nor can it destroy the entire collection of the Scrolls.
Question: Did God superintend the wandering of that stray to the area of that cave?
Question: Did God have that good shepherd, concerned with only one stray, in place over that flock?
Question: Did God direct the trajectory of that stone in 1947?
Question: Does God protect the transmission of His Word?
What do you think?
_________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, and the author of Truthspeak, 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 sue.bove@gmail.com and requesting, "The Hangar Bible Fellowship Journal."
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
There is hardly a more common error than that of taking the man who has one talent, for a genius.
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/h/helps_arthur.html#mpzMv1GyXYdlOVbq.99"There is
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/h/helps_arthur.html#mpzMv1GyXYdlOVbq.99"There is
There is hardly a more common error than that of taking the man who has one talent, for a genius.
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/h/helps_arthur.html#mpzMv1GyXYdlOVbq.99
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/h/helps_arthur.html#mpzMv1GyXYdlOVbq.99
There is hardly a more common error than that of taking the man who has one talent, for a genius.
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/h/helps_arthur.html#mpzMv1GyXYdlOVbq.99
Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/h/helps_arthur.html#mpzMv1GyXYdlOVbq.99
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