WHERE AMERICA IS

History is the neglected teacher, a veritable Cassandra as spurned as the proverbial red-headed stepchild. History has much to teach and we have much to learn. Our Founding Fathers knew her teachings; they walked into her classroom and learned from ancient Greece and Rome.

Take the Roman Republic and its eventual tragic fall for example. What were the factors in her sad collapse? There were many; let's think about one. It has to do with what we might call their unwritten code. (The Romans called it the mos maiorum, "the ancestral custom" or "the way of the ancestors") It was the unwritten code from which the ancient Romans derived their social norms.

What we need to understand about this unwritten code is that it didn't consist of laws engraved in stone or written down somewhere. They just "were" . . . the code consisted of those unquestioned customs by which all Romans lived.  No one questioned them, everybody knew them. The code was one of those things shared by all, holding the Republic steadfast in one united fabric.

But then, in the last 100 years of the Republic, little by little, step by step, that which was never questioned was questioned, coming under fire and up for debate, and the Republic began to become destabilized, just a bit, here and there until after a while, the code, the unity, and the stability it brought were no more.

This is all starting to sound familiar to the American ear. America once had its mos maiorum: everyone knew what marriage was; everyone knew that in sports males competed against males and females against females; every one knew there were two genders; ever one knew there was to be one person who could be valedictorian and another person could be salutatorian because they had achieved and worked hard for the high honor; everyone knew that disobedience in school got you in big trouble at school and later more grief at home. Everyone knew a student passed or failed, he was not promoted to the next grade level just because he could fog a mirror. Everyone knew that there were various authorities built into society for its protection and nurture.

The Bible talks about this in the book of Romans. Paul doesn't call it the mos maiorum; he calls it the works of the law written in their hearts: "For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them."

Over and over again in the Old Book, God keeps reminding Israel of the history of His grace to them as He was the One who brought them out of Egypt; He was the one who fed them everyday and carried them on the wings of eagles; He was the One who gave them and brought them to their land . 

He had them build visible memorials as teaching tools and He told them to observe various ceremonies during their calendar year so they would never forget. 

History, history, history, our neglected teacher.



 

THE SADDUCEES ARE COMING FOR YOU

Consider Virginia, the state whose motto is, "Thus always to tyrants," adopted in 1776. Consider a realtor in Virginia who signs off on her e-mails with phrases like "Jesus Loves You." Going further, she includes on her website the most famous text from the Bible, John 3:16.

A few short years ago, even within the memory of most of the younger generation in Virginia, such inclusions would have been looked upon with approval or, at the very least, indifference. But that day is history in Virginia.

Because of the inclusion of Scripture and a few statements based on the same in her correspondence and her website, the Virginia Real Estate Board, a state agency, filed a complaint against her, accusing her of violating Virginia’s fair housing statutes.

The basis of the filing is that somebody, somewhere, who reads those words might feel that she and the realty company are practicing discrimination. That is, that someone somewhere might "feel" a certain way. (The filing of this complaint indicates that rationality is not part of the mental landscape of the state agency bringing it.)

Another key word is "might," as in someone, somewhere might feel a certain way. But in all her years, no one has ever felt that way; no one has ever brought such a complaint against her. Her livelihood has now been threatened and is in jeopardy.

The word "feel" is also problematic to the Virginia Real Estate Board. A quick look at the Bill of Rights will show that the right not to feel discriminated against, not to feel disrespected, and not to feel insulted is not in the document. If there is someone somewhere who doesn't want to hear that Jesus loves them and get their feelings hurt, it would be a simple matter to turn to the Yellow Pages or search their computers to find another realtor who won't tell them that Jesus loves them.

This is yet one more indication that it's getting spiritually darker out there in the world-system which goes to irrational lengths to leave God out.

But, guess what? There's nothing new under the sun. Two thousand years ago, the self-pious and self-holy Sadducees, a "state agency" in Israel tried to do the same thing to Peter and John whom they had arrested. Upon interrogating them and after meeting sub rosa, they told the two apostles "not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus." (Acts 4)

The question is, how does one give the gospel without saying the name "Jesus?" They must identify who the Savior is. Had the disciples obeyed the decree, it would have meant the end of witnessing for Christ which was the Sadducees' intent from the beginning. 

That's the way it is with the world-system, the Sadducees or the Virginia State Realty Board, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

P. J. O'Rourke

P. J. O'Rouke is a conservative political and cultural commentator with a touch of humor but he didn't start out that way. He was a product of the 60s, long hair, unkempt, and ready to riot at a moment's notice against the Viet Nam War and protest any and all authority in the meantime.

For him, like all of his companions, God was of no moment; the government was there to solve all the problems if his people could get into the corridors of power. P. J. especially liked the communal concept of sharing the wealth, as he said, "Especially with me." Communes (which have never worked) were big back then.

One day in the 1970s, he was walking along and passed a department store window in which, from a sideways angle, he caught a glimpse of someone in a mirror. He looked at the scroungy, aging hippie's reflection which showed his unruly hair, his thrift-shop, early-bed clothes and thought, "That guy's looking pretty silly for someone his age." Then he realized he was looking at himself.

He came to another conclusion about that same time: the cause to which he had dedicated himself was boring. (Causes come, go, and trickle out.) His friends were boring. His life was boring. He began to realize so much of his life was, as he said, "silly."

But then he started to think about something else. He said that it seemed silly not to believe in God. How so? The answer to the question, "Is it silly to believe in God," is in Psalm 19. No, it's not silly, it's logical and all one has to do is look up because"the heavens declare the glory of God."

O'Rouke began to think about that question about the existence of God and wrote, "Existence, my existence, can't be accidental. Existence is too intricately organized. If the random forces of quantum physics were all that were in play, then those forces had dropped butter and eggs and mushrooms and cheese and lit a match on the kitchen floor and gotten an omelet. . . there is an incredulity about [believing] things organize themselves."

When he came to that point, he's right where Ps. 19 wants him to be. He had brought to the surface what he'd been suppressing in the midst of all his demonstrations, protests, riots, and causes: a powerful creator God exists.

Next should come an important question: will P. J. O'Rouke say, "I want to know Him"? If so, God will be faithful to get him the information he needs to trust Christ alone as Savior. (Acts 10; John 7:17)

WHY? WHY DID YOU DO THIS!

(The following account is true; only the names have been changed)

When Brad was a child in early elementary school, he began to show signs that something was wrong, very wrong. One day his mother and older sister returned home to find the den in chaotic disarray, papers cut up and strewn on the floor, toys and other childish paraphernalia turned over, cluttering the floor.

Brad's mother told the child, "Clean it up." Brad stood up, looked her in the eye, and said, "No." She repeated her words. Brad stood stock still, ramrod straight and screamed, "No! No! You can't make me! I don't have to do what you say! I will not!" He didn't. It was one incident after another like that one which made his mother and sister not only frustrated but also fearful, even terrorized at times by his defiance.

But as Brad grew older, things calmed down. There were no more defiant episodes. Then in his teenage years, his family noticed a strange behavior going on in their darkened basement. Brad was down there, hour after hour. He had placed candles all over the place, would light them, and spend his time poring over his special books. When his mother and sister asked what they were, Brad was honest. They were books on the occult. To be specific, books of occult spells. Brad was spending hours and hours studying and memorizing them.

The years passed; Brad met a girl, her name was Lucy. They dated and after a while, Brad proposed marriage and she accepted. She recalled years later that the night before the ceremony, she had what she called a premonition that if she did marry Brad, she would regret it for the rest of her life. We'd say that it's common for many brides to be to have second thoughts just as they're about to make one of the biggest changes of their lives. The next day, Brad and Lucy became man and wife.

One day Lucy announced some good news; she told Brad that she had gotten a job and Brad was as happy as she was. It was then that he, with joy, told her, "I knew you'd get it; I cast a spell and you got it!"

Lucy, dumbfounded, asked, "You did what?" He said it again and she backed off a bit and told Brad that she didn't want to have anything to do with that and that he could have his beliefs and she would have hers, that never the twain shall meet. Brad passed it off, still happy about his success in casting a spell.

Brad began to act strangely--he became controlling, accusing Lucy of breaking her marriage vows when she'd done nothing of the kind. He wanted to isolate her from any and all friends. He became controlling of their three girls, the oldest of whom was now almost a teenager. They couldn't seem to do much that was right in his eyes.

But things were going normally for a while. One normal morning Lucy goes off to work; Brad has promised to take the little girls to school. Nothing unusual. Everything was fine and going well early that day. It was that day and that morning that it happened, something that changed their lives forever.

Lucy was at work when she got the call--her house was on fire. Brad had vanished. Her girls were in the hospital. Lucy rushed to the hospital and outside the room to which she was directed stood a policeman. She told him that she wanted to see her girls and asked, "How are they?"

The officer stands there silently. Lucy asks again. He tells her that he can't say, but that a doctor and a chaplain are on the way. Lucy collapses in his arms, overcome with dread and fear.

The doctor, the chaplain, and the police tell her the news: her little girls are dead, all three. They had been assaulted by their father, he had cut their throats and set the house on fire. They now have Brad in custody at the police station; he's confessed everything.

Lucy, in a rage, asks if she can see him immediately and they agree with one condition: she can see him, but she can't touch him. If she does, they will immediately remove her from the room.

They take her to the station and escort her into the place where they're holding Brad. She walks up to him, looks him in the eye, and asks, "Why? Why did you do this!"

Brad, head down, and sitting in a chair, answers with tears, "I don't know." Lucy, not accepting that answer, asks again, "Why" Why did you do this!" Again, putting his head in his hands he tells her that he doesn't know why he did it.

For the last time, she asks the same question and he finally answers her: "I cast the wrong spell!"

The occult. Those books. The spells. These things wreak of the demonic. The Bible tells us that there is a dark, evil side of the universe. Brad had made contact with it.

THEY'RE ON THEIR WAY

481,000 men and women are on the way and they're dangerous. It won't be long before they're here. That figure is accurate, give or take. Those 481,000 comprise the enrollment of the University of California System, the largest university system in the US of A.

What makes them dangerous will be the indoctrination their education will have imposed upon them via a required course for every one of the 481,000 students: they will (if the bill passes the California legislature) have to take a course in "Ethnic Studies."

It's not an optional course like, say, Latin or First Aid to Athletic Injuries. If your major is mechanical engineering or biology or business, you will, like every other student, have to take Ethnic Studies if you want to strut on the graduation stage no matter your major.

This means that 481,000 will be taking a course that's anti-Israel, that advocates the boycotting of Jewish businesses, that advocates the destruction of the state of Israel, and that denigrates, disparages, and destroys Western Civilization which is based on Christianity.

Not only that, but also it's course that won't have your Bible-based values in it. It'll be a course in which--regarding marriage and gender--481,000 students will be instructed that they can make up their own definitions. As far as truth is concerned, they'll see it as being in the eye of the beholder. Things like that.

These 481,000 will graduate to become our doctors, lawyers, judges, senators, presidents, and legislative representatives, federal and state. They will be our Boy Scout and Girl Scout leaders, our Sunday school teachers and pastors. They will teach in seminaries, elementary, middle, and high schools. They will write the textbooks, the best-sellers, and bring us the news on cable, the networks, newspapers, and magazines. They will raise their children with the same lack of biblical principles as they have as well as with a hostility or an indifference toward the church. Their children will join the ranks of the anti-Semites and stand shoulder to shoulder with their parents.

But remember--God always has a remnant. Maranatha!

SHE'S STARING AT US

She lay buried for 1,750 years, but there she was, big as life, in Pompeii, that city buried in volcanic ash and debris measured by the megaton. The results of the explosion which blew half of Mt. Vesuvius to kingdom come had hidden and preserved the wall painting of a young Pompeian woman  for a long, long time. 

She stares at you with a pensive look; she's thinking about something and we wonder as we look at her, "What's on your mind?" but we'll never know. We note that she's like 90% of the world, right-handed. She's holding a stylus (a writing instrument) in her right hand; it's poised delicately on her lips, tip downward. In her left hand is a tablet on which she'll write. Dangling from the top of the tablet, there appears to be a ribbon, perhaps a bookmark. 

Her clothing is green with what appears to be a purple shawl draped over her shoulders. Her hair is fashionable; her earrings are gold. She looks like she just stepped out of a bandbox, i. e. perfect. From that fresco, we know that she was both educated and rich.

It's from Pompeii, the city sealed in time, sealed in 79 AD to be exact. It's from that sealing by volcanic debris that we know most of what we know about the day-to-day life in the 1st century, back then in the ancient days, the days of the Apostles. And that's where the New Testament enters the picture. When the Apostles wrote their books, who were they writing for? Illiterate bumpkins? A small group of literate people? Let's go to Pompeii and find out. 

Archaeological discoveries reinforce the impression that literacy was more widespread than we once believed. Hundreds of texts written in ink on postcard-sized slips of native wood, such as ash — as opposed to engraved with a stylus on the kind of tablets we see in the fresco — have been found at a military base, in the area of Pompeii, mostly dating from the period just after the destruction of the sealedand now silent city.  

The texts cover a wide range of subjects--from Claudia Severa inviting a friend to a birthday celebration to personal messages and orders for food and other military supplies. Some may have been written by scribes, but with many, the writing shows that the authors weren't professionals. The military was more literate than might have been expected — indeed, material from Egypt from around 79 AD shows that about a third of the members of the camel corps could write their names.

In addition, graffiti is all over Pompeian walls as the tourists see while walking the streets of Pompeii. There are political slogans, a list of the prices of wines, the typical "Marcellus loves Cornelia" messages, and advertisements. Such mundane writings for and by the common man indicate a fairly good literacy rate.

When we turn to the New Testament, Pilate has written on the cross, "Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews" in three languages. This would indicate literacy. When Jesus confronts a hostile crowd concerning the woman taken in adultery, He stoops to write something in the ground. Fishermen like Peter, James, and John were literate, very much so.

This was the world of the New Testament, a more literate world than you might think. A world prepped for the written Word of God.
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WHAT SHOULD I WEAR TO CHURCH?

On the long-vanished Sundays of old, going to church was a time of dress-up. Men and boys wore coats and ties, shoes shined to a shiny hue. Women wore dresses, occasionally a hat, maybe gloves.

Things changed. Formality was out. Relaxed was in. Things became so informal, let's call it, "early bed"--flip flops, shorts, sneakers, whatever, but certainly and absolutely no dress shirts and ties dotted the ecclesiastical landscape. The preachers eschewed the formal and they replaced their time-honored sartorial splendor in the pulpit for the Casual Joe look.

This brought a generational confrontation. The older, coat-and-tie faction looked down on the younger Casual Joes as those who were, in rebellion, were shaking their fists at authority and choosing their attire to be in tune with the anti-authority times. Those times, as the song said, "were a-changin'." Dad was coat and tie, carried his Bible to church, sang from the hymnal; his son, Joe Casual, in sneakers and tee-shirt, looked at a screen to show the book chapter, and verse. Rousing choruses appeared on the large screen. Dad read his King James, Joe C. preferred "The Message" on a screen. Dad, sitting bolt upright, occupied his pew, while Joe C. lounged in movie theater seating.

The stage was set for a generational war, one fought in church after church The war's over; Joe Casual emerged the victor--he's the pastor, the deacon, the elder today. But what of this battle? Was it worth it? Should war have been declared and fought? The question is, "What does the Bible say about the proper dress for Sunday-go-to-meeting?"

And the answer is . . . nothing, absolutely nothing. There's no dress code prescribed for church attendance whether attendees meet in a humble home or in a cavernous cathedral. In the early church, slaves came in work clothes, the patricians dressed in togas with a purple stripe to show their status.

However, although there is no physical dress code prescribed in the Bible, there is a spiritual one for the believer which Peter publishes in I Peter 5:5, no matter where he worships (Peter isn't writing to a church). "You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble."

Self-centeredness is a natural condition of the fallen person. Though appeals to self-interest can move us in positive ways, we need more than self-interest to function optimally for the Lord. We need humility. But just what is this thing called humility?

William Temple, archbishop of Canterbury, said, “Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts. It means freedom from thinking of yourself at all.” We see a classic example of humility in Acts 16 in which Luke describes the incident when, after an earthquake, Paul could have easily fled his cell, letting the jailer commit suicide. 

However, Paul did not let the jailer kill himself. He immediately called out, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!” (v. 28). Paul naturally thought of others. He faced the test of character, which occurs with virtues, and he passed the test. He gave up his own freedom and risked being killed because of the trumped-up charges he faced. Yet Paul prevented the jailer’s suicide. Paul was a model of humility. The Philippian jailer and his household, became Christians that very night. Everett L. Worthington Jr.)

Humility attracts. Thinking of yourself repels.