Flawed Heroes

History is full of flawed heroes, jars of clay – not of porcelain – who though blemished held great treasure.

Martin Luther King, Jr., day always brings conflicting emotions. Granted, as a white male from the American South, that demographic alone would cause some people to immediately ignore my opinion related to MLK.

However, I believe God created everyone in His image. All races descended originally from one race through the bloodline of Noah. Racial, ethnic, and social diversity is one way God displays various aspects of his amazing grace.

My best friend in seminary was a black man – a former drug dealer turned to Christian preacher-evangelist. I invited him to preach in three different churches where I worked. The best neighbors I had in my life were a wonderful black couple in Laurens. My wife and I enjoyed many summer evenings sitting on their back porch years ago.

But Martin Luther King, Jr., causes conflicted responses within me.

Positively, who can deny he was a powerful force against the evil of racism in America? He and another son of the South – Billy Graham – stood against segregation and the ignorance of hating someone because of the color of their skin. And they both confessed the Lord Jesus Christ and preached from the Christian Bible.

Who cannot be stirred by the historic “I Have a Dream” speech that challenged people to see all people as being made in the image of God? A few years ago I took my family to the Civil Rights memorial in Birmingham, Alabama, viewing the moving statues mindful of key figures in the Civil Rights movement. Thankfully, we live in a day when a black man can rise from obscurity and become the President of the United States.

Those are all things to be celebrated enthusiastically.

However, MLK was not a spotless hero. Several aspects of his tainted legacy bother me. History records he habitually was unfaithful sexually to his wife. Known for his girlfriends and mistresses, this was not a man of God who practiced self-control in the area of his sex drive. Old FBI documents released by President Donald Trump in 2017 reveal some extremely dark sides to MLK, including a penchant for orgies.

Yes, I understand some of the FBI files could have an over-arching agenda to discredit him. However, somewhat like Bill Clinton’s private life, MLK’s sexual promiscuity is well-known.

On another note, The King Papers, which reveal many of his inner-thoughts on theology and other matters, reveal a very unorthodox King: denying the virgin birth, questioning the veracity of the Scriptures, and holding some troubling views of the atonement, just to name a few.

Socially and politically, MLK was much more a socialist than a capitalist. Some would argue his theories resembled Communism more than democracy. For years he was on the FBI’s list of people with links to Communists.

Yet, no doubt, he is a towering figure in history. The annals of time contain numerous flawed heroes – biblical Abraham, Samson, and David, Martin Luther of the Reformation, Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill, and today, Donald Trump.

One vice of the Left is to paint people in broad strokes of black and white. If they can find one flaw that goes against a leftist value, they attempt to make the media perceive the person as “all bad” or “evil.” This is a political tactic used with great success when trying to discredit an opponent.

Today, if someone digs up something less-than-ideal from a person’s past past three or four decades ago, an almost hysterical scurry begins to paint the entire persona as “bad.” A frenzy went through our country recently, tearing down statues, renaming streets, and trying to remove certain historical remembrances.

However, the real world is not that black and white. People are flawed with a combination of honorable and less than honorable characteristics. A society fueled by revenge or justice will eventually have no one left standing. All of the memorial statues will eventually be removed because no human can live up to a perfect standard.

African American leader Allen West said, "This all began because someone decided, as other elected officials have across the country, to cave in to partisan political pressures and seek to erase American history. History is not there for us to love or hate, but for us to learn from and seek to not repeat its mistakes.  If there are those who truly believe we protect ourselves by trying to revise history due to false emotions, then we miss out on who we are as a nation, and our evolution. The statues of long since deceased leaders of the Confederate Army do not stand to remind anyone of oppression. And if a statue can oppress you, then I submit that you have greater issues."

A society oiled with grace understands we can learn from our flawed heroes. We can even celebrate them, remembering the good things about their legacies without embracing or excusing the bad.

Wisdom allows us to remember with grace.

Pictures used by permission from Pixabay.

Why the Virgin Birth of Christ Matters

 

“The virgin birth is a necessary foundation to Christmas and the believer’s life,” says renowned pastor and seminary president, Jack Hayford.

Tragically, disbelieving foundational truths has become a normative part of modernity.

Agnostic Oxford professor Sir William Ramsey, one of the greatest archaeologists of all time, decided to scientifically disprove the fourth gospel. He skeptically thought it could not be trusted. Dr. Luke collected his information from a primary source, likely Mary. Luke references thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities, and nine islands.

After several years – and many miles – of diligent labor, Ramsey completely changed his mind, discovering Luke was accurate in every case where the critics disagreed. Ramsey wrote, “Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy, he is possessed of the true historic sense; in short, this author should be placed along with the greatest of historians.” Much to the dismay of contemporary skeptics of his day, Ramsey spent the next twenty years proving and publishing the accuracy of the smallest details of Luke’s accounts.

Another skeptic turned believer was Thomas Oden, noted Methodist theologian. In his memoir, “A Change of Heart” (2015), he shared his pilgrimage from theological liberalism to orthodox affirmation of biblical Christianity. Explaining his early embracing of biblical skepticism, he admitted, “I loved the fantasies and I loved the revolutionary illusions. I loved heresy.” After spending years disbelieving the basics of the Bible, he says the Holy Spirit found him and set him on a completely different trajectory the rest of his life.

Attacks on foundational theological truths “emerged in the aftermath of the Enlightenment, with some theologians attempting to harmonize the anti-supernaturalism of the modern mind with the church's teaching about Christ. The great quest of liberal theology has been to invent a Jesus who is stripped of all supernatural power, deity, and authority” (Albert Mohler, “Can a Christian Deny the Virgin Birth?”).

The fountainhead of this movement was the skeptical, German higher criticism of the 19^th century, with thinkers like Rudolf Bultmann, who argued the New Testament presents a fantasy worldview that we cannot accept as authentic. He pushed a program of thought called “demythologization” to strip Christianity from any hint of the miraculous or supernatural – including the denial of key components like the virgin birth and the literal, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.

American Protestant liberalism emerged in the early 1900’s with influencers like Harry Emerson Fosdick courting the same type of deconstructionism. By the mid 1900’s, two movements emerged countering theological liberalism. Fundamentalism, as with Bob Jones, Sr., and evangelicalism, led by figures like Billy Graham, Bill Bright, and Carl Henry saw the dangers and foolishness of rejecting Christianity’s foundations.

The Bible pictures truth as a plumbline. The next time you buy a house, build a storage shed, or drive across a bridge, ask yourself, “Do I care if this structure was built true to plumb (meaning exactly vertical or true)?”

Modern movements, such as the “Jesus Seminar,” however, fully embraced the serpent’s first tactic in the Garden of Eden: “Did God really say?” (Genesis 3:1). The abandonment of the full trustworthiness and authority of the Scriptures has led to fully embracing moral revolutionaries, the sexual revolution, and the questioning of virtually every standard of behavior.

Among most mainline denominations, Thomas Oden, said, “the world sets the agenda – it’s always trying to catch up with whatever is the latest and seemingly, apparently, the best and most productive form of psychotherapy. I was taught to be attentive to culture without having a sufficient grounding in the classical Christian confession.” 

Dr. Mohler warns, “Christians must face the fact that a denial of the virgin birth is a denial of Jesus as the Christ. The Savior who died for our sins was none other than the baby who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, and born of a virgin. The virgin birth does not stand alone as a biblical doctrine, it is an irreducible part of the biblical revelation about the person and work of Jesus Christ. With it, the Gospel stands or falls.

The authority of the Bible is almost completely gone where liberal theology holds its sway. The authority of the Bible is replaced with the secular worldview of the modern age and the postmodern denial of truth itself. The true church stands without apology upon the authority of the Bible and declares that Jesus was indeed ‘born of a virgin.’ Though the denial of this doctrine is now tragically common, the historical truth of Christ's birth remains inviolate.”

This Christmas, I’m thankful for Jesus Christ, the embodiment of Truth, and the Bible, the written revelation of Truth. He is the incarnate and now glorified Word of God, and it is the written and preserved Word of God.

It was necessary for Him to come through a virgin so the bondage of sin
would not be passed to Him. He became the sinless sacrifice – for my sins and yours. He met God’s demands perfectly. 

Pastor Jack recaps, “obedience to God’s Word allows one to be available for the fulfillment of God’s life-giving promises and that through the power of the cross, one can be released from the power of sin and be made righteous and pure before the Lord.”

Images provided with permission by Pexels.

"Ring Those Bells" - Christmas album by Rhett and Tracey Wilson

Rhett and Tracey Wilson just released a new Christmas album called “Ring Those Bells.” Recorded at the Daywind Studios in Hendersonville, Tennessee, the album features old Christmas favorites such as White Christmas, O Holy Night, and Sweet, Little Jesus Boy as well as some new ones, like Circle of Love and Joseph. 

This is the third album recorded by the Wilsons. In 2007, they released “Lead Me On,” a collection of popular Christian music hits, and “Offered Praises,” a compilation of all-original songs written by Rhett, in 2008. All three albums are available for purchase in person or at their site: www.rhettwilson.org. 

Rhett works as Senior Writer for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in Charlotte, North Carolina, and as a transitional pastor at Spring Hill Baptist Church in Lancaster, South Carolina. Tracey serves as the Director of Music Ministries at Covenant Baptist Church in Lancaster. The Wilsons will perform a Christmas Concert at Covenant Baptist Church on Sunday evening, December 19, at 6:00pm.

You can purchase a bundle of all three albums here.

It’s a Wonderful Life at 75: A Christmas Lesson Left on the Cutting Room Floor

 

Powerful, provoking article. I've watched the movie since 1988 and haven't ever pondered all of these insights . . .

"But for the powerful prayer of others … and divine intervention, George would never have learned his value. Remember, George did not know his wife and friends were running around town collecting money to save him.

Capra’s genius was not the plot device of George seeing what life without him would have been like for his beloved Mary and the town of Bedford Falls. It was spending the first three-quarters of the film hurling George Bailey toward destruction. Even amid the countless delightful moments, Capra is tightening the screws. Watch the film beginning to end without commercials and feel the tension build.

What makes the movie powerful is not the angel Clarence guiding George around town. It’s the devil whispering in George’s good ear until Clarence’s arrival. The same whisper so many of us hear."

Read the entire article here by Al Perrotta at The Stream.

Immanuel: The God Who is With Us

 

"So the message of Christmas is that we can know God—not just about God, but know God through our Lord Jesus, Immanuel. Salvation is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, who is the way to the Father. On the cross, Immanuel—God with us—becomes our Savior and our sin-bearer. 

We live in a chaotic world that often seems out of control. The world of COVID-19 has resulted in divisions between those vaccinated and those not vaccinated. It has resulted in isolation, social distancing, lockdowns, furloughs and great personal anxiety and distress. But understanding this great truth of Immanuel will give you stability, security, hope and confidence for the future: God is with you. God is always with His people. Friends may forsake you; loved ones may die; disasters may come; wars may approach; the economy may go into a depression, but God is with you—for all of life, through the valley of the shadow of death, and for all eternity. Don’t be shaken by your difficult circumstances. Look to Immanuel: God with us.

This Christmas, invite Immanuel to perform a miracle in your life. Receive Him as your Savior. Trust Him with all your heart."

Read the entire article here by John Munro.

Picture used by permission from Pixabay.

Truth Came to Us At Christmas

Over 150 law enforcement officers and their spouses recently attended one of these retreats at the Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove in Asheville, North Carolina. In addition to Bible teachers and Christian leaders in law enforcement, chaplains with the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team were there to minister to the unique emotional and spiritual needs of these couples who serve our communities.

At law enforcement appreciation events led by the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team, officers and their spouses step away from the everyday stresses of their fast-paced lives.

“My husband began to talk on the retreat about the shooting that nearly killed him. It is the beginning of his healing,” said one wife of an officer.

Two other guests, Keith and Angela, first attended a retreat two years ago. At that time, their marriage was falling apart, and the stresses from Keith’s job drove him away from the Lord—and kept him emotionally distant from his wife and children.

“I was angry, frustrated, and resentful,” he said. At the first session that week, Keith felt instant freedom hearing the Word of God and listening to worship music: “Every session, I could feel His presence stronger and stronger. I just couldn’t get enough.” Later during the retreat, Keith responded to the Gospel invitation, sobbing on his knees as he came to the Lord in repentance and faith.

Two years later, at this fall’s retreat, Keith shared, “He’s been completely faithful in healing the damage I caused my wife and my children. I can truly say I am a new person because of God. To know that I’ve been given a second chance—not just in my walk with Him but in my marriage—is priceless.”

Read the entire article by Franklin Graham here.

A Speaking God

 I wrote this article in 2014 and am re-posting it here.

Richard Blackaby gives a great blog post on his site about a controversial subject: Why is it so difficult to believe God speaks?

It was not until I went to seminary that I began to discover how much people in the Body of Christ criticize each other.  I don't mean unlearned, carnal, biblically-illiterate people.  I mean pastors, professors, and leaders criticizing and picking apart what other believers believe and practice - all in the name of being "doctrinally sound."  (I remember being dumbfounded once during seminary listening to some fellow students bash Billy Graham and James Dobson for all of their, in their opinions, for their "unbiblical and unwise" approaches to ministry.  They told me that Billy Graham had done more harm to evangelism than anyone in the 20th century, and that if James Dobson wanted to serve the Lord, he should have been a pastor.  Wow!)  Looking back, I was naïve and was just learning how much the Body of Christ criticizes each other's theology and practice.

Followers of Jesus have often forgotten His statement that "whoever is not against us is for us" (Mark 9:40 HCSB). Or, well-meaning theologues mistakenly think that if someone in Christ's Body does not agree with the theological brand with which they agree, then those with whom they disagree are "against Christ."

One of those areas that has come into a lot of criticism is the debate of "does God speak today?"  Through the years I have learned from, appreciated, and agreed with the simple reality that the God who spoke through His Spirit and indwells believers today is still speaking and guiding.  

By "speaking" we do not mean still writing Scripture but instead still shepherding, leading, and communicating with His people as He indwells them. His Holy Spirit guides us, and we are wise to learn to discern the inner witness of the Spirit.  I have enjoyed the teaching and writing of many guides on this subject such as Charles Stanley, Peter Lord, Henry Blackaby, Jack Hayford, Dallas Willard, Gordon Smith, V. Raymond Edman, Priscilla Shirer, Joy Dawson, Loren Cunningham, Kay Arthur, Wayne Grudem, and many others from the evangelical community. 

Primed to Learn to Listen

One of the first books I remember reading for my own spiritual growth in college was How to Listen to God by Charles Stanley.  I cut my freshman-year college spiritual teeth on it and gleaned much that year from Stanley's preaching and testimonies about both  meditating on the Word of God and learning to listen to the Holy Spirit.  The last 20+ years, I have read a number of books on the subject.  For years I was helped by a number of the "Christian living" books on the subject such as Blackaby's Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God and by the testimonies and biographies of Christian speakers, authors, missionaries, and leaders.


In recent years, I have benefited from reading books on the subject written on a higher intellectual-theological level than the previously mentioned ones.  Dallas Willard's Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God and Gordon Smith's The Voice of Jesus: Discernment, Prayer, and the Witness of the Spirit are excellent approaches to the subject.  Another one is Wayne Grudem's The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today - a very intellectual, systematic approach from one of evangelical's most respected theologians.  He helped fill in some blanks for me theologically, intellectually, and application-wise that some of the "practical Christian living" books do not. 

It shocked me a number of years ago when I began to realize that a number of people who take the Bible seriously take great issue with those ideas.  I have appreciated Jack Hayford's thoughts and teachings on the subject through the years, as well as his frustration with the "growing body of verbiage today debunks the idea that God speaks personally to people any more. Although there is value in warning against kooks, I'm disturbed."  You can read more of his article "God Speaks Today" here.

Part of my own frustration with the debate is the fact that I know He has spoken to me at various times through His Holy Spirit - apart from the Bible.  (And I am a person who takes the Bible seriously - I have not missed one day in 23 years meditating at least twice daily in the pages of the Word of God.  I have practiced the old Billy Graham team practice of "no bread, no bread" - if you do not meditate in the Word of God then you do not eat physical food.) 

What It Does Not Mean

In saying that, to acknowledge that the Holy Spirit speaks to you - or guides you - does NOT mean the following:  a) it does not mean that you always hear correctly, b) it does not mean that you always understand correctly, c) it does not mean that do not add some of your own thoughts and perceptions to the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, d) it does not mean that we always see and hear clearly (now we see but a poor reflection through a mirror), e) it does not mean that His ways, instructions, and revelations will always make sense to our logic and reason,  f) it CERTAINLY does not mean that we do not take the Bible seriously, and g) it CERTAINLY does not mean someone thinks that God's present guidance should be written down, put into the back of the Bible, and treated as Scripture. I have never once heard any serious, conservative, evangelical, biblically-minded Christian who, believing the Holy Spirit speaks to Christians today, also thinks those promptings should be written down and treated like the canon of Scripture.  Grudem's book The Gift of Prophecy helps much in explaining these areas.

As the old hymn testified, "He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me I am His own."  The intimacy shared between the Lord and His Bride has at times been compared to the intimacy between a married couple.  I remember Charles Stanley exhorting in his sermon "Favorites vs. Intimates" that sometimes we are too busy to get on our face and make love to God. 

Though no illustration is perfect, I have thought numerous times through the years that to me, someone saying that the Holy Spirit does not speak to people today is kind of like a virgin telling a married man that there is no such thing as sex! 

Well, this is one of those debates - like Calvinism / non-Calvinism, the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit, the practice of water baptism, and the role of women in ministry - that will go on until Jesus comes! May we show grace and love to people with whom we disagree.

Blackaby's Thoughts

Richard Blackaby has some good things to say about this debate.  I resonate with his thoughts deeply!

"The Blackabys are not unfamiliar with criticism; of that you can be sure. We have had well meaning critics challenge everything from our choice of Bible translation to our use of sermon illustrations. But undoubtedly the subject for which we receive the most invective is our assertion that God speaks to people.

Invariably if we suggest in preaching or writing that God communicates with people directly, we are quickly reminded by self-appointed orthodoxy police, that we are sadly misguided. If we ask why they are so concerned about our teaching, our critics will hasten to inform us of someone they knew once, who claimed to have received a “word” from God that it was OK to commit adultery with their secretary and therefore it is far too dangerous to encourage people to assume they can receive a direct word from God themselves. . . One hates to think that because one misguided believer lied about hearing from God, now no one is allowed to receive a divine word.

If we suggest that the Bible is our instruction manual for the Christian life and that it provides numerous examples in both the Old and New Testaments of God speaking to people, our watchdogs will immediately assure us that God no longer needs to speak to people directly because we now have the Bible. Therefore, every word of instruction we require can be found in its written pages."

Read the entire article by Richard here.


Pictures used by permission from Pixabay.

8 Steps to Totalitarianism

 The following is my column for The Clinton Chronicle this week.

America, birthed in freedom, continues moving away from that shining virtue.

In his recent sermon on July 4^th, “The Truth Shall Set You Free,” Pastor John MacArthur explained how a country can move from liberty to totalitarianism. Examining Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and George Orwell’s 1984 (1948), he shares eight necessary elements. 

These two atheists of a former generation peered into the future and warned it would n
ot be long before America faced a new kind of slavery.  Not chattel slavery, when one person owns another, but instead, political slavery, when the state owns everybody. “Totalitarian rule, both of them say, is essentially the absolute political-social slavery of everyone. We have come to the place in American history where we hate chattel slavery. In fact we’ve created a massive movement, racial movement, now, based upon past chattel slavery. People rise to noble heights to condemn chattel slavery, while at the same time they are willingly becoming slaves of the state. And the end is exactly the same: Somebody owns you, and you give up your freedom,” MacArthur said.

So what are the eight steps? (MacArthur quotes in italics)

1. A national crisis. Saul Alinsky, whose disciples include Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton, taught his students that creating crises is a necessary means to controlling society. The more severe the crisis, the more control the government gets, the more freedoms begin to disappear.

2. The collective is more important than the individual. Sounds like the Borg on Star Trek! Promoting groups of people is more important that your individual rights. We don’t care about your thoughts, free speech, or choices. Instead, we’ve got to stop global warming or protect the masses from a virus. You can’t say publicly you think marriage should be reserved for one man and one woman, because the advance of the LGBTQ agenda is more important than what you think. Don’t dare question if a biological male should be declared a woman if he feels like it. Don’t question if Donald Trump caused the January 6 event at The Capitol. Pay no attention to the facts – like police officers calmly removing barriers and holding doors open for people – and cameramen ready inside – just submit to the media’s narrative. The collective is what matters – and a few people are going to control the collective’s narrative. 

3. Mass psychosis. You need a mass psychosis, something that makes everybody afraid—like a plague, like a pandemic, like masks—that create a greater threat than the giving up of freedom. Keep up the deception so they continue to believe the lies, and you escalate control.

4. Control information. Control what people hear and you control what they believe. Tell the same lie emphatically enough, and society accepts the falsehood as reality. Censor what you don’t like. Those who do not submit to the narrative yet have big social media followings – ban them from the platforms. “Fact-check” whatever disagrees with the collective. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

5. Promote and legislate hedonism, which is the pursuit of physical pleasure at all cost. Turn loose all kinds of immorality everywhere. Create a situation of unhindered sexual lust. Let people be completely lost in pleasure, no boundaries on any kind of sexual behavior. Then they will value feelings more than truth.

6. Feed them mindless, accessible, irrelevant, distracting, nonstop entertainment. The word “amuse” literally means to not think. So technically an amusement park is somewhere we go to enjoy ourselves and not think much. Sadly, we have become a culture of amusement. People live in a world of fantasy and emotional stimulation rather than thought. They ignore the reality that truth does not care about your feelings.

7. Make drugs available to everyone because drugged – or drunken – people are harmless and easy to control.

8. Isolate people from each other. When you isolate them, you control the narrative. Why? You take them away from the examples of something different. If mainstream media pushes the narrative that the COVID vaccine saves mass lives, if enough people are isolated, they won’t hear anyone giving facts challenging the narrative. Remember America’s Frontline Doctors – an organization of physicians who challenge the pandemic narrative, who experienced dramatic recovery rates with patients who used hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin? After holding a press conference in front of the Supreme Court in 2020, Big Tech and social media dropped the hammer and tried to silence them. They just commemorated the one-year anniversary with a White Coats Summit of physicians in San Antonio, Texas.

What is the biggest threat to totalitarianism? Some authority other than the government. Totalitarian control is useless when confronted with these things: individual liberties, truth and facts, and God and religion. That’s why in every totalitarian movement, they suppress those three things.

And, MacArthur warns, Here we are, so nobly upset about the freedom that was taken away from slaves in the past, while at the same time—dumbed down, stupidly, mindlessly, lustfully—we give up all our freedoms and become slaves of the state, and the end is exactly the same.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Debunking the 1619 Project? Is America Fundamentally Racist?

 

Watch historian David Barton tell amazing stories about the role of black Patriots, evangelists, and leaders in early American history - as well as 8 talking points as to why America is not systemically racits.

Trust God

 

Freedom to Totalitarianism in 8 Steps

 

America, birthed in freedom, continues moving away from that shining virtue.

Pastor John MacArthur explains how a country can move from liberty to totalitarian rule in 8 steps. The following is a portion
of his sermon's introduction on July 4, 2021, "The Truth Shall Set You Free."

"Back in 1932 a devout atheist by the name of Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World. Brave New World was a dystopian novel that looked at the future and assumed that it wouldn’t be very long before the West was completely captive to totalitarianism—that is rule by a dominant force, where you have only two classes: the ruling class and all the people who are subjected to them. In Brave New World, he portrayed what life would be like.

It was about seventeen years later that George Orwell, another devout atheist, wrote 1984, another dystopian novel that looked at the future. And just examining those recently in my own thoughts, I drew out of those two pictures of totalitarianism in the future of the West, what are pretty amazing, prescient insights from a couple of atheists. Totalitarian rule, both of them say, is essentially the absolute political-social slavery of everyone. We are used to what is called chattel slavery. C-H-A-T-T-E-L. Chattel slavery is when one person owns another person; political slavery is when the state owns everybody—but the effect on the individual is identical. We have come to the place in American history where we hate chattel slavery. In fact we’ve created a massive movement, racial movement, now, based upon past chattel slavery. People rise to noble heights to condemn chattel slavery, while at the same time they are willingly becoming slaves of the state. And the end is exactly the same: Somebody owns you, and you give up your freedom.

Now what elements of society and politics produce this willing kind of state slavery? Drawing from both Orwell and Huxley, this is what they say totalitarianism would look like. Here are the necessary elements. One: a crisis. A crisis puts freedom in danger because a crisis elevates government control. And the more severe the crisis, and the more control the government gets, the more freedoms begin to disappear.

Secondly, the collective is more important than the individual. The greater good is the good of society, not your good. “We don’t care what you want or what you think, we’ve got to stop global warming. We don’t care what your freedoms are, the things that you desire and you want, you can’t say that; you can’t believe that; you can’t do that.” Because the collective is far more important than the individual. “The advance of the LGBTQ is far more important on the social side for the good of society than anything you think about that.” So the collective dominates the individual. Everybody is forced into the collective.

Thirdly, you need a mass psychosis. You need a mass psychosis, something that makes everybody afraid—like a plague, like a pandemic, like masks—that create a greater threat than the giving up of freedom. People rushed into giving up their freedoms when there was a threat that created a mass psychosis. Keep up the deception so they continue to believe the lies, and you escalate control.

Number four: Control information. Control what people hear, what they therefore believe. And the way to control information is the following: Create confusion, send out all kinds of diverse signals so that nothing is really clear. So you’re creating a kind of acceptable irrationality, a kind of madness. Censor what you don’t want; control people by technology and media.

Number five—and this is a dominant feature of both of these novels: hedonism. Turn loose all kinds of immorality everywhere. Create a situation of unhindered sexual lust. Let people be completely lost in pleasure, no boundaries on any kind of sexual behavior. Fill the culture with pornography, because as long as they are unhindered in their sexual lusts, as long as they are lost in hedonistic pleasure, they’re not thinking.

Number six: Feed them mindless, accessible, irrelevant, distracting, nonstop entertainment—so they live in a world of fantasy and emotional stimulation rather than thought. Number seven: Make drugs available to everyone because drugged people, or drunk people, are harmless. And number eight—this is critical: If you want to take over an entire population, isolate them from each other—because when you isolate them from each other, you control the narrative. You take them away from the examples of something different. That is what atheists came up with as the pathway to dystopian totalitarianism, in which people distracted, dumbed-down, drugged, give up their freedoms.

Now what is the biggest threat to this? The biggest threat to this is pretty simple: Some other authority than the government. And by the way, don’t look to politicians to fix this; they’re the problem. They’re the powerful; they’re not going to fix this. One non-politician tried to fix it, but he couldn’t get any help from all the politicians. You can’t turn to them to fix it, they’re the powerful; they’re the elite, power-hungry people who just want more power.

What is the threat to them? Another authority—in fact, another authority that is a greater authority, that is a transcendent authority, that is an eternal authority, and that has revealed Himself clearly on the pages of Holy Scripture. So who is their greatest enemy? God. What is the book that they most fear? The Bible.

I don’t know what freedom in this Western culture in the future looks like. But I see all of this shaping up—and this is from, as I said, back in 1930 to 1940s. But we certainly have managed to check off all the boxes—right?—to create totalitarianism. And here we are, so nobly upset about the freedom that was taken away from slaves in the past, while at the same time—dumbed down, stupidly, mindlessly, lustfully—we give up all our freedoms and become slaves of the state, and the end is exactly the same."

Read or hear the entire sermon here at Grace to You.

Image courtesy of Pexels and Pixabay.

 

 

COVID-Vaccine Information: Alternative views

There’s plenty of material on mainstream news outlets in favor of the vaccine. However, in a day marked by misinformation and propaganda, and a push towards a totalitarian government, it’s wise to look at various sides, not take everything at face value, and try and discern when there is a “wizard behind the curtain” – even when people are saying in loud, terrible voices, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”

Many people settle for one-minute soundbites, memes, or slogans. I want to dig deeper. We need to learn to do our own hunting - and when we find the chicken, chew up the meat and spit out the bones. Here is just a sampling of material from people who have legitimate concerns about the vaccine, its safety, its origins, and the motive some of the originators.

The following flyer was from the “You call the Shots” seminar put on by Texas Doctors & www.TexansForVaccineChoice.com:

9 Key Facts About Covid Vaccines:

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See David Lane's Our Permanent Pandemic?!

 And Lane’s The Corona Scandal

See Tucker Carlson's Why Are Thousands Dying from Covid Vaccine?

“More people have died in four months from the current COVID vaccine than the number from all other vaccination deaths combined from mid-1997 to the end of 2013 (15 ½ years).” – according to VAERS. (from Carlson)

 

And probably the most disturbing, intellectual David Martin discusses the history of the patent information on what is commonly called the COVID vaccine. If his information is accurate, we are indeed living in what some people call the greatest crime against humanity in history.

"Under 35 U.S.C.101 Nature is Prohibited from Being Patented. Either the SARS COVID Virus was manufactured therefore making a patent on it legal or it was natural therefore making a patent on it illegal. If it was manufactured it was a violation of chemical and biological weapons treaties and laws. If it was natural filing a patent on it was illegal. In either outcome, both are illegal. In the spring of 2007 the CDC filed a petition with the patent office to keep their patent application confidential and private. They actually filed patents not only on the virus but on its detection and a kit to measure it." - Dr. David Martin

The Epoch Times reports how the CDC admits last year’s COVID test could not tell the difference between flu and COVID.

And see Rich Welsh’s CDC Silently Revokes Test Emergency Use Authorization Because it Combined COVID and Flu

 

Why States Should Tune Out Washington’s COVID-19 Noise

 

VAXX Misinformation Leads Kids Directly Into Danger, Hospitalization, Death

BREAKING!!! April 25th 2003 the CDC Filed for a Patent on the Coronavirus Transmitted to Humans

Doug talks with Karen Kingston about COVID vaccines.      

Dr. David Martin talks COVID Fact and Fiction

DANGER - Are You Getting The COVID Vaccine? MUST WATCH AND SHARE!

 

Dave Ramsey: I'm Getting Fired If I Don't Get The COVID-19 Vaccine!

Also, see, What Does the MRNA Vaccine Do?

And Rand Paul responds to Delta Variant hysteria.

Hear or read Pastor John MacArthur’s sermon from July 4^th, 2021, called The Truth Shall Set You Free. He masterfully explains the 8 steps George Orwell and Aldous Huxley predicted for moving a country from freedom to totalitarianism – and how all 8 are happening today.

Image courtesy of Pexels and Wikimedia Commons.

 

The Church’s Lane is the Whole Cosmos

"Recently, a denominational leader said to me that the best thing that the Church could do to handle the challenges of this cultural moment would be to 'stay in its lane.' That the so-called 'culture wars' have been grueling, and the Church is
primarily called to spread the Gospel. That when it comes to the most controversial issues, the best strategy is non-confrontation and to focus on what is most important. 

I think I know what he meant. There’s certainly truth to the idea that Christians overemphasize politics. As I’ve said on more than one occasion, politics makes a lousy worldview. In a culture without better answers to life’s biggest questions, politics too easily assumes the place of God, determining everything from our values to our sources of truth to who we’re willing to associate with. When Christians embrace a political identity rather than a Kingdom identity, the riches of Christ are exchanged for the porridge of political gamesmanship. 

However, telling the Church to just 'stay in our lane' and out of politics is an equally unhelpful answer. Typically, the 'stay in your lane' mandate is only applied to unpopular issues, like abortion, marriage and family, or religious freedom. No one ever tells the Church to stop fighting against sex trafficking, or to no longer dig wells for communities without fresh water, or to cease sustainable economic development in impoverished nations. Christians should absolutely engage worthy causes because the Lordship of Christ and the implications of the Gospel demand it, not because they are deemed culturally uncontroversial. 

Read the entire article by John Stonestreet and Kasey Leander here at BreakPoint.

Image courtesy of Pexels.

Why Are So Many Good Things Being Destroyed?

 

Why States Should Tune Out Washington’s COVID-19 Noise

 

Take-aways:

1. The federal government continues to offer garbled COVID-19 messages that undermine its credibility and sow confusion about the pandemic.

2. The CDC made repeated errors in judgment [and] issued policies that were often unclear, misguided, and not evidence-based.

3. Instead of smearing unvaccinated people as menaces to society, states can stress that vaccines protect individuals against the worst consequences of COVID-19.

Read the entire article by Doug Badger here at The Heritage Foundation.

Image courtesy of Pexels.

We were here when medical science lost its mind

 

One day, when sanity returns to the world, we will be able to tell a future generation, “We were here when science lost touch with reality. We were here when the medical profession lost its mind. We were here when feelings
displaced biology.”

Yes, we will get to tell the shocking story unless, of course, our society completely falls apart and self-destructs. Otherwise, we will get to bear witness to these days of societal madness and insanity. . . .

“The ideology seems to be that biology really isn’t as important as how somebody feels about themselves, or feels their sex to be,’ Hooven told ‘Fox & Friends’ Wednesday [July 28]. ‘The facts are that there are in fact two sexes — there are male and female — and those sexes are designated by the kind of gametes we produce.”

Read the entire article by Michael Brown here at The Christian Post.

Image courtesy of Pexels.

2 keys to the recent growth of the rural church

 

GREAT ARTICLE ON RURAL MINISTRY

"Planting and leading a church in a rural context first requires an understanding of the community. If we enter these close-knit, deeply rooted communities with an air of pride or arrogance, we will most likely fail. . . .

One life at a time, we are sensing a genuine Gospel optimism for small-town renewal.

When churches are planted with an understanding of the community around them, and leadership models are built around honoring the community and integrating it with the life of faith, no one knows all that God might do. What we do know is that God wants to do much, and He is opening wide the doors into rural areas."

Read the entire article by David Pinckney here at The Christian Post.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.