The times they are a-galloping to the grand finale

Another thing that is a punch to the stomach is something I keep discovering more and more these days: how many people call themselves Christians who don't have even the most minimal qualifications. You get used to being among people who bandy about Christian terminology and offer up prayers and you assume that therefore they are Christians only to find out that it's all a deception. They are deceived and they are deceiving others. But you don't find this out unless you have occasion to get into the particulars of Christian belief, which doesn't necessarily happen if for instance you are all frequenting a political blog.

So I discovered that someone who seems to be a Christian in such a context turns out not to believe in the Deity of Christ, for reasons that are very similar to those of the Jehovah's Witnesses. He rationalizes "And the Word was God" to mean something other than what it obviously says, just as the JWs do, yet says he isn't a JW and considers himself a Christian.

Anyone who points out that this is heresy by the light of historic Christianity is upbraided for being "judgmental" and for lacking "love," as if the Christian virtues were on the side of the heretic.

This kind of thinking is often encountered in frankly anti-Christian contexts, but now I'm encountering it where Christianity is supposedly embraced.

I suppose this is going to be happening more and more now if it really is the case that we are heading into the last of the Last Days, which of course I've thought for some time now. I thought the signs were adding up a few years ago, but how much more rapidly and insidiously they are accumulating now, and I don't like the feeling in the pit of my stomach. Christ will triumph but it's going to hurt all the same.

Are we soon to see the unveiling of the final Antichrist? We certainly have an antichrist in the American Presidency, but is another to emerge, or will this one become fully possessed by the devil and rise to the position? A perfunctory kiss on the cheek of American Christians while he sells us out to the enemy, and off we go.

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Addendum: Another contributor to that discussion objected to being characterized as an unbeliever although he thought the first verses of the gospel of John were from the Old Testament, saying:

This is the best demonstration I can think of for staying away from the Old Testament. It won’t cure you from sinning, but it will surely cure you of reading. For years, I felt passages like this one simply demonstrated what morons people were back 1,000 years B.C., for I felt that if God wanted us to understand, he could have found a better writer.

You'd think a person who would so denigrate and reject the Old Testament -- although in this case it was actually one of the best-known passages in the New Testament which he didn't even recognize but dismissed as moronic -- would readily agree that he isn't a Christian, so imagine my surprise when I was denounced for suggesting such a thing. Apparently for some people you can be a "Christian" by simply claiming to be one without the slightest evidence to support the claim, without even the most rudimentary knowledge of the Bible for instance, not to mention the most rudimentary respect for it.

And the person who suggests otherwise is denounced as "unloving" -- meaning in context unChristian. Just another perversion of truth reflective of the times we live in.

The Sovereignty of God over ... everything.

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised, but I am surprised. It's hard to understand and hard to accept just how violently many Christians react against the idea that God is sovereign over ALL things, which means of course sovereign over events such as 9/11 and the earthquake in Haiti, both of which I've written about in this blog.

They will say that God IS sovereign ... BUT: ...but not sovereign over earthquakes, ...but not sovereign over jihadists, ...but not sovereign over human will, ...but not sovereign over who is saved (election) etc etc etc.

And here's another puzzler:

We know that God is a sovereign God, but what does that really mean for us in the earth today?

"Really mean?" "For us today?" Huh? Why should it mean anything different for us today than for anyone ever?

And anyone who holds the view of God's complete sovereignty is likely to be severely upbraided and even treated as hardly a Christian at all. Witness what was said against Pat Robertson. The fury of those who object to this idea is little different from that of complete unbelievers. I've been called amazingly bitter names by supposed Christians for defending this perfectly orthodox understanding. I'm called "harsh" and worse for doing this, although my tone as far as I can tell is simply factual and descriptive.

They argue that you can't win people to Christ with such "harshness," ignoring the fact that the discussion isn't about winning people to Christ, and that it is God who is being presented as the "harsh" one, as well as that there is no harsh tone, only words they have trouble accepting. The subject is simply the objective explanation why such events occurred, the subject is not the gospel. We're discussing the plight of Haiti.

Even so, there is plenty of good reason to think people ARE won to Christ by understanding the seriousness of God's wrath we are all under, and won more securely than when the gospel is given without such framing. The idea is that we have to understand that we are rightly condemned before we can rightly value or even understand the meaning of the offer of salvation in Christ. This is how the gospel was often preached in times past, and still is preached in Reformed churches.

For the record, here's a page of links to sermons and articles on various aspects of God's sovereignty.

Here's a similar but shorter list at Monergism dot com.

On this page they list the various sovereignties of God with scriptural sources:

• God is sovereign over the entire universe: Ps 103:19; Rom 8:28; Eph 1:11
  
• God is sovereign over all of nature: Ps 135:6-7; Mt 5:45; 6:25-30
  
• God is sovereign over angels & Satan: Ps 103:20-21; Job 1:12
  
• God is sovereign over nations: Ps 47:7-9; Dan 2:20-21; 4:34-35
  
• God is sovereign over human beings: 1 Sam 2:6-7; Gal 1:15-16
  
• God is sovereign over animals: Ps 104:21-30; 1 Ki 17:4-6
  
• God is sovereign over "accidents": Pr 16:33; Jon 1:7; Mt 10:29
  
• God is sovereign over free acts of men: Ex 3:21; 12:25-36; Ez 7:27
  
• God is sovereign over sinful acts of men and Satan: 2 Sam 24:1; 1 Chr 21:1; Gen 45:5; 50:20
  

And here's a brief article by John Piper on 9/11: Why I Do Not Say God Did Not Cause the Calamity . . .

Perhaps I can at least now say that this discussion is so clearly futile that I won't be attempting it again -- not that I won't write about it here as usual, of course.

Racism and the attack on Constitutional America

Since my last post the Andrew Breitbart / Shirley Shirrod incident has come and gone, or maybe gone, maybe not. I haven't discussed it here, been discussing it elsewhere. May get to some of it eventually, but right now I want to mention a "panel" discussion on CNN that Breitbart linked to, that occurred in the midst of the Sherrod story. He linked specifically to the remarks by two black talk show hosts, leftists but interesting: Warren Ballantine: CNN Panelist to Tea Party: ‘We Don’t Think You’re Racist...’

Ballantine said about the accusation of racism in the tea party: No, we don't think YOU are racist, we think your IDEOLOGY is racism, and I thought that said it all. He said that when we talk "states' rights," they hear "Jim Crow."

I thought that was honest and illuminating. That's how so many conservative political positions get slammed as racist, political positions that are the essence of Constitutional America that SHOULD benefit all citizens of all races. Instead, this kind of paranoia is how they get brought down.

(I certainly object to his ridiculous claim that Jeremiah Wright was quoted "out of context," however, just as Shirley Sherrod was.)

And Bev Smith: CNN Panelist: We Need White Folk to be Talking About Race

Bev Smith was calling for a dialogue on race. If it could be honest along such lines maybe it would be worth something. Maybe the paranoia could be acknowledged as an understandable reflection of the history of racism. Maybe measures could be discussed to remove any lingering threat along those lines, while the principles of a free society are shown to be the greatest good for all.

WE NEED A PLEA PARTY!

Now they are calling the Tea Parties "racist." They have no conscience, no honor. Even if we make gains in the November election it has to be recognized that this nation is now being overrun by a criminal mentality that seeks to destroy it completely and elections can't answer to that for long. Thuggery has been shown in the act of defrauding people of their right to vote already. Daily deceit is what we get for news. We've long since stopped being the moral people the founders said we must be for our system of government to work.

Please,

It is time for American Christians to put away everything that isn't absolutely essential -- and MOST of what we are engaged in isn't -- and devote daily hours on end to begging God to heal this nation.

Pray for each other to be able to pray more, pray for the churches, pray for the pastors, pastors pray for your congregations hours on end (revival has come by this means), pray for revival, pray for the restraint of evil, pray for personal correction and repentance, pray pray pray until God comes down.

There is no other hope.

Calling good evil

The protestors in Arizona against the tough stand of their governor Jan Brewer against illegal immigration, are calling good evil. She is standing for what the nation has always recognized as a necessity, restriction on immigration and certainly the criminalization of illegal immigration. By calling "shame on you" to her good governing sense they are opposing justice. President Obama himself of course is objecting right along with them.

Prayer, more prayer

How to get myself to pray more. I read books to fire me up, I watch You Tube exhortations to fire me up. It helps for a while, it helps a little.

I know we need more prayer. Few of us are even aware how much more we need, and when we are aware we find ourselves without the ability to do it, to keep focused. Just ticking off the things we desire isn't enough, we need concentrated deep prayer that lays hold of God in earnest and doesn't let Him go until He blesses us.

I don't even have the energy to spend much time writing about this right now but I would like to put much more time into it when I can. How important this is. Prayer for the nation, this miserable nation that is going downhill by the day, politically, culturally, in every way. Help us to pray for our nation, Lord, to humble ourselves as Your people and pray for our nation as Your word exhorts us to do.

And it must be prayer for revival above all, that God would rend the heavens and come down and show us what the Christian life is really meant to be, not this pathetic powerless worldly-minded nonsense most of us live most of the time. And from all I've read I know a true revival will start with a great wave of conviction of sin, contrition, repentance in the churches. Oh Lord bring it soon. Start now. Start with me.

Emptiness everywhere. Political talk maybe, evolution debate maybe, all flesh, all useless, all empty. Nothing works. Up by the bootstraps. But we don't pray. Oh a little, the daily prayer, maybe two. Me too. No more. We're all fleshly.

Things are falling apart, dreadfully falling apart. The nation is falling apart, evil is called good and good evil but still we don't pray. We're called the sleeping giant but if we never wake up we're just a dead giant. No good to anyone. No salt or light. All this political talk is USELESS. Political ACTION is USELESS. Only what is done in the Spirit matters. No, you don't have the Spirit just because you believe, not the WAY you need to have Him, NO.

But this is all there is, there is no more, they say. Not listening to that any more. Long time not listening to that really but definitely no more listening any more now.

The level of spiritual life in the churches is pitable. Joking around, worldly entertainments, dissipation of spiritual energies, trust in fleshly action. "God wants us to do what we can." And nobody is telling them we can't do ANYTHING in our own power.

They speak their flesh so dramatically from the pulpit. Good acting. Or not so good, acting anyway. Can't convict anyone that way. Dramatized cheer, even dramatized fire and brimstone. Oh for the real thing. The flesh profits N O T H I N G.

They prayed all over the island of Lewis for years for revival. All the people. For years. Wherever people pray and believe for it, God sends it. Even the unbelievers on Lewis knew the Bible, taught their children to memorize whole sections of the Bible. They considered it a duty. Then when revival came it was there in their heads to be drawn on. And they had real revivals, many of them. Real ones. Presence of God overwhelming, fear of God, believers got revived, unbelievers got saved. God Himself come down among them.

We could have revivals like that here and now if we were doing the same things. I don't know anybody who is. I know some pray for revival. We sort of tuck it into our prayer routine, we don't really Pray For Revival. And there is actually preaching against making any sort of effort. There is preaching against Finney who said a few indefensible things but Finney knew God, had the spirit of prayer, had the Holy Spirit.

From what I've heard, the revival in Saskatoon under Bill McLeod was completely genuine, a work of God himself. And yet I find criticism of him too. Discernment is good, discernment is necessary, must be big in any genuine revival, but we also need some tolerance of doctrinal differences.

In prayer we should be giving that to God too. Ask Him to teach us, ask Him to give discernment, put it all in prayer.