When preparing for a Sunday message, I try to anticipate the most obvious questions those listening will ask, then provide answers for them in the message.
The Independence Day message I gave last Sunday, July 4, 2010, had many potential departure points for questions or objections. They were issues I simply could not address within the time limit allowed.
One of them, possibly the most glaring, was the question often raised about the legitimacy of the Founders’ faith in God, specifically their Christian leanings, when they supported slavery. Simply put – How do we square the claim for Biblical faith on the part of the Founders when they owned slaves?
This is where a little historical perspective brings truth to bear. It’s another example of how the modern Secular Left has revised history. Their tool is redaction. In redacting history, modern scholars use contemporary ideas, thoughts, and values and read them back onto previous ages. They layer modern sensibilities onto previous ages which knew nothing of such modern mores. It’s neither proper nor fair to judge previous ages based on contemporary paradigms. Progress is just that – advancement. How can one look back a hundred or two hundred years and blame them for not having computers. That’s absurd! The technology wasn’t available a hundred years ago. In a similar way, societies progress in their forms so that customs change. This is what has occurred with slavery.
To those who object to the Biblical Worldview of the Founders on the basis of their owning slaves there is a good answer. Like all good answers, its scope goes well beyond the question asked. It explains much.
The first thing is to remember that slavery was a near universal institution for thousands of years. Until the Abolitionist Movement of the 18th Century, name a time in the history of the world when slavery wasn’t practiced! Where ever there have been societies in tension with each other, there’s been the practice of slavery.
The vast majority of history has seen the economic systems of the world based in agrarian enterprise which encouraged slavery. Ancient forms of warfare provided the commodity of slavery in conquered peoples.
It wasn’t until the Modern Era that the Abolitionist Movement took hold. Even a casual perusal of the Abolitionist Cause will reveal it was fueled by the religious convictions of its leaders and adherents; convictions drawn from the Bible and their Faith in God.
That Abolitionist Movement was in its inception at the time of the birth of the American republic. The Founders were in fact caught up in it. They were a generation in transition, when the Christian mind as a societal paradigm was coming to grips with the fact that slavery & Christianity were incompatible. While many individual Christian had always know that and refused to own slaves, such as John Adams, others like Thomas Jefferson, were just beginning to realize the inconsistencies. Those in transition in fact altered their behavior toward their slaves and treated them with a growing sense of dignity and honor.
The Founders reflect all of this in how they handle the issue of slaves in the Constitution. They knew their statement in the Declaration, that all men are created equal, must eventually manifest itself in the end of slavery. They could see how the influence of the Gospel of Christ was continuing to reform society and that they lived in a crucial moment when its influence was dissolving the grip of an unjust fixture that had dominated human society for thousands of years.
As with so much of their work, Wallbuilders has done a brilliant job of chronicling the Founders’ handling of Slavery. I commend to you the following articles. Read them for an accurate historical perspective on this important issue.
It didn’t get the press one might expect from such a dramatic announcement. Scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute announced in May that they had produced the first synthetic life form. Since this has been the holy grail for evolutionists, why wasn’t the press more awash in euphoria?
Maybe because even a cursory reading beyond the initial announcement revealed that they hadn’t, in truth produced synthetic life. Reporters realized the publicists at the Venter Institute were playing them. Big announcements of major breakthroughs equal donations. Reporters have been bitten by this donation-seeking tactic before and decided to not get suckered again. So they dutifully reported the event but refused to climb on the ‘gaga train.’
So, what did the scientists at the Institute actually accomplish? Researchers started with a digital DNA catalogue of a bacterium for a goat disease. They had a production facility make some sections of the DNA which they then knit together to make DNA strands.
Far from proving that random chemical reactions are capable of producing life, what they did is prove that it takes $40 million and 15 years' worth of experiments by highly educated & brilliant scientists to produce a goat germ. Oh, and they didn’t start form scratch; they had to begin by resorting to a complex formula for life that was given to them by an even higher intelligence.
Bottom Line: In their attempt to prove life arose by chance, they proved it takes tremendous intelligence to produce even the simplest form of life. Thank you science for once again proving what we’ve been saying all along – In the beginning, God created . . .
General Stanley McChrystal, who's offered his resignation to President Obama for his recent comments critical of the Administration, is a top-rank military operative. When it comes to strategy and tactics, there are few finer minds to be found. And we're supposed to buy the line that his remarks were made indiscretely? Foolishly? Without forethought or awareness of consequences?
Puh-leaze!
I'm sorry but I'm just not buying it. Not from someone of this caliber.
Time will tell but I suspect General McChrystal planned all this. He's frustrated with the way the Obama Administration is handling Afghanistan and for the sake of the troops, wants to 'go-public' with his assessment. The Rolling Stone article isn't his end game. It's part of his exit strategy from the military so he can gain a more public forum to launch his salvos.
The general is a hands-on type of soldier who is regularly seen in the field. He shows up in high-risk environments, not afraid to mix it up with the enemy. He's no arm-chair general who pushes lines on a map. He is deeply concerned about the lack of political will to do what needs to be done to win in Afghanistan and Iraq; and in the larger War with Radical Islam. In the meantime, good people are being killed; their lives wasted due to the anti-military sentiment so obvious in the current administration. So the good general spoke out, knowing the firestorm would follow.
He WANTS Obama to accept his resignation. Because he knows the best thing he can do for our men and women in harm's way is to call attention to the pathetic manner in which the war is being prosecuted.
If I'm right, McChrystal will soon exit the military and will not long after begin to use his status as a private citizen to inform the American people of the inner workings of the Administration's policy regarding the War on Terror.
It’s been a while since I posted on the blog. This return is prompted by the passing of my great-nephew Caleb.
Caleb went to heaven yesterday at about 11 AM, Pacific Coast time. He had just turned 4 years old. He spent the last 51 days of his time on Earth in a hospital room in Chicago, most of those days in a medically-induced coma. The cause for his little body’s wearing out is a bit confusing. He was being treated for HLH, a autoimmune disorder that was being treated as a form of cancer. Numerous other complications set in and over time and overwhelmed his ability to recover. This appears to be a frequent affect of HLH. For more information about HLH see this link -
Throughout Caleb’s ordeal, his mother (my niece) wrote daily updates on Caleb’s condition & treatment to a medical blog called Caring Bridge. Literally thousands of people took up the task of praying for Caleb and his mother. After 51 days, Caleb breathed his last.
What now?
His mother grieves the loss of her only son. His grandparents are devastated. The prayers that went up universally asked God for a different outcome—for healing, for a restoration of Caleb back to his family. The answer was different from the one petitioned.
Yesterday, Caleb’s mother went back to the home she’s not seen for nearly two months. She had to see & deal with the many evidences of her son’s presence in her life & home; the bike he rode, the bed he slept in, his toothbrush on the bathroom counter. How does a mother cope with these things & the aching sense of loss she now feels?
The questions that come . . .
About God; about His will, about WHY.
What words do we offer someone being crushed by a grief that can’t be described? There are no words and the answers to the troubling questions that all sum in “Why?” sound trite and petty.
There are some pains only time can lessen. Some answers will be discovered only in heaven. When confusion looms, the only comfort is to retreat to the things we know. They are the mooring posts in a raging sea.
We don’t know what God has in mind in the last two months with Caleb’s ordeal. What we do know & moist cling to is this . . .
God is good in all His ways.
God is perfect love & always deals with us in love.
God is all-knowing, all-wise, & all-powerful.
Therefore – though we cannot see it yet, everything that’s happened with Caleb has been a thread in a majestic tapestry God is weaving. All we see is the backside, with its mass of messy knots. One day we will come round to the front & see the glory that is God’s artistry.
In Jesus’ letter to the church at Sardis in Revelation 3:1-6, He says, “You
have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Be watchful, and strengthen
the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works
perfect before God. Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold
fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a
thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.” He ends
the letter with, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the
churches.”
What Jesus said to Sardis needs to be heeded by every church and believer. Jesus’ message to Sardis is especially
poignant today. Since teaching this passage last Sunday at Calvary Chapel Oxnard,
I’ve heard reports of a half dozen people who at one time had a solid walk with
God, but who are now walking away from Him. The problem is, they think what
they are doing is fine with God. They've become so spiritually insensitive
they think forsaking their marriage, and/or engaging in obvious sin is okay
with God because – “God wants me to be happy.”
Yes, He does. The problem is, they’ll never gain the
happiness God wants for them by following the course they are taking. Leaving a
marriage because “It’s not working out” or “I’m not happy” or “I’m just not in
love any more” or “I’ve met someone else who makes me happy” will produce
nothing but sorrow, pain, and loss of soul.
The happiness God wants for us is the result of following
Him. If our decisions are made with the primary focus of garnering happiness,
it will forever elude us. Happiness is never a worthy ambition. It’s only and
always the result of right ambition; to seek above all things the kingdom
of God (His rule over every aspect of our lives) and His righteousness (which comes
by grace through faith which abides in Him).
To the Reader: Please hearken to Jesus’ words to Sardis. Wake up.Take an honest look at
yourself and your innermost ambition. Forget your reputation as a “right-on
Christian.” What’s the state of your heart RIGHT NOW? Have your recent choices
been motivated by the promotion of self, or to get closer to Jesus?
Richard Dawkins, poster boy for the New Atheists, began his writing career with the 1976 release of The Selfish Gene. Dawkins elaborated on the ideas of George C. Williams’ first book Adaptation and Natural Selection. Dawkins coined the term selfish gene as a way to express a gene-centered view of evolution; that is that an organism will conduct itself in such a way as to propagate its genetic material into the future. For Dawkins, this drive trumps all others. Everything in evolution can be explained, Dawkins contends, that provides an advantage for an organism’s genes to be passed on to future generations. It all boils down to DNA, to chemical alignments. There is no right, no wrong. It’s all pure biological determinism.
Hold on. In coining the term, "selfish gene" Dawkins . . .
does not intend (as he states unequivocally in the work) to imply that [genes] are driven by any motives or will merely that their effects can be accurately described as if they do. The contention is that the genes that get passed on are the ones whose consequences serve their own implicit interests. [1]
In Dawkins attempt to describe evolution in purely naturalistic terms, where will and intent are a fiction, he ends up attributing them to genes.
In Dawkins world, filled as it is with "selfish genes", there’s no such thing as love or charity; there’s no compassion or nobility. Virtue of any kind is for Richard Dawkins and his New Atheist compatriots nothing but the product of our selfish genes; in other words, complex chemical reactions - reactions which WANT to be continued on in perpetuity.
When New Atheists are challenged with real-life stories of those who sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others with "competing" genetics, they hem and haw and quickly move the conversation to a different field. A gene-based view of evolution has no explanation for genuine altruism or for that matter any of the noblest virtues.
The selfish-gene theory of evolution is a great example of what we read in Romans 1:22, "Proclaiming themselves wise, they became fools," for in denying genuine morality and will to individuals, they attribute it to DNA.
“Nora” was articulate and well spoken; her intelligence evident.
It made what she said that much more appalling.
I was listening to NPR (National Public Radio), not exactly
a bastion of what we would call rightist thinking. The host was interviewing a
pundit on Middle East affairs. The topic was the current conflict in Pakistan
between government forces and a resurgent Taliban. Under back-door pressure from
the Obama administration, Pakistan has in effect turned over the Northwestern
province of Pakistan to the Taliban. The idea was this; if the Taliban had an
uncontested region to itself where it could do what it wanted, maybe it would
be content to rule there and forsake its aggressions elsewhere. This kind of
thinking reveals how utterly clueless our foreign policy makers are. Once
secure in its base, and under the provocation of AL Qaida, the Taliban moved
against the Swat Valley and at this moment has driven to within 60 miles of
Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.
On the NPR program I was listening to, they were discussing
the implications of a Taliban takeover of Pakistan, a Muslim state with nuclear
weapons. The fear and concern in the host’s usually calm and measured voice was
obvious. “Frantic” would be an apt description. Then “Nora” called in, and this
is where my jaw dropped open. She admitted she was a long time listener and
supporter of NPR. But she wanted to express her strong opposition to the tone
of the conversation this morning, which she labeled as alarmist.
She said the solution to the crisis in Pakistan and the
wider unrest of the Middle East was for people to sit down to “deep
conversations.” While these aren’t her precise words, here’s the upshot of her
remarks; If everyone could just sit down and talk and strive for mutual
understanding, all of the conflict would dissolve like the dew on the morning grass.
The naïveté of this view, held by a lot of people like “Nora”,
is shocking. But it lays bare a fundamental presupposition of the Left/Liberal
perspective: They refuse to acknowledge the reality of evil. Their Pollyannaish take on the world attributes
all violence, destruction, and ruin to a lack of understanding which can be
remedied by talk.
When the NPR host challenged Nora by saying talk was a
little late when the Taliban was 60 miles from Islamabad, she replied that she
knew religious differences in the region were substantial. But she insisted that
if we could all just sit down and have a “deep conversation on the things that
divide us” well, that would solve every problem.
Sorry Nora, but you just don’t get it! The Taliban won’t sit
down and talk with you. They’ve already decapitated thousands of women who
failed to act in total groveling submission before them. They don’t want to be
understood or understand. They believe with their last breath and drop of blood
that they are to assert Islamic domination of the entire world. They aren’t
interested in peaceful co-existence with others. “Others” must submit to the
sword and banner of the Prophet.
Nora, understand this;
Evil is real. It’s the duty of Good to resist it at every turn.
So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12
We live on the West Coast, about an hour north of Los
Angeles. The air routes connecting LA to San Francisco and the Pacific
Northwest run over our house. When conditions are right, as they often are, the
jets leave long contrails. It’s not uncommon to see a half dozen parallel lines
lying side by side.
Such was the case this morning. Instead of the usual morning
shower, I decided to slip into our spa in the backyard instead, then head to
the gym for a early morning workout. It was quiet and still; one of those
magical moments when the world seemed to stop. Five contrails lined up vertically,
the jet making the newest still visible as it neared the horizon. Just over our
back wall is a tall palm tree; it made a sixth line, parallel to the contrails.
That’s when I noticed how quickly the nearest contrail was moving toward the
palm tree. It seemed to be racing toward it. Soon it was hidden by the tree’s
trunk, then passed over to its right side and the next contrail approached from
the left. Though I was only in the spa for a short time, four of the trails
traversed the tree.
What I witnessed of course was the earth’s rotation. Since the
contrails kept their shape, they weren’t being driven by the wind. Their
movement, quick as it was, was due to the earth’s 24 hour rotation, making a
day. What I found so profound was how quickly time passed when measured, not by a clock, but by lines in the sky. It was as
if I could actually “feel” its passage.
I came away from that experience with a different perspective
on time and how I use it.
Every moment affords us an opportunity to live for God and
make our lives count. When this moment passes, it’s gone forever and nothing
can resurrect it. The time we waste is just that—wasted. It’s lost to us. With
each day’s passing, we have one less day to use in growing in grace and are one
day closer to the consummation of our lives.
So Lord, teach us to number our days that we may gain a
heart of wisdom. [Psalm 90:12]
Lord, make me to know my end and what is the measure of my
days that I may know how frail I am. [Psalm 39:4]
Redeem the time because the days are evil.[Ephesians 5:16]
President Bush gave a news conference Monday, August 21 and fielded questions from the press about the war in Lebanon . He reiterated his commitment to seeing democracy spread to the nations of the world, especially the Middle East.
As he renewed his commitment to promote free and democratic nations, it became clearer, like the final adjustments on a projector. Every time Bush repeats his commitment to promoting democratic nations in the Middle East it’s like pulling the trigger on a gun aimed at the United States . It adds one more stick of dynamite to the truck bomb used against one of our buildings. It adds a dozen more terrorists to the Holy Jihad against the West.
Okay - unless you've spent the last month outside the States, you've heard at least a half dozen news stories about the "assault on Christmas." Departments stores, public schools, and several municipalities have removed any mention of Christmas in favor of a more secular representation of the holidays. They aren't "Christmas" trees, they're holiday trees. They aren't "Christmas" cards, they're holiday cards. Signs no longer read, "Merry Christmas;" they say "Happy Holidays." Even the lyrics of the most beloved carols are being edited to remove any mention of Jesus. "Silent night. Holy night" has been altered to "Silent night. Winter night" at one public elementary school.
Welcome to our new COMMUNITY website area. We have a number of BLOGS ("must read") from various ministry leaders. Please check them regularly to see what is going on in the minds and lives of our church leaders. You may leave COMMENTS on various articles and we pray that this interaction will let "iron sharpen iron" as we edify each other.
Staff Blogs 