Currents

Tonight's sermon was on Micah, the positive prophecies of hope. It was a refresher of the high points of the book. He was given three messages for the Jewish people: you are going into exile to 

Babylon and will return; your future king will come from Bethlehem; finally there will come a time when war is past and the need for war-making materials will be no more. 

Two have been fulfilled, one is yet to come.

These are massive God-stirrings in the human condition. Currents of his hand in our sphere of existance. Micah caught the flow and offered hope to those who believed in the near future, mid future and distant future. I'm positive that between the mega-movements there are still awesome currents that we need to jump in and ride.

Tonight the elder prayed for boldness. Does he know what that means? In our world these days it will mean putting up the beautiful church building to pay for the legal bills caused by the activists disagreeing with our new marriage policy. It is one thing to state boldly the Word to one's own congregation. It is entirely another to stand boldly when the world tries to force that stand down. We are on that razor edge as a nation. Oh churches, will you be bold when the Obama-nazis come to seize your pastor and elders? Will you stand on the Word to the prison cell?

This current in our society is going to be difficult. But we are given the final prophecy in Micah (ironicly first of the three in the book) as a beacon to aim for: there will be a time when swords will be beaten into plowshares, and there will be peace between the nations. 

Our speaker, calm and deliberate, spoke of a friend in a nation that is 99% Muslim. Yet he cried as he sensed the danger this family was in just as representatives of Jesus Christ as their religion. The threat is real, their lives are in danger, there would be no repercussions should they be killed for their religion. Yet in that region there is reason to hope, because one day Christ will rule that land too. That is a current in history that no man can hold back. 

Or for that matter, no demon or Satan will either. 

There is hope, my friend. There is always hope.

Pew Research Findings

The percentage of the American population that identify themselves as Christian has declined over the last eight years.

A Lot.

From 78.4% to 70.6%.

That was big news this week.

So was an article commemorating the 50 years that have passed since a famous photograph of amish children running into the corn fields to escape forced bussing away from their one room school to the local public school system.

These are connected. And it should be obvious.

I am a Christian. 100% sold out.

And the part of the population that no longer identifies as a Christian may have:

1. Never been Christian
2. Be a joiner, but not believer
3. Be apostate, having left the faith
4. Be brainwashed against the faith
5. So deep in sin that they barely see the light
6. Something else

Frankly, the percentage means nothing to me. You do. My kids do. My friends do. That's where the Amish kids and the choice of schooling is important. Without that choice, they aren't Amish, they aren't really people.

50 years ago the state was forcing kids into education programs. 100 years ago the Germans turned their children over to the State for education. 150 years ago Marx envisioned education as the way to return humanity to control.

The Pew study just told us that the plan is working. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Missionaries 2

Missionaries have a mission. They represent their parent organization and push the agenda of the group. Christians use the term to speak of those who go to a foreign environment and promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But there is a new group of missionaries promoting their religion through the tactics advocated by their original leader: Mohammed. And the West isn't handling it very well. Why not?

This is a blog, my ideas, and not a definitive examination of the subject. Disclaimer over.

Secularism has discounted the value, importance, validity and need for religion. The philosophy that man is the measure of all things is the modern counter weight to the idea that God is the center of all things. The tactics of secularism have pushed Christianity into the corner in order to establish a society without moral restrictions, regardless of eternal outcome. Why? Because in the secularists philosophy there is no eternal for a man therefore there should be no restrictions. Our wealth is choking our hearts and souls.

When a person, or many people, have more money than they can possibly spend in a lifetime there is a tendency to slack off and pursue whatever feels good in the moment. Rationalizations kick in and restrictions are thrown away. Eventually the wealth of the nation becomes the touchpoint for decline because the populace weaken in their bodies, minds and will. America is the wealthiest population in the world. Our poor receive benefits that dwarf the subsistence living of most of the world. Yet, the push continues to discount restrictions, morals, and religion. 

Secularists find it inconceiveable that religion could be that important to anyone. Why bother, they reason!

So now we have new missionaries in our midst. They are firm believers in their religion, follow its rules and guidelines, and wholeheartedby believe that their lives matter only in the age to come. They use the tactics laid out by their original leaders to spread the new understanding of god and man's order. They convert people who are interested and ready to have a soul change in a radical way. These converts want to matter to someone, or something and the missionaries are doing their best to give them a great shot at it. People are being recruited in person, in temples, in jails and through the many communication avenues of the internet.

The discounting of religion in secular society has caused a blind spot in media reporting and political thinking. Therefore they have missed the true nature of the threat of Islam. These missionaries are not in our midst to promote their faith through “good works”. These modern missionaries are promoting their faith through a war, a “jihad”, that was outlined by their leader Mohammed. The fact that the entire movement is based on their religion is what seems to baffle these prominent leaders. Why, when they have been given so much, do they want more?

This ignorance, willful or genuine, means that the West is in big trouble. The principles of Christianity laid the thinking for the emergence of America as the leading nation in the world. The principles of Islam have laid the foundation for continued strife and stagnation in the areas where it holds sway. These missionaries want to drastically restructure the world into their own image and belief system. It’s all religion, folks. And these missionaries are doing their best to make converts and infiltrate the society we live in according to their leaders direction.

Politically correct language tries to soften the blunt reality of a situation. It may be more polite but it does not have the emotional push needed to confront this latest push by Islam into the world’s stage. These missionaries are the vanguard of the armies to come. Will we have the language, stamina, and faith to repel the first emissaries of this religion? Will we be able to establish Christianity again as the only freedom faith ever shown to man? Or will we live our faith lives in smaller enclaves until the day of our redeemer’s return?

Tactics, missionaries, modernity. Wake up secular America, we’re in real trouble.

Missionaries

Language is a funny thing. English can be a very precise communication device. Just dip into science and medicine and the language is unintelligilble gibberish to the uninformed. Or the blog posts here: the lowercase titles are straight reflections of mine from reading "The Story" chapter by chapter.

If that is what you are looking for, then don't read further. This uppercase titled piece is strictly an untested observation that I wanted to get down before it escaped my fragile short term memory.

The missionary movement among the Christian faith was birthed by Jesus when he sent out the twelve in two's to preach the good news in the neighboring towns. Their mission was simple, speak publically and privately about the work Jesus was doing and the reason he was doing it. The disciples were advised to take little baggage along, but instead survive on the generosity of the people in the town moved by their message. If no one listened, then move on. 

The modern missionary movement had the same goals, but with outside funding could stay in resistant areas and "do good works" to prove their worth and fortify the message. In many settings it was a recipe for cultural clashes and martyrdom. Death on the field was a major loss at home, but it was seen as a direct ticket to heaven based on purity of motive and service to "the cause". Excuse me if this is a little blunt, but the hardline truth in this analysis is to throw a light on intent and strategy: Modern Christian missionaries used service, good works, and teaching as the strategy for attention to the message: Jesus Christ is the messiah and shows us the right way to live and die.

The crazy thing to me has always been the idea that different denominations, often with very similar doctinal stands, would have similar missions in the same foreign lands yet never speak of joint efforts or mutual benefits. Just two completely separate organizations with almost identical missions, doctrinal statements, identical missional strategy, and location. The duplication of effort drive me nuts. One church, one Savior, one salvation, 8,000 organizations. (Exaggeration intended. Accuracy not needed. Bureaucracy run amok.) 

Now we are seeing a similar missionary effort in the West by another religion, and we are not handling this situation so well. First, what is the missionary effort then why are we not handling it so well.

The missionaries and their tactics. 

Media reports the infiltration of missionary tactics happening on our borders and through the internet. People and thoughts are crossing our porous safety nets to bring a new message of order and peace to the people of America. Their mission is to make converts. Their tactics are to use the same rhetoric of oppression, dominance and order that makes for great conspiracies. But it is also the same rhetoric that builds freedom crushing societies built on fear. The first push for such organizations is to build enclaves of useful “others” who peacefully coexist and build lives of prominence. The second step is to build a force of their well heeled children and the disaffected in the surrounding society.

What the current missionary effort in the USA didn’t count on was the close aliance with another movement pushing through the culture at the same time: radical racial upheaval and the adoption of the Teachings of Mohammed by many influential religious leaders of color. While Christians looked to Ghandi for patterns to change society, others looked to Mohammed for inspiration and found a different tactic for cultural “rightness”.  Think Martin Luther King compared to Louis Farrakhan as an example.

If this writing seems vague without names or specific dates/events it is on purpose: I’m laying some ideas about strategy that are running through my head, I have not done the hard work of researching them or correlating them to facts. Let’s face it, this topic is worthy of book length examination.

People without hope looking for meaning (in a meaningless society, now there’s another statement to tear apart) will gravitate to the place where change is being done personally and in the surrounding world. The new crop of missionaries to America see the mission as lifting Mohammed and his religious order to prominence using the tactics of the past: peaceful infiltration then legal reform to the pattern of the Koran and finally pressure enforcement through fines, imprisonment and death. Their tactic is the soldier, recruited and trained according to the thoughts and motives of their founder, with language that only now sounds ominous; before the language sounded like the language of protest. 

So how does my earlier observation about the English language come into play here? Because we are loathe to call these recruits what they really are: missionaries of Islam in the context of the Koran completing the missions that Mohammed himself sent his disciples to do to the surrounding towns. This is the core of the tactic being revived in the modern age. Our language, or perhaps our societal refusal to engage religious dialogue, has set us up to miss a crucial point for the so-called terrorist threat. These are not terrorists! They are missionaries of the prophet working according to the directions he gave with the message and tactics outlined through practice. Not so different than Jesus sending out the twelve, just radically different message, tactics and results. 

Missionaries. Some bring water, crops, medicine, chickens and a message of life and hope. The current crop bring bullets, confrontation, dirty bombs and “in your face” pressure hoping to die for the cause. Which should be supported for the general welfare? Which should be stopped?

Living in the Times of Judges

Judge Judy sits high on her lofty bench, ruling over the hapless combatants below. Everyone has signed waivers so the stakes are high. She hears, questions, ridicules, speaks her general truisms and renders her decision. Judgment. Final. Post "court" interviews are done and we are done enjoying the micro-drama we've witnessed. 

That is not what a biblical judge was, or is.

The Baltimore riots reminded me of the uprisings in the late 60's across the country. My mid-sized GM town saw more than its share of rioting, vandalism and random shootings in the name of racial equality. Are we again in an era of godless rebellion? 

One generation: 1970 to 2015. And this one more rebellious against God than the earlier one. Sounding familiar.

In the evangelical world we raise individuals who speak plainly to their generation of God's truths and God's way of shalom in the world. Often, they are mocked as a sideshow, but the longterm results of their work lay a foundation of right living and peace in society with an effect much greater than political or financial muscle can force. Great names worth repeating include Jonathon Edwards, John Wesley, Charles Spurgeon, Billy Sunday and Billy Graham. 

A godless, licentious generation would arise and then a voice would sound out doing the impossible: making sense of right living and shalomic peace with God and man. 

This is not new. However the tragedy of the situation is documented in the cycles of the Judges in that Old Testament writing. The only judgement that a biblical judge pronounced was a judgement against sin. They could not order punishment, they could not enforce decrees, they were restricted in what they could say and do. A biblical judge told what was true to people who did not know they were in trouble. They arose to calm fears and restore order but they didn't have the backing of the political, financial or military bigwigs of the age. Biblical judges simply began to apply God's word to the days actions and changes happened. They were the right people for the time.

But the flaw with the Judges was their specificity and adherance to the path God laid out for them. When the politicians came courting a judge would go back to their farm after rebuffing their advance. When money came calling the Judge could not be purchased. When the military called for a Judge's leadership (male or female!) the Judge said "no" and continued to speak and do the will of God.  They would not be turned from their Godpath. 

I believe we are in the between times of the Judges. Billy Graham, singularly focused and undeterred, is a Judge. His message is tightly focused on the Gospel and salvation. His message to politicians, money, and power is the same: "You must be saved". His effect on society has been vast, and I believe he stood in the gap between God's wrath and our country's wayward people. Billy Graham was heard and instantly respected. God had Billy's ear, and Billy did not waste what he heard. 

But now what, or who will arise to speak God's word to this lawless generation? Or will society degenerate again into a godless generation that echoes this fatal observation in the old Book:

"Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshipped them. Unlike their fathers, they quickly turned from the way in which their fathers had walked, the way of obedience to the Lord's commands. Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the Lord had compassion on them as they groaned under those who oppressed and afflicted them. But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers, following other gods and serving and worshipping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways. Therefore, the Lord was very angry..."

Judges 2:17-20 NIV

keys

Keys.
Locks.
Inclusion and exclusion.

Contemplate the lowly scrap of metal you call a key.

Seriously, come up with a couple observations yourself before you go forward with reading this bit of drivel.

We use keys for a very specific reason: to prohibit people from entering or using the locked object. Houses, cars, deposit boxes, guns, and lockers are reasons for a lock and key. We do not want those to be opened or accessed by anyone except those who we give the privilege of  owning the key. Those that own the key have all the rights to allow or disallow others access to the locked item.

If one does not make a copy of a key or share the key, then it is assumed that others will have no access at all to the desired object locked.

"Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades." Revelation 1:17-18

Jesus holds the keys to death and Hades. Wow, take some time and turn your earlier observations about keys into applications about Jesus owning the keys to death and Hades... Satan doesn't have a copy, death and Hades are wide open, Cerberus is necessary to keep the dead inside, not keep the living out! Hades is the most INCLUSIONARY place ever created, while Heaven is the most exclusionary place ever created. The criteria for entrance to Hades is simple: did you live. The criteria for Heaven is incredibly narrow: is your name in the Lamb's book of life?

This is the last chapter in "The Story - The Bible As One Continuing Story of God And His People" and my review of chapter observations. And how fitting that God would drive the word "keys" into my conscience. As a pastor I was often asked if someone was in Heaven after death. It was most often specific: Aunt Jane, Grandpa, Billy. Now I understand why it was such a frustrating question: I don't have the key to that place. Jesus does have the key. I cannot know fully what is true in a man's soul, his connection to the crucified one, his transformation, his sanctification. I can only be a shepherd to those who choose to identify with the Lamb who was slain according to His Word. I cannot lean on my own interpretations.

Perhaps that is why I lean so heavily on the text of Scripture rather than theology or interpretations. Too much man, too little God. What does the Book say?

"The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into (Heaven). Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life." Rev. 21:27

"But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolators and all liars - they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." Rev. 21:8

At the end of the ages, after the final judgments, when Hades and death are depopulated of the redeemed and Jesus has claimed His own (those whose name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life) then the keys are brought out and Jesus locks the door of Hades shut. This I read. This I believe.

This is a truth that grieves me, for you dear reader. We have only this life to choose the one solution to man's core problem: sin. Once this physical life is over we are not just inanimate matter to dissolve and be reused by the scavengers of life. We are more, and you sense it in your soul. When the final key is used, which side of the gates of Hades will you be on?

tactics

My journey through "The Story" has come to the final two chapters: Paul and the Revelation. What can we learn from these that hasn't been hashed over a million times? 

The chapter highlighting Paul's ministry was remarkable to me for two incidents. Not what Paul said, but what Paul used to effect God's will. Paul illustrated tactics that incorporated earthly wisdom and observation with completing God's will. 

So often I hear that Christians cannot use worldly methods or ideas to advance the Gospel. How can the godly use tainted articles or ideas? But that was not the example of Paul.

In one instance Paul is about to be condemned by the entire Sanhedrin, and he declares that he is on trial because, as a Pharisee, he believes in the resurrection of the dead. (Of course he did, Jesus is alive!) That started a riot as the Sadducees and Pharisees immediately began to bicker and argue about this contentious doctrine. The Roman guards immediately saw the danger and protected Paul from the melee. Divide and conquer, earthly wisdom to further God's cause.

The second instance is the reflection that the Romans carrying Paul to Rome used a ship with Castor and Pollux, the twin gods of the Greek pantheon, on the masthead. They were the "guardians" of the ship. Clearly this was an article dedicated and revered as set apart to this god-pair. It merited a mention in Scripture, the only instance I'm aware exists. This tells us that Paul, and God, are not concerned about the spiritual forces that simply do not exist, and instead Paul reminds his shipmates that it is God who will bring them through the storm, even though They have spent two weeks begging the twins for help. The ship will be destroyed (your gods are doomed) but you will be saved if you stay under the banner of Paul's God.

Amazing, if you consider it, that Paul lived in a most contentious time, immersed in the evil of the day, and used it all for the glory of Jesus Christ. 

The earth is the Lord's, and the glory thereof.