"Goodby to All That"

One of the top WW-1 memoirs is Robert Graves' "Goodby to all That" in which he details his experiances as a British Officer in the trenches of France. Graves' memories are compelling in and of themnselves and your WW-1 library is not complete without this work.

Of all the phrases and words Graves uses, the most memorable to me is the title itself; "Goodbye to All That". I supoose most of us at one time or another have reached a point in life when we said, or wanted to say, "Goodbye to all that".

Last week I said, "Goodby to all that." regarding my Facebook account. I haven't totally deactivated the account, but am taking a much needed sabbatical from it.

For some reason the Facebook platform has a way of amplifying all the good,the bad, and the ugly of social media. The bad and the ugly are even more amplified during this American Prsidential election year coupled with the COVID 19 pandemic.

Yes, I see the same kinds of stuff on Twitter, but my Twitter list is not primarely built around freinds, families, and aquaintences, and it has been easier to ignore or block obnoxious tweets and people.

Social media has created a platform for all sorts of half-baked conspiricay theories, mis-information, selective data picking, etc, so on, and so forth. It gets to be nauseating and when you see professing Christian people engaging in those things, it is depressing.

Goodby to all that...

...and maybe I'll have more time for blogging here.

Worship as Aliens

"So we must gather on a regular basis for worship. To speak about God in a world that lives as if there is no God. We must speak to one another as beloved brothers and sisters in a world which encourages us to live as strangers. We must pray to God to give us what we cannot have by our own efforts in a world which teaches us that we are self-sufficient and all-powerful. In such a world, what we do here on Sunday morning becomes a matter of life and death..."

Citation from "Resident Aliens"; Hauerwas & Willimon; (Abingdon Press, 1989 ; pg. 154

An Election Day Prayer for November 6, 2018

They will be done O' Lord!
Be it for mercy or be it for judgement,
Not my will, but Thy will be done O' Lord...

"The world has changed..."

Another year is winding down. A year of change in so many ways. The following quote from he Lord of the Rings movie sums up my thoughts on this year:

"The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it." ~ Galadriel

I did not vote for Trump or Clinton. I voted for a 3rd party candidate and am waiting to play the "I told you so..." card. Contrary to all the Trump naysayers otherwise, my 3rd party vote was not "wasted", nor was it a "vote for Clinton". That is simply mathematically and statistically not true and never was true even philosophically.

In the Republican primaries, we voted for other candidates because, if we frankly admit it, Trump scared us. After he tied up the Republican nomination the over all line of thought was "Who do you fear more?" Many who opposed Trump in the primaries voted for him in the general election because they feared Clinton more.

OK.... But one thing has not changed. You feared Trump... Yes, you feared Clinton more, but the fact remains you feared Trump and there has not been a lot other than wishful thinking to change your reasons for that fear.

So now what? Talk to me a year from now after Trump has been in office for most of a year.

What are you going to do do if and when a President Trump does something that really goes over the top as well as far across the line; something you feared?

Yes, Clinton would have been even more egregious, but the point is Trump will be egregious. And when his time is done, the damage will be done and there will be little to none chance of going back and fixing it. And you voted for him...

My reply to you will be I told you so... Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either one of them. God judges nations and America is not immune from that judgement.

"Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”

He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”

I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.”

Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him."

(Psalm 2)

A Declaration of Independence

A young friend of mine posted this on his Facebook page today. Josh has found the words and analogy to express the sentiments of a number of my Evangelical friends as well as myself. He has given me permission to re-post his words here. Note the above title is mine, but though it is a declaration of independence from the bondage of men, it is also a declaration of dependence on Almighty God. It is to God Himself we commit our lives and cause.

For me this election has been the moment when I escaped from the abusive, alcoholic husband that is the GOP. For the past twenty years of my adult life, I’ve put up with his cycles of verbal and physical abuse, lies, broken promises, and promiscuity clinging to the hope that he can and will change and at least he puts a roof over my head and feeds me. This year is the last straw. The arrogant, self-assured bravado with which the party threatens me has no hold over me anymore. Yes, I know the alternative is to live on the street. Yes, I know I may have some very bad times. But I do it from my own free will. It is my choice for once. I can and will find people just like me who have broken away and do what I can with them. And, ultimately, my home is in heaven, not this hell of codependency and clutching at the false specters of unrequited and unearned hope in the corrupt politics of man.

So, I have broken free. My conscience is clear. When the ‘greater’ of two evils wins in three weeks, do not come to me blaming me for the outcome. You as a codependent enabler of the bloated corpse of the GOP are as much to blame as me… at least according to your logic. At least my conscience is clear. My vote matters, and I will now withhold it from those who in NO WISE deserve it.

That’s my political statement. My spiritual statement is this: Brace yourselves Christian. Persecution is here. We have been given a rare respite from it in comparison to the historical mean. Buckle up and stand firm on Christ. Love one another.

~ Josh Hall

The Wind Blows Where it Will...

It goes without saying that Western culture continues its slide into moral chaos and darkness. Here in the United States we debate and get all in a frenzy about who gets to use what public bathroom. It is obvious that at many different levels in American culture, Christianity has been minimized and marginalized. There simply is no "moral majority" as it was once defined back in the early 1980's. We see that specifically in the course of our national politics during this current Presidential election year.

The time will soon come and is already knocking at the door when American culture's growing animus and hostility towards Christian faith will flush away the remains and residue of any easy pop "Christianity", and we will find out that to be a Christian and to be faithful to the Gospel is going to cost us those privileges we once thought inviolable. Are you ready to continue giving financially to your church even when you can no longer declare that giving as a charitable deduction on your Federal income tax return? Or what will you do when your church and ministry buildings become subject to local property tax assessments? Those question are just the tip of the iceberg when outright scorn and ridicule and persecution of Christian faith becomes an entrenched part of public policy.

My concern is that amidst the ever growing signs of the approaching whirlwind of God's judgement on a godless secular materialistic narcissistic culture, the church, and the broader evangelical church in particular, will still be caught up in a "we can fix it" mentality where we desperately seek the right incantations to speak and the right rituals to perform that will somehow twist God's arm to the point where He will be forced to take up our "cause".

News flash: God only has one overarching cause, and that one cause is His own glory period. Everything else is subsidiary to His glory.

Our problem in the broader church at large is we have not been brought to the point of utter desperation where all our confidence in our fancy programs and latest evangelical fads and ideas have been stripped away and we are flat on our back with nowhere else to look but up. God will not allow us to claim any glory that rightfully is His alone. We can not make "revival". Revival is the work of the almighty free and sovereign God; the free and sovereign moving of the Holy Spirit working through the proclaimed word of God in the hearts and minds of lost and desperately needy sinners.

We desperately need an outpouring and movement of the Holy Spirit in our own lives, in the lives of our local congregations and our wider local communities, in the church at large, and in an increasingly viciously wicked culture. We can not bring that about by anything of our own saying or doing. It will only happen as a free and sovereign work and moving of God for His own glory. We are left to pleading and begging and desperately crying out that God in sovereign merciful grace for His own glory would grant that outpouring and movement of His Spirit. And in the meantime, revival or not, persecution and distress notwithstanding, we are to remain a faithful remnant; faithful to the Gospel once delivered to the saints.

Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence—as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil—to make your name known to your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at your presence!

~ Isaiah 64:1-2

Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus!

The Christmas Story in the Apocolypse

And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.

~ Revelation 12 (ESV)