That Satanism

Did you ever watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer? The show must have been a blast for the production and writing team - so much death, so many confused characters, a place to let the demons run wild.

Amazingly, the reality of Satania makes Buffy look like a G flick.

Have your doubts?

Think the producers of Buffy could have dreamed up and filmed the Iraqi holocaust or Darfur or China's Cultural Revolution - and made it match the true events?

How about the Inquisition or the October Revolution?

Or the stories of those Christ is delivering from MPD trauma?

Fact is, nothing imagined can match the truth and the truth cannot be fitted to a screen, either big or small - all that be shown are glimpses and small pieces.

Telling the truth is unrewarding as few believe it even when they see it and frequently is fatal.

Bastards!

A Lesson

Gosh! Almost two weeks since the last entry.

Well, just in case anyone reading here might be bothered by the inconsistency in the entries, be aware that I post here only as God requires - these posts are His.

The last several days the Lord has had me listening, not speaking.

Now, to the lesson.

About 18 months ago my mother-in-law died. She and I had issues, but we worked through them as they arose. Her death was a merciful event as she was suffering in many ways.

Following her death, my father-in-law, began a game wherein he tried to gather my wife and her siblings to him, as if he were trying to be a comfort and a strength, throwing about grandiose promises of "family" and safe harbor - promises of closeness never shown before.

Of course they were merely moves in the game.

Within two weeks he revealed that he had another woman (supposedly suddenly reappearing in his life just at the time of his wife's passing), this woman being an old flame, and that they intended to marry.

Suddenly, all the promises were forgotten, as his "plan" was to sell out, move away and "cut all ties" to be with this woman, the one he should have married 40 years ago.

We have watched as my wife's brother and sister have spiraled deeper and deeper into depression and despondency.

And it has occurred to me that I had just witnessed a sacrifice.

My father-in-law had sacrificed these 2 children by gaming them and then taking away the dangling prize in order to get this woman he thought was what he wanted.

Whether it has turned out like he imagined is another story for another day.

Still, a lesson learned. Even in small-town white-bread America, the games and sacrificing to the world system is a daily requirement for those willing to sell out for the here and now.

Slowly, daily, we are reaching these two with the Gospel and the hope of Christ, but how close it came to a completed sacrifice.

Thank you Jesus for opening our eyes and keeping us in Him - what a mercy that has been and is.

Highbrow Theology

When the theologians of days gone past weren't solving the more important issues like how many angels could dance on the head of a pin or justifying the slaughter of thousands of people in Languedoc towns for the purpose of martyring a few hundred Cathars, they spent idle time in answering questions from readers like this one:

"Does God act as He does because it is right; or are God's acts right because He is God?"

Ooh. No wonder the medieval clergy wanted to restrict access to the written word.

Looking around I found a consensus among those with the appropriate credentials that God does what He does because He can only do what is right.

How handy.

Since God is limited - ?! - to what is right (as defined by ?) - then what is ordained by His spokes folk (as assigned by ?) must be right....right?

Well, so sorry, but saying it is so doesn't make it so.

As useful as it may be to force God (ha ha, as if) into a box of human proportions, they prove their error by their own delimits.

The only truth can be that what God does is right because He is God.

After all, He is the One who set the universe in motion, instituted the laws of physics, and decided the end from the beginning and, as hard as it may be for many to take, created the totality of what exists which means us, them and Lucifer...all with full knowledge of what every creature would do and how it would turn out, i.e., God created evil.

Only when you or I accept without reservation that it is all God's, it is all God, and nothing exists apart from Him, do we have a prayer to move beyond the materialist dimension...but, God knew that.

Kittens

In our kitchen, there are two small, two- or three-day-old kittens.

They are likely going to die - a third one died this morning.

Don’t misunderstand. We are not watching them suffer with indifference. Quite the contrary.

Our children, they of the compassionate and ever-hopeful hearts, are making heroic efforts to preserve the little lives. The kittens are housed in soft bedding, constantly stroked and encouraged and generously fed, with a dropper, cream (which is as close as we can get to mother’s milk at the moment).

If human effort and belief alone could save these kits, our kids will make it so. We’ve seen them love an animal back to health from the precipice before.

Still, the odds are not good.

As I watch this unfold, it occurs to me how much we lambs, those whom God has set aside and marked as His, begin like the kittens.

We come into this dimension wholly incapable of preserving our lives, blindly searching in the darkness for the milk we require to sustain us.

God has to provide everything.

We are wholly helpless and at the mercy of the world. God must do it all. He must not only provide the food but also bring the food to us. He must groom us, make us walk or rest, even clean up our messes.

Left alone we would die, even in the hands of some who may have compassion, because we need more than the material world can provide.

But God does not abandon us. He cares for our needs, no matter how ornery we are. He keeps us in His den, nurturing, training, toughening.

Then one day, if we make it to adulthood, spiritually mature, He has a cat - indifferent to the world, true to its nature, tough and strong as needed, soft and warm and cozy in the cold.

Watch your cat, as aloof as it seems, it still knows where it is fed.

Are we just as dependent on God for all - even our next breath?

Ch..Ch..Ch..Changes

I am tired.

Yeah, I am physically drained - I'm older now and the day-to-day takes more effort than it used to (I'm slower and everything seems to be further away).

And, yes, my own personal issues are weighing on me, tearing at me, using up precious resources.

But that is not what is tiring me.

I have had just all I can tolerate of the filthy and arrogant Satanic world systems.

Everywhere I look I can see the residues and handiworks of the workers of iniquity, divine and mortal aike.

How I detest them.

It absorbs much energy to refrain from begging my Father to tarry no more and to destroy it all.

But I know that would be wrong for me to do.

In any event, I know now I don't have to because there is a big ole whammy coming.

Too bad for the Satanists that there is no rest for the wicked - besides that omnipresent fear of God that niggles in the back of the minds of even the most ardent atheistic, these folks know that one of them is waiting around every corner, under every bed, behind their backs, waiting to cook their goose and eat it.

So it is with nations as well.

There are many, many nations who have bided their time, watching for the opening to rip open the US and bleed it dry.

Military invasion? Don't see that yet. Too many of us have guns (and who knows what else!) and know how to use them.

But don't be shocked if there are some violent episodes in the Southwest and thereabouts.

No, this salvo is going to be economic.

Oh, we'll look good for a while longer. Dow reaching 14,700 or 15,000; GDP said to be back up in the 4 to 5% range; employment numbers up, lots of money spread around.

But watch for the subtle things (and some not so subtle, but shrugged off as unimportant): Oil to $82, trade deficit taking huge leaps, 2 or 3 top (Fortune 100) corporations going bankrupt, tax revenues dropping (and several IRS prosecutions of celebrities and leaders), more local unemployment (anecdotal evidence contrary to the government's story), and steadily increasing inflation.

The pols will see the avalanche coming; the GOP nominee will be nearly as anti-Bush as is the Dems'.

Then the explosion will come - someone will drop the other shoe on the US: China stops buying debt; Venezuela refuses dollars; American imports are blocked from Europe in a trade war; in other words a serious and virtually instantaneous economic body blow.

Bad stuff.

Almost ensuring that the election is won by the candidate best able to portray himself as an outsider, new blood, different, (elightened?).

But, and this is the best part, we lambs don't have to suffer with the Satanists.

God has plans for us.

Watch for a sudden burst of new people with amazing successes and abilities.

Not success as the materialists might measure it, necessarily, though God will certainly be healing many financial hurts, but successes of the spirit.

The world will find many of us walking through the minefields unharmed, pulling many to safety, healing, singing, spreading the Truth.

And don't be amazed when the Satanic hierarchy, fearful of the power of the Truth, attacks with homicidal intent.

They'll wish they hadn't.

There will be war.

And I won't be tired anymore.

Time to get ready.

Evil

Besides God, there is no greater point of emphasis in the doctrines of every religion I am even passingly acquainted with than the doctrines concerning evil: what evil is, who is evil, the source of evil, how to avoid evil, etc. Obviously the nature of evil is of extreme importance to many, many people.

Within the scope of the faith I claim, the Way of Christ, evil is a common topic as well - and the cause of much concern (as is the personage and character of Lucifer, the best known, at least by name and reputation, of evildoers).

Ask any professed follower of Jesus, layman or elder, what evil is and you will likely get a list of deeds or a discourse on the Law (or perhaps the 10 Commandments) and not obeying it or maybe some idea about Satan or not worshipping the right god.

Yet, I wonder, is that what evil really is?

Scripture tells us that man's heart is constantly imagining evil - which sounds like the world is populated by billions of psychopaths waiting for the opportune moment to pillage and plunder.

But, when I look at the people I know and meet, I don't see a crowd of barely restrained Mongols. I see many, many folks doing the best they can to get by, stay out of trouble and find some joy and happiness. The Dahmers and Stalins are far away from the place where I live. Bold and unabashed evil seems unreal - even when it does appear in this little place.

Still, God reminds us, in many ways, many times, that no-one is good or, in reverse, everyone is evil.

This suggests to me that what God knows as evil and what we think we know as evil are not the same.

For example, the idea that evil can be recognized by what evil does.Yet, when I study the stories and histories in the Bible, many acts universally seen as inherently evil, such as killing another person, are committed by people who are acting in obedience to the command of the Lord.

Conversely, Jesus tells us that, in the eyes of God, all our good deeds are as worthless and contaminated garbage - we even see Him sending away some who cast out demons and did many other seemingly good things in Christ's name.

So, it must be that evil is not inherent in the actions of people; evil is said to be the order of things in this world and among its inhabitants even though the natural eyes do not observe it to be so.

Evil would seem to be more than or different from what religious doctrine appears to teach.

If I may be so bold, I think I am finally beginning to understand what evil, the evil God sees, is.

Evil is desire: man's desire for anything other than God and God's will.

Look at the story of the Fall. Satan uses the temptation of becoming god-like to tempt Eve, but Eve does not fall until she desired the fruit and, thereby, the results the serpent suggested would come from eating it. The fact that Adam took some and ate it, without the same sales-pitch from Satan, shows that his desires changed as well.

From that day to this, all of us have desired and fallen and are evil in the sight of God.

So wholly corrupt is our heart that when we are blessed by God with the faith to believe and to desire Him God gives us a new heart, the heart of Christ.

A Marital Proposal

Marriage is a big deal.

I grant that that is a rather inelegant expression but, in its simplicity, sufficiently conveys the seriousness of marriage.

Marriage is a big deal.

Marriage is a contract.

Modern culture is thoroughly infused with Hollywood projections of romance, love and marriage. Outside of the theater, however, marriage in practical terms is a contract, forming a partnership, with all the common and necessary elements of a contract.

Currently, marriage is a contract which may only be consummated between two people - one male, one female - who are competent, of legal age, and not under duress.

The restriction as to the sex of the entrants is the source of a raging controversy throughout the nation.

Some of the states have legalized same-sex unions in some form; some have pre-empted the same with initiatives and/or amendments to the state constitutions defining or limiting marriage; most states are caught in the middle without the ability to move much in either direction.

Regardless of how the argument is parsed from either side, the same-sex marriage debate boils down to a conflict between the one group's concept of moral behavior versus the other group's belief they are being denied equality.

I suggest that there is another approach to this issue which is consistent with the philosophy of the opponents and will satisfy the need of the proponents for equal standing.

My proposition is that all regulation of marriage be removed from the purview of government - at all levels - and returned to the people where it belongs; and that the marriage license be replaced by a simple document, including all of the necessary provisions about rights, property, powers-of-attorney, etc., as is needed - the form and content to evolve and improve through use and experience. The restrictions on eligibility to file this document would include the usual limits on contracts such as competency, majority, no compulsion, no illegal acts, and so on.

There could even be an expiration or renewal date if desired.

So how does this benefit each group?

Those who oppose same-sex marriage, as stated above, generally use moral/religious bases for their opposition. These same people are generally opposed to government interference in religion.

This change would successfully remove an element of religious belief from any control of any government - thus giving them more religious freedom and preventing the feared change in the definition of marriage.

Similarly, for the proponents of same-sex marriage, they gain what they claim to desire most of all: equality. The partnership filings will be indifferent to the sex of the partners. Additionally, if there is a need for religious solemnization, no doubt there will be many ministers willing to aid - and without the concerns of running afoul of the law in some way.

Additionally, there will be some pleasant side benefits to the whole nation:

1. This divisive and unproductive debate will end.

2. Divorce Court will cease to exist. Partnership agreements will expire or be dissolved like any other contractual arrangement.

3. The power, influence and control of government will decrease - a positive effect in any regard.

I don't deny that there will need to be some more fleshing out of this bare-bones proposal, but I believe the outcome can be a win-win for all of us.

Truth?

Everyone I know says they want the truth - at least among those who actually give a thought to much at all.

I seriously question whether or not few if any really mean that they want to find the truth, because the truth is apparent and obvious everywhere around us. The whole world, and the people who populate it, shove the truth in our faces every waking moment.

In the words of Hobbes: "...nasty and brutish...."

No, I don't think we want truth. What we want is a way up or a way out.

In other words, we want to avoid consequences - and still reap the rewards.

Look how much of our time is consumed by the mundane. We worry about bills and money and possessions and money and status and money...and who among us are the most obsessed with the trappings of materiality: the poor.

Why?

Because that is the game.

From the time we are very small we learn to desire and to desire what others have. Capitalism is the economic expression of these inculcated wants.

But don't be fooled - capitalism is not synonymous with free enterprise. Capitalism is a zero-sum game. Capitalism is based on the premise that the resources of the world are finite and, because the sum is of a fixed quantity, the object is to acquire as many of these resources as possible (and never forget we, the people, are one of these resources).

In every nation, every person, to one extent or another, is expected to participate in the game.

There's a problem, however, because what is left out of the training is that the rules of the game are rigged and the outcomes fixed.

You can't win!

So, is there another option?

Yes: Don't play!