Morality

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Angry Letter About My Same Sex Comments

© November 2019 Rev. Dr. Curtis Crenshaw, ThD
[This Article is longer than usual, and my Sermons on this blog are longer also.]

[This blog is in the form of a response to someone who took issue with my comments made some years ago about same-sex unions. My initials are CC, and for the writer’s initials, who is from Duke University, are OB. My letter was dated 5/7/13. I have not tried to clean up my grammar in this post, but I’ve still made it available.]

CC: Thank you for the reply. Sorry for my delay, but as dean of a seminary and pastor of a church, it is difficult to find the time. I will make some short replies. I’ll number my paragraphs the same as yours.

1. Whether people are happy or not with their transgender sexual operation is irrelevant. The question is whether it is holy, the right thing to do. In my article, I submitted that it was not right.

2. CC: I would like to see the research on some people being one gender in chromosomes and another gender in their genitals. I remain skeptical. As for being prejudiced in not wanting to attend a college where said college is justifying same-sex unions with transgender operations, that is moral discernment. I would not want my kids attending such. Conversely, why aren’t you in a Christian Bible college? You equivocated on my definitional of “prejudice.” I made it clear that prejudice, as used in our society, refers to discrimination based on color, not based on morality. Many black ministers, some of whom were in the Civil Rights movement with Martin Luther King, have reacted strongly against those they say are “high-jacking” (their word) the Civil Rights movement and applying it to LGBT. A large group of black ministers in Memphis, TN took out a full-page ad several times in the local paper in reaction to gays, condemning in clear terms same-gender relationships, saying that did NOT represent the Civil Rights movement.

3. CC: In this paragraph, you said (OB): “Yes having children is impossible at the moment for male to female [transformation]. Yes, they can adopt. To be fair I guess everyone has their own standards on who should be able to adopt a child. I guess I am just silly and weird to want someone who would love the child as if it was their own and bring the child up to be a loving and caring individual who accepts everyone for who they are…. regardless if the person doing the raising of the child is transgender or not.” Continue reading →

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The Truth of Self-Deception

13 April 2018
(© 2018 Curtis I. Crenshaw)

What is self-deception? For this article, let us say that it is allowing ourselves to be persuaded against the evidence for some point of view. In other words, we don’t want to believe the truth; thus, we manufacture “reasons” against it. We are all guilty of this to some extent.

When we say something negative about some of the pet sins of our culture, we often get screaming back, and screaming without an ounce of logic or evidence of their position on some moral point.

But how does their response demonstrate that they are suppressing the truth and self-deceived? One can recognize this kind of self-deception by its immediate response to the light, for without even considering what the truth is, he rejects it. When someone opposes him, there is immediate suppression of the truth.

When the emotion kicks in, the brain kicks out. The interesting thing is that they do precisely what God said they would do: Hate the light, hate the gospel, hate Christians, and because they cannot harm the Triune God, they seek to harm Christians who represent Him.

Consider several passages on self-deception:

From Romans chapter 1:

  • 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. (Romans 1:18 ESV)
  • 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. They are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:20-21 ESV)

From the Gospel of John chapter 3:

  • 19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. (John 3:19-20)

Again from 1 John chapter 1:

  • If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. (1 John 1:6)
  • If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8)
  • If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. (1 John 1:10)

Notice the progression downward in these three verses from 1 John chapter 1: v. 6 is deceiving others; v. 8 is deceiving ourselves; and v. 10 is deceiving God, or attempting to do so. God, of course, cannot be deceived. Moreover, notice that they use unrighteousness to push the truth out of their minds. In other words, they immediately hold back righteous thoughts by identification with sin, and then they dare anyone to say anything under penalty of screaming and bearing false witness. It seems to me that what we have in Romans one, John three, and 1 John 1 is self-deception in this form:

  • What the heart desires, the will embraces, and the mind justifies

To put this another way, it is not lack of reason that keeps non-Christians from faith—though they claim that—but that their faith (or better, unbelief) leads them to adopt whatever reason works at the moment to promote their agenda. To restate it, their commitment to their sin in the heart means their will has a commitment to that sin, and then they use their minds to justify a position already embraced. It is never the reverse; that is, that the mind leads them to embrace something in the will, and then the will forces the heart to embrace the sin. No, what we see in Romans 1, John 3, and 1 John 1 is that self-deception begins with the sinful heart, with the person’s desires for some sin that God forbids. Then they embrace that sin with a vengeance, they commit to it with their sinful wills, and then, and only then, they seek to justify the sin with the mind, with evidences.

It is not an intellectual problem with unbelievers; it is a moral problem. They embrace some sin and then use the mind to justify the sin. Thus, the nature of their deception is embracing sin with their hearts or sinful natures. Then their will embraces what they desire, and the finally the mind seeks to justify it. We Christians have an enormous responsibility to help them see the wonderful light of Jesus Christ less they perish.

No one fails to become a Christian because he demands more intellectual proof but because he hates the Triune God, hates His righteousness as revealed in His commandments, and wants to practice some sin that the Triune God forbids. Unbelief is never an intellectual problem but a moral problem. The unbeliever uses his intellect as a cover for self-deception; he WANTS sin and HATES righteousness. That is the problem and nothing else. AMEN. Ω

 

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Last Time Polyamory, This Time Sologamy

(c) The Very Rev.Dr.  Curtis I. Crenshaw, Th.D.

YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP. Polyamory is two or more in a “committed” relationship. I thought polyamory was far out enough, but I did predict it in my book on the Ten Commandments (NOT Ten Suggestions) as basically group sex. I recently saw on Forensic TV a real case where three young men in their 20s gave rings to one another and vowed to remain true for life to one another. But disobedience to God’s law brings self-destruction. It was not long that one of the male lovers murdered one of the three, and the two who remained broke up. That was not a shock.

As for sologamy, instead of “marrying” two or more, you marry yourself. I’m not joking. It is a movement in Russia, Europe, Japan, and other nut case countries, like the good ole USA. Here is a link to it:

If you follow the link, you’ll find a woman marrying herself, with 500 people attending. So what will she call herself, “Mrs. Me”? What were the vows like, “I promise to love me in life and in death, in sickness and in health, until I nullify this marriage from me?” Was the “marriage” sealed with “I promise to love the Lord myself with all the narcissism I can muster?” Now this is one marriage I did not anticipate in my book!

Here is a quote from the article in the link above:

At its core, self-marriage is a classic rite of passage with three obligatory stages: separation, liminality and incorporation. The first stage – symbolic death – serves to break all ties that no longer serve you. The second stage is all about ‘discovering’ your new love for yourself, through techniques such as self-addressed love letters and poems. And, finally, the third stage, the big shebang: the wedding ceremony, meant to seal the bond between You and You, through your choice of self-declared vows.

This is the height of narcissism, or the depth. How can there be any legal status to such a “marriage”? “Love” has been completely eviscerated of any meaning, for by definition love is directed to another person. I found this bit of news on the Internet:

  • State and Government Recognition. Self-marriages do not require a marriage certificate. This is because self-marriages are not recognized by any states in the United States. . . .  That means that if you are already married to another person, you can still self-marry without implicating anti-bigamy or polygamy laws. Jan 28, 2015

But it gets worse.

Now, some people are marrying their pets! Again, I’m not making this stuff up. As far as I know, you cannot marry your dog or cat in the USA, but you can in Bali. I predicted marriage to pets, group marriage, and even euthanasia for those who for whatever reason cannot cope with life.

In France, one woman was allowed to marry her dead fiance, and they can still do so if it can be proved that they had formally planned for their wedding. There seems to be no end to degeneration. Here is what one wise man said:

John Dryden, the seventeenth century English poet, said:

“For those whom God to ruin has design’d,
He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.”

Today we might say it this way:

“Those whom God would destroy, He first makes mad.”

AMEN.

 

 

 

 

 

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Polyamory or Group Sex

(c) (Curtis Crenshaw, ThD, 2017)

A good friend sent me a link to another notch down into family self-destruction. If you can stomach it, CLICK HERE. The essence of the article is that now a Southern Baptist preacher is recommending polyamory, which “means the practice or condition of participating simultaneously in more than one serious romantic or sexual relationship with the knowledge and consent of all partners.” In other words, group sex, which means more “family” destruction.

This blog is from my book titled NOT Ten Suggestion that came out in 2010. Here is what I said.

Then there are consequences of same sex unions on the family. One is that such unions cannot reproduce, which means that they will pressure others to have children for them or seek to dominate the adoption agencies once these unions are legal. Will affirmative action apply here? Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Iowa have given gays the right to “marry” so far in early 2009. Will these unions be recognized in the other states?

During the early history of this country, many settlers took their families west to settle. They were often given land by the government. With their families, they reproduced and grew to large numbers; but if they had been same sex “unions,” they would have become extinct.

With heterosexual couples, a new person can be created in the image of both parents. This is one of the most profound acts of love God has given us. With homosexual couples, we only have reciprocal masturbation with no possibility of reproducing. Thus from nature itself we learn that same sex unions are not right since the species cannot be propagated. If all were gay, the human race would become extinct.

Then will male gay couples pay others to have someone’s seed implanted into some woman to have a child for them? Will female gay couples have someone’s seed implanted into them, perhaps simultaneously, to have children, and who will decide what donor’s seed? In either case, if they “divorce,” whose children are they?

Lutzer reports:

Because gay couples cannot produce children on their own, James Skillen of the Center for Public Justice predicts that hopeful parents may seek to rent wombs and deny children to know their biological parents. “It is going to be increasingly possible to produce, buy, and sell children, because in addition to adoption, that is the only way homosexual couples can ‘have’ children.” Whether raised by lesbians or two homosexual men, these children will be denied either a mother or a father.[1]

And if children are adopted, which person will be the mother and which the father? What kind of confusion will that produce when they are shopping at Kroger, and the child in the same sex union sees another child call his female parent “Mom” and his male parent “Dad”? Will he ask his “parents” why he has two men as parents or two moms? Will there be laws made to change the speech to accommodate the gays? George Orwell’s 1984 is here with newspeak. Same sex unions generally seek to erase the distinction between male and female, and that just can’t be done. It is interesting that one of the partners often takes a female or male role, for we cannot live life without assuming God’s categories. Besides the emotional differences, the “plumbing” is different. One cannot permanently alter the definition of marriage as one male and one female, for it not only violates God’s command, but it also violates the way we were created. Once marriage is redefined, other groups will want even looser definitions of marriage, such as group marriages. It is not really new definitions of marriage that is wanted, but the destruction of marriage.

Another argument from nature is that it should be obvious, without getting too graphic, that women are made to receive the male organ whereas men are not. The female vagina receives the male penis, sperm is deposited, egg is fertilized, and in nine months a human baby is born. That is natural and how everyone comes into the world. The anatomical difference and complementary nature of male and female is too obvious to need detailed explanation.

Moreover, we must not think that giving in to homosexuals to marry will appease them. They and others will only demand more liberties. Sin is never satisfied, and the sinner, given what he demands, will only demand more to try to reach the same thrills. (Chamberlain thought he could appease Hitler but only discovered that he demanded even more.) The punishment for deviant behavior is for God to give them over to even more bazaar behavior (Romans 1:24-28). The only way to stop this freefall is to confront them with righteousness, and to press the claims of Christ, His love, and forgiveness on them, for only He can stop the dominoes from falling.

Moreover, these unions do not usually remain monogamous, which can mean the spread of AIDS, and if there are children, they will adopt the same lifestyles. Tammy Bruce, a former gay insider, reports that male homosexuals “have hundreds of sex partners a year while spreading an incurable disease or two.”[2] (Blood banks will not allow male homosexuals to give blood even if they have had only one encounter because of the high risk of diseases.) This adds to the instability of home life for those involved and especially for the innocent children. From rectal and oral sex, there is infectious hepatitis, which increases the risk of liver cancer, fatal rectal cancer, not to mention HIV and AIDS, and a 30 year decrease in life expectancy.[3] “The American Psychiatric Association Press reports that ‘30% of all 20-year old gay men will be HIV positive or dead of AIDS by the time they are age 30.’ ”[4] Add to this the demand that the government pays for all these diseases, and we have an economic meltdown, not only from the medical bills but also from the decreased productivity in the market of those who cannot work, and those who must take care of them.

Moreover, whom will the children “marry”? Where will they find “spouses” since their “parents” cannot reproduce, and others they associate with cannot reproduce? “Love” does not justify these relationships, for love is not subjectively defined, as we saw in Chapter 2, VI, but is defined by God’s law. Will these children adopted by gays want to find out who their natural parents are? Will that be deemed unconstitutional? It irks them that every child that comes into the world is the product of one man and one woman, which is a constant reminder that they are wrong. Will there be a push to have human cloning so gays can have children?

But only one male and one female can reproduce both their images in the new offspring. Cloning one parent will not do so. Adopting will not do so. Planting male sperm into a female egg of a lesbian partner will not do so, for the other “parent” contributed nothing. Only the one impregnated will have a relationship with the “father,” the child being in the image of the donor father and receptor mother, but not the other female partner. The female partner will have no biological relationship at all with the child. Two (or more) males won’t be able to receive any implanting. They will be left to cloning or adopting.

This will be devastating to the children and family as they fight over who has the right to rear the child, to make rules, and when “divorces” inevitably occur, who will have the right to the children? As it stands now, when a man and woman marry, and if one had children before the marriage and the other one did not adopt them, if they divorce, the childless parent does not have the right to visit the child. How will this work out in people of the same sex when males “marry” and one has a child or when lesbians “marry,” and only one gives birth, or “marries” with a child? In all cases, the children will be the victims.

Then there will be a move to legitimize unions between three or more of both sexes, group marriages. Do not think that the radical sexual movement will stop with gay unions of two partners; they want complete sexual anarchy—pan sexuality. Have you heard of LGBT: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender? The dominoes are falling, and one sin inevitably leads to another; the only way to stop these dominoes is to come to Christ and to His law-word. “Triad” marriages are already being put forward, according to Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. There is no one who has a stop-gap morality by the grace of God and the Gospel to stop the disintegration except Christians.

On a Phil Donahue talk show some years ago, I saw three who were living together, two men, and a woman. The men were homosexuals and the woman a lesbian who had her various partners visit her. But once in a while one of the men would go to the other part of the house to have sex with the woman so they could have a child, which they did, a little girl. They did not care which man was the father. All of them claimed to be her parents. When the audience asked the three what sexual orientation they wanted for their daughter, they all said together, “happy.” That meant she was being taught complete license in her sex life; all options were on the table.

Then it becomes more bizarre with four or five having legal status as a “union.” What happens when one wants to “divorce” the others? Who will pay what, and who will get what children? Then we will have a completely permissive society with God knows how many children who don’t have a clue who their real parents are, and who will be taught that it does not matter. They will truly be the victims. We will be a jungle, mating like animals with no accountability. How can children honor father and mother if they don’t know who they are? With no real commitment to anyone but ourselves, we’ll sink into total narcissism (and are sinking now) and sexual “freedom” (read: “enslavement”) with the motto that “anything goes.” Pedophilia will seem mild.

Such legal group “marriages” will essentially be farms to raise children on, with multiple partners, like farm animals that breed with one another, producing many offspring, but with no direction, no morality. Because we have lost the vertical standard with God, we have lost the ability to define right and wrong between ourselves. As soon as the Triune God is removed as the standard for morality, there is no objective way to define human relationships. There will be no families, just individuals seeking their own interests, not the well being of others in a family. And who in the world will be the in-laws to all these people? Who will be the grandparents? Millions of motherless and fatherless kids will be produced.

Within “families” there will be horrendous confrontation built in between parents, between children, and between parents and children. To make matters worse, a straight couple marry and have their own children. Then one of them leaves the marriage for a person of the same sex, and gets divorced from the original marriage to “marry” the same sex partner. Now who gets the children? Judges’ hands will be tied, for the children, even of an innocent Christian parent, will have to live in a gay situation, or at the least to have visitation rights. The souls of the children will be in jeopardy, for God says that those who practice sinful sex will perish unless they repent (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).

Then the public schools will be full of gay people, and students are already being primed to accept that orientation and to castigate any who disagree, especially Christians. What will this do to those children who come from godly homes, or just from homes who do not want their children exposed to sexual promiscuity? Since God’s Ten Commandments have to be rejected to promote this errant lifestyle, what will this do to the children’s morals in general? As an increasing number of Christians take their children out of such schools to put them in private schools, those who promote such a lifestyle will seek to pass laws to prevent such, or to make it financially difficult, if not impossible. Don’t forget that those who promote such lifestyles are not neutral—they hate those who oppose them, as evidenced by the recent gay riots in California when the gay marriage law did not pass. The anger on their faces said it all.

I just heard on the national news (Fox News April 2009) that some gays are claiming discrimination against Knoxville and Nashville public schools that block students from gay sites on school computers.

The ACLU, in a tersely worded letter, told the schools Wednesday it would sue them if the sites don’t come back online. The blocked sites include the Human Rights Campaign, Marriage Equality USA, the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, the Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and Dignity USA.[5]

Of course, the opponents say they are not in favor of the gay porn sites (for now), just the “regular” gay sites. Is it possible to have a gay site that is not porn? That means that all the kids will have access to such sites, which in turn means more children convinced that God’s morality is obsolete. Indeed, this means gays are targeting our children, right now, using the ACLU to place children into their hands. They must convert others to their cause since they cannot reproduce, and they will go after the most vulnerable of society. Perhaps some of them have no interest in children. Perhaps some of them are very sincere about their relationship with another of the same sex, but as we’ve explained many times in this book, sincerity is not the issue; truth is the issue. Some will resent it, but how is this new pursuit of gay web sites in public schools not some form of pedophilia? Should I not warn regarding the moral safety of our children, as God requires (Ezekiel 33)? Moreover, I’m not aware of any instance of a country giving itself over to a homosexual lifestyle that did not also embrace pedophilia. In other words, they demand complete sexual freedom of every kind, and will stop at nothing to get it. Accepting sinful behavior breaks down barriers, leading them further from the truth, their consciences having become seared (1 Timothy 4:2).

But whose morality is defining porn, and how long will it be before any site will be legally open to public school children because it can’t be defined, or because of alleged free speech? Once the vertical goes, anything goes. Recall what I said in Part 1: once God is removed, morality will be reduced to its lowest common denominator with the government moderating. The dominoes are falling, now. Christians must get their children out of the public schools, and put them in Christian schools, and then monitor them closely, or home school them. Remember that sin does not stand still, but like water it seeks it lowest level.

Then there is GLSEN (Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network) that has a workshop for those ages 14-21 in some public schools to teach children how lesbians have sex, and other practices too awful even to describe in this book.[6] Then President Obama appointed Kevin Jenkins as the Safe School Czar who is the founder of GLSEN. Notice the word “safe,” which is another euphemism.

It gets worse, if possible. Peter Singer has been teaching relativism at Princeton University. He has been hailed as a brilliant scholar. He has written on the positive aspects of bestiality, describing a dog and a human, to which Bruce said “he has made Princeton unsafe both for your child and your beagle.”[7]

How would you like your children taught by people who had been trained by Judith Levine, highly respected in academia, who wrote Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex?[8] Levine has the audacity to state that Christians who protect their children from sex until they are married “are more harmful to minors than sex itself.”[9] Our families are being targeted for destruction, and the public schools are the means to bring this about.

Lutzer reports in his book:

The San Francisco Unified School District has a lesson plan for teaching kindergarteners and first graders about homosexuality. It defines a family as a “unit of two or more persons, related either by birth or by choice, who may or may not live together. . . .”[10]

But with one man and one woman committed to one another for life, they can have their own children; and no one loves children like the original parents, for they are created in the image of both parents, even looking like them. This godly relationship produces stability, security, knowing who they are, who their parents are, and what morality is.

Lord have mercy.

Christ have merch.

Lord have mercy.

AMEN.

 

[1] Erwin W. Lutzer, The Truth about Same-Sex Marriage (Chicago: Moody Press, 2004), p. 62. Emphasis his.

[2] Tammy Bruce, The Death of Right and Wrong (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), p. 25. (See my comments on this book in the Bibliography at the end of the book.)

[3] John Stott, Same-Sex Partnerships? (Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell, 1998), p. 53.

[4] Stott, Same-Sex Partnerships, p. 63.

[5] From http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/pro-gay-sites-f.html. Accessed April, 2009.

[6] Tammy Bruce, The Death of Right and Wrong (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), p. 104ff.

[7] Bruce, ibid., p. 191.

[8] Bruce, ibid., p. 194.

[9] Bruce, ibid., p. 200-201.

[10] Lutzer, The Truth about Same-Sex Marriage, p. 26.

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Whose Word Is Law?

(The Rev. Dr. Curtis Crenshaw, Th.D.)

In this day when some churches are turning away from the Bible, it is refreshing to know that many are not. Those who reject the Bible as God’s revelation of Himself to us must have a new concept of God. And where do they get this standard? They must invent it. Often I hear these people say God is like . . ., and they rattle off something. But how do they know God is like whatever they say? And how can we know the details of what God is like unless He tells us? Indeed, how can we know anyone unless that person reveals himself or herself to us?

Many years ago I worked at an investment and insurance firm while I was helping to start a church. The man who hired me claimed to be a Christian, knew the language of Christians, and could pray quite well. (He prayed in order to prey on Christians.) After a short period, I discovered that he was a con man, selling faulty investments to those he could deceive. I and others thought we knew him, but he had not revealed his true self. Likewise, we cannot dream up concepts of God, and say what He is like, for that would be creating a god after our own image. The only way we can know Him is if He reveals Himself to us, and the Bible makes that claim hundreds of times. Of course, in theory the Bible could be wrong in its claim—but that is way beyond this article—but at least we must see that the Church has also presented the Bible as God’s revelation for 2,000 years, and it has challenged anyone to show its errors.

Then there are those who say the Bible is only infallible in theological matters but not in history, science, and so forth. But like those who invent a concept of god, these people transfer infallibility to themselves, for they assume that they can infallibly discern which portions of the Bible are infallible and which are not. In other words, infallibility does not go away; it only gets moved around.

And what does the Bible say about itself? There are two passages in particular that are key in the Bible’s presentation of inspiration. First, is 2 Peter 1:20-21:

20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, 21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”

There are several points here. Peter is emphatic that God is the source of Scripture even while men wrote them. Moreover, God used their human personalities to accomplish an infallible result. In other words, the Bible is both human and divine. Like the Son of God who was both God and man in one person, so the scriptures are both human and divine, yet one, and infallible. Furthermore, Peter says that the scriptures were not “private interpretation,” which means not initiated by men for their own personal doctrines. No, they received them from God Himself. Peter is not saying they were passive pens so that God dictated every word, but that the source was from God. This indicates that the human authors did not originate the message, but rather they were carried along by the Holy Spirit when writing Scripture, receiving the message from Him. They were passive in the message, but active in the writing, using their own vocabulary and personalities.

The second key passage of the Bible regarding its own inspiration is: 2 Timothy 3:16:

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.”

The word “inspired” means “God-breathed” in the sense that God is the source. It does not carry an active idea so that Scripture is inspiring (though surely it is!) but the passive sense means “inspired,” a body of truth that is fossilized. Nor does it mean “every Scripture inspired by God is . . .” so that there may be some Scripture not inspired by God, as the RSV so wrongly translated some years back. The idea is that every part of the Bible is equally inspired, breathed out from God Almighty, and therefore infallible.

Moreover, Christ agreed that the Bible was infallible when He spoke about the Old Testament.

For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled” (Matt. 5:18).

The word “jot” most likely means “yod,” the smallest Hebrew letter, and “tittle” means part of a Hebrew letter, perhaps the difference between similar letters, like the cross on a vertical line in English that distinguishes the letter “l” from the letter “t”. But the Lord’s view was that Old Testament’s infallibility was clearly down to the very words and letters. Also, in John 10:35, He stated:

The Scripture cannot be broken.

He often rested His final argument on the infallible authority of the Old Testament (see John 5:39; Luke 24:44-45; Matt. 22:29; John 7:19; Matt. 4:1-11).

Let us confess with our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the Church of all ages, that the Bible is God’s gift to us, that we know God because in its pages is revealed this one, Triune God. Let us not seek to invent a god who is more palatable to modern people.

So what are some implications of the Bible being objective and infallible? We must honor it as we honor Him. We must seek its truth with our whole hearts, and delight in obeying His commands. We Christians do not have to wonder what is right and wrong because it is clearly spelled out in Holy Scripture. At one time, our whole culture believed that.

As a man who has been involved with selling and promoting good Christian books virtually all my life, both inside and outside the church, I can tell you what sells. It is not books on God’s commands, such as my 400+ page work on the Ten Commandments. People want health and wealth, not holiness. If you can make people—not God—the center of attention, you will build a large church. I did my ThD thesis on the word-faith movement, and one of the main leaders wrote a little book that sold by the untold thousands, perhaps millions. The title tells it all: How to Write Your Own Ticker with God. He said that Jesus knocked on his door at home, and this “prophet” of God invited Him in. Jesus then allegedly told him four things (or was it five) that anyone can do to get what he wants from God the Father. Where is the Bible in this? Why can’t we just obey God and not worry about how much money we can con out of Him? Why can’t we be content with what He gives us and not complain for more?

Moreover, just as we cannot create physical law into existence, so we cannot create moral law into existence, and to think that we can only reveals that we believe the lie of the devil to Eve:

You shall be as God, knowing [or determining] good and evil (Genesis 3:5).

Since the fall of man into sin in the garden in Eden, man has deceived himself into thinking that he can make up his own ethics without incurring consequences, but the past few thousand years demonstrate otherwise. Nevertheless, he continues his restless pursuit of private morality independent from God, so that he does not have to give account. This is why we find people engaging in rationalizing and self-justification when they are caught doing something wrong; they think they are above judgment, living under the system of morality they allegedly created. Their judgment will be severe. AMEN. Ω

 

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Response to my last article: “Loving Darkness”

The man who responds is a dear friend and brother  from “down under”.

 

Thanks Curtis for this latest article. We have the same cursed influence spreading over here. The Victorian government has mandated that a Safe Schools Program must be taught in all government schools by 2017-18, in order to deal with bullying at school. However the chief designer of this program, Roz Ward, a self pronounced Marxist academic at Melb[ourne] Uni[versity] has publicly stated that this program has nothing to do with bullying, but everything to do with changing society so that the homosexual minority becomes normative. Then another Melb[ourne] Uni[versity] academic wants to see pre-schoolkids being taught the transgender rubbish. Family Voice sent a petition of 14000 signatures to the Commonwealth Government urging them to stop funding this Safe Schools program; the government reviewed the program and has called for some radical changes to it promising to cease funding a little later. [Right, I believe that.]

With a national election for both the lower and upper houses of federal parliament due July 2, [2016], the danger is that Labor may win, & if so, the moral filth out of Labor’s sewers will stink all the more.  We pray the coalition (Liberal & National Party coalition) will be returned to power. There is a significant number of evangelicals in the government & some strong conservatives, who though not Christians, are as forthright for the right things as any Christians are.

[Pray for Australia. Pray for the USA. Let the Church at large repent and confess Jesus as Lord.]

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Loving Darkness

((c) The Rev. Dr. Curtis I. Crenshaw, Th.D.)

Two main truths are presented in the following quote: I. There is condemnation; II. Some people practice evil

I. And this is the condemnation,  [two reasons for condemnation] that

(1)        the light has come into the world,

(2) and men loved darkness rather than light,

because their deeds were evil. [reason they love darkness]

II. For everyone practicing evil

                            hates the                             light

and does not come to the   light,

lest his deeds should be exposed. [Reason ungodly hate Christians]

(John 3:19-20 NKJ)

The “light” above is God’s holiness and righteousness. Read also in John 1 John 1:5-2:2) for the same idea.

I heard this on radio recently:

  • In China you can criticize evolution but not the government while here in the USA you can criticize the government but not evolution.

I don’t know which is worse; they are both ungodly tyrannies. Both countries engage in thought control, just as George Orwell predicted of the USA in his prescient novel, 1984. He was only off by a couple of decades.

My two smaller grandkids spent the night last night. My daughter and her husband have turned off their TV at home so the kids wanted to watch cartoons. I thought I would see what they are like. One was all violence, anger, revenge, yelling, screaming, blowing things up. We changed channels, and immediately two teen age cartoon characters were talking about a very racy lesbian scene in a movie they had seen, which was “cool.” I changed channels again. People tell me the comedy shows are just as bad, if not worse so I avoided them.

Next I scanned the menu on my satellite TV, and one program was called “Dating Naked.” My grandson had stepped out of the room, but I thought this surely can’t mean what it says—but it did! I quickly changed channels again before he returned. Finally, we found a nature show, but then there was the ever present evolution, though in this case only mentioned slightly. Whatever happened to the days of good clean cowboy violence, like the Lone Ranger, or Ramar of the Jungle, Tarzan, etc. Those may be on oldie channels if you can find them.

So now back to the “real” world. Could it be any worse? I guess you’ve seen lately that Obama by executive order has mandated that all public schools must honor LGBT people or lose their federal funding. (When will morality become more important than money? At least there are eleven states who are standing up to Obama: UT, AZ, OK, TX, OK, WI, LA, TN, AL, GA, ME. At least five states are in the South.) Obama is bypassing Congress in making laws. More particularly if one “feels” like a girl one day (regardless of the biological plumbing), he is permitted to enter the girl’s restrooms and showers. It is not objective biology that determines one’s gender but how one “feels,” and no one must challenge that or he will be guilty of discrimination. If one does not bow to the golden calf of newspeak, then follow misdemeanors, felonies, or civil fines in the tens of thousands or combinations thereof. Parents will wonder what has happened to their children as they self-destruct against God’s law, and children will murder their parents when they don’t get their way. PARENTS: You must take your kids out of public school and put them in a good Christian school, no matter what the cost is. Their precious souls are at stake. Your children are more important than new homes, new cars, nice clothes.

Christians are being setup as the great scapegoats, those who allegedly hate others (newspeak for holding people to a moral standard). No amount of logic makes any difference when you’re dealing with “feelings,” hate for righteousness, love for sin. If anyone challenges their love for their gods, it is all out media war, throwing bottles of urine and excrement at Christians, wanting to crucify (!) us. BUT in the long run, we Christians win; Satan has never learned that the Church is a gas fire: stomp it and it spreads; leave it alone, and it burns out. We have been somewhat successful in applying the Holy Scriptures to this land, so that we have been left alone, by which I mean, we’ve had few challenges. Now we have sown the wind, we are reaping the whirlwind (Hosea 8:7), and challenges are abounding.

Those who love darkness are becoming increasing irrational, such as the following.

Antony Flew was the leading atheist scholar in England for 50 years against theism. He embraced theism or intelligent design a few years before he died because nothing else explains the design of the universe, the laws of nature, the origin of life itself, our intelligibility,[1] or the delicate balance of nature for us to live on earth. How could something come from nothing; how could life come from lifeless matter, such as molecules in motion; how could consciousness come from raw matter (non-consciousness); how could reason come from non-reason; how could self-conscious thought come from physical objects; how could the consistent laws of science come from random particles; how could persons come from non-persons? The atheist tries to argue that random chance begets intelligence, persons, balance of nature, order, and meaning. In short, chance or chaos gave rise to order. At every point, the atheist is irrational, contradictory, and functions by faith that is irrational, and make no mistake that “irrationality is the prelude to destruction.”[2] John Dryden, the seventeenth century English poet, said:

  • “For those whom God to ruin has design’d,
  • He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.”

Today we might say it this way: “Those whom God would destroy, He first makes mad.”

We are mad, not legally insane, but mad with rebellion against the Triune God and His character as revealed in His holy law, such as the Ten Commandments. The USA is mad against the Incarnation of the Son of God, against His perfect obedience to His Father, against His death on the cross for our sins, against His bodily resurrection. If it is true that to whom much is given much is required (Luke 12:28), then the USA is in for horrendous judgment. Those prosperity preachers who tell us we can have all the goodies we want if we just magically say the right incantation into the air audibly, will have nothing to say when judgment falls (and it has begun). Make no mistake: turning to darkness or sin darkens one’s reasoning abilities. Reasoning is then only used to support one’s desires, not to determine those desires.

There is only one solution, which the world hates with an unholy passion: repentance from our sins and faith in the Lord Jesus for forgiveness of sins. Anything else is damnation forever. AMEN. Ὡ

 

[1] See the excellent work by Antony Flew, the former atheist, There Is A God, published in 2007. Flew announced his change from atheism to theism in 2004, though sadly as far as I know he did not become a Christian before his death on April 8, 2010.

[2] Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1983), p. 165.

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Modern Heresies

In the Reformation of the 1500s, both sides believed the Bible to be God’s infallible word, both held to the Holy Trinity (one God in three equal persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), and both taught that Christ was fully God, perfect man, one person, and no mixture of the natures of deity and humanity so as to dilute them. Today the crisis is worse as even “Christian” people wonder if the Bible is God’s word, if the Trinity is really all that important, and if Christ was only a good man or something less than God. One student at the seminary where I teach said he was summarily dismissed from his position at a “Bible” church because his position on antichrist was “wrong.” I asked him what they asked him about the Trinity, person of Christ, work of Christ, etc., and he said “Nothing!” We live in an age where what one believes about antichrist is more important than what he believes about the Son of God.

There are two ways to be heretical: formally in belief and practically in one’s practice, and our age is given to both.

In formal heresy, there are many in mainline denominations who take delight in denying the historic faith as expressed in such timeless statements as the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, which all branches of Christianity have held (Protestant, Orthodoxy (with one adjustment to the Nicene Creed), and Roman Catholic). Modern heresies deny that Christ is the only way to God; indeed, they deny that He is God. They deny the Holy Trinity. They pretend that all religions are the same, which means that none of them mean anything, an insult to all religions that they have no truth claims.

But one can also be heretical in one’s practice, in morality, such as the sexual promiscuity that is rampant today in so many circles. One may be right in his beliefs, but if his morality is contrary to God’s holy commandments, then he/she is heretical:

Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. (1 Jn. 2:3-4 NKJ)

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals1, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.  (1 Cor. 6:9-10 NKJ)

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Gal. 5:19-21 NKJ)

There is no hope for anyone unless they repent, which means that they confess they are wrong, take God’s view on both belief and practice, and bow to His Lordship. There is not enough room in this universe for two lawgivers: God and man, which is what man wants—his own pretended autonomy.

The serpent’s lie to Adam and Eve was that they could be their own lawgiver, determining for themselves what was right and wrong. We know the consequences when our first parents believed such. Indeed, even in the New Testament many centuries later, God has stated that there is only one lawgiver: the Triune God (James 4:12). He, and He alone, determines what we should believe and what we should practice.

But when our culture dreams up beliefs or ethics out of its mind instead of listening to God, they have created a god after their own image to worship, who, “coincidentally,” will approve their latest fad in unbelief and immoral ethics. The only way one can know anything about God is if He tells us, not when we dream up things that He must allegedly approve. Indeed, the only way we know anyone is by self-revelation.

Was it the great St. Augustine who said that God created man in His own image, and man has been returning the favor ever since? People thousands of years ago made physical idols, and we make mental idols. In both cases, a new god is created after the heart of sinful mankind. Paul the Apostle noted such in his own day in Romans 1:18-25:

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

The great crisis today is Who is God, Who is Christ, and What shall we do with our sins? The Modern answer is that God and Christ are whatever we make them to be, and there is no sin except by OUR definition. Thus, our culture makes Jesus to be a benign and irrelevant weird man who lived two thousand years ago. Today we are being taught not to believe in an objective Triune God but in ourselves. AND likewise we are being taught that we can invent any ethic we wish for our private lives. But in the public arena, the “god” who rules there is the government god: “To hell with Jesus, and all hail to Caesar.”

But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD (Joshua 24:15).

AMEN. Ὡ

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Celebration of Sin and the Sovereignty of God

© Curtis I. Crenshaw 9 July 2015

WhiteHouse

It was wicked enough to have a run-away court declare same gender “marriages” legal, but the Whitehouse celebrated it with the rainbow colors. This was, in reality, the whole country shaking its fist in the face of God with middle finger extended.

There are several lessons we must consider from this act of tyranny. First, the supreme law of the land is NOT the Constitution of the USA; rather, it is the law of God. His commandments as revealed in His moral attributes (His moral character) reign supreme. Yet there is a chain of command in governments so that they are supposed to administer justice as defined by the Triune God. God’s authority is attached to governments:

1 Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. 4 For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. 5 Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. (Romans 13:1-6)

Second, this passage does not give governments the right to invent moral law. Indeed, we humans can no more invent moral law than we can invent the laws of science. In other words, every moral law enacted by man is either an application of God’s law or an act of rebellion; there is no neutrality. The Supreme Court is in rebellion, having challenged the Triune God that it can make its own morality with impunity. No human authority ever has the right to make up any moral aw and hide behind the passage above, thinking that its citizens must obey any law it enacts. The one we obey is the one we worship, and it is idolatry to worship any law but God’s law.

Third, if a citizen breaks God’s law, such as murder or sodomy, God has given the government authority to execute HIS justice. If the government refuses to apply His commandments and punish the violator, that means the government approves of the immoral actions.

Fourth, this further means the whole country is under judgment, not just the individuals who approve and/or disapprove of the sin. Every state in the union—and none has opposed the new definition of marriage—has sanctioned the new definition. Thus, the whole nation is under judgment.

Fifth, how ironic that we in the USA are fighting Islam, but giving them a free hand most of the time in our own country; and if they begin to celebrate Sharia Law, they will execute same sex people.

Sixth, there is already another civil war in our country, between God-hating liberals and those who love the Lord. (Notice I did not say political conservatives; many of them are part of the problem.) It is a spiritual battle with spiritual weapons, which weapons are the Gospel and the written word of God. In the long run, we Christians will win, but we’ll have to face much persecution for a long time. The war has just begun, and it is a fight to spiritual death. The Supreme Court and our states have declared war on the Triune God. Yet, we must demonstrate love to those who promote this new so-called definition of marriage, take an uncompromising stand against their self-destruction, and set up houses where we can administer to those who fall prey to the diseases that go along with such promiscuousness. AMEN. Ὡ

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The 7,000

© 2015 by Curtis I. Crenshaw, Th.D.

Do you recall the great victory Elijah had against the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel? His sacrifice was supernaturally burned up while the false prophets were not successful at all with their god Baal to call down fire from heaven. Elijah then killed the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal. Once Jezebel, King Ahab’s wife, heard about it, she said she would kill Elijah the next day. Elijah killed 450 heretics and ran into the desert from one woman, Jezebel! Then when in the desert hiding, the Angel of the LORD (pre-incarnate Christ) approached Elijah, who lamented:

And he said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God of hosts; because the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.” (1 Kings 19:14)

In other words, he sang the song of Hee-Haw:

“Gloom, despair and agony on me-e!

Deep dark depression, excessive misery-y!

If it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all!

Gloom, despair and agony on me-e-e!”

That was Elijah!

I have said so many times in the past that it is almost embarrassing to repeat, but heads we win, tails they lose. While I cannot read the Triune God’s mind, we see in Scripture how He works. Read Judges and the cycles the Israelites went through so many times:

  • They sin grievously
  • The Lord God sends them enemies who judge them
  • God’s people cry out in repentance
  • The Lord sends them a deliverer

The cycle begins again

We may have to go through the four cycles of Judges just mentioned. We Christians in the USA are no better than other Christians throughout the East who are suffering martyrdom right now; in fact, we are probably cowardly.

Last week, the tyrannical Supreme Court, dripping with Sulphur from the presence of the devil, for the first time in human history (might be wrong here), officially redefined marriage as between any two consenting people, male or female.

Confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (1991)

If you recall the confirmation hearing of now Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas when Anita Hill lied against him, saying that he had had sexual advances toward her, I knew immediately she was lying through her teeth. For one thing, most people do not know what the wicked are capable of, but as a Christian theologian who has studied Holy Scriptures most of my life, I know what God says about the human heart. Moreover, at that time I had a very strong Christian friend who took degrees from Harvard and Yale; and when Anita Hill began her lies, he said something like this to me: “Curtis, when I took my degrees at those Ivy League schools, several of the political atheists took me aside and said, ‘If you as a Christian ever try to go into politics, we’ll swear that we’ve had homosexual acts with you. That will ruin you’re Christian reputation.’” He also said that he had classes with Anita Hill, and that she was a liberal darling air head who could not think her way across the room, who would never have gotten any position without some insider appointing her. He said that her position as a professor was her payoff for bearing false witness against Judge Thomas. He was confirmed anyway with a vote of 52 to 48.

The liberal elite did the same thing against Robert H. Bork when he was being confirmed to the High Court. This time it was Ted Kennedy, in my humble opinion one of the worst politicians in American history with his constant lying, fornicating (remember Mary Jo Kopechne and her untimely death, July 18, 1969 at Chappaquiddick), who led the charge against Bork. They succeeded this time in keeping him off the High Court. By the way, Bork was reared a Presbyterian on the Shorter Catechism but became Roman Catholic in later life. He was—and still is in heaven—a lovely Christian man.

My point in bringing up these two men is that the Lord God still has His 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal. I now give a few quotes from Thomas’s excellent book, My Grandfather’s Son (2007):

It had long since become clear to me that this battle was at bottom spiritual, not political, and so my attention shifted from politics to the inward reality of my spiritual life. . . .  I remembered how Jesus had told the rich man to give away his fortune and ‘come and follow me.’ Perhaps I would have to renounce my pride to endure this trial, even as Cardinal Merry del Val had prayed for deliverance in his Litany of Humility: Deliver me, O Jesus, from the fear of being humiliated . . . from the fear of being despised . . . from the fear of suffering rebukes . . . from the fear of being calumniated. (p. 254)

In addition to suspecting that I had committed the sin of pride, I saw that I was resisting what God had put before me. ‘Father, let this cup pass away from me,’ Jesus had prayed in the garden of Gethsemane. ‘But thy will, not mine, be done.’

Later in his autobiography, Thomas states:

We had all come to see the campaign against my confirmation as evil. There seemed no other way to explain it. My opponents could have fought my confirmation on legitimate grounds, yet they chose to tell scurrilous lies in an attempt to destroy me personally. No reason other than hatred could account for so unprecedentedly vicious an attack.

Then Thomas quotes Joseph in the Old Testament when his brothers had sold him into slavery:

[Joseph said to his brothers:] “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” Perhaps the fires through which I had passed would have a purifying effect on me, just as the blast furnace burns the impurities out of steel. I already knew they had brought me closer to God.

He learned to love even more dearly the Christian hymn “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”

Attempted Confirmation of Robert H. Bork (1987)

Ted the habitual liar Kennedy managed to keep Bork from being confirmed to the Supreme Court, who was considered one of the best Constitutional scholars of his day. Later in his twilight years, Bork wrote a number of books, and one of my favorites is Slouching towards Gomorrah (1996). This is an exceedingly insightful book on American politics I’ve ever read. He says that two things would pull down our country very quickly: radical egalitarianism and radical individualism (pp. 3-5). Here are some insightful statements Bork made from Slouching:

What liberalism has constantly moved away from are the constraints on personal liberty imposed by religion, morality, law, family, and community (Slouching, p. 61).

[Radical individualism has caused many factions in our society:] “radical feminists, black extremists, animal rights groups (PETA) radical environmentalists (EPA), activists homosexuals organizations, multiculturalists, , People for the American Way, ACLU, National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), NOW, Planned Parenthood, etc., (p. 53) [I add Al-Qaida, ISIS, and too many to count.]

What then can be the moral basis for objecting to economic inequality and asserting that condemnation of great wealth, backed up with political action, is essential to any defense of the free market? The obvious candidate is envy. It is impossible to see any objective harm done to the less wealthy by another’s greater wealth. It is not the case that the richer man’s income is extracted from the poorer man. . . . I do not lack a yacht because another man has one. (p. 68)

I once wrote of the U. S. Supreme Court that a judge who looks outside the actual Constitution looks inside himself, and nowhere else. (Coercing Virtue, p. 131)

So what is the point to this article? Just as the Lord God had left Himself 7,000 in Elijah’s day to fight against Baal, and God said such to Elijah, so He has His people now:

“Yet I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” (1 Kings 19:18)

We are not alone. Our sovereign God is getting us ready for intense battle. Cowards give up (read Rev. 21:8); recall what happened to the ten spies who gave up and refused to conquer the land. The Lord disciplined them severely for 40 years, and then a new generation conquered. We can do it the hard way (through the desert) or the easy way (by faith now). The choice is ours (and HIS!). AMEN. Ὡ