This morning a group of us from Micah 6:8 joined to read Scriptures and pray at the only abortion clinic in Pensacola. It was a short time of reading and prayer. As the cold weather froze our bodies we realized that we were witnessing young women entering what I would assume was a pleasantly heated building. As they entered they were most likely treated kindly. As they waited they were most likely reflecting on the freedoms they would enjoy with this thing called “a human being” out of the way. Perhaps they were struggling with their decision. Perhaps they were forced into this concentration camp. And like a concentration camp they were led to a place that they thought was a refreshing shower, but instead turned out to be poisonous gas. As a “doctor” performed his surgery, the patient was slowly being seduced by the gas of death. “The right-winger and evangelicals can’t be right about this. They just want to take away our ability to choose over our bodies,” they rationalize. “My boyfriend will leave me if I decide to keep this child.” Whatever reasons they choose, and however detailed they may be, the telos is still the same: a living, breathing, God-formed human being was being obliterated without a chance.
I was struck while listening to the reading of Psalm 10 that “in secret places he doth slay the innocent.” How appropriate to our situation. This building is well-hidden to those who pass by. The Psalter says also that “they lie in wait to catch the poor.” Those in poverty are those who have relinquished their roles as mothers. In this case, the one in poverty of heart comes willingly to the trap set before them. When that woman raised her fist at a pro-life activist this morning she was in defiance of God. “Those who defy verbally still have a chance,” opined the experienced activist near us. They are actually fighting with their decision was the implication. The ones who walk in quietly inhaling their first cigarette of the morning is set on their duty. Just as they puffed away on the cigarette, they were about to experience that unborn child puffed away from planet earth.
There is much work to do. I don’t do enough. I don’t pray enough. There is so much I can learn from those who have given their lives to declaring the message of life. To them I am grateful. John tells us that men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. In this clinic, it is in the darkness of the early morning that evil operates. As these ex-moms recover from their surgery, their consciences will never recover. May they never recover until God grants them repentance and their hearts find rest in the God of life.<>анализ а подбор слов
I have written on why I think drones are unethical, here. I spelled out a scenario:
Let us imagine I have a repair guy come over to fix my furnace. It turns out he is moonlighting as a terrorist. Homeland Security has recently identified him as a terrorist. They have just figured out the vehicle he drives and the license number. Because drones are perfectly fine to use in the war on terror. Homeland Security has one over St. Louis looking for him.
The drone spots the van outside our house and sees the man entering our home. So the drone pilot pulls the trigger and fires a hellfire missile at the house…
But let’s change up the scenario. Let’s say that Seal Team 6 raided my house instead. In that case, they would be trespassing, since they would be entering with weapons before they had time to explain the situation to any of us. And there would be dangers of an accidental shooting. But, if people were doing the assassination then it is quite possible the warriors would shoot the terrorist and leave the rest of us alive and even uninjured.
Supposedly, Seal Team 6 went to Pakistan and killed Osama Bin Laden. We have absolutely no evidence that they did so, but several contradictory stories say they did, so let’s go with it:
If drones are so great, why did they use Seal Team 6? Why not just fly a drone overhead and fire a predator missile? No version of the story has claimed that Osama was holding a hostage whom the Seals wanted to rescue. So what was their reason for not using a drone?
I think we all know why the stories all need Seal Team 6. In order to win a real and certain victory, we need people who serve both as soldiers and witnesses to do things right. Leaving a house in a rubble heap will not provide a confirmed kill. There will be doubts. But a person with a gun can provide a much more certain outcome.
And that shows you what the drones are: throwaway death that we toss at relatively unimportant targets.
“Are we sure that’s him?”
“Who cares–it’s not like we’re risking anyone.”
Drones aren’t for important targets that must be killed. They’re busy-work that has more advantage in providing money for drone manufacturers and terrorizing all the people in a region where the drones are heard flying overhead. When someone really important is targeted, we don’t use them. We send real people.
Valentine was a third century pastor who was imprisoned for his faith. He wrote small pastoral notes to members of his congregation on leaves he was able to pluck from a maple tree just outside his cell. These little “Valentine’s cards” expressed his love for the flock, and his desire that they demonstrate like love toward one another. Gradually the tradition grew up for Christians to exchange notes of love and encouragement to one another every year on his birthday, February 14.
We’ve seen baseball stadium proposals where a guy’s urgent question is slapped on the Jumbotron for all in attendance to see. Some men even think it’s romantic to shout their devotion in front of thousands of strangers. Several years back, Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson even tried to convince us that women would actually want this type of proposal. In case you might be contemplating this type of proposal, let me tell you that it is about as tasteful as the rest of Sandler’s work.
In many ways, American romance is Jumbotron romance. Valentine’s Day is a good example. We couch our love in the impersonal and to the cheap. When did the standard fall so low that somehow chocolate and flowers become the epitome of devotion. We should understand these are good things. Any man who forgets them will enjoy the spurn of his wife. But this type of impersonal devotion once a year is akin to attending Easter and Christmas services, yet claiming to love Christ.
A culture of cheap grace produces cheap love.
“Cheap grace is preaching forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession. … Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Cheap love is giving chocolate without cordial affection, flowers without real delight and pleasure, “I Love Yous” without contentment and satisfaction … Cheap love is love without submission, love without crucifying-self, love without Jesus Christ, living and Incarnate. Cheap love teaches, “Sex is such a hassle, talking is even worse.” Christian love teaches, “rejoice in the wife of your youth.”
Our romance should be modeled after Christ’s self-giving devotion to his bride, which is why St. Valentine is such a beautiful saint. This is not to say that the mark of Valentine’s Day is simply reading verses over flowers-rather that marriage is an image of loving tension. The tenderest love on one side, and loving obedience on the other. This means that romance is an adventure, not a commute. We don’t travel through life enduring the “trial of marriage,” but through the exploration of Godly marriage, we are transformed by the circumstances of our love story.
Valentine’s Day is a day for us to look at our adventure, where we’ve been, and where we are going.
Valentine’s Day is a time for Christian men who once belonged to the old Adam to become priests of the New Adam. Where the old Adam betrayed the love of his bride, we -as Priests of the new Adam- guard, nurture and protect our redeemed garden-helper. And as such has been called to wash our wives in Christ’s love.
Valentine’s Day is a time to celebrate together as we see God transforming our brides into a holy bride without wrinkle, spot, or blemish.
Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a link is given.
In the past few months, I’ve posted two articles on sexuality and marriage, you can read those here:
In one of the many good articles on Obama’s international (and domestic?) appetite for violence, Micah Zenko writes for Foreign Policy,
“During his second inaugural address, President Obama offered two aspirational statements that struck many observers as incongruous with administration policies: ‘A decade of war is now ending’ and ‘We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.’ We should question these observations, not least because of the string of U.S. government plans and activities that increasingly blur the conventional definition of war.”
As far as I can tell, if Obama believes his rhetoric, then he thinks pulling back on American military personnel counts as “ending war.” Of course, he tried to stay in Iraq with multiple bases and he plans to never really leave Afghanistan. But even though they will get combat pay those troops in Afghanistan will be “advisors” or whatever other term is considered pacific enough.
But if Obama believes his rhetoric then he is fooling himself. Just because we do not have troops invading a country at the moment, it is false to say we are not engaged in ongoing warfare. The drones are expanding their killing reach into North Africa. And we have more or less openly made Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda affiliates our proxy mercenary army in Libya and now in Syria. (In Obama’s defense, this plan was already developed late in Bush’s second term.)
Thus, Obama has “ended” war by establishing that war is now the same as everyday life—as “peacetime.” We will never go to war again because we will be forever killing people in every nation whom we designate as threats to “national security”—which will, of course, include threats to whatever international apparatus or system of relationships that we designate as “vital” to national security.
So the executive branch will never need to go to Congress for a declaration of war again. A declaration of war pretends that there is some such thing as peacetime that must be temporarily disrupted until peace can be reestablished. But now peace and war will be simply the same. Really, we’ve fulfilled the Orwellian prophecy: It is now official that war IS peace.
And the whole distinction between economic interest and national security interests is inevitably smudged out of existence in this new warpeacetime. Currency wars and drone wars will all be just tools available for the perpetuation of US hegemony.
Of course, Obama’s not going to push US hegemony by name the way Bush did. But that doesn’t matter. The hegemony he strives for (like Bush) really means simply the hegemony of a cartel of people holding office in some nation states and international organizations and some international corporations who will be forever lining their pockets as they convince themselves that they are doing what is best for “the planet”—which is a goal conveniently wide to justify killing terrorists, sponsoring terrorists, starting industry, or dismantling industry. Recall Bush’s attempt to give port security to UAE, or the fact that Henry Kissinger decided not to chair the 9-11 commission after being reminded that to accept the position would mean he would have to reveal if any of the Bin Laden family were included in his client list.
This is the world our children are growing up in, one where War Is Peace and everyone knows we have always been allied to Eurasian and at war with Eastasia, or the other way around.
Capitalism is not a system to be promoted or evaded. Capitalism is a fact. Capitalism is the way it works. Capitalism means: when the scale goes up on one side, it goes down on the other. Our love of law making to fix economics is the obsession with the irrational idea that you can push down on both sides of the scale at once without breaking the scale.
In Tuesday’s State of the Union address, the president said he wants us to raise the federal minimum wage to $9.
Hurray, we can buy more stuff! Like… apples.
If I have an apple, and you want to buy it, will you be surprised if at the register I tell you, “They’ve raised the price to nine dollars.” You say, “Is that what you want to sell it for?”
No, I say. No one can afford to buy them now. So I am having to throw out all my apples as they go bad.
When two people are trading at a price they negotiate for themselves like grown ups, and the buyer is forced to buy at a higher price, it will hurt the seller. The seller cannot sell $9 apples. Since the buyer is forced to buy them at a high price, he won’t buy, so the seller is harmed. But don’t get confused about the analogy, listen carefully to who the buyer and seller are.
In work and wage – the business owner is the buyer. Stores are hoping to buy some hourly work from a worker. The worker is the seller. Of course, we are used to thinking that workers are victims. But they are only victims where they aren’t free. Like slaves in Egypt. Rather, in a free society, workers are business people who sell labor to businesses that buy the product of work. Sellers, though, are the ones hurt by the intrusion of a minimum hike. Stores can’t afford as much work so the seller (the worker) is the one who is hurt – and that means higher minimums would hurt workers. As we said, in non-free societies, workers become victims. Minimum wage is a mathematical Pharaonic brick policy
It is simple math – more money for the same work equals less work for the same money. They will cut your work.
Suddenly, the business doesn’t have a choice, they have to charge workers nine dollars an hour (if they were to get that hike through congress). But they would have to alter something to deal with the effects of such a change, because they would have to pay more without more income. This means less hours assigned to workers. More bricks… less straw. The extra money has to come from somewhere. It will come from the hours of workers. It will come from the quality of products they can afford to buy from vendors to sell to the public. The higher minimum will obstruct the people who have jobs to offer; it will starve the people who are hungry for jobs. Companies will offer less jobs. The higher minimum wage hurts the very workers it purports to protect.
When the scale goes up on one side, it goes down on the other.
By the way, we are promised you would have more cash in your pocket. But those dollars would be spent by you in some store that now would have to comply with a higher minimum. Stores don’t just pass on these “savings” to their workers – they also pass them on to their customers. The most logical place for the business to recoup the difference in P&L is from you. The prices will go up. The hours worked by workers will go down. (So customer service will incidentally hurt as well).
And this movement is understandable, because the market IS free in a way, even under duress of big government intrusion. Capitalism is a fact. The market may get told what to do, but it will retain a mathematical balance on its own. Bernoulli tells us that if you squeeze the back end of the toothpaste tube, paste will come out the other. You may call that tightening up the system. But you could just as well call it bleeding the system. When the scale goes up on one side, it goes down on the other.
Listen, friends. If you make hourly wages, and if you make minimum, then I hope you can do better and better for yourself. But know that pushing down on businesses is not going to hurt the businesses. It will hurt you, the worker. If you make minimum wage, you need to know that raising the minimum wage is one of the worst things that could happen to you. You will get a bump, but then you will get laid off. Or just cut back. And then the prices will rise against your cut-hour paycheck.
We could stop voting for Pharaoh’s mathemagicians. But that would mean finding the candidate who promised less stuff. And since we don’t understand the scale, we think that promising less government enforced and funded stuff means we would get less stuff. But less intrusion means more freedom. Less intrusion means improvement of general welfare. And we love to hear big promises.
Pharaoh makes big buildings. And he promises big promises. But whenever you hear Pharaoh promising you so many more bricks, remember that you’re the one making them.
President Obama outlined plans Tuesday night at his State of the Union address. His speech was mostly the same old thing, continuing to play heavily on support for the middle class while proposing regressive taxes that directly attack middle class incomes. Unique to tonight’s speech was the presence of green ribbons worn on the lapels of guests and members of Congress. This green ribbon was meant to memorialize the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting. NPR commentators noted that the green ribbons were particularly important because of the President’s push for gun control legislation. It was also noted that while Vice President Joe Biden was wearing a ribbon, Speaker of the House John Boehner was not.
What happened at Sandy Hook was a tragedy, and nothing should take away from our sympathy for the families who lost their loved ones. But at the same time, this sort of political manipulation because of a real tragedy is simply disgraceful. The ribbons and children they represent are being used as tools to bolster the President’s anti-2nd Amendment agenda.
The State of the Union address is a particularly troubling event. Thomas Jefferson stopped the practice of giving presidential speeches to Congress because he felt that it made the president out to be an imperial figure. He instead would send a written note about the current affairs of the country to those who needed it. The presentation this year makes it clear that it is only about political posturing. Members seek out aisle seats hours before the event, hopeful that they may get a picture hugging the president or shaking his hand, hoping to pander to the constituents who might be watching.
Many came adorned with green ribbons to hear lofty promises about how our President is going to put our nation back on track. It was very appropriate that all this posturing was represented with green. You may remember L. Frank Baum’s famous Emerald City of Green deception: Oz. Obama’s America is a new Oz.
“Even with eyes protected by the green spectacles, Dorothy and her friends were at first dazzled by the brilliancy of the wonderful City … There were many people – men, women, and children – walking about, and these were all dressed in green clothes and had greenish skins. They looked at Dorothy and her strangely assorted company with wondering eyes, and the children all ran away and hid behind their mothers when they saw the Lion; but no one spoke to them. Many shops stood in the street, and Dorothy saw that everything in them was green. Green candy and green pop corn were offered for sale, as well as green shoes, green hats, and green clothes of all sorts. At one place a man was selling green lemonade, and when the children bought it Dorothy could see that they paid for it with green pennies.”
And the new Oz has a new wizard, President Obama. A fool’s magician, yet just as all the good citizens of the Emerald City were forbidden to remove their green-tinted glasses, each American watches the state of the union through the comfort of a pair of their own colored glasses.
When will America discover that her President is no better than the false Wizard of Oz? Baum’s imperial ventriloquist is too much like our own head of state. What we need now is not more speeches from this talking head, but we need the brainless, the cowardly, the heartless, and those who are lost to break down the wizard’s chambers to discover the man behind the curtain and demand that he stop misleading the citizens. Back in Oz it went like this:
“You must keep your promises to us!” exclaimed Dorothy.
The Lion thought it might be as well to frighten the Wizard, so he gave a large, loud roar, which was so fierce and dreadful that Toto jumped away from him in alarm and tipped over the screen that stood in a corner. As it fell with a crash they looked that way, and the next moment all of them were filled with wonder. For they saw, standing in just the spot the screen had hidden, a little old man, with a bald head and a wrinkled face, who seemed to be as much surprised as they were. The Tin Woodman, raising his axe, rushed toward the little man and cried out, “Who are you?”
“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible,” said the little man, in a trembling voice. “But don’t strike me – please don’t – and I’ll do anything you want me to.”
Our friends looked at him in surprise and dismay.
“I thought Oz was a great Head,” said Dorothy.
“And I thought Oz was a lovely Lady,” said the Scarecrow.
“And I thought Oz was a terrible Beast,” said the Tin Woodman.
“And I thought Oz was a Ball of Fire,” exclaimed the Lion.
“No, you are all wrong,” said the little man meekly. “I have been making believe.”
“Making believe!” cried Dorothy. “Are you not a Great Wizard?”
“Hush, my dear,” he said. “Don’t speak so loud, or you will be overheard – and I should be ruined. I’m supposed to be a Great Wizard.”
“And aren’t you?” she asked.
“Not a bit of it, my dear; I’m just a common man.”
“You’re more than that,” said the Scarecrow, in a grieved tone; “you’re a humbug.”
“Exactly so!” declared the little man, rubbing his hands together as if it pleased him. “I am a humbug.”
One day we will realize that Obama, our Wizard, and the Government, our Oz, offer no solution to our needs. The true solutions are but “make believe.” The government exists at the expense of the Munchkins. Our presidential Wizard squanders the national wealth and starts unjust wars against foreign peoples who are not doing us any harm. It wrecks our families, tramples on our rights, invades our communities, and steals from our bank accounts. It skews the culture toward decadence and trash. It tells lie after lie. The president is not a powerful wizard, but a conniving liar who has tricked us into submission.
It is the obligation of every patriot to denounce the Obama humbug. The federal government has overstepped its boundaries, making promises it cannot keep. When will Americans awaken and realize that the president is not the magician he claims to be? He has no solutions for the economy, for crimes, for gun violence, for peace, for any of those things he campaigns for. The president, like the Wizard, is after one thing: expanding the power of his office and maintaining his great and powerful image. Once the wizard is exposed, the power is gone.
Let’s look behind the curtain, exposing the man behind the smoke and mirrors, sending him off in his own balloon full of the hot air he so much enjoys billowing.
Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a link is given.
For anyone who watched the Grammy’s—I did not—or saw pictures and reports from the event—I did—it doesn’t take much to realize the importance of shock value when it comes to Hollywood. From the dresses—or lack thereof—being worn by the stars, to the language coming from entertainers during their presentations, one can see how much importance they place on shock value.
It seems the old fashioned way of introducing confrontations to our values has been replaced by shocking us into seeing those things that confront our values as the norm.
It used to be that television would never show, nor even imply, that a husband and a wife shared the same bed. Do you know what the first television series was to show husband and wife sleeping in the same bed? The Flintstones. It was the Flintstones that introduced the notion that a man and woman could share the same bed, and they introduced it slowly to a new generation of viewers (our children, rather us as children). Change the way they think, and when they grow up, that will be the new norm.
Of course, husband and wife do share the same bed, that is not necessarily the issue. It was not the norm, however, to show that on television and this is just an example of how that idea was undermined or subverted.
Nowadays, even Hollywood is too impatient to change our values that way. Now (its actually been awhile this is has been happening) they throw the most shocking thing they can in our faces. In this way, something slightly less shocking, but no less confrontational to conservative, Christian values of modesty, will be seen as the norm.
Steve Wilkins, in his book Face to Face, warns against having friends who are not seeking wisdom, Godliness, obedience to God’s Word, and increasing holiness. He then goes on to define friends as those who impact us and the way they think. He even identifies television show characters as a kind of friend, week in and week out speaking into our lives. Even those friends, though, must meet the guidelines for friendship. It seems, however, that the television industry isn’t looking to offer us friends who are seeking wisdom and holiness, but who can shock us into realigning our tired, old values.
In this season of Lent, maybe we ought to reevaluate what kind of friends we allow ourselves to have—especially those who make their way in through our television. Or, as Steve Schlissel once said, maybe we need to consider the impact television [and friends] have on our taking of dominion and discipling the nations.
Shrove Tuesday is a day of feasting. It marks the conclusion of the Epiphany Season. On this day, the Church feasts before she enters into a more solemn and penitential season called Lent, which is referred to as a Season of Confession.
Shrove Tuesday is celebrated with a pancake dinner, which is accompanied by eggs and syrup (bacon can be added).
This day provides the Church an opportunity to celebrate once again the abundance of the Gospel in our lives and in the world. The glory of the Epiphany season is that Jesus has given us life and life more abundantly (Jn.10:10). Following the rich feasting tradition of our Hebrew forefathers, the English speaking Church has broadly practiced Shrove Tuesday for over 800 years.
What’s the Importance of this day?
As a tradition of the Church, and not an explicit teaching in the Bible, the individual or churches are not bound by such traditions. However, if churches do practice this, it is important for members to join in this festive occasion. It provides the Church another healthy excuse to fellowship and form greater bonds through a delightful and bountiful meal.
On the day before we enter into the Lenten Story where Jesus journeys to the cross, Christians everywhere in the English speaking world will prepare rightly by celebrating God’s gifts to us, so that we can rightly meditate, fast, pray, confess and repent by remembering the sufferings of Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Heb. 12:2).
What if my Church does not do Shrove Tuesday?
Assuming the congregation is silent on the issue and has not taken any strong constitutional or theological position on the matter, then as a family you are also free to celebrate Shrove Tuesday. You may also want to invite friends over to enjoy a pancake dinner.
To Shrive
Traditionally, Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the 40 days of Lent (Sundays excluded from this number). Whether your Church has an Ash Wednesday service or not, Shrove Tuesday is still valid as a way of celebrating the Christ who has given us all things, including His own body for our sakes (I Pet. 2:24).
Shrove comes from the word shrive meaning to confess. As we celebrate this evening, let us not forget that the Christian life is, as Luther stated, a “life of daily repentance.” Confession is not just reserved for Lent, but it is for all seasons. But on this Lenten Season we receive a particular reminder in our lessons that a repentant heart is a clean heart before God.<>компания seo system отзывы
For a number of years now, I have gone around criticizing federal programs of Republicans, and federal programs of Democrats as if they were burning down our economy. I have sneered at what I thought was nonsensical, wanton, or even devious. But I have been confronted with a basic error in interpreting the events in our country. As I look back, I am afraid my own mouth has been used to promote falsehoods. “So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!” I have prompted others to think as I did. I am sorry. I must use that same mouth to show what I should have seen.
We are indeed facing great conflagrations all around us – economic disaster, domestic security, oppression of the poor – the list goes on. Up to this day, I have thought that both George Bush and Barack Obama have been “throwing oil on the fire.” But I failed to see their daring to do what others were too weak to do. What I resisted was their very brilliance, and will be for us our great salvation. They were not throwing oil on the fire. They were going to beat the fire! When a forest fire threatens your home and community, how must you do battle? With the next sentence, you shall hear my repentance:
“You gotta fight fire with fire.”
Don’t you see? A controlled burn to create a barrier – that is how you stop the flames from licking at your heels! When something really awful is coming for you – you have to do the awful thing too! You have to do it first! And a lot! That way you will be immune! That way you won’t feel it when it gets there.
Take TARP for example. Back in my blindness, I would have told you that you can’t fix debt by adding on debt. They weren’t trying to make the debt larger! They were trying to make big, scary debt, right here, really fast…THAT way we would be really tired of debt and emotionally exhausted by it before it got here. Controlled burning, see!? They weren’t trying to conflagrate us, they were just controlling us. And that’s way better. You know for our own good.
But you know how fires catch on like ideas, and it’s a good thing too, because the controlled burn has been a good solution. And this style of burning the people has caught on everywhere. Which means they’ll probably be able to control more and more. And we can let them save us and won’t have to worry or fret or think anymore. Cheer up, you may think it isn’t widespread, but there are tons of areas they can burn us in. It’s going to be a wildfire!
Take domestic terrorism. It could be here at any moment. Out of 330 million people who are potential criminals, a good handful of us has already worked on doing domestic terror on our very own land. Will the raging fire of domestic terror get here first? NO, the government is already here at the scene of the future crime, and they aren’t merely getting ready to act. They have already started! They are fast at work, patting us down, and recording what we own, downloading our computer data, and taking photos with flying robot assassins. These robots could even get their own piece of the action. Don’t worry. Domestic terrorists may have flesh and blood, but they probably also have feelings, so these robots have an advantage – no analytical emotion to get in the way of triggering “fighting fire with fire!” Domestic future bad guys, prepare to be terrorized by the experts. Prepare to be put out of business by our corner on the market.
Consider violence against women. We can certainly round up the cash to pay for more Planned violence against women.
Consider elections – one sure fire way to get rid of current bad candidates is to put more bad candidates on the roster before they can hurt us with the bad candidates we already have.
Their waging an immeasurable war against us? We’ll wage an immeasurable war against them, whoever they are!
Unconstitutional legislation threatening us? We can throw a little unconstitutional court ruling at it!
Learn controlled safety at home.
This thing is just jumping from roof to roof now! Control the burn! Control the people! Control the fear! If we all work together as one, there will be nothing we cannot accomplish!
Look, you don’t have to wait for the government to help you. You can get involved. You can, in your own small way, wage war against the coming debt crisis! You can immunize yourself to the wave of debt by making big, painful debt as close as your own pocket. Your own kids can know debt today, and be free from pain in the future.
So, I am sorry that I have suggested voting for candidates of small and principled followings. I am sorry that I pretended that fiscal responsibility meant fiscal restraint. I am sorry that I called for friends to investigate candidates who said “sound economic principles” were wise. I recognize how alone and wrong I was, now that I see the brilliance that both of our upstanding parties have shared. Just how many candidates want sound economic principles, anyway? Three? Two? One? And what is the sound of one economic principle clapping anyway? Exactly. If a tree burns in the woods, and no one is there to control it… you had better believe it’s burning toward your house. And before it gets there – you know who to call.<>самые эффективные рекламные акции
On Monday, Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation effective Feb. 28, citing poor health, speculation is already mounting about his potential replacement.
And Cardinal Peter Turkson, is qualified enough to be a potential option. He is President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Archbishop emeritus of Cape Coast (Ghana), was born on 11 October 1948 in Wassaw Nsuta, Ghana. He was ordained for the Diocese of Cape Coast on 20 July 1975 and holds a doctorate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome.
At a 2009 news conference, Turkson was asked whether he thought the time was right for a black Pope. “Why not?” Turkson replied. He argued that every man who agrees to be ordained a priest has to be willing to be a Pope, and is given training along the way as bishop and cardinal.
He could be the first Black Pope!
This is more significant than just being the first Black Pope. Many prophecy wonks believe that a Pope named ‘Peter the Roman’ will be the last Pope. “The Prophecy of the Popes,” attributed to Saint Malachy, is a list of 112 short phrases in Latin. The prophecy claims that this pontificate will end in the destruction of the city of Rome.
He could be the last Pope!
This prophecy is interesting, we have to hope in a sense that it is true. The end of the papal seat would be the first great step toward a truly catholic church. This is an opportunity for Reformed Christians to call the Roman communion back to the Scriptures (having called ourselves back first, of course). We pray that Roman Catholics would return to the tradition of Gregory – who refused the title “Universal Pope.”
Our prayer for the Roman Catholic Church should be that of St. Clement:
“For it is to the humble that Christ belongs, not to those who exalt themselves over his flock. The scepter of the majesty of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, did not come with the pomp of pride or arrogance, though he could have, but in humility”
Is this the End Times?
Evangelicals and Catholics will now begin to speculate on how today’s news will be a sign of the “end times,” but we know that the end is NOT yet. We need to read the future in the context of what our Lord has said in His word, not human events. The newspaper is not God’s means of relaying prophesy. Everything we need to know has already been printed and we can find comfort and boldness in His word. The sky is not falling. St. John’s Apocalypse teaches instead that Christians will overcome all opposition through the work of Jesus Christ. Most of the confusion over the meaning of the prophecy has resulted from a failure to read this book in the context of the entirety of scripture.
St. John writes that the book concerns “the things which must shortly take place” (1:1), and warns that “the time is near” (1:3). In case we might miss it, he says again, at the close of the book, that “the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show to His bond-servants the things which must shortly take place” (22:6). Given the fact that one important proof of a true prophet lay in the fact that his predictions came true (Deut. 18:21-22), St. John’s first-century readers had every reason to expect his book to have immediate significance. The words “shortly” and “near” simply cannot be made to mean anything but what they say. Some will object to this on the basis of 2 Peter 3:8, that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” But the context there is entirely different: Peter is exhorting his first-century readers to have patience with respect to God’s promises…
David Chilton, Days of Vengeance
Steve Macias” src=”http://kuyperiancommentary.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/days-fof-vengence.jpg?w=202″ width=”121″ height=”180″ />David Chilton wrote the most comprehensive verse by verse treatment of the Book of Revelation. His book The Days of Vengeance still remains one of the most helpful tools at truly understanding what is meant by the “end times.”
Revelation remains, though, a challenging and relevant book for us, not because it gives an outline of world history with special reference to our era, but because it shows us that Christ is in control of world history, and how we should live and pray and worship. In vivid powerful imagery it teaches us what it means to believe in God’s sovereignty and justice.
Gordon Wenham The College of St. Paul and St. Mary Cheltenham, England
There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’Abraham Kuyper
I was struck while listening to the reading of Psalm 10 that “in secret places he doth slay the innocent.” How appropriate to our situation. This building is well-hidden to those who pass by. The Psalter says also that “they lie in wait to catch the poor.” Those in poverty are those who have relinquished their roles as mothers. In this case, the one in poverty of heart comes willingly to the trap set before them. When that woman raised her fist at a pro-life activist this morning she was in defiance of God. “Those who defy verbally still have a chance,” opined the experienced activist near us. They are actually fighting with their decision was the implication. The ones who walk in quietly inhaling their first cigarette of the morning is set on their duty. Just as they puffed away on the cigarette, they were about to experience that unborn child puffed away from planet earth.
I have written on why I think drones are unethical, 
Shrove Tuesday is a day of feasting. It marks the conclusion of the Epiphany Season. On this day, the Church feasts before she enters into a more solemn and penitential season called Lent, which is referred to as a Season of Confession.
