The Ku Klux Klan: Democrats who lynched Whites (as well as blacks)

According to britannica.com:
"Statistics of reported lynching in the United States indicate that, between 1882 and 1951, 4,730 persons were lynched, of whom 1,293 were white and 3,437 were black. Lynching continued to be associated with U.S. racial unrest during the 1950s and ’60s, when civil rights workers and advocates were threatened and in some cases killed by mobs."

"Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is the name of several past and present secret organizations in the United States, mostly in the South, that are best known for advocating white supremacy and acting as vigilantes while hidden behind conic masks and white robes. The first KKK arose in the turmoil after the Civil War. It utilized terrorism, violence, and lynching to intimidate and oppress African Americans, Jews as well other racial and religious minorities.

The first Klan was founded in 1866 by veterans of the Confederate Army. Its purpose was to restore white supremacy in the aftermath of the American Civil War. The Klan resisted Reconstruction by intimidating "carpetbaggers", "scalawags" and freedmen. The KKK quickly adopted violent methods. The increase in murders finally resulted in a backlash among Southern elites who viewed the Klan's excesses as an excuse for federal troops to continue occupation. The organization declined from 1868 to 1870 and was destroyed by President Ulysses S. Grant's prosecution and enforcement under the Civil Rights Act of 1871.

In 1915, the second Klan was founded. It grew rapidly in another period of postwar social tensions. After WWI, many Americans coped with booming growth rates in major cities, where numerous waves of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and the Great Migration of Southern blacks and whites were being absorbed. After WWI, labor tensions rose as veterans tried to reenter the work force. In reaction to these new groups of immigrants and migrants, the second KKK preached racism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Communism, nativism, and anti-Semitism. Some local groups took part in lynchings, attacks on private houses and public property, and other violent activities. Members used ceremonial cross burning to intimidate victims and demonstrate its power. Murders and violence by the Klan were most numerous in the South, which had a tradition of lawlessness.

The film The Birth of a Nation and the sensationalized newspaper coverage of the trial, conviction and lynching of Leo Frank of Georgia sparked the Klan's revival. The second Klan was a formal fraternal organization, with a national and state structure. At its peak in the mid-1920s, the organization included about 15% of the nation's eligible population, approximately 4–5 million men. The Klan's popularity fell rapidly during the Great Depression, and membership fell further during World War II.

The name 'Ku Klux Klan' has since been used by many independent groups opposing the Civil Rights Movement and desegregation, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. During this period, they often acted with impunity by alliances with Southern police departments, as during the reign of Bull Connor in Birmingham, Alabama; or governor's offices, as with George Wallace of Alabama. Several members of KKK-affiliated groups were convicted of manslaughter and murder in the deaths of civil rights workers and children in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Alabama, the assassination of NAACP organizer Medgar Evers, and the murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi. Today, researchers estimate there may be more than 150 Klan chapters with 5,000-8,000 members nationwide. The U.S. government classifies them as hate groups, with operations in separated small local units. The modern KKK has been repudiated by all mainstream media, political and religious leaders.


Klan violence worked to suppress black voting. As examples, over 2,000 persons were killed, wounded and otherwise injured in Louisiana within a few weeks prior to the Presidential election of November 1868. Although St. Landry Parish had a registered Republican majority of 1,071, after the murders, no Republicans voted in the fall elections. White Democrats cast the full vote of the parish for Grant's opponent. The KKK killed and wounded more than 200 black Republicans, hunting and chasing them through the woods. Thirteen captives were taken from jail and shot; a half-buried pile of 25 bodies was found in the woods. The KKK made people vote Democratic and gave them certificates of the fact.

By 1868, two years after the Klan's creation, its activity was beginning to decrease. Members were hiding behind Klan masks and robes as a way to avoid prosecution for free-lance violence. Many influential southern Democrats feared that Klan lawlessness provided an excuse for the federal government to retain its power over the South, and they began to turn against it. There were outlandish claims made, such as Georgian B.H. Hill stating "that some of these outrages were actually perpetrated by the political friends of the parties slain."

Others may have agreed with lynching as a way of keeping dominance over black men. In many states, officials were reluctant to use black militia against the Klan from fear that race tensions would be raised. When Republican Governor of North Carolina William Woods Holden called out the militia against the Klan in 1870, it added to his unpopularity. Combined with violence and fraud at the polls, in the election, the Republicans lost their majority in the state legislature. Disaffection with Holden's actions led to white Democratic legislators' impeaching Holden and removing him from office, but their reasons were numerous.

National sentiment gathered to crack down on the Klan, even though some Democrats at the national level questioned whether the Klan existed or was a creation of nervous Southern Republican governors. Many southern states began to pass anti-Klan legislation.

In January 1871, Pennsylvania Republican Senator John Scott convened a Congressional committee which took testimony from 52 witnesses about Klan atrocities. They accumulated 12 volumes of horrifying testimony. In February, former Union General and Congressman Benjamin Franklin Butler of Massachusetts introduced the Ku Klux Klan Act. This added to the enmity southern white Democrats bore toward him. While the bill was being considered, further violence in the South swung support for its passage. The Governor of South Carolina appealed for federal troops to assist his keeping control. A riot and massacre in a Meridian, Mississippi, courthouse were reported, from which a black state representative escaped only by taking to the woods.

The nadir of American race relations is often placed from the end of reconstruction to the 1910s, especially in the South. Once white Democrats regained political power in state legislatures in the 1870s, they passed bills directed at restricting voter registration by blacks and poor whites. Continued low cotton prices, agricultural depression and labor shortages in the South contributed to social tensions. According to Tuskegee Institute, the 1890s was also the peak decade for lynchings, with most of them directed against African Americans in the South. The lynchings were a byproduct of political tensions as white Democrats tried to strip blacks from voter rolls and suppress voting. Some of the violence was directed at trying to break up interracial coalitions that came to power in state legislatures in 1894, with alliances of Populist and Republican parties. In 1896, the Democrats used fraud, violence and intimidation to suppress voting by poor classes, and regained power.

Director D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation glorified the original Klan. His film was based on the book and play "The Clansman" and the book "The Leopard's Spots," both by Thomas Dixon. Dixon said his purpose was "to revolutionize northern sentiment by a presentation of history that would transform every man in my audience into a good Democrat!" The film created a nationwide Klan craze. At the official premier in Atlanta, members of the Klan rode up and down the street in front of the theater.

In 1921, the Klan arrived in Oregon from central California and established the state's first klavern in Medford. In a state with one of the country's highest percentages of white residents, the Klan attracted up to 14,000 members and established 58 klaverns by the end of 1922. Given small population of non-white minorities outside Portland, the Oregon Klan directed attention almost exclusively against Catholics, who numbered about 8% of the population. In 1922, the Masonic Grand Lodge of Oregon sponsored a bill to require all school-age children to attend public schools. With support of the Klan and Democrat Governor Walter M. Pierce, endorsed by the Klan, the Compulsory Education Law was passed with a majority of votes. Its primary purpose was to shut down Catholic schools in Oregon, but it also affected other private and military schools. It was challenged in court and struck down by the United States Supreme Court Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) before it went into effect.

In effect, the Klan defended the interest of the planter class and Democratic Party by working to curb the education, economic advancement, voting rights, and right to keep and bear arms of blacks. The Ku Klux Klan soon spread into nearly every southern state, launching a "reign of terror" against Republican leaders both black and white. Those political leaders assassinated during the campaign included Arkansas Congressman James M. Hinds, three members of the South Carolina legislature, and several men who served in constitutional conventions."

As historian Elaine Frantz Parsons discovered,

“Lifting the Klan mask revealed a chaotic multitude of antiblack vigilante groups, disgruntled poor white farmers, wartime guerrilla bands, displaced Democratic politicians, illegal whiskey distillers, coercive moral reformers, bored young men, sadists, rapists, white workmen fearful of black competition, employers trying to enforce labor discipline, common thieves, neighbors with decades-old grudges, and even a few freedmen and white Republicans who allied with Democratic whites or had criminal agendas of their own. Indeed, all they had in common, besides being overwhelmingly white, southern, and Democratic, was that they called themselves, or were called, Klansmen."

As historian Eric Foner observed,

“In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the planter class, and all those who desired restoration of white supremacy. Its purposes were political, but political in the broadest sense, for it sought to affect power relations, both public and private, throughout Southern society. It aimed to reverse the interlocking changes sweeping over the South during Reconstruction: to destroy the Republican party's infrastructure, undermine the Reconstruction state, reestablish control of the black labor force, and restore racial subordination in every aspect of Southern life."


from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan

Yahweh

'Yahweh,' the Tetragrammaton (as introduced in yesterday's post), is composed of:

Yod

-Yod or yud was anciently portrayed as a symbol of a hand [yad in Hebrew]. This is the entire hand, or closed hand [in contrast with the letter kaf, which comes from the pictograph of the palm of the hand]. The closed hand denotes power and, figuratively, ownership.
-Yod is masculine. In the sacred name Yahweh, it is representative of the Father.
-Yod is the seminal letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It cannot be divided into component parts, like other letters can. It signifies the oneness of Elohim.
-The yod is the smallest [and most humble] letter. From it, the other letters originate. It is symbolic of creation.

Hey

-The letter hey is feminine, and represents femininity and gentleness. The first hey in the Name is representative of the Mother / Holy Spirit / Eloah.
-Hey means ‘behold’, ‘to show’ or ‘to reveal’.

Vav

-Vav is also masculine in gender.
-Vav signifies a nail, peg, or hook. It also conveys the meaning of being nailed or bound together.
-The numerical value of vav is 6.

They are pronounced, in Hebrew, "Yod Hey Vav Hey," when you read them in the Hebrew manner from right to left.


The four letters in God's name in Hebrew have the following meanings:

Hey = Behold

Vav = Nail

Yod = Closed Hand

When read in English from left to right, it says:

"BEHOLD THE NAIL, BEHOLD THE HAND!"
Or, "Behold the nailed hand."

"And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." (Zechariah 12:10)

"Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet." (Psalm 22:16)

"Clearly, this is no ordinary, every-day name. But wait, there's more: Yahushua (often Yeshua or Yahshua, the Hebrew name of Jesus, similar to Joshua), the Hebrew name of the Messiah, the son of Yahweh, means "YHWH is salvation." Therefore, you can take that a step further and see it as "Behold, the nailed hand is salvation." This not only powerfully illustrates Yahushua's role as Savior, but also His divinity (as Yahweh incarnate) and His relationship to Yahweh as His only begotten son. As Yahushua Himself said, "I have come in my Father's name (John 5:43)." Just as His life and character point us to His Father (John 14:6 - "no one comes to the Father but by me;" see also John 17:23-26), so also does His name point us to the sacred Name of Yahweh. He even instructed us to pray: "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name . . . (Luke 11:2)."

You have no doubt heard most or all of the following descriptive terms and/or titles that have often been applied to Yahweh: El (meaning "mighty one,"), Elohim (the plural form of El), El Shaddai ("almighty one"), and Adonai ("my lord"), among others. While those words, like the commonly used English terms "Lord" and "God," can certainly express different aspects of the character of Yahweh, they are merely generic titles and descriptions. None of them is His Name.

When the Scriptures were being transcribed, it was believed by the Jewish scribes performing the task that they should not pronounce the sacred Name of YHWH, for fear of violating the third commandment ("Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain . . . " - Exodus 20:7). This led to the use of other words, generic titles (such as "Adonai"), as substitutes for the true name, Yahweh. Therefore, if you were to compare a typical, modern English translation of the Bible with the original Hebrew texts, you would see how YHWH (which can be found a total of 7,038 times in the original Hebrew Old Testament) was replaced by "the Lord" or "God."

The form Jehovah did not exist as a Hebrew word. It is actually a conflation (blend, fusion) of two Hebrew forms that came about through a peculiarity of the Hebrew writing system. The Hebrew name for God, the consonants of which are transliterated YHWH, was considered so sacred that it was never pronounced and its proper vowel points were never written. In some texts the vowel points for a completely different word, Adonai, "lord," were written with YHWH to indicate that the word Adonai was to be spoken whenever the reader came upon the word YHWH. YHWH was never intended to be pronounced with the vowels of Adonai, but Christian scholars of the Renaissance made exactly that mistake, and the forms Iehovah (using the classical Latin equivalents of the Hebrew letters) and Jehovah (substituting in English, J for consonantal I) came into common use.

A New Standard Bible Dictionary (1936 edition) states, "The form 'Jehovah' is impossible, according to the strict principles of Hebrew vocalization."

So, it is clearly no secret that Jehovah is not the true Name of our God. But don't worry - this doesn't mean that the wonderful suffixes normally attached to Jehovah (as in Jehovah Jireh, Rapha, Nissi, etc.) are also wrong. Those transliterations are for the most part correct, and when added to the name Yahweh (as in "Yahweh Yireh" - "Yahweh the Provider"), they can serve as powerful expressions of certain attributes and characteristics of our Lord Yahweh."

You might reply, "So what? Who cares what the exact Name may or may not be? Why should it matter?"

"When someone begins a relationship with you, one of the first things they learn is your name. As the relationship develops, they begin to learn more and more of your character, and eventually, if they want to, they will know you very well and will be devoted to your relationship. However, the relationship would most likely not last very long if they kept referring to you as "man" or "woman," "sir" or "madam." Such a thing would keep a certain amount of distance between the two of you, and would surely not be a good way to create and maintain intimacy and love.

They might tell you over and over again that they love you dearly, but would you really believe them if they kept addressing you by an impersonal title or description? The same applies to our relationship with our wonderful Creator, Yahweh. To continually apply generic terms like "Lord" and "God" to Him would be like a husband constantly calling his spouse "Wife" or "Woman."

I'm not saying that its wrong to refer to Yahweh as 'God' or 'Lord.' But, for a Christian who wants to increase their intimate relationship with their Lord, shouldn't you want to learn more about His Name (as well as other biblical references to Him) and what it means?


(some portions of information are from):
http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/BibleStudyAndTheology/discipleship/Names_of_God.aspx

God's Name

Many Christians pronounce the Name of God as "Jehovah." However, though it is debatable, most scholars agree that the proper pronunciation is "Yahweh." Now, what I am referring to is not the full Name of God, because the full name of God is not known. Because of the Commandment which says "Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord God in vain," the Hebrews, afraid of accidentally breaking this commandment, took out the vowels, so that His proper Name could not be accidentally pronounced in an unholy manner. The result, 'YHWH,' is called a 'Tetragrammaton.'

"Various proposals exist for what the vowels of יהוה were. Current convention is יַהְוֶה, that is, "Yahweh" (IPA: [jahˈweh]). Evidence is:

* Some Biblical theophoric names end in -ia(h) or -yahu as shortened forms of YHWH: that points to the first vowel being "a".
* Various Early Christian Greek transcriptions of the Hebrew Divine Name seem to point to "Yahweh" or similar.
* Samaritan priests have preserved a liturgical pronunciation "Yahwe" or "Yahwa" to the present day.

Today many scholars accept this proposal, based on the pronunciation conserved both by the Church Fathers (as noted above) and by the Samaritans. (Here 'accept' does not necessarily mean that they actually believe that it describes the truth, but rather that among the many vocalizations that have been proposed, none is clearly superior. That is, 'Yahweh' is the scholarly convention, rather than the scholarly consensus.) In some editions of the sidur, Jewish prayer book, there are no vowels under God's name, to signify that we do not know God's name and that there is absolutely no pronunciation."

"Hebrew Scholars generally favor "Yahweh" as the most likely pronunciation. They point out that the abbreviated form of the name is Yah (Jah in the Latinized form), as at Psalm 89:8 and in the expression Hallelu-Yah (meaning "Praise Yah, you people!") (Ps 104:35; 150:1,6). Also, the forms Yehoh', Yoh, Yah, and Ya'hu, found in the Hebrew spelling of the names of Jehoshaphat, Joshaphat, Shephatiah, and others, can all be derived from Yahweh. ... Still, there is by no means unanimity among scholars on the subject, some favoring yet other pronunciations, such as "Yahuwa", "Yahuah", or "Yehuah"."

"Traditionally, observant Jews do not say this name aloud. It is believed to be too sacred to be uttered and is often referred to as the Ineffable Name, the Unutterable Name or the Distinctive Name. They often use circumlocutions when referring to the name of the Deity, e.g., HaShem ("The Name") or Shem HaMeforash (“the ineffable Name”) when reading the Tanakh aloud because the Name of God must not be spoken. They show such reverence because of how holy God's Name is and they do not want to ever give off the impression that they are misusing or taking the Lord's Name in vain. "Adonai" is spoken only in prayer, and YHVH is only written on paper that will not be thrown away or discarded. Adding vowels to the Name of the Lord is an insult to some Jews because the point is that it cannot be spoken because it is God's Name (to be). Even in English the vowel in God (G-d) is taken out in some cases to show extreme reverence. Even some Christians follow these traditions in order to stray from seeming irreverent to God."

"Using consonants as semi-vowels (v/w)

In ancient Hebrew, the letter ו, known to modern Hebrew speakers as vav, was a semivowel /w/ (as in English, not as in German) rather than a letter v. The letter is referred to as waw in the academic world. Because the ancient pronunciation differs from the modern pronunciation, it is common today to represent יהוה as YHWH rather than YHVH.

In Biblical Hebrew, most vowels are not written and the rest are written only ambiguously, as the vowel letters double as consonants (similar to the Latin use of V to indicate both U and V)."

"For similar reasons, an appearance of the Tetragrammaton in ancient Egyptian records of the 13th century BC sheds no light on the original pronunciation. Therefore it is, in general, difficult to deduce how a word is pronounced from its spelling only, and the Tetragrammaton is a particular example: two of its letters can serve as vowels, and two are vocalic place-holders, which are not pronounced.

This difficulty occurs somewhat also in Greek when transcribing Hebrew words, because of Greek's lack of a letter for consonant 'y' and (since loss of the digamma) of a letter for "w", forcing the Hebrew consonants yod and waw to be transcribed into Greek as vowels. Also, non-initial 'h' caused difficulty for Greeks and was liable to be omitted; х (chi) was pronounced as 'k' + 'h' (as in modern Hindi "lakh") and could not be used to spell 'h' as in e.g. Modern Greek Χάρρι = "Harry"."

"Kethib and Qere and Qere perpetuum

The original consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible was provided with vowel marks by the Masoretes to assist reading. In places where the consonants of the text to be read (the Qere) differed from the consonants of the written text (the Kethib), they wrote the Qere in the margin as a note showing what was to be read. In such a case the vowels of the Qere were written on the Kethib. For a few very frequent words the marginal note was omitted: this is called Q're perpetuum.

One of these frequent cases was God's name, that should not be pronounced, but read as "Adonai" ("My Lord [plural of majesty]"), or, if the previous or next word already was "Adonai", or "Adoni" ("My Lord"), as "Elohim" ("God"). This combination produces יְהֹוָה and יֱהֹוִה respectively, non-words that would spell "yehovah" and "yehovih" respectively.

The oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, such as the Aleppo Codex and the Codex Leningradensis mostly write יְהוָה (yehvah), with no pointing on the first H; this points to its Qere being 'Shema', which is Aramaic for "the Name".

Gerard Gertoux wrote that in the Leningrad Codex of 1008-1010, the Masoretes used 7 different vowel pointings [i.e. 7 different Q're's] for YHWH.

Later, Christian Europeans who did not know about the Q're perpetuum custom took these spellings at face value, producing the form "Jehovah" and spelling variants of it. The Catholic Encyclopedia [1913, Vol. VIII, p. 329] states: “Jehovah, the proper name of God in the Old Testament."

from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh

What A Friend We Have In Jesus

Joseph Scriven, 1819-1886

"Joseph Scriven had wealth, education, a devoted family, and a pleasant life in his native Ireland. Then unexpected tragedy entered. On the night before Scriven's scheduled, wedding, his fiancée drowned. In his deep sorrow, Joseph realized that he could find the solace and support he needed only in his dearest friend, Jesus.

Soon after this tragedy, Scriven dramatically changed his lifestyle. He left Ireland for Port Hope, Canada, determined to devote all of his extra time in being a friend and helper to others. He often gave away his clothing and possessions to those in need, and he worked---without pay---for anyone who needed him. Scriven became known as "the Good Samaritan of Port Hope."

When Scriven's mother became ill in Ireland, he wrote a comforting letter to her, enclosing the words of his newly written poem with the prayer that these brief lines would remind her of a never-failing heavenly Friend. Sometime later, when Joseph Scriven himself was ill, a friend who came to call on him happened to see a copy of these words scribbled on scratch paper near his bed. The friend read the lines with interest and asked, "Who wrote those beautiful words?" "The Lord and I did it between us," was Scriven's reply."

What a friend we have in Jesus,
all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
all because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer.

Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged;
take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful
who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness;
take it to the Lord in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy laden,
cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge;
take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?
Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In his arms he'll take and shield thee;
thou wilt find a solace there.

(from "Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions," p. 19)


The following video features Tennessee Ernie Ford and Odetta singing "What A Friend We Have In Jesus" (An Exclusive TEF Enterprises MemoryClip From The Ford Show Archives)


This is a nature music video for "What A Friend We Have In Jesus"

Grandmothers

A kid's viewpoint on grandmothers.

Kids viewpoint on...

HOW DID GOD CREATE THE WORLD?

Like A Deer

As a deer longs for streams of water,
so I long for You, God.
I thirst for God, the living God.
When can I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
while all day long people say to me,
"Where is your God?"
I remember this as I pour out my heart:
how I walked with many,
leading the festive procession to the house of God,
with joyful and thankful shouts.
Why am I so depressed?
Why this turmoil within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him,
my Savior and my God.
I am deeply depressed;
therefore I remember You from the land of Jordan
and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls;
all Your breakers and Your billows have swept over me.
The LORD will send His faithful love by day;
His song will be with me in the night—
a prayer to the God of my life.
I will say to God, my rock,
"Why have You forgotten me?
Why must I go about in sorrow
because of the enemy's oppression?"
My adversaries taunt me,
as if crushing my bones,
while all day long they say to me,
"Where is your God?"
Why am I so depressed?
Why this turmoil within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him,
my Savior and my God.

-Psalm 42 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)

Song: "As A Deer"
Music by John Michael Talbot

Cell Phones

Spending too much time talking on the phone?

If we spent as much time in God's Word as many people spend talking on their cell phones, we would be a lot less biblically illiterate than we are today.

Another cute but appropriate message from a very astute child.

Be careful, little eyes: Lesson from a child

"But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander." (Matthew 15:18-19)

"Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you." (Luke 11:34-36, NIV)

"Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry." (Psalm 34:12-15, NIV)

"When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be." (James 3:3-10, NIV)

It is a fact of life that whatever a person allows to occupy his mind will sooner or later determine his speech and his actions. Establishing wholesome thought patterns is very important for a Christian.

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." (Philippians 4:8, NIV)

"Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." (II Corinthians 10:5, ASV)

Take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. This is, in part, how we allow Jesus to be "the Lord of our lives". That gives us a pretty clear picture of the kind of music we SHOULDN'T listen to.

Following is a hilarious video containing a good, old-fashioned, basic biblical message (utilizing a song that used to be taught to Sunday School children), while, at the same time, addressing modern technology (specifically, the ipod).

Flood

John Jonethis of the group 'Lounge Freak' performs the song "Flood"





The group 'Jars of Clay,' who originally wrote the song, perform "Flood"
The band's name is derived from the New International Version's translation of 2 Corinthians 4:7:
"But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us."

Praise You in This Storm by Casting Crowns

words by Mark Hall/music by Mark Hall and Bernie Herms

I was sure by now,God, that You would have reached down
and wiped our tears away,
stepped in and saved the day.
But once again, I say 'Amen,'
and it's still raining.
As the thunder rolls,
I barely hear You whisper through the rain,
"I'm with you;"
and as Your mercy falls,
I raise my hands and praise
the God who gives and takes away.

Chorus:
And I'll praise you in this storm
and I will lift my hands
for You are who You are
no matter where I am
and every tear I've cried
You hold in your hand
You never left my side
and though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm

I remember when I stumbled in the wind
You heard my cry to You
and raised me up again
my strength is almost gone how can I carry on
if I can't find You
and as the thunder rolls
I barely hear You whisper through the rain
"I'm with you"
and as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise
the God who gives and takes away

Chorus

I lift my eyes unto the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth
I lift my eyes unto the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth

Chorus

Washed By The Water by Needtobreathe

I love hearing this song on the radio, though I admit that its
because of the music, not the lyrics. So many contemporary Christian
songs today have lyrics that are theologically weak or shallow or wishy-washy, and in a few cases, even bordering on blasphemy (or, at the least, false doctrine).
I wish that more 'Christian vocal artists' or those who write Christian songs would take the Psalms and put them to music, or take Bible verses, straight out of Scripture, and put it to modern music (and I know there are a few who are doing this). The great Hymns of old had very deep theological content, unlike most of today's contemporary Christian music. I also wish that more Christian song writers would take the old hymns and put modern music to them.


WASHED BY THE WATER
NeedToBreathe

Daddy was a preacher
She was his wife
Just tryin to make the world a little better
You know, shine a light
People started talking
Just to hear their own voice
Those people tried to accuse my father
Said he made the wrong choice
Though it might be painful
You know that time will always tell
Those people have long since gone
My father never failed

Chorus:
Even when the rain falls
Even when the flood starts rising
Even when the storm comes
I am washed by the water

(Repeat Chorus)

Even if the Earth crumbles under my feet
Even when the ones I love turn around and crucify me
I won’t never ever let you down
I won’t fall
I won’t fall
I won’t fall as long as you’re around me

(Back to Chorus)

Speaking in Tongues

Here is an excellent article on the tongues-speaking movement:
Doctrinal Distinctives of the Charismatic Movement




"Evaluation of "tongues" by linguists and others:

Two secular researchers conducted studies of Glossolalia in the 1970's:

Felicitas Goodman, who used an anthropological approach across a range of cultures, and
William Samarin who used a linguistic approach.

Some conclusions and opinions of linguists are:

William Samarin wrote:

"When the full apparatus of linguistic science comes to bear on glossolalia, this turns out to be only a facade of language, although at times a very good one indeed. For when we comprehend what language is, we must conclude that no glossa, no matter how well constructed, is a specimen of human language, because it is neither internally organized nor systematically related to the world man perceives."

J.G. Melton wrote briefly of Samarin's findings, who concluded that glossolalia is not a true language. Only a few consonants and vowels appear in it.

An academic Internet mailing list, "The Linguist List" focused on glossolalia in early 1995. Some of the subscribers noted that glossolalia had a simple primitive structure, and exhibited very frequent repetition of individual sounds.

One commented that the words spoken within a given church tended to be similar, and unlike the sounds heard within in another congregation.
Another commented that his observations among American churchgoers showed that they "seem to latch onto and then repeat sounds that sound foreign to them, and intersperse the name 'Jesus' in between the sounds."
Still another said that: "there are two continental charismatic traditions - a French one concentrating on melodious spontaneous song and a German/English one concentrating on speech."

A subscriber stated that: "Some years ago as an undergraduate, I memorized the first eleven lines to Beowulf. Occasionally I recited them to people (I still do). Once I recited them to a friend from Alabama, and she told me that if I did that back where she came from, folks would say I was speaking in tongues."

The moderator noted that the: "... native language of the speaker was a pretty good predictor of the kinds of sounds that would occur in glossolalia; one general pattern was that sounds perceived as generally marking "foreign" speech (whatever that may mean) would occur, while sounds perceived as typical of the native language would not. Thus, for American English speakers, /r/ would be rendered as the alveolar trill, never as the American retroflex; on the other hand, these speakers would not include the low front vowel in their glossolalia, /ae/-as-digraph, because that's perceived as a typically "American" sound for some reason. On the other hand, truly exotic sounds--those not typical of the native language, but that don't happen to be familiar to speakers of the language--would tend not to occur: American English speakers don't produce clicks in their glossolalia."

D.J. James quotes some conclusions of William Samarin: "When the full apparatus of linguistic science comes to bear on glossolalia, this turns out to be only a facade of language — although at times a very good one indeed. For when we comprehend what language is, we must conclude that no glossa, no matter how well constructed, is a specimen of human language, because it is neither internally organized nor systematically related to the world man perceives."

A direct study of the reality of glossolalia in a church environment:

One analytical study of glossolalia was performed by an unknown person or persons. One individual's ecstatic speech was tape recorded and played back separately to many individuals who sincerely and devoutly believed that they had received the gift of interpreting tongues. Their interpretations were quite inconsistent. e.g. one said that "the utterances referred to a prayer for the health of someone's children." Another interpreted the speech as "praising God for a recent and successful church, fund-raising effort." It is obvious from that study that those particular interpreters were unable to extract significant meaning out of the glossolalia. However, they were probably not conscious of that fact.

Perhaps distortion, lack of frequency range or noise in the tape recorder inhibited the interpreters' ability to understand the glossolalia. Perhaps the lack of facial expressions or body English would inhibit the interpretation. It would be useful to people's understanding of the gift of tongues if this type of test were replicated "live" in different locations, under controlled conditions by linguists, anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, or other professionals.

This appears to be only a pilot study. It would have to be replicated by others in order to establish the accuracy of the findings.

Brain scans of people speaking in tongues:

A group of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine used Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) to analyze brain activity within individuals as they spoke in tongues. It was the first study of this kind. During this technique, a small quantity of a radioactive drug is injected into a person's vein. The scanner then makes detailed images of tissues as cells take up the drug.

During an interview on 2006-SEP-20 by Steve Paulson, Andrew Newberg -- Associate Professor of Radiology, Psychiatry, and Religious Studies and Director for the Center for Spirituality and the Mind, at the University of Pennsylvania -- said that the region of the brain involved in language is not activated when a person speaks in tongues. He said:
"Speaking in tongues is a very unusual kind of vocalization. It sounds like the person is speaking a language, but it’s not comprehensible. And when people have done linguistic analyses of speaking in tongues, it does not correspond to any clear linguistic structure. So it seems to be distinct from language itself. That’s interesting because we did not see activity in the language areas of the brain. Of course, if somebody is a deep believer in speaking in tongues, the source of the vocalizations is very clear. It’s coming from outside the person. It’s coming through the spirit of God.

They found decreased activity in the brain's frontal lobes, an area associated with self-control. One of the researchers, Andrew Newberg, said: "It’s fascinating because these subjects truly believe that the spirit of God is moving through them and controlling them to speak." The data partly confirms the subjects' beliefs. In fact, the subjects are not in control of their usual language centers as they spoke in tongues.

Newberg, who is Principal Investigator in the study, was later interviewed about his team's article in the journal Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging. He stated:

"We noticed a number of changes that occurred functionally in the brain. Our finding of decreased activity in the frontal lobes during the practice of speaking in tongues is fascinating because these subjects truly believe that the spirit of God is moving through them and controlling them to speak. Our brain imaging research shows us that these subjects are not in control of the usual language centers during this activity, which is consistent with their description of a lack of intentional control while speaking in tongues."

Newberg went on to explain,
"These findings could be interpreted as the subject's sense of self being taken over by something else. We, scientifically, assume it's being taken over by another part of the brain, but we couldn't see, in this imaging study, where this took place. We believe this is the first scientific imaging study evaluating changes in cerebral activity -- looking at what actually happens to the brain -- when someone is speaking in tongues. This study also showed a number of other changes in the brain, including those areas involved in emotions and establishing our sense of self."

The study also compared the brain activity in the same subjects as they sang gospel music. Newbert said: "We noticed a number of changes" including in brain regions tied to emotions and the sense of self.

This is a SPECT scan of a person speaking in tongues:



- Activity in the thalamus region (bottom arrow) is increased.
- Activity in the left basal ganglia (top arrow) is decreased; this region is involved with focusing attention and emotional responses.

Image courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine."

from:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/tongues5.htm

John McCain

I drew this yesterday in Adobe Illustrator CS2.
I posted my drawing of Barack Obama on Wed. here.

I don't know who is going to win, but between the two of them, I would choose McCain, even though McCain was not my first choice at the start (he wasn't even my second choice). None of the candidates have been ideal, IMO. It seems that quality candidates are getting harder to come by.

John MacArthur on Biblical Authority

OK, for the past couple days my posts have concerned false teachers, false doctrines and ungodly practices. It's time to present an example of some preachers who are solidly teaching the Word of God, without compromise. Mark Kielar and John MacArthur are two such preachers. Mark Kielar introduces John MacArthur in the following video:

False Doctrines and False Teachers

WOLVES IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING?

"For the time is coming when [people] will not tolerate (endure) sound and wholesome instruction, but, having ears itching [for something pleasing and gratifying], they will gather to themselves one teacher after another to a considerable number, chosen to satisfy their own liking and to foster the errors they hold."
2 Timothy 4:3 (Amplified Bible)

Is this truly God, or...something else?

Holy Laughter


Christian Voodoo?


I have attended many Charismatic church services where people would fall down backwards, supposedly being 'slain in the spirit.' However, I have also seen the same thing demonstrated at a hypnotist stage performance, with people from the audience...some who came with us and had never been there before...so I know it was not faked. In the hypnotist show, the people would fall down backwards at a mere word from the hypnotist. Sometimes the hypnotist would touch them on the forehead, like Benny Hinn and others do, and they would fall down backwards. The following four videos demonstrate the same basic principle that I suspect may be behind people such as Benny Hinn and many other televangelists and preachers that are in this movement.

Derren Brown "Instant Conversion" Part 1


Derren Brown "Instant Conversion" Part 2


Derren Brown "Instant Conversion" (explained)


Derren Brown doing one-inch punch (made popular by Bruce Lee) without touching the guy. Is this basically the same method (i.e., the power of suggestion, related to hypnotism) used by so-called 'faith healers' and those that cause Christians to fall down and be 'slain in the spirit'? OR, is could there possibly be even some demon power behind all this? In Gung Fu, they actually punch the guy when doing the one-inch punch. But with what Derren Brown is doing, he is apparently using the power of suggestion, and he seems to be a 'master' at it.


Joel Osteen

John Hagee

Fred Price

Rick Warren

Benny Hinn #1
Benny Hinn #2
Benny Hinn #3

Peter Popov

This is a long list of false teachers:
False Teachers and False Teachings

Arnold Murray, in contrast to the others shown here, is probably not even a Christian:
Arnold Murray #1
Arnold Murray #2

Todd Bentley and the Lakeland, Florida Revival

This is concerning a so-called "Revival" that is currently occuring in my state, which has become extremely popular.

Coming as far as England to see this "Florida Revival"


This is what they came to see:

Todd Bentley Raging Revival


The Luminous Vibrating Todd Bentley


Raised From the Dead?


In defense of false prophets


Article on Todd Bentley being Fraudulent

A False Revival?

Article by Andrew Strom, who spent 11 years in the same Prophetic movement as Todd Bentley

Angels, 'Healing Mantles' and William Branham

The following is not Todd Bentley. It is Patricia King and Joshua Mills, but they are involved in the same kind of thing as Todd Bentley.


Examining Claims of Faith Healers

Online Christian music and preaching to listen to live

HERE ARE SOME LINKS TO ONLINE CHRISTIAN RADIO STATIONS AND BROADCASTS, FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE:

John MacArthur

OnePlace.com - Listen for Life
Live and archived Christian broadcasts from radio stations across the country and from top speakers such as James Dobson, Chuck Swindoll, etc.

Listen to Free Online Christian Radio Stations

Christian Tuner
(Live Christian Radio Stations)

Christian Radio Station Guide

Positive Life Radio

Christian Internet Radio Stations

Abiding Radio
(Great Hymns of the faith, mostly instrumental)

Home Life Ministries Internet Radio

Old Fashioned Christian Music Radio

What does the Bible say about homosexuality?

There are those who like to say that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality. Various verses are cited (out of context) and the verses that people use to show that homosexuality is wrong are explained away. The world wants to change God's words and meanings into something more suitable to its sinful desires. Nevertheless, the truth stands: The Bible condemns homosexuality as a sin. Let's look at what it says.

Lev. 18:22, "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination."

Lev. 20:13, "If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltness is upon them"

1 Cor. 6:9-10, "Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God."

Rom. 1:26-28, "For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper."

Homosexuality is clearly condemned by the Bible. It goes against the created order of God. He created Adam and then made a woman. This is what God has ordained and it is what is right. Unlike other sins, homosexuality has a severe judgment administered by God Himself. This judgment is simple: They are given over to their passions. That means that their hearts are allowed to be hardened by their sins (Romans 1:18ff). As a result, they can no longer see the error of what they are doing. Without an awareness of their sinfulness, there will be no repentance and trusting in Jesus. Without Jesus, they will have no forgiveness. Without forgiveness, there is no salvation.

What should be the Christian's Response to the Homosexual?

Just because someone is a homosexual does not mean that we cannot love him (or her) or pray for him (her). Homosexuality is a sin and like any other sin, it needs to be dealt with in the only way possible. It needs to be laid at the cross, repented of, and never done again.
As a Christian, you should pray for the salvation of the homosexual the same you would any other person in sin. The homosexual is still made in the image of God -- even though he is in grave sin. Therefore, you should show him same dignity as anyone else you come in contact with. However, this does not mean that you are to approve of their sin. Don't compromise your witness for a socially acceptable opinion that is void of godliness.

The above is from:
http://www.carm.org/questions/homosexuality.htm

Barack Obama

I drew this in Adobe Illustrator CS2 on Monday (June 9). Many are concerned and even worried that if he becomes the next President of the United States, things are going to take a huge turn for the worse. Only God knows what will happen, but I believe that the United States has been going downhill for quite some time now.

Pornography

Pornography Article
Harmless fun?
Internet Pornography Statistics
Help for Victims of Pornograpy

Testimony of David Kyle Foster

Watch the story of a former Hollywood actor who lived a double life as a male prostitute while starring in films and television before finding Christ on a trip to Israel.

For the men

OK, its time I change gears on my blog site.
This one is for the men.


Lust

Hell's Best Kept Secret

I knew a guy who told me at the gym one day, "I've been walking with the Lord about a year now." Apparently, he attended a very large Baptist church. However, he was a male stripper, and he saw nothing wrong with that. That shocked me. How can you be a male stripper, and yet, at the same time, consider yourself a Christian? Seems to me there's a huge contradiction there. Kind of reminds me of Hustler magazine's Larry Flynt, who claimed, years ago, to be "born again," yet continued to publish the pornography magazine.

Walking forward in a church service, or repeating some words in a prayer, does not magically save a person from Hell. Claiming that you are a Christian, and then going out and living wickedly, is a contradiction. If the heart is not changed, then the person was never truly born again...no matter what they may claim.

"By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'" (Matthew 7:16-23)

"He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: "Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times."
"Then Jesus said to them, "Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown." (Mark 4:2-8, 13-20)

Why do some of those making a decision for Christ fall away from the faith? What is the principle that Spurgeon, Wesley, Whitefield, etc., used to reach the lost? Why has the modern Church, and modern evangelists, neglected it?

A Message for a Postmodern World

God's wrath

"...sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming." (Colossians 3:5b-6, English Standard Version)

An excerpt from John Piper preaching on the wrath of God:



At the cross, God rescued us (i.e., those who follow Christ) from Himself, and from His wrath.

The Wrath of God
By W. J. Grier


“One of the evidences of decay and departure in the professing Church is the large-scale rejection of the teaching of the Scriptures on the wrath of God. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones in his recently issued Exposition of Romans draws attention to this and shows that it is not only among Modernists and Ritualists that this attitude prevails; it is evident too among some who are evangelicals by repute.

Dr C. H. Dodd, for some 14 years professor of Divinity at Cambridge and chairman of the panel of translators of the New English Bible [New Testament section], deals in his Commentary on Romans with the phrase 'the wrath of God' in Romans 1.18. He speaks of it as 'an archaic phrase’, which 'suits a thoroughly archaic idea'. In other words, he looks on the idea of God's wrath as out-of-date, antiquated. Early in 1931 there was a dialogue in the pulpit of Elmwood Presbyterian Church, Belfast, two prominent ministers Drs Frazer-Hurst and Hyndman taking part. The former quoted from a Catechism he was taught in his boyhood. The question was: 'What are you by nature?' and the answer: 'I am an enemy of God, a child of Satan and an heir of hell'. Dr Frazer-Hurst described such teaching as monstrous and Dr Hyndman supported him by saying:

'These ideas belong to the mentality and outlook of bygone ages.' It would seem as if these men believed that we come into the world as little cherubs sprouting wings.

To adopt such views one would have to repudiate a large part of Scripture from Genesis through to Revelation. In Genesis 3 we find Adam and Eve thrust out of the garden for their sin and a flaming sword set to keep them from the tree of life. Not only were they affected, but the sentence of condemnation fell upon the race [Romans 5.12, 18, 19]. In Genesis 6 we find God saying: 'I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth' ' and the deluge ensued. Then in Genesis 19 we have the destruction of the cities of the plain by fire and brimstone from heaven.

I might go on citing countless examples of the manifestation of divine wrath right through the Bible. Dr Leon Morris says of the Old Testament in his The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross: 'There are more than 20 words used to express the wrath conception as it applies to Jehovah' and 'these are used so frequently that there are over 580 occurrences to be taken into consideration' [p 131]. He adds that this conception 'cannot be eradicated from the Old Testament without irreparable loss' [p 156]. So the Old Testament is full of the concept of the wrath of God.

In his Commentary on Romans Dr Dodd says that the wrath of God 'does not appear in the teaching of Jesus'. One is reminded of John Newton's reply to Dr Taylor of Norwich when the latter said: 'I have collated every word in the Hebrew Scriptures 17 times, and it is very strange if the doctrine of the atonement you hold should not have been found by me.' Newton's reply was: 'I am not surprised at this; I once went to light my candle with the extinguisher on it.' He meant that prejudices from education, learning, etc., often form an extinguisher which must be removed and which only God can remove.

Dr Dodd speaks of the thought of anger as an attitude of God to men as disappearing and adds: 'His love and mercy become all-embracing'. This really smacks of universalism. One suspects that universalistic presuppositions are really in many cases responsible for the rejection of the concept of the wrath of God.

Jesus spoke of the rich man in the torments of hell and He warned again and again of 'the weeping and the gnashing of teeth' and of hell fire and the unquenchable fire and the undying worm and the outer darkness. Describing how He would act as King at His coming one day to sit on the throne of His glory He pictures Himself as saying: 'Depart from me, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels.' Surely the extinguisher is functioning when Dr Dodd claims that the idea of the wrath of God is absent from the teaching of Jesus.

Nor is the wrath of God absent from the teaching of the apostle Paul. He pictured that wrath as like a dark cloud overhanging a guilty world and he proclaimed Jesus as the only deliverer from this coming wrath [I Thess. 1:10]. He also describes this wrath as evident in the heathen world of his day ' evident in God's giving them up in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness and vile passions and a reprobate mind [Romans 1.24, 26, 28]. And in Romans chapter 2 he warns of 'wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God'. These are but a few of the citations, which might be given from Paul's teaching.

We have the same testimony from John, the apostle of love. What a tremendous picture he gives of Christ coming as King of kings and Lord of lords 'treading the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of God the Almighty' [Rev. 19.151! How can anyone that has read Jonathan Edwards' comment on this verse ever forget it? 'The words', he says, 'are exceeding terrible. If it had only been said 'the wrath of God', the words would have implied that which is infinitely dreadful: but it is 'the fierceness and wrath of God'. The fury of God! the fierceness of Jehovah! O how dreadful must that be! Who can utter or conceive what such expressions carry in them? But it is also 'the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God' ' as though there would be a very great manifestation of His almighty power in what the fierceness of His wrath would inflict, as though omnipotence should as it were be enraged and exerted as men are wont to exert their strength in the fierceness of their wrath.'

Many more Scriptures could be appealed to, but sufficient evidence has been produced to show that the witness to the idea of the wrath of God is pervasive in the Scriptures.

When the doctrine of the wrath of God is denied, other great truths are affected by this denial. First among these is the historic doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures.

I. THE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES

Anyone who denies the wrath of God strikes a blow at divine revelation ' for, as we have seen, God's wrath is plainly revealed in His Word. His holy indignation against sin is one of the great 'burdens' of Scripture, one of the Bible's great oracles; and he who denies this holy indignation is flouting the verdict of the Judge of all the earth, a verdict repeated times without number in His Word. Professor T. J. Crawford was right when he said: 'A great part of the Bible would need to be written over again before we can expunge from it the broad and palpable evidence of God's holy displeasure against sinful men and of His righteous purpose to inflict judgment for their iniquities.' The effect then of the denial of the divine wrath then would be devastating in its effect upon the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures.

II. THE DOCTRINE OF GOD

If we preach the wrath of God, we are sometimes accused of representing God as a Being of fitful passion and vindictive fury. In other words, we are accused of blackening the character of God. But we plead 'Not guilty'. The God of the Bible is not subject to sudden and irrational fits of anger. His wrath is His settled indignation against sin. Dr Leon Morris rightly speaks of it as 'a burning zeal for the right coupled with a perfect hatred for everything that is evil'.

When men reject the idea of the wrath of God, it is evident that they really do not believe in the perfect holiness of God, for that holiness involves a settled and burning indignation against sin. Moses could say of the adversaries of Israel: 'their rock is not as our Rock' and we can say the same of men who reject the divine wrath. Their god is a flabby sort of being, not the God who is holy in all His ways and righteous in all His works.

III. THE DOCTRINE OF SIN

There is a close connection between the denial of God's wrath and a light view of sin, as Dr J. G. Machen said: 'The modern rejection of God's wrath proceeds from a light view of sin which is totally at variance with the teaching of the whole New Testament and of Jesus Himself'. It is the sight of the infinite holiness of God, which leads a man to a true sense of his sin and depravity. When Isaiah viewed God as sitting on a throne high and lifted up, and worshipped as the perfectly Holy One by the seraphim, then he cried 'Woe is me, for I am undone'. When men see God's righteousness and His wrath, it is then that they become earnest seekers after grace.

Once when Whitefleld was preaching at Norwich, a thoughtless youth was led by a gipsy's forecast of his future to go and hear the great preacher. The sermon was based on John the Baptist's appeal to the Sadducees to flee from the wrath to come. As he preached Whitefleld burst into a flood of tears and then cried with all his might: 'O my hearers, the wrath is to come, the wrath is to come'. The words sank into the young man's heart; they followed him for days and weeks and he could think of little else but 'the wrath to come'. He later became, as Andrew Fuller tells us, 'a considerable preacher'. Such conviction of sin followed by genuine conversion is not likely to occur where the note of divine wrath is muted; sin is no longer regarded as 'the abominable thing which God hates'.

IV. THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT

In his commentary on Romans chapter 1, Dr Dodd denies divine wrath. It is small wonder that he proceeds in his commentary on chapter 3, verse 25-26, to repudiate the idea of 'the propitiation of the wrath of God' and of 'the satisfaction demanded by His justice and afforded by Christ's vicarious endurance of the penalty of sin.' Small wonder too that the word 'propitiation' was removed from the New English Bible as well as from the Revised Standard Version. One of the RSV translators, Dr C. T. Craig of Oberlin School of Theology, commenting on the omission of the word 'propitiation', said: 'Any attempt to show that there was something in the essential nature of God that demanded satisfaction for sin ends only in blackening the character of God.' So the doctrine of the atonement must go in the interests of the Modernist view of a flabby deity!

Dr Dodd admits that in classical Greek and in the Koin' [or Hellenistic Greek] the word 'propitiate' has the idea of placating or appeasing wrath. But he seeks to argue from the Septuagint [the Greek translation of the New Testament made a few centuries before Christ] that a change had taken place in the meaning of the word. Dr Roger Nicole of Gordon Divinity School has produced 21 arguments against Dr Dodd's line of reasoning [see the Westminster Theological Journal, Vol. XVII, No. 2]. Dr Nicole's article is simply devastating in its force; he seems to have shot Dr Dodd down entirely.

Dr Leon Morris in his The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross says that Dr Dodd 'totally ignores the fact that in many passages there is explicit mention of the putting away of God's anger, and accordingly his conclusions cannot be accepted without serious modification.' Indeed, Dr Morris produces arguments to show that 'it is manifestly impossible to maintain that the verb [propitiate'] has been emptied of its force.'

One must be supremely thankful for the labors of these two fine scholars of a younger generation for their labors in putting up such a capable defense of, and devastating argument for, the historic Christian doctrine of the atonement as a propitiation of divine wrath and a satisfaction to divine justice.

V. THE DOCTRINE OF THE LOVE OF GOD

Those who reject the wrath of God often plead that their rejection is in the interests of the love of God; but actually their rejection of divine wrath inflicts a grievous wound on the doctrine, which they profess ardently to espouse. This is so because Christ's propitiatory sacrifice to satisfy divine justice and propitiate God's wrath is the greatest exhibition of divine love. We read in Scripture: 'Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins' [1 John 4.10].

Dr James Denney said: 'If the propitiatory death of Jesus is eliminated from the love of God, it might be unfair to say that the love of God is robbed of all meaning, but it is certainly robbed of its apostolic meaning' [Denney's Death of Christ, p 152]. And this is the meaning that supremely matters.

VI. THE DOCTRINE OF THE JUDGMENT

If there is no wrath of God, then the tremendous terrors of the judgment are eliminated. Then that ancient hymn loses its significance, which says:

That day of wrath, that dreadful day
When heaven and earth shall pass away!
What power shall be the sinner's stay?
How shall he meet that dreadful day?

Take away the concept of the wrath of God and we strip the great day of assize of much of its tremendous awe.

VII. THE DOCTRINE OF HELL

In 1930 there was a book issued with the title, “What is Hell?” There were twelve contributors. Among them were two novelists, a Spiritist, a Theosophist, a pagan, a Roman Catholic, a Congregationalist who became a Roman Catholic two years later, an Anglican bishop and an Anglican dean. The dean, Dr W. R. Inge, though not thoroughly orthodox, could be quite caustic and penetrating in his comments on the Modernists and he had many true words to say about hell. Indeed, he was the one in this volume who came closest to the Scripture doctrine. He said that 'heaven and hell stand and fall, together' and pointed out that our Lord spoke in perfectly plain language about its duration. He added: 'Modernist Protestantism, though it may be reluctant to admit it, believes in Purgatory, but not in hell.' When Dr Inge ceased to be dean of St. Paul's in 1934, his successor was Dr W. R. Matthews and it is interesting to note that he says in his book The Hope of Immortality that to him purgatory 'has great attractions'; he also says that he believes it 'right to pray for the dead' and it would seem that universalism also has 'attractions' for him. So it again appears, as we have already noted, that many of the objectors to the concept of God's wrath are really universalistic in their outlook. A distinguished theologian of the Presbyterian Church, U.S., who is a member of his Church's Permanent Theological Committee stated in a church paper: 'God does not have two different purposes for men ' that is, punishment for some and reward for others ' but only one'. This is just brazen universalism.

In conclusion, I would point out that when men deny the wrath of God, they are cutting one of the vital nerves of evangelism. It was the thought of the wrath of God, as well as His love, that lent such earnestness to the pleadings of the preachers of the gospel. The thought of the overhanging cloud of God's wrath lent earnestness to the preaching of Paul. Knowing the fear of the Lord, he persuaded men. It was the same with Whitefield and Brownlow North and R. M. M'Cheyne and Henry Martyn. Of North his biographer wrote: 'The immortality of the human soul and its endless existence in a state of holiness and blessedness, or of corruption and misery, were subjects constantly on his lips.' Listen to M'Cheyne also as he says: 'As I walked in the fields, the thought came over me with almost overwhelming power, that every one of my flock must soon be in heaven or hell. 0 how I wished I had a tongue like thunder, that I might make all hear; or that I had a frame like iron, that I might visit every one and say, 'Escape for thy life'. Ah, sinners! you little know how I fear that you will lay the blame of your damnation at my door.' And it was he who said that the preacher should never speak of everlasting punishment without tears.

What gratitude should surge in our hearts because God has not appointed us unto wrath but to the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus! R. M. M'Cheyne stressed this too when he wrote:

Chosen not for good in me,
Wakened up from wrath to flee,
Hidden in the Saviour's side,
By the Spirit sanctified,
Teach me, Lord, on earth to show,
By my love how much I owe.

By nature we were once 'children of wrath' ' exposed to the dread wrath of God [Eph 2.3]. But we have been saved by grace through faith, that we might do the good works which God has before ordained for us [Eph 2.8, 10]. We are under a tremendous obligation. This was how Paul saw himself. He said: 'I am debtor both to Greeks and barbarians . . . So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you also . . . . for I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation . . . . : for therein is revealed a righteousness of God from faith unto faith . . . . for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men' [Rom 1.14-18]. Note the four 'for's, especially the last one ' 'for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven'. The divine wrath was revealed in God's judgments on the heathen world of that day and it overhung that world like a dark cloud. That same wrath is evident in the world of our day and overhangs it like a dark cloud. We too should have the tremendous sense of obligation, which Paul had. We too are debtors ' debtors to men of every race and condition. May the spirit of concern fill our hearts as it filled the heart of the apostle ' that we may give an account of our stewardship one day with joy and not with grief. Amen.”

[The above address was given at the opening session of the Leicester Ministers Conference, March 1971.]

from:
http://www.the-highway.com/wrath.html

Brian Mackert's testimony out of Mormonism into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ

Links to other Christian sites

Here are some Christian sites you might want to check out:

http://reformedbaptistapologetics.blogspot.com/

http://www.tcconnecting.net/

http://covenant-theology.blogspot.com/

http://theresurgence.com/md_blog

http://evepheso.wordpress.com/

http://saidatsouthern.com/

http://discipuluscripturae.wordpress.com/

http://heissufficient.net/

http://ronclick.wordpress.com/

http://sbtsstudent.blogspot.com/

http://immersedinchrist.blogspot.com/

http://rhettsrants.wordpress.com/

http://bandofbloggers.org/

http://haveatulip.com/theology.php

http://theologica.blogspot.com/

http://vonstakes.blogspot.com/

http://voiceofthesheep.wordpress.com/

http://whitehorseinn.org/

Beyond The Gates of Splendor

This is an brief excerpt concerning the story of missionary pilot Nate Saint and fellow missionaries Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Pete Fleming, and Jim Elliot who went to Ecuador in 1955. Steve Saint, son of murdered missionary Nate Saint, has a ministry that continues to help the native tribes of Ecuador. See http://itecusa.org/ to learn more about his ministry.

99 balloons

Check out www.ninetynineballoons.com for more information about Eliot.