The Lion of Judah (Volume VIII, Issue 7)
October – November 2003
The believer who has taken the Lord as his Shepherd can assuredly say in the words of the twenty-third Psalm, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever”; or, taking the marginal reading of the Revised Version [Please see our disclaimer on page four regarding KJV1611], “Only goodness and mercy shall follow me.” Hence, we may be sure that days of adversity, as well as days of prosperity, are full of blessing. The believer does not need to wait until he sees the reason for God’s afflictive dealings with him ere he is satisfied; he knows that all things work together for good to them that love God, and that all God’s dealings are those of a loving Father, who permits only that which for the time being is grievous in order to accomplish results that cannot be achieved in any less painful way. The wise and trustful child of God rejoices in tribulation “knowing that tribulation worketh patience,” experience, hope – a hope that “maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
The history of Job is full of instructiveness, and should teach us many lessons of deep interest and great profit The veil is taken away from the unseen world, and we learn much of the power of our great adversary but also of his powerlessness apart from the permission of God our Father.
In the eighth verse of the first chapter God Himself bears testimony to His servant, “that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil”; and in the second chapter and third verse He repeats the same testimony, adding, “still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.” Stronger testimony to the life which God’s grace enabled Job to live can scarcely be imagined: the chastisement that came upon him is declared to have been without cause so far as his life and spirit were concerned. Let us thank God that the same grace, which enabled Job so long ago to live a life that pleased God and received His repeated commendation, is unchanged, and that by it we may also live lives that will be well-pleasing to Him with whom we have to do.
Satan would very frequently harass the believer in times of sorrow and trial by leading him to think that God is angry with him – that this is a punishment for some unknown offense, and many of the comforts and consolations that might otherwise be enjoyed may thus be clouded. Do we not rather see from the Word of God that He is like a glad Father, delighting to be able to encourage a strong, healthy son to undertake some athletic feat which will entail arduous effort and careful training, or to stimulate him to prepare for a difficult literary examination by a prolonged and toilsome course of study, knowing he will obtain honors and permanent advantage from his attainments? So, our Heavenly Father delights to trust a trustworthy child with a trial in which he can bring great glory to God, and through which he will receive permanent enlargement of heart and blessing for himself and others. Take the case of Abraham: God so thoroughly trusted him that He was not afraid to call upon His servant to offer up his well-beloved son. And here in the case of Job it was not Satan who challenged God about Job, but God who challenged the arch-enemy, the accuser of the brethren, to find any flaw in Job’s character or failure in his life. In each case grace triumphed, and in each case patience and fidelity were abundantly rewarded.
The reply of Satan is noteworthy. He does not need to ask, “Which Job?” or “Where does he live?” He had considered God’s servant, and evidently knew all about him. How came it that he was so well acquainted with this faithful man of God? It may have come about in this way. Those subordinate spirits of evil, who are evidently under the control of Satan, had in vain tried ordinary means of temptation with the patriarch. Probably reporting their want of success to some of the principalities and powers of evil, these likewise had essayed their diabolical arts, but had not succeeded in leading Job to swerve from his integrity. Last of all, the great arch-enemy himself had found all his own efforts ineffectual to harass and lead astray God’s beloved servant. He found a hedge around Job, and about his servants, and about his house, and about all that he had on every side — an entrenchment so strong that he had been unable to break through, so high that, going about as a roaring lion, he had been unable to leap over, or to bring disaster within the God-protected circle.
How blessed it must have been to dwell so protected! The work of Job’s hands was prospered – his substance increased in the land, and he became the greatest, as well as the best, of all the men of the East. For in that day God manifested His approval largely, though not solely, by the bestowal of temporal blessings.
Is there no analogous spiritual blessing to be enjoyed nowadays? Thank God, there is. Every believer may be as safely kept and as fully blessed, though, perhaps not in the same way as Job – may be delivered from the power of the enemy, and preserved in a charmed circle of perfect peace. The conditions are simple, and are given us by the Apostle Paul in the fourth chapter of Philippians, verses four to seven, “Rejoice in the Lord always...Let your moderation (your gentleness, or yieldingness) be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.” Not your power of resistance of evil,” and of “maintaining your own rights,” but your spirit of yieldingness, believing that the Lord will maintain for you all that is really for your good; and that, in any case, He is at hand and will soon abundantly reward fidelity to His command. And lastly, “Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
How is it that believers so often fail to enjoy this promised blessing? Is it not that we fail to be anxious for nothing, and to bring everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving before God? We may bring nine difficulties out of ten to Him, and try to manage the tenth ourselves, and that one little difficulty, like a small leak that runs the vessel dry, is fatal to the whole. Like a small breach in a city wall, it gives entrance to the power of the foe. But if we fulfill the conditions, He is certainly faithful, and instead of our having to keep our hearts and minds – our affections and thoughts – we shall find them kept for us. The peace which we can neither make nor keep will itself, as a garrison, keep and protect us, and the cares and worries will strive to enter in vain.
Reverting to the history of Job – the great accuser, having no fault to find with his character or life, insinuates that it is all the result of selfishness. “Doth Job fear God for nought?” Indeed he did not, as Satan well knew! Nor has anyone, before or since, ever feared God for nought. There is no service which pays so well as the service of our Heavenly Master. There is none so royally rewarded. Satan was making a true assertion, but the insinuation he connected with it, that it was for the sake of this reward that Job served God, was not true. And to vindicate the character of Job himself in the sight of the angels of God, as well as of the evil spirits, Satan is permitted to test Job and take away all those treasures for the sake of which alone Satan imagined, or pretended to imagine, that Job was serving God. “All that he hath,” said God, “is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand.”
And soon Satan showed the malignity of his character by bringing disaster after disaster upon the devoted man. By his emissaries he incited the Sabeans, and they fell upon the oxen and the asses feeding beside them, slaying the servants with the edge of the sword, suffering one only to escape – and this, not in any pity or sympathy, but that he might bear the message to his unhappy master, telling of the destruction of his property and servants. The evil one appears to have had power to bring the lightning from heaven, by which the sheep and the servants caring for them were destroyed. Here again one servant only was left, by his message to increase the distress of the afflicted man of God. Working in another direction the Chaldeans were led to come in three bands and carry off Job’s camels, slaying all the servants with the edge of the sword, save the one left to convey the evil tidings. And, as if this were not sufficient, even the very children of Job – his seven sons and three daughters, children of so many prayers – were swept away at one blow by a terrible hurricane from the wilderness, which smote the four corners of the house so that it fell upon them, leaving only one servant to bear witness of the calamity. One only of all his family – his wife – seems to have been left to Job; but, so far from being a spiritual help to him in this hour of sorrow and trial, she too was led astray; and when further calamity came upon him, and he was in sore bodily suffering and affliction, his trial was added to by the words of his despairing wife, “Curse God, and die.” We see from this that even she was left to Job through no mercy on the part of the great enemy, but simply to fill the cup of his trial to the full in the hour of his extremity. But he who sent the trial gave also the needful grace, and in the words in which we commenced this article Job replied, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Was not Job mistaken? Should he not have said, “The Lord gave, and Satan hath taken away?” No, there was no mistake. The same grace which had enabled him unharmed to receive blessing from the hand of God, enabled him to discern the hand of God in the calamities which had befallen him. Satan himself did not presume to ask of God to be allowed himself to afflict Job. In the first chapter and the eleventh verse he says, “Put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face”; and in the second chapter and the fifth verse, “Put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.” Satan knew that none but God could touch Job; and when Satan was permitted to afflict him, Job was quite right in recognizing the Lord Himself as the doer of those things which He permitted to be done. Oftentimes shall we be helped and blessed if we bear this in mind – that Satan is servant, and not master, and that he, and wicked men incited by him, are permitted only to do that which God by His determinate counsel and foreknowledge has before determined shall be done. Come joy or sorrow, we may always take it from the hand of God. Judas betrayed his Master with a kiss. Our Lord did not stop short at Judas, nor did He even stop at the great enemy who filled Judas’ heart to do this thing; but He said, “The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” How the tendency to resentment and a wrong feeling would be removed, could we take an injury from the hand of a loving Father, instead of looking chiefly at the agent through whom it comes to us! It matters not who is the postman – it is with the writer of the letter that we are concerned. It matters not who is the messenger – it is with God that His children have to do.
We conclude, therefore, that Job was not mistaken, and that we shall not be mistaken if we follow his example in accepting all God’s providential dealings as from Himself, and are sure that they will issue in ultimate blessing, because God is God, and therefore, “all things work together for good to them that love God.”
Job’s trial however was not completed, as we have seen, when his property was removed. When the Lord challenged Satan a second time, “Hast thou considered my servant Job...?” Satan has no word of commendation, but a further insinuation, “Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.. touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.” Receiving further permission to afflict him bodily, but with the charge withal to save his life, Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot to his crown. The pain of his disease, the loathsomeness of his appearance, must have been very great; when his friends came to see him they knew him not. His skin was broken and had become loathsome; his flesh was clothed with worms and clods of dust. Days of vanity and wearisome nights followed in sad succession; his rest at night was scared by dreams and terrified through visions, so that, without ease or respite, strangling would have been a relief to him, and death rather than life. But there was no danger of death, for Satan had been charged not to touch his life. His kinsfolk failed him, and his familiar friends seemed to have forgotten him. Those who dwelt in his house counted him as a stranger, and his servant gave no answer to his call when he entreated help from him. Nay, worse than all, his own wife turned from him, and in his grief he exclaimed, “My breath is strange to my wife, though I entreated for the children’s sake of mine own body.” No wonder that those who looked on thought that God Himself had become his enemy.
Yet it was not so. With a tender Father’s love God was watching all the time; and when the testing had lasted long enough to vindicate the power of God’s grace and to prepare Job himself for fuller blessing, then the afflictions were taken away, and in place of the temporary trial, songs of deliverance were vouchsafed to him.
Nor was the blessing God gave to His servant a small one. During this time of affliction, which perhaps was not very prolonged, Job learned lessons which all his life of prosperity had been unable to teach him. The mistakes he made in the hastiness of his spirit were corrected; his knowledge of God was deepened and increased; he had learned to know Him better than he could have done in any other way. He exclaimed that he had heard of Him previously by the hearing of the ear, and knew God by hearsay only, but that now his eye saw Him, and that his acquaintance with God had become that which was the result of personal knowledge, and not of mere report. All his self-righteousness was gone; he abhorred himself in dust and ashes. And then when he prayed for his friends, the Lord removed the sorrow, restored to him the love and friendship of those who previously were for the time alienated, and blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning. His sheep, his camels, his oxen, and his asses were doubled. Again seven sons and three daughters were granted to him, and thus the number of his children also was doubled; for those who were dead were not lost, they had only gone before. And after all this, Job lived to 140 years and saw his children and grandchildren to the fourth generation, and finally died, being old and full of days.
May we not well say that if Job’s prosperity was blessed prosperity, his adversity, likewise, was blessed adversity? “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,” and the night of weeping will bear a fruit more rich and permanent than any day of rejoicing could produce. “The evening and the morning were the first day.” Light out of darkness is God’s order, and if sometimes our Heavenly Father can trust us with a trial, it is a sure presage that, if by grace the trial is accepted, He will ere long trust us with a blessing.
In this day, when material causes are so much dwelt upon that there is danger of forgetting the unseen agencies, let us not lose sight of the existence and reality of our unseen spiritual foes. Many a child of God knows what it is to have sore conflict with flesh and blood, and yet, says the Apostle, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against ...wicked spirits in heavenly places.” It would be comparatively easy to deal with our visible foes if the invisible foes were not behind them. With foes so mighty and, apart from God’s protecting care, so utterly irresistible, we should be helpless indeed if unprotected and unarmed. We need to put on the whole armor of God, and not to be ignorant of Satan’s devices. Let us not, on the other hand, lose sight of the precious truth that God alone is almighty, that God is our Helper, our Protector, and our Shield, as well as our exceeding great Reward. “If God be for us, who can be against us?” Let us always be on His side, seeking to carry out His purposes; then the power of God will always be with us, and we shall be made more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
By Georgia Hamann
Miss Georgia Hamann, age 17, is a student at Pensacola Christian College and a veteran of the Robert Welch University summer camp program. The following was published in the New American Magazine, the John Birch Society mouthpiece. We are a pleased to publish this very insightful essay for our readers’ edification. Would to God more youth had Miss Hamann’s insight. Obviously her parents have done a fine job in educating her and apparently, more like her are indeed on the rise. We are now coming full circle – a sad day for the enemies of truth. —Editor [mediabypass.com].
Evil does not shock anyone anymore. The world does not gasp in dismay as Britney Spears discards another article of clothing. People do not recoil in shocked disbelief as an Eminem song pollutes the airwaves. Polite society does not cross to the other side of the street as Madonna walks by. The filth that spews daily from television barely provokes a shrug. Those clinging to morality may be saddened and sickened, but not shocked.
Degeneracy as a form of rebellion is trite today. We have not changed the definition of rebellion in 25 years. My generation tries hard to be edgy and rebellious, but they encounter difficulty when Mom and Dad are being rebellious in the exact same way using the exact same methods. Degenerate rock music is so integrated into the culture that grocery stores play it. Can it still be described as revolutionary or counterculture?
Men with long hair were a staple of the hippie generation. Today, this look is associated both with aspiring rebels on college campuses and portly middle-aged motorcyclists who grow a braid down their backs to disguise the paucity of hair on top. Look through your parents’ college yearbook at those hopeful little rebels. You will find their duplicates at a high school near you, still idealistically convinced that they can shock a jaded world. Glance through headlines from 1973; talk to a parent and discover that immorality, premarital sex and partying are assimilated parts of the culture rather than venues of rebellion.
Generation Gap
Two generations ago, agitators literally created the “generation gap.” They defined the older generation as the enemy, and they encouraged the younger generation to become a counterculture. They wanted to see the moral culture overthrown and replaced with a culture of license. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, and now American mainstream culture is synonymous with indecency and immorality. Today, can we say that anyone who goes against the tide of evil is literally “counterculture”? Is the teen who rejects the warmed-over musical offerings of his peer’s culture in favor of, say, classical music the new rebel?
Modern Sodom is so degenerate that virtue is the only shocking medium left. Gang members fail to startle people with their clothing, but a Mennonite girl who covers her head with a little white doily will turn people’s heads to an extent that gang-bangers would envy. A girl who wears a skirt and believes in modesty can empathize with the fake rebel’s clichéd cries of “no one understands me,” because sin-steeped society cannot fathom virtue.
Breaking the Mold
A growing number of young people are discovering the thrill of breaking out of society’s mold. “Counterculture” might be an apt term, but the enemies of freedom and decency grabbed the term first, so perhaps “counter-immorality” or “restorationism” is descriptive. We, a small but growing minority, spurn the conventional trappings of our generation. The multiple piercings of our peers are not for us. We disregard our relatives’ stares of disbelief as we purchase season tickets to the symphony. We ignore the public prating about “safe” sex and resolutely maintain our chastity.
Restorationists did not spring from nowhere. Many of us graduated as homeschoolers; we are the products of parents who finally rebelled against their generation’s lifestyle. Rather than be exposed to the routine and formulaic depravity promoted as the only lifestyle choice by “conventional” teachers in public schools, we explored unconventional education. Restorationists have developed the desire to break away from our generation. Homeschoolers in particular desire a lifestyle in defiance of the current mores. We are attracted to our grandparents’ standards of morality, and we reject the lifestyle of our parents’ generation.
Our parents, the baby boomers, began and ended as pawns of the establishment they rebelled against. They were sacrificed to manipulators who used them to overturn moral standards. Many explored alternative lifestyles, which led to broken homes, disease and general unhappiness. Those formerly idealistic hippies who did not die young from drugs or disease became cynical and pragmatic. Again they played into the enemy’s hands with their indifference “it’s the economy stupid!” became their rallying cry. Their wives were sent to work, their children languished in day care, and they drove shiny cars, bought big houses, and played with increasingly expensive toys. They believed they were prosperous, as they increased their credit card debt. A few of them agitate on the far left, a few reject the generation’s lifestyle and have migrated to the right, but most of the baby boomers do not want to learn anything that will rock their solid, slightly-left-of-center position.
In contrast, their parents erred on the side of idealism. They swept grandly off to World War II or contributed on the home front, fervently believing that their “democracy” would transform the world. Few of our grandparents understand the difference between a republic and a democracy and if you dare to imply that Roosevelt possessed foreknowledge about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor, then you will feel the force of Grandma’s wrath. I do not mean to disparage the WWII generation: They did trust blindly, but their generation had standards of dignity, honor, morality and virtue.
Most elements of their worldview have been incorporated into our philosophy, but restorationists have also inherited a sensible amount of Baby Boomer cynicism. We will not emulate our naïve grandparents; we will not place too much trust in the essential goodness of government. Question authority? No, not really, but we learn about constitutionally protected rights and we watch out for people who try to threaten those rights. We do look at history, and we soberly observe that people who revert to childhood and give up their rights to Big Mommy government are eventually eliminated or live as slaves. We do learn to protect ourselves, just in case. Restorationists are comfortable around firearms, not because they intend to go shoot up a school, but because someday they will become capable adults who can defend themselves against anything or anyone, tyrannical government (Heaven forbid!) included.
Restorationists identify with the WWII generation more than we identify with our parents’ generation. But our philosophy remains distinct: We have synthesized, not duplicated. For example, we Restorationists grew up with the devastating results of double income families, a trend that our grandparents’ generation began shortly after WWII. We saw the results in our friends, ourselves and even in our parents. Thus, we believe very strongly in the necessity of a stay-at-home mom.
Our generation was told that a woman achieves liberation when she seeks employment outside the home and adds a man’s traditional workload to her own. This idea is so fully ingrained that few even question the assumption that a young woman must plan for a long and stressful life: She must survive in the workplace and also carry the lion’s share of household work and child rearing. How can we say that a woman is liberated when she carries a double workload and stress level?
Real Girl Power
Unlike both previous generations, the Restorationists fully realize that real girl power is not about pretending we’re differently shaped boys. Our mothers bought into a false feminism wherein they brought their daughters to work and encouraged them to take over traditionally male jobs, from astronaut to GI Joe. How do we contribute to a woman’s liberation when we send her out to unimaginable physical stress and the definite possibility of abuse? Restorationists understand that feminine fulfillment is found as women rejoice in what we can do that no man ever can: We can reverently fill our God-given role of mother to a family.
Previous generations’ ideals have influenced the Restorationist ideas of feminism, but the greatest and most original Restorationist idea is barely a generation old: home education. Maverick Baby Boomers from both sides of the political spectrum pioneered the movement as the rest of society looked on in fascinated horror. Simultaneously, the quality of public education deteriorated so drastically that even many apathetic parents woke up. Gradually, society began to accept and practice the new idea as they saw homeschoolers demonstrating the effects of the new educational style. Now, for the first time, we see young families beginning their homes with the stated intention of rejecting mainstream educational views. Our parents stumbled across homeschooling, but we have desired it from adolescence. Homeschooling’s influence has developed the Restorationists into people who will counter their culture in startling ways.
Renaissance of Virtue
A counterculture teen may differ from his peers in his tastes, but a Restorationist is much more than a person who despises decadent music, piercing and obscene clothing.
Restorationists are primarily defined by an unshakeable passionate resolve. Our values are not mere intellectual ideals. Our resolve consists of an ardent zeal united with a strong character that motivates us to act on our beliefs. Because we believe in God, we are resolved that we will maintain our life of virtue despite the temporary pleasures we may sacrifice. Because we believe in family, we are resolved that we will maintain a single-income, home educated household despite the resultant economic hardships.
Because we believe in our country, we are resolved that we will uphold the Constitution and work to restore it, despite the sacrifice we make in time and effort.
We are only rebels in the tongue-in-cheek sense. We rebel only as we reject the typical norms of our culture. We do not seek to topple society, as the term counterculture originally implied; we only seek to protect ourselves from the ill effects of current culture. We do not demand that our peers conform to our ways, and we do not conform to their ways. We desire to change people’s minds and hearts, because our “rebellion” is so dramatically superior to the same-old, same-old patterns of immorality.
Numbers of thinking people are rejecting their Dark Ages upbringing and joining this new Renaissance of virtue. There are already signs that our numbers are growing. Someday we will be numerous enough that magnificent decency will be the norm and evil will be shocking again.v
By G. Russell Evans
The evangelical Christians want fewer criticisms about the Islam religion. This is the religion of Muslims. They want brotherhood and love. They are overlooking the violent nature of the Islam religion. The evangelical Christians are pussyfooting about the Islam religion.
“Since we are in a global community, no doubt about it, we must temper our speech,” said the Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, which organized the gathering of about forty pastors, missionaries and charities that are active in Muslim countries.
Fundamental preachers were urged not to make any inflammatory remarks about Islam. Falwell has called Muslim prophet Mohammed a “terrorist!” Pat Robertson portrayed Mohammed as an “absolute wild-eyed fanatic …. a robber and brigand.” In turn, Franklin Graham called Islam an “evil and wicked religion” after the September 11, 2001, attacks. None of the ministers above attended the conference, nor did any Muslims.
Don’t Sugarcoat
The consistent message throughout the conference was, “Don’t sugarcoat the message” with Islam but make the dialogue more respectful. Fundamental Bible teachings must not be downplayed with Islam. For example: “Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” (Ps. 90:2).
It seems that the National Association of Evangelicals and the Institute on Religion, a Washington think tank that monitors Christian groups, want to soft-pedal the violent nature of the Islam religion.
I learned the nature of the Islam religion through research at the public library and through Dr. Shelton Smith’s book Islam: A Raging Storm. A frightening prospect – Islam.
Two Kinds
There are two kinds of Muslims: the violent and the nonviolent. Both quote the Quran. Both worship Allah and the prophet Mohammed. And both are out to conquer America. They are cunning.
The Muslims want to convert the world to Islam, and the United States is their number one target. Christianity and other religions want to convert the world, too. The Muslims are making inroads and converts to Islam in America in a nonviolent way, as opposed to the militant assault of September 11, 2001, which backfired and served to unite Americans so strongly against them.
The Muslim holy book is called the Quran. It was promulgated by the seventh-century prophet Mohammed from revelations, and at various times from Allah, their god supreme, through the angel Gabriel. The Quran has many chapters, called Surahs.
Mohammed founded Islam in Mecca and developed it in Medina. He craved power, so let us see what he wrote in the Quran. In Surah 2, verse 193, Allah tells Mohammed to kill whoever rejects Islam. “Kill them until there is no persecution and the religion is Allah! But in verse 256, Allah tells Mohammed not to improve Islam by force, saying, “There is no compulsion in religion.” Another contradiction in the Quran is Surah 29:45 where Allah tells Mohammed to be nice to Christians and Jews: “Say that we believe what has been sent down to us and to you. Our God is the same as your God! But in Surah 9:29, Allah tells Mohammed, “Fight those who do not … accept the religion of Islam.”
Our Strategic Enemy
Still the United States government fails to proclaim militant Islam our strategic enemy but goes along with blandishments about “good Muslims” and “true Islam’s” being a religion of peace. We should look at the record. In the Quran, Allah tells Mohammed, “Fight those who do not believe in Allah ... those who do not accept the religion of Islam” (Surah 9:29).
It is wrong for President Bush to praise “millions of good Americans who practice the Muslim faith, who love their country as much as I love the country, who salute the flag as strongly as I salute the flag.” All this is nice, but it is very misleading and very incomplete! Conversion of the “infidels” is a crucial theme of Muslims as “ambassadors for Islam.” Most American converts were influenced by a Muslim friend so that now almost two percent of the United States population is Muslim – and the number is growing.
Warning about Islam
Veteran Middle East expert Daniel Pipes, now a professor at the U. S. Naval War College, warned about the militant Muslims long before September 11 and warns that the threat continues: “If we don’t make security our priority, I predict more hits by militant Islam on a much larger scale than 9/11. I wish we could get serious without the spur of more catastrophes.”
My contention is that the officials of the National Association of Evangelicals are paying insufficient attention to the fundamentals of the Bible. I will quote a few:
1. Exodus 20:3: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
2. Matthew 28:19,20: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the ends of the world.”
Something Noble
Fundamental preachers recognize the dangers of Islam. They don’t sugarcoat and pussyfoot about the Islam religion.
By Victoria Thacker
The United States racked up 4 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases, or STDs, in 2002, up from 3 million annually a decade ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Also in 2002, teen pregnancies numbered nearly 900,000, an annual figure that has remained fairly constant for nearly a decade, the CDC said.
About 50 percent of teens 13-to-18 are having sex. So much for Sex-Education programs working in the school systems. Kaiser, an independent research bank based in Menlo Park CA., and Washington D.C., reported that 9 percent of sexually active teens said they lost their virginity at 13 or younger. However, that number is actually skewed too low as many teens consider themselves virgins if they opt for other types of sexual acts, said Judy Doan, a Pima County Health Department health educator.
The federal government shelled out $135 million nationwide on what it calls “abstinence only” education programs to combat the rampant sex among America’s 20.2 million teens. With the amount of money spent, you would think that the United States would have the lowest pregnancy rate in the world, however, that’s not so. On the contrary, we have one of the worst. Case in point: U.S. teen STD and pregnancy rates are nearly 50 percent higher than rates in any other developed nation, according to annual studies by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Advocates for Youth in Washington, D.C. The United States has more than double the teen pregnancy rate of England, three times the rate in Australia, and 15 times higher than Japan, according to Planned Parenthood of America.
If this isn’t bad enough, I found that out of the 50 States, Arizona ranked 48 in teen sexual health. Arizona, where we live, is almost the worst of the worst. Overall, Arizona’s teen STD rate has grown steadily over the past decade. Today, about 25 percent of the state’s sexual active teens have gonorrhea, chlamydia, or both, according to the 2002 Arizona Health Report.
Now the government has proposed a new solution. Vaccines for teenagers are being developed, and they are going to become readily available in the near future, says Michael Decker, vice president of medical affairs for drug company Avintis Pasteur. Vaccinations for sexually transmitted diseases account for many of the vaccines now in development, says Peter Paradiso of Wyeth.
To be effective, vaccines have to be given before exposure to a disease causing virus or bacteria and that holds true for vaccines against diseases that spread via sex. “It only works if you give it to people before their first sexual contact, and that means adolescence,” Decker says.
More than 25 percent of women over age 12 have genital herpes, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is enrolling more than 7,500 women in a study to test the herpes vaccine being developed by Glaxo-SmithKline.
Only women ages 18 to 30 can participate in the current study, says Martin Wasserman of Glaxo-SmithKline, but we’re hoping we’ll eventually be able to test it in even younger women and be able to provide it to younger girls,” he says. “The earlier you get it, the more protection it offers.” Walter Orenstein, director of CDCs National Immunization Program, says, “One of the biggest hurdles to routine adolescent vaccination will be cost.”
“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time. Thou shalt not commit adultery:
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath
committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
Matthew 5:27-28
Most born-again believers realize how things are getting progressively worse in our world today. These facts and figures give you an idea about how really horrible things have gotten. Our country is spiritually bankrupt and sexual sin is ruling our country. Every institution in our country is infected with a distorted view of human sexuality.
Why didn’t the abstinence strategy, “Sex Can Wait,” a sex-education program in the Tucson, Arizona Unified district work? (Hello). There is a big difference in being physically pure and morally pure. Their agenda did not go far enough, signing an abstinence contract committing to virginity is not the trick. Encouraging kids to keep the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law is not the right direction to teach kids. How then should we teach them? To be physically abstinent is not the same as being morally pure! Moral purity is a matter of the heart. If the heart is not set on being pure, the body will not be kept pure for long. God wants nothing less than the hearts of His people. Abstinence is at most a starting point from which to begin instruction, but is by no means the ultimate teaching.
Christ explains that the teachers of the law put the boundaries of sexual purity in the wrong place, at the very edge of the circumference of behavior. This is a misinterpretation of the law’s intent. Christ placed the boundaries squarely within the heart and we must place the boundaries where Christ does. Keeping within the physical boundaries is not a high enough standard, not the accurate boundary. Our objective should be to teach teens to live within the heart boundaries and not settle for cultural norms that encourage self-righteousness without solving the factual problem.
Maybe this example can help make my point possible. My husband was murdered nine years ago. The boys who killed my husband used a 44 magnum-hand gun to shoot him with. Since his murder, many organizations have approached me to endorse a gun control bill. They believe getting guns of the streets will produce safety. It bewilders these different organizations when I won’t jump on their bandwagon and condemn the use of guns. I try my best to explain to them that the rise in murders is not based on a gun issue, but it is rather a heart issue.
Keep thy heart with all diligence:
for out of it are the issues of life.
Proverbs 4:23
We need to make teens aware of the issues of their hearts. I can tell you right now this isn’t what they want to hear. They would much rather have you define a rule, so they can get as close to the boundaries as possible. This is why a lot of teens opt for a variety of other sexual acts. They think they have not physically committed the sexual act (staying within the letter of the law); therefore, “I’m pure.” However, this is the exact opposite of Christ’s teachings. We do not want to raise children who honor God with their lips, but with their hearts.
“This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips but their heart is far from me.” Matthew 15:8
Can you see why these abstinence programs have failed? They didn’t deal with the actual issue: they didn’t deal with the heart of the matter!
“Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” (2 Timothy 2:3).
“WE HAVE ABRAHAM TO OUR FATHER” (MATTHEW 3:9). “ABRAHAM: Muslims, Christians and Jews all claim him as their father,” proclaimed the cover of the 30 September 2002 issue of Time (within a year of a similar cover feature in National Geographic). Besides misrepresenting “Christians” (who claim God Almighty as their father and not the mortal Abraham), Time had three goals in publishing this story:
(1) to promote the typical evolutionary explanation for belief in one God (this time attributed to Abraham instead of Moses or an Egyptian pharaoh such as Akhenaten);
(2) to promote the false religion of Islam (therefore “Muslims” headed the list of Abraham’s “children,” an order which can only be justified by reverse chronology; and the Koran and “Islamic Tracts” are cited as authoritative sources of information about Abraham); and
(3) to promote Abraham’s earthly seed over his spiritual seed.
The issue’s cover copy concludes, “A new book explores the challenge of turning him [Abraham] into their [Muslims’, “Christians’,” and Jews’] peacemaker.” Looking unto the man Abraham to make peace between themselves will produce nothing but continued hatred, jealousy, violence, and bloodshed (to say nothing of eternal damnation). Instead, each group needs to look unto the Lord Jesus Christ to make peace between it and God (Romans 5:1). Only then would each group truly qualify as children of Abraham, because “they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham,” and “the blessing of Abraham” can only “come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:7, 14).
“THEIR LAND BROUGHT FORTH FROGS IN ABUNDANCE” (PSALM 105:30). Page B2 of the 27 August 2003 issue of the Jackson, Mississippi, newspaper The Clarion-Ledger featured the following headline: “Fate of Miss. Gopher Frog May Be in Hands of Biologist, Zoo.” That’s right: Mississippi gopher frogs live in only “a single pond near the Mississippi Gulf Coast” and “likely face extinction.” In a statement regarded as so editorially significant that it appears in the story and as a sidebar, Assistant Professor Matthew Parris (University of Memphis) explained why people need to “work so hard” to preserve these frogs (thought to have been extinct until rediscovered in 1987): “Losing a species (such as the gopher frog) at any level represents a significant loss of biodiversity. Amphibians play an important role in natural ecosystems. If we start losing ecosystem function, there’s a chance the ecosystem might collapse.” (Ironically, the front page of this same newspaper contained a typical report of the federal effort to remove a monument of the ten commandments from a courthouse. Apparently, the collapse of an “ecosystem” is more important than the moral collapse of American society.)
Although contemporary American society couldn’t care less, God has told us what He thinks of “ecosystems” and “biodiversity.” (Remember: you can’t spell “biodiversity” without the biblical word “divers.”) God destroyed the ecosystem of Egypt – and used frogs and “divers sorts of flies, and lice” (among other things) to do so (Psalm 105:31). Afterward God commanded His people not to let their cattle gender “with a diverse kind” or sow their fields with “divers seed” (Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:9). In our time people suffer from “divers diseases and torments” (Matthew 4:24), and before He returns, the Lord will cause “earthquakes in divers places” (Matthew 24:7). Rather than the diversity of doctrinal error that plagues our time, we need “the unity of the Spirit,” defined by the word of God as “one body, one Spirit, ... One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father” (Ephesians 4:3-6).
“GO INTO PERDITION” (REVELATION 17:8). According to the 3 November 2002 issue of The Universe, the American Free Church of Satan has announced plans to build a Florida theme park tentatively called Perdition. (If anything comes of it, the Perdition theme park will live up to its name with “features based on the devil, black masses, and heavy metal music.”) The Church of Satan, however, claiming to have created the “modern version” of “Satanism” in the 1960s, has publicly ridiculed the other Satanists’ plan, calling it “ludicrous.” Such “interdenominational” squabbles among Satanists is actually a good thing, because according to the Lord Jesus Christ, “if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end” (Mark 3:26).
“BE NOT DECEIVED; GOD IS NOT MOCKED: FOR WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH, THAT SHALL HE ALSO REAP” (GALATIANS 6:7). According to the United States FBI, America’s crime rate has declined for several years in a row. (Of course, when formerly criminal acts become decriminalized, at least some “decline” is inevitable. After all, none of the murder statistics include the millions of murders of unborn babies). Yet despite a supposed national decline in crime, the 31 July 2003 issue of the Jackson, Mississippi, newspaper The Clarion-Ledger reports that Mississippi’s Tunica County “has seen crime rise more 1000 percent since the casinos came to Mississippi in the 1990s.”
The Mississippi coastal counties offering legal caSINo gambling have also experienced enormous rises in their crime rates – and I have no doubt that crime has also risen in the other Mississippi gambling counties. And what effect has legalized caSINo gambling had in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and areas outside America’s “Bible belt”?
Recently Time reported that an abundance of caSINos on Indian reservations has not changed the fact that “most Indians remain as impoverished as ever” (13 January 2002, p. 9). Certainly legalized gambling hasn’t improved Mississippi’s economic condition. Almost two-thirds of Mississippi’s state budget (6.4 billion of 10+ billion dollars) comes from the federal government. The U.S. Census data for 2002 shows that for every dollar paid in taxes to the federal government, Mississippi receives $1.89 in the form of federal spending (not as much as the $6.44 in federal spending received by the District of Columbia for every tax dollar, but still nothing to brag about). In the late 1990s Louisiana outlawed many forms of gambling after realizing that the costs of legalized gambling were greater than the revenues generated by it. Truly, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Proverbs 14:12).
“GOD GAVE THEM OVER TO A REPROBATE MIND” (ROMANS 1:28). In reporting the U.S. Supreme Court’s 26 June 2003 unconstitutional ruling that anti-sodomy laws are no longer legal, USA Today published an article on the demographics of the acceptance of sodomy. That article quoted Brad Sears, “director of the Williams Project on Sexual Orientation Law at the UCLA School of Law” (!) as saying, “The geography of sodomy laws is pretty obvious. ...You can see a Bible Belt or southern adherence [to anti-sodomy laws] when other states have accepted change.”
In other words, despite the Bible’s warning against it, the U.S. Supreme Court (by citing “cultural norms” and the laws of other nations) obviously expects the United States to “follow a multitude to do evil” (Exodus 23:2). John D’Emilio, “a gay scholar and head of gender studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago” (!) adds that acceptance of sodomy “has been slower in the South, mountain states, and less urbanized areas.” Rural rejection of sodomy is hardly new; remember that Abraham lived in the country, whereas the perverts of his day lived in Sodom, Gomorrah, and the cities of the plain. Indeed, the word “sodomy” comes from the name of “an urban area.” If it weren’t there already, America has now officially entered a period of history “as it was in the days of Lot” (Luke 17:28). Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
The other reported demographics (derived from a Gallup poll) are also revealing. The federal education system has certainly been successful in fulfilling Vladimir Lenin’s strategy of indoctrinating the nation’s youth: “72% of those ages 18-29” and “71% of college graduates” approve of sodomy (so of course, anyone who proclaims what the Bible says about it will be regarded as ignorant and unlearned). In addition, 60% of “those who attend religious services weekly” say that sodomy is wrong, while “76% of those in the poll who said they seldom attend [religious] services” approve of sodomy. The Bible is clear on this (as on all other matters): “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2).
“FOR BY THY SORCERIES WERE ALL NATIONS DECEIVED” (REVELATION 18:23). According to a 2 June 2002 report on the “online edition” of BBC News, “A priest who uses magic tricks [Don Silvio Mantelli] has asked the Pope to name a patron saint of conjurers, magicians, and wizards.” Since there is a “patron saint” for almost everything else (including clowns and thieves), this request is not as unusual at it might seem at first. After all, “the Roman Catholic Church does not discourage families from ... a ‘playful’ interest in magic.” The proposed candidate for such a position is “saint” Giovanni Bosco, a former magician who founded the “Salesian Roman Catholic teaching and missionary order.”
Just who is this “magician priest” who so desires a patron saint to aid him in his endeavors? In addition to conducting “magicians masses,” Mantelli performs magic under the stage name “Sales Mago” and claims, “The Italian word for a wizard – ‘Mago’ – is ambiguous. You can have good wizards and bad ones, just as you can have white and black magic. We are on the side of white magic, you understand.” Mantelli also recommends the Harry Potter novels. Too bad he’s so busy reading Harry Potter that he doesn’t read the Bible. If he did, he would know that according to God, there is no such thing as “a good wizard.” Wizards are associated with worldly Egypt and appeal only to people who trust images and charms instead of God (Isaiah 19:3). Wizards defile people (Leviticus 19:31) and cause them “to go a whoring” after false religion (Leviticus 20:6; illustrated by Revelation 17-18!), so God commanded the Jews not to seek after them. So serious was God on this matter, that He prescribed the death penalty for wizards (Leviticus 20:6, 27).
When dealing with men like Mantelli, we need to remember what God told the prophet Isaiah: “And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?” (Isaiah 8:19).
“EVEN THEIR WOMEN DID CHANGE THE NATURAL USE INTO THAT WHICH IS AGAINST NATURE” (ROMANS 1:26). One of the idols of contemporary perverts is Sappho, a Greek poetess who supposedly wrote around 600 years before the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Even though only “a few hundred lines” of her poetry still exists (and all but possibly one poem in the form of fragments), more than one literary “scholar” has proclaimed her “one of the greatest poets in European literary history”! Until the 20th century, Sappho was known only from quotations by other writers; beginning in the last century, however, fragments of her poetry began turning up in Egypt, where they were held in such low esteem that they had been used to stuff mummified crocodiles!
Why is Sappho so heralded in our time? Even though she was married to a male husband, her fragmentary poetry supposedly explores and depicts “the love of one woman for another.” Since contemporary western culture equate love with fornication, Sappho supposedly was a “lesbian.” (The word “lesbian,” by the way, derives from Lesbos, the name of the island on which Sappho lived). Yet several “accepted facts” about Sappho demonstrate that the people who champion her as a pervert are not only reprobate-minded (Romans 1:28 in context) but double-minded and hence mentally unstable (James 1:8). (Such instability explains why the various reference works can’t agree on how many books of poetry Sappho wrote, whether any of her poems survives in complete form, and why her poetry didn’t survive the Middle Age.)
For example, unlike any pervert of our time, Sappho supposedly founded a school to prepare women for what one professor calls “entry into marriage.” One reference work even admits that claims of Sappho’s supposed homosexuality are only “speculations” and concedes that the influence of the perverted Sigmund Freud causes many people since 1900 to see perversion where none actually existed. In addition, although their testimony is ignored by today’s perverts, several ancient accounts say that Sappho committed suicide as a result of unrequited love for a man. It’s bad enough that some contemporary “scholars” pretend that any famous bachelor or old maid was a pervert (citing non-marriage as “proof’), but in the case of Sappho, they want you to believe that a married woman who taught women how to be wives and who died for love of a man was one as well. “I trow not” (Luke 17:9)!
“SOME REMOVE THE LANDMARKS” (JOB 24:2). A supposedly up-to-date map of “Israel” that is found on the Encyclopedia Britannica 2003 Ready Reference CD-Rom, shows Israel borders six nations: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, “Gaza Strip,” and “West Bank.”
Even though this CD-Rom, (that is marketed as an “educational tool” for students around the world), does not have separate maps for any “nations” named “West Bank” or “Gaza Strip,” such “nations” appear on its maps for Jordan, Egypt, and “Israel.” Even though (by its own admission) the “final status of Gaza and the West Bank” has not been determined, the makers of Encyclopedia Britannica felt no compunction against creating two “nations” out of thin air. Is it any surprise that Encyclopedia Britannica’s corporate logo is a thistle (Genesis 3:18, in context of verses 17-19)?
“PERADVENTURE WE MAY FIND GRASS TO SAVE THE HORSES AND MULES ALIVE, THAT WE LOSE NOT ALL THE BEASTS” (1 KINGS 18:5). According to 1 Kings 18, in the midst of a 42-month drought (and subsequent famine), King Ahab expressed no desire to save the lives of starving widows and orphans – but he was very concerned with saving the lives of his animals. Today’s environmentalists and “animal rights activists” are wicked Ahab’s spiritual descendants. Beware of people who want to “save the rain forest” while condemning its inhabitants to an eternity in hell. Opposition to missionary outreach in the world’s “uttermost parts” shows more concern for trees and animals than for the souls of men.
“I FELL DOWN TO WORSHIP BEFORE THE FEET OF THE ANGEL” (REVELATION 22:8). According to the 14 April 2002 London Sunday Telegraph, the Vatican “has banned the veneration of angels who do not appear in the Bible.” The Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship has published a 300-page Directory of Public Piety that prohibits “baseless beliefs” such as prayers to any angels other than Gabriel, Michael, and “Raphael.” (Prayers to these three beings are “legitimate and healthy.”) Completely lost on the producers of this “directory” are the facts that (1) prayers to any being other than God Almighty have no scriptural basis and are themselves baseless, and (2) belief in an angel named “Raphael” has no scriptural basis and is therefore also baseless. Raphael appears nowhere in the Bible. To find him, you have to look in a work of fiction (the apocryphal book of Tobit), because he isn’t found in the written word of God.
“Looking for that blessed hope,”
Bro. Daryl
Titus 2:11-14