Sunday, November 21, 2021

A Psalm For Kyle Rittenhouse, To Be Repeated Now and Going Forward

UPDATE:  ROGER KIMBALL WEIGHS  IN

PSALM 124 

1 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say; 

If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us:

Then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us:

Then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul:

Then the proud waters had gone over our soul.

Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth.

Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.

Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

Amen

 

While there is a collective sigh of  relief that Kyle was exonerated in the outcome of a trial that should never have been, this young man has many challenges in front of him.  His life will never be the same. This psalm should remind him, and us, that we survive now and always by the Grace of God.

 

Sunday, November 14, 2021

Sunday, Prophet Amos Pronounces Judgment for God on Modern Countries

From Amos 2

WOE TO CHINA. In this century she has butchered fifty million of her own people in the name of equality. Proud and haughty, she maintains an officially atheistic stance, persecuting the church while that church, nurtured by the blood of the martyrs, has in half a century multiplied fifty times. 

Woe to Russia. In the second decade of this century she embarked on a massive social experiment that resulted in the deaths of more than forty million people. She subjugated nation after nation, so certain was she that the tide of history was on her side. She became excellent at producing the “revolutionary man,” but could not produce the promised “new man” of Marxist thought, and so hid behind illusions and lies until her economic incompetence brought her down. 

Woe to Germany. Privileged to serve as home to some of the greatest Reformers, she became extraordinarily arrogant intellectually, and in this century started two world wars that wreaked death and havoc, including the horrors of the Nazis, on countless millions. Today she builds excellent BMWs but has a materialist soul, worshiping nothing greater than the deutsche mark. 

Woe to Great Britain. At one time ruler of one-quarter of the world’s population; inheritor of some of the greatest Christian thought and literature ever produced, she became ever more proud and condescending to the nations she colonized and the people she enslaved. Having repeatedly squandered a heritage of the knowledge of God, she thrashes around directionless and degraded. 

Woe to Canada. She likes to think of herself as morally superior to her nearest neighbor, while hiding under the U.S. military umbrella. Sliding toward a moral abyss, her Supreme Court issues decisions that are as morally corrosive as any in the Western world, while the English-French factionalism drives toward enmity and breakup for want of courtesy and respect from both sides. 

Woe to the United States. She prides herself on being the only world power left, but never reflects on how God has brought low every world power in history. Her cherished freedoms, so great a heritage, have increasingly become a facade to hide and then defend the grossest immorality and selfishness. To the nation at large, no issue, absolutely none, is more important than the state of the economy.

 This is the reasoning of Amos. In Amos 1, he circles around the pagan neighbors, articulating the judgment of God. Here in Amos 2, he moves to Moab, Judah (“Canada”), and finally brings it home to Israel. Israelite audiences would begin with smug contentment during the early parts: how would they end up? And understand: the sequence of my “Woes,” above, could have been rearranged to end with any country—with your country. 

From Read the Bible and The Gospel Coalition

BELOW, THE ORIGINAL

2:1 Thus says the LORD:

  “For three transgressions of Moab,
    and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,1
  because he burned to lime
    the bones of the king of Edom.
  So I will send a fire upon Moab,
    and it shall devour the strongholds of Kerioth,
  and Moab shall die amid uproar,
    amid shouting and the sound of the trumpet;
  I will cut off the ruler from its midst,
    and will kill all its princes2 with him,”
      says the LORD.

Judgment on Judah

Thus says the LORD:

  “For three transgressions of Judah,
    and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
  because they have rejected the law of the LORD,
    and have not kept his statutes,
  but their lies have led them astray,
    those after which their fathers walked.
  So I will send a fire upon Judah,
    and it shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem.”

Judgment on Israel

Thus says the LORD:

  “For three transgressions of Israel,
    and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
  because they sell the righteous for silver,
    and the needy for a pair of sandals—
  those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth
    and turn aside the way of the afflicted;
  a man and his father go in to the same girl,
    so that my holy name is profaned;
  they lay themselves down beside every altar
    on garments taken in pledge,
  and in the house of their God they drink
    the wine of those who have been fined.
  “Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them,
    whose height was like the height of the cedars
    and who was as strong as the oaks;
  I destroyed his fruit above
    and his roots beneath.
10   Also it was I who brought you up out of the land of Egypt
    and led you forty years in the wilderness,
    to possess the land of the Amorite.
11   And I raised up some of your sons for prophets,
    and some of your young men for Nazirites.
    Is it not indeed so, O people of Israel?”
      declares the LORD.
12   “But you made the Nazirites drink wine,
    and commanded the prophets,
    saying, ‘You shall not prophesy.’
13   “Behold, I will press you down in your place,
    as a cart full of sheaves presses down.
14   Flight shall perish from the swift,
    and the strong shall not retain his strength,
    nor shall the mighty save his life;
15   he who handles the bow shall not stand,
    and he who is swift of foot shall not save himself,
    nor shall he who rides the horse save his life;
16   and he who is stout of heart among the mighty
    shall flee away naked in that day,”
      declares the LORD.

Monday, November 8, 2021

Exemplary Leadership Qualities of Nehemiah In the Old Testament

THIS FROM RICHARD KEW'S DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Nehemiah 5:14-19

Moreover, from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year to the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes the king, twelve years, neither I nor my brothers ate the food allowance of the governor. 15 The former governors who were before me laid heavy burdens on the people and took from them for their daily ration forty shekels of silver. Even their servants lorded it over the people. But I did not do so, because of the fear of God. 16 I also persevered in the work on this wall, and we acquired no land, and all my servants were gathered there for the work. 17 Moreover, there were at my table 150 men, Jews and officials, besides those who came to us from the nations that were around us. 18 Now what was prepared at my expense for each day was one ox and six choice sheep and birds, and every ten days all kinds of wine in abundance. Yet for all this I did not demand the food allowance of the governor, because the service was too heavy on this people. 19 Remember for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people.

 

Thought for the Day

What sort of leaders do we want? So often when an individual reaches a position of leadership in politics, business, and alas, in church life, there is a tendency for it to go to their head in some way. Some become bullies, others narcissists, others still feather their own nest, and for many their pride takes on a flavor that leaves a very nasty taste in everyone else’s mouth. Reaching the top of the tree can turn men and women with the highest values and most selfless motives when they set out, into a parody of what they used to be. Not so with Nehemiah. There are no other named political leaders who are privileged to be authors of one or another part of Scripture – but Nehemiah is, and this short passage describes the principles that shaped his twelve years of governorship. There was no freeloading in his administration, and he probably left office a much poorer man. The reason for this was that he was concerned for the wellbeing of the people as they were seeking to establish a firm foothold for the Jews back in the Promised Land. Not only that, but he and his men took off their shirts, rolled up their sleeves, and worked alongside Jews from every background rebuilding the wall that would guarantee the safety of Jerusalem and the LORD’s Temple. Now there is no reason why someone in leadership should impoverish themselves when they take on their responsibilities, but a lot of the ways they might enrich themselves might be highly questionable. What was behind Nehemiah’s approach to leadership? He was a man who knew the Hebrew Bible, and no doubt he had meditated, prayed over, and pondered upon the words of the prophet Micah written three centuries earlier:

He has told you, O man or woman, what is good;

    and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

    and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

We do well to measure ourselves as well as those who lead us in the nation, the state, our business life and religious life against this standard.


Saturday, November 6, 2021

New P&G Video Portends More Imminent, Widespread Shortages and Should Concern Us All

 

WE SHOULD PAY ATTENTION TO THESE WARNINGS AND PREPARE ACCORDINGLY. VIA CFP 

This horrendous president that the liberals and Trump-haters have elected is wrecking our country in the most profound ways possible and, I fear, we ain't seen nothing yet.  Not even close. And what we can get in the grocery stores etc. will be more and more expensive. Prepare now as best you can, while you can for this perfect storm.