Presidential Election Results

" 'For I have set My face against this city for harm and not for good,' declares the Lord." (Jeremiah 21:10a)

"Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, 'Behold, I am going to set My face against you for woe, even to cut off all Judah...Behold, I am watching over them for harm and not for good...' " (Jeremiah 44:11, 27a)

" 'I will set My eyes against them for evil and not for good.' " (Amos 9:4b)


God's great promise to men is forgiveness, His unlimited welcome and blessing to all who will accept it, in Jesus Christ.

But not all accept God's offer. Many who crowd around Him for His protection, show by their deeds that their hearts are far from Him.

God is not fooled. His promise to the false-hearted is that He will watch over them for destruction.

It's early to call the presidential election, before the parties have named their choices. But we already know this...

Whatever the parties do to elect their candidates, and despite Americans' prideful boast they choose their own leader...God will pick America's next leader. He will give us exactly the president HE determines will be His right minister to America. If He is pleased to bless America, He will give us "...a minister of God to you for good" (Romans 13:4): and He will give us "...a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath..." (ibid) if His face is set against America for harm and not for good.

The most important thing the election will show us is what God's heart is toward America.

The Way It Works

"...as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he..." (Proverbs 23:7 paraphrase)

"Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. (Proverbs 4:23)


This is a moral universe.

People have moral choices, between good and evil.

If we choose to operate by evil ideas, we do evil deeds.

If we do evil deeds, we get evil results.

Evil ideas and evil deeds will never produce good results.

Worse: if we continually operate by evil ideas and evil deeds, we become evil people.


I believe in God.  I believe He created all things.  I believe His moral Character is built into  all of created reality.

But reality works the same way even for people who don't believe in God, or oppose God.  God rules over all the just...and all the unjust

A Christian Must...

"...we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh...We are destroying speculations...and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ..." (II Corinthians 10: 3-5)

That includes

every social thought:

every political thought:

every economic thought.

Every thought of our heart, obedient to Christ.

"What Must I Do to be Saved ?"

"Only the Spirit of the Holy can impart to the human spirit the knowledge of the holy. Yet as electric power flows only through a conductor, so the Spirit flows through truth and must find some measure of truth in the mind before He can illuminate the heart."

-- A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy


"...those who perish, [perish] because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved."

-- II Thessalonians 2:10



It's Jesus' unexpected answer to our question, "what must I do to be saved ?" Jesus says, "Love Truth."

Manipulation and Ideology

One fact of manipulation is that those who succumb to it become something less than their authentic self. To adapt as our own a manipulator's thoughts requires that we to abdicate that portion of our freedom central to our integrity: the freedom to examine ideas and events by our own understanding, and make our own decisions for ourselves.

One fact of ideology is that it institutionalizes manipulation.

At Communion Yesterday

It was God's world-changing wisdom to appear on earth in the flesh of our beloved Savior, Jesus Christ.

It is God's continuing wisdom to appear on earth in the flesh of the beloved brothers and sisters we join with in Christ this day.

Miscellaneous observation

It's said that behind every great man is a woman. Undoubtedly, she's there reminding him, "You ain't so great."

Freedom, and Irony

Ironic . . .

That the people among us who scream loudest for their "freedom" are the most fearful among us. Fearful of losing the "freedom" they think is theirs, they are vigilantly fearful of anyone and anything they believe might take it away.

They are fearful of immigrants, of their own government, of gays, of Muslims, of "socialists," of illegal aliens, of "the media," of Obama, of crime and of laws . . . especially of gun-laws, because they believe their only protection against all their fears is being able to commit violence on anything and anyone they think might threaten their "freedom." For them, as for Chairman Mao, ultimate power in society grows from the barrel of a gun.

In America today we are surrounded by masses of fearful people, who hate to the point of violence anyone and everyone whose race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or political opinion is different than their own. They also have a overwhelming fear of being a minority, a few righteous right-thinkers on the verge of inundation by a flood of hellish enemies. In that fear, they are wrong. There are far too many of the fearful for them to masquerade as a minority.

Ironic . . . that their rallying-cry is always "freedom" (and usually, "MY freedom.") No one whose life and mind and spirit is as consumed by fear as they are, is free in any way.

Ironic . . . that so many of this deluded crowd call themselves "Christians" . . . yet don't believe Jesus, that they've been freed by the Son . . . from all their fears of all their enemies . . . and are now "free indeed." (John 8:36) The "Christianity" of these fearful produces no disciples praising God from a jail-cell for their freedom. It produces instead "disciples" who fear, and curse, and threaten with violence, all the "enemies" they believe might take from them their illusion of worldly "freedom."

God forgive the American Church ! Christ, free Your people from their illusions !

Reaganomics

Brother Onesimus recently posted an interesting graphic comparing tax-rates during Presidential administrations of the last 40 years.

https://onesimusfiles.wordpress.com/cost to the poor for rewarding the rich?

I'm woefully ignorant about economics. All I can say is that, subjectively, the U.S. economy seems neither as stable nor as equitable as I remember it being before Reaganomics.

I do know that Reagan appointee Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve and disciple of Ayn Rand, testified to Congress after the economic crash of 2008 that the theory he'd pursued the past 20 years was "partially" wrong, and that, "The whole intellectual edifice...collapsed in the summer of last year.” Greenspan doubtless knows infinitely more about the subject than I do; but his mea culpa does seem to coincide with many of my subjective impressions.

http://http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/business/economy/24panel.html?_r=0

The signature policy of Reagan's governing philosophy was what he called "de-regulation." Government itself being (as he famously proclaimed in his first Inaugural Address) "the problem," it followed that citizens would be best served by government ceasing to "interfere" in their lives. In economics, the premise was that "the market" would sort everything out, and produce a more stable prosperity than government regulation ever could.

(It's worth noting that the Reagan administration instituted "de-regulation" in many other areas previously under federal oversight: environmental actions, air-traffic control, broadcasting, education, housing, food-safety, civil rights law, etc. Again subjectively, it seems we've seen dire consequences in those areas as well.)

What I have to come back to, as the "intellectual edifice" of Reaganism in toto, is its counter-scriptural foundation. Reagan's conviction that "government IS the problem" seems to flatly contradict the teaching that governing authority "...is a minister of God to you for good." (Romans 13:4). His policy of "de-regulation" flowing from that anti-government stance seems the opposite of God's mandate that rulers "...bring wrath upon the one who practices evil." (ibid)

Subjectively, those anti-scriptural teachings have done the U.S. and its citizens a great deal of harm over the last 40 years. That harm continues today in the beliefs of Reagan's followers.

The Problem With Donald Trump

What bothers most people about Donald Trump is his arrogance. Or maybe his demagoguery. Or I should say, "what bothers some people about Donald Trump."

Quite obviously, what the crowd of his followers like about Donald Trump is his arrogant demagoguery.

But there's a bigger problem with Trump's mindset that makes him completely unqualified to be President.

Trump's pronouncements about what he'll do as President should be a warning. They betray his belief that being President is like being a hard-charging business executive: tell underlings what they should do, and they'd better damned well do it...or else.

I think most of us know being President doesn't work that way. I'm quite surprised Trump doesn't. Maybe he hasn't been paying attention.

But Trump's biggest problem is that America's government was set up to NEVER work that way. More than anything else, the founders tried to protect America from one-man rule. That's why our Constitutional government has the toughest legislative, judicial, and popular-vote "checks and balances" they could devise against arbitrary executive power.

Of course, the founders' reference-point of executive power was George Washington. I'm sure they never could have imagined a President like "The Donald" . . . but I'm grateful their foresight formulated our governmental system to make sure there'd never be one.