I am not a prophet, or the son of a prophet, but...

The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. - Revelation 8:8,9, ESV

Who Takes the Blame for Haiti?

Who Takes the Blame for Haiti?
by Todd Friel

Rick Warren is wrong when he tweets that God does not judge the world through catastrophes (Romans 1:18).

Pat Robertson is wrong when he claims to know why the Haitian earthquake happened (Deut.29:29).

Perhaps these principles will help us figure out why tragedies happen and who is responsible.

God

God controls everything directly or indirectly by restraining His grace or allowing the devil a little more leash. Either way, God is sovereign over everything and happily accepts responsibility for both good and bad (but not sin).

The devil

The devil does not control the weather or rule the nations.

Humans

There are only two groups of people on the earth: pagans and Christians.

Why?

When God sends/allows disaster to the pagans, He does so for two reasons: as judgment or as a call to repentance. A disaster is not enough wrath for the pagans as it is merely a taste of God’s eternal punishment if they do not repent and trust the Savior.

When God sends/allows disaster to Christians, He does so for two reasons: to prune us or kill us and take us home. A disaster is never too much or too little for the Christian, the Pruner causes/allows just the right amount for our good and His glory.

While God may be sending judgment to an entire nation, each individual (pagan and Christian) should seek to determine why God caused/allowed himself to be hurt.

Christians are not victims of collateral damage. While there may be a primary reason God sends/allows a catastrophe, God orchestrates every detail in every situation.

Catastrophes happen to heathens as an act of God’s judgment, but they happen to Christians as an act of severe mercy.

God sends/causes a disaster for the onlookers to respond with apathy or kindness.

Biblical Support

Jesus gave us the definitive statement on catastrophes in Luke 13:1-5. Please take a moment to read that text and you will never make the mistake of Rick Warren or Pat Robertson.

Trick Question

God is not to blame for the earthquake as it was the exact right thing to do. While God gets the credit for the earthquake, He is never to blame for anything. Charles Wesley wrote a number of hymns thanking God for two earthquakes that rocked England in 1751; we should do the same.

The Bottom Line

While each individual should endeavor to learn the lesson that God has in the storm, there is an ultimate purpose (forty days or otherwise): God is endeavoring to glorify His Son. God sends a taste of His wrath to the heathens that they might look to the cross and be saved. God prunes Christians that we will live in greater gratitude for what Jesus has done to rescue us from eternal destruction.

Catastrophes, like everything, are about the cross.

How Soon We Forget

I was saddened to see that the Haiti earthquake dropped to page A8 of the Sunday Albuquerque Journal. What was so much more important that it needed to be on the front page? State budget problems and the New Mexico film industry.

The people of Haiti are going to need our assistance long after the world has lost interest and considers its troubles to be yesterday's news.

Pray

Give

Pray

Update, January 18th: Today's Albuquerque Journal? Page C4, a quarter page, just above the obituaries. Keep on praying, keep on giving, keep on praying.

Haiti Earthquake Response

1) Pray

2) Give

SBC Disaster Relief

Samaritan's Purse

3) Pray

9-11

Never forget.



(RSS & Facebook, click on the original post to view the video.)

Men are from Mars...

...Women are from Venus?

Seventy Years Ago Today

September 1, 1939, the beginning of World War II, as German forces invaded Poland.

Before it ended in Tokyo harbor on September 2, 1945 some 50 to 70 million people died.

The Ode

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

- Laurence Binyon

Islam once again demonstrates that it is the "Religion of Peace"

Three Nigerian pastors beheaded by Islamic extremists in Nigeria.

I expect that "moderate" Muslims world-wide will quickly denounce this act.........Not.

9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

15 “Therefore they are before the throne of God,
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.

- Revelation 7:9-15 (ESV)

Pray for our Persecuted Brothers and Sisters

This sad news story today from Fox News:

North Korea Publicly Executes Christian Woman for Distributing Bible.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8:31-39 (ESV)

Ri Hyon Ok is now more than a conqueror. Pray for her family and fellow believers in North Korea as they face tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger and sword.

(You may also want to see my previous post about the dangers of attempting escape from North Korea.)

Yearning to be Free

We take our freedom for granted while there are millions who live under despotic regimes. Probably the worst dictatorship in the world is North Korea. Many risk imprisonment, torture, and even death to escape this "workers' paradise".

This PBS documentary is well worth an hour of your time:



(If in Facebook or via RSS, go to the original post. For HD, click on"Full Screen".)

Isn't it just wonderful...

...that John Holdren is President Obama's "Science Czar"?

In 1969, writing with Paul R. Ehrlich, Holdren claimed that, "if the population control measures are not initiated immediately, and effectively, all the technology man can bring to bear will not fend off the misery to come."^[9] In 1973 Holdren encouraged a decline in fertility to well below replacement in the United States, because "210 million now is too many and 280 million in 2040 is likely to be much too many"^[10]. Currently, the U.S. population is 306,892,000^[11]. In 1977 he co-authored (with Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich) Ecoscience^[12], which discussed the possible role of a "planetary regime" in enforcing population control. Also discussed was the possibility of adding a sterilant to drinking water; "Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.".

This is scary stuff.

“And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” - Luke 21:25-28, ESV

Coming soon to a neighborhood near you...

Remember the anarchist riots in France in the Fall of 2005? Did you think then that it could never happen here? Don't kid yourself.

If I had a tinfoil hat mentality I would almost believe that much of what is happening in our government today is specifically designed to lead to the level of disaffection and unrest witnessed in France. Whether or not it is intentional, many of the Obama administration's actions are putting us on the same road.

In an attempt to "know your enemy", I have recently obtained an electronic copy of the English translation of The Coming Insurrection, written by an anonymous group of French anarchists who are calling for a violent uprising against all structures. It is a chilling read, and I may have more comments later. For now, the following excerpt was interesting:

The West is a civilization that has survived all the prophecies of its collapse with a singular stratagem. Just as the bourgeoisie had to deny itself as a class in order to permit the bourgeoisification of society as a whole, from the worker to the baron; just as capital had to sacrifice itself as a wage relation in order to impose itself as a social relation – becoming cultural capital and health capital in addition to finance capital; just as Christianity had to sacrifice itself as a religion in order to survive as an affective structure – as a vague injunction to humility, compassion, and weakness; so the West has sacrificed itself as a particular civilization in order to impose itself as a universal culture. The operation can be summarized like this: an entity in its death throws sacrifices itself as a content in order to survive as a form. -pg. 60, The Coming Insurrection, by "The Invisible Committee"

As far as the writers of this tome are concerned, Christianity is on the ash heap, and only functions as an "affective structure" without power or substance. Unfortunately, this is 100% true of much of Western European "Christianity", and also describes much of American "Christianity" from main-line churches to evangelical circuses.

Have we sacrificed Christianity as a religion in order to survive as an affective structure? It would be difficult to argue against this point based upon an examination of the sorry state of the visible church.

Yet, we know that the true Church, the Body of Christ, transcends worldly structures: I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18b, ESV). While this is true, it might be that we will be called upon to testify for Christ in the midst of great turmoil: Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake (Matthew 24:9, ESV). Remember: But the one who endures to the end will be saved (Matthew 24:13, ESV) and:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Romans 8:31-39, ESV)

It is truly scary...

...what a tyrannical government is capable of doing, as seen in this item about how the Iranian security apparatus has been able to shut down the Internet and social networking sites.

"The high-end apparatus, installed in late 2008 by the German Siemens AG and Finnish Nokia Corp. cell phone giant, gave Iranian intelligence the most advanced tools anywhere for controlling, inspecting, censoring and altering Internet and cell phone messaging. Those tools were being used weeks before the poll to identify penetrations by alien spy services, their local agents and dissident activists."

Of course, none of this would have been possible for the Iranian government without technology acquired from Siemens and Nokia. I wonder how their executives can sleep at night?

It is important to note how the enemies of freedom operate, and not take for granted that our government couldn't do the same, or worse.

Do we really care what Time magazine thinks?

While there has been no lack of responses in the bogosphere to the recent Time magazine piece, I believe that Bro. Thabiti's perspective on the matter is spot on:

Pure Church: Why the Time Magazine Trumpeting of New Calvinism Is a Bad Thing

The Bailout

This about sums it up completely and succinctly:

We are taking money from businessmen like George Bailey to give it to crooks like Potter.

You can read more here.

Time Magazine Article

Time magazine has rated the "new Calvinism" as #3 in their series on 10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now.

The article is fairly balanced, but I picked up a bit of a "sneer" in the tone of the opening paragraphs.

#3? Who would have thought?

Update: It appears that this is not the first time that Time Magazine has written on Calvinism, as shown in this article on a "Calvinist Comeback" from February 1947. I also detect a bit of a "sneer" in this one as well.

Upcoming Collapse of Evangelicalism

Micheal Spencer, the Internet Monk, has posted a series of articles on the Upcoming Collapse of Evangelicalism that has received notice in various places, including the Drudge Report and the Christian Science Monitor.

Even though Spencer claims that he is not a prophet, it is hard to miss the prophetic nature of his analysis:

"This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close."

The Church is secure, but the sad counterfeit that much of western evangelicalism represents is hopefully soon going to be nothing more than a bad memory.

Maybe once the sham comes to an end we will realize that Jesus was serious, dead serious, when He said:

But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness. Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name's sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives. - Luke 21:12-19 (ESV)

Baptists and the "Palin Predicament"

Richard Land, in this Baptist Press article, ably demonstrates why David Gushee is wrong, and that there is no "Palin Predicament" for Biblically minded Christians.

Sarah Palin's candidacy for Vice President is not a challenge for the complementarian.

(An interesting paper by John Piper on the subject of complementarianism.)

O Canada - Unbelievable

See what kind of doctors socialized medicine gets you?

As Paul Harvey has often said: "It's not one world". Yet, at the same time I imagine that there are more than a few doctors in this country who share the same view, even if they are less vocal.

Governor Sarah Palin

Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska first came to my notice when I read this article by R. Albert Mohler this past May.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think that John McCain would pick her as his Vice Presidential running mate, but there were some who exhibited a prophetic bent:

Josh Harris

Draft Sarah Palin

As it says at the top of my blog, these are Republican Ramblings. I will use my position as owner of this spot in the blogosphere to engage in some of that right now:

What can be said about Governor Sarah Palin:

1) Not only does she talk pro-2nd Amendment, she shoots, is the Governor of a state that allows CCW without requiring a permit, is an NRA Life member, and has been hunting since a youngster (what a contrast to John Kerry's hunting 'experience" in the last election and to Obama and Biden's anti-gun stance.)

2) Not only is she pro-military, she has a son who is in the US Army Infantry and will soon deploy to Iraq.

3) Not only does she talk pro-life, she actually practices pro-life, and refused to abort her Down syndrome son, seeing him as a gift from God.

4) Not only does she talk against corruption, she has been actively cleaning it up.

5) Not only does she talk about government waste, she has been eliminating it.

6) Not only does she talk low taxes, she cuts taxes and returns taxpayers money to them.

7) It appears that she doesn't just talk about faith, she lives it out while not making it a big issue on the campaign trail.

Additionally, she has built and run a business with her native-American (Eskimo) husband of 20 years, and has more executive experience than either Obama or Biden. I think that she will hold her own against Biden in any debates, and will maintain her integrity and exhibit grace while doing so.

Looks like a winner to me.

(It doesn't hurt that she is not hard on the eyes either!)