Month: February 2022

Posted on

Vertical War

I’m thinking that that wars and battles fought today in the Ukraine, and the wars and battles of ideas fought elsewhere, are not battles of “left” vs. “right,” or “conservative” vs. ‘liberal.” These designations are not working so well right now. Let’s call these “horizontal conflicts.” There have been many, and still are, but this is an inadequate way to describe what we are seeing unfold in the world.

What might work is to think of these upheaves as “vertical conflicts,” where there is a self-appointed elite opposed to the non-elite. There is a popular rebellion afoot, and this may appear most clearly where there is an elitist group attempting to assert its authority and cement what power it has. It is especially evident in Western nations where the non-elite cannot be simply gathered up and shot; it is likely fomenting in heavy-handed dictatorships and will explode violently.

In Canada, we have three major political parties federally which, aside from some financial policies, differ very little. Each party believes that whichever party rules, it has absolute control over the rights and liberties of its citizens. In their view, rights and liberties are privileges they dispense or deprive.

The non-elite are not a unified voice on many matters, but are unified against the goals and aspirations of the elite. They are united in their fear and rejection of their lives being micro-managed.

The elite will always underestimate the intelligence, commitment, courage, and stubborn tenacity of the non-elite.

The elite controls all legacy media and accredited educational institutions, and has been seen in Canada, banking. Thus the propaganda and outright lies flow 24/7 through these channels.

Many millions of the non-elite accept this arrangement, and simply think as they are told. But there is a great and growing number who are questioning. As the numbers grow, so do the questions. The number in the elite class is not growing, but ever shrinking, as accredited experts in many fields are risking career and reputation to dispute propaganda.

I have no way forward to believe that our lying government officials and media are now miraculously telling the truth about Russia, the Ukraine, or much else. All non-elites, be they in Canada, the United States, the Ukraine—any nation—are universally despised and hated by the elite. We are useful only as taxpayers and voters. When we can no longer work we can be pensioned off into poverty or worse. When we vote it is for a system that is so legally but immorally rigged, that votes count for little. Any election is an election of our favourite god or goddess.

The poor Ukrainian civilians are useful as canon fodder for a proxy war. They will fight to defend their very lives, as any normal person would do. They did not bring themselves to this, but those in power within and without their nation.

In this era, each individual must understand their government as their potential, if not real, enemy.

So we must not look right or left for the “good guys,” but understand that the bloodshed imposed today is a satanic wickedness that will gladly enjoin Putin, Biden, Trudeau, or Zelenskyy to its ends. It doesn’t matter the ideology: Communism, Fascism, Nazism, Capitalism, Democracy—all can be used against the populace.

In Canada, the oppressors have successfully united many who were not previously allies. More than that, there are signs of a Christian awakening in Canada that has been needed for decades. The people of God have always been given this choice:

“”Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.”” (Isaiah 12:2, ESV)

Or,

“And now, go, write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever. For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the LORD; who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.” Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, “Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them, therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant; and its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.”” (Isaiah 30:8–14, ESV)

Notice the use of the word “trust” in both passages. We will trust in one or the other: we will trust in God who is in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:19) or we will trust our oppressors and their perversions (Isaiah 30:12).

I pray that the events in Ukraine will spark a true revival in that nation, in Russia, and everywhere the Gospel is preached.

Posted on

On Irony

Have you noticed a certain irony in the vaccine mandates? The issue of “bodily autonomy” or “bodily integrity” has come to the forefront. Can the State or an employer demand your submission to a medical procedure, even a vaccine? (In making my case for bodily autonomy, I do not mean the autonomy of the person before God. I mean, the freedom to refuse a medical invasion into their bodies. The requirement to receive a medical treatment for employment, housing, education—to participate in society—autonomy not in the face of God, but of other humans).

The irony is this: since 1973 in the United States and 1969 in Canada, millions of children were denied their bodily autonomy by the medical community, Planned Parenthood, and NGOs. But all involved knew that the killing the “product of conception” is killing a real child. The preborn child is no less a human than a born child or an adult.

Killing an innocent is the ultimate violation of bodily autonomy—there is no consent, certainly no safety—the child has absolutely no opportunity to say, “My body, my choice.” Where is the choice of the preborn? What child would choose to be tortured or burned to death? Does the child voluntarily surrender her organs to labs?

When abortion was legalized in the US, the buzzwords were, “It’s just a blob of flesh,” or “it’s not a human,” “an abortion is just like having a tonsillectomy or an appendectomy.” Where was the scientific community when these false claims were circulating? Certainly, any biologist knew in 1969 and 1973 that these were human babies, not mere blob of flesh. The scientific community let millions of children down and let them die. Many scientists and doctors participated in this lie.

So “my body, my choice” has nearly vanished as a rallying cry for abortion rights. This is good because 1) the phrase was never true. It is obviously a case of the “preborn child’s body, someone else’s choice.” An abortion kills a human. 2) But the phrase is also gone because it is so inconvenient for those who demand state rights over each person’s body. How can, “My body, my choice” help the vaccination cause? It cannot. What has been a battle-cry for the pro-abortion crowd is now unutterable.

So there’s one irony—a decades long demand for bodily autonomy of the mother is now set aside in favour of a demand to submit all to vaccines, even by coercion and force. I don’t have statistics on this, but I would venture to guess that the vast majority of those who demand unrestricted abortions will also demand total restrictions on human liberties, including the liberty to decline a medical procedure.  “My body, my choice” has finally found a home in science, logic, and morality.

But there is even a greater irony here: the demand for the abortions of millions, in the name of bodily autonomy, has brought us to the point where we are fighting for what is lost . . . bodily autonomy!

Yes, we have denied the protection of the body in the womb for so many decades, and God has brought us to this point—where we are finally willing to fight for the protection of the body. This doesn’t apply to non-Christians who are all two happy to surrender their bodies (and yours, and your children’s) to vaccine mandates.

The church, overall, has been complacent in the face of the abortion holocaust. We might make some donations, protest a bit, but we have made little progress. There are, of course, some shining stars. Compare the protesters in Ottawa—they are raging over this issue, and most of them do not even understand that our nation is under the judgement of God. They know deeply that there is a serious problem but are unlikely to identify its source as the idolatrous aspirations of the atheist State. They have lost the rights to their own bodies and can only explain this as Christians.

Because we have permitted abortions, we have surrendered the rights to our bodies. The State can invade the womb, and so it can invade your body too.

Everyone is affected by this war of the State against its people, but it is the church that needs to confess and repent of her sin of complacency. We know why this is happening. When a million people or more didn’t show up to protest abortion, and refuse to leave until it was declared unlawful, we knew how little the church cared. Now it seems that the loss of bodily autonomy for all the born reflects the loss to the unborn.

So what is it, church? Will we be revived and reformed?

Posted on

Am I Really Preaching the Bible?

A little exercise for men who preach.

It is common for preachers to have much more in their minds when approaching sermon preparation and delivery than they can say. We are often guilty of preaching “the right message from the wrong text.”

I suggest this little exercise for preachers who are preparing a message. (This won’t work for a topical sermon, which is another issue and subject to other criteria). This exercise is for men who are preaching expository sermons.

Imagine your sermon is recorded on audio only. It was edited poorly so that the reading of your sermon text is cut off. The listener has no idea what your text is.

Now consider your sermon: when listening through the average serious message, 35 minutes or so, could the hearer, from your sermon, figure out the passage your sermon is based upon? Does your message arise from the text in such a way that the hearer (at least the Biblically informed hearer) can find the passage, or a parallel passage to your text? Could those who are not familiar with the Bible at least know you are basing it on something, basing your message on something that is missing?

If you must honestly answer “no” to this question, please read on:

The reason this is important is that much of preaching today is assumed to be Biblical because a passage is read before, and then the message commences; and never the twain shall meet! The ideas, concepts, lessons, stories from the sermon itself may be excellent, even Biblical, but are they Biblical from that text?

Expository preaching has been called lazy by some mega-church pastors. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, or I don’t have the gift of gab and can “shoot from the hip” with my stories and illustrations, but I find expository preaching to be the most rewarding and challenging preparation I do.

Whether or not it is the sole cause of Biblical illiteracy in the church, I do find that fewer men are preaching expository sermons. The present day’s urgency pushes us toward passages that somehow seem to answer immediate needs. But are the immediate needs we perceive to be most important the same as those God says is important? Preaching through the Word can be a guard against preaching to immediate crises only, while still addressing those crises. Expository preaching can uncover what lies beneath and prevent us from making the Bible come off as a book of advice-giving fables.

It is an easy thing to look up topics in a topical Bible or a concordance, but it is very hard to gather verses together that don’t violate their own contexts. Thus proof-texting that doesn’t supply valid proof can become the norm.

So listen to your sermon. Does it flow logically from the text? Does the text supply the outline? What is the context—immediate (previous and following chapters or paragraphs) and the context of the book in Biblical history (OT or NT is the most obvious, but there are other contexts); what is the genre of the passage? What is it’s historical context? How is the passage used in the rest of Scripture? What are other passages that parallel the one you are expositing?

A Bible passage is not a diving board from which one takes a great bounce and leap into the unknown pool of our own ideas.