Category: Culture

Reason #3: Why a Sinner Ought to Turn to God Without Delay

Silva

“He’s dead.”  Mercifully that kind of statement in the pre-dawn hour of the day doesn’t come too often.  Today, however, it came.  I’ve been wandering in and out of my senses ever since.  I’ve been dealing with matters of life and death for many years now – mostly, life, if I had to do an informal survey.  I mostly help people grapple with and handle the fast-balls and curve-balls and sliders that come in their lives.  Sometimes, I help others make sense of death.  Today, it’s been my turn.

Providentially, Baxter’s reason #3 for turning to God without delay has to do with recognizing from what we turn.  We turn from the devil, from the vain and fleeting hopes of this world and from the seductions inspired by our own flesh.  I’ll cite him in a moment but as the wave of death washes over me today, I am speechlessly thankful that though the salt of this wave stings the wound in my heart (and that of my family), I do not grieve without hope.  In fact, I know how this story ends.  It’s like re-watching a really sad movie and experiencing that acute sadness while knowing how it ends.  It doesn’t really lessen the sadness, it just gives it purpose.  The Bible tells us that to be one with Jesus Christ by faith means we will grieve for only a time and the grief caused by our enemies: death, the devil and our flesh, will give way to joy.  God promised.

Consider also from what you are called to turn; and then judge whether there be any reason of delay.  It is from the devil, your enemy; from the love of a deceitful world, from the seductions of corrupted brutish flesh; it is from sin the greatest evil.  What is there in sin that you should delay to part with it?  Is there any good in it?  Or what hath it ever done for you that you should love it?  Did it ever do you good?  Or did it ever do any man good?  It is the deadly enemy of Christ and you that caused his death and will cause yours and is working for your condemnation, if converting and pardoning grace prevent it not….It is cause of all the miseries of the world, of all the sorrows that ever did befall you and the cause of the damnation of them that perish; and do you delay to part with it?

Oh, heaven soon.

Pastor Gabe

Unskewed Polls

Silva

Polls are advertising.  I have always wondered if it was possible to read polls and come to a reasonable conclusion about a matter.  You would think that in math, there’s right and wrong and that’s it; every math class I ever took had it that way.  But, then, I (as many others) recognized that in a survey (i.e., “poll”), you can ask a certain question or a question in a certain way or both of the above to a certain audience and get wildly different conclusions. And, since most thinking people recognize this, I really wonder what is the value of polls?  (Back to that in a minute.)

So, polls are now advertising.  A stated poll-result is now used to advertise for or against a candidate.  It isn’t that the data urges a conclusion one way or another; it is that the poll itself cannot but urge that simply because of the organization, the questions, the question order or the sampling.  Maybe they always were like this, but certainly now, you have to know the background of each polling organization in order to put their poll in context!  What a waste; that makes me chapped.

How can we not conclude that they have become like all the rest of the news media: slanted, used and mostly untrustworthy?  Here’s a website I just found:  www.unskewedpolls.com.  I don’t know what to believe about that website.  If you look at the ads and links and things it looks “right-leaning.”  It has the appearance of a DrudgeReport for polling, maybe?  Perhaps it actually samples polls from all over the spectrum and gives them equal time.

But why have polls lost their potential value and become just another place for candidates to advertise themselves?  The market.  That’s right: you and me.  You have to wonder why so many people and organizations are cranking out these skewed and mostly worthless polls day after day?  Well, it would be for their own commercial gain, no doubt.  And how does that come about?  You and I follow the link to the poll to gawk at what we want to see: Romney: UP!  Obama: UP!  Blah, blah, blah.  We seem to provide slanted pollsters the opportunity to peddle their wares.

I wish as a people all were more willing to get just the facts.

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An Open Letter to Public Servants, Part I

Silva

Dear Public Servant,

You have already been long embarked on a mission to bring a political agenda to the municipal, state or national stage.  This path seems sometimes long and always arduous.  As a political student, spectator and sometimes participant (as a voter), I thank and commend you for choosing this area of service.  Having served in this nation’s military for years, I recognize the presence of the costs in many areas of your life.  Thank you.  Do not grow weary in this endeavor – see it through.  If you are headed into the November general elections, it seems that God, who rules both the realms of the Church and the State, may prosper your path and place you into a position of influence.  That is exciting!  As you continue your work toward that end, I wanted to write you; even to begin a conversation with you.

First, it is not necessary for you to agree with me that God rules both realms or that He is the one who may grant you success: this is what I believe (and, as a local talk show radio host says, “you’re welcome to it”).  We have for too long judged someone by virtue of his adherence to a religious manifesto (Christian or Secular).  The Founding Fathers saw something different.  Theirs was a commitment to found a country in part for religious freedom.  That really means something, namely, folks should be free to follow the dictates of their conscience.  (At what point did we lose this view?)  Surely their expectation was that men and women of principle (including religious principle) would bring those into governance.  But not so that they could pursue a Christian or Secular nation (any more than a French nation, for example).

It seems to a large degree our public servants have lost their nerve.  Is it because they have navigated away from principles that lead to good government?  “Principles?  Like what?”  Some would say biblical principles; others secular ones.  Something else.  How is it that our nation has prospered over this 200 years with such a varying degree of religious belief and practice? Has it been by force of arms that one group prevailed over another?  How can men and women of legitimate and real differences govern and be governed together?

This is one of those questions that has never been more important.  Scads of young people and other disaffected voters acted in 2008 to usher into political power those who were different than the status quo.  Maybe it was the Democratic Party platform that persuaded these voters; maybe not.  In fact, “hope” and “change” and whatever people annexed to those concepts is what won the day.

This is part of the reason for my letter to you: it is likely that God has prospered your path towards elected office irrespective of your religious beliefs.  That is, in spite of them rather than because of them. This is important for you to consider.  Long many have held that we need more Christians (or non-Christians) in public office simply because the broader goal of politics must surely be a Christian America (or Secular America).  I urge you to search the Bible and you will see that God has no such goal as a Christian or Secular America.  No.  His goals are far different when we start to consider what He has revealed to us in the Bible.  Nor must this encourage those of you who think that secularism should reign.  Neither is true.

I asked earlier how we have succeeded in forging out a national history that has involved men and women of almost every political stripe?  How are we to govern and be governed in our climate of uber-partisanship?  It is not wrong to answer that question by exploring what the founders initially saw as the pathway to governing.  Do we think that we alone live in a time of discord?  Let’s not be so arrogant as to think that our fathers wouldn’t (or didn’t) understand precisely the pressures to govern a disparate and independent people.  Surely, at the headwaters of our founding there were more factions than today!

So, secondly, the Declaration of Independence speaks of several concepts that can guide us and, I hope, you as well.  These are summed as the “laws of nature.”  Among them: distinction-making, decency, self-evident truth, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, justice, safety, prudence, definitions of evil and patience.  Each of these concepts drawn from the laws of nature were enshrined in our national origins.

Distinction-making.  You ask, “Where is that in the Declaration?”  It is the Declaration.  This document (as every document like it) is where distinction-making either takes place or is recorded.  The colonists categorize in the Declaration the ways in which the Crown acted tyrannically.  These included such things as making laws that were too difficult to obey, calling convocations in locations that made attendance impossible, quartering standing Army troops in peace, etc.  Experiences and burdens that all could agree where not necessary or right.  We wrongly fear distinction-making today.  We eschew calling nations to account for harboring terrorists, for calling out greedy capitalists, for dressing down corrupt government officials or even for equal treatment.  Yet, we cannot govern if we fear making distinctions.  For these things must be done.

Decency.  Turn on the TV and seek examples of decency; ask congressional staffers about examples of decency.  Indecency is rampant – even having touched the White House in years past.  Decency, according to Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary is that which is “morally praiseworthy.”  We go astray if we ask “whose morals?”  (We continue to prove my first point.)  Language, dress, decorum and vocations that advance honor to all men are decent.  That means prostitution, crime, corruption, immodesty, pornography, violence and vulgarity are not honorable and should be restricted by law.  For whom do these things produce decency?

Respectfully.