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What Is the Primary Cause of Division in the United States?
Our country is divided. Many say it is more divided than any time since the Civil War. Most of you readers live here, so this is no surprise to you. Many articles and even whole books have been written in the last decade on the division in the United States, but the present situation provoked some to write in the last month on the subject. The following paragraph represents writing in the last month on severe division in America.
The City Journal published an article by Andrew Klavan, titled, “At the Heart of Our Divisions.” Klavan, part of Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, tries to explain the division as others have. Newsweek reports that a “Majority of Trump Voters Want to Split the Nation Into ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ Halves.” The Las Vegas Sun reported it this way:
A new political poll offers an alarming look at the state of American unity and our population’s respect for some of the nation’s core values.
The poll, conducted by the University of Virginia’s nonprofit Center for Politics, shows that 52% of respondents who voted for former President Donald Trump were in favor of splitting the country into red and blue states, while 41% of voters for President Joe Biden agree with the idea. More than 2,000 voters participated in the poll, nearly equally divided between those supporting Trump and Biden.
Ed Kilgore at The Intelligencer, part of New York Magazine, writes, “No, We Can’t Get a National Divorce There’s growing sentiment for secession, particularly on the right. It should be rejected.” At Substack, Claremont senior fellow David Reaboi writes, “National Divorce Is Expensive, But It’s Worth Every Penny.” Karol Markowicz writes at the New York Post, “Sorry, but a national split up just won’t work.” Steven Malanga at the City Journal writes, “The New Secession Movement.” Conservative commentator Rich Lowry writes at Politico of all places, “A Surprising Share of Americans Wants to Break Up the Country. Here’s Why They’re Wrong.” Dan Rodricks writes at the Baltimore Sun, “Civil war unlikely, but the nation’s present course could still be disastrous.” Most of these were written in the last week, and there are more.
Okay, so there’s division. Everyone can agree with that. Putin of Russia and Xi of China smile. Why though? I’ve read or heard a lot of different reasons: media, tribalism, the education system, the deep state, and more. Klavan lists reasons in the first paragraph of his post. Those are typical, whole books written about them, but I believe these are surface reasons, I would call, non-worldview reasons, that are superficial and don’t dig deep enough.
My take on the acute and bitter division between states, people, and parties in the United States, I want to give credit, corresponds to something Nancy Pearcey writes about in her book, Total Truth. She explains a division portrayed by the lower and upper stories of a building or house with the lower story being “facts” and the upper story being “values.” Today you hear a lot about facts in the media, news, and schools. This is the “science is real” at the top of the leftist value sign. In this upper and lower story bifurcation, values are probably not what you think they are. Let me explain.
God is One. Truth, which proceeds from God, is also one. Pearcey’s proposition is “total truth,” the title of her book. There are not two stories that treat facts different than values, where values are constructed, personal and subjective. You can’t really know these with certainty. No, with God His natural laws, facts or science, are no different than moral laws. If you fall from the edge of a cliff, gravity sends you down to destruction. Breaking moral laws also destroys. Worse even. God is the Author of both.
Premoderns took a transcendent view of the world. Truth, goodness, and beauty, the transcendentals, all related to God. God transcending the world is the basis of the transcendentals. He’s not part of the world. He created it and having created it, He is separate from it. As James 1 says, that with God there is no shadow of turning. God is holy. He is Self-existent and immutable. Nothing affects Him. All meaning comes from God, so truth, goodness, and beauty, the transcendentals, are objective.
This world is God’s world. Even if someone doesn’t believe in God, they are living in His world. This is reality. The division breaks down into those who live in reality, recognition that this world functions according to laws according to which everyone must live, even if they reject the God of the Bible, and then those who don’t live in reality.
The ones not living in reality, which are one side of the division in the United States, see the top story, values, how they want to see them. It’s one reason they are called “values,” and not “morals” or “moral laws.” Using “values” is using language with power. Incidentally, part of critical theory is perfecting this language for use in reconstructing reality.
Looking at the world like two sides of the campus, religion, art, etc. on one side and then science, math, and engineering on the other, the blue part of the country thinks they can assign their own meaning on one side of the campus. They ultimately don’t want God in charge. They don’t want objective values that clash with what they want, so they make up their own and dismiss God or make up their own god that approves of their values. This is the basis for the Democrat party booing God when voting on their political platform in 2012. This is also how they justify killing babies.
The truth is that the blue states, people, etc. now assign their own meaning to science as well. They call it science like hanging out a shingle, pulling science out of a Cracker Jack box. Their subjectivity on the upper story, think of it as bad plumbing, has burst through into the lower story like a broken pipe. That side can’t tell you that a girl is a girl. This is one reason why many don’t want to go to college in this country anymore. They know it’s a racket that is not living in reality.
One side of the division in the country wants the nation to be called like it really is. Borders are representative of this. You can’t be a nation when you don’t protect, not just protect — how about acknowledge that you have a border. Whatever one thinks about the virus and masks and the vaccination, it’s understandable why a big chunk of the country doesn’t trust authority on this. I’m not going to even get into what Fauci has said. He doesn’t speak science and this is demonstrative on multiple occasions.
The government, the media that supports it, and now even corporations are all in on the lies. They allot whatever meaning they want and they expect you to receive it. If you don’t, now they’ll even prosecute you. They’ll fire you. If you don’t put on their particular pin, which supports whatever lie that they deem correct, you might lose your job.
I believe most churches too have succumbed to the two stories I’ve described. They put beauty, music, dress in the personal, the subjective, the top story. They capitulate on basic doctrine and practice to accommodate for popularity and numbers. Their targets see the world according to the lie of these two stories. They know it and they concede to it. This does not bode well for the country. Even if the nation does split into two parts, what will happen to the red side when the churches have taken the same basic approach to truth? This is the most fundamental aspect of worldliness in churches today.
Another metaphor to demonstrate what the division of truth, the two story view, does to the country is a rudderless ship. The country has no certain belief to hold it together or to give it direction. It moves according to whatever current or wind produced by the world, like a float or a bob on an aimless sea. The force of popularity, what scripture would call lust, the combined desires of the population, decides what is it’s truth, it’s goodness, and it’s beauty, whatever each of these is in their own eyes.
Everything above explains the division in the country. Maybe the next question is, what is the solution to this division? That, my friend, is much more difficult.
Why is the Holy Spirit called the Holy “Spirit”?
Last Friday we asked some questions, including the following:
Why is the third Person of the Trinity named “the Holy Spirit”?
After all, “God is a Spirit” (John 4:24), so the Father and the Son both possess the attribute of spirituality, of being a “Spirit,” equally with the third Person. So what is the distinction?
It would seem like we would want to know why God has the names that He possesses, and being able to explain why the Persons of the Godhead possess the names that they do would be extremely important for our fellowship with Him, for our knowing God, which is experiencing eternal life (John 17:3). So why “the Holy Spirit”?
So what are the answers?
The third Person in the Godhead possesses a spiritual nature identical to that of the Father and the Son. He is denominated the Spirit with reference to his Person, not only with reference to His essence. He is no more or less spiritual as to his substance than is the Father or the Son, for He is one being–homoousios–with them, but is called the Spirit because of the mode in which the essence is communicated to him, namely, by procession from the Father and the Son or by the Father and the Son’s spiration: “Spirit, because spirated.” (Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, pg. 268) “The Father is spirit and the Son is spirit, but the Holy Spirit is emphatically the Spirit. Not that he is spirit in any higher or any different sense of the word spirit, but upon other accounts, the name of Spirit is emphatically and more peculiarly attributed to him” (Waterland, Second Defence Q. 2). The chart below comes from Bible Study #2, Who is God?, where the Scriptural evidence for it is found, as it is in the detailed study in my Trinitarianism college class:
The Father is most fundamentally Father not because in the work of God toward us–the economic Trinity–He adopts His people and make them His adopted children, but because considering God as He is in Himself–the ontological Trinity–He is eternally the Father of the eternal Son, and the Son is eternally begotten by the Father; in time the Son was sent by the Father to be born in Bethlehem because in eternity the Son’s “goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Micah 5:2), the Father’s begetting expressing the eternal relation between the eternal Persons. The Son is eternally Son because He is eternally begotten of the Father. (Lecture #7 in the Trinitarianism course discusses the Biblical evidence that the Son’s begetting and the Spirit’s procession are eternal.) Likewise the Spirit is eternally the Spirit because He proceeds from the Father (John 15:26) and the Son (cf. John 20:22) in a manner that is comparable in an ineffably exalted way to being breathed forth, rather than the way the Son is of the Father, in an ineffably exalted way that is comparable to being begotten.
John Owen helpfully writes concerning the designation of the eternal third Person as the “Spirit,” and how this differs from the spiritual essence possessed in common by all three Trinitarian Persons:
This, then, being the name of him concerning whom we treat, some things concerning it and the use of it, as peculiarly applied unto him, are to be premised:1 for sometimes he is called the “Spirit” absolutely; sometimes the “Holy Spirit,” or, as we speak, the “Holy Ghost;” sometimes the “Spirit of God,” the “good Spirit of God,” the “Spirit of truth” and “holiness;” sometimes the “Spirit of Christ” or “of the Son.” The first absolutely used denotes his person; the additions express his properties and relation unto the other persons.
In the name Spirit two things are included;—First, His nature or essence,—namely, that he is a pure, spiritual, or immaterial substance; for neither the Hebrews nor the Greeks can express such a being in its subsistence but by ruach and pneuma, a spirit. Nor is this name, firstly, given unto the Holy Spirit in allusion unto the wind in its subtilty, agility, and efficacy; for these things have respect only unto his operations, wherein, from some general appearances, his works and effects are likened unto the wind and its effects, John 3:8. But it is his substance or being which is first intended in this name. So it is said of God, John 4:24, Πνεῦμα ὁ Θεός·—“God is a Spirit;” that is, he is of a pure, spiritual, immaterial nature, not confined unto any place, and so not regarding one more than another in his worship; as is the design of the place to evince. It will therefore be said, that on this account the name of “Spirit” is not peculiar unto the third person, seeing it contains the description of that nature which is the same in them all; for whereas it is said, “God is a Spirit,” it is not spoken of this or that person, but of the nature of God abstractedly. I grant that so it is; and therefore the name “Spirit” is not, in the first place, characteristical of the third person in the Trinity, but denotes that nature whereof each person is partaker.
But, moreover, as it is peculiarly and constantly ascribed unto him, it declares his especial manner and order of existence; so that wherever there is mention of the “Holy Spirit,” his relation unto the Father and Son is included therein; for he is the Spirit of God. And herein there is an allusion to somewhat created,—not, as I said, to the wind in general, unto whose agility and invisibility he is compared in his operations, but unto the breath of man; for as the vital breath of a man hath a continual emanation from him, and yet is never separated utterly from his person or forsaketh him, so doth the Spirit of the Father and the Son proceed from them by a continual divine emanation, still abiding one with them: for all those allusions are weak and imperfect wherein substantial things are compared with accidental, infinite things with finite, and those that are eternal with those that are temporary. Hence, their disagreement is infinitely more than their agreement; yet such allusions doth our weakness need instruction from and by. Thus he is called … Ps. 33:6, “The Spirit” or “breath of the mouth of the LORD,” or “of his nostrils;” as Ps. 18:15, wherein there is an eminent allusion unto the breath of a man. … And from hence, or the subsistence of the Holy Spirit in an eternal emanation from the Father and Son, as the breath of God, did our Saviour signify his communication of his gifts unto his disciples by breathing on them: John 20:22 … and because in our first creation it is said of Adam that God … “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” Gen. 2:7. He hath the same appellation with respect unto God, Ps. 18:15. Thus is he called the “Spirit.” …
Again; He is commonly called the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of the Lord; so, in the first mention of him, Gen. 1:2, רוּחַ אֶלֹהִים, “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” And I doubt not but that the name אֶלֹהִים, “Elohim,” which includes a plurality in the same nature, is used in the creation and the whole description of it to intimate the distinction of the divine persons; for presently upon it the name Jehovah is mentioned also, chap. 2:4, but so as Elohim is joined with it. But that name is not used in the account given us of the work of creation, because it hath respect only unto the unity of the essence of God. … Now, the Spirit is called the “Spirit of God” originally and principally, as the Son is called the “Son of God;” for the name of “God” in those enunciations is taken personally for the Father,—that is, God the Father, the Father of Christ, and our Father, John 20:17. And he is thus termed … upon the account of the order and nature of personal subsistence and distinction in the holy Trinity. The person of the Father being [the font of the Trinity], the Son is from him by eternal generation, and is therefore his Son, the Son of God; whose denomination as the Father is originally from hence, even the eternal generation of the Son. So is the person of the Holy Spirit from him by eternal procession or emanation. Hence is that relation of his to God even the Father, whence he is called the “Spirit of God.” And he is not only called … the “Spirit of God,” but … “the Spirit that is of God,” which proceedeth from him as a distinct person. This, therefore, arising from and consisting in his proceeding from him, he is called, metaphorically, “The breath of his mouth,” as proceeding from him by an eternal spiration. On this foundation and supposition he is also called, secondly, “The Spirit of God” … to difference him from all other spirits whatever; as, thirdly, also, because he is promised, given, and sent of God, for the accomplishment of his whole will and pleasure towards us. The instances hereof will be afterward considered. But these appellations of him have their foundation in his eternal relation unto the Father, before mentioned.
On the same account originally, he is also called the Spirit of the Son: “God hath sent forth the Spirit of the Son into your hearts,” Gal 4:6;—and the Spirit of Christ: “What time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify,” 1 Pet. 1:11. So Rom. 8:9, “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” The Spirit, therefore, of God and the Spirit of Christ are one and the same; for that hypothetical proposition, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his,” is an inference taken from the words foregoing, “If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.” And this Spirit of Christ, verse 11, is said to be the “Spirit of him that raised up Christ from the dead.” Look, then, in what sense he is said to be the Spirit of God,—that is, of the Father,—in the same he is said to be the Spirit of the Son. And this is because he proceedeth from the Son also; and for no other reason can he be so called, at least not without the original and formal reason of that appellation. Secondarily, I confess he is called the “Spirit of Christ” because promised by him, sent by him, and that to make effectual and accomplish his work towards the church. But this he could not be unless he had antecedently been the Spirit of the Son by his proceeding from him also: for the order of the dispensation of the divine persons towards us ariseth from the order of their own subsistence in the same divine essence; and if the Spirit did proceed only from the person of the Father, he could not be promised, sent, or given by the Son. Consider, therefore, the human nature of Christ in itself and abstractedly, and the Spirit cannot be said to be the Spirit of Christ; for it was anointed and endowed with gifts and graces by him, as we shall show. … This, therefore, is the formal reason of this appellation: The Holy Spirit is called the “Spirit of the Son,” and the “Spirit of Christ,” upon the account of his precession or emanation from his person also. Without respect hereunto he could not be called properly the “Spirit of Christ;” but on that supposition he may be. He is so denominated from that various relation and respect that he hath unto him in his work and operations. Thus is the Spirit called in the Scripture, these are the names whereby the essence and subsistence of the third person in the Holy Trinity are declared. How he is called on the account of his offices and operations will be manifested in our progress. (John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. 3 [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d.], 54-64)
So most fundamentally the Holy Spirit is called the “Spirit,” Pneuma, because He is, as it were, “breathed forth” (pneo, cf. Psalm 147:7, “he will blow his breath, pneusei to pneuma autou,” [LXX]) in an eternal procession from the Father and the Son as from one principle, while the Son, by contrast, is eternally begotten by the Father.
That is why the Holy Spirit is most fundamentally designated the “Spirit”; it is because of His eternal relation to the Father and the Son. Why is He so frequently called “Holy”? Stay tuned–that will be the subject of an upcoming post (although it may not be next Friday; I’m thinking October 15th’s blogpost, probably).
–TDR
The Big Bang Didn’t Happen But It’s A Useful Hypothesis
The universe started with a big bang, but not a Big Bang. It will end with a Big Bang though. The following line didn’t originate with me, but I still like to say, “I believe in the Big Bang; it just hasn’t happened yet.” It’s a laugh line.
The Required Specific Application of Non-Specific Biblical Commands
There are over 1,000 commands in the New Testament alone. Some of them are specific. Some of them, I’m calling, non-specific. You can easily find a list of all the commandments of the New Testament. I said “some” for the specific and “some” for the non-specific, but those two are far from equal.
Ephesians 4:28, “Let him that stole steal no more.”Ephesians 5:6, “Let no man deceive you with vain words.”1 Corinthians 7:10, “Let not the wife depart from her husband.”1 Corinthians 7:11, “Let not the husband put away his wife.”1 Thessalonians 4:2, “Abstain from fornication.”
Romans 13:14, “Make not provision for the flesh.”1 Peter 2:11, “Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.”Romans 12:2, “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”Luke 12:15, “Beware of covetousness.”2 Timothy 2:22, “Flee youthful lusts.”
Where Does the Bias Toward Alien Life Come From?
I was watching an Olympic event this week and a commercial came on screen for Netflix with an alien on its craft, watching a stream of shows from space. Some might say it was just a joke, except that it isn’t for many, many people. It works as a concept because people think life out there is paying attention to what’s happening on earth. It’s a tolerable option now pushed by multitudinous science fiction productions.
Richard Dawkins said publicly in 2008, caught for the film Expelled, that since we don’t know how life originated in the first place, an “intriguing possibility” is that alien civilization evolved elsewhere and then “designed” and “seeded” the first life on earth. He may have taken that idea from a scientific paper in 1973 by Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel, which they called “directed panspermia.” Crick later revised this position, but these speculations highlight the trouble with the existence of evidence of design in the massive amounts of genetic information in DNA, what Dawkins, the famous atheist scientist, slipped out as an apparent “signature of some kind of designer.”
I actually hear often the alien explanation for life on earth when I’m out preaching the gospel. People know it isn’t an accident that we got here or that we are who we are with all of our complexity. They are unwilling to say it’s because of God, but they also don’t accept that we evolved at least here on earth from a common ancestor.
Are aliens a good answer for the existence of the colossal and labyrinth of complicated information at the core of human existence? Where does that bias toward alien life come from? Is it scientific?
The reach for alien life as an explanation for human origins defers to intelligent cause. The presence of the functionally specified digital explanation in DNA infers intelligent design. Are aliens an even reasonable explanation as the designers behind life on earth? Are aliens an adequate cause with the known power to produce the kind of effect of large amounts of specified information?
In the search for extraterrestrial intelligence scientists start with presupposition then of specified information contained in electromagnetic signals coming from space. However, radio astronomers have never yet found such information bearing signals. All of life on earth does have such information inscribed even in its simplest living cells. No evidence exists that infers anything from space is the causal agent for life on earth.
The speculation of alien origin of life on earth springs from a bias against a divine causal agent. It isn’t science. No science backs alien origin of life on earth.
Profane
Reading through the Bible for my second time this year, I arrived at Leviticus again and the word “profane” stood out to me. It is found 26 times in the Old Testament of the King James Version and seven in the New. Fifteen of those total times are in Leviticus.
In eighteenth century English dictionaries, to profane something is to violate something sacred. The Universal English Dictionary in 1706 defines “profane”:
Ungodly, unholy, irreligious, wicked; unhallowed, common, ordinary: It is often opposed to sacred.
The Hebrew word, translated “profane,” also many times means and is translated “to bore or to pierce.” Something is added that is not natural to a thing when it is pierced. It is violated. I like to use the analogy of a dirty dish placed with the clean dishes.
Here are the fifteen usages of the English word “profane” in Leviticus, all found in five of the chapters.
Leviticus 18:21, And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.
Leviticus 19:12, And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.
Leviticus 20:3, And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name.
Leviticus 21:4, But he shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself.
6, They shall be holy unto their God, and not profane the name of their God: for the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and the bread of their God, they do offer: therefore they shall be holy.
7, They shall not take a wife that is a whore, or profane; neither shall they take a woman put away from her husband: for he is holy unto his God.
9, And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.
12, Neither shall he go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his God; for the crown of the anointing oil of his God is upon him: I am the LORD.
14, A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, or an harlot, these shall he not take: but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife.
15, Neither shall he profane his seed among his people: for I the LORD do sanctify him.
23 Only he shall not go in unto the vail, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not my sanctuaries: for I the LORD do sanctify them.
Leviticus 22:2, Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, that they separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel, and that they profane not my holy name in those things which they hallow unto me: I am the LORD.
9, They shall therefore keep mine ordinance, lest they bear sin for it, and die therefore, if they profane it: I the LORD do sanctify them.
15, And they shall not profane the holy things of the children of Israel, which they offer unto the LORD.
32, Neither shall ye profane my holy name; but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel: I am the LORD which hallow you.
Profane, you can see, is an adjective, noun, or verb. As a verb, the Hebrew word (chalal) means, “to be commonly used.” The Hebrew word is also translated in the King James Version, “pollute” (Numbers 18:32). An understanding of “profane” must be taken in contrast to sacred, hallowed, or holy.
Something sacred is kept separate, not mixed with the common. By mixing it with the common, it is profaned or becomes profane, which is the opposite of holy. By adding something common to something sacred, the sacred is profaned. It is no longer hallowed or kept separate. The common is something not sacred, so it is of a different nature than the sacred or the holy. For something to remain holy, it must be kept distinct, and a difference must be kept between the holy and the profane in order to keep sanctified that what is holy. This is especially in important in worship and Leviticus is a guidebook for worship.
To keep something hallowed that is sacred, one must understand it’s nature. What makes it holy? What is this act, thing, or person in its essence? Then only something of that essence or of the same kind can be associated with it, brought into contact with it, or linked with it or correlated to it. It’s worth reading all the usages above from Leviticus.
The first usage in Leviticus of “profane” reads, “neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God.” It does not explain what that is. It assumes the reader knows what that is.
“The name of God” is who God is. It’s what characterizes Him in His Person and Work. To profane His name is to associate or correlate with Him something that is contrary to His nature. It disrespects Him. It dishonors Him. It mischaracterizes Him, and this is very serious to do to God, so God adds, “I am the LORD.” John Gill writes about this: “I [am] the Lord; who would avenge such a profanation of his name.” God isn’t going to allow someone to keep profaning His name.
I’m going to select a few of the above examples to give the sense or understanding of “profane.” Leviticus 21:12 says, “Neither shall he go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his God.” To profane the sanctuary is to make it common. It’s a sacred place and it is treated as a common place, not unique to God. This is not just profaning God, but profaning God’s sanctuary, something closely associated with God.
Leviticus 22:1-2 say,
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 2 Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, that they separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel, and that they profane not my holy name in those things which they hallow unto me: I am the LORD.
Those who had become common and, therefore, not holy, were not qualified to offer holy sacrifices. God would be profaned by the unholy offering the holy. The person himself could profane God and the worship of God and the thing offered could be profaned so as to profane God and the worship of Him. Common things, which are unholy, are to be kept out of worship. They may not even be evil — they’re just common. Something is made common when it is not treated in a unique or sacred manner, but is treated like everything else.
How people understand God in their imagination comes in a major way through association. Not only does God take offense at it, because it disrespects Him, but it also gives people as much as anything a wrong view of God. Someone will have a lesser view of God, a diminished understanding of Him, and that will affect a person’s life. He may not believe in the true God or live in accordance with the true God.
As much as anything today as an application of profane is the mixture in worship in the contemporary churches what is common with what it holy. Professing churches give God profane worship and they profane God. They give Him something worldly, lustful, and distorted so as to blaspheme God. The people then become like their worship. They themselves are profane and this just results in even further profanity of God and of their lives. The world doesn’t know God because of the correlation of the common or the profane with God in professing churches. The people of these professing churches are made common and profane as they blaspheme God with their profanity.
What Formed Crater Lake?
Certain questions, like the title of this post, seem rather remote and disconnected from every day life. Like I like to put it to people, “It seems like an island that has nothing to do with the mainland, so why paddle out to that.” The world, however, takes great note of these questions and their answers. We should have the true answer and be able to state it — not to every such question, but to such questions. We introduce the world to the real world. They are stuck in their alternative reality and we are responsible to deliver them from it. I know that today people state it as taking the red pill, but if this is a pill, it’s probably not red or blue, but the concept itself is valid.
After about a year in Oregon, a friend and member of our church in California came up to visit on the weekend, we went door-to-door evangelizing Friday and Saturday, had Sunday services, and yesterday, we drove up to Crater Lake, which is also a national park about an hour and a half drive from where we live. Crater Lake is beautiful. It is essentially the top of a mountain that has been hollowed out with no outlet and water has accumulated there through various means over a long period of time. It looks like a crater filled with the brightest blue, almost transparent water. In the lake is another old volcano that also has a crater, a mini-island within the crater, a mountain within a mountain. It was hazy, when we visited Crater Lake on Monday, because of wind blowing smoke up from fires in California. Nevertheless, the views, as we drove all the way around and hiked to two locations and got out of the car at least ten times to look, were awe inspiring (if you click on the pictures, they get bigger and better).
Requisite now for national parks, which are very often very beautiful, are historical and apparent scientific explanations. Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States and it is the ninth deepest lake in the world. At many of the scenic overlooks were placards and displays that talked about the formation.
The explanation for Crater Lake is that it was Mount Mazama, which became an active volcanoe, which erupted 6,000 to 8,000 years ago which blew out twelve cubit miles worth of material to form a cadera, the gigantic crater. That bowl filled up with water from huge snows and the melting of the snow pack in the winter. Since there are no inlets or outlets, it is very pure water, some of the purest of the world, and it is estimated the water completely changes every 250 years through the exchange of evaporation and precipitation.
If you read the descriptions on any of the placards or displays, there is no mention of God. God does not enter into the explanation. He should. Crater Lake formed by means of a universal flood over the entire earth from which the original water also came. Yes, it has since been replenished in the way described, but was a lake at the time of the great flood, revealed in Genesis 6-9 in the Bible.
God was angry with mankind and so He revealed to a righteous man, named Noah, that rain and a flood and destruction were coming, because of man’s sin. Man was sinning and unrepentant of it. Violating the moral law of God brings consequences. God doesn’t allow man to interminably get away with sin. He reacts with righteous indignation and true justice.
God is also merciful, because He instructed Noah to preach to mankind to warn him for 120 years. God also provided for a way to escape the destruction of the flood, an ark. Noah and his family would build the ark to save whoever would repent and believe. No one did, so except for the eight people in Noah’s family, everyone died.
The flood changed the topography of the earth. Water came from beneath the earth’s surface and from above. A feature of the earth before the flood was the firmament, waters which protected the earth from factors that would greatly shorten people’s life spans. Proceeding from God’s power, waters broke forth from beneath the surface of the earth and rained down from above it.
The pressure of the water that covered the earth completely changed the topography of the planet. There was a tremendous upheaval that is responsible for what the earth looks like now. This occurred by the powerful judgment of God and then the natural forces that followed from that. Genesis 10 talks about the division of the earth. It took awhile for the earth to settle. The population was very small and in one location and everywhere else were massive changes from which are repercussions still today.
The forces at work from the worldwide flood caused volcanic eruptions and huge shifts of the earth’s crust, leaving still the consequences of sin in the way of volcanic and seismic activity. The earth still often shakes with the shifting of plates and destroys what’s on the surface, leading to further death. Giant waves form and hit the shore of populated area, destroying life and property. The weather that followed the flood has continued to wreak havoc everywhere and all the time with the far less stable living environment than what existed before the flood. Life changed drastically and it was all because of sin.
God’s judgment of sin formed Crater Lake. It also formed the Rogue Gorge, which is nearby Crater Lake about 45 minutes away.
These formations are beautiful to see. They are powerful. All of them have arisen from the power of God’s destruction of a former world because of its sin. No one mentions that at either location, but it is true and it is the most important story at both Crater Lake and Rogue Gorge.
Further judgment is coming to the world. God has already warned about it. He wants His children, His saints, to preach about it. It’s obviously nearer today than it ever has been. Even the smoke over Crater Lake reminds me of that future fire that will destroy the world. Like Noah and his family could be saved, God offers salvation. Let’s not miss that. A former world was destroyed without repentance. Only those who repent and believe in Jesus Christ will escape the next judgment of God.
The Circularity and Wholeness of the Beatitudes As a New Covenant Corollary to God’s Law
God is One and His Law Is One. One could say the Old Covenant is One. The New Covenant doesn’t differ than the Old Covenant. It is a corollary to it, so in the same way the Law is circular and whole, the Beatitudes of Jesus are.
The New Covenant assumes that man has broken the Old Covenant. Is he now hopeless? Is God’s purpose for man now permanently ruined? When God went to find Adam and Eve in the Garden, He introduced the New Covenant to them as the only pathway forward.
While Jesus’ ministered on earth, His audience tried to force the Old Covenant into something it could not do without the New Covenant. Jesus didn’t come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it through the New Covenant. He starts the Sermon on the Mount with the New Covenant enablement of Old Covenant success. Blessing can come as promised in the Old Covenant, but first, poor in spirit.
Just like the first commandment and the tenth commandment mirror each other, the first and the eighth of the Beatitudes do. The first, poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and the eighth, they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The first four and the second four come at the New Covenant from two very important different directions. The first four are the front end of the New Covenant and the second four are the back end of it.
The front end is not works, but grace alone. The back end exposes what the first four were necessary to produce. If someone starts from the back, he is led to the front. If someone starts with the front, he receives the back. If someone is not persecuted for righteousness’ sake, he is not poor in spirit. If someone is poor in spirit, he will be persecuted for righteousness’ sake. The truly persecuted are because they are poor in spirit and theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
When someone sees he’s not persecuted, not peacemaking, not pure in heart, and not merciful, he recognizes his poverty of spirit, he mourns over his sin, subjugates his will to God in meekness, and hungers and thirsts after righteousness. The Jewish teachers of Jesus’ day were justifying themselves, unlike the tax collector in Luke 18:13, who didn’t tout his own righteousness, but in poverty of spirit cried out, Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. They reasoned that they could justify themselves by ignoring the weightier matters of the law, the ones so heavy, so difficult, that they were impossible to keep. Someone could keep trying to keep them with his heart of stone, but never succeed.
You’re not saved by being merciful, but only those poor in spirit, mourn, meek, and hunger and thirst after righteousness can and will be merciful. Don’t think that you will obtain mercy without being merciful, but don’t think they you’ll be merciful until you take the path through the first four of the beatitudes of Jesus.
To receive the saving knowledge of Christ Jesus His Lord, the Apostle Paul must count all his own law keeping efforts as dung or as loss (Philippians 3). He sees, I’m not merciful, I’m not pure in heart, I’m not peacemaking, and I’m not being persecuted, but I’m a persecutor, so he becomes poor in spirit. He has no confidence in his flesh, so now he rejoices in Christ Jesus. The Old Covenant did its proper job and then the New Covenant did its. You can start at the front or the back, just like with the ten commandments. They are all interrelated, just like God Himself is one.
James said that God gives grace to the humble, those who humbly submit themselves to God. Those who do won’t be praying to consume it upon their own lust and they won’t go presumptiously into a business endeavor, ignoring the good that God wants them to do in His will. In humility they are submitting themselves to the God of grace, who enables them to pray in His will and live in His will.
When you receive the grace to be saved, you are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, righteousness that you hungered and thirsted after, because you knew you were without it. You were poor. The pure in heart see God, but that comforting purity will never come to you without you mourning over the impurity, not just external impurity, but the impurity of conscience that true salvation cleanses. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double minded. The Apostle Paul was impressive before religious leaders before his conversion, but he knew that was not true before God. The Lord Jesus provided that for him, not righteousness obtained by works, but by the faith of Christ.
The Circularity and Wholeness of the Ten Commandments and, Hence, God’s Law
God is one, so His Word is one and His Law is one. It can explain James 2:10:
For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
James says offend one point in the law, offend the whole law. It’s like being controlled by the Holy Spirit. You are or you’re not. It’s not like 57% control is control. 100% control is control. Let me explain, using the ten commandments.
The first command is this (Exodus 20:3):
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
The tenth command is this (Exodus 20:17):
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.
Paul writes that covetousness is idolatry (Colossians 3:5). Is. Breaking the tenth commandment is breaking the first commandment.
The desire for anything but God’s pleasure is covetousness. It’s also having other gods before God. The first commandment and the tenth commandment are the start and the finish, but they are also the same thing, as if it’s all the same thing. This is why all the commandments can be one commandment, love the Lord Thy God with all thy heart. If you do that, you keep all the commandments.
If you are not coveting, God is before all other gods. If God is not before other gods, you are coveting. The key is the first commandment. Have God before other gods. Then you will not be coveting. How will you know that you have other gods before God? You will be coveting. It’s the means for knowing.
If you start your way through the other commandments, they are interchangeable in the same way. The second command is a physical thing, an image, which is being coveted. It’s an idol, so it also breaks the first commandment and the tenth commandment. Covetousness is idolatry. And idol is before God.
Someone takes God’s name in vain because God is too low in a person’s estimation, so something is ahead of God, so again he is coveting. That which is higher in estimation, even in attitude, is being coveted. Vain taking of God’s name isn’t high treatment of God because something else is ahead of Him, so it is being coveted.
The Sabbath might seem like a difficult one, but it is like the others. God could require every day of the week to be set aside, but He requires one. If someone won’t do that, something else is ahead of God and someone has a vain relationship with God. You can’t say, God is high, but I can’t give Him just one day that He requires.
What about the second table of the law? The nature of God as love is God putting others ahead of Himself. This is why it isn’t murder to kill someone out of the protection of another person. In the case of the Sabbath, someone hasn’t violated the Sabbath when he saves someone’s life and protects someone’s property. If God does that, then you are not putting Him first when you don’t do what He does.
All authority is of God with a special emphasis on father and mother. It is hierarchical, so as long as it puts God first, then all of God’s authority will be kept. You can’t say that you’ve put God first, when you don’t honor those whom He puts in charge. You want your own way so much that you are willing to dishonor your parents, that is covetousness.
God attaches a long life with honoring parents, which is getting something that you can’t get through covetousness, even if you really want it. It’s not how life works. God is the author of all life. On average dishonor of parents, and God, who sustains life, doesn’t allow the same length of life to enjoy what’s more important than His authority. You can say God is before all things when you dishonor His authority, father and mother, but you in fact do not. One can say that anyone who does not honor father and mother does not honor God, even if he claims to honor God.
In Genesis 9, we know that murder strikes at the image of God in man. That’s before the law was written. God created men in His image. Murdering a man is to put another god before God. God’s prohibition against adultery we know was because God is holy and as a part of worship of Him, His people needed to be different than those in the land of Canaan, distinct and according to His design. It’s obvious stealing proceeds from covetousness rather than trusting God. You’ve stolen a material thing, elevating a thing ahead of God, a kind of idolatry.
God reveals Himself through the truth. Bearing false witness is against God’s identity as the Truth. The revelation of God is dependent on truthfulness. No one can know God and, therefore, worship Him without the truth about Him.
All of the ten commandments relate with one another to the extent that they are one. If you offend one, you’ve offended them all.
The Love of an Unsaved or Unconverted Person: What Is It?
Going door-to-door this last week — I’ve started that in earnest again with the change in weather — I went to a door that was wide open at an upstairs apartment. I could see the two twenty-something men, who were inside, and as I started to talk to them, one of them said, “No thank you, we’re not a religious family.” He also gave the obvious body language that the conversation was over. I offered a gospel tract and he said, “No.” I then knocked on the next door, then after that the two bottom doors in a fourplex.
As I stood waiting for people at the other three doors in that fourplex, I could hear these two men talking to one another, and as I walked to the next set of apartments, they both told each other they loved each other. I thought about the concept of “love” in the world and how people use that term in a normal way. Many homes where I live have the leftist value sign that says, “Love is love, and kindness is everything.” It crossed my mind at this point to write about the love of an unsaved or unconverted person, and the eagerness to use the term in our culture.
As I finally sat down to write today, I checked the few online sites I visit, and at one there was a link to article online at the Christian Post, “Former Desiring God writer Paul Maxwell announces he’s no longer Christian.” This is happening a lot now, even as Gallup recently mentioned that for the first time, less than 50% (47%) of Americans are members of a church of whatever kind. A few paragraphs in the article about Maxwell read:
“What I really miss is connection with people,” Maxwell said on his Instagram feed. “What I’ve discovered is that I’m ready to connect again. And I’m kind of ready not to be angry anymore. I love you guys, and I love all the friendships and support I’ve built here. And I think it’s important to say that I’m just not a Christian anymore, and it feels really good. I’m really happy.”
“I can’t wait to discover what kind of connection I can have with all of you beautiful people as I try to figure out what’s next,” he added. “I love you guys. I’m in a really good spot. Probably the best spot of my life. I’m so full of joy for the first time. I love my life.” . . . . “I just say, ‘I know that you love me.’ I know, and I receive it as love. I know you care about the eternal state of my soul and you pushed through the social awkwardness of telling me this because you don’t want me to suffer. And that is a good thing. That’s a loving thing to do. And I hear where you’re coming from, and I respect your perspective.”
He renounces Christianity, but he says, “I love you guys, and I love all the friendships and support I’ve built here. . . . I love you guys (again).” He refers to what his former colleagues have done in the way of preaching to him as their loving him. He also says that he is “so full of joy for the first time.” According to him, he also has “joy” as a consequence of ejecting from Christianity.
Reading this article dovetailed with my thoughts at that door last week, when I heard the two men express “love” to each other. My thought is, what do they think love is? I know what love is. It is of God. It is fruit of the Spirit. Love is a biblical concept, that originates from scripture. It entered the English language from the Bible. What comes to my mind related to these thoughts is 1 John 4:7 and 16:
[E]very one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. . . . God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
Scripture teaches that an unbeliever or an unconverted person cannot love. Love is of God. If he is not dwelling in God and God in him, he can’t love. To love, someone must be born of God and know God. Even if those two men and Maxwell are all using the term, just like most people in the world use the term, it doesn’t mean that they love. They don’t. They can’t. It really is the same thing with joy. Maxwell says he has joy now that he never had before, since he gave up Christianity. I can interpret him as feeling perhaps less vexed now, because he’s living how he wants without the restraints of Christianity. This is the pleasure of sin, not joy.
I don’t like hearing the word “love” outside of its actual meaning and the original context of its definition. My dislike isn’t going to stop people from using it in a false way. However, I think it needs to be pointed out. If these people are going to reject Christianity or renounce it, they don’t get to hijack it or borrow from it, as they do with love. They are not of God and they do not love. The practice some kind of transactional relationship, where they express feelings they call love, but it isn’t love. Love stays with the Bible and with Christianity and not with them, even if they claim otherwise.
If what unbelievers have and use isn’t love, then what is it? Love isn’t a feeling or an emotion. I’m not saying it is bereft or disengaged from emotion. True love is not an emotion, but it is emotional. It isn’t first emotional, but the emotions will come, just like repentance brings with it sorrow. Emotion is a necessary component of biblical love, but it isn’t an emotion.
Unbelievers are using the term love in a naturalistic way, when it is a supernaturalistic term or concept. Very often what they call love is really lust or just an expression of human care. It’s like a greeting, have a good day! It means I’ve got some kind of commitment to you. It isn’t love, but it is sharing a human camaraderie. It can’t be love though, because it isn’t going to provide or supply the greatest or the most essential needs the person has. It’s to say that I will provide you some well being as we both head towards a temporal life of pleasure that will end in eternal torment. The highest value will be human. It won’t be divine, so it will be vain or superficial.
This “love,” that isn’t love, is what men think they want. It is Esau trading his birthright for a mess of pottage. It sacrifices the permanent on the altar of the immediate. It anesthetizes someone against the vexation of the harmful effects of the curse, helping deaden the pain of the rejection of God.
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