And That’s Enough

It seems today that nearly everyone calling oneself a Christian has adopted a new creed:


I believe in Jesus Christ
as my Lord and Savior,
and that’s enough.
This seems to be what is heard again and again, without fail.  It seems that whenever a person is confronted with Scriptures that clearly teach that this confession of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is clearly defined by further specific doctrine, people fall back to this as the only confession and doctrine that they will permit.

Well, there is, of course, this:

   
I cannot judge what is in another person’s heart.
It seems that people forget that the entire point of the Gospel is salvation for sinners who by Adam’s refusal to trust God’s Word have died to God and the life that is in His Communion.  They seem to forget that the preaching of forgiveness means preaching that people have an actual need to be forgiven.  They seem to forget that the primary cause of the need for forgiveness as proclaimed in the Holy Scriptures is the unbelief and false belief of people.

How can the forgiveness of unbelief and false belief be preached and administered without clearly declaring people's unbelief and false belief?

Why do so many sects exist within what is known as Christendom?

Is it not on account of the diversity of beliefs concerning what the doctrine of the Scriptures really is?

Is it really possible to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior while redefining what He says that this means?  Is it really possible to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior while openly denying what He says concerning the means of salvation?  Is it really possible to trust with true faith in the Messiah or Christ while opposing the very means through which the Scriptures teach that He builds His Church and works in it and through it to save the lost?

Who can even begin to speak of saving the lost without identifying them as the lost?



This group, The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, clearly identifies, even with pictures, those whom they are hoping to save from their lost condition.  How many people consider this to be unloving?  How many people say, “Oh no, I cannot judge these children as being lost”?

If a child is born with spina bifida, do people say that one cannot judge the child as having this deficiency in gestational development?  If someone insisted on calling the diagnosis of such children as cruel, would this not be counted as irrational and even absurd?  How can corrective surgery be pursued for such a child without judging or diagnosing the child as a sufferer of spina bifida?

Yet concerning the most serious broken condition of all, people are inclined to judge that such a condition must not be clearly diagnosed.  They treat the matter of spiritual brokenness to be a matter that should not be diagnosed in absolute terms.  Rather it is said to be a “personal matter.”

Who is really the uncaring and cruel person?

Is it not the person who refuses to acknowledge what has already been clearly diagnosed by the true Physician, the one who truly knows the condition of brokenness of mankind and openly declares both the cause and the cure?  Is not the truly cruel person the one who redefines both the condition and the cure so that neither are rightly recognized?  Is not the truly cruel person the one who administers the cure in an adulterated form that either has no efficacy or may even make the condition worse?

The Lord Jesus through His apostle declares the necessity of speaking the truth in love, saying:

       

     I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)     

      And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.    (Ephesians 4:1-16)

Therefore it seems absolutely necessary to ask:

      Is it really enough to direct people to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior without actually defining clearly and in unmistakable terms what this belief means?

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Old and New

This weekend as I studied and prepared for the divine service, I examined anew a passage of the Scriptures that I have pondered many times previously.

Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.  (Matthew 13:52)

As I read the text in the Greek language I noticed something that I’ve never noticed before.  Here is a literal translation of the text:

Then said he unto them: Therefore, every scribe having been discipled into the kingdom of heaven, same essence is to a man, a  housemaster, which throws out from the thesaurus of him, new and old.

The word that most prominently caught my attention is the word that we usually translate as treasure.  This treasure is Thesaurus.  Remarkable!  The word is actually Thesaurus.

Moreover, this treasurehouse of words is a source of both old and new declarations for the scribe who has been discipled into the kingdom of heaven.  The scribe, the student of the Scriptures, who has been truly discipled into the kingdom of heaven, truly looks to the Scriptures as storehouse of the revelation of the living Word of God.  Every time that this true disciple of the kingdom of heaven enters the storehouse, he throws out to the household of faith new and old proclamation.  The old never changes.  It remains the treasure of the ages.  But along with the doctrine that has been rightly preached time and time again, he also throws out to his hearers new riches from the thesaurus.  The old and the new are in perfect agreement.  The new is a fresh perspective and application of the doctrine of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, offered to the Church through the means of grace.

How can such a message ever be regarded as anything less than a rich treasure?

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Judge Not?

Isn't it amazing how many people will say:

"No one's perfect!" 

and then go on to say

that they can't judge others?

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Inflation Low?

Does anyone in the entire world actually believe this nonsense?

Does anyone who actually purchases real life staples buy this line of nonsense?

What honest person would ever even consider using a gauge of consumer prices that deliberately excludes food and energy?  Are these not the very things that people need the most?  Are these not the largest portion of their spending?

Moreover, 1.1 percent?  Does anyone believe this?  The prices of my purchases have increased dramatically.  The high price of fuel is driving up the price of everything.  The insane increase in governmental interference and regulations, especially for the trucking industry, also is driving up the prices.  Even things like trash service are increasing, and not by 1 or 2 percent, but by 20% or more!

Fuel and oil, fuel filters and oil filters, products made of plastic, products made of steel, products made of aluminum, all of these continue to rise.

The only thing NOT rising is the income of the people!

And the number of people who say that they cannot find real work has never been higher in my encounters.

When will we ever hear that the FED, a private banking cartel, is taxed on their income?  When will we ever hear reported their level of income?  When will we hear an explanation regarding why the FED is allowed to charge interest for the nation's money?  Why are they allowed to tax us through inflation?  Why have they been given control of the nation's money supply when the Constitution entrusts this to Congress so that there would be almost no inflation and no income taxes and no raping of the poor and the making of the poor through centralized banking usury?

The practice of usury is forbidden by the Lord for this very reason.  But because of the idolatry of greed, even common people have accepted usury and gambling (both as gaming and as playing the stock market) as the way of life.  And so they allow their idolatrous greed to enslave them.  Instead of looking upon their fellow man as their brethren for whom they are responsible, they seek to steal from one another through usury, gambling, and other forms of dishonest and selfish gain.  Usury produces nothing but enslavement of the borrower to the money controller/lender.

But people in general have accepted this as the way to provide for themselves.  Thus we have inflation that robs us of everything that we earn, everything that we build or invent or create, everything that we save.

It seems amazing, even incredible, that people actually give their trust to the Federal Reserve.  Most people do not even know that this is a private corporation that makes huge profits.  Rather, they trust the media's lies and propaganda about how small business people should pay more taxes, which of course causes MORE inflation and MORE debt and MORE loss and MORE poverty.  The people have accepted that instead of caring for one another directly in love and care, that the facade of government should take care of their brethren and that paying taxes releases them from their debt of love for their fellow man.

In less than two weeks the Fourth of July celebration of Independence Day and the Declaration of Independence will again sweep America.  Yet most people have no idea what the Declaration of Independence declares that the fathers of this nation fought to overthrow.  It was the British oligarchy's enslavement of the people through taxation without representation, which means, taxation through the inflation and debt manufactured and forced upon the people through the centralized banking cartel.  This is the worst kind of tax for everyone because it never goes away and it impacts absolutely everything that people need for their daily living.

In the meantime the Obamas take a 100 million dollar vacation to Africa to help spread and ensure the control of the globalist and banking elite, aka, democracy.  This control over the people is the real agenda of the so-called Green Movement and the pretense of protection from terrorism and the so-called spread of democracy.

It is indeed amazing to realize that the ordinances of the Lord were established to prevent this sort of abuse.  The nation of Israel had NO taxes under the Lord's ordained ways.  They had no wars for as long as they lived in accord with His ordinances.  Only when they put their trust in princes and government did they have these terrible troubles to face.

As the above article Inflation at 53-Year Low Gives Bernanke Time to Press on With QE says, the FED was created through the use of the lie that it would stabilize the economy and prevent the very troubles that it creates.  The truth is that the FED was created to allow the global elite to usurp control of the world's resources and people.

And the people of the world buy it, putting their trust in the very thieves from whom they need protection.

Accident

It has been a while since I have taken the time to post.  In large part this is due to the fact that I have been scrambling to recover from an accident in which my chipper truck and chipper were totaled.

On March 8 I was merging from westbound Kellogg onto northbound I-235.  Apparently, as I was looking back to prepare for the merge, I must have drifted to the left, because I found myself headed for the dip/ditch between the merge lane and the highway.  Attempting to correct this situation would almost certainly have caused the truck to flip, so I chose to continue onward through the ditch and make the correction on the other side.  But the ditch was too much for me and I ended up in the median against the guard rail on my side.









Thankfully, my preparations for merging were blessed by the Lord so that no one else was involved.  Moreover, the Lord carried me through this incident without serious injury to my body or person.

The recovery time has primarily involved replacement of the truck and chipper and the many challenges involved in this process.  I finally have things restored to a point that I am able to function nearly normally again in my tree business.  I still have more to do, but at least I am able to begin servicing the needs of those who are requesting my services.

So, for those who care to know about what has happened, this will provide at least a snippet of the story.

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