Prudes, Fornicators, Adulterers, Homosexuals,and other Perverts & Sexual Deviants

Each of the categories listed in this title, along with others that are not listed, are forms of idolatry.  In each of these is the false presumption that one can be in control of oneself apart from faith in God, that a person can choose the best way for oneself apart from the design that God has declared to be the true way.  In each of these categories a person trusts not God but oneself for the determination of what is the best perspective concerning human sexuality.  In each of these sexuality is not honored as the truly blessed, pure, holy, and wonderful gift that God has given it to be.

From our warped, corrupted, and perverted, sinful nature, we abuse all of God’s gifts to us, including our own bodies and the life that we are meant to enjoy in connection with our bodies.  Is it any worse to treat one’s body and the functions of one’s body, functions designed by God, as something to be despised, or is it worse to use those functions in ways that mock the very design clearly indicated even from a cursory anatomical observation?  Is it worse to steal the proper use of sexuality through being a prude, or is it worse to steal the proper use of sexuality through fornication or adultery, or perhaps through rape or incest?

All of these are perversions of human sexuality.  All of these are deviations from the obvious design that anyone can easily observe.  Moreover, the proper use of our sexuality has been clearly declared by the Creator.

The Creator also clearly states the purpose for His design.

The first aspect of this purpose is not what a person may first presume.  Procreation and reproduction are not included in the first statement regarding being created male and female, as sexual beings.  The first statement is that this is in accord with the image of God in which they would exist together as one.  Unity in God’s communion is the first stated aspect of being created as we are.  The man was created first.  But man was not complete without woman.  So from the man God took flesh and bone and created woman, to be joined in union with the man as one flesh.  In their God ordained union they were complete.  Together they were man, created in the image of God.  They were designed to be a perfect fit with one another, to unite as one and to continue in that union, in the likeness of God’s union with Man in Christ.

Next stated is the aspect of reproduction and filling the earth with children who would likewise live together in the image of God, that is, Christ.  Together Man would live in communion with God and thus with one another.  They would enjoy together the manifold blessings of the cosmos.  They would fill up the earth with people who would rejoice together in the goodness of the family of God.

And thus also is observed the aspect of family in God’s purpose.  God’s loving providence would be manifested in the family structure.  Unity and love would be demonstrated in everything.  Husband and wife would come together in the union of God’s love and design and children would be produced through God’s blessing of their union together.  These children would be nurtured by their parents in God’s love.  They would grow to become parents themselves.  All of mankind would gather on the Sabbath to be refreshed in the Lord’s communion.  They would enjoy all that it means to be the children of God living under His Fatherly care.

Adam’s willingness to accept the devil’s notion of free will overturned this design.  Now Adam and his wife saw their nakedness and were ashamed.  They no longer were covered and clothed with the image of God, but now stood as mere earthlings, creatures of dust and ash.  The glory of God was no longer theirs.  Now they stood corrupted and exposed in their corruption.  The perfect unity into which they had been joined was disrupted.  The holy relationship of God’s communion was perverted by their deviation from His Word and will.

The farther that people transgress from the Word and will of God, the more deviant their views of themselves and of what is good become.  Even the clear anatomical witness becomes muted by the noise of their corrupted thoughts and opinions and imaginations and fears and insecurities.

But the Lord was not willing to leave His beloved children to wander aimlessly to their peril and destruction.  He came calling for them with the plan of redemption and salvation and restoration that He had for them even from eternity.  He gave the promise of the Savior who would be born of the woman.  He brought that Savior into the world through the virgin Mary.  He established His Church on earth for the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments for the ongoing reconciliation of Man to God in Christ.  In this way the image of God is restored, at first still in connection with our corrupted flesh, but in the Resurrection with flesh that has been changed into incorruptible.

At that time the marital union of male and female will no longer be functional, for the marriage of Christ and His Church shall supercede it.  Those who have been incorporated into the body of Christ shall be truly one with one another in Christ and together they all shall rejoice in God’s Holy Communion forevermore.

Then no more corruption of the human nature and perversion of the human will shall exist.  Even the desire for sexual union will become obsolete, as perfect union with God in Christ shall be enjoyed by all the saints.  True fulfillment shall then be realized by all.

For the current time, however, God still has plans for husbands and wives to be joined through marriage in the unity of the one true faith so that all who are to be born in this world to hear the Gospel and be joined into God’s family shall be.  And so we wrestle with our fleshly desires, created holy but corrupted through unbelief and transgression.  Even though mankind greatly abuses these desires and gifts, God still uses them for good.  Those who recognize this seek to use these wonderful gifts of God and to enjoy them in accord with His good and gracious will.  Thus healthy families are produced and new children are brought into the world to rejoice in God’s goodness.  This is true also for those husbands and wives to whom God reserves life without children of their own, as they nevertheless rejoice in their God given union together in their bodies as well as assembling with those who demonstrate the even greater union of the common confession of the one true faith by which all of mankind is reclaimed as God’s family and restored to the unity of His image once again.

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Cannibalistic Demoniac?

According to The Palm Beach Post News article, Miami police shoot, kill naked man who was 'eating' face of another man:

One man was shot to death by Miami police, and another man is fighting for his life after he was attacked and his face allegedly half eaten, by a naked man on the MacArthur Causeway off ramp, police said.

Is this for real?

The article further says:

The officer, who has not been identified, approached and saw that the naked man was actually chewing the other man’s head, according to witnesses. The officer ordered the naked man to back away, and when he continued the assault, the officer shot him. The attacker continued to eat the man, despite being shot, forcing the officer to continue firing. Witnesses said they heard at least a half dozen shots.

Wow!

Two questions come to mind:

First, what would possess a man to do such a thing as this?  Actually, I believe that the question answers itself.

Secondly, why was this police officer’s first response to shoot the cannibalistic attacker?  Don’t the police still carry their batons?  And what about a taser?

Was this so horrifying that the officer reacted in terror?  Surely it is horrifying.  Who but a demented devilish creator of horror stories and movies would imagine such a thing?  Well, the devil, of course, but whom else?

Perhaps the report does not tell the full story.  Perhaps the police officer did try other methods of stopping this horrible act before shooting the attacker.

But what of this attacker?  How does one explain his actions?  What of the superhuman strength?

You lied to me by telling me the truth?

In the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides there is an amazingly perverse but true to life conversation. I quote it below but it can also be read here or heard at POTC: Angelica lies to Jack by telling him the truth.

Angelica: I need years, Jack. Not for me. For my father. I am truly the daughter of Blackbeard.
Jack Sparrow: You've fallen for your own con, love.
Angelica: No. He is my father. The lies I told you were not lies.
Jack Sparrow: You lied to me by telling me the truth?
Angelica: Yes.
Jack Sparrow: That's very good. May I use that?
Angelica: I'm sure you will anyway.
Jack Sparrow: Mmm, of course I will.

Another quote reflecting perverse reality is when Jack says: “The Black Pearl in a bottle? Why is the Black Pearl in a bottle?”

If one desires it can be heard at: POTC: Ship's in the bottle .


It is astounding to realize how often the truth is misused in the manner that Jack discovers through Angelica’s use of the truth to deceive him. When the truth is spoken apart from its context it misleads and deceives. When the truth is spoken in connection with people’s false presuppositions so as to allow them to form their own conclusions regarding the statement based upon their false presuppositions, deception is the result. This is true also when a false presupposition is first stated or alluded as truth and then the true statement is made.

The devil boldly attempted this with the Lord Jesus. It worked on other humans with great success. But Jesus is the Truth. The Truth cannot be deceived or overcome by misuse of true statements. The Truth is more than the sum of the many and various articles and particular true statements. And so, Jesus did not argue with the devil. He did not try to prove the truth. He simply countered the misuse of a true statement with another true statement that showed the false and wrong use of the first statement. (Matthew 4:1-11)

If the first Adam had done this, his wife would not have been deceived. Instead, he stood by and allowed her to defend the truth with her own reason. He listened as she added to the Word that he had taught her and did not interject with a loving and gentle corrective. Good intentioned people have added their own presumptive reasoning to the Word ever since. Once this occurs, the Truth is lost to them and they move ever farther from it in their own deluded perception.

The woman, whom her husband later in the loving response produced by the Gospel renamed Eve, or Life, imagined that she had to overcome the misuse of God’s Word with additional requirements or restrictions. The devil spoke the truth deceptively. God did say not to eat of every tree of the garden, but He did not say it in this way. Moreover, by presenting it as a question, the devil craftily inferred that it was something to question. He challenged the woman’s understanding, to which she responded defensively rather than simply responding in faith. She could have simply responded saying: “Yes. That is correct. He told us not to eat of every tree. The one tree is not for us to eat.” But instead, she decided to add an additional restriction, she added that God said that they neither could touch it. Once she made this false addition, she was no longer protected by the Word of God. Now she had begun to rely upon her own self and her own reason.

Notice that the devil did not come to tempt the Man, but the woman who heard the Word through the Man. Moreover, the devil did not present his temptation directly as an mighty angel, but through a lesser creature, a very beautiful creature, one that would not have caused alarm. This was one of the creatures that Adam named, one that had been placed under Adam’s province. Through it the devil could speak without being obvious. A simple question coming from a lower creature would not seem out of place., especially since this command was not given to the lower creatures but only to Adam and all who were generated through him and of him.

In the movie Jack Sparrow says: “The Black Pearl in a bottle? Why is the Black Pearl in a bottle?” If Adam had known who was in the serpent, he would have asked what an angel was doing in the serpent. Jack is a wicked man who surrounds himself with deception and acts deceptively and wickedly. It is no surprise that he would encounter a deceptive use of the truth and then want to use make use of that himself. Adam was innocent and naive to such things, yet once he became a son of the deceiver, he, too, turned to more deception, trying to hide his nakedness, that is, his openly manifested sinfulness, with inventions of his own, namely, fig leaves sewn together.

The Truth, spoken honestly and forthrightly, ends the facade. It shows God for who He really is, and in contrast, sinners for who they have become. The Truth shows the depths of God’s love, how far it reaches, how far it moves Him on our behalf. His sunshine does not shine only for believers, but for all. His rain falls upon both as well. He came to the world, born as a man, to give Himself to us and for us, taking our sin and our consequences. He rose again with the same humanity still as His own, so that the renewed relationship or communion would be absolute. He established His Church so that this Truth would be proclaimed and received. Through His means of grace administered in this Church people continue to be called out of the darkness into His light of forgiveness and restoration and healing and peace.

The devil hid himself in a creature in order to deceive. The Lord manifested Himself in Jesus to make the Truth known. The devil continues to deceive through convincing mankind that the truth can be found through a microscope and through conjecture. The Lord comes to us visibly as a man and openly declares the Truth, leaving no room for conjecture. And to those who hear Him and are moved to believe His Word again, they find that things really are just as they have been told.

      And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.

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Halloween-Reformation-All Saints

The transition from October to November carries a mixture of observances, Halloween, Reformation, and All Saints Vigil and Day. Halloween is the observance that most people know and practice. I was amazed to see how far some people go in decorating for Halloween. Some houses were decorated as much as they were for Christmas. My drive-by photo did not turn out well, but here is one house from last night:

In times past I objected quite strongly to Halloween because of the ungodly associations of the observance. And I still do not desire to accentuate it or participate in it. Nevertheless, we do buy candy to give to the eager little faces that come to the door.

I do enjoy the children. Stephanie likes to watch me with the children, preferring to watch me over greeting the children herself.

I suppose that this is why people enjoy Halloween. “It’s for the children!”

Nearly everyone enjoys the variety of costumes from which often somewhat trepid yet expectant little faces peer. Last night I especially enjoyed the one tiny little fellow, barely knee-high, who indicated after I gave him a bag of M&Ms, “I want that one.” So I gave him that one, too. “What’s the difference?” I queried. He didn’t know. The two bags were exactly the same.

Earlier in the week, my next door neighbor, 91 years old, decided to replace the light in his carport so that it would stay on when the children would come. After attempting the feat and experiencing instability on the stepladder, he called me to do it.

He was looking forward to the children coming to the door.

I, myself, do not look forward to Halloween. Yet when the children come to the door, I enjoy the encounter.

I was especially amazed at the politeness of the children this year. None of them acted greedily. In past years some children would try to grab handfuls, sometimes multiple handfuls. But this year that did not occur. Not even once.

As much as I enjoy the children, I still experience angst. So many of the costumes are of vampires and other such ghoulish nature. Yet even most of these are “cute.” Still, it leaves me hurting to know how the devil and the world use the cuteness of the children to weaken our senses regarding the appalling nature of these things. I am always wanting to speak the Gospel to the little visitors, and their lurking parents in the shadows.

But the Gospel is not to be pressed upon anyone. This is not the way of our gracious God and Father. While the Gospel is powerful beyond anything else known to us, it is nevertheless, a gift. It is offered in a way not unlike the manner of the Halloween treats.

Oh that the churches would learn this. Just as the children do not need to be coerced or tricked into receiving candy and treats with eager and joyful hearts, so also the Gospel is to be offered. If the Gospel were truly offered in its purity, with all of the sweetness of God’s inestimable grace, mercy, and peace, in the complete unity of the Una Sancta, people would have a very different perception of “Church.”

Interestingly, the children and parents needed no special invitation to come to our door last night. Generally only one thing really mattered. They needed to see the light shining both at the door and from within. Then, of their own desire, they came to the door and knocked, using the liturgical chant of the festival.

It seems funny, that in such circumstances, no one objects to the lack of spontaneity or to the lack of personal opinion. Every person who came to our door used the same historical liturgical chant. It is one that they did not invent or choose, but simply learned as the chant to be used on this occasion. Moreover, each and every person came with the exact same expectation, to be served by the lord of the house or the appointed server. They all expected to receive a treat without offering anything whatsoever for it, simply by the gracious disposition of the one ordained as the serving one.

Sadly, the Halloween liturgy is a sick one. No one even gives any thought to what is being said. “Trick or Treat!” is the chant. It means, “Give us a treat or we will play a dirty trick.” No pays any attention to this anymore, even though it once had a very serious part in the ritual. If people treated these words seriously, how many guns or clubs would be brought to the door instead of treats?

Yet, is this not reflective of how many people approach other matters? Is this not the way that many people make demands regarding government programs? Is this not the way that many approach what they consider to be the Church? Do people not very often come to “worship” with a demanding attitude, demanding that things be done their way?

And in the churches that still use the historic liturgy or something that resembles it, how seriously do people consider the words and what they declare? Do they really even understand what the householder is giving? Do they really understand what they are coming to receive and the means by which the gifts are given? Do they really even come with the same expectation of what is to be received?

This is what the Festival of the Reformation is. It is a festival of thanksgiving for the reclamation of the true identity of the Church as the House of God to which the Holy Spirit calls by means of the Gospel, enlightens with His gifts, and sanctifies those gathered so as to keep them in the one true faith of Jesus through which forgiveness of sins is imparted and everlasting life in God’s Holy Communion is restored. The Festival of the Reformation is the celebration of the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit to accomplish this in every time and place. The devil, the world, and our sinful flesh continually turn the holy things of God into mere symbolism and worse, turn these blessed means of grace into requirements by which the souls of men become enslaved. Rather than being set free by the absolute and unadulterated Truth, people become enslaved to their own corrupt attempts at goodness and righteousness. But the Reformation is God’s continual call to the repentance that the Holy Spirit works. God continually works through the few who preach the Gospel purely to restore His gifts to the Saints.

All Saints Day very appropriately teaches us the effect of the Lord’s Reformation. All Saints Day teaches us the unity of the Church through unity of the doctrine of the Scriptures, by which the Church stands unmoved from the foundation of the preaching of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. All who have ever trusted in this preaching, all who now hear it in the faith worked by the Holy Spirit, and all who ever will hear and abide in the faith it declares, are united in the one body of Christ. They confess the same faith and gather to receive the same gifts. They are truly one in Christ.

Halloween, Reformation, and All Saints Day, really stand as representatives of what occurs daily in the world. Halloween happens each and every day as the human race looks to things that are not of God and of the Life that is known only in His Holy Communion. The Human Race stands apart from the Truth of God and seeks gifts through other ways. But each and every day the Lord continually calls out with His Gospel through His saints who daily walk in spirit, confessing the true faith, gathering into the name of Jesus to receive the Sacraments of forgiveness and life. Each and every day is All Saints Day, as those whom the Holy Spirit has called, gathered, enlightened, and sanctified are kept in the one true faith, united and kept whole with Jesus Christ until the day that He comes to take His saints out of this world of deception and terror and turmoil to live in the blessedness of the resurrection.

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Free Will and Sin

One of the temptations over which we sinful humans frequently stumble is the temptation to argue that free will is the cause of sin. By this we are looking for an excuse for our sinfulness, while simultaneously seeking a way to put the blame for our sin upon God.

We like to argue that God must have in some way built into His creation the capacity for sin. We like to imagine that God did not really create all things truly good, but mostly good, with the potential for bad lying dormant within the substance of the creation. We like to imagine and argue that if God had created us as truly good and without any evil, that we, and our father, Adam, and the angels, including Satan, must have had some flaw deep within that God allowed to exist within us. We argue that sin could not have happened otherwise.

In line with this linear sense of logic is the notion that we have free will, and that this free will had the power to choose either good or evil. But this notion of free will is fallacious.

God did not create us with a free will according to this false notion of freedom. He created us with a will that was free. Adam was created with a will, but that will knew nothing of evil. His will was one with God’s will. Adam was created as a son of God. He was generated by God from the soil and made to be a living soul when God breathed into him the breath of life. Adam knew only the goodness of God. His will was not capable of choosing evil, for no evil existed in the world. No evil was known in the world. Adam was free to live the good life, free to live without choices. All that was good was already available. God had given all things to Adam and authorized Adam to enjoy all things.

Moreover, Adam was created in a relationship of trust. Adam knew nothing of doubting God and His goodness. Adam knew only good, and all good things are of God. Adam had been created with true faith, and faith does not question but simply says, “Amen.” Thus Adam was truly free. He had no worries. Why? He had no worries because he had no doubts. He simply heard what God said and walked in the confidence of God’s Word. Faith is not a choice, but a fact. Faith does not choose; it simply is. Faith, after all, is from God. Faith knows only to look to God and to believe Him.

This did not change until the serpent tempted the woman to doubt. She was tempted to doubt whether God was faithful. She was tempted to doubt that the Man whom God had placed over her had actually preached the Word faithfully. In this connection, she also was tempted to doubt the very Word of God. This temptation did not come from her, but from the devil.

So then, what about the devil? And what about the tree? First the tree. The tree was a good tree. It was lovely to behold. It provided opportunity to see the faithfulness of God. For not all things were to be eaten. This tree’s fruit was not for human consumption. There are many things in God’s creation that are not for human consumption, but are nevertheless very good. Likewise, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a good tree, but produced a fruit that was not for humans to eat.

What then, about the devil? If he was created good and perfect and holy and without sin, what happened? He looked for good beyond its source. He looked for good, but not from God. In doing so evil entered into the angel who had been named Lucifer, that is, Light-bringer or Light-bearer.

Evil, however, is terribly misunderstood. We tend to think of evil as a substance or an essence. But evil is actually the lack of something. It is like the darkness. Darkness is merely the absence of light. An angel is a messenger of God. An angel is one who brings the light of God’s Word. Thus, Lucifer was a light-bearer, a ministering spirit, full of good. But when Lucifer looked beyond God for good, his communion with God was broken, and he became emptied of the goodness of God. He became one who no longer saw and carried in him the light of God’s Word and love, but now was vacuous. As a vacuum is an emptiness that pulls away and damages that which is around it, so Lucifer became dark and void of goodness, grasping after and taking away from everything good. Yet no matter how much he steals from others, he can never be filled again because he will always look beyond God for his fulfillment. Since all good is from God, the devil will only grasp after brokenness; he will break and destroy and gather to himself only brokenness.

Yet we cannot answer why Lucifer looked beyond. We cannot answer why Lucifer stopped living the life of faith in which God had created him. Then we begin to look for ways again to put the blame on God.

God knows that this is beyond our ability to understand. Thus He simply tells us the truth that this is what happened. But since we are sinful rather than faithful, since we doubt rather than trust, God has stepped up on our behalf. He tells us that we don’t need to bother with trying to put the blame on Him, because He has already done it for us.

He says, “So, you do not want to carry the blame for your sin. Good! I don’t want you to carry it either! That is why I sent My Son to take it for you. You want to put the blame on Me. Don’t bother, for I have already done that. I have carried the blame for sin. I have taken the sin of the world into My own body and I suffered the guilt and the blame and the punishment and the death for you. Now you have absolutely no reason to concern yourself with the blame of sin and of evil. I have taken it all. Now you are free to receive the life of faith for which I created you. Now, through the Gospel and through the Sacraments of the Gospel I regenerate faith within you. This is My will for you. This is My will by which I set you free. Through these means I restore the freedom to live again in the communion of My goodness and love.”

Now there is no one left to blame. This is good news. This is really good news!

Do You Renounce

In the rite of Holy Baptism the person who is baptized is asked to confess the Christian faith, which includes the following statement and vow as the very first:

Do you renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways?

What are the works of the devil and all his ways? What does a person renounce with this vow?

Is compromise of doctrine a work or way of the devil?

Is compromise of practice a work or way of the devil?

Is acceptance of divisions in a congregation or church body, divisions that stem from divided understanding of doctrine and administration of the Sacraments, is this acceptance or tolerance a work or way of the devil?


Do you renounce?


Is this for real? Do people actually mean anything when they make this promise? Do people really mean that they reject the devil and his works and his ways and refuse to have anything to do with them?


Do you renounce?


How far does this question reach? After all, if this is treated seriously, it will completely change a person’s life. If this is treated seriously, it will affect every earthly relationship that the person has. If this is treated seriously, many former associations will also be renounced. If this is treated seriously, the person will be treading a very narrow path through life.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. (Psalm 119:105)

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. (Matthew 7:13-15)

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:1-6)

Do you renounce?