Decepticon Invasion

Yesterday afternoon we received a phone call from a caller that was IDed as being from Atlanta, GA.



The caller asked for my wife by name, by her first name.

As is my custom, I asked who was calling.

The caller identified herself as Sandy, with a group name that I do not remember, and said that she was calling about the Pro-Life issue.

Her manner of speaking was unusual, not flowing with the normal flow that I expected.  Having read of robotic phone calls, I asked whether she was a real person.

She chuckled and said that she was a real person, and added that she has a slight speech impediment that might make her sound unreal, but that she was a real person.

This I knew was unreal and asked, “What is your name?”

She responded, saying, “Uh, huh,” with a pause of a second or two and then, “Sandy.”

After this the matter was confirmed and I ended the call.

I called back the number displayed on the caller ID, and the ear piercing tone sounded with the recorded announcement:  “The number you have reached is not in service.  This is a recording.”

So, now we not only have computers programmed to call us and harass us, but these robotic callers also have been programmed to respond with lies to our inquiries.  This has been occurring for some time, but now the lies are becoming more sophisticated.

I find this to be disturbing.

The phone company informed me that such is now possible using software that gives false phone numbers and ID’s.  This way the callers bypass attempts at blocking unidentified callers so that this safeguard does not protect a person from such callers.

Technology.  Uh huh.  As is often the case, what is touted as wonderful and liberating is frequently invasive and problematic.  Progress.  Technology.

I miss the simplicity of times past.  At least then the Decepticons were human and somewhat accountable.  Or at least so we thought.  More and more it is being revealed that deceivers have always hidden behind another form or a mask or a pseudo-identity.  It has been so from the very first deception by the father of lies.  I suppose it is foolish to imagine that anything under the sun has changed.

So what do we do?  Be aware and on guard for ourselves and for others.  Make the Decepticons known when it is possible.  Stand ready to help and comfort those who suffer from the deception and theft and other harm.  Proclaim the One who never lies, who is always faithful, who has provided the way through every trial and trouble even before we encounter them.  Sing the hymns of pure doctrine and everlasting hope and peace and joy.  Live in that hope and peace and joy.  Partake of the pure and unadulterated means of His grace.

It is good to know that the Lord is real, and that His voice and Word and doctrine are consonant, and that He has come as He promised and has given Himself for us, even unto the death of the cross, and has risen from the dead and ascended again to His heavenly throne and has sent His Spirit at Pentecost, all as He has promised repeatedly and consistently of old.  When He calls to us, it is always through the same means as He has ordained.  His proclamation has not changed.  His means continue unchanged.

With this before us, what does it matter if the Decepticons attempt their futile deceptive acts against us?  Ultimately what do we lose?  The kingdom is ours in Christ our Lord.  We are more than conquerors though the one having loved us.  We don’t even have to fight.  We don’t even have to strive to win.  The victory and the kingdom have been declared to be ours through the faith that also is given to us freely by the grace of God at work through His means.  What is really left but to abide in the peace of God that surpasses all understanding and to sigh the great and peaceful sigh of Amen?

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Bye Bye for Now

For now, Wichita water can say Bye Bye to fluoridation.

Amazingly, the deceitful propagandists with their exorbitant spending did not win the day.  Enough people were aware of the facts and were unwilling to be swayed by dishonest dentists, doctors, and pharmacon pushers that the addition of this poison to our drinking water was voted down by 60% to 40%.

Therefore, those who want to poison themselves may do so, but the rest of us are safe from forced fluoridation.  At least until the Obama and his health czar or other administrative tyrant somehow make it a national mandate.

At least we should not be getting any more phone calls from the ADA calling us liars for presenting the facts that even the FDA and CDC openly admit.

It is a little victory, but nevertheless cause for giving thanks to God.

THE Born Loser

Many times I begin to feel like a loser. Sometimes I even imagine myself to be the born loser, as though I were the worst off of anyone.

Yesterday, as I finally made it out to do some work that actually counts as work, after allowing various interruptions to alter my day’s schedule, I was feeling down on myself. I was thinking what a loser I am so often to be giving of myself, taking time for others, scrambling to shift funds to pay creditors, doing work that makes men half my age quit. My thoughts ran to the comic strip, The Born Loser. I was equating myself with that mentality.

Before long that line of thinking was overthrown by the realization that I have no business thinking of myself that way. After all, there is one who truly qualifies as THE Born Loser. We celebrate His birth at a season we call Christmas. He truly is THE Born Loser. He was born into the world for that very purpose. He was born to lose everything.

He was born of a virgin at a time when unwed motherhood was way beyond unacceptable. His adopted father was a poor carpenter. He grew to be a man and had no possessions except a little house in Capernaum. He sojourned from village to village, preaching the Gospel and healing the sick and driving out demons, all at no charge. He was ridiculed and demeaned throughout His ministry. Finally He was condemned for everything that He was and did and claimed to be. He was tortured and killed by a horrible and inhuman method. He was hung up naked on a cross for everyone to gawk at Him. He was spit upon. He was mocked. Finally he was buried.

He lost everything. He did so willingly. He did so for the sake of those who were born losers according to their inheritance. He did so in order to take their place as losers and give to them the riches that were His from eternity.

On His account St. Paul writes: “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” (Romans 8:37)

This the apostle writes in response to all of the things that would make us imagine ourselves to be losers. “In all these things,” we are more than conquerors.

MORE than conquerors? Yes! For the victory has already been won. All of the things that would bring us down, all of the things that would work against us, they have all been defeated. Christ suffered them all and rose again, ascending to heavenly glory, where these things do not even exist. He rose from the dead in order to guarantee that our lives would not be lost. He not only paid the price to release us from the punishment that we deserve, but He also rose again in His body to guarantee that death would not be our end. Our greatest enemy, death, has no hold over us. The victory has been accomplished. We cannot lose, not while we are bound to the life that is in Christ Jesus.

So how dare I imagine myself to be a loser? How dare I blaspheme against the grace of God by counting myself a born loser when Christ has taken that from me? Yes, by my own stupid choices I am a loser, but even these and their consequences are temporary. They have no power to defeat me so long as my gaze is fixed on Christ, so long as I am in communion with Him through His means of grace. For this reason I and my house refuse to bind ourselves to communions that corrupt these gracious means. After all, if we surrender to compromise the things by which Christ’s victory is made to be ours, then we truly shall be losers. What do we gain if for the sake of earthly fellowship we cut ourselves off from the Holy Communion that we confess in the Creed?

No, the way of victory is the way of the cross. The preaching of Jesus Christ and Him crucified is the hope to which we shall cling. The pure administration of the means of grace is sufficient to ward off all of the aspects of living in this world of sin that would make us to be losers. When we have these, why would we look to anything else? Why should we ever imagine ourselves to be losers?

More than Conquerors

     Hupernikomen = we are over/above conquerors

      For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. (2 Corinthians 4:5-11)

     And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:28-39)

     We Are Above Conquerors!

      The victory is not in the temporal things but over and beyond the temporal. For the temporal does not endure, but fades. The everlasting, THE EVERLASTING, God Himself, is our victory.

     "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."

     Consider what this means. We are MORE than conquerors. We are above-conquerors! We are those for whom the victory has been won. We are the kings for whom the servant-warrior went forth and won the everlasting battle. We don't have to fight. We are more than conquerors. We are the ones for whom the battle has been fought and we now live in the victory that has been won.

      And so, like dear Stephen, even as the stones strike us and beat us down in the flesh, we look to the right hand of God and see the place that the man, Jesus, holds for us. We see that our place has already been won for us, purchased and held by the presence of Jesus at the right hand of God. Man now rules the universe in the union of the God/Man Jesus. The Lord Jesus has ruled as God from eternity, but with His ascension in the flesh to the right hand of power, He also rules as Man, our brother in the flesh, the first fruit of the resurrection, in whom we have our share in the resurrection and the kingdom of glory.

      This is what empowers us to live in absolute confidence. For Christ not only won the victory over sin for us by His suffering and death on the cross, but He rose from the dead, with His body, into which He incorporates us through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. He rose to verify our new life in Him as the Son of Man risen from the dead, joined with the Son of God everlastingly as one in the flesh. There is no power that can separate or dissolve this union. And thus, when we are conjoined with Christ through Baptism, as long as we do not surrender the faith that He has poured out to us, there is no power that can separate us from the love of God, for as St. Paul concludes, the love of God is in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have been conjoined. As long as we do not choose to separate ourselves from Christ, no power in heaven or on earth can or will separate us from God's love. The victory is in Christ Jesus, who rules on our behalf at the right hand of power. Truly, we are more than conquerors through the one having loved us.