Daily Devotional

July 21

A First Book of Daily Readings

by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (selected by Frank Cumbers)
Sourced from the OPC website

Not I ... but Christ in me

‘God hath not given us the spirit of fear.’ What, then, is the spirit He has given us? ... ‘... but of power.’ ... We have a task, we know our own weakness. Yes, but here is a power even for weaklings, and it means power in the most comprehensive sense conceivable. Are you afraid that you will not be able to live the Christian life?

The answer is: ‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do.’ The fear and the trembling remain ... but you are enabled to work by the power ‘that worketh in you both to will and to do’... it means also power to endure, power to go on whatever the condition, whatever the circumstances, power to hold on and to hold out... it means that the most timorous person can be given power in all things, even to die. You see it in the apostles, you see it in a man like Peter who was afraid of death, afraid to die. He even denied his Lord because of that fear.... But look at him afterwards.... The spirit of power had entered into him and now he is ready to die. He will face the authorities, he will face anybody....

False Prophets

A Prescient Judge Points the Way

A judge in Downunder has caused discombobulation and outrage at his suggestion that there is nothing principially wrong with incest.  That incest should be advocated from the bench ought not be surprising to Christians.  When secular humanism becomes the regnant religion, anything that can be done will be done--and will likely be endorsed and approved.  The reason is that the ethic of secular humanism runs, "I am the master of my fate; man is the measure of all things; nothing human is foreign or absolutely wrong." 

When this ethic is applied consistently to sexual mores nothing is implicitly forbidden.  Explicit prohibitions are ignorant, primitive, time-bound prejudices and subject to change by the next more-enlightened generation.  We are in the middle of just such a sea change.

The secularists are actively pushing the boundaries.  But The Daily Telegraph in the land of Oz has been so outraged, it has called for a judge to be sacked. Why?  Because the judge has suggested that there is nothing wrong with incest, only sexual and physical mechanics which can easily be controlled.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

When the Bricks Start to Fall

Douglas Wilson
Blog and Mablog
Sunday, July 13, 2014

It is worthy noting that the Lord Jesus describes one of the features of hypocrisy as being manifested in an inability to read the culture.

“Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time?” (Luke 12:56).

A hypocrite does not know what is coming down because it does not suit him to know what is coming down. It is always handy to say, when things are comparatively calm, “well, that’s not my interpretation.”

But this simply reveals the narcissism of our age — as though our interpretations were in any way authoritative! Yes, yes, we know your interpretation, but is it correct?

When God shakes down a culture, He does it so that the things that cannot be shaken may remain (Heb. 12:27). This means that when the earthquake starts, and the bricks start to fall out of the building you are in, you have a moral responsibility to know where the shelters are.

True shelters are those congregations of God’s people that are not hypocritical, where the Word is faithfully proclaimed (not just taught), where the sacraments are faithfully administered, where discipline is faithfully practiced. In fact, it would be a good idea to start attending such shelters now.

Call it disaster preparedness.

Daily Devotional

July 19

A First Book of Daily Readings

by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (selected by Frank Cumbers)
Sourced from the OPC website

The test of our humility

... these Beatitudes as they proceed become increasingly difficult ... what we are now considering is more searching, more difficult, more humbling and even more humiliating.... The first Beatitude asks us to realize our own weakness and our own inability... it makes us feel we have nothing— But here, I say, is something which is still more searching—’Blessed are the meek.’

Now why is this? Because here we are reaching a point at which we begin to be concerned about other people. Let me put it like this, I can see my own utter nothingness and helplessness face to face with the demands of the gospel and the law of God. I am aware, when I am honest with myself, of the sin and the evil that are within me, and that drag me down. And I am ready to face both these things. But how much more difficult it is to allow other people to say things like that about me! I instinctively resent it. We all of us prefer to condemn ourselves than to allow somebody else to condemn us. I say of myself that I am a sinner, but instinctively I do not like anybody else to say that I am a sinner.... So far, I myself have been looking at myself. Now, other people are looking at me, and I am in a relationship to them, and they are doing certain things to me. How do I react to that? That is the matter which is dealt with at this point. I think you will agree that this is more humbling and more humiliating than everything that has gone before. It is to allow other people to put the searchlight upon me instead of my doing it myself.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, i, pp. 64–5

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“Text reproduced from ‘A First Book of Daily Readings’ by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, published by Epworth Press 1970 & 1977 © Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes. Used with permission.”

Mockery the Best Medicine Now

The Wonderland of Oz and Other Places

We are all aware of the intellectual disingenuousness with which the global warming crusade has been conducted.  At the hands of UN and media propagandists, "global warming" was morphed into "climate change" so than any variability in climate could be claimed as "evidence" of the earth warming.  Colder temperatures thus became "proof" that global warming was actually occurring.  This has led to the perturbing situation we have at present.  Despite no rise in global temperatures for the past 16 years that very phenomenon is evidence of climate change, aka, global warming. 

In that perverse disingenuous spirit, we now present the latest evidence of global warming to alarm all men everywhere.

Firstly, the the whacky land of Oz, which boasts yellow brick roads, talking tin men, and other curiosities:

A Skirmish Won

Sensing the Wind's Direction

The normal modus of European Community politics is for extremist pressure groups to route their causes through the European Parliament or the European courts, seek affirmative resolutions or judgements, then turn around and demand that all member states comply post haste, or face court action.  These extremist groups tend to avoid the ballot box, where almost without exception they are soundly rejected. 

One of the latest moves has been to seek a judgement in the European Court of Human Rights to the effect that all member states must recognise homosexual marriage as a human right.  Thankfully, in this instance, the Court has soundly rejected the plaintiffs.

Daily Devotional

July 18

A First Book of Daily Readings

by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (selected by Frank Cumbers)
Sourced from the OPC website

Christian—you are no ordinary person!

Timothy at the moment was guilty of the spirit of fear, he was gripped by it; so Paul reprimands him—’God hath not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind’ (2 Timothy 1:7)... our essential trouble, if we suffer from this particular manifestation of Spiritual Depression, is our failure to realize what God has given us, and is giving us, in giving us the gift of the Holy Ghost.... It is a failure to realize what God has done for us, and what God is still doing in us.... The Apostle has to tell Timothy to stir up the gift of God.

Our fears are due to our failure to stir up—failure to think, failure to take ourselves in hand. You find yourself looking to the future and then you begin to imagine things and you say: T wonder what is going to happen?’ And then your imagination runs away with you. You are gripped by the thing; you do not stop to remind yourself of who you are and what you are, this thing overwhelms you and down you go. Now the first thing you have to do is to take a firm grip of yourself, to pull yourself up, to stir up yourself, to take yourself in hand and to speak to yourself... the big thing that Paul is saying in effect to Timothy is: ‘Timothy, you seem to be thinking about yourself and about life and all you have to do as if you were still an ordinary person. But, Timothy, you are not an ordinary person! You are a Christian, you are born again, the Spirit of God is in you. But you are facing all these things as if you are still what you once were, an ordinary person!’

Spiritual Depression, pp. 99–100

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“Text reproduced from ‘A First Book of Daily Readings’ by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, published by Epworth Press 1970 & 1977 © Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes. Used with permission.”

Death Valley

Can These Bones Live?

The roots of our rapid devolution from public and official Christianity in the West to radical secularism are fascinating to trace.  You can take a long bow, a short bow or a medium bow vista.  All are valid to some degree.

The "short bow" view traditionally commences with the sixties as the beginning of a time of rapid change: the Beatles, the pill, no fault divorce, secular feminism, a rapid expansion of a vast government income re-distribution system, the legalisation of killing unborn children on a mass industrial scale, the official promulgation of evolutionism as a religious certainty--to name but a few of the many devolutionary milestones--with the result that the West is now in a place which few foresaw when John Lennon and his mates boasted they were more popular than Jesus Christ.  Today the West is engaged in furious debates over whether homosexuals can legitimately be married, whether incest and pederasty should be classified as human rights, and how many genders there are.  As Theoden of Rohan once said, "How did it come to this?"  No doubt many folk today who were alive in the fifties are likewise shaking their heads in astonishment at the devastation wreaked upon the law and culture and religion which had stood unassailable for centuries. 

The causes of such a rapid and comprehensive devolution are complex to be sure.  But we suggest that one precipitous factor was the most widespread religion of the day.

Letter from the UK (About an Ethiopian Farmer)

Ethiopian Farmer Sues British Government 

- For Sending Aid to Ethiopia

by Andre Walker 

16 Jul 2014, 4:13

Breitbart London

[The history of foreign aid does not make for pretty reading.  Like most government initiatives, the actual outcome is far from the original intent.  Now an Ethopian is suing the British Government because its aid grants to Ethiopia have cemented a one-man dictatorship in that country.  It's to the credit of the UK judiciary that the case is being allowed to proceed. Ed.]

A 33-year-old Ethiopian farmer has become so disillusioned with the way UK overseas aid is propping a “one party state” that he is suing. The man, who has been granted anonymity to protect his family, believes that UK overseas aid helped the Ethiopian government inflict “brutal treatment” on himself and others.

The court papers were filed in Kenya claiming that the UKs £1.3bn donation to Ethiopia is being used to oppress the population. The father of six known as "O" has come in for criticism of his action because his legal fees are being paid by the British Taxpayer despite never having been to the UK.

However "O" insists his action is necessary, and has pledged to give any compensation he wins to charity. The exact reasons for "O" bringing the case is unclear but it is known that he was forced from his home and ended up in a refugee camp after he was tortured for trying to protect his land.

Daily Devotional

July 17

A First Book of Daily Readings

by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (selected by Frank Cumbers)
sourced from the OPC website

‘Little faith’—and its results

What then is this condition which is described by our Lord as being ‘little faith’? ... We can say ... in general that it is one which is confined to one sphere of life only. It is faith that is confined solely to the question of the salvation of our souls, and it does not go beyond that. It does not extend to the whole of life and to everything in life.

This is a common complaint among us as Christian people. On the question of the salvation of our souls we are perfectly clear.... We have seen ... that the only way of deliverance is in the Lord Jesus Christ.... And we believe on Him, and have that saving faith with regard to the present and to all eternity. That is saving faith, the thing that makes us Christians, and without which we are not Christian at all.

Yes; but Christian people often stop at that, and they seem to think that faith is something that applies only to that question of salvation.

Making Sport For All

Extraordinary Politicians

Politicians are past masters at making sport for the nation.  They tell themselves, of course, that they are performing Very Important Work, which in a few rare cases may be true.  And given that a large swathe of our population believes that the gummint is a minor deity it is no wonder that it swoons and gasps at the ruminations and peccadilloes of our pollies. 

Pollies are somewhere between used car salesmen and a B-grade comics.  They become more interesting as their comedic skills increase.  When they get to the point of being stupidly caught in their own nets, it can become mildly entertaining in a Three-Stooges kind of way.  But when they get us belly-laughing, they come close to earning their salaries.  After all, at that point they are dolling out the best medicine.

We have just recovered from the laughter and bemusement around the office which accompanied one pollie portentously proclaiming that he believed the momentous issue of the day was to accomplish a redivivus of the extinct moa.  The infamous Trevor Mallard has done this sort of thing before.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

On Ransacking the Penumbrae

Douglas Wilson

Blog and Mablog

Friday, July 11 2014

When confronted with the prospect of a devolution into tyranny, most Christians are clear on the nature of such tyranny, and the fact that it is bad, but are unclear on their liberty to oppose and disregard it. No, I should say more — on their duty to oppose and disregard it.

The evangelical baker and the Roman Catholic flower arranger who are hauled off into sensitivity training for refusing to strike an insufficiently celebratory pose over same sex mirage are being abused, no question. But . . . what about Romans 13, and the lions, and the coliseum? Shouldn’t we just take it?

Well, yes and no. If we were in the position of the early Christians, building a new civilization from scratch, we should do exactly what they did. When we are not starting from scratch, we should live up to what we have attained. And one of the things we have attained — because the Spirit has been at work in the world on this particular project for two thousand years now — is the rule of law.

Our current system of administrative rules, regulations, laws, and penalty kicks, is not just a bad system of governance, although it is that. It is — all of it — profoundly unlawful. Most of it has gone well past the point of being unconstitutional, and is now overtly anti-constitutional.

Daily Devotional

July 16

A First Book of Daily Readings

by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (selected by Frank Cumbers)
Sourced from the OPC website

Do your part—and leave it in God’s hands

We are going to consider the case of those who ... are afraid of the future ... a very common condition and it really is most extraordinary to notice the way in which the enemy often produces the self-same fundamental condition in the same people by these apparently diametrically opposed methods. When you have put them right about the past, they immediately begin to talk about the future, with the result that they are always depressed in the present. You have satisfied them about forgiveness of sin, yes, even that particular sin which was so exceptional.... And then they say, ‘Ah, yes, but...’, and they begin to talk about fears concerning the future and what lies ahead.... Now it is right that we should think about the future.... But what we are always warned against in Scripture is about being worried about the future. ‘Take no thought for the morrow’, means ‘Do not be guilty of anxious care about the morrow.’ It does not mean that you do not take any thought at all, otherwise the farmer would not plough and harrow and sow. He is looking to the future, but he does not spend the whole of his time wondering and worrying about the end results of his work. No, he takes reasonable thought and then he leaves it... although it is very right to think about the future, it is very wrong to be controlled by it....

Pots and Kettles

The Irresponsible Amongst Us

Every so often editorial writers get hopelessly confused.  Here is an example:  an editorial in the NZ Herald made this statement of fact:

Domestic violence . . .  is perpetrated overwhelmingly by men against women and children.

Then, a few paragraphs later, the writer states:

Professor David Fergusson, who has studied the lives of 1265 people born in Christchurch in 1977, said his research suggested the rates of domestic violence by men and women are similar and in many instances involved mutual violence between couples. "Women do suffer more in terms of fearfulness and related outcomes," he said, "but what we do find in our study is that violence is usually mutual and there isn't a predominant aggressor."

The writer then adopts the tone of a scold with respect to the Professor and his research:

China, Abortion, and the Christian Church

China beachhead

China | Pro-life efforts are growing in the nation with the most abortions. But saving lives in the womb is an enormous challenge—even within the church

By June Cheng

Issue: "China's abortion regime," July 26, 2014
Posted July 11, 2014, 01:00 a.m.

 

This is a sobering, yet very encouraging piece from China.  Let us continue to pray for our brethren and sisters in that vast land.

 

JT 

Daily Devotional

July 15

A First Book of Daily Readings

by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (selected by Frank Cumbers)
Sourced from the OPC website

The enigma of faith

This Beatitude [Blessed are the meek], this particular description of the Christian, causes real surprise because it is so completely and entirely opposed to everything which the natural man thinks. ‘Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.’ World conquest—possession of the whole universe—given to the meek, of all people! The world thinks in terms of strength and power, of ability, self-assurance and aggressiveness. That is the world’s idea of conquest and possession. The more you assert yourself and express yourself, the more you organize and manifest your powers and ability, the more likely you are to succeed and get on. But here comes this astounding statement, ‘Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth’—and they alone. Once more, then, we are reminded ... that the Christian is altogether different from the world. It is a difference in quality, an essential difference. He is a new man, a new creation; he belongs to an entirely different kingdom. And not only is the world unlike him; it cannot possibly understand him. He is an enigma to the world. And if you and I are not, in this primary sense, problems and enigmas to the non-Christians around us, then this tells us a great deal about our profession of the Christian faith.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, i, p. 63

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“Text reproduced from ‘A First Book of Daily Readings’ by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, published by Epworth Press 1970 & 1977 © Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes. Used with permission.”

Destructive Hyperbole

Groping in the Fog

The office of ContraCelsum has been shaking over the past few days with bouts of belly laughter--which is, as we know, the best medicine.  We have been told in harridan-esque tones that we in New Zealand have a "rape culture".  Well knock us down with a feather duster.  We didn't see that one coming.

A rape culture.  What on earth is that?  Whence its origins?  Where is it to be found?  Does it come from from a particular ethnic group or immigrant ethnicity that just happens to sanction rape as part of their legal tradition?  Apparently not, because no particular ethnic, nor cultural group has been identified by the protagonist as having a culture of rape.  It's not a valued or traditional practice in British culture, Irish culture, Australian culture, or Chinese culture as far as we are aware.  Some may have said Indian culture celebrated rape in some circumstances, but recent legal cases against rapists in that country weaken that argument.  We are also aware that honour rapes take place in Islamic societies with the objective of removing shame from a family or village or town.  We grant that comes pretty close to an actual culture of rape. 

But in New Zealand?  So far, no evidence exists of such cultural practices here.  Thus we have no idea what is meant, or being referred to.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Numerous Piles of Blue Ruination

Douglas Wilson

Blog & Mablog

July 10, 2014

 

Boehner has announced that he disagrees with the growing calls for the impeachment of Obama. This is tactically shrewd, but nobody should mistake what I mean by tactically shrewd. When Jesus said that a king should take care to determine whether his ten thousand could take the king with twenty thousand, He was not saying anything about the actual merits of the case (Luke 14:31).

There is no question in my mind but that Obama deserves to be impeached. But he has gotten to this particular imperial point, disregarding the law with all the disdain of a sun king, for the same reason that any attempt at an orderly process of impeachment would devolve into a Washington circus maximus ten times worse than what happened with Clinton. He has gotten away with being corrupt because all of Washington is corrupt.

The impeachment process forced Richard Nixon out because the media was in full-throated cry against him, and then as a result his political base of support collapsed. Everybody thought that 18 minutes of conversation that went missing on the White House tapes was beyond fishy. We are now dealing with years of missing emails from Lois Lerner, and while there is outrage on the right, the whole thing can still be called contained. Call this fishiness inflation. If there is water to be carried, the media will carry it.

Daily Devotional

July 14

A First Book of Daily Readings

by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (selected by Frank Cumbers)
Sourced from the OPC website

I am what I am ... by the grace of God

What matters first of all if you are a Christian is not what you once were, but what you are. Does that sound ridiculous ? It is so perfectly obvious.... Yes, how obvious when I put it like this, but how difficult to see it sometimes when the devil attacks us. The Apostle said that he was ‘not worthy to be called an apostle because [he] persecuted the Church of God’, but he goes on to add: ‘But by the grace of God I am what I am.’ What does it matter what I was? ‘I am what I am.’ Put your emphasis there. Do not be for ever thinking about what you were. The essence of the Christian position is that you should remind yourself of what you are. Certainly there is this past with all its sins. But say this to yourself:

Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
Who like [me] His praise should sing?

The Lust for Power

A Pox on Both Their Houses

We commented recently upon a bizarre proposal by the Labour Party that cases of rape must take away the burden of proof from the accuser, and place it upon the shoulders of the defendant.  Innocent until proven guilty is a fundamental principle of judicature which the Labour Party is willing to toss aside whimsically in order to win a few votes from the radical feminists.  The NZ Herald continues the debate over this antediluvian proposal. 

Labour's justice spokesman Andrew Little did not think the party's proposal would lead to more innocent people being convicted.  "I don't see why. You're assuming that there is a propensity to lay false complaints. There is no evidence pointing to that."

There is no evidence of a propensity to lay false complaints. What planet is Little from?  This statement beggars belief and one wonders whether Little is just fundamentally ignorant of the real world, or whether he is being deliberately obtuse for political reasons.  OK, so let's put this claim to the test: if Little were to be taken seriously and in good faith, he would be claiming that in the past fifty years there has been no evidence of any person laying false complaints of rape. 

In August 8, 2005, the NZ Herald ran the following story:

Letter from the UK (About Margaret Thatcher Redivivus)

Children held back by 'vested interests' in education, says Michael Gove

Education Secretary Michael Gove attacks educational establishment for holding back classroom reforms, just as thousands of teachers prepare to stage a national strike 

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor

The Daily Telegraph

08 Jul 2014 

Education standards risk being undermined “by vested interests determined to hold back reform”, Michael Gove has said on the eve of a major national teachers' strike. In a swipe at classroom unions, the Education Secretary says attempts to reform schools have “not always been easy” because too many teachers believe “things must stay the same”.

Writing for The Telegraph, Mr Gove says large numbers of pupils across Europe – including England – are facing a bleak future unless extra effort is made to raise standards and create more equal access to good schools. He says teaching standards must improve because too many children are still attending schools that “aren’t good enough”. 

Michael Gove is one of the most courageous politicians of our day.  He is not afraid to front up and confront the unions which have hitherto had a stifling stranglehold over education in the UK--as they do here in New Zealand.  Just as Thatcher stared down the coal miner unions during the UK miners' strike of 1984-5 and saw them off, opening up the pathway to necessary reform in the UK, so Gove is attempting the same.  Different unions, same reality.

Daily Devotional

July 12

A First Book of Daily Readings

by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (selected by Frank Cumbers)
Sourced from the OPC website

Christ changes everything

Men who have been the hopeless slaves and victims of sin, and who have reduced their families and homes to conditions of abject poverty, once they have been converted and brought to Christ have proceeded to transform their whole surroundings and conditions. In regenerating a man, the gospel changes even his personal appearance. He begins to pay new attention to his clothing and that of his wife and children; the very furniture of his home is altered, and the aspect of his premises improved. Once the man himself is put right, he proceeds to put everything else right.

The great movement for popular education in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries came as a direct result of the awakening of men, under the influence of the gospel, to the realization of the fact that they had minds and brains.

Liberty is a Fragile Treasure

The Politics of Guilt and Pity Trump Justice

People charged with a crime have to be proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt to be convicted.  This is not a tangential, but a fundamental, component of our system of justice.  The burden of proof is on the accuser, and his agents--the police and inquisitorial agencies of the State.

Judicature is structured this way--and has been for centuries--because the power, resources, and influence of the State are so much greater than a citizen's.  There are other principles set in concrete to afford similar safeguards and protections.  The accused cannot be compelled to testify against himself.  Again the reason is the mismatch of power between the State and the accused.  The State has the power to "lean" on an accused, with threats, intimidation, even torture.  "Confessions" under even the hint of duress are thrown out immediately--which is why interviews are extensively videoed and audio-taped.  They provide evidence of no duress by the State.

It is disconcerting, however, when the politics of guilt and pity intrude.  These fundamental principles of justice set down to maintain the integrity of judicature can be tossed overboard in an emotive tsunami.  The NZ Labour Party, polling in the twenties percent range, desperate to strike some resonance amongst the few identity-orientated groups which still maintain lingering vestiges of support, has come forth proposing to dismantle "proof beyond reasonable doubt".  This from the NZ Herald:

Letter From the UK (About Bert and Ernie)

Bert and Ernie gay marriage cake leaves Christian bakery facing court threat

Christian bakery facing legal action from equality quango for refusing to make cake with Sesame Street characters saying ‘support gay marriage’ 

The Daily Telegraph

By John Bingham, Religious Affairs Editor 

July 07, 2014

A Christian-run bakery is facing legal action from a Government agency for refusing to produce a cake carrying a picture of the Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie and the slogan “support gay marriage”.

Ashers Baking Co, based in Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland, cancelled an order for a novelty cake with a picture of the puppets arm in arm printed onto the icing saying that it went against the directors’ religious beliefs.

Daily Devotional

July 11

A First Book of Daily Readings

by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (selected by Frank Cumbers)
Sourced from the OPC website

The spirit we receive of wisdom, grace and power 
And always sorrowful we live, rejoicing evermore
(Charles Wesley)

Let us, then, try to define this man who mourns. What sort of a man is he? He is a sorrowful man, but he is not morose. He is a sorrowful man, but he is not a miserable man. He is a serious man, but he is not a solemn man. He is a sober-minded man, but he is not a sullen man. He is a grave man, but he is never cold or prohibitive. There is with his gravity a warmth and attraction. This man, in other words, is always serious; but he does not have to affect the seriousness. The true Christian is never a man who has to put on an appearance of either sadness or joviality. No, no; he is a man who looks at fife seriously; he contemplates it spiritually, and he sees in it sin and its effects. He is a serious, sober-minded man. His outlook is always serious, but because of these views which he has, and his understanding of truth, he also has ‘a joy unspeakable and full of glory’. So he is like the Apostle Paul, ‘groaning within himself’, and yet happy because of his experience of Christ and the glory that is to come. The Christian is not superficial in any sense, but is fundamentally serious and fundamentally happy. You see, the joy of the Christian is a holy joy, the happiness of the Christian is a serious happiness ... it is a solemn joy, it is a holy joy....

Roe v. Wade, Part III

The Most Poisonous Pollutant

Forty years have passed since the calamitous Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court of the United States.  Looking back, the reasoning behind the decision shows all the hallmarks of a bunch of Unbelievers scratching around for a pretext to rationalise what they really wanted to have transpire--abortion on demand, the crowning glory of a culture of death.

In order to permit the unborn child to live, he or she must have "the capability of meaningful life" said the justices.  Since the unborn child could not speak for himself or herself, and since mother was speaking against it, seeking the baby's death, clearly the capability of a meaningful life was severely diminished.  Inability to communicate or to have your nearest and dearest deny your continuation implies a severe diminution of meaningful existence, after all. 

But the "value" which persuaded the court most of all and which proved to be decisive was the "right to privacy".  Harold O J Brown commented:

Freedom the Issue, Not Just Religious Freedom

Two Important Judgments on “Religious Freedom” 

– and why I object to both of them

Posted on July 4, 2014
By J.C. von Krempach, J.D.
Turtle Bay and Beyond

In the last week judges in the US and Europe have issued two very important judgment on religious freedom. One is the US Supreme Court’s judgment in the “Hobby Lobby” case, which upheld the right of a Christian company to not pay, as part of the so-called “Obamacare” health insurance system, for his employees’ contraceptive drugs which he deemed to be abortifacient, and thus not in line with his religious convictions. According to this decision, the employer’s religious freedom supersedes the state’s interest in supplying (allegedly?) abortifacient drugs to everyone who wants them.

The other one is a decision by the European Court of Human Rights, upholding a French law that prohibits the wearing of headscarves (known as niqab, burqa, or chador) and other gear that makes the wearer unrecognizable: according to the Court, the State’s margin of appreciation on these matters is wide enough to justify such a law, even if it sets limits to the right of Muslim women to live according to what they claim are the precepts of their Religion.

It appears that “religious freedom” is interpreted very differently on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US it seems to enjoy greater recognition than in Europe.

Daily Devotional

July 10

A First Book of Daily Readings

by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (selected by Frank Cumbers)
Sourced from the OPC website

The ‘one faith’: what is it?

... there is only one answer to the question. It is the great essential New Testament message concerning ‘justifying faith’.

That was the very nerve and centre of apostolic preaching.... ‘The just shall live by faith’ (Romans 1:16). This was the kernel of apostolic preaching—that it is by faith a man is justified, not by the deeds of the law, or any righteousness of his own.

We have a classic statement of it in Romans 3.... ‘Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, ... that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus ...’ (vv. 24–26).

That is the great central message of the gospel. It is through this faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His work that we are justified. That is the meaning of this ‘one faith’.

Secularism and Despotism Necessarily Coeval

We Know What They Mean

Any discussion about rights--that is, human rights--can only proceed intelligently and rationally these days if it is prefaced by careful definitions.  Are we speaking about demand rights, freedom rights, natural rights, civil rights, egalitarian rights, and so on?  "Debates" over rights usually amount to little more than ships passing in the night, respectively catapulting slogans into empty air, with a mutual conviction that he whose foghorn is the loudest wins the debate.  All heat, no light.

Having said that, there are few things more amusing than watching a secular humanist trying to deal carefully and intelligently with human rights.  To unroll the broadest canvas, we must remind everyone that when a secularist talks about human rights he or she immediately casts the discussion around the role and responsibilities of government.  The reason is not hard to discern.  For the secularist, the State is the highest authority in existence.  There is nothing, no-one to whom the secularist can appeal beyond the power and condescension of the State.

We should note, however, that this view is an oddity in the grand scheme of things.

Atheistic Conditioning

Richard Dawkins: Give me the Child and I’ll Give you the Man

Anthony Horvath

Religious leaders are well aware of the vulnerability of the child brain, and the importance of getting the indoctrination in early.  The Jesuit boast, ‘Give me the child for his first seven years, and I’ll give you the man,’ is no less accurate (or sinister) for being hackneyed.

The above quote comes from Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion in the chapter titled “The Roots of Religion.”  I was thinking about that chapter when I heard that Mr. Dawkins was putting out a children’s book.   Has Dawkins decided he needs to get into the ‘indoctrination’ business?

Of course, the word ‘indoctrination’ has taken on a negative air, and is only applied when one disapproves of what is being transmitted—even if one is about the same business.  Dawkins’ real problem is not with the Jesuit’s ‘sinister’ approach.  He admits it is ‘no less accurate.’  His real beef must be with the content the Jesuits presented.

Good!  Then we are all agreed!  ‘Indoctrination’ isn’t ‘sinister.’  Transmitting the beliefs, values, and perceptions of one generation to the next is an important and unavoidable necessity that must take certain definite forms because of the nature of who we are transmitting them too:  children.

Now, we cannot really believe that atheists and secular humanists have every really thought that ‘indoctrination’ was the exclusive domain of the religionists.