Daily Devotional

Passionate for God and Truth

What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written,“That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.” (Romans 3:3–4)

John Piper

Our concern with truth is an inevitable expression of our concern with God. If God exists, then he is the measure of all things, and what he thinks about all things is the measure of what we should think.
Not to care about truth is not to care about God. To love God passionately is to love truth passionately. Being God-centered in life means being truth-driven in ministry. What is not true is not of God.
Ponder these four sets of texts on God and truth:

1) God Is the Truth

Romans 3:3–4 (God the Father): “What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it? May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar.”
John 14:6 (God the Son): Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.”
John 15:26, (God the Spirit): “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness of me.”

2) Not Loving the Truth Is Eternally Ruinous

2 Thessalonians 2:8–12: “They will perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.”

3) Christian Living Is Based on Knowledge of the Truth

1 Corinthians 6:15-17: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a harlot is one body with her?”

4) The Body of Christ Is Built with Truth in Love

Colossians 1:28: “And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ.”

May God make us passionate for him and for truth.

For more about John Piper's ministry and writing, see DesiringGod.org.

Evolutionism

The Suicide of Thought

G. K. Chesterton

Evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it destroys anything, destroys itself.  Evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than this, is an attack upon thought itself.  If evolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but rationalism. . . . It means there is no such thing as a thing.  At best, there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything.  This is an attack not upon faith, but upon the mind; you cannot think if there are no things to think about.  You cannot think is you are not separate from the subject of thought.

Descartes said, "I think; therefore I am."  The philosophic evolutionist reverses and negatives the epigram.  He says, "I am not; therefore I cannot think."  [G. K. Chesterton, Collected Works. Volume I: Heretics, Orthodoxy, The Blatchford Controversies.  (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), p. 239f.]

Letter From America (About Nimbyism)

That's Not What We Meant, At All

The whole animation of Obamacare is that the wealthy end up paying more so as to subsidise the health care of those less wealthy than they.  The mechanism to achieve this would be the the socialisation of health insurance premiums.  The wealthy's premiums are rising in order to subsidise the premiums of those who are not so wealthy.   Obama and the Democrats "got away" with it by swearing black and blue that this was not so.  In other words, the lie was deliberately forged and propagated by cunning elites.  The rest of the Democrats remained ignorant and just parroted the official "talking points".  Silly "useful idiots"--they trusted their leaders.  How quaint.  

Now Harvard academics are "finding out what's in the Bill"--and they are mad--despite being strongly supportive of Obamacare, and, despite some of their colleagues having been donkey-deep in its design. "Not In My Back Yard" rules amongst the Harvard elites.

Daily Meditation

Counterpleas

"I have prayed for thee."
Luke 22:32

Charles Spurgeon

How encouraging is the thought of the Redeemer's never- ceasing intercession for us. When we pray, he pleads for us; and when we are not praying, he is advocating our cause, and by his supplications shielding us from unseen dangers.

Notice the word of comfort addressed to Peter--"Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat; but"--what? "But go and pray for yourself." That would be good advice, but it is not so written. Neither does he say, "But I will keep you watchful, and so you shall be preserved." That were a great blessing. No, it is, "But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not."

We little know what we owe to our Saviour's prayers. When we reach the hill-tops of heaven, and look back upon all the way whereby the Lord our God hath led us, how we shall praise him who, before the eternal throne, undid the mischief which Satan was doing upon earth. How shall we thank him because he never held his peace, but day and night pointed to the wounds upon his hands, and carried our names upon his breastplate!

Even before Satan had begun to tempt, Jesus had forestalled him and entered a plea in heaven. Mercy outruns malice. Mark, he does not say, "Satan hath desired to have you." He checks Satan even in his very desire, and nips it in the bud. He does not say, "But I have desired to pray for you." No, but "I have prayed for you: I have done it already; I have gone to court and entered a counterplea even before an accusation is made." O Jesus, what a comfort it is that thou hast pleaded our cause against our unseen enemies; countermined their mines, and unmasked their ambushes. Here is a matter for joy, gratitude, hope, and confidence.

Same-Old, Same-Old

Aussie Bush Fires (Again)

Every year when there are bush fires in Australia, the Greens sound off like a predictable dull metronome.  Whilst we are sure you don't need to be reminded of their mindless mantras, we will provide a brief excerpt:

Greens leader Christine Milne has pointed to the fires in South Australia and Victoria to argue the Federal Government should do more to prepare for climate change. As firefighters battle blazes in the two states - and fears mount that dozens of homes have been lost - Senator Milne said the Government was failing to recognise the costs of global warming.  "Every year we are going to face these extreme weather events, which are going to cost lives and infrastructure, and enough is enough," she said.  "The Abbott Government has to stop climate denial and help to get the country prepared to adapt to the more extreme conditions."

It's a reasonable assertion that Australian bush fires are not caused by climate change, since they have been happening for time immemorial.  (Unless, of course, "climate change" is just another term for weather, in which case, "climate change" is inevitable and natural and trying to stop it is eerily Canutish.)

As one blogger has pointed out, surprisingly enough, bush fires occur when there are high temperatures, high winds, and fuel. "Amazing", as the Gruffalo said.

The Invincible Ignorance of Some Education Academics

Profit-seeking and preschools go together

Jamie Whyte

NZ Herald

7 January, 2015

[A classic piece by Jamie Whyte illustrating the endemic ignorance that is rife in academia and the government education system in New Zealand about basic economics. Ed.]

On these pages late last year, Linda Mitchell, an education lecturer at Waikato University, lamented the role of profit-making companies, such as Evolve Education, in providing preschool education.  She claimed the quest for profits damages the service provided. Or, as she put it, an interest "in making profits for owners or shareholders positions Evolve Education Group at odds with more community spirited aims to invest fully in the service itself".

That profits injure consumers is a familiar idea. But this should not blind readers to its absurdity.

Daily Devotional

Knowing Better Than the Musician

C S Lewis

TO ARTHUR GREEVES: On the seven deadly sins.

10 February 1930

When I said that your besetting sin was Indolence and mine Pride I was thinking of the old classification of the seven deadly sins: They are Gula (Gluttony), Luxuria (Unchastity), Accidia (Indolence), Ira (Anger), Superbia (Pride), Invidia (Envy), Avaritia (Avarice). Accidia, which is sometimes called Tristitia (despondence) is the kind of indolence which comes from indifference to the good—the mood in which though it tries to play on us we have no string to respond.

Pride, on the other hand, is the mother of all sins, and the original sin of Lucifer—so you are rather better off than I am. You at your worst are an instrument unstrung: I am an instrument strung but preferring to play itself because it thinks it knows the tune better than the Musician.

From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume I
Compiled in Yours, Jack
The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume I: Family Letters 1905-1931. Copyright © 2004 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C. S. Lewis. Copyright © 2008 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Children in an Adult's World

Western Cultural Imperialism At Its Most Dangerous

The debate about liberty, free-speech and the stance of Islam rolls on.  The West's position is, shall we say, conflicted.  The Western Commentariat has been playing a divide-and-rule strategy.  It presupposes that Islam is a broad-church religion, with a wide range of variants, denominations, sects and opinions about Islam.

Simply put, the Commentariat assumes that Islam is just like modern Judaism and modern Christianity--both alike are festooned with multi-form denominations, traditions, beliefs, and expressions--yet these days they all tend to get along in an irenical co-existence.  In Christianity, for example, one has every kind of manifestation imaginable, from those that deny the existence of Jesus Christ right through to those who worship Him as Lord of heaven and earth.  But in both Judaism and Christianity alike there are, from time-to-time, extremist elements that have no legitimate claim to their respective religions.  Some Jews have  become militant zionists who murder innocent Palestinians.  Some Christians have engaged in a fratricidal war in Northern Ireland in recent history.  These extremist elements do not represent either Judaism or Christianity respectively.  Or so the narrative rolls.

Books

Douglas Wilson Comments on Marilynn Robinson's Universalism

Blog and Mablog

January 6, 2015

A year or so ago, I read through Marilynn Robinson’s novels, which was a treat for the most part. I read all of them except for Lila, but there I had the excellent excuse that it had not yet been released. But now it has been, so it comes to pass that I have now read it also.

Robinson’s descriptive powers remain as great as ever, and she does what every novelist dreams of, which is to hold your attention page to page. What she does not do, however, is provide a compelling case for universalism. Robinson specializes in exquisite descriptions of broken characters, but here her theology unwittingly becomes one of those broken characters, lame and blind, and with no one to help.

In universalism, the human is constant. He or she does things, and those things can be good or bad. Universalism focuses on those things, and wonders whether God is so arbitrary or so irrational as to be unwilling to forgive such things. And it is also pointed out that someone else has been forgiven for those very same things, and if one person is forgiven, then why not all? Meanwhile, the perpetrator is standing off to the side, a constant subject whose role is to have done a list of bad things without having been transformed by them.

For the universalist, the question is “why cannot God forgive these things?” The person is always underneath, constant, and sins are what you wipe off. For the Christian, our actions define and illustrate what we are becoming. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Damnation is the ultimate gollumization of a man, and salvation is our last christening. We become what we worship.

Daily Devotional

The Care of God for His People

"Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you."
1 Peter 5:7

Charles Spurgeon

It is a happy way of soothing sorrow when we can feel--"HE careth for me." Christian! do not dishonour religion by always wearing a brow of care; come, cast your burden upon your Lord. You are staggering beneath a weight which your Father would not feel. What seems to you a crushing burden, would be to him but as the small dust of the balance. Nothing is so sweet as to

"Lie passive in God's hands,
And know no will but his."

O child of suffering, be thou patient; God has not passed thee over in his providence. He who is the feeder of sparrows, will also furnish you with what you need. Sit not down in despair; hope on, hope ever. Take up the arms of faith against a sea of trouble, and your opposition shall yet end your distresses.

There is One who careth for you. His eye is fixed on you, his heart beats with pity for your woe, and his hand omnipotent shall yet bring you the needed help. The darkest cloud shall scatter itself in showers of mercy. The blackest gloom shall give place to the morning. He, if thou art one of his family, will bind up thy wounds, and heal thy broken heart.

Doubt not his grace because of thy tribulation, but believe that he loveth thee as much in seasons of trouble as in times of happiness. What a serene and quiet life might you lead if you would leave providing to the God of providence! With a little oil in the cruse, and a handful of meal in the barrel, Elijah outlived the famine, and you will do the same.

If God cares for you, why need you care too? Can you trust him for your soul, and not for your body? He has never refused to bear your burdens, he has never fainted under their weight. Come, then, soul! have done with fretful care, and leave all thy concerns in the hand of a gracious God.

Embarrassing Advocate Proves a Point

Charlie Hebdo, Hate-Speech and the Marianas Trench

When it comes to the rights of free speech the Western world is in a bit of a pickle.  Over the past twenty-five years, free speech rights have been steadily undermined.  "Hate speech" has become a crime, which is to say that any speech a particular statute d'jour just happens to say is "hate speech" is, by definition, a crime. 

Wikipedia provides the following definition:

Hate speech is, outside the law, speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation. 

The article then goes on to review the present state of "hate speech laws" as they apply in various countries around the world.   Regardless of the specifics of the French legal code, in a general (Western) sense the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo has been repeatedly guilty of the crime of hate speech.  We might as well face up to it. Charlie Hebdo scathingly satirised people and cultures for their respective religions.

Letter From America (About Islam)

Islam is the Most Violent Religion in the World

But Let’s Keep Calling it ‘Peaceful’ Anyway

Matt Walsh

Jan. 7, 2015

TheBlaze

And here we are again. You might recognize this place. We’ve been here frequently over the past, say, 1,500 years or so. It’s the place where the whole world stands in dumbfounded shock after witnessing unspeakable brutality at the hands of Islamists. Maybe we should stop being so surprised.

This time around, three masked gunmen stormed the offices of a French satirical newspaper, executing 12 people in cold blood, including two police officers. This is the same newspaper that infamously published a cartoon poking fun at the Prophet Mohammed a few years ago, and was promptly greeted with death threats and a Molotov cocktail for their troubles. In fairness, there’s still a lot we don’t know about this attack, but it seems very certain that this was another case of Muslim terrorism. The gunmen took out 12 people while shouting “Allahu Akbhar” and “the Prophet has been avenged.” All of this over some jokes in a magazine.

Can you imagine Christian radicals committing mass murder at The Onion offices because they’re upset about something they found on its website? Can you even fathom such a thing? Probably not, because it never happens. It just never happens. And it’s not like Christians don’t have plenty of provocation. I still remember stumbling upon this lovely little gem from The Onion last year. It’s a hysterical article imagining that Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, became a prostitute to make ends meet. Haha?

In this Sept.19, 2012 file photo, Stephane Charbonnier also known as Charb , the publishing director of the satyric weekly Charlie Hebdo, displays the front page of the newspaper as he poses for photographers in Paris. Masked gunmen shouting “Allahu akbar!” stormed the Paris offices of a satirical newspaper Wednesday Jan.7, 2015, killing 12 people including Charb, before escaping. It was France’s deadliest terror attack in at least two decades. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)

This is the kind of thing Christians encounter all the time. Brutal mocking and ridicule dressed up as “humor,” but designed only to offend. There’s no wit, no punchline, just scorn heaped upon people of my faith. Kind of like this “Family Guy” episode, featuring an adulterous Jesus looking to have sex with a man’s wife. Or that hilarious “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode a few years back where Larry David peed on a picture of Jesus. Or of course the famous “Piss Christ,” a crucifix dunked in a bottle of urine and passed off as art. Or the painting of the Virgin Mary smeared in elephant dung. Or “Dogma.” Or “The Da Vinci Code.” Or a thousand other examples.

Yet nobody ever died because of any of that.

Daily Devotional

Creative Evolutionism

C. S. Lewis

One reason why many people find Creative Evolution so attractive is that it gives one much of the emotional comfort of believing in God and none of the less pleasant consequences. When you are feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest. If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life-Force, being only a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children. The Life-Force is a sort of tame God. You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you. All the thrills of religion and none of the cost. Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen?

From Mere Christianity
Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity. Copyright © 1952, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1980, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. A Year With C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. Copyright © 2003 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Sourced from BibleGateway.

The General Melchett's of our Age

 Invincible Ignorance and Tin Ears

Western appeasement of Islam has got to the point of being an acute embarrassment. Let's hear from one of the great progressive politicians in our age--patrician Howard Dean as he displays his acutely intelligent grasp of the issues, declaiming grandly from his podium of ignorance:




OK, so the perps who murdered 12 people in Paris were not Islamic--they merely had "twisted cultish minds".  Sort of like Charles Manson types.  So speaks one of the great Western appeasers.

Contrast Dean's self-deceit on this subject with a timely article drawing upon authoritative Islamic sources in National Review Online:

Daily Devotional

Grace Denied and Supplied

Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. (Acts 14:22)

John Piper

The need for inner strength arises not just from the depletions of everyday stress, but from the suffering and afflictions that come from time to time. And they do come.

Suffering is inevitably added to heart-weariness on the way to heaven. When it comes, the heart wavers and the narrow way that leads to life looks impossibly hard. It’s hard enough to have a narrow road and tiring hills that test the jalopy’s strength to the limit. But what shall we do when the car breaks down?

Paul cried out three times with this question because of some affliction in his life. But God’s grace did not come in the form he asked. It came in another form. Christ answered, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Here we see grace given in the form of Christ’s sustaining power in unrelieved affliction — one grace given in the circle of another grace denied. And Paul responded with faith in the sufficiency of this future grace:

“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

God often blesses us with a “grace given” in the circle of “grace denied.”  For example, on a beastly hot day in July, the water pump on our car stopped working, and twenty miles from any town we were stranded on the interstate in Tennessee.

Letter from NZ (About Stupid Offensive Bureaucratic Policing)

Police erode public faith with zero tolerance zeal 

Stuff
Karl Du Fresne
9th Janury, 2015 

Human nature is a perverse thing. It consistently thwarts all attempts to coerce us into behaving the way bureaucrats, politicians and assorted control freaks think we should.

Take the road toll. Since early December New Zealanders have been subjected to a ceaseless barrage of police propaganda about the futility of trying to defy speed and alcohol limits.  Stern-looking police officers have been in our faces almost daily, warning that zero tolerance would be shown to lawbreakers. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has found their lecturing increasingly tiresome and patronising.

Of course the police can claim the best possible justification for all this finger-wagging: it's about saving lives. But what was the result? The road toll for the holiday period was more than double those of the previous two years. For the full year, the toll was up by 44 on the record low of 2013.  The figures suggest that people crash for all manner of reasons, and that the emphasis on speed and alcohol is therefore simplistic. 

[We are not sure that the focus upon speed and alcohol should be regarded as simplistic.  Ex-post facto examination of all fatal crashes are reported to demonstrate that they are they all-too-often causal factors.  But it is how the police focus upon these that needs to be rethought.  The artificial reductions in alcohol intake, the bureaucratic methods of testing and deployment, and the facile statistical targeting are all counter-productive, as Du Fresne points out.   Ed.]

The police focus on speed and booze because these are easy targets, and when the road toll comes down they can take the credit. In the ideal world envisaged by ever-hopeful bureaucrats, wayward citizens can be managed much as sheep are controlled by heading dogs. But people will never be harangued into driving safely; human nature is just too contrary.

Emerging Tyrant

The Metamorphosis of the Liberal Secular State

In his book, The Abolition of Liberty Peter Hitchens makes some interesting observations about the origin of the police force and how it has changed radically in the modern era.  But these changes have not occurred in a vacuum.  They reflect a religious and philosophical sea-change amongst the British people (which has been mirrored in the Antipodes as well).

The biggest watershed involves the doctrine of morality--specifically, where morals reside and who is responsible for acting and living moral, ethical lives.  He writes:

The old, pre-1960's law, based on unchanging moral codes, assumes that conscience is individual rather than social, that man can improve himself by work and free will.  It assumes that he can refrain from committing crime through self-control and, if that fails, can be deterred from repeating it by exemplary punishment.  If these things are true, then man does not need to rely on his rulers for a better life.  This is why a belief in self-reliance, self-control and conscience is now the great heresy.  ( Peter Hitchens, The Abolition of Liberty: the Decline of Order and Justice in England (London: Atlantic Books, 2003),   p. 32f.]

Where does evil reside?

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Book of the Month/January 2015

Douglas Wilson

Blog and Mablog

January 1, 2015

This month the book of the month is a brace of books. You should get them together, and read them both. Together they address the central political issue of our day, one that rests underneath whatever the turmoil of the moment might be.

The doctrine of the lesser magistrates is one of our lost doctrines, an essential part of our civic heritage, but one which we have shamefully neglected and now are in desperate need of again. We are not going to get it back unless we resort to the reading of old books, and books that recover old doctrines. After urging you to get and read these two books, I will add a few thoughts of my own below.



The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates by Matthew Trewhella is a very fine introduction to what was once a standard understanding among conservative Protestants. Calvin treats this doctrine in Book IV of his Institutes, and John Knox has a clear-headed treatment of it in his Appellation. In this book, Trewhella gathers together the basic questions that surround the doctrine, and answers them systematically. What is the doctrine? What are some historical examples? Can the doctrine be abused? And so on.

Daily Devotional

We Want More

C S Lewis

We want so much more—something the books on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and the mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.

From The Weight of Glory
Compiled in Words to Live By
The Weight of Glory: And Other Addresses. Copyright © 1949, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1976, revised 1980 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Words to Live By: A Guide for the Merely Christian. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Sourced from BibleGateway.

The Chebar River Beckons

Those Who Hate God, End Up Loving Death

Some slopes truly are slippery.  Not necessarily slippery by force of reason or logic (which depend upon assumptions underpinning premises).  But spiritual forces and sociological trends are what make a slope slippery.  When no-fault divorce was introduced in New Zealand in the 1980 some people argued that it would lead to a dissolution of marriage as an institution.  They were mocked as extremists and idiots--as tawdry scaremongerers.  Not only was the slope not slippery, there was not slope to be seen or had anywhere--the mockers said.

When Christians point out the likely end results of radical changes to law--particularly laws structuring society according to the biblical blueprints--they face a double jeopardy.  When they warn of the slippery slope and what is likely to happen, they are mocked as being cheap alarmists.  When the slippery slope actually emerges, they are then mocked for being  judgemental and harsh.  Rarely are they credited with being right in the first place.  For example, when no-fault divorce was introduced, some people argued that it would lead to an inflation of  the meaning of marriage.  If the union were so tenuous and ephemeral that anyone could just walk away for any reason, then anyone could enter the union.  Including homosexuals.  Nah.  Don't be so idiotic, you ignorant Christian scaremonger!  

Now, within 30 short years, homosexual "marriages" have been recognised in law in New Zealand.  Today, when Christians protest against that monstrosity, they are not acknowledged as being right all those years ago, they are pilloried as being bigoted, enemies of the human race, unfeeling, human-rights deniers, etc. "Have you no love or feeling or compassion or respect for "gay" people?"  

It's the zeitgeist of the times.  What humans will to do eventually becomes a human right promoted, sanctioned, and protected by the brute force of an unholy state. 

The Glories of Post-Christian Britain

Multi-culturalism, Orwellianism, Censorship and Neo-Criminalism

James Bloodworth

The Independent

Thursday 1 January 2015

At some point saying “offensive” things online stopped being a social faux pas and became a potentially criminal act.

Dare to be rude about the wrong person or group and, in a bad parody of Erich Honecker’s East Germany, you could hear the knock on the door in the middle of the night and be dragged off to some dreary police cell for questioning.

I exaggerate of course, but not much: around 20,000 people in Britain have been investigated in the past three years for comments made online, with around 20 people a day being looked into by the forces of the law, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

The overused Orwellian cliché has finally become the reality: Big Brother in the form of an overzealous and under regulated police force really is watching you. As Police Scotland terrifyingly informed us this week, “Please be aware that we will continue to monitor comments on social media and any offensive comments will be investigated.”

Daily Devotional

Our Toothless Enemy

You, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. (Colossians 2:13–15)

John Piper

The reason that union with Christ makes a great difference for the believer is that Christ achieved a decisive triumph over the devil at Calvary. He did not remove Satan from the world, but he disarmed him to the extent that the weapon of damnation was stripped from his hand.

He cannot accuse believers of unforgiven sin. And therefore, he cannot bring them to utter ruin. He can hurt them physically and emotionally, even kill them. He can tempt them and incite others against them. But he cannot destroy them.

The decisive triumph of Colossians 2:13–15 is owing to “the record of debt that stood against us” being nailed to the cross. The devil made that record his chief accusation against us. Now he has no accusation that holds. He is helpless to do the one thing he wants most to do — damn us. He can’t. Christ bore our damnation. The devil is disarmed.

Another way to say it is in Hebrews 2:14–15: “[Christ became human] that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”

Death is still our enemy. But it is defanged. The sting is gone. The sting of death was sin. And the damning power of sin was in the demand of the law. But thanks be to Christ who satisfied the law’s demand (1 Corinthians 15:56–57).

For more about John Piper's ministry and writing, see DesiringGod.org.

The Contrarian Mind

. . . Achievable with Love, Morphine, and Whisky

There is a lot to be said for a contrarian mind.  In fact, as Douglas Wilson has observed, in a prevailing secular humanist clime, having a contrarian mind is arguably a basic requirement for Christian living.

Urbane contrarians, particularly those with a merry impishness, are national treasures.  He is an example:

Dying of cancer is the "best death" and we should "stop wasting billions trying to cure" it, a leading doctor has said.  Dr Richard Smith, a former editor of the British Medical Journal, said that cancer allowed people to say goodbye and prepare for death and was therefore preferable to sudden death, death from organ failure or "the long, slow death from dementia". . . .

"You can say goodbye, reflect on your life, leave last messages, perhaps visit special places for a last time, listen to favourite pieces of music, read loved poems, and prepare, according to your beliefs, to meet your maker or enjoy eternal oblivion," Dr Smith wrote in a blog published for the BMJ, a journal he edited until 2004.  "This is, I recognise, a romantic view of dying, but it is achievable with love, morphine, and whisky. But stay away from overambitious oncologists, and let's stop wasting billions trying to cure cancer, potentially leaving us to die a much more horrible death," he wrote.

One up for contrarians!

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Fighting in a "Losing" Cause

Tomorrow a new year of fresh outrage begins, and so I want to take a few moments to encourage those Christian preachers, writers, thinkers, and bloggers who are, out of biblical principle, sailing contrary to all the prevailing winds. It is harder to sail this way, but when you are done, more that is worthwhile is actually done — as in, you have actually gotten closer to where you wanted to be.

“Thought is not, like physical strength, dependent upon the number of its agents; nor can authors be counted like the troops that compose an army. On the contrary, the authority of a principle is often increased by the small number of men by whom it is expressed” (Democracy in America, De Tocoueville, p. 182).

There are two approaches to leadership and cultural influence. Neither is necessarily sinful or automatically virtuous, and both require wisdom to know what is called for at what time.

Daily Devotional

Abide Hard By the Cross

"Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."
2 Peter 3:18

Charles Spurgeon

"Grow in grace"--not in one grace only, but in all grace. Grow in that root-grace, faith. Believe the promises more firmly than you have done. Let faith increase in fulness, constancy, simplicity. Grow also in love. Ask that your love may become extended, more intense, more practical, influencing every thought, word, and deed. Grow likewise in humility. Seek to lie very low, and know more of your own nothingness. As you grow downward in humility, seek also to grow upward--having nearer approaches to God in prayer and more intimate fellowship with Jesus.

May God the Holy Spirit enable you to "grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour." He who grows not in the knowledge of Jesus, refuses to be blessed. To know him is "life eternal," and to advance in the knowledge of him is to increase in happiness. He who does not long to know more of Christ, knows nothing of him yet. Whoever hath sipped this wine will thirst for more, for although Christ doth satisfy, yet it is such a satisfaction, that the appetite is not cloyed, but whetted.

If you know the love of Jesus--as the hart panteth for the water-brooks, so will you pant after deeper draughts of his love. If you do not desire to know him better, then you love him not, for love always cries, "Nearer, nearer." Absence from Christ is hell; but the presence of Jesus is heaven. Rest not then content without an increasing acquaintance with Jesus. Seek to know more of him in his divine nature, in his human relationship, in his finished work, in his death, in his resurrection, in his present glorious intercession, and in his future royal advent.

Abide hard by the Cross, and search the mystery of his wounds. An increase of love to Jesus, and a more perfect apprehension of his love to us is one of the best tests of growth in grace.

Evil is Not My Fault

 Two Views of Evil

If you are impertinent enough to ask whence evil originates, the first hurdle to be leaped will be the general discomfort over the topic.  Assuming the initial squeamishness can be overcome, we hazard a guess that within five seconds all options will likely point to some environmental factor or another.  Vile people come from vile environments.

The sub-texts are: firstly, people are not responsible for evil acts any more than one is responsible for the weather; and, secondly, evil can be overcome or at least attenuated by changing the external living conditions and life circumstances of people.  The discussion will likely progress upon the pathways of some additional assumptions as well.  It will be assumed, though rarely asserted, that morality and ethics are a matter of class, socio-economic class.  Decent people are, well, like us.  We don't rape, murder, or steal because we are fortunate enough to live in decent environments--which in our materialist world refers inevitably to one's lifestyle, wealth, and income.  As G. K. Chesterton put it, there is an "old contemptible impertinence which represents virtue to be something upper-class, like a visiting card, or a silk hat."

A further unspoken assumption is determinism--by which we mean that whilst most of us like to tell ourselves we are free men, when it comes to evil we suddenly become iron-clad determinists.  People are evil because life circumstances determine them, or condition them, to be so.  Evil is environmental; it's nobody's fault. You catch it like the common cold. 

Well, not so fast.

Letter From America (Explaining Why Liberals are Pathological Hypocrits)

A Year of Liberal Double Standards

What seems like staggering hypocrisy is actually remarkably consistent from liberals’ perspective.

By Jonah Goldberg

National Review Online

December 31, 2014

Many conservatives finished the year angry about the same thing they were angry about at the beginning of the year: liberal double standards.

As I write this, GOP House whip Steve Scalise is in hot water over reports that he spoke to a group of racist poltroons in Louisiana twelve years ago. Whether it was an honest mistake, as Scalise plausibly claims, or a sign of something more nefarious, as his detractors hope, remains to be seen.

But one common response on social media is instructive. Countless conservatives want to know: Why the double standard? Barack Obama was friends with a domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers. His spiritual mentor was a vitriolic racist, Jeremiah Wright. One of his administration’s closest advisers and allies is Al Sharpton, a man who has inspired enough racial violence to make a grand dragon’s white sheets turn green with envy.

Daily Devotional

Hope for Imperfect People

By a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. (Hebrews 10:14)

John Piper

This verse is full of encouragement for imperfect sinners like us, and full of motivation for holiness.

It means that you can have assurance that you stand perfected and completed in the eyes of your heavenly Father not because you are perfect now, but precisely because you are not perfect now but are “being sanctified,” “being made holy” — that, by faith in God’s promises, you are moving away from your lingering imperfection toward more and more holiness.

Does your faith make you eager to forsake sin and make progress in holiness? That is the kind of faith that in the midst of imperfection can look to Christ and say: “You have already perfected me in your sight.”

This faith says, “Christ, today I have sinned. But I hate my sin. For you have written the law on my heart, and I long to do it. And you are working in me what is pleasing in your sight. And so I hate the sin that I still do, and the sinful thoughts that I contemplate.”

This is the true and realistic faith that saves. It is not the boast of the strong. It is the cry of the weak in need of a Savior.

I invite you and urge you to be weak enough to trust Christ in this way.

For more about John Piper's ministry and writing, see DesiringGod.org.

The Madness of the UK Elites

Culturally Sensitive Policing

In the United Kingdom this past year systemic abuse and extreme criminal acts over a long period of time have come to light, yet the police and local council officials have turned a blind eye and ignored them.  Some have warned darkly that what has come to light is the tip of a vast iceberg.  If you have not caught up with the explosive revelations, take a look at reports about Rotherham. 

The question is, how could this come to pass?  While the causes are always multi-form it would appear that a large contributing factor is the sea-change that took place in the UK police force fifteen or so years ago.  As a result of the Macpherson Report into the apparently racially motivated slaying of  Stephen Lawrence the police were officially required to become racist in their approach to community policing and crime.  We mean, of course, they were required to apply a filter of "multi-cultural sensitivities" to crime.  Race was mandated as a filter in apprehending and detecting crime.

First of all, let's define racism.  The Macpherson Report helpfully provided its definition:

A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person. [Maitland Report, p.376]

No doubt, dear reader, you have just fallen off your chair. Racist incidents take place whenever anyone perceives they have.  This bizarre claim was to become part of police and government procedures.  But worse, the police had to take race (that is, the cultures of different races) into account when policing.

False Predictions And The Big Chill

Spare a Thought For These Poor Chaps

It must be pretty dispiriting being a card carrying, gung-ho climate warmist these days.  Just about everywhere you turn, the data just does not compute.

Remember how Al Gore used to pronounce portentously (just a few years ago) on the disappearance of arctic sea ice by 2014?  Big Al has gone strangely silent.  Arctic sea-ice is doing not bad at all.  And Antarctic sea ice is hitting all kinds of records out of the park.  Oh dear.  Never mind.

Ice returns to 1984 levels: Area of Arctic sea ice is nearly identical to 30 years ago

December 30, 2014

Sea Ice Extent – Day 363 – Highest Global Sea Ice and Highest Antarctic Sea Ice For The Day