A Sad Spectacle

Hot Gasses and Carbon Eructations

It could be argued that President Obama is one of the laziest and most narcissistic men ever to occupy the US White House.  At one speech after his successful election in 2008 he gravely informed the world that at the moment of his electoral success the world had started to cool and rising sea levels had begun to abate.  At first blush one thought that these statements were mere rhetorical hyperbole.  But the more Obama has subsequently flapped about along like a fish out of water we wonder whether indeed he really did believe his own hyped exaggerations.

His approach to combating "climate change" has been replete with his signature moves: lots of soaring (hollow) rhetoric about the grave dangers facing humanity coupled with various histrionic acts.  But throughout Obama cannot forge a political consensus to push through his agenda (assuming he has a substantial agenda.)  This would require effort and work.  Obama, however, appears to believe he is like the gods.  Merely to speak something is to call it into existence.  Far be it from the Great One to get down and dirty in constructive bi-partisan negotiations with Congress to reify his dreams (albeit in a compromised form).

We, of course, are thankful for his incompetence.  The latest gimmick has been to pronounce that all coal fired electricity plants and other coal and oil and gas dependant industrial processes will be made to disappear.  He has so pronounced.  It will happen.

Christopher Booker, writing in The Telegraph on the other side of the Atlantic, tells us what the reality will be.

Letter From America (About Lions in Zimbabwe)

In Zimbabwe, We Don’t Cry for Lions

By Goodwell Nzou

New York Times

Winston-Salem, N.C. — MY mind was absorbed by the biochemistry of gene editing when the text messages and Facebook posts distracted me.

So sorry about Cecil.  Did Cecil live near your place in Zimbabwe?

Cecil who? I wondered. When I turned on the news and discovered that the messages were about a lion killed by an American dentist, the village boy inside me instinctively cheered: One lion fewer to menace families like mine.

My excitement was doused when I realized that the lion killer was being painted as the villain. I faced the starkest cultural contradiction I’d experienced during my five years studying in the United States.

Did all those Americans signing petitions understand that lions actually kill people? That all the talk about Cecil being “beloved” or a “local favorite” was media hype? Did Jimmy Kimmel choke up because Cecil was murdered or because he confused him with Simba from “The Lion King”?

In my village in Zimbabwe, surrounded by wildlife conservation areas, no lion has ever been beloved, or granted an affectionate nickname. They are objects of terror.

Daily Devotional

Being In Love

C. S. Lewis

If the old fairy-tale ending ‘They lived happily ever after’ is taken to mean ‘They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married’, then it says what probably never was nor ever would be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships?

But, of course, ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense—love as distinct from ‘being in love’—is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be ‘in love’ with someone else.

‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.
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.

History Repeating

Hearing And Seeing No Evil Facilitates It

A new Islamic State propaganda video has appeared in which Islamic believers in Germany are urged either to decamp and migrate to fight for ISIS in Syria, or otherwise commit murders in Germany.  This is now a fairly standard Islamic State MO, but apparently the first addressed specifically to Germany.

Oliver Lane, writing for Breitbart London, reports

Calling on Muslims to become ‘lone wolf’ killers Mohamed Mahmoud, who was jailed for four years for terrorism offences in Germany but escaped to the Islamic world says: “My brothers and sisters, either you come here and join the Mujahideen, or you lead the jihad in Germany and Austria. You do not need much, just take a large knife and kill every unbeliever. They are like dogs!”.

Whether anyone in Germany will answer to the call remains to be seen.  But when such calls have been made, it has resulted in murder elsewhere in Europe.  What is absolutely staggering, however, is how the European authorities deliberately turn a blind eye to the terrorist or Islamic connections.

6 Things You Need to Know . . .

The 5th Planned Parenthood Video

By Marissa Poulson
Alliance Defending Freedom

As I watched the remains of a 20-week old twin being picked apart in the latest undercover Planned Parenthood video, I couldn't help but think of my 14-month-old twin nephews. The sad (but unfortunately not-so-shocking) reality is that if my sister-in-law was not pro-life, these sweet boys, with their tiny baby fingers and toes, could have been broken down like an old car and collected for parts to fulfill line items on a Planned Parenthood budget. 

Watching such a graphic, stomach-turning, portrayal of complete disregard for precious life is certainly not on my bucket list, and I'm sure it's not on yours either, but this stuff is really happening. If we don't speak out, if we don't show the world what Planned Parenthood is doing, if we don't show current and future expectant mothers the truth—that they are carrying living babies in their wombs and not a glob of cells—then how can we expect to put a stop to it?

Daily Devotional

It's Harvest Time

"Let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen."
Psalm 72:19

Charles H. Spurgeon

This is a large petition. To intercede for a whole city needs a stretch of faith, and there are times when a prayer for one man is enough to stagger us. But how far-reaching was the psalmist's dying intercession! How comprehensive! How sublime! "Let the whole earth be filled with his glory."

It doth not exempt a single country however crushed by the foot of superstition; it doth not exclude a single nation however barbarous. For the cannibal as well as for the civilized, for all climes and races this prayer is uttered: the whole circle of the earth it encompasses, and omits no son of Adam. We must be up and doing for our Master, or we cannot honestly offer such a prayer. The petition is not asked with a sincere heart unless we endeavour, as God shall help us, to extend the kingdom of our Master.

Are there not some who neglect both to plead and to labour? Reader, is it your prayer? Turn your eyes to Calvary. Behold the Lord of Life nailed to a cross, with the thorn-crown about his brow, with bleeding head, and hands, and feet. What! can you look upon this miracle of miracles, the death of the Son of God, without feeling within your bosom a marvellous adoration that language never can express? And when you feel the blood applied to your conscience, and know that he has blotted out your sins, you are not a man unless you start from your knees and cry, "Let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen." Can you bow before the Crucified in loving homage, and not wish to see your Monarch master of the world? Out on you if you can pretend to love your Prince, and desire not to see him the universal ruler. Your piety is worthless unless it leads you to wish that the same mercy which has been extended to you may bless the whole world.

Lord, it is harvest-time, put in thy sickle and reap.

The Coming of the Kingdom is Like . . .

Glimpses of Glory

The Kingdom of God is like a small seed, which, being planted, sprouts and grows into a mighty tree.  It will one day fill the whole earth.  The Kingdom is amongst us.  It's coming is often invisible, unseen, and yet we can catch glimpses.  Part of that growth involves the ancient Jewish people.  They are being called to Christ as their Messiah; they are believing and receiving Him.  It is going on all the time.  Under the radar screen. 

This is in accord with Romans 11: 11-13.  The heart of Israel was hardened against Christ.  Yet there was deeper magic at work, as Paul reveals.  The hardening of the heart of Israel was so that the Gospel might break free from the constraints of Judaism and come to us, the Gentiles.  But, a still more deep magic is this: in sending salvation to the Gentiles, God was still at work amongst His ancient people.  The conversion of the Gentiles to Christ has always been designed to make the Jewish people jealous, and draw them back to God.  And so it is falling out.  Eventually their full inclusion will be realised.

There is a website which posts testimonies of Jewish (mainly professional) people who have come to believe in Jesus as their long awaited Messiah.  Listen and watch and be mightily encouraged.


http://www.imetmessiah.com/index.php

Many of these accounts bring tears of great joy to us once-lost Gentiles. 

Humanist Utopian Folly

A Rort By Any Other Name

An allegedly damning report on Early Childhood Education ("ECE") in New Zealand has just been released.  Apparently things are terrible.  Just terrible.  But before we look at the details, a brief recap on the recent history of ECE would be in order.

What we now know as ECE was brought in by Helen Clark, the former Labour Prime Minister.  Clark was a hard core feminist ideologue.  To advance the revolution, Clark knew that women needed to be released from the duties of motherhood so that they could foster their careers.  This has long been a theme of the feminist ideology, which has viewed children as an impediment to women achieving and experiencing equality in the workforce.  But Clark was also a pragmatic realist.  She and her feminist cohort knew that the nation would never accept state funded day-care centres for babies and toddlers.  But if they were framed as schools or pre-schools they would be far more acceptable.  So it proved to be.

Thus, Early Childhood Education--a nation-wide network of day-care centres--came into existence.  They are largely funded by the taxpayer.  They are popping up on every suburban street corner.  They are called "pre-schools" to maintain the charade.  But essentially they are places for parents to park their children from the age of zero onwards, whilst adults go to work. In the universal vernacular they are known as Daycare Centres--much to the chagrin of the ideologues.  But the vernacular is accurate.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

The Collapse of Their Righteousness

Douglas Wilson

I have just a couple points this morning, and not surprisingly, they are all related to the continuing Planned Parenthood scandal.  First, no one should doubt that the pro-abortion party is reeling, and there are objective grounds for saying this. And second, their precarious position needs to be connected, at every opportunity, to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

First, look at the extraordinary thing that has happening in just the last few weeks. We had a straight up-and-down vote in the Senate yesterday on defunding Planned Parenthood. A majority voted in favor of defunding them, and this was revelatory on a number of fronts. This vote happened after only a third of the videos had been released. Do not doubt the potency of these videos. That is why a judge who was a big Obama fund-raiser slapped a restraining order on them. There were, ahem, um, legalities, points to consider, due advisement. Yeah, right. If you are thinking that the same legalities would be in play if this were a secret video of caddies at Augusta bullying a fellow caddy for being gay, then you have quite a career in naivete waiting for you. The remaining videos are a lit stick of dynamite, and the bad guys know it.

As I was writing this, David Daleiden released the next video anyway, and good on him. We must back that man to the uttermost.

Daily Devotional

Jesus Bought Your Endurance

“This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” (Luke 22:20)

What that means is that the new covenant, promised most explicitly in Jeremiah 31 and 32, was secured and sealed by the blood of Jesus. The new covenant comes true because Jesus died to establish it.  And what does the new covenant secure for all who belong to Christ? Perseverance in faith to the end.
Listen to Jeremiah 32:40,

I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.”

The everlasting covenant — the new covenant — includes the unbreakable promise: “I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.” They may not. They will not. Christ sealed this covenant with his blood. He purchased your perseverance.

If you are persevering in faith today, you owe it to the blood of Jesus. The Holy Spirit, who is working in you to preserve your faith, honors the purchase of Jesus. God the Spirit works in us what God the Son obtained for us. The Father planned it. Jesus bought it. The Spirit applies it — all of them infallibly.

God is totally committed to the eternal security of his blood-bought children.

Who's Really Running the Ship?

Union Blackballing

Who operationally runs and controls government schools?  The obvious answer is the government.  He who pays the piper, calls the tune.  Fair enough.  It's a reasonable answer.  Nevertheless it is a superficial response.  In effect, the teacher unions have enormous influence over how the government education system operates.  They virtually control the curriculum, the terms and conditions of employment, who will be admitted to the profession, and so forth.  Most of this influence is an exercise in soft-power.  It is not overt.  It is not belligerent.  It does not have to be. 

Now this would be fine if the unions were committed above all else to high quality education for New Zealand students.  But they are, we hear you protest.  All the time union representatives and talking heads are declaring they seek the best education for New Zealand students.  What is generally concealed, however, is that "best education"--in the collective union mind-- always means union-sanctioned education and a system which serves the needs and appetites of union members.

Every so often there is a face-off between the government and the unions.  Almost always the unions win.  Here is an example of raw union power and government capitulation.

When Chief Petty Officer Kelly Kahukiwa left the navy to teach in Northland he did not know what a charter school was.  Now, because he had a job at a Whangarei charter school, the student teacher is caught between a teachers' union and a controversial government policy that has left him blacklisted from training at state schools. It comes after the Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) said its members will not work with employees of charter schools.

The union blackball was announced before the introduction of charter schools.  It has been relentlessly carried out, particularly in Northland where education union membership appears to be quite militant.

Mr Kahukiwa started teaching te reo Maori and music at Te Kura Hourua O Whangarei Terenga Paraoa in Whangarei at the start of the year. He sought out the school after meeting some of its students at the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Cassino in Italy last May, where he was with the Royal New Zealand Navy. "All of us in the military, when we met those kids, we knew there was something special going on," he said. "I just thought, oh well, whatever a charter school is it works for these kids, I want to be part of it."

Mr Kahukiwa wanted to be a teacher.  As part of his training and work experience he wisely wants a breadth of experience in various school.  His mistake was he chose his initial assignment to be at a blackballed school.  Now, get this.  The responsibility to train teachers lies with the government.  The Whangarei based charter school is government sanctioned and funded.  But the union has blackballed it.  Which of the two--government or union--would win?  That is, which has real control?

Mr Kahukiwa said the first he knew of any issues was three days into his next placement, at Tikipunga High School in May. Once the school found out he was from a charter school, the board asked him not to return. "I was just astounded," he said. "I had no idea why or what was going on. I'm just one teacher trying to do what [the PPTA members] all joined for, which is educate kids, uplift the kids and share my skills." - Northern Advocate

The board of the Tikipunga High School is enforcing the union blackball.  Contrary to the position of the government.  It is clear that the teachers' union really controls the schools and the teaching profession.  It's high time the teachers' unions were faced down and told by the government to withdraw the blackball, or they would face de-registration as unions.  It is also high time the government sacked the board of the Tikipunga High School for acting not in the best interests of their school but as stooges of the union and its self-serving propaganda. 

If not, there is at least one positive will emerge.  De facto teacher union control of government schools is being unmasked.  Not one scintilla of genuine concern about, or commitment to, young people and their education.  It's all about union muscle, union jobs, and union feather-bedding. No surprises there. 

Outrage

Adam4d Cartoons http://adam4d.com/outraged/

Daily Devotional

Spiritual Mildew

"I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands."
Haggai 2:17

Charles H. Spurgeon

How destructive is the hail to the standing crops, beating out the precious grain upon the ground! How grateful ought we to be when the corn is spared so terrible a ruin! Let us offer unto the Lord thanksgiving. Even more to be dreaded are those mysterious destroyers--smut, bunt, rust, and mildew. These turn the ear into a mass of soot, or render it putrid, or dry up the grain, and all in a manner so beyond all human control that the farmer is compelled to cry, "This is the finger of God." Innumerable minute fungi cause the mischief, and were it not for the goodness of God, the rider on the black horse would soon scatter famine over the land.

Infinite mercy spares the food of men, but in view of the active agents which are ready to destroy the harvest, right wisely are we taught to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." The curse is abroad; we have constant need of the blessing. When blight and mildew come they are chastisements from heaven, and men must learn to bear the rod, and him that hath appointed it.

Spiritually, mildew is no uncommon evil. When our work is most promising this blight appears. We hoped for many conversions, and lo! a general apathy, an abounding worldliness, or a cruel hardness of heart! There may be no open sin in those for whom we are labouring, but there is a deficiency of sincerity and decision sadly disappointing our desires. We learn from this our dependence upon the Lord, and the need of prayer that no blight may fall upon our work. Spiritual pride or sloth will soon bring upon us the dreadful evil, and only the Lord of the harvest can remove it. Mildew may even attack our own hearts, and shrivel our prayers and religious exercises. May it please the great Husbandman to avert so serious a calamity.

Shine, blessed Sun of Righteousness, and drive the blights away.

UK Soft-Despotism Hardens Its Cutting Edge

Christians Are the New Terrorist Threat

We have highlighted several times in recent months a very disturbing trajectory in Britain: the government appears bent on punishing Christians for being Christian.  It looks like we will be moving back to the days of Tudor and Stewart persecution--in principle, at least.  And once started, who knows where it will end?

It's all bound up in the Conservative government's woolly and incompetent approach to combating "extremism".  That mistaken--even idiotic--approach has led directly to this:

MP: use anti-terror powers on Christian teachers who say gay marriage is ‘wrong’

New Extremism Disruption Orders should be applied on those who “teach” traditionalist Christian views about marriage in the classroom

The headline is found in the Daily Telegraph.  The MP concerned is a Conservative MP.   It appears that in the lexicon of the governing Conservative party, when Christian teachers faithfully teach the Christian faith they are engaged in terrorism.  How has this come to pass?

Perverse and Diabolical

Sex Slavery and the Islamic State

by Mark Durie

Middle East Forum

Why does Islamic State's enslavement of women seem to appeal to potential recruits, and why is it not challenged more vigorously by mainstream Muslims? Jamie Walker, Middle East correspondent for The Australian, asked two critical questions in a recent article that discussed the involvement of two Australian citizens, Mohamed Elomar and Khaled Sharrouf, in Islamic State sex slavery. In 2014 Elomar purchased sex slaves, of whom four, all Yazidis, later escaped to a refugee camp, where the ABC caught up with them and interviewed them. Elomar had also boasted on Twitter that he had "1 of 7 Yehzidi slave girls for sale" at $2500 each.

Walker's questions were "why this debased appeal seems to be gaining traction with Islamic State's target audience, which increasingly includes women, and why it's not challenged more stridently in the public arena."

The Islamic State has given its own answer to the first question.

Daily Devotional

It Usually Does Not Last

C. S. Lewis

What we call ‘being in love’ is a glorious state, and, in several ways, good for us. It helps to make us generous and courageous, it opens our eyes not only to the beauty of the beloved but to all beauty, and it sub- ordinates (especially at first) our merely animal sexuality; in that sense, love is the great conqueror of lust.

No one in his senses would deny that being in love is far better than either common sensuality or cold self-centredness. But, as I said before, ‘the most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of our own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs’. Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life.

It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called ‘being in love’ usually does not last.

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

Media Madness

As Momentous a Matter as Global Warming

Sometimes one might be tempted to discouragement or despair at how inane and superficial and partisan many media outlets are.  We ourselves are rarely so tempted, because our expectations, being low, are rarely unmet.  In these matters, surprise on the upside is as rare as a sole cockroach.  On the other hand, our low expectations are frequently not just met, but exceeded on the downside.

Here is a classic.  Scott Walker, by some measures, is the leading Republican for his party's choice as its US presidential candidate.  That means he becomes a target.  Media celebrity wannabes consequently are circling to get him to say something outlandish, to make a mistake so they can have their "gotcha moment" in the sun, thereby enhancing their flaky careers.  They salivate over the opportunity to add to their wafer thin cv's the claim, "I single handedly destroyed the presidential prospects of Scott Walker", or something like that.  Who can really claim to understand the deep ruminations of a cockroach.

The particular "gotcha" strategy being deployed by one hack is to get Walker to opine upon whether Pressie Obama is a Christian--or not.  This momentous issue, upon which the nation hangs with bated breath, has been written up and duly published in Time magazine, thereby signalling in passing how besmirched and pathetic that masthead has become.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

And Then Swash Some More

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog

In this battle with Planned Parenthood that just erupted, certain worried cautions against triumphalism really ought to wait until after the triumph. I would much rather encourage the troops to pour it on, they’re doing great.

And they have been doing great. The Center for Medical Progress has done a wonderful thing in and through these videos — and again I want to stop in order to suggest the Medal of Freedom for David Daleiden. But another wonderful thing has happened as well.

I think that those who are concerned about “triumphalism” are in fact noticing something that really is happening. That something should in fact be noticed, and — given how our worried evangelical leadership frequently works — defended. What I am talking about is all the pro-life exuberance and joy.

The pursuit of Planned Barrenhood has been robust, pointed, widespread, funny, hard-hitting, massive, and driven by what can only be called battle joy.

Daily Devotional

Promising Never To Have a Headache

C. S. Lewis

The idea that ‘being in love’ is the only reason for remaining married really leaves no room for marriage as a contract or promise at all. If love is the whole thing, then the promise can add nothing; and if it adds nothing, then it should not be made. The curious thing is that lovers themselves, while they remain really in love, know this better than those who talk about love. As Chesterton pointed out, those who are in love have a natural inclination to bind themselves by promises. Love songs all over the world are full of vows of eternal constancy. The Christian law is not forcing upon the passion of love something which is foreign to that passion’s own nature: it is demanding that lovers should take seriously something which their passion of itself impels them to do.

And, of course, the promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise never to have a headache or always to feel hungry.

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.

Changes and Progress

Insider Advantage

Recently a couple of media articles have focused upon the success of religious schools in New Zealand.  The Christian cynic would say that the day the (overwhelmingly secular) media start to credit Christian schools with success is the day one can safely conclude they must indeed be stellar institutions.  This surely is an occasion when faint praise is not to damn, but to exult.

Notwithstanding the Christian cynic's view, it is good to see church schools (predominantly Roman Catholic and Anglican) doing so well.  The levels of demand for this kind of education in New Zealand are rising.  Moreover, the demand is coming from non-Christian sections of the community.  Why?  Well, the answers are not hard to find.  New Zealand's education system is government controlled; the government and its institutions promote the secular, atheistic world-view by the blunt force of law.  Tolerance of the Christian faith is strictly that--concessional tolerance.  The secular establishment tolerates Christianity in the same way one would tolerate animism or clairvoyance--with the mien of polite condescension towards the ignorant.

But conscientious parents are less philosophically jaundiced.

The Old Mammogram Canard

Planned Parenthood’s Mammogram Lie

Planned Parenthood’s mendacious PR operation.

Michelle Malkin
National Review Online

The gruesome hits keep coming for the baby butchers of Planned Parenthood. President Obama and his top health officials have one last-ditch response left: Quick, hide behind the imaginary mammogram machine!

As more graphic, money-grubbing undercover videos of Planned Parenthood’s for-profit aborted-baby-parts racket emerge, thanks to the investigative work of the Center for Medical Progress, desperate Democrats are in full deflection mode. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell defended federal funding for Planned Parenthood this week by invoking the women’s-health shield. “What I think is important is that our HHS funding is focused on issues of preventative care for women, things like mammograms,” Burwell told the House Education and Workforce Committee.

Just one teeny, tiny problem with this defense: It’s a completely calculated fabrication.

Daily Devotional

Our Weakness Reveals His Worth

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

John Piper

God’s design for suffering is that it magnifies Christ’s worth and power. This is grace, because the greatest joy of Christians is to see Christ magnified in our lives.

When Paul was told by the Lord Jesus that his “thorn in the flesh” would not be taken away, he supported Paul’s faith by explaining why. The Lord said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). God ordains that Paul be weak so that Christ might be seen as strong on Paul’s behalf.

If we feel and look self-sufficient, we will get the glory, not Christ. So Christ chooses the weak things of the world “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:29). And sometimes he makes seemingly strong people weaker, so that the divine power will be the more evident.

We know that Paul experienced this as grace because he rejoiced in it: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10).

Living by faith in God’s grace means being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus. Therefore faith will not shrink back from what reveals and magnifies all that God is for us in Jesus. That is what our own weakness and suffering does.

Scepticism on the Rise

The "Science" Behind Climate Science

We were entertained recently on the way to the office hearing a caller address one of the local radio talk-back hosts.  Adopting the tone of a pedant, she informed the host that she had been listening to the global warming denialist propaganda which had been airing on the show.  She introduced herself as a university student who had been busy studying the science of global warming for several years.  She had called up to put the facts and to straighten out the Neanderthal host.

She proposed that the host did not understand science and the vast array of facts and research which lay behind the theory of global warming.  Nor did the host grant that there was an overwhelming consensus in the scientific community that the theory was fact, not speculation.  Ninety-seven percent of scientists affirmed the veracity of global warming, she declared.  Before she could proceed further, the host interrupted her and asked, could she tell him and the listeners where that figure of an overwhelming, 97 percent consensus had come from.  She began to umm and arrr.  Then she doubled down to insist that it was doubtless true.  When asked why, she said that she had heard it referred to many times.

Here lies a problem, oft encountered.

Worth Many Thousands of Words

Planned Parenthood’s Week in Pictures (2)

by Steven Hayward 
Powerline

As noted yesterday, Hillary is keeping a path open to head to the tall grass over Planned Parenthood. The White House is hedging over whether it will veto a bill from Congress defunding Planned Parenthood. I suspect Planned Parenthood has a pretty good idea of what is on the videos still to come out, and, barring a legal gambit to suppress them, has warned its Democratic allies about how bad it is going to be.

The WaPo‘s Dave Weigel says “For Democrats, There’s No Right Answer on Planned Parenthood,” noting that when Republicans rush to quote and agree with Hillary Clinton about the “disturbing” content of the videos, you’re in deep trouble.

Daily Devotional

Irrevocable Certainty

"Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out."
John 6:37

Charles H. Spurgeon

No limit is set to the duration of this promise. It does not merely say, "I will not cast out a sinner at his first coming," but, "I will in no wise cast out." The original reads, "I will not, not cast out," or "I will never, never cast out." The text means, that Christ will not at first reject a believer; and that as he will not do it at first, so he will not to the last.

But suppose the believer sins after coming? "If any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." But suppose that believers backslide? "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him." But believers may fall under temptation! "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." But the believer may fall into sin as David did! Yes, but he will "Purge them with hyssop, and they shall be clean; he will wash them and they shall be whiter than snow"; "From all their iniquities will I cleanse them."

"Once in Christ, in Christ forever,
Nothing from his love can sever."

"I give unto my sheep," saith he, "eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." What sayest thou to this, O trembling feeble mind? Is not this a precious mercy, that coming to Christ, thou dost not come to One who will treat thee well for a little while, and then send thee about thy business, but he will receive thee and make thee his bride, and thou shalt be his forever?

Receive no longer the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption whereby thou shalt cry, Abba, Father! Oh! the grace of these words: "I will in no wise cast out."

Just Another Chardonnay Issue

The Chattering Classes at Full Throat

One of the more instructive "tells" in recent days of the pervasive bias regnant within the New Zealand media has been the sotto voce muttering over the Planned Parenthood video stings in the United States.  The fourth video has just been released.  The United States is in an uproar and our media and "betters" see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.  Definitely nothing to see here.  More important things to focus upon.  Move along.

But when it comes to "real news" we have been inundated with tales, clips, sedges, and tut tutting opinionistas all aghast over the death of a lion shot with a hunting bow in Zimbabwe.  And the dentist was a rich white male, and an American to boot.  Evil had doubled down, so to speak.  So, we have had clips of American media re-published in NZ--American opinions, American expressions of revulsion, American horror, petitions, demonstrations--ad nauseum.  But Planned Parenthood's barbarism towards children?  Virtually nada.  The most notorious scandal in over fifty years in the United States--and merely a whimper.  The relative silence is deafening.

If, dear NZ reader, you happen not yet to have heard of this US Government funded horror, here is a brief recap.  Planned Parenthood is an industrialised, commercial abortion conglomerate--the largest in the United States--indeed, in the world.  Its Mengelism has been exposed recently by three undercover videos in which top executives are recorded in "sales mode" as they attempt to market the waste products of their industry--that is, intact body parts of babies, cut and torn from their mother's womb.  The fourth video has just been released.  There are more videos to come, we are told.

To give you a flavour, here is a review by one US media outlet of the forth video:

Letter from America (About Black Eugenics)

Black Lives Don’t Matter

Planned Parenthood’s Dirty Little Secret

by Austin Ruse
BreitbartNews

Two reports in the past five years show that Planned Parenthood abortion clinics are placed at inordinately high levels in black and Latino neighborhoods, leading African-American pro-life campaigners to conclude that the abortion giant is deliberately targeting dark-skinned babies.

Given Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s general promotion of eugenics, along with the “The Negro Project” that she created to target African-Americans, and her appearance before at least one meeting of the KKK, pro-lifers also conclude an element of racism resides in the DNA of the abortion giant.



In 2012 Protecting Black Life, connected to the Cincinnati-based Life Issues Institute, looked at the location of 165 Planned Parenthood surgical abortion facilities and found 79 percent are within walking distance of either black and Latino neighborhoods. The report analyzed 2010 “census tract” data, which are subdivisions of census data that can demonstrate homogeneous populations.

Daily Devotional

God’s Plan for Martyrs

They were each given a white robe and told to rest a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. (Revelation 6:11)

John Piper

For almost three hundred years, Christianity grew in soil that was wet with the blood of the martyrs.
Until the Emperor Trajan (about AD 98), persecution was permitted but not legal. From Trajan to Decius (about AD 250), persecution was legal, but mainly local. From Decius, who hated the Christians and feared their impact on his reforms, until the first edict of toleration in 311, the persecution was not only legal but widespread and general.

One writer described the situation in this third period:

Horror spread everywhere through the congregations; and the number of lapsi [the ones who renounced their faith when threatened]… was enormous. There was no lack, however, of such as remained firm, and suffered martyrdom rather than yielding; and, as the persecution grew wider and more intense, the enthusiasm of the Christians and their power of resistance grew stronger and stronger.

So, for three hundred years, to be a Christian was an act of immense risk to your life and possessions and family. It was a test of what you loved more. And at the extremity of that test was martyrdom.

And above that martyrdom was a sovereign God who said there is an appointed number.

Fire Swamps and Rodents of Unusual Size

Crime and Punishment--NZ Style

New Zealand has lost any meaningful framework in which to discuss how criminals should be appropriately sentenced.  In fact, we now live and move in such a confused contradictory morass that some sections of society will criticize any and every judicial sentence.  The respective criticisms will come from widely divergent philosophical and religious bases, so that whatever the circumstances, whatever the offending, sentencing will be controversial.  It will never satisfy the community as a whole. 

Here is a short list of some of the polar opposite positions on the punishment of crime.

There are those who believe that all human begins are born intrinsically good.  Any evil they commit is a result of external factors, such as their family circumstances.  Therefore, all criminals are ultimately victims of society.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Just Terrifgggkkkk . . .

By Douglas Wilson

Blog&Mablog

When it comes to our interactions with unbelievers, we have two scriptural requirements we have to keep in mind. We have to do both of these things at the same time, which presents a monumental challenge to the tidy-minded. The question is this — do we share table companionship with unbelievers and sinners? This question is an urgent one because of the current full court press coming from the totalitolerance brigade. And the answer of course is that we certainly may, and we must not.

And behold, Levi threw a bash . . .

It is comparable to those two verses in Proverbs that are side by side:

“Answer not a fool according to his folly, Lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, Lest he be wise in his own conceit” (Prov. 26:4–5).

Do not get down on a fool’s level because you don’t want to become a fool yourself. Make sure you answer a fool at that level lest he walk away thinking he won the exchange. But when do you do which? You measure by the result.