The Fall of the Missouri Synod from its Golden Age

 

 

The Fall of the Missouri Synod from its Golden Age

 

Part 1

 

The occurrence of golden ages in the church, especially in regard to falls from these ages.

 

“After my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.  Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.  Therefore, watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears” (Acts 20:29-31).

In Romans 16:17-18 the apostle Paul also had written about false prophets rising in the churches, commanding:  “I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned; and avoid them; for those who are such, do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple.”  Just as Peter (2nd Peter 2:10-19) and others, such as Jude (verses 4-19) and John (1st John 2:18-19; 4:1; 2nd John 10) also warned the churches of them.

Yet here in Acts, the apostle obviously had been given by the Holy Spirit a prophecy which was limited to Paul’s description of it, one specifically concerning the Ephesian congregation, about current members, perhaps even pastors, who, to be sure, currently were observing the originally-preached gospel and the other biblical doctrines which the apostle had taught them, but, at some season in the future, would speak “perverse things to draw away the disciples after themselves.”

In addition to this, it was prophesied that men from the outside would join the congregation.  Once inside it, they would not spare the flock from devils’ doctrines.

Thus the apostle warned this congregation of something that definitely would take place.  However, the Holy Spirit did not say when this would happen, nor give the names of the people which would be promoting this.

Indeed, this would be God’s test of this congregation by which it could and should stand up for the truth, and remain faithful to him and to his Word (Deuteronomy 13:3); in order that “the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:35) as to whether they have the intent to be faithful to God’s Word or not; and in order “that those who are approved may be recognized among you” (1st Corinthians 11:19), that is to say, so that those who faithfully pass their test may be evident to the rest of the congregation.  To be sure, a God-sent test, like any gospel reformation, will result in a winnowing process of the faithful from the unfaithful church members.  This will be the Lord’s intent.

Hence if the Ephesian congregation would follow Romans 16:17-18, all will be well, as God intended. If it would not follow Romans 16:17-18 faithfully, it would become unorthodox and a biblically-erring body, and ever would sink lower in this regard.

In Revelation 2:2-3 we are told of the response of the Ephesians and the result of their testing.  It was positive.  Just the same, the Almighty scolds the congregation for leaving its biblical first love (Verse 4), and demands with a severe threat that it repent (verse 5). This is directed, in addition, to the head pastor (“angel” = “human messenger,” verse 1), who, according to some religious writers, probably was Timothy.[1]

Thus we see from Acts 20 that after any golden age in the church (Matthew 13:31-32), usually by the third generation, false prophets will arise.  Congregations with “itching ears” (2nd Timothy 4:3) will follow them, and a fall from that gospel golden age will occur.  Indeed, this has been the template throughout history, not according to God’s will, but because church members have become bored with the gospel.  Scripture describes them as people who have “turned their ears away from the truth” (2nd Timothy 4:4).  This decline, this falling away from the gospel, has been common in all golden ages.  It is a tragic and sorry pattern.  To be sure, it is damnable.  It is due to men who are unappreciative of the gospel.  How this repeated behavior of gospel rejection must greatly sadden our gracious God who “would have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1st Timothy 2:4).

For example, almost the entire, Old Testament book of Judges is a history of the twelve tribes repeatedly falling away from one golden age of gospel belief after another.  Later, another golden age began under Samuel and continued under “the sons of the prophets” in which more and more unbelievers were regenerated and acquired a saving faith in the gospel promise, after hearing law and gospel preaching.  This golden age rose throughout David’s reign into Solomon’s, when a decline set in; that is, when more and more believers listened to false prophets and believed in false doctrines, until finally spiritual darkness covered the land, for the people generally became unregenerated, and only a tiny flock of true believers remained.  This has been the common pattern throughout human history.

Look at New Testament history also!  John the Baptist, followed by our Lord and his apostles introduced a gospel golden age.  After that came papal darkness for centuries.  Then God raised up Luther (Revelation 14:8) for a gospel golden age known as the Reformation.

After that the gospel jumped the ocean, and it became America’s turn.  God blessed America with one.  With the Missouri Synod as the flagship body of believers, beginning in late 1840’s, peaking in 1950, and declining ever since.  Indeed, the beginning of efforts to erode this golden age in the Missouri Synod began around 1930 in New York City, gaining momentum ever after with two, bell weather signs of it in 1950:  the adoption of the Common Confession by that synod, and the death of the famous, radio preacher Walter Maier of that synod.

Furthermore, realize also that the golden ages of gospel belief fall into two categories:  the few prolonged, and the numerous short-lived ones.  Examples of the second sort are the various golden ages of the twelve tribes in the book of Judges, the one begun under Samuel, and the subsequent ones begun in Judea before the Babylonian Captivity by various, reformer kings.  These ages of gospel belief rose in the first generation, peaked in the third, and then began their decline.

Instances of the prolonged ones will be the international, golden ages under Paul and Luther which involved more than one nation. For example, under Paul the Christian church expanded across many boundaries (Romans 15:19) for centuries until the “falling away” (2nd Thessalonians 2:3) began with the descent into papal Roman Catholicism.

Almost contemporary with the spread of the gospel were waves of various false doctrines that rolled over the church, caused by false prophets.   Moreover, God did not let a rejection of his gospel go unpunished.  Judea in 70 A.D., and in the years before, was punished with a devastating war for rejecting Christ and his gospel.  Likewise North Africa and Asia were punished with war by Islam for becoming worldly and falling away from the gospel.

Under Luther the gospel spread internationally across northern Europe and Scandinavia in just a matter of years.  Nevertheless, Zwinglism, Calvinism, and other heretical “isms” quickly followed Luther.  Likewise, God sent a punishing war on the German lands after they had received the Reformation lukewarmly, or had rejected it.  The devastating Thirty Years War occurred about one hundred years after the Reformation was introduced.  Just the same, there were biblical, faithful Lutheran churches in Bach’s day even into the 1900’s, though in ever dwindling numbers.

Looking back through church history, a biblical student in the 1800 and 1900’s could and should have declared with divine confidence, and convinced his audience with the same divine certainty based on the historical pattern regarding gospel golden ages, that “in the third generation the Missouri Synod will begin to fall from its golden age through the efforts of false prophets rising up from its own midst.”

What is more, looking forward into the future, it could and should be said of any future, gospel golden age which God would start in any nation of his choosing:  “In the third generation of this golden age, this nation will begin to decline from its golden age through the efforts of false prophets rising up from its own midst.”  Yet at that time would anybody be knowledgeable of this to teach it publicly?

According to the statistics which I have from around 1890 in America, the number of citizens which were listed as members of a Christian church, including the Roman Catholic, never reached 50% of the total American population.  This number then should be adjusted because not all church members had been regenerated (see Matthew 13:24-30).  Nevertheless, their moral lives, and the fact that a similar percentage were in positions of power in politics and society, exerted incidentally a great amount of peer pressure on their unbelieving neighbors who regarded Christian morality as the norm of society, and became conscience-bound to observe the same.  This was evident in my youth.  Just the same, all along the movie companies, and the publishers of immoral books and trash magazines were competing agressively to lower the bar of morality in America by increment, to make as much money as possible by appealing to the filth of the flesh as far as they dare without provoking a Christian public outcry.

Again, in Acts 20 the Ephesian congregation had been warned exceptionally against falling away from the faith by the efforts of false prophets.  According to the report in Revelation 2, they stayed faithful and alert, and were successful.  Would anybody in the future be alert to the knowledge of these falls from golden ages, and would act to prevent these falls from happening to the best of his ability?

Conclusion:  In the future, then, Christians could and should recognize when they would be in a golden age.  They also could and should realize that it will last only through three generations before it declines, less than one hundred years.  There will be a rise, a peak, and then a decline.  That is, in a country more and more people will become regenerated through law and gospel preaching which the Spirit of God will send, until the number of them in the third generation will reach its peak.  Then some of the church members will become bored with the gospel.  False prophets will arise, and will teach seductive false teachings.  After this more of the third generation and later ones will lose their regeneration so that they will be Christian in name only. As a result, formalism and legalism will be substituted for a genuine sanctified life.  These churches will turn into mere clubs, which would have to maintain some kind of spiritual identity and slogan to keep up appearances.  Yet they will employ various schemes, fads, and gimmicks which appeal to the sinful flesh of their club members to retain them, and especially, to retain their monetary donations.  They will not resort to biblical law and gospel preaching.  In spite of these efforts, membership in these churches will continue to decline, because their members will conclude that it will be pointless to attend any longer, and to pay out money for no appreciable benefit.

 

 

Part 2:

 

What would be some typical occurrences in a fall from a golden age?

 

Examine what happened to the Missouri Synod!

Realize that God knew that the Missouri Synod would go down the same sorry path which other bodies of believers in the past golden ages took!  That is, it would not maintain the golden age indefinitely as it could and should, but their members and their descendants would give up on the gospel, and perk up their “itching ears” for false doctrines, eventually losing their regeneration in the process, and return to the mire and darkened state of unbelief.

To be sure, some leading men in the synod, such as editors, professors, and the President of the synod, whose observations could get published publicly, noticed a sad transition going on, and, more importantly, courageously spoke out about it in their synodical publications.

For instance, while the president of the synod in 1930, Friedrich Pfotenhauer, referred neither to a golden age, nor to a predictable fall from it, he did quote Luther’s description of this phenomenon in a synodical sermon of his, saying:  “God’s Word and grace is a passing rain shower which does not return where it once was.”[2]

This is how Luther put it:  “Let us remember our former misery, and the darkness in which we dwelt.  Germany, I am sure, has never before heard so much of God’s Word as it is hearing today; certainly we read nothing of it in history.  If we let it just slip by without thanks and honor, I fear we shall suffer a still more dreadful darkness and plague.  O my beloved Germans, buy while the market is at your door; gather in the harvest while there is sunshine and fair weather; make use of God’s grace and Word while it is there!  For you should know that God’s Word and grace is like a passing shower of rain which does not return where it has once been.  It has been with the Jews, but when it’s gone, it’s gone, and now they have nothing.  Paul brought it to the Greeks; but again when it’s gone, it’s gone, and now they have the Turk.  Rome and Latins also had it; but when it’s gone, it’s gone, and now they have the pope.  And you Germans need not think that you will have it forever, for ingratitude and contempt will not make it stay.  Therefore, seize it and hold it fast, whoever can; for lazy hands are bound to have a lean year.”[3]

Pfotenhauer then explained:  “Faithlessness, unthankfulness, and disdain are always the cause when God’s Word and grace is a passing rain shower which does not return to where it once was.  Unthankfulness and disdain are the winds behind the clouds of divine grace.  The winds disturb these clouds, set them in motion, and they up and flee away.  Faithlessness and disdain are the reason God’s Word and grace do not return.  Faithlessness and disdain, after they had driven away the grace of God, now breathe their hot breath against the diligence that had engendered the Word of God.  That destroyed, the field once green and blooming now becomes deserted and desolate….

“Hear the warning that our text directs to us:  ‘Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.  But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ”today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.  For we share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end’…. (Hebrews 3:12-15).

“If we are honest about it, there are indications that in church matters we have all sorts of unrest and problems.  These are warnings that the weather will change and change suddenly.  Behind the clouds of grace, unthankfulness and disdain are beginning to blow.  Oh, let us then earnestly tremble, heartily repent, and admonish one another; so as long as it is day, God’s Word and grace shall not become for us a passing rain shower which does not return.  Let us buy, because the market is gathered at the gate of the city.  The sun is shining and the weather is good.  Let us make use of God grace and Word because we have them!  Let us grab hold of them and keep them!”[4]

Six years after this in 1936, in an address to a conference, which address was printed in the Concordia Theological Monthly, Pfotenhauer pointed out:  “In the circles of our Synod there is the complaint that spiritual life among us is in regression.  This complaint is justified.   Church history teaches that the generations that have inherited the benefits from previous generation don’t treasure them as highly as their fathers, who fought and worked for them.

“That spiritual life among us has declined is evident from many and various observations.  The main Sunday Divine Service is carried out in a shoddy fashion, and as a consequence, the Christian training of the Church in the family is neglected.  Once-flourishing parish schools are shrinking, in many cases without due cause.  Many are satisfied with Sunday School and inadequate confirmation instruction instead of making every possible effort to have Christian schools.  Attendance at the Divine Service is of secondary importance for many, particularly in the summer months when the automobile allows the whole family to go places other than church.  The ways of the world are ever more prevalent among us.  The difference between the way we live and that of the children of this world is ever decreasing.”[5]

In 1930 Franz Pieper, a professor of doctrine at the Saint Louis seminary of the Missouri Synod (who died in 1931), had this indictment about the “fever for unification” at that time: “The reverent fear of God’s Word means that we in God’s Church acknowledge nothing as having the authority of establishing doctrine alongside of the Word of God.  In our time, a ‘fever for unification’ is rife in the Church.  It is a spirit that cultivates the idea that various theological directions enjoy the same right in the Church.  It is a spirit of unification without unity in the doctrine of the Word of God.  This does not accord with the reverent fear of God’s Word.  God’s Word claims sole rule in the Church of God.  God gave His word to His Church to that end.  The Church shall only speak from God’s mouth.  God’s Word shall be the only source and norm of churchly doctrine….

“We so-called Missourians and our confessional partners have hitherto by God’s grace adhered to the correct manner of proceeding with respect to churchly unification.  We have been ready advocates for the so-called ‘free conferences’, that is, for doctrinal discussions toward the establishment of doctrinal unity; where it is not present.  But we have only established brotherly fellowship in the faith with those who confess… the unfalsified doctrine of Christ….”

“This effort at false unity will win the victory and force its way in at our front, on our flanks, and in the very center… if we, through our own fault, let go of the reverent fear of God’s Word.”[6] Inexcusably, this is what happened officially twenty years later with the adoption of the Common Confession in 1950, and informally all along during those intervening years by a number of clergy.

For instance, “The goal of altar and pulpit fellowship with the American Lutheran Church was almost attained at the 1938 synod which met in St. Louis. The floor committee on inter-synodical and doctrinal matters (whose chairman was Dr. Walter A. Maier) recommended to the synod that it accept the report of the standing committee on church union that it had reached doctrinal agreement with the ALC.”[7]

The conclusion of this committee was a lie.  In fact, there was not a good faith “unity in the doctrine of the Word of God,” as Pieper put it.  This doctrinal agreement with the American Lutheran Church was a “false unity,” as Pieper defined it; an unbiblical unity.  It was a specious, doctrinal agreement.  To be sure, those members of the committee who publicly gave the impression to the 1938 synodical convention that it was a biblical, doctrinal agreement were guilty of perfidy, and publicly should have been removed from membership in the Synod on the spot.

John T. Mueller, another professor at the Saint Louis seminary, made these observations likewise in 1930, which were published in the Missouri Synod’s theological journal:  “The ‘little leaven’ is today our worst enemy… It is well for us honestly to face this fact….

“We have every reason to heed Paul’s warning and to beware of the little leaven which now endangers our Church…. In true penitence and humility let us first ‘sweep before our own doors’….

“There is the leaven of externalism, which honors God with the mouth, but leaves the heart far removed from His gracious communion.  There is the leaven of satiety, which is nauseated at the wholesome manna of pure doctrine. There is the leaven of spiritual pride, which boasts of our state of Christian perfection and often shows itself in weariness and disgust at what our fathers treasured so highly.  There is the leaven of spiritual security, which smiles at the thought that we must take heed lest we fall.”[8]

There also was a spiritual decline in the clergy of the Missouri Synod, especially among the younger men, that was noticeable by the rest.  This fact became more known generally and unexpectedly in another article in the Missouri Synod’s theological journal after a questionnaire was submitted in one of its journals for a response.  E. J. Friedrich remarks under the heading:  “The Alarming Symptoms, Regarded by Some as Evidence of a Decline,” “Among the eighty brethren who replied to the questionnaire submitted in the last issue of this journal sixty-five went on record as being deeply concerned about the preaching that is being done in our Synod at the present time.  They claim to have observed certain definite symptoms which must be regarded either as positive evidences of decline or as a handwriting on the wall warning us that a decline is bound to come unless we give more attention to the preparation and the delivery of our sermons.  The following paragraphs present a number of the most interesting statements received on this point….

“A younger brother, who has much opportunity to hear others preach, says: –

“‘I have not heard a doctrinal sermon from our younger men in ten years.  Recently I heard two sermons of a series of four on “The Last Things.”  There was not a word of the doctrine.  The sermons were excellent moralizing’….

“Corroborating these expressions is the report of one of our District Presidents.  He writes:-

“‘[At two pastoral conferences] To a man the older pastors deplored the decline of expository and doctrinal preaching.  Emotional and inspirational preaching is usurping a place in our midst to which it is not entitled’….

[Another correspondent noted:]  “’Much of our preaching is cold, lifeless, merely repetition of formula, without the life that should characterize a sermon dipped out of one’s own heart.  If doctrine means nothing to the preacher, how can it mean anything to the hearer?’.”[9]

Hence if the average congregational member of the Missouri Synod would have kept himself well-informed of the current, spiritual events, for example, by subscribing to the Concordia Theological Monthly, he could and should have realized that there was an alarming, spiritual decline in motion at that time.

Just the same, the above, joyless assessments by these first-hand witnesses also demonstrate that the fields were ripe for harvest by false prophets.

In other words, “At whatever time we find people who have such feelings, as the Jews at the time of Isaiah, who say openly, Isa. 30:10:  ‘Don’t prophesy those things to us that are right; but speak to us things that please us.  Look at our errors for us’.  Teachers very often give a place to this demand of the people.  They are, as we read in Eze. 13:18, ‘sewing pillows under every armhole, and are making kerchiefs under the head of every stature to capture souls’;[10] that is, they are omitting the reproofs of sins; they are omitting the scoldings, exhortations, and threats of divine judgment and are saying only the things that the very wicked and those who are ignorant of repentance can approve.  This Christ is here calling ‘hiding the candle under the bed’….

“We read about a lighted candle… in Mat. 5:15…. Although these people may have the candles of the Word; yet, because they cover it in the aforementioned way [they put the Word of God under a basket], they themselves see nothing solid, nor can they instruct others.  Second, we must be careful not to place the candle under the bed.  Those place the Word of God under the bed who either surrender themselves to the pursuit of pleasures and the lusts for sinning, whence it happens that the light of the Word can benefit no one and they themselves fall into the peril of eternal burning, or elicit from the Word of God only those things which are mild and which flatter people so that they obligate to themselves those who are total strangers to a true zeal for Christianity.”[11]

Indeed, the writings of the Old Testament prophets are filled with the Almighty’s indictments of the twelve tribes who once believed the saving gospel, but then became cold toward it.  This is why God inspired them to write.  See also God’s New Testament indictments in Revelation chapters 2 and 3!

Regarding the false prophets in the Missouri Synod, what activities were they engaged in around this time?  Briefly it was this.

“An insight into the origins and motives of this church-political manipulation of the Synod was given by another ‘insider’, a prominent St. Louis seminary scholar (now at ‘seminex’), who stated in a graduate class in July 1968… that the ‘progressive’ movement got started in a smoke-filled pastor’s office in New York City in 1930, when three LCMS pastors… decided, after synod had turned down the Chicago Theses and had authorized the drafting of the Brief Statement, that they would start a movement to ‘change Synod’.  Their goals were to prepare the LCMS for outreach into America by use of English (vs. German), and by moving Synod toward a more open doctrinal stance.  To attain these goals they urged the election of conservative leaders (e.g., Behnken) who would listen to their suggestions of names for seminary presidents, professors… and other officials….  [The professor] said he joined that growing underground movement in 1940.”[12]  – Endnote 273:  “Letter to author from Pastor Ray Mueller, S. T. M., of St. Louis, September 2, 1976.”[13]

Furthermore, “Already in 1934, Dr. Lawrence Meyer initiated a series of closed meetings designed to ‘formulate plans for the future of the Missouri Synod’.  Dr. Ludwig Fuerbringer, who attended the first of these meetings, commented later to Dr. T. Engelder, ‘I have never sat in such an un-Lutheran meeting’.  In later years it was revealed (and the evidence is now documented) that one of their goals was to elect a new synodical president at the 1935 convention of Synod.  Such electioneering had never taken place before in the history of Synod!  Their plan succeeded, and in 1935 Dr. John Behnken was elected president of the Missouri Synod, succeeding Dr. F. Pfotenhauer.

“In the 1940’s, charges were raised against doctrinal error in the pages of The Lutheran Witness.  Early in 1945, Dr. Louis J. Sieck, president of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, boldly participated in a joint worship service with non-Lutheran clergymen.

“This was clearly an open act of rebellion against Synod’s Scriptural demand for ‘full unity of doctrine prior to fellowship’ based on Romans 16:17, 18.  At a meeting of the Chicago Study Club with synodical President Behnken present, this unionistic action was discussed.  Dr. Behnken said, ‘We don’t want to have a heresy trial in the Missouri Synod’.  At a subsequent meeting, with the president of Synod again attending, Behnken said, ‘I do not propose to preside at the dissolution of Synod’.

“The situation was truly volcanic and the eruption came in September, 1945, when 42 pastors and two professors from our seminary in St. Louis released for dissemination throughout the synod, the infamous ‘Chicago Statement of the 44’, and its accompanying documents.  For the first time in the history of the Missouri Synod, these men were demanding ‘fellowship without full unity of doctrine’ and declaring that ‘exegesis’ is the basis of all sound doctrine instead of THE SIMPLE CLEAR STATEMENTS OF THE BIBLE1

“The schism within Synod could no longer be swept under the rug.  As a child growing up in Long Island, NY, I can still remember hearing one statement over and over again; namely, ‘There is nothing wrong with the Missouri Synod that a dozen funerals won’t cure’….

“Under intense pressure to discipline the ‘44’ who were introducing doctrinal error into Synod, Dr. Behnken appointed a President’s Committee of Ten to deal with the committee of the Statementarians and uphold the Scriptural stance of the Missouri Synod.  Harold Romoser was appointed chairman of the President’s Committee….

“During the course of several meetings, Dr. Behnken admitted that his committee had ‘backed the Statementarians to the wall’ and that elements of ‘THE STATEMENT OF THE 44’ were ‘potentially divisive of fellowship’.  Yet, tragically, he refused to discipline the Statementarians…. At the close of Behnken’s final meeting with his committee, Harold Romoser told Dr. Behnken, ‘you have sprung the escape hatch for the Statementarians and served notice that error may be publicly advocated in Synod without correction and discipline.  You have set the stage for the destruction of the Missouri Synod as an orthodox church body’.”[14]

What is more, after President Behnken terminated the meetings of his Committee of Ten in January of 1947, this committee did not receive “the courtesy of an explanation why the Presidency of Synod [the President and the four Vice-Presidents] did not fulfill its December 17th promise to consider issuance of the committee’s report in its January 6 meeting, but found it necessary to intervene in the negotiations and to carry on independent negotiations with the Statementarians’ committee.”[15]

Learn also what kind of intent and motive there would be in the minds of the average false prophet!  First of all, see that Black’s Law Dictionary makes this distinction between intent and motive:  “Motive is what prompts a person to act, or fail to act.  Intent refers only to the state of mind with which the act is done or omitted”![16]

The following, scriptural passages will relate what the all-knowing Almighty knows is in the mind of false prophets, namely, what would be their ungodly intent and motive; their method and its result.  Thus be alert! “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they would be of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world!” (1st John 4:1.)

Indeed, “there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who secretly will bring in destructive heresies…. Many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed…. They will exploit you with deceptive words” (2nd Peter 2:1, 2, & 3).

Moreover, “they are insolent, arrogant…. When they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh…. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption” (2nd Peter 2:10, 18, & 19).

In addition, false prophets will “come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves…. You will know them by their fruits…. Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit” (Matthew 7:15, 16, & 17). Likewise, “certain men have crept in unnoticed…. These speak evil of whatever they do not know…. serving themselves…. These are murmurers, complainers… they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage” (Jude 4, 10, 12, & 16).

What is more, Scripture describes their language as having “enticing words” (Colossians 2:4); “good words and fair speeches” (Romans 16:18); and “a show of wisdom” (Colossians 2:23).

Furthermore, they are “deceivers” (2 John 7), “weeds among the wheat” (Matthew 13:25-40), and “the blind leading the blind into the ditch” (Matthew 15:14).  They appear to be “clouds.”  However, they do not carry any spiritual refreshment to us (Jude 12).  They appear to be late autumn trees.  Yet they do not hold any spiritual fruit to benefit us (Jude 12).

Look below at a fuller definition of the words, intents, and motives which Holy Writ has given above! Likewise, use the following terms in your condemnations of false prophets in your writings!

For example, deceit is “a fraudulent and deceptive misrepresentation… to deceive and trick another, who is ignorant of the true facts, to the prejudice and damage of the party imposed upon.  To constitute ‘deceit’, the statement must be untrue, made with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless and conscious ignorance thereof.”[17]

Duplicity –  “Deliberate deception.”[18]

Fiduciary – “A person holding the character of a trustee, or a character analogous to that of a trustee, in respect to the trust and confidence involved in it and the scrupulous good faith and cander which it requires.  A person having duty, created by his undertaking, to act primarily for another’s benefit in matters connected with such undertaking.”[19]

Breach of duty – “Any violation or omission of a legal or a moral duty.  More particularly, the neglect or failure to fulfill in a just and proper manner the duties of an office…. Every violation by a trustee of a duty… whether willful and fraudulent… is a breach of duty.”[20]

Malfeasance – “The doing of an act which a person ought not to do at all.”[21]

Malice aforethought – “The intentional doing of an unlawful act which was determined upon before it was executed.”[22]

Contempt – “A willful disregard or disobedience of a public authority” [of a creed, for example][23].

Fraud – “’Bad faith’ and ‘fraud’ are synonymous, and also synonyms of dishonesty, infidelity, faithlessness…. As distinguished from negligence, it is always… intentional…. Includes anything calculated to deceive… concealments… suppression of the truth….”[24]

Contract – “An agreement between two or more persons which creates an obligation to do or not to do a particular thing.”[25]  This agreement would be in regard to the vow which a pastor would take at his ordination and also at his installation as a pastor of a congregation to preach faithfully and only what the Bible teaches, and what the Lutheran Book of Concord confesses.

Duty – “That which is due from a person; that which a person owes to another.  An obligation to do a thing.”[26]

Bad faith – “The opposite of good faith…. Refusal to fulfill some duty or some contractual obligation, not prompted by an honest mistake as to one’s… duties, but by some interested or sinister motive…. Is not simply bad judgment or negligence, but rather it implies the conscious doing of a wrong because of dishonest purpose or moral obliquity…. A state of mind affirmatively operating with… ill will.”[27]

Now keep these definitions in mind as you look at a few of the statements made by men who proved to be false prophets in the Missouri Synod!

First of all, hear what the existing creed of the Missouri Synod was in regard to prayer fellowship!  The following was read before the 23rd Convention of the Texas District of the Missouri Synod by Professor Fritz of the Saint Louis seminary.

“May we unite in common prayer with such Lutherans as are not in doctrinal agreement with us at joint meetings held for the purpose of discussing our doctrinal differences?… I fear that those who criticize us do this merely on the supposition that for common worship all that is required is that those who worship together be Christians.  With such wrong premises, of course, wrong conclusions will follow…. Some of these people are doctrinally very indifferent, even have modernistic tendencies; they do not at all desire to stand out for doctrinal purity and are not interested in arriving at a strict doctrinal agreement on the basis of the Scripture.  What we consider real doctrinal differences, they ridicule as hair-splitting differences.  Their desire is for a union at any price, not for real unity of faith.  In what common prayer could we unite with such people?  We would pray for unity of faith on the basis of the verbally inspired Word of God.  They would pray for a mere getting together irrespective of any real doctrinal agreement.  How could we from the outset unite with such uncommon prayer?”[28]

For example, Theodore Graebner, another professor at the Saint Louis seminary, agreed with this creed, for he wrote in his book in 1932:  “It should be clear that wherever an act of worship is involved, Christians must apply those principles which govern all worship.  Whether that worship is the spoken word or any form of outward participation is immaterial….

“This text [Ephesians 5:18-20] plainly says that worship is acceptable when performed through the power of the Spirit to God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ.  It is to be ‘in spirit and in truth’, John 4,24.  To be ‘filled with the Spirit’ means to possess the knowledge of salvation and to accept all that God has taught us regarding His holy and gracious will…. From such and similar texts we are permitted to conclude that participation through song or any form of musical accompaniment in the worship of those who in any point antagonize God’s truth is as great a wrong as mixed worship and prayer.”[29]

Nevertheless, after the dissenting movement got underway to “change synod” by moving it toward a more open doctrinal stance, and had gained more followers, forty-four pastors and professors of this movement signed the Chicago Statement of 6-7 September, 1945, and sent it to the rest of the clergy of the Missouri Synod.  This Statement rejected, among many other things, the creed about prayer fellowship, which the Missouri Synod had held all along, and declared instead:  “We affirm our conviction that any two or more Christians may pray together to the Triune God in the Name of Jesus Christ if the purpose for which they meet and pray is right according to the Word of God.  This obviously includes meetings of groups called for the purpose of discussing doctrinal differences.”[30]  Graebner was one of these forty-four signers.

Of course, this change by Graebner naturally should raise some questions.  For instance, if after he once promised to teach one way at the seminary, but later taught another way, why did he not resign?  Why did he not leave for conscience’ sake and go to a synod that would confess his later stand on prayer fellowship?

A newspaper once addressed this matter.  “The New York Mail and Express in very plain and earnest language calls upon Dr. C. A. Briggs, professor in the Union Theological Seminary, to resign his chair in that institution.  It declares that he does not now teach as he promised when he entered upon his professorship, and has neither moral nor legal right to promulgate his new doctrines in the Seminary.  It says… It is high time that he resigned and left the seminary; and in default thereof, that the trustees turned him out; and, in default thereof, that students should cease to go to that seminary.”[31]

This was, by no means, an isolated incident.  This perfidy has continued on through the decades that followed, and the centuries that preceded, since dishonesty in creed has been, and always will be, a prominent, willful sin of false prophets.

Likewise, “The National Republican, Washington, D. C., has this to say:  ‘The duty of the clergymen who do not believe in the fundamental doctrines of the churches from whose pulpits they preach is plain enough.  There is plenty of room on the outside of any institution, religious or secular, for those whose consciences rebel against accepting its articles of faith.  There is no particular courage involved in self-righteously airing one’s inability to believe in the doctrines of an institution to which one has voluntarily yielded his alleged allegiance.  The courage comes in when the dissenter abandons the advantages which come to him through his professed affiliation and takes his chance in the wide field, where one can believe and teach what he pleases without being guilty of disloyalty to the cause he is supposed to represent’.”[32]

Indeed, no less than Graebner himself earlier condemned this matter of insincerity and dishonesty in clergymen, thus incriminating his own later actions.  ”Three Union Seminary graduates… in the course of their examination for the Presbyterian ministry, were asked whether they recognized the fact that in Matthew and Luke Jesus was distinctly spoken of as ‘born of a Virgin by the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon her’.  They answered, ‘Yes’.  But when they were asked, ‘Do you believe it?’ one of them answered, ‘No,’ – the others, ‘I cannot’, or, ‘I don’t know’.  A member of the examining board has since testified that none of these candidates could sincerely preach that Jesus was ‘conceived by the Holy Ghost’.  Yet they were licensed for the Presbyterian ministry, and are preaching in Presbyterian pulpits to-day….

“Would you entrust your spiritual welfare to a man who begins his game of hoodwink in the first sentence of his sermon?…

“There is to our mind, a cowardly intellectual dishonesty involved by saying ‘the divine Christ’, when all the infidel preacher means is ‘the divinely endowed’….

“’Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves’.”[33]

What would be the significance of comparing this former creed of Graebner with his latter?  In the Old Testament the Lord required the Israelites in their new promised land to memorize a song of divine deliverance.  Why?  He explains.  His purpose for this was to self-incriminate them when in the future they would fall away from their saving gospel faith.  The all-wise Almighty declares:  “It will be, after many evils come upon them that this song will testify against them as a witness; for it will not be forgotten in the mouths of their descendants” (Deuteronomy 31:21).  Thus the Lord saw to it that in the years before (1920’s) and during its infant stage (1930’s), so to speak, of its own falling away from its gospel golden age, the Missouri Synod’s own men would make similar self-indictments.

Now read of additional accounts of insincerity and dishonesty among seminary professors and clergy occurring decades later in the same synod!  Moreover, realize that insincerity and dishonesty are not fruits of the Holy Spirit!  They are evil fruits of the sinful nature.  They are the results of ungregenerate thinking.

“Concerned inquirers were assured by Harms [the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod’s president at that time] ‘that in my frequent conversations with professors who are in question in the areas you mentioned, I have the insistent statements and confession that they promote completely, and wholeheartedly our traditional position on inspiration, inerrancy, and revelation’.

“Two ‘bomb-shell’ pronouncements date back to those early Harms years.  The first was a decision of the Texas District Board of Appeals [of the LCMS], handed down on July 3, 1963:

We believe the defendant supplied and has presented a preponderance of evidence to accentuate a situation in Synod that amounts to liberality [sic] and treason…. We believe there is a situation in Synod similar to that which prevailed to and even during the Reformation period, when the Roman Catholic church excommunicated men such as Luther for being too catholic, while it retained in its fellowship the skeptics and scoffers, since they did not attack nor defy authority…. The defendant presented sufficient evidence to sustain the charges of liberality [sic] and treason in some quarters of Synod….

“Even more pointed was Synodical Vice-President Dr. R. Wiederaenders’ statement to the District presidents and the seminary faculties on December 2, 1963:

Despite repeated efforts we have not dealt honestly with our pastors and people.  We have refused to state our changing theological position in open, honest, forth-right, simple and clear words.  Over and over again we said that nothing was changing when all the while we were aware of changes taking place.  Either we should have informed our pastors and people that changes were taking place and, if possible, convinced them from Scripture that these changes were in full harmony with ‘Thus saith the Lord’! or we should have stopped playing games as we gave assurance that no changes were taking place.  With increasing measure the synodical trumpet has been giving an uncertain sound.”[34]

Hence beware of false prophets in whatever time period you may live!  Their false teachings will drain saving faith from your mind until it would be gone.  Listen to Scripture’s description of their selfish will by which your vital saving faith ever would be torn down!  Do not let this happen!  Fight to keep your saving faith alive!

 

 

[1] Edward Hayes Plumptre, “Timothy,” Dr. William Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, editor H. B. Hackett (New York:  Hurd and Houghton, 1870), volume IV, page 3255A.  This article is reprinted in McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Baker Book House, 1981), volume X, page 416B.

[2] Friedrich Pfotenhauer, “God’s Word and Grace are a Passing Shower,” translator Matthew C. Harrison, At Home in the House of my Fathers (Saint Louis:  Concordia, 2009), page 777f.

[3] Harrison, House, page 777, footnote.

[4] Harrison, House, pages 780-781.

[5] Harrison, House, page 795.

[6] Harrison, House, page 684, 685.

[7] Eugene Brueggemann, “Lutheran Zionism – The Missouri Synod’s Pursuit of Purity,” The Daystar Journal – http://thedaystarjournal.com

[8] J. T. Mueller, “Facing Our Worst Enemy – the Little Leaven,” Concordia Theological Monthly (Saint Louis:  Concordia, January, 1930), Volume 1, Number 1, pages 35, 37.

[9] E. J. Friedrich, “Reflections on the Status of Our Preaching,” Concordia Theological Monthly (Saint Louis:  Concordia, December, 1933), Volume IV, Number 12, pages 917, 919, & 924.

[10] Ezekiel 13:18 (New King James Version):  “Woe to the women who sew magic charms on their sleeves and make veils for the heads of people of every height to hunt souls!”

[11] Martin Chemnitz, Polycarp Leyser, and John Gerhard, The Harmony of the Four Evangelists, translator Richard J. Dinda, Volume One, Book Three, Part Two (Malone, Texas:   The Center for the Study of Lutheran Orthodoxy, 2014), pages 194 & 193.

 

[12] Kurt E. Marquart, Anatomy of an Explosion (Fort Wayne, Indiana:  Concordia Theological Seminary Press, 1977), page 80f.

[13] Marquart, Anatomy, page 163.

[14] William Bischoff, “Harold W. Romoser Fought the Good Fight,” Christian News, March 30, 1998, page 11.

[15] Harold W. Romoser, “A Footnote to History:   RE The Chicago Statement,” The Faithful Word (Spring, 1969), Volume 6, Number 1, page 24.

[16] “Intent,” Black’s Law Dictionary 5th edition (Saint Paul:  West, 1979), page 727B.

[17] “Deceit,” Black’s Law Dictionary, 5th edition (Saint Paul:  West, 1979), page 365B.

[18] “Duplicity,” Black’s, page 452A.

[19] “Fiduciary,” Black’s, page 563B.

[20] “Breach of duty,” Black’s, page171A.

[21] “Malfeasance,” Black’s, page 862A.

[22] “Malice aforethought,” Black’s, page 863A.

[23] “Contempt,” Black’s, page 288B.

[24] “Fraud,” Black’s, page 594B.

[25] “Contract,” Black’s, page 291B.

[26] “Duty,” Black’s, page 453B.

[27] “Bad faith,” Black’s, page 127A.

[28] William H. Bischoff, “Article VII of the Augsburg Confession,” The Faithful Word (February, 1970), Volume 7, Number 1, page 13.

[29] Theodore Graebner, Pastor and People – Letters to a Young Preacher (Saint Louis:  Concordia, 1932), pages 158-160.

[30] William H. Bischoff, “Article VII of the Augsburg Confession,” The Faithful Word (February, 1970), Volume 7, Number 1, page 14.

[31] The Lutheran Witness (November 21, 1890), Volume 9, Number 12, page 96.

[32] John T. Mueller, “The Theological Observer,” Theological Monthly (Saint Louis:  Concordia, 1924), Volume IV, Number 4, page 114.

[33] Theodore Graebner, “Saying One Thing and Meaning Another,” The Lutheran Witness (Saint Louis:  Concordia, January 23, 1917), Volume XXXVI, Number 2, page 16.

[34] Kurt E. Marquart, Anatomy of an Explosion (Fort Wayne, Indiana:  Concordia Theological Seminary Press, 1977), page 91.The Fall of the Missouri Synod from its Golden Age

TO READ IN BOOK FORMAT, OR TO PRINT THIS ARTICLE, CLICK ON THIS LINK –  Blog Replies 2

 

These additional replies are given in order to give you some new ideas, some new evidence, and some new beliefs in regards to reoccurring, moral topics on blog sites.

These comments have been presented as examples which the American Christian could use either to inform the general public, or else to defend biblical teaching and its correct practice.  Notice that these comments intentionally have avoided the taking of any political stand!  They have addressed the introduction of any immoral or unbiblical position.

–  In regards to an announcement of any new, military weapon         .            2

–  In response to a protest of the inclusion of a New Testament               .     3

–  A spiritually fit military    .           .          .           .           .           .                  .   4

–  The moral problem of mass-shootings                        .           .           .             4

–  Regarding a shooting massacre in Las Vegas  .           .           .           .            5

–  Requesting that the public pray for the victims          .           .           .            6

–  How was David able to defeat Goliath?           .           .           .           .             7

–  The President calls for a day of prayer after a hurricane      .           .            8

–  A thorough prayer concerning this hurricane             .           .           .            8

–  A Prayer in a U. S. Presidential Cabinet Meeting       .           .           .           10

–  Governmental punishment        .           .           .           .           .           .            10

–  Draining the political swamp in Washington D.C.      .           .           .          10

–  Our country is a house divided             .           .           .           .           .             11

–  God is in control  .           .           .           .           .           .           .           .             13

–  Wrongfully calling for a political solution to a moral problem     .              14

–  “Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are evil religions.”          .           .           15

–  Recent archaeological finds and the Bible       .           .           .                .      16

–  “Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments.”            .            16

–  Christmas and the ancient Roman celebration of the solstice         .           16

–  Correcting Thomas Paine’s teaching on biblical books        .           .           17

–  “What would be wrong with homosexuality?”          .           .           .             18

–  Abortion would be against human rights        .           .           .           .            19

–  “Abortion no different than Numbers 31:17-18.”    .           .           .               19

–   Womanhood is abused by non-Christians     .           .           .           .            20

–  The immoral media        .           .           .           .           .           .           .              21

–  Black on black crime and killing in the inner cities      .           .           .         21

–  The President’s State of the Union address     .           .           .           .           22

–  What exactly would be going on religiously in America?    .           .             22

–  Who would be the truly wise?   .           .           .           .           .           .             23

–  In regards to a professor who doubts that God is male        .           .            23

–  The Church of Sweden adopts a new handbook         .           .           .           24

–  A church official criticizes publicly a U. S. political policy  .           .            24

–  Seeking cooperation from Rome          .           .           .           .           .            25

–  A movie about Jesus        .           .           .           .           .           .           .           25

–  There would be no aliens from or living on other planets  .           .            26

–  A moral problem requiring a theological solution   .           .           .            26

– Preventing school shootings    .            .            .           .          .            .           27

In regards to an announcement of any new, military weapon.

As a country, we indeed have been blessed with advanced technology.  For example, just think of how far we have advanced in these last, few decades!

Just the same, stop, and ask yourself:  “In the last, few decades, just how far has our nation advanced morally?  Has it gotten any better?”

The answer, frankly, will be no.  It has declined significantly.

For example, while even the lowest animal knows when to stop fighting, our government, consisting of graduates from our finest schools, does not.  It wants to maintain a perpetual campaign of fighting, killing, and bombing in a series of undeclared wars, which are neither in the interest of our national security, nor merely “to honor our commitments to our allies,” but bluntly, for the wanton use of national power to get its own way, and for the profit of the munitions makers, for which the taxpayer gets the bill.

So what good would there be to an advancement in weapon’s technology if that technology would not be used morally?

Indeed, this moral decline of our people, both high and low, needs to be addressed with a theological solution.

* * *

In the Civil War years, Dr. Gatling, the inventor of the gun which bears his name, was afraid to release the secrets of his rifle because of its increased killing power.  Finally, as he wrote to a friend, he permitted the manufacture of his gun since experts assured him that it was horrifying enough to end all wars.  Nevertheless, though the Gatling gun has been replaced since then by far more devastating devices in the race to invent bigger and surer ways of killing more men, wars have not ended.

Indeed, the truth is that in any country where the smartest scientists, the most money, and the largest businesses are devoted to the bombing and blasting of mankind under the theme of preventing war through a strong defense, that country with a large military power will assuredly use it actively.

     In response to the news that a group has protested to the inclusion of a New Testament in a POW/MIA display put on by the U. S. military.

To be sure, years ago – decades ago – when our nation was still a predominantly Christian nation, such concerns as these which have been raised by a minority of non-Christians either were not even attempted by them, or were treated as this admiral has treated them.

However, now that more and more children and grandchildren have turned their backs on the creed of the biblical gospel:  the gift of the forgiveness of sins through the work of Jesus Christ, to where authentic gospel-Christian have become merely a small minority, yet still larger than the Buddhists, Muslims, etc., there is this point:  “Why even display this Bible at all if the vast majority of Americans ignore it?”

The correct reply to this question is the one which I hope motivated the military makers to include the Bible in these POW/MIA displays, namely, that it is a fact, regardless of how many Americans are willing to accept it, that the words of the Bible have God’s pledged power in them to exert divine strength upon the hearts of its readers to support and to strengthen them throughout their ordeals, as God intended them to do.

For instance, when the Japanese began to blast Corregidor, their bombs soon struck a chapel built there by Philippine Christians.  Everything in it was destroyed except a large, old-fashioned, pulpit Bible, which escaped burning.  Later, a lonely American soldier, examining the ruins of the little church, discovered the unscathed copy of Scripture on the charred reading desk.  He took the heavy volume into the Malinta Tunnel, the underground hospital ward for Corregidor’s wounded defenders.  Later, when our half-starved, outnumbered forces there had to surrender, each survivor transferred to a prison camp was permitted to carry only one blanket.  Instead of his blanket, the soldier took the Book, wrapped in canvas.

After a long journey on nauseating prison ships, on long marches, and on overcrowded boxcars where he almost died of thirst and suffocation, he was settled at last in the horror camp at Cabanatuan.  A church was organized within the barbed wire, but no pulpit Bible could be found.  Then the young soldier had the joy of bringing the Bible, for which he had sacrificed so much, into that crude, war prison house of God.  The “American Bible Society Record” related, “Weeks, months, years, passed slowly by; here the Book… bore constant testimony to the presence of One who cared.  Hundreds upon hundreds of half-starved men ravaged by beriberi, malaria, and dysentery raised their haggard faces to the Book, while Sunday after Sunday they listened as the chaplains explained its messages of cheer and hope…. During this period 1,500 prisoners were baptized.”

That is why the Bible could and should be put on display at a POW/MIA exhibit.

The Marine Corps is quietly rolling out a new initiative aimed at building Marines who are fit spiritually as well as physically.

In coming months, discussions about spiritual fitness and making moral choices will be part of the curriculum at the Corps’ Officer Candidates School in Quantico, Virginia, and at corporals’ and sergeants’ courses around the service.

Gentlemen:

Since this initiative will not be based purely and solely on God’s biblical commands and promises, it will fail utterly; for it simply will amount to delusional, wishful thinking, mumbo jumbo, and superstition.

Why?  It is simple.  There is no biblical command or assurance from God that valid “personal values” or actual “spiritual fitness” could exist without God’s biblical direction, means, or divine assistance.

Rather the divine Savior of the whole human race has pointed out, “As the branch could not bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither could you, unless you would abide in me” (John 15:4), noting that, “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matthew 15:19), since all men by nature have “an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God” which is “hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:12 & 13).

Just the same, he notes, “I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5), and pledges,  “A new heart will I give you” (Ezekiel 36:26).

This is the instruction which these Marine chaplains should be teaching.

The moral problem of mass-shootings

The problem of mass-shootings is an immoral problem requiring a moral solution.  That is to say, to stop mass-shootings, there has to be a moral change in the hearts of our citizens so that none of them would want to commit such an atrocious act.

To be sure, the government has a duty to protect its citizens from the immoral acts of others.  Yet its biblically-appointed duty is not to offer moral solutions.  That is the job of biblical churches.

Thus gun control will not be an adequate solution, for immoral people simply will resort to other methods:  pipe bomb attacks, gas attacks, etc.  Moreover, our law enforcement could not be everywhere, nor would it do to lock everybody up.

Realize that back before the mid-1960’s, our country did not have this problem of mass-shootings; nor did we have metal detectors anywhere, safety caps on ketchup bottles, nor people sticking pins in Halloween candy!  Why?  As John Adams once put it, it was because we were still “a moral and religious people,” living in a golden age of Christianity that, sadly, had begun its fall by church members leaving to pursue worldliness and immorality.  Before then, moral people simply did not even think of doing such evil things.  In addition, as it happened to Solomon’s nation, God also saw to it that our land had civil rest.

Thus the advocation of gun control will not be an adequate solution, but a band aid solution, for immoral people simply will resort to other means, pipe bomb attacks, gas attacks, etc.

If gun control advocates truly were serious and wise, they could and should call for the only adequate solution to dangerous, immoral behavior:  to rechristianize our nation.

Simple problem, simple solution.

Yet how many people would see this, and then would have the will to do it?

God teaches in his Bible that times of calamity should be times of repentance for the people.  God sends calamity upon a people for their gospel unbelief and its accompanying sins.  “Hear, O earth!  Behold, I certainly will bring calamity on this people… because they have not paid attention to my words” (Jeremiah 6:19).  How would things stand in our country with respect to the preaching, the reading, and the reception of the authentic, biblical gospel?  The vast majority will have nothing to do with it.  Imagine that:  God’s merciful gift to mankind to save their souls from eternal ruin and punishment, and they reject it!

Indeed, “You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction.  They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to return” (Jeremiah 5:3).

Regarding the shooting massacre in Las Vegas on 10/2/2017

After something like this massacre would occur, it only would be natural for Americans to ask Gideon’s question, “If the Lord would be with us, why then has all of this happened to us?” (Judges 6:13.)

Think about this for a moment!  What should be the answer?  What would you say?

The biblical answer is that the Lord is no longer with us, but against us.  Indeed, the Almighty himself replies, “You have forsaken me and served other gods.  Therefore, I will deliver you no longer.  Go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen!  Let them deliver you in your time of distress!” (Judges 10:13-14.)

To be sure, God not only will leave a godless society to its own self-inflicted misery, but he actively will punish it (“I will punish”, Isaiah 13:11) as well, using any means at his disposal.

Indeed, characteristically the Almighty has used lawless, godless people to punish other lawless, godless people, threatening, “The entire world is guilty before God” (Romans 3:19).  “Unless you would repent, all of you will perish likewise” (Luke 13:3).

Understand that since he is the ruler of the universe, nothing could happen on its own.  He informs us, “I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all of these things” (Isaiah 45:7).

Thus it was God who was behind this recent massacre.  Realize that at any point he could have stopped it; at any time he could have prevented it.  But he did not?  Why?

It is because by not repenting of its sins, and by ignoring his gospel, America has, in spirit, defied God’s graciousness, spit in his face, and stabbed him in the back.

Would you think that the Almighty will sit still for this?

So what would be the smart thing for you to do?  It would be to put yourself on the Lord’s side.  How?  by repenting and believing his gracious gospel! (Mark 1:15.)  Then rely on his protection pledges!  Do it!

Requesting that the public pray for the victims of the Las Vegas shooting massacre.

Ask yourself:  why did the Almighty not stop this massacre?

Would it be because his hands were tied?  For instance, right now would he be pacing back and forth in heaven, shaking his head, being at a loss as to what he could do about the whole matter?  Think about it!

Furthermore, if many Americans would base their thinking on the presumption that the Almighty was powerless to stop this massacre, what good, then, would it do to pray to him now?  Such an act simply would be wishful thinking, indeed, it would be plain superstition to presume that God could fix things now, but that he could not have fixed them in the first place.

Thus the heart of the whole problem is this:  Many who have called for prayers for this massacre have no idea of any sort of promise on which they could base their assurance that praying will do any good.

Moreover, the vast majority of Americans are not even churched.  Why would they even want to pray?

Nevertheless, even if they would make an effort to pray, to whom would they pray?  What is more, how could they be ever sure that they were not “calling the wrong number?”

This again goes to the heart of the problem:  What assurance would they have that their prayers ever would be heard; that they even would be heard by a divine being?  Or has the concept of praying today simply been reduced to a description of wishful thinking and of happy thoughts?

Furthermore, of the minority of Americans that are churched, not all are Christian.  Of those who are, many are Christian in name only; for the vast majority of clergy and congregations today reject that Jesus “is the true God” (1st John 5:20); that he was “declared to be the Son of God with power” by his bodily “resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4).  In the face of such flagrant rejection of his person, and of his saving resurrection, would the Lord Jesus even honor the requests of those who deny him so insultingly?  What would you think?  What does he himself clearly threaten?  Consult Matthew 7:23!

America, if you would want your prayers for victims, or for anyone else to be heard, then get right with God first!  For what are you waiting?  Or what would be your excuse this time around?

How was David able to defeat Goliath?

Even the best baseball pitcher could not throw a strike every time.  No one could be that good.  Yet the size of Goliath’s forehead, that was unguarded by his helmet, was a much smaller area than a strike zone.  Thus it was the Lord that guided that single stone to go, not to the nose or to an ear, for instance, but to the most vulnerable spot on Goliath that was not covered with armor.

Hence see the truth in this:  “Unless the Lord would build the house, they will labor in vain who would build it” (Psalm 127:1)!  Years before David had put himself on the Lord’s side through repentance and gospel faith.  As a result, the Lord was for him, not against him, and blessed him when he carried out his God-appointed duties, even if it would take a miracle.

May you also learn this lesson!

On 9/1/17 President Trump calls for a day of prayer in the aftermath of a Texan hurricane.

For all I know, the President has been the only public official so far who has called for a day of prayer regarding this calamity.  John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States, officially summoned our people to set aside a day to humble themselves before the Almighty.  So did Lincoln, and other Presidents in times of divine punishment.

Furthermore, back then they did it correctly, that is, biblically, for they called for a day both of humiliation and of prayer, not just of prayer, in order to humble themselves under the obvious anger of the offended Deity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who sent Hurricane Harvey as a punishment to get America (consult Luke 13:2-5), not just Texas, to repent of its rejection of the soul-saving gospel of Jesus Christ, and of its sins of unbelief.  Yet have you heard of, or seen any signs of, widespread repentance going on in the aftermath of this storm?  What more would it take to get this land to repent, and to return to its Savior?

This willful stubbornness compels the Lord to complain, “Why should you be stricken again?  You will revolt more and more.  The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints” (Isaiah 1:5).

Remember:  “If God would be for us, who could be against us?” (Romans 8:31.)  Nevertheless, if he would be turned against us, “There is none that could deliver out of your hand” (Job 10:7).

A thorough prayer concerning the Hurricane Harvey devastation published on 9/3/17.

Dear Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the only true God of heaven:

In the past you have shown such mercy and patience with our people.  It has had your Bible in abundance.  You waited patiently, giving them time to repent, to give up their fascination with worldliness and unbelief, to turn away from the false preachers who preach wealth, earthly success, and themselves, and to return to you in true gospel faith.  As the orchard owner in the Bible who waited patiently for his tree to bear fruit (Luke 13:6), so you have waited for our people to bear fruit, that is, to show their repentance and faith of the heart by leading a godly life, urging, “Return to me!” (Malachi 3:7.)  Indeed, year after year you have waited, but nothing has happened.

Then you have tried minor irritations and troubles to get them to give up their worldliness and unbelief.  Still, nothing happened.  After that you tried more pronounced afflictions (Amos 4:6-10; Ezekiel 5:12), at times more frequently; at other times, for a longer duration.  In amazement you wondered how a people could be so stubborn and senseless; why it would prefer the course of misery to possessing your protecting peace for body and soul.

To be sure, after men stubbornly would refuse to repent and to believe, you will remind them that nowhere have you promised that you would remain patient forever.  Instead, you will threaten to punish the unbeliever, not just beginning on Judgment Day, but already in this life.  As the Bible points out, “God is angry with the wicked every day” (Psalm 7:11).  “His soul hates the wicked” (Psalm 11:5).  Therefore, you have promised, “I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity” (Isaiah 13:11).  “All nations that forget God will be turned into hell” (Psalm 9:17).  To be sure, you have kept your threat (1st Kings 8:24). Your recent affliction has caused appalling destruction, in which the anger of God, indeed, was revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (Romans 1:18).  You will not be mocked (Galatians 6:7).  You are righteous in all your holy ways (Psalm 145:17).

Awaken sinners to the realization that as long as they would refuse to humble themselves, you will continue to send even more devastation!  Convict the world of sin, of a lack of righteousness, and of their overhanging judgment (John 16:8), for “the entire world is guilty before God.  No man is righteous before him” (Romans 3:19).

To those who have escaped with their lives, which would include the rest of the country, your warning goes out:  “Unless you would repent, all of you likewise will perish” (Luke 13:3).  To those sufferers who would count themselves as members of some church, but who would lack a true, biblical repentance and gospel faith; who would have fattened themselves on worldliness and will not diet; who would have become addicted to the flesh-pleasing, faith-killing creeds of their church and will not reject them, the same warning goes out:  “Repent!” (Matthew 3:2.)

Just the same, to those sufferers whom you know to be true repenters and gospel believers, this devastation was not meant to be a punishment, but a demonstration of your deep love.

Nevertheless, in their antagonism in the face of the clear words of Scripture, some people would still object:  “How cruel to say that God will punish with death and destruction!  How libelous to call the churches in the area of this recent destruction worldly and unrepentant, faithless and without the fear of God!”  Yet the pages of your Old Testament reveal that many nations have said the same thing, in effect, but were subsequently punished by you with the same death and destruction.  Indeed, just how much more punishment of this area and of the rest of this country will it take before the citizens would finally wake up to the importance of repentance, and pray, “Deliver us from evil”?  Sadly, their punishment is a matter of their own making.

Thus may we humble ourselves, be warned to repent, and believe the gospel at all times!  Amen!

A Prayer in a U. S. Presidential Cabinet Meeting

This prayer is heartening to read.

Just think of it:  a prayer subscribed to by an American administration, with requests made to the true God of heaven –  the biblical Triune God!  May this not be a one-time occurrence!

To be sure, this also was a positive way to pray.  That is, while Mr. Carson in his prayer acknowledged the political opposition, and the very real danger that it poses to wreck our country through a bitter division, still it was his will and commitment that this could be averted.

Now if only the political opposition would pray this same prayer (in good faith), there indeed could be good grounds for hope for our country; for with God all things are possible.

Governmental punishment

Biblically, any government will not be violating the commandment “Love your neighbor!” when it obeys God’s commandment given to government:  “Punish evildoers!  Protect your citizens!”

This is God’s command to all governments, whether heathen or Christian.  Indeed, any government would be remiss in its biblical duties if it would do otherwise.

Those who would advocate that a government should be remiss in its biblical duties, will display a willful blindness not only for the biblical meaning of “Love your neighbor!” but also for the biblical duties for which God has instituted governments.

Draining the political swamp in Washington D.C.

While I understand the meaning of this concept, “Draining the swamp,” this description actually will not offer an effective solution, or rather a control for the problem at hand; for while it refers to getting rid of something undesirable, it still would make no allowance for replacing it with something desirable, would it? Rather a different metaphor would have to be used to describe accurately what would need to be done.

That illustration will be this:  “The muddy stream that fills the swamp would have to be cleansed at its source.   Merely dipping out water from the muddy stream along its banks will not cleanse the stream at all.”

What this means is this:  If you would want a bad person to begin to act in a moral manner, you would have to change his heart – the source of his actions- first of all in order to get him to act morally.

In politics it would have to work this way:  In the first place, someone in authority, such as the President, or a state governor, would have to fire all those in the governmental bureaucracy who were not a “moral and religious people,” as John Adams once described a citizenry, and replace them with a moral and religious people.  Yet there are problems with this.  First of all, it is almost impossible to fire a civil servant.  Secondly, the one in authority would have to hire only moral people, provided that he could identify them, find them, and that they would be interested in being hired.

In regards to our elected officials, the old, Latin maxim still holds true:  “As the people are, so will the government be.”  In other words, if the elected representatives would be bad morally, it will be because the pool of citizens from which they come, and which elects them, also will be bad morally.  Thus the swamp is bad because the stream feeding it is bad since the pool from which it originates is bad.

To be sure, the vast majority of American citizens are unchurched, and not a “moral and religious people.”

Furthermore, of those who are churched, the vast majority of their churches preach nothing but radical politics, social justice, health and wealth, or coexistence creeds, to the conspicuous absence of biblical morality, that is, the Ten Commandments.

Therefore, realize that in order to clean the muddy stream at its source, not merely for political reasons, that is, not merely to make our pool of citizens moral, from which our civil servants and elected officials could originate, but for the infinitely more important purpose of obtaining from the Almighty our deliverance from our guilty, sin-stained past, and a reconciliation with our offended God, we need to rechristianize our nation, beginning with a reformation of our churches, and with mission work among our people!  This is the only biblical way that has God’s promise to bring about a moral change.

See to it!  Pray and act now!

Our country is a house politically and morally divided.

In his “house divided” speech of 1858, Abraham Lincoln used the metaphor of our Lord Jesus (consult Matthew 12:25) to point out the sharp, political division of our country into two camps.  The original metaphor had warned that such a house “will fall.”  Indeed, just two years later the North and the South were killing each other.

Would anyone deny today that our Union likewise has become a “house divided”; that currently there are no efforts being put forth by either side to reconcile; that this disunity, instead, is becoming more bitter and intense, and one day, like a pot coming to a boil, will blow the lid off, and that both sides will start killing each other?

Ladies and gentlemen, we are headed for another civil war, for not only are calming efforts not being promoted, but daily the flames of spite and hatred are being fanned willfully by what people say.

Yet I would ask you:  Would you really want to go to war? Would you really want to see this happen?  Then say something to promote peace instead!

* * *

In his famous “House divided” speech given back in 1858, in which he purposely used that biblical metaphor with which the common man would have been familiar (consult Matthew 12:25), Abraham Lincoln pointed out the sharp, political division of the Union into two camps, which subsequently led to a secession and to civil war.

To be sure, this same observation could and should have been given back in the 1760’s, when the same phenomenon occurred in our land between the Tories and the Whigs, which also led, subsequently, to a secession and to war.

Again today the same phenomenon has occurred:  our Union is no longer united, but bitterly divided, and becoming increasingly so with every passing year.  See it!  Admit it!

In fact, realize that there is no turning back!  America once again is headed for a secession and for civil war.  Indeed, whenever a nation has rejected God’s soul-saving gospel, as America has, the Almighty has kept his threat to punish with devastating war, as he has done already twice before to us through secession and war.

So what should you do to prepare? start to stockpile ammunition?

The only prevention for this is the moral solution:  a change of hearts, which only a genuine Christianity consisting of repentance over sins and a belief in the soul-saving gospel promise could effect, according to God’s biblical pledge.  Yet even this has been rejected by the vast majority.  Just the same, this is what God still wants you to do.

Furthermore, realize that whenever factions would go to war, “War is not a calamity which men can bring upon a land and people without God’s will but at all times a great chastisement of the great angry God himself” (C.F.W. Walther)!

* * *

[“House divided” – a maxim of our Lord that is the opposite of “strength in unity.”  Noah Webster (1828) on “divide” – “to disunite in opinion or interest; to make discordant.”

A house divided could not stand, that is, a household that is not supported by all of its members, but rather is opposed by one or more sub groups, will not achieve its goals but will have them frustrated.  The idea is of a revolution:  of at least two previously united groups now spending their efforts solely on destroying each other, not on accomplishing a constructive task together.]

* * *

As I have noted, our country is divided, bitterly divided, with political passions running high

Moreover, this is coming slowly to a head as it did before the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War.  As then, so also now, it merely will take one provocation over one, political point of contention over which our citizens are arguing, just one spark, so to speak, to set ablaze the dry tinder of political passions for yet a third, internal war.

This provocation will not be the “straw that broke the camel’s back” analogy, which men have used to describe a breakdown in patience with one another.  Rather God has used the “spark that sets a forest ablaze” approach to begin wars.

Thus realize that right now God is in a punishing mode toward our country, and, for that matter, toward the rest of the world!  He threatens in his Bible to become this way whenever a nation willfully would neglect him, his promise of salvation, and his Son, Jesus Christ, the Savior of mankind.  After minor punishments would fail to discourage this neglect, he finally will resort to the sending of an all-out war, using an event as a consequence of and subsequent to some point of contention being argued about passionately, using men to carry out his war on other men.

Would this sound far-fetched?

Gun control, for instance, is an excellent example of a current, point of contention which easily could result in an event which could spark a civil war.

Yet, to avoid the slaughter of a third, internal war in this country, return to God, accept his pledge of sin-pardon, and accept the Savior who accomplished it:  Jesus Christ!  If we would neglect to do this, we must pay a heavy price.

God is in control

This losing, political candidate is to be commended for declaring, especially right after a heavy reversal, “God is always in control.”  This maxim is entirely biblical.

Indeed, realize that the Almighty repeatedly remarks that he sends reversals to his Christians from time to time specifically for their spiritual good, no matter whatever else may be effected!

Remember:  conservative American politics is not your savior;  Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is!  To be sure, even having the soundest, most moral politicians in America never will get anyone into heaven.

Just the same, the Son of God also has pledged, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all of these things [earthly matters] will be added to you,” including good political representatives.

Note this!  Do as he says!

Wrongfully calling for a political solution to a moral problem

In 1857 the Boston scholar, George Ticknor, wrote to an English friend that American politics is “completely inexplicable.”

Indeed, one reason for this is that some Americans at times will turn a purely political matter into a moral issue.  That is to say, they will turn a matter of indifference into a matter of right or wrong. Furthermore, this is not an honest mistake done out of zeal, but is a deliberate deception.  In other words, some will turn this matter into a moral issue because they want to be justified in defending it to the death, and to be able to demonize those who would not agree with them.

So it is with the above article, as it is with many articles that appear on this site.  Yet voting is a political matter, not a moral issue.

Just the same, the reason why this country has gotten into a pronounced, lawless political situation today, not to mention the lawless societal, business, and marital situations, is because America has fallen away from biblical Christianity and the moral transformation of the heart which it brings.  As a result we no longer have a moral or religious people in this land, but a people who make up their own morals.  Moreover, such people will be prone to make bad political decisions, intentionally or unintentionally, not to mention bad societal, business, and marital decisions.

Ask yourself:  From where did the corrupt heads of government come? They came from the pool of citizens.

Thus the citizenry, the pool from which those in government, the military, and the police have come, is itself lawless and unethical.  “As the people are, so will the government be,” the Latin maxim goes [Ut rex, ita, grex].  Yet the above article fails to consider, to mention, or to address this.

For instance, a vagabond could steal a ride on a boxcar, while a college graduate could steal the whole railroad.  What would be the difference, since their intent would be the same?  The difference would be this:  their opportunity and their know-how.  That is all.

No? Notice the “Me first!” attitude among the citizenry! For example, see how many citizens willfully and persistently break the clearly posted speed limit!  Why?  It is because they have no will to be moral.  They think that they are above the law.

All of America has a severe moral problem, not just the notorious citizens in the headlines. In fact, the chief moral problem is America’s willful and stubborn refusal to admit that it has a moral problem.

Thus things are not going to get any better in government until the citizens morally get better.

Just the same, the author of this article urges his political solution:  No longer vote, but secede (which still would have to be done by political voting, however)!

Nevertheless, he is addressing merely a political symptom, not the underlying problem itself:  to change the corrupt heart to become moral.

How could this be done?  There is only one way.

It would be called “mission work.”  That is to say, fearless preachers such as Jonah, Elijah, and John the Baptist will be needed in America to indict this land of its sordid departure from the Lord, and urge it to return to the Lord in repentance of its sins, and of faith in his gospel promise of pardon.  Nothing less will do.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are evil religions, currently Islam is the worst of the three.

God’s holy words in his Bible command men neither to hate nor to murder.  That is a fact.

Just the same, if a doctor would prescribe a prescription, but some of his patients would fail to take it, this will not be the doctor’s fault, will it? but the men who would refuse to out of weakness, out of foolishness,  out of stubbornness, or for selfishness reasons, for instance.

Furthermore, God has commanded nowhere that the once Holy Land must be made accessible, that pilgrimages to it must be made, or that crusades must be undertaken.  Nevertheless, governments have a duty to protect the lives of their citizens.  I will leave it to the past writings of the leaders of the crusades to justify their own political undertakings.

Finally, God’s holy gospel words in his Bible transform the hearts of men to want to promote mercy, justice, and saving-faith in his salvation promises.  In fact, read about all of the moral transformations that actually have taken place, for example, of the South Sea Islanders who renounced cannibalism, or of the African tribes who gave up atrocities, and come to the conclusion yourself that genuine Christianity is indeed a religion of peace when truly gospel-transformed men practice it!

Recent archaeological finds and the Bible

To be sure, archaeology and ancient, historical records as well always have verified and, subsequently, vindicated what the Bible has recorded about earthly events.

Just the same, the best source for being convinced of the Bible’s narrative is the Bible itself, for it has the divine power to overcome your doubts, and to convince you of its truthfulness as you read it.  You have God’s own pledge for this.

Indeed, no other book has this ability.

“Where Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments.”

This remark is so imprecise it is unbiblical and unacceptable.  It sounds as if the writer puts no faith in the source for this knowledge, does it?

Yet the original source for this knowledge is the unbreakable, dependable Word of God.

Therefore, this sentence should read, for instance, “Where God himself states for a fact that he gave Moses the Ten Commandments, hence everyone could and should rely on this fact with absolute, divine certainty.”

Obviously, this writer, like many liberal members today calling themselves “Christian,” rejects the divine inspiration of the Holy Bible; namely, that the Holy Spirit exercised an exceptional influence by which he guided his chosen men to write only what he wanted them to write, in the precise manner and in the very words which he chose to be written.

Hence you could and should rely with divine certainty on whatever the Bible reports, because it is the Holy Spirit himself who is speaking to you.

Do so!

Christmas and the ancient Roman celebration of the solstice

The year of Christ’s birth was first fixed by Dionysius Exiguus, a monk of Scythia, who lived in Rome at the beginning of the 500’s A.D.  Thus all of the years since then have been designated as years A.D., that is, “anno Domini,” the Latin for “the year of the Lord,” such as 2017 A.D.

The observance of Christmas on December 25 was not introduced until 353 A.D.  The chief pastor at Rome, Julius I (336-352), had the imperial archives of Rome searched for the exact date of the birth of Christ.  A subsequent pastor of Rome, Liberius (352-366), then fixed the celebration of Christmas for December 25.

Justin Martyr (died 150 A.D.) writes:  “Christ was born in Bethlehem, as may be gathered from the census records.”  Another writer, Tertullian (155 or 160-220 or 230 A.D.), testifies that in the census of Augustus the Roman archives have provided the most reliable testimony of the birth of the Savior.

Thus it has been a fallacy to contend that Christians had set the date of Christmas for December 25 merely to counteract either the Roman festival of Saturnalia on December 17, or the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti on December 23, in order either to upstage them, or to keep their people from participating in them.  If this were true, they would not have set the date of Christmas for two days later, after both these festivals were over.  Furthermore, why would the Christians have waited until 353 A.D. to counteract these two festivals?  By that time the heathen influence throughout the Roman Empire had been weakened considerably by Christianity.

Therefore, in spirit, join the shepherds who said, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing which has come to pass.”

“Be this as it may, they decided by vote which of the books out of the collection they had made, should be the WORD OF GOD, and which should not. They rejected several; they voted others to be doubtful, such as the books called the Apocrypha; and those books which had a majority of votes, were voted to be the word of God. Had they voted otherwise, all the people since calling themselves Christians had believed otherwise; for the belief of the one comes from the vote of the other.”
– Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

Concerning the quote at the end of this article by Thomas Paine regarding an act of voting by any men on what would be or what would not be the Word of God:

The action of the Council of Trent (1545-1563), in which the Roman Catholic Church declared by a mere decree what books should comprise the Bible, and also anathematized all those people who would refuse to accept all the books contained in the Vulgate as anti-Christian, was a presumptive usurpation of authority.  The Bible has given no such authority to any man or to any group of men.

Rather, the collection of biblical books has been done in this manner:  What we call “the Old Testament” was a collection of sacred writings that were compiled together not by a vote, but simply on account of their obvious divine nature as books which were inspired by the Holy Spirit.  What is known as the “Apocrypha” was never included in this collection because of its obvious non-inspired characteristics.

What we refer to as the “New Testament” writings were compiled in the same way.  Indeed, the church of the new testament was not a new church with a new religion, but a continuation of the one true church.  To this enduring church the same Spirit of God who had spoken through Moses and the prophets graciously granted a continuation of his inspired Word through a period of about five decades.

After this period the early, Christian churches took exacting care to distinguish between the genuine, inspired writings from those simple, pastoral writings of ministers, and from spurious writings which had a religious narrative.

Furthermore, each Christian church claimed the right of satisfying itself in this matter.  By the year A.D. 250, the Christian churches commonly had satisfied themselves as to what comprised the New Testament.

Just the same, today, when an average layman would read an inspired book of the Word of God, the divine, powerful words themselves will impress upon his mind that this book has been divinely written.  Any reading material written by man simply will not do that.

“What would be wrong with homosexuality?”

What would be wrong with homosexuality, regardless of what the state has legislated, or what a part of society believes?  It will be this.

First of all, animals have enough sense not to practice it.  They understand the proper use of their reproductive organs.

Moreover, my edition of Black’s Law Dictionary terms “sodomy” as “a carnal copulation by human beings with each other against nature.”

Indeed, by doing things against nature homosexuals will pay a biological price.  For instance, they will breed the HIV virus as a matter of course, whereas a monogamous husband and wife will not.

Secondly, homosexuals also will pay a moral price.  The definitive dictionary on morality, the Bible, rejects the idea that homosexuals are normal and well-adjusted moral beings, but reading their minds, defines them as having “vile passions,” “a debased mind,” “leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful.”

Since their moral compass is off, they will generate any number of off-course, moral problems for themselves and for others, as any vice will.

Furthermore, the Creator has put into every person a conscience along with his divine, moral law.  Thus a homosexual’s own conscience, like a judge, will convict him of moral wrongdoing.  As a result, he will have to live with the stress of a guilty conscience.

Thirdly, God clearly condemns it.  See above.  This is why he specifically destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah; why he commanded homosexuals to put to death in the ancient, civil code for Israel, and why he threatens to punish such men on Judgment Day.

The personal remedy for this is to confess it before God as a damnable sin, to ask for forgiveness, and to request a divinely-created, new heart which will desire moral activity.

Abortion would be against human rights

A clergyman argues that abortion is “against human rights.”

Rather, political legislation is what determines human rights.

Nevertheless, it should be pointed out to the conscience of this nation that abortion is murder, plain and simple, which the Almighty outlaws in his Fifth Commandment.

Moreover, our nation should be warned publicly that such flagrant murder eventually brings down God’s severe punishment on the whole nation.

“Abortion would be no different than what happened in Numbers 31:17-18.”

It would be good to keep in mind God’s declared will in regards to the men, women, and children of Midian, as well as to the rest of the human race, whose release from eternal punishment has been purchased by Christ’s holy blood.

First of all, God “desires all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth” regarding Christ’s saving blood (1st Timothy 2:4), declaring, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ezekiel 33:11).

Just the same, when nations such as the Midianites in Numbers 31 want no part of the true God of heaven, the Almighty responds with divine punishment which he, the holy Creator, has every right to inflict on whom he will, by whom he will.  He threatens, “I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity” (Isaiah 13:11), whether men, women, or mocking children. Consult 2nd Kings 2:23-24 for the latter!

Indeed, remember that the Fifth Commandment:  “You shall not murder,” was made for humans, not for God; and that the annihilation of specific, idol-worshiping nations by Israel was expressly ordered by God, just as he later used the Babylonians to annihilate the Assyrians!

If you would believe that such annihilation in the Old Testament was unfair, realize that your argument is with the Almighty!

Furthermore, marriage has God’s blessing and encouragement.  Sex slavery does not.

Womanhood is abused by non-Christians

Womanhood has been honored, protected, and restored to its place intended by her Creator only when a society has practiced biblical morality.

It was the introduction of Christianity into Europe by missionaries that brought biblical morality into those lands.  Before this time, the Celts with their Druid superstitions, the Germanic tribes with their heathen worship, even the Romans and Grecians, were disgusting morally. Yet without the elements of biblical morality introduced by Christian missionaries into Western Europe, when the powerful gospel words transformed these heathen into people headed for heaven, Western values not only would be useless and repugnant, but they actually would attack good morals.

For example, the Greek Plato, the study of whom is considered primary in a college course on Western Civilization, taught that like the animals, men should share their wives.  Likewise the Greek Socrates, held up to our college-aged youth as an exalted thinker, preferred to talk with the town prostitute rather than his own wife.  The description of ancient Roman society in the writings of Ovid and Horace is appalling.  The Roman Seneca declared, “All things are full of vices and crimes.  Innocence is not rare.  It no longer exists.”

Yet I would invite you to look more recently to our own age.  Look at pop music, for instance!  In the 1960’s popular musical groups were singing the praises of prostitutes to our young people, glorifying promiscuous sex, exalting the use of hallucinating drugs to the sound of catchy tunes, and even extolling Satanism in the 1970’s, not to mention the gutter filth that has been hailed on the American screen as well as in English literature,

and has been paraded ceaselessly before our eyes by the incessant merchandizers of decadent pop culture who recognize that the easiest way to separate us from our money is to appeal to the lust of our sinful flesh.

Hence women today only will be respected and behaved toward morally when the society in which they live is Christian.

The immoral media

Have you ever wondered why the media is so immoral?

It will be simple.

First of all, there always have been those who would do anything to make a name for themselves; to be prominent in the public eye, gauging first in which direction the winds of power were blowing, and then, following that ideology.

Just the same, these and other sins, such as, to withhold the truth, to damage one’s good name, to sensationalize something minor, to mock, to name call, to be hypocritical, and not ever to apologize, are all sins by those who reject the divine Savior of the Bible and his accompanying salvation pledges which alone could transform anyone into becoming a moral being.

In brief, then, an unbelief in the gospel is at the bottom of their sins.  Change that, and things will get corrected!  In fact, it will be the only way.

Black on black crime and killing in the inner cities

Would there ever be a solution to this tragic state of affairs?  If so, what would it be?

“When the Son of God is received as the Redeemer of the race, He fulfills the promise of His Word, ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee’ [Isaiah 26:3].  Take blood-soaked Africa, for example!  A nightmare of continued murder marked the Fernando Po territory and its filthy, slothful inhabitants whose speech was like the grunt of brute animals.  Then missionaries came with the Savior’s Gospel, and Fernando Po was a changed place, ruled by peace.  War tore South Africa.  A notorious Hottentot called ‘Africaner’ was the terror of the colonists.  Robert Moffat, missionary of Jesus, went straight to this chief of the black battle-land, although warned that Africaner would use Moffat’s skin for a drum and his skull for a drinking cup.  Africaner turned to his Savior, and the hideous wars stopped.  Tribal struggles and slave raids cursed Uganda.  The murder of infants and aged, sudden and ceaseless attacks on its villages made Madagascar a veritable hell on earth.  Witchcraft, killing of twins, and gory conflicts left Calabar a land of weeping and wailing.  But the Son of God came to Uganda, to Madagascar, to Calabar, and with Him came peace” (Walter A. Maier, The Airwaves Proclaim Christ [Saint Louis:  Concordia, 1948], page 19).

The same could and should happen today in America if only true-to-the-Bible missionaries would be sent out, and only if the people would stop rejecting Christ’s soul-saving gospel.

Gentlemen, we need to work and to pray on this matter.

The President’s State of the Union address

In his first, inaugural address Lincoln correctly advised, “Intelligence, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him will adjust all our present difficulty.”

Later on:  “We know that the Lord is always on the side of the right.  But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.”

What exactly would be going on religiously in America?

This country now has joined the long list of nations throughout history that have gone through this terrible cycle:  a rise and fall of a golden age of Christianity. In other words, God will bring his merciful, sin-rescuing pledge to a land, move the inhabitants to believe it, and bless them materially with civil peace and prosperity.  Yet, usually by the third generation, citizens will begin to detest this promise, and reject it.

This is where we are now:  our country has “fallen away” from the gospel.  It has “backslid” and become “unfaithful,” as the Word of God puts it.  Oh, yes, there still are some churches in it with a sense of spirituality about them, but not the kind which the Bible clearly outlines for genuine repentance and saving faith, for they have become more lax in biblical teaching, and have relaxed their practice of the biblical commandments quietly and without fanfare, but intentionally. They have become worldly, and have rolled back biblical morality inch by inch.

Why?  It is because of peer pressure, or, as Scripture puts it:  of being a “men pleaser” (Ephesians 6:6).

How has this gospel-rejection played out in our country?  Just read about all of the dire news on this site alone!  In fact, do you really like living in all of this misery?  Yet this is what life commonly is like in a typical heathen, gospel-void society.

Yet there is no spiritual will on the part of the vast majority of Americans to return to God, to return to being a Christian nation once again. Indeed, there is a marked revulsion to and a studied hatred of the whole idea.

So what could and should Americans do?

It is simple.

Americans must sorrow over their grievous sins, quit them, and flee to Christ’s forgiving blood.   Otherwise, God will carry out his threat to punish us.

Who would be the truly wise?

This topic about one’s intellect is interesting, for today is the day on which the Christian church commemorates the Wise men who came to Bethlehem to adore the Christ child, their Savior from guilt and punishment.

Just the same, they were the exception, for due to pride most of those who have been gifted by God with a high intellect exult their own thinking above the Bible’s.  Indeed, in our own land, how many political leaders and professors making the headlines today refuse to worship the Christ child!

Hence do not mistake intellect for wisdom!

So, then, who would be the truly wise?

They will be those sinners, who in simple confidence, believe the Bible’s promise that the baby in the manger, Jesus Christ, the God-man, would deliver them from their sins’ guilt and punishment, and thus reconcile them to their heavenly Father.

Be truly wise!

In regards to a professor who doubts that God is male

Such an approach, as this professor has taken, breaks the hermeneutical rules which govern all communication between rational beings, including the Bible with its readers.

This is because her approach has been done in bad faith for malicious reasons. That is to say, it has been done to advance a selfish, predetermined agenda. Yet this is nothing new, nor surprising.

Just the same, contrast this with the following testimonies by men who, by reading the Bible in good faith, did not violate the hermeneutical rules.

In fact, these men served American universities in the past, not only as professors, but as presidents, who believed in the masculine, biblically designated Father, Son, and Spirit!

For instance, James Angell, the past president of the University of Michigan confessed: “I believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of man and the Son of God, that he came to earth on a divine mission to enable us to have eternal life.”

Charles Loose, past president of the University of Kentucky: “Jesus, the
Christ, has always been to me… God manifest in the flesh…and ‘the Lamb of God’, who by His atoning sacrifice on the cross takes away ‘the sin of the world’.”

John Coulter, past president of Lake Forest University: “I have always
held Jesus Christ up to my students as the Model-Man and only Savior.”

William Johnson, past president of Tulane University: “My opinion of Jesus Christ is… contained in the Apostolic Creed. I accept Him and trust His Saviorship to the very end. He is to me “the Way, the Truth, and the Life’.”

Cyrus Northrop, the second president of the University of Minnesota: “The Bible is the Guide Book to heaven showing us the way. Christ is the Way. ‘No man cometh unto the Father, but by’ Him.”

Imitate these men! Stand up, and be counted!

          The Church of Sweden has voted to adopt a controversial new handbook which says masculine references to God, such as “He” and “Lord” should be scrapped so as to be more “inclusive”.

A more accurate conclusion than the above quotes will be:  “The Swedish Church has ceased to exist as a genuinely Christian, that is to say, a genuinely biblical organization;” and “this new guidebook throws away the recognition of the only true God as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and, consequently, his way to salvation which only could save sinners’ souls.  Instead, it brings on an imaginary, unsavable worship system which is both anti-biblical and anti-Christian, and damns to hell all those who truly believe such a made-up creed.”

For some time now, having denied clear, fundamental, biblical teachings, which God has laid down in his holy Bible to inform the sinner of that divine salvation which God has given for man to believe in in order to be saved for heaven and delivered from damnation, the Swedish Church, spearheading the “falling away” from the Christian faith for selfish reasons, and followed in step by other Lutheran bodies worldwide just as radical, simply has reduced itself to a spiritual club whose members merely retain the name of “Christian.”

Thus, for example, any baby that would be baptized into the name of a trinitarian god called the “Sister, Brother, and Spirit” will be done so to an imaginary, made-up god.  As a result, no gospel faith could be started up in that infant by the Almighty since he will not recognize such a baptism.  It will be a slap in his face.

A Roman Catholic church official criticizes publicly a U. S. political policy

This is simply another instance in the centuries’ long list of instances in which the Roman Catholic hierarchy has wished to determine a political matter since, according to their creed, but not according to the Bible, they have the supreme right to do so everywhere.

In this case:  what is good policy for the Roman Catholic church is good policy for the U. S.  It is as simple as that.

Seeking cooperation from Rome

These representatives of these denominations may be seeking cooperation from Rome, but they are naïve, and ignorant of papal history; for the papacy is willing to take all that is offered him, and gives nothing in return.

For example, under the papacy, it is the belief and practice of the Roman Catholic Church that no religious beliefs other than her own have a right to exist.  This is why the Roman Catholic rulers of the past allowed no religious freedom or toleration of other faiths in their dominions.

Only where the Roman Catholic church is not in political power, and where her members are in a minority in a country, will she ever complain of the lack of religious toleration,  and will appeal to her constitutional rights.

What is more, understand that the papacy never has been a holy man of God!  His claims to his high office and its superiority over church and state matters are entirely unbiblical.

A movie about Jesus

The best account of the life of Jesus, the divine Son of God, is and always will remain the one recorded in the Bible.

Hollywood will never come close to an accurate portrayal, for Hollywood writers and directors try to impress your sinful nature as much as possible, not your intellect.

To that end, they will sensationalize, miss the mark, and just plain lie.

On the contrary, if you would read the Bible, the Holy Spirit has pledged to enlighten you, and to lead you into spiritual truth on the matter.

Look to the Bible, then, for truth and accuracy!

There would be no aliens from or living on other planets.

Realize the following:

(1) The Bible, the only source of infallible knowledge, speaks of the creation of the universe with the focus on the creation of earth as the temporary home of men until Judgment Day.

(2) The Bible speaks of the creation only of angels and of Adam and Eve, not of other beings.

(3) God the Son was sent only to this earth to save its fallen human race.

(4) On Judgment Day the entire universe will be destroyed.  Only the people on earth will be arraigned before God’s judgment throne.

(5) The sightings of spacecraft, aliens connected with these sightings, Bigfoot, Loch Ness monster, etc., all are paraphysical events.  That is to say, these things and beings were visible, then they disappeared, that is, they became invisible at will, and could never be found or captured.

Who would be capable of such paraphysical abilities?  only supernatural beings.

Who would they be?  They would be only the created angels or the fallen devils.  The angels could and should be eliminated because they are holy:  they would not be involved in any form of deception.  However the fallen devils would be malicious enough to do so:  to deceive and to distract men from God and from his “one thing needful”:  his gospel salvation promises.

Realize this!

A moral problem requiring a theological solution

I am glad that you contributed your comments.  Keep it up!

First of all, someone would have to inform me as to how much the military today goes “by the book,” and how much unwise activity is excused.

Just the same, as you pointed out, “Where is the reverent attitude today?”

Be aware that there is a Latin maxim that goes, “As the people are, so will the government be”!  This could be expanded rightly to say, “so will the military be.”  That is to say, if a good part of the military would be disrespectful, it will be because a good part of society is disrespectful.

This is a moral problem, requiring a theological solution, as MacArthur pointed out in his speech aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay at the surrender ceremony.

Thus when more of our military personnel become moral, you will see an increase in duty, honor, and country.

How could this be done?  Only the God of the Bible has the power to move men to become truly moral.

*  *  *

  “After every school shooting, I am always asked the same question: What can we do to stop this from happening? The answer is simple: Help those who are hurting.

“School shootings will continue so long as we do nothing to address the emotional turmoil some students endure and the harmful ideation they fantasize as remedy to their grievance. We need to help those who are hurting.”

First of all, helping our neighbors in the way in which this author urged will be a good thing.  It will be a good work.

Just the same, realistically, there will not be enough time in the day for us to do this without neglecting our own children at home, that is, to use an analogy, to go around stomping out every fire that pops up in every home on our block without neglecting to keep our own homes safe from fire.

So what would be a better solution to this problem?

It will be if every father on the block would be a good parent, raise his children himself, and not to pass them off to a stranger at a day care.  To that end, have a stay-at-home-wife.  It could be done.

Moreover, raise your children morally.  For instance, turn off the nihilistic trash on TV, in the movies, and in video games.  Rule out selfish divorce.  Stay committed to your spouse.  Do not break up your home.  Find a different job, if necessary.

How could this be accomplished since everyone by nature is naturally selfish?

For example, could it be done if everyone would do what this author advised?  If this would be all that will be necessary in every case, then volunteers would have done it years ago in the inner cities of Chicago, Detroit, etc., to stop the gang shootings.  Yet the shootings continue because some gang members, who are “begging for you to notice them,” are also what is called “incorrigible.”

So what could control bad behavior, up to and including incorrigibility, and the intent to murder?

In the year 1947, the community of Bremen, Kansas, had not witnessed a single arrest nor one court action in thirty years.  (This community would have included stay-at-home moms, and no broken homes.)  Why?  95% of the community was made up of Lutherans.  In fact, their Christian day schools made public schools unnecessary.  Just think how safe that community must have been!  These citizens were naturally selfish people transformed into a moral people by God’s power contained in his powerful, life-changing promises in his Bible.  This same power has transformed South Sea Island cannibals into a moral people.  It has changed murderous, African tribes in the 1800’s into peace-loving people.  Consult missionary history.  Only this same moral change will stop the school shootings.

Remember:  Before the 1960’s, our land did not have these school shootings, and a host of other evils, as long as 40% of our population remained a “moral and religious people,” as John Adams once put it.

Since that time this percentage has dropped dramatically, while the severe consequences have increased.  Note the correlation!

TO READ IN BOOK FORMAT, OR TO PRINT THIS ARTICLE, CLICK ON THIS LINK – What Events will occur prior to the coming War?

Repeatedly in my articles on my website I have referred to an upcoming war on America’s soil.  Nevertheless, how could this ever be possible? Whatever would cause such a thing to occur?

It will be simple.

Realize that God will punish us with a war because America has fallen from its past, golden age as a Christian nation by rejecting his soul-rescuing pledge!

A spiritual Fall from a golden Age.

In other words, after our citizens have rejected God’s powerful, gospel pledges – the only thing that ever could effect a moral change in man’s mind – in which gospel believers become peaceful, patient, and loving toward their neighbor as a religious duty toward God, American citizens now have reverted back to their old, natural, treacherous, selfish, lawless selves by nature, in which they are strangers to God, and aliens from his family.  As a result, this new, gospel-less, heathenistic, American society will deteriorate into ever-increasing hatred and violence, which will inflict evermore harm upon itself.

Therefore, understand, first of all, that the crux of the current situation in America is not that tyrants have taken control of America while good men slept, but that our people have rejected God and his life-saving promise!

The Almighty will not remain Passive, but will respond actively, as is characteristic of him.

Furthermore, the Almighty will not just sit back as a society rejects him and his generous gift of gospel grace.  He will severely punish our people as he clearly has threatened to do.

This is why the Almighty has responded, as he repeatedly has threatened to do in his Bible.  That is to say, he has sent us, in the form of punishments, tyrannical government along with bad weather, floods, droughts, disasters, and diseases.  Until our citizens would repent of their sins, and would treasure once more the gospel of salvation which God graciously has sent us; until they would stop their sordid selfishness and lawlessness, and return in repentance to being a Christian nation once again, these punishments not only will continue, but they will intensify.

In other words, these calamities are God’s nationwide call to repentance, in which he implores, “’Return… and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you; for I am merciful’, says the Lord, ‘and I will not remain angry forever.  Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord your God’!” (Jeremiah 3:12-15.)  Nevertheless, both biblical and secular history record that the overwhelming majority of people will not repent and believe, causing the Almighty to complain, “Why should you be stricken again?  You will revolt more and more; the whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint” (Isaiah 1:5).

Though thousands of bumper stickers may cry out, “God bless America!” how could he when hundreds of millions of citizens reject with malice what is required of them to bring down Heaven’s blessing, namely, to repent of their sins, and to believe in his gospel pledge?

Be clear on this!  What currently is going on in our land is not a political crisis, but a divine punishment.  The political and social acts are a façade, so to speak. For instance, after World War II some German leaders openly admitted that their defeat in that war was due to their punishment by the Ruler of nations.  Just the same, look up any historical book!  See if you could find even one historian that will admit this biblical truth that war is a punishment of God!

Nevertheless, Arnold J. “Toynbee says in his Civilization on Trial (p. 94):  ‘In studying history as a whole [we] should… relegate economic and political history to a subordinate place and give religious history the primacy’.”[1]  “George Bancroft… wrote:  ‘Each page of history may begin and end with:  Great is God, and marvelous are His doings among the children of men…. [But] it is when the hour of the conflict is over that history comes to a right understanding of the strife and is ready to exclaim: “Lo, God is here, and we knew Him not”’.”[2]

As always, the Almighty simply is orchestrating the acts of men in order to bring about his desired result.  In this case, it is the punishment of our citizens.  Thus the political, social, and economic problems of our country are merely symptoms of a far worse problem.  For example, if you were to take some kind of national aspirin to suppress these country-wide symptoms, this would neither address nor solve the root problem.  In fact, the root problem only would cause these symptoms to return.

The root problem is unbelief.  Thus America must return to God through repentance and gospel faith.  This is God’s standing criteria.  Nothing less will do; for the Lord has threatened that whenever a nation would chose for itself new gods, then there will be war (Judges 5:8); that the nation that would forget God will be turned into hell (Psalm 9:17); and that the Lord is a man of war (Exodus 15:3), choosing war as his last resort to punish “the world for its evil and wicked for their iniquity” (Isaiah 13:11), as he once warned backsliders through his Old Testament prophets, and then assuredly did it; as he himself threatened Jerusalem in the New Testament (Luke 19:43-44) and then accomplished it.

Yet look around you!  What would you see? Listen to what is being said!  What would you hear?  Would you see or hear of any repentance and gospel faith? America has forgotten its God.  Even such a humiliating and sobering, national punishment as occurred on 9/11/2001 has not brought about a countrywide repentance and return to God.  This is why you could and should be divinely certain that a great war will be coming upon our soil.  It is certain because God certainly keeps his biblical threats.  Since our citizenry has not responded by repenting and believing his gospel after lesser afflictions have been sent to it in the forms of governmental and economic oppression, as well as ideological, deceptive religious, and social oppressions, the Almighty God, ruler and disposer of nations, will lose his patience, and finally, according to his biblical treats and practice, will drop war on this land like one, huge rock.

In light of this our citizens should remember that God will not be on the side of any political white hats in our country against any political black hats.  Everyone will feel his punishment, including those who have been repenting and believing his gospel all along.  Just the same, in their case whatever the loving Lord would allow to happen, will be for their spiritual strengthening and soul benefit, as he has promised in his unbreakable Bible.  In fact, if God would use this war to take a believer home to heaven, what loss would that be?

Secular Predictions based on secular Conclusions

To be sure, a number of people have commented on the internet that a war will come soon upon American soil.  They have referred to this as the “Second American Revolution,” or the “Second Civil War.”  Actually, to be precise, it should be termed “the Third War of Secession,” for in the previous two wars, a number of our citizens never attempted to take control of the main government at any time, or to change its makeup as is common in civil wars.  They simply wanted to start up a new government on the land which they occupied.

Such commentators have based their conclusions solely on the evidence of the ever-hardening, social and political divisions which they see in America, the members of which are so bitterly opposed to one another with malice, and so irreparably divided, humanly speaking, that it will be only a matter of time before these parties will come to blows.  Nevertheless, these divisions are merely part of the Almighty’s scripted plot.  To be sure, the deep divisions which you now are witnessing are what society was like in earlier times just before the start of the Revolutionary and of the Civil Wars.

Just the same, these men have chosen, indeed, refused to base their conclusions on the only certain, and biblically assured fact, namely, the moral, or spiritual sign of the time (Matthew 16:3); namely, that it clearly and biblically is certain for all to see that a rejection of the gospel by the citizens of America is calling down God’s anger.  For the time being it consists in the form of minor afflictions, but ultimately it will be an annihilating war.

Purposely, divinely-arranged Similarities

Furthermore, could anything more definite be said about this coming war, for example, what events would precede it, or how would it begin?  Yes, there could be.  From what source?  It would be from those similarities which God placed into the preceding, two wars.

Understand that there were two, prior wars on our soil, so severe, that our very existence as a nation was in jeopardy; or, as in the case of the Civil War: our breakup into two or more nations was almost realized.  These were most severe times, crucial above all others.

Moreover, there were unique similarities between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, remarkably and astonishingly unique, humanly speaking, but intentionally arranged this way by Providence, as the citizens at that time aptly called God.  These similarities, which the average citizen readily and clearly could and should see, understand, and be certain of, will occur also in the upcoming war, since this war will be equally as severe.

How could this be possible?  How could I be justified, not only in concluding such a thing, but for publicly teaching such a thing, for expecting my readers to believe such a matter, and for holding my readers accountable for disbelieving such a thing?  Indeed, how could anyone be certain that such similarities not only could, but must happen again in the next war on American soil, because God will have ordered it so?

First of all, the average, unbelieving American could and should be certain (Matthew 16:2-3) from the Almighty’s threats in the Bible regarding any nation that would meet the criterion of rejecting his gospel pledge, that our people today have met this criterion.  As a result, the Almighty will send an annihilating war to us such as he sent, for example, in the Old Testament to Assyria, and to the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel.  Keeping this in mind, the upcoming war should be no less severe than the two, previous, existence-threatening ones in our country.

Secondly, these similarities have been arranged by the Almighty for a reason.  These similarities have been arranged to get America to repent and to believe the gospel by impressing upon everyone emphatically that the Lord of heaven is in full control of our land’s destiny, and that he will respond accordingly to our misbehavior.

Furthermore, the fact that Heaven would choose to make similar three, specific events, the number three being his biblical, identification number, will demonstrate that it is the biblical, high and holy triune God that certainly is doing this.  Think about that!

To be sure, while the people before the Revolutionary War would not have been capable of knowing which acts and events at that time would be similar to those in the future; while the citizens before the Civil War may not have been alert to the probability that there would be similarities with the preceding War, we today have no excuse either for not expecting them, nor for not knowing what they will be assuredly.  They will be Heaven’s emphatic warning sign to us.

It is true, there have been other wars for independence and other civil wars throughout the world.  Nevertheless, the template of events preceding not only one, but both of our wars on our own soil is so different and so unique from these.  Indeed, what makes our wars all the more striking is that the run up to both of them is similar.

Just what exactly are these similarities?  They are the following.  As your read them, keep in mind, the following axiom:  “War is not a calamity which men can bring upon a land and people without God’s will but at all times a great chastisement of the great angry God himself” (C.F.W. Walther, Standard Epistles, translated by Donald E. Heck [Concordia Theological Seminary Press:  Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1986], page 512, from a sermon on 1st Chronicles 21:9-14).

The first Event:  Begun in a Fit of Passion

First of all, the “Third War of Secession,” coming after the first two:  the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, likewise will not be entered into calmly or rationally by cool and wise heads after a long, thought out process of counting the cost, for instance; or of considering the duty of protecting citizens; and only after that, resort to the taking up of arms reluctantly.  On the contrary, men in a fit of passion will rush to begin this war.  How?  Men will do what they commonly have done throughout American history:  they will take a simple political issue,  turn it into a moral matter of right or wrong, and then rally around that.

For example, in the Declaration of Independence the signers had appealed “to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions,”[3] though in this document all of their listed theses, grievances and observations were purely political, not biblical.  Hence by this statement they would turn a purely political matter into a moral issue. In fact, to appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of their political intent to declare an independence from their government would only bring down Heaven’s condemnation on them, for as it was pointed out eighteen months earlier, the president of the New York “chartered college taught that ‘Christians are required to be subject to the higher powers; that an apostle enjoined submission to Nero’.”[4] Likewise, “the meeting of the Friends of Pennsylvania and New Jersey gave their ‘testimony against every usurpation of power and authority in opposition to the laws of government’.”[5]

To be sure, earlier, while he was in England observing the results of a popular election, Franklin “spoke with indignation of the punishment that must await a people ‘who are ungratefully abusing the best Constitution and the best King any nation was ever blessed with’.”[6]

Indeed, the entire Revolutionary War could and should have been avoided.  That is to say, there would have been no desire on the part of the revolutionists in the colonies to rebel if only they would have listened to the prior, publicly published advice of Benjamin Franklin.  For example, “he had advocated an union of the colonies” already in 1754 for protection against foreign attack.  Otherwise he favored the “establishment of an English army in America, paid for by duties imposed on the colonies.”  This measure would have avoided the subsequent Stamp and Tea taxes, the objects of so much violence in Massachusetts.  In a further publication “he advocated a legislative union, which would have enabled the English Parliament, without injustice, to tax America,”[7] thereby giving no impetus to the slogan, “No taxation without representation!”  However, the elected Assemblies of the colonies had no civic will at all to implement this advice, choosing instead, frankly, to be civically lazy and miserly.

Furthermore, the war between England and the American colonies was not entered into calmly or rationally.  Instead, there was a rush to start a war in a fit of passion.  Why?  “It is evident that great wisdom, moderation, and tact were needed if healthy relations were to be established between England and her colonies, and unfortunately these qualities were conspicuously absent from English councils.”[8]

“From this time [1767] the English government of America is little more than a series of deplorable blunders.”[9]

“Every mail from America” to England “brought news that New England at least was in a condition of virtual rebellion; that Acts of Parliament were defied and disobeyed with the most perfect impunity; that the representatives of the British Government were habitually exposed to the grossest insult, and reduced to the most humiliating impotence.”[10]

“The burning of the ‘Gaspee’, the destruction of tea in Boston Harbour, and the manifest connivance of the whole population in the outrage, raised that indignation to the highest point…. [The English politicians] resolved to throw away the scabbard, and to exert all the power of Parliament to reduce Massachusetts to obedience.”[11]

Likewise, in the year 1772 Samuel Adams “still retained his influence in the [Massachusetts] Assembly, and he was unwearied in his efforts to excite ill feeling against England, and to push the colony into rebellion.”[12]

“Riots and outrages were of almost daily occurrence.”  “Conspicuous Tories were tarred and feathered, or placed astride of rails and carried in triumph through the streets of the chief towns. One man was fastened in the body of a dead ox…. Most of the courts of justice in Massachusetts were forcibly closed…. Conspicuous politicians, even members of the [Continental] Congress, are said to have led mobs.”[13]

Note:  Was any of this biblical?  Of course not.  For instance, in his Sermon on the Mount our Lord Jesus never said, “Blessed are those who form mobs; who tar and feather, riot, and incite violence against their neighbor.”  These activities only demonstrate the moral, and hence, the spiritual bankruptcy of the Congregational churches in New England at this time.

To be sure, no American student ever would like to hear this.  That is to say, any citizen would like to hear only complimentary accounts of his nation’s founding; for example, of how his founding fathers were all heroes, courageously struggling, sacrificing their all:  their property, lives, and honor for the birth of their nation, so that on its independence day the citizen could beam with satisfaction.  Thus no American schoolboy, for instance, would look forward to reading in his textbook the actual fact of the matter; that is, that the moral condition of too many of his fellow citizens was so bad that it had to call down from Heaven the worst punishment which God almighty has in store for any declining nation:  a war on its inhabitants.  In other words, God was so provoked over the decrepit, moral conditions in our land that he was intent on punishing the thirteen colonies by war.  It was only after time had passed, and after he had heard the repentant cries of some of the people for deliverance, that the Lord was moved, and, according to his biblical pledge (2nd Chronicles 7:14), brought an end to his punishment.  Not only that, but out of his unfathomable grace, at which we could only marvel, he gave an additional, undeserved blessing:  out of the ashes of war he brought forth on this continent a new nation.  (“God rejects revolution as rebellion against heaven; but if by revolution a new power is created, he confirms it and demands obedience to it” [C.F.W. Walther, Standard Epistles, Donald E. Heck, translator ((Fort Wayne, Indiana:  Concordia Theological Seminary Press, 1986)), page 244].)  What grace!  What an undeserved blessing!  Above all, this is what should be commemorated on the Fourth of July in order for our people truly to be grateful to Heaven.  Indeed, this is why men, upon witnessing the wonderful works of God, sing out:  “All glory be to God on high!”

Likewise, before the Civil War moral conditions, once again due to gospel unbelief, had declined so badly that the Almighty was provoked into sending another war.  As Lincoln substantially summarized the situation in a statement equal to that of the best keenly perceptive and articulate clergyman:  “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in number, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown.  But we have forgotten God.  We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.  Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God who made us.  It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”[14]  If Lincoln, a non-Christian, could see this, it could and should have been evident to all.

Thus also the coming, future war will be “got up drunk,” as a Louisiana father during the Civil War once put it in his own earthy way in a letter to his son in the Confederate army, “but it will have to be settled sober.”[15] Thus some Americans already today are not thinking calmly, but are seething with anger, burning with revenge, and itching to retaliate, eagerly awaiting the least slight or slip up on the part of whom they hate:  either the government, or government-supporting citizens, to “get up a war drunk” that will ruin this whole land from sea to shining sea, and will create widows and orphans by the tens of millions, instead of praying to God to avert this war, and to pursue his solution for preserving the peace.  Such men are not patriotic Americans standing for right and principle, but are enemies and traitors, simply mouthing off with a lynch mob mentality, and actually joining the ranks of those munitions makers, merchants, and bankers who would dream of profit from yet another war.

The Solution for preserving the Peace

Rather, we should keep our heads when dealing with others who have offended us, or who have trespassed against us.  To do this successfully, God first will have to transform our minds through his gospel power so that we will want to do the right thing as a religious duty to him, and not to respond with retaliation.  As a result of having our souls divinely moved by our Lord’s assurance, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called ‘the children of God’!” (Matthew 5:9), we will “desire peace, and pursue it” (1st Peter 3:11).  Thus we ever must hold the gospel of peace before our eyes so that it may do its holy work of guarding our hearts in a spirit of peace (Philippians 4:7) in order that we may not do something rash.

For instance, Alexander H. Stephens, the desired candidate for the position of President of the Confederacy, when specifically asked if he would “fire the first shot,” replied, “No.”[16]  As a result, a hawk, Jefferson Davis, was nominated instead.  Thus later, even though the commander of Fort Sumter had agreed to surrender at a given, future day, Davis would not wait, but gave the order to fire on Fort Sumter.  This military action, which caused the American flag to get shot up, subsequently incensed and provoked the North, bringing about this response:  the dogs of war were unleashed.

Thus Davis, a church-going Episcopalian, did not guard his heart (Philippians 4:7) by suppressing the natural hatred and the revenge in his sinful heart, nor did he motivate his Christian mind by God’s gospel (Ephesians 4:22-24) to pursue the paths of peace as any morally transformed Christian daily could and should do.  Hence this was not a case in which Christianity itself had failed, but one again in which the patient had spurned the prescription of his Great Physician, and negligently or selfishly had chosen something lethal.  Neither was this a case in which the new Confederacy, of whose people Davis was responsible for their defense, was being threatened by the North with war.

Hence this is why also the current, regular, church-going Jefferson Davises in our country need to keep their sinful, treacherous, revenge-filled hearts (Matthew 15:19) in check by a scolding from God’s commandments, and with a motivation by God’s gospel to pursue the paths of peace:  so that the dogs of war will not be unleashed, as it senselessly happened at the negotiations involving Fort Sumter; just as it will happen again in this country in the future if it studiously would not be stopped.

Indeed, in his first, inaugural address Lincoln correctly advised, “Intelligence, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him will adjust all our present difficulty.”[17]  Yet this was not attempted by the critical actors involved, but negligently, or selfishly ignored.  For example, in North Carolina the Raleigh Banner pointed out:  “The big heart of the people is still in the Union.  Less than a hundred politicians are endeavoring to destroy the liberties and usurp the rights of more than thirty millions of people.  If the people permit it, they deserve the horrors of the civil war which will ensue.”[18]  William Tecumseh Sherman had toured the United States, and had found the newspapers, politicians, and the educated classes corrupt, blind, and selfish to the point of tragedy.[19]  Representative Tom Corwin of Ohio added, “I cannot comprehend the madness of the times.  Southern men are theoretically crazy.  Extreme Northern men are practical fools.  The latter are really quite as mad as the former.  Treason is in the air around us everywhere.  It goes by the name of patriotism.  Men in Congress boldly avow it.”[20]  Indeed, during the Revolutionary War, despite the fact that in the colonial Assemblies “the reins of power… had fallen into the hands of the revolutionary classes,”[21]  “a third part of the whole population… were throughout opposed to the Revolution.”[22]   In the remaining third of the population “there were also great multitudes who… dissented on grounds of principle, policy, or interest from the course”[23] of war which the revolutionists were adopting.

Thus the call of our hour, then, is not for us to start up another war in a fit of passion, but to head it off by rechristianizing our nation, especially its worldly churches, by genuine biblical repentance and faith, not with the current sham of religiousness.  In response to this, the Almighty will keep his pledge, “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2nd Chronicles 7:14).

Otherwise, “the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God” (1st Peter 4:17).  In other words, the faithful and unfaithful churches first will get hit by this war.

A prior,  foreign War

Secondly, there will be a foreign war involving America that will end twelve years prior to the great war. Thus the French and Indian War (1754-1763) ended twelve years prior to the War of Independence, and the Mexican-American War ended twelve years prior to the Civil War.

Incidentally, war never was declared officially either in the War of Independence or in the Civil War; nor will it be declared in the coming Third War.

A legislated Tax

The apparent cause for the Third War, or at least the cause which historians commonly will agree upon, will be due to the opposition by some, but not by all of the population, to legislation that will affect their property adversely.  Consequently, they will turn this mere, political legislation into a moral issue, and elevate it further into a life or death issue; that is, they will go to war over it if they would not get their way.

A prior example of this would be the following:  “Give me liberty or give me death!” A later example would be this:  In 1860 a banner flared at a mass meeting in Alabama, urging, “Resistance to Lincoln is Obedience to God.”[24]

The vehement, Whig opposition in colonial times was to legislation known as the Coercion Acts of Parliament of 1774, the first of which was the closing of the port of Boston.  This was to be in force until a reimbursement would be made for the destruction of the tea in the Boston Tea Party.  The second Act was the remodeling of the Charter of Massachusetts.  The third Act was to remove the trial of prisoners accused of capital crimes from a place where public feeling was so violent that a fair trial probably would not be obtained.  (Consult the trial of the soldiers in the “Boston Massacre”!)

How could these three Coercion Acts adversely affect the property of the colonists in Massachusetts?  This was stated “in the remonstrance of the province.  ‘By the first’, they say, ‘the property of unoffending thousands is arbitrarily taken away for the act of a few individuals; by the second our chartered liberties are annihilated, and by the third our lives may be destroyed with impunity’.”[25]

Nevertheless, if a man were to poke a bear in the eye with a stick, and then, after the bear had responded in self-defense, would denounce the bear for its actions, and even would file of list of grievances against the bear for its response, such an act foolishly would be improper.  Indeed, it would be absurd.  Yet this is what some of the revolutionaries did.  To be sure, the people, the merchants, and the government of England had their own grievances against the revolutionaries.  Consult Lecky, pages 86-89 and 155!  Then, after the Coercion Acts had begun, others, like Washington, simply came to the aid of and to the defense of those colonists which were in need.

Thus in its political protests to its mother country, the revolutionary party did not have the moral high ground.  In fact, at one point this group even “changed their ground” from one position to another.  Refer to the remarks made by the editor, Osgood, and by Tyler in Lecky on pages 488-489!

Furthermore, the Boston Tea Party, unknown to everyone at the time, set in motion a series of responses and counter-responses which led the actors through a labyrinth of acts and events, first by one party, then followed by the unpredictable, but plausible responses by the other party, until armed conflict resulted.

Likewise prior to the Civil War there was vehement, Southern opposition to proposed legislation by the North, that would forbid slavery in the nation’s territories (its future states).  This would threaten the political power of the Southern planter aristocracy.  Briefly stated, the South needed new areas into which slavery could spread in order that it would have political representation to match that of the growing North.

Just the same, how would it be possible that such a thing as legislation, which forbad slavery in the territories, could affect adversely the planters’ property, namely, their slaves?  In a speech given in the Senate in 1861, Senator Robert Toombes of Georgia emphatically believed that it would.  He reasoned,  “You seek to outlaw $4,000,000,000 of property of our people [the estimated value of all of the slaves] in the territories of the United States.  Is not that a cause of war?  Is it a grievance that $4,000,000,000 of the property of the people should be outlawed in the territories of the United States by the common government?  Then you have declared, Lincoln declares, your platform declares, your people declare, your legislatures declare – there is one voice running through your entire phalanx – that we shall be outlawed in the territories of the United States.  I say we will not be; and we are willing to meet the issue; and rather than submit to such an outlawry, we will defend our territorial rights as we would our househeld [sic] gods….

“All these charges I have proven by the record; and I put them before the civilized world, and demand the judgment of to-day, of to-morrow, and of distant ages, and of Heaven itself, upon the justice of these causes.”[26]

A preliminary Attempt

Nevertheless, some years prior to the beginning of the upcoming war, there will be a “trial run,” or preliminary attempt, so to speak, to secede and to begin a war, just as it occurred in the first, two wars.  For instance, in the first case it occurred in the vehement response to the Stamp Act (1765) which eventually was repealed.  The Almighty had his good reasons for bringing about the Stamp Act, as he had good reasons not to use this event as a vehicle for war just yet.  Consult Isaiah 55:8-9 and Romans 11:33-34!

In the second case, a trial run occurred during the Nullification Movement (1828-1832) at a time when the Southern States were upset vehemently over the high tariff laws (taxes) which adversely were affecting their property (money).  That is, South Carolina nullified the national tariff laws within its own borders, stating that if the federal government would try to enforce its tariffs, South Carolina will secede from the Union, and prepare for war.  As with the Stamp Act, this offending, tariff legislation eventually was changed.  For the record:  the slavery issue did not enter into these arguments.

Hence some years prior to the third outbreak of war, this will happen:  There will be a preliminary outburst or reaction to legislation related to the one that later will introduce the third war.  This occurrence will be intended by God, as it was in the first two wars, to be a wake up call to America of what soon will happen if it would not repent.

Exceptional, civil Violence

In the past, before each war there were incidents or events of exceptional, civil violence.  For example, mob violence occurred in Massachusetts in connection with the Tea Tax.  Prior to the Civil War such events as “Bleeding Kansas,” and the armed takeover of the Harper’s Ferry Arsenal occurred.

A new, political Party

A new, prominent, political party also will come into being a few years prior to the outbreak of war.  For example, after 1768 certain, colonial, political proponents called themselves “Whigs” after the minority party in the British Parliament, members of which were in sympathy with the colonists.  The Republican Party was formed in 1854 in Ripon, Wisconsin in order to get moving emancipation efforts for the slaves.

The Spark

The origin of the war, or the “spark” that would set it off, humanly speaking, will be a premeditated incident or event after a legislated tax measure, or in response to that proposed tax measure.

For instance, the “spark” for the Colonial War was the premeditated ambush of the British soldiers as they returned through Lexington from their mission at Concord.   The “spark” for the Civil War was the premeditated shooting up of the American flag at Fort Sumter.

An elitist Class will be dethroned by the upcoming War

In the War of Independence, the Tories, that is, the loyalists to the mother country, specifically, the old gentry of the land, lost their estates to seizure during the war.  In the Civil War “Lincoln was at the vortex of the revolution to break the power of the Southern planter aristocracy and usher in the dominance of the financial and industrial interests centered in New York City.”[27]

In a related note:  In the first war the Almighty ultimately had the revolutionary party win, and the loyalists lose.  In the second war, just the reverse happened.

About a dozen States will secede

Thirteen colonies seceded in the War of Independence to form a new government on the land which they occupied.  They did not try to invade England and to overthrow that government.  Just the same, in some respects this was also a civil war.  “The civil war between Whigs and Tories had… been much more savage than the war between the English and the Americans; and the revolutionary party attributed with some reason the long continuance of the struggle to the existence and to the representations of the great loyalist party in America.”[28]

At the time of the Civil War eleven states formally seceded from the Union:  Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.  However, there was a good probability that more would secede.  For instance, in 1861 “The Kentucky Legislature… adjourned … proclaiming neutrality but still in the Union”[29] though the governor at that time was pro-South.[30]  Only the capture of Fort Donelson in 1862 “clinched Kentucky to the Union.”[31]  The governor of Missouri also was pro-South.[32]  Counting these two states then, the number would have been thirteen.  To be sure, in the border state of Maryland the city of Baltimore had an active minority of secessionists.[33]  Even “the mayor of New York… in ’61 tried to get his city to secede from the Union.”[34]  Hence formally there were eleven states that seceded.  Informally, there were people in the border states that in their hearts had seceded..

Likewise, the Confederate States of America did not intend to overthrow the government in Washington.  They simply wanted to form their own government on the land which they occupied.  Likewise before the coming, future war:  About a dozen states will secede from our Union, and will form a new government on the land which they occupy.  Immediately, they will begin to form an army, as the Continental Congress and the Confederacy did.

Summary

In summary then, these will be the acts of men which God will orchestrate in order to bring about his desired result of a war of punishment, concerning which you should realize that “war is not a calamity which men can bring upon a land and people without God’s will but at all times a great chastisement of the great angry God himself.”[35]

First of all, this future war will begin in a fit of passion in opposition to legislation that will affect their property adversely, or at least to a proposed, legislated penalty on their property (the outlawing of slavery in U.S. territories). Prior to this time there will be acts of exceptional, civil violence.

Secondly, this war will not occur until after America has fought in a prior, foreign war which will have ended twelve years previously.  Confer the French and Indian War and the Mexican War!

Thirdly, there will be a trial run, so to speak, at breaking up the Union in the form of a revolt against a proposed or legislated measure.  Consult the Stamp Act opposition and the Nullification Movement!

Fourthly, this war will not occur until a new, prominent, political party would have come into existence.  Recall the American Whigs and the Republican Party formed in 1854!

The spark that will set off this war will be an armed conflict between the two, bitterly opposed, political sides:  the status quo government and the revolutionary party, or the rebels, such as happened on the Lexington green, and at Fort Sumter.  As a spark would start a forest fire, or as a snowball would roll down a hill and acquire a snowballing effect, so this event would begin a war from which there would be no turning back until, in God’s estimation, it would be spent.

Around the start of this war about a dozen states will secede from the Union, and will form their own federal government over their own territory.  Refer to the Declaration of Independence and to the Confederate States of America!  Once formed this government would call on its supporters to form an army to protect it.  Recall the formation of the Continental Congress and its call to George Washington to head the militia in 1775!  Remember the formation of the Confederate States of America and the raising of its army in 1861!

Whether a formal declaration of independence would be composed, as was done by the Continental Congress in 1776, or whether there simply would be an implied one, as was the case when the Confederate States of America formed in 1861, the formation of a new, federal government in opposition will be, in effect, a declaration of war.  In fact, it will be the point of no return in regards to hostilities.

To which of the two sides will God ultimately give the victory:  The one that seceded, or the one that still would retain power in Washington D.C.?  That information has not been supplied, nor could it be deduced at this time.

Furthermore, since the first, two wars in America were fought by two factions of a disunited country, so when Washington’s vision speaks of an invasion by armies from Europe, Africa, and Asia, this will not be against a united America but a disunited one, in which two factions are at war with one another.  Thus the invaders will side with one of these factions.

Moreover, as America will be punished by this war for its unbelief, so all the other nations from Europe, Africa, and Asia that join in this war will be punished by the Almighty for their gospel unbelief.

Thus this is how the third war of divine punishment on American soil will be started by the Almighty.

To be sure, none of these things are on the horizon.  Yet this is no matter for concern.  America simply is going through another God-designed labyrinth of human events, which, with its twists and turns, typically never does give a clear view of the future.  This is why God has given to you his protection promises, prophecies, and the two signs of the times[36] to assure you of the future with divine certainty.

Indeed, notice that what was going on in the American colonies in 1765 was not what eventually occurred in 1775!  What America intended and worked at in 1850 was different than what happened in 1860.  This is because there was no political will on the part of enough of the citizenry in the earlier years to perform what they did ten years later.

To be sure, a part of the labyrinth of history, with its twists and turns, is this change in the political will of a citizenry which is unforeseen, and hence, unpredictable.  That is to say, over time the Almighty, in his providence, will orchestrate events and men’s acts to bring about a different social climate, more or less, for peace or for punishment.  As a result of this, men will change both their political will and course from what it previously was; namely, they will be moved to react with different speech, acts, and plans.

Thus you have these intentional similarities from these last, two wars, which God has marked for your express notice, to rely on with divine certainty as to what he will bring about in our future.  See them!  Be assured of them!

Punishment of America by the Muslims

Moreover, it could and should come as no surprise to the biblically well-read American that the scourge of Islam should rise against our country since America has rejected the gospel; for in his Bible God has threatened to use the followers of Islam as his punitive tool in New Testament times against those Christian countries that have fallen away from the gospel.

God prophesied in Revelation 9:14-19 about his curse called Islam, which he specifically would raise up in New Testament times, which he would send as a punishment upon those lands which had fallen away from the true gospel faith.  He has simply raised up one evil to punish another one.

That is to say, in reaction to the falls from gospel faith which the Christian nations would take from time to time in the New Testament times, after periods of spiritual golden ages, God prophesied in Revelation 9:14-19 about his curse called Islam, which he specifically would raise up in New Testament times, which he would send as a punishment upon those church members who had fallen away from the true gospel faith.  By prophesying to us about this, the Almighty is putting us on notice.

To be sure, as long as it would remain faithful, the Almighty never would send a curse upon his church.  Only after it would backslide treacherously into unfaithfulness will the Almighty carry out his threat:  “The nation and kingdom that will not serve” God “shall perish” (Isaiah 60:12).  In order to describe the fierce intent and the results of Islam in its punitive role, Scripture used picturesque language in Revelation to describe it.  That is, in the Revelation passage the plan of the Lord Jesus is to picture one thing that is familiar to the reader, in order to get him to understand this future matter that is unfamiliar.

Thus, when in response to a terroristic attack by Muslims in America, church members would ask Gideon’s question, “If the Lord would be with us, why then has all of this happened to us?” (Judges 6:13) they could and should be assured from Scripture’s threat that it must be because our land has fallen away from faith in the gospel, for this would be the only reason why God would punish us by the Muslims.

To be annihilated or not?

Will the Almighty annihilate America, as he did so many other nations in the Old Testament who rejected him, or nearly annihilate our country, as he did gospel-rejecting Judah in the Babylonian Captivity, and other lands since then as he has threatened to do?  The answer will be “No!”

How could you be assured of this?

The Bible, of course, is silent on America by name.  Just the same, because of his great grace, and for the purposes of your preparedness and high comfort, the Lord of heaven has left you an assurance by which the American citizen could and should be certain that his country will not go out of existence, but will survive.

What would this assurance be?

It will be something that, from the Bible, we see that God has done sparingly, but graciously, on occasion. It is something by which God will inform a ruler about the destiny of his nation, the information of which the ruler normally could not know.  That is to say, the Lord will give to a ruler a vision of the future.

This will not be unusual.  In the past, before God would send a severe punishment upon a land, he would send visions, or on other occasions prophets, to warn national leaders ahead of time; to prepare that nation spiritually for repentance or punishment.  For instance, consult the biblical examples of Abraham (Genesis 15:12-14); Pharaoh (Genesis 41:1-7); Joshua (Judges 2:1-6); Saul (1st Samuel 28:19); David (2nd Samuel 21:1; 24:10-13); Ahab (2nd Chronicles 18); Jeroboam (Amos 7:10-11); Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 2:28; chapter 4); Belshazzar (Daniel 5); Hezekiah (2nd Kings 19:6-7); Josiah (2nd Chronicles 35:20-24); and the king of Nineveh (Jonah 3)!

In our case, the Lord graciously gave to George Washington at Valley Forge an account of the future of this country.  It is in this account that Washington is told of a great war that would come upon this country; a war in which the Republic would be pitted against all other nations; a war in which this land would not be annihilated, but, ultimately, would by God’s rescue, survive, and be victorious.  This account has been given at the end of this article.

This account showed George Washington that not only would there be a great war, but that two other wars would precede it.  In other words, there would be three, great crises that would come upon America, all of which would be in the form of a war, on which the survival of the Union itself would hang in the balance.  These wars would be the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the coming great war.  To be sure, during these first two wars there were precarious times in which our Republic was in danger of going out of existence as we know it today.  Our country will face the same danger in the coming, third, great war.  Just the same, in this latter war, as in the first two, God will see to it that, again, out of his great mercy, the Union will survive.  Indeed, note the importance of the fact that there will be three crises!  This is the unmistakable sign of the great God himself:  the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the true and triune Lord of heaven.

In fact, realize that this goes to the heart of the matter!  Why did the Lord decide to send three crises upon our people?  He did it for three, biblical reasons:

(1)  To let our Republic know that it is he, the triune God, who is doing it;

(2)  So that he, the Creator and the Preserver of America, would be adored; and

(3)  To purify the American Christian, and to make him trust more firmly in Heaven’s protection promises, yet, at the same time, to punish the unbeliever, and to bring him to his spiritual senses.

In other words, let it be taught that God will cause America to win in the end, and not be annihilated!  Why?  Would it be because America is privileged above all other lands?  No.

It will be so that God will be adored.  God will take weak, outmatched America, array the whole world against it, and allow the world every means and opportunity to crush it.  Yet God will spare America so that the remnant will adore him.

The Third Saver

Since America will not be annihilated, but will win this war in the end; that is, since one of the two factions in America will win in the end, then, like the first two wars on American soil, there will be a national saver.  In other words, a great, military leader on the order of a Washington and of a U.S. Grant will be raised up by God to be used by him to be the saver of our Republic.[37]

George Washington’s Vision at Valley Forge

“I do not know whether it is owing to the anxiety of my mind, or what, but this afternoon as I was sitting at this table engaged in preparing a dispatch, something seemed to disturb me.  Looking up, I beheld standing opposite me a singularly beautiful female.  So astonished was I, for I had given strict orders not to be disturbed, that it was some moments before I found language to inquire into the cause of her presence.  A second, a third, and even a fourth time did I repeat my question, but received no answer from my mysterious visitor except a slight raising of her eyes.  By this time I felt strange sensations spreading through me.  I would have risen but the riveted gaze of the being before me rendered volition impossible.  I assayed once more to address her, but my tongue had become useless.  Even thought itself had become paralyzed.  A new influence, mysterious, potent, irresistible, took possession of me.  All I could do was to gaze steadily vacantly at my unknown visitant.  Gradually the surrounding atmosphere seemed as though becoming filled [sic] with sensations, and luminous.  Everything about me seemed to rarify, the mysterious visitor herself becoming more airy and yet more distinct to my sight than before.  I now began to feel as one dying, or rather to experience the sensations which I have sometimes imagined accompany dissolution.  I did not think, I did not reason, I did not move; all were alike impossible.  I was only conscious of gazing fixedly, vacantly at my companion.

“Presently I heard a voice saying, ‘Son of the Republic, look and learn’, while at the same time my visitor extended her arm eastwardly.  I now beheld a heavy white vapor at some distance rising fold upon fold.  This gradually dissipated, and I looked upon a strange scene.  Before me lay spread out in one vast plain all the countries of the world – Europe, Asia, Africa, and America.  I saw rolling and tossing between Europe and America the billows of the Atlantic, and between Asia and America lay the Pacific.  ‘Son of the Republic’, said the same mysterious voice as before, ‘look and learn’.  At that moment I beheld a dark, shadowy being, like an angel, standing, or rather floating in mid-air, between Europe and America.  Dipping water out of the ocean in the hollow of each hand, he sprinkled some upon America with his right hand, while with his left hand he cast some on Europe.  Immediately a cloud raised from these countries, and joined in mid-ocean.  For awhile it remained stationary, and then moved slowly westward, until it enveloped America in its murky folds.  Sharp flashes of lightning gleamed through it at intervals, and I heard the smothered groans and cries of the American people.  A second time the angel dipped water from the ocean, and sprinkled it out as before.  The dark cloud was then drawn back to the ocean, in whose heaving billows it sank from view.  A third time I heard the mysterious voice saying, ‘Son of the Republic, look and learn’.  I cast my eyes upon America and beheld villages and towns and cities springing up one after another until the whole land from the Atlantic to the Pacific was doted with them.  Again, I heard the mysterious voice say, ‘Son of the Republic, the end of the century cometh, look and learn’.

“At this the dark shadowy angel turned his face southward, and from Africa I saw an ill-omened spectre approach our land.  It flitted slowly over every town and city of the latter.  The inhabitants presently set themselves in battle array against each other.  As I continued looking I saw a bright angel, on whose brow rested a crown of light, on which was traced the word ‘Union’, bearing the American flag which he placed between the divided nation, and said, ‘Remember ye are brethren’.  Instantly, the inhabitants, casting away their weapons became friends once more, and united around the National Standard.

“And again I heard the mysterious voice saying, ‘Son of the Republic, look and learn’.  At this the dark, shadowy angel placed a trumpet to his mouth, and blew three distinct blasts; and taking water from the ocean, he sprinkled it upon Europe, Asia, and Africa.  Then my eyes beheld a fearful scene:  from each of these countries arose thick, black clouds that were soon joined into one.  And throughout this mass there gleamed a dark red light by which I saw hordes of armed men, who, moving with the cloud, marched by land and sailed by sea to America, which country was enveloped in the volume of cloud.  And I dimly saw these vast armies devastate the whole country and burn the villages, towns, and cities that I beheld springing up.  As my ears listened to the thundering of the cannon, clashing of swords, and the shouts and cries of millions in mortal combat, I heard again the mysterious voice saying, ‘Son of the Republic, look and learn’.  When the voice had ceased, the dark shadowy angel placed his trumpet once more to his mouth, and blew a long and fearful blast.

“Instantly a light as of a thousand suns shone down from above me, and pierced and broke into fragments the dark cloud which enveloped America.  At the same moment the angel upon whose head still shone the word ‘Union’, and who bore our national flag in one hand and a sword in the other, descended from the heavens attended by legions of white spirits.  These immediately joined the inhabitants of America who I perceived were wellnigh overcome, but who immediately taking courage again, closed up their broken ranks and renewed the battle.  Again, amid the fearful noise of the conflict, I heard the mysterious voice saying, ‘Son of the Republic, look and learn’.  As the voice ceased, the shadowy angel for the last time dipped water from the ocean and sprinkled it upon America.  Instantly the dark cloud rolled back, together with the armies it had brought, leaving the inhabitants of the land victorious.

“Then once more I beheld the villages, town and cities springing up where I had seen them before, while the bright angel, planting the azure standard he had brought in the midst of them, cried with a loud voice:  ‘While the stars remain, and the heavens send down dew upon the earth, so long shall the Union last’.  And taking from his brow the crown on which blazoned the word ‘Union’, he placed it upon the Standard while the people, kneeling down, said, ‘Amen’.

“The scene instantly began to fade and dissolve, and I at last saw nothing but the rising, curling vapor I at first beheld.  This also disappearing, I found myself once more gazing upon the mysterious visitor, who in the same voice I had heard before, said, ‘Son of the Republic, what you have seen is thus interpreted:  three great perils will come upon the Republic.  The most fearful is the third passing which the whole world united shall not prevail against her.  Let every child of the Republic learn to live for his God, his land and Union’.  With these words the vision vanished, and I started from my seat and felt that I have seen a vision wherein had been shown to me the birth, progress, and destiny of the United States” (Anthony Sherman, Words of Life:  George Washington’s Vision [1880:  Christian Workers Union, Inc.]; note: originally published by Wesley Bradshaw; copied from a reprint in the National Tribune, Vol. 4, No. 12, December 1880; on microfilm at the Sterling Library, Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut).

A Defense of the Divine Authenticity of Washington’s Vision

It has been proposed that this account is simply man-made, and not Heaven-sent; that is, that someone, somewhere at some point simply made up this whole story.  In reply, the following defense of its divine authenticity could be made, first of all, by looking at some natural questions.

For example, if a man, not Washington, merely made up this whole story in bad faith, who was he?

Moreover, what would have been his motive for doing so?  That is to say, what would he have gained by doing it?  Notoriety?  Yet he could not claim the authorship, for then he only would expose himself as a fraud and be self-condemned.

Would an anonymous writer have done it to make money?  How could anyone earn money off of this narrative?

Would it have been done to give Washington more renown?  Washington already had plenty of renown.

Furthermore, when men make up an account of a divine vision in order to gain a following, their stories will have a plot which appeals to sinful pride and to sinful desires; for instance, in which men and their efforts are glorified or are crowned with success; for men know that no one ever wants to listen to a teller of bad news.  No one ever gains friends or acceptance by doing that.  Yet this is just what the account of Washington does:  this account is a bearer of bad news.  Its main theme is that there will be three, existence-threatening disasters in the form of wars sent upon this nation.  Indeed, the scenes of these wars depict desperate cries amid terrible bloodshed.  In addition, this account scolds and humbles the reader.  In fact, this narrative agrees fully with the biblical penalty of a war to punish a country for its rejection of the gospel.

What is more, a mere man would be unable to make up a narrative such as Washington’s.  There is, indeed, a difference between simply being able to follow a written story, or even to imitate an already existing story, and being able to create one.

For instance, in 1418 in Florence, Italy, after an architect by the name of Brunelleschi won the competition to build a dome for the cathedral, and his design later was revealed publicly, the losing architects complained that they could have designed the same thing.  Yet Brunelleschi pointed out to them that only after they had seen his design and had knowledge of it could they have imitated it.  To prove his point he challenged them to make an egg stand up freely on one end on a flat piece of marble.  After they could not, Brunelleschi took the egg, tapped it hard on one end on the marble in order to flatten it. Then he simply stood it up on the flattened end.  Thus even something as simple as this will be impossible to do without the knowledge of how to do it.

To be sure, the author of a man-made vision would have a natural fear of not being believed by the general public.  So in order to impress his readers of its divine origin, he would be inclined to make up things by introducing features which would be mysterious, and, therefore, would not have to be explained.

To the contrary, the specific purpose of a Heaven-sent vision will be to make the unknown, known, the unrevealed, revealed, and the unclear, clear by the use of comparisons or metaphors which would be familiar to, and could and should readily be understood by the reader.

What is more, to have an angel (2nd Kings 19:35), or a host of them (2nd Kings 6:16-17), fight for a country according to God’s plan, is entirely biblical.  Refer to Daniel chapter 10!  Likewise, whenever an angel would appear in a dream to men (Matthew 1:20; 2:13, 19), or would appear in human form, it either was to bring a message to men which they otherwise could not know, or it was to perform some service for men as a messenger of God’s providence.  Consult Genesis chapters 18 & 19; Luke 1:11-13 & 26-31; 2:8-12; 24:4; Acts 1:10!

Nevertheless, in recent times a writer has remarked in opposition to the genuineness of Washington’s account:  “The tale of ‘Washington’s Vision’ was penned by Charles W. Alexander (1836-1927), a Philadelphia journalist who published The Soldier’s Casket, a periodical for Union veterans of the Civil War.  Writing under the pseudonym ‘Wesley Bradshaw’, Alexander authored several ‘vision’ or ‘dream’ pieces featuring historic American figures which were published as broadsheets and in various newspapers during the Civil War and were later offered for sale through advertisements in the pages of The Soldier’s Casket.

“The meaning of ‘Washington’s Vision’ was apparent to Alexander’s contemporary audience.  First published in April 1861 (at the outbreak of the Civil War) and full of references to ‘Union’ and ‘Republic’, this account of Washington’s praying ‘to God in secret for aid and comfort’ during the darkest days of the American Revolution and being visited by an angel who revealed to him a vision of the United States victorious was an obvious allegory for Unionists whose America was facing its greatest crisis since the revolution:  a civil war pitting one half the country against the other in a struggle that threatened the existence of the Republic.”

Just the same, these remarks still would not undermine the genuineness of this account.  For instance, the testimony of Isaac Potts, a minister, of seeing Washington pray alone in the woods at Valley Forge, is not a fictional narrative.

In addition, Washington’s account had been around before the Civil War had ended.  Thus in the year of 1861, neither Charles W. Alexander nor anyone else could know with certainty from any other source whether or not the new Southern Confederacy ever would reenter the Union at some time in the future.  For example, an Assistant Secretary of War, Charles Dana, believed in 1863, when the outcome of the war was still unknown, “that the political territorial and political integrity of the nation must be preserved at all costs, no matter how long it took…. I preferred one nation and one country, with a military government afterward, if such should follow, rather than two or three nations and countries with the semblance of the old Constitution in each of them, ending in wars and despotisms everywhere.”[38]  In 1864 General Sherman wrote to a delegation of the city council of Atlanta:  “If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war.”[39]  Indeed, as late as the capture of Atlanta in September of 1864, it was more likely that Lincoln would be voted out of office, a peace party would take over the Northern federal administration, and that the North and the South would remain separate rather than ever come together again.  Thus no one commonly in 1861 would venture to make up a story regarding an end to the Civil War which resulted in a definite unification, for he would know that he only would be guessing; and, if demonstrated to be wrong, he definitely would be subject to public ridicule, which no author commonly would risk.

On the other hand, if a man would have Washington’s account brought to his attention, and would be convinced of its divine truthfulness, he could identify the second conflict of three in it with the Civil War, and would not be afraid to stand by its prophesied outcome.  In fact, at just such a time any citizen could and should publicize this story widely in order to reassure both North and South that the Union would stand after that war’s end in spite of current appearances, for that would be the purpose for which the prophecy was made known to others aside from Washington.

Moreover, why would it be necessary in 1861 to prophesy falsely of yet another war after the Civil War, and to describe it in such a unique and detailed manner?  What would be the author’s motive, or his gain?  To be sure, why then would he announce only one more war; why not two, or three more?

Therefore, the implication that Charles Alexander simply invented this account of Washington in order to sell his magazines and reprints, and to deceive his readers into a baseless optimism, will not remove these contradictions.

Furthermore, that three, internal wars would occur in this country is the sign of the triune God:  the number three; his sign to us that he is in control completely of the life of our land.

What is more, the authenticity of this account is corroborated by the fact that the first and the second conflicts described by this story have been fulfilled in the Revolutionary War involving America and Europe, that is, Britain and France, and also in the Civil War with its “ill-omened spectre from Africa” indicating the slavery matter.

Indeed, the American wars featured in Washington’s account are specific and connected, just as the Revolutionary and Civil Wars in American history have been specific and connected by their stunning similarities which have been listed above.

In fact, think about it!  At this latter date in time, you no longer have just one war by which to judge.  You have two wars with the important evidence of their striking similarities to corroborate Washington’s account.

Therefore, since these two wars are connected, as the wars in Washington’s account are connected, God purposely must have designed them for a reason:  to get your express attention to rely with divine certainty on the fact that he is the one who has made them specific and connected in order to assure you that only he is the sustainer of our country.

A Lack of Acceptance

Hence what would happen if you would send a copy of Washington’s account to the officials of any Lutheran synod today for their appraisal, and would ask them if it would be true and genuine that a real angel had spoken to George Washington; and would ask if they, therefore, would believe this account, and would urge their member congregations to believe it also?

Their answer to you, in effect, will be a polite “No.”

Likewise, if you would ask a Lutheran pastor if he would believe it to be divinely-sent, he also will reply politely with “I cannot.”

If you would ask him “Why not?”  he may respond, “Only after all the events have taken place will I ever believe that this story is divine.”  Otherwise, he will reply that he would need some additional assurance, divine assurance, that this account was Heaven-sent before he would believe it.

If you would press him further, and would ask him  in what form this divine assurance would take, he probably would confess that he would not know.

Therefore, tell him what it will be!  That is right.  Inform him that you know of such assurance, indeed, an assurance sufficient enough for the average Christian to believe that this story is divine!  It will be this:  The first two wars prophesied by this account already have come true.  The third war prophesied assuredly will come true since the scriptural sign of the times (Matthew 16:1-3), not the one that indicates a nation’s future “peace” (Luke 19:42), but the other one that indicates “the time of visitation” of a war (Luke 19:44), assures us of such a future war, since America clearly and commonly has rejected the gospel, as Jerusalem once did.

Nevertheless, if someone still would reply, “I still do not believe that Washington’s account is genuinely Heaven-sent,” I will assure him, “The evidence for this exists in sufficient quantity for the average layman to see it and to be convinced of it beyond a reasonable doubt.  So believe it, and accept the assurance which it gives; for that is its purpose!”

Gene Urtel                                                    2018

[1] Ewald M. Plass, What Luther Says Saint Louis:  Concordia, 1959), page 654A footnote.
[2] Plass, page 651A footnote.
[3] George Bancroft, History of the United States of America, volume IV (New York:  D. Appleton and Company, 1888), page 450.
[4] Bancroft, page 108.
[5] Bancroft, page 109.
[6] William Edward Hartpole Lecky, The American Revolution, editor James Albert Woodburn (New York:  D. Appleton and Company, 1908), page 141.
[7] Lecky, page 142.
[8] Lecky, page 104.
[9] Lecky, page 105.
[10] Lecky, page 164.
[11] Lecky, page 165.
[12] Lecky, page 136.
[13] Lecky, page 175f.
[14] Walter A. Maier, Christ, Set the World Aright (Saint Louis:  Concordia, 1945), page 368.
[15] Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln (Pleasantville, New York:  The Reader’s Digest Association, 1970), page 366A.
[16] Sandburg, page 209B.
[17] Sandburg, page 188A.
[18] Sandburg, page 161B.
[19] Sandburg, page 311A.
[20] Sandburg, page 167A.
[21] Lecky, page 383.
[22] Lecky, page 222.
[23] Lecky, page 222.
[24] Sandberg, page 164B.
[25] Lecky, page 167.
[26] Robert Toombs, “The Right of the South to Secede,” Great Epochs in American History, edited by Francis W. Halsey, Volume VIII (Funk & Wagnalls Company:  New York, 1912), pages 16-17.
[27] Sandberg, page 382B.
[28] Lecky, page 484.
[29] Sandberg, page 212A.
[30] Sandberg, page 205A.
[31] Sandberg, page 243A.
[32] Sandberg, page 205A.
[33] Sandberg, page 212B.
[34] Sandberg, page 254B.
[35] C. F. W. Walther, Standard Epistles, translated by Donald E. Heck [Fort Wayne:  Concordia Theological Seminary Press, 1984], page 512.
[36] The two, scriptural signs of the times (Matthew 16:1-3) are these:  The one will indicate a nation’s future peace (Luke 19:42), if that nation would be repenting and believing the gospel.  The other will indicate a nation’s future punishment by war (Luke 19:44), if that nation would not be repenting and not believing the gospel.

[37] In his dictionary of 1828 under the word “Savior,” Noah Webster, the Christian, pointedly had this to say:  “General Washington may be called the saver, but not the savior of his country.”  He was referring to the well-known remark made by General Henry Lee III who stated in a memorial address which commemorated the first President’s death, “Washington, the savior of his country, did not disdain to acknowledge and adore his great Savior.”
[38] Charles A. Dana, Recollections of the Civil War (Lincoln, Nebraska:  University of Nebraska Press, 1996), page 29f.
[39] William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, volume II (New York:  Da Capo Press, 1984), page 126.

TO READ IN BOOK FORMAT, OR TO PRINT THIS ARTICLE, CLICK ON THIS LINK – Blog-reply-47-pp

 

The following is a list of comments made by the author that have been sent to and have been posted on various blog sites. A few are ready to be sent as soon as that particular topic would come around again in the future.

These comments have been presented as examples which the American Christian could use either to inform the general public, or else to defend biblical teaching and its correct practice. Notice that these comments intentionally have avoided the taking of any political stand! They have addressed the introduction of any immoral or unbiblical position.

 

– More and more people are waking up .           .           .           .           .           .         2

– When our country is faced with lawlessness   .           .           .           .           .        2

– After citizens would have been endangered   .         .           .           .           .           3

– After a tragedy would get nation-wide attention       .           .           .           .        4

– After a natural disaster    .           .           .           .           .           .           .           .       4

– A response to bad news in the headlines         .           .           .           .           .        5

– What could we do to win?          .           .           .           .           .           .           .        6

– After a Muslim attack on civilians          .           .           .           .           .           .      6

– “There are Cultural Differences between Islam and Western Civilization.”      9

– “Why does God not stop bad people?” .           .           .           .           .           .       10

– God is in a punishing mode        .           .           .           .           .           .           .       11

– Who could resist God?     .           .           .           .           .           .           .           .       12

– Unbelief is America’s greatest problem            .           .           .           .           .       12

– What could our nation do to control our troubles?    .           .           .           .       13

– “How could God ever control events which would involve men?”                       15

– The restoration of our constitutional republic could only be done morally       15

– “Separate religion from civil liberty!”   .           .           .           .           .           .        17

– Would America still be a Christian nation?      .           .           .           .           .       18

– “What about all of the corruption in government?”  .           .           .           .         19

– “The elites in society are acting lawlessly.”      .           .           .           .           .        21

– “The electorate is ignorant.”       .           .           .           .           .           .           .        22

– The turning of a political matter into a moral issue    .           .           .           .       23

– Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty           .           .           .           .        25

– “Protestants interpret biblical passages differently.”             .           .           .        26

– “The government is taking away our rights unconstitutionally.”               .          27

– Obeying a governmental order regarding firearms  .           .           .           .          28

– Jesus says: “Sell your cloak for a sword”        .           .           .           .           .          31

– America is bitterly divided          .           .           .           .           .           .           .        32

– “America could not vote its way out of this current mess.”            .           .          33

– The future American Civil War              .           .           .           .           .           .        34

– “Christian nations fought against each other in the Civil War.”      .           .       35

– Would we need to name God and his Son in our Constitution?        .                 37

– Reoccurring themes in articles that complain of how bad things are                 38

– The man of lawlessness is not a political phenomenon          .           .           .      39

– The pope is the Antichrist           .           .           .           .           .           .           .       40

– Muslim head coverings are not the same as those in 1st Corinthians 11    .       42

– “Why criticize homosexuals?”    .           .           .           .           .           .           .        43

– The Abuse of the 1st and 2nd Amendments of the Bill of Rights       .           .     46

 

* * *

 

More and more people are waking up.

 

Gentlemen:

More and more people, who have been suffering more and more recently, are waking up finally more and more because of their pain, and are searching for solutions on how to stop this pain. Years ago, when they were not in severe pain, they did not protest those who were bringing on more pain step by step.

Why was this pain brought on in the first place? Because of selfishness.

How could this selfishness be decreased? By decreasing the number of selfish citizens.

How? By changing their hearts.

What would have the power to suppress and to control selfishness in the human heart? Only God’s gospel promise.

When our land used to be a Christian nation, it was far less selfish. We were “a moral and religious people,” as John Adams described it, showing the divine transformation which God’s mighty gospel had worked in us before taking us to heaven.

Would you like a return to those peaceful days? It could be done. It is called “mission work.” It is called “re-Christianizing” this nation by preaching the old, authentic, neglected gospel from sea to shining sea after calling for an admission of guilt and remorse over sins.

Address it! Work for it!

With kind regards,

Gene Urtel – The Rivertown Press

 

When our country is faced with lawlessness.

 

How could you get people to stop being criminal or lawless? For example, if you would have a muddy stream, how could you get it to be clear? For instance, would you just dip out its muddy water along the banks, or would you go to its muddy source, and clean it there? Likewise, in order to change muddy people, you will have to go to the source and change their muddy minds. How, especially when they are adamant not to change? This is something which only God has the power to do. Furthermore, he promises that he will do it through his powerful, life-transforming gospel announcement of deliverance from the guilt and from the Judgment Day punishment of our sins, if only we would believe that Christ on his bloody cross removed this guilt and punishment for the entire human race. See this! Believe this, and become transformed yourself!

The Bible assures that “God works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). “The things that are impossible with men are possible with God” (Luke 18:27). “If anyone would be in Christ he will be a new creation” (2nd Corinthians 5:17).

The core problem is spiritual. At the close of the Second World War General MacArthur noted: “Military alliance, balances of power, League of Nations, all in turn, failed…. The problem basically is theological.” Some years before this, after the previous First World War Woodrow Wilson admitted, “Our civilization cannot survive materially unless it be redeemed spiritually. It can be saved only by becoming permeated with the spirit of Christ and being made free and happy by the practices which spring out [sic] the spirit. Only thus can discontent be driven out and all the shadows lifted from the road ahead.” Correct the spiritual first then the rest will be corrected!

 

After citizens would have been endangered or harmed by others; how to understand the world affairs in our time.

 

This is what any country is like after its society has thrown out God and his soul-saving gospel. When ours was a Christian nation and many citizens were transformed by God to believe in his gospel pledge, and to love their neighbors, even influencing the non-believers to do the same, outrageous crimes were rare and done simply by an incorrigible, tiny minority. Yet what recently happened is to be expected in whatever society rejects biblical repentance and saving faith in Christ, but which enthrones sin instead: Government, employers, merchants, schools, and neighbors will prey upon you and your children. Ever-increasing costs for everything will be far higher than they would need to be in a peaceful society. Peace and prosperity will be gone.

Nevertheless, if society would be asked, “Would you desire to turn to biblical repentance and gospel belief to end your misery; to bring down both God’s earthly peace and prosperity and his soul-peace and prosperity?” The answer could and should be a resounding “Yes!” So far America has answered with a resounding “No!”

Just the same, what could and should be done? Repent of your sins, and believe the gospel of sin-cleansing in Christ’s blood! Urge your neighbors to do the same! Urge your pastors to quit preaching a social gospel that strokes people’s egos, sidesteps sin, and drags us down into hell!

 

 After a tragedy would get nation-wide attention.

 

After something like this has occurred, it only would be natural for Americans to ask Gideon’s question, “If the Lord would be with us, why then has all of this happened to us?” (Judges 6:13.)

Think about this for a moment! What should be the answer?

It would be that the Lord is no longer with us, but against us. Indeed, the Almighty himself replies, “You have forsaken me and served other gods. Therefore, I will deliver you no longer. Go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen! Let them deliver you in your time of distress!” (Judges 10:13-14.) To be sure, God not only will leave society to its own self-inflicted misery, but he himself actively will punish it (“I will punish”, Isaiah 13:11) as well, using all means at his disposal: natural disasters, viruses, recessions, even bad governments, bad police, bad immigrants, and bad neighbors: characteristically using lawless people to punish other lawless people, threatening, “The entire world is guilty before God” (Romans 3:19). “Unless you would repent, all of you likewise will perish” (Luke 13:3).

Thus realize that it is no minor matter to reject God’s core requirements of society! In other words, by not repenting of its sins, and by ignoring his gospel, society, in spirit, has spit in God’s face, stabbed him in the back, and defied him to bring on Judgment Day.

Would you think that God will sit still for this? “All nations that forget God will be turned into hell” (Psalm 9:17).

 

 After a natural disaster.

 

God was behind the recent devastation. Since he is the ruler of the universe, nothing could happen on its own. He informs us, “I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all of these things” (Isaiah 45:7).

Why did God do it?

He gives us two reasons for creating calamity. First of all, he did it as a punishment on those who did not believe his gospel of salvation from sin (Isaiah 13:11; Mark 16:16).   Secondly, he did it as a disciplining for the spiritual betterment of those involved who did believe his gospel pledge (Romans 8:28). Even if a gospel believer would have died as a result of this calamity, and gone to heaven, God would have counted it as a death by which that person “would glorify God” (John 21:19).

Why did the Almighty single out these people for this calamity? He does not tells us. For example, after Jesus was approached over a similar case (Luke 13:1-5) he simply gave his interviewers the deserved warning, “Unless you would repent, all of you likewise will perish” (Luke 13:3); for “the entire world is guilty before God. No man is righteous before him” (Romans 3:19).

So what would be the smart thing to do? It would be to put yourself under God’s protection? How? Repent and believe the gospel! (Mark 1:15.) Then rely on his protection pledges!

 

A response to any bad news in the headlines.

 

There is a good side to this bad news, and it is that more and more people, who have been suffering more and more lately, finally are waking up, and are searching for solutions on how to stop this pain. This result actually is good.

Back in the 1970’s and even earlier, there were some citizens, mostly voters of political third parties, that did sound the alarm about creeping socialism. Yet the media, in response with a ruthless malice, absolutely demonized these citizens, calling them paranoid right-wing extremists, who “thought there was a communist under every bed.” As a result, the rest of the country, which still lived a daily routine without too much pain and oppression, with a pitying smile likened these citizens to a Chicken Little which claimed that the sky was falling.

This previous phenomenon lately has been termed: “While good men slept, evil marched on.” No; rather it could and should be stated more precisely of previous years: “In the past Americans willfully ignored clear cut warnings from fellow citizens in tandem with the obvious public evidence because they would not be wrenched from their worldliness by anything.” Now that severe pain is here, more and more citizens finally are waking up.

Just the same, a political awakening by itself will not be enough, for awakened people will be tempted merely to solve the symptom, and not look beyond it to the actual root cause. For example, people with a headache merely will take a powerful pain reliever for relief rather than address the root cause which relentlessly is triggering the headache. Thus “shooting the messenger” will not solve a problem, though this is, in fact, what some people today are set upon doing, not looking beyond the messenger, or symptom, to the core problem. Hence some believe that by “shooting the government” we will solve our current state of political problems.

Rather what would? Excellent question!

Ask any old person: “What was America like many years ago. Was it oppressive?” His answer will be, “No,” and he could give you a multitude of examples of peace and prosperity.

So what has happened since then? What has caused the change?

That brings us to the root of the whole matter: It is a spiritual problem, not a political matter. That is to say, when America still was living in a golden age of Christianity years ago, many citizens were transformed by God’s powerful gospel words into living a moral and a loving life on this earth (until they were brought to heaven), bringing justice, safety, and happiness to their communities, as God crowned this country with peace and prosperity despite its many weaknesses, faults, and failings.

Yet, as it so often happens in prosperity, people pridefully and thanklessly forget about God. As a result, they ignored the use of his mighty, transforming, gospel words, become untransformed, and reverted to being a lawless and an ungodly people again. Moreover, “as the people are, so will the government be.” That is, consequently, the government, being staffed from the pool of citizens, became lawless and ungodly, as well. Should this be surprising?

What you are seeing now in this country today, in an ever-increasing intensity, is what it would be like to live in a gospel-less, heathen society. What do you think of this? Which society would you prefer? It is either/or.

Would you like to revert back to the way things used to be? It could be done. Since this is a spiritual problem, not a political or a military one, spiritual steps must be taken.

What would they be? They will be quite simple. They will be what God has pointed out plainly in his Bible, namely: (1) To be sorry for your violations of Heaven’s holy laws, and then (2) to seek pardon for them in Heaven’s holy gospel pledge of sin-cleansing in the blood of Jesus Christ. For instance, the Ninevehites did this and, as a result, spared their land from intended destruction (see Jonah chapter 3). You could do it, too. You have God’s pledge (see 2nd Chronicles 7:14).

This is the point of the whole matter. So do this!

 

“What could we do to win?’

 

This is simple: Get on God’s side?

How? Do what God wants you to do.

What is it? Admit and regret that you have broken every moral law that God has given you to obey, and then go to him as an unworthy, guilty sinner, and trust his promised pardon (see Mark 1:15)!

After that, whatever may happen during his punishment of our gospel-rejecting nation, he will keep his biblical promises to you of his protection and care. However, the most important thing is that you must remain with him now and forever. Do so!

 

After a Muslim terrorist attack on civilians.

 

Was not this an appalling act?

So what is the lesson to be learned from this?

It is simple. This is how angry God currently is at Western Civilization.

Why? There is only one biblical reason ever for his anger: Western Civilization has rejected God and his gracious gospel promise of salvation for the whole ruined race of mankind.

As a result the Almighty is not waiting for Judgment Day, he is beginning to punish right now. In fact, he is using one group of despicable thugs to punish another group of despicable thugs.

Would you ever resent being called a despicable thug? Read the truth about how wicked and despicable your heart is by nature according to the description given by Jesus, your God! (Mark 7:21-23.) If you still would want to deny it, your argument is with God, not with me. Call him the liar, if you would dare!

For instance, once on this earth the Lord Jesus cursed the tri-cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum. (See Matthew 11:20-24.) This means that he promised to destroy them. In time he did. Whom did the Almighty send to destroy them? Look it up in secular history! It was the Muslims. That is right. God sent the Muslims.

Again, six hundred years after Christ 40,000 Christian congregations once spread across North Africa. After they became what today Western Civilization and its worldly churches have become, what happened to them? They too were destroyed. Whom did God send to do it? Look it up! God sent the Muslims.

Will people wake up to this fact, and make use of God’s solution? The verdict of past history is “No,” the vast majority will not.

Nevertheless, be different!

 

* * *

In the first six centuries after Christ, his church spread over North Africa with remarkable rapidity.  Forty thousand congregations once flourished there; millions were brought to the saving knowledge of their Redeemer; many Christian schools and charitable institutions were established; mighty religious leaders arose to proclaim the power of the Christian faith.  In North Africa, it seemed, the kingdom of God had a secure stronghold.  Yet as often happens, prosperity made the churches lazy, worldly, and disobedient to God’s Word.  After the rise of a golden age of Christianity there, they fell away from the gospel faith.  Then suddenly the Mohammedan conquest spread over North Africa.  The crescent of the moon supplanted the cross of Christ; the Koran took the place of the Bible; the towers of the mosques rose over the Christian churches.  Today, throughout certain North African areas, where faith once flourished, no followers of the Savior survive, no divine Deliverer is worshiped, and no hymns are sung to our Lord.

At the time of Christ three flourishing cities with a population of a million people: Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, also had no time for Jesus nor for his gospel faith, like the current response in America and in western Europe today. The majority of its citizens likewise were too busy getting on with their lives to give any serious thought to repentance and gospel faith. As a result, God cursed these cities (Matthew 11:20-24). This meant that not only would the citizens be punished on Judgment Day, but also already in this life the inhabitants and their property would be destroyed. How was it done? Some six hundred years later, the Son of God sent the Muslims to level these cities.

Later, after Asia Minor, Greece, and the Balkans fell away from believing the gospel of Jesus Christ into mere formalism and worldliness, they, too, were punished by the invasion of an Islamic army.  Still later, at the time of Martin Luther, an Islamic army had surrounded Vienna, and was threatening to overrun Europe.

You are never going to understand why the Muslims are successful again today until you accept the biblical truth that almighty God, who is in control of all human events, once again is blessing the Muslims with success because the Almighty is in a punishing mode against the United States, Western Europe, etc., over spiritual matters, not political matters; namely, for their nonchalant rejection of his soul-saving gospel promise. He is using the Muslims once again as his punishing tool during the New Testament times as he has threatened to do in his Bible.

Thus the rise of Islam and its punitive role in the history of the Christian church until the end of time should come as no surprise. It could and should be expected. That is to say, in reaction to the falls from gospel faith which the Christian nations would take from time to time in the New Testament times, after periods of spiritual golden ages, God prophesied in Revelation 9:14-19 about his curse called Islam, which he specifically would raise up in New Testament times, which he would send as a punishment upon those church members who had fallen away from the true gospel faith.  By telling us about this, the Almighty is putting us on notice. To be sure, as long as it would remain faithful, the Almighty never would send a curse upon his church. Only after it would backslide treacherously into unfaithfulness will the Almighty carry out his threat:  “The nation and kingdom that will not serve” God “shall perish” (Isaiah 60:12).  In order to describe the fierce intent and the results of Islam in its punitive role, Scripture used picturesque language in Revelation to describe it. That is, in the Revelation passage the plan of the Lord Jesus is to picture one thing that is familiar to the reader, in order to get him to understand a future matter.

* * *

 

Gentlemen, in order to make any sense of the current Muslim problem, keep in mind the following:

• The almighty God of heaven, who is in control of all human events, has seen to it that the Muslims, somehow, will be sent to us, as he has warned us he would, in response to a nation’s spiritual unrepentance and rejection of his soul-saving gospel. God prophesied in Revelation 9:14-19 about his curse called Islam, which he specifically would raise up in New Testament times, which he would send as a punishment upon those church members who had fallen away from the true gospel faith.  He has simply raised up one evil to punish another one. This is not unusual with God, but standard.
• Nationalistic politics, or even military force will all fail to cast out the Muslims, since God will neutralize even the best of human efforts until he no longer would be in a punishing mode.
• In order to cast out the Muslims successfully, a nation first will need to have God’s blessing on their efforts, for “Unless the Lord would build the house, they will labor in vain who would build it” (Psalm 127:1).
• That is, in order to have this divine blessing of a successful result, a nation will have to put itself on the Lord’s side again. How? By repenting of its sins, and by no longer rejecting God and his saving gospel.
• Until this would be done, the Almighty will maintain a level of successful Muslim warfare. That is, God will keep punishing nations by Islamic warfare until he is through.

Gentlemen, correct this matter in the biblical manner! Revolve to do it!

 

“There are cultural differences between Islam and Western Civilization.”

 

Briefly put: Western values would be superior morally to those of Islam because of any biblical morality that still will be remaining in them. It was the introduction of Christianity into Europe by missionaries that brought biblical morality into their everyday lives. Before this time, the Celts with their Druid superstitions, the Germanic tribes with their heathen worship, even the Romans and Grecians, were disgusting morally. To be sure, according to Revelation 9:13-19 Islam is in a category all by itself with its trait of viciousness. Yet without the elements of biblical morality introduced by Christian missionaries into Western Europe, when the powerful gospel words transformed these heathen into people headed for heaven, Western values not only would be useless and repugnant, but they actually would attack good morals.

For example, the Greek Plato, the study of whom is considered primary in a college course on Western Civilization, taught that like the animals, men should share their wives. Likewise the Greek Socrates, held up to our college-aged youth as an exalted thinker, preferred to talk with the town prostitute rather than his own wife. The description of ancient Roman society in the writings of Ovid and Horace is appalling. The Roman Seneca declared, “All things are full of vices and crimes. Innocence is not rare. It no longer exists.”

Yet I would invite you to look more recently to our own age. Look at pop music, for instance! In the 1960’s popular musical groups were singing the praises of prostitutes to our young people, glorifying promiscuous sex, exalting the use of hallucinating drugs to the sound of catchy tunes, and even extolling Satanism in the 1970’s, not to mention the gutter filth that has been hailed on the American screen as well as in English literature.

Thus, if there would be anything virtuous remaining in our own culture, it will be those remnants of biblical ethics and morality that are still being held by whatever degree by however few citizens for whatever reason which have not yet been driven out by the immorality which is being dinned into our ears and paraded ceaselessly before our eyes by the incessant merchandizers of decadent pop culture who recognize that the easiest way to separate us from our money is to appeal to the lust of our sinful flesh.

 

“Why are bad people successful at being bad? Why does God not stop them?”

 

First of all, we are not aware of, as God is, of all the cases worldwide in which bad people have been punished for their evil. Usually we hear of those outrageous cases in which bad people have been successful in causing evil.

Why would God allow this? Remember: If God were to wipe off the face of this earth at midnight everyone who ever had acted as a tyrant toward God or man: How many of us still would be alive at 1:00 a.m.? Thus the Almighty is giving them and us an opportunity to come to repentance and to faith (Mark 1:15).

Secondly, God is using bad people to punish other bad people; this punishment being reserved not exclusively for criminal cases, but definitely for all criminal spiritual activity; that is, for dethroning God in their hearts, and for rejecting his heaven-opening, gospel promise.

In this regard some people have made two mistakes. First of all, they have presumed that the punishment of bad people has to be done by someone on a white horse. Yet God routinely uses thieves to punish other thieves, or, to be more precise, he will use your enemies to punish you. Secondly, some people presume that since they themselves have not broken any civil laws, that they are immune from Heaven’s punishment. However, they do not consider the great religious crimes against their holy Maker and Savior which they have been committing willfully and stubbornly all along, namely, a vehement rejection of the repenting of their sins and of believing his gospel (Luke 24:47). Nevertheless, God will punish all those who refuse to repent and to believe, and will use bad people to do it. Therefore, it would not be the kind of sin that causes God to punish someone, but simply that person’s unbelief in the gospel of salvation, because the entire world’s guilt and subsequent punishment already have been removed and transferred to Christ’s person, who has paid for it all. All that would be needed for escape from God’s anger and entrance into heaven with him, is to believe his pledge that Christ has done this. Simple, is it not! Do so!

Furthermore, while the Lord has revealed in his Bible his commands and promises to us, still our thoughts will not always be his thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9), since his judgments are unsearchable by us (Romans 11:33). In other words, the Lord has plans, methods, and judgments that are hidden, so to speak, from our comprehension. Just the same, he pledges that he will get the job done of bringing people to repentance and faith and then into heaven, and of punishing those who would refuse to repent and to believe.

 

Currently, God is in a punishing mode against America, and against the rest of the unbelieving world as well.

 

God is punishing gospel-rejecting citizens by using his agent, the government, to take away their powers (liberties) one by one, especially the ones dearest to them, in order to make their punishment be felt all the more keenly, and to shut down their lawlessness. Thus it could and should be kept in mind that God may override any or every effort by citizens, whether Christian or not, to preserve their constitutional liberties, in order that his punishment on godless Americans may extend even to his revocation of every right enumerated by the Bill of Rights.

To be sure, the moral and the religious citizens will have to suffer under this also. The only control for this tyranny would be a genuine conversion of the populace through repentance and through saving faith in the gospel (Mark 1:15), after which the believers will discipline themselves morally, motivated and powered by God’s powerful gospel pledge to do so.

In addition, patriot Americans ignore the obvious fact that God is in a punishing mode today; that resistance to God will be futile. He will keep his threat to scatter the proud in the imagination of their hearts, and to put down the mighty by using one tyrannical group: the government, to punish the other tyrannical group: the citizens. Neither does the thought ever enter their minds that they must put themselves on the Lord’s side, and then, patiently await the Lord’s providence, and bear willingly whatever event he might send in the meantime.

I do not know how much stronger I could point to this obvious fact: God is in a punishing mode. Moreover, he will not quit until there is no one left to punish. Realize this! Understand this! Accept this! Affirm it! Adjust your thinking according to it! Flex your future plans malleably around it, and determine your subsequent actions accordingly! It would be foolish to proceed with any man-made plans, and wishfully think that your plans will succeed. They will not. God is in a plans-dashing, might-smashing mode toward anything which would attempt to interfere with his punishment. Will you not see this? It is time to pray Ezra’s and Daniel’s prayers (Ezra 9:6-10, 13-15; Daniel 9:4-19).

 

“In light of the above, it could be asked, then, ‘What should we do, then, if we could not resist God’? That is, would it be senseless for a genuine Christian to rally with or to lobby with others for the restoration of his constitutional rights, for instance? What good would it do?”

 

The biblical answer will be: Do your duty, and trust in God’s providence! As with sickness, floods, fires, and other adversities for which the Almighty is responsible, he does not want you to succumb to them in helplessness, declaring, “Who could resist God?” but to do your duty according to his clear, biblical will, and to overcome these God-sent afflictions with the means which he has provided, which you have at hand, if it would be his will to bless your efforts with success.

 

“Sin is America’s greatest problem.”

 

To be more precise, it is not sin, but unbelief that is America’s great problem; that is, an unbelief in God’s gracious, soul-saving gospel – the only thing that will rescue the sinner from the Judgment Day to come, and from an eternity of punishment at the righteous hands of an insulted, betrayed, and rejected Creator by his creatures. Indeed, the Lord already has declared that he will be patient with mankind’s sins as long as men would repent of them (Jeremiah 3:12-13) and believe in his gospel pledge that Jesus’ saving blood has covered us with sin-removing pardon.

So then, what is going on currently in America? This country has joined just now the long list of nations throughout history that have gone through this terrible cycle: a rise and fall of a gospel, golden age. In other words, God will bring his merciful gospel pledge to a land, move the inhabitants to believe it, and also bless them materially with civil peace and prosperity. Yet, usually during the third generation, citizens will begin to detest the gospel, and reject it. Thus this is where we are now: this country has “fallen away” from the gospel. It has “backslid” and become “unfaithful,” as the Word of God puts it. Oh, yes, there still are some churches in it with a sense of spirituality about them, but not the kind which the Bible clearly outlines for genuine repentance and saving faith.

How has this gospel-rejection played out in this country? Just read about all of the dire news on this blog site alone! Do you really like living in all of this misery? Yet this is what life commonly is like in a typical heathen, gospel-void society.

Hence in the throes of all of this misery, America desperately could and should be asking Gideon’s question: “If the Lord would be with us, then why has all of this happened to us?” (Judges 6:13.) The answer is simple: The Lord is not with us. Since we have rejected him, he has rejected us. Namely, the Almighty, who is in control of men and of their events, as Gideon implied (1st Corinthians 12:6; Psalm 127:1; Amos 3:6; Isaiah 10:15), is punishing us as an irate father by sending us bad government, bad police, bad citizens, bad justice, bad economics, bad weather, for example, just as he biblically has threatened he would do, in order to get us to return to his good graces by repenting of our sins, and by believing his gospel promise.

Nevertheless, what more would it take? How long will America hold out?

Remember, “the Lord is a man of war” (Exodus 15:3)! His guiding policy is: “All nations that forget God shall be turned into hell” (Psalm 9:17). His last resort, after seeing that his previous minor punishments have not changed any minds, is to bring on a most severe, devastating war of punishment on a country.

Thus there will be, indeed, a military war on America’s soil in the future, one about which everyone could and should be divinely certain; not a nuclear blast in which everyone is annihilated quickly without any pain, but a typical one of divine punishment: a back and forth devastation that would go on for years, causing as much suffering as possible. Hence the underlying basis of this war will be not one of the white hats against the black hats, but once again of a furious God against his ungrateful, gospel-detesting creatures.

See this! Repent, and believe the gospel! (Mark 1:15.)

Pray Abraham’s prayer! (Genesis 18:23-32.)

Pray Daniel’s prayer! (Daniel 9:3-27.)

Pray Ezra’s prayer! (Ezra 9:6-10; 13-15.)

 

“What would we need to do as a nation to control our troubles?”

 

A commentator on this blog site has mentioned that “The first thing which we should do, as a people (truly a ‘nation’), is repent and serve the Lord of Hosts again.”

This is heartening to read. This is commendable of him to mention this.

To be sure, God himself in his holy Scriptures divinely assures us that it is of utmost importance to repent of our sins, and to believe in his gracious, soul-saving gospel promise in order to rescue the sinner from Judgment Day and from an eternity of punishment at the righteous hands of an insulted, betrayed, and rejected Creator by his creatures. See the Bible: Acts 17:30; Mark 1:15; Isaiah 55:7!

Indeed, our failure to be sorry for our sins and our rejection of God’s gospel pledge have been the core problem of all of our other troubles. That is to say, America, Western Europe, and the rest of the world must realize that the current social and political crises are only outward symptoms of a much greater spiritual problem: a failure to repent and to believe the gospel. Correct the spiritual first, then the political will be corrected! This is the only way that our political and civil problems will be corrected.

That is, in order to clean a muddy stream, it will do no good to dip out its water along the banks. You would have to go to its foul source and clean it there: just so with people.

In order to transform people to behave themselves while on this earth in preparation for heaven, people will have to be pointed to what the Bible assures them on repentance and gospel-faith so that they may come under the influence of God’s mighty power in his words to turn their hearts to behave righteously and unselfishly. This is called “mission work.”

For example, years ago, before America had fallen from its golden age of Christianity – away from repentance and gospel faith, in the year 1947, the community of Bremen, Kansas, had not witnessed a single arrest nor one court action in thirty years. Why? The community was made up almost entirely of Lutherans who believed in the gospel promise of Jesus Christ. In fact, their Christian day schools made public schools unnecessary. Just think how safe that community must have been! Think also of how low their taxes and their insurance rates must have been! In the same year Frankenmuth, Michigan, had never had a crime of violence in the 102 years of its existence. During the previous twenty-five years its jail had been entirely empty. Throughout the Great Depression in the 1930’s not one person was on the public relief rolls. What would be the cause of this remarkable record? Frankenmuth was 95 per cent Lutheran. Thus transform the people first, then the political and the civil will be corrected!

How has this gospel-rejection played out in this country and in Europe? You easily could see for yourself: all of this self-inflicted misery. This is what the thinking and also the behavior is like in a typical heathen, gospel-void society.

This only will sadden and grieve the Creator. For your sake he urges, “Seek first the kingdom of God and of his righteousness, and all these things [earthly well-being] will be added to you!” (Matthew 6:33.) Indeed, following up on this, he promises, “If my people who are called by my name would humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then, I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2nd Chronicles 7:14).

 

“How could God ever control events which would involve men?”

 

Some men, in theory at least, may acknowledge the existence of an almighty God, but in practice they will ignore this. To them, if God would exist, it would be merely to stand by and to watch. He would be impotent to affect the outcome. Yet if God would have the wonderful power in heaven to know and to hear about what is going on down on earth, without Wifi, satellite dish, etc., would he not have power to do other wonderful things as well?

The Bible emphatically contradicts this idea of helplessness and teaches that God is not impotent. “God works all” (1st Corinthians 12:6), that is, he is in control of all events (1st Chronicles 16:31; Isaiah 45:6-7; Colossians 1:17), not men. “Shall the axe boast itself against him who chops with it, or shall the saw magnify itself against him who saws with it?” (Isaiah 10:15.) “Unless the Lord would build the house, they who will build it will labor in vain” (Psalm 127:1). “If there would be calamity in a city, will not the Lord have done it?” (Amos 3:6.) For example, governmental rulers will be tools in his hands (Proverbs 21:1; 2nd Chronicles 36:22; Isaiah 10:12-15). God will punish nations by defeating them through war (Psalm 136:15; Psalm 46:6-10; Exodus 15:3), for instance, by disabling their strongest military defenses, by making their great economic wealth worthless, by compelling their military alliances to become useless, and by paralyzing their intelligent decision-making, which will cause the bravest of their soldiers to lose courage (Obadiah 3-9). Indeed, the reason for bringing down the terrible scourge of war upon any country will be for its unbelief in God’s saving gospel. The synonymous expressions “not serving God” (Isaiah 60:12), “forgetting God” (Psalm 9:17), “not doing the Father’s will” (Matthew 7:21), “practicing lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23), and the “evil” of the world and the “iniquity” of the wicked (Isaiah 13:11) all refer to the wicked rejection of the gospel in unbelief (Mark 1:15; Mark 16:16), and to its supportive sins, which are the cause for God’s punishment in these passages.

In addition, human trust should never be placed in the might of man (Psalm 44:3; Isaiah 10:12-13), which would be idolatry, but in the divinely certain, powerful promises of God. “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength! Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord!” (Jeremiah 17:5 & 7.) “Man will not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

 

The restoration of our constitutional republic could only be done morally.

 

There are some major problems in restoring our country to a constitutional republic.

For instance, (1) even if an armed band of constitutionally-minded, Three Per-centers would march on the nation’s and the states’ capitals, and would eject those governments, the next day the other 97% of the citizens simply will reelect a government just as unconstitutional and lawless as what was removed, for “as the people are, so will the government be.” As John Adams rightly observed, “Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people.” That wise observation will have serious practical implications, if you would think it through. Indeed, how many of the Three Per-centers themselves are “moral and religious”?

Just the same, (2) if tomorrow the Three Per-centers would be installed somehow in all of the offices in the three branches of the federal government, and in all of the offices of state and local governments, and then would repeal all of the unconstitutional legislation, such as, the taxable funding of welfare, abortion, and Social Security, and even would remove restrictions for oil drilling in the Arctic, for example, the patriots in government still will have to abandon the Constitution and to declare martial law for the numerous political left would riot violently because of these measures and bring war onto the streets until the Three Per-centers were out of office. The other more moderate portion of the 97% would want civil peace at any price, and would join the political left in voting the Three Per-centers out of office.

Either that, or (3) in order to have a constitutional government with at least a semblance of civil peace without regular violent disruption, the Three Per-centers would have to lock up all of the other 97% of Americans in camps and feed them everyday, or deport them all, or else murder them all. Would the Three Per-centers be up to accomplish such a gigantic task? Yet could any of these measures be considered constitutional? In fact, if you would think about it, how could one ever rule the implacable political left either without a politically left government, or else without being tyrannical?

Either that, or (4) if after a civil war in the near future which, according to their wishful thinking, the Three Per-centers would like to win, after the political left would have laid down their arms, would the left lay down their political beliefs as well, and in good faith pledge to agitate never again in a Fabian manner to put in place a socialistic government?

So with this mind, how could 3% of Americans ever accomplish the feat of subduing peacefully the other 97%, or even 50%, much less have the “consent of the governed,” for a constitutional rule? not without turning the majority of them into a “moral and religious people” first.

This is the key. Just the same, this would require bringing about the biblical moral transformation which is caused by hearing the Bible’s powerful gospel pledges.

In fact, let me bring in some help here. Let me introduce God into this picture! Would the Three Per-centers ever need God on their side to help them accomplish a restoration of a constitutional republic, or would they not need his help at all? Think about this!

Would you like to have God on your side – and be assured of it by him? Would you know how to get him to be on your side? What is more, will God be pleased with you if you would not know how to do this, or would not care to do this?

What if God has been opposing us all this time, replacing our civil peace with oppression, because we have not been on his side, according to his biblical criteria; and because we have used our God-given liberties only to promote our own purposes, not his?

Would God, like a father toward his wayward children, ever think along these lines? Yes, he will. What is more, would God ever have anything to say about this? Yes, he has a lot to say. Would you think that it would pay for you to research it?

What should be your answer?

 

“Everyone would need to separate civil liberty and rights from religion and religious liberty. One could be religious if one wants, but it is definitely not required. Keep religion to yourself and do not lump religion in with the Constitution!”

 

I kindly would invite you to consider the following:

Without the true genuine religion of the true God in heaven, there will be no civil liberty. The only reason why America has had liberty in the past is because it was under a golden age of Christianity, in which many Americans followed God’s will by repenting of their sins, and by believing his biblical gospel pledge of their salvation. Since the recent generations of Americans have forsaken God, he has forsaken us, and, consequently, has withdrawn his blessing of civil liberty, among other things.

From their own personal knowledge and experience, the following men have made these observations:

“Liberty has not existed outside of Christianity” (Lord Acton).

“The Reformation of Luther introduced the principle of civil liberty into the wilderness of North America” (Daniel Webster at Bunker Hill).

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Greed, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other” (John Adams).

“I believe the fate of a republican government is indissolubly bound up with the fate of the Christian religion; and that a people who reject its holy faith will find themselves the slaves of their own evil passion and of arbitrary power” (Lewis Cass, Secretary of State, from 1857-1860, under President Buchanan).

Thank you for your kind consideration

 

Would America still be a Christian nation?

 

In his written decision on the case “The Church of the Holy Trinity vs. United States,” which was decided by the U. S. Supreme Court in 1892, Justice David Brewster stated that America is a “Christian nation.”

In his book, “The United States a Christian Nation,” page 46, Justice Brewster summarized, after giving the historical evidence, “By these and other evidences I claim to have shown that the calling of this republic a Christian nation is not a mere pretence [sic] but a recognition of an historical, legal and social truth.”

Indeed: “I believe the fate of a republican government is indissolubly bound up with the fate of the Christian religion; and that a people who reject its holy faith will find themselves the slaves of their own evil passion” (Lewis Cass, Secretary of State, from 1857-1860, under President Buchanan).

John Adams, one of our Founding Fathers, once stated truthfully: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Greed, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.” Read that last statement of his again: “Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” This statement had implications. That is, it contained certain conditions. Thus, for instance, when patriot Americans would want our government today to return to the constitutional republic which it once was, they must face the fact that it simply could not be done until the American people themselves would return to being a moral and a religious people.

Yet there is no spiritual will on the part of the vast majority of Americans to return to God, to return to being a Christian nation once more. Indeed, there is a marked revulsion to and a studied hatred of the whole idea. Hence our original constitutional republic “is wholly inadequate to the” governing of the current citizenry because they emphatically and willfully insist on being an immoral and an irreligious people.

Thus unbelief is America’s great problem; that is, an unbelief in God’s gracious, soul-saving gospel – the only thing that will rescue the sinner from the Judgment Day to come. To be sure, the Lord already has declared that he will be patient with mankind’s sins as long as men would repent of them (Jeremiah 3:12-13) and believe in his gospel pledge that Jesus’ saving blood has covered us with sin-removing pardon.

So then, what is going on currently in America? This country has joined just now the long list of nations throughout history that have gone through this terrible cycle: a rise and fall of a gospel golden age. In other words, God will bring his merciful gospel pledge to a land, move the inhabitants to believe it, and also bless them materially with civil peace and prosperity. Yet, usually by the third generation, citizens will begin to detest the gospel, and reject it. Thus this is where we are now: this country has “fallen away” from the gospel. It has “backslid” and become “unfaithful,” as the Word of God puts it. Oh, yes, there still are some churches in it with a sense of spirituality about them, but not the kind which the Bible clearly outlines for genuine repentance and saving faith.

How has this gospel-rejection played out in this country? Just read about all of the dire news on this blog site alone! In fact, do you really like living in all of this misery? Yet this is what life commonly is like in a typical heathen, gospel-void society.

Hence in the throes of all of this misery, America desperately could and should be asking Gideon’s question: “If the Lord would be with us, then why has all of this happened to us?” (Judges 6:13.) The answer is simple: The Lord is not with us. Since we have rejected him, he has rejected us. Namely, the Almighty, who is in control of men and of their events, as Gideon implied (1st Corinthians 12:6; Psalm 127:1; Amos 3:6; Isaiah 10:15), is punishing us as an irate father by sending us bad government, bad police, bad citizens, bad justice, bad economics, bad weather, for example, just as he biblically has threatened he would do, in order to get us to return to his good graces by repenting of our sins, and by believing his gospel promise.

Nevertheless, what more would it take? How long will America hold out?

Remember, “the Lord is a man of war” (Exodus 15:3)! His guiding policy is: “All nations that forget God shall be turned into hell” (Psalm 9:17). His last resort, after seeing that his previous minor punishments have not caused any nation-wide repentance, is to bring on a most severe, devastating war of punishment on that country.

Gentlemen, this spiritual issue must be addressed, for our underlying problem is spiritual. I did not deduce that, God has stated it. Our political problem is just a symptom.

Remember: God is in control of what is happening! We need to get on his side if we would want things to change. May we all do so!

 

“What about all of the corruption in government?”

 

First of all, realize a few things, such as this: “As the people are, so will the government be,” from the Latin maxim Ut rex, ita grex!

In other words, our government never again will get any better until our pool of citizens, from which the office holders come, would get better morally.

Nevertheless, if you would object, and advocate, “No, we simply will imprison or assassinate the current office holders, and then evil government will be put to an end,” you will be nearsighted and mistaken; for those who, subsequently, will be replaced by the voters will be just as bad, because they also will have come from the bad pool of citizens.

In other words, getting rid of every crop of bad governmental officials will be like trying to clean a muddy stream by dipping out water along its banks: It will be an exercise in futility. You would have to go to the source and to cleanse the stream there in order to correct the problem.

Thus to get better elected officials you will have to go straight to the pool of citizens, and to cleanse them first of all, that is to say, to make them moral.

How would a person ever get the pool of citizens to become moral? Realize that in the past America did have a pool of good citizens! As a result, our government in the past was about as benevolent as one ever will get. This happened when we were a “moral and religious people,” as John Adams put it. That is, this happened during the golden age of Christianity in America when many citizens had their sinful hearts changed by the divine, powerful gospel promises of our gracious God preached from his Bible.

How could America become a moral and religious people once again, so that our government could get better? by becoming a Christian nation once again.

How? by doing gospel mission work among our people. This would mean that we, first of all, would need to be given preachers like Elijah, Jonah, and John the Baptist who would insist that the American public repent of its sins, unlike the current crop of politically correct, public relations preachers.

There is no other way. Will you not see this? Otherwise America simply will keep on degenerating into a more heathen existence, and will become even more lawless and corrupt.

So would you want our government to become better? What gospel mission work have you done in the past, or are doing currently, to help our pool of citizens become moral and religious? If you would have to admit, “Nothing,” then you will be at fault. You will be part of the problem as to why we have gotten immoral and irreligious governmental officials.

In fact, to be frank, whenever you would express your contempt for our government on this blog site, it simply will be a case of the pot calling the kettle, “Black!”

If you would object, and respond, “I am not as bad as some elected officials are,” you had better take a look at Mark 7:21 and see just how evil the Almighty God of heaven views you!

So, gentlemen, what are you going to do about it?

* * *

 

Lewis Cass, the Secretary of State under President Buchanan (1857-1860), once observed, “I believe the fate of a republican government is indissolubly bound up with the fate of the Christian religion; and that a people who reject its holy faith will find themselves the slaves of their own evil passions and of arbitrary power.”

“Liberty has not existed outside of Christianity” (Lord Acton).

“If we would preserve our liberty as a nation, we must educate our youth religiously” (George Washington).

“Nobody knows how to teach morality effectually without religion. Exclude religion from education, and you have no foundation upon which to build moral character” (Charles Eliot of Harvard).

 

“The elites in society are acting lawlessly and unethically.”

 

Would the _____ be the only ones in American society that would be acting lawlessly and unethically? Or, to expand this more: Would only those in government, in the military, and in the police be acting lawlessly and unethically, so that if the _____ would be jailed, and all of these other corrupt governmental employees would be jailed, would that solve all of our problems? [put a stop to all of the corruption] No.

Ask yourself: From where did these people come? They came from the pool of citizens.

Thus the citizenry, the pool from which the _____, those in government, the military, and the police have come, is itself lawless and unethical. “As the people are, so will the government be,” the Latin maxim goes [Ut rex, ita, grex].

For instance, a vagabond could steal a ride on a boxcar, while a college graduate could steal the whole railroad. What would be the difference, since their intent would be the same? The difference would be this: their opportunity and their know-how. That is all. Hence what would be the difference between the _____ and the rest of the citizenry: The _____ have had more know-how and opportunity.

No? Notice the “Me first!” attitude among the citizenry! For example, see how many citizens willfully and persistently break the clearly posted speed limit! Why? It is because they have no will to be moral. They think that they are above the law. Yet what kind of a civics lesson would this teach the children passengers? Or, if a father would obey the speed limit only when a patrol car would be around, what kind of an object lesson in hypocrisy would this be?

All of America has a severe moral problem, not just the notorious citizens in the headlines. In fact, the chief moral problem is America’s willful and stubborn refusal to admit that it has a moral problem.

Who says so? God almighty says so when he “commands all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30) while America refuses to do so.

Nevertheless, if you would resent hearing about this, your argument will be with God, not with me.

 

“I never cease to be amazed at the masses and their tolerance for deception, who then turn around and tell you how enlightened they are. What is wrong with people? They actually thrive on ignorance and brainwashing.”

 

To be sure, presently some citizens have no incentive to be well informed of certain facts and of certain events, until finally life would become too hard for them. Then they would be receptive to instruction.

Others currently are, indeed, doing research on their own, or are asking around for answers because life already has become too hard for them. They know that something is not right.

Then there are some people who never will be receptive to certain facts. That is, they will not want to admit to certain facts. Behavioral scientists would call such people “incorrigible.”

Just the same, with all of these three groups, the problem is neither a matter of ignorance, that is, a lack of a certain level of cognizance, nor even a lack of access to the facts.

It is simply a matter of self-imposed blindness, which is a moral problem. It is a self-preservation measure by which a person would not admit to reality in order to preserve his bias, that is, his selfish ideas which would benefit him personally in some way.

For example, if a drunk would be confronted with his vice, rather than admit that he would be doing something wrong and should change, typically he will respond in one of two manners: Either (1) he will deny it; or else (2) he will excuse his vice by blaming it on other people or on other things. Why? because it would pay for him to do so, not in the currency of money, but in the currency of selfish pride. This is why drunks will overrule the judgment of their own eyes, and will suppress the indictment of their own consciences.

Actually, this immoral response is common to everyone since everyone has a sinful heart. That is to say, your sinful heart is ever in a self-preservation mode: it wants to preserve itself from having to change and to perform the more “painful” moral action, instead of continuing on with the easy, self-benefitting, selfish action.

Thus it is not that those people who are in denial are ignorant of the facts. Rather, it is that they have grasped the implication of them. That is to say, they resent what the facts have to say since this would ruin their party and spoil their fun. As a result, they will impose self-blindness upon themselves, and will not admit to the truth.

To be sure, it would be a good idea to examine yourself, and to ask: “About what am I currently in denial? For what am I making excuses?”

So what could be done about this? How could you, in a teaching capacity, lift the scales from someone’s eyes?

It is simple. Since it would be a moral problem, it will require a moral solution.

Yet only God would have the power to bring about a moral transformation of their mind. Indeed, he pledges, “A new heart will I give you” (Ezekiel 36:26), and assures us of doing it when he would bring his salvation promises to our attention.

Therefore, we will need to do mission work, and to get God’s pure gospel pledges out there, if we would want a moral and religious people who would have the incentive and the means to think morally.

 

The intentional turning of a political matter into a moral issue.

 

In 1857 the Boston scholar, George Ticknor, wrote to an English friend that American politics is “completely inexplicable.”

Indeed, one reason for this is that some Americans at times will turn a purely political matter into a moral issue. That is to say, they will turn a matter of indifference into a matter of right or wrong: either an action that would be for or against one of God’s commandments, an unethical act for which legislation should be enacted if it would not have been already, or an illegal act that should be punished, even to the extent that citizens should take up arms to put an end to it. Furthermore, this transformation is not an honest mistake done out of zeal, but is a deliberate deception with fighting words to provoke a fight.

For instance, those on the political left will do it when they exclaim, “If it would save only one life, then the political legislation will be worth it.” In addition, they will refer to their political opponents pronouncements as “hate speech,” “microaggression,” and now “message crimes,” all of which they consider to be criminal acts.

In other words, people will turn a political matter into a moral issue because they would want to be justified in defending it to the death, and to be able to demonize those who would not agree with them, since they hate the opposition to the extent that they would want to retaliate: they would desire to see them severely punished. Thus there could be no amicable settling of such a matter, if neither side would back down in compromise to compose the matter.

As a result, each side, convinced wrongly of its moral position, will hate the other, and would want the other to be jailed or killed. Hence, under such circumstances, the machinery of society could not proceed smoothly and quietly, but will be grinding against each other with severe and noisy friction.

In fact, this is just how the War of Independence and the Civil War got started. For example, in the first war a minority of the American colonists turned certain matters of taxation/legislation by Parliament into a moral matter by declaring in the Declaration of Independence, for instance, that it was “their duty to throw off such government,” and to form another government “to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.” Then they took up arms to defend it to the death.

Before the Civil War the Northern abolitionists turned the political matter of slavery into a moral issue of right or wrong, while the Southern planter aristocracy turned the political issue of freeing slaves by compensated emancipation (as England had done) into a legal issue: “You seek to outlaw $4,000,000,000 of property of our people… Is not that a cause of war?” (Robert Toombs, a Southerner). Likewise the banner “Resistance to Lincoln is Obedience to God” flared at an Alabama mass meeting after he was elected. As a result of such twisted thinking, “This war was got up drunk,” a Louisiana father in his earthy manner wrote to his son in 1863, and 750,000 Americans died senselessly, when it could have been settled calmly, as the English settled their slavery problem through political legislation.

Thus man’s way to solve society’s problems by turning a political matter into a moral issue, and of fighting it to the death, could and will lead to the whole country getting shot up.

Not long ago a book came out with the title, “Twelve American Wars: Nine of Them Avoidable” (Eugene G. Windchy). How many of these, including the War for Independence, were started by men, willfully self-blinded by their zeal, who foolishly turned a political matter into a moral issue (“Give me liberty, or give me death”)?

In fact, because of the severe provocation which accompanies the intentional, deceptive invention of a moral matter, many commentators at this blog site will get what they want. They will get their next Civil War in the future, but not for the reason which they think. “War is not a calamity which men can bring upon a land and people without God’s will but at all times a great chastisement of the great angry God himself” (C.F.W. Walther).

Just the same, only the divine power that is contained in God’s biblical pledges ever could transform even the most evil-minded person to pursue a path of peace.

This is why this country desperately needs to have repentance preaching done, as Jonah did among the Ninevehites (See the biblical book of Jonah chapter 3) to lift God’s pending punishment of war upon a nation, and to put a halt to the tough talk, provocations, and fighting words of its citizens. Those who would play with matches will start a conflagration which will end up with widows, orphans, and dead fathers and sons.

Hence this is why also the current, regular church-going Jefferson Davises in our country need to keep their sinful, treacherous, revenge-filled hearts (Matthew 15:19) in check by a scolding from God’s commandments, and then to have their Christian minds motivated by God’s gospel to pursue the paths of peace, so that the dogs of war will not be unleashed, as it senselessly happened at the negotiations involving Fort Sumter; just as it will happen again in this country in the future if it consciously would not be stopped.

 

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2nd Corinthians 3:17).

 

This does not refer to political liberty. The Bible does not spend its time on promoting political matters. It addresses spiritual things.

Above all it champions God’s great rescue plan for the wretched human race that lies in bondage because of its sins. Hence the Bible’s reference to liberty refers to that liberty from your sins that has been accomplished by Jesus Christ.

This is shown by the statement of the Son of God himself, who took on our human nature to be our sin-freeing substitute on this earth: “If you would continue in my Word, then will you be my disciples indeed; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. Whoever would commit sin will be a slave of sin. Since the Son, therefore, will make you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:31, 34, & 36).

Realize, therefore, that “when a person sins, he loses his moral and spiritual freedom. He is no longer his own master, but a slave to his perverted appetites, desires, and passions. He is led by his false reasonings and his biased judgments into further wrongdoings…This bondage, Christ told them, would be broken if they would sincerely accept His teaching, continue in His Word, and practice what He preached to them. That is the liberty which” (W. H. T. Dau) is meant by the God’s pledge: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

Where is this “where”? It is wherever the gospel of Jesus Christ is announced. In other words, the Holy Spirit is present in the saving Word of Jesus – in his gospel – for whenever the apostles in the New Testament preached the gospel of Christ crucified, they did it “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1st Corinthians 2:4). This is why the apostle Paul identifies gospel preaching directly with the Holy Spirit when he thanks God for having made him a minister “of the new testament, not of the letter [God’s holy Law], but of the Spirit” (2nd Corinthians 3:6). This is why he calls all of his ministerial work “the ministration of the Spirit” (2nd Corinthians 3:8).

Hence “where the Spirit is, that means, where the Gospel is preached, men learn that their guilt is removed, because Christ lived, suffered and died for them. That makes their burdened conscience free. They learn that they will not be judged on the day of reckoning. That makes their minds easy: the curses of the [God’s] Law no longer terrify them. They learn that by practicing the teaching of Jesus they are kept from sinning. That releases them from fear of themselves. Full knowledge of the Gospel kindles in their hearts the affections of love and gratitude to their Liberator. A new motive for doing good in return for the love of Him who loved them first is implanted in them. They become free from the drudgery of the Law; the Commandments of God are no longer grievous to them. They serve God with a free will, joyfully, not like slaves” (W. H. T. Dau, Concordia Pulpit 1945, pages 390 top, 388 middle, & 390 middle).

I invite you to see this. Because most Americans today are blinded to their addiction to sin and to their rejection of God’s soul-saving gospel, this country is so plagued by lawlessness from top to bottom. The only answer to this lies not in the political, but in the gospel.

Nevertheless, realize that in order for the fullest political liberty ever to exist, it could occur only in a Christian nation, that is, where the Holy Spirit is active commonly. “Liberty has not existed outside of Christianity” (Lord Acton’s other axiom). Furthermore, John Adam’s axiom, “Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other” implies that wherever there would exist “a moral and religious people,” then such a wonderful governing implement as the American Constitution could be practical and workable.

 

“Protestants interpret biblical passages differently.”

 

It was good to hear you express yourself honestly and openly. I commend you for that. You have voiced a common concern which others have raised also. What they subsequently found is this: That there is only one true meaning of a word, and of a passage. Any other meaning will be wrong. Indeed, it will not make sense.

Furthermore, anyone who would advocate such a false meaning commonly will do it, not as an honest mistake out of zeal, or due merely to incompetence, but intentionally in bad faith. That is to say, he will do it in order to promote a selfish agenda.

Permit me to give an example. The simple word “bank,” for instance, has various meanings. With this in mind, let us say that a writer declares, “A passage from a book which I am quoting advises you to put your money in a bank. Therefore, you must bury your money in the ground, specifically, in a heaped elongated mound of dirt, for that is a bank. So get out your shovels, for this is what that passage said!”

Now you be the judge! First of all, what normally would be understood by the common expression, “Put your money in a bank”: Will it be a financial institution, or a long heaped up mound of dirt?

Just the same, even if the latter meaning of “bank” were actually meant, then that book, aware of the common usage of the word, and acting responsibly and in good faith in order not to be misunderstood, would have to qualify its statement with something like this: “Normally people put their money in a financial institution, but I am advising you to bury it; yet not just anywhere in the ground, but specifically in a long heaped up mound of dirt.” Nothing less than this explanation would do.

So why would anyone want to change the clear and the commonly understood meaning of a word for something different? It will be because he has an agenda, a premise, a point that he must uphold, even at the expense of the truth. This is why.

Is this unusual? not at all, unfortunately. This is why you must put up your guard, and do some research first. In fact, this is why the Bible repeatedly warns you against many false preachers who regularly would do this in order to serve their own ends, not God’s.

Just the same, any contradictory interpretation that would be proposed could not make a case that will stand. Indeed, this will become obvious to the reader.

Nevertheless, how could and should you be certain of which of the two meanings of a biblical passage were meant?

First of all, if you would read the Bible as much as you would read other material, the Bible will be the simpler of the two to understand.

Secondly, God promises that his Word is a lamp and light which will enlighten you (see Psalm 119:105); by which he will bring you to understand with divine assurance what his passages really are saying. That is, God has empowered his Word in such a wonderful manner with divine power that you are given a help to understand a biblical passage far above the mere deductive process of your intellect. You are given the almighty power of the passage itself to enlighten your mind with clear understand, and then, subsequently, to give you divine assurance as to its actual meaning, if only you would think about it in your heart. No word of man has such an unsurpassed ability: no encyclopedia, no editorial, and no sales pitch.

So take assurance in God’s unbreakable divine pledge that his words could be understood correctly!

 

“The government is taking away our rights unconstitutionally.”

 

In regards to this matter of the possession of rights, and of their removal by those in power: Many years ago the same thing happened to a man named Gideon and to his countrymen, irritating him to the point of asking: “If the Lord would be with us, why then has all of this happened to us?” (See the biblical book of Judges 6:13.)

The obvious answer to this is also the biblical one: “God no longer is for us, but against us. He is punishing us through the evil actions of men on earth whom he intentionally has moved to punish us by taking from us specifically our God-given privileges, since we no longer serve him with our hearts and minds, keeping his threat, ‘Because you have forsaken the Lord, he also has forsaken you’ “ (2nd Chronicles 24:20).

For instance, if a kindly father, in order to show his son respect and encouragement, would loan to his son a prized rifle that had a walnut stock with a high gloss finish, a gold bead front sight, and with delicate scroll work on a silver nitride receiver, yet his son would go out and simply use it as a pry bar: what would that father do? He will revoke his son’s privilege, and take back the rifle.

This is what the Almighty is doing today. He is revoking his privileges which he gave to our once gospel-loving nation in the past, because he no longer is for us, but against us.

So instead of focusing on and blaming the federal government, which is simply the messenger which God is using to carry out his wrath, and of trying to shoot the messenger to get rid of the problem, Americans need to look in the mirror at the real culprit. But so far their pride has prevented them from doing so.

In the past our Christian nation would appoint days of humiliation and repentance for such occasions. We citizens should do so today.

* * *

Gentlemen:
I kindly would ask each of you: Do you have God’s Ten Commandments as your “moral compass”, and his gospel promise as your motivator? If not, then realize that you will not be doing his will no matter what. For deliverance from our current national afflictions, we all need to get on the Lord’s side.

* * *

 

If many patriot Americans would be asked if they would trust that God will keep his pledge to protect his Christians even if they would obey a governmental order to turn in their firearms to the authorities, they will answer, “No.”

 

After many years as a constitutional republic, our original federal government unfortunately and, for a number of decades now, gradually has become what is known as a “government de jure,” that is to say, “a government of right; the true and lawful government; a government established according to the constitution of the nation, and lawfully entitled to recognition and supremacy and the administration of the nation, but which is actually cut off from power or control. A government deemed lawful, or deemed rightful or just, which, nevertheless, has been supplanted or displaced” (Henry Campbell Black, Black’s Law Dictionary, Fifth edition (Saint Paul: West Publishing Company, 1979), page 627B).

In its place the original federal government has been supplanted or displaced by a “government de facto,” that is, by “a government actually exercising power and control, as opposed to the true and lawful government; a government not established according to the constitution of the nation, or not lawfully entitled to recognition or supremacy, but which has nevertheless supplanted or displaced the government de jure.” That is to say, “a government deemed unlawful, or deemed wrongful or unjust, which, nevertheless, receives presently habitual obedience from the bulk of the community” (Black’s Law Dictionary, page 627A).

In other words, contemporary voters in America continue to elect and to reelect representatives to government who believe and carry out in practice unconstitutional policy; who, by their beliefs and practices have amended the Constitution, not formally, properly, and legally to be sure, but informally, improperly, and illegally, all with the consent of the majority of voters, who, by count, overwhelmingly have opposed and rejected for decades, for instance, the constitutional platforms of various third party candidates. Hence the current federal government in America is a de facto government, that is, it is one that must be accepted for all practical purposes, though it is illegal and illegitimate according to the original Constitution. Thus the voters in America themselves repeatedly have determined what should be “the lawful authority of the state”; that this authority will not be exclusively the authority of the Constitution, but whatever would be the ongoing interpretation of the Constitution held by the currently elected representatives.

Nevertheless, throughout biblical history God has recognized de facto governments as true governments in power. In fact, the case could be made that throughout history it has been a common occurrence that governments that were de jure tend to deteriorate overtime into de facto governments to a greater or to a lesser extent, as the case may be.

What is more, Romans 13 and 1st Peter 2 do not make a distinction between a government de jure or de facto in their commands to obey governments. To be sure, the government of the Roman Empire, at the time these New Testament Scriptures were written, was in fact a de facto government.

Indeed, from the time of the birth of Christ until his ascension into heaven, Pontius Pilate and the various kings named Herod engaged in impulsive acts as rulers in Palestine which were both illegal and bloody. Nevertheless, there were no divine calls or commands for human retaliation or for rebellion. John 19:11: “You could have no power at all against me unless it had been given you from above.” God: “By me kings reign, and princes decree justice” (Proverbs 8:15).

Just the same, some patriot Americans would object to the contrary that the Founding Fathers in their personal writings spoke of and recognized the right to firearms in the Second Amendment in order that Americans could use these arms successfully to rebel against a tyrannical government. However, this purpose for firearms has not been spelled out clearly where it would count, namely, in the Second Amendment, despite what various judges since have ruled the “core principle” to be.

On the other hand, there would be nothing wrong if an American Christian, or a group of them, would advocate, with a sense of urgency, the desire to retain the right to bear firearms, as the Constitution recognizes and guarantees it, and, through the advocacy of new laws or by the repealing of old ones, would prevent that right from being infringed upon by government. However, all the while that such an attempt would be made it should be kept in mind that this would be a political matter, not a moral or a biblical one, in which case this qualification should be observed: the Lord will bless non-spiritual efforts with success only if it would be his will.

Thus it could and should be kept in mind that God may override any or every effort by citizens, whether Christian or not, to preserve their constitutional liberties, in order that his punishment on godless Americans may extend even to his revocation of every right enumerated by the Bill of Rights.

 

“Jesus taught self-defense: ‘When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed’ – Luke 11:21. In Luke 22:36, just before His arrest, Jesus admonished His disciples to sell their cloak and to buy a sword, the preferred weapon of the Roman Legion occupation army of that day, analogous to an ‘assault rifle’ now.”

I would invite you kindly to consider the following:

To put it briefly: In Luke 22:36 the Son of God did not mean a literal sword. He spoke figuratively, as when he instructed, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword…. [for] you will be hated by all for my name’s sake” (Matthew 10:34 & 22).

Indeed, God the Son commonly spoke figuratively, as when he taught, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone would eat of this bread, he will live forever” (John 6:51), even asking, “Does this offend you?” (John 6:61). To be sure, many of his own disciples in response were offended, objecting, “This is a hard saying; who could understand it?” and “went back and walked with him no more” (John 6:60 & 66).

Just so in Luke 22:38 the eleven disciples misunderstood him once again in regards to the sword and to other objects, to which the Lord responded with disappointment over their lack of understanding, declaring, “It is enough” (Luke 22:38), that is, there is no point in pursuing this matter with you any further.

So what did the Lord mean by his statement: “’When I sent you without purse, beggar’s bag, and sandals, did you lack anything’? So they said, ‘Nothing’. Then he said to them, ‘But now, he who would have a purse, let him take it, and likewise a beggar’s bag; and he who would have no sword, let him sell his outer garment and buy one; for I say to you that this which is written must still be accomplished in me: “And he was numbered with the transgressors;” for the things concerning me have an end’”(Luke 22:35-37)?

In other words, the Lord advised them, ahead of time, that after his salvation work on the cross between the two thieves had come to an end, after his ascension into heaven, as they would go about their hazardous missionary work of teaching the gospel (2nd Corinthians 11:23-27), they would have to learn to supply themselves with spiritual strength by turning to the strengthening power of the divine gospel itself, taking up “the sword of the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:17), for example, with a sense of urgency.

Look at his context! On their first missionary journey with the gospel (Luke 9:1-6), when they were on their own, away from the Lord, without a purse, beggar’s bag, or even sandals, the disciples were reminded by the Lord that he had protected them from want and harm (Luke 22:35). Just the same, after his ascension, they would be without his physical presence and his miraculous protection which they had had because they had been in a training period. Then, when their persecutors would hunt them down like wild animals (Acts 8:3; 9:1-2), they would wish even for just one day of his previous protection (Luke 17:22).

Thus, in Luke 22:35 & 36 God is preparing their minds for their future activity without his physical presence and without his unusual protection which they had had during their training period. He urges them to acquire those biblical spiritual supplies which are counterparts to an earthly purse, sandals, beggar’s bag, and sword, for instance.

Furthermore, on their missionary journeys the apostles did not strap on swords nor even employ bodyguards to protect them from bloodthirsty mobs (Acts 14:19; 16:19). To be sure, after the disciple Peter pulled out a sword in Gethsemane and used it in the cause of protecting his Lord, yet interfering with God’s plan of salvation (John 18:10-11), he was scolded for it: “Put your sword back in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword!” (Matthew 26:53.)

Therefore, realize that the Bible has not been written so as to be a manual by which people may learn about self-defense, how best to build a house (Matthew 7:24), or how to keep their possessions safe (Matthew 12:29)! The Bible does not pursue these worldly matters. It concerns itself with spiritual things (Matthew 6:25-33). The Bible merely uses figurative language at times, parables, etc., solely for the purpose of making you understand something spiritual which you do not know yet, by comparing it to something in this world which you already do know. Would you see this?

Moreover, there are some additional points to remember: (1) The Son of God does not set out to bewilder you when he uses figurative speech; nor does he think that it would be asking too much of you to understand his speech. (2) Furthermore, God does not leave it up to you to understand his speech merely by the deductive process of your intellect. Rather he helps you. Indeed, Holy Writ presumes that you will be able to draw the right inference concerning the Lord’s speech, and will assure you of it when you have done so, because the Word of God is a lamp (Psalm 119:105), and the Holy Spirit will be enlightening your mind as to the meaning of those words (John 16:13). Be assured of this divine pledge! Then use God’s words as he intended!

 

“America is bitterly divided.”

 

I will not contradict what the author or the psychologist whom he quoted would wish to explain as to what people currently have as their political wills.

Nevertheless, what the author of this article, the psychologist, and, to be sure, others fail to address are these points:

• Therefore, the answer to all of these troubles in our land; the only effective way to reverse all of this is by way of a spiritual solution, not a political, economic, or warfare solution. None of these will make our troubles go away. The spiritual solution is the only one which God pledges will work. As Christian missionaries went to the South Sea Islands and converted cannibals into peace-loving, industrious, morally transformed people, so the heart and mind transforming power of the gospel is the only thing today that has God’s guaranty to work, if only men would use it.
• Yet no one would be advocating this today, would they? Even after such a nation-wide humbling and sobering event as 9/11/2001, there was no national repentance or turning to God. Consequently, things only keep on deteriorating further, do they not!
• Moreover, there is no will on society’s part to change themselves morally in order to settle these matters, is there?
• Furthermore, without resorting to God’s gospel, there never will be.
• After America and other countries over time rejected God’s powerful gospel words – the only thing that Heaven pledges could effect a moral change in man’s mind, in which the genuine gospel believers become peaceful, patient, and loving toward their neighbor as a religious duty toward God, citizens reverted back to their natural treacherous, selfish, lawless selves – in whatever direction, creed, or action that may have been, for example, as the author of this article or this psychologist describe.
• As a result, a gospel-less, heathen society ever will deteriorate into more hatred and violence, increasingly inflicting harm upon itself.
• Just the same, the Almighty will not sit back as a society rejects him and his generous gift of his gospel grace. He also has promised to punish that people himself.

Therefore, the answer to all of these troubles in our land; the only effective way to reverse all of this is by way of a spiritual solution, not a political, economic, or warfare solution. None of these will make our troubles go away. The spiritual solution is the only one which God pledges will work. As Christian missionaries went to the South Sea Islands and converted cannibals into peace-loving, industrious, morally transformed people, so the heart and mind transforming power of the gospel is the only thing today that has God’s guaranty to work, if only men would use it.

Yet no one would be advocating this today, would they? Even after such a nation-wide humbling and sobering event as 9/11/2001, there was no national repentance or turning to God. Consequently, things only keep on deteriorating further, do they not!

Moreover, there is no will on society’s part to change themselves morally in order to settle these matters, is there?

Furthermore, without resorting to God’s gospel, there never will be.

 

“America could not vote its way out of this current mess. Let us get this war started to settle these political differences while I am able to fight.”

 

Not long ago a book came out with the title, “Twelve American Wars: Nine of Them Avoidable” (Eugene G. Windchy).

I contend that all twelve were avoidable.

For example, in 1863 a Louisiana father wrote to his son in the Confederate Army, “This war was got up drunk but they will have to settle it sober.” Indeed, how many wars have there been that were not “got up drunk”? Nevertheless, “War is not a calamity which men could bring upon a land and people without God’s will, but at all times a great chastisement of the great angry God himself” (C.F.W. Walther).

To be sure, following the folly of revenge, men have been quick to start death and destruction! For example, in the 1300’s war broke out between Modena and Bologna in Italy only later to sweep over large areas of Europe. What was the cause of the conflict? A dispute over a well bucket. In 1654 Sweden and Poland engaged in battle, some claim, because the printed list of the Polish king’s titles received more print than the king of Sweden’s. A Chinese emperor declared war, some historians say, because his teapot was broken. In France, a few hundred years ago, a boy threw a stone at the Duke of Guise; this led to a religious massacre which, in turn, paved the way for the Thirty Years’ War, one of the worst in Europe. In more recent times things still have not changed. The Crimean War began, in 1855, with a dispute over repairing the roof of a church in Jerusalem. In 1914 an Austrian archduke was assassinated at Sarajevo. This incident provoked World War I which cost 24 million people their lives. How foolish and self-destructive men could be when revenge is on their minds! To be sure, how many times have we not wanted to take out revenge over trivial things?

Therefore, rather than profess, “Let us get this next civil war started while I am still able to fight,” I would invite you to check your vengeance, for “it is better to suffer every ill than to consent to ill” (Black’s Law Dictionary [1979], page 887).

Nevertheless, to do this would be something that would be beyond human power. Thus the only solution will be this: Be transformed by the renewing of your mind through the powerful words of God in his gracious gospel pledges! It is God’s will that you should do so! Be assured of it!

In other words, when God works his mighty power through his gospel words in his Bible, he puts men’s hearts at peace. Hence the more hearts there would be at peace, the more outward civil peace there will be.

In the year 1900 a man predicted that if America would not send 1,000 missionaries to Japan immediately, we would have to fight a war with them in 40 years. He was off by one year. To be sure, in the 1930’s, Smedley D. Butler implied in his booklet, “War is a Racket,” that since this country foolishly had sent its navy out closer to Japan and not kept it at a base on our homeland shores for defensive purposes, Japan would acknowledge the threat. It did. In fact, that is the reason why it attacked Pearl Harbor.

The call of the hour, then, is not to get up another war drunk, but for us individuals to rechristianize this nation, including its worldly churches, by genuine biblical repentance and faith, not with the current sham of religiousness. In response to this, the Almighty will keep his pledge, “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2nd Chronicles 7:14).

 

“The future American Civil War.”

 

The Second Civil War, as some here have called it, or, to be more accurate, the “Third War of Secession,” coming after the first two: the War of Independence and the Civil War, also will not be entered into calmly or rationally by cool and wise heads after a long, thought out process of counting the cost, and of considering the duty of protecting the citizens, taking up arms only reluctantly.

This war, like so many others here and elsewhere typically, by a minority of men, will be “got up drunk,” as a Louisiana father during the Civil War once put it to his son in the army. This is why Eugene G. Windchy wrote a book a few years back titled: “Twelve American Wars: Nine of Them Avoidable,” though I contend that all of them were avoidable. That is, these wars could have been avoided if certain Americans had not “gotten them up drunk.”

Yet this is by far how men have started wars. For example, in the 1300’s war broke out between Modena and Bologna in Italy only later to sweep over large areas of Europe. What was the cause of the conflict? A dispute over a well bucket. In 1654 Sweden and Poland engaged in battle, some claim, because the printed list of the Polish king’s titles received more print than the king of Sweden’s. A Chinese emperor declared war, some historians say, because his teapot was broken. In France, a few hundred years ago, a boy threw a stone at the Duke of Guise; this led to a religious massacre which, in turn, paved the way for the Thirty Years’ War, one of the worst in Europe. In more recent times things still have not changed. In 1914 an Austrian archduke was assassinated at Sarajevo. This incident provoked World War I which cost 24 million people their lives.

Thus men will prefer to see, like in the Westerns, “the whole town get shot up” to settle a feud, rather than to subdue their pride and revenge. Hence some Americans today, including some on this blog site, are not thinking calmly, but are seething with anger, burning with revenge, and itching to retaliate, eagerly awaiting the least slight or slip up on the part of whom they hate to “get up a war drunk” that will ruin this whole land from sea to shining sea, and will create widows and orphans by the tens of millions, instead of praying to God to avert war, and to pursue his solution for preserving the peace. Such men are not patriotic Americans standing for right and principle, but are enemies and traitors, simply mouthing off with a lynch mob mentality, and actually joining the ranks of those munitions makers, arms dealers, and bankers who would seek profit from yet another war.

To be sure, though Jesus stated that his “kingdom is not of this world,” lately, once again, there are even Christian clergy and lay Christians, in name only, void of any divine regeneration and of the peace of Christ in their hearts, utilizing their Christian credentials to promote a political matter: to call for the political shedding of Muslim blood. This is how the Crusades and the inquisitions were started.

Rather, keep your mind under control when dealing with others who have offended you or have trespassed against you! To do this successfully, God first will have to transform your mind through his gospel power so that you will want to do the right thing as a religious duty to him, and not to respond with retaliation.

 

“Two Christian nations fought against each other during the American Civil War.”

 

I kindly would like you to consider the following.

You stated that Christian nations were involved in our own Civil War. Are you aware that Christianity has stopped wars? Would you in good faith admit that? For instance, read the biographies of Christian missionaries such as John Hunt in Figi, or Robert Muffat in South Africa, who went among cannibals and tribes who continually warred! After these people heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, the powerful words of God transformed their minds, and the cannibalism and the wars stopped. This is a historical fact. Based on this evidence it would have to be admitted that the transforming gospel of Jesus Christ could put men’s minds at peace. To be sure, the Son of God has urged, “Watch and pray, in order that you would not enter into temptation, for the spirit (the new holy intent that has been placed by God’s power in a converted sinner) indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). That is, though a person has been transformed through the powerful gospel pledge of God, he still has a sinful nature that ever wants to regain the supremacy of his mind’s intents. This is why the Bible shows us some of the sins to which transformed people in the past have succumbed, as a warning.

Furthermore, it is a biblical duty of the father to protect his family. An act of self-defense, then, when there would be no authorities around to protect, will not be murder. Likewise when government at the local (police), state (National Guard), and the federal (army/navy) levels protects to the extent of using lethal force, it may be killing, but biblically it will not be murder; for the more exact wording of the Fifth Commandment is, “You shall not murder.” Indeed, even if a man merely would hate his neighbor, he will be a murderer.

Nevertheless, wars will result from unchecked sin. After men would refuse to be transformed by the moral-changing power contained in the holy gospel pledges regarding Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, they will remain corrupt sinners, who will resort to brute force whenever they could in order to satisfy their sordid appetites for revenge and greedy gain. This is why this country desperately needs to have repentance preaching done, as Jonah did among the Ninevehites (See the biblical book of Jonah chapter 3).

Just the same, only the divine power that is contained in God’s biblical pledges ever could transform even the most evil-minded person to pursue a path of peace.

Thus, in regards to the American Civil War, no Christian ever set out to start it. Neither side ever said, ”Let us start a long and bloody war.” Yet, after called upon by their respective governments to defend their country, Christian citizens obeyed their respective governments.

To be sure, the North had not wanted a civil war. Even the abolitionist minority had said, “Let the South march off!” Though a Northern congressman, Benjamin Stanton of Ohio, on 3 March, proposed a bill which would give the President complete authority over all regular and militia troops of the nation should they be needed, the House adjourned the next day without passing it. Without a special session, the House would not meet again until 4 July, 1861, the earliest date on which Congress itself could declare war.

Yet the political leaders of the planter aristocracy did not intend to secede from the Union merely in order that they could be left alone by the North to live a peaceable life. When William Tecumseh Sherman, who had just come from Louisiana was asked by Lincoln about the South, he replied, “They are preparing for war.” In North Carolina, the Raleigh Banner spoke, “The big heart of the people is still in the Union. Less than a hundred politicians are endeavoring to destroy the liberties and usurp the rights of more than thirty millions of people.”  Alexander H. Stephens, the desired candidate for the position of President of the Confederacy, when specifically asked if he would “fire the first shot,” replied, “No.” As a result, a hawk, Jefferson Davis, was nominated instead. Thus later, even though the commander of Fort Sumter had agreed to surrender at an appointed future day, Davis would not wait, but gave the order to fire on Fort Sumter. This military action, which caused the American flag to get shot up, incensed and provoked the North, bringing about this response: the dogs of war were unleashed.

Thus Davis, a church-going Episcopalian, did not guard his heart (Philippians 4:7) by suppressing the natural hatred and the revenge in his sinful heart, nor did he motivate his Christian mind by God’s gospel (Ephesians 4:22-24) to pursue the paths of peace as a morally transformed Christian daily could and should do. Neither was it the case that the new Confederacy, of whose people Davis was responsible for their defense, was being threatened by the North with war.

Hence this is why also the current, regular church-going Jefferson Davises in our country need to keep their sinful, treacherous, revenge-filled hearts (Matthew 15:19) in check by a scolding from God’s commandments, and then to have their Christian minds motivated by God’s gospel to pursue the paths of peace, so that the dogs of war will not be unleashed, as it senselessly happened at the negotiations involving Fort Sumter; just as it will happen again in this country in the future if it consciously would not be stopped.

Just the same, whenever nations would go to war, realize that “War is not a calamity which men can bring upon a land and people without God’s will but at all times a great chastisement of the great angry God himself” (C.F.W. Walther)!

 

“We need an addendum that puts God Almighty and His Son Jesus the Lord of all, in an updated U.S. Constitution.”

 

As a Christian, I kindly would point out that this proposal will not work, because it simply would not have God’s promised blessing.

Furthermore, the Lord Jesus Christ refused an earthly crown when it was offered to him by a crowd in Galilee (John 6:15). Why? Because the people simply wanted to make him their bread king. That is all. That is to say, they looked to Christ’s supernatural power merely to fulfill their flesh’s desire, not to use it for strength to bear their crosses, or to fortify their saving faith, for instance.

Secondly, he refused to get involved in man’s politics because his “kingdom,” that is, the nation over which he rules as head is not political: it “is not of this world” (John 18:36), but only consists of the hearts of his believers who have been bought and freed from their sins’ punishment by his holy blood.

To be sure, today tens, if not hundreds of millions in this country refuse to entrust their souls to him. Thus why would they acknowledge his authority in purely political matters?

 

In regards to reoccurring themes in articles on websites that complain of how bad things are.

 

Here is yet another article from the internet in an endless series of harangues telling us how bad things are, and that someone ought to do something about it.

This is like playing a broken, vinyl record. While the author may be sincere, such articles simply take us in an endless circle: they get us nowhere. Either an author of these predictable articles would offer no solution, but will just want to wring his hands, or else he will conclude that “they should do this” all the while “they,” that is, the lawless ones, have no intention, no motive, and no moral will to do “this.”

Realize also that such articles (1) simply preach to the choir; and (2) complain about problems of which currently there is not enough political will among enough electorate of this country to do anything about it! If there would be any newcomers to these articles, they will not need to be indoctrinated, for they already are convinced that some kind of serious reform is needed.

To be sure, there is a time and a place for informing and updating. Nevertheless, by and large such articles merely offer yet another opportunity for the commentators underneath the article simply to air their whining and griping before the public, and to add more fuel to the fire of revenge and hatred.

Typically, the only common solution that would span all of these articles will be merely: “Prepare for a civil war, the outcome of which no one could know! All that we could predict will be uncertainty and wishful thinking on our part.”

Would you see what is going on here?

So what could and should be stated in such articles? It is simple: propose something constructive: offer solutions and encouragement; that is, solutions with the encouragement to implement them.

Indeed, the commentators beneath such articles should be scolded to quit their griping and bravado, and either offer encouragement, or keep their mouths shut. Commentators also should be admonished to offer a peaceable solution instead of the common, anarchist one: “Let us kill these people, blow things up, wipe the slate clean, and then life will return to normal once again.” Yet it will not.   This still would not change the evil in the hearts of the survivors.

Instead, what would be some peaceable solutions? This is simple.

First and foremost, address your spiritual duties which you owe to God regarding your country, and regarding your own soul! For instance, being assured from the Bible that God is in control of human events, pray to him for his peace and protection of you and of this land, as he has promised and commanded you to do!

Yet realize that he only will listen to those who truly are sorry for their sins, and who look to his gospel promise for the divine assurance that their guilt and punishment have been removed, and have been placed on their Savior, Jesus Christ, instead! Being lead to such repentance and gospel belief by God’s powerful words, pray for an ever increasing transformation of your evil mind to do God’s will so that you will not be part of the lawless problem in America!

Next pray for God to forgive the lawless sins of our citizens resulting from their gospel unbelief, and thus “stand in the gap” and “make a wall” (Ezekiel 22:30-31), that is to say, become a firewall between God’s punishing fury and our land in order to keep it from being destroyed!

Indeed, ask yourself: “Have I done any of these vital things?”

Secondly, you could contact your district representatives at your statehouse and your county sheriff. Tell them that while you owe them support, they owe you protection; that they have a duty to protect you bodily, financially, and according to the Bill of Rights from the lawless encroachments of the elected federal government and of its bureaucracy! If they would not shield you from this lawlessness, move to a state and county that would!

 

The man of lawlessness is not a reference to a political phenomenon.

 

Greetings!

It did not show up on the posting of your comment that you were referring to the biblical verses of 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2.

The prophecy which you referred to in verses 10-12 is speaking, as Scripture always does, of a spiritual matter, not of a political matter or person.

In 2nd Thessalonians 2, the Holy Spirit, using the apostle Paul as his writer, informs the congregation in Thessalonica that in the future there will be a great “falling away.” The subject would be the Christian church. The object would be the true Christian faith.

This “falling away” would occur before the public exposure of the Antichrist took place, who is described in this place as “the man of sin” and the “son of perdition,” because he is full of sin, and because he is destined for damnation. Indeed, the appropriateness of these names would be demonstrated by his behavior.

For example, he would “oppose and exalt himself above all” God-ordained authority, such as, the civil government, parental prerogative, the local congregation – the Supreme Court in the church, and the public ministry, even to the ambitious extent of putting himself on a plane with God, claiming authority, honor, and power which only Heaven claims. Hence he would be the ultimate in rebellion, pride, and power-seeking: installing himself as the master in the visible Christian church.

Though for a while this incredibly brazen usurpation by the “lawless one” would be checked by something and someone (“what…[and] he… restrains,” verses 6-7), namely, the Roman Empire and the Roman emperors, this person, nevertheless, still would come by the working of Satan, with all lying power, signs, and miracles, boasting that these miracles are divine and, hence, prove his legitimacy, using “unrighteous deception” on those who did not love the truth and were a part of that great falling away from the gospel. Thus a generation of Christians would arise that had no love for the old apostolic gospel, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

On account of this, God would punish them. He would do it by using evil to punish evil. He would send them a power that produces delusion for the ultimate purpose that they all might be damned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness (verse 12).

While the names which Paul gave: “the man of sin” and the “son of perdition” did not stick in the minds of the church, the name “Antichrist” did.

Who is this “man of sin,” the “son of perdition,” or “the Antichrist?” It is none other than the Roman papacy. The “falling away” refers to the members of the Roman Catholic Church.

For further information, go to my website, click on the book tab, and go to my online book about the Antichrist!

Gene Urtel – The Rivertown Press

 

The pope is the Antichrist.

 

Not just a particular pope, but all of the popes, namely, the papal office which is filled by men, is the Antichrist.

While many men today, due to their wishful thinking, identify the Antichrist, not as a church office, but simply as this or that politician whom they currently hate, Scripture, which is the only place which teaches of the Antichrist, lists its identifying marks. For instance,

1. He is a human being (2nd Thessalonians 2:3-4).

2. He has the power of a king (2nd Thessalonians 2:4).

3. He has his seat “in the temple of God” (2nd Thessalonians 2:4), that is, in the Christian church.

4. He acts as if he were God.

1. In regards to religious authority; and
2. In regards to civil authority (2nd Thessalonians 2:4).
3. He is connected with a “falling away” (2nd Thessalonians 2:3, 10) from the true, biblical way of salvation into an utterly false caricature of it: salvation by works, not by faith alone in the gospel promises.

6. He has all manner of lying powers, signs, and miracles behind him (2nd Thessalonians 2:9).

7. He deceives into worship those people which are not true believers (Revelation 13:4, 8).

8. He is the son of perdition (2nd Thessalonians 2:3), that is, of destruction.

9. He is closely identified with a city (Revelation 17:18).

10. This city sits on seven mountains (Revelation 17:9) between two seas (Daniel 11:45), that is, on the seven hills of Rome, between the Adriatic and the Tyrrhenian seas.

11. He has changed laws (Daniel 7:25), namely, the biblical laws.

12. He has seduced political rulers, merchants, and the populace with his deception (Revelation 17:2).

13. He is wealthy (Revelation 17:4; 18:7, 16).

14. He wars against true believers and martyrs them (Revelation 13:7).

15. His rule is a time of severe suffering (Revelation 13:5).

16. He will rule until the Last Day (2nd Thessalonians 2:8).

Martin Luther revealed the Roman Catholic papacy to be the Antichrist in a widespread manner in the Reformation. Other Protestants agreed with him.

Since then, most Protestant bodies, originally in a public relations move, and then later, because their liberal ideology could not tolerate it, no longer teach or believe it. Nevertheless, part of the timeless creed of the Lutherans known as the “Smalcald Articles” plainly confesses that the pope is “the very Antichrist.” All genuine Lutherans to this day will subscribe to this.

Furthermore, the Bible speaks to all Roman Catholics, and gives them an ongoing command good until the Last Day: “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues!” (Revelation 18:4.)

You may read more about the Antichrist at my website under my book tab.

Gene Urtel – The Rivertown Press

 

“Muslim head coverings for women would be the same as the ones mentioned in the biblical book of 1st Corinthians.”

 

I kindly would invite you to consider the following:

There is no parallel between the Muslim headgear and the veil which is mentioned in the biblical book of 1st Corinthians.

First of all, realize that in the early apostolic age, when commonly a number of Jews, along with a number of Gentile converts in a synagogue, were assured by the historical evidence that the Messiah had come, they formed a Christian congregation. Yet early on they still retained the customs which they had had in the synagogue. For example, the women still would wear veils; also the women would sit as a group apart from the men with a partition between them. This was the situation in the Corinthian congregation to which the Apostle Paul wrote.

In the biblical book of 1st Corinthians, chapter 11, verses 5 and 13, the divinely-inspired writer gives a rule of conduct for that Christian congregation. To be sure, it is not a divine commandment from God, but only a bit of instruction on the proper and consistent biblical conduct for women in the worship services according to the customs at that time.

At that time it was a common custom for women to wear veils in public. Moreover, “women in the synagogs [sic] were excluded by a partition from the sight of men in the audience, they were in full view of those that conducted the services…. The leaders of the services, unaccustomed to look upon the countenance of women beyond their own homes, would be in danger of embarrassment or diversion if a company of them sat unveiled in the assembly…

“In their conception of their new liberty some [women] at times wished to throw off the veil…. for unimpeded speech to an assembly of considerable size, and was probably prompted by the desire to speak…. All veiling was a hindrance to speech addressed to more than a few persons…. Veils were probably of so thick a material as to impede speech, except to those addressed near at hand….

“Among the early Hebrew Christians, therefore, in their state of society, the silence of women in the larger assemblies naturally followed. But the churches of Corinth and Ephesus, though composed, in part, of Hebrew members, were in Grecian society” (Paul Lindemann, “The Woman in the Church,” Theological Quarterly, Volume XXIV, Number 1 [January, 1920], pages 46-48).

Thus the inspired writer, Paul, in 1st Corinthians 11, simply made the point that if a Corinthian Christian woman would throw back her veil while praying or speaking in the congregational worship service, the intent of such behavior will be to act in a biblical capacity as a man, that is to say, it will be to deny the woman’s position under the headship of men. Indeed, such an act would bring her as much dishonor before God and the rest of the congregation, as if she would have gone to the extent of shaving her head. This is the point which the apostle is making.

To further back up his point the inspired writer added in verse 10, “For this cause ought the woman to have authority on her head, because of the angels.” That is to say: As the angels are to God in heaven, so the woman should be to man on earth. In other words, as the angels veil their faces before God in heaven out of sheer respect, so the female Corinthian Christian should do the same on earth out of respect for man.

Just the same, as a significant number of Gentile converts were added over the years to the various Christian congregations, that were unfamiliar with the customs of the old synagogue, eventually the partitions between the men and the women came down, and the custom of the veil also was dropped.

 

* * *

 

“If two homosexuals would marry, for instance, I would have no concern; it would be none of my business to criticize that, or to protest publicly to the government. Furthermore, since we would need them as allies in order to make our political efforts successful, we must not offend them, but publicly embrace them morally; namely, we must accept their sexual activity as moral, and must not believe it to be immoral.”

 

Sin could never pay for itself. That is to say, in order to get rid of one evil, it will never work to commit another. Thus, it will never do to act “as men-pleasers” (Ephesians 6:6) by approving of the sordid behavior of homosexuals so that they would become our political allies in a fight to end the evil in our government, for example, for God, who is in control of all events, will neither bless such an action, nor stand for it; for he has commanded us “not to keep company with sexually immoral people” (1st Corinthians 5:9), and “to mark those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them” (Romans 16:17) for your soul safety. Indeed, “Could a man take fire to his bosom and his clothes not be burned?” (Proverbs 6:27.) Furthermore, Phinehas had to remind the church that the Almighty’s “anger fell on the whole congregation of Israel” because one man among them had trespassed against a clear command of God (Joshua 22:20).

Thus while you may not be able to avoid civil, business, or political dealings or relationships with homosexuals as well as with the heathen (Genesis 21:22-32), you must not give your moral approval of their immoral behavior, beliefs, or practices.

This is a truth that needs to be kept in mind at all times these days, for whenever a common sin is discussed, men typically want to solve it by committing another sin.

When the Holy Spirit saw to it that that the biblical book of Romans was written, homosexuality and lesbianism were long-standing practices in the Roman Empire. Though back then the rest of society either gave these practices its blessing, simply accepted them, or else just refrained from criticizing them, God did not.

His Word states, “God gave them up to vile passions; for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.

“Likewise, also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving to themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to be these things which are not fitting….

“Who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death” (Romans 1:26-28, 32).

Thus today God will not bless any political party, entity, or individual that would side with homosexuality, but will be decidedly against that person.

First of all, remember that our existence on this earth does not consist merely of living down here for this life only! The Almighty will scold those who would think so (Luke 12:15-21; 16:19-31). The Creator of the universe has made this planet and has put us on it for one goal: that we should live with him in heaven. In order to accomplish this, God first would have to transform us out of our sinful state of mind. To this end he “commands all men everywhere to repent” of their sins (Acts 17:30), urging us to use his powerful biblical words to accomplish this, for his mighty words have the power to move our minds to leave the slavery of sin (Romans 6:20), and to want to serve God with a holy life, now in time, and hereafter in eternity, all the while trusting his gospel pledge, since this gospel promise is our pardon. In fact, this pledge is the only thing that will intervene for us on Judgment Day, and will spare us from eternal punishment. So hold onto it at all costs!

The practice of homosexuality and lesbianism tears a person’s trust away from this gospel pledge. God’s unbreakable Word declares that “the unrighteous…. nor homosexuals… will inherit the kingdom of God” (1st Corinthians 6:9-10), entrance into God’s kingdom being only by faith in his gospel pledge, which trust always will go hand in hand with God’s divine transformation of the mind, unless that mind would relapse into a love for sinning (Hebrews 11:6; John 6:28-29; John 3:5-6; Romans 8:8-9). Thus homosexual behavior will rob the soul of salvation. Therefore, it should be discouraged, not encouraged.

Therefore, out of love, not only for the eternal well-being of the soul of my homosexual neighbor, but also, for that matter, for the grandmother next door, I would inform them that God “commands all men everywhere to repent, because he has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness” (Acts 17:30), “warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, in order that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus” (Colossians 1:28). This is called “mission work.” I am commanded by God to see that it gets done.

Furthermore, I have a moral obligation to keep society from being punished by the wrath and hatred of almighty God that “is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold back the truth” (Romans 1:18). The Almighty has threatened, “I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity” (Isaiah 13:11). Indeed, God rained down fire and sulfur on the city of Sodom (Genesis 19) in an exceptional display of his anger because of its sodomy. God calls this sin an “abomination” (Leviticus 20:13), and had commanded the civil government of the Old Testament theocracy of Israel to put to death homosexuals. In the New Testament sodomy is described as “vile passions,” changing “the natural use for what is against nature,” burning “in their lust for one another,” “committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error.” Thus “God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting” (Romans 1:26-28). Thus, according to God’s revealed Word, sodomy is not some minor sin which I should ignore, much less sanction. Indeed, the God-given conscience within a homosexual himself will condemn him (Romans 2:15).

With this in mind I will be vocal publicly, urging society to promote good morals, and to discourage, yes, even to suppress immorality, keeping in mind that there are those out there who have no morals or scruples about seducing and preying upon others in order to tear down their morals and drag them down into hell; and who have no intent to promote God’s helpful morality or his soul-saving gospel.

 

The Abuse of the 1st and the 2nd Amendments of the Bill of Rights.

 

Over time the various governments in this world, after their citizenry had fallen away from being once a “moral and religious people,” as John Adams has put it, actually have had to enact restrictions on freedoms as a result, such as the one covered by our First Amendment, in order to protect their citizenry commonly from slander, defamation, and verbal abuse by others, since the new generation of immoral and irreligious citizens typically will abuse their freedoms to the detriment and to the harm of all.

That is to say, after a nation would reject God’s gospel and no longer would have that moral transformation of the heart which only God’s powerful gospel words could maintain, these citizens will return to their natural state of mind: a ”Me first!” attitude which would consist of a mental bondage to selfishness and to lawlessness. That is what has happened to third-world nations, as well as to first-world countries. That is what is now happening in the United States.

In fact, this is the matter to which John Adams referred when he observed: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Greed, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other” – including, which should be added, the Bill of Rights which is part of our Constitution.

Hence some commentators on this blog site actively will abuse their 1st Amendment freedom when they would violate the 8th Commandment from which the 1st Amendment has been taken. Yet there are moral bounds to free speech. God himself has set those bounds in his Eighth Commandment. You may read about them in his Bible.

In fact, do not blame the police state which we now have in these United States entirely on power-seekers in government! Such things as metal detectors at airports, something unheard of decades ago, have had to be put in place in order to protect our citizenry from fellow citizens who, by their clear selfishness and lawless attitude, knowingly or negligently would put their fellow citizens at risk.

Likewise in regards to the Second Amendment, as it concerns the matter of personal self-defense: an immoral and irreligious citizenry commonly will abuse it. For example, they will use it as a license to harm whomever they hate and whenever they may wish to take revenge. Yet the Fifth Commandment, from which the subject of self-defense is implied, puts restrictions on the exceptional matter of self-defense. In other words, there are moral bounds to the use of force. God himself has set those bounds.

For instance, self-defense is valid when no one in governmental authority would be around to protect a citizen. Only government has the God-given authority to kill in regards to protection or to punishment. The spirit of taking the law into your own hands by lynching, tar and feathering (torturing, punishing), or rebelling, for example, is forbidden by God. Thomas Jefferson’s teachings on rebellion, for instance, plainly contradict what the Bible clearly commands. Thus he was against God, not for him.

Hence the fact of the matter is that if you morally could not control yourself, but, out of a “Me first!” attitude only would abuse the freedoms which God has given you, not only will you drive our government “to infringe upon” your rights in order to control your abusive behavior, but God himself will move his earthly agents in his earthly governments (“By me kings rule, and rulers decree justice,” Proverbs 8:15) “to infringe upon” your rights as well, that is, to take them away from you. It is as simple as that. Yet, as a result of this, everyone else will have to suffer.

Only God is more powerful than your “Me first!” attitude. Only he could give you the moral power to control it by means of his powerful, heart-changing words in his Bible, the same mighty words which he used to create this universe.

See this!

 

 

 

TO READ IN BOOK FORMAT, OR TO PRINT THIS ARTICLE, CLICK ON THIS LINK –signs_of_the_times

 

Introduction.  In the case of our country, every citizen, including every Lutheran layman and clergyman, could and should recognize and be certain with divine certainty that the situation today in our land is that the Almighty will punish this country with a devastating war.  See it!  Begin thinking in these terms!
Summary.  If the people of a land would demonstrate an inner repentance and faith, God will bless them spiritually and materially.  On the other hand, if a people would not display such righteousness, the Almighty will punish them.  These would be the two signs and their times, respectively.

Text.  Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing him [Jesus] asked that he would show them a sign from Heaven.  He answered and said to them, ‘When it is evening you say, “It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’” and in the morning, “It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.” Hypocrites!  You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.  A wicked and adulterous people look for a sign, but no sign will be given to them except the sign of the prophet Jonah’” (Matthew 16:1-4).

Context.  The Pharisees and the Sadducees had approached Jesus in order to tempt him.  In spite of his obvious miracles that demonstrated the glory and power of his divinity, his enemies demanded that he should produce a miracle which would come down from heaven in the sight of men in order to verify for them his credentials; to demonstrate publicly that the Father in heaven would indeed be pleased with him and with his doctrine and work.  In such an important matter as recognizing and confessing the Christ, his opponents demanded to see a divine miracle which would impress their physical senses.  In doing so they rejected Scripture’s insistence that for divine certainty in spiritual matters only the commands and promises in Scripture are to be the basis.  In regards to the fulfillment of those prophecies about the Christ, the Bible wants the observer to look at the historical evidence, then to compare this evidence with what Scripture has to teach on the subject, and then to come to the only conclusion that would have divine certainty to it:  that Jesus is the Christ.  The opponents of Jesus rejected this biblical procedure.  They willfully refused to recognize him as the Christ because of their deliberate predetermined presumption that he could not be the Christ, though there was sufficient evidence, that is, signs or indicators, to that effect.  See Matthew 11:5!

In response the Lord answered them by saying, in effect, “You already have the signs by which you could come to a valid conclusion about the identity of the Christ.  For example, as Heaven has put signs into the sky by which you could and should come to a correct, assured conclusion about the weather:  that it would be either peaceful or stormy, so he also has put moral signs for you to see which are evident:  that the Christ and his kingdom have come to you.  Why could you not ‘discern this time’ (Luke 12:57) also?  You are competent in the one, but incompetent in the other.  You have no excuse.”

For example, the point at issue in this incident involving the Lord and his opponents is that his opponents had rejected the plain evidence of his Messiahship, giving as their justification the lack of a proper sign from Heaven, such as a miracle which Moses, Elijah, or God would have done in the Old Testament.  Just the same, they already had sufficient indicators from his gospel preaching and his miracles of mercy, the same things to which the Lord had pointed on another occasion after men, sincerely and in good faith, had asked the Lord for indicators of his Messiahship (Matthew 11:5).  Thus the problem lay with the Pharisees’ and Sadducees’ refusal to acknowledge the obvious evidence.  As a result, the Lord demonstrated how the Pharisees and the Sadducees willingly, without prejudice or doubt, accepted the indicators of weather, yet they hypocritically rejected with a stubborn prejudice the plain indicators about the Christ.
To be sure, in his weather analogy the Lord included more than just the point which was in controversy, namely, the rejection by his opponents of the evidence which indicated the Messiahship of Jesus.

For instance, the Lord could have chosen an analogy that covered only the matter of the rejection of the clear evidence of the Christ.  That is, he could have chosen a parable similar to that of the five foolish virgins or the rich man (Matthew 25:1-13; Luke 16:19-31) who, like his present enemies, acted foolishly or wickedly and missed out on a great spiritual benefit:  salvation.
However, the Lord consciously chose a different analogy which contained the consequences of a positive or of a negative appreciation of his gospel gift.  That is to say, his weather analogy covered two matters, each one having its own cause and effect.

Definition.  The editors of the various Greek-English lexicons do not elaborate on the meaning of the Greek word which is used in Matthew 16, but simply use the English word “sign” to define it.  In turn, the English dictionaries give many definitions for the use of the English word “sign,” however.  One even lists fourteen.  Which definition did the Lord mean?
Considering his references to the weather, in which the sky would give reliable evidence of what kind of weather there would be, the same definition, therefore, would have to hold true for the Lord’s more critical moral comparison.  Thus the meaning of “sign” as used in Matthew 16 could and should be this one which Noah Webster supplies:  “Any appearance or event which indicates the approach of something else” (Noah Webster’s First Edition of an American Dictionary of the English Language, Facsimile of the 1828 edition [San Francisco:  Foundation for  American Christian Education, 1999], no page).

The Lord also uses the plural form “times,” referring to two different times.  From the context, the term “time” would refer to “at this time,” “currently,” or “from this time onward.”
Hence “the signs of the times” is an expression used by the Son of God to refer to two events.
First of all, as the red sunset (Matthew 16:2) will bring good times, so the pious indicators described in 2nd Chronicles 7:14 or in Jonah 3:4-10 will bring God’s blessing of peace.  On the other hand, as the red sunrise will bring stormy times (Matthew 16:3), so any national rejection of Christ, either of his indicators (Matthew 11:5), or of his gospel, will bring down the penalty of a God-sent annihilating war (Exodus 15:3; Judges 5:8; Psalm 9:17; Isaiah 60:12; Luke 19:41-44).

That is to say, the “sign” of growing gospel belief among the citizens of a country, alternately called “the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:28), a Reformation, or a golden age in the church, is an indicator that at that “time” God will bless that people, not only spiritually, but materially as well – especially with peace.  On the other hand, under the opposite conditions, when it is plain and evident that a rejection of gospel preaching by the citizens of a land is taking place, described alternately as a “falling away” (2nd Thessalonians 2:3), a “backsliding” (Jeremiah 3:12), a “forsaking” (Jeremiah 2:13), a “rejection of the counsel of God for themselves” (Luke 7:30), or as “being offended” (Matthew 13:21, 57), this is a “sign” that God will punish that country from that “time” onward with an annihilating war.

The threat of this divine penalty is a frequent subject brought up not only throughout the Old Testament, especially in the Prophets, but in the New Testament as well, such as in Luke 19:41-44, and in such parables as Matthew 21:33-41 and Matthew 22:1-14.

Biblical summary.  These two cases dealing with the two different responses of God toward men are summarized in the following passages.  “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2nd Chronicles 7:14).  “If you would seek him, he will be found by you; but if you would forsake him, he will forsake you” (2nd Chronicles 15:2).  “The nation and kingdom which will not serve you shall perish, and those nations shall be utterly ruined” (Isaiah 60:12).  “All nations that forget God will be turned into hell” (Psalm 9:17).

The latter sign is the one to which the Almighty refers in the text after he condemns his enemies for their failure to recognize its forecast of the awful punishment of national disaster which would follow as a consequence. The actual punishment of total war upon that whole nation would occur less than forty years later in 70 A.D.

Application.  This is what you could and should remember whenever you would hear the biblical phrase “the signs of the times.”  As this expression could and should be applied to America, it would mean that a forecast of total war upon the whole nation could and should be plain to see.  The sign, or evidence of this, would consist of the ongoing unbelieving testimonies from our citizens’ own mouths, and from their unbelieving behavior.  As the second sign of the time could and should have been recognized by his nation in Jesus’ day, especially by the religiously-educated clergy and laity, so the second sign of the time – a national devastation by war – could and should be recognized, confessed, and preached at least by the American Christian clergy and laity today who claim to have a biblical knowledge of God’s will.  Yet they are just as blind to the second sign of the time as the Pharisees and the Sadducees were in their day.  Their response today has been silence, for they are withholding judgment on the matter until after war would break out. In other words, “Show me God’s war first, then I will believe it!”  What an indictment of American Christendom!  Is it any wonder that “the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God” (1st Peter 4:17) which could and should know better?

To be sure, this nation is neither maintaining nor returning to the first sign of the time, that is, a golden age of repentance and gospel belief with God’s accompanying blessing of peace.  On the contrary, America has fallen away from its golden age of Christianity. The people of our land are now in the process of shaking off the shackles, as they would consider them (Psalm 107:14), of every last biblical command and promise.

Divine assurance.  The divine assurance which could and should be derived from the signs of the times is to be gotten from God’s threats and promises.  See again 2nd Chronicles 7:14, Isaiah 60:12, and Psalm 9:17!  Just the same, since the Bible states that “the anger of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Romans 1:18)… who, knowing the righteous judgment of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death” (Romans 1:32), and that all men have a conscience and the law of God written in their hearts (Romans 2:14-15), everyone is included under this responsibility to recognize and to be assured that in the current state of “ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,” in America, God will punish.

Therefore, in the case of our country, every citizen could and should recognize and be certain that the situation today in our land is that of the second sign of the time.  As a result, they could and should be certain with divine certainty that the Almighty will punish this country with a devastating war.

See it!  Begin to think in these terms now!

What could and should you do?  Do not wait for the pulpits or the church hierarchy to tell you what to do!  They see no war coming.  They walk by sight, not by faith.  That is, willfully they refuse to see the current sign of the time.  Indeed, the exceeding danger about this sort of sign of the time, which is the same kind about which the Almighty has warned (Matthew 16:1-3), is that you must act now to double your efforts to repent, to believe, to pray for deliverance, and to prepare.  If you would wait until you could see it (“Show me!”), it will be too late.

Act on your own!  Resolve to make the intent to do so with God’s help!  Homeschool, and then also homechurch if it would be necessary!  This is a time when your family’s lives and eternal souls are in serious jeopardy.  You have a duty to God to protect them.

TO READ IN BOOK FORMAT, OR TO PRINT THIS ARTICLE, CLICK ON THIS LINK – Why the abrupt Death of Walter A. Maier?

 

“Behold, a man of God went from Judah to Bethel by the word of the Lord….

“Now an old prophet dwelt in Bethel, and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel….

“And their father said to them, ‘Which way did he go’?

“And went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak.  Then he said to him, ‘Are you the man of God who came from Judah’? and he said, ‘I am’.

“Then he said to him, ‘Come home with me and eat bread’.

“And he said, ‘I cannot return with you nor go in with you; neither can I eat bread nor drink water with you in this place.

“‘For I have been told by the word of the Lord, “You shall not eat bread nor drink water there, nor return by going the way you came”’.

“He said to him, ‘I too am a prophet as you are, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, “Bring him back with you to your house, that he may eat bread and drink water”’.  But he lied to him.

“So he went back with him, and ate bread in his house, and drank water.

“Now it happened, as they sat at the table, that the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had brought him back;

“And he cried out to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord:  “Because you have disobeyed the word of the Lord, and have not kept the commandment which the Lord your God commanded you,

“‘”But you came back, ate bread, and drank water in the place of which the Lord said to you, ‘Eat no bread and drink no water’, your corpse shall not come to the tomb of your fathers”’.

“So it was, after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk, that he saddled the donkey for him, the prophet whom he had brought back.

“So when he was gone, a lion met him on the road and killed him….

“So when the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard it, he said, ‘It is the man of God who was disobedient to the word of the Lord.  Therefore, the Lord has delivered him to the lion, which has torn him and killed him’.”  1st Kings 13:1, 11, 12, 14-24, & 26.

 

In my book on the Charismatic Movement in the year 2000, I mentioned that the golden age of Christianity in the United States ended and began to fall in the year of 1950.  One of the events of that year that signaled this fall was the abrupt death of Walter A. Maier at the age of 56.

Why was this event picked as an historical marker?  It was picked because Maier had a huge influence on this country.  There was a huge audience which tuned into his radio gospel sermon every Sunday.  After the Lord took his life, his missionary preaching stopped, and his influence went away.  The huge radio audience also diminished. The men who took over Maier’s spot behind the microphone never could match the high popularity which Maier’s frankly-speaking, anecdote-filled, law and gospel sermons enjoyed.  With that termination, all of the other salting elements in the church (Matthew 5:13) that were preserving the golden age – the preaching and the teaching – either eventually would come to an end also, were weakened by self-inflicted causes, such as worldliness; and were increasingly ignored by flesh-following church members who, as Scripture diagnoses it, turned “their ears away from the truth” (2nd Timothy 4:4), or who self-injected themselves with the cancer of false doctrine (2nd Timothy 2:17).

Since Maier was only in his fifties in late 1949, it  naturally was presumed that he could and would preach for many years to come, and that his radio show would continue on with the phenomenal growth with which God had blessed it all along.  However, abruptly in January of 1950, God brought an end to this national and worldwide gospel broadcasting.

Indeed, Maier’s radio show had given the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod tremendous publicity, and, as a consequence, enormous prestige.  Hence Maier’s influence was felt by that synod. Consequently, after he died, correspondingly the shock was great.

Thus it would have been quite natural at his death for the leaders and for the laypeople of that synod to have asked:  “Why would God take a God-blessed, missionary activity which was proven to reach tens of millions across the globe, and shut it down, for all practical purposes, by the death of its speaker?  Why would God give up on his own gospel-cause by doing this?”  Humanly speaking, what God had done made no sense to them.  To them he seemed to be at cross-purposes. Moreover, what God had done had no small effect on them.

What was the reason for this abrupt death, then?

Earlier on in his radio sermons, which were later published in books, Maier had pointed out that modernism (unbelief) had taken over a number of denominations in the U.S. after the First World War (Walter A. Maier, Jesus Christ Our Hope [Saint Louis:  Concordia, 1946], page 56).  He regularly attacked modernism, and in a sermon from 1943 stated that his synod’s seminary in Saint Louis “had never had a Modernist on its faculty” (Walter A. Maier, Victory through Christ [Saint Louis:  Concordia, 1945], page 354).

Just the same, in September of 1945 a Statement signed by 44 clergy and professors of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) was sent to all of the clergy of the LCMS. It soon became common knowledge in other church bodies as well.  By this creed the 44 signers showed themselves to be liberals, indeed, to have the spirit of modernism, since by their “conviction that sound exegetical procedure is the basis for sound Lutheran theology” they placed in jeopardy the authority, inerrancy, and inviolability of the Bible in the presentation of its doctrines.  Two of the signers were professors at the Saint Louis seminary:  William Arndt (1880-1957) and Paul Bretscher (1893-1974).  Of all of the faculty and clergy available that could be asked, Maier had selected these two men to read over his sermons before they were either broadcast on the air (Bretscher), or published in book form (Arndt).  See Walter A. Maier, Global Broadcasts of His Grace (Saint Louis:  Concordia, 1949), page lxxxi.  Thus, while Maier publicly criticized the anti-biblical positions of others on his world-wide radio show, for almost four and one-half years, from the time of the release of the Statement until his death, Maier not only remained silent on this doctrinal defection within his own synod, but also on other unbiblical statements made publicly, as well, for instance, in his synod’s publication, The Lutheran Witness.

God had waited almost four and one-half years for Maier to speak out and not to be a hypocrite, either out of weakness or by intent.  In addition to this, there was the matter of the probable loss of confidence in him by the radio audience once this situation would become known widely. In fact, this was a much more serious concern, for the Lord’s precious gospel cause would be harmed by, of all people, Maier himself for his continuous lack of good faith in this matter.  Not to be overlooked was the further concern that in the summer of 1950 the LCMS in convention was set to adopt publicly the unbiblical Common Confession as part of its creed.

Indeed, keep in mind that, as a body, the LCMS never did humble itself over the doctrinal defection of the 44 signers, nor did its president ever discipline the 44 as it was expected at the time by the rest of the synod, and as it was his sworn duty to do.  So while the LCMS with great elation had just celebrated its centennial in 1947; while in the 1940’s the LCMS’ bureaucracy, with beaming anticipation, had charts drawn up which projected, on the basis of its remarkable, God-blessed growth in the past, the same growth for the future; while the radio program of Maier had given the LCMS enormous prestige, the LCMS, as a whole, never did display an intent to humble itself over its increasing doctrinal defection, nor to do anything effective to derail it, but in convention in 1950 actually would embrace it as part of its creed.

Why the abrupt death, then?

Draw your conclusion!

TO READ IN BOOK FORMAT, OR TO PRINT THIS ARTICLE, CLICK O N THIS LINK – 17-Why-would-you-need-the-gospel

At the beginning of creation God had created man and woman pure and holy for the purpose of having them live with him in heaven.  To this end God created this world for man to live in temporarily, in order to bear children, and then, after a period of time, to take the parents home to heaven one by one without dying.

However, this plan was upset by the devil. Adam and Eve were tempted to sin. After which they did not resist temptation, but proceeded to sin, burning their bridges, so to speak, so that they could never regain their holiness.

This ruined everything.  The holy and righteous Almighty could not have sinners in his presence in heaven murdering each other, for instance, as Cain later murdered his own brother.  Therefore, the sinful human race was not only locked out of heaven, but doomed to be punished.  As a result, God set a day of reckoning called “Judgment Day.”  Sinners would have to die an earthly death, be brought before the almighty Judge, and then be punished with never-ending suffering called “eternal death.”

Indeed, an earthly death is God’s arrest.  Earthly death is his judgment on that evil which had infected the soul.  This is why this body is now lying here dead.

Thus your sins are no slight matter.  They are a slap to the face of the holy Almighty.  They are a revolt and a defiance so outrageous and damnable, that nothing less than a never-ending punishment of the sinner would do.

Who has broken Heaven’s laws?  Everyone has. “All have sinned,” the Bible reports (Romans 3:23).  Therefore, “death passed on to all men, for all have sinned” (Romans 5:12).  Thus the entire human race marches on to its grave on account of sin, because “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Romans 1:18).

Why should the punishment for sin be death?  The pure and holy Almighty had warned his pure and holy creatures, Adam and Eve, whom he had created, that if they would ever sin, they will be punished with death.  After this, the Bible related the tragic story, “By one man sin entered the world, and death by sin; and so death passed on to all men, for all have sinned” (Romans 5:12).

See the truth in all of this!  Admit that it is true!  It is useless for you to deny it for “your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23); for “God will bring every work into judgment” (Ecclesiastes 12:4), since the Lord searches “the heart… even to give every man according to his ways” (Jeremiah 17:10).

So admit your sinfulness!  You have grieved and offended the Almighty.  If anyone should be sorry, you ought to be the one, and you ought to do it here and now!

What is more, realize that, out of his grace, the Lord determined to help you.  He resolved to overturn the damage which the devil had done.  God planned that the battle which the devil had won in the Garden of Eden should be fought all over again.  This time not Adam but God himself, the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, would assume a human body, fight the devil, and win.  Since he is almighty God, victory over the devil’s temptation could be assured.  Realize that this occurred decisively when the Lord Jesus Christ left his throne in heaven and came down to this earth for the purpose of resisting the devil’s temptations in your place, and, then, as your holy and powerful substitute, of keeping every law of God which you had ever broken! Furthermore, the Lord Jesus removed the pending eternal punishment which your sinning had brought upon you by suffering it himself on Calvary’s cross.  Then, on Easter Sunday, he broke the chains that had confined you, the sinner, in an eternal death forever, and pronounced his decided victory!  See this!

Then the Lord distributed the fruits of his victory to man in order that it could do him some good, by pledging to his disciples, for example, on Easter evening, “Peace be to you!” (Luke 24:36.)

How would his victory benefit you?  It would benefit you in this way:  Since the demands of Divine Justice have been fully met and satisfied by no less than God himself, the Lord Jesus Christ; since his announcement from his cross, “It is accomplished”(John 19:30) assures you that everything required for your release from sin’s ruin has been accomplished fully and flawlessly by no less than God himself, there are immense benefits to you, the sinner who has been standing all alone, facing, in spirit, the judgment bench of the angry Almighty himself.
First of all, God himself has cast all of your sins behind his back, and has declared you sinless.  As a result, your guilt has been removed. In addition, your sentence of eternal death in hell’s horrors has been cancelled.  Because of this, heaven’s doors now have been flung open wide to receive you after this life.  Indeed, this had been God’s intention all along.

Moreover, God wished to distribute these fruits of Christ’s victory to all men.  In order to do this, he put them into the form of a promise, a gospel promise.  Then, in order to make these saving fruits your own, God spread his gospel promise from place to place throughout the world by sending his messengers to announce it.  Whenever this good news of your deliverance is announced, your thoughtful Lord will exert his gentle power to move you to believe (Romans 10:16; Ephesians 1:19) “the promise that he has promised us:  eternal life” (1st John 2:25), and thereby put you into possession of your salvation:  the fruits of Christ’s victory.  Furthermore, the gospel words of peace will put you at peace with your heavenly Father and also with your conscience, in order that you may have divine assurance from Heaven’s own pledge that God has pardoned you, become friendly and reconciled toward you, and so that you could be confident that your body also will rise to heaven, as Jesus rose on Easter Sunday, according to his promise, “Because I live, you will live also” (John 14:19).

Realize, then, that the only assurance which you could ever have that this salvation will be true, is if you would have God’s own word for it:  his pledge.  This is precisely what the Lord has given you.  He left his pledges behind on this earth with you in order that you could depend on them and not on your own thoughts; in order that you would have faith in his pledges as your only rescue from ruin by the great God himself, since God will keep his promises.  Do so!

Hear those pledges once more!

“Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12); they “will go into everlasting punishment… into everlasting fire” (Matthew 25:46, 41) “which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).

Nevertheless, “God is the God of salvation; and to God…belong the escapes from death” (Psalm 68:20);

For “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:23).

So “the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world” (1st John 4:14) “who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

“He who believes the Son has everlasting life” (John 3:36), he “will not be hurt by the second death” (Revelation 2:11).

“Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift!” (2nd Corinthians 9:15.)

“Lay hold on eternal life!” (1st Timothy 6:12.)

“Believe in the gospel!” (Mark 1:15.)

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What does it mean “to repent”?

It means to have a change of mind about sin.

By nature man does not consider the awful damnableness of his life.  He flatters himself into thinking that he lives a well-behaved life as compared to most people.  If there were any faults, he believes that these would not amount to much.  Moreover, he neglects to remember the sting from his conscience from its tabulation of his sins.  “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who could know it?  I, the Lord, search the heart” (Jeremiah 17:9-10).

Thus it would take God to wake man up to the awful damnableness of his sinful life, to make him address it, and to convict him of it.  “God looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there would be any who will understand, who will seek God.  Every one of them has turned aside; they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one” (Psalm 53:2-3).  Because of this “God is angry with the wicked every day” (Psalm 7:11).  “You hate all workers of iniquity” (Psalm 5:5).  “I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity” (Isaiah 13:11).  “The soul that would sin, it must die” (Ezekiel 18:4).  “At the end of this age” God “will cast… those who practice lawlessness… into the furnace of fire.  There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:40-42).  “The wicked shall be turned into hell” (Psalm 9:17).

Realize how damnable your sinful life is!  Grieve over what your sins have done!  Have sorrow and regret!  Repent!  If anyone would need to repent, you should. You ought to do it here and now.

What does it mean “to believe”?   It means to hear and to believe God’s gracious promise that he has rescued you from the guilt and punishment of your sins, and that he has declared you now to be righteous in his sight.

Indeed, “God would have all men to be saved” (1st Timothy 2:4) from the punishment of their sins and delivered from the slavery of sin in their lives, so that they could be reunited with God on friendly terms, and could live together with him in eternity.  To accomplish this, “God so loved the world that he” (John 3:16) sent his Son down to earth “to save sinners” (1st Timothy 1:15). What this means is this:  In order to get Divine Justice to be no longer angry at this sinful world, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus, true God and true man, lived a holy life for the entire world so that the demands of God’s commandments could be fully met.  Then, in order further to remove Heaven’s anger against this sinful world, the Lord Jesus suffered in hell the eternal torments which all men had deserved because of their sinful lives.  As a result of this holy work which was done in their place the Lord Jesus has made up for all of the sins of men, satisfied all of the perfect demands of Divine Justice, and brought God to declare the whole world to be righteous and welcome to enter heaven. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not charging them with their trespasses” (2nd Corinthians 5:19).  God “justifies the ungodly” (Romans 4:5).

In order for you to be assured of this wonderful work of God, he has brought to you precious promises (2nd Peter 1:4) that his work of saving you is most certain and true.  Moreover, God urges you to believe them (Mark 1:15), to receive comfort by them (Isaiah 40:1-2), to receive through these pledges by divine power a new heart to avoid sinning (Ephesians 1:19; Philippians 2:13; Psalm 51:10), and to enjoy ownership of your forgiveness on earth and your life with God in heaven by inviting you:  “Come, for all things are now ready!” (Luke 14:17.)  See it!  Believe it!  Be certain of it!

This is what it means “to believe”.  These are the high, heavenly benefits which you will receive.  Have them!
In order to have them, first “cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourself a new heart!” (Ezekiel 18:31.)  Then, plead:  “Create in me a clean heart, O God!” (Psalm 51:10.)  Next, rejoice over God’s response:  “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:26), for “his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2nd Peter 1:4)!

Therefore, “repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin!” (Ezekiel 18:30.)  Yet be confident that “there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ” (Romans 8:1), for “he who believes in” the Son of God “is not condemned” but “has eternal life” (John 3:18, 36)!  Indeed, be encouraged that “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10)!

“Repent, and believe!” (Mark 1:15.)

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“Most Americans who say they are Christians don’t know the basic teachings of the faith and don’t act significantly different than non-Christians in their daily lives, according pollster George Gallup.

“The researcher, an Episcopalian layman, discussed the gap between what professing Christians say they believe and what they practice in an address at an urban ministries conference in Newark, N.J., sponsored by the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board.

“’I doubt if more than 5 to 10 per cent of Christians are prepared to defend their faith’, Gallup said.  ‘Many don’t know what it means to be a Christian’.

“According to Gallup, ‘the Sunday school and religious education system in this country is not working.  There are wonderful exceptions, but by and large, while we worry about secular education we really ought to worry about religious education, which is more important’.

“The pollster said the ignorance of Christian beliefs among professing Christians is ‘a very frightening situation, because not being grounded in one’s faith, we’re open for anything that comes along’” (from the Religious News Service, 10 May, 1991).