Three Things You Can Do to Help Your Kids Defend the Truth

By J. Warner Wallace 2/5/2018

     The statistics are alarmingly clear: Young Christians are leaving the Church in increasing numbers and when polled, most cite some form of intellectual skepticism as the chief cause of their departure. If you’re a parent, listen to the words offered by young ex-believers (excerpted from recent studies):

•      “It didn’t make any sense anymore.”
•      “Some stuff is too far-fetched for me to believe.”
•      “I think scientifically and there is no real proof.”
•      “Too many questions that can’t be answered.”
•      “I’m a scientist now, and I don’t believe in miracles.”
•      “Because I grew up realized it was a story like Santa or the Easter Bunny.”
•      “As I learn more about the world around me and understand things that I once did not, I find that the thought of an all-powerful being to be less and less believable.”
•      “I realized that religion is in complete contradiction with the rational and scientific world, and to continue to subscribe to a religion would be hypocritical.”
•      “Need proof of something.”
•      “It no longer fits into what I understand of the universe.”

James "Jim" Warner Wallace (born June 16, 1961) is an American homicide detective  and Christian apologist . Wallace is a Senior Fellow at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview  and an Adjunct Professor of Apologetics at Biola University  in La Mirada, California. He has authored several books, including Cold-Case Christianity, God’s Crime Scene, and Forensic Faith, in which he applies principles of cold case  homicide investigation to apologetic  concerns such as the existence of God  and the reliability of the Gospels.

• Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels

• God's Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines the Evidence for a Divinely Created Universe

• Alive: A Cold-Case Approach to the Resurrection

• Cold-Case Christianity for Kids: Investigate Jesus with a Real Detective

• Keeping Your Kids on God's Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith

• Forensic Faith: A Homicide Detective Makes the Case for a More Reasonable, Evidential Christian Faith

The Epidemic of Relativism Among Christian Youth

By Lenny Esposito 9/30/2014

     I'm concerned. I'm deeply concerned. There's an epidemic spreading among Christian youth today that can have dangerous and perhaps even deadly consequences. What makes this more dangerous is that most parents and pastors don't even realize their kids are infected. I'm speaking of the danger of moral relativism, and how it's become rampant even within most Christian colleges and universities. Ask Christian young adults who have been active in their church or youth group if something like abortion or homosexual unions are wrong and many may say yes. But press them on if they should declare others sinful or wrong for participating in such actions and you may get a different response, one more akin to "It's wrong for me since I'm a Christian, but they aren't so it's right for them."

     This idea that the only things binding on an individual is whatever his or her personal perception of morality is has become rampant among our youth today. I have a ministry partner who for the last couple of years also teaches at a conservative Christian college in Southern California. He has told me of how consistently he faces moral relativistic beliefs held by the students each year. He offered one example that is typical: he asked his students to pick a topic and defend it as a writing assignment. A young science major chose to write a defense against the use of embryonic stem cells in research, leveraging such appropriate arguments as how life begins at conception in her paper. However, when asked what the student would do if she discovered that her lab partners were using embryos in research, she replied that she couldn't tell them what to do. Their beliefs are different from hers, so she felt that she had no right to push her morality on another. While her paper read as though she was a moral absolutist, further digging showed that she was only applying that standard to herself, not others.

     The Danger of Believing Relativism

     This kind of thinking is how tyranny is born. If one cannot tell another his actions are evil, then they will continue until those that would dare to oppose immorality are themselves labeled as immoral. We have seen this in the criminal prosecution of Christians who simply wish to not be a part of homosexual unions. They are fined and their businesses closed down, really only acts of vengeance for nothing more than holding to a moral standard. And now, the kids we send to college hold not the belief that they cannot stand their moral ground, but that they should not stand their moral ground, because to do so is itself an immoral act!

     Christians of all people should know that sin is sin regardless of whether one believes it to be or not. If moral precepts are true, then they are binding on all of humanity. Imagine if Nazi Germany was to have won World War II and Hitler was successful in his genocide of the Jewish people. Now, imagine 2014 in such an alternate timeline where every last soul on earth believes that Hitler was the savior of humanity for carrying out such a feat. Would that make it right? Could it ever be right simply because of popular consensus? Of course not!

The Witness Of The Scriptures To Moses’ Authorship

By Gleason Archer Jr.

     4. The atmosphere of  Exodus  through  Numbers  is unmistakably that of the desert, not of an agricultural people settled in their ancestral possessions for nearly a thousand years (as Wellhausen supposed). The tremendous emphasis upon a tabernacle or large tent as the place of worship is altogether out of place for authors living centuries after the cedar-timbered temple of Solomon had been built (a temple which differed from the appointments of the tabernacle in several important details). But it would be altogether relevant for a nomadic people constantly on the march through the desert. The materials of which it was to be made are most carefully specified over a large number of chapters. Its central location in the midst of the encampment and the exact location of the twelve tribes on the four sides of it (  Num. 2:1–31 ) have a perfect appropriateness to the generation of Moses, but none whatsoever to any later generation. The references to the desert crop up everywhere. For example, the scapegoat is to be sent off into the desert (  Lev. 16:10 ). Sanitary instructions are given for desert life (  Deut. 23:12–13 ). The exact order of march is specified in  Num. 10:14–20  in a way that would have significance only while the entire population of Israel was concentrated into one large group and was in a process of migration.

     5. Particularly in the book of  Genesis  there are references to archaic customs which are demonstrable for the second millennium B.C., but which did not continue during the first millennium. Notably in the legal documents discovered at Nuzi and dating from the fifteenth century, we discover references to the custom of begetting legitimate children by handmaidens (as Abraham did with Hagar); to the validity of an oral, deathbed will (like Isaac’s to Jacob); to the importance of the possession of the family teraphim for the claiming of inheritance rights (which gives point to Rachel’s theft of Laban’s teraphim in  Gen. 31 ). From other sources comes confirmation of the historical accuracy of the transaction in  Gen. 23  whereby Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah.

     6. There are significant archaisms in language, as well. For example, the word for the pronoun “she” is frequently spelled HWʾ instead of the regular HYʾ. There are only three occurences of this spelling h-w , for ḥ-y-ʾ in the rest of the O.T. (  1 Kings 17:15, Isa. 30:31, Job 31:11 ). We also meet with N˓R instead of the feminine form N˓RH for “young girl.” Occasionally (i.e., twice in  Genesis ) HLZH (hallāzeh) appears for the demonstrative “that” instead of hallaz, the form used in  Judges, Samuel , and thereafter. The verb for “laugh” is spelled ṢḤQ (in  Genesis  and  Exodus ) instead of ŚḤQ; “lamb” is KŚB instead of the later KBŚ (kebeś). By some scholars it has been argued that there is too little difference between the Hebrew of the Torah and that of eighth-century authors like  Amos,  to allow for the passage of over five centuries. Two factors must be borne in mind here.

     First, the possible changes in pronunciation and form are greatly obscured by the unvoweled, consonantal alphabet in which the Old Testament was preserved until Masoretic times. After all even Old English would not look so very different from Elizabethan English if both were written in consonants only! Second, the central importance of the Torah in the education of post-Mosaic youth must have exerted as decisive an influence upon the Hebrew they used as the Qur’an has had upon thirteen centuries of literary Arabic (which even today is still the same language essentially as that of Muhammed in A.D. 620). In both cases the ancient document was taken as a unique divine revelation and an all-comprehensive constitution upon which the entire culture was built. Such a situation makes for extreme conservatism in the development of the literary language.

     As for the objection that the Mosiac period was too early for the use of the definite article ha- (since other Semitic languages did not develop a word for “the” as early as that), this is easily explained from Israel’s exposure to Egyptian influence. It was precisely during the Eighteenth Dynasty in Egypt that the definite article (p;, t;, n;) began to make its appearance even in literary texts, although sporadic occurrences appear even in Twelfth Dynasty texts such as the Eloquent Peasant. Undoubtedly this reflected the customary usage in colloquial Egyptian during the age of Moses, and the Hebrews could hardly fail to have felt the need for a similar article in their own language. It is therefore not surprising to find full-fledged use of the article in the prose sections of the Torah (although the poetic passages used it very sparingly indeed as was true of later Hebrew poetry).

     All these features (1–6) are easily reconcilable with Mosaic authorship; they are virtually impossible to harmonize with the Wellhausen theory of stage-by-stage composition from the ninth to the fifth centuries. The laws of evidence would seem to demand a rejection of the Documentary Hypothesis as clearly inadequate to account for the actual data of the Pentateuchal text.

     7. There is a most remarkable unity of arrangement which underlies the entire Pentateuch and links it together into a progressive whole, even though successive stages in revelation (during Moses’ writing career of four decades) result in a certain amount of overlapping and restatement. By implication even the Documentarians are forced to concede this unity by resorting to a hypothetical redactor to explain the orderliness and harmony of arrangement evident in the final form of the Torah as it has come down to us.

MOSES’ QUALIFICATIONS 

     From all that has been recorded concerning Moses himself, it is evident that he had every qualification to be the author of just such a work as the Pentateuch. He had the education and background for authorship, since he received from his ancestors that wealth of oral law which originated from the Mesopotamian cultures back in the time of Abraham (hence the remarkable resemblances to the eighteenth century Code of Hammurabi), and from his tutors in the Egyptian court he received training in those branches of learning in which Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt excelled the rest of the ancient world. From his forebears he would naturally have received an accurate oral tradition of the career of the patriarchs and those revelations which God had vouchsafed to them. He would have a personal knowledge of the climate, agriculture, and geography of Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula such as the author of the Pentateuch so patently displays. He would have had every incentive to compose this monumental work, since he was the founding father of the commonwealth of Israel, and it was upon these moral and religious foundations that his nation was to fulfill its destiny. He certainly had plenty of time and leisure during the slow, tiresome forty years of wandering in the Sinai desert to compose a book several times the size of the Torah. Moreover, he had just come from a culture in which the art of writing was so widely cultivated that even the toilet articles employed by the women in the household contained an appropriate inscription. Writing in both hieroglyphic and hieratic characters was so widely prevalent in the Egypt of Moses’ day that it seems absolutely incredible that he would have committed none of his records to writing (as even the twentieth-century critics contend), when he had the grandest and most significant matters to record which are to be found in all of human literature. At a time when even the unschooled Semitic slaves employed at the Egyptian turquoise mines in Serabit el-Khadim were incising their records on the walls of their tunnels, it is quite unreasonable to suppose that a leader of Moses’ background and education was too illiterate to commit a single word to writing. Thus it turns out that the modern theories which reject Mosaic authorship put more of a strain upon human credulity than can reasonably be borne.

A Survey of Old Testament Introduction

Why Believing in Miracles is Not Illogical

By Lenny Esposito 1/24/2017

     When Christians believe in miracles, are they being irrational? A recent Pew Research article entitled "Why America's 'nones' left religion behind" held this interesting quote:

About half of current religious "nones" who were raised in a religion (49%) indicate that a lack of belief led them to move away from religion. This includes many respondents who mention "science" as the reason they do not believe in religious teachings, including one who said "I'm a scientist now, and I don't believe in miracles." Others reference "common sense," "logic" or a "lack of evidence" – or simply say they do not believe in God.

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle.

Read The Psalms In "1" Year

Psalm 18

25 With the merciful you show yourself merciful;
with the blameless man you show yourself blameless;
26 with the purified you show yourself pure;
and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous.
27 For you save a humble people,
but the haughty eyes you bring down.
28 For it is you who light my lamp;
the LORD my God lightens my darkness.
29 For by you I can run against a troop,
and by my God I can leap over a wall.
30 This God—his way is perfect;
the word of the LORD proves true;
he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.

John Loftus and His Hypothetical God

By Tom Gilson 2/4/2017

     John Loftus’s opinion is clear: God is a screw-up. Lazy. Ignorant. Incompetent. Or at least that’s what God would be, if God existed.

     I’m reading John’s book How To Defend the Christian Faith: Advice From an Atheist, which he was kind enough to send me for review. Maybe he thought it was only fair, because it’s a book-length review of apologists like myself.

     Among other things, he says (page 21) we’re “bumbling idiots and incompetent fools” — but that’s in comparison to an all-knowing God, so actually he wasn’t being all that unkind to us at that point. Don’t worry, though, it’s in there — he just saves it for other passages.

     God’s Incompetence? | Here in the vicinity of that quote, though, he aims his criticism at God’s “failure” to accomplish his own task of getting people to believe in himself. In the opening paragraphs of chapter 1 he writes,

I’m going to address the most important question of all for would-be Christian apologists. It’s the obvious elephant in the room, not seen by apologists because they don’t have eyes for it. My argument is that God, if he exists, failed to effectively communicate his will. He failed to provide the sufficient evidence we need to believe.

     Tom Gilson is a senior editor of The Stream, author of the new 2016 parent-friendly guide to keeping kids in the faith, titled Critical Conversations: A Christian Parents' Guide to Discussing Homosexuality with Teens , the chief editor of True Reason: Confronting the Irrationality of the New Atheism , and Peter Boghossian, Atheist Tactician: A Preliminary Response To "A Manual For Creating Atheists" the author/host of the Thinking Christian blog .

5 Reasons You Should Listen To Christian Podcasts

By Landon Coleman 2/6/2017

     If you’re not listening to Christian podcasts, I think you’re missing out. Here are 5 reasons you should be listening to Christian podcasts (tomorrow I’ll post 5 reasons you should be wary of “Christian” podcasts).

     1. Podcasts can give you more exposure to the Word of God. Pastors often lament the fact that in a week of 168 hours we only get a couple of hours with our people at church. However, listening to good podcasts during the week can increase your exposure to the Word of God beyond the Sunday morning worship gathering.

     2. Podcasts can help you stay current with your church. Many churches record and post sermons online. This is a great way to keep your people connected to the teaching ministry of your church. Older members who are home bound, members who are traveling, and members who have to work Sundays can stay current.

     3. Podcasts allow you to learn from some great Bible teachers. The number of top notch Bible teachers you can access for free on the internet is simply remarkable. We live in a time and a place where we have more access to phenomenal Bible teaching than any other people in church history. Don’t waste that opportunity.

     4. Podcasts help you “redeem the time.” Most of us have redeemable time that we could devote to learning. It may be while you do yard work, while you exercise, while you rock a baby to sleep, or while you’re driving in the car. These are moments that can easily be redeemed by plugging in and listening to a good Christian podcast.

The Problem Of The Old Testament

By James Orr 1907

II. DIFFICULTIES OF THE CRITICAL HYPOTHESIS IN GENERAL

The course of criticism, we have granted, has been in a very real sense onward, so far as the discovery of phenomena is concerned. As the outcome, the critics are justified in saying that on certain leading points there is very general agreement in their ranks. It is agreed that four main sources are to be distinguished in the Pentateuch (or Hexateuch)—J E D P—and that these have been combined by one or more hands to form the present work. It is also very generally believed (not, however, by Dillmann), that J and E were combined, if not before the time of  Deuteronomy Kittel, Addis, and others think after), at least before their final union with that book (D) and with P. Beyond these very general results, however, it is, as will immediately be seen, highly misleading to speak, as is sometimes done, of unanimity. Agreement in main features of the critical division there is, especially with regard to P, — the original premises being granted, there is little alternative, — but whenever the attempt is made to carry the analysis into details, or to establish a consistent theory of the relations of the documents, or of their mode of combination, divergences wide and deep reveal themselves, complications thicken at every step, and inevitable doubt arises as to the soundness of the premises which lead to such perplexity in the results. Two unimpeachable witnesses may be cited at the outset in general corroboration of what is said as to the absence of unanimity. Kautzsch, the author, with Socin, of one of the best typographical analyses of the Book of  Genesis, makes this remarkable statement: “In the Pentateuch and the Book of  Joshua, it is only with regard to P that something approaching to unanimity has been reached.” Kuenen, again, says with special reference to JE: “As the analysis has been carried gradually further, it has become increasingly evident that the critical question is far more difficult and involved than was at first supposed, and the solutions which seemed to have been secured have been in whole or in part brought into question again.” These words might be taken as the text of nearly everything that follows.

1. With every allowance for what may be said of progress, inevitable doubt is awakened in regard to the soundness of the critical process by the conflicts of opinion which the history of criticism itself discovers. It is to be remembered, in discussing this subject, that the J E D P of the critics — so far as not simply symbols for the supposed documents themselves — with their serial duplicates, to be immediately referred to, and the numerous retinue of redactors, are, though spoken of so familiarly, purely hypothetical entities — postulated beings, of whom history or tradition knows nothing. Moses, Joshua, Samuel, we know, or think we do; but these shadows have left no trace of themselves, save, if it be so, in their work, now taken to pieces again by the critics. When we desire to know something more of their time or their relations, we are in a region in which, the history of criticism being witness, the agreements are far overborne by the disagreements. Do we ask when they lived? the dates assigned to P (the 1st Elohist), we have found, range from the days of Samuel (Bleek, Colenso, older writers generally), through the period of the kings (Riehm, Dillmann, Nöldeke, Schrader, etc.), to the time of the exile, or later (Graf school). The dates of JE run from the time of the  Judges (König, Köhler, etc.) to the tenth, ninth, eighth centuries, with, in the view of Kuenen, “Judæan editions” after. The composition of  Deuteronomy is commonly placed in the reign of Josiah, or of Manasseh; but many able critics (Delitzsch, Oettli, Klostermann, etc.) hold it to be much older, and in kernel Mosaic; while others divide it up, and put extensive portions later than Josiah. Do we inquire as to dependence? The older view was, as we saw, that J and E are supplementary to P; the newer theory is that P is later than JE and presupposes them. J is held by many (Dillmann, Nöldeke, Schrader, Kittel, etc.) to be dependent on E and to have borrowed from him; Wellhausen, Kuenen, Stade, etc., as confidently reverse the relation, and make E dependent on J; others treat the documents as practically independent (e.g., Woods). One set of critics (Dillmann, Riehm, etc.) hold that the marks demonstrate E to be about a century older than J; the prevailing tendency at present is to make J about a century older than E. Addis says that this question of priority “is still one of the most vexed questions in the criticism of the Hexateuch.” The interesting point in the discussion is the cogency with which each critic refutes the reasonings of his neighbours, and shows them to be nugatory. All this would matter little, if it were, as is sometimes said, mere variation on the surface, with slight bearing on the soundness of the theory as a whole. But it is far from that. The criteria which determine these judgments are found on inspection to go deep into the substance of the theory, and afford a valuable practical test of the principles by which it is built up.

2. These perplexities are slight, however, in comparison with those arising from another cause now to be mentioned — the excessive multiplication of sources. The matter is relatively simple when we have to deal only with a J E D or P, and when the critic honestly abides by these. But, as the analysis proceeds, we find it impossible to stop here. As the old Ptolemaic astronomer discovered that, to explain the irregularities in the visible motions of the heavenly bodies, he had to add epicycles to his original cycles, then fresh epicycles to these, till his chart became a huge maze of complications — and incredibilities; so the critic finds that the application of the same criteria which guided him in the severance of his main documents, necessitates, when pushed further, a continuance of the process, and the splitting up of the documents into yet minuter parts. Hence new divisions, and the gradual resolution of the original JE, etc., into the nebulous series, J1J2J3; E1E2E3; P1P2P3P4; R1R2R3, etc., or equivalents; all of which have now become part of the recognised apparatus of the critical schools. Can we wonder that even a tolerably advanced critic like Dillmann should write: “with a Q1Q2Q3 [= P], J1J2J3, E1E2E3. I can do nothing, and can only see in them a hypothesis of perplexity.” Assume such multiples to have existed, does anyone with a modicum of common sense believe it possible for a twentieth century critic to pick their handiwork to pieces again, and assign to each his proper fragment of the whole? These processional Js and Es, however, should not be scoffed at as arbitrary. They are really indispensable parts of a critical stock-in-trade if the original principles of the theory are to be consistently carried out. In that respect they serve again as a test of the value of these principles. The critic thinks he observes, for instance, within the limits of the same document, a discrepancy, or a new turn of expression, or a duplicate incident — the denial of a wife, e.g., in  Gen. 12; 26, both in J,2 or a seeming intermingling of two stories — in Korah’s rebellion, e.g., in  Num. 16:2–11, P,3 — or a reference in J (older writer) to E (younger): what is to be done except to assume that there is here a trace of a distinct source, or of a redactor? The hypothesis is as essential to the critic as his epicycle was to the Ptolemaic star-gazer.

3. The matter becomes still more complicated when, finally, the problematical J E D P lose all individuality, and are frankly transformed, as they are by most of the newer writers, into schools. When these “schools” are made to extend over a very long period, as from the statements made, and the work attributed to them, we must suppose them to have done, the problem of maintaining for them the identity of character and style with which the investigation started becomes insoluble. Obviously, if the writers are to be regarded as “schools,” it will be impossible, as before, to insist on minute criteria of language, often descending to single words, and the finest nuances of expression, as infallible means of distinguishing their several contributions. It is possible to argue, however unreasonably, that an individual author must be rigidly bound down to one style, one set of phrases, one idea or circle of ideas; but this will hardly apply to “schools,” lasting for centuries, where, within the limits of a general tradition, there must, with difference of minds, inevitably be wide diversities of culture, thought, and speech. We may properly speak, e.g., of an “Anglican,” a “Ritschlian,” or a “Cobdenite” school, and may mark how in each the influence of dominant ideas stamps a general resemblance on the style and speech of the members, but none the less individual idiosyncrasies will assert themselves in each writer. If, further, the writers are to be regarded as “schools,” the question of date assumes a new aspect. How far may or do these “schools” go back? Why must J and E be any longer forced down to the ninth or eighth century?” Why must the priestly narratives be of the same age as the priestly laws? Delitzsch was of opinion that “the literary activity of the Elohistic pen reaches far back to ancient times nearly approaching the time of Moses.” Why, on this hypothesis should it not be so?

There is, one cannot help feeling, something essentially mechanical in this idea of “schools” of writers continuously engaged for centuries in patching, revising, tesselating, resetting, altering and embellishing, the work of their predecessors. We are here back, in fact, by another route, and under another name, to the old “fragmentary” hypothesis, thought so long ago to have been exploded. But the striking thing about the labours of these manifold unknowns is that the product shows so little trace of this excessive fragmentariness of its origin. The Pentateuch — pre-eminently the Book of  Genesis, but even the legal part — is undeniably a well-planned, massively - compacted work. Apart from the “firmly-knit” character of its story, it is marked by a unity of thought and spirit, is pervaded by great ideas, is instinct with a living purpose, as no other book is. Its organic character bespeaks for it a higher origin than a concourse of literary atoms.

The Problem of the Old Testament

Job 6:14-23

By Richard S. Adams

     I doubt many of us have endured what Job was required to experience, but I wonder if the seeming hopelessness of life doesn’t overtake all of us at one time or another? People and circumstances, events and situations affect us all differently, because, despite being so similar in so many ways, at the same time, we are very different.

     When I think of difference I don’t think about color so much as I do world view. Still, though we all may have backgrounds as distinct as our parents, as different as our fingerprints, as unique as our genetic code, I still think Job 6:14-23 resonates with a lot of us.

Job 6:14–23 (ESV) 14  “He who withholds kindness from a friend
forsakes the fear of the Almighty.
15  My brothers are treacherous as a torrent-bed,
as torrential streams that pass away,
16  which are dark with ice,
and where the snow hides itself.
17  When they melt, they disappear;
when it is hot, they vanish from their place.
18  The caravans turn aside from their course;
they go up into the waste and perish.
19  The caravans of Tema look,
the travelers of Sheba hope.
20  They are ashamed because they were confident;
they come there and are disappointed.
21  For you have now become nothing;
you see my calamity and are afraid.
22  Have I said, ‘Make me a gift’?
Or, ‘From your wealth offer a bribe for me’?
23  Or, ‘Deliver me from the adversary’s hand’?
Or, ‘Redeem me from the hand of the ruthless’?

     Who cannot remember a time or times when you didn’t feel like Job, even if, ... in all honesty, your situation just wasn’t that bad. It is frequently necessary for me to be very intentional about what I am thinking about to prevent feelings of self-pity from taking root. After all, things can change for good or bad very quickly.

(Mt 6:34) Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. ESV

     I know people who combat the feelings of Job 6:14-23 by going shopping, throwing themselves into their work, indulging in an unhealthy relationship, something, anything external to themselves. I know from experience these periods of being out of step with our own common sense are dangerous.

     During these cycles, cycles because they return every now and then, do not make any life changing decisions. This is a time to draw closer to God, not to go to the mall or shop Amazon for a quick fix. Get your Bible and let God talk to you. Don't meditate and spend your time reflecting on your own thoughts and don't follow your heart! Your heart is the source of this malaise. One directee told me he needed a long motorcycle ride along the coast to be alone with himself. These delusional self-centered thoughts are the problem not the remedy. Instead of focusing inward look around and consider meeting someone else’s need.

(Je 17:9) The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? ESV

     Thank God, as far as I know, I have no friends like Job. My struggles are mostly processing the uncertainty of 'now', rather than dealing with the horrors Job experienced. Most of our mental and emotional funks are a trust building opportunity for all of us. Feeling disconnected, rejected or Elijah like is a ruse of the enemy that too often works.

     I know that more than anything … more than anything the desire of God’s heart is that you and I, all of us, trust God with all our heart. God continues to be faithful. In our learning to wait on God, instead of following the counsel of a broken world, we will get better and better at letting go of the anxiety and fears that isolate us from those who care about us.

• Feb 5     Prosperity and the Camp Fire
• Feb 7     Job 6:14-23
• Feb 10     Spontaneous Generation
• Feb 14     Hindsight
• Feb 18     The Cure For Despair
• Feb 22     RE: Job's Friends
• Feb 23     Job 23:14
• Feb 25     No Time To Text
• Mar 5     Polemics and Caricature
• Apr 20     Death and My Master's Voice
• May 10     Ruth | Relationships
• June 18     Lincoln City 6/2/18
• July 14     Tom - Gen and Revelation
• July 15     Knowledge and World Peace
• July 16     The Church as Lobbyist
• Aug 3     Have You Noticed
• Nov 27     The Way The World Is
• Nov 30     The Renewal Of Israel
• Dec 11     Open Door
• Dec 20     Replacement Theology

The Pilgrim's Progress From This World To That Which Is To Come;
Delivered Under The Similitude Of A Dream

By John Bunyan 1678

THE SIXTH STAGE

ENVY. My lord, I could say much more, only I would not be tedious to the court. Yet if need be, when the other gentlemen have given in their evidence, rather than any thing shall be wanting that will dispatch him, I will enlarge my testimony against him. So he was bid to stand by.

     Then they called Superstition, and bid him look upon the prisoner. They also asked, what he could say for their lord the king against him. Then they sware him; so he began.

     SUPER. My lord, I have no great acquaintance with this man, nor do I desire to have further knowledge of him. However, this I know, that he is a very pestilent fellow, from some discourse that I had with him the other day, in this town; for then, talking with him, I heard him say, that our religion was naught, and such by which a man could by no means please God. Which saying of his, my lord, your lordship very well knows what necessarily thence will follow, to wit, that we still do worship in vain, are yet in our sins, and finally shall be damned: and this is that which I have to say.

     Then was Pickthank sworn, and bid say what he knew in the behalf of their lord the king against the prisoner at the bar.

     PICK. My lord, and you gentlemen all, this fellow I have known of a long time, and have heard him speak things that ought not to be spoken; for he hath railed on our noble prince Beelzebub, and hath spoken contemptibly of his honorable friends, whose names are, the Lord Old Man, the Lord Carnal Delight, the Lord Luxurious, the Lord Desire of Vain Glory, my old Lord Lechery, Sir Having Greedy, with all the rest of our nobility: and he hath said, moreover, that if all men were of his mind, if possible, there is not one of these noblemen should have any longer a being in this town. Besides, he hath not been afraid to rail on you, my lord, who are now appointed to be his judge, calling you an ungodly villain, with many other such like vilifying terms, with which he hath bespattered most of the gentry of our town.

     When this Pickthank had told his tale, the judge directed his speech to the prisoner at the bar, saying, Thou runagate, heretic, and traitor, hast thou heard what these honest gentlemen have witnessed against thee?

     FAITH. May I speak a few words in my own defence?

     JUDGE. Sirrah, sirrah, thou deservest to live no longer, but to be slain immediately upon the place; yet, that all men may see our gentleness towards thee, let us hear what thou, vile runagate, hast to say.

     FAITH. 1. I say, then, in answer to what Mr. Envy hath spoken, I never said aught but this, that what rule, or laws, or custom, or people, were flat against the word of God, are diametrically opposite to Christianity. If I have said amiss in this, convince me of my error, and I am ready here before you to make my recantation.

     2. As to the second, to wit, Mr. Superstition, and his charge against me, I said only this, that in the worship of God there is required a divine faith; but there can be no divine faith without a divine revelation of the will of God. Therefore, whatever is thrust into the worship of God that is not agreeable to divine revelation, cannot be done but by a human faith; which faith will not be profitable to eternal life.

     3. As to what Mr. Pickthank hath said, I say, (avoiding terms, as that I am said to rail, and the like,) that the prince of this town, with all the rabblement, his attendants, by this gentleman named, are more fit for a being in hell than in this town and country. And so the Lord have mercy upon me.

     Then the judge called to the jury, (who all this while stood by to hear and observe,) Gentlemen of the jury, you see this man about whom so great an uproar hath been made in this town; you have also heard what these worthy gentlemen have witnessed against him; also, you have heard his reply and confession: it lieth now in your breasts to hang him, or save his life; but yet I think meet to instruct you in our law.

     There was an act made in the days of Pharaoh the Great, servant to our prince, that, lest those of a contrary religion should multiply and grow too strong for him, their males should be thrown into the river.

Exod. 1:22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”   ESV

There was also an act made in the days of Nebuchadnezzar the Great, another of his servants, that whoever would not fall down and worship his golden image, should be thrown into a fiery furnace.

Dan. 3:6 And whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace.”   ESV

There was also an act made in the days of Darius, that whoso for some time called upon any god but him, should be cast into the lion’s den.

Dan. 6:7 All the high officials of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the counselors and the governors are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an injunction, that whoever makes petition to any god or man for thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions.   ESV

Now, the substance of these laws this rebel has broken, not only in thought, (which is not to be borne,) but also in word and deed; which must, therefore, needs be intolerable.

     For that of Pharaoh, his law was made upon a supposition to prevent mischief, no crime being yet apparent; but here is a crime apparent. For the second and third, you see he disputeth against our religion; and for the treason that he hath already confessed, he deserveth to die the death.

     Then went the jury out, whose names were Mr. Blindman, Mr. No-good, Mr. Malice, Mr. Love-lust, Mr. Live-loose, Mr. Heady, Mr. High-mind, Mr. Enmity, Mr. Liar, Mr. Cruelty, Mr. Hate-light, and Mr. Implacable; who every one gave in his private verdict against him among themselves, and afterwards unanimously concluded to bring him in guilty before the judge. And first among themselves, Mr. Blindman, the foreman, said, I see clearly that this man is a heretic. Then said Mr. No-good, Away with such a fellow from the earth. Aye, said Mr. Malice, for I hate the very looks of him. Then said Mr. Love-lust, I could never endure him. Nor I, said Mr. Live-loose, for he would always be condemning my way. Hang him, hang him, said Mr. Heady. A sorry scrub, said Mr. High-mind. My heart riseth against him, said Mr. Enmity. He is a rogue, said Mr. Liar. Hanging is too good for him, said Mr. Cruelty. Let us dispatch him out of the way, said Mr. Hate-light. Then said Mr. Implacable, Might I have all the world given me, I could not be reconciled to him; therefore let us forthwith bring him in guilty of death.

     And so they did; therefore he was presently condemned to be had from the place where he was, to the place from whence he came, and there to be put to the most cruel death that could be invented.

     They therefore brought him out, to do with him according to their law; and first they scourged him, then they buffeted him, then they lanced his flesh with knives; after that, they stoned him with stones, then pricked him with their swords; and last of all, they burned him to ashes at the stake. Thus came Faithful to his end.

     Now I saw, that there stood behind the multitude a chariot and a couple of horses waiting for Faithful, who (so soon as his adversaries had dispatched him) was taken up into it, and straightway was carried up through the clouds with sound of trumpet, the nearest way to the celestial gate. But as for Christian, he had some respite, and was remanded back to prison: so he there remained for a space. But he who overrules all things, having the power of their rage in his own hand, so wrought it about, that Christian for that time escaped them, and went his way.

And as he went, he sang, saying,

“Well, Faithful, thou hast faithfully profest
Unto thy Lord, with whom thou shalt be blest,
When faithless ones, with all their vain delights,
Are crying out under their hellish plights:
Sing, Faithful, sing, and let thy name survive;
For though they killed thee, thou art yet alive.”

     Pilgrim's Progress (Illustrated): Updated, Modern English. More than 100 Illustrations.

The Continual Burnt Offering

By H.A. Ironside - 1941

February 7

Judges 5:12 “Awake, awake, Deborah!
Awake, awake, break out in a song!
Arise, Barak, lead away your captives,
O son of Abinoam.  ESV

Isaiah 51:9 Awake, awake, put on strength,
O arm of the LORD;
awake, as in days of old,
the generations of long ago.
Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces,
who pierced the dragon?

Isaiah 51:17  Wake yourself, wake yourself,
stand up, O Jerusalem,
you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD
the cup of his wrath,
who have drunk to the dregs
the bowl, the cup of staggering.

Isaiah 52:1 Awake, awake,
put on your strength, O Zion;
put on your beautiful garments,
O Jerusalem, the holy city;
for there shall no more come into you
the uncircumcised and the unclean.
2  Shake yourself from the dust and arise;
be seated, O Jerusalem;
loose the bonds from your neck,
O captive daughter of Zion.

Isaiah 60:1 Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.

“Awake, O sleeper,
and arise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”   ESV

There must be thorns amid life’s flowers, you know,
And you and I, wherever we may go,
Can find no bliss that is not mixed with pain.
No path without a cloud. It would be vain
For me to wish that not a single tear
Might dim the gladness that you hold so dear.
I am not wise enough to understand
All that is best for you. The Master’s hand
Must sometimes touch life’s saddest chords to reach
Its sweetest music, and His child to teach
To trust His love, till the long, weeping night
Is all forgotten in the morning light.
Trust, trust Him, then, and thus shall good or ill
Your trustful soul with present blessing fill.
Each loss is truest gain if, day by day
He fills the place of all He takes away.
--- Message, Ballarat

The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Translated by Henry Beveridge

     10. The three last contrasts to which we have adverted (sec. 4, 7, 9), are between the Law and the Gospel, and hence in these the Law is designated by the name of the Old, and the Gospel by that of the New Testament. The first is of wider extent (sec. 1), comprehending under it the promises which were given even before the Law. When Augustine maintained that these were not to be included under the name of the Old Testament (August. ad Bonifac. lib. 3 c. 14), he took a most correct view, and meant nothing different from what we have now taught; for he had in view those passages of Jeremiah and Paul in which the Old Testament is distinguished from the word of grace and mercy. In the same passage, Augustine, with great shrewdness remarks, that from the beginning of the world the sons of promise, the divinely regenerated, who, through faith working by love, obeyed the commandments, belonged to the New Testament; entertaining the hope not of carnal, earthly, temporal, but spiritual, heavenly, and eternal blessings, believing especially in a Mediator, by whom they doubted not both that the Spirit was administered to them, enabling them to do good, and pardon imparted as often as they sinned. The thing which he thus intended to assert was, that all the saints mentioned in Scripture, from the beginning of the world, as having been specially selected by God, were equally with us partakers of the blessing of eternal salvation. The only difference between our division and that of Augustine is, that ours (in accordance with the words of our Saviour, "All the prophets and the law prophesied until John," Mt. 11:13) distinguishes between the gospel light and that more obscure dispensation of the word which preceded it, while the other division simply distinguishes between the weakness of the Law and the strength of the Gospel. And here also, with regard to the holy fathers, it is to be observed, that though they lived under the Old Testament, they did not stop there, but always aspired to the New, and so entered into sure fellowship with it. Those who, contented with existing shadows, did not carry their thoughts to Christ, the Apostle charges with blindness and malediction. To say nothing of other matters, what greater blindness can be imagined, than to hope for the expiation of sin from the sacrifice of a beast, or to seek mental purification in external washing with water, or to attempt to appease God with cold ceremonies, as if he were greatly delighted with them? Such are the absurdities into which those fall who cling to legal observances, without respect to Christ.

11. The fifth distinction which we have to add consists in this, that until the advent of Christ, the Lord set apart one nation, to which he confined the covenant of his grace. Moses says, "When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance," (Deut. 32:8, 9). In another passage he thus addresses the people: "Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord's thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed, after them, even you, above all people, as it is this day," (Deut. 10:14, 15). That people, therefore, as if they had been the only part of mankind belonging to him he favoured exclusively with the knowledge of his name, depositing his covenant, as it were, in their bosom, manifesting to them the presence of his divinity and honouring them with all privileges. But to say nothing of other favours, the only one here considered is his binding them to him by the communion of his word, so that he was called and regarded as their God. Meanwhile, other nations, as if they had had no kind of intercourse with him, he allowed to wander in vanity not even supplying them with the only means of preventing their destructions--viz. the preaching of his word. Israel was thus the Lord's favourite child the others were aliens. Israel was known and admitted to trust and guardianship, the others left in darkness; Israel was made holy, the others were profane; Israel was honoured with the presence of God, the others kept far aloof from him. But on the fulness of the time destined to renew all things, when the Mediator between God and man was manifested the middle wall of partition, which had long kept the divine mercy within the confines of Israel, was broken down, peace was preached to them who were afar off, as well as to those who were nigh, that being, together reconciled to God, they might unite as one people. Wherefore, there is now no respect of Jew or Greek, of circumcision or uncircumcision, but Christ is all and in all. To him the heathen have been given for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession (Ps. 2:8), that he may rule without distinction "from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth," (Ps. 72:8).

12. The calling of the Gentiles, therefore, is a distinguishing feature illustrative of the superiority of the New over the Old Testament. This, it is true, had been previously declared by the prophets, in passages both numerous and clear, but still the fulfilment of it was deferred to the reign of the Messiah. Even Christ did not acknowledge it at the very outset of his ministry, but delayed it until having completed the whole work of redemption in all its parts, and finished the period of his humiliation, he received from the Father "a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow," (Phil. 2:9, 10). Hence the period being not yet completed, he declared to the woman of Canaan, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel," (Mt. 15:24). Nor in his first commission to the Apostles does he permit them to pass the same limits, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," (Mt. 10:5, 6). However plainly the thing may have been declared in numerous passages, when it was announced to the Apostles, it seemed to them so new and extraordinary, that they were horrified at it as something monstrous. At length, when they did act upon it, it was timorously, and not without reluctance. Nor is this strange; for it seemed by no means in accordance with reason, that the Lord, who for so many ages had selected Israel from the rest of the nations should suddenly, as it were, change his purpose, and abandon his choice. Prophecy, indeed, had foretold it, but they could not be so attentive to prophecies, as not to be somewhat startled by the novel spectacle thus presented to their eye. It was not enough that God had in old times given specimens of the future calling of the Gentiles. Those whom he had so called were very few in number, and, moreover, he in a manner adopted them into the family of Abraham, before allowing them to approach his people. But by this public call, the Gentiles were not only made equal to the Jews, but seemed to be substituted into their place, as if the Jews had been dead. [238] We may add, that any strangers whom God had formerly admitted into the body of the Church, had never been put on the same footing with the Jews. Wherefore, it is not without cause that Paul describes it as the mystery which has been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints (Col. 1:26).

13. The whole difference between the Old and New Testaments has, I think, been fully and faithfully explained, under these four or five heads in so far as requisite for ordinary instruction. But since this variety in governing the Church, this diversity in the mode of teaching, this great change in rites and ceremonies, is regarded by some as an absurdity, we must reply to them before passing to other matters. And this can be done briefly, because the objections are not so strong [239] as to require a very careful refutation. It is unreasonable they say, to suppose that God who is always consistent With himself permitted such a change as afterwards to disapprove what he had once ordered and commended. I answer, that God ought not to be deemed mutable, because he adapts different forms to different ages, as he knows to be expedient for each. If the husband man prescribes one set of duties to his household in winter, and another in summer, we do not therefore charge him with fickleness or think he deviates from the rules of good husbandry which depends on the regular course of nature. In like manner, if a father of a family, in educating, governing, and managing his children, pursues one course in boyhood another in adolescence and another in manhood we do not therefore say that he is fickle, or abandons his opinions. Why, then do we charge God with inconstancy when he makes fit and congruous arrangements for diversities of times? The latter similitude ought to be completely satisfactory. Paul likens the Jews to children, and Christians to grown men (Gal. 4:1). What irregularity is there in the Divine arrangement, which confined them to the rudiments which were suitable to their age, and trains us by a firmer and more manly discipline? The constancy of God is conspicuous in this, that he delivered the same doctrine to all ages, and persists in requiring that worship of his name which he commanded at the beginning. His changing the external form and manner does not show that he is liable to change. In so far he has only accommodated himself to the mutable and diversified capacities of man.

14. But it is said, Whence this diversity, save that God chose to make it? Would it not have been as easy for him from the first, as after the advent of Christ, to reveal eternal life in clear terms without any figures, to instruct his people by a few clear sacraments, to bestow his Holy Spirit, and diffuse his grace over the whole globe? This is very much the same as to bring a charge against God, because he created the world at so late a period, when he could have done it at the first, or because he appointed the alternate changes of summer and winter, of clay and night. With the feeling common to every pious mind, let us not doubt that every thing which God has done has been done wisely and justly, although we may be ignorant of the cause which required that it should be so done. We should arrogate too much to ourselves were we not to concede to God that he may have reasons for his counsel, which we are unable to discern. It is strange, they say, that he now repudiates and abominates the sacrifices of beasts, and the whole apparatus of that Levitical priesthood in which he formerly delighted. As if those external and transient matters could delight God, or affect him in any way! [240] It has already been observed, that he appointed none of these things on his own account, but instituted them all for the salvation of men. If a physician, adopting the best method, effects a cure upon a youth, and afterwards, when the same individual has grown old, and is again subject to the same disease, employs a different method of cure, can it be said that he repudiates the method which he formerly approved? Nay, continuing to approve of it, he only adapts himself to the different periods of life. In like manner, it was necessary in representing Christ in his absence, and predicting his future advent, to employ a different set of signs from those which are employed, now that his actual manifestation is exhibited. It is true, that since the advent of Christ, the calling of God is more widely addressed to all nations, and the graces of the Spirit more liberally bestowed than they had previously been. But who, I ask, can deny the right of God to have the free and uncontrolled disposal of his gifts, to select the nations which he may be pleased to illuminate, the places which he may be pleased to illustrate by the preaching of his word, and the mode and measure of progress and success which he may be pleased to give to his doctrine,--to punish the world for its ingratitude by withdrawing the knowledge of his name for certain ages, and again, when he so pleases, to restore it in mercy? We see, then, that in the calumnies which the ungodly employ in this matter, to perplex the minds of the simple, there is nothing that ought to throw doubt either on the justice of God or the veracity of Scripture.

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[235] The French is,"et ? icelle se doivent reduire quasi tous les passages, auxquels le viel Testament est opposé au Nouveau par comparaison."--And to this ought in a manner to be referred all the passages in which the Old Testament is, by way of camparison, opposed to the New.

[236] "Qualiter et aliis Sacramentis dari solet." French, "comme l'Escriture a coustume d'attribuer aux sacremens le nom des choses qu'ils representent;"--just as Scripture is wont to give sacraments the names of the things which they represent.

[237] "Passim." French, "cá et lá;"--here and there.

[238] "In demortuorum locum." The French is simply, "en leur lieu;"--into their place.

[239] "Firmæ," French, "Ne si fortes, ne si urgentes;"--neither so strong, nor so pressing.

[240] "Aut ullo modo affciant." French "ou comme si jamais il s'y fust arreté;"--or as if he could ever have stopped at them.

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     Christian Classics Ethereal Library / Public Domain

     Institutes of the Christian Religion