I’m doing housekeeping today… many things needed sorting and filing, washing and ironing.  Teatime brought to mind some thoughts from the past weekend.

• It’s getting fiercer and fiercer, the slick and sick double standard of those who scream to be tolerated –  not just tolerated, but venerated — endorsed — lauded.   I’m not a proponent of beauty pageants per se, but it’s sure detestable that a ‘qualified contestant’ is being dragged through the mud for articulating her answer to a question regarding her thoughts on marriage — the answer was contrary to one or more of the “judges’” personal beliefs and, therefore, she’s unqualified.  So much for tolerance.
• The new Free Speech:  You’re free to say what you like and hold the beliefs you choose to hold so long as you make sure you agree with  homosexual behaviour and the propaganda machine that is ravaging the world.   And if you don’t believe there’s an agenda, read:  The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian — you’ll be introduced in that book to another book, After the Ball, and if you dare to read it (and I don’t say this lightly, it is not light reading and may not be suitable for anyone) it is sobering, you’ll see the agenda is well underway and very, very successful in a dark way.   (I wrote about Mr. Kupelian’s book a few years ago…. I can’t recall the blog date on that).

• Voddie Baucham

  Family Driven Faith

  A man who is not afraid to speak the Truth.

  
  

  David Kupelian’s

  The Marketing of Evil 
  
  

  it’ll change the way you see everything in society!

• As long as you don’t mess with the agenda, you’ll be accepted — if not, you’ll be castigated, mocked and scorned to death.  You can read a bit more of what happens when you dare to teach the truth which is not believed by a percentage of the population.   We attended the Worldview Apologetics Conference held at the Crossroads Bible Church in Bellevue last weekend — obviously a predetermined target — at the start of the conference, the church building was vandalized by a group determined to “bash back” with pink paint, foul words and phrases and broken locks and other damages.

  Two of the speakers at the seminar were Voddie Baucham and Doug Geivett.  Both were excellent at articulating the Truth of the Word, the climate of society today and the bold attempt to destroy the Truth and Believers.   Voddie Baucham is probably one of the most articulate and inspiring speakers I’ve ever had the privilege of listening to.  I first heard him and thought this two years ago at the Heritage Homeschool conference — he will be the keynote speaker again this year.  If you haven’t heard him or read any of his books, I would highly recommend that you hear his talks and read his books.  For info on the Christian Heritage Conference being held this coming weekend go here.    I would recommend this conference for *every* believer… *every* parent.

• One of the weapons against the church or “conservatives” is the word: hate.  If you disagree, you hate.  If you disagree, you’re a hater.  If your view is Biblical, you’re intolerant.  If you, on biblical grounds, disagree with a lifestyle choice, you are an intolerant, judgmental person.  But those who disagree with Christians… are not judgmental?Christians must judge situations — Christians must prove all things — must hold to that which is good.

  Those in disagreement are duping Christians into believing they must be tolerant… they say Christians are not to judge — au contraire — Christians must identify that which is Truth and follow it — and those things that are contrary to the Truth are to be condemned – it takes wise judgment to discern good and evil.  I marvel that Christians are willing to allow ideas contrary to the Word of God to determine their world view.   For lack of knowledge, believers are being destroyed.  When Bible teachers do not teach what the Word says and believers do not read what the Word says — and when, instead, “pastors” teach from stories of paraphrases of the Bible, people, who do not study for themselves what the Scriptures say, will be ignorant of the Truth.

Fear of being judged by those who hate God’s Word
is keeping those who would love God from obeying His Word.

Perfect Turkey Every Time. No Kidding.
Was your Ts’giving turkey heavy-duty dry?  Well, if you’ll follow Mrs. King’s advice, you’ll never have to serve dry-as-shoe-leather turkey again. She explains it quite well — you’ll have to bookmark this one when you want to prepare your next turkey.

Browsing the News
Did you think OJ would ever be brought to justice?  Me neither.  The judge called him “arrogant and ignorant.”  I always wondered how this would play out.

Kaz humidifier & Vicks
I’ve been sick this week… coughing, coughing, coughing.  O, I’ve been taking it easy — I have this tremendous fear of a bout of pneumonia — so I take it easy when I have chest congestion like this.  So I have a Kaz cold-air humidifier going and for the last couple of nights my husband has been rubbing my feet with Vicks.  We’ve been told that doing so quiets coughs – and though I know it sounds like a hoax, I have slept better the last couple of nights and my feet feel terrific when I wake up!! ;o)  So, after my bath, he rubbed the Vicks on the bottom of my feet and then covered them with cotton socks.  Nice. Try it… if you’ve been coughing, maybe the Vicks will help you, too!

(I must say, though, with the humidifier going in our room, I was dreaming that I was on an jetliner and the steward was telling the passengers that the cabin would soon be pressurized and… yeah… different jetliner dreams all night. )

Texas pastor, Ed Young, challenged ‘his congregation‘ to 7 days of intimacy – says he thinks his church will have been the happiest place in America after this.  But what of all those for whom the challenge was a challenge?  Over the years I’ve received many letters from women for whom this challenge would be totally over the top – women who have longed for the intimacy but the “programming” of it or the demand just sends them to the edge. I wonder if there’s been any help or hope for whom this challenge would bring painful consequences or reactions.

So, yeah… I seriously pray the man will be sensitive tomorrow as the church gathers – it’s sort of too late to pray he will be wise – well, maybe I pray he will be a truly wise man from here on out.  I mean, we all learn from silly things we say and do.  Well, most of us learn.  Some just remain wiseguys.

And there’s a huge difference between wise men and wise guys.

It said:

IT’S ALL
ABOUT
JESUS.

in huge letters.

All I could see was:

IT’S ALL
ABOUT
JesUS

So, I’m contemplating — no, not spirituality ;o) — all that’s going in the world and I guess I’d really have to agree with one of his comments: “the world is opening up at an astonishing speed.”

Here’s a little more, from the same lecture:

The foundation will concentrate on certain key specifics. The first will be to help the different faith organisations to work together in furtherance of the Millennium Development Goals [*]… which are, in many ways the litmus test of the world’s values. Faith groups do great individual work in this area…. if helped also to combine together. The MDGs are stark in their ambition and necessity. We are falling short as a world in meeting them. It would be a great example of faith in action to try to bridge the gap and awaken the world’s conscience. The second will be to produce high quality material – books, websites, every means of communication… The foundation will concentrate, in the immediate term, on the six main faiths, the Abrahamic three and Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism. But, though the foundation will expressly not be confined to the Abrahamic faiths, we will partner existing organisations that promote better understanding and co-existence between Christians, Muslims and Jews, notably in The Coexist Foundation’s [**] vision of creating Abraham House here in London, where people of those faiths but also others, can encounter some of their traditions, explore their roots and, without glossing over their differences, discover what they share. We will also help partner those within any of the faiths who stand up for peaceful co-existence… But I freely confess there is a broader objective.”
[* The UN Millenium Development Goad link added - only for info, not endorsement]
[** TCF link added - only for info, not endorsement]

The unity message was hitting pretty close to home this past week with several international ‘guests’ in nearby Seattle at the Seeds of Compassion conference. Now, to be clear, I’m really not opposed to ‘leaders’ from other areas, nations, etc., visiting — so, it’s not what I’m referencing here at all. It’s just so disconcerting to hear supposed Christians refer to these guests as if to endorse or even be in agreement with what they stand for. In addition to referencing the use ‘his holiness’ or ‘holy father’ in connection with any earthly man – but particularly those who are guests in the US this week – I feel greatly discouraged that opportunities to tell the Truth were not only missed, but because they were missed, the Truth was essentially denied. There is only one holy Father and that’s God – only one Holy and that’s Jesus, our Lord and Saviour. Just because a prominent man is called thus and such by his own followers, does not mean that a believer in Jesus should ever refer to that man as ‘holy’ or ‘his holiness’ or whatever.

In these last days… O, how I pray God will raise up men who will stand in the gap – and though there doesn’t seem to be a radical, visible gap yet when “Christians” like Rob Bell refuse to take a stand for Jesus – the day is likely coming when those who stand for the Cross and those who don’t will be clearly seen. Though given an incredible opportunity to proclaim the Truth, Rob Bell seemed more aligned with those who don’t follow Jesus than with those who have even a little or maybe even no understanding of the Truth. What a pitiful shame he never used the platform to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and salvation by faith in Jesus alone and did not distinguish himself as a Christian and therefore, by default – his own fault – was (perhaps unwittingly – perhaps fear? perhaps something else?) appeared to be in alliance with the one-worlders and complicit with other ‘religions.’ Jesus said, in Matthew 10.33, “But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.”

I feel quite sure that those of other “religions” were/are surely not sympathetic with followers of Jesus Christ as Rob Bell apearred to be with other ‘religions.’ Rob Bell answered one of the questions from the audience: (as best I could transcribe from the audio)

…Life is journey… and journey is a fundamentally different way to understand life than destination and on a journey all I am responsible for is the next step and that’s all I’m e-v-e-r asked for – is the next step I don’t have to have it all figured out, I don’t have to defend it all I don’t have to have it all nailed down and and if you can shift from destination understanding to an to to journey it frees you – to take life as it comes let it be what it is and do the next right thing.”  — Rob Bell

The moderator was…   well, decide for yourself – listen for yourself to Rob Bell here (see second video as quoted in part above).   I’m thinking Ingrid correctly states: “The emerging emporer is without clothes”

The Berean Call’s Ancient-Future Heresies – McMahon

For the last ten days we’ve had missionaries, students and other guests here — and before that, we had family from all over. Now, all the hurry, hurry, hurry has passed and all those days, events, and activities are part of a mental scrapbook of sweet memories. So, today is the first day of the new normal. I’m trying to unwind the reel and review the events – and as I do, I’ll write about a few of them… you know… now that things are back to normal (?). Through the years I think we redefine normal about every three weeks or so — for that’s about how long things seem to stay essentially the same — about three weeks. Maybe two. Maybe a day.

So, we’ve had students here from the same mission’s school that Timothy attended. It was great to see them bright and early each morning, to listen to their classes and to serve them meals each day. They had opportunities each day to go street preaching, witnessing and to do door to door evangelism. From Oregon to Seattle provides quite a different venue and mix of people to talk with. They had ample opportunity to sharpen their skills, to listen to the LORD and to *see* people. It’s one thing to walk along and see the masses, but it’s wholly another thing to *see* people and hear their stories and share with them the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And around Seattle — at Pike Place or Union Square or at the University of Washington, or Western Washington U, there were plenty of people with strong views – plenty of people gathering ‘knowledge’ but none of that knowledge will save, none of that knowledge has eternal value. So, they talked… they walked… they heard and they spoke of the Truth. We pray for God’s Word to not return void – that those who spat on them, those who burned tracts, those who ate tracts would one day come to the knowledge of the Truth – and we pray that God will continue to strengthen the church that the church would see the mandate to go into all the world preaching the gospel and making disciples.

We had a tremendous answer to prayer… One of the young women Wes was talking with, on one of the days street preaching, was a woman new to the area. She asked if Wes was a believer in Jesus – and when he said, yes, she asked if he was a born again Christian — a follower of the Saviour, Jesus Christ the Son of God? She wondered if there were believers in the area – Wes told her he didn’t know specifically in that particular area – but that if she was looking for an opportunity to hear the Word, to sing and to fellowship that she could join us in our fellowship of beleivers on Sunday. Problem – no transportation. Wes told her no problem – he & our family would pick her up. He gave her our phone number. She gave her address – no phone. So, Sunday when looking up her address on Streets ‘n Trips, no location found for that address. Sigh. What to do, what to do? Mapquest? No such address found. So later he came downstairs and asked us all to come into the kitchen and pray with him that Ruth would call. He prayed in earnest to the Lord that the Lord would have her to call, that he would be able to bring her up to our fellowship that was to meet later in the day to accommodate all the guests, students and families. He prayed; we joined him and asked the Lord for His will to be done. Riiiing, riiiing…. Riiiing, riiiing… (we have caller ID announce) call from _________. We had never heard the name before (nor could we understand it), but we knew who it was and we praised the Lord that He had, indeed, heard our prayer and He intentionally answered.

Wes and a few of the children went to pick her up and eventually brought her to the home where our church met. I had gone ahead with a few of the children and waited there for his arrival. When he arrived, he introduced the beautiful Ethiopian woman, Ruth, to the church and they welcomed her. It was lovely. What seemed haphazard was truly an intentional blessing of the Lord. She was blessed and was a blessing. At the end of the day when Wes and I brought her back to our home briefly, she looked at all the photographs in our living room and her eyes landed lovingly on the photos of Kathryn and the Ugandan children and Timothy in Ghana… she turned and saw another photo of Kathryn kissing a Ugandan baby — her eyes welled with tears, she smiled and hugged our younger children… they hugged her with smiles and told her they’d see her again. We drove her home — talking the whole way about her life here and her desire to find work. I don’t know what the Lord has in store — but I do know He did bless that meeting — some might have called haphazard or coincidence.

The students saw the hand of the Lord – we all saw His hand. They saw the intentional work of the Lord when believers simply walk in His ways and follow Him. I don’t know when or if we’ll see her again — she lives such a far distance from here… but God knows — and now, more than ever, I’m sure He’ll make it very clear. Intentionally.

Our lives may be or seem pretty haphazard sometimes.  Praise God He loves us so.  So intentionally.