DRIFT

My new swimming career is going well.  After I poured contempt on all my pride and put on the suit, I was 75% there.  Perhaps the other 25% was going to the Senior Center.

Of course, that's not me in the picture; that lady doesn't have arm flaps.  I'm not exactly a serious swimmer, but more a treader/crawler.  The idea is to keep moving, right?

Easing into the water of the "walking lane" this morning, I looked forward to going by the next warm water jet.  Those jets feel really good as you get used to the water, but they also create a tiny current.  Later when my arms tire and it's just my feet fluttering, that current nudges me into the lane marker.  Drift is easy without a strong forward motion.

That's what I'm learning in Genesis.

It's helpful to check the rearview mirror, and so in checking out the first eleven chapters, a pattern is emerging in my Genesis study.  The GOD COLUMN might include words like planned and created, initiated and revealed, sought and comforted, taught and empowered, forgave, loved and provided. The MAN COLUMN was shorter....chose unwisely and drifted.  See if you notice the same pattern...

GENESIS ONE

Jehovah God spoke creation into being
and our minds-eye catches glorious images of His power and creativity.

GENESIS TWO

The intentional God formed man from the dust of the ground.
Then He met Adam's need for a helpmate
by taking a rib from the man to create Eve.

GENESIS THREE

We are chagrined to watch the enemy taunt and the garden-dwellers fall.
Adam and Eve took a spanking, yet the Faithful God reminds them how
they may come to Him...while speaking hope for all men
in a Genesis 3:15 promise to send a coming Rescuer!

GENESIS FOUR

The next generation comes up to bat as Cain and Abel leave us two patterns.
Their hearts are revealed as they define worship...and they show sin's sway
as the green-eyed pride monster led to murder and lying and self exaltation.
Cain chose to avoid repentance AND God's presence; he drifts far from God.

GENESIS FIVE

Adam's descendants were carefully recorded as each entry
tells when they were born, how long they lived, and when they died.
God shows that His eye is on each individual, and another of Satan's lies
("surely you will not die") was debunked.

GENESIS SIX

The Just God observes the huge drift of all mankind.
He selects one man, the godly Noah, to preach for 120 years
as he constructs a floating haven, which pictures salvation in Christ.

GENESIS SEVEN

There was no response to Noah's plea.
The first great judgment against mankind is described
as the flood waters cover the earth.  God reboots
as everything is washed away except eight people and the ark animals.

GENESIS EIGHT

The flood recedes and Noah's first act in the new world is worship.
His animal sacrifice soothes God's wrath;
God promises to preserve the earth until His people are saved.

GENESIS NINE

The God-Who-Moves-First kindly declares
an unconditional covenant with man (in spite of man's sinfulness)
and hangs a comforting rainbow in the sky as a reminder.

GENESIS TEN

Noah's post-flood descendants repopulate the earth
and we understand the ethnic origins of nations.  The earth population
includes the ungodly ones who drift far from God...as well as
the ones in Shem's line who choose to follow God.

GENESIS ELEVEN

Man's memory of judgment fades quickly as corruption ushers in
 the second worldwide judgment...the confusion of languages @Tower of Babel.
Then at the end of the Chapter 11, we are introduced to a man from Ur named Abram.

Chapter 12 will tell us "God came down" and the idolater Abram got to see God's glory.  We wonder what THAT was like.  God gave Abram spiritual sight and changed his name to Abraham.  Now the Lord will use Abraham's family group to explain Himself to the world.

Through the first 11 chapers, God consistently demonstrates His love and provision for man, and then man consistently chooses his own way.  The definition of sin is "going our own way".  

In my swimming experience, if my arms aren't moving like my feet...I stall out and get to drifting.  In my spiritual experience, if my feet are not running toward God, then I may think I'm in neutral, but really there is no such thing.  I'm drifting.

"God came down" for Abraham and then at a later time, He came down in the person of Christ.  What else could He do to show His love?

 "But when the time arrived that was set by God the Father, God sent his Son, born among us of a woman, born under the conditions of the law so that he might redeem those of us who have been kidnapped by the law...so that we may be adopted as sons with full rights." Galatians 4:4 

I KNOW NAHTHING!

Oh, I love this face.

Hogan's Heroes used to tickle the fool outta me.  Here I am 50 years later, still laughing at his predictible line..."I know NAHTHING!".  (link)

Guess who else knows nahthing?

BIDEN:  "We didn't know they wanted more security."

PETRAEUS:  "It was the video." (September 14th)

OBAMA:  "It was the video.  We don't have all the facts.  It was the video.  An investigation is ongoing.  It was the video."

RICE:  "It was the video."

HILLARY:  "It was the video."

Then the sworn testimony began coming in and changing the landscape.  When General Petraeus was sworn to the truth, he said he knew right away it was AlQuaeda.  State Department people said "we had a live feed and there was no crowd in front."  Intelligence said they saw/knew even some of the names of the participants.  CIA said their talking points were altered.

Well good because we thought it impossible anymore to have credible intelligence or the ability to respond.

Of course, Sgt. Schultz still doesn't know anything...except that he knows he is angry.  They jumped his U.N. Ambassador and if they had a beef, they should have taken it up with him because the buck stops with him.  Riiiight.  For days he WOULDN'T come out with any information so he sent a lady outside her field of expertise to parrot the party line.  She took one for the team.  Now he says "well, she didn't know anything about it but was just reading the talking points handed her".  Exactly.  Why send her out if she wasn't weight-bearing?

Plausible deniability.  Does anyone wonder why she wouldn't be a good candidate for Secretary of State?

The truth is oozing out ever so slowly, no thanks to mainstream journalists.  And when the dust settles, we will have lost two military heads in that field of operation (Army/Navy) and the head of our CIA.  So that makes four lives lost plus at least three costly careers.  All good men.

Shame on the media for ignoring this story.  And shame on an ideology that would cleanse "talking points" and redefine evil.

HALF-STAFF

The flag is at half-staff in my soul.  It is hard to be excited about the 2012 election.  It divided us into red and blue states, but it is "we the purple" who lost.  Some just don't know it yet.

We've all lost because the majority of Americans have reached for the right to redefine morality.  Do we imagine that God will ignore that?  Bless that?
Our patriotic prayer-song is "God Bless America", but there is no reason for Him to sing along.

We will miss His blessing.

In previous episodes of the man/God saga, we have decided He may not be acknowledged in the public square.  So He was told to step away from the military.  He's also not needed in schools...or football games...or in the workplace.

It sure is empty without the reason for being.

And now at the end of this election cycle, here's the platform we asked for:

...the unprecedented idea that ALL of us be required to pay for the taking of an innocent life made in His image (both in our country and around the world).

...the unprecedented idea that our country won't be needing the Lord's ideas for marriage anymore.

...and the unprecedented idea that government, not God...is the final arbiter for religious liberty.  That ignores the essential fact that liberty IS A GIFT FROM GOD.  If the Creator didn't give us liberty (but rather it comes from the government), then government can take it away capriciously.  And has.

Incredibly, America responded..."Yeah!  Supersize that for me!"

Last week I wrote a blog to say that I'm not God and have no idea whether Hurricane Sandy was His specific judgment.  But we CAN know that God would be hard-pressed to turn His head away from these three strikes because they are an assault on His holiness.

In the first chapter of Romans, God says His wrath "is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them." Men know the truth within themselves, but they bow up against God.    Notice the present tense of the verb.  Wrath IS revealed...because God has a fixed opposition against ungodliness (those who reject His person)...and unrighteousness (those who reject His laws).

Won't God have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah if He blinks at this?

It's impossible to know how or when His plan will address this, but the judgment clock just sped up.  The ride will get bumpy and all should get ready.

American say they are thirsty for unity again in our country.   Now we have it in "we the purple".

We purple people need a healthy fear of God.

SCHOOL MARM SANDY

What could possibly come between politics and the election?  Only Frankenstorm Sandy.

In a stroke, Sandy made clear that politics isn't everything.  A really good teacher doesn't even have to have a power point presentation, although Sandy does have some terrifying pictures.

The ones who screamed for help from their Long Island rooftops would tell you LIFE is the most important thing.  People from the blackened neighborhood of Breezy Shores sadly shake their heads to say the material stuff is all secondary.  And the dear NYC souls in a darkened high-rise with a warm fridge and lack of toilet can also see beyond elections.


Sandy made her point and God allowed it.

Am I saying God punished the East Coast with a hurricane?  No.  God is the only One who knows His purposes and I'm not God.  But I CAN make some true observations...

1.  People who cried out to God in the storm would tell you knowing HIM is paramount because calling on Him is the only practical thing to do when you're helpless.  You can't call "ghostbusters". Sometimes you can't even 9-1-1 the government.  There are times when it's only you and the Lord.

2.  God does create disaster.  I remember how surprised I was when I first heard that.  There are many verses, but here are a couple that show His sovereignty.

Isaiah 45:7

"I form the light and create darkness,

I bring prosperity and create disaster;

I, the Lord, do all these things'."

Jeremiah 35:17

"So I, the Lord, the God who rules over all, the God of Israel, says:

'I will soon bring on Judah and all the citizens of Jerusalem

all the disaster that I threatened to bring on them.
I will do this because I spoke to them but they did not listen.
I called out to them but they did not answer'."

3.  Jesus calmed the wind and waves on the Sea of Galilee to show He has control over nature.  It paid to be in the boat with Jesus.

So God has the power to send a storm...He says He brings disaster...and He used the flood to display His authority against man's rebellion.  In the case of Hurricane Sandy, it would be wrong to say it was God's specific judgment, but we can see how the thick insulation of everyday life was sliced in a nanno second.  God's redemptive intent is that all men would take notice of Him/turn to Him.  Even the worst suffering could be counted gain if it were eternity-altering.

Perhaps you think it insensitive to be speaking about gain when lives were lost.  When we consider the pictures of such complete devastation, we wonder how the death count in our country was just 110.

Again, I am not God and cannot explain everything.  I just know the souls who died were like you and I.  We have been given the blessing of life and a certain number of days.  No one is guaranteed tomorrow.  Our choice, then, is to use our days wisely.

My Genesis study has talked about Noah and the flood.  It must have been hard during that storm to hear people pleading for help/banging on the boat to get in.  It must have been hard to bounce around in choppy water for over a year...and be in a darkened/smelly space.  But you know, I'll bet they were enough in awe of what God had done for them that they didn't complain.

There is only one safe place to be in this life...and that is snuggled up under God's wing.  He has plans for our welfare and hope for the future.  Thank God this is not all there is...

MISTAKEN

You are mistaken, President Obama, when you choose GUTTER WORDS in a public discourse.  Some can remember when you called for civility.

It's bad enough that you have to resort to only interviews with pop culture outlets like Rolling Stone.  Your profane appeal must be directed toward an audience outside the mainstream...as though someone might be "cool" if they speak like a cretin.  Shame on you.

You are mistaken, President Obama, when you choose to appeal to women based on the premise they vote because they are SEXUAL CREATURES.

Haven't women long fought against such a stereotype?  Surely women would choose to be insulted rather than persuaded to vote based on that disgusting analogy. You used Sandra Fluke and whoever this poor young woman is...and they used you right back for notoriety.  A pox on all your houses.

You are completely mistaken, President Obama, to choose to use CHILDREN.  That is creepy to have children recite words like this:

imagine an America where strip mines are fun and free

where gays can be fixed and sick people just die and oil fills the sea

we haven't killed all the polar bears but it's not for lack of trying

Big Bird is sacked, the Earth is cracked and the atmosphere is frying

something happened to our country and Mom and Dad...

and we're kinda blaming you

We're to blame?  Was Dubya unavailable?  At the risk of being a scold, Sir, I have not been elected President.  Nor have I served for the last four years.  But even I can see polar bears and dirty oceans are NOT the problem.  The problem is your spending and our looming debt.  The problem is your lack of decision-making in our war on terrorism.  And it's a problem that you would use anything to be re-elected.

Surely you are mistaken in making your appeal to our darker, vulgar nature.  Is that America?  It is stunning to think that these desperate appeals reach for the dregs of society who might actually turn the future of our nation.  

God, help us because we can't help ourselves.

HOT POTATO

Posting a Mark Steyn article today.

BENGHAZI BUNGLE REQUIRES 

 ACT OF URGENT POLITICAL HYGIENE

"We're going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video," said Hillary Clinton. No, not the person who made the video saying that voting for Barack Obama is like losing your virginity to a really cool guy. I'll get to that in a moment. But Secretary Clinton was talking about the fellow who made the supposedly Islamophobic video that supposedly set off the sacking of the Benghazi consulate. And, indeed, she did "have that person arrested." By happy coincidence, his bail hearing has been set for three days after the election, by which time he will have served his purpose. These two videos – the Islamophobic one and the Obamosexual one – bookend the remarkable but wholly deserved collapse of the president's re-election campaign.

You'll recall that a near month-long attempt to blame an obscure YouTube video for the murder of four Americans and the destruction of U.S. sovereign territory climaxed in the vice-presidential debate with Joe Biden's bald assertion that the administration had been going on the best intelligence it had at the time. By then, it had been confirmed that there never had been any protest against the video, and that the Obama line that Benghazi had been a spontaneous movie review that just got a little out of hand was utterly false. The only remaining question was whether the administration had knowingly lied or was merely innocently stupid. The innocent-stupidity line became harder to maintain this week after Fox News obtained State Department emails revealing that shortly after 4 p.m. Eastern, less than a half-hour after the assault in Benghazi began, the White House situation room knew the exact nature of it.

We also learned that, in those first moments of the attack, a request for military back-up was made by U.S. staff on the ground but was denied by Washington. It had planes and Special Forces less than 500 miles away in southern Italy – or about the same distance as Washington to Boston. They could have been there in less than two hours. Yet the commander-in-chief declined to give the order. So Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods fought all night against overwhelming odds, and died on a rooftop in a benighted jihadist hell hole while Obama retired early to rest up before his big Vegas campaign stop. "Within minutes of the first bullet being fired, the White House knew these heroes would be slaughtered if immediate air support was denied," said Ty Woods' father, Charles. "In less than an hour, the perimeters could have been secured, and American lives could have been saved. After seven hours fighting numerically superior forces, my son's life was sacrificed because of the White House's decision."

Why would Obama and Biden do such a thing? Because to launch a military operation against an al-Qaida affiliate on the anniversary of 9/11 would have exposed the hollowness of their boast through convention week and the days thereafter – that Osama was dead, and al-Qaida was finished. And so Ty Woods, Glen Doherty, Sean Smith and Chris Stevens were left to die, and a decision taken to blame an entirely irrelevant video and, as Secretary Clinton threatened, "have that person arrested." And, in the weeks that followed, the government of the United States lied to its own citizens as thoroughly and energetically as any totalitarian state, complete with the midnight knock-on-the-door from not-so-secret policemen sent to haul the designated fall guy into custody.

This goes far beyond the instinctive secretiveness to which even democratic governments are prone. The Obama administration created a wholly fictional storyline, and devoted its full resources to maintaining it. I understand why Mitt Romney chose not to pursue this line of argument in the final debate. The voters who will determine this election are those who voted for Obama four years ago and this time round either switch to the other fellow or sit on their hands. In electoral terms, it's probably prudent of Mitt not to rub their faces in their 2008 votes. Nevertheless, when the president and other prominent officials stand by as four Americans die and then abuse their sacrifice as contemptuously as this administration did, decency requires that they be voted out of office as an act of urgent political hygiene.

At the photo-op staged for the returning caskets, Obama et al seem to have been too focused on their campaign needs to observe even the minimal courtesies. Charles Woods says that, at the ceremony, Joe Biden strolled over to him and by way of condolence said in a "loud and boisterous" voice, "Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?" One assumes charitably that the vice president is acknowledging in his own inept and blundering way the remarkable courage of a man called upon to die for his country on some worthless sod halfway across the planet. But the near-parodic locker-room coarseness is grotesque both in its inaptness and in its lack of basic human feeling for a bereaved family forced to grieve in public and as crowd-scene extras to the political big shot. Just about the only formal responsibility a vice president has is to attend funerals without embarrassing his country. And this preening buffoon of pseudo-blue-collar faux-machismo couldn't even manage that.

But a funny thing happened over the next six weeks: Obama's own cue balls shriveled. Biden had offered up a deft campaign slogan encompassing both domestic and foreign policy: "Osama's dead, and General Motors is alive." But, as the al-Qaida connections to Benghazi dribbled out, leak by leak, the "Osama's dead" became a problematic boast and, left to stand alone, the General Motors line was even less credible. Avoiding the economy and foreign affairs, Obama fell back on Big Bird, and binders and bayonets, just to name the B's in his bonnet. At the second presidential debate, he name-checked Planned Parenthood, the General Motors of the American abortion industry, half-a-dozen times, desperate to preserve his so-called gender gap. Yet, oddly enough, the more furiously Obama and Biden have waved their binders and talked up Sandra Fluke, the more his supposed lead among women has withered away. So now he needs to enthuse the young, who turned out in such numbers for him last time. Hence, the official campaign video (plagiarized from Vladimir Putin, of all people) explaining that voting for Obama is like having sex. The saddest thing about that claim is that, for liberals, it may well be true.

Both videos – the one faking Obamagasm and the one faking a Benghazi pretext – exemplify the wretched shrinkage that befalls those unable to conceive of anything except in the most self-servingly political terms. Both, in different ways, exemplify why Obama and Biden are unfit for office. One video testifies to a horrible murderous lie at the heart of a head of state's most solemn responsibility, the other to the glib shallow narcissism of a pop-culture presidency, right down to the numbing relentless peer-pressure: C'mon, all the cool kids are doing it; why be the last holdout?

If voting for Obama is like the first time you have sex, it's very difficult to lose your virginity twice. A flailing, pitiful campaign has now adopted Queen Victoria's supposed wedding advice to her daughter: "Lie back and think of England." Lie back and think of America. And then get up and get dressed. Who wants to sleep twice with a $16 trillion broke loser?"

©MARK STEYN

BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE

(Note: the last post called "Two Trees" gives context for this piece.)


Eve eyed that delightful fruit and reasoned... "wellll, it looks good to me".  Then she grew bolder as she decided she had a RIGHT to eat...before concluding "God must not have my highest welfare in mind... yes... that's it...God can't be trusted.  I don't care what He said; He's such a killjoy."

Oh, EVE!  Listen to yourself, Honey!  When Eve and her husband fell, they chose their wisdom over God's.

Today we face an election with polarized sides.  The positions couldn't be more clearly spelled out.

1.  One side wants abortion rights.  John Piper draws a bridge from abortion to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in this amazing POST.   If there is intellectual curiosity about this issue, the link makes either text or video available.

2.  One side wants the redefinition of marriage.  There are high and holy reasons to protect marriage as set out by God...and surely the highest reason is that it represents an earthly picture of Christ and His church.  Is it our place to redefine what God has planned?

3. One side has already demonstrated corruption in regard to religious liberty.

Liberty is a spiritual desire born in every heart.  As we taste America's political freedom (unique among the nations because we're a country based on an idea of God's principles) we get a thirst for spiritual freedom.  If the Son sets your spirit free, you are really free.

In a country where our law as come to allow abortion (and in a few states, same sex marriage)... people of faith have worked within the system to change hearts about the issues.

Now enter this administration.  Week One saw initiation of the export of abortion funds around the globe.  Next came the HHS mandate spending the faith community's dollars for something that breaks God's heart.  Now the church has unwilling compliance in unrighteousness both at home and around the world.  And American institutions which hold to God's word have had to sue their own country to get religious liberty.

SO WHAT?
There are some well-intentioned people who align themselves with redefining marriage...and believe it is right to pay for abortion services.  But as Grandmother used to say "you don't do wrong to do right".

Demanding rights, redefinition, and restriction-free living are all from an ancient story.  We're barking up the wrong tree again.  Do we not see that we will get what we've asked for?  Can we expect God to turn His head when these issues are so stark?  Don't reason like Eve and demand your rights.  You have a gracious heavenly Father who set out a plan to cause you to flourish.  Life goes better when we do it His way.

America needs God's blessing desperately, but we have to be in a place that allows Him to bless us.  It's time to choose God's wisdom.  Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness...