day no. 17,017: straight facts and effeminate feels

Proverbs 28:1

The wicked flee when no man pursueth:

but the righteous are bold as a lion.

A man takes risks;

an effeminate makes excuses.

A man faces the facts; an effeminate projects his feelings.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?

Be not deceived: the effeminate shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

A man repents before God:

an effeminate ripostes.

A man recognizes God's standard;

an effeminate measures by himself.

Jeremiah 51:30 The mighty men of Babylon have forborn to fight, they have remained in their holds: their might hath failed; they became as women: they have burned her dwelling places; her bars are broken.

A man overcomes the odds;

an effeminate "just can't even.” 

A man flexes for the benefit of others;

an effeminate for the selfie.

day no. 17,016: Christ is King and Christians are Israel

“Christ is king of Israel, and Christians are the Israelitic race.” — Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho (155-160 AD)

Insisting that Christ is King is not a new thing. This kind of language has been used ever since the earliest days of Christendom. These words were being used when the cost of saying them was much higher. They were said to kings who took offense to them. While the use of this phrase may be trending again, it is only because we are beginning to pick up something we had foolishly set down. Rest assured, the Church of God is the new Israel and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. 

“The restoration of Israel that is frequently promised in the Old Testament is a restoration that is accomplished in the foundation of the New Israel, the Christian church. Put another way, the Church is Israel now. ‘And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd’ (John 10:16). ‘And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God’ Gal. 6:16). ‘For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh’ Phil. 3:3). ‘And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband’ (Rev. 21:2).” — Douglas Wilson, The Prophecy of Micah, pt. 4

The Church is Israel now. The Israel that you read about in your Old Testament, the one with promises being made to it, is now the Church and I believe in its holiness and catholicity, just like the Apostle's Creed taught me.

Galatians 6:14-16
Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.

The resurrected Christ ushered into existence a new creation complete with a new day of worship. In this new creation, the old signs do not set apart. We no longer circumcise, we baptize. Baptism is a superior sign. It is bloodless and it is boundless. It relies on the shed blood of Christ and so requires no new blood to be shed. It points to the nations being saved, Jew and Gentile, men and women. 

Baptism is the sign of covenant entrance and the Lord's Supper is the sign of covenant renewal. These are the keys that Christ gave to His Church. And what do these keys unlock? The gates of Heaven. And what do these keys lock out? The gates of Hell.

day no. 17,015: antisocialism

“The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” — Margaret Thatcher

You cannot have an economy based on abduction. You need productivity to have anything. Sure enough, if someone makes something, someone else may want to take it, but if the first guy doesn't make anything else, eventually everyone runs out of things to take or they kill each other until there's no one left to take it from them. Either way, you eventually run out of other stuff or other people, but rest assured, something will run out.

"Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf is better than a whole loaf." — G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With The World: III. The New Hypocrite

Modern statesmen want you to be happy with half a loaf. Not because that means someone else will get the other half, but because it means that they can produce less bread without an uprising. They want you to consider your selflessness a higher virtue than your charity since your selflessness requires nothing from them while your charity requires them to leave your things alone so that you have something leftover which you can then give.

“If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love - You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Socialism is driven by scarcity. It promotes poverty over productivity. It penalizes self starters for embarrassing self-pitiers. It is moral and mathematic madness. It is the economic insanity of forcing a grocer to charge $1 for a loaf of bread that cost $2 to produce and expecting the grocer to stay in business or the bread maker to absorb the loss. It is the surrender of reason to the temptation of jealousy. It is the establishment of envy. It is the side hustle of those who refuse to hustle. It is the politics of power grabbing and bad math.

“Soap and Socialism are two hobbies of the upper middle class." — G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With The World

No one who has to work for a living could find the time to pass laws about how clean his hands need to be or how green his car must be. Only those ensconced in the upper echelons of power mongering have time for that brand of nonsense.

"This is the high road to communism; in other words, legislation will be—as it now is—the battlefield for everybody’s dreams and everybody’s covetousness." -- Frederic Bastiat, The Law

Passing laws is how some pass their time and rest assured, their laws mean more work for you and more bread for them.

"You can vote your way into socialism, but you will have to shoot your way out." -- Douglas Wilson

You can vote to give your vote away but you cannot get it back that way.

day no. 17,014: worldsmithing

“Naming is a function of dominion. In Scripture, naming is far more than a simply matter of attaching a label. Naming is an act of authority or, as it may be, an act of attempted authority.” — Douglas Wilson, The Woke Right, Real and Imagined

  

God gave Adam the privilege and responsibility of naming things. This is a authoritative function. Naming things is what an author does. He names His characters and gives names to their lands. He is the author. He has authority.

Ephesians 3:14

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,

Every family in heaven and earth is named after our Father in Heaven. Earthly fathers have authority because they have a Father in Heaven who has given it to them. This is why the family has his last name. This is why he and his bride get to name the fruit of their union. Naming is an authoritative act. It is more than just nicknaming. That too has a measure of authority to it, but nicknaming merely declares what we'd like to call something, while truly naming something states what that something truly is.

"The battle (for the dictionary) is over the right to define the world.” -— Douglas Wilson, Same Sex Mirage

Someone will dictate to someone else. Someone will speak and expect someone else to take notes. The only question is who will dictate and who will be dictated to. The dictionary is the dictation of the reigning authority. Dictators are those whose words must be obeyed. In the beginning, God said and it was so. The Word was with God and the Word was God. Words shape the world and they they shape how we see the world, whether it is in keeping with reality or not.

"The battle for the dictionary is the fight over who will be in charge of language and who will be in charge of our ability to describe the world as we see it." — Douglas Wilson, Plodcast Ep. 7

Control the narrative, control the world. 

The author is in charge of world building and gate keeping. He gets to decide what is canon and what is fan fiction. He gets the final word on what the details of the story mean and who the characters therein really are. That is the reality the world of unbelief is kicking back against. That is the button the unrepentant creatures want access to. They want to redefine what is and what is not, but the One who is, and was, and is to come has something to say about that and He calls it what it is: "Shenanigans!" 

day no. 17,013: a dead mackerel in the moonlight

“The kind of respectability we hanker after is like a dead mackerel on the beach by moonlight—it both shines and stinks.” — John Randolph

The human heart is hopelessly corrupt. (Jer. 17:9) It would often rather receive a reward for a job poorly done than a rebuke for being so slipshod. The same principle is also at play on the other end of the equation with respect to what we are willing to cheer. We prefer a shine that stinks to an ordinary odor. We click on stinky links as we scroll by the dry. Advertise a skunk and you will get clicks. Promote the plain and you will get ghosted. And that is why we do not recognize real brilliance when we see it. We reward others for doing what we do in order to receive something back in like, kind, and quality. 

John 5:44

How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?

Hypocrisy is the compliment vice pays to virtue. Those who excuse their own hypocrisy by rewarding the hypocrisy of others receive back the curse of being too readily impressed by hypocrisy. When you cash in your honest currency for corrupted coins, you begin to do commerce with those who pay you back in corrupted coin. You begin to deal in the currency of hypocrisy as a matter of course. One of the punishments for sin is becoming numb to it.  A moral callous begins to build up the more you rub against sin without recoiling from it. One of the penalties for pawning off counterfeit coins is a readiness to accept flattery in return for them. Fiat respectability is rewarded with flattery. Sycophants can't deal in real currency (and wouldn't want to if they could).

All that glitters is not gold and stink is no substitute for flavor. Better to be ignored for being good and boring than to be in the spotlight for being a fraud.

day no. 17,012: dirty politics and dirty diapers

“Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason,” — anonymous

A dead fish is good for eating if you get to it right away, but a dead fish left in the kitchen does not take long to stink up the rest of the house. A good politician is one who gets things done or better yet, leaves things alone, because he has a life back at home. Once he has made politics his career, however, he often begins to get less done or worse yet, finds new things to tinker with. Running for office becomes part of the job and keeping your career becomes part of the campaign strategy. Getting things done or leaving things alone now takes a backseat to leaving things undone and getting back into office. After all, if things got done, what would be left to do? And if there was nothing left do, who would pay you to not do it? 

“I am a [proponent of democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that every one deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true… I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost. Much less a nation. . . . The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.” — C.S. Lewis, Present Concerns

While the law of God does not forbid a people from keeping a governor until death do him part from office, it does provide a rationale for embedding an off ramp into the office by way of the doctrine of radical corruption (a.k.a. total depravity). People are stinkers and if left unchecked, their odor only grows more rancid. 

"It is hard to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." — Upton Sinclair

Presbyterian governance provides the basic checks and balances of decentralized power, a principle picked up by our founding fathers in the construction of the American Constitutional Republic. But term limits also provide a great check and balance against individual corruption by keeping the politician keen to the idea that he will be back under someone else's governance soon enough and to do unto others as they will soon be able to do to you.

day no. 17,011: nothing and everything else

“He who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only.” — C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Everything but God is nothing.

Whatever a man has, if he has not God, it is not his. He does not possess himself let alone his toys. He cannot keep himself. How could he keep baseball card collection.

Mark 8:36

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

You can spend your life willfully ignoring this reality, but you cannot keep your life from being spent. The only question will be what did you purchase with it? If you give your life to getting things, you will lose your life and your things along with it. If you give your life to Christ, you get your life back and everything else along with it.

Matthew 6:33

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

If you seek God first, you get everything else.

If you seek anything else first, you get nothing.

2 Samuel 14:14

For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again.

Your life will be poured out into something and wherever that is, there it shall be.