day no. 16,565: there is no hyperbole for His hatred of sin

Thou hatest wickedness. ― Psalm 45:7

"'Be ye angry, and sin not.' There can hardly be goodness in a man if he be not angry at sin; he who loves truth must hate every false way. How our Lord Jesus hated it when the temptation came! Thrice it assailed him in different forms, but ever he met it with, 'Get thee behind me, Satan.' He hated it in others; none the less fervently because he showed his hate oftener in tears of pity than in words of rebuke; yet what language could be more stern, more Elijah-like, than the words, 'Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer.' He hated wickedness, so much that he bled to wound it to the heart; he died that it might die; he was buried that he might bury it in his tomb; and he rose that he might forever trample it beneath his feet. Christ is in the Gospel, and that Gospel is opposed to wickedness in every shape. Wickedness arrays itself in fair garments, and imitates the language of holiness; but the precepts of Jesus, like his famous scourge of small cords, chase it out of the temple, and will not tolerate it in the Church. So, too, in the heart where Jesus reigns, what war there is between Christ and Belial! And when our Redeemer shall come to be our Judge, those thundering words, 'Depart, ye cursed' which are, indeed, but a prolongation of his life-teaching concerning sin, shall manifest his abhorrence of iniquity. As warm as is his love to sinners, so hot is his hatred of sin; as perfect as is his righteousness, so complete shall be the destruction of every form of wickedness. O thou glorious champion of right, and destroyer of wrong, for this cause hath God, even thy God, anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." ― Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

The Son has a hot hatred of sin. He died to kill it. He rose in order to trample upon it. God hates sin. It is so bad that someone has to die and it will either be you in your own place for your own sins or Him in your place for your sins; but either way, someone is going to have to pay. God does not wink at wickedness. He does not renege on His wrath. He doesn't blow things out of proportion only to repent of it as hyperbole after the fact. Christ's contempt for sin was cataloged in His crucifixion. Calvary confirms that it impossible to exaggerate His hatred of evil. The Father's refusal to heed to Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane assures us that there was no other way. Nothing else could succor. There is no hyperbole for His hatred of sin. You cannot find words that go too far. You cannot overstate His hate. The Son has a white hot hatred for the gates of hell and they will not prevail against His heat. Nothing could prepare them for the rising of the Son.

And that being said, it is all because you cannot fathom His love. His love of sinners exceeds His hatred of sin, which is why Christ lived and died for sinners.

Romans 8:31-32

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

God loves us more than He hates sin. And considering how much He hates sin as we've been discussing, consider just how much He loves you.

day no. 16,564: nothing and matters

Hebrews 11:3

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

Everything we see is made up of things we don't. Every single thing is made out of nothing. God made the world and everything in it out of nothing. Nothing possesses life or existence in itself other than God. Only He is essential. He holds all things together. Nothing needs nothing except Him. He wants for nothing. He is inexhaustible and indefatigable. He does not tire or wear out. He causes all chemical breakdown. He is the Author of every atom. He is the Shepherd of every flock of particles.

The air is made of molecules we can walk through; chairs of ones we can’t. Some nothing can be breathed while others bang against our skulls. Some nothings bruise our shins while others absorb through our skin. Some nothings taste better than others and some are tasteless and poisonous. Some nothings disintegrate under water while others lick up water with light rays from millions of miles away.

God is the Author of a magical world where none do everything, most do something, some do anything, and all are made of nothing. All the matter is made of nothing. In other words, nothing really matters, but only because God really does.

day no. 16,563: the constant gardener

Colossians 3:1-5

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry

If a gardener gets up every morning to weed his garden, the presence of weeds every morning is not evidence of him being a bad gardener; on the contrary, it is his daily presence in the garden to weed it that serves as proof of him being a good gardener. To be a good gardener is to be gardening; only a bad gardener gardened. To have gardened is to have had a garden. In other words, if you aren't gardening anymore, you no longer have a garden.

The presence of sin does a sinner make per se, but an absence of repentance does. 

Romans 8:13

For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

A Christian man must walk his garden. He cannot call it a garden if it he cares so little for its health. He cannot expect fruit to grow where weeds are allowed to live. He cannot with confidence call himself a gardener if he with regularity ignores it.

“Let not man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts.” ― John Owen, Mortification of Sin

You are not maturing in Christ if you are not mortifying your sins. You are not alive in the Spirit if you are not killing your sins. You cannot be at peace with both Christ and corruption. Enmity is inescapable. Sin is at war with God's Son, who gladly returns the favor.

Galatians 5:17-26

For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

If you are a Christian, you will desire to be sinless; but you won't be. Your holy discontentment will be made manifest in your daily repentance and ongoing diligence in working out what God worked in. Sanctification is continuous vivification, quickening that which pertains to the Spirit, and mortification, killing that which pertains to the flesh.

“Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”  ― John Owen, The Mortification of Sin

There will be killing. There is no question. The only questions are "who?" and "what?" Will it be sin killing you or you killing sin? You cannot expect to be sinless. You cannot insist on it. To say that you are sinless is to be dead in sin. To deny today's need is to ensure tomorrow's destruction.

1 John 1:10

If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

If we insist on saints being practically sinless, we only ensure an embargo on saints. But if we insist on sinners being definitively, positionally sinless and daily, practically repentant, we confirm the Christian faith and the confession of every honest Christian.

1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The only way to win against sin is to confess it. You cannot hide it, cover it, or explain it away. The only thing you can do is confess that you can't do anything and that Christ has done it all.

day no. 16,562: sinpathy

Ephesians 4:32

Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

Christians are commanded to be kind, not nice; to sympathize with sinners like Christ, not empathize with the devil like them.

Empathy is evil. 

It is an emotional hostage situation complete with demands and threats of violence.

Sympathy commands one's strength to help the weak.

Empathy demands one's strength be surrendered in order to relate to the weak.

Empathy is emotional egalitarianism. It would rather everyone drown in despair than anyone stand on solid ground. It prefers the equity of a plane crash with no survivors to the salvation of a few who packed their parachutes.

Empathy is sinpathy. It is corrupted sympathy. It's a sugar substitute that seems sweet but gives you dementia. It is the tyranny of the treacle — sickly sweet, candy coated suicide.

day no. 16,561: loving your neighbor's neighbor

Promoting and funding abortion is not loving your neighbor, especially, it should be noted, the one being murdered.

Matthew 22:38-40

This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

You cannot love your neighbor without first loving God. If you do not love Him and receive your definition of love from Him, you will only hurt your neighbor, even in your attempts to "love" him.

You do not love your neighbor by letting them murder your other neighbor. If your neighbor is hurting someone, you only add more hurt to the equation by trying to love the first neighbor at the expense of the second. You are hurting your first neighbor by supporting their sin and you are hurting your second neighbor by ignoring their plight, even condoning and cheering on the sinful behavior of the first neighbor that is hurting them. 

You must love your neighbor's neighbor. 

You do not love one neighbor by encouraging them to sin against your other neighbor. Love must be defined by the standards of God, not the wishes of one of our neighbor's, especially when those wishes directly harm another one of your other neighbors.

Your neighbor is whoever is in front of you and you should stop her from killing the neighbor who is inside her.

day no. 16,560: vulgar displays of power

"The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar." — G.K. Chesterton

It is unbecoming to become a sycophant. You cannot be a slave to sophistication and free to be admired as a freelancer. The desire to be distinguished is indistinguishable from dereliction of duty for you cannot be well thought of by everyone without abandoning your obligation to someone. 

All displays of power are vulgar. To need to flex is a wicked reflex. To boast of yourself is to broadcast your bombasity. It highlights your weakness, not your strength. As Shakespeare observed, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." That is to say, the more you say it, the more you reinforce the opposite.

It is always uncouth to clamor for cool points. There are fewer things less cool than being caught trying. Yet, the cool are nevertheless trying, they are just better at not getting caught. The poor souls who obviously want in never will be. They have failed to discover that there is nothing less cool than expressing your desire to be included. A great way to be kept out is to be caught trying to get in.

Luke 14:7-11

And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them, "When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; and he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, 'Give this man place;' and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, 'Friend, go up higher:' then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."

It is just as much of an honor to be invited further up and in as it is a humiliation to be escorted further down and out. Those who chase honor will be labeled losers and those who live to honor others will be elected to higher offices.

day no. 16,559: stand in the gap

Ezekiel 22:30

And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.

Men mind the gap. They stand between their beloved and the danger that comes against it. The sign of his love is his willingness to endure difficulties in the place of his beloved. Christ stood between the wrath of God and mankind in order to save men and honor God's wrath. He did not dodge God's wrath. He accepted it as just. He did not excuse men, He stood in the gap for them. He bore their sins and took upon Himself our punishment. He did not try to deny their deserving it, but accepted it and received it as His own.

Good and godly men are not above being shields. They protect by being abused. They intercede by being demeaned. They shelter by being exposed. They comfort by being crushed. They provide by being spent. They save by being sacrificed. This is Biblical masculinity in its glory.

May God not look down and find this kind of man lacking. May He see us embracing the high calling of manliness and many standing in the gap on behalf of their respective beloveds. 

day no. 16,558: excelsior!

“The Christian life is not a beginning only in the ways of God, but also a continuance in the same as long as life lasts. It is with a Christian as it was with the great Napoleon: he said, ‘Conquest has made me what I am, and conquest must maintain me.’ So, under God, dear brother in the Lord, conquest has made you what you are, and conquest must sustain you. Your motto must be, ‘Excelsior.’ He only is a true conqueror, and shall be crowned at the last, who continueth till war's trumpet is blown no more.” — Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

A Christianity that goes kaput is no Christianity at all. The saints cannot stop because God never ceases. Sanctification does not stall because it is never content with the presence of sin, no matter how small. Holiness never feels at home alongside even a hint of unrighteousness. So, the Christian continues to be renewed daily and reformed to maturity in Christ, and Christendom marches on like leaven through the lump in you and in the world around you. It will not cease until the whole lump is leavened. The Spirit of God will not stop working in you until you are glorified completely in Him. The Spirit of God will not stop working through you until His world is glorified completely by Him. We are occupied territory. God has established His beachhead and won't stop advancing until every street of every city, including the capital, is converted and every inch of ever acre is fruitful for His purposes. This is true of us and of our world. We will be conquered completely for Christ and this world will be entirely obedient to His rule.

Until then, with respect to His Kingdom come within and without, we shout, "Excelsior!"

day no. 16,557: a mine is a terrible thing to waste

Proverbs 13:22

A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children:

and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.

While those who fear the Lord keep their treasures in their family, the unrepentant are simply storing up their treasures for the repentant's kids. The children of promise not only receive blessing from their believing ancestors, but inherit the blessings of their unbelieving neighbors.

Exodus 12:35-36

And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and the LORD gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required. And they spoiled the Egyptians.

Precious metals are mined from the depths of the earth and gemstones are stored in dark places. God mines bright treasures out of dark nations. He is preparing brilliance in the blackness and it won't remain there forever. He will dig it up and sort it out.

Deuteronomy 6:10-11

And it shall be, when the LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, And houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not.

The promised land is described as move-in ready. The cities are great and good, the houses are hardy with pantries are packed, the water is clear, and the wine is already flowing. It is a place of milk and honey. Milk is mined from cows and honey is harvested from combs. Milk and honey are representative of God's goodness and the processes by which He makes good things and draws them out for better uses.

day no. 16,556: the busyness of blessing is better than the serenity of sterility

Proverbs 14:4

Where no oxen are, the crib is clean:

but much increase is by the strength of the ox.

Life will be full. It is inescapable. It will either be full of emptiness or full of increase. You must choose for yourself this day which kind of full you prefer, but God does not leave us without a word concerning His preference. He tells us which problems to pick. We should choose fullness and fatness over shortages and leanness. We should prefer the problems that overflow over those which dry up. The increase of Christ and His Kingdom is like leaven through the loaf -- always a bit more like warm bread. His provision fills to overflowing so much so you feel like you're missing many of them. His harvest is more than your arms can carry. You don't have barns large enough to corral them all. It is a good, full life. What a blessing.

The busyness of blessing is better than the stillness of sterility.

The strength of an ox increases everything. It ups production in the field and in the barn. There would be less crap to deal with without the ox, of course, but there'd be less harvest to be had as well. The barn would remain clean twice over. No crap to scoop, but no crops to keep. The blessings of Christ compound. They bring about more responsibility, but also more bounty. The blessings of sin are short-lived and leave the eater hungrier than when he sat down eat, the drinker drier than when he first swallowed, and the sinful soul leaner than when he first gorged himself on indulgence.

day no. 16,555: damn the damnable

Ezekiel 13:19

And will ye pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to my people that hear your lies?

For a portion of the proceeds, laws are passed that execute the innocent and exonerate the guilty. For a handful of bread some are starved and for a piece of the action some are cut into pieces. Those who ought to die are applauded and those who ought to live are policed. 

"Honor the honorable, damn the damnable, and love the things we ought to love." — N.D. Wilson

Abortion is murder and those who seek, fund, or provide them are guilty. In instances of rape or incest, the guilty party survives and the innocent party is executed. Abortion honors the damnable as a champion and damns the honorable as an inconvenient mass of cells. Abortion does nothing to condemn the guilty, but it does create and celebrate one. It often lets the other guilty parties off the hook, but it always condemns the only objectively innocent party. The child is always punished, the rapist sometimes is, and the mother who sought it and the clinic who provided it never are.

God have mercy, may He flip the script.

day no. 16,554: a strong confidence and a sure comfort

Proverbs 14:26

In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence:

and his children shall have a place of refuge.

There is good reason to be confident with Christ in your corner and there is good reason for the children of such a man to feel secure. Men are called to be providers and when they fear the Lord, they provide their family with security. When everyone knows that dad is under God's authority, everyone sleeps better. God gives grace to the sons and daughters of the saints. He gives them a physical shield in the form of their father who points them to their spiritual shield, their Father in Heaven. If you want to take care of your children, take care to fear God. If you want them to look up to you when they are older, look up to God now while they are young and never look back.

The fear of the Lord is a man's strong confidence and his children's sure comfort.

day no. 16,553: deception is a declaration of war

“All warfare is based on deception." — Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Deception is a declaration of war.

A lie is a live grenade.

It shakes things up.

"A man who paints his tank to look like a bush is telling enemy pilots that his tank is a bush when in fact — let us be frank — it is not a bush. God Himself gave the Israelites a strategy that depended upon deception at the second battle of Ai (Josh. 8:2). Sun Tzu was right—warfare is deception. A good general wants the enemy to believe the opposite of what is actually the case, in as many instances as possible. He wants him to believe he is far away when he is close, and to believe he is close when he is far away. He wants him to believe he is strong when he is weak, and weak when he is strong." — Douglas Wilson, Deception and the Culture War

We cannot lie unless we are at war. We dare not fib unless we intend to fight. There are times we must fight. But we must not fight without first deciding. You should not find yourself in a fight you're not sure you would have chosen. You should not aim at anything you're not willing to destroy and you should not be willing to destroy something without consideration.

So, do not like unless you are also declaring war; but if you are declaring war, you cannot lie about that!

day no. 16,552: that time God said, "No," to Elijah

1 Kings 19:4

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers."

Elijah did not really want to die. He only asked to die here by the hand of God because he didn't want to die somewhere else by the hands of Jezebel.

1 Kings 19:1-3

And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, "So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time." And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life.

So, Elijah wasn't really praying to be dead per se, but to be saved from dying in a particular way. By praying to die then and there under the shade of the juniper tree, he was praying to avoid another kind of death under the shade of Jezebel's malice.

James 5:16b-18

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.

God answered Elijah's prayers regarding the skies, but did not answer his prayer to die. He did not always give the prophet what he asked for. In fact, not only did Elijah NOT die then and there, He didn't die anywhere... ever.  God did not strike him dead there under the juniper tree or under the wrath of Jezebel... or under the weight of old age, illness, accident, et cetera, Elijah NEVER died. God said, "No," to Elijah's specific request, but said, "Yes," to his general sentiment. Elijah escaped Jezebel, but he also escaped death.

Praise God for unanswered prayers and for answers to prayer that exceed our ability even to ask. Elijah didn't presume to ask God to escape death altogether, so he asked to die in the desert instead of in the dungeon of Jezebel. God heard his prayer and gave him more than he could ask or imagine.

Ephesians 3:18-21

To comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

day no. 16,551: God is America's King

"'My country, ’tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing…

Long may our land be bright

With Freedom’s holy light.

Protect us by Thy might,

Great God, our King!'

And Laura had a thought. The Declaration and the song came together in her mind and she thought: God is America’s king. Americans are free. They have to obey their own consciences. This is what it means to be free. 'Our father’s God, author of liberty —' The laws of Nature and of Nature’s God endow you with a right to life and liberty. Then you have to keep the laws of God, for God’s law is the only thing that gives you a right to be free. Laura had no more time to think about it. The others were urging her on." — Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little Town on the Prairie

In America, the unwritten law of the land may be the separation of church and state, but that law was not codified or commanded by its King. If that law is held, it is held in treasonous defiance. America is not under her own authority. She exists for the glory of God. As such, she will either glorify her God by being a place for Him to rest His feet or she will reign with Him by reigning under His Law. She will be His footstool or His foot solider.

It is high time to remember what we used to know -- accountability is liberty. There is no freedom to be found in aimless frolicking. Because God is King, we are free. If He is not, we are not. To be free is to be bound by conscience and to be at liberty is to consider treason unconscionable.

day no. 16,550: abortion is youthanasia

Exodus 21:22-23

If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life

Abortion is mischief. 

Its aim is to murder a child - not to save the physical life of the mother, nor to improve the quality of her life, nor to save her her mental anguish. Abortion cannot guarantee any of things, nor does it try to provide them. It merely aims to end the life of the child inside her. A successful abortion is determined by the present death of the child, not the future livelihood of the mother.

Abortion is not healthcare, it is hiring a hitman; it is youthanasia.

Abortion sometimes kills even the mother, but that’s merely a side effect of doing business. When you aim to kill kids, sometimes adults get in the way and are added to the body counts.

Abortion does not get vengeance on incestuous sinners or rapacious rogues in the rare circumstances where they are the perpetrator of the pregnancy. When this is the sad case, you do not alleviate the wrong of the father by executing the innocence of the child. The criminal gets clemency and the child is sentenced to death.

Abortion does not heal the mental trauma of the mother by making her an accomplice to her rapist in the murder of their child. It does not spare her the emotional anguish of someone else's sin against her by adding the emotional baggage of her own guilt and shame into the mix.

In the event of rape or incest, abortion assigns the task of burying the body to the woman. You cannot assuage your sorrow by hiding the body. You do not purge the pain by participating in the plot.

And for all the other instances, you cannot murder someone in order to make up for making out with someone else. You do not correct an error by making a larger one in a different direction. In short, someone shouldn't have to die simply because you've changed your mind.

day no. 16,549: the great campaign of sabotage

“Enemy-occupied territory---that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.” — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

There are weeds in the wheat field. But the field is not defined by the pests, but by the presence of wheat. It is not in submission to the desires of the weeds, but to the purpose of the planter and tender of the field. Weeds may grow, but wheat will be fostered. Some weeds may survive for now, but wheat will thrive forever. The Owner of the field has published His purposes for it. The wheat may appear at times to be a niche rebellion, but it is the rightful tenant of the terrain.

In the meantime, we are invited to whack the weeds. We are welcomed into the good work of pest control. We are called to husband our heritage and see it flourish. We are called to wreck the reign of the rebels. We are called to frustrate the goals of the Grosstapo. They work to spread their ugly, but our bulldozers of beauty are planting over their parking lots with wild flowers.

So. let's sabotage sin and propagate righteousness. The King has declared His designs for the world and it's time sin met some resistance.

day no. 16,548: strange strategies

Ezekiel 3:5

For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel

You cannot send Christian children to godless grammarians and expect them to speak fluent faith. You cannot expect children without language to teach the heathen the vocabulary of righteousness. You cannot subject children to the rules and regulations of the reckless and expect them to acquire a love of the Lord's laws. Submitting to strange tongues is a strange way to propagate the familiar faith once for all delivered to the saints.

You cannot convince the godless to stop giving themselves to Caesar by sending your kids to Caesar to tell their kids to stop giving themselves to Caesar.

Only cowards send their children where they don't dare to go and only fools expect untrained children to train the untrained children of others. The more likely and anecdotally obvious result is not a school system reached and raised up in the Lord, but generations of the saints' children lost as casualties of war, sent unarmed into the arms of the State, just as we see today.

Nehemiah 13:23-25

In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab: And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves.

Untrained children sent as missionaries more often come back converted instead of making converts.

Missionary dating more often ends with both in the missionary position than either gaining a more Christ-honoring position.

A young lady cannot teach a young man the virtues of purity from his backseat.

You cannot teach heathen the value of Christianity by entering into their worship service of the secular. You cannot convert Caesar by catering to him, you must confront him. And that begins by refusing to pay the pinch of incense that he demands, and your kids are far more than mere incense and Caesar is asking for much more than a pinch of them.

Keep your kids.

Give them a Christian education.

day no. 16,547: good news for dark days

Psalm 9:15

The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid is their own foot taken.

The wicked dig a pit only to fall into it. They step in their own traps. They never fail to forget God in their accounting. They always forget to include sovereignty. They never budget for Someone else's omnipotence and always assume their own.

Psalm 35:8

Let destruction come upon him at unawares; and let his net that he hath hid catch himself: into that very destruction let him fall.

It is right and fitting that the vile should be struck by their own villainy. Conspirators deserve betrayal. They are paid in the coin by which they do commerce.

Psalm 141:10

Let the wicked fall into their own nets, whilst that I withal escape

The powers that be are never as powerful as they seem... or believe themselves to be. This is good news for dark days like ours. The godless can never rig the system for they always fail to account for God. Their arrogance is an ignorance. Stupid isn't a strategy. Insanity is incoherent. Sin does not work. Praise God.

day no. 16,546: parenting is a participation in the ex nihilo

"A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state. There can be no greater stretch of arbitrary power than to seize children from their parents, teach them whatever the authorities decree they shall be taught, and expropriate from the parents the funds to pay for the procedure.” — Isabel Paterson, God of the Machine

They've been coming for your kids longer than you can imagine. The transparency of their tactics have become more obvious, but the intensity of their intentions has never been in question. They have always seen parents as their obstacles and your children as their rightful property. 

"You may not be paedobaptist or postmill, but the left is and that's why they're winning." — Ben Merkle

The Left believes that the future belongs to them and so they believe that children belong to them. Children are simply the missionaries of the future. They are sent out into unknown lands to spread the news. They are dispatched to rule and subdue the world of tomorrow. They are given dominion of the hereafter. Because the Left wants to populate the future with their ideas, they are working hard to groom your children. They don't have kids of their own, but they have ideas, and one of these is that your kids should be filled with their ideologies. They aren't working like a defeated people trying to get a grassroots ghetto established in order to endure. They assume that someday the Left is all that will be left. They are aggressively optimistic in their eschatology.

Yet Christians, who have the sure word of the Lord guaranteeing His triumph, act like we'd be thrilled to merely retain a remnant. And in our defeatist posture, we surrender our children to the whims of wicked systems. We surrender the future to the inevitable dominion of the Death Cult.

Repent.

Believe the Word of the Lord and stop believing in the plans of wicked men. Stop buying into their lies and start believing in the promises of God. Begin by taking your kids back. Repent for having to ask permission to reclaim them. Receive them back warmly and go forward convinced of God's presence with you as you parent them, committing to never surrender them again.

Someone will parent the future. The Left knows this. That is why the play is to be the parents. But God made you the parent when He permitted your body to contribute to the creation of someone where no one once was. Parenting is a participation in the ex nihilo. God brings something out of nothing and then hands them to you. Make the most of it.

day no. 16,545: present privilege informs present duty

“Let present privilege awaken us to present duty, and now, while life lasts, let us spend and be spent for our sweet Lord Jesus.” — Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

Our gratitude should fuel our grititude.

Our present privilege informs our present duty.

The grace we have received is the grace to go further.

1 Corinthians 15:10

By the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

God initiates; we respond.

He gives; we receive.

He pours into; we pour out.

Colossians 1:29

I also labour, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily.

When God is at work in someone, He is often observed working through them.

Where God works mightily, saints work with all their might.

Where God abides, the saints strive.

We do not work to gain God's favor, but from the fact that, in Christ, we already have it. We are privileged to be the recipients of His favor and demonstrate our thanksgiving through our living.

When we open our eyes to our blessings, we apply ourselves to our work.

Where we consider what's been done for us, we consider what to do for others.

Philippians 2:3-5

Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

day no. 16,544: tradition is honor incarnate

“Tradition: how the vitality of the past enriches the life of the present.” — T. S. Eliot

It is easy to take credit for other's achievements and imagine you've hit a triple when you've only been born on third. But it doesn't have to be like that. We can honor our fathers and mothers, but we won't do it by accident. 

Tradition is honor incarnate. It is reaping what others have sown and having gratitude for what others applied grit to.

Ecclesiastes 1:11

There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.

The normal course of events is to ignore the past to focus on the present and pass down a heritage of hindsight blindness. But we do not have to be caught in this current. We can run in the other direction.

"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it." — G.K. Chesterton

We can break the cycle and honor our ancestors because in Christ we live.

Mark 12:27

He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.

The traditions of our forefathers do not die with them because we, as their children, keep them alive; and they are not dead. Not just in a sense, but in actuality. Before Him they live and to us their faith has been received and will by us be delivered to those yet to come.

1 Corinthians 11:2

Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you.

The traditions of men kept as the law of the Lord is legalism, but the habits of the holy ones are our heritage.

“Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.” — G.K. Chesterton

So, don't sleep on the dead, but build tree houses where they planted trees, and give thanks where others throw shade.

1 Corinthians 4:7

For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?

day no. 16,543: aiming to miss

Genesis 1:26-27

And God said, "Let us make man in Our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female.

God is the source of all gender. Male and female are made in the image of God. Man was made the glory of God and woman was made the glory of man (1 Cor. 11:3). These find their expression by His definition. They were made separately, but for each other. They are unique, but also uniquely fitted for each other: key and lock, bow and string, wax and seal.

The Effeminatti is a force conspiring against Biblical masculinity. It often attempts to convince men to make feminine ideals the universal ideals while doing away with or asking men to apologize for their masculine instincts and ideals.

The Sisterhood of the Sophisticatti is a force at work against Biblical femininity. It is the attempt to convince women to believe that masculine ideals are the only ideals while doing away with or asking women to apologize for their feminine instincts and ideals.

In our twisted world of egalitarian androgyny, men are being made to feel inferior for having a proclivity for punchiness while women are being made to feel inferior for having a desire for domesticity. So, both ideals are being run down, but from different directions. Both ideals are idealized only in their respective improper and inadequate manifestations.

The aim, overall, appears to be androgyny, a meeting in the middle with complete erasure of both genders by forcing each one to lean into the opposite. By convincing women to be men and men to be women, you make a mess of gender because everyone, in the end, is bad at what they're doing. Everyone is aiming at someone else's target, so, no one is hitting their own... or the other.

If falling short is a cipher for sin, and it is, e.g. Romans 3:23, how much more so when the aim is to miss?

Women are better at being women than men are. 

Men are better at being men than women are.

day no. 16,542: men are not metric

"Of all the homestead laws, Almanzo thought that the most foolish was the law about a settler's age. Anybody knew that no two men were alike. You could measure clothe with a yardstick, or distance by miles, but you could not lump men together and measure them by any rule. Brains and character did not depend on anything but the man himself. Some men did not have the sense at sixty that some had at sixteen." — Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter

Egalitarianism expects men to measure out the same. According to it, an ounce of one should equal on ounce of another. But we all know men whose hour of help on a Saturday would prove more helpful than others. Yet, egalitarianism labors to limit the exceptionally advanced and to promote the exceptionally incapable for the sake of making men like meters. But men are not metric. That said, they are also not like miles in that a mile must always be a certain, predictable, regulated distance in order to be a mile. Men can be measured that way with respect to Y chromosomes, but cannot be measured that way with respect to masculinity.

Judges 8:21

As the man is, so is his strength.

All men are male, but not all males are manly. All men are strong, but some are stronger than others. Some are smarter than others, taller than others, more assertive than others, more timid than others, etc... The measure of a man is like a lump of gold. Some have more dross to burn off than others and the refined amount weighs less than the one mined out. The fire tells you more about the man than the pick axe, but both tell you something about him.

All men share something or else we could not refer to them as "all men." All men must be similar in some respects just as much as they must be different in others. They are all men at the same time in the same way in ways that they are not all masculine at the same time in the same ways.

day no. 16,541: drift is the natural direction of inattention

“The sun may breed maggots in a dead dog; but it is essential for such a liberation of life that the dog should be unconscious or (to say the least of it) absent-minded. Broadly speaking, you may call the thing corruption, if you happen to like dogs. You may call it evolution, if you happen to like maggots. In either case, it is what happens to things if you leave them alone.” — G.K. Chesterton, Utopia of Usurers

A dead dog left in the sun does not stay a dead dog. It succumbs to the outside force of the sun and its own internal corruption. Enzymes and bacteria that once kept the dog alive now work against it to decompose it. The change is considered a corruption for those who love dogs, but an emancipation for those who love maggots.

Evolution is the love of lesser things. It delights in seeing dead dogs for the sake of liberating maggots. It is rotten through and through and is a good reminder to never assume too much.

Hebrews 2:1

Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.

Drift is the natural direction of inattention. The slip attends the inattention. Nothing good flourishes by accident. That which will not heed will not remain. It cannot. Anything that is not intentional is inconsequential. Because the nature of sin has introduced a radical corruption into the world, all things must live by faith or die in unbelief.

"Any organization not explicitly and constitutionally right-wing will sooner or later become left-wing." — Robert Conquest's 2nd Law of Politics

If you are not striving to define yourself, you are being defined by something else. If you are not aggressively asserting your priorities, you are passively being assigned someone else's.

"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” — G.K. Chesterton

day no. 16,540: fighting by definition

“The religion of the Servile State must have no dogmas or definitions. It cannot afford to have any definitions. For definitions are very dreadful things: they do the two things that most men, especially comfortable men, cannot endure. They fight; and they fight fair.” — G.K. Chesterton, Utopia of Usurers

There is a reason the wicked do not claim to know what a woman is. Definitions require deferral. If an agreed upon, static, concrete state of affairs is acknowledged, then it is also acknowledged that one has an obligation to submit to it. Obedience is implicit. And the last thing lawlessness wants is an obligation to obey anything outside of itself. Lawlessness is a law unto itself. It submits only to its own wants, which may change and are permitted to do so when the law of the land is whatever it wants in particular at this very moment. That is why you can be shouted down today for obeying what they demanded you do yesterday. You can be found guilty for obeying yesterday's demands.

"If I gave in to the Inquisitors, I should at least know what creed to profess. But even if I yelled out a credo when the Eugenists had me on the rack, I should not know what creed to yell. I might get an extra turn of the rack for confessing to the creed they confessed quite a week ago.” — G.K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils

Of course they keep moving the goal posts. The only goal posts they have are that they get to decide where the goal posts go. That is their only standard. And when the rules rise up from within, they will vary weekly for without.

Isaiah 5:20-21

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil;

that put darkness for light, and light for darkness;

that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes,

and prudent in their own sight!

The wicked know what the righteous forget: he who controls the dictionary controls the world. The wicked, however, forget that there is a God who defines their contradictions as treason. The righteous would do well to remember the Word of God who defines the lines.

Proverbs 14:12, 16:25

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man,

but the end thereof are the ways of death.

The wicked insist on getting their way... and they will. Little do they know, however, that the way they will get is death. Their dictionaries will not dictate to the Word. He will define them according to their deeds and their wages of sin according to His Word is death.

day no. 16,539: God knows is not always good news

“God knows” is good news for the repentant, but bad news for the unrepentant.

Proverbs 15:3

The eyes of the Lord are in every place.

God knows. 

He sees everything. That is not good news. That means He sees every...single...sin. Nothing escapes His notice.

For the Christian, that means He has accounted for every sin. There are none left. He didn't miss any. He saw them all and saved you from each and every one of them in Christ.

For the unbeliever, that means you must account for each and every offense against Him. Every ought to left undone and every ought not engaged in must be personally accounted for.

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

God knows.

He doesn't miss a beat. Every work will be judged by His standards of good and bad, right and wrong, righteous and evil. There are no secrets or surprise witnesses. When He holds court, He holds all of the evidence.

Psalm 66:7

He rules by His might forever;

His eyes keep watch on the nations;

Let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah.

God knows.

There are no people He does not know. No one has escaped His notice. No one can settle or move outside His jurisdiction. He will collect back taxes from everyone everywhere.

Job 34:21

For His eyes are upon the ways of a man,

And He sees all his steps.

God knows.

This is very bad news for those attempting to skirt Him. It is bad news because you can't. You cannot escape Him. He is inevitable. But it is also bad news because He has sent word on how to approach Him. He has provided safe convoy in Christ into His courts. When the wicked meet Him, they will curse themselves for ignoring His warning.

For the Christian, this is Gospel salve. He sees every hurt accrued for His sake. But He also knows every grain of sin inside you. He sees sins you missed and forgives them for Christ's sake. The fact that He knows is the comfort of the Christian. He knows it all and loves us entirely all, because of Christ.

So, sleep well saints... God knows.

And lose sleep sinners... God knows.

day no. 16,538: lightening the mood

1 John 2:8

The darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.

The dark is dying. It is being snuffed out. The power is out and it doesn't have a generator. It is only a matter of time. The true light is already shining and lightening the mood of the entire room. It is has crested the horizon and is coming for the dark. It is marching across the sky and rising overhead. Nothing can escape the heat of its rays. It is pursuing every crook and cranny until everything is illuminated. The light, like leaven, is carefully leaving no stone left unturned. All shadows are being hunted down by its shine. The caves cannot keep it out. It's coming on and it cannot be stopped.

John 1:5

The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it,

day no. 16,537: more than kings, less than men

"We have a conceited generation, filled with narcissistic helium, who feel themselves to be, in de Tocqueville’s apt phrase, 'More than kings, and less than men.'" — Douglas Wilson, Blog & Mablog

Demos imagines itself the greatest of men while descending to the lowest of means. It casts itself in the role of royalty while decking itself out in the attire of depravity. It wears error like a badge of honor and crowns itself enlightened for being benighted.

Vox populi, vox Dei is the vain, optimistic mantra of mankind. The voice of the people is not the voice of God. People come together only by discord. They may call it music and even train themselves to hear their noise as music to their ears, but it is simply calling evil "good" and good "evil." Sinful people do not become divine by their agreement. They can only become divine by Christ's atonement. They cannot create harmony. They either submit to harmony or indulge their gruntings.

Demos leads to men who imagine themselves more noble than they are by indulging the basest human appetites they possess.

Where consensus has become the standard, Christ is considered a nuisance. He divides where they want unity and commands unity where they desire division.

Mark 10:9

What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

Sin is separating what God has joined together and joining what God has separated. In the beginning, God separated certain things: day from night, dark from light, land from water, etc... God also united certain things: man and woman, Heaven and earth. Evil desires disorder. It is always Christ or chaos.

Matthew 10:34

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

If Christ is not the arche, the only unity among men is their wickedness. Babel can bring men together against Christ, but it cannot hold men together. Men can unite against Christ, but fail to divide Him from His people.

Romans 8:37-39

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.