On several occasions over the years I have asked various individuals within the legal system, including judges, from where have we learned the basic God granted right not to incriminate one’s self. Until this week I had not been given an answer but a scholar by the name of Rousas J. Rushdoony did answer in an article on “Justice and Torture” which is published in his book, The Roots of Reconstruction. Because his explanation is much better than I could ever do I will simply quote a large portion of his article.

Rushdoony writes, “How remarkable it is that men choose to despise God’s law and idolize or a least idealize Greek and Roman law. The Greeks used torture regularly and their methods of capital punishment included crucifixion, beheading, poison, clubbing the person to death, burial alive, stoning, hurling a man from a precipice, and more. The Romans eliminated poisoning and strangling but used torture, and they refined crucifixion.

“Early Christendom more or less followed Biblical law, and the results were good. The two revivals of torture took place in the 13th century, with its effects lasting to the 19th, and again in the 20th century on a most formidable scale. It is worthy of note that in 865 A.D. Pope Nicholas I, in a letter to the Bulgars, forbad the use of torture, because confessions are not to be extracted by coercion and are forbidden as a result.

“When scholars began to study Roman law, and, later, Aristotle, Greco-Roman norms began to replace Biblical ones. Whereas Biblical law required evidence, not confession, now, as Edward Peters noted in Torture (1985), “Confession ascended to the top of the hierarchy of proofs” and remained there (p. 44). The consequences were devastating. First, it simplified the work of law enforcement. The needed “evidence” was extracted by torture from the suspect. There was an analogy, Peters noted, to plea bargaining. Most suspects in plea bargaining cases are guilty; the work of the police and the court is simplified by having the suspect plead guilty to a lesser offense. Torture also simplified the legal process; a majority of the suspects may have been guilty, but , as for the rest, well, human justice could not be perfect.

“Second, in Greco-Roman thought, politics of the state, as Aristotle so plainly outlined it, is the source of morality, not a religion. Such a faith shifts the whole center of the moral universe from God’s word to the state’s word. With the revival of Greco-Roman thought, the shift began in Europe from the centrality of the faith and the church to politics and the state. We are now reaping the consequences of that shift in our operative paganism.

“Third, as a result of this shift, the rational modern state and its philosopher kings or elite became the great defenders of man. Reason, progress, and man’s hope were now defined in terms of the state. The state was seen as man’s savior from the evils and superstitions of Christianity and the church. To suspect the state was for the philosophers of the state like suspecting God. They held plainly that right is what the state does. Marxism holds to the infallibility of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Mussolini said, of the fascist state, “Beyond the state, nothing that is human or spiritual has any value whatsoever.” In Nazi Germany, justice became racial: “The People’s sound sense of justice” governed; “Law is what serves the German people. Injustice is what injures it.” Some of the worst statements came from English idealist philosophers, Bosanquet, Green, and others, who identified the state with Right, after Hegel.

“We have thus had a major revival of torture in our time, and the greatest mass murders as well. A higher percentage of mankind has been killed in the 20th century than ever before by mass murders, death camps, man-made famines, war, revolution, torture, and so on. The end is not yet.

“So routine has man’s torture of man become that in Marxism and fascism the medical profession has been routinely used in sophisticated modern forms of torture. It has taken much of this [20th] century to bring Western psychiatrists even to the point of considering the condemnation of Soviet psychiatric tortures.

“This should not surprise us. As Western medical practice has departed from Christianity, it has become more and more a class of professional technicians rather than healers. The inability of medical societies to condemn and bar abortionists makes clear their moral dereliction. How can men condemn the torture of adults when they will not condemn the murder of unborn babes?

“It is ironic, given the injustices of humanistic law, that men declare God’s law to be “barbaric” and “primitive” and affirm the validity of modern humanistic law. Greek law was brutal towards all save the limited number of elite, and Greek society was a slave society in which the elite few regarded their will as justice. The idealization of the Greeks is by our modern elitists, who dream of a like power over the masses, i.e., over the rest of us. it is an anti-Christian dream.

“The clergy, by their indifference or hostility to God’s law, are thereby implicitly affirming humanistic law. For humanism, man is a product of evolution, not a person created in the image of God. For an evolutionary faith, man is expendable, because, as man controls and guides evolution, he must eliminate the unfit to create the new man of the future. …

“Biblical law is not popular with men even though it limits civil government to a minimal dimension; sharply limits civil taxation to a small sum; preserves the person from torture; requires self-government; and furthers freedom. It has a great fault; it indicts all men as sinners before God, something man refuses to hear.”

Hopefully, Rushdoony has made you think. And hopefully I’ve made you interested in reading his book by giving you this “appetizer.” If so you may purchase this and other books by Rousas J. Rushdoony by going to www.ChalcedonStore.com.

Are the words of Isaiah agreeable to you? “For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; He will save us -” Isaiah 33:22. Is your trust in the civil state or in King Jesus? Whose word is law? The Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20 commands the Church to be “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you, …”. Are you familiar with and studying all the commands of Jesus from Genesis to Revelation? It is your royal duty to do so. ]]> http://www.thebiblealone.com/2010/03/torture-biblical-law-says-no-but-greco-roman-law-says-yes/feed/ 1 http://www.thebiblealone.com/2010/03/torture-biblical-law-says-no-but-greco-roman-law-says-yes/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheBibleAlone/~3/a5EiG6kkIOI/ http://www.thebiblealone.com/2010/02/parental-rights-amendment-defended/#comments Sat, 20 Feb 2010 00:48:01 +0000 pastorblack http://new.thebiblealone.com/?p=117 In an email exchange with a gentleman associated with the Parental Rights Organization he attempted to defend the Parental Rights Amendment, particularly its Section Two. His defense was disturbing as it revealed that the statist, or totalitarian mindset has infected so many who would be called Christian conservatives.

I was instructed that it was fairly commonplace for the civil government to violate our rights as specified in the Bill of Rights. Specifically he said that the First Amendment right of religion and free speech was routinely violated in the case of someone yelling, “fire” in a crowded theater when there was not a fire!

Surely this man’s explanation, or defense, is chilling and illogical. He argues that to protect a “right” we must write it into the U. S. Constitution even as we acknowledge the “right” of the civil government to violate the specified “right” when it seems to itself good to do so. Does it make you warm and secure to know that your rights are protected by those who have the right to refuse your rights? This is no protection at all. Especially when one considers how our civil government doesn’t feel much constraint to obey the First and Second Amendments.

Here was my answer: “Your example of the alleged violation of the First Amendment in the case of someone yelling, “fire” falsely in a crowded theater is logically false.

The First Amendment, as the others in the Bill of Rights, are in a context and this context was understood and expressed to be the Christian religion and even more precisely the Law of Moses, the Ten Commandments. Witness to this the numerous carvings and paintings of Moses and the two tablets on civil government buildings in Washington, D.C. In other words, when someone yells, “fire” falsely in a crowded theater and he is then convicted and fined for doing so it is not a case of the First Amendment being superseded or set aside for compelling state interest, but rather the violation of the sixth and ninth commandments. He is convicted of endangering the lives of others and of lying. This view equates truth with falsehood.”

Later in this gentleman’s email defending the PRA Section Two he said that this section merely acknowledges the way Washington, D. C. acts today. Well, we ought not accommodate the error of our civil government but confront it. Accommodation to statists will bring the death of liberty and freedom.

This was my reply: “You have argued that Section Two is simply recognizing the way the constitution is now handled and the broad view of the power of the judiciary, legislative and executive branches of our civil government. Sadly, I must agree that this is the present and prevalent view within the beltway. But it is a view that would rightly have been seen as destructive of all constitutional government, and even as traitorous by the framers of our constitution. The present and prevalent view within the beltway is in error. It must be rejected and replaced by our framer’s view. George Washington spoke to this issue when he implored men not ever to ignore the constitution but if they found a change was needed that they should follow the constitutional procedure for amendment. Not to do so, he warned, would be the destruction of the written constitution.”

The website of parentalrights.org was technically very well done, even impressive, but all was not right. The Supreme Court was quoted as settling the understanding of the constitution. Does the Parental Rights Organization accede to judicial supremacy? Our framers declared that each of the three branches of the federal government had equal ultimacy in determining the constitution’s meaning. (This is a trinitarian conception deriving from the equal ultimacy of the three persons in the Godhead yet only one God. Unitarianism absolutizes the one as it denies the three.) In short, the Supreme Court is not the ultimate definer of the meaning of the constitution and their presently adopted evolutionary hermeneutic is antithetical to the framers’ views. Truth requires the doctrine of original intention. Our constitution is not a living evolving document whose meaning today differs from its meaning yesterday or even tomorrow. If the meaning of the U. S. Constitution, or any written document, does not have a settled permanent meaning as intended by those who authored and ratified it, then it will be constantly amended to mean differently than it did originally, yet this amendment process by changing interpretations, violates the amendment process in Article 5 of the U. S. Constitution. Would this not constitute treason? Would this not be a way around the plain, original meaning of the words of our magnificent constitution? Is this not how our Congress, our Supreme Court and our Executives make the constitution mean the opposite of what the words plainly mean?

Would you want to work for me if every day I declared a new, evolving understanding of our contract? Probably not. Do you want to live where the law of the land is ever changing, evolving and has therefore no stated consistent meaning? Better not tell the civil government that it can sit in judgment over the constitution. We were formed to have a civil government under a written constitution but today’s elite want you to think you have a constitution under civil government. Beware, liberty placed in the hands of men will become slavery.

The Parental Rights Organization rightly recognizes that our civil government is at war with the family. Section Two is an accommodation to the enemy not a defense at all but merely an appearance of it. Don’t be fooled into supporting the Parental Rights Amendment as it presently is written. R. J. Rushdoony identified the statist war against the family when he wrote, “The family is the true wellspring of the future, not the state, and the woman is the key to it. The statist school is a citizen-producing factory designed to manufacture people whose every loyalty is eroded. No family ties bind the well-taught statist school product. Thus, all competing institutions or loyalties of family, faith, and heritage are eliminated. The result is a mass man; such a man is easily a rebel, a malcontent, or a drone, but his is not capable of anything but a statist answer to problems, because for him no other agency has any stature or viability. He is a factory product with standardized reactions and responses.” (R. J. Rushdoony, Roots of Reconstruction, Ross House, 1991, page 218, available from www.chalcedon.edu)

The right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is granted to us by that same Creator mentioned in our Declaration of Independence. I am thrilled to see organizations seeking to protect that right, particularly when the United Nations is covertly working to deny it by international treaty. The Parental Rights Organization has written an amendment to our U. S. Constitution intending to protect parental rights. But in Section Two of its amendment it utterly destroys not only parental rights but all rights by granting that the Federal government may, when it thinks it serves its best interest, infringe on parental rights.

What kind of rights are we talking about when we acknowledge that the federal government may infringe them when it thinks it is good to do so?

Didn’t our constitutional framers understand this in 1776? Why didn’t they simply acknowledge that King George III had the authority to violate the colonial rights when he thought it in his best interest to do so? Shoot, if Patrick Henry, George Washington, Robert Morris and the others had understood this there would have been no shooting! And, we would still be a part of the moribund United Kingdom.

So you know what I am writing about, here is the complete text of the Parental Rights Amendment:
“Section One – The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is a fundamental right.
Section Two – Neither the United States nor any state shall infringe upon this right without demonstrating that its governmental interest as applied to the person is of the highest order and not otherwise served.
Section Three – no treaty may be adopted nor shall any source of international law be employed to supersede, modify, interpret, or apply to the rights guaranteed by this article.”

Your major concern ought to be with Section Two for it destroys our constitutional government.

Section Two subjects the U. S. Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights contained in it, along with this proposed amendment, to the whim of the Federal Government. By so doing we no longer have a functioning written constitution. The truth is that the Bill of Rights is subject to the Law of God but not to the civil state. The very function of the written constitution is to bring the civil state into subjection to the constitution. This was the framers’ conception of a limited civil government “chained” by the constitution. (I think it was Jefferson who used the language of the chain.) Section Two of the Parental Rights Amendment elevates the Civil Government to the position of the highest authority in the USA placing the U. S. Constitution in subjection to its will or “compelling state interest”. No sir! The civil government is subject to the constitution not the constitution subject to the civil government. Section Two is the establishment of a totalitarian state. Section Two is the destruction of constitutional government. I think Lenin would have loved Section Two! As it was he did set aside whatever was in his way even as our progressive justices, congressmen and presidents have done to “legalize” the murder of tens of millions of unborn human babies.

The Parental Rights Amendment could be a good thing if Section One concluded with the words, “granted by Our Creator.” thus mirroring the language of our Declaration of Independence; and if Section Two were entirely deleted; and then Section Three be renamed Section Two.

If Section Two remains in the Parental Rights Amendment then you ought to think carefully. If you do so, I think you will see the necessity of opposing the Parental Rights Amendment. Not only will it fail to protect parental rights to direct the upbringing and the education of their children, it will undermine the entire Bill of Rights, subjecting these to the will of the civil government and its definition of “compelling state interest.”

I hope you still have in mind the chicken coop and the fox with which I began. The point it made was the point I wanted to make but there is an inaccuracy in my picture and I am compelled to correct it. The reality is that the chicken coop or the U. S. Constitution, was not intended to “fence in” the chickens, the citizens of these United States, but rather was intended to “fence in” those who would seek to govern us at the federal level. The U. S. Constitution put chains upon the Supreme Court, the Congress and the President, severely limiting their power so they couldn’t consume our livelihoods or even ourselves. The Foxes have been very good at making us forget who is limited by the U. S. Constitution. (How foolish to let the foxes control education!) Let’s not fall into their trap and give the Foxes a free pass to enter the chicken coop whenever they think it good for foxes. Let’s oppose the Parental Rights Amendment as long as Section Two remains. And pray to our Creator, the triune God of the Bible, not to allow this amendment to become a part of the U. S. Constitution.

Yes, the question is misstated since it presumes that rights are not God given but Civil Government given. Properly asked the question should be: “Do you believe that the Second amendment was meant to be understood as protecting the God given right of self defense which implicitly means keeping and bearing arms?” ‘Where did God give this right to keep and bear arms?’ many will ask. He did so in the Sixth Commandment, “You shall not murder”, (Exodus 20:13). Historic protestant understanding of this can be found in the Westminster Shorter Catechism [1648], Question and Answer numbers 68 and 69 which state, “The sixth commandment requireth all lawful endeavours to preserve our own life, and the life of others. … The sixth commandment forbiddeth the taking away of our own life, or the life of our neighbour unjustly, or whatsoever tendeth thereunto.” Much more instruction is given in the companion Westminster Larger Catechism [1648], Question and Answer numbers 134 through 136.

We need to study the Old Testament more. Remember that Jonathan needed to attack the Philistine garrison in order to arm the Israelites? (1 Samuel 13:19-14:1ff) Arms control is an ancient tactic of all tyrants. When a civil ruler doesn’t want his subjects (er, citizens) to have and bear arms it is because he has a plan for his subjects that he is pretty sure they won’t like. Resistance to his will will not be tolerated. Doesn’t sound like a servant of the people, does it?

The Declaration of Independence is part of the organic body of law for the USA. This specifically means that the statements and presuppositions of the Declaration of Independence are the legal context for interpreting the US Constitution. Therefore, the US Constitution legally ought to be read with the understanding that rights have their source not in civil government but in the Creator! How many Christians even understand this fact? Patrick Henry most certainly did! It was this reason which caused him to be against the Bill of Rights for he feared that in the future, unchristian men would argue that the existence of the Bill of Rights demonstrates that the civil government is the source of rights. Further, Patrick feared that unscrupulous, power-hungry politicians would cite the Bill of Rights as the complete enumeration of rights hence saying that citizens do not have any rights EXCEPT those enumerated in the US Constitution. Was the great Patrick Henry correct? Yes, indeed. But I wonder if he could even have conceived that professing Christians would ever come to think of Civil Government as the source of rights? I doubt it for this view fundamentally presupposes the denial of the Rights of King Jesus! Hence a denial of Jesus as Lord.

May God help us to think Biblically on all issues and to reject our unbiblical rationalism. (2 Corinthians 10:5)

1 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,
3 “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”
4 He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.
5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying,
6 “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”
7 I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.
8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.
9 You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.
11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

A good friend of mine forwarded to me his letter to his congressman. It is worth reading so here it is:

“Congressman Tanner:
Your vote on the bailout bill was quite disappointing. While claiming to be a ‘blue dog’ fiscal conservative, you have voted for an unprecedented indemnification of the speculators on Wall Street. This move would de-value the dollar even further, and raise the price of fuel and other commodities to new record levels. You must see that it is the inflationary action of the Federal Government (money printing) that has created the crises as it is. It can not be solved with more printed money. Karl Marx called for the “centralization of credit in the hands of the State” – an approach that is furthered by the regulatory provisions of the Bill. Now the Senate version that is sent down to you has $110 billion of Pork and pet projects attached. An $810 billion devaluation of the US dollar in order to bailout private interests. I will do everything within my power as a citizen of this state to see that the supporters of this legislation are opposed and replaced.

PM”

To understand PM’s letter one must be reminded of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto in which he outlined ten steps to revolutionize a government into communism. Our American Republic has already been greatly modified from its founding upon Biblical Law and principles. Carefully reading the Bible one can see the antithesis, point by point between Christianity and Communism. Here is what Marx wrote:

“The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production.
These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class; if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.
In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”

Karl Marx is dead, but his antibiblical ideas are very much alive inside the DC beltway. Having departed from God’s revealed law, which regulates every area of life including economics, we are descending into statism and slavery. The government plantation is being built vote by vote and Massa has a definite plan for your life.

Where will the government come up with $810 billion? It will take it from you in taxes, take it from businesses who will pass it on to you in higher prices, and it will print some new money which will make your presently held money less valuable. Why should the American worker and taxpayer pick up the tab for those who were irresponsible financially?

Just to get you started seeing how Christianity and Communism are antithetical here is just one point. Communism’s third plank, “Abolition of all rights of inheritance.” Here is what God says in Proverbs 13:22, “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, and the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.” and in Proverbs 19:14, “House and wealth are an inheritance from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the LORD.” Inheritance taxes are an abomination in God’s sight and hinder the increasing prosperity of coming generations. Ah, but then, self-sufficient men don’t want to live on Massa’s plantation.

Something interesting to read: Soviet-style collapse in America’s future?

If God is so powerful and so good, why do bad things happen?

God is love. This is true even when he afflicts, for whom he loveth he chasteneth. We must not therefore infer that he does not love us, because he afflicts. The gardener prunes the grape which he values, not the thistle which he hates. The fruit tree that is highly prized is trimmed that it may bear more fruit, the forest tree that is designed for the flames is left to grow in unpruned luxuriance. Yet in answer to these assurances of God to us, we often say in our murmuring, “In what hast thou loved us. Where is the proof?” It is a mournful proof of human depravity that the love of God is often least acknowledged, where it is most manifested.

– Moore, Rev. T. V.; The Prophets of the Restoration: or Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi: A New Translation with Notes; Robert Carter and Brothers; New York; 1856; p.338.

The folks of Malachi’s day thought that the Lord owed them something. In particular they were of the opinion that they should receive material blessings from Him because they made an attempt at worshiping Him [a pretty poor attempt when you look at the quality of their offerings as described in chapter 1:6 - 2:9]. They sought God on their own terms and when He didn’t respond as they thought He should they became discouraged and upset with Him.

It struck me that folks today display this same attitude. Think of all the “health, wealth, and prosperity” preaching going on today, but don’t forget the myriads of churches that cater to the “felt needs” of “seekers” in an attempt to fill the pews. What would the prophet Malachi have thought of today’s churches? By and large, I don’t think he would be impressed, nor would he be very happy. I believe he would offer the same admonition that he offers in the closing verses of Malachi:

“For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,” says the Lord of hosts, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear My name the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.”

– Malachi 4:1-2, NASB

God owes us nothing. We own Him everything, especially those who are His covenant people. When a dark providence comes along, or we find ourselves being rightfully chastised, our first response should be to thank Him for his love. A good Father cares enough to do what is for our own good and for His glory ( Romans 8:28 ). Yet how quick are we to groan, grumble, and whine?

May our response and attitude be a biblical one. Let us follow Malachi’s admonition and walk in the fear of the Lord, going to meet with Him on His terms, not our own.

Let our religion be the religion of the mind, the religion of the heart, the religion of the life, – not a theory of doctrine, however ingenious, or even correct, – not a feeling casually, though it may be strongly, excited, – not an external and ritual service, however simple or however imposing, – not an assumed garb, however splendid, and gracefully worn; but a constituent — the governing-element of our intellectual and moral nature: not speculation – not enthusiasm – not superstition – not formalism – not hypocrisy: not exclusively doctrinal, or experimental, or liturgical, or professional, or practical; but all these in due proportion and degree, – the natural effect of the truth understood, and believed, and loved, ” faith purifying the heart, working by love, and overcoming the world.”

– John Brown, D. D., An Exposition of The Epistle of Paul The Apostle to The Galatians, Banner of Truth, 2001, pp. 362-63.

How often do we tend toward compartmentalization in our lives? We speak in terms of it being “time for work”, of having “family time”, or of the ever famous “me time“. But as Christians we must be ever mindful of the fact that Jesus claims dominion over every area of our lives. He is the One who enables us to work and has blessed us with families. And passages such as Deuteronomy 6:5 (“You e?shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” – ESV) would leave no place for so-called “me time“.

The false teachers who plagued the Galatians churches evidently practiced this idea of compartmentalization, Galatians 6:13. “For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law….” (ESV). And though they compelled the Galatians to be circumcised and follow the ceremonial laws of apostate Judaism they only kept these same laws when it was convenient to their own purposes.

We dare not live such divided lives if we would faithfully follow our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He rightfully claims sovereignty over every area of life. Therefore if we are to practice a true religion we must live every moment before the Lord and unto His glory. Anything less would be wrong. We dare not be guilty of the hypocrisy of the Judaisers.

Corum Deo!

Below is a post he made over at www.puritanboard.com. I think you’ll find his insight very interesting and thought provoking.

SUPERHEROES

“An’ I’ll know my song well before I start singin’ –Dylan”‘

They’re all around us – if movies and comics count, and they ought to, as our imaginations are filled with them and their exploits, and we dwell upon them, turning their deeds over and over in our minds.

What attracts us to them are the extraordinary powers they possess and wield, as well the unnaturally gifted and powerful villains they must face.

And we like that they are human, partaking of our condition, and often dealing with the very same issues we ourselves deal with.

Technology, superhuman strength, genius-level intelligence – these some of the weapons in their arsenals.

They strike a chord in the intuitive faculty of our hearts, for we know (those who do know) we are indeed surrounded by malign predators of genuinely supernatural power and wisdom, and we rejoice in the battle of titans, even if in fantasy. It does our hearts great good.

Yet, even as we rejoice in these wondrous tales, we overlook – or at least minimize – actual authentic heroes and heroines who are truly possessed of gifts and powers beyond the natural, but their exercise of them is very low-key, perhaps occult being a better word – used in the neutral sense of hidden from view (from its Latin root, occulere), as in occult blood in the stool, or occult carcinoma – for their mighty acts are generally not seen in the realm of the eye, nor are their implacable enemies visible either.

With a micro-manic tendency (as opposed to megalomanic) these who are called Lightbearers – after their Captain and Champion – often greatly underestimate and consequently undervalue the nature of their divinely altered beings. Once they were ragamuffin demon-spawn (even the greatest among them, princesses and kings alike), fit only for Gehenna, dump of rotten souls, but they were redeemed from this fate by a ransom of infinite price, and adopted into the royal line of the Son of God, made partakers of His Spirit, whence their abilities spring.

So many among them understand not that their simple words carry prophetic power greater than those born merely of woman [Luke 7:28], and that the power of death and life is in their tongues [Proverbs 18:21]. By their occult (unseen) activity they may tear down demonic strongholds, as they call upon the Master Warrior in whose life are their lives hid. The words they speak to their fellow humans, those yet demon-spawn walking captive to the evil one, may bring the entrance of eternal glory into their darkened breasts as the Saviour of the world is held up before them in His majesty, love and power. Those who have ears to hear, will hear.

Those angels who have keener discernment than movie producers observe the human scene. “Ahh! There goes one of ours!” they exclaim, “See how she has her eyes on Jesus, even though she cannot see Him in the flesh? See how she calls to Him in her distress, and receives the ‘glorious power which strengthens her unto all patience, and longsuffering with joyfulness, giving thanks unto the Father’? Now she carries herself like a queen, though she be harassed and afflicted!” “And look at that one! See, he is about to die from loss of blood and crushing wounds, but the name of the King of Heaven is on his lips, and the sound of it wafts into the ears of those standing by – even his killers – and the merciful One is granting some of them life and faith by it, and they are being made new even as they watch the blood of the brother they have broken seep into the ground. See, now their hearts are anguished, and they cry out to Jesus for mercy for what they have just done. Truly it is as dear Tertullian said, ‘The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.’ How exciting it is to watch these children of the King do their precious exploits against the prince of villains! How wonderful it will be to fellowship with them when they are all present in the Kingdom and everlasting glory!”

More like Hobbits, these, than the modern warriors of Hollywood, with their muscles and steel and weapons of death. But braver than the strongmen of earth they are, as toe-to-toe they stand with the dark angel, overcoming him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they love not their lives unto the death. (Revelation 12:11) More soldiers of the cross, than soldiers of glory (the women too!), for the King has taught them what manner of Spirit they are of.

These are exciting to watch and contemplate also! And such we are.