It's Ethics, Stupid.

It's Ethics, Stupid.

The problem is always ethics. America's problems are at root
ethical ones, and we have been flirting with the precipice for
decades. Ethical standards are scoffed at in every area of our
public life: government, economics, science, education, and
religion.

Michael Polanyi taught us that only the scientific guru is qualified
to know where the data should lead; no wonder the science is
bogus, from evolution to global warming, to homosexuality, to
alcoholism, to vaccination for measles that doesn't cause autism,
to bogus flat earth allegations, etc. Pseudo-Calvinists taught the
church the same thing; that careful scholarship is not necessary;
we know where the truth is and circular reasoning is the norm.

"Why listen to anybody or take counsel and advice? I have a good
heart; I cannot be wrong. The result is proof-texting to support the
opinions I already have.  I am secure in my box.  Now, if I can just
find a smaller one to crawl into."

Economics is based on greed and political influence, no matter
who is in power, for favors are shown to political allies and
cronies. Public education has become a public lobbying institution
for sorcery and socialism. Government service means hiding the
faults of your supporters, a double standard for your enemies,
and spending the public treasure to advance personal agendas
and corrupt social experiments.

Empty and Alone

You know the type. He has no core, no
fixed principle. Because of that he judges
according to appearances and is a sucker
for every sales pitch.

He is described in Eph. 4:14: "That we
henceforth be no more children, tossed to
and fro, and carried about with every wind
of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and
cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait
to deceive...." 

"Sleight" refers to the casting of dice; 

"cunning craftiness" is the ability to present false wisdom, things 

that sound good. They are constantly seduced from the way by 

those on each side of the path, lying in wait to deceive.

These are like "wandering stars," planets with no fixed place 

in the heavens. Here, there, everywhere. Fluttering here and 

there and sipping at this and that, never satisfied, never certain. 

Because they have refused to embrace the truth and grapple it 

to their hearts, they are ever learning and never able to come 

to the knowledge of the truth.

Isa 57:20 "But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it 

cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt."

2Tim. 3:7-8 "Ever learning, and never able to come to the 

knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood 

Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, 

reprobate concerning the faith."

It is their minds that are corrupt, blasted by God, destroyed for 

lack of knowledge, knowledge rejected and cursed by them, 

turning good for evil and defending evil as good.

Hosea 4:9-11 "And there shall be, like people, like priest: and I 

will punish them for their ways, and reward them their doings. 

For they shall eat, and not have enough: they shall commit 

whoredom, and shall not increase: because they have left off 

to take heed to the LORD. Whoredom and wine and new 

wine take away the heart."

Flapping Wings

First Published Tuesday, December 30, 2003. The Following link

will not work at this late date.

We're all supposed to be dead by now - The Washington Times: Pruden 

on Politics: " Here's what my Internet correspondent reminded me of 

(and if you see it on the Internet, it must be so): 

'According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who 

were kids in the '40s, '50s, '60s and '70s probably shouldn't have 

survived. Our mothers put us in cribs covered with bright-colored 

lead-based paint.

'There were no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, 

and when we rode our bicycles into traffic (bike paths were unheard 

of), we had no helmets. If we didn't feel like pumping a bike up the 

hills, we could always hitch a ride with strangers. There were no seat 

belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day 

was particularly special.

'We drank water from an old garden hose, not from a bottle. One 

bottle of bellywash could be shared with up to four friends, drinking 

from the bottle, and no one died.

'We gorged on cakes, pies, candy, bread and butter, and anything 

we could find with lots of sugar in and on it, and we were never 

overweight because we were always running through the 'hood. "

I can add that I have lived through the frights over nuclear holocaust 

with backyard bomb shelters [a must item in the 60's], fears over the 

coming ice age cause by global cooling, the Red Scare focusing on 

Ike who was a conscious member of the communist conspiracy

according to Robert Welch, the dread of a silent spring where no 

birds would sing because they would all be dead by pollutants in 

the air and water, overpopulation so that there would be no room 

for us to stand on this cold and polluted and starving planet, global 

warming evidenced by snowstorms and hurricanes so that we would 

all fry, and worry about lesser matters like meteor or planetoid 

crashes into the earth or the sun burning out or exploding. 

Guns were an especially evil and needed to be confiscated--or 

at least licensed and tightly controlled before they ganged up on 

humans and spread death and misery everywhere. But the scares 

sold newspapers, magazines, and provided jobs for people who 

couldn't find anything useful to do except scare people. 

The scare-mongers wanted a monopoly on the scare business so 

they warned about preachers who spoke of divine judgment and 

hell fire. The scare-mongers only feared personal hells, not 

collective ones. In the churches the trouble was with the organs 

and long sermons--these were replaced by guitars and women 

giving "devotionals." After all, doctrine divides good human beings 

and brings war and hatred. Let's see who can show the most love 

by believing as little as possible. 

After all, the world is a stinking place, and the only way to postpone 

the Horror, the Horror, is to catch a little love somewhere and to 

have someone who is easy on the mind. It wouldn't matter where 

you found the love, because true love will be willing to let the bird 

go, so you can have her if you can catch her. The greatest fear of 

all is to entangle your life with "commitments" for they just drag you 

down and get in the way of what you might want to do. How can I 

be true to myself if I constantly make commitments to others? 

A person did not fear the disgrace if he was a liar, an adulterer, a 

sodomite, or a prolific producer of bastard children. The f- word 

gained respectability, but if a person used the n- word you were 

dead, which you also were if you called a football player a little 

monkey, a term used by Howard Cosell, a term which he also used 

with respect to his grandchildren. The greatest fear was not to 

conform to the prevailing standards of non-conformity and social 

correctness, which imposed a societal strait-jacket worse than all 

the landed gentry of Europe in the last five centuries.

The only thing we had to fear was fear itself, and there were a great 

many people who made careers by junk science and phony "studies," 

financed by government, to make us afraid of things we had never 

thought of before. We wouldn't listen to our mothers who tried to 

make us put our galoshes on, but we meekly surrendered to seat 

belts and other meddling from the Nanny State. See my article on 

the Nanny Church in the Nanny State.

Yep, it's a wonder any of us is alive. Some of us aren't. I remember 

a boy I went to school with who burned himself up about 50 years 

ago while stealing gasoline from a farm vehicle. Another boy drank 

himself to death. They didn't listen to their mothers or fathers, but 

that generation seemed to surrender without a struggle to the Nanny 

State, buying into the propaganda that bureaucrats know what is best. 

They hated their mothers and fathers and surrendered liberty without 

a peep to governments. After all, they were an enlightened bunch who 

were assured that they were the first to walk the earth who knew what 

was wrong with the world and that they would fix it up to be safe for 

everyone, especially for those who didn't seem to care much about 

the Ten Commandments.

Solomon said it best, Proverbs 12:10 "A righteous man regardeth the 

life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." A 

good man will be recognized even by the animals he owns, but the 

tender mercies of the ungodly unhinge everyone around them. If we 

have many more tender mercies from this crowd who are experts on 

what we are to be afraid of, none of us will survive. Let us follow the 

example of Nehemiah and "chase them from us." Nehemiah 13:28

Don't despise small things. That butterfly flapping its wings in Moldavia 

might very well cause a hurricane in Miami. I, for one, will keep my 

wings flapping as long as I can.

The Scourge of Innocent Blood

“And the LORD sent against
him bands of the Chaldees,
and bands of the Syrians, and
bands of the Moabites, and
bands of the children of Ammon,
and sent them against Judah to
destroy it, according to the word
of the LORD, which he spake by
his servants the prophets. Surely
at the commandment of the
LORD came this upon Judah,
to remove [them] out of his
sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that
he did;

And also for the innocent blood that he shed: for he filled 
Jerusalem with innocent blood; which the LORD would not 
pardon.” (2 Kings 24:2-4 AV)

“ Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a
murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely
put to death. And ye shall take no satisfaction for him that
is fled to the city of his refuge, that he should come again
to dwell in the land, until the death of the priest. So ye shall
not pollute the land wherein ye [are]: for blood it defileth the
land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is
shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.” (Numbers
35:31-33 AV)

----------------------

The sin of murder is a horror in the eyes of the Lord. Murder
is the taking of innocent life, whether it is the slaying of a
neighbor who has committed no crime, an enemy who does
not deserve to die, or the murder of a baby in the womb, or
the slaughter of the old and dying.

Life is a precious gift from God alone and it is to be esteemed
as one of God's finest gifts to us. In despising men's lives we
are transgressing on the glory of God.  It is no wonder that
life becomes cheap when it is thought to be the result of
impersonal processes in the slime and that man comes from
the lower animals.

A civilization can choose to believe that slimy story if he wants
to, but he has no choice about the consequences that come
from his acceptance of the story: laziness, fornication, adultery,
sodomy, theft, lying, and worst of all, the murder of innocents.

Only the blood of the transgressors can cleanse the land of the
blood of the innocents. If a nation does not punish murderers
and limit the assault on human life, then God will Himself bring
cleansing in the blood of the citizens of that land.

Abraham Lincoln understood this. In his second Inaugural
Address, Lincoln understood that the hand of God was in
the shedding of the blood of the American people: "Fondly 
do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty 
scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if 
God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled 
by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of 
unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop 
of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another 
drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand 
years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments 
of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

Will God require of us Americans again the price of blood?
Will armies again march across our beloved country, through
the fields of New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina,
Tennessee, Kansas, Oregon and California until we have
been cleansed of the blood of innocents? In the hardness
of our hearts we have slaughtered innocents by the hands
of our doctors and medical profession for many years now,
millions and millions of babies have been thrown into the
garbage cans, their bodies dismembered, because they
were inconvenient and unwanted. We have sacrificed them
to our lusts, just as David sacrificed Uriah for his lust for
Bathsheba, and as Saul destroyed the Gibeonites.

In the Civil War, it was Americans shedding the blood of
Americans; who will God raise up to cleanse our land the
next time? Will he deliver us into the hands of Islamic fascists
who are implacable, cruel, and love slaughter more than we
can imagine?

Let us pray for our bleeding, suffering land. Let us pray that
God will cleanse us from our iniquities and transgressions,
that He will remember mercy and turn us again into the ways
of righteousness. That ministers will once more preach the
whole word of God and not the imaginations of their own
hearts.

It is the mercy of God that we so desperately need: the grace
that transforms the heart and changes the mind.  This is the
work that Jesus came to do, as the prophet Isaiah wrote:

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD [is] upon me; because the
LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the
meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to
proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the
prison to [them that are] bound; 2 To proclaim the
acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance
of our God; to comfort all that mourn; 3 To appoint unto
them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes,
the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the
spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of
righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might
be glorified.” (Isaiah 61:1-3 AV)

Jesus claimed its fulfillment in Luke: “The Spirit of the Lord
[is] upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the
gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach
the acceptable year of the Lord. 20 And he closed the book,
and he gave [it] again to the minister, and sat down. And the
eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on
him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture
fulfilled in your ears.” (Luke 4:18-21 AV)

“Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye
have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new
spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?”
(Ezekiel 18:31 AV)

"O Lord God, do not to us sinful Americans according to
our sins and iniquities, but pour out thy Holy Spirit upon
our land, to turn us from murder and strife and iniquity and
uncleanness and restore unto us thy favor and grace. Raise
up faithful and true ministers and churches and families and
men and women who will love you and keep your
commandments. Set the Lord Jesus before our eyes, crucified
for our sins, and grant us grace to believe and cast our sins
behind us, O Lord our God. Take away our idols and false
religions from among us and give us faith to cast all idols
behind us and pray to you only, for you are the Father of our
Lord Jesus, and there is no other living and true God. Amen
and Amen."

I Cry with My Mouth, O Lord!

Psalm 66:17-20 Meditation and Prayer

O Lord God, you have created all things and all things are yours. You desire
that we present our bodies to you, that all we do is for the glory of God.

I cry to you with my mouth. I will take words and offer them to you; not my
words which are frail and useless, but words that are taught by thy Spirit and
are found in Scripture. These wonderful words lift you up when they are on
our tongues in prayers, singing, and exhortations.

You will not hear us if we regard iniquity in our hearts, but you have renewed
 my heart so that you will hear me. How precious this is, because from the
heart come the issues of life, and from the heart come the words of the tongue.

I could not praise you with my mouth or had thy words upon my tongue,
if you had not given me a new heart as you promised. I have no praise, no
prayers, no petitions, no fervent longing after You, O God, except that
which You have given me. I confess dear Lord, that I could only love
Thee because You have first loved me.

Search me, O Lord, and try me. See if there be any wicked way in me.
Lead me in Thy life everlasting. Blessed, indeed, are You, O Lord, and
nothing is hidden from you. You have not turned away the prayers of
Your servants; nor have you taken your mercy from me.

You did not hesitate to offer up your body for me, Lord Jesus. Give me
Your grace that I do not withhold any of mine from You: that my heart,
my lips, my mouth, my tongue may carry your praises now and forever.
In the precious Name of the Son of God. Amen and Amen.

17 I cried unto him with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue.
18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:
19 But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer.
20 Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.