
Prayer is no substitute for obeying God: it cannot replace obedience. More than one man or woman has told me that his spouse's stubborn insistence that his prayer be answered has done damage to the relationship. If you are disregarding God's plain word to pray for a miracle, do not be surprised if his answer is your judgment.
Today, even the most conservative churches can scarcely be inconvenienced by trifles like defending the Christian Faith against assaults from without and betrayal from within.
This urging of Paul for men everywhere to pray reflects his doctrine of the church and his desire for those who might resist. Paul knew it was time for a theology of the church freed from the parochialism of Hebraic exclusivism.
Long-time readers will remember our reporting the vicious massacre at St. James Church in South Africa, just months before the "free and democratic" elections handed that nation over to Marxist terrorists in 1994. St. James, a multi-racial, evangelical church, was deemed a danger to the terror-mongers. During one evening service, five Pan-African Congress butchers, armed with assault rifles and hand grenades attacked during worship, indiscriminately killing men, women and children. Some will also remember the heroism of Charl Van Wycke, Frontline Fellowship staffer who chased off the terrorists with a tiny, five-shot, two-inch revolver. Now as Paul Harvey would say, here's the rest of the story.
If you wish to be an effective Christian teacher or parent, make your threats imminent, tangible and consistent. Don't bother about distant, inconsistent threats that only add stress and frustration to your life. Incompetent teachers earn contempt and laughter, instead of respect and obedience. You must guide your flock to safety and covenant keeping.
But many immigrants—however prepared they might have been to work, compete, sacrifice, scrape and scrimp in their pursuit of "the American Dream"—have failed to consider that their pursuit of "the dream" might lead their families into a nightmare. Their desire for "success" is understandable, even admirable. But the hidden costs are exacting a toll many were completely unprepared for. They simply neglected to put a column for "family" in their spreadsheet, or, having put it there, placed it last instead of first (under God).
The Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) has succeeded in fully liberating the whole of Western Equatoria. The fall of Bo, the last remaining Government of Sudan (GOS) garrison in the province makes Western Equatoria the first province of Sudan from which all the National Islamic Front (NIF) Arab forces have been eradicated. The distinctive red cross on blue and white, the Christian flag is now flying all over Western Equatoria.
As physicians, we must prevent the perversion of our time-honored ethics and the final dissolution of the sanctity of the patient-doctor relationship, while implementing the truly individually-based, patient-oriented free-market approach to medical care that is so desperately needed to derail the odious juggernaut of managed competition, a scheme that seeks to destroy the ethical practice of medicine — one of the great remaining legacies of Western civilization and the American way of life.
This last mission to the Balkans was both the most rewarding and the most heart-rending ever taken by our Outreach officers. Rewarding in that they were able to touch at least 2600 people in that region with much-needed food, clothing and shoes. Heart-rending in that they saw poverty, including children without shoes, and the deterioration of a nation. The story of this venture with God follows.
As Christians, we know only too well our imperfections and failings. We indeed continue to fall short of our calling to be holy as God is holy, to image him in our character and conduct. We daily struggle with sin and must continue to repent and confess our many trespasses. Genuine self-examination prevents us from succumbing to delusions of perfectionism. Instead, we readily acknowledge that we not only were wretched sinners who have been saved solely by the amazing grace of God through Jesus Christ, but that we yet continue to sin against a holy God, justly deserving by our present offenses his wrath and condemnation.
Westminster Biblical Missions (WBM) was born in 1973 in answer to a Macedonian call from Reformed believers in Korea and Pakistan. These believers were not asking for more missionaries, but for training so that they might finish the work of reaching their countrymen for Christ.
At last, the beauty of a free-market economy: Can there be a more perfect system that harnesses individual greed and selfishness, and puts them to work for the common good? Socialists fail to realize that were it not for free markets, many of our national and international problems would be accentuated rather than contained.
Over the last several decades, we have seen a large increase in the volume of voices from the environmental movement calling for less pollution, more recycling, and annihilation of the forest and mining industries. These voices have been instrumental in the formation of such groups as Earth First!, The Sierra Club, The Audobon Society, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They have pushed and applauded such legislation as The Wilderness Act and The Endangered Species Act. With these programs implemented, there has been increasing government control over human treatment of the environment. This control results in prohibiting people from building on their own property, improving their land, and from logging both public and private forests.
In today's world there exists a widespread belief that new technology such as computers and machinery are creating massive unemployment and rendering human labor obsolete. This is not true. Ideally, having machines and computers do all our "dirty work" would make our lives much better. After all, isn't this why our primitive ancestors created the wheel?
A recent issue of The Economist proclaimed "the disappearing taxpayer." It acknowledged the difficulty governments are beginning to experience in taxing their citizens owing to two phenomena: the mobility of capital in the global marketplace and the shift of commerce to the Internet. The difficulty can only become more acute with time.
I have been meaning to write this letter for a long time, and being highly motivated this Sunday I thought now would be the best time.
An absurd notion, much too prevalent in Christian and non- Christian circles, is that what our schools need is a return to a classical educational curriculum. This makes about as much sense as a return to Greco-Roman religion in order to have a true revival of religion.
Rationalism has often "proven" the existence of God with its use of reason, but the god verified by the rationalist's reason is the god of his imagination, and, for far too many people, this is the only god they know. The living God of the Bible is offensive to the moral sense of fallen men. The rough edges of fallen man’s god are smoothed out until he becomes acceptable to reason, and also agreeable to the sinner's idea of what god should be.
Random thoughts by R.J. Rushdoony as a result of his reading and cultural observations.
We are the Fifth Grade Glass of Maranatha Christian Academy, in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
I met Shaul (sha-OOL) Mayer ben Yitzchak at Hebrew School, the Yeshiva of Bensonhurst. Jewish kids who attended public school (like me) were sent to Hebrew School in the afternoons in the hope that they would learn enough Hebrew to avoid humiliating dad at the Bar Mitzvah.