February 5, 2010

200 Million Dead Babies since 1960?
The Pill - A Real Pill

Today's program “celebrates” the 50th anniversary of the Pill, developed and tested by Doctors Gregory Pincus and John Rock and released to the public in 1960. Funding was initially provided by Margaret Sanger via her friend, Kathryn McCormick. The initial funding of $40,000 turned into a total bequest of $2,000,000. We encourage everybody who has ever used the pill to send a thank you card to Planned Parenthood, and acknowledge the commitment of the organization's founder.

Importantly, the abortifacient capacity of the pill was largely ignored until Christian author, Randy Alcorn and several others began to publicize it in the early 1990s. But then again, society didn't really care. After all, we are too much propelled by the existentialist, me-centered world to care about what happens to some stupid cell! To think of how many Christians have wittingly or unwittingly killed millions of their children since 1960 is jarring, to say the least.

About 1/4 of women on the pill still ovulate, but pregnancies are as low as 3-4%. Given that 30% of American women 18-45 years of age are on the pill (http://www.cbs.nl/en-GB/menu/themas/bevolking/publicaties/artikelen/archief/2009/2009-2725-wm.htm), about 6% of American women are having pill-induced abortions in any given year (and it may be as many as 12 abortions)! I would estimate that this would be anywhere from 3- 10 million extra abortions per year!

The true number of aborted children since 1960 or 1973 in this country is far more than 50 million. It may be closer to 200 million if you include those killed by the pill, the day-after pill, and RU486. How much of the birth rate drop from 4.0 (in 1950) to 2.0 presently is made up of dead, aborted babies?

A lot of doctors, pastors, and people with a little basic knowledge concerning the functioning of the pill could have warned their people about it. But somehow, our Christian society didn't really care. After all, “It was just one stupid cell. And, I have MY life, MY quality of life, and MY health to think about here.” BTW, ungodly herbologists and witches have always been well aware of the sorts of plants that induce abortions. There truly is nothing new under the sun. . . just a whole lot more naive Christians, I guess.

May God have mercy on us.

January 31, 2010

Television Broadcast

After seven years of broadcasting, our Generations Radio program is now available in video at TheHomeschoolChannel.TV. The American Family Association has graciously provided air time for us through their on-line network. Together with our team that films and edits each program, we’re hoping the video content will add some educational value to the program. We know a number of home school families that listen to the program (and will hopefully watch the program), as a helpful supplement to their history, social studies, and civics curriculum. Presently, the channel is in pilot launch. Although we have been told that some member(s) of the Generations broadcast team "look better on radio," we're hoping that won't discourage viewers from checking us out on The HomeschoolChannel.TV.

January 7, 2010

Shepherd Center. . . Week 1

The Shepherd Center has left the dock!

We study together. We eat. We talk. We work. We worship.

It’s not exactly college. But then again Jesus never bothered with a college for his disciples.

Eight young men and three mentors lived together and worked together for our first week in the Shepherd Center at the Swanson house.

They serve as interns for the Generations ministry, but more importantly they are learning in a relational, and an intellectually and spiritually challenging atmosphere.

I trust, by God’s grace we will have in these fine young men a brotherhood of future leaders.

December 21, 2009

What Kevin Swanson was Doing in 1977

Some have asked me why I do the Family Bible Study Guides. I have been writing these little study guides since I was 12 years old. This morning, I found a Study Guide I wrote for the book of Romans in 1977 for our family devotions in Karatsu, Japan. What follows is the content:

May 30, 1977

Romans 1:16-17

Paul here follows up what he had just said of his readiness to preach the Gospel at Rome, by declaring that he was not ashamed of it. He knew from personal experience the opposition which the gospel everywhere encountered. By the pagans it was branded Atheism; and by the Jews it was abhorred as subverting the law and tending to licentiousness; while both the Jews and Gentiles united in denouncing the Christians as disturbers of the public peace, who in their pride and presumption, separated themselves from the rest of mankind. Besides, a crucified Savior was to the one a stumbling-block, and to the other foolishness (1 Cor. 1:23).

Even they who have tasted of the grace of God, are liable to experience, and often to yield to the deeply-rooted and sinful feeling of being ashamed of the things of God. . .

So 33 years later, I’m still at it. My first Proverbs Family Bible Study Guide is slated for publication in February of 2010.

December 8, 2009

5 Reasons to Come to the 2010 Conference

Reason #5 - Because there’s no better place in the world to be than the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

Need more convincing than the pictures above? Well, then, you will just have to come to the Conference and see for yourself!

Reason #4 – The Wintons

The Wintons - A nationally-known, award-winning homeschool bluegrass band that can strum out an Orange Blossom Special so fast it will knock our ears out! What gets better than that?

Reason #3 – Visionary and Practical Speakers for your Family!

R.C. Sproul Jr. , Dennis Peacocke, Scott Brown, Doug Tjaden, Marcia Washburn, James Lansberry, and more!

The conference will be packed with sessions that will equip your family with a strong household economic vision and give you practical suggestions in making that vision workable in your family.

NEW!!! A full schedule is now available online here.

Reason #2 – Pizza, Pizza, Pizza

At Generations, we like Pizza. And it’s not just the pizza we’re excited about. We like to meet the folks that make the effort to come to our conferences. We believe in relationships, hospitality, and good old-fashioned Christian fellowship. That’s why we are inviting the whole conference over to our homes on Saturday night after the conference. Pizza for the whole family is included in the price of the conference!

We know that most conferences don’t finish off with dinner in the homes of the folks running the conference.

Of course, we aren’t most conferences!

Reason #1 – At $99 for the whole family, you can’t afford NOT to come!

Register by December 12 to Save $50 off regular price of $149. With the Saturday night pizza dinner included in the price of registration, you won’t believe this price!

Or, for those wishing to support Generations with Vision, make a tax-deductible donation of $250 or more by Dec 31, and receive a complimentary family pass to the 2010 Conference! Click HERE to donate now.

Register Now.

December 4, 2009

War

I hope you caught a terrific little article in the latest Imprimis, based on a lecutre given by a Dr. Victor Hanson of the Hoover Institute on the Future of Western War.

Here are the Cliff Notes:

1) By the rapid dissemination of information and technology, the world is changing shape. Someone in the Hindu Kush tonight can download a supplicated article on how to make an IED.

2) The old wartime codes of honor are gone (especially when fighting Muslim nations.)

3) There is no monolithic west.

4) Our society values the lives of our young men much more than Afghan societies value the lives of theirs.

Now here are my comments:

1) What I think Dr. Hanson is saying in 4) is that the Fundamentalist Muslims have something to die for, while guys in the west still have something to live for - their 4000 sq. ft. houses, their 1.2 kids, and a Starbucks Latte at 10:00 am. In the end, this will make the Muslims better fighters, at least longer fighters.

2) There will always be wars. It's just a question of who will be fighting who in this world. Who has a reason to fight? Muslims will fight. They have a reason to fight. They have a religiously-based, Take-Over-the-World Philosophy, and they were shoved back into their hole at Malta 500 years ago, and now they are starting to feel their wild oats. They've also seen a 10-fold increase in world population since 1900.

The Chinese will want to fight too.

3) The future of war will include WMD’s, assuming of course that God chooses not to pull the plug on this thing. (There are a few of us who still believe in human depravity.)

4) Because information and technology is going through a steady decentralizing process, get ready for decentralized war in the form of more terrorist events, guerilla warfare, and militia-based operations. Of course, this will make it practically impossible for one nation to rule the world and engage every skirmish.

5) Our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will only serve to intensify the religious fervor of fundamentalistic Islam. We hoped that the Gospel of Democratic Secular Materialism would squelch fundamentalistic Islam. It's too late. Our secular materialistic dreams, our worship of STUFF in the west is dying in an economic collapse anyway.

6) The nations and empires of men will always be killing each other off, but the peaceful kingdom of Christ will steadily expand around this sin-soaked globe. Eph. 1:22.

November 30, 2009

A Church Leadership Conference, Castle Rock, Colorado – March 5, 2010

As economies tighten, our church in Castle Rock, Colorado has really had its hands full trying to keep our widows and single mothers off of welfare and their children out of the public schools. Lately, we have had significant challenges with a number of our folks being under-employed or unemployed.

As true pastors and shepherds in Christ’s church, we want to taken appropriate responsibility for these needs. Over the years, we have employed hundreds of thousands of dollars in our church for the care of the poor.

Sometimes we wonder what we would do if President Obama doesn’t save us, and things get even worse. Are we properly addressing a socialist mentality that creeps into our communities? Are we preparing now for the failure of social security in 2035?

We are struggling as we try to revive a meaningful diaconate in a socialist world. Now with socialist medicine fast descending upon us, we feel the time has never been more important for caring elders and deacons to come together and discuss biblical charitable systems, economics, and medical care.

Are these issues important to your elders and deacons in your church? Are they coming up in conversations? If so, you may be interested in a Church Leadership Conference sponsored in March of 2010.

Generations with Vision is sponsoring a Church Leadership Conference on Economics issues (as part of the Family Economics conference) in Castle Rock, Colorado on March 5th and 6th, 2010. The Leadership conference takes place on Friday, March 5th. We’ll hear from several pastors (R.C. Sproul, Jr. and Scott Brown) on these things, and there will be good time for discussion. Also, we will provide a lunch for the pastors, elders, and deacons attending.

We need your RSVP’S. If you would need a scholarship to make the registration cost, please let me know. Early registration deadline for the conference is December 12, 2009. Check out the conference at www.conference2010.com.

May God bless you as you seek to fulfill the James 1:27 and 1 Timothy 5 mandates in your churches.

November 24, 2009

A Shepherd Center in the Rockies

On January 5th, 2010, we open our first Shepherd Center in our home with 9 young men and 2 mentors participating.

Call it higher education. Call it mentorship. Call it what you will.

We want to combine worship, study, and life, and thoroughly integrate these elements. We’re done with separating the worship of God from the chemistry laboratory. We’re through with dualism. The separation of discipleship and education has been ruinous for higher education and seminary, and this we believe is the root of the undoing of the faith in America and in the western world.

For 3 days each week, we’ll study together, worship together, and work together in the confines of a 1700 square foot basement.

Our hope is to renew relational living, relational education, and a God-centered life in a lost and lonely world. As we face the breakdown of humanism again (after a 1,000 year renewed experiment with it), Christians will develop new forms of education or discipleship to replace the heavily institutionalized approaches used by the humanists.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer strikes at the heart of community in his book “Life Together,” a book we recommend for the men participating in our Shepherd Center out here on the eastern plains of Colorado.

Here are some of the distinctives for our center:

- We’re focusing on local men. These men need to feel themselves still connected to the family and local church. We do not want 16-24 year old men to uproot themselves from their communities and revert to the non-covenantal life of the vagabond in the city of anonymity and unaccountability.

- We will teach Bible and the Classics from the City of God and the City of Man, and provide the sharp contrast. We will NOT separate “Bible School” from “Secular College Learning.” This is a false dichotomy.

- Each Shepherd Center will build another Shepherd Center.

- We will not charge the men anything. They will live with the mentors (at least for part of each week). We will provide 1 on 1 accountability. The class size never exceeds 12, but will probably hover between 3 and 8. This is a really bad business plan, and probably wouldn’t work as a college.

- We will maximize on the value of long-term relationships.

- Our goal is to produce humble, mighty shepherds for future homes and churches in Colorado. Leaders - yes. But not as the Gentiles produce them. Leaders as Jesus would have produced them.

- Our model - Jesus took 12 disciples with him for 3 years. It was teaching on the way, and almost immediate application on the way. It’s the University of Jesus.

November 21, 2009

Get More Involved with Generations

You can be a member of the online Generations Live Studio Audience, and start contributing your ideas, questions, and feedback to the program, realtime.

Through our new web conferencing system, it’s easy! We typically record our programs on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings at 11:00 am Mountain Time. You can feedback by chat or call a toll free number to join in the conversation. E-mail our IT guy if you are interested - jack@generationswithvision.com.

A Program Guide for Generations

Folks, you also can stay up to date on what’s happening in the studio by following us on Twitter. We will give you regular updates on program concepts, interviews scheduled, etc.

November 12, 2009

Relational families and churches - What a mess!

If you can hermetically seal yourself off from family relationships, you might find yourself sinning less because there would be nobody to offend. There would be no dishonor of parents and no honor of parents, no unloving and unkind words spoken, and no sibling rivalry. Oh, what a wonderful world this would be! When parents bring their children home and begin to work on these relationships, they always find themselves sinning more. Professional teachers will tell you that they seldom yell at the students in the classroom, but if they were to try to tutor their own children at home, they find themselves quickly raising the decibels and launching into a tirade over some Algebra problem! Let me tell you, the best way to keep the barn clean, is to keep the cows clean out of it (Prov. 14:4). Should parents allow their children into the house and into their lives, they’ll begin to notice piles of defecation lying about. Like water poured into a dirty glass, relationships will dislodge the crud caked on the bottom of our hearts, bringing it all to the surface. Where people isolate themselves from relationships and give no opportunity for love, joy, peace, and longsuffering to operate, there will be very little sanctifying work of the Spirit accomplished.

What does the world think about Christians who choose to live in relationship and accountability with each other? “Oh, the poor family that has to deal in relationships, and that poor church that has to deal in relationships.”

It would have been so much easier to just institutionalize everybody, program everything, and then you wouldn’t have to deal with the fall out of conflicts and reconciliation and all that sort of rot. They had to stay around the foyer of the church and get to know each other, and engage in 1000 bouts of hospitality. They really had to go and get to know each other!

November 6, 2009

Cincinnati - December 10-12, 2009

I'm getting pumped up about the NCFIC Sufficiency of Scripture conference, scheduled in Cincinnati for December 10th-12th.

Scott Brown tells me he's got over 1000 people signing up so far.

Why is this conference important? Couple of reasons. . .

Serious-minded Christians are grappling with the issue of the relevance of the spheres of church and family. Both covenant church and the covenant family have been terribly de-relevantized by a radical social system that utterly repudiates covenant relationships for statism. Pastors and churches all over America face the slow erosion of the church as an institution over 300 years, and they have a hard time identifying the cause. Consider briefly one simple metric.

Prior to the reformation, the church consumed about 25% of the economy, while the state was relatively small. (The king typically had a hard time taxing the people, because of the pesky Magna Carta). So here's the breakdown for the economy prior and after the reformation:

Economy of Society:

Before the Reformation:

Church - 30%

State - 5%

Family - 65%

After the Reformation:

Church - 10%

State - 15%*

Family - 75%

*The state in places like England benefited greatly by the confiscation of church lands from the Roman Church.

Today:

Church - 2%**

State - 65%***

Family - 33%

** Average tithing to church is far less than ever before in western countries.

*** This Government Spending Per the GNI hovered around 50% in America through the 1990s and 2000s. It is climbing fast now in this country and most other socialist countries in the west.

As you can see, the big losers over the last 300 years have been the family AND the church. Both suffer from the socialist/humanist revolutions of the last few centuries.

This is why a conference on Sphere Jurisdictions is probably the most powerful, the most relevant, the most important conference that anybody could ever hold anywhere in Europe or the Americas in this the early part of the 21st century.

Society is in great turmoil. I say that Christians and Christian leaders had better get back in the game and start talking sphere jurisdictions, and the sufficiency of scripture in sphere jurisdictions. This is what Scott Brown is doing with this powerful conference scheduled for December 10-12th, 2009. Visit ncfic.org for more info.

November 5, 2009

Faith

As I study the history of theological controversies, cults, and denominationalism, I am coming to the conclusion that most if not all of the divisions inside and outside of Christian orthodoxy are a result of the incipient inability of men to deal with the incomprehensible mysteries and apparent paradoxes of determinism-free will, faith-works, unity-particularity, heart-hands, and the individual-corporate relationship with God. Pride inevitably presses men to say too much and over-systematize in their theologies. For example, when pride gets way out of hand, and somebody rejects the tension of the the unity and particularity in the Trinity, we get the extremely wayward Arians.

Those holding the paradoxes in proper tension, humbly acknowledging the mysteries will be first in the kingdom. I guess what I'm trying to say is the last shall be first. He that humbleth himself (in the epistemological sense) shall be exalted.

Meanwhile, the humanist philosophers have never answered the problem of the unity and particular or the determinism/indeterminism conundrum. They answer the impossibilities with incoherencies. We explain impossibilities with incomprehensibilities. You can be proud and self-contradictory on the one hand, if you want to be a humanist and abandon Christian orthodoxy. Otherwise, you can humble yourself and acknowledge the incomprehensibilities.

October 26, 2009

Not Much Has Changed in 400 Years?

Nearly four hundred years ago, a great pastor, Richard Baxter warned parents about the great danger of Christian children associating with friends who do not fear the living and the true God. Baxter writes, “Keep your children as much as may be from ill company, especially of ungodly playfellows. It is one of the greatest dangers for the undoing of children in the world; especially when they are sent to common schools: for there is scarce any of those schools so good, but hath many rude and ungodly ill-taught children in it.”¹

The powerful influence of peers upon a child’s character and culture should never be underestimated. A child might have Charles Darwin, Frederich Neitzche, and ten other atheist teachers lecturing to him four hours a day. But the influence of ungodly peers the other four hours a day will in most cases yield more unsavory influence than the boring lectures from the atheists.

¹ Richard Baxter, Christian Directory, Part II, Ch. X, Direct. XV.

October 22, 2009

What’s on My Bed Stand

When I meet somebody for the first time and I’m over at their home, one of the first things I do, is quickly scan the coffee table, the bookshelves, the bathroom shelf, and the bed stands for books. If I want to get to know them in 40 seconds flat, this is the best way to do it.

So what’s on my bed stand, you‘re wondering. . . Here’s the current fodder:

• Augustine’s City of God
• R.L. Dabney’s Evangelical Eloquence
• Irenaeus’ Against Heresies
• Alfred Lansing’s Endurance
• R.J. Gore’s Covenantal Worship
• Milton Vincent’s A Gospel Primer
• John Ashton’s In Six Days

October 15, 2009

The Genesis Family Bible Study Guide - Now Available

Generations with Vision is pleased to announce the release of the latest book in our Family Bible Study Guide series. In this guide, Kevin Swanson introduces the book of Genesis, which contains the first three thousand years of world history. This is History 101. It is also the history that God thinks is important. While men were busy building their first proud empires, the God who created the universe is more interested in one solitary family wandering about the plains of Canaan, building altars and worshiping God as a family.

Visit our product page to find out more or to order.

October 12, 2009

Rest in Peace

He fought the good fight. He finished his course. He kept the faith. Christopher Klicka, worldwide advocate of homeschooling is now with the Lord.

October 5, 2009

Prayer Needed For Chris Klicka

As I write this, our good friend and home school advocate, Chris Klicka is in hospice care in Colorado Springs. Doctors have told his family that he is very close to the end. As many of you know, Chris has suffered from Multiple Sclerosis for 15 years. Last Monday, before he was admitted to the hospital, he told me that when he first contracted MS, he prayed a "Hezekiah prayer," asking the Lord for an additional 15 years on his life. He told me he believed that God answered that prayer.

Chris Klicka has served Colorado for many years as our HSLDA-appointed attorney, our legal advocate in the courts and legislatures. Together with Mike Farris and Mike Smith, Chris fought many battles across the United States to obtain freedom for home schooling in 1980s and 1990s. In fact, of the many battles for family and freedom waged over the last half century, this is the only substantial battle that has been won, and Chris Klicka was at the forefront of these important struggles.

While the movement burgeoned from 10,000 faithful to over 2 million, I can’t think of any leader or speaker in the Christian Home Education movement who has provided more faithful encouragement to more people than Chris. He was HSLDA’s most popular speaker for many years, and from what Mike Smith told me several years ago, nobody has sold more books that have encouraged the troops than Chris. His most popular book is Home schooling - The Right Choice.

Generations from now, people will look back at a fledgling movement begun by a few pioneers in the 1980s and 1990s, and Chris Klicka’s name will appear on the short list of men and women who contributed the most to it. Not many movements in the 1980s and 1990s would renew a Christ-centered approach to education, bring mothers home to nurture their children, restore healthy father-son relationships, re-integrate families, and vastly improve standardized test scores in academics. These were the decades marking an end of an era, when man abandoned truth and relationships in a lost and lonely world. In many ways, the enemy had triumphed. But did he?

We are amazed how God used a man with a twisted body, rolling on to the stages of so many convention centers to share a message of resurrection hope, of freedom from big-government systems, of faith in God’s power, and just plain old-fashioned encouragement for moms and dads laboring away in the kitchens and living rooms across the country.

It was impossible not to think of the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 12: “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

Please keep Chris and his family in your prayers.

BTW, you can check on Chris’ status at www.caringbridge.org/visit/chrisklicka/journal

October 3, 2009

Mark Your Calendars!

Right now, profound social and cultural shifts are driving political and economic changes that will impact every family in America in the next several decades. Failing to understand the times and take necessary steps to address these changes may very well result in the destruction of your family.

We have an opportunity unparalleled in this nation's history. The faulty economic system we have inherited from our great grandparents is failing. The salvific promises of a Messianic State will come to nothing. But this is just the time to rebuild our family economies on Biblical principles. Equipped with a Biblical vision, families will not only survive during these difficult economic times, but thrive!

For visionary families who want to be prepared for what God has in store, this is a conference you can't miss.

Find out more about the 2010 Economics Conference now!

September 28, 2009

Three Kinds of Ministries

There are three ways to handle Christian ministries and organizations, the sort of operations I’ve been involved with for a long time. (This comes from informal discussions with home school leaders at the Homeschool Legal Defense Association Leadership conference in Colorado Springs this week.)

1. Just maintain the thing until it fizzles and dies. This takes about 10% of your energy.

2. Grow the ministry by seeking to kowtow to the market demands of wider audiences in a fast decaying culture, losing sight of thesis and antithesis. Clarity fades. But this kind of growth will require about 50% of your energy and it produces large followings.

3. Grow the ministry by casting a vision; leading with enthusiasm, clarity of thought and intense zeal; viciously attacking the antithesis that is destroying our faith, family, and culture; really turning some people off while drawing others to the message; being careful not to narrow the application and detracting from the full force of the principle; be willing to shift strategies and message emphases as the antithesis metamorphisizes; and choosing your hills to die on carefully and then really dying on those hills. This takes about 500% of your energy and then some. It will cost you your reputation and your life, and not many are willing to do that.

I’m a believer in the “Grow or Die” principle, but it’s always good to know what you mean by growth. What we usually see in the rapidly increasing decline of a culture is a constant movement of the antithetical line in order to include more of a decaying culture. The last thing anybody wants is to be perceived as marginal or peculiar.

I mean, who wants to be mocked at, let alone crucified with Christ?

September 25, 2009

What is a True Christian Church?

Since the protestant reformation, any "reformed" man would tell you a true church was any operation that preached the Gospel (all 66 books), performed Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and Church Discipline. I think Jesus and John would have responded to this question quite differently. From a reading of 1 John, it seems that love must be indispensable among a collection of brothers who would refer to themselves as a church body. I had never thought of this until a few years ago when a friend, Matthew Kingsbury pointed out that love is pretty important to Christ, the Head of the church.

In my opinion, not including "Love" in the little formulation known as "the three marks of a true church" has been devastating to large portions of the historically protestant church.

September 19, 2009

When the Foundations are Destroyed

Here’s a maxim. The perceived relative severity of the problem will drive the radical nature of the solution. Should a cancer patient conclude his problem is a sore throat, he might try to solve the problem with cough drops. Some look at our culture car crash and see a dent on the bumper. Others take a look at it, and say, “It’s a train wreck and the steering wheel is in the trunk!” As we face the most serious generational apostasy we have seen in 2000 years, we’re not going to salvage the faith with a revamped Vacation Bible School program in the local church. We’re not going to save the collapsed family in the west with a 20 minute family time on Friday night. And we’re not going to save our Republic from a rapidly-growing socialism and the dissolution of family and freedoms with a hockey mom from Alaska who herself has a child with another child born out of wedlock. At some point, sane men and women need to come to grips with the reality of the problems before us, and ask the simple question, “When the foundations are destroyed, what do the righteous do?” This is the question that we pose every day on our Generations radio broadcast, in some form or another. Radical problems call for radical solutions.

For more on this article. . click here.

September 11, 2009

Pick Your Slavery

Slavery is inevitable in this sin-cursed world. Men will always enslave their fellow men, and a character-less people are easily enslaved. Sadly, this is the record of all of human history since man fell into sin. He is constantly and always enslaved to some degree or another. Only when the Gospel penetrates His heart and life will man enjoy some level of freedom.

There are two kinds of slavery to which men find themselves enslaved - slavery to petty lords in decentralized fifedoms, or slavery to big government tyrannies. Prior to 1900 in this country the government took just 5-10% of the people's income. Since then, our "democratic" governments have absorbed increasingly larger portions of the gross national income such that by 2009, the "Cost of Government" Day is officially August 12th. This is the day at which the average citizen ceases to work for the government in any given year (as a serf of the state), and begins working for himself.

There are several differences between the decentralized forms of slavery found prior to 1900, and the more centralized form of slavery today.

1. Generally, only 5-50% of the population were enslaved in Europe, Africa, and America prior to 1900, whereas today the entire population is now subjected to slavery.

2. Under localized fifedoms, families were often kept together and not dis-integrated by statist corporations and education programs as they are today.

3. Under large federal slave-states, it is practically impossible to escape the long arm of the tyrants and their ten million bureaucrats. At least in decentralized forms, one could choose from a thousand different petty-tyrants, or move to another area in which the tyranny was far less oppressive - and the lord might only require 10-20% of the people's crop yield in any given year. In a society governed by biblical justice, nobody is under obligation to return an escaped slave to his master (Deut. 23).

4. For better or for worse, at least with the decentralized fifedoms, there were faces to the tyrants, and you could appeal to your oppressor. With the large federal tyrannies, how could you ever place a name on the ten million legislators and bureaucrats that control every aspect of your life?

Where the Gospel has hardly penetrated and where men insist on living in sin, the social systems must include some form of slavery. So they will have to pick their slavery! In a fallen world, men will always be enslaved, and they will revert from one form to another. An immoral people cannot be free. Short of a total regeneration of the entire human race tomorrow, we will have to accept some form of slavery for those without the character to be free. There are always those who will prefer security over liberty. The big question then is will he impose his preferences for slavery upon those who would rather be free? This is the problem with socialist tyrannies in most developed nations today.

Christians Reject All Forms of Slavery

As Christians, we eschew all forms of slavery at the same time that we recognize slavery as inevitable as divorce and debt in a world of sin. We believe that "if the Son will make you free, you will be free indeed." Therefore, we refuse to accept slave-based systems in all their forms, cleaving to the message of the Gospel of Christ who died to set us free from all of these tyrannies.

The day we cease to look to big governments and petty lords for our security, and we learn to trust in God for our daily food and our salvation, and we repent of our sins of pride, slothfulness, idolatry, and addictions, then we will no longer need the chains of institutional slavery to form our social systems. That day we are more impelled by the motivation of love than the motive of power, is when we will spend more time preaching the Gospel than enslaving our fellow men by centralizing power and wealth in fifedoms large or small.

September 8, 2009

Monday’s program will feature my interview with Dr. Al Mohler from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. What an interview! I wanted to interact with Newsweek’s Jon Meacham’s article “The End of Christian America,“ and Al came out of the gate loaded for bear. He cut to the chase. The problem, he says, is fathers. Without father’s disciple-ing their children into the kingdom of God, we will lose this battle. There is far more to the interview - we talked about toxic cultures, God-centered worldviews, discipleship vs. shallow evangelism, non-neutral education, getting our children out of the public schools, and so on. But Al hit the nail square on the head - when he spoke to the hearts of fathers.

This stands as the most significant interview we’ve done to date.

Click here to listen to the program now.

September 1, 2009

Semper Reformanda

R.C. Sproul Sr. is one of the most respected Christian teachers in America. Several years ago, I interviewed Dr. Sproul on his perceptions of the state of the church in America and what we can do to reform it. To this day, I believe that his answer hit the core issue. In fact what he mentioned in this interview is the very thing that has plagued the Christian church in Europe and North America since the 11th century. It is the concern of the Scottish reformer, John Knox, whose last words included the warning, “Beware of the universities!” It was the problem with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Westminster Seminary, etc.

Here is what the aged man of God told me in this interview back in June of 2007:

"As the seminary goes, so goes the clergy, and as the clergy goes, so goes the church. We know that from around the world. The problem is that seminaries are in the academic world, and they are almost slaves to whatever is the latest and newest and the biggest fad in the academic community. The last thing that seminary professors want is to be seen as being out of touch, old fashioned, or obscurantist. So we have weak professors - professors who don’t have the strength of conviction to stand in a world of skepticism. It’s a worldview issue here. I think you may see new models for education of clergy, getting it back more to the church - to the local church – and less dependent upon the professionals."

To listen to the full interview, as well as 4 other key interviews with influntiel, reforming voices in the 21st Century church, pick up our CD Reforming the Church in the 21st Century.

August 28, 2009

The Very Best Church in America

How do we view Christian movements, Christian sects, and Christian covenanted bodies, and the people that represent them? All of us draw some conclusions concerning Focus on the Family, Answers in Genesis, Reasons to Believe, Desiring God Ministries, Christian Home Educators of Colorado, the PCA, the Southern Baptists, the ELCA, the Mennonite Brethren, the OPC, or New Life Church in Colorado Springs. If you have have any contact with or knowledge of a local church or ministry, usually you will draw some conclusion about that ministry. Most of us hold some sort of opinion on the importance, the value, or the impact the ministry bears upon the kingdom of God.

Occasionally, you will run into some Christian who assumes that outside of his local church at six friends, everybody else in the world is going to hell. Such perspectives smack of a puffed-up-edness and a love that doesn't quite hope enough about his brothers.

Well then, how should we make judgements concerning the churches we attend and the ministries we connect with? Here's my take on it, using Paul's 1 Cor. 3 message.

1. Some churches and ministries will be stronger than others and produce more gold, silver, and precious stones after the fire burns than others. Some ministries will yield 80% saved rate, some 20%, and some 2%. Not everybody who attends a church or turns on a Focus on the Family program gets saved. Some churches will see 90% of the second generation saved, and some will only see 10% generational continuity. Some will see a 3-fold increase from those that are saved and some 2 fold.

2. Truth and love are equally important in assessing ministries. What you are looking for is the combo of 180 Proof Truth and 180 Proof Truth-lived-out.

3. The strength of the movement, the church body, or the blob will dictate who actually gets saved out of the train-wrecked culture about us. Children go to hell by the droves because of Sunday Schools and Youth Groups and Church Services that would not address the antithesis, and preached a flimsy message. We are living in the greatest apostasy in the history of the world (in Europe and North America), each generation confesses to apostatizing from even the label of Christianity by the millions, because the faith is weakening. America is following hard on the heels of Europe. A lot of Christian work fizzles in the long run, because the message was weak, and the discipleship was shallow or non-existent.

4. The weakness of the movement is not merely a function of the weakness of the leader, although he may be a key contributor to it.

5. Just because a church is strong in 2009, does not mean that it will be strong in 2019. The church at Ephesus might have been doing well for a time, a flourishing bush in the garden of the kingdom. But somewhere along the line she lost her first love (Rev. 2). Our lives are measured by the journey, more than by one or two exciting revival meetings or conferences.

6. You will never know the true impact of a "reformation," a movement, a church denomination, a system of government, a methodology, and a message for at least 40-50 years. By their fruits you will know them, but after all the exciting conferences and building programs, and after the fire burns, only time will tell what the ministry really produced. And there will be no exceptions to the rule. All of us will be tested for the quality of work produced over a life time.

7. Nobody bats 1000. We're all taking our best shot at producing the best message and the best incarnation of the message that we can in life. The idea is to make it as far up Omaha Beach as you can, before you are cut down by enemy fire. The battlefield is going to be a mess the whole way to the gates of heaven.

8. We are all called to make judgment calls relating to the conferences we attend, the churches with which we covenant, and the radio programs we tune in to.

9. Oh, one more thing - whatever you do, don't choose to affiliate with proud ministries who think they are the best ministry in the world. And once you have tossed in your hat with some particular ministry, you will begin to see the sins and weaknesses latent within the organization. Because you are not closely affiliated with other ministries therefore, you have no idea how God is working there. So to assume that you are in the best church in the area is always well beyond your ability to discern. In the final analysis, you have no idea how much more love, joy, and peace are nurtured within your congregation compared to any other. Sure, you might know all doctrine and all knowledge, and have all faith so that you can remove more mountains than that other church down the street. But you can't tell me that you have 68% more love than they do.

Although we may condemn a decision made by the ELCA to endorse homosexual marriage and we may condemn the denomination for it, this does not mean every pastor and every local church, and every individual within that organization is going to hell. Christ's condemnations and commendations in Revelation are directed towards local churches. Nevertheless, the weakness of the corporeal blob will weaken the individuals within the blob, depending on the closeness of relationships and commitment within the larger organization.

These are my observations after participating in many different exciting Christian movements over a lifetime.

August 22, 2009

Blessings for the Righteous

Another Lesson from our soon-to-be-released Family Bible Study Guide on the Book of Proverbs

Proverbs 10:22-25 The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it. It is as sport to a fool to do mischief: but a man of understanding hath wisdom. The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him: but the desire of the righteous shall be granted. As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more: but the righteous is an everlasting foundation.

Talking Points:

1. Jack Whittaker holds the record for winning the largest jackpot in the history of the lottery (and perhaps in the history of gambling). In 2002 he won $315,000,000 when he bought a lottery ticket in Hurricane, West Virginia in the United States. Since then he was arrested for drunk driving, theives robbed him on several different occasions, and he was arrested for a misdeamenor assault on a bar manager. He was sued for assaulting a woman at a dog racetrack. His granddaughter was found dead of a drug overdose in September of 2003. His wife filed for divorce on May 27, 2005. He was sued by a casino in Atlantic City for bouncing $1.5 million worth of checks. Then his daughter was found dead on July 5, 2009 in Daniels, West Virginia, believed to be a victim of foul play.

If money could buy happiness, there would have been a better candidate to prove the case than a man like Jack Whittaker. But instead, he joins the ranks of millions of rich men who establish just the opposite case. Here is a miserable man indeed! God in His providence directed the cast of the lot, such that this man walked home with $315,000,000. And then He cursed him.

If money can’t buy happiness, God can. For He is the One from whom all blessings flow! Riches may or may not serve as a blessing to us, but it is God who gives material blessings and it is God who adds no sorrow to it.

2. What do you do for fun? What are the sorts of things to which you might look forward with eager anticipation? The fool especially delights in breaking the laws of God, and pulling pranks that hurt the property or person of others. He enjoys the thrill of stealing apples from his neighbor’s tree, or planning a bank heist, or key scraping that sports car belonging to the neighborhood bully. Any wise man would see no thrill, no satisfaction, no joy, and no purpose in such foolish wickedness.

3. Everybody has their hopes and fears. They hope for the good and fear the worst. What’s the worst thing that could happen to you tonight? What is the best thing that could happen to you this year? In the ultimate sense, the worst thing that could happen to us is we die and go to hell; and our highest desire is that we die and we are resurrected and we go to heaven to be with our Lord forever. For the righteous, his greatest hopes really do come true, but for the wicked, his worst fears will be realized.

Most unbelievers do their best to ignore their fears, and try to avoid thinking about death and whatever lies beyond it. They do live by hope, but the best they can hope for is that there is enough beer in the refrigerator sufficient to put him in a stupor later in the evening. Some people just hope for cold beer, and others hope that when they pull the trigger to end their lives, they will revert to cosmic dust and thereby confirm that God does not exist. Imagine the horrible disappointment they will experience when they discover that God really does exist, and their worst fears are confirmed in the fires of hell forever.

4. Life always brings the terrifying tornados of wars, famines, disease, and death. When the tornados come, anything that is not solidly nailed down will be ripped up and destroyed in the swirling, destructive winds. This is the fate of the wicked. But the righteous are nailed down and rooted in Christ, and they will withstand the violent tornado of death.

Family Discussion Questions:

1. What are the sorts of things that delight your soul? Do you get delight out of hurting other or helping others?

2. Do we seek happiness in riches or in God?

August 12, 2009

HSLDA Releases Study on Home Education

Today HSLDA released what is being labeled the most comprehensive study done to date on home school academic performance. Conducted by Dr. Brian Ray and the National Home Education Research Institute, the study drew from 15 independent testing services, and included data from almost 12,000 homeschoolers from all 50 states. Thus, I think it is fair to say that the study even more accurately represents the national distribution of home educated students in America (than many previous studies).

Remember, the last major academic study performed on home education in America was the Rudner study, conducted a full decade ago in 1999. During the last decade, the homeschool population doubled (per a study from the National Center for Education Statistics), producing a broader distribution of participants.

So, of course many of the leaders in the movement were anxiously awaiting this new definitive study from Dr. Ray. The results showed an even better performance now than ten years ago. Below, I compare the present Ray overall averages to those found in Rudner study from 1999:

Average Percentile (National Average - 50 percentile)

	2009 Ray Study	1999 Rudner Study
Reading	89	85
Language	84	73
Math	84	77

Sources: http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/200908100.asp and http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/200908100.asp

As you can see, homeschoolers have improved substantially in mathematics and language since 1999. I take this to mean that God’s blessings continue to attend this most important method of education that takes places in a home under the purview of parents, and (for the most part) independent of state control and purview. When you consider that these home schooling parents are not professionally-certified teachers, and they spend less than $500 per student (compared to $8000 - $10,000 per student attending public schools), these results are truly remarkable.

Compare this study also to a significant study just issued by Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes, on Charter School performance. The study of collective reading and math progress in 2,403 charter schools in 15 states and cities, including the District of Columbia was released in June showed that almost half of the charter schools produced results similar to those from comparable public schools, and schools producing worse results than the traditional schools outnumbered those with better numbers by more than 2 to 1!

Summary: 39 percentile points (above the 50 percentile average) on a sample size of 12,000 is significant. And small tweaks on the public school model simply won't do much for their 50 percentile rating. Why? What could possibly beat a model where parental involvement is of primary import, the powerful principle of individuality is maximized upon, faith and character are being nurtured by people who actually love the student, and the government is not involved?! (While this is no true in every case with homeschoolers, our homeschool conferences are doing a good job inculcating these critical factors that are necessary to to produce the right kind of education for our children.)

August 3, 2009

Another Lesson from our soon-to-be-released Family Bible Study Guide on the Book of Proverbs

Proverbs 10:6-11

Blessings are upon the head of the just: but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked.

The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rot.

The wise in heart will receive commandments: but a prating fool shall fall. He that walketh uprightly walketh surely: but he that perverteth his ways shall be known.

He that winketh with the eye causeth sorrow: but a prating fool shall fall.

The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life: but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked.

Talking Points:

1. About 80% of the Proverbs contrast the righteous and the wicked, as do many of the Psalms. So as we read the Word of God, the question returns to us with unrelenting repetition and force, “Whose side are you on?“ Are you characterized by wickedness or righteousness? The sword falls and cleaves between what is righteous and what is wicked, and these definitions pierce our hearts every time we pick up the Word.

2. When the wicked man opens his mouth, it is as if he opens fire with a rapid-fire machine gun in a china shop. He ruins relationships by cutting sarcasm and unkind words, he upsets entire economies by his lying, and brings the judgment of God down upon his house by taking God’s name in vain. Behind him lies a trail of broken relationships, calcified hearts, unresolved conflicts, mistrust, chaos, and crises. Conversely, when the righteous man speaks, he creates peace, stability, healthy economies, happy families, and “a well of life” that nurtures whole gardens and fields of green crops.

3. In the short term, it seems that the wicked make a great show of their wealth, power, and influence. But they last as long as a fireworks display on the fourth of July. Their glory fades as quickly as the last glow of those sparks disappear into the darkness of the night. Were somebody here in the western world to name their child “Herod” or “Ahab” or “Nero” or “Adolf Hitler,” surely that family would be the pariah of the neighborhood. Occasionally, someone might name their dog “Nero,” but the name of the wicked shall rot. Some of these men may have received the fawning adoration of the impressionable masses for a few brief years while they held the reins of power, but their reputations soon rest in the trash heap of history. Meanwhile, the memories of Daniel, Esther, Justin Martyr, Patrick of Ireland, William Wallace, Jan Hus, William Tyndale, George Washington, Patrick Henry, and George Whitfield continue to shine in the minds of billions of people, for their commitment to righteousness, charity, peace, and liberty.

4. Continuing with the set of contrasts between the righteous and wicked found here, we read that those who are wise will receive God’s commandments with an open heart and even a willingness to be convicted and corrected by them. He will also walk uprightly and consistently in the way of truth and thereby walk in safety.

On the other hand, the fool is only interested in prating superficialities. Actually he finds the commandments of God boring and meaningless. He might retain a few shallow moralistic applications for himself, but he does not root his life in the law of God. Therefore, the end of such a shallow existence is utter ruin.

5. Who is this fellow who winks with his eye, and what does winking have to do with the prating, superficial fool? When people wink at each other, they pretend to share a secret. Now, the secret may be an illicit thing, and often men and women who are flirting with breaking the seventh commandment (or committing adultery), will wink at each other. The wink serves to distract them from the severity of what they are flirting with - that is, their ruin of their lives. When somebody winks in this sort of flirtation, they are saying, “Hey, we’re just having a little fun. Don’t take these things too seriously. Don’t take life too seriously.” Of course, the problem with this is that life is a serious matter, and anybody who tells you not to take life too seriously is a prating, superficial fool and he is himself headed for hell.

Family Discussion Questions:

1. Are we a wicked family or a righteous family? How do we receive the commandments of God? Are they a delight to us, or an obnoxious burden?

2. What kind of language do we use in our home? Are we destructive with our language or edifying and constructive?

3. Do we take life seriously as a family, or do we like to turn everything into a big joke?

July 29, 2009

Rebuilding Manhood . . . From the Bottom Up

We live in day and a time in America that is crying out for godly manhood. If you listen to the radio show, you've heard me complain about the 70% of Boys who aren't grown up by their 30's. These are men with no vision, purpose, or character. Well, this August, I'm going to do what I can do fix this problem and encourage fathers and sons from around the country at a father-son retreat in the beautiful mountains of Colorado.

Hundreds of young men and their fathers will be coming as Doug Phillips, Bill Potter, and I exhort on issues of Biblical fatherhood, loyal and masculine camaraderie, sons honoring their dads, and so much more. And of course, there will be plenty of time to enjoy the pool, lake, biking, game room, hiking, and host of mountain recreations.

Consider joining me at this retreat from August 28-31.

July 22, 2009

Another Lesson from our soon-to-be-released Family Bible Study Guide on the Book of Proverbs

Proverbs 9:10-12 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. For by me thy days shall be multiplied, and the years of thy life shall be increased. If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself: but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it.

Talking Points

1. Returning again to first propositions in our Wisdom 101 class, it is the fear of God that marks the beginning of all wisdom. The Hebrew word for “beginning” is Techelat, a word best translated as “that which sets something on its course.” To illustrate the idea conveyed here - suppose you were to take the wrong train in a complicated multi-line subway system in a large city. Of course, you would never arrive at the desired destination. Applied to the Proverbs 9:10 principle, if you fail to get on the Fear of God car, you will never make it to Wisdom Town. We must begin all of our thinking with reverence towards God.

The world says, “Prove to me that God exists, and then I will fear Him.” Yet in the face of many proofs (everywhere present in all areas of human thought and existence), many “intelligent” men continue to mock Him. According to Scripture, you must fear God before you set out to know anything. You must fear God even before you attempt to “prove” His existence!

2. There are of course, various forms of fear in human experience. There is the child who fears an abusive and hateful parent, but this is a fear that hates. In the case of the ungodly, they may maintain this hateful fear of God, but they will do their best to suppress the knowledge of God and the fear of His judgment. But the true believer maintains a fear that leads to love. It produces within him an awe and admiring reverence that drives him to his knees in worship.

3. Instead of denying God’s existence and suppressing the knowledge of God, a man of true understanding will seek to know more of this God. He will study the world in order to know more about the Creator who made it. Studies in science and history will serve to inspire even more trembling fear of Almighty God. From the special revelation of His Word, he will learn more of God’s terrifying and exacting justice (Heb 10:28, Gal. 6:7), His majestic holiness (Ex. 15:11, Hab. 1:13, Ps. 5:4,5), His omnipotent and sovereign power ( Jer. 5:22,23), His imminent omnipresent and all-seeing eye (Prov. 15:3), and the jarring severity of His mercy at the cross of His only-begotten Son.

4. Billions of people never learn these lessons, and therefore we must conclude that they are profoundly unwise. But for those who, by the grace of God, do obtain this understanding, they will see their lives extended, their families will be blessed in their generations, and their societies will flourish.

5. A biblical theory concerning human existence involves both unity and particular, the group and the individuals within that group. Throughout Scripture, we find that families and churches are considered as blob-like groups or corporal units, and God maintains a relationship with families, churches, and nations. But there is also the individual, and God maintains relationships with individuals as well. Much of the heterodoxy you will find in Christian sects today is a failure to acknowledge God’s relationship both to individuals AND to corporate units (as families and churches). The church is vitally important and entire churches are in relationship with Christ, and should that relationship fail, Christ will remove a candlestick and many families will be affected in their generations (Rev. 2,3).

But it is not enough that you are a member of a godly family or a Christian church. Both Old and New Testaments equally testify to the fact that God will judge each and every individual on whether or not he has embraced true wisdom, and received God’s truth in sincere faith. Should you choose the path of rebellion as a teenaged child, and refuse to receive the correction of your father and mother, you will bear that sin alone! In the day of judgment, you may not claim to have belonged to a Christian family or even to some Christian church. God will send you to hell on the basis of your own unbelief and rebellion.

Family Discussion Questions:

1. How can a highly intelligent university professor reject the fear of God? Are we to consider such men knowledgeable and wise?

2. How effectively are we teaching the fear of God in our science classes and history classes? What is our conception of God? Do we understand God such that we would fear Him?

July 20, 2009

"We have to spend more money to keep us out of bankruptcy"

- Joe Biden speaking to an AARP group yesterday

Exponential increases in debt spending and trillions of dollars of "economic stimulus" may keep the cadaver trembling for another few hours or even a few more years. But all of this will only delay the inevitable, and make the death of our Keynesian economy that much more spectacular - bearing global effects that will doubtless last for many decades (perhaps even a century). This is going to be impressive!

July 17, 2009

Is the 7 - 24 Hour Creation Thing a Test of Orthodoxy?

I keep pondering the question in my mind. . .

Which is worse? Denying the ex-nihilo, supernatural events of a seven 24-hour day creation story. . . or denying God's sovereign and supernatural causation in every action and reaction over 100 billion years or 6,000 years of history?

Either way, it seems that man's heart is always wanting to rid himself of the relevance and God-ness of a super-natural God, while insisting upon the sovereignty of a universe governed by indeterminate chance (thus, relieving the universe of meaning and man of moral responsibility).

So I wonder which is worse? Removing God as sovereign from the science class, or removing God as sovereign from the history class?

I believe that in order for there to even be a God, He must be the ultimate source of our truth, our ethics, and our reality. Otherwise you have no God.

Public Schools or Popular Media

I keep pondering the question in my mind. . .

Which is worse? Our children listening to 12 years of lectures from people who refuse to teach that God is God in the science and history classes, or our children being discipled by peers heavily influenced by popular culture? As our Lord says, A student will be like his teacher. For those kids who grow up and failed to pay much attention to what the teachers were doing in their public school classrooms, we may have a better shot at conveying a different theory of origins and reality (in the form of the Gospel, from the Christian Bible). But that is because they never were really serious students in school. They were just trying to get out of there and get a job! Unfortunately, those who were not serious students may have been caught up into the nihilism and the existentialism of the day by popular media (with a little help from their peers).

If I were give the deadly choice between sending my children to public schools (that refuse to teach the very beginning of knowledge as the fear of God) for 4 hours a day for 6 years, or subjecting them to 4 hours a day of peer/popular culture contact, I think I would probably prefer the former option. The latter is a far more powerful force on the hearts and minds of children.

July 7, 2009

The Whorish Woman

A Lesson from our soon-to-be-released Family Bible Study Guide on the Proverbs:

Pro 6:23-35 For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life: To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman. Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids. For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life. Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? So he that goeth in to his neighbour's wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent. Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry; But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house. But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away. For jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance. He will not regard any ransom; neither will he rest content, though thou givest many gifts.

Talking Points
1. The book of Proverbs is for young men first, because it is directed to a young man. Of all the sins that take young men, there is hardly one so common as fornication and adultery. Thus, this essential book on life will return to this subject again and again. Boys, women will make or break you!

2. The temptress is again the strange woman, who claims independence from the covenantal structures that God has placed in our lives - family and church. She is lost in the big city with little accountability. She prides herself in her independence, and easily slides out of one relationship into another. She is a wandering Gypsy woman with a strange mystique and alluring beauty.

3. For most young men, the temptation to this sin comes through what John Bunyan would call “The Eye Gate.” They fall under the spell of this woman by taking the second look and then the third, and each additional glance subjects them even more to her power. The devastation brought about by this temptation is illustrated in the pre-flood world. What first initiated the social degradation that led to the cataclysm was this very thing: the sons of God found the daughters of men beautiful, attractive, cultured, and fun (Gen. 6:2). But later the wise mother of the book of Proverbs will get to the heart of it when she reminds her son that, “Charm is deceitful, beauty is vain, but a woman that fears the Lord she shall be praised” (Prov. 31:30). A discerning young man will be careful to see outward beauty for what it is. When he assesses women, he will plumb deeper than the outward characteristics of charm and beauty. What he looks for is the fear of God.

4. The consequences of taking this woman are tragic and bear lifelong . A young man hardly thinks that one little experience when he is 19 years old will add pain and scars to his life that remain when he turns 20 years old, and 21, and 22, and 25, and 26, and 30, and 40, and 55, and 65, and 66, and 67, and so on. As his weary life drags on, that young man who embraced the red-hot coal of fire will carry the sorrow, the pain, the poverty, the dishonor, and a 6 inch scar across the face of his character for the rest of his life. When he embraces that searing coal, he will experience an 18-degree burn that will scar his heart for life. This is a primary cause of the failure of fatherhood, divorce, generational unfaithfulness, cultural collapse, and failed political leadership. It is a curse on families and entire cultures. Young men are easily taken by the alluring, “bedroom” eyes of the strange woman, seductively coated with the right proportion of mascara, eye-liner, and dark eye shadow - and they are always cursed for it. This phenomena has been repeated billions of times in world history, so there is no sense in questioning it anymore than you would question the law of gravity.

Finally, far worse even than fornication is this sin of adultery, or stealing another man’s wife. It is a crime far worse than stealing, and warrants the death penalty in biblical law. Nothing can possibly allay the jealousy a husband feels, but of course the death of the perpetrator.

Family Discussion Questions:

1. How important are these lessons that we are covering in the book of Proverbs compared to the lessons we study in math and grammar and geography?

2. How might a young man avoid temptation? How might a young woman avoid being the temptress?

July 1, 2009

John Adams on John Calvin
Reformation 500 in Boston

Those who disparage the roots of our country are like to malign John Calvin, the spiritual father of the English Puritans, the London Baptists, the Scottish Presbyterians, the Dutch Reformed, and the French Huguenots who settled the country in the 1600s and 1700s. Some have even marked Calvin as opposing religious liberty, when he was, in fact, the very root of the idea of separating the church from state control in the struggle at Geneva.

We are celebrating his 500th birthday this weekend in Boston with Vision Forum.

Calvin insisted on written constitutions as essential for governance (basing his argument on Samuel's incorporation of a written document governing the King of Israel).

Calvin fought for religious liberty from the tyranny of the state, and carved out liberty for family and individual conscience.

Calvin introduced the idea of interposition, rendering spiritual support for our war for independence.

Calvin upheld the absolute centrality of God over reality, truth, and ethics, and retained a bulwark to the encroaching humanism of the last 400 years that turns the sovereignty over reality, truth and ethics over to man (and the state).

Let no one ever minimize the important role that John Calvin played in the formation of this country! One of my favorites of the American founding fathers, John Adams, writes this on the influence of this man of the millennium - John Calvin:

"After Martin Luther had introduced into Germany the liberty of thinking in matters of religion, and erected the standard of reformation, John Calvin, a native of Noyon, in Picardie, of a vast genius, singular eloquence, various erudition, and polished taste, embraced the cause of reformation. In the books which he published, and in the discourses which he held in the several cities of France, he proposed one hundred and twenty-eight articles in opposition to the creed of the Roman Catholic church. These opinions were soon embraced with ardor, and maintained with obstinacy, by a great number of persons of all conditions. The asylum and the centre of this new sect was Geneva, a city situated on the lake ancient, called Lemanus, on the frontiers of Savoy, which had shaken off the yoke of its bishop and the Duke of Savoy, and erected itself into a republic, under the title of a free city, for the sake of liberty of conscience.

Let not Geneva be forgotten or despised. Religious liberty owes it much respect."

June 27, 2009

Invited to a Wedding

Several months ago, I received an invitation to a wedding.

The announcement read, “We are Liars and we are getting married. We are two liars and we want you to come and support us in our lying. . . “ I turned down the invitation, ‘cause I figured they were probably lying.

Then I got invited to a Fornicators Wedding. We are fornicators and we are getting married. We want to celebrate fornication, and other violations of the 7th commandment. Needless to say, I turned down the invitation.

Then I got invited to a Homosexual Wedding. It seemed a little oxymoronic to me, but I went ahead and attended anyway. Throughout the event, I held up a large sign that read,

Lev 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

June 23, 2009

What You Really Believe

There was a man who said he believed very deeply in Justification by Faith alone. But every time somebody approached him to lovingly confront him, he would arrange all the lawyers working away in the cubicles of his mind against any possible accusation that might come his way. The all-essential presupposition in his system of truth began with, "I can't possibly be wrong," so how could anybody ever correct him? Here was a man who hardly needed the cross of Christ and the justifying grace of God. He couldn't face the horror of being wrong, because he couldn't possibly receive the forgiveness of Christ, and enjoy the merits of that blood. The just usually live by faith, but this preacher was the most faithless fellow when it came to. . . well, just about everything in life - his income, his giving, his mortifying the flesh, or his loving his wife who wasn’t really all that good at loving him back.

This great man of God believed very deeply in the forgiveness of God and preached it all the time. But his bitter heart could hardly forgive anybody of anything. It seemed that every conversation would migrate back to how somebody or other had offended him sixteen years ago. It didn’t seem as if this man had ever forgiven anybody. We wondered whether he had ever been truly overwhelmed by the overwhelming, magnanimous love of God at the cross of Christ. For if he had been forgiven, we would have thought that he would have forgiven somebody himself!

This man of outstanding public piety taught the great doctrines of man’s depravity and God’s sovereign grace with eloquence! But he was constantly bucking for recognition, refused to take any correction from his brother, and he was devastated when he was passed over as the keynote speaker for the “Unworthy Sinners Saved by God’s Sovereign Grace” conference held somewhere in his local area. I guess he wasn’t quite as unworthy as we thought he was.

He said he believed in the absolute sovereignty, wisdom, and goodness of God, but his face seemed to grow harder and his heart more bitter with the years, over his son’s apostasy, his wife’s death, his financial failures, and the rest. Every week, he would wax passionate on the resurrection of Christ, but his words with his family at home were laced with hopelessness, defeat, and negativity. He stood firm on the age-old doctrine of the Trinity, (hey, even the church bore the Trinity moniker), but he kept wavering from anarchy to tyranny in his political theories and his education methodolgies. He couldn’t keep the individual relationships and the body relationships of family and church well-balanced in his mind and teaching.

Truth is one thing. But incarnated truth is quite another. Signing up to 437 orthodox propositions is not enough. There are crowds of folks who SAY they believe in the Trinity, Justification by Faith, the unity of Faith and Works, the Sovereignty of God, the Resurrection of Christ, but they don’t really believe it, because they don’t live that way. What theology are you living in between your theological confessions, in between your church services? The theology you live is what you really believe.

June 16, 2009

God's Law and the Church

I read with interest an article in the recent Newsweek concerning a male homosexual couple who had adopted three children. Religious education for their children, they consider to be very important, of course. As the youngest takes her first communion, singing “I‘ve got the joy, joy, joy down in my heart” all the way to the altar, “Dad #1” is said to be “proud” of his little one. "Many people feel that religion is essential to them. . .and that family life would be emptier without it," the article explains.

My prediction: In 50 years from now, the surviving orthodox Christians will, by necessity, be those who are willing to accept the ethical statements of both the Old and New Testaments as completely normative. I think it is safe to say, that for the first time since the fall of Rome, the ethical unity of the testaments will now be forced upon the orthodox by an increasingly autonomous, secular culture.

For now, those of us who take a firm stand on God’s law from Old and New Testaments happily serve as the pariahs of the conservative wing of Christendom. But as civilizations fall, and as “Christians” hurry to synthesize with each new daring socio-moral travesty, these anti-theonomists will render themselves entirely irrelevant.

The natural law advocates, having achieved irrelevance in the discussion 150 years earlier, and the ungrounded "Christian" masses, having been swept away by the post-modern, autonomist torrent, the only Christians left standing in the end will be those who rather like the term “theo-nomy.“

June 9, 2009

Body Counts

Back to the Tiller story, I noticed that I haven't been the only one keeping track of the body counts.

Ann Coulter is still pounding tent pegs.

"Why aren't liberals rushing to assure us this time that 'most pro-lifers are peaceful'? Unlike Muslims, pro-lifers actually are peaceful. According to recent polling, a majority of Americans oppose abortion -- which is consistent with liberals' hysterical refusal to allow us to vote on the subject. In a country with approximately 150 million pro-lifers, five abortionists have been killed since Roe v. Wade. In that same 36 years, more than 49 million babies have been killed by abortionists. Let's recap that halftime score, sports fans: 49 million to five. Meanwhile, fewer than 2 million Muslims live in America and, while Muslims are less murderous than abortionists, I'm fairly certain they've killed more than five people in the United States in the last 36 years. For some reason, the number '3,000' keeps popping into my head. So in a country that is more than 50 percent pro-life -- and 80 percent opposed to the late-term abortions of the sort performed by Tiller -- only five abortionists have been killed. And in a country that is less than 0.5 percent Muslim, several dozen Muslims have killed thousands of Americans. But the killing of about one abortionist per decade leads liberals to condemn the entire pro-life movement as 'domestic terrorists.' At least liberals have finally found some terrorists they'd like to send to Guantanamo." --columnist Ann Coulter

For the full scoop on the death of Tiller the abortionist, list to my radio program on Tiller.

June 6, 2009

Are Christians Meant To Take Over the Government?

I realize the above question is frightening to those who hate Christians, but it is still a good question that elicits different responses from different Christian sects.

1. Those of the Anabaptist persuasion would generally like to avoid contact with the world, of which the civil magistrate constitutes an important part.

2. The theonomists were ready to take over back in the 1980s. The only problem was that there were only about 300 of them.

3. Then you still have a few leftovers of the moral majority, the Christian coalition, the Huckabites from the last election, etc. who would like to take their place overseeing the decline of another empire.

4. Finally, enter the two-kingdom types from Westminster West, who are celebrating the rise of the secular state that has reputedly set a hard and fast division between church and state. Richard Gamble, a ruling elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, in a review of Daryl Hart’s “A Secular State: Why Christianity Favors the Separation of Church and State,” postulates that the “much-criticized secular state carves out the very environment in which the church is freest to be the church!” (OPC Ordained Servant, Volume 17, 2008, P. 128). That works fine until we wake up to the realization that bad guys will always be bad guys and they usually get the praise to good works and terror to evil all mixed up.

Read More. . .

June 5, 2009

Keep Your Heart!

A Lesson from our soon-to-be-released Family Bible Study Guide on the Proverbs:

Proverbs 4:20-23 My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

Talking Points

1. The heart is the center of your being. It is the control center, or to use computer lingo, it is the mother board of your system. The heart calls the shots. This is why the father is so concerned that the words of wisdom he teaches will serve as the controlling principles in the heart of his son.

2. As we learn the words of God and attempt to live them out in our lives, it is essential that the heart itself is framed by these words. Otherwise we live out a mere external form of religion. The Muslims, for example celebrate Ramadan, and for the duration of an entire month they are forbidden to eat anything until sundown. A missionary was traveling in a car with several Muslims in Yemen during the month of Ramadan. As the car drove down into a valley, the sun disappeared over the horizon, and the men quickly grabbed their food and consumed as much as possible until the car topped the hill and the setting sun was visible again. Most religions require external compliance, and men are glad to give it. But to take the true words of God and root them in our hearts, that is another matter entirely!

Suppose there was a mother who lived in a terribly immodest age (not unlike the one in which we find ourselves) and she happened to hear a message about modesty for the first time - and of course the Word of God does require modesty of heart and external dress. The message this woman heard gave twelve principles relating to the modesty of dress. Convicted by these words, she returned home and quickly began implementation with her three daughters. Two weeks later, the four ladies are shopping at the local mall, and low and behold, they happen to come upon several teen aged girls who apparently missed the workshop on modesty. The mother points to the scantily clad bunch and whispers to her little brood, “Well now, look at how those girls strut their stuff! How immodest can you get?” The implications taken by the little girls are potent, “Look at us! We’re modest and they’re not.” Now would be a good time to define modesty. Of course it is humility. So now this poor mother must deal with a problem far more severe than the external problem of immodesty. For now she has some little women who are quite modestly dressed on the outside, and terribly immodest on the inside! Do you see how the principles of God’s Word must be carefully preserved in the very center of the heart? “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” This is why it is equally important that parents shepherd the hearts of their children as they train their outward behavior.

Family Discussion Questions

1. How is this family doing with “keeping the heart with all diligence?” Are we more focused on externals or the internal motivations of the heart? Which do you think is more difficult - modifying external behavior or shepherding the heart of a child?

2. Are schools more focused on the heart of a child or their external behavior? What about parents?

3. Suppose a child was trained to honor his parents in many outward forms, but there was never real honor for his parents in his heart. Do you think that dishonor would eventually reveal itself?

May 29, 2009

Reading Fodder

The Last American Puritan

It is hard to find biographies on the most important period of American history, but Michael G. Hall’s “The Last American Puritan” on the life of Increase Mather is a jewel. I am thoroughly enjoying it. BTW, it’s still in stock at Amazon.

This is the heritage of the nation. Among these people you will find a wonderful Christian piety, with the ubiquitous problems that always attend sinful men.

Increase was homeschooled until he was about 12. He was tutored for 4 years under another pastor, and eventually graduated from Harvard College.

Hall makes the point that Mather felt a tremendous obligation to his father and the other founders of the colonies to play a part in the generational heritage. After attending college for a few years, many of the young men did lose the vision for building that "City on a Hill" left by their fathers (and many of these young men went straight from Harvard back to England). Thankfully, Increase returned to America. On his father's death, he wrote a biography on the life of Richard Mather. Quoting Hall, "The son's obligations to fulfill the father's errand in America would become the cornerstone of Increase Mather's historical mythology, and the overriding principle behind his political and ecclesiastical policies."

Of course, the puritans did place far too great of an emphasis upon the existentialist, conversion experience, and this dragged them into the tangled mess of the half-way covenant. Increase, to his discredit, opposed his father in the controversy.

There was a great deal of confusion over what constituted the “visible saint.” What sort of criteria should churches use for those who wish to establish or maintain a visible relationship with the visible church? As statist and centrist forms affected the church(es) (as they did in Europe for well over 500 years), it was difficult for these churches in New England to grasp the maxim that “relationships drive specificity.” The larger the institution and the more programmed and institutionalized the systems of confession, profession, penance, confirmation, etc. become, the more ineffective churches become with their attempts at maintaining a “pure” and healthy system of church discipline. Relationships drive specificity. Formulations and systems of doctrine are not enough. Discipleship rests on truth AND mercy, fear AND love, the ten commandments AND the fruit of the Spirit. Sometimes I wonder why the Westminster Shorter Catechism provided more space to the ten commandments than it did to the fruit of the Spirit.

Despite their "shortcomings," suffice it to say that these were great men - possibly the greatest men who ever lived. If we will have a Second Mayflower, we will build it on the shoulders of those who went before us. Read these biographies!

May 27, 2009

In Order for a Rational Person to Believe in Historical Macro-Evolution. . .

Before setting out to determine what it would take for me or any rational person to believe that a rock evolved into an ape, we should probably define “belief.”

When somebody believes a rock turned into an ape by natural evolutionary mechanisms, he may
- Get red in the face and start hollering demeaning things at people who don’t believe that it happened.
- Express every evolutionary statement touching on evolution of various species, age of earth, etc. in a matter-of-fact, dogmatic way in billions of pages of scientific studies, on millions of web pages, in millions of public schools and university class rooms, thousands of national parks and museums, etc. etc.

So for a rational person to believe in historical macro-evolution . . . I would suggest that he should have at his finger tips a little bit of scientific evidence.

1. Making it to Hypothesis Status.

In order for evolution to make it to the point where scientists might consider it “a hypothesis worth testing in a laboratory,” transitional fossils would be a good start.

- 100,000,000 graduated, transitional fossilized forms between amoebas and arthropods.
- 100,000,000 graduated, transitional fossilized forms between arthropods and fish.
- 100,000,000 graduated, transitional fossilized forms between fish and amphibians.
- 100,000,000 graduated, transitional fossilized forms between amphibians and reptiles.
- 100,000,000 graduated, transitional fossilized forms between some weasel-like creature and dogs.
- 100,000,000 graduated, transitional fossilized forms between marsupials and cats.
- 100,000,000 graduated, transitional fossilized forms between therepods and birds.
- 100,000,000 graduated, transitional fossilized forms between marsupial tree shrews and primates
- 100,000,000 graduated, transitional fossilized forms between simple primates and apes.

- By the way, these fossils should be fully formed. We’re not talking about a bone here and there, where some overly-eager, artistically-gifted evolutionist manipulates it any which way he wants, in order to “prove” his pre-conceived theory.

- The observation of a single instance of abiogenesis - the appearance of life from non-life.

- The replication of abiogenesis in a laboratory, to identify the natural cause by which abiogenesis occurs.

- Also, it would be helpful to be able to dissect all 900,000,000 fossils above in order to see how the various organs actually evolved.

Now, even at this point no rational person is calling evolution a fact. It is still an unproven hypothesis. Rational people are not going to present it as fact in billions of pages of scientific journals, on millions of web pages, in millions of public schools and university class rooms. . . yet.

2. Theory Status

In order for evolution to make it to the point where scientists might perceive it as a theory, where they could present it to the public with a bit more dogmatism, rational people would demand a little more work.

- Repetition of the entire process of turning a rock into an ape shall have been accomplished in a laboratory setting and the mechanisms will have been well identified.

- Records from some rational and credible person who observed it happening that way over 4 billion years is also essential.

- (And for us Christians), we would demand some better explanation for the biblical record of Genesis 1-3 and Exodus 20:11, (to include the word study of the Hebrew word “yom”) of scholars slightly more believable than the theistic evolutionists who kowtowed so quickly to the wizards that peep and mutter in the white coats (and forgot to study their science in the fear of God over seven generations in the universities).

Evolutionists who want to chase this particular conception of origins have some work to do.

(I certainly respect those who would need a little more evidence than this before they could believe such a preposterous theory as the evolution of an ape from a rock. If there are other rational people who would like to add a few other items to the list, don’t hesitate to e-mail me at host@kevinswanson.com.)

May 21, 2009

Guys doing Life in Prison . . . And Loving their Kids

Put it together. 70% of inner city kids are born without fathers. And 85% of those incarcerated in America come from single-parent homes. If America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and children of incarcerated dads are 7X more likely to go to prison than other kids, then what do we have to look forward to in the next generation? Generational catastrophe!

But in the ashes of this catastrophe, somebody is planting a garden. Somebody came up with the idea of bringing Malachi 4:6 into the most violent prisons in America. I recently had one of the most exciting interviews we’ve ever done on Generations Radio with Lyndon Azcuna, director of Awana’s Lifeline program. Nothing will inspire hope like God’s grace working in the most desperate conditions. Guys doing 40 years to life in prison for armed robbery are loving their kids and teaching these precious children God’s Word as they sit in a maximum security prison. Here is a beautiful message of reconciliation, fatherhood, discipleship, and God’s grace.

Listen to the program now. You'll be glad you did.

May 18, 2009

The Best Education for Your Child

It seems that a good many of my personal heroes in history never obtained a college degree. The more I read of the greatest men in history, the more I find an “informal” education. I use the word I found on the plaques at Mount Rushmore for each of the men represented on the South Dakota hillside - Education: Informal. George Washington, Patrick Henry, John Winthrop, Oliver Cromwell, even Charles Spurgeon never graduated from college! They catch a year of classroom here, six months of tutoring there, and four to five years with father or mother in the home. It’s sort of a patchwork quilt of an education.

I look at the education of a child as more of a sculpture than a paint-by-numbers kit. No one-size-fits-all approach will do for children created so uniquely by God with individual talents and abilities for some specific, individualized calling!

People ask me what sort of education I favor. I tell them, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Some boys should never be nailed to a chair for six hours a day at 7 years of age. It would be better for them to be plowing the fields with dad, fishing in the afternoon, and listening to mom read out loud in the evenings until they are 12 or 13 years of age (before you think about giving them much in terms of academics). Some may be reading Foxe’s Book of Martyrs at six, like Spurgeon.

Whatever you give your children, make sure that they are taught in the fear of God and humility, with a focus on character and faith on the part of the parent/mentor. (There are a few other biblical principles that I've summarized in my book - Upgrade, available in the Resource Section of the website.)

Education in the One and the Many allows for some structure and some liberty. The structure is imposed on us by the Word of God - you'll find a chunk of it in the book of Proverbs. That young man and that young woman must be trained to be dominion takers and family shepherds, help - appropriates and home-overseers, diligent, honest, honoring mother and father, etc. A young man can learn to be diligent working side by side with dad in the fields, or by studying Algebra at 7 years of age for three hours a day, either way. God requires diligence. (And yes, God does generally require reading and writing as part of a basic education - Deut. 6:8-9).

The world perpetually errs in the two directions of anarchy and tyranny, child-directed education (eg. Montessori, etc.) on the one hand, or the What-A-Child-Needs-To-Know-At-8.57 Years-of-Age education on the other (eg. E.D. Hirsch, etc.).

Maximum liberty and maximum blessing will come with an education formed around the Word of God.

This is one of the reasons I am soundly opposed to the tyranny of the compulsory attendance law.

May 15, 2009

Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective People

You’ve heard of the seven habits of highly effective people. From today’s broadcast, we present the seven habits of highly ineffective people, specifically focused on fathers, pastors, and elders in churches.

1. No Vision. Their consummate lack of vision and inability to understand the people they lead, make it impossible for them to incarnate word into life (which is leadership).

2. No Discernment. Highly ineffective leaders seem to be constantly bound up with gnats, and have no ability to discern the camels. While they are busy gnat-picking on unbelievably insignificant things, the dragons are consuming the villages - their families, their church congregations, and their society. They spend more time fighting narrow little battles of insignificant consequence than taking on the world, and they have no idea how to define the world. And discerning the flesh? You got to be kidding? Discerning your own flesh requires humility (See #6), and discerning other people’s flesh requires relationships (See #3).

3. No Relationships. These people get excited about action items, theological quibbles, and tiresome debates on bare ideas, while their relationships languish. For them it is all about motions, minutes and meetings. BTW, I’m still looking for Jesus’ board meeting where Peter moved the previous question, and James proceeded to amend the previous question during the debate on some lame request for an excuse of absence issued by that other Son of Thunder.

4. No Encouragement. They have not a clue how to motivate people. Don’t look to these people for enthusiasm and vigorous, motivating encouragements for anything except maybe their own projects.

5. No Endurance. Unfortunately, too many young men lacking good mentorship from a father or other mentor lack loyalty, commitment, stick-to-itiveness, and they are superbly unreliable in the long run. Successful projects usually take 15-20 years to cultivate, and any leader who is shifting direction every 2-3 years will never yield much in results. They don’t want to risk anything. They won’t challenge paradigms. They really don’t want to do anything too hard - although they are fine if the people they lead want to do the really hard stuff.

6. No Change. Yet leaders must make meaningful changes along the way, maintaining a thread of unity through it all. However, the most important area of change is the heart and life of the leader himself. The highly ineffective leader fails to listen to advice. He’s never confessed sin in tears before the other brothers in the eldership. He seems eager to see repentance in others, but try to find it him! Too much pride for that.

7. No Sacrifice. Here is a leader that has never given up his own paycheck for the widow and orphan. He is a bitter, petty, proud little man who is always bucking for leadership, and bitter that nobody really wants to follow him. He can’t help but focus on how everybody else is letting him down all the time. He forgets that the very best leaders take the nails, hang on crosses, are abandoned by their best friends, and love, and love, and love, and love. . .

If the Shoe Fits, Wear it!

Whether you are a father, a pastor, or an elder, the weakness of family and church relationships in this country is primarily due to the weakness of the leaders. May God give us the grace, the humility, and the wisdom to repair the ruins - beginning with us!

May 13, 2009

Rules vs. Relationships, Love and Law

A “Christian” website announces, “We operate on the basis of relationships not rules, and are led by love not fear.” Another popular “Christian” novel introduces God the Father as one who cares about relationships, not rules. The post-modern “Christian” still shies away from truth and ethics, while still hanging on to some semblance of “relationship.” If the Bible has anything to offer the post-modern, may I point out that God is VERY interested in rules AND relationships? Take a look at a “few” verses:

Josh 22:5 But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the LORD charged you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Exo 20:6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my Commandments.

Deu 7:9 Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;

Deu 11:1 Therefore thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway.

Deu 11:13 And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,

Deu 11:22 For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him;

Deu 19:9 If thou shalt keep all these commandments to do them, which I command thee this day, to love the LORD thy God, and to walk ever in his ways; then shalt thou add three cities more for thee, beside these three:

Deu 30:16 In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

Neh 1:5 And said, I beseech thee, O LORD God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments:

Dan 9:4 And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments;

Joh 14:21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

Joh 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.

1Jn 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.

Granted, there are plenty of shrill voices working to reintroduce God’s Law into life, sans any authentic notion of relationships. But our ministry works to bring BOTH Rules AND Relationships back to a lost and lonely world. Several months ago, I brought a message to our church that addressed both sides of the coin - the crying need in a post-modern wilderness of lost and lonely men. Click here to listen to The Relationship of Rules and Relationships.

May 5, 2009

Congratulations Colorado Homeschoolers

Once again, Colorado homeschoolers won both the Statewide National Geographic Geography Bee and the Scripps-Howard Spelling Bee for 2009! Not bad, when you’re talking about a demographic that only make up about 3% of the population. Autumn Hughes won the state-wide geography bee for the second year! She claimed victory on the 4th tie-breaker question: "Walvis Bay, the largest port in Namibia, was ruled by which country until 1994?" Her answer: South Africa.

May 1, 2009

How You Could Destroy a Free Nation, If You Wanted To

Occasionally I like to play the “If I were my evil nemesis” game. Eg.: Suppose I were the most evil person in the world, how could I get America into the hands of communists, Marxists, and Socialists? I asked that question back in 1988 when I was working on my first book, “Killer Debt.” Here’s what I came up with:

#1. I would train children in socialist schools for about 4-5 generations, such that they would look to the government for stuff like education, welfare, and solutions to all of their problems.

#2. I would erode the character and morality in the nation. In the words of one of America’s founding fathers, Ben Franklin, “Either you’ll be governed by God, or by God you’ll be governed.”

#3. I would put the entire national economy under the control of a federal reserve system, and encourage as much debt as possibly by inflation over 80 years.

#4. Since this would inevitably lead to a form of economic depresssion --- at that point everybody would be looking to the government as the Saviour.

#5. I would get a messiah elected, with a rubber stamp Congress, eliminate balance of powers between private industry/banking and government, and slowly eliminate private ownership and control of industry.

#6. I would deflate the economy and household incomes, giving enough time for significant numbers of Americans to default on their mortgages. This deflation would be the finally catalyst necessary to turn over the ownership of most private property to the government, or at least to a few wealthy bankers who make up the Primary Dealers in select world banks.

Of course I would only do something like that if I were the most evil person in the world, and I was able to centralize economic power. But don’t listen to me. I only sold 10 copies of the book.

There are those who Make things Happen,

. . .there are those who Watch things Happen,

. . . and there are those who Wonder what Happened.

April 27, 2009

Homeschooling, Eh?

We’re still reeling from the wonderfully warm welcome we received from our friends from north of the border over the last week! Back-to-back weekends took the Generations Team to Red Deer, Alberta and Hamilton, Ontario to serve as speaker for the two largest home schooling conventions in Canada.

Over the last 15 years, the Ontario Christian Home Educators Connection and the Alberta Home Education Association have provided leadership, guidance, and resources to thousands of home educating families as this fledgling movement grew into something substantial. The movement is about 5-10 years behind the home schooling movement in the United States, while the secularization of their country may be 5-10 years ahead of us.

It was also a delight to connect with Paul Faris at both conferences. A second generation homeschooler himself, Paul heads up Canada’s Home School Legal Defense Association.

The Canadians are a sweet and gentle people, and it was a true blessing ministering to them. The following heart-warming and thoughtful notes came in over the last few days,

“We Canadians may seem like we were an unmovable crowd, but I know you inspired many, many families. Inside our calm demeanor, we were punching the air along side you, and raising our voices with you. . .”

“I, as well as my mother and sisters, thoroughly enjoyed your speaking sessions at the AHEA conference in Red Deer. Your messages were both encouraging and inspiring to us. . .”

“Thank you so much for your encouraging and enlightening speeches at the home school conference in Red Deer last week. My husband and I felt very blessed . . .”

“I wanted to thank you so much for speaking this year at the AHEA conference. I believe that your message is sooooo needed and timely for North America and the world. . .”

April 16, 2009

Breaking Through the Group Think

Here is what I was TRYING to say with Thursday's program. I happened upon the quote after recording the program, but this was what I really meant to say. This is that great Christian voice crying in the wilderness back in the 1920's - J. Gresham Machen:

J. Gresham Machen: “False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. Under such circumstances, what God desires us to do is to destroy the obstacle at its root.”

April 12, 2009

The Gospel

The word “Gospel” is bandied about a great deal, and I’m not sure that everybody knows what it means in a Christian context. Since the Gospel is the "good news," I think it is important that people know the essence of that good news!

In the broader sense of the word, the gospel is the Word of God revealed in Old and New Testaments (1 Pet. 1:25, Heb. 4:2). It is the fear of God, and man's obligation to live for His glory and worship. It is to proclaim the judgment of God on the nations (Rev. 14:6,7).

But in the more narrow and proximate sense, the gospel is defined by the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor. 15:1,2.

1 Cor. 15:1,2 I declared unto the gospel which I preached unto you, by which you are saved if you keep it in memory. [And here it is in the following verses. . .] how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. . .”

So the Gospel is a real life story of a death and a resurrection - the death and resurrection of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. The purpose of that death is also an important element of the Gospel and Paul tells us that “He died for our sins.”

So far so good.

But really as far as all of us are concerned, the Gospel requires a response in order for the Gospel to be good news for us.

This response is beautifully pictured in the story of the sinner woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears (Luke 7:47). Our Lord explains the meaning of this scene in these words, “Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.”

Here is a woman who has sinned much, she has been forgiven much, she loves much, and she serves much. She serves and obeys much because she loves much. Jesus completes the picture in these well-known words, “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

Who among us should not identify with this woman? Which of us has not sinned much or been forgiven much, if we have believed in God’s gracious forgiveness in Christ?

Now, a litany of problems begin to emerge when somebody takes a pair of scissors and cuts this picture in half, or even in thirds - and this is the way the Gospel is sometimes presented. How can one separate “Sinned Much” and “Forgiven Much” and “Loved Much” in this picture without ruining the entire picture?

To bifurcate the story by clipping Sinned Much away from Forgiven Much while preaching Law of God will only make the law an intolerable burden.

To bifurcate this story by clipping Sinned Much from Forgiven Much while preaching Grace is to make forgiveness meaningless.

Or to bifurcate the story again by clipping Forgiven Much from Loved Much is to forget why you need to love, and the law again becomes burdensome in the life of the believer.

For some reason, many of us tend to bifurcate the story in our own mind and messages, and in so doing contort the Gospel. My suggestion is to take the whole picture as it is and leave off bifurcating these stories. For those who are aware of the three-fold use of the law, I say there is no need to separate the first and the third use of the law in this story. It is impossible to be forgiven much and not to love much, while hearing the Word of God preached under the shadow of the cross.

This is not to say we can’t talk about different sides of the issue, but at some point the story must stand as a complete story in our minds. This woman sinned much, she was forgiven much, she loved much and served much.

Wherever I teach the Word and attempt to disciple the nations, I do not want anybody walking away without them -

1. Knowing and Believing that they have Sinned Much and that they have been Forgiven Much, and,
2. Loving Much and Obeying His Commandments Much (which will most likely be the same commandments that they were breaking before they heard the Word taught.)

When the law is preached under the shadow of the cross, the same law that convicts a sinner of his sin will serve as the rule of obedience for that heart flowing with passionate love, upon hearing and believing the good news of Christ‘s forgiving grace.

And that good news is clearly stated in 1 Cor. 15:1-3.

“Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. . ."

He died for our sins. And He was raised again for our justification! Hallelujah! (Rom. 4:25).

April 11, 2009

Reading Fodder

Occasionally, people ask me where I graze. . . Presently, I’m chewing the literary cud over. . .

• The Works of Justin Martyr
• Francis Turretin’s writings on Justification
• P.G. Wodehouse’s Leave it to Psmith
• R.J. Rushdoony's World History
• Cooper's Pathfinder
• Benjamin Wiker’s Ten Books that Screwed up the World and 5 that Didn’t Help
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together

I love to read. If I had things my way, I’d tuck myself into my library of 10,000 books and read the rest of my life. But alas (speaking from the fleshy portion of the brain), God prefers a charity that edifies. I guess I actually have to get up and go out to love the orphan and visit the widow from time to time.

April 8, 2009

Population Decline and the "Full Quiver" Movement

The Muslims are taking over in Europe, because “Old Europe’s population is dwindling as birth rates among Muslim groups are swelling,” to quote yesterday’s Fox News. Three out of the 19 sections of Brussels now have Muslim majorities, and the "mosques are in charge." But then we turn over to an NPR story and find some twenty-first century Existentialist criticizing a few Christians in America who actually like children and count them a blessing!

The Full Quiver movement is a shock to the existentialist, me-centered, materialist age that took the birth rate from 4.0 to 2.0 (while the square footage of the average home doubled in size) since 1900. This worldview paradigm shift may be what it will take to salvage Christianity in a day where humanism is rotting and the only thing that may be left in a hundred years are Muslims and Mormons out in the west.

Concerned? Interested? Listen to this 30 minute radio show on the Full Quiver movement.

April 2, 2009

Homeschoolers Perform Way Above National Average

Another study on the academic performance of home educators in America is about to be released, and preliminary results indicate that. . . Homeschoolers today are doing EVEN BETTER than they were in the 1990s when the Rudner Study was released. For the last twelve years we have relied on the E.R.I.C. Clearinghouse (Rudner) Study that put homeschoolers 30-35 percentile points ahead of the national average (of 50%) on the standardized tests. With the massive growth seen in home schooling since then, there was some doubt in the ranks that we would sustain the excellence we saw in the 1990s. But the new study confirms even higher percentile averages. Before you get too excited though, I do need to point out that American educational standards are still falling fast! A federal study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics finds that literacy among college graduates in America has dropped 10% from 52% in 1992.

Yet, is academic excellence what we are pursuing in the paideia (nurture and instruction) of our children or is it something else? A study performed by UCLA found that the highest value of college kids is to get a good job and make boatloads of money. What are our highest values? Should we seek academic excellence in order that our children might “get into a good college,” so that they will make their $52,000 a year on graduation? What values are passing on to our children? These were the questions I asked 60 parents at our high school seminar last Saturday. Then, I read Matthew 6:33, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” If we seek what God wants first, He’ll take care of the grades and the college education, and the 52K per year, or whatever junk they’ll need in life. So what does God want us to focus on? In all our academic studies, we want to focus on things like “the fear of God as the beginning of wisdom,” humility, faith, and character. We want to make sure that our young men become the men of God that He envisions in passages like 1 Tim. 5:8, Eph. 5:23,25,28, Eph. 6:4, Neh. 4:14, 2 Samuel 24, and 1 Tim. 2:8.

This is what God wants! And He so highly values our precious daughters who become beautiful cornerstones configured in passages like 1 Pet. 3:4, 1 Tim. 2:9-15, Titus 2:3-5, and Gen. 2:20. These things are important to God. I don’t really know why. But if He thinks they are important, let’s focus on these things first - and I guarantee that He’ll make sure of our academic and economic success. Then, we’ll begin to see national studies where home schooling parents sans teaching certificates are yielding a home school population that scores 35-40 percentile points above the national average.