"Situational Awareness"

     Christians are caught up in a spiritual conflict. The battleground of the war is the believer's thought life, the mind. The enemy are resolute in their determination to persuade us of that which is impossible for them to achieve, to separate us from the love of Christ, Romans 8.35.

     Failing to do that, our spiritual enemy displays ruthlessness in their determination to discourage us by one means or another, frequently achieving this by manipulating Christians-in-name-only friends and acquaintances who betray us, accuse us, undermine us, and who knows what else?

     The goal, of course, is to disparage the cause of Christ and create division in the body of Christ, in the hope that the individual will become so despondent he will give up, quit, or leave. Most Christians have developed enough what is termed in the military 'situational awareness' that they recognize spiritual opposition for what it is and resist it. No lost individual and too many infantile believers succumb because 'situational awareness' is beyond them. They either cannot or will not look unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.

     The result? Discouraged, despondent, and without hope, they make crucial decisions without seeking wise counsel (with those decisions frequently resulting in irretrievable loss of opportunity or recourse). Sometimes the counsel of friends is sought. At other times, the counsel of parents is sought. Almost never is the counsel of a seasoned spiritual leader sought ... or followed.

     How is one to be prepared for service to the Savior if those men given by the Savior are left uninformed and outside the troubled person's decision loop? After all, a good portion of equipping for the work of the ministry is showing how to deal with ongoing spiritual opposition and conflict.

     The result is discouragement and defeat resulting from a lack of awareness of how normal and usual a person's issues are (1 Cor 10.13), the forces that are in play (Eph 6.10-18), and the fatal error that is often made by granting to the enemy what they have sought all along, a break of fellowship, a departure, a cut and run decision that is the opposite of God's will and exactly in line with the demons' objective when organizing the attack against that person.

     When the apostle wrote First John 2.19 the lines were more clearly drawn than they are in our day ("They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.")

     But John's declaration was not the assertion of any new principle. A thousand years earlier Solomon, in Proverbs 21.16, wrote, "The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead."

     We who have a relationship with God do not always have a storehouse of scripture knowledge, but we more often than not have some amount of situational awareness. We know we are involved in a spiritual conflict and that we are outmatched, wholly dependent upon the grace of God and the means of grace to be equipped to resist the devil so he will flee from us. 

     The goal? To resist the enemy's push against us. To refuse to flee when we know the goal is to get us away, to separate us from, and to isolate us from those in our lives who are charged by God to minister to our most significant needs.

     Notable men are of the opinion that the departure from a congregation is evidence of a lost condition. Not all are agreed. But no would rightly disagrees with the conclusion that to flee is not helpful, to run is not healthy, to bail out is contraindicated, because there is no possible way a child of God can be faithful by being unfaithful, can stand fast by cutting and running.

     The long term remedy that should ever be employed? Seek always to maintain 'situational awareness.' Ask yourself and responsible and spiritual mature leaders who are Bible students what God wants you to do and what He would never not want you to do.

     'Situational awareness' is crucial. You must always seek to understand your situation, the goal of the enemy in your life, the desire of God for your life, so you can seek God's wisdom, God's grace, and the determination not to flee when you should stay or stay when it is God's will that you leave.

“An Important Metaphor To Understand”

 

Sometimes, God graciously reveals to you some of the lengths He has gone to teach you needful things. At this stage of my life and ministry, I am grateful to God for reminding me of His patience. This is but one example.

If my memory serves me correctly (and memory is never a catalog of events and facts in the order in which they occurred or were experienced, but a series of impressions and images), He first began to teach me about the importance of metaphors when I was a student at Madras High School in Madras, Oregon.

If memory serves me correctly, it was a speech class taught by Miss Farrar. I did not enjoy the class very much; I only remembered one classmate who is, to this day, a Facebook friend. I certainly did not learn much, overwhelmed by pride and insecurities that were the norm for most boys my age. Had I paid attention, I might have learned about figures of speech, specifically metaphors and similes. Sadly, I did not.

The next opportunity given to me to learn how to communicate more effectively was in the United States Air Force Academy and an English class using the Scribner Handbook of English, written by Albert H. Marquardt and Frederick G. Cassidy. It is a wonderful tool that is well-suited for those who must communicate effectively without much interest in the actual structure and use of the English language. Again, I learned nothing about metaphors and similes while using them in everyday conversation.

The 3^rd and 4^th opportunities given to me were while enrolled in hearing school at Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon. Not much appreciated by engineering students, it is crucial for those enrolled in STEM courses to learn how to communicate effectively to a broader audience of non-technical people. The two English courses I was required to take were taught by men who did not take their topic seriously. Both courses were tragically missed opportunities; the professors told us during the initial class session that attendance was not required until the day of the final exam. Since attendance was not required, I attended no classes and learned nothing. For both courses, I showed up on the day of the final exam to inform the professor what grade I wanted them to give me, with one professor demanding a reason why he should give me an A for the course. “Because my parents pressure me to get good grades,” I told him. “That’s good enough for me,” he said, and I received an A in the course for doing nothing.

The 5^th opportunity given to me occurred after I had come to Christ and was enrolled in Bible college, taking a course from a missionary named Rosalie Hooge. She was a brilliant communicator, a well-prepared teacher, and a gracious Christian woman with much to offer. In retrospect, I deeply regret not seizing upon the opportunity afforded by such an excellent instructor.

I am an inveterate reader, which enabled me to gain valuable insight into the usefulness of similes and metaphors when communicating. I all my appetite for reading to growing up in the home of a mother and father who were readers, with my dad having a voracious appetite for books. His example was more caught by me than taught to me.

I wonder what might have been had I any appreciation for God’s plan for my life, to be called into the Gospel ministry, to spend a half-century declaring the unsearchable riches of Christ, to writing books, tracts, and brochures. How many wasted opportunities do you have to become a more effective and practical Christian?

Not that I have no appreciation for metaphors and similes, but that my facility with them might have been far more well-developed, and I seized upon the many opportunities God gave me. So, what is a metaphor? The Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary defines metaphor as “a transferring to one-word the sins of another. A figure of speech in which one thing is likened to another, different thing by being spoken of as if it were that other; implied comparison, in which a word or phrase ordinarily and primarily used of one thing is applied to another.”[1]

Not that I did not appreciate the significance of metaphors in New Testament interpretation. But there are times when someone who has been as neglectful as I was fails to appreciate the importance and relevance of language tools God gave us to help us understand significant truths. Such is the case with the body metaphor used by the apostle Paul in the New Testament.

I write all this to impress upon you what has been impressed upon me. There are certain truths found in God’s Word that will not be adequately understood or appreciated apart from recognizing and applying an understanding of figures of speech. We claim to speak and interpret the Bible literally, but we know that the literal sense makes nonsense, so we should seek another sense.

I close with a recommendation that I urge you to obtain from me at no cost and read carefully. It is a carefully researched and expertly crafted brochure by a pastor friend I have never met face-to-face. Charles L. Hunt has written The Body of Christ: Separating Myth From Metaphor.

Author Hunt correctly asserts, in my opinion, that a failure to recognize and understand the body of Christ metaphor used by the apostle Paul makes it almost impossible to grasp God’s truth about the church of Jesus Christ. After reading his book, I agree with him.

If you would like me to mail you a copy, email me, and I will get it to you as quickly as possible. May God richly bless you in your ministry of studying the Bible, applying the Bible, and declaring the unsearchable riches of Christ.

---

[1] Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1996), page 1132.

My Growing Problem With Covenant Theology, Part 1

      Over the course of my fifty years of Christian life and experience I have noticed two main approaches to eschatology, the Covenant Theology position and the Dispensational position. I recognize those two positions are generally held views, but in the main they circumscribe most eschatologies.

     Setting aside the fact that no manmade system can completely or precisely circumscribe a sophisticated Bible doctrine, let me for now focus my attention on one aspect of Covenant Theology that speaks to the very nature of God as true, as immutable, and as reliable.

     My friend, W. R. Downing, has recently written a wonderful work pastors would do well to recommend to their Church members, Introduction to Theology, published through FirstLove Publications (www.firstloveministries.org). On page 96 he writes, "A Theology with its corresponding Hermeneutic that structures the Scriptures from a covenantal perspective rather than Dispensational. It presupposes that God has always dealt with man in a covenant relationship through representation and imputation in either Adam or Christ."

     Am I to understand that Covenant Theology embraces the notion that the Abrahamic Covenant has been abrogated because of the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ by the Jewish people, and that a replacement has occurred whereby the Church is now the recipient of the promises God made to Abraham? Am I correct in understanding this to be the essence of so-called Replacement Theology?

     Feedback and recommended reading advice is solicited.

     

Apocalyptica Americana

 Recently received from a friend.

Apocalyptica Americana

As I write this, our country has degraded into something I no longer recognize.

A Cabal of Oligarchs controls our country at every level. Media, academia, industry, Jaw enforcement1 foundations, non-profits, unions, entertainment, pharma/medical, military, organized religion, judiciary, and local, state, and federal governments are thoroughly infiltrated by a self-destructive cancer of 'woke' and 'anti'.*

* Anti-family, anti-law-and-order, anti-liberty, anti-Christian, anti-Jew, anti-child, anti­woman, anti-man, anti-white, anti-police, anti-self-defense, anti-moral, anti-English, anti-life, anti-energy, anti-private-property, anti-truth, anti-individual-rights, anti­business, anti-normal, and, most of all, anti-America.

This Cabal uses censorship and Lawfare against all opponents with coordinated,

Blitzkrieg-like attacks. We are on the precipice of our own Orwellian "1984"

The United States is ostensibly led by a senile and doddering octogenarian, paired with a feckless, slept-her-way-to-the-top 'celebutante. The president's puppet masters keep him well-fed and well-drugged while isolating him a la Woodrow Wilson. The vice president gleefully awaits bad news, like the Grim Reaper hoping to harvest her boss's soul. There is no government program they won't embrace, no graft they won't greedily seize, and no law they won't corrupt and turn against their opponents.

The wicked and deviant philosophy of transgenderism has permeated every segment of our country. What was, only a few years ago, considered the height of perversion and debauchery is now promoted everywhere, from elementary schools to the White House. These deviants are grooming our nation's children at a pace that Nazi Germany would envy.

Abortion has become the Left's Holy Grail. They have deified the execution of millions of viable babies. The abortion business has become a $multi-$billion-$dollar business, heavily subsidized by the tax dollars of those who abhor it. Abortion, rather than abstinence, has become the birth control of choice. Our current Vice President has codified it into our country's thinking by being the first President or VP to openly visit an abortion clinic (with, of course, the press in tow).

These same forces have elevated race hatred to a level that hasn't existed since the 1960's. In 2009, we inaugurated our nation's - and the Western World's - first black president, assuring us that our country was truly 'post-racial’ only to have that ideal crumble into dust in 2020, fueled by venomous racial animus. The lies of blacks being targeted by police while ignoring the scourge of black-on-black violence. The scams of Black Lives Matter and Black Reparations (incl. in California, a state that NEVER had any slaves!) are embezzling $Billions$, and further dividing once-congenial Americans.

Meanwhile, by plane, car, boat, and on foot - and through every border, North, South, East, and West - our country is experiencing a full-blown invasion. Millions of expats from countries that detest America have entered our country and instantly become entrenched and untouchable. The same is true for over a million military-age men, many affiliated with gangs and lawlessness in their own countries. Their crimes within the US are immeasurable. With all this comes a tsunami of human trafficking and China-pushed fentanyl.

Add to that the ever-increasing scourge of homelessness, swamping our social services and emergency rooms and turning our parks, streets, and sidewalks into feces­ smeared and refuse-laden imitations of a Jackson Pollock painting.

Law Enforcement has collapsed, and crime is beyond epidemic. There are roving gangs of thieves that go from car to car and house to house, breaking and stealing with impunity, safe in the knowledge that they will not be punished for their crimes. Amateur and organized retail theft is a daily occurrence. Vulnerable seniors are preyed upon as human punching bags by a 'certain type’ of passer-by (especially true for Asian seniors). Drug traffickers push their evil chemicals with unabashed glee while users ingest their daily high in plain view of law enforcement and the public.

Law enforcement - at least for these crimes- has failed, not by noble battle in T.R.’s ''arena” but by an inverse Thompsonism of ''not showing up.'

In an irony of Shakespearian proportions, this very same Law Enforcement, arm­ in-arm with their Federal Alphabet# Counterparts, have turned their unchecked power on the masses of law-abiding citizens who are/were their natural allies. Christian Pastors and Pro-Life Protestors, Home-Schooling Moms and Pro-family Speakers, Small Business Owners and Independent Contractors, No-Maskers and Vaccine Resistors, Conservatives, Pro-2A and White People, No-Woke-No-DEI-No­ CRT-ln-My-School/Kids/Family/Backyard/Town People ... are being targeted, harassed, persecuted, prosecuted, erased, and destroyed!

#FBIAFTCIANSASWATDOJPISDEAUSMCIDUSSSDHSETCETCADINFINITUM

The evilest examples of this litany of harm against Americans are undoubtedly those perpetrated against Christians and Jews. The believers who find hope, fellowship, and Truth in their Churches and Synagogues find themselves under full-throated attack from every group and institution funded and dominated by the earlier-mentioned Oligarchs. Add to that the open hatred and attacks from Islam, the so-called ''religion of peace'; and the encirclement is nearly complete.

One correction to this most evil descriptor. Indeed, those crimes committed against innocent children by pedophiles, transgenderists, traffickers, and, often, their own relatives and the very governments that exist to protect them must rank as the evilest of all.

Our mass manipulators managed to engineer a new strain of flu into a worldwide pandemic, with incumbent lockdowns, shut-ins, business closures, job losses, trillions blown away, mask mandates, millions of dead, and toxic 'non-vaccine' inoculations.

These medical, media, and governmental philosopher-kings are salivating for the next disease (perhaps ''disease X") that will afford them even more tyrannical control.

Since they will ''never let a serious crisis go to waste'; it seems likely that their next power grab will surround their quasi-religion of 'green' environmentalism. Much of the government, industry, and media are already (and willingly) enslaved to this 'green cult'. Regardless of the obvious harm to our country and countrymen, they are jumping headlong off the cliff of 'green.'

Debt has become a quasi-god, with our federal government indebted over $34 Trillion and our populous indebted over $17 Trillion. Due to rampant inflation, stories abound about people having to sink deeper in debt to survive month to month. Corporations are pushing usurious debt onto their customers to buy their usuriously priced products, many of which are, at best, superfluous and, at worse, addictive and harmful to them and their families.

Wars are raging across the world, including Israel/Gaza/West Bank/Lebanon, Ukraine/Russia, and now, civil war in Haiti. There are threats of war in Taiwan/China, Russia/Europe, India/China, N. Korea/S. Korea, all of which are or will involve the U.S., with little or no support from our nation's allies. The Oligarchs desire war, perhaps the last Great War of our Great Experiment

As any reasonable observer would conclude, all of this is purposeful, done with the purpose of an assassin. The slaughter of the publicus by the Oligarchs; the ultimate Manifest Destiny.


Now, in the twilight of my life, I feel profound remorse that I am increasingly­ incapable of helping with any of these solemn issues. I could not even defend myself- let alone others- if they were set upon by anyone wishing to do them harm; an abrogation of a sacred vow, made when I was young, and they were fresh and innocent.

Isolated, spent, disheartened, and powerless, my options dwindle by the day.


March 17, 2024

The Body Of Christ: Metaphor not Myth

     I would like to announce a new publication now available at ClassicalBaptist.Press titled "The Body Of Christ: Metaphor not Myth." Written by Pastor Charles L. Hunt, I have obtained permission from the author to make it available to you without charge.

     Written in 2006, Pastor Hunt's perceptive treatment of the New Testament phrase used by the Apostle Paul deals with the most common error of Protestantism with respect to the doctrine of the Church, the body of Christ metaphor. It is now available in PDF and can be downloaded and printed for distribution to your congregation.

     I am in whole-hearted agreement with Pastor Hunt's assessment that, setting aside ecclesiastical compromise and an unwillingness to stand apart from Protestantism, the most likely error leading to a misunderstanding of the nature of the New Testament Church is a failure to grasp the body metaphor used by the Apostle Paul.

     Many pastors seem unwilling to wrestle with this issue, perhaps failing to recognize the central role a proper ecclesiology plays in New Testament interpretation. Some will be encouraged by this work. Others will be dismayed to discover misdirection in their understanding of this topic. Not to worry. Illumination is never complete this side of eternity, and God blesses the right approach to His Word. Be of good cheer!

     Here is the link you will need to download the file: https://www.classicalbaptist.press/_files/ugd/946b8f_5391670b30b049209127ab3b32a81b9a.pdf 

The Earth Is Not Flat!

 

“THE EARTH IS NOT FLAT”

Job 26.10; Proverbs 8.27; Isaiah 40.22

 

Quickly turn in your Bible to Job 26.10: “He hath compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end.” Look at the word “compassed.” It means to draw as a circle.^[1]

Now turn to Proverbs 8.27: “When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth.” Look at the word “compass.” Solomon refers to the curvature of the horizon as you look out over the ocean. It means to draw a circle.^[2]

Finally, turn to Isaiah 40.22: “It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.” In this verse I want you to consider the phrase “the circle of the earth.”

Dr. Henry Morris comments, “40:22 circle of the earth. Hebrew khug is translated ‘compassed’ in Job 26:10 and ‘compass’ in Proverbs 8:27. All three, in context, clearly refer to the sphericity of the earth.”^[3]

The Mac Arthur Study Bible comment reads, “40:22 sits above the circle of the earth. The word ‘circle’ applies to the spherical form of the earth, above which He sits. This implies that God upholds and maintains His creation on a continuing basis.”^[4]

You have probably been taught that in olden times, men thought the world was flat. But historians debunk that as nonsense. Throughout history, most who have thought about such things have thought the earth was a sphere, especially seafaring men.

There was a time when the Roman Catholic Church advanced the silly notion that the earth was flat, but that notion did not come from the Bible, as we see from these three verses we have read. Where did the flat earth idea come from?

I have a suspicion. Listen to these excerpts from a book written by a former Muslim. The book is titled Behind The Veil, and I read from pages 175-177:[5] 

Several thousand years ago, the Holy Bible clearly recorded that the earth is round and that it is hung on nothing.

“It is He who sits above the circle of the earth” (Isa. 40:22).

“He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing” (Job 26:7).

Yet, the Qur’an challenges these established scientific facts. In many places, it alludes to the fact that the earth is flat and its mountains are like poles which create a balance so that the Earth does not tilt. Let us consider what the Qur’an says about the Earth:

In chapter 88:17,20, it is recorded,

“Will they not regard the camels how they are created...and the Earth how it is spread?”

In page 509, the Jalalan says,

“In his phrase, ‘how it is spread’, he denotes that the earth is flat. All the scholars of Islamic law agree upon this. It is not round as the physicists claim.”

The Qur’anic teaching is obvious from the comment of Jalalan that “the earth is flat and not round as the scientists claim”. What made Jalal al-Din say so is that the Qur’an hints in many chapters that the earth is flat (refer to 19:6, 79:30, 18:7, and 21:30). Also, the Qur’an indicates that:

“We have placed in the earth firm hills lest it quake so as not to sway and hurt people” (21:3 1).

Scholars who agree upon the meaning of this verse believe as the Jalalan states (pp. 270-271),

“God has founded firm mountains on earth lest it shake people.”

On page 429, al-Baydawi says,

“God has made firm mountains on earth lest it sway people and quake. He also made heaven as a ceiling and kept it from falling down!”

The Zamakhshari agrees with the above authors and reiterates the same words (refer to Zamakhshari part 3, p. 114).

In the Qur’an (chapter 50:7), we find another verse which carries the same meaning,

“And the earth have we spread out, and have flung firm hills therein” (Surah Qaf: 7).

This is accompanied by the same comment by the above Muslim scholars (refer to Jalalan, p. 437; Baydawi, p. 686, Tabari, p. 589, and Zamakhshari, part 4, p. 381). All of them assure us that “if it were not for these unshakable mountains, the earth would slip away.”

Zamakhshari, the Baydawi and the Jalalan say: “God has built heaven without pillars but He placed unshakable mountains on Earth lest it tilts with people.” Concerning chapter 50:7, the Suyuti says that scholars indicate that “Qaf is a mountain which encompasses the entire earth” (refer to Itqan, part 3, p. 29). Qaf is an Arabic L like K.

These are the comments of the ancient Muslim scholars word for word. Even some Saudi scholars wrote a book a few years ago to disprove the spherical aspect of the earth and they claimed that it is a myth, agreed with the above mentioned scholars, and said we must believe the Qur’an and reject the spherical aspect of the earth.

It is also well-known that the Qur’an proclaims that there are seven earths-not just one (refer to the commentary of the Jalalan, p. 476, al-Baydawi, p. 745 as they interpret chapter 61:12, Surah Divorce: 1 2).

It is very clear that the sun does not traverse the heaven and set down in a murky, muddy well, or slimy water, or a place which contains both of them as the Baydawi, Zamakhshari, and the Qur’an remark.

Nor is the earth flat and the mountains the pillars and the towerings which prevent the earth from moving as the Qur’an and the scholars said. Nor is there a mountain which encompasses the whole earth-nor are there seven earths.

Neither is the lightning an angel whose name is Rafael, nor is the thunder an angel. It never happened that the angel Gabriel inspired Muhammad to write a complete chapter about his friend the angel thunder! The thunder and lightning are natural phenomena and not God’s angels like Michael and Gabriel as the prophet of Islam claims.^[6] 

I suspect that somehow, perhaps in Spain, where the Muslim Moors and the Catholics lived together for some centuries, the Muslim belief that the earth is flat was adopted by Catholic “scholars.”

Whatever really happened, the Bible has been correct for 3,500 years in showing that the earth is a sphere. Thus, you can trust the Bible to be truthful and accurate.

---

^[1] Francis Brown, S. R. Driver & Charles A. Briggs, The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew And English Lexicon, (Peabody, MA: 1979), page 295.

^[2] John Joseph Owens, Analytical Key to the Old Testament, Volume 3, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1989), page 543.

^[3] See footnote for Isaiah 40.22 from Henry M. Morris, The Defender’s Study Bible, (Grand Rapids, MI: World Publishing, Inc., 1995), page 754

^[4] See footnote for Isaiah 40.22 from John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible, (Nashville: Word Publishing, 1997), page 1014

[5] Abd El Schafi, Behind The Veil: Unmasking Islam, (1996).

^[6] Abd El Schafi, Behind The Veil, (1996), pages 175-177.

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit

 1. First predicted by John the Baptist in Matthew 3.11, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire,” is it not the authenticating sign attesting to the messiahship of Jesus?

2.