Tag: Abraham

‘A Humble Assumption’

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

Abraham

I think the very hardest thing in Christianity is to hold onto one’s faith in all God’s actions. That whatever happens, even exceedingly bad things, “We must believe,” writes Mark Rushdoony, “that God is good.”

https://chalcedon.edu/blog/a-humble-assumption

Yes, that’s hard. When we lose our loved ones, that’s hard. When we see the ungodly and the wicked running wild (Psalm 73), while the righteous can hardly get from day to day, that’s hard.

So we need to say, as Abraham said, “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25). Abraham earnestly wished God to spare the city of Sodom, for his nephew Lot’s sake, who lived there; but he was prepared to believe in the righteousness of any step God chose to take.

That’s hard. It requires a degree of humility that doesn’t come natural to us.

We can start by praying for it.

German Government Warns Jews, ‘Don’t Wear Skullcaps’

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

Image result for images of build cutout skull caps

(Thanks to Erlene for the news tip)

Here’s a story that America’s free and independent nooze media hasn’t given much play.

God told Abraham, “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).

But in Germany Angela Merkel’s government, through its commissioner on anti-Semitism, has told Abraham’s descendants not to wear their skullcaps because of “potential dangers” (http://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2019/may/27/officials-advice-jews-not-to-wear-skullcaps-german-daily-prints-cut-out-kippa-in-protest-1982429.html).

Assaults on Jews in Germany have markedly increased; and although the government likes to blame the “far right” for these incidents, many involve Muslim “asylum seekers” which Chancellor Merkel continues to import by the thousands.

Germany’s best-selling newspaper, Bild, has objected strenuously to the warning, and gone so far as to publish cut-out skullcaps which it has urged all Germans to wear, to show solidarity with their country’s Jewish citizens. Bild’s editor-in-chief has written passionately on Germany’s need never again to let Jews be persecuted there–need any reader be reminded of the Holocaust?

Job One for any government, anywhere, is to protect its own citizens from anyone who’d do them harm. A government unable or unwilling to do this has no reason for existing.

Merkel’s government seems to be admitting that it just can’t do this job. In that case, sunshine, why are you still there? Make way for a government that will protect its citizens and ensure their right to live in peace.

God gave us separate nations and languages to protect us from the global tyranny whose symbol was the Tower of Babel. There is only one Person whose right it is to govern all the earth, and that is Jesus Christ. A Christless global government would be the Antichrist.

And we can count on both the blessing and the curse to be still in effect.

Bonus: An African Christmas Carol

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God told Abraham, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 22:18), and by “all,” He does mean “all.”

Hence this African Christmas carol, as a reminded.

Don’t worry, I’ll get around to blogging some “news” sooner or later. It’s just that this news, the birth of Jesus Christ, the incarnation of the Word of God, is a lot more important.

P.S.–In the opening picture, those things hanging from the trees, I think, are birds’ nests. But I forget what kind of bird. Anybody know?

A Promise God Has Kept

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God promised Abraham that in him and in his seed–ultimately, in Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God–all the nations of the world will be blessed. This promise is repeated throughout the Old Testament, in a variety of forms.

Which brings us to this video of a Japanese orchestra performing a composition by a German composer in praise of Jesus Christ, born in Judea 20 centuries ago. God has blessed all the nations of the world, for Christ is king for all of them.

Let us take great pains to declare that, in this 2016 Christmas season.

(And hey, everybody, I stand ready to post your Christmas hymn requests. Step right up and don’t be shy! You don’t need an alibi!)

How Good Should Your Heroes Be?

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

The Glass Bridge (Bell Mountain #7) by [Duigon, Lee]

Fantasy fiction is awash with “heroes” who make everything look easy–especially the writing of fantasy. The Clever Thief With the Heart of Gold, The Roistering Barbarian, and the ubiquitous Invincible Female Warrior: please, No mas, no mas! I mean, what kind of a chucklehead do you have to be, to believe in such protagonists?

I would rather pattern my heroes after the heroes of the Bible, like Moses and Abraham, Peter and Paul–heroes who had to accomplish some exceedingly difficult things, and who keenly felt the difficulty, but nevertheless did what they had to do because they had faith in God and tried their level best to obey Him, whatever the cost.

They weren’t supermen. They couldn’t rely on really great kung-fu, powerful magic, super-powers, or any other kind of unlikely boons the writer might bestow on them. And their own personal flaws created more difficulties for them. Think of Moses pleading with God to get someone else to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, and losing his temper when God had him strike the rock to bring out water. No, these weren’t supermen at all. But they got the job done in the end.

When I had the girl, Gurun, in the opening chapter of The Last Banquet, swept down from the north by a storm, to land in a country that was very strange to her, I had no idea that she would go on to be a queen–and a most reluctant one, at that. She can’t even ride a horse without the fear of falling off in front of everybody. None of this was her idea. She wants to go home, but can’t. But what she does is to follow the path upon which God has placed her, in spite of homesickness, and fear, and the very strangeness of it all–without the slightest idea of what her faithfulness and perseverance have come to mean to those around her.

It’s not what Gurun does, but what she is, that matters.

So if you’re writing fantasy, lay off the cliches and let your heroes and heroines be ordinary, believable people who aren’t showing off, aren’t acting like caped super-heroes in a comic book, but are just doing what they do because they have to.

Let your heroes be what we should be–and would be, and will be, if we only keep the faith.