“Courageous Christian Father” posted this picture a sign at the First Baptist Church in Harrogate, Tennessee:
“A Cradle Held Him But A Tomb Could Not”
Let’s keep that in mind, very much in mind, shall we! Not that we mean to ignore the world nooze–but the real news, the Good News, is the birth of Jesus Christ… which we mark as a historical event a week from now.
Up against the evils and stupidities of a fallen world, we plead Jesus Christ the Son of God, who was and is and shall be, Amen.
I don’t know how many times I’ve posted this hymn, and I hope you don’t mind hearing it again. I felt a need for it today. This world needs the light of Jesus Christ: nothing else can lift the darkness.
Light of the World, by Charles Wesley; performed by Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band.
I re-run this post every now and then because this poor fallen world seems to be growing worse by the day, with flagrant ungodliness everywhere we look, and it wouldn’t surprise me if those headhunters from the World Economic Fund were plotting to kill and eat us. So, yes, we have powerful incentives to long for Christ’s return.
Only we can’t know when it’ll be.
Even after He rose from the dead, even after He was just about to ascend to Heaven, Our Lord had to deal with what seems, today, like a really silly question: Now would He bring back the kingdom of Israel? Throughout His entire ministry He talked about the Kingdom of God–and they thought He just meant them?
God loves and honors us by admitting us into His labors–like a mother allowing her little girl to “help” her in the kitchen. But the cookbook is way out of our reach, up on the counter; and even if we could get up there to see it, we wouldn’t be able to read it.
“Watch.” And “Occupy until I came.” That’s what He said. That’s what we must do.
Someone (I suspect my Chalcedon mentor, Martin Selbrede) has sent me a book by Christiana Hale (Hail, Christ?)–Deeper Heaven: A Reader’s Guide to C.S. Lewis’ Ransom Trilogy. I’ve already begun to read it. There is profound wisdom here–one might almost say “intimidating” wisdom.
I want to be a servant of the Lord; but my sins, my worries, my fears, and my inborn limitations hold me back. Lewis based his Ransom Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength) on the medieval model of the universe, which our modern Science says is simply not true. I mean, how could anyone believe in that? But Truth goes way beyond just “facts.” So does C.S. Lewis.
The Truth is that God Himself, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Second Person of the Holy Trinity, came to be born–incarnated–here, on Earth; and died, and was resurrected, here. He did it to save us, to pay the ransom for our sins. And it’s simply not possible that He did this in vain.
I stand in awe of this. The material that I ignored as twaddle is really of critical importance. It’ll take me some time to understand this. I have to read more, pray more, study the Bible more, before I can write any more about it.
But we do have this: God’s Word never returns to Him unfulfilled. Never.
Maybe a picture of a nice lizard will cheer me up (worth a try)
The last couple nooze items I studied, then wrote up, have kind of sucked the air from my lungs. Ex-Archbishop of Canterbury sez being trans is “a sacred journey.” Current senior bishop sez they don’t know how to define “woman” anymore. Pregnant woman scrawls on her belly, “Not Yet A Human,” meaning the baby she carries in her womb: already alienated from it. Highly-paid, highly visible barking idiots insisting men can get pregnant.
Forgive me, Lord, for wondering: but have you gone on vacation? The world is going to hell and we need some help down here!
And then I think of Jesus sleeping in the boat while the disciples panic (Mark, Ch. 4), they’re convinced the storm’s gonna sink the boat and drown them all. Finally they wake Jesus, who commands the storm to stop (which it does, right away). And he turns to the disciples and asks, “Where’s your faith?”
It ain’t easy, watching John Kerry and his friends trying to destroy our civilization. How far will the Lord let them go?
We don’t know. That’s why we need faith. And that’s why faith is hard. But only faith can stand up against the worst of times. Only faith can get us through.
He didn’t want the moneychangers in His Father’s temple, and he didn’t want the Nicolaitanes in His churches: Jesus Christ Our Lord did NOT “accept,” “affirm,” or even tolerate everyone and everything.
Time has erased the memory of what, exactly, the Nicolaitanes said or did that earned Christ’s condemnation: but the condemnation is in no uncertain terms, and He does use the word “hate” to describe how He feels about them and their teachings.
Maybe we’re better off not knowing what those were.
I like to run this piece around graduation time each year, as proof that normal people can win if they stand up to the crazies.
“School officials” at Beaver High School, Pennsylvania, forbade the valedictorian from invoking the name of Jesus Christ. (“It’s against the law!” Oh, please: what law?) She praised Him anyway, and the audience gave her a long round of applause.
As it turned out, there was nothing the idiot “school officials” could do about it.
They want to throw you in jail for using “incorrect pronouns.”
They are evil. They are despicable. And if we ever found the courage to stand up to them, we’d wonder how we ever permitted these fools to frighten us.
We have a hymn request from Erlene: The Lighthouse, sung by John Starnes.
Jesus Christ is our lighthouse… and our Lord.
Mark Rushdoony’s essay today, “Our True Citizenship,” reminds us that we have a higher citizenship in Christ’s Kingdom, above and beyond our earthly citizenship in the United States of America.
https://chalcedon.edu/blog/our-true-citizenship
And if we were good citizens of both, the two would not conflict!
One line stands out: “[N]o matter what men do, the cause of Christ will move forward.”
Can we have an “Amen!” to that? It is, after all, the message of the Resurrection.
Requested by SlimJim: Hu Yavo means “He will come,”–and when He does, Our Lord Jesus Christ, you’d better believe He’ll sort it all out. This hymn seeks no compromise.
Sung by Joshua Aaron, performed live in Jerusalem at the Tower of David.
