Timothy Edwards learned that his nephew Aaron Burr intended to join Benedict Arnold’s attack on Quebec during the American Revolution. He sent a servant to stop him. Reaching Burr outside Newburyport, Massachusetts, where Burr intended to enlist, the servant delivered Edwards’ “ultimatum.”
He first handed the rebellious youth a stern letter: return at once. Burr read it, then asked the servant what uncle would do if he refused. The servant presented a second letter from Edwards. It begged Burr not to go because of the hardships involved. Burr laughed. Timothy had also expected that. The servant pulled out a bag of gold, gave it to Burr with his uncle’s reluctant blessing. Hamilton and Burr, 41-42. Lots of people would love to have Timothy Edwards as their deity. Since they intend to live as they please, they want a god who will agree with them and support whatever decision they make. Who think they can out-stubborn and out-last their god’s demands. None of which the REAL GOD allows! What the REAL GOD says is, “Do as I say or you’ll suffer the consequences.” The Creator won’t stop ruling as he determines just because we want him to rule as we please. We need to impress on our unsaved friends the need to stop opposing God and surrender to his Son. John 4:27 tells of the disciples returning to Jacob’s well after getting luncheon supplies in Sychar. What did they see but the Jewish Rabbi Jesus conversing with a Samaritan woman! Yet...none dared ask him why he obliterated tradition. And none condemned her for talking publicly with a renowned rabbi. We all stand in the place of the six men. Whatever God does, we remain in awe, saying nothing. Whatever God says, we stand dumb before his didache. And only fools dare dispute with him. End Part IV New Apologetics book at: Amazon Check out Virg Hurley books at Amazon Check out Virg Hurley Digital books at: Smashwords
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With organized baseball new, umpires dressed like mourners at a funeral or celebrants at a wedding. In high silk hats they made their calls. Except when a close play occurred. They would poll the crowd for an opinion before making a final decision. Voices From Cooperstown, 109
God never has, and never will ask our opinion on any decision he makes. He didn’t in olden times; he won’t begin in our ego-obsessed tech age. Director José Quintero directed Ingrid Bergman in a film. He found her a pure nuisance. “That’s wrong, José, that’s O,K., José”, “How would you shoot this scene, Ingrid?” Etc. Once, when she watched a rehearsal of other actors, it impressed her so deeply she burst into encomiums. Quintero later said he should have hit her. Instead he felt like falling on his knees before her in gratitude. Ingrid Berman, My Story, 406 God has NEVER allowed us to say, “That’s good, God”; or “You should have done that, God”; or “I would suggest this or that instead, God”. Instead, every tongue sticks to the roof of its mouth, dumb before His majesty! Let the whole world of inhabitants keep silence before the Almighty God. And if we want to speak at all, let it be PRAISE for and GRATITUDE to him who loved us and gave himself for us! End Part III New Apologetics book at: Amazon Check out Virg Hurley books at Amazon Check out Virg Hurley Digital books at: Smashwords Intentional unbelief will never be convinced, however great the evidence for faith. That’s why Jesus didn’t answer the leadership when they requested a sign or wanted to know his source of authority.
What unbelievers call the ethical problem of war vanishes if we understand the spiritual basis of war. Secular historians consider war as the armed extension of politics: armies resolve differences statesmen can’t. Bible believers see war as the continuation in humanity of our common rebellion against God. Opposition to God vanishes when we see the spiritual background of war. Take for example the seven nations in Canaan when Israel arrived on the plains of Moab, across the Jordan from Jericho. Every one of those nations—city-states—claimed that its national deity—usually some version of Baal—had given them the land as its possession. That insult to GOD had to be answered, since every foot and every mile of the whole world belongs to him. The only way he could prove his sovereignty was to have Israel evict them by annihilation. And when they didn’t, the heathen left in Israel became whips on their backs and thorns in their eyes Joshua 23:13. If it took the destruction of those nations to prove that HE alone was God, GOD would destroy them. Whatever it takes in any age or culture to prove GOD owns the very dust in every nation, God will do it. No one can dispute him and no one can judge it as a wrong since only God is an adequate judge of what GOD does! End Part II New Apologetics book at: Amazon Check out Virg Hurley books at Amazon Check out Virg Hurley Digital books at: Smashwords During the American Revolution, English leaders generally, and newspapers broadly, valued the military skills of American generals. When General Montgomery died before Quebec, Sir Guy Carlton had him buried with full military honors. English politicians early and often praised General Washington, his fame growing with the maturity of his army. Proving that, with merely human issues at stake, it’s possible for one’s enemies to value opposing leadership, even as a contest is waged.
Even the heathen learned that lesson. When the Arameans (Syrians) suffered defeat in their first war with Israel under David, they considered it a fluke. When they suffered an even worse defeat in the second battle, they learned it wasn’t, and learned a bitter lesson: “So the Arameans were afraid to help the Ammonites anymore” II Samuel 10:19. Which should mean something to our unsaved society. No one can defeat what God inspires to success. No one can resist his purpose in and plan for history. Unbelievers therefore should stop opposing God in Christ! Though they won’t, as Christ’s ministry proved. When Jesus cleansed the temple at the beginning of his ministry, the leadership barked its question, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” John 2:18. Three and a half years later, in the Last Week of his ministry, the leadership barked the same question, “By what authority are you doing these things...and who gave you this authority?” Matthew 21:23. As Christ’s ministry proved, with spiritual truth the issue, Satan always and intentionally inspires his advocates to misjudge God’s leadership into continual objections and unbelief. In other words, the Sanhedrin members would never be convinced by Christ’s powerful authority. For unbelief is never subject to proof! End Part I New Apologetics book at: Amazon Check out Virg Hurley books at Amazon Check out Virg Hurley Digital books at: Smashwords On Martin Frobisher’s return to the new world, he hoped to find the fate of four men who had been lost on his first voyage.
In a battle that followed, Indians shot arrows at the explorers, who returned arrows in defense. The Europeans were astonished to find any Indian wounded by English arrows to immediately hurl himself off the rocks into the sea, drowning. When the rest decided it was useless to continue shooting, they fled inland. Hakluyt’s Voyages, 189 Where those wounded could have been treated by the Europeans, healed and returned to their villages and families, they preferred death. Which has a mournful spiritual application. For many people react to Jesus that way. He would forgive their every sin, however wicked, malicious or ignorant. He would rehab their entire thinking and behavior, the past forgotten in forgiveness, the future brilliant with promise. He would declare them righteous by merely trusting his Grace. But no...they accept anyone but Jesus. And anything but surrender to him. And any possible alternative to enter Heaven than through him. Rather than Jesus they prefer to die in their sins. Rather than be saved by him, they prefer to live eternally in hell! How mournful that is. How unnecessary. How destructive in those lives is all the truth, love and mercy of God the Father and Christ his Son! New Apologetics book at: Amazon Check out Virg Hurley books at Amazon Check out Virg Hurley Digital books at: Smashwords blical basis of, Part IV
Even the unrighteous can occasionally feel the need to thank God. Andrew Jackson had a devout mother and married a devout wife, but wasn’t himself religious. Nevertheless, he was deeply impressed when his army in New Orleans, 1/8/1815, suffered only 7 dead and 6 wounded when the British with Waterloo veterans attacked his entrenched, makeshift troops. He realized that God had protected his men. In return he asked the bishop of New Orleans to conduct a public service of Thanksgiving. Life of Jackson, 247, 252-253. Thanksgiving in the Bible sense demands a recurring appreciation of and reference to God. For example, Noah built the Ark at God’s command and according to his strict instructions. Then, leaving the Ark Noah on his own volition built an altar to God. In the conviction that God deserved to be praised for delivering his family from the Flood that destroyed all else that breathed. After narrowly escaping disaster in Egypt, Abram built an altar at Bethel and called on God. Because Abram knew only God’s mercy had saved him and Sarai from his bad decisions. The point is: whether God whispers or shouts, when God speaks: LISTEN; HEAR; UNDERSTAND; ACCEPT; OBEY. All the above are the least of what we OWE God the Father and Christ the Son in gratitude and thanksgiving. –Fini- New Apologetics book at: Amazon Check out Virg Hurley books at Amazon Check out Virg Hurley Digital books at: Smashwords Gratitude to God proves our humility, as its absence proves our pride. Mortals charmed by their own affability can’t sense their fall from Grace. Only those ashamed of their sins are subject to its removal by Christ’s sacrifice.
Indeed, the believer’s response to life constitutes the essence of gratitude. God makes great those who know they are small. Who never think they are great and God is small! God delights in forgiving those who know their sins are many, but know that Christ’s blood covers them all. Who never think their sins are few so their debt to God is small. Gratitude is thanking God that he wants to banish our sins; and thanking him for deigning to fill our new life with his righteousness. Gratitude is appreciating God’s ongoing, never-ending life replacing our constant dying and death. In return, God is always the object of our gratitude for giving us a FAITH that’s anchored in the Past, geared to the Present and focused on the Future. For God’s spiritual wealth and wisdom are merely explored in this life and plumbed only in the world to come. So we thank God for the pardon of our past, the power over our present and the promise of a future that is so vastly in excess of this life that we’ll forget this one ever existed! –End Part III- New Apologetics book at: Amazon Check out Virg Hurley books at Amazon Check out Virg Hurley Digital books at: Smashwords Only creation by divine intelligence accounts for everything continuing to re-produce after its own kind. But where a profound awareness of GOD as Creator and Provider marked earlier generations, boastful humanism fills ours.
Pride is as natural to us as winds to Antarctica. While we have the skill to invent, we mistakenly claim skill to create. While we find ourselves with flaming ambition to be more than we are, we find ourselves short of fuel to fire the ambition. Long story short, all created beings are in God’s debt, whether or not we recognize and admit it. The most interesting inconsistency between humans and creation is their respective responses to God. When Jesus commanded Galilee’s towering waters to be still, they stopped suddenly and completely into a flat calm that astonished the disciples. But when God calls rational human beings to be still in faith, we instead worry. When he calls us to obedience, we refuse or procrastinate. What we call creation’s instinct is really a sensitivity to God’s will that humans lack by welcoming pride and tolerating sin. Humanists arrogantly claim, “We can do it”. Christian humbly admit, “We can’t do it, but God can through us!” -End Part II- New Apologetics book at: Amazon Check out Virg Hurley books at Amazon Check out Virg Hurley Digital books at: Smashwords Back to blogging after family health problems caused interruption.
The concept of Gratitude originates in the awareness that the Superior Being—GOD, the Only Original, Underived, Always IS person—gives inferior beings—all created things, the basics of life they couldn’t otherwise have. In 1975 our family attended the launching of super tanker S.S. Mormacstar in San Diego. We watched as the gigantic ship slid down the Ways into San Diego Bay. Everyone delighted in the technological achievement. I wrote a column that week on overlooked facts: who made the BAY into which the ship slid? In fact, where would ships sail without seas? Or planes fly without skies? Or space ships soar without moon or planets? ALL of which humans have no input in providing! Since God alone provided all these “basic” amenities, don’t we owe him a collective debt of gratitude? Will we not praise Almighty God, whose original works of creation shine like noon-day sun against our twinkling-stars achievements; his simple, but profound works that make our most advanced flowering faded blossoms? Despite that truth, while confidence in ourselves has grown like a rumor, interest in God is often limited to a profanity. It’s true that God is a household name, but not a household guest. Nevertheless, flowers that bloom, birds that fly, insects that crawl and human beings that rule the earth are indebted to God for their continued existence according to their kinds and daily sustenance. The chance that evolutionists so grandly posit as the source of life could never be so consistent. –End Part I- New Apologetics book at: Amazon Check out Virg Hurley books at Amazon Check out Virg Hurley Digital books at: Smashwords Due to my wife's longer recovery period, my blog will be started as soon as possible.
God's blessings. |
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