Some thoughts on loving our neighbor in the new Marxist Honor/shame culture.

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by Pastor Eric Anderson
 
In Mark 12:31, The Lord Jesus Christ declared The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself….’ In Titus 2:10…there is a call to “Adorn the Gospel”…(with honest and good works towards others)
 
It is my conviction that in the coming days, as Christians who are also US Citizens, our good works towards our neighbors will increasingly need to include honest and bold truth-speaking, which is both legal and political, yet local as much as national.
 
In the increasingly Totalitarian tyranny of both Government and the Woke mob, our neighbors will see an increasing struggle to make “ends meet,” as well as the freedom to speak and act freely, amidst the Honor/shame Marxist culture where you can be prosecuted in the court of public opinion (as well as legal courts) for doing normal things and refusing to do what used to be normal things.
 
Our pressing need, therefore, and our neighbor’s pressing need, is to defend their rights and reputation, both publicly and privately.
 
This doesn’t mean that everyone has to become a legal scholar, but, as Christians, we must have growing confidence in the authority and understanding of the Creation Mandate, the created order, and the prescriptions and ethics of the Law of God.
 
*We will need to defend this from Scripture, reason, and the US Constitution, even in the legal courts, for the sake of our neighbor, for our neighbor not only needs food and basic essentials but the liberty and right to create and earn and keep these essentials.
 
*We need to both teach and defend the created norms from Scripture and remind our neighbors they are not crazy for thinking so. We will need to defend our neighbor in the face of tyranny from both the mob and, sadly, some in the Government bureaucracy. We will need to teach what are both the established authorities amongst societies (family, church, state) as well as the limits of each.
 
*We must learn to say a strong “no” to sin and tyranny and see that this is a good and necessary endeavor, before God and for the sake of our neighbors.
 
*We will need to understand both the eighth and ninth commandment against those who would steal from our neighbor and bear false witness against them, based upon their skin color, health/safety choices, school decisions, and/or their commitment to raise their boys as boys and girls as girls.
 
I believe, in the new secular/pagan Marxist religion of our time, we can presume nothing.
 
Our Gospel presentations will need to include the Christian view of the world and life: which creational freedoms Christ won and reestablished for us in his victory over sin and death.
 
Jesus was both Fully God but also Fully Man and his life, death, and resurrection, applied through faith and repentance, truly transforms us become the men and women, workers and employees, even government officials, that God created us to be, no longer deceived but living and abiding in the truth.
 
We, the beloved and redeemed children of God, of all people, should understand and grow in our convictions of these matters, that speaking the “Truth” in love is not only good for us but is a necessary means of loving our neighbor amidst the lies of our culture. Our words spoken do and will matter.
 
New City Catechism:
Q: What does the eighth and ninth commandment state:
A: Eighth, that we do not take without permission that which belongs to someone else, nor withhold any good from someone we might benefit. Ninth, that we do not lie or deceive, but speak the truth in love.

Thoughts on the new Christian Sacrament of Defeat-ism and it’s corresponding language of “lament”

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By Eric Anderson
 
Have you noticed that in a highly Therapeutic age, one way we express disappointment, even real (or perceived) injustice is a hopeless Lament language?
 
Case in point: a few years back, myself and a few discerning (and snarky)  friends had a challenge to see who could predict the number of “The Gospel Coalition” articles that would come out in a given month which used the words “lament, weeping, or sorrow” as related to injustices (real or perceived), while simultaneously not addressing them with Biblical clarity or moral courage, according to His revealed and holy Law. Meaning: No God-inspired conviction and call to dry your tears and get to work under the Crowned rights of King Jesus.
 
Notice how this has become a given type of language for the general evangelical voice: Baptism, Communion, and Defeat-ism are the expected marks of the church. (following a nice-guy effort at pietistic reform).
 
Last Month TGC (The Gospel Coalition) published a dangerous yet deeply pietistic sounding article purporting that Christians be losers (not losing your life in the expansion of Christ’s kingdom) but accepting cultural defeat-ism as a necessary, even good thing. Where is the attraction in that? As Christianity becomes smaller and less and less distinguished from the worldly, depraved, and destructive, Marxist culture.
 
Lament has become the language of this new sacrament (defeat-ism); the public and “virtuous sounding” language expressed by increasing privatization of personalized-only faith (the new Pietism) Support Government and the experts, declare we are personally against something, but not publically in a costly way. Straw-man and flog the fellow Christian who says otherwise, declare that they are idolizing politics, family, or male/female; or are mean-sounding; all the while lamenting about the defeat. 
 
I fear this is a humble-sounding yet incredibly self-deceived way of affirming ourselves.  If we sound sorrowful, we tell ourselves, must be in the right and signal to our neighbor our “empathy.”  Lament the injustices wrought to our neighbor while refusing to stand up for our same neighbors to the PC Cancel culture or the increasing tyranny of the government which is erasing their rights to work and live in freedom.  
 
The Truth is in the distinction: We are Losers, yet we also victors at the same time.  We willingly lose our entitlements to living life on our terms, our worldly ambitions for our own sake, our indulging in fleeting pleasures at the same time as we identify with The Victor, King Jesus. 
 
Matthew 16:25 “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”
 
Romans 8:37  37 “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us”.
 
Psalm 2:7-9 “I will proclaim the Lord’s decree: He said to me, “You are my son;  today I have become your father.  Ask me,  and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.9 You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”
 
There are difficulties in this life, particularly which correspond with godly obedience, and masculine, strong feminine Christianity doesn’t deny these, or rename them, but accepts the hardships associated with our responsibilities as we lament the injustices to others and the lies against us.
 
Do we understand how potent not only words of Truth are, but also dispelling lies, and the institutions of Created order given and redeemed by the Truth Giver: The Family, the workplace, and the church. There is nothing lamentable about these, They shine like a bastion of light against the destruction of the world of woke-ness, cancel culture, and the depravity represented by Cardi-b. Better yet, they are God’s given normative ways of cultural change.  Doing ordinary things well, taking upon ourselves these God-ordained responsibilities, is how Christians win, not lose. 
 
Yes, We lament, but we lament in the same prayer as asking for God to bring judgment, mercy, and strength as we fulfill our calling and responsibilities. We lament as we ask God for his Kingdom fulfillment and judgment upon the evil and evil-doers and understand our necessary responsibility to fulfill this mandate. all the while seeking to win. This is true Godly ambition.
 
I Corinthians 15:22-28 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ, all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority, and power.  For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.  The last enemy to be destroyed is death.  For he “has put everything under his feet.”Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ.  When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

Some thoughts on the therapeutic diminishment of our prayer life

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Some thoughts on the therapeutic diminishment of our prayer life
 
by Eric Anderson
 
Psalm 5 “A Psalm of David. Give ear to my words, O LORD; consider my groaning. Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King, and my God, for to you do I pray. O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch”.
Look here: Does David not seem demanding, presumptuous….even rude to God? Of Course. Yet here, He shows the only proper way to bring our petitions to God in prayer.
 
Oh, how our therapeutic, secularized, humanized, psychologized, individualized age has diminished our view of the power of prayer, to whom we are praying and how we pray.
 
Our age is highly casual, even contra-authoritarian. Why, Where the autonomous, Self and has replaced God’s Law, how we feel becomes the arbitrator for our relationships, self-fulfillment the new (holy) standard. Prayer, even to God, necessarily becomes casual, or optional, or a plead, or a persuasion, hinting as we might to a friend to get our way.
 
We treat God as a therapist: we share our feelings with God, and he sits calmly, looks us in the eye, empathizes, and then affirms us, and we did our duty (and don’t change).
 
How little, if ever do we pray with the expected boldness of the Psalmist, much less even asking God to bring judgment and retribution on our enemies (His enemies).
 
Psalm 5:10 “Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you”.
 
Therapeutic-informed prayers fall flat. We are not praying to a friend, nor a buddy. Even though humming and hawing and hinting sound humble, it is anything but. God is not honored with our own, sin wrought diminishment of him. He is not honored with vague, “just be with them” prayers. Praying this way is not a mark of humility, it is the opposite: It is proud and self-focused, as it reflected a very small, diminished god of our own imaginations, run through our self-therapeutic, feel-good lens.
Considered from another angle: the games we play with our children: Hide and Go Seek, this requires human limitations of being in one place at one time. But you don’t’ play this with God. He is Holy. He is other. He is above all earthly inventions and powers.
 
Look no further than the Posture, pattern, and position of prayer from the Psalms, specifically those written by the man, who was also a human king.
David is a king, but of a different kind than the True King. God is a Sovereign, we are not merely his subjects, we are his creation.
 
He rules and reigns over every single molecule, every puppet king, every crevasse, and hidden place upon the earth. He is in this room reigning today, as he was in your rooms last evening. His Law informs us what is actually right and wrong, good and evil. This is the best, clarifying, God-therapy, as we pray fuller, holy Prayers for God’s Glory because we know God’s will.
 
Holy God both offer and expect bold prayers…He is the King, after all. Pray boldly, specifically, humbly before the King, with trembling repentance, trusting in the Gospel of King Jesus to save us, yet with an expected response before the Lord, who promises to answer his children and, through His steadfast love, do good for and to and through them (Romans 8:28). Let us pray accordingly.

Toxic Masculinity?

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One first-order problem today is not that masculinity is toxic but that many men are emasculated and not masculine enough.
 
Masculine Men are providers and protectors. Emasculated men are self-serving, angry, and fearful, under the presented image of “Nice.” Masculine men understand both their call and their limits. Emasculated men point out problems but then shirk at taking responsibility to make necessary solutions.
Masculine men rightly work to make life better but get rightly angry at injustice, yet are not angry men.
 
Emasculated men are simmering with anger, directed at the inconvenience of difficult people or hard tasks. Masculinity necessarily offends yet speaks and lives truthfully. Emasculin-ity apologizes for offending and lets the enemies win.
 
God Created men Male, which is different and distinct from the femininity of female. Redemption in Christ Jesus doesn’t change this, it reasserts this. Masculinity is not toxic, it is good and blessed.

The Denial Holy Mysteries is the beginning of Heresy

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By Pastor Eric Anderson
 
All False teaching, all Gospel denying and re-creating heresy begins with the arrogant presumption that a human can resolve tensions which God alone, as Holy and set apart, has authority over. “In the Beginning God…..” (Genesis 1:1)
 
These Holy Mysteries included, but are not limited to:
*the tensions of God’s Providence and Man’s Responsibility, both being truth at once;
*The two realities that Jesus Christ was truly God and Truly Man;
*The Nature of the Tri-unity of God in Three persons, all distinct yet all unified in the God head at the same time.
 
All these are Holy Mysteries revealed.
 
True Christianity acknowledges these mysteries of God, studies them, yet accepts them in the humble declaration that we are limited creatures and God is not. True worship is God-ward, declaring wonderous mysteries: the glory, attributes, and works of God, while acknowledging we will never plumb their depths, heights or widths.
 
Heresy, on the other hands, seeks to solve what is unsolvable, resolve what is not ours to resolve, and figure out what our limited minds simply cannot. Heresy ends up rejecting the Holiness of God, in his essence and actions. Heresy necessarily denies the extent of human sinfulness and inability, by demanding that God acquiesce to us. Heresy always leads to a man-obsessed worship, a new path of salvation, by functionally refusing to to acknowledge that “Salvation belongs to the LORD” (Psalm 3:8)
 
Yet, Salvation does both belong to the Lord and is offered freely to wicked, proud men and women, who will repent of their heretical, self-sufficient searches for meaning and worship Him alone, through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the Good news of the Gospel.

Judge Kavanaugh, the 9th Commandment, and Eternal Justice.

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Judge Kavanaugh, the 9th Commandment, and Eternal Justice.

 

By Pastor Eric Anderson

October, 2018

Exodus 20:16You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

This hearing for Judge Kavanaugh, set to be the next justice in the highest earthly court in the USA, should disturb us as human beings, and as the Redeemed in Christ.

We believe in God. We believe that He is the eternal judge. Therefore, all crimes against humanity which are first and foremost sins against God, He will deal with in the end. For He sees all and knows all and His standard is perfect (Exodus 20:1-17, Psalm 19)

Therefore, Judge Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford may be guilty before God of sexual immorality drunkenness or a host of other sins. He will deal with them justly. 

So, why is this a travesty for our nation? Because the Bible also speaks of how to apply the ten commandments. Deuteronomy speaks of the need for witness to establish as much objectivity as possible in front of judges. When a crime is committed without witnesses, the guilty will not go free. He or she will face God for his sins against God and men, someday. Yet, he or she cannot be prosecuted in human courts today or (most-likely), in this lifetime. A justice system cannot be upheld by “he said/she said.”

Deuteronomy 19:15-21 A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established. 16 If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, 17 then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days.18 The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, 19 then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 20 And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you. 21 Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

God is Just and we are called to speak the Truth, as objectively as possible. The 9th Commandment frames lying, exaggerating and deceit as a form of stealing and judicial injustice. A false witness could not only exonerate the guilty, but falsely punish the innocent. But more, the whole of the system of justice could be upended and untrustworthy. When this happens,chaos erupts and human suffering increases. 

Proverbs 18:17 The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.

Matthew 18 affirms this process for conflict within the church. Matthew 18:15-20 15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 

We call this Biblical peacemaking. The Witness two or three others helps to calm emotions, make sure each side is heard and to separate real sin from hurt feelings, mis-understanding, or worse, false accusations. We are to correct and rebuke when needed, not only for the person sinning, but for the one who maligned another s character through accusation, slander and hinting. We are to steward others character and their right to be treated without partiality (Exodus 20:17)

In Fact, so serious are we to be about protecting another’s reputation that Paul says: Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. (I Timothy 5:19)

Why? The church is to be a safe place for brethren to dwell in unity. Truth and mercy to be offered, for individuals of all backgrounds to worship God and fellowship together.

Satan loves to deceive. People demand justice on their terms. Revenge is what I do when I am so offended I take matters into my own hands. I punish, kill and murder–maybe not your body, but your character to the eyes of the “hurt feelings court” (James 4)

Our nation’s judicial process was formed by Scripture…or, at least laws and equitable principals derived from Scripture. This is why we have a statue of limitations, and why a police report needs to be filed. Without witnesses, a person’s memory can change over time, since other events affects our recounting with accuracy. We have heard how a person’s psyche can be manipulated to assign past injustice to explain present depression and suffering (Freud)

We should presume self-serving and political motivations in most everything. This is why we have laws and courts of law: To protect against human fallen-ness and sinfulness, from ourselves and our worst tendencies. Whatever happened 35 years ago, it cannot be used to malign a person today, if it’s validity wasn’t established during a reasonably time afterwards. A person’s reputation since should be taken into account. Does that mean sexual immorality and drunkenness in the teen years are to be seen as innocent? No. Immature, yes, from a human perspective. But innocent in the eyes of God: no!

I have seen first-hand what the “hurt feelings” police and justice system will do. It will be impossible to establish truth, when both parties are at odds and stick to their story, if there is no other witnesses or objective evidence. This should not be. Only people who do not fear the Lord would see the Kavanaugh hearing as a good thing. People who reject what God Word declare, will demand all their idea of justice in this life…for they have nowhere to confess their guilt or pain.

It is of course, very sad if Dr. Ford was assaulted at the hands of Judge Kavanaugh. In that case it is lamentable if Judge Kavanaugh goes free. But the injustice is only temporal. If her (Dr. Ford’s) hope is in the Lord, She can know that justice will be paid, eventually, for her sins have been paid for already. And if Judge Kavanaugh is innocent of this charge and his faith in in the Lord, he can know that He will be exonerated in the end. But it only matters if the entirety of his sins have been forgiven by God through Christ.

As Christians we know firsthand that the mercy God gives us is not based upon our innocence but out Guilt. That Jesus Christ Justly paid for every sin, public and private. Blood guilt was paid We live with sure hope that when we stand before God…our advocate will declare “Not Guilty” Sin paid for. Justice Done, Mercy Granted. All is at peace here. 

Deuteronomy 21:1-8 “If in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess someone is found slain, lying in the open country, and it is not known who killed him, 2 then your elders and your judges shall come out, and they shall measure the distance to the surrounding cities. 3 And the elders of the city that is nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer that has never been worked and that has not pulled in a yoke. 4 And the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley. 5 Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister to him and to bless in the name of the Lord, and by their word every dispute and every assault shall be settled. 6 And all the elders of that city nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley, 7 and they shall testify, ‘Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it shed. 8 Accept atonement, O Lord, for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not set the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel, so that their blood guilt be atoned for.’

Finally and therefore, we can live with the knowledge that sometimes the guilty escape the justice of human courts,.. but never God’s court.

 Romans 12:19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it[a] to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

This is why Scripture says that we can have peace for some matters for which we will get no reciprocity because we are submitting to the future justice of God.

Worship and What’s Wrong with the World

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by Pastor Eric 

 

Who is God? He is Creator. Before Creation was, there was a Creator. This means that God is Set-apart from Creation. He is distinct in all He is. In His essence He is perfect and all loving, all powerful and all just all the time. Above which there is none greater, before which, there was no source.  

 

Why is this important?  Christianity, the Worship of One True God, is What Dr. Peter Jones calls Two-ist. Meaning that There is a distinction between Creator, who is set-apart and independent, and Creation(us,) who are created, limited and totally dependent upon God.

 

What is wrong with world? We are. Human beings, God’s very good creation, rebelled. Refusing to Humbly acknowledge Holy God and His Holy Created order, we deceive ourselves into thinking that nothing is Transcendent, that All truth is in what we prefer or feel.

 

Romans 1:25 declares that, being and Spirital people by nature, our problem is not that we worship , but that we choose to worship created things which should not be worshipped.

 

The Delusion that we are the Creator and that God is not, this is called One-ism..that we can become God. That we can find solution from creation. This is self-worship, that me and God are the same.

 

How has this Worked? Not well, to vastly understate the reality. Dennis Prager says that Secularism (or Paganism) begins with the breaking down of every Holy distinction which is given by God in Creation (Genesis 1-2) The distinctions are between God/Man, Man/Amimal, Male/Femal, Good/Evil,and in trying to finding meaning, worship and healing in ourselves, we violate these holy distinctions.   

 

Abortion: the offering up of Babies at the alter of personal convenience, Feminism and Efffimate/emmasculated men: the offering up of our roles pf male and female for the perceived religion of Freedom and autonomy. Think of the controversies raging around ideas such as transgenderism, sodomy, adultery and lesbianism—beliving that we can create our own meaning and rebel against God’s created order in the bodies which we possess.

 

This is all One-ist–thinking: that we are creators and can make our own meaning. That there is nothing transcendently Holy. If it feels or or makes me feel authentic, then it must be good, so goes our rationalization.

 

 Is God angry? Oh yes he is! God reigns and He is unchanging, and Death proves we cannot excape our Creator; and will face final judgment for our deeds.  The consequences of His Eternal judment are displayed in preview in the conflict, depair, suicide, lonliness present and increasing in our current culture. Even the breakdown of family is judgment which comes from rebelliing against any standards set by God.      

 

Enter Christianity. Christianity is Two-ist. It is not about feelign better, or having your best Life now. It is a Holy worship of New Birth, true life. It is Returning to Holy Creator God by Faith and Repentance.

 

Why? God did not fail. Our sin has not incapacitated him. the Creator was not affected nor suprised by our rebellion. He has made a solution. John 3:16 says that for God so loved the world that He gave his only son, that whosoever believs in HIm shlal not perish but have Eternal Life.  

 

How? Holy God has made a Way. In Him is Hope. For He came into the world as a Perfect Son, the 2nd Member of the Trinity–He lived a perfect life, died a designed Atoning death, satisfying the wrath and just punishment we have earned. He chose to love his creation, even rebellious self-worshippers. He was buried for our sins and rise again.

 

This is the Good News. Believe in HIm. Repent of your wicked one-ist worship, of destroying His world by acting like you were Him. Read His Word and let it re-order your whole of Worship. Join a faithful church which preaches and proclaims the Good News of His Son from the Bible. He is alive today–He is willing to forgiven and receive repentant sinners. Worship Him.