I think this verse and many like it treat memory quite differently than we moderns. Remembering is equated with obedience. We like to think that forgetting is a good excuse for disobedience. “Oh, I forgot I was supposed to do that God, so I guess Im off the hook.” And then we think everything is going to be ok. In reality we have unknowingly confessed another sin, forgetting.

I heard an interview with a woman a few years ago, who had perfect recall. I can’t remember her name but as she detailed what it was like, I could only praise God for forgetting. Her husband had died a few years earlier, and for her it was like it had just happened. Every person that had ever wronged her, was right there, as if it too had just happened. And I suppose the same goes for every wrong she had committed. She had to simply discipline herself to drop these things or they would consume her. Perfect memory is a curse.

But these verses still apply to this woman, as they do to all of us. We are to sort through all of the events of our lives and the media or people clambering for our attention, and remember, focus on what God has done for us, what he has done for his people in history and what he commands us to do. This means knowing God’s Word.  Whatever our physiological ability or our training in memory we are commanded to do it, we have no excuse.  It’s like the last scene of that action movie where the dying man speaks the combination the hero needs to save the world.  When it’s important you don’t forget.  The Word  and works of God are important, we shouldn’t forget.

I heard N. T. Wright recently comment that our memory is a way of bringing the past into the present. God is outside of time, yet he has created time as a good thing for us to exist within. Memory is a gift to mankind, the ability to transcend time. In building future faithful generations and establishing institutions on solid foundations and exhorting them to remember, we can also go the other way, into the future.

In the Vita Nuova, Dante referred to his memory as a book:
“In that book which is my memory, On the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you, Appear the words, ‘Here begins a new life’.”

And in a very real sense the Bible, which we cherish is exactly this, a book of memory, under the heading “here begins new life”. The Scripture is the memory of God’s people, of the ways in which God has blessed them and the commands he has earned the right to give based on his faithful track record. This is why telling history rightly is so crucially important.

“Then Moses said to the people, “Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place”- Exodus 13:3

Moses commanded his people to remember the story the right way. This both brings glory to God for his past work, as well as making it easier to trust him in the future. But soon they were telling a different story.

“And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” -Exodus 32:4

The events we remember and the way we tell the story, reflects one way or the other on God.  History is not just about dead guys and boring dates, it’s a matter of obedience. And it doesn’t just apply to the ancient history in scripture, but also to the way we remember and tell our own stories.  I am often disappointed at the way music has degenerated in the past few generations. One way this has happened is in our collectively forgetting the power of music to help us remember. As our forefathers sang through the hymns they put scripture in their minds, they remembered in the way God commands us. Schools used to take advantage of this to inculcated dates and facts into young eager children. It worked wonderfully. But we forgot these blessed methods. In a sense that’s what modernism is, it’s throwing off the past, collective forgetting. We refuse to learn from other’s mistakes and instead want to make all the mistakes ourselves under a systematic process, we call this ‘science’.

Remembering in song is so important. I think this is what Psalm 96 is saying “O sing to the Lord a new song”. It’s not a call to embrace whatever new fad in perverse pop music that is going around. It’s about writing new songs of his faithfulness in your life. Like the Psalms they should be specific and well crafted, something you pass on to your children, a book of memory you can hand them, of God’s faithfulness in your life. Remember the time we were almost broke and God came through at the last minute? I have a lot of these stories from my childhood, when times were tough, we got by as we shared stories of God’s faithfulness with other families. One of these families was the Lockies, he was a potter and he made his family a blessings jar. They would write blessings on pieces of paper throughout the year and put them in the jar, then at the end of the year they would take them out and remember. These scrolls in jars of clay also calls to mind the ancient nature of the written word, before Dante’s bound books of memory. But whichever way you do it, do it well and do it often, remember God’s commands and his works.

“Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” -I Corinthians 6:15,16

“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” -I Corinthians 12:27

It hurts to be one of the members of Christ these days and I don’t just mean all the tattoos and piercings. We are joined to a lot of prostitutes, and since we are the body of Christ we are all joined together. I don’t really want to be joined to a prostitute. But we don’t fight against flesh and blood, but against institutions of evil that underly this physical world. Today the church is joined to any number of these institutions. They are joined to Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and the gay neighbor next door. I’ve had it. We should be joined to Christ first and foremost. He should direct how we think and act in every situation. But he doesn’t. We watch TV more than we read our Bibles. And so I seek solace, I seek the body of yesteryear. Of course the Christians of the past were not perfect. They all had their flaws, but not like today. They at least knew the basics of marriage, family and raising children. They could tell the difference between men and women and marriage and not marriage, for heaven’s sake. And I’m not perfect either, but I want to be. I want to take this seriously in every way possible. The men of the past did, they wrote stories and poetry and painted and wrote songs, which are good and true and beautiful. I often find fellowship with them more rewarding. They loved God and freed from sin by Christ they sought to explore this world as his subjects for his Glory. That they might bring their work before their king, for his approval.

The Church is a body. There is no private sin, what we do affects all of us. When you go have sex with a prostitute, and you are lucky enough to have your wife take you back, she has to deal with that baggage. Whether it’s an actual STD or just your altered expectations. Now you are all joined together. The same is true of sex before marriage or even all the broken dating relationships. When you get married your husband or wife is now married to all of that. It’s just how it works. And it’s not just so with sex.

When you dabble with any number of other sins, you bring them into the body. As you do it more and more you become more comfortable with it, but so do those around you. The problem compounds until the good peer pressure which should exist in the church is now working the other way. It is making each of the members worse. It makes the moral godly person feel bad about their obedience. They are shamed as a legalist or as being old-fashioned, or part of some sort of cult. It’s really sad. It gets to the point where the prostitutes have drowned out the Gospel active and working in the Church. We are like Lot living in Sodom without even realizing how bad it is. God is five minutes from judging us and we think everything is fine. Like the church in I Corinthians 5 glorying in their acceptance of sin.

When Christians act like the world I want to cut off that part of this body, our body, my body. When someone posts pictures of porn on FB I want to cut my hand off. When someone glorifies homosexuality and attacks the Biblical view of marriage, I want to cut off my ear. When someone sends their kids off to God hating schools to train them I want to cut off my legs. When someone rewrites history excluding the work of God, and bashing Christians, I want to gouge out my eyes. When someone refuses to stand up for what they know is right, I want to pull out my heart. And on an on it goes. The women trying to be men and the men trying to be women, people complaining about all their petty problems instead of serving others, worship services about you and your lame walk instead of about God almighty, excuses and excuses instead of confession, ordering your life around sports instead of the Church, amassing degrees given by fools instead of watching out for your own soul, blaming politicians and bosses instead of taking responsibility for ourselves, . And so I am going to read some old books.

I think the recent FB scam makes for a good lesson. Posts were going around to the effect that if you don’t paste this on your page, FB will give all your dirty secrets to the government, or something, I don’t recall exactly. It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. A little more nefarious were the calls my parents were getting recently, claiming that they owed the IRS money and they had better call now or face the penalty. To the wise these are completely absurd, though they obviously take in a lot of people. The FB scam may just be a networking experiment, while the calls are obviously an attempt to make money. It seems like a lot of trouble unless it worked some of the time. Now I didn’t have to know all the exact details of the situation to know that these were scams. I didn’t have to know the people calling, or where the FB post originated from. In instantly brushing them off as scams I wasn’t saying that they were worthless people or that I hated them or any such thing. But some grasp of wisdom, of the larger picture and the way things work, informed me without all the details. Larger principles could be applied to this specific situation with beneficial results. This is deductive reasoning, as opposed to inductive reasoning, which is taking specific examples and drawing broad conclusions from them. Generally people have a propensity towards one or the other. Amazingly Solomon had both types of reasoning. We see him observing the natural world and the world of men and recording hundreds of maxims and proverbs. On the other hand we see him applying general principles of wisdom to specific situations, as in the famous case of the women fighting over the baby.

Oh, look, free money!

I believe all forms of reasoning have fallen on hard times these days, but deductive reasoning is particularly suspect. People tend not to mind so much when you blow off a FB prank or a telemarketing scam. But when you criticize their ideas deductively, all hell breaks loose. But it really can be the same thing. An overarching understanding of God’s world and how he works with his people here on this earth can cut through a lot of bad philosophy or theology, very quickly. But people caught in these incorrect beliefs tend to take it personally when you write their ideas off quickly. They don’t realize that they have said more than they have said. They are trying to sell you the “you may have already won 10 million dollars” line and they don’t even know it. It’s obvious to you but from their perspective you are just attacking them. Because they think the only way you can know about them or their situation is by listening to or knowing them. But as I have said, the deductive works the other way. Your wisdom about the larger world, people in general and the ways of God can inform you before they do, before your first interview.

This is why an understanding of history is so important. Knowledge of people outside of our own culture and time help us to see the follies of our time for what they are. When similar ideas have succeeded and failed time and again through history, you can be more sure of the outcome when they are attempted again today. But the problem is our modern way of looking at reality. Our nearsightedness is a double hindrance. We moderns are all about empirical evidence. We only trust things that we can take in with our five senses, or rather things a scientist somewhere can say he took in with his expensive government grants, but that is another story. This is the reality of a people who loves science a little too much, bordering on worship. And by this philosophy we despise history, because we weren’t there.

The empirical approach, works pretty well when you are building machines or formulating chemicals. So, moderns thought they could apply this method to humanity and groups of humanity, and so were born the social sciences. But it really hasn’t worked at all.  Everything we apply these to, is a disaster, whether it’s Mao managing people in China(million died) or Dr. Spock ruining a whole generation with his  child raising techniques (he later recanted, but it was too late).  We need to return to the wisdom of Scripture. We can do all the studies in the world about how to raise your kids, or interact with other people, but they will only be as good as they end up discovering what was in the wisdom books of the Old Testament all along. And those books are full of deductive generalizations, waiting to be applied to your specific situations, with no regard for your itty bitty complaints. You may think that you are so unique and special and that you have found a new way of thinking about things, but you haven’t. The wisdom of scripture was there all along. And to anyone who has it, you just look like that email from the “Saudi prince” promising you thousands of dollars.

But it’s not easy it takes practice and experience and listening to the right people. This is how Psalms and Proverbs both start out

“Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night” -Psalm 1:1-2

“To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction” -Proverbs 1:1-7

We can learn from other people’s mistakes, we don’t have to experience everything ourselves. So read and study the Wisdom Books of the Old Testament. Trust them more than your experience or your accumulated knowledge and then apply them to your life. It’s not always simple. Many of the Proverbs follow the Jewish mindset; “on the one hand, but on the other hand”. You can’t just rigidly apply them. Proverbs 14:4 is one of my favorites:

“Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean,but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.”

So which one is the Bible telling us to do? Neither, it takes wisdom to weigh and apply the appropriate side. On the one hand, a clean barn is nice, on the other hand, a dirty barn indicates production. Or take 26:4,5

“Answer not a fool according to his folly,
lest you be like him yourself.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
lest he be wise in his own eyes”

I even had a pastor tell me he was violating half of this. How does that work? No, you must use wisdom to know when to speak and when not to speak, there is no command here. It takes fear of the Lord, faithful reading of these books and practice to apply these successfully.

Then spotting the FB scams or the real scams, will grow easier and easier.  Fighting the principalities and powers will grow easier and easier.  I see two main categories of these deceptive appeals. The appeals to our baser side, lust, sloth, greed, gluttony, etc. These are the get rich quick schemes(Proberbs 13:11, 28:19-20), or the seductive woman in the street (Proverbs 7), which Proverbs warns us about. But just as much folly and perhaps more is caused by trying to do the right thing in the wrong way. Sex is a good thing, but you should pursue the woman of Proberbs 31 and not Proberbs 7. Material wealth is a good thing, if you want it so you can help others, but if you want it for it’s own sake it will bring only death.  It’s good that you want to help starving children, but giving your money to every group with a picture that pulls at your heartstrings, might only be helping overweight bureaucrats.  So, beware of both the appeals to good and those to our lusts.

Posting things on your FB page is not a legally binding contract, the IRS will only contact you by mail and the wisdom to live on this earth will never contradict the Scripture. When something looks too good to be true or violates the rules God has laid down, it doesn’t matter how cute or emotional the appeal, it’s wrong. It doesn’t matter how nice or well intentioned the person is, they are deceiving you. Don’t be deceived.

I grew up in an evangelical Bible church, and I still love many things about these churches in the Moody, Billy Sunday tradition. These churches have a lot of people who at least know their New Testaments well. They are active in missions and to some extent in their communities. But they have their faults too, like any human institution. One thing they have always prided themselves on is the faithful exegesis of scripture. It’s unfortunate when even this gets a little wacky.

The narrative in Mark 13, the Olivet Discourse, is pretty straight forward, especially from our position in history. What should be a marvelous fulfilled prophecy is turned into a flight of fancy. Now it may very well be that the latter parts refer to some distant future that has not come to pass. It may be that on some level all of it refers to the future still. But on some level, it applied to the events that would unfold in the lives of Jesus’ twelve disciples, in 70A.D.. And that is glossed over, and the gloss isn’t even that shiny.

I was amazed that a simple explanation by Jesus, in answer to his disciples’ question, can be connected with the veiled language of Revelation because; Mark refers to “deception, war and killing, famine and death.” Which could also refer to a million events in the history of time. It could refer to ISIS today, or Hitler in the forties, or 70A.D.. I think a responsible reading must lead us to the latter.

The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans Under the Command of Titus, A.D. 70, Oil on canvas

At the beginning of the chapter Jesus and his entourage are walking through the temple complex and they are marveling at the beauty of the buildings. They are rolling with the Messiah, and they know it. This guy can do miracles no other prophet could ever do. He has wisdom which silences everyone. He is always fighting with the religious leaders, which is a bit strange, but they are on board. They are the chosen of the chosen people. They know the promises, the Messiah will come and destroy all of Israel’s enemies and take their rightful place as head of all nations.

They are just so caught up in it all, and then Jesus brings them back to reality, “not one stone will remain on another”. Which had to be rather shocking to them, so they asked him when would this happen and what to watch out for. So he answered them. First with a warning, don’t be lead astray by all the political zealots claiming that they are the messiah returned to conquer Rome. It’s the same warning from Romans 13, Rome was God’s minister to bring about his will on earth, to judge the Jewish people for their unbelief. We know that every group that opposed Rome after Jesus uttered these words was destroyed, without exception. This prophecy was fulfilled.

Then Jesus tells them they will suffer hardships personally. This again was an eye-opener, they were traveling with Jesus, the Messiah and they were to be tortured? That didn’t sound like the story they knew. They thought they were going to be heroes and now he is telling them their own family is going to betray them? These were necessary words for these men to make it to the end while holding firm to their faith. You can see why they laughed and praised God when these things began to happen to them. This prophecy was fulfilled.

The Arch of Titus, depicting the carrying away of the articles of the Temple. c.82 A.D.

Then Jesus continues answering their question. What will be the sign of the temple being destroyed? The abomination of desolation standing in the temple. I think we really underestimate the importance of what happened in 70A.D.. One day you have the high priest going into the Holy of Holies with bells on and a rope in case the Most High God strikes him dead, and the next day Titus is walking in there and hauling out all the furniture. Then the Romans proceeded to set up false gods on the very spot. If this isn’t the abomination of desolation, I don’t know what could be. And we know that the early Christians heeded Jesus’ words, they fled to the hills. There are a number of archaeological sites in the mountains of Jordan where Christians hid, while the Romans destroyed every last Jewish rebel. This prophecy was fulfilled.

Then you have the last part, “after that tribulation”, which contains all sorts of strange happenings. I don’t think it matters when this is, it’s clearly after what he has just been detailing. The point seems to be that God will make all things right, he will return for them, so don’t give up. You can imagine this was the opposite of their “God loves you and has a plan for your life.” mentality they had when they joined up with this miracle worker. And so Jesus gave them the encouragement they would need to persevere. And they did, the faithful have kept their belief to this day. Jesus referred to his body as the new temple. (Mark 14:58) Paul tells us we are the Body of Christ,(I Cor. 12:27) we do his work here on earth. His Body the Church has been spreading to the four corners of the earth gathering the faithful, the elect, the harvest is plentiful. The cloud of glory surrounding Christendom is unmistakable. After Rome destroyed Jerusalem, they were destroyed by internal corruption, as they tried to compete with the model citizens that were the Christians. Then this Christendom, began to save all these barbaric peoples who had over run Rome. And Rome was rebuilt, the peace and prosperity again came to the earth on an even larger scale, as Christendom spread. The Byzantine empire, the monarchies of France, Spain, and England. Then Muhammedan invasion pushed them to explore further and we come down to today, to the Age of the United States. Indeed the Kingdom of heaven is near, they stayed awake, but we seem to have fallen asleep. This prophecy too, was fulfilled.

Like a lot of scripture we tend to make it more about ourselves than Christ. This prophecy was gloriously fulfilled, it should bring much glory to his name, but instead we try to distinguish ourselves by assigning ludicrous modern connections to these verses. Of course it is quite possible to create self fulfilling prophecies. If we expect everything to fall apart, it probably will, especially if we withdraw from society and wait for the rapture. Which seems to be the goal these days. The other, better, more obedient option is to be the light of the world, to lead them on to further Biblical obedience and the blessings that always result. To spread to the four corners, the reverence for the true King reigning in heaven. To spread the news that the war is over, Jesus won.

After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. Now the Jews ‘Feast of Booths was at hand. So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” For not even his brothers believed in him. Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” After saying this, he remained in Galilee. -John 7:1-9

This passage seems a little odd, why did John put this in here?  I think it’s wonderful and totally applicable to our situation right now. Jesus’ brother basically say to him “hey since you are so smart why don’t you go to the city, the big schools, the big institutions, so you can be recognized” Verse five says that they didn’t believe in him yet they were supposedly encouraging him to enter the big leagues. I think we can conclude that they were being sarcastic. Or they thought some healthy competition would humble him, would shut him up. It also reminds us of another prophet and his brothers, Joseph. It was obvious to everyone that Joseph was very gifted, just like Jesus. Both had more wisdom than they ought. But rather than humbly follow him, Joseph’s brothers tried to kill him. And that might be the case here, as verse one says the Jewish leaders sought to kill him.

I actually get this type of thing a lot. “Why don’t you go to college and get some fancy degrees and then you can change the system from the inside.” “Why don’t you go into politics so you can clean up the system?” “Why don’t you get some fancy titles so people will respect you.” But that’s not the way Jesus changed the world. He destroyed one of the most powerful governments the world has ever seen by dying. He overthrew of of the most corrupt religious systems the world has ever seen by taking twelve disciples and starting the Church.

And that’s the same Church we have today, perhaps even better. We have been around for two thousand years, learning from our mistakes and working the message of the gospel to more and more of the planet. But the down side is that we have that many years of accumulated baggage and heresy. And we have accumulated enemies, within and without. This is not the first time this has happened either. But the faithful Church limps on dramatically reforming the world as it does. The Puritans were in a similar situation, they were being persecuted for holding to the promises of God’s word, and actually living it. They sought to reform the church in England, which after a couple hundred years of Reformation light had become corrupt again. They were not afraid to be pushed out of society, or ostracized, if it meant compromising with the commands of scripture. They held firm and attempted to change the corruption where they were at. Eventually they were pushed to The Continent and then to the New World. But they held firm and after a few generations of faithfulness, they defended their homeland agains the most powerful military force on the planet. They one the right to prove that their faithfulness to the promises of God was superior religion. They were hated for generations, even after most of them passed from the scene. Many today still try to retell the story with the Puritans as the bad guys. “Did you know they outlawed fun?” “They only saw in black an white, color was forbidden.” They burned witches and hate sex, and on and on the lies go. But the reality is that we all benefit to this day from the vibrant work they did.

Sadly that is not the end of the story. God blessed them and all of their posterity for their faithfulness. And as usually happens, in our prosperity we forgot all about him. There were a couple great awakenings and the hard times of the 30’s and 70’s which brought some people back to reality. But we are in dire need of nationwide, worldwide repentance. Christendom is in bad shape. Our knowledge of the Bible is sorely lacking, and the application of what it says is nonexistent. We are the most powerful nation on the planet and the result of our apostasy is that the whole world suffers. There is no justice.

But the solution is not to accumulate titles or to attempt to take over the principalities and powers, the moribund academic and political institutions. The solution is the Church. Not the warm fuzzy cowardly church simply affirming any evil anyone want’s to do while calling it love, but the real Church. A group of people committed to doing what God says, regardless of what anyone or everyone thinks, or will do to them. People who don’t try and find common ground with the world but who walk in the way of the Lord, even when it takes them to paths of war with those who worship other gods. People not consumed with buying stuff or vacations, but with giving their lives for their children, raising up a new generation who only know obedience, and the blessings of being the faithful people of God. Children taught to stand up and fight the dragons of this age, defending the weak and powerless rather than feeding their own lusts. We must abandon the institutions of this world and build a new community from the ground up. Then those facades, will fall apart, just like the religious schools of the Pharisees. We need to stop depending on the handouts and programs from the false god of government for our bread, but instead lean on the Bread of Life. We need to stop relying on the next election to solve our problems, but put our faith in the King of Kings. We need Jesus the Christ, we need to obey him and follow in his work of building the church, twelve men at a time. Only then will we remake the world.

This is the only certification I need. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age”

God I love the West(I don’t mean MT I mean Western Civilization, an unfortunate and necessary qualification these days). I don’t care what all the not so liberal, liberal professors in the world say or how many young people believe them. This is the rousing spirit that filled my soul as I spend Sunday afternoon with the Bozeman Symphony. I have taken in orchestras from around the world an I must say that they were excellent. The West is the best, and it’s because of Jesus.
John Adams said:

“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. “

Scheherazade by Léon Bakst. In the West we write Symphonies of stories and then paint paintings of them.

And it’s so true; while we sit in awe taking in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s tribute to the Near East, Scheherazade, the Near East is over they paying tribute to death. They are calling it a civil war which is just what it’s not, it’s a tribal war. The same sort of tribal wars that have been fought all over this planet since it’s creation. Brother killing, brother, or more accurately, half-brother. This was what we, whites, we Caucasians were doing before the incursion of the Gospel. The Nordic and Germanic peoples were tribal barbarians. Wave after wave came down from the north and conquered starting with the fall of Rome. But then the Gospel conquered them all. Oh sure they still fought defensive wars when they had to, like the Crusades. But the Gospel freed them up to pursue the fine arts, as Adams said. Once their hearts were governed by the Gospel, they could form more connections, more relationships with other people, the necessary foundation of any civilization. It’s easier to do business when you can trust your neighbor, when you aren’t busy raising an army to kill him in revenge. When you worship Jesus the Christ instead of Death. And as this order progressed, we built and created instead of conquered. Science, as we know it, was born, and it began to be applied to the physical world and we cured disease and split the atom. When tyrants like George III tried to stop the progress and go back to those tyrannies Americans laid down their lives for their posterity, for us. Adams and many of his contemporaries, left us a world where we are free to listen to the incredible music produced by a symphonic orchestra. Praise be to Jesus!
The only problem is that we are letting it slip away, if not outright kicking it in the gut. We already let the order the British imposed on the Near East, fall apart. And now we are destroying the heart of the West. Europe is mostly gone, they threw out the gospel and replace it with the humanist theories of Communism and Socialism. Now they sit around and do drugs, too apathetic to work or have kids, much less further the arts. And the same trend is coming to America. We become like that which we worship. We worship Jesus the Christ, and so the West had become truly human, ruling and subduing this garden as Adam was meant to do. The founding fathers shared the vision of Revelation, from the Garden of Genesis to the glorified City of John’s vision, a City on a Hill. Don’t let the haters steal your joy in the West. Teach your children to love it. Take them to the Symphony!

 My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. James 2:1-9

So, let’s make Donald Trump king. But seriously, I really think we have a problem with this in the church today. We equate physical wealth or success with character or the furthering of the kingdom. The lesson of Scripture is that there are two worlds operating simultaneously. There is the physical world here on earth, the day-to-day happenings. Then there is the spiritual reality, we see this when the curtain is pulled back in books like Revelation. Someone wins the lottery or gets a great job or has a billion dollar idea and the people on earth celebrate. When one sinner repents and follows Jesus, all of heaven celebrates. We need to allow Scripture to tune our perceptions, so that we are celebrating over the right things. This is the brilliant architecture of this world, good is never obvious. Reality is a test. A battle between the word of God, “Don’t eat of the tree.” and our perception “it was pleasant to the eyes.” We are never tricked into good. The Jews of the first century were having a hard time distinguishing military success from Kingdom-of-Heaven success. Today we have a hard time distinguishing business success from Kingdom-of-Heaven success.

James tells us not to give special treatment to someone rich who comes into the church, because that is our tendency, even as Christians. I’ve seen it happen many times. The Evangelical Church has become the Ad agency for the people of Christ. Most of the other important work of living out that faith, has been left up to the government. A small portion of that work is being taken back by parachurch organizations. Unfortunately, often these are run just like a business. And what better way to make your ministry prosper than by appointing wealthy people to your board, or maybe a successful contractor—right before your building project kick-off-drive-event-dinner-thing. I don’t think it applies only to monetary partiality, the same can apply to the beautiful girl put in charge of, like, something, or the guy with the most degrees from the best schools. This is not how it works in the Church.

“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” –I Corinthians 1:27-29

The kingdom of heaven makes no sense on this earth. It’s a barren woman. It’s a dead messiah. It’s a rabble that no CEO would put in charge of anything, but it now rules the world. It was a small segment of Jews who came out of a totally defeated Palestine, to conquer the Roman world, and most of the pagan world. I was made to think about Paul’s thorn in the flesh in a different way recently. Where do you get thorns? In your feet. And so you might limp. Which is the perfect description of the Church, we limp along, spreading the truth and exemplifying humanity before the world in awe, with all their splendor. It reminds you of Jacob wrestling with God, who afterwards always walked with a limp.

The work of Christ’s kingdom is hard. It doesn’t require money, it requires selfless sacrifice, exemplified and passed on. It requires faithfulness, that is believing God’s word over your senses, your worries and fears and all the noise from the world. It means trusting God each day instead of stockpiling mana so you can put your faith in your own accomplishment, your own bank account.

When God appoints people to positions in the New Earth, he doesn’t look at bank accounts. He looks at faithfulness. He looks at character. Did you take the gifts that you have; intellectual, monetary, cultural and use them for others? Or did you just try to accomplish things by the worlds standard? We can do the same in our evaluations, and we should want to as much as we can on this earth. “His will on earth as it is in heaven.” And so we should use Paul’s qualifications for Elders, when we appoint leaders. We should watch people in small matters and if they prove faithful, we should promote them. You don’t just send them to four years of school and then make them the pastor of a mega-church.

Hey lets make the rich guy ruler. Donald Trump I mean Biff Tannen as king. Welcome to Hill Valley.

The roots of these problems, like many things, must be addressed with the next generations. Unfortunately this is where the problem is most accute. Academia is obsessed with money and vocational training, that is, getting more money. The Department of Education and the teacher’s unions take in and waste millions of dollars. They increasingly produce less and less character, as they wield more and more power. How will the next generation learn humble sacrifice when their teachers and administrators are always clambering for more titles and money? It’s sad to see Christian schools attempting to draw in more customers by bragging about thier buildings and ammenities, their wealth. The result will only be to perpetuate the centrality of those things in their community. We need to get back to the core of faith, scripture obeyed in every area of life. Regardless of how the world will look at you. The people may mock you and isolate you, but at some point when the cultural rot bears it’s fruit they will come running. It has happened many times before, but The Church will Limp to Victory.

As I trod the streets of earth
Not shod for such as this

To paths I knew not where
By faith he took me there

My feet they became all blood
And I felt like turning back

Or at least a little stop
To rest while callouse form
Or walk on into the distant morn.

Where is an end or a reprieve?
Where is the place I’m meant to be?

Have I lost my way or am
I simply on the path again?

My God my God hast thou forsaken me
You the one upon that tree?

The pain I have and bloody feet
Does not compare to the blood shed by thee.

You took it all, our shame and sin
And made our hearts all new within.

And your Spirit left to guide us now
It peeks through and guides us each somehow.

When your word in bits becomes obedience,
Rewarded with a wink in metaphysical cadence.

And now upon that path to go
Never fearing decisions of faith as made

Though alone and bleeding as by earth
We share his cross and live by heaven unseen
There joy and fellowship without dearth.

In response to this.

It’s really sad that City Attorney Greg Sullivan doesn’t have anything better to do than harass a private citizen for rebuilding a structure on his own property.  A new and improved structure, which looks just like the old one, which will rake in more tax dollars to pay more government loafers to continue to harass us.  Where is the City when a structure approved by all their red tape fails?  They are nowhere, it’s your problem.  Where is the concern for history as acres of solar panels are plastered about, or when post-modern lego constructs are stuck in historic districts?  They are counting the money.   But we all know it’s not about the final product on the ground, it’s about the City flexing it’s muscles.  They have gotten so enamored with their own power and enforcing the excruciating minutia of their own codes, that they forgot what the law is there for.  Government should be mediating disputes when there are actual disputes.  They should be protecting persons and property, not causing more disputes and stealing our time and money to pay idol lawyers.

Remember that most of the truly historic prizes around Bozeman, were destroyed by the City itself.  Starting with historic City Hall and Opera House, which became a glorious faded mural and vagrant urinal.  Or the Story mansion destroyed for the playground of Willson School.   Or all the other neo-Classical schools, now concrete slabs. Or how about the other Story Mansion, which sits across the street as I type, decaying and costing us a fortune? Down to the two story destroyed next to city hall a matter of months ago.   Homeowner Brian Martin is building, while the city is tearing down.  They tear down the sanctity of private property and the soul of our honest Republic.

I am constantly surprised by all the water bottles and coffee in church. It’s a couple hours people. Can’t you go a couple hours without putting something in your mouth? In America the answer is no. And so, not only do we never fast but we are all gluttons.

Traditionally churches in this country would culminate the service every Sunday with the Lord’s Table. They would not eat before Church, and it would make the communion all that more meaningful. I went to a couple churches that do this and it is such a blessing. I always eat breakfast, but I often don’t eat before church and it really does make it more meaningful. Afterwards, a big meal with family just seems right.

Mr. Creosote, Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life

Fasting really is a wonderful thing. It takes a lot of discipline. The first time I tried it, I found myself going to get some food from the cupboard without even thinking. But if you don’t have to concern yourself preparing and eating and cleaning up of food, you can accomplish a lot of other things. I think we get this to some degree, in a certain segment of our culture. When it comes to exercise or ‘natural’ food. Health nuts think that torturing themselves is proof that it’s working. They do it to preserve their earthly body or to stay in shape, but fasting was so much more. There really is a spiritual dimension, it’s discipline that is good for the soul.

We don’t really participate in lent, but I think it’s a good concept as well. Fasting doesn’t have to mean you don’t eat anything, it can mean giving up things you really like or like the most. It also reminds me of camping. Which I found was as big of a thing in Israel as it is in Montana. Camping is giving up the modern conveniences and doing without. It probably goes back to the Old Testament feast of booths, when the people built tents on their roofs. They camped out to remember when they had been a wandering people in the desert for forty years.

And so we see Christ, the new Israel, reliving that history as he fasted forty days in the desert(Matthew 4:2). Further Jesus tells his people how to fast. It should be humble and in secret, don’t put on a show for others but do it to please your Father in heaven(Matthew 6:16-18) which sounds a lot like  Isaiah 58. Fasting seems to have been a part of worship gatherings in Acts 13. We get together and have potlucks and music, but it seems strange to fast as part of public worship. I think we are doing something wrong. The other use of fasting in Acts is in also in chapter 13 and in 14:23 as well, it concerns prayer and fasting when decisions are made. I often joke, when someone gets a feeling that they should do something, that they might not be able to distinguish the real moving of the Holy Spirit from indigestion. I suppose if you are hungry you don’t have this problem. But there must be more to it than that. We know that suffering for Christ’s sake will not go without reward. It’s almost like we can suffer at our own hand for Christ’s sake. At any rate a clear mind and self-sacrifice never hurt anyone.
The other mention of fasting in the New Testament comes from the religious leaders questioning Jesus. They complained that his disciples didn’t participate in the regular fasts. Jesus told them that you don’t fast while you are at a wedding. And so we see that there is a time for fasting and a time for feasting. We don’t really participate in or put much stock in feasting either these days. We feast most days and then on Thanksgiving and Christmas we step it up to the obscene. I think the younger generations are even worse on this issue. They want every minute to be a party/concert/worship service, even at a funeral. But part of wisdom is knowing when certain things apply. When the Christ walked this earth, it was a time for celebration. Often in the Old Testament fasting was the result of sorrow, or a great burden. You prayed and fasted when times were tough, for you or your people. After Christ dies you can bet the apostles fasted. But then he rose, and they still fasted, when appropriate. The Christian life is not all one big party. There are difficult times. There are times to make tough decisions. These don’t call for perpetual feasting, they call for sacrifice and fasting. Which will make the times of feasting all that more meaningful.

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
and he relents over disaster.

-Joel 2:12,13