Prophetic Dream: Death of the House of Prayer- by JOHN BURTON

Found here. Great article.

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I recently had a dream that really shines the light on the coming battle in the church. As I've said, the church is to be a House of Prayer. Any other dominant defining attributes than intercession dilute and compromise the church's mission.

The church isn't to be a house of teaching, a house of friendships or a house of evangelism. It's a House of Prayer, a place that facilitates a lifestyle of night and day intercession. We are all called to pray at that level, not just some mystical, elite group of prayer warriors. The coming church will be a church on fire. No longer will we gather around a fire to warm our flesh, but rather we'll lay across it as burning ones who allow the Consuming Fire to do just that—consume us.

As we pray and live on fire, much trouble will come. We will threaten those who don't choose to pray, those who don't see the need. There are already strategies and theologies that are opposing and assaulting the prayer movement, and my dream brings clarity to that reality.

"And He taught them, and said, 'Is it not written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations"? But you have made it a "den of thieves."'" (Mark 11:17).

Assisted Suicide—The Dream
In the dream, I was walking up a dirt hill where my dad was. In the dream, my dad represented the prayer movement. In the Branson, Missouri area he gave leadership to a significant regional prayer effort called the Uninterrupted Prayer Team (the UP Team).

My dad was on the top of that dry, dirty hill for a very specific reason. He was going to be executed. It was a public execution. I was shocked at how passive my dad was. He was on a bed, like a hospital bed, and he was submitted to the demand that he die.

I sensed that the forces were too strong for me to fight against them. He was to be executed, and there seemed to be nothing I could do about it.

I asked my dad what in the world was going on. He was pleasant in his demeanor, and in fact, most of the people around him who were helping facilitate the public execution were casually going about their day, and they were good friends of my dad. They were "good Christians" who were focused on having a great day and did what they could to eradicate anything that would threaten that.

My dad said, "John, this is going to be an assisted suicide."

I couldn't believe it! The pressure of the church as it opposes the prayer movement will be so great, that many will be overwhelmed and will lose hope that their mandate to pray will have impact. The prayer movement is at risk of agreeing with its own death!

The church today is threatened by the prayer movement, and it will do much to embrace the spirit of the age and execute the spirit of intercession.

As the dream continued, I then left his side and walked down the dirt road in deep, troubling thought. I looked down and saw a lighter, that looked like it was broken. I picked it up and I understood that if I could only get it to light, the execution would be called off.

If we pray, the fire of God will burn, and the opposing spirits will lose their strength.

Believe me, this is a very real situation. Someone actually contacted me online recently and arrogantly told me that they and others in a local church were actually praying for a local house of prayer to close down—and it did close down.

It's absolutely stunning that supposed Christians can oppose prayer with such zeal that they actually pray against the prayer movement!

We can't even call people to prayer today due to the fear that they will leave our churches! My God! How can we presume revival is near?

I met with a House of Prayer network leader the other day who said that people leave churches when leaders shift time, energy and attention from them to God. I've watched that happen myself, and it rips me up!

The coming church will be marked by constant prayer, and there will be a divide along this line. If we don't pray, I do believe it's a serious issue with eternity hanging in the balance. If we truly know God, we will understand the desire and need to connect with Him in prayer.

A CHURCH ON FIRE
Where are the ones who aren't looking first for human friends, personal affirmation or a sense of belonging but who are seeking after every available minute to minister to God in prayer? The prayer rooms must be full—and the main prayer room in the American church is the Sunday morning sanctuary!

And don't you even think of using the excuse that you need to create a non-threatening environment for the new believer! Every person, young or old, immature or seasoned must be in the prayer room—and it must be their primary focus! What if the Upper Room were toned down in the hopes of drawing a bigger crowd and interested seekers?

We must absolutely refuse to tone down the activity of the Holy Spirit out of respect of those less hungry! God is a consuming fire, and He is about to consume what is unholy and compromised. Who are we to presume we know better how to facilitate a service? Is inviting the Holy Spirit to step aside as we give preference to human wisdom the way to go? I've heard it said that the main Sunday service should be a toned-down meeting so as not to freak out visitors and seekers. Apparently the meeting where the Holy Spirit has liberty to move in freedom should be reserved for a night when there's little risk of the unconverted showing up.

This is humanistic religion at its best! Did those in the Upper Room tone down the Holy Spirit so as not to confuse and trouble the seekers in the city? Absolutely not! In fact, the power was so extreme and so unusual that the people were provoked to wonder and proclaim, "they must be drunk!" What was happening was off of their grid.

When man moves, it's naturally familiar. When God moves, it's supernaturally shocking. Keep in mind, there's always a spirit giving leadership in a service—the spirit of man, a demonic spirit or the Holy Spirit.

I told God one day many years ago that if I responded to His extreme call to facilitate a white hot environment of prayer in our church I would lose my reputation. People would sever relationship with me and hurl accusations my way.

God said, "Good. My Son was of no reputation, why should you be?" I was rocked. It was that day, many years ago, that I stopped trying to look good and build a ministry and make people happy about running with me. Selfish ambition died that day. The moment we make decisions based mostly on attracting people, keeping people or raising money is the moment we have failed as leaders.

"But He emptied Himself, taking upon Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in the form of a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross" (Phil. 2:7-8).

I'm not trying to build a ministry—I'm devoted to obeying God and delivering the messages He has given me. I know these messages will directly hit theologies and ideals that so many hold dear. That's the point. I crave people's freedom from those harmful ideals! I desire the truth of Jesus to invade everybody's life!

"Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matt. 10:34).

One reason I'm OK with this divisive strategy (that Jesus affirmed above) is that it clearly reveals who's for and who's opposed. I'd rather make the message clear and know who I'm running with than to tone it down and have those who are opposed to it in our camp. So, we love and serve everybody in the camp, but we can't get sidetracked from our mission for the sake of their comfort.

Trust me, the resulting remnant of burning ones will rejoice at such an atmosphere of clarity and fire! Those who are lukewarm today just may awaken and burn tomorrow—if we have the courage to preach the very difficult, costly truth and call every person to the fire of continual prayer!

I'm sure there are some who translate boldness and refusal to soft-step issues as arrogance—but I do not apologize. Yeah, I know that sounds arrogant! The reason I don't apologize is because I wrestle with the call to humility continually, and I check my heart nonstop. The possibility of pride and arrogance is there, without question, and I take that very seriously. I check my heart to ensure I'm humble and full of love. It's wisdom to receive insight from your critics, at least to a point!

People that are close to me do know my heart—and they know I'm broken before the Lord. My call is to aggressively sound alarms, gather people around the mission of revival and provoke people to pray night and day. It can't be a soft-spoken suggestion if we hope to awaken a great end-time army!

Several years ago in Colorado, the Lord directed me very urgently to learn how to walk in extreme humility and extreme boldness at the same time. It was a full year of intense prayer and discovery—a personal school of the Holy Spirit. In that school, I learned much, including this—I was not to attempt to appear humble, I was to be humble. Why was this important? Because the Elijah-level boldness that is required to impact a region would often look like anything but humility. It would appear as arrogance and selfish ambition.

We are not in a season where we need to gather around a table and water down the message in the hopes of finding common ground that results in handshakes and smiles. The message of the hour will overturn that table with violence.

I endeavor to love every person deeply, but I refuse to affirm systems, methodologies, theologies and lifestyles that are an offense to the Word of God. I will, in humility and boldness, be relentless in provoking the sleepers to awaken and those given to a lukewarm life to be shaken. Prophetic threats against human systems and unholy altars results in accusation, gossip and resistance.

"When the men of the city got up early in the morning, the altar of Baal was torn down, the Asherah pole beside it was cut down, and the second bull had been offered on the new altar that had been built. They said to each other, 'Who has done this?' When they had inquired and asked, they responded, 'Gideon son of Joash has done this.' Then the men of the city said to Joash, 'Bring out your son so that he may die, for he tore down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.' Joash then said to all who stood against him, "Would you plead for Baal? Would you save him? Whoever fights for him will be killed by morning. If Baal is a god, let him fight for himself, for someone has torn down his altar" (Judg. 6:28-31).

I know the accusations will continue, but you need to know that, if you are bold, you will provoke. You must be OK with that! Love people deeply, hate the enemy powerfully and know there will be a crisis in the middle as God, people and demons step into the ring. Don't wrestle against flesh and blood! Be innocent! But don't presume a passive spirit is the same thing as a humble spirit.

The assault against the prayer movement is extreme and we must advance against the spirit of the age with fire in our veins and tears in our eyes.

Camaro Highs and Lows - by Barry Kluczyk

Found here. (dead link)

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Contrasting the best and worst from the first five generations of Chevy’s iconic performer

With the introduction of the sixth-generation Camaro, it’s worth looking back over the car’s long, storied history to contrast the milestones that helped make it an automotive icon with a few of the admitted misfires. It all weaves a colorful and important tapestry for a car that is inextricably linked with American culture and affordable, attainable performance. We’ve selected 10 highlights and lowlights; so let’s get started.

 
High: Camaro goes on sale on September 29, 1966, and is an instant success, racking up 220,906 sales in its first model year – including 602 built with a special handling package known by the order code Z/28.

The Camaro debuted in late 1966 to enthusiastic Baby Boomers clamoring for Chevy’s entry in the all-new “ponycar” segment. More than 220,000 were sold in the first year.

 
Low: For the sake of development expediency and production value (read: low cost), the original Camaro is based on the existing Chevy II architecture. It wasn’t a sports car, but then again, neither was the Falcon platform on which the original Mustang was built. So there.

First-year Camaros featured a single-leaf rear suspension design that hobbled performance. This RS/SS owner is clearly calling the dealer to ask about axlehop during her stoplight-to-stoplight run-ins with Mustangs and Barracudas.

 
High: Camaro paces the Indianapolis 500 for the first time on May 30, 1967, and again on May 30, 1969. Production replicas of the 1969 models, with their distinctive Hugger Orange stripes and orange houndstooth interiors, go on to become iconic examples of the Camaro’s first generation and remain popular collector models.

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Chevrolet built 3,675 convertible replicas of the 1969 Camaro Indy Pace Car, some with 350 engines and others with the 396. All wore Hugger Orange stripes and interior trim. It would be the final year for Camaro convertibles for more than 15 years.

 
Low: Camaro convertible production ceases after 1969 and won’t return until 1987.

Working in conjunction with Chevrolet Racing Director Vince Piggins, Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins helped establish the Camaro’s racing cred on the dragstrip. It is believed this car may have been the first Camaro built with the L78-code 396 engine, rated at 375 hp. Regardless, it’s a piece of drag racing history.

 
High: Camaro’s racing legacy starts strongly on the dragstrip and road course with Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins claiming the 1967 NHRA Super Stock championship in his all-new, L78 396-powered Camaro, and Penske-backed Camaros driven by Mark Donohue ripping through SCCA’s Trans-Am series. Donohue was the winningest driver in 1968 and 1969, claiming the unofficial driver championships. They weren’t officially awarded until 1971, which Donohue won.

 
After an inauspicious start with the 1967 Camaro, the Penske racing team experimented with a lightweight body using acid-dipped sheetmetal. It worked, and the car was updated with 1968 Camaro body components in an effort to field two cars at the Sebring 12-hour race that year. This car, owned by Patrick Ryan, has been restored to its 1968 Sebring appearance, where it won the Trans-Am class and finished Third overall.

Low: Bill Jenkins switched to a Vega in 1972, ultimately revolutionizing NHRA Pro Stock with a 1974 model featuring a purpose-built chassis with a strut-type suspension. It would become the blueprint for Pro Stock race cars – and it was a Vega, not a Camaro. Mark Donohue also ditched the Camaro and drove an AMC Javelin when he won the championship in 1971.

 
High: Second-generation Camaro debuts in 1970 with an all-new, purpose-built architecture shared by no other vehicle in Chevy’s lineup. It was also the pinnacle for second-gen performance, with the 360hp LT-1 engine in the Z28 and 375 hp from the available 396 big-block (it really displaced 402 cubes).

 
With solid lifters, an aggressive camshaft, and a stout 11:1 compression ratio, the 1970 Z28’s LT-1 engine represented the pinnacle of performance for second-gen Camaros. They are fairly rare these days. Fewer than 9,000 of the nearly 125,000 1970 Camaros built were Z28s.

Low: Industry-wide regulatory changes cause precipitous drops in compression ratios and consequently power ratings by 1971 – a factor exacerbated by a change from gross power ratings to more realistic net ratings. The LT-1’s horsepower rating therefore drops from 360 to 275 hp. The big-block exited the scene after 1972. The muscle car era was over.

 
High: For 1975, organizers of the International Race of Champions replace Porsche race cars with identically prepared Camaro race cars. Camaros would be used in the series from 1975-’80 and 1984-’89 (the series wasn’t run from 1981-83). The popularity of the IROC series eventually drove Chevrolet to release the IROC-Z model in 1985.

 
The Camaro was a track star in the IROC racing series from the mid-1970s through late-1980s. The series featured identically prepared race cars driven by the best drivers from different forms of racing, from open-wheel and Sprint cars to NASCAR.

Low: Camaro V-8 output bottoms out in 1981 with an anemic 267ci (4.3L) version of the small-block rated at a measly 115 hp and 200 lb-ft of torque. It was also the year Chevy Chase did the flick Modern Problems and the national unemployment rate was 7.6 percent. In other words, it was a tough year.

 
The Camaro’s popularity exploded through the mid- and latter-parts of its second generation, even though performance dropped like the watermelons off the roof in an old David Letterman bit. This ’76 Camaro is wheezing its way up the mountain, pulling every lb-ft out of its 140hp 305 small-block.

 
High: Camaro production hits its all-time high in 1979, with 282,571 – including nearly 85,000 Z28 models. Wow. Numbers like that today would make the Camaro one of the best-selling cars in the industry.

 
The Camaro helped define the late 1970s and sales reached their all-time high in 1979, at 282,571. Nearly 85,000 of them were Z28s. Most ended up on the cover of Car Craft.

Low: Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) wrecks Charles Jefferson’s (Forest Whitaker) 1979 Z28 while cruising with Jefferson’s brother in the classic 1982 movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Not to worry, though. He can fix it. His father is a television repairman with the ultimate set of tools.

 
At least one of the nearly 85,000 1979 Z28s built was sacrificed for cinematic art in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, when Jeff Spicoli’s time at the wheel ended in disaster – although he offered to fix it with his father’s “TV repairman” tools. More than 30 years later, we have to ask: What the heck is a TV repairman?

High: All-new, third-generation Camaro introduces a radical redesign in 1982 that would help define the high-tech cultural aesthetic of the decade. The 1982 Z28 was the first American production car to incorporate ground effects in its design and all models incorporated modern strut-type front suspensions. It was also named the Motor Trend Car of the Year.

 
The third-generation Camaro was a radical departure that, like the preceding generation, would help define the culture of its decade. It was also designed as more of a true performance car, with a greater emphasis on aero and a more responsive suspension system, including rack-and-pinion steering and a strut-type front suspension.

Low: Yes, Virginia, they made four-cylinder Camaros from 1982-86 – and the less said about those Iron Duke-derived anchors, the better. Output ranged from a struggling 88 hp to a lackluster 92 hp.

 
Behold the glory of the four-cylinder third-gen Camaro powerplant – and we use “power” subjectively. The 151-cubic-inch Iron Duke derivative was offered in carbureted and throttle-body injection versions, but none cracked the 100-horsepower threshold. Sad.

High: The Gen III small-block V-8 known as the LS1 is introduced in the 1998 Z28 and SS models, ushering in a new era in high performance. It’s hard to understate the impact the LS1 and the subsequent members of the LS engine family have had on the automotive performance world. They have fundamentally changed the way hobbyists and racers alike approach performance and established new benchmarks for streetable performance cars. Seriously.

 
The LS1 engine, introduced in the Camaro in 1998, returned a level of performance that hadn’t been seen since the heyday of the muscle car. Better still, it responded to upgrades such as camshafts and cylinder head porting like a fedora-wearing hipster let loose in a vinyl-only record store.

Low: The LS1 is not enough to save sinking Camaro sales. They bottom out at only 29,009 worldwide in 2001 and GM pulls the plug on the F-body on August 27, 2002, ending production after 35 years. Bummer.

 
The Camaro’s timeline came to a temporary end in 2002, when production ended after 35 years. This is the very last fourth-gen Camaro built, and it is part of GM’s collection of historic vehicles.

High: Chevrolet shows a retro-styled Camaro concept vehicle at the 2006 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, previewing the 2010 production model that would go on to become a cultural icon through channels such as the Transformers movies. It also proved to be the right car at the right time, as Gen 5 sales have exceeded 500,000 and outpaced Mustang for four straight years. USA-1, indeed.

 
Chevrolet signaled the Camaro’s return with a decidedly retro interpretation introduced as a concept vehicle in 2006. The production Gen 5 model would thankfully be executed almost identically to this dramatic, expressive concept.

Low: Not that we’re complaining or anything, but the production Gen 5 Camaro debuted on the porky side; and its junk in the trunk made handling and overall performance a bit less than sharp or exhilarating. Outward visibility wasn’t so hot, either. Hey, we’re still fans, but just sayin’.

 
The Gen 5 Camaro was a sales and cultural phenomenon, helped in no small part by its role in the Transformers movies. Chevrolet even built a Transformers Edition in 2010.

High: The Gen 5 Camaro Z/28. Yes, the SS, 1LE, and supercharged ZL1 are mucho terrifico, but the Z/28’s driving experience is from another plane of existence – and comparing it with other Camaro models is like comparing the Millennium Falcon with a Cessna 172. It’s that good. In fact, in a Motor Trend comparison that helped solidify the Z/28’s position as the magazine’s 2014 Best Driver’s Car – the first American car so-awarded – it was pitted against a Nissan GT-R Track Edition and a Porsche 911 Turbo S. The rear-wheel-drive Z/28 lapped the track faster than both all-wheel-drive competitors, prompting the editors to proclaim, “It stands as one of the absolutely best track-focused cars in the world.”

 
Chevrolet showed the Transformers movie cars at the Gen 6 reveal event in Detroit, in May 2015.

Low: 2015 was the final year for the Gen 5 Z/28, and there ain’t one on the docket for 2016. Get one now while you can.

 
The Camaro Z/28 returned to its road course roots in the fifth generation and the result was nothing short of spectacular, amazing, and all the other superlatives one could pry out of a thesaurus. Its track-ready suspension and 505hp LS7 engine compose a literally world-beating combination – and represents Chevrolet at its very best.

9 Sins the Church Is Okay With - by Frank Powell

Found here. Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.
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This feels to me like an attempt to include things that are not really sin, with a pop psychology spin. Admittedly there are some sins here, but most are states of mind that may be damaging in some way, but are not sin. This has the effect of cheapening real sin by including contemporary cultural viewpoints in the absence of Scriptural condemnations.

I've included an occasional Scripture that either refutes the claim or explains another dimension of the supposed "sin."

Read on:
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Are we changing the Bible to fit our culture or are we changing our culture to fit the Bible?


I was in an engineering class the first time I watched the tragic explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger. Even though I wasn’t alive when it happened, I caught a glimpse of the horror thousands must have felt as the events unfolded.

And, the first question everyone wanted to know was, “What happened?”

After months of investigation, here’s what the Rogers Commission (the group commissioned to investigate the explosion) discovered: an o-ring seal in the right solid rocket booster failed at take-off. I won’t bore you with the details, but an o-ring is a small device relative to the size of a space shuttle. Very small.

It wasn’t something huge, like a puncture in the rocket booster or a hole in the cabin, that caused this disaster. It was a small, seemingly insignificant, o-ring failure.

I think there’s a lesson here for the church. What if the big sins, you know the ones you try hardest to avoid, aren’t the greatest threat to your joy and the church’s mission?

Maybe it’s the sins lying underneath, the ones considered normal or acceptable, the ones going undetected, that are affecting the church the most. I want to address 9 of these sins.

1.) FEAR

The phrases “do not fear” and “do not be afraid” appear 365 times in the Bible. Ironic? I think not. And here’s what I think the church misses about fear. Let me pose this as a question. What is the opposite of fear? Courage? Bravery? William Wallace?

Wrong. Wrong. And right, but you’re ruining my point.

The opposite of fear is…LOVE. Add to this the reality that God is love. So, according to the Transitive property of mathematics, the opposite of fear is…God.

If you’re a child of God, the one sin that shouldn’t plague you is…fear.

Yet, Christians are the most fearful people on earth. Even our salvation is rooted in fear. Does it bother anyone that the primary method of bringing people to Jesus has been to scare them away from hell?

That’s fear language, the antithesis of God. Look at what John says.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.1 John 4:18

The church is scared to make decisions out of fear. Christians are hesitant to step into dangerous situations out of fear. The catalyst for our obedience is fear. Where’s the love?

Several weeks ago, I decided to remove the words “fear, scared, and terrified” from my vocabulary. Maybe you should do the same. It could change how you see the world. And God.

(Ph. 2:12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed — not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence — continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling...

Ep. 6:5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear...

1Pe. 1:17 Since you call on a Father who judges each man’s work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.)

2.) APATHY

Apathy’s best friends are passivity and entitlement. Together, they’re a vicious threesome.

There’s nothing mediocre or normal about God. His power is beyond comprehension. His beauty is beyond description. His love is beyond measure. The same God who created the universe and formed stars desires a relationship with you.

Yet, the attitude is often, “Okay, God loves me. That’s great. What’s for lunch?” No. You don’t get it, bro. God loves you. And you’re content with, “That’s great.”

What?!

Our apathetic approach to God explains a lot about why people in America aren’t lining up to become Christians.

I mean, think about it. How many Christians have you met that left you thinking, “Wow, I want to be like them?” But this should be the norm, right? Am I way off here? Shouldn’t you be so transformed by God that people want to ask about your life, even if they hate God?

In Scripture, when men and women truly experience God, everything changes. Everything. So, that begs the question, “Have you experienced God?”

3.) GLUTTONY

In my younger days, I would literally eat myself sick. I mean, if I ordered food, I ate all of it. Period. Naturally, this presented a problem when I ate buffets.

Looking back, I see that my attitude was gluttonous. And the gluttony wasn’t that I ate myself sick. It was that I used a gift God gave me on myself…in excess.

Gluttony is primarily about the heart. It’s a craving for excess. Gluttony says, “Those voids God is supposed to fill…don’t worry about that. I will fill them.” Gluttony happens when you lose your awe of God. You see, as long as your eyes are fixed on Jesus, your heart’s desire is for him.

Is the world not desperate for this message? As we gorge our stomachs with food and flood our houses with trinkets, our discontent only increases.

Where are the Jesus followers who will fix their eyes completely on him, throwing away anything that treads the line between want and need? Where are the Christians who will feast in excess on God?

4.) WORRY

Worrying gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.

The great philosopher Van Wilder once said, “Worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.” That’s right. But Van Wilder isn’t the only one who talked about worry. Jesus said you shouldn’t worry about anything (Matt. 6:25-34). But Jesus wasn’t serious was he? I mean, really Jesus? Anything?

He was serious. You see, worrying is symptomatic of a larger issue…lack of faith. And for followers of Jesus whose primary mission is to show the glory and nature of God to the world, worrying is a problem.

Recently, I asked a good friend why worry plagues the church, and he said something profound, “My greatest concern is that we don’t want to need God. We’re Americans. We’re independent.”

That’s hard-hitting stuff right there.

Americans will do anything to maintain the illusion of control and responsibility, so no wonder worry plagues us. Worry is the by-product of bearing a weight only God can bear.

Do you see the irony here? The more independence you desire, the more worry you will experience. So, why not give everything to God and let his peace reign over your life?

5.) FLATTERY

I erased this like five times, but God kept telling me to put it back. So, I did. With hesitancy. I love you, God.

I like performing. I always have. And while there’s nothing wrong with the spotlight, there’s a lot wrong with making yourself the center of it.

If your identity is tied to man’s praise, you’ll be eternally discontent.

If your identity is tied to man’s praise, you’ll be eternally discontent. People are fickle. They’re here today and gone tomorrow. They’re for you one day, against you the next. They love you when you agree with them, dislike you when you don’t.

Yet, we love human praise, at least I do. Exhibit A: Instagram, SnapChat, and Facebook. While I love social media, they’re also platforms that perpetuate flattery. You post pictures about your life hoping the world will “like” it. Who cares if it’s not the real you? You need the approval. So, even if you need 30 minutes to find that perfect selfie, it’s worth the time.

Jesus, however, didn’t need the praise and glory of men. He didn’t care what they thought. His only concern was doing the will of God. This attitude is what the world is desperate to see.

It’s hard to point people to Jesus if you need their approval.

Let’s be honest, it’s hard to point people to Jesus if you need their approval.

And when you need the approval of others, your life will have more ups and downs than the Goliath at Six Flags in Atlanta.

I rode that beast. I know.

6.) COMFORT

Comfort might be the patriarch of the “church approved” sins family. When the church becomes comfortable, Christianity starts to die.

Christians must be extremely intentional with their thoughts and actions to avoid comfort. If not, you become resistant to change. You start making secondary issues primary. You begin to see the mission as catering to insiders rather than reaching outsiders.

And here’s the thing about the sin of comfort. Once it shows up, it’s extremely difficult to remove. When you challenge comfort, people don’t just get angry. They get fightin’ mad. Comfort will even tell you to crucify an innocent man.

The church can’t be missional and comfortable at the same time.

The church can’t be missional and comfortable at the same time. It’s time to make a decision.

(Mt. 5:4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

1Co. 14:3 But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort.

2Co. 1:4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

7.) CONSUMERISM

I grew up watching Sesame Street. My favorite character?…Cookie Monster. I felt like we were the same person. And what I mean is we both loved cookies. I would often go around the house saying, “Gimme da cookies.”

It never worked.

Many Christians are like Cookie Monster. Their mantra is, “Gimme more…well anything. Just give me more. More. More. More.”

The essence of this sin is a false understanding of God, that God is a taker. But nothing could be further from the truth. God is a giver. He’s the Giver. And, as a man or woman created in his image, you should be a giver.

So, what are you creating? What are you giving back to the world? What are giving back to others?

8.) PATRIOTISM

Cue the nasty e-mails. Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t picture Jesus waving an American flag while showing off his “I love ‘Merica” tattoo. Jesus wasn’t against the government. In fact, if you’re a Jesus follower, the Bible calls you to pray for your nation and for your leaders (1 Tim. 2:1-4). But Jesus was very clear about how God’s name would become famous throughout the world…the church. Not the government. Not a nation. The church.

When your allegiance is torn between your country and your God, American ideals begin to shape your faith more than God. And you transpose American values onto God, believing God would be an American and think like an American.

Celebrate American values. That’s great. But, at the end of the day, your citizenship is not with America. It’s in heaven.

9.) LYING

If gluttony is the elephant in the room everyone sees, but no one talks about, lying is the elephant in the room no one sees. Lying is so socially acceptable, even in Christian circles, that it often goes undetected. We’re desensitized to it.

And here’s why this is dangerous for Christians.

There’s a rarely-discussed passage in Matthew 5:33-37 where Jesus confronts the Pharisees about oaths. Most Americans only hear the word oath when a celebrity lies in court (under oath). But Jesus isn’t talking about oaths in this passage.

He’s talking about INTEGRITY.

Here’s what Jesus is saying. You should live with such high integrity that your word doesn’t need attachments to make it legitimate. So, typical phrases like, “I promise,” “I swear,” and “I put it on my mom’s grave” should never come from your mouth.

“Frank, c’mon on man. Are you interpreting that correctly? Say you promise.”

These words are a kick in the pants, right? If you’re like me, you say things all the time and never follow through. You lie to make yourself sound better. You lie to stay out of trouble. You lie to get ahead. Sometimes you lie just to lie.

Jesus says there’s no place for that if you’re a Christian. Your word matters. If you say something, God expects you to do it. It’s better to tell the truth and lose your job than lie and keep it.

How serious is this? Jesus says anything more than our word is from the evil one, Satan. That’s real.

______________

Sometimes the undetected sins are the most toxic. My hope is you will see this as an opportunity to grow. I also realize there are some “church approved” sins I didn’t mention. It’s your turn.

How Do We Get People to Care About Climate Change? - by Richard Schiffman

Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.

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Actually, the title should be, "How do we get people to care about what we care about?"

Dr. Stoknes has created his categories for our supposed psychological state. Apparently there is no principled opposition, no contrary evidence, and no other reason at all to deny climate change besides having a psychological condition.

This makes for some truly clueless at-a-distance psychoanalysis.

Read on:
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This interview first appeared at the Yale Environment 360 blog.

Per Espen Stoknes, a Norwegian psychologist and economist, has been doing a lot of thinking about a question that has bedeviled climate scientists for years: Why have humans so far failed to deal with the looming threat posed by climate change?

That question is the focus of his recent book, What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming, in which he analyzes what he calls the five psychological barriers that have made it difficult to deal realistically with the climate crisis.

Those include: the distant nature of the problem (it’s far off in time and often in other parts of the globe); the doom-and-gloom scenarios about the impacts of climate change, which make people feel powerless to do anything about it; and the psychological defenses that people have to avoid feeling guilty about their own contributions to fossil fuel emissions.

In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Stoknes — who co-founded three clean energy companies and helps lead the BI Center for Climate Strategy at the Norwegian Business School — talks about these barriers and about how the discussion of climate change needs to be reframed. “We need a new kind of stories,” he says, “stories that tell us that nature is resilient and can rebound and get back to a healthier state, if we give it a chance to do so.”

Yale Environment 360: Scientists and journalists have been warning us for years about climate change. But you say the message is not getting across. Why not? (Let's see if he can tell us. If he can't, will tell the real reasons.

You know, I will say right now that I doubt he has ever talked to a dissenting scientist. I doubt he has done anything except sit in his ivory tower and psychoanalyze people he has never met.)

Yale Environment 360Per Espen Stoknes: My work starts with what I call the psychological climate paradox. Long-term surveys show that people were more concerned with climate change in wealthy democracies 25 years ago than they are today. So the more science, the more Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments we have, the more the evidence accumulates, the less concerned the public is. To the rational mind this is a complete mystery. (Those who dissent are irrational. Because SCIENCE. SCIENCE will be capitalized here on out, to note the appeal to superior credentials of SCIENTISTS as it applies to the unquestioning obedience of the "low class." 

And here we have the first reason dissenters dissent, unaccounted for by Dr. Stoknes. The imperious arrogance of those who are apologists for climate change is palpable. These SCIENTISTS can't comprehend why people don't like them, they don't understand why people don't accept them, the don't get why people dismiss them. 

The reason is, they presume to not only know exactly what the climate is doing and why, they also know exactly what you should be forced to do as a result. And they know for certain that everyone else are idiots or apologists for Big Oil. This un-nuanced, narrow view of the issue, where SCIENTISTS expect to be able to implement their solutions without being questioned, is pompous and presumptive.)    

CORPORATE WELFARE IN CALIFORNIA - by Robert Reich

Found here. Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.

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Dr. Reich can't seem to get past his leftist rose-colored glasses. Dr. Reich notes that in California there was a property tax freeze years ago, which benefited existing companies who already owned property. Apparently, companies which purchase property later are not treated the same, and thus do not enjoy this freeze, instead paying current tax rates.

But rather than make it easier for new companies by lowering their taxes to the same level, he wants the existing companies to pay more! This can only be the conclusion if you're a leftist, because to them more tax on business is always good.

But it's not. Higher taxes on business means higher prices on the products we buy, less hiring, less innovation, and less business expansion. When government decides it is entitled to bigger and bigger portions of the revenue of a company, it has in effect decided that it can spend the company's money better than the company can.

And we note once again, as we have explained many times before, that companies really doesn't pay any tax, no matter how much money the government takes from them. We, the end consumer, pay all business taxes in the form of the price of the products we purchase. Taxes are a business expense that gets passed down to us.

Read on:

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Poster: Equality doesn't mean treating everyone the same

Found on FB recently.

This really gives some insight into the leftist mindset. We do realize it is not intended to be a nuanced position on equality vs. sameness. But we can analyze it for what it does say and for what it assumes. 

This is what we shall do.

First, we need to note that the topic is not about status, it is about treatment; that is, how do we ("we" always means government) treat people. For this meme, "treatment" is a function of government, not how people should treat each other. It's all about the amount stuff government gives people. 

The side labeled "same treatment" means everyone gets one box from government. None of the people are standing on the ground, they all get something, the same thing, from government. 

The point of the picture is "same treatment" does not yield "equality," which means government needs to change (redistribute) the number of boxes each person gets.

So the side labeled "equality" takes away the tall man's box and gives it to the short woman. The tall man apparently doesn't need any help at all, but the short woman needs more help. So government makes things "equal." Everyone gets the same result, as opposed to receiving the same government beneficence. 

By this measure, different treatment is justified. The tall man is privileged, so government is justified in taking his box and giving it to another it deems more worthy. 

But as we mentioned, everyone started with a government box. No one was standing on the ground. But this isn't actually what is happening. What actually happens is that everyone should be shown as standing on the ground ("same treatment"), and then in order to make things equal ("equality") the tall man should be shown with his legs cut off and the short woman should be shown standing on the tall man's legs. 

We aren't really talking about reshuffling the stuff government gives us. No, it is about reshuffling what people own and produce by penalizing people who own and produce more.

This is a twisted view of equality. We would therefore suggest that "equality" is not everyone ending up the same. People do not deserve the same results. Differing results is the natural process of possessing differing abilities. Brain surgeons provide a rare and specialized skill set, and most likely will obtain a better result than a ditch digger. This is quite proper.

People aren't the same as far as their life outcomes, work ethic, training, and intelligence. Therefore, no one should expect the same outcomes. That is unreasonable.

Wealth redistribution is unreasonable.

A Democratic Socialist is not Marxist socialist or Communist.

Found this on FB. Commentary below.

"A Democratic Socialist is not Marxist, Socialist or Communist, A Democratic Socialist is still a capitalist, just one who seeks to restrain the self destructive excesses of capitalism and channel government's use of our tax money into creating opportunities for everyone. Democratic Socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically to meet human needs, not simply to make profits for a greedy few."

Leaving aside its grammatical deficiencies, there isn't single true statement contained in this poster. Not one. The author demonstrates an appalling ignorance of politics, economics, and law in a mere two sentences. Either that, or the author is deliberately attempting to obfuscate, as socialists are wont to do. This is known as agitprop. 

Either way, we cannot allow this mess to pass without comment. Here we go:

The Real Reason the Pentecostal Movement Keeps Growing - by ED STETZER

Found here. Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. Interesting article.

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There are parts of the globe where the greatest church growth is happening through the Pentecostal movement. One of the most frequently asked questions is: "In a world where the church seems to be declining in many areas, how they are bucking the trend?"

There is never one reason why a movement succeeds. But some factors rise to the surface. Pentecostals will say they are growing because the Spirit is moving in a powerful way. I get that, and actually would affirm that as part of the reason, but from a sociological perspective, other things are happening and worth exploring.

I was recently asked (by Pentecostal leaders) what some sociological reasons might be. So following that meeting, and in this brief post, I want to explore how the beliefs of Pentecostals actually promote and produce growth compared to other more "mainstream" groups.

Pentecostals Value Their Shared Experience
From a statistical perspective, Pentecostals tend to be less "nominal" than other believers. The reason is often obvious—the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.

In almost all Pentecostalism (as contrasted to other continualist streams), speaking in tongues follows the Holy Spirit's baptism. After that experience, it's hard to say, "Oh I don't take this whole thing serious, I don't even know if it's real."

When you believe you're speaking in another language, that belief reshapes the way you think about faith!

Being a nominal Presbyterian, Methodist or Baptist is easier, though there are some outward expectations, like baptism (among credobaptists), that can mark a spiritual commitment. But Pentecostal believers and churches constantly emphasize spiritual practice and engagement.

That helps make a more robust faith.

So more often than not, stagnation is not as compatible with a real Spirit-filled experience. The end result—it's harder to be a nominal Pentecostal—the beliefs of the movement tend to weed out nominalism. Because of what is happening in church and the community of faith, people tend not to just hang around as casual observers.

Either you join in it, or you move on. Many join. Movements populated by nominals are usually in decline. Nominals don't populate Pentecostalism, so it grows.

Pentecostals Want to Share Their Values
Not only does a valued distinctive encourage participation and growth in the local body, but it also provides an imperative for growth outside of the local body. When you appreciate what you have as much as Pentecostals do, you aren't satisfied to experience it yourself. You think others should have the same opportunity to partake of the movement of the Spirit of God.

When I meet with Pentecostal leaders, they're strategizing about where to plant a church. They break out the maps and determine where they need to focus their attention.

Never mind there are already six churches in a 10-block community. To them, there's not a Spirit-filled church in that community until they plant one. So they are often avid planters, not just in their own area, but also around the world.

The Outrageous Ascent of CEO Pay - Robert Reich

Found here. Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.

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Dr. Reich applauds the invasion of the SEC into the private, legal operations of corporations. For what purpose? The only possible reason for government involvement is for future government regulation. We know that mandating disclosure is always the prelude to mandating practices. 

We see this over and over in leftist activism. They are never content with simply pointing out the object of their ire. They always undertake to force compliance with their viewpoint. If they can't do it through boycott and hyperbole, they will invoke government. 

Dr. Reich also makes some truly outlandish claims about CEOs and their value.

Read on:
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Openly defying and brazenly disrespecting your president, while hoping that he fails...

Um, no. Treason:

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

And from the Constitution itself:

Article III, Section. 3.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

This Is How Much A Big Mac Would Cost If The Minimum Wage Was $15 - BY BRYCE COVERT

Found here. Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.
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The Left typically engages in simplistic analysis when it comes to economics, and this article is no exception. 

McDonalds sells about 225 million burgers world wide per year, with more than a third sold in the US. That's about 75 million burgers. With a $15/hr. minimum wage, employee expense would increase by about $8 billion in the US. Doing the math, that's an astounding $106 per burger. Obviously there are more elements at work, but the price per burger will certainly not increase by the author's stated $.17.

At least the author acknowledges that the wage increase will increase the cost of the product, which is something the Left usually doesn't want to admit. Thus, we can assert the wage increase is nothing more than an indirect tax. And the Left loves raising taxes, especially on eeevil big corporations.

Left out of the author's discussion is the impact on small businesses and mom-and-pop operations. That's on purpose, I'm sure. Because the impact will be devastating, forcing small businesses to scale back or close. In other words, the Left is in favor of shutting down small business in favor of hated big corporations, because big corporations more easily can absorb these kinds of costs. Ironic.

Read on:

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Letter writer wrongly maligned Planned Parenthood - By Eveline Damiano

Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.
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First, the letter Ms. Damiano is responding to: 

5 Questions For Libertarians Who Support Privatizing Marriage - By Stella Morabito

Found here. Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.

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It's an interesting perspective here, but terribly flawed. I'll explain as we go.

Read on:

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Reason magazine went out on a limb recently and published an article entitled “Privatizing Marriage Is a Terrible Idea,” by Shikha Dalmia. She presented an argument that is boldly counter-intuitive for many libertarians these days: that abolishing state-recognized marriage would increase government interference in our lives rather than reduce it. (The assumption is that reducing government in one area leads to more government in another. Let's see how this plays out.)

Dalmia is absolutely correct about this. And it would behoove anyone who truly stands for limited government to consider her points thoughtfully and soberly. The libertarian default position that goes by the slogan “let’s just get the government out of the marriage business” is short on substance. If it sounds like a good idea, that’s probably due more to its mantra-like repetition than anything else. (First point made is that libertarians are mind-numbed robots chanting mantras. The author starts her argument by attacking her opponents. This is a frequent technique of the Left, and just as objectionable when the Right does it.)

Recently I wrote in The Federalist about Sen. Rand Paul’s pitch to end state-recognized marriage and replace domestic arrangements with ordinary contracts. I too explained why this idea would grow government rather than limit it. With the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, I think we can expect the cry for abolishing civil marriage to get louder. (We are now three paragraphs in, and the author has yet to start to make her case.)

It’s important to note that the notion of abolishing civil marriage is also a mission of people on the far Left who are proponents of gigantic government. They include gender legal theorist Martha Fineman, Obama’s former regulatory czar Cass Sunstein, and journalist Masha Gesson, to name a few. It’s also a pet project of singles’ rights advocates, who tend to be fans of big government, although they say they want civil marriage abolished on the grounds that it is discriminatory against single individuals. (Second point made is that there are others advocating it. Far from important, it simply means that there are other perspectives leading to the same conclusion. This does not bolster the author's case in any way.)

Ideology - Zarathustra @ Notes From Underground

Found here. Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.
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I am not a "member" of any political party. I am not registered as a Republican or a Democrat. I have never donated any money or time for any political campaign, to any political candidate, or for any political cause whatsoever. I am not a Republican and I am not a member of the Tea Party or Libertarian Party...I have no party affiliation...

So, what am I?

I am a Constitutionalist. At the very base of my beliefs are individual freedom, individual liberty, and individual private property rights. I believe these are inalienable rights, not granted by deity or some supreme being, but agreed upon by social contract and social constructs with one-another. (That puts the writer at odds with the Declaration, upon which the the Constitution is founded. Thus, the writer cannot be a Constitutionalist. His concept of the nature of rights reduces them to "things we agree on," or "stuff government does." These are not rights, they're opinions. They're laws that are passed, modified, or rescinded at will. They're what's popular right now. 

And when the winds of culture change, so do the "social contracts" and "social constructs." The author reduces the concept of rights to a fleeting moment in time where on a certain day we all agreed that free speech is good, but tomorrow it might not be.

True rights cannot exist without objective, transcendent standard. Thus, the author negates rights altogether. But of course, it is necessary for him as an atheist to do so. Because the atheist cannot acknowledge God, he cannot acknowledge the true nature of rights. 

Interestingly, the Left uses the same reasoning as the author, just to different ends.)

Theist v Atheist - John C. Wright

Found here. An excellent discussion on the inadequacies of atheism.
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I have been exploring some argument for and against theism and atheism in my biweekly columns at EveryJoe. Unfortunately, the constraints of time and patience do not allow me to state each argument at length, and so, as a gift to my readers, I here publish some of the discussion that did not see print. Make of it what you will.

The strongest argument in favor of one model over another is how much it explained, how clearly, without recourse to special pleading, lapses in logic, or ad hoc. I propose that while the Christian religion contains mysteries certain to daze even the most patient of theologians, it is nonetheless the more robust, on the grounds that it requires fewer assumptions and leaves far less unexplained. For the atheist, nearly everything his worldview seeks to explain is left unexplained, marked off with a mere somehow.

While it is possible (in that it is not a logical self contradiction) that we live in a universe where irrational and non-deliberate chemical and evolutionary processes gave rise to creatures like ourselves capable of reason and deliberation, and that our reason somehow is able to deduce and predict correctly some of the processes of that material universe as well as the imponderable truths of logic, aesthetics, law and ethics, which just so happensomehow to apply to and work inside the material universe as well, it requires a leap of faith to believe that this is the case here in the real universe in which we actually live.

Where is the proof that the real universe behaves in this way?

Where is even a single example?

We have never seen any irrational process lead to a rational result, nor any non deliberate process give rise to a deliberate conclusion, and so our assumption that this somehow happened in the past rests on no evidence, and involves a seeming paradox of something arising from nothing, the paradox of beauty coming from randomness, of ethics springing from remorseless Darwinian struggles to survive, of logic and science arising from unintentional by products of brain chemistry.

And somehow, nearly every human being who has ever lived has had a joy for music and a fear of ghosts, two things which Darwinian selection could not possibly select into existence.

What natural process made it so that natural processes derive order out of chaos without any intention of creating order is also an unanswered somehow.

You see, even if it were true that Darwinian evolution creates order out of disorder (it is not), the question of how Darwinian evolution came to have this property, who or what makes evolution be something that creates order out of disorder, is not answered by the atheist worldview. The atheist must either dismiss the question as unanswerable because it is beyond human knowledge, or must dismiss the question as unanswerable because it is incoherent conceptually, that is, not a real question (like asking how far up is ‘up’?). That dismissal is yet another somehow, a thing the model does not explain.

It would not be an act of faith for any atheist who had seen an irrational primate evolve into a man to believe that order can arise from disorder. Indeed, even seeing a designed system like a computer be engineered into having self awareness and a moral sense would affirm that the hypothesis of order from chaos were reasonable because he would have some reason to believe it were possible. None have ever seen such a thing. As it is, the atheist walks by faith, not by sight.

The assumption that human reason comes from a rational creature, a rational divine creature with a mind, who designed us deliberately to be rational like himself is a less paradoxical assumption, and does not contain the dubioussomehows mentioned above. God himself is dubious, the king of somehow, but the explanation of how and why these other things arose becomes coherent granting this doubtful assumption.

And, indeed, the incomprehensible axiom in the theist model concerns a being alleged to be incomprehensible, which is an assumption less vulnerable to skeptical question than the atheist model.

The atheist model requires the assumption that fundamental things we know about human and animal nature, such as that we have free will where animals do not, are merely gross illusions, bewilderingly universe. It is the greater coherency of the theorem which makes it the more reasonable of the two.

Let us turn to specific arguments to show this greater coherency.



Below I make seven arguments. The first argument is divided into four lemmas.

Let us define the word Natural to refer to any events taking place inside the continuum of time and space due to cause-and-effect, that is, necessary efficient causes. Supernatural is anything that cannot be defined solely in terms of events taking place inside the continuum of time and space due to cause-and-effect, that is, necessary efficient causes.

The first argument is ontological, that is, it seeks to show that the nature of being itself is such that it cannot be explained absent a creator who is supernatural, uncaused, and necessary.

The first lemma is about the nature of time and space:
Time exists and has a definite nature and property.
Time either came into existence by a natural process, or did not.
Time cannot have come into existence by a natural process that took time to complete, by definition.
Therefore time either has always existed, or it came into existence by a supernatural act.
If time always existed, then there is no event which defined its nature, which is absurd. Therefore time did not always exist.
Therefore time came into existence by a supernatural act.

A simpler way to state the same argument, assuming the standard model of physics is true: So, while the Big Bang is itself a natural event, it cannot be said to have arisen from natural causes, that is, causes inside the ambit of time and space, simply because time and space arose from and during the Big Bang. Since the Big Bang created time, whatever brought the Big Bang into being could not be inside time, and could not be a natural cause. Another type of causation is needed, and the only alternative is supernatural causation.

One we conclude that a supernatural act rather than a natural one created time, the definition of supernatural requires us to conclude that this creation was not necessitated by cause-and-effect, as there can be no cause-and-effect outside time. This does not mean there are no events, it merely means no events necessitated by cause and effect. The only thing in human experience akin to this is an act of free will. Hence the event of creation was an act of free will, or something akin to it.

One cannot have a will without a willer, that is, a rational entity, who made specific decisions about the nature of the continuum thus created. Since this entity or entities has the power to create the universe and define their contents, including its laws of nature, laws of matter, and laws of morality, it is reasonable to call him God, since that is what all men know that word to mean.

The second lemma is about the nature of nature:
The sum total of natural processes we call ‘nature’ that is, the whole material universe in motion from atoms to stars, exists and has a definite nature. Nature taken as a whole acts in one way and not in another.
Nature taken as a whole cannot have caused itself, since nothing causes itself.
Nor can nature taken as a whole have a natural cause inside nature, since the part cannot be the cause of the whole.
Therefore the cause of the whole of nature is supernatural. And this all men know to be God, for the reasons given above.

The third lemma is about infinite regress:
In nature, all events have causes.
It is impossible that any natural chains of events have no first cause, or else there is no defined chain of cause and effect.
Therefore for every chain of causes and effect, there must be an first cause, which is itself uncaused.
Since this uncaused first cause must exist, and cannot be natural, therefore it is supernatural. And this all men know to be God, for the reasons given above.

The fourth lemma is about necessity and contingency:

Definition: A contingent fact is something that can conceivably be the other way: I can imagine the sun rising in the West without any logical contradictions. But no one can conceive a situation where the axioms and common notions of Euclid are true, and the Pythagorean Theorem is false. These are necessarily the case, if the axioms are true.

Common notion: all contingencies are dependent on a logically prior necessity. Example: the sun cannot rise in the east if there is no such thing as motion. The contingent fact of the sun rising in the east logically depends on the truth of the concept of motion. But the concept of motion depends in turn on the concept of time, which is a prior and more fundamental notion. Hence motion is contingent on time, whereas sunrise is contingent on (among other things) motion. Time is contingent on the concept of self identity, since if the statement A is A were false, the concept of time could not be true. The concept of self-identity is dependent on the concept of identity, that is, being qua being. Such is an example of the chain of contingency.
In nature, all contingencies are dependent on a logically prior necessity, which in turn is dependent on a higher logically prior necessity, forming a chain of contingency.
There can be no infinite chain of contingencies, for it there is no first being, nothing in the chain is defined.
Ergo, there must be one necessary being on which all contingent beings depend, itself dependant on no prior necessity.
Since this necessary being must exist, and cannot be natural, it is supernatural. And this all men know to be God, for the reasons given above.

Such is my first argument, divided here into four heads.

I here give additional arguments showing the weakness of the atheist worldview.

Second, the argument from law.
There are manmade laws we all know to be unjust.
If there is no supernatural order, there can be no supernatural lawgiver.
Absent a supernatural lawgiver, there is no law with universal authority to overrule manmade law. Likewise, absent a supernatural lawgiver, the conscience has no authority to overrule manmade law.
If there is no law with authority to overrule manmade law, manmade law cannot be justly overruled, and hence cannot be unjust.
Which is contradicts the first assumption, hence is absurd. Therefore, QED.

Third, the argument from logic.
If there is no supernatural order deliberately to design human reason to follow the reason of the universe, the forms of logic which exist in the human mind are either manmade (that is, a construction of his own devising) or natural (an inherited property of his brain structure).
If logic is manmade, men could change or abolish the rules of logic at will, in which case all reasoning is in vain.
If logic is an inherited property of the brain structure, there is no reason to suppose that logic is objective, or reflects anything in reality, in which case all reasoning is in vain.
If all reasoning is in vain, then so is the reasoning in this argument, which is a self-contradiction, hence absurd. Therefore, QED.

This has a corollary in an argument from free will
If there is no supernatural order, then there is nothing outside nature.
If nothing outside nature, then nothing exists aside from natural processes, matter in motion.
Ergo thinking is merely one more natural process like any other, whose outcome is determined by the previous vectors of matter in motion.
If so, then no decision (not even the decision to foreswear belief in free will) is decided or even influenced by you.
Which is a self-contradiction, hence absurd. Therefore, QED.

Fourth, the argument from beauty:
Absent a supernatural order, there are no standards of beauty possible aside from natural standards, which includes only either individual tastes, or culturally determined tastes, or tastes based on instinctive reaction programmed by evolution into our brain chemistry.
The common experience of mankind shows that certain things, including those dangerous or indifferent to any possible Darwinian survival trait, such as beholding stars or storms at sea, desert canyons, snowy mountains, horses in full career, images of the rings of Saturn, and on and on, are universally seen as sublime.
If such natural beauty is dangerous or indifferent to any possible Darwinian survival trait, then this taste cannot be based on instinctive reaction programmed by evolution into our brain chemistry.
Again, if universal, then this taste cannot be personal taste nor culturally determined tastes.
Therefore, QED

As a coda, one might mention that neither do musical melodies exist in nature at all, hence could not have influenced Darwinian evolution in any way. But there is no human culture, no, not one, which lacks the love of musical melody.

Fifth, the argument from philanthropy:
Law is based on awarding each man his due dignity and right, his by mere fact of being human, neither granted by the fiat of a sovereign nor earned by a test of intelligence or strength.
But no one grants another such dignity except to his brother, who needs no grant nor earning to be one’s brother.
Hence, universal law is possible when and only when all men are brothers. Civilization, including such delightful pastimes as speculations of philosophy and theology, is not possible unless universal law orders the manmade law, hence civilization is not possible unless all men are brothers.
Either all men are brothers, in which case they are due the dignity one offers a brother, or not.
Absent a supernatural order, all man cannot literally be brothers. They are instead members of different races and tribes in a Darwinian competition with each other for scarce resources. While temporary accommodations and truces are possible, brotherly love is inappropriate, because, in fact, all men are not brothers.
Hence, since all men are not brothers, it is illogical and inappropriate to award all men equal dignity and equal rights, whereupon civilization is without justification, including the civilized courtesy which alone allows this conversation to take place.
Therefore anyone who rebut this argument, or even grants it the civilized courtesy of a hearing, tacitly repudiates the preconditions of all argument, which is absurd, therefore QED.

Sixth, the argument from physics:
Unlike Alchemy, physics cannot be an untrue nor meaningless discipline, for if it were, airplanes would not fly, electricity would not flow, and bridges would not stand. The common experience of mankind is that the discipline of physics is not in vain.
Cause and effect is a precondition without which the discipline of physics is meaningless. Likewise, the regularity of phenomenon is a precondition without which the discipline of physics is meaningless.
No discipline can prove its own preconditions. Hence, causality and regularity are not deductions of physics, nor of any empirical study. These axioms must come before physics, hence are rightly called metaphysical.
These metaphysical ideas of causality and regularity are nonmaterial, imponderable, occupy neither time nor space, and, in a word, are purely mental abstractions. They do not exist inside the natural order of the material universe.
If there is no supernatural order, then metaphysical ideas of causality and regularity do not exist at all, whereupon all metaphysics hence all physics is in vain.
Which contradicts the first assumption, hence is absurd, hence QED.

The Seventh argument is an appeal to historical reality.
Most men for most of time have believed in a supernatural order. This belief is not only peculiar, for most of them, it was central to their lives and their cultures, even to the point where they were willing to kill and die for it.
The belief is either wholly false (as the atheist would have it) or is not wholly false (the Catholic Church teaches that the pagan religions were dim but honest attempts to reach a supernatural reality, hence that they were incomplete, misguided, or inchoate, partly false, but not wholly so).
If it is wholly false, then all religious men whatsoever are either lunatics, who believe in something more preposterous and easier to disprove than a belief in invisible giant flying spaghetti monsters, or abominable cowards, playing along with the preposterous Pastaferians despite the self evident absurdity and wickedness of these beliefs.
Likewise, if wholly false, then all atheist men are the sole men free of this nearly universal and dangerous lunacy. Freed from the bonds of priest-craft and superstition, we would expect to find atheists outnumbering theists in the areas noted for intellectual honesty and brightness of wit.
But if not wholly false, we would expect to find all men to be sinners, and indeed to find sinners up to and including Judas or the Antichrist highly placed in the Church; and to find not all pagans lacking in virtue; nor for that matter all atheists.
Even a passing glance at the history of mankind shows that those who believed in the supernatural order were not only not all lunatics, but include the greatest genius and heroes of all time, and the most generous of saints and more fearless of martyrs.
Even a passing glance at the history of intellectuals from Rousseau to Nietzsche to Marx to Ayn Rand show them to have violated the common decency and moral code of mankind, sometimes egregiously so, and possessed of less intellectual honesty than the norm.
Ergo some extraordinary explanation is needed to explain how famous theists can be afflicted by a lunacy as stupid as pasta-worship, but still be equal or superior to the enlightened atheists in moral and intellectual and all other forms of accomplishment.
If no such extraordinary explanation is found, the atheist worldview does not explain the facts on the ground as well as the theist, and hence is not to be preferred.

Again, as previously stated, the argument here is not that theism is the only possible rational conclusion to reach. The argument is that belief in a supernatural order is the more parsimonious assumption, hence more reasonable than disbelief.

Of all places, Sanders' presidential bid has growing support in Montana By Troy Carter Chronicle Staff Writer

From the Bozeman Chronicle. Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.
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(I find it hard to account for the enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders. He's an aged, withered-up socialist fossil advocating treadworn, failed ideas derived from an ideology that has killed millions. 

He has accomplished absolutely nothing in Congress, he has strange ideas about rape and women's orgasms. He represents a bygone era, where armed invaders rounded up and executed farmers and university professors. he cannot point to any success of his ideas. 

Yet, local businessman Andy Boyd likes him. It makes no sense.

Read on:
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2016 Republican candidates are stupid and evil

Leftist voting guide for 2016:

Jeb Bush - Stupid
Ben Carson - Really stupid
Chris Christie - Fat and stupid
Ted Cruz - Stupid. No, wait, evil.
Carly Fiorina - Clueless.
Lindsay Graham - Really stupid.
Mike Huckabee - Religious and stupid
Bobby Jindal - Totally dumb.
George Pataki - Stupider.
Rand Paul - Evil. No, wait. Stupid.
Rick Perry - Dumb as a bag of hammers.
Marco Rubio - Idiot.
Rick Santorum - Dim bulb.
Donald Trump - Evil. Definitely evil.
Scott Walker - Evil and stupid.

5 ERRORS OF THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL - David W. Jones

Very good article found here.
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Previously: “Prosperity Gospel Born in the USA” (Russell Woodbridge) The following is an edited version of an article that originally appeared in the 9Marks Journal on the prosperity gospel.

More than a century ago, speaking to the then-largest congregation in all Christendom, Charles Spurgeon said, “I believe that it is anti-Christian and unholy for any Christian to live with the object of accumulating wealth. You will say, ‘Are we not to strive all we can to get all the money we can?’ You may do so. I cannot doubt but what, in so doing, you may do service to the cause of God. But what I said was that to live with the object of accumulating wealth is anti-Christian.”

Over the years, however, the message being preached in some of the largest churches in the world has changed—indeed, a new gospel is being taught to many congregations today. This message has been ascribed many name, such as the “name it and claim it” gospel, the “blab it and grab it” gospel, the “health and wealth” gospel, the “prosperity gospel,” and “positive confession theology.”

No matter what name is used, the essence of this message is the same. Simply put, this “prosperity gospel” teaches that God wants believers to be physically healthy, materially wealthy, and personally happy. Listen to the words of Robert Tilton, one of its best-known spokesmen: “I believe that it is the will of God for all to prosper because I see it in the Word, not because it has worked mightily for someone else. I do not put my eyes on men, but on God who gives me the power to get wealth.” Teachers of the prosperity gospel encourage their followers to pray for and even demand material flourishing from God.

Five Theological Errors

Russell Woodbridge and I wrote a book titled Health, Wealth, and Happiness: Has the Prosperity Gospel Overshadowed the Gospel of Christ? (Kregel, 2010) to examine the claims of prosperity gospel advocates. While the book is too wide-ranging to summarize here, in this article I’d like to review five doctrines we cover in it—doctrines on which prosperity gospel advocates err. By discerning these errors regarding key doctrines, I hope you will plainly see the dangers of the prosperity gospel.

1. The Abrahamic covenant is a means to material entitlement.
The Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 12, 15, 17, 22) is one of the theological bases of the prosperity gospel. It’s good that prosperity theologians recognize much of Scripture is the record of the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, but it’s bad that they don’t maintain an orthodox view of this covenant. They incorrectly view the inception of the covenant; more significantly, they erroneously view the application of the covenant.

In his book Spreading the Flame (Zondervan, 1992), Edward Pousson stated the prosperity view on the application of the Abrahamic covenant: “Christians are Abraham’s spiritual children and heirs to the blessings of faith. . . . This Abrahamic inheritance is unpacked primarily in terms of material entitlements.” In other words, the prosperity gospel teaches that the primary purpose of the Abrahamic covenant was for God to bless Abraham materially. Since believers are now Abraham’s spiritual children, we have inherited these financial blessings. As Kenneth Copeland wrote in his 1974 book The Laws of Prosperity, “Since God’s covenant has been established and prosperity is a provision of this covenant, you need to realize that prosperity belongs to you now!”

To support this claim, prosperity teachers appeal to Galatians 3:14, which refers to “the blessings of Abraham [that] come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus.” It’s interesting, however, that in their appeals to Galatians 3:14 these teachers ignore the second half of the verse: “that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” Paul is clearly reminding the Galatians of the spiritual blessing of salvation, not the material blessing of wealth.

2. Jesus’s atonement extends to the “sin” of material poverty.
In his Bibliotheca Sacra article “A Theological Evaluation of the Prosperity Gospel,” theologian Ken Sarles observes how the prosperity gospel claims that “both physical healing and financial prosperity have been provided for in the atonement.” This seems to be an accurate observation in light of Copeland’s statement that “the basic principle of the Christian life is to know that God put our sin, sickness, disease, sorrow, grief, and poverty on Jesus at Calvary.” This misunderstanding of the scope of the atonement stems from two errors prosperity gospel proponents make.

First, many who espouse prosperity theology have a fundamental misconception of the life of Jesus. For example, teacher John Avanzini proclaimed on a TBN program, Jesus had “a nice house,” “a big house,” “Jesus was handling big money,” and he even “wore designer clothes.” It’s easy to see how such a warped view of the life of Christ could lead to an equally warped misconception of the death of Christ.

A second error that leads to a faulty view of the atonement is misinterpreting 2 Corinthians 8:9, which reads, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.” While a shallow reading of this verse may lead one to believe Paul was teaching about an increase in material wealth, a contextual reading reveals he was actually teaching the exact opposite principle. Indeed, Paul was teaching the Corinthians that since Christ accomplished so much for them through the atonement, they should empty themselves of their riches in service of the Savior. This is why just five short verses later Paul would urge the Corinthians to give their wealth away to their needy brothers, writing “that now at this time your abundance may supply their lack” (2 Cor. 8:14).

12 Teachings That Harm the Church - by JOSEPH MATTERA

Found here. Some good stuff.
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I have heard it said that "balance is the key to life." I agree with that statement, as I have found that any truth taken to the extreme (that ignores others aspects related to its subject) is unbalanced and can be harmful.

This is also why Paul the Apostle said that he teaches "the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27), which involves a full-orbed presentation of truth.

The following are some of the hyper-teachings that have been harmful to the body of Christ, in my opinion:

1. Hyper-Grace. Grace is typically defined as unmerited favor given to humans by God. This is a satisfactory definition albeit not comprehensive. Since Scripture teaches us that we are saved by grace and not by works (Eph. 2:8-9), those in the hyper-grace camp believe and teach that once a person is saved, they can live any way they want and still achieve the benefits of salvation. They need a full dose of the book of James to counter-balance their hyper-grace!

2. Hyper-Holiness. Those in this camp put an overemphasis on outward holiness to the point in which they believe a person has to dress a certain way in order to have right standing with God. (For example: women should not cut their hair, wear pants, makeup or jewelry.) Their emphasis on outward conformity to strict standards makes them more like Pharisees than Christians. They need to meditate on Matthew 23 to understand God's view that inward holiness is a greater priority than outward holiness.

3. Hyper-Calvinist. This camp emphasizes God's sovereignty to the point that it bypasses what Scripture teaches regarding human responsibility. For example, during Charles Finney's ministry, he had to constantly debate hyper-Calvinists who taught that it was wrong for preachers to induce sinners to repent, make decisions for Christ, and/or do anything that aided in the process of salvation. Of course, the majority of Calvinists have not taken this approach as we study the ministries of former heroes of the faith such as George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon and other Calvinists who were mightily used of God to bring thousands of sinners to Christ by commanding repentance and obedience to the gospel.

4. Hyper-Arminianism. Those in this camp overemphasize human responsibility to the point that they nullify God's sovereignty. Extreme Arminianism such as "open theism" even goes as far as teaching that God doesn't know everything in the future and that God makes His decisions after He sees how humans respond to Him. They have reduced predestination (Eph. 1:4; Rom. 8:29-30) to "post-destination" and have created a god that responds to time and space rather than the One who controls it.

The difference between predestination and human responsibility is a scriptural paradox that will never be fully understood this side of heaven. I always say that Scriptures that emphasize predestination are taken from God's transcendent view of human reality (from heaven's perspective), and Scriptures that emphasize human responsibility are from an immanent view of human reality (from the earth's perspective).

5. Hyper-Love. Those in this camp emphasize the love of God to the exclusion of the holiness and righteousness of God (Psalm 89:14 says "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne"). Whenever we focus on one attribute of God to the exclusion of the other attributes of God, we become unbalanced and present a wrong view of God's character and nature. Those in this camp say that God is love (1 John 4:7) and ignore the Scriptures that deal with God's wrath, along with the laws of sowing and reaping due to sin (Eph. 5:1-6; Gal. 6:7-8).

Even the Apostle John, who wrote "God is love," also said in the same epistle that those who practice sin are of the devil and are lawless because sin is lawlessness (1 John 4:1-10).

Love Wins author Rob Bell went so far as to teach that all men would eventually be saved because of God's love. Read Revelation 20:11-15 to balance that view.

6. Hyper-Faith. Those in this camp primarily preach on faith for healing and deliverance, and set believers up to think there will always be victory with very little suffering or pain if they exert faith in God. This neglects the fact that Jesus not only healed the sick but also spoke about the need for His followers to walk in humility and meekness, to take up their cross and lose their lives in order to find it (Matt. 5:1-10 and Mark 8:34-35).

7. Hyper-Prosperity. Similar to the faith camp, this circle of preachers primarily emphasizes Scriptures that deal with personal blessing and financial prosperity. Although there is some truth in their teachings, this overemphasis produces believers who seek the blessing more than the Blesser! It can also produce false expectations of people who sow their money into a ministry expecting a hundredfold return, which rarely if ever happens on a purely financial level. I believe in biblical prosperity but not in a "rights-centered" gospel that ignores our biblical stewardship to produce wealth primarily to confirm His covenant in the earth (Deuteronomy 8:18).

8. Hyper-High Church. Those in this camp emphasize institutional church traditions and protocols that produce a professional class of clergy who have to walk around all day in clerical garb. They insist that the church be set up as a hierarchical organization replete with titles, and even a throne for the head bishop! Those in this camp are losing most of their young people and have to reread the New Testament to understand the way of Jesus and the Apostles. Somehow I cannot picture Jesus, the original apostles and/or Paul wearing clerical robes and collars every Sunday and focusing on hierarchical titles and titular elevations.

To counterbalance this approach Philippians 2:1-12 comes to mind as well as Matthew 23, which is a judgment against the religious system set up by those who claim to follow God.

9. Hyper-Kingdom. Those in this camp preach as though the fullness of the kingdom has already come and that there are no more biblical prophecies left to be fulfilled. (Some call them "full preterists".) Many don't even believe things could get worse on the earth and don't believe in the second bodily return of Christ. Scripture teaches a paradoxical view that the kingdom is already here (Col. 1:12-13), but not yet fully manifest (Rom. 16:20).

10. Hyper-Dispensational. Those in this camp believe they have to passively wait for the rapture and avoid political and social reform, because trying to transform culture is like "re-arranging the chairs on the Titanic." This is based on a faulty reading of Scriptures such as Daniel 9:24-27.

Although I do not believe every nation and all people will be saved before the second bodily return of Christ, I do believe there will be some sort of strong kingdom influence in the nations (especially "sheep nations"; read Matt. 25:32) before the second coming. All of the major biblical covenants and themes point to a victorious church and victorious gospel before the end of human history (read Gen. 1:28; 12:1-3; 22:17-18; Ps. 110:2; Acts 3:21).

11. Hyper-Charismatic. Those in this camp focus more on the gifts of the Spirit than on the Word of God, character development and inward holiness. They elevate their spiritual experiences above the truth of Scripture.

12. Hyper-Rational. Those in this camp are afraid of any spiritual (subjective) experiences and/or manifestations. They depend upon their mind to the neglect of their spirit. They believe God only speaks through His written Word. They rationalize their faith and have little or no real prayer life or substantive fellowship with God. They split hairs over biblical doctrines and in some ways worship the Bible more than the God of the Bible. (Jesus said it is possible to study the Scriptures without coming to God; read John 5:39-40).

In conclusion, whenever we focus on a truth to the exclusion of other aspects of truth we end up in error.

May God help us to understand and preach the whole counsel of God so that we can feed the flock of God and equip them to fulfill their divine purpose!