More than I ask or imagine. . .

Lust Losing Its Luster, Part 2: The Heart

You may have heard the statistics, but in case you have not, please check out this research website.  Here is one for you: The porn industry makes more money than the NFL, NBA, and MLB combined. Now we could say that this is a problem of our culture and spend endless hours talking about influences and causes.  At the end of the day we are nowhere near removing its power or influence.

Granted, internet pornography is a modern phenomena, but the root behind it is ancient.  This root is responsible for even more damage and destruction throughout history in the form of rape, objectification of women, prostitution, and even murder.

The root is the human heart, not the internet, not your parents, not your circumstances, not your history, not availability of alluring material.  Christians often blame others for lust blaming all the things above. But at the center of lust is the adulterous human heart.

The heart as I use it means the mind, the will, and the emotions.  All three of these conspire to call us to another reality.  You could call it escapism, but that reality is death.  Death masking itself as life.  Something life giving, such as sexuality or food, becomes something else, life destroying. Just like eating a piece of cake can delight you and eating 40 pieces can destroy you, so it is with lust. 

In fact, the heart distorts all of our appetites from food and sex to reading and drinking. Recently, I was coveting an Amazon Kindle.  It seemed harmless, but then, my wife made the comment that my coveting of the Kindle makes other peoples gifts seem to not measure up.  See, I may stay away from sexual lust but my adulterous heart still longs to cling to things that push me away from those I love. It became death, when the promise of reading more seems like life. Reading is good, but I pervert it into death.

You can never make death into life. Life must interrupt Death. It must be resurrected, and we will find that in Part Three.

Lust Losing Its Luster: Sermon on Lust

This is the beginning of a 5 part series on Lust, and suggestions for fighting Lust.  This is not just a Men's issue, but a human issue.  As someone who has struggled deeply in this area, I have found hope and grace in Christ.  It is truly the case that he who is forgiven much loves much.  I pray that this series will be helpful to everyone who visits.   First things first, a sermon that I preached last month on this issue.  The rest of the series will come out of thoughts alluded to as well.

2009_11_08_2nd_Lust Losing Its Luster_Jerry Fourroux

Common Cup and Presbyterians

Here at New Life, we approach the Lord's Supper two ways. We have the individual cups tray to pass through the congregation.  We also have common cups for wine and juice with the person coming forward to receive Communion.  Both of these methods communicate something we appreicate about the Body of Christ.

Lauren Winner wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal about how H1N1 flu fears about Communion are the same struggle the Church has had with scientific modernism.  Below is the article:

Swine flu makes churches rethink the common cup.

In many Roman Catholic churches across the country, lay people no longer receive wine at Communion, and some Catholic clergy have advised congregants not to shake hands or hug at the moment of the liturgy known as "the passing of the peace," when parishioners typically greet someone in, and offer embodied signs of, the peace of Christ. In my own Episcopal parish, I was greeted by a neighbor last Sunday with an elbow bump. At a United Church of Christ congregation in the suburbs of Chicago, Communion servers now slice up bread into bite-sized bits before distributing Communion; they no longer offer congregants a loaf from which to tear a hunk of bread. In the interest of keeping fingers away from communion wine, communicants at All Saints' Chapel in Sewanee, Tenn., are now instructed not to dip their Eucharistic bread into the cup but rather to sip the cup directly, since hands are often more infectious than mouths.

iMonk's Techniques for Apostasy

Rather enjoy this blog from iMonk, it is a Screwtape type lecture between demons who combat the Kingdom of God with apostasy.  Find it rather close to home as they say.

The Vilesidious Lectures: Advanced Tactics For Apostasy

UPDATE: Vilesidious has appeared at IM before,writing a young protege on the subject of Christian schools.

The transcript of the following lecture was secured through means that cannot be revealed, but as C.S. Lewis said, are readily available to those who learn a few basic techniques. The general conclusion is that the following lecture is part of an advanced demonic curriculum specializing in leading Christians to abandon their faith.

Transcript of Class Discussion. Advanced Tactics for Apostasy Seminar. Professor Vilesidious presiding.

If you would please turn to page 853 in the teal binder. We’re looking at the outline and readings regarding “Advanced Techniques for Apostasy.”

***noise, pages turning, conversation***

It would be important at the outset to continue emphasizing the focus of this seminar: moving professed and generally assumed Christians to the point of abandoning the faith. Those of you selected for this seminar should be completely aware that much of what you learned in the basic curriculum is of questionable value at this level. A survey of case studies, such as Ehrman 32 for example, will reveal that failure in the basics of preventing a profession of loyalty to the enemy is of often the preparation for greater success in abandoning a very public and influential Christian influence. For that reason, apostasy is far preferable for our Father’s overall goals for the human race. Those of you who are able to assimilate this material and put it into practice will find your advancement in the lowerarchy to be substantially accelerated.

Hope

You cannot see hope,

You cannot try it on,

You cannot measure it.

You wait for hope,

You ache with hope,

You weep in hope.

We glory in hope,

Hope melts cynicism

Hope multiplys love

We hope against your hopelessness.

Who is Marx and the Marxist?

Just for the record, we need to understand the real thing before we go off and start using the term "Marxist".    Below is an article by Whittaker Chambers, a former Marxist on what one is from Time Magazine.  Hopefully this will be helpful to all the false accusations of Communism. 

"When Clio, the Muse of History, gets her diary up to date, whom will she write down as the Man of the 20th Century? Barring the unlikely appearance, before 2000, of an extraordinarily effective saint or major prophet, the Man of the Century will be a German intellectual, devoted to children, caviar and Aeschylus.

He does not look the part. His scholarly forehead, his small, sparkling eyes, his massive and majestic beard set him apart from other 20th Century heroes. The black-rimmed eyeglass, which he carries on a thin ribbon around his neck, is a gentle anachronism. Above all, his dates seem wrong. For it was at the height of the Victorian era, when the atom appeared almost as indestructible as Britain's dominion of the waves, that Karl Heinrich Marx died."

Click Link above to find out more......

JD having fun with Mommy

Here is another video of my boy.  Talking, drooling, and having a good ole time.

All Israel will be Saved

Just read a paragraph from Peter Leithart's website about history in terms of the population. Here is the paragraph:

A friend, Jim Rogers, sends along this quotation from the late Richard Neuhaus:

“Scholars generally agree that in the first century there were approximately six million Jews in the Roman Empire . . . That was about one tenth of the entire population. About one million were in Palestine, including today’s State of Israel, while those in the diaspora were very much part of the establishment in cities such as Alexandria and Constantinople. . . . Some scholars have noted that, by the fourth or fifth century, there were only a few hundred thousand, at most a million, people who identified themselves as Jews. What happened to the millions of others? The most likely answer, it is suggested, is that they became Christians.”

My Maw-Maw's Obituary

Just back in town from Louisana.  My Grandmother died last week.  It was good to be there and have her great grandson there.  There was a color guard from the Police Dept for my Grandmother. I played Pitty Pat, a card game she taught some of the grandchildren, and ate lost of gumbo and crawfish.  It was still not as good as her's in her cast iron pots.  I knew I loved sea food the first time I had her crawfish, and I must have been 4 or 5.  

 Mrs. Fourroux was a retired police officer with the Plaquemine Police Department with 29 years of service. During World War II, she was a "Rosie the Riveter" for Consolidated Aircraft Corp., New Orleans, assembling the PBY Catalina "Flying Boat." She was a loving mom and grandmother, "Maw Maw" and the best cookie maker in town. A resident of Plaquemine and a native of New Iberia, she passed away Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2009, to be with her Lord. She was born March 8, 1918. Visiting at First Baptist Church, Plaquemine, on Saturday, Aug. 8, from 10 a.m. until religious service at 1 p.m., conducted by the Rev. Keith Horton. Interment in Protestant Cemetery, Plaquemine. Survived by her daughter and son-in-law, Linda Fourroux and James J. Ferraro Jr., of Kenner; two sons and daughters-in-law, Jerry Donald and Cathy Read Fourroux, of Chattanooga, Tenn., and Anthony "Wayne" and Darlene Tidwell Fourroux, of Plaquemine; sister, Mable Mouille, of Plaquemine; brother and sister-in-law, Iris K. and Genie Cook, of Plaquemine; eight grandchildren, Amber Fourroux, of Chattanooga, Jerry Jr. and wife Hesed Fourroux, of Ambler, Pa., Miranda Fourroux, of Plaquemine, James Ferraro and Gregory Ferraro, both of Kenner, Gabe and wife Lila Crowson, of Chicago, Clark and wife Kaley Crowson, and Jacob Crowson, all of Plaquemine; three great-grandchildren, Jerry D. Fourroux III, Ainsley Crowson and Brady Crowson; and many loving and supportive nieces and nephews. Preceded in death by her husband Antoine Fourroux; parents, Charles E. and Estella Buck Cook; sisters, Doris Cook, Gladys Cook, Gertrude Mouille, Rilma Schafer; and brothers, Vernon and Calvin Cook. Memorial donations may be made to First Baptist Church of Plaquemine building fund, 24525 Ory St., Plaquemine, LA 70764.

Chuck Baldwin on Romans 13: Christians and the Civil Government

 

Before I head off for 2 weeks of vacation, I wanted to post on Chuck Baldwin.  I thought about voting for him for President but he was not on the Ballot up here in Pennsylvania.  Baldwin was an outspoken critic of George W. Bush from the conservative side.  In the article below, he defends blind obedience to the Civil Magistrate that many Christians do with a view to Romans 13.  Granted, I, as a WCF guy, would probably do the whole Lex Rex thing and say if the government is not following God's law then there is cause for civil disobedience.   Let me know what you think about his stances.

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It seems that every time someone such as myself attempts to encourage our Christian brothers and sisters to resist an unconstitutional or otherwise reprehensible government policy, we hear the retort, "What about Romans Chapter 13? We Christians must submit to government. Any government. Read your Bible, and leave me alone." Or words to that effect.

No doubt, some who use this argument are sincere. They are only repeating what they have heard their pastor and other religious leaders say. On the other hand, let's be honest enough to admit that some who use this argument are just plain lazy, apathetic, and indifferent. And Romans 13 is their escape from responsibility. I suspect this is the much larger group, by the way.