If you stop believing what your professor told you had to be true and if you start thinking for yourself you may come to some conclusions you hadn't expected. You may find the Bible makes more sense than you thought or were told to think. Allow yourself to be ruined, ruined with regard to what you always thought could be true. Can you believe what you don't understand?You and I believe everyday what we don't understand unless it comes to the issue to salvation. Dr. Woodrow Kroll
Sing to God, sing praise to His name, extol Him who rides on the clouds -- His Name is the Lord -- and rejoice before Him. A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling. --Psalm 68
Martin Luther once declared the book of Psalms, "the book of all saints." And certainly, many agree—the Psalms are an utterly fascinating section of Scripture, with a chapter that seems to speak to every human emotion amid a journey of words spoken to God and with God. For Luther, it was the earnestness and life uttered within the Psalms that spoke to him most profoundly. "Where does one find finer words of joy than in the Psalms of praise and thanksgiving?" he asked. "On the other hand, where do you find deeper, more sorrowful, more pitiful words of sadness than in the Psalms of lamentation…? So, too, when [the Psalms] speak of fear and hope, they use such words that no painter could so depict…" (Footnote 1: J. Clinton McCann, Jr., A Theological Introduction to the Book of Psalms. (Abington Press: Nashville, 1993) p. 13.)
Luther's observation is well founded. No other book—indeed, no other work at all—more accurately unveils the labyrinthine corridors of the heart and emotions of man, nor so clearly reveals the emotions and character of God. Moreover, the Psalms remind us, as Dan Allender and Tremper Longman have expressed masterfully in their book, The Cry of the Soul, that one's emotions often reveal our deepest questions about God. We see this poignantly as the psalmist struggles with the reality of God's goodness in light of the reality of sorrow, pain, and disappointment. And this is precisely why the Psalms are so valuable, for such earnest wrestling with our emotions for the intent of gaining wisdom, can bring us a clearer vision of who we are and who God is, if we will see.
The call to consider our inner world may seem somewhat out of place in a culture that readily uses feeling, preference, and intuition as the guideposts for life. And yet, within this world that has pledged its allegiance to the appetite, we have never seen so many people struggling with matters of identity and self-worth, emptiness and alienation, as we do today. The psalmist's call is to delve into the deepest cries of our hearts, deeper than many are willing to go. Listen to the words of a poem written by English critic Matthew Arnold, titled, "The Buried Life." (Footnote 2: As quoted by James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door, p. 12.) He writes,
But often, in the world's most crowed streets. But often in the din of strife, There rises an unspeakable desire After the knowledge of our buried life: A thirst to spend our fire and restless force In tracking out our true, original course; A longing to inquire Into the mystery of this heart which beats So wild, so deep in us—to know Whence our lives come and where they go.
Arnold recognized the depth of human emotion, the intensity of that inner world, and a longing to understand it, but sadly, he stopped there, never fully inquiring into the mystery of this heart which beats, "What has the depth to render our depths?" The Psalms bid us to explore our buried lives, to read the cries of our hearts as they ask our most honest questions of God, and ultimately, to follow our thirst to the source of all life. "Why are you downcast O my soul?" asks the psalmist repeatedly in Psalm 42. "Why so disturbed within me?" C.S. Lewis once stated that if we find in ourselves a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. This the psalmist knows well. Only the deep and living waters of the sovereign God can answer the deepest cries of the heart.
Return to the Psalms again and again, and may you be blessed by the language, inspired by the honesty, and brought closer to the One whose word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. (Footnote 3: Psalm 119:105) Jill Carattini
We have been witnessing the riotous actions of Muslims who seem to have suddenly realized that not everyone else in the world really likes them or the founder of their religion, Muhammad. It is time for Christians -- particularly American Christians – to realize that not everyone else in the world really likes us. We should have been aware of this . . . Jesus said to His followers: “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” (John 15:18-19)
The important progression here is that we Christians have been chosen by Jesus out of the world, and we can expect to be hated by the world, even as He was hated by the world. This is not something new. This has been the expectation and the experience of Christian believers for more than 2000 years, from the time of Jesus’ earthly existence until today.
The repetition may be boring, but it is true and worth reminding ourselves that this nation was built upon Judeo-Christian principles, and the men who established this nation – 52 out of the 55 “founding fathers” – were professing Christians, conceivably Evangelicals, who put conformity to those principles first in their lives, their speeches, and the new government which they were establishing. John Adams, Washington’s Vice President, and the second president of the United States, made his beliefs very clear, “The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and as immutable as the existence and attributes of God.” John Jay, the original Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, declared, “Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty – as well as the privilege and interest – of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”
“Blasphemy” is not a common or frequently used word in today’s world. To speak ill of God or the Christian faith however, is blasphemy, defined, in part, in Webster’s dictionary as “profane speech, writing or action toward God or sacred things.” Historians point out that blasphemy was a serious offense from the days of the early Greeks, and that view carried over to Colonial America, in some states being ruled as a capital offense.
But blasphemy, or speaking ill of God and the Christian faith, was early manifested in the history of America. In 1853 Congress was petitioned to end to all public religious expression, including the removal of chaplains from all branches of the US military. The Judiciary Committees of the House and Senate conducted an intensive investigation, and in 1854 the House Judiciary Committee affirmed, “In this age there can be no substitute for Christianity. That was the religion of the Founders of the Republic and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants.” The Senate Judiciary Committee agreed as follows, “We are Christians, not because the law demands it, but from choice and education. They [the Founders] had no fear or jealousy of religion itself, nor did they wish to see us as an irreligious people. They did not intend to spread over all the public authorities and the whole public action of the nation the dead and revolting spectacle of atheistic apathy.”
But those were the early days, when these colonies were developing into a great nation. The First Amendment was taken to mean just what it said – that Congress should pass no law affecting an institution of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. And for the first 150 years this nation experienced the benefits of what the founding fathers intended in the “Bill of Rights” – that Americans should live under the principle of freedom of religion.
Then in 1947 something disastrous occurred. The US Supreme Court decided that the First Amendment established a wall of separation between church and state. As has already been noted, the Founding Fathers who wrote the “Bill of Rights” had no such intention, and surely they knew more about the meaning of the First Amendment than Supreme Court Justices a century and half later. Chief Justice, the late William Rehnquist, clearly stated the erroneous interpretation problem: “The ‘wall of separation between church and State’ is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.” However, the ACLU and the Liberal media have repeated the phrase so often that many people believe it is part of the Constitution. In fact it is found nowhere in the US Constitution, but it was in the constitution of the former Soviet Union. Famed Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes made this observation, “It is one of the misfortunes of the law that ideas become encysted in phrases, and thereafter for a long time cease to provoke further analysis.” So it has been with the phrase, “separation of church and state.” It is a demonstration of the “big lie” technique, that if you repeat something often enough, true or not, people will come to believe it. Thus, with the door opened by the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the first Amendment, what Senator Ted Kennedy and the Liberals/Democrats regard as “progress,” began to manifest itself.
In the early 1960’s, influenced by the grand dame of American atheism, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the US Supreme Court banned prayer from the nation’s public school system, and soon all mention of God and the Christian faith followed. Blasphemy.
In 1973, the US Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that abortion was legal, with millions of babies murdered since that date in disobedience to God’s commandment. Blasphemy.
In 2001 the dispute over the display of the Ten Commandments on public property began, culminating in 2003 with the removal, by court action, of the monument in Alabama, opening the door for the ACLU to institute similar cases all over the country. Blasphemy.
In 2002 an atheist brought suit to remove the words “under God” from the pledge of allegiance, won in a West Coast court, but was deterred temporarily by the US Supreme Court, but is now trying again. Blasphemy.
In 2003 a Massachusetts state court decided by a one vote majority to legalize homosexual marriage in that state, opening the door to legal actions in other states to accomplish the same defiance of God’s law. Blasphemy.
In 2003 the US Supreme Court overeturned a Texas law and legalized sodomy, in direct disobedience to God’s law. Blasphemy.
In 2005, that same atheist who is still trying to delete “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance instituted suit to remove “In God We Trust,” our national motto, from all of our currency. Blasphemy.
The point is, as evidenced by these few examples, the practice of blasphemy is alive and well and active in the United States today. Even as Jesus warned us that we would be hated, so Paul warns us in II Timothy, chapter 3, that “in the last days perilous times shall come,” and that men would be “blasphemers …having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof,” and he advised us, as Christians, “from such turn away.”
In the light of Scripture we are advised to turn away from, to avoid contact with, certainly not to follow those who practice and advocate blasphemy as an acceptable way of life, an evidence of progress. That is where we stand as Christians in America today, facing the choice of going along with the blasphemers, or taking a strong stand in every way open to us, to restore the old foundations, and help bring America back to the nation it was intended to be before the Liberals began to take control.
Quote for the week: “We’ve staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Commandments of God. The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded.” -- James Madison, 4th President of the United States, from 1809-1817
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Losing Our Sanity, from Cradle to Couch {Excerpts] Tana Dineen, PhD
Michael S. Scheeringa, assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at Tulane Medical School in New Orleans [and others], have lowered the bar on another disorder once reserved for adults. He believes that children as young as infants can suffer not only from depression but even from post-traumatic stress disorder. Alicia Lieberman, director of the Child Trauma Research Project at San Francisco General Hospital, agrees, citing PTSD as a cause of something she calls "post-traumatic play."
Mental health workers have fallen victim to the notion that they have the uncanny ability to detect mental illness in infants just by looking at them and imagining what they are thinking. Depressed babies, according to Alice Sterling Honig, professor emeritus of child development at Syracuse University, "look listless, with dull eyes, as if they gave up looking for their special person." Babies as young as four months, she believes, show "signs of stress seen in much older people."
The infancy advocacy group Zero to Three offers a handbook for psychiatrists and psychologists to strengthen their position and support their practice. With the awkward title: "Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Development Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood," it lists all possible (and imaginable) diagnoses and their symptoms. Modeled on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, it treats infants and children as miniature adults prone to the same types of disorders identifiable in their moms and dads.
Are any of these opinions and assessments reliable? Or are they just another sign of a mental-health industry that wants to expand its influence and prosperity?
With each month and year that passes, the confidence of child experts in their ability to diagnose grows as does their list of publications which fosters the impression that they really do know what they¹re doing. Yet it all hangs on something akin to mind reading, guessing and proselytizing.
Who knows whether a "listless look" indicates depressive thinking or just a full stomach or a gas pain? Or whether anhedonia is something that toddlers feel or adults imagine? Or whether frequent night wakings in infants are a sleep disorder or just an exhausting parental nuisance?
Perhaps the answer can be found in the nature of the treatment, one that relies heavily on medications. A recent survey of pediatricians, by Carol Rosen of Case Western State University, finds that 75 per cent of them prescribe sleeping medication for young children although such practice is not approved. And, although drugs such as Prozac have not been approved for infants and young children -- which means there is no evidence that they are safe in the long term -- tiny dosages mixed with pabulum are being readily prescribed. Possibly, all of this is just a marketing tool to create infant mental illness as a niche, a new area in which to claim expertise (http://www.pamweb.org/losingsanity114.html).