Technological solutions for removing garbage

“College” may be transforming now as quickly as Apple transformed how we buy and listen to music last decade …

While Ivy League “students” learn how to perfect their perversions with porn stars, UNC Tar Hell students spend NC tax dollars on orgasm clinics, and Big 10 Professors feature after-class/in-class live sex shows, the “fix” may already be in the works.  Dazzled by big collegiate names, sterling sports reputations and a host of beneficial science and engineering research, too many are oblivious to or apathetic about the morally decrepit and intellectually flaccid state of most humanities departments within our universities.

We may not need to reform those departments, they may simply go away for being obsolete.  Why pay tens of thousands of dollars in (often tax subsidized) tuition and room and board for what can be obtained for free.  Or so we can hope.  Like so many problems that plagued humanity for ages, technological innovation may pave for real change — near universal accessibility for little to no cost, international exposure to content, and the power of social media/leveraging to filter and elevate quality content.  The following video explains not just how this might happen, but how it is presently turning into reality:

The law of the Lord is perfect,
refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
    making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right,
    giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are radiant,
    giving light to the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is pure,
    enduring forever.
The decrees of the Lord are firm,
    and all of them are righteous.

We restarted a family integrated Bible study at our church recently, which is fancy speak for a Bible study where everyone is invited – newborns to grandparents.

Andy Wilson teaches Luke about Hebrews 4:12

The class is committed to equipping and encouraging our families to study the Bible together.  We use the Answers Bible Curriculum (“ABC” for short) published by Answers in Genesis.  ABC is a comprehensive curriculum designed to cover the entire Bible.  AiG explains:

Synchronized Sunday school for all ages!

Answers Bible Curriculum is a full-featured, chronological, 3-year Sunday school program. Its 156 lessons are synchronized across 7 age groups from preschool to adults. Each group covers Genesis through Revelation and learns the same material—but at different levels of depth—empowering exciting and easy discussion for the entire family.

The curriculum teaches both what the Bible says and also why we can believe it’s true and how to read it.  In the first few lessons, the family is taught the meaning of inductive Bible studies, the foundational nature of scripture, how to distinguish between exegesis and eisegesis, and fundamental apologetics regarding the truth of scripture.  Great content and all scripture based.

The curriculum is designed for churches, ie student guides, teaching materials and devotionals are organized by age.  AiG is working on but has not yet released a family integrated curriculum; they have, however, released a family weekly devotional that tracks the lessons.  For our class sessions, our leader Andy Wilson reviews the various age group lessons and merges them into a single class designed for all ages.

Perhaps most importantly, it has helped us improve our biblical discipleship within our family.  We engage the same issues together as a family and have detailed study guides to reference and guide us in the Word.  It has already become much easier for my wife and I to disciple our children on important issues of our Christian faith. Praise God!

Easter 2013 Message

by Pastor Stephen Davey

John 19:30

He has won!

“It is finished” is not the cry of a victim, but a victor.xv

To every human observer, the cross looked like the devil’s greatest triumph and God’s greatest failure. But in reality, the cross was the crushing of Satan’s power over death and the grave.

By the way, contrary to corrupted church tradition, Jesus will not descend into hell to suffer at the hands of the Devil – he doesn’t become the helpless plaything of demons for three days and nights . . . the Devil and His demons were crushed at the cross.

They are howling in utter defeat – their doom is now sealed.

Jesus isn’t heading for some painful ordeal in hell; He will accomplish a number of things upon dying – which are for another study.

But we’re told in the Gospels that in His next and last breath, Jesus will commit His Spirit into the Father’s hands – which means there is no longer separation between Father and Son; 3 hours of darkness and silence have transacted the punishment upon Christ and all of that is now over; God the Father and God the Son are now in sweet communion again; the justice of the Father is satisfied . . . the price of redemption has been paid and received – and Christ will return to the glory of heaven and the fellowship of His Father.

In fact, the writer of Hebrews informs us that after Christ offered one sacrifice for sins forever, He sat down at the right hand of God the Father (Hebrews 10:12)

He ascended to glory and, we’re told, He sat down in the place of God’s own authority – His right hand.

But don’t miss this. Jesus sat down!

There were no chairs in the Tabernacle or Temple where priests could sit – there was no chair for the High Priest to lounge upon in the Holy of Holies.

They never sat down in there because their work was never finished.xvi

Jesus Christ sat down? Why?

• Because the crushing of Satan’s power through death and the grave were finished;
• Because the payment of sins was finished;
• Because the atoning work was completed.

The prophesies are now history. The guilt is now canceled. And the guidelines are now confirmed.

The crushing of Satan time and time again – both at the cross and every time someone accepts the payment of Christ to their own account, and is saved – the grip of the enemy is crushed open and the believer is set free.

Hudson Taylor, the man who opened China with the gospel in the 1800’s was a moral young man, raised by believing parents, taught to read the Bible, knowledgeable of basic doctrine, yet personally unconverted – a skeptic and an unbeliever. His time working at a city bank had surrounded him with other skeptics who fed his unbelief. Besides, he had come to believe, religion was too hard to attain, or keep up with.

He would write sometime later, “I happened to have a holiday, and in the afternoon looked through my father’s library to find some book with which to while away the unoccupied hours. [I was unaware that my mother was presently praying for my conversion to Christ and that my 13 year old sister had committed to praying 3 times a day for my salvation as well.]

There I was in my father’s library . . . and nothing interested me; I turned over a basket to pamphlets and selected from among them a Gospel tract that looked interesting, saying to myself; ‘There will be a story at the beginning and a sermon at the end; I will read the former and leave the latter for those who like it.

While reading it, I was struck with the phrase: ‘The finished work of Christ.” Why does this author use this expression, I questioned. Why not the atoning work of Christ? Or the satisfying work of Christ.’

The words of Christ – “It is finished” came to my memory. But, what was finished? It became clear as I read that the debt was paid for our sins – a full and perfect atonement and satisfaction for sin.”

Then came the thought to my mind, “If the work was finished and the whole debt has been paid, what is there left for me to do?”

And with this dawned the joyful conviction, as light flashed into my soul, that there was nothing in the world to be done but to fall down on my knees and accept this Savior and His salvation and then praise Him for the rest of my life.xvii

And that’s exactly what Hudson Taylor did.

Have you done that?

Are the last words of Christ your victory cry? Is the finished work of Christ your only hope? Is He your Savior today?

i Adapted from Ray Robinson, Famous Last Words (Workman Publishing, 2003), 15

ii Ibid, p. 161

iii Ibid, p. 101

iv Ibid, p. 11

v Ibid, p. 58

vi Arthur W. Pink, The Seven Sayings of the Saviour on the Cross (Baker, 1958), p. 102

vii James M. Stalker, The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ (Zondervan, 1966), p. 149

viii Pink, p. 114

ix Adapted from Charles H. Spurgeon, Christ’s Words from the Cross (Baker, 1984), p. 94

x Warren W. Wiersbe, Jesus’ Seven Last Words (Back to the Bible, 1981), p. 64

xi Word usages adapted from Wiersbe, pp. 58-62

xii Spurgeon, p. 100

xiii Warren W. Wiersbe, Jesus’ Seven Last Words (Back to the Bible, 1981), p. 64

xiv Pink, p. 102

xv Pink, p. 102

xvi Wiersbe, p. 65

xvii Dr. & Mrs. Howard Taylor, Hudson Taylor: The Growth of a Soul (OMF International, 1996), p. 67

This manuscript is from a sermon preached on 3/31/2013 by Stephen Davey.

© Copyright 2013 Stephen Davey All rights reserved.

The Moral Foundations of Society

History has taught us that freedom cannot long survive unless it is based on moral foundations. The American founding bears ample witness to this fact. America has become the most powerful nation in history, yet she uses her power not for territorial expansion but to perpetuate freedom and justice throughout the world.

For over two centuries, Americans have held fast to their belief in freedom for all men—a belief that springs from their spiritual heritage. John Adams, second president of the United States, wrote in 1789, “Our Constitution was designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.” That was an astonishing thing to say, but it was true.

What kind of people built America and thus prompted Adams to make such a statement? Sadly, too many people, especially young people, have a hard time answering that question. They know little of their own history (This is also true in Great Britain.) But America’s is a very distinguished history, nonetheless, and it has important lessons to teach us regarding the necessity of moral foundations.

John Winthrop, who led the Great Migration to America in the early 17th century and who helped found the Massachusetts Bay Colony, declared, “We shall be as a City upon a Hill.” On the voyage to the New World, he told the members of his company that they must rise to their responsibilities and learn to live as God intended men should live: in charity, love, and cooperation with one another. Most of the early founders affirmed the colonists were infused with the same spirit, and they tried to live in accord with a Biblical ethic. They felt they weren’t able to do so in Great Britain or elsewhere in Europe. Some of them were Protestant, and some were Catholic; it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they did not feel they had the liberty to worship freely and, therefore, to live freely, at home. With enormous courage, the first American colonists set out on a perilous journey to an unknown land—without government subsidies and not in order to amass fortunes but to fulfill their faith.

Christianity is based on the belief in a single God as evolved from Judaism. Most important of all, the faith of America’s founders affirmed the sanctity of each individual. Every human life—man or woman, child or adult, commoner or aristocrat, rich or poor—was equal in the eyes of the Lord. It also affirmed the responsibility of each individual.

This was not a faith that allowed people to do whatever they wished, regardless of the consequences. The Ten Commandments, the injunction of Moses (“Look after your neighbor as yourself”), the Sermon on the Mount, and the Golden Rule made Americans feel precious—and also accountable—for the way in which they used their God-given talents. Thus they shared a deep sense of obligation to one another. And, as the years passed, they not only formed strong communities but devised laws that would protect individual freedom—laws that would eventually be enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Freedom with Responsibility

Great Britain, which shares much of her history in common with America, has also derived strength from its moral foundations, especially since the 18th century when freedom gradually began to spread throughout her socie!y Many people were greatly influenced by the sermons of John Wesley (1703-1791), who took the Biblical ethic to the people in a way which the institutional church itself had not done previously.

But we in the West must also recognize our debt to other cultures. In the pre-Christian era, for example, the ancient philosophers like Plato and Aristotle had much to contribute to our understanding of such concepts as truth, goodness, and virtue. They knew full well that responsibility was the price of freedom. Yet it is doubtful whether truth, goodness, and virtue founded on reason alone would have endured in the same way as they did in the West, where they were based upon a Biblical ethic.

Sir Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, wrote tellingly of the collapse of Athens, which was the birthplace of democracy. He judged that, in the end, more than they wanted freedom, the Athenians wanted security. Yet they lost everything—security, comfort, and freedom. This was because they wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them. The freedom they were seeking was freedom from responsibility. It is no wonder, then, that they ceased to be free. In the modern world, we should recall the Athenians’ dire fate whenever we confront demands for increased state paternalism.

Read the rest here.

Who is God?
by David Ballard

God is tears in the dishwater
When you’re doubled over with hurt.
God is trauma in a wheelchair
Crippled from a war
No one else will serve.
God is aching feet
When there’s no other way to work.
God is blisters and callouses
When those who can won’t dig.
God is for those who know they’re small,
And He is really big.
God is in the details, each and every one.
God is love to spread till the sun flames out,
And we’re no longer having fun.
God is Spirit who draws us with the fragrance
Of His peace.
God is Son who shook the gates of hell
With a love that gave release.
God is God whose love and grace
Sent me to my knees.

You can also see more details about his interview here.

As we think about the first disciples and apostles we cannot overlook what that first Easter morning meant for them. They woke to that first morning with a heaviness and sadness that would be hard for us to understand. All their hopes had vanished. Everything they had longed for and hoped for in Christ seemed, at the moment, to have evaporated.

Isn’t that just like people, to lose all hope so quickly. Truly Jesus knew what He meant when He said that we are helpless and harassed like sheep without a shepherd. But little did those first followers of Christ realize that their darkest hour was in fact their greatest victory. It would take them a little time to understand this great truth. But soon, every apostle and disciple of Christ would be traveling the known world telling every soul they could about this victory that Jesus Christ achieved on their behalf.

So, Easter is significant because in it we recognize that God the Father has fulfilled every promise He has ever made. The bible says,

“As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you … was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Cor. 1:18-20).

The apostles, and first disciples of Christ, did not realize the significance of that first Easter. God had been making promises since the beginning of time. And all those promises that God ever made found their fulfillment and completion in Jesus Christ that first Easter morning.

God told Adam and Eve that there would come from their seed a deliverer who would crush the might of the serpent which led them into sin and death. God told Abraham that through his seed (in the singular) that all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

To Abraham God promised that He would rise up a special and unique Son of promise. Through Moses, God promised that a prophet greater than himself was to come. In the book of Exodus we learn that this promised One is to be our Passover lamb. In Leviticus we learn that He is to be our High Priest. In Numbers He is our great protector; and in Deuteronomy He is our city of refuge.

In Job He is our redeemer that lives; in the Psalms He is the Good Shepherd who will guide and protect His sheep. In the book of Proverbs He is our trusted wisdom. In the Song of Solomon he is our beautiful bridegroom. In Isaiah He is the great God, Emmanuel who comes as the suffering servant to take away the sins of the world.

We could go on and on listing the many promises of God. The point: those promises seemed to linger; and indeed, they were carried upon the hearts of the faithful for generations and for centuries. And though the time grew long, and though many people became anxious, God never forget His many promises that He had given to the children of men. And in the fulfillment of time a child was born, the unique son of promise, who was the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father and the Prince of peace. And in Him all the promises of God find their fulfillment and proclaim to the world, “Yes!”

So the disciples of that first Easter Morning would later come to recognize the significance of this time. And on Easter morning we will celebrate the fulfillment of God’s promises as well. So Easter morning is significant because is it a reminder that God has accomplished everything He ever promised.

Easter morning is also significant because in it we recognize that God the Father has given to the world a living Hope. The bible says,

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet 1:3).

The disciples of that first morning were forlorn. Their spirits were ready to fail for sorrow. But when the two unhappy women approached the tomb of their beloved master, they were greeted with a strange and unexpected experience. The massive stone which covered the tomb had been moved, revealing an empty grave; and then two angles asked them a perplexing question. They asked, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” Then they were triumphantly told, “He is not here, but is risen!” To the unexpected shock and joy of the women, they did not find a dead body, but a living Savior. And they were not simply told that He was alive. He told them Himself!

In that instant their sorrow was turned into joy, and their despair was replaced by faith and hope.

The Bible says that, “According to His abundant and great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead!” (1Peter 1:3). When God raised Christ from the dead, he was telling the world that He cares. He was telling the world that He knows our sorrows, understands our weaknesses, and He has not left us alone. He, Himself, has come to save us and rescue us. And so above all, He was telling the world that He loves us.

The bible tells us that there is nothing that can separate us from the Love of God in Jesus Christ:

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? …. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:31-39).

So when the these woman heard the great news “He is risen!”, Matthew records for us that they ran with great joy to bring word to the other disciples that Jesus Christ was risen from the dead. In a moment of time the disciples went from sorrow and defeat to great joy and victory. In there in lies our hope – a living hope based upon the power of God to bring life out of death, light out of darkness and joy and hope out of despair and defeat. The bible says, “This is the victory that has overcome the world…” Jesus Christ is our victory.

So Easter is a reminder that in Christ every promise of God has come to pass; and as a result we are given a living hope that gently reminds us that we are not forgotten, we are not alone, we are loved, we are forgiven, we are accepted by God and will one day be brought before Him and hear, “Enter into the joy of your Lord!

In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Judges 17:6

Since sometime in the 1970s, it’s been too much to expect most liberal art departments at public (and most private) universities to teach let alone endorse the classic questions of the western tradition. Apparently, it appears too much to ask public universities to focus on teaching useful and productive information with our tax dollars.  Is it too much to ask them to stop teaching our kids to be perverts? Must our tax dollars fund Porn University?

“Frankly if you want to take gender studies that’s fine, go to a private school and take it. But I don’t want to subsidize that if that’s not going to get someone a job.” Governor Pat McCrory

Newly elected NC Governor McCrory recently wondered aloud whether courses in subjects such as gender studies and philosophy prepared students adequately for the job market, and thus whether public universities should offer such instruction.  Reportedly, the academics in question were taken aback and found such sentiment frightening.  Eighty-five percent of UNC system faculty disagreed with Governor McCrory’s sentiment.  Notwithstanding the self-serving demurrer of our tenured academics, the Governor was correct and perhaps too charitable in his critique.  For decades, our public universities have harbored and fostered professors devoted to intellectual nihilism and communism.  As disturbing as I find that, many in academia are dragging the worthy intellectual history of the western academy further into the depths of depravity.

Instead of continuing what had been the long-standing western dialogue regarding humanity’s relationship to God and purpose for existence, “liberal arts” studies are too rapidly devolving into intellectualizing the depraved and debauched.  Recent examples of such “studies” and of their student bodies (no pun intended):

COLLEGE HOSTS SEX, MASTURBATION TUTORIAL – INSIDE A CHURCH (Allegheny College)

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO HOSTING ORAL SEX SEMINAR, PORN SCREENING

CAMPUS SEX GROUP EARNS STUDENTS COLLEGE CREDIT (University of Michigan)

Illinois University brings porn star to teach sex week, orgasm workshop

North Carolina State’s Student Union Sex Toy Bingo

Swarthmore student group promotes masturbation on campus

University of Chicago performing abortions on campus

Yale hosts workshop teaching sensitivity to bestiality (added March 5, 2014 — you can’t make this stuff up!)

But what do you expect from a collegiate universe that denies God.  As for those deistic universities that didn’t get the message:

BAPTIST UNIVERSITY SUED BY EXPELLED TRANSGENDER STUDENT

WOMAN SUES CHRISTIAN COLLEGE: ‘I WAS FIRED FOR PRE-MARITAL SEX’ (VIDEO) (added bonus – Ms. Allred!)

Several of the above links are courtesy of The College Fix which itself is courtesy of Nathan Harden, the enterprising young man who recently published Sex and God at Yale: Porn, Political Correctness, and a Good Education Gone Bad, which is a follow-up of sorts a half-century later to WFB’s  premier work God and Man at Yale.

Mr. Harden explains:

there are things happening at Yale today that Buckley could scarcely have even imagined in 1951. While the Yale of Buckley’s book marginalized or undermined religious faith in the classroom, my book tells of a classmate who was given approval to create an art object out of what she claimed was blood and tissue from self-induced abortions. And while the Yale of Buckley’s book was promoting socialist ideas in its economics department, my book chronicles Yale’s recent employment of a professor who publicly praised terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

My, how times have changed!

There is clearly a radical sexual agenda at work at Yale today. Professors and administrators who came of age during the sexual revolution are busily indoctrinating students into a culture of promiscuity. In fact, Yale pioneered the hosting of a campus “Sex Week”—a festival of sleaze, porn, and debauchery, dressed up as sex education. I encountered this tawdry tradition as an undergrad, and my book documents the events of Sex Week, including the screening in classrooms of hard-core pornography and the giving of permission to sex toy manufacturers and porn production companies to market their products to students.

Many Christians are concerned about the character and ideas of our political leaders.  We need to be particularly concerned about how our universities are forming and feeding the minds of tomorrow’s leaders.  As America doubles down on raising our next generations apart from God’s word, focusing instead on man’s opinions, and our culture rapidly declines, we must pray hard and re-commit ourselves to being witnesses to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The sun appears to be getting low on the horizon in the West.  The light of the world shines the brightest in the dark. Shine Jesus shine!

Who knew the leviathan was so fragile?