The Malediction of Pastor Wright

By now, we have all heard or read "pastor" Jeremiah Wright's malediction on the people of America! Barak's "uncle" did not scream these words from the village square (where he could be debated) but rather from the pulpit of a "church"!

This Easter Sunday, at the close of the service, my pastor pronounced the benediction (good word) to the people of Christ:

"The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace."

This is quite the opposite of what "pastor" Wright pronounced upon the people (the bad word) ... invoking the damnation of God upon His people. It is as if he asked God to turn His face and grace from us and to give us strife.

True Christianity teaches that we are unable to keep the 10 Commandments and that our fickle efforts at establishing our own righteousness will fall far short. We begin to see who we really are - depraved men and women who cannot merit the Lord's forgivensss for "by the deeds of the Law will no one be declared righteous"! Scripture also teaches us that by believing through faith in the finished work of Christ, His righteousness is imputed to us ... not "infused"! Knowing this helps us to be merciful ... hence the benediction's pronouncement.

To "pastor" Wright, I would repeat the words of Paul to the Galatians: "But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?"

"The 10 Commandments are fulfilled on one word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

A true pastor would exhibit true fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

I recently read an article by Tom Ascol in "Tabletalk" and a few of his words are worth repeating:

"Self-deception is an insidious condition. You will never meet a person who knows that he is self-deceived. By definition, those ensnared are completely unaware that they are."

The Nicene Creed

The Nicene Creed was drawn up in the face of Arianism (which denied the diety of Christ). Arius, an elder in Alexandria in Egypt in the 300's, taught that God CREATED Jesus and then the two of them together created the world. This resulted in making the Son a created being (like humans) and not God in any sense. Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, finally sent for Arius and questioned him about his position, but Arius stuck to his belief and was excommunicated by a council of Egyptian bishops. He went to Nicomedia in Asia, where he continued to write letters defending his position. Emperor Constantine summoned a council of Bishops in Nicea and in 325 a majority of Bishops repudiated Arius and produced the first draft of the Nicene Creed. Athanasius, a successor to the aging Alexander, was the chief spokesman for the full diety of Christ. The Arian position continues to be espoused in our day by the Watchtower Society (the JW's) who count Arius as a great witness to the truth.

In churches today that use a liturgy, this creed is often repeated in order to show the continuity of the Church. It is a way that Christians can reach back in time to our brothers and sisters in the faith who fought for the truth. The purpose of having a liturgy is to keep man out of the worship, because if we get half a chance, we will certainly turn the worship inward.

So the point of history is this: The Nicene Creed was produced to combat the Arian heresy and repeating it often is a way to keep us from falling into error.


We believe in one God, the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,
begotten of his Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God,
begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father;
by whom all things were made;
who for us and for our salvation
came down from heaven,
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary,
and was made man;
and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered and was buried;
and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures,
and ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father;
and he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the living and the dead;
whose kingdom shall have no end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son;
who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified;
who spoke by the prophets;
and we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church;
we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;
and we look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen

CHANGE

Everywhere one turns today, we hear the word "Change"! Barak is the candidate of change! Businesses go through change! Americans say that we must change the way we view things! People take classes because that have a desire to grow (change)! "I'm divorcing you, honey, because I need to experience more of life so that I can grow" is an oft uttered statement. No one is content where one is ... we must change! Change! Change! Change! Get on the wagon of change or you'll be left behind.

Two ancient philosophers had some thoughts about this:

1. Hericlitus: Whatever is, is changing! The only reality is change itself! One cannot step into the same river twice ... water and sand are moving ... it does not stay the same. If everything we interact with is constantly changing we can never know anything about it because once we learned anything about it, it would change and become something else.

2. Parmenides: Whatever is, IS! Of all the problems of philosophy truth is the most elusive because reasoning, to be of any value must begin with truth. It cannot create truth. What is could never be derived from what is not. That would be absurd. Therefore what is could never have not been. What is, also, could never become what is not, so what is can never not be in the future.

Confused!?

I work in pharmaceutical sales. A few years ago, one of the folks from "sales training" came to a sales meeting and explained that the sales training department had decided that we would be the "best trained sales force in the country"! There had been planned numerous on-line courses and seminars to help us reach this goal! I let him/her babble on for a while and finally asked him to explain exactly what being the "best trained sales force in the country" actually meant. Surely, I thought, with all of this planning, there had to be exact knowledge of our goal ... something concrete that could be clearly described. Like going on a trip and using map-quest to get exact directions. I explained to this person that since most people in the room were very intelligent and had Masters degrees or higher, we would be more than willing to expedite the reaching of this this goal, if he/she would only describe it to us! This person is no longer with the company!

I hear lots of folks today screaming at each other on talk radio about evolution, but I have never heard ANYONE say anything about what we are evolving to! If we intelligent human beings only knew what we were heading towards, we could speed up the process. Somebody just tell us please! And by the way, if we are constantly evolving how are "regressions" explained?

We cannot be changing into anything unless there is something that IS!

If there were ever a time when there was nothing ... there would still be nothing!

THE SHORTER CATECHISM is a great list of questions and answers about our ultimate reality. Three terms are brought up and defined in questions #33,#34 and #35. I will leave #33 and #34 for a later time but question #35 asks: What is sanctification? The answer is that Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness. In other words, those who believe are being changed into the likeness of Christ ... not that we are little gods, but simply that we are being changed into something. He is the great "I Am"!

Sanctification is what makes life make sense! There are no cosmic accidents! Everything that happens to a believer in his life serves a purpose. We may not understand it at the time, but we know that it is for our good.

To an unbeliever, life cannot possibly make any sense at all. The unbeliever must simply grit his teeth and do everything in his power to make himself as comfortable as possible during his years on earth. But, life cannot make any sense if one has no understanding of where it is all heading ... DEATH!

To a believer, death is a portal to eternal life! To an unbeliever, there is no belief in a continuum. Get all the gusto you can, because this is your one shot before you become "worm food"! In the grave where you are going, all your plans and schemes come to an end! Hold your head high in your valiant stupor, you are fooling no one but yourself.

Once again, the only way that one can be changing is because there is something that IS.

It is our only hope in this life and the next! It is in Him that we live and move and have our being!

I Wouldn't Put It Off

When I was a little boy, I remember vividly my paternal grandmother and my aunt making numerous trips to a cemetery near Columbus, Georgia. From their conversations, I realized , even as a child, that it was of utmost importance to them to keep this cemetery in pristine condition. The graves there were of family members and my grandmother obviously cared a great deal about those deceased persons. I think my aunt (Lydia) just went to help her mother in this task.

My two brothers, my sister and I have often spoken about this place and that we should plan to make a trip there to find this piece of hallowed ground. Finally, on a whim, the baby of our sibling group (Little Brucie) decided to find this place and he has also written about this experience on his blog at:

www.viewfromahearse.blogspot.com

Bruce began searching the internet (knowing that Juniper, Georgia was a town of interest) and before long not only did he find the location of this cemetery, but also a list of those buried there. When I say that he found the location ... well, I mean almost ... within Hollerin' Distance anyway!

Mac and Bruce arrived before me and did a little detective work with the aid of a few fine citizens of this area and after driving down a dirt road and treking through the woods and briars ... they found a cemetery. Bruce walked up and kicked off the leaves and debris from the first grave and lo and behold ... he had located the final resting place of our great-grandfather ... A. C. McCoy Jr.. Right next to him was the grave of his wife, who had died in her 30's. Our great-grandfather lived over 50 years after her death and never remarried. We wouldn't have known this fact had we not visited this cemetery. I have read letters that my grandmother Lucy wrote to other family members after her father's (A.C.McCoy) death. Her mood was melancholy and she spoke of him as a very "sweet" person. ("sweet" is a southern term if you didn't know). Now I think I know why it was so important to her to maintain this graveyard. In addition, Lucy's grandparents were buried there also.




It has now become important to Lucy's grandchildren (Mac, Kikky, George and Bruce) to maintain this family cemetery also. We'll have to find the present owner of the large piece of land and get his permission to come and go, but from what the locals tell us, we don't think that will be a problem. We gave it our best attempt to clean-up the place but quickly realized that we needed professional help. We are making plans for that also.

The grave markers for our great grandparents there were of first-class quality. My older brother, Mac, stated that he bet Lucy forced my grandfather, George, to spend the money and we noted that they are the exact same type of markers that are in another family cemetery in Macon. Understand, that our family has been in the funeral business for over 150 years.

Why is this event even worthy of a blog you might ask? Well, I'll tell you.

Whatever you plan to do with your life ... do it! Not a few weeks from now, but do it today! And if you think you are so important that the world will be devastated when you die ... get over it! And within a few years of passing, no one will even realize that you ever lived. Now if you are a very loving, giving and loyal person(like not remarrying after your young wife dies) then maybe that tacks on a few years of post-mordem "caring", but at the most, in one generation, the leaves start falling and no one comes to sweep them away. Then the bushes and trees overtake the landscape and some of the local kids find this special spot in the woods to secretly indulge themselves in the illicit pleasures of life.

King Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes, "for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going"! He was right!

That family that lies buried in the ground on the remnants of this plantation gave us our grandmother and our Daddy. He was a fantastic and loving Daddy who had a thundering, velvet hand, but he didn't learn to be a "Daddy" by reading a book ... this talent was passed through the generations.

This cemetery is not lost anymore.