The Biblical Examiner
An Examination of Biblical Precepts Involved in Issues at Hand |
Contents:
MYSTERY OF
CONTENTMENT
Andrew Sandlin's LETTER
TO THE EDITOR
Editor's comments
The Hegemonic Patriarchy
(Andrew Sandlin)
Article Answered (Historic Orthodoxy)
PERSONAL MUSINGS
Brother against brother (Church incorporation)
WOMAN IN COMBAT
LETTERS
IRAQ WAR LAUNCHED TO PROTECT
ISRAEL
WHO GOT US INTO
IRAQ?
BOOK REVIEW: THE
ISRAEL OF GOD IN PROPHECY
HOMESCHOOLER
MAKING DRUGIES
ANTIDEPRESSANTS
HAVE LIMITS IN CHILDREN
Government Schools - Propaganda from Reconstruction to the Present
Introductory note
God's answer for the evil was/is not to contend for the Constitution, nor is it to elect good men to public office, though these things are commendable. A Christian is to glorify God in every area of life, including the political area, but contending for "good" men in authority is not the answer to social turmoil. Nero Claudius Caesar (A.D. 37-68), was probably the most vial and wicked man to ever be in power. A very large portion of the New Testament was written while he was in power, yet none of the preachers of the new church ever called for political action. Rather, the Lord's answer, recorded by Paul and the other authors, for the overwhelming flood of evil was to contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. (Evidence tells us that we have a wolf in sheep's clothing in the White House, but the answer to the damage he is doing as he worships the gods of this world, and praises Muhammad is not to replace him. The answer is to earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.)
False teachers... One wonders if one of the marks of a false teacher within the church is that he departs from earnestly contending for the faith as the answer to society's ills?
Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. (Philippians 4:11.)
I was on a church staff in Maryland in the 70s. The main road between Elkton MD, where we lived, and Willmington DE, was named Newport Pike. On Newport Pike, about half way to Willmington was a bookstore. The man who then owned the bookstore published books, either his own or reprints of other books. When he would get an idea for a book, he would have an advanced sale of the books. The price of the books would be a fraction of the published price. This is the way he raised the money to publish. As the publishing date drew nearer, the price of the books would go up. I got some extremely good deals on these pre-publishing sales.
Several years ago, he presented the idea for a whole set of books that he called THE FIFTY GREATEST CHRISTIAN CLASSICS. He offered the 12 Volume set, which would retail for over $200 when published, for something like $30 at a prepublished price. The third volume contains seven slightly revised classic books on the Christian life.
This is the publisher's comments on one of these classic books that he included in the seven:
The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremy Burroughs (1599-1646) is the second classic. This is a precious book which will bear reading many times in one's lifetime. For Christian contentment is rare indeed, and it ebbs and flows depending on the degree of reliance one puts on God's word. Burroughs describes this rare grace, and also shows what opposes the quiet contentment which should permeate the Christian life. After this eye-opening, heart-challenging preface, the mystery of contentment is opened up. In three chapters this mystery is revealed and unfolded. There is the mystery to the natural mind regarding addition and subtraction. By nature we think of contentment as coming from gaining things which we desire, but do not have. But Christian contentment comes solely from subtracting from our desires until we have only Christ and His desires left. It is a wonderful message in Christian mathematics, of inestimable worth to every sincere soul. From these foundational truths Burroughs proceeds to show us how Christ teaches sincere contentment. No one can be a Christian scholar unless he first learns his ABC's. And these are the basic lessons given, to which the seeker after contentment must affirm: (1) I am nothing; (2) I deserve nothing; (3) I can do nothing; (4) I am vile; (5) I can make use of nothing; (6) I am worse than nothing; (7) If I perish there will be no loss. "Now put these seven things together and then Christ has taught you self-denial...A man who is little in his own eyes will account every affliction as little, and every mercy as great. (Publishers Preface, p vii-viii.)
These seven points are so contrary to what is taught today and what is believed by the vast majority of professed Christians, that I wanted you to know that they were not original with me.
The human heart is utterly repelled by these seven points. And since Mr. Burroughs presented these points over 350 years ago, human nature has not improved. As I read them, I was struck by the seeming harshness of these seven points. I must say that as I see the contentment of some with what the Lord has allowed in their lives, it is a mystery to me how they can be so content. But that is not really what we are talking about with the Mystery of Contentment.
What is Christian Contentment
Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.
Though our mouth may be silent, and our expression contented, inwardly, we may be bursting with discontent. Not only must our tongue be content, but so must our spirit. The shoe may be beautiful on the outside, but inside it pinches the flesh.
There is a great mystery and skill in the way a Christian comes to contentment. It is a mystery and skill that a person should be content with his affliction, and yet thoroughly sensible of his affliction also. How can one be completely aware of what he is going through and work to change it by any lawful means, and yet be content? How do the two work togetherefforts to change and contentment?
I am in a situation that is almost beyond human endurance. I am trying by every lawful means to change the situationhow then am I to be content in that situation? This is a mystery to me!
The Lord makes a reference to this in Deuteronomy 32:13:
He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;
Does it seem that we are between a rock and a hard place? There is honey and oil in that rock, and the contentment the Lord requires and provides will enable us to draw it out.
I. Proof that there is a mystery in contentment.
The person with Christian Contentment is the most contented person in the world, yet he is the most dissatisfied person. To put these two together is indeed a mystery. Paul told Timothy about the mystery of Godliness:
And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: (1 Timothy 3:16.)
What do we mean? We mean that the child of God who has only a crust of bread and a sip of water knows that food and water is not what will make him content.
The French Revolution taught that poverty equals godliness. And we have "Bible teachers" today who teach that poverty is godliness. It is crazy. If this were true, then God is not godly because He owns everything. Abraham, Job and David were thus ungodly men, for they all had great wealth.
Then on the other end, we have the person who has multiplied millions of dollars, yet he is not content. Here we have "Bible teachers" who teach that gain is godliness:
Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. (1 Timothy 6:5 )
These teachers are no better than those who teach that if we have more than enough to meet our every desire, we will be content. They may even teach that just having enough to meet our desires will bring contentment.
The child of God who knows true contentment knows that all the money, kingdom and power in the world will leave him very dissatisfied. He realizes that even in a comfortable life-style that makes one content with his surroundings, there is no true contentment.
Matthew Poole in his introduction to the Book of Ecclesiastes, states:
THREE things in general are to be noted concerning this book:
[Skipping the first 2.] 3. The design and business of it, which is to describe man's true happiness, and the way leading to it; which he doth both negatively, asserting and proving that it is not to be found either in secular wisdom, or in sensual pleasures, or in worldly greatness and glory, or in abundance of riches, or in a vain profession of religion; and positively, showing that it is to be had only by the fear of God, and obedience to his laws, which alone can give a man a contented and cheerful enjoyment of his present comforts, and assurance of his future and everlasting happiness.
Solomon wrote this book evidently after his fall and repentance, as David wrote the 51st Psalm after his fall and repentance. Solomon had become addicted to trying to find contentment: he sought contentment in planting gardens and orchards, and reaping the fruit of them; he sought contentment in hard work, and in building great monuments; he sought contentment in gaining great wealth and spending it on whatever he could imagine would make him happy; he sought contentment in women, having 300 wives and 700 concubines. In fact, for many years he pursued contentment, and withheld himself from nothing that he thought would make him happy and content. In the end, after he had experienced everything the natural man tells us will make us content, he found that everything was vanity and unprofitable. He ends his pursuit of contentment with these words:
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:13, 14.)
The diligent reader of Ecclesiastes will find that the richest man the world has ever seen or will ever see had to say at the end that only fearing God and doing what is pleasing in HIS eyes will bring contentment.
True Christian Contentment comes from the heart at peace with God. The heart that is able to honestly say:
"Lord, do with me what You will while I am passing through this world, and I will be content with that. I also realize that I cannot be content, even with all of the world at my feet, without Your smile upon me."
Of course, the common thing on our minds as we grow older is our health: high PSA for men (me); bad backs; heart problems; damaged nerves that leaves limbs hurting or with no feeling. When I was considering a particular treatment that is said to promote the healing of the nerves, I searched through some books that I have in my library. I came across this statement in a book by KURT KOCH:
The spiritual welfare of a person's soul is much more important than the healing of his body. (Demonology-Past and Present, pg.107.)
The most important thing is not our physical health, but our spiritual health. However, we need physical health to carry out our God-assigned tasks reflected in our spiritual health.
II. Contentment comes by subtraction, not by addition.
One does not gain contentment by adding to what he already has in order to come up to his desire. Rather, he gains contentment by reducing his desires.
We are all guilty of thinking that if we only had a little more or something a little better, we will be content. Or maybe we have lost something, money or health. We then say that if only we could gain it back, we would be content. How long does something new or different make you content?
Thus we have a choice: We either attain what we desire that we think will make us content, or we decrease our desire to what we already have. And I am content.
The natural man knows of no way to be content except by increasing his goods and material possessions up to his desires. The world around us is dependent upon making people discontent, and they use all kinds of advertisements to feed the natural discontent we have. If we have a Toyota, we are told that we cannot be content unless we have a Lexus, or a big SUV. I know many people who are far more content with their Toyota than others are who have their Lexus.
The way to be rich is not by increasing wealth, but by diminishing our desires. The rich person is the one who has their desires satisfied. Thus, the way to be rich is to deminish our desires, not increase our wealth.
I knew a couple in Elkton Md. His goal was to be a millionare by the time he was 30, and he made it. But if you knew them, you knew that they would have been content if they had not made it, even if they needed to live in a barn, for their desire was to serve the Lord.
The contented person has his desires satisfied. David's desire was the Lord:
As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? (Psalms 42:1, 2.)
Anyone can be rich and satisified with his circumstances.
Contentment comes as we substract from our desires.
III. The Christian gets contentment by taking on an additional burden.
Our flesh tells us that if we could only get out from under this or that problem, burden, difficulty, affliction, circumstance or situation, we will be content. If things were only easier, or if things were only different, I would be content.
So what do we mean by take on another burden? We mean get alone with the Lord, and, using a familiar phrase, say, COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS, NAME THEM ONE BY ONE. There is not one of us who can say that the Lord has not done far more for us than we deserve. In fact, if we received from His hand what we should, not a one of us would survive. Our main problem is that we are lifted up with pride, thinking that we deserve more than we have been provided with by the Lord.
The additional burden to take on is the burden of sinthat is, realize we are sinners, and we deserve nothing but eternal hell. We need to humble ourselves before God and confess our abuse of His mercies by taking them for granted. If we would see ourselves in this light, a lot of our discontent would be solved.
IV. To be content, change the affliction into something else.
The carnal heart cries out for the affliction to be removed. To the natural man, this is the only hope of any kind of contentment. But we need to view the afflictions as blessings from God. They are things that God designs to make us into the image of Christ:
Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:26-31)
We must see afflictions as God's tools to shape us and mold us into the image of Christ.
Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him; Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec. (Hebrews 5:7-10.)
If it took suffering and affliction to mold the Son into what pleased the Father, how do we think we can be different? We want to be like Christ, yet we despise the molding required to make us like Him.
V. A Christian Gains contentment by seeking out his duties.
Contentment comes not by pursuing what I desire my circumstances to be, but by doing what is required by God in my present circumstances. If I were only in different circumstances, I would be content. But we should say, These are the circumstances God has me in. Now what is my duty in these circumstances?
A personal example "Oh, that I had my health back. Think of the great things I could do for the Lord" should be, "My health has changed. What does God now require of me in my new circumstance?"
How many people have I met who knew they could do great things for God if only their circumstances were different? They were very discontent. There is nothing that will quiet the soul like getting busy for the Lord where we are in our circumstances.
It is the wise counsel of God's providence that places us into our present circumstances, and we are to be content in His care:
For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep... (Acts 13:36.)
VI. A Gracious heart melts its will into God's will.
Contentment does not come from having my own desires satisfied, but by melting my will and desires into God's will and desires. My will becomes one with God's will.
This not only includes God's revealed, commanded will as our will (What He commands, I will do), but it involves making His providential will our will.
He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom he loved. Selah. (Psalms 47:4.)
Can we be satisfied with what He chooses for us, even though He did not check with us first to see what we wanted?
VII. Contentment does not lie in bringing in something from outside.
That is, by changing our circumstances. Rather, contentment comes from removing things from the inside. Bitterness and anger over our circumstances do not come from without, but from within. See James 4:1-11.
If the lusts within are removed, then the war for contentment ceases. We wold be at peace with God and with ourselves.
These are only seven points of a great many points that must be dealt with to bring Christian contentment, and all seven are as contrary to the human spirit as anything can be.
March 25, 2004
Pastor Ovid Need
P. O. Box 81 Bentonville, VA 22610
Dear Ovid:
I regret that I missed seeing you on my trip a few weeks ago to Front Royal. I hope that I can see you on my next visit.
I was surprised by some comments in the article criticizing me titled "War Against Orthodoxy" (p. 16) in your February issue of The Biblical Examiner. I was not surprised that you would disagree with me over the issue of the new patriarchy movement. Good folks occupy both sides; and since I was pointed in my own criticism, it is only natural that I should expect equally pointed criticism. So, I have no problem on that score.
I do believe, however, you went quite over the line when you wrote: "Rev. Sandlin's article ... appears to represent a serious departure from the historic Orthodox Christian faith." Questioning whether the Bible forbids women to work outside the home or to attend college, arguing that God does not forbid all birth control, and suggesting that we could use louder steel guitars and should drink top-notch martinis are all opinions that may be entirely mistaken (I don't think so); but these views in no way violate the orthodox Christian Faith.
The tenets of that Faith are spelled out in the ancient universal creeds, which summarize Biblical teaching on such issues as the Trinity and Christology. It is possible to champion every opinion I expressed in the article to which you refer, and it is equally possible to oppose every opinion I uttered, and still stand well within the bounds of classical Christianity. Indeed, this controversy has nothing whatever to do with those tenets; its participants include only Christians committed to all of them.
Therefore, you might want to retract your statement that "Rev. Sandlin's article ... appears to represent a serious departure from the historic Orthodox Christian faith." At least, you might wish, in the interest of fairness, to publish this present letter as a letter to the editor in an upcoming issue.
P. Andrew Sandlin
Center for Cultural Leadership
www.christianculture.com
"Creating a New Kind of Christian"
Is my "War Against Orthodoxy" charge supportable, or am I just shouting to the wind? I will reproduce the first part of Sandlin's article in this issue of the Examiner, and the remainder in subsequent issues. This first section is the longest.
I must say that it appears to me that the "New Kind of Christian" being created is simply the old kind of Christianity that fits right into the modern, fallen culture. A Christianity that requires no distinction from the fallen culture, or that changes with the surrounding culture, will find many followers, and draw good support. The reports I have followed, and they are by no means complete, tell of growing "Christian" movements that blend in with the fallen culture, requiring no change except maybe a bumper sticker, letter head or a tee shirt that mentions Christ.
Sadly, there are churches and Christians looking for Scriptural justification for "top-notch martinis" and "louder steel guitars", for that kind of Christianity is quite appealing to the world. How many churches have the contemporary service with the "louder steel guitars" in order to be attractive to whatever the current culture demands? Then the same churches have a more traditional service to keep the older members happy, so they will continue to support the church.
No doubt many Gen-Xers and the Millennials (born after 1982) have been wounded and broken by the collapse of modern society, and the lack of direction and purpose of an empty Christianity which offers nothing but a hope and a prayer, and the continual message of "just wait for the rapture".
Thus the obvious answer seems to be to mix the current culture, which will draw them in, with a Biblical message that does not preach against the cultural trends of immodesty, small families and career women, and, voilá, you have a crowd and good money. (See World magazine, 4/10/04, Gen-X Churches.)
Maybe I am misreading Scripture, but it seems to me to teach that old things are passed away, and all things become new for those in Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:17.) Old things! Robertson defines the old things as the old way of looking at Christ. Gill defines old things as "the old Course of living, the old way of serving God" including "the old legal righteousness, old companions and acquaintances..." Calvin: "Now by old things he means, the things that are not formed anew by the Spirit of God. Hence this term is placed in contrast with renewing grace. The expression passed away, he uses in the sense of fading away, as things that are of short duration are wont to fall off, when they have passed their proper season. Hence it is only the new man, that flourishes and is vigorous {2} in the kingdom of Christ."
The above Letter to the Editor, which offers no scriptural justification for his position, calls for a more complete reproduction of Mr. Sandlin's article, and scriptural answer to that article. I will only give one section of his article at a time, with the historic view of each point presented, and the reader can draw his own conclusion. The first section is, I. Old-Fashioned Conservative Tyranny"patriarchal tyranny"
The first part of his article is as follows:
by P. Andrew Sandlin
Today's secular culture is at war with the family. Lax divorce laws, radical feminism, rampant pornography, legalized abortion, "children's rights," mainstream homosexuality, and inheritance taxes all these and other factors collude to assault the family, particularly the Christian family.
The (Over)Reaction
It is perhaps inevitable that the Christian reaction will at times become overreaction and that the family, a central institution in God's plan, should begin to monopolize all of life. In fact, a renewed patriarchalism in some quarters is working for hegemony over the other legitimate spheres of God's authority. But patriarchalists don't justify their (over)reaction only to the ravenous egalitarian society. They also (over)react to a reckless, egocentric Church that is oblivious to family prerogatives ("After all, I am the elder [or bishop, or deacon, or what have you], and I am the supreme authority in the Church").
But the solution to social and ecclesiastical tyranny is not patriarchal tyranny, [emp. added.] which, in fact, is no less culpable than the former. Tyranny is tyranny, and "spiritual" tyranny is perhaps the worst form of all (think: Spanish Inquisition).
Old-Fashioned Conservative Tyranny
Today's hegemonic [leadership or dominance, especially by one state or social group over others. Apparently, Sandlin thinks patriarchal Christians believe they must dominate their wives and families in an almost brutal way like a pagan overlord. Ed.] patriarchalism seems at points to bear an eerie resemblance to the pagan patriarchy [1 a form of social organization in which the father or eldest male is the head of the family and descent is reckoned through the male line. 2 a system of society or government ruled by men. Ed.]of ancient Rome (before the rise of the Empire). Pre-Empire Rome was a patriarchial culture.1 The housefather was given virtually unlimited authority. His word was law not metaphorically, but literally. If his wife bore a daughter, and he preferred a son, he could simply cast the daughter into the streets to die of starvation or be beaten by a wild animal. He could beat and otherwise abuse fellow family members at will. With limited exceptions, the father was the central authority in society.2 Many other ancient cultures were similarly clan-based, and these extended families (not just Mom and Dad and Junior and Susie, but grandparents and third cousins and "in-laws") ruled the countryside by blade and blood. At the center of this tyranny was the patriarch, generally the oldest surviving male of the family. (Mario Puzo's rendition of The Godfather furnishes an embellished, but generally accurate, portrait of this arrangement.)
For this reason it is sometimes ironic to hear Christians declare that they are championing a "conservative view of the family." If they are conserving old-fashioned pagan patriarchy, they are deviating from Biblical Faith, which repudiates this tyranny. We are called first to be obedient Christians, not card-carrying conservatives. Today's Christian patriarchalists are far removed from the violence of the pagan patriarchalists (in most cases, at least!), but in their commitment to hegemony, they are too close for comfort.
Notes:
1 Robert Nisbet, The Social Philosophers (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1973), 35-38.
2 Merrill T. Gilbertson, The Way It Was in Bible Times (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1959), 43-45.
End of the first part of his article, and my comments (I am known for overkill, and this is no exception):
Politicians and preachers champion a "conservative view of the family" as they seek to win the support of both the Christian and the non-Christian; it is a safe middle of the road statement that says nothing. However, Christians must champion a thoroughly "Biblical view of the family."
Let us examine some controversial things in the light of
Over the past 40 years in the ministry, I have found, as has every pastor, that men will build straw men as enemies in order to defend how they want to live or what they want to do and/or believe. All of us are inclined to enlarge a problem in order to justify what we want to do. ("This car is not dependable, and the body is in very poor shape. We need a new one, Honey." But the 91 Dodge Spirit remains dependable, commuting 3 hours a day, as well as making many safe 600-mile trips over the mountains. Men, don't tell me you don't do such things, for we all do. Maybe it is a new tool or entertainment center, a new computer, or hardware for the computer"I need a color laser printer, and look at how low the prices are now.") Are straw men being built? That is, various weaknesses and holes that can be emphasized in order to change a gnat into a camel or a splinter into a log?
Note Paul's warning in Titus 3:11. Those who change or deny God's truth, more than likely have a problem they are trying to cover up he is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself:
9 But steer clear of stupid speculations, genealogies, controversies and quarrels over the Law. They settle nothing and lead nowhere. 10 If a man is self-opinionated, warn him. But after the second warning you should reject him. 11 You can be sure that he has a moral twist, and he is self-condemned. (Titus 3, Philips Translation. Emph. added.)
How many have we met or heard who changed God's word in order to justify what they wanted to do or believe? I am afraid we have all been guilty of doing the same thing. Let us be honest, and leave those heretical ways.
I. Old-Fashioned Conservative Tyranny"patriarchal tyranny"
Is the husband to be the patriarchal ruler in his home? Is it Biblical for the godly husband-father to have virtually unlimited authority in his home? The Biblical doctrine of the husband's authority in his home and the Biblical doctrine of the woman's submission to her husband is as unpopular today as anything can be. Women going into the factories in WWII totally destroyed those two doctrines, and few contemporary preachers or teachers will dare approach the subject in a Biblical manner. To do so will not help their "ministries."
Note: It was actually the women pushing for suffrage in the 1910s who destroyed these doctrines. Many women were forced into factories in the 1940s against their wills and would rather have been anywhere else. The earlier feminists wanted no role distinctions between men and women in careers and politics, because they felt it would give them the vote. They were the ones who insisted women get into traditionally "male" fields in order to make the stakes "even." Everything after that was just a slippery slope. See how modern feminism started in the early 1900s in TBE, Aug, 1999, <http://www.biblicalexaminer.org/w199908.htm>
We must mention that sin, e.g., divorce, covetousness, &c., has forced many women into the work force outside the home, and they would give anything to be a stay-at-home wife and mother.
What does the law of God say? Numbers 30:3-16:
Vv. 3-5, the father of an unmarried woman can void her vow on the day he hears it. The story of Dinah, the single daughter of Jacob, going out on her own is well known. Genesis 34. It appears, therefore, that an unmarried woman stayed in her father's home, under his authority and for her protection. (1 Timothy 2:11-15. This passage also forbids woman in places of authority over men, particularly in the religious area.)
Matthew Poole makes an interesting observation concerning vv. 6 & 10:
Ver. 6. An husband, to whose will and authority she was thereby made subject.
When she vowed, to wit, when she was in her father's house, as is evident by comparing Nu 30:10; and this clause seems to be added by way of exception to that which was said Nu 30:3,4, to signify, that though she were in her father's house, yet if she were married, her husband only, and not her father, could disoblige her from her vow. (Poole, Online Bible.)
Implied here, according to Poole, is that an unmarried woman can make a vow with her father's consent; however, after marriage, her new husband can void that vow made in her father's house on the day he hears it.
V. 9 the vow by a widow or divorced woman had full force, for she was not dependent upon a husband. Notice, however, it does not say the same thing about a young woman never married, v. 3. The implication here is that the never married young woman is under her father's authority until she either marries or her father dies. Single women in the New Testament, e.g., Lydia, may fit here. (Acts 16.) They were grown, mature women, so their fathers were probably dead, and they were released from the law of Numbers 30. Or they may have already been involved in the "work force" before their conversion.
Vv. 10-16, tell us that the husband of a married woman can void her vow on the day he hears it, implying that the woman is always under a man's (father, or husband) authority. However, a widow or divorced woman is not under any man's authority.
Does the New Testament change the law, or does it simply give its modern application?
Many times, sin reduces God's law into rigorous rule and cruel tyranny, and the above law is no exception. (Mark 7.) Christ spoke against such rigorous rule. Ephesians 5:25-28, forbids cruel tyranny, calling on the husband to love his wife as Christ loved the church. Cruel tyrannical rule might even call for church discipline, and if a church cannot or will not deal with the sin, then a Christian brother must. (Galatians 6.) How can a godly husband's authority be compared to the cruel tyranny so common even in paganism today, e.g., Mahometanism?
What kind of authority does the Lord have over His church? It is unlimited, loving authority, love that caused Him to give Himself for her. The example upheld by Paul is that the husband's authority is likened to Christ's authority over the church. What is the historic Orthodox stand of the church?
We do not want to weary the reader with quotes of godly men of the past concerning passages about husband-wife duties, so we will attempt to restrict ourselves; the passages and the godly men all say basically the same thing. I do not know about contemporary expositors, for I do not normally follow them. I assume, however, that the majority of modern expositors, if they do not ignore the passages completely, have changed the interpretation of these passages to fit changed social norms as those norms have moved away from God's word. I will probably be charged with trying to live in the past, as men look for excuses to supplant Biblical standards.
But has the word of God changed, or has society and modern, fallen man changed? Even restricting ourselves, the following is probably an overkill. In the last of the series, I will give my End Notes that offer further documentaion. (Please note that the wording of these early men is hard to follow, but we have left the quotes as they stand.)
22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. 25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; (Ephesians 5.)
Though I stand by the KJV, sometimes other translations shed a different light upon a passage:
22 You wives must learn to adapt yourselves to your husbands, as you submit yourselves to the Lord, 23 for the husband is the "head" of the wife in the same way that Christ is head of the Church and saviour of the Body. 24 The willing subjection of the Church to Christ should be reproduced in the submission of wives to their husbands in everything. 25 The husband must give his wife the same sort of love that Christ gave to the Church, when he sacrificed himself for her. (Ephesians 5, Philips Translation.)
22. (Eph 6:9.) The Church's relation to Christ in His everlasting purpose, is the foundation and archetype of the three greatest of earthly relations, that of husband and wife (Eph 5:22-33), parent and child (Eph 6:1-4), master and servant (Eph 6:4-9). The oldest manuscripts omit "submit yourselves"; supplying it from Eph 5:21, "Ye wives (submitting yourselves) unto your own husbands." "Your own" is an argument for submissiveness on the part of the wives; it is not a stranger, but your own husbands whom you are called on to submit unto (compare Ge 3:16 1Co 7:2 14:34 Col 3:18 Tit 2:5 1Pe 3:1-7). Those subject ought to submit themselves, of whatever kind their superiors are. "Submit" is the term used of wives: "obey," of children (Eph 6:1), as there is a greater equality between wives and husbands, than between children and parents.
as unto the LordSubmissiveness is rendered by the wife to the husband under the eye of Christ, and so is rendered to Christ Himself. The husband stands to the wife in the relation that the Lord does to the Church, and this is to be the ground of her submission: though that submission is inferior in kind and degree to that which she owes Christ (Eph 5:24). (Jamieson [1802-1880], Fausset, Brown.)
In everything, except that which relates to conscience and religion, he has authority. But there his authority ceases. (Barnes' Notes. Albert Barnes, 1798-1870)
[V. 23.] Christ's authority is exercised over the church for the saving of her from evil, and the supplying of her with every thing good for her. In like manner should the husband be employed for the protection and comfort of his spouse; and therefore she should the more cheerfully submit herself unto him. (Matthew Henry, 1662-1714. He was educated privately in the home of his father, and at an academy at Islington. Who, s.v., Henry, Matthew.)
The husband's authority in the home is equated to Christ's authority over the church.
[Eph. 5] Ver. 24. Therefore as the Church] Denying herself to please Christ, making his will her law.
In everything] In all her husband's lawful commands and restraints. A wife should have no will of her own, but submit to her husband's; albeit there are that merrily say that when man lost free-will, woman took it up. (Commentary on the Old and New Testaments, John Trapp (1601-1699). First published by Richard Dickinson: London 1865-1868. Republished by Tanski Publications, Eureka, California. 1997)
3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. ... 7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. 8 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. 9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. (1 Corinthians 11.)
Though there is no male nor female in Christ's spiritual kingdom, (Galatians 3:28) there certainly is male and female in Christ's physical kingdom, or we could not condemn sodomy.
V. 3, a problem in Paul's day was the pagan practice of women failing to recognize proper authority, and the paganism was being followed "by Christian females in the churches." (Barnes' Notes, Online Bible.)
8. For the man is not from the woman. He establishes by two arguments the pre-eminence, which he had assigned to men above women. The first is, that as the woman derives her origin from the man, she is therefore inferior in rank. The second is, that as the woman was created for the sake of the man, she is therefore subject to him, as the work ultimately produced is to its cause. {1} That the man is the beginning of the woman and the end for which she was made, is evident from the law. (Ge 2:18). (John Calvin [1509-1564], Online Bible.)
V3, the Corinthian women, on the ground of the abolition of distinction of sexes in Christ, claimed equality with the male sex... (JFB, Online Bible.)
V. 3, "the man is called the head of the woman, because by God's ordinance he is to rule over her, Ge 3:16; he hath an excellency above the woman, and a power over her." (Matthew Poole [1624 - 1679], Online Bible.)
(7) He proves the inequality of the woman by the fact that from the man is the substance of which woman was first made. (Geneva, 1599, Online Bible)
Ver. 8. For the man is not of the woman, &c.] In the present state of things, and according to the ordinary course of generation and propagation of mankind, man is of the woman, though not without the means of man; he is conceived in her, bore by her, and born of her; but the apostle respects the original formation of man, as he was immediately made by God out of the dust of the earth, before the woman was in being, and so not of her:
but the woman of the man; she was made out of his rib, and took both her name and nature from him; God was the author, and man the matter of her being; her original [sic] under God, is owing to him; and therefore as he was first in being, he must be superior to her: this serves to prove all that has been as yet said; as that man is the head of the woman, the woman is the glory of man, what he may glory in as being from him; and therefore there should be this difference in their appearance at public worship. (John Gill [b. 1697], Online Bible.)
Ver. 8. Here the apostle openeth or proveth what he had before said of the woman's being the glory of the man; the woman was made of the man; the man was not made of a rib taken out of the woman, but the woman was made of a rib taken out of the man; we have the history, #Ge 2:21,22; and from hence the apostle argueth her subjection to the man. (Poole)
Hegemonic patriarchalism was established as a result of the Fall:
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. (Genesis 3:16.)
Thy desire shall be to thy husband; thy desires shall be referred or submitted to thy husband's will and pleasure to grant or deny them, as he sees fit. Which sense is confirmed from Ge 4:7, where the same phrase is used in the same sense. And this punishment was both very proper for her that committed so great an error, as the eating of the forbidden fruit was, in compliance with her own desire, without asking her husband's advice or consent, as in all reason she should have done in so weighty and doubtful a matter; and very grievous to her, because women's affections use to be vehement, and it is irksome to them to have them restrained or denied. Seeing, for want of thy husband's rule and conduct, thou wast seduced by the serpent, and didst abuse that power I gave thee together with thy husband to draw him to sin, thou shalt now be brought down to a lower degree, for he shall rule thee; not with that sweet and gentle hand which he formerly used, as a guide and counsellor only, but by a higher and harder hand, as a lord and governor, to whom I have now given a greater power and authority over thee than he had before, (which through thy pride and corruption will be far more uneasy unto thee than his former empire was), and who will usurp a further power than I have given him, and will, by my permission, for thy punishment, rule thee many times with rigour, tyranny, and cruelty, which thou wilt groan under, but shalt not be able to deliver thyself from it. See 1Co 14:34 1Ti 2:11,12 1Pe 3:6. (Poole. Emp. added.)
[Genesis 3:16] ... The punishment consisted in an enfeebling of nature, in consequence of sin, which disturbed the normal relation between body and soul. The woman had also broken through her divinely appointed subordination to the man; she had not only emancipated herself from the man to listen to the serpent, but had led the man into sin. For that, she was punished with a desire bordering upon disease (hq;WvT] from qWv to run, to have a violent craving for a thing), and with subjection to the man. "And he shall rule over thee." Created for the man, the woman was made subordinate to him from the very first; but the supremacy of the man was not intended to become a despotic rule, crushing the woman into a slave, which has been the rule in ancient and modern Heathenism, and even in Mahometanism also-a rule which was first softened by the sin-destroying grace of the Gospel, and changed into a form more in harmony with the original relation, viz., that of a rule on the one hand, and subordination on the other, which have their roots in mutual esteem and love. (Keil-Delitzsch (1813-1890).)
... The second part of the penalty is: "Unto thy husband thou shalt be attracted." Teshûqah might be rendered "desire" or even better "yearning." This yearning is morbid. It is not merely sexual yearning. It includes the attraction that woman experiences for man which she cannot root from her nature. Independent feminists may seek to banish it, but it persists in cropping out. It may be normal. It often is not but takes a perverted form even to the point of nymphomania. It is a just penalty. She who sought to strive apart from man and to act independently of him in the temptation finds a continual attraction for him to be her unavoidable lot. (How many women get out of a terrible, even abusive, situation with a man, yet willingly get right back in it? Ed.)
The third part of the penalty is: "he shall rule over thee." She sought to control him by taking control into her own hands (II Tim. 2:14) and even by leading him on in the temptation. As a result her penalty is that she shall be the one that is controlled. Man's position in reference to woman now is fixed: he bears the rule. When all is done in the spirit of Christ, such rule is not harsh or unnatural; nor is it cancelled. There it expresses itself in such a way that it is not to be felt as a burden. But where sin prevails, such rule may be degraded into a miserable domination, such as the East has particularly, experienced. God did not ordain this harshness, but man transcended his rights, and sin poisoned a necessary restriction. This word, then, does not reflect the narrowness of the East but is a wholesome restraint and reminder for womankind.
The expression, "I will increase very greatly," is the usual verb plus absolute infinitive. On the ending of the infinitive see G. K. 75 ff. Verbs of ruling with be; see K. S. 212 e. (Herbert Carl Leupold, [b. 1891]. Online Bible..)
And he shall rule over thee Kdpb.] Yet not with rigour. She must, though to her grief and regret, be subject to all her husband's lawful commands and restraints. But he must carry himself as a man of knowledge towards her, and make her yoke as easy as may be. It is remarkable that when the apostle had bid "wives, submit to your own husbands," &c.; {Col 3:19} he doth not say, Husbands, rule over your wives, for that they will do fast enough without bidding; but, "Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter unto them." (John Trapp, Online Bible.)
and thy desire [shall be] to thy husband, which some understand of her desire to the use of the marriage bed, as Jarchi, and even notwithstanding her sorrows and pains in child bearing; but rather this is to be understood of her being solely at the will and pleasure of her husband; that whatever she desired should be referred to him, whether she should have her desire or not, or the thing she desired; it should be liable to be controlled by his will, which must determine it, and to which she must be subject, as follows;
and he shall rule over thee, with less kindness and gentleness, with more rigour and strictness: it looks as if before the transgression there was a greater equality between the man and the woman, or man did not exercise the authority over the woman he afterwards did, or the subjection of her to him was more pleasant and agreeable than now it would be; and this was her chastisement, because she did not ask advice of her husband about eating the fruit, but did it of herself, without his will and consent, and tempted him to do the same. (John Gill, Online Bible. Emp. added.)
Let us observe some concluding points here:
First, quoting Rev. Sandlin, "Today's hegemonic patriarchalism seems at points to bear an eerie resemblance to the pagan patriarchy of ancient Rome (before the rise of the Empire)." [Hegemonic leadership or dominance, especially by one state or social group over others. Apparently, Sandlin thinks patriarchal Christians believe they must dominate their wives and families in an almost brutal way like a pagan overlord. Patriarchy 1 a form of social organization in which the father or eldest male is the head of the family and descent is reckoned through the male line. 2 a system of society or government ruled by men. Ed.]
Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, requires patriarchy, "patriarchalism," where the husband-father rules in his home. However, his rule is to be like Christ's rule over the church, loving and self-sacrificing to the point of his death for his wife, even as Christ gave himself for the church. Neither Christ nor the godly husband-father will dominate their wives and families in a brutal, tragical way like pagan overlords. God established patriarchal authority before the fall. Sin corrupted the relationship. We will see these thoughts further developed below.
In short, Scripture (Old and New Testaments ) requires patriarchy as demonstrated by Christ and lived out by godly men throughout the ages. See <http://www.hnrc.org/misc/CreationofWoman.pdf.>
The only other option to "patriarchalism" is "equal rights," where the wife and husband have equal authority as promoted by the world, flesh and the devil today. Is it not Roman doctrine that says the Church is equal with Christ?
Second, the woman's desire shall be to thy husband. However, sin causes her to desire to rule over her husband, or to at least be on equal footing with him. And sin causes the man to see no harm in her ruling with or even over him.
Third, And he shall rule over thee. Sin causes him to desire to rule with a "rod of Iron." Or sin may cause him to see no need to rule at all, turning the control of his family over to his wife.
Fourth, patriarchalism was established before the fall. However, sin not only caused God to increase the "hold" of patriarchy, but causes the man to misuse the authority he was given. He is now inclined to be a despotic, tyrannical ruler, "crushing the woman into a slave." However, sin-destroying grace changes, but does not cancel, patriarchy. Rather, it changes it into the pattern of Christ's loving rule of His Bride, the church. Should not sinful, despotic, tyrannical rules in the family that are observed by a "brother" be dealt with according to Galatians 6? Imagine how tyrannical Sarai was against Hagar after the Lord told Hagar to return to Sarai, and submit herself under her hands. Genesis 16:1-9.
Though Genesis 2:18-25 might imply that the woman was given equal authority, we cannot escape the fact that she was made for man, to be his help meet. Thus, she was not made to be on her own, to pursue her own goals in life. Her purpose in creation was clearly to help her husband pursue his God-given goals.
The woman is punished not only with pain in childbearing, but also with more physical infirmities as well as greater measures of mental and spiritual pain and anguish. These things remind all of Eve's daughters "of the fateful deed of the first mother." (Leopold.) The Lord tells us to consider the woman the weaker vessel, 1 Peter 3:7. Who is the man who will deny God, and say she is on equal footing with the man?
Can a charge of patriarchal tyranny be leveled against a husband-father who exercises his Biblical authority and responsibility in his home?
I find it disquieting that Churches and men who say they believe and want to follow the law of God, and that they want to form a Christian world-view in Christians ignore passages that are not socially acceptable, e.g., Titus 2:5.
His next point is II. Baby Machines, which we will look at in the next issue.
P.M. News (Lagos)
April 29, 2004
Governor Ahmed Sani of Zamfara State, has ordered the demolition of all churches in the state, as he launched the second phase of his Sharia project yesterday.
Speaking at the launch in Gusau, the state capital, Governor Sani disclosed that time was ripe for full implementation of the programme as enshrined in the Holy Quran.
He added that his government would soon embark on demolition
of all places of worship of unbelievers in the state, in line
with Islamic injunction to fight them wherever they are found.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200404290789.html
Note: Where is the protest from our "Christian President"?
Our "moto" has been Published as time and finances permit." The Lord blessed this month, and supplied the funds to do a mailing sooner than normal. We would love to do one a month, but finances prohibit such a practice at this time. Thanks to all who help make this earlier than normal issue possible.
1. Israel-First Millennialists Predict Destruction of America
Let me add this note to the article, "Israel-First Millennialists Predict Destruction of America" in the last Examiner.
Many of us clearly remember a few years ago that the prognosticators looked into their crystal balls (bibles) and told the world that the US was clearly prophesied in Scripture, leading the world as the young lions of Ezekiel 38:13. Now the same prognosticators look into their crystal balls (surely not the Scriptures as we know them, for God does not change), and tell us that,
Based on the "scholarship" of "prophecy experts" like Lindsey, Logsdon and Hutchings, there are millions of Americans who believe that our nation has no future. Though their application of the Armageddon Theology to American foreign policy in the Middle East may lead to World War III and possible nuclear devastation, this does not bother them because America is doomed anyway. (Williamson)
It is distressing to the highest degree that many Christians follow these "profiting prophets" as they change with the wind, teaching their "newspaper exegesis" according to what brings in the most money at the time. When events change, their prophecies change. These men who change with the wind, going where the money is, are no better than the prophets in 1 Kings 22 who wanted Micaiah to speak only what pleased the king; they are no better than Hananniah the prophet, who spoke what the people wanted to hear in Jeremiah 28. These false prophets know where the money is, and speak accordingly. Many good, sincere people blindly follow them like a bunch of lemmings. They are blind following blind leaders.
Only God can command the light to shine in their darkness of deceit and falsehoods. (2 Corinthians 4:6.) The prophets' changing with the wind reminds us of the religious leaders of Christ's day, spoken of in John 12:
40 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. 41 These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him. 42 ¶ Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: 43 For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
First, these prophets who change with the wind, going where the money is, are blind, either blind to the Word of God or blinded by money.
Second, their hearts are hardened in their ways, so they refuse to see the errors of their ways, and be converted.
Third, hence, God cannot heal the land.
Fourth, loving the praise of men more than the praise of God, they continue in the way that brings the most money.
Fifth, the blindness is there from God. We have talked about this before, and we can call it a "judicial blindness." It is a blindness by God that allows men to continue in their wicked ways, so the just judgment for their deceits will catch up with them.
"Bro Need, you are harsh!" Yes, I am very distressed over men who change their supposed inspired message from "prophetic" scriptures from one extreme to the othera few years ago, they said America is in prophecy, all the young lions, and now they say that "our nation has no future" according to prophecy. These men are as evil as were the false prophets of the Old Testament and the religious leaders of Christ's day.
2. My wife and I have been attending the Council of Conservative Citizens, which meets every second Tuesday in Arlington, VA, just outside of DC. There have been some very interesting discussions about various current events.
One discussion concerned Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ". There were many view points presented, including the Biblical view that faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Someone pointed out that though the movie is strongly Catholic, it still presents a basis for Christianity the payment made by Christ for the sins of his people. The reason for antagonism against the move by the elite is because there is a culture war going on, and the elite see The Passion as a shot across their bow for the Christian basis for Western culture. It is seen as direct challenge to the move by the humanists to deconstruct the Christian culture, to be replaced by a purely secular culture. With all its flaws, for it is a Catholic movie containing a good bit of Rome's misguided doctrine, that is a good insight to the current battle being waged by secularism against Christianity.
3. At another meeting, the immigration problem was discussed. The obvious conclusion was that illegal immigration is being allowed for two reasons: First, to dilute the WASP culture in our nation. This goal has been very evident for many years, and the Bush administration's policy seems to be intentionally aimed at that goal: amnesty for the millions of illegals.
Another important point was brought up in the discussion, which I had not thought about. Our form of government here in the US was and is patterned after the Presbyterian form of church government. The key founders of this nation were primarily Presbyterians, or at least followed the Presbyterian style of church government. The logical conclusion is that our form of government cannot be exported to non-Christian nations. It is a waste of time, money, lives and manpowerIT WILL NOT WORK. A Muslim nation can only be ruled by a strong-arm, despotic dictator, for that is the kind of religion Muslims follow.
4. We took Carol's 94 year old mother down to visit her sister this spring for a few days. Her sister has Alzheimer's disease, so this is the first winter in 15 years Carol's mother has been unable to spend in Georgia with her sister. We then spent the time with Evangelist John Weaver and his wife Alice.
I mention this because on our way back home from Douglas, GA, Bro Weaver urged us to stop by an old Civil War cemetery on US 221, just south of Louisville GA. There were some interesting grave markers in there, the most interesting being a large monument dedicated to "A CHRISTIAN WOMAN"
It reads as follows:
"A CHRISTIAN WOMAN Is the highest best gift of God to earth and here lies one of its brightest exemplifications! Christianity was with her a sentiment deeply inwoven in all her thoughts, feelings and affections. Kind and benevolent, unexacting and charitable, brilliant but humbleVigorous in intellect, sweet and lovely in person, meek and gentle in dispositionher life and character have left their impress indelibly fixed in the hearts of those whose wise counselor, and devoted partner, she was through all the vicissitudes of an eventful though brief career. Though married when young, ardent and hopeful, in the midday of splendor of youthful hopes and aspirations, She entered upon her domestic duties with an energy and devotion which could feel no decline, and by the purity and vigor of her own character, she won from the most slavish passion, him whose welfare was her highest happiness, and whose character was her own handiwork. Her earthly mission accomplished she laid down her Cross, took up her Crown, and now sweetly rests in the bosom of her Savior."
On the other side of the stone is this inscription:
"Beneath this stone reposes all that was mortal of MARY H. Daughter of Mary & Dr. Wm. Savage. And wife of COL. A. R. WRIGHT. Born Dec'r. 28. 1825. Married April 26th. 1843. Died June 23rd. 1854."
Note the dates: She was married at the age of 18, and died at the age of 29, having been married for 11 years. The testament of her husband shows us what kind of a woman she was. He tells us that this young girl made him into what he became. Think of the influence this young lady had on this man who became a Colonel in the Confederate Army. Think of the influence this "stay at home" wife had in the Confederate army.
5. Bro Weaver was scheduled to speak in WV, so we persuaded him and his wife to come spend some time with us. Among other places, we visited the Manassea battle field, about 45 minutes east of us, toward DC. We watched the film, and were saddened to see how the revisionists have changed the facts concerning the whole War. Lincoln's war certainly changed America from what the founders envisioned for this republic into a Federally controlled nation of sheeple.
Front Royal was also a major battle field in the War, as Stonewall Jackson fought to keep the Northern invaders out of the Shenandoah Valley.
6. Corrections:
It saddens me greatly to make this correction. In the last Examiner, I mentioned about Front Line Fellowship. After the issue went out and Bettie's son-in-law saw that I recommended Peter Hammond, he handed me a letter from the Church of Christian Liberty, (502 W Euclid Ave, Arlington Heights, IL, 60004 [874 259 4444]). It was dated, October 22, 2003. In this letter, 5 charges against Dr. Hammond were explained by the Board of Elders. One paragraph reads:
The Board of Elders finds that the overwhelming body of evidence it examined, about which Dr. Hammond was questioned and gave his responses, shows Dr. Hammond to be consistently unwilling to tell the truth when the truth would reflect poorly on his character.
Accordingly, the Board of Elders "ruled against Dr. Hammond and determined to revoke his ministry credentials." And thus they withdrew their support from Dr Hammond.
The need does not change in the Sudan, where the Muslims from the north are, in the predominantly Christian south, raping, killing, pillaging and kidnaping women and children for slavery. I have noticed that our president who is making his campaign cornerstone his "war on terrorism" has made no mention of the terrorism of the Northern Muslims against the Southern Christians which has cost millions of lives, as well as supplied the slave trade with an abundance of Christian slaves. Meanwhile, our Christian president says not a word.
How dumb and blind can Christians be?
There is a ministry working in the South of Sudan, that is, Brad Phillips, the son of Howard Phillips, whom I have met, and Bettie and Matt Chancey know. Brad and his family live on the other side of the Blue Ridge from us. From what I understand, one of the videos Dr. Hammond is using to raise funds for Front Line Fellowship is plagiarized from one Brad put together for his Persecution Project.
Thus, I must withdraw any endorsement of Dr. Hammond, and urge you to consider Brad Phillips, who is working in Sudan.
Persecution Project
PO Box 1327
Culpeper VA 22701
1 800 201 5245
info@persecutionproject.org * www.persecutionproject.org
7. Internet sites of interest:
<http://home.debitel.net/user/andreas.bunkahle/defaulte.htm> is a web site you should check out concerning the WTC destruction. Engineers prove that the destruction was a controlled demolition of those towers. I suggest you look closely at what took place, and the results, i.e., who had the most to gain. It is now well known that the "attack" on Pearl Harbor was both provoked by the US, and was known in advance. Who had the most to gain from that attack? In both WWII and the WTC destruction, the State increased its power many fold, and the American citizens lost even more of their freedoms and money.
<http://www.newswithviews.com/Howenstine/james10.htm> DOES ASPIRIN PREVENT HEART ATTACKS AND STROKES?
<http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-02/28/content_1336744.htm> " TEHRAN, Feb. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- Osama bin Laden has been captured in a tribal region in Pakistan, the IRNA news agency quoted Iran'sstate radio as saying on Saturday.
"The radio's external service, broadcast in Pushtu, said US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's trip to Pakistan on Thursday had been made in connection with the capture.
" The capture of the al-Qaida leader has been made sometime before, but (US President George W.) Bush is intending to announceit [sic] when the American presidential election is held," the radiosaid. [sic] ...' "
<http://letsroll911.org/> "Alleged 'Flight 175' Fires Missiles upon World Trade Center before Impact!
Missile Scandal will Rock Washington & the World! Video Proof captured by All Networks covering 911!
World-Wide, Governments Log on to LetsRoll911!.org in growing numbers, more to come, developing.."
<http://www.notmilk.com/>
<http://www.newswithviews.com/religion/religion26.htm> "CHURCHES ARE SPREADING MAD COW DISEASE"
<http://baltimorechronicle.com/041704reTreason.shtml> Bush Isn't An Imbecile: He's a Traitor: By Colonel Robert Bowman (USAF-ret.)
Decorated Vietnam combat aviator Colonel Robert Bowman (USAF-ret.) tells the Baltimore Chronicle in a full-page op-ed that Junior W. Bush is not an imbecile, as the public perceives, but a traitor and draft dodger whose Neo-Con War is built, not on the Constitutional principles of a free American Republic, but upon a pack of lies. It is sobering--and must reading--for every American across the political spectrum.
I have a hard time equating historic American conservatism and a concomitant commitment to the original intent of the writers of the United States Constitution with a Bush Administration foreign policy committed to an un-Constitutional and preemptive foreign war without a formal Declaration of War by Congress (and based on lies about Weapons of Mass Destruction); a general amnesty for another 12 million illegal aliens in the United States; the destruction of America's manufacturing base and economy with New World Order globalist trade treaties like NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, and Permanent Most Favored Nation (PMFN) status for Communist China; ongoing Federal subsidies for Planned Parenthood and stem-cell research; 2.5 trillion in Federal Spending with 500 billion+ deficits in this year's budget (along with another similar figure for the foreign manufacturing trade deficit); and Mr. Bush's open alliance with the homosexual lobby in his own Party, the Log Cabin Republicans. And how about the USA Patriot Act? This is definitely a Jeffersonian measure which jettisons any 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure by allowing any Federal intelligence or law enforcement department in America to undertake warrantless, surreptitious entries into any home or business in this country without either a warrant or even a consultation with a Federal judge. The state of American "conservatism" under George Bush and his pals is in truly great shape. Try Michael Peroutka's Presidential campaign site for a different version of America, the Constitution, and human life at www.Peroutka2004.com.
8. Election, 04
Who to vote for? The choice, as usual, left to us by the elite is between the lesser of two evils. The problem is that the lesser of two evils is worse than the worst of two evils a couple of elections ago. However, there is a choice: The Constitution Party. "But my vote will be wasted". Your vote is wasted on Bush or Kerry, for both are as socialist as anyone can be without calling themselves Communists.
Howard Phillips says, "If you don't vote for what you believe, you'll never get what you want. Stop wasting your vote on people who don't believe what you believe. Vote Constitution Party. Vote Michael Anthony Peroutka." Find out more at www.peroutka2004.com
9. Is Your Church Incorporated?
Brother Against Brother
A church dispute in Fresno lands in civil courtand could set a precedent for government meddling in ecclesiastical matters. By Lynn Vincent (World, 4/24/04, pp. 30-32.)
THE FIRST TIME CAROL Rodriguez entered the Cross Church in Fresno, Calif., she was an infant. Today, she is president of the church board. A member for more than 40 years, she has never known another congregation. Clarence and Irene Weslowski, Cross Church members for 60 years, knew Mrs. Rodriguez when she was a baby, the daughter of a friend. Today, the Weslowskis know her as president of the board that voted to terminate their memberships in the church.
The Weslowskis and Mrs. Rodriguez are just three of the people involved in a brewing church split, a tragic tear in fellowship that has the camel of government poking its nose into the tent of the church. And not only at the Cross Church. If a Fresno County Superior Court judge's order in the resulting lawsuit stands on appeal, the camel could inch its way into the tent of the church universal.
Superior Court Judge J.N. Kapetan in January ordered the Cross Church board to reinstate members it terminated in September. The order drew gasps from legal observers, who saw it as a startling example of judicial arrogance. Robert Schmalle, attorney for the church, says his clients terminated certain members on biblical grounds. The reinstatement order, he contends, strikes at the very heart of the First Amendment ban on government intrusion into ecclesiastical matters.
But Joseph Arnold, who represents ousted church members, argues that the case isn't an ecclesiastical matter, but a corporate one: As a California nonprofit corporation, the church board violated its state-mandated constitution and bylaws, illegally booting the Weslowskis and others in an effort to silence dissent. His clients had to choose between going away quietly and fighting to remain in the church. The civil courts were their only recourse, he says, and the judge's order seeks to protect the plaintiffs' "property rights" in the church. ... (I have the full article, if you want it.)
Observe:
We have been warning of this situation since the middle 80s, and the time is now here. The incorporated church loses its Biblical defense, for it has become an instrument of the State. Through incorporating a church, the people willingly placed the church under the authority of the State.
I put together a book back in 1984 Scripturally dealing with the incorporation issue. It has the Biblical principles involved, as well as typical state forms the group seeking incorporation must fill out. Those who will check their incorporation papers, if they have not, will be shocked at what they agreed to do when they asked the state to create a "church". The book is $5.00 post paid.
10. We now have a scanning service. We can digitize slides, transparencies and pictures into any resolution up to 4,000 dpi in TIF format (or any other format). That resolution is good enough to produce a hard copy of any size you desire. Moreover, if you are interested in picturers of WWII aircraft, primarily, we now are making them available. Check <http://www.ww2color.com>
11. We also have some cases of Jeff's books on hand: WWII WAR EAGLES, Global Air War in Original Colorhard back, in beautiful color. We would like to sell them at $17 each, post paid. The retail on this book would be at least $30.
12. Brave New Schools
Homosexual book for 1st-graders Parents outraged over story where prince finds love with another prince
A North Carolina couple is outraged by a book their first-grade daughter brought home from the school library in which a prince finds his true love ? in the form of another prince.
The leading character in "King & King," Prince Bertie, waves off a bevy of eligible princes before falling for Prince Lee, Associated Press reported. The book ends with the two "marrying" and sharing a kiss.
...
AP reports the 32-page book by Linda De Haan and Stern Nijland was published in March 2002 by Tricycle Press, the children's division of Ten Speed Press of Berkeley, Calif. A follow-up, "King & King & Family,"
was recently published. The publisher says the book is intended for readers age 6 and up.
The principal of Freeman Elementary School defended the book. ...
Posted: March 18, 2004. © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Comment: Christian parents allow their children to go to the government schools are sinning!! May God have mercy on their evil actions.
13. Red China Captures U.S. Steel Manufacturing Equipment.
"Steel companies from China are buying up failed U.S. steel plants and shipping the equipment back to China. The latest example: At an auction, the stalking horse Qingdao Iron and Steel Group Co. made the $40 million high bid to buy equipment from Geneva Steel, an integrated steel manufacturer. Although a $5 million improvement over the initial offer, the price is a small fraction of the $400 million that was invested in modernization of the plant in the 1990s. Geneva confirmed a chapter 11 plan in the Utah bankruptcy court after a two year reorganization, thanks to a $110 million loan mostly guaranteed by the US government under the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Program. Fourteen months after confirmation, with orders dropping by half, the company filed chapter 11 again in January of '02 and shut down." Source: Fulbright & Jaworski Daily Bankruptcy News, 2/5/04
14. Marching on Babylon Bush's Religious Fantasies
By Cheryl Seal, 27 March 2003
Bush's obsession with attacking Iraq has been attributed to oil, to family vendetta due to his father's confrontation with Saddam, and with over-zealous terrorist-fighting efforts. However, what really lies beneath this obsession is a religious delusion, one shared, alas, by many of his government appointees, including John Ashcroft, a devout Pentecostal.
Bush, like Ashcroft, believes (and is, in fact, trying to insure) that the world is in the "end times" called for by the biblical book of Revelation -at least as interpreted by the doomsayers, who are generally barely functional clinically classical paranoid schizophrenics (Pat Robertson being a prime example). Billy Graham, Bush's much-touted mentor, believes Armageddon is at hand and has helped to fuel Bush's messianic complex as the "blessed" leader of the righteous in the end times. You can see that messianic complex so clearly in Bush's often inappropriately "rapturous" expression and grandiose body language. ...
It seems totally unreal that our nation and the rest of the world are being dragged through hell and -hopefully- back again by a band of religious fanatics who have insisted through sheer force and relentless intimidation that the world stage be yielded to them so they can play out their fantasies at everyone else's expense.
In any case, as the Iraqi conflict unfolds, we non-delusional folk see thousands of young, tired, scared, and hungry soldiers struggling through the desert near Karbala. Bush and his band of fanatics, meanwhile, see "God's end times army" marching to glory past the ruins of Babylon.
© 2003 by the News Insider and Cheryl Seal (I have the complete article.)
15. Joint Appearance Stirs Speculation
Some Say Bush, Chaney Want One Story
By Dana Milbank
Chairman Thomas H. Kean, asked at a news conference a few weeks ago about the White House's requirement that President Bush and Vice President Cheney appear together before his commission on the Sept. 11,2001, terrorist attacks, quipped: "Well, we recognize that Mr. Bush may help Mr. Cheney with some of the answers."
Kean's remark sparked laughter among the assembled reporters because it turned upside down the assumption of the question, and of much of official Washington: that the White House requested the joint appearance, scheduled for April 29, so Cheney could coach Bush on his answers. While Bush has declined to explain the rationale for the joint meeting, Democrats charge that Cheney would be a "ventriloquist," and even a number of independent observers say it appears that the two men are trying to keep their stories straight. ...
Washington Post, Apr. 25, 04, p A 5.
16. A Religion of Peace, as praised by Bush
Our "Christian" president rushed in to "protect" the people of Iraq from terror, but does nothing about Christians in Sudan.
GLOBAL JIHAD Islamists rape 100 women in attack U.N. sees 'ethnic cleansing' in 'world's greatest humanitarian crisis'
Arab militias backed by Khartoum's radical Muslim regime raped more than 100 women in an attack in western Sudan.
Mukesh Kapila, the United Nations coordinator for Sudan, told the BBC 75 people were killed in the attack on the village of Tawila two weeks ago.
"All houses as well as a market and a health center were completely looted and the market burnt," he said. "Over 100 women were raped, six in front of their fathers who were later killed."
The attack, in which a further 150 women and 200 children were abducted, was one of many as village after village was razed by the militias, Kapila said.
Hundreds of thousands were ousted from their homes and more than 100,000 have fled across the border into Chad, where they have continued to face cross-border raids.
Kapila called for more international aid and urgent intervention to bring a ceasefire in the war.
Sudan's cleric-backed National Islamic Front regime in the Arab and Muslim north declared a jihad on the mostly Christian and animist south in 1989. Since 1983, an estimated 2 million people have died from war and related famine. About 5 million have become refugees.
As WorldNetDaily reported </news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26672>, Khartoum government forces also are alleged to have gang-raped women, sometimes forcing them to deny their Christian faith or be killed.
Kapila said he was in Rwanda during the genocide of 1994 but still is "totally shocked" at what is going on in Sudan.
"This is ethnic cleansing, this is the world's greatest humanitarian crisis, and I don't know why the world isn't doing more about it," he told BBC Radio 4's Today program.
The U.N. is concerned the fighting in western Sudan could undermine the peace talks as they come to an end.
(Yet our Christian president raises not a note of protest. Why?)
March 20, 2004, © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
17. BUSH SHOULD ENFORCE THE LAW (DOMA)
Before Tampering With the U.S. Constitution
"Congress overwhelmingly passed and President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996, and there it rested peacefully on the law books until this year. Recent events are now placing the monkey squarely on the back of President George W. Bush to do his constitutional duty to `take care that the laws be faithfully executed.'
"It's not enough that he is `troubled' about the marriage licenses that have been issued to over 3,000 same-sex couples in San Francisco and 26 in New Mexico, and may soon be issued in Massachusetts, or that he is carefully pondering whether to endorse a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He should meanwhile enforce existing federal law."
1,049 FEDERAL LAWS TO DEFEND MARRIAGE DERIVE FROM DOMA
"DOMA states unequivocally that the federal government recognizes marriage only as `a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife,' and the word spouse only as `a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.' The General Accounting Office compiled a 58-page list of 1,049 federal rights and responsibilities that are contingent on DOMA's definition of marriage. ... (Phyllis Schlafly, 3/3/04)
BUSH FAVORS SAME SEX BENEFITS
According to South Carolina GOP Congressman Jim DeMint, "President Bush believes states can use contract law to ensure some of the rights that gay partners are seeking through marriage or civil unions." ... (Jennifer Lee, The NY Times, 2/9/04, A11.)
Obviously, Bush is trying to make "political hay" out of this very sick and sinful situation of sodomite "marriages". If he would only show the same determination to enforce the rule of law (DOMA) as he did to enforce the rule of law in removing Judge Moore, the whole sodomite issue would be dead.
18. Bettie did a review of a book last time, Be Fruitful and Multiply. We failed to identify the publisher. It is Vision Forum. The book is $14 retail, paperback, 130 pages. See www.visionforum.com.
The Perfect Husband
There are several men sitting around in the locker room of
a private club after exercising. Suddenly a cell phone on one
of the benches rings. One of the men picks it up, and the following
conversation ensues:
"Hello?"
"Honey, it's me. Are you at the club?"
"Yes."
"Great! I am at the mall two blocks from where you are. I
just saw a beautiful mink coat. It's absolutely gorgeous!! Can
I buy it?"
"What's the price?"
"Only $1,500.00."
"Well, OK, go ahead and get it, if you like it that much
... "
"Ahhh, and I also stopped by the Mercedes dealership and
saw the 2001 models. I saw one I really liked. I spoke with the
salesman, and he gave me a really good price ... and since we
need to exchange the BMW that we bought last year ... "
"What price did he quote you?"
"Only $60,000 ... "
"OK, but for that price, I want it with all the options."
"Great! But before we hang up, something else ... "
"What?"
"It might look like a lot, but I was reconciling your bank
account and...I stopped by the real estate agent this morning
and saw the house we had looked at last year. It's on sale!! Remember?
The one with a pool, English Garden, acre of park area, beachfront
property ... "
"How much are they asking?"
"Only $450,000 - a magnificent price ... and I see that we
have that much in the bank to cover ... "
"Well, then go ahead and buy it, but just bid $420,000. OK?"
"OK, sweetie ... Thanks! I'll see you later!! I love you!!!"
"Bye ... I do too ... "
The man hangs up, closes the phone's flap, and raises his hand
while holding the phone and asks to all those present: "Does
anyone know who this phone belongs to?"
By Thomas Williamson
As a result of the recent Iraq War. America now has 3 new heroes. Lori Ann Piestewa, who was killed in combat, and Shoshana Johnson and Jessica Lynch, who were wounded, held prisoner and then rescued.
Concerning Jessica Lynch, we were told that she fought her Iraqi attackers to the death, firing at them until she ran out of ammunition, and suffering numerous gunshot and stab wounds.
Later on there were conflicting reports, stating that she suffered no gun or knife wounds, and that her injuries were consistent with having been thrown from an overturned vehicle. We have been told that she was tortured in captivity, but also that she was not tortured and that she received the best of care from Iraqi medical personnel.
We will probably never know exactly what happened, since Private Lynch has suffered a memory loss, (or maybe she has not - there are conflicting reports), and her fellow soldiers have been ordered not to talk about the circumstances of her capture.
Based on these conflicting, uncertain stories of her exploits. Private Lynch has become a poster girl for sending women into combat, and a latter-day female version of Sergeant York. There has been surprisingly little public debate in America as to the advisability of sending young ladies such as Lynch, Piestewa and Johnson into combat situations.
Does the Bible have anything to say about this vitally important current issue?
Those who have read the works of Josephus may recall his brief commentary on Deuteronomy 22:5, "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God "
Some preachers have understood this as a prohibition against women wearing slacks, and have even made the issue of regulating woman's apparel into a major thrust of their ministries.
However, Josephus says. concerning this verse, "Take care, especially in your battles, that no woman use the habit of a man, nor man the garment of a woman." (Antiquities, Book IV, Chapter VIII ]43]) Why the reference to warfare here?
Dr. Leroy Vogel, retired U.S. Navy chaplain and professor emeritus at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, says concerning this verse. "A prohibition against cross-dressing? Or is there more? The construct of import is the compound noun keliether, translated above as `men's clothing.' In Hebrew, keli denotes `equipment,' specifically a soldier's equipment. Further, the Hebrew noun geber denotes `mighty man' or `warrior.' Thus, a legitimate translation of the phrase uses language of a decidedly military flavor: 'No woman shall put on the gear of a warrior.'
"The church fathers understood it so, as did John Calvin and Martin Luther. Luther knew Hebrew and comments on the verse as follows: `A woman shall not bear the weapons of a man . . it is improper . . . Through this law (God) reproaches any nation in which this custom is observed.' Why? Because God created male and female with specific and complementary characteristics. It is in their relationship with one another that the 2 constitute the full expression of humanity.'
"To paraphrase Luther in another context, woman was created to be a vessel for life, not to kill and destroy."
In 1998 the Southern Baptist Convention passed Resolution No. 3 calling for America to limit military combat service to males only. Such references as Numbers 31:21, Deuteronomy 20:7-9, Joshua 1:14, 6:3, 8:3, 10:7, 1 Samuel 18:5, 2 Samuel 17',8, 23:8-39, Song of Solomon 3:7-8 and Isaiah 42:13 were cited to show that rule men served in combat in Old Testament times.
The resolution stated that the messengers of the SBC "warn against and oppose the training and assigning of females to military combat service because: it rejects gender-based distinctions established by God in the order of creation; it undermines male headship in the family by failing to recognize the unique gender-based responsibility of men to protect women and children; and it subordinates the combat readiness of American troops and the national security of the United States, to the unbiblical social agenda of ideological feminism."
Many observers have noted that our military men and women are now sleeping together in the same tents in the field, or in close proximity on Navy ships, resulting in rampant sexual immorality and numerous unplanned pregnancies among the troops.
Our appreciation for the heroism of Jessica Lynch, and other female soldiers in the Iraq conflict, should not blind us to the Biblical and practical concerns involved in sending women into combat. Are we really suffering a shortage of able bodied men who can fight, the next time that we need to do a 'preemptive first strike" on some hapless Third World nation with lots of oil?
True Story from AP headline
KILLER BISCUITS WANTED FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER (the actual AP headline)
Linda Burnett, 23, a resident of San Diego, was visiting her inlaws and while there went to a nearby supermarket to pick up some groceries. Several people noticed her sitting in her car with the windows rolled up and with her eyes closed, with both hands behind the back of her head.
One customer who had been at the store for a while became concerned and walked over to the car. He noticed that Linda's eyes were now open, and she looked very strange. He asked her if she was okay, and Linda replied that she'd been shot in the back of the head, and had been holding her brains in for over an hour. The man called the paramedics, who broke into the car because the doors were locked and Linda refused to remove her hands from her head. When they finally got in, they found that Linda had a wad of bread dough on the back of her head.
A Pillsbury biscuit canister had exploded from the heat, making a loud noise that sounded like a gunshot, and the wad of dough hit her in the back of her head. When she reached back to find out what it was, she felt the dough and thought it was her brains. She initially passed out, but quickly recovered and tried to hold her brains in for over an hour until someone noticed and came to her aid.
And, yes, Linda is a blonde.
Brother Need:
Thank you for thinking "outside the box." I really enjoyed and agree with your article on Abraham Lincoln.
Your booklet "The Gospel Perverted" was refreshing. It was a good affirmation of what I have been studying and concluded about salvation. Could you please send me 20 copies? Thank you.
Your articles in the Examiner are right on. They have been a real encouragement and blessing to me. I'm not the only one who sees things pretty much as I do!
God Bless, John Heiermann
Biblical Examiner
Dear Bro Need
Attached is a check in amount of $100 to assist with your "Tree Planting" (Ps. 1).
Your February 2004 edition is the best I've received so far. If you have any left, I would appreciate (6) copies of this issue.
Also, I have never read the "London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689." I would also appreciate a copy of this.
Keep up your "No Poisoners" effort to help bring in Christ's kingdom.
In His Name,
Ted Roderer
Brother Need,
Hope the writing of this letter finds you and your family will and in the Lord's will. I'm sure your daughter and her husband are established in Bentonville by now. What a blessing to have family to rely on.
I have enjoyed Death of the Church... and thank you so much for the hard work you put into the research. The truth is worth the effort! I also look forward to each Examiner you send my way. I find it a rich source of conformation of the things that the Lord has opened my eyes and my wife's regarding the public school system, the godless government we have let gain so much ground, and of course the truth of God's word.
We continue to seek the Lord, even more so, since we left our church almost two years ago. We are convinced that the organized religion and the leaven of the Pharisees will not allow an honest reasoning of the scriptures. There is too much to lose for the senior pastor even if God opens his eyes; the building debt is too large, the congregation to entrenched in milk, and as you have shown in your book, we are "heretics" although not always has it been so.
My daughter is 9 and my son is 7. My wife educates them (our second year). They love it, and we have such a peace about it as well. I am a sales representative for a food service distributor. God has been so faithful to provide and I pray we can continue to please Him while we serve. The Lord, as I've said, has opened our eyes. We try to witness about the principles of the Bible being a pervasive key element to the kingdom advancement NOW! But trying to convince our brothers and sisters in Christ that all we have and ever will need from Him has arrived (AD 70), can be lonely. Only He gives the hearing ear and the seeing eye. And so we try to remain joyful and preach the truth and leave the rest up to God.
Your newsletter has been a huge tool to keep my wife and I fed and to continue in our studies. I thank you for that as well. AS we teach the children when we walkest by the way and when we liest down, and when we risest up' would your series on the book of John be something you would suggest as a family time of study for them? If so, could you send it along with any other suggestion you suggestion you have used while raising your children.
Please accept this gift to your ministry for the Gospel of John study and to help the printing of the Examiner. Listening to you on John Anderson's program is a source of fellowship as well as the great guests he has on each week. Who knows, maybe I'll make it to the conference in May. The best from our family to yours. God bless and keep you strong for the fight.
In Christ, Michael
PS. I'm glad you got to meet Judge Moore. My heart aches for that brother of ours. And I am so sad our president didn't come to his side. We are with him though in prayer.
(Editor's note: We have the John lessons, and they make excellent, simple Bible studies, covering the very basic doctrines of the Christian faith. They emphasize trusting Christ for salvation. We also have a new edition of Death of The Church Victorious. It has a greatly expanded Appendix B, which defines points used in the book. I overlooked some things which I corrected in this edition. I define the three millennial views as well as the four views of the Revelation. It has a few added paragraphs in the text, and an expanded index. $25, post paid.)
Dear Mr Williamson:
I have in my possession a Biblical Examiner, which I find very informative. However, due to financial circumstances, caused by being, as we call boarded from work due to severe illness, I can no longer afford to stay on the internet. Just for the record though by the grace of our Lord, I am well again, but cannot go back to work. The Report I have is dated November 2001, and it says that they receive from you on a regular basis material. Now my request is could you possibly send me this information as well. It would be greatly appreciated, as this is information that I share with others. (My way of spreading the gospel.)
May the Lord speak to your heart.
Darlene De La Hunt
PO Bxo 15216
Nelsprvit
South Africa
1200
(Forwarded to me from Mr. Williamson.)
Dear Pastor Need,
Thank you for all the material provided in the Biblical Examiner. An immense amount of work is undertaken to provide this, and I am one of the beneficiaries, and for this I thank God for the gifts he has given you.
Weekly I supply a small newsheet for the people of my congregation which is an A4 page divided into columns of news. I call the sheet 'These Times'. The purpose is to acquaint the Lord's people with what is taking place in our society and the world at large. Would you grant permission to make use of some of the material in the Examiner by the use of extracts or excerpts, or, if space permitted, full accounts of news and views as it were, with acknowledgment? This intention would be to inform and to provide fuel for prayer and progress in the Christian life.
Every blessing on your continued labours in and for the Lord.
Yours in Christ Jesus
Richard L. Pike (Pastor, Covenant Baptist Church, Rossmoyne, Western
Australia).
Note: It costs $1.55 ea. for a 20 page Examiner, and $1.80 ea. for a 24 page Examiner to send overseas.
by Emad Mekay. Asian Times, Monday, March 29, 2004 by Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON - IPS uncovered the remarks by Philip Zelikow, who is now the executive director of the body set up to investigate the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001 -- the 9/11 commission -- in which he suggests a prime motive for the invasion just over one year ago was to eliminate a threat to Israel, a staunch U.S. ally in the Middle East.
Zelikow's casting of the attack on Iraq as one launched to protect Israel appears at odds with the public position of President George W. Bush and his administration, which has never overtly drawn the link between its war on the regime of former president Hussein and its concern for Israel's security.
The administration has instead insisted it launched the war to liberate the Iraqi people, destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and to protect the United States.
Zelikow made his statements about "the unstated threat" during his tenure on a highly knowledgeable and well-connected body known as the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), which reports directly to the president. He served on the board between 2001 and 2003.
"Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 -- it's the threat against Israel," Zelikow told a crowd at the University of Virginia on Sep. 10, 2002, speaking on a panel of foreign policy experts assessing the impact of 9/11 and the future of the war on the al-Qaeda terrorist organization.
"And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell," said Zelikow.
The statements are the first to surface from a source closely linked to the Bush administration acknowledging that the war, which has so far cost the lives of nearly 600 U.S. troops and thousands of Iraqis, was motivated by Washington's desire to defend the Jewish state.
The administration, which is surrounded by staunch pro-Israel, neo-conservative hawks, is currently fighting an extensive campaign to ward off accusations that it derailed the "war on terrorism" it launched after 9/11 by taking a detour to Iraq, which appears to have posed no direct threat to the United States.
Israel is Washington's biggest ally in the Middle East, receiving annual direct aid of three to four billion dollars.
Even though members of the 16-person PFIAB come from outside government, they enjoy the confidence of the president and have access to all information related to foreign intelligence that they need to play their vital advisory role.
Known in intelligence circles as "Piffy-ab", the board is supposed to evaluate the nation's intelligence agencies and probe any mistakes they make. The unpaid appointees on the board require a security clearance known as "code word" that is higher than top secret.
The national security adviser to former President George H.W. Bush (1989-93) Brent Scowcroft, currently chairs the board in its work overseeing a number of intelligence bodies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the various military intelligence groups and the Pentagon's National Reconnaissance Office.
Neither Scowcroft nor Zelikow returned numerous phone calls and email messages from IPS for this story.
Zelikow has long-established ties to the Bush administration.
Before his appointment to PFIAB in October 2001, he was part of the current president's transition team in January 2001.
In that capacity, Zelikow drafted a memo for National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on reorganizing and restructuring the National Security Council (NSC) and prioritizing its work.
Richard A. Clarke, who was counter-terrorism coordinator for Bush's predecessor President Bill Clinton (1993-2001) also worked for Bush senior, and has recently accused the current administration of not heeding his terrorism warnings, said Zelikow was among those he briefed about the urgent threat from al-Qaeda in December 2000.
Rice herself had served in the NSC during the first Bush administration, and subsequently teamed up with Zelikow on a 1995 book about the unification of Germany.
Zelikow had ties with another senior Bush administration official -- Robert Zoellick, the current trade representative. The two wrote three books together, including one in 1998 on the United States and the "Muslim Middle East".
Aside from his position at the 9/11 commission, Zelikow is now also director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs and White Burkett Miller Professor of History at the University of Virginia.
His close ties to the administration prompted accusations of a conflict of interest in 2002 from families of victims of the 9/11 attacks, who protested his appointment to the investigative body.
In his university speech, Zelikow, who strongly backed attacking the Iraqi dictator, also explained the threat to Israel by arguing that Baghdad was preparing in 1990-91 to spend huge amounts of "scarce hard currency" to harness "communications against electromagnetic pulse", a side-effect of a nuclear explosion that could sever radio, electronic and electrical communications.
That was "a perfectly absurd expenditure unless you were going to ride out a nuclear exchange -- they (Iraqi officials) were not preparing to ride out a nuclear exchange with us. Those were preparations to ride out a nuclear exchange with the Israelis", according to Zelikow.
He also suggested that the danger of biological weapons falling into the hands of the anti-Israeli Islamic Resistance Movement, known by its Arabic acronym Hamas, would threaten Israel rather than the United States, and that those weapons could have been developed to the point where they could deter Washington from attacking Hamas.
"Play out those scenarios," he told his audience, "and I will tell you, people have thought about that, but they are just not talking very much about it". "Don't look at the links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, but then ask yourself the question, 'gee, is Iraq tied to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the people who are carrying out suicide bombings in Israel'? Easy question to answer; the evidence is abundant."
To date, the possibility of the United States attacking Iraq to protect Israel has been only timidly raised by some intellectuals and writers, with few public acknowledgements from sources close to the administration.
Analysts who reviewed Zelikow's statements said they are concrete evidence of one factor in the rationale for going to war, which has been hushed up.
"Those of us speaking about it sort of routinely referred to the protection of Israel as a component," said Phyllis Bennis of the Washington-based Institute of Policy Studies. "But this is a very good piece of evidence of that."
Others say the administration should be blamed for not making known to the public its true intentions and real motives for invading Iraq.
"They (the administration) made a decision to invade Iraq, and then started to search for a policy to justify it. It was a decision in search of a policy and because of the odd way they went about it, people are trying to read something into it," said Nathan Brown, professor of political science at George Washington University and an expert on the Middle East.
But he downplayed the Israel link. "In terms of securing Israel, it doesn't make sense to me because the Israelis are probably more concerned about Iran than they were about Iraq in terms of the long-term strategic threat," he said. Still, Brown says Zelikow's words carried weight.
"Certainly his position would allow him to speak with a little bit more expertise about the thinking of the Bush administration, but it doesn't strike me that he is any more authoritative than Wolfowitz, or Rice or Powell or anybody else. All of them were sort of fishing about for justification for a decision that has already been made," Brown said.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0329-11.htm
Lying False Prognosticators
Was it not just a few years ago when the EU was formed that the prognosticators were excitedly telling us that the old Roman empire of Daniel 2:41-45 was being revived with the ten nations, and would soon be destroyed by the stone cut out without hands, Christ? Well, that image now has 25 toes, and we have not heard one word of "I was wrong" by the prognosticators. These prognosticators have spoken presumptuously in order to separate the simpletons from their money. (Deuteronomy 18:22.) They have shuffled texts of Scripture as the "Norwood gypsies shuffled cards in days gone by. Leave the prophets to divide the profits which they get from simpletons..." (C.H. Spurgeon, Sermon, The Lord's Supper, Simple but Sublime. Lord's day evening, 1866.)
By Samuel Francis
With the grotesque spectacle of the burned and bludgeoned bodies of American civilians hanging from a bridge over the Euphrates, Americans need to start thinking about what the Bush administration has dragged the nation into, how we can get out of it and why it happened at all. The answers to the last question popped up in a newspaper in Asia last week.
Last year I and a number of other critics of the forthcoming war argued that the fabled "weapons of mass destruction" that were supposed to be the reason for the war were not the real reason at all. Most critics, including me, at that time didn't know the extent to which the war peddlers had simply fabricated their claims about the weapons, but we did know what the real reason was and who was behind it.
"The Likudniks are really in charge now," a senior government official in the Bush administration told the Washington Post in a front-page Feb. 9, 2003 story. The "Likduniks" of course are the partisans of the Likud Party government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and the official was speaking not of the Israeli government but our own. The people who pushed hardest for the American war against Iraq were neo-conservatives, mainly but not entirely of Jewish background, in both the administration and out of it who put Israel's interests first.
The "war on terrorism," 9/11 and weapons of mass destruction had nothing to do with it. Israel has long seen Iraq under Saddam Hussein as its major threat in the Middle East, and some Bush administration officials involved in pushing for war were urging an earlier Likud government in 1996 to work for war against Iraq. Sept. 11 merely gave them the chance to make it happen. Now it has, at American expense.
I was by no means the only one to point to the Israeli connection. Almost every critic of the war, left and right, also knew what was going on -- Pat Buchanan, Joseph Sobran, Paul Craig Roberts, Charley Reese, the Rockford Institute's Chronicles, the American Conservative, Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com and others. So did left-wing critics at The Nation, the Guardian and any number of newspapers and magazines in this country and Europe. Most of them -- especially those on the right -- were immediately denounced as "unpatriotic," "conspiracy freaks" and, most of all, "anti-Semites."
Now, on the heels of the latest evidence of the continuing disaster into which the administration and Mr. Sharon's agents of influence within it have dragged us, comes fresh confirmation of their role in instigating the war for the interests of a foreign state.
The Asia Times reported last week that a gentleman named Philip Zelikow, a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in 2001, said in a speech months before the war that "the real threat" of Iraq was not to the United States but "against Israel."
Speaking to an audience at the University of Virginia, where he teaches military history, Mr. Zelikow said, "And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell" -- which is why the real reasons had to be masked with what now appear to have been just plain lies about "weapons of mass destruction," "links" between Saddam and Al Qaeda and other concoctions.
The administration has slammed other former members like Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke, who have pointed to much the same connections, but it would be hard to slam Mr. Zelikow. He had no political or personal ax to grind against the administration and in fact supports both it and the war. He worked for the Bush administration's transition team in 2001, drafting a plan for reorganizing the National Security Council. He also happens to be Jewish, so it's hard to say he's an "anti-Semite."
The war the Likduniks planned has come but not gone. Despite their stupid predictions about being a "cakewalk," it's now cost us the lives of 600 Americans who didn't have to die and billions of dollars. There's no sign Iraq is being "pacified" or that democracy is blossoming, and the terrorists who murdered 3,000 Americans on 9/11 just slaughtered more than 200 in Madrid. Mr. Bush's wars have brought nothing about; his promises were all untrue.
Americans have a chance this year to stop the madness the Likudnik cabal has started before it engulfs us in a war we can't walk away from. If we don't take that chance, the cabal will stay with us, along with the wars it wants us to fight for someone else's country.
Samuel Francis is a nationally syndicated columnist.
© Creators Syndicate. Used by permission of Mr. Francis. The article referred to by Mr. Francis is, Iraq War Launched to Protect Israel - Bush Adviser, by Emad Mekay http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0329-11.htm. Asian Times, Monday, March 29, 2004 by Inter Press Service. I have the complete article if you would like to read it.
Comments:
Exodus 23:27 I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. 34:24 For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy God thrice in the year.
There were many promises in the Old Testament to Israel concerning their enemies. First, their enemies would fear them, and second, no man would desire their land as they served the Lord. We see that neither of these promises work today.
"But Israel is there in unbelief." True, and so are a vast portion of American Christians in the state of unbelief, as they absolutely refuse to believe the truththe group of people over in the land of Canaan have no claim, and make no claim on the Israelite, or Hebrew, nation of the Old Testament. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, their only claim is to the word Israel:
The term Israelite is purely Biblical. An Israeli is a citizen of Israel, regardless of religion. A Jew is a person anywhere in the world born to a Jewish mother, or converted to Judaism, who is thus identified as a member of the Jewish people and religion.1
There is no Jewish race today. A Jew is simply one who follows the Jews' religion, which Paul rejected, Galatians 1:13, 14. Since Christ, Christians alone are the true Jews. (Romans 2:28, 29.) Yet the true Jews are supporting with their money and blood the pagans who claim to be Jews.
Thus, not only do we see the truth from the Israeli nation itself, but we see the truth from Scripture. What we see over in the nation called Israel is nothing but another nation, no more connected to Old Testament Israel than is the nation of France.
We have wicked leaders, win no prospect of any change in the foreseeable future, as once again, Christians are caught between "the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea", Bush and Kerry. They are both terrible, Bush being the worse probably in history, but Kerry worse even than Bush.
It will again be a choice between two evils, and the lessor will be chosen. The problem is, though, that the lessor of the two evils is worse than the worse of the two evils just a few elections ago. Bush has done more to destroy America than Clinton did, probably because Christians have heard what he said, "I am a Christian", and the media says he is a Christian, so they support his unchristian actions against America.
1 Information Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem. E-mail: ask@israel-info.gov.il - URL address: http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il (2/20/1997)
A term used by Charles C. Ryrie is "consistent literalism."
Since consistent literalism is the logical and obvious principle of interpretation, dispensationalism is more than justified. (Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today. Moody Press, Chicago. 1965. P. 97. Quoted by LaRondelle, The Israel of God in Prophecy. Principles of Prophetic Interpretation. Hans K. LaRondelle. Andrews University Press, Berrien Springs, Michigan. P. 11.)
Dispensationalism is a result of consistent application of the basic hermeneutical principle of literal, normal, or plain interpretation. No other system of theology can claim this. (Ryrie, ibid, 96.)
Consistent literalism is at the heart of dispensational eschatology. (Ryrie, Ibid, 158.)
A better term for Ryrie's literalism is "speculative literalism," for those of his strip are more interested in applying the prophetic words to modern events than they are in the historical-grammatical exegesis of the prophetic passages. (Principles, p. 17.) Over the years, their applications have changed with the daily news.
Those of Ryrie's stripe must dogmatically reject any exegesis that goes beyond the grammatico-historical exegesis of Holy Scripturethat is, the "theological' principle of hermeneutics because it would allow a blending of Israel and the Church, placing a non-literal application beside a literal exegesis of Old Testament prophetic Scripture." (Principles, p. 25.) Without that Church/Israel distinction, dispensationalism would collapse.
Scofield stated unambiguously that specific prophetic sections of Scripture must be interpreted and applied with absolute literalism: "Prophecies may never be spiritualised, but always literal." Such an absolute literalism in prophetic interpretation, however, leads irrevocably to a forced interpretation. Not only must Israel be restored as a national theocracy, but also Edom, Moab, and Ammon must the be restored as nations, because the prediction reads: "They [Israelites] will lay hands on Edon and Moab, and the Ammonites will be subject to them" (Isaiah 11:14). Such a consistent literalism may not be unjustly be called "the insanity of literalism." The historic Christian position recognizes that the literal exegesis of Old Testament Scripture permits the typological application as employed by Christ and His apostles in the New Testament. This acknowledges that the Old Testament is "a Christian book."
Dispensational literalism does not allow that Jesus Christ provided a new perspective for interpreting the Old Testament. Dispensationalism is therefore basically oriented to the Old Covenant instead of to the Cross. (Principles, 26.)
LaRondelle states the case well. Dispensationalism revolves around the Old Covenant given to national Israel, making it the central theme of Scripture and history, instead of making the Cross of Christ the central theme of Scripture and history.
In other words, the New Testament presents nothing new, (except the mediation work of Christ). The message is not new. Thus, every NT doctrine must be understood in the light of what is already established in the law and the prophets. The Lord Himself made this extremely clear, Jn. 5:45-47; Lk. 24:44-48:
The Reformers started from the assumption that the Old Testament and the New Testament are organically related to each other. In spite of the differences in the forms of administering God's grace, the two Testaments are substantially the same, both teaching redemption by one and the same Mediator and Redeemer, both having one hope and one fellowship with the same covenant God, summed up in the words, "I will be your God and you shall be my people." (The Israel of God in Prophecy. Principles of Prophetic Interpretation. Hans K. LaRondelle. Andrews University Press, Berrien Springs, Michigan. P. 28.)
If dispensationalists would be true to their faith, they would have to condemn Paul for allegorizing Scripture with Sarah and Hagar (Genesis 21, Galatians 4:24-31), and with the legal text of the ox (Deuteronomy 25:4, 1 Corinthians 9:9). Allegorical interpretation thus cannot be condemned as "anti-historical in character" as J.D. Pentecost claims. (Pentecost, Things to Come, p. 112. Prophecy, 27.)
Even a superficial examination of Dispensationalism reveals that that doctrine only literalizes or spiritualize passages that will support of their required Church/Israel distinction.
God's Answer
God's answer for the evil was/is not to contend for the Constitution, nor is it to elect good men to public office, though these things are commendable. A Christian is to glorify God in every area of life, including the political area, but contending for "good" men in authority is not the answer to social turmoil. Nero Claudius Caesar (A.D. 37-68), was probably the most vial and wicked man to ever be in power. A very large portion of the New Testament was written while he was in power, yet none of the preachers of the new church ever called for political action. Rather, the Lord's answer, recorded by Paul and the other authors, for the overwhelming flood of evil was to contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. (Evidence tells us that we have a wolf in sheep's clothing in the White House, but the answer to the damage he is doing as he worships the gods of this world, and praises Muhammad is not to replace him. The answer is to earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.)
False teachers... One wonders if one of the marks of a false teacher within the church is that he departs from earnestly contending for the faith as the answer to society's ills?
Articles by Dr. Paul Cates, unless otherwise noted.
[Some time ago, the Indianapolis Star (Indianapolis is the home of Eli Lilly), about how drug companies make their money by inventing diseases and phobias in order to create a drug to deal with their invention.]
The federal government spends nearly $1 billion a month to fight the war on drugs. But while we focus on eradicating illicit drugs, we ignore the worsening problem of over-medication.
From 1998 to 2002, sales of antidepressants increased 73 percent to more than $12 billion, and sales of analeptics (drugs that stimulate the central nervous system, such as Ritalin and Adderall) increased 167 percent, according to IMS Health, a pharmaceutical information and consulting firm.
Even more distressing, physicians wrote more than 1 million
Prescriptions for Strattera, a nonstimulant treatment for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, in its first six months on the market.
Something is very wrong here. These dramatic increases in the sales of these pharmaceuticals not only suggest that Americans are well on their way to becoming depressed, anxiety-ridden and incapable of the focus necessary to understand the world in which we live, but also that we are on our way to becoming a drug-dependent nation.
No one would deny that ADHD, depression and anxiety disorders afflict millions of Americans. But to what degree? Through a combination of pharmaceutical companies' increased marketing, quick diagnoses from physicians and lack of proper referrals from doctors, we are simply inundating incredible numbers of people with unprecedented medication.
The issue is all the more sensitive and heartrending when it comes to our children. According to the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, a study of 900,000 youths showed that the number of children taking psychiatric drugs more than doubled in one group and tripled in the two others over a 10-year period ending in 1996.
"Any time a child reads a little more slowly, we're talking learning disability and administering Ritalin," says Dr. Arthur Caplan, chair of the department of medical ethics at the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine. "Or any time a kid acts up a bit, instead of giving him detention, we're drugging him. These are definitely problems in that it's expensive, it may not address the cause of the problem, and I've never met a drug yet, including aspirin, that didn't have some side effects."
In other words, some pharmaceuticals create greater problems than they treat. In June, British drug officials, later backed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, warned physicians and consumers that GlaxoSmithKline's antidepressant Paxil carries a substantial risk of prompting teenagers and children to consider suicide. Two months later, Wyeth warned doctors of the same risks in its Effexor. U.S. sales of both drugs totaled nearly $4 billion last year.
The driving force behind the surge is aggressive direct-to-consumer advertising, Caplan says. Following the relaxation of a 30-year drug marketing agreement in 1997, pharmaceutical companies have tripled their annual advertising to consumers; resulting in a 37-percent increase is sales of prescription stimulants for children. Also, roughly one-third of adults have asked their doctor about a drug they saw advertised, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
And those doctors are quick to dole out prescriptions. According to the
American Psychiatric Association, primary-care physicians now write
Upwards of 60 percent of all antidepressant prescriptions.
"I think (doctors are) just overwhelmed now with too much
marketing," Caplan says, "and it drives them toward
too much prescribing,"
In fact, American consumers, mostly children, account for more
than 90 percent of global consumption of such stimulants.
"If we have four or five times the learning disability or depression or
Other neurotic illnesses that the Europeans do," Caplan says, "then
Either we got a really bad gene pool through immigration, or we're over-medicating."
A crisis looms. The pharmaceutical companies, the FDA and Congress must confront this issue now, and the physicians' credo is an appropriate starting point: First, does no harm. That concept simply must take precedence over profit motives and casual prescriptions.
New reviews of research suggest drugs' benefits oversold
By Shankar Vedantam
Updated: 12:33 a.m. ET April 18, 2004
The number of depressed American children being treated with antidepressants has soared over the past decade -- a tectonic shift in the practice of psychiatry -- but new scientific reviews of the research that fueled the trend suggest that the drugs' benefits have been dramatically oversold.
The use of antidepressants among children grew three- to tenfold between 1987 and 1996, data from various studies indicate, and a newer survey found a further 50 percent rise in prescriptions between 1998 and 2002. The explosion in antidepressant use occurred even though the vast majority of clinical trials have failed to prove that the medicines help depressed children.
The spike in prescriptions over the past five years has been especially sharp among children younger than 6, even though there is virtually no clinical trial data on these youngest patients.
Paradoxically, drugs that have never shown benefits for depressed children in clinical trials have some of the largest increases in prescription rates. Pediatric prescriptions for Paxil, for example, doubled between 1998 and 2002, even though the medicine failed to show it was any better than dummy pills in three trials. The drug has not been approved for use in children, and last year the Food and Drug Administration and British health authorities warned physicians not to prescribe Paxil for children, citing safety concerns.
Paxil is not alone. Of 15 trials conducted among depressed children, 10 failed to show antidepressants were better than dummy pills. Two were inconclusive, and three showed positive results. The negative results have mostly been withheld from public scrutiny by the pharmaceutical companies that paid for the trials, which say that the data are proprietary.
Although many psychiatrists swear by the drugs in children and adults, leading specialists agree they have limitations.
"These drugs are by and large efficacious, but they are only moderately efficacious," said Steven Hyman, former chief of the National Institute of Mental Health.
"A lot of clinical trials for antidepressants fail," added Hyman, now provost at Harvard University. "Partly that's the difficulty of trials in a waxing and waning disease, but we also need drugs of greater intrinsic efficacy."
Different measures of improvement
Prozac remains the only antidepressant that the FDA has approved for children's depression, after the agency accepted two studies that demonstrated the drug worked better than dummy pills.
But an FDA internal analysis of the trials found Prozac failed on the statistical measure that researchers had originally chosen as their primary benchmark: "The evidence for efficacy based on the pre-specified endpoint is not convincing."
Senior officials at the agency, however, concluded that the improvement on another measure justified approval. For one of the studies, a senior official, Russell Katz, wrote in July 2001 that "one could argue that this post hoc choice of primary outcome is inappropriate," but in the end he and others said that this was the proper benchmark.
Australian researchers writing this month in the British Medical Journal reviewed the published studies of Prozac and other drugs and concluded they were consistently weak. The review charged that researchers doing the studies had selectively dramatized successes and glossed over problems.
Another analysis this month in the journal Psychiatric Services said the drugs had only modest benefits, with "many treated patients continuing to experience symptoms." The report tracked antidepressant prescription increases among children with private health insurance.
"When a patient takes a medicine or a family physician or a pediatrician prescribes medicine, their understanding when they hear this medicine works is they believe, 'My child will recover from depression,' " said Jane Garland, head of the mood and anxiety disorders clinic at the British Columbia Children's Hospital in Vancouver.
"But the data says they are not going to get any better than on a placebo," she said. "They will have some improvement in symptoms, which is a good thing, but it means there is clearly more than medication needed for treatment."
Concerns over the quality of the data have been heightened by a recent warning by British health authorities that urged caution in using the drugs, citing indications that they may cause suicidal behavior.
"The risk-benefit ratio starts to look dodgy," Jon Jureidini, a child psychiatrist at the Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide, said in an interview. "But if you look at the published literature, you can be forgiven for not reaching that conclusion."
'I don't know what to believe'
The American psychiatric establishment firmly supports the drugs -- even those not specifically approved by the FDA for children. Psychiatrists say children's depression is severely undertreated.
Most psychiatrists say that the fears about suicide risk are overreactions. Patients who suddenly stop taking medicine without consulting their doctors could put themselves at risk, Harvard's Hyman and other physicians say. Many doctors are convinced the drugs save lives.
The review in Psychiatric Services said that growing awareness about depression, better diagnosis and incentives by insurance companies in favor of medication rather than talk therapy may have fueled the rise in drug treatment. Although the drugs are also used for anxiety and other conditions, depression accounts for the majority, the review said.
The report also cited doctors' belief that positive data from adult studies can be extrapolated to children. In a 1999 letter to Prozac's manufacturer, however, the FDA expressed "substantial concern about the ability to extrapolate positive antidepressant findings from adult to pediatric patients."
"I'm not anti-drug, but I don't know what to believe," said Wayne Blackmon, a Washington psychiatrist who worries that clinicians have been fed misleading data. "Once you start delving into it, you start going, 'Oh no, no, no -- this is not valid.' "
Across the board in clinical trials of antidepressants, about half of all depressed children improve whether they are on a drug or a placebo (dummy pill). And new evidence suggests that the placebo effect -- the tendency to get better when patients believe a treatment will help -- may be even greater in the real world, because patients deemed susceptible to placebos are screened out of clinical trials.
While supporters and critics of the medicines present the issue in black-and-white terms, the data from clinical trials paint a complicated picture.
In one of the two trials of Prozac used to win FDA approval, for example, the original benchmark was recovery -- how many depressed children recovered on Prozac compared with dummy pills. The difference was not statistically significant.
But Prozac's manufacturer, Eli Lilly & Co. , then evaluated how many children improved by 30 percent on a commonly used scale to measure depression. Among children taking Prozac, 58.3 percent had a 30 percent improvement, whereas only 31.9 percent of those on dummy pills improved that much. By this new measure, the difference was statistically significant, and the company claimed success.
Average improvement
The internal FDA statistical analysis, however, found the difference vanished when officials looked at how many children improved by 10 percent. And there was again no difference when they evaluated how many children had a 50 percent improvement: "The largest treatment effects was found when 20 percent or 30 percent cut-off points were chosen," an FDA statistician wrote.
Within the FDA, officials also worried that the group of depressed children who got Prozac included a large number who also suffered from anxiety, raising questions about the validity of the results. FDA officials also said a nurse with access to codes showing who got the drug was involved in evaluating two patients, a potential bias.
In the end, however, senior FDA officials concluded that the drug had succeeded on yet another measure, which they said was the best way to evaluate antidepressants -- the average improvement on the children's depression scale.
FDA officials Thomas Laughren, team leader for psychiatric drug products, and Robert Temple, associate director of medical policy, said in a recent interview that the children with anxiety did not undermine the result. While the study had been conducted as an academic research project, not an industry-sponsored trial, FDA officials said they had confidence in it.
"There is nothing to suggest this was not a rigorously conducted study," Laughren said. Eli Lilly spokeswoman Jennifer Yoder said the company stands behind its drug.
Part of the problem for doctors and parents trying to evaluate the data is that experts starkly disagree on the statistics. Graham Emslie, for example, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who conducted the two positive trials for Prozac, said six antidepressant studies in children showed benefits; the FDA counted three.
Emslie co-chaired a panel of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology that declared in January that the drugs are safe and effective for depressed children.
However, at least one manufacturer, Wyeth, has itself told doctors not to prescribe its drug Effexor for children. Philip Perera, medical director at Glaxo SmithKline, which makes Paxil, said: "Our point of view with respect to pediatrics is that it is still up in the air."
Jureidini's analysis in the British Medical Journal, which examined six published trials for Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and Effexor, found that of 42 measures used to evaluate patients in these studies, only 14 showed a statistical advantage for the medicine over placebo.
The psychiatrist, who himself prescribes the medicines to children -- but rarely -- said the moderate benefits of the drugs have been oversold. He blamed pharmaceutical industry marketing and the alliances the industry has made with top psychiatrists: Once prominent doctors said they supported the medicines, general practitioners and the public accepted the conclusion, Jureidini said.
The researcher said that doctors had a subtle -- but powerful -- bias: "There's this kind of view that we all know antidepressants work and if the research doesn't support that, there must be something wrong with the research."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4767786/
Dr Cates holds a B.A.-Psychology; M.A.-Special Education: Teaching
the Child with Learning Disabilities, and a P.H.D.-Curriculum
& Instruction. He is available for meetings. Contact: Dr.
Paul Cates, EFEA, Rt 2, Box 61 A, Poplar Creek Rd., Oliver Springs,
TN 37840. (615) 435-6185 or 435-6739.
Government Schools - Propaganda from Reconstruction to the Present
http://www.patriotist.com/benson.htm
The federal government's use of education as an instrument of propaganda was quite blatant during the War of Northern Aggression. John Chodes, in an article published in Chronicles in March of 1989, noted that the Morrill Act had passed the Congress in 1862. Of this act he has written:
"It's stated objective was to fund colleges that teach agriculture and mechanical arts, via money raised through federal land-grant sales. The true objective was to bring the Northern perspective to the reconquered areas of the South, to teach the rebel's children 'respect for national authority' - to break their rebellious spirit forever. The three R's had absolutely nothing to do with this landmark bill." Senator Justin Morrill, to explain why he authored and pushed this act said "The role of the national government is to mold the character of the American people." No, Senator Morrill - such should never be the role of the national governmrent - that was never what it was intended for! However, we can see from such a statement that, even back in the 1860s, there were many in the Yankee government that viewed that government as a sort of secular messiah, responsible for teaching the ignorant American public what and how to think.
Government schools run by the Freedmen's Bureau took over education in the South after the war was ended. Mr. Chodes noted that "The Freedmen's Bureau had a big education budget. This was the first direct federal aid to schooling." And he reiterated again that "The three R's took a backseat; destruction of the Democratic Party was the highest objective. New textbooks were created and all subjects taught from this perspective...The bureau's mandate was only to teach blacks. But it was imperative to change the values of the Southern whites. There was less concern for their racism than for their ability to make war again." And, as far as their racism, it was equally shared by the rest of the country as well - the South was far from alone in that respect. So government, or public schools in the South started as a major engine of the "reconstruction" program. Their real objective was not true education, but to make sure that "the rebel's children" were taught never again to make war against a federal government that had usurped their rights and long since stepped over its constitutional boundaries. In other words the government schools were [and are] present to make sure each succeeding generation of Southern children accepts the defeat of their forefathers and to condition them for additional usurpation of their rights without complaint. This program worked so well in the South that it has since been applied to the rest of the country, and it has been done with such subtlety that most parents in all regions never even realize it has happened - sort of a "quiet revolution."
Columnist Karen De Coster more recently has said much the same thing, noting that: "Public education is based on the idea that government is the 'parent' best equipped to provide children with the values and wisdom required to grow into an intelligent, functional adult." She also observed: "...the archetype for state-directed education was popularized by nineteenth-century state worshippers who wanted to impose a love of big government ideals upon the youth." This is no different than what was done in the South. Miss De Coster concluded her article with the suggestion that "It's high time that the public resist the inherent dangers of continuing on a path toward a more socialized, bureaucratic, and just plain immoral taxpayer-funded public school system." I couldn't agree more, but I don't expect that to happen anytime soon. The decades of "reconstruction" via propaganda that have been the legacy of this present generation has removed from the vast majority of them the ability to see and understand what is going on. They have not been taught the ability of assessing the present educational situation. They have only been conditioned to complain to the school system if something happens they don't like, and when informed that nothing can be done about their complaint, they will settle back and learn to live with the situation. The original thought of removing their children from such an educational morass never occurs to them. They have not been conditioned to think independently in those terms. After all, if secession was "treason" back in 1861, wouldn't it be just as treasonous today to remove your children from an educational system that has taught you that it really has your best interests at heart?And, over the years, the finely tuned are off scamming the public for more money [as well as the souls of their children] for public education has been refined. Now they want money for all manner of things that will, supposedly, produce "quality education." I am acquainted with a government school teacher in one of our sister Southern states, which will have to remain anonymous, lest this lady lose her job. Among other things, she has informed me that "Another thing that is used to get more money is 'We need more technology.' I don't really see the need for all the computers in school. There's too much to sort through in order to use the Internet to research. Books work just as well. I do enjoy using the computers, but I'm not sure if it increases the quality of education by a substantial amount." She has noted of the high schools in her area that "Once the kids get out of elementary school the teachers have not seemed to care about them as a person at all. It is sort of an assembly line teaching method where everyone is a number." And she concludes her remarks with "As far as the indoctrination goes it is very high at [the local high school.] Probably because alot of the teachers are married to liberal [college professors.]" She notes, in her own case, that "I didn't realize how much propaganda I got in school until I was grown and thought about some of the things we were taught back in the ERA days...I wish more people could realize how much brainwashing goes on." This from someone who is part of the system and sees the problems with the propaganda the kids are getting! This lady is not some "right-wing fanatic" but rather a concerned teacher who sees what's going on in the schools every day, and she labels it "propaganda." If this is the best the government schools can do, might I suggest that we don't need it? If you wish to have your children educated rather than indoctrinated, you must secede from the government school system and find a Christian alternative. There are plenty of them out there.