Merry Christmas!

May the peace, power, and promises of God through Jesus the Christ be with you all this holiday season - and ever after!

The memorial of the birth of Christ also reminds us not merely of the joy of a newborn babe, but of the love of God. As Paul Harvey would say, "Here's the REST of the STORY..."

That story is about the profound and marvelous life of Yeshua, the tragic and seemingly unjust death of this great man, followed by his awesome ressurection to life, his appearance, and his ascension to Heaven, the anointing of his followers with his Holy Spirit, and his trustworthy promise to return.

And how deep the Father's love for us that he should give his only Son to die in our place for the unmerited privilege of living in Him, with Him, and He in us - forever!

I don't know about you, but to me that is GOOD NEWS!


Maranatha and Merry Christmas!

Speaking Engagement...Come hear me

This Sunday I'll be speaking at Atlanta's Church of All Nations, 650 Rowland Road in Stone Mountain, GA., at 1:00pm. Come out and hear me preach the dynamic word of God and deliver God's special message to you and for you.

I look forward to seeing you this Sunday!

Baruch Hashem and Soli Deo Gloria!

Been Busy!

My apologies to all those who peruse the BallPointBlog from time to time. I haven't posted a thing in three weeks! Well, besides being a minister (I am bi-vocational), I work in the retail industry. Of course, one day I'd like to be full time. Please pray for me in that regard, will you? But since it is Christmas time you can imagine how busy I've been. I have tons of things to talk about and throw out to you, including a short article I am working on regarding America's covenant with God and Israel.

I know that 99% of you do not care to respond to my musings and diatribes - but that's quite OK with me! The blog was never intended to be a dialog. It is however from my heart and mind to yours!

Baruch Hashem! Soli deo Gloria! and Merry Christmas!

Obama: Ordained of God? You Betcha!

Of course, if one believes in the doctrine of the complete sovereignty of God, as I do, it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that Barack Obama's presidency was ordained. The real question that many Christians are right now having a challenging time answering is whether or not Obama is God's choice for America. That is to say, if God were choosing the best person to right now lead America - would Obama be it?

The difficulty in that question lies in the unfolding of what we think God's will is for the nation and the people. Jim Bramlett's article in InJesus.com comes to the conclusion that Barack Obama may be a Saul - handsome, debonair, a looker, but ultimately not the king God would choose.

I take a different track. The track I take is based on the belief that God will permit evil to flourish in a godly nation in order to cause them to turn back to Him in repentence. That is to say, God will actively cause havoc to reign to bring about both His immediate and long-term purposes. I firmly believe God is an "actor" in the world today, as He was yesterday, and as He ill be at the end of the Age.

Exhibit "A" would be the nation of Israel in the Book of Judges. The "five-fold cycle" in Judges was something like this:

1. Israel forgot God's promises and turned to idolatry (forgetfulness and idolatry)
2. God gave them into the hands of their enemies (oppression)
3. They cried out to God for deliverance (outcry and promise to repent)
4. God raised up a judge to deliver them (deliverance by God)
5. When that judge died, they would return to idolatry (recidivism)

Martin Luther offered this point with regard to the raging problem of his day - militant Islam: "As a religion Islam is either a scourge sent by the devil - or worse - sent from God." In Luther's view God used Islam as a "rod" to both chasten and judge his Christian people. This is to say that God does raise up people, nations, and individuals for purposes that are not apparently good to those believers who suffer at their hands.

So it follows then that when the peace, safety, comfort, ease, and finances of God's people are disrupted - and we yet abide in and tolerate gross sin in our midst - we may most assuredly conclude that God is behind the disruption.

Whether it is...

Passive
- if you do "X" - then the dreadful consequences of doing "X" follow
If you be willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land: But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD has spoken it. (Isa. 1)

or

Active
- I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things"(Isa. 45:7)
- Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the LORD (Amos; Jer.)

I believe God raised up the Pharisees, the advocates of zeal for god's Law - so that His Son may be glorified in teaching Israel - and us - about His love and grace.

I believe God raised up and chose Herod the Great, a king committed to the transformation of Israel into a Rome of their day - a move that only incensed and stirred the Jewish people into rebellion against the Romans leading to and culminating in the Jewish War which saw the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD. A fall that God had prophesied in the book of Jeremiah.

I also believe God raised up Adolf Hitler. Suffice it to say on this very sensitive subject that without the worldwide scourge of the wicked Third Reich, the conditions for the creation of the modern nation of Israel would most certainly not have existed - and thus Israel, a modern miracle - would not have been born.

Barack Obama may quite possibly have been raised up for the nation's good - in that peace and prosperity will arrive with him and the nation is blessed. Then we may know for sure that God is with him and us. Only time will tell.

But the problem with this line of thinking - and there are many who think this way - is that there are clear violations of God's moral laws in the positions that Barack Obama has either endorsed or defended. Issues related to -
- Homosexuality
- Adultery
- the sanctity of Human Life
- Murder
- Religious worship
- Idolatry

But it follows, conversely, that if the people of God, i.e., "His nation" suffer and are waylaid as a result of Obama's (or the liberal Democratic Party's) policies, practices, affections, or rule, we may rightly say that Obama was sent by God to scourge and chasten the people. It may be for our ultimate good that these sufferings will drive us to God; but of course, such things are never pleasant. It is a foreboding of bad times to come.

An additional problem confounding the matter is that we cannot say for sure what God is doing in the life of Barack Obama, the man. Is he even saved? If not, what makes anyone believe that God is with him? Do we even know if the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his pastor of 20 years, is saved? If he is not, then Obama certainly is not. We do know that Black Liberation theology is hardly Christian. It is fringe Christianity. It is Liberal Christianity. And because liberal theologians like to play footsie with so much that is not sound doctrine, I think it's fair to call into question basic issues of salvation with them, like we do with the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormoms. There is so much we don't know about Obama the sojourner, now President-elect.

The question for me then, isn't whether or not Obama is God's choice, the question is for what purpose has God raised him up to lead us? To heal or to scourge? To gather or to scatter?


Matt. 12:30
"He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathers not with me scatters abroad."


C.S. Lewis wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

Attack on the Covenant People...

The recent terrorist attack in Mumbai was yet another in a series of violent Satanic outbursts against humanity in general and the Covenant people of God in particular. I don't like to read too much into an article but this line caught my eye:

"Their main targets appeared to be Americans, Britons and Jews, though most of the dead seemed to be Indians and foreign tourists caught in the random gunfire."


Jews? Why the Jews? In India? Of all places. I didn't even realize there were Jews in India until I recalled an anti-Semitic remark a Bible college professor of mine once said to his OT theology class. "No matter where you go in this world, there are two things you can always find - an empty Coke can and a Jew." Yeah, it stunk then too.

But an article I read from a Jewish website suggests that many Jews seem to have come to some rational conlusion as to why world hatred has historically been directed against them.

At Sinai Jews were told that there is one God, [one] who makes moral demands on all of humanity. Consequently, at Sinai the Jewish nation became the target for the hatred of those whose strongest drive is to liberate mankind from the shackles of conscience and morality. At Sinai the Jewish nation was appointed to be "a light unto the nations." There are those who embrace Jews and the Jewish faith because of that light; but there are also those who want the world to be a place of spiritual darkness. They object to morality. Those would-be harbingers of darkness attack the Jews as the lightning rod for their hatred.

Now, however, I would argue that the vast majority of Americans and Britons have no idea why they are the targets of so much terrorist hatred. The roots of the relationship of Britain and America with Israel are deeply spiritual - beginning with Christ - and hence, the spirit of anti-Christ which moves like a wind through the children of destruction to do violence to both Jews and Christians. It's motive is to uproot the Jews from their land, separate America and Britian from Israel, and ultimately silence the Jewish pulse from Christianity. The ultimate point is that the Jews must go.

You see this in supercessionism, especially, (and is one of the reasons I have separated myself from Presbyterianism) in anti-semitism among some Christians - whose roots that date back to the Marcion heresy, incidentally. But I'd like to call attention to the identity of the American nation and the British nation(s). This identity is an identity of covenant relationship with Israel under God and is under attack. Unfortunately it is seldom noticed. People riot and American and British flags are burned in the streets and all folks can say is American political "policies" are to blame. American "ideology" is at fault. Yeah, right. My argument is that ideology and policy follow - at least nationally - from identity. Who you are profoundly affects what you think and believe. And who you are spiritually affects your destiny.

Very rarely does anyone point out that the relationship with Christians and their Jewish brethren is spiritual and relational before it is ideological and political. Romans 11 bears this out. The gospels bear this out. The concealed nature of this relationship is one that the enemies of God would rather not see revealed - Hitler excepting.

The Jews are our kinfolk. Period, point-blank. Our kinship to them is indissoluble. One may as well tear the Bible in two or tear the Savior from his Jewish roots before any separation can be made. (I realize most people don't think like this, but God's enemies do!)

And so it follows from the logic that America and Britain, as "Christian nations" whose relationship with modern Israel and its capital, Jerusalem - founded by the British General Sir Allenby, sealed by Britain's Balfour Agreement, recognized - alone - by America in 1948 are in a deep, profound sense related to the people of Israel. Thus the explanation for the ideological and political lockstep in favor of Jewish interests in the Middle East.

Thus the terrorists wrath. America had better wake up. It positively stinks when you've got a Covenant with God and the Prince of this World has been loosed.

Rev. 12:5-6, 14
And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up to God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three score days. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.

Religion under attack...

Most folks who've studied their history may already know that the United States of America was founded as an Enlightenment-style democratic republic. However, much greater consideration should be given to the fact that we were - and are - a covenant nation as well. A covenant means that an agreement of meaningful and solemn proportions was been made. This agreement was made with the God of Heaven and Earth. How else to explain this country's unique Christian sensibilities?

Religious symbols and mottos abound in our states. Religious ceremony and prayers initiate our Congressional sessions. Our national songs are rich with religious references. There is a church on every corner in most of our towns and cities.

America has a relationship with God - and whether anyone likes it or not - that relationship cannot be revoked without grave cost. The religious sensibility of Americans has been noted many foreign observers throughout history. Today, the Jerusalem Post reports from a poll done by the Anti-Defamtion League that a majority of Americans are feeling a sense of values attack.

And though the poll is geared to measure the level of anti-semitism involved in American's sense of who's responsible for the values attack, it is refreshing to note most Americans don't think the Jews are behind it. Of course, Hollywood is cited as a hostile player and I'm pretty sure for the next four years a Democratically dominated Washington, D.C. - whose campaigns have been financed largely by Hollywood elites - will be of little help.

We shall see...


Amos 3:1-3
Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

Black America: Sheep in Wolves Clothing

I didn't really want to write this, but I am compelled to address the spectacular contradiction of Black Christian allegiance to biblical truth and a liberal political worldview that I think is best illustrated by the phrase "sheep in wolves clothing".

What triggered my thoughts (and exasperation) on this issue was that fact that polls showed that in California, perhaps the most liberal state in the Union, the Proposition 8 Initiative that essentially outlawed gay "marriage" in the state, was defeated largely by African-Americans. It's true. Oh yeah, and you'll hear about the enormous funding from the Mormon church and so on, but Prop. 8 opponents (pro-gay marriage) outspent the supporters by 16 million dollars (45 mil to 29 mill), so the problem wasn't the Mormons nor was it money. The problem was that Obama's core support, African-Americans, voted in favor of the proposition 70% to 30%. Put another way, if Blacks had only voted consistently with their liberal leanings - and consistent with the leanings of their candidate of choice, Barack Obama - Proposition 8 would have gone down to a miserable defeat.

And gays would have enshrined homosexuality as the law of the land in the nation's largest state and perhaps in Florida and Arizona, who also shot down pro-gay marriage initiatives. But this didn't happen, and hence my point.

Gays everywhere publically protesting against the Mormon Church (and by implication against all biblically believing Christians), but privately they have to be miffed at African-Americans in general and the Civil Rights lobby in particular which failed to deliver their liberal votes for their principal Equal Rights issue.

But here's what I don't get. How is it that African-Americans, largely a conservative Protestant Christian people, can find in their consciences to elect to the highest office in the country a man whose policies are so diametrically opposed to what they say they value? Put another way, are Blacks politically and socially liberal - or are they not? Do we prefer the false comfort of somehow being politically liberal yet socially conservative?

Of course, it is well-known from past elections that Blacks tend to vote the Democratic slate virtually "straight-ticket". But I admit to being quite surprised that Barack Obama - a liberal's liberal - can garner near unanimous support from a people whom the polls show are largely anti-gay ("homophobic" using today's PC terminology); who attend Bible-believing churches regularly; are largely anti-abortion (though they have them disproportionately); anti-evolution in their worldview; who tend to favor lower taxes; who are the recipients of the largest middle class properity growth in recorded history from 1980 - 2005 (under mostly conservative Republican governance, btw OK?); and who favor strong law and order law initiatives. Because, because, because, fellow Christians, Barack Obama doesn't favor any of these values.

Why do we persist in voting with the side that opposes our prosperity and weal, values that come from the godly application of the promises of the Bible?

Now, the forces of darkness have agitated the gays. Protesters have hit the streets almost daily since the Tuesday defeat. And in a strategic sense they are justified in their anger at this latest "betrayal", but they have targeted the wrong group for their protests. It's not the Mormons, a publically conservative religious group that has never been friendly to homosexuals. It is African-Americans who have let them down. (Personally, I want the gay community to "call out" African-American voters. See who's on who's side.) Their protest marches should be right out in front of the offices of the California, Florida, and Arizona chapters of the NAACP and other African-American institutions (and churches) who campaigned for the same liberal ticket as they did, but who secretly shot down a centerpiece liberal Equal Rights initiaitive in the voting booth.

You can call it the "Prop 8 Effect". Or you might say the gays got "Bradleyed."

Whatever the case, the larger point is this: gays instinctively sense that liberals should stick together on values issues. After all, liberals are tolerant, right? But Black folks - largely Christians - hold conservative values that are shaped mostly by belief in the Bible, as I earlier listed. Strangely, they seem to have other ideas when they vote the liberal ticket.

One thing is apparent though. This latest Black Christian voting pattern didn't see the relationship between politics and values. That's why I call them sheep in wolves clothing.

The sad thing is I truly believe Barack "that's above my paygrade" Obama does see the relationship. As do Rev. Jeremiah Wright, James Cone, Louis Farrakhan, and many Liberation, Black Liberation, Gay Christians, and Liberal Christians. They see the relationship all too clearly. And it is they who will expand their vision for America by dismantling the conservative values African-Americans have traditionally held. Why? Because they now have a friend in the White House. How? Already, there is talk of the use of Presidential executive orders to speed agendas through. Barack is ready to "rule".

Can you say "last days apostacy"?

Remember, Hitler came to power democratically but governed through emergency decrees.

A warning to all Black Christians: Sheep don't make good wolves.

1 Kings 18:21
"And Elijah came to all the people, and said, How long halt you between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him...

...and the people answered him not a word."