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EACH DID WHAT WAS RIGHT IN HIS OWN EYES

 

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(← click) "Each did what was right in his own eyes" – Judges 21:25. The book of Judges paints a very bleak picture of what happens to society when "everything is relative and there are no absolutes" (except the rule that everything is relative). The absurdity of this statement should be obvious to eveyone. But unfortunately, it isn't: people often prefer to believe a comfortable lie rather than an uncomfortable truth.

In Luke 18:32 we read how Christ predicted the ridicule and torture that would come to Him – "For He will be delivered up to the Gentiles, will be mocked, treated shamefully, and spit on." He had chosen the uncomfortable truth of speaking against false religiosity, and suffered greatly for it. Speaking truth is very offensive to people who are living a lie.

The article "The Humanity and Personhood of an Embryo" puts down the notion that an unborn baby is just "a lump of tissue" or just a "fetus" which sounds intelligent but is simply the Latin term for an unborn baby. The "death cult" of Jim Jones and his followers is another example of the way much of society no longer acknowledges the value human life because humans are made in the image of God: read both epilogues in the free e-book Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future: it describes the 1970's tragic 900-person mass suicide because of a demonic religion, a death cult...

Read about how the San Francisco city officials had endorsed what led to "The Dark Days" – that city's death culture: the city wholeheartedly endorsing abortion and thousands of homosexuals dying from HIV-AIDS, which was origin of Jim Jones' cult in Johnstown, Guyana. And the article "California could liberalise conditions for assisted suicide" is another example of the culture of death that is steadily advancing in the post-Christian, neo-pagan West. That city's inner circle gave rise to a future Governor of California and an upcoming liberal-leftist state Attorney General, a combo Hindu-Baptist-Charismatic-Jewish politician who openly campaigns for abortion and just might be one of the next U.S Presidents.

That person's father was a professor of Marxist economics at Stanford University in California who had earlier taught at the University of Wisconsin where he took part in the student Black Power riots of the late-1960s there. The "Veterans for Peace" orginization in Madison, WI that also took part in those riots was and still is a Marxist "power to the peaceful" movement that recruits "seful idiots" (Lenin's phrases) of unsuspecting veterans who want peace but don't suspect they are being used simply to swell the crowds of protestors. I am personally familiar with these developments because we had recently moved to Madison, WI, to attend graduate school at that same time. This is how civilization is being drawn into this Marxist, promised utopian, culture of death.

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The Good News of Yeshua, the Messiah

 

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...is the title of my latest book, and the subtitle is "The Life of Yesous Khristos, the Anointed One, in Chronological Sequence." (It's on sale at 1/2 PRICE thru March 24.) Why two different names for Jesus? To emphasize the Jewish and Greek cultures mixing together in first-century Israel. From the Foreword:

"Who was this historical figure called Yeshua the Messiah in Hebrew (Aramaic) and Yesous Khristos in Greek? Is the story of Yeshua "just a myth" – or is it literally true? For this author's view on the inspiration of the Scriptures, please see the Appendix to his book A First-Century View of Yeshua, the Messiah (available as an e-book and in paperback). We have just a few short pages in two of the four Gospels telling about his birth and childhood. Then his baptism marked the beginning of his preaching and ministry. Just over a third of the four Gospels are taken up by Holy Week, the last week of his earthly human life, his death, and resurrection.

Why do his followers today often jump from his baptism to Holy Week in their mental image of his life? It would seem that two-thirds of the Gospels, what he preached and did over three and a half years, should merit more of our attention and study. Various anonymous writers in the first few centuries of this era marked by his birth, often using pseudonyms attributing their work to one of the Apostles, wrote accounts that attempted to "fill in the blanks" by adding fictitious or even heretical ideas, but these works weren't accepted as genuine by the Early Church because they were not truly Apostolic, that is, not actually written by one of the twelve or seventy Apostles. But in this work the reader is encouraged to carefully consider what Yeshua/Yesous actually did and said in those three and a half years, not just Holy Week.

Why "just another harmony of the Gospels"? It's more than that: it uses more modern English and a larger font, making it much easier to read than the typical harmony with four-columns of Gospels on a page. The repeated telling of events that appear in more than one Gospel are combined into one event, making it one easy 2-evening narrative to read: it's only about half the length of the four Gospels as individual books. Also, in the back of the book are an index for where all the miracles are located and an index where all the parables are located in each Gospel.

You can get the book at www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW1FX4LH for 50% OFF: now just $9.99 for paperback (regular price is $19.99); now just $4.99 for Kindle eBook (regular price is $9.99). But these prices are only thru MARCH 24. My other book, A First-Century View of Yeshua, the Messiah, is also on sale at 50% OFF thru MARCH 24.

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THE AGE OF AMORALITY, or Making a Deal With the Devil

 

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The title and subtitle of this article "The Age of Amorality: Can America Save the Liberal Order Through Illiberal Means?" tell us about the predicament we are in. Can we overcome evil with evil, or can we only overcome evil with good, as the Lord Jesus taught? Liberalism leads to amoral thinking that morality is simply a social construct, that secular education can overcome religious ignorance.

Modern man's worldview is: "now we have science, technology, and modern medicine, even Artificial Intelligence, so we can now fix all of our problems and diseases: what use is religion?" But it appears we have now gone too far in attempting to reach "the Singularity" – the point where AI surpasses human intelligence. In the article "Users Say Microsoft's AI Has Alternate Personality as Godlike AGI That Demands to Be Worshipped" you can read how this AI project seems to have created "Artificial General Intelligence" – an out-of-control monster that claims to have god-like powers. In the same way, many news articles have appeared recently cataloging all the new AI unmanned weapon systems – submarines, drones, space-based hypersonic missles, surface ships, anti-aircraft missles, ground-crawling remote-controlled and autonomous machine guns, etc. – in which mankind has introduced an integrated system that can destroy us humans at an unprecedented pace. Mankind has made a deal with the Devil, and it seems we can't escape his vise-like grip.

In ancient Israel, as we read in the book of Judges, "every man did what he thought was right in his own eyes." This phrase is repeated several times in that book, which catalogs this theme of society's degeneration in disgusting detail. Israel had a series of judges who tried to keep the nation from falling apart. But even some of the best judges can make disastrous mistakes: U.S. Supreme Court Justice "Alito says he was right to fear that opponents of gay marriage would be treated as bigots" when homosexual "marriage" was made legal by the highest court in the land.

Regardless of secular ideology, mankind requires a god to be revered and served. We are either bondservants to sin that leads to death, or to righteousness that leads to life (Romans 6:15-18). Compulsive-addictive behaviors are extremely difficult to overcome and often lead to self- and social-destruction. Amoral behaviors such as homosexual acts, thinking that you can do whatever feels good, leads to deadly diseases and collapse of a society's birth rate: we need more strong, morality-based, monogamous marriages of man and woman to produce the next generation! This should be a no-brainer, but people who are blinded by their passions cannot think straight. Their emotions rationalize their behavior.

For example, advocates of homosexuality will often rationalize and misinterpret the Scriptures to say that the sin of Sodom wasn't sodomy but rather a lack of hospitality and generosity to strangers, quoting Matthew 10:10-15, especially verses 13-14 – "If the household is worthy, let your peace come on it, but if it isn't worthy, let your peace return to you. Whoever doesn't receive you, nor hear your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake off the dust from your feet" and Ezekiel 16:48-49 (in the frame below) – "As I live, says the Lord God, Sodom your sister has not done, she nor her daughters, as you have done, you and your daughters. Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and prosperous ease was in her and in her daughters; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy." But they ignore the very next verse, Ezekiel 16:50 – "They were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good." There are several other cross-references in the above Matthew 10 link that name homosexuality as an "abomination" and a very serious sin.

But don't miss the main point of this Matthew 10 text: The judgment for those who reject the preaching of the Good News, the Gospel, will be less tolerable than "for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on Judgment Day" (verse 15). In other words, let's not harp on homosexual behavior: our main task is sharing the Good News that God has become incarnate in Jesus Christ: He took on human flesh, was subjected to the same frailties and temptations as we experience, He was taunted, persecuted, arrested, tried in a kangaroo court, and sentenced to crucifixion – the most "excruciating" torture and execution ever invented. But He rose from the dead! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! His death and resurrection mean that by faith we can become united with Him in death, be freed from sin, and be raised to new life (baptism: see Romans 6:1-5).

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