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American Thinker

The Branch Carbonian Cult

The Global Warming Movement (AGW) has taken on the worrisome attributes of a pseudo-religious cult, which operates far more on the basis of an apocalyptic “belief” system than on objective climate science.

Since this worldwide Movement and its strident policies of Less Energy at Higher Prices (in order to achieve reductions in everyone’s “carbon footprint”) are at the heart of America’s enormous energy shortfall, it poses a national security threat of major proportions.

And in this context, the AGW Crusade should be understood in a “Know Thy Enemy” frame of reference — perhaps not in terms of a fully conscious or intentional enemy of the American people at a time of war and economic crisis but as a deadly threat to our economic stability and national security, nonetheless.

Kingdom of the Cults

Here, therefore, in far more detail than any routine allegation of “cultism” conveys, are no fewer than ten of this AGW ideology’s very specific characteristics, many of whose roots and lock-step influences can be found in Walter Martin’s and Ravi Zacharias’ definitive, award-winning 2003 book, “Kingdom of the Cults:”

1. Leadership by a self-glorifying, manipulative New Age Prophet — in this case, former Vice-President Al Gore, though he is rapidly being supplanted by President Barack Obama.

2. Assertion of an apocalyptic threat to all mankind.

3. An absolutist definition of both the threat and the proposed solution(s).

4. Promise of a salvation from this pending apocalypse.

5. Devotion to an inspired text which (arguendo) embodies all the answers — in this case, Prophet Gore’s pseudo-scientific book “Earth in the Balance” and his more recent “An Inconvenient Truth” documentary.

6. A specific list of “truths” (see the Ten Commandments listed below) which must be embraced and proselytized by all Cult members..

7. An absolute intolerance of any deviation from any of these truths by any Cult member.

8. A strident intolerance of any outside criticism of the Cult’s definition of the problem or of its proposed solutions.

9. A “Heaven-on-Earth” vision of the results of the mission’s success and/or a “Hell-on-Earth” result if the cultic mission should fail.

10. An inordinate fear (and an outright rejection of the possibility) of being proven wrong in either the apocalyptic vision or the proposed salvation.

Prophet Gore’s (and now Prophet Obama’s) Ten Commandments

With this half of the AGW Cult’s self-definition now clearly established, here is the other half — its Ten Commandments of “Thou-Shalt” and “Thou-Shalt-Not” absolutes — designed for keeping its devoted cultists in lockstep support and its intimidated detractors in retreat:

o Thou shalt have but one Mother Earth (Gaia) Goddess before you

o Thou shalt not worship false Prophets — especially sun cycles, ocean cycles, volcanic influences and  “Objective Science” in general

o Thou shalt never doubt catastrophic depletion of the so-called “Ozone Layer”

o Thou shalt not doubt man-made “Greenhouse Gasses” as the primary cause of GW

o Thou shalt condemn such doubters as “Extremists” and “Criminals Against Humanity”

o Thou shalt minimize, ignore and deny any and all environmental good news

o Thou shalt avoid benefit-cost evaluations of AGW solutions and never admit error or falsehood about anything

o Thou shalt continue opposing all Nuclear and new Hydro power, despite their non-GW attributes

o Thou shalt promote “zero-carbon-footprint” policies of Less Energy at Higher Prices, except for heavily subsidized ethanol

o Thou shalt engage forever in “Eeeekology” and “Eeeekonomics” (scare-tactics ecology and economics) and never, ever vote Republican

Finally, since this AGW juggernaut seems to have brainwashed a majority of Americans, most of the media and academia, a majority of the Congress and even many churches into a mind-set of support for its pseudo-religious scam, a recent Wall Street Journal’s recent conclusion that this represents a “Mass Neurosis” of a cultic nature seems alarmingly accurate.

Truths to be Ignored or Denied

On the more climatically correct side, all that is needed to begin the collapse of this house-of-cards scam is yet another list of certifiable facts and truths — one which will disprove much of the Cult’s mission, tactics and alleged “solutions” — namely,

(a)  the fact that while Arctic ice may (or may not, of late) be receding, Antarctic ice has been increasing for about 40 years

(b)  the fact that global temperatures have been on a slightly decreasing trend since 1998,

(c)  the fact that Mars (which features no man-made factor at all) is experiencing “global warming,” as well,

(d)  the fact that Antarctic “ice shelves” which occasionally break off, float away and melt at sea, do not raise ocean levels at all,

(e)  the fact that several of the “hottest years” on record were in the 1930s and 1940s, when CO2 levels were much lower than today’s,

(f)  the fact that ever more scientists assert convincingly that atmospheric CO2 is a lagging consequence, rather than a triggering cause, of alleged global warming,

(g)  the fact that all earlier glacial and inter-glacial periods were clearly caused not by man but by solar, ocean and volcanic cycles and “natural” fluctuations,

(h)  the fact that di-hydrogen oxide (H2O) molecules — water vapor — and methane molecules are 20-30 times more heat-retentive than CO2 molecules are,

(i)  the fact that termites worldwide expel about as much “greenhouse gasses” into the atmosphere as does all the burning of fossil fuels by human beings,

(j)  the fact that even if all Kyoto-type limits on CO2 were obeyed by all nations, the estimated net impact by 2050 would be less than half a degree F — with a ruinous cost-to-benefit ratio of thousands to one, when the standard requirement is no more than one to one.

Conclusion: Since every such Prophet-led, scare-mongering, pseudo-religious conspiracy needs a properly descriptive name, and since this one’s primary concerns over alleged depletion of the so-called “ozone layer” over Antarctica have shifted to a panic over CO2, instead, a fitting name for this cultic gaggle might be the “Branch Carbonian Cult” –

o  “Branch” because it is a radical offshoot from the main body of science-based environmentalism;

o  “Carbonian” because of its professed fear of carbon dioxide as a primary cause of AGW; and

o  “Cult” because of its self-evident structure and practices — which are in full accord with most elements of the typical religious cult, Branch Davidian or otherwise.

American Thinker

When Lyndon Baines Johnson was a young congressman, he saved 42 Jews from the Nazis. Indirect evidence shows that he rescued another 400 Jews, including the famed orchestra conductor Erich Leinsdorf. While Johnson didn’t risk his life to save Jews, as European non-Jews did, there are those who believe that he should be honored in Yad Vashem, Jerusalem’s Holocaust Memorial Museum, for being what the Israelis call a Righteous Gentile.

After the 1967 Arab-Israel Six Day War, when he was President, he met with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in Glassboro, New Jersey. Mr. Kosygin asked him why America supported Israel against the Arab world with all its population and with all its oil resources. LBJ replied: “Because we think it’s right.” The Russian leader shook his head in disbelief.

In June 2009, in a speech in Cairo, President Barack Obama announced a historic American tilt toward the Arab and Muslim worlds. It is too early to tell if he, unlike his predecessors, believes in what has been known as the special relationship between America and Israel, However, most of his fellow Americans still believe in it. Not only did they rejoice when President Harry Truman made the United States the first country in the world to recognize Israeli independence in  May 1948, but they  allowed  both Republican and Democratic administrations to put their tax dollars where their feelings are.

Since 1949, the United States has sent Israel over $100 billion in aid. This amount does not include funds from the Defense Department budget for joint military projects like the Arrow missile, for which Israel has received more than $1 billion since 1986. As far back as 1974, General George Keegan, a former chief of US Air Force intelligence, said that Israel’s contribution to the United States was “worth $1,000 for every dollar’s worth of aid we have granted her.” Perhaps he was thinking of the fully functioning Soviet SAM (surface to air) missile system that the Israelis captured in Egypt and shipped to the United States enabling America to counter a weapon that was shooting down U.S. airplanes during the Vietnam war. In 1979 more than 170 retired generals and admirals sent a letter to President Jimmy Carter urging him to recognize Israel as a valuable and dependable military ally.

No matter what the state of the US economy, there has never been a demand by the American people to halt or diminish US aid to Israel. There is no such demand now.

What are the historical, religious, cultural, political, and strategic reasons for all this? First of all, America’s Christians are the only ones who not only employ the term “Judeo-Christian heritage,” but who glory in its usage. Secondly, while the first British settlers in North America never called their settlements New Jerusalem, New Israel, or New Zion, as some of them had wished, as their descendants moved to the north, south, and west, they placed hundreds of Biblically derived names on the map of the future United States. Thus there is a Jericho in Alabama, an Eden in Arizona, a Samaria in Idaho, a Hebron in North Dakota, a Lake Sinai in South Dakota, a Jordan in Illinois, a Zoar in Massachusetts, an Elisha in Rhode Island, a Sodom in Ohio, a Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, a New Canaan in Connecticut, a Goshen County in Wyoming, and an Adam in Florida. Four places in four states are called Jerusalem. And no fewer than twenty-seven towns, cities, and counties are called Salem, which comes from the Hebrew word shalom, which means peace. No other country has so linked its geographic nomenclature with that of the Land of Israel.

There are historical reasons for this. The Pilgrims read the Old Testament. Some did so in Hebrew. Their interest in the Hebrew and the Old Testament was shared by other Americans in later centuries. A student who couldn’t translate the Bible from Hebrew into Latin could not in the early days get into Harvard. A teacher who knew no Hebrew couldn’t become a faculty member at King’s College, the original name of Columbia University. Hebrew was once a compulsory subject at Yale, which has the Hebrew motto Urim V’turim (Light and Truth) on its crest. Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon faith, studied Hebrew. In 1902 Secretary of State John Hay wrote a handwritten letter to an Indiana Jew in Hebrew. In the twentieth century Edmund Wilson, the great American social and literary critic, was a student of Hebrew.

Now, the United States has not supported restored Jewish sovereignty in the Middle East merely because many of its more educated Christian citizens knew Hebrew several centuries ago, or because a tiny fraction of them know it now. However, the Hebrew/Old Testament connection in America’s intellectual history certainly has nourished the soil in which America’s support for modern Israel sprouted.

During the American Revolution, clergymen compared the colonists’ fight with King George III to the plight of the ancient Israelites in the Egypt of the Pharaohs. After the Revolution, Christians in all walks of life suggested forms of governance that were similar to their perceptions of those of ancient Israel, and there were those who called for Jewish political restoration in Palestine.

In 1818 Thomas Kennedy, a Catholic legislator, asked during a presentation in favor of equality for Maryland’s Jews: “May we not hope that the banners of the children of Israel shall again be unfurled on the walls of Jerusalem on the Holy Hill of Zion?” In 1819 John Adams wrote to a Jewish citizen: “I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation.” In 1845 Brigham Young proclaimed: “The Jews among all nations are hereby commanded, in the name of the Messiah, to repair to return to Jerusalem in Palestine . . . and also to organize and establish their own political government.”

In 1891, five years before Dr. Theodor Herzl published his Der Judenstaat and six years before he convened the first World Zionist Congress, an American Gentile, William E. Blackstone, publicly transformed what had been mainly religious and emotional yearnings of Jews for Palestine into a political manifestation of Jewish nationalism and Jewish self-determination. Blackstone sent President Benjamin Harrison a petition entitled “Palestine for the Jews.” It was signed by 400 hundred of the most prominent Americans. If the Great Powers, it asked, could, in the Berlin Treaty of 1878, give Bulgaria to the Bulgarians and Serbia to the Serbs, “does not Palestine as rightfully belong to the Jews?”

Today we associate Christian Zionism with the Christian Evangelicals. They are now in fact the most pro-Jewish and pro-Israel segment of American Christendom. But the first American Christian to call himself a Zionist was the Reverend Dr. Francis J. Clay Moran, in a letter to the New York Times, published over a hundred years ago. After Moran came Adolph A. Berle, a former professor of applied Christianity at Tufts University, who, in 1918, published a book called The World Significance of a Jewish State. Harry Emerson Fosdick, of Union Theological Seminary, in 1927, wrote a book on Zionism called A Pilgrimage to Palestine. In 1929, John Haynes Holmes, minister of New York’s Community Church, published Palestine Today and Tomorrow: A Gentile’s Survey of Zionism. Dr. Walter Clay Loudermilk, the most renowned soil scientist, ecologist, and environmentalist of his day, also became a Christian Zionist.

In the 1930s he traveled the world to study how people used their land and in what condition they passed it on to the next generation. When he came to British Palestine, he was so impressed by how the Jews treated their land that he wrote that if Moses had foreseen what was to become of the Earth, he “doubtless would have been inspired to deliver an Eleventh Commandment: ‘Thou shalt inherit the Holy Earth as a faithful steward, conserving its resources and productivity from generation to generation. . . . If any shall fail in this stewardship of the land, thy fruitful fields shall become sterile stony ground and wasting gullies, and thy descendants shall decrease and live in poverty or perish from off the face of the Earth.” Since the Jews of Palestine were obeying Loudermilk  Eleventh Commandment, he became an ardent Christian Zionist, publishing, in 1944, his bestseller, Palestine: Land of Promise.

So it is America’s Christians, not America’s Jews, who made it politically correct for every American President since Woodrow Wilson and every American Congress since the early 1920s to support both the dream and the reality of a renascent Jewish state in the Middle East.

President Obama has been trying, so far unsuccessfully, to tilt toward Iran. In a speech before the Turkish Parliament in April 2009, he said: “I have made it clear to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran that the United States seeks engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” This is the same Iran whose president denies the Holocaust and who wants Israel wiped off the face of the earth. Though the Israelis consider Iran’s nuclear weapons an existential threat, Mr. Obama is pressuring them not to attack preemptively. However, also in April 2009, Shimon Peres, the President of Israel, and the father of Israel’s nuclear weapons program, said that if Mr. Obama  will not soften the Iranian President’s approach “we’ll strike him.” While refusing to go into detail about the military option to foil Iran’s nuclear program, Mr. Peres did say that Israel could not carry out any strike against the Islamic republic without America. “We certainly cannot go it alone and we definitely can’t go against the U.S.”

Mr. Obama is also tilting toward the Palestinians, even though the Norwegian Fafo Institute, the sponsor of the 1993 Oslo Middle East accords, recently found that a majority of Palestinians oppose a two-state solution. Thirty-three percent opt for Israel’s annihilation and 20 percent favor a Palestinian state that would entirely engulf Israel.

For more than sixty years, American. presidents and the American people have been pro-Israel.  As recently as March 3, 2009, the Gallup Poll ranked Israel as the fourth preferred ally of the United States, behind Britain, Canada, and Japan. And as recently as August 10, 2009, seventy percent of Americans say that Israel is a U.S. ally, nearly twice the finding for Egypt, the most highly regarded Islamic country. Only 8 percent of Americans say Israel is an enemy, and 16 percent put it somewhere in between.

So these questions arise: Has President Obama abandoned the special America-Israel relationship? Has he become so pro-Arab that he is anti-Israel, as almost two-thirds of the Israelis now believe, according to the University of Tel Aviv’s War and Peace Index of August 9, 2009? Is he, as the British writer Melanie Phillips has suggested, America’s first “pro-Islamist President?” Are America and Israel heading for a great confrontation, or at least for the greatest disagreement in the history of their relationship, as U.S. Middle East expert Robert Satloff recently told Newsweek magazine?

On July 4, 2009 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “We have a brave relationship with the United States, a bond that President Obama himself defined as unbreakable. Indeed, our bond with the U.S. is unbreakable.” But that is not the belief of other prominent Israelis. They are not so sure that Israel has a friend in the White House. And they wonder if the connection with the United States is still a good one. For instance, Caroline Glick, the deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post, argues that “both in terms of pure economics and of the restrictions the Obama administration is now placing on Israeli use of U.S. technologies and munitions, maintaining U.S. military assistance makes less and less sense with each passing day. Israel may indeed be best served by simply ending its military assistance package. By making clear that it is not dependent on Obama’s kindness, it would be expanding its maneuvering room on other issues as well.” She is probably alluding to Iran.

On the American side, Israel’s failure to defeat Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza may be be interpreted as meaning that it is no longer a strong military power and is now a strategic liability rather than a strategic asset to the United States.

Whatever the case, one thing is clear: Mr. Obama does not view Israel as Democratic Presidents Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson did. Nor does he view it as Republican Presidents Richard M. Nixon and George W. Bush did. Until the end of his life, the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was the chief of staff of the Israel Army during the 1967 Six Day war, believed that Mr. Nixon saved the Jewish state. By warning the Soviets to stay out of the 1973 Yom Kippur War and by replacing the vast amounts of equipment that Israel lost during the first week of that war, Mr. Nixon made it possible for the Israelis to counterattack and beat their Egyptian foes.

Anne Bayevsky, a senior fellow of the Hudson Institute, is convinced that Mr. Obama is “the most hostile sitting American president in the history of the state of Israel.” Similarly, John Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former American ambassador to the United Nations, has written that “Relations between the U.S. and Israel are more strained than at any time since the 1956 Suez Canal crisis.” And Richard Baehr, the chief political correspondent of The American Thinker, feels that Mr. Obama treats “Israel more contemptuously than any President since the founding of the [Jewish] state.” On the other hand, on August 20, 2009 the Israeli news source Debka reported that President Obama has secretly assured Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that confrontation between America and Israel is undesirable, and that relations between the White House and Mr. Netanyahu’s office will revert to their normal friendly level.

We shall have to wait and see whether and the extent to which Ms. Bayevsky, Mr. Bolton, Mr. Baehr, and Debka are right or wrong. We shall also have to wait and see what happens if Israel , the modern reincarnation of the Jewish Holy Land, strikes Iran against the wishes of President Obama.

By Jeffrey Fleishman reporting from Alexandria, Egypt – It is a clear day along the coast, but in a bungalow off the beach, Maher El Gohary sits behind a locked door with an open Bible and a crystal cross, suspicious of every voice and sandal scraping past outside.

He and his daughter, Dina, live like refugees, switching apartments every few months, not wanting to get close to neighbors. Gohary’s life has been threatened, his dogs have been killed, and it’s been suggested that he’s insane or possessed by spirits.

He is a man this Muslim nation cannot fathom: a convert to Christianity.

“Islam is the only thing Egyptians are 150% sure of. If you reject Islam, you shake their belief and you are an apostate, an infidel,” he says. “I can see in the eyes of Muslims how much my conversion has really hurt them.”

Egypt’s Coptic Christians, who represent about 10% of the population, have a history that veers from coexistence to violence with the Muslim majority. Bloody clashes recently erupted between Copts and Muslims over land disputes and restrictions on churches.

But converts, such as Gohary, are even more unsettling. Islamists believe that Muslims who forsake their religion should be punished by death.

Gohary wants to be called Peter and refuses to yield. He has filed a lawsuit asking an Egyptian court to officially recognize him as a Copt by changing the denomination on his national ID card from Muslim to Christian. The court ruled against him in June, finding that Gohary’s baptism documents from the Coptic Orthodox Church were “legally invalid.” The verdict is on appeal.

The case highlights the religious and political complexities that drive modern Egypt. The nation often seems at battle with itself as it attempts to balance the ideals of a democracy with laws steeped in Islamic principles.

Freedom of religion is guaranteed in the constitution, but fatwas and religious edicts from clerics subject converts from Islam to persecution and threats. The government treads uneasily, not wanting to anger religious conservatives who stubbornly guard Islam’s grip on society.

Converts such as Gohary “should be killed by authorities,” says Abdul Aziz Zakareya, a cleric and former professor at Al Azhar University. “Public conversions can lead to very dangerous consequences. The spreading of a phenomenon like this in a Muslim society can cause many unwanted results and tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims.”

A tall man in blue shorts and rimless glasses, Gohary, 56, looks as if he is ready to walk the beach. But he and Dina have just moved to the three-room bungalow. Their suitcases are still packed; the only thing hanging on the walls is a clothesline. Listening for noises outside, Gohary speaks of how years earlier the teachings of Jesus, especially parables on forgiveness and loving your enemy, changed his life.

“In Islam, if you steal your hands are cut off, but in Christianity you can be forgiven,” he says. “This compassion is what attracted me.”

Back then he was a young cadet at the police academy, inspired by a Christian bunkmate who ignored the taunts of Muslim recruits. Gohary, the son of a police general, began reading the Bible. He left the academy and by his mid-20s had drifted away from Islam and was calling himself a Christian. He went through a series of jobs, he says, but was often fired or quit after being harassed when it was discovered he was no longer a Muslim.

He married in 1994, but his wife refused to convert. The couple divorced and Dina, who lives on and off with both parents, was tugged between faiths.

“I’ve always felt Christian,” says Dina, a lithe 15-year-old who doesn’t look away when she speaks. “But my mom has taken me to sheiks to convince me of Islam. She made me wear the hijab and go to the mosque against my will. My father and I are in danger. A man with a beard once grabbed me and told me that ‘if you and your dad don’t stop, I’ll kill you both.’ ”

In 1997, Gohary remarried and later moved to a farm. His second wife converted to Christianity. Her family and friends were angry, and Gohary says the farm was vandalized, his trees cut down, his dogs killed. He sold the property and he and his wife and Dina planned to move to Cyprus. Dina’s mother and Gohary share custody of their daughter and authorities did not allow her to leave Egypt. Gohary and his wife spent a year in Cyprus but he returned to be with Dina and ensure she was exposed to Christianity.

Gohary says he received a baptismal certificate from the Coptic Orthodox Church in Cyprus in 2005 after having been baptized by an archbishop in Egypt. The court rejected both certificates, questioning the jurisdiction of the documents and saying there was no “clear evidence” of baptism.

Gohary is reportedly the second Egyptian Muslim convert to Christianity who has tried unsuccessfully to have his religious identity officially changed. The first, Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy, went into hiding after his home was set ablaze. Religious statistics in Egypt are often manipulated and unreliable; estimates on converts to Christianity range from several thousand to hundreds of thousands.

Early this year, the courts showed a degree of religious tolerance by ruling that members of the minority Bahai faith could be issued ID cards that didn’t identify them by religion. They previously had the option of only Muslim, Christian or Jew. Gohary’s lawyer, Nabil Ghobrial, says judges are more hostile toward converts and are ignoring the law and ruling on “their personal religious beliefs.”

Says Gohary: “I’m not so much afraid of the government anymore. It’s conservative Muslims who worry me. Some of them believe whoever kills me is rewarded. When I go to court, I’m surrounded by police protection.”

Voices pass Gohary’s door on the way to the beach. The margins of his Bible pages are scrawled with notations; he flicks from the Old Testament to Letters of Paul. A friend delivers sodas, sits for a while and disappears. Dina unpacks.

Gohary listens at the door. He doesn’t want an unexpected knock, and says he and his daughter will stay here a month or so and then move on.

“Then Job answered the Lord and said, Behold, I am vile.” Job 11:3 4

SURELY, if any man had a right to say I am not vile, it was Job; for,
according to the testimony of God himself, he was “a perfect and an
upright man, one that feared God and eschewed evil.” Yet we find even
this eminent saint when by his nearness to God he had received light
enough to discover his own condition, exclaiming, “Behold I am vile.” We
are sure that what Job was forced to say, we may each of us assent unto,
whether we be God’s children or not; and if we be partakers of divine
grace, it becomes a subject of great consideration for us, since even we,
although we be regenerated must exclaim, each one for himself, “Behold, I
am vile.”

It is a doctrine, as I believe, taught us in Holy Writ, that when a man is
saved by divine grace, he is not wholly cleansed from the corruption of his
heart. When we believe in Jesus Christ all our sins are pardoned; yet the
power of sin, albeit that it is weakened and kept under by the dominion of
the new-born nature which God doth infuse into our souls, doth not cease
but still tarrieth in us, and will do so to our dying day. It is a doctrine held
by all the orthodox, that there dwelleth still in the regenerate, the lusts of
the flesh, and that there doth still remain in the hearts of those who are
converted by God’s mercy, the evil of carnal nature. I have found it very
difficult to distinguish, in experimental matters, concerning sin. It is usual
with many writers, especially with hymn writers, to confound the two
natures of a Christian. Now, I hold that there is in every Christian two
natures, as distinct as were the two natures of the God-Man Christ Jesus.

There is one nature which cannot sin, because it is born of God — a
spiritual nature, coming directly from heaven, as pure and as perfect as
God himself, who is the author of it; and there is also in man that ancient
nature which, by the fall of Adam, hath become altogether vile, corrupt
sinful, and devilish. There remains in the heart of the Christian a nature
which cannot do that which is right, any more than it could before
regeneration and which is as evil as it was before the new birth — as sinful,
as altogether hostile to God’s laws, as ever it was — a nature which, as I
said before, is curbed and kept under by the new nature in a great measure,
but which is not removed and never will be until this tabernacle of our flesh
is broken down, and we soar into that land unto which there shall never
enter anything that defileth.

It will be my business this morning to say something of that evil nature
which still abides in the righteous. That it does remain, I shall first attempt
to prove; and the other points I will suggest to you as we proceed.
I. The FACT, the great and terrible fact, that EVEN THE RIGHTEOUS HAVE
IN THEM EVIL NATURES. Job said, “Behold, I am vile.” He did not always
know it. All through the long controversy he had declared himself to be
just and upright: he had said, “My righteousness I will hold fast, and I will
not let it go,” and notwithstanding he did serape his body with a potsherd,
and his friends did vex his mind with the most bitter revilings, yet he still
held fast his integrity, and would not confesss his sin; but what if God came
to plead with him, he had no sooner listened to the voice of God in the
whirlwind, am, heard the question, “Shall not the Judge off all the earth do
right?” than at once he put his finger on his lips, and would not answer
God, but simply said, “Behold I am vile.” Possibly some may say, that Job
was an exception to the rule; and they will tell us, that other saints had not
in them such a reason for humiliation but we remind them of David, and
we bid them read the 51st penitential Psalm, where we find him declaring
that he was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did his mother conceive him;
confessing, that he had sin in his heart, and asking God to create in him a
clean heart, and to renew a right spirit within him. In many other places in
the Psalms, David doth continually acknowledge and confess, that he is not
perfectly rid of sin, that still the evil viper doth twist itself around his heart.
Turn also, if you please, to Isaiah. There you have him, in one of his
visions, saying that he was a man of unclean lips, and that he dwelt among
a people of unclean lips. But more especially, under the gospel
dispensation, you find Paul, in that memorable chapter we have been
reading, declaring, that he found in in his members a law warring against
the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin.” Yea,
we hear that remarkable exclamation of struggling desire and intense
agony, “O, wretched man that I an, who shall deliver me from the body of
this death?” Do you expect to find yourselves better saints than Job? do
you imagine that the confession which befitted the mouth of Daniel is too
mean for you? are ye so proud, that ye will not exclaim with Isaiah, “I also
am a man of unclean lips?” Or rather, have ye progressed so far in pride,
that ye dare to exalt yourselves above the laborious Apostle Paul, and to
hope that in you, that is, in your flesh, there dwelleth any good thing? If ye
do think yourselves to be perfectly pure from sin, hear ye the word of God:
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in
us. If we say we have no sin, we make God a liar.”

But scarcely do I need, to prove this, beloved; for all of you, I am sure,
who know anything about the experience of a living child of God, have
found that in your best and happiest moments sin still dwells in you, that
when you would serve your God the best, sin frequently works in you the
most furiously. There have been many saints of God who have abstained,
for a time, from doing anything they have known to be sin; but still there
has not been one who has been inwardly perfect. If a being were perfect,
the angels would come down in ten minutes, and carry him off to heaven,
for he would be ripe for it as soon as he had attained perfection. I have
found in talking to men who have said a good deal about perfection, that
after all they really did not believe in any such thing. They have taken the
word and attached a different meaning to it, and either then proved a
doctrine which we all knew before, or else supposed a perfection so absurd
and worthless, that I would not give three half-pence for it if I might have
it. In many of them it is a fault, I believe of their brains, rather than their
hearts, and as John Berridge says, “God will wash their brains before they
get to heaven.” But why should; stay to prove this, when you have daily
proofs of it yourselves? how many times do you feel that corruption is still
within you? Mark how easily you are surprised into sin. You rise in the
morning, and dedicate yourselves by fervent prayer to God, thinking what
a happy day you have before you. Scarce have you uttered your prayer,
when something comes to ruffle your spirit, your good resolutions are cast
to the winds, and you say, “this day, which I thought would be such a
happy one, has suffered a terrific inroad; I cannot live to God as; would.”
Perhaps you have thought, “I will go up stairs, and ask my God to keep
me.” Well, you were in the main kept by the power of God, but on a
sudden something came; an evil temper on a sudden surprised you; your
heart was taken by storm, when you were not expecting an attack; the
doors were broken open, and some unholy expression came forth from
your lips, and down you went again on your knees in private, exclaiming,
“Lord, I am vile.” I have found out that I have a something in my heart,
which, when I have bolted my doors, and think all is safe, creeps forth and
undoes every bolt, and lets in the sin. Besides, beloved, you will find in
your heart, even when you are not surprised into sin, such an awful
tendency to evil, that it is as much as you can do to keep it in cheek, and to
say, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.” Nay, you will find it more
than you can do, unless a divine power is with you, and preventing grace
restrains your passions and prevents you from indulging your inbred lusts.
Ah, soldiers of Jesus ye have felt — I know ye have felt the uprisings of
corruption, for ye know the Lord in sincerity and in truth, and ye dare not,
unless you would make yourselves liars to your own hearts, hope to be in
this world perfectly free from sin.

Having stated that fact, I must just make a remark upon it, and leave it.
How wrong it is of any of us, from the fact of our possessing evil hearts, to
excuse our sins. I have known some persons, who profess to be Christians,
speak very lightly of sin. There was corruption still remaining, and
therefore they said they could not help it. Such persons have no visible part
nor lot in God’s covenant. The truly loving child of God, though he knows
sin is there, hates that sin, it is a pain and misery to him and he never makes
the corruption of his heart an excuse for the corruption of his life, he never
pleads the evil of his nature, as an apology for the evil of his conduct. If
any man can, in the least degree, clear himself from the conviction of his
own conscience, on account of his daily failings, by pleading the evil of his
heart, he is not one of the broken-hearted children of God; he is not one of
the tried servants of the Lord, for they groan concerning sin, and carry it to
God’s throne; they know it is in them — they do not, therefore, leave it,
but seek with all their minds to keep it down, in order that it may not rise
and carry them away. Mind that, unless you should make what I say a
cloak to your licentiousness, and a covering to your guilt.

II. Thus we have mentioned the fact, that the best of men have sin still
remaining in them. Now, I will tell you what are the doings of this sin.
What does the sin which still remains in our hearts do? I answer —

1. Experience will tell you that this sin exerts a checking power upon every
good thing. You have felt, when you would do good, that evil was present
with you. Just like the chariot, which might go swiftly down the hill, you
have had a clog put upon your wheels; or, like the bird that would mount
towards heaven, you have found your sins, like the wires of a cage,
preventing your soaring towards the Most High. You have bent your knee
in prayer but corruption has distracted your thoughts. You have attempted
to sing, but you have felt “hosannah’s languish on your tongue.” Some
insinuation of Satan has taken fire, like a spark in tinder, and well nigh
smothered your soul with its abominable smoke. You would run in your
holy duties with all alacrity, but the sin that doth so easily beset you
entangles your feet, and when you would be nearing the goal, it trips you
up, and down you fall, to your own dishonor and pain. You will find
indwelling sin frequently retarding you the most when you are most
earnest. When you desire to be most alive to God — you will generally
find sin most alive to repel you. The “evil heart of unbelief” puts itself
straight in the road, and saith “Thou shalt not come this way;” and when
the soul says, “I will serve God — I will worship in his temple,” the evil
heart saith, “Get thee to Dan and Beersheba, and bow thyself before false
gods, but thou shalt not approach Jerusalem; I will not suffer thee to
behold the face of the Most High.” You have often felt this to be the case:
a cold hand has been placed upon your hot spirit when you have been full
of devotion and prayer. And when you have had the wings of the dove, and
thought you could flee away and be at rest, a clog has been put upon your
feet, so that you could not mount. Now, that is one of the effects of
indweelling sin.

2. But indwelling sin does more than that: it not only prevents us from
going forward, but at times even assails us, as well as seeks to obstruct us.
It is not merely that I fight with indwelling sin, it is indwelling sin that
sometimes makes an assault on me. You will notice, the Apostle says, “O,
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
Now, this proves that he was not attacking his sin, but that this sin was
attacking him. I do not seek to be delivered from a man against whom I
lead the attack: but it is the man who is opposing me from whom I seek to
be delivered. And so sometimes the sin that dwelleth in believers flies at us,
like some foul tiger of the woods, or some demon, jealous of the celestial
spirit within us. The evil nature riseth up: it doth not only seek to stop us in
the way, but like Amalek, it labors to destroy us and cut us off utterly. Did
you ever feel beloved, the attacks of inbred sin? It may be, you have not:
but if not, depend upon it you will. Before you get all the way to heaven,
you will be attacked by sin. It will not be simply your driving out the
Canaanite; but the Canaanite, with chariot of iron, will attempt to
overcome you, to drive you out, to kill your spiritual nature, damp the
flame of your piety, and crush the new life which God has implanted in
you.

3. The evil heart which still remaineth in the Christian, doth always, when it
is not attacking or obstructing, still reign and dwell within him. My heart is
just as bad when no evil emanates from it, as when it is all over vileness in
its external developments. A volcano is ever a volcano; even when it
sleeps, trust it not. A lion is a lion, even though he play like a kid, and a
serpent, is a serpent, even though you may stroke it while for a season it
slumbers; there is still a venom in its sting when its azure scales invite the
eye. My heart, even though for an hour, it may not have had an evil
thought, is still evil. If it were possible that I could live for days without a
single temptation from my own heart to sin, it would be still just as evil as
it was before; and it is always either displaying its vileness, or else
preparing for another display. It is either loading its cannon to shoot
against us, or else it is positively at warfare with us. You may rest assured
that the heart is never other than it originally was, the evil nature is still
evil; and when there is no blaze, it is heaping up the wood, wherewith it is
to blaze another day. It is gathering up from my joys, from my devotions,
from my holiness, and from all I do, some materials to attack me at some
future period. The evil nature is only evil, and that continually, without the
slightest mitigation or element of good. The new nature must always
wrestle and fight with it, and when the two natures are not wrestling and
fighting, there is no truce between them. When they are not in conflict, still
they are foes. We must not trust our heart at any time; even when it speaks
most fair, we must call it liar; and when it pretends to the most good, still
we must remember its nature, for it is evil, and that continually.

The doings of indwelling sin I will not mention at length: but it is sufficient
to let you recognize some of your own experience, that you may see that it
is in keeping with that of the children of God, for that you may be as
perfect as Job, and yet say, “Behold, I am me.”

III. Having mentioned the doings of indwelling sin, allow me to mention,
in the third place, THE DANGER WE ARE UNDER FROM SUCH EVIL HEARTS.

There are few people who think what a solemn thing it is to be a Christian.
I guess there is not a believer in the world who knows what a miracle it is
to be kept a believer. We little think the miracles that are working all
around us. We see the flowers grow, but we do not think of the wondrous
power that gives them life. We see the stars shine; but how seldom do we
think of the hand that moves them. The sun gladdens us with his light; yet
we little think of the miracles which God works to feed that sun with fuel,
or to gird him like a giant to run his course. And we see Christians walking
in integrity and holiness, but how little do we suspect what a mass of
miracles a Christian is. There are as great a number of miracles expended
on a Christian every day, as he hath hairs on his head. A Christian is a
perpetual miracle. Every hour that I am preserved from sinning, is an hour
of as divine a might as that which saw a new-born world swathed in its
darkness, and heard “the morning stars sing for joy.” Did ye never think
how great is the danger to which a Christian is exposed from his indwelling
sin? Come let me tell you.

One danger to which we are exposed from indwelling sin arises from the
fact that sin is within us, and therefore it has a great power over us. If a
captain has a city, he may for a long time preserve it from the constant
attacks of enemies without. He may have walls so strong, and gates so well
secured, that he may laugh at all the attacks of besiegers, and their sallies
may have no more effect upon his walls than sallies of wit. But if there
should happen to be a traitor inside the gates — if there should be one who
hath charge of the keys, and who could unlock every dour and let in the
enemy, how is the toil of the commander doubled) for he hath not merely
to guard against foes without, but against foes within. And here is the
danger of the Christian. I could fight the devil; I could overcome every sin
that ever tempted me, if it were not that I had an enemy within. Those
Diabolians within do more service to Satan than all the Diabolians without.
As Bunyan says in his Holy War, the enemy tried to get some of his friends
within the City of Mansoul, and he found his darlings inside the walls did
him far more good than all those without. Ah! Christian, thou couldst
laugh at thine enemy, if thou hadst not thine evil heart within, but
remember, thine heart keeps the keys, because out of it are the issues of
life. And sin is there The worst thing thou hast to fear is the treachery of
thine own heart.

And moreover, Christian, remember how many backers thy evil nature has.
As for thy gracious life, it finds few friends beneath the sky; but thine
original sin hath allies in every quarter. It looks down to hell, and it finds
them there, demons ready to let slip the coos of hell upon thy soul. It looks
out into the world, and sees “the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and
the pride of life.” It looks around, and is seeth all kinds of men seeking, if it
be possible, to lead the Christian from his steadfastness. It looks into the
Church, and it finds all manner of false doctrine ready to inflame lust, and
guide the soul from the sincerity of its faith. It looks to the body, and it
finds head, and hand, and foot, and all other members ready to be
subservient to sin. I could overcome my evil heart if it had not such a
mighty host of allies, but it makes my position doubly dangerous, to have
foes without the gates in league and amity with a foe more vile within.
And I would have thee recollect, Christian, one more thing, and that is, that
this evil nature of thine is very strong and very powerful — stronger than
the new nature if the new nature were not sustained by Divine power. How
old is my old nature? “It is as old as myself,” the aged saint may say, “and
has become all the stronger from its age.” There is one thing which seldom
gets weaker through old age — that is, old Adam; he is as strong in his old
age as he is in his young age just as able to lead us astray when our head is
covered with grey hairs, as he was in our youth. We have heard it said that
growing in grace will make our corruptions less mighty; but I have seen
many of God’s aged saints, and asked them the question, and they have
said “No,” their lusts have been essentially as strong, when they have been
many years in their Master’s service, as they were at first, although more
subdued by the new principle within. So far from becoming weaker, it is
my firm belief that sin increases in power. A person who is deceitful
becomes more deceitful by practicing deceit. So with our heart. It did
inveigle us at first, and easily entrapped us, but having learnt a thousand
snares, it doth mislead us now perhaps more easily than before; and
although our spiritual nature has been more fully developed, and grown in
grace, yet still the old nature hath lost little of its energy. I do not know
that the house of Saul waxeth weaker and weaker in our hearts, I know
that the house of David waxeth stronger; but I do not know that my heart
gets less vile, or that my corruptions become less strong. I believe that if I
should ever say my corruptions are all dead, I should hear a voice, “The
Philistines be upon thee, Samson;” or, “The Philistines be in thee, Samson.”
Notwithstanding all former victories, and all the heaps upon heaps of sins I
may have slain, I should yet be overcome if Almighty mercy did not
preserve me. Christian! mind thy danger! There is not a man in battle so
much in danger from the shot, as thou art from thine own sin. Thou carriest
in thy soul an infamous traitor, even when he speaks thee fair he is not to
be trusted; thou hast in thy heart a slumbering volcano, but a volcano of
such terrific force that it may shake thy whole nature yet; and unless thou
art circumspect, and art kept by the power of God, thou hast a heart which
may lead thee into sins the most diabolical, and crimes the most infamous.
Take care, O take care, ye Christians! If there were no devil to tempt you,
and no world to lead you astray, you would have need to take care of your
own hearts. Look, therefore, at home. Your worst foes are the foes of your
own households. “Keep thine heart with all diligence, for out of it are the
issues of life,” and out of it death may issue too, — death which would
damn thee if sovereign mercy did not prevent. God grant, my brethren, that
we may learn our corruptions in an easy way, and not discover them by
their breaking out into open sin.

IV. And now I come to the fourth point, which is, THE DISCOVERY OF
OUR CORRUPTION. Job said, “Behold, I am vile. That word “behold”
implies that he was astonished. The discovery was unexpected. There are
special times with the Lord’s people, when they learn by experience that
they are vile. They heard the minister assert the power of inbred lust, but
perhaps they shook their heads and said, “I cannot go so far as that,” but
after a little while they found, by some clearer light from heaven, that it
was a truth after all — “Behold, I am vile.” I remember preaching a little
while ago from some deep text concerning the desperate evil of the heart;
and one of my most esteemed friends said, “Well, I have not discovered
that,” and I thought within myself, what a blessing, brother! I wish I had
not; for it is a most fearful experience to pass through: I dare say there are
many here now who say, “I trust in no righteousness of my own. I trust in
nothing in the world but the blood of Christ, but still I have not discovered
the vileness of my heart in the way you have mentioned.” Perhaps not,
brother, but it may not be many years before you are made to learn it. You
may be of a peculiar temperament. God has preserved you from all contact
with temptations which would have revealed your corruptions, or perhaps
he has been pleased, as a reward of his grace for deeds which you have
been enabled to do for him, to give you a peaceable life, so that you have
not been often tossed about by the tumults of your own sin; but
nevertheless, let me tell you, that you must expect to find, in the inmost
depths of your heart, a lower depth still. God comfort you, and enable you,
when you come out of the furnace to lie lower than ever at the footstool of
divine mercy! I believe we generally find out most of our failings when we
have the greatest access to God. Job never had such a discovery of God as
he had at this time. God spoke to him in the whirlwind and then Job said,
“I am vile.” It is not so much when we are desponding, or unbelieving, that
we learn our vileness, we do find out something of it then, but not all. It is
when by God’s grace we are helped to climb the mount, when we come
near to God, and when God reveals himself to us, that we feel that we are
not pure in his sight. We get some gleams of his high majesty; we see the
brightness of his skirts, “dark — with insufferable light,” and after having
been dazzled by the sight, there comes a fall: as if, smitten by the fiery light
of the sun, the eagle should fall from his lofty heights, even to the ground.
So with the believer. He soars up to God, and on a sudden down he comes.
“Behold,” he says, “I am vile. I had never known this if I had not seen God.
Behold, I have seen him; and now I discover how vile I am.” Nothing
shows blackness like exposure to light. If I would see the blackness of my
own character, I must put it side by side with spotless purity; and when the
Lord is pleased to give us some special vision of himself, some sweet
intercourse with his own blessed person, then it is that the soul learns, as it
never knew before, with an agony perhaps which it never felt, even when at
first convinced of sin, “Behold, I am vile.” God is pleased to do this. Lest
we should be “exalted above measure, by the abundance of the revelation,”
he sends us this “thorn in the flesh,” to let us see ourselves after we have
seen him.

There are many men who never know much of their vileness till after the
blood of Christ has been sprinkled on their consciences, or even till they
have been many years God’s children. I met, some time ago, with the case
of a Christian, who was positively pardoned before he had a strong sense
of sin. “I did not,” he said, “feel my vileness, until I heard a voice, ‘I, even
I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions,’ and after that, I thought how
black I had been. I did not think of my filthiness,” said he, “till after I saw
that I had been washed,” I think there are many of God’s people, who,
though they had some notion of their blackness before they came to Christ,
never knew how thoroughly vile they were till afterwards. They thought
then, “How great must have been my sin to need such a Savior! how
desperate my filth, to require such a washing! how awful my guilt, to need
such an atonement as the blood of Christ.” You may rest assured, that the
more you know of God and of Christ, the more you will know of yourself;
and you will be obliged to say, as you did before, “Behold, I am vile;” vile
in an extraordinary sense even as you never guessed or fancied until now.
“Behold, I am vile!” “I am vile, indeed!” No doubt many of you will still
think, that what I say concerning your evil nature is not true, and you may,
perhaps, imagine that grace has cut your evil nature up; but you know little
about spiritual life, if you suppose that it will not be long before you find
the old Adam as strong in you as ever, here will be a war carried on in your
heart to your dying day, in which grace shall prevail, but not without sighs,
and groans, and agonies, and wrestlings, and a daily death.

V. Here is the way in which God discovers our vileness to ourselves.
Now, if it be true that we are still vile, WHAT ARE OUR DUTIES? And here
let me solemnly speak to such of you as are heirs of eternal life, desiring as
your brother in Christ Jesus to urge you to some duties which are most
necessary, on account of the continual filthiness of your heart.
In the first place, if your hearts be still vile, and there be still an evil nature
in you, how wrong is it to suppose that all your work is done. There is one
thing concerning which I have much reason to complain of some of you.
Before your baptism you were extremely earnest; you were always
attending the means of grace and I always saw you here; but there are
some, some even now in this place, who, as soon as they had crossed that
rubicon, began from that moment to decrease in zeal, thinking that the
work was over. I tell you solemnly, that I know there are some of you who
were prayerful, careful, devout, living close and near to your God until you
joined the church; but from that time forth, you have gradually declined.
Now, it really appears to me a matter of doubt whether such persons are
Christians. I tell you I have very grave doubts of the sincerity of some of
you. If I see a man less earnest after baptism, I think he had no right to be
baptized, for if he had had a proper sense of the value of that ordinance,
and had been rightly dedicated to God, he would not have turned back to
the ways of the world. I am grieved, when I see one or two who once
walked very consistently with us, beginning to slide away. I have no fault
to find with the great majority of you, as to your firm adherence to God’s
word. I bless God, that for the space of two years and more you have held
firm and fast by God. I have not seen you absent from the house of prayer,
nor do I think your zeal has flagged, but there are some few who have been
tempted by the world, who have been led astray by Satan, or who, by some
change in their circumstances, or some removal to a distance, have become
cold, and not diligent in the work of the Lord. There are some of my
hearers who are not as earnest as they once were. My dear friends, if you
knew the vileness of your hearts, you would see the necessity of being as
earnest now as ever you were. Oh! if, when you were converted, your old
nature were cutup there would be no need of watchfulness now. If all your
lusts were entirely gone and all the strength of corruption dead within you,
there would be no need of perseverance; but it is just because ye have evil
hearts, that I bid you be just as earnest as ever you were, to stir up the gift
of God which is in you, and look as well to yourselves as ever you did.
Fancy not the battle is over, man, it is but the first trump, summoning to
the warfare. That trump has ceased, and thou thinkest the battle is over; I
tell thee, nay, the fight has but now begun; the hosts are only just led forth,
and thou hast newly put on thine harness; thou hast conflicts yet to come.
Be thou earnest, or else that first love of thine shall die, and thou shalt yet
“go out from us, proving that thou wast not of us.” Take care, my dear
friends, of backsliding, it is the easiest thing in the world, and yet the most
dangerous thing in the world. Take care of giving up your first zeal,
beware of cooling in the least degree. Ye were hot and earnest once, be hot
and earnest still, and let the fire which once burnt within you still animate
you. Be ye still men of might and vigor, men who serve their God with
diligence and zeal.

Again, if your evil nature is still within you, how watchful you ought to be!
The devil never sleeps, your evil nature never sleeps, you ought never to
sleep. “What I say unto you, I say unto all Watch.” These are Jesus
Christ’s words, and there is nothing needs repetition half so much as that
word watch.” We can do almost anything better than watch; for watching
is very wearisome work, especially when we have sleepy souls to watch
with. Watching is very fatiguing work. There is little open honor got by it,
and therefore we do not have the hope of renown to cheer us up. Watching
is a work that few of us, I am afraid, rightly perform; but if the Almighty
had not watched over you, the devil would have carried you away long
ago. Dear friends, I bid you watch constantly. When the adjoining house is
on fire, how speedily do persons rise from their beds, and if they have
combustibles, move them from the premises, and watch, lest their house
also should become a prey to the devouring element! You have corruption
in your heart: watch for the first spark, lest it set your soul on fire. “Let us
not sleep as do others.” You might sleep over the crater of a volcano if you
liked, you might sleep with your head before the cannon’s mouth; you
might, if you pleased, sleep in the midst of an earthquake, or in a pesthouse;
but I beseech you, do not sleep while you have evil hearts. Watch
your hearts; you may think they are very good, but they will be your ruin if
grace prevent not. Watch daily; watch perpetually, guard yourselves, lest
ye sin. Above all, my dear brethren, if our hearts be, indeed, still full of
vileness, how necessary it is that we should still exhibit faith in God. If I
must trust my God -when I first set out, because of the difficulties in the
way, if those difficulties are not diminished, I ought to trust God just as
much as I did before. Oh! beloved, yield your hearts to God. Do not
become self-sufficient. Self-sufficiency is Satan’s net, wherein he catcheth
men, like poor silly fish, and doth destroy them. Be not self-sufficient.
Think yourselves nothing, for ye are nothing, and live by God’s help. The
way to grow strong in Christ is to become weak in yourself. God poureth
no power into man’s heart till man’s power is all poured out. Live, then,
daily, a life of dependence on the grace of God. Do not set thyself up as if
thou wast an independent gentleman; do not start in thine own concerns as
if thou couldst do all things thyself; but live always trusting in God. Thou
hast as much need to trust him now as ever thou hadst; for, mark thee,
although thou wouldst have been damned without Christ, at first, thou wilt
be damned without Christ now, unless he still keeps thee, for thou hast as
evil a nature now as thou hadst then.

Dearly beloved, I have just one word to say, not to the saints, but to the
ungodly — one cheering word, sinner, poor lost sinner! You think you
must not come to God because you are vile. Now, let me tell you, that
there is not a saint in this place but is vile too. If Job, and Isaiah, and Paul,
were all obliged to say, “I am vile,” oh, poor sinner, wilt thou be ashamed
to join the confession and say, “I am vile,” too? If I come to God this night
in prayer, when I am on my knees by my bedside, I shall have to come to
God as a sinner, vile and full of sin. My brother sinner! dost thou want to
have any better confession than that? Thou wantest to be better, dost thou?
Why, saints in themselves are no better. If divine grace does not eradicate
all sin in the believer, how dost thou hope to do it thyself? and if God loves
his people, while they are yet vile, dost thou think thy vileness will prevent
his loving thee? Nay, vile sinner, come to Jesus! vilest of the vile! Believe
on Jesus, thou offcast of the world’s society, thou who art the dung and
dross of the streets, I bid thee come to Christ. Christ bids thee believe on
him.

“Not the righteous, not the righteous,
Sinners, Jesus came to save.”

Come now; say, “Lord, I am vile, give me faith. Christ died for sinners; I
am a sinner. Lord Jesus, sprinkle thy blood on me.” I tell thee, sinner, from
God, if thou wilt confess thy sin, thou shalt find pardon. If now with all thy
heart thou wilt say, “I am vile; wash me;” thou shalt be washed now. If the
Holy Spirit shall enable thee to say with thine heart now, “Lord, I am sinful

‘Just as I am, without one plea
But that thy blood was shed for me,
And that thou bid’st me come to thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.’”

Thou shalt go out of this place with all thy sins pardoned; and though thou
comest in here with every sin that man hath ever committed on thy head,
thou shalt go out as innocent, yea, more innocent than the new-born babe.
Though thou comest in here all over sin, thou shalt go out with a robe of
righteousness, white as angels are, as pure as God himself, so far as
justification is concerned. For “now,” mark it “now is the accepted time,” if
thou believest on him who justifieth the ungodly. Oh! may the Holy Spirit
give thee faith that thou mayest be saved now, for then thou wilt be saved
for ever! May God add his blessing to this feeble discourse for his name’s
sake!

I Enjoyed this from Virtue Online and it cheered me slightly:-

LORD, WHERE SHALL WE LUTHERANS GO?

by Uwe Siemon-Netto
August 22, 2009

As one whose profession it has been for many years to observe the plight of Christianity, I am always grateful for signs that our God is truly a Jewish God – one with a hilarious sense of irony. This happened again during the ELCA’s national assembly, which will go down in history as a singularly boneheaded display of unfaithfulness.

Just as delegates worked themselves up to their decision to allow homosexuals in committed relationships to serve as pastors, a highly selective tornado knocked the cross off the roof of Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, where some of their shameful meetings took place.

I could not help grinning: This was truly Old Testament-style: God sometimes uses nature to make a point. Of course you will have to believe in these things in order to grasp their ramifications. If on the other hand you accept Biblical truths only selectively, as did the majority of the Minneapolis delegates, then this incident could only have been a random occurrence – you know: as random as the beginning of the universe.

I was then reminded of another display of God’s irony 40 years ago in East Berlin when a television tower, the tallest building in the whole city, went into operation. Walter Ulbricht, the East German Communist party leader, had ordered it built to symbolize the superiority of the Marxist-Leninist worldview that was the state religion in his land.

When the tower was inaugurated on a sunny day, the Communists were shocked. Its rotating ball-shaped dome consisting of hundreds of thousands of metal prisms reflected the sun in the shape of a huge cross regardless of the time of the day. Ulbricht’s regime invested millions of marks to rid their edifice of this embarrassing phenomenon. It did not succeed. To this day, an enormous shining cross keeps dominating Berlin, which has alas become the most godless capital city in Western Europe.

To Christians in Germany this amusing episode serves as a reminder of who is still boss — even after 56 years of Nazi and Communist dictatorship, and the demented two decades of secularization that followed Germany’s reunification in 1990.

Until then, East Germany called itself German Democratic Republic, or GDR, for 40 years. Germans used to quip that this acronym stood for a threefold lie. The GDR was neither German, nor Democratic, nor a Republic. One wonders whether a similar analogy could not be made for the ELCA now that its national assembly of this denomination supposedly committed to the “Sola Scriptura” principle stressing the authority of Scripture.

Is it still “evangelical”? Surely not. Is it still “Lutheran”? No way. Is it in fact still “Church” in the original sense of this word deriving from the Greek vocable “Kyriake” (belonging to the Lord)? That depends on which Lord are we talking about – God or a wimp who does not care whether His word is mocked? The Greek word for church is “ekklesia,” meaning “called out.” In the light of the ELCA’s new sexuality decision we must ponder the identity of the Spirit the largest Lutheran church body in the United States seems to follow these days.

To state it bluntly, there is nothing Lutheran about what has happened in Minneapolis. We have witnessed 19th century cultural Protestantism gone wild — the theologoumenon that Christ and the highest expressions of aspirations of culture are in agreement. But what are at any given time the highest expressions and aspirations of culture? Do they not come across as Zeitgeist, or spirit of time? Were not Nazism and Communism two murderous manifestations of a Zeitgeist? The genocidal “choice” ideology that has slaughtered more than 50 million unborn children in America since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 certainly falls into the same category.

Aghast, faithful Lutherans wonder: “Lord where shall we Lutherans go?” Why is it that we Lutherans so often lose our way just at a time when no message is more needed then ours? Let it be known that there exists a paradoxical tension between Christ and culture: The certainty of being forgiven sinners through Christ’s redeeming work on the cross frees us to engage the world with all its foibles but not to embrace them as the ELCA has just done.

I observed the ELCA’s Minneapolis proceedings on my computer and murmured, “Lord, have mercy.” Then I remembered one of my favorite lines in the Psalter: “He who sits in the heavens laughs” (Psalm 2:4). It’s really good to have a Jewish God occasionally sending selective tornados and marking a godless edifice with a shining sign of the cross.

—-Uwe Siemon-Netto Ph.D., D.Litt. is Director, Center for Lutheran Theology & Public Life, St. Louis, Missouri

Canadian bishops urge opposition to radical assisted suicide bill

Winnipeg, Canada, Aug 22, 2009 / 08:16 am (CNA).- The Catholic bishops of Canada are urging Catholics to voice their opposition to a radical bill that would allow assisted suicide and euthanasia for those with severe chronic mental or physical pain or even depression. Insisting that killing is not compassionate, the bishops said the lives of those who suffer should be valued and affirmed. “Euthanasia and assisted suicide are the antithesis to what should be at the heart of human civilization – trust, respect, concern and solidarity, based on reverence for all human life,” Archbishop James Weisgerber of Winnipeg wrote in a July 17 letter to his fellow bishops.

The archbishop, head of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), urged bishops to invite Catholics to become informed about euthanasia, to speak to their political representatives, and to join with others in fighting efforts to change the law.

“This debate must be taken seriously,” Archbishop Weisgerber continued, noting an apparent growing tolerance in the news media towards euthanasia and assisted suicide, Canadian Catholic News reports.

Bill C-384, introduced into the Canadian House of Commons by MP Francine Lalonde of the Bloc Quebecois, would amend the Criminal Code of Canada to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide. It is Lalonde’s third attempt to pass such a law.

The Quebec College of Physicians presently has an ethics task force investigating whether euthanasia might be appropriate in some circumstances.

Archbishop of Edmonton Richard W. Smith wrote a pastoral letter on the topic to the faithful of his archdiocese in July.

He noted that Catholics have a “serious responsibility” to speak out in defense of “the precious gift of human life wherever it is threatened.”

Distinguishing euthanasia from requests to refuse excessively burdensome treatment, he explained that directly assisting someone in taking their own life is cooperation in an “objectively wrong” action and is itself immoral.

The description of assisted suicide as a “compassionate” response was a “misuse of language” that can blind us to the killing of another human being, the archbishop said.

“True compassion calls us to stand with our suffering brothers and sisters and affirm that they are always a gift and never a burden; that their lives are at every moment worthwhile and never without meaning,” Archbishop Smith insisted.

The Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF), which is co-sponsored by the CCCB and the Supreme Council of the Knights of Columbus, has produced a one-page primer on C-384.

“The legalization of euthanasia and/or assisted suicide is not about autonomy, dignity and choice,” COLF director Michele Boulva told Canadian Catholic News. “It is about giving some of us the right to kill others.”

“Euthanasia can never be considered as care,” she continued. “It is killing.”

She also charged that countries and U.S. states that have allowed the killing procedures have witnessed the erosion of safeguards.

The COLF primer said that Bill C-384 is not only for the terminally ill because the legislation does not define terminal illness.

“A person could request euthanasia or assisted suicide right after being diagnosed and not be actively dying,” it reported.

Anyone over 18 years old who requests assisted suicide while in severe chronic mental or physical pain or depression may receive it even if he or she has refused appropriate treatments. The primer warned that medical practitioners are not required to refer patients to a psychologist or palliative care specialist.

COLF also noted that the person requesting to be killed must only make two requests to die more than 10 days apart while only “appearing lucid.”

Additionally, the primer charged that the bill endangers the sick, depressed, elderly and disabled and will confirm the fears of those who may feel burdensome.

“Instead of protecting them, Bill C-384 opens the way to their elimination. Many of the weakest members of society may feel pressured into a ‘duty to die’,” COLF warned. It said that a truly compassionate act would provide proper care, effective pain control, and social, emotional and spiritual support.

The primer also attacked the often used slogan “death with dignity,” saying dignity does not depend on health, lack of suffering, or being valued by society.

It also warned of a loss of trust between doctors and their patients and between the vulnerable and the powerful in society. The primer noted that 6,000 Dutch citizens have reportedly been killed by their doctors without their consent under the cover of legalized assisted suicide.

“We can expect people to be killed because they chose to die while depressed or temporarily in intense pain, instead of receiving proper medical attention,” the primer added.

C-384 is scheduled for debate in Parliament on September 29.

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe
by Christopher Caldwell
Penguin, £14.99

You might not hear about this book much in the next month, nor even in the next year, but it will affect your life in some way, and that of our country and continent.

Christopher Caldwell is a mild-mannered Financial Times journalist who over the past decade has covered continental Europe (France especially) and its relationship with Islam in particular.

That Caldwell is so mainstream, well-respected and analytical makes his conclusion all the more devastating – that the mass migration of Africans and Asians into Europe since the Second World War was an unprecedented, economically unnecessary and ill-thought-out plan that has had a profoundly negative impact on our way of life.

Furthermore, he says, the mass importation of Muslims at a time when Europe has lost its own faith and Islam has developed a dangerous and powerful radicalism threatens the very freedom of Europe.

Enoch Powell was right, at least in accuracy if not morality. His 1968 prediction about a non-white population of 4.5 million by 2002 was mocked – in reality it was 4.6 million by 2001.

In 1970 he was again scorned for suggesting that Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Inner London would be between a fifth and a quarter non-white by the turn of the century. The figures were 22.2 per cent, 29.6 per cent and 34.4 per cent and rising.

But Powell’s predictions of “rivers of blood” turned out to be inaccurate so far because he was out of step; the Tory MP was a passionate believer in the British Empire, while most of his political contemporaries were riddled with liberal white guilt over colonialism and the Holocaust.

Such self-loathing was at the heart of the immigration experiment and later experiments in multiculturalism and political correctness; only a society so racked with self-hatred would have invited foreign labour in such numbers despite the economic benefits being so thin. The economic benefits in the long term, Caldwell argues, have been “puny” and short-term, while the social effects are profound and permanent.

Most of the new immigrants, such as Pakistanis in Yorkshire and Turks in the Ruhr valley, were actually recruited into industries that were already on their last legs, and most immigrant groups took and still take more out of their exchequer then they pay in.

For the indigenous European poor, in particular, immigration has made life harder, but for everyone it brings challenges (“challenges” being a euphemism for problems).

Illegal immigration is handy because illegal immigrants do the jobs no one else wants to, keeping down inflation and labour costs, so allowing Europeans to work 30 hours a week and retire at 55.

The problem is that soon these new immigrants tire of doing the dirty work and new recruits are needed to keep an ever larger number of retirees and other state dependants in villas.

It is a gigantic Ponzi scheme – play today, pay tomorrow – and Europe is starting to pay now, financially and socially. The integration of Pakistanis, Algerians, Moroccans and Turks into England, France, Holland and Germany has been made a lot harder by the rapid and widespread decline of Christianity.

One of the side-effects is the collapse in the European birth rate: Austria is becoming Islamic not because Muslims are having too many children – their birth rate of 2.34 per woman is very close to the optimum – but because atheism is killing the country. Among Austrians who call themselves Catholics, which includes a majority of non-churchgoers and other nominal Christians, the birth rate is 1.32; among those who profess atheism it is 0.86. It is the same everywhere – in Brussels the seven most common boys’ names are Mohamed, Adam, Rayan, Ayoub, Mehdi, Amine and Hamza. Leicester and Birmingham will soon be Britain’s first-ever majority non-white cities.

And yet the elites have been in total denial about the growth of a Muslim body, arguing that to do so ignores diversity among these communities – which Caldwell compares to denying there is such a thing as a car because Volvos and Volkswagens are different.

As well as growing in size every year, this Muslim population is dis-integrating from the European mainstream; children in German Muslim schools learns six hours of Arabic a day and one of German; in England the veil has become a widespread sight; a British brigade fought in Iraq for al-Qaeda; and Muslim “nationalism” in France has led to the creation of suburban ghettos far worse than anyone realises.

Caldwell compares the French ghetto film L’Haine, which portrayed a mixed Jewish and Arab gang, to West Side Story in its realism.

That simply would not happen in a Muslim suburb. The ironic end result of this post-Holocaust guilt is a surge in anti-Semitism at the end of the century, and a Muslim bloc that has pushed Europe in an increasingly anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic direction. Norway threatened to boycott Israeli goods at the same time as Norwegians were being attacked in Gaza over the Mohammed cartoon affair. In France there were black African gangs like Tribu Ka, who roamed around Jewish areas like a “postmodern Freikorps”.

The collapse of Christianity, and the introduction of novel morals such as the belief in sexual freedom and gay equality, totally at odds with both Muslim culture and European culture of only half a century ago, has made conflict between Europe and the new Europeans even harder. That is why surveys consistently show Muslims and non-Muslims thinking the other side are “disrespectful” to women, or why a large minority of young British Muslims advocate the death penalty for apostasy or homosexuality.

Can Europe be the same? Clearly not. Can we reach some happy compromise that peacefully integrates such large communities and avoids the conflicts that have plagued such multi-cultural countries in the past? Probably not.

Pim Fortuyn in Holland offered the best hope of a non-racist, liberal Europe that believed in itself; after his murder the future lies either with Nicolas Sarkozy, who believes in republican integration, or the likes of Geert Wilders, whose implacable hostility to Islam is increasingly shared across Europe.

This is a fascinating, earth-shattering account of the most radical change in European history.

I note with interest that the Lutheran Church has welcomed and endorsed practising homosexual “clergy” that are in “committed relationships” or as they have stated, “lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships”…yuk

I also note that under the new policy, heterosexual clergy and professional lay workers will still have to abstain from sex outside marriage.

hmmm

So those in heterosexual relationships have to be married, whereas those in homosexual “relationships” don’t!

What a fine mess the Protestant church finds itself in now.

Of course the only way to equalise things now the devil is in the door, is to ensure that homosexuals can “marry” in the eyes of God in exactly the same way as heterosexual couples.

What a surprise!

I have just noted this news from the United Methodist Church, that talks of the ELCA Adopting Full Communion Agreement with The United Methodist Church.

Now my question (and I have emailed the UMC), is how are they going to deal with the ELCA acceptance of practising homosexual “pastors”.

The reason I ask, is that I have read that the UMC has not endorsed practising homosexual “pastors” and have also read that this “full communion” agreement will mean that pastors from both churches will be interchangeable?

So will the UMC accept a practising homosexual “minister” from the ELCA?

Feel free to let me know if I have any of these facts wrong.

This is the report from the UMC:-

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 20, 2009

ELCA Adopts Full Communion Agreement with The United Methodist Church
Historic vote acknowledges each other as partners in the Christian faith

Minneapolis: In what church leaders are calling a “historic moment” and an “ecumenical breakthrough,” the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has voted to adopt a full communion agreement with The United Methodist Church.

Meeting in Minneapolis on August 20, 2009, ELCA delegates overwhelmingly approved the full communion agreement with 958 delegates voting yes and 51 voting no. The delegates also passed legislation setting up a joint coordinating committee that will decide how the resolution will translate into action. The top policy making body of The United Methodist Church voted in favor of the same agreement during the 2008 General Conference in Fort Worth, Texas.

“We are walking through a door of opportunity together. The opportunity is to more visibly embody the Biblical unity of the Body of Christ and increase our capacity to share in Christ’s ministry to transform the world,” said Bishop Gregory Palmer, president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops.

“Since 1997, this church has established full communion relationships with five—now six—partner churches,” said ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson. “It is exciting to see these relationships bearing fruit within synods and among congregations.”

In essence, full communion means that each church acknowledges the other as a partner in the Christian faith, recognizes the authenticity of each other’s baptism and Eucharist, observes the validity of their respective ministries and is committed to working together toward greater unity. While it does not mean there are no differences or distinctions between the churches, the differences are not church dividing. A full communion agreement is not a merger of the two denominations, but a recognition of each other’s ministry and mission.

In simple terms, the pact means that United Methodists and Lutherans will formally partner in matters of worship, mission and clergy. United Methodist pastors may preach from Lutheran pulpits and vice versa. In addition, congregations in local communities might combine resources for a range of ministries, such as mental health services, missionary outreach or domestic violence prevention. Members of both denominations may also participate in each other’s Holy Communion observances.

Although this ecumenical partnership is a first for The United Methodist Church, the ELCA had formed prior full communion relationships with other bodies – the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ in 1997, and the Moravian and Episcopal churches in 1999.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America counts its membership at 4.7 million, while The United Methodist Church has 11.5 million members worldwide.

The historic vote is the culmination of decades of dialogue on subjects from justification by faith to the Eucharist among the religious traditions founded by towering figures in Christian history – Martin Luther and John Wesley. For 32 years, the two denominations have held talks about doctrine and theology. Baptism was the focus from 1977-1979, followed by a six-session discussion of ministries, specifically the episcopacy in 1985-1987. Most recently, from 2001-2007 talks focused on sanctification, the Lord’s Supper and the implications of full communion.

The Catholic Herald by Anna Arco

Spanish doctors have leapt to the defence of freedom of conscience not to be involved in procuring abortions after a senior minister suggested that refusing to perform an abortion might constitute civil disobedience.

The General Council of Doctors Colleges (OMC) in Spain last week insisted that conscientious objection must be an option after the Spanish minister Francisco Caamaño suggested that refusing to perform an abortion would amount to a crime.

It said that under the radical new abortion legislation that is being fiercely debated in the Spanish parliament doctors might lose the reject to object to performing an abortion. Doctors urgently called for a clause protecting conscience to be included in the law.

In a statement issued on Monday they said: “Conscientious objection for medical reasons can hardly be considered civil disobedience.”

Stressing that the only protections for conscience in the existing law dealt with cases relating to the media and the military, the OMC called for “the urgent need for the new abortion law to include during its time in parliament conscientious objection of medical personnel who intervene directly in them, just as it is in almost all countries which have de-penalised abortion.

“In these countries, conscientious objection has become recognised as a specific right, with clauses which prevent discrimination against those physicians who for whatever reasons of conscience refuse to participate in the abortive practices, especially if, as stands in our future law of abortion, it will pass from being a de-penalised crime in certain situations and become a ‘right’; the ‘right of a woman to abort’.”

They said that the right to conscientious objection was “a universal criterion of the medical profession”.

They said that conflicts arise when the defence of certain principles come against the rights that have been legally established. For that reason it is important, the doctors argued, “for the freedom of conscience to be legally recognised in the general medicine, not just in the context of abortion – guaranteeing the juridical safety of all including the foetus in the case of abortion”.

The statement came after Spain’s justice minister said on Spanish television last week that refusing to perform abortions would be punished.

Speaking in an interview last week Mr Caamaño said he did not believe there were more rights to conscientious objection than those expressly established by the constitution or by the legislator in the general courts.

He said: “Personal ideas cannot excuse us from complying the law because, if not, we would arrive in many subjects, in this and many others, to civil disobedience… where there is no law which allows it, I am with the supreme tribunal and its ruling on education for citizens. Conscientious objection does not fit.”

Spain is in the throes of a fierce national debate over further liberalisation of the country’s abortion laws.

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s government has been at odds with the Church since its election in 2004 over issues such as easing Spain’s divorce laws and pushing same-sex marriage. Its plans to make abortions easier have launched by far the most heated debate. Under the proposed legislation women could freely obtain abortions within the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.

Girls as young as 16 could have abortions without requiring parental consent. Women could abort at up to 22 weeks in the case of congenital disorder under the new law, and continue to abort after that if the pregnancy places them in mortal danger.

The Spanish bishops roundly condemned the legislation in July, saying that it was a “serious danger for the common good”. They said: “To include abortion in health policy always gravely compromises the medical profession which is distorted when it is placed at the service of death.”