THE YOUTH PASTOR

Red Deer Life, February 21^st, 2010. Your typical youth pastor is the buddy of those under his care, drives a coupe, plays the drums, and knows more about sports than about any book in the whole Bible. He comes up with zany ideas on how to ‘reach the lost.’ And his own peers and leaders are themselves too ignorant to guide the man into some proper station in life.

The last person you want in charge of church youth is a young, handsome, dynamic man who’s more full of the world and testosterone than spirituality and wisdom. The first principle looked for when recruiting a youth pastor, it seems, is his ability to ‘connect’ with church youth. His knowledge of the Bible, his unusual holiness, his aptness to teach, what are these for qualifications? It is enough for the local church if he is a ‘nice young man.’

What does a youth pastor do to further himself in the ministry? What’s his next move? This one will go and play hockey on foreign ice, and convey, between periods, with the help of a translator, how God has worked in his life! That he packed his belongings into ten hockey bags to make this move gives you a pretty good idea of how much gospel he must know!

Do we hear of youth pastors in the New Testament? Are the youth even segregated in New Testament churches? Did anyone reach the lost through participation in games in the New Testament era? This youth pastor phenomenon, with all the silly, sensual baggage that the youth pastor carries into the lives of the youth and the lost, is outside any biblical mandate, usually unholy in character, and frequently streaked with immoral practices and faults.

A youth who is truly qualified by God to preach or teach will know enough to not be a pastor for youth. He will (as in Spurgeon’s case) be a pastor. Do we read of the apostle Paul instructing Titus to ‘ordain youth pastors in every city’? (See Titus 1.5.) Do we read of any qualifications in the New Testament regarding such an office as youth pastor? The office of youth pastor is a useless, even deleterious, modern invention. And it frequently leads to other unbiblical ambitions. Should a youth pastor move on to a hockey ministry? Are there any sports ministries mentioned in the Bible? Playing games will undermine any serious message from the Bible (assuming that the youth pastor will even bring a Bible to preach from.) A player of games is not likely to have for his message, the gospel of death for the life of man. Conveying how God has worked in a player’s life—is that the gospel? Telling someone about how ‘relationships fizzle’—is that the gospel? No, this is what is called ‘connecting’ or ‘relationship building.’ There is usually no gospel at all in discussions like that. And these discussions usually lead to nowhere.

“This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop [not youth pastor], he desireth a good work” (1 Timothy 3.1.) Ice hockey as a platform for the gospel? That is a typical youth pastor initiative. No man desiring to actually work as a bishop would still be hockey-bound. Hockey is a boy’s game played by immature men; it cannot be the work of a bishop! “For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come”(1 Timothy 4.8.) And “no man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier” (2 Timothy 2.4.) Hockey is a youthful lust, if anything is. “Flee also youthful lusts” (2 Timothy 2.22.) A Christian youth who is full of sport instead of gospel will do more damage than good. A youth pastor is not biblical; a minister who is a youth is rare, but acceptable and possible (1 Timothy 4.12.) Playing hockey is a bad example, and will only lead to sins through which the youth pastor is disgraced and despised and through which youth group members are hurt.   

Objection: but this youth pastor really felt that God spoke to his heart in a miraculous way. Answer: he should have had those feelings checked out by a Bible consultant. Being an example in hockey is not mentioned in the apostle’s list to Timothy in the last verse I cited.

GOD'S PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE

Red Deer Advocate, January 16^th, 2010. Tragedy strikes all around. But our life is spared. What do we conclude? That God must have a purpose for our life. This conclusion begs a few questions. Did God have a purpose for our life before the tragedy? If we had died in the tragedy, does this mean our life never had purpose? Janell Steeves was spared. Another nurse, Ivonne Martin, was not. Does one life have a purpose while the other one doesn’t?

“A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee” (Psalm 91.7.) This promise is for the saints of God. Until God’s purpose in the saint has been fulfilled on earth, nothing can kill his body. Taken more deeply, this verse is a promise that says the soul, because God is his refuge, will be delivered from the unending wrath of God.

As far as the preservation of the body is concerned, Psalm 91.7 is true for all persons, in some way, though only the saints should take comfort in the truth. Though Pharaoh was not elected for glory, he was raised up for the purpose of God showing power over him (Romans 9.17.) Pharaoh had to be raised up to prominence and then preserved for the purpose appointed by God for him. Only then did he fall by the side of the standing elect of God. God does not create without a purpose. Every person is created with a purpose in mind. A person cannot be stopped until that purpose of God for his life comes to pass.

‘God has a wonderful plan for your life’ is a promise we hear promiscuously given out in our churches. The promise is carelessly thrown out to all, albeit with good intention: in the hope that each person told it will make God his focus. The plan God has for your life will be good for God in the end. He will be glorified by showing mercy or by showing power. But it will not go well for you if God has chosen you for the purpose of showing his power over an unrepentant rebel. What was purposed for Pharaoh may be purposed for you. Do not presume that God has purposed to show you mercy, that ‘God has a wonderful plan for your life.’ “Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardeneth” (Romans 9.18.) Look to Jesus Christ as your Saviour from sin and woe. Then the purpose of God for you may be pronounced ‘wonderful’ (which word is now used to convey something ‘unusually good.’) Christ has suffered on the cross for the sins of many, but not all. Did he suffer for yours in particular? Do not presume a yes; neither despair by concluding no. Focus here: “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3.19.)

AN UNGRATEFUL VETERAN

By the snippet I pasted in, my title might seem surprising. You might expect my title to be, ‘Ungrateful Toward Veterans.’ In some cases (though very few) injured veterans miss out on the medical care and financial aid they deserve. But some government program or other comes to the rescue to relieve the wants of afflicted citizens in Canada. 

This major, however, did not miss out. He received a quarter of a million dollars for his trouble, and gets 75% of his salary until he is rehabilitated to the point of being able to make it on ‘civy street.’ I like the policy of monthly pension for life. But this New Veteran’s Charter seems pretty liberal. The remuneration the major got is a munificent emolument! It is so generous as to be nearly excessive! Yet he has the nerve to say, ‘Show me the money.’ How much would be enough for this ungrateful soldier? No amount of money would satisfy this guy! We should be grateful to injured veterans. But they should be grateful right back when generous compensations are handed out.

Let’s suppose that the major, or some other soldier, is so injured that he can never get back to work. Then, in addition to his quarter million or so, he would get about $2000.00 per month plus 75% of his salary for life. Who would kick and balk at such lavish recompense?! This major would, and did. The man is a disgrace to the uniform and badge I used to wear myself! What should the man be given? A castle? A yacht? An island of his own? Bags of gold are not enough? What could this major want to do in life that even more money than he will get is demanded by him? “Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it” (Proverbs 25.16.) With the money that the major says is not enough, he could take a trip to an exotic place every month of the year, and do nothing the rest of the time but sip cocktails and get fat! Yet he calls the payment plan that could fund such a lifestyle an ‘abject betrayal’ and ‘grotesque travesty’! What will he do with the money he has already been given? Is it wise to give a large lump sum to someone with PTSD?

The article I clipped the snippet from comes with a picture of this major in his wheelchair. Some role model! Not because he is in a wheelchair do I say so, but because of the dejected, pouting, poor-me look about this man who’s been so hugely rewarded! Steady up, Major! Come to attention! You make the soldiers look bad! The sulking discontent on your face is a poor piece of press for the PPCLI! You are not an infantry soldier to look up to because ingratitude and greed must be looked down upon! Where is your sense of dignity, man? Ingratitude and dignity are hardly found together! 

To give someone a dressing-down, in military lingo, is to jack him up. I have just jacked-up a major. That is a tall order for a low ranking private like myself to do. So I will call in some air support from the holy ether of heaven.

What does the major want a super-abundance of money for? Does he envy those who are even richer than he is? “Envy [is] the rottenness of the bones” (Proverbs 14.30.) Do not envy your superiors: the rich generals and the politicians. It will not go well for them in the end, generally speaking. “Riches profit not in the day of wrath” (Proverbs 11.4.) Listen here: “Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom” (Proverbs 23.4.) To lose one’s legs is a hard go. But what if, by such a loss, one has money enough to spend time on the most precious work of all?—: the acquisition of wisdom leading to righteousness. Is that not wonderful? The fruit of wisdom is “better than gold, yea, than fine gold” (Proverbs 8.19.) Why is it better? Because “whoso findeth me [wisdom] findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD” (Proverbs 8.35.) Life may be exchanged for wrath by the way of wisdom. God is “a shield unto them that put their trust in him” (Proverbs 30.5.) Trace wisdom, through the Bible, to her source, and you will come to an eternity that points to the cross of Christ as the avenue to glory for every man who repents. “Repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his [Jesus] name” (Luke 24.47.)

AMANDA'S IMPUDENCE

Red Deer Express, August 24^th, 2011. Amanda Lindhout is considered a hero in central Alberta. No doubt she has tenacity, resilience, compassion, ambition, and fortitude. But I think she is a misguided woman on a mission that is doomed to fail. In fact, I know this because impudence is not an avenue to success. It is a good deed to point out her fault: the woman ought to be dissuaded from causing trouble to the people she aims to help; and she should be saved, too, from having to be redeemed, at great cost, once again.

She had little reason for being in Somalia as a journalist when she got kidnapped there. If women should leave the more dangerous assignments to men, how much more hazardous for a woman to jump into the furnace of Somalia as a freelancer! It cost donors around a million bucks to get her out of there.   Then she had the gall to return to the country of her captivity, which many would call a courageous act, but which, in fact, is an act impudence: cocky boldness and disregard. To go back there, in provocative Western attire, no less, is to tempt fate in the face of having been redeemed once already. Since she speaks in churches, she must consider herself to be a Christian. She ought to know, then, that redemption should cause meekness, not impudence, to abound. But churches like Crossroads are not in the habit of teaching doctrines like redemption and meekness to its congregation and guests.

Amanda’s impudence may be further shown by her choice of title for a certain program to help African women: ‘SHE WILL.’ Can one think of a more impudent title than this? Can one think of a title more apt to raise the ire of African men? Is that a good motto to guide women by? Put that motto beside the “meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price” (1 Peter 3.4), and be stunned by the glaring contrast. It is the difference between the spirit of impudence and the meekness of Christian spirit. The spirit of Miss Lindhout’s mission has an unchristian ring and feel to it. How far will African women get by adopting a ‘SHE WILL’ attitude? They will get themselves mowed down by oppressive men who fear, more than anything else, the Westernization of their women. In Scripture, women are not taught to overcome oppression by impudence, but by the ‘hidden man of the heart,’ the ‘meek and quiet spirit.’ Do you think the education that Miss Lindhout is raising money to provide includes such teaching as that? A program called ‘SHE WILL’ will tend to provoke, rather than win over, African men, and therefore it is bound to cause trouble. Many women could lose their lives by opting into a program with a title like that tacked on to it. This mission of Amanda’s is of the wrong spirit. And so no matter how much money is poured into it, failure is guaranteed. The ‘SHE WILL’ program was created to provide survivors of rape with medical attention, therapy, and education. Medical attention and therapy are necessary and good. But instruction that is steeped in a ‘SHE WILL’ attitude is a feminist spirit that we should not be planting on foreign soil. This ‘in your face’ approach will only serve to make more angry the abusive men that African women have suffered by. Let trained missionaries bring the gospel in. Then education will be allowed as grace mollifies the spirits. This is the way.

When you are on a misguided mission, the spirit of it, and perhaps your own, will be unbiblical, as I have shown. And then you will contradict what the Bible says. It is not possible to end, in our lifetime, ‘the very worst forms of poverty,’ as this woman claims. Jesus said, “For ye have the poor always with you” (Matthew 26.11.) Did Jesus speak this concerning his generation alone? That is a coincidence, then, that the poor have continued with us until now! I’m all for feeding hungry, starving bodies. But let’s get these stars out of our eyes and our eyes into the Scriptures. Then, by having a biblical objective instead of a romantic ideal, our spirits will not fall into despair. The ointment poured upon Jesus’ head might have been cashed out instead to feed the poor. We are to take the lesson: do not lose sight of Jesus while you stare at the suffering in this perishing world. From what I’ve observed, read, and listened to, churches like Crossroads and missions like Amanda’s aim at relieving the body while they forget the soul.

Giving money for the education of African women through a Western woman exhibiting impudence cannot be wise. ‘SHE WILL’ is a provocative attitude that will endanger the women that the program aims to help. And this attitude is being pushed by a woman who seems, and must be, frankly, quite ignorant of what the Bible says and what the gospel is.

THE IMPACT OF 'PROGRESSIVE' POLICY

Calgary Herald, March 20^th, 2010. Allowing gay men to serve as soldiers is ‘progressive’ policy. If you want a way to identify ‘progressive’ thought, ask yourself if the thought is Western and destructive. If it is, chances are it is ‘progressive.’ Abortion is destructive; the ‘right to die’ is destructive; it is destructive to have gay men for soldiers. ‘Progressive’ practice tends toward death in one way or other.

Whatever side you happen to be on regarding the Balkans conflict, ask yourself if that can be a good idea to have gay soldiers standing on guard for you. Men who fantasize about fashion cannot be expected to fight well! Men who dream about satin sheets cannot be expected to wield their swords well! Men who are forever shopping for shoes cannot be expected to slog in army boots! We all know this. But it is better, think the ‘progressives,’ to put lives in danger than to miss one step in the march toward social ‘equality!’

Gay men are not equal to manly men. They are effeminate, unmanly, and unfit for mannish duty. A man exhibiting female character traits acts as if he’s in between genders. Or he seems to be a compound of both. He’s like a rooster clucking instead of crowing. He can’t lay eggs; but neither can he rule the roost. He is a hen-like rooster. If you throw him into a cockfight to fight for you, do not be surprised when your side comes out on the bloody, losing end.

Gay men should not serve openly in our militaries. They should not serve in our militaries at all. They all seem to like papier-mache and to know how to fashion something out of it. Maybe they could serve in some artistic capacity. No, not even that. Just look at the stuff they turn out in Milan for the catwalks there! And their requirements for the models who wear their contrivances, how destructive are they?! The anorexic lifestyle is largely due to gay fashion designers who insist that their models look like prepubescent boys. Gay fantasyland is a dark, destructive place.

It is not difficult to spot a gay man, usually. In harder to determine cases, the deviant proclivity will betray itself to observation before long. You might find him in a ‘compromising’ situation with another man, which is what ‘outed’ a gay man when I was in the service. Gay men should be found out and kicked out, for their own safety as well as for everyone else’s.

The Bible does not condemn homosexuality without reason. It is destructive one-on-one, for unnatural practices lead to personal injuries. And it is destructive to society, whether we believe the opinion of General Sheehan or not. AIDS would not have taken so many lives if homosexuality had never been practiced. This is an irrefutable fact. Listen to the Bible. As much as people hate to have this verse quoted, yet listen to the command again: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination” (Leviticus 18.22.) We cannot expect blessing when what is abominable to God is sanctioned by us.

You who call yourselves Christians or evangelicals but who defend gay ‘rights,’ listen up. Does God hate something and then love something? Does he hate sin and then love it? Is God not the same today as he was yesterday, just like the Bible says? God’s moral policies are never changing. If you think God changeable, you have no reason to be sure that he will love you forever. In fact, you have no reason to believe that you have received his unconditional love, for this changeable god that you have faith in cannot be the true God. The reason why men are not consumed is said to be on the ground of God’s unchanging nature. “For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed” (Malachi 3.6.) Do you suppose to be in the covenant so long as you deny the ground that upholds it? A changing god cannot be dependable. And the unchanging God will consume you unless you hold that he is immutable. Search out the rules of a covenant; be not with one of your own design. It you are a Christian who is tempted to be popular instead of controversial by siding with the gay agenda, Malachi has a message for you. “Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts” (3.7.) You rob God of his nature by holding that he embraces what he once abominated. You rob him of his immutability. If you do that, you are a devourer. God is into rebuking devourers (3.11.)

THE QUEST FOR IMMORTALITY

The Calgary Sun, October 3^rd, 2009. All men would be immortal if given the option and means. Immortality is the immemorial pursuit. It figured in the building of a tower called Babel. The ideal of it is in every stone making up the Egyptian pyramid. This great hope coils around every mummified body. Are we drawing nearer, maybe, to the long sought after conquest of conquests? It is hard to believe that scientists are on the track to achieving the glorious end to the benefit of their clients when we learn that tuna cans might have been used as pedestals for severed heads, and that the alleged tuna cans might have been removed by swings from a monkey wrench! Have you placed your confidence in something like cryonics? The quest for immortality has not yielded better means to the desired goal than what we’ve read about in science fiction. Frankenstein’s monster has a better chance at evading death than any man laid out on the table of 21^st century science! If man cannot yet make his balding head grow hair, be sure that he must be light years away from making old men perpetually young!

Other fields than cryonics are no further ahead in making mortal man into man immortal. Chelation therapy will not immortalize you. The hyperbaric chamber will not eternalize you. Some movie stars are quick to smile agreeably at the suggestion that they are ageless beauties. But wait a while; an opportunist paparazzo will show the truth on the cover of a magazine!

Men try hard to believe in some way of being, or becoming, immortal. The reason they turn to far-out fads like cryonics has more to do with unbelief than belief. “How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?” (1 Corinthians 15.12.) Most men will not believe the biblical formula for immortality because it comes through death. Not only does it come through bodily death, but for immortality to beget the aspect of felicity, or bliss, there must first be the death of self while here on earth. Men do not like that. The doctrine of repentance puts them off. So they try for eternal life by their own means and on their own terms.

But no man will be immortal except by the word and power of God. And all men will rise from the dead. “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his [Jesus’] voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5.28, 29.) Immortality is for everyone. Do you think that God would allow it to those alone who can afford to freeze-dry their bodies? Do you think that he would allow it without judgment being passed first?

Some men look forward to death as if immortality will not happen. It is because they despise biblical immortality and their own increasing decrepitude. They do not want to age; but neither do they want God. So they hope for a death of annihilation, or the lie of reincarnation. They will be granted neither. Some men look forward to death because, through grace in their soul they have tasted a drop or two of glory. Why were the twelve sent out by Jesus? “That men should repent” (Mark 6.12.) Turn from your most treasured sins; if you do, then Jesus did die for every one of them to give you immortality: ‘the resurrection of life.’

THE POPE'S WRETCHED EXHORTATION

Red Deer Advocate, March 22^nd, 2010. What does a pope say to his people about the pedophilic behavior of his priests and the associate cover-up by his bishops? What does he say to these people who stand aghast at what he has permitted to go on in his Church against innocent children? In essence, he says, ‘Don’t judge!’

The pope’s command is to refrain from judging sinners, by whom he means: officials of the Roman Catholic Church. He issues no punishment for pedophile priests and the bishops who harbor them and shuffle them around, and he urges the rest of his Church to withhold judgment too! Now there is a wretched exhortation! And it is weakly held up by a crooked interpretation of Scripture!

He was addressing his adoring Catholic followers when he gave out this abject exhortation, those devout but naïve souls who gather outside his window to listen to what they will unthinkingly regard as a holy pronouncement. Not many Catholics will judge. Some will, and have (through harsh words and donations withheld); these, hopefully, will abandon the Roman religion and find salvation as well. But every person, whether inside that Church or outside it, who is not guilty of pedophilia or of covering for pedophiles, ought to judge, and judge severely. The law, whatever one may be noble enough and brave enough to stand up to Vatican City, should judge both the pedophiles and their protectors, even with something as sharp as a literal sword! If we love children, that is what needs to happen. Really, the nation of Italy should do it, for it is nestled there and should be subject to Italian justice. The Roman Catholic Church, if it were true and not false, would obey Romans 13 and submit to the ‘higher powers’ (verse 1) of jurisprudence. State rulers are said there to be ‘a terror to…the evil’ (verse 3.) The state of Italy should flex its muscle and become a terror to pedophile priests. 

The passage cited by the pontiff in support of this exhortation not to judge is John 8.3-11, which concerns the woman taken in adultery, who was condemned by the scribes and Pharisees but let go by Jesus. If no actual sword will be used by a State to judge pedophile priests and the bishops who cover for them, Christians may at least use the spiritual sword, the word of God, to show why rigorous judgment is warranted.

Jesus challenged each accuser to cast the first stone at this adulterous woman, which challenge caused the accusers to walk away one by one without judging. What lesson are we to take from this event? Does this mean that we should not punish priests who have molested children? Does this mean that we should not punish members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy for allowing these foul priests the freedom to commit such wicked, unholy deeds? If this is what it means, then pedophiles will continue to multiply in that Church, and their deeds, however horrific, will continue to spread with impunity. If this is what it means, then priests are allowed to molest children. That’s what it comes down to. Our conscience screams out that this must be no lesson at all for Jesus to give, for lawlessness must then result, and Jesus was neither immoral nor amoral, much less an outlaw! Our conscience may be relieved by observing the right connexion, because the right connexion yields the lawful lesson. According to the law of Moses that the scribes and Pharisees professed to follow, the penalty for adultery was stoning, or death. There is the connexion that would save us (and the pope) from tolerating the intolerable. This is the crucial connecting piece. He who is not guilty of a sin of that magnitude, let him cast the first stone. That is the gist of the challenge. The accusers melted from the scene (did no longer judge) because Jesus showed that each one of them was guilty of a sin of the same degree as the one committed by the woman who stood condemned. “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8.7.) How do we apply this? If you are a pedophile, or a protector of one, no stone can be justly cast by you. You are not fit to judge the matter. The rest of us, though, may throw all the stones we like. (Too bad we may throw just verbal stones!)

Notice one thing more. Jesus urges this woman to sin no more. On the ground of her future obedience, then, she should not be condemned by her guilty accusers. That is the point being made. But pedophile priests have committed pedophilia again and again after being told by their bishops over and over not to do so. And the bishops have allowed these pedophilic sins to go on and on by covering for the guilty priests again and again. Their grace card has already been used up. And so some kind of condemnation ought to come down, finally, on these perverts and their protecting masters of deceit.

Notice who the parties are. That event in John 8 concerns the sin of adultery, a sin between consenting adults. Pedophilia, or the cover-up of it, concerns a sin between man and child. We might not want to judge the sin of adultery with a heavy hand these days. But pedophilia is not adultery; it is something far worse, a sin upon a child victim by an adult predator. To use the event of the woman caught in adultery as an argument against judging pedophiles and their benefactors is an illegitimate use of Scripture to convince people not to judge obscene attacks and the conspiracies that conceal them.

Notice the difference between a sin and a crime. Adultery is a sin at least, even when it is no longer considered a crime. But who can be so ungodly, unrighteous, unbiblical, cold, and callous as to not admit pedophilia to be both a sin and a crime? The pope, apparently! His refusal to judge is our proof. His urging everyone else to follow suit is proof again. Do not judge perverted priests; and do not judge the underhanded bishops (who should be held to a higher standard than priests) for their continued colossal cover-up of countless indecent assaults upon minors, decade upon decade! which cover-up, all reasonable people know, amounts to facilitation of the crime, if not complicity in it! That is what we are being urged to do by this no-good pope! Those who, by silence or treachery, make it possible for known pedophiles to run loose and victimize, ought to be judged as harshly as we should judge pedophiles! The pope should do something about all these sins and crimes. He should judge. He should penalize. As head of a Church crawling with pedophile priests, he ought to solicit the help of civil authorities in order to stop these rapacious creeps from ever having opportunities to terrorize again. This he will not do. It is beginning to come out that the pope is a cover-up artist too. When does a State step into the jurisdiction of a Church? When the Church is guilty of doing violence to the citizens of a State. The jurisdiction of Vatican City ought to cease to exist in that circumstance. The Bible gives us no warrant at all for belonging to a spiritual kingdom without being accountable to a civil State. Romans 13 is very clear on that. The very idea of Vatican City as a State is wrong. It ought to be subject to civil law where appropriate: like when priests are found guilty of molesting or raping kids. If the pope were truly holy and biblical, he would work to make this happen.

It is in vogue nowadays to refer to God as a ‘guy’ or ‘the guy in the sky.’ There seems to be more reverence for the pope than for God in certain circles because the pope is never called ‘the guy,’ is he? But the pope is a guy, alright; he is the ‘bad guy,’ the ‘wise guy.’ This guy is a poor interpreter of Scripture too. The reasons for this: spiritual blindness and corrupt motives. Is it not evident that the man who uses the Bible for unholy purposes (to deny justice and to whitewash filthy reputation) must be in the direst need of spiritual life in his soul? Who but an unregenerate degenerate would tell you to not judge pedophiles and their guilty bodyguards? Is it wrong to suggest degeneracy and unholiness in a man who is revered by so many as the ‘Holy Father’ and ‘Vicar of Christ?’ Jesus calls false prophets ‘ravening wolves’ in ‘sheep’s clothing’ (Matthew 7.15.) What are pedophile priests but ravening wolves? What are their protecting bishops and coddling cardinals but wolves that watch over the ravenous? And what is the pope? What do we call the man who can, but will not, judge the bloody wolf-pack (the raping of children must often be bloody!) under his command? His refusal to judge unclean sins and vicious crimes makes him the Alpha wolf! “Ye shall know them [even the pope] by their fruits” (Matthew 7.16.)

CARDINAL RATZINGER'S 'PATERNAL CARE'

Red Deer Advocate, April 10^th, 2010. ‘Paternal care’ is Vatican-speak for keeping a molester priest ‘out of trouble,’ this article says further down. Would that ‘trouble’ he should be kept out of be molesting, or getting caught molesting? When soldiers were in the field, and were granted a nite out in some new town, the whispered rule was, ‘Have fun, just cover your tracks.’ Molesting children was not our game, though. Kiesle was sentenced in 1978 for “tying up and molesting two young boys in a San Francisco Bay area church rectory.” In 1981 “Ratzinger was appointed to head the Vatican office that shared responsibility for disciplining abusive priests.” A few years after that, Kiesle “continued to do volunteer work with children through the church.” He was allowed to do this by that order from Ratzinger (who could have defrocked him but wouldn’t) for ‘paternal care’ to be provided Kiesle.

This is who Pope Benedict is: former Cardinal Ratzinger who resisted defrocking a molester priest, which resistance is called ‘paternal care,’ which order affords the molester continued access to vulnerable children! Changing your name can’t change your heart, Ratzinger. Those of us who know what popes are made of know very well what you are about. Your white dress does not imbue your soul with virtue; your Latin speech will not sanctify your orders. Jesus has this written rule: “He that is not with me is against me” (Luke 11.23.) Making use of this in a practical way concerning Ratzinger’s ‘paternal care,’ we come up with: ‘He that resists defrocking a pedophile priest must be for molesting.’

Do not be dazzled by the pope’s pomp: his pope-mobile, his jewel-filled Vatican, or his highest sacerdotal hat. The man is just Joseph Ratzinger, a rascally bad man! The reputation of his corrupt Church means more to him than the safety of innocent children. Compare this to Jesus Christ, the Person the pope falsely believes to be his Master. Did Jesus elevate corrupt religious institutions above virtue? About the bejeweled but corrupted temple in Jerusalem, he prophesied, “As for these things which ye behold, the days will come, in the which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Luke 21.6.) Will the pope prophesy the same about Rome? Does Ratzinger draw children all around to confer blessings on them like Jesus did? Or does he not permit them to be swarmed by carnal priests?

“It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come!” (Luke 17.1.) Woe to Ratzinger, then, for through him molesting priests do come at little children. “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he be cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones” (verse 2.) Jesus Christ, the Judge of all the earth, will avenge every child hurt by the hierarchy of Rome. You staunch members of Roman Catholicism, if you can’t serve both God and Mammon together, be sure that you cannot serve Jesus and the pope together. You do not serve Jesus by serving the pope. The pope does not imitate Jesus, nor can he, for he has not ‘the mind of Christ’ (1 Corinthians 2.16) with which to do it. To care more for pedophile priests than those molested by them is to be ‘carnally minded’ (Romans 8.6.) Take the Bible, not popedom, for your religion. Consider your eternal welfare.   

CHURCH DISCIPLINE

Red Deer Advocate, April 2^nd, 2011. This is the most unusual news clip in my possession. That’s because church discipline in the 21^st century is about as rare as the dodo bird in the 20^th. All aspects of holy ministry are rare these days, but none more than the administration of discipline. Our pulpits are corrupted by false prophets; the ordinances (of baptism and the Lord’s Supper) are defiled by hypocrites; and discipline is usually reserved for those who insist on truth and order.

Whatever else this rural church puts up with, it will not tolerate the watering down of its doctrine of hell. On account of doctrines being downgraded on every side, sometimes we feel as alone as Elijah once did. When we find one of the ‘7000’ who has not bowed the knee to Baal, we are encouraged to hold up the banner of every doctrine of God, no matter how hated, repulsive, or assailed it may be. Faithful adherents to despised doctrines exist in obscure places. Prominent but disloyal professors who are on the devil’s side, like Rob Bell, do the Church a good turn by reaching the unbelieving minister and prompting his unbelief into the open where the congregation can judge it. “Do not ye judge them that are within?…Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person” (1 Corinthians 5.12, 13.) It is a wicked matter for a pastor to disbelieve a cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith. The only right response from a congregation is to put the man out to prevent further degradation of God’s most holy things.

Probably this pastor had not preached a full view of hell for some time; maybe he had never done so. A pastor can get away with a lot of unbelief by just preaching up to a point. Some of the best lessons on criticism I have learned from the pulpit ministry of Martyn Lloyd-Jones. I remember reading from him something to this effect: ‘Observe what a pastor is careful to leave out.’ As the rest of this article goes on to show, this pastor would have no problem assenting to what the Apostles’ Creed says concerning final judgment: that Jesus Christ ‘shall come to judge the living and the dead.’ The Nicene Creed says essentially the same thing on that doctrine. He would have no qualms assenting to that. Subsequent creeds were drawn up to weed out pastors who hide their unbelief by saying only so much about a doctrine and no more. And so the Athanasian Creed says more fully: ‘He shall come to judge the living and the dead…And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.’

Do not allow a minister to give you half-truths. Watch where his doctrines halt. Put him to the test. If you are receiving half-truths from the pulpit, you are getting half-blessed, and through a ministry that is probably wholly counterfeit.

Those of you, like this pastor, who refuse to believe, admit, and accept that there is a hell that involves torment, do you expect that fullness of life everlasting will be yours? Will those reap a reward who refuse God’s right to judge? Can souls be truly saved who regard so little the words of Jesus, the Saviour and Judge? Judgment will involve ‘wailing and gnashing of teeth’ (Matthew 13.42.) Jesus’ doctrine of judgment includes an aspect of torment. Unless you embrace this distasteful part of truth, it is very doubtful that your faith is that kind which enters ‘the joy of the lord’ (Matthew 25.21.) It is double-minded to count Jesus a liar in one place and a truth-teller elsewhere. If Jesus is a liar anywhere, he cannot be counted good enough by you to be your Saviour from sin and hell.

DELUSIONAL JUDGMENTS

Red Deer Advocate, April 7^th, 2011. Thanks to our Canadian judicial system this killer is free to amble about on leave just as if he’d done nothing bad his whole life through. He has a ‘delusional disorder,’ you see, and so we must forget about the kids made dead by him, and rally whatever resources we have at our disposal to help this poor guy. He might have been found ‘not criminally responsible’ through many avenues. ‘Delusional disorder’ just happens to be the chosen ‘grace’ this time around. Lawyers and judges, with influence or advice from doctors, might have picked bipolar disorder or ADD or ADHD or PTSD or even just plain, run-of-the-mill depression to get this guy off. Whatever works to keep a killer out of prison and safely outside those confining bars!

What a wild way to put into practice the philosophy that says medicate and rehabilitate instead of punish! Just pick among the so-called ‘disorders’ that are too commonly diagnosed (not to mention invented, in some cases), and through subjective opinion, not medical science, the killer gets to go free. We know what usually happens then, don’t we? The killer is let out to resume the life he should have had taken from him, and he proceeds to kill again. This is why I include the man’s picture as part of my snippet. Study that face. Remember it. This mug might be skulking around your neighborhood by now. The picture, though, might have been put in by the press to make us feel sorry for the man. Doesn’t he look like a lost little boy behind those rough whiskers? Doesn’t he have the right to kill his kids because of that lost look? Shouldn’t we all risk our children just to give him another chance to make it as a decent human being? Is he not worth risking the lives of defenseless loved ones? (Respecting the last two of these three questions, at least), his doctors must think so; his lawyer must think so; his judge, certainly. When the man is granted full integration into society (it shouldn’t take long), these ‘noblemen’ will no doubt opine that the killer is at low risk to re-offend. But a low risk, even if that were the truth of it, still amounts to a risk. And who do these officials so calmly put at risk by their ‘educated’ opinions and judgments? Your children.

‘Delusional disorder’—this is the reason given for having to grant this killer freedom. This is the reason why triple infanticide should not be followed by a deadbolt, or a noose (which would be much more appropriate.) ‘Delusion’ in Webster’s: ‘a persistent belief in something false.’ The word ‘persistent’: ‘to go on resolutely or stubbornly in spite of difficulties.’ So this killer stubbornly perseveres to believe falsehood, which leads to killing three times over, and the authorities judge that this deserves him a get-out-of-jail-free-card! Just tack the word ‘disorder’ (which means ‘abnormal state’) at the end of a purely subjective diagnosis, and a killer is sure to get an easy sentence for his crimes in Canada. Who’s to say how abnormal someone is, and how fixed he must be in that state in order for him to get a free pass to kill? There is no medical or scientific tool to measure this. A pronouncement of ‘abnormal’ may be done through opinion, nothing more. And that pronouncement is becoming a ticket to kill with impunity. 

You know who has the delusional disorder? Not just the killer, but the authorities concluding that a delusional killer is a candidate for the society he just finished terrorizing. This is delusion with a capital D: to go on resolutely believing that killers are to be treated instead of terminated or locked up, even when multitudes of examples have shown that rehabilitating killers frequently leads to recidivism, which means more killing.

Killers are not given many avenues of escape by the statutes of the Bible. You might kill someone by accident and then run to a city of refuge. That is a reasonable avenue to have available. But is it reasonable to let a killer go free on account of his persistent belief in falsehood (for this is the definition of ‘delusion.’) Children would sleep better, I think, if they knew that the politicians and judges of their land loved justice enough to kill the killers of children, or at least enough to lock them up for life (not merely that ‘life’ we call 25 years, which usually means a fraction of 25 years.) Capital punishment, not rehab, must be our response to crimes like the horrid one featured in this article. That is the best way to honor God, to protect children, and to restrain the loose cannons among us.

When ‘the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence’ (Ezekiel 7.23), what are the results? ‘Destruction cometh’ (verse 25.) Counsel ceases (verse 26.) Destructive results are not just temporal, though that is awful enough, and all that people care to avoid. Without moral counsel proceeding from lecterns and the counsel of truth from godly pulpits, destruction is certain to result, and destruction, be it sudden or gradual, brings with it the characteristic of terror. When righteous judgment is pushed aside, destruction comes, and if destruction be traced to its end, it comes to include the Second Death: which involves everlasting torment. This is what we are coming to, folks. Look around you. Because of our bloody lawlessness, destruction cometh—destruction is come. Wise counsel is nearly impossible to find in a breathing individual today. One must resort to books, and ancient ones at that, so far gone from wisdom are we. Wisdom is gone from schools, universities, and especially pulpits, with the exception of colleges that teach trades, like mechanics or architecture. Crimes of the worst sort are abounding. Injustice is flooding the land. And so God judges when we do not. Wisdom is nowhere to be found among those in charge. This is part of the judgment of God. What follows are the rotten fruits of injustice, like more abortions, more murders, more robberies, more rapes; which crimes, if left unjudged, lead to anarchy and despotism. This takes time. Just wait for it. But you might be off to a far grimmer reality before chaos unfolds to yield dictatorial order. Wisdom has been removed because our land is polluted with blood. There is this Wisdom that comes with Unction from the Pulpit: this has been taken away as well. And so people die without getting saved, and off to hell they go. The truth is, Canada may have never had much unction in her pulpits in the first place. But now even mere morality is hard to find among ministers.

When you go out, observe the souls that you meet on the street, that you pass by in cars, that you rub shoulders with at the mall. Observe them with this consideration in mind: the majority of them are on their way to hell. Spilled blood that is not avenged equals destruction for a people, both here and Hereafter. You might find destruction too hard to believe in light of your present carefree life. You may be on the road to destruction right now. If you are a scoffer about such a possibility, then you are on that road for certain! Knowledge, wisdom, understanding, morals, unction, all are gone now from almost everywhere you look. This is destruction ready to have its fuse lit. Even those of us under the protective blood of Jesus Christ by faith will suffer ‘collateral damage,’ albeit of a temporal aspect. A morally polluted people must be destined to destruction, or the Bible is a great big lie, which many sinners, even most, are foolishly counting on to be the case.